Sad Haunted Mansion

[Matthew]

First, in defense of TheGhostWithTheMost, he did write "highly capable people who rent ECVs / Chairs", not the legitimately handicapped.

Oh totally yeah but as i said in my post its not always clear who is legitimately handicapped unless you know the persons personal situation...

totally agree with the rest of your post though.

 

[DisneyNittany]

Personally i've never rode HM where its stopped more than a couple of times... and in all honesty it's no biggie to me because i understand why its been done

It has stopped 2-3 times/ride, the last few times we've been on, but I honestly don't mind. It gives me a chance to really "explore" the room we're in, and appreciate the details of the ride. So, it's no skin off my back!

 

[Matthew]

It has stopped 2-3 times/ride, the last few times we've been on, but I honestly don't mind. It gives me a chance to really "explore" the room we're in, and appreciate the details of the ride. So, it's no skin off my back!

have to remember there could be other reasons it stops though... perhaps it stops because too many people are trying to scatter ashes lol

 

[rob0519]

Oh totally yeah but as i said in my post its not always clear who is legitimately handicapped unless you know the persons personal situation...

totally agree with the rest of your post though.

No you can't tell who is medically disabled and who it not. The point here is we all suspect a certain percentage of people in ECVs and Wheel Chairs used to be scamming the system. Disney, because of the ADA and HIPA, could not or would not verify disabilities. Even it was only 10% of the total that would cause 10% more stoppages or slowdowns. With the new system it's likely the numbers of scammers has been reduced.

 

[Matthew]

i agree there was alot of scammers however i think with the fact the most of the queues are now wheelchair accessible has greatly helped reduced that.... and if people are still scamming the system well good luck to them because karma is a b**** isn't it.

 

[Scuttle]

I am an avid fan of the forums but this is my first post. I know I will probably get slammed for it...
Don't get me wrong, I love the Haunted Mansion and fully respect the imagineering, creativity, and history. I ride it every time I am at the park. On my last visit early June, the state of the attraction was very bad. We had fastpasses and when we arrived, the ride was shutdown. Once it opened, the fastpass line was about 3 times as long as the standby line. The line moved ahead quickly and we were soon through to the stretching room.

I've seen other posts recently about the lighting/darkness. The ride was extremely dark and in some places the details of the attraction were not even visible. The "eyes" in the hallway wallpaper were not visible. Was the lighting dimmed to hide ride defects? I felt like we were just riding through without any theming or entertainment. Perhaps it is just me, but I do not find anything comical or scary about the never-ending hallway with the floating candle.

The seance room had the stationary Leota and I think the effect works well. The overall ride music was much lower which made this room a little more eerie and enjoyable.The banquet hall seemed to be as usual.

The most disappointing part of the ride was the graveyard scene. The opera singer was moving but had no sound. There were no popping-up ghost heads. The lighting in this room was terrible. You could see all of the armature under the ghosts as well as the cellophane-like material used for their effect. They were not lit properly which destroyed the original intention.

The hitch-hiking ghosts were okay, but the feature where your head switches or one of the ghosts joins your doom-buggy was a little off. They were not positioned correctly when viewing them.

Has there been any discussion around giving this attraction some love? I know that originally the attraction was a combination of both the humor and spooky effects of two imagineers but it needs a more cohesive story. Some of the effects are timeless and should remain but with today's technology, I have to believe that better effects could be designed for some of the areas throughout the mansion. At a minimum...the effects that are present today should be functioning properly.

Ouch! We're the bike ghosts atleast working?

 

[lifeguard1020]

Still, even tho its not them staying/waiting in the line, telling a patron that they have to come back in a half hour doubles their wait time if the line is only 15 minutes. (Or an hour then it's making them wait 45 minutes) Just an example, but if it's a 15 minute wait, but their dining reservation is in 45 minutes, then they would not be able to ride the attraction. But everyone else would. And that would be just because they are in a wheelchair. It kind of singles them out.
Also, with how busy the parks are now, if there is a problem with the stretching rooms, and you expect them to close the attraction because it "ruins the experience" then that's one less attraction operation in the park. Now at the same time the hippos aren't working on the Jungle Cruise. Oops, that's another attraction down. Wow, it's busy July day and two popular attractions aren't operation? I guess you should just go down to City Hall and complain...
There is honestly no really good solution to all of this.With longer hours, there is less time for operations to work on them at night. I guess they couldn't get those hippos working. Keep it closed tomorrow too. Can't ruin the magic...
I know I sound condescending, but still...What is your solution?

 

[ford91exploder]

Still, even tho its not them staying/waiting in the line, telling a patron that they have to come back in a half hour doubles their wait time if the line is only 15 minutes. (Or an hour then it's making them wait 45 minutes) Just an example, but if it's a 15 minute wait, but their dining reservation is in 45 minutes, then they would not be able to ride the attraction. But everyone else would. And that would be just because they are in a wheelchair. It kind of singles them out.
Also, with how busy the parks are now, if there is a problem with the stretching rooms, and you expect them to close the attraction because it "ruins the experience" then that's one less attraction operation in the park. Now at the same time the hippos aren't working on the Jungle Cruise. Oops, that's another attraction down. Wow, it's busy July day and two popular attractions aren't operation? I guess you should just go down to City Hall and complain...
There is honestly no really good solution to all of this.With longer hours, there is less time for operations to work on them at night. I guess they couldn't get those hippos working. Keep it closed tomorrow too. Can't ruin the magic...
I know I sound condescending, but still...What is your solution?

Um, Run the park like it was in the pre Iger days when a huge maintenance force took over the park after closing and all the little stuff got fixed PROMPTLY as did the bigger stuff.

 

[ford91exploder]

Ouch! We're the bike ghosts atleast working?

Visitors to WDW are tourists whadda they know about the HM as long as the doom buggies run its all good.

 

[pax_65]

Yeah, but we all keeping going, and paying, and paying some more. It's basic economics. Does it make it right? No. But, as long as we keep forking over our hard earned money to TWDC, they can continue to keep managing the parks the way they are.

My family has reduced our trips from about twice a year to once every other year. It's not just park maintenance, it's part of a larger issue that includes MyMagic+, how the parks now handle crowds, how much time I'm spending in line vs enjoying attractions/having fun, reinvestment in new attractions, live entertainment, fewer special extras "Magical moments", shorter park hours, no nighttime Magic Kingdom parade, etc.

I doubt Disney is missing our $$$ too much. But at least I can say I'm trying to do my part, to hold Disney to the high standards I expect.

 

[FZeroSkull]

Information about omnimovers that I felt compelled to write after reading this thread:

I don't see how loading all the wheelchair parties on a half hour system would ever work. When the ride is stopped there's maybe 8-10 loadable doombuggies at unload. So you could fit only 2 parties in one stop assuming they were small parties so I don't think that ever was a thing to be honest. It's also not fair to those parties.

Also not every wheelchair party needs the ride stopped. I work a different omnimover and we only stop the ride for maybe a third or forth of all our wheelchair parties. I imagine mansion stops for about the same percentage. Also, most wheelchair parties make the majority of the queue. The standby queue is wheelchair accessible. If return times are given they generally go through fastpass. Wheelchair parties separate from the main queue after the stretch rooms before the funnel of people and board the ride at unload.

Omnimovers stop for more reasons than wheelchair parties. The most common reason after them (and maybe even more common than that) are guests in general not getting in or out on time, or guests being seated in an unsafe way (surpassing the maximum load or having kids under 7 alone). Then you have minor technical things like doors not closing all the way (something or someone blocking the doors) or not being in the correct position when returning to unload but these stops are infrequent.

Most of this infor comes from working an omnimover ride and knowing CMs at mansion and talking about mansion. Thank you if you read all this!

 

[The_Bellringer]

WDW in general has a problem with maintaining their rides properly, due to the average guest being an out of town person on a major vacation, versus Disneyland where most of their guests are from California.

They can't refurb the rides as often as Disneyland, or at least they are wary of it. If a family came all the way from Idaho to go to the MK and THE haunted mansion was closed, I'm sure people would be unhappy.

But the plus side to Disneyland's frequent maintenance is that the rides are usually pristine. Big Thunder at WDW was looking a bit rough I had heard from a friend when she ride it, but at Disneyland last time every element of their Big Thunder was working perfectly.

 

[LaughingGravy]

WDW in general has a problem with maintaining their rides properly, due to the average guest being an out of town person on a major vacation, versus Disneyland where most of their guests are from California.

They can't refurb the rides as often as Disneyland, or at least they are wary of it. If a family came all the way from Idaho to go to the MK and THE haunted mansion was closed, I'm sure people would be unhappy.

But the plus side to Disneyland's frequent maintenance is that the rides are usually pristine. Big Thunder at WDW was looking a bit rough I had heard from a friend when she ride it, but at Disneyland last time every element of their Big Thunder was working perfectly.

This is why we are making our next family trip to DL. It may be years before we get there, but we're not going back to the FL parks for the prices they charge.Their splash mountain has everything working and actually gets you wet. They have many more single rider lines. Their HM is pristine as is their PotC, and their Tiki Room.
I've seen videos of the Guardians of The Galaxy ride. That's a shame. WDW's Tower has always been far superior anyway, but now we need to worry about them ruining that, too.

 

[pax_65]

WDW in general has a problem with maintaining their rides properly, due to the average guest being an out of town person on a major vacation, versus Disneyland where most of their guests are from California.

But WDW has always been a "major vacation" destination, and years ago the attractions were almost always in perfect condition (and the parks were spotless).

I think this has more to do with current management philosophy and budget cuts.

 

[voodoo321]

This is why we are making our next family trip to DL. It may be years before we get there, but we're not going back to the FL parks for the prices they charge.Their splash mountain has everything working and actually gets you wet. They have many more single rider lines. Their HM is pristine as is their PotC, and their Tiki Room.
I've seen videos of the Guardians of The Galaxy ride. That's a shame. WDW's Tower has always been far superior anyway, but now we need to worry about them ruining that, too.

I had the unique opportunity, for me, to visit WDW and DLR both within this month. It made me realize how some of the WDW attractions should be functioning. I wasn't trying to look at specifics but only how much more enjoyable the ride is when it is working as designed. One example is BTM. We rode it several times at DL because it is incredibly fun there in its state(I am aware there is the added dynamite scene,which is cool, but that was just one thing that was better). Rode it once on this trip to MK and was, meh. There were several break-downs on various rides, but all were back up quickly.

 

[Dizney Crew]

I had the unique opportunity, for me, to visit WDW and DLR both within this month. It made me realize how some of the WDW attractions should be functioning. I wasn't trying to look at specifics but only how much more enjoyable the ride is when it is working as designed. One example is BTM. We rode it several times at DL because it is incredibly fun there in its state(I am aware there is the added dynamite scene,which is cool, but that was just one thing that was better). Rode it once on this trip to MK and was, meh. There were several break-downs on various rides, but all were back up quickly.

We were out at DLR earlier this year and I think all there rides are superior to WDW (Space Mtn, Splash Mtn, Big Thunder, Pirates, Small World, the list goes on), the only ride version I think we have that is better is Little Mermaid and thats not saying much...

 

[WDWTank]

The current managment team just doesn't care. And it's because the managment team above them tells them that they can't care. I've seen Mansion open when Mansion would have NEVER been allowed to be open ten years ago. They've had Mansion open with half the speakers in the stretch room not working, they've had it open with almost NONE of the speakers in the stretch room working.... heck... they used to allow people to funnel through the stretch rooms with both sets of doors continually open. Show is not one of the "four keys" at WDW. The four keys are "efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, and state mandated break time." It's sad but no one in charge cares about the quality of the attractions as long as the attractions make their hourly "numbers." It's not in-park managers who are to blame... it's the park culture that those managers have been brought up to serve.

So, why doesn't Iger step in to help? Didn't he do this at Disneyland in the Post-Pressler era?

 

[WDWTank]

Still, even tho its not them staying/waiting in the line, telling a patron that they have to come back in a half hour doubles their wait time if the line is only 15 minutes. (Or an hour then it's making them wait 45 minutes) Just an example, but if it's a 15 minute wait, but their dining reservation is in 45 minutes, then they would not be able to ride the attraction. But everyone else would. And that would be just because they are in a wheelchair. It kind of singles them out.
Also, with how busy the parks are now, if there is a problem with the stretching rooms, and you expect them to close the attraction because it "ruins the experience" then that's one less attraction operation in the park. Now at the same time the hippos aren't working on the Jungle Cruise. Oops, that's another attraction down. Wow, it's busy July day and two popular attractions aren't operation? I guess you should just go down to City Hall and complain...
There is honestly no really good solution to all of this.With longer hours, there is less time for operations to work on them at night. I guess they couldn't get those hippos working. Keep it closed tomorrow too. Can't ruin the magic...
I know I sound condescending, but still...What is your solution?

The solution is to fire inexperienced/careless managers and executives and replace them with people who have a passion for the parks/company. Enter the Imagineers

 

[WDWTank]

I think this has more to do with current management philosophy and budget cuts.[/QUOTE]
Why do they need "budget cuts" when they're a multi-billion dollar company?

 

[Goofyernmost]

I completely agree, my uncle is very handicapped and 65. Can't speak a word of English, but when he visited he walked everywhere! He's someone who needs but walks! These people act so entitled, when I visited in April twenty people with scooter guy cut us in bus line because they had to "help" him. We were there first in line, and didn't get a seat. Truly awful how people abuse the system.

I call pile of crap on this post. Even if they had w 20 people with them, if you were first in the regular line, you would have been on the bus. Stop making things up to try a put drama with your point, which is screw everyone else, I'm the important one here.

I'm not going to do anything, skippy. I respect myself too much to work for the Mouse anymore. I was presenting the way it was done for 30+ years with no issue.

30 years ago people with handicaps didn't go to the theme parks, people with small children (infants) didn't go to the parks. And yes, you got to ride without and slow downs and possible stops. Aren't you special. Of all the personalities mentioned in these pages so far, you seem to be the most useless of anyone. Enjoy you life and please be sure to go to church and pray that you never have to be one of the people that you describe as useless because of a problem that they have no control over, as opposed to your own.