Tokyo Disneyland cancels all parades for safety checks

Post by **acp** » Jan Thu 10, 2008 11:40 am

TOKYO (AFP) â€” Tokyo Disneyland on Wednesday cancelled parades for the first time since it opened 25 years ago after a massive ornament broke off on a float, narrowly missing visitors.
A 300-kilogramme (660 pound) ornament fell off the float during a parade on Tuesday, said Oriental Land Co., which operates the park.
After the accident, the park suspended parades while it conducts an investigation and does not know when they will resume, Oriental Land said. Amusement rides were functioning as normal.

Full article

Further coverage Here, here and here. (all in English)

This is what the float looks like. Any guesses as to what fell off? Could have been nasty. (Yes, buzz goes round on the little mini monorail track!)

Post by **Dr. Ravenscroft** » Jan Thu 10, 2008 11:48 am

Wow that is messed up, I can't believe that they had that problem. You would think with how strict they are with the construction of the floats. But I guess it can happen anywhere really, give something enough stress and it will break.

acp, stop finding all of these negative things, sheesh

Post by **acp** » Jan Thu 10, 2008 11:52 am

Dr. Ravenscroft wrote:Wow that is messed up, I can't believe that they had that problem. You would think with how strict they are with the construction of the floats. But I guess it can happen anywhere really, give something enough stress and it will break.

acp, stop finding all of these negative things, sheesh

I just updated the original post to include a link to a picture of the float in question, in case you missed it.

I would stop finding negative things, but.. I can't find any non negative things in the news!

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 3:30 am

Geesh, that's nasty. If I had to guess I'd say it was one of those planets that fell off. They look like they're a little precarious (though I assume they're designed to look that way - but then there's only so much stress a support can take at that kind of angle). It looks like a pretty cool float though; I'd like to see Buzz going around there.

Good to hear no one was injured at least!

Post by **acp** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 5:26 am

Blimey, I can see why it would be likely to fall off now.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=865478

Buzz is at 3:58 into that video of the parade.

The whole thing moves back and to and rotates.

Oh, anyone who's been do WDW in the past year and a bit will recognise the music (but not the words).

Something tells me that Alice (near the beginning) might get a tad dizzy during the parade, too

Andy.

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 5:43 am

Oh yeah, wow. With it rotating like that it wouldn't even be really possible to make sure it was always perfectly balanced... you'd have to think that'd put extra strain on the whole thing. The more moving parts, the more there is to break, I guess.

I feel bad for Alice (and the Hatter) too. That cup is spinning pretty fast to ride around the whole 20-odd minutes (I'm guessing) the parade takes to move through - made me dizzy thinking about it. Poor girl.

Post by **Dr. Ravenscroft** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 12:10 pm

Why the heck is that thing doing that? Really, why couldn't it have just been stationary with buzz driving around it? That would have been fine for me........Planets don't sway!

Cheshire Cat · Post by **Cheshire Cat** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 3:49 pm

If I ever saw that parade in person, the first thing I would be thinking to myself is "Is that going to fall??"
It looks like the entire arm is going to snap off.

Post by **acp** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 5:51 pm

TOKYO â€” Tokyo Disneyland's twice-daily parades, which were halted earlier this week after an accident involving one of the floats, will resume this weekend, park officials said Friday.

The theme park's popular Disney Dreams On Parade was suspended after a 660-pound steel pillar adorned with colorful planets tumbled from a Buzz Lightyear float Tuesday night.

More here

The article makes it sound like the entire swaying part came off, which looking at the video above isn't entirely impossible.

Andy.

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Jan Fri 11, 2008 8:22 pm

Wow. It's definitely not hard to see how the whole thing might snap off (it looked unstable to me when it was making the abrupt change from swaying one way to swaying the other - that's gotta be a terrible strain on the parts). S'gotta be pretty frightening to see the planets falling at you. o.O

I have to agree with the Dr. though. I don't see why swaying was necessary in the first place. If they were stationary, or just rotated, that would have made more sense.