Disney is better known for its dark rides and castles than for its roller coasters. Over the years, though, it has designed some impressive-sounding coasters that never saw the light of day.
For every idea that leaves Imagineering and makes it into one of Disney’s parks, there are many others that are canned for practical or budgetary reasons. Disney has, of course, built some wonderful roller coasters, such as the various Big Thunder Mountain Railroads and the hugely-popular Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. But there were many more that “got away”.
Let’s take a look at some of the more impressive-sounding and unusual Disney coasters that we’ll only ever get to experience in our imagination.
8. 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.
7. Rock Candy Mountain (Disneyland)
Almost as soon as Disneyland opened in 1955, Walt Disney and his Imagineers began to consider ideas for additions to the fledgling park. One of these was Rocky Candy Mountain, an enormous faux mountain that would appear to be constructed entirely out of sugary treats. It was to be incorporated into the Storybook Land area, with the Storybook Land Canal Boats sailing through the caverns beneath it and the Casey Jr. Cirus Train travelling around it.
Imagineers concocted designs for the attraction, which would feature chocolate, gum drops, marshmallows and more. A small-scale model was built using real candy (including licorice, gumdrops, candy canes and fudge), but there was one one problem: it melted in the non-air conditioned building and attracted scavenging birds.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rock Candy Mountain ended up on the Imagineering scrapheap with many other ill-conceived concepts. It was felt that it would look unappealing and perhaps make riders queasy, so the Matterhorn Bobsleds was built instead.
6. Matterhorn Bobsleds (Epcot)
Over the years, many new pavilions have been proposed for Epcot’s World Showcase area. 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.
5. 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 rumored that laid-off Imagineers took the idea to Universal, where it became Dragon Challenge at Islands of Adventure.
4. Mount Fuji Coaster (Epcot)
Inspired by the proposals to bring a version of the Matterhorn to the planned Switzerland Pavilion, Disney’s Imagineers proposed the construction of a gigantic recreation of Mount Fuji at the Japan Pavilion. 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.
In the end, no sponsor could be found for the ride. 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.
3. Industrial Revolution (Disney’s America)
Championed by former CEO Michael Eisner, the Disney’s America project aimed to install a historically-themed park close to Washington, D.C. This would have brought to life key elements of American history in an entertaining way – something that, predictably, many prominent historians objected to.
One area of the park was to be Enterprise, a factory town that would highlight American ingenuity. It would be headlined by the Industrial Revolution, a major roller coaster that would swoop through a 19th century heavy industry landscape complete with blast furnaces.
In the end, political opposition and concerns over profitability derailed Disney’s America, and the Industrial Revolution, Disney-style never came to pass.
2. Time Racers (Epcot)
Back in the early 2000s, Disney devised a plan 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 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. 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.
1. Ride the Dragon (WestCOT)
Arguably the most infamous unbuilt Disney project of all time is WestCOT, the ambitious West Coast version of Epcot that was announced in 1991 for the Disneyland Resort. This would have featured its own versions of Future World and the World Showcase, surrounding an incredible icon dubbed Spacestation Earth.
The Asia Pavilion in World Showcase, shown above, would have been headlined by a steel roller coaster known as Ride the Dragon. This would have rampaged through the Dragon’s Teeth Mountains, boasting cars designed to resemle Chinese-style lion-dragons. At its highest point, riders would be able to see outside the park’s walls, so it was planned to have billowing red and gold silks emerge to hide the view.
In the end, the financial struggles at Disneyland Paris caused Disney to scale back its plans for the Disneyland Resort. Disney’s California Adventure was built instead, on a much smaller budget – much to the regret of many both inside and outside of Disney.
