The Best Attractions at Disney World
Save this list of must-do rides for your next trip!
One thing Disney is famous for is their innovative Imagineers, the geniuses behind our favorite rides and the most incredible attractions. Year after year, they unveil new rides that keep us coming back for more. In 2023, we saw many attractions close (goodbye Splash Mountain), and other rides open after an anticipated wait. And here’s the list of the best of each park — as well as my personal favorites.
Magic Kingdom
TRON Lightcycle / Run
This brand new high speed roller coaster just opened in April of this year. It is based on the 1982 movie TRON, that was the first of its kind for combining CGI, backlit animation and live action. Although the movie was financially successful, a lot of people consider the movie to be a flop, because it never felt like a “Disney movie”.
But Disney decided to give the story another chance and Imagineers brought the futuristic world of TRON to Tomorrowland. Once you enter the queue, you leave the real world and enter the computerized grid of TRON. In the ride, you race against other teams on your Lightcycle motorbike.
This is currently one of the fastest rides in all of the Disney parks, reaching up to 59 mph. The height requirement is 48 inches, the highest requirement in Magic Kingdom. If you are traveling with children, there is Rider Switch Service available. Just let a cast member at the entrance of the attraction know.
To ride TRON currently, you have two options: enter the Virtual Queue (free) or purchase an Individual Lightning Lane (around $20 per rider) at 7:00 AM EST. A standby queue is not being offered at the moment.
Pro Tip: If you love roller coasters and riding TRON is the highlight of your trip, I recommend booking both the Virtual Queue and purchasing an Individual Lightning Lane. This way, you can ride it twice!
Although the coaster itself is only about 60 seconds long, the ride experience is exhilarating and the vehicles run on the track very smoothly, similarly to Slinky Dog Dash and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. TRON is definitely a one-of-its-kind experience in Magic Kingdom, since it brought a little adrenaline to thrill seekers visiting a park famously known for Fairytales and Family Friendly rides.
Animal Kingdom
Avatar Flight of Passage
It’s been almost 7 years since the area of Pandora opened in Animal Kingdom and its flagship ride, Flight of Passage, is still one of the most popular rides in all of Disney World, and one of the longest lines as well. Pandora is incredible by itself, with floating mountains, tall waterfalls, exotic plants and flowers, mythical wild animals and so much more. But the ride really takes the Pandora experience to another level.
Flight of Passage is based on the movie Avatar’s rite of passage when the Na’vi people board a mountain banshee and learn how to fly it, thus establishing a physical and spiritual connection with the animal.
What Imagineers did with this ride feels exactly like that. As you board your motorcycle-looking seat and puts on your glasses, it feels awkward at first. But as the screen of the motorcycle establishes a connection with your very own avatar, you turn into a Na’vi warrior and your motorbike, well, a mountain banshee.
The immersive experience comes from the most incredible sounds, sights and smells, as well as the feeling of the banshee breathing under your legs as you enter a magical cave to rest after a thrilling adventure. When you and your banshee start flying again and leave the cave, it only gets better. You are truly left in awe during this jaw dropping experience while you explore Pandora in the most magical way — flying.
The height requirement here is 44 inches and they also have Rider Switch Service available. And to ride Flight of Passage, you can join the standby queue or purchase an Individual Lightning Lane (usually around $15 per person).
Pro tip: If you’re staying on Disney property, take advantage of Early Entry to get to the park before it opens and head straight to Flight of Passage. If you’re also buying an Individual Lightning Lane, make sure to get it right at 7:00 AM EST, as it sells out quickly.
Many people leave the ride in tears, feeling overpowered by the 4-minute experience. I still cry even after riding it dozens of times. Flight of Passage is my personal favorite in all of the Disney Parks and was designed to be an emotional and transformative journey. You’ll leave wanting to come back again and again.
EPCOT
Guardians of the Galaxy | Cosmic Rewind
Is this a coincidence, or every best ride on this list so far is based on a movie? Well, keep reading to find out.
Oh, the great things about this ride! Everything!
The experience begins in the queue, as you walk through an exhibition showing the differences between Earth and Planet Xandar. At the end of the tour you are called into a mission to help the Guardians of the Galaxy save the galaxy.
As you board your roller coaster, you’ll be surprised by a reverse launch, 360-degree rotations, a fantastic storyline and the best part: a different song each time you ride. This ride is actually considered an omni coaster, because of its unique rotations around the track, focusing on the storytelling, and it’s the first of its kind. You’ll reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour on incredibly smooth tracks — even smoother than Slinky Dog, if you can believe it. And you need to be at least 42” tall to ride it.
I can’t talk about Guardians of the Galaxy | Cosmic Rewind and not talk about the most controversial topic surrounding the ride: the amount of people that get sick after the experience. Fun fact: this is the only Disney ride that has wide open trash can tops right when you disembark, in case people get sick. And they do, a lot.
From personal experience, unless you suffer from severe motion sickness, you’ll be okay. I get sick at pretty much all the simulators at Universal. But I do not get sick riding Guardians of the Galaxy. If you would like to experience the ride, but is afraid of getting sick, try taking Dramamine (Non-drowsy) thirty minutes before you ride.
Pro Tip: Request Row 5 to minimize motion sickness and to have the best views of the screens during the ride.
This is indubitably the best roller coaster Disney has ever created and it’s so worth riding it time and time again, to get many different songs and even views when you sit in different cars. Just plain fun, laugh and great time with the Guardians!
Currently, there are only two ways to enjoy this ride: enrolling in a Virtual Queue at 7:00 AM EST, or purchasing an Individual Lightning Lane, which usually goes for around $14 per person. We love this ride so much, that we usually do both I.L.L. AND a Virtual Queue. This way, we cam have double the fun!
Hollywood Studios
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
We got to the end of the list and yep, everything was really based in movies.
4 years into the opening of this immersive attraction, but it feels like it was yesterday, probably because of the 2020 closures and the constant ride closures as well.
It all just builds up to the anticipation and excitement surrounding this ride, still the most popular one at Hollywood Studios, as well as the only Individual Lightning Lane in the park, and usually the most expensive one to buy “a la carte” as well, due to its popularity.
On Rise of the Resistance, you are part of a Resistance group that has infiltrated a First Order star destroyer and you have to save yourself — and your group — from the evil Kylo Ren and his followers. It’s hard to explain the complexity of this ride, unless you ride it for yourself. From the second you step into the queue, everything builds up to the ride. The design, technology, story telling, immersion and even acting from Cast Members are on point. It’s like you are inside the movie itself, which explains the length of this ride at a whopping 18 minutes long — the longest ride at Disney World.
Due to its complexity and SO MANY variables and moving points (and parts), this ride is always down. To avoid missing out on this amazing experience, plan to ride it early in the morning, as soon as the park opens, or as one of the first rides. You can choose to wait in the standby queue (average wait time is 110 minutes) or purchase an Individual Lightning Lane. Here the height requirement is 40 inches and technically, there’s no “speed”, since you move from spaceships into a trackless pod to escape the First Order.
One can’t say too much about this Star Wars experience without a few spoilers, so I’ll stop here. But if there is one ride you cannot miss at Hollywood Studios, this is the one.
Disney will continue surprising us over and over again with one-of-a-kind rides, the best laughs, unforgettable memories and magical moments. The next few years have a lot in store, with $60 billion in investments in park experiences and cruises in the next ten years. These attractions bring us closer to our favorite movies and we get to relive them and be part of a story that once we only thought would be possible in the big screen. I can’t wait to hear about your experience trying these rides for the first time.
I’d love to hear, what’s your favorite ride?
Are you going to Disney soon and don’t know where to start planning? I can handle all the details while you and your family relax, enjoy and create memories that will last a lifetime.
