Disney World’s Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway Ride Gets FastPass+ and an Animated Marquee

Now that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is open on both coasts, Disney is fully focused on its next new ride: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which will be opening at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Disney World on March 4. The trackless dark ride will take you into a frenetic new Mickey Mouse animated short, all happening inside the Chinese Theater replica that’s been the heart of this theme park since it opened in 1989.

With that opening date barreling straight towards us, this week has brought a few bits of news about Runaway Railway. The first is that you can now officially sign up for FastPass+ for the ride. You’ll need to have a ticket for admission already squared away, and once that’s taken care of you can use the Disney World website or app to try and snag a FastPass. If you have a room booked at a Disney World hotel, you can get a FastPass up to 60 days in advance; everybody else can only schedule one up to 30 days beforehand. Also, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway will debut as a Tier One ride at Hollywood Studios, alongside the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster and Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. You can only book one Tier One FastPass per day, so that means you’ll have to pick between Mickey and Minnie, Chewbacca, and Toy Story’s Slinky Dog (R.I.P. Jim Varney.) Also, FastPasses for new or high-demand rides vanish almost immediately, within minutes of a day opening up on the FastPass calendar, so if you really want to snag a Runaway Railway FP, you should plan on being online right when your day opens up, whether that’s 30 or 60 days in advance.

In addition to the FastPass opening up, Disney has also installed the sign for the ride on the front of the Chinese Theater. In a weird coincidence, I happened to be there the morning after it happened, and I took that photo of it you see above. Here’s a more expansive look at the marquee and how it fits on the old building.

Unfortunately it wasn’t lit up at night, so I couldn’t get a photo of it while it was fully illuminated. Thankfully Disney went ahead and revealed that to the world today, through this short video starring Goofy, who’ll be appearing in the ride alongside his mice friends.

Between all those wriggling lights and the animated characters, this marquee definitely captures that chaotic, 1930s cartoon energy that pulses through the new Mickey shorts, and which is all-but-guaranteed to be bountiful in Runaway Railway. That’s not the only video related to this sign that was posted to the Disney Parks blog today, though. There’s also a behind-the-scenes look into how the sign was designed and built, with Disney Imagineers talking about that process and how the sing was influenced by actual movie premiere marquees throughout the real Chinese Theater’s history. Check that out below.