When I worked at Walt Disney World, "walk time" was the final 20 minutes of every shift. Twenty minutes before I was off the clock was the time when I was supposed to leave my work position for the day. Those 20 minutes, for which I was paid, was the time for me to walk down through the tunnels, change my clothes and ride the shuttle bus back to the cast member parking lot and my car.
Years later, when I picked up some hourly shifts in the film and TV industry, I discovered that "walk time" was not just a Disney thing. It was an entertainment industry standard for the end of your shift on set.
So when I was considering a name for Theme Park Insider's new week in review column, I decided that "walk time" just fit. This is the end of the work week. It's time to look back and collect our things. So that is what we will do here, each Saturday on Theme Park Insider.
This week's biggest news was the opening of the new Six Flags Qiddiya City theme park in Saudi Arabia. The first Six Flags-branded park outside the United States, Six Flags Qiddiya City is now the home of the triple-crown record-holder in the roller coaster industry, with Falcons Flight opening as the world's tallest, longest, and fastest coaster. SFQC also features other record holders, including the world's tallest pendulum ride, highest coaster inversion, and biggest tilt coaster. We have a complete list of SFQC attractions in our new visitors guide: The Falcon takes Flight at Six Flags Qiddiya City.
Many other news outlets around the world covered the accident at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios this week. The faux boulder at the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular jumped its track. (Again? Hasn't this happened before?) It was rolling toward the audience at a decent rate of speed when a WDW cast member stepped into block it. The cast member got smacked down, but the force of the impact turned the giant prop from the crowd, perhaps sparing guests from injury. The cast member, unfortunately, was not so fortunate. See the video here: 400-pound runaway prop injures Disney employee.
"We're focused on supporting our cast member, who is recovering," Disney said in a statement to the press. "Safety is at the heart of what we do, and that element of the show will be modified as our safety team completes a review of what happened."
New Year's Eve and Day have brought wall-to-wall crowds to theme parks across Florida this week. In California, another round of rain soaked theme park fans, as well as tens of thousands of others who waited overnight for the annual Tournament of Roses parade. The good news is that, after way too many years, I finally saw a university that I attended win the Rose Bowl, as my graduate school alma mater Indiana University smacked the University of Alabama. Now both of my schools, Northwestern University and Indiana, are 1-1 in the Rose Bowl.
Finally, the new year also brings the annual announcement of the Theme Park Insider Awards. Our annual year-end reader surveys determine the winners:
Check back on the front page tomorrow for the announcement of the Best Theme Park honor.
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Not sure how quickly the boulder will return. Legal is probably doing a full risk analysis at this point. Minus that Cast Member going into Hero Mode, that would have been a really bad outcome.
I have to say, given its long history and how risky the show is, Indy having such a great safety record says a lot.
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You are correct Robert that the boulder previously went off-course when an Indy performer tripped up and accidentally allowed it to roll over them. If I had to guess, it looks like the platform that the golden idol resides on did not fully retract, which allowed the boulder to begin bouncing out of control and off the track. I think the boulder will be back sooner rather than later considering that there have probably been over 50,000 performances of this show and this has only happened twice.