Some Rides at Epcot So Real Even though Virtual.

Travel Ape and I happened to be discussing the changing nature of amusement and rides found at some of the best and brightest theme parks in the world. Much of the conversation was how much the evolution of virtual reality rides.  I happened to mention, and this was from over ten years ago, the incredible realistic feeling the Back to the Future Ride at Universal Studios Orlando was to me. Travel Ape, being the man that he is, had to one up me. The story he told blew me away and has me wanting to get a trip to Florida just to take a ride on the "Mission to Mars".

The Mission to Mars ride is located at the Epcot section of the Walt Disney World Resort. The ride was unofficially opened to test the likes and dislikes of users in August 2003. Since then the ride has, for lack of better words and no pun intended, skyrocketed to being one of the most sought after theme park rides to try.  An excerpt from a press release by Disney themselves have the description as "Guests who accept the mission will engage in a one-of-a-kind astronaut experience that launches them into a simulated space adventure -- from pulse-racing liftoff to the sensations of traveling though outer space on a mission to Mars. The new attraction is the most technologically advanced ever created by Disney. In association with former NASA advisors, astronauts and scientists, Walt Disney Imagineering developed Mission: SPACE as the first ride system ever created to take guests straight up in simulated flight."

This description doesn't do the ride any justice. Travel Ape went on to tell me that the reality of the scenides that get the hair on the back of your neck standing up and your stomach doing tumble saultses, the way the ride moves, the propulsion felt was worse than any real life roller coaster he'd ever braved to partake. Travel Ape really is a pain in the back rear when it comes to giving away to many secrets of fun he'd like to have his friends try, but what he did say was that if you've ever seen one of those centrifuge machines they have in movies where astronauts are training, I'd have a pretty decent idea of one of the things I'd be getting myself into by going on the ride. The final assessment was he'd never come close to feeling like he was about to vomit, but by the end of the ride, had it gone just 5 more seconds, that would have inevitably happened. A glowing endorsement or a stark warning I still can't tell. All I can say is that if you are an action junky and love rides that get the hair on the back of your neck standing up and your stomach doing tumble saults