Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, also known as Expedition Everest, is a steel roller coaster built by Vekoma at Disney's Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. The ride is themed around the Yeti protecting the Forbidden Mountain next to Mount Everest. It is the only roller coaster at Disney's Animal Kingdom, and the tallest roller coaster at any Disney theme park.

The 2011 edition of Guinness World Records lists Expedition Everest as the most expensive roller coaster in the world, a record the ride held until 2019 when Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal Islands of Adventure opened. It is the tallest artificial mountain in all of the Walt Disney parks, and Disney's 18th mountain-themed attraction.

History

thumb|Expedition Everest under construction in 2005

The attraction was announced publicly on April 22, 2003, during an event to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Disney's Animal Kingdom. Construction of the new attraction began a month before the announcement in March 2003. It took three years and required more than of rebar; 5,000 tons of structural steel; and 10,000 tons of concrete. At , it is the tallest attraction at Walt Disney World, beating The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios by . Disney keeps all of its attraction buildings under because aviation laws require structures of that height and taller to have a blinking red light beacon for low-flying aircraft, which would take away from the theming of their attraction.

Ride experience

Queue

thumb|left|upright=0.9|Office in queue

thumb|Expedition Everest is the only ride at [[Disney's Animal Kingdom|Animal Kingdom to utilize a single rider line.]]

The attraction features a stand-by, Lightning Lane, and a single-rider line. There are also about 8,000 artifacts brought from the Nepal trip in the museum. The train itself is held in place by a series of rubber tires while an automatic switch rotates the piece of track directly behind the train. The train then rolls backwards along a new route that spirals down through the mountain by track switches. It eventually comes to a stop in a large cave, where riders see the yeti's shadow on the wall as it tears up more track. This effect distracts riders from noticing another automatic track switch in front of them. As the shadow moves away, the train rolls forward out of the mountain, going past the on-ride camera and plunging down the main drop. It enters a 250° turn and speeds back up through another cave in the mountain, where the roars of the yeti are heard once more. The train exits from the rear of the mountain and enters a large helix before being lifted back into the mountain a final time. The train drops through a cave, where an audio animatronic of the yeti is reaching down toward it. On reaching the bottom of this drop, riders return to the unloading dock and depart into a gift shop. The ride lasts 2 minutes and 50 seconds.

Trains

Expedition Everest has six steam-like trains, each with six cars. Each train has 17 rows seating two abreast, for a total of 34 riders per train. The trains are themed as the "Anandapur Rail Service" and are made to look old and rusty.

Design

thumb|A close up of one of the trains on the main drop

thumb|The broken track at the top of the ride

Although moderate in height and length by contemporary standards, Expedition Everest was the first ride for Disney to have its trains travel both forward and backward. This is accomplished through two sets of track switches, one before the rear segment and one after. This was the second Disney roller coaster to run backwards, the first being Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril: Backwards! at Disneyland Resort Paris (2000–2004). Expedition Everest, however, was the first Disney roller coaster to switch between forward and backward sections during the same ride.

The mountain façade, the Yeti audio-animatronic, and the roller coaster are three independent structures. Each structure reaches the ground-level and does not touch the other two structures. This was achieved via a 4-D scheduling software that provided the exact details on how to construct it.

The Mountain

Expedition Everest is often compared to the 1959 Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster at Disneyland, which also features a snowy mountain setting and an "abominable snowman" figure throughout the ride. Expedition Everest's mountain is made from 1,800 tons of steel and painted with 2,000 gallons of paint.

The artificial mountain is not a model of Mount Everest, but rather of the fictional "forbidden mountain" guarded by the yeti in the story created for the attraction by Walt Disney Imagineering. Everest is represented by the barren background peak on the far right, which is made to seem far in the distance (an example of forced perspective). For years it was speculated that the problem was caused by damage to the yeti's concrete base structure, which is unlikely to be repaired until a major refurbishment in the distant future, because the design limits access to the yeti without major disassembly of the superstructure. The problem with the concrete is rumored to have occurred due to a glitch in the 4-D scheduling software that prevented adequate curing of a portion of the Yeti's foundation before the fabrication of mountain elements and roller coaster track. The prevailing theory is that the damage is to the animatronic itself, and not to the concrete base structure.

Joe Rohde, the Imagineer in charge of building the attraction and Animal Kingdom, was asked about the yeti at the 2013 D23 Expo. Rohde responded, "You have to understand, it's a giant complicated machine sitting on top of, like, a 46-foot tall tower in the middle of a finished building. So, it's really hard to fix, but we are working on it. And we continue to work on it. We have tried several 'things', none of them quite get to the key, turning of the 40-foot tower inside of a finished building, but we are working on it... I will fix the Yeti someday, I swear." Rohde retired from Walt Disney Imagineering effective January 4, 2021, never having completed the repairs to the Yeti animatronic.

Promotions

thumb|Expedition Everest at night

Discovery Networks

In 2005, Disney, Discovery Networks (now Warner Bros. Discovery), and Conservation International conducted expeditions to Nepal as part of the promotion for Expedition Everest. The purpose was to conduct scientific and cultural research in remote areas of the Himalayas, the location of the yeti legend. Participants included Joe Rohde from Walt Disney Imagineering and scientists from Conservation International and Disney's Animal Kingdom.

The expeditions and the making of the attraction were chronicled in three documentaries broadcast on Discovery's cable television channels in April 2006. It detailed the planning and construction of the ride, along with some of the ideas that made it possible. (During construction, for example, instead of traditional scaffolding the Imagineers used interior poles that poked through the outside of the mountain and were connected by wooden platforms.)

Incidents

  • On December 18, 2007, a 44-year-old guest was found unconscious after the train returned to the station. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A preliminary autopsy by the Orange County medical examiner's office concluded that the victim had died of dilated cardiomyopathy.
  • On May 19, 2018, a 26-year-old man suffered a seizure after riding the attraction.
  • On July 5, 2019, a 41-year-old woman suffered a seizure after riding the attraction.

Awards and records

thumb|Expedition Everest under construction in 2004.

The 2011 book of Guinness World Records lists Expedition Everest as the most expensive roller coaster in the world. Including sets and extras, the total cost of the ride was reported to be US$100 million over six years of planning and construction.

Expedition Everest won the 2006 Theme Park Insider Award for the "World's Best New Theme Park Attraction". It has also been ranked in the Golden Ticket Awards and the Best Roller Coaster Poll. It was ranked second for "Best New Ride For 2006" in the Golden Ticket Awards.

See also

  • Matterhorn Bobsleds
  • Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars

References

  • Walt Disney World Resort – Expedition Everest
  • A new peak for Disney – St. Petersburg Times article on Expedition Everest (December 11, 2005)