Pandora: The World of Avatar Announcement, Construction, & Preview Discussion
- Thread starter Brian G.
- Start date
-
Signing up for a Premium Membership is a donation to help Inside Universal maintain costs and offers an ad-free experience on the forum. Learn more about it here.
- Status
The bag holding area at the rear is big enough to hold most backpacks and such. They'd just put some huge bag outside the exit door - a CM stands out there to collect glasses.
But I can just imagine super mom having to store all her bags and make sure kiddo stores his toys etc... I can see once you have "non theme park" people in this that it could take a lot longer than people who know what to do. For example, there is probably only a couple other rides (Soarin/RnRC) in WDW where you can't take bags on with you easily. Even then I still take bags on with me for RnRC...
So these seats are pretty much the same style seating as the Tron Lightcycle coaster. No wonder they didn't build the coaster instead in Pandora.
The angle you sit at is not as aggressive as Tron is though. On Tron you're almost lying flat on your stomach like a motorbike unless you push your torso upwards.
Last edited:
Notes about the Rivers Cruise since we haven't talked about it much...
The layout of the land pretty much point you towards it.. an sine there's no big signage identifying which ride is which.. I could see a lot of people going there first. The queue is like a woven hut thingy with some switchbacks and some decor pieces of navii stuff but nothing that screamed out to be photographed (especially since i thought I'd go back to it.) They have no qualms about packing 4 adults into a row.
The boats seem to just free-float and they pile up at the end like all the other rides out there, but they the belt system seems to work pretty efficiently so you don't get bumped around too much at the end. Why this doesn't have a wheelchair boat I have no clue.
Other than that it's some glowing scenery with the occasional screen - and the screens look like screens - and some animated figures before the big finale with the shaman.
If we weren't getting Flight of Passage along with the boat ride I'd be like "WTF?" but since it's just an add-on to the land it's not bad. I think we're so used to them not building new lands or areas and everything must be an "e-ticket" that this sort of ride could never have existed on its own.. and i'm not sure we would have wanted it all alone. I guess in a "i went to a crazy alien planet and saw some stuff" sort of way, it works.. but.. since we rode it first it was sort of the baseline for my whole group's impressions of Pandora. Very much "Eh.. that was a thing."
So we went through all of Flight of Passage's FP queue and preshows with this preparedness to be vastly underwhelmed.
Cut to just outside FOP and we're bouncing around excitedly talking about the scenes and "omg, you screamed so loud when...!" type convos, and we rushed back to walk the full standby queue and of course, took all kinds of photos.
So i can definitely see the land being successful with a certain demographic. I'd say folks who are into theme park rides, but who aren't big into thrills. Some folks are definitely come off going "that was it? I was told this was a mini tower of terror!" whereas others will come off really hating it if Soarin is as thrilling as they can handle. The people who cling to the handlebars on Soarin each time the gondola gently tilts is not the target audience for this ride.
Some other points we havent touched on.. The 3D is really good and looks great. No out of focus or afterimage or ghosting or anything like that. The style of glasses works really well, even over prescription glasses. I did get my usual 3D-driven temple headache but it wasnt so severe that I'd avoid the ride, and was gone within minutes of getting off it. In the future i'll just take some preemptive advil and probably be fine. I think at one point I could barely tell where the edge or top of the screen was and that was only when I was looking to see the other vehicles on the V. Otherwise the screen is so much there, seamless (like, not a trace, unlike Soarin), and your vision so much directed forward into it that you don't tend to notice the ride system or the other vehicles (or even the people right next to you) unless you make an effort to turn your head and look for them.
The opening effect is very impressive. The seat tries to distract you and the strobes flash and there may of even been some fog, but the image with the 3D of some floating lights (i guess the avatar sync) is like right there and "oo.. aah.." for a second. It struck me because of how with most 3D films it's a flat image and then suddenly something jumps outs. With this, they're in your face and around you right away. Then BAM you pop into Pandora on your banshee and your critter takes a flying leap off a cliff (or something, i just know it involves falling which caught everyone off guard.)
The layout of the land pretty much point you towards it.. an sine there's no big signage identifying which ride is which.. I could see a lot of people going there first. The queue is like a woven hut thingy with some switchbacks and some decor pieces of navii stuff but nothing that screamed out to be photographed (especially since i thought I'd go back to it.) They have no qualms about packing 4 adults into a row.
The boats seem to just free-float and they pile up at the end like all the other rides out there, but they the belt system seems to work pretty efficiently so you don't get bumped around too much at the end. Why this doesn't have a wheelchair boat I have no clue.
Other than that it's some glowing scenery with the occasional screen - and the screens look like screens - and some animated figures before the big finale with the shaman.
If we weren't getting Flight of Passage along with the boat ride I'd be like "WTF?" but since it's just an add-on to the land it's not bad. I think we're so used to them not building new lands or areas and everything must be an "e-ticket" that this sort of ride could never have existed on its own.. and i'm not sure we would have wanted it all alone. I guess in a "i went to a crazy alien planet and saw some stuff" sort of way, it works.. but.. since we rode it first it was sort of the baseline for my whole group's impressions of Pandora. Very much "Eh.. that was a thing."
So we went through all of Flight of Passage's FP queue and preshows with this preparedness to be vastly underwhelmed.
Cut to just outside FOP and we're bouncing around excitedly talking about the scenes and "omg, you screamed so loud when...!" type convos, and we rushed back to walk the full standby queue and of course, took all kinds of photos.
So i can definitely see the land being successful with a certain demographic. I'd say folks who are into theme park rides, but who aren't big into thrills. Some folks are definitely come off going "that was it? I was told this was a mini tower of terror!" whereas others will come off really hating it if Soarin is as thrilling as they can handle. The people who cling to the handlebars on Soarin each time the gondola gently tilts is not the target audience for this ride.
Some other points we havent touched on.. The 3D is really good and looks great. No out of focus or afterimage or ghosting or anything like that. The style of glasses works really well, even over prescription glasses. I did get my usual 3D-driven temple headache but it wasnt so severe that I'd avoid the ride, and was gone within minutes of getting off it. In the future i'll just take some preemptive advil and probably be fine. I think at one point I could barely tell where the edge or top of the screen was and that was only when I was looking to see the other vehicles on the V. Otherwise the screen is so much there, seamless (like, not a trace, unlike Soarin), and your vision so much directed forward into it that you don't tend to notice the ride system or the other vehicles (or even the people right next to you) unless you make an effort to turn your head and look for them.
The opening effect is very impressive. The seat tries to distract you and the strobes flash and there may of even been some fog, but the image with the 3D of some floating lights (i guess the avatar sync) is like right there and "oo.. aah.." for a second. It struck me because of how with most 3D films it's a flat image and then suddenly something jumps outs. With this, they're in your face and around you right away. Then BAM you pop into Pandora on your banshee and your critter takes a flying leap off a cliff (or something, i just know it involves falling which caught everyone off guard.)
Thank you for all the incredible information! I really appreciate you taking the time to share with us. This is great and will help me prepare and know what we're getting ourselves into when we go on the 13th. And I've been wondering about the link at the beginning of FoP so thanks for mentioning that! Great stuff!
- May 5, 2012
- 1,800
- 2,975
I thought the same thing. The projection quality is top notch. The little tiny bit of the top of the screen is all I noticed too. The screen feels like it's surrounding you.
- Apr 7, 2010
- 5,268
- 5,725
- Feb 10, 2016
- 4
- 22
Thank you so much for all of the information you've shared!
Edited because I answered my own question
- May 5, 2012
- 1,800
- 2,975
No, Only 1 was when I was on the attraction yesterday. They give everyone during previews a Fastpass with a time window to enter the line. That way everyone during a preview gets one ride on FOP. When my time was ready the attraction was broke down and no one was allowed in line. I joked to the cast member "how could that be, there are 4 theaters" and his reply was they are only running 1 theater because the banshees need a rest period before they can fly again. And of course that theater was broke down so they told us to come back a little later.
- May 5, 2012
- 1,800
- 2,975
No there is no head or animatronic. The simulated breathing is done by two paddles or bladders that gently push on your inner thigh and feels like the machine below you is breathing. Here's a video of the loading process and what the link chambers look like.
- Apr 12, 2016
- 202
- 232
- Apr 7, 2010
- 5,268
- 5,725
well based on the impressions, is seems it's a state of the art motion simulator. It's hard to define ground breaking until we see other resorts copy similar ride concepts. I mean it's really just an extremely upgraded version of Soarin. So I don't think that would qualify as "ground breaking".
Does it matter?
I think that's more of an opinion, as some see it as absolutely Earth-shattering, and others just say it's a good, hi-tech ride. I would say just go experience the park, and see for yourself. :thumbsup:
I think I'd consider groundbreaking to be "pushes the envelope in terms of how it uses the chosen ride system". I don't see it was a measure of quality, rather a measure of what they came up with to break outside the parameters of a ride system. Under those rules: I'd say Everest/Flight of Passage are groundbreaking, although an argument could be made for Safaris because of its total commitment to immersion and flawless execution.
- Status
