Color me impressed. The new Test Track is no mere rebootfrom a tired industrial setting to a multi-hued digital world that would lookright at home in the movie Tron, a concept that struck many fans as lacklusterwhen they heard the news or saw the concept art. But it delivers. Boy, does itever deliver. In fact, after I rode the attraction I felt like I do followingthe debut of a major E ticket ride. This was no mere repainting of a fewplywood fa̤ades РРit was a full-scale reimagining and it blows New Fantasylandout of the water.
The hype in almost all press releases and media reports sofar has been centered on New Fantasyland, perhaps because Disney wanted toreveal little about Test Track, or more likely, because they felt it would befoolish to promote a re-skinned attraction over something brand-new. Thus, TestTrack has been flying under the radar for almost everybody. But in many ways,it exceeds its mandate, and it soars where New Fantasyland merely glides. Myfirst visit to New Fantasyland was very positive. I liked the mermaid ride,partly because it has Audio-Animatronics, but mostly because it's a dark ridewith an Omnimover. I also liked the meet and greet experiences, especially thatvexing magic mirror effect. Most of all, I liked the sets and the atmosphere.New Fantasyland feels like an actual place and it just exudes that Disney vibe.But I left the land after my first visit in a kind of warm afterglow, grinningabout the very effective atmospheric details. When I left Test Track, however,I was feeling pumped, energized, and jabbering away excitedly. I needed to goon the ride again, which I did. And again. I realized later that New Fantasylandhad very little of that effect on me that I had to immediately return.
Test Track 2.0 improves in a million different ways over TestTrack 1.0, and it's the sort of renovation that could have gone wrong inhundreds of tiny ways, but didn't. That's a real testament to the Imagineers incharge of this redo. Test Track now reclaims the crown from Soarin' as theparks premier attraction. As the evening ended, I found myself doubting that Iwould trade the new Test Track to have world of motion back. I would havetraded the old Test Track for World of Motion in a heartbeat, but not the newone. Such a decision would cause me many long, agonizing nights ofsleeplessness if I had to make it.
Ride Description —spoilers
The ride itself is unchanged from the old version, meaningthe track layout is identical, and the cars have just been repainted that blue-whitecolor we saw in a few early tests. As long as you know to expect a similar ridein terms of excitement and feeling, you ought to come away feeling verypositive about this new experience. Based on the press releases, I thoughtperhaps we would see a Pepper's Ghost effect showing a reflection of our ridevehicles, but this is not what they meant when they said every person cancustomize his own car. It's not a physical effect, but rather a customizationof an on-screen car that is compared to every car in your party on severalfactors, such as handling or power. This is the other major factor to keep inmind when setting your expectations. A few reviews online have been negative,and I think that might be because they were expecting the wrong thing. The caryou're traveling in does not change, and its route and speeds are identical tothe old version of the ride.
The queue is one thing that does look dramatically new anddifferent. Here they kept essentially nothing from the old version. There is awarren of new rooms and walls and on a few occasions I became slightly disorientedabout where we were versus the old version of the queue.
The first room is a modest show room with a new Chevy frontand center, but also a new concept car that is essentially the Segwaytechnology applied to an automobile (you stand up?!) The line winds aroundthese two central exhibits, but there are also smaller cabinets and walldisplays, making the place also feel just a little bit like a museum. The colorscheme and the curbing handrails reminded me of the Men in Black attractionmarried to the old queue for Adventure thru Inner Space.
After passing by a small white model of the car onto whichare projected designs and patterns (using the castle projection technology), wecome to touch screen walls that show how to use your finger to trace a line asif designing a new car. This isn't yet the personalized experience, but it doesshow you how it will be done in a few moments, and thus saves a bit of time.
You are assigned to a design station and given an RFID cardwith a rubber band to identify you. Up to three people can share one designstation, or every person can design his own. You have two minutes to craft thebody of the car, and a further two minutes to choose accessories and colors.Then it's off to the merge points in the final stretch of the queue.
FASTPASS holders do not get the same customizationopportunity. They get 30 seconds to adjust a few things from a template, butthe focus is on getting them on to the attraction. This delighted me, becauseit meant that the attraction designers found a way to make the standby linebetter than the FASTPASS line. Having your own car design makes the ride morefun in several small but real ways, and it vastly changes how much you careabout three of the post-show experiences. The integration of personalizedelements into the show and the post-show offers the best example yet of how touse creativity to make the FASTPASS line seem like a bad idea. Bravo!
The ride itself has been redone with plywood back drops andcutouts next to the track, lit by neon and glowing with black light paint.Pause and picture that for a second. You can probably imagine how this mightlook incredibly stupid if done wrong. But it's not done wrong. It looksexciting and inviting and yes, it looks like you're in the world of Tron. Thereisn't much music to the attraction, and certainly not anything from Tronitself, though I wish it had that.
The overall sense I got from the lighted sets was that theydid not cut corners, and it shows. To give you only one example, I need notlook further than the top of the very first hill climb, which is now punctuatedby faintly glowing purple orbs in the ceiling that generated alien starfield.Its subtle, but not too subtle.
I did not detect any tributes to World of Motion on my threerides, but maybe I don’t know where to look (tell me in the comments if youfind any!) The truck that almost hit us in the old Test Track is still there,but you can’t see the LBJ cutout since the windows are now blacked out.
The high speed loop is the same as always. I wonder what itwould take to enclose this whole section of track; I know they considered italready. That would be truly awesome. They could make a tunnel out of it, withracing lights, maybe even the technology you see in water-slide tunnels… tooawesome to contemplate. Since it’s not here now, I’m guessing it will neverhappen. Maybe they can do that in a few years to plus the ride even further.Certainly it will have amazing word of mouth. This ride is everything that
The ride ends with a comparison of your individual cardesigns to all the other designs on the track right now (so it’s not just yourson the screen). Your lack of ultimate victory may depress you, but hold ontoyour RFID for a second. In the post-show, you can see your ultimate car scoreon a giant screen. It’s the sort of thing that will goad you into a secondtrip, to try to increase your score (and beat your buddy’s). They obviouslyknow what they are doing here.
In the next post-show room, you can create a music videowith your car—I didn’t have time for this one, but it looked engaging enough.
The post show room after that was the one I look forward tothe most. Picture a motocross-type figure-eight racing track about the size ofa baby hippo… projected on the floor. That’s what you get to race on, courtesyof some steering wheels stationed around the track. It’s a video game… with thevery car you designed earlier!
The show room is next, and there are a few Chevy cars, butthe side walls are now taken up by giant green screen photo booths, where youpose with props (yes, Chevy cars) and have photos sent to your email, all forfree. It’s amazingly engaging.
I found the whole experience to be exciting, exhilarating,and rejuvenating. I went three times in 90 minutes (it was cast-and-friendspreview night) and I was nowhere close to bored with it. I could have gone tenmore times.
The new Test Track is better than New Fantasyland. It’sbetter even than World of Motion. I’d go so far as to say that it would be acoin toss if I wanted Test Track 2.0 or
In fact, looking back at recent WDW history, I’m hardpressed to say when another attraction exceeded my expectations quite thismuch. Toy Story Mania? Maybe, but it’s so small in comparison. Everest? It’s sodilapidated, and not in a good way. Frankly, we might have to go all the wayback to 1994 to find a similar watershed, in the form of
I close with a caveat. For the first time in many months, mywife and I disagree about a Disney attraction. Usually we agree in lockstep somuch that we hardly need to give voice to the praise or the objections, butthis time, she felt the ride was “just OK.” It’s possible her expectations weremuch higher than mine, and if so, you should calibrate your own expectationsand don’t let my messianic praise build it up too much for you.
Click any picture below for a larger version.
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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.
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