The Golden Raft is my Olympians-themed River Rapids ride, built several months ago, in early 2025. I used a classic layout for the track — the spiral one — commonly seen in traveling funfair Log Flume rides. The first area is the city port: a statue along the way suggests that it is called Gold’s Way Port. The station is located inside the workshop of a builder busy assembling the various boats that visitors board. Next comes the lower part of the mountain, where there is an underwater cave where the Pirate MerFolks are encountered for the first time. The upper part of the mountain, instead, hosts the memorial dedicated to the founder of the port city.
The lift hills feature those kinds of wooden wheels with chains on the sides, to give the impression of a medieval mechanism that powers the conveyor belts and allows the boats to climb. As for the drops: the first one is the small, simple descent; the second is the big one, which I split into two parts because I feared it might be too intense — there's a central splash followed immediately by another drop. In this central area, I placed the Ride Photo booth, managed by a turtle villager. The idea is that he pulls a lever to snap photos just as the raft passes by. I couldn't use the new Ride Photo system, introduced recently in the game, because it wasn't available at the time — and even now, it can only be used on Roller Coasters. River Rapids are in a separate category, along with Transport Rides and Powered Rides, the latter being used for Dark Rides.
Personal opinion: this is one of my best creations, and also my favorite to use. Personal rating: four and a half stars.