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Imagineer Alan Arena Interview - Maelstrom At Epcot · Project Horizons

• Mike: All right. So today we're going to have a really fun conversation. We're joined by Alan Arena, who worked on Epcot's Norway Pavilion and its remarkable attraction, Malstrom, everybody's favorite attraction. And some the stories of how the Norway Pavilion was brought to life will be the focus of today's ⁓ discussion with So Alan, you are not the first to pass this way, nor shall you be the last. ⁓ We're happy have, I had to throw that in there, you know that. Alan: Ha ha ha! Mike: have you here today. How are you doing, my friend? Alan: I'm doing well. they paint over the mural at the ride zone? Mike: They did. The ride loading zone is now ⁓ part of the new frozen ride. that whole section is completely part of frozen now. It's frozen in time, I guess you could say. ⁓ Alan: So one of the little side effects of being there is the artists put our names on the, on that mural somewhere on there, or all the people that worked on it, their name was on there. Mike: was a beautiful mural and, know, murals were one of the things that really made Epcot stand out, all of its original so Norway ⁓ was a major part that loading area. it was in 2010 you joined Imagineering and then you previously worked for ⁓ Ride Show as a contractor for the Disney company the Norway project. So ⁓ I'll let you tell that story. Alan: Yes. this. Also, rides like this have always been kind of a fascination for me. One of my projects at college was a design of a roller coaster as part of my mechanical engineering classes. So that was always kind of their desire to be there. And so I was from Chicago and I figured, well, if I ever got out to California, that'd be something I want to do. And as luck had it, a job moved me to California in 80. I was working instrumentation and then got into aerospace. And when aerospace slowed down in 87, I was looking around for things to do and ⁓ an article in the local newspaper showed up about writing show engineering. Other two former Disney people started a company. And so I wrote the owner and introduced myself and they decided to hire me on as their head of engineering. it was an interesting stroke to get there, I think. What even made it more interesting is that, after Epcot, the Disney Corporation decided not to do their own internal engineering and manufacturing. Up until that point, they had done all the rides, manufacturing and engineering internally, part of the Maple Pavilion from the Mary Poppins story. That's how they financed that. And so they decided they didn't want to keep doing that. They made a business decision and they told... they're engineers and they're manufacturing people. And if they wanted to continue to do this, you go start a company and we'll throw projects your way, especially within, you know, entertainment world. And so Bill Watkins at Foyer started writing show engineering and they had, they started out with the refurbishment of monorail for Disneyland. And then when the North Pavilion came along, it was the first, second generation, if you will, attraction at Epcot. Epcot had the opening day ones and then Norrie was the first of the next generation that they farmed that one out. They bid it out there and Ride and Show won it. And they were in the midst of manufacturing and engineering when I came along. And that's kind of when I stepped into, you know, rides, make it for Disney. So that's kind of how it all got there. article in newspaper and a letter to the owner. Disney put out a bid package and I'm not sure all who bid on it. I Ride and Show bid on it because they won. Imagineering bid on it because they wanted to still do it in-house. They still had engineers that wanted to have both do the engineering and then be part of the team. And then Disney World bid on it. And so it was the company had their decision of not doing it in-house anymore. So I think that was part of the reason that they tried to find an outside company to do that and Ride and Show fit all the, answered all the questions, checked all the boxes, they ex Disney people. Bill Watkins was their VP of rides and shows until he started the company. they had all the internals, a lot of the engineers that were at Ride and Show were former Disney Imagineers and so they knew the system, they knew that. I kind of came along bringing aerospace and heavy machinery, equipment background into that and kind of had a more disciplined approach, I think, because Disney had a, they were able to throw a lot of money at their projects, mean, because they had the studios backing all that in. So they got to if you will, along the way and ⁓ were able to just kind of take chances, if you will, when the engineering stages. And that was part of the reason I think that I. started not to do it in houses, they wanted to control their costs a little more. contract fixed price, you've got to manage the budget. That was the interesting part of it. Mike: That's right, you gotta stay scope and ⁓ over budget, ⁓ key between and ⁓ and show, is there a major cost savings to go with a contractor as opposed to just getting the parts and pieces that they need Alan: Disney ultimately developed their contracting system. the beginning, it was kind of a learning process because it's something they hadn't done before. ⁓ ⁓ tried to do it in-house. And the first contract, especially for the Norway Pavilion, wasn't written the best. It wasn't in the best control. The specifications weren't the best. There was a lot of learning all over the place. But generally, they were able to control their costs because they basically at fixed price contracts. So that's how they did that. And they tried to hold the schedules. in the beginning, it was difficult because it was the first time people didn't have a history on how to do that or what it took to get things done all the time. And it wasn't always the, I mean, didn't have the ability to throw a marching army of things when they needed to. And they could just load up people and money and throw it the project and make it happen. But under, know, contractor from the outside, you've got a fixed price and you don't have that love unlimited resources. that was job to kind make sure it worked right and try to pay attention to the contract and the budget and schedule. Mike: at least with Disney projects, it seems like every attraction a certain budget, right? And over the course of the project, from conception all the way to completion, it seems like every project goes over budget. Alan: red. creative people want to take all the money that's available ⁓ and it to making the show and the ride everything the best it can be for opening day. And what's sacrificed then is the life cycle cost. And so where in the ⁓ early days and Disneyland days and everything like that, they they spent a lot more on the ride and then the shows and everything because the creative people were driving that. And then their life cycle costs were up because maintenance wasn't always taking into account. And so there was always a balance. And so by going outside, there's requirements in the contract for how long it's gotta be, what the maintenance cycle has to be with. And so there was a way to kind of control their costs and still maintain the quality of the show they wanted. Mike: it was a wonderful product and one of the most memorable attractions I can remember from Epcot and it was an attraction that was very, very high tech, very innovative at the time. Alan: Well, that's good to Mike: Could go into that and tell us was that ride different from the rides that we were used to seeing at that Alan: Well, you would think of other boat rides, you will, pirates. OK, so one of the things that everybody knows if you ride pirates, and I guess I'm more familiar with the Disneyland version of it, as you finish the ride, there's a lift hill that brings you back up to the load area. Well, the boats would just stack up back there. The boats would bump, and that was always something that bothered the creative people. they wanted to have you have your ride experience and have it your ride experience and line of sight not having other ride vehicles in there is kind of a big thing about maintaining the illusion of everything that's going on everything the park is built around you know sight lines and so boat rides it was hard to control because you just have the water that's doing it if something happens there wasn't a way to stop boats and they would just bump into each other so they to fix that for norway and so we had to put a a full block zone system in there, just like you'd have on a roller coaster the vehicles couldn't touch, couldn't hit, wouldn't bump. And so we had come up with what call boat stops, brake systems under the water that would catch the boat, maintain the decelerates that were required and stage the zone that there was always a zone clear and you couldn't see the boat ahead of you and all of it. So that was all new because you know, in a track vehicle, you've got the track. You can control where you are. You can put brakes in there. You've got everything to do that. In a water ride, you just got the water flow. So now you stop the boat, you're back in the water behind us. You've got to handle the water so you don't back up up and you've got to, and there's all the little technical things that when you ride the ride, you don't have to worry about or think about. And if everything runs right, you know, there's, there was a 28 second dispatch rate for, for Norway, as I remember. And so you had to clear his own in 28 seconds. And as long as everything cleared, the boat stops never actuated. The only time you stopped was going through the boat swings or at the load unload stations. And so you just move through. But if something happened, there was a delay unloading a boat for reason, ⁓ then would cascade the boat stops back up the hill, back up to the second floor, and you'd have to stop everything. And so that's the time you'd even know that there was anything different. from a performance standpoint on the ride, was just, cause you would just be there experiencing the. watching the little pippins on the side or the three-headed troll, how old am I troll? And all the little village at the top of the lift ramp. was all meant to be invisible, but ⁓ was an important part of the ride to make it work. And then we had to find sensors that worked in the water and ⁓ have problems with splashing because there's always splashing with water in boats. And was just, there were a lot of technical challenges ⁓ to that work. there was a requirement not to get any water in the boat, especially on the large down ramp. The short down ramp, not so much of a deal because you hit the water at about six feet per second, which is what the water flow is. When you get ejected from the second boat swing and you go down the ramp, freefall boat speed down there, we had... ⁓ know, basically Teflon lining on that ramp so that you'd slide down because there was concern that the boats wouldn't make it. So we started out making it very slick so that there wouldn't be minimum friction. And you'd hit the boat, the bottom of the boat ramp, you'd hit about, you know, 10 feet per second and the water's flowing at three. So you really cause a bow wave and you'd hit it. And the boats were designed to have a bow wave and have a big explosive scene as you go into the storm scene, the oil derrick scene. But about two weeks before we started testing the boats, they made a decision that they wanted to make the oil derrick scene, the storm scene, a little bit more of a surprise so that you didn't know it was there until you went down the down ramp and you made that slight right-hand turn. So they built walls up there. So now concept was big bow wave in the front. Well, now they put walls where the bow wave was gonna go. So now we had to figure out how to slow the boat down. to not have the bow wave because the first time we ran it, all the walls weren't up. We didn't get any water in the boat. ⁓ technically we met the contract when they put the walls in there, ⁓ get bounced off the walls and we'd start soaking the boats. We had to figure out how to change it, change the speeds, change the shape of the boat. Actually the boat got cut down you remember the there's probably like a little step on the side to get in. ⁓ That was never there originally. That was put in during test and adjust. Part of it for the water, part of it to, they had, we had to put massive tilt into the boat and go around corners. And in order to make it all work, we had to re-manufacture the boat. And so it's an exciting time when you're bringing the right up. we wound up having to take we had to put brake material, brake lining material and breast studs to hold it down. And that's what it took to slow down the boat. ⁓ mean, it was, we had to as much friction we can so we could slow the boat down to get it down to as close to three feet per second, which was the, the, the water flow rate, you know, in the, in the slow speed section. if the, in the village scene and in the first floor, when you go through the oil derricks and then the on the hood zone. So we had to slow it down to that to keep water out of the boat. There were a lot of different concepts about what the ride should be. We had a, shortly after I got there, we had a design review for the control systems. And, and so I had my control guy, Glenn Berkut, who's anybody familiar with rides down in Orlando knows. Burke Engineering. So Glenn is one of the three brothers and he was the lead controls guy. And then he went down to Florida and put that all together and then started his company. And so he's, he had a great plan, but when we ran it past the Imagineering Polypole, they decided they wanted to have it changed. And so we changed it for them. And then we had a big design review with Imagineering and Disney World and they didn't like it. So it had to be redesigned again. So it was, it went through a lot of iterations before. everybody on the Disney side was happy with it. And of course, none of that was in the original specifications. It was all kind well, this is what we thought we meant. This is what we want. ⁓ And part of their learning curve is getting their specifications better, getting their contracts better. Disney was the only one that really built them internally. Universal always had someone else do it for them. mean, that was not part of their business model. They did not do the detail engineering or do the manufacturing or the installation. They did the oversight. And that's what Disney moved to. Mike: Right, right. as as the funding for the attraction, Disney worked with North Show in trying to get certain amount of funding. I know Disney paid about a third ⁓ the funding for the pavilion, whereas ⁓ North Show Norway paid the rest. was a very advanced ride very innovative ride system and I reading something from not sure if you're familiar with Orlando Sentinel reporter Vicki and the story that she wrote during the testing phase. It said, opens Viking A major part of the Pavilion, a Viking ship thrill ride, will not open until midsummer because of unspecified problems. And I know Disney responded to that article. I think they said they're still in the testing phase or something like that. Was there specific reasons why there was a delay ⁓ from the rest of the pavilion opening? Alan: From the time we hit site until the pavilion opened was five and a half months. And so you've got to ask yourself, is that ridiculous? Is that long? And if you look at the history of things, that's not unusual to take a half a year to go through tests and adjust. it just takes time to work. the kinks out of a new machine that's size of a building. It takes time get that. And then the ride's got two different water flow speeds. So there's two different sets of pumps. There's the main pumps that push everything through. And then there's a second set of pumps that help feed the water the high-speed section. So was getting those merged together, timed right, getting the wave actions that they wanted the high-speed section, the column in the low-speed section. getting everything just to kind of fill the image they wanted. And then the animation was done by Disney. They still handle all the animation in-house at that time. And so we had to work with them. The building was still being built, so there were construction delays. And so there was a lot of stuff that just logistics of building a whole building and putting all this inside of it. It just took time. I don't think that the... The issues, for lack of a better word, that had to be resolved during test and adjust were ones that were known as possible ones. were, when you're going through something new like this, as we've pointed out, not we, but as was pointed out during a lot of the meetings down there, we took the best minds we had and said, okay, this is our best guess of what's gonna work. And then as you start testing it, say, oh, we were 90 % right. How do we get that last 10 %? Well, and sometimes you've got to go back two steps and something else to fix it, to make that happen. And you just, go through that and you make it right. And that's what it takes. And it happens in, you know, everything. It's just, you know, you think about a roller coaster, you get these launch coasters and they spent months getting motors timed right. And I mean, that's not even a new technology. It's just, you know, it takes time to do that. And so we've got basically the same thing. had to ⁓ merge the ramp. had a Had to get the anti-rollback so that they were quiet enough that they didn't disturb the scene. We had to get the boat swings right. Had the timing so that the three-headed troll when you pop up in the first boat swing, we had to be there just long enough to do that, get it within the 28-second dispatch. And so we had a lot of timing back and forth between the animation and the ride and the control and the interface to make sure that's there. And it just, there's a lot of details that when you've got. bigger machine. I wouldn't say it as problems. They were just, you know, normal development on something new. had to be resolved. Mike: the most sense. Journey into Imagination at Epcot opened on March 5th, 1983, several months after the whole park opened, but the 3D show was open but the ride itself wasn't open. mean, there's test and adjust takes time and again, A ride like that safety obviously is the number one thing You have to get perfect, get it right. so, um, Alan: Right. And it's with no seat belts. There's no lap bar. are, it's so you have to take everything to account for that. And then at that time, Metcot was still not an amusement park. It was a place that people went to, you we had, you'd have gentlemen in tuxedos and ladies in gowns at there. And it was, it wouldn't, you had to account for that. And that was, that was the attitude and the prevailing, you know, Mike: That's right. That's right. Alan: clientele at the time. So you had to treat those people with that. So that had to be factored into, you you could do something different there than you would do at a boat ride in Disneyland or Magic Kingdom. Mike: this great new attraction in Epcot that is Epcot's first thrill ride. became a year before body wars at wonders of life. and so when you're, the engineer and you're involved in the building of this, pavilion, of this attraction, and when you're watching guests get off the ride, and you see smiling faces and you see the positive response ⁓ you were a part of, that you had your hands on. How does that make you feel? Alan: Well, have to, that's the amazing part of it because you've just put in months of 80 and 90 hour weeks and you worked around the clock. mean, there was, we were set up so that the mechanical systems and the building people were there the day shift from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then from 6 p.m. to 6 in the morning, it was the controls and the animation people. And so that was, you had people in the building around the clock and as part of the management. was there more than one shift. And so it was really gratifying at the end of the day to have people because you get when you're working on it every day, you lose some perspective. It becomes normal. You don't you become a little bit numb to everything just because you you're there just pushing through every day on it. And so it's nice people are appreciating it because you get concerned and you put so much of life into that even though it's just six months. It's a It's a lot of effort to put that in. Mike: Yeah. goes up a lift hill and then it goes backwards to like another level and then it goes down to ⁓ main level. Is it three floors or two floors? The actual ride itself. Okay. Alan: Well, we considered it three floors. When we would talk about the ride, the village scene would be the third floor where you get left off the lift hill. It was a, I forget, was a four foot or six foot drop to go from the first floor to the high speed zone, which we considered the second floor. And that's where you got the, going backwards and you see, it's kind of a little bit of surprise, I guess, because you really. You really can't turn around because you're kind of trying to pay attention to what's in front of you but actually behind you at that point because you're still watching the three-headed troll and you're still watching, you know, the howl of my troll on the side and the other little things that are there. And then you see the little pippins bopping around on your left-hand side as you go around the corner. And then you go through the little dark section and then you come out and you start to slow down and you go down. That's about a 12 foot down ramp there. That takes you down to the first floor. They're very, very meticulous in all the details and they leave it up to engineers to make it happen. Mike: Yeah. you did make it happen. And I think one of those attractions, like I said, that everyone talks about. People just gravitate towards this attraction. did read that interest ⁓ on side to the attraction and not necessarily create Frozen overlay. They spoke with the Norwegian ⁓ government they didn't want to provide additional an They felt it just wasn't financially the best decision. So Disney decided to, from that point, do overlay into Frozen. there could been a continuation the original theme, a great ride. I'm not saying it's not, but the story from Maelstrom is ⁓ something that's unique part of our memories from those days at Epcot. Alan: an integrated attraction. You went through the ride and then you got this in the theater, you got some history about Norway and you got, you know, and then you got to step out into the courtyard and there was the restaurant and the shops, which are very, you know, authentic themed Mike: When we were speaking earlier, you mentioned there's, this luxurious space ballroom, a ⁓ piano. a VIP lounge or something. Could you tell us more about that? Alan: Yes. There's, for lack of a better term, VIP lounge might be right. It's above the load area. So if remember being in the load area, it's like a double-heighted, high area. so this room above that. And so there's a lot of stairways and stuff. And the stairway up to that is themed like the rest of the ride. And then it's like palace hall. for lack of a better description, was very ornate back when it opened and there was the grand piano and there was the luxurious sulfas and it was not open to the general public. It was probably meant for when the Crown Prince from Norway was up there, the royal family was there and a place for them and then special things that were related to that I'm sure were held there. We were... We were winding around the pavilion one night and found it, you know, because you're there all hours trying to see stuff and there's all the different ways to get between places and found that. it was just like, it was amazing. And yeah, was like, okay, you can be there, but you know, this is what it is. And so just respect it. And of course you do that. this is, it was just. When you think of Disney class, this is what you would think of that place. just five It was just great. Mike: Yeah, yeah, a lot of the pavilions, World Showcase and Future as well, because a lot of the Future World attractions had all these corporate sponsors. And there's some attractions like Test Track and Imaginations. They still have the lounges, but ⁓ the land ⁓ Seas, think, is probably the more well-known lounges at Epcot. for United Technologies at the time. luxurious spaces the top quality, couches, pianos, tables, it was high society if you were able to get in one of those lounges. Alan: No. It was, yeah, clearly the banquets were held up there for special people. was, yeah. Mike: Yep. during the testing ⁓ Maelstrom, you have Michael Eisner story. I would love to hear that. Alan: yeah, so we. we're in the... early to mid phases of the testing and adjusting. We don't have all the boats running around yet. We don't have all the equipment working right. The animation folks are maybe half or a third of their stuff's working and maybe a little bit more than that's installed. And when we talked about water getting into the boats, we were still getting, we were drenching people in the boat at this point. And so we got word that Michael Eisner and his family were at Epcot and he wanted to ride the ride. and you know what Michael Eisner wants Michael Eisner gets and so we're we're out the boats and you drying it out you know to make sure we get a dry boat to and you know we we found out he was coming in we had the boat stage so that the right boat was there and he was there with his two sons and his wife and All the main security were there in the building when he walked in and do you want to ride the ride? So we loaded up and put him in. And so his two sons were in the front row and Michael and his wife were in the second and the head of securities was, and the of the park was in the third row. And I'm in the fourth row with my counterpart from show side from Disney. we're in the back with walkie talkies, talking to people, telling them where we're at to make sure all the animation gets triggered. And the ones that weren't operating, they had people behind them moving them to make that happen. And so that Michael would get a kind of feel for the show. And we were going around and I guess there were two kind of funny incidents that happened looking back on it. The doors that would take you from the high speed scene into the slow speed scene when you hit that troll that pops up. And I forget which one that was now. But those doors weren't opening. ⁓ There was a glitch in our software. They'd open every other time. And so they called me up and they said, the boat that just went through opened the door, so yours aren't going to open. And so as you know, we're going backwards and I'm in the back seat, so I'm closest to the door. So I'm leaning over the back of the boat, trying to soften the hit because the door just pop and the boat hits him because it's still at high speed there. It hasn't slowed down yet. the doors just swing open. catches, catch them so they just pop open. It's a loud hit. And we go through there and we go through the slow speed scene and turns around and he says, we'll get that fixed before opening, won't we? ⁓ So then we down, we hit the boat swing and we go down the big down ramp. And of course we drenched the boat and they weren't aware of it, that it was going happen. I guess, I don't know if it wasn't communicated or what, but we go down and we take water in the boat. And so we go through that and the front row of the boat takes a lot of water. So his two boys got drenched. And so we go to get to the... ⁓ the unload belt and the first thing Mike says is, anybody wanna ride again? his two boys couldn't get out of the boat fast enough. It was like they were just wrenched. so Mike, instead of saying, we gotta fix that, he says, how about we turn on the sprinklers in the storm scene and give everybody raincoats? So it's like, gonna go with this. We're gonna take this and we're gonna make a bigger deal out of it. and everybody nodded. And when left, they said, we're not do this. was surprised that his wife didn't make a comment. I very appreciative of the fact that she just went with it. But I mean, we made it clear that not working right yet. We're still testing. We told them that we'd have all the stuff working, but people were behind it manually doing stuff. We didn't hide from him the state that it was in, but we wanted to let him see. everything was going to go, you'd see in the ride, at least get a good feel for it. And so we accomplished that much. So. Mike: Yeah, heard similar stories before where Eisner and others, go ride the attraction and everybody's like, okay, everything has to be perfect. the big boss is here. So that's great. Alan: was very contentious between Imagineering and Disney World and Ride and Show because Imagineering and ⁓ Disney World to be in control. And in order for them to get in control, they had to Ride and Show off the ride. And so it was, they were kind of joined, you know, we were the common enemy. lack of a better description. So they were they were joined together to get us off the rides and then they were going to fight amongst themselves to see which one of the two of them would take control over it. And they they were building together a pretty good plan. And they were going to have a what they call the East West meetings was a Disney World Imagineering meeting that was being held on site. And one of the major topics was going to be the Norway Pavilion. And I got wind of this, I'm saying, are we going be able to be there? And they said, No, this is this is just a Disney meeting. Okay, so I'm concerned about stuff that's going to sit behind closed doors that you can't defend yourself on. And so it turns out the day before the meeting, Ed Feuer, who was one of the chief honcho project managers, project engineers for Epcot, was down there. He's also the president of writing show or the owner of writing show. then Joe McHugh, another Disney guy was the president and they were down there. when they heard that they were there, they said, well, we'll invite these guys into the meeting. I thought this is a great opportunity. We can at least kind of present ourselves and show what's going on. And it was, it was funny. was, I, so I'm coming out of an aerospace background, know, briefing charts, explain everything, be prepped and, you know, anticipate your questions and be prepared. And else was ⁓ former and they're like, we'll just, you know, the seat of our pants. And, He says, no, we've got to be prepared, guys. They're out for blood. And so they said, Alan, if you really believe that, go make the briefing package. Glenn had the site down there. And he says, I'll have my admin people come in. We'll make the charts. We'll make the briefing packages up. And we'll go do it. And so we do that. And we walk into the meeting. We're supposed to be in at 9 o'clock. And we get invited until almost 10.30. So you know there's a whole lot of discussion going on. We were not close enough to even hear what was going on inside the room. They had us kind of away. And we walk in there and it's like you can feel the tension it's like... Glenn, who's got the site down there in Florida, and he's doing controls and he wants to keep doing it. He says, I'm going to sit in the corner on this one side so that if you guys get kicked off, I mean, this is already kind of a possibility that everybody was considering. He says, I might be able to keep getting some work and we can still do business from the controls arm of the company. And that was okay. then Ed to be the boss of a lot of these guys. was getting upset at them and he said, I'm gonna sit in this other corner. He said, I'm gonna put my tie in my mouth so I don't yell at them. So it's like, okay. I'm thinking this is a great start. Joe says to me, says, ⁓ me talk. And I says, talk. And out here and Joe's trying to explain where everything's going good. We've got this all under control and the Disney guys just aren't buying it. remember his name. He was the project manager from Disney side. And he didn't want us kicked off because we had a lot of corporate knowledge of what was on this thing. And he wanted to keep us there. And so he says, Well, why don't we hear from Alan? You know, everybody says Alan's a smart guy, but he just got no experience with rides. So let's, let's hear what he has to say, you know, let's give him a chance. And so I pulled up the briefing packages, and I've got 10, and there's 40 people in the room. And it's like, okay, watch where they go, because that's the important people. And One of them gets passed over my shoulder to someone behind me. And so, OK, so I start typical aerospace briefing package. You tell them what you're going to say, you say it, and you summarize it at the end. And through the first page, and I'm kind of going through the agenda, and I hear ripped. The page gets ripped off the staples, crumpled up, and tossed over my shoulder onto the table. OK, I said someone's testing me. And get to page two, ⁓ thing again. Page three. said, well, this guy's gonna do this the whole thing unless I take some control over this, because he's just trying to see how far he can push. And so I turn around and in Disney's got their little name badge on. You've all seen those, I'm sure. And so it says Dick. And I'm going, okay, you've to be someone important. Who do I know that's important in Imagineering named Dick? go, gotta be Dick Nunes, president of Imagineering. So I around and look and I say, Dick, says, you must be Dick Nunes, president of... says, I'm Alan Marina, Vice President for Ride and Show. I shook his hand. That was it. He tested He wasn't gonna get me flustered. And we went off and kind of did it. I was like, okay. And I guess between that and the presentation and having a plan and everything else, Disney didn't kick us off. And we got to stay on site and finish the ride. Otherwise, we wouldn't be sitting here talking this was probably May of 88, maybe June, May of 88, probably May of 88. We hit site February of 88, and 4th July week, just before the 4th of July, it opened for guests. Disney was trying to blame ride and show for everything and say that we messed up. And part of what I was able to present to everybody in the meeting was that we had had repeated design reviews and we had all these people in the room were in these design reviews. And it was back to the, well, we put the best minds available and this is what we came up with. And so we're learning more. And we're changing because of what we learned, not because we didn't do something right. We all made this decision. so some of Disney legal was in the meeting and Disney agreed that yes, they were at all these design review meetings and yes, they did agree this was the right path to go. so legal was telling them, you can't just them. You've got some ownership when you bless this and say, we're going to go ahead to the next step. We're happy with this point. And understanding that we don't know everything and we might have to make changes, but you know, that they had a warm ship in that. that, I think that became the biggest bone of contention in the long run is that some of the Disney guys felt they didn't look good. And that kind of, and legal tried to take the, you know, the very legalistic approach. Well, what is, what does the contract say? What does the specs say? What do we pay them to do? Did they meet the requirements? You know, And then, and so when they stepped back, it was kind of like, okay, everybody made some mistakes. You know, we made some mistakes at ride and show, Disney made some mistakes. You you just can't, you know, it's he said, she said that both sides have, you know, have some guilt in the problem. And so you, and that kind of can breed some hard feelings. And that was kind of a little bit, that's the reason they wanted us off because they wanted to do it their own way. And that was just kind of a additional tension. But it was when were on site. The goal was to get the ride open. And the question became was, well, who was making the decisions? And so it was kind of a balancing act. I couldn't stand up and say, oh, this is going be our way. I said, well, you guys got a good point there. We'll do that. Let's do this and try to. You've got to manage people and everything else and get this open and try to find the best path to get there. I guess being the new guy, I had less skin in the game. if it went wrong. so, and I understand this from the other guys, you try to, you try to make it work for everybody. it's, it's politics, it's technical, it's contracts, it's legal, it's everything. And a lot of new ground was broken on this. And so was a lot of people learning new things. Mike: that at that stage, ⁓ the opened, the attraction opened, and ⁓ it was wonderful, remarkable. ⁓ And through all the of who did what, who did this, and ride show, Disney, too many, myself, it was perfect attraction. Alan: Well, that's the really good part about doing it right is that you keep all the history and the pain of getting there hidden from guests. And that's really the whole thing is it's all about the front facing side of everything. It's ⁓ guest experience, the whole immersive experience that takes you into that. And that's at the end of the day, that's all that's really important. And you've to kind of look past the other stuff. Mike: Yeah, exactly, exactly. thanks for sharing all those stories. I knew this was going to be a fun conversation and enjoyable, and it was as advertised. But I did want to ask you, the attraction did open in 1988. And then fast forward all the way to 2010, you became an official Walt Disney Imagineer. Is that correct? Alan: Yes, I joined the company in maybe August of 2010. That was the Disneyland phase. They needed management level to come in and do stuff. And so I had the history of being in rides for a long time. And so I came on board do that. And it was ⁓ kind of interesting. was ⁓ the new guy. Mike: Awesome. Alan: at the same time, having more experience in some of their, you know, the people that they had. And so I got to do ⁓ tours anytime. The guys, we would go down to Disneyland to kind of see how things got done to give them a better feel for it. Cause a lot of people were Disney fans, but it's ⁓ a different being a Disney fan riding the ride, being an engineer making it work and what it takes to get there. And so I was the tour guide. had some suppliers will come in that would want to go see stuff and I would be the one to do that. So that was kind of the nice part for that. So I had to do that and I had a couple of the rides for Shanghai. I started out with Winnie the Pooh and Buzz Lightyear. actually it wasn't even Buzz Lightyear, it was Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. And then they changed the theming on it to go back to Buzz Lightyear. And so we had all that and then. I picked up the Rowing Rapids ride and the. the ropes course ride and then because of my materials background, I got involved in the canoes and then a lot of the other guys would ask my opinion on things because I had experience with hybrid vehicles and things like that. So the fantasy boat ride had to go from a gas powered boat to an electric boat when it goes under the castle. And so they had to have a hybrid system. so I got to be involved in a lot of that. The Alex Burkett was the project engineer on Peter Pan. And he was in the next office over and we would often talk because he got promoted to that level. He was an amazing mechanical engineer. And so he was trying to put together the whole thing. So we would talk about that. So I got to learn all the backside of what was going on with Peter Pan and everything. So I got to experience almost all the rides and stuff like that just from an engineering standpoint, which is a nice background to have My goal is some days to get over to Shanghai and kind of see the rides in action. I was just there for the phase of it, and when they were let out, then that was kind of when my time with Disney ended. Mike: wonderful career. I think, Maelstrom, your in Shanghai, one of the reasons why I do this is a really fun thing that I'm fortunate to be able to do and to speak with people like you and many other people who were in. these attractions and being a part of those teams this creates so many memories for so many families, so many people. And it's so meaningful and a lot of times imagineers and on the construction teams, don't necessarily get the credit that they deserve or the recognition and the visibility. to have their names known and show Disney fans, of the park and fans of just the company in general, who these people are, I think is important. Alan: I'd like to add just maybe another point or two is that the team that we had at Norway was a phenomenal team. Not just the Disney guys, but we had the construction people, the guys that were doing the finished rock work to make it look like that and all ⁓ details and everything. It was an team and a lot of the team from the construction side hadn't been involved in one of these before. And so they were kind of new and everything. So when we first started getting the boats going around, they would all stop and watch and they'd be kind of amazed by it. the head of the construction side of this came to me and he says, can you not run the boats during the day when we're doing this? And I said, well, we have to do our testing. I says, but I got a plan here. I says, tell your guys today when it's lunchtime, they can go eat lunch in the boats and we'll run the boats around and they can see the ride. course they love this. And and he looked at me and says, really want to do that? said, yeah, they'll go around twice and they'll get bored because the anticipation versus the reality. When you're watching this, you like, you don't know what's going on. But when you ride it, it's a great ride, but you know, two times and you want to your lunch and you got to go back to work. And ⁓ did that. Well, then the boats going around became very normal. But the other side was if we needed something, these guys would go out of their way to help us. And it was like, the greatest PR that we could have handled. just everybody working together. It's like, yeah, you recognize they're there ⁓ you can't say, ⁓ you can't look at this, you can't do this. You invite them in and you get the whole thing and like, ⁓ okay. And then they're part of it. And you make them, just, you a whole team effort putting this together. It was from the painters, the the people putting the finish the animated figures and everybody. It was just. the maintenance guys that were in there, was just, the whole team worked well together. Mike: thanks for bringing that up. ⁓ is team effort. not just Norrie, but many other attractions, many other parks outside of Disney as well, have these huge teams from almost every skill that are involved in creating memory for guests. one of those amazing things where... Everybody comes together, works together and their best to get it right. you know, ⁓ big projects, they have a start and a finish from long life cycle the beginning to the end ⁓ when you see the happy faces that experience that ⁓ you part of, that you built, has to very satisfying. Alan: was lot of fun. was a lot of good Mike: awesome. Well, Alan, an wonderful ⁓ conversation. And I want to thank you. No, absolutely. And you're welcome back if you have other stories you want to share. had a lot of conversations so far about, ⁓ Alan: Well, thank you for asking me that. Mike: many projects that many have worked on, This conversation mostly focused on attraction. think to go the details of the project that you worked on in Norway is really good. It puts into perspective ⁓ how much work goes into one project ⁓ to make an attraction like that as memorable an attraction as that was. And so, I thank for taking the time to be with us and be part of this project. ⁓ Really appreciate it.