My wife, despite us having met while working at the local Disney StoreTM , is not anywhere close to being the WDW fan that I am. It's pretty clear that she thinks it's odd I spend time here reading about a theme park, and I've seen how her eyes roll when I've told her stories about how uptight people get with changes at the park (for you old timers here--remember the epic angst over the balloons?). But when I told her about this proposed change, she said, in all seriousness, that she wouldn't want to go back to WDW if they did this. The ToT is her favorite ride anywhere, and like others here, she doesn't even like the Twilight Zone.
But why are we even surprised by these things anymore? WDW's Pirates had among the best of all queues, and then they installed basic corral switchbacks to accommodate Fastpass on a ride that never needed it before. They replaced the iconic tropical waterfall garden in the Polynesian lobby with...well, nothing, basically, and eliminated the beach view from much of the property. The removed the illusion of a cross-street to Main Street and its attendant turn-of-the-century experiences so they could weld together a giant space for retailing t-shirts. I could list more but I'm sure you already know what they are.
Lest I get accused of being a "it's all bad!" doom-and-gloomer, there's plenty Disney has done well recently. I like the Fantasyland expansion and everything I've seen at Disney Springs so far (I wish every parking deck worked that way!). Looking forward to Avatar, even if I'll never see the movie. Heck, I enjoyed the mac & cheese at the Skipper Canteen.
But clearly we've reached a point where just because something works great as-is, it won't stop the powers that be from asking themselves, "Is there some way we can exploit this to maximize ROI?"
