Volcano Bay

[flynnibus]

I know that wasn't directed at me as I didn't state anything as fact. Just my experience. If it was directed at me, guess we should call you the King of comprehension failure.

Oh it's 100% you. You refuse to accept things simply because in your limited exposure and experience you've not seen it.. and apparently can't understand why it would happen in any other time. Yes, the King of Anecdotal references. It's the forming of beliefs based only on what YOU have seen while ignoring the rest of the world is the comical part.. and hence the label.

 

[captainkidd]

Oh it's 100% you. You refuse to accept things simply because in your limited exposure and experience you've not seen it.. and apparently can't understand why it would happen in any other time. Yes, the King of Anecdotal references. It's the forming of beliefs based only on what YOU have seen while ignoring the rest of the world is the comical part.. and hence the label.

I don't refuse to accept anything. Again, just going by my experience. Of course it could happen other times. I'm by no means a huge water park goer. I've been to Disney's parks maybe a dozen times, tops. In those times, I've never experienced a slide breakdown. That's all I said. My "beliefs", as you call them, are that Universal should have forseen the issues they are having at VB. I may be a huge theme park fan, but I don't know squat about what it takes to run a park, yet the exact problems they've been having with TapuTapu I predicted from the 1st day they announced it. For that, I'm not going to give them a "teething" free pass. As for my "limited exposure", talk about talking about things you know nothing about. I've been an AP holder at both resorts for many years and have quite likely spent more time at the parks than you.

As for you, eh, I don't expect much more. I've been on these boards as long as you. I usually just ignore you as you always seem to have a stick up your backside with anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with you. Sorry, but I got better things to do with my time. And like I said, the whole Disney message board bully thing....

 

[JoeCamel]

I don't refuse to accept anything. Again, just going by my experience. Of course it could happen other times. I'm by no means a huge water park goer. I've been to Disney's parks maybe a dozen times, tops. In those times, I've never experienced a slide breakdown. That's all I said. My "beliefs", as you call them, are that Universal should have forseen the issues they are having at VB. I may be a huge theme park fan, but I don't know squat about what it takes to run a park, yet the exact problems they've been having with TapuTapu I predicted from the 1st day they announced it. For that, I'm not going to give them a "teething" free pass. As for my "limited exposure", talk about talking about things you know nothing about. I've been an AP holder at both resorts for many years and have quite likely spent more time at the parks than you.

As for you, eh, I don't expect much more. I've been on these boards as long as you. I usually just ignore you as you always seem to have a stick up your backside with anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with you. Sorry, but I got better things to do with my time. And like I said, the whole Disney message board bully thing....

So you have not been yet and you are bashing the experience>>??? yeah sure your have a ton of credibility on all the boards you post your rants on.

 

[captainkidd]

So you have not been yet and you are bashing the experience>>??? yeah sure your have a ton of credibility on all the boards you post your rants on.

Who's ranting? Many of the people "bashing" haven't been yet. I don't post because I'm concerned about credibility. It's the internet.

 

[captainkidd]

Do you read what you type before you hit send?
Do you know why he calls you the king of anecdotal facts? You just did it in that post.
I've never been at BB when summit plummet was broken but I know it breaks all the damned time and went out for months last year.
Do you not see the irony and hypocrisy in your posts? You talk all this noise about only having opinions about what you experience (anecdotal) yet proceed to have bold opinions about a park you've never experienced.
You're kind of a joke, really.

Ridiculous post. If you're going to police everyone on these boards for giving their opinion on something they haven't experienced yet, you're going to be a pretty busy beaver. I think some people honestly lose the idea that these are discussion forums, not review sites.

 

[Eckert]

FWIW, today was an excellent day at Volcano Bay. Light rain and lightning came in around 2 for about an hour, clearing the park and leaving it basically empty. Rides came back up with rather high wait times, but TMs at the front of the rides were waiving a lot of return times and just letting people get in the empty lines. You could ride everything twice before park close.

Found this really nice picture on instagram of the sunset at 8:

 

[captainkidd]

Good to read a positive review. Nice picture. Really hope they're on to something getting waits under control. From a theming perspective, the park holds more appeal for me than any other water park.

 

[flynnibus]

I hate it when acronyms come to life... SMDH

 

[rushtest4echo]

Might have been good for you... but that would suggest it's not so good for the park itself

Lines were lengthy for much of the day, as in 30-40 minutes for the biggest slides including the hydro magnetic around lunchtime. Which is typical for even the big/most visited parks. Still, we rode the Master Blaster at Typhoon Lagoon with a 10-15 minute wait to our hearts content during opening season too.

Of course, their throughput is double to triple that of Volcano Bay's offering because Disney sort of figured out that single lane slides (other than a drop slide) are suicide for capacity at parks of this size. Parks with 1/2 or 1/3 of the attendance have two or three or four lane water coasters for that exact reason. I'm still in disbelief that their signature slide had the capability to be two or three times the throughput and yet they felt comfortable to have "no queues" and selected a slide with such pitiful capacity compared to the available options for that model of slide. Inexcusable. We jump down Disney's throat for SDMT being low throughput and it's about the 10-15th best ride in that park. Universal's very best attraction at their "innovative" "theme" park can't accommodate the overwhelming majority of daily visitors yet that seems to be fine for some people (it's painfully obvious who's drinking the Uni kool-aid on this).

Loving the 'new slide tech' angle being peddled. Nothing of the sort is present at VB. No new blocking/sensors or conveyors or slide types (except for newly stacked elements I guess). Each have been standard in industry (including all over Orlando) for decades. These aren't 'growing pains with new tech', they're 'we didn't adequately test/adjust anything and we couldn't do so because nothing was finished'. The same thing Frozen and RoL were/are savaged for early on (despite much of those attractions actually showcasing new tech that wasn't ready for primetime). Still, they were rightfully roasted for not being 100 percent on opening day.

The obvious double standards regarding VB's offerings and readiness demonstrate to me that even the Uni superfans simply must have lower expectations in comparison to similar Disney ilk. 'Give it time' rarely flies for Disney nor should it. And if we hold Uni to those standards, then the people who constantly whine about Disney's shortcomings (plenty present right on this thread) need a reality check. I guess even those people just set the bar lower for Uni.

 

[rushtest4echo]

If you think this is bad, read up on the botched opening of Universal Studios Florida. Somehow it's still in operation 27 years later.

What a massively low bar for comparison. The worst most botched opening ever, literally hundreds of thousands of vacations ruined and we're congratulating them for not being that terrible? Again, I really thought VB and Uni at large deserve more credit than that. But like I've said before- it's obvious who got it right in Orlando this year and it's not Universal. But your comparison to Uni Orlandos horrible first year reminds me that Universal should have known better having already done garbage like this before.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Pardon my ignorance, but how can slides at a water park have so much downtime? What is going wrong? I don't think of these as I do some of the complex ride systems that sometimes suffer downtime issues...ie: Test Track or Escape from Gringotts

Okay, so I'll agree that capacity issues are part of the problem.....but and its a big but. We can't sit here and act like they shouldn't have expected these capacity issues. Wet n wild was #4 most visited park in the country.
In this day and age, trust me Universal is using analytics. They knew exactly the amount of people that would come to this park....They also knew exactly how Tapu, Tapu would handle the volume. Also, don't tell me about inexperienced ride ops slowing things down either especially two weeks into it. I also don't want to hear that they had no back up plan. They had to know this was going to happen. This is not Universals first time opening up a park. If you think this whole situation wasn't intentionally done, then you are choosing to be naive about this. This is why they are fast tracking additional slides before the park even opened up.. This was the plan all along. Multi billion dollar organizations don't fall into chaos like this by accident. They plan chaos.

There is also a fix for this whole problem.....wait for it....Reduce capacity!!!! Universal will never do that. They would rather you wait around and spend more money on drinks and food... And this was the intended master plan all along!
I read a thread this morning how someone said things were improving. He got to ride 7 whole slides the other day.
It is amazing how people are willing to put the blinders on for Universal.

Yes, Universal ran the analytics. And they expected the capacity they let in. The park has the carrying capacity to handle it. With the park's theoretical real life capacity (not max capacity), on a capacity day, between 11a and 4 pm, the 4 main slides should hover around 120 mins with everything else between 45-60 mins. Before 11am and after 4pm, there should be some ride now available. The guys from Accesso are in the park everyday running the numbers, but they say they can't really do a whole lot until the park is up to speed. Universal has reduced how many people they are letting in, and Accesso is making some tweaks, but some are temporary. They want to bring back the one plus one option.

The problem was letting capacity crowds into a high tech park that was, and still is, an active construction zone. The park clearly wasn't ready and the staff clearly weren't ready. The spectacular train wreck that happened was predictable and laughable. And reeks of amateur hour. You would have thought that Universal would have learned their lesson with the opening of Sapphire Falls.

If they had finished construction and had a month of soft opens prior to grand opening, this story would be a lot different. But that didn't happen and here we are. It was an incredibly bone headed move.

As far as downtimes, there have been a plethora of issues with sensors shutting down the system being #1. Conveyor belt issues being a close #2. For some reason, the mat racer conveyor belt eats a mat about twice a day shutting down the entire ride for about 45 mins each time. Lightening struck an offsite substation and fried part of the power supply to one of the main pump houses shutting down 2 of the slide towers for an afternoon and most of the next morning. That same storm took out over 50 air conditioning units at my apartment complex.

Aside from the slides, they had a major issue with Tapu Tapu at the main restaurant the first week.

The ride ops are in fact getting better, and downtimes are being reduced, but some days are better than others. Last Friday was really bad. Every slide went down at least once. And there were certain points during the day where as many as 3 slides were down at a time.

The rhetoric and hyperbole here is ridiculous. Not one "wandwaver" here has said Uni didn't screw up spectactualerly with this grand opening. But this whole push here that the park, as a whole, is a monumental failure is, in my opinion, ludacris.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

There is NO rhetoric and NO hyperbole being thrown about. Just disbelief that Universal would willingly walk into a nightmare at the customers expense and that's inexcusable. Hi-tech parks and regular parks are always going to have logistic issues on day #1 and day #15,000 whether its technology, weather, or whatever. Pick your poison.

Most of the issues you mentioned above sound more like excuses. In operations of this magnitude, the bad days where things breakdown will always outnumber smooth running days. The fact is with the amount of rides that they have and the # of customers being let into the park today, they are still threading an extremely thin margin of operations success or failure.
Even with the continued improvement in logistics and operations they will reach a point where all of the improvements that can be made will no longer improve line wait and guest satisfaction. The solution is more rides or less capacity.

You mentioned that they have their good and bad days. Guess what? Their good days where their theme park issues are few, can not be considered acceptable from an operations and customer satisfaction level. In context they are just an improvement from the bad days which can be considered nightmarish. As it stands now this park is not ready for prime time, even with its lowered capacity.

If you want to call it rhetoric or hyperbole to discredit honest concern and complaints, then go for it. With that being said you always wave the Universal flag pretty hard and I don't have a problem with that. Universal is pretty awesome, but I also don't believe other peoples opinions should be discredited either.

I believe this place will be amazing in a few years when additional rides are added. I do not consider this place to be a monumental failure. The failure here isn't in the physical structure of the actual theme park but in the expectations of administration and management. Imo this parks capacity issue is not ready to meet the fiscal expectations that management has set.

Not everyone here is prone to hyperbole. And there is PLENTY of real problems worthy of debate. And there is some insightful debate going on here. There is also a lot of over the top misinformed, misdiagnosed, or otherwise silly stuff being said. (Oddly enough, the hyperbole is even worse over at that Universal site. They are having a real meltdown over there)

As to the capacity issues, I believe the capacity of the park is fine, but ops, tech services, and maintenance are utterly and completely overwhelmed because of the situation "the suits" put them in. The park was designed to handle a capacity day. And it will....eventually, even without adding additional capacity. But they aren't even close now. And that is the problem and where the anger should be directed. It is mind boggling to me that Universal would take the time and spend the money to build what will be and should have been at opening such a beautiful and classy park only to shoot themselves in the foot right out of the starting gate. It's not making excuses. It is what it is. No one is saying it's not bad right now. And I think the folks going right now and having a bad experience have every right to be mad.

I know they are moving ahead with an expansion immediately, but I guarentee you it's so they can let more people in, it's not to make the lines shorter.

 

[djdan888]

I feel all of this could have been resolved with a month of AP testing and "free" soft openings to regular guests. To ram and cram it all in just to be open Memorial Day or to beat Pandora was silliness. That park should probably still not be open yet today.

 

[mergatroid]

Apologies in advance for this post as I know I'm not in charge of this site (I live with my wife and my dog and I'm only 3rd on the ladder there too ), but I think I should say this anyway.

Maybe it's just my perception, but it appears over the last few days we've had some posts that have appeared a little bit personal or a tad over the top. I'm not suggesting for one second that we shouldn't post our views and opinions or quote individuals who we don't agree with, far from it in fact. Some great debates can be had between people with opposing views and we often learn things from these posts so that's all good. There have been some posts though that read as though they are going just beyond being a difference of opinion and more leaning to that of being a bit rude or insulting.

I don't feel any have been over the top towards me, but some I've read between others have felt a bit aggressive. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that maybe when we quote others we perhaps take a second to think before posting and if we're insulting the other person, perhaps we could edit it out. When what we say is taken out of context or criticised it's understandable to feel a bit frustrated especially if a different opinion is completely opposite to our own, however if we stay polite I believe it works a lot better.

Personally I'd be happy to spend a day at VB with any of you, even those who have different ideas to myself. I wouldn't fall out with somebody over their views on a water park, there's more important things in life to get upset over. For my part, if my posts have upset anyone I sincerely apologise as that wasn't my intention. This is a great sub forum and it would be a shame to see it tarnished by name calling, I'm sure none of us want that especially in this tight little unit.

So it's hugs and kisses all around from me and if I ever meet any of you in the park, I'll even let you buy me lunch (whilst we're waiting 4 hours for a water slide )

 

[JT3000]

What a massively low bar for comparison. The worst most botched opening ever, literally hundreds of thousands of vacations ruined and we're congratulating them for not being that terrible? Again, I really thought VB and Uni at large deserve more credit than that. But like I've said before- it's obvious who got it right in Orlando this year and it's not Universal. But your comparison to Uni Orlandos horrible first year reminds me that Universal should have known better having already done garbage like this before.

I hope you aren't evoking the name of a certain planet inhabited by giant blue people, because if you want stories of capacity issues, I've got 'em. Except they're actually based on firsthand experience instead of TripAdvisor (there's a novel idea.)

I feel all of this could have been resolved with a month of AP testing and "free" soft openings to regular guests. To ram and cram it all in just to be open Memorial Day or to beat Pandora was silliness. That park should probably still not be open yet today.

It could have used testing, but no one is going to let you into their park for free, whether it's running at 100% or not. These suggestions of altering admission are some of the most absurd, because you already know it's not happening.

 

[mergatroid]

I would hang out at the park with you as well.
No offense, but I would pass on the hugs and especially the kisses if okay with you. LOL

I'm a great kisser but hey, your loss

 

[mergatroid]

As an aside can anyone answer me this about tapu, tapu. Mrs Merg doesn't do water slides but rather reads in the shade at water parks whilst I do water based activities. When we eventually visit VB, could I use her wrist band to enter a slide or would the computer 'read' it's for a female and the staff then stop me using it?

 

[captainkidd]

Apologies in advance for this post as I know I'm not in charge of this site (I live with my wife and my dog and I'm only 3rd on the ladder there too ), but I think I should say this anyway.

Maybe it's just my perception, but it appears over the last few days we've had some posts that have appeared a little bit personal or a tad over the top. I'm not suggesting for one second that we shouldn't post our views and opinions or quote individuals who we don't agree with, far from it in fact. Some great debates can be had between people with opposing views and we often learn things from these posts so that's all good. There have been some posts though that read as though they are going just beyond being a difference of opinion and more leaning to that of being a bit rude or insulting.

I don't feel any have been over the top towards me, but some I've read between others have felt a bit aggressive. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that maybe when we quote others we perhaps take a second to think before posting and if we're insulting the other person, perhaps we could edit it out. When what we say is taken out of context or criticised it's understandable to feel a bit frustrated especially if a different opinion is completely opposite to our own, however if we stay polite I believe it works a lot better.

Personally I'd be happy to spend a day at VB with any of you, even those who have different ideas to myself. I wouldn't fall out with somebody over their views on a water park, there's more important things in life to get upset over. For my part, if my posts have upset anyone I sincerely apologise as that wasn't my intention. This is a great sub forum and it would be a shame to see it tarnished by name calling, I'm sure none of us want that especially in this tight little unit.

So it's hugs and kisses all around from me and if I ever meet any of you in the park, I'll even let you buy me lunch (whilst we're waiting 4 hours for a water slide )

Unfortunately, that's wishful thinking my friend. I couldn't agree more, but it's the world we live in.

 

[JoeCamel]

Unfortunately, that's wishful thinking my friend. I couldn't agree more, but it's the world we live in.

You make the world you live in

 

[cheezbat]

As an aside can anyone answer me this about tapu, tapu. Mrs Merg doesn't do water slides but rather reads in the shade at water parks whilst I do water based activities. When we eventually visit VB, could I use her wrist band to enter a slide or would the computer 'read' it's for a female and the staff then stop me using it?

Each Tapu Tapu has the persons name on it. If your name is Bob and hers is Mary they'll let you pass on Bob...but when you come back as Mary you're sure to get a weird look...when you enter a queue they welcome you by name as you scan your Tapu.

You should try it. Let us know how the team member reacts!