For most Disney Parks and Imagineering fans, explaining the differences between Disney’s resorts is like an art. Disneyland is quaint and charming and naive; Walt Disney World is grand and organized; Disneyland Paris is elegant and rich and romantic…
Yet despite the nuances that fans lucky enough to travel the world can identify, the truth is that Disney Resorts do have a lot in common – not only because all have “castle parks” that are (to varying degrees) recreations of the original Disneyland, but also because many ‘classic’ attractions are today viewed as must-haves. What Disney resort could exist without Peter Pan’s Flight? A haunted house? Rocket jets? Would you believe some do? Today we’re quizzing you on which resorts are MISSING some “classic must-have” attractions…! Think you can get all 8?
- Which resort DOESN’T have a Buzz Lightyear dark ride?
- Which resort DOESN’T have a haunted house?
- Which resort DOESN’T have a circling rocket ride?
- Which resort DOESN’T have a Winnie the Pooh dark ride?
- Which resorts DON’T have Toy Story Lands?
- Which resort DOESN’T have Peter Pan’s Flight?
- Which resorts DON’T have a Soarin’ ride?
- Which resort DOESN’T have an Avengers attraction coming?
Q1: Which resort DOESN’T have a Buzz Lightyear dark ride?
Image: Disney / Pixar
If you’ve noticed a serious uptick in the “Pixarification” of Disney Parks, you’re not alone. In fact, we told the full story of Pixar’s theme park rise in a must-read DISNEY•PIXARLAND feature. Though the Buzz Lightyear laser-blasting dark rides (based on Toy Story 2) weren’t the first Pixar attraction to join the Disney Parks lineup, it’s by far been the most infectuous, spreading across the globe from resort to resort, always taking up residence in Tomorrowland (and sometimes, replacing classics with its cartoon style).
The ride debuted at Magic Kingdom in 1998, then Tokyo Disneyland in 2004, Disneyland in 2005, and Disneyland Paris in 2006. It was also an opening day attraction at both Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005, and Shanghai Disneyland in 2016. So every single Tomorrowland on Earth has played host to Buzz Lightyear and his Star Command allies. But in one park, the Space Ranger has been kicked out…
Image: Disney / Pixar
A1: Hong Kong Disneyland. When the young and underbuilt park failed to make waves in the lucrative Asian market even after an aggressive expansion project adding three original mini-lands, Disney doubled down on their investment. The park’s latest projects include a major reimagining of its central castle, the addition of a Frozen-themed mini-land, and the annexing of part of Tomorrowland to create a new Marvel super hero-themed land.
The first part of that new Marvel land came online in early 2017 with the opening of the Iron Man Experience – Disney’s first official Marvel ride. Buzz’s ride became another: Ant Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle! Reusing Buzz’s track and slow-moving ride system, the Omnimover predictably miniaturizes guests to (you guessed it) ant size to infiltrate an army of nano-bots and explode them from the inside out. Despite the promising premise, the ride has been widely criticized not just for re-using such a passive and slow ride system in a “high action” story, but for lacking any kinetic energy or… well… action. The static ride re-uses much of Buzz’s infrastructure but if you can believe it, Buzz might’ve used it better!
Q2: Which resort DOESN’T have a haunted house?
Image: Disney
The story of the Haunted Mansion is about as legendary among Imagineering fans as the ride itself. The first major project undertaken without Walt’s explicit guidance, the 1969 dark ride is a fascinating combination of differing ideas. The ride infamously fuses an atmospheric, eerie, and generally unsettling opening act with a character-filled singalong second act that really have no right to feel as natural together as they do.
Image: Disney
The Haunted Mansion is also famous for the fact that in every Disney Park it’s appeared in, it’s never been in the same land twice. The ride has evolved and changed as it’s spread around the globe. In Disneyland Paris, the ride was completely reimagined to fit into the narrative of the park’s Frontierland, becoming the Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor. For our purposes, we’ll also count the ride’s spiritual sequel in Hong Kong, where a monkey and a magical music box transform a home of oddities into absolute mayhem – the Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor.
Image: Disney
In other words, a creepy old house on a hill is a staple of each resort… except one… Have you used process of elimination yet?
A2: Shanghai Disneyland. Insiders say that the Shanghai government (who partially owns Disney’s mainland China resort) explicitly barred Disney from duplicating any of its tried-and-true E-Tickets, instead requiring that entirely new, original anchor attractions be designed for the park. In any case, a Haunted Mansion wouldn’t have made the cut, at least in part because of China’s cultural taboo around the idea of “ghosts.” But in Shanghai, Disney didn’t even “reinvent” the concept as they had with Mystic Manor. Instead, Shanghai’s park is simply without a haunted house at all.
Q3: Which resort DOESN’T have a circling rocket ride?
Though Disneyland didn’t open with a circling rocket ride in Tomorrowland, the Astro-Jets were added before the park’s first birthday, in March 1956. The original swirling ride was mechanically identally to Fantasyland’s Dumbo The Flying Elephants. After a decade, the Astro-Jets closed to be replaced by the iconic Rocket Jets – swirling white rockets circling high above Walt’s New Tomorrowland on the third story of a space age pedestal at the land’s center, just above the Lost Legend: The Peoplemover.
Image: Disney
The absolutely iconic idea of swirling rockets atop a pedestal has become synonymous with Tomorrowland, and the same arrangement was used in Magic Kingdom in 1971 (re-decorated in sci-fi ornamentation in 1994, above), then Tokyo Disneyland in 1983. When Disneyland Paris opened in 1992, it, too, featured a rocket ride, albeit made of gold, stylized as a Renaissance astrolabe, surrounded in rockwork, and embedded in the earth – a better fit for the European park’s fantasy-inspired retro-future. Disneyland followed suit, grounding its own rockets with a clone of Paris’ as told in the ill-fated Declassified Disaster: Tomorrowland 1998.
Image: Yesterland.com
Hong Kong’s version of the ride isn’t on a pedestal and uses flying saucers instead of rockets, but otherwise mostly resembles the sci-fi Magic Kingdom version. When Shanghai Disneyland opened, its Tomorrowland was stylized far differently than any other… But even there, the thrilling Jet Packs are essentially the same attraction, and even set on a hillside, cantilevered plaza echoing the pedestal placement of old. But wait… that’s every resort, right? So which is missing this quintessential Disney Parks experience?
A3: Tokyo Disneyland. Even though Tokyo Disneyland never had a Peoplemover, its StarJets attraction was still hoisted high above the land on a pedestal. And unlike the U.S. Tomorrowlands that diverged into sci-fi and fantasy ornamentation, Tokyo’s StarJets retained a classic Space Age appeal: mini white passenger rockets circling around a central white rocket with a red USA emblazoned on the side.
Image: TDR Explorer
The ride was closed in 2017 along with the park’s Raceway, making way for a massive rebuild that will carve an enourmous piece of property for a Beauty and the Beast inspired New Fantasyland, as well as a new attraction for Tomorrowland. It’s incredibly rare for a Tokyo Disneyland ride to outright close, so you can bet that the loss of the StarJets was met with plenty of pomp and circumstance including a StarJets: The Last Mission marketing push and a resounding StarJets Forever nostalgia campaign.
Q4: Which resort DOESN’T have a Winnie the Pooh dark ride?
The very mention of Winnie the Pooh dark rides tends to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of Disney Parks fans. It’s not that the bumbling, quaint dark rides through the Hundred Acre Wood are bad; it’s that the ride is nefarious for having replaced two classic attractions.
Image: Disney
In Florida, the ride’s 1999 opening was preceded by the closure of the beloved Fantasyland Lost Legend: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. In California, the Pooh attraction was placed in Critter Country, replacing the Marc Davis musical Lost Legend: Country Bear Jamboree. What hurts the most is that Pooh was hastily added to both parks because of a late-’90s resurgence in the character’s popularity – and thus, in Disney’s expectations for merchandising in conjunction with rides. That time has more or less passed, and arguably both resorts would be stronger with Mr. Toad and Liver Lips McGrowl returned instead.
Despite the lackluster Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh rides in the U.S., Tokyo Disneyland’s ride – Pooh’s Hunny Hunt – is a mindblowing, trackless, LPS-guided dark ride that’s literally one of the resort’s anchor attractions. The “hunny pots” guests sit in glide through the Hundred Acre Wood, dancing around one another and diverging down different paths in a marvelous E-Ticket experience. So which resort doesn’t have a Pooh dark ride?
Image: Disney
A4: Disneyland Paris. This may be the one instance where Disneyland Paris’ financial collapse was a good thing. After all, the park has essentially been in a state of suspended animation since the 1995 opening of its Space Mountain, which means Paris narrowly missed the opportunity to have Pooh set up shop.
By the way, both Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland feature the “Many Adventures” version of the ride based on Florida’s original.
Q5: Which resorts DON’T have a Toy Story Land?
Image: Disney / Pixar
First debuting in 2010 at the depressingly underbuilt Declassified Disaster: Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, Toy Story Land didn’t look much like what guests expected from Disney. Stylized after the somewhat tired notion that guests are “shrunk” to the size of a toy (or actually, a bit smaller since Toy Story’s toys tower overhead), these lands are always based around an assortment of simple family flat rides and the flimsy notion that oversized dominos, christmas lights, blocks, and toy-themed carnival rides have been strewn in a backyard for some reason. (By the way, we fully believe a Toy Story-themed land could be done differently. Why not build an entirely-indoor land like DisneySea’s Mermaid Lagoon, set entirely under Andy’s bed?)
In any case, the true purpose of Toy Story Lands became more obvious with each subsequent opening: these “cheap and cheerful” lands are designed to quickly and inexpensively add ride capacity and big character draw to Disney’s smallest parks.
Image: Disney / Pixar
While each has a unique collection of family flat rides (with Orlando’s being the grandest if only for having a family roller coaster and absorbing the park’s preexisting Toy Story Mania into its lineup), the general look and feel of each subsequent land is about the same. In this case, two Disney resorts have gotten away with not adding Toy Story Lands…
A5: Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland. The agreed-upon reasons that Disney builds Toy Story Lands don’t jive with Disney’s properties in California or Tokyo. Disneyland already has the most rides of any Disney resort (yes, Disneyland’s two parks have more rides than Disney World’s four) and doesn’t need the influx of carnival rides. Plus, limited space in California and Japan’s landlocked parks means that acres can’t be wasted on mediocre ideas.
Image: Disney / Pixar
However, Disneyland does have an equivalent thanks to the 2018 conversion of Disney California Adventure’s Paradise Pier into the more confounding and Instagram-friendly Pixar Pier. Despite doubling-down on the land’s elegant Victorian styling and bringing in a spectacular jewel-tone color palate, the fact remains that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that a turn-of-the-century pier would have mis-matched “neighborhoods” themed to Disney’s high-earning computer animated Pixar films. In any case, the so-called “Toy Story Boardwalk” neighborhood contains Toy Story Midway Mania, Jessie’s Critter Carousel, and two “giant” food stands that borrow from Toy Story Land aesthetic to make guests feel as if they’ve “shrunk.”
Image: Disney / Pixar
Likewise, Tokyo DisneySea has a sub-section of its New York City themed American Waterfront dedicated to Toy Story, but in true Tokyo fashion, it’s a gorgeous electric trolley park resembling New York’s Coney Island.
Q6: Which resort DOESN’T have Peter Pan’s Flight?
Image: Disney
Peter Pan’s Flight was one of the opening day dark rides in Disneyland’s Fantasyland, and quickly became one of the park’s headliners. Riding in suspended pirate ships that sail over London and through the stars to Neverland, guests can’t get enough of the timeless journey – which, even sixty years later, always has the longest line of any Fantasyland classic.
Naturally, the ride became a Disney Parks “must-have,” synonymous with Fantasyland and its storybook dark rides. It spread around the world, even appearing at the progressive and reinvented Shanghai Disneyland in its classic form with just a few technological flourishes. So which park doesn’t have a Peter Pan-themed dark ride?
Image: Disney
A6: Hong Kong Disneyland. Hong Kong Disneyland was in dire straights when the park opened in 2005. It lacked many “classic” Disney Parks rides including “it’s a small world,” Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Big Thunder Mountain. “small world” finally opened in 2008. As for the other three, the Hong Kong park was earmarked to get them all in a massive five-year expansion adding three new lands: Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Pirate’s Cove. (Ultimately, the pirate-themed land was replaced with Toy Story Land, so the park is still the only one to lack a Pirates of the Caribbean.)
Believe it or not, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was the only dark ride in Hong Kong Disneyland’s Fantasyland (compared to Disneyland’s six!), making it the only castle park without Peter Pan’s Flight.
Q7: Which resorts DON’T have a Soarin’ ride?
Image: Disney
When Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, the first visitors to the new park didn’t have many nice things to say… In fact, the park wildly underperformed, earning its own in-depth Declassified Disaster: California Adventure feature that you’ve got to read to believe. Short on family attractions, completely lacking Disney characters, and having just a handful of rides, California Adventure wasn’t exactly making many fans. But one ride did. The Lost Legend: Soarin’ Over California was a revolutionary new way to use a simulator, emphasizing grace and beauty as riders gently breezed over the sights, sounds, and smells of the Golden State.
Naturally, the one knockout from California Adventure’s lineup had to be shared, and was quickly duplicated to Epcot’s The Land pavilion. Even though the ride film remained the same, California’s landscapes are varied enough that most guests would never notice that the Floridian ride showed only Californian locales, including Disneyland!
Image: Disney
The next leap forward was with Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in 2016 with a new version of the ride touring international destinations – the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, Mount Kilimanjaro, Neuschwanstein Castle, and more. The day after it debuted in Shanghai, Soarin’ Around the World replaced the Californian film at both California Adventure and Epcot’s The Land – despite technically being a worse fit for both.
Image: Disney
In 2019, the most gorgeously stylized version of the ride yet opened at Tokyo DisneySea, there themed to S.E.A.: The Society of Explorers and Adventurers, incorporating an Italian Renaissance theme fit for the park’s Mediterranean Harbor.
That leaves two resorts missing this high-flying adventure…
A7: Hong Kong Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. Neither park has gotten on the Soarin’ bandwagon, even if concepts for adding the ride have been floated for both.
Q8: Which resort DOESN’T have an Avengers attraction coming?
Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Captain America, and Hawk Eye. Also known as, The Avengers. That’s the linup, at least, that seems to be the agreed upon definition at Disney Parks.
Image: Disney / Marvel
As we saw, Hong Kong was the first to open an attraction explicitly tied to the Avengers with Iron Man Experience – part of that new Marvel area officially debuting at the park in the near future. Super hero-themed Avengers Campus lands are coming to Disney California Adventure (featuring a Spider-Man interactive dark ride) and Walt Disney Studios Park (offering the same Spider-Man ride, plus an Iron Man themed overlay of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster).
Despite paying $4 billion to purchase Marvel outright (one of the massive and industry-changing acquisitions by CEO Bob Iger), Disney has been slow and careful in incorporating the massive Marvel franchise into its parks. And even as super hero rides and lands come online one-by-one, one Disney resort is not adding any Avengers-themed lands or rides anytime soon… You know this one.
Image: Disney / Marvel
A8: Walt Disney World. Famously, Walt Disney World’s competitors up the road got there first. In the mid-’90s, Universal paid a down-on-its-luck Marvel Comics for the exclusive rights to build themed lands and attractions based on their super hero characters. Naturally, it was all in anticipation of Islands of Adventure’s Marvel Super Hero Island. The comic book land is best known for the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man that many still assert as one of the best modern dark rides on Earth, even 20 years after its opening.
In any case, Marvel’s pre-existing and perpetual agreement with Universal famously gives Disney’s competitors the exclusive theme park rights to characters explicitly present in Super Hero Island (primarily, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four) plus any characters reasonably associated with them.
Image: Disney / Marvel
Working with Universal, Disney did manage to squeak away with the ability to use Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy in their parks (hence the offbeat hero team’s place in Epcot) but you’ll see no mention of the Avengers, the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, or even the word Marvel in association with any Walt Disney World rides.
But if we’re being honest, Universal’s Spider-Man ride is better than any Marvel ride Disney’s built or announced yet anyway, so Orlando still has the best Marvel attraction… just not Disney World.
