Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>She wasn't keen on HP product being sold in the mart stores like Emporium and World of Disney though - that was a tough sell to P&R management.<< That makes sense. When the land at Universal opened, they only sold the merchandise in the land. Although most of it is still unique, there are some items that can be found in the front of the park and in the shops at the airport
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>It would have been spectacular. I don't think Uni Creative did the best possible job with the attractions and our signature E-ticket would have blown Forbidden Journey out of the water.<<< I know you can't provide any specifics, but it sounds amazing. I would have loved to see that attraction at Disney. It's about time Disney blows something out of the water again. >>>That is why we should never have allowed Rasulo to turn down Rowling and WB's demands over Potter. It is the biggest misstep by the parks in more than a generation. <<< That's terrible. I guess someone at Disney is regretting that decision now. Didn't Disney turn down Lord of the Rings movies as well?
Originally Posted By 9oldmen >>She wasn't keen on HP product being sold in the mart stores like Emporium and World of Disney though - that was a tough sell to P&R management.<< How does she feel about the merchandise being sold at IoA's "Port of Entry Trading Company", the retail store at Orlando's Citywalk, and the store in McCoy Jetport? Also, Universal Hollywood already has a retail store which carries only "Potter" merchandise. And you can buy wands and things online through Universal's official site, although that wasn't the case initially. <<There is a reason you don't see Kuka arms in attraction everywhere - they were never designed for the intense weight of a theme park conveyance. We spent a long time evaluating their usefulness and the engineering side concluded that they would not be reliable. Tony Baxter in particular was a big proponent of the tech but the delivery side of WDI rejected it. I've no idea what downtime FJ has but I know a lot of industry folks who won't touch Kuka.<< Another reason why you might not see Kukas everywhere is that I think Universal has exclusive rights for their use. Also, they have duplicated "Forbidden Journey" in Osaka, Japan, and they're doing the same thing in Hollywood. And I think the ride will be one of the initial offerings in the Beijing park. It would be an odd decision to keep rebuilding a ride that's proving to be unreliable. Or more unreliable than usual. It's not like Disney rides never break down or anything. >>>It would have been spectacular. I don't think Uni Creative did the best possible job with the attractions and our signature E-ticket would have blown Forbidden Journey out of the water.<<< Good. Then they can still blow us out of the water. They can repurpose whatever this amazing ride was going to be for something else. (Marvel, Star Wars, Muppets, Avatar, Pixar, etc.). I know that "Indy" uses a ride system originally developed for "Dick Tracy's Crime Stoppers" and "Forbidden Journey" was originally supposed to be a "Van Helsing" ride. The virtual "Aladdin" flying carpet thing was originally supposed to be themed to the "Rocketeer". If this unused "Potter" ride was going to be that great, they shouldn't let the technology go to waste. Like I said, blow us out of the water.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Another reason why you might not see Kukas everywhere is that I think Universal has exclusive rights for their use.<<
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Ack. Stupid smartphone! Although I've seen that rumor many times, I doubt there's any truth to it. How else would Epcot be able to operate The Sum of All Thrills in Innoventions East? It's just a 2-person simulator mounted on a Kuka arm. Although widely used in manufacturing, the Kuka name isn't well known enough by the general public to warrant an exclusive contract
Originally Posted By Ifzorro68 If true about the exclusivity, why would any manufacturer limit themselves to sell their tech only to one corporation. Seems like they would loose plenty of business. If anything they would probably make it exclusive for a limited number of years only
Originally Posted By monorailblue It would be the user bargaining for the exclusivity, not the manufacturer. The end user wants to maintain the cache of an exclusive ride conveyance so agrees to use it only in exchange for exclusive rights in some form or another. (I've no idea if that happened in this case or not.)
Originally Posted By dagobert Construction update on Avatarland. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://disneyatwork.com/2015/08/2689/">http://disneyatwork.com/2015/08/2689/</a> It looks impressive.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Unfortunately I can't get a sense of scale by looking at those pictures. I'm sure it'll be spectacular looking just judging the photos I've seen of the model.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros It's definitely tough to scale, but if you assume that each layer of scaffolding is about 5.5-6' apart, it sort of puts things into perspective. I'm really intrigued by the crazy designs of the interior steel that will be holding these things up. It looks like the swooping vines and things under the mountains are a really impressive engineering feat And although it's a shame that the Safari FP merge point has been moved up, I'm glad that they're trying to fix the backup problems that FP+ caused. Since each guest needed to scan their Magic Band at the entry point, the FP return queue often backed up halfway through Harambe, even on quiet days at the park; this was never an issue with paper FPs, since they were collected *much* faster than the scanning operation. It seems like this new location allows more queue space before they have to scan I'm also intrigued by the photos of the Rivers of Light area. It looks like this will offer stadium seating, rather than the viewing tiers like at DCA. While that will definitely make for a much more pleasant viewing experience, it will be interesting to see how they disguise this area during the day. There are huge sightlines all over the park, so I hope they've found a way to make it blend in with the surrounding environment
