I love it. But I loved it the moment they put it in DCA. I grew up near California and DL so a lot of it is close to home for me. I also think its an amazing ride and my kids LOVE it. That said, I would never wait more than 20 minutes for it, but I refuse to wait longer than that for any ride. I think the lines for it are ridiculous. Also the queue is horribly boring. I prefer the queue in DCA and its placement there makes much more sense to me.
This.
Soarin' is fun, but it makes *much* more sense in Anaheim, where you're flying over footage of the state you're actually in. It would make more sense in Epcot if they had kept the original name, Soarin' Over California, and make it more explicit that it was a California-themed ride.
Team Disney Orlando did the opposite. They decided to make almost no direct references to California, even in the ride's name. Patrick just tells you you're flying to California and that's it. So people unfamiliar with it line up for it, ride it, and go, "Huh? Oh, I guess we're flying over California." And then they wonder why they should care that at the end they're flying over
Disneyland, when Magic Kingdom is five miles away.
It's *so* different at DCA. The entire land, ride building, and queue are themed specifically to the same theme as the film, itself--aviation in California. It helps the ride make a lot more sense. And when you see Disneyland at the end, considering that the front gate of Disneyland is about 100 yards away from Soarin' Over California's ride building, everybody applauds. Everybody. Almost. Always. Applauds.
There's just no way the same magic could translate from Anaheim to Orlando. Orlando deserved its own site-specific version of Soarin', or a better theme to help the ride film make more sense to Epcot visitors.