Overview
- Soarin’ Across America opened at Disney California Adventure on July 2 as a limited-time re-theme tied to the company’s Disney Celebrates America program.
- Walt Disney Imagineering limited the film to 12 featured aerial scenes that aim to represent the country’s regions, a selection approach Tom Fitzgerald summarized as trying to go “from sea to shining sea.”
- The relaunch includes a new musical arrangement by composer Bruce Broughton and keeps Soarin’s signature technologies such as the dome screen, motion simulation, wind effects and scent elements to heighten the ride experience.
- An interactive queue game called Soarin’ Challenge Across America, developed with National Geographic and accessed by QR code, will begin for guests waiting in line on July 16 and offers state-themed trivia and a digital leaderboard.
- Soarin’s return follows the ride’s 2001 debut as Soarin’ Over California and its 2016 re-theme to Soarin’ Around the World, and Disney is using this nostalgia-driven, limited offering and wider patriotic events to encourage summer attendance during the 250th celebrations.