Rocket Rods?

[TP2000]

Nope - the opposite. Cynthia Harris refused the less-than-$10m WDI wanted to bank the turns. Instead they were kept Peoplemover-flat and the Rods had to slow down and speed up again - causing stress on the track and the vehicles themselves (quite a few actually snapped a chassis or two)

Cynthia has been interesting to watch since she left Disneyland very suddenly to "spend more time with my family" as a single woman with no children. Three months later she apparently had enough of the family no one knew about, and she hired on full time with the Gap and moved up to San Francisco. No word on whether the family joined her there in the Bay Area.

A couple years later after Paul Pressler ran the Gap into the ground and was fired, Cynthia was fired again too in early '07. Then she just drifted for over a year with no documented job.

But then in mid 2008 she was implicated in a very messy and very unflattering banking scandal here in SoCal at a small, regional bank in the Inland Empire called Vineyard Bank. She was named as a nominee for the board of directors in a very messy takeover attempt by an ousted Vineyard CEO who was trying to claw his way back in and take over the board who had booted him out on ethics charges. She was employed by the bank for all of three weeks when the ousted CEO ran in to more legal problems and the shareholders revolted at the annual shareholders meeting and booted him and all of his smarmy board members out, including Cynthia Harriss. Vineyard Bank is currently losing lots of money every quarter due to bad subprime mortgage investments this former CEO had made several years ago.

After that mess Cynthia disappeared yet again, after a three week stint in banking that no one knew she had any interest or experience in.

Poor dear, she just can't quite get the old mojo back. And it looks like her brief tenure as the President of Disneyland was the top of her career, where she held court in designer pantsuits at press events, and hugged over-excited Annual Passholders with fawning websites, and declared every lowered standard to be "FABULOUS!".

I kind of miss her, because she was so hilarious to observe do her shtick in front of Disneyland fans.

 

[marni1971]

Well well.... interesting. Thanks for that.

Wasn`t it Harris who was stood up at her last presentation for Disney, and had to do a speech about cookery or sewing or something?

 

[TP2000]

Well well.... interesting. Thanks for that.

Wasn`t it Harris who was stood up at her last presentation for Disney, and had to do a speech about cookery or sewing or something?

Yes, she was stood up by Jay Rasulo at a big Resort-wide salaried presentation in '03. Jay was supposed to be there to roll out the "big plans for the 50th" with Cynthia, but he no showed. Cynthia was left with nothing to talk about regarding the 50th, which is why the auditorium was packed with interested salaried leaders, and instead they brought in a chef from the Napa Rose who did a cooking segment with Cynthia to kill time. Cynthia was reduced from breathlessly announcing the big budget plans for the 50th, to doing a cooking demonstration like a second rate morning TV hostess.

The online chatter at the time, primarily started by Al Lutz in one of his big updates shortly after the debacle, was that Rasulo was unimpressed with Cynthia's 50th plans and sent her back to the drawing board in a huff. Shortly thereafter, and very suddenly, is when Cynthia resigned effective immediately to "spend more time with family", and she was immediately replaced by Matt Ouimet. The sudden announcement of Cynthia's departure in October, '03 not only immediately filled her position with Matt Ouimet, but the press release also announced Matt's replacement back at the Cruise Line. Anyone familiar with corporate communications and the way a big organization works knew that this was a change that had been in the works for weeks and weeks and was orchestrated to remove Cynthia first and foremost.

Matt kept the lid on the 50th plans for a bit longer, reportedly while they were reworked, and they were then finally announced by Matt in mid '04. Of course the 50th was wildly succesful, and to hear Al Lutz tell it, the bigger than expected financial returns in Anaheim during fiscal years '05 and '06 were what led Rasulo to greenlight bigger budgets for Anaheim's future expansion in fiscal '07.

And to return to the topic, none of these plans ever involved reopening the Rocket Rods! :lol:

 

[csm]

What are the odds that the two people in the world who didn't think the Rocket Rods were stupid both happen to post here at WDWMagic.com? :lol:

Make it three. I LOVED Rocket Rods. But I loved it BECAUSE it was stupid. I mean honestly, completely pointless ride that really ruined everything about the atmosphere. It was neat SEEING the cars zip around, but all the noise they made got old REALLY quick while walking around Tomorrowland. They WERE fun though - but as someone said, they were fun when you got ON them, which in some cases could have been considered a Holy Grail at Disneyland at the time. The lines were always absurd, even in slow times north of an hour. The thing ran less reliably then Test Track when it was new. Yeah. No joke. I've been evacuated from a broken down Rocket Rods track more times than any *combination* of other rides I've ever been evacuated off of. And I don't even live in California! I think I've been walked off Rocket Rods as many times as I've gotten a full circuit on it, but that's part of what made it so fun in my memory. It was always an unknown challenge of "will we make it?!"

I wish they'd do SOMETHING with the track. Although parts of the Rods were definitely annoying, Tomorrowland at Disneyland feels so desolate with dead rusting tracks with nothing going on. I know it's been rumored for a long time, but trust me, from an inside source there's just nothing on tap for the time being.