Get Ready to be Floored: Cars Land Attractions at Disney California Adventure Park (Review Part 1)! #CarsLand #JustGotHappier

It’s true–the “Hap­pi­est Place on Earth” just got hap­pier!! If you’ve been need­ing an excuse to visit Dis­ney­land Resort (espe­cially for you East Coast Walt Dis­ney World reg­u­lars), you really have one now! The Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture Park debuted Cars Land on June 15th and is, as Bob Iger (Walt Dis­ney Com­pany Chair­man & CEO) said, “the Crown Jewel of our Dis­ney Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture expan­sion”.  The 12-acre land, set along the iconic Route 66, is detailed in a way only Disney-Pixar can do and com­pletely immerses you into all things “Cars”.

So, rev up your engines and come along for a lit­tle tour of Radi­a­tor Springs, “the cutest lit­tle town in Car­bu­re­tor County”. Get ready to be floored!

As you enter Cars Land, you com­pletely feel like you are step­ping right into the “Cars” movie by way of old Route 66. With all the cac­tus, Palo Verde trees, and rocks, we felt right at home! The impres­sive 300,000 square foot Cadil­lac Moun­tain Range (which required 4,000 tons of steel to erect) of Orna­ment Val­ley pro­vides an impres­sive & beau­ti­ful backdrop–and looks unbe­liev­ably real! It’s a total recre­ation of Radi­a­tor Springs down to the small­est details.

Cars Land Ride Attractions

The “car-acters” of Cars Land wel­come guests at three new attrac­tions: Mater’s Junk­yard Jam­boree, Luigi’s Fly­ing Tires, and Radi­a­tor Springs Racers.

Mater’s Junk­yard Jam­boree (32-inch height require­ment):

This is the first ride you’ll encounter, just as you enter Cars Land on your left. Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy) has cor­ralled a herd of 22 baby trac­tors (none of which are the same) who would love to take you on a spin­ning “tow-si-do” good time! Mater recorded seven orig­i­nal songs for the attrac­tion and tells a good num­ber of Mater-style jokes while you’re in line!

From the out­side look­ing in, we thought the ride might be fairly “baby­ish” and low key. But, you can see from the video above, that it actu­ally hauls along pretty well and has you slid­ing around in your seat a fair bit as you round some of the fig­ure 8s (because of that, make sure you hang on to lit­tle ones well to keep them from slam­ming into the sides of the trailer). With the low min­i­mum height require­ment, this ride was some­thing our whole fam­ily could do. And, it actu­ally ended up being our family’s favorite! The boys LOVED the music & the ride itself pro­vided enough move­ment and fun to keep every­one enter­tained with­out scar­ing the lit­tlest ones! We rode it at least 6 times!!

In fact, at the end of each ride, Lit­tle Brother (who is just over 2) would look up and say, “one more”! Clearly, we hap­pily caved to his request a num­ber of times!

Seri­ously, the cutest thing ever! He LOVED this ride (so I couldn’t resist shar­ing his ride reac­tion with you)!

Luigi’s Fly­ing Tires (32-inch height require­ment):

At Luigi’s Casa Della Tires, “Cars” char­ac­ters Luigi and Guido play host to a “Fes­ti­val of the Fly­ing Tires.” When the music starts, tires float and dance in the grand tra­di­tion of a cel­e­bra­tion that first started in Luigi’s home­town of Car­soli, Italy.

You’ll enter the line for the ride through Luigi’s Casa Della Tires, which has some really fun mem­o­ra­bilia and details inside. The ride itself is a really fun concept–think glid­ing on a giant air hockey table (it takes 6,714 air vents to keep the tires float­ing ever so slightly above the ground) in over­sized Fettuccini-brand tires. But, it does take work to really get going (which can be tricky when rid­ing with kid­dos) and because of that, may leave a lit­tle some­thing to be desired. Basi­cally, you must shift your body weight (in unison)to guide the direc­tion of the vehicle–much like self-propelled bumper tires! For a bit of added fun, there are giant inflat­able beach balls scat­tered around, which you can bump into and try to catch.

Radi­a­tor Springs Rac­ers (40-inch height require­ment):

This is def­i­nitely the key attraction–and I think it’s likely to become one of the all-time favorite Dis­ney rides of any of the parks! The attrac­tion cov­ers nearly six acres (the largest attrac­tion by acreage at the Dis­ney­land Resort) and is unbe­liev­ably detailed (and beautiful).

After a leisurely, scenic tour of Orna­ment Val­ley, you’ll pull up beside another car on a par­al­lel track and race side-by-side (reach­ing speeds of about 40mph) through the moun­tain range, around Willy’s Butte and past the plung­ing water­fall, Radi­a­tor Falls! Doesn’t that really look like Ari­zona and/or Utah?! SO pretty! The water­fall was stunning!

After wind­ing around in line (the line itself fea­tures some GREAT details & sites, in true Dis­ney form), you’ll board a six-passenger con­vert­ible car in one of eight col­ors. The begin­ning of the ride is very tame, with great char­ac­ters and scenes from the movie. You basi­cally just mean­der through the coun­try­side and the town of Radi­a­tor Springs. Then, after a stop at either Luigi’s Casa Della Tires or Ramone’s House of Body Art (depend­ing on which track you’re on), you’ll get some final rac­ing tips from Doc Hudson.

Then, the ride gets fast as you race the other car through Orna­ment Valley–you never know which car is going to win! Big Brother (5 years old) was a lit­tle bit scared by this part, but still came off lov­ing it and rode a sec­ond time later in the afternoon.

Looks like tons of fun, right?! It so is and will for sure have you bust­ing out with an enthu­si­as­tic “Ka-Chow”!! Stay tuned tomor­row as we con­tinue our Radi­a­tor Springs tour with all the other fun sights, eats, and curios!

Dis­clo­sure: In order to expe­ri­ence Cars Land & cover the events, I received com­pli­men­tary items as a media mem­ber. How­ever, I was not asked nor com­pen­sated to write this post.  My love of Dis­ney, excite­ment, and opin­ions are entirely my own.