Those looking forward to gliding down a hill in an oversized hamster ball will have to wait just a little longer.
The opening of Zorb in the Smoky Mountains was originally expected to take place last summer. Instead, Zorb is now anticipating its Pigeon Forge opening in early spring.
The Smoky Mountain Zorb will be located on Sugar Hollow Road in Pigeon Forge, between Cracker Barrel and the National Parks Resort Lodge.
"We were hoping to get open before winter," project assistant Winston Burbage said. "But once we got past that point, we decided to wait until spring to open up."
Zorb, an innovative attraction from New Zealand, allows people to experience a roller coaster sensation - without the roller coaster.
There are two ways to ride. A person can be harnessed into the ball and rolled down a 600-foot hill, which will give a head-over-heels sensation. Or a water version can be chosen, which allows the person to slip and slide down the hill with a small amount of water in the ball.
"The head-over-heels feeling is not for a whole lot of people," Burbage said. "But the water is a lot of fun. It's like a water slide except a little more erratic and not quite as fast."
Construction for the project is still ongoing as Zorb prepares for a tentative April opening.
"We're still under construction," Burbage said. "We have the top of the tracks finished, but the bottom of the tracks is being worked on. They require drainage underneath, because essentially the track is just a big water gully."
Progress on the Smoky Mountain Zorb can be viewed on its Web site: www.zorb.com/smoky. Photographs of current work and information on the attraction, including video of a Zorb ball in action, are viewable there.
Information provided by The Mountain Press