Disneyland California finally has a Mickey and Minnie ride

Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway at Disneyland. (Disneyland Resort)

At long last, after 68 years, there is now a Mickey Mouse-themed ride attraction at Disneyland Resort in California.

The world’s original Disney theme park in Anaheim officially opened Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in late January, as part of the year-long “Disney100” celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Walt Disney Company.

It is located within the Toontown land, which also just marked its 30th-anniversary last month, and is now at the tail end of an intensive redevelopment with reimagined and expanded space.

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Toontown’s new signature ride is the second Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in existence, following the tracks of the first ride that opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida in March 2020, just days before the pandemic’s sudden onset.

Guests board a multi-car vehicle that looks just like a normal train for a whimsical adventure through a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but things quickly go off the rails literally, with Mickey and Minnie taking a long detour to reach their “perfect picnic.”

The attraction immerses riders into Mickey’s cartoon world using physical sets, audio-animatronic figures, animated media, and projection mapping.

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Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disneyland. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

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Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disneyland. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

In an interview with Daily Hive during a recent press event at Disneyland, Walt Disney Imagineering Senior Creative Director Jonathan Friday said the trackless ride technology has four different paths, and riders never know exactly where their vehicle is going to go, with the “train cars” rearranging in every scene of the ride.

This latest trackless ride technology can also be found on Rise of the Resistance (Disneyland and Magic Kingdom), Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (Epcot), and Mystic Manor (Hong Kong Disneyland).

While the California ride concept is fundamentally the same as the ride found in Disney World, there are some clear differences.

Friday said nearly all of the space used by the California version of the ride was previously used for backstage facilities, enabling a purpose-built ride building constructed from the ground up. In contrast, the original ride at Hollywood Studios Park replaced The Great Movie Ride contained inside the park’s centrepiece replica of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, with the building retained and hollowed out for the Mickey ride.

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Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disneyland. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

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Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disneyland. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Guests start their queue for the ride at Disneyland Park by entering Toontown’s “El Capitoon Theatre,” which is a play on Los Angeles’ El Capitan Theater.

Compared to the version found at Hollywood Studios Park, the queue area at Disneyland Park is drastically improved, mimicking a “Mickey Through The Ears” historical exhibit put together by the “Toontown Hysterical Society.” Expect a showcase of “real” props, costumes, and movie posters from the world of Mickey and Minnie and their friends, as well as ample Easter eggs — even in the tiny popcorn of the faux theatre concession stand.

Then on March 8, following a year-long construction closure, Toontown beyond the El Capitoon Theatre will officially fully reopen following the completion of its redevelopment, featuring more open green space for the kids, a Walt Disney-inspired “dreaming tree,” illuminated active fountains, and a pond for Donald Duck, which fittingly celebrates his bad luck with a boat that floods inside out.