Favorite Ride At The Magic Kingdom
Splash Mountain
Picking just one ride to be my favorite at Magic Kingdom is so difficult. There are just so many great classics from Peter Pan's Flight to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates of the Caribbean, the list goes on. While all of those rides are incredible in their own rights, for me nothing beats Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain was the first of the three mountains I had the pleasure of riding and it completely blew me away. The ride is based on characters and stories from Disney's Song of the South. You'll follow Brer Rabbit as he leaves his home in search for adventure with Brer Fox and Brer Bear in hot pursuit to catch him and roast him. The ride transitions for a short time to a roller coaster as Brer Rabbit searches for his laughing place. Eventually the villains catch Brer Rabbit only to be tricked into throwing him into a briar patch which culminates in a 50 foot drop that ends in a huge splash! This is my favorite ride in the park. It has an overwhelming amount of charm and going through a cartoon makes it oh so much fun. Be careful though. Chances are you'll be getting pretty wet on this ride! Sidenote: Normally water runs down the drop... No idea why it wasn't on this particular day.
Favorite Ride in Epcot
Soarin Around the World
Possibly a bit of a controversial pick. I feel like Epcot is really known for 4 rides. Soarin Around the World, Test Track, Spaceship Earth, and Frozen Ever After. There are other rides of course, but to me those are the big 4 that stand out. I really enjoyed the original Soarin. Much like the current version of the ride riders sit in a seat that gets raised into the air in front of a massive screen. The illusion was that you were soaring over California. Just a couple years ago Disney heavily updated the ride with an all new video featuring locations from all over the world. The footage is really magnificent. For me this is perfect for Epcot which of course is home to the World Showcase. While on the ride you feel like you are flying as you feel a light breeze, smell various scents, and watch as the world around you shifts from country to country. It's hard not to get pulled into the illusion. I have to give Spaceship Earth a very close runner up. I still love Soarin Around the World slightly more, but thanks to another ride in another park I nearly have to give the nod at this park to Spaceship Earth. Nearly. Somehow I don't have a picture of the entrance way for the ride... Sorry bout that!
Favorite Ride in Disney's Hollywood Studios
Star Tours: The Adventure Continues
First of all, not to downplay Star Tours, but R.I.P. to The Great Movie Ride, my real favorite ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios! Ah. Hollywood Studios, a park in the middle of a major transformation. Gone are the days of feelings like you were walking the streets of Hollywood and learning all about the movies and what went into making a movie. I mean we still have the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, but still. The park is having some big shifts, but before Star Wars Galaxy's Edge was even a reality, Star Tours gave fans all kinds of galactic action! The ride is a motion simulator that will land you in a few different locations from all of the major Star Wars movies (sorry Rogue One and Solo). You will also come in contact with some familiar faces from the movie. The ride has 4 segments, all of which are very well done. As a big fan of Star Wars I can go on this ride again and again. One of the possible endings to the ride even has you landing at Batuu, the location of Galaxy's Edge. The future of this ride is not 100% known with Galaxy's Edge opening this summer, but for now it remains a great one!
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Avatar: Flight of Passage
Have you ever had an experience that you just want to gush over? Perhaps it was a particular meal? Maybe a movie you really love? Anything like that? Well this ride fits that bill for me. I could make an entire blog just on this ride (perhaps...). Hands down Flight of Passage is my favorite ride overall at Walt Disney World. I love it so much I was sure to ride it 5 times on my most recent trip. The queue line ends in a preshow of sorts where you are linked to an Avatar and taught how the ride will operate. The ride is similar to Soarin in that there is an incredibly large screen in front of you. That's about it though. This ride you can literally get lost in. You sit on the ride vehicle in a semi kneeling position as if you were riding on the back of a banshee from the movie. The restraints lock you in from behind ankles and back. Awkward for sure, but it all makes sense as you are linked to your Avatar and are all of a sudden on the edge of a cliff on Pandora. Immediately you lose all sense of the fact that you are on a ride (unless you decide to just tell yourself you're looking at a screen. It's easy to forget).
From that point on, every one of your senses are fully engaged. The sights of Pandora are beyond realistic, the smells you smell vary as you bolt through the various environment Pandora has to offer. You hear and feel the wind blowing by you. You hear the music as well as the calls of the wild life and the Na'vi. You feel the water of Pandora's oceans spray on your face. You feel the banshee breathing beneath you. It's an experience unlike anything I've ever experienced before and that's not even touching the ride itself. While Soarin has you feeling like you are gently flying, Flight of Passage has you feeling like you are plunging down mountainsides, corkscrewing around large animals, and slamming through trees. If you allow yourself to relax your mind and forget that you are at Disney's Animal Kingdom, it's possible to believe that you are actually on Pandora. I can go on and on about this ride, but I'll save the rest of it for another time!
Thank you all for reading my first real blog on here. I had a lot of fun typing it up and I hope some of you find it interesting. Let me know what your favorite rides are in Disney World down in the comments. I'd love to hear about it! Feel free to let me know what you think about my choices too! Stay tuned!
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