Have they cut back on ride upkeep?

[tvguy]

Just back today from DL and CA, my first trip in 6 years. We were there from Thursday to today. I have never in 50 years of going to the Magic Kingdom seen so many ride breakdowns. Have the cut back on upkeep?
Radiator Springs Racers was down Thursday night, most of Friday and some of Saturday. We finally rode it at 10:15 last night with a FP we had gotten 12 hours before. I think on Friday, they were handing out "Come Back Anytime" FP's because if had been down so long.
We were on Monsters Inc when it broke down Friday night about 6 pm, as far as I know it was down the rest of the night.
Haunted mansion halted 4 times when we were on it.
Watched guests being helped off Big Thunder Railroad when it broke down.
And the Matterhorn went out of service last night for a bit.
Even It's a small world went down on Friday.

I have made many 2 and 3 day trips in the past, I never remember more than one ride breaking down per visit in the past.

 

[Luckymommatoo]

Man, that's a bummer! Matterhorn seems to be down more often than not, so that one doesn't surprise me, and HM always stops at least once when we're on. I think they pause it when someone slower needs to board.

But the rest -- ugh. Sorry.

 

[YukonMommy]

That's to bad
I would assume HM halted 4 times so someone who needed extra time/help boarding could do so safely.

I also know (as it has happened to us) that rides have went down due to human error (hat flying off onto tracks (RSR), throw up (teacups), rider being unsafe (Alice).

I hope you still had the most magical time!

 

[mom2aidanNpiper]

I agree that things were down a lot last week. We were there from 11/27-12/5. We only rode racers during early entry once because it was down (and stayed down a lot of the day) all the other early entry days. Another time in evening when it was finally back up we were in single rider line and it went down. The next night we tried again (it was down during the day) and it broke down with us on it.

Toy story was down often (more then 5 times) during the week as well. Luigis, the fun wheel and little mermaid oddly had issues too but only a cpl of times.

In disneyland pirates had issues and we got stuck twice on HM for a period of time.

We are AP holders so we weren't bummed out too much (the getting stuck on rides part though was a large waste of time). but we felt bad for people who were there for only a few days and literally couldn't ride some rides they probably had their hopes up for.

In general though we noticed a lot of closures and break downs compared to other trips (we usually go for 6-9 days at a time).

 

[bakerudall]

The ride closures are a result of more upkeep and attention to the rides, not less. Have you seen the safety procedures that ride operators and technicians go through to lock down and restart a ride? A hat flying off on RSR turns into quite a project, but it's all for the safety of the guests (and legal requirements in CA).

I think the main reason you don't notice breakdowns as much at MK or WDW in general is because you attempt far fewer rides per day at those parks.

 

[Indiana Scott]

We were in the parks a few weeks ago and I actually thought maint. was a lot better than it was the last time we were there 2 years ago.
We had less breakdowns and closures and the park itself was in much better shape. We saw far fewer burned out bulbs, less chipped paint, etc.
There was one huge exception to this view though, Autopia is a mess of delayed maint. and I believe the rumors about it closing are probably true.
Why else would they let this one area of the park go downhill so bad.

 

[figment_jii]

The hard part about ride closures to me is that you don't always know whether the ride is down due to a malfunction (something increased maintenance may help with) or because some safety issue was tripped. When a ride is halted, but resumes almost immediately, that's usually to assist a guest board or de-board an attraction. I think guests are quick to think there is a maintenance issue, but I don't think they are actually all that common (I'm not saying that rides don't break down occasionally and need to be repaired). My guess is that most rides (especially thrill rides) experience safety issues more often that actually break downs that take them offline while the issue is resolved and the ride is re-booted.

 

[cmwade77]

Just back today from DL and CA, my first trip in 6 years. We were there from Thursday to today. I have never in 50 years of going to the Magic Kingdom seen so many ride breakdowns. Have the cut back on upkeep?
Radiator Springs Racers was down Thursday night, most of Friday and some of Saturday. We finally rode it at 10:15 last night with a FP we had gotten 12 hours before. I think on Friday, they were handing out "Come Back Anytime" FP's because if had been down so long.
We were on Monsters Inc when it broke down Friday night about 6 pm, as far as I know it was down the rest of the night.
Haunted mansion halted 4 times when we were on it.
Watched guests being helped off Big Thunder Railroad when it broke down.
And the Matterhorn went out of service last night for a bit.
Even It's a small world went down on Friday.

I have made many 2 and 3 day trips in the past, I never remember more than one ride breaking down per visit in the past.

Racers still has some bugs in it and does break down a fair amount. Monsters Inc break downs are usually related to wheelchair parties that take too long to get on or off. This is not usually the wheelchair party's fault, it usually happens because the CM wasn't paying attention to the vehicle spacing and was trying to get them on when they should have let the ADA vehicle take a trip around first. I have seen this on numerous occasions (and been in one of the wheelchair groups) and yes, they have to take everyone off and there are times where this causes the ride to be down the rest of the night.

Haunted Mansion stops are normal for wheelchair parties and others who can't handle the moving ramps. They normally try to limit it to two groups at any given time, but sometimes people realize afterwards that they can't handle the moving ramps.

Big Thunder is still ironing out the bugs from the most recent "refurbishment", really they essentially tore the ride down and rebuilt it from scratch, the only things left in place were the actual mountain, but all of the tracks and ride vehicles were completely replaced.

Matterhorn is always plagued with problems, but if you didn't get to ride it, you probably have a few less bruises than you would have if you did. The new cars are really painful.

small world holiday does go down a bit more often than the regular small world for some reason. Also, I believe they have been told that if they don't have at least one wheelchair boat on that the attraction cannot run until they get it back on. Since they are down to one last I heard (they are completely refurbishing the other one) and it needs recharging from time to time, this can cause small world to go down as well.

 

[tvguy]

Matterhorn is always plagued with problems, but if you didn't get to ride it, you probably have a few less bruises than you would have if you did. The new cars are really painful.
.

You aren't kidding. First, at 6'2", I thought I might not be able to get into those new cars, my knees were at my chin, ONCE I squeezed my feet into the too tiny foot wells. And yes, my tail bone is bruised.

 

[mickeymom629]

We were there for our second trip ever during Avengers Half Marathon weekend and the week after. I have to say that we had several major rides shut down - Indy, Mansion, Pirates, Matterhorn, RSR, Screamin, - on more than one day during our visit. It really messed up our plans for the first couple of mornings. I've never experienced so many ride closures in one trip in all of our years going to WDW. Luckily we were there for a week, so we had plenty of time to go on everything we wanted.

 

[TheChapman6]

I agree about Haunted mansion. I've been stopped on it everytime I've ridden it. Once we stopped for almost 15 minutes. When we got off the ride it was like nothing happened...

I have also been stopped on little mermaid, but only for a minute or so.

 

[superlarz]

I agree about Haunted mansion. I've been stopped on it everytime I've ridden it. Once we stopped for almost 15 minutes. When we got off the ride it was like nothing happened...

I have also been stopped on little mermaid, but only for a minute or so.

Unfortunately both rides shut down often when people needing assistance get on or off. Youll notice they slow down a few times as well.