From: Rudeney on
On 7/29/2010 10:49 AM, Paul Lalli wrote:
>
> We next walked over to Dinosaur, but right before we got there, a
> Brazilian Tour Group had flooded the queue, so that it was allll the way
> back to Dino Sue. Ugh. We decided to go use the rest room and get some
> bottles of water first. When we returned, the outside queue had
> disappeared, but of course that just meant that Disney had opened up
> more of the inside queue. Oh well.
>
> Amanda is a big fan of Bill Nye the Science Guy, so she was happy to
> hear his voice in the pre-pre-show area. Then the ride itself - I know a
> lot of people give this attraction a thumbs down, but I really like it.

Yeah, I like it, too. I won't wait more than 20 minutes standby, but it
is fun. It always amazes me at how detailed the ride seems, but if you
pay attention, there's not as much "stuff" inside as you think -
probably less than 10% of the set of Splash Mt.

> We decided to head back into Asia and
> do the Kali River Rapids before doing Everest again. I wasn't *quite* in
> the hotseat, but I was pretty dang close. We'll call it about half-soaked.

It seems that whenever I ride this, I either come away totally dry, or
totally soaked. And you'd think that getting wet on a hot summer day
would be a good thing, but with the 2,000% humidity of FLorida (and
especially AK), you never dry, so it;s really not pleasant.

> Along the Trail, we stopped into the Bat House. It
> always somewhat amazes me that there is no division in the house that
> keeps the Bats away from the Humans.

I guess I've never noticed that. I always thought (assumed) there was a
screen.

> Okay, so now we go back to Everest for our FastPasses. The FP queue
> looks pretty normal, so we get in. And *just* when we're about to merge
> with the standby queue, we here the "technical difficulties"
> announcement. The attraction is closed until further notice. Grumble. So
> now we all have to start making our way back out the queue the way we
> came. Oh. My. God. I have never seen such rude and careless behavior at
> the parks. People were jumping over railings, pushing and shoving. I saw
> one pack of early 20-somethings slide between the railings and literally
> push a woman in a wheel chair out of their way. What in the hell is
> wrong with these people? UGH!

Did you get to keep your FP's? I had this happen once on (on TT, IIRC).
We were past the point where our FP's had been taken, so they had to
give them back to us, and that was a bit of a fiasco because half the
people at the loading area were not FP riders, so they started walking
away, as did about half the FP riders, but then when people started
hearing they were handing out FP's to everyone on the loading platform,
they all started coming back. Disney usually does a great job with
crowd management, but sometime they fail. In these cases, what they
need to do is not announce the ride is closed until they start letting
guests in the queue file "through" and use the exits. This will take
some strain off the masses of people behind them before they make the
announcement and start moving people backward.

> Thanks for reading. Days 3-9 coming .... soon.

Great RT, Paul! Waiting on the rest...

--

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From: Paul Lalli on
Rudeney wrote:
> On 7/29/2010 10:49 AM, Paul Lalli wrote:
>>
>> We next walked over to Dinosaur,
>> I know a
>> lot of people give this attraction a thumbs down, but I really like it.
>
> Yeah, I like it, too. I won't wait more than 20 minutes standby, but it
> is fun. It always amazes me at how detailed the ride seems, but if you
> pay attention, there's not as much "stuff" inside as you think -
> probably less than 10% of the set of Splash Mt.

The difference being, IMHO, that Dinosaur is much faster, so you have
less time to notice each individual scene. In Splash, you're traveling
very slowly, with plenty of time to look left, right, up, and down.

>> Along the Trail, we stopped into the Bat House. It
>> always somewhat amazes me that there is no division in the house that
>> keeps the Bats away from the Humans.
>
> I guess I've never noticed that. I always thought (assumed) there was a
> screen.

You can choose whether to go into the screened-in house, or bypass it,
but once you're inside the house itself, there's nothing dividing the
bats from you. The windows have beams so that humans can't get through,
but the gaps between them are plenty big enough for a bat to fit through
if it so desired.

>
>> Okay, so now we go back to Everest for our FastPasses. The FP queue
>> looks pretty normal, so we get in. And *just* when we're about to merge
>> with the standby queue, we here the "technical difficulties"
>> announcement. The attraction is closed until further notice.
>
> Did you get to keep your FP's?

Yeah, we hadn't gotten to the merge point yet. We were about 3 people
away from the CM who would have taken them, so we didn't have to deal
with any particular fiasco about the FPs. Just the general fiasco of
exiting back the way we came....

>> Thanks for reading. Days 3-9 coming .... soon.
>
> Great RT, Paul! Waiting on the rest...

Thanks, Rodney.
From: Paul Lalli on
Keane wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:49:06 -0400, Paul Lalli <mritty(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> My only complaint was that the Yeti is still in B mode. Sigh.
>
> So I guess the fix didn't go in. Bummer. It didn't move at all?

As far as I could tell, it didn't move at all, any of the times we went on.

>> Amanda is a big fan of Bill Nye the Science Guy, so she was happy to
>> hear his voice in the pre-pre-show area. Then the ride itself - I know
>> a lot of people give this attraction a thumbs down, but I really like it.
>
> She's a big fan of Nye and you didn't take her on Energy?

We have more Epcot days to come on this trip. Stay tuned... :-)

>> Along the Trail, we stopped into the Bat House. It
>> always somewhat amazes me that there is no division in the house that
>> keeps the Bats away from the Humans.

> Aren't there columns between you and the bats? All they have to do is
> put something big enough in the way to reflect sonar...

Columns, yes. But the space between them is plenty big enough for the
bats to fly through - and for humans to stick their arms through.

>> And then over to Finding Nemo. Don't get me wrong, I do love
>> this show too - but I was dead tired by this point and basically slept
>> through the middle third of it. Dang it.
>
> Ha! I've always though Nemo could be a Hall of Presidents or American
> Adventure.

I like all three of those shows. But when you're dead tired, and in air
conditioning, and on nice comfy chairs... it's hard to stay conscious.

> I'm interested in reading your 'step-by-step everything compared to
> Disney' trip to UO. We all do it. :-)

Oh absolutely. I couldn't help it. I was comparing it mentally (and
vocally, to Amanda....) the entire time I was there. Two more days. :-p

Paul Lalli
From: Keane on
On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:19:35 -0400, Paul Lalli <mritty(a)gmail.com>
wrote:

>Rudeney wrote:
>> On 7/29/2010 10:49 AM, Paul Lalli wrote:
>>>
>>> We next walked over to Dinosaur,
>>> I know a
>>> lot of people give this attraction a thumbs down, but I really like it.
>>
>> Yeah, I like it, too. I won't wait more than 20 minutes standby, but it
>> is fun. It always amazes me at how detailed the ride seems, but if you
>> pay attention, there's not as much "stuff" inside as you think -
>> probably less than 10% of the set of Splash Mt.
>
>The difference being, IMHO, that Dinosaur is much faster, so you have
>less time to notice each individual scene. In Splash, you're traveling
>very slowly, with plenty of time to look left, right, up, and down.

The big difference to me, is half the ride is in complete darkness,
and most of the lighting comes from flashes of lightning. I think
Aladar is the only well it character until to get to the photo
shoot... (Or is he after the photo shoot. Ah, those brain cells...)

They don't have to have a whole lot of detail, because you'll never be
able to see it all. (Dinosaur is another one of those attractions I'd
like to see with the lights on.)

Keane
--
When stars are born, They possess a gift or two,
One of them is this, They have the power to make a wish come true...
-- Wishes
Visit my site: http://keanespics.com
From: Rudeney on
On 7/29/2010 12:44 PM, Keane wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:19:35 -0400, Paul Lalli<mritty(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Rudeney wrote:
>>> On 7/29/2010 10:49 AM, Paul Lalli wrote:
>>>>
>>>> We next walked over to Dinosaur,
>>>> I know a
>>>> lot of people give this attraction a thumbs down, but I really like it.
>>>
>>> Yeah, I like it, too. I won't wait more than 20 minutes standby, but it
>>> is fun. It always amazes me at how detailed the ride seems, but if you
>>> pay attention, there's not as much "stuff" inside as you think -
>>> probably less than 10% of the set of Splash Mt.
>>
>> The difference being, IMHO, that Dinosaur is much faster, so you have
>> less time to notice each individual scene. In Splash, you're traveling
>> very slowly, with plenty of time to look left, right, up, and down.
>
> The big difference to me, is half the ride is in complete darkness,
> and most of the lighting comes from flashes of lightning. I think
> Aladar is the only well it character until to get to the photo
> shoot... (Or is he after the photo shoot. Ah, those brain cells...)
>
> They don't have to have a whole lot of detail, because you'll never be
> able to see it all. (Dinosaur is another one of those attractions I'd
> like to see with the lights on.)

That's exactly what I was thinking - so much of D! is in the dark with
just quick glimpses of the set. As for seeing it with the lights on,
there was a behind the scenes special where they came close. It started
with the development of the ride vehicle and how it's much like Star
Tours, but with wheels. They didn't show the whole course, but you
coudl see enough of the "track" and building to tell there wasn't much
to the sets (again, glimpses).

--

- RODNEY

Next WDW Vacation?
Who knows!

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