Swiss Family Treehouse Water Pulley System

[Grasshopper2016]

We go to Disney once a year. We always make sure to walk through the Swiss Family Treehouse every trip. The last three times we have done it, the ingenious water pulley plumbing system has not been functional. That is by far the coolest part of that (otherwise not that amazing) attraction. Did we just have bad timing, or is it often not working these days? If the latter, why wouldn't Disney bother to fix it? This isn't Yeti repair! I would think that a decent plumber or engineer could get it up and running in a day.

 

[FunnyLady1966]

Bump...maybe there is a reason. Great observation

 

[Grasshopper2016]

Bumping my own thread. We were at Disney earlier this month. The water pulley system was still down. I asked the CM about it and she said that she had never seen it working in her nearly-a-year on the job. She seemed surprised when I told her that it actually used to function and was pretty cool to watch.

I just don't get this!

 

[peabody58]

The solar panels that run it have degraded and need to be replaced.

 

[gharter]

We noticed it wasn't working the 2 times we were there in the last year. It was always fun seeing the water going down the troughs. Not high tech, but fun.

 

[lockets]

Almost one year later... I didn't notice if it was working or not when I was just there but looking at recent YouTube videos it isn't turning in any of them. I guess it must be very low on the totem pole for a fix? Or does it work now?

 

[HopperFan]

They don't seem to have done a whole lot of maintenance there .... could we by chance be in line for a renovation after DL is done? While I love that movie and the tree - most younger folks have no idea so why not?!

 

[Grasshopper2016]

Swiss Family Treehouse is scheduled for a month-long refurbishment starting next week. Is it too much to hope that they will fix this?

 

[Grasshopper2016]

https://blogmickey.com/2025/06/water-wheel-working-again-at-swiss-family-treehouse/

Hallelujah!