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Technology

Indoor Tropical Island 356

Posted by Hemos from the blissful-land dept.
fons writes "The huge construction dome of the now bankrupt zeppelin maker CargoLifter, has been turned into an indoor tropical island. For about 20euro a day you can swim in the sea, take a walk in the rainforest or go to a beachparty. While it is snowing outside, it's a always a pleasant 25C on the island. And there are no tsunami's. It's bigger than Biosphere2 (it fits the Eiffeltower) but there's less sunlight. Would you spend your vacation in there? The Germans don't seem to be very eager."
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Indoor Tropical Island More

Indoor Tropical Island

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  • Dammit (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:10PM (#11244926)
    25 Degrees is too cold!!! Now if it was 77 Degrees, then we could talk turkey.
    • 25C may be enough for germans, but in Spain we usually don't like to go to the beach if it's not warmer, now it's 15C here in Valencia and for me it's pretty cold, we can reach 20C in winter some days, and in the summer it's obviously much hotter, and we are not talking tropical weather even remotely.
    • 77C is probably a bit hot, given that ~60C is the highest temperature that multi-cellular life is known to be able to survive for long periods of time.

      That said, 25C is a bit cold for swimming on the beach. 30C (or even 40C) would be more like a tropical island, and would be great if they could keep the water just a bit cooler...

  • No sky (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mzkhadir ( 693946 ) *
    It would be better if they had the whole ceiling lined with cloud pictures to simulate clouds instead of seeing steel.

  • The Weasel (Score:5, Funny)

    by govtcheez ( 524087 ) <govtcheez03@hotmail.com> on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:10PM (#11244933) Homepage
    Quick, someone call Pauly Shore!
  • 10 euros is ~$13.46 (as of 11:12 AM EST [-5 GMT]). So you pay over $13 dollars for 4 hours of relaxing in a tropical environment. That cost doesn't include drinks and food which will of course have their prices jacked up by a few bits.

    Yes, you can stay longer and get charged more but I'm just using the base cost.

    • Re:Euro conversion (Score:3, Funny)

      by lga ( 172042 ) *
      That price only sounds bad to Americans because the Dollar is doing really badly against the Euro. It's Not that bad for those of us in Europe.

      The exchange rate is even better for me here in the UK, my pounds buy me a ton of stuff at Thinkgeek!
    • So you're saying that this costs a little more than $3/hr to relax in the tropics? And less than that if you stay longer? That's cheaper than going to a movie. And I'm betting the food is less expensive and better on the whole. If I lived in Europe, you can bet that I'd go see what it's all about.
  • Would you spend your vacation in there?

    Probably not. Since it's in Germany it's as expensive or more expensive to travel there than to the real thing. Plus the extra incentive that's it's not artifical.

    But I suppose that's a pretty American-Centric view. If I was in say Latvia, I'd definitly go.
    • After six weeks of Oregon's "Winter Sunshine" even a vacation to a well-lighted Safeway store looks good. Time spent in a place with another flourescent light bulb every two feet on the ceiling actually helps what gets called 'Seasonal Affective Disorder'. We're not even that far North so it's not the overly long nights that get to you, it's the endless number of days with heavy cloud cover coupled with the short winter solar exposures.
      The television weather teams have worn out their thesaurui trying t

  • How long.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:18PM (#11245001) Journal
    Untill the nudist version? Surely this would be the simplest option and stop the retards going "I SAW SOME GUY NUDE ON THE BEACH PAST THAT SIGN SAYING NODISTS! I WILL SUED THE CITY FOR IT!".

    It would be a safe (As in child molesters can't get in) and private (yet still free and among nature). It seems the perfect solution to a problem we don't even have (sort of..).
  • Yeah, I'd spend my vacation there! Unfortunately, Survivor has booked the whole place for the 387th season. You pay for your ticket, then they vote you off. The title is slated to be Survivor: Rip-Off Island.

    • Yeah, I'd spend my vacation there! Unfortunately, Survivor has booked the whole place for the 387th season. You pay for your ticket, then they vote you off. The title is slated to be

      Survivor: Rip-Off Island.

      No, actually this season is rumored to be a joint production with the Klingon Empire's Tourism Board (also plagued by economic concerns, cf. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country [imdb.com]), called Survivor: Rura' Penthe' [tos.net] : Due to the dome, the audience gets the best of both worlds, as candidates have bat'let

  • Drang nach Osten! (Score:5, Funny)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:19PM (#11245012) Journal
    Would you spend your vacation in there? The Germans don't seem to be very eager.

    Everybody knows that a real German's idea of a vacation is invading Poland.
    • Which by now is mostly area that was germany before 1st worldwar.

      • Re:Drang nach Osten! (Score:3, Informative)

        by red_gnom ( 545555 )


        You my friend obviously do not know history. At that time, Poland was divided between among three invaders: Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Saying that it belonged to those countries is either ignorant or insensitive. It was one of the darkest times in Poland's history.

        Map: Partition of Poland [thomasgraz.net]

    • Obligatory quote: "Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with."
    • Addition: Invading Poland...with beach towels!

    • Re:Drang nach Osten! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @01:06PM (#11245540)
      Could be actually be possible that after two generations of anti-Nazism and true democratic institutional framework that the Germans have actually changed? No more the violent, bloodlusting Huns screaming into the east to the pounding chords of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song?
      The Americans offered then the opportunity to join in the Iraqi invasion, kill anyone and everyone they want to, set up the most delicious camps, grab all the cheap oil that they want, letting Uncle Sam pick up the whole tab...and they turned it down?
      Whatever happened to the good old Germany that we grew up with? Watching Combat on television and The Dirty Dozen at the movies?

      Achtung!..you pussies
      • Could be actually be possible that after two generations of anti-Nazism and true democratic institutional framework that the Germans have actually changed?

        Popular sterotypes are nearly immortal. Don't forget that the French still love to surrender, and America saved the world's ass in Dubya-Dubya-Two. Hell, half of the US still worships the Confederate flag.

        Maybe things will change by the 22nd century...

    • Re:Drang nach Osten! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by peggus ( 749983 )
      All nations with any smidgen of self respect has at one point or other partitioned Poland. It's a rite of passage.
    • OK - it is a bit funny, but surely an unnecessary jibe, nein?

      Sad to think that the enduring stereotype in the parent posters mind is that of Germans as the war-mongers of history (with all of its swastika associations)...

    • Wow, between this and the tsunami comment, Slashot is hitting some new lows. How about them negroes! They sure are funny when they're scared! WTF. Get a life.

    • Re:Drang nach Osten! (Score:4, Funny)

      by curunir ( 98273 ) * on Monday January 03, 2005 @07:03PM (#11249172) Homepage Journal
      Nonsense...the real pre-requisite for a German vacation is to burn off the top 4-6 layers of skin. While the Japanese require photographic evidence to prove that they actually went on vacation, Germans need merely show a severe sunburn to receive credit. Americans need some story about how rude some other culture was when they asked if anyone spoke "American" and Australians need only be gone for 5-10 years and return with somewhere in excess of 25 passport stamps. Every culture has their standard of proof.

      Getting back to Germans, war (flamethrowers, bombs and the like) was just their initial attempt to achieve their standard burning. They've since figured out that spending copious amounts of time lying on a beach without using sunscreen accomplishes this in a much more controlled fashion while making the rest of the world slightly less annoyed at them. It would be considerably less were it not for their strict adherance to the "Speedo" dresscode.

  • Coralized Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <[slashdot] [at] [keirstead.org]> on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:20PM (#11245018)
    Site is already really slow.. save them some bandwidth

    http://www.my-tropical-islands.com.nyud.net:8090/e ngl/fotos-opening-e.htm [nyud.net]

  • No culture (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SirGarlon ( 845873 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:21PM (#11245030)
    The thing I like about travel is getting a taste of a different culture - calypso music, new kinds of frozen cocktails, ethnic food, historical sites. Whenever I go on a trip I always stop at a museum or two. Climate and scenery are not all there is to a vacation. So this is definitely not for me.

  • oh the pain... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheLoneCabbage ( 323135 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:21PM (#11245031) Homepage
    An abitious project to bring back some of the most amazing and majestic technology humanity has ever concieved... turned... into... a ... theme park...

    I remember this feeling. It's the same feeling I had when I was a young nerd, trying to save up enough money for a 4 generation old computer, watching my clients use their top of the line $5,000 machines to play solitare....

    Next youre going tell me they are using space shuttles for tourists; and advanced cybernetics for robotic pets...

    Ladies and gentelmen: The dark side of capitalism.

    • Ah, the joy! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by alienmole ( 15522 )

      Next youre going tell me they are using space shuttles for tourists; and advanced cybernetics for robotic pets...

      Ladies and gentelmen: The dark side of capitalism.

      Why is it the dark side? Making our time on Earth more enjoyable seems like a worthwhile pursuit. Do zeppelins further that more than theme parks, space tourism, or cute robot puppies which bring children happiness?

      • The dark side (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:48PM (#11245340) Homepage Journal
        It's not that making life enjoyable is bad, on it's own.

        It's when there are other things that *ought* to be getting done, but we're too busy using *the same technology* to make life enjoyable and *not* doing those things.

        Case in point: Space Tourism
        I'd *love* to be a space tourist. If it ever gets down into my price range while I'm healthy enough, I will. But if we get *so* preoccupied with space tourism that we don't think or prepare for comet/asteroid detection and deflection, that's bad. If tourism prevents exploration, that's bad. At the moment, I don't think this situation exists. In fact, I think space tourism will make people *more* conscious of the things we ought to be doing in space, and more supportive of them.

        But preoccupation with entertainment at the expense of real goals is something to watch out for.

        • Re:The dark side (Score:2, Insightful)

          by databyss ( 586137 )
          I think that what generally happens is a large organization develops some tech.

          Some company figures, "Hey! I could make a few bucks with this stuff!", and spawns the fun/silly stuff.

          The large organization that developed the tech to make it possible thinks "Awww... how cute, ok back to the science."
        • It's when there are other things that *ought* to be getting done, but we're too busy using *the same technology* to make life enjoyable and *not* doing those things.

          Those bastards! Making life enjoyable! Man this really churns my butter!

        • Re:The dark side (Score:3, Interesting)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
          Without (I hope) getting into a discusiion about which one is better than the other, this is the difference between socialism and capitalism. The former says "we have a problem, let's take away your money to solve it" while the latter says "the market will solve our problems for us by making it cheaper to do things through competition". Clearly every government in existence today is somewhere between the two. Nonetheless, in the American system we are apparently wagering the future of our planet on the idea
      • Nothing wrong with a trust fund baby buying a $5k dollar deck of cards either. Still would rather that money go to the family down the street strugeling to put their genius child through colege.

        But nothing wrong with it no.

        • I see something wrong with it. It pisses me off when kids throw money away in all directions when they haven't earned a dime, while up the street (as you say) there's a family giving up everything to put their child through college. Not, mind you, that I think the solution is to take the money away from the trust fund kid, but I think it's a symptom of a cultural sickness that we as a planet have contracted.
    • An abitious project to bring back some of the most amazing and majestic technology humanity has ever concieved... turned... into... a ... theme park...

      What happened at Kalkar was FAR worse - far more money was invested (i.e. wasted) by various governments. Read all about it here [askoxford.com]. My parents paid the extra "Kalkar tax" (to pay for the reactor) for years and years, and now it, too, is a theme park. And not even a nuclear theme park, it is simply a health spa. I know, I visited while you could still see mos

  • Meh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:23PM (#11245046) Journal
    I was imagining some sort of technical marvel like the Truman Show set with realistic looking sky, sun rays, jungle you could get lost in and most importantly an actual island with water all the way around (i think thats still the definition of an island?). Instead I see something that looks like a cross between a sports hall, a tacky cruise liner and some kind of theme park but without the rides. The whole thing looks very dark and dead, they atleast need retina-burning spotlights or something to hide the ugly structure? The jungle is just a load of trees with a linear zig-zag paved path! and I bet they won't let kids climb the trees for safety reasons, if I was 8 I would be pretty pissed off.

    • Re:Meh (Score:3, Informative)

      by psetzer ( 714543 )
      They were sort of stuck with what they had. They had a ~10 year-old zeppelin hangar, which was set up to be climate controlled, a large foundation that they didn't want to screw with too much. They've been looking at starting to replace the current canopy with one that's transparent, or at least translucent. However, it takes time and not a small amount of effort to fix up a building which is 1000' long and 300' high for something it wasn't really meant for. I mean, it's an engineering feat which would

  • In Japan... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Xenna ( 37238 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:24PM (#11245056)
    They've had something like that for ages:

    http://www.gluckman.com/IndoorBeach.html

  • what i'd like to see (Score:5, Interesting)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:25PM (#11245064)
    I really think the biosphere 2 people got it wrong by trying to recreate all the various biomes of the Earth in one building. That, and the whole issue with the concrete reacting with their atmosphere says to me that they really didn't plan very well. I'd like to see someone try to make a contained ecosystem that is engineered with the sole purpose of keeping some humans alive and comfortable. I wonder how many species of plants and animals would be necessary for such a thing.

    It seems like it could be a lot simpler than what Biosphere 2 tried to do, and a lot more likely to be successful. It would also be beneficial in helping us figure out what we'll need for long-term space missions.

  • Sorry to be a downer, but it's important. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sialagogue ( 246874 ) <sialagogue@NOSPam.gmail.com> on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:28PM (#11245112)

    . . .and there are no tsunami's.

    I think what really gets me is how flip people are feeling they can be about this in the West. Yes, Slashdot is global, yada yada, but it's readership is, for the most part, centered outside the affected area and in the United States in particular, so I blame us.

    I live in New York, and what struck me was the global outpouring of sympathy after September 11, which killed 3,000 people, and it was months before anyone felt comfortable enough to to discuss anything but the horror.

    But now, just a week after 118,000 parents and children and brothers and sisters have been drowned in a single moment, we start making fun little tsnumai references to set off an article on an indoor beach. That, and going to our climate-controlled indoor beaches are all part of our healing process, I suppose.

    Sorry, I have a pretty high threshold, but that makes me ill.

    • Are you so sure there was a global outpouring of sympathy after september 11th?
      being outside of America- I didn't really see it, or feel it.
      If you lived in Indonesia- you may have a different perspective when aid comes in, and people began to return.
    • I don't think it was ment as a joke, more as a practicality. But recently people have just given up being sad about things like this, after I found out 30,000 people die every day from famine and curable disisese I don't even know what to care about anymore..

      • That's it for me in a nutshell. There are so many unnecessary deaths in the world that the ones caused by nature are last on my list to care about unless they affect me. I'd rather focus on things that are directly the fault of humans (well, besides beachfront property) like how the prison system in america is a breeding ground for hepatitis, HIV, and violent criminal activity, or how the poverty industry of which it is a part keeps thousands of people in the poorhouse while purporting to be their salcatio

    • I agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:49PM (#11245345)
      I agree with this, but in defense of the insensitive, I think many people (especially young people) have no way to fit a disaster of the scale of this tsunami into their frame of reference.

      Humor has always been a way to deal with things you don't understand and can't grasp. In Africa, there are tribes in which the normal response to seeing something unimaginably horrifying - like a pile of dead, decaying human bodies - is to laugh. This is not amusement, it's a reaction to the incomprehensible, a way to deal with it. In the West, there's a veneer of cynicism over this response, but in the end joking about something like this is an acknowledgement that there's really not much else to be done about it (aside from actually donating or dropping everything to fly to the affected areas).

      That said, people should be more aware that their offhand comments can seem incredibly insensitive to people who are more directly affected.

    • it was months before anyone felt comfortable enough to to discuss anything but the horror

      Really? I seem to remember a couple of shockwave games where you shoot planes before they have a chance to fly into sky scrapers, and a whole slew of tasteless (but amusing to the desensitized) animations, visuals, and games.

      I have a pretty high threshold, but that makes me ill

      I think you have overestimated your threshold

    • Look, 9/11 was 'a tragedy', but its been a worse tragedy that the entire American Nation 'completely changed' afterwards.

      I'm not American. To me, Americans taking offense at someone feeling '9/11 is irrelevant' is more offensive. The U.S. gov't, and its people (and its psycho-techno-militant-industrial complex) used 9/11 'as an excuse', with 'the emotions of the people' toyed with all so well, oh so cleverly, to produce the results desired: wanton invasion, and promotion of warfare, on a global scale.

      Wh
    • Sorry if I offended you.

      I really didn't mean to be insensitive.

      I thought my reference was pretty neutral. It certainly wasn't meant to be a "fun little tsunami reference". I was trying to by cynical about the Indoor Island. But obviously that didn't work :-)

      Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I can assure you that I take this disaster in Asia very seriously.

  • I see a Seinfeld episode coming on.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:29PM (#11245119)
    30 years after its cancellation, Cosmo Kramer will somehow managed to find the set for the TV show "Survivor" sitting intact in a dumpster. He will set it up as an indoor tropical island in his apartment, and invite his guests over for "challenges" and to be "voted off the island". Since the episode involves a high likelihood of Newman competing naked, I don't think I'll be tuning in at all.

  • Precognition (Score:5, Funny)

    by Khomar ( 529552 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:31PM (#11245139) Journal

    Ha, Animats [slashdot.org] was more right than he even knew!

    The CargoLifter web site resembles a dot-com with too much venture capital and a bad business concept. The product isn't ready, but the theme park and the visitor's center are open.

  • Hide the roof! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JensR ( 12975 )
    They definitely need to do something to hide the roof! Maybe line it with reflective screen and have a projector in the centre that projects a sky map to it? Of course, I don't want to know what kind of light source you'd need.
    Would be a bit tricky to match the projection with the roof geometry, but can think of some cool thinks to do.
  • It look just like a huge themepark to me - whats the most unpleasant thing is in my opinion the sky. What about nice temperatures and warm sand if you look up in the sky and see..... a grey dome-wall. Great.
  • Northern climes will naturally attract many people to flock to some warmer clime, real or not and zepplin hangers seems less risky than the Indian Ocean nowadays. Just sayin.

  • Why the Germans won't go there (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mogrify ( 828588 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:34PM (#11245173) Homepage
    Flights from Germany to Ibiza are about 100 Euro.
    • I lived a few summers in a very very small German town on the Netherlands border. They had a public pool uh... center (I guess). It had about 3-4 outside pools (along with a pro diving pool). Inside there was a pool that snaked inside the entire partially glass-domed building with waterfalls, a sauna area, whirlpools -- and a nice long slide that slid outside, then in, then out again, and finally into the main pool. Adjacent, still inside there was an Olympic sized pool. (This I remember somewhat accurately

  • Distinct lack of nubile native girls (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:34PM (#11245174)
    therefore this is definitely not within the male definition of tropical island.

  • Unfortunately, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hawthorne01 ( 575586 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:36PM (#11245210)
    their server seems to have gone on a three hour tour.

    A three hour tour.

  • I live in Germany. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:37PM (#11245214) Homepage Journal

    Germans ain't got no beach. So what if they've now 'got one' in a bubble, it still ain't no beach. That said, its still frickin' cool .. tho' its far from me, I may one day take a day trip just to go experience it, though ..

    And .. as an Australian who just got back from Australia, and our glorious, glorious, oh so *sob* glorious *sob* beaches .. let me just say that this 'bubble-sphere' thingy is Very Welcome in the dismal reality that is the German countryside. What am I doing living here?!!

    [If it weren't for my perfect German job, I'd be back home on the beaches tomorrow, sheesh..]
    • What am I doing living here?!!


      You are there to get a nice fast German car/ Bike and go nuts around the Nurburgring.

    • Re:I live in Germany. (Score:2, Informative)

      by cyxxon ( 773198 )

      How long have you been in Germany exactly? Have you ever tried the beaches in the north? Sure, it is not exactly the Caribbean here, but then you cannot really expect that here, or in Denmark, or Great Britain, or other northern european countries with access to the sea. We do have beaches almost along our entire coastline and a lot of tourism in that region.

      You fail to realize that not everybody wants tropical heat for a vacation, sometimes, just having a beach (you know, sand, the ocean) is sufficient.

    • Re:I live in Germany. (Score:4, Informative)

      by kavau ( 554682 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @02:36PM (#11246392) Homepage
      Germans ain't got no beach.

      What in the fires of hell are you talking about? German's North Sea shoreline has some truly beautiful beaches, especially the islands. Admittedly, the weather is usually a tad chilly there, but in August the water temperatures sometimes approach 20 deg Celsius. And what's even better - you don't need a big towel, since the wind will blow you dry when you get out of the water ;-)

    • Re:I live in Germany. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zx75 ( 304335 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @02:38PM (#11246406) Homepage
      I would suggest looking for the beauty in the country you are living in, instead of comparing it to the desirable features of the one you left. Yes, it doesn't have the beaches and sun that Australia has (especially this time of year), I don't know of any place in the world offhand that compares. But try loving what they do have to offer. Take a drive or hike through the black forest, go skiing in the Alps and if the resorts in Germany aren't what you're looking for, Switzerland and Austria are right next door.

      I'm Canadian, never been to Germany, never been to Australia (though I would love to visit both places), and have never been to any place that remotely resembles tropical weather. However I have travelled all over my own country and about half of the US, and everyplace you travel to will have something special to offer. You just have to find it, instead of lamenting what was left behind.

  • They'd have to find their market (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @12:40PM (#11245251)
    I think if they catered to young kids who wanted to get piss ass drunk, they might succeed.

    Seriously. Take a look at Cancun. It's not that less artificial.
  • I think of a beach full of middle aged German men all wearing their favorite Speedo swim wear.....I think I will pass.
  • I'll bet this loses a lot more than 120 million euro.

  • If it's anything like Mall of America... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ewanrg ( 446949 ) * <ewan@grantham.gmail@com> on Monday January 03, 2005 @01:12PM (#11245595) Homepage
    Was living in Minnesota when the Mall of America first opened, and the press coverage seems rather familiar :-)

    I suspect this is a case where it's going to take some time to work out the kinks, and hope the owners took that into account when doing their business plan.

    I wouldn't be surprised to see this become successful - eventually. I also wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen until the debt had been restructured, and possibly through transfer to new ownership.

    Just my .02 worth...

    ---

    For my other .98, check here [blogspot.com] :-)

  • Been there, done that.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @01:21PM (#11245689)
    Hi,

    i've been there last thursday for about four hours. At that time, about 5.000 other people did the same. On some days between the holidays, the dome had to be closed due to overcrowding (max. 7.500 people at the same time). The visit was the birthday present for my girlfriend (together with a musical visit later that day).

    The dome is extremely impressive. The size dwarves everything i ever seen before. I'm familier with large halls (productions sites) due to my connections to AIRBUS, but those are much smaller. The Statue of Liberty would fit inside the dome upright. The mentioned Eiffel tower would fit only if laid down. The tropical feeling suffers from the size. Only lower 10m (30feet) contain some tropical stuff (houses, plants, pools), the remaining dome looks still industrial. It seemed a little dark to me, i would have prefered more and warmer light.

    The temperature inside is as warm as advertised. Both pools were overcrowded and queuing up was required for nearly everything (food, toilett, entry, cashier, changing cubicle, etc.). Prices are very fair. Overall rating would be a "B". There a quite a lot places to improve, but i hope the "Tropical Island" will survive.

    For geeks: Every person entering the dome receives a card with a RFID chip. This card is used to pay food, drinks, etc. The RFID chip even operates the lockers (instead of a key). On exiting the dome, you pay according to the bill for your RFID card. Unluckily they had some trouble with this process. So it was up to "What did you have?" and paying what you told them.

    The dome is open round the clock; i would recommend to visit it during the night, when there are less visitors (there were too many small children for my taste). You can even rent a tent for inside camping ;-).

    If anyone is interested, i can add links to images and a short video later.

    Regards, Martin


  • And I thought my heating bills were expensive. ... and the winner for the most heat-inefficient structure ever built is... (drum-roll)... an enormous dome, heated to tropical temperatures, in the middle of a freezing winter!

    (if they made the thing out of glass, they'd at least have a greenhouse effect.)

  • Giant airships was just so much cooler, it's sad they have gone bankrupt.

    Maybe we'll see some new uses for these neat spherical blimps [21stcenturyairships.com] sometime soon.
  • And there are no tsunami's.

    Thats the same thing as saying "And no worries about some plane crashing into you!" in September 2001.

    100,000 people died last week, I'd say its a tad too early to start making wisecracks about it to sell your product.
  • In Silicon Valley, thousands of geeks drive by the airship hangers at Moffett Field [navy.mil] every day. They're so large [nasa.gov], clouds sometimes form in them. But the beaches of Santa Cruz are a few miles away, so I guess there'll be no indoor resort in Sunnyvale.
  • The plural of "tsunami" is "tsunamis". There is no apostrophe. The apostrophe is not used to pluralize! EVER! If you use an apostrophe to make a plural you are doing something very bad and wrong. Please stop.

    Sorry, had to get that out.
  • 25C is considered winter temperatures to the average resident in the tropics. It was hotter than that this weekend here in Florida :-)

    40C is closer to the mark for summertime. Don't forget your sunscreen!

  • Amazing... (Score:3)

    by tacokill ( 531275 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @06:27PM (#11248759)
    You know what's amazing to me?

    The fact that I've read every post on this thread and there isn't a SINGLE "news for nerds" comment in the lot.

    No questions about how it works.
    No questions about why the zeppelin co. failed and whether or not it really could succeed (for cargo).
    Hell, not even a comment about Beowulf clusters of these things

    Not to be a lemming here but is slashdot the new Fark? I used to come here to be a fly on the wall as people much smarter than me debated the science, engineering, programming, and overall impact of "news for nerds". Well, the news may be for nerds, but the comments are for children.

    Where are you my old-ass slashdotter friends? And I mean that in sincerity. If anyone knows, please let me in on the secret so I can get back to reading about things I enjoy instead of the constant whining and/or political slant.



    Thank You.

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