Welcome to the Weekly Walt Disney World Maintenance Report. In this weekly report, the goal is to create a comprehensive list of broken effects, damaged props, and more at the Walt Disney World Resort in the hopes they will be repaired, or at the very least just track how long it takes for Disney to get around to it.

The “needs repair” list has grown, but not much made it to “repaired” this week. We did see some significant audio-animatronic repairs at Frozen Ever After, but otherwise, it was pretty uneventful seven days as far as things coming off of the broken side.

Needs Repair

The Magic Kingdom

Adventureland

• The boats are not moving on the Zanzibar Trading Company sign. (1/29/19)

Pirates of the Caribbean

• The “screaming pirate” sound where boats take the plunge has been turned off once again. (1/29/19)
• The pot that is supposed to break when shot in the well scene is just always broken. (1/29/19)

The Jungle Cruise

• A blown speaker in the center of the queue crackles loudly. (1/29/19)
• The tarantula in a cage in the queue no longer moves. (2/5/19)
• One mechanical butterfly on a log is not moving. (1/29/19)
• The second African elephant’s ears do not wiggle. (1/29/19)
• Most of the lions on the African Veldt are not moving. (1/29/19)
• The hippo scene is particularly bad. Almost none are wiggling their ears and many were not moving. Some hippos had holes in them, destroying the illusion of them being living hippos. (1/1/19)
• One of the three native drummers was not moving. (1/1/19)
• Trader Sam’s arm holding the shrunken head has fallen down, his neck is severely damaged. (1/29/19)
• The chalk board at the ride’s exit is severely damaged from the Jingle Cruise overlay. (1/29/19)

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

• The falling rock projector in the cave-in sequence is completely off. (1/14/19)
• One possum does not spin, while the donkeys and goat in the Tumbleweed scene are not moving as intended. (1/19/19)
• The man in the bathtub in the Tumbleweed scene has been missing for some time now. (1/29/19)

Splash Mountain

• The Brer Frog projection in the queue is frozen once again. (2/2/19)
• Even though it was broken for most of last year, Mr. Bluebird in the finale scene is broken AGAIN. He’s completely immobile. (1/14/19)

The Haunted Mansion

• The right stretching room’s “elderly woman with rose” stretching portrait is not working correctly and the wall above it is completely ripped apart. (1/29/19)
• The lighting in the graveyard scene is abysmal. You can’t see much of what you are supposed to, and there is a misaimed light at the Opera Singers that is simply illuminating the scrim that guests are not supposed to see. (1/19/19)
• The Hitchhiking Ghost screen effects continue to be misaligned and look totally unconvincing. They looked perfectly fine when installed. (1/19/19)

Fantasyland

• The Sword in the Stone remains covered with a brown tarp. (1/29/19)

Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid

• The first Sebastian audio-animatronic figure did not having the moving eyes accomplished by screen technology. (12/30/18)
• The last Sebastian audio-animatronic figure did not have the moving eyes accomplished by screen technology. (1/29/19)
• The Ursula animatronic still has some tentacles that do no move. At least 4 did when the attraction opened, it always seems to be half of that. (12/30/18)

Dumbo the Flying Elephant

• The spinning Timothy on the marquee is not moving fluidly, it kind of looks like he is having a back spasm. (1/29/19)

Casey Jr. Splash ‘N’ Soak Station

• Still needs to be cleaned and repainted in many places. (1/14/19)
• Many of the moving components no longer move. (1/14/19)

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

• There is a lot of visible filth in the Heffalumps and Woozles scene. Anything yellow looks disgusting for the most part. (1/14/19)
• The speaker which plays audio from Tigger and Piglet going over the waterfall is blown out. (1/14/19)

“it’s a small world”

• Marquee letters are cracked, extremely visible when illuminated at night. (1/29/19)
• The “tick-tock” noises of the clock tower is off and has been for some time now. (12/31/18)
• Many lights throughout the load room are missing or burnt out. (1/26/19)
• The Irish children are barely dancing anymore, the movement used to be way more profound. (1/29/19)
• The magic carpet carousel was immobile in the Asia room. (12/31/18)
• Two of the three child musicians on the elephant are missing in the Africa scene. (1/26/19)
• In the Polynesia scene, there is a mis-aimed light that is projecting the giant shadow of a butterfly on the wall. (1/26/19)
• Many lights are missing or burnt out on the roller coaster in the finale scene. (1/26/19)
• The bicycles on wires in the finale scene are missing. (12/31/18)
• The first screen on the right in the interactive finale was covered. (1/26/19)

Tomorrowland

• The paint is already peeling off of the recently repainted rocks at the entrance to the land. The old red/orange coloring is showing through. (1/14/19)
• The Robo-Newz newspaper robot and the fake payphone interactive elements are now completely missing, they were broken (1/14/19)
• The UFO on top of the Disney Vacation Club kiosk has been missing the cockpit dome since before Hurricane Irma in 2017. (9/12/17)

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin

• The light-up panel in the center of the queue area is still missing. Even if it isn’t going to return, something has to be done with this strange, plain blue podium that guests have to stare at. (1/14/19)
• The spinning red light tunnel effect isn’t working and hasn’t in a very long time. (1/14/19)
• The speed tunnel projection looks horrendous. The film is clearly extremely dirty and is jumping all over the place. I think the time has come for this to go digital or at least be repaired. (1/14/19)
• The final Buzz Lightyear figure has a projected face that isn’t aligned correctly. (1/14/19)

Space Mountain

• The spinning space station projection inside of the mountain hasn’t spun in years (1/19/19)
• The inside of the mountain is way brighter than it used to be, there is a lot of light spill coming from some that shouldn’t be on near the unload area of the ride. (1/19/19)
• The siren-like sound effects that are supposed to play as the rockets make one of their last turns is off on the Omega side. (1/19/19)

Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress

• Sarah’s left foot has ripped out of its shoe in the “present day” scene. (1/26/19)
• The John figure in the “present day” scene is in horrendous condition, guests (other than us) audibly laugh at it. (1/26/19)

Epcot

Spaceship Earth

• The radio broadcaster’s mouth does not move. (1/27/19)
• A large section of the 180 degree scene at the top is not covered with the star projections. (1/27/19)

Journey Into Imagination with Figment

• The “Smell Lab” projector in the first scene is completely unaligned with the screen (1/27/19)
• The Figment on the phone audio-animatronic looks horrendous. He also doesn’t pop back up when he is supposed to. (1/27/19)
• In the “Smell Lab” scene, the word “winner” lights up before Figment has even finished spinning the slot machine. (1/27/19)
• The second Figment audio-animatronic character looks even worse. His hip appears broken and he is looking down most of the time. (1/27/19)
• The upside down TV is Figment’s house has dimmed to the point where you can’t see what’s on it (1/22/19)

The Land

• The hot air balloons in the center of the atrium haven’t moved in nearly 20 years. They used to move up and down. The motors burnt out and no one ever bothered to replace them. (1/28/19)

Living with the Land

• A butterfly in rainforest scene isn’t moving. (2/4/19)
• Crocodile on the right in the rainforest scene is not raising out of the water. (2/4/19)
• Goats in the fair scene open their mouths, but make no sounds. (2/4/19)
• The last projector in the barn isn bad shape – bright purple spots pepper the entire projection. This was sent in by more readers than anything else this week. (2/4/19)

Soarin’ Around the World

• The Soarin’ letters in the entrance marquee aren’t properly lit, the “i” and the “n” aren’t lit the same as the other letters. (1/27/19)
• Many of the ceiling lights above the FastPass/Standby merge area are burnt out. (1/27/19)
• The screen in theater A is filthy. (1/27/19)

The Seas with Nemo and Friends

• The Angler fish is once again not moving. (1/27/19)
• There is some sort of very dark gunk spilling down the last two windows of the ride where projected characters appear. (1/16/19)

Test Track presented by Chevrolet

• Dashboards of cars and inside of show scenes are covered in dust and filth, extremely noticeable in blacklight environments. (12/31/18)

Gran Fiesta Tour starring the Three Caballeros

• Speakers are low or some are off in the opening scene with Jose and Panchito, character are nearly inaudible. (12/31/18)
• One of the elderly men in the Fiesta scene was not stomping his foot. (12/31/18)
• The fiberoptic fireworks in the cart are completely busted in the Fiesta scene. (12/31/18)
• The Three Caballeros audio-animatronic figures are not in great shape, this week Donald’s mouth still didn’t open. (12/31/18)
• There is a loud, crackling speaker in the scene with the Three Caballeros animatronics. (1/17/19)

Frozen Ever After

• Olaf’s mouth during his first appearance isn’t working correctly. It appears as if he says every other word. (12/31/18)
• The “icy magic” projection that would appear above audio=animatronic Elsa’s hands is missing. (2/3/19)

The American Adventure

• Several sets on the “train” are not raising and lowering in sync with the rest of the show. (2/2/19)
• The confederate brother’s eyeglasses have gone missing. (2/2/19)
• Rosie’s fellow riveter didn’t lower or raise, she’s completely missing. (2/2/19)

O Canada

• The facade of the theater is in rough shape, lights are severely rusted and the mountain itself is in need of a cleaning/repainting. (1/27/19)

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

• The eyeball in the 5th Dimension scene is once again broken, displaying the default image of an elevator filled with guests. Guest photographs are not being taken to make this effect work. (1/15/19)
• On the “echo” side, the doors that are supposed to open to the outside are not working, leaving riders staring at a wall at one point in the ride. (1/23/19)

Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith

• Headlights on the right side of the upside down limousine at the G-Force Records area entrance are burnt out. (1/28/19)

Toy Story Land

• Woody’s Lunch Box is in horrible shape: chairs have large black stains, tables have tears in their covering, every prop shows some signs of damage, decals ripped in places.(1/15/19)

Slinky Dog Dash

• Tails on roller coaster trains are still missing. (1/15/19)
• Temporary covers hide damage on coils attached to train cars. (1/15/19)
• The left spinning flame at the second launch has had a light burnt out. The effect doesn’t really work with it out. (2/3/19)

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Expedition Everest

• The yeti audio-animatronic doesn’t move. (probably a decade ago)
• The bird doesn’t pop-up at the ripped-track scene. (who knows)
• Stream effect when trains pull into the station is not working. (2/2/19)

DINOSAUR

• The running Carnotaurus audio-animatronic is missing, replaced with an immobile dinosaur head. (1/1/19)
• The asteroid smoke trail effect before the drop past the Carnotaur head has not worked in several weeks. A trail of smoke would lead guests to believe that an asteroid has whooshed by them. (1/1/19)

Primeval Whirl

• The “Pr” in Primeval Whirl are burnt out on one of the main attraction marquees (1/20/19)
• Running dinosaurs on the Dino-Rama promenade were almost all moving, but one remains static. (1/1/19)
• The black and white spinning circles at the beginning of the ride on the right track are not functioning. (1/20/19)

Pandora: The World of Avatar

• The “water squirting creatures” area is a mess. Now all 3 creatures are missing, possibly for repairs. (1/20/19)

AVATAR Flight of Passage

• Guests have carved names and more into the sides of the cave in the queue. It’s all over most of the walls at this point. (1/24/19)

Disney Springs

Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar

• The “ice ball” no longer comes out from the machine that makes them (1/22/19)

 

Repaired

On the repaired side, we of course had a major success at Splash Mountain, seeing Brer Bear’s tail returned and most of the broken effects throughout the attraction fixed. There’s a few other minor victories to report as well, but the tide isn’t turning in our favor just yet.

The Magic Kingdom

Pirates of the Caribbean

• The crab and seagull audio-animatronics in the beach scene were not moving. (1/29/19, Reported Fixed 2/3/19))
• The man with the hairy leg was not moving at all and his parrot is missing. (1/29/19, Reported Fixed 2/3/19)

The Jungle Cruise

• The dancing natives move once again. (1/30/19, Reported Fixed 2/2/19)

Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress

• The television in the “present day” scene is stuck on the GAME OVER screen. Nothing plays and there is no audio from the television. (1/26/19, Reported Fixed 2/2/19)

Epcot

Spaceship Earth

• The television in the moon landing scene is not on. (1/20/19, Reported Fixed 2/3/19)

Test Track presented by Chevrolet

• “Laser Trees” that appear while the car passes them does not function for every car. (12/31/18, Reported Fixed 2/3/19)

Frozen Ever After

• Elsa’s left arm did not move at all in the ice palace scene. (1/27/19, Reported Fixed 2/3/19)
• Marshmallow’s mouth did not move when he spoke. (1/27/19, Reported Fixed 2/3/19)

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

DINOSAUR

• The smoke in the first time travel scene was off, causing the laser effect to not function correctly. (1/1/19, Reported Fixed 2/2/19)

How To Do Your Part

To report broken effects, damaged props, or anything else out of the ordinary, please submit photographic or video evidence of the malfunction or disrepair to tom@wdwnt.com or through WDWNT’s social media avenues (Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram) with the hashtag #WDWNTfix. You can also submit proof that anything listed above has been repaired. The entire purpose of this weekly post is to get Walt Disney World looking how it is supposed to look, so we are hoping to see this list shrink rather than grow over time.

Tom Corless