News Spaceship Earth closing early each day next week for planned maintenance

[MaryJaneP]

Wow, it seems a week is a long time to simply turn the newsboy around again to face the guests riding by.

Also, we seem to remember always being in long lines outside HM, even before FP+, and before its predecessor, plain old printed FP. Namely, forever. So to hear otherwise, is surprising.

 

[montyz81]

Is this just to finish removal of the Siemens logo in the on screen software? I’d imagine some software Inturn was tasked with doing it and they need a bit more than the nightly maintenance to get the new software uploaded as well as work out all the bugs.

 

[DznyRktekt]

It's a sad truth.

I know what the response was. It's just an overused response that is getting annoying on these forums. Like... We get it.

Frankly, Martin is the reason many come to this site. You can always use the ignore feature.

 

[marni1971]

Frankly, Martin is the reason many come to this site. You can always use the ignore feature.

*gulp*

 

[Polydweller]

Or at any time.

The system wants to make you think you do. And that it has worth.

Not so true this past weekend. Fastpass was required Saturday and Sunday virtually all day. Lengthy standby lines even at 3:30pm and the FP were rather long too. I agree, most days required only in morning, maybe, but our experience this week says that things have changed somewhat from how it used to be.

 

[KBLovedDisney]

Well, I guess we all know now that Alex is short and smart.

 

[marni1971]

Not so true this past weekend. Fastpass was required Saturday and Sunday virtually all day. Lengthy standby lines even at 3:30pm and the FP were rather long too. I agree, most days required only in morning, maybe, but our experience this week says that things have changed somewhat from how it used to be.

And we know how fastpass plus has inflated lines. By their very nature Omnimovers should have a line that always steadily shuffles forward. Like the old days.

Assuming guests don’t have their heads engrossed in their phone.

 

[geekza]

And we know how fastpass plus has inflated lines. By their very nature Omnimovers should have a line that always steadily shuffles forward. Like the old days.

Assuming guests don’t have their heads engrossed in their phone.

Yup. Even when the Mansion looked like it had a long line, it moved so quickly that there was rarely a super-long wait. Same for pretty much any Omnimover attraction. I wonder if the current uptick in waits also has something to do with staffing cutbacks?

 

[Notes from Neverland]

And we know how fastpass plus has inflated lines. By their very nature Omnimovers should have a line that always steadily shuffles forward. Like the old days.

Assuming guests don’t have their heads engrossed in their phone.

That's one thing I've consistently noticed in recent trips. Beyond just the guest being lost in their phone, so many are completely unaware of the line or how it's moving. Constantly there's large gaps just because no one is paying attention.

 

[The Mighty Tim]

If I remember correctly, the Siemens logo is gone off the screens at the beginning and end of the ride. I visited at the end of July and got a picture and posted it in another thread somewhere.

I think you're right. However, I do remember that right at the end, the narrator still references Siemens when talking about Project Tomorrow as you disembark the ride.

 

[tissandtully]

Is this just to finish removal of the Siemens logo in the on screen software? I’d imagine some software Inturn was tasked with doing it and they need a bit more than the nightly maintenance to get the new software uploaded as well as work out all the bugs.

I have some inappropriate jokes I want to say, but I won't.

 

[MaryJaneP]

Yup. Even when the Mansion looked like it had a long line, it moved so quickly that there was rarely a super-long wait....

The line was long, it didn't only look long, it was, distance-wise, LONG. Sometimes it had more switchbacks than we could count.

The line did frequently and evenly move, but slowly.

Now it seems to advance in herky-jerky clumps. You are probably not too far off in presuming that this may reflect staff cuts.

It also may reflect the pauses between loading the "elevators". It could as well be a result of the seemingly more frequent stops of the omnimover. Presumably these are needed to load/unload physically challenged "riders".

Long ago, there were entire trips through HM w/o any stops, now, it seems, we stop multiple times per trip through HM. As they say, "always room for one more".

 

[wdwtopten]

Why do they still tier FP+ attractions in Epcot? The old FP way did not, it was just timed on when you could get them.

Soarin'. Frozen. The new Ratatouille ride. The new Guardians ride. Test Track.

 

[WondersOfLife]

Frankly, Martin is the reason many come to this site. You can always use the ignore feature.

*gulp*

Martin is a reason why I come to this website a lot of times as well. Just tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, and I would just expect better from him is all. It's overdone on this site. I have the upmost respect from him and I love his videos!

 

[montyz81]

I

I have some inappropriate jokes I want to say, but I won't.

see the possibilities now. My mind wasn’t there when I wrote that

 

[trainplane3]

Is this just to finish removal of the Siemens logo in the on screen software? I’d imagine some software Inturn was tasked with doing it and they need a bit more than the nightly maintenance to get the new software uploaded as well as work out all the bugs.

The entire setup is wireless so someone could login and do the updating remotely. Unless there's some weird limiting factor I don't know why they'd have to update each car. And if the limiting factor would be bandwidth, then just do groups of cars overnight. It'd still save them having to send someone into the park to do it.

@marni1971, isn't the OS in the cars just Windows 7 (or a Windows variant) but just locked in the flash animation?

 

[tirian]

I

see the possibilities now. My mind wasn’t there when I wrote that

Once they sponsored the Big Ball, jokes wrote themselves.

 

[trainplane3]

Once they sponsored the Big Ball, jokes wrote themselves.

But now that Siemens have left, the jokes came to a very abrupt stop.

 

[RSoxNo1]

The constant queues are manufactured through FP+ — just like POTC and the HM rarely had long queues before FP+ implementation. Back in the original days of paper FP, Disney installed the service at the HM and later removed it because they realized it caused more harm than good at high-capacity attractions. Once upon a time, Guest Experience was the #1 priority.

For what it's worth, the original paper Fastpass at Haunted Mansion pre-dated the major show updates to the attraction. I'd even argue it was a bit stale prior to the Escher and other updates. Wait times did pick up at both Mansion and it's a small world after their substantial refurbs and before Fastpass+.

Having said all that, if they reverted to same day reservations they could get away with only having Fastpass running on select days on attractions like Mansion, Pirates or small world.

 

[Scuttle]

Or at any time.

The system wants to make you think you do. And that it has worth.

Coming fresh off a day at Disneyland while I was out in LA... I now get it. I almost forgot the days of pre FP+. It’s really a BS system. Today at Epcot we didn’t even need FP+. Frozen got to 50 minutes and TT to 60 but I know those were inflated times to make FP+ seem actually valuable. I used a FP+ at Living with the Land and no joke the stand by got on before we did.