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Your favourite "Disney rip-off" attraction?

Matt N

Matt N

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Hi guys. Disney are quite arguably one of the main trailblazers within the theme park industry, with them having invented many of the most popular ride concepts over the years. Naturally, this high status has meant that other parks have tried building attractions that emulate Disney's classic rides, with mixed results. Rightly or wrongly, these attractions are often coined "Disney rip-offs", but sometimes, they can often emulate the success of the source material pretty accurately! So my question to you today is; what is your favourite "Disney rip-off"? When has an attraction trying to emulate a popular Disney attraction done it really well, in your opinion?


I'll get the ball rolling with my nomination.


Now, I'll admit that whether or not this one is a Disney emulator per se is up for debate, but my vote goes to Flight of the Sky Lion at Legoland Windsor for this one. Now, the reason I suggest this one is because me and my parents both agreed that it bears a pretty striking resemblance to Animal Kingdom's Flight of Passage in many regards; many of the vistas you travel through look incredibly similar to the ones on FoP, and it even uses very similar smells! I'd say that it arguably seems similar enough in these regards that I'm not sure it was a coincidence... however, I think Flight of the Sky Lion executes the concept really rather well, personally, and if it had a few little extras (mainly some kind of SFX-based reaction to things that happen on-screen, such as squirts of water or blasts of hot air, as well as possibly 3D glasses), I honestly think it would come pretty close to FoP for me, personally! (That's my opinion, anyway)


But what Disney emulating attraction is your favourite?
 
Europa Park has a pretty good Haunted Mansion knock off, complete with stretching room. However the ride portion was very tired.

Sadly I visited a few months after Pirates in Batavia burnt down so can't comment on that.

After that the only other 'rip offs' I can think of are Space Mountain so...

Alton Towers Black Hole, hell they even gave it a very Jules Verne esque retheme.

BPBs Space Invader

Cedar Points Disaster Transport, complete with a very tired queue line, my visited coincided with its final ever day of operation. 'Welcome To Alaska' indeed.
 
Redone Pirates in Batavia is so good in my opinion that it destroys Pirates of the Caribbean. Evidence of the original knock off is still there, but Batavia now feels more like it's own thing. It really is superb.
 
Atlantis / Deep Sea Adventure at the Legoland Parks
Another debatable "rip-off" because saying any submarine ride is based on Disney's is a bit of a stretch. However as Disney are the only other company I can think of with a false submarine ride the comparison is clearly there.
Legoland's version is shorter and less story driven. But it does have real fish, which is a massive improvement on the concept.
 
I'd like to add Pirate Adventure at Drayton, another Pirates of the Carribbean-inspired ride. I have very fond memories of ridding the former when I was younger, and I still miss it now.
 
Can't believe I forgot this one..

Carnival Festival at Efteling is very much inspired by Disneys it's a small world. Even has an absolute earworm of a theme tune as well.
 
Skyscraper said:
I'd like to add Pirate Adventure at Drayton, another Pirates of the Carribbean-inspired ride. I have very fond memories of ridding the former when I was younger, and I still miss it now.
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Pirate Adventure and the Jungle Cruise (before Excalibur) at DM were probably two of the best Disney rip-offs in the UK. Chessington also had some good dark rides but I think Drayton were one of the best parks back in the 90s for offering something almost Disney style.
If you took the best of 90s Drayton and 90s Alton Towers you probably would get a UK Disneyland!
 
John_P said:
Can't believe I forgot this one..

Carnival Festival at Efteling is very much inspired by Disneys it's a small world. Even has an absolute earworm of a theme tune as well.
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A good call... I enjoyed it just as much as IASW, although it is to a smaller scale. Arguably better, but it's pretty much an equal to me.

Chessington has Zufari, which is a nice ride, but doesn't come close to the Animal Kingdom original.

There are many Big Thunder Mountains, but nothing comes close to DLPs version.

Legoland cars are much superior to the Autopia "originals", as they have options.0
 
Actually, would any of the MACK mine train rides such as our very own RMT count as rip offs for BTM?

Come to think of it, almost every well themed runaway train ride can all trace their roots to BTM.
 
Before the Internet it was a lot harder to research theme parks in other countries, so I suppose Disney often were the parks the industry went to for inspiration. But Arrow was building mine trains before Disney, starting with the original at Six Flags Over Texas. Disney bought a whole new level of scale and theming to the concept, but I don’t know whether it’s necessarily fair to say that any Mine Train’s a Big Thunder rip off. Particularly as the powered mine trains do feel quite different to the more traditional ones.

Also, I think there are some concepts that are fairly obvious ideas that one park or another was bound to use at some point. Having roller coaster vehicles themed to trains and cars seems like such an obvious thing to do, I don’t think anyone can really claim to have come up with it. It’s like in comedy no one can really say they came up with an individual pun. There are certain obvious ideas that are just waiting to be used.

I do agree though that the Paris version of Big Thunder Mountain is the ultimate Mine Train. It's a big budget well used. Having a ride on an island with the tunnels at either end works very well.
 
Somewhat of a 'What if' moment but Towers, had the original Port Discovery theming job that had been planned for X-Sector. Had gone ahead then it would have been one of the best rip off jobs ever done based of a Disney ride/area.

IIRC, it was unashamedly heavily inspired from Discoveryland at DLP though I'm kinda torn about it now happening. On one hand I'm glad we did get something different with X-Sector albeit Black Hole had some of the theming added yet I do love Steampunk themed areas and there should be more of them.

Who knows though, many past ideas at Towers do see the light of day such as SW1 duelling feature turning into Smiler or the long awaited woodie that finally saw the light of day, maybe we will see the concept make a return? Personally I would have like to see that transform CCL instead of World of David Walliams with the addition of the indoor coaster but that's just me...
 
I'd pick Los Piratas at Bellewaerde, pretty much Pirate Adventures sister ride, and made by the same people, although better personally and has more Original ideas and was maintained much better. Probably my favourite Pirate dark ride to exist in Europe outside of the remastered Piraten en Batavia (which looks like phenomenonal.) Shame it was shut back in 2012.
 
Trooper Looper said:
Probably my favourite Pirate dark ride to exist in Europe outside of the remastered Piraten en Batavia (which looks like phenomenonal.)
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Paris' Pirates?
I would say that my favourite 'Disney rip off' attraction would be Piraten in Batavia, although I have never ridden it (or been to Europa yet).
 
zeock said:
Paris' Pirates?
I would say that my favourite 'Disney rip off' attraction would be Piraten in Batavia, although I have never ridden it (or been to Europa yet).
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Paris' looks fine, but it's just another copy of the original ride. I just prefer the more unique ones like mentioned above. I wouldn't call Piraten In Batavia a 'rip off'. The only thing it shares with common with Pirates of the Caribbean is that its a Pirate themed boat ride, the scenes are completely different, and it's set in Indonesia instead of the Caribbean.
 
Speaking of Bellewarde I very much enjoyed their Jungle Cruise rip off when I visited last summer.

And Cedar Points actor led Snake River Expedition which again is Jungle Cruise inspired (but on actual real boats).

And Six Flags Over Texas had the enjoyable Pirates of Speelunker Cave which takes inspiration from the Pirates rides.
 
John_P said:
Speaking of Bellewarde I very much enjoyed their Jungle Cruise rip off when I visited last summer.

And Cedar Points actor led Snake River Expedition which again is Jungle Cruise inspired (but on actual real boats).

And Six Flags Over Texas had the enjoyable Pirates of Speelunker Cave which takes inspiration from the Pirates rides.
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Ooh, I love pirates of Speelunker Cave!! I've not gone on it, but it really gives off a classic dark ride feel from the videos I've seen, shame that the battle segment is really disappointing and has barely any moving props on it. The props are really good though.
 
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