If you’re a big theme park fan, chances are that you’ve found yourself in more than a few messes in your day… To name just a few, perhaps you’ve had your journey through the streets of New York co-opted by supervillains, ruined a run-of-the-mill temple tour by looking into a lost god’s cursed eyes, stumbled upon an intergalactic battle on a detour to Endor, had a sightseeing train ride literally derailed by a Yeti, been hijacked by mobster bandits in the middle of a movie scene, time-traveled to mere moments before extinction, or even had a carnivorous alien escape in a routine demonstration.
In fact, by now, you’ve probably come to expect it: the moment when “something goes horribly wrong,” jump-starting the real ride and sending you on a wild adventure. A tale as old as time (or at least, as old as the “ride the movies” mantra that arose in the 1990s), the trusted trope of finding yourself in trouble has become the plot device for attractions around the globe.
But what happens when nothing bad happens? Today, we’re taking a look at 11 classic (and modern) anchor attractions that don’t rely on a catastrophic turn-of-events to leave an impression or to make guests feel invested in the story.
1. Haunted Mansion
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An eerie old manor on the outskirts of town… What could possibly go wrong?! Well, in this case… nothing. The complex origin story of the Haunted Mansion famously involves many different versions of what the classic could’ve been, including walkthroughs where guests would’ve been tormented by spirits of a piratical killer or an unlucky family who might’ve played “bad guys.” But as the Mansion evolved, a concrete plot was purposefully pulled from the attraction in favor of an atmospheric tour of eerie sights and sounds, and a singalong finale.
Another reason nothing goes wrong? The ride system designers decided on, the Omnimover. The continuous chain of vehicles glide through the manor, rotating as needed to focus on certain scenes. But the constantly-moving clamshell vehicles also act as a pacing device, allowing guests to relax and observe as “grim, grinning ghosts come out to socialize.” They even circle up for a seance during the mostly-plotless journey.
One could argue that Disney has developed a “Haunted Mansion” where something goes awry – Disneyland Paris’ Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor. There, Imagineers injected a full story telling the tale of a lovelorn bride and the evil phantom who haunts the home. In so doing, guests are given a more active role of re-living the cursed bride’s tale, with the antagonistic phantom following at every turn… including his attempts to trap them in the house forever.
2. “it’s a small world”
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There’s no denying that “it’s a small world” harkens back to a simpler time in Disney history. Debuting at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, the attraction was developed for Pepsi-Cola and their pavilion at the Fair, honoring Unicef. The global attraction and its spectacular song (by songwriting Sherman Brothers behind Mary Poppins, “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” and more) have gone down in history as iconic emblems of Walt Disney and his parks.
And true to its moniker as “the happiest cruise that ever set sail,” absolutely nothing goes wrong. As a matter of fact, “small world’s” charm is its simplicity and ease; the childlike (but ever-true!) notion that there’s more that connects us than divides us if we’d only rewire ourselves to see it that way.
Even though “small world” appears simple (thanks in part to the timeless artistic stylings of Mary Blair), it’s arguably built on the kind of big, brave mindset that Imagineers haven’t had the chance to display since the earliest days of Epcot, with a global, social message that’s radical in its simplicity. It’s a forever-classic, and evidence that sometimes the most powerful attractions don’t need a plot (or a “bad guy”) to convey a message.
3. Kilimanjaro Safaris
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For most of the history of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Kilimanjaro Safaris was the undisputed E-Ticket anchor for the park; an epic, 22-minute journey into a grassland wildlife reserve outside of the East African village of Harambe. Finally achieving Walt’s long-lost dream of incorporating real animals into an attraction (an abandoned plan for the Jungle Cruise), the ride tours guests through naturalistic and apparently-border-free exhibits featuring okapi, zebra, warthogs, ostriches, giraffes, hyenas, lions, and more.
Today, Kilimanjaro Safaris is a true sightseeing safari, with guests encouraged to take photographs while safari guides share interesting facts and stories about the animals on display. But it wasn’t always that way… Originally, Imagineers had concocted a plot to give guests a more “Disney” experience. Halfway through the safari, a call over the radio pulled the Jeep into a race to save Big Red and Little Red – a mother elephant and her baby – from poachers spotted in the reserve. The Jeep would speed off, racing past the poachers’ abandoned camp before ultimately finding Little Red (in animatronic form) safe in the back of a ranger’s truck with a Cast Member dressed as the game warden, holding a Jeep of poachers at gunpoint… Yes, really!
For a very short time before the park’s Grand Opening, the original “dark ending” of the ride instead featured the corpse of Big Red – tusks sawed off – lying dead beside the road. The shocking scene was meant to send a message about the very real dangers of poaching, but it was a hard pill to swallow at the end of such a grand and exciting Disney attraction. Though the fake corpse was removed before the park’s opening (with the costumed warden exclaiming that the mother was fine and already rescued), the “Little Red” story lasted until about 2012. Ultimately, it was decided that guests are more interested in seeing real animals than in participating in the “something goes wrong” story invented for the ride – happy ending or otherwise.
4. Living with the Land
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Very few “EPCOT Center” originals are left in Epcot, but “Living with the Land” has so far escaped the wrecking ball (or, just as shockingly, a character overlay) retaining the sort of industrious, intelligent, and immensely-scaled style once shared by the Lost Legends: World of Motion, Universe of Energy, Horizons, The Living Seas, or Journey into Imagination.
The attraction begins by sailing guests through dark ride style biomes of a deciduous forest, a tropical rainforest, a desert, and a prairie to explore natural processes that shape our environment and how they lend themselves to agriculture. Boats then float into a “Living Laboratory” of greenhouses and authentic labs where real researchers are at work. The 20-minute journey is simply a classic and succeeds at all the things fans loved about Future World: it’s somehow nostalgic, forward thinking, informative, and grand.
5. Radiator Springs Racers
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Surrounded in the soaring red rocks of the Cadillac Range, you’ve found your way down Route 66 on the biggest day of the year – Race Day! That’s the premise behind Radiator Springs Racers, the E-Ticket anchor of Disney California Adventure and its starring Cars Land.
Behind the wheel, guests strap in for a zippy drive through the desert and into town. For the most part, the ride plays like a star-studded reunion with riders coming face-to-bumper with the Cars heroes. Right in the neon paradise of town at sunrise, the road forks with one car going to Luigi’s for a tire upgrade, and the other heading to Ramone’s body shop for a paint touch up. Both cars then unite for a tire-squealing race through the banked turns and dips of the Ornament Valley.
Cars Land is pure magic, and it makes sense that its signature attraction – subject of an in-depth, making-of, Modern Marvels: Radiator Springs Racers feature just for Disney Parks fans – is nothing but adrenaline-packing fun from accelerator to brake. There’s no moment when something bad happens (unless you count the potential to lose the big race… but then again, Lightning McQueen assures us we’re all winners since we made new friends). Nothing goes wrong; nothing has to! It’s race day, and everyone’s in it to win it.
6. Soarin’
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In one of our special features, Artificial Worlds: The Rise of Screens & Simulators, we took a careful look at Soarin’ for a very important reason: it was the antithesis to what simulators had been used for in the decades before. In fact, since the launch of the Lost Legend: Star Tours theme parks essentially went head-to-head to see who could make a ride to simulate the most things going wrong. From Body Wars and Back to the Future: The Ride to the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, the ‘80s and ‘90s were all about wrong turns, crashes, and falls brought to life on screen.
Soarin’ was different. Apparently content with having mastered how nauseating simulators could be, Soarin’ set out to do just the opposite: to be beautiful, tranquil, even subtle. The hang-gliding adventure still has a thrill element (since riders are suspended high above the ground and immersed in a 360-degree domed screen) but it’s a ride both Junior and Grandma will love equally as they’re airborne, gliding through unbelievable sights (and smells).
At least in its original form – the Lost Legend: Soarin’ Over California – the ride also made a risky design choice. Rather than concocting a story for how riders zoom from one place to the next or even forcing in “zooming cloud” transitions, the ride film uses hard cuts emphasized by a legendary musical score. In that way, it doesn’t even try to be “real,” and yet it feels like one of the most real, visceral screen-based attractions on Earth, and without even a hint of danger.
7. Frozen Ever After
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Can a modern attraction – and an IP-based one at that – exist without conflict? Yes. Though fans may never forgive Frozen Ever After for having broken the dam of characters flowing into World Showcase (and at the expense of the Lost Legend: Maelstrom), it’s hard to argue with the result. In fact, we highlighted the ride in our series reserved for the best of the best – Modern Marvels: Frozen Ever After. It features some of the world’s best animatronics and re-written songs from the film.
But smartest of all, it is not that detested kind of ride fans most resent – a “book report” ride, merely retelling the story we already know, beat-for-beat, but condensed to three minutes. Instead, Frozen Ever After takes place after the first movie on an annual “Winter in Summer Day” when Elsa blankets the kingdom in snow (on purpose this time!) in remembrance of the day Anna saved Norway (er… um… Arendelle) with true love.
The ride repurposed Maelstrom’s brisk layout and Viking ride vehicles, recrafting them into an original adventure that’s merely a musical celebration with no villain in sight. Even the ride’s climactic drop is recast as an icy slide into the bay of Arendelle where fireworks illuminate the night sky to the tune of “For the First Time in Forever.”
8. Test Track
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When the original version of Walt Disney World’s fastest ride opened at the dawn of the New Millennium, it wasn’t just a technological leap forward for Imagineering; it was a major hint of what Epcot would become, trading “brainy,” informative, educational dark rides for technological thrill rides with… significantly less to say about human ingenuity and innovation.
While the original is detailed in our Lost Legend: Test Track feature, it essentially placed guests in the role of crash test dummies, putting “prototype General Motors cars” through the paces – testing extreme temperatures, hairpin turns, anti-lock brakes, and a climactic set-up for a crash barrier test that memorably turned into a 65-mile-per-hour speed course in a brilliant optical illusion. Unless you count the entire premise of being in a crash-test-ready car as something horribly wrong, the ride was a kinetic and energetic thrill with nothing bad happening.
The same remains true today, since a TRON-esque aesthetic overtook the pavilion in 2012. Now, the formerly industrial interior has become a sleek digital one, hiding the old “testing facility” story and instead emphasizing the engineering design process. The ride vehicles stand in for guest-created custom cars, and most of the ride’s trials have been cleverly reimagined. Test Track proves that even a highly-produced, 21st century E-Ticket thrill ride can exist without something going horribly wrong!
9. Peter Pan’s Flight
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Don’t think that just because you’re a Fantasyland dark ride based on a cherished story, you’re exempt from the risk of “something going wrong.” After all, you’re captured by Stromboli on Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, sentenced to beheading on Alice in Wonderland, nearly killed by the Evil Queen on Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and literally sent to hell on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Conflict is a massive part of Disney stories, so it’s often a part of rides inspired by them.
Then there’s Peter Pan’s Flight. The perennial favorite of Fantasyland’s classics has been one of Disney’s signature rides since 1955, with guests in pirate galleons sailing through the Darling children’s nursery, right out the window, over London, and on to Neverland. Maybe the simplicity of Peter Pan’s Flight is what makes it feel so endlessly repeatable and evergreen. It’s dreamy, cheerful, and beautiful, with no interruptions.
10. Space Mountain
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The Modern Marvel: Space Mountain ranked high on our must-read list of Classic Disney Rides That Would NEVER Be Built Today (and Why). We imagined that if someone at Imagineering bothered to propose such a ride today, executives would ask, “It’s a roller coaster in the dark? … That’s it?” But that’s just it. For all the emphasis that today’s Imagineers place on ‘story,’ Space Mountain dates to an era when that’s just not how things worked.
What’s the ‘story’ of Space Mountain? Well… there isn’t one! Instead, the ride is about the thrill of flight; the wonders of the unknown; the feeling of racing through infinity! If proposed today, it wouldn’t pass muster with designers (or fans!) that a roller coaster taking us to space has a slow, steady lift hill. What’s more, today’s standards would doubtlessly require that somewhere in the middle of the ride, an on-board explosion or distress signal would lead to the ride’s zipping, dipping, wild coaster course (which is essentially what happens on the Star Wars-based Hyperspace Mountain overlay).
Though Disneyland Paris’ Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre a la Lune successfully infused a launch and a “plot” to the experience (with a spectacular Jules Verne style to boot), it still kept to the ride’s simple origins: swirling through the darkness and twisting around fantastical starscapes. It’s proof that, even as it evolves for the times, Space Mountain stands as an icon of an era of Imagineering when raw emotion was the driving force – no “oh no!” announcements or mid-ride mistakes necessary.
11. Na’vi River Journey
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Well into the development of Pandora – The World of AVATAR, it became known that the land would contain two major attractions. Naturally, Flight of Passage was quickly understood as the land’s starring E-Ticket – a breathless simulator on the back of the moon’s banshee dragons. But for many Disney Parks fans, the ride that most captured their attention and interest was the second: a slow-moving boat-based dark ride through the moon’s glowing jungles…
Fans eagerly debated what exactly the attraction might entail. Would it have drops? A plot? Animatronics? The answers were no, no, and YES, respectively. Na’vi River Journey is exactly the kind of ride Animal Kingdom needed – a stirring, contemplative, tranquil dark ride the entire family could enjoy. It’s an almost-mystical trip through the glowing forests of Pandora showcasing the otherworldly flora and fauna with their bioluminescent features. The natural sounds and songs of the planet crescendo with the finale: an encounter with the Na’vi Shaman of Songs – one of the most incredible animatronics ever. There’s no tension. No threat. No fear. It’s simply a beautiful, reflective journey.
About the only complaint people seem to have about Na’vi River Journey is that it’s simply not long enough at only about four minutes. Just as you begin to fall in love with the music and sights of Pandora, the ride’s over. Would a drop or a “threat” have improved the ride? Doubtful. But a little more time in the magical realm might’ve. Na’vi River Journey is exemplary because is avoids having “something go wrong” and instead provides pure, magical wonder.
