Shame about the spinning, because that room is so dark and bland it needs to be a physical experience in there. Either that or they need to add some visual or audio effects. Perhaps something to make the jump from fireplace to falling from a balcony make sense? The physical spinning distracted from where you had been and what happened after, so it didn't matter that it didn't make sense narratively... It was also more dramatic and so the fall was more wooah.
I love the pre batching though. Until this year I'd not seen that. It's infinately better this way. However staff seem to be batching too frequently, because the stable area has been too full every time I've done it. It's not like it's hard to judge either, since the same staff have to manually shut the secret door.