Space Mountain Refurb

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Dec Fri 07, 2007 1:57 am

It'd be easy enough to hang a tarp along the Peoplemover track.

I hope they don't go for the loops and all that (the MK, more than anywhere, is supposed to be a park for everyone), but smoothing out the tracks and doing a riff on the old course would be great. I hope they keep the same basic flow (the big drop in the middle is a classic Disney experience), especially since so many people have that course ingrained their brain.

Interested to see what they do. I didn't think I had much of a nostalgic connection to what is basically a smallish coaster in the dark, but the more I think about it, the more a drastic change sounds unpalatable to me.

The ideal for me would basically be to streamline the existing course and add a few new surprises. I'd love the Dick Dale soundtrack from Disneyland, but that's probably too much to ask for.

I suppose the coaster itself isn't historic (like the Matterhorn), so losing the existing structure isn't that big of a deal. If you've ever seen the place with the lights on, you know that there's a lot more room in the mountain than is used by the tracks, so maybe they'll take advantage of that.

Kind of cool how the iconic structure doesn't look dated, just because it was so imaginative in the first place.

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Dec Fri 07, 2007 7:49 am

wdwannabe wrote:Just personal, but when I rode sm last sept, I felt like I was going to fall out of those darn cars.

Did you ever ride it before they changed out the cars?

Use to be the cars seated, 4 people (as I recall), and one person road pretty much in the lap of the person in front of them. There was no seat back (or maybe it was a small seat back), the person in the back legs straddled the person in front.

As far as them doing anything to Space Mountain, it should be pretty easy since "TECHINCALY" it's outside the park. Magic Kingdom is defined by the berm that runs around the park that the train rides on. Space Mountain is off to you left as you take the train around. The entrance takes you "outside". So it's pretty easy for them to access the mountain with heavy equipment. Even if they had to pull a section of the roof off from the park it could look the same.

Changes I would love to see. I'd love there to be more "queue" stuff. There are big sections of the queue that just seem empty to me. I wouldn't mind a catapult style launch, it doesn't need loops and all that, but a "Rocket" launch would be good.

It does mean next time I head down to Disney I should video tape the Space Mountain.

johno

Post by **rdeacon** » Dec Fri 07, 2007 11:04 am

I would agree that the queue is kinda bland, and long, so there is room for expansion there. As long as they leave the queue music the same I will be ok with the changes.

STAR TUNNEL FOREVER!!!!

Rich

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Dec Fri 07, 2007 8:09 pm

Captain Schnemo wrote:It'd be easy enough to hang a tarp along the Peoplemover track.

That'd work in terms of preserving the 'show', but I'd think that if they're ripping out the insides, and possibly the roof of the structure, it'd be a hard-hat area. The top of the part the Peoplemover goes through is open to the insides of the mountain, so I'd think they'd need to seal it off with something more substantial than a tarp. I hope they think that's worthwhile to do. I would assume they'd want TTA open during the construction to soak up some people but you never know how they'll see things; might be easier to shut it off for the duration.

Cheshire Cat · Post by **Cheshire Cat** » Dec Fri 07, 2007 10:57 pm

I hope redoing it entirely doesn't effect the Peoplemover. I wonder how they will handle the part where it goes inside while they're gutting the place?

That's a good point. The track goes through the dead center of the mountain. I hope they don't close that down during construction, that'll have half of Tomorrowland down. I'm wondering if they'd program it to go around the rim of the mountain in the area normally used to store the trains at night.

wdwannabe · Post by **wdwannabe** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 12:22 am

I rode sm in Sept of last year, my first time on it. Dd and dh loved it.. It was cramped too. You sat single file like...

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 5:40 am

Cheshire Cat wrote:The track goes through the dead center of the mountain.

Does it get close to the coaster track at all? If they just take the back of the building out, they should be able to keep things separated. I guess if the roof comes off, all bets are off.

Good point on the queue, by the way. I like the star tunnel, but there was never enough content on the TV monitors to keep the switchbacks in the loading area from getting pretty boring.

Post by **acp** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 6:07 am

It goes between the two tracks, quite close to the lifts and one of the "bumps" before going roudn one of the stations and out.

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 9:27 am

Oh, right, right, I forgot about that part right at the beginning of the ride.

Well, I'm sure they could enclose it in something. They'll probably have do that anyway, just to protect it during construction. Seems likely that unless they build it out of titanium, the lawyers will make them close it down during construction. Interesting.

Does anyone have a map of the inside of the Mountain? I've never really thought much about the path the Peoplemover takes...it'd be cool to try and put all the info together in my head.

Cheshire Cat · Post by **Cheshire Cat** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 11:10 am

The WEDway Peoplemover...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wedway.jpg

The Mighty White Mountain...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wspace.jpg

meticulus9 · Post by **meticulus9** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 2:13 pm

Cheshire Cat wrote:The WEDway Peoplemover...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wedway.jpg

The Mighty White Mountain...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wspace.jpg

very sweet!

Post by **acp** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 6:33 pm

I was looking for those earlier but couldn't for the life of me find them. Well done, have a cookie. Note there is vehicle storage for TTA around the perimeter of Space Mountain. Perhaps they could swap that and the actual route over? Probably not . They'd need extra scenes and commentary to keep guests amused...

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Dec Sat 08, 2007 8:08 pm

Cheshire Cat wrote:The WEDway Peoplemover...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wedway.jpg

The Mighty White Mountain...

http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/image ... wspace.jpg

Awesome maps.

It'd be nice if they could re-route the track to run through the storage area during the construction but seems unlikely (if for no other reason than the work involved to store cars somewhere else... maybe they could do that in the closed off portion). They could probably get away without extra scenes - they did it when Merchant of Venus was closed; it was just dark in there. I'm thinking the storage area probably isn't 'show friendly' though. Schnemo is probably right; I assume they'll have to cover it regardless to keep it from getting bashed up during construction but I can't see them putting enough resources into such a cover to make it safe for people to ride the WEDway during the construction...

I suspect they will want to keep it open from the perspective of having a crowd absorber in TL, as well as for the added 'kinetic' factor of having something whizzing around overhead, but it seems like it'd be a heap of work in addition to whatever spending they have for SM. Boo. This is my least favorite realization about all the possible things that could happen to SM. The Peoplemover is my favorite ride on property. I hope they put some effort into keeping it open.

Post by **acp** » Dec Sun 09, 2007 6:02 am

It depends on what they're doing in Space Mountain I suppose. Plenty of parks build coasters over walkways without closing the walkway off, or just putting covers over the walkway. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could keep the TTA open whilst they do whatever they're doing to Space. Or, they could just close it for short times, such as when they're actually working directly above it, and open it when there's no work going on in that area.

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Dec Sun 09, 2007 9:28 pm

acp wrote:It depends on what they're doing in Space Mountain I suppose. Plenty of parks build coasters over walkways without closing the walkway off, or just putting covers over the walkway. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could keep the TTA open whilst they do whatever they're doing to Space. Or, they could just close it for short times, such as when they're actually working directly above it, and open it when there's no work going on in that area.

I guess that's true. A lot of the real big construction involving cranes and potentially loud demo would probably be after hours anyway, I would think. I shall hold out hope the peoplemover will continue moving.