This morning, we told you about the projected opening date for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Now, we have some details to share on the ride system and the vehicles in which guests will be traveling when this attraction debuts in the Spring of 2019.
As stated at the D23 Expo 2017, guests will literally step through the movie screen and into a Mickey Mouse cartoon. As the concept art below shows, Goofy is the conductor on a wacky train, and it is that wacky train that guests will be boarding. With guests aboard Goofy’s train, only danger can be expected, and that’s why Mickey and Minnie Mouse will be following along in their car on your journey – in an effort to save you from Goofy’s clumsiness.
The ride system will indeed be a trackless one, much like Pooh’s Hunny Hunt at Tokyo Disneyland and Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland. Trackless ride technology is becoming more prevalent at the U.S. Disney Parks now, with the opening of Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters in Cars Land, as well as the upcoming “Battle Escape” attraction for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Although The Great Movie Ride was indeed a trackless ride system, Runaway Railway’s vehicles will not be anything recycled from The Great Movie Ride. In fact, the track layout and placement of rooms in the building won’t even be nearly the same beyond the load area.
Guests will board the 16-passenger train, which consists of four separate cars that hold four guests each (two rows of two), before it departs the train barn at the beginning of the attraction. The part we are unsure of is whether the engine with Goofy at the helm will actually travel with guests through the entire ride. This would be very possible, despite the fact that the four car train can separate at any time, offering a unique ride path for every car. This being a cartoon and all, it wouldn’t be too strange for the train cars to separate and come back together at various points in the ride.
We still have one more post on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway to share with you today, Mickey’s 89th birthday, so stay “tooned”!
Interesting to know, this is a move in “first ever darkride” for the key character in the park(s). Efteling theme park opened it’s own darkride dedicated to that park’s key character(s) Pardoes & Pardijn, this summer 2017. Trackless, groups of 3 “Fantasy-Sailers” (translated name of the ride vehicles) who divide and come together again, in different parts of the attraction…
All sounds very similar, isn’t it ? But Efteling is first, Disney follows :-)
Greetings
HAHA! Talking about similar rides and who’s first.. ever looked at Hong Kong Disneylands Mystic Manor? Efteling sure copied alot of that one for their ‘new’ and ‘groundbreaking’ ride didn’t they?
See my other comment lower, IMDrew ! Symbolica is first in multiple experience splitt-up & rejoin, in darkrides (worldwide).
Budget note : Mystic Manour devepment budget : about 5.2 times Symbolica dev.budget. Disney would not be able to develop “whatever” more then a kiddieride, with Efteling budget. The real amasement lies in the “budget magic” that is part of the Efteling imagineering team.. :-)
The ride tech option they were working on in the first 3 years of the attractions development, went A LOT further then flat floor AGV…, but impossible to fit in with the budget. The original option was a huge Robo-Coaster ride platform, with 2 main ride options in the boarding choice of the visitors (calm family ride patern & wild thrill movement ride patern) + a multiple scene experience variation in both versions, not up to choice. If it was 3 variations (as is now) it would have offered 2×3 = 6 different ride experiences. As I said, ALAS, it was top over Efteling budget.
See the original layout witch robocoaster tech :
http://www.looopings.nl/img/foto/hartenhof176124.jpg
https://coastersworld.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/parcours.jpg
http://www.looopings.nl/img/foto/hartenhof176122.jpg
Cheers
The carts would come apart? Dude, that’s awesome!
Yes, Nikki, AGV tech, as used in PooH (Tokyo), Ratatouille (Paris) and Mystic Manor (Hong Kong)
Actually this case, i the first Disney use in a dark ride in the USA, that’s a fact…
And also a fact, that Efteling theme park (Europe) has their own key park character dark ride NOW (Symbolica), before Disney does.
These 4 I mentioned, are good to get an insight on what’s possible. Especially the Efteling dark ride, as that is the first in the world, to boost a group travl experience that splits up and rejoins during the ride. Disney HAS been investating in Efteling, and copying different concept ideas from their European business competitor… it’s soooo obvious !! The Efteling concept development of Symbolica has been going on 5 years, it opened in july 2017, and Disney is now presenting a conceptual “near clone” …
Beware, people, Disney is becoming a follower, and Universal, Efteling and others, are new creative leaders…
(EVEN if a Disney budget still is 3-5 times an Efteling bdet, for a similar class of attration. We would amase the whole world, if Efteling had so much development money.. :-) )
Who cares? Just enjoy!:-)
Wow that’s really fascinating! Thanks for sharing, Giwreh!
Also, most of it is simply not true… The only fact he got right was that Runaway Railway is to become the first domestic Disney ride to use a trackless ride system. Although the Ratatouille clone for Epcot could technically still beat Runaway Railway as no opening dates have been finalized for either attraction.
I’m assuming Giwreh is a Dutchman like myself and unfortunately most of my themepark loving countrymen place the Efteling on a little bit too high of a pedestal. Don’t get me wrong, Symbolica is a gorgeous and impressive dark ride, especially for the resources a ‘mere’ national park as the Efteling has at it’s disposal and I highly recommend a visit to the park if you would ever be in the position to do so. It is a world class theme park, after all. That being said, comparing POV’s of both Mystic Manor (2013) & Symbolica (2017) clearly show that the latter is the result of the Efteling team thinking: “hey, what if we make our own version of this ride with our park’s mascot?” Not that this is inherently bad; Most Europeans never will set foot in Hong Kong Disneyland so it’s a nice way for us to experience a similar ride, but to claim that the Efteling invented the concept is Plane Crazy ;)
Tokyo Disneyland’s Pooh’s Hunny Hunt (2000) is by far a better example as to what would be possible in Runaway Railway. Pooh uses Disney’s proprietary LPS (Local Positioning System) AGV technology which is far more versatile than the wire-guided system Symbolica uses. Not to mention the fact that the ride vehicles get split up both in the opening scene and the nightmare scene of the Pooh ride in a manner the Imagineers most likely will duplicate for DHS.
If you’re interested in trackless dark ride technology, I highly recommend to visit http://www.etf.nl (the site is in English) as they are the supplier of trackless darkrides to non-Disney parks.
Cool! Thanks for sharing, Demin!