When is it fair to report on the upkeep of New Fantasyland?

[dgp602]

Who says they are? We are not sure what went wrong on Madame Wardrobe or what they're doing to fix it.

I'm not saying they are..I am trying to understand in general the comment about WDI giving the park a 1 year warranty on new attractions..don't necessarily mean FLE attractions, just the statement in general...

 

[flynnibus]

Ultimately, there is no reason for a large corporation to be dysfunctional unless the CEO is not doing his job. Either different organizations are behaving the way they do because it's what Iger wants them to do or, alternatively, Iger is not doing his job.

While true in an ideal sense - many such disputes go unresolved because they are not significant enough to be brought to the attention of such executives. People look like fools when they bring petty things to their superiors because they look stupid for not being able to resolve it themselves... yet they look stupid to their juniors when they can't get it resolved and won't escalate it. It's a catch-22. Culture and size play a huge role in such things.

 

[dgp602]

never worked in a large company before?

Motivations are not always shared between different teams.. let alone different groups.

Ever heard a child tell another to do something.. and the child says 'You can't make me!!' - well, it's basically that Until you get to a point in the org chart where someone has authority over both factions.. there is lots that can keep people from working together.

No, I have..I guess the statement regarding " one year warranty" is what confuses me..I can see if an outside, independant contractor provided a 1 year warranty on an attraction, but two entities within the same company giving warranties? never heard of it.never heard of one division saying to another "well, if my design breaks down after 1 year it's on you.."

 

[flynnibus]

No, I have..I guess the statement regarding " one year warranty" is what confuses me..I can see if an outside, independant contractor provided a 1 year warranty on an attraction, but two entities within the same company giving warranties? never heard of it.never heard of one division saying to another "well, if my design breaks down after 1 year it's on you.."

These aren't just separate teams - but different legal entities within a larger parent org. There are charge-back issues, billing, tracking, etc all kinds of bureaucracy a company can implement to track their time and money vs. working towards a common goal. It happens in large companies all the time. Because the company gets big enough it ends up hiring people it can't trust, it institutes policies and procedures to ensure people only behave certain ways. This in turn hinders people from just 'doing the right thing' because there is structure that defines what they can and can not do on their own.

It gets even more fun when because are you all are part of the same larger parent.. you are forced to work with or use said group.. even if they aren't the best for the job or for your needs.

 

[Lee]

I guess I don't understand the "warranty" period granted by WDI..aren't they the same company as TDO, just different divisions wthin the company? How can WDI just walk away from an atrraction after a year and say "not my problem"? That to me is like saying that the engineers at a car company build and design a new car, but whn flaws are discovered a year later, they walk away and say, opps, not my problem Ford, you figure it out..Can anyone explain this to me? Pardon my ignorance...

WDI is involved in designing and building attractions, not maintenance.
TDO or another management entity pays WDI to do those two things. That's all.

After a ride is open, for the first year, it is considered to be in a "warranty" period, where any problems with its operation is considered to be related to its design or manufacture. WDI takes responsibility for such things.
After a ride has been working for a year, any design or manufacturing issues should have been worked out, leaving any future problems to be a result of maintenance or upkeep, and the responsibility of the park/resort to fix (or to "hire" WDI to come in and handle it.)

Yes, this is an huge over-simplification...but you can get the basic point.

 

[mvieguy]

My biggest problem with the Walt Disney Company right now, including all merch, parks, movies, etc.

that What Would Walt Do philosphy is crap. Eisner, Iger, etc do not think about how Walt would run things, all they care about is putting money in their own pockets. how do they do that, by cutting costs where they can.

Guaranteed that Maintence is one of those departments that get swept under the rug.

Remember movies like Million Dollar Duck, Follow me boys, the Happiest Millionaire, Swiss family Robinson, Absent Minded Professor, Candleshoe. why cant Disney make family movies like that anymore.

Why does the Walt disney company need to buy a franchise like Avatar, which had nothing to do with disney. and put it in its parks. (same reason i suppose for Indiana Jones and Star Wars)

Why remove rides that were part of Disney History, instead of updating them. 20,000 leagues was a great movie, instead of Scraping its existance, just Update the ride. turn it into a motion simulator like Body wars or Star Tours and put it in a diffrent part of the park.

These Execs at Disney do not follow in the Disney name, Hell Eisner had Roy Disney Resign. how pittiful was it that Disney fires Disney.


Someone needs to step in and flush out the Crap. there are too many people in that Company who are not doing it for the Disney Name, just for the amount of money they can gain.

sorry just my rant.

back on topic.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Painful.

 

[dgp602]

WDI is involved in designing and building attractions, not maintenance.
TDO or another management entity pays WDI to do those two things. That's all.

After a ride is open, for the first year, it is considered to be in a "warranty" period, where any problems with its operation is considered to be related to its design or manufacture. WDI takes responsibility for such things.
After a ride has been working for a year, any design or manufacturing issues should have been worked out, leaving any future problems to be a result of maintenance or upkeep, and the responsibility of the park/resort to fix (or to "hire" WDI to come in and handle it.)

Yes, this is an huge over-simplification...but you can get the basic point.

Thanks Lee! I think I get it now...!

 

[The Disney Kid]

I'm curious as to when people think it's fair to give TDO a grade for the upkeep of New Fantasyland and to really get a good feel for how guests are responding to it. I'm writing this on 12/28/2012 and New Fantasyland officially opened on December 6th (I believe). Would one month from its opening be a fair date for people to evaluate how things are holding up?

I ask because in another thread I see that Madame Wardrobe's effects are already not working, there are starfish and other pieces missing from the Little Mermaid queue, and Storybook Circus has some things missing here and there that were originally part of the decorations when that area opened. The addition of the railings around Casey Jr. could also be included in this list of things that have happened since these areas were first revealed to the public.

I'm very interested in watching how TDO maintains everything they built in New Fantasyland. I want to see how on the ball maintenance is being...but I also want to see how smart the Imagineers were in designing things so that they hold up to the constant wear and tear of the public. And I am fascinated by the changes that TDO has to make to things in response to guest use.

Is it too early to be looking at things like this? I think everyone should have a period of "working the bugs out" but I also think a point should come when it's fair to take a look a things and see how well it's all being received.

Is a one-month period after the opening enough or should we wait to grade TDO on upkeep until the springtime? I don't think I ever followed a project as closely as I did New Fantasyland so it's interesting for me as a fan to watch how everything holds up and weathers now that it's mostly been built.

Apparently, now is the time.

 

[GeorgiaPinesRJB]

I'm not saying they are..I am trying to understand in general the comment about WDI giving the park a 1 year warranty on new attractions..don't necessarily mean FLE attractions, just the statement in general...

The 1 year is to work out kinks and bugs, doesn't mean WDI is taking a hands off approach.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Apparently, now is the time.

......now is the best time......

 

[Magenta Panther]

My biggest problem with the Walt Disney Company right now, including all merch, parks, movies, etc.

that What Would Walt Do philosphy is crap. Eisner, Iger, etc do not think about how Walt would run things, all they care about is putting money in their own pockets. how do they do that, by cutting costs where they can.

Guaranteed that Maintence is one of those departments that get swept under the rug.

Remember movies like Million Dollar Duck, Follow me boys, the Happiest Millionaire, Swiss family Robinson, Absent Minded Professor, Candleshoe. why cant Disney make family movies like that anymore.

Why does the Walt disney company need to buy a franchise like Avatar, which had nothing to do with disney. and put it in its parks. (same reason i suppose for Indiana Jones and Star Wars)

Why remove rides that were part of Disney History, instead of updating them. 20,000 leagues was a great movie, instead of Scraping its existance, just Update the ride. turn it into a motion simulator like Body wars or Star Tours and put it in a diffrent part of the park.

These Execs at Disney do not follow in the Disney name, Hell Eisner had Roy Disney Resign. how pittiful was it that Disney fires Disney.


Someone needs to step in and flush out the Crap. there are too many people in that Company who are not doing it for the Disney Name, just for the amount of money they can gain.

sorry just my rant.

back on topic.

Painfully, painfully true. I've been raging about the exact same things for some time. The (Walt) Disney Company is morphing into an entity I don't even recognize anymore. Polluting its stable with off-studio stuff like Avatar, Marvel, Muppets, Star Wars, diluting its legacy, doing little to uphold or expand that legacy...it's tragic. When I visited the New Fantasyland, which I had such high hopes for, and then visited Universal and looked at it with fresh, unbiased eyes...that was a grim shock. THAT'S where I saw creativity, inspiration, risk-taking...Imagineering. Whereas in the New Fantasyland attractions like The Little Mermaid, I saw a pretty queue surrounding a crap ride full of plastic and half-baked storytelling.

Robert Iger tries not only to cut costs, he tries to take shortcuts in lieu of creativity. Disney needs a larger boy audience - hell, why risk money trying to develop new properties for them? Let's just buy them! Add them to the stable! Oh, they're not a good fit, and at any rate doing so is in direct opposition to the innovation and trend-setting Disney is known for? Screw that! Stockholders don't care about that! It's dividends and payouts they seek! Let the suckers out there continue to love the legacy Walt left! We'll just milk it dry while neglecting and betraying it, and then when it's worn out we'll just buy new stuff to replace it with!

Sad, sad, sad. I'm thinking of moving to Florida within the next couple of years. Guess which park I'll be buying an annual pass for? Hint: it has nothing to do with faith, trust and pixie dust. Because the "new" (Walt who?) Disney Company has nothing to do with that either...

 

[Can we go yet?]

Ugh remember when you could go on a ride and nearly everything worked? No visible rock work or disjointed character? This is pretty sad, the area just opened! At least it isn't in the condition Maelstrom is in, visible rock work and moldy ceilings...can they dare spend a buck to even repair Splash?

 

[ParentsOf4]

touringplans.com published it's "Best" and "Worst" of the year and labelled the New Fantasyland as its Biggest Disappointment.

New Fantasylad is a disappointment because it has been billed by Disney as the largest expansion to the Magic Kingdom in 41 years, and has been heavily touted by Disney since the 2009 D23 Expo. .... After all of this build-up by Disney, it’s a bit disappointing that the “flagship” attraction of New Fantasyland is a C-Ticket Little Mermaid dark ride that, while containing a few really impressive Audio-Animatronics, also includes a lot of static and listless ocean denizens and regions of empty space.

A link to the article is here:

http://blog.touringplans.com/2013/01/03/2012-disney-awards/

 

[muteki]

...

Why does the Walt disney company need to buy a franchise like Avatar, which had nothing to do with disney. and put it in its parks. (same reason i suppose for Indiana Jones and Star Wars)

Why remove rides that were part of Disney History, instead of updating them. 20,000 leagues was a great movie, instead of Scraping its existance, just Update the ride. turn it into a motion simulator like Body wars or Star Tours and put it in a diffrent part of the park.

...

sorry just my rant.

back on topic.

While I agree with the spirit of your comments, a couple things:

-Disney brought outside franchises like Star Wars into the parks because their previous attempts to produce content themselves in that genre failed (Black Hole). I think Indy came along just because the Star Wars stuff worked out so well.

-Disney did update 20k, they just didn't do it in the same park. It exists as a new ride at Disney Sea and in theming at Paris.

 

[Pixiedustmaker]

Whereas in the New Fantasyland attractions like The Little Mermaid, I saw a pretty queue surrounding a crap ride full of plastic and half-baked storytelling.

I was surprised that TDO okayed putting Mermaid into FLE. DCA's Mermaid isn't all that popular, at least based on wait times as the ride is often a walk-on while RSR continues to boast huge wait times . . . just to get a FastPass.

Plus, they made a lot of changes to the ride in the first year, such as Ariel's hairdo, the animated screen parts. At the time the company line was, "Making the ride even better!". Well, when was the last time a new ride had immediate major changes made like that in the first year? They must have had, (and probably continue to have), poor feedback from guests.

I think that the budget just wasn't there. They use screens, a lot of plastic fish (some of them just mould duplicates painted differently and put in different scenes), plus there is a lot of "dead space" with not much going on. Something about the ride feels cramped.

I figured TDO would have made their own custom version. How hard is it to hire an architect to build a two times larger showbuilding to accommodate bigger/more scenes, and to find the $ to put in some details?

It will be interesting to see if MK's Mermaid wait times stay up, or if they peter off. The biggest reason to go on the ride seems to be the queue, and a couple of good animatronics, but there isn't that feeling of a magical experience on the ride.

 

[danlb_2000]

I was surprised that TDO okayed putting Mermaid into FLE. DCA's Mermaid isn't all that popular, at least based on wait times as the ride is often a walk-on while RSR continues to boast huge wait times . . . just to get a FastPass.

MK's was well under construction when the DCA one opened so they hadn't seen the reception to DCA's yet.

Plus, they made a lot of changes to the ride in the first year, such as Ariel's hairdo, the animated screen parts. At the time the company line was, "Making the ride even better!". Well, when was the last time a new ride had immediate major changes made like that in the first year? They must have had, (and probably continue to have), poor feedback from guests.

I think that the budget just wasn't there. They use screens, a lot of plastic fish (some of them just mould duplicates painted differently and put in different scenes), plus there is a lot of "dead space" with not much going on. Something about the ride feels cramped.

I figured TDO would have made their own custom version. How hard is it to hire an architect to build a two times larger showbuilding to accommodate bigger/more scenes, and to find the $ to put in some details?

It will be interesting to see if MK's Mermaid wait times stay up, or if they peter off. The biggest reason to go on the ride seems to be the queue, and a couple of good animatronics, but there isn't that feeling of a magical experience on the ride.

There are a lot of things that could have been better in FLE if they had wanted to spend the money, but it's clear that they didn't want to spend the money. Duplicating Mermaid was a cheap way to get a new ride into FLE.

 

[Lee]

I was surprised that TDO okayed putting Mermaid into FLE. DCA's Mermaid isn't all that popular, at least based on wait times as the ride is often a walk-on while RSR continues to boast huge wait times . . . just to get a FastPass.

Plus, they made a lot of changes to the ride in the first year, such as Ariel's hairdo, the animated screen parts. At the time the company line was, "Making the ride even better!". Well, when was the last time a new ride had immediate major changes made like that in the first year? They must have had, (and probably continue to have), poor feedback from guests.

I think that the budget just wasn't there. They use screens, a lot of plastic fish (some of them just mould duplicates painted differently and put in different scenes), plus there is a lot of "dead space" with not much going on. Something about the ride feels cramped.

I figured TDO would have made their own custom version. How hard is it to hire an architect to build a two times larger showbuilding to accommodate bigger/more scenes, and to find the $ to put in some details?

It will be interesting to see if MK's Mermaid wait times stay up, or if they peter off. The biggest reason to go on the ride seems to be the queue, and a couple of good animatronics, but there isn't that feeling of a magical experience on the ride.

The two rides were designed/conceptualized together several (eight-ish) years ago, and shared development costs (many millions).
There was no way to not build the MK one after the DCA one opened. Same with the one going into Shanghai. I expect the ride system and animated figures were built concurrently with the first two.

 

[Lee]

Duplicating Mermaid was a cheap way to get a new ride into FLE.

Not sure "cheap" is the correct term...
Mermaid at MK had a similar price tag to Forbidden Journey.

Lets just dwell on that thought for a while...

 

[danlb_2000]

Not sure "cheap" is the correct term...
Mermaid at MK had a similar price tag to Forbidden Journey.

Lets just dwell on that thought for a while...

That is truely disturbing!