One of the more eye catching attractions at Downtown Disney marketplace is the Characters in Flight balloon ride. Located in the west side area, this unique ride has an enclosed “basket” attached to a helium filled balloon.
The balloon is red and yellow with Disney characters of Peter Pan and friends flying across it. It is tethered by cables so it only goes up so high and out over the water it sits next to.
Well your not going to see it for a while! That’s because Disney suddenly stopped the attraction after the same type of balloon and operated by French company Aerophile sprung a leak and crashed in Hong Kong.
It fell 180 feet and injured 5 people. Hey, since the one at Disney flies out over water they could call it Disney’s splash balloon, after splash mountain! 😀
Anyways the company that operates the balloon has said that they will be replacing the one at Disney, which is 3 years old. No word on how long it will be before they get the new one back up.
But Disney has stopped any reference to the balloon ride on their website. So I think it will be a while before the new one shows up. I hope they paint it a different color so it will really be different.
So if your wondering what the heck happened to the big balloon you always see at downtown Disney, now you know! I still think the splash balloon ride would be cool.
