Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway is themed to the current Disney Channel Mickey and Minnie series. You will start in a preshow theater where you watch a new Mickey Mouse Short featuring Mickey and Minnie heading out in their car for a picnic. Then, as Disney said in its reveal at the Expo, "one magical moment lets you step into the movie and on Goofy’s train for a wacky, wild ride."
Let's reveal what happens after that moment, shall we? Obviously, we depart now into spoiler territory, so you want the attraction to provide a complete surprise when you first ride it in 2019 (or whenever you visit Walt Disney World after that), we won't hold it against you if you bail out of our post now. Just head over to our Disney's Hollywood Studios pages and submit some ratings for the rides, shows, and restaurants in the park, perhaps?
Okay, for everyone else, gather 'round for our tour of the plans for Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway.
The new attraction is going into the Chinese Theater building that previously housed The Great Movie Ride. While Disney has changed the show inside, the building shell remains the same and the "track" layout of the Mickey ride is somewhat similar to that of TGMR. (There's a couple of changes in turns near the middle of the ride.) There are nine main scenes in Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, which will take you on some predictably wacky adventures on your way to that picnic.
After exiting the preshow theater (there are two, twin theaters, BTW), you will proceed through a load area queue before boarding your train. Disney has revealed the first look at the ride vehicle trains, which, as you can see, will be driven by Goofy.
So what could possibly go wrong?
This concept image is from the first scene in the ride, in a park. We are going to make a hard left turn into that tunnel you see in Disney's concept art, in which will experience the ride's second scene. There's trouble in that tunnel, but once we are through, it's a right turn into the third scene... which is a stampede.
After escaping that predicament, we bear slightly left into the fourth scene, which is Carnival Chaos. We are continuing our left turn in this scene, which leads us into the ride's fifth scene, Twister. I doubt we will see Bill Paxton and his infamous blue shirt here. But maybe a flying cow?
The weather remains a problem as we make a sharp left into the next scene, which plays in multiple parts. We start in a Tropical Torrent, then there's a nifty effect that takes us Over the Falls. There are four alcoves off the main set in this scene, so it appears that each car on the train will be looking at its own screen here for what the scene name suggests will be a waterfall gag.
After our plunge, we drain into a culvert, through which will be be making an "S" curve into the seventh scene, which starts with a big city traffic snarl. To get out of that, we make a detour into a dance studio, then make a left turn into "Turn Back Alley."
This being a cartoon, of course we don't turn back, and instead we push straight ahead into the eighth scene of the ride, which is a "Factory Frenzy." This is the chaotic climax of the ride, where everything has gone terribly wrong, as it must in a slapstick cartoon adventure. But as we have come to expect from Mickey, he uses some magic to get us out of the jam, then we finally make it to that picnic.
It's a sweeping left turn through the final "Picnic in the Park" scene, before we reach the unload area and exit the ride.
The plans appear to call for a mix of screens and practical effects, the combination of which will help create 3D experiences without the use of 3D glasses. The ride will be open to all ages, with no minimum height requirement.
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway will open the same year as Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort. There's no official word from Disney yet on specific opening dates for either attraction, but clearly, Disney is hoping that its new Mickey ride will help draw at least some of the crowd away from what promises to be human gridlock around the new Star Wars land in its initial year of operation.
But from a first look at the plans, Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway deserves its own place in the spotlight and not to be dismissed as a supporting act to the Star Wars land. MMRR looks like it will be a classic Disney dark ride with some modern twists... and plenty of good, old-fashioned cartoon chaos.
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As an attraction, I think it's going to bring something new to the table, whereas I think the stuff in Star Wars Land will be great, but not particularly new. I get the impression that the Millennium Falcon attraction looks like a souped-up DisneyQuest Attraction and that the First Order attraction looks like Spider-Man. I think the big deal about Star Wars Land, will be the land itself.
While Robert suggests this may be a foil to the uber popular Galaxy's Edge, I'm getting more of a mediocre-people-eater vibe from this attraction that will only be popular initially because guests won't be able to get into Galaxy's Edge, and will have to find something to ride in DHS while they wait to get into the new land.
I read the "trains" are detachable and you can actually mix up the cars in the attraction layout.
You've got your timing off there. Hogsmeade opened in Summer 2010. Transformers opened in Summer 2013, while Diagon Alley opened in summer 2014. Transformers had been open at USF for a full year before Diagon Alley debuted.
@David Brown - Everything I've seen is that the ride system will be the same as GMR - looks very similar in the concept drawing aside from the engine where Goofy is sitting. They are not installing motion bases on the "train" and the vehicles will go from scene to scene as Robert laid out, just as they did on GMR. The only unknown is whether the front to back double-load platform will remain and allow for the parallel tracking used on GMR's layout or if vehicles will be dispatched down a single course.
I think you might be right about the newer Mickey shorts. I think it's because it's such a departure from corporate Mickey that it was jarring for some people. (Some of the character designs, specifically Goofy are drastic).
That being said, many of the shorts are funny without being "lightly offensive" (i.e. gross out gags). Just depends on which shorts people have seen. The Paris, Tokyo, Italy, episodes etc. are "squeaky clean" while a few of the others are a little more "edgy" (in terms of Disney's Fab 5)
The fact that they're basing the attraction on this particular Mickey means that this character design will be around for some time.
Personally, I'm incredibly excited for this. It's beyond time for Mickey to have a centerpiece attraction, DHS needs it, and it looks genuinely great.
That, in combination with Toy Story Land and SW Land, will surely make DHS the most popular park in the resort, and, thus, probably the world. Who woulda thunk it?
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