What Are Disney’s Most Gorgeous Attractions?
Sometimes, you want to bask in the glory of Disney by admiring the scenery.
While Imagineers design everything at the parks to look breathtaking, some locales stand out from the rest.
Here are the most gorgeous Disney attractions.
Avatar Flight of Passage
Some of the attractions I’ll list merit placement for their exteriors, while others deserve a place for what you see during the ride.With Avatar Flight of Passage, the ride queue and the Floating Mountains outside are dazzling in and of themselves.
Still, what differentiates this attraction is what you see once the intergalactic portal transports you to Pandora.
The visual splendor you’ll witness during the attraction rivals anything experienced during Avatar or Avatar: The Way of Water.
That’s not coincidental. Iconic film director James Cameron worked with Disney throughout the creative process for Avatar Flight of Passage.
Some of the visuals on display in this film foreshadowed images from The Way of Water, which wouldn’t debut for another five years.
You’re watching special effects that were literally ahead of their time in 2017!
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
The overwhelming majority of the attractions we’ll discuss come from the minds of Imagineers.
However, the first two on this alphabetical list are coincidentally both based on film concepts.
In Marvel’s Eternals, we met the first Celestial, a world-building creature who invented the Eternals to perform its handiwork.
On Cosmic Rewind, you live out a Guardians of the Galaxy adventure starring the film’s cast.
All your favorites like Gamora, Peter Quill, Drax, and Groot appear during the ride.
Still, the most stunning visuals involve the adversary in the story, a Celestial named Eson.
At various points during this ride experience, Eson will comprise a full wall and nearly your entire line of vision.
The spectacle of this Celestial is unforgettable.
It’s a Small World
Sometimes, I feel that Disney fans take It’s a Small World for granted.
Yes, we joke about the song and take stances about whether we love-hate it or love-love it.
However, the music shouldn’t distract away from the brilliance of the set pieces at It’s a Small World.
A Disney super-team of Mary Blair, Marc Davis, and Alice Davis joined forces to create animated dolls, each of whom tells a story.
These dolls comprise country-based themes based on popular international settings.
Yes, there’s some stereotyping involved, but it’s all in the spirit of universality, community, and acceptance.
When you hop on this board ride, you should keep your eyes on a swivel, as you never know what you’ll notice on each voyage.
I only recently learned a secret about the sun in each scene. Do you know it?
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Here’s an attraction that celebrates the beauty of nature.
When you take a jeep ride on Kilimanjaro Safaris, you’ll explore the gorgeous backdrop of Disney’s Animal Kingdom itself.
This safari carries you through the parts of the park that guests are otherwise banned from witnessing.
You’re exploring the same real-world setting that inspired The Lion King, but you’re doing it during a Disney theme park visit!
You never know what unexpected delights you’ll see during your journey.
My favorites involve the times when rambunctious animals escape their own habitats and give chase to other animals.
Even Disney cannot fully control the chaos of this experience, but it’s all breathtaking to behold.
Na’vi River Journey
To some, listing both Avatar attractions may seem like a cheat.
Also, I’m sure I’ll irritate some Star Wars fans because I didn’t select any of those attractions for this list.
Still, in terms of absolute beauty, you’d be hard-pressed to name anything superior to the dark forests of Pandora.
Imagineers have created arguably the most immersive attraction ever with this simple boat ride.
Not everyone loves the attraction for whatever reason. Still, even the harshest critics of Na’vi River Journey typically lead with it, “Yes, it’s beautiful, but…”
Radiator Springs Racers
Here’s an example of an attraction that is equally gorgeous outside and inside.
During the outdoor sections of Radiator Springs Racers, you admire the lush scenery of Disney California Adventure.
Imagineers spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars creating the artificial mountains at Radiator Springs.
This ride arguably provides the best view of the achievement.
Within the ride, you’ll drive in a fully immersive version of the town shown in the Cars franchise.
Radiator Springs will dazzle you with its technicolor splendor and small-town charm.
This is one of Disneyland Resort’s best attractions overall, and it’s also achingly beautiful to boot.
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
When I discuss panoramic settings, a Parisian skyline sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
You wouldn’t say the same of a kitchen, though, would you?
Anyone who has ever worked in one – and I was once fired for semi-accidentally no-showing a gig as a dishwasher – knows they’re scary places.
After all, the health department performs frequent visits to restaurant kitchens for this very reason. A LOT can go wrong in a kitchen.
Thankfully, Pixar is driving the visuals at Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
Imagineers have designed a ride based on the kinetic, wildly entertaining attraction based on that premise. And it IS gorgeous!
The lush Pixar animation shines through sequences like the floor chase and the eventual rat uprising.
While Radiator Springs Racers and various Toy Story attractions use Pixar as a baseline, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is the only one with actual Pixar visuals.
The proof is in the pudding here.
Soarin’ Around the World
Okay, let’s acknowledge in advance that this selection comes with a tilt, at least when you’re sitting on the sides rather than the middle.
For whatever reason, Disney messed up the technical process with Soarin’ Around the World, creating a new problem we didn’t have with Soarin’.
Some of the landmarks *ahem* aren’t quite straight. Soarin’ somehow makes the Eiffel Tower look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Still, once you get past that side issue, you’ll appreciate how far the technology has advanced since Soarin’ Over California debuted in 2001.
The global landmarks on display in the current version of Soarin’ will make you feel like you’re at the Egyptian Pyramids.
Soon afterward, you’ll fly by the Taj Mahal, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Great Wall of China.
I mean, you’re sitting in a chair at a theme park, but you’re also looking at Iguazu Falls, one of the most stunning waterfalls in the history of civilization!
Nothing is beating these sorts of visuals!
Spaceship Earth
Exactly 11 years after Walt Disney World debuted, EPCOT opened to the public.
While the entire park instantly claimed fame for its architectural wonders, one towered above the rest…literally.
For more than 40 years now, as guests have approached EPCOT, they have identified their distance by the size of the giant golf ball in the sky.
As far as monuments and landmarks go, Spaceship Earth is legitimately among the greatest spectacles in modern civilization.
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Feature Photo: Disney