Press Event Fail

Hey everyone, it's finally here! Oh wait, never mind, it's not.

Just as all the "Summer Nightastic" crowds returned home and all the freeway billboards, banners and park maps featuring the dragon were removed, Disneyland scheduled a special press event for 4:30 am this morning to announce the woefully late arrival of Murphy, the Fantasmic! dragon.

One problem: Murphy never showed up. In fact, the press event was canceled altogether.


OC Register was among the invited guests:

Disney dragon debut canceled, but photos and video released

Disneyland canceled the scheduled debut tonight of the massive dragon that was supposed to be the centerpiece of the revamped water-and-light show.

The dragon has been broken all summer, but it was supposed to be ready for tonight’s performance. However, Disney officials are continuing to fine-tune the dragon.

A preview for a select group of media members was canceled this morning. A sneak peek was scheduled for 4:30 a.m., but Disneyland officials called it off just about an hour earlier.

Instead, they sent us a video of the dragon during one of its rehearsals.

No dragon for you!

Oh, what a tease. Photos and video of the dragon are nice, but it's a bit like giving a starving dog a rubber bone.


With no dragon in sight, that left the invited press guests with nothing to talk about except how hard the dragon continues to fail:

Disneyland delays debut of Fantasmic dragon yet again

Disneyland unveiled official photos and video of the new Fantasmic dragon but still has yet to set a date for the 40-foot-tall animatronic’s much-anticipated debut.
[...]
Despite top billing, the oft-delayed dragon failed to appear during the Disneyland’s Summer Nightastic promotion — a big black eye for the Anaheim theme park.

Let's state the obvious. It is very, very bad PR to schedule a special event for the press (at a dismally early hour in the morning, no less) and then call it off. It's bad enough that the dragon missed its cue for the entire duration of the summer campaign to which it was meant to be the highlight; this non-event only made matters worse. They are running the risk of losing their captive audience. Press and park guests will eventually stop caring and ignore the Disney who cried dragon.


So the same question remains: When will Murphy debut? Who knows, and who cares.

DisneyFAIL.

Power Supply Fail

"Power! I need more POWER!!"

If only that nefarious criminal, the sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance, were responsible for this DisneyFAIL.


Nope, it appears that the Disneyland Resort has Anaheim Public Utilities to blame for not one, but two power surges that occurred during park hours: 11 am Monday morning and 1 pm Tuesday afternoon. Both of these power surges caused Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters along with nearly every other Disneyland attraction that is powered by electricity in some way to temporarily close (or "101" in Disney lingo), go through guest evacuation procedures, and remain closed until the power could be fully restarted again.


Orange County Register's Around Disney blog was onto the story when the first power surge occurred Monday morning:

Power surge stopped Disney this morning

A power surge originating from the Anaheim Public Utilities’ electrical grid shut down the rides at Disneyland briefly at around 11 a.m. this morning.

Disney spokesman John Nicoletti couldn’t say exactly how long the rides were down for, but he said that in the event of a power surge, it’s routine to cut the power for each ride and then power it back up for safety reasons.

Anaheim Public Utilities spokeswoman Margie Otto said: “One of our auto-transfer switches failed, causing a momentary dip in voltage. Disneyland was not on that circuit, but they experienced a momentary dip in voltage.”

Hmm, maybe the title of this post should have been "Auto-Transfer Switch Fail," how does that sound to you, Margie?

"They're stealing our batteries!"

This story would have passed calmly if it happened only once, but no, the next day it happened again:

Power outage shuts down Disney rides again, Twitter users say

Disneyland guests are reporting on Twitter that a power outage closed down Disneyland rides for the second day in a row.

Disney spokesman John Nicoletti was checking on the outage. At about 2:30 p.m., he confirmed that at least some of the park have been affected.

Remember, too, that attendance at Disneyland is through the roof this week, as unblocked SoCal annual passholders join the last bout of summer tourism before school begins:

The summer blockouts for the majority of the 800,000+ Annual Passholders end on Sunday and Monday, and Disneyland is battening down the hatches for a huge jump in daily attendance. If you have to go to the park this week expect off-property parking, extremely long lines, and potentially closed turnstiles for a few hours each afternoon. - Al Lutz

The last thing any of the 60,000+ guests who are visiting Disneyland each day this busy week want to hear is that every attraction in the park except the horse-drawn street car and the petting zoo have broken down because the power went out. And I'm sure that's not what cast members who have to evacuate and restart those attractions want to hear either.


But of course, it's the guests who are able to complain the loudest, and what better place to vent than in a Tweet?

@meggggan Disneyland just had an epic fail. Every single ride just shut down. If you're planning to come, don't.

@araxi In line for our first ride and Disneyland has just experienced a full blackout! No power in the park FML

@CassieBrianne ANOTHER power surge at Disneyland? Goddamn people use your fans!

@nyakatan No power @ Disneyland; brown out or evil plot to up gift shop traffic?

@JungleCruiseFan Another power outage at Disneyland? Dayum.

@mckayslife power failure 2 days in a row at disneyland? i'm thinking fowl play is afoot...or at least i'm starting the rumor.

@boy33 Disney, please pay your electricity bills. Blackout two days in a row?!?

@iam_andge i've never seen disneyland so crowded. apparently there was a power outage yesterday AND today. fail on disney's part.

There are some very good letitimate reasons to cause attractions at Disneyland to shut down temporarily during the day. Some are related to weather or natural disasters; some are simply because of a safety cut-out. But all because of a power surge caused an auto-transfer switch mishap by the city? Simply inexcusable. Ride closures due to a negligent Anaheim Public Utilities is not what guests paid $72 a day (or as little as $6 a month) for.


It may not be entirely Disney's fault this time, but it's still a blow to the guest experience that could have been avoided, which is why we're still labeling this a Disney FAIL.