This summer I got back to Disney World for the first time in over a decade, and my first time at a Disney park since I was in California in 2019. Much has changed, so here are my thoughts on the new rides in the parks.

Let's start with the great things about Disney World. Epcot's Guardians of the Galaxy ride is the best rollercoaster I have ever been on. As an indoor launch coaster with a few unique tricks and fun visuals this is a fantastic ride.

Another ride that combines a storyline with a bit of excitment is Splash Mountain. This ride has been overhauled to a Princess and the Frog theme. While I wished they had kept the old name, the new animatronics (and even the music) are great.

Another great new ride is the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. As a minetrain based rollercoaster with multiple lift hills it is easy to see this ride as a new version of Thunder Mountain. Seven Dwarfs improves upon the formula with a faster track layout and an impressive showroom in the middle.

Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is yet another great new ride. Despite the fact that I probably should have known better, I fell for every single trick that this ride pulled. The only downside is that it replaced The Great Movie Ride, which along with the backlot tour and Muppetvision represented a number of great rides missing from Hollywood Studios.

Disney's new Rise of the Resistance Star Wars ride might be the best ride in the park. It is the most impressive dark ride I have ever seen with new tricks around every corner.

Rise of the Resistance does a lot to improve the Star Wars area of the park which only had the Millennium Falcon ride open when I visited the California version in 2019. The Millennium Falcon ride isn't quite at the same level, but is much more enjoyable with a 15 minute wait instead of an hour. Also the next door Star Tours ride often has no wait at all, and while not quite as good as Rise, Star Tours is still a fanstastic ride.

While in Star Wars land I got to go into the cantina for a drink. I got a concoction that was bubbling so violently that I was warned by my server to hold onto it.

While I enjoyed having a fun drink, much of Disney's food is too inventive for it's own good. Too many food stands have a limited menu with nothing normal, and outside of Epcot's World Showcase it is too difficult to just grab a quick sandwich and be on your way.

Another place where Disney World is not as good as it used to be is that it now charges money for fastpasses. This moves it from being a crowd management system to a paid tier system. While I understand they want to make money it feel inherently unfair. This isn't a huge deal on high capacity rides like Space Mountain, but on some rides like Buzz Lightyear, and Frozen Ever After the non-surcharged lines were slowed to a crawl.

On the other hand Na'vi River Journey is the worst theme park ride I have ever seen. The only thing I can compare it to is Plymouth Rock, and even that doesn't require you to wait in a queue. I can not explain how much nothing there is to this ride. Disney has plenty of slow moving boat rides that are great, but they tell a story or have a fun song. This ride is more like if the Pirates of the Caribbean only had a single pirate.

This leaves the Pandora area of Animal Kingdom with just a single good ride, and is actually indicative of a problem that Disney has where they often build out a land but have very little to actually do there. This is also a little bit of an issue with their Star Wars area and throughout the World Showcase of Epcot.

One place that they have started to address the areas with more themeing than rides is in the French pavilion where they have added Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. This is an awesome and very unique ride that is nothing like anything that I've ever seen before.

Magic Kingdom is the only one of the four parks to have any parades, while we missed the daytime parade the night parade was fantastic.

Magic Kingdom has updated their fireworks show to add projection mapping onto the castle. While this looks very cool it encourages everyone to watch the show from main street, concentrating the crowds into one place.

In summary the five best rides are Rise of the Resistance, Guardians of the Galaxy, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Splash Mountain, and Expedition Everest. I can't wait to go again.