What do an off-roading ride through the last minutes of the Cretaceous and “the happiest cruise that ever set sail” have in common? Not a whole lot. But like so many of Disney and Universal’s E-Ticket adventures, one thing they do share is the kind of building in which they take place. Most of the industry’s leading, anchoring, epic attractions take place in enormous soundstage-style warehouses – called “showbuildings” in Disney-speak – that are (to varying degrees of success) completely hidden from the view of Guests.
Showbuildings dot the landscapes of Disney World, Disneyland, and Universal Orlando, concealing the epic attractions we know and love behind flat, industrial walls of blend-in beige and go-away green, their rooftops littered with HVAC systems. And today, we’ll take a long, hard look behind-the-scenes at those massive showbuildings for the ultimate countdown of why – when it comes to dark rides – bigger really can mean better. Which attractions do you think will fall into the five largest showbuildings on our list? Any guesses at number one?
16. Haunted Mansion
Image: Google
Size: 40,000 square feet
The Haunted Mansion is a smart place to start if only because it acts as an “Introduction to Showbuildings” for many would-be enthusiasts. A favorite fact among Disney Parks fans is that Disneyland’s white plantation house exterior was finished in 1963 – six years before the ride would open, and long before the construction of the industrial showbuilding that actually holds the ride. In fact, only about 5% of the Mansion’s square footage is even in the “house” itself (just the foyer and Stretching Rooms). The rest is contained within a hidden 40,000 square foot warehouse on the other side of the train tracks at Disneyland.
Image: Google
At Magic Kingdom, the showbuilding is placed just north of the manor itself, separated from “it’s a small world” by just a few dozen feet. Altogether, the show takes place in a building the size of about ten professional basketball courts.
15. Radiator Springs Racers
Image: Google
Size: 51,000 square feet
There’s no doubt that Disney California Adventure’s biggest ride is the Modern Marvel: Radiator Springs Racers, and the square footage alone doesn’t even tell the whole story! Though its 51,000 square foot showbuilding is massive, the ride also includes a 140,000 square foot (that’s over three acres!) outdoor race course, darting through the photorealistic landscapes of the American Southwest. What’s more, the Cadillac Range and Ornament Valley that completely envelope Cars Land is itself made of over 300,000 square feet of rockwork, earning it a place in our Seven “Natural” Wonders of the Theme Park World.
And to make use of all that space, in 2016 Disney installed a 40,000 square foot array of solar panels on the roof of the Radiator Springs Racers showbuilding, helping generate the massive amount of electricity needed to power Cars Land and Disney California Adventure!
14. Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man
Image: Google
Size: 56,000 square feet
Few knew what to expect when Universal announced a new theme park that dispensed with their usual “studio” styling in favor of highly-themed, immersive “islands” aiming closer to Disney quality than to boxy studio soundstages. The park’s anchoring E-Ticket – the Modern Marvel: Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man – is considered one of the greatest modern dark rides on Earth, introducing a ride system so advanced, it remains rare to this day. The enormous showbuilding is almost exactly the same square footage as a football field!
13. Journey into Imagination
Image: Google
Size: 60,000 square feet
Believe it or not, one of the largest showbuildings at Epcot is actually the one embedded into the base of the Imagination pavilion’s glass pyramids. A massive, 60,000 square foot warehouse was built to house the Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination (and that doesn’t include the pavilion’s 10,000 square foot theater)!
Of course, when Disney transformed that legendary classic into the Declassified Disaster: Journey into YOUR Imagination, it didn’t just cut the beloved characters and the quality; they cut the track. The 1999 version of the ride (and the current version, which dates to 2002) literally bypass almost half of the ride’s track by way of a new shortcut, editing the original, epic 11 minute dark ride to a brisk 6 minutes. That means that nearly half of the showbuilding is no longer used for the attraction.
12. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Image: Google
Size: 60,000 square feet
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey may be one of the biggest theme park adventures ever designed, and the ride’s epic scale also translates to its showbuilding. The building housing the nearly-inexplicable dark ride isn’t just huge, it’s tall. And while Universal “disguised” it behind a rocky outcropping with Hogwarts castle atop, it doesn’t take much detective work to realize where the ride really takes place. Of course, the 60,000 square foot building also houses the legendary queue, whose tour through the hallowed halls of the Wizarding school is a literal attraction in its own right.
But the showbuildings are only getting bigger… read on…
11. Soarin’
Image: Google
Size: 61,000 square feet
Believe it or not, Soarin’ is housed in the largest single-attraction showbuilding at Epcot (painted periwinkle blue in the photo above), contributing to the largest pavilion in Future World, The Land. Even though the showbuilding for the aerial simulator is (not so conspicuously) hidden at Epcot, it’s still shaped like an airplane hangar – evidence that it was originally duplicated from California Adventure’s Lost Legends: Soarin’ Over California (where the hangar is part of the park’s Grizzly Peak land).
Epcot’s Soarin’ is larger than its Californian cousin, though, thanks to a third theater (Concourse C) added in 2016 to up the popular ride’s capacity at Epcot, which is infamously short on rides.
10. Revenge of the Mummy
Image: Google
Size: 62,000 square feet
In the early 2000s, Universal Orlando made a bold choice: that, to keep their studio park “current,” they would do whatever was necessary… even closing beloved, fan-favorite masterpiece attractions like the Lost Legend: Kongfrontation.
Closing Kong vacated a 62,000 square foot showbuilding over six stories tall – just the right size for the park’s “psychological thrill ride” and subject of its own Modern Marvel: Revenge of the Mummy. Bi-coastal tourists often note that Orlando’s Mummy coaster is leaps and bounds above Hollywood’s… and it literally is! Hollywood’s version of the ride took the place of the park’s E.T. Adventure, whose showbuilding is quite a bit smaller than the Kongfrontation building available for Orlando’s ride, and was dutifully downsized to fill the smaller space in Hollywood.
9. Indiana Jones Adventure / DINOSAUR
Image: Google
Size: 65,000 square feet
When designers decided that an Indiana Jones E-Ticket should make its way to Disneyland, Adventureland was the obvious and only place to put it. The problem? There was simply no place for the enormous showbuilding it would require within Disneyland’s cramped quarters. Of course, Imagineers had gotten used to building showbuildings outside of Disneyland’s railroad berm, but the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure took it to a whole new level, requiring a quarter-mile trek through a queue themed as the ancient Temple of the Forbidden Eye, carrying riders to an enormous showbuilding located on the former site of the Eeyore parking lot.
The Indiana Jones showbuilding takes up such a large footprint, the Monorail needed to be re-routed to pass around it – a multi-million dollar project in its own right. Eagle-eyed guests can spot the massive building from Downtown Disney, painted Disney’s patented “go-away green” and adorned with a “rolling hills” cornice meant to make it fade from conscious view.
Image: Google
The chance to “double dip” on the expensive ride’s development and manufacturing was simply too good to pass up, so the concept was reused for Animal Kingdom’s Modern Marvel: DINOSAUR. Though it may be hard to believe, but for a few (literal) cut corners, Indiana Jones Adventure and DINOSAUR share not just a ride system, but ride layouts, leading to nearly identically sized showbuildings. In a well-loved bit of trivia, Imagineers planted trees just behind the “Dino Institute” facade to naturally make any insinuation of a large showbuilding beyond disappear.
8. Men in Black: Alien Attack
Image: Google
Size: 70,000 square feet
Universal Studios Florida really upped the ante with Men in Black: Alien Attack – a comical spin on the laser-blasting dark ride genre. Transforming from a mid-century New York World’s Fair to a secret underground Men in Black training facility, the ride sends guests out into the mean streets of New York to face off with a hoard of aliens. The weaving, dual (and dueling) tracks of the ride occupy one of the largest showbuildings in Orlando.
7. “Battle Escape” at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
The “Battle Escape” attraction is in the larger showbuilding on the left. Image: Nearmap
Size: 72,000 square feet
So far, Disney has been predictably tight-lipped about the two E-Ticket attractions set to debut inside the Galaxy’s Edge Star Wars-themed lands coming to Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. However, we already know that the warehouse housing the code-named “Battle Escape” attraction will be one of the largest Disney’s ever constructed. Believed to use a “SCOOP” ride system like Universal’s Spider-Man (or something similar), the ride may even occupy two levels (as Universal’s Transformers: The Ride does, thanks to a well-hidden elevator most guests never even notice they’re on), which could up-to, double the current square footage count.
6. Rock n’ Roller Coaster
Size: 75,000 square feet
It’s not every day that Disney takes a hint from your local, seasonal amusement park, yet that’s what happened when Paramount’s Kings Island and Kings Dominion (in Ohio and Virginia, respectively) debuted identical roller coasters in 1996, each themed to the Twilight Zone-esque TV series, The Outer Limits. That ride – Flight of Fear – launched riders down an enclosed, narrow launch corridor and into a “spaghetti bowl” showbuilding of criss-crossing roller coaster track and supports, spiraled, twisted, and entwined like noodles.
Disney allegedly loved the idea and commissioned their favorite roller coaster manufacturer – Vekoma – to create a counterpart. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster accelerates riders into a massive showbuilding of twisted track. If you’ve ever wondered what the ride would look like without the box around it, you might be surprised to know that it exists. Aside from Disney’s Parisian installation, Vekoma sold another copy of the ride to a park in Holland…
Ready to see the biggest showbuildings theme parks have ever built? Read on…
5. Harry Potter Escape from Gringotts
Size: 80,000 square feet
Though Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is often considered the anchor attraction of the Wizarding World (thanks to its duplication in Japan and California, not to mention its placement in Hogwarts), the second E-Ticket created for the Wizarding World is just as enormous. In fact, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts may be one of the most advanced attractions on Earth, combining Spider-Man’s SCOOP technology with a family roller coaster. So it’s no surprise that Gringotts actually dwarfs Forbidden Journey’s showbuilding…
4. The rides of Pandora
Image: Apple Maps
Size: 80,000 square feet
Though it may not seem like it from within the park, the two attractions that make up Pandora – The World of AVATAR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom share a showbuilding… And believe it or not, they more or less split the building directly down the middle. Flight of Passage takes place in a very tall warehouse with a 40,000 square foot footprint, containing four theaters. Na’vi River Journey – the peaceful, meandering boat ride through the planet’s bioluminescent jungles – occupies the much shorter eastern half of the showbuilding with a footprint approximately the same size.
3. Space Mountain
Size: 85,000 square feet
Believe it or not, Space Mountain is the largest showbuilding at Magic Kingdom by square footage, with its conical dome sitting atop an 85,000 square foot blueprint. As strange as it may seem, the Florida ride is literally twice as large as Disneyland’s… but of course, that may be because Disney World’s Space Mountain literally contains two side-by-side mirror image roller coasters. An icon of the Space Age that had a role in setting pop culture’s image of retro-futurism, Space Mountain is a massive attraction in every way except its speed… a mere 25 miles per hour.
2. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Size: 95,000 square feet
One of the largest attraction showbuildings ever, Disneyland’s Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is contained in a warehouse measuring nearly 100,000 square feet, but unlike the Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, or Splash Mountain, you won’t see it on a map. That’s because the buildings roof was planted and actually houses Disneyland’s Autopia, pylons for the Monorail, and the long-abandoned tracks of the Lost Legend: The Peoplemover.
It makes sense… The enormous 40-person subs that glide through the ride need a wide turning radius, and due to the way guests are seated, each show scene is mirrored on either side of the track! Like its Magic Kingdom sister – the Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – the submarine ride is a relatively low-capacity, high-expense ride that takes up a huge amount of precious real estate… That’s why fans suspect that eventually, it’ll be sunk just like Florida’s version.
1. Pirates of the Caribbean
Size: 112,000 square feet
If you ask Disney Parks fans, there is simply no classic dark ride on Earth to dethrone Pirates of the Caribbean. Walt’s magnum opus (and the last attraction he worked on before his death), Pirates is simply larger than life. Disneyland retains the only truly massive version of the ride, clocking in at an amazing 17 minutes (compared to Magic Kingdom’s 8 minute version). Along its course, the ride plunges down two waterfalls, navigates three levels, passes through two showbuildings, and altogether overlooks 112,000 square feet. By far, its the largest showbuilding at a Disney Park, housing one of the company’s biggest and most well-known adventures.
