The Tiki Room Succombs to Entropy

Dammit. AS mentioned in another thread, I went to Disneyland today with Brian. One of our visits was the Enchanted Tiki Room (“where the birds sing words and the flowers croon”), yes, the tiki tiki tiki tiki Tiki Room.

I remember being quite, well, enchanted by this show when I was a child. Brian had never been to it before, so it mildly exciting to share this experience together. Of course, we aren’t children anymore, so the show did seem a bit cheesy (and surprisingly short).

Yet, what bothered me most was how little of the attraction still worked. The animatronics just weren’t well. This is not just one or two items–this was about a third of them! The flowers above us had two working members (out of about a dozen). The drummer across from us had just one working arm. And, most amusing (and depressing) for me, the totem poles were seriously screwed up. Out of the 9 faces on each pole, maybe 2-3 worked. Several of them would move erratically–starting to open the mouth for a word, not close it, etc–and some others were frozen, completely inoperable. One face was stuck in an odd position–one eye half opened, the other wide open, the mouth partially ajar. It looked like a death mask

I’m jsut stunned that Disney would let an entire attraction go to crap like that. I know that it is an old show and probably isn’t worth paying to repair–it’ll likely be scrapped and completely renovated, if not replaced–but geeeeeeez! If it works as crappy as it does, just close it down. I thought Disney was anal about things like that.

Ah, well. Let’s all sing like the birdies sing, cheep…cheep cheep…cheep cheep…

Let me introduce you to two new words: Paul Pressler.

He is responsible for all the Disney parks and before that he was responsible for Disneyland specifically (so Disneyland shows more signs of his attentions than do the other parks), and before that he ran the Disney Stores.

He doesn’t give a damn about the parks other than their money making possibilities. If he can make the money without repainting anything, why repaint? If Tiki takes too many CMs to run, why run Tiki? The maintenance on Tiki was just as bad on the outside as on the inside. They have had problems with decay causing pieces of the outside to fall down.

If you want more information may I suggest you check out The Disneyland Information Guide (potential conflict of interest: I write a column for the site). I don’t agree with everything Al says but much of it is sadly true.

One thing to keep in mind is that the best way to get Disney on the maintenance ball again is to constantly pester them about it. If you happen to be at the park again and see something you don’t like, stop by City Hall (across from the bank, next to the fire station) and ask to fill out a comment form. Do not give your complaint verbally, ask for the form. Verbal complaints don’t always end up in the database.