Frozen Ever After opening day

prberk

prberk

Well-Known Member
DisneyExpert said:
At least you seem to be in the minority.

Inappropriate placement aside, it's a pretty great attraction. It has a killer queue, fantastic lighting, beautiful set design, and incredible Audio Animatronics. The "story" is that Elsa has frozen the kingdom for a fun day of snow. That's it. You do understand that attractions don't need a hard story, right? None of the classics have one. I would say shoving a cut and dry storyline into an attraction is a lot more in line with your later borderline-offensive "special needs" comment. Feed people the story since they cannot think for themselves.

Not to mention, what "story" there is in the attraction is literally fed to you through the songs. It's really not hard to follow. Olaf says that Elsa has invited you to her ice castle, the trolls recap the story of Anna and Elsa, we travel up the North Mountain to her castle, Anna and Kristoph reiterate to us that Elsa has invited us to see her, We enter the castle and Elsa shows us her powers, which send us backwards through the freezing castle, Marshmallow turns us back around and we plunge back into the port of Arendelle where Anna, Elsa, and Olaf sing us off on our way.
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A couple of things:

The AAs and basic show design do look good and more modern -- but they should. When the American Adventure opened in 1982 its AAs walked and its show design was by degrees better and more enveloping than its Hall of Presidents predecessor -- which itself was just as big an improvement over its predecessor, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

The difference is that those shows were not shoehorned as an overlay into their predecessor. They were bigger and grander, and built as a brand new space to go with that vision -- and each in an appropriate place.

The space matters here. Everyone knows that it did not belong in World Showcase. I am still on that page. But not just for the aesthetics (which is still the primary reason) -- I also think that it was colossally stupid to put it into that space. The ride system just does not have the capacity for a ride already this popular -- that is also already known -- but also because, like the ones mentioned above, this new show has a much broader scope and vision than the nice little travelogue that Maelstrom was. Maelstrom was appropriate for the space and crowd it would draw.

But the new Frozen show is rightfully executed in a grander show -- so it does both the new ride and EPCOT a disservice to have a show that is grander in scope and scale AND immediately popular shoehorned into that small space. It needed its own space, with appropriate size and even possibly the space to have multiple boats going -- or even a new ride mechanism.

Now we have a good new attraction that has such low capacity that lines will be forever long for a long time, and the long lines will cut into the enjoyment of both the ride and its overwhelmed Norway pavilion and other neighbors.

So, yes, the ride seems good. But it should (as it is new) -- and it deserved a new space that was both thematically appropriate and fit its bigger scale and scope... and ride capacity!
 
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PuertoRekinSam

PuertoRekinSam

Well-Known Member
Direwolf27 said:
I've actually been thinking about this. Tell people it's 240 minutes, when it's really only 50, then keep the line manageable?
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The last time I visited the world I was with a family friend who's son needed a disability card. With the new system the return time is linked to the posted time. If they post 240 minutes when the wait is really 30 that is breaking the promise to the people using the card. Every time we used it our return time was +/- 10 from *now* and the current wait time.
 
Figments Friend

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
aladdin2007 said:
agree however they could have used a sprucing up or paint job, they didnt touch them by the looks of things. When you see some of the new pictures in the bright lighting the seats and hauls look horrible.........but glad we still have them.
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I have not seen one of the boats in a bright setting yet, so I must be missing the rough appearance you mention.
Are they in that poor of condition?
A shame if that is the case, as running neglected ride vehicles through a freshly refaced Attraction seems like Bad Show to me.

Perhaps they were going for a rustic, 'vintage distressed' look with the longboats.
I hear that is rather fashionable these days, exspecially for clothing.
;)

-
 
R

rushtest4echo

Well-Known Member
To everyone here who's complaining/laughing at/lamenting over broken effects on a new ride, I suggest you read a few books written by Imagineers like Bob Gurr, Steve Alcorn, John Hench, or Marty Sklar (not the sanitized official Disney ones). Every single one of them is replete with tales of just barely getting a new attraction open only to have half of the effects broken and WDI having to baby the ride along for several days or weeks until everything is up to par. That's not the "new Disney" it's "the same Disney that's existed since 1955" with regards to theme parks.

As usual on these forums, people seem to think that the current Disney Parks are different from other eras. There were always disappointing rides that replaced a beloved old attraction that ended up being a maintenance nightmare. There were always delays and missed deadlines. There were always awesome concepts that got shelved and rides that got shortened for budget reasons. There were always bean counters "ruining" WDI's vision. There were always operations concerns that didn't jive with WDI's designs. None of this is new...

I'm plenty upset when I see cool concepts passed over or when a ride I like is "ruined" by an upgraded experience. I'm sure people were livid when Rocket to the Moon was "ruined" by Mission to Mars- a cheap overlay that was slapped over a classic attraction. Still, it's par for the course and has always happened. If you think any different, you really don't know much about Disney's parks in a historical context.
 
Buried20KLeague

Buried20KLeague

Well-Known Member
rushtest4echo said:
To everyone here who's complaining/laughing at/lamenting over broken effects on a new ride, I suggest you read a few books written by Imagineers like Bob Gurr, Steve Alcorn, John Hench, or Marty Sklar (not the sanitized official Disney ones). Every single one of them is replete with tales of just barely getting a new attraction open only to have half of the effects broken and WDI having to baby the ride along for several days or weeks until everything is up to par. That's not the "new Disney" it's "the same Disney that's existed since 1955" with regards to theme parks.

As usual on these forums, people seem to think that the current Disney Parks are different from other eras. There were always disappointing rides that replaced a beloved old attraction that ended up being a maintenance nightmare. There were always delays and missed deadlines. There were always awesome concepts that got shelved and rides that got shortened for budget reasons. There were always bean counters "ruining" WDI's vision. There were always operations concerns that didn't jive with WDI's designs. None of this is new...

I'm plenty upset when I see cool concepts passed over or when a ride I like is "ruined" by an upgraded experience. I'm sure people were livid when Rocket to the Moon was "ruined" by Mission to Mars- a cheap overlay that was slapped over a classic attraction. Still, it's par for the course and has always happened. If you think any different, you really don't know much about Disney's parks in a historical context.
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Name two that have been as poorly prepared as this one.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
The ride really shouldn't be "officially open" right now. If it was just in softs it would be understandable especially given the fact that FastPass wouldn't be in use yet thus avoiding the huge backup of people with FPs when the ride reopens after it does go down. After Rivers of Light I guess ops was pretty much forced to have it open on the announced date.

This has been said before though.
 
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EPCOTCenterLover

EPCOTCenterLover

Well-Known Member
rushtest4echo said:
As usual on these forums, people seem to think that the current Disney Parks are different from other eras. There were always disappointing rides that replaced a beloved old attraction that ended up being a maintenance nightmare. There were always delays and missed deadlines. There were always awesome concepts that got shelved and rides that got shortened for budget reasons. There were always bean counters "ruining" WDI's vision. There were always operations concerns that didn't jive with WDI's designs. None of this is new...

I'm plenty upset when I see cool concepts passed over or when a ride I like is "ruined" by an upgraded experience. I'm sure people were livid when Rocket to the Moon was "ruined" by Mission to Mars- a cheap overlay that was slapped over a classic attraction. Still, it's par for the course and has always happened. If you think any different, you really don't know much about Disney's parks in a historical context.
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Were there problems? Yes- but it's a different company now. In Walt's day, the guest deserved the best the Company and its Imagineers could give. Tell me how that aligns with Frozen Ever After, Dinorama, Stitch debacle, or any other number of projects.
 
donsullivan

donsullivan

Premium Member
Buried20KLeague said:
Name two that have been as poorly prepared as this one.
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I haven't ridden Frozen Ever After yet, I have my FP for tomorrow night for the first experience. I've also made a personal choice not to watch any of the countless videos online right now so I can experience it in person and not via video to draw my conclusions.

How about Spaceship Earth when it opened? The rotation of the vehicles didn't work either at the top or the bottom. It caused the ride to shut down on a daily basis as a result. It got so bad they actually had a cast member at the top where you turn to reverse and another at the bottom each of whom was tasked to push the ride vehicles with their foot to lock it in place for the directional transition. The ride operated in that mode for a very long time.

As was mentioned above, people really need to get some perspective on this stuff. There have always, since 1955 been issues with new attractions when they first open; this is nothing new but is a challenge that has been there since the beginning.Despite the arrogance of many armchair Imagineers here who apparently where in on the design and construction based on their knowledge of when everything was finished, a lot of these attractions are significantly more complex than you want to believe. And like most projects there is always something that doesn't work the way you thought it would when it has to start running for 12 hours a day, every day.
 
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