Splash Mountain takes guests on an 11 minute ride through Walt Disney's 1946 classic "Song of the South", ending in a 40mph, 52.5ft (5 story) final drop! Splash Mountain opened in 1992, and is one of the best-loved attractions in the Magic Kingdom. The huge mountain can be found in Frontierland, right beside one of the other famous Disney World Mountains, Big Thunder Mountain.
Featuring 68 Audio Animatronics, Splash Mountain has the largest animated prop in any Disney park. The Mississippi ShowBoat that is part of the final scene is 36ft long and 22ft high!
Facts
Theme: based on Walt Disney's 1946 classic "Song of the South" the attraction follows the crafty Brer Rabbit as Brer Fox and his lumbering cohort Brer Bear chase him through twisting backwoods waterways and swamps into his "Laughin' Place." When caught Brer Rabbit begs Brer Fox not to throw him into the briar patch. The ride follows Brer Rabbits plunge into the briar patch from the top of Chickapin Hill and then enters the showboat finale.
Ride System: flume ride featuring 8-passenger logs (4 seats). Guests sit side by side.
(Warning, you will get wet.)
Height: 87 feet
Size: Occupies a 9.2 acre site
Audio- Animatronics: over 65 total. Also features one of the largest animated props in the finale. The Showboat is 36 feet wide and 22 feet high and rocks back and forth as a cast of 12 audio-animatronics sing and dance to "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah."
Songs: featured in the attraction are "How Do You Do" "Everybody Has a Laughin' Place"
and "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah"
Time: Approx. 11 minutes
Drop: The final drop is a 5-story, 45-degree waterfall
Speed: over 40 mph on the final drop
Inside Info - 10 June 2000
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.
The water reservoir (backstage) can hold right at 1 million gallons of water. The reservoir is approx. 50ft deep and 60ft by 60ft wide.
There are two water zones feeding the ride; A & B
There are a total of six water pumps feeding these zones, four of which are only used-with two spare (just in case) The tubes carrying water through the pumps are approx. two feet in diameter.
There are two main ride control computers. If one more were added and linked, they would have enough computing power to launch a Space Shuttle. If the two computers don't both agree on the millions of the commands being sent to the ride, they will stop the ride, giving the operators what is called a "ride stop".
There are 36 hidden cameras (no I won't give the locations, even though I do know them) the CM's can monitor the ride via.
There is an infra-red intrusion system that once someone steps out of a log (anywhere), an alarm notifies the CM in the tower and automatically a
camera shot of that area of the ride pops up on one of the eighteen monitors the CM in tower is watching .
There are 15 exit doors throughout the ride (many of which aren't seen by guests)
The lift motors are custom made for the Splash Mountains and are from Europe...not cheap in price.
There are a total of five drops, drop 4 being the largest and drop 5 being the smallest.
There are a total of three lifts- A,B & C
The most expensive animatronic in the Splash show is the hopping Brer Rabbit, price tag-
$1.3 milllion.
Each log has a dead load of 1 ton.
The "rocks" of the mountain when designed, were done by sculpting them in foam. A sophisticated computer program plotted points on the scale model of the "rocks" thus entering them into the computer. From that, These points were loaded on a machine that bent the supporting rebar to the exact, organic form of the scale model. Over the rebar, welded wire mesh was
attached onto which gunnite (a sprayable concrete) was adhered. Thus, that's how the rock formations were done.
The Drop 4 runout zone (under the bridge) has a braking system that can stop a dead load log going 40+mph to Zero mph in 1.4 seconds. (hence the need for a stringent height requirement)
The ride is designed to run a certain number of logs at once. The least they can run is 50, the max being 54. The reason, in some areas, the logs stack up is because in actuality, the ride was designed that way-the have "stack zones" as we call them. It is a way of the ride control computers (both of them) to keep track of the number of logs in the system, where their exact location in the ride is, and another reason is for possible e-vac purposes. The
stack zones created, allow easier evacuation of guests in the event the ride would need to be e-vac'd. Behind those stack zones are direct exits to the outside of the building. The stack zones also allow the logs a grouping point for the lifts, which each only allow a certain number of logs on them at one time, i.e. C-lift (longest one just before the big drop) only allows three logs on it at once. The stack zones and the bunching of logs also allow for
easier confirmation count by the CM's when they may need to reset the ride. If the ride goes down, CM called runners at this point, are sent to the different stack zones to confirm the exact number of logs in the flume so it can be correctly entered into the computer just before it is reset. If an incorrect log count is given to the computer, which it already knows, that in
itself will bring down the ride and a swift restart won't take place.
