2015/2016 - PANDORA - The World of Avatar - (10/26/12) Pandora: The World of Avatar may still be years away, but who’s ready to find out just what kind of major new attractions we can expect to find inside? From what I’ve heard so far, there are a few different proposals floating around with different offerings and different budget levels to choose from, as the final choice has not yet been made. That said, it does seem as if Disney may have selected their primary E-Ticket attraction for the land, which would some kind of new open simulator style ride using a large circular multi-story screen. While this may sound a bit like Soarin’ at first, I’m hearing that this is likely to be a different kind of beast, able to take advantage of the new style digital 3D system Disney used on Star Tours 2, and while it may be about flying around Pandora, I think we’ll see a more active and adventurous motion system used here, as travel through the World of Pandora will not involve the same mellow friendly skies we experienced from Disney’s Soarin.
Attached to this E-Ticket ride structure, which will apparently feature four different theaters to deal with the capacity problems, will be a second C-Ticket level adventure ride that will feature both indoor and outdoor scenes. I’ve heard that it may be family friendly boat ride experience (Small World of Pandora?) though I’d also got a hunch that it could be a land based dark ride system as well as it seems the early proposal may feature 6 to 9 passenger vehicles, using 3 rows of seats.
For those hoping for a little more action and adventure, I’ve also heard that Disney has drawn up some plans for a second E-Ticket ride that could use the same Vekoma MotoBike based coaster system that they are putting to use in Shanghai as a Tron Light Cycle ride. Budget is the primary factor here, as adding the launched coaster to the land would increase the budget by good number of digits. Hope to have more information to share about The World of Avatar soon… so stay tuned.
