Though Walt Disney World has never been known for crafting white-knuckle attractions, in the late 1990s, the vaunted Imagineering team pitched an idea for a kickass version of an existing premise: a modern take on the indoor steel roller coaster. This proposed ride would hurtle guests at breakneck speeds, all while leaving them in the dark about what was right in front of them and proving some awesome music at the same time. Of course, you now know this attraction as Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. Let’s go Behind the Ride to discover how it works.
1. The pre-show
Image: Disney
The design of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster requires a bit of creative license. People who enter the facility learn that they are hanging out at Aerosmith’s recording studio. In a few moments, the band will dash around town in order to reach their destination, a live performance. Disney’s Imagineers deserve a lot of credit for this tactic, because it accomplishes several tasks at first.
Primarily, the waiting area with the interactions with the band serves a purpose as an effective line queue system. Once people standing in line reach the indoor portion of the attraction, they realize they are only minutes away from enjoying the ride. Plus, the inside part has two main areas, one of which is still part of the line. The other is the meet and greet with Aerosmith via a looped video. Both parts provide air-conditioning on humid days as well as heating during those rare moments on the Florida calendar when it’s chilly.
By providing the Aerosmith video, Imagineers bisect the line queue into the pre-show and post-show areas. This tactic offers the ancillary benefit of providing more accurate line estimations. More importantly, it also controls the filter of people into the indoor waiting area beside the actual ride carts.
To make the sequence seem more realistic, the video shows all the members of Aerosmith recording at G-Force Studios. Their manager informs them that they’re late for the show, and the two leaders of the band, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler, decide that they must show some common courtesy to the fans standing in line to watch them record. So, Steven Tyler offers everyone a limo ride to the show.
The instant people exit the video room, they start to stand in a second line that is only a few minutes away from the roller coaster ride. It’s a tight combination of atmospheric music production, storytelling, and an introduction to the band for those few people who are unfamiliar with Aerosmith.
2. Building a better roller coaster
Image: Disney
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster afforded Imagineers a rare opportunity to let go. They could build a coaster worthy of the Disney name, and since it was going to be integrated with the music of Aerosmith, they had creative license to make certain it rocked. Disney has historically shunned the constant escalation of roller coasters since its beginning in the late 1980s, but Imagineers relished the idea of building the world’s fastest limo ride.
Designers already had a solid blueprint for how to proceed thanks to the iconic Space Mountain. All they had to do was modernize those principles while adding a heavy dose of adrenaline. They correctly decided to start with a bang. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster employs a singularly unique component for a Disney attraction: It goes from a dead stop to its maximum speed of 57 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds.
To put that into perspective, consider that Tesla received a tremendous amount of press for their addition of Ludicrous Mode. Its acceleration is almost identical to the one Disney managed in 1999. And here’s a pro tip for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster regarding that ridiculous, immediate acceleration. The safety guide says to place your head against the back of seat. You’ll want to do that. Otherwise, you’ll be banging your head often enough early in the ride that you may wind up in the concussion protocol.
Seriously, this ride isn’t for people with queasy stomachs. The first inversion delivers a 4.5G wallop, which surpasses what an astronaut feels during a Space Shuttle launch! The core concept is that Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster simulates Los Angeles traffic, so the inversions are freeway loops. You hurtle through the streets like Vin Diesel after a nitrous oxide boost, and it is pitch black. You have no idea what’s coming next. The street signs whip by at a breakneck pace, leaving you but one lingering thought: this limo driver will not be getting a big tip.
3. Designing the limo
Image: Disney
In order to accomplish the grand design for the roller coaster, the limo has to be perfect. There are two phases to the design. The first is providing enough traffic to mitigate the anticipated giant lines for an actual Walt Disney World roller coaster. They accomplished this by emphasizing the limo concept. Automobile manufacturers build these vehicles to host dozens of passengers.
By following this precept, Imagineers had a viable explanation for deploying a limo cart capable of holding 24 people. The ride has a tremendous guest throughput for a roller coaster, particularly given the 82-second length of the entire experience. The Aerosmith introductory video lasts quite a bit longer than the actual roller coaster portion. The thrill-in-a-minute experience is so extraordinary, however, that most guests never notice the brief duration. Many of them couldn’t handle a substantially longer dark ride with that much G-force in play, anyway.
4. Putting the rock in the roller coaster
Image: Disney
One big reason why the ride works so beautifully is its sound integration. Disney targeted Aerosmith for a specific reason. They’re in many ways the Great American Band, and they have numerous hits that mesh majestically with a thrill ride. Imagineers highlight this union throughout the attraction.
There are more than 900 speakers sprinkled through the interior and exterior. The limo itself offers five of them. Two are positioned by the ears while two more are at the shoulders. A subwoofer lies beneath your feet. If you don’t like rock music or Aerosmith in particular, this is not the ride for you. There is no escaping their sound throughout Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
In fact, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler actually re-recorded some of their music in order to accentuate high points of the songs in union with seminal moments in the ride. There is also variability in the songs you’ll hear. The individual limos all contain their own song, songs, or medley. Only two of them, Sweet Emotion and Nine Lives, are played without interruption.
There are a total of six other songs you could potentially hear on the ride, one of which is available in two different limos. Disney chose the ones that they felt blended the best with the ride. There is a pair of two-song medleys. One of them features Love in an Elevator and Walk This Way, and the other includes snippets from Back in the Saddle and Dude Looks Like a Lady. Another limo includes a triple medley of F.I.N.E., Young Lust, and Love in an Elevator. The two standalone songs are a live version of Sweet Emotion and the studio version of Nine Lives. If you have a favorite of these, read the section below to learn how you can game the system.
5. Ride trivia
Image: Disney
There are several fun pieces of trivia about Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. One of them is that the band attended the opening of the ride on July 29, 1999. In fact, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler rode the ride together a dozen times during a sneak preview. They also provided suggestions on the layout of the recording studio during the design phase. Given their infamous 60 Minutes interview, it may have been the last time all of them got along.
The stretch limo is modeled after an early 1960s Cadillac. Disney doesn’t say which one, but most people believe it’s the 1962 edition.
Given the space limitations Disney faces in adding new attractions to popular areas of the parks, they had to be creative. This coaster sits in an area that was once a cast member parking lot.
It was the first ride at Walt Disney World to feature multiple inversions. It’s got two loops and a corkscrew.
The Imagineers love to leave their mark on their creations. If you listen carefully to the intercom at G-Force Records, you’ll hear names called. They’re the name of various Disney Imagineers who worked to create the roller coaster.
The only attraction at Walt Disney World with a faster top speed than Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is Test Track, which reaches 64.9 miles per hour.
Three years after its debut at Hollywood Studios, Disney duplicated Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster almost exactly at Disneyland Paris. It’s the fastest attraction there.
The giant guitar that’s a signature part of the exterior is four stories tall. It’s approximately 40 feet in stature, although it’s hard to tell since it rests at an angle.
There are two famous people who work at G-Force Records. One of them is Illeana Douglas, one of the hardest working actresses in Hollywood. She is best known for Six Feet Under, Entourage, Seinfeld, and Action. The other is Ken Marino, an original member of MTV’s The State. He is a featured player in Party Down, Burning Love, and Childrens Hospital. Most people know him from his work on Veronica Mars, though.
While the ride features five different limos, only four of them ever operate at once. Each of them has a silly license plate for you to suss out the meaning:
2FAST4U
UGOBABE (formerly UGOGIRL)
BUHBYE
1QKLIMO
H8TRFFC
The license plate identifies which soundtrack you’ll hear during the ride. 2FAST4U offers a live version of Sweet Emotion. UGOBABE provides a Love in an Elevator/Walk This Way mash-up. BUHBYE is the three-song medley. H8TRFFC has the Back in the Saddle/Dude Looks Like a Lady combo. And 1QKLIMO plays Nine Lives.
