Rides Breaking Down

[RemysRatatouilleKitchen]

Are rides really breaking down as much as I am hearing? Has it always been this bad or is it getting worse? What do you think is the underlying issue here?

 

[LSUmiss]

Are rides really breaking down as much as I am hearing? Has it always been this bad or is it getting worse? What do you think is the underlying issue here?

Sadly they were in Jan, Nov, Oct, & July on our last trips.

 

[Her Dotness]

A general shortage of maintenance CMs is my guess. WDW was noticeably shortstaffed when we were there in the fall.

We didn't experience any ride breakdowns during our week, though, nor see any indications as we went past rides.

ETA: Oh, but I forgot the FL resident friend we'd had lunch with one day went over to DHS afterward. She texted us that she was stuck inside the Tower of Terror for about 15 minutes. Said it wasn't awful as people started telling jokes and singing silly songs until they were rescued to keep kids from panicking.

 

[lockets]

Not sure how it was in the past but...

August 2021 trip
Rise of the Resistance broke down and we got stuck in the pre-ride vehicle for a good 20 minutes - then we were evacuated.

January 2022 trip
7 Dwarves Mine Train broke down right after we used our ILL. It was down for at least 2-3 hours, maybe longer.
Mount Everest out of service for renovation
Splash Mountain out of service for renovation
Hagrid's down from 11 AM through park close at Universal. Never got to ride it. Sad.

 

[rstevens333]

Probably not fair to count attractions down for scheduled maintenance.

 

[Ngiza Buyabo]

It’s not that they’re breaking down more, it’s that social media/technology is used more and now it’s reported every time a ride goes down. Older rides will have issues, and with newer tech, the new rides tend to go down because of “show” issues a lot. It’s been about the same as it has for the last decade, granted there is maintenance that probably should be done that isn’t.

 

[lowlight]

This question is probably best for locals with AP's who go a LOT, but I'll answer with what happened on my trip in late Jan-Feb of 22- the rides went down a LOT, and they were down for hours at a time. It was bad enough that I received several "experience redemptions" per day.

 

[lockets]

Probably not fair to count attractions down for scheduled maintenance.

Of course. Especially because they don’t count as ride breakdowns literally.

Reason I included it above is because the secondary issue of rides being either broken down or out of service for maintenance, especially on busy days and at the same park, is those rides are not entertaining a capacity of people. And that means those people are flooding into different rides and areas of the park.

So on the one hand there’s the surface issue of it being a letdown when a ride breaks down. Additionally - like the MK situation I described above when 7 Dwarves is out for hours plus Splash Mountain all day - everywhere else becomes “packed” even more.

Something for people to keep in mind…

 

[old lady]

All the money we spend on parks and they don’t have enough of it to spend on maintenance.

 

[TCRAIG]

I would say - from personal experience - 1000% YES! Been going for decades and never had a breakdown in the ‘old’ days then rarely up until fairly recently - but the worst was our trip of Dec of 21 - and we had several breakdown daily each of the 7 days we were there at a variety of parks and rides - we even made a game of it - worst was Remy - after being stopped for over 30 minutes - they finally announce we’d need to evacuate which then took over an hour before they got to our little rat car - not fun on my poor old back and knees…

 

[tup1830]

Anecdote from yesterday...2/13

Mickey and Minnie RR - broke down after waiting 50 min in line (given LL return)
Rise of the Resistance - broke down as we were walking to the attraction

Arguably the two headliners of the park...i would say that it is getting worse OR the new trackless systems are more prone to needing to be rebooted. Maybe they should schedule some down time into the calendar for rebooting...with full disclosure to ensure that it stays up and running....just my uneducated guess

 

[PurplePigment]

I've been in a position with regular park access for maybe half a year by now, I tend to go at least once a week. I've experienced two major breakdowns; twenty minute stop on Test Track, full on evacuation on Carousel of Progress. They were a few months apart.

I could just be lucky. Other people could be unlucky. I guess my point is there's a lot of confirmation bias in this kind of topic.

 

[soniam]

I pretty much just see rides that have a history of breaking down mentioned in these posts. I don't think it's any worse than it used to be. However, I do think both WDW and UO have recently opened flaky rides that are popular and make it seem like everything is breaking down. I'm looking at you Hagrid's, Rise, and Runaway Railway (to be fair, it's the most reliable of the 3).

 

[HashberryOTG]

Keep in mind, rides like Rise, MMRR, Remy, etc., are continuous movers. If someone gets sick on the ride, it umm.... spreads. The ride has to come down for quite some time for cleanup. This isn't something they can control, but the ride shows simply as "down", same as if it were a technical problem. It doesn't always mean broken down. Yes, many of the above examples are likely more technical in nature, but other times, it's 100% out of their control.

 

[meremac]

We've gone 2-3 times a year for the last decade (and less often but relatively regularly before that). In my personal experience (and I'm just one person so YMMV), I don't think it's any worse than it always was honestly.

 

[tup1830]

Lion King Show...
this isn't a breakdown...so i'm confused as to why this happened.
The pre-show animal voices and teams was all cut out
Monkeys acrobats was cut out
Birds danced on the stage, but the yellow/blue bird didn't fly
Celebration at the end was skimpy on the celebration...no kids interacting

I'm sure some of this is staffing, some covid and some is just bizarre...maybe this is the new normal, not sure what to make of it all

 

[BrianL]

Lion King Show...
this isn't a breakdown...so i'm confused as to why this happened.
The pre-show animal voices and teams was all cut out
Monkeys acrobats was cut out
Birds danced on the stage, but the yellow/blue bird didn't fly
Celebration at the end was skimpy on the celebration...no kids interacting

I'm sure some of this is staffing, some covid and some is just bizarre...maybe this is the new normal, not sure what to make of it all

Word is they are re-staffing for this show, but I don't know what changes. They do want the acrobats/aerialists back for sure. I think staffing is an issue. The performers have different contracts and unions to deal with than other CMs do, though I don't really know the specifics. I think they will restore the show completely though when they can.

 

[HashberryOTG]

Lion King Show...

Some time ago (my sense of time sucks, it could be a while) a bunch of the staff was sick and had to step out/quarantine for a bit. I've heard stories of shows having to make adjustments based simply on how many performers are available at the last minute.

 

[dadr]

Anecdote from yesterday...2/13

Mickey and Minnie RR - broke down after waiting 50 min in line (given LL return)
Rise of the Resistance - broke down as we were walking to the attraction

Someone in our school group had the same experience on 2/11. Waited 90 min for MMRR and it shut down. Then waited 120 min for ROTR, then got stuck in the storm trooper bay for an hour! That would be the best place to be stuck at least. But those 2 rides were down several times that day.

We also had more brief stoppages than in the past on multiple rides, and not just the new ones.

 

[dkostel]

I was there all last week and aside from scheduled maintenance there was A LOT of unscheduled down time in all 4 parks. Much more than I’ve seen before and I’ve been over 50 times. It must be a maintenance staffing issue but with increasing prices on everything I would think they could pay enough to retain this vital staff if guest satisfaction was an actual priority.