Space Mountain with the lights on?

August 28, 2006 10:47 AM

Disneyfilter: What does Space Mountain look like with the lights on?

Any Disney experts out there know what space mountain looks like with the lights on? I have no sense of the shape of it while hurling around on it, and I have become very curious about what it looks like.

Does anyone have a picture? If not, can anyone describe it?

Thanks!

posted by Sheppagus to travel & transportation (14 comments total)

http://images.google.com/images?q=space+mountain
posted by trevyn at 10:51 AM on August 28, 2006

There are a few pictures here; not particularly good, I'm afraid.
posted by TedW at 10:52 AM on August 28, 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUdfR1OKUJE
posted by amber_dale at 10:53 AM on August 28, 2006

Another good search engine
posted by designbot at 10:53 AM on August 28, 2006

Ancedotally, I've heard the ride is a lot scarier with the lights on due to the track coming very close to the various track supports. I've heard similiar things about the Flight of Fear rides at King's Island and King's Dominion.
posted by mmascolino at 12:06 PM on August 28, 2006

I'll see if my husband still has our video and pictures from our trip on the TTA through Space Mountain with the lights on. It was somewhat of a letdown to see the tracks and all, but I wasn't particularly freaked out at the loops or spacing.
posted by hollygoheavy at 12:37 PM on August 28, 2006

About four years ago I was on Space Mountain and it just....slowed....then....stopped. We all sat there in the dark for a few seconds, with the lights flashing all around us, thinking it was a new weird part of the ride, then an alarm sounded and all the lights came on. You know what it looked like? Really fucking dirty. I mean really, really, worse than under a teenager's bed dirty, every corner had piles of dust and cobwebs and there was crap everywhere under the rides, stuff people had dropped that had no value, old dried-up splatters and puddles of God Knows What. Everything was coated in about a tenth of an inch of off-white dust.
After a minute or two some Disney reps very very carefully got us all off the ride and we had to march single-file to the exit, and then *sign a form* stating that we suffered no ill effects. Florida lawyer prevention I suppose. Then they gave us passes to let us go to the front of the line to ride it for the rest of the day. It wasn't as much fun after seeing all the dirt, though.
posted by pomegranate at 12:52 PM on August 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the answers.

I did, of course, google it. I looked at the partial/dark/blurry photos and was hoping for some more information.

I really appreciate the first person stories. That is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks!
posted by Sheppagus at 1:41 PM on August 28, 2006

I agree with pomegranate. I was stuck on the ride in about 1988 -- it just all of a sudden stopped, and we were stuck wherever the cars happened to stop, so I was hanging sideways for about 45 minutes. It looked like the inside of a warehouse, or someone's basement. Lots of brown, lots of dust. And yes, it was weird seeing how close the tracks were to the wall -- in the dark it seems a lot more expansive.
posted by mothershock at 1:57 PM on August 28, 2006

Weird. I got stuck on it in 1988 also, at grad night. I don't really remember very well what it looked like, though. It looked like a roller coaster inside a domed building.
posted by jlub at 6:17 PM on August 28, 2006

Sheppagus, I got to see the inside of it on my honeymoon to Walt Disney World, which was 11+ years back, so I can't really recollect much. I can, however, give you the technique to see it for yourself.

We honeymooned the first week of January, which was a maintenance time for Space Mountain. Neither of us cared, as we're not roller coaster people. We did like the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, though - it's a nice place to rest, almost never any sort of line, and you get to see Tomorrowland at a leisurely pace. Plus, it goes through Space Mountain. With the ride closed, all the lights were on, so one could get a pretty good look. The reason the pictures suck is because there were big plexiglass shields between us and the ride. Flash pictures reflected, and non-flash pictures didn't turn out great.

Your best sources for people with pictures are probably the nice folks at rec.arts.disney.parks. Lots of frequent visitors there.
posted by booksherpa at 7:33 PM on August 28, 2006

Ack! Hit Post instead of Preview. A good source for finding out when rides are closed is All Ears Net and their Rehabs and Closures page. Actually, they're my favorite source for most Disneyworld stuff.

Why yes, I'm a fan of WDW. Why do you ask? :)
posted by booksherpa at 7:38 PM on August 28, 2006

jlub -- the night I got stuck was at grad night, too! Maybe we were stuck on the same coaster... spooky!
posted by mothershock at 8:54 PM on August 28, 2006

I got stuck on Space Mountain in 1998. I'd agree with posters above. When the lights came on, all it looked like was a big room with lots of dusty tracks. However, it sort of scared me to see that it was a real coaster -- I'd never been nervous on the ride. The whole "Disney is pure" thing had brainwashed me and I didn't really think of Space Mountain as a roller coaster. Seeing it in the light made me realize it was just as "scary" as other non-loop-de-loop coasters.
posted by acoutu at 9:41 PM on August 28, 2006