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Since the inception of both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, the parks were built with
unique attractions all thanks to Walt Disney Imagineering.
The imagineers have designed dark rides, spinners, water rides, thrill rides; attractions for
the entire family.
Now there’s many attractions that have been huge successes and have become Disney classics
such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, It’s a Small World, Haunted
Mansion and the list goes on.
Although Disney’s Theme Parks are a magical place where everything seems perfect, not
every attraction Walt Disney Imagineering built has been perfect.
There are the few attractions built in the Disney Theme Park history that didn’t meet
expectations once they were built and operating and some that were just complete flops.
So today, we’re gonna be looking at the Top 5 failed Disney rides and attractions.
Number 5- The Flying Saucers 1961 marked the year when Disneyland opened
the Flying Saucers attraction in Tomorrowland.
It was located on the footprint where Space Mountain’s queue and the Magic Eye Theatre
is today.
This ride gave guests a chance to float on air, control their own ride vehicle and possibly
engage in a futuristic version of bumper cars, or bumper saucers to be more exact.
The blue platform sat on a basement below the ground that blew air up through the holes
of the floor.
As you sat in the vehicle, you would lean your body to the left or right and this would
cause the saucer to move across the platform.
It was a pretty cool looking ride, and it definitely fit the futuristic look of Tomorrowland.
Although guests really grew to enjoy this attraction there were some downsides to it.
Little kids had some trouble if they didn’t weight enough and were too light.
The saucer would just sit there in one spot bouncing up and down if they tried leaning
to either side, sometimes even knocking the rider out of the saucer.
And if you were a bit too big the saucer wouldn't move at all.
It was an operations nightmare back in the 60s that required upwards of 25 cast members
to start in the morning, as well as 15 to maintain the ride according to a past Disneyland
operations Director.
It was one of those rides that would constantly break down since the ride’s technology wasn’t
really perfected, not to mention that it didn’t have a good rider capacity either.
Ride technicians did their best trying to keep it operational but they eventually gave
up. and in 1966 The Flying Saucers, along with many other attractions in the land, closed
to make way for a newly reimagined Tomorrowland that would open in 1967.
When Tomorrowland reopened guests weren’t too thrilled that the flying saucers were
no longer at the park, and according to former imagineer Tony Baxter;
Even to this day you hear people taking about when you gonna bring back the flying saucers
well that year just happened to be 2012
Number 4- Luigi’s Flying Tires As part of the 1.1 billion dollar renovation
and expansion plan for Disney California Adventure, Cars Land would open in 2012.
One attraction that was part of the new land was Luigi’s Flying Tires which paid homage
to the old Flying Saucers attraction at Disneyland.
Imagineers took a crack at this concept once again.
This time instead of using single rider vehicles, imagineers designed a much larger vehicle
in the shape of giant tires that could fit up to 3 riders.
In the same fashion as the flying saucers, the ride vehicles were designed to have riders
lean to either side which would move the tire across the platform.
It looked cool, but Luigi’s Flying Tires encountered problems even before it opened.
For starters, when Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney company, tested the ride he was EXTREMELY
underwhelmed.
Iger immediately went to the imagineers and said it needed to go faster, but the imagineers
told him the ride vehicles were going as fast as they could.
So imagineer’s went back to the drawing board and quickly came up with a plan.
Originally, the ride didn’t have a soundtrack so they created 8 Italian style songs as well
as adding beachballs for guests to throw around, like what was seen in the Fying Saucer’s
promotional footage in the 60s.
They also added an additional 45 seconds to the ride since it would take riders more time
to figure out how to make the tires move.
All this was done as an attempt to make the experience more livelier for the guests.
Only about 60 days after opening, Disney began receiving lawsuits regarding injuries from
impromptu games of beach ball dodge ball, so naturally they were removed.
They also never solved the problem of the ride vehicles moving too slow either, so there
would be many times when your tire would move at a snails pace or not even move at all.
On top of all this, people kept tripping as they were getting out of the ride vehicle
due to its bulky design, resulting in ongoing small injuries such as twisted ankles or scrapped
knees.
Disney’s legal team saw this as a major lawsuit waiting to happen, so in February
of 2015, just 2 1/2 years after its opening and with very low guest satisfaction scores,
the ride closed to be reimagined into a trackless ride called Luigi’s Rollickin Roadsters.
Number 3- Journey Into YOUR Imagination Now you might be saying, wait, Journey into
Imagination is still open at Epcot, and you’re right, but we’re talking about Journey into
YOUR imagination.
So back in 1983, a little ride called Journey into Imagination opened in Future World at
Epcot.
The ride’s two protagonist characters, The Dreamfinder and Figment, explored the power
of imagination in this one of a kind 12 minute omnimover dark ride, which also featured the
Sherman Brothers composed song “One Little Spark.”
{Singing} Imagination
The ride’s characters became the ride; Epcot fans adored theses characters.
In October of 1998, Journey Into Imagination 1.0 closed to make way for what was to be
a substantial improvement to the original ride, but this was far from reality.
Journey into YOUR imagination opened in October of 1999 and was lacklustre to say the least
since the budget for the ride was severely cut.
The ride’s new incarnation took riders in the Imagination Institute, where you’d be
testing out the Institute’s new Imagination Scanner, capable of telling you just how creative
you are.
After traveling through a series of different experiments that test your imagination, at
the very end you'd learn you’re a creative genius!
Go figure!
The new ride was VERY different from the 1.0 version.
Although it removed the problematic turntable issue the original faced, it also removed
about 40% of the original ride track length taking the ride from 12 minutes to approximately
5.
Everything from the original ride was gone including the use of the Figment and Dreamfinder
characters and animatronics as well as the beloved “One Little Spark” song.
Figment only appeared once on a screen for a brief couple of seconds just before the
ride ended; hardly the representation you'd be expecting this character to receive.
The ride just felt bare, was too short and lacked the heart and soul that you'd usually
find in Disney attractions; it was very un Disney of Disney.
It was not received well at all, everyone hated it- from guests to cast members, to
the pavilion’s sponsor Kodak (who at the time didn’t have an actual say in the attractions
refurb design and concept) Even former CEO at the time Michael Eisner hated it.
What was once the highest rated attraction at Epcot in its original form, Journey into
Your Imagination became the lowest rated attraction at the park.
Disney had no choice but to quietly close the ride on October 8th 2001, and you know
a ride is really bad when Disney closes it just two years after opening it.
With the closure Michael Eisner, who hated Journey 2.0, allotted a 5 million dollar budget
to refurb the ride once again into what we now know as Journey into Imagination with
Figment.
This new version was Disney’s attempt at saying, yea we kinda screwed up so we brought
back as many references to the original as we could.
This time figment had a much larger presence and was placed into every scene.
Imagineers refurbed all the old figment animatronics from the original ride, and brought back the
ONE LITTLE SPARK song and used it throughout the entire ride as well.
{Singing} With just one spark with me and you.
Imagination- One Little Spark!
Number 2- the Rocket Rods The 1967 refurbishment of Tomorrowland in
Disneyland introduced the PeopleMover to the theme park.
It was an elevated track around the land that took guests on a grand circle tour above Tomorrowland.
The ride unfortunately closed in August of 1995 as part of another overhaul that Tomorrowland
would be receiving between 1995 to 1998.
During this re-imagination of the land, Imagineering decided it would be a great idea to repurpose
the old PeopleMover tracks into what became the Rocket Rods: a dragster style thrill attraction.
It was supposed to be a more intense and thrilling experience than that of the PeopleMover, turning
the former 16 minute ride time into a 3 minute experience.
Like the PeopleMover, Rocket Rods offered an overhead view of Tomorrowland at more rapid
pace.
The ride started off with a very quick launch but then at every turn the vehicle had to
slow down, since due to budget cuts and the loss of GM as a sponsor, they kept the flat
people mover tracks and didn’t instal banked turns.
The entire ride was filled with speeding up and slowing down, over and over and over agin.
Upon opening, the ride did have mixed reactions from guests.
Some claimed it wasn’t thrilling enough to be considered a thrill ride and some said
it was too thrilling when comparing it to the PeopleMover, not to mention that wait
times were ridiculously long for this ride.
On top of the mixed reactions, Rocket Rods also started to experience some mechanical
issues.
The infrastructure of the PeopleMover support beams and track weren’t altered at all since
they were working with the tight budget.
With the constant speeding up and slowing down, this put a lot of stress on the track
and ride vehicles.
Only weeks after opening the ride went down for a 3 month maintenance period to try and
address some of the issues.
The ride reopened in fall of 1998, and even after the 3 month closure it was still constantly
breaking down, becoming very unreliable.
It would later be discovered that due to the speed of the vehicles the PeopleMover support
beams were also becoming structurally unsafe, showing signs of cracks and even some concrete
broke off the beams.
Its also said that one instance of concrete breaking off ended up in a lawsuit with Disney.
In September of 2000, the ride closed once again for another refurb announcing it would
reopen again in Spring of 2001.
Well, spring of 2001 came and went and the ride didn’t reopen.
In May 2001, Disneyland issued an official press release stating that Rocket Rods will
close permanently due to the complexities of operating the ride.
Number 1- Superstar Limo Disney California Adventure opened on February
8th 2001 with Superstar Limo being one of the opening Day attractions, which just happened
to be the only dark ride in the park at the time.
You boarded a stretch limo, when you get a call from your puppet, waxed figured, real
human handed “agent.”
{Agent}- Just get to the Chinese Theatre pronto; y’hear me!
The ride then took you on a very slow paced journey through a variety of stereotypical
Hollywood locations and situations that included charachaure style celebrities through the
use of very basic animatronics;
How about a map to your house Drew Carey!
these were no A-100 figures.
The ride featured a lot of inside Hollywood gags that really only amused people in the
entertainment industry, like Michael Eisner.
It was a bizarre attraction that really just added to the lukewarm response Disney California
Adventure was getting at the time.
What a lot of people don't know though, is that this ride concept wasn't what was originally
intended.
Originally, the guest took on the role of a big time celebrity who was late to the premiere
of their new movie.
The limo driver would get you there as quick as possible only to then be chased by the
paparazzi.
This would result in the driver trying to evade the paparazzi taking riders on a much
more thrilling and quicker ride through Hollywood.
Superstar Limo was shelved for a little while, but then was reimagined into the concept that
opened in 2001.
There were very few references made to the paparazzi in this new version and the ride
vehicles moved as slow as possible, so no one would make a connection between the ride
and Princess Diana.
The guest reaction to the attraction was so negative that on January 11, 2002, less than
a year after opening, Disney closed Superstar Limo.
People said Journey into Your Imagination was very un-Disney but this ride takes the
cake.
Really, it looked like something you’d see at Six Flags and didn’t belong in a Disney
Park.
So in your opinion which would you say is Disney’s biggest failed attraction either
from this list or maybe there’s even another ride we didn’t mention.
Leave a comment down below and start a conversation.
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