Poor Luigi - Flying Tires Struggle To Have Fun

Luigi's Flying Tires - Cars Land - DCA
Beach Balls Now Removed

As predicted by many, the Luigi's Flying Tires ride in the new Cars Land is experiencing growing pains. Over the last week or so, the colorful beach balls that were added to the ride when it opened in June were gradually removed. Now the beach balls are gone entirely.

The beach ball element was added as means in inject some energy into the slow moving and slow loading ride. Kids loved the beach balls but as kids have a tendency to do, tracking down a colorful ball of their very own became job one when boarding the ride. Strapping in and taking off were secondary so what was slow to begin with just got slower with the beach balls distracting attention from keeping the ride moving.

Luigi's Flying Tires with Beach Balls
The balls have now been removed from the ride.

And of course with people madly tossing large plastic balls around there were a few "incidents" according to Disney as getting unexpectedly whacked in the head led to some minor injuries and complaints here and there.

So the balls are now gone. Disney is looking at alternate ways in bring energy to the attraction starting with removal of some weight from the underside of the tires for a joy stick controller that was never implemented which, in theory, should make the ride move a little faster. Other things are being discussed as well. No one yet has said this ride is a complete failure but that certainly remains a possibility.

MiceChat's Dateline Disney (link here) posted this video this morning. Keep in mind before this ride ever takes off, guests will likely have been waiting 60 minutes or more to get on. And this is what you get: