Splash Mountain falling apart (literally?)

[flynnibus]

Enlighten? What else is there to enlighten? I think at this point people should be able to gather that wdws maintenance is at an all time low. It's discussed here frequently. It's like continuing to beat a dead horse and crossed over from enlightenment to a long time ago.

If this were a room with a finite boundaries and population that never changed - you might have a point. But it's neither of those things.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

If this were a room with a finite boundaries and population that never changed - you might have a point. But it's neither of those things.

Proudly showing your mind formed by a background in the abstract sciences, aren't we?

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Must have missed it in the stampede of sheeople headed my way.

Come on now!

Opposition is fun. It makes for lively debate. Nothing beats having a horde of people of different persuasion pitted against you!

Do you know how hard I have to work to get the fine folk here to disagree with me? Sadly, I have a razor sharp logical mind complemented by a crystal clear pen, (

) so by default people tend to swoon over my posts rather than telling me it is the biggest load of crock they've ever read. Most annoying!

 

[WDW1974]

I think you're using these numbers to make a point (which I agree with), but are they correct? I'd love to see statistics on this.

No. They are educated hyperbole based on years of visits, talks with countless CMs (including execs who LIKE me) and industry folks. Meaning they aren't exact, but they do tell a large portion of the tale.

Oh, and if I ever claim to have a fresh rumor, you guys better be suspicious because odds are I'm completely full of crap. Odds are also that I would make it really, really ridiculous but the 4th or 5th poster in the thread would say, "Are they really turning CoP into a strip club? I hope not. Did you know it's an icon that Disney himself built?":lookaroun

Wait!??!? Did you say CoP was gonna be a strip club?!??! I heard that BB was going to have a themed BOIS NIGHT this summer on Thursday nights that will cost an extra $29.99 and feature one frozen banana. Cast is going craaaaazzy over it!

 

[WDW1974]

And you're not being realistic. You can lecture me on making excuses and defending mediocrity or whatever you want to say, and it's very easy to say the parks are in crap condition and management sucks and just wants to make a quick dime and not look at the difficulty of the situation. That being the parks are getting old, preventative and routine maintenance doesn't get the same bang for its buck that it may have 15 or 20 years ago. So what do you do?

What do you do? Very simple. You do whatever is needed to keep those parks as pristine as possible. TDL opened in 1983. The attractions look like they opened yesterday. ... Actually, most all of the park does.

It's called the cost of doing business. If you want to run on a near perfect image and you want to charge premium/elite prices, then you also have to walk the walk. Even if it drops your profits down a few percentage points.

These parks need to open and running at the max operational level to remain competitive. Shut down Space Mountain for a week or two every other month to freshen it up? Sure it can be done but it would certainly upset a lot of guests. But who cares about guests right? Especially those that can easily take a short drive up to USO. Are the parks and attractions not as shiny and glistening as they were 20 years ago? Absolutely, but they are also 20 years older, along with everything else in the park. Your points would hold more water if there was no refurbishment work being done anywhere on property, but there is. It's probably not as much as you would like to see, but when considering the difficulties involved in balancing guest needs for open attractions and the need to present good show, you can see it will always be a no win scenario for TDO. (especially for those who are looking to point out any mistep or failure) If that means that I'm a flunky for TDO, so be it.

There is NO balancing act. Show is a key. Guests who whine that everything needs to be open everytime they visit is something that is used as an excuse to save money. EVERY Disney resort in the world closes attractions annually for rehabs (some short lasting days, others longer lasting weeks or even months). WDW does NOT. If you can't see the problem with this mentality, then I'm not sure I can 'splain it any simpler.
Disney is cutting major corners that have left its O-Town parks feeling stale and neglected.

Oh and don't even try to say that in the 80's and early 90's you had parks under the same level of scrutiny that you do today with everybody feeding off of one another in a frenzy like manner to point out what they find wrong with the place they love to go to.

Who cares whether you had that or not? You had parks that were much less pricey, yet much classier and cleaner and better maintained and fresher etc. When something was out of order, it got your attention because it was so unusual. It's not like now where you can go on a major attraction like Splash Mountain and just start counting DOZENS of issues.

That's all on lousy management looking at the immediate bottom line.

 

[WDW1974]

And yet.. WDW has not done this to keep up. You're just making excuses, not actually vindicating their choices.

You say 'well they are old' - yet other parks have dealt with much older rides. You say 'they are old' - but flip-flop and say they upgrade the systems. So is it really that old?

You say 'that is what refurbs' are for - yet say they can't afford to take the major attractions down. Yet other parks do both.

You're so full of contradiction that you can't even get a stable platform to defend from.

Yes things age.. and yes things need refurbs to not only repair, but modernize. Something that all the parks do, including WDW, but WDW does it at an inferior rate and because of it the attraction quality suffers inbetween.

WDW has repeatedly put attractions through refurb and then opened them with show quality issues from day 0.

WDW has even opened BRAND NEW attractions with dirths of show quality issues (Test Track, and TLM)

WDW not only fails to maintain attractions during normal day to day ops... they fail to maintain them to acceptable standards when they do take them offline. And adding insult to injury, people argue they can't take attractions offline because of demand... yet other parks can take attractions offline without sending customers off the deep end.

It's excuse after excuse after excuse. The only thing that is consistent is WDW's willingness to push show quality aside for self-serving interests.

I feel sorta dirty for liking this, but it is quite accurate and deserves rereading!

 

[All Disney All The Time]

I was one of those cast members. It is still my favorite ride, and that might be partially why. It was very cool to test it. Also tested Tower of Terror. After we rode that one, they closed it down for several months. That kind of freaked us out!

We spent at least an hour that day watching the testing. My kids were really jealous; we all were.

 

[monothingie]

And yet.. WDW has not done this to keep up. You're just making excuses, not actually vindicating their choices.

You say 'well they are old' - yet other parks have dealt with much older rides. You say 'they are old' - but flip-flop and say they upgrade the systems. So is it really that old?

You say 'that is what refurbs' are for - yet say they can't afford to take the major attractions down. Yet other parks do both.

You're so full of contradiction that you can't even get a stable platform to defend from.

Yes things age.. and yes things need refurbs to not only repair, but modernize. Something that all the parks do, including WDW, but WDW does it at an inferior rate and because of it the attraction quality suffers inbetween.

WDW has repeatedly put attractions through refurb and then opened them with show quality issues from day 0.

WDW has even opened BRAND NEW attractions with dirths of show quality issues (Test Track, and TLM)

WDW not only fails to maintain attractions during normal day to day ops... they fail to maintain them to acceptable standards when they do take them offline. And adding insult to injury, people argue they can't take attractions offline because of demand... yet other parks can take attractions offline without sending customers off the deep end.

It's excuse after excuse after excuse. The only thing that is consistent is WDW's willingness to push show quality aside for self-serving interests.

I'll try to be as stable as I can in responding. In fact I'm sitting down while typing right now, so I am definitely on a stable platform to respond.

Starting at the bottom and working up, you discredit a large part of your argument with your last statement. Please define "self-serving interests". I'll take wild guess and say that it probably leads into the greed argument, while seemingly a fan favorite around here, might also be considered being responsible to the share holders by others. You know, those fools who invest billions to the company so they can do things and possibly get a modest return on that investment.

Moving up you your list of responses to my contradictions. You mention show quality issues with either brand new attractions or ones that have had the refurbs done. I agree with you, TT was a major problem, MS it killed people, that's a major quality issue! CTX, EE too were problematic, Splash continues to have issues, But maybe you're too rigid or I'm to lax in the demand for quality of show, but I would think these attractions being a bit more unique in their complexity would warrant a little bit more wiggle room. TT is certainly no omni-mover...

Regarding refurbs and scheduling. My statement was that they have been scheduled with the utmost attention to when the impact would be minimal (Splash was done over the winter, as quiet of a time as possible) I would really disagree with your assertion that management could and would take attractions off line for planned maintenance without having a bit of concern of the reaction of the guests and performance of the park. A clear example of this when park managers will add extra attractions when a something major goes down. When TT went down you got a whole mess of character meet n greets.

Finally, my contradiction regarding attraction age. You know that during a refurb you have a certain budget and timeframe to work from. They can't rebuild the attraction in two months, so they are limited to dealing with priority items. Is this something expanded routine maintenance could handle? Maybe? But again (and I'll got back to the fire analogy) when your maintenance crew is too busy putting out fires everyday to worry about the other things like busted Brer Frog, you essentially have no preventative maintenance plan and must rely on refurbs to get the stuff done. No we can reasonably disagree as to why this is happening. Your assertion is that because of cutbacks and poor management, repairs gets jammed up and the place falls apart. My point is that you could add as many maintenance resources as you want, but given the limited down time (daily), age, and complexity of the attraction it would not be efficient use of resources. I will however say that failure to keep the attractions tidy, is a failure of management and is totally inexcusable anywhere, well unless you're working at a dump.

It's easy to say that Im making excuses for TDO, but these are really difficult decisions with major financial implications that managers and execs there have to confront. I'm sure that there are plenty of people there who really do care about their parks (execs too.) however, just simply making blanket statements their self-serving nature, greediness, lack of concern, may be a popular thing to do over here, but is ultimately disingenuous. Put yourself in their position and have to factor in competition, attendance, costs, ticket/food/merchandise prices, attractions, entertainment, labor, energy cost, and the general economy and you might see how difficult of a position it could be.

While it's been fun being the target of you nice people, this my final comment regarding this. See you around the boards.

 

[xdan0920]

Come on now!

Opposition is fun. It makes for lively debate. Nothing beats having a horde of people of different persuasion pitted against you!

Do you know how hard I have to work to get the fine folk here to disagree with me? Sadly, I have a razor sharp logical mind complemented by a crystal clear pen, (

) so by default people tend to swoon over my posts rather than telling me it is the biggest load of crock they've ever read. Most annoying!

What a load of crapola.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

What a load of crapola.

Yay!

I just want to win the prize for posting the biggest pile of crock of this thread!

...but so far I'm up against some pretty stiff competition!

 

[steve2wdw]

I just want to throw a quick comment about TDL, since it always gets brought up whenever stateside maintainence is mentioned.....Yes, TDL management keeps attractions and their animatronics in pristine condition, but I also want to mention that TDL guests are also a huge factor in the appearance of the Tokyo Resort. The guests are SO respectful of everything....they don't touch walls, props, set pieces in queues, and they don't sit on railings, fences, or stand in planters. Heck, other than their feet touching the ground, they're perfect guests. After spending a week here at WDW and watching guests trash the park (including poor Tony B's portrait in the Thunder queue-yes it's been removed), I just wonder where everyones sense of personal responsibility has gone. I'd thought I'd seen it all, until I saw a teenager throw-up in a planter full of flowers in the hub-right there in Walt's field of vision. It was if he was pointing it out to Mickey.

Oh....and back on topic....Splash was in full test mode this evening, and the bridge in front of the Briar Patch was open. And the Splash....bigger than ever. No one riding Splash will be dry if it keeps running like it was this evening.

 

[RandySavage]

Starting at the bottom and working up, you discredit a large part of your argument with your last statement. Please define "self-serving interests". I'll take wild guess and say that it probably leads into the greed argument, while seemingly a fan favorite around here, might also be considered being responsible to the share holders by others. You know, those fools who invest billions to the company so they can do things and possibly get a modest return on that investment, etc.

I think slashing the WDW maintenance department and lowering show-quality standards in order to maintain/boost financials (and executive performance bonuses) undermines long-term strength of the company and its stock price.

The frustrating thing is WDW was so excellent in its execution at its peak (The Halcyon Days), that even having fallen several notches off its pedestal, it (WDW) will continue to be a major draw. The execs seem to have discovered (to my dismay) that there is no need to operate at the Gold Standard when they can operate at the Bronze Standard and take home more money.

 

[Figments Friend]

Back in the day, there was Early Entry, then Surprise Mornings, (might have been vice versa, don't remember) which opened a park approx 1 hr early. Magic Mornings is the DLR version of EMH currently - don't remember if Magic Mornings was ever used as terminology at WDW. The paid night version was 'E-Ride Nights'.

-
Ah memories...

I remember doing a E-Ride Night back in the 90s. It was really a novelty to be in the MK at 2am back then. The place was deserted too...not like today*s EMHs.
Back then nobody but the Park fans seemed to know about them.

It was bliss...

 

[LongtimeReader]

I just want to throw a quick comment about TDL, since it always gets brought up whenever stateside maintainence is mentioned.....Yes, TDL management keeps attractions and their animatronics in pristine condition, but I also want to mention that TDL guests are also a huge factor in the appearance of the Tokyo Resort. The guests are SO respectful of everything....they don't touch walls, props, set pieces in queues, and they don't sit on railings, fences, or stand in planters. Heck, other than their feet touching the ground, they're perfect guests. After spending a week here at WDW and watching guests trash the park (including poor Tony B's portrait in the Thunder queue-yes it's been removed), I just wonder where everyones sense of personal responsibility has gone. I'd thought I'd seen it all, until I saw a teenager throw-up in a planter full of flowers in the hub-right there in Walt's field of vision. It was if he was pointing it out to Mickey.

Oh....and back on topic....Splash was in full test mode this evening, and the bridge in front of the Briar Patch was open. And the Splash....bigger than ever. No one riding Splash will be dry if it keeps running like it was this evening.

Truth. And TDR is also 100% non-union. Which means OLC can essentially write their own rules with their employees. Having worked there, I can attest that salaries are actually DECREASING for cast over the past decade, and yet their attendance last year was record breaking. I love TDR ad they do a lot right. But there is a massive cultural difference that is a significant factor in what makes a day at TDR different from a stateside park. Definitely not defending WDC for their shortsightedness, just feel the need to add to this comment and temper the usual rose colored OLC image from foreigners. In fact, if you compare TDR 2013 to TDR 2003, there has been a huge slide in quality. Its still high, but not when you compare apples to apples. WDW has massive issues. TDR has less of them to be sure, but they're there nonetheless.

 

[flynnibus]

Starting at the bottom and working up, you discredit a large part of your argument with your last statement. Please define "self-serving interests". I'll take wild guess and say that it probably leads into the greed argument, while seemingly a fan favorite around here, might also be considered being responsible to the share holders by others

Nope - simply that if your measured by uptime and people clicks.. then that is what your people will prioritize. If your job is to keep the park running on the minimal investment.. then that is what people will strive to do and cut corners to make it happen.

Regarding refurbs and scheduling. My statement was that they have been scheduled with the utmost attention to when the impact would be minimal (Splash was done over the winter, as quiet of a time as possible) I would really disagree with your assertion that management could and would take attractions off line for planned maintenance without having a bit of concern of the reaction of the guests and performance of the park

Now you are making you are trying to put words in my mouth - I did not say 'without a bit of concern' - simply that the argument that they can't take attractions offline is BS. They run them into the ground rather than do more frequent, smaller refurbishments which means the show quality goes into the toliet. And in some cases (like EE) they just refuse to take it offline period for fear of impact. Everest is 7 years old.. when has it ever had a scheduled refurb?

Finally, my contradiction regarding attraction age. You know that during a refurb you have a certain budget and timeframe to work from

Uhmm.. you set your budget and timeframe based on what must be done.. not the other way around.

But again (and I'll got back to the fire analogy) when your maintenance crew is too busy putting out fires everyday to worry about the other things like busted Brer Frog, you essentially have no preventative maintenance plan and must rely on refurbs to get the stuff done.

Then one should figure out why your crews are running around putting out fires all the time - that is not normal. You are either understaffed, or not doing the work correctly. In WDW's case, it's both. So their solution is just turn things off and keep the attraction running.

No we can reasonably disagree as to why this is happening. Your assertion is that because of cutbacks and poor management, repairs gets jammed up and the place falls apart. My point is that you could add as many maintenance resources as you want, but given the limited down time (daily), age, and complexity of the attraction it would not be efficient use of resources

If you want labor efficient - you wouldn't build attractions like Disney designed. But if you want those kind of attractions in your park, you must invest to operate and maintain them. Other Disney parks seem to figure it out.. a concept you keep missing.

It's a top down problem.

 

[flynnibus]

I feel sorta dirty for liking this, but it is quite accurate and deserves rereading!

You can't hide your dirty side...

 

[ParentsOf4]

I think slashing the WDW maintenance department and lowering show-quality standards in order to maintain/boost financials (and executive performance bonuses) undermines long-term strength of the company and its stock price.

The frustrating thing is WDW was so excellent in its execution at its peak (The Halcyon Days), that even having fallen several notches off its pedestal, it (WDW) will continue to be a major draw. The execs seem to have discovered (to my dismay) that there is no need to operate at the Gold Standard when they can operate at the Bronze Standard and take home more money.

Nearly every major corporation faces competing short-term and long-term interests. In the case of WDW, maintenance reductions (which began under Eisner) exclusively were driven by profit motives. These types of short-term decisions eventually lead to long-term issues in the forms of increased deferred maintenance costs and lower customer perception. As you suggest, it appears Disney's current management continues to balance these, abandoning the "quality comes first" philosophy of Walt Disney and his immediate successors. Today, Disney's commitment to quality is no better or worse than most other major corporations.

Walt Disney by no means ran a perfect park but he always was trying to improve DL. As Walt said:

Whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.

Until the mid-to-late 1990s, WDW used to set the Gold Standard for service and quality. Objectively, if you compare WDW today with Busch Gardens, Universal, or several other parks, WDW's lead has pretty much evaporated. Yet WDW still is perceived as the Gold Standard because of its history and loyal fan base.

 

[muteki]

I just want to throw a quick comment about TDL, since it always gets brought up whenever stateside maintainence is mentioned.....Yes, TDL management keeps attractions and their animatronics in pristine condition, but I also want to mention that TDL guests are also a huge factor in the appearance of the Tokyo Resort. The guests are SO respectful of everything....they don't touch walls, props, set pieces in queues, and they don't sit on railings, fences, or stand in planters. Heck, other than their feet touching the ground, they're perfect guests. After spending a week here at WDW and watching guests trash the park (including poor Tony B's portrait in the Thunder queue-yes it's been removed), I just wonder where everyones sense of personal responsibility has gone. I'd thought I'd seen it all, until I saw a teenager throw-up in a planter full of flowers in the hub-right there in Walt's field of vision. It was if he was pointing it out to Mickey.

In regards to the state of WDW and its comparisons to TDL: a good chunk of what is mostly brought up as not working/poor upkeep/maintenance are things that WDW's guests, as disrespectful as they are, don't have access too/couldn't damage if they want too. The functionality (or lack thereof) of AAs, the enabling/disabling of effects, etc have (in general) nothing to to with guest behavior. That strictly falls on TDO and their decisions, practices, and procedures. Little Billy might have puked in the queue, but that's not why the Yeti stopped moving.

 

[Brian Noble]

That may be so, but a starfish had been pried off of the Mermaid queue rockwork before the AP/D23 previews were even over. This is at least partly why we can't have nice things.

 

[wdisney9000]

Nope - simply that if your measured by uptime and people clicks.. then that is what your people will prioritize. If your job is to keep the park running on the minimal investment.. then that is what people will strive to do and cut corners to make it happen.



Now you are making you are trying to put words in my mouth - I did not say 'without a bit of concern' - simply that the argument that they can't take attractions offline is BS. They run them into the ground rather than do more frequent, smaller refurbishments which means the show quality goes into the toliet. And in some cases (like EE) they just refuse to take it offline period for fear of impact. Everest is 7 years old.. when has it ever had a scheduled refurb?



Uhmm.. you set your budget and timeframe based on what must be done.. not the other way around.



Then one should figure out why your crews are running around putting out fires all the time - that is not normal. You are either understaffed, or not doing the work correctly. In WDW's case, it's both. So their solution is just turn things off and keep the attraction running.



If you want labor efficient - you wouldn't build attractions like Disney designed. But if you want those kind of attractions in your park, you must invest to operate and maintain them. Other Disney parks seem to figure it out.. a concept you keep missing.

It's a top down problem.

That was a nice point by point deconstruction of monothingie's entire post. Well versed, and succinct.