Man are my cheeks sore - NEMO Spoilers ahead

[RStar]

Originally Posted by CoasterMatt

I won't ride it until I can ride without waiting in line... probably around September or October.

But I thought you live for lines?

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by RStar

But I thought you live for lines?

Creating them... not waiting in them.

[Not Afraid]

ok, here's my "review".

Spoiler:

I didn't find the attraction to be very engaging or exhilarating - at least for the mid-portion of it. I like to be immersed in an experience and not spoon-fed a story (Pirates and Mansion are great examples of successful engagement and immersion). Nemo starts out great with lots of fantastic vistas and lots of fun things to discover. Then you go into the "cave" and find yourself basically watching a movie through a porthole. Even the eye candy of the first underwater views is non-existent.

However, I'm prepared to be in the minority, I ride it again, I won't wait in a 2 hour line to do it, and I consider my opinions "subject to change without notice".

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Gn2Dlnd

Spoiler:

Next time you're on the ride, watch the waterline above the subs. When it disappears is when you'll know you've entered dry space. If it never disappears then I'll buy you a hamburger.

You owe me a hamburger.

Spoiler:

I rode twice this evening. I am 100% certain that the sub remains in water the entire time. There are clear barriers that I can tell are there and a couple of times I was able to specifically see it (on the starboard side, right as you enter the whale's mouth was one of them).

Also, I frequently checked and was able to see the surface of the water above me.

[Gemini Cricket]

Spoiler:

I was just thinking about how whaleaphobic Disneyland is. A whale swallows you on Storybookland and Nemo and there are two other whale attacks one on Pinocchio and one during Fantasmic!.

[Kevy Baby]

Spoiler:

And on both Nemo and Storybook, you get shyt out

[€uroMeinke]

I need to ride this soon so I can read this thread

[Disneyphile]

Well, I had this sinking feeling that when I checked it out, it would be quite the dive.

And it was.

[Gn2Dlnd]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

You owe me a hamburger.

Aside from bacon, what else would you like on it? (After I ride the damn thing again myself to make sure you're not lying)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The thread title says "spoilers", so I'm not using spoiler boxes. SPOILERS AHEAD. We rode it last night.



I'll start with the good news...

There's action in the lagoon again, and it's pretty. Just having the subs floating around is awesome. The ride was fun, and I'm sure kids and tourists will think it's great, no matter the wait. There are some inventive show elements, and the whole thing is pretty. Favorite moment - when the mine explodes - for one shining moment, I really felt a part of the ride. My second favorite moment was the jellyfish mirror effect, very nice. The air flow seemed fine and it didn't smell down there or anything. The dry-for-wet was seamless, and never once did we question whether we were in water or not.

ETA - two more great parts - sitting in the sub at the dock and seeing the exact same wall I remember from my childhood and the diving into bubbles, which still really feels like you're diving downwards. Of course those are unchanged from the old subs...

Yup, that's all the good news. Here comes my full APer review...

I really wish it were better, especially after such a long wait.

I agree with Sub la Goon - I do not like the 2D projections. It looks like we're watching TV. I don't care how limited in movement an AA is - it will always beat a projection. Not for one millisecond was the Disney magic side of my mind fooled into thinking I was looking at something real. Not for one minute did I think "there Nemo, there's Dory!" I loved the set decoration, but in between, it's just screens. I completely prefer a stationary hippo in Jungle Cruise that does nothing but blow bubbles and wiggle his ears to a fully animated projection. The only time I really enjoyed a projection was when Dory was bouncing off the jellyfish - and I immediately realized it was because there was a 3 dimensional AA jellyfish that was bouncing up and down beneath her. Interaction, people!

Not only did the projections feel like TV, but the story felt like TV. At first you've got the captain talking to you and it's just like the old ride, where you were a part of what was going on. Then the Nemo part starts and the captain just shuts up and we all watch Pixar's Finding Nemo. At the end where the captain kicks back in and says "we better get out of here before we run into a sea serpent" it made me more sad than happy. At the very least, have the captain commenting on the show, have us as a sub react to the show, something!

The story was the exact same story, which led me to feeling like I was on a sub-par (ha ha) dark ride. Even Pinocchio's Daring Journey involves you in the story, by having YOU trapped in a bird cage, YOU almost snagged in a donkey crate. There was nothing to anticipate, no excitement, nothing to grab me at all. Like I said before, the exploding mine effect was awesome, and it was a total anomaly on this ride.

I also felt that we didn't see everything in as cool a fashion as others might have, because we were towards one side of the sub. By the time we saw the angler fish we'd already heard the audio on it, so even that 3D coolness was not as cool as it could have been. We weren't even all the way over - only about 4 seats out from the wall.

I really wanted to love this ride, and I didn't. The involvement of actually being in a submarine experiencing things with everyone has been removed. It's a bummer. We sighed a bunch afterwards and barely talked about it - there was no whooping about how fun it was, no incessant discussion.

After we rode once, we were hungry, and instead of eating in the park and riding again, we went home. I'll totally ride this with the group, or if the line were short, but I have a feeling I'm not going to ride it very often at all. The upside is that I won't feel like I'm missing out when the line gets to insane lengths.

NA, you're not alone - It was cute, but we did not love it.