Disney is without a doubt one of my favorite places in the word (if not my favorite). There is a charm to the happiest place on earth like no other. People are joyful, there are treats and gifts everywhere, not to mention rides and shows. Walt Disney’s vision to make a children’s park has gone beyond what was initially thought. The parks, although they have evolved over the years, they are often slow to do so, I’m looking at you Slow rides.
Slow rides have been a Disney staple for decades and I know many Disney fanatics won't enjoy this article because they believe that these Classic rides should be preserved. But Walt Disney himself said that “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world”. These rides were state of the art back in the day, Walt himself worked on them. But they have aged poorly as time has gone by.
I went to Disney Land for the first time a few months ago and really enjoyed it. However, there were some things about the park I did not like as much. The slow rides was one of these things. When I got on for the first time, I was quite excited to experience one of Walt’s original rides. I was unpleasantly disappointed. Why? It wasn’t as magical as the other rides, Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean. One after another I got on these great rides to find that the Imagineering I had experienced in other rides was not there in the slower rides. I am talking specifically about Mr. Toads Wild Ride, Snow Whites Scary Adventure, Roger Rabbits Car-toon Spin, Monsters Inc. Mike and Sully to the rescue, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, and The Many adventure of Winnie the Pooh. All of these rides are all essentially the same ride. You get on a cart and ride around to see what appears to be a carnival ride built by high schoolers. I can see why this was such a lucrative ride back in opening day. But other rides aroudn the park stay relevant compared to these slow rides like. Some examples are Space Mountain, Peter pan, Pirates of the Caribbean, even It’s a small world.
These slow rides seem like someone got some cardboard cutouts and drew Snow Whites/Pinocchio’s/Mr. Toad’s face on them and called it a day. I’m not against slow rides, but the technology that has arisen in recent years like holograms, animatronics, and 4k (and now 8k) projections could be better implemented to make you feel like you are in the fantasy world you are immersed into. My solution to these rides would be to revamp them with the cutting edge-technology and entertainment options available today. Keep the slow ride concept going but make it so the ride Is updated with animatronics and effects comparable to the seven dwarves mine train at the Magic Kingdom or the Frozen Ever after ride at Epcot.
Rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, peter pan, and It’s a small world continue to attract people to where families are willing to wait an hour plus to ride. However, these rides aren’t cutting edge state of the art rides with technologies unavailable to the mainstream market. But these rides have been capable of entertaining people for decades because of the way they are executed. The counter argument to my new technologies point is to revamp the rides to create a better executed one. In peter pan, your flying over London and Neverland. In Pirates of the Caribbean, you are in the Caribbean in a small boat journeying through New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico’s seeing how Pirates wreak havoc. Immersion and story telling are fundamental in making a good ride. Disney needs to continue to be engaging and ever evolving, the wait times prove how dis-interested the greater community is about these rides.
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