What Really Happens At A Disney Theme Park If There's A Power Outage?

It's a common refrain among Super Bowl winners and vacationing family members: "I'm going to Disney World!" However, some guests found Disney singing a different refrain about power outages after it hosted a parade for the reigning Super Bowl LIX champs, the Philadelphia Eagles, in February 2025 (via Newsweek). During the day, blue skies and cheerleaders with pom-poms could be seen on the roundabout in front of Cinderella's Castle. They were followed by a parade float with MVP quarterback Jalen Hurts, grinning and waving Disney characters.

The mood at the Magic Kingdom was more panicky later that evening when an unexplained power outage occurred, shutting down almost 20 attractions, including popular rides like Space Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. In some areas of the park, such as Fantasyland and Frontierland, all the rides were down at once. Days later, guests of Disney's All-Star Music Resort arrived to find a lobby sign with big red letters warning of another scheduled power outage that would take place overnight, according to the All Ears Disney Blog. The next morning, at Disney's Hollywood Studios, that outage was blamed for the delayed opening of other popular rides like Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (via Inside the Magic).

Overall, power outages remain a semi-infrequent occurrence at Disney World. Yet, as these two stories illustrate, they can and do happen — occasionally, even twice in one week. Just as Annual Passholders plan around "blockout" dates, it's worth knowing what to expect in the unlikely event your Disney trip coincides with a freak blackout.

Even when the power's on, long lines and rides breaking down are among the top guest complaints at Disney World. Sometimes, the best you can hope for while waiting is one of Disney's patented "magical moments," like when Cast Members performed scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean outside the ride amid the post-Super Bowl LIX outage. When a Lightning Lane attraction goes down in an isolated power outage, you should be able to choose a substitute ride or request a refund for Multi Pass or Single Pass, respectively.

The problem arises when the outage is more widespread, and everyone else has the same idea. In December 2017, it made national news when that happened at Disneyland in California, with a blown transformer blacking out Fantasyland and Mickey's Toontown (via NBC News). The park was already filled to capacity on a sold-out day when it received its own answer to the ill-timed tweet (via ABC 10 News), "What's the worst that could happen?"

Indoor rides like It's a Small World went truly dark, leaving guests trapped as the sing-song melody of the ride's music continued despite the blackout. Some families were left sitting in their boats for almost half an hour before Cast Members finally escorted them off the attraction, whereupon they got a little behind-the-scenes tour of "the bowels of Disneyland," as one guest called it on CNN. Afterward, guests lamented paying peak ticket prices that day, then facing a four-to-five hour wait in line for refunds.

One mistake to avoid when planning your next Florida trip would be to bank on the Sunshine State's nickname. This is coming from a native Floridian, and it's a lesson some out-of-state tourists learned the hard way during Hurricane Milton in October 2024 (via NBC News). The storm left millions across Florida without power, and Disney was not immune to its effects. In an increasingly habitual move, its parks closed for two days, as they did also in September 2022 and 2017 when Hurricanes Ian and Irma struck.

Stories circulated of families riding out Milton in Disney hotels and being confined to their rooms at night. Some guests could enjoy discounted rooms and meals, though the menu selection was limited. At the time, Disney also reassured guests that it has back-up generators to keep the lights on, and generators did keep a few rides running during the February 2025 outage at the Magic Kingdom. There are emergency lights in places, too, so Disney World isn't likely to go full Space Mountain and turn pitch-black during a power outage.

In July 2019, however, there was an incident where a sweeping blackout, linked to Tropical Storm Dorian, affected multiple Magic Kingdom rides and the Disney Springs shopping district (via WDW News Today). Situations like that show that Disney's backup power sources aren't always foolproof. For Hurricane Irma, characters like Donald Duck and Pluto at least showed up to entertain stranded guests at the Port Orleans Resort – French Quarter.

The All-Star Music Resort isn't the only Disney World hotel that's posted signs about a planned power outage in the wee morning hours. A similar sign went up at the Port Orleans Resort – Riverside in September 2024. According to All Ears, the outage was scheduled for between 1:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., while All-Star Music had the hours between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. blocked off.

In April 2024, there were reports of an unplanned power outage at Disney's Pop Century Resort, with guests sharing video on social media of the hotel's lights flickering off and on just before midnight. This same value resort had a planned outage between 12:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. in October 2023. Beyond that, you don't have to look far to find Tripadvisor reviews from guests who were surprised (and disappointed) to suffer outages at other Disney hotels like the Animal Kingdom Villas – Jambo House.

For these hotels, overnight power outages are part of regular maintenance, like what you might experience on an online banking site. Some guests might sleep right through them, but it could be disorienting to awake in a strange bed in the middle of the night in a hotel where all the lights have gone out. If your hotel alerts you to a pending outage, be sure to have your phone and other devices charged beforehand. A portable charger can help, and having a backup alarm ready for morning couldn't hurt, either.

In summer especially, Florida's weather woes go beyond hurricanes to afternoon thunderstorms — and occasional lightning strikes. The latter, obviously, aren't what anyone had in mind for Lightning Lane at Disney. One notable strike occurred in August 2020 when a guest captured footage of a bolt hitting a lightning rod in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, according to Fox News. It was as if the evil Emperor Palpatine had sent down Force lightning straight out of a "Star Wars" movie.

The lightning strike reportedly blew a power generator, (via WDW News Today), knocking the Rise of the Resistance — one of the most sought-after Hollywood Studios attractions — out of commission. That ride and other nearby attractions like Muppet*Vision 3D were down the next day, which shows how long it can take for the parks to get fully operational again once the power goes out. If and when that happens, Disney might need time to bring their systems back online and perform safety checks before everything gets back up and running.

Lightning strikes aren't limited to Florida parks, as one caused an extensive power outage at Tokyo Disneyland in August 2016 (via Mashable). In the Star Tours queue, animatronic droids powered down. On the Splash Mountain ride, log boats floated to a stop. Guests were soon ushered out of darkened attractions, just as they were during a more recent outage in June 2024, according to Kyodo News. Back in Florida, even Disney's monorail had to be evacuated following a July 2014 outage (via CNN), which some eyewitnesses attributed to a lightning strike.

Despite everything we've covered here, you're still less likely to get caught in a power outage at Disney World than in other places in Florida. In addition to being equipped with generators and speedy repair crews, the resort draws some electricity from solar arrays. It's different from a residential neighborhood, where you might see power lines strung up within reach of potentially hazardous trees. Outside the Magic Kingdom's secret tunnels, the most visible reminder of Disney World's underground power lines is a Mickey-shaped pylon at an electric substation down the road.

California's Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland all use solar arrays as well. For its part, Disney World has its own 22-acre solar farm near Epcot (and it, too, is Mickey-shaped). The resort also has a larger 270-acre solar facility, which is double the Magic Kingdom's size, and which was built to power two of Florida's four parks.

With all that energy, you probably won't be plunged into total darkness during a power outage, like you would on Alien Encounter, the Disney World ride so nightmare-fueling it got shut down for good. Yet it's good to be mentally prepared on the off chance that there's a repeat of something like the 2019 blackout in Disney Springs, when restaurants and stores were temporarily unable to process food or souvenir transactions. As Disney World notes on its page for weather updates: "Some Resort experiences can be delayed, rescheduled or cancelled due to severe weather."