Star Tours

[Slick]

Slightly going off topic here...... does anyone remember the Star Wars simulator pods at Disneyland, anaheim? They were fantastic, the queue themeing had an actual R2D2 replica hanging out of a life size....... z-wing thing..... with smoke effects!

[Richard]

The ride's called Star Tours, it's in Tomorrow Land at Disneyland, and at the Disney-MGM park at Walt Disney World. Truly some of the best theming ever, and incredibly faithful to Star Wars. I thought it could do with a bit of a clean up (parts were just getting a bit dusty and whatnot), but it was a great ride. As far as simulators go though, Back to the Future is the most thrilling I've been on.

[Slick]

I would definitely have to agree with you there Richo. That was by far one of the best ride experiences to date without having to explain and waffle on. To me, if a queue line turns into the ride itself (i.e. fog effects, lighting, videos and atmosphere) it doesn't matter how long the queue time is because, you are on the ride, just waiting for another part of the ride to go into, the climax if you will. Sorry, i'm tired, i'm going to bed now.........

[screammachine]

They have the same ride at Disneyland Paris. I agree the Themeing in the que line was truly amazing. Especially the bit before you get into your little Simulator car. The ride ops. make it as if you are "evacuating" some terrible disaster and try and get you into your little escape vehicle. But the music and the effects in the que line was amazing. There was this little "R2D2" robot that kept shocking itself and screaming. It was fairly amazing. Screammachine

[joz]

The ride ops. make it as if you are "evacuating" some terrible disaster and try and get you into your little escape vehicle.

Hang on, I thought the story for Star Tours was it was like an intergalactic airline or something? One of the few rides I queued for when I was at DL (probably about 10 mins) and for most of that time, there was animatronics in the queue entertaining the crowd, and the queue was pretty entertaining in its own right. Good ride over all, it was tragically 80's (just like Star Wars) which somehow suited the ride.

[Richard]

Yeah, perhaps the Paris version is different, because both USA versions are themed to the intergalactic airline. The pre-boarding room (where you line up in your rows and whatnot) even feels like an airport terminal with its plain blue carpet and grey futuristic walls, which I think is an amazing feat - they actually themed it very convincingly and faithfully drab.

[joz]

You can tell its not a real Airport (certantly not an American one) though because all the staff are nice and there's no Mcdonald's.

[screammachine]

I went looking for the park map we got when we went to the park and this is what I found on the ride. Its basically a escape gone completely wrong. (dont they all on rides??) And you end up flying around trying to fight of X-Wings, and all the others. But somehow you make it back home safely. The Loading area of the ride has this red emergency light flashing on and off, and all you can hear is this siren goin off with and those 'laser' gun sounds coming from somewhere. All this happened very quickly. They then strapped us in and said good luck and locked the door. Oh yeah, there was this little robot in the front (which you can actually touch) that does all the talking and flying as you get away. And there is also a R2d2 in there with you in the ship, which bursts out little sparks of smoke and spins his head screaming everytime the ship would hit something or got shot by the enemy. Screammachine

[Richard]

The ships sound very similar, with the robot at the front driving and R2D2, but there's obviously a very different story. That's pretty common with Disney - usually, even "clone" rides at different Disney parks are completely redesigned from the ground up so as to suit the specific park. The story behind the American Star Tours is as you'd guess an intergalactic trip gone wrong, because it's the pilot robot's first time.

[joz]

That's funny Richard, because on the day I went it was the first day of not only that robot, but also the Jungle Cruse skipper, the ops on Maliboomer, Pirates of the Caribbean, Innoventions and I'm pretty sure Haunted Mansion as well.

[DJKostya]

I went on the EuroDisney version and it was really weird (Aside from being in French) The que area began in a ranbom setting of different SciFi characters then you went into the airport terminal thingy.