Disney World's no good, very bad week of ride accidents points to a bigger issue at the Orlando resort

[Travisma 1,317]

 

 

In less than a week, the Magic Kingdom saw a Jungle Cruise boat sink, an incident on the PeopleMover, and an unexpected closure of its Haunted Mansion. The no good, verybad week for Magic Kingdom points to a more significant issue facing Walt Disney World – and no matter how Disney chooses to address it, many guests will be left unhappy.

 

While every attraction faces unplanned minor issues from time to time, the back-to-back-to-back major issues at the Magic Kingdom shows something bigger is happening. The Magic Kingdom remains the most visited theme park in the world, and many of its rides are some of the most ridden attractions ever built. The constant daily grind means these attractions see more unexpected downtimes than similarly-functioning attractions at other parks, in part because those attractions incorporate more planned downtime.

• Image via cseynicole/Twitter

At Disneyland, many high-demand attractions, such as Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain, see multiple closures per year as the attractions receive holiday-themed overlays. These types of overlays are not as common in Orlando, where more the majority of guests visit the park once every few years, unlike the passholder-dependent California parks.
 

RELATED Guests and former cast members are roasting Disney on Twitter after Jungle Cruise boat sinking

"Refurbishments generally aren’t felt as much at Disneyland as they can be at Disney World because each of Disneyland’s parks have more attractions than each of the parks at Disney World," explained Dusty Sage, CEO of Disney watchdog site MiceChat.com. "That means the temporary closure of an E-Ticket at Disneyland doesn’t cause as much impact on guests (or the wait times of other attractions) as the closure of a major ride at Animal Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios."

Simply stated: Closed rides at Disney World hurt more than closures at Disneyland.click to tweet

"Due to Walt Disney World’s size, there are far more facilities at Walt Disney World to maintain than at Disneyland, and spread out over a vastly larger area," says Sage. "That makes the effort infinitely more difficult to accomplish in Disney’s Orlando resort."

The story is in the numbers. Here are the numbers of official rides at the Disney parks in Orlando and California:
 

 

Walt Disney World Rides: 51
• Magic Kingdom: 25
• Epcot: 9
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 8
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 9

Disneyland Resort Rides: 54
• Disneyland Park: 36
• Disney California Adventure: 18

"All rides have a regular refurbishment schedule that is budgeted. But from time to time, show conditions require that those schedules be sped up or possibly slowed down," says Sage, to accommodate the closure of other nearby attractions. He also notes that many of Disneyland’s attractions are older, some working since 1955, and require much more upkeep. Then there is Florida's extreme weather, which requires more exterior refurbishment.

• Image via ColtsMcGee | Reddit
• An animatronic operating at Disney World with its hand laying on the floor beside it.

Many current and former cast members have shared their concerns with the universal budget cuts that have riddled Disney Parks, despite their record-breaking profits. It’s still unclear if former Disney Parks president and now CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Chapek, will continue the cost-cutting initiatives he’s been credited with up until this point. After a round of budget cuts in 2016, Robert Niles of Theme Park Insider stated, such cuts will continue until guests begin voting with their wallets.

"The only way that Disney will back off cuts at its U.S. resorts will be if those cuts result in losses for the company," said Niles. "Ultimately, the parks' direction is ... determined by the decisions of Disney's theme park customers."

 

The issue in Orlando also seems linked to a decrease in preventative maintenance. From animatronics having their parts fall off during the middle of a show, to having multiple rides break down within the same week, its clear that the Orlando parks aren’t seeing the same level of maintenance quality they once did. This is also despite the parks operating for fewer hours per day. Many have faulted Chapek for the budget cuts across the parks division.

"The only way that Disney will back off cuts at its U.S. resorts will be if those cuts result in losses for the company."click to tweet

For attractions to operate at full capacity with all of the parts fully functioning, it means many of the rides people plan their vacations around will possibly see more downtime. That means more angry guests.

Disney insider Jim Hill has pointed to Spaceship Earth’s rumored two-and-a-half-year downtime now being bumped up to only a few months, as Disney becomes more unwilling to see iconic attractions, like Haunted Mansion or the monorails, being down for the months to years required to address many of the issues they face.

Without that willingness to close the attractions for extended downtime, it will likely mean park attractions will see more shorter, unscheduled downtimes as a band-aid. With shareholders more worried about the next quarter versus the next decade, that type of piecemeal approach will likely continue – until it becomes financially clear to Disney that it cannot.

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

Makes no sense.  If Disney wants to continue to allow the ridiculously high crowd capacity, then they need to be prepared to do a better job of having crews inspect/repair rides... nightly.  I'm sure there is some sort of (engineering) crew  there overnight, but (obviously) they need more.   I don't know, maybe that approach is to simplistic.   

So... now the 2+ year overhaul of the big ball has been reduced down to just a few months?   Hmmm... okay.

[Travisma 1,317]

16 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

Makes no sense.  If Disney wants to continue to allow the ridiculously high crowd capacity, then they need to be prepared to do a better job of having crews inspect/repair rides... nightly.  I'm sure there is some sort of (engineering) crew  there overnight, but (obviously) they need more.   I don't know, maybe that approach is to simplistic.   

So... now the 2+ year overhaul of the big ball has been reduced down to just a few months?   Hmmm... okay.

I'm sure they still do overnight maintenance, but maybe not as extensive as they used to?

Years ago, a former boss's father retired as an electrical engineer in PA and got a job at WDW.  He was assigned the People Mover.  They walked the entire track every evening looking for problems and running system checks on those components and the cars.

Now with later closings and earlier openings (and by different reports reduced staffing) who knows what gets checked/repaired before problems arise.

Look at a lot of the simple things that aren't being maintained like they used to, problems in the restrooms, peeling paint, more trash (that could just be a new generation of big slobs) etc.  Labor costs big $$$ reducing the bottom lines profits. 

It's less costly to wait for a ride to break and go down for a few days then it is to have someone checking it every night.  If it breaks, there will be disappointed people, but as we all know if one person gets mad and doesn't come back there will be 10 taking their place.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

55 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

So... now the 2+ year overhaul of the big ball has been reduced down to just a few months?   Hmmm... okay.

I'd take the source with a grain of salt on that one.

2+ years = a total overhaul, a few months = "we touched up all the animatronics makeup and repainted the Sistine Chapel" 

Of course possible Disney decided taking SE down for 2 years is a bad idea right now, but they seem all-in on a major Epcot update and it makes sense that finally doing a real update of the park icon would be part of that.

I wonder if some of the maintenance issues are just that many things are 40-50 years old at this point and simple maintenance just isn't cutting it any more?  When I told DH that HM was down *again* he said, "what's the problem, it's 40+ years old, they should be able to fix it easily by now"... and I said, "and it's 40+ years old"

[Travisma 1,317]

17 minutes ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

I'd take the source with a grain of salt on that one.

2+ years = a total overhaul, a few months = "we touched up all the animatronics makeup and repainted the Sistine Chapel" 

Of course possible Disney decided taking SE down for 2 years is a bad idea right now, but they seem all-in on a major Epcot update and it makes sense that finally doing a real update of the park icon would be part of that.

I wonder if some of the maintenance issues are just that many things are 40-50 years old at this point and simple maintenance just isn't cutting it any more?  When I told DH that HM was down *again* he said, "what's the problem, it's 40+ years old, they should be able to fix it easily by now"... and I said, "and it's 40+ years old"

And they could be running into the issue of lost technology and repair parts being unavailable.

Has the repair knowledge been passed down to the the next generation of maintenance workers, or are they too important to get their hands dirty actually replacing parts?

Some people just want to fix everything from the comfort of their desk and their computer!  Yuk, I got grease on my hands and dust in my hair!!!

Even standard off the shelf parts that were common 40 years ago may no longer be available, and machinists needed to custom make parts are few and far between in the US now.

[Seals 111]

Friday morning we were next to board Big Thunder Mountain. The previous car had just left with a bunch of excited/scared elementary school kids and our car arrived. Then there was an announcement that the ride was closed and immediately a swarm of CMs many wearing backpacks appeared. Some entered the control booth and then they spread out to evacuate the ride. We went gate by gate to cross through the vehicle, scan our Magic band to get a FP and headed out. I wondered what happened that they responded so fast -  but now that I’m typing this I’m thinking - would it have been a drill?  We’d used FP but I felt so bad for those kids because they must have waited a long time in the standby line and some of the group hadn’t boarded yet. The teachers/chaperones were great though and rounded up the kids pretty efficiently. Haunted Mansion was closed that day and when we went through on the People Mover Space Mountain was stopped and the lights were on. We also were stopped briefly on Seven Dwarves which kind of killed the fun of it. Didn’t see any dropped appendages on Carousel through.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

6 hours ago, Travisma said:

Even standard off the shelf parts that were common 40 years ago may no longer be available, and machinists needed to custom make parts are few and far between in the US now.

That's what I'm thinking too. And even if Disney has a shop and the capacity to build some parts the knowledge would also need to be passed down over the years.

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

I work in the power industry at a plant built in 1945. Failures of anything are a direct result of lack of planning or a robust condition based maintenance plan. If we can keep an ancient power plant online with 0% unexpected outages disney can keep some little rides going if they chose to. It all comes down to how much are you willing to spend. 

[Travisma 1,317]

3/10 People Mover went down and yesterday Haunted Mansion went down again.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

10 hours ago, Travisma said:

3/10 People Mover went down and yesterday Haunted Mansion went down again.

yikes

I hope/wonder if they'll step up maintenance and repairs before the 50th?

[Travisma 1,317]

11 minutes ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

yikes

I hope/wonder if they'll step up maintenance and repairs before the 50th?

If they do, they will jack up prices to cover the cost, instead of chalking it up to operational costs and just absorb it.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

People Mover is down again today.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

4 hours ago, Travisma said:

If they do, they will jack up prices to cover the cost, instead of chalking it up to operational costs and just absorb it.

Quite likely... and people will pay it and crowds will still be huge.

[Duane 152]

I'm with Blake on this, Disney should be able to keep these rides up and running on a fairly regular basis.  Its not like new owners have taken over and began a maintenance program from scratch, Disney has been working on and maintaining these rides for a long time.  My feelings is that Disney has shifted its focus on the newer and shinier things that tend to bring in the masses and have started to neglect the things that brought them where they are today.

The statement that this Sage guys said in the article is about the stupidest things I have ever heard:

"Due to Walt Disney World’s size, there are far more facilities at Walt Disney World to maintain than at Disneyland, and spread out over a vastly larger area," says Sage. "That makes the effort infinitely more difficult to accomplish in Disney’s Orlando resort."

 

The size of the place should have absolutely nothing to do with anything.  You know what you have in front of you to maintain, you staff it up properly to keep it going.

Bottom line as far as I see it (which is not much) Disney is trying to do too much at once. There is some sort of "major" construction going on all over the property.  

 

One of my favorite sayings is: "I would rather do a few things well, than many things poorly".