Soarin' Around the World
| Soarin' Around the World | |
|---|---|
| Park | Epcot |
| Land / area | The Land, World Nature |
| Type | Flight motion simulator |
| Opened | May 5, 2005 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | 40 in (102 cm) |
| Status | Operating |
Soarin' Around the World is a flight motion simulator in The Land pavilion, in the World Nature area of Epcot in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida. Opened at Epcot on May 5, 2005, simply as Soarin, it lifts rows of riders in hang-glider-style seats before a huge concave screen, using movement, wind and scent to suggest free flight. Its original film flew only over California; since June 17, 2016, the Epcot version has shown the global film from which its present name is taken.
History
The attraction originated at Disney California Adventure, where Soarin' Over California was an opening-day ride on February 8, 2001. Its ride system is credited largely to Imagineer Mark Sumner, who worked out a mechanism that could lift and tilt an entire audience at once, famously modelling the idea with a construction toy at home. The California ride's popularity made it an obvious candidate for replication, and a copy was built into the lower level of The Land pavilion at Epcot, replacing the former Food Rocks show space.
At Epcot the California film was shown unchanged for a decade, Golden Gate Bridge, Napa Valley vineyards, desert and coastline included, which sat oddly in Florida but bothered few riders in practice. The flight number used in the Epcot theming, 5505, is a reference to the attraction's opening date of 5 May 2005, and a pre-show hosted by a chief flight attendant, played by Patrick Warburton, remains one of its most quoted elements.
In 2016 the attraction closed for several months while a third theatre was added at Epcot to increase capacity, and projection was upgraded to a digital laser system. It reopened briefly with the California film before switching on June 17, 2016 — the day after Shanghai Disneyland opened with the same film as Soaring Over the Horizon — to Soarin' Around the World. The new film carried a new score by Bruce Broughton, built in part around themes from Jerry Goldsmith's music for the original version.
The California film has since returned to Epcot for limited runs, most notably from September 22, 2023, as part of the Disney100 celebrations, before the global film resumed in February 2024.
Experience
Riders are seated in three rows beneath a canopy styled on a hang glider. Once secured, the rows are swung forward and raised about 40 feet into the theatre, feet dangling, so that the audience is inside the curve of an 80-foot, 180-degree dome screen. The seats pitch and roll gently in time with the film, while fans provide a sense of airspeed and scent machines release smells matched to the scenes below — grass, ocean air and blossom among them.
The current flight passes over landmarks and landscapes on six continents, presented as a single continuous journey. Sequences include the Matterhorn in Switzerland, ice fields and whales off Greenland, Sydney Harbour in Australia, Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, elephants on the savanna near Mount Kilimanjaro, the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Monument Valley and the Iguazu Falls, and a flight over Paris before the journey concludes at Epcot itself, with fireworks over Spaceship Earth.