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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 are very successful 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 the Disney theme parks are a magical place
where everything seems perfect,
not every attraction Walt Disney imagineering
built has been perfect.
There have been a few attractions built in Disney theme park history
that didn't quite meet
expectations and some that were just complete flops.
So today,
we're gonna be counting down the top five failed
Disney rides and attractions.
Number five: The Flying Saucers.
1961 marked the year when Disneyland opened
the Flying Saucers attraction in Tomorrowland
It was located on the footprint where space fountains cue
and the magic eye theater 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 he sat in the vehicle
He would lean your body to the left or right which
would cause your 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 weigh 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
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 cast members to maintain the ride
according to a past disneyland operations director
It was one of those rides that would constantly break down since the rise
Technology wasn't really perfected not to mention that it didn't have good
rider capacity either right technicians did their best try 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 talking about
When are you guys 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 three 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 the ride look 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 Eiger 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 imagineers went back to the drawing board
and quickly came up with a plan originally the ride didn't have a soundtrack
So they created eight Italian style songs as well as adding
beach balls for guests to throw around
Like what was seen in the flying saucers
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 ride experience
more livelier for the guests only about 60 days after opening
Disney Began receiving lawsuits regarding injuries from
Impromptu games of Beach Ball Dodgeball, 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 snail's 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 and scraped knees
Disney's Legal team saw this as a major lawsuit
waiting to happen so in February of
2015 just two and a half years after its opening
and with very low guest satisfaction
scores the ride closed to be reimagined into a
trackless ride called Luigi's relic and roadsters
number three 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 worlds at Epcot the rides to
protagonist characters the dream finder and figment
Explored the power of imagination in this one-of-a-kind
12-Minute Omni Mover Dark Ride which also featured the
Sherman brothers compose song one little spark
the rides characters became the Ride Epcot fans
adored these 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 lackluster to say the least
since the budget for the ride was severely
cut the rides 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 learned that 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 removes about
40% of the original ride track lengths taking the Ride
from 12 minutes to approximately 5
everything from the original ride was gone including
the use of figment and the dream finder characters and
animatronics as well as the beloved one little spark song
Figment only appeared once on screen for a
brief couple seconds just before the ride ended hardly the representation
you'd be expecting this character to receive the righteous felt Bear was too short and
Lacked the heart and soul that you'd usually find in Disney attractions. It was very indignant of Disney
It was not received well at all everyone hated it from guests to cast members to the Pavilion
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 a 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 five million dollar budget to refurb the ride once again and to what we know now as Journey into imagination
With figment this new version was disney's attempt at saying yeah, we kind of screwed up
So we brought back as many references to the original ride 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
number two the Rocket rides the
1967 refurbishment of Tomorrowland in Disneyland introduced the people mover to the theme park
It was an elevated track around the land that took guests on a grand circle tour above tomorrowland the right unfortunately
closed in august of 1995 as part of another overhaul that tomorrowland would be receiving between
1995 to 1998 during the Surrey Imagination of the land
Imagineering decided it would be a great idea to repurpose the old
People-Mover tracks into what became the rocket rides a dragster style thrill attraction
It was supposed to be a more intense and thrilling experience
Than that of the people mover turning the former 16 minute ride into a three-minute experience like the people mover
Rocket rods offered an overhead view of tomorrowland at a more rapid pace the right started off with a 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 install banked turns
The entire ride was filled with speeding up and slowing down over and over and over again 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
People mover 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 people mover 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 three-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 people mover support beams were also becoming
Structurally unsafe showing signs of cracks and even some concrete broke off the beams
it's 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 one Superstar Limo Disney, California Adventure opened on February 8th
2001 with Super Star 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 got a call from your puppet wax figured real human handed agent
just get to the Chinese theater promptly the ride then took you on a very slow-paced journey through a variety of
StereotyPical Hollywood
Locations and situations that included caricature style celebrities through the use of very very basic animatronics
These were no A100 figures the right featured a lot of insight Hollywood gags that really only amuse 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 guests 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 then to 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 more at the speed of Mr.
Toad's Wild Ride while Superstar Limo was in development. The world Lost Princess diana on august 31st
1997 While her limo driver was trying to evade the Paparazzi
Disney couldn't continue with their original concept after this event 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 guests reaction to the attraction was so negative that on January 11th
2002 less than a year after opening Disney closed superstar limo people said journey into your imagination was very
Unbusy, 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 that wouldn't mention leave a comment down below and start a conversation
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