Considered leaving this in the General Avatar DAK thread but saw that River Journey has had a seperate thread for some time now so 
I was surprised when a friend and I rode FoP the other week with only a 35 minute wait. Not because of the outlier wait time, it was a very slow day at the park, but because of our reactions to the ride itself. At one point, this had been my friend and I's favorite Walt Disney World attraction. We didn't know each other back then, but she came down to DAK from California in 2017. Before she went, she was expecting to be returning home trashing the land to her friends, but instead found herself singing its' praises as an incredible attraction that was unlike anything she'd seen before. I was the same way, I was fiercely skeptical and critical of the Avatar project since it's early announcements around 2014 or so, so when I rode it for the first time in 2017 I was shocked that it was the most incredible ride experience I had ever been through up to that point. The wind, water, and smell effects were so varied and detailed, the breathing from the Banshee made a really big impression on me, the pacing and high quality visuals of the film were wonderful, it just really hit all of the boxes and more for me.
Returning to it now though, almost 7 years later, we now find ourselves a little whelmed. Because this time, the ride was cool, pretty cool even. Neat definitely. But my favorite ride at WDW? It just hasn't kept it's novelty at all for either of us. It's just Soarin', but better. Though, Soarin' doesn't have nearly as bad of warping on the edges and 3D bleed-in for those at obtuse angles as FoP does. The queue is really cool, but the preshows are really, reallyyy long-winded. The glasses don't quite sit right and are a little uncomfy when compared to other Goggle rides like IoA Spider-Man or Rat.
It got me thinking about E-Tickets and how we use that as a term. I remember when Soarin' and Toy Story Mania were the premier rides of their respective parks, and when if you didn't rope drop MGM or Epcot, you probably weren't riding either. Nowadays, no one really cares that much. They seem to attract 45 min waits at most on a standard day, and I think part of that is just the lack of attractions at DHS. Meanwhile, there are expansions like formerly Splash Mountain, Kilimanjaro Safari, Seven Dwarf's Mine Train, Test Track that have not lost that fervor from guests. It's no longer the immediate hype-fueled madness of "Rope drop or forget it", but they are consistently at the highest wait times in their parks.
My hypothesis is that certain E-Tickets naturally recede into lower tiers while others preserve that original popularity and hype, almost making two different camps of "Pure Hype E-Tickets" and "True E-Tickets". Maybe this sort of thing is common thought here, but that ride of FoP is the first time I've really thought about that distinction. For me personally, though it may not not align with the current wait times for it even 7 years after opening, I believe Flight of Passage will probably end up closer to a Toy Story Mania than a Splash Mountain in the end. It might take some further expansion and some even crazier rides to be added to DAK to really open up that possibility, but I think it's almost inevitable. My view is that in a park devoid of attractions and especially E-Tickets, the newest and most technologically advanced rides in the park are bumped into E-Ticket status whether they're fit for that role or not. In a park like Islands of Adventure, Epcot, or Magic Kingdom, where would Flight of Passage sit? What about 15 years from now? I'm not sure. I think Tower of Terror would be an incredibly popular ride even in an already thrill-ride packed park like IoA, and ToT opened in 1999. Could FoP last that long in an already saturated park like that? Does its' role as a simulator in an Orlando market flooded with Screenz attractions bump it down? And is that just for me personally? Again, I'm not sure, but I'm interested in the question.
Anyways, those are some of my long-winded thoughts on Flight of Passage and the term E-Ticket, for whatever that is worth haha I am curious to hear if any of you relate to these sentiments or if you still feel the excitement from this ride that many did back in 2017. Heck, maybe you never liked this ride. Judging how popular it still seems to be, that group is probably a minority but I'd definitely still be curious on those kinds of thoughts regardless!
I was surprised when a friend and I rode FoP the other week with only a 35 minute wait. Not because of the outlier wait time, it was a very slow day at the park, but because of our reactions to the ride itself. At one point, this had been my friend and I's favorite Walt Disney World attraction. We didn't know each other back then, but she came down to DAK from California in 2017. Before she went, she was expecting to be returning home trashing the land to her friends, but instead found herself singing its' praises as an incredible attraction that was unlike anything she'd seen before. I was the same way, I was fiercely skeptical and critical of the Avatar project since it's early announcements around 2014 or so, so when I rode it for the first time in 2017 I was shocked that it was the most incredible ride experience I had ever been through up to that point. The wind, water, and smell effects were so varied and detailed, the breathing from the Banshee made a really big impression on me, the pacing and high quality visuals of the film were wonderful, it just really hit all of the boxes and more for me.
Returning to it now though, almost 7 years later, we now find ourselves a little whelmed. Because this time, the ride was cool, pretty cool even. Neat definitely. But my favorite ride at WDW? It just hasn't kept it's novelty at all for either of us. It's just Soarin', but better. Though, Soarin' doesn't have nearly as bad of warping on the edges and 3D bleed-in for those at obtuse angles as FoP does. The queue is really cool, but the preshows are really, reallyyy long-winded. The glasses don't quite sit right and are a little uncomfy when compared to other Goggle rides like IoA Spider-Man or Rat.
It got me thinking about E-Tickets and how we use that as a term. I remember when Soarin' and Toy Story Mania were the premier rides of their respective parks, and when if you didn't rope drop MGM or Epcot, you probably weren't riding either. Nowadays, no one really cares that much. They seem to attract 45 min waits at most on a standard day, and I think part of that is just the lack of attractions at DHS. Meanwhile, there are expansions like formerly Splash Mountain, Kilimanjaro Safari, Seven Dwarf's Mine Train, Test Track that have not lost that fervor from guests. It's no longer the immediate hype-fueled madness of "Rope drop or forget it", but they are consistently at the highest wait times in their parks.
My hypothesis is that certain E-Tickets naturally recede into lower tiers while others preserve that original popularity and hype, almost making two different camps of "Pure Hype E-Tickets" and "True E-Tickets". Maybe this sort of thing is common thought here, but that ride of FoP is the first time I've really thought about that distinction. For me personally, though it may not not align with the current wait times for it even 7 years after opening, I believe Flight of Passage will probably end up closer to a Toy Story Mania than a Splash Mountain in the end. It might take some further expansion and some even crazier rides to be added to DAK to really open up that possibility, but I think it's almost inevitable. My view is that in a park devoid of attractions and especially E-Tickets, the newest and most technologically advanced rides in the park are bumped into E-Ticket status whether they're fit for that role or not. In a park like Islands of Adventure, Epcot, or Magic Kingdom, where would Flight of Passage sit? What about 15 years from now? I'm not sure. I think Tower of Terror would be an incredibly popular ride even in an already thrill-ride packed park like IoA, and ToT opened in 1999. Could FoP last that long in an already saturated park like that? Does its' role as a simulator in an Orlando market flooded with Screenz attractions bump it down? And is that just for me personally? Again, I'm not sure, but I'm interested in the question.
Anyways, those are some of my long-winded thoughts on Flight of Passage and the term E-Ticket, for whatever that is worth haha
I am curious to hear if any of you relate to these sentiments or if you still feel the excitement from this ride that many did back in 2017. Heck, maybe you never liked this ride. Judging how popular it still seems to be, that group is probably a minority but I'd definitely still be curious on those kinds of thoughts regardless!
