Alright...Whats the deal with The Living Seas???

[hayzer11]

Alright...Whats the deal with The Living Seas???

is this true?

[FONT='Times New Roman', Times, Serif, serif]2006 - The Living Seas / Nemo Ride - (11/30/05) Epcot has reopened The Living Seas attraction, as as rumored the Hydrolators have been removed and all guests enter and exit through the old exit area. The original entrance area and old Sea Cabs ride area is still blocked off by construction walls, as we wait for Phase II of the project to open in 2006. Meanwhile the rest of SeaBase (Alpha has been dropped from the name) has been rehabbed, repainted, and spit-shined though nothing major seems have been been changed from before to the attractions.
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[FONT='Times New Roman', Times, Serif, serif]or is it screamscape?
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[matthope03]

Yes, that is indeed true. They are currently working on the Nemo ride in Phase II of the rehab. Supposedly the construction is ahead of schedule and could be opening in October of this year. Phase I involved exactly what was said in that post and has been open to the public since November of last year.

 

[Pongo]

Alright...Whats the deal with The Living Seas???

is this true?

[FONT='Times New Roman', Times, Serif, serif]2006 - The Living Seas / Nemo Ride - (11/30/05) Epcot has reopened The Living Seas attraction, as as rumored the Hydrolators have been removed and all guests enter and exit through the old exit area. The original entrance area and old Sea Cabs ride area is still blocked off by construction walls, as we wait for Phase II of the project to open in 2006. Meanwhile the rest of SeaBase (Alpha has been dropped from the name) has been rehabbed, repainted, and spit-shined though nothing major seems have been been changed from before to the attractions.
[/font]
[FONT='Times New Roman', Times, Serif, serif]or is it screamscape?
[/font]

Very true. That is not a "rumor". That is something backed by truth and tangibility.

 

[Fordlover]

I concur, It was actually hard for me to tell where the load/unload areas were even at, because they are completely blocked off by a wall. Hydrolaters too, all gone.

 

[Speedbird]

I take it the ride is where the Sea Cabs used to be?

 

[MansionFan415]

Well, how is it as compared to the old Living Seas? I mean, I know the ride wasn't long, and the inside wasn't the MOST thrilling, but I liked it in there.

And that movie rocked...."...and it rained...........................and rained..........................................and rained!"

 

[Speedbird]

Don't tell me the film's gone too? Noooooo!!!!

 

[TomorrowlandTyler]

Our WDWMAGIC Forums are blocked at my high school because they are "message boards" so I had to go over to magical mountain.net's forums which for some reason are not blocked and I found this which I found hard to believe:

The monorail will run bi-directionally with reduced capacity from January 9 - September 4, 2006 due to Nemo construction.

 

[peter11435]

Our WDWMAGIC Forums are blocked at my high school because they are "message boards" so I had to go over to magical mountain.net's forums which for some reason are not blocked and I found this which I found hard to believe:

That is in Disneyland.

 

[mousermerf]

That's refering to DL - they're building their Nemo ride in the submarine lagoon that their monorail goes over.

 

[Epcot82Guy]

Just a thought, but how much fun would it be to save the circle vision pre-show theater and then add the Sea Cabs? I would love to see the deluge all around you (and it rained... it rained... it rained...) to have Dory come in commenting on "It's raining! Ack! It's a deluge" to indtroduce the study of "me" and "our friends." You then board your Sea Cabs and the new attraction. I think a light hearted presentation of actual sealife research might be just the medicine the pavilion needs.

I agree the film was cool, but it was dated. I think having the characters serve merely as HOSTS for really cool displays of the technology and research could be a great balance.

 

[Rob562]

Well, how is it as compared to the old Living Seas? I mean, I know the ride wasn't long, and the inside wasn't the MOST thrilling, but I liked it in there.

Currently, only the seabase itself is open. All viewing areas are open for guests' use. You enter and exit through the area that used to be the exit hydrolators. Those have been removed and replaced with simple automatic sliding doors. The gift shop is now in this area, too.

Everything in the queue, pre-show and ride portion of the pavilion is closed to guests.There's a large blue wall covering the remaining visible area where the seacab unload area was. Outside, a construction wall blocks access to the traditional front door.

As for what's going on behind those blue walls, to the best of my knowledge nothing has been *officially* announced by Disney. We're left with only speculation and rumors and supposed inside information. One of the stronger rumors is that everything was gutted (queue, round pre-show room, both theaters, the hydrolators and the seacabs). This will be used for some Nemo-themed attraction, possibly an extended version of the seacabs.

Think of what's currently accessible inside Seas to be a "transition phase" of a work in progress. Turtle Talk was too popular to close it outright until the whole project was done. So we assume that it'll stay open as long as possible until they need to close the whole thing down to finish the job, similar to what they did with the Land.

That's about all we got. Anyone else want to chime in on things I missed?

-Rob

 

[tirian]

Yeah, according to a Living Seas manager, one of the theaters was converted to an extended dark ride sequence. I personally have not yet been behind those walls--I don't have clearance--but several people have confirmed this as the plan for the ride.

I have, however, seen some concept art for the attraction, most notably the Sea Cab area. Since these artboards were posted at a presentation, I couldn't take any pictures.

 

[HandyAndy]

I hear from very reliable sources, that the ride replacing the seacabs (already completely gutted and seacbas sold) will be nemo themed and will be open for soft openings later this year with an official opening December-ish this year but proposed for the Epcots 25th or whatever anniversary line up!

 

[Chape19714]

I hear from very reliable sources, that the ride replacing the seacabs (already completely gutted and seacbas sold) will be nemo themed and will be open for soft openings later this year with an official opening December-ish this year but proposed for the Epcots 25th or whatever anniversary line up!

Where did you find that the cabs have been sold? A few have appeared on Ebay, but they are just the plastic shells, not the mechanism, and they are only a few cabs, not the entire fleet. Novemeber is the current opening set.

 

[hansel1]

wow, I didn't know the sea's had a ride. We went in january and saw turtle talk and watched the keepers feed fish and manatees. It felt kind of odd in the way they layed everything out, now i know why.

I hope they are complete for my trip next january.

 

[Rob562]

wow, I didn't know the sea's had a ride. We went in january and saw turtle talk and watched the keepers feed fish and manatees. It felt kind of odd in the way they layed everything out, now i know why.

I hope they are complete for my trip next january.

The ride itself was very basic and relatively short. It was a little over 3 minutes. It didn't have doors that closed, so it was easy for Guests to get out along the way and trigger a ride shutdown as there were pressure mats along the entire length of the ride track. My guess is that the supposed new ride portion will have all new seacab vehicles, with doors that close...

I'd suggest you check out the Living Seas page here on WDWMagic.
http://www.wdwmagic.com/living.htm
If you're a premium member, you can download the video that shows a good chunk of the pavilion circa 1990, including the pre-show movie and the full experience of the Hydrolators and seacabs.

I just loved how there were extra effects in the hydrolator holding area specifically for the Guests that didn't make it into one of the hydrolators first and had to wait. These included the indicator lights showing the cab going down and back up, two columns of light on either side of the doors that went down and back up when the hydrolator went "down", and the pools on either side of the gangplank walkway that bubbled when the hydrolator was supposedly in motion... (You can see all this in the video)


-Rob