Soarin' Over California.. CRAZY!!

What is Soarin' Over California, and is it similar to anyride in the Walt Disney World Resort?

IMAX/ Flight Simulator

Soarin over California is a hang gliding simulaor that offers a wonderful experience of site, feel and smell. When you fly over the waves you feel a spray, when you glide over the mountains, you smell pine, and when you soar over the orange groves, you smell oranges. Its poised to be one of the most popular, with the longest lines, so be sure to either get there at opening, or get a fast pass as soon as you enter the park. (Beci Mahnken, Issaquah, Washington).

*** This post was edited by cmiesen on 9/28/2001. ***

Great ride. Right now with the offseason there are no lines. We were there Friday night and Sunday as part of a 4 day trip and it was walk on both times.

It's about like he described, but it's gentle enough for those who are afraid of thrills (like my 4 year old son), but incredible enough that even the biggest of thrill cravers will enjoy it a ton.

-------------
Willow? Yes, my name is Willow. Would you stop pecking on me on this big droooopppppppppp......

Take one part B&M Inverted...
One part IMAX movie...
One part motion simulator...
One part "Smell-o-vision"...
Two parts Disney Magic...

Put that all in a blender and you come out with Soarin' Over California. Easily the best simulator out there. You really feel like you are on a hang glider. (no, I have never hang glided, but you get the idea)

Also, when the ride is over, as you exit, try to get a good look at the mechanism that you just rode. That thing is one amazing piece of machinery!!!

-------------
"X" marks the spot in 2001!

Does anyone know who designed and built Soarin'. Soggy is right, it is a flat out, grand piece of work! Rarely do I say that *one* ride is worth the price of admission, But Soarin' is one of those rare experiences!
-----------------
And then Jerry said, "Take care of yourselves, and each other".

Ironically enough, yes I know who designed it.

We had the guy come and give a lecture on theme parks at my school. All I had to do was pretend to be a grad student. The entire ride was done by Disney in-house. Interesting setup, basically an inverted Imax theatre with a parallel arm linkage raising and lowering people, plus motion control in the seats, fans and smell.

The video is shot at twice the normal fps (48) supposedly that helped a lot.

Same guy who did Grizzly River Run or whatever the name of that one was. Interesting guy, he seemed kinda bitter that the themers and not the engineers wear the pants at disney Inagineering though.

i was actually dissapointed by Soarin over Cali, i thought there should have been more range of motion. Definitely more lateral motion, there was absolutely no lateral motion. So I thought it was pretty tame especially for over an hour wait. Not even close to Spiderman or even Indiana Jones.

sethman said:
i was actually dissapointed by Soarin over Cali, i thought there should have been more range of motion. Definitely more lateral motion, there was absolutely no lateral motion. So I thought it was pretty tame especially for over an hour wait. Not even close to Spiderman or even Indiana Jones.

nothing can ever compare to spider man

I hate to disargree, but obiously you haven't seen or ridden Indy!
-------------
SFMM line cutters are the braviest in the world.

Sounds Like Fun !!!

yeah I have ridden Indy and that was much more exciting than Soarin over Cali. I guess maybe people just haven't seen many imax films, but if you have, the ride is kind of boring. Only the first part were you rise about 30 feet in the air is kind of thrilling.