Mistakes

[Main Street Jim]

The addition of the carnival-style Chester and Hester's Dinorama to AK seems like a huge misstep to me, not in keeping with my expectations of what Walt Disney World has to offer.

A lot of guests may not care for the "roadside carnival" look of Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama....but that's *exactly* the look that Imagineering was trying to evoke with the area. Does it "fit" into Animal Kingdom and its theme/message? *Ehhh*. Maybe not. But it *is* what Disney was *trying* to make it look like. Mistake? *Ehhhh*. Maybe. What *I* don't care for, is the "carnival games" that you have to pay extra for. I *love* Dinosaur! and Primeval Whirl ('n Hurl)...I just don't care for the games.

[joanna71985]

It's not really a mistake, its more because of lawsuits, and parents afraid to control their kids, but I miss when characters could roam the park freely.

I can understand why they did this. The characters at WDW get swarmed just walking to their location, so it would be crazy having them wander around. This is for safety reasons

[1DisneyNut]

You also have think back to 1970/71, when the park was built, until 1994 when they closed the attraction. These are all great suggestions, but this kind of stuff wasn't available in the early '70s, or cost too much $$$ in the 1990's.

? The last "new" Monorails were put into service in 1991 - over 20 years ago. Doesn't seem like "replaced regularly". Out at Disneyland, they're on the Mark VII's, which were put into service in...2008, I think.

They didn't need it in the early 70's, the lagoon was fine. At some point it started leaking and at that time they could have done some maintenance. The technology was available in the early 90's. I cannot imagine it was cheaper to dig the lagoon up, fill it in, build a playground that was rarely used, tear it down and dig it up and now totally redevelop the area again.

My point about the Monorail trains is that maintenance are advancements are needed and it can be done.

I guess some knuckle head over the park just didn't like it and wanted it gone. Most people have never even seen or heard of the movie but nonetheless most everyone that rode it as a kid, wishes it was still there so their kids could ride it as well. As a kid, it was a really cool ride. I mean, where else can a kid go and experience going under the sea in a submarine? As adults we realize it is just an illusion but as a kid you are blown away.

[SandmanGStefani24]

i think they do a great job with things, but a few changes really stick out to me...IMO

1. the massacre of El Rio del Tiempo...I got nothing against Donald Duck, but it was so unnecessary to shoehorn him into this one, and it boarders on annoying. DW refuses to ride it now.

2. Test Track's dumbing down. I loved the bumpy road test, I loved the ABS test, I loved the environmental tests, and now they are all gone.

3. Stitch...i think we can all agree it's enough already.

I wanted to put Body Wars' removal on here, but i know that it was a little too similar to Star Tours and I was probably one of the few who liked it.

[1DisneyNut]

i think they do a great job with things, but a few changes really stick out to me...IMO

1. the massacre of El Rio del Tiempo...I got nothing against Donald Duck, but it was so unnecessary to shoehorn him into this one, and it boarders on annoying. DW refuses to ride it now.

2. Test Track's dumbing down. I loved the bumpy road test, I loved the ABS test, I loved the environmental tests, and now they are all gone.

3. Stitch...i think we can all agree it's enough already.

I wanted to put Body Wars' removal on here, but i know that it was a little too similar to Star Tours and I was probably one of the few who liked it.

I agree on El Rio del Tiempo. They really messed that attraction up. We all much preferred the old version over the new with Donald screaming....it is rather annoying.

Does anybody actually like Stitch? Everybody I know hates that attraction.

[crltkcagle]

I agree with Mr. Toads Wild Ride. We loved that one as kids and I wish my kids could have experienced it. I also wish the Skyway was still there. It was really cool to hover over MK.

[DisneyDawgette]

I'm most certainly the minority, but I LOVED Body Wars and the Wonders of Life Pavilion. It was a big part of my childhood memories.

Also, I miss AE. That's been mentioned already.

And Jeremy Irons. WHY did they take him out of SE? And I'm pretty sure that they either turned it down or got rid of most of the music on the attraction... So sad. :/

*sighs* But, you can't complain too much. There are a lot of great things they've changed too.

[paragon]

I wish the Swan boats were still there, I think it added to the Castle to have those boats floating around in the moat. Removing the Arcade, and original theater from Main Street, as well as turning all of Main Street basicly into a shopping mall, seems to me, to not be what Walt intended it to be.
I sort of wish the sponsorships could be a little more discreet, Magic Kingdom should be about fun and fantasy, an escape from the real world, and having sponsor logos all over takes away from that.
Removal of the Animation studio at DHS was another huge mistake- ( I understand that there is less call for tha actual hand drawn animation, but they could still have kept a studio ) considering that the park is called Hollywood Studios, and now, nothing really resembles a studio any more. Backlot tour was slightly better when they were a "working studio" with the residential street area-taken away for the stunt car show.
I think overall, they have seriously lost alot of what the original vision for all the parks was, and not to many of them are thinking, "what would Walt do?"

[Ian]

1. The massacre of Main Street and the slow destruction of what it was in its glory days to what it has become ... one big, long series of merchandise locations.
2. The disaster that Future World has become. It was once an area tightly woven together with one coherent storyline and filled with top-notch, Disney-worthy attractions. Now it's a hodge-podge with no clear point or vision. Some of the new attractions are shells of their former selves and some (*cough* WONDERS OF LIFE *cough*) are gone completely, leaving just mind-boggling empty space.
3. The decision to eliminate Beastly Kingdom from Animal Kingdom. This gutted the park and made it nothing more than (imo) a half day novelty that I probably wouldn't even visit anymore if they hadn't added Everest.
4. Trying to address the deficiencies they created in Animal Kingdom by adding cheap carnival rides. I know people claim that the area is supposed to feel cheap, but it's a chicken and an egg. The Imagineers had to come up with something that felt cheap and shoddy, because they had a cheap and shoddy budget to work with.
5. The "lost" feel of DHS. Another park, much like Future World, that has lost its identity. By shuttering the actual "studio" part of the Hollywood "Studios" they sort of robbed it of its identity.

[SBETigg]

1. The massacre of Main Street and the slow destruction of what it was in its glory days to what it has become ... one big, long series of merchandise locations.
2. The disaster that Future World has become. It was once an area tightly woven together with one coherent storyline and filled with top-notch, Disney-worthy attractions. Now it's a hodge-podge with no clear point or vision. Some of the new attractions are shells of their former selves and some (*cough* WONDERS OF LIFE *cough*) are gone completely, leaving just mind-boggling empty space.
3. The decision to eliminate Beastly Kingdom from Animal Kingdom. This gutted the park and made it nothing more than (imo) a half day novelty that I probably wouldn't even visit anymore if they hadn't added Everest.
4. Trying to address the deficiencies they created in Animal Kingdom by adding cheap carnival rides. I know people claim that the area is supposed to feel cheap, but it's a chicken and an egg. The Imagineers had to come up with something that felt cheap and shoddy, because they had a cheap and shoddy budget to work with.
5. The "lost" feel of DHS. Another park, much like Future World, that has lost its identity. By shuttering the actual "studio" part of the Hollywood "Studios" they sort of robbed it of its identity.

Yes, Ian nailed it. Well done. I agree.

[Aurora]

[LIST=1][*]Trying to address the deficiencies they created in Animal Kingdom by adding cheap carnival rides. I know people claim that the area is supposed to feel cheap, but it's a chicken and an egg. The Imagineers had to come up with something that felt cheap and shoddy, because they had a cheap and shoddy budget to work with.

Yes, we all KNOW that they meant to do this, that it was part of the plan, that it was meant to be reminiscent of a roadside carnival, blah, blah, blah. We don't object to them doing it very well, we just didn't like the idea in the first place.

Now, if they would have taken the carnival rides and games and made them into something, well, extraordinary and creative, something we'd never seen before and was surprising, that would have been something else. But the surprising part was that it turned out to be so un-Disney.

[EeyoresBestFriend]

Removal of the Animation studio at DHS was another huge mistake- ( I understand that there is less call for tha actual hand drawn animation, but they could still have kept a studio ) considering that the park is called Hollywood Studios, and now, nothing really resembles a studio any more.

I was shattered by this. I think I still am . . . I want to cry every time I walk past the quiet animators section. IMHO, they were (are) the heart of Disney magic and imagination. I am one of the few people that LOVE the hand drawn animation and am NOT so much of a fan of pure CGI. Alittle is okay in combination with handdrawn.

Either way, miss the animators with all my heart . . . .

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Mistakes um how bout Nescafé coffee I agree with the carnival section in dinoland

[Dulcee]

Spaceship Earth. They killed it with the new ending. I hate the computer screens. I hate the new dialogue. Argh. I wish they hadn't ripped the end to pieces.

[jnfr2424]

Getting rid of the Lights of Wonder at the holidays in Epcot - the tree is just not enough

Horizons I can't even talk about it

[SandmanGStefani24]

Spaceship Earth. They killed it with the new ending. I hate the computer screens. I hate the new dialogue. Argh. I wish they hadn't ripped the end to pieces.

yeah that's not my thing either. too kitschy and not like the rest of the ride. i could ride it over and over and see something different, but the "movie" is pretty redundant. the only thing i like to do is hide my face or obscure it with a hat to see it distorted or made up on the screen.

[Ian]

Getting rid of the Lights of Wonder at the holidays in Epcot - the tree is just not enough

It's bigger than just this ... they've cut back dramatically on the holiday decorations across the board.

In the past, the parks were decorated front-to-back with almost every square inch draped a bow or ribbon or wreath or something.

Now there are often spots you can stand where you wouldn't even know it's the holiday season. They've probably reduced the amount of holiday decorations by 50% or more.

[IwannabeinNarnia]

Does anybody actually like Stitch? Everybody I know hates that attraction.

I love Stitch! his attraction? well, I don't 'hate' it.. but they could have done something better for him.

I agree with all comments on Dinoland.. just seems cheap and cheesy...

[MOJoe]

When i first considered this question, i first thought of old attractions i miss, but after reading some of these posts, i have to give Ian credit about the destruction of Main Street. I think it's the number one mistake.

Main Street is more than an attraction, it is a nostalgic symbol of a more innocent time. It is supposed to be a magical place where young people can discover history and seniors can rediscover their youth.

But now? It feels like one big T-Shirt shop that you might find at some strip mall in any Florida beach town. It's a crime to have corrupted Walt's vision in this way.

[Granny Jill A]

A lot of guests may not care for the "roadside carnival" look of Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama....but that's *exactly* the look that Imagineering was trying to evoke with the area. Does it "fit" into Animal Kingdom and its theme/message? *Ehhh*. Maybe not. But it *is* what Disney was *trying* to make it look like. Mistake? *Ehhhh*. Maybe. What *I* don't care for, is the "carnival games" that you have to pay extra for. I *love* Dinosaur! and Primeval Whirl ('n Hurl)...I just don't care for the games.

Don't care for this one at all. The Dinosaur ride is WAY too scary, and all the area needs are some seedy looking characters running the rides and games. I wish they would have had a different "vision" for this part of the park.