All aboard Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! The wildest ride in the wilderness reopened May 3 at Magic Kingdom Park in Walt Disney World with new magic following a mountain-top to cavern-deep refurbishment, ensuring the classic fan favorite attraction will delight guests for years to come.
Now this new refurb is part of a major Magic Kingdom transformation with construction walls going up as we speak for the upcoming Piston Peak National Park Cars Land (replacing Tom Sawyer Island) and the highly-anticipated Villain’s Land that will be located just behind it.
Big Thunder will become the perfect vantage point to see construction of these new lands so Disney are trying to cover up as much as they can but there will always be vantage points that fans will be able to get of the new expansions on Big Thunder!
After a 12 month refurbishment fans were hoping that this particular version would compete with arguably Disney’s best version of Big Thunder Mountain located at Disneyland Paris and have they done it?
Honestly? No.
Taking out the enhanced pathways and little bits of extra theming (loving the smoke working again on the roof of the Big Thunder Mining Company building) the on-ride experience of Big Thunder still feels way short of its Disneyland Paris counterpart.
Featuring brand new trains they have a more rustic appearance with the aid of weathering techniques and a new colour scheme, they feel like they have more history and stories to tell and the new track (all replaced) is super smooth but for me this ruins the whole wildest ride in the wilderness selling point as it currently feels like the smoothest ride in the park and doesn’t quite have that jolt and ‘hold onto your potatoes Dr Jones‘ feel to it.
Whilst I enjoyed the bat cave sequence I really didn’t like the rainbow caverns portion of the ride, it completely detaches you from the mining storyline and dunks you into this cartoonified cave that has a lighting package that would be suited perfectly to villains land, it’s bright and bold but has a cartoonified sinister vibe to it.
Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful but it just feels overly done and forced which is a real shame and the final lift hill section (after passing lots of beautiful newly themed pieces of scenery) just doesn’t hit home like it’s supposed to. The audio builds a nice ambience but the big reveal is revealed a little too late and before you know it you’re back outside and on your way.
There’s no real payoff from the rainbow caves to this ending and the story doesn’t hit home as much as I feel it should.
It’s a wonderful ride, it’s fresh and it’s amazing that they’re preserving the lifespan of this iconic ride but it doesn’t feel any better to me, if anything the smoothness has reduced the impact of the core elements of what made the ride special and with it being Vekoma track I can’t imagine that this ride will get any rougher over time with the manufacturers now creating glossy smooth experiences as opposed to their rides of old which were the stark opposite.
Having a brand new refurbishment is great but having the story of that particular experience dampened somewhat is a real shame.
