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Park News - (1/30/09) Just a heads-up to anyone heading out to the Animal Kingdom, the TriceraTop Spin ride is now closed through 2/12/09 for rehab.
(12/26/08) Many of you may remember wasting away a little too much time playing with the various ride simulators available at TheMagical.nl. Now they’ve got a brand new simulation for Expedition Everest, so check it out.
(12/22/08) According to an insider the changes made to Primeval Whirl have been somewhat of a letdown. The rumored addition of on-ride photos or raising the security fence around the ride didn’t happen. The brake system was changed however, but the changes seem to have lowered the capacity of the ride, where it has been usually running less cars than normal (11 down from 13) and only able to dispatch a new cars every 25 seconds, up from around 16 seconds. They hope that further tweaks and adjustments can get things running back the way it used to, but no one is sure when it might happen.
(12/18/08) With the extended rehab on the Primeval Whirl coasters over, I have yet to hear any updates from anyone about just what was changed, if anything. Previous rumors indicated that some track near the very end was to be removed and replaced, a rebuilding of the brake runs to add new booster units, possible new barrier walls around the bottom, safety system updates as well as a new cosmetic tweaks and adding it to the photopass system. Anyone have a report or photos to share?
(11/3/08) While we haven’t seen anything on the official rehab list, Screamscape sources tell us that a rehab for Dinosaur is on the way. If the plans hold out they will update a number of the special effects in the ride as well as add some all new “skins” to some of the dinos. Anyone know more about when this might take place? Given the time, I’m going to guess that we may have to wait until after the busy holiday season, sometime in early 2009.
(7/14/08) There has been some speculation that the closing of the Pocahontas show could be tied to any future development of the various Beastly Kingdom concepts that could spawn from this and the Camp Minnie-Mickey area of the park. Though those concepts are still years away and very much still in development so anything could happen at this point I suppose. Meanwhile we’ve heard another rumor claim that the show theater could sit empty until Spring 2009 before they are ready to drop in a new, perhaps temporary, show concept.
Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
There are no planned closures at this time.
2010/2011 - New C or D-Ticket - Rumor - (4/25/08) The status of this attraction may now be up in the air due to new developments with Beastly Kingdom that could push this project out of development.
(3/27/08) The latest rumors for Animal Kingdom seem to indicate that there is a good chance that one of the proposals for a new C or D ticket ride may now be pushed up to fill in the gap left when Rivers of Light was pushed back.
(1/14/08) Screamscape sources tell us that while most of Animal Kingdom’s focus right now is on the new Rivers of Light night show, there is a chance that they could approve a C or D-Ticket level attraction for late 2009 or 2010. While historically C-Ticket rides were typically your standard outdoor flat rides (Tea Cups, Dumbo) and small Fantasyland dark rides (Peter Pan, Snow White) while D-Tickets were your bigger outdoor rides (Rocket Jets, PeopleMover) and major transportation rides (Monorail, Railroad), I believe the definations are a bit different in today’s DisneySpeak.
By today’s standards things like the Triceratops Spin would still be a C-Ticket, but Primevel Whirl would likely be considered a D-Ticket along with attractions like Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin or the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Perhaps the biggest problem with Animal Kingdom right now is that it’s a park that consists mostly of major E-Ticket attractions, animal exhibits and shows, with only a couple of C and D-Ticket attractions these days, so adding another to the mix would definitely be a good move. Lets just find a way to stick this one somewhere other than Asia or Dinoland USA this time, okay, unless it’s time to bring back that idea of the kid friendly Chester & Hester’s Big Bang dark ride, one thought of as a possible way to reuse the old Mr. Toad ride system with a new theme. Think of it as a kid friendly, cartoon version of Countdown to Extinction… errr… Dinosaur. (God, I still hate that name, bring back CTX too while your at it!).
2010/2011 - Rivers of Light parade - In Redesign - (3/26/08) In response to yesterday’s report about the demise of Rivers of Light, our own sources tell us that the project is not actually dead. While the pathways are an issue, the current plan is to scale things down a bit and look to re-launch the concept sometime between 2010 and 2011.
(3/25/08) According to the latest article at Jim Hill Media, the plans for the park’s Rivers of Light nighttime parade have been canceled. It seems this was done primarily because the current pathways are too narrow and the work needed to widen them to accommodate space for people to watch as well as leave pathway space for the guests who don’t want to watch would have been a bit destructive of the atmosphere of the park.
(9/27/07) I’ve got a follow up to the rumor about a new parade for Animal Kingdom today. MiceAge reported that a new night parade was in development for the park called Rivers of Light. Despite the name, it’s not a water based parade, and would likely use the same route along the park’s main pathway that the current parade uses. From the sound of things this will finally give the park a reason to stay open after dark.
2012/2013 - Beastly Kingdom - In Redesign - (4/25/08) Screamscape sources tell us Beastly Kingdom may very well be back on the five-year planning track and if all goes as planned, we could see it open by either 2011 or 2013, depending on just how quickly they want it. Unfortunately it seems Disney has move away from any plans involving the Dragon’s Tower roller coaster concepts. In fact, they’re said to be shying away from Dragons entirely since Universal already took the basic idea for Dueling Dragons, which will get refreshed with an all-new story when it becomes part of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter late next year. Instead Disney will focus the land on “other” imaginary creatures.
There is some good news however as the long rumored next generation water ride concept Disney has been working on does look to be the front-runner for the land’s big Super E-Ticket concept. I don’t know much about it except that the basic idea is to take the EMV style motion-based action you get from the Indiana Jones Adventure (DL) and Dinosaur (AK) rides and then apply it to a boat ride. I’ve got two ideas in my head… one invoving large Jungle Cruise sized boats with a huge motion base (sinking ship action?) or on the smaller scale of things… something more Splash Mountain log sized but with bouncy seating to create a real-world version of the Virtual Jungle Cruise attraction at DisneyQuest.
(3/27/08) From what we’ve been told, Beastly Kingdom is still alive and well… but like a Vegas buffet, the actual contents are constantly shifting in and out of rotation as new ideas come up as well as to reflect the possible budget numbers that may allow the project to finally get off the ground. This means that they have an assortment of attraction concepts ranging from kid friendly up to Super E-Ticket thrill machines all filed away in a variety of possible option packages for the day when the Walt Disney World checkbook finally comes out. Like many have said… it’s not a matter of “IF” Beastly Kingdom happens, only a matter of “WHEN” it will eventually happen.
(3/25/08) According to the latest Jim Hill article, a new re-imagined concept for Beastly Kingdom is being drawn up to fill the gap left behind by the cancellation of Rivers of Light. According to the story the new version of Beastly Kingdom will try to have close ties with established Disney characters and perhaps be more family friendly. Characters I can deal with… but I still want to see an evil castle that is home to an angry dragon and some kind of wild thrill ride.
(7/26/07) It’s just a wild rumor at this point, but we’ve heard rumbling that Disney may be looking into some kind of new water flume attraction for Animal Kingdom. It’s nothing serious yet, just an idea they’re kicking around apparently for the next big follow up to Everest. Unfortunately, this also means that they are not working on Beastly Kingdom either, unless this is part of it.
(4/9/07) While we had hoped that the success of Everest at Animal Kingdom would have inspired Disney to finally build Beastly Kingdom it seems that things don’t work that way in the Disney empire. Instead they seem to be stuck in fire-fighting mode where they only want to add major new capital to fix problem areas and right now the main problem in AK is said to be the over crowding of Africa. So for now… Beastly Kingdom is on hold again.
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