Boats crashing on Splash?!

[Cal-Pie]

On our trip last month we had an experience on Splash that I've been curious about ever since. We thought it would be fun to ride in the dark, so we made it our last ride of the night. About 3/4 of the way through the ride our boat crashed into the boat in front of us because it was stopped on the track by several boats in front of it.

We sat there for several minutes laughing hysterically as boat after boat crashed into us, jarring us side ways and causing a big pile up. At first I figured they must have stopped the ride to load someone into a wheelchair, but as the minutes ticked by I figured the ride must have broken down. As we sat there waiting to be evacuated, the belt that pulls the boats up the hill started to move and took the first boat up. Then it pulled the next boat, but it seemed way too close to the first. This continued, with the boats close together, making me and DH really nervous about what was going on on the other side of the hill. DH was ready to bail out and grab the kids as our boat started up the hill.

I told the kids to hold on and smile REALLY big for the picture (thinking this might be our obituary picture), as we went up the hill. We went down the other side and obviously didn't crash, although we got a great splash!!

We have laughed and laughed about the time we "almost died on splash ;-)", but I've wondered ever since, how often do boats pile up like that inside the mountain?

 

[GatorChris]

On my last trip to WDW, there was something going that kept backing everything up, though I don't know what it was. We probably stopped like that 4 times.

"Looks like Brer Bear and Brer Fox are making some trouble upstream. Yall hold tight and stay in your boat. We'll get going in just a minute". Or something like that.

 

[valiamo]

I find that this ususal when riding Splash Mountain. I would be surprized if we hit that part of the ride and we didn't either bump into the raft/trunk ahead or the one behind us bumps us. Gives that fun feeling that the ride is more of a free flow ride vs one that is one rails and each raft is exactly xx feet ahead of the one behind it.

Sometimes I think that it is the raft/trunk behind you that pushed you onto the conveyor to get you up to the big drop.

Love this ride... only 150 days left til my next Disney fix!

 

[Drusilla99]

I haven't seen a pike up in that area very often at all. Very weird & scary. I'm with you, I would've thought the same

 

[KeKy4]

Always been this way in our experience as well!