Originally Posted By ChiMike Two quick things: 1) They have to be out of their mind if they plan to add more capacity to rooms/villas on the resort loop until the monorails are back on track and up to speed 2) Without a doubt, the more I think of it (brought it up yesterday), they have to run the system for the holiday parties. Too many locals needing access to TT&C. This then leads to the question, if they can still run them past regular hours for upcharge parties, why not for their deluxe resort guests for a non-upcharge event?
Originally Posted By TDLFAN Not related to this topic but.. Monorail toy collectors pay attention: They are selling the limited edition Tokyo Disney Resort Monorail toy with the upcoming Tokyo DisneySea 10th anniversary "Be Magical!" paintjob on it. Get them while they last. Small opinion about the WDW monorails.. while their service suck and the chances of riding in one where the air conditioning system works or in a car that actually smells clean and it's tidy (no rubbish on floor) is now like less that 35% chances.. there is one single thing that would greatly improve the experience.. GET RID OF THAT HORRIBLE VOICE WHO CONSTANTLY TALK, AND REPLACE WITH A SOOTHING SOFT VOICE. Cutting back the overly excessive amount of blagblagblag and replacing with a more professional, softer voice, would make riding the WDW monorail somewhat more enjoyable. Also.. how much longer before they re-paint that TRON monorail back to the original colors? I mean.. the movie was a stinking flop and no one cares about it anymore. Really!!! That's my 2 cents. Now, I am here in lovely but humid and rainy Hong Kong and I am on my way to HKDL in an hour.. and looking forward to riding the nicely appointed "Disneyland Line" MTR train into the resort. Spirit, I will think of you all day long. Hahahaha!!!
Originally Posted By Bolna <<For what it's worth, this was posted over on Magic. I can't vouch for the poster, but it is interesting.>> Lee, thanks for quoting that post. I can imagine that there is some truth in the fact that the monorail CMs were really trying to bring the issue to management. However, I don't believe that cutting down on monorail time is about maintenance. I think it is about saving money, possibly in order to have more money to spend on maintenance. Actually, the transportation department management might not be the ones to blame, they have to work with the budget they are allocated. The problem lies with the people who don't allocate the money to transportation (because it is a department which does not generate revenue) but to other areas. What they don't get is that transportation is already one of the things which creates the most frustration at WDW for the guests. That's one of the reasons why people pay those prices for the monorail resorts and the Epcot resorts. This move is hurting the monorail resorts - as well as those who opt to not use Disney's transportation but drive to the MK. Not smart at all...
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer >>>GET RID OF THAT HORRIBLE VOICE WHO CONSTANTLY TALK, AND REPLACE WITH A SOOTHING SOFT VOICE<<<< Really? I've always found the Monorail to have a perfectly fine narration. >>>Also.. how much longer before they re-paint that TRON monorail back to the original colors? I mean.. the movie was a stinking flop and no one cares about it anymore. Really!!!<<<< YES. This, I agree with. HATED the TRON monorail... looked incredibly ugly and tacky.
Originally Posted By dshyates I believe Tron is staying. Red is being stickered up by Coke. Green Gieco. Teal is getting an Apple iMonorail sticker job. And oddly enough blue is going to be Universal Orlando and Black, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. At least TDO has figured out how to snag some of that Potter money.
Originally Posted By dshyates Oh, and they are going to tow them out to highly visible areas of the beams and leave them there.
Originally Posted By WDWVacationer Coral has gone in to get the deacals removed and get a new paint job.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>The problem lies with the people who don't allocate the money to transportation (because it is a department which does not generate revenue) but to other areas.<<< Except for the gift shops and food, there are no individual "profit centers" in WDW. OK, maybe the parking lots. The monorails are as much a part of the Disney overall mystic as Space Mountain, or Pirates or HM. It is what makes Disney World, in this case, Disney World. Without it, it is just any other place. I can't imagine how they could even assign profit/loss numbers to it. That said, it is a cost cutting center that is easily targeted. It isn't considered an attraction (even though it is) and therefore looked upon as overhead. At least by mindless accountants with knat like imaginations. Because of the backlash, I doubt this will be something that is a long range problem.
Originally Posted By dshyates I don't really think this will be a problem since the 'rails break down daily before EMH begin anyway. It is a moot point.
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub And that means the early morn magic breakdowns;not just the evening. I forgot about the stupidity of loading us on the monorail to take us to the ticket center and then herding us off to a bus to to go to Epcot. Why didn't they just inform their Deluxe Resort Guests to take a bus from our hotels? Why because it is cheaper to inconvenience everybody and just run a bus from the transport center versus a bunch of extra busses from the different location hotels. So in reality this reduction in service has been going on since mid-May to my personal knowledge. And yes we were all aggravated but not one person filed a complaint and this was a group of 3 resort room paying families. Disney has gotten so good at reducing the fun and commercializing and profiteering everything else to their benefit.
Originally Posted By Manfried I've noticed there are only about 12 people on this thread complaining. Out of millions that visit WDW. Just leave the parks in a timely manner.
Originally Posted By ChiMike That's not the complaint Manfried. Although I agree that it is certainly selfish and self-important for guests to screw with security to try to game it where they stay in the park late. Pretty self-centered. The complaint is that they are shutting down even limited service prior to the parks closing to resort guests. Either through Extra Hours or special event parties. Although I bet they keep the system running for the parties. My bigger concern, which no one is talking about, is how in the heck do they think they can keep adding rooms to these resorts when the Monorail can't now handle the guest loads.
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper <<I've noticed there are only about 12 people on this thread complaining. Out of millions that visit WDW. Just leave the parks in a timely manner.>> And there's one that still doesn't understand the issue...
Originally Posted By ReelJustice Article by Jason Garcia of the The Sentinel about the news: <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/the-daily-disney/os-disney-world-monorail-hours-20110711,0,1288947.story" target="_blank">http://www.orlandosentinel.com...47.story</a> Monorail service every night is being cut down, not just EMH apparently. If you're a "monorail resort" guest, you can't dawdle anymore. You have an hour to get to the station.
Originally Posted By danyoung A very interesting article. If you can believe the numbers, then it does seem as if an extra 3 hours overnight could make a large difference in monorail maintenance. Still, it's gonna wreak havoc on those in the monorail resorts. It'll be interesting to see this play out, and if the complaints rise up to the level where they'll have to restore service on the resort loop.
Originally Posted By ReelJustice As with any other cuts, we may never see this return. Chew on that for a while.
Originally Posted By ChiMike >chuckle< >>Disney said it has not yet decided whether it will operate the trains during extra ticketed events — such as Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party or Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party — that are staged many nights in the Magic Kingdom in the fall and early winter.<< I knew it. Money talks. I love it. The policy will coincidentally change when we need to sell tickets to our guests for parties that offer hours and entertainment that we use to offer for free. ..Just not for those who are paying rack rates at the Grand! Amazing that they will be able to get the necessary maintenance completed around these parties this fall. >>Because of "Extra Magic Hours" — a key perk that Disney has used to drive occupancy in its roughly two dozen hotels — the Magic Kingdom will on some nights not close until 3 a.m. and will then reopen again at 7 a.m. Disney says it takes 90 minutes for its monorail trains to cycle down at the end of the night and another 90 minutes to restart at the beginning of the day. The result: As little as one hour of downtime for the trains.<< And this is where they have not been efficiently managing the operations of these trains. They are putting hours on these trains unnecessarily. If this is the case now, it certainly wasn't the case 15 years ago. Especially in the morning. Are these extreme lengths of time in the cycling of the trains related to changes brought about by the crash? Because 90 minutes is excessive after an extra hours night.
Originally Posted By Manfried I understand the issue fine Hokie. Unfortunately the monorail line was built at a time when it was more economical to build them. Unfortunately WDW development did not really deal with moving people around as well in terms of a master plan. Unfortunately energy prices have gone through the roof. Unfortunately a monorail is very inefficient. Unfortunately there are some spoiled people who want something for nothing.
Originally Posted By ChiMike >>Unfortunately there are some spoiled people who want something for nothing.<< Are you kidding? I would ascribe that to Disney executives, not neccessarily the guests. Guests want to get a value from spending $440 a night v. $120 a night. I can get where the allot some of that difference to monorail access. Guests don't care what the issues behind the scenes are, they just want Disney to deliver. JUST as Disney doesn't care if the guests can really afford the $440 a night they just don't want to see the credit card declined.
Originally Posted By dshyates Isn't one of the perks of paying the ridiculous rates at the monorail resorts actually having monorail service available when the parks are open for your use. Manfried, I think that saying that the folks that paid >$600 a night for a monorail resort are expecting something for nothing is absurd. Maybe to you $600/night is nothing but to me I am paying for monorail service at the monorail resorts. Otherwise I would pay $189/night at the non-monorail Deluxe Resorts.
