Mickey Madness 2026 Round One

Yeah, we’re doing this.

Mickey Madness 2026 has officially started, and this one works differently from last year.

MickeyBlog’s staff voted, which means that several of them are now my mortal enemies.

Seriously, we’ve got some huge upsets right off the bat. So, let’s get started!

Here are the opening round results for Mickey Madness 2026.

The Stitch Bracket

In case you missed Friday’s update, here is this year’s complete Mickey Madness bracket.

As you can see, mismatches abound in round one, which is to be expected.

However, a few of these outcomes proved surprisingly competitive, even among popular attractions.

Disney fans like what we like, and we’re stubbornly unapologetic on the point.

I swear by Alien Swirling Saucers as an example, which means…round one broke my heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the Stitch bracket, which is home to the top seed.

I’ll go ahead and tell you that the opening round featured a total of five upsets.

If you’re unfamiliar with bracketology, anything qualifies as an upset when a lower seed bests a higher seed.

Two of these upsets were fairly huge, with 11-seeds beating six-seeds, which I hadn’t expected.

However, in the Stitch bracket, virtually everything went as expected.

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance absolutely decimated Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… and Beyond!

The vote was unanimous, as you’d expect. Then again, few of these matchups were.

Only nine of the 32 battles in the first round ended with a unanimous victor.

That statement alone reinforces that our staff consists of smart, strong-willed Disney fans who love what they love.

As an example from the Stich bracket, two of our voters prefer Journey of Water | Inspired by Moana to Space Mountain.

I respect that! I worried that uniformity might be a problem with our voting. It…wasn’t. At all.

Still, the favorite won every battle except for the eight/nine matchup.

Mickey’s PhilharMagic pulled off a minor upset over Villains United: Unfairly Ever After.

That makes perfect sense, as one show is decades older than the other. Fans are more connected to it.

Here is the updated Stitch bracket for round two:

The Belle Bracket

Pirates of the Caribbean, the initial winner of Mickey Madness, anchors the Belle bracket.

Apparently, the rest of the staff doesn’t have a problem with last year’s champion.

Pirates also won a unanimous vote and appears to be a runaway train based on early voting.

Overall, this bracket displayed a few interesting trends, though.

For starters, I’d wondered whether Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith would garner the sympathy vote.

The ride closed at the start of this month, which makes voting for it bittersweet.

Well, sentimentality didn’t help the roller coaster much in round one, as it won with 67 percent of the vote.

Real talk: I was expecting nearly 100 percent, as I didn’t think that was a hard matchup.

Importantly, I’m saying that as a superfan of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid.

I figured I would vote for it, and that would be it. Nope! This one was closer than expected.

Then, we have the eight/nine matchup between Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Star Tours – The Adventures Continue!

That one legitimately came down to the last vote before Space Ranger Spin won.

Absence apparently didn’t make the heart grow fonder.

I wouldn’t expect Buzz Lightyear to make a deep run based on this result.

But hey! At least he’s not going bald like Woody!

The other results were mostly blowouts, albeit with one massive exception.

Apparently, the recent changes to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure didn’t redeem it in the eyes of our voters.

Ratatouille lost to the beloved show, Festival of the Lion King, which I hadn’t expected.

This one also came down to the last vote before Festival of the Lion King won.

To a larger point, shows performed better in our voting than I would have expected.

 

 

The Simba Bracket

Many years ago, Kentucky had a basketball team that started the NCAA tournament in mythic fashion.

They wrecked everybody by 20+ points right up until they suddenly lost in a huge upset.

That’s pretty much what happened to Avatar Flight of Passage in 2025.

The current alpha at Disney’s Animal Kingdom was cruising along but then WHAM!

Expedition Everest proved exactly the worst possible opponent and pulled the upset.

I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of Avatar Flight of Passage, so I’m curious to track its 2026 performance.

Well, the thrill ride got off on the right foot by winning unanimously, albeit against the Wildlife Express Train.

Overall, our voters clearly believed that we got most of the seeding right in the Simba bracket, though.

None of the matchups were even close, with the favorite almost dominating every time.

We apparently should have reversed the seeding on Mad Tea Party, though.

The spinning vomit comet got absolutely nuked by The Seas with Nemo & Friends.

So, that’s on me for seeding them backwards. I’ll do better next year.

 

PS: To the person who voted for Hall of Presidents over Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, I commend your patriotism.

I do have questions about your theme park attraction tastes, though…

Here’s the updated Simba bracket, the chalkiest one of the first round:

The Tinker Bell Bracket Debacle

Every year in the NCAA tournament, one bracket seems to collapse into chaos.

We wind up with double-digit seeds facing each other in the Sweet 16. It’s ridiculous.

Well, the voters in the Tinker Bell bracket definitely chose violence.

Okay, I’m kidding, but this section did feature what I consider the shocking upset of the first round.

Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress, which I worried I’d overseeded as an 11, won the first round!

Even more remarkably, the ride it beat is a genuinely headline-grabber.

Folks, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run must really need that new mission.

Our staff is so tired of stealing coaxium that we voted for Audio-Animatronics from the 1960s instead!

The Disney historian/1964 New York’s World’s Fair superfan in me is giddy right now.

Then again, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh upset For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration.

I’m decidedly less gleeful about that one. Frozen is my favorite Disney show.

That’s the rough part of tournaments like these. Your favorite can go out in the blink of an eye.

Here’s the updated Tinker Bell bracket, one where your coaxium is perfectly safe:

Final Thoughts

Overall, round one was about as chalky as you’d expect.

Three of the “upsets” were of the eight/nine variety, and those are supposed to be coin tosses.

Shoutout to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin for being the only eight-seed to survive!

The other two upsets were of the bracket-wrecking variety, with a pair of six-seeds out.

In NCAA Tournament terms, a pair of top 25 teams just received their walking papers.

In their stead, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress and Festival of the Lion King will carry the honor of Disney shows.

To a larger point, a chalky first round means that round two will feature some highly competitive matchups.

Check back tomorrow for those results!

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