Here now….so many ride closures!!!

[gelatoni fan]

All of the Disney parks worldwide need a rapid infusion in both money and personnel in regards to maintenance. While closed rides are an enormous inconvenience and annoyance to guests, the safety factor can't be ignored.

If a ride were to have an unexpected and/or catastrophic failure during use and guests are injured or worse, Disney will face a financial and public relations nightmare. These current instances of ride closures due to maintenance will definitely come into play with any lawsuits.

I don't really see widespread maintenance issues in any of the Asian parks. It's a US specific issue because the strategy was to cut costs by getting rid of all the staff. In Hong Kong, temporary workers were laid off but full time staff were retained at 30% pay for 2 days of work per week when the parks were closed. They even decorated the entire park for Lunar New Year this year and filmed stuff for social media even though the entire park didn't open a single day during the Lunar New Year season. The only issues I can think of at HKDL was that the projection room for Mystic Manor went down in December and there were very occasional issues with effects for the Christmastime Ball. It's nothing like California Disneyland where multiple rides don't open with the park, effects are perpetually broken and random things break all throughout the day.

 

[xipotec]

All of the Disney parks worldwide need a rapid infusion in both money and personnel in regards to maintenance. While closed rides are an enormous inconvenience and annoyance to guests, the safety factor can't be ignored.

If a ride were to have an unexpected and/or catastrophic failure during use and guests are injured or worse, Disney will face a financial and public relations nightmare. These current instances of ride closures due to maintenance will definitely come into play with any lawsuits.

i mentioned this possibility after the tragesy in Orlando….people got pretty defensive about Dis never ever compromising on safety.

I doubt that. Airlines do it all the time in the name of profits

 

[EmJ]

I would highly recommend getting G+ for your trip. If you have that, you’ll honestly be fine. I’m not a G+ fan because I far preferred MP (and even FP+ at WDW, which I also didn’t love) but we’ve been able to ride everything we’ve wanted to and have been having a great time despite the closures. I just personally wouldn’t risk long standby with all the ride closures I’ve seen.

I don’t know that they’re preparing for anything since these are unplanned closures throughout the day, often for a few hours. Seems more like they’re trying to keep up with the demand.

Thanks! We added G+ to our tickets for the entire trip. Unless something significant changes, this will be a once-in-a-decade-if-not-a-lifetime trip for us, and so sparing expenses was secondary to maximizing opportunity. I hope it is intuitive to use. Since I've never been there, I obviously don't know the grounds, ride strategy, or app very well, though I've been here for a couple years, trying to learn I can Legoland or Universal Studios with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back, but the whole Disney planning thing has been intimidating. Nonetheless, as long as the boy sees a stormtrooper at some point in our trip, he will leave a happy camper.

 

[sophy1996]

Every time we get put in the front car of Big Thunder at Disneyland, I think about that time the train derailed and killed that man and injured 10 others several years ago, which was a situation ultimately blamed on improper maintenance. It seems like Disney has gotten complacent again.

I think about that too. Also about the person killed when the cleat gave way on the Columbia.

 

[jina]

We also just got back from a 3 day trip and found many times a ride would go down while in line or when we were about to get in line: Jungle cruise, Goofy's, Indy, RotR closures hit us all in the same afternoon which was getting really annoying. We even had a LL for Indy, it went down as we were walking there (saw our LL turned into an anytime pass) but when we passed by it was back up so we used our anytime pass for Indy after all. Swings was also down all 3 days we were there even though it was constantly running/testing but on Thurs the app changed to "closed for refurbishment". It was annoying but I'm w/ the rest- better to have it closed if it's unsafe than to risk lives. I found DL was way more crowded than DCA all 3 days but both parks had numerous closures at any given time. For one, I had joked to my daughter that the CM's probably had to take a break and didn't have enough to cover running the ride so they closed it, but now after reading about staffing shortages, perhaps that wasn't a joke.

 

[xipotec]

We also just got back from a 3 day trip and found many times a ride would go down while in line or when we were about to get in line: Jungle cruise, Goofy's, Indy, RotR closures hit us all in the same afternoon which was getting really annoying. We even had a LL for Indy, it went down as we were walking there (saw our LL turned into an anytime pass) but when we passed by it was back up so we used our anytime pass for Indy after all. Swings was also down all 3 days we were there even though it was constantly running/testing but on Thurs the app changed to "closed for refurbishment". It was annoying but I'm w/ the rest- better to have it closed if it's unsafe than to risk lives. I found DL was way more crowded than DCA all 3 days but both parks had numerous closures at any given time. For one, I had joked to my daughter that the CM's probably had to take a break and didn't have enough to cover running the ride so they closed it, but now after reading about staffing shortages, perhaps that wasn't a joke.

We need to stop calling them staffing shortages, and call them Wage Shortages…puts the responsibility back on the people who could fix the problem.

 

[DLRExpert]

They probably cut maintenance staff when the parks came back online.
Then the CMs now have the vax mandate which probably shortened the staff even more.
Might be hard to maintain the attractions and slower to bring them back online when they go down. Especially when multiple attractions go down at once.

 

[twodogs]

Last night, the following were all down at the same time: ROTR, Matterhorn, Indy and Space. Not a good night for the thrill seekers! At least now if you buy an ILL$ for ROTR and it goes down, the pretty immediately pull you off the ride/line/pre-show room and give you an any-time LL for ROTR (and many other rides, but why would you use it on anything else at this price point) to come back. They told us it was one of the “usual” closures, and would last about an hour. It did and we were back on quickly after an hour.

HM must have had some major issue today, as it didn’t open at all until late afternoon.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Last night, the following were all down at the same time: ROTR, Matterhorn, Indy and Space. Not a good night for the thrill seekers! At least now if you buy an ILL$ for ROTR and it goes down, the pretty immediately pull you off the ride/line/pre-show room and give you an any-time LL for ROTR (and many other rides, but why would you use it on anything else at this price point) to come back. They told us it was one of the “usual” closures, and would last about an hour. It did and we were back on quickly after an hour.

HM must have had some major issue today, as it didn’t open at all until late afternoon.

Are they not issuing refunds for ILL breakdowns anymore? Or is the ME pass in addition to a refund?

I haven't seen the hitchiking ghosts at all when I rode it post-Christmas so I guess something more major than that must have broken.

 

[ClaudiaKincaid]

We need to stop calling them staffing shortages, and call them Wage Shortages…puts the responsibility back on the people who could fix the problem.

Right there with ya! They're short-staffed because: They don't want to pay to recruit, train, and retain. I blame most ride closures on this, and I absolutely blame it for things like trash everywhere, line-skipping, etc.

 

[jina]

We saw hitchhiking ghosts last week when we rode HM.

Also, you can get ILL refunds for many reasons. We had a ILL for RSR for just before we had to catch our flight and RSR went down an hour before our window so we decided it was too risky to hope the ride would come back AND we could breeze through the LL. We also got a refund our first day for our ILL for RSR when after I realized I could still get a ROTR ILL and had already used one for Webslingers. We went to the guest services cart in the middle of DCA (near the entrance to Cars land) and one of the CM's had a handheld and was able to refund in both cases.

At one point we had a LL for Goofy's which went down just after we touched in so the CM issued us an anytime LL (but many in the line just left and did not ask for a reissued LL).

I did not see much in terms of trash around - seemed just as squeakily clean as always and CM's were all very helpful and friendly - just more ride shutdowns than what I've been used to and both parks were crazy packed. I'm not sure what the limit is for advance reservations but it's a lot of people. Not quite as bad as Christmas pre-covid, but close.

 

[xipotec]

Peronally, I doubt the reservation system has anything to don-with capacity anymore, ots being used as a labor tool so they can predict how much labor they will need on any specific day.
My business does this.

 

[DLgal]

Right there with ya! They're short-staffed because: They don't want to pay to recruit, train, and retain. I blame most ride closures on this, and I absolutely blame it for things like trash everywhere, line-skipping, etc.

There is not "trash everywhere." This is one thing that has not suffered at all in the Disneyland parks.

 

[twodogs]

Yes you can get a refund for your ILL$ but you then would not get the special LL to return and do the ride. It is one or the other. And the CMs at the ride can’t do the refund when the ride goes down; you have to find a guest services kiosk or go to the main GS to get a refund.

When we had BB booked for 11am, I went to buy ROTR for 11:30-12:30. That way we would not have to rush our lunch, and then could ride ROTR. I checked each screen along the booking and time stayed just like that. When I hit “Pay”, the confirmation screen showed 10:55am-11:55am. I was not happy. Went to GS kiosk. Plaid said, yes this happens where the time jumps. She said she could give me a refund but then I would be blocked from rebooking ROTR again that day (no way on that option). She said she could not change the time of the ILL$. She advised talking to CM at the ride before our lunch and seeing if we could come back after our lunch even though ILL$ would be expired. I did this and one CM started to get upset saying no way the system would give me an earlier timed ILL$ than I was trying to book. Another CM overheard and jumped in to say, yes it can do that if there is a cancellation and the system grabs the earlier time. Second CM said yes just come back after lunch and we will let you on. Said our “redeem” option in app would not show ILL$ anymore since expired but they could scan our tickets and see our unused ILL$ and let us on. It worked just like that when we returned at 12:30pm to ride, no problem. But this was stressful for no reason. Why doesn’t Disney IT hold your “time slot” until you either pay or a time limit expires (like they do on sites like Ticketmaster)? This would avoid this.

 

[MonocularVision]

I just want to know how the Jungle Cruise is going down. Like… what is breaking there.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I just want to know how the Jungle Cruise is going down. Like… what is breaking there.

Well, a jungle cruise boat actually partially sank in WDW with guests on board so...

 

[bardays]

We are here now and yes, several ride closures! I have not noticed trash but I have noticed a large decline in customer service. Grumpy cast members everywhere. The worst was in the gift shop at the Grand. That surprised me!