Broken Journey to the Center of the Earth- Common Practice?

Kyjin

Mouseketeer
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
My friends and I went to DisneySea yesterday, and it was quite a saga attempting to ride Journey to the Center of the Earth.

-Started the day solo and got to the ride 45 minutes after opening. Wait time was posted at 90 minutes. After standing in line for 45 minutes (probably about 5 minutes till elevator at that point?) the lights came up. Ride had shut down for "safety reasons." We all exited through a cast member door to the left of the elevators (went past elevator they use for handicapped guests), and received an anytime fastpass good for either park that day. (Did not work for Nemo or Toy Story.)

-Around 11, friends had arrived at the park and I could get another fastpass, so we went back to Journey. Ride was still down (had broken over an hour beforehand), but fastpasses were still available. We pulled for 5-6 timeslot.

-A little after 5: return to Journey. It had come back up for awhile, but by the time we got over there, it was broken AGAIN. Told we could use our fastpasses anytime later that day when it came back up.

-Checked the app around 6:30; ride was back online but we had tickets for Big Band Beat. By the time we got out of the show around 7:30, the ride was down AGAIN.

-During Fantasmic, I noticed they were starting to test the ride. By the time Fantasmic ended, the ride had opened again. However, they had only opened the ride for people with fastpasses. Standby riders could not even line up. After about 20 minutes of waiting, we FINALLY got to ride it. (Well worth the wait!)

Has anyone else experienced the ride being up and down like this before? I've only been in the park once before where the ride broke while I was in line, and that was literally 30 minutes before closing, so we got fastpasses and went on TOT instead. (Journey never came back up that time.) Also, is this common to have the ride go down extensively and reopen only for fastpasses? Definitely made sense since there were hundred of people with unused fastpasses at that point, and the park was only open for another hour anyway, but I was still surprised.
 
It was up and down constantly for 2 days of our trip, this was one of the few times where we had language issues as they were making announcements whilst we were in line and we weren't sure whether to stay or leave! Luckily we were able to communicate with some nice teenagers through google translate! For each time where it was down and we had been in line for awhile they gave us some fastpasses.
 
My first trip to Sea Journey was up the whole time and my second time after my daughter didn't make the height line we just didn't pay attention to it.

I have had similar experience with Toy Story Mania in WDW. It spent most of the day coming up and then going back down so that it was eventually closed to all standby riders and only riders with FP+ could ride it. I had been so excited because I had picked up a second FP+ for it and thought we could ride it before the dessert party. Nope! The FP+ line was a good hour. o_O;
 


My first time there, it was down for a while late morning which made getting an FP for later easy. We rode it the first thing, then rode it again in the evening with FP. Although it is a dark ride, there is one part of the ride that it goes into the open air, and that part is much more mysterious at night, so I always recommend that folks try to ride it at night as well as hit it first thing so you know you'll ride it at least once.
 
On my most recent trip, Journey was down when we went to use our Fast Passes, but was up and running when we came back a couple of hours later (although the standby line was ridiculously long).

I'm not sure how many times during the days we visited it was "down". I only try to ride Journey with a Fast Pass or late in the evening (e.g. during the fireworks) when the standby line is short / quick.
 
When I was there in July it was down for maintenance. Guess that maintenance didn't go so smoothly...
 



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