There were rumors about Disney Quest closing down and becoming another ESPN Zone, but thankfully that hasn't happened yet. I went to Disney Quest the first year they opened and you had to pay a separate admission to go there. Most of the Disney passes include stuff like Pleasure Island and the three water parks, but Disney Quest wasn't included. The way they have it is you pay a flat fee, which I think was 25-30 dollars to get in. I said to the guy, "Woah! Wait a minute! I gotta pay to get in, THEN pay to play the games?!" he just said "No, all of the games have a button where the coin slot is, just press it and it adds credits into the game, all of the games are free play." I just yelled out, "SOLD!!" paid and ran in. It's best if you can spend the whole day there and it makes it so even if you play just the arcade games you make out better then if you were playing 50 cents a game.
When you go in, two of the floors are the big attraction games like Cyberspace Mountain (A make your own rollercoster game) Ride The Comix, That one game Bruno mentioned that's like G3, Aladdin's VR Magic Carpet Ride and the river boat cruse. The classics section has this Buzz Lightyear tank game, where two people get into these tanks, one person drives and another shoots, pretty damn cool. My favorite of all the special DQ only attractions is Ride the Comix. It's a VR game where you use a lightsaber to bat off enemies and at the end the of the game you face off against one of the major villains of the game, the better you do, the harder the boss you fight. The Magic Carpet ride is really cool, they put you in a race against the clock to collect the pieces of the Scarab to get into the cave of wonders to collect the lamp, then you have to fly out as it's being destroyed in the lake of fire, just like in the movie. The other stage is going around the bazaar looking for gems and who ever finds the most wins.
Sadly, most of the games I mentioned aren't well maintained. When I went the first year everything was working perfectly. Now only one floor of ride the comix works and even some of them on the floor they tell you don't work well either. The Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam game only had half of the stations working and the ones that did, didn't work right. You'd try to go to the right and the puck would go down no matter what you did. Cyberspace Mountain was an awesome idea. They used the huge centrifuge cabs that shake and twist around to do some pretty amazing coasters. You can either make your own or ride on a preselected one. They would grade your coaster so if you made it too extreme it would tell you to tone it down. Now I hear they made the coasters much weaker, they would grade your coaster from 1-10 and now I hear 7 or 8 is the max.
The arcade games are a mixed bag. You have the one floor where the Buzz Lightyear ride is where a majority of the classic 80's games are. When I first went there they had a sit down Star Wars, and sadly I hear it's not there anymore, but I got pictures of it because I love that cab to death.
I had to wait for that fat bitch's kid to get out of the damn game when I was there, when she did I think I kept playing it for half an hour. Also one game to note that I saw there for the first time when they opened was none other then DEATH RACE. Out of all of the arcades in the world where I'd think to find a game like Death Race it wouldn't have been in Disney World. Most of the games worked alright. Some didn't have the classic joysticks and were fitted with newer HAPP joysticks so it was weird playing some games.
They have another level with 90's games. They had a NICE 2 player cab of Capcom's The Punisher and I watched two kids kick some major ass, really took me back to the days when EVERY arcade in Disney had Ninja Turtles and that's ALL I would do. "Wanna go on Splash Mountain Nick?" "No...Turtles...." "Wanna take a picture with Mickey?" "NO! We're almost up to Shredder!!" Also, on the top floor is the food court and they have some newer cocktail table games so you can get a bite to eat and even play some Galaga too. It was cool to sit down with some chicken fingers and play Mrs. Pac-Man.
With newer games, I can see they have the new Nascar game...woopty shit. Another racing game that can't hold a candle to Daytona. Last time I was there they had a room filled with those ugly Tsumo full motion cabs that people would hog and you could never play, a few Sega and Namco Light Gun games and they had some stand up versions of The Fast and the Furious. Another room they had fighting games. Mostly Tekken and Soul Caliber 2. They just got the new Tekken 5 machines and only one of the four joysticks worked correctly. Another room after that they had a couple of music game, Percussion Masters and DDR and I think Pump it Up and they made the pinball room smaller. It's sad because the first time I went the Pinball area was huge and they had an awesome selection of games. They even had two NBA Fastbreak games linked together for two player mode. I played against this other girl and she kicked my ass and her parents even ran in and started to taunt me because I got beat by a girl. (should have gotten some digits, she was pretty cute too)
Sadly, Disney Quest seems like a lost cause. When I first went there I was waiting to make a coaster for Cyberspace Mountain I overheard a conversation with a Disney higher up and a bunch of guys in expensive looking business suites. Disney wanted to make Disney Quest into a chain arcade like Dave and Busters, Chuck E. Cheese, etc and they only opened up one other Disney Quest that was in Chicago. I think it lasted for only two or three years before they closed it off. I think people were turned off by the fact that you couldn't just walk in and pay to play the games you wanted and had to pay the full admission price. Even the store attached to Disney Quest went from selling cool Disney Quest related stuff to just becoming a generic Disney Store. When I first went there I got a really nice black button down dress shirt with the Disney Quest logo stitched into it and now they just have nothing. The last time I went there we had to dress up for dinner at one of the restaurants and I wore that shirt then went to DQ after and one of the attendants looked at me and said, "Where the hell did you get that?"
I think if they would have opened the place during the Street Fighter II heyday it would have been more successful. Now they do include entrance to Disney Quest with the more expensive Disney Vacation plans. It is worth checking out if your on vacation in Disney but it's not as good as it was when they opened. I wish more people would check it out and that they would fix what they had, because I don't see them adding in any new attractions, anytime soon.
