The Rides Are Breaking Down

[kellyg403]

We were there Dec. 9th through the 14th. The Monorail was down at least a portion of EVERY day while we were there. On the 11th, they closed the Express Monorail at 5:00 causing us to wait for 6 Resort Monorails in order to return to GF. Because of the unreliability of the Monorail, we have decided not to book any of the Monorail hotels again until this problem has been addressed. I suspect that will be a very long time.

In addition to Monorail problems, a lot of the rides were down. Mermaid in MK was down every time we tried to ride it. The only time we were able to ride it was during the Xmas party we attended. I had also wanted to see rehabbed Country Bear Jamboree and was unable to because it was down. We were very frustrated because of the Monorail issues as well as all the rides that were down.

I had forgotten about the monorail on the 11th. We were at Epcot earlier in the day and noticed the train not moving. My grandson's had been waiting for their first ride as we had planned to bus back to Epcot after a hotel rest and swim and take the monorail over to MK for MVMCP. It was still down when we got back. It was disappointing, but we did manage the ferry ride along with several chanting Brazillian Tour groups!

It did seem like there were a few kinks this time! I am glad the boys and we were able to go with the flow a little bit. One of my grandson's did not appreciate, i.e. scared, at the stop on HM ride that evening. He couldn't wait to get out of there!

Kelly

eta: While it caused a wrinkle a time or two in what we had planned to do, we had a fabulous trip and there were many other things to do. It didn't make or break the trip. However, it is an observation worthy of note this year. We have been several years now, and this year was definitely the worst for closures, stops in the middle of the ride etc. On a good note, I was happy that the mermaids in the POTC ride were working...I loved the addition!

 

[RichieTruxillo]

Agreed! I just got back this weekend from a week long trip to WDW. We got stuck on the new Test Track for 20 minutes right at the part where you swerve out of the way of the truck.

Ariel shut down as well, but it was due to a kid having a code brown in one of the cars (poor CMs were working as fast as they could to clean the affected car.

The lights on ride at space mountain is the best but kinda kills the magic when you realize the track is not that intimidating in the light.

 

[kandb]

Tell your husband to look at the bright side, at least he hasn't caught the disney stomach bug.

 

[Eosphotog]

The next day at Epcot, TT was down off and on all day, even the Matterhorn went down for a while.

Man these ride breakdowns are getting so bad that rides that haven't even been built yet are breaking down!

 

[kaligal]

Rides breaking / not working is getting worse.

Rnrc is almost as bad as Test Track...or TRON Track or whatever it is called now.

 

[luvthemouse71]

I have been here since Friday, and am going home Wednesday night. No ride breakdowns with the exception of BTMRR(I wasn't on it at the time)my first night. I even tried telling George I didn't believe in him on POTC- still didn't break down.

 

[Lintasare]

Star Tours stops for all guests to board, so that is the time allowed for guests with disabilities to board.

Star Tours stopping in the middle of the ride is not to let everyone board. Everyone is on board and buckled in at that point.

 

[maxiesmom]

On the other hand...I was there from Dec 6 to Dec 13...I don't think we had one single ride issue.

We were there Dec 13-18 (yes, I just arrived home at Midnight) and the only ride that had issues was BTMR. Oh, and the people mover stopped, but security was waiting for the idiots that stood up during their ride.

Machines break. Especially ones that are used almost 24/7. And for every person that complains they are not doing enough to keep them running there is another 3 who would crab and moan if they were closed so Disney could do maintenance.

 

[larryz]

I have to wonder though in all fairness to Disney do other parts like Universal have alot of issues like this too? I personally have never been to another park that doesn't close for 3 months out of the year (local parks here close all winter) so there is an easy time to do maintenance on the first few days that they are shut down and then the couple of weeks before they open.

Look at the airlines -- modern commercial airliners are arguably as complex to maintain as an amusement park ride, and (most) airlines have no trouble keeping them in service day after day, year after year.

They do it by regularly scheduled routine maintenance and periodic take-down inspections and replacements of parts that wear in a predictable fashion.

At WDW, apparently, we have anecdotal evidence that the management team is rescheduling maintenance crews, with the unintentional effect of stretching out inspection/maintenance intervals. This logically means more parts will run till failure instead of being replaced based on anticipated wear.

It apparently hasn't hit the bottom line hard enough to change their behavior.

My BIL once worked at a plastic bottle manufacturer that had done the same thing -- he managed to convince them through comparing costs of breakdowns over costs of maintenance that regularly scheduled PMI was the way to cut expenses and improve runtime. Of course, they actually made plastic bottles -- a tangible output easy to quantify. Not so customer satisfaction in amusement attractions.

Unfortunately, WDW seems to be losing sight of the fact that their main product is customer satisfaction, believing instead that their product is admission tickets, or hotel rooms, or food service...

 

[WedgieSock]

We were there 7-13 dec and must have been lucky because we didn't come across any ride closures whatsoever other than the monorail on 11th at around 12pm - took us 1 hour to leave the GF because their boats to MK do not take ECVs and they had to radio out a bus as there weren't any (a GF CM tells us thats because they are not 'geared' towards buses for MK because they have the monorail )

 

[bedogged]

We were there 7-13 dec and must have been lucky because we didn't come across any ride closures whatsoever other than the monorail on 11th at around 12pm - took us 1 hour to leave the GF because their boats to MK do not take ECVs and they had to radio out a bus as there weren't any (a GF CM tells us thats because they are not 'geared' towards buses for MK because they have the monorail )

This was an issue with us as well. They gave us a room at GF in building 7, closest to the boat launch even though we requested a different location. Of course, because of our ECV, we couldn't use the launch. Also, when the Monorail is down, ALL the ECVs must use the bus and there can be quite a line, causing us to wait for multiple buses even during the middle of the day. At this time of year there are a lot of ECV's and wheelchairs at WDW. We found the handicapped accessible lines to be quite long, much longer than any of the regular lines. I wish those of you who think that using an ECV somehow gets you to the front of the line would have been with us during this trip. You would have received quite an education. We experienced really long lines and waits at even moderately popular rides like Small World and Nemo.

 

[lugnut33]

1) Our neighbor across the street has been WDW Maintenance for 16-yrs.
2) He said the budgets have been reduced every year for the past 4-5 yrs.
3) His hours have been reduced, even in "busy" season.
4) In fact, he said that Work Orders sometimes are 3-4 weeks behind.

NOTE: He also complains about Work Order and Worker scheduling. (Of
course, I can't verify because I don't work there.) He says that some of
the newer "young bloods" in management have come up with some new
ideas on how to group and schedule work/people, and it isn't working
at all - in fact making things horribly worse.

That just means a bigger bonus for Iger.

 

[airplanegod]

Was there 12/12-12/16, started out fine and got worse as the week progressed. I did have to wait about 10-20 minutes for TT on 12/12 (Not bad, just saying). All of the times/days I went to BTMR, it was shut down. One time, we did get in line (Fastpass) and it broke down while we were in line. On 12/16, I had to evacuate both the Little Mermaid ride and Space Mountain. Expedition Everest on 12/16 also opened almost 1.5 hours after park opening. Still had a fun trip, but Disney needs to pump more money into up keeping Disney World.

 

[mousermerf]

1) Our neighbor across the street has been WDW Maintenance for 16-yrs.
2) He said the budgets have been reduced every year for the past 4-5 yrs.
3) His hours have been reduced, even in "busy" season.
4) In fact, he said that Work Orders sometimes are 3-4 weeks behind.

NOTE: He also complains about Work Order and Worker scheduling. (Of
course, I can't verify because I don't work there.) He says that some of
the newer "young bloods" in management have come up with some new
ideas on how to group and schedule work/people, and it isn't working
at all - in fact making things horribly worse.

It's important to know what these schedule changes are though to be really informed to discuss them.

I can tell you from personal experience WDW old-timers are "crotchety" at best and shun ANY change for ANY reason. They will intentionally sabotage something that if you hired new workers and implemented it would save time/money/labor. They want to come in and do the same routine every day and if you move their cheese they freak out and respond unpleasantly.

Says the person who learned from Future World maintenance where to place an empty water bottle to stop the Universe of Energy if Disney dared schedule the attraction to stay open later than usual...

 

[mattsdragon]

The OP, and in particular her husband are absolutely right.

Disney needs to hire pyschics to predict when a ride will break down and have it repaired ahead of time with no disruption in service.



things break people, old things break more frequently. If rides suffer breakdowns, people complain, if a ride is taken down for an overhaul, people complain.

Sorry, that's just my frustration as a technician in the military coming out. I get the same crap from officers who don't understand why my equipment breaks or why I need to take the equipment down to do preventative maintenance.

 

[SueM in MN]

Star Tours stopping in the middle of the ride is not to let everyone board. Everyone is on board and buckled in at that point.

You misunderstood me.
I was saying that Star Tours is stopped when all guests board - guests with disabilities board at the same time as everyone else.

An earlier poster had said the stops the OP experienced were probably due to stopping for handicapped guests to board.

As I pointed out, of the rides the OP mentioned, the only one that stops for guests with disabilities to board is Haunted Mansion.

 

[TwoCortWort]

We have had lights on Space Mountain, People Mover broke down twice today with us on it, BTMR broke down with us on it. At Universal the other day Dualing Dragons stopped thanks to some moron undoing his buckle. -.- Delayed us 10 minutes because they had to come check everyone.

 

[Mitch_in_GA]

If things are seemingly this bad now, I hate to think what's ahead when the Christmas rush starts this weekend. It'll be interesting to see if things improve over the next few months. Like one poster said, if things deteriorate enough (or even if there's a perception of said deterioration), then it could start to impact their bottom line. I dread ever having to recalibrate the incredibly high expectations that, in the past, WDW has always managed to exceed (hence the magic that we all know and love). Let's hope someone in management with reasonably sound business sense recognizes that a short-term, penny pinching approach to bolster current profits is not a viable long-term strategy.

I guess the only good I can take from these post is that instead of wanting to go really, really bad right now, I only want to go really bad...and for that my bank account can sleep a little easier.

 

[GJF323]

Was there for Magic & Merriment 12/9 & 12/10 but arrived 12/6; lots of problems - I was starting a collection of courtesy fastpasses. I had trouble on new Test Track, American Adventure, Carousel of Progress that I remember. Ariel ride was late getting going on 12/10.

 

[Bullseye]

Unfortunately, WDW seems to be losing sight of the fact that their main product is customer satisfaction, believing instead that their product is admission tickets, or hotel rooms, or food service...

Right! When or as the "special" starts declining don't think the average guest isn't going to notice and thinks about other vacation choices. Most guests recognize the difference Disney offers over the competition. WDW isn't known for major rides, but the rides they have are beloved and need to be kept in tip-top shape. That being said, in the last 9 years the only big breakdown we've experienced is the monorail in a lighting storm (while we we're on it).