Cruise water slide cracks open, man injured

Not really a theme park story, but related. The Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas suffered a pretty serious failure on one of its water slides. Apparently the guy didn't fall through, but he was cut pretty badly.

Aside from me wondering why anyone wants a cruise ship this large, how does the tube fail like this? They're not uncommon, but I don't recall ever seeing anything like this.

When they introduced clear water slides, it made me wonder just how strong that material was. Fiberglass slides are pretty damn strong, but clear tubes on the bottom, especially where the rider is sliding down into, can't be nearly as strong.

More concerning to me is that there does not seem to be any way for the operator at the top and the bottom to know if anything were to happen to the slide. I assume since the rider was injured, presumably from cuts on his back, he alerted the attendant at the bottom. Had a section broke without the rider knowing, the next rider would likely have been dispatched.

That is the high stress landing point where all the fatasses from the windjammer have landed on the slide after the initial drop. Logical point of failure, engineering report should reflect these findings.

Wow. This is like something from someone’s nightmare. Or a Final Destination movie.

The Action Park of the Seas

TheMillenniumRider:

That is the high stress landing point where all the fatasses from the windjammer have landed on the slide after the initial drop. Logical point of failure, engineering report should reflect these findings.

That would be a poor engineering report if that is all it presents. I imagine that the engineers who designed the slide were smart enough to figure out that the impact area is a high stress area. The report needs to present the root cause of the failure. Was it degradation of the material? Was an incompatible or inappropriate material used? Were the stress calcs not correct? Unfortunately fatasses from the windjammer is not a root cause.

No, that is true, I suppose it is the ****ty buffet hot dogs and hamburgers. I just had to eat another, look how many there are!!

Still that’s a very acute change direction for a bomb bay drop, most of those rides have wider angles there for a reason. They also have weight limits, which I doubt were rigorously followed in international waters, especially if that slide is an upcharge.

The rider isn't "landing" in that spot. The tube is on an incline, and there's a gradual transition to something less closer to horizontal than vertical. Different photos show the angle is not really any more extreme than other rides. Large drops on every slide have this. There is no blunt all-at-once impact to that spot.

Touchdown:

They also have weight limits, which I doubt were rigorously followed in international waters, especially if that slide is an upcharge

On every cruise I've been on they're more vigilant about the slide rules than most waterparks I've been to. If a ride says you need to be 100 pounds, they won't let you on if you're 99. Case in point: my son was 99.

Also not sure how RCCL does it, but I've never seen a waterslide upcharge.

If Touchdown thinks that all the rules go out the window when the ship hits international waters (a la The Simpsons) then he’s going to be a sad panda when he goes on a cruise.

The only cruise you will catch me on is one to Alaska (2027 hopefully) I’m not the cruising type.

It’s not all blackjack and hookers. But the Alaska cruise was my favorite by far.

Whatever is the point, then?

Don’t need nothin’ but a good time!

There's no upcharge on this slide. And no, there's not any kind of "impact" as you transition out of the near freefall portion into the pullout portion, but the pullout does produce some decent Gs. Of the drop slides I've experienced, I would say it's less intense than the ones at Perfect Day at CocoCay and Cedar Point. My first thought was that plexiglass might be a little weaker than fiberglass, but a few minutes of half-assed internet research suggested that they're very comparable, but are strong in different ways.

When I first saw this section of the slide, I remember thinking that it didn't look well-supported, but the thought was never enough to make me question whether it was designed properly. I still wouldn't say that I'm thinking that, but obviously something went wrong.

PhantomTails:

It’s not all blackjack and hookers.

That's ok, I'm more of a craps guy.