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Universal Orlando - Volcano Bay Waterpark, 2017

One week until opening update! First of all here are some official photos that Universal have posted to their blog:

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And some new drone footage:



They've clearly made progress since my last update but there is still plenty to be done before next Thursday. I can't really put my finger on why but I'm just not convinced by the park yet, it just isn't doing it for me. Maybe that will change once it is all up and running or when I eventually visit in person. It just seems, well, a little bland in places.

:)
 
I get what you mean.

I guess I expected Universal's answer to Typhoon Lagoon or Blizard Beach but instead we've got Wet'N'Wild with a single Theme. Compared to Pandora you can really appreciate why Disney are in a league of their own.

Having a massive hole in the back of the Volcano is especially jarring.
 
It's concerning that it doesn't seem to be finished yet so close to opening. Like, not even just small details but full on theming and parts of slides.

I think it looks okay overall, maybe it'll look better from the ground once you're in the park, but it's a little disappointing to what I was first expecting. Again, maybe it'll change once it's fully completed and everything has had time to 'bed in', including the volcano having its effects turned on
 
Tim said:
I guess I expected Universal's answer to Typhoon Lagoon or Blizard Beach but instead we've got Wet'N'Wild with a single Theme. Compared to Pandora you can really appreciate why Disney are in a league of their own.
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It doesn't feel a million miles away from either of those - water parks don't typically feature the same quality of aesthetics, but there are certainly some exceptions. Pandora and all their Potter stuff would be a fairer comparison and I struggle to find too many complaints there.

I think it looks great, to be honest. Water parks really come alive when they're full of people.
 
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Don't get me wrong I enjoyed Universal and expect Volcano Bay to be a great waterpark.

However since they built the Potter sections I've had higher expectations for the company. The Potter lands are rich immersive environments, typically something you only see at the Disney parks. So when Universal announced their next big project as a Waterpark that would be their 3rd Theme Park I expected the same level of immersion. Not to mention they demolished Wet'N'Wild for this so they could build the new park from the ground up.

So far I've not seen anything that elevates Volcano Bay above any other Waterpark except for the lovely centrepiece (which looks half finished from behind). That's not to say it's not going to be an amazing park.

I compare to Typhoon Lagoon because in my opinion not only was it a very innteresting Waterpark but my second favourite Park in all of Florida. The massive wave pool (and at the time Shark Reef) set it apart from any other Waterpark but it was the immersive setting that gave me a complete experience.
 
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The problem of course with Typhoon Lagoon and pretty much all the slides being set into the concrete is that they aren't easy to replace and therefore almost everything at Typhoon Lagoon is 25 year old technology (except Crush'n'Gusher and MissAdventure Falls). Building free-standing structures does make things easier to repair and update.

I think Volcano Bay is more immersive that Wet'n'Wild and probably more fun than Typhoon Lagoon.
 
Sounds like Volcano Bay will be opening on Thursday with no volcano drop slides, no water coaster (the headline attraction), no lazy river (it flows through what is still a construction site) and other areas behind the volcano still under construction. A really poor show from Universal, I always felt that they were pushing it somewhat with their timescale.

They did carry out some team member testing over the weekend where you can see what is and isn't ready:

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Source: bioreconstruct

Cue the complaints!

:)
 
It seems the Water coaster, and the volcano drop slides were open yesterday for the media event. Hopefully they all open for the public today as well.
 
Yes I noticed that, great work by Universal there to get them turned around so quickly!

:)
 
Glad I'm not the only one who feels a little underwhelmed by Volcano Bay. I've been following construction since the start and while I got really excited by the CGI renders and marketing, as I saw the site and watched the build I just had this feeling in the back of my mind it wouldn't be as grand as some of Universal's other recent developments. They could have made it the best in the world.

I was convinced I was wrong however, looking from the outside its very difficult to make any real judgements and I thought it be best to wait until photos and videos were released from inside the park. Well today I spent a lot of time watching various vidoes of the opening and while it looks great, it really isn't on par with Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach by any stretch of the imagination.

The site doesn't really seem big enough and being surrounded by highways is a little offputting, although they've done a pretty good job with the lanscaping to hide the outside world a bit. Credit where credit's due.

From whats been shown so far I'd rate this about on par with Aquatica, with maybe some slightly better slides. Definitely better than Wet N Wild though.

Went to Tenerife last year and did the Siam Park waterpark there which is immense and almost up to the standard of the Disney ones but with MUCH better slides. I'll visit Volcano Bay this October and have the feeling it'll sit behind Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon, and Siam Park in my favourites. We'll see.
 
After seeing more videos, I'm not as disappointed as I first way. In fact, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. The back of the volcano doesn't seem as obvious from ground level and the overall theming is of a high quality. The only downside is the interior of the volcano which doesn't seem to be themed much/if at all but I don't know if that's due to the way the structure has been built.

The Aqua Coaster though looks amazing, I really want to try it:

 
Volcano bay has had a bit of a disastrous first week, with lots of bad reviews and long waits at the customer service desk with people complaining. While people state the park looks great the problems have come from the virtual wait system not working, it's causing huge wait times. i.e. Many of the slides you have a 5 hour wait, you are only allowed to have the water coster and one other ride reserved at a time, you then have to wait up to 5 hours to ride, killing all that time either sunbathing, in the wave pool or lazy river. Then when you do arrive at the ride it's not quite the walkon you would expect but having to queue up to another 45 mins!

Constant braakdowns of the rides isn't helping either (normally the conveyor systems).

Universal have stopped selling the express passes as that wasn't helping either.

Hopefully universal can get these issues sorted quickly, best way would be to turn off the virtual wait system for now until can come up with a better solution to implement it.
 
Maelstrom said:
Volcano bay has had a bit of a disastrous first week, with lots of bad reviews and long waits at the customer service desk with people complaining. While people state the park looks great the problems have come from the virtual wait system not working, it's causing huge wait times. i.e. Many of the slides you have a 5 hour wait, you are only allowed to have the water coster and one other ride reserved at a time, you then have to wait up to 5 hours to ride, killing all that time either sunbathing, in the wave pool or lazy river. Then when you do arrive at the ride it's not quite the walkon you would expect but having to queue up to another 45 mins!

Constant braakdowns of the rides isn't helping either (normally the conveyor systems).

Universal have stopped selling the express passes as that wasn't helping either.

Hopefully universal can get these issues sorted quickly, best way would be to turn off the virtual wait system for now until can come up with a better solution to implement it.
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You can't even do that any more, they've changed it in the last few days meaning that you cannot reserve another ride when you have the water coaster!

There have indeed been a lot of problems. The Tapu Tapu system istelf is working fine from a technical point of view however it appears that many of the problems come from poor operations. Because everything was finished so late on and there were no soft openings, staff did not have a chance to be trained to the standard required to make the system work as it should. And rides that need dual loading systems do not have them. All of this means that dispatches are quite some time after the light turns green. The models Universal have for Tapu Tapu are all based on efficiencies that they cannot currently achieve.

I personally think that the whole concept of virtual queueing has a fundamental flaw unless you set a strict limit on park capacity. In a normal situation where you physically queue for rides then when you are in a queue you are in a queue, when you are in a lazy river you are in a lazy river, when you are eating lunch you are eating lunch. At Volcano Bay; when you are in a lazy river you are also in a queue for another ride, when you are eating lunch you are in queue, when you laze around you are in a queue and so on. This means that the vast majority of people in the park at any one time will be in a queue, which obviously means very long queues. And there is only so long you can float in a river, jump over a wave, lie on a lounger and hand over your cash for food/drink for before you become bored/irritated.

So yeah, hopefully things will improve over time but it has not been a good start. Also certain aspects of the park which are not finished are not likely to now be completed until a winter maintenance period.

:)
 
How can a water slide break down‽ It's an inclined plane FFS! Unless their pumps are powered by hamsters and they got tired...?
 
Most of the slide towers use convayor belt systems to bring the inflatable tubes to the top of towers, its these that apparently are having breakdown issues. Plus the water coater uses LIMS, so I am sure they can cause break downs as well.
 
it can't help that a lot of people are in Florida at the moment for both this and Pandora. Personally I think they are all nuts for turning up the opening week for 2 very high profile attractions.

the advantage Disney has is that if you cant stand a 5 hour queue to get into Pandora the rest of Animal Kingdom is business as usual (just like when both Harry Potters opened). Volcano Bay is all new & has a brand new queueing system. Maybe too much to implement at once?
 
Sorry to bump the thread, but in an interesting development, it was recently revealed in court that Punga Racers, a mat racer slide at Volcano Bay, has injured a total of 115 people during its lifespan so far: https://time.com/5874501/injury-reports-volcano-bay-water-slide/


The injuries included scrapes, nosebleed, a concussion and whiplash, and two of the injuries were to “ride safety testers”. This was all discovered in a lawsuit by a man named James Bowen, who claims that he was left paralysed after his neck “snapped back violently” as he hit the slide’s runoff chute. This occurred in 2019.


Since it opened, this ride seems to have had a somewhat chequered history, and I think this may have been the same one where they drastically reduced the weight limit a year or two back (correct me if I’m wrong). I think Universal may have extended the runoff chute fairly recently in order to mitigate the risk.
 
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