Removal of Dragon Challenge

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Nicole

Nicole

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Jul 22, 2013
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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

Mushroom said:
There would be enough room for a major attraction in the Poseidon's Fury building, and possibly more behind that for something like a coaster.
Click to expand...

Are you advocating removing the great Darkenon? You are indeed a brave, and perhaps foolish, mortal.

I will admit I am aghast.
 
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Unagi

Unagi

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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

Here's a great post about the early beginnings of Dueling Dragons from Brian Ondrey of Irvine-Ondrey Engineering. At the time Brian was working for Consign and programmed the ride to duel.


 
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Thomas

Thomas

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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

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Zimmy

Zimmy

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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

If you read the comments, the notes about the stress fractures are interesting if true. But one person points out that Seaworld does not have the same issue, so that does beg the question, "is it true?"
 
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Shane

Shane

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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

The comments regarding the "stress fractures" seem to be disputed in the thread. It sounds like it was more due to lack of popularity and it being a left over attraction from the Lost Continent. Another comment or pointed out that Hulk was replaced mainly due to rust and its large number of ride cycles where the Dragons each had less than half the number of ride cycles as Hulk.

I guess none of us will truly know the answer though.
 
Youhow2

Youhow2

Aug 27, 2010
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RE: Dragon Challenge to close on September 5th

Shane said:
The comments regarding the "stress fractures" seem to be disputed in the thread. It sounds like it was more due to lack of popularity and it being a left over attraction from the Lost Continent. Another comment or pointed out that Hulk was replaced mainly due to rust and its large number of ride cycles where the Dragons each had less than half the number of ride cycles as Hulk.

I guess none of us will truly know the answer though.
Click to expand...


Both coasters were over standing water in the humid Florida weather. Half the ride cycles maybe, But still fairly intense demands for any kind of ride structure. From my understanding, it was nearing the end of it's cycle of life. Also, Dragon's being on the chopping block hasn't even been a secret for a while, as soon as it stopped dueling it was no longer a fully operational ride attraction, and many knew the ride's days were numbered.

This was definitely a "when" not "if" thing...



I just wish they gave more notice, I'm going next week and wish I could've taken one more ride.
 
netdvn

netdvn

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I had the liberty of riding Dragons closing weekend.

Said my goodbyes on Friday but I ended up having Monday off so I headed to Uni to meet up with a few friends. Ride had a 40 min wait all day but the ride kept having maintenance issues. I think we got stuck in line at least 3-4 times because the ride kept shutting down. Dragons went down for rain in the middle of our ride marathon to add insult to injury.

Toward the end of the day, the ride ended up going down for lightning for an extended period of time. Even after the park closed and the line slowly cleared out, we stuck all the way through. Park security, the cast members, and some photographers stuck with us the whole time too. Nobody wanted to close Dragons early due to rain.

We ended up on one of the last Ice trains as a result. Shame it couldn't be Fire but at least we got one of the last rides ever.

Kudos to Uni for actually sticking through with the fans despite all the downtime. Most other parks would've probably given up and closed for the night but Uni not only kept the ride open for us fans, but everyone stuck through from the entrance employees to the ride ops to security.

The next coaster has some big shoes to fill to make up for Dragons closing but all good things must come to an end eventually I guess. I'm looking forward to the new Potter coaster (screens or not), even more than Disney's replacement for Great Movie Ride (also RIP).
 
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