Germany Boat Ride

[EPCOT Explorer]

Let's also keep in mind that when they built EPCOT Center, they were literally building two parks at once. World Showcase and what became Future World were both originally supposed to be separate gates. On that fateful day when two WED staffers (I believe it was John Hench and Marty Sklar) literally pushed the scale models together, it became a whole-nuther ballgame entirely. Huge in scale and scope, and not afraid to dream beyond big. There's no way anyone could have built EPCOT Center "to plan"... as it was, crews were working 100-hour shifts, sleeping either on-property at cabins around Fort Wilderness or worse yet, sleeping on the floor at the attractions they were working on. Read Steve Alcorn's "Building a Better Mouse" for many a tale of spending the night in the pit at American Adventure. Even when they were asleep for a few precious hours (usually every other night), they were "on call" and could be summoned by radio at any time. Add in that to get any of this stuff working they had to literally invent computers... keep in mind that in the 80s the PC was hardly personal; and they also had to endure numerous setbacks... SSE's ascent was too steep to allow the motor they'd selected to pull the vehicles; and thunderstorms would fry computers and knock out power to the site for hours on end. Plus there was an accelerated opening... not just for October 1st 1982, but also Labor day (a month earlier) to use all the workers and construction folks as a "test audience." Anything that was mothballed got further buried in the closet by a tepid audience response. It's a miracle we got what we did.

Really makes me appreciate EPCOT as it is.Nicely said, Jackie.:sohappy:

WD said "if we(meaning WDW) can dream it, the we(meaning WDW) can do it.

If you(meaning the rest of us) can dream it, Then you(meaning us) can do it.

Hence the Germany boat ride is our dream and they arent going to do it. :veryconfu


I am amazed that this ride has picked up in frequency of threads this year. Probably cause this is the year of a million dreams:lol: OURS

Never say never...

 

[hpyhnt 1000]

WD said "if we(meaning WDW) can dream it, the we(meaning WDW) can do it.

If you(meaning the rest of us) can dream it, Then you(meaning us) can do it.

Hence the Germany boat ride is our dream and they arent going to do it. :veryconfu

Oh, fine! If they can dream it, then they can do it. Happy now?





:lol:

 

[Sam Eagle 1776]

...then we can do it. Yes we can, yes we can! :lol:

And we sure should!

 

[MickeysMagic]

...then we can do it. Yes we can, yes we can! :lol:

Thanks for getting the song stuck in my head. :lol:

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

Thanks for getting the song stuck in my head. :lol:

We are the Fanboys of EPCOT Center!It's what we do!:wave:
:lol:

 

[TubaGeek]

So what's in there now? Storage? Offices? Walt's cryogenically frozen body?

 

[unkadug]

So what's in there now? Storage? Offices? Walt's cryogenically frozen body?

Bunch of stuff that COULD be moved elsewhere.

 

[DisneyEverest]

Epcot definitely needs more rides...when we ask my 11 year old to visit the countries she says "Boring!-no rides except Maelstrom, and it takes too long just to walk around for no rides," I would like more rides in the countries too, Mt. Fuji ride sounds good, maybe a nice Wonders of the World log flume, an Egyptian themed dark ride, and while they're at it, how about opening it up for breakfast?? We like Epcot now, but with things like this we would have to add another day or two to our trip!

I agree Epcot needs something BIG!!

 

[SoFlaDisneyFan]

I heard from a CM that originally there was suppose to be a boat ride along Germany's most famous rivers and famous landmarks in the Germany Pavilion...is this true?

Yup, tis true:

A cruise down Germany's most famous rivers -- the Rhine, the Tauber, the Ruhr and the Isar. Detailed miniatures of famous landmarks will also be seen, including one of the Cologne Cathedral. Planned for the Germany Pavilion at Epcot. The building that would have housed the ride is still visible at the Germany pavilion along with the ride entrance section.

 

[Pens24]

EPCOT is one disney's best parks worldwide but it would be even better if it had a few more rides and one or two more E ticket attractions to go along with test track mission:space and soarin'

 

[Bolna]

Yup, tis true:

A cruise down Germany's most famous rivers -- the Rhine, the Tauber, the Ruhr and the Isar. Detailed miniatures of famous landmarks will also be seen, including one of the Cologne Cathedral. Planned for the Germany Pavilion at Epcot. The building that would have housed the ride is still visible at the Germany pavilion along with the ride entrance section.

You know what is interesting about these rivers: it shows that ths pavillion was planned as a West German pavillion. I am certain if they would revisit the concept today they would include the Elbe (think: Dresden and Hamburg) and the Spree (Berlin). Also, I really don't agree with the rivers being named being the most famous ones, the Tauber and the Isar are not famous rivers. And besides the Elbe, I also miss the Danube in the list of famous rivers!

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

You know what is interesting about these rivers: it shows that ths pavillion was planned as a West German pavillion. I am certain if they would revisit the concept today they would include the Elbe (think: Dresden and Hamburg) and the Spree (Berlin). Also, I really don't agree with the rivers being named being the most famous ones, the Tauber and the Isar are not famous rivers. And besides the Elbe, I also miss the Danube in the list of famous rivers!

I would guess that they chose the Tauber to include a miniature Rothenburg as one of the most famous German cities with its historic timber framework architecture and the Isar to include, of course, Munich as it was not the largest but most popular city in former West Germany. And of course it was a West German pavilion, it was designed in the late 70ies and early 80ies, several years before reunification. I am sure that they would redesign the entire ride to include e.g. Berlin as the capital.
But I actually don't want just a German El Rio del Tiempo, I think the German Ride should have a different character and start as a fantasy and fairy tale ride. Many major fairy tales come from Germany and if we include national legends for example Siegfried killing the dragon, then we could give the ride even more thrills. I want it more like maelstrom then like El Rio.

 

[brkgnews]

I would guess that they chose the Tauber to include a miniature Rothenburg as one of the most famous German cities with its historic timber framework architecture and the Isar to include, of course, Munich as it was not the largest but most popular city in former West Germany. And of course it was a West German pavilion, it was designed in the late 70ies and early 80ies, several years before reunification. I am sure that they would redesign the entire ride to include e.g. Berlin as the capital.
But I actually don't want just a German El Rio del Tiempo, I think the German Ride should have a different character and start as a fantasy and fairy tale ride. Many major fairy tales come from Germany and if we include national legends for example Siegfried killing the dragon, then we could give the ride even more thrills. I want it more like maelstrom then like El Rio.

Well luckily(?), now that the original El Rio concept of showing three distinct concepts in Mexico's culture/history has been sufficiently nuked in favor of a unifying "Where's Donald" theme... I think you'd have a hard time making the Rhine River attraction simply a "German El Rio." I would look for something more along the lines of Maelstrom than the current incarnation of El Rio (Gran Fiesta Tour).

 

[kucarachi]

River Of Denial

They have far too many slow moving water rides if you ask me! Pirates, JC, SW, GFiesta, Maelmstrom, LWTLand, and on, and on. They are all good rides but whats one more with some lederhosen going to achieve.

Germans are engineers, come up with something cutting edge...such as magnetic car ride to simulate the autobahn..you could drive through all of europe ...kinda like test track with better scenery.

Or have some sort of snow based ride where you bobsled through a mountain instead of gliding down swanee river getting bored!

 

[brkgnews]

They have far too many slow moving water rides if you ask me! Pirates, JC, SW, GFiesta, Maelmstrom, LWTLand, and on, and on. They are all good rides but whats one more with some lederhosen going to achieve.

Germans are engineers, come up with something cutting edge...such as magnetic car ride to simulate the autobahn..you could drive through all of europe ...kinda like test track with better scenery.

Or have some sort of snow based ride where you bobsled through a mountain instead of gliding down swanee river getting bored!

Yeah, but the Bobsled would be better-suited to the Swiss Alps than Germany (See also: Matterhorn ). Plus a mountain would drastically alter the landscape of World Showcase, and also have the unwanted effect of putting one pavilion with "size prominence" over the others. Besides... the mountain's going in Japan. :lookaroun

 

[marni1971]

They have far too many slow moving water rides if you ask me! Pirates, JC, SW, GFiesta, Maelmstrom, LWTLand, and on, and on. They are all good rides but whats one more with some lederhosen going to achieve.

But only 2 of them are in Epcot. The water propulsion system was an ideal way of conveying guests, and topical in The Land and Mexico too. You certainly wouldn`t have liked it if Germany, Italy and Denmark had their water rides too! Incidentally, Germany and Italy were well placed with a gap between them for Switzerland - all 3 would have shared the same water purification and holding system.

You could have always taken a ride on Venezualas aerial cable car

 

[bgraham34]

I would love to have a boat ride in Germany. Its my favorite pavilion in world showcase. You can pretty much gaurantee that if they did put in a boat ride you would never get a reservation to eat at Biergarten.

 

[brkgnews]

But only 2 of them are in Epcot. The water propulsion system was an ideal way of conveying guests, and topical in The Land and Mexico too. You certainly wouldn`t have liked it if Germany, Italy and Denmark had their water rides too! Incidentally, Germany and Italy were well placed with a gap between them for Switzerland - all 3 would have shared the same water purification and holding system.

You could have always taken a ride on Venezualas aerial cable car

Ingenious. One big ol' reservoir between them. Almost like the guys and gals at WED knew what they were doing.

 

[EdHi]

Italys Gondola ride, Rhine River, Japans Carousel Theatre, the UK Dinner show and Mexicos boat ride were amongst the casulties.

Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . I spend a lot of time lurking these hallowed pages and I know I'm probably going to get flamed for not doing a search but . . . I've NEVER heard of these. Seriously? I may have seen something once or twice on a Gondola ride and of course the Rhine but . . . Japan's Carousel Theater? UK Dinner Show?

Please enlighten!

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

But only 2 of them are in Epcot. The water propulsion system was an ideal way of conveying guests, and topical in The Land and Mexico too. You certainly wouldn`t have liked it if Germany, Italy and Denmark had their water rides too! Incidentally, Germany and Italy were well placed with a gap between them for Switzerland - all 3 would have shared the same water purification and holding system.

You could have always taken a ride on Venezualas aerial cable car

If ONLY....

Ingenious. One big ol' reservoir between them. Almost like the guys and gals at WED knew what they were doing.

A rare moment right?