Cars and Villians Land Construction Update

Thx NB

I've seen photos of footers in place for Piston Peak, and there are construction trailers staged far out of view from inside the park. I don't know where NB is getting their information, but there are plenty of accounts of significant activity on these projects.

Russell Meyer - About a week ago. Military helicopter flyover shows the entire area for both lands. If this discussion board allowed for photos, like every other on the internet since 1995, I could post a pic. You could also post your pic of these construction trailers and footings.

I watched three videos (all from Pro-Disney channels) discussing this very topic. Completely barren land. Only graded and zero vehicles or activity.

As you can probably tell, my post is to point out the snail's pace construction standards at the most magical place on Earth.

The Epic Universe expansion, Lost Continent at IOA, and a few other Universal small ball projects will be completed long before the new Disney gatecrashers.

Check out Bioreconstruct. He's always posting aerial views of all construction happenings at all the parks.

And I totally agree on the photos

I'm convinced TH Creative and NB Creative are the same person who trolls this website for their own personal amusement. Can we get an IP check?

"The Epic Universe expansion, Lost Continent at IOA, and a few other Universal small ball projects will be completed long before the new Disney gatecrashers."

It's well known that Disney construction projects typically progress at a slower pace than Universal's, but let's not fool ourselves about what is going on at UO. The permits for Epic were filed months ago, and from most reports, very little is happening right now - just some basic land clearing and grading that had started before Epic officially opened. Yes, the latest permits indicate that progress will accelerate soon, but I haven't seen a single picture of a footer or a building pad. The same goes for IOA, which, yes has seen quite a bit of activity of late, but most of that is simple demo, which is easily executed and appears to demonstrate rapid progress but is typically a minor phase of an overall reconstruction project. Let's not forget that Sinbad closed nearly 8 years ago and Poseidon's Fury closed over 2 years ago, meaning that Lost Continent limped along with just the Mystic Fountain and Mythos for nearly 2 years before Universal made its first move to redevelop the land - compared to Disney, they closed Dinoland just earlier this year and expect to have the Tropical Americas retheme open sometime next year (I'd wager in the later quarter), so in the time it took Universal to figure out what to do with Lost Continent, Disney will have rethemed a new land, which includes a brand new attraction and re-skinned another.

Over at USF, Universal has been sitting on a theater that hasn't been regularly used in years and an entire land based on an IP they're about to lose the rights to in 2 years and have done NOTHING to address - instead they're replacing a coaster with a new coaster themed to an IP that has yet to have a successful theme park attraction (and a similar coaster in Hollywood that has yet to open despite having been testing for 3+ months). Not to mention the albatross of the Comic Strip Theater and Seuss Land at IOA that has been unchanged in a quarter century (I'll give them a pass for not changing Marvel Super Hero Island, because we all know why that area will be perpetually stuck in 1999).

Adding to Russell's assessment, NBc/Universal still hasn't revealed what will replace the existing 'Fast & Furious: Supercharged' attraction. When the F&F franchise was named as the new coaster IP, it was also announced that the F&F ... um ... I guess I will call it a "dark ride" (?), will close.

And while we're discussing theaters, God bless the cast and production team at the 'Animal Actors on Location!' show. They make a sincere effort but the show is ... I mean, it's really quite bad.

NBC/Universal's future parent is gonna have to write some heavy checks if they want to resuscitate their Orlando resort.

'Fast & Furious: Supercharged' will close permanently on August 16th. Rumors indicate that it will be replaced with Orlando's first Buc-ee's.

TH, you've had quite the obsession with Buc-ee's recently, did you finally make it out of Orlando and visited the the marvel for the first time this summer?

I do think Universal is in a bit of a tough spot with this attraction, because there's not a lot of space to work with here, and there are bigger fish to fry both in USF and in the other 2 UO parks. Frankly, I think the best solution here would be again turning to a USH concept by creating a year-round HHN attraction/walkthrough. There just isn't enough room here to create a dynamic attraction, and USF already has 3 motion theater rides. The Fear Factor Theater presents far more space if Universal has a better ride concept, and the pending closure of Springfield due to the loss of the rights to the IP will force Universal to do something with the Simpsons Ride sooner than later. Universal already uses the F&F Supercharged queue for HHN attractions in the fall, so it would be easy to hand the entire space over to Michael Aiello, and present a year-round HHN experience that can be leveraged to not only promote the annual event, but to advertise the year-round attractions in Las Vegas and installation coming to Chicago.