Splash and BTMR closed again this morning? [Thursday Feb. 22nd]

[Colleen27]

We got caught up in the MK shutdown mess yesterday. Today was our Epcot day. Fastpass for FEA at 10:45...ride was down with no idea when it would come back up. So we grabbed some lunch and decided to take them up on the option of using it at Test Track instead. Got in the FP line and waited 15 minutes before...it went down. "Going with the flow" is great and all, but it's a lot harder to wing it with little kids than with older kids. They don't understand the huge waits, lack of ability to go on the rides that you told them about, and they can't stay up late into the night. So while if I was traveling with just my husband we might chill at the pool and try for the parks later, that's not an option with little kids. And the CMs are getting surlier and surlier because they're clearly fed up with this too.

Test Track is another one that just seems like poor planning... Bad weather shuts it down. Not just thunder/lightning, which is understandable, but even rain... Who decided THAT was a good idea in Florida, home of the daily afternoon deluge?!?

Same here.
Though I haven't counted the number of days we've been in the parks the past 2 years. With AP's and over 5 trips per year, each year, it's a lot. I don't ever check the app to see if rides are up or down, when I'm not there, which seems to be something lots of folks here do.
But we've had less than 10 FP convert to anytime FP in all our FP on all our park days, even including our extras we've gotten. We just haven't found that many outages.
That doesn't discount that there are a lot of them happening right now. I can see that there are. Only mentioning that it doesn't appear to be wide spread but isolated. Heck, maybe they've had some computer system issues, since their rides run on computers now. I know that is often the cause of the monorail problems.

But yeah, the trendy thing to do on the boards anymore is to trash Disney. If everyone that was negative towards Disney was truly as negative as they come across on the keyboard surely there is no way they'd still be going to Disney. If I felt the way many of these posts read I sure wouldn't spend thousands of dollars with that company. Which is why I think the posts are leaning way more negative than the poster really is. Just my opinion.

I'll freely admit I'm obsessing over this trip more than I usually would. I haven't been checking the app to look for wait times/downtime, but I have been making last minute adjustments to my ADRs and FPs and when I have the app open I do look. When I'm travelling just with my family, or more accurately just my girls because DH & DS seldom go with us any more, I don't worry like this. The fact that this is DS's grad trip and his SO's first/maybe only visit to WDW adds a higher level of expectations. And there have been threads every day for at least the last week about MK headliners being down.

I also don't think you can gauge a person's overall feeling toward Disney from one thread/post. A person can "bash" Disney for the apparent lack of attention to park maintenance and the staffing cutbacks while still appreciating the overall package because of other elements of the experience, but if the thread is about ride downtime, of course most of the posts are going to be negative. It doesn't mean that the same poster isn't elsewhere on the boards posting with a more positive tone on other topics. I'm still weighing whether or not to upgrade to an AP, despite my concerns about the specifics of this upcoming trip, and if I do it will be because I have two other trips in mind that will have far less to do with rides/attractions (a RunDisney event with DD16 and a kid-free Festival of the Arts trip with DH). Because I do still appreciate the overall package despite my frustrations with the apparent state of maintenance of the MK headliners.

 

[sachilles]

View attachment 303989 View attachment 303990 View attachment 303991 2/3 of our FPs are for Mine Train and Big Thunder are down. DD and DSIL used two of the anytime FPs on Space and waited almost 40 minutes. We’re getting out of Dodge!

What app is this?

 

[zillayen]

What app is this?

Looks like the Lines app from TouringPlans.

According to that app, Splash has been down since 9:15 am. BTMRR since at least 11. And 7DMT since 12:30. That's a pretty significant chunk of the day for three headliners to be down, and it's not the first time this week.

 

[Klayfish]

Test Track is another one that just seems like poor planning... Bad weather shuts it down. Not just thunder/lightning, which is understandable, but even rain... Who decided THAT was a good idea in Florida, home of the daily afternoon deluge?!?

So then is your argument that every ride at WDW...and every other theme park in Central Florida, should be built 100% indoors? I would argue that would put one heck of a serious limitation on what can be done. I like big roller coasters, water parks, safari, etc...these are things that really CAN'T be indoors. So yeah, you just have to take your chances with weather. Most coasters can't run in heavy rain, it's not just Test Track.

 

[klbrow11]

Noticed this trend when we went in September. Rope dropped AK and both rides in Pandora were down till noon. Rope dropped epcot and test track was down. MK at rope drop and peter pan, winnie the pooh, ariel ride, and a a mountain was down. The plan was for fantasty land with our 2 year old but so many attractions were down. Our first ride of the day was the carousel lol.

 

[mamamelody2]

Generally, I just figure there will be rides down every day here and there, we can work around it.

But, 7DMT, BTMRR, and Splash ALL down for many hours on the same day? That sucks! I especially feel for those people who are only in the Magic Kingdom for one day and today's the day. Ugh.

 

[Colleen27]

So then is your argument that every ride at WDW...and every theme park in Central Florida, should be built 100% indoors? I would argue that would put one heck of a serious limitation on what can be done. I like big roller coasters, water parks, safari, etc...these are things that really CAN'T be indoors. So yeah, you just have to take your chances with weather.

Not at all. Most of Disney's outdoor or hybrid indoor/outdoor rides are far more weather tolerant than Test Track. I've ridden BTMRR, Splash, Everest, Kali, the safari, Primeval Whirl (okay, watched the kids ride that one - I don't do spinning), etc. in moderate-to-heavy rain and they continue operating as usual. Test Track, on the other hand, is much more sensitive to rainfall - it simply doesn't take much to close it, and it doesn't reopen until the outdoor portion of the track is relatively dry. My only argument is that installing a ride that cannot run in anything more than a drizzle isn't the best idea in Orlando.

 

[mamamelody2]

So, I thought I'd check and see if any of those 3 rides had come back online. Not only have the NOT come back up, but Peoplemover is now down, too. OY.

 

[zillayen]

So, I thought I'd check and see if any of those 3 rides had come back online. Not only have the NOT come back up, but Peoplemover is now down, too. OY.

Haha. Winnie the Pooh was down earlier when I checked.

 

[sachilles]

Looks like the Lines app from TouringPlans.

According to that app, Splash has been down since 9:15 am. BTMRR since at least 11. And 7DMT since 12:30. That's a pretty significant chunk of the day for three headliners to be down, and it's not the first time this week.

Thank you.

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

Generally, I just figure there will be rides down every day here and there, we can work around it.

But, 7DMT, BTMRR, and Splash ALL down for many hours on the same day? That sucks! I especially feel for those people who are only in the Magic Kingdom for one day and today's the day. Ugh.

Yes, it’s been bad today. Glad my tween still enjoys Carousel of Progress, Haunted Mansion, and Monsters, Inc. Even tolerated Hall of Presidents well.

For those who really like thrill rides, Space is their only option today.

 

[vicb]

Yikes! I feel bad for folks who are experiencing this.

 

[mamamelody2]

Haha. Winnie the Pooh was down earlier when I checked.

Last November, we got 3 "anytime" FPs in one day, because Winnie the Pooh kept going down!

 

[mswhittaker]

It is definitely disappointing to have 3/4 big rides down at MK all afternoon. We were in line for Space Mountain on Tuesday night and it went down. FOP was down for several hours yesterday, luckily we were able to catch it before we had to leave for dinner when it came back up. And today we lost out on Big Thunder. Definitely never had three FP affected before in the same trip. We come a lot so not a big deal, but it is frustrating especially with the crowd levels. It’s causing the FP lines for the rides that are open to be insane.

 

[NJlauren]

We don’t really do to many thrill rides yet as DD is to young, but this would drive me nuts! I have a trip in a bit over a week and I’ll be really upset if this is how things go. I have been on the boards more lately while preparing for the trip, but this can’t possibly be normal right?!?!

 

[Louie7080]

Rain doesn't stop Radiator Springs Racers in DL. I know that is newer than Test Track though so maybe they were able to work out the problems with Test Track when constructing RSR. I visited DL last January and February when it was much rainier than usual and I don't remember the roller coasters being closed down. I went to WDW in 2015 and it hardly rained (unusual I know) so can't compare with personal experience. I hope Disney is doing something to address these latest rash of closures whether it be guest mistakes, CM mistakes, CM cut backs or wear and tear. If it is mostly guests doing something wrong, then surely Disney can do something additional to make sure guests know what and what not to do like better signage, better instructions from the CMs, more CMs to help out slow guests......

 

[Princess_Lisa]

Watching MDE wait times, this week seems to have been a cluster, especially at MK.

Haha. Winnie the Pooh was down earlier when I checked.

I noticed that. It went from DOWN to 45 minutes at 3:02 PM when I was entering my 3 PM data. It was running at 2 PM, so it would appear it was down for less than an hour unlike Splash which has been down all day and Thunder for most of the day.

(EDIT) Epcot had high waits also. Test Track and Frozen went down, though not anywhere near as long as the MK Mountains.

 

[Haley R]

Watching MDE wait times, this week seems to have been a cluster, especially at MK.

View attachment 304023



I noticed that. It went from DOWN to 45 minutes at 3:02 PM when I was entering my 3 PM data. It was running at 2 PM, so it would appear it was down for less than an hour unlike Splash which has been down all day and Thunder for most of the day.

(EDIT) Epcot had high waits also. Test Track and Frozen went down, though not anywhere near as long as the MK Mountains.

View attachment 304025

My phone said fop was 90 minutes earlier.

 

[Tonyz]

I hear that the People Mover is down too.

Rough day in the Kingdom.

 

[mshanson3121]

Here now and all three of these big rides are down at the same time. Splash has been down since 10 am and Big Thunder went down shortly thereafter. Been down for hours.

Space Mountain has a 175 minute wait and the fastpass line is insane because everyone is using their anytime fastpasses they were supposed to use for Splash and Big Thunder for Space. Eek. Repeat of yesterday.

This is CRAZY!