WED Purist
Well-Known Member
Did anyone see the video on the local news (Chanel 6 in Olrlando?) last night of a flyover of the site?
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AVATAR land construction progress
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
flyerjab
Well-Known Member
I did not. Did you have a chance to at all?
WED Purist
Well-Known Member
Yeah, my wife called me into the living room as it was playing. It was the channel's "Theme Park Insider" talking about the project, and it showed a full overhead video shot from (what looked like) a helicopter. I can't seem to find it online.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
I tried about 14 different websites in addition to general web searches with no luck.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.
msteel
Well-Known Member
A couple of flights for Toy Story Midway Mania too.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
guys keep in mind that while the building might be 5 stories that space can be filled pretty quickly with equipment. If the rumors are true about the new soarin 2.0 system at least 2 of the 5 floors will be filled with hydraulic equipment and other ride system components.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
Here's my interpretation of the floorplan. The general flow is that all of the theaters will load on a single level, the same as the queue.
The merge point is to the right of the dark-gray "box". This leads down a hallway to some kind of central chamber. From there you'll be sent into one of four briefing rooms (think the distribution point at Mission Space). These briefing rooms are the four rooms between the central area and the ride chamber.
From the briefing room, you'll enter the ride chamber single-file one row at a time through the single door (that goes through a kind of vestibule) leading from the preshow room to the ride chamber.
The ride system loads at queue level, though since it's on the 2nd or 3rd floor there's a "pit" under the ride vehicle as it's sitting at the load/unload level. The ride vehicle will then pivot to a vertical position in front of the screen. At the end of the ride, the riders will exit through the single door opposite from where they entered. This will put the riders leaving the top two theaters in the blueprint to leave the building directly through the two sets of double-doors at the very top of the blueprint.
But the riders from the lower two theaters will have to go down (or up) a set of stairs, cross straight through the center of the building and back up/down to the regular level of everything else to exit using the stairways on either side of the previously-mentioned double-doors and exit with the other theaters.
Presumably anyone with a wheelchair or mobility issues will be routed to the upper two theaters so that they can avoid the stairs.
-Rob
danlb_2000
Premium Member
So you are thinking that this is a ride system that will load on a single level, not multiple levels as has been speculated?
MarkTwain
Well-Known Member
Dinosaur, American Adventure, Space Mountain (at the very beginning of the indoor queue)
It is an odd choice for modern attractions, though, especially what will probably be a high-demand one. Incorporating stairs into a queue usually means having an alternate means of access (like entering through an exit or Fastpass line), which Disney likes to avoid these days to discourage people from cheating the system. Attractions like Soarin' went through great lengths and extensive ramping to make the queue handicap accessible.
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Rob562
Well-Known Member
After seeing this and the building layout, this is what I've been presuming the ride system will be based on.
Going for a bit of armchair Imagineering for a moment and running with the Back to the Future/Simpsons loading style, you could theoretically build a false ceiling, perhaps a front wall, to encapsulate the ride seats when it's in the load/unload position. This would hide the fact that you're in a theater with a giant screen, something that doesn't really work with Soarin, where you see that there's a huge ride structure above you and the screen up in front of you.
Now imagine if you're loading into these seats in some kind of room, not really knowing what you're about to do, the room goes dark, in the darkness the ceiling and front wall disappear, you feel the movement of the seats and suddenly you're flying...
-Rob
danlb_2000
Premium Member
The other possibility that has been discussed around here is that it would be this ride system:
http://www.vekoma.com/index.php/specialities-and-attractions/panoramic-flight-simulator
Rob562
Well-Known Member
I guess that's also a possibility, though looking over the plans with my bf who's an architect he didn't see that there was enough space for compliant ramps. *Maybe* in the long stretch between the Merge room and the central area.
-Rob
personally I would prefer this system to the other one that's being talked about
Tom
Beta Return
Honestly, that system is inferior to the Soarin ride system, in my opinion. Soarin's system physically projects the rider into the screen area, and almost completely eliminates distractions from the peripheral vision area.
The Dynamic system simply tilts the 3 rows of seats up into a vertical plane, which remains in line with the loading platform.
Only the video is impressive, to me. But they're going to pull that off, and more, with the video in Pandora. Especially given that it will also be in 3D.
Yes, I still firmly believe Disney will be using a modified version of this. Everything we've seen to date fits perfectly with this system.
There's plenty of room for the necessary ramping to each of the three load levels.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
OK, after searching around online and finding an additional level of blueprints, I've decided to amend my interpretation of the blueprints slightly...
Here is the 1st level:
You can see the C-ticket boat ride in the upper right, which coincides with the area where the queue is.
In the center of the building is a room marked "Glasses Cleaning", confirming that this will be some kind of 3D attraction that'll use an in-house cleaner rather than a central washer facility which I think most of the other 3D shows use.
I also don't think that any of this level will have Guest access. Almost all the corridors are labeled BOH, which in theater terms means "back of house" or backstage areas. There are markings in each of the theaters that kind of look like rooms and partitions, but I think those are just foundation pieces for the ride system. I just don't see any way to get Guests down to this level of the building.
It's also worth noting that the top two theaters (Theaters C and D) are labeled as "ADA" meaning they'd be the two that wheelchair and other mobility-impaired Guests would use.
Now we move on to Level 2:
Now we start to see some of the ride mechanics in place in each theater. Of major note is the green corridor labeled "Show Exit" running straight through the building but most everything else on this level is still labeled BOH. You have two green staircases at the very bottom of the plan that dump into this Exit corridor. But there seems to be no way to get Guests from the ride chambers to these stairways or exit corridor, so once again I do not believe there will be any Guest access to this level other than the Guests leaving theaters A and B via stairs from at least the level above and exiting out through the two sets of doors at the top end of the Exit hallway.
This also shows us that Theaters A and B will exit out of the ride building on a different level than Theaters C and D. Presumably there will then be some way that the two will merge (gift shop?) that is beyond the scope of these blueprints.
Lastly, the two white staircases at the top and bottom ends of the Exit corridor appear to be strictly fire and backstage use.
In the upper right you see empty space for the C-Ticket boat ride with just stairs going through the space, so the indoor section of the boat ride will be two stories tall.
And now for Level 3:
Now you start to see the queue in the upper right, placed on top of the 2-story C-ticket boat ride.
What caused me to reconsider my original idea of a single-level loading are the two stairways on either side of the C/D exit vestibule at the top center. Originally I thought those were leading up from the cross-over hallway from Theaters A and B. But those two stairways don't appear on the Level 2 plan. So those two stairways *must* be coming down from at least Level 4, which is a level we have no blueprints for.
So, at some point in the straight-away between the queue Merge room and the central distribution level you have Guests being routed to at least Level 4, perhaps Level 5.
Looking at all the mechanical stuff on Level 2, perhaps there are only two levels with ride vehicles, and Level 4 is more mechanical stuff for a ride vehicle loading area on Level 5.
But alas, I've run out lunch break time so if I've left anything off it'll have to wait until this evening...
-Rob
NeXuS1000
Well-Known Member
@Rob562, that's an awesome analysis!
Looking at this write-up, I just realized (and sorry if I'm slow) that it's very likely that the queue and C-ticket boat ride will use the same theming. As in, when you're in the boat, you can look up at the mountains and see people "climbing" them, and when you're in the queue, you can see people in boats below.
This should make for an awesome themed queue, and personally I love queues that are windows into other rides (and generally semi-combined rides like these are always fun!)
Looking at this write-up, I just realized (and sorry if I'm slow) that it's very likely that the queue and C-ticket boat ride will use the same theming. As in, when you're in the boat, you can look up at the mountains and see people "climbing" them, and when you're in the queue, you can see people in boats below.
This should make for an awesome themed queue, and personally I love queues that are windows into other rides (and generally semi-combined rides like these are always fun!)
TeddyinMO
Well-Known Member
Quick question... I had never noticed before that the boat ride portion actual has the wording "C Ticket Showbox" on it. Is the term C Ticket actually a real term that would be used on real plans or was that added by fans/posters after the fact?
I always assumed that the letter ticket thing was just an unofficial designation placed on rides by fans (using the old ticket model as a guideline). I would find it very surprising if real Disney engineers would ever put that kind of term on paper. Not trying to cast any sort of aspersions on the legitimacy of this artwork or anything. Just really curious about it and very surprised that they would do that. Any insight that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.
I always assumed that the letter ticket thing was just an unofficial designation placed on rides by fans (using the old ticket model as a guideline). I would find it very surprising if real Disney engineers would ever put that kind of term on paper. Not trying to cast any sort of aspersions on the legitimacy of this artwork or anything. Just really curious about it and very surprised that they would do that. Any insight that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
I am pretty sure that was not added by fans but was on the original plans. It is also my understanding that the ticket level wording is still used with Imagineering.