Ranking All Walt Disney World Indoor Attractions
You’re cold, and you want to get inside where the heat is running. Say no more!
I’m here to tell you which Disney indoor rides will entertain you during a cold spell.
The only rules here are simple. No part of the attraction can exist outdoors. It’s totally fine if the line queue does, but the ride cannot.
This stipulation rules out some attractions like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Test Track.
Also, we’re only talking about rides, not show-based or other kinds of attractions!
So, let’s rank the 24 indoor attractions at Walt Disney World!
24) Journey into Imagination with Figment
Let’s acknowledge upfront that you will disagree with many of these rankings, and that’s totally fine!
The point is to create conversation, not to make the One True List of Disney Indoor Rides.
Also, I’ve factored in elements like historical significance. Otherwise, the newest rides would probably finish at the top.
Meanwhile, the worst attraction comes down to one of a few selections. They’re all fine for what they are, but Disney has done better.
For example, we’ve already ridden a better Figment ride than the one we currently have! That’s reason enough to rank it at the bottom!
23) Mission: SPACE
Meanwhile, Mission: SPACE qualifies as the least interactive ride of all the ones built to date.
You literally push a button every once in a while to participate in the story. That’s it.
Also, the sheer gravitational pull of Mission: SPACE ensures that a sizable percentage of guests will never enjoy it.
Thus, this ride belongs near the bottom.
22) Living with the Land
I couldn’t decide what to do with Living with the Land. On the one hand, it does exactly what Disney wants. It shows the agricultural process from the ground up.
The problem centers on the demand for that kind of attraction. Not many people fall into the bucket of wanting to watch the salad get made.
I quite like this ride, but I recognize I’m in the minority here.
21) Star Tours – The Adventures Continue!
This was another tough evaluation because Star Tours once redefined immersive theme park entertainment.
Alas, many other attractions have duplicated this motion simulation. It feels like half the rides at Universal Studios take the same approach.
So, I want to reward Star Tours as the original, but it’s no longer special.
Still, Disney deserves credit for updating the attraction each time there’s a new Star Wars story.
20) It’s a Small World
I anticipate the rage building at a couple of junctures in this list. Here’s one.
Yes, I know that It’s a Small World stands apart as arguably the most iconic Disney ride from 1956-1965. It’s this one or Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland.
Still, the repetitive nature of this attraction limits its value relative to the attractions ahead of it on the list…with one exception I’ll explain in a moment.
19) The Seas with Nemo & Friends
I legitimately ride this at least twice per EPCOT visit. Sometimes, that total reaches five during a single park visit.
Obviously, I adore The Seas with Nemo & Friends and would rank it higher if this were a personal list. Alas, it’s not.
Many people find the attraction childlike and a bit too derivative of the movie, Finding Nemo.
I cannot argue against their logic. I just don’t happen to care. It’s still a blast!
18) Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros
Yes, I believe that Gran Fiesta Tour is objectively better than It’s a Small World, the ride concept it borrows.
Generally, I’d dismiss a blatantly derivative attraction like this. However, Gran Fiesta Tour throws in Donald Duck shenanigans.
For all the many wonderful elements of It’s a Small World, it lacks any Disney intellectual property. Meanwhile, Gran Fiesta Tour features one of the best!
17) Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
I’ve mentioned several times that I admire the ride design of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. The freeway race to the concert venue just plain works.
Similarly, while Aerosmith’s lead singer has earned the wrong kind of headlines lately, the music on this ride rocks!
Nobody expects to bang their head to the music at Disney, but this roller coaster encourages it!
Still, I must dock this roller coaster some points for its length. The entire ride takes less than 80 seconds. There’s not enough meat on these bones.
16) Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid
Here’s another attraction I would personally rank much higher. Imagineers don’t receive the credit they deserve for some of the dark ride’s special effects.
As I’ve mentioned, there’s a brilliant moment when the clamshell ride cart submerges.
You can watch it happen by keeping your eye on the clam in front of you. A wave of water slowly covers the back as the clam goes under the sea. It’s masterful.
Journey of the Little Mermaid is a very good dark ride, albeit one we’ve mostly seen before.
15) Space Mountain
This ride doesn’t say anything about the quality of Space Mountain. Instead, it more accurately reflects how far Disney has come in the 48 years since this roller coaster debuted.
Space Mountain established a new standard in theme park design. Since then, other attractions have used it as a measuring stick.
Not coincidentally, those rides have surpassed Space Mountain in quality because it’s the bar they had to clear.
14) Toy Story Mania!
Who doesn’t love carnival games? The one at Disney’s Hollywood Studios comes with one pro and one con.
You don’t need to play this series of games like ring toss and balloon popping. That’s good.
Alas, you also don’t win any prizes by demonstrating expertise in the various 3D competitions. That’s bad.
Ah well. Toy Story Mania! remains a blast to play!
13) Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Secretly, this attraction repackages the Star Tours ride design in a new form, the cockpit. It’s mostly the same, though.
As such, I cannot rank it any higher, even though it’s demonstrably better than an already spectacular ride concept.
12) Spaceship Earth
My favorite Disney ride ever deserves a spot in the middle of the pack due to its architecture and ambition.
The ride’s exterior structure belongs on the cover of Architectural Digest. In fact, a quick internet search suggests that may have happened at some point.
At a minimum, the publication wrote about the brilliance of Disney design principles.
Spaceship Earth merits an additional bonus for its storyline, which happens to be the history of civilization to date.
Spaceship Earth matters.
11) DINOSAUR
I’ve been visiting Disney long enough to remember those grim early days when the park lacked high-quality attractions.
Theme park historians often point to Expedition Everest’s arrival in 2006 as something of a turning point for the park.
However, the conversion of Countdown to Extinction into DINOSAUR belies the fact that this ride has remained among the best at the park since opening day.
10) Avatar Flight of Passage
I can hear your boos and hisses. Still, I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and what I said about Gran Fiesta Tour applies.
For all its visual splendor, Avatar Flight of Passage falls under the heading of derivative. It’s a well-disguised Soarin’ clone.
While the wonders of Pandora never fail to take my breath away, this ride’s still evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
9) Na’vi River Journey
Again, I understand that the park guests vote early and often in favor of Avatar Flight of Passage each day.
Despite that fact, I maintain that Na’vi River Journey elevates the dark ride in a way that distinguishes it from its Pandora sibling.
The sights and sounds in the Na’vi forest provide the perfect combination of thrills and abject terror.
This ride forcibly reminds people that humanity isn’t the apex predator on Pandora, and it’s arguable whether the Na’vi are, either.
I love the constant presence of danger here.
8) Soarin’ Around the World
You can soar through Pandora all you want. I’m perfectly happy witnessing the natural wonders of Earth.
Soarin’ Around the World reaches that rare level that I call Disney Perfect. Only a handful of the company’s attractions are genuinely flawless. This is one.
7) Haunted Mansion
For the last few years, my only nitpick regarding Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom involves the lack of one essential character.
The Hatbox Ghost has never visited Florida…until now. The dapper bloke arrives in 2023, and he instantly upgrades an already brilliant attraction.
6) Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
Here’s where the voting gets tough…and admittedly weird. I didn’t even realize when compiling the list that half the top six rides would come from one park.
If I had, I would have assumed Magic Kingdom. That’s not the case, though.
With the recent arrival of Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, EPCOT has now cornered the market on E-ticket indoor attractions.
This roller coaster grips me from the start and intensifies as a planet-sized entity tries to crush me. But the ride does have some nausea issues.
This quibble is enough to prevent Cosmic Rewind from placing in the top five, which is a TOUGH list to crack.
5) Frozen Ever After
Yeah, everything from here on is an A+, 10 out of 10 attraction. Period.
We’ll start with Frozen Ever After, the ride that has the gall to beat the former Maelstrom at its own game.
Disney repurposed the previous ride track such that Imagineers could tell an Arendelle story about the cast of Frozen.
Everything about this ride is magical, and I cannot believe that Disney has somehow built four rides that are even better.
4) Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
Imagineers have always loved rides that mess with dimensions and scale. Remember Body Wars?
Disney’s Hollywood Studios hosts Toy Story Land, an entire themed land based on the premise.
Meanwhile, EPCOT has recently added Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, which shrinks guests down to the size of a rat.
There, you roam through a Parisian kitchen, trying really hard not to get stomped into oblivion. It’s brilliant!
3) Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
The indoor rides I’ve ranked from third to sixth are only new-ish, with Frozen Ever After, the oldest, debuting in 2016.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway opened at the worst possible time in March 2020, but that aspect almost works in its favor.
Runaway Railway has somehow slid under the radar due to the other Disney issues during the past few years.
Many guests don’t appreciate how magnificent this entire ride experience is.
You enter various cartoon rooms, immersive displays where something is happening everywhere you look.
People must ride Runaway Railway several times AND really focus to appreciate everything that happens in each room.
Disney has recognized the value of attractions with replay value. Runaway Railway is among the best in this regard.
2) Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Like Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, I’ve dinged this one a bit for its length.
For all its glorious theming, the Twilight Zone ride is a glorified drop tower attraction, one that only lasts a brief period of time.
Still, you’ll forget that the outside world exists during this timeframe. You’ll be too captivated by the zero-gravity drops and spooky setting.
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror has won numerous awards as one of the greatest dark rides ever built. Who am I to argue with that many voters?
Perhaps the most remarkable feat is that Disney has still built a better indoor attraction.
1) Pirates of the Caribbean
I employed Occam’s Razor here. The most famous of all Disney indoor rides is likely the best, right?
At a time when Disneyland was still forming its post-opening identity, Imagineers came up with the idea for New Orleans Square.
This themed land hosts two remarkable attractions, the aforementioned Haunted Mansion and the thematic Pirates of the Caribbean.
The latter ride celebrates pirate folklore, reimagining some awful people as charming miscreants in search of little more than rum and a wee bit of love.
Sure, none of them can outsmart a dog, but that only adds to their charm.
The spirit and whimsy of Pirates of the Caribbean never fails to entertain. It’s the most infectiously silly of all Disney rides and the best indoor attraction ever created.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!
Feature Photo: DIsney