Your finalists are your top two seeds - the challenger is a former tournament bracket winner, Disney's Haunted Mansion, and the top seed is the 2010 Theme Park Insider Award winner for Best New Attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at Universal's Islands of Adventure. So who will wear the crown this year? You'll help decide that by your vote below.
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey - at Universal's Islands of Adventure
Haunted Mansion - at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and at Disneyland Paris as Phantom Manor
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Tom Walljasper
But I'm sure the Disney Mafia will be out in full force and it will.
Nostalgia, theme, thrill (or lack there of) most recent experience, techical advancement, etc. are all reasons people may vote for or against a certain attraction, including ones that might seem like a slam dunk to win.
Forbidden Journey has more impressive technology and has the perfect amount of thrill for the context of the ride. So Forbidden Journey got my vote.
'Best' is subjective. Totally subjective. It's why, at the end of the day, this is just a bit of fun and matters not the least little bit. We all have our favourites and most of us are going to be disappointed. We just have to play the game the way it's been configured and vote as we feel at the time of voting. And the result really won't shake the world whichever way it goes... (sorry Robert!)
I haven't ridden Harry Potter yet - I'm looking forward to it immensely in November. But I'd bet any amount of money that, impressive as I'm sure it is going to be - (I'm certain it will be a major 'wow') - HP isn't going to worm its way into people's affection as much as some of these supposedly 'inferior' attractions. Disney has succeeded so well over the decades precisely because it creates attractions that people fall in love with. It's irrational, it's emotional, it's totally counter-intuitive sometimes, (Carousel of Progress I'm looking at you), but no one can predict the human heart, except perhaps a Disney Imagineer. The most impressive attractions I've experienced have been outside of Disney parks, but as I head for Orlando for the third time in my life I know that once again I'm going to fall for whatever magic Disney sprinkles on it's parks. That's why I voted Haunted Mansion - because I think it remains loved in a way that I don't think Harry Potter will. And there's a world of difference between admiration and love.
As the stories of the rides go...Forbidden Journey (which is neither really forbidden or a journey) is a clash of all the monsters of Harry Potter at once, during a quiditch game durring an "open house" showing of Hogwarts. It's not a great story. The Haunted Mansion has one that makes more sense but istn't obvious, but by no means needs to be and adds to the atomosphere by just having weird things happen.
As for the technology, both WDW HM and FJ feature some current technology.
As for the ride vehicles. FJ vehicles are cool, but not new. What they do do is make medoicre effects look cooler. HM has slow vehicles that really block out any sense of other riders and give the chance for guest to have a good look a some spectacular effects.
The big breaker for me is how FJ uses so much screen time that breaks the sense of realism and jerks the guest into remembering that it is a ride. If it were intergrated screens like Spider-man, that's one thing, but to have half the ride a plain ole motion simulator is weak.
Mansion gets my vote.
While entering to the dead center of the room is possibly Disney's best pre show and the facade is excellent, it pales to HP's with the interactive paintings, snow in the dark arts room or lighting, and the sorting hat giving safety instructions. Only grievance is the absence of moving staircases. Also single riders enjoy it too and I appreciate that detail.
As rides go Haunted Mansion is a twice a day ride once in the AM and again at dark (it seems different). HP also creates a different mood at night but not as stark. But while HP does use screens what many leave out is the animatronics are first rate and on a grand scale from the dragon, spider, demontors, trees and everything else.
As regards to "best" I enjoy HM more but HP is better.
My analogy is this: While I "like" the Orlando Magic more as a team, I do have to accept the Miami Heat have a better team.
These rides come from two totally different worlds.
As I stated in HM's previous round, I can remember going on the ride with my father back in 1975. I was in awe. I couldn't wait to be able to try and explain this crazy cool thing to my friends. I had never seen ANYTHING like it in my life!
I still have a vivid memory of that first ride with my dad and it brings tears to my eyes from the memories of the greatest vacation in my life.
Oh, I've been chasing that feeling ever since to the extreme of actually moving to Orlando because it was cheaper to live here than vacation as many times a year as my wife and I have.
We are here for all the new rides. The next BIG thing! It is so exciting and FJ was much anticipated. I've gone on it a few times. Took me a couple just to figure out how they got all the different parts incorporated to the ride.
It's a good ride. I can't dog it, but I can't say it is even better than Spider-Man.
Its fun. But its not better than potter.
Also, after reading some of these comments I nearly hurt myself laughing so hard. Someone has never "made it" to the Haunted Mansion through all of there visits over the years but yet they pick it over the FJ? Avada Kedavra
ATTENTION DISNEY FANS: A VOTE FOR POTTER IS A VOTE FOR DISNEY ACTUALLY HAVING TO TRY HARDER INSTEAD OF RESTING ON THEIR LAURELS.
Neither Haunted Mansion nor Forbidden Journey have good story lines. Does Haunted Mansion even have one? It supposedly does, but as far as I can tell, that "plot" is only in one scene and on of the key aspects of the "plot" never even worked. Forbidden Journey has a lot of coincidences; so many, in fact, it makes a lot of the ride very hard to believe. Then it throws everything from every HP movie ever at you, and that's a little off putting. I can't vote for either of these rides based on plot alone, because neither have a strong enough plot to support it.
However, I've never ridden Haunted Mansion and thought to myself "Holey moley! That was an amazingly thrilling, technologically advanced ride, I need to get in line again!" Because Haunted Mansion is not thrilling, nor is it technologically advanced. It has great special effects, yes, but it's not a ride that can be considered Best Attraction. HM is replaceable with any omnimover. Like it or not, they are all the same vehicle moving slowly in a circle.
I'd rather have Pirates, Tower of Terror, or Spiderman win over Haunted Mansion. They all offered something new and exciting that set the bar for theme parks. HM offers nostalgia.
I agree with Jack. A vote for a 43 year old attraction, that admittedly, has stood the test of time, is a vote for Disney to let another year go by without "upping the ante", as it were.
Now, if Disneyland's Pirates had beaten HM in the last round, I'd be singing a different song!
For that reason and the fact that in 20 years who knows if Harry Potter will hold up, I voted for Haunted Mansion. But I will add, the HM queue addition is a joke compared to the far superior Harry Potter one.
Isn't that the premise of almost every theme pakr ride
The ghost happen to be having a party? Every villian for Spiderman shows up at once? Donald loses mickey's hat and ends up in every disney movie? The raptors and T rex both get loose on the same day? Mickey gets attacked in his dreams by every villian (even ones he's never met spanning real, myth, fairy tale and others), you show up when the carribean town is being pillaged not the day before?
Chaos is pretty much the theme of every ride with exception to Small World
So curious if anyone who didn't vote Harry Potter due to "chaos", how did you reconcile a vote for Fantasmic
That's right. I've never thought that about Haunted Mansion. But I've never been on Potter (loved the books, loved the movies) so I've never thought that about Forbidden Journey, either. Nor have I ever thought the above was the definition of "best".
So, I'm voting for HM. I'm not a Disney Fan Boy (OK, I am, but I've never thought of myself that way), but I've gotta go for what I know. And a vote for HP is not necessarily a vote for Diz to get going - it's a vote for WDW to move up. Cali's doing just fine, thank you.
BTW, I've voted for HP in every round except this one, something I can't say for HM. However, something that *might* have swayed me if I didn't have my own mind, is so many of the posters for HP had to resort to name calling justify their votes.
@Mark: My definition for best is a ride that sets the bar for theme parks. That was just my first reaction to FJ...
I don't believe I did any name calling, either...
And I didn't mean to imply that you were name calling; terms like Disney Fan Boys/Mafia/etc by others just kinda got my goat.
We can easily argue the technical wizardry of FJ, but there are also technical touches to be marveled at in HM. The revamped M.C. Escheresque staircase for example. And the revamped Hitchhiking Ghosts sequence. As good as any technical touch on FJ imho. So I don't see the gulf between the two being so wide a valid case can't be made for HM. Again my opinion. They both have unique touches, but HM is for me the better overall attraction. And not because it's "classic"...it's insulting to assume everyone who votes for HM is simply voting for that reason or because of company-bias.
Bottom line, it's personal taste. I have no faults with someone voting for FJ for their own reasons. The name-calling and calling out, by some, of people who don't vote the way you do is simply immature on both sides of the vote. Can't we just respect one another?
Mark, we made the switch, but the other way around. I don't see Disney as "evil" by any means, I just find it impossible to relax at the particular time we go every year due to massive crowds and long waits.
Both rides are great, whichever comes out on top is fine with me. But Haunted Mansion being ranked higher than Tower of Terror anywhere is a travesty. I can't help but wonder if the voting is in response to ToT losing to FJ a couple days ago.
I think the Disney fans are voting in droves for anything to take over the number one spot purely for the need to appear at the top of a list somewhere for bragging rights.
I LOVE the theming of the queue on FJ. One of if not the best queue's I have ever seen with regard to technology, but even with that is the queue anymore spectacular than that of Expedition Everest? I surely don't think so! Take a look at some pictures from the region of the Himalayas and then look at the ride area and WOW.
I digress.....
When you talk storyline, FJ had all these movies already in the can for the most part and a storyline was already in place for the ride and I think IOA missed the mark by putting too many elements in the ride. It is too cluttered and each time I have been on it certain features of the ride were not operating.
Now look at HM. The attraction AND it's story were created at once from scratch. This attraction was state of the art then and even though newer technology is out there, HM still entertains MILLIONS of people annually after being in service for DECADES. Let's see if FJ still has that kind of pop in 40 years or so.
It's not about Disney vs. USF to me. Very different parks. I must commend USF for designing a new area of the park that TOTALLY immerses you in HP. That is very cool. On the negative side of that the HP area of IOA is so tight that it is uncomfortable to walk through most of the time. That takes away from my overall enjoyment factor.
I give FJ a 10 for the theme and architecture, but only a 5 for the ride itself.
For the record I really like HM, and am pretty well convinced that everything about Universal parks (from the layout to crowd control to the staff to the hotels to food to the way riders are accommodated) is miles behind what Disney do. I'm in no way a Universal fan-boy. But to say HM is better because that's the one you've been on is insane. What if you've only been to Tom Sawyer's Island? Both are in the same bracket for this tournament, if they came up against each other, would you really vote for it over FJ? Even though most people who have been on both say FJ is better like the case here??
Anyway, I think I've said quite enough, carry on with your day :)
*Quietly sits back down wondering if it was really a good idea to piss off both Disney and Universal fans*
As one FJ in a slower, granted still busy 365 park is beating/tied a ride represented in four incarnations worldwide is impressive.
Include that many Universal fans aren't Potter fans...see any Jaws Ride website or blog for proof
#1 Seed: Sounds Dangerous
#2 Seed: Triceratops Trail
#3 Seed: Turtle Point
#4 Seed: Stichs Great Escape
Haunted Mansion is a beautiful attraction, but it comes from an era where essentially three types of rides existed: cycle rides, dark track rides, and roller coasters. Disney and its contemporaries have capitalized on the success of dark track rides and saturated the market such that the Mansion is nothing out of the ordinary. Conversely, Forbidden Journey takes advantage of several innovative attraction technologies to create something cutting edge and wicked fun, and really, that's all a theme park attraction needs to be. Unlike good music, good theme park rides are not going to provoke deep thoughts or social change, so why make a comparative analogy, anyway?
...are we seriously getting that butthurt about the results? Name calling? Disney Mafia/fanboys and Video-game generation nerds?
...simmer down. I like them both and refuse to say which one I voted for, for fear of being drawn into a 20-reply convo arguing about and defending my choice, and I am pretty sure that's not the intent of this competition.
For the select few who are really getting worked up over this, CHILL OUT.
Just kidding, there...
Story has to be the most overrated concept in theme park rides. The fixation on story was Eisner's "innovation". Walt, who set the template for modern theme parks, knew intuitively that most rides don't need a story. That's why Jungle Cruise, Pirates (the original version) and HM have little or no story. Walt didn't bother with that, and those rides have stood the test of time.
Most rides have only the flimsiest storyline, basically an excuse or framework for a series of loosely connected scenes and/or experiences for the rider. That's as it should be, because experience is what a ride is all about.
FJ is a good example, too; riding with Harry through various experiences drawn from the books/movies is a rail-thin "story" -- and it works.
If you want a story or plot, read a book (if anyone even reads anymore).
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