Are the Rides Darker than Normal?

Have you ever thought one of Disney’s darkrides looked darker than normal? Maybe things were hard to see, or they didn’t glow the right way. I’ve heard this blamed on an old paint job or lights that need replacing. The blame always seems to go to the maintenance team. But normally, the too-dark-darkride has nothing to do with maintenance. It has a lot more to do with queue design and time of day.

Theme parks are not built for the slow days. The walk ways, ride capacities, queue sizes, restaurants and show offerings are designed around keeping crowds entertained and busy. So are the visuals in the rides. Imagineers expect that guests will be waiting in line for each ride. Particularly for dark rides, they build indoor queues. This keeps the crowd entertained while they wait, but it also give you a gradual transition while your eyes adjust to the lower level of light.

Take the Disneyland Haunted Mansion as an example. When the queue is full, you start off in the bright sun, and make your way to the shaded porch of the mansion. After a brief stop in the dimly lit entryway, you’re shepherded into a even darker stretching room. The stretching room turns out nearly all the lights for its finale. The portrait gallery is a dark walkway, as is the boarding platform. And before you see any of the actual show scenes of the ride, there are about 20 seconds where you have nothing to look at, except for the black Doom Buggy in front of you. With each new section, the lights get dimmer. And that allowed you to see the show while your eyes adjust to the dark. But when the queues are shorter, you spend less time in each of those areas, so your eyes can’t fully adjust. Particularly if you’re one of the “lucky” ones who gets to take the backstage stair case from the outdoor queue into the portrait gallery. The time your eyes have to adjust is cut by more than ten minutes. So the ride itself isn’t any darker, you just can’t see as well.

Fantasyland dark rides suffer from this problem more drastically because of their size. If you wait in the indoor queues, your eyes have a few minutes to adjust. So the rides were built with the expectation that you’d be indoors, ,giving your eyes would have about 10 minutes to get ready before the ride starts. But if you’re trying to ride on an afternoon with no queue, you’ll go directly from the bright sun into the dark ride. These rides don’t have the very dark queue prior to boarding, or the dark lift hill at the beginning of the ride. They go straight into show scenes. By the time your eyes are able to start adjusting, you may be through the ride already.

So what about Radiator Springs Racers? The indoor portions of that ride don’t seem too dark. On this ride, Disney intentionally planned on taking you from outdoors to indoors very quickly. So the lights are bright enough that you can see with your eyes unadjusted. In fact, they rely on the fact that yours eyes aren’t prepared for some of the show scenes. It gives Imagineers more control over what you see in a fast paced environment.

So what can you do about it? Give your eyes time to adjust. If you’re heading for Peter Pan and the line is empty, take a few minutes to stand in the empty queue. It’ll make a difference in how well you can see the ride. Or wear sunglasses so your eyes are already used to dimmer light. (Just make sure you take them off when you’re on the ride!) This is one of the reasons I like to ride the Fantasyland dark rides at night. When it’s dark outside, your eyes don’t have to adjust at all, so you can see the whole ride clearly, even if there is no queue.

Comments

Check Out Some of Our Most Popular Articles

Maintaining the Magic

Maintenance is a critical part of ensuring the safety and longevity of Disney rides. Disney parks operate some of the most sophisticated and complex ride systems in the world, and keeping them running smoothly requires constant attention and care. Disney uses teams of engineers and technicians from early design through long-term maintenance to make sure that the rides run as well as possible. They are complex machines that need to be "always available." Maintenance on Disney rides is a multi-step process that involves daily inspections, routine maintenance, and major overhauls. Each ride is inspected every day before it opens to the public, and any issues are addressed immediately. Routine maintenance is also performed regularly to ensure that all components are working as intended and to prevent any potential problems. In addition to daily inspections and routine maintenance, Disney also conducts regular safety checks and major overhauls on its rides. Safety checks are typ...

Time Transforms Rio del Tiempo to Gran Fiesta Tour

Characters keep sneaking more and more into Epcot. This park started out as a permanent World’s Fair, but it doesn’t come across that way anymore. Nemo has taken the Sea, Lion King has been to the Land, Ratatouille and Beauty and the Beast are in France, and Frozen is in Norway. To celebrate Epcot’s 40th anniversary, let’s take a look at the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Cabelleros, the first attraction at World Show Case to be transformed to a character ride. Rio del Tiempo Rio del Tiempo was conceived as an attraction to celebrate the history and culture of Mexico. Like the other original attractions at World Showcase, you can see a country’s influence on the pavilion. The Aztec temple facade drew people for shopping, dining, and the ride entrance. Once you boarded this gentle boat ride, you’d float by a volcano and another Aztec temple. After that, you’d take a trip through time that would show you snippets of Mexico’s ancient, recent, and modern history. The physical componen...

Edison Square, Unbuilt at Disneyland

Edison Square was a planned land at Disneyland that was never built. The area was intended to be a turn-of-the-century city block inspired by the inventions and innovations of Thomas Edison, the famed inventor and businessman. Some of it's planning was designed to mesh well with the then-planned Liberty Street, which turned into Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom. Although the land was never completed, it remains an interesting part of Disneyland history and a fascinating look at what could have been. The concept for Edison Square was first introduced in the 1950s, shortly after Disneyland opened. The land was designed to showcase the technological advancements of the early 20th century, with attractions and experiences centered around the inventions of Thomas Edison. The area was meant to be located between Main Street USA and Fantasyland, and would have featured a variety of shops, restaurants, and attractions. Some of the proposed attractions for Edison Square included ...

Height Restrictions Translated to Age Ranges

Height restrictions keep kids safe, but they can be frustrating. If you have ever taken kids to the parks, you know what I mean. Every cast member measures a little differently, so sometimes you make it all the way to the loading zone and then get turned away. Other times your kids are just slightly too short, and you wish they would have worn taller shoes. One of the most difficult things, in my mind, is planning trips and figuring out how long it will be ’till your kids can meet height restrictions. Especially when some can ride and some can’t, the younger ones want to know how much longer ’till they’ll be big enough. I don’t know any parents that have memorized a growth chart and can say, “My child will grow 1 inch in the next 9 months, so we should plan a trip then.” When we plan trips with our kids, we just keep measuring them and telling them to eat a bunch in hopes they’ll be tall enough for more rides. Fortunately, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has released data that sh...

World of Innoventions