Originally Posted By mousermerf It just popped up on the disneyworld.com refurb schedule.. Spaceship Earth is closed until February 18th, 2008.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN Hmmm.. well maybe that is a good thing. Hopefully the longer the refurbish time is, the better this refurbishing will be.
Originally Posted By MPierce There will be some very disappointed people. As they say in France "such is life".
Originally Posted By nbodyhome When SE first shut down, a Guest Services CM (who is a Disney and SE fan) said that it could be as late as March, due to how extensive the rehab would be. I was hoping it wouldn't be the case. As I have said elsewhere, I keep seeing varying dates. Someone here said they were 5 weeks behind. Others say "just about open!" I never expect anything to be open on time anymore. Denise
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^That's a good 'tude to have with WDW these days. They do NOTHING on time. From what I've been able to gather, the plan until this week was to open in a few weeks with many scenes not completed and work slowly, except during the holidays when no work would be done at all, until it all would be done. Siemens didn't want to do it the half- <i>[Ed by Admin]</i> Disney (remember Phil Holmes and PoC last year when his 'it MUST be open for Spring Break' diatribe almost drove a few WDIers to shoot the man) deal and opted to do a slow, complete and quality job. I'm glad they have chosen that path.
Originally Posted By nbodyhome Siemens needs to buy Disney. I am glad the HM was opened, even without all the effects working. But you don't want really incomplete scenes either (like had we been rolling through an empty attic on HM).
Originally Posted By leemac <<From what I've been able to gather, the plan until this week was to open in a few weeks with many scenes not completed and work slowly, except during the holidays when no work would be done at all, until it all would be done.>> Spirit - honestly the plan was always January - I have no idea where people got other timetables from. They are touching every single scene in the attraction and replacing the entire audio and lighting system so it is a huge operation (and adding two brand new scenes - not including the new finale). There was never any plan to open it partly completed.
Originally Posted By Doobie I remember I had initially heard January as well, but official refurbishment schedules have always said November. So maybe there was just a miscommunication there but they definitely giving the impression it would be open next month. Doobie.
Originally Posted By nbodyhome I've talked to SE cast members a number of times. November was a month they were shooting for. The last SE CM I spoke with said that she was telling everyone December "to be on the safe side". The Guest Service CM that I spoke with back when SE closed down (she was one of the last to ride it, she is a big fan of the attraction) said that while they hoped for November, it could be as late as March - due to how much was being worked on, and the interactive nature of it. But each time when I've spoken with a cast member in the SE area, November was mentioned as the target month. I've never heard January.
Originally Posted By leemac ^^ nbodyhome - take it from me - WDI were always targeting early '08. I suspect Ops just weren't properly briefed. If you saw what they are having it do you would appreciate that there was never a chance of the attraction being opened before Thanksgiving.
Originally Posted By nbodyhome Leemac - I have never been inside, but I'm just saying what Disney (and their SE reps) kept telling everyone. I am anticipating it to be a good refurb, so I'll wait until it's ready! Denise
Originally Posted By Disneymom443 To be closed down for so long it will be great when it opens.. I'm looking forward to it when it does. Luckly i will not be there until October of 08. SE is always the fist thing my family does when we get to Epcot, I'm excited about the whole thing.
Originally Posted By NikkiLOVESMickey We're going in December and February. We go to WDW for Mardi Gras every year; our December trip this year is a bonus trip. 33 days!!!!!
Originally Posted By NikkiLOVESMickey Mardi Gras is a lot of fun, but when you've been around it all your life, it's not nearly as exciting as it once was. I live right off one of the parade routes, and I do enjoy going to some of the parades before Fat Tuesday (in fact, I have a party at my condo for Caesar, a great krewe that used to put on a parade at Pleasure Island prior to 9/11), but Fat Tuesday is far too crowded for me. It's gotten very touristy in the last 10 years or so. It used to be that you'd go out around 6:00 am or so to get a spot for a parade that started at 10:00 am Mardi Gras Day. It's gotten so crowded lately that the only way you can get a good spot is if you stake it out the night before and sleep there in a tent. I tell my friends from out of town that if they've never been to Mardi Gras, they'll love it and they need to come down at least once for it. However, my days of fighting over a penny's worth of plastic beads on Mardi Gras Day are over. I much prefer St. Patrick's Day: parades and beads but with a lot fewer people .
Originally Posted By Skellington88 I hope there is a theme song..maybe even the return of Tomorrow's Child in some form! That would really make this refurb kick-a$$!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Spirit - honestly the plan was always January - I have no idea where people got other timetables from.>> If the plan was always in January, then it was never articulated to the people who run EPCOT and WDW Ops in general. Because they were always led to believe the attraction would be open by Thanksgiving and certainly for the hugely busy holiday period. Once again, it appears that one hand of Mickey's doesn't know what the other is doing/planning/thinking. <<They are touching every single scene in the attraction and replacing the entire audio and lighting system so it is a huge operation (and adding two brand new scenes - not including the new finale). There was never any plan to open it partly completed. >> That is not what folks who work at the park and would staff the attraction were told. It really doesn't matter to me one bit. But I do know people plan vacations in advance and Disney does a generally lousy job of telling them what will be open when they're there and what park hours will be. While an attraction can break down, or weather can effect operations and guests just need to act like adults and deal with it ... often it's simply poor planning and that has been the case on things like the Japan resturants to SSE. I tend to think most of these issues can be traced to the money people and constantly changing budgets and moving things to different fiscal quarters etc ... but either way, it's not the way to run a major resort.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 Oh, and as to Ops being briefed, that would be the responsibility of the on-site WDI team.
