Behind the Worlds · Yeti Mine Adventure
Building Yeti Mine Adventure
How our team designed an entirely new world of slides, obstacles, caves and mountain-dwelling Yetis.
Dazzling Nights is much more than a light show. It is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the wonder of the holidays - and sometimes that means jumping, climbing, crawling and sliding straight through it.
When we design the experience, we pay close attention to play. How can we create moments that are fun for everyone? A diverse experience is not only about making beautiful things. It means embracing fun, too.
This year, our team designed a brand-new experience inspired by the Yeti our guests met for the first time last season. Yeti Mine Adventure is a giant obstacle course to conquer. Navigate the challenges, pass through an illuminated cave and finish by racing down one of the slides.
Bringing the idea to life.
Making something like this involves several design processes. First comes the concept: our team thinks through what every section of the overall experience should feel like. Once the big idea is established, the designers build a complete 3D model.
The model lets us move through the experience before it exists. We can study the obstacles, colors, shapes, clear tunnel, cave and guest flow together. Once we know the adventure works as one complete world, it is ready for the fabricators.
A new way to go down the chimney
When we created our Down the Chimney play area, we saw how much fun guests had racing down the chimney chutes. We wanted to capture that same excitement while making the experience feel entirely new.
This time, the chute travels through a clear illuminated tunnel and finishes beneath a pair of playful Yeti horns. Even a familiar movement - climbing up and sliding down - becomes part of a new story.
Through, over and around
Of course, designing fun - just like designing every part of Dazzling Nights - requires acute attention to detail. Our team had to learn what was possible with inflatable materials while considering both the individual obstacles and the complete immersive environment.
The colors, custom prints, shapes and layout all work together. As guests maneuver through the course, each new challenge feels like another part of the Yeti’s mountain world.
Inside an illuminated cave
At the halfway point, guests turn a corner and enter a beautifully illuminated cave. The enclosed space changes the scale, color and feeling of the adventure before the course opens up again.
Guests crawl through, over and around the colorful forms as the light transforms this section into its own hidden world.
Mountains from model to final form
The entire structure is topped with playful mountain shapes that establish where the Yetis live. Their layered silhouettes, snow caps and cool gradient colors transform a giant inflatable course into an immersive mountain landscape.
We first refine those shapes in the 3D model, studying how the peaks overlap and frame the course. The completed product carries those same forms into the physical world, where the lighting gives every peak depth and dimension.
Cut, sewn, inflated - and refined
The fabricators create another model that functions like the pattern for a T-shirt - only this is a very large, very complicated sewing job. Individual pieces are cut, printed and sewn together to form every wall, obstacle and mountain peak.
Once assembled, the structure is inflated for the first time so the team can check that everything looks and behaves exactly as intended. Like any custom build, it takes a few rounds of edits. The adventure moves between the workshop and the inflatable yard until every detail is ready.
Are you ready to conquer the mine?
We work year-round to create truly memorable experiences for you. We cannot wait for you to climb, crawl and slide through the final result of all that creative energy. Here’s to conquering Yeti Mine Adventure!
