Friends, family, we are gathered here today to close a chapter; to say our last goodbyes; to send a decade of attractions to the big theme park in the sky. In the 2010s, we bid adieu to no less than 20 once-ambitious attractions. Some went out in a blaze of glory; others, a wimpering spark of a doomed fire.
Yet for each of these 20 closed attractions – the good, bad, and downright ugly – their closures marked the end of memory-making for some. Indeed, your children or your grandchildren may never see these attractions in person, and unlike the 13 “Endangered” Rides We Worry May Not Survive the 2020s, for some of these attractions, their endings were a total shock. For others, that may be for the best… but in any case, here are our last goodbyes to 20 attractions we lost in the 2010s, in order of closure.
1. Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
November 21, 1994 – May 9, 2010
Oh, “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience…” Even if pop culture has long forgotten the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise that inexplicably took the world by storm in the early ‘90s and spawned three films and a TV series, we’ll never forget your “cutting edge” 4D effects, the “Imagination Institute” storyline you imposed on your neighbor, the Declassified Disaster: Journey Into YOUR Imagination, or your undeliverable promise of being licked by a giant dog. But most of all, we’ll always wonder how a 1994 3D film based on a 1989 movie lasted until ten years ago… (And for that matter, would you still be playing had Michael Jackon’s death not triggered the return of his Lost Legend: Captain EO to your theaters?)
2. Star Tours
January 9, 1987 – July 27, 2010
We can’t weep for the Lost Legend: Star Tours. Its tombstone will forever be engraved with accolades listing its transformational role in Disney Parks history – the birth of the Age of the Simulator, the testing ground for Michael Eisner’s “Ride the Movies” era, and the first proof that Disney Parks could change with the times, becoming cool, hip, fun places for young people and hot movies… even if they weren’t Disney movies! While we’ll forever miss seeing one of Disney’s greatest original characters behind the StarSpeeder controls, we can’t weep for Star Tours because its was only closed to be “upgraded” to its own prequel, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. And boy do they…
3. Maliboomer
February 8, 2001 – September 7, 2010
What can we say about the Maliboomer? It stood as a stalwart reminder of the fatal flaws of Disney’s California (Mis)Adventure: an unapologetically modern thrill ride bought from a catalogue and plopped down in Paradise Pier – a land ostensibly recreating the very kind of dirty seaside amusement park Walt Disney disliked… oops! When the launch tower fell in 2010, it was a noble death: making way for the park’s billion-dollar redesign. Put simply, California Adventure was stronger with no ride there than with Maliboomer. May it rest in pieces.
4. The Crypt
April 5, 2002 – October 30, 2011
Some rides live quiet, long lives. Others burn bright, but fast. The latter is the case with the world’s only Giant Top Spin at Kings Island. Opened less than a decade earlier, it began as the Lost Legend: TOMB RAIDER: The Ride, a mysterious, massive, and multisensory thrill ride hurtling guests through a theatrical dark ride experience of fire and ice, all synchronized to an adventurous score. Alas, when Paramount Pictures sold its parks to Cedar Fair, the theming was stripped and the ride reprogrammed to flip lazily in the dark to techno music. The Crypt didn’t have much reason to remain. The ride’s quiet death in the 2011-2012 off-season was the culmination of a quick but colossal career.
5. JAWS
June 7, 1990 – January 2, 2012
For decades, guests cheered the death of the great white shark who mistakenly bit a submerged electrical cable in a final showdown in the waters of Amity… Oh, the irony, as we now mourn this monster of the deep! Of course, the Lost Legend: JAWS was one of Universal Studios Florida’s opening day creature features; a warped and villainous reimagining of the Jungle Cruise, stranding guests on the open water with horrifying animatronics hidden beneath… Jaws gave its life to make way for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley, but at least we rest easy knowing several hidden “Easter eggs” to the fallen shark are located throughout the land.
6. Snow White’s Scary Adventures
October 1, 1971 – May 31, 2012
Snow White’s Scary Adventures, you aren’t just gone too soon; you shouldn’t be gone at all! If only Disney fans would’ve accepted the initial plans for Magic Kingdom’s New Fantasyland – a proposed land populated almost entirely by “play-and-greet” princess cottages – you might still be here. Alas, fans’ revolt led to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train instead and, needing a dedicated princess meet-and-greet space, your hallowed halls were selected. Despite the darkness and sorrow inherent in its “Scary” retelling, the Lost Legend: Snow White’s Scary Adventures believed in “happily ever after…” And so do we. Wonderfully, versions of the ride remain alive in Anaheim, Paris, and Tokyo.
7. Disaster Transport
May 11, 1985 – July 29, 2012
For a generation, guests at the “roller coaster capital of the world” looked on in wonder at the strange, industrial warehouse marked “12 E” along the peninsula park’s beach… What was inside? Disaster Transport: an ‘80s roller coaster enclosed and rethemed in 1990 to an outer space sled ride past lasers, exploding space stations, and alien landscapes. Though we may have chronicled your life, deteriorating upkeep, and death in the Declassified Disasters: Disaster Transport feature, rest in peace knowing that you were one weird and wild ride.
8. Backstage Studio Tour
May 1, 1989 – September 27, 2014
When when remember you, Backstage Studio Tour, we remember heartbreak. After all, you were meant to be the heart of the Disney-MGM Studios; a headliner stolen right out from under Universal; a star-studded tour through real production facilities where on-location stars might just be around every corner! Production never really came to Disney’s Floridian studio… but you kept on going anyway. Literally. For decades. Up until the end, you outrageously maintained the pretense that you were an actual tour of a real studio and for that brazen confidence alone, we immortalized your story forever in our Declassified Disasters: Backstage Studio Tour feature…
9. Maelstrom
July 5, 1988 – October 5, 2014
When we celebrated you in your own in-depth Lost Legends: Maelstrom entry, we looked back on your Norwegian weirdness in awe. Vikings, a fishing village, polar bears, trolls, and an oil rig?! You achieved what few today do, Maelstrom: you were absolutely random, but entirely beloved for it. You’ll always be remembered as Epcot’s first “thrill” ride, as one of the few rides in World Showcase, and as the first soldier to stand valiantly against the imposing flood of cartoon characters into Epcot, sacrificing yourself in the fight.
10. The Sorcerer’s Hat
September 28, 2001 – January 7, 2015
Oh, Sorcerer’s Hat… we didn’t shed a tear at your death, nor do we when looking back now. Does that make us bad people? It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a 122 foot tall pointed magician’s hat… it’s just you maybe didn’t make great sense looming at the end of a photorealistic and idealized recreation of 1930s Hollywood! What’s worse, you literally stood directly in front of a picturesque park icon: a palatial recreation of Tinseltown’s most famous movie palace, the Chinese Theater, which housed the park’s centering Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride! Sorcerer’s Hat, this just wasn’t the right time and place for you. Maybe in your next life, you’ll be placed atop Spaceship Earth or in the branches of the Tree of Life instead.
11. Luigi’s Flying Tires
June 15, 2012 – February 17, 2015
Born with an ambitious goal, Luigi’s Flying Tires, you were positioned as a rebirth of Tomorrowland’s famous Flying Saucers of yesteryear! But how would Disney fix the fundamental flaws of the nimble, wild, low capacity saucers? With our vastly expanded technology, of course! Except, your two-seater Flying Tires turned out to be heavy, lumbering creations whose initial joystick controls were removed for being totally ineffective. Beach balls were meant to add life and a “game” element to the air hockey ride-along, but ultimately the ride was a low-capacity hassle that just wasn’t a whole lot of fun. It may have moved slowly, but it died quickly. The ride is one of the shortest-lived Disney rides ever, closing after less than three years – a second death for the flying saucer ride at Disneyland. In its place stands the LPS-choreographed trackless family ride of dancing Italian Fiats, Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters
12. Twister… Ride it Out!
May 4, 1998 – November 2, 2015
Amid water, sparks, flames, and explosions, Twister was of another time; an ageless example of the power of “Studio” parks to peel back the magic behind-the-screens. But when special effects went digital, so too did movie parks. In the Age of the Simulator, Twister was a relic; a really-for-real special effects extravaganza that was equal parts frightening and fun. But the promise of incorporating a hot, cross-parent-company brand – the Tonight Show starring YouTube-clip-favorite Jimmy Fallon – was too great a call to ignore. Twister challenged us to ride it out. Then, it rode out of town in a swirling blaze of glory.
13. Europe in the Air
March 26, 2010 – October 2014
Busch Gardens Williamsburg has often been quite forward-thinking with its simulator located in the park’s Ireland. From the early days of King Arthur’s Quest (cutting edge, debuting just after Star Tours) to the Irish folklore adventure Corkscrew Hill, we can’t quite give high praise to the Declassified Disaster: Europe in the Air, which tried (and pretty much totally failed) to match the grace, majesty, and immersion of Disney’s Soarin’. The short-lived experiment has been replaced with another experiment: the world’s first VR simulator, Battle For Eire. While it’s gotten mixed reviews itself, Europe in the Air is gone and (thankfully) largely forgotten.
14. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
May 5, 2004 – January 3, 2017
To our dearly departed Hollywood Tower Hotel… What can we say about you that hasn’t already been said in our Lost Legends: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror entry? Though born of the desperate need to lure guests into Disney’s California Adventure in its darkest moments, you ended up being just the Californian legend the park needed: an integral element of its reimagining, anchoring the park’s timeline and mission of bringing Californian stories to life. From your art deco exterior to your cobweb-infested corridors, you were a fitting icon to reign over the reborn park’s Hollywoodland. Though your reincarnation as Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! is a laugh-out-loud wild ride through screen-based floors and randomized rock songs, it’ll never have your timelessness, eeriness, or California-ness.
15. Ellen’s Energy Adventure
September 15, 1996 – August 13, 2017
Though its companions – The Seas, Land, Imagination, Motion, Life, and Horizons – had already fallen to characters, modern thrill rides, or outright closures, the fall of the Lost Legend: Universe of Energy meant the end of the last of Future World’s perimeter pavilions. That is, of course, unless you count the pavilion having changed already when Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Nye, and Alex Trebek set up inside in 1996. In either case, the final extinction of Energy’s prehistoric petroleum tour (also in favor of Guardians of the Galaxy) meant Marvel had found its Walt Disney World home despite the AVENGERS: Custody War surrounding its Orlando use.
16. The Great Movie Ride
May 1, 1989 – August 13, 2017
In a tragically poetic ending, Disney’s other massive moving theater ride seemed to sense the death of its Energy Adventure sister even from across the (Disney) world. As they were connected in life, so too did they align in death, both shuttering forever the same evening. Though the Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride had been a staggering classic; an epic, 22-minute journey into the movies that read like the park’s thesis, it was also in the way of progress. Despite outcry, the classic was felled in favor of the Mouse who started it all.
17. Curse of DarKastle
May 1, 2005 – September 4, 2017
When Universal’s Islands of Adventure revolutionized the industry with 1999’s Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, it introduced the cutting-edge “SCOOP” ride system and the groundbreaking idea of “squinching” – animating screen-based scenes with shifting perspective to match a moving ride vehicle. Who would’ve expected the follow-up to this generation-defining dark ride to be built at a seasonal park in Virginia? Yet the Lost Legend: Curse of DarKastle adapted the technology into a frozen fable of a mad German king and the curse that kept him sealed within his tragic kingdom. DarKastle was an icon… but SeaWorld was in decline. In 2017, they threw in the towel on the high-tech ride system, clearing out the castle showbuilding to become a flexible events space… A true shame.
18. Dueling Dragons
May 28, 1999 – September 4, 2017
Dueling Dragons lived ferociously. The two separate but intertwined roller coasters were technological hallmarks of Islands of Adventure. Precision weighing would adjust brakes throughout the rides’ courses, creating three sensational near-miss moments with the speeding trains coming as close as 18 inches to each other. Alas, the Dragons endured their first death in 2010 when – just after their absorption into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – on-ride injuries caused the dueling to cease. (Don’t worry – by then, they’d already been renamed Dragon Challenge.) The official death of the duo came in 2017 when they were retired for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure – a final, tragic end to the thrill rides, albeit with a spectacular new creation in its own right.
19. Jurassic Park: The Ride
June 21, 1996 – September 3, 2018
Parting is such sweet sorrow when it comes to Jurassic Park: The Ride, the original dino-attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood. But as tends to be the case in today’s IP-focused world, Jurassic Park is old bones. So while we may have laid the Lost Legend: Jurassic Park: The Ride to rest, in its place was reborn Jurassic World: The Ride – a substantial reinvention that both exceeds and falls short of its cinematic predecessor. In any case, we can’t call the prehistoric original extinct since a near copy lives on in Florida and Tokyo… for now.
20. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith
March 16, 2002 – September 2, 2019
Rest in peace, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster… No, not that one. In fact, it’s only the version of the attraction at Disneyland Paris’ Declassified Disaster: Walt Disney Studios that bit the dust. But we are mourning the loss… first, because France’s version of the ride replaced Florida’s day-glo Hollywood cut-outs with an almost-abstract light show pulling guests into the music; second, because its elimination temporarily left the park with just two anchor attractions – the least of any Disney Park on Earth! But fear not… the ride will return with an Iron Man wrap as part of the park’s upcoming Avengers Campus…
Resting in Peace
And with that, we’re off to the races… the 2020s promise not just a new generation of attractions at theme parks across the globe, but doubtlessly the inevitable goodbye to several we know and love today… That makes this a good time to make the jump to our “Endangered” Rides That Might Not Survive the 2020s feature, just in case your next ride on a treasured favorite is your last…
In the meantime, these attractions may be gone, but they won’t soon be forgotten by the millions of guests who made memories (good or bad!) while riding.
