Do You Think They Will/Should Close Frozen Until They Can Get it Working Properly?

[jenniy122]

Also you guys, Maelstrom had never seen the workload that's now being put on it's track/vehicles. A total tear out and new ride would've taken longer and cost more, stupid from the business perspective when Disney wants to capitalize on Frozen Fever. Anyone that visits Disney/any theme park often has probably noticed that rides break down way more often during the busy seasons. Longer hours+more people/weight+more times around = more wear and more malfunctions on the systems.

 

[Lucky Rabbit]

More people would probably complain if they shut it down.

 

[warrenz1963]

The Armchair Imagineering here and on other Disney fan sites never ceases to entertain me. I don't think I've ever had a day at a theme park, Disney or otherwise, where something didn't stop working for a period of time. It just happens, and especially with new attractions with cutting edge technology. They could close FEA for another year to work on it and guess what? When it's reopened it will still break down some times. The perfect theme park experience some people expect doesn't exist, it never did.

 

[hakepb]

Making a huge deal out of a new attraction and having it breakdown from day 1 is simply "bad show." In an age where nearly any potential WDW guest has internet access, is it really necessary to hype an opening date months in advance? Why not build it, test it, and do a continuous soft open and promote it to death after they've established that it will operate reliably?

FP+ is the problem.

You need a 40+ day lead time before an "official" opening otherwise you crash the parks FP+ system with 2 months worth of guests getting FP* all at the same time.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I wonder why they had to have CMs ride in the boats all night testing it if the problem is the animatronics. I would think they could test that without running boats using the cameras etc.

 

[mom2rtk]

FP+ is the problem.

You need a 40+ day lead time before an "official" opening otherwise you crash the parks FP+ system with 2 months worth of guests getting FP* all at the same time.

Plus, you can't turn off distribution during outages when they were all given out 60 days ago.

From the guest's standpoint, this is far worse, because if the ride goes down and that FP return line backs up to 2 hours, you really have to wait it out or give up on riding. Because you can't rearrange plans and come get one tomorrow instead.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

IMO they might have been able to get away with at least some delay while trying to work out the larger kinks (assuming it's a combination of things leading to issues) but after ROL (and subsequent rush to get SOMETHING up with Jungle Book) debacle PR-wise they really couldn't. Rides in general tend to have issues when they first open that is nothing new but for most people it's a mystery why this one is having so many issues because the track is the same as Maelstrom though I know the AA's are having some big issues. I think at this point many people are just plain frustrated with Disney (the cutbacks, the price increases, the delays on things, etc).

 

[sgtdisney]

Makes me wonder if it's at least partially related to Disney firing a bunch of their seasoned IT folks and replacing them with inexpensive H-1B off-shore staff. Sometimes you do get what you pay for... Just saying..

 

[tripletmomsrock]

So if you have a fastpass to the ride and it breaks down, what happens? Do it just clog up the ride later? This seems like a disaster.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

So if you have a fastpass to the ride and it breaks down, what happens? Do it just clog up the ride later? This seems like a disaster.

That's what happened on 7DMT when it was down over an hour. The fp line was almost as bad as the standby. That said, I would much rather they fix it before they rush to open. I get it that things break down but usually not that much. When we were there in May, both FEA and ROL were supposed to be open. They weren't, but that didn't ruin my vacation. I don't view Disney as a thrill ride theme park. I view it as an experience. The experience is ruined when the ride breaks down, either losing the special effects that make the ride or breaking the flow of the "story" being told in the attraction. Also, I don't particularly like being stuck on a ride, especially for a long period of time like we were last time we were there. Before that ride, DGD 5 loved Figment. Now, I don't think she ever wants to see him again.

 

[joelkfla]

Makes me wonder if it's at least partially related to Disney firing a bunch of their seasoned IT folks and replacing them with inexpensive H-1B off-shore staff. Sometimes you do get what you pay for... Just saying..

Haven't there been cuts in Imagineering as well during the last couple of years? And often the more senior people are let go because they're making more -- but unfortunately they also have the most knowledge.

 

[Boski]

It was actually fun working in the wee hours. Did get a bit old after an hour or so though

Any way you might be able to give us a clue to what seems to be going wrong with it?

 

[Boski]

The Armchair Imagineering here and on other Disney fan sites never ceases to entertain me. I don't think I've ever had a day at a theme park, Disney or otherwise, where something didn't stop working for a period of time. It just happens, and especially with new attractions with cutting edge technology. They could close FEA for another year to work on it and guess what? When it's reopened it will still break down some times. The perfect theme park experience some people expect doesn't exist, it never did.

Sure it will break down sometimes, but every day? It seems like there are several Disney attractions that are constantly plagued by issues and are down daily for some period of time.

 

[JimmyV]

"Guest Recovery" for those waiting in the long lines is that "Vikings" are roaming the lines while grunting at guests. Seriously! My response to that info was, "What??"

I can't get the image of Ragnar and company roaming through the line out of my head.

Although I'd pay to have Lagertha come up to me in line.

 

[HatboxHaint]

The Armchair Imagineering here and on other Disney fan sites never ceases to entertain me. I don't think I've ever had a day at a theme park, Disney or otherwise, where something didn't stop working for a period of time. It just happens, and especially with new attractions with cutting edge technology. They could close FEA for another year to work on it and guess what? When it's reopened it will still break down some times. The perfect theme park experience some people expect doesn't exist, it never did.

Them's fightin words! But I don't really feel like leaving the comfy-ness of my armchair right now....

 

[matheke]

If it was the combination of water rides and electricity, shouldn't Pirates and Splash Mountain then be a problem too?

Pirates and Splash Mountain had a huge amount of downtime after each refurb.. The electricity I am talking about are small digital signals that can be anywhere from 1/2 to 5 volts. That is what is running everything, and a drop of water in the wrong place, or even condensation in the wrong place can cause these signals to stop and shut everything down. A small nick on a wire, a poor solder job, or even wires/signals crossed can happen very easily.

And then there are the fiber optics (If being used), which is a whole other set of problem.

 

[atricks]

Flat out shouldn't have opened with fp+ until proven. Grigotts/hogwarts didnt open with express.

 

[mom2rtk]

Pirates and Splash Mountain had a huge amount of downtime after each refurb.. The electricity I am talking about are small digital signals that can be anywhere from 1/2 to 5 volts. That is what is running everything, and a drop of water in the wrong place, or even condensation in the wrong place can cause these signals to stop and shut everything down. A small nick on a wire, a poor solder job, or even wires/signals crossed can happen very easily.

And then there are the fiber optics (If being used), which is a whole other set of problem.

If it's to be expected, then shouldn't Disney have........ expected it?

For them to distribute every day's full allocation of FPs from opening day onward seems like a poor choice if outages are just to be expected.

 

[Accident]

I haven't really been paying attention to exactly how much it's been down but I don't see a problem leaving it opened. If your willing to stand around 5 hours and this is your only chance to experience it, it sounds like it's working well enough to make that frozen fan happy.

The no fastpass+ right now I do agree with as it's annoying if your willing to wait but told you can't because it was broken for a few hours so there is only room for fastpass+ now.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

The Armchair Imagineering here and on other Disney fan sites never ceases to entertain me. I don't think I've ever had a day at a theme park, Disney or otherwise, where something didn't stop working for a period of time. It just happens, and especially with new attractions with cutting edge technology. They could close FEA for another year to work on it and guess what? When it's reopened it will still break down some times. The perfect theme park experience some people expect doesn't exist, it never did.

"Armchair Imagineering" is what we DO on the Theme park board. What should we be talking about? The weather (oh yeah, we do that too).

But seriously, Disney is the leader IMHO of theme park management and if you and everyone else knows ride openings never go smoothly why didn't they? They should never have opened FP+ until the ride could handle that number of passengers smoothly.

No one is expecting perfection on opening except management, or maybe they weren't and didn't care about the guest experience.