Theme parks are living creatures. Sure, they grow and change and “will never be complete…” But even more, they’re made of complex systems and elements all working together so effortlessly, you may not even realize they’re working at all. Berms act as skin, insulating parks from the sights of the outside world; intuitive layouts are a skeleton, giving the park structure; pathways act as veins and arteries, pulsing guests instead of blood; restrooms are… Well…
The point is, when it comes to the heart, lungs, and brain of theme parks, the analogy is simple: rides! And don’t misunderstand: the best theme parks are all about balance, featuring meet-and-greets, restaurants, shows, walkthroughs, scenery, and interactive experiences that make a day feel complete and worthwhile… But as part of Park Lore’s Extras Collection, our “By The Numbers” mini-series is all about seeing parks differently – by the raw numbers behind them… for example, the number of certifiable E-Tickets at each, the number of dark rides at each park, or the number of Opening Day Original attractions each park has left.
So today – just for fun! – we want to take a look at Disney and Universal’s parks by the numbers. Exactly how many rides does each of these parks really have?
For the sake of comparing apples to apples, we need to set a definition for what we mean by “ride.” So for our purposes, we’ll define a ride as a specific subset of attraction wherein a guest is moved by an external ride system. That means that even though they might be listed on a map, our count will not include shows, walkthroughs, and other non-ride “attractions” (like the Enchanted Tiki Room, Journey of Water, the Boudin Bakery Tour, Enchanted Tales with Belle, etc.) which are wonderful, lovely, essential things – but pretty agreeably, not rides. With that decided, let’s start with our low scorers…
Do you love armchair Imagineering, in-depth storytelling, and seeing the theme parks we love differently? Park Lore is an ad-free, quality-over-quantity, one-person project centered on building a world-class collection of the interconnected stories of theme park attractions, design projects, and industry explorations.
This feature is one that’s usually locked in our Member Vault, where Park Lore patrons can find hand-drawn art, armchair Imagineering walkthroughs, and other in-depth Special Features, as well as quick-read, just-for-fun Extra Features. Thanks to supporting Members, this feature is temporarily unlocked as a preview!
But if you value my mission to provide clickbait-free, ad-free deep dives and new ways to see the parks, consider becoming a supporting Member of Park Lore for as little as $2 / month. That support is what keeps this unique themed entertainment storytelling project open, ad-free, and available to all. Thank you!
19. Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Ride Count: 8
When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, it represented a new era of themed entertainment design. Defined by its accuracy and realism, Animal Kingdom invited exploration into African towhns, Asian jungles, archaeological digs, and artisan villages. It was culturally vibrant, artistically authentic, and a stunning creative triumph of 21st century Imagineering. Early marketing for the park was meant to convey that it was “Nahtazū,” but for all the buzz around a fourth theme park, what Animal Kingdom didn’t have was rides.
When the park opened, it featured only four – two of which (the Discovery River Boats and Wildlife Express) merely provided transportation across the massive park! As you’d expect, dining, exploration, and yes, animals, were the bread-and-butter of the park. But those expecting a traditional Disney Parks attraction lineup found just two rides – the downright terrifying Lost Legend: Countdown to Extinction and the headlining Kilimanjaro Safaris. (Kali River Rapids joined as a third in 1999.)
Disney was slow to combat the park’s “half-day” reputation. A family-focused expansion 2002 saw a family spinner and the (now-defunct) Primeval Whirl carnival coaster added to controversial Dino-Rama. Then, in 2006, the Modern Marvel: Expedition Everest debuted, at least giving the park four “E-Tickets.”
And there it stayed until 2017, when Pandora: The World of Avatar opened, adding two substiantial rides. Avatar Flight of Passage is the park’s unequivocal headliner, while the tranquil Na’vi River Journey is a peaceful tour through the bioluminescent jungles of the distant moon… and thus, the park’s first family dark ride, nearly two decades after opening!
What’s next? Despite reaching a peak of nine rides post-Pandora, the park’s ride count slipped back by one in 2020 when Disney announced that Dinoland’s Primeval Whirl spinning carnival coaster was officially extinct. The troublesome (and not terribly beloved) coaster’s closure might just mark a turning point in the park’s story given that Dinoland as a whole just hasn’t gelled.
At the 2022 D23 Expo, leaders of Disney Parks and Disney Animation showed the concept art above of Moana and Zootopia overtaking Dinoland (even though neither really fits the brief of the park), but were quick to say that those Blue Sky concepts were entirely theoretical and that nothing was officially confirmed or greenlit. The odd experience – seemingly a totally noncommittal cold reading of real-time crowd feedback – helped make 2022’s D23 Expo the only one in which zero new rides were announced. Weird.
18. Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Ride Count: 9
When Michael Eisner commissioned the Disney-MGM Studios as a rebuttal to Universal Studios’ plans for Orlando, the movie-themed park was based around two halves, each with a single substantial ride. The park’s front half would be a celebration of the Golden Age of Hollywood, marked by the Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride. The back half would be a real, working movie studio with a multi-hour, multi-modal tour through real production facilities. Of course, serious filmmaking never came to Florida, leaving the Declassified Disaster: The Backstage Studio Tour as the park’s only other ride.
Still immensely popular with guests, the Disney-MGM Studios needed rapid expansion to keep capacity in line with attendance. As a result, big name attractions like Star Tours, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Toy Story Mania came online, creating a park with a relatively low ride count, but where nearly every ride is an E-Ticket.
By the middle of the 2010s, the renamed Disney’s Hollywood Studios was clearly at a crossroads. In 2013, then-CEO Bob Iger accidentally alluded to the park gaining a new identity that would downplay its outdated “studio” foundation in favor of immersive, cinematic “Living Lands.” The first, Toy Story Land, opened in 2018, adding a family flat ride and a family roller coaster.
The following year, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened as the keystone of the park’s pivot. Set in an original world designed by Imagineers and defined by a massive, interconnected mythology, the land’s two standouts are certainly Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Imagineering’s modern magnum opus, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Soon after, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway opened in the park’s Chinese Theater, replacing the Great Movie Ride and cementing the park’s modern direction.
Hollywood Studios is still a wildly uneven park – something its pathways can’t conceal. Given its age , it also has surprisingly few overall rides (though, again, nearly all are headliners). But at least now, few would call it the “half-day park” it once was.
What’s next? Nothing known at this time.
17. Walt Disney Studios Park
Ride Count: 11
When Walt Disney Studios Park opened next to Disneyland Paris in 2002, the second gate represented a staggering new low for Disney, even in an era infamous for its cost-cutting, cancellations, and closures. We took a walk through the creatively-starved park in its own must-read Declassified Disasters: Walt Disney Studios Park feature, but in short, the outright embarrassing offering contained only three rides: a clone of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, an Aladdin-themed Dumbo spinner, and a Studio Backlot Tour that didn’t even bother pretending there was a real studio backlot to tour.
Pretty continuous additions have been made to the park – albeit, often in low-cost, “cheap and cheerful” additions like a Toy Story Land of off-the-shelf carnival rides, a spinning Cars flat ride, a Finding Nemo-themed indoor wild mouse coaster, a Cars re-theme of the barely-worth-keeping studio tour, and – most notably – a copy of California Adventure’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. So though Walt Disney Studios has more rides than Animal Kingdom, the scope and quality of those rides, on average, is much lower.
The pièce de résistance arrived in 2014 when the Modern Marvel: Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy at last began to shift the park from its dated “Studio” aesthetic to something more fitting for a Disney Park by way of a lovingly-crafted Parisian mini-land with no soundstages in sight.
In February 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly revealed a €2 billion reimagining for the languishing second gate. The multi-phase expansion will expand the park’s footprint drastically. In 2022, the first phase – a modified version of Disneyland’s Avengers Campus – made its debut, retrofitting the existing Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster into an Iron Man ride and adding a copy of California’s web-slinging Spider-Man ride (a net +1 to the park’s ride count).
What’s next? Currently under construction is a version of Arendelle: The World of Frozen that’s likely to add just one ride – allegedly a near-copy of Frozen Ever After from EPCOT. Weirdly, Disneyland Paris has already reneged on its concept art’s implication that a Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge would join the park, too, with representatives confirming that the Avengers Campus and Arendelle will be joined by a third land, it just won’t be Batuu… Hmm…