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Just about six years ago, Disney announced that it would be closing A Bug’s Land, the popular children’s area in Disney California Adventure Park. In its place, they were going to build Avengers Campus — the ultimate area for Marvel fans. A Bug’s Land officially closed on September 2, 2018, and Avengers Campus was scheduled to open in June 2020. Of course, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening was delayed and Avengers Campus did not open until June 2021.
Credit: D23
Related: VIDEO: Guest Captures a Rare Glitch In the Disney Magic In Avengers Campus
When Avengers Campus finally opened, it featured the brand-new attraction, WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure. Similar to Toy Story Mania, guests would sling webs like Spider-Man to help him save Avengers Campus from being overrun by Spider-Bots. However, unlike Toy Story Mania, guests did not need any equipment to sling webs. Disney’s new technology could sense where the guests were shooting and calculate their scores appropriately.
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Since its opening, WEB SLINGERS has been an incredibly popular attraction, with wait times frequently sitting at more than one hour. But there are some guests who may not be interested in riding the attraction any time soon.
Reddit user u/cheddar_goldfish_03 claimed that, while they were enjoying the attraction, it DERAILED. And if that wasn’t bad enough. The ride was shut down. The OP (original poster) says that cast members allowed the ride to continue, even though it kept going off the track. When they were finally able to get off the ride, cast members appeared apathetic to the situation.
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Tonight I rode Web Slingers shortly before closure. 10 seconds into the ride, our car partially derailed. The car gets flung Mater-style around the next turn, hurtling at high speed within millimeters of walls – it was terrifying. My logical brain knows there are safety redundancies built in, but all I could think was “how many bones will I break if we hit this wall at this speed?”
This continued for almost the entire 2+ minute ride – the derailed car flinging terrifyingly towards corners and walls at high speed. Somehow, no human or machine noticed this was happening for more than two minutes. They finally stopped the ride right before we “finished” the final scene (I put finished in quotes because we couldn’t actually engage with any of the scenes since we were like perpendicular to the screen every time – least of my concerns though).
After being stopped for 20ish mins w/o any communication, they didn’t walk us off like I expected – they had each car complete the ride and debarked us at the normal platform. We overhead them saying that other cars had also derailed.
As we got out, an (understandably) unhappy-seeming CM said gruffly “If you want to ride again, stand over there.” (lol, you can guess how many people took him up on that offer).
And that was it. No acknowledgement of what had just happened, no fast passes, nothing. I even said to the CM at the vehicle exit “hey our car derailed and it was really scary” and he said “I know, we’re trying to fix it.”
So yeah, I’m at a loss for words. Aside from the almost unfathomable number of ride ops protocols that were violated, my previously-unshakeable faith in the safety of Disney rides is… shooketh. I go to DL almost weekly and I don’t know how to make sense of this. That is all.
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Related: E-Ticket Attraction Confirmed For Disneyland’s Avengers Campus
Commenters were shocked to hear about what happened. Disney typically takes a lot of care with their rides and attractions. If there is something wrong, they will shut it down and try to fix it immediately. It is very unlike Disney to allegedly let an attraction operate, knowing that it is malfunctioning.
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One commenter claimed that they were a ride operator at Disney and said that it seemed more like a sensor issue than a cast member issue. While the cast members could have behaved better, it was more on the sensor system, which appeared to fail.
Hi ride operator here. Although I am surprised you nearly got through the whole ride before they cycled out this sounds more like a failure of the ride system. So much of a ride operators job relies on sensors and the ride accurately reading them. Normally these systems are extremely reliable and shockingly smart but they can make mistakes. Once you out of view from cms it’s on the sensors, the system, and the person who reads any warning that the ride says. The cms could have responded better for sure. There is this thing called the motion envelope that is considered when designing and operating rides which basically means you were likely not in danger of the ride vehicle hitting a wall, just being flung around. Either way I’m sorry this happened to you and hope the situation is reviewed so better action can be taken if this ever happens again.
Credit: Disney
Related: Spider-Man Flies Through the Air, Malfunctions, Destroys Part of Avengers Campus
Other commenters told stories about issues they had while at the parks and the disappointing reactions from cast members.
There have been many times when guests have accused cast members of having bad attitudes. However, many guests and fans defend the cast members, saying that guests are more entitled than ever. They say that cast members can only keep the magic alive for so long before they have enough of poor guest behavior.
Have you ever experienced a ride malfunction like the one on WEB SLINGERS? Let us know in the comments!
