Dark ride (amusement)

A dark ride or ghost train is an indoor amusement ride on which passengers aboard guided vehicles travel through specially lit scenes that typically contain animation, sound, music, and special effects.

In most uses, the term refers to ride-through attractions with scenes that use blacklights, whereby visible light is not introduced to the space, and only show elements that fluoresce under ultraviolet radiation are seen by the audience. The size of each room containing a scene or scenes is thus concealed, and the set designer is able to use forced perspective and other visual tricks to create the illusion of distance. Typically, these experiences also use a series of opaque doors between scenes to further control the views of the audience within a space-constrained building. Prominent examples of the technique include Disneyland's Snow White's Scary Adventures, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Peter Pan's Flight, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Alice in Wonderland, which all share the same show building, and which all rely on the use of blacklights in almost every scene.

The first dark rides appeared in the late 19th century and were called "scenic railways" and "pleasure railways". A popular type of dark ride, commonly referred to as an old mill or tunnel of love, used small boats to carry riders through water-filled canals. A Trip to the Moon began operation at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Leon Cassidy of the Pretzel Amusement Ride Company patented the first single-rail electric dark ride in 1928. Historically notable dark rides include Futurama at the 1939 New York World's Fair and Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.

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