I like MK’s Pooh, and certainly Peter Pan over Little Mermaid. While Pooh and Peter Pan do have music in them, the music in Mermaid is not instrumental like in these dark rides, and is a focus of the ride, rather than supporting the overall experience.
Here’s the problems with DCA’s Mermaid:
1. The music is straight from the movie, maybe “re-mastered”, but you don’t feel like you’re experiencing an authentic experience as it is so identical to the film. I know Peter Pan has some instrumental music, but they also got the voice actors to do some new lines for the ride, and you feel like it is your own experience going to Neverland as opposed to a musical review.
2. They re-used animatronic turtles (and other characters) from DCA’s Mermaid as identical clones can be seen in the “Under the Sea” scene as well as the finale. Doing the same weird spinning dance.
3. The omni-mover was a cheap way to do a ride system. Yes, it loads fast, but you don’t see as much as with even the pirate ships in Peter Pan as the back and side scenes are cut-off. Omnimover works in HM, which is mostly darkness, but it makes the LM feel claustrophobic as I want to see around me and the ride felt crowded. Peter Pan is cool as there is space between the ride vehicles and it feels like your own personal experience.
4. The scenes aren’t as good as how they were first conceptualized, the “Kiss the Girl” scene looks cheap-o. They should have put into a larger bayou scene with moonlight, instead they use regular light and it looks fakes, the fish spouting water look 100% fake. I think a couple of college students could do a better job, add more trees, add moonlight, kill the fake plastic fish which barely move, remove the glaring light, put in better more subtle audio . . .
5. The finale scene is lame, and doesn’t make sense, as the main characters wave while the Sebastian and dancing turtles are straight from other scenes.
6. Ursula. Most of the animatronics are too close to the clamshell, and hence look fake, plus there is only one Ursula. The other Ursula is just a 12 inch paper cut-out that looks awful and is easy to miss.
Unlike other Disney dark rides, and the Haunted Mansion, the designer of LM didn’t focus on making stuff look as “real” as they could, and it feels more like the Small World where obviously the dolls are fake and the focus is on the songs. Unlike Small World, just a few animatronics per scene move, and I don’t count spinning starfish as animatronics. I like the “Under the Sea” song, but the scene doesn’t work for me.
If you want a little tribute to LM, then this ride is “OK” if you want a ride like Peter Pan or Mr. Toad where you feel like you are in another world for a couple of minutes, this isn’t that ride as there is no believability or “magic”.
Maelstrom is cool because some scenes have that "magic" where you see the trolls and even the oil rig and early norwegians, I would much rather ride Three Caballeros than Little Mermaid as at least some portions of the ride are made to look authentic, like you are in Mexico, or at least a depiction of it.
Mermaid could have been a great E-Ticket, but it disappoints as they didn't really work out the little details, which are what makes a ride, IMHO.
