This week's episode - comments disabled, no discussion?

To each their own. While yes Disney has major PR issues with this like trying to down play it. I think how they talked about it on the show this week was perfectly acceptable. These aren’t unsafe, and they will run again soon with people. Craig and I basically have the same thoughts on this.

"To each their own"... indeed.

I'm not necessarily concerned with the lack of a rant. But it's the nonchalant attitude that is taken vs the "guns-a-blazin" rants when someone's food is cold or someone has to wait in line for 15 minutes. As I said before, those two takes on different incidents are stark in contrast. And it hints of something more than lack of care; but more deeply rooted in "let's not make Disney upset", if I'm being honest. And I'm about the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist. I think disingenuity is a more apt way to describe it.

I'm willing to bet past conversations regarding monorail failures have accounted to more than just a "meh" attitude. ;)
 
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If anything is justified in "needing a rant" this would certainly be at the top of that list.
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I guess that's kind of my point. Look, Disney is taking it in the shorts on this deal, to be sure. But the team has spent more time railing against cold plates of chicken and distasteful spaghetti sauce than they spent on what appears to be the complete failure of a multi-million dollar transportation system and several dozen (if not more) guests forced to sit in a box in the sky for 3 hours. I was surprised it was met with a collective shrug. I do, in fact, think there was something to see here, and the reason I tune in every week is the fact that they don't wear the Disney-colored glasses. That's why, generally speaking, when they talk Disney, I listen.
 
Yeah Craig is having a conversation about it on twitter - he's really defending Disney in this matter.

I'm kinda surprised, because Craig is usually a straight-shooter and doesn't engage in Disney PR. I do think it's strange because like the person above me said, if he or Ryno had gotten stuck, the reaction would be entirely different.

I remember the Amatista review from Universal when he and Ryno were furious because they had to wait too long for their food/server (not saying their reaction was unjustified). They didn't give Amatista any breaks because it was brand new, they didn't shrug it off...

I had no problem with the discussion on the podcast, but Craig's reaction on twitter is definitely a little unexpected. He's comparing those who don't like the gonadals to people that burn books. Uh, what??
I have not once defended Disney in this matter. I have said from the start that they screwed up. In fact, I’ve said to friends that only Disney can take a transportation system regularly run by potheads and drunks at ski resorts and break it in a week. I’ve seen two sides to this, people hating Disney for leaving people up that long and people saying gondolas shouldn’t exist. In my mind, but aren’t valid. Gondolas are great and Disney rescued people as quickly as they could. Common sense says if I’m up in the air and a crashed vehicle is blocking where I get off then it might take awhile for me to get down. It’s not like it’s a car accident that they can move to the side of the road and figure out later.
And you’re right, we did rip apart Amatista because that was human error that no one was attempting to fix despite giving it multiple chances. And I am comparing book burners to the people talking about how much they hate gondolas. Both types of people in my opinion get bent up on this crap for very little reason and then become very vocal about it. I could’ve included multiple other types of people but I figured book burners would be the least offensive as I probably would’ve called out some followers if I mentioned the other types.
 
ellh said:
If anything is justified in "needing a rant" this would certainly be at the top of that list.
But the team has spent more time railing against cold plates of chicken and distasteful spaghetti sauce than they spent on what appears to be the complete failure of a multi-million dollar transportation system and several dozen (if not more) guests forced to sit in a box in the sky for 3 hours.


Don't forget parking garage construction timelines. ;)
 


If anything is justified in "needing a rant" this would certainly be at the top of that list.
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I guess that's kind of my point. Look, Disney is taking it in the shorts on this deal, to be sure. But the team has spent more time railing against cold plates of chicken and distasteful spaghetti sauce than they spent on what appears to be the complete failure of a multi-million dollar transportation system and several dozen (if not more) guests forced to sit in a box in the sky for 3 hours. I was surprised it was met with a collective shrug. I do, in fact, think there was something to see here, and the reason I tune in every week is the fact that they don't wear the Disney-colored glasses. That's why, generally speaking, when they talk Disney, I listen.
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And this is the problem here. “Complete failure”. It’s not a complete failure. It was an accident that had a downtime that could’ve been severely longer when you step back and think about it. Yes it’s a shame that it happened so soon after opening, but what is the appropriate time period before it was acceptable to the average person? Disney is and will work to fix it. The other stuff we usually rally about are easy fixes that just get consistently ignored and shouldn’t.
 
"To each their own"... indeed.

I'm not necessarily concerned with the lack of a rant. But it's the nonchalant attitude that is taken vs the "guns-a-blazin" rants when someone's food is cold or someone has to wait in line for 15 minutes. As I said before, those two takes on different incidents are stark in contrast. And it hints of something more than lack of care; but more deeply rooted in "let's not make Disney upset", if I'm being honest. And I'm about the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist. I think disingenuity is a more apt way to describe it.

I'm willing to bet past conversations regarding monorail failures have accounted to more than just a "meh" attitude. ;)
For some sure. I for one haven’t changed my attitude towards the monorails. I still ride and enjoy them. Yes those need to be replaced but so does a lot of public transportation in the world.

I know many dis fans love the next Pete rant but I can take or leave them. It’s not something I come to the Dis for. Yes poor service or something along those lines may deserve a mention but I personally wouldn’t rant about it. Everyone is different though and has different attitudes towards different things. If everyone was the same it would be pretty boring.
 
... And I am comparing book burners to the people talking about how much they hate gondolas. Both types of people in my opinion get bent up on this crap for very little reason and then become very vocal about it. I could’ve included multiple other types of people but I figured book burners would be the least offensive as I probably would’ve called out some followers if I mentioned the other types.

Considering the more notable groups of people known for burning books... it's just a bad and unproductive analogy. You're skirting right up to the edge of Godwin's Law with that one.
 
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Yes it’s a shame that it happened so soon after opening, but what is the appropriate time period before it was acceptable to the average person? Disney is and will work to fix it. The other stuff we usually rally about are easy fixes that just get consistently ignored and shouldn’t.

I completely disagree with this point of view. Those 'little things' are things you can reasonably expect. I can reasonably expect to wait for X/Y/Z, even though it may irk me. I can reasonably expect there's a chance a my food won't be delivered in a timely manner or as I ordered. These are things you deal with in daily life; not just at Disney.

However, I can't reasonably expect a brand new ride system to fail after month(s?) of test-ops. I would also not expect for the monorail system to get stuck on the line but now that we know this kind of thing happens, we all reasonably expect that. Still, aside from the fact that we now know the Skyliner, the brand new Skyliner, can run in to each other and cause guests to be stuck in the air for up to 3 hours, I think other concerns could have been raised about the unreasonable expectation of guests being stuck for that long. It highlights other deficiencies related to the Skyliner.

I feel some are blowing this up. I also feel some people are completely justified in their concerns. I'm not terribly concerned. I'll probably even still ride it. But to have such a passe mentality toward it (at least publicly) seems like an under-reaction to me. I just hope that Disney as a company and their employees aren't taking this as lightly as some of you are.
 
I have not once defended Disney in this matter. I have said from the start that they screwed up. In fact, I’ve said to friends that only Disney can take a transportation system regularly run by potheads and drunks at ski resorts and break it in a week. I’ve seen two sides to this, people hating Disney for leaving people up that long and people saying gondolas shouldn’t exist. In my mind, but aren’t valid. Gondolas are great and Disney rescued people as quickly as they could. Common sense says if I’m up in the air and a crashed vehicle is blocking where I get off then it might take awhile for me to get down. It’s not like it’s a car accident that they can move to the side of the road and figure out later.
And you’re right, we did rip apart Amatista because that was human error that no one was attempting to fix despite giving it multiple chances. And I am comparing book burners to the people talking about how much they hate gondolas. Both types of people in my opinion get bent up on this crap for very little reason and then become very vocal about it. I could’ve included multiple other types of people but I figured book burners would be the least offensive as I probably would’ve called out some followers if I mentioned the other types.

Craig you're the best and I absolutely respect your opinion, and the only thing I'm gonna push back on is that it was certainly human error for Disney to issue that ridiculous "unexpected downtime" response and IMO that deserves criticism.

Like I said, I'm not mad or disappointed or anything about your response, I'm just a little surprised. Your tweets about it just seemed a tad defensive.
 
LOL they closed the discussion because they didn't like the heat they where getting for their disregard and complete lack of empathy towards people being stuck for 3 hours. What's so disingenuous is these are the same people who get ticked off when they have to wait an extra 15 minutes for a reservation, but we are supposed to believe they would totally be cool being stuck in a hot box.
You’re right. I don’t feel empathy for people who got stuck the same way I wouldn’t expect it from anyone if I was stuck with the exception being Disney. No one forced any of those people that night to be on the gondolas and if you can’t understand that anything and everything can break down then what world do you live in? And why would you expect to ever get down from something 60+ feet up in the air quickly? Because it’s Disney and Disney is magical and can never do wrong? No, I wouldn’t be happy if I got stuck, but I’m not happy when I get stuck in traffic or stuck sitting on a plane for 2 hours outside of the gate because of bad weather and they a/c is doing nothing to help the situation.
You can think what you want, but I believe that a bigger problem at Disney is toxic service issues or disgusting food at a restaurant that thousands eat at a day that can continue on sometimes for months or years and can be fixed easily versus a gondola that had an accident that caused a downtime for a couple hours impacting a couple thousand people that probably won’t happen again for a long time. If it happens a month after the Skyliner is reopened then I’ll light the torch up.
 
I'm not necessarily concerned with the lack of a rant. But it's the nonchalant attitude that is taken vs the "guns-a-blazin" rants when someone's food is cold or someone has to wait in line for 15 minutes.

That's what surprised me as well. Give you an example: Pete has soured me on Grand Floridian (even though I have never stayed there) because of his insistence that, for what you pay, the quality simply is not there. He holds them to a high standard. And rightfully so! In this case, WDW spent millions on this system, tested it for months, and in one week this happens. That high standard should be held here as well - not "well, no one died." We'll all move on, and there will be something else to talk about next week - I just think this wasn't given as much color as other, less disconcerting problems in the park have been given in the past.
 
I completely disagree with this point of view. Those 'little things' are things you can reasonably expect. I can reasonably expect to wait for X/Y/Z, even though it may irk me. I can reasonably expect there's a chance a my food won't be delivered in a timely manner or as I ordered. These are things you deal with in daily life; not just at Disney.

However, I can't reasonably expect a brand new ride system to fail after month(s?) of test-ops. I would also not expect for the monorail system to get stuck on the line but now that we know this kind of thing happens, we all reasonably expect that. Still, aside from the fact that we now know the Skyliner, the brand new Skyliner, can run in to each other and cause guests to be stuck in the air for up to 3 hours, I think other concerns could have been raised about the unreasonable expectation of guests being stuck for that long. It highlights other deficiencies related to the Skyliner.

I feel some are blowing this up. I also feel some people are completely justified in their concerns. I'm not terribly concerned. I'll probably even still ride it. But to have such a passe mentality toward it (at least publicly) seems like an under-reaction to me. I just hope that Disney as a company and their employees aren't taking this as lightly as some of you are.
What about something like Hagrid’s? You mentioned opening a ride with issues and that certainly is an example of that albeit a different company.
 
I don't think the gondolas are unsafe. I don't think this was a "disaster" in the same way the fatal monorail crash was.

What this was, at its core, was a failure of Disney to effectively communicate an emergency situation to the hundreds of guests stranded in the air, and this is a HUGE PROBLEM.

The entire reason why this whole debacle took so long is because Disney did NOT effectively communicate the situation to the guests, leading many to panic and call 911, perhaps unnecessarily, in a chain reaction fashion. Had Disney simply told the people in the gondolas what was happening ("mechanical issues at a loading station requiring the removal of a few cars--please sit tight and we hope to get you moving again in xx minutes.") this whole thing could have been over in under an hour.

THIS is what I expected the team to discuss. Not tell us how safe gondolas are in general. Disney deserves to be skewered and called out for their abysmal handling of the situation, not the fact that the situation happened in the first place.
 
I don't think the gondolas are unsafe. I don't think this was a "disaster" in the same way the fatal monorail crash was.

What this was, at its core, was a failure of Disney to effectively communicate an emergency situation to the hundreds of guests stranded in the air, and this is a HUGE PROBLEM.

The entire reason why this whole debacle took so long is because Disney did NOT effectively communicate the situation to the guests, leading many to panic and call 911, perhaps unnecessarily, in a chain reaction fashion. Had Disney simply told the people in the gondolas what was happening ("mechanical issues at a loading station requiring the removal of a few cars--please sit tight and we hope to get you moving again in xx minutes.") this whole thing could have been over in under an hour.

THIS is what I expected the team to discuss. Not tell us how safe gondolas are in general. Disney deserves to be skewered and called out for their abysmal handling of the situation, not the fact that the situation happened in the first place.
This I will agree with. There certainly was a communication problem with this situation. Disney attempted to downplay the issue from the start.
 
Craig you're the best and I absolutely respect your opinion, and the only thing I'm gonna push back on is that it was certainly human error for Disney to issue that ridiculous "unexpected downtime" response and IMO that deserves criticism.

Like I said, I'm not mad or disappointed or anything about your response, I'm just a little surprised. Your tweets about it just seemed a tad defensive.
It was wrong of them to make that statement and like I said on Twitter, I’m sure some lawyer told them to make it to protect themselves. It’s not okay. My defense isn’t for Disney. It’s for gondolas because they same people who are tearing it apart after one accident are the same that have been criticizing it for months. Try it, don’t try it. I don’t care, but don’t openly badmouth a system and then use one accident to justify it for the rest of time.
 
You said ride system in your previous post. Hagrid’s would fall under that.

But I was talking about a mode of transportation. Not that it matters. Now you know. And my point stands.
 
Hagrid's is an attraction.

Not a mode of transportation.
Both are one in the same. A roller coaster by theory doesn’t have to drop you off at the same place as it starts. If it didn’t then it would be transportation. Space Mountain drops you off at a place different from where you got on so technically in a way it’s very unhelpful transportation with some thrills in the middle.
 
But I was talking about a mode of transportation. Not that it matters. Now you know. And my point stands.
In that case what about the 737 Max aircraft? That had major issues after months of testing.
 

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