Monsters Inc. Ride at Disneyland: What You Need to Know

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Updated on 06/26/19

Monsters Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue! at Disneyland is based on the popular animated films, set in their world's largest scare factory. The professional "scarers" frighten children at night to collect their screams, which are used to power the city of Monstropolis. They're afraid the children may contaminate them, so when a darling little girl named Boo enters their factory, Mike and Sulley must return her.

The story starts in the queue, with an announcement that a child has entered Monstropoplis and the chase is on. Riders get into cute yellow taxis and go along with Mike and Sulley as they scramble to return little Boo to her bedroom while keeping her safe from the Child Detection Agency and the villain Randall.

The ride takes you through scenes from the film, including the "door room."

What You Need to Know

Location: Hollywood Land at California Adventure
Rating: ★★★
Restrictions: None
Ride time: 3 minutes 45 seconds
Recommended for: Anyone who liked the movie and it's good for small children
Fun factor: Medium
Wait factor: Medium to Low. Even at the busiest of times, the wait seldom exceeds 20 minutes. The only time to avoid is just after the Frozen show gets out, when the area is busier in general.
Fear factor: Low
Herky-jerky factor: Low
Nausea factor: Low
Seating: Ride vehicles have 3 rows of bench seats and a lap bar. You step up slightly to get in
Accessibility: If you're using an ECV, you'll have to transfer to an available wheelchair to get inside and transfer to the ride vehicle by yourself or with help from your traveling companions. Enter with everyone else and ask a cast member for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Pick up a handheld captioning receiver at Guest Relations when you enter the park.

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How to Have More Fun

Mike and Sulley to the Rescue ride characters — Kent Buckingham/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0

Each ride vehicle is equipped with a video monitor, located on the left side. It shows a simulated newscast about the shocking discovery of a human child in Monstropolis. Sit in the leftmost seats if you want to see it best, but frankly, the rest of the ride is more entertaining and it's not a problem if you miss it altogether.
Toddlers love trying to find Boo in every scene, especially if you ask them to be on the lookout for her.
Like many places at the Disneyland Resort, this ride has some hidden Mickeys. The blue spots on Sulley and Randall's bodies sometimes change into a Mickey Mouse outline shape.
You may also smell ginger as you pass through Harryhausen's sushi restaurant.
Pay attention at the end. Roz is always talking, but some people say that she's interactive. If you take a photo of her, she may comment, and sometimes she responds directly when someone chats her up.

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Fun Facts

Doors to Monstropolis — Paul Hiffmeyer/Disneyland

This ride originally opened as Superstar Limos, with riders, picked up at the airport and taken on a tour of the Los Angeles area. The current version uses much of the same track and layout.
Monsters Inc. is also one of several Disneyland rides that use a visual trick called Pepper's Illusion that dates back to the 1800s. It uses a piece of glass and a lighted object behind the viewer to create the illusion of something floating in the air. In the locker room scene where Mikey and Sulley are protecting little Boo, it makes the villainous Randall appear and disappear. Other rides that use this illusion are Haunted Mansion, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, and the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough.
Digital projection mapping — a technique that turns irregularly shaped objects into display surfaces for video projection — is responsible for the way Randall’s camouflage skin changes as Boo beats him about the head.