Disneyland Review: Toy Story Midway Mania!

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Fun take on classic midway style games that is addictively fun.

Cons: The lines, but then again that's true of any ride worth doing.

The Bottom Line:

Pop balloons, break plates

Ring aliens all without

Leaving this fun ride

Step Right Up and Enjoy This Awesome Interactive Attraction

I'll admit, when I first heard the premise behind Toy Story Midway Mania! I wasn't excited.  True, it sounded like fun, but I had no idea just how fun it would turn out to be.

This attraction opened in 2008 in California Adventure.  It's located at the back of the park in the middle of the Paradise Pier area.  In fact, the track for California Screaming goes right over the building.

Be prepared to wait a while if you want to ride.  Even a year after it has opened, you can expect to wait.  And wait.  A short line is 40 minutes.  (Of course, last summer, the line was at least 90 minutes, so they are getting better.)  There is no fast pass option.  When you first get in line, you walk right in front of a carnival barker Mr. Potato Head.  He's an animatronics figure that interacts slightly with the audience as they walk by.  I've got to admit, he's fun.  Unfortunately, that's the only pre-show entertainment.  For the rest of the line, you are wandering in and out and all around outside.  There are umbrellas provided for shade, but that's about it.

As you near the front of the line, you pick up your 3-D glasses.  When it comes time to board, you are loaded into the ride carts.  It's two people per side, four to a vehicle, back to back.  As you move from game to game, your vehicle will spin around, but at the games themselves, you sit in one spot.  There is no official height limit, but kids should be old enough to understand the games to fully enjoy the ride.

And make no mistake about it, this is a game.  Or really a series of games.  In the front of your ride cart is a cannon with a string.  You use that to point and shoot at the 3-D image in front of you.  As you might expect from the attraction title, these games are replicates of classic midway games.  The big change is they are hosted by your favorite characters from the Toy Story movies.

Up first is a scoreless practice game.  Here, you are shooting pies at targets held by Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Rex, and Jessie.  Every few seconds, the characters move the target, which helps you learn how to aim.  To shoot, all you have to do is aim the cannon in front of you and pull the string.  The faster you do it, the more you shoot.  And the higher you aim, the further it goes.  The best part is that, unlike traditional midway games, you get unlimited ammunition.

Now that you have a feel for how things work, you head to the five official games.  Up first is the Hamm & Eggs Toss (tossing eggs at moving targets hosted by Hamm the piggy bank).  Next used to be Bo Peep's Baaaa-loon toss (throwing darts at balloons), but after Toy Story 3 came out, they re-themed it to be dinosaur related as hosted by Rex and Trixie.  The Green Army Men host a Throwing Camp where you toss baseballs to break plates.  You can ring an alien in Buzz Lightyear's Flying Tossers (ring toss).  Finally comes Woody's Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gallery where you shoot suction darts at targets.  The more targets you shoot here, the more, higher targets appear.

Now they claim that no two games are alike.  Honestly, the action on our end is pretty much the same on every game.  You aim and pull the string, trying to hit targets of varying point values.  Every level has some moving targets that are worth mega points.  I've also heard rumors that every level includes some hidden items that can really increase your score.  I haven't found them yet, but I still have plenty of fun.

The game play is fairly realistic.  You get the hang of it very quickly and can fine tune your playing to hit the target you are aiming for.  As you would expect, the levels look very different (this is Disney, after all), and the characters provide some fun dialogue.  Heck, the whole premise is that we have shrunk down to the size of toys, and you go by stacks of classic board games as you first enter the ride.

But the real fun is aiming and shooting, trying to get your best score.  Not only do they keep track of score, but also accuracy.  In between games, they tell you how you scored on that game as well as your overall score.  After the final round (and the bonus round), they keep your score secret until you get to the prize booth.  There, you find out if you or your friend won, and you see what prize you got.  Okay, so it's a virtual prize, but they are designed to look like the stuffed animals you would win on the midway of old.

I have never timed how long you spend at each stage along the way.  I'm having way too much fun playing.  I would guess it's somewhere in the minute range.  If the cars ahead of you are running a little slowly, the targets come back and you can keep shooting until your car moves ahead.  Unfortunately, none of the items have point values (so this isn't an opportunity to gain extra points), but you do get to keep aiming for targets, refine your skills, and have fun while you are waiting to move on to the next game.

Every time I ride this attraction, it is over all too soon.  But it is also worthy every minute of the wait.  Everyone I know who has been on the ride has loved it and wants to go back on it again as soon as we get off.  So maybe the lines won't get shorter any time soon.

Next time you are at California Adventure, be sure to check out Toy Story Midway Mania!  It is well worth the wait.