I don't have time to sift thru all the pages of mostly garbage & condescending b.s. in this thread. I made it to page 4. It's apparent the self-proclaimed experts are gonna sit atop their high horses and ding anyone/everyone who comes along with some different ideas/rumors/comments. ((Can ya tell that's one thing I totally loathe about these boards??? It's not about sharing and exploring info...it's about one-up-ed-ness. All negative. So sad.))
To the OP, welcome! And thank you for posting what you did. I enjoyed reading it and the different perspective you brought to the table.
The Epcot bankruptcy thing. I think that may have been a term used more figuratively than literally. With the sponsorships waning, impending economic downturn in '07, etc. it probably was a pretty scary time for the numbers guys. Even tho all the parks fall within 'Parks & Resorts' each park & resort is run as independent entities to an extent with their own budgets, etc. The income to expenditure for Epcot during that year may have been a bit tipped in an uncomfortable direction which could've brought about the term 'bankruptcy'.
As for those who dispelled that there are lawyers who work for or with WDI, I find that pretty plausible. It's my understanding that things within the company and WDI as a whole are often handled as independent projects. Each project has a scope, budget, etc. Part of project work and making any sort of changes to anything would require permits, paperwork, approvals, filings with OSHA, standards & codes to be met, contracts w/any outside contractors, and such. These would be the functions of lawyers/legal teams that don't handle things like civil suits, branding, licensing, and things of that sort. Their function is more specific to the needs of project work.
The reference to "moving" some level of operations to Florida from California also has some amount of plausibility with me. From things I've read and extensive conversation on the subject of staff, resources, etc. with the Imagineer we had lunch with in May of '08 I was of the understanding that anything the smaller WDI group in Florida did went thru California first. The picture we got from the Imagineer we spoke with (and we talked extensively about the structuring and handling of projects in general because several of the guests including my husband work in "project" work) was that WDI in Florida was a smaller almost like a satellite group to the central or main WDI entity which is in California. Florida is like an on-site extension group to California (like ExxonMobil's main engineering offices are in Houston but when they have construction projects going on at facilities in other locations they have ExxonMobil people situated on-site at those locations to oversee the work). He talked extensively about the way things used to be (ie. when Epcot was constructed since that's when he first came to work for the company), the shift out to California, and the way things function now (including the company's willingness to go out to bid and outsource a lot whereas they used to rarely ever do that). The OP was indicating that the maintenance group would be centrally located in Florida. This makes sense. WDI/Engineering could be totally different from what a maintenance group is. For example, ExxonMobil's refinery here in Beaumont has a "maintenance group". These are a group of people who handle all engineering functions outside the scope of "projects". Projects generally are handled thru the big engineering offices in Houston. If something needs repairing, updating, replacing, etc. these folks can pull the drawings & specs to provide imperative info for these things to be done. They also ensure that any changes to things in the field be it structural, instrumentation, electrical, piping, etc. are always reflected in the drawings & specs so at any given time these files are correct and up to date. There may be some "maintenance" type functions beyond just the handymen with tools who do mechanical type things that will be shifting out to Florida as an onsite group with their own functions. There may be more decision-making authority being shifted so the Cali bunch aren't saddled with it. I buy that.
The 20k Leagues thing, believable.
Imagination pavilion...one could only friggin' hope. Can someone please smack the powers-that-be with a great big stick covered in images of the old 'Imageworks' upstairs??? Here's a treasure trove just waiting to be revived properly! **sigh**
And I would love...absolutely loooove...to see some of the newer technologies from other parks brought into the Florida parks. Oh yes!
As for the Yeti, well, I dunno. I realize that the Yeti is a different structure from the mountain and the ride track is yet another structure making all 3 independent of each other. However, hubby & I were discussing the many rumors as to what the issue was. If in fact the compromised Yeti foundation holds any amount of truth it could easily be a problem that affects the foundations around it for the other structures. In that realm of thinking, if there is problems with the support of the Yeti it could also have an impact on what's around it. Logically one would think "Hack the thing up, haul it out, and replace it with a redesigned version that you bring in in small enough pieces then assemble." It may not be that simple. I've not read anything from anyone who has enough first-hand knowledge to be able to say 100% that piecing a replacement or repair of the Yeti would be possible. Until then, the idea that a chunk or more of the surrounding structures, track, or building being moved out of the way to address the Yeti once and for all does hold some amount of reasonable logic. Ideally, the Yeti would have been designed to handle the stress load from it's movement from Day 1. That didn't happen. Perhaps the length of time he has been still has been due to the time it would take to develop a fix or total redesign AND test it repetitiously so the problem they have now does not happen again. Would it not be reasonable to take down the attraction for an extensive period and be aggressive enough to remove a chunk of a building long enough to make 1 repair/replacement 1 time so that it does not have to be done again? If it were my house I'd rather spend what it takes to fix something once then do a patch job hoping for the best but knowing it would be pretty likely that the problem would come back to haunt me.
So again, to the OP, I say welcome & thank you. Don't worry yourself with the negative people around here who close their minds to everyone but themselves. There *are* people here who appreciate your different perspective(s) and your willingness to share. If you lurked here for any length of time before posting (which you mentioned you did) you had to know the risk you were taking in throwing such different information on the table. That in itself required some amount of courage. I applaud you, sir. I know how it is around here. The one time I saw something extremely not-normal happen on one of my trips & shared it I had one of the horse's patooties here being all snarky saying I made it all up. Riiiight. Like being at WDW with my family was so dull that I had nothing better to do with my time there than find a fan forum to post an imaginary tale and nothing better to spend $10 on at WDW than access to the internet to do it. Those people will only limit the info here to what their closed-minded pea-brains can embrace. I choose not to exist within such a small space. Like Walt himself, I choose to think outside the box. So thank YOU!
:wave:
