The importance of long ride refurbishments at Disney Parks

http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/156124-ride-closures.html

Recently on MiceChat, a member voiced his displeasure of rides going down for refurbs for 2-6 months and prefers 1-2 day refurbs. He stated that he bought an annual pass for the Disneyland Resort and says that there should be some "perks" if a ride will be down for months.

Me and other members have tried to tell him the importance of rides going down. But as it turns out, he is against any upgrades/updates to rides and will accept refurbs for 1-2 days for maintence purposes. He cleary does not understand that refurbishments of any ride at any theme park are scheduled based on the needs of the attraction, any planned additions to the ride, etc. The factors are numerous and doing this for 1-2 days is never enough.

Look at the Indiana Jones Adventure, the resort has been doing small, 2-4 day refurbs of the ride. But in the state that its in, its not enough and will need multiple months to fix everything. Fortunatley, they are aware and i've heard that a long refurb will happen soon.

There has been the mentality that if a ride will be unavailable, the trip is ruined. I never and probably will understand this. I've been at the parks when Pirates was down from Jan-Jun back in 2006, and I didn't complain about it. The person who started the thread is obviously bitching about the Matterhorn in particluar, which will be down now until September in order to prepar the attraction for new bobsleds which will either come in this refurb or the next long one scheduled for next year.

Now heres where he gets ticked off. After the Columbia incident was brought in (which was a result of faulty maintence at the time), he stated that it could've been resolved with a 2 day refurb. Then a prominent member, Mr. Wiggins responded with: "An appallingly dismissive statement that trivializes both the Columbia tragedy and the multiple, longterm causes that led to it."

And naturally, he took it like a personal attack which was not. Then he makes this statement:

 "Wow, after reading some of these hateful sounding posts it's no wonder I don't join in meetings at the park, all you guys do is try to incite flame wars about trivial stuff. Bottom Line, customers' opinions matter and there would be no Disneyland if no one came {maintained or not}. The hundreds of people I talk to each week while standing in lines is that they share the same opinion as I do, it only seems members here have a differing opinion. I can analyse that one , but answering may be disturbing to those reading it here..so I will leave it alone. All the over analysing of the refurbs times is rediculous, I was mainly concerned about the 6 month downtime of the Matterhorn and overlap {which is minor}."

Well here is something you should know. We never did incite a flame war in that thread. And we've known that Disney does take guest opinions. Why do you think the menus of some eating places are improved? And we were not over analyzing the refurb times and its not pathetic of us to explain them. We were just telling you how these refurbs are planned and you were clearly not seeing that.

Overall, this thread has proven that some people are too resistant to change that they don't want multi month refurbs because of the money the spent on an Annual Pass. Sorry dude, you lost with this thread.

And you have an annual pass, you can go back anytime you want so why are you bitching about the Matterhorn being down for a while. Just enjoy your visits without the Matterhorn till they're done. Simple as that.

So while a ride being down for refurb during a visit sucks, at least we know they take care of their rides. Now if only Walt Disney World can take care of their attractions as much as the Disneyland Resort does.

Transformers Dark of the Moon Review

I don't usually do movie reviews, but I decided to do one since I just saw it.

Warning: There will be spoilers.

So this Transformers film has about the longest intro ever (meaning before even the title appears on screen. ), but it does a good job of setting up the film. I like how they tie in actual events in human history by saying that the flight to the moon was a disguised operation to investigate a Cybertronian ship.

Then it moves on to shifting between Sam and the Autobots which didn't seemed too fast at all as it helped bring Sam into the main story while showing the side story of his new relationship with his new girlfriend. And as usual, the interaction between him and his mother was extremely hilarious. We then get introduced to Sentinel Prime (I discovered that he was voiced by Leonard Nimoy aka Spock) who appears at first part of the Autobots.

In the middle of the movie, they bring him back to NEST HQ in DC (and the chase scene was filmed near my dads work in Wilmington, CA!) were we see the most WTF moment I seen where Sentinel Prime betrays the Autobots and kills Ironhide (WHY!?) and leads to the exile of the Autobots (I felt sad) and "supposed death when the ship is blown up.

Then it shifts to Chicago were the Decepticons take over the city and blackout the city. Then we see that the Autobots never left and are determined to defend their new home. It then leads to intense battles where the Decepticons are massacared from the combined human-autobot forces. In the final battle between the 2 primes, an unexpected help came to Optimus in form of a pissed off Megatron who severely wounds Sentinel. Optimus thanks him by finally killing Megatron (Must be the Cybertronian way of saying thank you) then finally dispatches Sentinel stating that he betrayed himself and not the Autobots.

Overall, the movie is a well done final film of the trilogy (Michael Bay reportedly said that hes done with Transformers) with plenty of story build up and action on par with the 2nd film.

Pros:

Special Effects probably the best out of all 3
Story does a good job of tying in actual human history
Plenty of Comedy (Sams mom is pure comedy since film 1)

Cons:

Ironhide died (WHY?!)
No Megan Fox (some reason, it doesn't feel right without her), but I can live with the new woman.
Ending kind of fast

Overall I give this film 4 1/2 stars and I recommend viewing it this summer.

4th of July update

Sorry for the lack of good updates. I've been busy the past couple of weeks but I was able to bring out a quick update in the last post and I promised myself that I would work on one this week.

So this update focuses primarily on the new Paradise Gardens Eating complex that just opened up in Paradise Pier. This replaces Pizza Ow Mow Mow and Burger Invasion.

Quick update on the Carthay Circle Theater:

More green covers are going up.

The new Paradise Gardens Restaurant Complex is great!

 

I went to Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta for an afternoon lunch. The detail they put on the inside has surpassed Plaza Inn and the food makes Pizza Port look like a school cafeteria.

Trays are located at the bottom of each section. This is different than the other places like set up like this as you would typically get your tray at the front.

This is the Chicken Pasta with sun-dried tomato sauce. And I have to say, this beats the Chicken Fusili at Pizza Port. A bit of warning though, the sauce is a little bit spicy. After I ate it, I went to the Lemon Cheescake and to me, the best Cheesecake I ate. Disney did a good job on making sure the food was excellent as many people are giving great reviews of the place. Next time i'll do the Paradise Garden Grill which serves Mediterranean Skewers.

Finally, I give you the 4th of July pre-show in World of Color. This preshow takes place approx 5 minutes before World of Color and includes low-level fireworks like in New Years Eve. This is a very well done 4th of July preshow and I would recommend it. Like DL's 4th of July Fireworks, it will be shown from July 1-4 and will be played before every WoC show during that time.

Thats all for this weekend, have a great 4th of July!