Universal’s Volcano Bay – Orlando Attraction Tickets blog

April 21, 2017April 21, 2017

With No Queuing At Volcano Bay What Do You Do With All That Free Time?

Hey Thrill Seekers,

Its a good point! With Universal abolishing queuing at Volcano Bay with the introduction of their TapuTapu technology what will visitors do with all that spare time?

For those not in the know TapuTapu are the new watch devices that virtually queue for you at rides. Here’s basically what you do;

Look for totems marked with the Volcano Bay logo at the entrance to each attraction. Upon touching your TapuTapu to the totems, you’ll be able to hold your place in line with Virtual Line. Explore the park, take a spin in one of two rivers or grab a bit to eat. Your TapuTapu will alert you when it’s time to ride.

Today Universal have given us a glimpse at some of things you might want to consider.

1. Sandy Beaches

Imagine warm sand sinking between your toes while you gaze out at crystal clear waters. This vacation dream becomes a reality at Waturi Beach, where you can relax by the waves of a sparkling lagoon that sits at the base of the mighty Krakatau. You can find Waturi Beach in Wave Village, the first of three villages you’ll encounter at Volcano Bay.

2. Tropical Beverages

Unwind with refreshing tropical cocktails and frozen drinks inspired by fruity island flavors. Try one of our favorites, POG, a non-alcoholic blend of passion fruit, orange and guava juices. Adults can sip on our Toasted Coconut Pineapple beverage, a delicious mix of toasted coconut rum and fresh pineapple juice.

3. Premium Seating

Leave your beach chairs at home and reserve one of our padded loungers instead.* With premium seating around the park, just pick the location of your seat, sit back and soak in your vacation.

This private space includes two padded loungers, an adjustable umbrella and built-in locker storage – which makes it a perfect place to keep your things when you want to take a dip in the crystal waters of Waturi Beach.

*Additional costs apply

4. Private Cabanas

Escape to your own private paradise and rent a cabana for the day.* With options like single units with seating for up to six, or family units, with seating for up to sixteen, there are plenty of options.

Cabanas come with concierge service with exclusive menu options, a fruit and snack basket, a small refrigerator pre-stocked with bottled water, complimentary locker and towel service and more.

*Additional costs apply

5. Island Cuisine

Take a break from the slides to enjoy our unique island-inspired food. There are over 60 options to choose from, including our Pulled Chicken Mole Taco, Poke Poke Bowl or Jerked Mahi Sandwich. Treat yourself to dessert with Chocolate Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Chocolate Lava Cake or Guava Tapioca Pudding.

6. Winding Rivers

At Volcano Bay, it’s okay to be lazy – and at the Kopiko Wai Winding River, you can do just that. Take a slow ride through the tropical landscape, journey beneath the lava rocks and venture to Stargazer’s Cavern to reveal the magical night sky above. Located at the River Village, this is something fun for Waturi of all ages.

7. Leisure Pools

Make sure to check out the Puka Uli Lagoon in the Rainforest Village. In this leisure pool, you can relax while your little ones enjoy fun features like bongo drums and spraying water.

Watch the bravest Waturi take on the Ko’okiri Body Plunge from the comfort of The Reef, a peaceful leisure pool in the Wave Village. A clear plexi tube shoots straight through this 5.5-foot-deep pool, which features its own private waterfall perfect for frolicking.

Volcano Bay opens on the 25th May 2017. Orlando Attraction Tickets offers the 3 Park Explorer Ticket which grants 14 days unlimited access.

Smiles included…

Jamie

February 15, 2017

Universal’s Volcano Bay Construction Photo’s

Hey Thrill Seekers,

To say we’re a little bit excited for the opening of Universal’s Volcano Bay is an understatement. Every little bit of information that appears we’re eagerly devouring, so we were delighted to get our grubby little mitts on these construction pics.

WOW!!!!!

Set to open on the 25th May 2017 you can see that the majority of the rides have already been installed and if you look closely you can see where the paths will be. Oh and of course, look how amazing the Volcano looks!!!

So with 3 months left until opening date do you think they’ll do it? Personally I think we could see a soft launch even before the official 25th opening day.

Credit: Chris Johnson (thanks very much to Cheri Lord as well)

Smiles included…

Jamie

June 21, 2016June 23, 2016

Universal Confirm Opening Date For Volcano Bay

Hey Thrill Seekers,

Opening a new attraction isn’t cool, you know what’s cool? Opening up an entire new park now that’s cool and in 2017 that’s exactly what Universal will be doing.

Today in New Orleans at IPW (International Pow Wow) Universal confirmed that Volcano Bay will open on the 1st June 2017!!!

Universal also confirmed that the park will feature 18 attractions although didn’t go in to details, they did mentioned that they’ve looked in to ways of reducing queue times (we took a guess at this last year) and complete remove the need for visitors to carry water tubes.

At the moment full details haven’t been released but we’re expecting an update over night.

UPDATE: Full details were released, click here for more Volcano Bay news.

Smiles included…

Jamie

June 5, 2015June 4, 2015

Universal’s Volcano Bay, Is The Main Ride Called Terevaka Falls?

Hey Thrill Seekers,

Recently Universal Orlando announced they would be opening a brand new water park in 2017 called Volcano Bay.

Having looked at some of the art renderings for ‘Volcano Bay‘ we started thinking about what kind of theme the park would be modeled around and maybe what some of the rides would be called.

OK, obviously its a Volcano which is in a bay, but from the renderings there are a couple of hints as to the direction Universal may be taking.

At the front of the artist rendering are a couple of statues, which look suspiciously like Easter Island Statues. Not that we are hanging everything on a couple of statues you understand – there are a couple of other things that are similar. For example;

The shape of the land the water park is being built on. The land just south of Cabana Bay which is earmarked for the development is pretty much the same shape as Easter Island.

At the center of Easter Island is a Volcano, at the center of the artist renderings of the project is also a Volcano.

When you talk about being immersive there is nothing more immersive than an Island.

In an earlier article we speculated about what types of rides we can expect at Volcano Bay. One of them was a lazy river, which, lets face it, is pretty standard at most water parks. Although there are no rivers on Easter Island there are a few fresh water lakes, one of them is Rano Raraku, which is almost at the summit of the extinct volcano Terevaka. Is it possible the Lazy River would be called something like ‘Rano River’?

The main event surely has to be the Volcano itself. We think that there will be at least 2 ride options from the Volcano – possibly more. One of them is likely to be a free fall speed slide like The Bomb Bay at Wet N’ Wild. Trust me, it makes sense; In the center of Easter Island is a Volcano called ‘Terevaka’ which coincidentally sounds a little terrifying? – We think the volcano is screaming out to have a free fall speed slide, possibly called ‘Terevaka Falls’? The highest, fastest, multi drop slide in Florida? if your gonna do it, do it big!

Since there is likely to be 10+ rides at any water park its pretty difficult to try and second guess the entire park. But ‘if’ the water park is being modeled on Easter Island we could probably expect to see a few of the following areas on Easter Island incorporated into the rides and restaurants;

Hanga Roa
Hatu Hi
Vaihu
Oroi
Poike
Rano Kau
Mount Pui
Benepu Harbor

(These are just a selection of possible names – lots more options available)

By the way, this is all just speculation. As usual we will all have to wait and see how Universal develop this amazing looking water park.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Smiles Included…

Karl

June 2, 2015June 2, 2015

What The Volcano Bay Rendering Tells Us

Hey Thrill Seekers,

There’s no surprise that our most popular post this week and our busiest ever day on the blog coincided with Universal’s announcement that they were building a brand new water park called Volcano Bay.

Although Universal didn’t reveal any specific details except that it would open in 2017 they did provide this artist’s rendering of how the resort will look.

So what details can we extract from the rendering? Lets take a look.

Your eyes are immediately drawn to the huge Volcano centrepiece which dominates the park. Looking at it closely there are a couple of things that stand out, firstly the waterfall part of the Volcano that seems to not only run down into the main body of water but also looks like it erupts at the top as well. You can also make out what appears to be either the start of a water ride or part of the queue experience which looks out on to the park.

The main body of water which the Volcano waterfall drops into seems to suggest a wave pool where people seems to be surfing?

To the right of the beach area you can see the ending of a multi person water ride (3 people pictured) which seems to come from the Volcano, for me this multi person ride is separate to the green tube ride you can just see roughly half way up the Volcano. This suggests to me that there will be at least two tube rides that start from the top of the Volcano.

In the background on the righthand side you can see what looks like a lazy river which appears to run through the middle of the Volcano! There also appears to be some luxury style cabanas styled like huts in the background.

So to break it down;

At least 2 water rides, 1 is definitely a multiperson ride.
Wave Pool
Lazy River
Erupting Volcano?
Exclusive cabana’s

That’s pretty much all I can gleam from the photo, can you see anything I’ve missed?

Smiles included…

Jamie

May 29, 2015

Video Round Up Of A Crazy Theme Park Week

Hey Thrill Seekers,

Its not often we have a week like the one we’ve just had, if it’s not SeaWorld announcing a new Hyper Coaster (MAKO), its Universal confirming their building a whole new Water Park (Volcano Bay)!

So we got in the Queen of OAT video content (long title) Teresa to run us through the top 3 stories of the week.

Mako, Cobra’s Curse and Volcano Bay plus King Kong make Orlando the must visit destination for 2016 & 2017. We’re also expecting some Disney news soon regarding their Avatar project!!! Its all go in the sunshine state 🙂

What are you looking most forward too?

Smiles included…

Jamie

February 7, 2015May 19, 2015

Are Universal Planning To Remove Queuing?

Hey Thrill Seekers,

Disney’s huge investment in their new FastPass System has been a relative success, the idea of visitors being able to pre book their rides and attractions has lead to a decrease in queuing, which is a good thing. However it hasn’t totally eradicated it…

Here at Orlando Attraction Tickets we’ve heard a few rumours that perhaps Universal are looking in to a way of removing queuing totally from their parks! Impossible I hear you cry, well you might be right… but let me tell you what we’ve heard.

Firstly I’ve got to mention that none of this has come directly from Universal or anyone working for Universal so take it all with a pinch of salt.

So its pretty well known, although not officially confirmed that Universal plan to open a new water park in 2017 called Volcano Bay the park is set to positioned adjacent to their new Cabana Bay Resort Hotel and is said to be approx. 3/4 the size of Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon. With all of Universal latest releases, think Diagon Alley, Transformers and the Minions ride, Universal have been pushed the boundaries of technology and we’re expecting the same kind of thing for Volcano Bay. I would doubt Universal would waste their time building just a “normal” water park!

One of the ideas doing the rumour rounds is that Universal will use Volcano Bay as a testing ground for their queueless park dream. Here’s how it will work, upon entry into the park visitors will be given a RFID band this will act as their ticket they’ll be able to add their debit/credit card to the band for in park transaction and it will act as their virtual queue bot!

This is not a new idea, the technology already exists and one of the leading companies in this area is Britain’s own Accesso, in 2011, they introduced the ‘Qband’ for use at water parks. The device, which is similar in size and shape to a watch, on the device, users can select an attraction they wish to queue for and the device will add them to a virtual queue. The Qband will then notify users once their virtual queue time has elapsed through vibration and beeping. They then access the attraction using a priority entrance, having avoided standing in a long line.

Its a very interesting concept, especially if used and implemented within a whole park. Universal already have a working relationship with Accesso so perhaps this is a rumour that actually has legs?

What do you think?

Smiles included…

Jamie

December 3, 2014

Universal To Build On A Turkey?

Hey Thrill Seekers,

We’ve often posted about Universal building a new water park, we’ve even suggested in the past that perhaps the newly owned Wet N’ Wild might get moved from its current location to somewhere with not only bit more room to develop but also somewhere Universal could increase capacity.

So of course we found it very interesting when we read on the excellent Orlando Sentinel that Universal has just filed Stormwater permit documents via the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for construction that will take place throughout November 2016. The filing also mentioned that there will be 53 acres of “land disturbance.”

We contacted Universal to ask about the construction which will take place east of Turkey Lake Road and south of the awesomely retro Cabana Bay Beach Resort but they aren’t quite ready to spill the beans. So its left to us to guess…

These are the idea’s we quickly thought up at Orlando Attraction Tickets

A new water park, we’ve mentioned previously that Universal have trademarks under the category “water parks” for the names Volcano Bay & WonderSea Island so a new water park does look likely. (Karl)
Still on the water park vibe, as we mentioned above perhaps moving the established Wet N Wild brand to a larger location might be on the cards. (Frank)
Expansion of Cabana Bay? The new hotel has proved to be very popular and Universal seem to have got the price point spot on. Some people are contemplating that perhaps Universal might look to expand the hotel. (Louise)
An additional 3rd gate so to speak, the opening of a new smaller perhaps boutique park similar in concept to SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove. Some kind of high priced limited capacity attraction. (Kelly)

Some interesting idea’s for me I think Karl’s suggestion is probably the most likely. If this were to happen it would give Universal 2 highly popular theme parks (Islands of Adventure & Universal Studios) plus 2 water parks (Wet N’ Wild plus new park) which would definitely move it more inline with Disney.

Whatever happens we’re sure to find out more information new year and we’ll of course keep you posted.

Smiles included…

Jamie