The Legend of Dueling Dragons at Islands of Adventure

Creating Universal’s Legendary Twin Coasters

The story of Dueling Dragons had as many twists and turns as the fateful coaster itself.

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Its origins date back to the 1990s when the standalone Universal Studios Florida theme park evolved into a multi-day vacation destination. Universal Orlando’s 650-acre expansion was a significant transformation with hotels, an entertainment district, and—most importantly—a second gate.

However, Universal Orlando was taking a new approach with its next theme park. Instead of another theme park in the style of a movie studio backlot, the second gate would be an immersive escape into fantasy with highly themed lands and high-tech attractions.

Universal Orlando in that past created cinematic dark rides, but its upcoming theme park would have a lineup of story-driven thrill attractions, including a new ride type for the company: roller coasters.

In the early plans, Universal Orlando had a tentative licensing agreement with Warner Bros. to build lands and attractions based on properties such as Looney Tunes and DC Comics. One such attraction was a pair of dueling suspended roller coasters in Gotham City, putting riders in a skyward scrap between Batman and The Penguin.

Reportedly, Warner Bros. pulled out of the project; thus, Universal no longer had the rights to Warner Bros. properties. MCA Planning and Development—now known as Universal Creative—adjusted its plans for the theme park, which became Islands of Adventure.

Discovering The Lost Continent

The park recovered with a few replacement intellectual properties, such as Marvel Comics. Rumors suggest Universal explored the idea of using its own Classic Monsters series in the park as well. However, in place of the Classic Monsters idea, Universal dedicated a land to public domain concepts.

This island, known as The Lost Continent, was based on ancient myths and legends from Grecian, Arabic, and European cultures. The Lost Continent’s show producer, Amelia Gordon, described the public domain theme as a “wonderful palette of freedom,” as opposed to the stricter world of intellectual properties.

“When you do Spider-Man, you have a great deal of information about him. When you want to create some mythic story, you have many choices to make. That’s a wonderful palette of freedom, from a designer’s perspective, but it also means that many, many people can have opinions about what’s going on and it makes the decision-making process more difficult.”
Amelia Gordon, show producer of The Lost Continent, via themeparkcanuck.com, 1999

The Lost Continent would feature a subarea called Merlinwood, themed to the Middle Ages. Merlinwood took inspiration from classic Arthurian legends, particularly the tale of Merlin and Nimue, with light influences from The Once and Future King by 20^th-century author T. H. White—thanks to the park’s senior show writer, Ross Osterman, and the park’s director of creative development, Dale Mason.

For Merlinwood in The Lost Continent, Universal revisited an old ride idea that was far from lost: a dueling suspended roller coaster. On the creative side, the concept was reimagined to fit the Arthurian theme of Merlinwood; instead of the aforementioned Batman concept, the pair of suspended coasters was reworked to have a medieval dragon theme. Riders would take courage by riding on the backs of two flying, dueling dragons.

“Dragons and roller coasters—it’s the perfect combination.”
Amelia Gordon, Total Immersion, 1999

Beastly Rumors

Over time, the theme park community has speculated some attractions and concepts for The Lost Continent were lifted from a canceled Disney project.

During the production of Islands of Adventure, Walt Disney World was also developing a brand-new park in Orlando: Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The park was planned to have a section called Beastly Kingdom, themed to mythical creatures. The E-ticket attraction of Beastly Kingdom was going to be a suspended roller coaster called Dragon’s Tower—an experience in that guests would soar through a crumbling castle ruled by a treasure-obsessed, fire-breathing dragon.

As Animal Kingdom’s budget tightened up, Beastly Kingdom was canceled, never to be built. Some Imagineers who worked on the project were laid off after budget cuts and found work across town at Universal.

If the rumors were to be believed, those former Imagineers supposedly took ideas from the canceled Beastly Kingdom and helped design The Lost Continent; however, important details of this claim have not been verified. Development for The Lost Continent was possibly underway before the former Imagineers joined in the Islands of Adventure project.

The concept of Disney’s dragon-themed roller coaster attraction had broad similarities to Universal’s plans, but it was not an entirely far-fetched idea; Universal’s Creatives likely could’ve imagined the concept of a dragon roller coaster without any knowledge of Beastly Kingdom. Also, Universal’s upcoming dragon roller coaster was not an indoor attraction and had two dueling tracks, unlike Disney’s concept.

Creating Dueling Dragons

Regardless, Universal Creative workshopped the twin inverted roller coasters under the name Merlin’s Duelling Dragons, using British English spelling, but later simplified it to Dueling Dragons with a single L.

Dueling Dragons was going to be more than a thrill ride; it was going to be a never-before-attempted themed engineering project, standing out not only in Universal Orlando’s second gate, but across the entire theme park industry. Islands of Adventure’s vice president of design and creative development, Mark Woodbury, was enthusiastic, saying, “We set out to re-define the roller coaster experience.”

Thematically, the queue of Dueling Dragons was set to take place in the battered castle of Merlinwood forest, which had been overtaken by two fierce dragons: Fire and Ice. In the castle’s early concepts, guests waiting in line would have seen treasure, fighting dragon shadow effects, as well as Fire and Ice features made possible by water projection effects. These scenes were cut for budget reasons, but the attraction overall was progressing as a creative and engineering work of art.

“These aren’t just rides; these are stories we’re telling.”
Mark Woodbury, Winston-Salem Journal, 1999

Turning Islands of Adventure Upside Down

Developing dual suspended coasters was going to be a challenge, but the process would be worth it.

The concept of a suspended roller coaster had been tried before, but without lasting success.

In the late ‘70s, the long-standing Arrow Development engineered a prototype roller coaster with swinging carriages mounted beneath the track. The original concept included inversions, but those proved to be unworkable and were removed. The design became the basis for the first permanent modern suspended coaster. Its initial installation in 1981, The Bat at Ohio’s Kings Island, operated for only a few problematic seasons before its removal due to engineering shortcomings.

The coaster model was not yet feasible at that point, but by the ‘90s, an emerging coaster manufacturer flipped the industry upside down.

Universal commissioned the up-and-coming Bolliger and Mabillard to manufacture its dual inverted roller coasters. B&M’s state-of-the-art manufacturing produced smooth-yet-intense roller coasters, which were quickly in high demand across the theme park industry. The Swiss firm’s production schedule was booked out years in advance, so Universal secured a spot even before sorting out the ride details; all Universal knew for sure was they wanted B&M roller coasters at the second gate.

Despite having a young portfolio, B&M had produced a number of innovative designs—particularly its inverted model. In 1992, a first-of-its-kind B&M inverted coaster, Batman: The Ride, debuted at Chicago’s Six Flags Great America.

Double the Thrills

Universal Orlando would soon debut its own pair of B&M inverted coasters with double the thrills. Two world-class B&M inverts would be intertwined for one intense experience.

The idea of twin roller coasters had been around for a while, with classics like Kennywood’s Racer leading the way, but Universal’s Creatives had a new vision for the gimmick. Unlike past racing roller coasters with matching tracks, these dueling coasters would innovate with two opposing interlacing layouts—along the lines of Six Flags Great Adventure’s new Batman & Robin: The Chiller.

Between the engineering prowess of B&M and the creative backing of Universal, the $20-million Dueling Dragons was going to have two differing tracks with three thrilling near-miss elements.

“…We had this idea for a coaster unlike any coaster around. And the thought was to combine two state-of-the-art coasters. And unlike, you know, conventional wisdom would say, you know, avoid all objects, we intentionally set these two things out on a collision course to create near misses at really incredible, incredibly high speeds.”
Mark Woodbury, VP of Design and Creative Development, 2000

The designers of Dueling Dragons took advantage of the open B&M inverted train design, which riders’ legs dangled freely below the seats. The distance between the coasters’ near-miss elements were minimized while still having a safe reach envelope, bringing the feet of riders as close as a foot and a half apart; theoretically, if the two tallest possible riders sat in opposite trains, their shoes could be as little as 18 inches from each other at certain moments.

The unique track layouts were carefully engineered so the trains approached each near-miss element simultaneously. The precise timing was not a work of wizardry from Merlin himself, but the result of a system that weighed both trains to calculate the expected momentum as to adjust their individual lift hill speed and release, which optimized the synchronization through the near-miss elements.

The near-miss concept even worried some of the ride’s engineers during maiden test rides; a few nervously doubted the near-miss elements, but of course it was as thrilling and safe as designed.

“He was sure he had miscalculated…but of course it was fine. We all got a laugh out of that.”
Cathy Nichols, chairwoman and CEO of Universal Studios Recreation Group, Associated Press, 1999

Those close-call moments were key selling points for Dueling Dragons, especially for thrill seekers, but its theming was just as intense as the coaster.

Creative Touches

Dueling Dragons was becoming the flagship attraction of The Lost Continent and, as such, needed an impressive entrance area to make a striking first impression.

Universal partnered with Adirondack Scenic to create a dramatic pair of dragon sculptures. The team drafted the statues as maquettes and digitized those designs to engineer the steel frames—fabricated to withstand 120 mph winds against Florida’s seasonal hurricane conditions. Craftspeople added carved spray foam to the structures, then coating it with cement. The sculptures were painted and aged in icy cobalt and fiery carnelian colors, like mineral formations.

The base coaster trains were B&M’s standard design, but to add some dragon theming, Universal hired Kern Studios, a firm best known for producing Mardi Gras floats. The dragon designs were sculpted out of fiberglass with fierce eyes, scales, and claws to disguise the coaster trains as beasts.

To go along with the dragon-themed trains, the tracks were designed to mimic the sensation of flying. To accomplish this, the track pieces were filled with pea gravel, which dampened the typical roar of a roller coaster to sound like gliding through the air.

Construction on Dueling Dragons was moving along as the park’s opening day neared. Dueling Dragons was prominently featured in the Islands of Adventure Preview Center and other promotional material. It was a highly anticipated attraction at the brand-new park and didn’t disappoint during sneak previews.

However, during the coasters’ testing and preview periods, nearby residents complained about the attraction’s disruptive noise level. In response, Universal constructed a 55-foot-tall sound barrier wall in April 1999 around the perimeter edge of the twin coasters.

Guests could soon live the adventure at Universal Orlando’s newest park and duel with dragons in The Lost Continent.

CONTINUE TO PART II