It was crazy to get you on when I did then for TPT then, huh.
:tease:
Yup. One of my first podcast appearances actually.
I would assume an expansion ASAP would be needed. But I don't think they are going to easily remove Tapu Tapu.
I am curious to see if they may look to having a middle-ground, of that as an option but not being required for everyone's enjoyment of Volcano Bay. Just a thought, but that's what I would wonder.
That’s so surprising considering it was at capacity. Clearly, they lowered capacity.
So how does that get remedied?
They need the expansion, more high volume slides mostly. and get rid of Tapu Tapu....
Correct.
I bet there were several factors in VB not hitting internal projections. Here are some of my guesses, in no particular order:
TapuTapu doesn't account for how guests normally wait in line. Not seeing a line wrapping down stairs can cause more people to tap in than would actually get in line in the first place, leaving popular rides always at a ridiculously long wait. If you actually had to stand in that line, you'd probably skip it, which would shorten wait times across the board.
ProSlide's theoretical guests per hour estimates were off for some of the newer slides. I bet a big part of how Universal would go about estimating maximum park capacity would have a lot to do with how many people the slides could handle per hour. If those numbers are off, (especially if more than one attraction's numbers are off,) the whole park will hold less people than expected.
Park Size. Aquatica has two wave pools. Typhoon Lagoon has a giant one. This park, like Wet 'n Wild, could probably use some larger pools to help add capacity without it feeling too crowded, not that that's actually possible. (At least there's actually a couple play areas of decent size.)
And yes, it needs that expansion. I'd argue that the park still has too many thrill rides, and could use more family-friendly attractions. Personally, I don't like body slides of any sort, and trap-door slides are even more terrifying. Even two of the family raft slides look pretty intense. That leaves the racers and the tube slide towers. Another water coaster or another slide tower for families would be a great addition, but would it still be enough?
Last, but not least, perhaps they were just dreaming too big? Maybe, just maybe, they were hoping for too much out of this little parcel of land sandwiched between two roads. They should've been expecting whatever was the capacity of Wet 'n Wild, but it sounds like they had convinced themselves this was like a whole new
theme park. Just cause you call it your third gate, doesn't mean it could actually see as many visitors as USF or IOA. Maybe if they threw in a show or two, or other forms of entertainment, I'd buy the "water theme park" concept, but at the end of the day, it's a water park.
Long story short, I bet the theoretical guests per hour being wrong on some of the new slides had a lot to do with it, and it's something that doesn't get brought up a lot on the forum. No offense to ProSlide, they do amazing work, but it's not so hard for me to fathom that a company that had to extend the width of a new slide because it seems like they didn't do the math right and the rafts were gonna fly off, or had to adjust the weight limit of a body slide 3 times already, among other various raft issues for other slides - may have been a little off on their guest per hour estimates. But, again, that's just my interpretation.
EDIT: Or just read
@Joe's TLDR above my post, pretty much covers it perfectly lol.
Here's the VB tl;dr
1) Park opened at reduced capacity with the plan of raising it over the summer.
2) Technical issues with slides prevented raising of capacity of park
3) ProSlide stated hourly capacities (when running correctly) were off, hence the long waits the first few months
4) TapuTapu puts more guests into walkways, beaches, etc. As such capacity in the park cannot be increased
So once VB hits the planned capacity it will start hitting its projections.