Disney's Soarin' Over California to Become Soarin' Around the World

Beginning on June 17th, Disney California Adventure's Soarin' Over California and Epcot's Soarin' will be replaced with a new attraction called Soarin' Around the World.

Now, instead of flying over landmarks specific to the state of California, the ride will explore all kinds of global landscapes, most of which have yet to be revealed at this time. Disney was given permission to shoot close-up helicopter footage of the Great Wall of China, as the ride will also debut in Shanghai when the new Shanghai Disney Resort opens in June.

Not much is known about the ride yet, but some of you may recall that an Imagineering crew did a flyover above Disneyland back in 2014 in order to shoot some footage for a new Soarin' video.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that there will be no visual enhancement to the ride. Soarin' Around the World will apparently use the same digital projectors as its predecessor. The new 4k projectors that replaced the 70mm IMAX film projectors last year were a slight downgrade in resolution, but an overall improvement in performance and quality. Personally, as much as I appreciate film projectors, I feel that the color on the digital display is more outstanding, and I will be happy to see the new ride in its 4k resolution. I'm sure eventually they'll switch to IMAX 8k or even higher. But who knows when that could be? Perhaps another 15 years from now...