Pandora: The World of Avatar Announcement, Construction, & Preview Discussion

[bob albert]

Early talk is good because It makes it more likely that some friends will be able to see this in the spring not far off April 1st. I imagine given he international draw at Disney and lack of guaranteed new attractions to boost numbers, early on in softs would be a good time to visit.

 

[twebber55]

a permit for the trailers to be taken down has been filed so it does look like the beginning of the end

 

[SkiBum]

Question that is probably too early to guess at. Will Flight of Passage and NRJ be considered "A" range FP+, meaning that you can only reserve one per day (similar to how EPCOT treats Soarin and Test Track)? I don't want to derail the thread but wondered if Disney would do the same thing here. I would imagine that this area will be packed, especially given the lack of other new rides in other WDW parks and the sheer scale of the land.

 

[Nick]

Question that is probably too early to guess at. Will Flight of Passage and NRJ be considered "A" range FP+, meaning that you can only reserve one per day (similar to how EPCOT treats Soarin and Test Track)? I don't want to derail the thread but wondered if Disney would do the same thing here. I would imagine that this area will be packed, especially given the lack of other new rides in other WDW parks and the sheer scale of the land.

DAK, even without these 2 new rides, doesn't have tiered FP+ options. Adding new attractions only helps capacity so I see no reason why a tiered system would need to be put in place after this addition when it isn't there in the park's current state.

 

[UNIrd]

Epcot really needs to fix that. It's the least enjoyable park for me right now BECAUSE you can only get 1 decent FP and then a bunch of filler. I love walking into DHS and knocking out Tower, RNRC, and Star Tours 2 and then.. you know.. a bonus FP for the bench ride.

 

[Nick]

Epcot really needs to fix that. It's the least enjoyable park for me right now BECAUSE you can only get 1 decent FP and then a bunch of filler. I love walking into DHS and knocking out Tower, RNRC, and Star Tours 2 and then.. you know.. a bonus FP for the bench ride.

The thing is though, DHS still has tiers... it just has less rides. So what you're doing is picking RNRC from Tier 1 and ToT and ST from Tier 2. Then you can get extra FP+ from there. The park only has 5 rides though.

The difference at Epcot is Future World itself has 8(?) rides and then 2 in WS. A few other things have FP+ too, but when you have that much and you're still tiered, you can't fix it until the system goes away with the tiers.

Right now Frozen, TT and Soarin are ALL Tier 1... and you can only pick one of those. Logic says pick Frozen bc the lines are longest, capacity is the smallest, Test Track has a single rider line and Soarin' is around 40 mins tops with the 3 theatres (besides these busiest 2 weeks of the year). So then for Tier 2 you're left with a bunch of extra stuff that normally doesn't need a FP. You'll probably pick SSE and whatever your remaining favorite is.

So yes, the Epcot system is broken and the only way to fix it is to EXPAND the park, not continually replacing as that adds no capacity.

 

[Mad Dog]

My bet is that they go to Tiers at AK once Pandora opens. Otherwise, just about everyone will use two of their three initial fast passes for Pandora.

 

[Nick]

My bet is that they go to Tiers at AK once Pandora opens. Otherwise, just about everyone will use two of their three initial fast passes for Pandora.

The one thing that DAK has going for it is that pretty much all of it's rides are incredibly high capacity though (save for Dino-Rama crap).

I'm not sure what NRJ will be, but Flight of Passage is sure to be a large capacity with 4 theatres. This is obviously a custom model of the ride system, but the off the shelf version of the FOP system says it can hold 90 per theater (so 360 at a time). If they fill each to capacity and run at roughly 7 minute intervals (Assuming 5 minute ride time and 2 minutes to get the new group in/ready) they're looking at somewhere around 2,700/hour. If it is 6 minutes, they could theoretically increase to 3,600/hour (which is probably overshooting it).

Even at 2,700 per hour, assuming the park does a 13 hour day of 9a-10p, 35,100 would theoretically be able to ride FOP in those 13 hours. DAK doesn't even see those types of numbers on a daily basis right now so a capacity like that and expanded hours would do wonders for capacity and guest satisfaction.

Back to your point though, I guess I could see them instituting tiers. It certainly wouldn't be the end of the world for me at DAK as most of the rides there tend to have low wait times anyway.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Avatar will do wonders for the park. Most people flock to the east side of the park to ride Everest/Dino first. With Avatar, it would allow people to split to the east first now.

Does anybody know if the passage way from Africa to Pandora is still a thing?

 

[twebber55]

Avatar will do wonders for the park. Most people flock to the east side of the park to ride Everest/Dino first. With Avatar, it would allow people to split to the east first now.

Does anybody know if the passage way from Africa to Pandora is still a thing?

yes

 

[rioriz]

The bigger thing to me is they still have to put the sidewalks/pathways in and last I checked, they were no ordinary sidewalks. Also, are the bio-luminescent plants still coming to the land because I don't think i've seen much in the way of that stuff yet.

Actually a good portion of the land is paved already. The floor is to look like dirt and from the ariel shots that's what is looks like. The front half and the Africa side is almost all paved.

The bioluminescent will mostly be held within the queue of NRJ, some in FoP, and some in walkways around the water features and Africa side. Outside plants have begun to be implemented already.

Just like NFL, progress will ramp and wrap up quickly once the new year arrives.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

All, yes I'm joking with Disneyhead (the beer bet is still on though) it's important to note that nothing is official so please do not expect this to open anytime other than "summer 2017".

 

[JonsMovies]

The Disney Parks Xmas Special just aired on ABC and there was a fair amount of new footage shown in the Pandora preview. I think this was filmed when Cameron was in the parks a few weeks ago. Someone I'm sure will post the video soon, but they showed glimpses of both ride systems, water flowing from the mountains and more.

 

[Nick]

The Disney Parks Xmas Special just aired on ABC and there was a fair amount of new footage shown in the Pandora preview. I think this was filmed when Cameron was in the parks a few weeks ago. Someone I'm sure will post the video soon, but they showed glimpses of both ride systems, water flowing from the mountains and more.

This was the segment they showed during the Christmas thing:

 

[epcyclopedia]

Everyone is going to pile on me for saying it, but nothing in that preview really impressed me all that much.

The plants and such were.. ok. None of them struck me as amazing photo-op worthy things, though they strangely enough acted as if the little bits of decor were.

Like anyone is going to want there photo in front of what looks like a rotting ball of kelp on a stick. The boat ride looked.. a lot less luminous than I expected, even with lowered expectations from the concept art. Instead of the light coming from the scenery it was just all sort of cast in blue and purple washes. That struck me as an odd choice, but maybe it photographs very poorly and the lights were all the way up.

Absolutely nothing about the simulator looked interesting. I have a high suspicion it's going to be about as industrial as Soarin or Mission: Space on the inside and that's disappointing.

 

[WAJAS]

Everyone is going to pile on me for saying it, but nothing in that preview really impressed me all that much.

The plants and such were.. ok. None of them struck me as amazing photo-op worthy things, though they strangely enough acted as if the little bits of decor were.

Like anyone is going to want there photo in front of what looks like a rotting ball of kelp on a stick. The boat ride looked.. a lot less luminous than I expected, even with lowered expectations from the concept art. Instead of the light coming from the scenery it was just all sort of cast in blue and purple washes. That struck me as an odd choice, but maybe it photographs very poorly and the lights were all the way up.

Absolutely nothing about the simulator looked interesting. I have a high suspicion it's going to be about as industrial as Soarin or Mission: Space on the inside and that's disappointing.

Gonna have to agree with you. While the rock work and floating mountains are amazing, not much else seems the same at the moment. I'm hoping it really comes alive during the nighttime.

 

[Disneyhead]

This looks a little like Shanghai's Pirates.

The black light stuff looks more like someone slipped acid in your food than Avatar's bioluminescent plants.

Oh, and SCREENZ!

 

[WAJAS]

In all honesty though, the plant life is going to look weird during the daytime. I don't know if I like it. Maybe it'll grow on me.

 

[brianlo]

Absolutely nothing about the simulator looked interesting. I have a high suspicion it's going to be about as industrial as Soarin or Mission: Space on the inside and that's disappointing.

To be fair, the vantage point was looking the wrong way. Like looking at Space Mountain from off the ride vehicle with the lights on. It was cool to see just to understand how it might work, but very misrepresentative of the guest experience. The ride mechanics will be shielded when all is said and done, unlike Soarin'.

 

[epcyclopedia]

Are you sure they will be? That was the assumption for Mission: Space and now that it's not hidden nor any attempt has been made it's not even questioned anymore. (It was at the time the ride opened - heavily.)