Cardinals314 wrote:I think it's really funny that SeaWorld has been bragging about their trackless Antarctica ride and how its one of the first attractions to ever use it while Mystic Manor and even Winnie the Pooh's Honey Hunt have been using the same technology.
...and Aquatopia (DisneySea), and the upcoming Ratatouille attraction at Disneyland Paris...
Maybe one of the first in the US? Certainly not the first overall. Still, why let facts get in the way of a good marketing line?
The trackless rides are very impressive. Both from a technical and fun point of view. The fact that you have no indication of where you're going next (other than the tyre marks on the floor going off in multiple directions) and that each time you ride you could go a completely different way through the same scene of the ride adds a whole new level of fun to the attractions. The Heffalumps and Woozles scene in Pooh's Hunny Hunt in particular was very impressive (There's up to nine guest vehicles in the room, and one vehicle which has heffalumps and woozles in it - all moving around the room doing different things)
Amy wrote:Wizzard419 wrote:As for the higher speed track-less cars... I wonder if there is some safety regulation that is keeping them out of the country? I don't think Disney owns the tech, so you would have expected someone to use them by now.
I might have to do some digging about whether there is something keeping those out of the US. I think it is mostly $$$$ though. It made TDL's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh so cool though!
Wizzard419 wrote:It might also be the money, but it seems odd since they spent the money on tech to make it possible to have cars race each other in RSR. They have done trackless, unmanned cars before (Universe of Energy and ToT) but they move so slow and there is no potential for collision.
I doubt the reason they've not added them to the US parks is related to the speed they go. There's sensors around the bases of the vehicles that I'm fairly certain are there to stop the vehicle if it gets too close to something. Part of me thinks it's probably more to do with those vehicles being a lot more expensive to create than their track-using counterparts.
That having been said, though, how many totally new dark rides have been built in the US parks in the last ten years? Little Mermaid is the only one that springs to mind, and they decided to use the omnimover system for that (presumably because it has higher capacity due to the whole continuous loading thing, but it could also be related to the fact that the Little Mermaid ride was originally designed for Disneyland Paris in the early 90s*).
Andy.
* It amuses me that they never mentioned that it was originally designed to open in Disneyland Paris in 2004, and most people forgot all about it. See
this video from the Euro Disney Grand Opening TV special. (The US hosts of the show sound almost bored compared to the UK ones (which is the only version of the show I've seen all the way through, but that's the only video I could find quickly on youtube
)) It does show on there that the guests would ride in something similar to the Peter Pan's Flight vehicles, though. The Little Mermaid DVD that was released a few years ago actually has a virtual ride-through of the ride as it would have been if it were built -
here's a youtube link for that. I've not seen the ride at DL/WDW, so I've no idea how close it actually is to the original designs from back then. It could be completely different. Anyway, I've drifted somewhat off topic now
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