Haunted Mansion Refurb to be dissapointing

hokielutz

hokielutz

Well-Known Member
Sir_Cliff said:
Meanwhile, we keep hearing that DL is doing better numbers than WDW and will be the focus of US theme park development at Disney for the near future while WDW is a 'mature' resort with little potential for growth.
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Sorry for sounding ignorant... but the last part sounds all wrong. DL, like you said is limited in property size. The only thing they can do is replace and refurbish. They don't have the room to build much of anything else unless the company is able to start buying out surrrounding businesses and land lots. WDW is not finished growing, there is way too much real estate left to work with.
 
Mr. Friendly

Mr. Friendly

New Member
space issue?

I have never understood how people could talk about running out of space and walt disney world. They have thousands of acres. They can do whatever they want. They don't have to tear down condos to build another ride.
 
marni1971

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Mr. Friendly said:
I have never understood how people could talk about running out of space and walt disney world. They have thousands of acres. They can do whatever they want. They don't have to tear down condos to build another ride.
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Not quite. A lot of the world is designated wildlife preserve, and roughly half of what`s left and not built on can`t be built on for environmental / technical reasons.

I still don`t agree with building a hotel on a golf course though. Can anyone confirm they actually want to dig up Eagle Pines?

Back to the OP, and better news; you will probably see what you want to from the rehab. What you don`t know won`t be missed.
 
hokielutz

hokielutz

Well-Known Member
jmvd20 said:
WDW has 4 parks, from what we have heard MGM and Epcot had dwindling attendance numbers while the MK stayed at the top in the early 90's. If you are in management what would you do, throw money at a park that is performing or try to give new life to the ones that are faltering?

Yes I know Disney has tons of money, but even a company with tons of money cannot fix everything at once - thus the need for budgets and future planning. It's just a part of business. WDW is much more than the theme parks and I can guarantee that management did indeed put thought into the decisions they made regarding the spending of funds.

Look at all of the work that has been done at Epcot in the last 10 years. This is the same time frame people are saying the MK has been "neglected". Add in Everest, new things at MGM, new resorts, water park, additions to Downtown Disney and you have a HUGE amount of improvements during that time for WDW as a whole.

Did the MK receive the same TLC during these years, no - however WDW has fixed or is currently fixing some of the problems that developed in the early 90's. Now it seems that the MK is starting to get the attention in terms of upgrades and repairs.

.
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This is exactly my point. Along with the 4 parks, there are the 2 water parks, Shopping, Golf and recreation areas, numerous resorts, and essentially their own infrastructure and utilites systems. DL doesn't have this kind of responsibility for maintenance and upkeep.

Also the three other parks aside from the MK have had the following major additions in the last several years: Mission Space, RnRC, LMA, Nemo the Musical, EE, The Seas with Nemo, Soarin, El Rio del Tiempo, and JII w Fig. All these additions were improvements with exception of the last. Also all were intended to help out the parks that needed bolstering of waning attendance numbers that the MK was not suffering from. Now as growth of attendance in the other three parks is growing or steadily strong, focus can be shifted back to the MK for clean-up, rehab and building out.

Disney is a huge company, but I don't expect them to spend themselves into enormous debt so that every attraction is made to be pristine immediately. Also their stockholders, including myself would not appreciate that kind of attitude. I spoke about this same issue concerning the Space Mountain rumored refurb. They needed to put the money where the investment was needed the most, (ROI) and I think they have done that about 75-85% of the time.

Anyways... that's my 2 cents... and you can invest it in the JII 2009 overhaul.
 
WDWGuide

WDWGuide

Active Member
Mr. Friendly said:
I have never understood how people could talk about running out of space and walt disney world. They have thousands of acres. They can do whatever they want. They don't have to tear down condos to build another ride.
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Only about 1/3 of total developable land is left, mostly in tracts smaller than 100 acres. Some of the suitable land is pretty remote (such as the corner northeast of Bay Lake, near Lake Mabel). Some is already allocated for third-party development (like the tract near Western Way).

What's left are essentially the following, currently either categorized as "undeveloped" or "agriculture" on "suitable" or "marginally suitable" soils:

  1. Likely 5th park site near Wide World of Sports
  2. STOLport region (rumored to be resort development)
  3. Disney-MGM Expansion tract across World Drive
  4. North of the Animal Kingdom
  5. West of the Magic Kingdom

By the way: the commonly cited sites for a 5th theme park east and west of World Drive, south of the STOLport and Magic Kingdom parking area are totally unsuitable for development.
 
MickeyTigg

MickeyTigg

New Member
While disappointed that they aren't making any big changes...the fact that they're sprucing up the ride at all makes me happy....the ride is really in sad shape and cleaning up the ride and making sure everything works will make it a better experience.
 
napnet

napnet

Active Member
Just my 2 cents, but even a technical rehab of HM will make me a bit happier with the attraction... the audio alone not working half the times i rode it last year was bad enough. I will be disappointed if the other things don't happen, but at it's current state, my wife and i skip HM
 
marni1971

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
hokielutz said:
Disney is a huge company, but I don't expect them to spend themselves into enormous debt so that every attraction is made to be pristine immediately. Also their stockholders, including myself would not appreciate that kind of attitude..
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I wouldn`t appreciate it either, but that`s the problem - they`ve done neither. instead of running a decent pre-preventative maintainence program they scramble to keep up with problems after they`ve happened. Aside from that, more and more, less has been spent on updating the originals (say pre 1985) and just spending ebough to keep them running. If the attractions mentioned had a consistent overhaul and updating over the past 20 years there wouldn`t be a queue now for it.
 
hokielutz

hokielutz

Well-Known Member
Here is my short list of things I think and hope will be addressed during the rehab:

  • Fix and smooth out the Omnimover system / Doombuggies. (has anyone seen any actual replacement vehicles that are ready to install after popping out the old ones?
  • Audio fix in all doombuggies, if they are not replaced.
  • Fix illumination of floating candlabra in the long hallway
  • Fix the lighting of the ghosts in the grand hall
  • Repair the walls in the stretch room. (notice the part of the wall paper that is warped and ruins the stretching effect??)
  • Fix the projector glare seen in the floating head.
  • Adjust and enhance lighting through the whole HM.
Again this is just a list of things that need to be fixed, barring any new additions. I hope these are on their task list and I will reserve judgement until it is completed.
 
Mr. Friendly

Mr. Friendly

New Member
WDWGuide said:
Only about 1/3 of total developable land is left, mostly in tracts smaller than 100 acres. Some of the suitable land is pretty remote (such as the corner northeast of Bay Lake, near Lake Mabel). Some is already allocated for third-party development (like the tract near Western Way).

What's left are essentially the following, currently either categorized as "undeveloped" or "agriculture" on "suitable" or "marginally suitable" soils:
  1. Likely 5th park site near Wide World of Sports
  2. STOLport region (rumored to be resort development)
  3. Disney-MGM Expansion tract across World Drive
  4. North of the Animal Kingdom
  5. West of the Magic Kingdom
By the way: the commonly cited sites for a 5th theme park east and west of World Drive, south of the STOLport and Magic Kingdom parking area are totally unsuitable for development.
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Mostly, I refer to to the idea that there is not enough room for another ride, which is maybe an acre or two, I don't think that it is imposible to cut the fence and ad on a few acres. Secondly, there just isn't such a thing as "unsuitable". There might be undesirable but not unsuitable. Nothing is imposible.:)
 
marni1971

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Mr. Friendly said:
Mostly, I refer to to the idea that there is not enough room for another ride, which is maybe an acre or two, I don't think that it is imposible to cut the fence and ad on a few acres. Secondly, there just isn't such a thing as "unsuitable". There might be undesirable but not unsuitable. Nothing is imposible.:)
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Okay... read `unsuitable` as `RCID Designated`. Developing parts of WDW are in todays climate impossible. Yes, they are technically possible, but the cost would be prohibitive.

As for the parks themselves, they all have plots available still. Off the top of my head, for designated plots (as in ready to be built on with minimal prep) there are 4 in the MK, 1 in Futureworld, 6 complete and 3 incomplete in World Showcase and 6 at MGM. DAK still has 2 very large areas undeveloped within the park boundary.
 
jmuboy

jmuboy

Well-Known Member
I'm not going to panic or complain about this until we know more. All Disney has confirmed is that the ride will close for three months. Everything else is rumor right now.
 
DisneyMusician2

DisneyMusician2

Well-Known Member
I hate to say this......because people will jump down my throat....but.....What if Disney does it right? Is that possible? Do we even have any confirmed information? I am the first to post about things done wrong, but three months is a long rehab, and it could go exactly the way we all want it to.
 
Lee

Lee

Adventurer
DisneyMusician2 said:
I hate to say this......because people will jump down my throat....but.....What if Disney does it right? Is that possible? Do we even have any confirmed information? I am the first to post about things done wrong, but three months is a long rehab, and it could go exactly the way we all want it to.
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It could, and probably will, go very well.
The sky is not falling.
 
dxwwf3

dxwwf3

Well-Known Member
Sir_Cliff said:
The mentality at WDW seems all wrong for running this sort of place. The attitude seems to be that if new promotions, attractions (at parks other than MK) and pricing keeps bringing guests to WDW and the park best positioned to benefit from that, MK, keeps producing good numbers then there's no need to improve anything. There's none of that idea that a show constantly needs to be kept fresh or the concern WDI shows for new attractions (and old ones at DL) keeping pace with new trends in entertainment and technology. If a ride like Pirates or Mansions keeps running and people keep going on it, why bother updating it from it's original 1971 state? The Small World rehab seemed like a sign this mentality was changing, but it so far hasn't been followed up as even Pirates had a less thorough rehab than DL after DL's already superior version had already received many technology upgrades over the years. We'll see whether things are looking different after the Mansion rehab.
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Well there are a few of the most frequent posters to this forum that follow that viewpoint you are describing. And while they don't really post as much as they used to, there was no denying that they knew a great deal about WDW and were even some of my better friends on this forum. And I feel that their opinions have rubbed off on many people that frequent WDWMagic even to this day. For example, one thing that was said a lot was that until the attendance drops, there is no need for the MK to get a new E-ticket attraction. I hardly ever followed their opinion completely, but they have helped me view the company as a business more than I used to, which is a good thing.

However, I completely agree with what you are saying as well. I think that too many times us, as WDW fans, are told to just be happy with what we have and know that it could always be worse. And to an extent that is true, but we shouldn't just settle for less when it comes to things like this. The other parks have been getting some serious TLC over the past few years and I am very happy about many of the new additions. However, the Magic Kingdom is now the park I visit the least and it's not just because of the changes at Tomorrowland either.
 

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