These are the 10 best smells you can only find in Walt Disney World
Disney is known for wanting to control every part of a guest’s experience. It’s only natural and many fans are used to it. That includes the smells and we’re not talking the natural ones of any theme park. Because Disney is unlike other companies so they don’t just let the natural smells of the park be all they offer. Instead, the company is famous for using “smelleitzers” to pipe in specific scents at certain places.
That can sound sinister, but under Disney, it becomes something special. It gives attractions and areas a certain flavor and often helps pull a guest more into the overall experience. Some rides shine so well thanks to the scents abounding and some areas feel more vibrant as well. It’s tricky, and some folks may have preferences, but these have to count for the ten best scents you can inhale at Walt Disney World and why a visit there is unlike any on Earth.
PhilharMagic Pie
Brian Miller wrote a nice piece on why Mickey’s PhilharMagic shouldn’t be skipped over like too many do. There’s the animation, the music, the humor, the love letter to classic Disney animation. But the smell is something else, that apple pie scent wafting from the lobby to the theater.
Why Disney chose that specific smell is unknown, but it works. It’s a bit spicy but not too much, a comfortable scent that wafts in your nose and puts you in the mood for some great music. Disney even has a cologne for the scent to show how this pie smell makes this movie all the more magical.
The Resort Charms
The genius of a Disney resort is how each one seems to have their own distinctive aroma as soon as you enter the lobby, each themed to the resort’s atmosphere. The Wilderness Lodge has the aroma of being in the woods, pines and other natural scents mingling around. The Yacht Club has a smell like a coastal club, a bit “gentlemanly” while the Beach Club is more vibrant and laid back, almost like ice cream.
The Contemporary feels modern, the Polynesian has a variety of scents matching the islands (especially the floral arrangements), the Grand Floridian with the clove and jasmine, Port Orleans can mix a “city Cajun feel” for the main resort with the Riverside boasting a “bayou” scent of Southern flowers. This can be its own list as it’s brilliant how each resort has an aroma as distinctive as their themes.
Soaring’s Smells
Whichever version of Soarin’ you get, the Imagineers have you covered. If it’s the original California version, you get every scent of the Golden State: The orange groves, the pine trees of Lake Tahoe, the ocean mist of Malbu, it makes you feel like you’re immersed in the state and adds to the experience.
For the All Over the World version, it’s even better, with each nation having its own flavor, from roses for the Taj Mahal to sea breeze for Fiji and more. The smells are another reason why this ride makes you feel like you’re truly flying over these areas, so either version of Soarin’ is immersive.
Main Street’s mix
Main Street USA is the entryway into the Magic Kingdom and so first hits the guests with the unique smells. Walk past the Confectionery and the smell of cotton candy makes your mouth water and you want to buy a batch yourself. Go by the ice cream parlor and it’s vanilla and chocolate which smells bigger outside than indoors.
There are the smells from Tony’s Town Square and the Crystal Palace, not to mention the iconic popcorn you can only get at a Disney park. There’s also an “old-school” aroma to fit this throwback to olden times. It’s little wonder folks love to wander Main Street just to take in these great aromas.
Avatar Otherworldly
It makes total sense that Pandora has a fragrance unlike anything on Earth. True, the movies show Pandora’s atmosphere is unbreathable for humans, yet the park version manages to create its own unique air. The Animal Kingdom area has a few nice smells, mixing from the bright gardens to rainy mist for the boat ride to even a bit of sulfur here and there.
The topper is easily the moment in Flight of Passage when your banshee stops in a mushroom cave and you can smell the actual mushrooms with a touch of mildew there. It’s among the many reasons this ride is a mind-blowing experience and Disney pulling off the illusion of being on an alien world.
Motor Oil of Big Thunder
Big Thunder Mountain can feel like a dry spot to capture the Old West feel. A few nice scents for the desert plants and caverns are good. But it’s the locomotives that really shine, with Big Thunder’s trains smelling like fresh motor oil like the old-styled locomotives of the past.
It makes it feel more vibrant and exciting with the rush of the trains in the tunnels, the smell echoing around and so it feels like you’re on a real runaway train. The oil is just one of those fun touches that make “The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness” such an epic blast.
Salt Water of Pirates
Something about a water ride at a Disney park just feels different. The waters of so many attractions, past and present, abound, from the Seas at Epcot to other boat rides. But Pirates of the Caribbean is something else. It’s the salty taste of it, the way it hits you like you’re really putting out to sea, and it combines with the musky caves you first ride through.
It’s a fun touch with the splashes and adds more of an exotic air to the attraction. Of all the boat rides of a Disney Park, Pirates is the one whose water carries a scent that fits its location perfectly.
Musty Haunted Mansion
This is one of the first cases of Disney using smells nicely and it’s always worked. It’s a tricky thing to pull off but the moment you step onto the ground of the Haunted Mansion, there’s something in the air selling the history of the place, like it really has been around for centuries. As you go deeper, the musk seeps in further, making you believe you’re in a house not visited by a living person in years.
The smell continues throughout the ride, some areas a bit thicker than others. It combines with the dust (both legitimate and planted) and the air of something other-worldly happening all around you. That musky smell is perfect for the ghostly goings-on at this classic ride.
Mexico’s flavor
Every World Showcase pavilion has its great aromas to pay tribute to their host nation. There’s something about Mexico that feels so lively as soon as you step onto the grounds. It’s the spirit of the land, showing its history and flavor and that counts for the scents. It seems to mix all you’d expect from Mexico with the spicy food of its restaurants and the indoor setting makes it better.
It can also mix with the water of the boat ride and the torches inside the perpetual twilight of the interior market. It sets the mood nicely, and the actual spice-like flavors make it one of the best-smelling of all the World Showcase pavilions, making a great pavilion even better.
The burning of Rome, Spaceship Earth
It’s one of the oldest on this list but it still ranks as amazing. Spaceship Earth has changed a few times over the years yet still impressively managing to capture the history of communication. A key scene has long been the fall of Rome, meant to emulate the sacking of the city and the loss of so much writing.
Someone in 1981 decided that piping in the smell of burning ash would fit the scene, and it’s perfect. The smell of ash, of burnt concrete and paper, it sells how this glorious civilization collapsed and the ruin made clear much better than a larger AA scene would be. Just one smell tells the story and why this effect remains top-notch after so many years.