Its a Small World ride Disney World is a fun water ride located at Magic Kingdom Park in Fantasyland.
It offers the most enchanting boat ride that you can ever imagine. The boat tour plays the song The Happiest Cruise That Ever Sailed throughout the ride in different languages.
The short 10-minute ride takes you through the Seven Seaways Waterway. Fantastic sceneries and vivid images greet you as you tour through the seven continents.
Walt Disney wishes to convey that it is a small and simple world by the end of this magnificent ride. Dancing darlings greet you from every other corner as you enjoy your joy ride.
| Height | Any height |
| Age | Any age |
| Speed | Slow |
| Accessibility | Wheelchair accessible, audio description, handheld captioning |
| Guest Policies | Children to be supervised and accompanied by adults |
| Entry Hours | 9:00 am-9:30 pm |
History of Its a small world ride Disney world
Its a Small World ride Disney World was built for the New York World’s Fair (1964-65). Administered by Walt Disney, it supports the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
It gained a lot of attraction and was a popularly acclaimed site that year. Owing to its success, it opened up in Disneyland in the year 1966 on May 28.
The ride was recreated in 1971 at Walt Disney World Resort. As one of the opening day attractions, it has been recreated at various Disney parks ever since.
The brothers Robert and Richard Sherman wrote the song Its a Small World After All. It has been a timeless classic ever since and has been sung in different languages.
The dolls singing this famous earworm add to the glory of the ride. These dolls represent all the different places of the world.
Mary Blair owns the ride’s color palette and style. She is famous for her work for Disney’s Contemporary Resort. She designed the Grand Canyon there.
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How is the ride experience at It’s a small world ride?
The ride is all about colorful scenery and delightful sights with dolls singing in traditional costumes. The ride conveys a strong message of peace like Walt Disney always wanted.
The dolls are the star of the show because they represent different corners of the world, conveying how small the world is.
What are the Disney World rides like at Its a Small World?
Its a Small World ride Disney world has boats lined up for its passengers to ride on. The boats have hard benches with a back to support them. Each boat has five rows. Each row can hold from two to four guests depending on the size of each row. No safety restraints are added for the passengers. This is because the ride is tame.
Additionally, the spectacular ride is welcoming towards people in a wheelchair. There is a boat that is specially curated for people who use a wheelchair. Wheelchair users can sit on the board. However, ECV users need to transfer to a wheelchair to enjoy the boat ride.
Guests need to cross a small wall while entering and then step down to enter the ride.
They offer a FastPass for the ride. However, the wait time is usually a maximum of 30 minutes. Owing to this, one does not need FastPass.
The ride enjoys an indoor advantage. Therefore, the weather hardly ever interferes with enjoying the ride.
What are the best hours to visit?
Between 5 pm to 6 pm is a decent time which yields a waiting time of approximately 30 minutes. Visiting between 3 to 4 pm might give you a wait time of 25-35 minutes. The earlier you come, the less the amount of time you have to wait. We provide you with these estimates so that the next time you plan on visiting, you know what times you should opt for while planning a ride.
Virtual Rides
Disney has been keeping the fun alive for Its a Small World ride, even during the pandemic. They came up with 3-minute long virtual boat rides.Â
This ride starts from the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which goes to Shanghai Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, Disneyland Resort, and then back to Disneyland Paris again.
This virtual ride also has adorable creatures like Lilo and Stitch waiting to delight you. They also have Moana, Dory, Nemo, Marie, and a few other characters who make special appearances for the sake of this ride.
More information on the ride
According to reports, it took ten months to build the ride. The Imagineers were not happy with the deadline at hand. They thought it was an impossible task.
Even Fowler, famous for his ‘can do,’ said it was an impossible task. Joe Fowler is popular for those two words. When anyone asked him to do anything, he would always speak those words. However, even he believed at that point that building a ride on such short notice seemed like an unachievable task.
Despite such beliefs, Walt Disney had complete faith in himself. Therefore, he made Fowler meet Pepsi’s Board of Directors to straighten out a few details before starting the project.
Crawford, a board member having faith in Walt Disney’s views, shut the other board members down when they tried to derail the ride meeting. Ten minutes afterward, the project has everyone’s approval in the conference.
It’s a Small World that firmly had its roots in its illustrations. The Imagineer Marc Davis created them. Eventually, Walt Disney brought in the then retired Mary Blaire on the project, who animated several different children from all over the world.
This project required considerable planning as Walt Disney constructed a ride that could hold millions of boats.
Before the anthem got finalized, various notes were being played, which was a recipe for disaster. Eventually, the Sherman Brothers finally came to the rescue. Walt Disney enjoyed the tune so much that he named his ride after it. Before it was called Its Small World ride, it was known as the Happiest Cruise That Ever Sailed.
