This here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!
A runaway mine train roller coaster circling the Wild West peaks of Big Thunder and diving underground for breathtakingly fun family thrills.
Full guide text.
They put it on an island. The biggest and best Big Thunder Mountain in the world remains a pinnacle of Disney Imagineering ambition, scale and immersion. An unmissable triumph of a family thrill that never dulls even on the umpteenth repeat ride, even if some effects can be hit-and-miss and the queue line feels substandard.
Good to know
- There are no inversions (upside down bits) and while you might be left with rather wind-battered hair, this is a solid, all-rounder thrill, very big on the fun.
- Wait times can be some of the longest in the park. Despite this, the queue line just zig-zags claustrophobically through the timber mill building above the station with no real pre-show except your own anticipation and the incessant twang of banjo music.
- Seating is two per row, six per car, in trains of five cars, with a lap bar for safety. At the front the view is obscured slightly by the engine and you’ll go slower into each drop, but there’s no bad place to ride.
- For effect only, the water splash won’t get you wet.
- Smile for the on-ride photo camera: it’s on the water splash opposite Phantom Manor.
Insider tips
- Besides riding first thing in the day to avoid a long wait, try timing a ride at dusk if possible for a whole different atmosphere as the Big Thunder mine is lit by flickering lanterns and the whole of Disneyland Paris glows from the top of the final drop. Your eyes adjusted to the dark, you’ll see even more inside the caverns, particularly the final bat run.
- For anyone in your group not riding, avoid a long wait in the hectic corridor in front of the entrance by taking a short stroll to Boot Hill or the waterside behind Frontierland Playground, looking out over the Rivers of the Far West to dramatic views of the mountain.
- Don’t rush to leave the exit line. Just as you walk out of the timber mill, stop to wait at the railings where you see the railroad tracks disappearing into the mine. It’s a thundering thrill to see the trains whooshing past and dropping underground, knowing they’re heading all the way to the mountain in the distance.
Behind the magic
- In-joke: A goat featured in every version of the attraction is a veritable Disney parks icon. In Paris, he’s joined by a friend who’s busy eating a miner’s laundry.
Notable changes
- 2017: “Explosive” dynamite effects including projection mapping and smoke added to final lift hill on the island, based on similar scene produced for Disneyland in California, as part of a resort-wide ‘Project Sparkle’ initiative for the 25th Anniversary. (The smoke, requiring a whole pipeline and storage tank off the island, soon became temperamental.)
Worldwide versions
Big Thunder Mountain can be found broadly similar, though lacking the island setting, at Disneyland in California (1979), Magic Kingdom in Florida (1980) and Tokyo Disneyland (1987). All these versions were later additions to each park’s Frontierland and so the attraction sits off to one side rather than as a central icon.
Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars at Hong Kong Disneyland (2012) is a unique variation, with a backwards track segment and animatronic bears, but less of a dramatic landscape feature, added after the park’s opening day in its own more minor western land of Grizzly Gulch.