I agree with you Disneyexpert, rides that children can ride are always a great improvement.
But as for your definition of classic, no Walt does not have to had built it to qualify. There are many post Walt wonderful classic attractions, Hall Of Presidents, Splash Mountain, Pooh, Test Track, Muppet Vision 3-d, Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Caoster, It's Tough To Be A Bug, Buzz Lightyear, over in California you have Roger Rabbit, Indiana Jones Adventure, Soarin Over California, this list could go on.
Some are suitable for kids, and some are not, Primevil Whirl clearly does not support a kid friendly attrraction, although I agree Triceratops Spin does.
The point is I can enjoy it as much as anybody, but I can also recognize they have lowered the bar. Sure Alladin's carpets, is a great hit with kids, but the point is, they do know how to make plenty of kid friendly rides long after Walt. But it was not until about a year ago that they started opening attractions, (or even entire park's as is the case with Disney's California Adventure), with attractions that are fun, but unspectacular and at many other theme parks.
Disney's entire sucess was the fact that Disney would open a different type of park, and it's very true the park opened with Dumbo and Teacups, but it also opened with a Jungle Cruise, a Mark Twain circling an entire Tom Sawer Island, and only 4 years after the park opened added a Matterhorn mountain, a monorial system, and many others.
Spinners are fun and great for kids, but is it really a different experiance riding Aladdin's carpets, then it was riding Dumbo? Disney opened it's first spinner in 1955. It didn't do it again until 1971, when it was attempting to open a park similar to the original, and with the exception of the two additional Fantasyland's opened in Paris and Tokyo, did not even attempt a 2nd spinner, until 2001 at the Magic Kingdom, 46 years after it's first spinner that the WDW resort already had.
You can say Snow White, and Peter Pan, and Pooh, are similar as well, however the big difference is only the track system is simlar. They provide entirely different shows. There is no show to Dumbo, Aladdin, or Triceratops, only the vehicle's shape differs.
Sure riding something like Aladdin's carpets is fun for kids, but they have the exact same type ride over at Universal's Islands Of Adventure, or at any local Six Flags park, Disney used to have higher standards that worked, it didn't require Walt, but it did require an investment.
Tourism has been down, I'm not blaming any of the current decesions on that, but the addition of Dinorama, the addition of Aladdin's Magic carpets, were all decesions made long before the slump. Dinorama didn't open till after the problems, but tourism slump or not, it was coming anyway, the dececion it was coming was made about 2 years ago.
I do enjoy the ride, and I understand the idea it's supposed to look cheap, but just because they sucesfully made it look cheap, does not show me they used a heck of a lot of talent. If I tell you I'm an artist, and only draw you a stick man, but explain I'm trying to capture the image as though a 4 year old drew it, does that really support my claim that I'm an artist?
Dinorama is a neat impovement, but they could have done a lot better, maybe not as quickly, but I was fine with what was there in the first place. Taking out the Jubilee and fossil lab lowered the educational level the area was attempting to provide. The attraction CTX (now called Dinosour) was the entertainment section, so the balance worked for me fine.
I don't go to an Animal Kingdom, and look for mouse caosters, and spinnters, I go and look for animals and information about animals. Who are Chester and Hester anyway? I don't recall them even being in a Disney film, to identify what this cheesy carnival even has to do with Disney.
