Volcano Bay: General Discussion | Page 28 | Inside Universal Forums

Volcano Bay: General Discussion

  • 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.
The park also looks more like what I'd expect from a soft opening, grand openings should at least look the part, but there is quite a bit of random equipment, tarps etc. strewn around the entire site.

I just don't understand why they felt such a need to rush it to the public.
To have the opening match Pandora's.

Which in itself I get it, but also makes no sense. Pandora is a land inside a park. Volcano Bay is a whole new park with a lot more moving parts to deal with, like a new technology of a queue system.

What they should have done is probably softs starting Memorial and do grand opening for 4th of July. Gives them a month to finish up things, test everything and have a smoother opening. However, once they committed to this Memorial day grand opening, they were stuck with it. They couldn't backtrack after that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brianlo
I think it is good to know that you can bump a ride with a long wait by scanning for a shorter line on another ride... Sad thing is, I am not sure this is clear to all guests.

Regardless, it seems like the water coaster is the special treat that few can ride within a reasonable time frame.

BTW, if the ride you're waiting on goes 101--it freezes your wait time. Doesn't offer you a new ride (or explain you could scan another). Just tells you wait time is on hold. So my 5-hour wait ended up being like 6.
 
Effects are definitely not done yet but oh man the scale is so off. Again, as always this seems more quality at night and hopefully soon more detailing will be added.

They've already cut Summer closings from 10 to 8. So you're looking at September before you can ride at night. If you think they won't cut hours again come the slow season, you're crazy. Even Opening Day cleared out by 6. So barring a private buy-out, there is no riding this at night.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jtsalien


Here we go...


I guess this is a good sign? Maybe they have figured out the correct number of guests that will allow Tapu Tapu to operate more efficiently and closer to optimally?

They've already cut Summer closings from 10 to 8. So you're looking at September before you can ride at night. If you think they won't cut hours again come the slow season, you're crazy. Even Opening Day cleared out by 6. So barring a private buy-out, there is no riding this at night.

The hours on Universal's page are still showing 10pm closings in July and August.

Universal Orlando
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: Andysol and Ryan
The wait times issue will sort itself in short order. The lack of softs has literally thrown the ops folks to the wolves. They are pushing less than half of the number of guests through the attractions than they were designed for because they don't know what they are doing yet.

(FoP is now a 4 hour wait and DAK is at capacity. Let's see how smoothly their first day goes.)
And a lot of similarities to early MB. You can only get so much from early testing with a knowledgeable crowd (TM's and family). Until the "What time is the 3 o'clock Parade...?" Darwin-ists and the English as a 5th language crowd get a hold of it, and the TM's have to deal with all of this, you don't really know. Sucks, but happens in every corner of every industry.

Also seems like their modeling may have shown this is what would happen when you have one major, low capacity, headliner that appeals to largest attending demographic. Don't know if we've ever seen a brand spanking new Park announce an expansion 2 or so days before opening. Another water coaster, or something as appealing, will help immediately.

From a cynic, business perspective, some of this may have been specifically planned. Virtual queuing for one ride seems to make it almost necessary to purchase one of the Express levels to have the absolute best experience when VB is at certain levels of capacity.

That's where this Forum can really help a lot of folks- tracking the how when why of EP with VB.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrenRays
I just called, and according to the recording on the official "Volcano Bay Capacity Hotline" (407-817-8317), guests of all five onsite hotels will be permitted entry into VB today (just have to show room key).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Journey_On
Im really curious to know if any of the water effects are on on any of the rides now. There was an abundant lack of any sort of spraying water anywhere in the park. You could see all the places for it but nothing was on. Going on tuesday I will let you all know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 12th Man