Mickey Madness About This Page:

[ilovedisney247]

An interesting concept was pulled out by the WDWToday podcast crew in Mid March. The guys broke the headliner attractions at WDW into Final Four type brackets and at the moment have debated the attractions down to their Final Four. I actually sat down while I was eating dinner tonight and wrote down the brackets and went through it myself to see what rides are really my favorites:

This is what they started with

1. Safari__________________ _________________1. Splash Mountain
vs ______________________________________________vs
4. Rockin Roller Coaster________________________ 4. Spaceship Earth

2. Toy Story_________________________________2. Soarin
vs_________________________________________vs
3. Test Track ________________________________3. Big Thunder Mountain

1. Space Mountain____________________________1. Everest
vs________________________________________vs
4. Finding Nemo the Musical ____________________ 4. Fantasmic

2. Illuminations ______________________________2. Tower of Terror
vs___________________________________________vs
3. Festival of the Lion King ______________________3. Haunted Mansion
(The underscore is just there for formatting purpose)
They are down to their Final Four which is: Toy Story v Illuminations and Splash v Haunted Mansion.

When I went through and filled it out my final four was Safari, Soarin, Everest, and Illuminations, with Illuminations and Everest being the two things at WDW that I cannot do without, Illuminations ultimately takes the cake for me!

Run the brackets down! What do you come up with as your Champion?

[lauriep]

I only came up with a final three because all of the choices in the third grouping are not anywhere near my top tier. Final 3: Safari, Toy Story (VERY close between this and Soarin'!), and Illuminations. For me, too, Illuminations wins hands down. If one of the others were closed down during my trip it would be ok, but I HAVE to do Illuminations!

[Lub]

My final four were Splash Mountain, Rockin Rollercoaster, ToT, Big Thunder.
Champion was RR with Big Thunder being very close.

[chezp]

I can only come up with three as well if I'm honest: Safari, Test Track and IllumiNations and, of that, IllumiNations is the hands down winner.

[shnewell]

That is tough! (And, wow, I'm far behind on my podcast listening!).

My final four were RnR, Soarin, Illuminations and ToT. It is nearly an impossible choice, but if forced to pick one, I think Illuminations is the champion.

[jlhill4444]

I would say my final four would be Soarin', Wishes, Space Mt., and Safari.

I would have to say that Wishes is my ultimate favorite, and I cannot miss it. I usually watch is most nights, even if from a beach or my room. Soarin' is a very close second!

[KMB733]

My final four were Safari, Soarin, Everest, Haunted Mansion. It's a tough choice, but I'd have to go with Haunted Mansion. It's a classic!!

[Dave Marx]

I guess it's all in fun, but the initial pairings and seedings are so arbitrary, what follows hardly matters. The results could be completely different if pairings and seedings got changed around even a bit. With sports tournaments, the teams'/players' performance during the season is a strong determinant - not so here.

There are certainly other attractions missing from the list that are as popular or more popular than some on the list (Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Star Tours, Wishes... Great Movie Ride may be more popular that Spaceship Earth...). The brackets could have been set up to have a final showdown between thrill rides and gentle rides/shows (thrill rides in one division, non-thrill in the other division). They went with (in one exception - IllumiNations vs. Festival of the Lion King) thrill vs. non-thrill in each of the initial match-ups. To be consistent (8 thrill vs. 8 non-thrill) I'd have pitted Star Tours against either IllumiNations or FotLK, since it's closer to a thrill ride. However, if one non-thrill had to come out to make room for another thrill, neither of those qualify as the weakest non-thrill of the bunch (Spaceship Earth, as far as I'm concerned).

I'm not saying my approach is better than theirs - each simply stacks the deck in a different manner. One settles the thrill/non-thrill issue with each individual match-up, the other saves it for the end.