imagineergurl
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Evaced last night on Splash Mountain
- Thread starter larathydo
- Start date
Bluewaves
Well-Known Member
My personal opinion, working at an amusement park, not Disney, if you feel there is a possibility that someone may freak out if a ride stops do not take them on the ride.
Having evaced roller coasters before we want you to stay on the ride and get the ride moving as fast as possible to take you off in the station, having guests moving about freely in areas that we can't control your movements are not what we want to do. I'm sure the cast members feel the same way, you are much safer in your harness, seat belt, seat, etc.. than moving in areas that are not meant for guests to be in without escort.
SO rule #1 of theme / amusement parks, obey the safety directions very clearly, stay in your seat unless specifically told to do different by an operator, read warnings before you go on a ride.
#2 most rides have lots of warning and alarms that will go off if the ride stops and is being restarted, mainly warning everyone that things are going to get moving, don't get scared, remain calm.
#3 most parks want you to be safe, there is no reason they would do something that you wouldn't be safe in on purpose, it would be a pr nightmare. Stay calm the music might get annoying but you'll be fine.
Having evaced roller coasters before we want you to stay on the ride and get the ride moving as fast as possible to take you off in the station, having guests moving about freely in areas that we can't control your movements are not what we want to do. I'm sure the cast members feel the same way, you are much safer in your harness, seat belt, seat, etc.. than moving in areas that are not meant for guests to be in without escort.
SO rule #1 of theme / amusement parks, obey the safety directions very clearly, stay in your seat unless specifically told to do different by an operator, read warnings before you go on a ride.
#2 most rides have lots of warning and alarms that will go off if the ride stops and is being restarted, mainly warning everyone that things are going to get moving, don't get scared, remain calm.
#3 most parks want you to be safe, there is no reason they would do something that you wouldn't be safe in on purpose, it would be a pr nightmare. Stay calm the music might get annoying but you'll be fine.
Bluewaves
Well-Known Member
that was in 2000, not 2001
Crazy4WDW1
Active Member
Buried20KLeague
Well-Known Member
It's this kind of stuff (people hopping out of logs when SM goes down) that's going to earn us those lap bars in the logs.
Space Mountain
Well-Known Member
Ok...so now I have a question for a CM....I have never been on a ride that has been stopped for any length of time, but my question is...if I am on a ride that is stopped and my child starts screaming or is extremely terrified...is there something that I can do to get a CM's attention to come and escort us out? I have a 2 yr old DD and she can ride POTC, but if it were to stop for a lengthy amount of time, she would eventually break down. So as a mother, is there something I can do to let a CM know that we need to get off the ride asap? I am the type of person that would'nt get off the ride due to safety for my child and myself so....any info would be helpful for the future. Thanks!:wave:
P.S......sorry to thread jack
The only way you are getting out is if everyone else has to be removed. Once one person is out of their ride vehicle, everything must me shut down, locked out, and evacuated.
Evac's may seem easy, but its a lengthy process from communication to guests/other cast members/managers/admin, taking account for which vehicles are loaded and where, locking out the entire system and tagging out cast members into the ride area, etc etc.
AstareGod
New Member
I got evac'd from Splash Mountain back in early July of this year. This was before the section right before the big lift hill to the big drop. I could tell something was up because the conveyor for the lift hill before the big lift had our log stuck for a bit longer than it was supposed to, then we were about 5 logs backed up at the bottom of the big lift hill. We were stuck there for about 5 minutes before we got the "commotion downstream" spiels, and then all the lights came on. I was excited because I had never done an evac before. About 10-15 minutes after that, we saw some cast members running around going to their stations, and we eventually had two cast members tell us that we would be evacuated and had us very carefully climb to the back of our logs and then onto the platform on the side of the ride path. Everything was handled very professionally, and we got to see the outside of the ride building and some of backstage. We all got handed the special Fastpasses mentioned earlier in the thread, but they were only good for about 2 weeks I think, for any attraction in MK. I still have them lying around somewhere - if I can find them I'll try to post a picture of it.
unkadug
Follower of "Saget"The Cult
Why would resuming the ride terrify anyone?
You got on the attraction expecting to ride it out, so why would finishing it after a delay be any different?
mp2bill
Well-Known Member
Ditto
Hey Guys,
Finally got back from the parks. Wow, when I posted this I definitely underestimated the power of forums! I didn't mean to entice a flame war!
Imagineergurl, I can understand your frustration as a cast member for those who got out of the logs and I am in complete agreement with the reason you encourage people to stay in the logs. I feel that my original post may not have been clear enough or has been generally misconstrued for those who have replied to this thread. If you refer to my original post, I do state that I agree with your assessment of the "stay in your log" policy. My issue was with the length of time we were told to wait in the ride - it seemed too excessive to be a brief wait before we would be starting to move again. On a typical run of Splash Mountain, I have seen holdups of 5-10 minute waits which I presume is because of slow boarding or wheelchair transfers in the area where you board. That night was different. If it were truly one of those scenarios, waiting then resuming the ride would have been tolerable. However, the way the events played out and the length of time we all had to wait seemed more unusual then normal, which lead to several people feeling very uncomfortable and most notably frightened (as people's natural reaction is to assume that there might be something "technically" wrong that could put them in danger).
I understand when situations don't go your way as a cast member, people getting out makes you're night that much worse and I truly sympathize, but nervous guests shouldn't be forced to finish a ride just because it means you could avoid doing a full evacuation. In other words, I (as well as others, I assume) wish that that call to evacuate could have been made sooner from the very moment that logs stopped moving due to the excessive wait time, if that makes sense. There is a difference between riding the ride for the thrill and being forced to ride anxiously.
Your claim of 22 minutes of downtime is also interesting. To be honest, I didn't anticipate this to happen at all, so from the inital moment we stopped (we all) assumed it was probably just going to be one of those "5-10 minute waits till we move again" kinda thing and didn't pay full attention to the length of time (when we stopped moving and this all started). Ya know, the "They are causing trouble upstream" announcements...
Now in all fairness and also most likely in your defense, you may likely be correct about the overall wait time being less than what I initially thought, however to be honest that was only a rough estimation of the total time. In other words, I don't know at what point you consider the ride going "down" and then going "up", resulting in the total downtime of 22 minutes you describe, but all I meant to say is that (once again, full disclosure - without having any concrete proof other than you guys giving me the benefit of the doubt :lol I am almost completely certain we waited a minimum of at least 15-20 minutes before others on the ride started getting rowdy & leaving the logs. I also waited waited about another 10-15 minutes before someone helped me out of the logs. This isnt including the time people started leaving the logs (I.E the video I recorded, as described below).
I started recording a video of what went down about 10+ minutes after we initially stopped. In total, I recorded about 15 minutes of footage. As I started before, I didn't even look at my watch, so I don't know the exact before and after times. It was never my intention to blow any of this out of context, but if I took into consideration how much time I did not record before and after up until the point we were escorted out of the ride, it was more than 22 minutes.
I guess I am just a little confused by your claims based on my experience that night, and perhaps I am missing something? In any case, I'm not trying to call anyone out - besides the few cast members making the announcements through the alarms, I found all the others to be extremely pleasant on the way out, as I would expect. I'm just disheartened that so many would act so dismissively regarding my claims & suggestions. In any case...
Finally - and for the record - some people seemed to think that I "expected" the fastpasses as compensation and that Disney somehow was obligated to give me something in return. This couldn't be further from the truth. The way I look at it, It was an absolute privlidge to have a few fleeting moments to get to see the backstage area of the park. I've always been interesting in engineering (amateur, haha) and function of the parks and found it fascinating. Always wondered what it looked like over there / how it worked behind the scenes. I wasn't really surprised that disney gave me the fastpasses at the end because this is Disney afterall! They are one of the few companies that has any proper customer service these days. I was appreciative, not expectant.
Oh, speaking about customer service there is a silver lining to this story. I went back to our resort and asked them if we had any options regarding not returning to the magic kingdom in light of the issues we had. They wrote us special certificates that we could use for any fastpass anywhere! In addition, today at Hollywood Studios at Guest Relations they exchanged some of the MK fastpasses for Hollywood Studios fastpasses! Anyone who could ever complain about service like that is bonkers! :hammer:
Finally got back from the parks. Wow, when I posted this I definitely underestimated the power of forums! I didn't mean to entice a flame war!
Imagineergurl, I can understand your frustration as a cast member for those who got out of the logs and I am in complete agreement with the reason you encourage people to stay in the logs. I feel that my original post may not have been clear enough or has been generally misconstrued for those who have replied to this thread. If you refer to my original post, I do state that I agree with your assessment of the "stay in your log" policy. My issue was with the length of time we were told to wait in the ride - it seemed too excessive to be a brief wait before we would be starting to move again. On a typical run of Splash Mountain, I have seen holdups of 5-10 minute waits which I presume is because of slow boarding or wheelchair transfers in the area where you board. That night was different. If it were truly one of those scenarios, waiting then resuming the ride would have been tolerable. However, the way the events played out and the length of time we all had to wait seemed more unusual then normal, which lead to several people feeling very uncomfortable and most notably frightened (as people's natural reaction is to assume that there might be something "technically" wrong that could put them in danger).
I understand when situations don't go your way as a cast member, people getting out makes you're night that much worse and I truly sympathize, but nervous guests shouldn't be forced to finish a ride just because it means you could avoid doing a full evacuation. In other words, I (as well as others, I assume) wish that that call to evacuate could have been made sooner from the very moment that logs stopped moving due to the excessive wait time, if that makes sense. There is a difference between riding the ride for the thrill and being forced to ride anxiously.
Your claim of 22 minutes of downtime is also interesting. To be honest, I didn't anticipate this to happen at all, so from the inital moment we stopped (we all) assumed it was probably just going to be one of those "5-10 minute waits till we move again" kinda thing and didn't pay full attention to the length of time (when we stopped moving and this all started). Ya know, the "They are causing trouble upstream" announcements...
Now in all fairness and also most likely in your defense, you may likely be correct about the overall wait time being less than what I initially thought, however to be honest that was only a rough estimation of the total time. In other words, I don't know at what point you consider the ride going "down" and then going "up", resulting in the total downtime of 22 minutes you describe, but all I meant to say is that (once again, full disclosure - without having any concrete proof other than you guys giving me the benefit of the doubt :lol
I am almost completely certain we waited a minimum of at least 15-20 minutes before others on the ride started getting rowdy & leaving the logs. I also waited waited about another 10-15 minutes before someone helped me out of the logs. This isnt including the time people started leaving the logs (I.E the video I recorded, as described below).I started recording a video of what went down about 10+ minutes after we initially stopped. In total, I recorded about 15 minutes of footage. As I started before, I didn't even look at my watch, so I don't know the exact before and after times. It was never my intention to blow any of this out of context, but if I took into consideration how much time I did not record before and after up until the point we were escorted out of the ride, it was more than 22 minutes.
I guess I am just a little confused by your claims based on my experience that night, and perhaps I am missing something? In any case, I'm not trying to call anyone out - besides the few cast members making the announcements through the alarms, I found all the others to be extremely pleasant on the way out, as I would expect. I'm just disheartened that so many would act so dismissively regarding my claims & suggestions. In any case...
Finally - and for the record - some people seemed to think that I "expected" the fastpasses as compensation and that Disney somehow was obligated to give me something in return. This couldn't be further from the truth. The way I look at it, It was an absolute privlidge to have a few fleeting moments to get to see the backstage area of the park. I've always been interesting in engineering (amateur, haha) and function of the parks and found it fascinating. Always wondered what it looked like over there / how it worked behind the scenes. I wasn't really surprised that disney gave me the fastpasses at the end because this is Disney afterall! They are one of the few companies that has any proper customer service these days. I was appreciative, not expectant.
Oh, speaking about customer service there is a silver lining to this story. I went back to our resort and asked them if we had any options regarding not returning to the magic kingdom in light of the issues we had. They wrote us special certificates that we could use for any fastpass anywhere! In addition, today at Hollywood Studios at Guest Relations they exchanged some of the MK fastpasses for Hollywood Studios fastpasses! Anyone who could ever complain about service like that is bonkers! :hammer:
Why would resuming the ride terrify anyone?
You got on the attraction expecting to ride it out, so why would finishing it after a delay be any different?
Oh,
What I meant to say is that people were nervous to stop RIGHT BEFORE the big drop, so waiting the unusual amount of time and hearing stuff on the intercom at that particular point made some people feel a bit anxious & worried.
Personally, I didn't care, but it did bother others and they just didn't want to have to face completing the ride with the thought of "what if" racing through their minds, not to mention the little kids... It's different if you go through the ride and nothing happens. You are psychologically in a different mindset, I guess.
me_stitch
Premium Member
if it was that big of a deal to go on Splash then why did u wait till 11 pm on your last night there?? I seriously doubt it was an hour and like the cm said, they have to secure the whole ride, it wasn't just your section that was broke down. jeez people are impatient, I would've just chalked it up to an experience I wasn't expecting.
Thrill Seeker
Well-Known Member
I was working when that happened (at greeter, but still). Unfortunately, evacuations at Splash take a while. We only have a limited amount of people running the mountain and we cannot send everyone due to crowd control. I was stuck outside telling people we were closed.
We have to have at least two people at every drop and every lift in order to evacuate. If you are at the second drop or just before the station, those areas require three CMs to evac. Once both (or all three) people are in position, we have to go one log at a time, one row at a time so that we won't have a mad rush of people getting out and lots of slipping and falling or falling into the flume. Once everyone in that area is out, we lead everyone out together. It's a time consuming process, but it's all done as quickly and safely as possible.
Just as a suggestion, if you ever get stopped on Splash for an extended period of time, please DON'T GET OUT OF YOUR LOG! That will require us to evacuate as opposed to simply resetting the ride and letting you finish, which is a much faster process... Only get out when instructed by a CM if we have to evacuate.
We have to have at least two people at every drop and every lift in order to evacuate. If you are at the second drop or just before the station, those areas require three CMs to evac. Once both (or all three) people are in position, we have to go one log at a time, one row at a time so that we won't have a mad rush of people getting out and lots of slipping and falling or falling into the flume. Once everyone in that area is out, we lead everyone out together. It's a time consuming process, but it's all done as quickly and safely as possible.
Just as a suggestion, if you ever get stopped on Splash for an extended period of time, please DON'T GET OUT OF YOUR LOG! That will require us to evacuate as opposed to simply resetting the ride and letting you finish, which is a much faster process... Only get out when instructed by a CM if we have to evacuate.
Phonedave
Well-Known Member
After reading through this entire mess, the one word that pops into my head is
Communication.
When you are sitting there in a log, hearing the same "trouble downstream" automated message over and over again, 10 minutes can seem like an hour.
A simple message such as "we are resetting the ride, it should take a few minutes. Please stay in your logs or else we will be forced to clear the ride out" or "OK, someone got out of their log, forcing a shut down. It will take us a while to get to each log in order to ensure you are safely escorted off the ride. Please remain in your logs until we get there. No worries, nothing is wrong, we just need the ride cleared before we can reset it" given by a HUMAN would go a long way to put people at ease and calm them down.
-dave
Communication.
When you are sitting there in a log, hearing the same "trouble downstream" automated message over and over again, 10 minutes can seem like an hour.
A simple message such as "we are resetting the ride, it should take a few minutes. Please stay in your logs or else we will be forced to clear the ride out" or "OK, someone got out of their log, forcing a shut down. It will take us a while to get to each log in order to ensure you are safely escorted off the ride. Please remain in your logs until we get there. No worries, nothing is wrong, we just need the ride cleared before we can reset it" given by a HUMAN would go a long way to put people at ease and calm them down.
-dave
Thrill Seeker
Well-Known Member
We do that. Things were kinda crazy that night, which is why there weren't that many spiels.
BigRedDad
Well-Known Member
OK, so I am slightly crazy it wasn't our honeymoon but when I proposed to my wife. I knew it was in November. It sucks turning 40.
This is where Six Flags is superior to Disney. CMs should have been dispatched to the locations where the logs were stopped so that they can personally inform the guests to remain seated. It's reassuring to guests that everything is ok, and that there is someone who can answer (or avoid) their questions. A barely comprehensible announcement over the PA system isn't going to do anything. They have no idea what's going on, and minutes can seem like hours (just ask anyone who's been in a serious accident and is waiting for an ambulance). It's one of the reasons some rides at Six Flags won't run at full capacity...they want to make sure that there is enough staff to "host" the ride vehicles in the event of a downtime. It is to prevent EXACTLY what happened at Splash Mountain, guests getting out of ride vehicles.
Guests shouldn't have to learn because Disney should have procedures in place to calm panicked guests, who are left wondering for 20 minutes what is wrong. I love Splash Mountain, but it is one of the most poorly operated rides I've ever been on.
They shouldn't need intrusion alarms. If Disney staffed positions through the rides at stopping points (i.e., where the boats will stop or get jammed) like every other theme park with a flume, they won't have to worry about guests climbing into restricted areas.