Day 943 – Still Sick

Ok, this is funny. The following quote was lifted from the original at miceage.com

The boats and flume of Disneyland’s it’s a small world were originally designed in 1963 and installed for use at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and ’65. The Americans riding in those pastel boats almost 45 years ago were much slimmer than those boarding the same boats now. While the CM’s operating the ride try their very best to eyeball the girth and size of the riders coming down the line and purposely leave a row or two empty on many boats nowadays to hopefully keep them floating, even those discreet tactics don’t always work with today’s riders.

Quite simply, the boats weren’t designed to handle multiple adults weighing more than 200 pounds, and they now routinely bottom out in the shallow flume and get stuck. The Imagineers who designed the unique flume ride system for the World’s Fair assumed that adult men would average 175 pounds, and adult women would average 135 pounds. Needless to say, those 1960’s statistics are hopelessly out of date in today’s world. This same issue creates similar problems on the drops at Pirates of the Caribbean, or even on the older dark rides like Pinocchio or Alice In Wonderland as the more heavily loaded cars try to keep up their pace throughout the ride. But at it’s a small world, the weight related problems happen more frequently.

I, however, am still feeling like crap and simply can’t seem to kick this cold. This is an infection that won’t depart… it likes me.

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