The cartoon-showing lift hill seems like a good idea to me - cause that’s a long lift, and I imagine would be pretty boring without. But does showing a cartoon make your ride an “attraction?” What I would like to see is an honest-to-Walt dark ride on one of these ships - something on the level of Monsters Inc from DCA. Minimal audio animatronics would hopefully require less maintenance, and surely these giant boats have the space.
I enjoyed the video, but yeah, would love to see the water effects working properly as the lift portion of the ride looked pretty lame. I'm sure the dark sections are fun, but that's always hard to get a feel for on video. The transparent portion of the slide looked the most appealing as you're looking out over the ocean and down to the deck below.
I haven't had the opportunity to ride a lot of water coasters, but I have ridden two that are arguably among the best: Mammoth and Wildebeest at Holiday World (haven't had the opportunity to ride Cheetah Chase yet, but looking forward to it).
As far as the thrill ride trend on cruise ships, it's always felt a bit gimmicky to me. You're going to be limited by space, so chances are whatever you do is going to be a vastly neutered version of a thrill ride in a theme park. On the other hand, it's hard for a theme park enthusiast to argue *against* more rides. =) Considering Disney could have easily just put in another non-themed generic waterslide and called it a day, I'm all for them experimenting to see what works and what doesn't.
The cartoon-showing lift hill seems like a good idea to me - cause that’s a long lift, and I imagine would be pretty boring without. But does showing a cartoon make your ride an “attraction?” What I would like to see is an honest-to-Walt dark ride on one of these ships - something on the level of Monsters Inc from DCA. Minimal audio animatronics would hopefully require less maintenance, and surely these giant boats have the space.
I enjoyed the video, but yeah, would love to see the water effects working properly as the lift portion of the ride looked pretty lame. I'm sure the dark sections are fun, but that's always hard to get a feel for on video. The transparent portion of the slide looked the most appealing as you're looking out over the ocean and down to the deck below.
I haven't had the opportunity to ride a lot of water coasters, but I have ridden two that are arguably among the best: Mammoth and Wildebeest at Holiday World (haven't had the opportunity to ride Cheetah Chase yet, but looking forward to it).
As far as the thrill ride trend on cruise ships, it's always felt a bit gimmicky to me. You're going to be limited by space, so chances are whatever you do is going to be a vastly neutered version of a thrill ride in a theme park. On the other hand, it's hard for a theme park enthusiast to argue *against* more rides. =) Considering Disney could have easily just put in another non-themed generic waterslide and called it a day, I'm all for them experimenting to see what works and what doesn't.