By The Numbers: The Surprising Number of E-Ticket Attractions at Each Disney Park

8. Disney California Adventure

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
2. Incredicoaster
3. Radiator Springs Racers
4. Soarin’ Around the World
5. Toy Story Midway Mania
6. WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure

Not yet considered: Avengers: Infinity Defense, unnamed Avatar attraction, unnamed Coco attraction

Fittingly, after Epcot, there’s no Disney Park on Earth to have been reimagined as wholly as Disney California Adventure. Opened in 2001 to dismal reviews, the under-built and underfunded park was creatively starved, lacked noteworthy attractions, and had practically zero Disney characters. In a special two-part insider feature, we first examined the park’s pitiful premiere, then its $2 billion transformation. Along the way, it gained an identity (and arguably lost it again just as fast en route to becoming Disneyland’s home for Pixar and Marvel). Either way, it’s relatively low number of E-Tickets shows that it’ll take more than the Avengers Campus to keep California Adventure a fitting complement to Disneyland.

E-TICKET AWARD: Back in 2001, the park’s singular standout ride was the Lost Legend: Soarin’ Over California – the literal birthplace of the Soarin’ rides around the world. But part of the park’s 5-year reimagining brought the Modern Marvel: Radiator Springs Racers – a lightning fast, larger-than-life race through the desert buttes of the Cadillac Range.

THE WEAK LINK: In 2018, the park’s Victorian-themed Paradise Pier got an IP wrap of its own, becoming the strange Pixar Pier of mis-matched modern movie references. The land’s classic-looking coaster, formerly California Screamin’, was “reimagined” to include characters from The Incredibles. Unfortunately, they’re mostly static mannequins. The Incredicoaster is really no better than its bare-steel predecessor and, if anything, misses the mark by aspiring to more but failing to achieve it.

7. Shanghai Disneyland

1. Peter Pan Flight
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Sunken Treasure
3. Roaring Rapids
4. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
5. Soaring Over The Horizon
6. TRON: Lightcycle Power Run
7. Zootopia: Hot Pursuit

Not yet considered: Unnamed Spider-Man attraction

The opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016 was seen as a watershed moment in the legacy of CEO Bob Iger. A long time coming, Disney’s flag planted in mainland China expanded the brand to an untapped – but enormous – market. Majority owned by the Chinese government, the resort was required to feature new rides and not classics, necessitating Imagineers return to the Disneyland formula and make some of the first major tweaks ever. The result is a park where even “copies” are reimagined with new show technologies, and where most E-Tickets are original.

E-TICKET AWARD: In Shanghai, it must be Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Sunken Treasure. Among the short-list pantheon of Disney’s best modern dark rides, this new take on the Pirates formula is more reinvention than evolution. Multi-directional boats float through multimedia scenes that reflect a scale never seen before. The epic attraction is world class in every way.

THE WEAK LINK: It would be easy to list Peter Pan’s Flight or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train here, given that they’re not exclusive to the park. However, we’ll controversially consider Roaring Rapids as the weak link among E-Tickets. Disney’s other two rapids rides (California’s Grizzly River Run and Animal Kingdom’s Kali River Rapids) didn’t even make it to their respective park’s E-Ticket lists, as both as somewhat dull, meandering rides that lack animatronics or stories. But that might be preferable to Roaring Rapids, which promises – but fails to deliver – a compelling and adventurous story. Instead, it floats through barren river channels en route to an ending encounter with a very big Audio-Animatronic beast.

6. Disneyland Paris

1. Big Thunder Mountain
2. Peter Pan’s Flight
3. Phantom Manor
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
5. Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
6. Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain: Rebel Mission

Though Disneyland Paris is often derided as the industry-changing park that caused decades of cop-outs, closures, and cancellations, the park itself is among Disney’s most beautiful. Somehow, it successfully merges the charm and intimacy of Disneyland with the scale and magnificence of Magic Kingdom. And while most of its E-Tickets are not from scratch, many were redesigned and reimagined to fit the more detail-oriented European park. Unfortunately, the biggest victim of Disneyland Paris’ downfall might’ve been Disneyland Paris itself, which has been trapped in a state of suspended animation since the mid-’90s with any available resources poured into Walt Disney Studios instead.

E-TICKET AWARD: The one-two punch of the park’s two mountains can’t be beat. First, Big Thunder Mountain (in its world’s-best version) is wrapped into an epic Western story, connected to the Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor. Meanwhile, the park’s reimagined Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre á la Lune stripped the peak of its white, Space Age styling and instead was a launched, inverting coaster through the plot of a Jules Verne novel… until its inevitable Star Wars overlay today. That said, it still provides a one-of-a-kind, epic, and sought-after ride experience.

5. Disney’s Hollywood Studios

1. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
2. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
3. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
4. Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
5. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
6. Toy Story Midway Mania
7. Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Not yet considered: Unnamed Monsters Inc. attraction

While Disney’s Hollywood Studios has the fewest rides of any Walt Disney World park, we’ll say this for the movie park: seven of its nine rides are undisputed E-Tickets. Maybe that’s why, opposite Epcot, Imagineering fans comically call Hollywood Studios “the worst park with the best rides.” Perhaps because the park has been subject to criticism since its opening as an intentional “half day” destination, it’s been fully loaded with anchor attractions, one after another, up to the opening of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

E-TICKET AWARD: Bar none, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance reigns. In fact, we argue that this brand new trackless dark ride isn’t just an E-Ticket; it’s an Ultra-E-Ticket. Utilizing three ride systems and a scale never before attempted in a theme park, the ride is absolutely among the most astounding things Imagineering has ever created. Period.

THE WEAK LINK: Conversely, fans are largely ambivalent about the other ride in Galaxy’s Edge. Smugglers Run positions guests behind the controls of the Millennium Falcon for a smuggling mission. Because the ride is clearly, intentionally positioned as “second fiddle” to the unmatchable Rise, some folks describe it as a mere “D-Ticket” aside. But whether you love or hate the divisive attraction, you can’t argue that it features a wildly interesting ride system, unprecedented technology, and one-of-a-kind ride experience. In other words, by most any metric, Smugglers Run is an E-Ticket. Whether its a good one or not is the million dollar question that everyone seems to have an opinion on. 

Unsurprisingly, the most E-Tickets belong at the three most-visited theme parks on Earth: Disney’s first three “castle” parks. As for their order?

4. Magic Kingdom

1. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
2. Haunted Mansion
3. Jungle Cruise
4. Peter Pan’s Flight
5. Pirates of the Caribbean
6. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
7. Space Mountain
8. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
9. TRON Lightcycle Run

Not yet considered: Unnamed Cars attraction, unnamed Villains attractions

Considering that Magic Kingdom has about as many rides at Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom combined, it’s surprising that its E-Ticket count is… well… relatively low. Because the park was imagined as a near-copy of Disneyland (and since its evolution and expansion has been slower than its older sister), Magic Kingdom’s E-Tickets are nearly all shared by Disneyland, except the newer Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and the upcoming TRON Lightcycle Power Run… It’s the latter that should hopefully make Magic Kingdom a must-visit for Disneyland loyalists who, otherwise, don’t see much worth in visiting the Florida park.

E-TICKET AWARD: Among the six “Castle Parks,” Magic Kingdom is often derided among Disney Parks fans for being… well… the plainest. None of its E-Tickets are exclusive to the park, and given the need to constantly infuse Disney World’s other three parks with innovative, cutting-edge rides, Magic Kingdom tends to “coast” without substantial investment (which, given its number one status in global attendance, is obviously warranted). Luckily, TRON Lightcycle Run ends the drought of big, splashy, E-Ticket debuts for the park. Though it’s a clone of an existing ride in Shanghai, it feels like the high-energy, thrilling, more-than-family-fare anchor this park needs to be taken seriously.

THE WEAK LINK: It’s nearly impossible to pick an E-Ticket off this list that Magic Kingdom could do without! However, we’ll call the Weak Link here the first of Disney’s stellar peaks. We explored the birth of the concept in its own Modern Marvels: Space Mountain feature. The trouble is that every “copy” of the ride outside Florida isn’t a copy of Florida’s at all. While other Space Mountains include updated effects, on-ride audio, seasonal overlays, and smooth layouts, Magic Kingdom’s fairly rudimentary steel coasters skate by on our E-Ticket list thanks to its retro nostalgia and the cleverness of its original concept.