How wet does it need to be

[DisneyDad64]

How wet does it need to be for Wishes to be canceled?

 

[mesaboy2]

How wet does it need to be for Wishes to be canceled?

Pretty wet. I've "seen" mere hints and suggestions of Wishes through the clouds from Main Street.

Parades are another matter, and are cancelled at a much lower threshold.

 

[amzking]

Pretty wet. I've "seen" mere hints and suggestions of Wishes through the clouds from Main Street.

Parades are another matter, and are cancelled at a much lower threshold.

This. Tink may not fly though.

 

[figment_jii]

I concur that it needs to be a pretty major storm for Wishes to be cancelled. From what I've read, it's more a matter of wind than rain. I've been at the MK was it was pouring and Wishes went on (you could tell there were fireworks through the rain, but you didn't really want to stand out on the street). The few covered areas on MS were packed, but you could have had your pick of locations on the street!

 

[11290]

Wishes seldom ever gets totally cancelled because of rain, sometimes wind when it is really dry, but very rare occurence. Get's delayed because of lightning within a certain radius of the park. Once the tubes are loaded with the fireworks, they will go off before the park opens the next morning, no matter what time.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

In the Wishes Dessert Party thread on the Restaurants Board, someone asked what happens to your Dessert party reservation if Wishes is cancelled. Another poster replied that according to the CMs at the party, Wishes has only been cancelled once in it's history. Tink doesn't always fly (based on wind and lightning,) but the show itself was held. Now, you can take that with a grain of salt (I certainly did) as gospel, because I don't know if that's true or not. But either way, I think it's got to be pretty darn harsh out for them to cancel those fireworks!

 

[11290]

In the Wishes Dessert Party thread on the Restaurants Board, someone asked what happens to your Dessert party reservation if Wishes is cancelled. Another poster replied that according to the CMs at the party, Wishes has only been cancelled once in it's history.

Don't know about the highlighted part of your post but I've worked Parade Audience Control and we also do fireworks audience control after first parade and I've never seen or heard of Wishes being "cancelled", delayed yes, cancelled no. Heard one time that fireworks went off at about 4:30am but like I said in an earlier post, been told by one of the CM's in Pyro, once they are in the tubes, they will go off. Nobody is dumb enough to stick their hand in there to remove them.

 

[AuroraRora]

I asked about it when I was there at the beginning of May and it felt like monsoon season, and the CM told me that Wishes is almost never, ever cancelled because it can be done just fine in the rain. He said that once the pyro is loaded it can't be removed so they have almost no choice to do it, so the issue is actually more with having a break in the weather to load the pyro, not launch it. But apparently they have a pretty wide window of time throughout the day to load everything so it's never a problem. He said he'd been there since last Fall and the most he'd seen was it delayed once due to a lightening storm.

 

[LucyBC80]

I attended a Wishes Dessert Party where Tink did not fly because of the wind but fireworks were not even delayed.

 

[2012DisneyWorldBride]

We saw Wishes from inside CRT in December 2012 during a rain storm and it was raining hard!!!

 

[andyman8]

We were at MK on June 2 and it wasn't raining but it was thundering and lightening a bit but they continued with the show right at 10pm as usual. Tink didn't fly and oddly enough, they had everyone (except for the few resilient adults) sit down and watch the fireworks; I don't entirely know why so could someone explain this. Anyways, I was chatting with a CM and he said that they load the fireworks earlier in the day and, once loaded, they cannot be unloaded and used again (for whatever reason) and considering how much money WDW spends on one show, they have to shoot them off. Basically, if there's really, really bad weather, they'll keep delaying it and if the park closes and they haven't done it, they shoot them all off at once when the rain clears a bit.

 

[Bellamouse]

There must be a good explanation, but I cannot think of what it could be. Why do they HAVE to blow them off? Why would they have to "unload" the tubes if the show didn't happen? Couldn't they just leave everything in there and have it all ready in advance for the next night's show?

Maybe someone can enlighten me.... (just one of those, "things that make you go hmmmmmmmm" )

 

[cgattis]

I must confess I've only ever watched the fireworks from the hub, but I understand they do rope done areas off, do I'm assuming some if the charges are fairly close to onstage areas. They wouldn't leave unexploded charges around close to guests the whole next day. Plus, some critter could crawl in the tube, jam the shell in, and cause the tube to explode (and send out debris) if the charge doesn't clear the tube when it should. Not to mention scaring the bejeebus out of people if one suddenly went off somehow in the middle of the day in a packed park. And probably countless other safety issues that I can't even think of.

 

[Bellamouse]

I must confess I've only ever watched the fireworks from the hub, but I understand they do rope done areas off, do I'm assuming some if the charges are fairly close to onstage areas. They wouldn't leave unexploded charges around close to guests the whole next day. Plus, some critter could crawl in the tube, jam the shell in, and cause the tube to explode (and send out debris) if the charge doesn't clear the tube when it should. Not to mention scaring the bejeebus out of people if one suddenly went off somehow in the middle of the day in a packed park. And probably countless other safety issues that I can't even think of.

I thought of this but I'm still confused as I can't imagine they load the tubes right with all the guests around? isn't it done before guests arrive for the day? I'm so confused....

 

[mesaboy2]

I thought of this but I'm still confused as I can't imagine they load the tubes right with all the guests around? isn't it done before guests arrive for the day? I'm so confused....

I don't know that I can answer the specifics, but I'll throw in the few bits I know.

Most fireworks are shot from a small area behind MK off a service road. This area is pretty well removed from any guest-accessible areas, at least before FLE anyway.

The remaining fireworks are shot from the roofs of buildings to either side of CC. These buildings house Pan, PhilharMagic, Snow White/Princess Fairytale Hall, and Pooh.

My presumption is the fireworks are loaded during the day and obviously don't endanger guests (or CMs presumably) during loading. I also assume that once loaded, the safest way to unload them is to launch them.

Lastly, these fireworks are launched using compressed air--which is not typical of most other fireworks displays. My wild guess is that something having to do with the compressed air makes them unsafe to unload without launching. Or at least launching them is far safer than any other way.

 

[Bellamouse]

But why the need to unload them at all? why not leave them loaded until the next night?

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

But why the need to unload them at all? why not leave them loaded until the next night?

Maybe it's a safety thing? Like they don't want them going off accidentally the next day? I'm thinking they have some pressure behind/around them and the longer they sit the more unstable they get. I'm just guessing here.

I have heard from a couple of people who work firework shows that once a firework is loaded there is no real safe way to unload it except to fire it. Any other disturbance could cause it to explode close to the ground and people.

 

[GiGi30]

We were there a couple of years ago during the Very Merry Christmas Party and there was a hard rain about 30 minutes prior to and a steady rain up to the time of the fireworks. They delayed it by over an hour. While it went on, I don't think it was the full show, but it was great. Tinkerbell did not fly either. The next year the show went off without a hitch and seemed much bigger.

The best thing about missing Wishes due to rain is that most people do a mass exit from the parks and you have the rides to essentially walk on to.