Ypres (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Ypres Bellewaerde Park’s €14 million Amazonia water ride, built by Intamin, had technical issues and closed twice in 2024. After months of fixes, spokesman Filip Van Dope confirms its reopening on April 5, 2025.
Ypres Bellewaerde Park announced that Amazonia, their new water ride, will reopen on April 5th, 2025. This is the 3rd time they’ve tried to open the ride, which cost €14 million to build. It had some problems when it first opened last year, and it had to close twice.
The boats weren’t going where they were supposed to go, and they got stuck. Ypres Bellewaerde worked on fixing the problems for months, and they think it will be fine now. They want visitors to have a fun and exciting experience on the ride.
The closure period gave us time to find solutions and get everything up and running,
says spokesman Filip Van Dope.
We are very excited that we will finally be able to start up again.
Is Bellewaerde’s €14M Amazonia ride ready to reopen in 2025?
Ypres Bellewaerde Park has made changes to the Amazonia ride. They fixed the problems that caused it to close twice. They improved the drive system in the halfpipe section. Officials mentioned that this will help the boats stay on track.
They mentioned that they also made the pumps stronger. This will make the water flow better. The boats are also stronger now. They said that this will make them more stable. Bellewaerde Park hopes the ride will work properly this time.
Bellewaerde Park in Belgium opened a new ride called Amazonia in April 2024. It was a special ride that combined a roller coaster and a water ride. The park was very excited about it and thought it would win awards.
Officials mentioned that the ride had problems right away. It kept stopping suddenly, and people had to get off the ride. The park had to close the ride for a month to try to fix it. Even after they fixed it, the ride still had problems, and it wasn’t working properly.
Director Stefan Lemey said, “a world first to the 3rd power, which will win European and international prizes”.
The main problem with Amazonia was its pump system. This system was responsible for moving the water that the boats rode on, and it wasn’t working correctly. Sometimes the boats would go off track in the halfpipe section, and sometimes they would stop completely. This happened all summer.
In August 2024, the park decided to close Amazonia again to try to fix the problem. They worked closely with Intamin, the company that made the ride, to find a solution, but they couldn’t fix it in time for the rest of the season. The ride stayed closed for the rest of 2024. The park still hopes to open Amazonia again in 2025, but many people are worried that the ride might never work properly.
