I'm going to attempt to explain where I'm coming from in an effort to offer an alternative viewpoint. This won't mean anything to anyone that doesn't care about the future of Disney or the theme park business in general. If you visit the parks just to have fun and expect nothing more than perhaps I can help open your mind to new possibilities. I don't fault you for your opinion and I do understand if you don't share mine. That being said I'm still hoping after reading this and some of my other posts in the past few years that some will open their minds to what Disney can be. Sorry for the long post but I'm in that kind of mood today.
When I visit a Six Flags amusement park I go in with certain expectations. I'm not expecting highly themed attractions with theatrical elements designed to excite emotional triggers and immerse me in nonreality environments. The only trigger I'm expecting is adrenalone inducing excitement. If there is some theming it's an unexpected surprise but I'm not expecting much and therefore will not be disappointed. When I visit a Disney park I'm expecting much more, or at least I used to expect much more.
Throughout Disney's history there have always been attractions that didn't live up to the standard in my opinion. Back in 1989 Body Wars opened for example. The thing is that even though every once in a while these lower quality venues made it through QA there were still plenty of other attractions opening that made up for it.
When Countdown to Extinction opened with the rest of Animal Kingdom in 1998 I thought it was just another undesirable mishap. This was the first Disney attraction that had let me down, especially after being involved in the development of Temple of the Forbidden Eye and knowing what Countdown was supposed to be. Countdown was going to put us face to face with a realistic brush fire racing toward our vehicle, an exciting asteroid impact, dinosaurs set in realistic and highly detailed enviornments, and a finale that would have everyone laughing and clapping. Alas what we got was a true "dark" ride with very to see and not much to offer in terms of story content. Most of the dialog is laughable - "we're not going to make it...we're not going to make it...we made it". They tried to compensate for the lack of scenic and story by making it loud and even tried to spruce up the finale. All in all this is a ride that is not worthy of the Disney name.
"Well," I thought to myself, "no matter. That obviously was just another accident and many people from that development team will never work for WDI again. Besides in a few years they will go back and retool it" Boy was I wrong. The slippery slope of "just being good enough" had begun. This was about the time that Eisner's new management team had started to flex their muscle. A few years later when referring to the California Adventure plans Paul Pressler stated, "if it's good enough for Six Flags...".
CTE was just the start of a litany of miserable failures such as JII versions 2 and 3, Stich, DCA park, Nemo, MILF, Tiki UNM, Sounds Dangerous, Rafiki's Planet Watch, Dino-Rama, the new Mexico ride, etc., or "just good enough" efforts like Test Track, Mission Space, Soarin', Everest, R&RC, TSM, Philarmagic and so on. I have written about some of these in previous posts and why they don't make the grade in my opinion and how they could be improved significantly so I'm not going to go into that here. The point is that from 1998 till today I have only seen a few attractions open stateside that are worthy of the Disney name, or what the name used to represent. I think Tough to Be A Bug and Turtle Talk are two examples. I'm not saying that those are everyone's cup of tea but I'm saying that they at least meet most of the quality standards and include a few surprises; something we should expect from Disney.
Another of the few examples to point out is the wonderful series of updates the Haunted Mansion has received. While I don't agree with everything they have done, all in all this is what we should expect for all the Disney attractions. The updates have begun to turn a timeless classic into a modern classic. Why is it that most of the recent new attractions do not even come close to an attraction that opened at Disneyland in the 60's? You can't say because they are each meant to acheive different results because I'm talking about quality, i.e., attention to detail, story, workmanship etc. Regardless of whether or not TSM is meant to just be a fun game or not it is still a Disney ride and therefore could and should have the qualities of past Disney rides. Aside from the attractions we also see merchandise and food quality lowered.
Disney does monitor these boards and they partially use feedback they read to gauge their success. If peole continue to give them a pass with each new downgrade in quality the slippery slope will continue until there is nothing left of the former Disney standards.
Prices continue to rise while quality continues to fall. A recent exception to this is Star Tours where if it were not for Lucas and pressure from Corporate we wouldn't have even gotten this at WDW. On top of that it is basically an update that we should, once again, expect.
I'm rambling so I'll stop now. I do wish that more consumers would expect more for the hundreds of dollars they are spending. Every time I see an excuse for the lazy design and execution of a new attraction in a post I get a bit frustrated. I'd like to request that people stop excusing mediocrity. We all deserve more for our money.