My son (4, turning 5) is getting into star wars but he’s not necessarily a thriller seeker kind of kid. Is there something ride-wise that is comparable to MFSM or ROTR we can “test” before he freaks out on the ride? I’m mostly worried about ROTR (if we get boarding groups) and then my DH doesn’t get to experience it to its fullest. I won’t be riding as we have a 1 year old and so if we knew it advance whether these rides are too much for him, I could take him with me to do shows during the Star Wars stuff. He is too short for FOP.
It is a tricky age to predict. I would say Star Tours would be closest to MFSR…but at 4/5, the way they see the world is more literal, and they might struggle more with the idea that this is ONLY a ride. At 5-6 they are more developmentally ready for understanding this. (I, unfortunately, learned this the hard way with my 5 year old niece years ago when I was joking around with her about something which sent her into tears because she didn’t know I was joking. Whoops.)
MFSR is comparable to Star Tours if you’ve done it, except sitting in cockpit of Millennium Falcon and tasked with pushing buttons, rather than sitting in theater seats. Totally simulated ride, and wouldn’t classify it as a thrill ride. Nothing really comparable to RotR, especially at DHS, but it is less a thrill ride than an experience ride, where you are placed in the action. I imagine this could be scary for a little one, but my 5 year old enjoyed it and happily did it on another DHS day.
Our four year old loved them all, but he is a thrill seeker. I’d test out a motion simulator (Star Tours seems easy enough), dark/scary ride, and spend some time in GE to see how he reacts to the stormtroopers.
We passed on RotR for my 5yo son, he likes easy going rollercoasters etc but I felt like RotR would’ve been too overhwhelming and long for him. We did MFSR and he liked it a lot. I would say its smoother than Star Tours, which is more jerky.
My son was just 5 last year, and Star Tours was his favourite thing on the whole trip.
Thank you for the feedback!!
ST can be very nauseating. It wreaked my DH and my DD4 went on and felt a little queasy but was fine afterwards. She also thought it was very real though - kept asking if we were on a real space shop!
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One important thing to note is that @th595906’s son needs to comprehend that if he fails to push the buttons correctly, nothing bad is going to happen and no one if going to get hurt. DD panicked during the MS introduction, thinking that she would be responsible for a crash if she didn’t get it right, and then totally freaked out when we boarded. So much so that the CM would not let her ride. Fun times…
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This is good to know. We will definitely prep him!! He plays/loves video games so I THINK he will love it, but we’ve never experienced something quite like that so idk. Thankfully with the glitches HS was having, we have 2 fast passes so if it goes badly, my husband can ride again by himself. But id rather not traumatize my son either haha
I would recommend letting him be either a Gunner or engineer, at least at first. Piloting is somewhat hard and it really feels like everyone else is depending on you, which can be a lot of pressure.
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To further expand: it actually matters what you do to the success of the mission (it never completely fails, but there are different levels of success), so if he actually believes the story behind (that they are essential to the Resistance, that really exists) it can be a lot of pressure or a lot of fun.
Wondering if you and your littlest could go through most of the line with DH so that if your 4yo does decide not to ride, you would be there to take him out - or if he did decide to use the chicken exit and you weren’t there, maybe DH would be able to call you to come through the FP line or through the exit to get him? Wonder if CM could help out with this.
@Flutegarden brings up an important point. MFSM and ROTR are both Virtual Reality / Simulator rides just as is FOP. If your brain cannot tolerate the albeit slight conflict between the visual image and the movements of the motion platform then symptoms similar to motion sickness can occur. In extreme cases the symptoms can last up to 8 hours.
My recommendation for anyone who does not have experience with VR / Sim rides is to try out Soarin, which is the mildest of this category of ride found at WDW.