Sometimes, when you’re on a Disney ride, you buy into the illusion completely. You forgot about the rest of the world for a time, escaping into this detailed alternate reality. It’s an escapist fantasy come to life. Which ones are the bests at making you suspend disbelief? I have some thoughts. Here are the nine most immersive Disney attractions.
Avatar Flight of Passage
When Pandora – The World of Avatar debuted in 2017, it recalibrated expectations for immersion. This ride causes guests to buy into the idea that they’re tourists exploring the mystical clouds of Pandora. For a moment, it’s perfectly plausible that you’re someone who can tame a Banshee and fly around the world. Disney prefers the term “augmented reality” to “virtual reality.” Still, Flight of Passage demonstrates world-building at its finest.
Expedition Everest
A key to immersion is persuading the theme park tourist to buy into an illusion. With Expedition Everest, Imagineers accomplish this trick by setting up a smooth journey on a railed path, just like everyone has seen before. Then, guests realize that the tracks up ahead are broken, the situation is dire, and something wants to get rid of them.
At that point, the ride reverses course, a giant Audio-Animatronic tries to grab you, and a lot of what happens is dizzying in its kinetic fury. While you’re on Expedition Everest, you WILL believe in the legend of the Forbidden Mountain, something that only exists in an imaginary world crafted by Imagineers.
Haunted Mansion
The genius of the dark ride premise is that Disney controls your line of vision. Your eyes watch exactly what the ride’s designers want. This premise holds true on most of the selections, but it works exceptionally well with Haunted Mansion.
The conceit of this ride is that you’re the invited guest of 999 Happy Haunts, all of whom want you to take up residence within their home. You become a voyeur to their shenanigans almost the moment you board the Doom Buggy. And while you’re here, you totally forget about reality.
In these moments, all you know is a weird combination of joy and fear, an intoxicating mix that will keep you distracted until you finally depart. And even then, you’ll think about those Hitchhiking Ghosts while you walk away from the mansion.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Some friends recently rode Smugglers Run for the first time. When I mentioned that the ride is roughly five minutes long, they gazed at me with confusion. None of them could believe that the attraction’s main course, the actual flight, lasts for a while. They were sure that was including the Hondo Ohnaka pre-boarding speech or the waiting area part.
Why is this information so surprising? The core of Smugglers Run has a gaming element. You’re theoretically piloting a ship into unknown territory to steal coaxium. In reality, you’re staring at strange controls and trying to determine how the buttons work. By the time that you’re acclimated, Ohnaka is pressuring you to grab coaxium.
You’re so engaged in the activity that you lose track of time, the very definition of immersion. If I ranked everything here, Smugglers Run would win. It’s so intense that nothing outside of the cockpit matters during the ride. All you care about is setting a new high score and bagging credits from Ohnaka!
PS: I’m only including this gamified ride on the list, but Toy Story Mania! and the various Buzz Lightyear attractions also have arguments. There’s something about playing competitively that makes a ride more engrossing.
Peter Pan’s Flight
The concept of Neverland is so appealing that it’s maintained status as an integral part of pop culture for more than a century. As children, we fantasize about getting taken to this magical realm where an ageless boy and a mischievous fairy torment an evil pirate.
While The Wizarding World of Harry Potter grabs all the attention today, Walt Disney created the first realistic form of literary escapism all the way back in 1955. With Peter Pan’s Flight, he constructed a realistic flight simulator that triggers a childhood fantasy. To this day, this ride feels so authentic. Even J.M. Barrie would be impressed, treasuring the voyage from London into the impossible.
Radiator Springs Racers
Disney takes its Pixar attractions seriously. Since the movies are so universally beloved, Imagineers must construct plausible ride experiences mirroring what happens in the films. With Cars, kids love the franchise so much that it’s one of the top merchandising licenses in the history of Hollywood.
Radiator Springs Racers is so immersive that the ride experience begins long before you jump in your vehicle. The entirety of Cars Land recreates the town and surroundings from the film, straight down to the mountainous backdrop. By the time that you board the ride, you’ll honestly believe that you’re visiting the offbeat time just off the exit of Route 66.
Many of the beloved characters from the first movie appear on the attraction. While the interactions are brief, the quaint charm of the residents will amuse you to the point that you’ll forget that you’re looking at inanimate objects. For a time, you’ll accept that you’re in Radiator Springs, a colossal achievement given that it’s a computer-animated movie about anthropomorphic cars.
Soarin’
A debate ensued about this one, as both my wife and my editor stated an opinion about Soarin’ Around the World. Both of them believe that it’s inferior to the original attraction, Soarin’ Over California, especially in terms of immersion. For some, the infamous Eiffel Tower Bend and some other issues break the illusion, at least temporarily.
While I agree that this can be a problem for guests sitting on the sides of the IMAX theater, I still feel strongly that Soarin’ belongs. The immersion of this attraction demands your attention as you mimic the sensation of hang gliding over famous international landmarks. The thrill of flying past whales, bears, and elephants is too potent to exclude from this list, flaws be damned.
Space Mountain
Darkness clearly matters on this list. It’s somehow easier to suspend disbelief when the lights are off. And we’ve known this since Peter Pan’s Flight arrived in 1955. However, the purest example came in 1975, when Space Mountain immediately redefined greatness in the field of roller coasters.
You’re technically a passenger at Starport: Seven Five, a guest employing intergalactic technology to travel to your destination. Unfortunately, it’s like a flight on Frontier or Spirit or one of those other low-budget airlines. You’ll hold your breath and hope for the best as you veer around tight corners, knowing that any minor collision will spray your internal organs across the cosmos.
Space Mountain tricks you into thinking that you’re surpassing the speed of light. In reality, you’re barely going faster than someone riding a Peloton. The rickety nature of the ride sells the premise that much more effectively.
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
If the Hollywood Tower Hotel had a customer loyalty program, I’d have more gift cards than a Russian troll farm. I just can’t get enough of this attraction, which does a phenomenal job in telling a story that would warm Rod Serling’s (admittedly dead) heart.
From the moment that you notice the foreboding weenie in the distance, you’ll buy into the idea that it’s a functional hotel. Once you notice the cobwebs in the lobby, you’ll accept that it’s an abandoned one. Finally, when the ride cart exits the elevator shaft, you’ll fear that you’ve made a grave mistake in entering a cursed building.
The amount of time that you bounce up and down in the elevator shaft is minimal. But it seems protracted because of the build-up, which creates a level of immersion that dwarfed anything else at the parks before the introduction of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
