One of America’s newest thrill attractions takes visitors on a high-speed runaway train adventure through the Himalayas, leading to an encounter with the legendary yeti.
The ride, Expedition Everest at Walt Disney World Resort, provides chills and thrills for Disney’s Animal Kingdom guests, but you wouldn’t dare call it a “roller coaster.”
You definitely don’t want to use the “c” word-coaster-around Joe Rohde, Executive Designer and Vice President, Creative, for Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), who, with other Imagineers, spent years researching the legend of the yeti to add authenticity to the attraction’s storyline.
“Expedition Everest is not like a roller coaster in the traditional sense,” Rohde says. “It’s so much more than that. While it is an intense thrill ride, the story this ride tells is as important-if not more important-as any dip, spin or drop.
“Walt Disney always said that ‘story is everything,’ and that’s the credo we live by at WDI,” Rohde adds. “Expedition Everest is a testament to the lengths Imagineers will take to make...