Screamscape has finally confirmed a rumor that has been around for quite a bit: that Splash Mountain was going to receive lap bars. And, as of yesterday, it did. Read this article, courtesy of Screamscape:
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| Courtesy of Screamscape |
The rumors are 100% true... Splash Mountain is currently adding a large single lap bar to each and every row on the logs. As outraged as I am about the very concept of this, unfortunately we as guests, have only ourselves to blame. Apparently there are a large number of people out there who think it’s funny/ cool / xtreme to either stand-up during portions of the ride, combined with an equal number of stupid tourists who think that at the first time of a ride stoppage, they are free to jump out of the log and go wandering about inside the mountain. Then the real fun begins as CMs are sent out to search every nook and cranny inside the gigantic structure for these lost guests before they can turn the ride back on. (So maybe we should all agree, as a theme park loving community, that if we’ve in a park and see someone doing something stupid... say something and stop them.)
Adding insult to injury, this will cut down on the capacity of the ride as well in two ways. Previous policy allowed for groups of three that could fit (3 kids, 2 adult & 1 small child) to sit in one row, for a maximum of 12 riders per log. Now I know this didn’t happen all the time, but with the new lap bars two riders per row is all that will be allowed. Secondly, the ride’s capacity will be cut again as the dispatch time between logs has been raised from 12.5 seconds to an estimated 15-20 seconds per log to allow for increased loading time to deal with guests loading more slowly due to the lap bars and time for the ride crew to give each bar a quick tug.
Now for the good news... the lap bars are nothing like what Universal put on Ripsaw Falls. Instead they are very similar in style to what is used on Big Thunder Mountain. I’ve also been sent a picture (see above) showing off the new restraints.
Adding insult to injury, this will cut down on the capacity of the ride as well in two ways. Previous policy allowed for groups of three that could fit (3 kids, 2 adult & 1 small child) to sit in one row, for a maximum of 12 riders per log. Now I know this didn’t happen all the time, but with the new lap bars two riders per row is all that will be allowed. Secondly, the ride’s capacity will be cut again as the dispatch time between logs has been raised from 12.5 seconds to an estimated 15-20 seconds per log to allow for increased loading time to deal with guests loading more slowly due to the lap bars and time for the ride crew to give each bar a quick tug.
Now for the good news... the lap bars are nothing like what Universal put on Ripsaw Falls. Instead they are very similar in style to what is used on Big Thunder Mountain. I’ve also been sent a picture (see above) showing off the new restraints.
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So, at first, this may not look a bad news at all, but there are some negative sides, as Mr. Lance (from Screamscape) said. It will surely slow down (even if only just a bit) the loading/unloading operations and some people may not be able to ride due to the smaller space in the log. In my opinion, though, this is an extremely important addition, as there have been a lot of occasions where people would either stand up or get out of the ride (as the article well explains). So, what are your thoughts/feelings about this?
