Disney Parks tend to go big for the holidays. Fans dream all year of walking down Main Street, U.S.A. at Christmas; they plan their trips around riding the “Jingle Cruise” or “it’s a small world holiday”; they battle the crowds to experience New Year’s Eve as only EPCOT can do it. But as theme park aficionados will tell you, one holiday has really risen in the last few decades to become the new “must-see” season at Disney Parks: Halloween.
Sure, Disney has long resisted getting into Universal’s lane – haunted houses, scarezones, and outright horror. But the parks have turned Halloween transformations into an epic undertaking while launching after-hours parts that range from the mild (Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom) to wild (Oogie Boogie Bash at Disney California Adventure). Likewise, ride makeovers like “Haunted Mansion Holiday” have become staples of the season, while installations like “Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy” and “The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: Late Check Out” have flickered in and out of existence over the years.
But Disney’s best Halloween ride is one that only exists a few hours a day… Here’s the story.
Mission: BREAKOUT!
When Disney California Adventure retired its Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in 2017, many fans were stunned. How could a park themed to the history of California close a Hollywood-themed E-Ticket? And worse, how could Imagineers ever let a big, garish, industrial “fortress prison power plant” owned by a Marvel villain take its place reigning over the recently-reimagined park?
The first guests to step inside the reborn ride in summer 2018 found that the historic hotel had become the mysterious Tivan Collection – a sort of interstellar museum of found and stolen artifacts from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe, amassed by the enigmatic “Collector.” Inside, guests are recruited by wise-cracking Rocket – “the smart one” from the Guardians of the Galaxy hero team – to help rescue his teammates who’ve been captured as part of the Collector’s display.
His plan is simple: when we step aboard the “gantry lifts” that will carry us up through the tower’s displays en route to the captured Guardians, Rocket will commandeer the controls, switch the elevators to manual, and blast the control room that powers the tower freeing his friends (and y’know, every other creature the Collector has imprisoned).
Even if the long term fit of Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! will probably always be in question, there’s no denying that the replacement ride is a hit. Recasting Tower of Terror’s ride system to draw on joy rather than anxiety, the attraction nixes the slow build-up and the creepy-crawly dark ride scenes in favor of an immediate blast-off into a rock ‘n’ roll ride filled with chaos as cages open, creatures escape, and the Guardians make their exit.
But at Halloween, something happens after sunset, when Mission: BREAKOUT! transforms into its own sequel… Read on…
