Journey to the Center of the Earth

The steam powered vehicle

As I said in the previous Mysterious Island post, Journey to the Center of the Earth is my favorite ride there. Not only is the ride itself cool, but from any area of the park it looks stunning. Evan the queue is amazing. The story begins with Captain Nemo deciding to use Mount Prometheus as his new base. After walking through the caverns of the volcano, visitors board terravators to travel to the base station a half-mile below the surface. Here, you can find a giant machine pumping oxygen into pre-drilled tunnels and a communications center giving off warnings of increasing volcanic activity. Then, guests board steam-powered vehicles and travel through a cavern of glowing crystals. You then proceed into a dark tunnel with insects whizzing around just before entering a mushroom forest filled with countless insects and other strange life forms. Before guests can proceed into the lake of fire however, a cave-in occurs and you have to take an alternate route. As visitors travel off course, they will probably notice the giant egg-sacks covering the walls. The vehicle soon slows when it passes the Subterranean Sea but speeds up after it's almost hit by lightning. It then proceeds down a tunnel where strange sounds can be heard and weird shadows can be seen. The ride finally comes to a climax where the vehicle encounters a giant lava monster. If you look closely at the lava pit it's sitting in, you can see a vehicle identical to the one you ride in. The vehicle then escapes to the surface on the wave of an eruption.