Space Mountain
Specific Type: Enclosed
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Disney World is one of the most popular tourist locations ever, period. Families travel from all over the world to hang out with Mickey Mouse, or to meet many of the Disney princesses, or to experience many highly themed thrills in any one of their four amusement parks. Although Disney is not very known for their coasters, like Cedar Point and King's Island are, they are known for one of the coasters that started the genre known as the tubular steel coaster, with the Matterhorn Bobsleds, at their Disneyland resort in Anaheim, California. Opening in 1959, this twin tracked coaster was one of the smoothest and quietist coasters of its time. After Matterhorn, it only took a couple more years for Walt Disney to think up another one of his crazy ideas, which was Space Mountain at the Walt Disney World resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Space Mountain was first conceived by none other than Walt Disney. His dream for the ride was to have a ride in the dark, making the rider feel like they were in space, which he called Space Voyage at the time before it opened. It was later called Space Mountain, and the ride was designed and built in the Tomorrowland section of Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World resort. The ride officially opened to the public on January 15, 1975. Space Mountain can be found in the corner of Tomorrowland. Entering the queue, future astronauts find themselves beside several screens. The Fast Pass line is right beside the regular line. Once in the station section of the huge building, riders can pick one of two trains to ride on, Alpha or Omega. Both rides give the same experience just that they are in mirror images of each other. Let's say riders go over to the Omega side. They sit down inline in a two car vehicle, with three riders per car. After pulling down the lap bars, the train is dispatched into Space Mountain. The ride first makes a left hand turn into the first block zone, where you will wait for another train to clear the next block zone. After a drop and 90 degree turn to the right, the train goes into the launch tunnel. The ride isn't actually launched, but it appears to be going faster with bright blue lights moving to the beginning of the launch tunnel very fast. After another turn to the right, the train engages the lift. Part way through, riders see another rocket whizzing around beside them. To their left is the lift for the Alpha track. After a 3, 2, 1, you disengage from the lift hill into a right hand turn, with many lateral g's. The train hits the next set of blocks and turns left into a downwards helix. It then lifts up into another block zone, with a turn to the right after it. Then there is a turn to the left, which leads into another block zone and turn to the left. The train then makes a major drop into another turn to the left. After a small straightaway, it veers to the left, producing many lateral g's. The train then goes through another block zone beside the lift, which leads into a left hand turn. After another straightaway and small turn to the left, the train dives under the spaghetti bowl of track above them, which leads into another left hand turn. After another block zone, the rocket dives again into a turn to the right. After another block zone, there is a helix to the right. After another turn to the right, the train goes through another block zone. After one more turn to the left, the ride finally re-enters Earth's atmosphere. After disembarking from the train, riders go through a post-show, which shows off Disney's planetary theming for the ride. |
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