Massive Park-wide Breakdowns.

[xipotec]

Yesterday was an exceptionally bad day in a week of pretty bad days.

Multiple social media outlets reporting park wide, extensive breakdowns.

I happened to be watching the app doing some recon for my trip and it was pretty disheartening.

We all know certain rides are prone to breakdowns, (which in itself is something your would think they would be working on) but even some pretty standard rides were down for an extensive time yesterday.

They really need to get people into employment to get the rides running with better consistency or the parks will become unmanageable.

List of rides down yesterday
ROTR (hours)
HM (extended)
Indy (extended)
SpM
Splash
BTMRR (extended)
Small World
Matterhorn
DCA

RSR
GRR (extended)
Goofy

 

[starlite_]

That is quite literally my nightmare scenario.

 

[Matrixleos]

If you track specific days, you will see this isn't something that is rare, there are constant breakdowns but not a lot of people track them consistently.

For example, last year we were going to be in Disneyland on a Thursday and DCA on a Friday in late July. The previous two weeks, I tracked ride wait times in the mornings and highlighted in yellow any ride breakdowns. Main reason was to form some sort of strategy on what rides to go on first before the parks got busy. If you compare the rides listed above to the ones I tracked last year, not too much difference in there....

*FYI, the 9am to 10am gap on DL for 7/22 was because I had a work meeting and didn't have time to check the app
*FYI, ROTR and Webslingers were Boarding Groups only at that time and didn't list closures, so they were left out below. Although when we were actually in the parks, I do know ROTR broke down at least three times on 7/29 and Webslingers broke down twice on 7/30, just from talking to other park guests.

 

[mdmost]

We had similar breakdowns on our trip earlier this month and had very few issues getting what we want accomplished. The best thing you can do is have a plan but be flexible. Get there at rope drop to maximize what you're able to do, use the fishing strategy to turn your Genie+ LL into multipasses, and try to ride as many as possible in the 8-10am hours. You'll know pretty early what rides might have issues. Our first day Matterhorn was off and on all morning. Indiana Jones was the same. We timed it just right that Indy came up right after we exited Big Thunder. So we just walked over and got in the standby line that just opened back up.

Not trying to excuse Disney but post Covid I went into our trip knowing it wasn't going to be the same trip as in the glory days of low waits with Maxpass. We had to adjust our expectations and it all worked out.

Yes, Disney needs to put more emphasis on ride maintenance but I think it speaks to a larger issue that a lot of rides need to go down for a bit for prolonged refurbishment and maintenance. I don't think we know for certain just how many long term maintenance employees the parks lost during the Covid shutdown.

 

[shosh1530]

I agree that it is disheartening. On our DCA day there was a point when RSR, Incredicoaster, Toy Story, GRR, and Goofy's were all down. We also had multiple rides be down in DL, but felt less of an impact there.

It definitely seems worse than when we visited even a year ago. My guess is they are still being affected by staffing and supply issues.

Keep in mind though not all ride closures are due to maintenance problems. We've been on rides when they've gone down because of an emergency with a guest and operations also get stopped due to dropped bags/phones/illegal selfie sticks/etc.

And of course they also go down for the rare celebrity guest. I'll never forget a visit around 1993 when we had the bad luck of ride after ride being down for Michael Jackson and his large entourage.

 

[E.Jane]

We had similar breakdowns on our trip earlier this month and had very few issues getting what we want accomplished. The best thing you can do is have a plan but be flexible. Get there at rope drop to maximize what you're able to do, use the fishing strategy to turn your Genie+ LL into multipasses, and try to ride as many as possible in the 8-10am hours. You'll know pretty early what rides might have issues. Our first day Matterhorn was off and on all morning. Indiana Jones was the same. We timed it just right that Indy came up right after we exited Big Thunder. So we just walked over and got in the standby line that just opened back up.

Not trying to excuse Disney but post Covid I went into our trip knowing it wasn't going to be the same trip as in the glory days of low waits with Maxpass. We had to adjust our expectations and it all worked out.

Yes, Disney needs to put more emphasis on ride maintenance but I think it speaks to a larger issue that a lot of rides need to go down for a bit for prolonged refurbishment and maintenance. I don't think we know for certain just how many long term maintenance employees the parks lost during the Covid shutdown.

May I ask what is the fishing strategy?!

 

[mdmost]

May I ask what is the fishing strategy?!

Intentionally grabbing a LL selection for a ride that just broken down or you think is going to breakdown like Indiana Jones or Matterhorn. If you have a LL selection for this ride and your window starts, the Genie+ LL selection is converted to a Multi-ride pass which you can use on most rides outside of the ILL ones like Rise and heavy wait rides like Peter Pan's Flight. You are then free to rebook the ride that just broke down later in the day and the multi-ride pass does not count against your Genie+ LL total. So if you wanted you could ride Indiana Jones with the multi-ride pass and then book it as a LL selection later. There's a good thread on here about it.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/how-to-fish-for-lightning-lane-experience-passes.3869584/

 

[E.Jane]

Intentionally grabbing a LL selection for a ride that just broken down or you think is going to breakdown like Indiana Jones or Matterhorn. If you have a LL selection for this ride and your window starts, the Genie+ LL selection is converted to a Multi-ride pass which you can use on most rides outside of the ILL ones like Rise and heavy wait rides like Peter Pan's Flight. You are then free to rebook the ride that just broke down later in the day and the multi-ride pass does not count against your Genie+ LL total. So if you wanted you could ride Indiana Jones with the multi-ride pass and then book it as a LL selection later. There's a good thread on here about it.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/how-to-fish-for-lightning-lane-experience-passes.3869584/

thank you!

 

[AndrewC]

While I think it’s pretty clear that maintenance has gone downhill over the years (cost cutting). I wonder how many of these “breakdowns” are actually broken systems on the ride vs guests causing issues (dropping stuff off the ride etc). You would think clearing a sensor issue (like an item on the track) would be a “quick” fix, but by the time you have guests off the ride and cycle it a couple times the time might add up, especially if they need specific park people to address “safety issues” and clear the track and certify the ride to be running again. If there are only one or two on staff engineers that can put the ride in a safe state, access the ride, reset safety systems, and sign off that it’s ready to be opened again, you might be into the 1-2 hours easy if they’re coming from backstage or the other side of the park or something.

So if it’s stuff like that, all the overnight maintenance in the world won’t prevent that. BUT, Disney could and absolutely should hire more staff to be able to clear issues quickly. But then you run the risk of having (likely higher paid staff) maybe literally sitting on their butt back stage if things are running smoothly.

Also, that level of staff might not be the type that can have hours adjusted around during busy/slow periods like general cast members. Those positions might really require more of a standard 40/hr week year round just because of the training requirements to get someone qualified into a position like that.

 

[gelatoni fan]

While I think it’s pretty clear that maintenance has gone downhill over the years (cost cutting). I wonder how many of these “breakdowns” are actually broken systems on the ride vs guests causing issues (dropping stuff off the ride etc). You would think clearing a sensor issue (like an item on the track) would be a “quick” fix, but by the time you have guests off the ride and cycle it a couple times the time might add up, especially if they need specific park people to address “safety issues” and clear the track and certify the ride to be running again. If there are only one or two on staff engineers that can put the ride in a safe state, access the ride, reset safety systems, and sign off that it’s ready to be opened again, you might be into the 1-2 hours easy if they’re coming from backstage or the other side of the park or something.

So if it’s stuff like that, all the overnight maintenance in the world won’t prevent that. BUT, Disney could and absolutely should hire more staff to be able to clear issues quickly. But then you run the risk of having (likely higher paid staff) maybe literally sitting on their butt back stage if things are running smoothly.

Also, that level of staff might not be the type that can have hours adjusted around during busy/slow periods like general cast members. Those positions might really require more of a standard 40/hr week year round just because of the training requirements to get someone qualified into a position like that.

Guests dropping things on rides actually don't cause shutdowns as often as you may think. Just last week, I saw a guy throw his hat off the front of his vehicle on Hyperspace Mountain which fell beneath the track in the loading area. No shutdown at all. You can also frequently see a lot of hats and garbage along the sides of the track on Matterhorn.

It's a business decision to not have enough maintenance staff. If they decided to prioritize guest experience, then having excess staff that sometimes don't have as much to do is better than than having extended downtime. Disney also defines the job and pay structure so its possible to have maintenance staff whenever. If offering 1.5x or 2x pay on holidays increases staff for those times, there's no reason why Disney can't adjust the pay up to get more people to work during times it's needed.

 

[1Disneylandfan]

@Matrixleos thanks for the data!

I think some of the "temporary closures" 1st thing in the morning is from not having proper staffing to run the attraction. I wish maintenance were a priority to Disney. Although, I get it, that supply chain issues prevents some of that from happening if their waiting on parts. I pretty much see a "labor crises" across the country, and it's challenging to find the right fit of people to employ, in order to match job openings and/or experience.

I'll see how the parks are in about 2 weeks. At least I will now go in with the mindset of "go with the flow" and have "low expectations" for ride accomplishments. So pretty much have the same mindset of when I've been there at Christmas time, which is "don't expect to accomplish too much, and when I did that I was happy just to be."

 

[jknc]

Last week, we had Genie+ on several days. Minimum 10+ rides each day. Frankly could have done more but we only had so much energy.

Last Friday we did every Genie + @ Disneyland (except HM) and Grizzly Run @ DCA.

Words cannot describe how awesome it felt to get so much usage from Genie +.

 

[1Disneylandfan]

Last week, we had Genie+ on several days. Minimum 10+ rides each day. Frankly could have done more but we only had so much energy.

Last Friday we did every Genie + @ Disneyland (except HM) and Grizzly Run @ DCA.

Words cannot describe how awesome it felt to get so much usage from Genie +.

That's a nice accomplishment. The thing I don't like about Genie+, is Disney has you pay for something that used to be free (old fastpass system).

 

[LizzyS]

That's a nice accomplishment. The thing I don't like about Genie+, is Disney has you pay for something that used to be free (old fastpass system).

And I feel like "add-ons" onto what you were previously getting before is always going to be perceived negatively. I also think of the airlines adding on baggage fees and it costing extra to choose your seat on most of them these days. Bumping up the airfare itself would've caused less "nickel and dime" feelings, though it would've been the same net result. I've seen a lot of the same sentiment with Genie+ costing extra and my business degree'd self can't help but think it was overall a poor idea, though I certainly partake when I'm in the park now.

 

[jknc]

That's a nice accomplishment. The thing I don't like about Genie+, is Disney has you pay for something that used to be free (old fastpass system).

First and likely only trip to Disneyland with the kids. Sure, free would be cool, but I’m happy Genie plus was well worth it.

 

[Angel141925]

Last week, we had Genie+ on several days. Minimum 10+ rides each day. Frankly could have done more but we only had so much energy.

Last Friday we did every Genie + @ Disneyland (except HM) and Grizzly Run @ DCA.

Words cannot describe how awesome it felt to get so much usage from Genie +.

Is there a particular strategy you used to get so much use out of the pass?

 

[jknc]

Is there a particular strategy you used to get so much use out of the pass?

Honestly no. Just did well with timing and where we were located when rides became available.

Indiana and other rides were down so that helped get the extra pass. We took long breaks daily (1 to 6 pm) and waited for the return times we wanted before booking evening rides. So, the ride breakdowns + waiting + 2 hour passing allowed us to get at least 3 genies in the evening. Even late, Smugglers Run was still available.

On our DCA day, booking Grizzly @ 8:00 am was key because it wasn’t open, so that scored another pass.

In 5 days @ parks, our longest wait was 30 minutes for Storybook Canal Boats and Luigi’s.

We had an incredible week. Bought genie 4 of the 5 days.

The 1 day we didn’t buy it we specifically targeted all the the non genie stuff, Fantasyland dark rides @ rope drop + canoes + train + tiki room.

 

[jknc]

I was sooooo down on Disney after our WDW disaster in February. I posted here about how nervous I was for our trip.

It FAR exceeded all expectations.

God Bless Disneyland.

 

[jknc]

I was sooooo down on Disney after our WDW disaster in February. I posted here about how nervous I was for our trip.

It FAR exceeded all expectations.

God Bless Disneyland.

Last Thursday Jungle Cruise said 50 minutes, it was almost a walk on.

Wild stuff. Never seen that before in my life. Great skipper too.

 

[DLgal]

Last Thursday Jungle Cruise said 50 minutes, it was almost a walk on.

Wild stuff. Never seen that before in my life. Great skipper too.

This happens ALL the time on this ride. Probably the most unreliable wait time listed in both parks.