Construction Times

[danlb_2000]

The topic of how long it takes Disney to build an attraction pops up in a regular basis around here, so I thought it would be interesting to put together a list of how long various attraction took to build. Start dates are based on when the first signs of construction were reported (since it's hard to get actual start date). If an existing attraction had to be demolished (eg. Horizons) the start date is from the start of demolition. End date is the date when it fully opened to the public, not the date of soft openings. The end dates for the Mine Ride and WWoHP Phase 2 are estimates.

WDW
Attraction Start End Duration (months)
Avatar 1/10/2014 4/1/2017(?) 40
Frozen Ever After 10/5/2014 6/21/2016(?) 21
Toy Story Third Track 9/25/2014 5/24/2016 20
BatB/Little Mermaid Section of FLE 2/10/2010 12/6/2012 34
Storybook Circus 2/11/2011 9/30/2012 19
Mine Ride 9/1/2011 4/30/2014 31
Tangled Restrooms 5/10/2011 3/8/2013 22
Expedition Everest 6/1/2003 4/7/2006 34
Mission:Space 3/29/2000 10/10/2003 43
Test Track 1/2/1996 3/17/1999 38
Test Track Presented by Chevrolet 4/15/2012 12/6/2012 8
Toy Story Mania 11/18/2006 5/31/2008 18

Universal Orlando
Attraction Start End Duration (months)
WWoHP Phase 1 1/1/2008 6/28/2010 29
WWoHP Phase 2 1/2/2012 6/30/2014 29
Rip Ride Rockit 5/1/2008 8/19/2009 15
Transformers 6/1/2012 6/20/2013 12
Revenge of the Mummy 9/8/2002 5/21/2004 20
Despicable Me 8/18/2011 7/2/2012 11
Kong 2/1/2014 6/1/2016 28

[Edit] Moved Everest and Mine Ride starts one month earlier

 

[cynic710]

thanks for posting, now i will go cry a little.

 

[SyracuseDisneyFan]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tom]

This is fantastic! This would have come in handy in quite a few discussions on here, and will be a great reference.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Spreadsheeting it...

 

[Goofyernmost]

Spreadsheeting it...

View attachment 277760

Despicable Me was another ride before and they just redid it as DM. Pretty much the same ride mechanism as before.
Are you counting the time of announcing to completion? Because that isn't build time. There are a thousand possible reasons why they would not start it right away after announcing it. The first Test Track also ran into a whole bunch of problems that needed to be worked out before they could safely open. That wasn't construction time that was a whole lot of get the bugs out time.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I use the time they broke ground or the time the previous attraction started to get demo'd. Build time includes getting the mechanics of an attraction to work correctly. I don't know of any reason why that wouldn't be considered as part of the build time. This isn't a spreadsheet to calculate how long it takes to get the shell of an attraction built.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I use the time they broke ground or the time the previous attraction started to get demo'd. Build time includes getting the mechanics of an attraction to work correctly. I don't know of any reason why that wouldn't be considered as part of the build time. This isn't a spreadsheet to calculate how long it takes to get the shell of an attraction built.

It doesn't but throwing out arbitrary times regardless of when one broke ground or some other base is not really accurate information unless the specifics, problems and holdups are identified and factored in. I suppose the problems like TT, which were kind of unusual, can be factored in, but, technically construction was complete, but, engineering had to be reevaluated. The length of time that it took from the announced opening was extensive and due to mechanical or engineering errors. If they had opened on the announced day and then closed due to those problems that didn't become an issue until things were run, would you be starting from the day it initially opened or the day when it permanently opened. We can certainly not put that under a category of dragging their feet for whatever purpose one might have to do that. And that is the only reason why this thread and so many others are established. As time and technology has moved along and complexity of design have advanced, it has generally taken longer to build.

I know it sounds like I am defending Disney, I'm not because I am willing to admit that I have no idea what their motivation is for delaying start up, could be availability of labor, timing for opening to stagger the affect on the parks themselves due to over populating the place all at once. There is a word that covers that and it is overwhelming the facilities. All that has to be taken into consideration. A spreadsheet report like you posted, although interesting, is really just numbers without any outside forces identified. It can easily be misleading without detail. Speaking of detail even though HP was built quicker did it have the degree of rock work that SWL or one of the other take a while projects like Carsland had thus adding a lot of time to the process. Basically, we may have a mild idea about construction times but without fully disclosed detail we have no idea how long it should take to do anything along the lines of a technologically advance theme park build. In other words, a build like TT was not construction time, that was done on time. What took longer was correcting an unanticipated error after the build. It's all very misleading and really shouldn't matter to us as "guests" other then we would like it to have happened sooner.

 

[MisterPenguin]

It doesn't but throwing out arbitrary times

It's not arbitrary. It's a constant criterion applied to all projects for the sake of comparison.

You're welcome to post your own figures.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I use the time they broke ground or the time the previous attraction started to get demo'd. Build time includes getting the mechanics of an attraction to work correctly. I don't know of any reason why that wouldn't be considered as part of the build time. This isn't a spreadsheet to calculate how long it takes to get the shell of an attraction built.

You are correct, but, that is what the masses look at it as when there is so much more to a construction process then putting up a wall. My point was not that those numbers were incorrect it was that without the supporting history and necessary information about what was done and what had to be altered to do it, it really doesn't have any meaning in the sense that everyone is trying to establish. Some projects will take a year because of relative simplicy others will take 3 or more based on many, many factors. Site preparations (leveling the ground, moving a pond or swamp to a different location, removing existing buildings and infrastructures, reestablishing new infrastructures, storm drainage and sanitary concerns as well as having specialized equipment created and built, lining up the necessary skilled labor to perform those tasks and maybe eventually starting the actual construction all the while every layer of authority in the company is generating their own special change orders to the original blueprints and schedules.

In other words, it doesn't matter how long something took to build, what matters is how much effort, back tracking and general chaos that gets generated on any job site. It's not the numbers I have a problem with it is the interpretation of those numbers that can be misleading, especially to someone that really isn't versed at all on the construction process and the detail involved with that construction. Partially I blame it on TWDC's magic reputation, expectations are that they can magically build some high quality show or attraction by just waving one of Harry's magic wands and it just doesn't work that way.

 

[danlb_2000]

t

You are correct, but, that is what the masses look at it as when there is so much more to a construction process then putting up a wall. My point was not that those numbers were incorrect it was that without the supporting history and necessary information about what was done and what had to be altered to do it, it really doesn't have any meaning in the sense that everyone is trying to establish. Some projects will take a year because of relative simplicy others will take 3 or more based on many, many factors. Site preparations (leveling the ground, moving a pond or swamp to a different location, removing existing buildings and infrastructures, reestablishing new infrastructures, storm drainage and sanitary concerns as well as having specialized equipment created and built, lining up the necessary skilled labor to perform those tasks and maybe eventually starting the actual construction all the while every layer of authority in the company is generating their own special change orders to the original blueprints and schedules.

In other words, it doesn't matter how long something took to build, what matters is how much effort, back tracking and general chaos that gets generated on any job site. It's not the numbers I have a problem with it is the interpretation of those numbers that can be misleading, especially to someone that really isn't versed at all on the construction process and the detail involved with that construction. Partially I blame it on TWDC's magic reputation, expectations are that they can magically build some high quality show or attraction by just waving one of Harry's magic wands and it just doesn't work that way.

When starting this thread I understood, as I am sure @MisterPenguin does also, that tracking construction time from the outside is an in-exact science, so I choose specific criteria for my dates and tried to follow them as close a possible. I was also open to corrections if people came forward with something I missed. These numbers are not perfect but are better then nothing and are a place to point people who make claims like "the mine ride took 5 years to build."

 

[Goofyernmost]

t

When starting this thread I understood, as I am sure @MisterPenguin does also, that tracking construction time from the outside is an in-exact science, so I choose specific criteria for my dates and tried to follow them as close a possible. I was also open to corrections if people came forward with something I missed. These numbers are not perfect but are better then nothing and are a place to point people who make claims like "the mine ride took 5 years to build."

And that is good and what it should be, but, it still doesn't tell the whole story and without an explanation it is just more fodder for the 5 year argument. I am not debating the numbers what I'm debating is what they may imply. Is that wrong? The numbers may be right on the number, so to speak, but, it in no way alters the erroneous opinions about how long it "should" take to build an attraction. That is something we just don't know and without the details, we never will. If you could control how people interpret that information that would be fine, but, I think you will agree that if 10 people see that one piece of information there will be 10 different interpretations about it's meaning.

 

[danlb_2000]

And that is good and what it should be, but, it still doesn't tell the whole story and without an explanation it is just more fodder for the 5 year argument. I am not debating the numbers what I'm debating is what they may imply. Is that wrong? The numbers may be right on the number, so to speak, but, it in no way alters the erroneous opinions about how long it "should" take to build an attraction. That is something we just don't know and without the details, we never will. If you could control how people interpret that information that would be fine, but, I think you will agree that if 10 people see that one piece of information there will be 10 different interpretations about it's meaning.

The numbers are just the numbers, what they imply is up to each person.

 

[MisterPenguin]

And that is good and what it should be, but, it still doesn't tell the whole story and without an explanation it is just more fodder for the 5 year argument.

Either post numbers with the detailed explanations you want or shut up. We're not changing our charts.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Either post numbers with the detailed explanations you want or shut up. We're not changing our charts.

Where the hell did you get the idea I wanted you to change the charts. I have no doubt that they are probably pretty close to correct, I am merely expressing that to a lot of people, just numbers can lead to erroneous conclusion as to their meaning. I was only trying to beef up the numbers with some realistic things to take into consideration when looking at them. They tell one story they don't tell the whole story. I'm not even saying you should, in fact, you don't have too because I just did. I may also not know all the details of why, but, I was wanting to introduce an additional thing to think about when looking at them. I didn't say the numbers were wrong, I just said that number alone are not the whole story. That's the problem with our world of statistics, we tend to just look that the statistics and not ever question why. For example it took forever to build Pandora, but, has anyone thought that a lot of that problem may have been caused by Mr. Cameron and his insistence that things had to be done his way? Does that mean that Disney was holding back? That is all I have been trying to get across to the people that are looking at the numbers.

 

[danlb_2000]

Where the hell did you get the idea I wanted you to change the charts. I have no doubt that they are probably pretty close to correct, I am merely expressing that to a lot of people, just numbers can lead to erroneous conclusion as to their meaning.

We could provide detailed internal Imagineering construction documents signed by the ghost of Walt Disney and people would see draw erroneous conclusions.