Just got back from a week at the superior US DisneyParks resort and have to say what fine shape the resort is already in and makes me excited to see what next year's milestone will yield. Since my last visit at the end of February, the following changes were all new to us:
- The BTMMR refurb is everything I could've hoped for an more. The ride tracks beautifully now and is even faster as all the energy isn't getting scrubbed off do the excessive slop the track was causing. The new effects in the last lift are wonderful and make for a much improved finale.
- The Mermaid refurb accomplishes a great deal to improving many of the complaints I had with the attraction. The Under the Sea sequence no longer feels like a trip through a Costco warehouse. I'm hopeful that the next time the ride goes down, the ending will get some attention and lift the overall attraction experience even more. As of now, it is safe to say it is a "good ride" without reservations.
- Alice... oh my, oh my. Take a great ride, strip away all the stupid California safety plywood and let the Imagineers have a bit of funding and you take a great attraction and elevate it to even greater status. What was always in my opinion and underappreciated gem of Fantasyland is now shined up with enough new attention and special effects that it can stand above the crowd. The only negative I can say about Alice is that the queue and surrounding area can no longer accommodate the crowds and this make for a bad bottleneck. I'm sure when the rest of Fantasyland's rides get their refurbs and upgrades, things will balance back out. I can't wait to see what the rest of the refurbs will yield. I'm going to go out on a limb to say that if Toad gets what I've been told in the form of projection mapping - then it will be the ride that makes the biggest jump in show quality. Projection mapping with the 2D nature of the ride should be fantastic.
In addition to the items above, there were a few new additions or plusses that caught my eye.
- A complete surprise to me was the return of the Croc to Fantasmic!. He had been MIA for us over the course of the last three years worth of trips and has now returned to chasing the Columbia... er, Jolly Roger. Considering I hadn't heard a peep from anyone about him being back in the show, I was pleasantly surprised.
- Magical has also gotten some upgrades since last summer. New strobes on the castle's 2nd story railing and many new types of pyro from the northern launch location. In what would be a shocking development in Orlando regarding fireworks, the new pyro actually ADDS color to the show and not subtracts it (poor Illuminations). Of particular note were some interesting spherical bursts that radiate color into separate hemispheres. Very nice additions.
All in all, it was a great trip and as has become the norm recently, DLR has reaffirmed my belief that when properly motivated - DisneyParks can still function at the high standard we have come to expect out of them. Even the resorts "Yeti", the tipping tractors on Racers, were working on most every trip around the circuit over the course of the week. One day, you would see one of the tractors not working; but, it would be back up and running the next day.
To mix my metahpors a bit, the lagoon for the subs was being refilled during our visit; but, I think it's safe to say to anyone that has thinking about taking a trip to DLR - come on in, the water is just fine.