Rides breaking down at alarming rate

[TheDailyMoo]

Just back from 10 days at WDW and had an amazing time and have a lot of reviews but the one thing I noticed worse than ever before was an abundance of rides, especially the bigger draws, breaking down at an alarming rate. I check the app regularly just to look at wait times and I would notice rides down at the other parks I wasn't in that day too. Wait times were out of control yet the parks were not packed at all. I attribute this to all the breakdowns. I rope dropped Hollywood and Rise wasn't working from the get-go so it wasn't a matter of overworking/stressing the mechanisms. Remy...constantly down. Frozen ever after...down a LOT. Rise I noticed down often. And not even all the newer technologies. Pirates would be down a lot. Peter Pan. Pooh. I even saw People Mover down once...I didn't know it could even stop! Etc. Etc. Definitely a little disconcerting.

Luckily this trip was an easy going one but if I was there for only a few days and wanted to do a lot I probably wouldn't have been able to depending on the day. Also MK specific, thank goodness Tron is there bc you really realize how many people Splash Mountain ate up. All those people now on other lines. Then when anything big goes down...forget about it!

 

[HopperFan]

Got to love Dinosaur where half the dinos are sleeping!

 

[scrappinginontario]

Just back from 10 days at WDW and had an amazing time and have a lot of reviews but the one thing I noticed worse than ever before was an abundance of rides, especially the bigger draws, breaking down at an alarming rate. I check the app regularly just to look at wait times and I would notice rides down at the other parks I wasn't in that day too. Wait times were out of control yet the parks were not packed at all. I attribute this to all the breakdowns. I rope dropped Hollywood and Rise wasn't working from the get-go so it wasn't a matter of overworking/stressing the mechanisms. Remy...constantly down. Frozen ever after...down a LOT. Rise I noticed down often. And not even all the newer technologies. Pirates would be down a lot. Peter Pan. Pooh. I even saw People Mover down once...I didn't know it could even stop! Etc. Etc. Definitely a little disconcerting.

Luckily this trip was an easy going one but if I was there for only a few days and wanted to do a lot I probably wouldn't have been able to depending on the day. Also MK specific, thank goodness Tron is there bc you really realize how many people Splash Mountain ate up. All those people now on other lines. Then when anything big goes down...forget about it!

Did you happen to notice if the rides when they broke down at an alarming rate in another park, if they were indoor or outdoor attractions.

Historically Orlando has extremely localized storms which means one park can be sunny and another one in the middle of a storm.

Yes, guests are discussing rides breaking down but in the summer if you’re only looking at the app and not actually physically in the park, weather may be a factor too and it’s impossible to know that variable if not there.

 

[Sleety]

Did you happen to notice if the rides when they broke down at an alarming rate in another park, if they were indoor or outdoor attractions.

Historically Orlando has extremely localized storms which means one park can be sunny and another one in the middle of a storm.

Yes, guests are discussing rides breaking down but in the summer if you’re only looking at the app and not actually physically in the park, weather may be a factor too and it’s impossible to know that variable if not there.

All the rides mentioned in the original post are indoors, aren’t they?

Your point is well taken but a little dismissive of OP’s observations, imo.

 

[leiaorgana]

I just got back from 3 weeks there and can back this up. I was physically in the parks at the time and it had nothing to do with the weather. At one point last week ROTR, MMRR and RNRC were all down at the same time. In fact Rise was barely working the entire first week and a half we were there. One day at MK Winnie The Pooh, Peoplemover, BTMR, SM and another ride that slips my mind now were all down at the same time. Even the Mexico boat ride was down first thing in the morning on 30th June because we tried to ride it and the CMs said they were having issues with it that morning and couldn’t open yet.

At HM earlier that week, what should have been a 10 minute experience from getting into the LL took us 40 minutes to get through the entire attraction because they were only loading several groups at a time into one stretching room and then it stopped for 10 - 15 minutes twice and it was nothing to do with people with accessibility needs getting on and off, it just stopped moving. I saw a video of some people who got stuck on Pirates for almost 3 hours the other day as well.

They definitely need to do something about it because it’s 100% ruining the ride/guest experience with the constant breakdowns and longer than just people getting on and off stoppages.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Did you happen to notice if the rides when they broke down at an alarming rate in another park, if they were indoor or outdoor attractions.

Historically Orlando has extremely localized storms which means one park can be sunny and another one in the middle of a storm.

Yes, guests are discussing rides breaking down but in the summer if you’re only looking at the app and not actually physically in the park, weather may be a factor too and it’s impossible to know that variable if not there.

For the most part they were mostly indoor rides. Yes we had a lot of thunderstorms the last 10 days but usually just in the afternoon/late afternoon and passing through. No these ride breakdowns are independent of storms as I know many happened during decent (albeit hot and muggy) weather. Also like I mentioned many older rides as well nit just the newer ones that rely on all the sensors and wifi signals like a Remy. I know the newer tech ones take a while to bring back up to speed but something like Pirates? That was down so often and I never see Pirates down like that. Not in previous years anyway.

There was one time on Buzz Spaceranger where we got in a standby line while it said 40 minutes. An HOUR and a HALF later we finally got right up to the ride vehicles when they stopped. Took a few minutes to start...we got on...they stopped...a few minutes later started...then stopped. Again and again. They probably should've closed it at that point to fix it as that was probably what was occurring the whole time which is why our 40 minutes was an hour and a half. But I'm sure they wanted to keep pushing through. So glad our pace was slow but like I said if I was there for a day or two and I picked the wrong day? Would've been disappointed.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

One day at MK Winnie The Pooh, Peoplemover, BTMR, SM and another ride that slips my mind now were all down at the same time.

I was at MK for sure this day lol. I purchased Genie+ for only one day this trip and I got experience credit after experience credit...which was fine by me! But yeah it was bad. Missed doing Rise this trip bc of it not working when I was at HS. And it's fine...can't do everything but it was down a lot!

 

[gottalovepluto]

Sounds like Disney still isn’t ponying up enough for sufficient emergency engineering staff.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I was at MK for sure this day lol. I purchased Genie+ for only one day this trip and I got experience credit after experience credit...which was fine by me! But yeah it was bad. Missed doing Rise this trip bc of it not working when I was at HS. And it's fine...can't do everything but it was down a lot!

Kinda makes G+ more appealing when most stuff turns into experience credits…

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Kinda makes G+ more appealing when most stuff turns into experience credits…

Honestly I loved it. The only way to circumvent the Genie+ one ride/one time rule. Turn that Pooh into a second Jungle Cruise? Don't mind if I do!

 

[leiaorgana]

I forgot to add as well the first time we went to MK on this most recent trip (I want to say 23rd June) the first ride we used our Genie+ for was Peter Pan and the line was already out of the building and heading towards the carousel and once we got past the scanners that broke down too. Absolutely no communication from the CMs about what was going on whatsoever. Nobody had any idea what was going on but we could see the Engineers there from where we were standing and overheard some of the managers saying it was something to do with the lap bars not going down on some of the ride vehicles and them trying to fix that. The whole thing was handled really poorly with the CMs basically telling people in the LL that if they left and it was past your return time then you’d basically forfeit your LL for it and if it wasn’t then you could come back later and try again. Fortunately, it wasn’t much longer after that they fixed it since we couldn’t leave the line without losing our LL for it but the whole experience as well as the HM one really left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Honestly I loved it. The only way to circumvent the Genie+ one ride/one time rule. Turn that Pooh into a second Jungle Cruise? Don't mind if I do!

Reminds me of the early days of Disneyland MaxPass where I’d see a ride down and select that for my next ride in the hopes it would turn ME. And if it didn’t, it didn’t matter because it was DLR and I could be at any ride in like 15 mins.

*Sigh* $15/day. I miss the olden days

 

[gottalovepluto]

I forgot to add as well the first time we went to MK on this most recent trip (I want to say 23rd June) the first ride we used our Genie+ for was Peter Pan and the line was already out of the building and heading towards the carousel and once we got past the scanners that broke down too. Absolutely no communication from the CMs about what was going on whatsoever. Nobody had any idea what was going on but we could see the Engineers there from where we were standing and overheard some of the managers saying it was something to do with the lap bars not going down on some of the ride vehicles and them trying to fix that. The whole thing was handled really poorly with the CMs basically telling people in the LL that if they left and it was passed your return time then you’d basically forfeit your LL for it and if it wasn’t then you could come back later and try again. Fortunately, it wasn’t much longer after that they fixed it since we couldn’t leave the line without losing our LL for it but the whole experience as well as the HM one really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Oof! Ridiculous to threaten people who dare leave the LL when they’ve been delayed long enough engineers have showed up. (Not ridiculous is the part about the LL being out to the carousel, that is sadly normal, they sell way too many PP G+ .)

 

[Sleety]

Honestly I loved it. The only way to circumvent the Genie+ one ride/one time rule. Turn that Pooh into a second Jungle Cruise? Don't mind if I do!

We were just at Disneyland and they seemed to have a ride hierarchy system where the credit couldn’t be upgraded like that. You couldn’t convert a Star Tours G+ reservation into an Indiana Jones one, for example, if Star Tours was down. Is it not that way at WDW?

 

[leiaorgana]

It’s the same at WDW too but it’s not too bad at MK because there’s normally plenty of other rides you can still use the multi experience pass on. Like normally it just excludes the ILL, VQ and stuff like SM and PP there. It’s mainly DHS and Epcot where you struggle to find something decent to use it on if the original ride you had it for goes down because they’re stingy on what else you can use it on at those parks because there isn’t as many mid-tier rides at either of those. That’s why MMRR, TSMM or TOT normally shoot up if Slinky Dog or RNRC goes down at DHS.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

We were just at Disneyland and they seemed to have a ride hierarchy system where the credit couldn’t be upgraded like that. You couldn’t convert a Star Tours G+ reservation into an Indiana Jones one, for example, if Star Tours was down. Is it not that way at WDW?

There's a list of rides that it can be used on. Like Leia said just excludes the big stuff.

 

[musicguy856]

It’s the same at WDW too but it’s not too bad at MK because there’s normally plenty of other rides you can still use the multi experience pass on. Like normally it just excludes the ILL, VQ and stuff like SM and PP there. It’s mainly DHS and Epcot where you struggle to find something decent to use it on if the original ride you had it for goes down because they’re stingy on what else you can use it on at those parks because there isn’t as many mid-tier rides at either of those. That’s why MMRR, TSMM or TOT normally shoot up if Slinky Dog or RNRC goes down at DHS.

Jungle Cruise is excluded from multi experience LLs at MK, as well as Space, Pan, and 7DMT.

 

[scrappinginontario]

All the rides mentioned in the original post are indoors, aren’t they?

Your point is well taken but a little dismissive of OP’s observations, imo.

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.

 

[wabbott]

Just back from 10 days at WDW and had an amazing time and have a lot of reviews but the one thing I noticed worse than ever before was an abundance of rides, especially the bigger draws, breaking down at an alarming rate. I check the app regularly just to look at wait times and I would notice rides down at the other parks I wasn't in that day too. Wait times were out of control yet the parks were not packed at all. I attribute this to all the breakdowns. I rope dropped Hollywood and Rise wasn't working from the get-go so it wasn't a matter of overworking/stressing the mechanisms. Remy...constantly down. Frozen ever after...down a LOT. Rise I noticed down often. And not even all the newer technologies. Pirates would be down a lot. Peter Pan. Pooh. I even saw People Mover down once...I didn't know it could even stop! Etc. Etc. Definitely a little disconcerting.

Luckily this trip was an easy going one but if I was there for only a few days and wanted to do a lot I probably wouldn't have been able to depending on the day. Also MK specific, thank goodness Tron is there bc you really realize how many people Splash Mountain ate up. All those people now on other lines. Then when anything big goes down...forget about it!

WDWNT posted this a few days ago, looks like during the time you were there. Whatever the reason, this CANNOT continue to happen. All it does is drive guests away and give them another reason not to come back.

https://wdwnt.com/2023/07/magic-kingdom-multiple-attractions-down/

Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan’s Flight, and PeopleMover All Down This Morning at Magic Kingdom

July 9, 2023byJonathan D

It’s a rough morning for guests hoping to ride some of their favorite attractions early today, as Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan’s Flight, and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover were all temporarily closed at Magic Kingdom this morning. The PeopleMover recently came back to life, and Peter Pan’s Flight may have just returned to operation — but the other three remain in the dark.

 

[ttintagel]

I think if the weather were solely to blame, then we wouldn't be seeing quite as much of an increase as we have in days when multiple rides are down, versus years ago. The weather has grown more unpredictable over the years, but I don't think it's changed enough to explain away the current situation.

Lack of preventive maintenance, and putting off timely repair of small issues before they turn into big ones, seem more likely to me. Then again, I don't have a degree in fungineering.