Radiator Springs Racers breaking down too often?

[Spideyfreak110]

I'm loving this thread. You people obviously have absolutely no idea how complicated this ride system is!

This. And it's been months now.

I went last week with my wife for our annual anniversary visit. We hadn't been to DCA since everything opened and thought this would be a good time to check out the new stuff. When we arrived, RSR was down, so we hopped onto Luigi's. When we got off of Luigi, RSR was back up, so we got in a 2-hour line. Went through the whole line, boarded, and the ride died for us during the "cow tipping" scene. We were walked off and given re-ads. We headed off property to get lunch, then came back. Still down. We went to DL to ride HMH and walked around the park a little bit. Then took the Monorail to the DL Hotel for our anniversary dinner at the Steakhouse. When we came back, guess what? RSR was down again. We asked the CM and surrounding guests, they said that the ride had died 3 times since our walk off. We hung out for about 30 minutes, then decided to head to DL for one last ride for the night.

I don't care who you want to blame, but a $200 Million attraction should not have an up-time of <20%. Earlier in this thread (back in June, I understand), people were saying, "Never in 57 years has a ride opened without problems." Well, let me ask you this: If a car manufacturer released a new car every year for 57 years, and each year there was something wrong with that car which forced 20% of their customers to return the car and get a new one - would you think that car company was trustworthy? Would you just shrug it off? I don't think I would.

That doesn't happen because they put out the similar product over and over and constantly improve. If they didn't, they wouldn't last 57 years.

Disney's Test Track system has been built 3 times, all in completely different ways. And this one is doing things that the others didn't have to deal with: Multiple profiles, different tracks, etc...

Just give it a year or so for them to work things out. Spider-man at Universal was a mess for the first 4 years or so.

[refurbmike]

Disney's Test Track system has been built 3 times, all in completely different ways. And this one is doing things that the others didn't have to deal with: Multiple profiles, different tracks, etc...

Please tell me the "completely different ways" that this attraction has been re-built. Did they completely change the programming language? Did they completely change the bus bar? Did they completely change the braking system? Did they completely change the sensors? While they may have changed the ride vehicle, something tells me the basic infrastructure is very similar to the previous versions. It would be wasted R&D to completely change everything.

Different tracks? What, do the cars make more right turns than left as with EPCOT? Unless they're completely gutting EPCOT's track and re-building it (which would make the refurbishment twice as long as building a new attraction), then it's still fundamentally the same system.

And since the ride has been build 3 times, you think they'd have a clear understanding of how it works?

[Spideyfreak110]

I just told you what was completely different. Again, the cars need to run multiple profiles, changing between them on the fly. The system also has to alternate switches constantly. Most of the time it's to send them to the two different tracks, but also it needs to know when a car tagged for ADA load is approaching so it can send it to the ADA dock. It would not surprise me at all if they added RFID tags to the system in conjunction with proxy switches to make the aforementioned work easier. That combined with the rest of the stuff I just said are things that the system has NEVER had to deal with before.

While Imagineering has a clear understanding of the system, the Disneyland techs have never worked with this particular system before. It's new to them too. Give it a year or two for them to work stuff out.

[fifthrider]

I know apologist backpedaling when I hear it. There is an expectation for a ride to work, period. I suspect even the Imagineers themselves would back that. I don't recall anyone at Disney every saying "But it's EXPECTED to break down all the time! Why are you people such simpletons?! Can't you get it?"

Phantom Boats and Rocket Rods were tried, tested, and pulled in about a year. No one made up excuses.

[Spideyfreak110]

^By that logic, Disney and Universal need to stop building these advanced ride systems. If it can't work all the time, it shouldn't exist!

I work in the haunt industry. Sometimes it just takes a while to get things right, especially when it's unique and hasn't really been done before. It doesn't even have to be unique, just the sheer complexity can be a challenge.

You have no idea how much sleep I've lost trying to make this particular effect I'm designing work. I've been working on it for 3 years, and it's still not the final product! Two years ago it worked, but presented a safety issue and needed a complete redesign.

Just be patient and understanding. I'm sure the techs are working on solutions to the most common problems as we speak. Just give it time!

[chesirecat]

I think that people might have forgotten that RSR is not a standard roller coaster where gravity and the lift hills dictate, to a certain degree, the safety of the ride, and speed of the cars.

Before Test Track first opened, the computer safety system was shutting the ride down a lot, so they decided to see what would happen if they ran the ride without the safeties. A car flew off the track through a wall and the ride was shutdown for many months while they designed a new computer safety system.

I really don’t want to be in a RSR car and have it slam into the stopped car in front of me when we’re going 40 mph. It’s sort of like airplane passengers that complain about airplane delays, but don’t realize that the airline mechanics are just following safety procedures.

I don’t know the specifics of RSR to a super great detail, but obviously if the ride triggers an e-stop, the initiating cause may not be instantly obvious. Even so, they no doubt have to follow a safety check-list, and I sure wouldn’t want them to rush that.

RSR also has a large slow speed area leading up to load/unload. When they run through the last guests of the day, they don’t have to worry about not feeding the ride enough cars as the cars can all line up and eventually all guests will disembark. So, I don’t think that the issue is loading guests too slow, but too fast.

You load guests too fast and the margin error, or safety distance between the cars necessarily decreases. I am guessing that during times of high demand, they are bumping up right against that safety margin, and somehow cars are arriving fractions of a second faster and triggering an automatic e-stop.

[refurbmike]

It's a good thing Disney has never created an attraction before, with multiple profiles, and enough safety precautions involved that if a failure occurs, it could result in guests smashing to their death into the ground....

So how often was Tower of Terror closed again when they re-did the entire system for DCA? And how often was it closed when they finally released the "4th profile"?

And so if I gather what people are saying, apparently Disney didn't train their staff enough to be able to support this attraction; so that the only possible scenario to prevent people smashing into walls, is to shut down the attraction for half of the working day.

Either way, it seems like Disney was not prepared to open this attraction.

[Spideyfreak110]

I said it before and I'll say it again:

"If you don't like it, build your own version that works better!"

[CMinParadise]

So how often was Tower of Terror closed again when they re-did the entire system for DCA?

Actually, the different setup in DCA (and every other Tower after the original) was implemented because it comprised three different independent ride systems, which makes the attraction as a whole a lot more reliable.

[Mr Wiggins]

"If you don't like it, build your own version that works better!"

See, that's what Disney used to be all about -- building stuff that was more innovative, more original, more creative and that worked better than anybody else's, including Disney's own previous Disney stuff. Too bad they've devolved into spending humongous amounts of money on overpriced, overhyped rides cloned from other rides and copied from movies -- which, as RSR, Luigi's and Mermaid have shown, weren't ready for prime time. Given $10 for every excuse and justification floated in the last twenty years to defend the world's most expensive Gang That Can't Shoot Straight, you'd have enough money to fix the Radiator Springs Sometimes Racers.

[StevenW]

There is no evidence that Disney cut corners on this project. Everything looks like a ton of money was spent. New rides need to be broken in. You can't plan for these things unless they have soft openings with full capacity for nearly half the year. This is a big attraction. It will eventually be fixed. Or closed.

BTW, Knott's new Windseeker attraction is now closed. They can't seem to fix the stalling issue. The ride is closed in all 6 parks where it is installed.

[Mr Wiggins]

If General Motors delivers expensive cars that break, customers don't defend the corporation with excuses ranging from "bad weather" to "working the bugs out" to "the customers broke it." If CitiBank sells overpriced product that doesn't deliver what was promised by its own advertising hype, its customers don't apologize for the corporation by reminding other customers how hard the bank works for them and what wonderful people the bankers are and how they're better than other banks and how nobody appreciates how complex it is for the banking system to work in the first place. Only with Disney can a corporation deliver Not Ready for Prime Time product day after day and have the cash customers make excuses for it. Disney is laughing all the way to the bank.

[biggsworth]

I have been pretty lucky I guess. I have been to Carsland 12 times since June and have been able to ride this attraction whenever I have wanted with no breakdowns. I love this attraction so much it is a lot of fun.

All the speculation about how often it breaks is just a matter of opinion. None of us know if it's down a lot or maybe not that often. We would need to see a graphical break down of these metrics to even begin to figure it out. I would love to see the stats on all the attractions. My money goes to Indy being down more that RsR but that's based off my personal trips.

[refurbmike]

"If you don't like it, build your own version that works better!"

I really hope Disney doesn't share your attitude. Because if they do, they're eventually going to fail. If they keep giving up on quality, somebody else will pick up the slack and start drawing attention away. This is what happens with all great products who lose interest is keeping up quality. Eventually, their competitors take over the market-share and then it costs twice as much to repair those damages.

Granted, Disney is a powerful brand-name, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. And perhaps Disney is taking advantage of this to cut corners or provide a low quality product - because they have such a powerful stance in the theme park industry. They did with DCA 12 years ago; I would've hoped they learned from their lesson.

[StevenW]

If General Motors delivers expensive cars that break, customers don't defend the corporation with excuses ranging from "bad weather" to "working the bugs out" to "the customers broke it." If CitiBank sells overpriced product that doesn't deliver what was promised by its own advertising hype, its customers don't apologize for the corporation by reminding other customers how hard the bank works for them and what wonderful people the bankers are and how they're better than other banks and how nobody appreciates how complex it is for the banking system to work in the first place. Only with Disney can a corporation deliver Not Ready for Prime Time product day after day and have the cash customers make excuses for it. Disney is laughing all the way to the bank.

These are poor examples.

GM did make the Volt and it turns out the electric charger may turn your house into a crisp if you're the unlucky ones, but the defenders are not customers. It turned into a political debate where the "liberals" are ready to defend it for any reason despite poor sales.

The debate about Banks turned into a political issue as well. Banks are defended by "liberals" via the government bailout, while at the same time used as a tool against "Republicans" for being in a cozy relation, all while being in bed with "Democrats". And we do know "Republicans" are in bed with them too. This trashing of banks are coming from all sides and defended by all sides and the problem persists because no one is proposing a fix.

Disney is doing what it can. The customers gave it good ratings. The ride breaks down often, but not unlike Test Track although without the extended delayed debut, but both had problems once it opened.

I haven't gone yet because I wanted to avoid the lines. I certainly hope is fixed when I go next year.