Reasons Rides Go Down

[sewingmolly]

After reading a few trip reports and my experiences on my June 24 - July1 trip, I've started wondering why rides go down.

My personal experiences were -
Roger Rabbit - went down twice while we were riding. Both times it was due to slow loading. The second time we watched it happen in the car in front of us as a dad carefully loaded his two daughters, a very large backpack and then himself. He took too long and the ride shut down as we left the loading area.
Indiana Jones - Our jeep stopped about mid-way through the ride, the lights came on, and a cast member came out to tell that they were going to try to restate the ride. Fortunately the ride restarted after a few minutes. This was a little tense for me as it was the last thing we were doing in the park before leaving to catch our flight home. We're pretty sure that the problem was caused by a hat flying off during the ride.
Pirates of the Caribbean - At the end of the ride, we realized that the ride had been closed and the queue emptied. When we went outside, all the restaurant workers were standing around. We assume that a smoke alarm went off in the kitchen.
Radiator Spring Racers - On two days of our trip, RSR was down a lot. One time we had a 20 minute wait to use our fastpass and at least one morning it was down when the park opened. This ride seems to have a frequent problems. I was told that it was due to the complexity of the ride.
Soarin over California - We returned to use a fastpass and encountered a fairly long line. We were told that it was because only one screen was operating. I have no idea why - maintenance, system errors?
Grizzly River Run - We were at the front of the line, when they stopped loading the ride. We waited for about 10 minutes, but we had to be somewhere so we didn't wait any longer. The ride was still running, they just weren't loading it. I don't know what the problem was,

These experiences didn't impact our overall enjoyment of the trip, but I know others feel differently. We were standing next to a man in RSR queue who was complaining about how many down rides he had encountered the day before.

I just think that labeling this as a maintenance problem is too simplistic. I think that there must be a variety of reasons for rides to go down and some of them relate to the guests. I would be interested in hearing about other people's experiences. I think if you know what rides are most susceptible to problems, you can better plan your time. Maybe go to those rides first.

 

[Gisele]

I keep tellin' people that it's gremlins. But does anyone believe me? Well actually some people do. Do you beleave too? Hey! Would I steer you wrong?

 

[TulipsNZ]

Can't be Gremlins, that's a whole different franchise

 

[bryanb]

The most frequent reason that roller coasters go down is due to "slow moving guest."

Trains must be dispatched from the station at regular intervals to maintain a safe separation between vehicles. If a guest takes too long to enter or exit the vehicle, the system will start warning of a "station backup" which means that another train is approaching the station. Station backups are OK for rides like Pirates of the Caribbean (the boats just line up), but not for rollercoasters, so the ride shuts down before the trains get too close to each other.

 

[Gisele]

Can't be Gremlins, that's a whole different franchise

Nope...gremlins. Ok....so sometimes there are other reasons, but really normally it is those not so small winged beasties at work. Why I even have a picture of one, well actually I should say had one, because wouldn't you know it, in the middle of the night, just three months after I took the picture, my picture disappeared. Pretty certain that it was the same darn gremlin at work too!

 

[ultraawesome]

Grizzly River Run can be stopped because of someone standing up in the raft...sometimes people will do this right before the last drop and so the cast member won't let them down which causes all the other rafts to get jammed up behind them and sometimes they even need a cast member to unstick (is that a word?) the rafts from each other by pushing them down, but it can result in a good 10-15 minute wait

 

[figment_jii]

Some rides also go down due to weather. Anything with an outdoor portion of the ride will often shut if it is really rainy (e.g., Dumbo, Alice, Tea Cups). If it rains long and hard enough, the ride may have to stay down until it complete dries out (I ran into that with Mad Tea Party...they couldn't re-open because there was standing water puddles in the ride area).

 

[DHSbutcher]

The type of ride track that RSR and Indy have are extremely sensitive, when an object lands on the track this usually requires a restart of the ride.

 

[SultanPprShkr]

last thursday we were stuck on Grizzly for a good half hour, they drained the attraction (down to about 6" of water) and we walked off. we were just 2 rafts away from the big drop. so sad.

 

[SweetAlex]

We were on POTC once when the "brake got stuck" on the boat 2 in front of us. It took hours to get it back up. Crazy!

 

[hyperminimalism]

I don't think I've ever, in my life, gotten "stuck" on a ride at DL/DCA! I'm kind of jealous. I hope I don't jinx myself, though, for when we go in August. xD I kinda do want it to happen on a less frightening ride, but I kinda don't want it to happen on say...oh, Space Mountain or something like that. And I used to be a regular visitor when we lived there for a while. Now, I try to make it down once a year, so we've still been going almost every year since I moved up north.

Of course, rides will be broken down as we're waiting in line. I remember last year waiting in Splash's standby line, and they told us they weren't quite sure when the ride was going to come back up. It took around 30-45 minutes if I remember for it to start functioning fully again, but we waited in line and a lot of other people just left.

I recall this happening a lot at Indy, too. Or sometimes we'd be coming to ride it and it was down. Either way, I can attest to the issues being that something fell out of the car and onto the tracks or it being due to a slow loading guest who took too long to get on or off. I know these aren't the only reasons, but more often than not that's what I remember hearing. And I know they have these safety precautions in place for when things don't happen in the time frame in which they're allowed. It makes sense, so it's a two-way road really. Sometimes it's the park's fault, sometimes it's the guests fault.

 

[Vintage Mouseketeer]

Some rides also go down due to weather. Anything with an outdoor portion of the ride will often shut if it is really rainy (e.g., Dumbo, Alice, Tea Cups). If it rains long and hard enough, the ride may have to stay down until it complete dries out (I ran into that with Mad Tea Party...they couldn't re-open because there was standing water puddles in the ride area).

This past weekend Storybook and Golden Zyphyr were closed due to the heat and direct sunlight. I am not sure if there were others, but those are two we noticed.

 

[chrisaman]

There are a lot of safety features built into the ride to prevent guests from hurting themselves. Most of these run on sensors and sensors fail. Also there are safety features built into rides to prevent them from colliding and what not. Like everything in our world they are controlled by computers and computers act up sometimes. Especially complex ones like that. I work on an automated train system and am very familiar with this kind of stuff

 

[nancy drew]

When we were getting out of our ride vehicle on the Alice in Wonderland ride, my water bottle fell out of my backpack. It wasn't in the line of vehicle traffic, but it was still in what would be considered the ride area. Really I think I could have got it myself if I had noticed right away, but I didn't notice it until we were going through the ride exit. So I told a cast member and asked to run back and get it. Instead of letting me do this, or sending a cast member to do it, they refused to let anyone else on the ride, cleared all of the vehicles, stopped the ride, got my water bottle, and then started it back up again. There was a whole procedure for this, they had to follow a very specific protocol.

I felt like the worst person in the world, with everyone in line staring at me (maybe they weren't but it sure FELT like they were). I get it, I mean who knows when those crazy caterpillars might fly off the tracks and behead someone , but still, I felt like an Eeyore.

 

[dominiondad]

We were boarding Test Track and a single rider boarding our car dropped his sunglasses on the track as he climbed in. He actually jumped down onto the track to retreive them. They immediately shut down the ride. Ugh.

 

[abouley]

We were in line for BTMRR (before the refurb) when it went down. Talking to the CM they said that a bird kept flying into the sensor and the ride would shut down.

Was talking to a CM on Indy and they said that anytime anyone loses something on the track it requires a "retrieval" process.

And then there are the days that there are minor earthquakes and they quietly shut down pretty much all the rides....

It seems to me that the rides definitely go down more during summer months when they are operating at full capacity. Of course that is also the time that it seems like more "tourists" are in the park and don't know how things "work" resulting in the slow loading issues.

 

[2tinkerbell]

We were on Space Mountain once when it went down. The lights came on and a CM had to come and "rock" our ride vehicle to push it down the track. What was so interesting about this experience is that my DD looked at me when the lights went on and said, "Mom, we are on a track!" I guess she thought we were free flying through space.

Okay, I am not too fond of CS, but, will go on it. I have a huge question: has anyone ever been stuck on CS? Were you on the top? Did you have to be evacuated? This information will help me greatly - either give me ammo for not going on it again, or eliminating my huge fears.

 

[FryingPansWhoKnew]

Another reason rides go down is to disperse crowds. After a parade or F!, sometimes rides will mysteriously have "technical difficulties".

Just 2 days ago, Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain had a major breakdown when a tree fell onto the track. The front part of the suspended roller coaster got derailed. It must have been terrifying being on the ride and running into that tree at 55 mph. There were minor injuries, but thankfully no one was seriously hurt. Had Magic Mountain some sort of automatic breakdown if the track sensed some sort of obstruction, this might have been avoided.

Sometimes I'm thankful for breakdowns. I'd rather them err a little on the side of caution.

 

[DaveNinja]

Okay, I am not too fond of CS, but, will go on it. I have a huge question: has anyone ever been stuck on CS? Were you on the top? Did you have to be evacuated? This information will help me greatly - either give me ammo for not going on it again, or eliminating my huge fears.

A co-worker and his wife were on CS when it stopped. they were stuck near the top of the big hill. After ~45 minutes they were evacuated and had to walk down the stairs on the side of the track. He told me that his wife will never go on the ride again after that experience.

 

[algae]

has anyone ever been stuck on CS? Were you on the top? Did you have to be evacuated?

Stuck on it once. There are a few stopping places for cars if they have to shut it down. We were stuck about 30 feet before reaching the loading platform. We were stuck for about 40 minutes IIRC. They would not evacuate us from there even though there was a catwalk there--they kept us there until all the other cars were evac'd and they could have our car slowly run itself into the loading area. We could see all the people in the other cars walk the stairs down off the ride from the other stopping places. Didn't look too scary. IIRC, the other cars were fairly level where they got stopped.

Also got stuck on the Green Lantern at Magic Mountain. I'd much rather get stuck on CS than Green Lantern...