Infinity Falls™ at SeaWorld® Orlando is a tropical ruins-themed whitewater river rapids attraction. Riders board eight-person rafts and are sent splashing through a 1,600 linear-foot ride flume that includes a dramatic drop element, the tallest drop of its kind. Construction of the project included the demolition of an existing attraction, the cast-in-place ride flume containing approximately one million gallons of treated water, the 40-foot vertical elevator preceding the drop element, and all the themed rockwork and landscaping associated with the three and a half acre project site.  

The project’s winding 1,600 linear-foot ride flume consisted of deep foundations and complex walls, and the lack of grid lines in the design made traditional layout methods obsolete. To layout the ride flume, PCL had the option to use a third-party crew, with most charging an average of $130-$170 per hour for an estimated total cost of $128,000. Working to identify opportunities for cost savings, the PCL team instead used a robotic total station, which calculates distances between fixed prisms around the project site and points used by our team for precise survey and layout. Three prisms were placed by PCL’s superintendent on adjacent buildings at an elevation of approximately 30 feet above final grade and incorporated into a PCL-generated project model. Using the information generated by the total station and PCL’s model, our team’s field engineer and carpenter laid out the project with a great degree of accuracy. Our team’s ability to leverage construction technologies ultimately provided a cost savings of $88,000.