Theme Park Apprentice Challenge 2: Create a Dark Ride

April 26, 2010, 8:59 AM · It's time to eliminate another contestant as we play round two of Theme Park Apprentice. The second challenge is to create a theme park dark ride. Here are the contestants, in the order that they pitched their ideas on the Challenge 2 thread. Please click to that thread to read the proposals in detail.

Voting closes Thursday morning. Check the Theme Park Insider Discussion Board for Challenge 3, when it begins.

Replies (16)

April 26, 2010 at 9:53 AM · I can't believe no one proposed the Disney Experience Ride, which is where the ride flips you upside down and shakes you until all of your money falls out...
April 26, 2010 at 1:14 PM · Wow... these are really surprising results. Robert, you may want to add that all of these are situated at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Only one vote for Wok's Mary (poppins) go round dark ride?
April 26, 2010 at 1:19 PM · Apparently I should stick to creating restaurants because Im getting trounced!

Lets see if I can have a late run in the next coming days.

April 26, 2010 at 1:52 PM · As I mentioned in the thread, I actually disliked my own idea and am surprised it's getting any results. I thought Wok's and Amanda's were the best, and am surprised to see Wok trailing.
April 26, 2010 at 2:06 PM · Also, no offense to Kevin or Anthony, but I think much of the popularity for your two attractions is because of the popularity of their source material. As soon as I heard the challenge was to build a dark ride at DHS, my first two immediate ideas came from The Incredibles and WALL-E. Fantastic movies, and perfect for adapting a dark ride.

I liked Amanda and Wok's work because they took popular movies for adapting, but adapted them in such a way that they seemed fresh and original. Bonus points to Wok for taking advantage of a classic. If we only adapted from the newest, most popular material, we wouldn't have Tower of Terror, Jaws, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman (attraction opened in 1999, three years before the summer blockbuster premiered and re-popularized the series), Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges, Splash Mountain, and various other classic dark/water rides.

April 26, 2010 at 2:34 PM · In my defense, I was going more for the kind of dark ride over the material. Since Spiderman seems to be the pinnicle of Dark Rides. I saw the Incred. as a Disney brand that could take the high energy of that technology.

Anyhow, the movie came out in 2004 (6 years ago). As to Splash Mountain, Disneyland was trying to figure out what they were going to do with these animal animatronics. Its tough Song of the South has never really been realeased since it is quite a historic piece of Animation. I do like the Willow Attraction idea.

April 26, 2010 at 3:14 PM · Hey Tim, if we get knocked out, can we still submit ideas for fun and feedback? Dan your idea was good and you aren't getting trounced. Funny comment Jeff.
April 26, 2010 at 3:34 PM · Sure thats fine David, you may still submit your own ideas. However, they will just not be considered for elimination of course.
April 26, 2010 at 7:12 PM · Thanks for the comments. The polls have been interesting in this, so far.
April 26, 2010 at 7:58 PM · I think it would be interesting to add a poll of who should be fired. Although some of these attractions might not have received many votes for being the best, that certainly doesn't mean they are considered the worst.

I'm vicious, yes.

April 26, 2010 at 9:55 PM · I thought about framing this as "who should be eliminated?" but decided that since the opposite of love in this business is indifference, not hate, I should frame it this way, and have y'all take out the least popular idea instead.
April 27, 2010 at 1:17 AM · Anthony's "Incredibles" idea is just what Disney is crying out for. A format that has proved so successful over at Universal's I.O.A with Spiderman.
His storyboard is strong and the concepts definitely workable.
The acid test for something like this is : Would I queue to ride it ?
The answer is : Yes.

On the voting question. Why don't we vote for the bottom two scorers and retain one of them

April 27, 2010 at 1:50 AM · Good point, Robert.
April 27, 2010 at 7:05 AM · These are all great ideas and I'd ride them all. The one ride I am waiting for though is one based on the chase scene from Monsters Inc. The scenes where they are riding on the doors just screams ride to me.
April 27, 2010 at 10:34 AM · Joe, I think they have that planned already. They currently have a Monster Inc. roller coaster planned and given all the approvals to go into the building between Toy Story Mania and the Backlot Tour at DHS. There just waiting for the money to be approved. I've talked to many enigneers at the Studios and Imagineers are ready to begin but Disney put it off 2-3 years because Disney has decided to put the money in the Fantasyland expansion and the new Disneyland in China.
April 28, 2010 at 6:15 PM · I question how many people even bother to read the complete story-lines before simply voting based off what sounds familiar and fun. Nothing against Anthony or Kevin, but I feel that their ideas are only excelling due to the fact they're based after popular movies. Personally, I adored Joshua's idea- it was creative, entertaining, and interactive. Plus it's something that Disney's Hollywood Studios needs if it's trying to cover all the genres of television and movie media.

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

Park tickets

Weekly newsletter

New attraction reviews

News archive