Originally Posted By WorldDisney <<The only way there becomes a problem is when Person X (not you, Mr. X) says 'I don't get/like TDS and therefore it has some intrinsic problems.'>> Exactly! It's a difference between saying they don't like something and saying BECAUSE they don't like it, there is something inheritly wrong with it because THEY don't like it. Again, its something everyone does to a degree, but so many elements that seems to make them think the park is somehow regressing as a Disney park puts them in a very tiny minority while most would argue there is NOTHING progressive about DCA other than the fact Eisner brought it under budget, but looking at the finished product, that is nothing to brag about . Again, yeah, it irks me that somehow in the reasoning, DCA somehow got it RIGHT while TDS is well....lost at sea. LOL, how does that happen? I'll say it again, OBVIOUSLY DCA got it wrong: horrible word-of-mouth, shoddy attendance from day 1, more quick fixes than a beat up car and the fact they are working on ideas this very minute on how to bring DCA into the 21st century of Disney parks should tell people, once again, DCA overall appeal is to a veeeeery limited group of people out there unfortunately. I mean how else could you explain a park that can only get a full amount of people in there is when they offer 2 for 1 discounts on the place? It's freaking several hundred feet away from DL and 5 years on, very few (litterally very few, like a few hundred I been told) or willing to even buy a full price ticket to the place. TDR may be discounting, but I don't EVER think it will get there. DCA managed to do that it second year out . But yes, its an opinion and the author is welcome to it. Thankfully most disagree .
Originally Posted By Dabob2 But I don't think the author SAID anything was intrinsicly wrong with TDS. Only that "x and y and z is very well done, yet *I* am not feelin' it."
Originally Posted By Dlmusic <<But I don't think the author SAID anything was intrinsicly wrong with TDS.>> There are plenty of very negative sentences about TDS in that article.
Originally Posted By Dlmusic I feel when I read sentences like, Yet it appears that for a park about the Sea the narratives are undeniably Land locked APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEPTIVE Mermaid Lagoon offers very little in the way of adult adventures (apart from the excellent theater show Under The Sea) and so marks this as a Fantasyland with the acknowledgement that animated characters are purely the realm of children and are literally in isolation from the rest of the park's adventures. Sindbad's Seven Voyages has a slight identity problem in whether its scary and overly barbaric stories told in a childlike interpretation could be seen as suitable for kids at all. When did themeing move past the ideal? This is no hometown community, just the commerce of self-serving individuals such as Scrooge McDuck and more recently the proprietor of the Tower, Harrison Hightower. Little allowance is given for a style or interpretation within an environment - only Port Discovery and Mermaid Lagoon offer a potential break. Those are very negative statements against the park, not a "I didn't enjoy the theme" statement. Personally I don't have a problem stating their opinion that they thought the park was bad. But to say the article was written from a "it just wasn't for me" perspective is not something I can read in the article.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 I am reasonably sure that Jay Rasulo didn't hold the story against Lindsay when they saw each other this week. As opposed to if Lindsay had written a piece on DSP and DCA entitled 'Parks built on the cheap? ... or 'DVC: Do you want to be tied to the Mouse for 43 years?' ... or 'Outsourcing: Is it erroding the Disney magic?' ... those might tick old JR off, but not that piece!
Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara You really have to admire Doobie for letting this thread play out.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^Nah, I admire Doobie for staying away from the rum on his DCL cruise!
Originally Posted By TDR_Fan There seems to be no presence of a moderator(s) on these boards at all. I've seen some nastly personal attacks here and people calling each other out.
Originally Posted By alexbook ^^--The moderators don't necessarily read everything themselves. Instead, they rely on the readers to report violations of community standards. If you see something in this thread which you feel is inappropriate, click on the "Report this topic to a moderator" link, below.
Originally Posted By kennect Goddess, In regards to your remark I feel this thread should die out...Hopefully it will soon....
Originally Posted By disneywatcher Why be bothered by this thread? It merely illustrates a divergence of opinion, and everyone should see that as a learning experience. After all, differing impressions of either good or poor quality are at the heart of why sometimes one group of people (planners and designers) will come up with a DisneySea, and another group of people will come up with a DCA.
Originally Posted By Mr X Actually DisneyWatcher, largely the same designers...completely different budget.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Actually DisneyWatcher, largely the same designers...completely different budget. >>> How true is this? I know both were products of WDI at roughly the same time, but how much overlap was there between people? How much of the Kirks' work went into DCA? How much work did Tom Fitzgerald put into TDS? I'm asking seriously, as I really don't know. I had assumed that they were different sets of people.
Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara That's an interesting question. I think the person most responsible for the biggest problems at California Adventure is Barry Braverman, who was essentially in charge of the project at WDI. I haven't heard his name mentioned in conjunction with DisneySea.
Originally Posted By Mr X There's always a lot of overlap in these huge projects SD. If you go to the very tip-top, of course you've got your project managers and such, but as for creative staff and concept people there are lots of them that work on multiple projects. Like I mentioned to you before, I have lots of friends from Imagineering that came to Tokyo from finishing DCA, and a couple of years later many of them were in Hong Kong as well.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> ...largely the same designers...completely different budget. << Even if many of the planners were the same on both projects, I think you underestimate the negative, adverse influence of the people in charge of DCA. In other words, if Michael Eisner, Paul Pressler and Barry Braverman were in this forum poring over the comments of Lindsay Cave or leemac, compared with those people who strongly prefer DisneySea to DCA, who do you think they'd feel more in sync with? And from that you get the following group dynamics, mentioned awhile ago by Socrates on the DL Expansion board: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A bilene_paradox</a> And notice how the matter of money and budget has yet to even enter the equation, to make things even more complicated? Would Linday's reaction to DisneySea been more positive if that park had a bigger budget? In turn, at what point would spending on DCA have had to drop before even Lindsay or leemac would have said "peeuuu!"
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <But to say the article was written from a "it just wasn't for me" perspective is not something I can read in the article.> That's what I got because the author took great care to say how good the design was. But he/she had to come up with reasons why it wasn't "doing it" for him, so came up with what you can read as negative statements. Basically, "why isn't this working for me? Maybe it's this..." and then figuring out what the "this" is. For instance, I think Mermaid Lagoon looks great, but if it didn't "do it" for him, he tried to figure out why and decided it was the literal isolation - something that bothers me about, say, FFF at DCA, but not FaL at DL, which has the Matterhorn right there and other attractions adults enjoy, including the dark rides (always more adult-inclusive than the basically kinetic rides in Mermaid Lagoon or FFF). I don't know if I'd feel the same way about Mermaid Lagoon, but it's a valid response.
Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara To say that Mermaid Lagoon is just a kiddie area, and that it's a problem because it's isolated in some way, is to misrepresent both the place and its intention. It is willfully isolated because it's supposed to take place in another region--under the sea. And it succeeds marvelously at creating the feeling that you are in another place. In addition to all the rides and attractions, there is a terrific show (one of the best in any Disney park), restaurant (which has a unique menu in that park), and multiple shops--the latter three things all appeal to adults as well as children. Forgetting the rides for the young, seeing the show, eating in the restaurant, and perusing the shop could take a good two to three hours if you don't rush. There's no way anyone is going to explain this to me as a "failure."
