10. Lava Monster
Debut: Journey to the Center of the Earth (2001)
Location: Tokyo DisneySea (exclusive)
Video: A subterranean attack…
Proving that film franchise tie-ins are hardly necessary for stellar rides, Journey to the Center of the Earth at Tokyo DisneySea is an unimaginable attraction from beginning to end. Riders board earth-moving carts with diamond-tipped drills on the front and begin a descent deep into the earth through scenes inspired by the Jules Verne novel of the same name. However, when an earthquake cuts off the intended route, the cars are forced to divert into a previously undiscovered molten chamber. We recounted the entire treacherous trip in its own feature, Modern Marvels: Journey to the Center of the Earth, but here’s the highlight…
The ride passes through the treacherous and hilly terrain of the Earth’s core where enormous basketball-sized eggs drip with goo… Whatever laid these eggs must be pretty big, right? Suddenly, a massive spider-like leg begins slamming on the cavern wall through a hazy membrane… We’ve invaded a nest. As fire bellows, the car turns the corner where a flaming molten pool awaits. And inside that pool is the most advanced Audio-Animatronic Disney has ever created – a molten millipede with spider fangs and glowing eyes with cooled, jagged rock forming an earthen crown on top of its head.
This Lava Monster – presumably the mother of the eggs we disturbed – turns 90 degrees. Upon seeing us, her eyes narrow in anger as it hisses. The creature rears back, its legs and fangs gnashing as it snarls and screeches. Then, it lunges forward at the car, triggering an acceleration that blasts riders through the darkness, then up and out of the park’s 190-foot-tall volcano icon. The encounter with the Lava Monster lasts only a few seconds, but the incredible range of motion and expression of this subterranean creature makes it easily among Disney’s most impressive, and the absolute highlight of one of the greatest rides at one of the world’s greatest parks. And to consider that it resets to perform the action again ever 10 seconds or so? Color us impressed.
9. Frozen figures
Debut: Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey (2024)
Location: Tokyo DisneySea (exclusive)
An earlier iteration of this list featured the cast of Disney’s Frozen as they appeared in EPCOT’s 2016 Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After. You can imagine why! This ride was an early debut of Disney’s patented “A-1000” figures – stunningly lifelike and entirely electric. All of the ride’s figures – but particularly the stunning “Elsa” seen in the iconic “Let It Go” scene – moved fluidly enough to be mistaken for real actors. There was just one problem: the character’s faces were brought to life by the then-new technology of internal rear projection. It worked well enough (except when it didn’t), but the glowing, digital faces clearly represented a caveat to our including the figures in the ranking at all.
When Hong Kong Disneyland (2023) and Disneyland Paris (2026) opened near-copies of the ride, theirs at least included fully articulating faces, essentially replacing EPCOT’s on this list entirely given the objective improvement.
But even those pale in comparison to the only Frozen ride on Earth that isn’t a copy of EPCOT’s rethemed boat ride: of course, it’s Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey at the one and only Tokyo DisneySea. As fans have come to expect from DisneySea, the ride is a best-in-class reimagining of what a Frozen ride could be. Sure, it’s a “book report,” sailing through scenes from the film… but the ride is elevated tremendously by leaning into its theatricality instead of shying away from it. It touches on not just the jovial and musical moments from the film, but heartbreaking ones; lonely ones; quiet ones.
Of course, the wild gesturing is still there in “Let It Go,” but actually, Imagineering fans went wild for two unexpected moments… In one, Anna is struck by her sister’s ice powers and falls to her knees in a moment that left fans speechless; then, somehow topping it is a moment when a frozen Anna is thawed before guests’ eyes. Obviously, the “tricks” behind it are incredibly simple… but it’s the full, precise orchestration of these immensely impressive figures within such an all-out attraction that makes them among the best on Earth.
8. Belle & The Prince
Debut: Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast (2020)
Location: Tokyo Disneyland (exclusive)
Video: “Tale as old as time…”
Though projects outside of the American parks tend to get less coverage and hype during their developments, Disney shared lots of behind-the-scenes footage from the work on Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast – a massive, original dark ride anchoring a New Fantasyland at Tokyo Disneyland. Footage of jaw-dropping animatronics – including a concerned Belle carrying a lantern and walking – took Distwitter by storm. When the ride finally opened in 2020… well…
We spent a whole Special Feature here examining how Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast is sort of an… odd attraction. Images of visiting Belle’s musical town, racing through dark forests, escaping wolves, and visiting enchanted libraries didn’t come to be. The lantern-carrying Belle is part of the ride’s pre-show. The ride itself is, for lack of a better term, a ride-through-singalong. It’s really only made of three major scenes, each of which is spent with trackless teacup vehicles dancing around for nearly the entire duration of one of the soundtrack songs. The first scene is “Be Our Guest,” then “Something There,” and – after a short allusion to the castle attack and transformation – “Beauty and the Beast.”
Even though it might not have been the kind of ride U.S. fans were picturing, it’s still built on a grand and impressive scale. And though the very good A-1000 animatronics are sprinkled throughout, there’s no question that the centerpiece is the finale, where Belle and a transformed Prince dance together in the ballroom while guests’ teacups twirl along. It’s an absolutely incredible set of figures, the internal supports and electrical packaging of which must be a masterclass in the field.
7. Rocket Raccoon
Attraction: Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! (2017)
Location: Disney California Adventure (exclusive)
Video: “One of the Guardians of the Galaxy… the SMART one.”
Fans of Disney California Adventure’s billion-dollar, five year rebirth looked on in absolute shock as Imagineers stripped the Lost Legend: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror of its art deco Hollywood stylings and its Californian mythology (seemingly perfect for a park dedicated to, y’know, California) and – in a six month quick-change – turned the lightning-scarred Hollywood Tower Hotel into buzzing space prison power-plant looming over the resort. If it seemed like an irreverent, odd, and outrageous treatment for the newly-minted park, that was purposeful and befitting Marvel’s irreverent, odd, and outrageous Guardians of the Galaxy – the misfit super hero group introduced in Marvel’s sleeper hit film of 2014.
Fans will eternally debate the merits of replacing a timeless, Californian legend with a flavor-of-the-week superhero screen ride that’s seemingly antithetical to the park’s recently-adopted sincerity and direction, but one thing no one can deny: Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! has a very cool Audio-Animatronic. Shepherded into the hotel’s library – er… the Collector’s office – a pre-show recording from Tanaleer Tivan is interrupted by the mischievous Rocket, who appears to fall from a vent, crawl along the room’s collection cases, and even thwack his head against a well-placed pipe.
Whether you hold a grudge against Mission: BREAKOUT! or not, the impressive interaction between Rocket and your small group of visitors is probably the only chance we’ll ever have to get this close to the rough-around-the-edge, not-raccoon character (voiced by Bradley Cooper). Cooler still is that the figure is also present (and reprogrammed) in the Halloween-exclusive Guardians of the Galaxy: Monsters After Dark, which is set just hours after the usual Mission: BREAKOUT storyline.
5. Dracula
Debut: Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment (2025)
Location: Universal Epic Universe (exclusive)
Video: “My turn…” and “You can’t hide from me…!”
From the earliest glimpses into the creation of Universal Epic Universe – the first new destination park in the country in nearly a quarter century – fans latched onto one of the park’s cosmic “worlds” as a must-see: Dark Universe, realm of Universal’s “Classic Monsters.” An ode to the cast of creatures featured in films that spanned the 1920s through the ’50s, the land’s Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment would be a jaw-dropping E-Ticket for any IP, much less a century-old one.
The attraction’s queue sees guests explore the corridors of the historic Frankenstein Manor, where Victoria (great-great granddaughter of the “Dr. Frankenstein” who created the creature in the 1931 film) resides. Reclusive Victoria’s life’s work has been to restore glory to the Frankenstein name by doing what her ancestors couldn’t: saving the village of Darkmoor from the nightmarish creatures who lurk in the shadows. We’ve come to see her show off the climax of that work: Dracula himself, helplessly captured in one of the good doctor’s pulsing energy rings (hence all the wiring throughout the home and land).
Of course, once we climb aboard our ride vehicle to set off into the ancient Catacombs ‘neath the manor where the monsters are chained, we discover that Victoria’s plans weren’t exactly foolproof. In a burst of power, a suspended Dracula breaks free from his floating prison with a laugh, declaring, “My turn.” Dracula draws his arms and legs in, floating and laughing maniacally as his signature cape materializes behind him. Then, he seems to lunge toward riders, bursting into a swarm of bats that follow us forward.
An animatronic Dracula is encountered twice more in the ride – once in a similarly-crazy floating figure, and then again in the ride’s big finale. There, having pursued us to a seeming dead end in the crumbling catacombs and declaring, “You can’t hide from me…” the vehicle passes under a collapsed structure as a (screen-based) Dracula seems to scramble over the top of it. When we emerge, it’s beneath an winged animatronic of the character, literally hovering horizontally over the ride vehicle. It lowers in for kill – white eyes and fangs bared – until a light beam reflecting from Victoria’s mirror system sends Dracula reeling.
Altogether, each of the three Dracula figures could probably populate a position on this list, but suffice it to say that Monsters Unchained certainly demonstrates Universal’s commitment to meeting and exceeding Disney’s standards in the genre…