several rides down yesterday and recently?? :(

[bfaber]

What's up with all the rides down recently? I have a friend at Disneyland for the 2nd time (goes to Disney World every year) and so far has not been very impressed with all the rides down at times yesterday...Indiana Jones (twice), Snow White, Matterhorn, etc. I experienced the same thing when I was there 3 weeks ago. We love Disneyland and was hoping he would feel the same way, but I have to admit would have thought that all the rides would have been in tip top shape for the 60th. And if not, can't they be worked on/tested from midnight to 7 am??? I'm sure he will stick to Disney World after this trip.

 

[qa4ever]

On Sunday I experienced Indiana Jones go down while I was in line and I also noticed Winnie the Pooh down. We noticed rides down when we were in Disney World in February though also. I found them to be pretty similar in that regard.

 

[4Siamese]

Mechanical, computer and other assorted issues occur when you have complicated ride mechanics involved. When you have machines and components that are run continuously for long periods of time(17+hrs a day) you will get some enevitable breakdowns. As well all the ride systems are going to have multiple backup safety interlocks built in to stop operation if something is not right or preceived right. Even with regular maintenance breakdowns will occur.

 

[figment_jii]

I agree with 4Siamese that it's probably a combination of actual attraction breakdowns and safety issues. For example, Indy Jones is one of the most common attractions to go down. From what I've read and heard, it has a very sensitive safety system in place, so any time anything falls onto the track (e.g., hats, sunglasses, cell phones, etc.), it can trigger a safety fault which means they have to reset the attraction. That's one of the main reasons why Indy goes down so much.

 

[NiceOneSimba]

Rides go down for a wide variety of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with maintenance. They do plenty of work in the off season and at night to keep the rides in good shape. I've visited in the off season several times and experienced the refurbishment schedule first hand--there are often MANY rides down in the winter. In general, this allows all the rides to be open during the busy summer months. So, yes, rides are maintained and refurbished regularly outside of peak season and park operating hours. And yes, despite Disneyland's best efforts, rides still breakdown or close temporarily throughout the day.

Disneyland really has little to no control over many of the things that will bring a ride down temporarily, like hats/bags/glasses that weren't properly stowed and fly off and land on the track or if guests don't follow the safety instructions. On some of the rides, if guests take too long to load or unload, it causes a hiccup and the ride needs to be reset. They also can't control things like "meteor showers" on Space Mountain, which require them to close the ride to clean up after sick guests. It also seems logical to me that the busier the parks are, the more people riding a given ride, the more likely it is that something like a hat on the track will happen over the course of a given day.

I also think the ride concentration makes it seems like rides go down at DLR more often. The official website lists 41 attractions for Magic Kingdom and 53 for Disneyland. The greater number of attractions in a considerably smaller space combine to make the breakdowns more obvious, I think.

That said, there are some rides that are more prone to "breakdown" than others. Indy seems to be one. If it's raining, RSR tends to have issues, as well. Those are some of the most complex rides in the park, and that seems to lead to more shutdowns than the simpler rides. Knowing that, they're just on my "check back later" list if they're down when we walk past the first time. They tend to come back up pretty quickly.

While ride "breakdowns" are annoying, I'd rather deal with a ride being down for a portion of the day if it means that they're following the safety protocol and keeping the ride maintained. It's annoying, to be sure, but a lot less annoying than having people be injured if something is truly wrong with the ride.

Hope your friends were still able to enjoy the parks, even with breakdowns.

 

[SMD]

Disneyland really has little to no control over many of the things that will bring a ride down temporarily, like hats/bags/glasses that weren't properly stowed and fly off and land on the track or if guests don't follow the safety instructions. On some of the rides, if guests take too long to load or unload, it causes a hiccup and the ride needs to be reset. They also can't control things like "meteor showers" on Space Mountain, which require them to close the ride to clean up after sick guests. It also seems logical to me that the busier the parks are, the more people riding a given ride, the more likely it is that something like a hat on the track will happen over the course of a given day.

And with summer crowds and rides operating at high capacity it becomes more likely that a guest will drop an item or take too long to load.

 

[tiffjoy]

I think DLR and WDW probably have the same number, but DLR has only two parks compared to WDW's four, so it becomes more apparent. Also, a ride being "down" doesn't mean it isn't in good condition- it means something has happened to trigger the closure of a ride, which could be safety, a guest needing assistance, a guest causing trouble, something falling off the ride and landing on the tracks, etc. IME, DLR actually does more maintenance on their rides than WDW because of the "locals park" effect where they are not as concerned about taking a ride out for months at a time to work on it because so many of their visitors are pass holders who can return another time to ride.

 

[GoBears 1980]

What NiceOneSimba said..... as a guest you have no idea why a ride goes down or for how long. You are usually only aware of it in reference to how it effects you. On Matterhorn a good crew can clear and reset the mountain fairly quickly for most guest caused problems. Actual mechanical or computer issues are rare.

 

[beachdreamr1229]

I've worked behind the scenes at an amusement park (thought not Disneyland). In my experience, rides usually go down because of something a guest did (protein spill, lost wallet, etc.). And it does tend to happen more frequently in the peak season because more people go through per hour on most rides than other times of year. There are sometimes glitches within the ride itself. A power outage or even flicker (brown-out) can cause issues, as can any number of other things. Disneyland, from what I can see, does better upkeep than some other parks that I've worked at. It's a part of reality. When I was at WDW 10 years ago, I ran into a lot of the same issues.

 

[gottalovepluto]

That is totally normal in our summer trips to DL. One 5 day trip we kept trying for Indy & it kept going down, we finally made it on our last day. That's just how it is, especially day after day of max operating hours.

 

[SLK1]

We were there last week and were disappointed with how often rides go down. I get it, it's busy, it's high-tech, it's rider error...but it doesn't happen HALF as much at WDW as it does at DL. And I'm an annual WDW passholder, so I know. Luckily, we were there for several days and were able to ride everything more than enough times, but it was just eye-opening. We still had an awesome time and loved the new Worlds of Color show and loved the Paint the Night parade even more!

 

[coaches24]

Yea it is just something that happens. TSMM was down in the morning every time we tried to ride it last week. RSR was down 2 of our 3 days in the morning as well.

Indy went down as we were on the stairs coming down and could see the cars loading and unloading. They had loaded a car and it started to move and then it stopped. After trying to get the ride going again they finally had everyone get off and told all of us to head out the exit and gave us FPs good for any ride on the way out.

BTMRR was down a bit as was HM once when we tried to ride.

I usually have better luck with DL rides but last week we saw a lot of rides go down for a bit.

 

[DznyPrnces]

We experienced a few down rides when we were there 2 weeks ago. RSR was down when we tried to get fast passes but came back up later. Space Mountain went down when we were close to boarding. That was because of a selfie stick. Apparently as soon as they see one out they stop the ride, and then they have to unload it, go through the safety check etc before they can start it back up again.

 

[PHXscuba]

What's up with all the rides down recently? I have a friend at Disneyland for the 2nd time (goes to Disney World every year) and so far has not been very impressed with all the rides down at times yesterday...Indiana Jones (twice), Snow White, Matterhorn, etc. I experienced the same thing when I was there 3 weeks ago. We love Disneyland and was hoping he would feel the same way, but I have to admit would have thought that all the rides would have been in tip top shape for the 60th. And if not, can't they be worked on/tested from midnight to 7 am??? I'm sure he will stick to Disney World after this trip.

I was there at DL same day (Tues) and I only ran into Big Thunder being down once in the afternoon when we returned with a FP. Which actually worked for me, because they allowed us to use it anytime later and we rode at night. I agree with a PPer that it's often guest actions (like the selfie stick on Screamin yesterday) that cause downtime. We were held up pre-elevator on ToT Monday night because someone brought POPCORN on ToT!

PHXscuba

 

[Creaking Crypt Door]

Tower is down AGAIN this morning! I've only been able to go on it once in 3 days because it's constantly down and when it comes back up, it's ALWAYS 60-90 minutes, and they won't turn on fast pass. I'm still enjoying my trip but this is seriously bumming me out.

 

[figment_jii]

With regards to the FP, I wonder if they didn't want to use the system because the attraction was going up and down so much. So rather than have all these FPs they can't honor during the window, which then can be used at any time later in the day, it's easier to just forgo issuing FPs entirely. I think about how things like Space are right after the attraction comes back up...there is this rush of FP guests, so the standby line builds up because they want to clear out the FP line as much as possible before allowing standby guests to more past the line merge point. If there were multiple closures for ToT, I could see where this might become an issue (i.e., just too many FP guests to process so the Standby Line would never really have a good chance of recovering).