LA RONDE Montreal, Canada Six Flags Theme Parks
Park News - (10/29/2025) The iconic La Ronde landmark, La Spirale, is now set to be dismantled. The spiraling observation tower was first set up at La Ronde for the 1967 Expo, but it closed during the 2018 season for technical problems, was never reopened due to the COVID pandemic, and now years later, the cost to repair and restore the observation tower after sitting closed for nearly a decade was an financial obstacle that was just much to overcome. In addition to the cost of restoration, which was said to be in the “tens of millions of dollars”, the age of the attraction and unavailability of spare parts was also said to be an issue. It’s sad to see a historic attraction like this go, as if they are properly maintained and updated, most can continue to operate for decades to come, as we’ve seen many of the Intamin made observation towers installed at parks in the 60-70’s still running today, such as the Sky Cabin at Knott’s Berry Farm, Kissing Tower at Hersheypark, and the Skytowers at SeaWorld San Diego and Orlando. Unfortunately the Spirale along with the similar Space Spiral at Cedar Point was built by Willy Bühler with cabins provided by Von Roll, both of which are defunct. Of the various Willy Bühler towers built between 1963 and 1970, only two are said to still be in operation today: the Space Tower at the Minnesota State Fair (USA / 1964) and Euroscoop at Euromast (Netherlands / 1970). A candidate for the Montreal’s Mayoral race however would like to see to see it saved and restored somehow to maintain it for the heritage of the La Ronde site, which unfortunately since it was given over to privately be managed by Six Flags, they feel that a number of the old Expo site’s more historical items have been removed.
(11/21/2023) According to a reader who passes by La Ronde almost daily on their work commute, it appears that the park has now removed two rides. Our source says that the Condor (Huss) tower ride has been taken down, as well as the park’s Gravitor ride, which was said to have sat closed for the past couple seasons anyway. Currently both rides are still listed on the park’s website, but the site has also not been updated to feature information about the 2024 season yet. (7/12/2023) Screamscape was sent some sad news about the state of things at La Ronde. According to our source the park’s galloping carousel, Le Galopant, which has been closed for the past four years may never ride again, as the funds needed to repair it have been deemed as being too costly. Other complaints claim that the Gravitor has been sitting closed since the start of the season and all mentions of the Spirale observation tower appear to have been removed from the website. Much like the carousel, Spirale is said to have sat closed since 2020. The source was also quick to point out that the Minirail was quietly demolished late last year, so the trend so far appears to be the ongoing removal of older park attractions rather than preservation.
2025 - The Return of The CONDOR - (2/21/2025) In a previous update, Screamscape mentioned that La Ronde had closed down the Gravitor and Condor rides, but we now have an interesting update. While the Gravitor ride was removed, and the the Condor was taken down, apparently the Condor has been getting refurbished with an intent to reopen this rarely seen attraction. In fact, it seems a sign stating the intention to refurbish the Condor was posted on the site at the end of the 2024 season. Currently The Condor is still listed as an attraction at the park on the official website as well, so we can only assume that it will return to action in 2025.
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