I love Adventure Express even though it's a little painful at times.  But I remember riding my first time when it opened.  And going up the final lift seeing the moving statues and lava and my anticipation was building . . just to come out into the station.  And I thought "That's it"!!  Would have been cool to come down into a helix and then back into the station.

But still a fun ride and I enjoy it.  I do like the idea of adding a tunnel on the first lift hill.

6 hours ago, KIghostguy said:

Dennis Speigel was not with the company at the time of the development and construction of Adventure Express. Both Jeff Gramke and Bill Ossim have told me the reason why it ends with a lift hill, but again, that is something I’m saving for my book.

It has nothing to do with the build up to the lava finale? 

32 minutes ago, Joshua said:

It has nothing to do with the build up to the lava finale? 

Practical, engineering aspects come before theming. The theming was done around the completed design of the ride.

1 hour ago, KIghostguy said:

Practical, engineering aspects come before theming. The theming was done around the completed design of the ride.

I agree that this is likely the case most of the time...but I picture the late Walt Disney working in reverse, I picture him coming up with an idea for an attraction...then telling his imagineers to “make it happen”. 

Just now, standbyme said:

I agree that this is likely the case most of the time...but I picture the late Walt Disney working in reverse, I picture him coming up with an idea for an attraction...then telling his imagineers to “make it happen”. 

I’m just saying that’s what happened in this particular case.

1 hour ago, standbyme said:

I agree that this is likely the case most of the time...but I picture the late Walt Disney working in reverse, I picture him coming up with an idea for an attraction...then telling his imagineers to “make it happen”. 

It's apparently far, far less expensive to pay the engineers tens of millions to build huge rides than to use your imagination to theme rides. I've never understood this completely, but it's a thing. Which is why Disney has exactly zero competition to this day when it comes to rides with a theme. It boggles my mind, but there it is.

11 hours ago, bjcolglazier said:

It's apparently far, far less expensive to pay the engineers tens of millions to build huge rides than to use your imagination to theme rides. I've never understood this completely, but it's a thing. Which is why Disney has exactly zero competition to this day when it comes to rides with a theme. It boggles my mind, but there it is.

Disney has LOTS of competition in that area now. 

11 hours ago, brenthodge said:

Disney has LOTS of competition in that area now. 

Go on...

The only competition I can think of is Universal and while I think they do a good job in the theming department, Disney's imagineers are still the cream of the crop. But then again, their field is planted with countless theme-able IPs ripe with existing conceptual work from animators, background artists, screenwriters, musicians, etc., to build upon. So they have quite the advantage.