Rides breaking down at alarming rate

[maxbuffmelvin]

On a recent DL multi-day trip, it seemed like every ride went down at least once. DL's MMRR was constantly breaking down.

Not much better at recent WDW trips as well. Since the late 2010s, it has been common for us at least once on a trip to be stuck on a ride for an extensive time or evacuated during a trip when I can't recall it happening on previous trips.

 

[Upatnoon]

In the era before smartphones, rides never went down. Not one time!

I think people are dropping them and jamming up the rides.

The ride dysfunction does seem worse in the summer with the added weather issues. The more you stop and start a ride the more likely something is to break. The more tech features you add for safety also adds things that can break.

Still, Disney could certainly up its game on maintenance. They may need to bite the bullet and shut down some of these popular attractions more often to get it done.

 

[greeneyedchick]

It is an issue but a sort of catch 22 for WDW. Some of the older rides are in desperate need of refurbs but if they take them down properly to refurb them you bet they are going to get complaints about them being down during someone's once in a life time trip. So they limp along fixing what they can on the spot when it breaks down so at least the ride is open part of your once in a life time trip. I don't know the solution. I was there one trip and every single day of the trip stood in line for a ride for a hour or longer only to have the ride go down and was told they had no clue when it would come back up. Even had to be evacuated from Frozen (which was fun since it's a boat so they had to drain the water then put boards across). Thankfully, the other people in the boat had a good sense of humor and we had a great conversation during the hour wait to get taken off. Happened every-single-day of the trip. I got to the point that all I could do was laugh about it and make bets with myself on which ride was going to go down that day.

Disney had plenty of time to refurb them when the parks were closed for covid. FL didn't have many covid restrictions. There's no excuse why Disney didn't take advantage of the opportunity.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Curious for those reporting they've been on a ride when it's 'broken down', how long do you feel is an acceptable wait to wait before saying that it has 'broken down'?

My parents are seniors and when we were able to visit Disney with them the last few times they both used scooters. The ride would often need to stop to allow them to board/disembark as my dad in particular could not handle the moving sidewalks. Stopping for him would cause the omnimover attractions to stop for a brief period of time and the announcement to 'please stay in your vehicle' to begin.

We are visiting Disney next month and after reading this thread it will be interesting to see what the status of attractions is. After more than 30 trips to Disney I feel I was only on an attraction a couple of times when it broke down and we had to listen to, 'Yo ho, yo ho a pirates life for me' for 45 solid minutes. (lol - my daughter still will not ride that now as the song reminds her). Another time we were stuck on the monorail in the same spot for more than 20 minutes so I consider that being on an attraction when it broke down also.

What amount of time is your 'wait' on a stopped attraction to say it has broken down?

just curious. I think for us it would be 3 mins without moving, I would consider 'broken down'.

We've never been evacuated from an attraction but secretly think that would be a kinda cool experience, within reason.

I’m at 10-15 mins/evacuated. The ride is broken if it stops for 10-15 mins or if I have to get evacuated. I am also in a position to know omnimover rides are fully stopped sometimes for accessibility purposes- and sometimes those situations are NOT fast. But 10 mins is enough even for those unless something goes very wrong.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Disney had plenty of time to refurb them when the parks were closed for covid. FL didn't have many covid restrictions. There's no excuse why Disney didn't take advantage of the opportunity.

Disney did exactly jack when parks were closed. Could they have borrowed up a huge amount of money at super cheap rates to do a bunch of park work with no crowds? Yup. Was the Chief Dingbat in Charge too paralyzed with fear to realize Covid was either gonna pass or the company was done for so they should borrow up the hilt and hope for the best? Yup. At the end of the day though, the past is the past. Even if it’s full of stupid decisions. They have to deal with the now. Is the problem lack of maintenance? Lack of engineers? Lack of engineers willing to work for cheap in 100 heat? New procedures (LOL at shutting down the carousel anytime the hear a new sound!!)? Disney is the only one who knows the answer but it looks like they dang well better start addressing it…

 

[DCLMP]

I haven't read through all the comments, but this was an issue the last time I was at WDW. I posted on the DL thread that on July 5 seven headliner rides were all down at 11 am. It's a problem Disney needs to solve. Disney is head over heels in problems they need to solve....just add this to the list.

 

[DCLMP]

In the era before smartphones, rides never went down. Not one time!

I think people are dropping them and jamming up the rides.

The ride dysfunction does seem worse in the summer with the added weather issues. The more you stop and start a ride the more likely something is to break. The more tech features you add for safety also adds things that can break.

Still, Disney could certainly up its game on maintenance. They may need to bite the bullet and shut down some of these popular attractions more often to get it done.

Dropping their cell phones? Like literally dropping their cell phones? I've never seen one person upset about losing a cell phone on a ride. At 1300 dollars or more for an I-phone....sorry I don't think so.

 

[musicguy856]

Dropping their cell phones? Like literally dropping their cell phones? I've never seen one person upset about losing a cell phone on a ride. At 1300 dollars or more for an I-phone....sorry I don't think so.

All it takes on a trackless ride is something going airborne from a ride vehicle to shut the ride down. And it usually takes about an hour to reset, at least at MMRR.

 

[DCLMP]

If I were you guys I'd stay home. If all the rides are breaking down and you are throwing your money away, why do you go. Come to think of it, I do stay home but because of the costs of entry, G+ or LL. But it I were going there and paying that much money, there would be no future trips there.

I think people will start doing this.

 

[DCLMP]

All it takes on a trackless ride is something going airborne from a ride vehicle to shut the ride down. And it usually takes about an hour to reset, at least at MMRR.

Seriously. People have had smartphones for over a decade now and cell phones for much longer.....You act like cell phones are something just invented the last couple of years.

 

[musicguy856]

Seriously. People have had smartphones for over a decade now and cell phones for much longer.....You act like cell phones are something just invented the last couple of years.

Doesn't even have to be a cell phone. It could be a child throwing a bottle or spilling water that causes it to shut down. Anything that gets on the floor of the ride building will do it.

 

[DCLMP]

Doesn't even have to be a cell phone. It could be a child throwing a bottle or spilling water that causes it to shut down. Anything that gets on the floor of the ride building will do it.

Um Ok....its the publics fault. Geez.

 

[leiaorgana]

All it takes on a trackless ride is something going airborne from a ride vehicle to shut the ride down. And it usually takes about an hour to reset, at least at MMRR.

We did one last ride on Rise on 8th July around 8:30pm and someone’s hat was clearly on the ground in the AT-AT room and they never shut it down for that. That was actually one of the few days where Rise was operational for the majority of the day. I can’t really recall it going down at all that day tbh

 

[gottalovepluto]

Seriously. People have had smartphones for over a decade now and cell phones for much longer.....You act like cell phones are something just invented the last couple of years.

Yeah, I think Ears and sunglasses are a lot more problematic that phones. As to why it wasn’t as much of an issue before, the tech simply wasn’t there to detect the crap being dropped…

 

[musicguy856]

Um Ok....its the publics fault. Geez.

Some ride shutdowns are caused by guests. Just look at the idiots that have pulled out extra slack in their seatbelt on Guardians at DL and ToT at WDW.

 

[musicguy856]

We did one last ride on Rise on 8th July around 8:30pm and someone’s hat was clearly on the ground in the AT-AT room and they never shut it down for that. That was actually one of the few days where Rise was operational for the majority of the day. I can’t really recall it going down at all that day tbh

If it wasn't in the path of the ride vehicles I could see it not affecting the ride itself.

 

[leiaorgana]

I mean we sorta danced around it but it was pretty close to the vehicles. Not an enough for it to be an issue though. I’m just pointing out that they seemingly don’t close or stop it for every little thing that other guests lose.

 

[OKW Lover]

I’m sorry you felt my question was dismissive. This was not my intent but more to ask about weather in the area. You are correct that many attractions the OP listed are indoors but those attractions can be affected by weather too and this topic comes up on an almost weekly basis in the summer and many times ends up being weather related.

While weather mainly affects outdoor rides, due to Florida being the lightning strike capital of the US and now being into storm/hurricane season, I was questioning if the 2 could be related due to the power outages lightning creates.

In this case it appears it was not as additional information was provided by the OP.

It does appear there are more challenges now with ride functionality which is disappointing to guests, especially when they’ve waited a long time in line to ride only to have it breakdown.

Just to add to this info, shutdowns for severe weather should not be considered a ride breakdown.

 

[TaraWasHere]

We saw several ride break downs on our trip this past June, including Frozen on our first day that came up and went down continuously for hours on end. Normally I don't really care. There is always something else to do somewhere in the parks. However, on our last night at Epcot, we sprang for the AH party there, and watched test track, and frozen both go down in rapid succession for the entirety of the party. This of course made the remaining lines unbearably long and only managed to pull 4 rides total for the evening. Soarin, Cosmic rewind (because we ran there when the party started) Spaceship Earth, and Soarin again. We never got near Remy. IMO that night was a complete rip off, and something I'm still irritated about a month later.

 

[Jacq7414]

We saw several ride break downs on our trip this past June, including Frozen on our first day that came up and went down continuously for hours on end. Normally I don't really care. There is always something else to do somewhere in the parks. However, on our last night at Epcot, we sprang for the AH party there, and watched test track, and frozen both go down in rapid succession for the entirety of the party. This of course made the remaining lines unbearably long and only managed to pull 4 rides total for the evening. Soarin, Cosmic rewind (because we ran there when the party started) Spaceship Earth, and Soarin again. We never got near Remy. IMO that night was a complete rip off, and something I'm still irritated about a month later.

We didn’t do a paid AH event at Epcot, but before Cosmic Rewind opened - in April 2022, we did the deluxe evening hours there. The Frozen broke down while we were in line (at the start of the night) and never got back up. Test track was down the entire night, so the only worthwhile ride was Remy and the line for that was probably an hour and a half. Was the biggest waste of time. I wish we had just went to bed earlier instead of experiencing that. It was the reason why we decided against doing the AH event