Problem day for MK.

[bapplegate]

As any mechanism ages, it is subject to increased breakdown. These incidents can be reduced by planned maintenance but can never be completely eliminated. Physical devices seem to like to break down in ways never anticipated by maintenance.

In addition, there often is a reluctance by management to spend money on something that's not broken. Proactive maintenance is a difficult "sell" to senior management, especially when senior management's background is in a non-technical field. As a result, what's usually budgeted is what makes the most financial sense, not always what's needed.

These two contributing factors can combine together to result in increased incidents in non-operability.

The above generalizations may or may not apply to WDW. I don't work at Disney and have no idea what it is like there. However, if this is what's happening, then it would not be much different than what happens in many other industries.

:sohappy: I AGREE!

 

[PirateFrank]

Been to WDW at least once a year since 05....some years 10 day+ trips, other years, multiple trips...been annual pass holders for at least 3 of those years....

I have *never* seen POTC down.....ever.

Am I lucky? Or is this being overblown?

 

[bapplegate]

Been to WDW at least once a year since 05....some years 10 day+ trips, other years, multiple trips...been annual pass holders for at least 3 of those years....

I have *never* seen POTC down.....ever.

Am I lucky? Or is this being overblown?

no i have been there five times and last in 2010. i have never had it down once and if a ride is down they get it running prety fast. i think we need to give disney a break here. they are older rides

 

[MissM]

Pirates had probably six or eight hours of downtime yesterday. A friend from out of town said he's been trying for days, unsuccessfully, to get on the ride during its increasingly infrequent uptimes. I haven't heard what's going on yet, but am curious.

Yup, Pirates was down ALL DAY yesterday. We kept checking but it was totally dead in the water. They had ropes up along the front and about 6 CM's standing up at the rope line, repeating over and over to guests that it was down and they didn't know when it was coming back up.

 

[bapplegate]

Yup, Pirates was down ALL DAY yesterday. We kept checking but it was totally dead in the water. They had ropes up along the front and about 6 CM's standing up at the rope line, repeating over and over to guests that it was down and they didn't know when it was coming back up.

oh wow seriously? do they know anything about why it was down?

 

[Panhead]

POTC was indeed closed down. BTMRR was cycling with empty trains AND trains filled with "water dummies"; the latter was quite interesting to watch. :lol:

Around 9pm I saw the TTA stop for quite some time aswell, 10min+.


-Chris-

 

[wolf359]

Been to WDW at least once a year since 05....some years 10 day+ trips, other years, multiple trips...been annual pass holders for at least 3 of those years....

I have *never* seen POTC down.....ever.

Am I lucky? Or is this being overblown?

Other than the visit when Pirates of the Caribbean was down for it's major rehab, I can think of at least two, maybe three other visits where it either opened late or had a mid-day closure.

So rare, sure but not unheard of.

I agree these problems are caused in part by the age of the attraction, compounded by the number of moving elements, and sometimes completely overblown by our immediate access to information via the internet.

I'm reminded of the news last year that John's hand had fallen off on the Carousel of Progress and the thread was filled with over five pages of posts claiming this was just more proof of Disney's failing maintenance before we learned it had been broken for less than 45 minutes.

 

[patricia27]

Well every park must have problems---for your information, Legoland in the UK has had to close for the day, due to a power failure!!

 

[Kobe!!]

Pirates goes down more often then you think. My roommate has worked it since 09. I guess lately thought it's been down for longer periods of time.

 

[MissM]

oh wow seriously? do they know anything about why it was down?

No, I don't. Maybe someone else has insider info on what caused the downtime to be so significant.

Around 9pm I saw the TTA stop for quite some time aswell, 10min+.

It went down for a few minutes earlier too. Probably around 8pm-ish? We just entered Space Mountain and the ride stopped, rolled backward quite a bit and went dead. The lights came on a few minutes later and we sat for a couple, then they announced we were starting back up. Probably only 5 minutes total but seems like there were problems a few times yesterday then.

 

[Jimmy Thick]

Its going to get to the point where every time a toilet backs up at Disney, someone is going to post about it, then someone is going to use it as an example of how Disney is doing a horrible job of maintaining the toilets.

If its not the toilets people will complain the toilet paper was cheap and the profits used from cheap toilet paper went into Meg Crofton's pocket.



Jimmy Thick-Some people miss the whole point to a vacation destination...

 

[marni1971]

It isn't rare for PotC to go down. 101 and evac maybe rare, but cycle out and try to fix problems isn't uncommon.

 

[bethymouse]

It happens everywhere!

Ride closures happen at every park I have ever been to!
I agree w/ the people who talked about our "information age" of cellphones and such! We know more readily when things happen, which can be good or bad!:goodnevil
I am thankful for people letting us know when things happen, but I am disappointed when people blow things out of proportion!
I have never experienced a problem @ POTC except backed up boats at the exit, same a IASW.
I have experienced problems @ Splash Mountain several times, sometime more than 15 minutes and almost having to evacuate!
I have waited for BTMRR to open. We just sat there and smoked a cigarette or two ( in the smoking section of course:lol, talked to people, and waved at the passengers on LSRiverboat!
We have gotten "stuck" on HM many times for more than 5 minutes!
We were in line for TT (1/2 hr) and had to evacuate, and the 1st time my boys rode TT (4 yrs old) we were stuck sideways in a very uncomfortable position for more than 20 minutes! When they fixed it, we were allowed to ride it as many times in a row as we wanted AND the CMs took my little one who was scared to death to the CONTROL ROOM to see how they worked the system!
Of course we've been stopped @ SE as well for long periods of time!:dazzle:
Never had any problems @ AK or HS!:shrug:
Bottom line- live for those MAGICAL MOMENTS @ WDW and don't sweat the SMALL stuff!

 

[Bolt]

TTC goes down from time to time because of how they load wheelchair guests similar to any other Omimover...

 

[wdwfan22]

The TTA stops anytime someone stands up and that happens all the time, so most likely it's not a ride breakdown.

 

[pauljennyl]

WDW vs. other amusement parks

My opinion is that other Coaster-oriented amusement parks have WAY more ride shutdowns than any of the the Disney parks. Now some of that is due to low level safety alarms that are computer generated.

Our our last 11 day vacation in Oct 2011 (opening to close every day!), POTC was shut down one evening for 30 minutes, but we never came across any other ride shutdowns in any of the parks.

Our last trips to Cedar Point, Kings Island, Valleyfair, Nickelodeon Universe, Six Flags Great America --- I could write novels for each park on various shutdowns throughout each day, or unexpected all day closures once we got there.

 

[unkadug]

TTC goes down from time to time because of how they load wheelchair guests similar to any other Omimover...

Really? I've never seen the TTC go down at all.

 

[gibsonc]

Well all seemed fine at MK this morning, apart from the chief and co where not dancing on the Jungle Cruise which the skipper made a joke about Disney Maintenance, and my main concern, the citrus swirl machine wasn't working at Sunshine Tree Terrace, so made do with soft serve swirl... which was good.

 

[wdw71fan]

Most people don't realize that attractions generally suffer at LEAST 1 outage, per ride, per day..

Nature of machines, equipment and a little mother nature mixed in for balance.. Regardless of quality of building, materials or maintnance....

 

[Bob Saget]

I wonder what the connection is between these breakdowns in recent years, and the massive layoffs of '09 which included many-a-maint.-worker. :shrug: