The Ultimate Disney Parks Attraction Bracket -- Round One, Day Twenty-Seven

Want a nice, juicy apple?

How the hell are we halfway through 2023? I could go with the whole “Hey, welcome to July” part, but man, this year has managed to zoom by while also feeling weirdly slow at the same time. Time. It’s a flat circle! Or so I’m told!

Anyway, we press on today with the first round of the Ultimate Disney Parks Attraction bracket, with a quartet of matchups that may not offer a ton in the way of surprises, but you can relax on this summer Saturday with some attraction videos nonetheless.

I do want to note that, speaking of time, I will be taking a few days off for the July 4th holiday. After today, the brackets will take a brief pause and return on Wednesday, July 5.

Let’s start the vote!

(4) Muppet*Vision 3D vs. (61) Blue Sky Cellar: I like the concept of the Blue Sky Cellar, though its presence now feels like a non-starter in Disney California Adventure. When my wife and I started visiting the Anaheim resort back in 2009 (that spring was the first time I’d visited since I was a little boy who wanted to be a big boy, circa 1990), DCA was a much different park, and the Blue Sky Cellar eventually helped document its future growth. But now, that growth has occurred, so what else is there to do say?

Also…it’s up against Muppet*Vision 3D, and we all know that’s winning, folks. We all know it. But vote anyway!

Muppet*Vision 3D

Blue Sky Cellar

(29) Mickey’s Fun Wheel vs. (36) Pixar Pal-a-Round: The sharp-eyed among you will note that this is a rare instance of two attractions facing off when they are, in reality…the same attraction. As noted above, Disney California Adventure was a very different theme park when it opened, which is why one of its visual icons was a smiling Mickey Mouse smack-dab at the center of a huge Ferris wheel that offered swinging and non-swinging options.

Now, of course, that Ferris wheel is smack-dab at the center of a themed area focused on Pixar films, which is why its new name and gondolas have Pixar characters all over them. What that re-theming does not clarify, however, is that Mickey Mouse is…uh…still at the center. Yes, really. This is what the Pixar Pal-a-Round looks like as you’re walking towards it.

Explain that to me. I can explain this much: that baffling mix of themes is why I’m voting for Mickey’s Fun Wheel. I will, in a future round, talk at length about how little I enjoy the swinging gondolas, but these attractions are one and the same. At least one has logical theming.

Mickey’s Fun Wheel

Pixar Pal-a-Round

(13) Fantasmic (WDW) vs. (52) Soundsational: Two Mickey-themed shows enter the thunderdome, and I am sure we all know that the Walt Disney World version of Fantasmic is exiting. I prefer the Disneyland version, in spite of the fact that the amphitheater where you can watch the version at Disney’s Hollywood Studios has actual seating. The Disneyland version has the burnish of being the original, plus its use of the Mark Twain Riverboat in the climax is delightful. (Ignore the fact that it’s currently closed after the dragon set on fire.)

Anyway, we’re not voting on the Disneyland one today. I vote for that imagination of Mickey’s as it comes to life at night in Orlando. How about you?

Fantasmic (WDW)

Soundsational

(20) Snow White’s Scary Adventures vs. (45) For the First Time in Forever: I have a sneaking suspicion that a common thread running through the first few entries of the Walt Disney Animation Studios feature-canon essay series (a paid option that starts on July 10, by the way) is that our generation misses out on scaring the pants off of kids the way that Disney did back in the day. (Yes, I just unironically wrote “back in the day”.)

To wit, the now-updated Snow White’s Scary Adventures. (The Disney World version closed in full, but the Disneyland version was simply overhauled.) As the title implies, it’s a dark ride that not only runs through the 1937 classic, but is intended…to be scary. Because Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is, at its height, pretty terrifying. And yet, people complained enough so the scariness of the adventures have gone away.

But they can live on in the bracket, unless you prefer a truncated stage version of Frozen. I do not! But it’s up to you.

Snow White’s Scary Adventures

For the First Time in Forever