Soaring: Fantastic Flight
| Soaring: Fantastic Flight | |
|---|---|
| Park | Tokyo DisneySea |
| Land / area | Mediterranean Harbor |
| Type | Flying theater simulator |
| Opened | July 23, 2019 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Soaring: Fantastic Flight is a flying theater simulator in Mediterranean Harbor at Tokyo DisneySea in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan. It is the Tokyo version of Disney's Soarin' ride, lifting guests in hang-glider-style vehicles before a huge curved screen for a flight over landmarks around the world — but with a pre-show, a setting and an ending created specifically for Tokyo DisneySea. It opened on July 23, 2019.[1][2]
Soaring was the fourth version of Soarin' to open worldwide, following installations at Disney California Adventure, Epcot and Shanghai Disneyland.[1] Rather than reusing the airport or pavilion settings of those versions, Walt Disney Imagineering gave Tokyo a museum, a heroine and a story of its own.
History
The original Soarin' concept dated to Disney California Adventure in 2001, and its world-tour film, Soarin' Around the World, had spread to the other resorts by the time Tokyo DisneySea announced its own version. The Tokyo attraction was built into the hillside above Mediterranean Harbor, in the park's Italian-themed entrance port of Porto Paradiso, where a flight museum could sit naturally among the old-world waterfront buildings.[2]
For the setting, Imagineering invented the Museum of Fantastic Flight, dedicated to humanity's long dream of flying, and Camellia Falco, a fictional aviation pioneer presented as a member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers (S.E.A.) — the first woman admitted to that society, in 1851, according to the museum's story.[3] The museum's special exhibition marks the centenary of Falco's birth and celebrates her life's work, culminating in her flying machine, the Dream Flyer.[1][2]
Soaring: Fantastic Flight opened on July 23, 2019.[1] Its score was arranged and composed by Bruce Broughton, building on themes from Jerry Goldsmith's original Soarin' music.[1] The attraction quickly became one of Tokyo DisneySea's most popular rides, regularly drawing some of the longest waits in the park.
Experience
Guests enter the Museum of Fantastic Flight and climb through galleries of aviation art and artefacts, including a domed cupola room, before reaching the pre-show. There, a large portrait of Camellia Falco hangs in a gallery of her achievements. Her falcon flies across the room as a shadow, the portrait comes to life, and Falco's spirit welcomes guests and introduces the Dream Flyer, the da Vinci-inspired glider she designed.[1][4] A safety briefing drawn in a Renaissance sketch style follows before guests are seated in the ride vehicles.[1]
Once aboard, guests are lifted into the screen as the Dream Flyer takes off above the clouds, following Falco's falcon from scene to scene. Most of the flight shares its itinerary with Soarin' Around the World — mountains, oceans, savannah and famous landmarks passing beneath the dangling rows of seats, with wind and motion carrying the sensation of gliding.[1]
The ending, however, belongs to Tokyo alone. Where the other versions fly over Paris, this version replaces that scene with a flight over Tokyo itself, passing Tokyo Tower, and then comes home to Tokyo DisneySea for a finale over Mediterranean Harbor, with fireworks above Mount Prometheus as the falcon leads guests back to the museum.[1][4] Guests leave through the museum, having completed the exhibition's promised flight.