PHOTOS - First look inside 'Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid'

[Californian Elitist]

Yes, I experienced those same things back when I was there in July. I was actually implying that Carsland is reducing demand for Mermaid.

Really, the only time there were long lines for Mermaid was during the first few months it opened. It's pretty much always been a walk-on.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

Ugh, agree. The more we talk about it, the more it bothers me. I'm going to sort of get back on track.

I like Mermaid. Sure, the ending could have been MUCH better but I just take it for what it is. As technologically advanced as it is though, I prefer the Fantasyland Five dark rides and I'd take their charm over Mermaid or Monster's any day.

Yeah, Mermaid's DCA location in Paradise Pier suffers from a lack of "charm" or magic. One good thing about MK's Mermaid is that the ride is in Fantasyland, and is surrounded by magical/charming vistas . . .

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

Just checked the Disney park blog, RSoxNo1's comment is still there, though the moderator hasn't said anything.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Yeah, Mermaid's DCA location in Paradise Pier suffers from a lack of "charm" or magic. One good thing about MK's Mermaid is that the ride is in Fantasyland, and is surrounded by magical/charming vistas . . .

I like the location of Mermaid but there's something about these new generation of dark rides that I find inferior to the classic ones in Fantasyland. I think all the dark rides, excluding Monster's, at the Disneyland Resort all nicely fit in their respective lands, but there's something about the five in Fantasyland that put them above the rest, for me.

 

[Clamman73]

Someone ask about the canopy at TT.

 

[TP2000]

I am really looking forward to this. That said, I don't think I ever saw anywhere that the attractions would differ on each coast so I'm not sure where the shock is that it's looking the same thus far (not that we have a lot to work with to make a real comparison though - three very unrevealing shots).

Al Lutz has been saying for over a year that the WDW version of Mermaid would be an identical clone to the DCA version. That is, the latest version of the DCA ride, since it opened in May, 2011 but then had a major rehab in May, 2012 that altered the animatronics and lighting and projections a bit. Al Lutz said that the latest post-rehab version of Mermaid that opened in May '12 is the version WDW will get in November '12.

It shouldn't be a shock to anyone. But since the ride has been built up as the biggest new ride to open at Magic Kingdom Park since 1992, a bunch of people thought it would be a plussed up and noticeably different version. There were even hourly ride supervisors standing in front of construction walls claiming the WDW version would be "bigger and better" than the DCA version, when the reality is that the rides are IDENTICAL to each other.

It's the queues that are different. At DCA, there is no Fastpass and rarely more than a 5 minute wait. The last few weekends I've been in DCA the sign was posted at 5 minutes, but you actually just walked right in the front door and stepped into a clamshell in about 90 seconds or less. At WDW they are adding Fastpass and XPass and NextGen queue games and stuff to a very elaborate indoor/outdoor queue facility, so there will probably be much longer lines for it at WDW than there are at DCA.

Want to go on Little Mermaid at DCA? Just wander in the front door and walk right into the loading area. Want to go on Little Mermaid at WDW? You can reserve an XPass from home before your vacation, or get a Fastpass in the morning when you get to Magic Kingdom, or wait in the longer Standby line that is backed up because XPass and Fastpass holders have priority. Two very different ways of managing the Mermaid queue on each coast!

 

[TP2000]

I guess some parts of the ride will be identical, but is it fair for the official Disney blog to pass off photos from over a year ago from DCA's Mermaid as being a "first look" at MK's Mermaid? They're not they're old photos of DCA's Mermaid. I guess it saves money to simply re-cycle the old photos . . . but still kind irked by the trickery.

Once you board your clamshell vehicle, the entire WDW ride will be identical to the DCA ride.

Is it "fair" for the Disney Parks Blog to pass off these DCA photos as WDW photos? No, it's not. But not sure what we all expected from the Disney Parks Blog; it's just a corporate info-blog run by cubicle drones sticking to a very tight script. They don't have a real interest in the widely varied material they present, they are just meeting established targets and deadlines in distributing flattering corporate information about the products and services they are selling to consumers.

Disney Parks Blog is just another cheesy corporate communication tool, no different than a laundry soap commerical on TV or a glossy ad in a fashion magazine. They don't have to be "fair", they just have to get the information out as quickly and cheaply as possible via their approved corporate messaging standards.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

^ Pretty much what we've heard.

Mermaid in DCA doesn't have a Fast Pass, and will likely never get one. MK is adding a ridiculous number of Fast Passes to attractions that are less than Fast Pass worthy. Will MK's Mermaid, beyond opening day, necessitate a Fast Pass? MK does get huge crowds, maybe a million more when compared to Disneyland, and yet has far fewer attractions, so perhaps a Fast Pass will make sense.

Not sure how much Al Lutz knows, but as they are installing Mermaid now, and given that MK's Mermaid's queue costs tens of millions more than in DCA, why didn't the inside budget get some of these funds?

Despite the faux-"first look" photos on the official Disney blog, nobody knows what the entire inside of the ride will look like yet . . .

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

I like the location of Mermaid but there's something about these new generation of dark rides that I find inferior to the classic ones in Fantasyland. I think all the dark rides, excluding Monster's, at the Disneyland Resort all nicely fit in their respective lands, but there's something about the five in Fantasyland that put them above the rest, for me.

Yeah, I love Disneyland's Fantasyland over Mermaid. Disneyland's ride have intimate/cozy queue and all of that "charm", Mermaid in DCA is basically a big Barnes & Noble. You don't feel like you're on your way to a magical journey, but that it is just an elaborate "display" rather than being an adventure.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

Once you board your clamshell vehicle, the entire WDW ride will be identical to the DCA ride.

Is it "fair" for the Disney Parks Blog to pass off these DCA photos as WDW photos? No, it's not. But not sure what we all expected from the Disney Parks Blog; it's just a corporate info-blog run by cubicle drones sticking to a very tight script. They don't have a real interest in the widely varied material they present, they are just meeting established targets and deadlines in distributing flattering corporate information about the products and services they are selling to consumers.

Disney Parks Blog is just another cheesy corporate communication tool, no different than a laundry soap commerical on TV or a glossy ad in a fashion magazine. They don't have to be "fair", they just have to get the information out as quickly and cheaply as possible via their approved corporate messaging standards.

Surely, they didn't expect anybody to figure out that the photos weren't of the real MK's Mermaid. But if folks get the idea that the Disney blog is being phony, then the consequence would be that fewer people visit the blog, and that they have a potentially embarrassing gaffe.

I can't remember Disney offering such a "first look" which was totally staged.

 

[danlb_2000]

Yeah, I love Disneyland's Fantasyland over Mermaid. Disneyland's ride have intimate/cozy queue and all of that "charm", Mermaid in DCA is basically a big Barnes & Noble. You don't feel like you're on your way to a magical journey, but that it is just an elaborate "display" rather than being an adventure.

I can see where you are coming from with this, but when it comes to the show building I think they did the best they could with the location they were given. A show building like one in MK just wouldn't have worked for Paradise Pier. The queue at DCA does lack magic, but the building fits in well with the themeing of the area.

 

[Disneydreamer23]

how exciting

 

[RSoxNo1]

In terms of a sweet-spot for guests, a walk-on is a positive, but Disney probably perfers at least a 10-15 minute line, time to enjoy the queue and get some of the masses off the walk-ways. For Mermaid in MK, you can bet that they want that interactive queue filled with 20-30 minute wait time lines, taking warm bodies off the walkways (and out of other lines for the popular attractions). If Mermaid is a walk-on running at 50% capacity, it won't do much to decrease the crowds at all.

Well, I would estimate that DCA's Mermaid runs on about 50% capacity, much less when I boarded the clam shell as there was nobody else in line. Haunted Mansion has a long queue, but the doombuggies practically *all* get loaded with a 30 minute wait. When HM is a walk-on, you go straight to the elevator and you go down and get on a doombuggy while some go-by empty, hence no bottle neck per se. Guests love going on HM again and again, no so much with Mermaid as it doesn't have a lot of details, and there are a lot of weird stylistic choices.

I wouldn't rate Mermaid as being on the same level of Spaceship Earth, or even the old World of Motion. It's got 3 good animatronics, and everything else they sort of went cheap-o on, especially the second-half. Maybe MK's Mermaid queue will make the difference . . . but the ride just didn't seem like it was designed very well, they just lifted some scenes from the film, plopped in some screens and duplicate fish and that was it. Technically, Enchated Storytime with Belle has the best animatronic in MK at this point.

You're right, that Disney sees value in lines being manageable for guests. As for Mansion, they often only run one stretch room during non-peak times creating a longer wait than necessary as empty vehicles go through the attraction.

We've had this debate before about Mermaid, you can say that it only has 3 good animatronics, and I'm not going to argue that it's of the same quality as Pirates or SSE, but compared to the other offerings in Fantasyland, I think it's the best attraction there. From an animatronic standpoint, I think it has the 15+ best animatronics of any Fantasyland dark ride. I suppose if you want to count Donald's butt in PhilharMagic it has all but one of the top animatronics in the entire land.

Your criticisms (made in other threads) about the lighting issues are valid, but at this point we don't know if that will be different from what's in California. That's something that can certainly be changed as it moves across the country.

 

[RSoxNo1]

DCA needs to basically start over with Hollywood Land. The whole land is off IMO. Another new land wouldn't hurt either.

I think the Glowfest and subsequent Tron and Alice in Wonderland parties hurt the future of Hollywood Land. Instead of fully updating this land, they can see it is a very profitable area to sell booze without a major capital investment.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

I can see where you are coming from with this, but when it comes to the show building I think they did the best they could with the location they were given. A show building like one in MK just wouldn't have worked for Paradise Pier. The queue at DCA does lack magic, but the building fits in well with the themeing of the area.

Well, they *could* have removed the Palace of Fine Arts and built a building with a lower profile. Paradise Pier was very lightly themed, basically a run-down pier side amusement park is all you can go with when you've got to dress up cheap carnival rides (some of which have been removed.) So . . . I would have gone with making the entrance to Mermaid on the other side, closer to Grizzly River Run. They could have easily made some rockwork, and even Eric's Castle, . . . not exactly California, but oh well.

There were a lot of choices, but I think they were crazy to make a brand new Mermaid attraction slave to such a crummy looking land.

 

[RSoxNo1]

The question is, what were the Mermaid lines like after the initial opening rush, but before Carsland opened? Carsland is really sucking up the people in DCA.

They were quiet last summer. My first time on the ride we wait 15-20 minutes for it, but on all subsequent times it was 5 minutes or less.

 

[danlb_2000]

Well, they *could* have removed the Palace of Fine Arts and built a building with a lower profile. Paradise Pier was very lightly themed, basically a run-down pier side amusement park is all you can go with when you've got to dress up cheap carnival rides (some of which have been removed.) So . . . I would have gone with making the entrance to Mermaid on the other side, closer to Grizzly River Run. They could have easily made some rockwork, and even Eric's Castle, . . . not exactly California, but oh well.

There were a lot of choices, but I think they were crazy to make a brand new Mermaid attraction slave to such a crummy looking land.

I really like the look of the Paradise Pier area, especially at night. Yes, the rides are not the greatest, but I think the area has a goof theme. Of course some of that probably comes from the summers at the Jersey shore and visits to Coney Island when I was young.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Rode RSR about two weeks ago, there was a line for getting RSR Fast-Pass that stretched around to Carthay.

A line . . . for having the privilege of waiting in an hour long Fast Pass line later in the day.

Anyway, Mermaid was a walk-on for me then. I think it is currently averaging about 5 minutes, as posted outside the ride, though the main boards often list it as being 10 minutes. More guests could ride it as a lot of the clamshells go by empty, at least when I was there.

Crowds are low in DLR, I think RSR is now only 65 minutes stand-by.

The Bottom-Line: Carsland has done little, if anything, to boost Mermaid attendance, as far as I can tell. The outside of Mermaid in DCA looks like a Barnes & Noble, and the sign is so high up that a lot of guests don't notice it, (even higher up is King Triton), . . . it doesn't have the magical feeling of Carsland or Fantasyland.

We waited 45 minutes each morning for FP for Radiator Springs Racers on the three days that we were there. It was within 2 weeks of opening, but the crowds wrapped around Carthay Circle theater all the way down to Tower of Terror's FP machines. It was moving very quickly, with managers and other cast members throughout the line and the FP machines making it go as efficiently as possible.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

I think the Glowfest and subsequent Tron and Alice in Wonderland parties hurt the future of Hollywood Land. Instead of fully updating this land, they can see it is a very profitable area to sell booze without a major capital investment.

Yeah, I've never really been to Tron, Glowfest or Alice . . . not a bigger drinker. I think they also rent out this area for corporate parties, more $$ and alcohol being sold, though I would figure that drinking booze in a nice new land would be a better experience than what is there now. Maybe you have to be drunk to enjoy Hollywood land.

 

[TP2000]

Surely, they didn't expect anybody to figure out that the photos weren't of the real MK's Mermaid. But if folks get the idea that the Disney blog is being phony, then the consequence would be that fewer people visit the blog, and that they have a potentially embarrassing gaffe.

I can't remember Disney offering such a "first look" which was totally staged.

Yes. Ms. Jennifer Fickley-Baker seems to have been caught in a bit of journalistic quicksand. Not that a corporate blog has to live up to traditional journalistic standards, or even follow the AP Style Guide or other such quaint 20th century standards of basic profesionalism.

But this mistake plainly reveals Ms. Fickley-Baker and the Disney Parks Blog for what it essentially is; a corporate propaganda commercial for goods and services for sale.

These are Ms. Fickley-Baker's exact words from her unfortunate blog post: "Today we’re thrilled to share the very first photos from inside the Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid attraction, which will open at Magic Kingdom Park this December." http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/09/all-in-the-details-the-first-photos-from-under-the-sea-journey-of-the-little-mermaid-at-magic-kingdom-park/

Um.... Jen, honey? Those aren't actually pictures from "inside Under The Sea - Journey of The Little Mermaid attraction". Oops!