Alien Ride - Am I remembering correctly

[P13]

Oh my gosh...when we were there about 10yrs ago our friend took his kids on the allien ride (they were abour 9 &12) our DD was only 4,too little to ride...anyway, his kids were so scared & mad at their dad, they didn't talk to him the rest of the day!! They talked to him through myself & husband
We still talk about it today & the kids now are 21 & 25!

 

[Planogirl]

I liked the original Alien Encounter but then I enjoy scary things. The current attraction is just lame.

 

[minnie mouse ears]

I LOVED Alien Encounter! However, I don't like the stitch ride at all. I really wanted to like Stitch since Alien Encounter was so fun but I just couldn't. A lot of people on the board think that Stitch is the worst ride in Disney. I definately wouldn't go that far as I think Journey into the Imagination holds that card but it is just not fun.

 

[BillSears]

AE was great. I loved Skippy. Tim Curry stole the show as S.I.R. he was fantastic!

Now it's just someplace to go cool off for a bit.

 

[Disneyholic]

We went on AE our first trip when DS was 10. It was a very intense ride. You really were lead to believe that something had gone terribly wrong & that this creature was wandering around the theatre intent on eating anything & everything. There was a CM up in the ceiling telling you everything would be OK and then the lights went out, he screamed and you were sprayed with what you were supposed to think was his blood. The whole ride DS was crushing my hand. When we got outside I could see he was pure white from fear. My hand took a while for the blood to get back in. I asked how he enjoyed it and he said it was OK. I asked if he wanted to go in again and he said NO! Two years later we did go again, but we knew what to expect, so it wasn't so bad. ( and back then the line que twisted around the side of the theatre before you even got anywhere near the front of the building. I think we stood in line over an hour in August heat. And there were NO fastpasses then either.)

Disney does have a way of making things very believable. Remember the elevator at the living seas. People even swore their ears popped from going down so far, LOL. All you really did was get in the front of the elevator and it shook a little & then the back door opened to let you into the show area.

 

[Marshel]

The problem with the ride was that despite the many warning signs stating that it was a scary, dark ride, many adults underestimated how scary it could be to children who were too young to appreciate the dark humor associated with it. It had a nominal height restriction due to the restraints, but it wasn't enough to keep younger kids out of it. It was one of very few rides that Michael Eisner had a hand in the development of; one of the reasons it was so intense was that Eisner didn't think the initial version debuted for him was scary enough. When seen with the right audience it was scary, but quite humorous with lots of great humorous touches: the afore mentioned scene when the CM is eaten by the alien immediately after assuring the audience that everyone would be ok, the don't eat me, eat him line, the alien breathing down your neck, "if it can't be done with XS it probably shouldn't be done at all", Chairman: "I've been seized" Scientist: "Was it something you ate sir?" Chairman: "I've been seized with inspiration." They were probably wrong to try and place a Darkly humorous scary adult attraction in the middle of MK and it would have worked a lot better if they had figured out a way to keep kids who were too young for it away from it (although I will admit it was devlishly fun to watch the people entering the teleportation chamber and guess which parent had brought in the kid who was a little young and might freak out a little bit). As far as Disney is concerned the new ride is probably better for them,it's tied to a character with multiple films, it's kid friendly and even if they are getting complaints about it being lousy that's probably better than getting complaints about having the heck scared out their kid. As the previous poster mentioned, Disney is sometimes a little too good at suspending people's disbelief although I actually found the notion that people could believe that Disney was going to let an alien loose in the middle of the MK and let it eat guests a bit much.

 

[Squidgyness]

I may be the only child who LOVED that ride. Even as a little kid I thought it was awesome. Then again, if you had put me on a tiny rollercoaster, I would not have been a happy chap.

Guess it all boils down to personal preference. Still, I would love to have it back.

 

[Hoopfamily]

The Alien ride was great, I remember seeing grown men walking off that ride as pasty white as could be.

 

[MareSINY]

My father swore that some kid sitting behind him was spitting on him. We kept telling him that wasn't the case, it was the alien, but he refused to believe us.

 

[Swan4Me]

Yes, it is now Stitch's Great Escape . . .and still a lame attraction

Unfortunately-we did this last trip and that darn Stitch spat right in my FACE! It was nasty

 

[larryz]

annoying

LOL!

My favorite illusion in the ET ride was when the maintenance guy up on the catwalk got caught by the alien -- you'd see the flashlight moving around, then you'd hear a scream and a warm liquid would drip on you from above... lots of people were checking themselves out for red stains after that ride, I can tell you.

 

[heatherbynum]

It was there. I remember that ride. I was 12 at the time. I remember it kinda freaked me out LOL

 

[mesaboy2]

LOL!

My favorite illusion in the ET ride was when the maintenance guy up on the catwalk got caught by the alien -- you'd see the flashlight moving around, then you'd hear a scream and a warm liquid would drip on you from above... lots of people were checking themselves out for red stains after that ride, I can tell you.

That's probably not the only color.

 

[Invisable89]

Does anyone know when it was changed to be less intense? I rode it for the only time in late 2002 (i was 13 & my parents thought i was old enough by then) & i didn't think it was scary? I was more confused than anything. I remember everyone was fussing over me afterwards asking if i was okay, i was totally fine. I was (still am) really miffed they got rid of it.

 

[squirrel]

I took my cousins in 1999 and they were 9 and 11yrs old. They seemed to be fine after AE.

In 2009, I took my niece who loves Stitch. There is no way I let her see it at almost 6yrs, she wouldn't have gone on anything after that.

 

[Breyean]

Does anyone know when it was changed to be less intense? I rode it for the only time in late 2002 (i was 13 & my parents thought i was old enough by then) & i didn't think it was scary? I was more confused than anything. I remember everyone was fussing over me afterwards asking if i was okay, i was totally fine. I was (still am) really miffed they got rid of it.

I don't recall the exact year, but right after they changed it from Mission to Mars, which had previously been Mission to the Moon, they were testing it before the official opening. So probably in the mid to late 1990s.

We were there, luckily, and went in, not knowing anything about it. But there were CMs outside begging people to go in and try it, so we did. Our son was probably about 10-12 at the time.

To this day, we all agree that THAT time, before the official opening, when they were still testing effects and lines during the show, it was scarier than the one that eventually became the ride. Of course, it could just have been because it was our first time, but I know our son still repeats lines he remembers from that first time, because he was pretty scared, and those lines disappeared from the ride after that.

So you could be right. I agree it was at one time even scarier than the one that was there after the testing was done and it was toned down after that.

 

[frndshpcptn]

I worked on Alien Encounter for a summer as part of my College Program. LOVED it.

I was too afraid to sit in the show my first day - but they let me go through a show once with the lights on and I got over my fear. I got to be the CM in the ceiling (loved doing that part!) and had a GREAT time as part of that attraction.

I was really sad to see it close.

 

[MouseEarsForAll]

Doesn't Disney know about all these Stitch comments? You think the ride would've closed the year it opened!

 

[MouseEarsForAll]

Bump.

 

[awdwnut]

annoying

HOW TRUE!!!!!

awdwnut