Aladdin: Live the Adventure

Disneyland now contains the city of mystery and enchantment! Mr. Toad has retired from his wild-ride days, passing the torch to the young adventurer, Aladdin. Park guests walk through Agrabah to hop onto the Magic Carpet for a front-seat view of Aladdin’s adventure, making Disney’s Aladdin more than a movie, but an adventure to experience. If you just can’t wait until your next Disneyland visit to see this for yourself, keep reading for a walk-through to the city of mystery and enchantment!

Merlin is still searching for the child destined to pull the sword from the stone, the riders hold on to their mythical creatures and glide to the music in their Sleeping Beauty Carousel, and across the way, the Snow White’s Evil Stepmother peers down at us. Tinkerbell’s chimes float over the line of people waiting for pirate ships setting sail for Neverland, and the red curtains of Pinocchio’s theatre can be seen at the entrance of his ride. These, and other, familiar Fantasyland comforts then give way to a new land in town. Agrabah pulls us with its magnetism: its exotic music, the shouts of vendors hawking their wares, camels padding along the throngs of people, and the myriad of colors shading the vendors’ stalls beneath the giant gold domes of the palace in the background carving out the skyline! Over all this, we hear the heart-pounding music of “One Jump Ahead.” It’s an abridged musical version accompanying the voice of our pint-sized merchant who introduces us to Aladdin’s story at the beginning of the movie. As our line snakes among stands piled with bolts of cloth, jewelry, plastic fruits and vegetables, and under tall poles hung with different colors of glass bottles and ceramic jars, our merchant, performed with the vocal talent of none other than Robin Williams himself, reminds us to remain seated throughout the ride and to make sure little ones are accompanied by an adult. Market Street is a bustling place, and we don’t want anyone getting lost in the market, now do we?

Just after the fragrant stands full of incense and oils, we approach a doorway in set in stone. Inside we find ourselves in the loading zone, and the anticipation is obvious. Who doesn’t love the sound and smell of a great ride? We’re in the very same dim, cool cave where Aladdin first rubbed the lamp. A caravan of magic carpets arrives one after another nonstop: red, green, blue, and so on. Each carpet is flanked by the familiar swirly Aladdin-themed clouds. Finally we step off our moving walkway onto an orange rug, and safely flanked by our cloud cover we find ourselves swept into a dark night, under stars and face to face with Aladdin, Abu on his shoulders, and Jafar disguised as the old prisoner. The Cave of Wonders is life-sized, and the red glow gets our hearts beating as the deep voice warns, “Touch nothing but the lamp.” The sand sparkles, the cave blasts warm air at us all, and as we whoosh past Aladdin we hear the old man suspiciously cackle behind us.

We round a corner, where a curtain opens and we’re stunned by the blazing sun and blaring trumpets as we return to Agrabah. Once our eyes—and heart rates—recover from the shock, we see bubbles, confetti, and colorful streamers fill the air as we join Prince Ali’s procession to the palace. We sweep through muscled men juggling curved swords, beautiful women waving colorful sashes, and pass cages filled with a menagerie of everything from cheetahs to peacocks to alligators. If you’re watchful, you’ll even see a fellow street rat reaching to swipe an apple off a stand as the merchant gawks at the festivities. On the walls, a movie projector shows us a flesh-toned Genie dressed in his white marching band uniform, singing the Prince Ali song as he twirls his baton.

Jafar slams the massive palace doors shut behind us, choking off the crazy party outside and we pass silently through the throne room as Prince Ali regally bows to the Sultan on his throne. Jasmine stands to the side, eyes the scene suspiciously and whips her long hair around as she vanishes through a domed doorway. Our carpet hangs left through a palace corridor to approach a lavishly furnished bedroom with transparent veils in blues and greens hanging among gold-swirled aqua Persian rugs. The veils lift, cueing the first notes of “A Whole New World.” It’s as though the music brushed the veils aside, and we find ourselves hovering only a few feet off of Princess Jasmine’s immense balcony (refer to the Balcony Scene Concept art). It’s a perfect Arabian evening. Lamps lend a golden glow to the scene, and the moon offers cool blue light. The soft scent of jasmine flowers wafts through the air. On his carpet, Prince Ali reaches down, offering his hand to Jasmine and asks, “Do you trust me?”

We leave the two of them and our carpet veers to the right through a series of rooms designed to look like the high skies: soft clouds, twinkling stars enhanced by hidden black lights that make our shoelaces white baseball caps glow, and the moon seeming to appear and disappear in different places as our carpet rushes us in a series of dips, tilts, and turns. A sequence of rooms allows our carpet to simulate flying through the night, and our faces are blown by fans when the front of our carpet dips down, giving us the impression of diving towards an unseen earth below. Then, too soon, the carpet slows. A movie projector hits a curtain of smoke: Jafar shouts, “I wish to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world!!!!!!” His eyes spin in red and white swirls while his cackles accompany us as our carpet nervously floats us onward.

Beyond the curtain of smoke, we approach a throne room gone mad. Jafar looms over us all in his giant snake form. The walls glow red, fire hisses in every doorway, window, and hole in the palace, and the dramatic soundtrack of Jafar’s transformation fills the room (see “Snake Scene Concept Art”). Jasmine’s muffled cries echo in the bottom of a giant brass-framed hourglass, where in the bottom chamber she stares in horror at the sand streaming down from a hole just out of reach. Iago flaps above, cheering Jafar on as he wraps his coils around Aladdin in a death grip. The little girl in the yellow carpet ahead of us screams and cowers between her parents. Then, just as we’re really getting to feel warm from the fire cannons punctuating Jafar’s villainous scene, our carpet moves us to the next scenario: holding a sinister-looking black lamp, his face full of purposeful determination, Al speaks to Jafar, “…you wanted to be a genie, you got it, and everything that goes with it! Phenomenal cosmic powers”—and genie Jafar is vacuumed into the lamp—“itty bitty living space.”  We hear a small, confined echo of Jafar’s voice trailing off, “NOOoooo…”

Our carpet escapes and passes over another balcony scene. The sun is shining, the jazzy music and lyrics to “Friend Like Me” play while Genie embraces Al, Jasmine, Sultan, and “the monkey” in a big group hug. The railing of the large balcony is also the edge of a platform, and we know it’s time to part with our carpets. We hear Robin Williams over the speaker saying, “Keep your hands and arms inside the carpet, please don’t stand until the rug has come to a complete stop. Thank you, good bye, bye, good bye” in his genie-stewardess voice. We step off our carpet and walk along the ramp towards the exit, and just as we head out the door we hear the voice of the genie exclaiming, “I’m going to Disneyland!!!”