Volcano Bay

R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
I certainly understand your feelings about simulators and screen-based attractions, and I think after Fast and Furious opens Uni will act in a way that shows they are trying to address such concerns.

There is, however, a feeling seeming to coalesce among some on these boards that Uni has turned in the wrong direction while Disney has corrected course. I don't really agree with that for several reasons -

1) Kong, Fallon, and F&F could and should have all been better (although I really like Kong) - that said, they are (or will be, in the case of F&F) improvements over what they replaced
2) Pandora has as its major ride a simulator. And Star Wars Land, which looks awesome, also has a simulator as one of its two main rides.
3) Even had Kong, Fallon, and F&F never been built, Uni's rate of improvement would still be impressive: Hogsmeade in 2010, Diagon Alley in 2014, Harry Potter 3 likely in 2019, and Nintendo likely in 2020. In that same time period, WDW gave us NFL in 2014 (good, but because Disney insisted on closing Snow White and built on the long-time husk of 20,000, not that big an improvement), Pandora in 2017, Toy Story Land in 2018 (an area that looks so lackluster as to be insulting) and SWL in 2019. Of those lists, I feel Uni still wins - and as noted, their expansions have no simulators and (likely) 6 dark rides while Disney's have 2 simulators and 3 dark rides (and, depending on how you count, they removed between 1 and 3 dark rides to build them).

Again it all boils down to personal preference, but I just like to be IN a theme park, even if I don't do any rides - and right now, the most pleasing parks to simply be in are IoA, US, and AK. Epcot and MGM are actually kind of painful to be in.
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I think the problem at Universal isn't specifically simulators or screens, it's parking in front of those screens for an extended period of time (or being stationary in a theater). The three Potter attractions make heavy use of screens, but supplement them all with superb theming (though Gringotts could have done better with the roofline and such). While Pandora and the Star Wars attractions use screens, it's much different than something like Fallon or Kong, where you're seated in front of screens and it's obvious that you're in a theater. The Falcon attraction will be closer to Forbidden Journey than a typical simulator.

As far as Disney v Universal over the past decade: Universal Orlando blows WDW out of the water in that regard, absolutely. Even wtihout the simulators they've won that battle. As far as other things are concerned (entertainment, food, ease of use), I'll give those to Disney. Whether or not hardcore WDW fans appreciate all that MM+ did, most normal visitors give exceptionally high ratings to much of MM+'s offerings. Other than the food in Potterland, the food at Universal is trash. Even Mythos dissappoints now. :( Rivers of Light is Disney's weakest night offering (according to most), and it still beats anything Universal's ever done by a wide margin. If you combine everything, I'd say that I still prefer the stuff Disney's offering compared to just the new rides/lands that Universal's brought to the table- but that's personal preference. Volcano Bay tips that scale significantly towards Universal though. I'm beyond happy that Universal is kicking Disney into reacting, and I hope that VB brings some new offerings to Disney's water parks.

About the Simulators/screens. I know it's been analyzed to death but it was eye opening when I accompanied some Dutch friends of mine to the Studios last year. They were blown away by the first few rides (Minions, Shrek, Simpsons, MIB, Gringotts, Mummy). About halfway through the ride line up, they began saying "where are the rides without screens though." They were saying things like "okay I get it- turn left, screen, spray with water, accelerate around a turn, shake in front of another screen, blow wind, turn right quickly and spin, then another screen and you're done". By the time we got to Potter and Spiderman, they were calling it out on the ride, even yelling stuff like "hey no we're supposed to get sprayed there" and then clapping and laughing when they were sprayed two rooms later. When we mentioned going back over to the Studios to catch a last ride on Transformers (didn't do it earlier in the day), the entire group said "if it has screens then we don't need to". We did ET instead and they seemed quite satisfied. I know it's not exactly that case and there are plenty of exceptions, but it was funny to see them have that mindset after having never visited a Universal park before and coming out thinking that after a single day. Fast & Furious looks to be more of the same, I just hope they're serious about moving away from screens at some point. I'm not overly optimistic since I've had conversations with creative guys where they've ardently asserted that Universal is DONE WITH SCREENS (and that was right before Kong was announced, then they did Fallon and now Furious).
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
Everything I've heard about FoP indicates it's a "parked in front of screen" ride - if it integrates augmented reality, that makes it more interesting, but it's still a bit of screens on top of screens. As for the Falcon, my understanding was that you move in time with the screen rather than, as in FJ (which I'm not actually a fan of) moving from screen to screen to physical set - the effect, even though you are technically moving, is to be planted in front of a screen. From what I know (and that's a substantial caveat) Kong and F&F, with their multiple screens and (in Kong) big AA are less "parked in front of screen" then the Disney offerings. (Not defending F&F - I expect it to be an awful missed opportunity).

And I agree completely with you about entertainment - it's the one area where Disney clearly kicks Uni's butt and its a big deal. It should be Uni's priority #1. As for the nighttime show at US - I'm a sucker for film history and fireworks and projection shows don't thrill me, so I'd actually take it over any of WDW's nighttime offerings. Now, if one of the Disney parks had a nighttime parade, that would be different.

As to food, I like the food at AK a lot, but I also really enjoy Mythos (even acknowledging the decline), Finns, and even Lombards. I'd say those top the current offerings at MGM and MK, which are pretty dang bad. As to Epcot, the degree to which the food has been dumbed down and the prices raised means that I can't even begin to be a fair judge. In part, it's less that Disney is competing against Uni and more that Disney is competing against Disney 15 years ago - and modern Disney loses in a big way.

As to MM+ - being local, I can certainly see how it could work for you. I simply loathe it on every level - practical, political, philosophical, cultural, economic. It's a case of two opinions that are valid but so far apart that agreement is unlikely.
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Everything I've heard about FoP indicates it's a "parked in front of screen" ride - if it integrates augmented reality, that makes it more interesting, but it's still a bit of screens on top of screens. As for the Falcon, my understanding was that you move in time with the screen rather than, as in FJ (which I'm not actually a fan of) moving from screen to screen to physical set - the effect, even though you are technically moving, is to be planted in front of a screen. From what I know (and that's a substantial caveat) Kong and F&F, with their multiple screens and (in Kong) big AA are less "parked in front of screen" then the Disney offerings. (Not defending F&F - I expect it to be an awful missed opportunity).

And I agree completely with you about entertainment - it's the one area where Disney clearly kicks Uni's butt and its a big deal. It should be Uni's priority #1. As for the nighttime show at US - I'm a sucker for film history and fireworks and projection shows don't thrill me, so I'd actually take it over any of WDW's nighttime offerings. Now, if one of the Disney parks had a nighttime parade, that would be different.

As to food, I like the food at AK a lot, but I also really enjoy Mythos (even acknowledging the decline), Finns, and even Lombards. I'd say those top the current offerings at MGM and MK, which are pretty dang bad. As to Epcot, the degree to which the food has been dumbed down and the prices raised means that I can't even begin to be a fair judge. In part, it's less that Disney is competing against Uni and more that Disney is competing against Disney 15 years ago - and modern Disney loses in a big way.

As to MM+ - being local, I can certainly see how it could work for you. I simply loathe it on every level - practical, political, philosophical, cultural, economic. It's a case of two opinions that are valid but so far apart that agreement is unlikely.
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Don't get me wrong on MM+, I can totally relate to people who find it a PITA. We used to game Fastpass at Disneyland to the maximum allowed extent, which meant we usually held fastpasses for California Screamin, Soarin, Tower of Terror, Space Mountain, Indy, Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain all in a single day. And when they didn't use to enforce return times, that meant we could just wait until the last of those came due and have our own little e-ticket adventure with no queues for several hours. :) Still, for our current visiting patterns, MM+ is a godsend. Even when out of town friends/family/colleagues visit, they seem to appreciate MM+ especially when we are there to guide them through all of the red tape associated.

Disneyland's Fastpass works well for the 20% of hardcore people that exploit it. I think there's still a latent anger among WDW people that they can't hold 5 or 6 pastpasses for E-tickets anymore even through that was always deeply unfair for everyone else. For anyone arriving at the parks after 2PM on a busy day, it was all but useless. It's also useless to people who can't game it properly and end up with a single Dinosaur fastpass that comes due 8 hours away and don't get another in 2 hours. ;) All of that applies to DLR too, and I can see a similar bitterness when those people won't be allowed to game it much anymore after their maxpass stuff rolls out.

Still, I think the system benefits a lot more people now than the paper system did. Iger's said as much on multiple occasions stating that overall usage of the system is significantly higher than the old one. Then again, I just got done "educating" a family that had been at WDW for 4 days and asked how much my band costs to cut in line. They were totally clueless and kept saying "but our friends said it costs extra". I kept repeatedly explaining MM+ and Fastpass+ to them while waiting for Rivers of Light and after 10-15 minutes I sort of gave up on it. For people like that, no system is going to help them. :banghead:
 
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Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
rushtest4echo said:
Don't get me wrong on MM+, I can totally relate to people who find it a PITA. We used to game Fastpass at Disneyland to the maximum allowed extent, which meant we usually held fastpasses for California Screamin, Soarin, Tower of Terror, Space Mountain, Indy, Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain all in a single day. And when they didn't use to enforce return times, that meant we could just wait until the last of those came due and have our own little e-ticket adventure with no queues for several hours. :) Still, for our current visiting patterns, MM+ is a godsend. Even when out of town friends/family/colleagues visit, they seem to appreciate MM+ especially when we are there to guide them through all of the red tape associated.

Disneyland's Fastpass works well for the 20% of hardcore people that exploit it. I think there's still a latent anger among WDW people that they can't hold 5 or 6 pastpasses for E-tickets anymore even through that was always deeply unfair for everyone else. For anyone arriving at the parks after 2PM on a busy day, it was all but useless. It's also useless to people who can't game it properly and end up with a single Dinosaur fastpass that comes due 8 hours away and don't get another in 2 hours. ;) All of that applies to DLR too, and I can see a similar bitterness when those people won't be allowed to game it much anymore after their maxpass stuff rolls out.

Still, I think the system benefits a lot more people now than the paper system did. Iger's said as much on multiple occasions stating that overall usage of the system is significantly higher than the old one. Then again, I just got done "educating" a family that had been at WDW for 4 days and asked how much my band costs to cut in line. They were totally clueless and kept saying "but our friends said it costs extra". I kept repeatedly explaining MM+ and Fastpass+ to them while waiting for Rivers of Light and after 10-15 minutes I sort of gave up on it. For people like that, no system is going to help them. :banghead:
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Paper FP was better than MM+, but if I ran the universe both would be atop the trash heap of history and we'd all be standin' in line together.
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Paper FP was better than MM+, but if I ran the universe both would be atop the trash heap of history and we'd all be standin' in line together.
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Agreed, but it's better than the paid line jumping that goes on everywhere else (even Universal, yuck). At some parks (Universal Japan, Port Aventura, some of the Six Flags. the Merlin parks, the Tussauds parks), the operations or in park numbers are so bad that it's pretty much compulsory to pay them in order to ride most of the attractions in a reasonable amount of time. Then there's the other end of the spectrum like Europa Park or Carowinds where the rides are so well operated that alternate queues/paid line jumping is a silly proposition.
 
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Q

Quinnmac000

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Everything I've heard about FoP indicates it's a "parked in front of screen" ride - if it integrates augmented reality, that makes it more interesting, but it's still a bit of screens on top of screens. As for the Falcon, my understanding was that you move in time with the screen rather than, as in FJ (which I'm not actually a fan of) moving from screen to screen to physical set - the effect, even though you are technically moving, is to be planted in front of a screen. From what I know (and that's a substantial caveat) Kong and F&F, with their multiple screens and (in Kong) big AA are less "parked in front of screen" then the Disney offerings. (Not defending F&F - I expect it to be an awful missed opportunity).

And I agree completely with you about entertainment - it's the one area where Disney clearly kicks Uni's butt and its a big deal. It should be Uni's priority #1. As for the nighttime show at US - I'm a sucker for film history and fireworks and projection shows don't thrill me, so I'd actually take it over any of WDW's nighttime offerings. Now, if one of the Disney parks had a nighttime parade, that would be different.

As to food, I like the food at AK a lot, but I also really enjoy Mythos (even acknowledging the decline), Finns, and even Lombards. I'd say those top the current offerings at MGM and MK, which are pretty dang bad. As to Epcot, the degree to which the food has been dumbed down and the prices raised means that I can't even begin to be a fair judge. In part, it's less that Disney is competing against Uni and more that Disney is competing against Disney 15 years ago - and modern Disney loses in a big way.

As to MM+ - being local, I can certainly see how it could work for you. I simply loathe it on every level - practical, political, philosophical, cultural, economic. It's a case of two opinions that are valid but so far apart that agreement is unlikely.
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That issue is being fixed on Uni's side. You may not see it yet but they have been testing things out overseas on the show front. Bigger than some of what Disney has done.
 
Tom Morrow

Tom Morrow

Well-Known Member
Quinnmac000 said:
That issue is being fixed on Uni's side. You may not see it yet but they have been testing things out overseas on the show front. Bigger than some of what Disney has done.
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In terms of pyro, they literally can't do bigger than Disney due to being adjacent to residential areas. Are we talking about night time shows? In general though, Universal severely needs some quality live entertainment. Sinbad is a joke.
 
Q

Quinnmac000

Well-Known Member
Tom Morrow said:
In terms of pyro, they literally can't do bigger than Disney due to being adjacent to residential areas. Are we talking about night time shows? In general though, Universal severely needs some quality live entertainment. Sinbad is a joke.
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Mind you this was 100% In house Universal Creative just put on in japan.



While Volcano Bay can't get something on that level due to everything, I have a feeling the back story will come into play and you will see it played out before your eyes.
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
Quinnmac000 said:
Mind you this was 100% In house Universal Creative just put on in japan.



While Volcano Bay can't get something on that level due to everything, I have a feeling the back story will come into play and you will see it played out before your eyes.
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Saw that the other day. Looks pretty decent, though not really my cup o tea. I'd still put that beneath anything that Disney's done for night time entertainment probably world wide. Not trying to criticize, that is a well done show in Japan. My issues with Universal's entertainment has always been story telling, not effects. If we're just talking effects at Orlando though: Where are the lasers? Where is the low level pyro? Where are the decent fountains? They use those all, but they're some of the most disorganized weak usage I've ever seen. get that they can't do lots of aerials, so like DCA perhaps they should use water screens and fountains. They do that in the current show obviously, but it pales in scale and presentation to other night time water shows that aren't even Disney ones. They've got some of the world's best IP and the best they can manage is a review stage show or a theme montage using water or inflatable bubbles. :(

Lets hope they can bring a decent night show to Volcano Bay. No clip montages please. :)
 
Q

Quinnmac000

Well-Known Member
rushtest4echo said:
Saw that the other day. Looks pretty decent, though not really my cup o tea. I'd still put that beneath anything that Disney's done for night time entertainment probably world wide. Not trying to criticize, that is a well done show in Japan. My issues with Universal's entertainment has always been story telling, not effects. If we're just talking effects at Orlando though: Where are the lasers? Where is the low level pyro? Where are the decent fountains? They use those all, but they're some of the most disorganized weak usage I've ever seen. get that they can't do lots of aerials, so like DCA perhaps they should use water screens and fountains. They do that in the current show obviously, but it pales in scale and presentation to other night time water shows that aren't even Disney ones. They've got some of the world's best IP and the best they can manage is a review stage show or a theme montage using water or inflatable bubbles. :(

Lets hope they can bring a decent night show to Volcano Bay. No clip montages please. :)
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mm I would put it above because the building projections here way above the castle projections as its an actually flat surface and doesn't look wonky at all compared to most Disney projection shows. Also lets be real. Its not like any of the Disney castle shows actually tell a real story nor does fantasmic which is loosely ties things together. Its not like Illumination tells a story either.

As for water screens, I don't know why anyone is impressed with it anymore, its so overdone for the past 14 years that its really not even close to being impressive, I say that for Disney as well.

lastly, why would they bring clip montages to Volcano Bay. That makes no sense what so ever.
 
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Disney Analyst

Disney Analyst

Well-Known Member
ThatFloridaDude said:
How can the wesbite be reaching for it's own creation? lol
Even if it is a Lava show with some islanders screaming chants and all of that, who wouldn't want to stay an extra few minutes to check it out? It's better than "Okay Folks Go Home Volcano Bay is closed" and no effects or anything IMO.
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I get it, but it'll be as much of a show as Tree of Life Awakenings... This isn't World of Color. This is the volcano going boom. I feel Universal is being a bit disingenuous...
 

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