Space Mountain Is A Bad Rollercoaster And Isn't Worth The Wait

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I spent a nice couple days with my family in Disney World. It was nice to take my young kids to meet some of their favorite characters and go on a couple rides. We were in Disney for a total of four park days. Two at the Magic Kingdom, one at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), and one at Epcot. As a parent of two young kids going to Disney World, I spent my days pushing, parking, fetching, and pushing strollers, going on rides meant for 5 year olds, eating almost exclusively junk food, and acting as a videographer and photographer for when the kids met Disney characters. It wasn't exactly a vacation that was meant for me to have a ton of personal fun on. It was all about the kids, and after a football season of working Sundays and extra weeknights, I was ok with that. 

But the final night we were there I got time for one ride. My wife had already been on Tron earlier that day when I took the kids back to the hotel for a nap, so she suggested we go on Space Mountain as she hadn't been yet. I had never been a rollercoaster guy in my life until 2010. I never really liked that 'drop' feeling in my tummy, so I avoided things that had them, mainly rollercoasters (but also the Tower of Terror which I still will never go on). 

But in 2010, my then-girlfriend was a big theme park person. Her family owned a traveling Carnival and she loved rides. So she was set on taking me on some coasters, to which I obliged. I really enjoyed The Hulk rollercoaster as well as Rock N' Rollercoaster. Those were my two favorite out of a half dozen or so we'd been on that trip. I later had been on a bunch at Six Flags in New Jersey, so I've been on roughly 12 or so rollercoasters in my day. Not a seasoned vet by any means, but I'd been on enough to have a taste of what was good and what wasn't. 

So going into Space Mountain I had pretty high hopes. It's an indoor coaster and the dome they house it in is MASSIVE. I had heard of it as I thought that's what the Magic Kingdom's crown jewel ride was. 

*Jeff D. Lowe later corrected me that Tron is the new crown jewel. It turns out Space Mountain was created in like 1975 and hasn't really been updated since then, despite Disney World charging almost $200/ticket to get into the Magic Kingdom for decades.

But either way, I was going on one adult ride this trip and it was Space Mountain. It was late in the evening, around 7:45pm and we had a genie pass. So we went in the lighting lane and got to skip the 50 minute wait which was reduced to less than 10. The lead up has a bunch of space stuff which is cool, but going into the ride I was asking my wife what the story is with the ride. I was hoping to go in not totally blank. She just replied "space stuff" and kind of brushed off the question. We breezed through the line and were about to get in line sooner than anticipated, so didn't really have time to get prepped for the ride.

I should preface that with outdoor rollercoasters, you see the deal. It's Hulk or it's Nitro or whatever and you see the ups and downs and twists and turns. Indoor rollercoasters I had far less experience with, but Rock N' Rollercoaster was great. You are with the band Aerosmith and they are late to their show in the city. You bob and weave through traffic as you try to make it to their show on time with their songs blaring. So while you can't really see everything, you get an experience and it all makes sense.

Space Mountain did none of that.

People are roasting me for saying it had no storyline and it really didn't. The first 15 seconds were cool as the tunnel lights up a bit. Then you see some stars for 5 seconds, then the next 90 seconds you're just being whipped around in the pitch black. No real story line or reason. After about 20 seconds I was just hoping it would be over. Not fun. Not enjoyable. Not worth the wait - whether it be 50 minutes, 10 minutes, or 2 minutes.