Familial circumstances brought me to Southern California last week, and I opted to spend 12/12/12 @ Disneyland. Surprisingly enough, the park was quite empty and I never waited more than twenty-minutes for Indy. The impending threat of rain combined with the middle of the week probably helped out.
So...
Attila the Professor said:
The lighting looks great, particularly in the Tunnel of Torment (after Mara), which has been redone.
Yes, yes it does. It's much brighter than it ever was (LED I assume) and zips along the wall at a good clip. Unfortunately, the smoke that was supposed mask your ascent up the tunnel is still missing.
Attila the Professor said:
The rope and spike room effects still don't work, however.
Both are working. The bamboo in the spike room is still a wobbly mess so you need to give it quite a yank. It works, though. The rope effect has a newly painted sign informing you not to pull the rope, and the speaker has been replaced or the volume turned up as you can clearly hear the gag now.
Attila the Professor said:
Indy is there struggling with a set of doors, and there's lightning in the room.
He
used to be struggling with the doors. Watch it again. While it's nice to see a new positing of the AA-figure, the placement doesn't make much sense. Now he's only sort of holding one door back. The other one should come swinging open.
The lighting in that unknown hell has been changed too. It used to be that smoke would billow forth from here and lightning would flash. Now it looks like some sort of Mardi Gras colored vortex. Which doesn't quite work.
The skeleton cavern appears larger. No confirmation of this, but I think the mural has been given a facelift and better depth perception.
The bug room is still the same, but the projection now appears to be in high-def. You can make the bugs out clearly, they scatter when the headlights first illuminate them, and they respond to the lights as they flicker and go out.
I didn't actually notice any changes to the bridge. That appears the same, but another rider insisted that they're there if you know where to look. When I go back at the end of the month, I'll see if I can spot 'em.
There are two noticeably good improvements in the main chamber: the cobra and the demon ghost. For years, the giant cobra has been some sort of neon green color; takes me right out of the ride every time. Now it's much closer to that of an Indian cobra, most notably in the area of the face, hood, and belly scales.
The cobra's "tracking" has also been vastly improved. The cobra now tracks your jeep as soon as he sees it and strikes the moment you get too close. In the past, I think the snake would "lose" the jeep and either not strike at all or strike too late.
The demon ghost appears just behind Mara's head in the main chamber. For years it was essentially a paper cut out accompanied by a sound effect. Now, it's a digital scrim. It's invisible until your jeep comes barreling by and he comes swooping out of the sky.
Not much has changed from the final section of the ride that I could tell. The ball effect wasn't working properly, but that appears to be a common complaint thus far. Hopefully it's working by the end of the month.
The final dart room might have a redone mural, but I'll need to check out a pre-refurb video. Still looks...well, bad.