Disney Dreams Come True Parade Hurricane Version

[toonaspie]

Originally Posted by CTXRover

From what I heard, this was not planned as some have insinuated. If it was raining before the parade started, they would have canceled it as they have many times in the past for rainy weather. While it was cloudy that day and rain was in the forecast, from what I was told by a CM who was there, the parade stepped off without even a drizzle. Mickey's float entered halfway into Town Square and the deluge started. It was impossible to stop the parade at that point.

Personally, I was very impressed by how the CM's in the parade stayed in character, some even improvising by splashing in the puddles, while others helped to escort the characters that either dance or walk the route offstage through backstage entrances on MS for their safety.

If you watch closely in the first video, you will see some of the characters who walk the parade route being escorted off stage as safely as possible as the parade made its first run during Main street. Note that this happened when the parade went up and then back down MS while Liberty Square bridge was being replaced. Thus, in order to get the floats backstage again, a certain number needed to run down the parade route so they could get back in.

That is why in the second video you will only see the floats, whcih do appear to hightail it back in. I thought, at least from those videos, it was handled very well given the circumstances.

Some may argue that Disney should have "known" it was going to rain, but I imagine since it had been dry up to that point from what I was told, a decision was made to let the "show go on".

Yeah it's not uncommon to have major downpours occur in a split moment as soon as the parade begins step off. Rain is completely unpredictable at WDW so there's no way to really know if a downpour is even going to come or not on a cloudy day. It can be really depressing and cloudy without a single drop.

If Disney cancelled a parade every time it rained (or looked like it's gonna) then we would be lucky if we even got one parade a week at Disney World.

[TDLFAN]

You make it sound like it rains here all the time and that is not the case at all. Summer time in particular see an increase of thunderstorms due to the high humidity in the atmosphere... but other times, we do have rain droughts and do not see rain for weeks, causing a lot of the brush fires this area experiences after the winter season. But for management at WDW to send a parade out during a tropical storm, where rain and winds are expected 100% of the time... is ludicrous.

[aimster]

I will say watching some of the characters splash in the puddles was very amusing. Looked like they were having fun.

[aimster]

Originally Posted by TDLFAN

You make it sound like it rains here all the time and that is not the case at all. Summer time in particular see an increase of thunderstorms due to the high humidity in the atmosphere... but other times, we do have rain droughts and do not see rain for weeks, causing a lot of the brush fires this area experiences after the winter season. But for management at WDW to send a parade out during a tropical storm, where rain and winds are expected 100% of the time... is ludicrous.

Agreed. Remember how dry it was the summer of 2000? The brush fires were so bad that one jumped the median on I-4, which closed the highway down for awhile (we're talking days) in Polk county. You can still see the remnants of the trees that burned 8 years later.

[almandot]

Magic Kingdom already does have a rainy day cavalcade except they choose to hardly ever use it because the person in charge of calling for it will sit there not canceling the parade until the last second and not even call for them to possibly be ready for the cavalcade until it's too late to get it together on time, and hence if it's raining at stepoff you usually end up getting nothing at all. It's utterly pointless to me. What's worse is those weeks where it's raining at parade time like every single day but it's dry as a bone the hour before but they won't just bump up the parade a little bit, or at least get the rainy day cavalcade ready.

[TDLFAN]

Originally Posted by almandot

Magic Kingdom already does have a rainy day cavalcade

That's news to me. Can you provide a video of this alledged rainy day cavalcade?

[almandot]

Originally Posted by TDLFAN

That's news to me. Can you provide a video of this alledged rainy day cavalcade?

Offhand, no I really can't because it pretty much never goes out even though the performers know it. There was an older one that there's still video of but it changed several years ago and that one's only been out like a handful of times.

[PrincessAurora18]

I know Disneyland uses the mainstreet vehicles for it's rainy day cavalcade.

[ZeekSlider]

Originally Posted by CTXRover

Some may argue that Disney should have "known" it was going to rain, but I imagine since it had been dry up to that point from what I was told, a decision was made to let the "show go on".

Well, color me pink then, as I am one of those people.

I mean, when I went to Dollywood, they closed several of their roller coasters when they got reports of lightning 10 miles out. The ride doesn't last more than 3 minutes, but they wanted to make sure that area of the park was empty. And this was nothing more than a Smokey Mountain thunderstorm.

You have fireworks in Disneyland that get cancelled due to high winds before the show, even if five minutes later the winds are down to where they can launch the show.

I'm (again) with TDLFAN on this one. One of these days, when this happens again for whatever reasons those may be, someone is going to be struck by lightning. I mean, aren't those characters tethered to a safety poll? And I'm pretty sure those polls are made out of steel or some kind of conductive metal.

Originally Posted by almandot

Offhand, no I really can't because it pretty much never goes out even though the performers know it. There was an older one that there's still video of but it changed several years ago and that one's only been out like a handful of times.

It's not the parade I think it is, where they shove as many characters as they can into any float with a roof (the gazibo float comes to mind real fast)? Please tell me it's not that parade. If it is, then I've seen A (as in single) picture of it.

[sassy*tink]

I think a rainy day parade would be a good idea. Just as a backup. It could be all the same characters just on different floats. I understand that once things start you need to finish them. We were on Thunder Mountain one time when it started raining and we were about halfway done with the ride. Rather than stop they just kept us going and when we got back to the station they had cleared everyone out and closed the ride. But it was faster to keep the ride going.

I guess with doppler systems, they are like everything else. They can be wrong or the weather can change in a moment. I have been in Florida during the summer and we have been in the Magic Kingdom where it's clear and sunny, then we hopped over to MGM and the ground was wet and CM's were just starting to put stands back together. It was clear that it had poured at MGM, but nothing touched Magic Kingdom. But I'm sure that storm was on the doppler. So I think it really is a judgement call on what they are going to do. Like with anything, you go with your gut and hope you are right.

[Kidgenie]

Wow. Thats a little sad, and my heart goes out to the cast that endured that. To answer some of the questions this raises, yes, WDW does infact monitor the weather and does try to avoid this. But it does happen, and it because even the great weather technology in the world is not 100% accurate. Things can happen and they can suddenly be a drastic change. I don't know if they was one, as honestly its hard to judge the wind speed in those videos, but Micro Burst are just that. Sudden Bursts of Rain and Wind cause by a localized flume of sinking air, and they aren't things that can be tracked coming. Microbursts have causes many plane crashes, due to there unpredictibility. So even airports can guest wrong. But this is florida and that may or may not have been one. It doesn't look very windy so I am guessing it was not, but rather just a sudden change in the weather. Downpours can just happen. Its not nessesarily something that is tracked, a condition changes and bam, the clouds give up their moisture. It is something WDW trys to avoid and tracks the local area in that spirit. They have cancelled many of parades, but clearly a case that Mother Nature can still fool even the greatest weather technology.

[CTXRover]

Originally Posted by ZeekSlider

Well, color me pink then, as I am one of those people.

I mean, when I went to Dollywood, they closed several of their roller coasters when they got reports of lightning 10 miles out. The ride doesn't last more than 3 minutes, but they wanted to make sure that area of the park was empty. And this was nothing more than a Smokey Mountain thunderstorm.

You have fireworks in Disneyland that get cancelled due to high winds before the show, even if five minutes later the winds are down to where they can launch the show.

I don't know the details of that day, but what I was told, this wasn't a rain storm that was raining somewhere else in Orlando area that moved in just as the parade stepped off. Disney too will shut down rides if lightening is in the area or cancel a parade if rain is known to be imminent, which was not the case here. It was overcast and as mentioned above, a sudden downpour started just as the parade stepped off. It happens. Could they have known the rain was coming and thought they could get the parade out and back before it started to rain? I don't know. But it doesn't sound like that.

Safety should be the top priority, and again, given the circumstances, it looks like they got as many of the CMs backstage as quickly as they could off the parade route, leaving just the floats to make their way back.

[sassy*tink]

And if there was lighning in the area, I don't think the parade floats would be the first thing that would get hit. I understand lightning is unpredictable, but doesn't it usually go for the tallest thing in an area?

[Micoofy Duck]

Did anyone stop to think that just maybe the parade started off with no rain and then it started and since the parade was out that they had to book it to the Main Street end point.

I've been there during this kind of pouring rain situation and I remember the parade continuing after it started when there was no rain and then all of a sudden it poured and there goes the floats screaming by.

[almandot]

I'm sure that's what happened but that's usually what always happens, management waits too long to make a decision while not opting to get the rainy day cavalcade ready and even if they think the rain's coming sometime soon around parade time they won't send it an hour early but then come parade time it's still dry so they think they can squeeze it through maybe before the weather hits so they try and then wham they get hit with the rain to nobody's surprise.