UPDATE: Disney actually surprised us by releasing FastPass+ reservations JUST now for this attraction!
It’s hard to believe, but Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will be opening in just a month at Disney’s Hollywood Studios! And though this park is still dealing with heavy crowds due to the popularity of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, there is plenty of excitement around this blockbuster opening, coming soon on March 4, 2020! Here’s everything we know about this new attraction!
The setup: Walking into a Mickey Mouse cartoon
Though Mickey Mouse has been Disney’s most famous character for nearly a century, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will be the first attraction featuring this iconic character, and will allow guests to literally step “through” a movie screen and join Mickey and his friends on a fun adventure where you’re the star of your own Mickey short and anything can happen. This zany out-of-control adventure will feature surprising twists and turns, dazzling visual effects and mind-boggling transformations that happen before your very eyes, including a forest instantly being transformed into a cityscape, which you can check out here.
Though this attraction sounds a bit like your standard screen-based affair so far, Disney is promising that this ride will be more than just a screen-based dark ride. Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will make extensive use of new enhanced screen technology that Disney is calling 2 1/2D. Though we’re not entirely sure what this really means, Disney said that the normally 2D world of Disney animation will pop in new ways inside this attraction, but interestingly, without the need for 3D glasses.
Waiting for the attraction
UPDATE: Disney actually surprised us by releasing FastPass+ reservations JUST now for this attraction!
There have been a lot of changes when it comes to waiting in line for attractions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This month, FastPass+ was finally added for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, and of course, the virtual “boarding group” system is still in effect at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
And though rumors circulated earlier this year that Disney was considering using the virtual queue system for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, it looks like while this system is still in use for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Disney will likely instead be going standby only with this new attraction when it first opens, with more information about FastPass+ being shared at a later date.
A companion attraction is opening too!
One of the most under-utillized spaces at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the former Sounds Dangerous attraction building, which has been used over the past several years as a temporary screening room for movie previews and, most recently, the Star Wars: Path of the Jedi recap film.
However, this space is being re-branded as the Mickey Shorts Theater, which will be only a few paces from the entrance to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway and will also open in March. As you might expect, this theater will show a number of Mickey shorts throughout the day. No information has been released about what shorts will be a part of this new attraction (or if there will be a parks-exclusive short), but hopefully we’ll learn more as the opening of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway gets closer!
Though many were sad to see the Great Movie Ride close in 2017, it looks like Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway will be an exciting new attraction that will use new technology to bring yet another cutting-edge ride to this park. Are you excited for this new attraction?
