The entrance to Shanghai Disneyland’s Soaring Over the Horizon

Soaring Over the Horizon is a family attraction which gives the sensation of soaring like a bird across 13 different world-famous landmarks. The ride is based on Soarin’ Over California, an innovative attraction which debuted in 2001 in Disney California Adventure.

This revamped version of the Soarin ride opened with Shanghai Disneyland on June 16, 2016. The next day, both Disney California Adventure’s version and Epcot’s version were updated to the new film and given the new name Soarin’ Around the World. Each version of this ride contains an exclusive fireworks finale scene. Another Soarin’, Soaring: Fantastic Flight opened in 2019 in Tokyo DisneySea.

Queue Details

• Since this version of the ride exists in Shanghai Disneyland‘s Adventure Isle, a new story was developed to give the flying ride context within the new land. The queue is intended to be a cavernous celestial observatory for a fictional tribe of people called The Arbori. The tribes people dedicated the cavern to the sky guardian Q’otár, a condor-like bird which gives its shamans the ability to fly. The pre-show and safety spiel features one such shaman who shape-shifts into a bird and leads us to the ride. This unfortunately means that Patrick is not our flight attendant, but luckily the “these little beauties” gag gets a nod in the Shanghai version.

Ride Details

• Composer Bruce Broughton created the score for this ride based on Jerry Goldsmith’s original score for Soarin’ Over California. Mr. Broughton has a history with Disney as he is also responsible for the iconic music of Epcot attractions such as Ellen’s Energy Adventure, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, and Spaceship Earth as well as the scores for Disney films including The Rescuers Down Under, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, and Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco.
• During the 5 minute adventure, you fly over the following locations. Click the link on each one to check out their own page on this site:
  • Matterhorn Mountain
  • Ilulissat Icefjord
  • Sydney Harbour
  • Neuschwanstein Castle
  • Mount Kilimanjaro National Park
  • The Great Wall of China
  • The Pyramids of Giza
  • Taj Mahal
  • Mitten Buttes
  • Lau Islands
  • Iguazu Falls
  • Eiffel Tower
  • Shanghai Disneyland exclusive finale: Lujiazui District

Be sure to take a look at the other versions of Soarin’ on our site:

• Soarin’ Around the World (DCA)
• Soarin’ Around the World (Epcot)
• Soaring: Fantastic Flight

• This location is mentioned in our blog post: The Best View in Bavaria: Seeing a Disney Castle In Real Life

Official Information: ShanghaiDisneyland.com