News Test Track to be reimagined

[James Alucobond]

Do we need to know calculus for this?

I think it’s literally just how many people the ride is “holding” in a given moment, thereby preventing them from utilizing other services in the park. This includes both time spent in the queue and experiencing the attraction. Someone who knows more can correct me, but I don’t think it’s a difficult calculation.

In that sense, once Cosmic Rewind is running with a traditional queue, it may end up having higher instantaneous capacity than Energy Adventure depending on how many the queue can hold and whether or not its queue remains full despite the actual attraction time being significantly reduced. Energy Adventure was relatively queue-less since it was more showtime based, and you kind of just tended to filter in 10 minutes or so before.

 

[peter11435]

True, but you also would spend 45 minutes to an hour in the UoE building. It doesn’t usually take that long to go through Cosmic Rewind due to the VQ/ILL.

I think even with VQ most guests are spending at least 45 minutes inside Cosmic Rewind and once they go full Standby it will be even higher. So the Guardians building will pull more guests out of the park, move more guests through per hour, and receive significantly higher guest satisfaction scores than energy ever did. It’s an improvement by nearly every tangible metric. Not to mention it drives park attendance and merchandise sales.

 

[UNCgolf]

I think even with VQ most guests are spending at least 45 minutes inside Cosmic Rewind and once they go full Standby it will be even higher. So the Guardians building will pull more guests out of the park, move more guests through per hour, and receive significantly higher guest satisfaction scores than energy ever did. It’s an improvement by nearly every tangible metric. Not to mention it drives park attendance and merchandise sales.

I'm not sure it's going to pull more guests out of the park/move more guests through per hour than Energy ever did, but it may do more than Ellen's version ever did.

I personally think they could have built something much, much better than Cosmic Rewind (which is a fun coaster but fails at basically everything else it was trying to do; it was a misfire for me), but I realize I'm in the minority.

 

[peter11435]

I'm not sure it's going to pull more guests out of the park/move more guests through per hour than Energy ever did, but it may do more than Ellen's version ever did.

I personally think they could have built something much, much better than Cosmic Rewind (which is a fun coaster but fails at basically everything else it was trying to do; it was a misfire for me), but I realize I'm in the minority.

Well yeah. When Epcot opened and only had 5 rides I’m sure Energy did utilize all of its capacity. But that’s not exactly what should be measured against in 2024.

 

[FigmentFan82]

any idea when this goes down for the refurb?

 

[UNCgolf]

Well yeah. When Epcot opened and only had 5 rides I’m sure Energy did utilize all of its capacity. But that’s not exactly what should be measured against in 2024.

I didn't only mean when EPCOT opened. It was still pretty popular in the early 90s when the park had more to do than any current park at WDW (except maybe the Magic Kingdom). But yes, that was still 30 years ago.

It's just a shame that Disney has moved away from building long experiences; that was a big part of what made EPCOT special/the best park at WDW.

 

[peter11435]

I didn't only mean when EPCOT opened. It was still pretty popular in the early 90s when the park had more to do than any current park at WDW (except maybe the Magic Kingdom). But yes, that was still 30 years ago.

It's just a shame that Disney has moved away from building long experiences; that was a big part of what made EPCOT special/the best park at WDW.

It’s less that Disney moved away from long experiences and more that people in general moved away from wanting longer experiences. Sure there are outliers like us but the average guest has too short of an attention span. That’s why attractions like CBJ, Tiki, and some of the films have been shortened over the years.

 

[UNCgolf]

It’s less that Disney moved away from long experiences and more that people in general moved away from wanting longer experiences. Sure there are outliers like us but the average guest has too short of an attention span. That’s why attractions like CBJ, Tiki, and some of the films have been shortened over the years.

I wonder how true that actually is, though, versus being almost a self-fulfilling prophecy for Disney, especially when it comes to rides. They haven't built many long experiences in decades.

The only really long ride they've built in the past 15 or so years is Little Mermaid, but it's just not good, so it's hard to draw any conclusions from that. Rise of the Resistance is quite long as an overall experience, though, when including preshows, and Tiana will be one of the longest rides at WDW. I don't think it's going to have any issue drawing huge crowds.

The Safari is the longest ride at WDW and it's one of the highest rated on property, although I admit it's very difficult to compare that to other attractions for a variety of reasons.

I also wonder how much ballooning costs affects things. It costs them so much money to build anything now, and I imagine a 10 minute long experience would cost far more than a 5 minute one of similar detail/quality (it obviously wouldn't cost twice as much, but seems like there'd be a significant bump).

 

[erasure fan1]

It’s less that Disney moved away from long experiences and more that people in general moved away from wanting longer experiences. Sure there are outliers like us but the average guest has too short of an attention span.

I would agree maybe with shows but not rides. When you talk to people about Disney, outside of a site like this, you hear a lot of complaints about ride length. I find you get a lot of "buts" when you ask about a ride. It was fun, but, it was so short. I think it's especially amplified because of wait times. when you wait 20/30min for Navi river, ok that's fine. But 120min and you aren't super happy. I have yet to hear a complaint about rise being too long. Or any of the longer rides. I did hear it with things like the nemo musical and Indy stunt show. Every ride doesn't need to be a 10 or 12min experience. But a sneeze and it's over experience like tron or mine train isn't good in my opinion.

 

[TheEPCOTHistorian]

I would agree maybe with shows but not rides. When you talk to people about Disney, outside of a site like this, you hear a lot of complaints about ride length. I find you get a lot of "buts" when you ask about a ride. It was fun, but, it was so short. I think it's especially amplified because of wait times. when you wait 20/30min for Navi river, ok that's fine. But 120min and you aren't super happy. I have yet to hear a complaint about rise being too long. Or any of the longer rides. I did hear it with things like the nemo musical and Indy stunt show. Every ride doesn't need to be a 10 or 12min experience. But a sneeze and it's over experience like tron or mine train isn't good in my opinion.

Funny enough, EPCOT GR will often hear that Cosmic Rewind is a tad too long, especially for guests susceptible to motion sickness.

 

[erasure fan1]

Funny enough, EPCOT GR will often hear that Cosmic Rewind is a tad too long, especially for guests susceptible to motion sickness.

That's how I felt about body wars. But even if the ride was 45 seconds, I'd have still wanted to hurl. Lol

 

[celluloid]

Funny enough, EPCOT GR will often hear that Cosmic Rewind is a tad too long, especially for guests susceptible to motion sickness.

Pacing with dark ride scenes would have fixed that.

 

[Jrb1979]

Pacing with dark ride scenes would have fixed that.

It would have but also taken away from the thrill.

 

[erasure fan1]

Pacing with dark ride scenes would have fixed that.

Unfortunately I don't think anything would help it except a whole new ride system. It's in the dark, your car swivels sideways and backwards while trying to focus on stuff, while moving at a good clip. It's going to disorient people prone to getting motion sick. Personally I thought it was a perfect length. I couldn't ride it twice in a row, but once was fine.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

True, but you also would spend 45 minutes to an hour in the UoE building. It doesn’t usually take that long to go through Cosmic Rewind due to the VQ/ILL.

That's how long it took me to do CR with VQ, which is why I'm not keen on trying it again anytime soon.

 

[TheEPCOTHistorian]

Pacing with dark ride scenes would have fixed that.

Yeah but they cut the Dinos so early on that it wouldn’t have mattered. I think that plan might have even been pre-Infinite Universe.

Also, even utilizing DAS, I expect to spend 30-45 minutes on Cosmic Rewind each time I ride. I’d say the time spent in the pavilion is comparable, even though the ‘experience’ amounts to exponentially less of that time on Cosmic Rewind.

 

[SamusAranX]

Yeah but they cut the Dinos so early on that it wouldn’t have mattered. I think that plan might have even been pre-Infinite Universe.

Also, even utilizing DAS, I expect to spend 30-45 minutes on Cosmic Rewind each time I ride. I’d say the time spent in the pavilion is comparable, even though the ‘experience’ amounts to exponentially less of that time on Cosmic Rewind.

Wait, Dino’s? Were they part of the initial plan for Guardians?!

 

[TheEPCOTHistorian]

Wait, Dino’s? Were they part of the initial plan for Guardians?!

Yes, they were. I believe Tom Morris mentioned something in an interview with Entertainment Weekly along the lines of

‘We tried to save the Dinos as best we could, but no feasible solution presented itself’.

If you scroll back in the Guardians thread a couple years, you can probably find it. @marni1971 might have more precise info.

 

[celluloid]

Imagine designing an attraction that is based on a chase from the big bang to present and not finding a way to fit in any moment with Dinos.

 

[Mark Dunne]

I thought they were using it as Meet and Greet space? and a cartoon short festival is not an attraction...it is a placeholder....and also kind of a slap in the face to those if us who remember when that pavilion was amazing....

Your so right, what a shame area's like this aren't used in a better way, i do scratch my head sometimes when these areas don't seem to get the love that is much needed, they bought back S.O.Cali, just bring back H.I.S.T.A, i actually love what they've done to Epcot with the greenery ( would like a fountain though ) its nice to sit down in areas with trees and i like dreamers point, but please Disney give love to Imagination, maybe we should put to the board the amount of popcorn buckets they'd sell if they gave proper love to figment.