Antarctica 2016 Refurb: Non-Rider Queue, New Entrance

[WAJAS]

Antarctica has reopened from its 2016 refurbishment to show off some new enhancements and, sadly, many degradations. Keep in mind while the attraction is now reopened there is still lots of work occurring that won't be completed till late April. I didn't have my camera, but I Mako Madness might be covering it in his next update.

1. The non-rider queue is finally here. Currently you enter the main queue for a few yards before deciding between the non-rider and rider queue at a fork in the path. This is still outside. Then, you enter the first pre-show room in three groups (rider, non-rider, quick queue), which is now separated into three areas by an ugly metal fence (luckily it looks to me temporary).

Once the pre-show ends, quick queue and riders leave first followed by non-riders into the indoor queue now featuring more ugly fences and a whole wall torn down with, you guessed it, another ugly fence in its place. From here riders and non-riders split.

Non-rider: Where the team member door was is now a (to the left right before riders choose between wild and mild) slightly larger, boxier, and, yep, uglier version of the second pre-show rooms that the riders enter. In the room is a short video with a SeaWorld team member talking about Puck and penguins in general. The small screen has the normal pre-show animation playing without audio. They end this little show early and a door to the right of the screens. This room exits into the penguin environment next to the ride unload.

Riders (quick queue and normal): You follow the same path as normal after the first pre-show, but this time its worse!!! What was a cavernous and icy queue is now a bunch of ugly fences and open rooms.

2. They are also making a new enlarged entrance. The only problem I have with this is that it protrudes into the nice open area that was in the middle of the land.

3. On the bright side, the fog effect has returned and much of the paint and fiber glass has been touched up. Also, the load room animations are working completely again. They were sometimes off from their audio on the RV.

Now I may come off as hating, but I liked this ride (and still do to some extent). I just don't know what was going through their heads with some of this stuff. The general idea is sound, but not the execution. Worse of all is that all these changes are making loading pre-shows longer and the overall wait longer as well. ugh

 

[UNIrd]

Why would they miss with the interior of this attraction? It's one of the few things they got barely right on this thing. All they had to do was let people enter through the exit and that's it.

 

[IzzyB]

Why would they miss with the interior of this attraction? It's one of the few things they got barely right on this thing. All they had to do was let people enter through the exit and that's it.

It is not that simple. The ride was made to slowly cool you temperature thru each section. Having people go thru the exit is too much of a shock. It seems this is temporary and slowly they will make it look nicer or I hope they do.

 

[Chicagoshannon]

Do they still have the mild or wild choice for the ride?

 

[WAJAS]

Do they still have the mild or wild choice for the ride?

Yep, that part of the queue onwards remains unchanged.

 

[Hatetofly]

Nothing short of a bulldozer is fixing this dumpster fire of an attraction..

 

[WAJAS]

Nothing short of a bulldozer is fixing this dumpster fire of an attraction..

That's the best solution, but like come on. It can't be that hard to add a non-rider queue that you have to destroy what good parts it had.

Like, someone must have just looked at these plans and the complaints and yelled "Screw it!".

 

[ragerunner]

I actually like this ride and attraction. My family also enjoys it a lot a well. I have never really understood a lot of the dislike for this ride.

 

[Brian G.]

I have never really understood a lot of the dislike for this ride.

 

[shiekra38]

Antarticaaaaaaa where home is familyyyyyy

 

[JoeCamel]

I actually like this ride and attraction. My family also enjoys it a lot a well. I have never really understood a lot of the dislike for this ride.

My dislike is that they spent 40M for the ride and hyped the ____ out of the trackless ride system and that is what they built. Just disappointing when they could have had so much more.

 

[Brian G.]

My dislike is that they spent 40M for the ride and hyped the ____ out of the trackless ride system and that is what they built. Just disappointing when they could have had so much more.

Also didn't help that their concept art was to grandiose and led people to believe the ride experience may be a little different.

 

[Tobias]

My dislike is that they spent 40M for the ride and hyped the ____ out of the trackless ride system and that is what they built. Just disappointing when they could have had so much more.

Yeah, a big factor of the dissapointment was the knowledge of how cool the trackless RV's can be. Since before Antarctica was announced, we've seen videos oversea's of TDL's Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the major Sally Corp shooting darkrides like Labyrinth of the Minotaur & Challenge of Tutankhamon etc. and we not only saw how cool they are, but also the sheer potential for future rides. Many were waiting for a major park in the states to get a trackless darkride, so naturally anticipation was high for Antarctica when it was announced.

We were hoping for another great trackless darkide, but what we got was a darkride which didn't take advantage of it's ride system. You can have these RV's go all over the place, and you end up forcing them to move in a straight line to watch a screen?!

While yes, they have the RV's move around a bit in the first two rooms, but that runs into the second problem...terrible storytelling. They made the mistake of trying to tell a story, since we're all wondering how does aimlessly meandering/circling around rainbow brite craves fit in with this story of a penguin growing up?

Seriously, the story can be summed up like this.
Here's a baby penguin, you and your family are gonna' watch it grow up. Ok let's now ignore it and go through uvula caves and rainbow brite caves, now here's some penguins walking in snow and wind. Now here's that baby penguin all grown up and whoops, almost had natural selection happen there an-INSPIRATIONAL SONG TIME, AIN'T YOU INSPIRED BY ALL THE FRIGGIN' PENGUINS?! IT'S COLD, GET OUT. -fin-

That's not what we were expecting nor wanted to experience when this was first announced.

 

[epcyclopedia]

And it smells like fish. You can't forget the horrible fish smell.

 

[maxairmike]

Also didn't help that their concept art was to grandiose and led people to believe the ride experience may be a little different.

This is it more than anything for me. The way the concept art was done (and in how it was described early on) it looked more like a "trackless" water ride through an Antarctic environment. Once I realized what the ride system truly was, I was still very excited with what the system could do, and still expected an environment, not neon caves and screens. The end result is just...good, until you get off the ride and to the actual penguin environment, which is pretty awesome.

Glad to finally have the option to bypass the ride and just get to the good part, the penguins. Still wish they had a Puffin exhibit somewhere in the park, though.

 

[SeaWorldRocks]

I have been told my a friend who works at Antartica that the fencing in the first room is going to be redone and changed up. Upper level management didnt like how it looked. So lets hope for soemthing better. Everything after the first room will be remaining though.

 

[WAJAS]

This is how the outside currently looks if you pretend those walls are gone.

 

[upov]

 

[IzzyB]

We did the walking part today. It was nice and seemed to make the lines overall better as the ride seemed to stay around 20 to 25 minutes thru the day. It was not that busy at the park though. The walking part was 5 minutes but we caught it just right and walked right in.

 

[Mad Dog]

Orlandoparksnews.com has just posted a photo display of the new Antarctica queue.