As somebody who goes to Disneyland as often as possible, and is lucky to have a job that allows me to go frequently, I understand the desire to never leave the happiest place on earth. Disneyland and Disney World are both wonderful places that mean a lot to a lot of people, which is why, unfortunately, there is a fairly significant problem with people dumping human remains at Disney Parks. While the Haunted Mansion is, for obvious reasons, the main place such things happen, somebody reportedly dumped human ashes on Rise of the Resistance. And this is just getting out of hand.
A now-deleted image originally posted to r/Disneyland on Reddit, but since reposted to Twitter, shows the aftermath of what are allegedly human ashes that had been dumped on the ground in the middle of the Rise of the Resistance attraction. The floor is gray with dust, likely after multiple of the trackless ride vehicles rolled through what had apparently been dumped off the ride by somebody who had gone on it with this purpose in mind.
Someone spread some ashes on Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland last night according to Reddit. Don't do this, folks. pic.twitter.com/nLPiAi1yY2March 17, 2024
If the image really is what it purports to be, it’s pretty terrible, both because it’s not exactly hygienic, but it also requires a pretty considerable cleaning response from the Janitorial cast members. It’s called Hepa Cleanup because special filters are required for dealing with such fine particles when vacuuming everything. It’s also a biohazard issue because you’re dealing with biological material.
The problems with doing this are many. First off, the ride has to be shut down for a not-inconsiderable amount of time to do the necessary cleaning. It's never fun to have to deal with closed attractions at Disneyland, and dealing with an unscheduled, but significant closure for this sort of cleanup would be really frustrating.
A closure on Rise of the Resistance means closing one of the best rides at Disneyland. And it’s not exactly nice for people to have to have to clean up such things. It's always the best rides where this seems to happen as well. Remains get dropped in the water of Pirates of the Caribbean and in various places all over the Haunted Mansion, by people who apparently want to make a loved one the 1,000th happy haunt.
This has been an issue for years, decades, and it certainly doesn’t appear to be fading away. At the end of the day, there’s only so much that Disney Parks can do. Human remains are something that would be fairly easy to sneak into the park under anything but the most invasive searches, and that’s just not likely to happen. As such all the theme parks are going to be able to do is react to it happening, rather than prevent it from happening.
All I can do is recommend that you just don’t do it, there are cast members who watch attractions specifically for this, so there’s a decent chance that you’ll get caught even if you’re successful, and getting banned from Disneyland seems likely to be the response from the resort once you’re busted. And who wants that?
