Please Share your Ride Evacuation Stories!

Katems

Mouseketeer
Joined
May 30, 2005
I always thought it would be cool to get evacuated from a ride. I just missed out on Soarin' once when we were in the holding hangar and they couldn't get the people before us down! This past Sunday though I had my dream come true and got evacuated from Splash Mountain!

When we got evacuated off Splash there were about four or five logs all in a row. We got the usual announcement about a log jam and to hold tight, but then the lights came on and then a cast member appeared and began saying we were being evacuated. He started with the first log and had everyone go one at a time and step out at the place where the log was closest to the 'ground'. He held out his hand to help and then they just huddled wherever there was room. After all the logs were evacuated we followed him and walked single file along the scenery and then behind the spot where Bre'r Bear is hanging with all four paws in the trap and we went down some stairs and ended up outside behind the building. We turned a corner and then we were back in the park. This was at 11:30 pm and as we had already gone past both scanners the technology assumed we had ridden successfully so we did not get multiple experience passes. I asked for those the next day, though, but had to choose a specific ride (we chose Space). The scenery we walked on was wet and there wasn't much room. There was only the one cast member with us and about 25-30 people so I thought it was strange they didn't have anyone with him at the end of the line making sure we didn't slip and fall in, or screw around and get hurt.

The ride looked identical with the lights on and walking around as it does from the log. It's just painted rocks and wooden flowers and animatronics and such. And there were lanterns with colored lightbulbs hanging in the trees. I wish it had been a more interesting spot in Splash but it was more toward the beginning. We had just gone down the first hill and we were where Bre'r Rabbit is overhead and running a mini train. It would be fun to be evacuated from Indy and Mansion and Pirates I think. As I was riding Small World there were areas I noticed where you could not just step out of the boat and be on dry land. I'm not sure what they do when something goes wrong there. Perhaps they use hooks to pull the boats in to an area near land.

We were told not to take pictures and we did not see any others being evacuated except for our few logs and I know they have multiple exits built in so everyone else must have gone out different ways.

Please share your own experiences!
 
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My only ever evacuation was on the ride in Toon town - Roger Rabbits. It was so not exciting. There was only one car in front and we were already at the end of the ride so we were the last ones to get off.
Hoping others have more interesting stories.
 
I've been evacuated off Buzz and Winnie the Pooh in DL. I've also ridden Splash all the way through with the lights on a fire alarm blaring. That was a less fun ride.

The coolest evac experience I had though was in Disneyland Paris on Ratatouille. It's such a cool ride that integrates screens and live props so walking through was really cool.
 
My best evac story is about my dad. It was the most embarassing thing that ever happened in my life and we still tease my dad about it :)

To set the stage, my dad is a first class A-type micromanager. He has been 'the guy in charge' for every job he has ever had, I'm sure. He just is the type of guy who always thinks he knows exactly what to do. Ok, so it was on the Matterhorn. My sister and I (probably 5 and 7 at the time? So like, 25 years ago) and my dad were riding. The ride shuts off right as we are coming out of one of the tunnels at the top. We are sitting up there for about 5-10 min and my dad starts to get really frustrated. Finally an announcment comes on that the ride has shut down. So my dad takes it upon himself to start getting everyone out of their bobsleds and hiking DOWN the mountain! OMG My dad was THAT guy! The cast members start to panic and my sister and I can hear the CM's calling out "Sir! Sir, stay in your seat Sir! Everyone stay in your seats!" But my dad has that I've got this all under control look in his eyes and he's yelling and waving his arms, "Come on everyone! Follow me!"

Lol. Do this day it just kills me.
 


My best evac story is about my dad. It was the most embarassing thing that ever happened in my life and we still tease my dad about it :)

To set the stage, my dad is a first class A-type micromanager. He has been 'the guy in charge' for every job he has ever had, I'm sure. He just is the type of guy who always thinks he knows exactly what to do. Ok, so it was on the Matterhorn. My sister and I (probably 5 and 7 at the time? So like, 25 years ago) and my dad were riding. The ride shuts off right as we are coming out of one of the tunnels at the top. We are sitting up there for about 5-10 min and my dad starts to get really frustrated. Finally an announcment comes on that the ride has shut down. So my dad takes it upon himself to start getting everyone out of their bobsleds and hiking DOWN the mountain! OMG My dad was THAT guy! The cast members start to panic and my sister and I can hear the CM's calling out "Sir! Sir, stay in your seat Sir! Everyone stay in your seats!" But my dad has that I've got this all under control look in his eyes and he's yelling and waving his arms, "Come on everyone! Follow me!"

Lol. Do this day it just kills me.

This is hilarious. Obviously that was the first time in the history of the park that a ride had shut down and cast members just had no idea what to possibly do. Thank goodness your dad was there! :rotfl2:
 
We were evacuated from the Monsters Inc. ride last year. It was pretty cool to see how everything looked with the lights on. We waited off to the side of the queue to see if the ride would be up and running quickly so we could reboard and started chatting with one of the castmembers. She told us that the issue was that the Randall effect (where he changes colors/patterns) wasn’t working. She said that the ride will still run if some of the less crucial effects aren’t working, but that certain effects malfunctioning require them to shut down the ride ASAP until it’s fixed.

Another ride we have been stuck on (luckily didn’t have to evacuate) was PoTC. We were stuck in one of the final scenes for 40 minutes. By the end, I was getting a bit nervous about having to evacuate. Some of those sections would be pretty tricky to navigate.
 
We were evacuated off Pirates a couple years back and it was a series of unfortunate events, but is pretty hilarious to look back on.. It was in the treasure room, right before the tunnel. If I get more time, I'll have to post all the details. It involved a CM falling into the water, someone supposedly exiting the boat, and finally ending up in the Blue Bayou kitchen lol
 


We've been evacuated twice. The first time was on Alice in Wonderland. We were stopped in the room with all the singing flowers. Thank goodness the audio shut off, LOL. There were a few announcements over the loud speaker to stay put & we would be evacuated. After about 20 minutes, a CM came and installed some safety cables and we were able to walk out. We ended up exiting through a door that led outside into the middle of a parade! It was great. The CM gave us front-of-the-line passes for any 2 rides.

The second time was on Pinocchio. We stopped at the very end of the ride in the little room that has all the wood carvings, clocks, etc. We took a bunch of pictures and video. It was neat to see all the cute little things that you pass by too quickly during the ride. After just a few minutes a CM came and walked us out the regular exit.

It's kind of fun being evac'd because you sometimes get a peek behind the scenes.
 
I’ve been evaced off of space twice in the spot between the load zone and the vehicle departure. It was uneventful to say the least. First time I was evaced the ride did shut down so they gave everyone multi experience passes that were good for any ride in Disneyland except PP, so I used it for Alice. The second time they had us wait in the loading area and they got the ride back on line about 10 minutes later and re boarded us.
 
I got evacuated from Splash Mountain in Disneyland. The ride had been down almost all day and when it finally re-opened we were SO excited to get on. We got stopped right before going down Slippin Falls. A cast member finally came and tied down all of the logs and escorted us off and out of the ride. It was very cool to see the backstage area both inside and outside of the ride. We also got multi experience FP to make up for it.
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We were evacuated near the top of the Splash Mountain lift hill. The little girls (7 and 8) were pretty thrilled that they got to see "behind the scenes" - we got an "any" FP (this was last year, when paper FP was still a thing) for it, but, unfortunately, we planned to use it for RSR after dark, and RSR was down the whole weekend we were there. So I still have it somewhere.
 
I’ve been evaced off of space twice in the spot between the load zone and the vehicle departure. It was uneventful to say the least. First time I was evaced the ride did shut down so they gave everyone multi experience passes that were good for any ride in Disneyland except PP, so I used it for Alice. The second time they had us wait in the loading area and they got the ride back on line about 10 minutes later and re boarded us.

We had this happen too, back in 1978. We had just boarded, then they took us out of the car after the loading zone & we went into a little room. Then we ended up getting on a different car. I was only 8 years old so I don't remember why they did that.
 
We evac'd off of IAJ and got to walk under the spinning boulder!
We walked past a car that had blown a hydraulic line. It left a trail of oil throughout the ride until it shut down.
 
We had this happen too, back in 1978. We had just boarded, then they took us out of the car after the loading zone & we went into a little room. Then we ended up getting on a different car. I was only 8 years old so I don't remember why they did that.
If they pull you off and the ride is still running it’s usually a weight bearing issue.
 
Pirates and it was awesome. It was a few years ago after it came back from the long refurb. It must have been down before we got on because there were alot of empty boats in front of us but it also was toward the end of the night so there wasn't a whole lot of people on the ride to begin with. We got stopped right under the pirate dangling his leg. They did their announcement about moving soon....and again...and again...we were stopped for QUITE.A.WHILE before they turned on the light but they did NOT turn off the music. :laughing: Another announcement about waiting patiently to be escorted off our boat. As there were no people on front of us, we noticed the boats behind us being pushed to an exit point by two guy IN THE WATER in those wader pants. We were the last boat to be pushed to an exit point. I can't think of where it is right now but point it out each ride now. :laughing: We exited up some stairs and then down some stairs to a backstage area. We had to walk a path with a few security guards along the way to point us in the right direction. We ended up passing by a cast member breakroom or cafeteria and again up some stairs to come out by the bathrooms in NOS by the Mint Julep bar. As we exited this area, we were each given a front of the line pass but as I said it was near the end of the day when we got on so we only had about 5 mins left of park time. :laughing: In the end, from being stopped to actually exiting the backstage area, we were there almost 2 hours. Definitely the coolest experience we've ever had....also happened to be my daughter birthday so it's something she still talks about every we go on her birthday. :bitelip:
 
We were also once evacuated from Indiana Jones in the skeleton area. We had to wait a while to be escorted out but while we waited a lady started freaking out...trying to get out of her lap belt and saying I've gotten get out of here...:eek: so they kept announcing over the speaker to be calm and patient and they would get to us as soon as they could. I think because of her they came to our car first...lol They had a step stool type thing, we had to climb down and then walked back toward the loading area. We were instructed no pictures or videos and the CM were very firm about walking careful against the wall, keeping up with the group...etc.
 
In all my years of attending Disneyland, I've only ever been evacuated once (I was stuck in IASW once w/ the music still going for about 45 minutes). It was on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We got stuck and I was right under the waterfall. Normally, you just get a drop or two when passing it but when we got stuck I was right under it w/ water pouring down on me. Of course, they say, please don't move. But I did thoroughly enjoy the walk out. It's a tad steep there so getting my old bones out of the car took a little help.
 
We were evacuated from Snow White last summer. We almost made it through the whole ride and just before the end it quit. The lights came on and we were all escorted off the ride. My daughter thought it was pretty neat to see inside the ride with the lights on.
 
It’s not the coolest ride to be evacuated from, but we were evacuated off of Star Tours a few weeks ago. It was my 4yr old DD’s first time ever on the ride! DH, DS(7) and I knew something was up when the ride felt like it was making a jerky landing right after blasting off to a new segment. Everything closed up, the lights went on and the doors opened. The CM walked in and practically shouted “everyone get out!”. As we were quickly ushered off, we see that every screen is also being evacuated. As we get down to the store, we see emergency lights flashing and that the entire building has been evacuated! It was actually a bit scary knowing it wasn’t just the ride malfunctioning. We weren’t sure if it was a fire, or something even worse. The CM’s weren’t sure either. They just said a serious alarm went off. We got our any experience fp’s and were able to ride it agin that night! I guess all was good.
 
We got evacuated off Space but it was really boring as it was at the beginning... instead of going up suddenly we shot into a hidden back stage section (on the left) and were told to get out (using a ladder)! we then just got taken around the back and they reloaded us using a 2nd loading point (the one they use for people with wheelchairs). It was very odd but I'm assuming they detected a problem with the cart we were in.

We also had some random dude GET OUT of a boat in front of us on Pirates and put down a backpack and started taking photos or doing something with his phone - it was all VERY suss and I think people around were really worried what this dude was doing (we were 2 boats back). We were stopped for ages - I don't know why a CM didn't come and get the guy but eventually he put his backpack back on and jumped into the boat in front of us. Then we had a very LONG wait for the loading dock (obviously they were looking at camera footage to ID the guy and getting security) and yes he got mobbed by security as soon as his boat unloaded. Our quick ride on Pirates (had no wait by the way!) ended up taking 40-50 mins.
 

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