WHEN one of Walt Disney Attractions’ own managers refuses to go on a ride at Walt Disney World you know it must be bad.
Nothing would induce Kevin Brett, manager for travel industry sales in the UK, to step into the aptly named Tower of Terror at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park.
Visitors brave enough to enter the tower – modelled on a 1920s Hollywood hotel – are warned they are about to enter the Twilight Zone before being strapped into the hotel’s maintenance lift. Moments later the lift plummets 13 floors. Riders get brief glimpses of the park below as they go shooting past windows on each floor. As if one drop isn’t enough, the lift rises only to drop again and again. Nobody could blame Brett for opting out: it is not for the faint hearted.
After the Tower of Terror, Test Track, Epcot’s latest attraction, seems relatively sedate. The mile-long ride reaches speeds of 65 mph.
Vehicles twist and turn through rough terrain, arctic and desert conditions, hairpin bends and straight tracks designed to simulate a motor car testing process. The best moment on Test Track is when the car hurtles towards a wall at high speed. A photo taken just as your vehicle is about to hit the wall can be bought at the end of the ride.
A walk through the new section in the Animal Kingdom, Asia, is the perfect antidote to all this stomach-churning fun.
It takes the form of a mythical kingdom, with ruined temples hidden in dense rainforest. The project’s designers (or Imagineers in Disney-speak) have tried to make Asia as authentic as possible, right down to the shoes laid outside one of the temples and the sounds of forest destruction.
Asia’s main attraction is the Kali River Rapids, a whitewater ride that takes you down river through the jungle. If you pick your spot carefully on the 12-seat raft you can avoid getting soaked – but then that is half the fun.
To dry off, take a walk through the Maharajah jungle where you can see tigers, blackbuck and other Asian animals gathered from zoos to populate the land. Some animals are behind glass, which detracts from the auth- enticity of the experience, but when the glass is the only thing between you and six tigers you don’t really mind.
To experience whitewater rafting without getting wet check out the virtual reality rafting at DisneyQuest in Downtown Disney.
There you can stay dry as you paddle through the rapids depicted on screen. At Disney Quest you can also design your own roller-coaster on computer then ride your creation in a simulator. For some good old-fashioned fun a Baseball game is a must. The Atlanta Braves play at the stadium in Disney’s Wide World of Sports, a multi-million dollar complex opened in 1997.
Understanding the rules is helpful but not essential. Just being at the game, soaking up the atmosphere as you munch on a hotdog, is great fun. Baseball games feature on our cinema screens so regularly that actually going to one feels like walking onto the set of a movie.
But that is precisely what attracts millions of visitors to the park every year.