How to improve Antartica's ride?
Sea World Orlando: I got an idea.
Add AAs of the penguins from Madagascar. Sea World has the rights to use those characters.
Where??? They'd effectively have to redesign the entire ride story to do that, and while the park has the rights to the characters, a full revamp of a ride that just opened 2 weeks ago is not something a park is going to do.
What they need to do is temper guests' expectations by talking about the amazing exhibit and downplaying the actual ride. Maybe in 3 years or so, adding licensed characters may be a good way to give the attraction a fresh look, but Sea World spent far too much money to make major changes less than 2 weeks after opening day.
The only economically feasible solution that I can think of would be to have a seperate entrance into the penquin encounter area, something along the lines of FJ where you can experience the queue and skip the ride. From reading the forums it seems that a number of people enjoy the encounter area but dislike the ride. Plus, it seems as the ride has low capacity issues, so that would solve the long wait problem also. This basically seems like a ride that families with small children would enjoy, but it does not meet the expectations of teen and older riders.
When running at peak capacity, I calculate that the ride could handle over 1,250 people per hour (4 8-person vehicles every 60-90 seconds). As with any new ride, the elevated interest along with the break-in of the new technology prevents them from reaching that capacity, but it does seem more than appropriate for the size of the attraction.
I think they'll eventually let people into the "warm" viewing area, but I doubt they will ever let guests get into the "cold" habitat/unload area. The exhibit as a whole is just too small to simply let people walk through and there's no space on that side of the building for a queue to get people in and out in an orderly fashion.
As far as the ride goes, I think the people that "dislike" the ride were expecting something far more thrilling than what Sea World has delivered. Part of that blame falls on Sea World for hyping up the vehicles so much during the build process, and also calling the ride "wild". If Sea World had instead focussed their marketing on the actual habitat and unique access guests will have to the penguins, then perhaps people wouldn't be so disappointed in the ride. In this case, the ride should be considered like a fancy conveyor belt taking you to the penguins, and nothing more.
From James Rao
Posted June 7, 2013 at 1:25 PM
^Similar to the Nemo ride at the Seas Pavilion in Epcot. The "ride" just conveys you to the Main Tank. It's nice, but nothing special, and definitely not the "star".
In Antarctica, the Penguins are the stars, so SeaWorld should promote the heck out of them - if they can keep them from escaping into the wild! =)
Russell, several penguins have tried to escape in the past days, so the Madagascar penguins would fit perfectly.
Batman Returns has a very good set design of the Penguin's lair. Bo Welch should have designed the set of this ride.
They should just knock out the ride entirely and demote it to the penguins.....I'm joking.
Or am I?
Saw a POV this ride looks like crap too short IMO..
I was really unimpressed and confused by the ride. I just wanted to see the exhibit, but that was the only way to get in. I spent well over an hour in the exhibit because it was so great, but the ride was extremely disappointing. I felt like the ride's story was great until you actually got on. The queue and the intro movie were on spot, maybe the movie was a little corny, but still had a good story going. From there it just quit. Like suddenly he grew up and then they had the classic leopard seal chase from every other penguin movie. I think the ride needs some more thrill for sure. Obviously this would never happen, but if they used the same ride system as The Mummy at Universal, that would make it much more enjoyable, especially for the chase sequence. Not only would it improve the new attraction, but it would give SeaWorld a much needed thrill. I would love to see that happen.
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