Mickey Mouse has never had his own theme park ride and now Disney is going full speed ahead on bringing an attraction featuring their beloved corporate icon into more Disney Parks around the world.
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is already set to open in 2019 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort, but Disney is expected to announce soon that the ride will also be coming to Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. This will be the park’s next big addition following the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in the Summer of 2019.
Disney is expected to make the announcement around Mickey and Minnie’s 90th birthdays on November 18th, specifically at the D23 Destination D event in Florida. The event already has a scheduled presentation about the new ride featuring Disney Imagineers, and either that presentation or the opening keynote by Parks and Resorts Chairman Bob Chapek will be the venue for the reveal. Well, I guess we already revealed it, but at least officially it will happen during one of those events.
As for where in Disneyland Park the ride will sit, you can stop worrying if you were expecting a large amount of Toontown to be demolished. Luckily, Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin and Gadget’s Go Coaster aren’t going anywhere. Disneyland cast members will probably be less enthused about this news as the ride is being built mostly backstage, behind Mickey’s Toontown. The building for “Marceline West” (the project name of Runaway Railway, simply called “Marceline” here in Florida) would take the place of “N19” (the main entertainment department building) and the park’s current fireworks launch point. It is unknown where the entertainment department will be moving, but we are already expecting more projection-heavy fireworks shows at Disneyland in 2019, with the newest show only having pyrotechnics on weekends and projections-only on weekdays starting early next year. More on that at a later date…
The only Toontown establishment leaving will be the Gag Factory shop, which will come the entrance to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. We don’t know when construction will begin or when this shop will close, but we expect early next year.
If you want to learn more about the upcoming Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, please check out our breakdown of every scene in the ride.
Of course, none of this has been confirmed by the Walt Disney Company as of yet and things can certainly change, but we don’t expect that to happen, with only a few weeks left until the formal announcement.
Way to to boost my attendance Bob. Destroy my identity and replace everything that made me unique with rides cloned elsewhere (Galaxy’s Edge, Toy Story Mania, now Mickey and Minnie’s). Excuse me while I fill Echo Lake with my tears.
At least you’re a theme park and not an emotionally stunted visitor who would rather whine and complain about changes than find something new to do with his time and money.
Awesome response Sulley!
You still have rock’n roller coaster and tower of terror
Let’s just clone everything. Its good practice for when we want to make more Chapeks
Apparently Disney just can’t win with some people… if they create new, original attractions, people complain how long it takes for the attraction to open… if they clone attractions to speed up the development & opening process, people complain about that, too…
Like a glove, it fits perfectly in Toon Town. I don’t know why anyone would complain. There taking out just meaningless filler and keeping the other 2 attractions.
This ride fits better in Toon Town. Although I was looking forward to having a special ride at WDW. I miss the GMR.
Florida is used to getting everything California gets, So happy we finally get something out of Disney World! No complaints here.. :)
If the fireworks launch site is going to be removed for the building, it must be significantly larger than the rendering, as the launch site is to the northwest of the location mentioned.
Any time they want to clone rides in development is alright with me, spread some budget over 2 parks rather then cutting the budget of a single park ride.