JMcDon22
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2017
I haven't seen a thread about this so please move if this belongs somewhere else.
Just got back from Universal and experienced a somewhat scary/alarming situation. My girlfriend and I were finishing up our day at Islands of Adventure and heading over to Studios to explore Diagon Alley aboard the Hogwarts Express around 3:00 PM. We were seated in the second train car with two couples both with children (6 and 13). Maybe 2-3 minutes into the ride our "window screen" went black and the train completely stopped. The sound was still playing but no lights or movement or air conditioning. After a few minutes the Universal "cast member" (who was amazing through all of this I might add) opened our door and told us we experienced a loss of power to the train and that they were working on fixing the problem. We were able to get up and walk around a little but all doors were closed and it got hot FAST. She explained not to take any pictures or videos of anything. Maybe 20 minutes or so went by and you could hear her radio say that all guests need to remain in their cars and should not be moving at all. Everyone was remaining calm and patient but the heat was getting progressively worse and the little girl across from us had to go to the bathroom but couldn't. Her father explained this to the cast member and she radioed it in but there was not much to be done. Another 20 minutes went by and still no movement or signs of the issue being fixed. At this point everyone was out of their seats even after being told to stay in the small "pods." People started looking sick/heat exhausted and we were continually told to remain in our pods and that we would need to evacuate the train. Eventually the cast member tried to open the door but couldn't and a man we were riding with ended up doing it for her while she was at the other end of the train car (Probably wasn't a good idea but we were relieved with the minimal air flow it gave us). Looking out the door we could see we were raised above ground and there was a gap from the train car to the catwalk running alongside it. There were police and lots of Universal workers on the catwalk. We were continuously told we would be evacuating but that we needed to remain in our seats. Another 15 minutes or so went by and people were extremely aggravated and we were all beyond hot. It was a small, hot confined space for over an hour where temperatures had to be 110+. A woman got sick and was throwing up at the back of one train car and the poor little girl across from us was almost in tears scared, hot, and close to going to the bathroom in her clothes. They finally set up safety nets and platforms to the catwalk and we got off one by one and were led down steps to the ground where they lined us up and gave us small bottles of water. People were taking videos and pictures and security was yelling to stop. They lined us up and started walking us back to IOA. We ended up coming back into the park next to the Voyage of Sinbad show which was going on at the time. They shuffled us in and it basically told us you are back in IOA. Maybe half the train went back into the park but when a few of us got through we demanded to speak to someone and be compensated for what had just happened. When you are paying hundreds of dollars and lose two hours of time in extreme heat with only a "I'm sorry here's some water" it just didn't cut it. People were being seen by EMS for heat exhaustion and our day was ruined. Thankfully a Universal employee (not going to use names) took down our information and a few other families and we were offered what I felt was reasonable compensation. I won't explain what that was because I won't know if it will happen for a few days.
The point of this post is to point out that something needs to be done with the safety protocol with the Express in the case something like this happens. Sitting for over an hour in that heat could have been deadly and that's not an exaggeration. The Express "cast member" was great through this all and was in her uniform so she had to be feeling the heat worse than us. It shouldn't take that long to get someone there to evacuate. If this was a fire or something worse who knows what could have happened. I know rides breakdown all the time and people get stuck but I think this was a pretty extreme circumstance. For there to only be offered compensation after a few people "make a scene" is unreasonable for this situation. We stayed at the park until close and did not get to do half of what we wanted. Unfortunately this was our one Universal day and we will have to wait to get back another time to do a lot of what we wanted which in our case could be years. I do thank the workers providing water and the EMS/fire/police who did what they could to get us off.
I will post the link to the news story I found once I saw a channel 6 helicopter overhead as we were walking out of IOA to Studios. Please remove the link if that is not allowed. The Hogwarts Express remained close the rest of the day/night. Hopefully our day at Animal Kingdom will go a little smoother...
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/hogwarts-express-at-universal-orlando-evacuated
Just got back from Universal and experienced a somewhat scary/alarming situation. My girlfriend and I were finishing up our day at Islands of Adventure and heading over to Studios to explore Diagon Alley aboard the Hogwarts Express around 3:00 PM. We were seated in the second train car with two couples both with children (6 and 13). Maybe 2-3 minutes into the ride our "window screen" went black and the train completely stopped. The sound was still playing but no lights or movement or air conditioning. After a few minutes the Universal "cast member" (who was amazing through all of this I might add) opened our door and told us we experienced a loss of power to the train and that they were working on fixing the problem. We were able to get up and walk around a little but all doors were closed and it got hot FAST. She explained not to take any pictures or videos of anything. Maybe 20 minutes or so went by and you could hear her radio say that all guests need to remain in their cars and should not be moving at all. Everyone was remaining calm and patient but the heat was getting progressively worse and the little girl across from us had to go to the bathroom but couldn't. Her father explained this to the cast member and she radioed it in but there was not much to be done. Another 20 minutes went by and still no movement or signs of the issue being fixed. At this point everyone was out of their seats even after being told to stay in the small "pods." People started looking sick/heat exhausted and we were continually told to remain in our pods and that we would need to evacuate the train. Eventually the cast member tried to open the door but couldn't and a man we were riding with ended up doing it for her while she was at the other end of the train car (Probably wasn't a good idea but we were relieved with the minimal air flow it gave us). Looking out the door we could see we were raised above ground and there was a gap from the train car to the catwalk running alongside it. There were police and lots of Universal workers on the catwalk. We were continuously told we would be evacuating but that we needed to remain in our seats. Another 15 minutes or so went by and people were extremely aggravated and we were all beyond hot. It was a small, hot confined space for over an hour where temperatures had to be 110+. A woman got sick and was throwing up at the back of one train car and the poor little girl across from us was almost in tears scared, hot, and close to going to the bathroom in her clothes. They finally set up safety nets and platforms to the catwalk and we got off one by one and were led down steps to the ground where they lined us up and gave us small bottles of water. People were taking videos and pictures and security was yelling to stop. They lined us up and started walking us back to IOA. We ended up coming back into the park next to the Voyage of Sinbad show which was going on at the time. They shuffled us in and it basically told us you are back in IOA. Maybe half the train went back into the park but when a few of us got through we demanded to speak to someone and be compensated for what had just happened. When you are paying hundreds of dollars and lose two hours of time in extreme heat with only a "I'm sorry here's some water" it just didn't cut it. People were being seen by EMS for heat exhaustion and our day was ruined. Thankfully a Universal employee (not going to use names) took down our information and a few other families and we were offered what I felt was reasonable compensation. I won't explain what that was because I won't know if it will happen for a few days.
The point of this post is to point out that something needs to be done with the safety protocol with the Express in the case something like this happens. Sitting for over an hour in that heat could have been deadly and that's not an exaggeration. The Express "cast member" was great through this all and was in her uniform so she had to be feeling the heat worse than us. It shouldn't take that long to get someone there to evacuate. If this was a fire or something worse who knows what could have happened. I know rides breakdown all the time and people get stuck but I think this was a pretty extreme circumstance. For there to only be offered compensation after a few people "make a scene" is unreasonable for this situation. We stayed at the park until close and did not get to do half of what we wanted. Unfortunately this was our one Universal day and we will have to wait to get back another time to do a lot of what we wanted which in our case could be years. I do thank the workers providing water and the EMS/fire/police who did what they could to get us off.
I will post the link to the news story I found once I saw a channel 6 helicopter overhead as we were walking out of IOA to Studios. Please remove the link if that is not allowed. The Hogwarts Express remained close the rest of the day/night. Hopefully our day at Animal Kingdom will go a little smoother...
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/hogwarts-express-at-universal-orlando-evacuated
