Many people who have ridden the Little Mermaid attraction in the Magic Kingdom have told me that the attraction is good, but that there are lots of dead spots or places where nothing is going on or the area fails to feel complete because of static or redundant background characters (I'm looking at you, dancing Finale fish). At the same time, it doesn't make a ton of sense to sink billions of dollars on top of what they've already spent (Wasted?) on the ride. So, here are three simple and relatively cheap ways to enhance the Little Mermaid experience.
Fix 1: The transition ”Part of Your World” to ”Under the Sea” is kind of terrible. You move from a spectacular animatronic rendition of Ariel to a wall with plastic fish stapled to it. The addition of Atlantica was a nice touch, but I would remove the grinning corpse-fish from the wall and either project animated characters onto the existing wall or replace the green portion with a proper screen. This screen could have mermaids and fish swimming to and from Atlantica, and every once in a while, you would see Ariel, Flounder, Flotsam and Jetsam, or even the shark from the movie make their way across the ”ocean”. This would bring some depth to the environment by giving Imagineering the ability to create unique and varied characters without much expense, and it would also increase the rerideability because it's impossible to see every character in the seven seconds you're in there.
Fix 2: The "Under the Sea" scene is a great scene as-is, but it would benefit from two minor additions (in my opinion, of course). The first: bubble machines. Having bubbles fall down from the ceiling would distract from the exposed lighting and increase the "fun" factor. Second: change the warehouse white lighting to an array of multi-colored lights that flash and illuminate different areas in time to the music. This, again, would distract from the exposed lights and would create the illusion that the scene is more kinetic than it actually is.
Fix 3: Move Flotsam and Jetsam to the "Kiss the Girl" scene. Where they are now, it's hard to hear them over the "Under the Sea" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" music, as well as the whooshing sound of the exploding rock things beside them. You could move them to the end of "Kiss the Girl", swimming towards Ariel and Eric, and hear Ursula scream/whisper "Get them!" or "Stop that kiss" or whatever a morbidly obese mermoctopus hellbent on ruling the ocean would say. This would fix that transition and advance the ride narrative more clearly (in essence, Ursula sends them to stop the kiss, they fail, she sinks while blowing up, Ariel gets her voice back, and everyone's happy) and would declutter the "Under the Sea/Poor Unfortunate Souls" transition.
Fix 4: Add animated versions of the sisters on the back wall of the finale. This would give the room some kinetic energy and incorporate some more unique characters. Okay, so there were four. My bad.
I think these would improve the ride overall without drastically increasing the price rage. What do you think?
Fix 1: The transition ”Part of Your World” to ”Under the Sea” is kind of terrible. You move from a spectacular animatronic rendition of Ariel to a wall with plastic fish stapled to it. The addition of Atlantica was a nice touch, but I would remove the grinning corpse-fish from the wall and either project animated characters onto the existing wall or replace the green portion with a proper screen. This screen could have mermaids and fish swimming to and from Atlantica, and every once in a while, you would see Ariel, Flounder, Flotsam and Jetsam, or even the shark from the movie make their way across the ”ocean”. This would bring some depth to the environment by giving Imagineering the ability to create unique and varied characters without much expense, and it would also increase the rerideability because it's impossible to see every character in the seven seconds you're in there.
Fix 2: The "Under the Sea" scene is a great scene as-is, but it would benefit from two minor additions (in my opinion, of course). The first: bubble machines. Having bubbles fall down from the ceiling would distract from the exposed lighting and increase the "fun" factor. Second: change the warehouse white lighting to an array of multi-colored lights that flash and illuminate different areas in time to the music. This, again, would distract from the exposed lights and would create the illusion that the scene is more kinetic than it actually is.
Fix 3: Move Flotsam and Jetsam to the "Kiss the Girl" scene. Where they are now, it's hard to hear them over the "Under the Sea" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" music, as well as the whooshing sound of the exploding rock things beside them. You could move them to the end of "Kiss the Girl", swimming towards Ariel and Eric, and hear Ursula scream/whisper "Get them!" or "Stop that kiss" or whatever a morbidly obese mermoctopus hellbent on ruling the ocean would say. This would fix that transition and advance the ride narrative more clearly (in essence, Ursula sends them to stop the kiss, they fail, she sinks while blowing up, Ariel gets her voice back, and everyone's happy) and would declutter the "Under the Sea/Poor Unfortunate Souls" transition.
Fix 4: Add animated versions of the sisters on the back wall of the finale. This would give the room some kinetic energy and incorporate some more unique characters. Okay, so there were four. My bad.
I think these would improve the ride overall without drastically increasing the price rage. What do you think?
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