I just skimmed through the first three pages of this thread, so if I missed any of these points, I apologize.
First, NBC-Unviersal has ALREADY sold off its Port Aventura theme park in Spain. The park still maintains the name (and I imagine gets royalties from it), but NBC-Universal no longer has a stake in the park in Spain.
Also, of interest and possible indication of NBC's plans for future parks is the sudden halt of any plans to build a park in Shanghai that Viviendi-Universal had previously announced. Since then, all members of Universal Creative working on that project were either laid off or moved to work on something else.
The interest of parent company GE in the theme parks has always been questioned, although recent trends in the market have been very promosing as people literally flock to Orlando to visit WDW and UO. Will this be enough to keep cost-conscious GE interested in the park? Don't know.
As for the Jeep ride in IOA...it seems like one of those rumors similar to that of Beastly Kingdom at AK. Not saying it isn't going to happen, but I'm not betting anything on it. Afterall, this is the same company who, based soleley on RUMORS, stopped the Universal Creative team from finsihing preliminary work on a Van Helsing attraction (BEFORE the movie underperformed) because of increasing steel costs. How much truth there is to that I have absolutley NO idea and again I'm not betting anything on the validity of that, but, if true, the reality of rising cost of steel isn't stopping Disney down the road from building a 200 foot mountain of steel at AK, a huge show building at Epcot, and a large stadium at MGM. Either way, IOA needs something. Its been about 5 years and the only thing new was the Unicorn coaster and the X-Men tea-cup type ride.
