Is the High Roller really the largest observation wheel in the world, as the ads claim?
Yes, it is. For a little while longer.
The High Roller is 550 feet tall, nine feet taller than the 541-foot Singapore Flyer, which held the record from 2008 till 2014. Another wheel, however, in United Arab Emirates, will be larger when it's finished.
The Ain ("Eye") Dubai Wheel will be 820 feet tall. It was originally scheduled to be completed in late 2018 or early 2019, but was pushed back to October 2020 to coincide with a world's fair-type event, Expo 2020, which of course was canceled.
Still, the first passenger pods were installed last August and they continue to be added; in all, Ain Dubai will have 48 capsules with a capacity of 1,400 passengers. In September, Empower, the world’s largest district-cooling-services provider, connected to Ain Dubai, so the capsules are air-conditioned. We were able to find no update on when it might start operating, but it shouldn't be too long from now.
A New York Wheel was proposed to be 630 feet tall and located on Staten Island next to an outlet mall. Announced in 2012 as part of an initiative to turn the mall into a tourist attraction, it was canceled in September 2018 due to a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the part of the city government, which refused to endorse a bond sale that would have funded the wheel.
By the way, George Ferris, Jr., a civil engineer who designed and built the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, grew up in Carson City.
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Kevin Rough
Dec-20-2020
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