PeoplemoverMatt

Well this new Springfield Heights update looks mildly interesting. The land beyond the mountains has been opened up!

The immense selection of coasters during SFMM ERT is the virtual lock for the credits that you're looking for. There's no reason to believe you won't be able to ride the rest of the coasters that aren't in either ERT session during the regular operating day. In mid-September all the schools are running again and it'll still be pretty hot by then. Crowds should be at a reasonably low level.

Psyclone, Flashback, Freefall, Original Colossus, Deja Vu, Log Jammer...

I would say it's more like a sign that the TC ride staff currently handles smaller crowds better than larger ones.

I can't imagine anyone waiting an hour *just* for these changes, or any other little changes. That is beyond comprehension. For me the question is more akin to asking if the experience people are waiting an hour for has improved after the changes. My answer is 100% yes. The changes enhance the existing ride. They did not make Peter Pan a whole new and different ride. Most certainly they are worth checking out.

I enjoyed the improvements done to both. Soarin's ride film has never looked better. Riding it now is similar to watching your favorite movie in HD for the first time while remembering what it used to look like in the VHS days. I've noticed little details here & there that I never noticed before. The sea lions actually look like sea lions and not little barking blobs, etc. All the colors pop so much more now. Yosemite and other scenes don't have anywhere near as much fuzzball look as they used to. You can almost read everything on the fighter jets as you fly over the aircraft carrier. If you're familiar with how Blu-ray quality improves the look of skies, flesh tones, colors, landscapes etc, that's mostly what you're going to notice with Soarin' now. Between that and the new Grizzly Peak Air Field outside, it's an enormous improvement. Peter Pan really looks great. The bedroom scene's new effects have added a lot. The flight over London is the best and most active than I've ever seen. If you look quickly at Big Ben, you can see the characters landing on the arms in the clockface. Kids get a kick out of little details like that. The Indian chief didn't speak. Hopefully that was just a one-time thing for me and wasn't some permanent change done in the name of political correctness. The new pixie dust effect towards the end of the ride was pretty cool to see. Overall, there aren't any real changes done to the ride. Everything in it and about it looks better than it ever has before. If this is indicative of where Disney dark rides are going, the future of dark rides looks really bright (pardon the pun).

Um, no they're not. The hydraulic movements are pre-programmed and fire off sequentially through the circuit.

But Robb, don't you understand? Replacing the door with projection mapping effects clearly shows Disney has abandoned all sense of quality, has abandoned its post as the leader in theme park innovation, and never tries to wow people anymore! Earlier today somebody came up to me and demanded to know how/why Disney just got a 30 year exemption from paying taxes. Any taxes. All taxes. The person had read some National Enquirer-style blurb about the Anaheim tax deal that was full of sensationalism and misinformation, yet believed it to the point of visible outrage. People around here are really thick sometimes...

According to that same article, the projects are expected to add only $15 mil/year to Anaheim's tax rolls by Disney estimates. In other words: Anaheim got screwed. $15 million seems like a lot now, but I suspect if current crowds continue...the city is going to be spending a lot more on city services to deal with it all. My guess is they'll try a parking tax or some other way to squeeze money out of the tourism industry or someone will sue to overturn this if/when the need arises for those taxes. That paints a rather bleak picture. You're basically saying the 3 council members who voted yes intentionally screwed over their city because Disney funded their re-election. Now Anaheim won't have the tax money it needs to deal with the additional crowds that come from this expansion. From the article, things don't seem that bleak to me. According to the article, Disney paid $56 million in taxes to Anaheim last year, and apparently everything's been fine. A $15 million addition is a more than 25% increase - a fairly big jump. There would have to be a rather enormous corresponding jump in city services to negate or even overcome that increase. When you consider that another parking structure is supposedly going to be included, I have a hard time imagining that's going to happen. If the parking structure isn't built, and police need to be called in to handle snarled traffic on a regular basis, or other business suffer because of choked roads, then that might be a possibility. Let's also not forget the kind of people who were opposed to the deal: When this kind of ridiculousness abounds, I wouldn't really expect them to know what a "good deal" for the city even is.

Jeez...with those sorts of crowds, I really hope people have a way to stay hydrated and out of the sun. It's been pretty darn hot - 90s and 100s - and humid by CA standards around here lately.

If the entire building is gutted, there's a ton of space in there. A Star Wars walkthrough attraction that had immersive rooms and reveals similar to the Narnia walkthrough at DHS would be great. Narnia wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but something akin to that with Star Wars would make people go nuts. Of course they could just put a big sign that said "Star Wars" on the side of the building, call it a day, and people would still go nuts.

It gets even more depressing when you realize between original Colossus and Twisted Colossus, this park has had multiple decades to learn/train how to load & release trains for racing/dueling. It should be old hat, and yet, every day is as though this is the first racing/dueling coaster ever built, and they're trying to figure it out or they've just given up. Sad.

AP Entertainment

I think Walt Disney World needs to have a word with the OC Register.

Well a Saturday in August is a super busy day in most parks. How bad is *bad* at SDC?

Well you didn't quote a post but I figured you were replying to the post above yours which called the current pace of the chain repair ludicrous, and stated the park has no real interest in quickly repairing the chain since a closed ride means less money spent on labor. Your post implied if repairs were being done faster, guests would be put at risk. I don't know how you can know that. EDIT: Missed the post about the inspection findings. A separate problem does take more time, but an additional 3 months of downtime only furthers the frustrations people have about that park.

So you know for certain fact that there is no possible way that Goliath's lift chain could be repaired any faster without disregarding safety of the riders? I'd be interested to know how you know that.

I can see people familiar with the ride getting used to the airtime to where it's not as much of a shock and feels more "routine" to their mind. For me, coming from CA where we have no *real* airtime that we're aware of, I don't think that will be a problem.

I guess I don't see it as nothing. Obviously new effects aren't a completely new ride, but I have to disagree with this new ride or nothing mentality. What's been done to the Matterhorn recently isn't nothing. It isn't Cars Land but it isn't nothing. Same goes for new stuff in Indy, redone Space Mountain, redone Thunder Mountain, redone Star Tours, redone Small World, redone Pirates, Mansion + Hatbox, Astro Blasters, Nemo Subs, etc. Star Tours and Nemo Subs are almost completely new rides. Why shouldn't they be marketed? Even a ride on the train seems much better now than it was before with the new sound upgrades. All these things are not nothing to me because they all help to better my visit. You may have answered your own question by citing DCA's overhaul causing the place to be bursting with crowds. There's a lot more money to be made from causing bursting crowds across two parks rather than just one.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see replacing the moving door effect with projection mapping effects as a lowering of show standards. If asked, I would say I prefer practical effects over projection mappings as well. That said, I did not perceive any drop in ride quality when I saw the projections instead of the moving door. Obviously some people aren't going to like the change. A change in effects is often decried on the 'net for being lowering of standards, beneath Disney, unnecessarily going cheap, etc and sometimes it's worthwhile because there's been obvious drop in quality. Not the case here, IMO. The new effects are creative even in the sense that they utilize the existing décor above the door. Mara is absolutely better thanks to the added projections. You can choose which one you prefer. Ultimately I'd like to see both used, but I would disagree that any standards have been lowered. As for the remark about a new ride, the post I quoted completely overlooked all that has been spent on keeping many of the classics just as good or better than they've ever been over the past 20 years. Of course Disneyland could use a brand, new E-ticket people eater. I would love to see that. But let's not think there hasn't been anything the least bit new over that period of time. Nearly all of Disneyland's classic rides have been upgraded and enhanced while $1 Billion+ in new and improved now sits across the Esplanade in DCA. That post sounded like Disneyland has done nothing but sit back and "milk the cow" which is completely 100% false. That's where the post sounded entitled to me. Ignoring everything and complaining because it wasn't a *completely brand new ride* a very old, tired argument and sounded like a kid complaining about only 32 birthday presents because he got 33 presents last year. Of course it's fair to question, but here you're looking at overhauls as evidence of lowered standards and not necessary to combat the effects of simple deterioration over time. Many of these rides were built in the 1960s and 70s. How long should we expect them to last before needing an overhaul? Should they not be upgraded with new sound and effects technology?

Clearly you have no idea how much money it costs to keep a ride like Indiana Jones and all its effects working up to Disney's show standards. There comes a point when it just doesn't make sense to keep filling the money pit. As for the old, tired argument that Disneyland hasn't had a "new" E-ticket in 20 years, what you're saying is you'd like to have a couple new rides while all the treasured classics like Matterhorn, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Small World, Peter Pan, etc who've all gone through extensive expensive lengthy refurbishments in that time go completely to rot, right? And I guess we should just completely ignore all that awesome improvement done across the Esplanade with BV St, Cars Land, Mermaid, Midway Mania, Tower of Terror, and everything else simply because it wasn't built within Walt's berm. None of that improved any bit of one's day at Disneyland. Nope, not at all. I just don't understand this sense of entitlement some people have...

Just found out I'll have a chance to visit SDC for the first time this August! Catch is, I'll only be able to stay from park opening until about Noon. Anyone have any advice for a first timer who's going to need to maximize time, other than the obvious running to Outlaw Run at opening?

Disney also has a much larger labor budget, and a completely different outlook on the values of different levels of ride staffing.

Don't forget the terrible PC police. A banner that read "English Speaking Wednesday" would be immediately branded racist.