News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[tallica]

Spoiler alert, water is not blue/white and opaque despite frequently being illustrated as such. Though, to be fair, Disney apparently also forgot this when planning the Harmonious fountains.

Opaque means 'not transparent'

 

[the_rich]

Frontierland is my favorite area of MK and only pandora is close in all of WDW. Will be excited to see it as it is once more this fall. I have been to WDW just about once every 18 months or so, maybe 20 times over 25 ish years growing up with my family, and have no recollection of ever going on the riverboat or tom sawyers island. As long as sightlines are respected and money is put into the outward facing theming I am very excited for this project. Would I prefer they keep the bottom of RoA, yes I like the ambience. But give me something else pretty to look at that thematically works (doesn't have to be perfect) and I will be happy.

Timing wise, Disney needs to get its act together. If RoA closes early spring next year and this land doesn't open until 2030, then I would be annoyed. Winter 2028 for Frontierland 2.0, with Villians in 2030 (hopefully at the latest), with potential Moana in Adventureland, something in the speedway by 2030-2032 ish and a cleanup of tomorrowland - MK will be in great shape with expansion pads still to the north and west of BTM. I am optimistic about MK and WDW in general and hope this is just the start of a great ten+ years of new attractions.

I really think they are planning for tropical America's in 27, cars in 28, monsters in 29 and villains in 29/30

 

[the_rich]

By all accounts, it looks like the main attraction won't use the Test Track / RSR slot car system. Either on here or on Twitter, I saw a post about a Dynamic attractions ride system that could be utilized for this. The hesitancy would be 4 person vehicles instead of 6, but that's what's depicted in the concept art as well:

Dynamic Attractions Unveils New Dark Ride Vehicle That Can Go Anywhere – Dynamic Attractions

dynamicattractions.com

As for the secondary attraction, it looks like it could be a trackless flat ride similar to Rollickin Roadsters, but hopefully closer in execution to a dry Aquatopia.

From what u can see in the art it does look more like aquatopia

 

[dmc493]

View attachment 809643

I love the internet thank you @larryz

 

[Phroobar]

By all accounts, it looks like the main attraction won't use the Test Track / RSR slot car system. Either on here or on Twitter, I saw a post about a Dynamic attractions ride system that could be utilized for this. The hesitancy would be 4 person vehicles instead of 6, but that's what's depicted in the concept art as well:

Dynamic Attractions Unveils New Dark Ride Vehicle That Can Go Anywhere – Dynamic Attractions

dynamicattractions.com

As for the secondary attraction, it looks like it could be a trackless flat ride similar to Rollickin Roadsters, but hopefully closer in execution to a dry Aquatopia.

So Radiator Springs Racers without the Racers and not set in Radiator Springs. Instead self driving slow jeeps doing car show demos. For this you lose the ROA.

Exciting!

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

I

Why have you not looked at the river bed? There are photos of it from 2020 when it was drained.

People with ties to Disney have also pushed nonsense.

I don’t mean looking at it in a picture. I mean physically examining it and understanding its condition. Nobody here has, yet many are pretty boldly claiming it’s fine nonetheless. I’m only stating it’s reasonably plausible that it’s not fine, and if it wasn’t fine, that it would be an understandable justification not to further invest in a park feature that fails to satisfy many other criteria.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Not much. The entirety of the area of water is unusable except for those on the 1 riverboat and couple of rafts at a given time.

The majority of this project will result in small waterways and rockwork taking up the space. It doesn’t suddenly become a guest accessible area.

If water that is used for an attraction is “unusable” rockwork / driving paths for an attraction is also “unusable”

 

[JoeCamel]

By all accounts, it looks like the main attraction won't use the Test Track / RSR slot car system. Either on here or on Twitter, I saw a post about a Dynamic attractions ride system that could be utilized for this. The hesitancy would be 4 person vehicles instead of 6, but that's what's depicted in the concept art as well:

Dynamic Attractions Unveils New Dark Ride Vehicle That Can Go Anywhere – Dynamic Attractions

dynamicattractions.com

As for the secondary attraction, it looks like it could be a trackless flat ride similar to Rollickin Roadsters, but hopefully closer in execution to a dry Aquatopia.

Isn't that the ride system that was pitched for a Jurassic World/Park ride years ago?

 

[corran horn]

The majority of this project will result in small waterways and rockwork taking up the space. It doesn’t suddenly become a guest accessible area.

If water that is used for an attraction is “unusable” rockwork / driving paths for an attraction is also “unusable”

well, I'm fairly certain there will be a straight walking path between BTMRR and HM in a way that does not exist now.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

By all accounts, it looks like the main attraction won't use the Test Track / RSR slot car system. Either on here or on Twitter, I saw a post about a Dynamic attractions ride system that could be utilized for this. The hesitancy would be 4 person vehicles instead of 6, but that's what's depicted in the concept art as well:

Dynamic Attractions Unveils New Dark Ride Vehicle That Can Go Anywhere – Dynamic Attractions

dynamicattractions.com

As for the secondary attraction, it looks like it could be a trackless flat ride similar to Rollickin Roadsters, but hopefully closer in execution to a dry Aquatopia.

Man, this is cool but it’s gonna be down so often, especially due to weather. No wonder there’s probably going to be no water around the attraction itself, if the computers glitch they could send the ATVs right into the water!

 

[corran horn]

I

I don’t mean looking at it in a picture. I mean physically examining it and understanding its condition. Nobody here has, yet many are pretty boldly claiming it’s fine nonetheless. I’m only stating it’s reasonably plausible that it’s not fine, and if it wasn’t fine, that it would be an understandable justification not to further invest in a park feature that fails to satisfy many other criteria.

I think Disney knows that water, whether it is rivers of america or 20K leagues, is just a pain in the keister.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What does this matter? The original claim was that the boat was “free floating” and the riverbed had no weight on it except for the track and the piers. We’ve now accepted that’s not true, good, but now we’re splitting hairs between the entire riverbed and one square foot of it. Sure, one square foot of the riverbed has one square foot worth of volume of water above it. Point being? It’s equally accurate to state the entirety of the riverbed is supporting the entirety of the water above it if you isolate the riverbed as one rigid body in a free body diagram, which is a reasonable assumption. The fact holds that this is an insignificant amount of weight that can absolutely deteriorate the riverbed over time. Saying “well so what let the riverbed break” is willingly ignoring the purpose of putting in the riverbed in the first place. If it isn’t necessary why was it put in?

The critical weight it supports is the track.

It was put in for aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline. Just holding water does not require a concrete structure as evidenced by all of the canals, ponds and lakes on property, some of which connect directly to the Rivers of America.

I don’t mean looking at it in a picture. I mean physically examining it and understanding its condition. Nobody here has, yet many are pretty boldly claiming it’s fine nonetheless. I’m only stating it’s reasonably plausible that it’s not fine, and if it wasn’t fine, that it would be an understandable justification not to further invest in a park feature that fails to satisfy many other criteria.

You examine concrete by looking at it. There are visible signs of deterioration and failure. You can X-ray it to look at reinforcement but you look is based on visual evidence. You could do more drastic [destructive] testing on a large mat and would require work and equipment that would be noticed.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

The majority of this project will result in small waterways and rockwork taking up the space. It doesn’t suddenly become a guest accessible area.

If water that is used for an attraction is “unusable” rockwork / driving paths for an attraction is also “unusable”

Or course it is. But just look at the wide walkways in the artwork on the right side, and compare to that to the river…or any part of TSI / ROA. Where do you have anywhere near that capacity today? We can’t see detail for a queue, but where do you have space for 60+ minutes worth of guests waiting in line anywhere in TSI / ROA…x2 attractions?

Fine, let’s do the calculus
100 = 2x rafts operating @ 50 ppl each
+100 = Let’s say they allow 2x rafts full of people on the island at a given time (doubt it)
+500 = let’s generously say that’s LB’s capacity
= 700 people using ROA / TSI at a given time

Radiator Springs is 1500 people per hour? Let’s assume this new one is half the capacity, and they only make a queue to hold one hour worth of people
= 750 people in line for that 1 ride with these ridiculous low ball assumptions, not including people on those pathways, on the ride, in line for the second ride, on the second ride, or in a store

Saying Cars will allow more people to use this space isn’t even a question

 

[James Alucobond]

Space efficiency is relative. Obviously Doctor Doom’s Fearfall is more space efficient than Radiator Springs Racers. I’m just saying that the use of overlapping tracks creates a more space efficienct layout because you are using vertical volume

Then why bring it up as a relative comparison to TSI at all? It’s a fundamentally different kind of attraction such that efficiencies of space usage cannot be compared apples to apples, which was the original statement I made anyway. You were the one arguing that not only would it be more popular and crowded (which I never disagreed with) but that it used the physical space more efficiently than TSI.

Ultimately, one is a pair of minutes-long attractions set along about four new, wider pathways; significant space is allocated to accommodate queues and ride infrastructure, and walkways are critical paths only. The other is a cruise and an always-explorable area with more than a dozen narrower criss-crossing pathways, plus caves and a fort; there are no queues and limited unexplorable infrastructure, with the river itself serving as the only ride path.

 

[October82]

What does this matter? The original claim was that the boat was “free floating” and the riverbed had no weight on it except for the track and the piers. We’ve now accepted that’s not true, good, but now we’re splitting hairs between the entire riverbed and one square foot of it. Sure, one square foot of the riverbed has one square foot worth of volume of water above it. Point being? It’s equally accurate to state the entirety of the riverbed is supporting the entirety of the water above it if you isolate the riverbed as one rigid body in a free body diagram, which is a reasonable assumption. The fact holds that this is an insignificant amount of weight that can absolutely deteriorate the riverbed over time. Saying “well so what let the riverbed break” is willingly ignoring the purpose of putting in the riverbed in the first place. If it isn’t necessary why was it put in?

The total weight of water acting on the entire surface isn’t relevant since the whole system is in static equilibrium. Think about what it would mean for the oceans if the total weight/mass of the water was a scale that mattered for the mechanical equilibrium of the system.

There are a few ways to measure how a concrete structure responds to mechanical loading, but all of them are measured in hundreds to thousands of PSI (the relevant one here is compressive strength of concrete which is 2500+ PSI). From the perspective of the concrete structure, there is effectively zero loading due to the river itself.

Chemical interactions and wave motion at the boundary between a body of water and the ground (concrete or otherwise) can cause deterioration of the surface, but there’s no sense in which the a small artificial body like the RoA is going to cause compressive damage to the concrete lining of the riverbed. The weight of the water just doesn't matter. That’s all the concrete is doing - acting as a barrier against erosion (and perhaps as a surface to anchor the guide track for the riverboat - there again, the concern would be deterioration of the track itself due to submersion in water, not the weight of the water - 5 PSI isn’t a lot).

None of this means the maintenance cost of the RoA isn't a factor in this decision. There are no doubt many costs associated with the RoA. But it does mean that there isn't a danger of structural failure short of something like significant ground or seismic motion. Cracking of the existing surface would be caused by differential settlement of the concrete surface itself.

 

[corran horn]

Or course it is. But just look at the wide walkways in the artwork on the right side, and compare to that to the river…or any part of TSI / ROA. Where do you have anywhere near that capacity today? We can’t see detail for a queue, but where do you have space for 60+ minutes worth of guests waiting in line anywhere in TSI / ROA…x2 attractions?

I mentioned this to my friend. The riverboat queue building is there still in the concept art (which helped me at least orient to where this will actually land) probably because it still thematically fits to Liberty Square and they'd just tear it down to build something similar anyway, but that will NOT be a sufficient queue line for this ride without extension into the land. I was using this as a comparator:

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

The critical weight it supports is the track.

It was put in for aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline. Just holding water does not require a concrete structure as evidenced by all of the canals, ponds and lakes on property, some of which connect directly to the Rivers of America.

So you would agree that a compromised riverbed would compromise its ability to maintain “aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline”? So if the park operators want to protect the “aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline” they would need to pay to repair the riverbed?

Point still holds they didn’t find it worth it relative to the inefficiency of the space and other reasons already discussed here

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Just a FYI. Fantasy Land expansion did get kinetic water features. I love water features both natural and artificial. Even though I have ridden SDMT dozens of times, I either forgot or didn't realize they existed. View attachment 809648View attachment 809647

This is as good a time as any to mention that the final version of 7DMT had significant cuts to its scenery compared to early plans.

That log bridge as you can see was never built. The original plan was to have dwarf figures marching along the top as the coaster zoomed under them. At some point, both the log and the dwarfs were ultimately cut when they slashed the budget (along with the overall track length, various bits of scenery and extra interior scenes).

There were also various cuts to water features. One was an additional interior scene that featured the Witch in her boat in an underground river. There was also an additional creek that would have flowed past the front of the cottage and through parts of the exterior queue. The physical trench for the creek was actually still constructed, but without necessary water equipment and it was left bone dry. Artwork also shows other water features on the righthand side of the attraction that was never built (where the log bridge and dwarfs would have gone).

Mind you, these extra scenes and features were once part of an actual official ride plan, not just creative artistry. There were two longer track layouts that were designed and intended to be built prior to the final significantly budget cut version. So don't count on the final variant of this Cars miniland to look as pretty as its concept art.

 

[October82]

So you would agree that a compromised riverbed would compromise its ability to maintain “aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline”? So if the park operators want to protect the “aesthetics, to make sure the river stays exactly where the designers want it to be, so that there is a consistent, designed shoreline” they would need to pay to repair the riverbed?

Point still holds they didn’t find it worth it relative to the inefficiency of the space and other reasons already discussed here

The point is that the concrete lining of the RoA is just a concrete surface, not exposed to exotic or unusual conditions, and although it may have some maintenance costs, isn't especially remarkable or costly to maintain. Disney may no longer want to spend the money but I would view any claims based on the condition of the RoA as a reason for this with extreme skepticism.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I really think they are planning for tropical America's in 27, cars in 28, monsters in 29 and villains in 29/30

I've been going thru the announcements...

2025 - Summer, MK night parade
2025 - Pirates' and SSE lounges
2025 - Test Track refresh
2025 - Winter, Zootopia in Tree of Life
2026 - Mando & Grogu in Star Tours
2027 - Tropical Americas (groundbreak 2024)
2027 - Cars mini-land (groundbreak early 2025)

???? - Villains Land (groundbreak apparently "underway" now)
???? - Monstropolis (groundbreak 2025)