Volcano Bay: General Discussion

[epcyclopedia]

Tim Tracker's video is proof that you can have a great time at Volcano Bay as I did on opening weekend, and it doesn't only have to be because of early entry or post-afternoon showers. The word "disaster" is getting thrown around way too much here.

Also, almost everyone has been claiming that the big fail was that this park didn't soft open, but I'm trying to remember real-life examples of this happening. How does a brand new park soft open? Do they not charge full admission regardless of all attractions up-and-running or elements being show-ready? Wondering what the difference is or if the failure was in CALLING it a grand opening.

You torture the employees, contractors, and their families.

Epcot drove people around World Showcase using a parking lot tram for the scenic tour of dirt piles. You had to be invited to it though.

And when Epcot let the public in, World Showcase remained walled off because it wasn't done. Grand Opening occurred later and had the areas open to the public for about a month (future world) and a few days for World Showcase.

And look back to Avatar even. Day 1 and employees - only employees - are stuck in the first preshow for 10mins after the guy goes "uhh.. I'll be right back."

The general idea is to get to a point where CMs won't complain - and they do, mind you - then their families, then the "fans" and finally the general public.

Volcano Bay skipped at the levels of opening and went straight to the grand opening which was operationally a huge mistake.

And weirdly, it's still not done - not as in finished but as in being presentable. Exposed steel is... bizarre?

Epcot put up fake walls in World Showcase and locked the doors on shops that didn't have rear walls. Within 48 hours to make the deadline. A famous quote from the VP at the time is of him shouting "Green side up boys!" as the workers installed sod overnight in the dark.

The lack of an attempt to "fake it" to make it presentable is the most alarming.

All major theme parks have delays, but the Pirates don't eat the tourists - and they're not naked either.

 

[Alicia]

I guess the 200 lb limit is affecting wait times. Serpentine slides are Ride Now (if you're allowed to) and Body Plunge at 310 minutes. Normally these would even each other out. But now it's all on the 300 lb one to handle the load, so to speak.

 

[LieutLaww]

Good job I hadn't planned on going to VB in Oct when I am in Orlando, the adjusted weight limits would have limited my options some what.

 

[mimitchi33]

You torture the employees, contractors, and their families.

Epcot drove people around World Showcase using a parking lot tram for the scenic tour of dirt piles. You had to be invited to it though.

And when Epcot let the public in, World Showcase remained walled off because it wasn't done. Grand Opening occurred later and had the areas open to the public for about a month (future world) and a few days for World Showcase.

And look back to Avatar even. Day 1 and employees - only employees - are stuck in the first preshow for 10mins after the guy goes "uhh.. I'll be right back."

The general idea is to get to a point where CMs won't complain - and they do, mind you - then their families, then the "fans" and finally the general public.

Volcano Bay skipped at the levels of opening and went straight to the grand opening which was operationally a huge mistake.

And weirdly, it's still not done - not as in finished but as in being presentable. Exposed steel is... bizarre?

Epcot put up fake walls in World Showcase and locked the doors on shops that didn't have rear walls. Within 48 hours to make the deadline. A famous quote from the VP at the time is of him shouting "Green side up boys!" as the workers installed sod overnight in the dark.

The lack of an attempt to "fake it" to make it presentable is the most alarming.

All major theme parks have delays, but the Pirates don't eat the tourists - and they're not naked either.

Don't forget the Frozen Ever After opening day disaster, where the ride commonly broke down during the part with Marshmallow and the Snowgies because the mechanism failed. But that was more of the fault of the bad events that happened the days before (Pulse shooting and a kid being eaten by an alligator at the Grand Floridan) and them not testing them because they weren't in a very good mood to do so.

Yeah USF was way worse. One ride (ET) working with a 5 hour wait. Hanna-Barbera was up and down also with a 4 hours wait. Kong, Jaws, Earthquake didn't for weeks (or months). Exteriors still being painted. Angry people everywhere. (There's got to be some archived footage from the people yelling in front of Earthquake). And this wasn't even a quickly resolved issue... Kong didn't open for months, and Jaws eventually had to be shut down for years to be completely redesigned. If it wasn't for the successful opening of BTTF ride the following year people wondered if USF would even make it to year 3. Attendance was less than 50% of projections for the year (less than 3 million). So yeah, I'd say that was waaaay worse.

That's interesting. Where can I read more about this?

 

[OLSinFLA]

You torture the employees, contractors, and their families.

Epcot drove people around World Showcase using a parking lot tram for the scenic tour of dirt piles. You had to be invited to it though.

And when Epcot let the public in, World Showcase remained walled off because it wasn't done. Grand Opening occurred later and had the areas open to the public for about a month (future world) and a few days for World Showcase.

I was there on day one of Epcot "soft" (which was only 6 days prior to Oct 1). It wasn't announced they just opened the toll plaza and let guests go in (read by WOM). World Showcase was open. But only Mexico, World of Motion, and The Land were actually running (Energy tried...). Spaceship Earth actually ran for the first time one day prior to opening day. And it nearly killed 4 people when one of the cars unlocked on the descending part (which is why for the next year a man stood at the top and manually rotated and locked the cars). Large areas were still unlandscaped and the post-show at World of Motion was still walled off (but was finished by Oct 1). But the price was still full price. Of course, disney didn't invite the press until Oct 21 (and hinted strongly that negative reporting before then would cause them to be "disinvited"). Opening day was pretty much a Disneyland-type disaster (every ride broke down by 11am) and had a huge table set up to issue refunds. But by the time the press came, mostly everything was fixed (Energy being the exception).

 

[OLSinFLA]

There should be many videos and articles online about the USF opening disaster (and that really was).

 

[sonoma15]

Alright we get it, the opening wasn't planned out well, can we talk about the present state of the park now?

 

[adjjb]

 

[P@n!K_Sw1tC#]

Sure, let's talk about Volcano Bay in its current state. It's still not done, looks a lot like it did on opening day, and is showing no signs of future improvement on the immediate horizon. Maybe try asking that question in December before dismissing people based on their less than savory reactions to what is advertised as Universal's third theme park.

 

[sonoma15]

Sure, let's talk about Volcano Bay in its current state. It's still not done, looks a lot like it did on opening day, and is showing no signs of future improvement on the immediate horizon. Maybe try asking that question in December before dismissing people based on their less than savory reactions to what is advertised as Universal's third theme park.

What do you mean? Tons has changed since opening day, more taputapu effects, more areas opening, more details around the park, multiple new water and fog effects, more cabanas being finished, and taputapu is working way better now. You can't say nothing has changed when a bunch has changed and you can't say there is no signs of improvement in the future when there already has been large improvements.

 

[GadgetGuru]

I'm catching up on the thread, but I'm still really behind. What is Vol? Is it a fountain similar to the one in Lost Continent? Does it have anything to do with the rumored effects that the water coaster may/may not get?

 

[sonoma15]

I'm catching up on the thread, but I'm still really behind. What is Vol? Is it a fountain similar to the one in Lost Continent? Does it have anything to do with the rumored effects that the water coaster may/may not get?

I don't think anyone here still really knows what it's going to be like yet. I'm assuming it will be like the Mystic Fountain though.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

I'm catching up on the thread, but I'm still really behind. What is Vol? Is it a fountain similar to the one in Lost Continent? Does it have anything to do with the rumored effects that the water coaster may/may not get?

Vol sounds like somewhat of an indoor interactive portion of the Volcano within Volcano Bay.

 

[GadgetGuru]

I don't think anyone here still really knows what it's going to be like yet. I'm assuming it will be like the Mystic Fountain though.

Vol sounds like somewhat of an indoor interactive portion of the Volcano within Volcano Bay.

Awesome, appreciate it! It'll be interesting to see what it ends up being.

 

[Scott W.]

You torture the employees, contractors, and their families.

Epcot drove people around World Showcase using a parking lot tram for the scenic tour of dirt piles. You had to be invited to it though.

And when Epcot let the public in, World Showcase remained walled off because it wasn't done. Grand Opening occurred later and had the areas open to the public for about a month (future world) and a few days for World Showcase.

And look back to Avatar even. Day 1 and employees - only employees - are stuck in the first preshow for 10mins after the guy goes "uhh.. I'll be right back."

The general idea is to get to a point where CMs won't complain - and they do, mind you - then their families, then the "fans" and finally the general public.

Volcano Bay skipped at the levels of opening and went straight to the grand opening which was operationally a huge mistake.

And weirdly, it's still not done - not as in finished but as in being presentable. Exposed steel is... bizarre?

Epcot put up fake walls in World Showcase and locked the doors on shops that didn't have rear walls. Within 48 hours to make the deadline. A famous quote from the VP at the time is of him shouting "Green side up boys!" as the workers installed sod overnight in the dark.

The lack of an attempt to "fake it" to make it presentable is the most alarming.

All major theme parks have delays, but the Pirates don't eat the tourists - and they're not naked either.

I think they simply ran out of time and just had to jump in the deep end and hope for the best.

I'll be the first to admit that I had hope up until about a week before that everything would be mostly ready on time. Weirdly, a lot of the stuff I thought wasn't ready, looked fine from inside the park and a lot of the stuff that looked horrible inside the park was a bit of a shock.

It seems like they're getting there but the biggest issue I still see is looking up the volcano on the lazy river. I feel like 'exposed steel' is becoming the 'screenz' of Volcano bay but it something that drastically needs addressed.

 

[darkridelover]

I think they simply ran out of time and just had to jump in the deep end and hope for the best.

I'll be the first to admit that I had hope up until about a week before that everything would be mostly ready on time. Weirdly, a lot of the stuff I thought wasn't ready, looked fine from inside the park and a lot of the stuff that looked horrible inside the park was a bit of a shock.

It seems like they're getting there but the biggest issue I still see is looking up the volcano on the lazy river. I feel like 'exposed steel' is becoming the 'screenz' of Volcano bay but it something that drastically needs addressed.

Aside from the few stair supports that we know will be covered, what else are you talking about? Slide supports? We knew all along you would be able to see them. I don't find anything wrong with seeing slide supports. It's like saying a roller coaster looks terrible because you can see the supports. I don't understand the objection.

 

[WAJAS]

Aside from the few stair supports that we know will be covered, what else are you talking about? Slide supports? We knew all along you would be able to see them. I don't find anything wrong with seeing slide supports. It's like saying a roller coaster looks terrible because you can see the supports. I don't understand the objection.

There's some areas where the amount of steel visible is simply jarring. This is especially true in the part the fearless river that's in the Volcano.

 

[wreck]

There's some areas where the amount of steel visible is simply jarring. This is especially true in a part the former earless river that's in the Volcano.

I didn't think it was jarring as you call it I thought it was fine. I liked seeing the slides as the twist and turn their way down and seeing the coaster made me want to ride it all the more. How can you call it former fearless The video that Tim tracker made the other day looks to be the same fearless river as when I went 3 weeks ago and it was plenty fast and wavy was something amiss the last few weeks

 

[Frank Drackman]

Still kills me...the apparent capacity of ohno and ohya that is.

 

[WAJAS]

I didn't think it was jarring as you call it I thought it was fine. I liked seeing the slides as the twist and turn their way down and seeing the coaster made me want to ride it all the more. How can you call it former fearless The video that Tim tracker made the other day looks to be the same fearless river as when I went 3 weeks ago and it was plenty fast and wavy was something amiss the last few weeks

That last part eat was autocorrect. It was supposed to be fearless. My b lol