PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
You're surprised….How?
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Norway Pavilion Frozen construction - Frozen Ever After ride
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You're surprised….How?
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
probably because they cant build massively like they did.. I mean, how much space was there in Frontierland vs how much land was available at Norway? I think they were very tightly limited by cash and forced to use the same building.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
FTFY
I like you, Kate.
We remodeled our ENTIRE kitchen from soup to nuts. Everything down to the flooring was torn out. We even had to have all the plumbing redone because we moved the sink and dishwasher to a new area. It took about 3 days total. Not being argumentative, just pointing out that it doesnt take four months unless youve got shoddy contractors or you live in a house in the Hamptons that has name like "Cherry Hill". And where on earth are they building houses in one month?
Considering they are not changing the track layout much, the rest of the work is set dressing and adding AA's. IMO, they really have no excuse for taking this long other than spreading out cost over time which is understandable to an extent, but not for this long. Coupled with Soarin going offline it was just very bad planning or lack thereof. And if building from the ground up is easier, why did 7DMT take 5 years? And dont say because they were working in a confined space. They had it walled off and had all the space they needed and had no problems working during park hours.
DisneyGentleman
Well-Known Member
Look at it this way - the Space Shuttle was designed before Disneyworld was opened, and since that program ended the US has not launched an astronuat into space, even with a budget of something like $17B per year.
Yet SpaceX lanches something into orbit and lands the vehicle safely back at the launchpad.
Behemoth organizations with layer upon layer of overpaid managers simply lose their ability to be agile.
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Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Yes, I understand that but, you also do not have thousands of people going in and out of your kitchen once it gets finished. You are also forgetting that there was major changes to add to the track, change the location of load and unload, build sets that will be scrutinized by those same thousands of people and cover an area which is probably 100 or more times the area of your kitchen. You also don't have an army of "engineers" changing design at every turn because someone forgot a feature or a potential problem.
We all feel it takes a long time, but, how much complaining would happen if they rushed through it, perhaps created an unforeseen safety hazard or really understands the complexity of the electronics, wiring, mechanical devices that will be used in the attraction. I'm not saying that people are not frustrated that it takes so long, but, they also do not have any real understanding of the process, the parts, the show pieces that cannot be bought off the shelf at Home Depot. I'd rather they spent years on getting it right then to have it shut down shortly after opening because it needs to be redone.
I used that example of the kitchen just as a measure of what can be and I'm sure that the outside world that some people experience in the real home project has a tendency to sneak it's way into a world of fantasy. All I'm saying is that unless one is in the business of constructing attractions for a theme park, one doesn't know what is involved. I don't know what is involved exactly, but, having experience in the construction business for a number of years, I can make an educated guess. Everyone already hates it anyway... what's the rush.
There are many houses where the turn around time is a month or two. And that's stick built. Pre-fabrication has cut a lot of that down to two weeks or less. That, however, was a lot longer when you figure in the pre-fab time. It's just that none of us ever add that into the time since we don't start counting until the physical location construction starts. Same with Disney, since that is detail well beyond what a homeowner would encounter one needs to allow for the differences. I cannot, for the life of me, see any reason why it would be to Disney's advantage to purposely lag or slowdown construction. In fact, as a (excuse the expression) business it is financially advantageous to get it up and running as quickly as they can for cash flow and tax purposes.
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I think part of the frustration in construction time length is what has previously been mentioned. They have built larger rides, heck even entire theme parks in the past, back when auto cad engineering programs did not exist and computers were not on scene and there was no satellite mapping, etc. One would think that with all the technology they have at their disposal today, it would be a bit quicker, or at least the same amount of time, not twice or three times as long. And even the rides are more sophisticated (AA's, trackless) most of that is developed offsite so it cant be an excuse that the attractions re more "sophisticated".
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
You also had workers that would stay for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, not ask for time off and not rely on outside sources with other workers with the same requirements to supply the needed resources to build. Even outside development of show pieces didn't start until it was a sure thing that the attraction was going ahead. It's not the only project going on in the Orlando area like it was when MK and Epcot were built. There is a limited supply of qualified people to actually do the work, because the nature of the attractions require many artisans, not just laborers to push wheelbarrows around. They don't come cheap and they tend to be quite independent in when they will work and the conditions thereof.
peter11435
Well-Known Member
For the 5,000th time on this forum. 7DMT DID NOT take 5 years to build.
Schneewittchen
Well-Known Member
Going to intrude here.
Beyond construction, wouldn't the art part of this project take a lot of time. I can see a handful of artists with advanced degrees in "Art Stuff" lying on their backs on scaffolding carefully gluing hand cut construction paper snowflakes to surfaces and painting glitterfarts on to the ceiling, walls, everything. That's going to take a long time. The art of these attractions doesn't come from a factory in Taiwan.
Beyond construction, wouldn't the art part of this project take a lot of time. I can see a handful of artists with advanced degrees in "Art Stuff" lying on their backs on scaffolding carefully gluing hand cut construction paper snowflakes to surfaces and painting glitterfarts on to the ceiling, walls, everything. That's going to take a long time. The art of these attractions doesn't come from a factory in Taiwan.
Mike S
Well-Known Member
Correct. I've done the math before and from the start of actual construction SDMT took 2 years, 6 months, and 29 days.
If Frozen opens by May 1st (not thinking that's very likely at this point) it would be 1 year, 6 months, and 26 days from the closure of Maelstrom.
wdwtopten
Well-Known Member
This makes me so sad...there really cannot be any legit excuse.
Bartattack
Well-Known Member
Personally, I don't really get the 'it takes so long'. Frozen was released at the end of 2013... so after a while they realize that this movie is doing much better than they had anticipated...So let's say, by summer 2014 they decide they need a ride...quick! They choose to close Maelstrom and start designing the overlay (somewhere in second half 2014?). They close Maelstrom in October and start gutting the building. In the meantime the design has to be finalized, Scenery and AA's need to be constructed, voices & videos recorded, music composed, everything tested etc... The building needs to be prepared. And everything needs to be but together and tested... in less than a year. Nope, doesn't seem slow to me.
Somebody mentioned TOT was build in 2 years, but they forgot to include all the years before that they were designing this ride.
Somebody mentioned TOT was build in 2 years, but they forgot to include all the years before that they were designing this ride.
DisDan
Well-Known Member
Gotta love the armchair critique in this thread. I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that not one of you is privy to the inner workings of WDI and have absolutely no clue about what challenges and issues they have had to deal with on this project. Comparing projects in the theme park business is not a valid way of approximating how long a project should take to complete. Every building every location offers it's own set of challenges and that does not even take into consideration the designing of custom AA's, Set Decor, Ride Vehicles, the additional infrastructure. Never mind any budgetary constraints they might have to deal with. Could they have done this in under a year? Maybe. Would that have lessened the finished product? Probably. Now I know that the length of time it take to complete a project is also not necessarily a valid indicator of quality either. However, I am going to reserve judgement on quality and overall opinion on the project until it is completed. But I am hoping it is well done and worth the time they are taking.
EDIT: Updated with Probably...meant to say that in the first place, my mistake.
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wdwtopten
Well-Known Member
Why so certain?
Chris82
Well-Known Member
wdwtopten
Well-Known Member
Kate F
Well-Known Member
I'm not trying to act like I know about everything about the design process of an attraction, because I don't. I'm pretty clueless as a matter of fact. I was merely expressing my frustration that it seems to take Disney forever to build anything nowadays, even smaller-scale attractions like this. Now I know this isn't being built from scratch and I probably shouldn't have made the comparison, but I keep wondering, if they are having so many problems working with the space they chose and it would have been easier to just build it from scratch in another park, then why did they not just do that?
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