If you ride theme park rides often enough, you are bound to get stuck on one when it breaks down. Usually, an attraction breakdown is a minor thing. Parks like Disneyland close down attractions for maintenance regularly specifically to avoid unscheduled problems, but sometimes they still happen. A viral TikTok shows a group getting stuck on Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure for 45 minutes, which sounds like a nightmare.
Getting stuck on an attraction for an extended period is never any fun, but the viral TikTok showing the people stuck on one of Disney California Adventure's best rides, Radiator Springs Racers is especially wild because these people were stuck within sight of the exit area. As the video shows, once they were able to get out, they just walked out without a problem.
Radiator Springs Racers has long been the most popular ride at Disney California Adventure. It's routinely caused some of the longest lines at Disneyland Resort, and with Pixar Fest currently going on, it's probably even more popular than usual with fans wanting to get even more of a Pixar fix than usual.
For all the theme park rides I’ve been on, I’ve never actually been evacuated from an attraction. I’ve been stuck on some for a while, though not 45 minutes. I once got to watch the boulder in Indiana Jones Adventure roll for about 15 minutes with a high school glee club singing in the seat behind me before finally getting to the exit area, so it certainly felt like I was stuck forever.
45 minutes is a long time for an attraction to be on hold without evacuating all the guests. They certainly could have gotten everybody off the ride in that time. But for whatever reason everybody remained in a holding pattern while they tried to get everything up and running again.
Of course, as the video itself states, when the group was finally evacuated from the ride, issues were getting the seat belts to release, which may actually help explain the situation. Theme park attraction restraints are very much not designed to release early, for safety reasons, and getting all the vehicles to let the guests out is a difficult process. It’s likely better, unfortunately, for many guests to simply wait whenever possible.
There are certainly some attractions that are easier to exit than others. Getting stuck on a roller coaster can be a real problem as there might not be a path out from where your ride vehicle stopped. We’ve seen people who end up violating Cast Member instructions, which is grounds for getting banned from Disneyland, to get off of rides when they feel they’ve been sitting too long.
The good news is that the worst thing about being stuck on this particular ride is that it's boring. Universal Studios Hollywood is being sued by a couple who claims being stuck on a Harry Potter ride actually caused injury.
