Let's be honest, even Runaway Railway does a pretty lousy job disguising that most of its rooms are essentially soundstages. The flat cyclorama walls that have visual interest but abruptly fade to black at the ceiling are not sufficiently compensated for by the minimal set pieces and animatronics.
Despite some interesting figures, rich colors, and dynamic projections, it is almost always very clear you're in some sort of open showroom. This is not so apparent in on-ride videos of the attraction but is present in every major showscene within the ride outside of the train tunnel, projection dome, and the studio. Those are the only scenes that make the effort to fully envelop the guest, and still to varying degrees of success.
It makes it feel like the ride is the gut job it is - projection mapping the ceilings (or at least painting blacklight murals) would have gone SO far towards immersion in the cartoon world. Even something like Snow White's Scary Adventures never let you see the "edges" as clearly as Runaway Railway does. Railway is constructed pretty squarely with subject and backdrop with very little atmospheric scenery in between. I think Frozen frequently suffers these same ills, but at least they have those sparkling trees overhead in the beginning - SOMETHING infusing some atmosphere into the space between the Animatronics and the warehouse ceiling above.
But now I'm sure I've veered off topic.
*EDITED To Add: This may not be clear from this post, but I did have fun on Runaway Railway. I just don't think it hid its sins especially well.
