Amusement Ride Breakdown!

[Porsmond]

I was on Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney Land Paris, and we started to go through all the Pirates Street/boat Scenes with all the music etc, anyway we saw the boats in front of us suddenly all stopped, and it was immiedatly clear something was wrong, anyway about a minute later, All the music stopped, and ALL the lights came on inside(it was quite cool to see the ride inside with the lights on)we just sat there in silence for about 5 mins until we suddenly started to move again(very slowly though) but all the lights were still on, and there was still no music or nothing, and of course none of the animatronics pirates/boats were working either, finally after another 2-3 mins, The lights went off, the music came back on, and everything burst back into life(Obviously they can press a reset button for the whole ride but it takes a good while for everything to fully reset) We were still moving slowly at this point, but then we remembered that the ride goes down another drop after all the street/boat scenes into the cave part,and we could see the boats were briefly being stopped from all crowding down the drop I assume and they were only letting one through at a time.

 

Overall, we must have been on the ride for a good 30 mins(possibly a bit more) and personally I enjoyed it as it was unique to see the ride inside with lights on, and it was probably one of the most relaxing brakedowns I've ever had

[Erik Johnson]

I am sure there are plenty more stories that members can share in here.

[PKI Jizzman]

Got stuck on Cornball Express' first brake run, got to get off and walk the rest of the way to the station. Luko and I were evac'd from the Scooby Doo Blasters at SFFT.

 

When I worked at Diamondback when the train got stuck at the midcourse I had to run alllll the way from the station out past the train, down to the bottom of the ravine, then climb up a spiral stair case.

[rolercstrluvr]

The day of Coasting for Kids at CGA where we didn't get a marathon, I rode the Flying Eagles a few times. One being where I said I bet I could get this ride to e-stop. So, everyone sat back and watched me try. They said it wasn't possible, The ride starts up and I start snapping my eagle right away. Within 30 seconds of the ride starting, it stopped. I thought that was the most epic thing i've ever done. But then again, another time where they should have e-stopped the ride and didn't was on the same ride. I can't really remember when it happened, but I was on FE and I was snapping as usual. I got my eagle to spin a full 360*. I was so surprised that they didn't e-stop the ride at all. It was the single most scariest and happiest moment i've had on that ride.This wasn't really a break down, it was an e-stop.

[Bolliger&Mabillard]

I've experienced being stuck on a ride during a shut down for every ride I've operated while doing the test ride

[Angry_Gumball]

Not really a breakdown but something I found out riding those carnival Dizzy Dragons rides. Because of the way it's designed, if spun too hard, it will trigger a sensor that causes the ride to e-stop. We just did one for the first time (it was honestly a bit scary as you have this small base sitting on muddy/wet grass) and as we got the thing spinning really good you can feel the entire thing begin to shake followed by the ride stopping. The carnie kindly told us about spinning too hard and what the ride is designed to do in an event like that and we have to be a little bit more gentle with it.

[andybarnes84]

I've had the pleasure of being evacuated from Tower of Terror (at the screen before you reverse to exit) and The Mummy (at the "fake" station, even though they turned the fire off it's was pretty darn hot in there while we were stuck). Both evacs involved walkthroughs of the backstage areas which was pretty cool (especially Mummy).

[natertater]

One time,Goliath at SFFT had to close,because a squirrel kept running along the track.

 

When I went to Disney World in 2010, our monorail stopped for a while,causing all the other monorails to stop and have wait for us!

[Trevannosaurus Rex]

I've been evacced from the front row of Everest right at the top. I have a picture of me with the mangled track in the background. Entertaining walk down a nondescript flight of stairs, where a poor CP had to carry an obese child down the stairs as it wouldn't walk down on their own.

 

Got a glimpse of the Yeti AA and everything.

[molemaster43]

This one isn't really that weird, but we broke down on the brake run of Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom. Well, they turned on the lights and everything (mess of track). I don't know why, but they let us go again, when we had already experienced the actual coaster. Just goes to show how awesome Disney truly is!

[Rai Fox]

My favorite breakdown was this summer at Kennywood, on Phantom's Revenge; one of my favorite coasters, quite possibly my favorite. I finished one as-always great front seat ride on it early in the day, the train pulled into the station, and everyone started pushing up their restraints and leaving...except for me. My restraint, and the one of the guy seated behind me, would not unlock. The attendants came over and played with them for a bit, but just could not get them to release. They called the mechanics over, who said they'd need to partially disassemble the car to get them to release, and it would take a bit, so they wanted to unload the other car first. The restraints were still safe on my train, so they wanted to send us around again to pull the second train into the station and unload it. So the attendants come up to me and the other rider stuck in the car, and...they're polite and friendly and trying to be helpful and comforting, they're being all apologetic...

 

"Are you alright? We're sorry, but we need to send you around again so we can unload the other train. Are you comfortable enough, would you be alright with going around again?" And they sound like they really mean it, like they're notifying me that I'm going to have to spend the afternoon in chinese water torture or something. So I tell them that, yes, -somehow- I'll manage to survive another front-seat ride on one of my favorite rides anywhere. The guy behind me doesn't sound too upset either.

 

So we get another ride out of it, then when we get back into the station, the mechanics start working on the train, while the attendants check up on us every 30 seconds to make sure we're not dying, sitting in one of the most comfortable coaster trains on the planet... Finally they manage to get us released, and now we're getting stopped by the attendants before we leave. "We're so sorry about this, we'll be glad to make it up to you! Stop by the guest relations booth, we'll tell them you're coming and explain what happened, they can give you free food or gift cards..." I told them it -really- wasn't needed, and they kept going "...or maybe a free ticket, anything you want!' They actually did say "anything I want," too.

 

I admit, I was more than a little curious to see just how much I could have gotten as reparations for being forced to sit through a second front-seat ride on a world-class coaster, how far I could have pushed that "anything" if I wanted to try, but...I couldn't possibly bring myself to take advantage of the park when they were trying to go so far beyond what could possibly be called for, so I never did even bother going by guest relations. I did get back on Phantom again a couple hours later, though ^^

[TPDave]

Not breakdowns as such, but I've been "overweighted" on two space mountains (California and Tokyo). In California they did the whole "your rocket had run out if fuel" line, but in Japan the staff were really embarrassed by it! We found it hilarious, mainly because on the 12 seat train, 2 were Japanese children and 2 seats were empty!

 

This has only strengthened my resolve to get the full set of space mountains!

[Her0ofLime]

On Splash Mountain (WDW) our boat came to a stop at the first lift, and the boats started to stack, so we had to hear that frog talk OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Then, at the lift before the bee hill, the same thing happened, almost exactly the same, our boat was first, and we were close to cresting the lift, except instead of a frog, we heard screams play over and over again. But, this did make for a more enjoyable ride, the water blast that you can sometimes get while turning around the final hill got us right in the face, which was very funny, and, the bee hill had tons more speed and airtime.

[ArundelHigh Coasters]

Probably back in 2007 when the former Two-Face at SFA had it's hydraulic fluid accident.

 

Also, that cable accident at Knott's on Xcelerator back in 2009, especially because they have an actual video of it, which looked creepy, and was a little while after I rode it.

[Trevannosaurus Rex]

Speaking of Splash Mountain at Splash in Tokyo we stopped for ages at the top of the drop into the Laughing Place. We'd been there about 5 minutes, lights came on, music stopped. Very excited about the chance of getting evvaced, but then the ride started again. But the music and AA's had stopped so we spent the next few minutes floating about in silence. Joked about it running in Florida mode. The CM's were highly embarrassed when we came back to the station and gave us re admission to any other ride. Great stuff.

[cfc]

^Had a similar odd experience on Disneyland's Splash Mountain a number of years ago. None of the animatronics worked during the entire ride, save for the occasional eye blink or slight jerk of an arm. It was a bit creepy.

 

It was running perfectly later in the day.

Edited November 27, 2012 by cfc

[willh51]

Rollback and evacuation in Smurf Mountain on Volcano: The Blast Coaster is my weirdest. I got stuck on Top Thrill Dragster's launch for 30 minutes. That wasn't weird in itself, but when we finally launched, our train received a huge standing ovation upon return from the hundreds of people waiting in line. I also watched Kings Dominion staff remove an under-height kid from the lift on Rolling Thunder only to have the kid's father start berating both the workers and his wife...

[Tomes1225]

The train in front of me got stuck at the top of Millenium Forces lift hill. They had to send the maintenance bucket up after them.

 

The weirdest I've ever been on was when I got stuck on Montu's mid course break run. I was only 8 and it was one of my first major coasters and my first B&M invert (I'd been on Mind Eraser @ SFNE). I've also gotten stuck at the top of Splash Mountains lift towards the big drop. I could see all of the park from where it stopped.

[Lareson]

I think the weirdest I can think of is evacuating an Arrow log flume. I've seen it done at Michigan's Adventures and kind of felt sorry for those that had to walk all the way from the chute, all around next to the trough, then down the lift. At least they drain all of the water out to make it easy to get out of the log.

 

I think the only time I've been on a breakdown was Iron Dragon where it stopped 1/2 way up the 2nd lift. We were sitting there for about 10 minutes, no one came over the loud speaker or anything. Eventually it just started back up, but no one ever said anything when we got back to the station. I think it was way back in 2006 when that happened. I thought that was pretty weird.

[Noporian]

When i used to go on this cool kiddie jump tower thingy when i was about 12, (it was much scarier than it looked!)

the wight system got messed up. Therefore the whole gondola slung up to the top but the stoppers ofcourse stopped it smoothly. it took 10 mins and

my family was wondering where i was.

 

a second story is when i was in a travelling fair and then there was this up&down droptower that was about 15meters high. When i was on it,

the hydraulics failed REAL BAD and it was one of those were the hydraulics stop the gondola when coming down. (moser rides) and they stopped, and

didn't bungee down and up. Therefore the gondola always dropped REAL HARD to the hydraulic pumps. There were basically nearly no brakes AT ALL.

My neck hurt after every fall, i screamed and many other people were screaming too, one little kid crying. The ride operator ran the ride thru

the whole course, a proper person would've stopped it. (NOTE: these rides have emergency stop and general stop button) I yelled at the ride

op at the end but he said "No, what are you blind? they are working just fine!" and everyone could clearly see they were not working.

[amy_mel]

When I took my kids to Epcot my then 10 year old daughter wouldn't sit still on Journey Into Imagination. The end result of her fidgeting was that as the vehicle door slid open it sucked her flip flop in with it. End result: my kid broke the ride and caused everyone to be evaced.

[Noporian]

Some other ones: (im not completely sure if these are counted as breakdowns)

 

On Tulireki in Linnanmäki i went on it and noticed my lap harness wasn't locked. So basically i just kept it down and held on and pressed my legs towards the front of the car for dear life. I survived (you dont say) and it was quite traumatizing.

[disownedpear]

Here are a few I can remember:

 

I was on El Dorado at kings dominion, and after the normal ride cycle, it would just not come to a stop. It just kept swinging back and forth for what felt like forever. When it finally stopped we were stuck at the bottom for about 20 minutes before the maintenance guy came and let us out.

 

When I was at cedar point, the Shoot the Rapids car I was in got stuck on the first lift hill. After about 20 minutes a ride op came up the catwalk, and a bunch of little kids in the seat behind me started crying, so they evacuated us down the catwalk, which I never thought they would do.

 

While on a Wipeout at a local fair, the ride stopped spinning. Its kind of hard to explain, but the carriage stopped spinning but the ride platform was still rotating, so we were basically spinning around on our side for about 10 minutes before they could get the ride to stop.

[cfc]

^I had an interesting experience on El Dorado, too. There were guys on a cherry picker working on the ride, and trash cans were blocking the entrance and exit. After a few minutes, they moved the cherry picker away, pushed the trash cans aside, and opened the ride. I got on with some other people, and the ride started its cycle. We swung up to the top and stopped. The ride op had this "Er, it's not supposed to do that" look on her face. Slowly, we were lowered down. After I exited, I noticed the ride ops putting the trash cans back in place, and the cherry picker made its way back.

[Aceattack52]

I really like this thread a while back- I'm so glad to see it back at the top!