Most Overrated Disney Ride in World Closing for Long Refurbishment in 2026-2027

Prior to our first visit to the worst Disney theme park in the world roughly 15 years ago, friends warned us that it was bad. Worse than we could possibly imagine. However, some also claimed its lone redeeming quality was that the park was home to one of the top 10 or 15 attractions in the world.

Walking into the Walt Disney Studios Park for the first time gave new, negative meaning to the phrase “words cannot do it justice.” Upon seeing the original Disney’s California Adventure, legendary Imagineer John Hench infamously quipped that he liked it better as a parking lot. Only a year later, the Walt Disney Studios Park opened and said “hold my beer.”

The circa 2002 Walt Disney Studios Park was basically Parking Lot: The Theme Park when we first visited. WDSP was a disgrace to the Disney name and brand. With the exception of a few attractions, Disneyland Paris would have been better off if the second gate did not exist. It made circa 2001 DCA look like a masterpiece.

Our friends were spot-on about how bad the WDSP was, and somehow undersold just how aggressively awful the park was. It wasn’t just low-budget. It was like someone challenged the creatives to make it as bad as possible. A park that, twenty-plus years later, the designers of Universal Kids Resort looked at lovingly for inspiration and said “hold my beer.” In fact, prior to the Ratatouille expansion debuting, we argued that the Walt Disney Studios Park was not actually a “Disney” theme park.

In a roundabout way, our friends were also right about that latter point that WDSP was home to a top tier attraction. CinéMagique was an excellent attraction, and one that deserved better. It’s unfortunate that it’s also an extinct one, even if its replacement is another 10/10 production. That’s not what they were claiming was top tier, though. Their praise was reserved for Crush’s Coaster.

Today’s news is that Crush’s Coaster in the park now known as Disney Adventure World is getting a lengthy refurbishment. Before we rant a bit more about why this ride is so bad and the consensus about its greatness is wrong, let’s dig into the Crush’s Coaster closure details…

Crush’s Coaster Refurbishment Dates & Details

Starting on September 7, 2026, Crush’s Coaster will undergo its most extensive technical refurbishment since opening in 2007. As a result, journeys through the East Australian Current will be temporarily suspended until Summer 2027. Numerous Disneyland Paris teams are already mobilized for this major project, and have shared a behind-the-scenes look at the work currently being prepared.

For several months, teams from Design & Delivery, Walt Disney Imagineering Paris, Maintenance, and the Disneyland Paris Central Workshops have been preparing for this operation. This major refurbishment will help ensure the attraction’s continued operation for years to come while maintaining the highest possible guest experience. It will also provide greater comfort for both guests and Cast Members.

Spanning approximately ten months, the project will be carried out in two main phases. During the first phase, teams will work on numerous systems essential to the attraction’s operation. This includes the complete replacement of several technical components such as certain control systems, sensors, communication equipment, and selected sections of track.

The second major phase of the project will focus on an extensive program of testing and technical validation, which is essential to ensuring that all systems are functioning properly before the attraction reopens to guests.

Beyond the technical improvements, this refurbishment will also provide an opportunity to care for the show elements of Crush’s Coaster. Throughout the project, Disneyland Paris teams and external contractors will clean, repaint, and repair numerous scenic components in order to preserve the richness of the experience inspired by the Disney and Pixar animated film Finding Nemo.

Based on the word choices by Disney (“care for” and “preserve”), it doesn’t sound like any substantive show changes are in store. Nevertheless, our hope is that some of the underlying tech is modernized; visuals could stand to look crisper and brighter.

Crush’s Coaster previously underwent an extended six-month closure back in 2015, which was now over a decade ago. The project beginning in September 2026 represents the most extensive refurbishment ever carried out on the attraction since its opening nearly twenty years ago.

Through close collaboration between Disneyland Paris teams and external contractors, this project will help preserve the reliable operation of Crush’s Coaster, which Disney refers to as an iconic Disneyland Paris attraction, for years to come.

Crush’s Coaster Is Not Great

Crush’s Coaster is not iconic. I won’t dispute that it’s popular, but honestly, I will dispute the extent to which it’s popular. The attraction loads at an anemic speed, and consequently, I would not be the least bit surprised if the actual operational hourly capacity is roughly 500. That’s a number so bad it makes Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness look like a paragon of efficiency.

This is precisely why Crush’s Coaster routinely posts wait times of 70 minutes or more. Its inefficiency coupled with the fact that it’s a roller coaster, one of the few worthwhile rides in the park, and now offers line-skipping ensures a pretty high baseline wait time. If anything, I would argue that its wait time not being a perpetual two-plus hours is a sign that, actually, guests don’t think it’s all that great!

During our most recent trip to Disney Adventure World, I decided to give Crush’s Coaster another chance after years of passing it over. Maybe I was being too hard on it, and my intense hatred for the old park was unfairly coloring my opinion of Crush’s Coaster.

Nope. It was somehow, against all odds, even worse than I remember. It didn’t help that I was doing Early Magic Time testing and, despite being towards the very front of the pack–like a couple dozen people back–I waited an absurdly long time for Crush’s Coaster when the posted wait time was 5 minutes.

That’s a big part of my frustration with Crush’s Coaster. Even arriving at rope drop on an off-season weekday, you can easily wait in line for 30 to 45 minutes for Crush’s Coaster due to paid Premier Access and other forms of line-skipping. (Even during Extra Magic Time, I clearly should’ve done Single Rider.) It also doesn’t help that a lot of that wait is incredibly dull, as the outdoor portion of the queue is bland and boring switchbacks.

Crush’s Coaster Comparisons

Other people must have radically different ideas of what makes a great attraction, but in my opinion, Crush’s Coaster is far from great. It was essentially a tame coaster through the dark with a couple of meager show moments. (Calling them scenes would be excessive.)

As far as the show elements go, Crush’s Coaster rates below the Seas with Nemo & Friends dark ride at EPCOT and far, far below the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland. And those aren’t exactly attractions you see Disney fans showering with praise.

By itself, the coaster component is reasonably fun. The swirling effect combined with the smoothness of the track does give the feel that you’re on a current. It’s definitely better than Primeval Whirl (Rest in Pieces) or Goofy’s Sky School. But I still don’t think it’s a good to great coaster.

Crush’s Coaster is not in the same league as Cosmic Rewind, despite what some Disneyland Paris fans might claim.

I’d put it well below most other Disney coasters aside from the kiddie ones. I guess Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is the best comparison; as a coaster, Crush’s Coaster probably beats that. Definitely not as an attraction, though.

As a complete package, Crush’s Coaster is absolutely nothing special in terms of Disney attractions. It’s closer to Primeval Whirl than it is to Cosmic Rewind. It’s very light on actual substance, and relies heavily on the underlying coaster itself.

Crush’s Coaster is much like a (very) tamed down version of Avengers Assemble: Flight Force in this regard, which is not a compliment. Both are basically just rollercoasters thrown in unthemed “big box” soundstages with minimal theming along with low-effort on-ride visuals.

It’s baffling to me that Crush’s Coaster garners so much praise while Avengers Assemble: Flight Force has been panned. They’re both cut from the same cloth, just differing in intensity. And honestly, given average wait times, I’d rather do Flight Force over Crush’s Coaster if forced to choose. (My real choice would be neither, emphasizing the “forced” part of the above.)

It’s probably less controversial to say that Hyperspace Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad over in Disneyland Paris are superior to Crush’s Coaster in every way. For a scorching hot take, I’d rather do the much-maligned Cars Road Trip. That’s just good, campy fun.

My theory after first riding Crush’s Coaster was that it was the only arguably good thing that had been added to the Walt Disney Studios Park recently (at the time), and fans wanted to have something to be positive or optimistic about when it came to the much-maligned park.

Disneyland Paris fans can be protective of their parks, and understandably so! Great as the castle park was when it debuted, the company has neglected it for decades. Walt Disney Studios Park was basically a contractual obligation investment, and barely any effort was made. On top of that, Walt Disney World and Disneyland fans have blamed the boondoggle in Europe for underinvestment in the domestic parks.

So fans latched onto Crush’s Coaster when it was added. It was something new and not awful, in a place lacking in new and not awful things. But that didn’t make it good, and certainly doesn’t make it one of the top 20 attractions in the world. Another unpopular opinion is that I’m not sure it’d crack my list of the top 100 attractions in the world. It has definitely earned a spot at the top of my overrated rides list, though.

Now that Disney Adventure World is finally a park worthy of the “Disney” name and legacy, my hope is that it’s finally “safe” for the fandom to collectively concede that, actually, Crush’s Coaster isn’t that good. Or at minimum, that my hot take isn’t met with quite as much backlash as when I first shared it back in 2012, when it was a truly controversial opinion.

The big difference now is that Imagineers pulled off the impossible in reinventing the second gate into Disney Adventure World. As we’ve said before, the reimagining is a triumph in the most important and foundational sense: making the second gate feel like an actual Disney theme park.

Disney Adventure World is no longer just a bunch of disjointed attractions plopped down on what was basically a glorified parking lot, dotted by soundstage-looking buildings in between (Crush’s Coaster being an exemplar of all of those terrible choices). The second gate has a sense of place and purpose, and themed environments that make you want to linger as opposed to getting in, doing a few rides, and getting out as quickly as possible.

I mention all of this because I’ve gone from being one of the harshest critics of the Walt Disney Studios Park to one of the strongest advocates of Disney Adventure World. The one constant throughout that has been my fierce belief that Crush’s Coaster is extremely overrated.

I’m not biased for or against the park or Crush’s Coaster, and never have been. I am “biased” towards high-quality attractions, placemaking, environments, and storytelling. That’s why I love Tokyo DisneySea, now have greater respect for Disney Adventure World despite it still being a foundationally flawed park, and find Crush’s Coaster to be lacking.

To be clear, I do not hate Crush’s Coaster. It is not a Maliboomer, Primeval Whirl or Dino-Rama situation where I’d applaud “addition by subtraction.” I’m glad that Crush’s Coaster exists. I’d even like to see it be plussed during the upcoming refurbishment!

However, I also don’t ever want to see Crush’s Coaster cloned at Walt Disney World or Disneyland as some fans have suggested. (Although I doubt Disney would make that mistake given the coaster’s throughput. In a busier park, those numbers would be catastrophically bad unless they built two of them side by side.)

I could go on ranting about how I’m not even sure who the target audience is for Crush’s Coasters, thrill seekers or themed attraction fans, since it doesn’t excel in either regard, but I can feel this overstaying its welcome. I’m glad I got this off my chest, even if I already know most Disney fans won’t agree, and that this ‘unpopular opinion’ post is unlikely to change many, if any, minds.

And that’s fine! Different strokes for different folks, there’s no accounting for taste, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, etc. The good news for the Crush’s Coaster lovers out there is you’ll have one less person in front of you in line, and that might save you a whole 6 minutes waiting given how glacially slow this “popular” attraction loads!

For the basics of planning a visit to Disneyland Paris, check out our Disneyland Paris Trip Planning Guide. Find the best place to stay in Disneyland Paris Hotel Reviews. Check out 101 Disneyland Paris Tips for some (101, to be exact) of our best random tips for doing DLP like a pro. See Disney Park Tickets Tips & Tricks for ways to save on tickets. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. Finally, for advice beyond Disney, check out our Ultimate Travel Guide to Paris, France.

YOUR THOUGHTS

What’s your take on Crush’s Coaster? Do you disagree and enjoy the attraction, or agree and find it overrated given the quality and high average wait times? Wish list for the upcoming refurbishment? Any other thoughts? Any questions? Hearing your feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!