What do you think is the most technologically wondrous ride system out there?
So far, our Seven Wonders series has taken us across the globe as we’ve counted down the Seven “Natural” Wonders of the Theme Park World, exploring giant trees, canyons and mountain ranges that might just be too good to be true. Then, we witnessed the majesty of our Seven “Ancient” Wonders, exploring the temples, tombs, and ruins of the past brought to unimaginable life around the world.
But today, we’re going to peel back the scenery to reveal the Seven Modern Wonders of the Theme Park World. We’re counting down attractions (and more importantly, the technologies behind them) that truly redefined modern rides and the stories they tell. For each, we’ve made sure to link to a video that’ll give you a good idea of how the ride works, too.
7. Submarine ride
Image via Yesterland.com
First Use: Submarine Voyage (1959 – 1998; 2007 – present, Disneyland)
Later Installations: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage (Magic Kingdom, 1971 – 1994)
Opened the same year as the Monorail and the nearby Matterhorn roller coaster as a massive expansion to Tomorrowland, the Submarine Voyage was perhaps Walt’s pride and joy. His incredible fleet of submersibles included eight steel gray “nuclear” subs (each costing $80,000 in 1959). Walt often famously quipped that he had one of the world’s largest peacetime submarine fleets!
The unique attraction is really comprised of mostly-submerged boats (powered then by diesel, now by electric) where riders sit below the water level and look out through circular portholes. Innovative bubble screens and waterfalls convince riders of still-deeper submersions until the subs themselves enter into a massive show building to explore the depths where theatrical lighting and special effects took over.
Image via www.20kride.com
The attraction is infamously costly to run, and with an unfortunately low hourly capacity that lead to the unexpected closure of Magic Kingdom’s version of the attraction in 1994. Gone but not forgotten, the fan-favorite earned an in-depth entry in our series Lost Legends: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that dives into the full story of the sunken classic. Disneyland’s version of the ride seemed poised for a similar fate when it closed in 1998, but was mercifully resuscitated in 2007 as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Rumors consistently decry that the attraction’s days are numbered, but it remains a true engineering marvel and a reminder of the ingenuity of Walt and his team.
6. Omnimover dark ride
© Disney
First Use: Adventure Thru Inner Space (1967 – 1985)
Later Installations: Haunted Mansion (1969, 1971, 1983, 1992); World of Motion / Spaceship Earth, Horizons, The Living Seas (Epcot, 1982–86); Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (1998, 2004, 2005, 2006); The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure (2011)
Omnimover systems propelled dark rides forward and into the future when they first arrived at Disneyland in the 1967 with the opening of another Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space, predating its most famous application – 1969’s Haunted Mansion.
Soon after, the system became synonymous with the technological marvels of Epcot and its educational, epicly-sized dark rides like the immortal and unforgettable Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination and Horizons. Put simply: if you board a continuously-moving chain of vehicles, you’re probably stepping aboard an Omnimover. That constantly-loading chain will then slowly move through a dark ride at a continuous pace. Omnimovers are notorious “people-eaters” with massive hourly capacity, making them a popular installation.
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Even better, Omnimovers can rotate along the ride circuit, aiming guests’ vision and attention in whichever direction designers want, giving them the real-life power of a camera. Omnimovers are perfect for “passive” dark rides where you can sail past an elaborate scene as an observer. It’s lucky, too. After Walt’s death, plans for the Haunted Mansion stalled, with remaining Imagineers torn and arguing over its future, imagining it as a walk-through. After the high-capacity Adventure Thru Inner Space proved a smart way to move guests through a ride, the Omnimover was transplanted to Haunted Mansion and took off from there.
5. LIM-launched roller coasters
LIMs lining a launch track. Photo by Robert L. Jones. Click for source.
First Use: Flight of Fear (Kings Island and Kings Dominion, both 1996)
Later Installations: Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast (Six Flags Over Texas and St. Louis, both 1998); Revenge of the Mummy – The Ride (Universal Studios Florida, 2004), Backlot Stunt Coaster (Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland, both 2006)
Launched roller coasters were nothing new, but before Premier Rides innovation of using LIM and LSM motor technology, launches were accomplished mechanically through winches that built up force, then unraveled to physically pull trains at sudden, enormous speed. In 1996, Flight of Fear at both Kings Island in Ohio and Kings Dominion in Virginia debuted Premier’s newest technology, using linear induction motors (LIM) to rapidly accelerate trains without making any physical contact with them, and without fraying launch cables or storing massive amounts of mechanical energy.
LIMs lining a launch track. Photo by Jeff Tiedemann. Click for source.
In short, LIM launches work by suddenly powering consecutive motors placed down the length of a track. Fins affixed to the train are magnetically, electrically attracted into slits on the motor ahead. As the train passes each motor, the motor’s magnetic pole reverses, repelling the train into the next motor. LIM technology has since become a go-to for roller coaster launches because it’s quiet (except for a pleasant and identifying electrical hum) and requires no wires or pulleys that can fray. It also allows for much smoother launches, and even launches-on-the-go, where trains roll into the motors and are propelled forward gradually or all-at-once while moving.
And don’t think the usefulness ends at massive speed blasts. Premier’s LIMs powers Universal’s Revenge of the Mummy coaster through its dark ride portion, too! By placing LIMs sporadically along the coaster’s track and providing low power, the ride is slowly paced through the dark ride portion until it hits the big time launch later on in the coaster’s circuit.
4. Enhanced Motion Vehicle (EMV) dark ride
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First Use: Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye (1995, Disneyland)
Later Installations: DINOSAUR (1998, Disney’s Animal Kingdom); Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull (2001, Tokyo DisneySea)
The stunning technology behind Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure in many ways inspired a second golden age of the dark ride. No longer were dark rides restricted to carts or omnimovers gliding through scenery at a steady pace. The invention of the Enhanced Motion Vehicle (EMV) made a ride’s conveyance (and the folks riding on it) part of the story as never before.
EMVs are comprised of vehicles whose chassis rides along a flat path, guided or powered by an electric bar. But using the sophisticated technology of the 21st century, the actual passenger component of the vehicle is supported by motion-base technology (electrical actuators or hydraulic pistons) that allow riders to feel the pitch, roll, and yaw as if the vehicle is tipping, climbing, or bucking. In Indiana Jones Adventure, the vehicles feel as if they’re climbing over debris from a collapsed temple, narrowly slipping toward lava pits, and taking sharp turns that force the transport onto two wheels.
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The technology also equips each EMV with synchronized on-board sound effects or music. Most interestingly, each vehicle is programmed with a “personality,” with millions of minutely different combinations for each ride. On Indiana Jones Adventure, for example, some vehicles are “afraid” of loud noises, jumping, jostling, or even shutting off when “startled” while others react that way to heights, or darkness, or – gulp – snakes. You can see how Disney adapted the technology in two unique settings in in-depth entries for their Modern Marvels: Indiana Jones Adventure and DINOSAUR. The end result is an out-of-control experience that was years ahead of its time and inspired Universal to push further in its efforts, resulting in the next two wonders…
3. 4-D motion-based “SCOOP” dark ride
Click for source.
First Use: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man (Universal’s Islands of Adventure, 1999)
Later Installations: The Curse of DarKastle (Busch Gardens Williamsburg, 2005 – 2017); Transformers – The Ride (Universal Studios Singapore, 2011; Hollywood, 2012; Florida, 2013)
Only momentarily stunned by Disney’s EMV technology, Universal returned fire with their own Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man in 1999 at the brand new Universal’s Islands of Adventure Park. In fact, Spider-Man is mostly to thank for the park’s “most technologically advanced theme park on Earth” moniker… well deserved, too. Combining tried-and-true simulator screen technology with an EMV and a 4-D movie, these unique cross-categorical dark rides send partially-enclosed EMVs through a showbuilding where physical sets and scenery blend seamlessly into 4-D screens.
Take, for example, Spider-Man, wherein yours “news-gathering vehicle” called a SCOOP enters into a warehouse where the Sinister Syndicate has stolen the Statue of Liberty using an anti-gravity cannon. The vehicle passes under the very real tablet of the statue suspended above, glides through rows of shipping crates, then turns the corner where a 3-D screen creates the rest of the warehouse, including the villains and the Statue’s torch.
© SeaWorld Parks
Surprisingly, the ride’s second installation wasn’t at a big budget Disney or Universal park, but at the Europe-themed Busch Gardens Williamsburg, where it was smartly repurposed as an action-packed journey through the ancient German castle of the nefarious King Ludwig. Though it’s since closed, that ride earned its own in-depth feature here – Lost Legends: Curse of DarKastle – for smartly re-using such ambitious technology in a completely new way.
In all of its most popular incarnations (of which there are still very few thanks to the tremendously advanced and temperamental technology), the ride culminates in a drop of several hundred feet achieved through physical sets, projected scenery, and physical effects like blowing wind and light rushing by. The motion is programmable, too, meaning these rides can go from fun family installations to intense G-force enabled spinning, slamming, and rumbling.
2. KUKA robotic arm dark ride
First Use: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (Universal’s Islands of Adventure, 2010)
Later Installations: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (Universal Studios Japan, 2014; Universal Studios Hollywood, 2016)
No one could’ve predicted how dark rides would advance beyond the 4-D motion base technology of Spider-Man and Transformers, but Universal was working on the answer. Fittingly first (and so far, only) employed on the magical Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the technology behind our second Modern Wonder may be too complex to imagine…
Image via The Theme Park Guy. Click for source.
Think of it this way: Ball up a fist and pretend the four fingers you see are four tiny people riding on your hand. Rotate, flex, and twist your wrist to imagine all the directions those people could face. Now bring your elbow into the mix. Notice how between the motion of your wrist and elbow, those people can turn, flip, twist, and dive. Great! Now remove your arm from your body and, at the shoulder, place it on a track that moves through a building interacting with scenery and screens. If you ended up with an insane contraption that basically replaces Spider-Man’s SCOOP with a crazy robotic arm that can flip riders onto their backs, swing them in enormous arches, and synchronize perfectly to all-encompassing screens, you’ve got the basic idea. If you don’t mind spoilers, check out two photos of the ride behind the scenes, here and here. KUKA robo arms have been used in factory assembly lines for years, but never on a moving track holding passengers.
And on Forbidden Journey, add in even more moving parts: magical settings, animatronics supported on other KUKA robo arms, roving domed screens that move along with your arm, and spitting, smoking, whomping animatronics. If all that technology sounds chaotic, then it well describes the ride, too, and encapsulates one of the most stunning and unbelievable ride innovations since the dark ride itself.
1. Trackless, LPS-guided dark ride
Image via tdrfan.com
First Use: Pooh’s Hunny Hunt (Tokyo Disneyland, 2000)
Later Installations: Aquatopia (Tokyo DisneySea, 2001); Empire of the Penguin (SeaWorld Orlando, 2013); Mystic Manor (Hong Kong Disneyland, 2013); Ratatouille: The Adventure (Walt Disney Studios, 2014)
Disney’s next leap forward is an incredible one. So far, they haven’t re-used the 4-D motion base technology or the KUKA robo arm technology that Universal innovated upon. Instead, they’ve taken a different fork in the evolutionary road.
Using LSP (that’s local positioning satellites), Disney’s new generation of dark rides is trackless. Sure, it’s aesthetically more interesting to not know exactly where your vehicle is about to go, but the technology does more than that. Typically on LPS-guided rides, four vehicles leave the station at once and proceed into the ride.
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Sometimes they line up and travel like an old-fashioned dark ride. Other times they each scatter and follow different paths. They can even “dance,” swirling around each other and coming within inches, spinning or backing up precariously. These trackless rides provide a different experience every time, sometimes even taking different routes.
It can be specialized for different roles between rides, too!
Its first installation – Pooh’s Hunny Hunt at Tokyo DisneySea – is an impressive dark ride wherein riders’ “hunny pot” vehicles interact with one another, “dance” around each other, and diverge along different paths through the Hundred Acre Wood. The technology then moved next door to Tokyo DisneySea where Aquatopia re-cast the ride as a rafts rolling through a lagoon-sized and trackless Autopia course of accelerating, reversing, spinning, and more.
The ride’s first installation in the US was the unexpected Empire of the Penguin at SeaWorld, more or less wrapping the ride system as a small family dark ride with a motion base.
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Disneyland Paris turned the technology into a sort of SCOOP-copying Ratatouille ride, and the system even appeared at Disney California Adventure’s Cars Land as Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, with a whole parking lot of Fiats performing an impressive and fun-to-watch synchronized dance together.
All that said, it was Hong Kong Disneyland’s one-of-a-kind Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor that blew away all expectations with its innovative new take on the Haunted Mansion. The spectacular and unmatched dark ride (which some say is Disney’s greatest modern ride ever) uses the technology in the best of its tried-and-true ways, casting the LPS vehicles as “Magneto-Electric Carriages” invented by the eclectic Lord Henry Mystic to lead us on a tour of his estate packed with worldly wonders. Mystic Manor uses its trackless dark ride technology to feature a breathtaking finale that leaves riders in awe.
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For proving how easily it can be adapted to new stories and styles, the trackless, LPS-guided dark ride has to be the number one Modern Wonder of the Theme Park World. What do you think? Are these Modern Wonders as marvelous as we think? Or is our countdown all out of whack? And if you missed it, don’t forget to backtrack to our countdowns of the theme park world’s “natural” wonders and “ancient” wonders!
