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Q6: Which resort DOESN'T have Peter Pan's Flight?

Image: Disney

Peter Pan's Flight was one of the opening day dark rides in Disneyland's Fantasyland, and quickly became one of the park's headliners. Riding in suspended pirate ships that sail over London and through the stars to Neverland, guests can't get enough of the timeless journey – which, even sixty years later, always has the longest line of any Fantasyland classic. 

Naturally, the ride became a Disney Parks "must-have," synonymous with Fantasyland and its storybook dark rides. It spread around the world, even appearing at the progressive and reinvented Shanghai Disneyland in its classic form with just a few technological flourishes. So which park doesn't have a Peter Pan-themed dark ride? 

Image: Disney

A6: Hong Kong Disneyland. Hong Kong Disneyland was in dire straights when the park opened in 2005. It lacked many "classic" Disney Parks rides including "it's a small world," Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Big Thunder Mountain. "small world" finally opened in 2008. As for the other three, the Hong Kong park was earmarked to get them all in a massive five-year expansion adding three new lands: Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Pirate's Cove. (Ultimately, the pirate-themed land was replaced with Toy Story Land, so the park is still the only one to lack a Pirates of the Caribbean.)

Believe it or not, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was the only dark ride in Hong Kong Disneyland's Fantasyland (compared to Disneyland's six!), making it the only castle park without Peter Pan's Flight. 

Q7: Which resorts DON'T have a Soarin' ride?

Image: Disney

When Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, the first visitors to the new park didn't have many nice things to say... In fact, the park wildly underperformed, earning its own in-depth Declassified Disaster: California Adventure feature that you've got to read to believe. Short on family attractions, completely lacking Disney characters, and having just a handful of rides, California Adventure wasn't exactly making many fans. But one ride did. The Lost Legend: Soarin' Over California was a revolutionary new way to use a simulator, emphasizing grace and beauty as riders gently breezed over the sights, sounds, and smells of the Golden State.

Naturally, the one knockout from California Adventure's lineup had to be shared, and was quickly duplicated to Epcot's The Land pavilion. Even though the ride film remained the same, California's landscapes are varied enough that most guests would never notice that the Floridian ride showed only Californian locales, including Disneyland!

Image: Disney

The next leap forward was with Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in 2016 with a new version of the ride touring international destinations – the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, Mount Kilimanjaro, Neuschwanstein Castle, and more. The day after it debuted in Shanghai, Soarin' Around the World replaced the Californian film at both California Adventure and Epcot's The Land – despite technically being a worse fit for both.

Image: Disney

In 2019, the most gorgeously stylized version of the ride yet opened at Tokyo DisneySea, there themed to S.E.A.: The Society of Explorers and Adventurers, incorporating an Italian Renaissance theme fit for the park's Mediterranean Harbor.

That leaves two resorts missing this high-flying adventure...

A7: Hong Kong Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. Neither park has gotten on the Soarin' bandwagon, even if concepts for adding the ride have been floated for both.

Q8: Which resort DOESN'T have an Avengers attraction coming?

Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Captain America, and Hawk Eye. Also known as, The Avengers. That's the linup, at least, that seems to be the agreed upon definition at Disney Parks. 

Image: Disney / Marvel

As we saw, Hong Kong was the first to open an attraction explicitly tied to the Avengers with Iron Man Experience – part of that new Marvel area officially debuting at the park in the near future. Super hero-themed Avengers Campus lands are coming to Disney California Adventure (featuring a Spider-Man interactive dark ride) and Walt Disney Studios Park (offering the same Spider-Man ride, plus an Iron Man themed overlay of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster). 

Despite paying $4 billion to purchase Marvel outright (one of the massive and industry-changing acquisitions by CEO Bob Iger), Disney has been slow and careful in incorporating the massive Marvel franchise into its parks. And even as super hero rides and lands come online one-by-one, one Disney resort is not adding any Avengers-themed lands or rides anytime soon... You know this one.

Image: Disney / Marvel

A8: Walt Disney World. Famously, Walt Disney World's competitors up the road got there first. In the mid-'90s, Universal paid a down-on-its-luck Marvel Comics for the exclusive rights to build themed lands and attractions based on their super hero characters. Naturally, it was all in anticipation of Islands of Adventure's Marvel Super Hero Island. The comic book land is best known for the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man that many still assert as one of the best modern dark rides on Earth, even 20 years after its opening.

In any case, Marvel's pre-existing and perpetual agreement with Universal famously gives Disney's competitors the exclusive theme park rights to characters explicitly present in Super Hero Island (primarily, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four) plus any characters reasonably associated with them.

Image: Disney / Marvel

Working with Universal, Disney did manage to squeak away with the ability to use Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy in their parks (hence the offbeat hero team's place in Epcot) but you'll see no mention of the Avengers, the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, or even the word Marvel in association with any Walt Disney World rides. 

But if we're being honest, Universal's Spider-Man ride is better than any Marvel ride Disney's built or announced yet anyway, so Orlando still has the best Marvel attraction... just not Disney World.

 
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