Stupid Cast Member trick or just an amusing story...

[ktulu]

Just to set this up a bit, I'm a big guy, my wife is not petite either. I hate to use the term 'pooh' sized people like some other boards use, so I'll put it like this, I'm fat :)

So, we're at Disneyland in late June-July, 2001. We're in line for Pirates, almost no waiting, I believe it was getting late and we were taking one last ride. The CM loads my wife, my brother (thin, lucky bastard...) and I in the front row, and like 4 more fat people right behind us. That's it, rest of the boat is empty. So we proceed down and I'm fixated on the fact that we're awfully full towards the bow. We approach the first drop, and then it happens, we stop. We're stuck. No YoHo for us, just that skull going on and on... I can imagine the groans from the CM's back at the loading dock and then the fix "Send more boats, we'll ram em down!" Nope, doesn't happen, no crys for whiplash, just crys for help "turn off the skull, for the love of God, TURN IT OFF!!!" We sit for a few more minutes before a CM comes to get us out of the boat.

When they finally got us all out and led us through some back hallway (lots of stares from CM's working there, yeah yeah, some fat people broke pirates...) they took us through the exit and loaded us onto another boat. This time one CM took charge and spread us out. We set out once again and this time we made it.

The best thing was no one was upset, we all found it to be quite funny. If you worked pirates that night (I'd be shocked to find out this is the first time that has happened...), thanks for making it memorable!

[BirdMom]

I haven't worked Pirates since 1995, but whoever loaded you initially totally f-ed up. These boats need to be balanced with the "fulcrum" point being between rows three and four. If the weight isn't evenly distributed, your "incident" is one of the possibilities. Another front heavy possibility is flooding in the front rows. Back heavy tends to make the boats go out of the flume. However, as I've come back in as a guest, I've noticed that since we don't have the long time leads there (with the exception of Ian, who's only on weekends), CM's don't seem to be as picky about the weight distribution on the boats as they were back in my day. Of course, we had some tough leads who would verbally rip you to shreds for improperly loading a boat leading to a downtime (one would write someone up for doing something like that). At least you had an understanding crew (who probably razzed the unfortunate loader afterwards). Hey - it always could have been worse...

[CBeilby]

Tampico Tumbler at Knott's Berry Farm used to be the same way. If you weren't careful while loading, and overloaded an arm, you could cause the ride to go 101-RTL (Ride Trouble Light.) Even worse was if the ride went 101-MU (Man Up,) which is when the ride stopped itself with one of the arms vertical. In that case, maintainance would have to come out to manually level out the arm and lower the ride to the ground so that the guests could be exited. A 101-MU could end up leading to thirty minutes or more of downtime each time it happened.



The scary thing is that this was my favorite ride to run in Fiesta Village. I loved running Tumbler, and was an expert at loading the thing. I think I may well have had the lowest downtime on that ride of anyone in Fiesta. I really hate that they took it out. :(

Now, Grand Slammer, on the other hand........ :twisted:

[Coastercameron]

Haha!!! Gotta love the tumbler. My park (formerly a sister park to KBF) has the last park-model tumbler in the USA. I've seen it go 101 many-a-time. Never seen it stop with an arm completely vertical though. All the ops know that if you screw up and misbalance the ride, you are never going to hear the end of it from Maint. so it doesn't happen too often.

[LittleDollClaudia]

When I worked at KBF, my ride training was this: "This button makes it go, this button makes it stop, got that? Good. Have fun!" Thank the Goddess I had some brain power or a lot of guests would be dead.

Oh, I did mention I used to work at Camp Snoopy, right? There's a headache and a half for ya.

[Scream162]

As a working lead at Pirates, I'll tell you that we still have to balance boats before they are dispatched. I'm assuming since you went at night it was someone new who grouped your boat.

[ktulu]

As a working lead at Pirates, I'll tell you that we still have to balance boats before they are dispatched. I'm assuming since you went at night it was someone new who grouped your boat.

My guess was n00b, tired cm or idiot :) Regardless, it makes for great stories at parties when I want everyone to leave ;)

[Princess Jasmine]

Never had that happen to me on Pirates, but a couple of times when I've riden Splash Mountain...holy hell. All kinds of loaded me (on the heavy side as well) and my friend (heavy side too) in the front row.

Went down the final drop......needless to say...drenched....I think the log actually went under the water. LOL. Of course all I remember is the water splashing up from the reaction of the initial drop...and then splashing up from the sides and over us.

The people behind us were so upset. It was fun though. I was laughing soo hard. Doesn't matter I had to buy a new outfit because I bought that cute Mickey Mouse SM shirt that says "Dry is not an option"

[AlpineDL]

We get that at Small World a fair bit... the problem is when guests decide to push and force themselves through, so we never get an indication to come help and solve the balance issue. 20 minutes later a boat of tired, angry guests shows up complaining they "had" to push themselves.

At least at SW there's the advantage over Pirates of seeing the boats floating (or dropping to the bottom) in the flume and still having a chance to stop them and fix things right in the station.

[Mad Hatter65]

Id Hate to admit it but one of my favorite things to do at Tours is group all the "bigger" guests on to the same row and watch them struggle. I know its cruel but its what gets me through my day....