UPDATE: Tarzan’s Treehouse has reopened as of 9:00 AM (PST) on November 11, 2019.
Tarzan’s Treehouse at Disneyland Park was closed indefinitely yesterday following an incident which broke one of the wooden bridges. The Adventureland attraction was closed at about 4:45pm yesterday. According to various Tweets, this was due to a Guest jumping so hard on a rope bridge that a wooden slat broke.
Reportedly, the Guest jumped with such force to demonstrate to his children that it would in fact not break. Nearby Guests also reported hearing the noise of wood cracking. If the Guest had broken through, it would’ve been about a three-story fall. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, but Cast Members did spend some time searching for the offending Guest and their party. Tarzan’s Treehouse has been cordoned off and Guests have been denied access since. It is unknown when the attraction will reopen.
Remember folks, these attractions are built for safety but do exercise caution and use common sense nonetheless. Stay tuned to WDWNT as we continue to be posted on this incident.
If you’ve noticed issues in the Disney Parks, feel free to contribute to our WDWNT maintenance reports by emailing us with photographic evidence at tom@wdwnt.com. You can also reach us through our social media avenues (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) using the hashtag #WDWNTfix.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Because you break them, I had to take them awaaaaay
It’s sas to read that some people don’t use common sense anymore. Plus have no respect for other people’s property.
Can we say , “Charge The Idiot”!!! 🤪
OK, in all fairness, I’ve jumped on a bounce house or rope bridge to show my kids that it is OK and they shouldn’t be afraid. It wasn’t an obnoxious teen, it was a parent trying to keep their kids moving. They may have jumped with too much force, sure, but wood does rot eventually. I wouldn’t want to be that parent, breaking the bridge and still trying to herd the kids forward. I’ll bet there was a lot of crying after that.
At least it broke when an adult was there, and not a child. A child might have fallen through a bit, and gotten really hurt.
People are so dumb sometimes, I mean what in the world was this person trying to teach their child, that it’s okay to disrespect and try to destroy things that are in the public domain and don’t belong to them? (ps: this is a psychotic comment because this sort of mindless behavior drives me insane)
What is wrong with all of you people? Blaming the guest? You know there’s something called over-engineering, i.e. that plank better be able to take MANY times the force of even the heaviest possible person jumping on it, so that there is always a sufficient safety margin. Disney failed here, NOT the guest. Would you drive over a bridge that was designed to only take 110% of the weight of your vehicle? I certainly wouldn’t. One small miscalculation and you go plummeting into the river. Real bridges have safety factors of AT LEAST 2 and generally much more than that.
Aaron, you try to be intelligent, but you fail. NO bridge in the whole world is designed to take continuous repeated VERTICAL shock forces. It’s designed to take forces which advance horizontally on their way. (Axle pressure) And Hooliganism ALWAYS must by prosequted. The guest is not just failing, the guest here is a hooligan.
Of course I blame the guest. Bridges are not meant to be jumped on. And, he used enough force to break the bridge and then DIDN’T TELL ANYONE. He just walked away. Leaving a broken bridge for anyone coming behind him to injure themselves. Thank God that didn’t happen.
You can only design for so much stupidity. The impact force exerted by a 150 lb person jumping 1 ft in the air is over 650lb. This bridge was designed for rational people to walk across and rambunctious kids to play on. It clearly wasn’t designed for every imaginable idiot to give it their worst. No attraction can be completely idiot proof. It’s not a design problem, and the safety factors were more than adaquate for static loading, but when a deranged hippo starts pile-driving his foot into the weakest part of the bridge, all bets are off.
I agree, this person wasn’t actually trying to break it, he was trying to prove that it couldn’t be broken. Because he actually believed that it couldn’t be broken. Sure, wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I’m guessing he managed to find a weak board because I’m sure it is normally strong enough to take some jumping. Of course it is.
I couldn’t agree more with this unpopular opinion. This thing should be built to handle the weight of a cow, not a human–and I imagine it was when it was first constructed. The simple fact is that Disney maintenance is stretched too thin and is too underfunded and things like this are just going to keep happening until an accident proves that they need to rethink their priorities.
I love Disney, but they’re slipping up too frequently and cast members and guests are suffering as a result.
Well this bridge could support more than 1 person on the bridge at a time but when you jump repeatedly on wooden floors or planks they tend to break after a while.
Just like that time when some people were throwing a party on the 1st floor and were dancing and jumping up and down that the floor gave way and everyone fell to the basement.
Just hopefully in the future people will use their brains and think before trying something that could be dangerous.
This clearly isn’t an engineering issue. The bridge has been there for a long time and I’m sure he wasn’t the first to jump on it. That specific piece could’ve already had a crack of some sort. Regardless, the guest made a stupid decision. He could’ve just walked across to prove that it was safe.
We meet hooligans almost everywhere. In most cases, they, at the same time, try to proove “macho powers” to their party (whatever that party consists of, like gang members, collegues or their own family), and just get a wet delirium from the idea they COULD destruct something (even if it does not happen). Just one remedy : police report + lawsuit. No pardon. Note that almost all hooliganism is committed by MEN.
Wow. I’m pretty sure you didn’t bother to read the article or just don’t care about details just to spread your negativity.
Why damage this? If you can’t admit you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, no class.
We were at Disneyland this last week and the amount of out of control guests was overwhelming. Purposely trying to destroy things, littering, and stealing items from stores. It was a very different crowd then we have ever witnessed while vacationing with Disney. We were happy to be going home today.
It was reopened today (11th), my daughter has been climbing several times throughout today. Must have been an easy repair
Shame on them… build better attractions. At no point should the weight of a single human male be enough to violate or compromise the structural integrity of ANY walking area. Especially a elevated platform.
I’m sure that when they built this, they didn’t expect an Adult jumping ontop of the bridge.
But at least the ropes of the bridge held together.
But i hope people learn from this and don’t try to do anything foolish to endanger themselves or others.
Common sense? COMMON SENSE??? This is the U.S.A. — we don’t do no common sense.
The world is full of idiots and sadly you can’t get away from them.
I do t care how much they jumped. It should not have broken. These things need inspection and should be safe for everyone. Big or small or jumping or not. This is not the guests fault. It is a tree house after all.
Moronic move. But it may have saved someone’s life. That’s about it.
Bring back Swiss Family Robinson treehouse
Instead of jumping on the bridge, you could have just told your kids “Disney wouldn’t build something that wasn’t safe.” Apparently wasn’t true and everything needs a little touch up occasionally, but it would have been a better way instead of jumping super hard on something that doesn’t have anything underneath it….