Cars Land: Luigi's Flying Tires — Information, photos and more

[sedati]

I'm wondering if at least some of the negativity directed at this attraction has to do with that fact that it is not a passive experience. Much of what you get out of the Flying Tires seems to depend on what you put into it. I remember some comments here when Midway Mania opened where some simply sat and crossed their arms- rode the ride without playing the game and declared it disappointing.
I find the idea of a ride vehicle that requires experimentation and practice to be really alluring (yes long-long lines may sour that, but it seems many of you visit frequently and could certainly spare a few long waits.) I think the idea of the beach balls is not to distract from a boring attraction- I think it's a novel and unfortunately necessary form of bait- to encourage guests to lean and move around, hopefully helping them get the gist of how this unique system operates. It may be the case that the vehicles or air system needs work, but many new rides do- besides, it hasn't even officially opened yet. I haven't been on this myself so I'm only giving my observations, but I think if you want to make a Disneyland ride comparison, I wouldn't go with Rocket Rods- I think this is more like the canoes (yes super-expensive canoes) they're not for everyone, the capacity is low, but many will find their efforts rewarded. Those who aren't going to bother rowing can't really complain about the lack of speed.
Thanks to everyone for all the great coverage not just this weekend, but over the past few years.

[socalkdg]

Don't hate the ride because of the line. Dumbo has bad lines and is boring. At least Luigi is fun. My family split into two groups of two and had a blast. More fun than Mater.

Most important is don't judge the ride by other people's opinion. It's very possible you will get it the first time, lean but not too much(you can feel them bottom out if you lean too much) and have a blast. It's nice to have a ride that you have some control over. If you didn't move the first time, try it again and see if you learned anything from your first experience.

[ChrisFL]

I have a lot of ideas about how to make the operations much better, but all of them would be a LOT more expensive.

I was thinking something like a hybrid of the Hunny Hunt GPS system, but only for the beginning and ending of the attraction, where the tires would all go into a holding area for guests to get on and off, and another set of them would be automatically sent out to the actual ride area. That would simplify and speed up the loading/unloading process.

[The First Star]

You know what else I like about it? That you can ride as a small group and feel that everyone has a stake in controlling the ride (like the canoes and teacups), as opposed to one person being an inactive participant (like autopia). Usually bumper cars are ridden separately, because if you ride together, one person is just a passenger. I think it makes a great shared experience for your small party. Anyway, I saw a lot of smiling faces on that ride. The only complaints I heard were from a group of older people who were complaining about everything.

[ChrisFL]

Even if CarsLand is a success for 2012, what about 2014 or 2024 or 2050? Even Ariel is having trouble keeping people interested on a brandnew ride so how is Cars going to do it when They are bound so tightly to maintaining the integrity of a franchise who's toys are more popular than its lifeless characters.

Cars (generic) are popular with every generation since the first Model T's came out....whether the cartoon is popular is irrelevant to the land IMO.

Remember, the entire land was thought of by WDI way before the Cars movies came out.

[socalkdg]

Even girls like cars. Both daughters loved the area, one a dancer who thinks Mater is funny, the other, who plays baseball, likes fast cars and hot wheels. All three rides were still possible without the Cars overlay, but let Disney have its overlay, make a few bucks, and give us another well detailed land like this again.

[Disney Analyst]

A video posted in another thread shows a shot of this little girl. That one shot of the girl makes me want to ride this ride. She was ecstatic! It looks like good fun, and obviously if Disney has this ride open, they have passed all safety laws. I would assume even if a cast member were to be bumped by one of the tires there would be no injuries. They do not go fast enough, and have a fairly cushioned bumper. Not too mention there is plenty of signage and warnings to step over the bumper to enter the ride vehicle. All will be good safety wise.

[clippers6]

The secret is to shift your whole body. Leaning kind of works, but is slow. What you should do is, if you want to go left: slide you body closer to the person on the left. After we figured this out we moved around pretty well.

I do agree that this attraction needs to find a way to address the safety issues for the CMs. The tires are unpredictable. One of the times while they were pushing a guest to the unloading area, one of the tires just flew across the surface of the attraction. Luckily, it was not in the area the CMs were. They need to make some sort of portable ramp or something before someone gets hurt. As for the soft tires, they had a CM in front of the attraction today demonstrating how to get into the tire to people getting in line (there's a photo-op tire in front of the attraction entrance).

The line is insanely slow, but there is plenty to look at. If the queue is full, including the small area in front of the tire shop before you enter the building, I'd estimate an 80-90 minute wait. We waited 60 minutes and that was with the line starting halfway through the second room of the tire shop. Almost every cycle had a person needing to use the special loading area which adds a lot of time to the loading and unloading process. Not all people who need an alternative entrance use special loading area. On one of the cycles we observed a woman who seemed to have no problem leaving her ECV and getting into the tire used the special loading area while a woman who had to literally carry her disabled daughter to the tire had to use a side entrance instead of the loading area. They also did not let her in first so by the time she got in there, the other guests had boarded most of the tires and she had to go around looking for an empty tire. After the ride, their tire ended up far from the exit where her wheelchair was. It was sad watching them struggle to get back. I'm not sure what criteria they used to determine who gets to use the special loading area and who doesn't, but if you're in a similar situation, I would probably ask to use the special boarding area. It might take longer since they can only load one per cycle, but will probably be more comfortable.

[jedited]

I want to address the Cars theme issue.
The theme is IRRELEVANT. As long as it has a theme and a good one, the attraction can still be fun without knowing much about the theme. How many people have seen the movie Icahbod and Mr Toad, but that doesn't deter from the enjoyment of Mr Toad's Wild Ride. Seeing the movie helps you to enjoy it more, but it DOESN"T require it. Again, MOST people in the US have never seen nor even have heard of Song of the South, but they can still enjoy Splash Mountain.
As to the comment about the Little Mermaid attraction, I'm not sure what that was about. The attraction STILL has 30 min wait times and it has VERY large capicity. I think the largest in DCA.

[mdpfan89]

I have a lot of ideas about how to make the operations much better, but all of them would be a LOT more expensive. I was thinking something like a hybrid of the Hunny Hunt GPS system, but only for the beginning and ending of the attraction, where the tires would all go into a holding area for guests to get on and off, and another set of them would be automatically sent out to the actual ride area. That would simplify and speed up the loading/unloading process.

It's funny, because alot of the ideas mentioned about Luigi's Flying Tires were true for the original Flying Saucers attraction at Disneyland.

• There were more vehicles
• They were smaller
• There was a dedicated load/unload area
• When the ride ended, a giant arm "scooped" the vehicles back into the load/unload area, clearing the play field
• The floor was rounded, like a hockey rink, to lessen the chances of getting 'stuck' in a corner
• There was an "A side / B Side" to make the attraction load/unload faster, plus lessened a complete downtime.
  

Flying Saucers at Yesterland

Daveland Disneyland Flying Saucer Photo Page

---------- Post added 06-11-2012 at 09:06 PM ----------

And to be fair, one of the sites mentioned lots of issues with the old attraction too.

"However, they suffered numerous mechanical problems which often were in direct proportion to the weight of the guest; if too heavy, the saucer just sat in the same place; if too light, it was hard to tip the saucer, so it just stayed in one spot, bouncing. The collision of the saucers also made the ride a natural for back injuries. In addition, they sometimes wedged into each other causing the saucers to flip."

Those issues were probably considered when they settled upon the Flying Tire vehicle design.

[Uncle Bob]

I think if they added some kind of wheels like Honey Hunt it would make more sense to run it using an Omni-mover round platform like GRR. Add about 8 more vehicles and when your time is up your tire would return to a the unload area and then new tires could constantly be loading in the loading area.

[LandOFHappiness]

I watched a lot of videos of LFT and it seems to be pretty fun. I don't think it is as bad as everyone said it was. Although it has flaws guests still seem to enjoy the attraction. Though hopefully they will go back to the drawing board and see what they can do to improve it. I really think this attraction can be fixed some how. I just don't want to see it go.

[WorldDisney]

I watched a lot of videos of LFT and it seems to be pretty fun. I don't think it is as bad as everyone said it was. Although it has flaws guests still seem to enjoy the attraction. Though hopefully they will go back to the drawing board and see what they can do to improve it. I really think this attraction can be fixed some how. I just don't want to see it go.

To be fair, I dont think its just the issue of the ride, but the slow loading as well which takes forever to ride. I think if the ride was a hit, then people could justify waiting 1-2 hours of waiting for it. But I think with the ho-hum response to it combined with waiting forever just to do a ho-hum ride is the other real problem too.

If it was at least a quick loader, I think people wouldnt be so hard on it. But it must suck to stand in line for an hour for a ride and then once you get on it, you cant even get the thing to go 20 feet before you are off of it!

[2ndStar2theRight]

To be fair, I dont think its just the issue of the ride, but the slow loading as well which takes forever to ride. I think if the ride was a hit, then people could justify waiting 1-2 hours of waiting for it. But I think with the ho-hum response to it combined with waiting forever just to do a ho-hum ride is the other real problem too.

If it was at least a quick loader, I think people wouldnt be so hard on it. But it must suck to stand in line for an hour for a ride and then once you get on it, you cant even get the thing to go 20 feet before you are off of it!

I have been on Luigi's 3 times and have had a blast during all of them. The wait may be long but you can definitely get it moving more than 20 feet. I've been able to travel the whole length of the field. Though, it did require some dodging skills! LOL . I may have been lucky but I mastered moving my tire on the first try. It's like riding a bicycle once you learn how to move it, maneuvering your tire is intuitive. Too many negative reviews here. You gotta try this attraction for yourself before letting others' opinions determine your own.

[sailor310]

Why don't the balls fly up in the air?? If there are ducts that just blow air out constantly, it would seem that the balls would roll from duct to duct a foot in the air. Why not?