Space Mountain Soft Opening Reactions
(To the mods: I'm sorry for the double post, but I figured this one would be easier to see than digging through a 3 page thread in News, Rumors, and Imagineering)
Ok so, I got to ride Space Mountain as part of a soft opening yesterday and here is my reaction.
Everything I figured would be the case IS the case. The queue is almost identical to the way it was before, minus the interactive section towards the very end. The loading area is the only thing that is drastically different, as you can no longer see the track above you (which is, in my mind, part of the reason that it wasn't as dark as it could have been in the initial version).
The ride itself is pretty much unchanged. There are different sound effects in the blue tunnel. The mountain itself is darker, and there seems to be more stars. The re-entry tunnel is still the same effect they've used since 1975. The exit area is identical. The escalator portion has some new scenery/touched up scenery. The green screen tunnel on the exit escalator has been painted a hideous shade of neon lime green and the former TVs have been shoddily covered up with a banner.
California is still leaps and bounds ahead of this one and TDO really dropped the ball here. I know we're in a bad economy, but this ride is the way it is now because Disney was worried about all the whiners and complainers they would have had to deal with going "Oh my vacation is totally ruined because SPACE MOUNTAIN WASN'T OPEN and I'll never ever ever have the chance to get on it again."
To which I respond with, "Big deal. California closed theirs for almost 2 years and the world didn't come to an end. Deal with it."
Disney needs to stop worrying about what their guests think in the short term and instead think about the long term profits that could result from giving Space Mountain the upgrade that it TRULY deserves despite a much lengthier closure. They need to start focusing on quality again. Giving into the complainers and rushing a refurb to have it open for Christmas, especially after seeing what the end result was (which is to say, it's pretty much the exact same ride) has proven to me that TDO has really lost its way in terms of delivering a unique and memorable experience so many years after an attraction has opened.
One last thing...before anybody responds with "it's not officially finished yet"...note that it's supposed to reopen next Saturday. There's no way you could get me to believe they're going to throw in some drastically huge upgrade in less than a week.
Edit: Forgot to note that the on-ride photo is in one of the most nonsensical places possible: at the turn in the "launch" tunnel that takes you onto the lift. In my picture I looked like a deer in headlights because it wasn't even a remotely exciting part of the ride yet.