Why Disneyland Sucks - Beyond Tiki

C Cammo Member San Diego Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 2041	C Cammo Posted posted on Thu, Nov 29, 2007 12:19 PM DLand is still a fun place to go. But Luke Vigorwalker & I aren't grouching, we're MAD. We're mad because we obviously LOVE Disneyland, and don't enjoy seeing it dismantled day by day to make way for cheaper, less interesting attractions. The gardeners and tech maintenance guys are mad too. Their departments have been cut back drastically. In 2005 I talked to an early morning gardener just leaving the park, and asked him why they had cut down all the ornamental pears that surrounded the Walt statue in the central hub. These exquisite trees were the result of decades of careful hand-pruning to create enormous (in effect) bonsai plants. In spring they'd turn into snowball trees, popping out into beautiful white blossoms. They were like Japanese cherry blossoms, but stark white. The staff were so proud of them, all growing resplendant around Walt. The gardener guy knew I loved those trees as much as he did, and said that a year before the marketing department had been taking photos of the castle and the bottom was slightly obscured by the trees. Rather than build a temporary raised camera platform, they had requested them all cut down for the 50th anniversary party. Management went along with it and cut them all down. The problem was, the executives hadn't realized that they'd have to plant NEW trees in the same places. (Something had to go there.) So they planted new trees, all with of course straight trunks, young trees that grow really fast and STRAIGHT UP. A year later, they were back to where they had been, but worse. Nobody had consulted the tree guys. The solution was to have a camera guy simply place a platform between the trees and take some test shots. The marketing guys pretended that they liked them to avoid the blame. Meanwhile the new trees will take literally dozens of years to prune correctly, all on tipsy ladders, to keep them from growing straight up and obscuring even more of the castle. But that's nothing. The Rocket Rods fiasco was the thing that almost shut down the whole park.

DLand is still a fun place to go.

But Luke Vigorwalker & I aren't grouching, we're MAD. We're mad because we obviously LOVE Disneyland, and don't enjoy seeing it dismantled day by day to make way for cheaper, less interesting attractions.

The gardeners and tech maintenance guys are mad too. Their departments have been cut back drastically.

In 2005 I talked to an early morning gardener just leaving the park, and asked him why they had cut down all the ornamental pears that surrounded the Walt statue in the central hub. These exquisite trees were the result of decades of careful hand-pruning to create enormous (in effect) bonsai plants. In spring they'd turn into snowball trees, popping out into beautiful white blossoms. They were like Japanese cherry blossoms, but stark white. The staff were so proud of them, all growing resplendant around Walt.

The gardener guy knew I loved those trees as much as he did, and said that a year before the marketing department had been taking photos of the castle and the bottom was slightly obscured by the trees. Rather than build a temporary raised camera platform, they had requested them all cut down for the 50th anniversary party.

Management went along with it and cut them all down. The problem was, the executives hadn't realized that they'd have to plant NEW trees in the same places. (Something had to go there.) So they planted new trees, all with of course straight trunks, young trees that grow really fast and STRAIGHT UP. A year later, they were back to where they had been, but worse. Nobody had consulted the tree guys. The solution was to have a camera guy simply place a platform between the trees and take some test shots. The marketing guys pretended that they liked them to avoid the blame.

Meanwhile the new trees will take literally dozens of years to prune correctly, all on tipsy ladders, to keep them from growing straight up and obscuring even more of the castle.

But that's nothing. The Rocket Rods fiasco was the thing that almost shut down the whole park.

Post #346734 by Cammo on Thu, Nov 29, 2007 12:19 PM