News Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan's Flight and Ariel's Undersea Adventure closing for refurbishment in June 2023

[PiratesMansion]

That said, in person some of the projected elements ("down, down, down" scenery, croquet hedgehog transition room) look WAY too dark for me.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't ever remember them being as dark in person as they are right now.

 

[mickEblu]

Alice is probably my favourite of the Fantasyland dark rides.

My favorite Fantasyland style ride seems to fluctuate but Alice is always in the Top 2.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Peter Pan- no question!
Flying over London and Neverland- priceless.

Toad might be number two.

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

I don’t recall the king sliding out from behind the queen prior to this refurb. Glad to see they either restored a broken effect or added a fun new one.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[chadwpalm]

I don’t recall the king sliding out from behind the queen prior to this refurb. Glad to see they either restored a broken effect or added a fun new one.

This is a video after the 2014 refurb. The effect seems to be working there, so I'm guessing it was just broke for a long time.

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

This is a video after the 2014 refurb. The effect seems to be working there, so I'm guessing it was just broke for a long time.

Nice catch! And he actually seems to slide out even faster now than he did post-2014-refurb, so kudos to the maintenance team for restoring this fun effect.

 

[truecoat]

I noticed the Queen being introduced two different ways, her royal majesty vs her imperial highness.

 

[Nland316]

Are we expecting any upgrades to Toad during its downtime? I imagine if they really wanted to add projection mapping, it wouldn’t take months long of a closure..

 

[PiratesMansion]

Are we expecting any upgrades to Toad during its downtime? I imagine if they really wanted to add projection mapping, it wouldn’t take months long of a closure..

Given that the other dark rides that share the building have also had similar refurbishments and reopened unchanged, I wouldn't expect any upgrades to Toad either.

 

[mickEblu]

Are we expecting any upgrades to Toad during its downtime? I imagine if they really wanted to add projection mapping, it wouldn’t take months long of a closure..

My vote would be to just leave Toad alone. Projections don’t always mesh with the older rides. Projections could work with some of the 3D elements (not the plywood cutouts) but I don’t think it’s necessary and not worth the risk of it not being executed well. I think the new Indy projections are pretty bad. They did a great job with Alice but I could do without the white Rabbit scene.

 

[PiratesMansion]

My vote would be to just leave Toad alone. Projections don’t always mesh with the older rides. Projections could work with some of the 3D elements (not the plywood cutouts) but I don’t think it’s necessary and not worth the risk of it not being executed well. I think the new Indy projections are pretty bad. They did a great job with Alice but I could do without the white Rabbit scene.

I'm not opposed to projections, and liked what they did with Indy over what used to be there when it was just rats in an otherwise blank hallway-but I genuinely can't picture how projections would help Toad.

Really, I feel like they would draw attention to the low-tech nature of the rest of the ride more than they would do anything else.

 

[mickEblu]

I'm not opposed to projections, and liked what they did with Indy over what used to be there when it was just rats in an otherwise blank hallway-but I genuinely can't picture how projections would help Toad.

Really, I feel like they would draw attention to the low-tech nature of the rest of the ride more than they would do anything else.

Yes exactly. You said what I was trying to say but better … they draw attention to the low tech nature and/or clash with the more physical elements of the older rides.

I disagree on Indy. The rat projection wasn’t great but it was over rather quickly. Now we have two bad projection scenes for a longer period of time.

 

[PiratesMansion]

I disagree on Indy. The rat projection wasn’t great but it was over rather quickly. Now we have two bad projection scenes for a longer period of time.

One thing we can probably agree on with Indy is that the change wasn't necessary, really. I like it, but did it need to be done? Not really. It's still not perfect. They could just shut the lights off and stop trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

OR they could just straight-up copy the smoke ring effect from Tokyo's Indy instead.

Still, there's one change that I think they NEED to make, but didn't during the last refurb-the dart room. In Tokyo, there are dimensional, sculpted heads that shoot the darts at you. They don't move or anything, but they're clearly three dimensional, and it makes a difference IMO. By comparison, it's always felt a little cheap to me that at Disneyland they're all just painted on the wall and totally flat. That'd be an easy improvement I'd love to see in the next Indy refurb-and maybe DL can even one-up Tokyo by making fully dimensional bodies instead of just heads.

 

[mickEblu]

One thing we can probably agree on with Indy is that the change wasn't necessary, really. I like it, but did it need to be done? Not really. It's still not perfect. They could just shut the lights off and stop trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

OR they could just straight-up copy the smoke ring effect from Tokyo's Indy instead.

Still, there's one change that I think they NEED to make, but didn't during the last refurb-the dart room. In Tokyo, there are dimensional, sculpted heads that shoot the darts at you. They don't move or anything, but they're clearly three dimensional, and it makes a difference IMO. By comparison, it's always felt a little cheap to me that at Disneyland they're all just painted on the wall and totally flat. That'd be an easy improvement I'd love to see in the next Indy refurb-and maybe DL can even one-up Tokyo by making fully dimensional bodies instead of just heads.

Oh yeah, I said the same thing. They could have accomplished more with darkness and sound. Another dark room or two with Mara muttering something to you (or any other scary noises) would better than the new projections. The dart room can definitely be improved (even if I find it to be effective) but still much better than the new projection scenes that stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[CaptinEO]

The three coolest effects for me on Indy were the rotating doors (with the moving mirror at ride start showing the cars going to alternate doors), the shaking lava bridge, and the boulder backwards movement.

Seems the first two are gone forever and the last one is unreliable.

I do like all the changes in the recent refurb though, the new projections I like much better as my eyes could never make out the rats too well. Also glad to see a moving snake.

They did good and I hope they can restore the moving doors and bridge to their former glory. Those aren't even long abandoned effects either, they were in the ride for more than a decade.

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

I noticed the Queen being introduced two different ways, her royal majesty vs her imperial highness.

Looks like they took lipstick off the first Queen of Hearts figure too.