Attraction Expedition Odyssey

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Attraction Type
Dark Ride
Attraction Status
Existing
Attraction Manufacturer
Mack Rides
Attraction Model
Airific
I'm not gonna lie, this ride is kinda shit compared to the two other flying simulators in the state. The segments of the screen are very obvious, it's very shaky, and it's kinda blurry in some points. The transitions between scenes in the first half are also very imovie-esque. I also don't exactly understand the plot line of going from traveling above water to under the water level. Additionally, the staff (in my experience) didn't particularly seem to enjoy being there, and were frankly quite a bit snappy about the following photo and photos being taken by others:

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The ride system tech itself is super cool, and a brilliant innovation from Mack Rides. However, this application of it is terrible due to the video in question.
 
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Getting to experience this myself this past week, I think the ride system itself is good. The motion was different from what Soarin' offers. The music for this ride is phenomenal, actually might be my favorite part! With that, I suppose they can always make changes or improvements to the ride video. There does seem to be a lot discrepancies in the ride footage in terms of video quality. I really wish they would have started and ended the ride differently. The ride needs some sort of opening transition. It just begins too abruptly. The ending scene while an impressive shot, wish they would have opted or filmed something of the actual northern lights. That would have really been and impressive/memorable finale with a night shot.

I also hoped they would have paid some homage to the former attraction to combine the exhibit and ride. Either reintroducing the original characters or attempting to sell some cohesive narrative. You have this amazingly themed animal habitat, why not try to tie into the story? Not every attraction needs to be a "research expedition."
 
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Here’s what an AP posted:
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As expected— without the budget for a “good” film it’s a meh ride. Unless SeaWorld suddenly has a Disney budget it’s going to disappoint. Even Disney has managed to disappoint with their simulator films, expecting SeaWorld/Busch Gardens to be able to do it as well or better is unrealistic.
 
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I rode Expedition Odyssey during the previews today - thought I'd provide some quick thoughts:
  • It's great to have more indoor things to do at SWO. We got this somewhat last year with Penguin Trek featuring a dark ride section and air conditioned queue, but Expedition Odyssey will be able to operate throughout inclement weather which is a plus compared to Penguin Trek.
  • Unfortunately, the queue area and pre show rooms are dire and lazy as has been documented. Nothing much to add - air conditioning is great though!
  • Now for the ride - I will hedge this by saying I have never previously ridden a flying theater, so I don't know where the bar is, but I did enjoy it overall. The seats are very comfortable and the minimum dispatch interval (around 5 minutes) seemed to be hit fairly consistently. I believe only one of the two theaters was in use today but I could be wrong. The ride motion is incredibly tame - but with only a 39" height requirement perhaps this is to be expected. The audio is also a positive, with the custom score during the ride fitting the vibe well.
  • The screen!? What on earth happened here? The quality feels like it's from the 90s and truly provides a throwback to Wild Arctic. Dreadful - this need to be addressed. It admittedly does become less offensive as you get used to the low resolution throughout the ride, but the start of the ride is quite jarring. The ride will also suffer from being in Orlando and surrounded by some of the highest quality screen-based rides in the world. In any case, this needs fixing and soon.
Overall, I like the intent and the addition of a flying theater. There are several clear problems with execution that hold it back. As with projects like Ice Breaker and Pantheon, Expedition Odyssey feels budget cut to the bone.
 
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I think it's hilarious that Expedition Odyssey got things wrong that even Europe In The Air got right over 10 years ago.

For one thing, EITA at least made an attempt at natural transitions between scenes (often climbing back into the clouds between locations, or at least going through a cloud-like dissolve effect) versus the awkward hard cuts and iMovie-style transitions Expedition Odyssey has. (To its credit, I actually think EITA did transitions better than the OG Soarin' Over California film.)

EITA also had a good variety of scenes and motions -- soaring high above mountains, zipping through city streets, encircling landmarks -- whereas Expedition Odyssey seems to have the same slow-motion swoop motion in every scene. It's obvious everything was filmed with a drone and they used the same motion pattern for every shot. And while a film set in the Arctic will naturally have less variety in its scenery, that should have been a creative challenge to find ways to make not every scene look like monotonous white and blue shots of ice and water.

One thing that really gets me about Expedition Odyssey is that there's apparently no story. There isn't even an attempt to give a reason for why you're soaring over the Arctic. In fact, the preshow apparently makes abundantly clear that what you're about to watch is a movie filmed with drones, showing an extensive behind the scenes look at how the scenes were filmed (before you even get on the ride!). There's no suspension of disbelief, not even a passing attempt to get you to pretend you're on some sort of vehicle or mission or something to explain what you're doing. You're literally just meant to be watching a film about the Arctic, with moving seats. EITA at least had that loose premise of riding an airplane (the echo-alpha slip-string something-something, lol) and Wild Arctic obviously had its whole plotline set around riding a helicopter. Those concepts are way more fun and make you feel like you're doing more than just watching a film you can see at your local science museum.

Finally, the music is pretty, but uninspired. And there's no real effort put into matching the film with the music. The music swells and reaches emotional peaks during random points in the video. We're looking at a random swath of ice? Cue the big dramatic swoon of the music. It makes no sense. One thing EITA really did get right was its music, which to this day I believe is one of the best original scores of any ride anywhere. That music was clearly written with a lot of care to sync up the visuals, like when the tune of the Westminster Chimes was worked into the score when you flew by Big Ben, or the music sped up and had bursts of brass to evoke the sound of honking horns during the section where you "fly" through the streets of Paris.

It's just really funny to me that EITA is one of the worst rides SEAS ever made, and somehow it still got way more right than this lazy excuse for an attraction.
 
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I find it hard to believe that they, Mack, built a new system and it can't compete with existing ones. Did seaworld just go cheap on everything once they saw the price. Hey this is great, but we don't need the good, perforated screen material, just do the cheap stuff. 4k projectors, nah, 720p is good. I'm exaggerating. The flying ride in Lego land was fun, how can they get this so wrong?
 
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Coasternerd said:
Based on what I’ve heard… this ride’s presentation should be very good. It’s the first attraction in Seaworld Orlando’s history to have its entire budget approved with no cuts whatsoever.
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Was the budget just really low in the first place or was it slashed last minute
 
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I wish SeaWorld would just buy the project from a trusted 3rd party source in the industry instead of trying to film it themselves. Brogent has multiple films that look incredibly immersive and they would retrofit to SEAS screen/flying theater. There are simply too many variables that go into this to trust SeaWorld in making a competent ride themselves. Nothing about this film looks interesting at all.
 
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mikes said:
I find it hard to believe that they, Mack, built a new system and it can't compete with existing ones. Did seaworld just go cheap on everything once they saw the price. Hey this is great, but we don't need the good, perforated screen material, just do the cheap stuff. 4k projectors, nah, 720p is good. I'm exaggerating. The flying ride in Lego land was fun, how can they get this so wrong?
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The Mack System is almost perfect, I can't lie. The fault is 10000% on SeaWorld for this one.
 
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tursiops said:
I thought they claimed to film in 8K?
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they might have filed it in 8K but for some reason they then added graine to the film... and it was filmed in normal cameras and projected onto a curved screen... I'm curious, their is only 2 flying theaters... what happened to the 3rd bay? is it empty.. was it filled in?
 
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figment1986 said:
they might have filed it in 8K but for some reason they then added graine to the film... and it was filmed in normal cameras and projected onto a curved screen... I'm curious, their is only 2 flying theaters... what happened to the 3rd bay? is it empty.. was it filled in?
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They can build a 3rd theater

So, tragic news
The version we got, isn’t even what the park wanted, nor what was filmed

This ride changed a lot during development, like most rides but this ride changed mer MONTHS before opening. Originally, yes it had a storyline, remember that name northern flights? that was because originally, this ride was about the “origin” of the northern lights and the film was far better. (Hence the soundtrack not matching). The footage we have was rushed and the ride was quickly reprogrammed. Now back to that original storyline.
You were supposed to be riding on the northern lights, and the preshow was the legend of the origin of the northern lights (not much info about that).
Literally last minute they re-edited it, tossed a cheap program together and opened it, the second theater will be a different ride profile and better projections and the first theater will be closed to improve it to the quality of the 2nd.
 
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