With something that has as many moving parts as a theme park attraction, no amount of regular maintenance is going to prevent the occasional breakdown. Things happen and shutdowns may prevent you from getting on a ride you really want to do, or worse, you might be on it when things go bad. But one recent Walt Disney World guest is going viral for what happened after the ride stopped, as she climbed out of Guardians of the Galaxy: Comic Rewind while the ride was halted.
A TikTok, reposted from a different live stream, is going viral showing the incident where Cosmic Rewind has stopped and the lights have come on. A woman climbs out of the carriage and starts to walk away, despite repeated calls from a Cast Member on a loudspeaker to return to the vehicle.
@__baileypaige__ ♬ original sound - Bailey Paige ✨
While the post calls the woman “Karen” and out of context, it may certainly appear that way, several commenters on the viral TikTok, who saw more of the original livestream indicate that the woman had said that she needed to use the bathroom. The ride had reportedly been stopped for quite some time, without Cast Members coming out to check on the guests, leading to the emergency. Of course, as can be seen in the comments of the live stream, there are still people calling this woman “Karen” for not following the instructions.
If this is the case, it at least makes the situation a bit more understandable. Nobody wants to have that sort of an emergency while sitting in the ride vehicle, that would certainly upset people. And the fact that the lights are on inside the attraction is an indication that this isn’t happening immediately after the ride stopped. Usually the lights only come on when Cast Members know they’re going to need to escort guests off the attraction, which we hear is about to happen at the close of the clip.
Honestly, it’s a good thing this woman’s vehicle stopped near the ground. It could have just as easily stalled in a place where she was completely unable to get out, which would have also meant it would likely take longer to get her off the ride. The only worse place to get stuck would be the Disney World Skyliner.
On the one hand, getting out of the ride vehicle, even when the attraction is stopped, is absolutely a safety hazard and you should not do it. We've seen people jump off rides at Epcot when they were still moving and that's just wrong. But at the same time, if this woman really needed to use the bathroom, I’m not sure what else you do. Most of us would probably do something similar in that situation if there was no other choice.
Under normal circumstances, this is the sort of thing that could get you removed from the park or banned from Disney World. Hopefully, if there were truly extenuating circumstances, she wasn’t punished too severely.
