Good to note the difference experiences. We saw no-one get more than a few drops of water on them that day when we were at the ride and exit - I just assumed it had been designed differently. I'd gone all out with a change of clothes on, flip flops and a poncho and afterwards thought 'that turned out to be unnecessary'.
I sat on a bench near the exit there for quite a long time afterwards too people-watching whilst waiting for my son to come back from an attraction he had gone off too.
Good for people to note that it may not be the case for them. They were selling poncho's in the line - 10Yuan I think they were.
The lockers at the Rapids were around to the left from the entry. It was only a very small bank of them and I must have seen a sign to head that way otherwise I wouldn't have known they were there (you do actually walk past them when you exit the ride)
Perhaps there were some free lockers at Tron but we didn't see them. There are banks and banks of lockers there. The one I looked at definitely wasn't 1 Yuan because I wouldn't have baulked at that. I can't remember the amount it wanted now but it was a fair bit and I didn't want to pay that just to go on the ride. Mind you, paying whatever it was would be less hassle than possibly losing all your cash and passports : )
Only three of us got off the ride soaked. My wife was next to me and she didn't get a drop. Very hit or miss. It was probably 100 degrees or more, so I was totally fine with getting wet.
We totally missed the lockers at the Rapids ride. Our stuff, other than what was in my pockets, didn't get wet, so no big deal.
All of the lockers we saw for Tron were free - at least while you rode. Again, just like Universal. Maybe this has changed, though.
The way it worked when we were there was: The line was funnels through the locker area. There were a lot of locker bays in the center of the area (maybe 8 rows (banks) of them), then lockers lining the walls. The ones on the walls took the 1 Yuan coins and had no time limits.
The ones in the center used the touch screens to 'rent'. Each bank had 1 touchscreen. You go to the screen and select that you need a locker. You scanned your finger, then it told you which locker # was open. The hard part was that you didn't necessarily get a locker in the bank you were standing in. You had to go search for your locker number and the numbering was odd.
It would have been easy if all lockers in a bank started with the same # "Oh, we got 805, let's go to the 8th bank" Nope, they were just numbered in order.
Once you found your locker, load in your stuff. When you are done, you go back to a screen, scan your finger and open your locker. If you were under the time limit you set, it was free.
One thing that wasn't like Universal, when you took your stuff out of the locker, you were supposed to press a Reset button on the locker to free it up. I didn't notice that and didn't press. When we went back to Tron later in the day, all the screen-reserved lockers showed they were full. My guess was that they weren't full, they just weren't Reset.
We walked over to the coin lockers and dropped in a coin - figuring we wouldn't get it back. When we returned the key, it gave us the coin back.
There was no bag drop area like you explained when we were there, so it's clear something has changed.
The one other attraction where you needed a locker was the Challenge Trails. I believe they were also free, but my wife didn't want to try it, so she held the stuff while I went on the trails. You can't take ANYTHING with you on the trails.
I stood in a very long line that was moving extremely slowly. Eventually, we turned a corner and it appeared I was in the locker line. I asked several CMs that walked past if I needed to be in that line if I didn't need a locker, and they all said I needed to stay there.
Eventually, I asked one CM who said I needed to stay there to put my phone in a locker. I said I didn't have a phone on me. He looked at me like he'd never heard of someone who didn't have a phone lol. I tried explaining that my wife was holding it, but the language barrier was too much. Eventually, he just shrugged and said, "No phone? Okay." and let me out of that line into the actual line for the attraction. From there, the line went much faster.
ETA: I checked SDL's site and it only shows an "All Day" price for the lockers at Tron, so that has definitely changed.