Lately it seems like rumors start to trickle down about possible refurbs, only for them to be quickly taken away or scaled back majorly. I know that with a company like Disney, it's bound to happen...I just wish it didn't. Some of these rumors that are being severely altered sounded really cool.
The first thing that disappoints me is all the talk about Space Mountain. Now, I love Space, it's one of my favorite attractions of property, but let's call a spade a spade...it could use some work. And I was happy to see it was rumored to get some major love. First it was "scheduled" as an 18 month project, full refurb...then it went down to 12...now I'm hearing anywhere from 6-8 months and it's definitely not supposed to be the full refurb it was originally intended to be. From what I've been hearing, it's supposed to be safety stuff and some minor stuff and that's it. Not the full glory refurb this wonderful attraction needs.
It was recently rumored that the Fantasyland refurb that was supposed to get a pretty massive refurb too, however a recent article by Jim Hill claims that that's been pushed back. (However, not taken away yet...thank God!) Fantasyland's refurb was supposed to be pretty spectacular. We were supposed to be getting the Little Mermaid ride that DCA is getting, a Beauty and the Beast dark ride where Snow White is, and then a Snow White mine car roller coaster ride. It all sounded pretty fabulous to me. My hope is it doesn't get pushed back too long. I think this would be a fabulous addition to a park that hasn't had any new major E ticket attraction since Splash Mountain.
Now, I know that of course, with the economy going the way of the toilet...it might not be such a great time to do all these new projects...but thinking about it again. Now might be the perfect time. It's going to be guaranteed the economy will rebound at some point...and if Disney sits on it's laurels and doesn't do anything, then when it rebounds, people won't feel an urgent need to come down. But if they do build, then when the rebound happens, people can say, you know what...let's take a vacation down in Disney...It sounds like there's a lot that's new down there that's been built recently and we should take advantage of it.
But you have to keep in mind...that while Disney is apparently sitting on their laurels, Universal is adding quite a bit to their parks in the recent future. And it seems weird that Disney doesn't seemed fazed by this. I think that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is going to be a big draw...and to watch Disney not announce anything big is quite concerning. And if they don't do something...people are instead going to say, look at all Universal has done...let's try them out this time instead.
I really hope Disney decides that it will be ok to move forward with some of these new projects. As I mentioned, now is the time to do it. There are rumored to be fewer bookings for 2009...so less people who will get angry if things go down for longer periods of time. Now is the time to take some action...I hope Disney knows what they're doing.
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