Frozen Ever After opening day

[Phil12]

How much more information do you expect to garner aside from what the first ten pages of this thread have? There are videos, pictures, personal experiences and CM reports. Are you looking for wait times? Do you want to see more videos of the exact same thing? Stories about the attraction going down for the third time in one day? The title of this thread is "FEA Opening Day", not "FEA continual round the clock coverage".

What you continue to call "whining" is actually people pointing out that the ride is indeed the cluster bomb of operational nightmares as well as a thorn in the side of WS as was predicted by those who were able to see past the pants wetting excitment of Disney announcing something for Frozen. The attraction does look cute, I will enjoy it when I visit, but I will continue to hold the company accountable for the huge mistake they have made in hopes that if enough people can put aside their personal feelings and realize that even though their bored kids may find WS 2% more interesting now, that this type of mistake should not be made again. In any of the parks. The company should value their customers and their IP enough to do the job the right way and not just put a band aid on a borken leg.

But the vast majority of customers do enjoy the attraction and don't view it in a negative fashion as do a vocal minority on certain fan sites. Your criticisms qualify you to join the exalted ranks of those who desire to bring back Mr. Toad and The Adventurers Club.

There is no question that Frozen Ever After is a great improvement over its predecessor and obviously the real reason why it was put in WS was to invigorate aspirin sales among people that have nothing better to worry about. Most people correctly view this new attraction as a wonderful new addition to the WS. However, you and a few others consider it to be a mistake but the majority of guests don't agree with your viewpoint.

I can only hope that a Ratatouille attraction is built in the France pavilion so that my Bayer aspirin stock will show a hefty return along with my Disney stock. It would be a win, win!

 

[Marlins1]

Oddly enough, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Snow White, Mr. Toad, Mad Tea Party, Grand Prix and probably one or two others were 'C' tickets, while I only see Jungle Cruise, Tiki Birds (?!?), Haunted Mansion ,Small World and 20,000 Leagues as the 'E' tickets back then. Seems like you'd run out of 'C' tickets very quickly. Does anyone remember, could you use a higher ticket for a lower attraction? Like could I have used a 'D' ticket for a 'C' attraction?

Yes - the C tickets were very popular and many of us would use our D tickets for C attractions.

 

[Mike S]

look i get it and agree its not in the right spot and the bigger issue to me is capacity. But just because people arent theme park purist who are outraged by this but enjoy the ride doesnt mean they have no intellectual depth
all you re doing is taking shots at people because they dont agree with you

From what I've seen I know I'll enjoy it.* Looks like the best Fantasyland dark ride in the US imo even though I haven't been on Disneyland's Pan yet.

Wrong park, capacity, yadda yadda yadda, all still true.

*If I can even get on it this weekend...

 

[PhotoDave219]

Believe it or not, I WAS being nice.

After all the Scottish creativity i've seen around social media, I believe you....

 

[Wikkler]

Great description of the categories but I think most WDW fans fit into more than one of these categories. I actually see myself in all five which is why WDW remains my favorite theme park destination but I enjoy Busch and Uni parks as well.

Funny thing is that isn't even an exhaustive list. I just thought of the types of visitors and those were the five that I thought of first, but when you consider that the categories overlap, I think it covers 100% of guests.

I'm concerned about your mental health if all five apply to you, though.

 

[Wikkler]

I think the argument should not be about the ticket designation, but rather if FEA will be seen and advertised as a headliner attraction for EPCOT. The merits of whether this ride should be a headliner or not is what should be argued.

Every new attraction is advertised as a headliner at Disney. When I was there, I saw Turtle Talk and American Idol being advertised as headliners. Tsk tsk.

 

[Wikkler]

How much more information do you expect to garner aside from what the first ten pages of this thread have? There are videos, pictures, personal experiences and CM reports. Are you looking for wait times? Do you want to see more videos of the exact same thing? Stories about the attraction going down for the third time in one day? The title of this thread is "FEA Opening Day", not "FEA continual round the clock coverage".

What you continue to call "whining" is actually people pointing out that the ride is indeed the cluster bomb of operational nightmares as well as a thorn in the side of WS as was predicted by those who were able to see past the pants wetting excitment of Disney announcing something for Frozen. The attraction does look cute, I will enjoy it when I visit, but I will continue to hold the company accountable for the huge mistake they have made in hopes that if enough people can put aside their personal feelings and realize that even though their bored kids may find WS 2% more interesting now, that this type of mistake should not be made again. In any of the parks. The company should value their customers and their IP enough to do the job the right way and not just put a band aid on a borken leg.

Time for a "Frozen Ever After effects status watch" thread.

 

[Wikkler]

Late trip report from yesterday: we never went to Frozen. 90-120 min wait reported at rope drop, and I saw a three hour standby wait when we walked by in the late afternoon. Lots of little girls in Elsa dresses all over the park looking, well, kinda stressed out. Not sure if that was from not getting to ride, or waiting so long.

Even if you don't care about theme, this right here is proof it should have gone to Magic Kingdom. That park has dozens of similar attractions to mop up wait times. Epcot doesn't, and Maelstrom's horrible capacity just makes it all worse.

What's done is done, hopefully Disney doesn't make the same mistake with Zootopia or whatever else the kids want a ride for.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Well i'm out. This took a turn for the worst when personal insults about people's intelligence started getting thrown around just for liking a theme park ride. Yeesh. Everyone needs to do some growing up.

This actually looks like a decent ride, better than Mermaid over at MK.

But short of food, medicine, or clean water.... nothing is worth a five-hour wait.

 

[No Name]

I think now would be a good time for me to try asking again. Does anyone have a number on capacity for this. And could you explain why that number is different than it was for Maelstrom in its final days (if it's indeed different)? I've heard people say it's gone up, but everything I've seen leads me to believe it is the same or has gone down a slight bit. I don't understand how it could've gone up. If they're able to dispatch the boats faster, how so?

@RSoxNo1 @spiritofNorway just paging those two because I've seen them talk about the capacity, but anyone else is more than welcome to answer.

Thanks.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

I think now would be a good time for me to try asking again. Does anyone have a number on capacity for this. And could you explain why that number is different than it was for Maelstrom in its final days (if it's indeed different)? I've heard people say it's gone up, but everything I've seen leads me to believe it is the same or has gone down a slight bit. I don't understand how it could've gone up. If they're able to dispatch the boats faster, how so?

@RSoxNo1 @spiritofNorway just paging those two because I've seen them talk about the capacity, but anyone else is more than welcome to answer.

Thanks.

Don't know about the capacity itself, but a CM in an evacuation video said to a guest that they can dispatch up to 11 boats at a time but were only dispatching 9 at that time.

 

[wdisney9000]

But the vast majority of customers do enjoy the attraction and don't view it in a negative fashion as do a vocal minority on certain fan sites. Your criticisms qualify you to join the exalted ranks of those who desire to bring back Mr. Toad and The Adventurers Club.

There is no question that Frozen Ever After is a great improvement over its predecessor and obviously the real reason why it was put in WS was to invigorate aspirin sales among people that have nothing better to worry about. Most people correctly view this new attraction as a wonderful new addition to the WS. However, you and a few others consider it to be a mistake but the majority of guests don't agree with your viewpoint.

I can only hope that a Ratatouille attraction is built in the France pavilion so that my Bayer aspirin stock will show a hefty return along with my Disney stock. It would be a win, win!

1. I don't hate Frozen

2. I don't miss Maelstrom

3. I'm not against rides in World Showcase.

Did the TWDC give us their best effort of a premium Frozen attraction in Florida where park admissionis an absolute premium price?

Is the ride not an operational and capacity nightmare?

I'll await your response which will no doubt be more innacruate nonsense.

 

[marni1971]

I can only hope that a Ratatouille attraction is built in the France pavilion so that my Bayer aspirin stock will show a hefty return along with my Disney stock. It would be a win, win!

And once again it's not not happening.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I think now would be a good time for me to try asking again. Does anyone have a number on capacity for this. And could you explain why that number is different than it was for Maelstrom in its final days (if it's indeed different)? I've heard people say it's gone up, but everything I've seen leads me to believe it is the same or has gone down a slight bit. I don't understand how it could've gone up. If they're able to dispatch the boats faster, how so?

@RSoxNo1 @spiritofNorway just paging those two because I've seen them talk about the capacity, but anyone else is more than welcome to answer.

Thanks.

I think it's too early to tell, but there are a few factors here. There's a reason why they don't load two boats at once, there are other bottlenecks in the attraction that wouldn't necessarily loading two boats at once an improvement in capacity.

As far as I can tell from watching ride videos the least amount of time to get through the Elsa scene is 25 seconds. Even then, you're not fully through the scene, but you've at least cleared the sightlines of Elsa. I assume that's the absolute lowest end for how quickly they will dispatch a boat.

Back in the day, Maelstrom's dispatches were around 45-50 seconds and overall capacity was around 900-1000 per hour. @t3techcom18 mentioned a goal of 28 second dispatch times and I've heard second hand reports of that being an achievable goal. However that seems to be an ideal scenario and it's pretty much impossible to expect that over the course of an entire day. At 28 seconds per dispatch and 10 people per boat you can get through 1286 guests per hour. At 12 people per boat you can get through 1543. If I had to guess, I'd say that capacity will fall into the 1100-1300 guest per hour range, about half of what is likely needed.

 

[RMichael21]

So how has today gone so far from an operational stand point? Have there been any break downs today? I've checked about 3 times today and it's had a minimum of 120 minutes when I've checked but I wasn't sure.

 

[Clamman73]

I think it's too early to tell, but there are a few factors here. There's a reason why they don't load two boats at once, there are other bottlenecks in the attraction that wouldn't necessarily loading two boats at once an improvement in capacity.

As far as I can tell from watching ride videos the least amount of time to get through the Elsa scene is 25 seconds. Even then, you're not fully through the scene, but you've at least cleared the sightlines of Elsa. I assume that's the absolute lowest end for how quickly they will dispatch a boat.

Back in the day, Maelstrom's dispatches were around 45-50 seconds and overall capacity was around 900-1000 per hour. @t3techcom18 mentioned a goal of 28 second dispatch times and I've heard second hand reports of that being an achievable goal. However that seems to be an ideal scenario and it's pretty much impossible to expect that over the course of an entire day. At 28 seconds per dispatch and 10 people per boat you can get through 1286 guests per hour. At 12 people per boat you can get through 1543. If I had to guess, I'd say that capacity will fall into the 1100-1300 guest per hour range, about half of what is likely needed.

Need to run some experiments...Two people separate on consecutive boats on the phone with each other should time when the first person goes through the door in the Elsa scene, and then the second person goes through the door. Repeat three times and take an average.

Also, when the second person goes through the door, is the music resetting to the beginning already before the first person has finished hearing the end of the Elsa part "cold never bothered me anyway" and has gotten through the fog part.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Need to run some experiments...Two people separate on consecutive boats on the phone with each other should time when the first person goes through the door in the Elsa scene, and then the second person goes through the door. Repeat three times and take an average.

Also, when the second person goes through the door, is the music resetting to the beginning already before the first person has finished hearing the end of the Elsa part "cold never bothered me anyway" and has gotten through the fog part.

Yeah, I'm sure something that will go unnoticed by 99.99% of guests is what appears to be very well done audio work. I haven't heard any reports of, nor scene videos of audio bleed.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Re-posting this breakdown...

25-30 seconds as a dispatch interval seems to still be the bottleneck, but I don't know if there are other hold points between the track switches. The switch itself shouldn't take that long, but if another boat can't be in the flume between the two track switches then that section would be the bottleneck. Here is the timing of the various components on Blog Mickey's video:

• 2:39 - Doors open to Let It Go scene
• 2:51 - Vehicle stops at Elsa
• 2:59 - Vehicle starts backwards drop/section
  
• 3:25 - Icy blast transitions out of the Let It Go scene
• 3:51 - Vehicle stops at Marshmallow track switch
• 3:57 - Vehicle travels forward down hill
• 4:09 - Bottom of hill

If I had to guess I'd say that the speakers approaching Elsa and prior to the backwards drop kick off right as the boat starts going backwards and you only hear speakers playing the song from speakers near you. That would mean that the loop you hear through the speakers in the Elsa scene is only about 20 seconds.

 

[Crazydisneyfanluke]

Re-posting this breakdown...

25-30 seconds as a dispatch interval seems to still be the bottleneck, but I don't know if there are other hold points between the track switches. The switch itself shouldn't take that long, but if another boat can't be in the flume between the two track switches then that section would be the bottleneck. Here is the timing of the various components on Blog Mickey's video:

• 2:39 - Doors open to Let It Go scene
• 2:51 - Vehicle stops at Elsa
• 2:59 - Vehicle starts backwards drop/section
  
• 3:25 - Icy blast transitions out of the Let It Go scene
• 3:51 - Vehicle stops at Marshmallow track switch
• 3:57 - Vehicle travels forward down hill
• 4:09 - Bottom of hill

If I had to guess I'd say that the speakers approaching Elsa and prior to the backwards drop kick off right as the boat starts going backwards and you only hear speakers playing the song from speakers near you. That would mean that the loop you hear through the speakers in the Elsa scene is only about 20 seconds.

Also, the way the speakers are pointing will determine bleed form room to room. Basically, Acoustics.

 

[Clamman73]

(I don't know if someone has done this already) Timing in the video the Elsa part...There's at least 32 seconds b/t the next boat if you look when the door opens, the snowflake structure hanging above in front of Elsa is not lighted up, but it's lighted up when you're going backwards and still see it lit as it goes out of sight which I seem to be timing at 32 seconds from when you first see it as the door opens up.