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Credit: DisneyWalt Disney World Resort guests were recently left furious after one guest decided to randomly climb off Spaceship Earth.
Spaceship Earth stands as EPCOT’s defining icon, housed inside the park’s geodesic sphere and greeting guests at the entrance. The slow-moving dark ride traces the history of human communication, from prehistoric cave paintings to the digital age.
Since its opening in 1982, the attraction has undergone multiple updates, featuring narration by celebrities such as Jeremy Irons and Judi Dench. While the ride was set to close to embrace a “new vision” in 2020, this renovation was later canceled along with several other elements of EPCOT’s planned transformation.
Despite this axed renovation, Spaceship Earth continues to pull in large crowds – especially during the holidays, when crowds flock to EPCOT for Festival of the Holidays.
That’s what made a recent incident on the attraction so frustrating.
Spaceship Earth Incident Infuriates Guests
A guest allegedly decided to randomly disembark from their ride vehicle on Spaceship Earth last week.
“According to the cast member, she was just suddenly like OK, I’m done, and then tried to walk off,” the guest wrote on Reddit.
They added, “We saw her come out and she said ‘don’t get off the ride or they’ll kick you off’ like she was in the right for doing that.”
As is always the case when a guest decides to climb off an attraction, this led to a total closure for Spaceship Earth. Guests were forced to wait over 30 minutes for cast members to inspect the ride. “We ended up not getting to ride because we needed to get home, and it was gonna be our last ride of the night, one of my favorites, but she ruined it,” they complained.
It goes without saying that climbing off Spaceship Earth is dangerous, not only because of the ride’s elevated track and confined show spaces, but also due to the risk it poses to cast members and other guests when normal safety systems are disrupted.
While Spaceship Earth is slow-moving, all ride systems provide some element of threat. In 1999, a 5-year-old boy was seriously injured after exiting a ride car while it was moving. The child broke his leg and received several injuries, undergoing several hours of surgery to repair a large wound near his shin (via Orlando Sentinel).
Similar incidents have occurred on other Disney World attractions over the years.
In March 2025, a guest became frustrated when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure temporarily broke down and decided to take matters into their own hands. “Shout out to this guy, who held up everyone on Tiana’s for 30-40 minutes because he and his son jumped out of their log,” a witness wrote on Reddit at the time. “The ride had been paused for maybe 10 minutes with very clear announcements to remain seated. He chose to jump out of the log with his kid and try to exit.”
Back in 2024, another guest jumped out of his ride vehicle on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while it climbed a hill, all in an effort to rescue his lost cell phone. The guest jumped out of the train in view of dozens of other guests and hidden security cameras. Disney cast members conducted an emergency stop and escorted everyone off the ride.
What’s the wildest behavior you’ve ever witnessed at a Disney park?
