Nope fix mermaid lol It's show issues are much worse than the other two which are very much the classic dark ride.
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Little Mermaid to receive Updates?
- Thread starter Sped2424
- Start date
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Peter Pan looks 43 years old. It needs a much more substantial upgrade than Mermaid.
43 years old and it still works as a dark ride, no doubt it needs upgrades but if we are going to play which dark ride needs the most attention in order to work it's mermaid. Besides peter just got a recent refurb and the ride as a whole looks great and runs very smooth. Would I like 21st century tech on there? Of course, but at the moment the ride works extremely well and really doesn't need the help when compared to mermaid.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
I've had this debate several times on here. I think the show scenes of Peter Pan look like something you would find in a fun house ride of a local amusement park. The only saving grace for the attraction is the ride system. Mermaid has show lighting issues, that's it.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Changing from white light to a black light system isn't just 'show lighting issues'
As for what you might see at a local fair... I think Mr Toad fit the bill, and he got the boot.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Just got back from a quick trip to DCA (love that Downtown Disney parking!) where I rode this twice in a row. Busy Saturday in both parks, but Mermaid had a 10 minute posted wait that was actually 5 or 6 minutes in early afternoon (love that Omnimover without Fastpass!).
The videos here don't do it justice. The first half of the ride through Under The Sea now looks totally different. There's a lot more fish in the first half of the ride, the lighting is tweaked throughout, and there are some new projection effects that look much crisper and clearer than they used to. There's just more going on, more to look at and see now in the first few minutes of the ride.
But the Under The Sea room is now the big WOW! It looks very different, and all of the equipment and rigging in the ceiling is now invisible. You don't even see the ceiling, it just disappears into darkness. Colors and lighting effects now really pop and shimmer in this scene. It's a whole new look and it's fantastic!
This update/refurb/plussing needs to happen ASAP for the WDW version of the ride. They'll never remove Fastpass+ in WDW, but the least they could do is clone this DCA refurb for Magic Kingdom.
The videos here don't do it justice. The first half of the ride through Under The Sea now looks totally different. There's a lot more fish in the first half of the ride, the lighting is tweaked throughout, and there are some new projection effects that look much crisper and clearer than they used to. There's just more going on, more to look at and see now in the first few minutes of the ride.
But the Under The Sea room is now the big WOW! It looks very different, and all of the equipment and rigging in the ceiling is now invisible. You don't even see the ceiling, it just disappears into darkness. Colors and lighting effects now really pop and shimmer in this scene. It's a whole new look and it's fantastic!
This update/refurb/plussing needs to happen ASAP for the WDW version of the ride. They'll never remove Fastpass+ in WDW, but the least they could do is clone this DCA refurb for Magic Kingdom.
Mermaid's issues aren't fixed with a simple change of lighting, it needs a good refurb. Again peter pan looks fine and works wonderfully for a dark ride, mermaid never did.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
There are kids making more complex animatronics for 6th grade science fairs then what can be found in Peter Pan's Flight. Having said that, the re-done Mermaid at DCA looks much better. I want to see it happen in Florida, I just think Peter Pan looks worse.
The complexity of the animatronics are beside the point, haunted mansion and pirates figures have been around since the 60's and still work perfectly fine at conveying what they were meant to do. The attraction is designed well and works on every level and continues to work regardless of the technology behind it, mermaid as a whole has show issues that aren't fixed with more complex figures. I feel like I am flying over london when I ride peter pan, I am staring at a set of rig lights and dead exit area's when I ride the little mermaid.
Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
Any chance that they are waiting for the DCA version's new ending so they can add the new lighting and ending at once?
I have no idea.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Aside from the new lighting, paint and projections that give the Under The Sea room an improved look, there are several physical improvements. One of them is that there are fish now "swimming" around in this scene hung on strings in the ceiling. Instead of just the metal tubes with fish glued to them, now the fish also swim from strings (thin cables?).
Here's the original look, with the tight school of fish stuck to the rotating metal bars hung from the ceiling.
Versus a photo taken by Dateline Disneyland yesterday, that shows the extra random fish "swimming" throughout the scene via strings. Those guys weren't there before.
And yes, the new paint really does pop like that. It looks fantastic in real life!
Here's the original look, with the tight school of fish stuck to the rotating metal bars hung from the ceiling.
Versus a photo taken by Dateline Disneyland yesterday, that shows the extra random fish "swimming" throughout the scene via strings. Those guys weren't there before.
And yes, the new paint really does pop like that. It looks fantastic in real life!
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Jose
Well-Known Member
I think yes, it's better to close the ride once than closing it twice...
FutureWorld1982
Well-Known Member
Yes, I would prefer to see our version closing down only once to change the ending AND the Under the Sea scene. The DCA version will be closing twice (strange to do so), but ours will (hopefully) be only down once. Why should they have twice the amount of downtime when they can do it all at once?
I think it was scheduled for a refurb at DCA so they decided to do what they could while it would be down anyway. Replacing a scene is a much bigger job than repainting/changing lights/adding a few more fish.
Don't take that as gospel.
Jose
Well-Known Member
why??
danlb_2000
Premium Member