Land of the Rising Mickey
Page 9 of 13

Lost River Delta

Temple of the Crystal Skull
(c) Disney
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Lush with hundreds of gnarled full-sized trees covered in vines, this enveloping environment gave me the believable impression of a long established Central American rain forest. The effect created by the large trees is further enhanced by the many young saplings intermixed with them, creating an authentically accurate ecosystem.

The numerous "rusted" and ramshackle corrugated metal structures of Lost River Village do more than transport one to this mythical 1930s encampment. Their various "aged" color schemes successfully create what I find to be a surprisingly attractive and intriguing artistic impression.

(c) Disney
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The dark and busy river gives the area a feeling of activity, fleshing out its theme as recently discovered remote archeological site that's in the process of being over-run by fortune hunters.

Cast Members throughout the area take the theme another step further by peppering their comments and spiels with Spanish words and phrases.  It really caught me off-guard! It's great! :)

Last, but not least, there's the massively imposing and beautifully elaborate Temple of the Crystal Skull -

Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull
Fastpass Attraction

(c) Disney
It's the fully realized Indy... and much more.
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I've considered Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland in California the finest example of a cutting edge theme park attraction ever since the first time I rode it. Even after repeated rides on Islands of Adventure's Spiderman, an outstanding and more recent attraction which many feel takes the top spot from Indy, my vote still went to Indy at Disneyland.

So, when I ride Temple of the Crystal Skull at DisneySea, an attraction which follows the exact same course, features an identical line-up of scenes (with one exception and just insert the Crystal Skull in place of Mara), uses the same soundtrack, and provides the same amount of motion as the current ("turned down") Temple of the Forbidden Eye, yet features nothing but fully rendered, highly detailed three dimensional scenes (no painted boards), a surprising multitude of additional, extremely impressive, new effects, all following a queue which is different, but on at least even par with its older brother at Disneyland (that's saying quite a bit), I'm left with a run on sentence that only begins to describe what an astronomically mind-blowing attraction this is.

(c) Disney
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Nothing more could be done... There's nowhere left to put it!!

Ride it! - again and again and again and again and again and...

Facts at a Glance

Backstory & Spoilers