Half-pipe capacity win

Disney made a blog post about the new Toy Story stuff at Hong Kong Disneyland, and it includes a few pictures of their Intamin half-pipe.

This is the only one I think that actually has a number of seats to make it worth the time of a park concerned with capacity, but I also thought that the spinning seats on the board were kind of neat, and added to the ride. Can't get enough of the one at the Mall of America.

Unfortunately, even with 20 seats on the car, capacity is still pretty bad. The ride also got some issues.

The Walt Disney Studios Paris Toy Story Playland got the same three rides and the lines are awful. Imagine this: the park does on average only 15000 guests on busy days. Yet, the average wait for the Parachute Drop (like at DCA, but one tower and 36 seats) is 60-90 minutes for a one minute ride.

RC Racer average wait just for the queuehouse is 60 minutes. If it goes any further, expect to wait even longer! 20 riders every 2-3 minutes is just not enough for a Disney park. Also, for some reasons, Intamin put the Rocket coaster restraints with very touchy sensors and short belts. Even if the belt is locked, you can still be denied a ride since the ride computer will not register it as "safe". Plus, guests are confused by the complicated locking belt buckle. The belt cannot be removed during the ride and is hard to operate.

Due to many guests being denied a ride after 90 minutes in line, they modified ONE seat for large riders. Its painted blue and its in row 1. Guess what? They had to raise the height restriction from 48 inches all the way up to... 67 inches for anyone wishing to ride the front row.

We figured out that if WDW add this area to Disney Hollywood Studios, they'd need 2 or 3 RC Racers side by side, 2 Parachute drops and 2 Slinky Dogs!

I always thought 2 half-pipes, in almost any scenario, would be a smarter move (duh!). Have one criss-cross the other, underneath. It is very surprising that a Disney park would put in such a low capacity ride - and only 1 of them. But it does look nice!

I figured they had a station setup similar to Mr. Freeze where one car was loading while the other is out on the course and the track moved between the two. But yeah, a few more seats aren't going to necessarily be a "capacity win" for Disney. A station on each side, with a "transfer table" that slides between the station and track might be more of a "capacity win."

Speaking of which, does Freeze actually operate like that anymore, or do they just use one train now?

Last Time I was at St. Louis (2009), Freeze ran both stations.

I love the vibrant colors of the land though. Wow, it really pops.

SFoT's Freeze regularly runs with both stations.

I do wonder how much of a problem it would be for the transfer section to be at the point of highest force on the ride in terms of supports and also just the tiny gap in the track.

ApolloAndy said:
SFoT's Freeze regularly runs with both stations.

I do wonder how much of a problem it would be for the transfer section to be at the point of highest force on the ride in terms of supports and also just the tiny gap in the track.

True, I hadn't really thought of that. It was just a quick thought I had before I shut my computer to head into work this morning. Yeah, that probably wouldn't work too well.

Not sure how you realistically could add a second car to a half pipe without having transfer track at the very bottom and having the cars "slide in" a la Freeze....still seems like a LOT of effort and expense - but it COULD really help capacity (since this is a high-intensity ride, maybe there's not so much call for capacity considering it's a Disney park).

Army men parachute drop FTW! :)

Or build the station at the top, and push it over the edge!

Or go the primeval whirl route and just build two.

Both Freeze rides were running 2 trains this year during my visits.

In a video taken at IAAPA, Premier Prseident Jim Seay said they could have designed a Mr. Freeze style dual loading station for the new Superman coaster going into Six Flags Discovery Kingdom but it sounded like the park opted to go the route of easier maintenance by having no moving parts (no tranfer tracks).