Fast forward to 2007 when the corporate environment around Disney is much different, and now many TDA planners are slapping their foreheads over the shortsighted decisions that were made three years ago. What was originally a 50 Million dollar upgrade to the old submarine ride with some modest new technology and limited new effects added a la' the Epcot version has now blossomed into a major revamping and colossal improvement in the show. That original 50 Million budget has grown to double that figure, although the exact tally is an extremely touchy subject as any project that exceeds the 100 Million mark requires a different set of corporate approvals than the original project received.

Suffice it to say however, that the submarine rides budget has been significantly expanded at John Lasseter's insistence and the end result is a ride that will have some people waiting three hours or longer to ride only to run out the exit and jump right back in line again. And now that 10 Million investment that could have significantly improved the carrying capacity of the attraction and improved the customer experience immeasurably seems like the big fish that got away for TDA.

2/18/07 Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael

Peter Pan's Jet Blues

While much has changed around Burbank and Anaheim in the last 18 months, there are still decisions made under the old regimes or cultural norms that still exist that create these types of boneheaded decisions. Michael Eisner once famously asserted that Disney had a corporate culture that could turn on a dime. That’s obviously not the case, but luckily things are changing. Let’s hope John Lasseter, as a former Disneyland Cast Member himself, can use his political clout with Bog Iger to work some of the same magic he’s worked for the park operations groups in Anaheim as he has with the creative team in Glendale. Even today, TDA stares at a decision that is clearly the right thing to do for both their customers and their Cast Members, and yet they shy away from the right decision.

Take for example the decision TDA will soon make regarding the venerable Peter Pan's Flight ride. That little two minute dark ride has been flying off to Neverland in one form or another since Disneyland opened in 1955. It offers one of the most entertaining ride experiences of all seven of Disneyland's classic dark rides, but due to the unique flying boat design and suspended ride system it also offers one of the lowest hourly capacities. With just a single row of seats in each boat, Peter Pan struggles to break 600 riders per hour and the line often stretches 45 minutes or longer. Meanwhile, the double rows of seats across the way at the Snow White and Pinocchio rides mean 800 or more riders per hour cycle through those two, even though the less appealing entertainment value and short lines at those two rides mean many of those back seats go unfilled. When they built Disneyland Paris, they didn't make that mistake again with the Peter Pan ride, and the Paris boats feature two rows of seats that allow for several hundred extra riders per hour.

The current ride vehicles at Disneyland's Peter Pan are nearing the end of their normal operational life, and TDA will need to replace them soon. There's a proposal to build all new chassis' and vehicles for Anaheim that would feature two rows of seats like Paris, and allow several hundred additional riders per hour to fly out the nursery window with Peter and Wendy. But the slightly larger vehicles will require additional re-engineering of the ride system and some reconstruction of the boarding area. Instead of spending under 10 Million dollars for a new fleet of single row pirate ships, the proposed double row boats would bring the project to 16 Million dollars.

TDA is balking at that figure as a cost it does not want to incur, at the same time tourists still rush to wait in a long, snaking line that is one of Disneyland's slowest. If those paying customers waiting in the 45 minute line for Peter Pan knew that TDA just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to install dozens of plasma TV screens in break rooms and at employee entry gates for the sole purpose of offering computer generated daily workplace safety tips and park operating hours that used to be posted on simple chalkboards, they'd probably want to know what those same TDA planners have against making the Peter Pan line go a bit faster.

There's quite a bit of money being thrown around at TDA, but too little of it gets thrown at the things that could directly improve the customer and employee experience out in the parks. If you are standing in that long Peter Pan line, you also probably wouldn't want to see the gasoline bills for the TDA executives fleet of Chevy Tahoes and Cadillac Escalades that are filled up at company expense each week, would you? And while those single bench pirate ships glide out of the boarding area, you also shouldn't think about the skyrocketing TDA expenses for the business travel between Anaheim and Orlando that has tripled in just the past year under Jay Rasulo's wasteful new "global" corporate structure.

We'll let you know what TDA decides on those new Peter Pan boats, but as of this writing it didn't look like any major executive thought it worthy to spend the extra money to double the capacity of the popular ride.

Executive Autopia: No Fast Lanes for You!

Now to be fair, through no fault of the suits in TDA, the business of Disneyland is much more complicated now than it was way back in Walt's day. There are dozens of departments and minor fiefdoms back in that Frank Gehry designed, school bus yellow office building that could never have been imagined just 25 years ago, and many of them are direct results of the cultural changes in our increasingly litigious society.

Despite that though, some TDA departments continue to simply border on folly, such as the "Commuter Assistance" group that employs full time salaried staff to manage the distribution of discount Metrolink tickets for the salaried folks or bus schedules for the hourly folks. The Commuter Assistance department even has a budget plush enough to give away free Honda Civic Hybrid sedans to secretaries or TDA cubicle dwellers that earn raffle tickets through their "clean air commuting habits."

While they give away that little hybrid Civic to some lucky secretary, the Commuter Assistance folks always fail to mention that TDA Vice Presidents receive a new gas guzzling V-8 Chevy Tahoe each year as their company car. (Nevermind the massive fuel bill for the small fleet of corporate jets the really big boys in Burbank zip around in.) But then that wouldn't really mesh with the whole "clean air commuting" campaign, would it?

Now we do have to note that the President of the Resort Ed Grier doesn't hunt down beauty queens for photo ops in a gas guzzling Tahoe. No, instead for his tiara quest Ed gets a full-tilt Cadillac Escalade with the biggest V-8 that General Motors makes. No Sarge's Boot Camp for this SUV.

It's a fat and happy world out at TDA folks, and after the staggering level of business that poured in during the 50th, a few of those suits certainly deserve some of that fat. But when there are so many pressing needs out in the parks that directly impact the paying customers and the front line Cast Members that serve them, some of those hidden away TDA departments look rather wasteful and silly. Think of that the next time you're waiting in that long line for Peter Pan, won't you?

Pirates, Inc.

Speaking of lines, there will be a few other long ones on the other side of the park once the third Pirates movie premieres on Memorial Day Weekend. The Pirate's Lair project continues on the fast track. The island has been closed for two weeks as you read this, but there's still not a lot of visible construction happening. Passengers on the Mark Twain can see that something is going on however, as spray paint marks the locations to be altered as Injun Joe's Cave becomes Dead Man's Grotto and the swampy inlet near the barrel bridge prepares to become the location of a sunken pirate galleon. Don't worry, that barrel bridge that the lawyers made rather toothless a few years ago will remain. It should be interesting to see just how this whole thing pans out. Lasseter recently had his final executive overview of the island project earlier this month up in Glendale, and yes, he gave it the thumbs up.

Just as WDI bigwigs have been falling all over themselves in the past year to add scale and new scope to the original plans for the new submarine ride, so they are trying very hard to convince John that their respective teams can get this Pirate project off the drawing board and into the park in under six months time and just as the movie opens in theaters. Remember, John's biggest pet peeve has been about Imagineering and how historically they slowly added attractions to the parks; he's been vocal in his disappointment that new rides would debut several years after the associated movie had left theaters.

The plans for the rumored Phase Two of this island project have been firming up as the Studio gets closer to committing to an additional trilogy of Pirates movies in the years ahead. (Yes, you read right. Not one more sequel, now they are looking to do a trilogy.) Right now WDI is going with a rather large walk-through experience that would borrow from or loan out concepts to the massive Hong Kong Adventureland project we'd already told you about.

While a tenuous attachment to the Tom Sawyer theme will be maintained with Phase One (Tom Sawyer-ish best describes it), it's Phase Two that would wipe out the Walt Disney bequeathed literary backstory completely. Trust us when we tell you that the way things are currently going, you'll have to look awfully hard for any Tom Sawyer elements when the new Pirate's Lair opens in May. Maybe the raft drivers could just loudly recite that convenient Mark Twain quote from the rehab sign (above) as everyone heads over to Pirate's Lair at Tom Sawyer Island? Otherwise, most people won't be able to make much of a connection to Tom and Huck once they start playing with all of the new pirate toys over there.

Oh yeah... Across the esplanade...

And while Disneyland's construction projects go full bore, there's plenty of action over in Paradise Pier as well. The installation of an entirely new building under the tracks of California Screamin' hasn't been going as well as hoped, and that popular roller coaster continues to see delayed openings or unplanned day-long closures due to construction logistical hurdles that keep cropping up. Luckily these closures are all happening on weekdays when the DCA customers are almost exclusively made up of park-hopping tourists who can try again the following day.

The other potential problem that hasn't amounted to much is the lack of excitement generated by the fizzling Rockin' Both Parks promotion. If that concept had really taken off as hoped, the unscheduled closures of California Screamin' would have created more customer complaints. But as it stands now, the customer feedback on both Rockin' Space Mountain and Rockin' California Screamin' is tepid at best. Most tourists never see the freeway billboards around SoCal and are unaware anything is supposed to be different until they get on the rides. The comments coming in to Guest Relations are currently running 2 to 1, with two complaints coming in for every compliment regarding the new soundtracks. Most of the complaints are for Space Mountain specifically, as the changes to Screamin' are only limited to a new soundtrack that many people don't even notice is changed. Ride these two altered attractions before April folks, we'll likely never see this unfortunate promotion again.

2/15/07 Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael

But it's the new attraction being built under California Screamin' that holds the most promise. Depending on how exactly the construction schedule pans out on the adjacent Placemaking program for Paradise Pier, we could get our first glimpse of the new DCA once the front building of Toy Story Midway Mania starts to rise from the ground. Once construction gets going, it will quickly become apparent that the strip-mall architecture of the original Paradise Pier will soon be a thing of the past. The new Midway Mania building that will push out into the former patio dining area of Maliburitos will be themed to the hilt as something from a very finely detailed Victorian seaside resort. Genuine clapboard will replace the stucco, and gingerbread woodwork trimmed with Main Street style lightbulbs will replace the vinyl signage and strips of neon.

The open air pavilion at the end of the Midway Mania building will have to be shielded from view during construction though, as it will house the 10 foot tall animatronic Mr. Potato Head who will act as the barker for the ride and invite guests into the queue as he miraculously unplugs his nose and ears off his face as he interacts personally with people standing near him. He'll be one of the next generation "Living Animatronics" that WDI has been working on, and he's sure to be one of the most photographed sights in the new DCA. Midway Mania is going to be a great dark ride folks, and once you see how lushly detailed the entrance façade and queue building is you'll realize how serious John Lasseter is about fixing DCA for good.

2/15/07 Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael

Notice how we still use the old name - Midway Mania? Even though it was announced out in Florida by the passionless Rasulo as Toy Story Mania, that's only the name they are going to use for the MGM Studios version. Or we should say Disney-Pixar Studios Theme Park. Yes, the Florida team will be moving forward on a rebranding of that park in Florida, including that new name, beginning in 2008. Hmmm, I wonder if they will also send some animators back to that empty animation building?

This ride was designed originally as a DCA exclusive, and it was themed specifically to the Paradise Pier midway, so the original name will stick. They'll shoehorn this concept into the Florida park by pretending it's a Pixar Studios tour, but why exactly all of your Pixar pals are playing midway games will somehow still have to be explained. But how many right coast tourists are going to know where Emeryville is, or what the Pixar studio campus looks like anyway? Let us be happy out here on the left coast that we are getting the version that will actually make sense in its chosen environment.

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