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Play Time at the Nuclear Power Plant
Talk about a theme park...check out this dream vacation spot for the 'nuclear' family. Developed at a decommissioned nuclear power plant in Kalkar, Germany, Wunderland Kalkar includes a convention center, over 40 attractions, a 400 bed hotel, and - as seen in the image above - an aerial swing in the reactor’s cooling tower (you can also conquer the climbing wall on the outside of the tower). The reactor was completed in 1985 but never activated due to the unpopularity of nuclear power at the time (recall that Nena's protest song 99 Luftbalons was released in 1983). The facility was sold to Dutch businessman Hennie van der Most in 1995 for $2.5 million and the rest is amusement park history. Today, Wunderland welcomes over 600,000 visitors each year. Interestingly, in May of 2011 Germany announced that it would shut down all nuclear power plants by 2022...that's a lot of future theme parks.