Sam Wilson is a huge Imagineering fan and a faithful Disney and more reader since i've started the site. Recently he has created his own site and yesterday he did a great article about Shanghaî Disneyland.
For the reasons we know WDI don't disclose any infos about SDL rides - mostly because Disney want to avoid SDL ideas to be stolen by other chinese theme parks - but this lack of infos didn't stopped Sam Wilson to try to crack the Shanghai Disneyland case. So, after analyzing all the infos available on different sites like Screamscape or Blue Sky Disney as well as official renderings or the SDL model displayed at D23 he did this very first Shanghaî Disneyland map that you can see below - click on it to see it in larger size.
You will read in Sam article how he did to create this map. Is he right? He probably is for some of the rides and may be not on others but that's not the problem as SDL won't open before three or four years and some of WDI choices might change. Also, in his article Sam is saying that SDL Tomorrowland might have a People Mover. It would be a good idea and we'll see if it will be the case or not but recently i've found this picture shot during an Imagineering presentation at the last D23 Expo. This rendering was apparently done for a new People Mover ride at Disneyland Anaheim, so there is no relation with SDL. Still, it's an interesting artwork as if you have a closer look to it you'll see that this new People Mover had a totally new ride system. In fact you can see that riders are sit on a platform attached to a robotic arm which obviously have the ability to move in all directions while also moving all around Tomorrowland.
What was probably envision here was to use the Kuka robot arm technology, the one that Universal used in the Harry Potter land E-Ticket ride. Universal succeeded to have an exclusivity on the use of the Kuka robot arm technology in theme park rides for the next ten years, but if i remember it well they only have this exclusivity for the U.S. Which means that Disney might be free to use this People Mover / Kuka arm idea for other theme parks, and why not at Shanghaî Disneyland? To be honest i don't think they will use it at SDL as they probably wouldn't have shown the artwork at D23 if they were planning to include this ride at Shanghaî Disneyland.
Now, to come back to SDL and Sam's map i suppose that you're interested to learn how Sam did it and how he put all the infos together to create this great map, so it's time to jump to Sam Wilson's article on his site to learn more about Shanghaî Disneyland secrets! It's right HERE.
Picture: copyright Disney
Map: copyright Sam Wilson
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There are only about 21 rides and walkthrough attractions.
ReplyDeleteStill a big need of something to replace Frontierland...
ReplyDeleteIf keeping it like this, I think they are on the same way than HK Disneyland; that is the way to failure...
Aren't there a few Kuka robots in use at Epcot already for The Sum of all Thrills? If so doesn't that go against the 10 year exclusive deal mentioned for Universal?
ReplyDeleteTo Josh: Probably not because the Kuka robot arms at Epcot are not part of a ride, and may be also because the deal was done before Universal get the exclusivity.
ReplyDeleteI think the Kuka arms would be a terrible idea for the Peoplemover. What was once a family attraction would become a throw up ride. Let's not!
ReplyDeleteI believe the Universal deal only limited the Kuka arm system as a tracked ride. The Legoland parks additionally have the same stationary Kuka arm system as EPCOT.
ReplyDelete