If you have, we would love to hear your story in the comments. Was it a frightening experience? Or wonderful one - where you got to see lots of cool backstage stuff you'd never get to see otherwise? Detail your experience, and let's share them with other Theme Park Insider readers.
And if you haven't, why not tell us in the comments which ride you'd most want to see backstage?
To that end, I'll be back on Monday with a cast member story about one of the times I got stuck on Pirates of the Caribbean at Walt Disney World, and had to evacuate myself. After that next week, I'll have our annual pre-parade coverage of the Tournament of Roses float decorating, followed by live coverage of the Rose Parade on Twitter and a post-parade photo gallery here on ThemeParkInsider.com.
Have a very happy holiday, wherever you are this season. And thank you, as always, for reading Theme Park Insider.
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This past summer, while we weren't evacced, we got to see the lights on version of MK's Space Mtn when they came on halfway through the ride.
Splash Mountain at Disneyland broke down but we were near the exit right under where the owl shows you your picture. They took us through a side door and through all sorts of stairs - there was scaffolding and a truly "construction" look to the backside. I still thought it was weird that they exited us through the "backstage" area when we were just feet from the actual exit to the ride.
And always a treat - Space Mountain with the lights on when it is having problems. Sometimes they forget to close the "blast doors" on the People Mover at Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld and it's fascinating to look at what is such a simple ride - yet the darkness makes it so exciting.
Was stuck about 20 minutes on Geauga Lake's Big Dipper under a blazing sun on the lift hill. That was the day Raging Wolf Bobs breathed its last, too. I rode that twice that day before the accident.
I've done more evacs than I've been evacuated. My favorites to do evacs were at Expedition Everest. We had to go up as teams of three, one to shepherd them in the front, one to work the safety bars on the train, and one to make sure no stragglers were left behind. I found the difference between a bad evac and a good evac usually started with the phrase: "Congratulations, everyone! You're getting a back stage tour of the mountain!" During the evac, I'd usually point out various neat things for our guest, and attempt to make the best of it, always keeping it as in-show as possible.
We were about 3/4 of the way through the ride when we stopped on the tracks. The music was still blaring and the lights were still off - for about 30 seconds - and my friend sitting next to me starting to get nervous right away because we had no idea if the other ride vehicles had come to a stop as well (we didn't want to get rear-ended!).
Luckily, that didn't happen, and the lights were turned on and music shut off. The cool part was that we got to see the inside of Space Mountain with the lights on! (I even snapped a few pictures) We had to stay in our ride vehicle for probably 15 minutes, though, which was a bit annoying. They finally let us get out and walk off the ride.
It was definitely an interesting start to our day, but the free fast passes we got were a nice compensation :)
I am usually the offical bench sitter! but thru the years my kids had have multiple times of being "evacuated" off rides- but none as crazy as that first time.
It was "evacuation" back in my day. I've got a story to tell one day about the evacuation class (that's what Disney called it) that I taught one evening at Pirates.
Nice point about the mountain "in-show exits," though. When I was at Thunder and Pirates, I totally played up the "backstage tour" aspect when taking people off the ride. I figured that if they didn't get the show they'd waited for, we better give them a different show instead. I loved hearing guests walk away from the attraction telling each other how much they loved being evacuated instead of getting a "normal" ride.
I was waiting in line to ride some years ago now in the middle of August, a notoriously unpredictable month for UK weather. It had been pretty miserable all day with patchy rain alternating with grey cloud and cold winds - not a great advert for summer in the UK! We had reached the station but there were only 3 seats left on the next train. Since there were 4 of us in our party we stepped back and said we'd wait for the next one so we could ride together. A young couple stepped past us and took our seats, the restraints went down and we watched the train roll forward out of the station to engage with the chain for the lift hill. It had been drizzling with light rain for a while but just at that moment the heavens opened. And I mean really opened.... So much so that within seconds they were forced to stop the whole ride, (there might even have been lightening and thunder, I'm not sure). The train climbing the lift hill had only got half way up when it was stopped and the riders were marooned there. Now the thing about dive machines is that the lift hills are very steeply inclined so that you virtually climb the hill lying on your back facing the sky. This is, of course, not a good position to be in if it is raining like there's an ark in the immediate vicinity... We stood in the station for maybe 5 minutes, watching the poor trapped riders getting soaked to their skins,after which time the ride operators ventured out up the lift hill with plastic sheets to put over them, but it was really too late to make a difference. They had been restrained, lying on their backs, facing the sky whilst a biblical deluge dropped on them. 'Wet' doesn't come close to describing their state.
Eventually after about 10 minutes the rain eased off and the ride was re-started and the poor drowned rats were treated to their face-first vertical drop. At least the few seconds hanging over the drop allowed some of the water to drain out of the cars and seats... We took our seats on the following train and thankfully the rain held off. But I've never been so glad to have to wait for the next train....
but I did see a cast member walk though the haunted mansion to pick something up by the endless hallway!
We went thru the haunted castle, it seemed cramped, and very dark, as there was limited lighting...
Not a ride but a walk thru exibit..
Toward the end of this limited horror house.. I noticed smoke, and excitement by the exit...
Their was a fire, and we were evacuated by force..
Later I found out that eight teenage visitors were trapped and killed when the structure was destroyed by fire.
Six Flags Great Adventure and its parent company Six Flags were subsequently indicted for aggravated manslaughter, accused of recklessly causing the deaths by taking inadequate precautions against a fire. In the subsequent trial, the prosecution argued that repeated warnings by safety consultants to install sprinklers or smoke alarms had been ignored. The defendants denied any culpability, and contended that the fire was arson and that no precautions would have saved lives. The trial jury found the defendants not guilty.
I needed to copy this off the internet so Theme Park Insider would have the exact true story from WIKIPEDIA
That was the down right most haunted house I ever was in...
Had a breakdown on the bridge of Indiana Jones, but didn't get an evac. Sat there for about 10 minutes, then went through the rest of the ride without audio. Very eerie hearing just the hum of the mechanics, but got a re-ride out of it.
The best part was the free fast passes that everyone got. I interning with another company in Orlando at the time and living (and going to the parks) by myself. The other 7 people on my car were in a big group with a handicapped child and thus no need for fast passes. So, after we walked out of the building, they offered all of them to me and I got 8 fast passes to be used whenever over the next 2 weeks!!
Merry Christmas, TPI.
My wierdest "disruption" was on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. You know how sometimes they stop it, or say Peter Pan to allow someone who needs extra time to get on the ride? Well then the carts in the ride usually stop briefly or I assume that is why...... Well we were in the scene where it's dark and it looks like the train is coming toward you and suddenly it just stopped, and me and my nephew just sat there in the dark for a couple minutes. It came back on shortly, but it was kind of a wierd spot to just stop in..... especially if your not a fan of sitting in pitch black dark not knowing for sure what is going on.
Anyway, I was evacuated from splash mountain Disneyland last time I was there, in February. It was the last ride we decided to go on before leaving our last day, the park was closing, we went through the ride fine, we were right under the 'last chance to leave the line' bridge (about 2 logs away from the dock) and the ride stopped. We were sitting there about 5 min, all the cast members from the dock were gone, when the lights came on. 3 cast member came and helped us climb out of the logs, saying it would take too long to restart the ride. We were in a tough spot being under that bridge. There was no where to hold, and the foot space was maybe to inches, more of a toehold. Quite scary for the less adventurous in our group, but I was more upset that we didn't get stuck farther back. After we were off we looked around and saw that logs were backed up past the zipadeedooda scene and people were walking through it. No fast passes offered though.
The parade had just ended, and anyone exiting the park that wasn't already on Main Street had to be diverted behind the shops, and exited back on Main Street by the Fire House. Needless to say, I felt bad for any of the children that saw the sheet metal and construction look of the backstage areas. It was definitely a break of the magic. =T
Anyway...we got stuck on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. It was pretty funny too, since the car we were in got stuck near the end of the ride (Just after Indy waves at you at the end....lol...so funny) and we were LITERALLY like a few feet away from the emergency exit door! What sucked though was that the staff wouldn't let anyone off of their car, and to make matters worse, my seatbelt had been pulled on supertight so I was pretty uncomfortable for the 30 minutes that we were stuck on the ride for. It got hot pretty quick too, and the fact that we were in the middle of a rainy February day only made things worse (Since everyone on board was already wearing super thick coats, the heat inside the building made it unberable after a while).
On the plus side though, we got to see parts of the ride that most people don't get to see....and to top it off we got a free ride pass for our troubles too!! (This was later exchanged for a ride on Space Mountain...which was greatly appreciated when we saw the line.....XD)
We were in the "hot" room. When we stepped out of the ride vehicles, I told my kids not to touch the red light bulbs, they'd be hot. The kid in front of us heard me and touched a light bulb and regretted it. Ouch!
There was an amazing amount of detail that I noticed as we walked out. They had "oil spills" on the floor that you'd never notice while riding the attraction. ... but they felt compelled to add the detail anyway. Priceless.
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