POTC closed for 6 months?

[Nancyg56]

And yet a ex cast member is who started this rumor..........

I am not at all sure why you are so defensive. WE all understand that WDW has not announced this but we all are pretty darn confident that based on the website that announced the closure, it is going to take place and it will occur pretty close to the timeframe announced. You are not doing folks a service when you tell them to stop worrying because while I never worry about attractions being refurbed, others sometimes do. When you factor that many of us are now planning park days and ADR times around when we are going to plan FP, this may become an issue for some. The possible closure of a major attraction is information many of us like to at least keep in mind when making plans and we are happy that others post the info.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

Rides need maintenance. Simple fact.

Look at the current refurb list for Disneyland.....Soarin, and an entire land in California Adventure called Condor Flats with it's attractions, restaurants and shops. The nightly entertainment, World of Color, is also down.

Over at Disneyland you have another entire land in refurbishment, Critter Country, that includes Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh. Haunted Mansion and Matterhorn are also down. Peter Pan and Small World will be added to this list soon. The entire castle will be covered by a tarp for months as they get ready for the anniversary celebration in July. This also eliminates the regular fireworks. They now do a short, less than 5 minutes, show on the weekends.

Yes, many visitors to DL are passholders, but there are still many international and out of state guests visiting.

It could be much worse...just saying.

 

[Disneyhayes]

Maybe it's closing for an estimated 6 months because it will take that long because it's going to be a full rehab. Fix/replace animatronics. Fix water issues which will probably mean draining and refilling the ride multiple times. Repainting and deep cleaning. Fixing things we don't see including electronics and updating systems. Maybe updating the que? Truth is the ride needs a rehab. It's gonna happen during someone's trip so let's just be glad that they're gonna do it

 

[kandb]

We don't go to Universal, but does Universal's rides go down as often as WDW rides? Can't they do some maintenance on the rides when they are closed during the night hours? I just think closing a popular ride for 6 months is ridiculous and just seems excessive. Maybe if they maintained them, they wouldn't have this many issues? Is Disney trying to cut costs?

 

[HallGirl]

We don't go to Universal, but does Universal's rides go down as often as WDW rides? Can't they do some maintenance on the rides when they are closed during the night hours? I just think closing a popular ride for 6 months is ridiculous and just seems excessive. Maybe if they maintained them, they wouldn't have this many issues? Is Disney trying to cut costs?

There aren't a lot of hours when the park is closed to do routine maintenance. The parks are open 365 days a year, and at MK often 12 or more hours every day. Overnight maintenance will not fix all the problems that Pirates has because there isn't much time, and it desperately needs this refurb. They keep pushing it back, probably because it is such a people eater and taking it down affects the rest of the park. Six months, in my opinion, is too short of a time for it to be down to really fix the problems.

 

[mshanson3121]

oh no I hope not in April! Jungle Cruise is going to be down then...keeping my fingers crossed...

Oh no! When is that supposed to be back up (Jungle Cruise). Please say by end of June!

It's bad enough that POTC will probably be down when we go.

 

[atricks]

Pirates is 42 years old at this point and needs it. It's just old and has major refurb after refurb pushed back, and the newer plastic boats have pretty much been a disaster ( boats taking on water, evacuations where people fall in the water getting out, etc.). It's probably getting to the point where it's bursting at the seams and getting beyond reasonable for safety reasons. It's more than overdue.

To be honest, from what I've heard from some Disney cast 6 months is probably too short.

 

[kristainohio]

Rides need maintenance. Simple fact. Look at the current refurb list for Disneyland.....Soarin, and an entire land in California Adventure called Condor Flats with it's attractions, restaurants and shops. The nightly entertainment, World of Color, is also down. Over at Disneyland you have another entire land in refurbishment, Critter Country, that includes Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh. Haunted Mansion and Matterhorn are also down. Peter Pan and Small World will be added to this list soon. The entire castle will be covered by a tarp for months as they get ready for the anniversary celebration in July. This also eliminates the regular fireworks. They now do a short, less than 5 minutes, show on the weekends. Yes, many visitors to DL are passholders, but there are still many international and out of state guests visiting. It could be much worse...just saying.

Tell me about it!!! We are going for our first trip to Disneyland in February. Thankfully we are there with a conference at Disneyland hotel so we are getting a great rate. Imagine our surprise when it feels like half the parks are under refurb plus the CASTLE WILL BE TARPED!! At this point we just are laughing and having good humor about it because "we went to Disneyland and all we got was a tarp!"

 

[missbrooke06]

We don't go to Universal, but does Universal's rides go down as often as WDW rides? Can't they do some maintenance on the rides when they are closed during the night hours? I just think closing a popular ride for 6 months is ridiculous and just seems excessive. Maybe if they maintained them, they wouldn't have this many issues? Is Disney trying to cut costs?

Universal and Disney have very different ride philosophies. I was at US 8 years ago. When I looked at the ride list on their website, to the best of recollection, only 7 of the 14 rides were there on my last visit. Only Disaster and T2 remain from my childhood trips. US isn't maintaining 40-50 year old rides nor are they anticipating these current rides to be there in 40-50 years.

 

[Robo]

Fix water issues which will probably mean draining and refilling the ride multiple times.

Here is the "water info" for Splash Mtn.
I suspect that it may be similar for Pirates.

http://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions/splash-mountain.htm

Splash flume holds roughly 965,000 gallons of water.

Flume speed of water flow, roughly 28,000 gallons of water per minute.

The entire flume system can be drained in 5 minutes and can be totally refilled in just over 20 minutes.

 

[Mersmom98]

Ugh! We have missed this ride the last 3 trips due to it either being down or not fitting into our schedule so I had it on my list of things not to miss for our August 2015 trip. I was so looking forward to riding this with my ds who loves pirates. Guess we'll have to plan another trip to ride the elusive POTC!

 

[BarbieGal457]

We were there NYE this year and it was down for parts of the day (unsure why). It reopened later that night, and we caught it probably just as it did as there was no line or wait and we walked right on. So happy we caught it! Now if it's not up for our May/June trip, at least we got to do it then.

 

[Ozzygirl]

Oh no! When is that supposed to be back up (Jungle Cruise). Please say by end of June!

It's bad enough that POTC will probably be down when we go.

April 3rd-May 8th, so I think you're ok

 

[mm1971]

Bummer as it looks like we will miss it in August if it is down. I do agree that it needs the rehab and will look forward to it on our next trip. We did notice a lot of problems when we were there last year, including it going down a lot. We got pretty wet when we sat in front of the boat and requested not to be in the front after that. I agree the delay is probably due to JC being down and not having the personnel needed to do it right away as they are already on other projects.

But that CEO is for The Walt Disney Company, not just for the theme parks. Is that function below him on the corporate line? Yes, but it's not his sole focus. The Walt Disney Company has a lot of branches and one of them is theme parks. And then within that branch are a lot of small branches with all the theme parks. And then within those branches are twigs and then leaves on those twigs. I'd say Pirates of the Caribbean may be a twig or a leaf. And, quite honestly, as a CEO, shouldn't he be saying "an attraction that goes does once a day every day is not good"? He should be saying, "we need to improve this twig so our tree can stand longer".

So the man got $22 million. Would you want his job?

Not a criticism by any means and he certainly has earned his bonus and everything that comes with it, but.....YES, I would love that job!

As a stockholder, I'd rather have him do it though.

 

[wishing4PA]

Pirates of the Caribbean is experiencing a number of show and ride system issues that require a lengthy closure. Animatronic issues, show audio problems, and continuing issues with boats taking on water are all likely to be addressed.

Disney has not yet announced or confirmed any closure.

__________________________________________________

If this is accurate, it may be closed for both my June and November trips.

Thanks, Music City Mama. After enjoying an extended visit with Jack Sparrow last Friday night, I'm ready to believe there may be some issues with boats.
My jeans were soaked from the point I sat in the boat, then we got a good splash on the "drop". I didn't really mind that as much as the wet jeans, which could have been prevented if I'd looked more closely at the seat before plopping into it during the second or two available while boarding, lol.
We ended up being evacuated, though. In some ways I don't mind getting the behind the scenes look, but it did cut into some of our late evening short line attraction plans. In our case, the problem was that near the end of the ride, our boat bumped the one in front and that one in front got knocked off its track. If that happens a lot, it needs some engineering fixes. Evacuation was no problem for us, just a long wait, and a climb out in the middle of the ride after the boat was pushed back to an area near "shore". But if my niece who uses a wheelchair had been there, the CMs would have had to resort to some "Plan B", whatever that would be, because our exit wouldn't have worked with a wheelchair. (I suspect they would have had to somehow get the off track boat and the empty boats ahead of it out of the way and bring us forward to the regular exit where the chair would have been.)
Point being, the fewer breakdowns, the better.

 

[BrianL]

Well, refurbs happen, and they really are a good thing. I know nobody wants them to happen during THEIR trip, but what's worse: Not being able to experience a favorite, or being able to ride it only to see it in such poor condition, a shell of the ride you love? That happened to me with the People Mover last year. I was initially excited when they pushed back the refurb, but once I rode it and half the overhead speakers didn't work, well, I wished they had just closed it earlier. There's always going to be something getting refurbed. I'm just happy that they actually keep up n this stuff pretty well.

 

[disneyfantotheend]

Bummer! I am very sad for our October trip. Guess I will have to look at the bright side, one less thing to try to fit in. Especially since we always have to do it each day and sometimes twice a day when we are there. Makes the touring plans less busy.

I haven't convinced myself, I am okay with it yet, but I am working on it.

 

[SuperTink]

Wow we just made it.

It did break down for a time while we were there, so yes, I think they probably can't avoid doing some work on it.

 

[johde]

Universal and Disney have very different ride philosophies. I was at US 8 years ago. When I looked at the ride list on their website, to the best of recollection, only 7 of the 14 rides were there on my last visit. Only Disaster and T2 remain from my childhood trips. US isn't maintaining 40-50 year old rides nor are they anticipating these current rides to be there in 40-50 years.

While your point is sound, Universal is reusing some of it's ride systems to create new attractions. Despicable Me uses the same ride vehicles as Jimmy Neutron which were the same ride vehicles as Funtastic World of Hana Barbara. The Simpsons uses the same ride vehicles as Back To the Future. Disaster was previously Earthquake. So, while the name may be different, the internal guts may be the same.

Also in your list, E.T. I think is the only unmodified opening day attraction. And E.T. has had it's issues. For several weeks, the name system wasn't working. There is rumor of a lengthy refurb coming to it. Disaster has been having issues and there's rumors of it being replaced. When I rode a couple of weeks ago, the semi didn't come down from the ceiling.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Tell me about it!!! We are going for our first trip to Disneyland in February. Thankfully we are there with a conference at Disneyland hotel so we are getting a great rate. Imagine our surprise when it feels like half the parks are under refurb plus the CASTLE WILL BE TARPED!! At this point we just are laughing and having good humor about it because "we went to Disneyland and all we got was a tarp!"

Too crazy.....That's awful..so many closings, rehabs, tarp...yet no discounts n people keep paying so nothing will change...it's all about the bottom line $$$ for disney.

Hope ur trip is a good one, great attitude and one that's better than the alternative...good for you!