Walt Disney World is home to some of the world’s impressive theme park rides and shows, and has expanded its line-up significantly since the debut of the Magic Kingdom in 1971. Three entire additional theme parks are on offer at the resort, as well as two water parks and many smaller attractions. Inevitably, though, not all of the attractions that have been designed by Disney’s Imagineers for the company’s Florida resort have seen the light of day.
Some were cancelled due to budgetary constraints. Some were dumped for creative reasons. And some were simply too complex on a technical level. You could build multiple theme parks populated by the attractions that Walt Disney World has rejected over the past four-plus decades. Let’s take a look at 15 of most intriguing…
15. Dragon Tower (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
The original plans for Disney’s Animal Kingdom included a huge land dedicated to mythical creatures, dubbed Beastly Kingdom. Cost overruns meant that this was pushed back to a “Phase II” expansion, and Camp Minnie-Mickey was built instead. Beastly Kingdom was to be headlined by an enormous, indoor roller coaster: Dragon Tower. This was to incorporate dark ride elements, and would have been Disney’s first ever inverted roller coaster (with the trains hanging beneath the track, instead of sitting atop it). It would have raced through the dragon’s keep, past its gold stores and along the bat-filled rocky corridors of the surrounding caves. 
Dragon Tower, and the rest of Beastly Kingdom, was put on hold indefinitely when it became clear that Animal Kingdom was cannibalising attendance at Walt Disney World’s other parks (and when Universal’s new Islands of Adventure park failed to draw guests away from Disney). In one sense, though, it lives on – there are persistent rumors that laid-off Imagineers took the idea to Universal, where it became Dragon Challengeat Islands of Adventure.
14. The Great Muppet Movie Ride (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
Back in the early 1990s, Disney-MGM Studios (now renamed as Disney’s Hollywood Studios) was locked in a battle with Universal Studios Florida for the title of “best movie studio theme park in Orlando”. Universal’s park had suffered a disastrous debut in 1990, but began its turnaround with the opening of Back to the Future: The Ride in 1991. Disney’s park, meanwhile, had been criticized for its lack of attractions, after CEO Michael Eisner had insisted that it be designed as a “half-day park”. Disney-MGM Studios had opened a full year before Universal Studios Florida, and attendance was strong. Eisner promised to remedy the capacity problems, saying: “The studio needs to be bigger, and it needs to be on the scale of the other two parks.” Expansion plans were quickly put into place. Part of the expansion was to be an entire new land based on Jim Henson’s Muppets, dubbed The Muppet Studios. This would include the Muppet*Vision 3-D movie theater, a stage show and a parade. The star attraction, though, would be The Great Muppet Movie Ride. This would complement the existing Great Movie Ride, one of the park’s original E-Ticket attractions. 
Disney promised that the Great Muppet Movie Ride would take guests on a “misguided tour through movie history”. Effectively a parody of the Great Movie Ride, it would boast an entirely Muppet cast. Describing it, Henson said that it would be “a backstage ride explaining how movies are shot…but all the information is wrong.” Disney was keen to buy the Muppets outright from Jim Henson. However, following his sudden death in May 1990, the company continued to push forward with its plans for Muppet Studios. This angered his children, who cancelled the deal. Instead, they agreed to license the Muppets characters for individual attractions, with the 3-D movie, stage show and parade going ahead but the Great Muppet Movie Ride being dropped (Disney eventually agreed a deal to buy the Muppets in 2004).
13. Matterhorn Bobsleds (Epcot)
The World Showcase was one the main elements of EPCOT Center when it opened in 1982. It featured a host of pavilions representing different nations from around the world, packed with shops, restaurants and attractions. To help fund the building of the World Showcase, Disney sought sponsorship from national governments and major corporations within the countries that it hoped to represent. Not all of them signed up. That meant that a number of pavilions were conceived that were ultimately never built. Similarly, a number of expansions to the World Showcase, in the form of new pavilions, have been proposed and subsequently dropped since Epcot opened. 
Among these was a Switzerland Pavilion, which would have hosted an East Coast version of Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster. Negotiations with the Swiss government fell apart in 1987, and Disney was unable to secure a commercial partner to help fund the pavilion.
12. Western River Expedition (Magic Kingdom)
The legendary Western River Expedition built upon a previous concept designed for a never-built indoor Disney theme park in St Louis. It was designed to occupy a new sub-land in the Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland, Thunder Mesa, along with a mine train-themed roller coaster. The attraction would have been hosted in an enormous Thunder Mesa show building, with guests entering a nighttime scene in a giant canyon. They would then board Pirates of the Caribbean-style boats before going on a cruise around recreated scenes of the Wild West.
The Western River Expedition was due to be added to the Magic Kingdom as its first expansion project. However, when the park opened, guests demanded a version of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. This was built instead, although Big Thunder Mountain Railroad did eventually emerge as the mine train roller coaster featured in the Thunder Mesa plans. Imagineer Marc Davis, who had put together the plans, was reportedly livid when they were canned.
11. Mount Fuji Coaster (Epcot)
Epcot’s Japan Pavilion has seen a number of ride and show concepts come and go over the years. Considered prior to Epcot’s 1982 debut was a “bullet train”-themed CircleVision 360 show, complete with a vibrating floor. But another idea, inspired by the proposals for a Matterhorn clone, was to build a gigantic recreation of Mount Fuji. As with most Disney mountains, this would have hosted a roller coaster.
Located behind the pagoda that is the recognisable icon of the Japan Pavilion, the mountain would have transformed the look of one side of World Showcase’s lagoon. The roller coaster itself would have raced around the outside and inside of the mountain, and would, of course, have been the first roller coaster in Epcot’s line-up (assuming it was completed before the Matterhorn). So what went wrong to deny us this experience? Well, cost was likely to have been a factor. It was essential for every Epcot attraction to have a commercial sponsor, to help bear the cost of construction. The obvious suitor for a Mount Fuji attraction was the film manufacturer, Fujifilm. But, of course, arch-rival Kodak was already a major Disney sponsor (and sponsored the Imagination Pavilion in Epcot’s Future World). It was never likely to stomach Fujifilm being featured at Epcot.
10. The Excavator (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
The original plan for the DinoLand U.S.A. area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom included a major thrill ride themed around a former sand and gravel pit. The site would feature an enormous piece of leftover machinery: The Excavator. This ore car circuit was to form the basis for a huge, heavily-themed, mine cart-style roller coaster that would be one of Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s headline thrill rides. The storyline would be that paleontology students had once again restarted the Excavator, using it to transport dinosaur fossils.
The Excavator was dropped from Animal Kingdom’s opening day line-up due to the spiralling costs of building the park’s zoo attractions. It was felt that Dinosaur (then known as Countdown to Extinction) would be sufficient as a thrill ride to anchor the DinoLand U.S.A. area, and the plans were parked. The space allocated for the Excavator was eventually occupied by TriceraTop Spin and Primeval Whirl.
9. Time Racers (Epcot)
In the early 2000s, Disney planned to completely overhaul Epcot’s Future World area. At the heart of that plan sat Time Racers, a futuristic roller coaster set inside Spaceship Earth. The Future World project was dubbed Project Gemini, and was focused on thrill rides. The entire area was to be renamed Discoveryland (the same name used by a land at Disneyland Paris), and many attractions would have been updated or removed altogether. Time Racers would have taken over Spaceship Earth, the iconic structure that sits at the entrance to Future World. The existing, slow-paced Omnimover dark ride that occupied the interior of the building would have been ripped out. In its place would have been a steel roller coaster reminiscent of Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris. 
Little is known about the proposed attraction, other than that it would have seen riders racing past scenes from different periods in time. It would, then, have retained the essence of Spaceship Earth, but would have been aimed squarely at thrill-seekers rather than families. A projection system would have been employed to take riders back into recognisable scenes from history, then off into the future. Project Gemini proved to be too expensive for Disney to pursue, with a rumored price tag of around $500 million. Had it gone ahead, Epcot could be a very different park today. Instead, Siemens took over sponsorship of Spaceship Earth, and the existing ride was given a makeover – ensuring that it will continue to whisk riders through history for some time to come.
8. Animal Carousel (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
Disney’s theme parks always have an iconic structure at their center, and at Animal Kingdom that role is fulfilled by the enormous Tree of Life. It also hosts an attraction, It’s Tough to Be a Bug, which is themed around Pixar’s It’s a Bug’s Life. During the planning phase before the park was built, however, a more traditional ride was considered as the centerpiece of the park: a carousel. The Animal Carousel would not have been a mere fairground-style midway ride, however. Instead, it would have offered three different experiences, in one unique attraction.
The first experience would have been a Dumbo the Flying Elephant-style flying ride, featuring insects and birds instead of elephants. Riders would have been equipped with a joystick, enabling them to control the height of their gondola. The second experience would have been a more traditional carousel, featuring a variety of animal species from all over the world. The final experience was also a carousel, but in this case set on water. The boat-style cars would have been themed around marine creatures, and would have sat in a moat that would have surrounded the Animal Carousel. In the end, the Tree of Life was selected over the Animal Carousel as the icon of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It probably offers a more instantly-recognisable, simple-to-communicate image of the park, but the 3D show within is perhaps a less innovative attraction than the Animal Carousel would have been. But we’ll never know…
7. Rhine River Cruise (Epcot)
The early plans for EPCOT Center included a boat ride in the Germany Pavilion. This would have seen guests boarding a “cruise boat” for a trip down the Rhine and other rivers, providing a visual overview of Germany’s heritage. Miniature recreations of the Black Forest, the Ruhr Valley and Heidelberg would have been on show. Disney went as far as building part of the show building for the Rhine River Cruise, but the ride was not completed. Like many attractions planned for the World Showcase, the likely reason is that Disney could not secure a corporate sponsor to fund the construction costs.
6. Dick Tracy’s Crimestoppers (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
Disney has produced several interactive rides, most of them based on the Toy Story franchise. The likes of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Toy Story Midway Mania see guests blasting away at relatively innocent targets such as Zurg’s toy minions, balloons and smashable plates. 
The laser gun technology employed by the Buzz Lightyear ride could have been put to a very different use had a plan to base an attraction on Warren Beatty’s 1990 movie Dick Tracy gone ahead. This would have seen guests shooting at audio-animatronic HUMAN adversaries, as they raced through the streets of Chicago blasting bad-guys. In the end, Dick Tracy was not quite the success that Disney had anticipated. Plans to install the ride at Disney-MGM Studios and Disneyland were dropped, along with plans to bring a version of the ride to Disney-MGM Studios Europe, a second park that was originally planned for the EuroDisney resort.
5. Equatorial Africa Pavilion (Epcot)
One of the most intriguing pavilions that was dropped from the original Epcot World Showcase plans was the Equatorial Africa Pavilion. This would have boasted an enormous, 60-foot treehouse, which guests could climb to look down on an image of animals gathering at a waterhole at dusk (an illusion created by Imagineers). 
A live show featuring African musicians and dancers would be hosted in an outdoor amphitheater, while the “Heartbeat of Africa” show would offer insights into the continent’s culture.
4. The Airplane Airport (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
By 1991, Disney-MGM Studios’ rival Universal Studios Florida was firing on all cylinders after its disastrous debut a year earlier. Attendance at the park would eventually surpass that at Disney-MGM Studios, and Disney put into place rapid expansion plans. This included the addition of a Muppets-themed area and several smaller attractions. But Disney was also looking for a major, headline attraction. 
One of the first ideas to be considered was an enormous recreation of the airport seen in 1980s smash-hit disaster movie spoof Airplane. Little is known about this truly unusual concept, but it was eventually dropped when the projected costs spiralled out of control. Instead, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was eventually installed.
3. Russia – The Bells of Change (Epcot)
One of America’s “enemies” almost infiltrated Disney’s Florida resort with an attraction of its very own. Despite the frosty relations between the US and the Soviet Union, plans were drawn up in the early 1990s for a Russia Pavilion in Epcot’s World Showcase. 
The concept artwork shows that it would have been dominated by a recreation of St. Basil’s Cathedral. The central attraction would have been “Russia – The Bells of Change”, a show that would combine audio-animatronics, movie footage and live actors to bring the history of the country to life. The collapse of the Soviet Union put an end to the plan.
2. Stephen King’s Tower of Terror (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is one of Disney’s most enduringly popular rides. But it could have been very different if early plans to make it appeal to thrill-seeking adults had been pursued.One possible plan that was considered was to base the ride on the works of horror author Stephen King, including the likes of the creepy Pennywise the Dancing Clown from It, perhaps housed in a recreation of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. In the end, The Twilight Zone was seen as offering a broader range of elements that could be incorporated into a ride. It was not the last time that King’s works would be overlooked by a major theme park player – Universal Orlando also once developed a planfor a ride based on his novels.
1. Fire Mountain (Magic Kingdom)
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Disney’s Imagineers worked on many concepts to ease guests’ disappointment about the shuttering of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage at the Magic Kingdom. One of these was Fire Mountain, which was to headline a new sub-land in Adventureland to be known as Volcania. It was to be a roller coaster based around a mock mountain – hardly an original concept for Disney. However, the actual ride system was to be truly revolutionary. Riders would start in a traditional steel coaster, sitting in a car with the track beneath them. Suddenly, halfway through, the ride would transform into a “flying” coaster, with the track above the rider’s headers and “lava” burning beneath their feet. By the time they reached the end of the attraction, the track would have switched once again, so that waiting riders would have no idea what to expect. Ultimately, the costs of achieving this trick were deemed to be too high, and Fire Mountain was reimagined as a simple flying coaster. But it never got the green light, with Walt Disney World’s management focusing on revitalising Fantasyland instead.
