The Ultimate Disney Parks Attraction Bracket -- Round One, Day Seventeen

Whose ride is it, anyway?

Hello, friends! It’s hard to believe that today is the first official day of summer, in part because the way things work in Arizona, it’s been swelteringly hot for at least a month. But hey, meteorology is meteorology.

It’s time for all of you to cool off for just a minute and vote in today’s matchups in the first round of the Ultimate Disney Parks Attraction bracket. We just passed the halfway point of this round, if you can believe it, but there’s still a quartet of votes you have to provide today. Let’s go!

(1) Flight of Passage vs. (64) The Bakery Tour: Wouldn’t it be wild if I said I was going to vote for the Bakery Tour? If the rule was that I had to only vote for rides or attractions I’ve experienced…well, I would have to. As noted before, I’ve not visited Walt Disney World since 2012, which means I’ve never experienced the Pandora section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. One day! Even still…I mean, it’s a top seed for a reason. I am obviously voting for my good friends from Pandora, Jake Sully, Neytiri, Spider, and oh my God, I named more than one whole character from the Avatar franchise! And here I was told it had no cultural capital at all!

Anyway. Vote!

Flight of Passage

The Bakery Tour

(32) Gadget’s Go Coaster vs. (33) Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular: Now, I have experienced both of these attractions, and even though Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular is no longer kicking, it will easily get my vote. Part of it amounts to length. As you’ll see from the videos below, Gadget’s Go Coaster is extremely, extremely brief. Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular, on the other hand, is nearly an hour long. You get your proverbial money’s worth in that case. It likely won’t make it past the second round, but for now, I vote for the diamond in the rough.

How about you?

Gadget’s Go Coaster

Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular

(16) Voices of Liberty vs. (49) Mariachi Cobre: If you have paid enough attention to these brackets, and/or my tweets, over the years, you probably know that I am not the most outlandishly patriotic person. Having said that, during one of my few Walt Disney World trips, my wife and I managed to get to the American Adventure pavilion early enough (without even attempting to) so that we could watch the Voices of Liberty musical group sing live in the rotunda. And…man, I tell you, that is one hell of a performance to experience live. Is it corny? Sure. Is it goosebump-inducing? Ah-yup.

I don’t know how long I’d advocate for the Voices of Liberty to move throughout the bracket, but if they turn into a sleeper success here, I won’t complain. How do you vote?

Voices of Liberty

Mariachi Cobre

(17) WDW Railroad vs. (48) Magical: A few weeks ago, as I believe I mentioned, my family and I visited San Diego, California. One of my favorite places to visit in San Diego — because I am the ultimate tourist — is Balboa Park, which houses a number of wonderful museums and parks. One of those places is the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, which displays exactly what you would imagine based on the name. We visited it (not for the first time), and while I’m always impressed at the attention to detail in each of the model designs, I can’t quite envision myself as a train guy. (By which I mean, a guy who would go to the effort of building those designs.)

And yet, here I am, saying that I’d vote for the Walt Disney World Railroad over a nighttime fireworks show. Maybe I’m more of a train guy than I realize.

How do you vote?

WDW Railroad

Magical