12. Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Toy Story Mania!
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
You may or may not be surprised to see that Disney’s Hollywood Studios offers so few dark rides given that so much of its ride lineup feels like indoor, cinematic experiences. However, both Star Tours and Smugglers Run would be excluded from our count for primarily being motion simulators, and despite it being in the dark and having sets, it would be a super-stretch to classify Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster as a dark ride.
That leaves just four dark rides in the park… albeit, each a pretty significant one! The original TWILIGHT ZONE TOWER OF TERROR has arguably never been surpassed despite many imitations; TOY STORY MANIA! remains an incredibly popular and novel ride; MICKEY AND MINNIE’S RUNAWAY RAILWAY is the park’s newest, and the trackless, zippy, animated, and joyful “2½-D” ride is seriously fantastic good time from start to finish. But c’mon. There’s no competition here…
Blacklight Award: Easily the dark ride “anchor” of Disney’s Hollywood Studios (and all of Walt Disney World) is STAR WARS: RISE OF THE RESISTANCE. This epic attraction is quite literally of a different caliber than anything Disney (or anyone) has built before. A masterclass of Imagineering tricks with an almost unfathomable commitment to immersion, Rise is the kind of experience where it’s unclear where the queue ends and the “ride” begins. During the attraction, guests board two distinct ride vehicles with no less than four embedded ride systems, plus components of a walkthrough, an immersive theater show, and at least two “pre-shows.”
In other words, Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ dark ride collection may be relatively small, but boy is it mighty, with at least three world class – and incredibly diverse – dark rides in its portfolio. Not bad considering it opened with just one – the Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride.
11. Disney California Adventure
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
- The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
- Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue
- Radiator Springs Racers
- Toy Story Midway Mania
- Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure
Not yet counted: UnnamedAvengers attraction (TBD)
In what’s becoming a recurring plot point in the story of Disney’s theme parks of the ‘90s and 2000s, when Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, it was with just one single, solitary dark ride. And not just any dark ride… Remembered as the worst dark ride ever to reside in a Disney Park, the Declassified Disaster: Superstar Limo was a hilariously awful drive through a Day-Glo comic book version of Los Angeles populated by Latex puppets of C-List celebrities. It was so awful, it closed after just a year, even without plans to replace it. California Adventure was simply stronger with no dark ride than with Superstar Limo.
Given that, the park’s come pretty far! In fact, as our two-part epic history of Disney California Adventure reveals, waves of transformation have brought serious investment to the park… Superstar Limo’s remains were repurposed as MONSTERS INC. MIKE & SULLEY TO THE RESCUE, a cute, classic dark ride; then, THE LITTLE MERMAID ~ ARIEL’S UNDERSEA ADVENTURE was built in a turn-of-the-century aquarium alongside Paradise Bay; TOY STORY MIDWAY MANIA! took up residence on the park’s Pier.
More recently, the heroic Avengers Campus launched with the fun-if-familiar WEB SLINGERS: A SPIDER-MAN ADVENTURE. It stands alongside GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – MISSION: BREAKOUT!, a surprisingly inspired reimagining of the park’s Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Blacklight Award: Though California Adventure is still not perfect, its signature dark ride is pretty close. Residing in the incredible Cars Land (Disney’s first “Wizarding World” style “Living Land”), RADIATOR SPRINGS RACERS is an absolutely incredible family dark ride. Racers roll through the Cadillac Range desert, tour through the town of Radiator Springs, then accelerate along the sunset-hued highways of the Ornament Valley – one of our Seven “Natural” Wonders of the Theme Park World. Radiator Springs Racers is pure joy from beginning to end, and surely one of the best Disney dark rides in the world.
10. Tokyo DisneySea
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage
- Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Midway Mania
Not yet counted: Unnamed Frozen attraction (2023), Unnamed Tangled attraction (2023), Unnamed Peter Pan attraction (2023)
For all the praise leveled on Tokyo DisneySea, you may be surprised to find that it has just two more dark rides than Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and the same number as Universal Studios Hollywood! Frankly, on paper, we couldn’t blame you for wondering what’s so great about the theme park that many call the unrivaled best on Earth. After all, every dark ride in its lineup save one or two sounds a whole lot like a ride you could find at a U.S. park. But DisneySea subscribes to a different kind of criteria – ”the park as an E-Ticket.” The rides are just cherries on top.
What else the park’s dark ride lineup can’t convey is how every ride that shares a domestic counterpart is, in Tokyo, a “Blue Sky” version; the most layered, detailed, physical, and “real.” Even “clones” are presented in a jaw-dropping context. TOY STORY MANIA! is located in an entire Coney Island-themed Trolley Park. Tokyo’s TOWER OF TERROR (here, without the Twilight Zone at all), features an original story wrapped into the mythology of S.E.A., while Soarin’ (though not counted here) is set in an Italian Museum of Flight connected to the same frame story.
It’s the same with INDIANA JONES ADVENTURE (an original Temple of the Crystal Skull overlay, building physical sets where California’s settles for plywood), SINBAD’S STORYBOOK VOYAGE (an unlikely “small world”-esque retelling of the adventurer’s travels set to the tune of an original song by Alan Menken of Disney Renaissance fame), and 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (in Tokyo, a unique suspended dark ride that’s spectacular in scope). The new Fantasy Springs expansion is set to bring no less than three entirely new dark rides, each of which is likely to be world-class. Even still, there’s a pretty clear winner…
Blacklight Award: At least until the new generation of Disney Parks dark rides, there was no question that one of the undisputed best dark rides on the planet was JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Based on Jules Verne’s 1890s adventure novel of the same name, the ride sends guests deep into Captain Nemo’s underground laboratories to board steampunk mining vehicles that travel through crystal caverns, forgotten forests, underground oceans, and into the bowels of Mount Prometheus for one of the most impressive Audio Animatronics encounters ever.
9. Universal Studios Hollywood
- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
- Jurassic World: The Ride
- Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
- Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride
- Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash
- TRANSFORMERS: The Ride – 3D
- Universal Studio Tour (featuring Earthquake, Kong Encounter, and Fast & Furious: Supercharged)
Universal Studios Hollywood is unique among “Studio” parks because it’s… actually a movie studio. Since the 1960s, Universal’s Hollywood campus has offered tram-led tours of its backlot. Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, the iconic STUDIO TOUR added staged special effects demonstrations and dark ride-style encounters with larger-than-life movie monsters like King Kong, Jaws, an Earthquake, and more. Gradually, the little visitor complex grew to include full, standalone rides, like the Lost Legends: Back to the Future – The Ride and Jurassic Park – The Ride, even as the Studio Tour really remained the reason to visit.
In the last decade, Universal Studios Hollywood has undergone an intentional metamorphosis meant to help it look more like a modern, master-planned theme park than one cobbled together from backlot remnants.
That largely hinged on the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in 2016 (six years after the original in Florida), making HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY and its ultra-complex ride system the park’s signature experience. The addition of THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS: OFF THE LEASH earned tremendous good will for Universal Creative, dispensing with their oft-criticized screens in favor of sets and animatronics that surpass Disney’s recent family fare. But we’ll give this park’s Blacklight Award not to the anchoring Potter ride or the new Pets project, but something a little more prehistoric…
Blacklight Award: Universal Studios began construction on the Lost Legend: Jurassic Park – The Ride even before Spielberg’s Jurassic Park had made its blockbuster debut. For decades, the water ride on the Studio’s Lower Lot was a fan favorite. But in 2018, it officially went under the knife, planned to reemerge themed to the newer, trendier Jurassic World film series.
Premiering July 2019, JURASSIC WORLD: THE RIDE manages to improve on an already-beloved classic, strengthening existing scenes, replacing several others, and bringing to life the trilogy’s Indominus rex with staggering realism. Basically, Jurassic World – The Ride is an exercise in how to “plus” a classic the right way, elevating Universal’s old dinosaur ride into the upper echelon of dark rides in the country.