The year of Na’vi, Waturi and Ninjago
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The Na’vi of “Avatar” are generally a peaceful bunch, but Walt Disney World hopes they’ll be good soldiers in the battle for themepark visitors in 2017.
Disney will open its “Pandora: The World of Avatar” 12-acre land this summer at Animal Kingdom. It’s seen as one of Disney’s answers to rival Universal Orlando’s richly detailed, interactive Wizarding Worlds of Harry Potter.
Universal, meanwhile, is pouring its resources into the Volcano Bay water park, also opening this summer. “It’s been a little while since both Disney and Universal came out with some really big projects,” said Robert Niles, editor of Theme Park Insider. “I think it’s going to feel good for Orlando fans and visitors to have big things coming from the big players again. I think there’s a lot of curiosity as to how both companies pull off these projects.”
Both are meant to keep visitors around longer. By adding a water park directly on resort property, Universal can keep people from wandering off to International Drive or Disney for a while longer. Disney wants to extend visitors’ stays at Animal Kingdom, viewed by some as a half-day park.
To give people reasons to linger at night, Disney has been developing the “Rivers of Light” waterfront show with lights and music. Disney originally intended to debut the production last April. Now, the resort says “Rivers of Light” will open sometime this year. Insiders say it has been plagued with technical difficulties.
For Pandora, Disney has slowly released details and artwork showing an elaborately themed, fantastical land. Imagineers have been recreating the planet, which is home to the blue Na’vi extraterrestrial race. The land will include Flight of Passage, which gives people banshee rides over Pandora, and Na’vi River Journey, in which visitors will take journeys through a bioluminescent rain forest in canoes.
Despite Pandora’s beauty, though, some theme park industry watchers have reservations about Disney’s choice of “Avatar”
as a franchise.
The original movie was out eight years ago. The first sequel is expected in 2018.
“I don’t think it’s an epic movie,” said Scott Smith, assistant hospitality professor at the University of South Carolina. “To base an entire theme park land around it? The characters are not that compelling. Disney may get the technology right and it may be just a fascinating advance in ride technology, but it’s not a compelling story.”Universal has generated immense fan interest with the intellectual property it’s chosen to feature in its theme parks.
Volcano Bay, however, won’t have that. Instead, it’s based on a fictional island paradise called Waturi. The most visible feature of the park is its faux 200-foot volcano, which erupts – similar to the fire-breathing dragon of Universal’s Diagon Alley.
“Universal, we always think about big IP (intellectual property),” Niles said. “We think Harry Potter, Transformers, Minions. Now they’re finally doing, ‘We’re just going to make it up on our own.’ Can Universal pull that off?”
Volcano Bay will be more advanced than Wet ’n Wild, the Universal-owned water park across Interstate 4 from the main resort that closed in December. The water park will make Universal much more conspicuous from I-4. Previously drivers could see glimpses of Hogwarts castle and rides in the distance. Now, water slides and the volcano loom over the highway.
Unlike many water-park attractions, its signature 200-foot volcano it won’t have staircases for people to climb. Instead, riders will board inflatable canoeshaped rafts with metal plates built into the bottom. Magnets will pull them up to the top.
Visitors will receive wristbands on which they can reserve times so they don’t have to wait in line.
That appears to signal a shift in philosophy for Universal, which has typically not allowed visitors to skip lines without purchasing Express Passes starting at $50. That’s in contrast to Disney, which provides a limited number of FastPasses free of charge.
In April, however, the Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon ride opening at Universal Studios Florida will give guests the ability to reserve times and come back later.
Also, Universal this month began testing return times at its Despicable Me Minion Mayhem attraction. The company has not strategy regarding times.
Meanwhile SeaWorld — more financially constrained than its bigger competitors — will focus on another technological trend, adding virtual reality to its Kraken roller coaster this summer.
It will also introduce the Seven Seas Food Festival, which will run each Saturday from Feb. 11 to May 13.
Further south, Legoland recently opened a Ninjago area, featuring a ride on which people can fire at on-screen dragons and enemies using hand gestures rather than joysticks. And Fun Spot America will open a wooden roller coaster in Kissimmee — the only one in the southeastern United States to include a barrel roll. The industry is eager to get discussed wait 2016 behind it, said Dennis Speigel, president of the International Theme Park Services consulting firm.
Orlando had a challenging year, with hotel occupancy and themepark attendance dipping in the first half. The region grappled with the Pulse nightclub shooting, a fatal alligator attack at Disney, fears about Zika and a drop in Brazilian visitors. Overall, the industry was marred by several high-profile accidents including the death of a 10-year-old boy on a water slide.”I` think the general feeling among the operators, particularly in Orlando…has been they’re glad that 2016’s over and they hope the clouds will be lifted from all the things they endured in 2016,” Speigel said.