The House of Katmandu - Park World Online - theme park, amusement park and leisure industry news

The House of Katmandu

Published: 

23 May, 2007

Located on the Spanish island of Mallorca, The House of Katmandu is a new attraction in the heart of Magalluf, just yards from the beach.

“The attraction is housed in an amazing, 1,600 square meter, upside-down Tibetan-style mansion that seems to have dropped from the sky,” says The House of Katmandu’s Manolo Del Rio Lopez.

The interactive adventure, which opened last month, takes explorers through a series of rooms where they encounter a collection of the world’s rarest relics and attempt to reunite the shattered pieces of a legendary jewel scattered across seven continents.

Guests travel through the Galley of Plunders, the Workshop of Wonders, the Library of Illusions and Katmandu Valley. Finally, having completed the seventh test, they will discover whether they have successfully reunited the pieces of the jewel.

Along the way they encounter a cast of colourful characters, including an 8ft-tall long-haired creature rarely seen outside of the Himalayas – a yeti. Created by Sally Corporation, the yeti is named Boro and towers over Onkar, an ancient Tibetan monk, at the start of the attraction and the pair remain central to it throughout.

Sally’s president, Howard Kelley, notes that the extraordinarily lifelike monk, with his kindly, weathered face, may look somewhat familiar to people in the industry: “He is based on Nazeer, the ancient Egyptian seer we created for our Challenge of Tutankhamon ride,” he says.

The huge yeti, meanwhile, posed special challenges for Sally’s sculptors and animators. “He was designed, sculpted and built to stand and move naturally on a huge resin rock; he is so well balanced that he moves up and down, forward and back with almost other-worldly lightness.”

There is nothing like The House of Katmandu, reckons Kelley. “The American and Spanish investors have incorporated up-to-the-minute entertainment technology, together with hundreds of artefacts and an exciting story to create a unique attraction.”