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Forbidden Journey Refurbishment (Update: Early Dec)

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They don't have much time to really do it to effect the least amount of people. Between spring break, summer, HHN, thanksgiving, christmas and of course the HP celebration, they don't have many options where they have a full month because those are just the major holidays. Other smaller holidays draw the crowds too.

I sort of wish, and kinda think, they designed the ride in a way to be able to do as much TLC to the ride as possible without having to shut it down. I mean, we have already lost the dragon multiple times. They can do work on the vehicles themselves without having to shut the whole ride down because they have so many vehicles and some extra. They can do work on various video screens while the ride is running by simply not having the vehicle enter a dome that is getting projector work done. They even have done stuff with the dementors without closing the ride. I am 100% sure Universal knows that this ride can't be down for long. I feel like if they are going to add anything, they will have it fully complete and ready to quickly install without having to shut it down for long. As long as they don't do anything to the ride system itself, they can take away and add things (like more dementors or rock work) without having to do a lot of testing to reopen it. They could even reduce lighting and put up black walls in the areas they are working and normal guests that have never ridden the ride would be none the wiser as to what is missing.
 
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Badgeking said:
They don't have much time to really do it to effect the least amount of people. Between spring break, summer, HHN, thanksgiving, christmas and of course the HP celebration, they don't have many options where they have a full month because those are just the major holidays. Other smaller holidays draw the crowds too.

I sort of wish, and kinda think, they designed the ride in a way to be able to do as much TLC to the ride as possible without having to shut it down. I mean, we have already lost the dragon multiple times. They can do work on the vehicles themselves without having to shut the whole ride down because they have so many vehicles and some extra. They can do work on various video screens while the ride is running by simply not having the vehicle enter a dome that is getting projector work done. They even have done stuff with the dementors without closing the ride. I am 100% sure Universal knows that this ride can't be down for long. I feel like if they are going to add anything, they will have it fully complete and ready to quickly install without having to shut it down for long. As long as they don't do anything to the ride system itself, they can take away and add things (like more dementors or rock work) without having to do a lot of testing to reopen it. They could even reduce lighting and put up black walls in the areas they are working and normal guests that have never ridden the ride would be none the wiser as to what is missing.
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I largely agree with that. I think the closures were due to wanting to reconfigure the locker room at the beginning of the queue. Hopefully that can be done within 2 weeks with touch ups being done at night after reopening the ride.
 
graspthesun said:
I largely agree with that. I think the closures were due to wanting to reconfigure the locker room at the beginning of the queue. Hopefully that can be done within 2 weeks with touch ups being done at night after reopening the ride.
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If this was true they could have temp lockers and just bypass the entrance and go right to the greenhouse.
 
I've been here for 12 days and have ridden FJ numerous times every day. Making your way past the lockers, especially when you don't need one and are just attempting to get to the single riders lines, is like participating in the hunger games. Everyone just stops at the entrance and you have to fight your way around them. Relocating the lockers would help solve a lot of those issues. On another note, the dementor's kiss scene only worked one time for me, and it was directly after the ride had gone down for about 10 minutes. We were in the single rider's line by the sorting hat, so got on the ride soon after it restarted. The projection effect worked perfectly that one time... It's fun to see it working.
 
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The lockers are, by far, the worst planned locker setup in an Orlando park. Whoever thought having a queue that then totally breaks apart only if you have a bag to then go back into a queue was not thinking the logistic's through. I still never understood why they didn't put in a quick fix faster. It's not hard with the current setup.

They have two paths heading into the building. One is normally used for singles if the big queue is full. Before entering the queue, send anybody with a bag down the right side. They then put up more chains to keep the left and right side separate and block off the "side entrance" to the locker room so you only have 1 entrance in the main hallway and 1 exit into the gift shop. The right side enters the locker room and then they exit from the gift shop side to then head back to the front of the ride and get in line. Place the worker that is always yelling orders about what to do by the new chains to keep the locker path separate and when a single rider comes through the "bag line", they can stop the normal queue for a moment to let them cross in front to head to singles.
 
The other line isnt for singles.. it's for ADA accommodations, re-admission for people who got stuck on the ride during breakdowns, and VIP groups. It'd also be the Express line if Universal ever pulled the trigger.

Making people give up their bags and then get in line is in theory how it works in the first place - the sorting point just happens to be at the lockers themselves. If you moved that sorting point to the courtyard you'd just move the backup to the courtyard. The exterior line only exists because of how badly backed up the lockers can get. On rare occasions does the line inside the building beyond the lockers actually back up to the point where it reaches the actual lockers.

When you see the line looping through the exterior forest - or worse, down the path into Hogsmeade - only a tiny portion of those people are singles or without bags, even smaller portion are singles without bags.

I'll be honest, if they open Express on the ride a lot of the problems will be solved by just moving the standby line slower and causing it back up more quickly. At that point the forest will be needed as queue (so while Express is dashing through the lockers, Standby is not, lowering congestion/confusion) and guests will actually move through the castle at a speed that matches the show cycles.
 
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If they move the lockers out to the courtyard then the families who don't get the "let 1 person put the bag away and catch up to you" will only be outside the line and clear up much needed space (as well as a large decrease in utter chaos :fight:).
 
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Last night i rode FJ and our cart after the ride took an alternate turn to a mirror lined room that bypassed the actual loading zone. They instructed us to take an elevator up to floor 3 and then walk down a hallway to another elevator and take that one down to floor 1 that exited at the bottom of the stairs near the gift shop. It was an awesome experience to see some behind the stage theming. The elevator had floor numbers that said "no muggles" which i also thought was a nice touch.
 
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SandiestPirate said:
Last night i rode FJ and our cart after the ride took an alternate turn to a mirror lined room that bypassed the actual loading zone. They instructed us to take an elevator up to floor 3 and then walk down a hallway to another elevator and take that one down to floor 1 that exited at the bottom of the stairs near the gift shop. It was an awesome experience to see some behind the stage theming. The elevator had floor numbers that said "no muggles" which i also thought was a nice touch.
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That's the disability load/unload. I once boarded from there, they were training a new Team Member and took me and my daughter of the regular line together with two other people to train her for load procedures there. The funny thing was that when the elevator door opened, out came the Beaubaxton girls and the Durmstrang guys, was quite cool.
 
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anihilnation said:
That's the disability load/unload. I once boarded from there, they were training a new Team Member and took me and my daughter of the regular line together with two other people to train her for load procedures there. The funny thing was that when the elevator door opened, out came the Beaubaxton girls and the Durmstrang guys, was quite cool.
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Haha thats awesome! Course you had to one up me ;) lol
 
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