Mäch Tower

Manufacturer

Moser's Rides

Model

Gravity Tower

Hamlet

Oktoberfest (Germany)

Opening Date

August 18th, 2011

Closing Date

January 8th, 2023

Attraction Height

240ft

Duration

About 90 Seconds

Riders Per Cycle

30

Height Requirement

48in

Mäch Tower was a Moser's Rides Gravity Tower located in the Oktoberfest section of Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Originally planned to debut in the spring alongside Beste Brezeln und Bier and numerous other alterations to the Oktoberfest hamlet, Mäch Tower faced months of delays throughout the first half of 2011. Ultimately, the attraction did not open to the public until August 18th, 2011.

Mach Tower was typically converted into an observation tower named Nächt Tower for the park's annual holiday event, Christmas Town.

On December 16, 2022 it was announced by the park that Mäch Tower would close on January 8th, 2023. The ride did not operate in it's typical Nächt Tower mode in 2022, in order to have final sendoffs in the normal drop tower mode.

When it debuted, Mäch Tower featured an onboard audio system which would play music throughout the ride's ascent and a seat vibration effect that would trigger immediately before the drop. A POV featuring the on-ride audio can be found below.

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Direct Link to Embedded Media Source

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Sources:

1. Mäch Tower Announcement Press Release
2. Official Statement Regarding Opening Delays
3. "Waiting for the Mach Tower to Drop" via The Virginian-Pilot
4. "Busch Gardens opens towering drop ride after 3-month delay" via The Virginian-Pilot
5. First Ride Video & Opening Day Photos via BGWFans
6. Early Mäch Tower Ride Impressions via Theme Park Insider

 

[destroyer421]

The lines are pretty short. I like that about Maech Tower!

The lines are short because it's never open for more than a few hours

 

[redsoxfan787]

I'm so tired of this ride being broke down everytime I'm at the park.

 

[Hoopla]

I wish they had made the brakes farther down the town. It only freefalls for like 100 feet then slows down and crawls its way down the tower. Also, I don't know if it's bad timing or what, but everytime I go to the park, the car only spins twice and stops when it reaches the middle and the seats don't vibrate. This ride I think need A LOT of work.

 

[netdvn]

The car always spins twice before stopping. That's how it was last year. As for the shaking, you're really not missing much. It allowed you to time the drop more, ruining the feeling of anticipation at the top. If you couldn't hear it from halfway across the area, it would've been a nice surprise for someone who hasn't ridden yet, but otherwise, it doesn't add much to the ride.

 

[b.mac]

The Space Spiral treatment looks really good for Mach Tower, too bad there's so much other stuff in the area...

 

[Crackel]

I havent been to the park in about a month. Has downtime improved at all?

 

[netdvn]

The ride doesn't have as many extended shutdowns as it used to, but there are still days where the ride shuts down for technical difficulties every few hours or so.

 

[CarterGee]

I just rode Drop of Doom at Magic Mountain and it makes me want to give a giant middle finger to Mach Tower. It went down for LITERALLY 5min the whole day I was there. World's tallest drop tower and it works perfectly. Mach Tower has to rotate, lost a key feature and can't stay open.....

I will say though that MT scares me when I ride and that it's not a bad experience once you're on it. Though, handing out cards the way they do is disgusting (have you SEEN the people that go to BGW!?!) and the seats are a little tight. But overall, fun once you're on it.

 

[Zachary]

By the way, speaking of the spinning, the last few trips I've noticed that it now only spins once on its way up and stops spinning before hitting the halfway point. Also, it ascends the tower much slower than it used to.

 

[Ben]

At first I thought it was because the spinning was making it break, but then it broke when i walked into the line . but yes i did notice that

 

[iliketurtles]

Handing out cards the way they do is disgusting (have you SEEN the people that go to BGW!?!) and the seats are a little tight.

On the bright side, they don't do that anymore

 

[CarterGee]

Phew, thank god.

 

[redsoxfan787]

Mach Tower, once again, shut down last night :dodgy:

 

[Alpenscoot]

Mach Tower, once again, shut down last night :dodgy:

As far as I know it was closed all day. At 9:00 in the morning it was at the top and they were working on it, but it never opened. It was open all day on Saturday.

 

[kevrol]

It was open for the better part of yesterday, although I did have to get off it once after I'd already buckled up and they shut it down.

 

[redsoxfan787]

Verbolten gave its curse to Mach tower

 

[Zachary]

I'm perfectly fine with that.

 

[redsoxfan787]

Agreed, I prefer verbolten

 

[kevrol]

My 7 yr old rode Mach Tower for the first time last Sunday. When we got to the bottom she burst into tears. An hour or so later she announced it was her 3rd favorite ride at BGW.

 

[Ludwig II]

So this might have been mentioned before, but I didn't realize it until today at the park. Mach Tower is not dropping for CT. It's being used as an type of observatory tower; it takes you up normally but you go down the same way you went up, slowly and rotating. At first I thought it might have been a safety measure because it was broken down, but nope, it was doing it on purpose. Really awesome IMO and it's actually even scarier now going down slowly.