|
|
|
INDIANA JONES - THE TEMPLE OF FORBIDDEN
EYE (USA)
|
|
|
|
Location:
Disneyland, Anaheim, California
Date of Debut: March 3, 1995
Ride duration: 3:20 min
Wheelchair Accessible: No
FastPass:yes
Estimated Cost: $100 million |
|
Introduction
|
|
INDY is Disneyland's best thrill ride. If you can imagine
the STAR TOURS simulator technology built into a jeep and
driving you along inside of a detailed Pirates-type of attraction
at bumpy MATTERHORN speed, then you'll have a pretty good
idea of what all the excitement is about. You'll even be amazed
at the work they put in the line, since you will be walking
through a queue with extremely detailed movie-type settings
and interactive elements throughout. (There are even booby-traps
that can set off by touching or grabbing things that signs
tell you not to.)
DL and ride sponsor AT&T no longer provides everyone with
a souvenir wallet card at the entrance to keep you busy decoding
all the wall writings and carvings - which was hard to do
since the line moves so fast.
|
|
The Attraction
|
|
When you reach the massive high-ceiling boarding area, you'll
load onto a Jeep-like military Hummer-type 12 passenger "troop
transport" which takes you inside an ancient jungle temple,
where you are warned NOT to look into the eyes of the goddess
Mara. Since of course it is impossible for anyone to avoid
this due to those clever Imagineers' design, all hell breaks
loose as the goddess wreaks all sorts of havoc making for
a very wild, almost brutal, chase inside the temple. (Although
it only supposedly travels at 12 MPH, the stunning hydraulic
effects help to simulate speeds of up to 60 MPH.) BEWARE -
this is one of the more turbulent rides Disney has created,
it can make STAR TOURS and the MATTERHORN seem very tame.
If you have back or neck problems, stay away, it can be merciless.
Notably this is also the first time an amusement park ride
has been programmed like a video game, with many subtle event
variations. You'll drive each time through one of three different
doors, and each vehicle has then also been programmed to move
and react differently in where and how it delays, stalls,
bucks or turns over the same track in the three-and-a-half
minute ride. Even Indy himself will have one of several different
things to say each time you see him. There really are some
great illusions here, (if you're not just holding on for dear
life) and for the first time this ride also lets you actually
FEEL some of those special effects that up until now have
only been seen on the big screen. This is simply an amazing
new ride experience. Whatever you do at Disneyland, don't
miss it.
Even with a top loading speed of about 2400 people an hour
(more than "Pirates"), this ride gets quickly swamped
with huge lines in the mornings. It is best to AVOID this
attraction first thing in the day - and go ahead and pick
up a FastPass for it. If you don't want to get a FastPass,
save riding Indy for the lull that comes during parade or
show times, or even better yet, just before the park closes.
Thankfully the lines move quickly, so you won't have time
to get bored.
|
Highlights
along the way include a puffing generator, a spike chamber,
a rotunda painted with a fresco of Mara, a cavern with simulated
stalagmites and stalactites and a screening room that plays
mock newsreels explaining the legend. Disney planners have cleverly
taken advantage of the ride's location by opening holes in the
ceiling to reveal the lush foliage surrounding the Jungle Cruise
next door.
Number of Rooms in the "Ride" Part of the Attraction:
11.
· Chamber of Destiny
· Hall of Promise
· Tunnel of Torment
· Gates of Doom
· Cavern of Bubbling Death
· Mummy Chamber
· Bug Room
· Snake Temple
· Rat Cave
· Dart Corridor
· Rolling Boulder Finale. |
|
Facts
|
|
- Number of Human Skulls (fake, Disney assures us): 2,000.
- Number of Snakes (sculpted, carved, painted or audio-animatronic):
2,129.
- Planning began in 1982; ground was broken in August 1993.
- How Many People Have Been Working on it: About 400.
- How Many People Will it Hold: About 2,400 per hour.
- Length of "Pre-Ride": One hour.
- Length of Ride: 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
- Vehicles: 16, with a maximum of 15 - one dispatched every
18 seconds
- Rolling Boulder: 16 feet in diameter.
- Internal motion system with nearly 160,000 possible ride variations
- Random movements are created without relying on the track.
- Synchronized, on-board sound system gives full stereo sound
with special effects added.
- Visual and sound effects are triggered by the vehicle passing
over sensors in the track.
- You'll see Indy thrice during the ride (well, as close as
Disney Imagineers can muster, anyway) and he's programmed to
say a bunch of different things: "Next time you're on your
own" and "You were good in there - you were very good,"
for example.
- During construction, the queue of the attraction took longer
to complete than the actual ride.
- Special Effects (besides snakes): Fire, explosions, a crumbling
ceiling, a lava pit, bugs, scurrying rats and a runaway boulder.
Something for every masochist.
|
|
Marketing
|
|
As
much as $20 million will have been spent on advertising by the
time the ride opens. Late last year, Walt Disney Co. Chairman
Michael Eisner trumpeted that no one living west of the Mississippi
River would escape the marketing blitz. The campaign is the
biggest ever for the theme park.
Highlights of the media blitz: For several months, National
Rental Car commercials have featured scenes from the attraction.
CBS television will air a special on the making of the ride
in tandem with the final installment of the Indy trilogy, "Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade," on March 7, four days after
the ride opens. Disney's Indiana Jones Adventure song and stunt
presentation will be seen by more than 100 million viewers on
ABC TV as the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Indiana Jones
displays will grace the windows of Disney's 348 retail stores.
Inside, customers will be able to purchase Indiana Jones items
such as replicas of his famous hat. In the Western United States,
Disney will produce a traveling Indiana Jones display and mini-stunt
show that will stop at many of the malls where the stores are
located, starting this month. Finally, the Disney Channel, the
company's cable television outlet, will air several Indiana
Jones Adventure programs. |
|
|