The 2010s are over, and it’s time to look back at the highs and lows from the theme park industry. We should clearly start at the most famous of all parks.
Let’s start with the negatives so that we can get those out of the way first. The only rule here is that I won’t cover anything sad where someone dies because I don’t want to bum you out. Here are the most embarrassing Walt Disney World snafus of the 2010s.
Bus accidents
Disney’s bus fleet actually rivals the largest ones in the Southeast. In fact, only Miami and Jacksonville operate more buses in the state of Florida.
With such a large fleet crisscrossing the Walt Disney World campus each day, accidents will happen. Most of them are fender benders that barely qualify for a police report. Unfortunately, the law of averages suggests that something serious will occasionally occur.
Two Disney bus drivers were the unlucky ones during the 2010s. Back at the start of the decade, a cast member steered his vehicle around Epcot Center Drive. Right before the parking lot entrance, the driver realized too late that a Mears charter bus had completely stopped in the road.
A collision injured seven Disney passengers plus the bus driver. Oddly, no one was inside the Mears bus at the time of the accident. The employee had stepped outside the vehicle for some reason.
Even stranger, history repeated itself in 2018. Near the same location on Epcot Center Drive, a Disney bus rear-ended another Disney bus, which does raise some questions about the traffic patterns here. While no one suffered serious injuries, 14 out of 51 passengers required hospital treatment.
Repeated monorail issues
One of the open secrets at Walt Disney World involves the monorails. They’re the oldest operating tram fleet in industry history. Even with talented mechanics and maintenance teams working on them repeatedly, the monorails sometimes suffer embarrassing accidents. They’re like a 30-year-old car in this regard.
I could choose any of a laundry list of monorail incidents from the past 10 years to make this point. Some of them are funny, while others are genuinely terrifying. Thankfully, none of them caused serious injuries, though.
The most dangerous situation involved debris. In 2017, a piece of Monorail Blue broke off the vehicle while it was in motion. This large metal part fell down to the parking lot beneath it, narrowly missing a park guest standing 10 feet away from the drop zone. It…would have done some damage.
Somehow, that’s not the scariest incident, though. Six months later in early 2018, monorail riders experienced something absolutely surreal. During the middle of a trip, the monorail door popped open! Guests didn’t know what else to do, so they popped out their phones and recording the video for posterity’s sake.
Later, guests at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa received quite the surprise. They noticed something unusual at the monorail station directly above them. A monorail door was hanging off the side, dangling over them like the Sword of Damocles.
I hate to criticize Disney, but the company really needs to get its act together in prioritizing a new monorail fleet.
The Disney Skyliner incident
While we’re on the subject of Disney transportation blunders, the Disney Skyliner didn’t wait long to get its name included. The brand spankin’ new gondola transportation system took less than a week to suffer a serious incident.
During its first days in operation, guests complained about the velocity with which gondolas entered stations. Soon afterward, those fears seemed well-founded when one tram collided into another one at the station. Disney blamed the issue on a power failure, which seems like a strange explanation.
Thankfully, nobody suffered an injury during this situation. However, it was more serious than it sounds. Since the Skyliner lines soar high above the ground, guests found themselves trapped during the delay. The accident occurred near closing on a Saturday evening, which meant that Disney didn’t have its best personnel available to resolve the matter quickly.
So, the Skyliner stranded guests several stories above the ground while cast members failed to answer the emergency phones. In a cruel twist, the automated messaging system played the entire time, driving guests insane with its blathering. There were a few truly panicked phone calls on 911 that night, some of which you can hear on YouTube.
A Gun Found on DINOSAUR
Okay, this story will scare you to death, presuming you’ve never heard it before. It does have a kind of happy ending, though.
Back in May of 2013, a grandmother discovered something truly unexpected when she boarded DINOSAUR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Her seat in the ride cart came with a free gun! And it was even loaded!
Yes, a person had left a loaded gun in their chair when he exited the ride. The horrified grandmother felt tremendous outrage since she was riding DINOSAUR with her young grandson. She handed the loaded weapon to what I presume was a deeply confused cast member.
The Disney employee notified her manager and the local authorities. Hilariously, the dude came back looking for his gun because those things aren’t cheap. When authorities questioned him about the INSANITY of bringing a loaded weapon into a Disney theme park, he indicated something weird. He didn’t know that the purpose of the security gates at the front of the park was to prevent guns and other weapons. He thought security officers were just looking for bombs.
The situation sounds ridiculous today. However, Disney didn’t employ metal detectors in 2013. We could speculate about whether he could enter the park with a gun today, but there’s no need. Late in 2019, a person tried to do this at Animal Kingdom. The individual tried to carry a backpack containing a 9 mm gun into the park. Disney’s security staff stopped him and kicked him off the campus. So, protective measures in place are working.
Fire at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
We’ve now entered the final phase of the conversation. It’s the one where stuff catches fire at Disney theme parks. While it’s going to sound terrible at times, it could be worse. Disney utilizes complex mechanics in all of their attractions and many of their daily/nightly exhibitions. A lesser theme park operator would spend a lot of time putting out (literal) fires. Disney accidents are few and far between due to the skill of the professionals involved.
Still, accidents happen. A famous one occurred in 2014, back when Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was still in its infancy. Something happened that Disney couldn’t have tested or projected. Nobody could predict it until they watched it happen.
Embers from the Wishes fireworks presentation struck the outside of the ride building. These sparks ignited and caught fire, causing confused cast members to close the attraction. To the credit of Disney, its motivated employees quickly stopped the fire and restored order. The ride even opened the following day.
In case you’re wondering, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train had operated for more than five months before the incident. That’s 150 Wishes performances without a single hint of smoking embers on the man-made mountain. Disney was truly unlucky that particular evening.
Astro Orbiter Catches Fire
Believe it or not, the New Fantasyland incident wasn’t the first recent fire in the area. Three years before then, a rainy morning in Tomorrowland led to an unusual sight.
Astro Orbiter caught fire due to an irregularity in the façade. The structure of this second-floor attraction defines its appeal. Imagineers created a dazzling weenie that grabs attention, even from outside the park. My family loves gazing it from Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
Well, this gorgeous display of interstellar orbit includes its fair share of lights. One of the glowing orbs burned so brightly that it melted. When that happened, an unlikely chain of events, ones partially related to the weather, caused a significant part of the facing to catch fire.
This incident happened early in the morning, forcing Disney to close Astro Orbiter for the day. Due to the location of the fire, it wasn’t easy to stop, but the damage was thankfully minimal. I’m guessing it looked quite ridiculous from other parts of the park, though.
Maleficent
The most infamous Walt Disney World fire came toward the end of the decade. In an instance of life imitating art, the fire-breathing dragon, Maleficent, partially imploded. A mistake with the interior gas lines caused the fake-scary part of the Festival of Fantasy parade to become legitimately dangerous.
When functioning properly, Maleficent spits fire out of her dragon-y mouth. On this date, an exposed part of the structure started spewing flames instead. The fuel stations around the neck erupted, causing black smoke to filter out of the villain. Somewhere, Sleeping Beauty smiled while her mortal enemy burned from the inside.
Onlookers watched in horror as cast members chased the parade float. They carried fire extinguishers as they tried to reach the flaming parts of the gigantic mechanical dragon. It would have been hilarious if not for the fact that it was really happening in a crowd of people.
Remember this the next time your fight a dragon in a video game. When the fire comes out of the creature’s mouth, it’s attacking you. When the fire comes out of its neck, you’re the one slaying the dragon.
