Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<Sure at some points you can see other boats but generally I don't notice them when looking at the great details of the ride.>> The thing about Peter Pan though is that the ride vehicles are little pirate ships, so they don't break the theme. Same with Dinosaur; the jeeps fit the theme. But if you made a ride with these robotic arms, how do you disguise them to fit whatever environment they are in? That's my point.
Originally Posted By CarolinaDisneyDad Point taken. I don't have an answer. I'll have to think more on it. But I like this kind thinking and constuctive ideas.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros The sails of the ships also do a good job of hiding the motor equipment that pulls them along the track. I don't remember the exact setup in WDW, but in DL, they have the ceiling very low in the part of the queue closest to the loading area with little 'clouds' hanging down so you can't see up. There's another part of the queue where you can watch the ships take off, and if you look at just the right moment, you can see all the ugly equipment that does the work. But on the ships themselves, you can't even tell it's there even though it's completely exposed to people outside the vehicle, which is pretty clever IMO. If they wanted to hide the arm, they could also design the vehicles so that it can't be seen. The current arm-based attractions have the arm attach to the back side of the rider's seats, with them facing away from it. They could easily change the orientation of it so that the arm is underneath the riders, with them facing perpendicular to the support (like a carousel horse, but without the top part of the pole). They could then theme the vehicle to something appropriate and kind of large relative to the placement of the riders(like a magic carpet for example) so that they can't see down. Then have the arm's motions limited so that when it folds down, the part that would stick out is on the back side, and the riders won't know how they're being supported, will have a very wide viewing angle, and will be able to have a full range of motions on the vehicles.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Ferret - that is pretty much how the Dinosaur and Indy vehicles work. They actually go quite high off the base.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Linky which shows an Indy vehicle and demonstrates some of the movement: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gubF0TmdHBs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...F0TmdHBs</a>
Originally Posted By CarolinaDisneyDad Thanks FerretAfros, Glad to see i'm not the only one thinks could be a really unique technology. Great ideas.
