How Does Disney’s Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure Compare to Universal’s The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man?

The day has finally come! Avengers Campus has officially opened in Disneyland’s California Adventure Park in Anaheim, and there’s a whole lot to look forward to from the new Marvel attraction. The most exciting draw is WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure, the new interactive screen ride that allows you to team up with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to take down the out-of-control Spider-Bots he helped create. If you’re a fan of Marvel and theme parks, chances are you’re also familiar with The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, which is another ride located in Universal’s Islands of Adventure in Orlando as well as Universal Studios Japan. This week, I was able to get a sneak peek at the WEB SLINGERS ride, and since I grew up in Florida, I have also been on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man countless times throughout my life. Here’s how the two rides compare…

Having been on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man within the last couple of years, I’m glad to report the ride, which first opened in 1999, holds up. Universal’s Marvel Super Hero Island isn’t based around any movies, so it feels somewhat timeless considering how many actors have played the hero in the last 20 years. There’s even a Stan Lee cameo! If you were going to make me choose between The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and WEB SLINGERS, I would go with the original ride because I’m a sucker for nostalgia. However, there are pros and cons to both, and in the end, I’d consider them nearly equals.

If you prefer interactive rides, WEB Slingers is going to win out for you by a long shot. Personally, I prefer story rides, so I enjoy getting to sit back and watch Spidey handle the baddies in Amazing Adventures. While the interactive nature of WEB Slingers is awesome, it also causes you to focus too much on the game of killing Spider-Bots to the point where you’re missing so much that’s happening around you. It’s going to be a while before you can ride WEB Slingers more than once per day, so the full experience will require multiple park visits. Amazing Adventures is just as fun, but a lot more straightforward.

One way Universal’s Amazing Adventures has Disney’s WEB Slingers beat is a super simple feature: the 3D glasses. Amazing Adventures’ glasses are bigger and can typically fit over eyeglasses. The WEB Sligners ones are smaller, so I had to take my eyeglasses off to use them. Thankfully, the screens were big enough that I could still see what was going on, but it would have been nice to have my full vision on the ride.

Interestingly, the overall setup of the rides are very similar. In addition to being a 3D attraction, both have similar vehicles that whip you around in the same way. The main difference is, pretty much everything you’re looking at during WEB SLINGERS is on the screen whereas Universal has some fun real-life effects like fireballs from Hobgoblins’ pumpkin bombs and water splashes that hit you when glass shatters on the screen.

Overall, I expected to come out loving one ride much more than the other, but similar to the Spider-Man movies… there’s plenty of joy to go around! If you have plans to check out WEB SLINGERS, be sure to take a gander at our guide, because you aren’t able to just show up and ride the ride without making a reservation on the Disneyland app first.

Do you have plans to visit Avengers Campus? Tell us in the comments!