The History of Anaconda

Removed in 2025. Operated 1991 to 2024.

For more than three decades, Anaconda coiled over the water at Kings Dominion. Opened in 1991 and closed after the 2024 season, it was billed as the first looping coaster in the world to send riders through a tunnel beneath a lake.

Over Lake Charles

Anaconda opened in March 1991, an Arrow Dynamics looping coaster set almost entirely over the park's Lake Charles. After the lift, the first drop twisted down into a tunnel that passed beneath the surface of the lake, and from there the train ran a vertical loop, a sidewinder, a figure-eight element, and a double corkscrew above the water. Its lakeside setting made it one of the most photographed rides in the park.

Why it's gone

By its final years, Anaconda was an aging ride from a manufacturer that had been out of business since 2002, and it carried the rough reputation common to older Arrow loopers. The park closed it quietly after the 2024 season and demolished it early in 2025, leaving Lake Charles intact. No replacement has been announced for the lakeside plot.

One thing to know

It was billed as the first looping coaster in the world to send riders through a tunnel beneath a lake.

Anaconda is one chapter in the fifty-year history of Kings Dominion.

Anaconda at a glance