Exactly. I have been saying that for years. The fact that JP was left to rot, it doesn't mean it had to be updated and change so much for JW. Disney doesn't let rides get to that point of total neglect of a ride. Mind you that Pirates has dozens and dozens of animatronics and it opened in the 60s and that ride is still going strong. When a ride has problems they just do an extensive refurb (like Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain). They leave their classics (most of the time) and they have the same challenges Universal faces. Someone mentioned that the AAs were hard to upkeep because they were outside, totally forgetting that Jungle Cruise has one big AA under a constant stream of water and it still works and looks good. JP was impressive when it opened and it was still impressive like 5 or 6 years ago, management just neglected that ride. Would it have been impossible to replace old AAs with new ones, remove the dead foliage and just plant more trees? fixing the explorer falling gag and just take care of it? The parking complaint was easily fixable as you say. I just don't understand why people are trying to wiggle Universal out of its responsibility to upkeep their business.
My point here is that Universal is in the theme park business. They do that for a living (at least the theme park division) They are supposed to deliver a top notch guest experience and offer a good product, they surely are charging for a superior experience. It is a business, I don't know why people cut them some slack. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering something and then making excuses for them, "oh, well they just had 5 minutes to prepare my food. I guess it's fine that my chicken is not cooked well". It's not ok, they are a multibillion company that can and should invest time and money in their product. 9 months is a lot of time to do something better than what they did. The should have restored the ride to it's former glory. If it's not enough time, then take more time. Disneyland has taken rides offline for months to make sure their refurbs are up to par. Thunder mountain went offline more than a year to replace the track and final effects. Space Mountain went under for almost 2 years to replace the whole track. (I know Matterhorn is desperate for a refurb but another topic for another day).
It is frustrating because Universal Creative has shown what they are capable of, but they are very inconsistent. You get impressive rides like Hagrid's and Forbidden journey and then you get turds like King Kong and Fast and Furious (at Orlando. They are perfectly fine parts of the Studio Tour, but awful standalone attractions)
All in all, we should not get shortchanged just because they didn't plan the refurb well or just because they wanted to avoid problems.
By the way, I still mourn BTTF. Simpsons is something that needs to go.
