15 Once-Beloved Disney Rides That Closed Forever

There’s an oft-quoted line from Walt Disney himself about his imaginative and prescient for Disneyland (and now, by extension, the corporate’s different theme parks).

“Disneyland,” he mentioned, “won’t ever be accomplished. It should proceed to develop so long as there’s creativeness left on this planet.”

Creativeness is limitless. Development shouldn’t be. Disney owns and controls solely a lot land in Anaheim, California and Orlando, Florida. So altering Disneyland and Walt Disney World typically means closing long-running points of interest to make room for brand spanking new ones. Nothing is endlessly within the Happiest Place on Earth (besides presumably Dole Whip, that stuff is absolutely good).

Beneath are 15 examples of rides that had been closed and eliminated with the intention to enable Disney’s parks to develop. Every one additionally consists of video from the points of interest themselves. For those who by no means obtained to trip them, you’ll be able to see what you missed. And in case you did trip them, put together for a visit down reminiscence lane — offered you meet the peak necessities. Everybody right here is above 40 inches tall, proper?

Journey Via Internal Area

Disney Imagineering innovated an countless loop of trip automobiles that perpetually travels across the identical observe with out ever stopping. They dubbed it the “Omnimover.” That system is nonetheless utilized in parks all all over the world, on such iconic points of interest because the Haunted Mansion and Spaceship Earth. However the first trip to ever deploy it was known as Journey Via Internal Area, a high-tech (for 1967) science-based attraction that positioned company in “Atommobiles” and shuttled them via the “Monstanto Mighty Microscope” (thanks product placement) which supposedly shrunk them right down to the scale of molecules. The trip survived into the Eighties, till the constructing was repurposed to be used by Star Excursions.

Physique Wars

Following the success of Star Excursions, Disney tried to use the identical simulator expertise to different venues. Epcot’s Physique Wars basically took the fundamental premise of Adventures Via Internal Area and blended it with a Star Excursions simulator. Visitors boarded an experimental ship that shrunk inside a human physique for a short journey. With out the Star Wars IP (and with a notoriously bumpy trip expertise), Physique Wars by no means fairly attained the identical degree of long-running reputation as Star Excursions. It closed in 2007, though the realm of the park the place it was positioned, the Wonders of Life pavilion, nonetheless sits deserted in a quiet nook of the Epcot. Is it too late to get Physique Wars 2.0?

Captain EO

It actually speaks to simply how huge Michael Jackson was as a popular culture determine within the Eighties (and the way healthful his picture nonetheless was at that time), that Disney eagerly put him on the heart of a serious new attraction — and partnered him with Hollywood heavyweights George Lucas (whose Lucasfilm co-produced this elaborate 17-minute 3D film) and Francis Ford Coppola (who directed the movie). The story was foolish (one thing about Jackson as an area captain of a ship stuffed with kooky Lucasfilm aliens) however the ILM results had been good and the music and dancing had been on par with the most effective Michael Jackson music movies. The movie was retired in 1998, however was later introduced again in tribute to Jackson after his dying in 2009.

READ MORE: Theme Park Rides Primarily based on Films You By no means Knew Existed

The Nice Film Journey

The unique centerpiece of Disney-MGM Studios park in Orlando was the Nice Film Journey, a prolonged tour via Hollywood historical past that includes animatronics and human actors recreating scenes from classics like Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Footlight Parade, and Singin’ within the Rain. As that listing of traditional suggests, the trip and its topics didn’t essentially attraction to youthful audiences; the newest movie featured within the Nice Film Journey was Raiders of the Misplaced Ark, which was already eight years previous when the attraction first opened. Over time, no main updates had been made past including late TCM persona and movie historian Robert Osborne to the attraction as host, in order that by the top of its run, it felt like a relic from an period simply as previous as the films it celebrated. The Nice Film Journey gave its ultimate movie historical past lesson in 2017 and was in the end changed by Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

Honey, I Shrunk the Viewers! 

At Disneyland and Walt Disney World, the attraction that changed Captain EO was Honey, I Shrunk the Viewers! a 4D sequel to the Honey, I Shrunk the Youngsters franchise that was an enormous hit for Disney within the late ’80s and early ’90s. Rick Moranis and the solid of the Honey movies reprised their roles, in a 3D film with in-theater results; in it, an indication of Moranis’ character’s shrinking expertise by accident will get turned on vacationers, resulting in encounters with big mice, canine, and snakes. The consequences labored surprisingly nicely, to the purpose that some youngsters (okay, me) had been traumatized by a number of the results. (Nobody likes the sensation of mice on their legs, Rick Moranis!) Honey, I Shrunk the Viewers! labored so nicely it outlived the Honey, I Shrunk the Youngsters motion pictures by a few decade. Paradoxically, it was changed by … Captain EO, when it was introduced again in 2010.

Horizons

Ah, Horizons, maybe the #1 cult object within the Disney park universe. It was a cornerstone of early Epcot’s “Future World,” which was populated with pavilions devoted to the historical past (and potential improvements) of assorted points of our planet: The Land, The Seas, Universe of Vitality, and so forth. Horizons, which opened in 1983 and was housed inside a boldly geometric constructing, took company on an Omnimover into an imagined future that included robots, house stations, and video conferencing. (Telephone calls with video? Are you able to even think about???) Horizons closed for good in 1999, however the trip’s utopian imaginative and prescient and mellow vibes have made it a perrennial favourite amongst Disney nerds, who maintain it up because the prototype of the type of hopeful optimism lacking from Epcot right this moment.

Innoventions

Talking of utopian visions and mellow vibes: For years, company at Disneyland in California or Epcot in Florida might take a leisurely tour via Innoventions, buildings crammed with numerous technological innovations. There have been precise (or proposed) merchandise from actual tech corporations, in addition to video games, interactive displays, and animatronics. The rotating lineup of cubicles included The Sum of All Thrills, an modern and interactive attraction the place vacationers might design their very own curler coaster after which “trip” it utilizing a simulator constructed onto a robotic arm. Each Innoventions had been closed within the 2010s; Epcot’s has been changed by numerous eating places plus a Moana-inspired water attraction, whereas California’s grew to become a Star Wars meet-and-greet space and a lounge for Disney Trip Membership members.

Maelstrom

Nowadays, Epcot is crammed with thrill rides. It’s obtained a Guardians of the Galaxy coaster, the high-speed Check Monitor, and the extraordinary g-force simulator Mission: Area. Again within the late ’80s and early ’90s none of that stuff existed, and Epcot was largely a spot to wander via worldwide pavilions or calm down on gradual darkish rides in regards to the historical past of the power, automobiles, or, uh, historical past. In that world, Maestrom was about as thrilling as Epcot obtained; it was nonetheless a darkish flume trip however at the very least it had some animatronic trolls (themed to its residence within the Norway pavilion) and a well-known backwards drop. Disney closed Maestrom in 2014 and tailored its trip system (together with that drop) into the Frozen Ever After attraction.

The Magic of Disney Animation

You’ll by no means realize it strolling round Disney’s Hollywood Studios, however in its former incarnation as Disney-MGM Studios, the place really did offer you a glance behind-the-scenes of how movies and TV exhibits had been made — most immediately within the Magic of Disney Animation constructing. After a movie hosted by Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams launched company to the method of animating cartoons, guests might then peek contained in the precise animation studio Disney operated in Florida throughout these years (Mulan and Lilo & Sew had been drawn there, amongst different movies and exhibits). It wasn’t only a simulation of an animation studio — it was the true deal. I assume these days such a facility can be boring and pointless; you’d look in on a bunch of individuals clicking away at computer systems. Again within the ’90s, it was like a magician strolling you thru how they did their finest trick.

The PeopleMover

The stakes had been rather a lot decrease in 1967 when Disneyland debuted the PeopleMover, a trip that basically gave individuals a tour via different rides in Tomorrowland by way of a sequence of interconnected elevated tracks. By way of the years, Disney tried to replace and enhance the leisurely trip with a wide range of gimmicks; within the ’70s they added a “SuperSpeed Tunnel” (which didn’t really go very quick) and after the discharge of Tron they added Tron projections to it. Within the ’90s, they tried to improve it to an precise high-speed trip known as Rocket Rods — however as a result of the PeopleMover tracks weren’t designed for high-speed automobiles, upkeep points popped up consistently. Rocket Rods closed by the summer time of 2000, and the PeopleMover tracks have sat dormant at Disneyland ever since. (An analogous PeopleMover stays in operation on the Magic Kingdom in Florida.)

The Skyway

Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom each used to function a Skyway connecting the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland areas of their respective parks. (Tokyo Disneyland had one too.) The unique Disneyland model, which operated on the park from 1956 to 1994, even handed via the Matterhorn mountain. Sadly, that space was supposedly susceptible to “steel fatigue and stress cracks,” which in the end led to Disney closing the trip. (The Magic Kingdom Skyway adopted swimsuit in 1999.) The slow-moving, open-air gondolas are definitely less than par with fashionable theme-park expertise, however there was one thing awfully good about this dramatic views — and attending to take a bit breather from all that strolling, particularly within the sizzling Florida solar.

Splash Mountain

No matter you consider The Track of the South and its depiction of life within the late nineteenth century, the trip Disney inexplicably selected to theme to it (in 1989!) was lots of enjoyable. A log flume enhanced with animatronic cartoon characters and certainly one of Disney’s most well-known songs (“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”), it mixed Disney’s aptitude for storytelling with family-friendly thrills. The very fact Disney by no means launched The Track of the South on residence video meant it was solely a matter of time earlier than Splash Mountain obtained tossed into the briar patch itself. The trip lives on in a brand new kind, although; the mountain and flume are actually the topic of Tiana’s Bayou Journey at each Disneyland and Walt Disney World. For those who’re determined to trip Splash Mountain once more, you’ll have to make a journey to Japan; it’s nonetheless working at Tokyo Disneyland.

Submarine Voyage

Right this moment, “E-ticket” is a designation informally assigned to the entire greatest Disney rides. The title comes from the previous ticket books Disneyland company used to get onto rides on the park; the tickets assigned letter scores based mostly on the extent of demand and thrills, A via E, with E reserved for the most effective of the most effective. And in 1959, E meant Submarine Voyage, which simulated a journey via the deep ocean aboard a complicated submarine. (In actuality, the boats by no means even totally submerged; a bubble impact offered the phantasm of a deep-sea dive, whereas the “sub”’s seats all confronted out via portholes under the water line.) When Submarine Voyage was ported to Walt Disney World in 1971, it was given a 20,000 Leagues Below the Sea theme, with the subs designed to seem like the Nautilus from the 1954 Disney movie of the identical title. Each voyages closed within the Nineteen Nineties, though the Disneyland model finally reopened with a Discovering Nemo overlay. (The Magic Kingdom’s lagoon was later razed to make room for a Seven Dwarfs Mine Prepare coaster.)

Universe of Vitality

Right here’s one other opening-day Epcot attraction that progressively grew to become a dinosaur within the park — solely on this case, the trip was really about dinosaurs. Initially sponsored by the oil firm Exxon, it knowledgeable riders in regards to the historical past of power by way of an animated academic movie after which via audio-animatronic dinosaurs. (In a traditional Disney contact, the “theater” you watched the movie in housed six completely different stationary trip automobiles which drove via the remainder of the present constructing the place the dinosaurs had been positioned. In 1996, the attraction was up to date as “Ellen’s Vitality Journey”; whereas the dinosaurs had been largely preserved, the movie was now hosted by comic Ellen DeGeneres. This model was current within the park till 2017, when work started on the Guardians of the Galaxy curler coaster. The trip was definitely old style by that time, however the animatronic dinos had been fabulous for his or her period.

World of Movement

Earlier than Epcot’s present Check Monitor, its car-based trip was known as World of Movement, a much more sedate Omnimover journey via the historical past of the journey from historical instances proper as much as the trendy vehicle. The good half was arguably the trip’s first moments; after boarding, the automobiles exited the present constructing to make a sweeping proper flip up into the precise attraction. As you’ll be able to see within the video under, the automobiles moved comically slowly, and had been maybe not essentially the most applicable selection for a trip about movement. Nonetheless, there’s a kitschy attraction to those early Epcot points of interest — and World of Movement was distinguished by its quirky humorousness, offered partly by contributions from legendary Disney animator Ward Kimball.