Normally, JimHillMedia.com doesn’t run stories like these. Articles that complain about trash at the theme parks. Chipped paint on the park benches. Loose thatch on the roof of the “Enchanted Tiki Room.” Stories like that? I tend to think of as more like the stuff that Al Lutz runs.
(FYI: The above comment should NOT be interpreted as some sort of slam on Mr. Lutz. While I may not approve of everything that Al writes, I still applaud the fact that he keeps such a keen eye on the upkeep of the Disneyland Resort. More importantly, that Lutz doesn’t hesitate to publish photographs that clearly show Mouse House managers what areas in the Anaheim theme parks are in need of some maintenance.
So — when I say “… more like the stuff that Al Lutz runs” — what I’m really trying to say is: The Internet already has one Disney theme park cleanliness and maintenance watchdog. So I don’t really want to go poaching on what I see as Al’s turf.)
But — that said — when this e-mail from L.T. showed up in my in-box last week, I just felt that I had to share it with JimHillMedia.com readers:
Hi Jim,
Just got back from six glorious days at Walt Disney World. Some of the highlights included gaining a wonderful new sister-in-law (my brother got married at the Grand Floridian on Thursday) and seeing the fabulous Wishes fireworks three more times. I also found new appreciation for “Big Thunder” after riding it eight times with my five-year old daughter
My biggest complaint with the entire trip was the embarrassing neglect of my favorite attraction, “Splash Mountain.” “Splash” has everything one can ask for in a theme park experience: a good story, attention to detail coupled with a grand scope, a few thrills and a reasonably long ride-to-wait ratio. Plus the water element makes the ride more dynamic, and thus repeatable. If I had to be stuck on one ride for the rest of my life, it’d be “Splash Mountain.” It is sad to see such a wonderful attraction in such pitiful shape.
Want some examples? I count no less than three non-working AA figures in the attraction, and they’ve been broken for months. Unsightly black cracks in the wall in the showboat scene have gone unpatched and unrepaired since at least October 2003. The plastic wood-like rings on the backs of several logs has partially separated, causing the plastic to sway back and forth in the water when the logs are moving. All of these things are plainly visible to all guests, and must surely be noticed by even the most casual of observers.
But the really glaring example of neglect is the trash that goes uncollected on the attraction every day, remaining there for repeat visitors to see again and again. Last Tuesday night, I noticed an empty blue “Dasani” bottle had been thrown on the rocks on the right side of the attraction a little past the waterfall after the big drop. The bottle was still there Wednesday morning. I mentioned the bottle to my family at dinner Wednesday, and enough of them were curious to see it that we rode again that evening. Sure enough, the bottle was still there. As it was on Thursday. And Friday. By Saturday morning, every adult in my family wanted to brave the wind chill to see whether the bottle was still around. Just like Brer Rabbit, Brer Blue Bottle was still part of the attraction. A call from my brother confirmed the bottle was still there as of Sunday morning.
What does this mean? It means that for at least six days, no Cast member walked around the attraction to check the show elements. No member of management got on the ride to make sure the whole experience was working. For six days, no one saw what the guests all saw. And that, I think, sums up the current state of cutbacks at Walt Disney World: no one is looking at it from the guest’s perspective. I don’t blame the hourly Cast members for this: most of them are young kids who are just learning. I blame management for not showing the Cast members how to perform their jobs correctly.
I’m sure the folks high up have all kinds of PowerPoint presentations on how much money they’re saving the company by deferring maintenance or cutting budgets. But none of them, apparently, actually ride the rides. And that’s sad, because the theme parks have generated enormous good will for the company over the years. I don’t live anywhere near Florida, and I still go to the parks about as often as I go to a Disney or Pixar film, and I probably spend more time in front of attractions than I do watching ABC. Once that reputation for clean, well-maintained, high-quality attractions is lost, Disney will find it staggeringly expensive to regain. Frankly, I doubt they’d have the guts to spend that kind of money. They’d probably just lower their expectations. But who’s going to bring their kid to a theme park broken-down, dirty attractions?
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. My brother’s in Orlando for a few more days, and is promising updates on the blue bottle. I’ll let you know what he says.
L.T.
So some of you out there must be thinking “What’s the big deal, Jim? It’s just a single plastic water bottle. Why make such a fuss about it?”
But — you see — it’s not just a single water bottle. For years now, Disney theme park fans have been using the web as a forum for airing their complaints about the upkeep at the parks. Where corners are continually being cut. The folks back in Burbank think “No one’s ever going to notice if we take a few hundred grand out of the Magic Kingdom’s annual maintenance budget. Cut a few sweepers here, a few painters there. Who’s going to notice the difference?”
Well, based on L.T.’s letter, it’s clear that people DO actually notice when corners get cut at the Disney theme parks. And that they tell their friends and family members about the obvious cutbacks at the theme parks. And then — just like in that old Breck commercial — “They tell two friends and so on and so on … “
You see, this is (I think) Disney’s current management team is really missing the boat. These folks — all they talk about is brand management. How they’re looking to expand the brand. Increase the number of product lines that the Disney corporation can have available for sale.
Whereas all us weenies look to the Disney name and expect quality. Or — at the very least — consistency. Given that the Walt Disney Company has — for nearly 80 years now — delivered a top quality product that typically exceeded guests expectations, we’d like to see that tradition continue. Not watch as the current management whittles away at the tradition, lowering our expectations ’til the Disney name is just that. A name.
I believe that it was actually master Imagineer John Hench who originally first said this: “The Disney name? It’s like this public stamp of approval. You put that name on a movie or a theme park and people just know that it’s going to have a certain special quality.
That’s why we have to be careful what we put the Disney name on. For — if we put one too many products out there that aren’t up to the Disney standard — you’ll weaken the value of the name. And — what’s worse is — you’ll start to water down the value of everything that’s come before this inferior product.”
That’s what (I think) the message is inside of that Dasani bottle. Which (according to a friend that I asked to go ride WDW’s “Splash Mountain” yesterday) is STILL bobbing around in the water at the base of the ride’s waterfall near “Splash”‘s big drop. That the public DOES notice things like this. More importantly, that Disney’s once-high standards of quality — in its theme parks and in its films — have been slipping for a number of years now. And that the public has noticed that as well.
“So how might we turn that situation around?” Funny you should ask. Come back in a week when JimHillMedia.com will actually begin running a series that attempts to address this very problem. I.E. How can the Walt Disney Company regain the public’s trust, make consumers believe that the corporation actually cares about turning out a quality product?
Your thoughts?