Volcano Bay Construction & Preview Discussion

[Nick]

And also because it is Disney. Has to have cost overruns with overpromising and under-delivery.

At the risk of sounding like i'm defending Magic Bands, Disney couldn't simply outsource. Magic Bands were a marketing ploy to market incredibly expensive infrastructure work that was happening no matter what.

Magic Bands were their way of trying to recoup some of that money.

 

[Frank Drackman]

At the risk of sounding like i'm defending Magic Bands, Disney couldn't simply outsource. Magic Bands were a marketing ploy to market incredibly expensive infrastructure work that was happening no matter what.

Magic Bands were their way of trying to recoup some of that money.

I have not had any experience with Magic Bands, the closest I came was on my last Disney trip and they had just rolled out the NFC room cards for charging. My experience at that stage of the project was awful, I needed a pin, I needed my pass (for a discount), I needed my ID (to prove it was my pass), AND I still needed to sign for the charges....but on the way I quoted you.

I do not think Disney needed to re-invent the wheel here, the could have went with card readers from the typical payment processors, instead, it seemed like they went in house and built a system that would only read Magic Bands, they then needed to interact with their internal systems...I imagine there could have been a work flow that used commercial card readers (so that could use NFC from a Magic Band or a cell phone or an NFC enabled card)...anyway, they could have kept the payments via the cards and the Disney customer account separate....I think they just wanted to process like they do at the hotels where they wait until you check out or until you reach your charge limit before the run all your charges at one time (I assume they get a better rate with one big charge as opposed to many small charges)...no clue if they save enough in processing fees to justify an internal system that only works with internal systems.

I guess it is in detail like that where I see there were aspects for the Magic Band project that should have been pieced out to a company that already had a lot of the technology...I mean Iger is on the Board at Apple, yet I never heard talk of them using beacons (as a way to push targeted adds) and such...just seems like they wanted to do everything themselves...

 

[rcoasterdude]

I think for he expansion if it does come, we could definitely see a toilet bowl slide (Storm + Disco H20 off of one tower), another wave pool, a boogie bahn, and a dirt of its kind. And with the wave pool being the farthest away from the entrance directly in front of the blue building would make it easy to put up a backdrop ex. The wave pool backdrop at Typhoon Lagoon

 

[quinnmac000]

I have not had any experience with Magic Bands, the closest I came was on my last Disney trip and they had just rolled out the NFC room cards for charging. My experience at that stage of the project was awful, I needed a pin, I needed my pass (for a discount), I needed my ID (to prove it was my pass), AND I still needed to sign for the charges....but on the way I quoted you.

I do not think Disney needed to re-invent the wheel here, the could have went with card readers from the typical payment processors, instead, it seemed like they went in house and built a system that would only read Magic Bands, they then needed to interact with their internal systems...I imagine there could have been a work flow that used commercial card readers (so that could use NFC from a Magic Band or a cell phone or an NFC enabled card)...anyway, they could have kept the payments via the cards and the Disney customer account separate....I think they just wanted to process like they do at the hotels where they wait until you check out or until you reach your charge limit before the run all your charges at one time (I assume they get a better rate with one big charge as opposed to many small charges)...no clue if they save enough in processing fees to justify an internal system that only works with internal systems.

I guess it is in detail like that where I see there were aspects for the Magic Band project that should have been pieced out to a company that already had a lot of the technology...I mean Iger is on the Board at Apple, yet I never heard talk of them using beacons (as a way to push targeted adds) and such...just seems like they wanted to do everything themselves...

Magicbands were also made to be sold to other companies but other companies haven't really ordered any.

 

[Nick]

I have not had any experience with Magic Bands, the closest I came was on my last Disney trip and they had just rolled out the NFC room cards for charging. My experience at that stage of the project was awful, I needed a pin, I needed my pass (for a discount), I needed my ID (to prove it was my pass), AND I still needed to sign for the charges....but on the way I quoted you.

I do not think Disney needed to re-invent the wheel here, the could have went with card readers from the typical payment processors, instead, it seemed like they went in house and built a system that would only read Magic Bands, they then needed to interact with their internal systems...I imagine there could have been a work flow that used commercial card readers (so that could use NFC from a Magic Band or a cell phone or an NFC enabled card)...anyway, they could have kept the payments via the cards and the Disney customer account separate....I think they just wanted to process like they do at the hotels where they wait until you check out or until you reach your charge limit before the run all your charges at one time (I assume they get a better rate with one big charge as opposed to many small charges)...no clue if they save enough in processing fees to justify an internal system that only works with internal systems.

I guess it is in detail like that where I see there were aspects for the Magic Band project that should have been pieced out to a company that already had a lot of the technology...I mean Iger is on the Board at Apple, yet I never heard talk of them using beacons (as a way to push targeted adds) and such...just seems like they wanted to do everything themselves...

Maybe my view of the system is skewed as i'm local and all of my information has been set up without needing change since March 2013. We do stay on-site from time to time as we have DVC (we use DVC to go to DL and Hawaii more though) so I have experienced the hotel side of things and it's mostly been positive.

The biggest negative I can say is that we still have to show our AP in order to get a discount rather than just linking it to our magic band. I had a friend who worked merch at DAK who explained to me that the reason Disney had them do that is because anyone can steal a Magic Band so they need to verify your identity, but I still feel like that's just excuses.

 

[Nick]

I think for he expansion if it does come, we could definitely see a toilet bowl slide (Storm + Disco H20 off of one tower), another wave pool, a boogie bahn, and a dirt of its kind. And with the wave pool being the farthest away from the entrance directly in front of the blue building would make it easy to put up a backdrop ex. The wave pool backdrop at Typhoon Lagoon

I would think an extension/reconfiguration of the lazy river would happen over time too if they use all of that land.

 

[mcusi]

I think for he expansion if it does come, we could definitely see a toilet bowl slide (Storm + Disco H20 off of one tower), another wave pool, a boogie bahn, and a dirt of its kind. And with the wave pool being the farthest away from the entrance directly in front of the blue building would make it easy to put up a backdrop ex. The wave pool backdrop at Typhoon Lagoon

They could do all of that with the remaining amount of land that they have?

 

[tidecat]

OrlanDave actually caught some people taking test runs:

 

[fryoj]

Everything up to the blue building.

Do we know where the bus road is going to cross over to Turkey Lake? The only real interchange that exists down there now is south of the creative services building. Will that take the buses all the way down there or will they make a new crossing in that undeveloped triangle? Where they do that could tell us if they plan to expand the park there.

They could do all of that with the remaining amount of land that they have?

No....

 

[Muggle148]

Not sure if this video has been posted on here yet. But It's from the company Pro Slides I know they did a lot of slides for a Volcano Bay

 

[Disneyhead]

Not sure if this video has been posted on here yet. But It's from the company Pro Slides I know they did a lot of slides for a Volcano Bay

Yeah, it was posted the other day. But no worries. Pretty exciting stuff going on now in Otown.

ProSlide did all the slides at VB. And we're figuring that this video is about VB.

 

[Alicia]

Yeah, it was posted the other day. But no worries. Pretty exciting stuff going on now in Otown.

ProSlide did all the slides at VB. And we're figuring that this video is about VB.

Yea, the representative pretty much verified this is about VB when I asked in an email.

Do we still think it's about the tallest drop slide thing, or did we think something else?

 

[Muggle148]

Yea, the representative pretty much verified this is about VB when I asked in an email.

Do we still think it's about the tallest drop slide thing, or did we think something else?

Do you know how tall the drop slide are at Aqutica? They have to be close to 200 ft right?

 

[UniversalCityFL]

Yea, I hope it does go property-wide. In reading up on the capabilities of the system they can actually have different levels of queue ranks

UO definitely has big plans for "Virtual Line". I believe they just registered the trademark for that term.

 

[sonoma15]

Do you know how tall the drop slide are at Aqutica? They have to be close to 200 ft right?

They are about 80 ft tall I think, Bomb Bay was about 60 ft. I think, and summit plummet is 120 ft. tall.

 

[epcyclopedia]

UO definitely has big plans for "Virtual Line". I believe they just registered the trademark for that term.

*drifts back and forth to the sound of Jamiroqui*

 

[anihilnation]

They are about 80 ft tall I think, Bomb Bay was about 60 ft. I think, and summit plummet is 120 ft. tall.

I think Bombay was 76ft. The height balloons for Ihu were 108ft, but that includes the roof, I think, as you mention, the actual height of the drop is about 80ft.

 

[P@n!K_Sw1tC#]

Ihu's Breakaway Falls is the most extreme set of waterslides that I've ever been on. The tightness of the curves and the slaloms you take at 35+mph really kick the crap out of you. With that said - those rides start at a height of 80ft. The two Volcano Bay twisters are an additional 45ft taller, and I cannot begin to imagine how intense they will be. The turns look tighter, the layouts are more serpentine, and they will for sure be a hell of a lot faster.

 

[Scott W.]

At the risk of sounding like i'm defending Magic Bands, Disney couldn't simply outsource. Magic Bands were a marketing ploy to market incredibly expensive infrastructure work that was happening no matter what.

Magic Bands were their way of trying to recoup some of that money.

I really thought the magic bands were great. While we didn't stay on site at Disney, the simplicity when it's linked to photo pass made it worth while.

I could also see the benefit being able to buy things in the parks, more so the water parks.

 

[Andysol]

At the risk of sounding like i'm defending Magic Bands, Disney couldn't simply outsource. Magic Bands were a marketing ploy to market incredibly expensive infrastructure work that was happening no matter what.

Magic Bands were their way of trying to recoup some of that money.

Magic Bands vs TapuTapu is pretty trivial. TapuTapu can do more. But Disney isn't and wasn't concerned with how efficient FP+ was w/ the Magic Band nearly as much as they were concerned with crowd sourcing. Which, in turn, allows them to adjust staffing, ride ops, etc and make more money than they could have dreamed by reducing operating costs.

Park admission, dining, payment, room key, FP+, park-wide Wifi infrastructure, etc, etc- while it seems like a nice convenience was done so they can keep tabs on you in one concise program. Tiered pricing with efficient labor/ride allocation is leaps and bounds more advanced than Universal's. It's not even close. Crowds can "appear" less busy- because there are less people- yet wait times remain the same because they are able to adjust not only in real-time but with weeks of preparation.

The "business" aspect of FP/MM+ was brilliant. It seemed dumb at the time to spend a billion plus- one that people argued should have been spent on new rides- but it was never about "increasing crowds". It was always about getting more money from people "efficiently"- all while reducing operating costs. They've more than recouped their billion and are laughing all the way to the bank now.


As for TapuTapu- it's strictly a convenience factor for now. Long-term, I'd expect Universal to follow in Disney's footsteps as it has proven very successful financially.