Just got back last night, a couple observations.

drossjr

New Member
Magic Kingdom:
  • Main Street USA looks great! You can really tell its been freshened up.----Good to hear cant wait to see it in July! :sohappy:
  • Don't know if it was mentioned, but the black screen that was blocking the view into Space Mountain as you rode through on the TTA has been taken down, so you can once again see into the ride. Granted you can't make out the cars on the track since they don't have the glow stripe, but you can see all the stars and galaxies again which is great!--Any idea about why the glow stripe is gone?? I loved that especially going thru the TTA and seeing it that stinks! :cry:
  • Didn't get to ride the Hall of Presidents. It was down both times we tried to ride. Once at the beginning of the week and once at the end. Not sure what was going on there.---I thought this was a show not a ride?? :confused:
Epcot:
  • Everything in Epcot was working great. No issues at any of the attractions. Awesome love Epcot!
Hollywood Studios:
  • At Toy Story Mania, we were not getting any water effects, just the air cannons. Thats no good, hopefully it will be fixed in the refurb and working for me in July
  • The mist was in full force at Tower of Terror and looked like more than I had ever seen in that area. Don't know if they installed new misters or what?? extra water not being used from TSMM was redirected thus the increas in mist! :lookaroun.
Animal Kingdom:
  • This parks attractions were in shambles, what is going on at this place?!
  • At a Bugs Life, hopper was not coming out during the show. He did finally make an appearance at the end of the week when we saw the show again.
  • Over at Dinosaur they are working on the huge Carnotaurus, but what they have in its place is a joke. I don't know exactly what it was but it looks like a 17" flat screen tv with a picture of the Carnotaurus on it.
  • Everest had the steam working and the floating bird, but no mist off the top of the mountain and numerous times we rode the ride would stop in the "shadow cave" for well over a minute. The Yeti does look better and has been lit up so its not just the strobes anymore. He still isn't moving so still not acceptable, but he now is noticable and I don't think people will miss him while going through that final cave anymore.
  • This park and its broken effects is really starting to tick me off! What the heck! :fork:.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Any idea about why the glow stripe is gone?? I loved that especially going thru the TTA and seeing it that stinks
Poopular concensus was it illuminated too much of the infrastructure for riders to see. I disagree and think a unique and not insignificant show element has been removed.
 

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
Thats whats so sad about society today no one can appreciate anything now a days =/ animal kingdom could have 1 plastic animal and the whole park could be dirt, but if it had 20 thrill rides no one would care and they would pour in. no one cares about theme anymore its all about thrill junkies! very sad no one sees the beauty in that park.

I care a lot about theme, its extremely important. I love the AK but even if you "see the beauty" it still only takes half a day. We walked all the trails, got on all the rides and saw the shows we wanted to see and it was half a day. I think its more than fair that people, 1. expect whats there to work and 2. get their moneys worth out of the park. The simple fact for me is that with a few additions and some TLC for whats there, it would be my favorite park.
 

floridabill

New Member
I care a lot about theme, its extremely important. I love the AK but even if you "see the beauty" it still only takes half a day. We walked all the trails, got on all the rides and saw the shows we wanted to see and it was half a day. I think its more than fair that people, 1. expect whats there to work and 2. get their moneys worth out of the park. The simple fact for me is that with a few additions and some TLC for whats there, it would be my favorite park.

Yes I agree it does need more I probably linger more than others due in that park. One or two major attractions would be awesome! I guess my main frustration falls with disney management, cause while it is a nice park it has potential to be awesome! And it's sad that they haven't given it a chance. =/
 
-I too just got back from an 8 day trip and it was okay. Crowds last sunday were nothing at all, but it seemed as it progressed throughout the week they hit hard. The monorails and ferrys at TTC both had long wait lines one day (I would say at least 30 minutes to an hour) something I had never seen before in my trips to Disney. I figured that most of these people were not staying on property so they couldn't use the resort launch monorail, which was walk on.
- I think it was Thursday or Friday I overheard someone say MK hit 50000 people.
-Wait times were eh, Highest I saw soarin was about 75 minutes. Test track hit 70, Splash mountain 65, Space Mountain 100, Midway mania 70ish, tower of terror never got high when in the times I was at the park, about thirty minutes and one day we walked right on.
-Lots of foreigners, and I mean lots. I am fine with people coming to my country and having fun, but please do so with the most courtesy you can. I encountered so many rude foreigners this trip and it ed me off. Like on philharmagic, they tell you to move all the way down the row. Well two ladies decide they want to stop in the center, ha not happening around me because that is my biggest pet peeve and you're not supposed to anyway.Si I tell her, all the way down and she just looks at me with a dumbfounded look, I say it again, and she gives me a bitchy UH turns her head and then proceeds to speak spanish to her friend. (in no way shape or form does this mean I hate everyone who is not American, because I don't)

-Good ole Animal Kingdom- Blah is about all you can say. This park really is in need of an expansion or a mass overhaul. Everest is going down the drain, and some things like the broken bridge weren't working on the safari. It does suck because AK barely has any major attractions to take people if they were to shut down everest for a lengthy refurb. It really needs to be done and it should be done when off season crowds hit.
Dinosaur was not to bad for me, nothing I really noticed different, not sure what you saw.
-Besides some of the high volumes of crowds, Magic Kingdom was beautiful as always. Main street was glowing, looked great. Epcot, I don't really have any complaints. DHS really needs another ride, and I checked around soundstage one for any imagineers and didn't see anything. All they have up on the sign is this area if being worked on for your future enjoyment.

Couple of questions: 1. If anyone has every stayed at AKL Jambo house, have you seen the Ankole cattle they have? Both of them walk with their heads tilted to one side, like the horn on one side weighs them down. Is this why? I never got around to asking.
2. How many giraffes does WDW have?

On a side note, this was the first trip I have never seen one, count it, one single drop of rain. Not even a Florida 5 minute downpour.
 

MaxsDad

Well-Known Member
I was there also from 5/8 to 5/15

On May 15th, the Strat at RnRC was red again. This was the first day it was closed for refurb. Consequently, all FP's for TSMM were gone by 10:45. For some reason, they were closing that attraction at 5 PM that day (Park close at 7). Add in it was morning EMH, and it is a pretty bad combination for park enjoyment. However, I went primarily to see Muppetvision. Improved film quality was the best thing to a casual observer like myself.

RE: Carnatoraus at DAK- It is a sad joke. Calling it a flat screen is giving it too much credit. I saw no movement at all. It looked like a cut out to me, with two bright lights shining in your face, then a picture flash goes off.

Tuesday at the MK was perhaps the best park day I have ever had. As an example, the wait at Space was 10 minutes at 11AM, and at Splash it was 20 min at 12:30. It was like that all day. We left at about 4 because we had done everything we wanted to do, and most of it more than once.

I did notice the weekends were noticably busier though (Fri. and Sat.). I saw a lot of school groups (chorus, band, field trip, etc.) on these days. Mostly elementary and middleschool ages.

I too never saw it rain all week. Never had that happen before.

To get back to original poster, overall a great time to go, but perhaps they have so many things down because it was relatively slow.
 

Korfar

Active Member
The bulk of this thread (complaints about AK) is a perfect reason why this park only takes me 1/2 a day to get through. Besides a few of the shows, there are not many attractions at this park that keep guests here for extended amounts of time. In fact, I've never seen the parade because I've never been in the park at the time of the parade. I'm always through and out of there by then.


We are exactly the same. We also go there becuase we made a friend with a one of the cast members there so we make it a point to go see him. But we hit KS, EE, Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl, Bugs Life and get out. We usually are done just after lunch.
 

Mikk(y)'sMinnie

New Member
Just got back as well....

I don't post much and I have never started a thread because I can't figure out how but I just got back as well and I had a few things to add.

Magic Kingdom:
COP-I noticed that the ride recently got new seats and carpeting as well as an updated television in the last scene. This is great news considering all of the talk of the ride being removed soon.

We took the train ride from splash to the front of the park and we did see a lot of construction vehicles and machinery as well as land clearing and a huge hole where they are working on the addition. While waiting to get onto sleeping beauty I could see men in hard hats looking over plans standing on the structures and rocks in what was Ariel's Grotto.

I also noticed that Small World is very dirty. I thought it was odd, it doesn't seem like it has been that long since it was last refurbished but when you look around as you enter and exit the ride you can see dust caked onto the glitter and the walls along the walk way as you exit just looked gross. It was nice to see when I logged on today that they are going down for refurb.

The rides in this park were all operating well but I couldn't help but notice that in every park we went to they had issues with the escalators, in Space Mountain the "moving walk way" was not moving, in Epcot in the Land the escalator was broken, on the same day they had problems in The Seas pavilion with the escalators. I normally would have just brushed this off but I guess it I just noticed it so often and the congestion to get up and down the stairs that it made the issue more obvious.

Epcot:
On top of the escalators we had problems with the rides going down in this park. There was an issue with Sorin and we got stuck on Test Track for what seemed like forever. Over all the experience here was great as usual. While I am thinking about it, we had an interesting conversation with our server at California Grill and we ended up talking about The Land pavilion and how they use to supply some of the fresh ingredients used in many of the restaurants but they don't do that so much any more and it is now more than ever just an attraction. We did notice a few changes to the garden, like the addition of a water garden with beautiful water plants. The scrims around Mexico and Italy do a really good job of hiding the construction. It really didn't hurt the view at all which was nice.

HS:
No audience participation in back lot and the stunt show was down.

AK:
They are pumping out babies at AK. They just had a rhino, gorilla, and a giraffe they are expecting another giraffe any day now as well as two elephants. Speaking of animals, the smallest of the monkeys in the first exhibit of the gorilla trail escaped. We noticed when we walked by that it was pulling at the netting above him/her and being very playful almost teasing the adults. When we were exiting the trail we saw several members of management and they were not allowing any one else to enter and pushing people along to exit. You could see him sitting in a tree goofing off. I wonder how often this happens?

I too noticed the issue at Dinosaur but all I could tell was that they moved the spot where they take the picture. It is now on the left and not the right. I also noticed the issue with the yeti. In my opinion, even though they had him lit and strobes on him, he was really hard to fully experience because of the position he is in. We also had issues with the ride stopping and just sitting for a good while in the cave just before the drop. I am sure I could think of more but this is all I have time for, for now. :wave:
 

MCC1

Member
I don't post much and I have never started a thread because I can't figure out how but I just got back as well and I had a few things to add.

AK:
They are pumping out babies at AK. They just had a rhino, gorilla, and a giraffe they are expecting another giraffe any day now as well as two elephants. Speaking of animals, the smallest of the monkeys in the first exhibit of the gorilla trail escaped. We noticed when we walked by that it was pulling at the netting above him/her and being very playful almost teasing the adults. When we were exiting the trail we saw several members of management and they were not allowing any one else to enter and pushing people along to exit. You could see him sitting in a tree goofing off. I wonder how often this happens?

:wave:

Forget that - I want to know how long until Baby Lions...here's a clip I shot during Marathon Weekend this past January...believe it or not, we came upon the lions engaged in some rated R behavior...now this is either animatronics taken to a whole new level, Disney's new adult theming to compete with Harry Potter...or we caught that 1 in a million ride as our guide pointed out - now I know why I keep taping this ride!:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GMrandom#p/a/u/1/jhkG9Vei6Vo
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
I care a lot about theme, its extremely important. I love the AK but even if you "see the beauty" it still only takes half a day. We walked all the trails, got on all the rides and saw the shows we wanted to see and it was half a day. I think its more than fair that people, 1. expect whats there to work and 2. get their moneys worth out of the park. The simple fact for me is that with a few additions and some TLC for whats there, it would be my favorite park.

Well said! I'll also add some other personal points:

- There is no right or wrong way to tour a Disney theme park. Saying "you're doing it wrong", because you don't care to take the walking trails every trip or stare at buildings and plants for 5-10 minutes at a time is ridiculous.

- I'm sure the average guest does appreciate the atmosphere created for the park. It's just not every one of them will spend hours doing so for whatever reason (they have to look after the kids, they have other plans, it's 90+ degrees outside and a building with AC sounds like a good idea...).

- The park has not received any new ride/show/attraction since the Finding Nemo Musical opened. It's previews began in November 2006. It's now May 2010 and there's no sign of anything new showing up.

- The last time park capacity was increased was with EE. Attendance went up 8.6% in 2006 as part of the appeal of such a headliner E-ticket. The park's theme may be about appreciating animals, but realistically it's billed and as a theme park and "not a zoo". Adding new rides probably wouldn't hinder the opportunity to view animals anyway.

- It's a Disney theme park that closes at 5pm most of the time and has no nighttime show. How lame is that? Maybe having one and some table service restaurants to accommodate the dinner crowds might increase attendance and revenue?

Point is, AK is lacking in theme park related offerings and just appreciating detail won't build anything faster, increase attendance or give everyone a reason to spend an entire day there.
 

Gregoryp73

Active Member
Hannah Montana just wouldn't make sense. First of all, they would ruin a perfectly good coaster and I don't see how HM can fit with RNRC. Second, HM is coming to an end soon. Why would they theme a popular coaster after a franchise that has already announced that it is ending?

Jonas Brothers would be more likely....uggh
 

jakeman

Well-Known Member
...and some things like the broken bridge weren't working on the safari
Just wanted to say that this could have been an isolated occurance as the bridge operation has to do with the spacing of the vehicles.

Your driver could just have been too close to the vehicle in front of it or it could have been a wheelchair truck that overrode the show and the safety's cancelled the bridge show.
 
Just wanted to say that this could have been an isolated occurance as the bridge operation has to do with the spacing of the vehicles.

Your driver could just have been too close to the vehicle in front of it or it could have been a wheelchair truck that overrode the show and the safety's cancelled the bridge show.



Well riding it once you may be right, but riding it three times and it not working, yea..... :shrug:
 

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