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You know what's going to happen when these gondolas breakdown it was bad enough rescuing people from a thirty-year-old monorail system what's going to happen when the gondola breaks down
Was there yesterday in Paris. The ride has no waiting time. People are not interested to go in at all. When we walked in a cast member told us to wait while they got the ride ready. I can only imagine that because its so unpopular they turn things off or ride operators have other duties? Anyhow after waiting for about 5 mins the front door reopened and we went in. I had last been on this ride in 1998 as a kid. I was expecting it to be modern and upgraded. It was exactly the same. Very unfortunate but it felt terribly outdated. The effects were awful and the movements of the robots and holograms were jerky and the story was impossible to follow - too many ghostly laughs blaring out of the speakers. It felt shoddy, same as the Snow White ride. I really hope they improve the ride as there is a whole world of modern opportunities. Hopefully the next time I go the ride will be better and hopefully will attract new visitors.
Have been in several times. The Haunted Mansion "makeover" has not convinced me. Quite a lot (+95% ??) of the storyline, told in the article above, is impossible to follow on the spot. It feels like unnessessary blablabla, because simple cut-in-pieces narratives, without a KNOWN story (= a story known by everybody, locally, say in France, in larger parts of Europe..) behind the scenes, is fatally useless.
The Disney original concept (NO story at all), is a 1000 times stronger. Because, if that is the concept, visitors can BUILD their own stories on the spot...
µYou can se this in the original Haunted Mansion,
in the Original PoTC (please, throw out the whole Johnny Depp dumbness... it's destroying the ability to build your own interpretation of what you see, it's just referring to cinema CASH flow...),
in Eftelings Droomvlucht,
or in Eftelings Fata Morgana...
TOP dark ride attractions, NOT based on a story !! They are based on... emotions.
The whole theory that this Thunder Mesa bride story is enhancing the ride, is false. Most people do not even get what the multible appearances of a bride, in full "mortal" dress, has to do with ... GHOSTS ?
The attraction as such, is good, no doubt, but underperforming the Anaheim original. It's a TEMPLATE makeover job, and within the Disney imperium, therefore a weak rip off from their own original IP... quite hilarious.
If it had to be a "different" attaction, it had to be conceptualised and designed from scrap...
More, what is written in comment above already, the animatronics "quality class" is the lowest grade possible. We know that Efteling did 144 or so animatronics in their Fata Morgana attraction, and adopted a (75%...) cheaper technology to be able to build the dark ride at the limited budget, but amazingly, some of the FM animatronics perform MUCH better then those in Phantom Mannor. It has nothing to do with lack of maintenance, it's really about having installed "the most basic" Disney ever came around with.
And, the Mesa Canyon scene, is going completely OFF ghost theming... It's not because there are scattered around some parts of sceletons, that the scene is providing a ghostly impression (to say the least). The scene is way to "worldly" and fatally breaking off the "ghost ride experience". From this scene, the ride is dead, KILLED in it's own theme.... There is even way too much "worldly" light in it (a make NON believe disturbance), and all those crooked stiff animatronics...
I'm sorry, but nobody ever would build something convincing, be using the technique of cheap makeover. Work from scratch. Do your JOB as conceptualiser, storytellen and designer... this ride is like a nice pizza, where ingredients were omitted and added without a view on the whole taste effect, and with a slice cut out which was replaced by a piece of pancake with too much cinnamon, destroying the taste of the pizza when you eat it to the end.
A NO GO...
(Note, I'm writing from a viewpoint that I'm a theme park concept developer myself)