- Because airspace inside National Park boundaries is protected, it took several months for the film crew to obtain permission to fly a helicopter into Yosemite National Park. The last time a helicopter was permitted to fly through Yosemite was in the mid-1900s, when a flood had closed the park to visitors.
- Though it may be hard to see them, in the Yosemite sequence, mountain climbers are making their way along a cliff face before the waterfall comes into view. The six members of the Yosemite Mountaineering School spent an entire day before the shoot placing pitons for handholds and footholds during filming. While the shot was being set up, and in between takes, the climbers literally "hung around," suspended from the cliff by ropes. One climber clung to the cliff for about six hours before the shot was ready to go.
- Because of its status as a marine sanctuary, it took a year to obtain all of the necessary permits to film the Monterey/Point Lobos sequence of the film. One of the boats in this shot is a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration) boat, whose job it was to monitor marine animal and bird activity during filming. Fortunately for the animals and the film crew, the shot was pulled off without disturbing any of the protected sea otters, sea lions or brown pelicans.
- The scene in which guests fly over the USS Stennis aircraft carrier, as it heads out of the San Diego port, is unusual in that all of the Navy jets and helicopters can be seen on the carrier. Normally the carrier offloads all of the aircraft as soon as it comes into port. When this scene of the film was shot, the vessel happened to be making a quick turn-around and had not had time to offload the aircraft. The USS Stennis is the largest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet.
- There is a scene in the film in which horses and riders gallop through Anza Borrego State Park. Prior to filming this scene, the film crew was required to hire an archaeologist and his team to perform a biological and paleontological resource assessment. In other words, the team hand-dusted the area from Fonts Wash to Fonts Point—a four-mile stretch of trail— in order to be sure no artifacts would be disturbed by the horses and riders.
- In the Anza Borrego shot, we see the Thunderbirds fly over the horseback riders. Many meetings with Air Force personnel were required to set up this shot. Flight paths for both the Thunderbirds and the helicopter film crew had to be carefully charted and arranged. The jets travel so fast that they would not be able to see the helicopter in time to avoid intercepting its flight path. Timing its departure and GPS location very precisely, the helicopter departed only a few miles from the filming rendezvous point, while the Thunderbirds took off from Nellis Air Force base, near Las Vegas, more than 200 miles away.
- Lt. Col. Brian Bishop, the Thunderbirds' lead pilot, uses the code name Be-Bop. The lead pilot for the Thunderbirds may hold his or her position for no more than three years, and Lt. Col. Brian Bishop's participation in the filming of this sequence for Soarin' Over California constituted his final flight as commander of the Thunderbirds.
- The film crew had to arrange and budget for a special staging of the Disneyland parade to film the final sequence for Soarin' Over California. In order to set up and film the shot, parade cast members repeatedly took small steps forward and then back again to resume
