The future of theme park attractions (OTHER than coasters!)

I was just thinking about the early 90's and what a lot of things people thought were going to be the "future" of theme parks.

They included flight simulators (tons of them) and this new thing which was going to revolutionize everything called "Virtual Reality".

I remember the first time I strapped on a 20 lb. helmet with TV screens and tried to fight a "man" made of big blocks with one trigger and trying to keep my head at least upright, not to mention moving back and forth.

After flight sims enjoyed a few years of being in the spotlight, now it seems that a lot of people don't enjoy riding them. The smaller mall type areas where the cheap ones used to be, no longer have any that Ive seen.

In some ways this is understandable as in most cases, the ride itself didn't change much from one to the next.

VR is still around a bit, in places like Disney Quest, but it never became anything special, to theme parks or much of anything else.

We now have hybrids in theme parks, such as Spiderman and Curse of DarKastle. Do you think we'll be seeing a lot more of these attractions?

Next we have the secretive C.A.V.E. technology, military tech widely rumored to be in development for some Disney attraction far away.

This has a lot of promise IMO, and again, Disney Quest has an early version of this in their Pirates attraction.

It's similar to VR in that it senses where you're head moves, but you have more standard 3D glasses. The environment can practially be only 4 walls with screens, but to the people using them, it seems like it's as endless as the pictures they are seeing.

So what else might be in the future for theme park rides? I think interactivity is good, like in shooter rides, but I don't know how much the average tourist will want to think for themselves honestly.

Thoughts?

CAVE is already in use at WDI to visualize projects and theme parks. You can also see a primitive application of the basic concepts of it at Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney Quest.

I think we'll be seeing more indoor rides. More and more rides will have story lines probably. Also, I think we'll be seeing less and less of the traditional lift hill and more of the launched or powered coaster. But that's just me.

I think we'll be seeing more indoor rides. More and more rides will have story lines probably. Also, I think we'll be seeing less and less of the traditional lift hill and more of the launched or powered coaster. But that's just me.