... Spaceshop Earth Coaster - already reality!
HI there, HO there,
usually I was only lurking on this board but this thread really got me into coming out of my cave...
See you are not the first to think about a coaster in Spaceship Earth: Michael Eisner and Imagineering did visit repeatedly a theme park in Germany while creating the basic design and concepts for the Disneyland Paris (back than EuroDisney) - it's called "Europa Park" (=Europe Park) and carters a combination of guests from Germany, France and Switzerland. Basically the park is divided into several lands, each land depicting a european country (missing the central hub this looks a bit unorganized). The park is operated by Mack, which uses the park not only to make money (it is one of the top theme parks in Germany and Europe, even received numerous international awards) but also to showcase new rides Mack has created. So to some of you mack may sound familiar as they designed the water coaster that can be found in SeaWorld (which was a world premiere before they build another one for their own Europa Park). But sorry, I'm going off-topic - so back to Spaceship Earth...
While the Europa Park has a quiet neat concept it sounds a bit familar to us - Epcot just limited to Europe - it has a lot more rides than Epcot does. While they have great theming outdoors the indoor themeing of the rides sometimes lacks behind Disney more than a bit, especially as they do love to get a good idea from Disney ... so here you can find a water rider in the Dutch part of the park that is called "Pirates of Batavia" which by chance takes guests through a scene with a pirate ship battling a fort, through the twon while it is being looted, ... and this is not the only ride they copied, e.g. they have a ride called "Universe of Energy", in which you first watch a really awful movie and then board a doom-buggie style car which takes you through a jungle with countless dinosaurs munching away on trees, grass and fellow dinosaurs. You get the point.
So what has that to do with Spaceship Earth? OK, the have a French land there, and that land features as main attraction a huge silver geosphere which sits on top of a building. That building hoses "Universe of Energy" by the way. By chance the geosphere while smaller than the Spaceship Earth looks just the same - and inside the geosphere?? Well there is a coaster!! The lifthill is lcoated in teh center and is basically a spiral in a column, which you leave on the highest point before the track goes down with countless turns and twists (but no inversions). The whole thing is meant to be space themed and added some laser elements earlier this year.
So here you have it - your coaster inside Spaceship Earth ... or sort of.
Yours
Dirk
Here a link to the "Universe of Energy":
http://www.epfans.com/frankreichude.php or
http://www.ep-fans.de/Themenbereiche/attraktionen/dinofahrt.htm
And this is the link to the coaster inside the Spaceship Earth:
http://www.epfans.com/frankreicheurosat.php or
http://www.ep-fans.de/Themenbereiche/attraktionen/eurosat.htm