Just back ~ disappointing trip

[ttintagel]

Yeah, when I was there in November, I encountered about one ride every day that was closed.

If they can't get maintenance done with the size crew they have during the overnight shift, they need to put more workers on the job. Of course, that would mean spending money on something you can't advertise.

 

[dapod423]

While attending MNNSHP I went over to Peter Pan and was told by a Cast Member to come back AFTER the party officially started. They do not use FP during the party and it will speed up the line because the ratio is 100 FP people to 4 Standby. So there you go! OP could have been right about the 70 to 3 ratio.

 

[Tribe]

I wonder if there are official statistics kept on ride closures. This could answer a lot of the questions posed here and even help with planning. I assume Disney would not want to advertise this though.

 

[mattsdragon]

While attending MNNSHP I went over to Peter Pan and was told by a Cast Member to come back AFTER the party officially started. They do not use FP during the party and it will speed up the line because the ratio is 100 FP people to 4 Standby. So there you go! OP could have been right about the 70 to 3 ratio.

I don't doubt that you were told that, I doubt the source, meaning the CM's credibility. I have ridden this ride many times, and have yet to see a ratio of 25 to 1. This calls for someone with more data regarding the FP distribution system to confirm or refute.

 

[MHSweb79]

I've never even been in a FP line that even had 50 or 100 people in it. Are they issuing more FP's than they used to? Of course, I've never been during a peak season, either.

I'm going 1/22 - 1/29 so I'll be sure to keep an eye on ride closures AND how many people are in the FP line. I don't consider a delay on a continuous mover like HM, Spaceship Earth or even Buzz a maintenance issue, because they have to stop the conveyor to assist anyone in a wheelchair. I do remember one trip where Space Mountain seemed to be having a lot of issues, as well as Maelstrom.

As for "penalizing" people who don't get there early, I would say that the system is fair- first come, first served. It's the American way! If you know that FP's may run out by 10 am, then get there before 10 am or ride standbye. That seems to me to be a choice, not a penalty. Not trying to bash the OP, just offering my opinion.

 

[jessa07]

Absolutely agree. We experienced this in Oct and couldn't figure out why the heck the line wasn't moving. After waiting forever - DH noticed the CM was allowing a 5 to 50+ ratio (majority-of-the-time). I want to say the group that was in front of us had either 3 or 4. So the 3-4 of them got to go, and we got stopped because we had 8. Then we had to wait our turn as hoardes of FPer's went by. This was at BTMR, where a 45 min wait turned into double that; and Soarin, where people were literally cursing at the CM and leaving....

We had this same experience at BTMR in November. We were especially irked when standby was advertised at 40 minutes and it turned into 100.

 

[lugnut33]

We were there from Dec. 22-Jan 1 and only had two rides that we wanted to get on but were down. First was BTMRR. It appears this attraction currently has major mechanical issues because I see it listed as being down quite often. I was talking with a CM in front of the attraction and he indicated that the ride is now down more often than before the refurbishment of last year.

The second time was Expedition Everest, but it was the third time we were going to ride it that evening and it went down just as we were ready to board. We waited around about 7 minutes and decided to leave the queue. It was back up around 10 minutes later.

 

[dzaharchuk]

We also experienced major ride breakdowns last week of Sept. into Oct. We were stuck on HM and KRR, and never got onto Splash, despite returning to MK 4 times. (splash was closed once b/c of weather). RNR was down, TOT, and several others at MK.

I agree that it is especially frustrating when you have a fp, and if ride goes down you are out of luck. We actually went to guest services to get fp's for a different day after Splash was down again, and were issued passes to use anytime. Unfortunately, the next time we were at MK days later it was not running again. Huge time-waster, and our dd desperately wanted to ride it- she is the youngest and it was the first time she was big enough.

Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go back again !!

 

[mom2rtk]

I've never even been in a FP line that even had 50 or 100 people in it. Are they issuing more FP's than they used to?.

It is quite possible, but nobody knows for certain.

Several CMs have posted here that Disney added more FPs to the mix when they started time enforcement last March. The supposition is that they would then take those slots back out later to use for Fastpass+. That capacity is going to have to come from somewhere.

It really did seem to me during our recent trip that FPs were available much later into the day, and that return times were far sooner than anything I had ever experienced before. And we've gone the same week for several years now.

Get ready for appointment riding folks.

Anyone want to do BTMRR next August 12th at 11:40? OK, most people would do BTMRR any day of the week. At least I would. How about Stitch's Great Escape at 4:50?

I'm mostly curious how the new appointment riding (FP+) co-exists with this high level of ride breakdowns. If I give up the chance to schedule Splash so I can get the BTMRR FP+ slot, then show up and BTMRR is down, I'm not going to be a happy camper.

 

[sandym718]

Kings Island and Cedar Point also both close for 4 months out of the year. That gives them a chance to perform major maintenance on their rides, as well as avoid operating them during the coldest months of the year.

Disney typically runs the rides 365 days a year, taking it down for refurbishment maybe once every 2 years. Plus, even though Florida doesn't get as cold as Ohio, there were some days last week when it was in the 30s overnight, and 40s during the early part of the day. That's hard on a ride system.

When I worked in attractions, the majority of the times we had mechanical problems, it was on the colder days.

actually, to further emphasize your point...Cedar Point (and I believer KI is the same, but not 100% positive) is closed more than half of the year. Closed completely November - April and open mainly on weekends in May, September and October. Hard to compare park maintenance between parks that are open 365 days year, with one that is only open full time 3 months out of the year.

I also wonder if there are more breakdowns this time of the year because of the short turnover time at night. I've never been at Christmas, but it sounds like the MK is open until 1,2, or 3 am most nights of the week this time of year and then reopening at 7 or 8 am. Those rides aren't getting a lot of "rest" so to speak. Again to compare to Cedar Point... I don't believe CP is ever open before 9 am (even for passholders) and is only occassionally open past 11 pm.

 

[1stvisit0909]

I knew the moment you put your disappiontments in writing you would start to get flamed. You can't say anything on this web site without the nay sayers coming out. Is everything you said the way it really happend, probably not, but you just needed to vent. Guess I'll be next. You are off the hook. Hope you don't cancel and give Disney another chance. We have been more times then we can count, with both good and bad visits. Good Luck, I'm going to need it after this post. TDBIASWS.

I wasn't flaming. I was pointing out that I was there during the same time, and had no issues. People should read about both sides. I would go Christmas week agin in a heartbeat.

 

[Colleen27]

I'm not going to join the Disney apologists on this one either... Ride maintainence is a big issue right now. Sure, you notice the effects more when it is busy but we had days where we encountered several breakdowns in one day on both of our last two trips (one in January where long hours certainly weren't the issue, and the other at Memorial Day so cold wasn't a factor) and I'm actually a little worried over it when it comes to our next trip because we're taking a first timer for what will probably be her only visit to WDW... So if, as happened last trip, all three mountains, Pirates, and Haunted Mansion are all closed for chunks of our only MK day and at Epcot we have the same experience with Nemo, Figment, Soarin', Spaceship Earth and Test Track, it is far more upsetting/disappointing than it would normally be.

And I am a firm believer in the theory/rumor that they're allocating more of each FP ride's capacity to FP and less to standby these days. At BTMRR I personally counted 40+ people let in from the FP line for each party pulled from standby; basically they were clearing the entire FP return, taking one or two parties from standby, then entirely emptying the FP return again before taking another standby party.

 

[mom2rtk]

actually, to further emphasize your point...Cedar Point (and I believer KI is the same, but not 100% positive) is closed more than half of the year. Closed completely November - April and open mainly on weekends in May, September and October. Hard to compare park maintenance between parks that are open 365 days year, with one that is only open full time 3 months out of the year.

I also wonder if there are more breakdowns this time of the year because of the short turnover time at night. I've never been at Christmas, but it sounds like the MK is open until 1,2, or 3 am most nights of the week this time of year and then reopening at 7 or 8 am. Those rides aren't getting a lot of "rest" so to speak. Again to compare to Cedar Point... I don't believe CP is ever open before 9 am (even for passholders) and is only occassionally open past 11 pm.

The ride breakdowns are too frequent throughout the entire year to blame the short turnaround times of the past couple weeks.

That was the story we got on the monorail. They decided they needed more time every night. Yet, I don't think that's any better than before.

 

[1stvisit0909]

I've never even been in a FP line that even had 50 or 100 people in it. Are they issuing more FP's than they used to? Of course, I've never been during a peak season, either.

I'm going 1/22 - 1/29 so I'll be sure to keep an eye on ride closures AND how many people are in the FP line. I don't consider a delay on a continuous mover like HM, Spaceship Earth or even Buzz a maintenance issue, because they have to stop the conveyor to assist anyone in a wheelchair. I do remember one trip where Space Mountain seemed to be having a lot of issues, as well as Maelstrom.

As for "penalizing" people who don't get there early, I would say that the system is fair- first come, first served. It's the American way! If you know that FP's may run out by 10 am, then get there before 10 am or ride standbye. That seems to me to be a choice, not a penalty. Not trying to bash the OP, just offering my opinion.

There were more people in the FP line than last time we went. I figured it was a combination of more people period and return times enforced. We rode a lot with FP, I do not recall seeing a 25-1 ratio. Seemed like it was about 10-1 on our rides.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Making the FP return time mandatory adds to the issue also. If Disney makes you keep to the time, then they have to honor the FP. So if the ride has been down, they now have to let so many FP through so they don't get a backlog.

If they think by making "appt only" rides they will please more people in the crowd, they are sorely mistaken. Building more resorts and bringing more guests into an already overbooked situtation is just going to give them a bad name. There are some serious management issues here.

They used to go over every ride every night and do maintenance when the park was closed. I wonder if they have stopped doing that as a cost cutter - that makes it no better than carnival maintenance at that point, which is pretty scarey.

 

[mom2rtk]

There were more people in the FP line than last time we went. I figured it was a combination of more people period and return times enforced. We rode a lot with FP, I do not recall seeing a 25-1 ratio. Seemed like it was about 10-1 on our rides.

Making the FP return time mandatory adds to the issue also. If Disney makes you keep to the time, then they have to honor the FP. So if the ride has been down, they now have to let so many :

If enforcing FP end times made the line longer at some point, then it should have made it shorter at a corresponding number of other times. Unless they added more FPs.

 

[Robo]

While attending MNNSHP I went over to Peter Pan and was told by a Cast Member to come back AFTER the party officially started. They do not use FP during the party and it will speed up the line because the ratio is 100 FP people to 4 Standby. So there you go! OP could have been right about the 70 to 3 ratio.

I don't doubt that you were told that, I doubt the source, meaning the CM's credibility.

Agreed.

Simple deductive reasoning below:

It would not be possible to operate Peter Pan with a 100FP to 1SB ratio.

A- If (for example) there was a family party of 6 guests boarded from the Standby line, that would mean that 600 FP guests would be boarded in proportion. Two parties of 3 each, another 600 FP guests. Etc.

B- If there were enough FP's issued in a day that the 100 to 1 ratio needed to be maintained, there would be zero reason to issue FP's.
The FP line would be hours long and impossible to deplete.

 

[Escape Artist]

WDW really does need to get their act together on ride maintenance. Couldn't believe how many problems we saw in October - had a hard time catching Splash when it was actually running! The one that really blew my mind, though - we got *evacuated* from *Dumbo*!

 

[Colleen27]

WDW really does need to get their act together on ride maintenance. Couldn't believe how many problems we saw in October - had a hard time catching Splash when it was actually running! The one that really blew my mind, though - we got *evacuated* from *Dumbo*!

I can understand the issues with Splash - it missed its usual winter refurb this past year because of the work on Thunder, and it really needs that annual clean-up. The ones that bother me the most are those that recently underwent major work and still don't seem to function properly - Space was closed for a major rebuild and came back up just as buggy and problematic as ever, and the same seems to be true of Thunder. What's the point of extended closures and major renovations if not to correct the problems that keep the ride from functioning reliably?

 

[mom2rtk]

The one that really blew my mind, though - we got *evacuated* from *Dumbo*!

LOL, is that where you got your screen name?