Ride
QUEUE
Guests wind their way through a trellised, shaded garden filled with flora that make up the spices Moroccan cuisine is known for, as well as several fountains and statues depicting events from Arabian Nights, as well as from Moroccan history and culture such as a fountain of a water seller, a set of statues depicting a Fantasia, and a statue of Idris I of Morocco, the first ruler of the kingdom. Eventually, guests find their way out of the garden and into the humble home of a family of rug makers. As guests make their way through the house, discovering what an ordinary home looks like for the citizens of Morocco, they come to a hallway with a door opened and the shadow of a child and their grandparent telling them stories on the wall, matched up perfectly to the design of a hanging rug. Guests then find themselves facing a window and a flying carpet awaiting them for their journey through Arabian Nights.
As the ride vehicles begin to transition into the ride, we swerve into a dimly illuminated building mimicking the interior of a Morocco home. Inside the ride vehicles take a quick tour of the dimly illuminated home, passing by beautiful mosaics, house plants, and a fountain, along with art pieces, a chandelier, bookshelves filled to the brim with books and furniture matching the architecture and designs. As our ride vehicles rotate we start moving through the halls, passing by rooms within the homes, and as we move we spot beautiful textile rugs and carpets stacked up on the walls and in every nook and cranny of the house, all of their own designs, which establishes the history and house of the family who’ll be introducing us.
We enter either a boy’s or a girl’s room, depending on the path the ride vehicle’s divide onto, using a similar technique to the one used in the original Journey Into Imagination, but trackless this time so we don’t have constant problem. Both of these kids and grandparents are from the same family for your information, just so we have an explanation to why we use the same house for both.
As the ride vehicles enter through a doorway, which was formerly a closed door that then opens from a hinge and then closes briefly while this segment initiates. Depending on the path taken, Inside the dim room are many collected artifacts and fossils hanging in the Boy’s room which appear to have been passed down from his grandpa since they all share the same last name on the tiny plaques on the frames or on their stands ---- Aaqil Irdis, or if you are on the Girl’s route, you see many historical documents framed up on the walls with the last name inscribed on the plaque’s signature as well --- Hatima Irdis, along with an appropriately sized child’s library as well.
We then see either an old man in adventurer garb sitting on the bed with the young boy tucked in, or an old lady in an abaya and a hijab next to a young girl tucked in. The old man/lady inquires if the boy/girl wants to read a story, in which the girl/boy timidly nods their head. One of the Old man’s hands were hidden, and when he pulls it out, he’s holding a book! They both tell either child about how these legends helped inspire their dreams to go beyond carpentry like their family does. They reminisce about the sights they’ve seen throughout their lives in Morocco, and give out a hearty chuckle as they introduce the book as “1001 Arabian Nights”.
Our ride vehicles begin to spin, and suddenly a window opens, and our ride vehicles head out through the oversized windows to look briefly upon the beautiful night sky shimmering with stars, and the brief backdrop of the open streets of Morocco as they begin to tilt forwards as we head onto our first main ride scene.
Flying out of the bedroom window, guests suddenly find themselves floating high above the Ourika River Valley of Marrakech. The rooms will get more and more large scale as the attraction goes on, so the first vista...while impressive, is more in line with a regular flying dark ride like Peter Pan's Flight. Miniature forced perspective set pieces within a fairly self contained room.
Soaring over the river and above the snow-covered tips of the Atlas Mountains, we find ourselves in the city epicenter of Marrakech where we pass over various landmarks and towers...most prominently featured is the tan stone walls of the El Badi Palace. The vehicles then descend into a marketplace and towards a tunnel carved into the middle a wall of the palace looming over the market. Tilting down, we head towards the tunnel and transition into our next location.
Since Casablanca is the most heightened and famous city within Morocco with a Hollywood classic named after it, this room will take on a more surrealist quality and instead of being an accurate travelogue will represent the feels and mystique associated with the city.
The fly-over room will be the smallest in the attraction...a simple marketplace looking down at a courtyard with a rather iconic looking cantina glimmering down below. On the sides of the walls, projection mapped vintage posters of the city show off the larger than life romantic quality of the location. This scene is very much meant to represent a child's vision of the city and not the actual location.
Sharp-eared guests will hear the familiar refrain of "As Time Goes By" playing on piano from within the cantina. If you look closely down below off the side of the marketplace, you can also see an airfield with a single plane waiting to depart. War propaganda imagery clashes with the vintage travelogue posters as we transition out of the room to create a very memorable expressionist section of the attraction.
Here's where the trackless tech really comes into effect, as the vehicles split into two different paths and fly across by far the most expansive room yet. Essentially this vista will be using very similar miniature forced perspective illusions to Peter Pan, but on a MASSIVE scale. to the point where the rest of the attraction centers around this main set pieces.
Elaborate rock work is carved on either side of the room as we fly over a huge marketplace on the side of a hill in the city Tangier. The colors of the different buildings within the village get an extra pop thanks to projection mapping really illuminating everything and giving it a heightened feeling appropriate to the dream-like world we've found ourselves in.
There will be two times during the fly over where we swoop down into the marketplace itself, achieved via valleys tucked away into the set pieces and the projection mapping on the buildings we fly down around animating to match the swooping motion. As we fly towards the far side of the vista, we take a sharp turn towards the rock work and enter a cave...a very famous cave in the geography of Morocco.
It is here where the scale of the attraction turns on its head. Instead of flying over miniature vistas meant to simulate height and distance, this cave set piece will put you right in the middle of the Cave of Hercules. The big catch is that we go from the miniatures into a room filled with very large set pieces that make us feel small in comparison.
Essentially this scene will contain a main chamber with two branching paths. One path will feature a rock slide using projection mapping mixed with physical shaking rocks and walls. The other path will put us within the path of a flash flood, using a trick mirror to divide the water from the guests. After avoiding the perils of the cave, the two paths branch back into one as guests fly out of a far side of the mountain and into the final set piece of the attraction.
As the capital city of Morocco, it's only appropriate that our flight ends here in Rabat. We essentially get a combination of all the different effects at play in this last room. It will be a large scale miniature fly-over in the style of Tangier, with the same multi-colored buildings illuminated by projections. The walls will also be filled with vintage posters and imagery that now dwarfs the guests much like the caves they have just come from.
In one final dramatic swoop down that adds a brief drop and a bit of a thrill factor, the guests fly back down into a recreation of the window they initially flew out from. Weaving in and out of the family tapestries, we find ourselves branching out into the two bedrooms for unload. The children asleep in bed now have projection mapped dreams of flying carpet imagery and dramatic scenic vistas projected onto the walls of the room.
LAYOUT OF RIDE
