"Frozen Ever After" or "Frozen Until It Breaks Again"?

[cgattis]

You guys are killing me...!!

 

[luvmarypoppins]

One of my ds friends posted on facebook tonight that they were on the Frozen ride today, it broke as they were going up and they had to be rescued by the Fire Dept?

I saw the pictures they posted but it was kind of dark.

 

[CS Torkelson]

One of my ds friends posted on facebook tonight that they were on the Frozen ride today, it broke as they were going up and they had to be rescued by the Fire Dept?

I saw the pictures they posted but it was kind of dark.

Oh man! That must have been quite an experience in itself.

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

A couple of people I've talked to who worked on or around the construction of FEA have said that it needed another 3 or 4 weeks of work, plus time for a real CM testing/soft open period. But, they didn't get that, so right now is basically it.

 

[mom2rtk]

A couple of people I've talked to who worked on or around the construction of FEA have said that it needed another 3 or 4 weeks of work, plus time for a real CM testing/soft open period. But, they didn't get that, so right now is basically it.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

It's seriously breaking down already? Sheesh. What has happened to Disney? From the Disco Yeti to the Sunken Rivers of Light and now the new Frozen ride is breaking? And the Frozen ride is just a reboot of the existing Maelstrom ride so you would think the ride mechanics would be sound so it must be the animatronics. I wonder if the imagineers are having their budgets reigned-in or they are trying to keep up with Universal's competition so much that they are trying to invent things that are just not possible. Lately it seems to take forever for Disney to get anything done OR they rush things and do not do them correctly. Something is wrong.

I think sometimes we underestimate just how difficult and complex these systems are.

Many years ago when I worked in IT at a manufacturing plant, we had IBM install a mechanic arm for changing out backup tapes. The old tapes were stored in a cabinet across the room. The arm was on a long pole that stretched the room and it would slide along the pole to the drive, fetch the old tape, file it away, get a new one and put it into the drive. At least, that was the theory. they installed it and were ready to do the first test run. Surrounding us were the CEO, CFO and CIO of the company and a host of VP's as well as a plethora of IBM techs. They turned on the new arm. The arm raised itself up.... thorough the ceiling. It then proceeded to tear along the pole at breakneck speeds tearing apart the ceiling until it hit a major powerline knocking out power to that entire section of the building. We all stood silently in the dark for about 30 seconds before the CIO quipped "What's is supposed to do next?"

Another time we were having a mechanical arm put in for warehouse picking. It was supposed to pick up glass tubes (kinda like test tubes) from a rack and put them gently into a carousel location. Everything looked great and the day came to start up the system. This was more low key - not as many big wigs. Nonetheless, the arm picks up the first glass tube, turns it vertical and SMASHES IT into the space. Being a smart arm, it picks up the next tube and SMASHES IT. It's concerned about numbers, so it gets a good 10 tubes before someone hit the kill switch.

These were all VERY SIMPLE systems. About as simple as you can get. Try to combine complex animitronics, sounds, lighting, boats, and everything else that goes into those rides, a few mechanical issues are bound to happen.

 

[kip0992]

Glitches are perfectly common with stuff like this, especially since it appears they didn't get a whole lot of testing or soft open time. Have they ever had an "official" grand opening?

Does Disney still do the "101" ride closures? Where if a key animatronic was down the whole ride closed (the auctioneer in PotC for example).

 

[Stacy's a freak]

I have no problem with the fact that very complicated equipment can have glitches and may not always work. But this thing was JUST opened and things are not working. This means that they didn't test it properly. So I still say that Disney is doing something wrong. Either they are not testing fully or not designing well. Don't open the thing until it works. If you're not ready, then you're going to look bad and you're going to be criticized.

 

[mom2rtk]

I have no problem with the fact that very complicated equipment can have glitches and may not always work. But this thing was JUST opened and things are not working. This means that they didn't test it properly. So I still say that Disney is doing something wrong. Either they are not testing fully or not designing well. Don't open the thing until it works. If you're not ready, then you're going to look bad and you're going to be criticized.

Well, they "only" had what..... 18 months to retheme a ride. Maybe we all expect too much.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

I think sometimes we underestimate just how difficult and complex these systems are.

Many years ago when I worked in IT at a manufacturing plant, we had IBM install a mechanic arm for changing out backup tapes. The old tapes were stored in a cabinet across the room. The arm was on a long pole that stretched the room and it would slide along the pole to the drive, fetch the old tape, file it away, get a new one and put it into the drive. At least, that was the theory. they installed it and were ready to do the first test run. Surrounding us were the CEO, CFO and CIO of the company and a host of VP's as well as a plethora of IBM techs. They turned on the new arm. The arm raised itself up.... thorough the ceiling. It then proceeded to tear along the pole at breakneck speeds tearing apart the ceiling until it hit a major powerline knocking out power to that entire section of the building. We all stood silently in the dark for about 30 seconds before the CIO quipped "What's is supposed to do next?"

Another time we were having a mechanical arm put in for warehouse picking. It was supposed to pick up glass tubes (kinda like test tubes) from a rack and put them gently into a carousel location. Everything looked great and the day came to start up the system. This was more low key - not as many big wigs. Nonetheless, the arm picks up the first glass tube, turns it vertical and SMASHES IT into the space. Being a smart arm, it picks up the next tube and SMASHES IT. It's concerned about numbers, so it gets a good 10 tubes before someone hit the kill switch.

These were all VERY SIMPLE systems. About as simple as you can get. Try to combine complex animitronics, sounds, lighting, boats, and everything else that goes into those rides, a few mechanical issues are bound to happen.

Great story - haha! I love that the CIO had a good sense of humor about things. I remember years and years ago when I was taking some pretty low level computer programming classes in college and my programs wouldn't work. I would literally compile and pray. It was awesome when it actually worked. But I often had to reboot because I was in an infinite loop which is crazy frustrating. I can only imagine the level of engineering these things require and do marvel at the things that can be done. But for the love of Pete, please test a ton before you release it.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I also use to work in IT writing software. No matter how much you test something with users, stress test it it always behaves differently on live day. We can never predict what users will do, real world stopping starting , weather etc. Best approach. Just expect it! Open it to public but tell people it is still in a test stage. That way they aren't disappointed and don't bank their whole day/vacation on it. Then when its stable go completely live. So maybe give out limited FP+ with caveats. Then slowly more, then a bit of standby...

Don't think day one the ride is not going to break down. It will! Plan for it. Have candy and drinks for people.

 

[winterwhite]

This is more like taking a program that is written and executed in FORTRAN and trying to lay a 2016 GUI over it, while running Windows 95.

The ride system dates back almost 30 years. The building is what it is - so you're working with an old framework and trying to do things that require precision timing, etc from a system that wasn't designed for that. While it would have been more expensive, it may have worked better to redo the entire ride from the water up, so to speak.

 

[DVCcurious]

Man, this thread is filled with a bunch of nerds.


All I know is that this proves that DISNEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!!!

VACATION RUINED!

 

[Liljo22]

It's seriously breaking down already? Sheesh. What has happened to Disney? From the Disco Yeti to the Sunken Rivers of Light and now the new Frozen ride is breaking? And the Frozen ride is just a reboot of the existing Maelstrom ride so you would think the ride mechanics would be sound so it must be the animatronics. I wonder if the imagineers are having their budgets reigned-in or they are trying to keep up with Universal's competition so much that they are trying to invent things that are just not possible. Lately it seems to take forever for Disney to get anything done OR they rush things and do not do them correctly. Something is wrong.

New rides break down and that is why they usually do a soft opening so that they can test the systems with a full load and take the ride down to make adjustments. Disney did not have a soft opening for this ride and is fixing everything on the fly. Mistake on Disney's part.

Even with a soft opening though the ride was going to have issues because it would go from sporadic usage to 12-13 hours of usage. Universal had a soft opening for Grignotts and still had major problems the first week of opening. The ride had a sensitive emergency stop and takes 45 minutes to reboot. It was evacuated several times that first week and was closed as much as it was open. We were there months after it was opened and it shut down 3 times the day I was there.

 

[serenitynow]

FEA - Frozen Ever Attempted ?

 

[jknc]

I've seen this elsewhere but is making this a walk through attraction such a horrible idea?

 

[CS Torkelson]

This is more like taking a program that is written and executed in FORTRAN and trying to lay a 2016 GUI over it, while running Windows 95.

The ride system dates back almost 30 years. The building is what it is - so you're working with an old framework and trying to do things that require precision timing, etc from a system that wasn't designed for that. While it would have been more expensive, it may have worked better to redo the entire ride from the water up, so to speak.

Interesting idea.

 

[geenerbell]

Interesting few tidbits I've learned about FEA over the course of the last few days, so I thought I'd share what I could.

This may go without saying but the ride apparently wasn't even fully ready by 6/21 for opening. They hadn't finished all of their tests, but given what happened with RoL and PR in general lately, they insisted that it was going to open on 6/21. CM training was also rushed apparently, so they're still trying to figure out the optimal FP+ to standby ratio.

As a result of not having this ratio down, Disney has restrained itself a bit with FP+ distribution for this attraction (thank goodness, can you imagine if they hadn't!). According to Josh from easyWDW.com, they haven't distributed any FP+s for before 11am for this attraction from July 1 and beyond, so he says it's a possibility that some more may become available. He also put together a fantastic chart of wait times and downtime (that or when it was not accepting standby are in red) for FEA's first week (warning: not pretty). Here's the link to that.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl-w0F8WMAE38wH.jpg:large

Also, on a related note, I've heard from a number of solid sources and first-hand reports that Disney has been playing with grossly exagerating the posted standby wait lately. This was not the case over the course of FEA's first few days of operation, but I've seen quite a few reports from different times and days over the weekend of waits being posted of 180+ minutes and standby guests finding actual waits to be blow 45 minutes. I guess the goal here is to keep it open so it remains an option for people so they don't complain but to keep the wait so high that most people balk at the posted wait and do something else. Not saying that a high posted wait at FEA guarantees a much shorter actual wait but if you're willing to take the risk, it might be worthwhile. Not sure if this is something they'll be continuing though, so I'll keep everyone updated.

WOW!! That's a lot of pink!!

 

[JimmyV]

Disney did not have a soft opening for this ride and is fixing everything on the fly. Mistake on Disney's part.

Disney got too cute for its own good. "Earth Day" seemed like the perfect time to get Rivers of Light up and running, and they pushed for that and failed. The first day of Summer seemed like the perfect time to open up Sommerhaus and the new ride. They pushed for that and failed. They need to take a deep breath and work on getting things ready organically instead of trying to rush to meet "cute" deadlines. As bad as this seems, it is nothing compared to how long it took Test Track to become fully operational from the date of the first CM test rides to actually opening to the public. I know it was a long time coming, and while I don't take Wiki as an authority, here is what it has to say:

Test Track soft-opened to the public December 19, 1998 after a long delay due to problems revealed during testing and changes to the ride design which prevented the ride from opening on its original date, May 1997. Instead, the attraction officially opened on March 17, 1999.

FEA could see a similar fate. But the problem gets compounded when they try and try and try to have it fully operational when it isn't there yet, and is made even worse by "promising" people rides by doling out FPs. They should take this off of the FP grid and "soft open" it until they get it right. We are nowhere near the level of futility shown by Test Track. But the frustration level seems higher due to unmet expectations.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

this thing was JUST opened and things are not working. This means that they didn't test it properly. So I still say that Disney is doing something wrong. Either they are not testing fully or not designing well.

Hate to disagree, but that's just not true in the IT world. I just got finished talking to sales about a bid where a client wants "always up" which they defined as "they want to walk into the core room and unplug the entire system and everything stays working with zero data loss". That's high availability to an extreme level. Can it be done? technically; it can - but at a significant loss to performance (meaning it will be slower). Plus, we are talking HUGE dollar amounts. The kinds that a small country would balk at. I guarantee in a week or two we will be having talks about "reasonable downtime" and defining what reasonable is - 1 second? 1 minute? 30 minutes? what's your pain?

All of this known downtime aside, the simple fact of IT is that you cannot plan for EVERYTHING. We test and test and test. As mentioned - we test according to the level of failure we are willing to accept. No matter how much we test, we CAN'T find everything in complex systems with sometimes hundreds of thousand or millions of lines of code and dozens of systems all coordinating activities. there are just too many interactions, too many unknowns, too many modeling problems compared to real world scenarios.

No one works in infinite budgets. We work in probabilities. We routinely make decisions about what costs we are willing to accept in terms of downtime to the cost of making something always work. A major factor in that is the criticality of the system in question. We accept less failure in systems that protect human lives (or put lives at risk if they fail) than we do on ones that are convenience items. There is far more risk in the breaking of a safety harness then in Elsa's arm waving about for example.

Entertainment systems are by nature not critical infrastructure. In the words of Jurassic Park, "The pirates don't eat the guests when the ride breaks down" (although it would make for a more interesting ride). It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Disney in fact had a formula for how much is costs them for a ride to break down for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, etc - both in the costs of operating numbers and in public relations. We do - and use it all the time to determine acceptable down times. (Somewhere in the accounting offices that I am not privy to, I am sure there are even numbers for how much a life costs for those critical systems).

Even with all that, we factor in that when we "go live", we will ALWAYS have failures. It WILL happen. The main thing we have to decide is what the level of probability of failure we are willing to accept is and to which systems. It's a difficult choice and I am sure that there were similar conversations had in Disney where they determined and accepted a level of risk given the potential costs involved. Make no mistake - Disney didn't do anything "improperly". They took a risk based on a statistic that they were willing to accept.