Once again, Disney takes all top three spots in the best amusement park ride category.
1. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
Disneyland
Rise of the Resistance, an epic dark ride that debuted in 2019 in Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme land, retained the top spot among voters after relinquishing its reign in 2023.
The ambitious, first-of-its-kind attraction combines four separate ride systems with state-of-the-art audio-animatronics and visual effects.
In the ride’s storyline, recruits are enlisted to join a battle between the villainous First Order and the heroic Resistance. Riders enter a dense forest where the Resistance has set up a temporary and secret military base camp outside of the Black Spire Outpost village on the Star Wars planet of Batuu, the setting for the 14-acre Galaxy’s Edge themed land. Along the way, the recruits will be captured aboard a Star Destroyer, break out of a First Order detention cell, elude the clutches of Kylo Ren and escape back to a secret base on Batuu.
In 2024, theme park industry news source Amusement Today gave its Golden Ticket Award for best dark ride to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Walt Disney World for a fourth straight year. The ride is virtually identical to the one at Disneyland.
2. Space Mountain
Disneyland
Space Mountain returned to the Top 3 after spending a year off the podium — a rarity for the perennial Disneyland favorite.
The 1977 indoor roller coaster takes riders on a high-speed journey through the dark with many twists, turns and dips.
After more than four decades of thrills, the popular coaster consistently has one of the longest lines in Disneyland.
The attraction occasionally shifts into Hyperspace Mountain mode, with a Star Wars overlay that was first introduced during the 2015 Season of the Force event. Scenes of X-Wings, Starfighters and even the Millennium Falcon flash on the interior walls of Space Mountain as riders race through the dark aboard the indoor coaster.
In past years during Halloween, a Ghost Galaxy overlay has filled the ride with paranormal activity with the help of projections, lighting and sound effects.
Riders walk through a futuristic space station before boarding the coaster train in a mission control center. NASA Mercury and Gemini astronaut Gordon Cooper helped design Space Mountain so the ride would feel like an actual space flight. Through the years, the coaster has introduced onboard audio, added new ride vehicles and undergone a complete retracking.
3. Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout
Disney California Adventure
Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout broke into the Best of OC lineup in 2025 for the first time since the drop tower ride debuted in 2017.
The re-skinned Guardians attraction in Disney California Adventure replaced the venerable 2004 Twilight Zone Tower of Terror as the anchor of the Avengers Campus themed land.
The comical and thrilling backstory of Mission: Breakout is loosely based on the Marvel movie franchise, which features a mismatched team of intergalactic misfits who band together to save the universe.
The backstory takes visitors inside the Collector’s unorthodox collection of extraterrestrial artifacts and creatures. As the story goes, Rocket Raccoon disarms a control tower, unleashing all of the museum’s caged aliens and causing the elevator to go haywire.
The drop-in-the-dark attraction features randomized drop sequences that move much faster than Tower of Terror ever did.
Mission: Breakout likely nabbed one of the top spots from past perennial favorites like Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World, Incredicoaster and Radiator Springs Racers — which have all shown up in the Best of OC over the past decade.