I have ridden Mermaid in DCA, almost right after it was opened, and I was very much disappointed. The clam shells fell claustrophobic (unlike HM where everything is in the dark and you don't notice the other omni-movers as much), the animatronics are too close to the ride vehicle, the Under the Sea scene has exposed lighting and big obvious metal bars that hold up the fish, all of this is just OK, not fantastic like HM or Pirates or even Peter Pan, but the second half of the ride is a disaster. There are, quite literally, half-finished show scenes which use cardboard cut-outs, and the "kiss the girl" scene looks 100% fake as the little plastic fish with plastic "water" look fake and the lighting was horrible, though they might have fixed this. Oh yeah, they re-used duplicate plastic fish (most don't move at all) as well as some of the exact same dancing turtles and newts and stuff in the weird "finale" scene.
Every other Disney dark ride I have been on made more sense than Mermaid, even though Mermaid is supposed to be taken directly from the film, the story isn't setup properly, IMHO, as they try to use screens to put in the losing her voice part, getting her legs and other stuff that most general theme park guests probably don't remember, even though I know the story very well, the ride was too much of just exactly duplicating three scenes, though in a penny pinching fashion, and making up scenes which made no sense.
Uh . . . really hoped WDW would "fix" the second half and make the first half better, but no, I guess it is a duplicate.
I thought at least the queue would be awesome, I guess that technically remains to be seen, but Mermaid's queue is obviously much poorly done than BoB restaurant, and probably the queue for 7DMT, and is of course nowhere near as good as Splash, which uses real plants. Mermaid's queue has almost no real plants, just palm trees it looks like, though they made add a vine to the castle . . . They used astro-turf, but worse than that, astro-turf that doesn't look like grass at all.
If Mermaid in DCA was a great ride (almost always a walk-on IMHO) and if DCA's Mermaid had a great queue (it is so run-down pier amusement park cheesy/cheapo it makes me puke), then maybe I'd be more opened minded . . .
Compared to every other piece of rockwork Disney has done, Mermaid's is (in my one opinion) the worst in all of the Disney parks, from what I can see. It looks Children's museum bad, just sort of a general theme of caves with mud cliffs above them, and bizarre shapes and a rotted termite-infested wood look that is not at all attractive. The concept art showed seaside bluffs with a single entrance cave and exit, not these mud-spaghetti pillars and funny forms in the concrete.
