Ride breakdowns

[Planogirl]

We hardly ever see RocknRoller Coaster operating. It just seems to somehow know when we are there because it'll break down that very day.

We had to be walked off of Spaceship Earth once years ago. We sat first for almost 20 minutes but we were just outside the room with the burning smell and I was very grateful for that!

 

[wilkeliza]

It just made me wonder if the upkeep has fallen off in recent years, or if increased attendance is having a higher toll on attractions.

That is partly the reason. For a long time the parks were only opened for certain times and there were not tons of people across the internet complaining when a ride was down for refurbishment during their vacation. This allowed daily maintenance and season maintenance to do their job and do it well. Now (well the last 5 years until now) when people go and their favorite ride is down for refurbishment they complain at the parks and then get on line and blast how terrible Disney is and how they ruined their family's hard earned vacation because Its A Small World was done. This lead to a lot of patch work being done. Now I think we are seeing that patch work start to fail. Some of the older rides also just have an issue with parts not being available and having to be constructed. So part of it is the expectation of the crowds, the fact maintenance doesn't have much time to do what it needs to in between guest clear and park opening, no down time any more, and the fact rides are running at capacity more than ever before.

On top of all that the budget cuts are making it even harder. Some of these rides are over 20 years old and still run on 20 year technology so they will break down and often if they aren't refurbished. Other rides are also just due to guest ignorance. Some people think they should be able to do whatever they want to and that includes getting out of their doom buggies, getting out of their honey pot to chase a lost hat, getting off the people mover mid ride, etc which all cause E-stops and e-stops can take a bit before the ride gets going again.

 

[Jennasis]

39 years old.... just about 30 trips in my whole life time, and never once have I had to be evacuated from a ride. It's on my Disney bucket list. I would love to be walked off Splash for Haunted Mansion or Pirates. I've had plenty of rides stoppages or things break dowm while I'm waiting in line.

Maybe in May...

 

[disneyseniors]

Does anyone know why Pooh breaks down so much?

It's all Tigger's fault! He keeps jumping around on his tale and shaking the ride!!!

Sorry, ArwenMarie, I just couldn't resist

 

[disneyseniors]

Some of our funniest stories are with breakdowns ... 1) couldn't get haunted mansion song at the graveyard out of our heads for days since we were stuck there 2) stuck in the EPCOT earth/ball at an angle while the CM's looked for something that made a sensor go off ... 3) had to be walked off the people mover in tomorrowland which was fun and got a fastpass to something else ... and got stuck in Splash Mountain just before the big splash down !!! Oh, and stuck on Everest up near the broken tracks once !!!

Um, you won't be there in November, will you????

 

[love4wdw]

39 years old.... just about 30 trips in my whole life time, and never once have I had to be evacuated from a ride. It's on my Disney bucket list. I would love to be walked off Splash for Haunted Mansion or Pirates. I've had plenty of rides stoppages or things break dowm while I'm waiting in line.

Maybe in May...

When we were on our girls trip in 2013, we were stuck right at the very end of RnR for about 30 minutes and had to be evacuated off as well. It was on my bucket list too! Glad I'm not the only one. Very cool to see the ride with the lights turned on. Explicity told not to take any photos by the CMs walking us through. We got all got paper fastpasses for any ride for the rest of the day.

We were stuck on HM I think for about 30 minutes as well -- I just took a nap because we were in the backwards angled drop into the graveyard scene. Perfect relaxed position! LOL

 

[AngiTN]

That is party the reason. For a long time the parks were only opened for certain times and there were tons of people across the internet complaining when a ride was down for refurbishment during their vacation. Now (well the last 5 years until now) when people go and their favorite ride is down for refurbishment they complain at the parks and then get on line and blast how terrible Disney is and how they ruined their family's hard earned vacation because Its A Small World was done. This lead to a lot of patch work being done. Now I think we are seeing that patch work start to fail. Some of the older rides also just have an issue with parts not being available and having to be constructed. So part of it is the expectation of the crowds, the fact maintenance doesn't have much time to do what it needs to in between guest clear and park opening, no down time any more, and the fact rides are running at capacity more than ever before.

On top of all that the budget cuts are making it even harder. Some of these rides are over 20 years old and still run on 20 year technology so they will break down and often if they aren't refurbished. Other rides are also just due to guest ignorance. Some people think they should be able to do whatever they want to and that includes getting out of their doom buggies, getting out of their honey pot to chase a lost hat, getting off the people mover mid ride, etc which all cause E-stops and e-stops can take a bit before the ride gets going again.

We saw someone do this during the outage last week but it wasn't the reason for the outage. We'd been sitting there for quite a while. The doombuggy next to me and my Mom had a young woman (20ish) and her dad. She jumped out of her car and did a handstand by the attraction while her dad snapped her picture. It wasn't but a few moments after that when a CM came along. I thought for sure they were going to reprimand her. Instead they walked along and told us the lights were turning on shortly and they'd be back to escort us all out. My Mom and I were almost the last ones out and there was a bevy of maintenance workers waiting to go in and get it going again (they did, it was back up within an hour later)

 

[gatorlisa]

39 years old.... just about 30 trips in my whole life time, and never once have I had to be evacuated from a ride. It's on my Disney bucket list. I would love to be walked off Splash for Haunted Mansion or Pirates. I've had plenty of rides stoppages or things break dowm while I'm waiting in line.

Maybe in May...

Splash is the one ride I have been walked off due to a breakdown. Was kind of a neat experience.

I don't think break downs are a new phenomenon. I've been on several for minor break downs, have been escorted off once, and have arrived at a ride many times only to discover they are having technical difficulties. My trip in January, I had a FP for Pirates, got an email it was down temporarily, so scheduled another one for later and rode something else. Then got another email, rescheduled it again. By the third email, they had decided that Pirates was not going to be back up that day and quit offering it as an option for rescheduling the FP (this was all late afternoon/evening).

 

[ChipNDale86]

Got stuck on 7DMT the very first time I rode. It was right at the top of the final hill when they're playing "Heigh Ho". It wasn't for very long (less than a minute), but for the first 5ish seconds I legitimately thought it was part of the ride. I didn't mind it because that is my favorite section of the ride.

Pirates seems to be the one that is always down whenever I'm at Disney. There is apparently a ghost named George who haunts that ride. Apparently if no CMs wish George a 'good morning' at the beginning of the day or 'good night' at closing, that's when the ride breaks down

 

[allaboard]

Um, you won't be there in November, will you????

No ! July !! And all of those breakdowns were not on the same trip !!! LOL

 

[jennyl772003]

39 years old.... just about 30 trips in my whole life time, and never once have I had to be evacuated from a ride. It's on my Disney bucket list. I would love to be walked off Splash for Haunted Mansion or Pirates. I've had plenty of rides stoppages or things break dowm while I'm waiting in line.

Maybe in May...

I always thought it would be cool to see space with the lights on.

Several years ago me and my son were evacuated from ToT. The ride stopped just before entering the drop shaft. The CMs told us that the maintenance guys wouldn't let us take pics once they arrived. Everyone frantically started snapping pics.

 

[DisneyLovingPreacher]

I'm 21 years old and have been to Disney 14 Times during my life and I have never ever been there when a ride was not done. It might just be my families luck but it always seems to be our favorite ride that is down.

 

[xipotec]

I always thought it would be cool to see space with the lights on.

Several years ago me and my son were evacuated from ToT. The ride stopped just before entering the drop shaft. The CMs told us that the maintenance guys wouldn't let us take pics once they arrived. Everyone frantically started snapping pics.

Its not.....keep the magic......after seeing it for an extended time I wish I had not.......its really unimpressive....

Its a terrible shame if all these problems are occurring more due to staff cuts, WDW used to be top rated on customer service. Our company used to use them as an example pf good customer service....nest meeting I will have to tell them they need a new line.

 

[DisneyDad2015]

My family was there last week and I made a comment to my DW that I felt like there was more breakdowns and ride delays than we had in our precious trip.

Maybe we just got really lucky last year and avoided most of them?

 

[gmboy95]

we had to get off that spinning roller coaster in Dino Land last year via a latter....I was so excited that I got to be evacuated off a ride!!!....this is a sign you have been to Disney to many times!!

 

[Accident]

things falling on the tracks, rope droppers beating the ride operators to the ride (ride operators are part of rope drop, lightining within 20 miles even if it's sunny and clear in the park, pirates has a whole history of opens late that people say is forgetting to tell the ride ghost george hello in the morning. Lets not forget the continuous rides like spaceship earth need to stop when a rider needs assistance or more time to get on or off.

In feb 2016, there was actually a women who wasn't paying attention while getting on RnR and she went inbetween cars and stepped on the track. The had to all stop that one, evacuate the car that was in the middle of the ride and it took a couple hours to fully reinspect the ride and start it up again..

i'm actually very surprised you've never seen a ride stoppage before. The detectors that somethign might be wrong are really sensative and don't take much. They always air on the side of caution at disney. It's common and most rides have recently been renovated or on the list to be renovated.. most usually close for short periods of time for a deeper inspection and preventative repairs but time to tiem it's closed awhile like pirates recently was.

 

[BrianL]

Its not.....keep the magic......after seeing it for an extended time I wish I had not.......its really unimpressive....

I agree. I was at DL once and saw it with he lights on. Seeing that I wasn't in space was like finding out there is no Santa Claus. Of course, there actually is actually a Santa Claus, but the impact would be similar. It's shattering!

I have been informed though that after the malfunction, they fixed the rocket boosters, so now you do still actually go into space. You even get to meet Star Wars now if you take off from Anaheim.

 

[leebee]

We were on Buzz Lightyear at MK one year during the Halloween Party. The ride would stop, CMs would walk through, the ride would start up and then stop again, more CMs walking through. I think the ride stopped 5 times while we were on it. Turns out someone had dropped a plastic pumpkin (with candy in it?) on the ride track and it kept rolling around. The CMs couldn't find it, so every time the ride started up, almost immediately there'd be a signal that something was on the track and it'd shut down again. Took forEVER to get off that ride!!

 

[Dreamport]

I would love to be walked off Splash for Haunted Mansion or Pirates.

Splash is the only ride we've ever been walked off due to someone's hat getting caught in a gear. The handful of other times we've been in line or about to get in line when the closure happened. I can't tell you much about Splash, though, since I shut my eyes, grabbed DSis' sleeve and said "Don't spoil the magic!" over and over again. Meanwhile she can't stand to hear the "Laughing Place" song anymore so of course I sing it from time to time

Now (well the last 5 years until now) when people go and their favorite ride is down for refurbishment they complain at the parks and then get on line and blast how terrible Disney is and how they ruined their family's hard earned vacation because Its A Small World was done.

Okay, this is just ridiculous. Splash was under extended maintenance when my parents got back to Disney after 15 years. Was my father put out? Yes. Did he complain to a CM? No! Same when I took (what will probably be) my one and only trip to Disneyland and the Matterhorn needed work. I thought it was odd they had a mountain down in the middle of July, and was a little disappointed since it's not at the World, but not going on the bobsleds didn't "ruin my trip"! There's plenty of other wonderful things to experience! Good grief.

 

[KathyNY76]

We got stuck a couple times on Splash in Jan. The final time was about 10 minutes with this view:

(not my photo)

It was literally right next to my face. At least the music stopped playing after a while. And the ride stopped running after we got off.