Runaway Railway Pt. 1: Before the Ride

Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is Disney’s brand new E-ticket attraction, based on the recent line-up of Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts that started in 2013. Originally, this ride opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2020 as a replacement for the long running Great Movie Ride. Then about a year later, it was announced that Disneyland Park would be getting its own version as part of a new refurbishment to the Mickey’s Toontown section of the park.

And, I was thrilled to hear about this. Mickey’s Toontown was one of my favorite lands growing up, but the only ride for big kids and adults since 1994 was Roger Rabbit’s Car-Toon Spin. Otherwise, you had kiddie playlands, character meet-and-greet houses, and Gadget’s Go-Coaster. These are all fun attractions, sure, but growing up, I wished I had more of a reason to stay in Toontown. So when I heard this update announced from the IAAPA Expo, the little kid inside of me jumped for joy.

But of course, Toontown is still a famously loud and rambunctious place. And, while the new ride looked exciting (at least according to the videos about the sister attraction at WDW), but I also saw a ride with the energy of a rubber hose cartoon with all of the crashes, bangs, and booms that come with it. That’s when I knew what I would do first thing I started this diary: I would see if Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is Autistic friendly. So, I rode it twice in its first month of operation to check exactly that.

Before I could ride during the first month, I had to get a boarding group for the ride. Disney activated the boarding pass system to make sure that they could gauge the crowds entering the attraction, which basically gives you a chance to reserve a spot in the app at two different times (7:00 am and 1:00 pm). You can set your ride group an hour before the reservations open up (as long as you have everyone’s tickets loaded on the app), and then when the time slot hits, you can make a reservation. I started my first day off by getting up at 6:30 am to try for a boarding group. About 10 minutes before 7, I had my ticket set, the boarding group page open, a Google page set open to the atomic clock in Switzerland (yes, I am that much of a nerd), and I was all ready to go. At the second the atomic clock struck 7, I refreshed the page and…was instantly met with a message that all boarding groups were taken.

I guess everyone else had the same idea. Time for a back-up plan.

My back-up plan involved taking advantage of the Disney Genie service and the Lightning Lane option. While not my usual method of traveling to the parks (as I usually prefer boarding groups and checking out lines), I knew that it was my best chance to ride Runaway Railway during opening weekend. So, once I got checked into Disneyland Park around 8:00 am, I opened up my Disneyland app and selected the individual Lightning Lane option for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, setting my group to start in about half an hour.

Second day I tried this, I did the same thing and managed to get the second ever boarding group of the day. That day, I was basically just super lucky. Now, Disney has dropped the boarding group system for Runaway Railway in favor of just keeping Lightning Lane and Stand-By Wait (which…honestly I wasn’t expecting to happen in the first month considering Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure took at least until their first year or two was up before dropping this system). So, really there isn’t a need to know about the boarding groups anymore. This was just what happened to me during this time.

Regardless, once I had my entry ticket for the ride, I used my favorite path to get to Mickey's Toontown: the Matterhorn Promenade. To the right of Sleeping Beauty's Castle (squished between Snow White's Wishing Well and Tinker Bell's home at Pixie Hollow), there is a relatively quiet walking path that goes past the castle and past the Matterhorn. In my experience, most people going to Disneyland early in the morning will either go straight towards Adventureland or Tomorrowland (the closest lands to Main Street USA) or Sleeping Beauty Castle (to get to Fantasyland). Almost nobody uses the Matterhorn Promenade because really, the only things there are character meet and greet spots that won't be open for a few more hours or the Fantasyland restrooms. So this walkway doesn't really get much use early in the mornings, and it's really helpful for our purposes on this adventure because it is the most direct route to It's a Small World and by extension Toontown.

When I arrived at It's a Small World, I noticed a few Cast Members controlling a crowd right by the Fantasyland Theatre. These Cast Members were checking for people who had valid Boarding Groups or Lightning Lane check-ins so that they could get on board Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. First day, I still had a bit of time before my group was ready to go, so I sat down by the planters near the Small World gift shop. This location ended up being a very nice quiet spot as the only sounds I could really hear at the time were the Small World theme song and the ticking of the clock. There wasn't really much else in the way of sounds, and while the overcast weather might have contributed, I could also see why the spot was quiet early in the morning. I mean even the clock tower went off at around 8:45, and the chimes were not loud. The only persistent noise was the Sherman Brothers’ famous earworm that continued to play in the background.

Once my boarding ticket activated, I showed the barcode to the Cast Members and was ushered into Mickey's Toontown. Once inside, I realized why the cast members were controlling the crowds near the entrance: Mickey's Toontown wasn't finished yet. The only attraction open was Runaway Railway, and only the interactive scenic locations around Roger Rabbit's Car-Toon Spin (like the Fire Station, Post Office, Jail, and Fireworks Factory) were still open and active. As I learned, the rest of Toontown was actually set to open in March, so they only really had it open for Runaway Railway as not even the still standing Roger Rabbit was open yet.

However, the rest of Toontown can wait for when it fully re-opens. Right now, we are here for Runaway Railway.