Refurbs/Upgrades: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly . . .

99Soulz · Post by **99Soulz** » Sep Wed 03, 2008 12:39 pm

HAHA, good call ACP, that pic is classic. I've never saw that one from DLR. Does anyone have a pic of the WDW birthday cake castle?

I'm not one to jump on some of the bad ideas that have come to fruition as I truely believe a company must change to remain fresh and competitive but that birthday cake idea on Cinderella Castle was horrendous!!

Post by **acp** » Sep Wed 03, 2008 12:58 pm

99Soulz wrote:HAHA, good call ACP, that pic is classic. I've never saw that one from DLR. Does anyone have a pic of the WDW birthday cake castle?

Err, that's what the picture I posted was... To my knowledge, DLR haven't done anything quite that silly.

Andy.

ctrain2281 · Post by **ctrain2281** » Sep Thu 04, 2008 7:06 am

Good: KK/FR show to Soaring (though I still love the old audioanimatronic shows)

Bad: By a whisker, the Mexico Pavilion's Boat Ride (I want to say that the original boat ride was called El Rio de Tiempo. Not to say that the original was the best ride ever but the upgrade was cheap, cheesy and borderline offensive)

Ugly: First, let me say that it is sad that there are so many bad and ugly remodels/upgrades compared to good upgrades, however, the ugly goes to the backstage studio tour. Back in the day, the backstage tour was close to an actual "tour." Now, it is a brief ride through a studio and CC followed by a walk through some quickly established display area. Sad.

99Soulz · Post by **99Soulz** » Sep Thu 04, 2008 7:26 am

My bad acp, that looked more like smaller/slender Sleeping Beauty Castle to me for some reason.

agingerbugg · Post by **agingerbugg** » Sep Thu 04, 2008 6:02 pm

99Soulz wrote:My bad acp, that looked more like smaller/slender Sleeping Beauty Castle to me for some reason.

I think the reason it looks so unlike Cinderella's Castle, is because the imagineers who came up with it did not keep the forced perspective of the undecorated castle. The cake facade shows its true height.

IMFearless · Post by **IMFearless** » Sep Thu 04, 2008 7:50 pm

ctrain: They still have a backstage tour? Or are you talking about something other than the DHS tour? I thought that was eliminated YEARS ago....

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Sep Thu 04, 2008 8:24 pm

The Good: The Pirates movie overlay. Still not 100% sure it's going to be a lasting good decision, but they did a good job.

The Bad: Changing JII at all from its original incarnation. This was an attraction that would never have needed updating. A waste of money to ruin a good attraction.

The Ugly: Tiki Room: Under New Management. Atrocity is the word that comes to mind here. (I still like that cake castle, in a weird, bad acid trip kinda way.

)

ctrain2281 · Post by **ctrain2281** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 9:03 am

IMFearless wrote:ctrain: They still have a backstage tour? Or are you talking about something other than the DHS tour? I thought that was eliminated YEARS ago....

I'm thinking about the DHS tour. However, come to think of it, the elimination of the backstage tour stinks too.

ctrain2281 · Post by **ctrain2281** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 9:05 am

ctrain2281 wrote:Good: KK/FR show to Soaring (though I still love the old audioanimatronic shows)

Bad: By a whisker, the Mexico Pavilion's Boat Ride (I want to say that the original boat ride was called El Rio de Tiempo. Not to say that the original was the best ride ever but the upgrade was cheap, cheesy and borderline offensive)

Ugly: First, let me say that it is sad that there are so many bad and ugly remodels/upgrades compared to good upgrades, however, the ugly goes to the backstage studio tour. Back in the day, the backstage tour was close to an actual "tour." Now, it is a brief ride through a studio and CC followed by a walk through some quickly established display area. Sad.

I take back what I said about the backstage tour being the ugly and propose that the change from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to the craptastic Adventures of Winnie the Pooh takes the cake. I almost want to say that I don't like Pooh solely because of the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride makeover.

aboden · Post by **aboden** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 12:47 pm

Good: Seems a lot of people agree and so do I that the HM was the best so far. It enhanced the ride and didn't take anything from the theme imo.

Bad:UoE to EEA, blah..I have nothing against her or Bill Nye but I hate rides being dated. Granted the UoE might have been a out of date but now really is Bill Nye still on the air in any fashion? The same comment goes with the tLS being changes to Nemo's, not exactly the same but don't like it. Lost a lot of the educational expierence behind it.

Ugly:

ctrain2281 wrote:...I take back what I said about the backstage tour being the ugly and propose that the change from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to the craptastic Adventures of Winnie the Pooh takes the cake. I almost want to say that I don't like Pooh solely because of the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride makeover.

I agree with ctrain

hated to see Mr Toads Wild Ride go and never been on the Pooh ride for that reason, my silent protest over the change hehe. But JII is a very close to the Ugly. Can't really pick.

Post by **js3901** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 6:30 pm

aboden wrote:Granted the UoE might have been a out of date but now really is Bill Nye still on the air in any fashion?

not to go off-topic too much here, but the answer to this is YES. He has a new show on the Science channel (a Discovery channel spin-off) called "Stuff Happens". he's also been an occasional guest on "Living with Ed" and "Numb3rs".

now, back to your regularly scheduled topic...

as for my picks (this will be as of December 2006, my last visit):

good: Pirates update. while not the best choice to update with what's "popular now", they did an awesome job on the waterfall/Davy Jones effect, as well as the Jack Sparrow animatronics.

bad: The enchanted Tiki room Under New Management. 'nuff said there.

ugly: (can't believe no one has mentioned this one yet)Timekeeper to Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. what do monsters (or a comedy club, for that matter) have anything to do with Tomorrowland?

yodiwan1 · Post by **yodiwan1** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 7:00 pm

How come everyone hates the Pooh ride? Granted, I loved Mr's Toads more than almost any ride I had ever been on growing up. I still watch home videos with me on it. The pooh ride is not a bad ride. I love it when you bounce with TIgger, and float on the flood waters. Yes, it did replace a great ride, but I would never say it is the worst change of rides. Now, I do feel that Pooh's playful play place, or whatever gimmicky name they gave it is a giant waste of space, but the ride is very entertaining and fun...just my 2 cents.

Cheshire Cat · Post by **Cheshire Cat** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 7:07 pm

^
yodiwan, I completely agree with you on this one. I'd rather have Mr. Toad, but I don't think Pooh is a bad ride by any means... a little slow, but a good ride with lots of top-quality effects (when they work).

To me it's just as if they were to replace WDW's Snow White's (Scary) Adventures with DL's Pinocchio's Daring Journey. Nothing more... nothing less...

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 7:24 pm

I think the Pooh ride is very clever in a lot of parts (especially the aforementioned bounce with Tigger part), though I do think they made slight overuse of the blacklight paint in some places (heffalumps and woozles room is a little lacking).

That said though, Mr. Toad did the same thing, and considering they didn't even really change the track all that much from Mr. Toad, it doesn't surprise me they wanted to keep the lighting structure similar.

I agree with yodiwan and Cheshire though; as much as I'd prefer they put Pooh in instead of that playground and left Toad be, I can't say that it's a terrible refit of that building.

aboden · Post by **aboden** » Sep Fri 05, 2008 7:40 pm

js3901 wrote:
aboden wrote:Granted the UoE might have been a out of date but now really is Bill Nye still on the air in any fashion?
not to go off-topic too much here, but the answer to this is YES. He has a new show on the Science channel (a Discovery channel spin-off) called "Stuff Happens". he's also been an occasional guest on "Living with Ed" and "Numb3rs".

Well I stand corrected hehe didn't know that, so maybe not as bad as it might seem.

js3901 wrote:ugly: (can't believe no one has mentioned this one yet)Timekeeper to Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. what do monsters (or a comedy club, for that matter) have anything to do with Tomorrowland?

You know what I never did go on that attraction. With all the times vising MK I never did. And everytime I hear it on the request stream it makes me regret never going on it.

I agree PPPP(a lot of P's lol) would go into the Ugly category. They let 2kLutS sit for so long untouched, I wonder if PPPP was just because they got tired of wasted space.