Is It Better To Be Living With The Land Or Soarin’ Over It?

I hold what seems to be a popular opinion: Living with the Land is the superior ride to Soarin.’ I have posted this call many a time on Instagram, and the response has, by and large, consisted of so much hallelujah and amen.

And yet – am I living in an Epcot echo chamber? It’s time to find out!

WHY ARE WE FIGHTING IN EPCOT?

I am not besmirching Soarin’… or, not exactly. I do think the original California version is verifiably better than Soarin’ Around the World, which suffers from entirely too much CGI and manufactured moments. Admittedly I haven’t tried Soarin’ Around America yet, but if it doesn’t feature the smell of orange groves it can’t possibly be as good as CA either. As good as? Okay, MAYBE. Better, no.

Still, Soarin’ has plenty of things going for it. Its particular brand of gentle thrills makes it appropriate for entire families. Jerry Goldsmith’s score – and its subsequent iterations – remains magnificent. Oh, and of course: Chief Flight Attendant Patrick Warburton. He’s worth +100 all on his own.

Yet Living with the Land, with its old school Epcot edutainment charm, remains a favorite among Disney park enthusiasts. Now and again I post to some form of social media about Living with the Land’s supreme ranking, and I am met with nothing but a chorus of agreement.

A CRACK IN THE GREENHOUSE GLASS

Except when you step outside of that bubble, the opinion changes pretty quick. For me, this fact was thrown into stark relief when I went to Walt Disney World with my nieces. Naturally I made sure we all made it onto a Land boat, because Living with the Land is an experience not to be missed!

Ummmm, my nieces hated it? Vocally???

Now, we are talking about – at the time – elementary school age children here, only recently tall enough for your smaller thrill rides and subsequently enamored with all things roller coaster and adjacent. Perhaps it is a matter of undeveloped tastes, which would refine with age and wisdom.

I might believe this, but truth be told, the adults in my party were pretty lukewarm themselves. I was the only certified Disney Adult in our cadre; my in-laws and even my own husband are not anti-Disney, but neither are they Into It like I am. (Admittedly, not many people are into like I am. YOU are, because you’re reading this blog, but we are a special breed.)

Everyone, age immaterial, called it the tomato ride. As in, “don’t make me go on the tomato ride again.” It became a threat. “If you don’t shape up, we’re skipping Cosmic Rewind and doing the tomato ride.”

SO IS LIVING WITH THE LAND > SOARIN’ A POPULAR OPINION OR NAH?

Thus the nutrient film technique seed was planted: did most people really like Living with the Land more than Soarin’? Or was the crowd I ran with self-selecting? I turned this question over in my mind… and then decided to try and find some form of answer. Not thoroughly or scientifically, mind you – neither Dr. Grant Seeker nor I am made of that kind of money – but just a little something to crack the lid and see what we found inside.

My metric? Wait times.

Sure, we can all SAY we like Living with the Land the best. But when it comes to trading in any theme park’s most valuable resource – time – where do we spend our chronological currency?

NO CAVEATS, NO CONTEXT

You may wish to point out that the answer to any Disney decision question is necessarily rooted in context. Where are you coming from? Where to next? What does the line look like as opposed to what the wait time claims? Which version of Soarin’ is playing, anyway?

Well, all of that would make this informal little experiment take a million years and, more than likely, exhaust the polling audience pretty quickly. Thus I provided no additional information beyond the raw question. A handful of people messaged me asking if there was a bigger picture with which to judge, but I said no.

Therefore the below results are the product of a sort of platonic ideal – or at least as unbiased as the inherently at least a teensy bit biased human brain can tell us.

All right, enough of my signature everything-is-nuanced disclaimers. Let’s jump into that data! Roll the polls:

30 MINUTES FOR LIVING WITH THE LAND OR SOARIN’?

I started with the closest I could get to a control group: even match, medium time commitment. Thirty minutes ain’t bad, but it’s starting to feel like really waiting. So if you’re really waiting either way, which would you choose?

Well, as it turns out, Soarin’ won this round – and pretty handily too. Living with the Land only procured 25% of the vote.

I found that to be a curious start considering the outpouring love every Instagram mention of Living with the Land receives. But the numbers don’t lie – and these particular numbers suggest that all else being equal, most will gun for Soarin.’

That’s only one scenario, though. I kept digging.

20 MINUTES FOR LIVING WITH THE LAND OR 35 MINUTES FOR SOARIN’?

Next, I spread things out a little bit: 20 minutes for Living with the Land against 35 for Soarin’. Now it’s a small-medium time commitment vs. a properly medium time commitment. Which would you choose?

And Soarin’ STILL won the round, albeit by a lot less, whittling down the margin to a mere 4%.

That extra 15 minutes worth of queuing did in fact sandbag Soarin’ as I expected, but by far less than I might have otherwise guessed. What would it take for the allegedly beloved Land to come out on top?

NO WAIT FOR LIVING WITH THE LAND OR 15 MINUTES FOR SOARIN’?

Time to get busy with a real world scenario. If we pretend that Epcot JUST opened, it would not be unreasonable for Living with the Land to have no wait at all while Soarin’ boasts a mere 15 minutes. Now, for a thrill ride – even a gentle one – like Soarin’, which is both popular and loads slowly, 15 minutes isn’t bad at all. The question is: can it unseat no wait whatsoever?

Turns out it can’t. Living with the Land prevails!

On the one hand, it is a feather in Living with the Land’s imaginary cap (you’d put it on the canopy) that it pulled such good numbers against an E-ticket like Soarin’. Then again, it did require a zero minute wait to get there.

That’s a decent amount of anecdotal data already, but I wanted to try one more thing…

45 MINUTES FOR LIVING WITH THE LAND OR 65 MINUTES FOR SOARIN’?

Okay, time to lock in for a noticeable time commitment any way you slice it. Pretend that it’s a holiday weekend and Epcot is kinda slammed. The wait for Soarin’ is 65 minutes, but even Living with the Land lists 45. Which would you choose?

Hallelujah, friends! Finally the numbers make sense.

Turns out if you have to wait a long time or a longer time, Soarin’ can’t quite overcome that extra 20 minutes. Living with the Land wins!

OKAY, BUT IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE…

And yet I wasn’t quite done. One more question, just to be sure: if you had to choose, is Living with the Land really your favorite? Or are the people prepared to admit they actually they like Soarin’ better?

The people are not ready – when it comes to the idea of the attraction, Living with the Land reigns supreme.

Which I find interesting, because most of the wait time splits I polled with were engineered to make either choice reasonable from certain angles. Given how vociferously the Disney crowd insists they love Living with the Land, I would have assumed it would be dominant. Yet it lost to Soarin’ several times, most surprisingly the 30 vs 30 battle.

If I were to venture a guess, I would posit that, as is so often the case, two things are true here at once. First, people DO love Living with the Land, as the “pick one” poll will attest to. However, I think Soarin’ – an E-ticket thrill ride – has a higher perceived cache. Therefore even if a Disney guest loves both, they may choose Soarin’ with an acceptable wait time because it feels like a better bang for your horological buck, and we like to feel like we’re extracting maximum value from our ticket price.

THE TOMATO RIDE WILL RISE AGAIN

Nevertheless, I remain a stalwart Living with the Land stan. Jerry Goldsmith and Patrick Warburton may be enticing, but they’ll never quite match the relaxation of the Land’s dark ride portion. Not to mention the novelty of watching Cast Members wandering around the greenhouse performing tasks, a living part of the attraction. It’s my favorite!

And if I wind up at Walt Disney World with my nieces again, they WILL ride the Tomato Ride and THEY WILL LIKE IT. Or at any rate they will learn to say they like it because otherwise we’re going again. Dang kids these days, am I right? 😂

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