“If you had wings, you could do many things;
You could widen your world if you had wings!”
When you think of Disney’s most classic, beloved dark rides, which come to mind? More than likely, what you’re picturing falls into one of two broad categories: the fantastical storybook adventures common of Fantasyland (rides like Peter Pan’s Flight, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, and “it’s a small world” or Lost Legends: Snow White’s Scary Adventures and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride) or the grand, elaborate, inspiring adventures of EPCOT Center (from Spaceship Earth and Universe of Energy to another set of Lost Legends: Horizons, World of Motion, and the celebrated Journey into Imagination).
One you may not consider, however, is one that perfectly bridges the gap between the two styles… a gentle, whimsical, sing-along family ride through the wonders of air travel. Often overlooked amid the collection of closed classics, If You Had Wings in Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland was no less magical than Fantasyland’s best, and no less educational than EPCOT’s headliners. In fact, this free-flying family ride – one of the first ever installations of a cutting-edge Disney ride system – actually shaped the fate of EPCOT’s originals!
Today, our Lost Legends series takes flight to explore a beloved-and-lost favorite that spent two decades at Magic Kingdom before falling to a “cartoonification” that mirrored the fall of the EPCOT rides it inspired.
Sponsoring the Future
Image: Disney
Though it may be most closely associated with EPCOT Center (given that Walt Disney World’s second theme park intentionally mirrored the style of a World’s Fair, bringing on mega-corporations to foot the bill for industry-related pavilions), sponsorship was an integral part of Disney Parks from day one.
When Disneyland opened in 1955, for example, nearly every attraction guests could visit in Tomorrowland was a sponsored showcase of emerging products from American companies. From the Kaiser Hall of Aluminum and the Monsanto Hall of Chemistry to the Dutch Boy Color Gallery and even the Crane Company Bathroom of Tomorrow, companies acted as “lessees,” renting space in the park to showcase their industry innovations.
To be clear, that had never delighted Walt. He considered this corporate showcase Tomorrowland “not yet complete,” as it didn’t live up to his dedication calling for the land to be a “vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Man’s achievement” showcasing “new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals.”
Image: Disney
That’s why, as soon as he recouped some of the park’s initial cost, Walt’s first major project was to expand Tomorrowland. In 1959, three brand new attractions appeared on an expansion pad north of the land: Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Disneyland-ALWEG Monorail, and the Submarine Voyage. All three earned the newly invented “E-Ticket” designation, requiring the most expensive and limited ride ticket to board.
Consider, for our purposes, the Submarine Voyage. For audiences of the 1950s, this nautical journey was a sincerely futuristic endeavor, as the age of the atomic sub was the stuff of headlines… this was the future, and at Disneyland, you could live it.
New Tomorrowlands
If you asked Walt and his Imagineers, this Tomorrowland was set in the then-distant 1986… Laughable to us today, perhaps, but imagine how sincerely ambitious designers would have to be to try to truly, accurately, scientifically predict what the world would look like thirty years in the future! Could you predict what the world will look like in 2047?
Image: Disney
In any case, even the 1959 addition of the Subs and company weren’t fulfilling enough for Walt. Though he never saw it completed, he worked tirelessly with Imagineers to design a “New Tomorrowland” that debuted in 1967, incorporating many of the attractions Disney had designed for the 1964 – 65 World’s Fair including the Carousel of Progress and a Lost Legend: The Peoplemover.
However, the land’s anchor was the long-promised journey into the Atomic Age that Walt had hinted at back in his 1955 dedication for the land. Lead by Claude Coats (enigmatic and storied Disney Legend, and thematic designer for the Haunted Mansion, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and Submarine Voyage among a dozen more), designers built a cutting-edge, educational, deeply astounding Disney dark ride for New Tomorrowland that’s remembered today as a Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space.
Image: Disney
This closed classic also served as the debut of Disney’s patented Omnimover ride system, which we listed among the Seven Modern Wonders of the Theme Park World. Its continuously moving, constantly-loading, swiveling vehicles would later go on to be the lifeblood of the Haunted Mansion and most of those EPCOT Center classics. On Adventure Thru Inner Space, queuing guests would watch as the continuous stream of Omnimovers would immediately glide into the Mighty Monsanto Microscope and be “miniaturized” en route to a hydrogen atom.
As Disneyland debuted its New Tomorrowland ’67, work was getting underway on designing the “Disney World” planned for Orlando and its theme park, which would be very closely modeled after Disneyland and supersize many of California’s most popular rides for an international crowd. Given the chance to re-evaluate Tomorrowland, designers opted for a fresh start. That’s why the Tomorrowland that grew in the years following Magic Kingdom’s 1971 opening didn’t look exactly like Disneyland’s.
Image: Disney
(One of the biggest omissions was Submarine Voyage, though for good reason: audiences of the 1970s would’ve been hard-pressed to understand submarines as the stuff of tomorrow. While Disneyland’s could be excused as a remnant from a bygone era, the inclusion of subs in a new, modern, 1970s Tomorrowland would’ve been laughable. That’s why designers – including Coats, and his twenty-something protégé Tony Baxter – were put to work redesigning the ride not as a futuristic feature, but as a fantasy one. The radical Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Submarine Voyage opened with the park in Fantasyland.)
Though submarines might’ve been part of yesterday’s headlines, there was an industry of unprecedented growth and importance to Americans, and especially to Walt Disney World guests… an industry that literally made “the Vacation Kingdom of the World” possible: air travel.
The Jet Age
The 1960s had been the real, modern start of the Jet Age, when turbine-engine jet planes replaced propeller planes, revolutionizing the travel industry… and the social world.
Think about it: before the advent of the commercial jet plane, the only practical way to get between New York and London was an expensive, four-day boat ride. With the turbine engine, non-stop oceanic crossings took a matter of hours. An interconnected globe was a brand new concept, and the incredible possibilities opened new lines of communication, trade, and travel. For the first time in history, the entire planet was accessible to average Americans.
What’s outside the window? Image: ClickAmericana.com
Though we sometimes lose this dichotomy today, consider how, in the 1950s, Disneyland was a “road trip” destination for the emerging middle class who, increasingly, owned automobiles. In fact, within a year of Disneyland’s opening, the Interstate Highway Act was signed into law creating a family road trip destination for a generation.
And now, 1971’s Disney World would be the next leap forward, connected to the country not via interstates, by via airlines – a radical evolution!
Image: American Airlines
And thanks to these new, large commercial planes that could carry more passengers, airfares fell year after year, making flight accessible to a wide socioeconomic range.
(This new interconnectedness, by the way, is the same prologue to Hawaii’s statehood and the “Tiki Craze” that swept the country – the introduction to the fine-feathered feature of the Modern Marvel: The Enchanted Tiki Room.)
Image: Boeing
The 1969 arrival of the “jumbo jet” – the Boeing 747 – only brought aviation into pop culture even more, accelerating the industry as never before.
Now this was an industry worth highlighting in Tomorrowland… the advent of human flight from the dawn of the Wright Brothers to the “jumbo jets” that carried guests to the Vacation Kingdom of the World…
Now, Disney only needed to sign on a sponsor… Read on…
As we’ve mentioned, sponsorship was far from a new concept for Disney.
Sure, Disney had rallied organizations to take on sponsorship of proven Disneyland classics. United Airlines had even joined Disney in 1964 to sponsor the Enchanted Tiki Room! However, by time Disney had decided on a new aviation-themed ride for the new Magic Kingdom Park, United was six years into their support of the Tiki Room… and was regretting it. 1964 was the first year that United faced multi-million dollar net losses, meaning they were unlike to sign onto any further financial support.
Image: Disney
Plus, the scope of this sponsorship would be unprecedented. Rather than signing on to support an existing attraction, Disney was – for the first time – asking if any company would be interested in paying for a ride’s creation, from scratch. Reportedly, Disney was requesting $10 million from any potential financier.
Eastern Air Lines stepped up.
Eastern was one of the “four big” domestic carriers in the airline industry (alongside United, American, and Trans World [TWA]), and had dominated the East Coast for decades. They were also quick to jump on the opportunity of servicing Walt Disney World, connecting Orlando to 60 cities by 1971.
Luckily, Eastern was willing to pay for Disney to develop an aviation themed ride for their Tomorrowland, but had a few requirements.
Designing
They wanted any air travel themed ride Disney designed to highlight Eastern and, specifically, its key travel destinations: the Caribbean, Mexico, and New Orleans.
Image: Disney, via Passport To Dreams
Disney, meanwhile, was in an unusual predicament… this new ride would require a new showbuilding (really, an extension onto the existing south showbuilding along Tomorrowland’s main entry) conforming to the very odd proportions and space limitations of this corner of Tomorrowland. It would be quite literally squeezed into an odd, elongated shape bordered by Circle-Vision and the tracks of the WEDWay Peoplemover (though that ride wouldn’t open for four more years).
With the financing assured, Eastern was officially signed on not only to sponsor the new ride, but as the official airline of Walt Disney World.
Image: Disney
Playing off of Eastern’s famous tagline through the 1960s and ‘70s (“Eastern: The Wings of Man”), the Tomorrowland ride under development became known as If You Had Wings. Claude Coats was brought in to design the ride, essentially taking the core ingredients of Disneyland’s Adventure Thru Inner Space… a sort of “spiritual sequel” to the microscopic adventure from five years earlier.
Like all great Disney dark rides, If You Had Wings would be nothing without its theme song: “If You Had Wings” was written by composer Buddy Baker (known for scoring countless Walt Disney feature films from 1953 – 1981) and lyricist X Atencio (most well-known for “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” and “Grim Grinning Ghosts” from Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, respectively.)
Image: Disney
Scenic designers and artists led by Coats worked overtime to prepare the ride, carefully balancing live sets with 41 16-mm projectors, three 70mm projectors, and dozens of special effect lighting arrays.
If You Had Wings was ready for its debut at the start of Walt Disney World’s first summer season, opening June 5, 1972. And now, it’s final boarding call for non-stop flights aboard If You Had Wings…
Taking Flight
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
“If you had wings – a flight of fancy fhrough the world of Eastern Airlines.”
The simple, sans-serif typeface on the sleek, geometric, pastel exterior – though perfect for Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland – is understated compared to the experience that awaits within. Gazing directly into the wide open concourse inside, your first and most striking view is the ride’s most iconic: a stylized globe beyond streamlined white panels.
Image: Disney
And moment by moment, a continuous line of Omnimovers advances into the open globe. For those lucky enough to have flown cross-country, this iconic imagery will look familiar given that the same concept is (not coincidentally) at play in Disneyland’s Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space, where Omnimovers glide into the Mighty Monsanto Microscope. It’s the first spiritual connection.
The queue, of course, is a modern (that’s 1970s) airport terminal, pre-security. But as with all Omnimover-led dark rides, the line moves quickly and efficiently as guests step into the constantly-loading chain and prepare for take-off.
“Attention please! Eastern Air Lines Flight 72, your fiesta flight to Mexico and the ancient pyramids is now departing at Gate 19.”
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
And now, the adventure begins. As the cart advances into the globe, it’s consumed by darkness… Until the lighted silhouettes of jet planes and seagulls begin to glide past. And then, a distant chorus begins to sing:
“If you had wings, you could do many things;
You could widen your world if you had wings.
If you had wings, if you had wings!
If you had wings had wings, had wings!
You could fly to a plaza, where the people play
At the Mexican fiesta, in the land of ole!
If you had wings, if you had wings!
If you had wings had wings, had wings!”
Image: Disney
Then, the first of the ride’s scenes comes into view: Mexico. One of Eastern’s most popular destinations, Mexico here is represented as an old Mexican celebration. And here’s the brilliance: dotted among the physical sets are projection screens animated via 16mm projectors hidden throughout the showbuilding. These screens bring life and action to the scenes, creating dancers, townspeople, divers jumping from the cliffs of Acupulco, and a mariachi band who joins in the chorus. (In that way, perhaps you could call If You Had Wings and its set/screen integration and depth the great-grandfather of a Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man.)
“You could fly to Bermuda, like a flying fish;
Have a ball on a cruise ship, or catch fish if you wish!
If you had wings, if you had wings!
If you had wings, had wings, had wings…”
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
Gliding along, we then enter the next scene: the Caribbean. Here, an ocean cruise liner is docked with passengers along its decks (brought to life via projection) bidding us “Bon voyage!” as they toss streamers. Below, divers sift through the water and docked sailboats show the lighted silhouettes of dancing couples. A shed nearby features a tourist proudly showing off his fishing catch to his wife… but as the vehicle passes, the fish in his grasp becomes… well… closer to reality.
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
We can’t make it out, of course, without a salesman and his wife inviting us to take a straw hat in song:
“Wanna buy a sombrero, made of real fine straw?
How about a nice handbag, for pretty mama?”
Then it’s off to Puerto Rico, where young people “Limbo” to the ride’s theme amidst the foliage before we continue along to the towering walls of Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan. Through archways, we can catch tremendous aerial views of the coast.
“You could follow a tradewind, down to Old San Juan
And explore an old fortress, before traveling on!
If you had wings, if you had wings…”
The Bahamas (where a police officer directs a flock of flamingos opposite human traffic), Jamaica (where a premium 35mm projector showed young people diving off of Dunn’s River Falls), and Trinidad all play their own flavored version of the ride’s catching theme, but all are mere throughways to our final destination: New Orleans.
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
Of course, it’s Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, and a dixieland band chimes in with their take on “If You Had Wings,” represented only via their silhouettes on a nearby vine wall. A blocked-off alley shows a parade passing by endlessly on the next block as fireworks erupt in the sky overhead.
“You could fly with flamingoes to that old French town;
Go on regale New Orleans, wear the carnival crown!
If you had wings, if you had wings;
If you had wings had wings, had wings!”
And now, turning the corner, the ride’s true highlight comes into view: the Speed Room. The cavernous, ellipsoid-shaped room was alight with the flickering footage from seven high-speed 70mm projectors, completely and totally surrounding us in action. As we recline and ascend through the endless chamber that fills our peripheral view, flashing scenes of water skis, airboats, motorcycles, trains, and an airplane’s takeoff make us feel as if we’re flying along, too.
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
We’ve made it. The ride’s finale is the so-called Mirror Room, where the theme music swells into a harmonic symphony of sound. In this final room, two more 70mm projectors would create views of snow-capped mountains reflected on floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The hypnotic, majestic, soaring finale leads to a calm descent as seagulls re-appear, with Eastern jets soaring alongside. Orson Welles narration promises something grand:
“You do have wings.
You can do all these things.
You can widen your world.
Eastern: the wings of man.”
Given its closure in the mid-1980s, high-quality videos of If You Had Wings are difficult to come across. Here’s the best we’ve found:
Disembarking from this most unusual dark ride, guests would find an Eastern Air Lines reservation kiosk, staffed by a friendly team eager to assist with booking and travel plans.
Flying Forward
If You Had Wings was a true marvel, perfectly suited for Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland in 1972; a celebration of an industry at the height of its success, the ride was a custom-made family adventure crafted by Disney Legends with a song among the most addictive in Disney’s playbook.
Expertly crafted to fit the unusual proportions of a custom-made showbuilding alongside the park’s Circle-Vision theater, the ride somehow managed to mask projectors among its brilliant sets – a true credit to Coats and the Imagineers he worked with.
And like so many of Disney’s most treasured classics, If You Had Wings didn’t last forever. On the next page, we’ll dissect what led to the ride’s closure… and it’s re-opening just five days later. Read on…
Grounded
Image: Disney
If You Had Wings folded on June 1, 1987 after 15 years of service.
The reason for the closure is one familiar to fans of EPCOT Center and its similarly industry-driven dark rides: sponsorship.
You might have already recognized that Eastern Air Lines doesn’t sound very familiar. Fitting, because in the 1980s, the carrier – once one of the “four big” carriers in the industry – faced mounting competition from emerging “no-frills” airlines amid rising fuel prices. To make matters worse, Eastern had banked heavily on its mass purchase of a new fleet of Boeing 757s (the debut of the line) but was now finding itself unable to pay the $700,000 in interest, per day that the massive purchase required.
Image: Eastern / Boeing
Suffice it to say that Eastern had no choice but to cut ties with Disney, especially given that, in 1988, the airline laid off over 4,000 employees, cutting service to the Western United States entirely and minimizing travel to Orlando. Still, a weakened airline structure, rising fuel prices, and union pressures meant that even the downsized Eastern wouldn’t have wings for long.
Though their connection to Disney ends there, the story does get interesting when, in 1989 Eastern sold its Eastern Air Line Shuttle service to American businessman Donald Trump. Like many of Trump’s business endeavors in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the rebranded Trump Airlines never turned a profit, defaulted on loans, and became the property of the bank within a year. Another arm of the airline was sold to Continental Airlines.
Eastern Air Lines filed for bankruptcy reorganization in 1989 and stopped flying entirely on January 19, 1991 – two years after If You Had Wings closed. But don’t let that fool you – even when Eastern’s last flights landed, an aviation themed dark ride was still going strong at Magic Kingdom…
Though If You Had Wings closed on June 1, 1987, it wasn’t grounded for long. In fact, it was barely closed long enough to notice it was gone. The ride re-opened five days later as If You Could Fly. Disney had simply removed all references to Eastern Air Lines. But the most regrettable loss of all was the removal of Buddy Baker and X Atencio’s associated song that had become so integral to the ride. Akin to removing “Yo Ho” from Pirates or “Grim Grinning Ghosts” from the Haunted Mansion, the loss of “If You Had Wings” had deeply changed the experience.
If You Could Fly was a fine, temporary, sponsor-free replacement for the original experience, even if it didn’t earn any new fans and alienated quite a few old ones. However, it wasn’t positioned to last for long. The de-branded If You Could Fly closed on January 4, 1989 after a run of about a year and a half.
Delta Dreamflight
Image: Disney
After a more proper renovation time of about six months, the building re-opened June 23, 1989 with Delta Dreamflight. While still themed to aviation (and now touting new sponsor and official Walt Disney World airline, Delta), Delta Dreamflight was nonetheless almost entirely new. The dark ride now whisked guests through the history of aviation from the 1920s to the skies of the future, all represented via simply-animated, pop-up book style vignettes.
Image: Disney
To the tune of a new, original theme song, guests would soar through animated scenes of the early barnstormers and propeller planes, then pass through the elegant dining area of a commercial airliner’s first class accomodations.
Image: Disney
The Omnimovers would then sail through scenes of Japan, glide over the streets of Paris, and enter into the hypnotic, spinning turbine engine of a jet plane. On the other side, the conical speed room was alive once again with soaring sights and sounds that let riders experience the majesty of flight in person.
Given that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior, perhaps you can predict what happened next… On December 31, 1995 (closing off a six year run) Delta Airlines dropped its sponsorship, in part because of the massive investment they’d make in sponsoring the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. So when the ride re-opened the next morning, January 1st, 1996, it was officially called Dreamflight as Disney allegedly weighed whether keeping the ride around would worthwhile without a sponsor footing the bill.
Ultimately, Disney must’ve decided the ride would stick around and it was worth the effort to “de-brand” it, so after six months as Dreamflight, the ride inside the Tomorrowland showbuilding received its fifth name change on June 5, 1996: Take Flight had any references to Delta removed or obscured, but otherwise looked quite the same as the 1989 Delta Dreamflight.
So many millennials may remember glimpses of Delta Dreamflight / Dreamflight / Take Flight from their childhoods. But of course, Take Flight wasn’t airborne for long, either. As names swapped, Tomorrowland was reborn around the aviation dark ride, and it would soon be absorbed into a new way of thinking… and a new, controversial path for Tomorrowland.
On the last page, we’ll see what became of If You Had Wings, where it was reborn, and where it lives on today. Let’s prepare for touchdown…
To Infinity and Beyond
While the aviation themed dark ride at Magic Kingdom swapped names, sponsors, and scenes, a more radical reinvention took place around it.
Image: Disney
A New Tomorrowland descended in 1994, cleverly recasting the simple, geometric land leftover from the park’s 1971 opening into a fantastical, metallic, sci-fi alien spaceport of landed crafts, neon signs in alien languages, and mechanical trees. Tomorrowland had left reality behind to showcase a future that never would be, based on the sci-fi comic strips of the early 20th century like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
Cleverly, this New Tomorrowland had also created a single continuity that would rule the land, uniting all of its rides, shows, and attractions into one overarching story.
The Tomorrowland Transit Authority (the “real” mass transit system of this “real” galactic spaceport) toured the public past the Interplanetary Convention Center (currently rented by X-S Tech showing their newest teleportation technology in another Lost Legend: Alien Encounter), the Tomorrowland Science Center (home to fellow Lost Legend: The Timekeeper), Rockettower Plaza (with the Astro Orbitor atop), a restaurant and nightclub run by an alien (Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café) and the city’s Space Port (Space Mountain).
Delta Dreamflight (and its successors) didn’t really fit. Disney did have plans for the space. However, they revolved around the 1999 film Toy Story 2. The ride – Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – opened more than a year before the film, introducing the world to Emperor Zurg…
(The ride also introduced what may be the most cluttered and aesthetically displeasing ride facade in all of Walt Disney World, but we digress…)
Image: Theme Park Tourist
The 1998 ride sees guests join Buzz Lightyear and his Star Command league of defenders to stop the evil Zurg (a clear play on Darth Vader), who’s stolen batteries from the toys. The ride reuses the physical track and ride system of the flight rides that preceded it, but swaps the style for blacklight and arms riders with laser-blasting guns to shoot glowing targets.
Image: Disney
Okay, so Buzz didn’t exactly fit into the New Tomorrowland designers unveiled in 1994, either. But his arrival did signal that direction that land was going. A “cartoonification” of the land followed close behind, axing the bloodthirsty ExtraTERRORestrial in Alien Encounter in favor of the mischievous alien from Lilo and Stitch, evicting the Timekeeper for Monsters Inc., and planting The Incredibles center stage for a long-running dance party.
The “cartoonification” of Tomorrowland is a big sticking point for many fans, who balk at the way the once-brave lands of sincere innovation and forward-thinking design have become thoughtless catch-alls for intellectual properties. Around the globe, most Tomorrowlands have now given up any semblance of caring about the future in favor of housing Lilo and Stitch, Monsters Inc., Star Wars, Marvel super heroes, TRON, Toy Story, and even Finding Nemo…
As for the remains of If You Had Wings that live on in Buzz Lightyear? Well… we’re all waiting to see what comes next. Another reboot of Tomorrowland feels imminent at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, and – despite all evidence to the contrary – fans are still hopeful that any such rebirth will evict (or at least minimize) the most invasive cartoon characters and maybe – just maybe – involve an original story or two once again.
Image: Disney / Marvel
One space to watch is Hong Kong Disneyland; where an entire corner of Tomorrowland is being annexed to Marvel, with their Buzz Lightyear ride being entirely rethemed itself to Marvel’s miniaturized Ant-Man… And Disney does love to stretch their design and development dollars by cloning popular concepts…
If such a transformation ever does come to pass, it’ll be fascinating in a way, given that If You Had Wings was a sibling to Coats’ Adventure Thru Inner Space, relying on miniaturization.
Spiritual Sequels
Image: Disney, via Widen Your World
There’s no denying the impact of If You Had Wings – a true Lost Legend whose two-decade run at the Magic Kingdom made it a fan favorite and an instant classic. Though often overlooked, the ride was devised by Disney Legends, composed with a classic sing-along score, and packed with remarkable scenes and effects that changed Disney’s playbook forever.
Perhaps just as important as its own legacy, If You Had Wings (and its sister, Adventure Thru Inner Space) were precursors to the uniquely educational, realistic, and scientific dark rides that would populate EPCOT Center’s Future World. This lost Magic Kingdom classic literally helped determine how those grand, elaborate EPCOT rides that followed would look, sound, and feel.
That’s why we argue that If You Had Wings lived on in the form of two “spiritual sequels:”
Image: Disney
First, If You Had Wings was the final Omnimover-based dark ride Disney built for a decade, but it heavily influenced the next: a Lost Legend: World of Motion at EPCOT Center. World of Motion essentially followed the same trajectory (including a speed room), just focused on land travel and the development of the automobile.
Riders in Omnimovers experienced the development of transportation from camels to cars and everything in between. In classic EPCOT Center style, the ride was informative, elaborate, musical, and fun. And of course, it featured its own speed room.
Image: Disney
Second, we told the in-depth story of Disney’s follow-up foray into the whimsy and majesty of flight in its own standalone feature, Lost Legend: Soarin’ – a great place to pick up the story from here. If you’d rather fly somewhere new, make the jump to our In-Depth Collections Library to set course for your next Lost Legend.
And so ends the story of this Lost Legend, whose two-decade lifetime at Magic Kingdom is too often overlooked. A real, understated wonder of Disney World’s earliest years, If You Had Wings shaped the resort’s history and set forth a blueprint for EPCOT Center’s educational-industrial dark rides. In the comments below, share your memories of this free-flying family ride and its successors. What do you remember of Magic Kingdom’s aviation rides?
