Disney’s Politically Charged Ride Launch Faces 3 Growing Complaints

The first people through Soarin' Across America have spoken and the consensus is more complicated than Disney probably wanted heading into the public opening.

Cast member previews have run at EPCOT and the reactions circulating across social media have coalesced around three specific criticisms that keep coming up regardless of who is doing the reviewing. Annual Passholder preview days are scheduled for May 19th and 20th, with Disney Vacation Club member access on May 21st, and the public opening on May 26th.

Disneyland Resort gets the film on July 2nd. But the cast member preview feedback is already shaping how guests are approaching this attraction, and it is worth understanding what they are saying before you set your expectations.

First, what the ride actually is. The film begins with an Artemis II rocket launch from Kennedy Space Center that sends guests into the clouds before transitioning into a sweep across American landscapes.

The flight covers the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline, the Maine coast and Portland Head Light lighthouse, the National Mall and Washington Monument, a Louisiana bayou, the Great Plains, Mount Rushmore, Diamond Head in Waikiki with a hibiscus scent, and the Los Angeles skyline including the Griffith Observatory and Hollywood Sign. The finale brings guests back to EPCOT, where Spaceship Earth is wrapped in a projection of the American flag with fireworks forming eagle shapes, stars, and a hidden Mickey in the sky.

The queue inside The Land Pavilion received a refresh with brighter blue LED lighting and new carpet. A new interactive trivia game called The Soarin' Challenge Across America, developed with National Geographic, was added. Patrick Warburton returns in the pre-show as a character called Captain Patrick for a new comedic safety briefing. These additions have landed well. What happens after the hang gliders go up is where the feedback gets complicated.

The Three Criticisms That Keep Coming Up

The first is the transitions. Anyone who rode Soarin' Around the World regularly knows what a Soarin' transition feels like: a plane cuts across the frame to carry you into the next scene, a wave washes in, the seat moves to match the shift. Those physical and visual transitions are the mechanism that makes the ride feel like continuous flight rather than a series of large images. Soarin' Across America pulls back on them significantly.

The result is a ride that guests are describing as disjointed, where scenes feel more like separate episodes than connected moments in a single journey. The version is clearly designed to be quieter and more peaceful than its predecessors, but for guests who came in expecting that sense of kinetic movement, the lack of transitions is a noticeable gap.

The second is the scent situation. Scent has always been one of the things that separates Soarin' from every other large-format film experience in the parks. The orange groves, the sea air, the pine, the moments where you smell where you are before you fully register where the image has taken you. Soarin' Across America has three scents across the entire film: fresh grass over the prairie, earthy swamp in Louisiana, and hibiscus in Hawaii.

Three is a significant reduction from what previous versions offered across their runtimes, and the gaps between scented moments are felt by guests who were expecting the sensory throughline that earlier versions provided.

The third criticism is the hardest one to dismiss. In social media discussions following the cast member previews, Soarin' Over California, the original 2001 opening day attraction at Disney California Adventure, is repeatedly being cited as still the best version of this ride.

Not the most geographically expansive or the most technically updated. The best. Full stop. For a new version released 25 years later with all the technology advances of that quarter century behind it, the consistent absence of guests saying Soarin' Across America has become their new favorite is a problem worth naming directly.

The Political Reception Adds Another Layer

Separate from the ride mechanics, Soarin' Across America has run into a polarized reception that its predecessors never had to navigate.

The specific creative choices in the film have generated sustained online debate. The inclusion of Mount Rushmore, which carries genuine cultural complexity in American history, and Branson, Missouri, a city with specific cultural associations, have been read by a portion of the Disney fan community as intentional signals rather than neutral geographical choices.

The finale image of Spaceship Earth entirely wrapped in an American flag has drawn the sharpest reaction. Spaceship Earth was designed to symbolize global communication, shared human progress, and universal connection. The choice to cover it with a national flag at the climax of a patriotic American celebration reads as a meaningful departure from what the structure represents, and a vocal contingent of guests is saying so publicly.

The nickname “Soarin' Over MAGA” has emerged from social media discussions and spread widely enough to be part of the conversation before the public opening. The ride was designed as a bipartisan celebration of America's 250th birthday through the Disney Celebrates America initiative. The gap between that intent and the reception some guests are bringing to it is real and it is not going away before May 26th.

Walt Disney Imagineering was given a task that may have been structurally impossible: create a universally resonant celebration of American identity in an era when almost no cultural symbol is politically neutral. The early reviews suggest the attempt produced something that pleases some guests and alienates others, which is the opposite of what the Soarin' format has historically done.

What to Know Before Your EPCOT Visit

Soarin' Across America will draw significant wait times when it opens to the public on May 26th. New attractions and attraction resets always generate elevated initial demand, and the conversation around this one will drive additional curiosity from guests who want to form their own opinion.

The Annual Passholder preview days on May 19th and 20th will be the next significant wave of public feedback. If the cast member preview criticisms hold across a larger sample size of riders, those reviews will sharpen the picture before the public opening. If the experience lands better with general audiences than it did with the enthusiast community, the early reviews may prove to be less predictive than they appear right now.

Guests riding at or around the opening should go in knowing what the cast member previews described: fewer transitions, fewer scents, a more explicitly patriotic framing, and a finale that has generated strong reactions in both directions. Whether that adds up to an experience you love depends on what you are looking for when you sit down in that hang glider.

Before your EPCOT visit around the Soarin' Across America opening, check fresh guest reviews from the Annual Passholder preview days on May 19th and 20th. Those responses will give you the clearest pre-opening picture of how the general Disney audience is reacting to the ride. Our EPCOT guide has current attraction information and will be updated with guest feedback as the opening approaches.