Central Florida Coaster Construction + Testing – Mid-December 2020

This will be a rather unusual report because we’re combining Iron Gwazi, TRON Lightcycle / Run and Jurassic World: VelociCoaster into one update! We visited the three parks/projects over the past three days and though we didn’t quite collect enough for three separate reports, we definitely have enough to share for an exciting Central Florida Coaster Construction report!


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IRON GWAZI

With weekday crowds being pretty minimal and Busch Gardens Tampa generally open with a few hours of darkness, we decided to hit the park for some night rides on our favorites!

We’ll start the update with some shots of Iron Gwazi, the ride’s previous queue setup lives on among beautiful landscaping and truly is one of the nicest looking buildings in the park.

The coaster itself looks intimidating and world-class from any angle.

I’m excited that the park went with a color scheme we hadn’t yet seen at the park. The whole product looks very clean so far.

For those that had not yet seen the entrance to the ride, the logo lights up and looks amazing!

The weather was tragic during our visit, and despite minimal rain, the sunset and lighting was pretty minimal. Luckily the bright purple tracks still made for some fun shots:

It’s hard to pick a favorite element on this 62.8m tall hybrid coaster, but I think that roll seen here will be one of the ride’s best moments:

During the park’s Christmas Town event, you can get up close to the ride. Especially when there are performances of the ice skating show! (Not on this visit unfortunately).

I never quite realized how much steel reinforcement this coaster has received as the coloration blends in nicely, but if you look closely you may notice the majority of the outward banked hill seen here is supported by steel supports:

2021 can’t come soon enough! For many Floridian coaster enthusiasts, this is the coaster they’re looking forward to most:

We’ll leave you with one more shot of the gorgeous purple track before moving on to the next project:


TRON LIGHTCYCLE / RUN

Next up is Walt Disney World’s new TRON Lightcycle / Run coming to Magic Kingdom! Word out there is still a 2022 delay, but we’ve seen crazier things and are cautiously optimistic we may see it open next Fall anyways.

Though we can’t quite look inside the show building of course, seeing the ride’s massive canopy growing steadily is still quite entertaining. It will make for a gorgeous backdrop for Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland!

Besides a cargo door on the ground level of the show building and the part launch tunnel, all of the main building has been enclosed. The grounds surrounding the site are again used to construct canopy pieces before lifting them into place.

Right here is where we’ll find the ride’s exit (below the entry into the show building). While canopy construction continues we also see more work on the entrance of the ride.

New beams are going vertical that will either assist in the next canopy pieces or have a bigger impact on the ride’s infrastructure.

Other than that there is not too much to report on, a steady continuation of our last update.

We’ll wrap up this section of the report with some closeups of the fascinating canopy that will be filled with several thousand LED lights.

Luckily almost the entire coaster is a direct copy of the Shanghai Disneyland project, though we are hearing the loose article set up will be one of the few tweaks that will be different.

Hopefully our next trip to the Magic Kingdom includes more major changes!

Make sure to navigate to PAGE 2 for the Jurassic World: VelociCoaster part of the update, including testing footage!

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