I Was Evacuated Off of TWO Rides on the SAME DAY at Disney World. Here’s What Happened.

Fun fact about me: I was born on a Friday the 13th, but it also happened to be Good Friday, so I sometimes joke that I’m either really good luck or really bad luck. And let’s just say I think I brought some bad luck on my latest Disney World trip.

A ride evacuation is not a great time for a guest’s first visit to Disney World, or for those who get weary of being stuck in one place for a hot second, but for frequent Disney World visitors, sometimes it’s on your bucket list to get evacuated off certain rides. I wouldn’t say that getting evacuated is necessarily on my bucket list, but I don’t mind them, per se, especially since the majority of these rides I’ve been on dozens of times, so I don’t feel I’m missing out too much. I was in Disney World this past weekend (yes, when Hurricane Helene was passing through!), and I got evacuated off not one but TWO rides on the same day, mere hours apart from each other!

Let me preface this by saying two things: Firstly, I’m on a ride evacuation roll apparently because my last trip in June was when I got evacuated from the PeopleMover with DFB Cassie and DFB Milly.

Second, when you’re evacuated from a Disney World ride, Cast Members will tell you that there is no filming or photos backstage. I did adhere to this rule, I promise! All of these videos were taken before Cast Members announced that no filming and photos were allowed (and on my second evacuation, they were actually specific to say that no photos or videos were allowed once we stepped OUTSIDE the doors, they didn’t make any comment about filming or photos inside). Once that announcement was made, my phone was off, with no photos or videos taken. However, I do have a pretty good memory, so I have lots of details to share!

So, let’s start at the beginning: I had just hopped over to Magic Kingdom from Animal Kingdom and was planning to ride as many attractions as possible before it closed at 6PM for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. My second ride of the park was Pirates of The Caribbean, which is one of my favorites.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a boat attraction that takes you through different scenes featuring some of your favorite characters from the franchise, as well as characters unique to the ride. About halfway through the ride, we stopped right before entering what I like to call the “everything’s on fire” scene. 

I thought we were just stuck momentarily, but as I kept feeling more and more boats bump into the back of ours, I realized we were pretty backed up. Since I vlog (video blog) my trips, I have timestamps to show you how long we were stuck for — we got stuck around 1PM, and it was at 1:16PM that the work lights turned on and Cast Members made an announcement that the ride would be shutting down immediately. (Again, at this time, no announcement had been made about not filming or taking photos, so I grabbed what I could.)

What was really interesting about this was that the animatronics continued to run even when the rest of the ride was fully powered off! We even felt our boat start to drift backward as the ride turned off, as nothing was guiding us forward anymore. However, about 5 minutes after the ride powered down, an announcement was made that the animatronics would be powering down as well, and sure enough, they shut off. It was cool seeing how the systems can work totally separately!

We got evacuated off of Pirates! 🏴‍☠️☠️🦜 pic.twitter.com/5lisiaSryX

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It was after this, right around 1:30, that Cast Members came to come get us, and one of them put on a wetsuit to get in the water and hold the boats steady while other Cast Members helped us out. It was also at this point that the Cast Members said no pictures or videos, so my camera was down for the remainder of the experience. What I did find interesting at the time was hearing them make an announcement saying that the “perimeter was secure.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I was about to find out!

Around 1:35, my boat was evacuated, and I followed the Cast Members instructions to go up those stairs we were near. We walked through that part of the set (the little window that’s in that corridor) and then were walking into the true backstage where all the theming disappeared quickly. We went down a staircase and were brought outside, which was deep into backstage territory. So deep in fact, that I saw the Festival of Fantasy parade floats in their holding spots AND saw the tops of the animatronic hippos used in Jungle Cruise — there were a lot more than I was expecting! 

Honestly, the walk back to the main park area was longer than I expected too, and we passed Cast Members every 50-100 feet or so to ensure that everyone stayed on the path and weren’t filming or taking photos (that’s what I’m assuming they meant by “perimeter secure”). After about a 5 minute walk, all through backstage (we even passed under a bridge that had “go away green” paint and fake foliage on it in hopes that people wouldn’t notice it!), we came back to Adventureland, where Cast Members were ready to scan our tickets and MagicBands to give us experience redemption Lightning Lanes to use on *almost* any attraction in the park.

All in all, I was back in the actual park around 1:40, and continued with my day. While I had been on Pirates though, I had been able to snag myself a Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Virtual Queue spot, which I was really excited about, since I’d never gotten to ride before. What I didn’t know at the time was that the Pirates ride evacuation curse was about to continue.

I hopped on Tiana’s right around 4:48PM and was seated in the front (YIKES). The ride started out totally fine, and I was already soaked from the first few drops, but then we reached the lift that takes you up to the main drop. I noticed there were two boats in front of us as we pulled up, with one of them being pulled up the incline, and then we stopped at about 4:59. I didn’t think anything of it, but then we STAYED stopped. And I had a feeling…

…and I was RIGHT. At 5PM it was announced that the ride would be powering down, the lights came on (but the music stayed on — I didn’t mind, I was jamming), and a pre-recorded announcement came on saying the ride had been interrupted and that a Cast Member would be with us shortly to assist. In comparison to Pirates of the Caribbean, it was a MUCH quicker evacuation call — we had only been stuck (on our part of the ride) for about 3-4 minutes before the evacuation announcement was made, where on Pirates, it was about 15 minutes.

Within a few minutes, Cast Members in good spirits came to assist us. They started with the two boats in front of mine and used a special stick/lever at the back of each boat to release the restraints. When they got to my boat however, the back two rows released…but mine didn’t! The Cast Member had already moved onto the boat behind us, but when the other CM came to help us out of the boat and saw I was still stuck, she called the other back over. He attempted to use the stick again, but my restraint wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t panicking, I knew they’d get me out somehow, and it was a super simple fix — he just went to the other side of the boat and used it on that release, and it came undone!

We waited a minute or two for everyone else in our section to be released and be safely on the walkway, and then we started our walk backward through the ride, away from the incline up to the drop. It was at this time a Cast Member said no recording once “you step out of those doors,” but no comment was ever made about recording inside the attraction. I think it’s because even though the lights were on, we still weren’t technically backstage — it was everything you normally see on the ride.

And that’s how I was able to get this slightly gross video of the water we walked through — you expect to get wet on the ride, sure, but it was interesting to see how much that excess water just sits on the sides of the attraction!

However, once we stepped through that backstage door, my phone was in my bag and off, of course. In this case, we didn’t have to walk through nearly as much of backstage, and there weren’t any super cool sights to see. We did see other groups coming out of different doors and joining us in our line, but within a minute or two, we were at a door that brought us to the normal exit of the ride (right before Tiana’s Bayou General). Again, we were given an experience redemption (mine however actually never showed up on my app, but I was heading out soon anyway, so I didn’t mind), and off we went! All in all, I was off the ride by about 5:20.

Two major ride evacuations in one day was certainly not how I expected my day to go, but it was entertaining nonetheless! Although I am hoping I’ll be able to fully ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure on my next visit (and hopefully the bad breakdown luck won’t follow me this time!).

Be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for all the latest Disney World news and updates!

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Have you ever been evacuated off a ride? Tell me about it in the comments!

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