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.

We apologize for being gone for a few weeks, but we were in Asia covering the parks in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, leaving us unable to produce this list on a regular basis. Thankfully, many of you have sent in items while were were gone and we are back to a weekly schedule starting today.

In the more-than-a-week we spent at the Tokyo Disney Resort, I only found one broken effect in any attraction, and it was one candle light on a gargoyle in the Stretching Room of the Haunted Mansion. That was it. If that isn’t a indicator of the massive problems at the Disney operated theme parks worldwide, I don’t know what is. Needless to say, Shanghai Disneyland was a maintenance nightmare despite being so new, while Hong Kong was surprisingly in very good shape. More on those at a later time…

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 mist screen and Davy Jones/Blackbeard effect are off once again. (2/17/19)
• The pot that is supposed to break when shot in the well scene is just always broken. (1/29/19)

The Jungle Cruise

• One mechanical butterfly on a log is 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)
• The baby elephant who sprays the crocodile and Bertha taking a shower both did not spray any water. (2/17/19)

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

• The falling rock projector in the cave-in sequence is completely off. (1/14/19)

Splash Mountain

• 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 porcupine playing the turtle like drums is missing. (4/1/19)

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. It does look as if they tried to fix this at least, but it’s still not great. (1/19/19)

Liberty Square Riverboat

• Many lights are burnt out on the Liberty Belle despite is just having returned from a very long refurbishment. (3/25/19)

Fantasyland

• The Sword in the Stone remains covered with a brown tarp when not in use for shows. (1/29/19)

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)

Storybook Circus

• Many of the banner’s near Pete’s Silly Sideshow are very faded (3/25/19)

“it’s a small world”

• Marquee letters are cracked, extremely visible when illuminated at night. (1/29/19)
• Many lights throughout the load room are missing or burnt out. (1/26/19)
• One of the first singing dolls in the attraction is missing. (3/16/19)
• 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)
• 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)
• Most of the music and singing in the ride were out of sync. (2/17/19)

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 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

• 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 right side marquee isn’t lighting correctly. (3/29/19)
• There’s duct tape visible on the floor of the computer room scene. (3/29/19)
• Half of the star field on the ascent is off. (3/16/19)
• 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

• A queue projector is very misaligned (3/30/19)
• 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 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)
• One of the banners hanging from the ceiling is twisted. (2/14/19)

Living with the Land

• The running water in the first scene is completely off. (3/15/19)
• A butterfly in rainforest scene isn’t moving. (2/4/19)
• 3 of the 4 crocodiles don’t move. (2/4/19)
• Mother and baby monkey are immobile. (3/30/19)
• Goats in the fair scene open their mouths, but make no sounds. (2/4/19)
• The last projector in the barn is in 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 shark that is supposed to pop-out of the ship wreckage is not moving. (3/30/19)
• 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)
• The screens in the cars either don’t work or are in horrendous condition. (2/20/19)
• The screen before the “1st break test” scene wasn’t working. (2/20/19)
• The laser trees do not appear for every car that goes by. (2/20/19)
• The speedometer sign during the last stretch of the ride is mostly burnt out, making it impossible to see the speed of the vehicle. (2/20/19)

Mexico

• The exterior pavilion lamps are still missing and have been for quite some time now. (3/30/19)

Gran Fiesta Tour starring the Three Caballeros

• 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)

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

• The first Mark Twain’s cigar is not emitting smoke and simply looks like a solid red light. (2/20/19)
• Several sets on the “train” are not raising and lowering in sync with the rest of the show. (2/2/19)
• The gas station rose much slower than usual, characters were talking while still mostly below the stage. (2/20/19)
• Rosie’s fellow riveter Jane 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

Hollywood Boulevard

• The globe underneath Mickey Mouse on the top of Crossroads of the World is supposed to spin. It is not. (2/10/19)

Sunset Boulevard

• The terrazzo floor in front of Beverly Sunset Boutique is all ripped up and was filled in with cement. It looks pretty bad. (2/16/19)
• The Fantasmic! billboard has been off for days. (2/16/19)

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

• Stage left library exit door does not close completely. Lots of noise getting in during pre-show. (3/31/19)
• 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)

Edna Mode Experience

• Since most of the space is just decals on walls and signs, a majority of it is already destroyed. Walls and signs are all torn up. (2/21/19)

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)

Toy Story Mania

• A decal wall in the queue is covered with a patch. (3/10/19)

Slinky Dog Dash

• 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)

MuppetVision 3-D

• The safe is still missing above the painted target on the ground outside of there attraction. There is a random bullseye on the ground with nothing above. This has been like this for a while. (2/12/19)

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)
• Steam effect when trains pull into the station is not working. (2/2/19)

DINOSAUR

• Two lights in the upper atrium in the part of the queue with meteorite above are burnt out. (2/7/19)
• 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 the left-side main attraction marquees (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. The bugs that live in the in the pond are broken and filthy. (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

Marketplace

• The “Pooh Corner” photo-op has a lot of visible dirt and damage (2/21/19)

World of Disney

• Three pieces of “living art” were completely turned off on the left side of the store (3/8/19)

The Landing

• The bridge between The Landing and Town Center is showing a lot of wear. (3/10/19)

AMC Theaters

• There are large marks remaining where signs were removed/fell off on the marquee. (3/10/19)

Repaired

It’s pretty short…

The Magic Kingdom

The Jungle Cruise

• Multiple blown speakers in the center of the queue crackle loudly. (1/29/19, Reported Fixed 3/25/19)

Epcot

The Seas with Nemo and Friends

• The Angler fish is once again not moving. (1/27/19, Reported Fixed 3/30/19)

Gran Fiesta Tour starring the Three Caballeros

• The girl with the mask on the left side of the bridge is not moving. (2/20/19, Reported Fixed 3/30/19)

 

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