Even if you have no attachment to the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, it’ll be hard not to smile as you fly on the back of a dragon through a Viking wonderland with the wind—and the occassional bit of sea spray—at your face.
“DreamWorks Dragons Flight Academy” is both the latest and greatest experience from Dreamscape, an immersive virtual reality destination at the Westfield Century City. It’s also fundamentally different from all of the other sequences they have on offer; rather than walking through virtual environments, you’ll spend this one seated on your dragon as you tail Hiccup and Toothless and steer across open seas, through bioluminescent caves and into Viking strongholds. What starts as a dragon-riding training session turns into a rescue mission as things go awry—with a particularly adorable arrival late in the attraction that we won’t ruin.
Before you begin, you’ll first enter a room decked out in colorful Viking helmets and maps, with charming Celtic-inspired cubbies to stow your belongings. “Dragons” has the least amount of cumbersome gear to deal with compared to other Dreamscape experiences; there’s no bulky backpack or foot trackers here. Instead, you’ll move into the next room, mount a bicycle seat positioned in front of a portable fan and strap on a pair of hand trackers and a headset.
Controlling your dragon is a bit like riding a motorcycle, only one that can fly; you can use your hands to push, pull and swivel the handlebars of your saddle, while you can lean left and right to steer your dragon into sharper turns. That unadorned seating concoction appears as a foreground-filling dragon, though, once you put your headset on. You’ll feel your seat rumble underneath you as your fiery friend flaps through the skies (look to the right or left and you’ll see the tips of its wings). “Dragons” slowly and smartly acclimates you to the controls: First you’ll walk through a Viking village (make sure to stroll near the hay bales), then you’ll plunge off a cliff and hone your aim as you dive and climb toward speed-boosting rings. By then, you’ll likely be a pro at dragon flight (for better or worse, you never have total control as it’s more of an on-rails experience like Disneyland’s Autopia).
Like all VR experiences we’ve tried, it has its faults: The field of view is a little narrow and, though your always-visible dragon is clear and colorful, the background can get a little muddy at times. That said, nothing could get in the way of the smile that was plastered on our face for the entire experience—and our reluctance to leave our new fire-breathing partner behind when it was over.
Just a heads up that if you’re afraid of heights, you may want to sit this one out. And while the discrepancy between sitting still in real life but constantly moving forward in the virtual world could theoretically cause a bit of motion sickness, we found it wasn’t an issue at all—in fact, the persistent stream of air blowing felt great.
As of the time of publication, “DreamWorks Dragons Flight Academy” has timeslots available to book for $20 through January 6, 2020.
