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Trial by Fire
We also quickly need to note today the
impact this past weekend's wildfires that erupted just a few miles from
Disneyland had on the Resort, and give a well-deserved pat on the back for the way
management handled a scary situation.
The first Orange County wildfire began at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning near
the Orange County line along the 91 Freeway, and the wind quickly pushed the
smoke west towards Disneyland. By 10:30 a.m. the skies quickly turned from
bright blue to a hazy orange, with the strong smell of smoke and bits of grey
ash floating in the air. Disneyland's response was to immediately pull the
horses off of the streetcar route and send them back to the barn for the rest of
the day so that the hard working animals could avoid placing stress on their
lungs as they trudged up and down Main Street USA.
By 11:00 a.m., with the sky
turning a darker shade of orange, park management had also closed the Davy
Crockett Canoes since those Cast Members are doing quite a bit of manual labor
to get those boats full of relaxed tourists around the Rivers of America. And by
Noon the departments that have Cast Members primarily in outdoor locations like
Outdoor Vending, PhotoPass, and Security were doing what they could to make sure
plenty of breaks were going out and that only the most necessary positions were
being staffed.
The decision to cancel the evening fireworks was made unusually
early, at 4:00 p.m., from both a safety and community public relations
perspective, while the two scheduled performances of Fantasmic! were tentatively
given the go ahead to proceed, with modified use of pyrotechnics. Not
surprisingly, park attendance took a nose dive by late morning, and the
originally planned Disneyland attendance of 43,000 was revised down by the park
duty manager to 35,000, with less than 32,000 actually showing up for the day.
DCA struggled to get 8,000 for the day.
By mid afternoon as the news came in of widespread evacuations and hundreds
of homes burning in Anaheim Hills, Yorba Linda and Brea, Disneyland management
quickly got word out that any Disneyland Resort Cast Member and their family
impacted by the fires or evacuations could call a special number to arrange for
complimentary lodging at the Disneyland Hotel for the weekend. That very classy
move on management's part, in addition to the temporary suspension of the
Resort's "presenteeism" policy for attendance tracking as hundreds of Cast
Members were stuck on closed freeways or stranded away from their homes helped
reduce the stress level a bit for many Cast Members and their families.
The important thing to realize here is that this all played out on an
otherwise slow Saturday when TDA was empty and all of the suits and clueless
executives were nowhere near the park. These snap decisions, big and small, were
made on the fly by the front line management who keep the parks and hotels
running day to day without benefit of TDA's rambling PowerPoint presentations
and meaningless "global initiative" mandates. Even our sources in TDA
readily admit that it's the managers and supervisors inside the parks and at the
hotels who really deserve all the credit for making the right decisions at the
right time during key moments like this past weekend. (And we must give special
thanks to reader Ken Moulton for those amazing photos.)
Snow Job
So now that the fires around Anaheim have abated and the cleanup has begun,
attention turns to the upcoming Holiday season and the new things headed to
Disneyland.
The new Christmas tree has arrived in the Town Square, but so far
none of its 200,000+ LED lights have been activated while visitors
have been in the park, nor have the hundreds of thousands of
additional LED fixtures on the new garlands strung along Main Street
been turned on yet.
The expanded Christmas "snow show" will debut this Friday after
sundown, and like last year it will be used both during the grand
finale of the nightly Believe In Holiday Magic fireworks as well as
several other times during the evening as part of a snowy mini-show.
I'm sure the MiceChat message boards will fill up with
pictures and video once this impressive new light show debuts on Friday night.
small world, BIG CONTROVERSY
Luckily, one of the first offerings to debut is the most anticipated and
that's the return of it's a small world after its thorough ten month long
refurbishment. The inspectors from California's DOSH offices were at the park
late last week conducting their inspections of the new boats, ride system
machinery and Cast Member operating procedures. The refurbished attraction and
the Cast Members that operate it passed the inspection with flying colors and
DOSH has given their blessing to open the ride as soon as Disney is ready and
willing. Officially the ride reopens on Friday, November 21st, but
the plan now is to soft open the ride on both Wednesday and Thursday.
What will riders find as they head board their more buoyant new boat and
float through the topiary garden and towards the building entrance? It's easy to
see that the façade has been completely repainted and restored, with the paint
and real gold leaf all redone since the last major exterior refurbishment in
2003 along with some new lighting effects. But when you enter the building what you will find is really just a fully
refreshed and brightened version of the same it's a small world holiday
attraction that has been running every November and December since 1997.
You
won't be able to spot any of the new Disney and Pixar Characters added to the
ride, nor will you be able to see the new Americana show scene still being
constructed behind the black curtains in the traditional "Holiday Salutations"
room that always precedes the grand finale'. The big grand finale' room will
look the most different to riders this weekend, as new decorations and some
redesigned sets have been installed here, and eagle eyed fans of the attraction
will be able to spot the changes during the holiday version.
But it's in the South Seas room that the biggest hint that changes are afoot
will be on display, and that's the sudden addition of a condensed and restaged
Rainforest scene that has been added to the left of the flume just as you are
leaving the South Seas room. The much smaller version of the Rainforest scene,
using most of the original 1964 figures and sight gags, has replaced the tall
angular volcanoes with the revolving Polynesian boys on them. Two of those
volcanoes and their boy dolls have been pushed over to the left, and are now
slotted in behind the famous row of hula girls shaking their hips wildly at
passing boats.
It's not nearly as dramatic as the darkly lit room the Rainforest
scene used to inhabit, but the folks at both WDI and in TDA hope this token of
goodwill can placate the members of the Save The Rainforest protest
campaign. Other than those changes that only a diehard fan would likely notice
most of the additions and plot changes for it's a small world will remain under
wraps through Christmas.
Once the ride closes again the Monday after New Years, the WDI team returns
and then the big changes begin. After they spent this past summer and fall playing
around inside the ride staging the new Character dolls and remixing the audio
for many show scenes, WDI is putting the finishing touches on the new additions.
The attraction will remain closed for about six weeks in January and February,
and will reopen as the new and improved version of it's a small world.
The new Americana show scene will finally debut at that time, and you can expect
a small media announcement to accompany the new attraction. You can fully expect
the Disney PR machine to be in full damage control spin mode this February, as
both TDA and Glendale are still smarting from the bad press they got when we
broke the news about the changes planned for the Anaheim original.
The plan for next Christmas is to then incorporate all of the new additions
into the holiday version of the show, and the Disneyland Entertainment
department will be working on how to seamlessly achieve that later in 2009.
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