7 Things We Know About Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway
Now that all the Star Wars commotion is beginning to calm down... that is, if you call soft park openings up to 2 hours before posted time, scrambles for boarding passes for Rise of the Resistance, and sustained extreme popularity calming down... it's time to talk about Walt Disney World's next major non-Star Wars ride: Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway.
This is the ride that is taking up the space formerly used by the beloved Great Movie Ride, which means it is ALSO opening at Disney Hollywood Studios. It's enough to make me begrudgingly say this park may be rising in the ranks of my favorite parks.
Here is what we know so far and Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway:
1) It's going to recall that classic Disney feel.
Those who know a bit of Disney history know that Walt Disney loved trains. Putting Mickey on a train, with his companion Minnie, just feels right.
It is also the first major attraction to actually feature Mickey and Minnie mouse and will be based on the Mickey Mouse television series.
2) It is slated to open March 4 of this year at Walt Disney World.
Sorry, Disneyland, but you will have to wait until 2022, when it will open in Toontown.
3) The opening scene has been previewed.
Disney has released details about the opening scene. Guests will be watching a premier of a Mickey Mouse cartoon, having been invited by the boss man himself. Then, Goofy appears, causing trouble like Goofy does, and conducting the train, which veers out of control, out of the cartoon, and takes the guests on the adventure.
Photo copyright Disney
4) FastPasses are available now for rides on or after March 4th!
This ride will be a Tier 1 FastPass experience from day 1, meaning FastPass+ is already available for guests riding on or after opening day.
This move is UNLIKE the way Disney opened the Star Wars rides, so we have some theories about what to expect. As with any new ride, we expect this FastPass is going to be even harder to get than Slinky Dog Dash (currently the most difficult FastPass at this park), at least for opening week, and probably for the first month of operation. After that, it will probably become more dependent on which ride guests actually enjoy better.
If you're keeping track, this means that the FastPass structure at Disney Hollywood Studios has changed AGAIN. The Tier 1 FastPasses (of which you can only select 1 per day) are now Smuggler's Run, Slinky Dog Dash, and Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. All other rides, including Rock N Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, etc are Tier 2.
5) It will feature a tune called "Potatoland".
"Potatoland" is a song from a Mickey Mouse short released in 2013. In this short, the plot is that Goofy takes Mickey and Minnie on a 4 day road trip to go visit the famous Potatoland theme park. But when they get there, they have a Griswold moment... Potatoland was just a figment of Goofy's imagination. But the friends decide to save the day by imagining up a Potatoland with a Main Street and a Penny Arcade (innovative, no?) and somehow in then end it all ends up getting flooded in gravy. Honestly, I lost the plot synopsis at the moment I realized Goofy was being Clarke Griswold.
6) We know what the scenes will be like.
Much like the Great Movie Ride, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway will operate in a similar fashion, traveling through a series of scenes as mayhem ensues. Since many press have already been able to walk through these scenes, you too can know exactly what they will be. Without giving too much away...
There will be a picnic scene, a tunnel, a running of the bulls, a carnival, a twister, a waterfall, a city with a dance studio, and a dangerous back alleyway where you almost run into a large furnace at a factory.
Goofy is NOT a good driver. He may have gone to the same driving school as Mr. Toad.
7) We know some ride mechanics.
We know the ride will be trackless. We know at times the car might seem to totter or dance. And we know Disney is calling some of the technology of the scenes 2.5 D technology, which is not quite 3D because you don't need 3D glasses, but will apparently lend dimension to 2D scenes.
There's still a lot we don't know, like how long the ride time is, what EXACTLY 2.5D means, and whether this ride will live up to the anticipation and truly deserve its classification as a tier 1 FastPass. We'll find out on March 4th.
Until next week...
