Today I was in the mall, and I told Cheese Eater she could go on the carousel. The new carousel is a two tiered carousel,venetian style, and it is not intuitive as to which horses go up and down. Not wanting to disappoint the little one I asked the guy (yes, American, so it wasn't a language issue), and he said: "the one with boxes around the base go up and down." So I put her on that one. I looked around at the other horses and noticed that all were on a rocking mechanism, and the ones with boxes, had, well, a box attached to the edge of that mechanism. I looked up and noticed that the horse she was on (the boxed base type) didn't seem to have a pole, so I wasn't exactly sure how it would go up and down. I asked the guy again, if THIS horse (the one she was on), would go up and down and AGAIN he said yes. This carousel is so tall that it's hard to really see what's going on at the top of each pole, but it had a box! at the base, so I figured it must do something, since I was asking and he kept telling me it went up and down.
So the ride starts, and her horse rears back, and moves forward, and she's scared. The horse next to us, the one that actually HAS a pole, is sloooowly moving up and down. So I quickly move her to the other horse, and wait for the carousel to speed up. And wait, and wait, and wait. This thing is so garsh darned slow, I think I'm going to lose my mind. I paid two bucks, for what amounted to a ride no better than the rides you put quarter into (who am I kidding, they're all fifty cents!) outside the supermarket.
Maybe if they had built a booth for an attendant and actually staffed said booth while the antique carousel was there, they wouldn't have had to change carousels. Taking a look at the website of the new carousel company I can see that it is about the marketing and and management of this carousel that the mall management is probably attracted to.
So to sum up: They took a beautiful, intricate carousel from 1907 with four rows and 54 Jumping Horses....
...and replaced it with a double decker carousel with 19 rocking horses, 9 of which are motorized to give riders the sensation of a gentle gallop
- 4 traditional horses on poles that go up and down
- 2 spinning teacups
- 4 dolphin gondolas that sway back and forth
- 2 swings
- 6 stationary benches
- 2 stairways to the upper deck
Essentially this should be great, better even, but it's not. It looks inviting, and it is, but it's disappointing.
Somethings are just better left alone.
2 comments:
the enemy of good is better
I wonder what they did with the old one. Some things are better left unchanged, even for the sake of the Cheese Eater.
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