Which are your favorite dark rides at Walt Disney World? What makes them your favorites? In particular, what makes them your favorites AS dark rides (e.g. Splash Mountain is essentially a dark ride with a thrilling drop at the end. What is it about the dark ride portion that might make it a favorite, as opposed to the drop portion or the water-splashing portion)?
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1 – Splash Mountain – The theming throughout is phenominal (even if not all the animitronics are working 100% of the time) and it never fails to put me in my happy place. The drop at the end is just a bonus and the tunes stay in your head giving you a smile all day long.
2 – This was a tough fight with #3, but Pirates of the Caribbean wins out because it’s the first ride we took our oldest daughter on (it should be noted that it’s probably not the BEST ride to take a 2 year old on as her very first ride experience since she refused to go on ANY other dark ride for the rest of the trip). The steady stream of updates also keep Pirates fresh and Yo Ho Ho is a great song to sing whether you’re enjoying a milkshake with the kids or an adult beverage with the boys.
3 – The Haunted Mansion – As with Splash and Pirates, HM is wonderfully themed throughout and they all have fantastic music. The new interactive que is a lot of fun and re-ridability is very high. In fact, we will often exit all of my top 3 choices and immediately line up agin.
4 – The Tower of Terror – It was tough to pick this spot because there are other that deserve this spot too. But since I couldn’t pick “All the other rides” I had to go with ToT. The theming is incredible, and there’s always something you didn’t see before. Every ride always reminds me of the first time I rode it and the surprise I had. I also had to pick ToT because I HAD to include a choice from another park.
Honourable mentions: Yep, I have two honourable mentions:
It’s a Small World – I will proudly proclaim that IASW is one of the greatest rides of all time. Yes, the song gets stuck in your head forever, but that’s the point. It is THE most catchy tune ever written and it’s message is pure. The art work is beautiful and it’s a nice cool, long ride. The only reason it didn’t crack the top 4 for me is that it’s the one ride everyone rides as kids, hates when they get older, then loves again when they have kids.
Peter Pan – Everyone loves to fly and Peter Pan really gives the impression that you are flying high over London. The only reason it didn’t crak the top 4 for me was the reasoning that if it did, then IASW has to as well and I just couldn’t remove TWO of my top 4 for these two rides
how come we don’t consider Space Mountain a “Dark Ride”?? If we did, that would be my #1!
I much prefer the old Imagination with Dreamfinder and Figment to the current.
I am not sure I would classify Toy Story Mania or Buzz Lightyear as “Dark Rides”
I personally think Spaceship Earth is one of the best attractions Disney has, but I wish they could have kept Walter Cronkite’s voice.
Apparently, I am alone in my love of DINOSAUR!
I picked haunted mansion and POTC because those are my all time fav, ToT also ranks high and the Small World because its DDs fav and I love hearing her sing along while we r riding
Aaron, I have actually never ridden Dinosaur, but I did enjoy the Indiana Jones ride in DL, which uses the same mechanism.
I’m with you Eric – never ridden Dinosaur – hoping to remedy that in 65 Days!
I wish I could vote for Horizons. RIP Horizons. “If we can dream it, we can do it!”
Well, I picked my 4, and quite honestly, they might not even be my 4 favorite rides on the list. However, I guess I have a different definition of what a “dark ride” is than some of the others around here. To me a dark ride is a ride where you’re just relaxing and riding through something that is essentially an immersive show. Even though I didn’t vote for it, I do share Aaron’s appreciation for Dinosaur. I actually do love that ride. While I love all these attractions, I just have a hard time putting attractions like ToT, Splash, Buzz, TSMM and Dinosaur in the “dark rides” category since there is so much more to them. If they’re dark rides, then so is Rock n Rollercoaster.
I guess it is kind of like the whole argument about what “quintessential” actually means…
Anyway, someone mentioned Horizons… yes, if the year was 1988 or something like that, Horizons and Figment would be on my list, however, EPCOT’s dark rides have significantly gone down the crapper, so that has changed the game. My 4 are…
Pirates
Haunted Mansion
Spaceship Earth
Peter Pan
I failed to see we could pick 4. I chose Splash Mountain as my #1, but 2-4 would be Haunted Mansion, ToT and POTC.
I don’t consider Tower of Terror or Toy Story dark rides, and there’s enough non-dark in Splash for me to not rate it in the top 5 here.
Pirates
Mansion
Peter Pan
Nemo
A fun topic.