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

Six it be...six bottles of rum!

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to the summer of 2023. I hope you all had an enjoyable month of May, and an enjoyable first few days of June. I spent the last week on vacation in surprisingly cloudy San Diego, where I a) turned into Clark Griswold briefly when I drove my family to Sesame Place only to find that it was closed due to…clouds, b) experienced Sesame Place (eventually, and it’s not good!), c) saw some beautiful animals, and missed out on the season finale of Ted Lasso (which I just watched, and boy, it sure was as messy as the rest of this very muddled season) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (my son is as excited as I am to see it, which means I haven’t seen it yet).

I also hope that you’re as ready as possible for the return of the supersized Disney bracket. Yes, I just couldn’t get enough of them, so today, we’re starting the 256-seed Ultimate Disney Parks Attraction bracket. And if you’re an old hand at these, then you know that first up, it’s time…for the housekeeping.

How is it possible you haven’t done a supersized attraction bracket?

Brother, search me. I’m surprised too, but it’s true.

You couldn’t do 512?

I mean, I probably could, but we all would max out on our tolerance level before it wrapped up.

When you say “Ultimate”, are you including the international parks?

I am not, sorry. Still sticking to just Disneyland and Walt Disney World here.

When you say “attraction”, how is that being defined?

Almost anything under the sun at the Disney parks that isn’t a restaurant, basically. There are the obvious options — roller coasters like Matterhorn Bobsleds, boat rides like It’s a Small World, etc. — but I’m also including live entertainment and nighttime spectaculars. If you can experience it without having to eat or drink something, it can technically count for this bracket.

Are you limiting yourself to certain versions of big attractions?

I am not. So, that’s one thing that hadn’t been the case before. You may recall — if you’ve been following my brackets for literal years — that the very first attraction bracket mixed and matched options from both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but was just 64 seeds long. This time around, both iterations of Pirates of the Caribbean, or Splash Mountain, or whatever option may apply would be up for a vote. I know, and so do you, which version of Pirates is better, for example. But now, we’ll have poll-based proof!

Wait, which version is better?

If you have to ask, you will definitely need to watch the attraction videos before voting.

And is that where a playlist kicks in?

Not this time. As was the case with the background-music bracket, I’ll be embedding the poll options right here. Scroll down, and you’ll see YouTube videos in the post of each attraction you’re voting on.

So if I know nothing or next to nothing about these attractions…

I love chaos, and I want you to vote anyway. And you can get a sense of the rides by watching!

You know what I just realized?

Tell me.

You haven’t done a supersized restaurants bracket yet. And I’m still annoyed PizzeRizzo won.

Another day, friend. Let’s start the vote.

(1) Pirates of the Caribbean (DL) vs. (64) Sounds Dangerous: If you have stuck around with these brackets for a long time, then you can probably say it with me: some of these first-round matchups will be difficult, and others will be slam-dunks. This is one of the slam dunks. Drew Carey’s brief but mammoth popularity at ABC — yes, his self-titled sitcom lasted nine years, but it was only truly huge for a few of those nine years — is fascinating, not least because it led to the execrable Sounds Dangerous show.

But fascinating does not beat Pirates of the Caribbean in its original iteration at Disneyland. Obviously.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Disneyland

Sounds Dangerous

(32) Goofy’s Sky School vs. (33) Disneyland Band: Two fun facts about me. Fun fact one: I’m 6’ 2”. Fun fact two: my 8-year old son loves, loves, loves Goofy’s Sky School. And — I guess I’ll be revealing three fun facts here — my wife is not a fan of this attraction at all. So that typically leaves me as the person to ride it with my son over and over. I tell you this because while I am intimately familiar with this attraction, I am too tall to enjoy it. The seats are very tight, the turns are even tighter, and the experience is fairly unpleasant for anyone whose knees are banging up against the interior of the ride vehicle, and I am that anyone.

So, if nothing else, I am simply voting against Goofy’s Sky School here. How do you vote?

Goofy’s Sky School

Disneyland Band

(16) Dapper Dans - Disneyland vs. (49) Main Street Philharmonic: Two different Main Street musical options enter the thunderdome, and I will lean here on voting for the Anaheim-based version of a barbershop quartet. It’s just too charming to say no to, but that’s just me.

What do you think?

Dapper Dans - Disneyland

Main Street Philharmonic

(17) Disneyland Railroad vs. (48) Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire: Not too long from now, we are likely going to have a very painful debate as the Disneyland Railroad has to face off against Pirates of the Caribbean. (Maybe those two attractions will not make it to the third round. Maybe I will fly on a unicorn to my office.) But today, I think we can all agree that the Disneyland Railroad is going to dominate this matchup.

Disneyland Railroad

Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire