Shanghai, China | Shanghai Disneyland | Theme Park

[Pink Cadillac]

Yeah, that animatronic has been dead a LONG time. It broke during the construction phase and they can't seem to fix it without something else happening, shame.

Grizzly River Run does look the best though. Rapids are not what Disney have been successful at, but there's no reason for them not to be. As the raft moves quickly you don't need elaborate scenes like you get in Splash Mountain, just fun, varying and sometimes amusing 'scenes' (Popeye at IoA do these much better). Rapids get the most laughter on theme park attractions, so they should use that notion and build on it to create a much more compelling attraction, one that is more than just travelling through a rocky river.

 

[Edward M]

Yeah, that animatronic has been dead a LONG time. It broke during the construction phase and they can't seem to fix it without something else happening, shame.

Grizzly River Run does look the best though. Rapids are not what Disney have been successful at, but there's no reason for them not to be. As the raft moves quickly you don't need elaborate scenes like you get in Splash Mountain, just fun, varying and sometimes amusing 'scenes' (Popeye at IoA do these much better). Rapids get the most laughter on theme park attractions, so they should use that notion and build on it to create a much more compelling attraction, one that is more than just travelling through a rocky river.

I think one issue is that immersion is much, much harder with Rapids. On the Rapids, your focus is almost entirely on whether or not you will get wet, and the fun comes from who does get the most wet. On Splash, your focus is on the story and that is easier with a log since you aren't facing your friends but, instead, the characters. If Splash Mt was a Rapids ride, it wouldn't work since your focus can never be entirely on the story or characters. I think this is why Popeye is such a great Rapids ride. It has a general story and some stakes but all the environments that further the plot also get you wet. But still, the focus remains getting the riders soaked. I think Roaring Rapids biggest flaw is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be. It seems to set up a story and try to do that, but it's mostly just Rapids and getting wet. It never really picks an environment to immerse you in (like GRR) or a story to immerse you in (like Splash). The monster part seems oddly out of place since the rest of it lacks any real threat other than "you will get soaked". Perhaps the queue and land would set me up better for the whole Dino thing, but I feel like it was put in their pretty awkwardly. Floating away slowly from this huge and intimidating animatronic just doesn't mesh.

 

[djmcbell]

That dead animatronic Jesus.

Wow, Disney have changed the tone of their parks a bit.

The Holy Land Experience may actually have some competition on its hands!

 

[Pink Cadillac]

^The Disney parks have always been places of worship.

I love this video of the park! Especially that ride stacking up at 0:35
[tweet]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/742414405216784384

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/742414405216784384

 

[Ben]

Miscarriage of a ride ah haha

Those rope courses are so not-in-an-American-Disney-park.

But it looks amazing I wanna go.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

The park opened today! Fortunately, I don't think it was that busy at all and the wait times were much lower than the 'preview days'

Unfortunately...
[tweet]https://twitter.com/DisneylandBerry/status/743394675747332097[/tweet]

Here's a few useless pics to finish off

 

[GuyWithAStick]

I'm really disappointed in Disney. They've had to make quite a few budget cuts:

[youtubevid]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmOPGSMMawM[/youtubevid]

:lol:

 

[Pink Cadillac]

The queue times are generally a lot higher now. Soarin, Tron and Roaring Rapids* are getting the longest waits (2+ hours) followed by the mine train.

*Might be because it's closed more than it's open.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

There was a review (plus staff memeber comments) on micechat that had me fuming and reminded me why I hate the Disneyland fanboys, but this review is so much better and sheds more light on the ropes course - which I really like.
http://themeparkuniversity.com/disney/critical-analysis-shanghai-disneyland/

Some other pics of the ropes course

source

 

[Edward M]

Saw that SoCal Attractions has posted his new Roaring Rapids video with working monster. The animatronic looks amazing, but I'm still unsure about the ride as a whole. Lets just hope this doesn't turn into Disco Yeti anytime soon.

[youtubevid]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0YIPxuRlSM[/youtubevid]

 

[Pink Cadillac]

The ride is a bit of a mess tbh. Quarq isn't anywhere near to the level of Kong's animatronic, but would be fine on a ride where there are back-to-back interesting and engaging scenes. Unfortunately that's far from the case.

 

[Ben]

Yeah, it's mostly rocks and then one animatronic, but it's not impressive enough to make up for the rest of it?

I'm not impressed by it, the area and stuff looks amazing but the ride, meh.

 

[Screaming Coasters]

I agree with Ben and I'd go to say that it extends further than just this ride. There are parts of Shanghai Disney that look completely out of this world and there are other parts that look like it wasn't made by Disney at all. Very mixed looking park and I'm not all that keen on it.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I think the animatronic will be fine in the long run. The yeti in Expedition Everest appears an order of magnitude more complex than this crocodile, and the problems associated with it can't possibly be as unfixable as those that trouble the yeti.

For the record, the problems with the yeti isn't in the animatronic itself, but the concrete base it's sitting on (or, rather, the concrete base that attaches the structure the yeti is sitting on to the ground). The movements of the yeti caused the concrete to crack more than was anticipated, so for safety reasons the yeti was displayed in a static pose. To fix the issue, they'd have to take out the yeti, tear up the concrete slab, pour a new one and rebuild the yeti. Problem is, the structure of the yeti is intertwined with the supports of the coaster and those of the mountain, all of which are tangled up in each other but don't actually touch. The dynamic forces created by the coaster would mess up the yeti and vice versa, and both are detrimental to the structure of the mountain. Therefore, it's three independent structures built inside one another, and you can't dismantle one while the others are standing.

Unless the crocodile has problems that originate below the concrete trough of the rapids, I think they are fixable, and an entire overhaul could be possible if necessary.