Zip-a-dee-doo-BLAH, let's track its progress

[Thrill Seeker]

This is why Splash get's a refurb every year... it needs it. This year focused almost entirely on the lap bars, so most of the other stuff was not really touched. The 3rd gopher should be back on now. I know why He was off...

 

[Fantasmic]

The 3rd gopher should be back on now. I know why He was off...

Do you care to share?

 

[ntoeman]

This is really unfortunate to hear. A year ago now I was riding Splash almost every week and was shocked to see so much working and looking good! Now it's sad to hear it's in a near complete opposite shape. Hope something happens sooner than a January rehab!

 

[Fantasmic]

Hope something happens sooner than a January rehab!

As long as it's not down in September when I go!!!

 

[Captain Chaos]

I think it's great Kevin wrote this. When you consider Splash was down for a refurb in January, it should be all the more embarassing for TDO and Park Management. This being said I would love to see Jason Garcia write something about it as well in the Orlando Sentinel. The more pressure that can be placed on management, the more chance of seeing a real change and maybe better and stricter preventative maintenance procedures being put into place, something has to spark a change.

When i saw this thread, first thing I thought about was contacting Jason Garcia and pointing this thread out to him. He'll have no problem calling Disney out on this. In fact, I think an email will be sent.

 

[mp2bill]

Did the OP have a pen and notepad while riding? That's a lot of stuff to remember. Well, hopefully whatever's very noticeable is fixed soon (or at least by the next time I visit WDW).

 

[PlutoGoof9122]

I also was in WDW last week and rode Splash a couple of times and to be completely honest I was kind of ashamed to ride it. Every time I went through the ride I just shook my head at the poor showing it had. I noticed much of the things on the list and I can't believe Disney does not notice them or even care to notice them. Splash is one of the biggest attractions in Magic Kingdom and for people like me who know how the ride should be, the state it was in last week when I rode was an embarrassment. Now if you were a first time rider or didn't know the ride, you may not see it. But little things like the bees not spinning around the hives or the faded paint are things non frequent visitors are going to see.

This ride I would say def. needs a lenghty refurb of longer than a month at least. Fix the AA's, get some fresh paint, and do everything they can to get it back to show ready. If I were Walt Disney right now, I would have that ride shut down with how the quality is right now.

 

[dxwwf3]

And for anyone who thinks this thread and the posts are an exaggeration, please go ride the attraction and see for yourself. I always expect one or two things to not be working on Splash Mountain, but I can't imagine the ride being in any worse shape than it is right now. Seriously.

 

[PlutoGoof9122]

And for anyone who thinks this thread and the posts are an exaggeration, please go ride the attraction and see for yourself. I always expect one or two things to not be working on Splash Mountain, but I can't imagine the ride being in any worse shape than it is right now. Seriously.

I will second that motion, nowhere near an exaggeration.

 

[diddy_mouse]

This is one of my favorite attractions in the whole park and it saddens me to see it in the state it's in. Granted, I saw it last year but from the list of things that aren't operational I'm not surprised. I realize the most recent refurb was for the logs themselves, installing the lap bars and such, but I would really like to see this attraction looking a little tighter. I mean even in the limited amount of pictures that I saw during the refub the whole mountain was looking shabby.

Here's hoping something will be done in the not too distant future.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

Aside from AAs, has anyone else noticed a VERY rough bump? I'm not terribly familiar with the ride layout, but I think it's at the top of a small lift hill close to the beginning before you enter any of the major show scenes. It was really bad; I first noticed it the first or second day after the ride came up from refurb this year, and it was also there in May. It was bad enough in January that I thought the ride would go down again because of it and the logs would fall apart doing dozens of times a day for a whole year!

 

[Imagineer zack]

hahaha me to so i hope its a little better its kinda depressing to hear about this kinda stuff in disney

 

[RandySavage]

Disney needs to give the boot to whoever is in charge of maintenance.

From what I've read, WDW's maintenance requirements overwhelm its current staff & budget (which apparently is a fraction of what it once was). If this is true, it falls on WDW President Cindy Harris, and she should be the one given the boot (or whomever hold the reigns over capital allocation: Weiss? Staggs?).

It's unacceptable.

 

[MaryJaneP]

Seems to me that some of these may be intermittent problems. When I rode at start of last trip, I noticed alot of the non-fuctioning items mentioned. It saddened me to see so many characters motionless and/or bent over. I mentioned this to CMs at end of ride and they seemed shocked and surprised. They told me it was a bunch of circuit breakers that needed to be reset to power the characters. I rode Splash again later in the same trip and everything was working fine. I am not against maintenance/rehab, but I think it is not consistently bad. I definitely would like it to be consistently good.

 

[tirian]

And for anyone who thinks this thread and the posts are an exaggeration, please go ride the attraction and see for yourself. I always expect one or two things to not be working on Splash Mountain, but I can't imagine the ride being in any worse shape than it is right now. Seriously.

I will second that motion, nowhere near an exaggeration.

Exactly. I don't think I have ever seen a Disney attraction needing maintenance this badly, not even the COP.

The list and Kevin's article aren't nitpicky exaggerations at all. Splash Mountain is in terrible shape, and has been for almost a month.

From what I've read, WDW's maintenance requirements overwhelm its current staff & budget (which apparently is a fraction of what it once was). If this is true, it falls on WDW President Cindy Harris, and she should be the one given the boot (or whomever hold the reigns over capital allocation: Weiss? Staggs?).

I have heard the same thing. Yet only the MK seems to suffer; at EPCOT this morning everything was fine. Even Soarin' was wonderfully dust-free.

I am not against maintenance/rehab, but I think it is not consistently bad. I definitely would like it to be consistently good.

Splash Mountain has been consistently bad for weeks now. It must be more than a series of circuit breakers. :shrug:

 

[HMF]

From what I've read, WDW's maintenance requirements overwhelm its current staff & budget (which apparently is a fraction of what it once was). If this is true, it falls on WDW President Cindy Harris, and she should be the one given the boot (or whomever hold the reigns over capital allocation: Weiss? Staggs?).

It's unacceptable.

Former Disneyland President Cynthia Harris has been gone from the company for years. Al Weiss, Erin Wallace and Meg (Clueless) Crofton should be the ones getting the boot.

 

[Tom]

If it was like this when it re-opened at the end of January, I didn't notice...and I usually notice details. But then again, it had been over 2 years since I'd ridden it because we're often there during its annual refurb. We were there the day it re-opened this year, and I may have been more fixated on the lap bars than the scenes.

But at the same time, if the number of things listed in Post #1 were broken when I rode it, I would have noticed at least SOME of them. This serious decline must have happened in the past few months.

I don't understand how they can take a ride down for a month every year and not get it to work and look perfect. I know a few years ago, they repainted the entire mountain and replaced the lifts. I can only imagine they spent a few dollars on fixing the animated figures, or adjusting some lights. Of course, the lights could be getting mis-aimed when night maintenance workers are changing gels or bulbs.

I also remind myself when riding Splash Mountain that most of the characters are "animated figures" as opposed to actual Audio Animatronics. They're simple figures with small ranges of motion. The design of the scenes in SM are such that there is SO much going on, most people don't tend to fixate on individual figures. You can ride it a hundred times and still not see all the details (much like any Disney attraction).

But again, if the OP and Kevin aren't exaggerating, it's a darn shame.

 

[SeaCastle]

After 9/11, management laid off a lot of maintenancd workers. I'm not sure if it affected Frontierland, but in Animal Kingdom, the layoffs are at least partially responsible for the poor state of Everest and Dinosaur, where maintenance is spread so thin that they can't fix broken effects.

If Splash has really been this bad for so long, why hasn't anyone bothered to make a stink about it before Kevin did? Either way, I'm glad this is getting some press. Pirates and Jungle Cruise reportedly have had recent upticks in maintenance, while Big Thunder and Splash are in terrible shape. Let's hope Disney gets it together.

 

[_Scar]

I find it ironic he uses a picture of Suess Island as to say IoA has no theme "slouch". Suess is one of the worst conditions, and Toon Lagoon is in even worse condition. Dudley is actually the worst area of a theme park I've ever seen.

And since when did Splash just stop working? Off day? Everything was great when I went, but that was 5 months ago.

 

[RandySavage]

Former Disneyland President Cynthia Harris has been gone from the company for years. Al Weiss, Erin Wallace and Meg (Clueless) Crofton should be the ones getting the boot.

Thanks for the correction.. Crofton's the one I meant.