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[ightenhill]

The bird was actually removed last week when we were there..yetis working fine Animatronic and the projections.. steam on trains is still not working, however yopu can see it's not turned off as you can see it attempting to work under the engine in the station but when the train pulls out it looks like the release valve is constantly leaking it out, so when it does open there's none left..

And if they are having these maintenance issues after just three years, imagine how the ride will look like in 10 or 20 years...

Fair point but how's that relevent and what are you measuring it against.. I would not expect any complex ride to not need maintenance unless they have re invented the wheel .. And you certainly can't say it was better in the good old days; most rides always had issues in the good old days, we just tend to gloss over it..
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Oct 09 TR
Day 0ne - Journey & EPCOT
Day Two - Studios
Day Two eve - Narcoossees
Day Three - Animal Kingdom
Day Four - EPCOT
Day Four Eve - Coral Reef

[Timbo]

I think  with a lot of effects on rides is that they aren't aware of the problems till they ride has been in operation for a few months.So the first time people ride an attraction with all the effects running it is great,and then over time they realise the steam and fog are causing problems , or an animatronic was too ambitious ; and everything has to be scaled back ! Therefore everyone sees it as a huge set back ! Look at our own Dragon in DLP , he used to breath fire till they realised an animatronic failure meant he would set the guests alight !!!
I am not trying to excuse the Imagineers , just that some things only become apparent over time.A lot of rides are built trying to be bigger and better than anything before it and don't always work out !! No one more than me ,wishes attractions were as good as when they first opened !!

[candydog]

For those of you saying that Splash Mountain wouldn't be relevant because of it's "Song of the South" theming, i have to say you're wrong. It may be on TV once a year in the UK, but still I doubt most families in the UK have ever seen it unless they happen to own it's only VHS release from the 90s.

Song of the South however, is in my opinion not what brings visitors to Splash Mountain. You can pretty much guarantee that anyone going on Splash Mountain is boarding the ride because they can plainly see that it's a great traditional theme park log flume. A fun water ride. Most people don't even know that there's even a theme to it I bet! Maybe a water ride of the same type with a different theme would be popular, but at the end of the day even if Song of the South has essentially vanished from Disney's lineup of family movies, people will still go to a theme park on a hot day and look for a water ride. A huge mountain with a big drop into a lake? Who cares what the theme is!

[Timbo]

For those of you saying that Splash Mountain wouldn't be relevant because of it's "Song of the South" theming, i have to say you're wrong. It may be on TV once a year in the UK, but still I doubt most families in the UK have ever seen it unless they happen to own it's only VHS release from the 90s.

Song of the South however, is in my opinion not what brings visitors to Splash Mountain. You can pretty much guarantee that anyone going on Splash Mountain is boarding the ride because they can plainly see that it's a great traditional theme park log flume. A fun water ride. Most people don't even know that there's even a theme to it I bet! Maybe a water ride of the same type with a different theme would be popular, but at the end of the day even if Song of the South has essentially vanished from Disney's lineup of family movies, people will still go to a theme park on a hot day and look for a water ride. A huge mountain with a big drop into a lake? Who cares what the theme is!

I think that is relevant for a lot of rides though, how many kids nowadays have seen Snow White or Pinnochio ,it is about the experience of the ride and its story that makes it so enjoyable ! POTC was a great ride that had no relevance to any film for years but people love it ,one of the parks most popular always !!

[davewasbaloo]

Absolutely Timbo. Disney's best rides - Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, PotC, IASW, Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise etc. were built without a tie in to Disney films and became huge successes.

How many character based attractions are "Must ride" experiences?

[candydog]

For those of you saying that Splash Mountain wouldn't be relevant because of it's "Song of the South" theming, i have to say you're wrong. It may be on TV once a year in the UK, but still I doubt most families in the UK have ever seen it unless they happen to own it's only VHS release from the 90s.

Song of the South however, is in my opinion not what brings visitors to Splash Mountain. You can pretty much guarantee that anyone going on Splash Mountain is boarding the ride because they can plainly see that it's a great traditional theme park log flume. A fun water ride. Most people don't even know that there's even a theme to it I bet! Maybe a water ride of the same type with a different theme would be popular, but at the end of the day even if Song of the South has essentially vanished from Disney's lineup of family movies, people will still go to a theme park on a hot day and look for a water ride. A huge mountain with a big drop into a lake? Who cares what the theme is!

I think that is relevant for a lot of rides though, how many kids nowadays have seen Snow White or Pinnochio ,it is about the experience of the ride and its story that makes it so enjoyable ! POTC was a great ride that had no relevance to any film for years but people love it ,one of the parks most popular always !!

Actually, Snow White and Pinocchio as rides ARE popular for the theming. People don't get on those rides thinking "hmmmm a ride, what a thrill.... who's snow white?" they get on with the kids thinking "hey a snow white ride". In the case of dark rides like that it IS the theming which brings visitors to it, because that's basically what those rides are all about: the story.

Splash Mountain on the other hand brings visitors to it because it's a log flume. They go more for the ride than the story.

In fact I think even POTC was popular for it's theming, I mean sure there was no movie version back then, but everyone went on it because it looked like a fun ride about Pirates, and everyone knows about pirates!

As for how many kids have seen Snow White or Pinnochio, I'd have to say probably a few hundred thousand times the amount who've ever seen Song of the South. The idea that you think they aren't well known to today's kids is ridiculous! Pinocchio had a major DVD release early this year and Snow White's release is next week! And regardless of that Snow White in particular has a huge fan following selling merchandise by the truckload every year thanks to the Princess franchise. I understand your point that theming being unimportant is relevant to a lot of rides, but I think in the case of those two you picked extremely poor examples, as they're among the rides in the park in which the theming IS the ride.

[Timbo]

I think I didn't make my point very clear , I was trying to say that a good ride will work regardless of the characters involved ,hence POTC where no one recognises any of the figures .Snow White and Pinocchio are great and everyone loves them because they are beautifully themed and tell a great story and everyone enjoys the experience;and although Pinocchio and Snow White are very popular ,I agree,where would you buy Pinocchio merchandise nowadays apart from the Parks and Disney stores.It is the Pixar films that are heavily promoted nowadays and I was kind of refering to that as opposed to the Disney classics.Children today are more aware of Toy Story than Dumbo  or Alice in Wonderland!!!You can go into any Asda and Tesco and pick up a Buzz Lightyear but think you might struggle to find something with the Seven Dwarfs on it !
Where is our Little Mermaid ride that was promised at the Park opening ? Or the Beauty and the Beast attraction ,instead 15 years later it is Buzz,Nemo,Cars and Toy Story rides that have been built because they appeal more to todays market  
So although the classic Disney rides are really popular ,I think some children are not as familiar with the story when they go on it as they might be with a Toy Story attraction
When I first went on Splash Mountain when it opened ,I did not know the film at all but bought the video afterwards and really love it ;it was the scenes and characters in the ride that I liked so much not the fact it was a log flume.

[Reiana]

A little bit off-topic

Here in Germany, it's very easy, to find something about Snow White and the seven dwarf, Cinderella or Ariel. You can even buy Cinderellas Castle (looks almost like the DLP-castle)and the house of the seven dwarfs. You can buy it almost in every bigger departmentstore or toystore. They are very popular here in Germany. You can even buy Dumbo plushes.
Vice versa it's very, very hard to find something Toy Story related or even Pixar related. Some Cars ond Ratatouille merchandise, that's all. Woody & Co have left the shelfs many years ago.

[experiment627]

A thought that occurred to me last week with the Dubai bubble bursting:

Could it be that Disney might have trouble getting banks to finance another round of new attractions? (Lets remember that the additions between 2006 and 2008 cost more than 200 million Euros...)
A lot of companies do have trouble getting a fresh credit in the wake of the financial crisis.

Could Euro Disney be one of them?

[The Butlin Boy]

Disneytheque have released an article about the supposed 20th Anniversary attraction. According to them, there are three possibilities in competition: a Ratatouille dark ride, The Little Mermaid dark ride and Soarin', but only one will open for the 20th. Apparently (and they seem quite certain about this), it'll be The Little Mermaid, with the possibility of the other two opening in the following years...

 :arrow: http://www.disneytheque.com/Et_le_proch ... __a49.html

Obviously it'll be fantastic to see TLM finally swim into DLP especially after the ride's history with the resort, but I think that of the three the one that I'd have liked to see open first and was hoping for the most was Ratatouille. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see them all at DLP one day, but the uniqueness and scale of Ratatouille seemed the most 20th Anniversary worthy to me. Opening TLM first to me appears more like Disney trying to open the same ride three times over (California 2011, Florida 2012 and Paris 2012) at the same time to save money :wink:

[dagobert]

I hope that this rumour is true, because I really want to see The Little Mermaid Ride coming to DLP. I also think that it will save Disney a lot of money to build the same ride at WDW, DCA and DLP at nearly at the same time.

What do they mean with the following years to build Soarin' and Ratatouille sark ride? The 25th birthday or the 30th birthday. I can't imagine that these two rides will open a year or two later, because I think that these rides are very expensive and I'm not sure if Euro Disney has the money to build three D or E tickets rides in three years.

[The Butlin Boy]

What do they mean with the following years to build Soarin' and Ratatouille sark ride? The 25th birthday or the 30th birthday. I can't imagine that these two rides will open a year or two later, because I think that these rides are very expensive and I'm not sure if Euro Disney has the money to build three D or E tickets rides in three years.

Well it's still very possible. What they'd be doing here (if rumours are true) would be building the cheapest option of the three first and promoting it with the 20th anniversary promotions (think how much the 15th made for the resort) to make as much money as possible. This could generate a significant amount of income to help or fully finance these other two projects as well. It certainly isn't out of the picture, especially if DLP could finance Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, the Once Upon a Dream Parade, Crush's Coaster, Cars Race Rally, The Tower of Terror and Stitch Live and two placemaking projects (Toon Studio and Hollywood Boulevard) within three years (two if you remove Buzz from the list!)

You never know, they could always open another one the20th Anniversary Celebration Continues... Extra Big Time!

[RnRCj]

How many more times is this 20th anniversary attraction going to change? :lol:

I thought it was confirmed to be Ratatouille? There's even construction fences around the site. The last we heard of a Little Mermaid attraction was ages ago. Are DLP purposely confusing us? In a few weeks time I bet someone else will confirm that the new attraction will be Soarin'.

[*TIMMIE*]

I really hope all three rides will be added eventually. But of all projects I hope the Ratatouille ride will be added first. It is the most unique ride of them all, and would perfectly fit. Especially with the French visitors numbers are up lately.  [-o<  Allthough the Little Mermaid has been waiting to swim in the lagoons of the park since the opening in 1992. So she can wait a little longer when she is waiting that long.  /

[Kristof]

Are DLP purposely confusing us?

You mean Disneytheque?