Splash Mountain fall refurbishment 2017

FullSailDan

FullSailDan

Well-Known Member
andysol said:
Yet somehow Universal only has rides go down for maybe a week when they do a refurb. Month+ long downtime is unheard of.
You know, because they maintain it after hours regularly.
One might argue, Universal has shorter hours throughout the year than say, MK- but even at DAK where hours are in line (or less) with Universal you have months-long refurbishments on rides like Dinosaur, Primeval whirl, Tough to be a bug, etc. So it's more of an operational decision than anything. I just find it odd that people think it's reasonable that Disney performs these months-long refurbs when just down the road they simply don't, because they're taken care of before they get to that point.
Click to expand...

I think a lot can be said for the types of rides WDW operates vs Uni. Many of the Universal rides do not have the animatronics or the level of detail in their themeing (paintwork, props, etc) that Disney does. The spaces between those screens/scenes are often just painted a glossy black or brown and of course fixing those screens aren't terribly time consuming either....
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
andysol said:
Yet somehow Universal only has rides go down for maybe a week when they do a refurb. Month+ long downtime is unheard of.
You know, because they maintain it after hours regularly.
One might argue, Universal has shorter hours throughout the year than say, MK- but even at DAK where hours are in line (or less) with Universal you have months-long refurbishments on rides like Dinosaur, Primeval whirl, Tough to be a bug, etc. So it's more of an operational decision than anything. I just find it odd that people think it's reasonable that Disney performs these months-long refurbs when just down the road they simply don't, because they're taken care of before they get to that point.
Click to expand...

I agree that some of Disney's rehabs are ridiculously long, and that they purposely wait to just fix stuff during the rehab. They also don't always bring a ride back on line with all of the effects which sucks. This upcoming downtime for Splash is backstage/infrastructure related though I'm sure they'll spruce up the ride too.However, it's a lot easier to refurbish newer rides, and Universal's average age for their rides is probably half that of WDW's. They also don't need to maintain hardly any robotics (as the poster above pointed out). It's also a lot easier to just replace a projector, oil a motion base and clean a screen, so more than half of Universal's SCREENZ rides are quite easy to keep up. For comparisons sake, when was the last time Star Tours had a refurbishment besides the overlays? Has it ever? Coasters like Everest, SDMT or Thunder Mountain are obviously WAY harder to maintain than a few completely unthemed B&M's (that aren't well maintained either).

Much harder with actual practical effects- which is probably why Jurassic Park, ET, Dudley, Cat in the Hat, and others almost constantly have broken effects throughout that nobody seems to cry about incessantly. ;)

Besides, with stuff like Kong, Jaws, BTTF, ET (at Hollywood, and here at some point), Hulk, Dragons - they ran them into the ground (Dragons is on life support and has been for almost a decade, as was Hulk up till the track replacement). I seem to recall both Kong and Jaws constantly missing effects for months on end, and needing several months long rehabs at regular intervals. Maybe I'm remembering wrong?

Again, I'm not disputing that Disney lets too many maintenance things slip towards some huge extended rehab- they do. But Universal isn't exactly a model of upkeep. They're much worse at maintaining practical effects- the water rides being the worst offenders. Popeye, Jurassic, and Dudley come out of rehab with broken effects that aren't addressed.
 
Last edited:
Oriolesmagic

Oriolesmagic

Well-Known Member
PREMiERdrum said:
When we were there a few weeks ago, there were several notable issues. Some of the smaller figures (mostly birds) were suffering very limited motion or were completely static. Audio was wildly inconsistent, with areas like the first "How do you do?" in the outdoor run after the lift being barely audible, and overbearingly loud in others. There were a few obviously blown speakers, especially bad in the first block table after the brier patch, by the waterfall. Finally, it seemed like they were having a terrible time with blocking intervals, with manual block resets happening several times causing long periods of standstill in the queue.
Click to expand...

I did completely forget about the static bird in the final scene but I didn't notice any of the other issues (thankfully). Perhaps I just wasn't keeping a good enough eye out. Thanks!
 
raymusiccity

raymusiccity

Well-Known Member
andysol said:
Yet somehow Universal only has rides go down for maybe a week when they do a refurb. Month+ long downtime is unheard of.
You know, because they maintain it after hours regularly.
One might argue, Universal has shorter hours throughout the year than say, MK- but even at DAK where hours are in line (or less) with Universal you have months-long refurbishments on rides like Dinosaur, Primeval whirl, Tough to be a bug, etc. So it's more of an operational decision than anything. I just find it odd that people think it's reasonable that Disney performs these months-long refurbs when just down the road they simply don't, because they're taken care of before they get to that point.
Click to expand...
Universal is able to have faster turnaround times, because it doesn't take long to clean screens! :)
 
andysol

andysol

Well-Known Member
andysol said:
Yet somehow Universal only has rides go down for maybe a week when they do a refurb. Month+ long downtime is unheard of.
You know, because they maintain it after hours regularly.
One might argue, Universal has shorter hours throughout the year than say, MK- but even at DAK where hours are in line (or less) with Universal you have months-long refurbishments on rides like Dinosaur, Primeval whirl, Tough to be a bug, etc. So it's more of an operational decision than anything. I just find it odd that people think it's reasonable that Disney performs these months-long refurbs when just down the road they simply don't, because they're taken care of before they get to that point.
Click to expand...

raymusiccity said:
Universal is able to have faster turnaround times, because it doesn't take long to clean screens! :)
Click to expand...

Do people just read the first sentence and then respond? :cautious:
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
andysol said:
It includes newer and easier to maintain attractions such as Tough to be a bug, 4.5 months on hall of presidents, a month on a carousel, or multiple month+ long Rock n Roller Coaster and primeval whirl refurbs- Which leads me to believe that it's more of a policy issue than a complexity/Age issue.
Click to expand...

Tough to be a Bug is a weird one, but I'm not sure if anyone much cares when it gets an occasional rehab. And it's only gone down a couple of times since AK opened for a month or two at a time aside from the limb issues (which is terrible, no excuse for that garbage). Hall of Presidents is a special case, much of the show is completely re-tuned and re-worked every 4 years. I'm not entirely sure of the rehab schedule for it when we don't have a new President, but I'm pretty sure it's only down for that period of time when we get a new President. I wouldn't really attribute that to any laziness on Disney's part. Between the new script/story, animations, narration, speeches, placement of the animatronics and the total refurbishment of their costumes probably really does take quite a long time. Rock'n Rollercoaster's rehabs are kind of odd due to all of the swamp coolers that need 100% uptime or the ride is down. I'd imagine that between the LSM's and cooling that there is a lot of annual maintenance that needs to be done and it's not really an overnight job. You've got me on stuff like Dinosaur and Primeval Whirl, but they don't usually go down every year do they?

andysol said:
As for JP- they repair the skins on the outdoor animatronics weekly, and replace them annually. All with never more than a week of downtime. I would say that's a stark difference from WDW's approach. But on the other end of the spectrum- Dudley is a catastrophe. Which is my biggest criticism of Universal- the impeccable and consistent upkeep of some rides while not caring about others as they move towards their demise- but thats for another day.
Click to expand...

Oh I certainly applaud Universal's efforts to keep Jurassic in decent condition. But over the years I'd say I've never actually ridden it with all effects working (and that includes back when I used to need to ride it for show checks ;) ). The parasaurolophus is often not working, which really harms the "off course" part of the story. The raptor cage doesn't always trigger, though I'm not sure if that's a timing issue all the time, because I've seen it work several times throughout the day only to hear people say it didn't work when they rode the same day. The through-the-ceiling T-rex didn't work for quite some time (almost the whole time I worked there, though that wasn't more than a year or so). The finale T-rex is often stationary, but that's usually due to idiots standing up and shutting down the animation more than anything else. And of course the stuff from Hollywood's version (the fence, the dilophosaurus, the falling jeep) were simply cut because they got sick of how hard they were to maintain in Hollywood.

Still though, the ride is usually in very good shape considering the amount of daily wear it goes through. The skins are usually in great condition too! Though like seemingly everything else, Universal Japan's was/is a superior ride because of a few scene changes, better robotics, and of course top notch upkeep. ;) Orlando's raptors are cool, but Japans are absolutely terrifying. They're so violent it's a wonder how they keep them running! In fact, that entire lift hill segment on Japans still gives me the creeps. The sound, lighting, projections and physical effects create one of the best "scenes" on any ride ever.
 
Mark Dunne

Mark Dunne

Active Member
can't believe it, last time we came to Disney 2014, it was closed due to inclement weather, now closed for refurbishment, we arrive on 8th November, what have I done to brair patch.LOL
 
disneygeek90

disneygeek90

Well-Known Member
My only two trips at DL (at least that I have awareness of), has had Pirates closed both times due to refurb. I feel the struggle. I'm banking on it finally being open for my trip in November.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom