Thoughts About the Mary Poppins "Flat Ride" Rumor...

WDWNT has posted today an article about a rumor of a Mary Poppins "spinner flat ride" coming at Epcot World Showcase United Kingdom pavilion. That could be a simple carousel but apparently not a full dark ride as we could have hoped - and should be done.

According to WDWNT the ride would likely replace the garden and bandstand area towards the back of the existing pavilion. Sure, they can always add a carousel near the U.K pavilion but that sounds a bit of a lazy idea to me. Then i reminded an old ride system that guests of Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation can always do, and it's this horse ride where you're sit on a wooden horse mounted on suspensions which move on a track around the garden.

Now, think about the horse race in the original Mary Poppins. You could have this moving around an english garden near the pavilion and going through some famous Mary Poppins scene and characters like the Penguins, etc... and eventually going inside a show building for a few seconds, etc... Sure, it's a ride system at least 60 years old, so nothing revolutionary here, but it could work with the traditional spirit of the U.K and could fit the theme of the Mary Poppins era. One problem, though: Florida weather, as when it will rain the ride will need to be stopped as guests will be soaked... Not sure too about the capacity per hour which apparently is of 200/250 Guests per hour at the Jardin d'Acclimatation...




There is surely better things to do for a Mary Poppins attraction, but i thought that if they don’t want to spend money on a big Mary Poppins ride - big mistake in my opinion - then this traditional horse ride would be better than a regular Carousel. I thought too about having guests sit at the start in a carousel from which the horses would « escape » like in the movie, and it surely would be even better...



...and it's at that point that i remembered that D23 had posted a great video with Disney Legend and Imagineer Tony Baxter in which Tony shares a great concept of a never realized Mary Poppins attraction that he designed a long time ago, even before he entered Walt Disney Imagineering - still called WED at that time. Here is the video with Tony presenting the concept, don't miss it!





Truth is that there is tons of things to do with Mary Poppins and with such great songs and music it’s a shame it has not been done already...let's wait and see if this rumor becomes real or not!

Pictures and video: copyright Disney, Disney and more