How does everyone feel about the rise of "Simulation" type rides at the parks?
So I'll be upfront. I don't *just* love Disney, I love pretty much all theme parks. That being said, I think that adds to my perspective here an doesn't detract from it.
I *love* Fury 325 at Carrowinds. It ight be my favorite ride I've ever ridden, and I've ridden quite a few. But you know what actually rivals it for me? Space Mountain!
I'll defend that opinion to the death too. I think Space Mountain is one of the best rides I've *ever* been on. I don't care that it's older or that it might not meet the standard for a modern 'thrill ride'. It's timeless, the fact that people created something SO long ago that STILL holds up is incredible.
I say this because I don't want to come off as a type of ride snob? I'm VERY against the idea of Bigger and Faster = better. I think that's an awful mindset to have and limits creativity. I'll give some other examples too before I continue where I think Disney knocked it out of the park.
Splash Mountain (Bayou Adventure) / Big Thunder mountain are incredible and these are nowhere near the 'higher thrill' ends of their respective ride genres. Rockin rollercoaster is also a great concept. I like hybrid style rides too like the old Mummy at universal and the New Guardians/Rise of the Resistance. Dinosaur and Indiana Jones respectively were/are great.
So it's not even like it *has* to be a coaster for me I can genuinely appreciate a more 'experience' orientated ride.
But that brings me to things like the Falcon and the Avatar ride. To me, these things are cool for maybe like a single novel experience, but after that, they sort just... Fall flat?
I could ride Space Mountain all day and not get bored, I think I could ride those two once in a lifetime and be happy? I can't imagine they're great people eaters either. So they spent all of this money, used a non-trivial amount of space, and took up one of the new ride slots in these areas for something that I think is just 'easy', underwhelming, and likely doesn't even put a dent in capacity?
It would also be one thing if this was sort of a one off deal. For example, Spiderman was the premier 'simulator' at Universal for a while, but that was fine since it was sort of one ride in an ocean of rides. You can argue that's sort of the case at both places still, but I'm talking about this trend of them seeming to include one 'simulation' ride in every new area they seem to open. I was happy to see that when they did Tron they did a full track ride and NOT a sim.
When we get the new "Villians" world if we get 2 new attractions are we going to really have have another pure 'Sim" style ride there. Do we *want* that? I get that it's *easier* for them to do this, smaller footprints, etc. But it just seems to me like the new trend is taking the 'easy' way out and heavily relying on simulations that surely will lose their novelty quickly. I feel like Imagineering used to be about doing things that were seemingly impossible. High quality indoor roller coasters? Check and check.
Building an entire mountain to put a coaster in? Been there and done that, twice! But I fear that we're just going to keep getting simulation after simulation now. What does everyone else think?