When it comes to Walt Disney World, one of the things its most well-known for are its unique and exciting attractions, which generally appeal to people of all ages. However, with its youngest guests (who aren't overly concerned about the uniqueness of the attractions, and whose view of what is exciting is far below the older guests), Disney has found that it can merely duplicate the same exact type of ride several times over with relatively minor tweaks in details......and the little ones will still eat it up and get excited for it.
This review is about one instance of ride duplication, in the form of what is called The Astro Orbiter, which is located in the Tomorrowland section of the Magic Kingdom theme park......the land of which is themed primarily about the future with a sci-fi/space travel twist. (Incidentally, the other exactly same rides but with minor changes in theming and location are Dumbo, Flying Carpets of Agrabah, and Triceratop Spin.)
By ride duplication, what I'm referring to is the very basic of amusement parks rides: from a central spinning hub, it has about 20 (or so) extended arms and at the ends of those arms can be anything such as a flying elephant, a flying carpet, or in the case of Astro Orbiter, a rocket ship. After the guests are properly seated and buckled in, the arms start to rise and the whole attraction starts to spin for about 1-2 minutes. In each ride vehicle, however, there is usually a button or a level to pull to make that particular vehicle fly up a little higher as it spins.
What makes the Astro Orbiter a little different from the other rides I mentioned earlier is (1) the theme of taking a rocket ship into space, (2) the fact that it isn't set on the ground but is located on top of Rocket Tower Plaza, requiring a trip up in an elevator to get to the loading section.
That's basically all there is to the ride: going round and round, and up and down. Now that's not to say it's a bad ride. It's not the most exciting in the world, but what it DOES have going for it is the view it gives of the rest of Tomorrowland and even outside of the park over to the Contemporary Resort and Bay Lake Tower. It offers a pretty nice view and despite the ride merely going around and around, you can enjoy a nice breeze as well. Other than perhaps riding out of a sense of nostalgia (which I did on my last trip, as I hadn't ridden it in over 20 years), for the average person, there's no real reason to make this attraction a must-do.
As far as any complaints, nothing more than the usual about having to wait in long lines because of the popularity of the ride with small children. You generally have a longer wait at the bottom, but by the time you take the elevator up to the platform where the ride itself is, you may also have a small wait there as there could be other riders still ahead of you.
All in all, if you want to make your little one happy with a ride on it, it may be worth the wait. Otherwise, you're not missing a whole lot by passing it by.
