“Disneyland will never be complete, so long as there is imagination left in the world.” How many times have you heard that quote as a reason for closing a classic or adding an attraction somewhere that doesn’t quite make sense? The truth is, Disney Parks are organic places! For better or worse, things will always be changing; rides will always be swapping in and out; if you don’t like change, Disney Parks fandom may not be for you!
But sometimes in Disney’s rush to incorporate new attractions, add capacity, or infuse hot properties fast, we might end up with some rides that are simply in the wrong places! Below we’ve collected a list of eight attractions – both classics whose contexts have changed wildly over the years, and contemporary attractions added to existing lands. Most guests probably don’t even notice these rides “in the wrong places;” those that do probably don’t care. Do you? What other attractions can you think of that technically don’t make much sense in the lands they inhabit? Where should they go instead?
1. Magic Carpets of Aladdin
Location: Adventureland (Magic Kingdom)
Dumbo the Flying Elephant has been a mainstay of Fantasyland since 1955. It’s an opening day attraction at every “castle” park on Earth – even Shanghai! The aerial carousel was a simple carnival ride redressed with fiberglass elephants, but it was enough of a hit to inspire Tomorrowland’s typically-elevated version of spiraling rockets found in almost every Disney Resort. But in 2001 – in the midst of the same budget-crunching era that created the Declassified Disasters: Disney’s California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios and saw characters shoved into classics – it was decided that Magic Kingdom needed another one.
2001’s Magic Carpets of Aladdin is, of course, a fine ride that adds fun (but familiar) family capacity to the number one most visited theme park on Earth. Unfortunately, it was quite literally plopped down in Adventureland. Unlike Disneyland’s version of the land which is a more or less immersive with a single time period and setting, Magic Kingdom’s has always had a lot going on… from the African outpost of the Jungle Cruise to its Polynesian core and the Caribbean Plaza that serves as the entry to Pirates, each sub-area still had something in common: they looked camera-ready, immersive, and “real.”
Naturally, the introduction of a color-saturated carnival ride in a new makeshift Arabian plaza with spitting gold camels somewhat detracts from the ambiance, aura, and atmosphere of Adventureland. Plus, with the duplication of Dumbo as part of the New Fantasyland project in 2012, Magic Kingdom now offers four virtually identical carnival rides… maybe it’s time for a change?
Our recommendation: Remove it.
2, Autopia and the Tomorrowland Speedway
Location: Tomorrowland (Disneyland and Magic Kingdom)
Though it’s often laughed at today, the truth is that Disneyland’s Autopia did make sense in Tomorrowland when the park opened… after all, President Eisenhower had not yet signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act that would create a 41,000-mile network of interstate highways spanning the nation. Disneyland’s cloverleafs, on-ramps, and elevated highways were legitimate demonstrations of transportation of the future.
Since then, the Autopia has grown and merged into its current form: a sprawling, snaking, lovely drive through acres of parkland (actually set atop the massive showbuilding of the Submarine Voyage). So even if it’s not exactly futuristic, for generations of Southern Californians, Autopia was their first time behind the wheel! Of course, removing the Autopia and Subs would open a massive expansion plot in the land-locked park, almost certainly assuring its time is short… and even fans who love the family-favorite Autopia salivate over a New Tomorrowland or New Fantasyland (or both!) that could fit there…
Our recommendation: Surely there’s a perfect fit for a family car ride: Cars Land! In fact, a family road trip past Route 66 sights, across bridges, and through car washes was once planned for the park’s expansion… until it was upgraded into the Modern Marvel: Radiator Springs Racers. Still, a family car ride would make great sense in Cars Land, if only there were space…
3. Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
Location: Hollywood Land (Disney California Adventure)
Speaking of Disney California Adventure, the $1.5 billion redesign of the park from 2007 to 2012 didn’t just debut Cars Land; it also rewrote the story of the rest of the park, at last emphasizing historic, idealized Californian lands anchored by three distinctly Californian E-Tickets. Oddly, all three have been given character overlays in the years since! It’s odd that Disney would spend billions to add more California to California Adventure, only to then shutter the Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in favor of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
Recognizing the disconnect of Sunset Blvd. ending in a super villain’s hotel-shaped secret lair affixed with pipes and satellite dishes, Imagineers asked fans for patience, promising that it would all make sense in the context of a coming Marvel-themed land. But for three years, the park’s Hollywood Land (ostensibly themed to the 1940s Golden Age of Tinseltown) was reigned over by a “warehouse prison powerplant” based on “the beauty of an oil rig!”
Our recommendation: No recommendation needed. 2020’s Avengers Campus at last gives Mission: BREAKOUT! a home (even if it still doesn’t make great narrative sense why the Collector’s space museum would appear in a Southern Californian recruitment center for heroes). The bigger issue is that, with the ride’s official annexation, Hollywood Land will be left with just three significant attractions: a Monsters Inc. dark ride, Frozen: Live at the Hyperion, and an embarassing installation of Mickey’s Philharmagic in a theater meant to show the much-better Muppet*Vision.
4, Muppet*Vision 3D
Location: Grand Ave. (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
Speaking of Muppet*Vision, the original show back at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is still going strong… and it should be, given that the ultra-quotable classic was also the last project overseen by Jim Henson before his unexpected death. Muppet*Vision is pure classic from beginning to end. It’s also never really found the home it was meant to. After all, it was initially supposed to be just one part of the never-built Possibilityland: Muppet Studios once planned for the park. After Henson’s death, the project was cancelled by his family.
Instead, Muppet*Vision was grouped into New York Street (later, the Streets of America) – one of the “Lost Lands” that disappeared entirely from Disney Parks thanks to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Somehow, Muppet*Vision survived (even precariously placed between Galaxy’s Edge and Star Tours… gulp), and the remains of the land around it were even renamed Muppets Courtyard!
However, once the portal to Batuu opened, Muppet Courtyard was renamed Grand Ave. after the trendy Los Angeles neighborhood… even though Muppet*Vision and the neighboring PizzeRizzo recreate New York. Huh… The only part of Grand Ave. that’s new or different from Muppet Courtyard is the BaseLine Tap House bar. Still, the mini-land is mostly-Muppets and mostly-New-York-themed, making its refusal to admit either somewhat odd.
Our recommendation: Look, Grand Ave. exists almost entirely as a thoroughfare to guide guests into Galaxy’s Edge. Why shouldn’t the land be renamed Muppet Studios, absorbing the bar into an after-work pub and grill for Muppets?
5. Finding Nemo: The Musical
Location: Dinoland, U.S.A. (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, a remote path beyond the park’s Dinoland U.S.A. lead to the Theater in the Wild. At the time, it showed the short-lived “Journey into the Jungle Book.” By 1999, it had been replaced with “Tarzan Rocks,” a high-energy contemporary telling of that year’s Tarzan film. The open air auditorium was remote enough to be considered “outside” of Dinoland. But in 2006, the opening of the Modern Marvel: Expedition Everest necessitated a loop connecting Asia and Dinoland via the Theater in the Wild trail. That same year, the Theater in the Wild was enclosed and upgraded to include lighting and special effects impossible in an open-air amphitheater.
A new show – Finding Nemo: The Musical – debuted as just one piece of the Pixarification of Disney Parks (within 18 months, Nemo would also overtake the Lost Legend: The Living Seas at Epcot and Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage). Given that Finding Nemo had not been a musical, new songs were written by Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (who would go on to write the songs for Frozen). Finding Nemo: The Musical was a hit and continues to play to this day… even if it doesn’t make much sense in Dinoland.
Our recommendation: Leave it. Finding Nemo: The Musical is a joy, and it’s doubtful Disney could cook up a better stage show that actually fit the land’s theme. Besides, even though it’s technically in Dinoland, the theater remains removed enough from the land’s main thoroughfare to convincingly be somewhere “else.”
6. Frozen Ever After
Location: Noway (Epcot)
EPCOT purists have a noble (and increasingly impossible) hope: maintaining the park’s intellectual and cultural integrity in the wake of increasingly prevalent character invasions. Throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, Disney’s plans for revitalizing the park amounted to some disastrous divisions. Some pavilions went full-on ’90s reimagining (think Journey into YOUR Imagination and Ellen’s Energy Adventure); some bet big on character overlays atop ’80s infrastructure (The Seas with Nemo and Friends); others swapped to “brainless” 21st century thrill rides (Soarin’, Test Track, and Mission: SPACE). But for the most part, World Showcase’s cultural pavilions emphasizing food and entertainment were untouched… Until…
In 2014, Disney announced that the long-running ’80s odditity – the Lost Legend: Maelstrom – would sail away forever. The tour through the history of Norway aboard Viking longboats had been usurped by the highest grossing animated film ever, Frozen. If you ask many fans, the problem is that Frozen might be based on a Scandanavian fairy tale written by a Dutch author and influenced by Norwegian architecture and character design, but the film is most certainly set in the very fictional kingdom of Arendelle, not Norway. Granted, the Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After is a wonder in its own right, and complete and total reinvention of Maelstrom rather than merely an ‘overlay.’ But it sure did open the floodgates to World Showcase not just to characters, but to fictional kingdoms and countries!
Our recommendation: In our in-depth look at Frozen Ever After, we offered that – although the ride is spectacular – the hard truth is probably that Frozen deserved a better ride than Frozen Ever After could’ve ever been by re-using Maelstrom’s infrastructure. It probably deserved its own E-Ticket in a New Fantasyland expansion. And while Frozen Fantasylands are coming to Paris and Hong Kong, both will feature clones of Frozen Ever After. Hopes are high for the upcoming Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea, which is expected to offer a one-of-a-kind Frozen headliner… For now, international program participants from Norway will simply have to get used to selling Olaf plush and welcoming guests to Arendelle.
7. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
Location: Tomorrowland (Magic Kingdom)
Believe it or not, there was a time when Tomorrowland was actually determined to showcase technologies of tomorrow. Magic Kingdom’s version of the land opened in 1971 with a Circle-Vision 360 theater prominently set along its entry corridor, showing nine-screen format travelogues of America. In the 1990s, a radical reinvention of the land set out to forget actual futurism and instead to create a timeless and evergreen retro-futuristic version of tomorrow. The Circle-Vision theater remained, but with a new show – the Lost Legend: Timekeeper – that connected to the land’s newly rewritten sci-fi frame story.
However, 1994’s “New Tomorrowland” didn’t last long. One of the final projects in Michael Eisner’s ambitious and cinematic “Ride the Movies” era, the sci-fi land was one of the first projects to fall to his next era: the cost-saving age of character invasion and Pixarification.
Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor drops New Tomorrowland’s intricate original mythology and instead sends guests into a comedy club in Monstropolis where laughs are needed to power the city’s grid. Guests submit jokes via their phones, which are then presented by monsters on screen (using “live digital puppeting” like Turtle Talk).
Our recommendation: Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor stands directly across from the shuttered remains of the Declassified Disaster: Stitch’s Great Escape. Together, the two present a painfully bad entry to Tomorrowland. That’s especially bad news since Disney is clearly betting big on the Modern Marvel: TRON Lightcycle Run to be the park and resort’s must-see headliner for its 50th anniversary in 2021. In preparation, Tomorrowland is currently recieving another floor to ceiling facelift, removing the sci-fi embellishments of the ’90s in favor of the Space Age simplicity of the ’70s. Will the upgrade in style equate with an upgrade in substance, finally refreshing the land’s underwhelming entry offerings? We’ll see.
8. Splash Mountain
Location: Frontierland (Magic Kingdom)
When Imagineers designed Splash Mountain in the 1980s, they made an unusual choice… to base the ride on portions of a controversial 1946 Disney film called Song of the South. The film takes the form of a live-action frame story of a Black storyteller named Uncle Remus sharing Black oral tradition folktales of Georgia (the stories of Br’er Rabbit and friends) in animated musical vignettes.
Despite its role in Disney history and its sensational score (“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!”), Song of the South has never been released on home video due to its controversial time period (officially, after the Civil War, with Uncle Remus as a paid worker and not a slave) and its racism-free, rosy view of Reconstruction in the South. At the time of its release, the NAACP noted “in an effort neither to offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery.”
Why base a multi-million dollar ride on a film that’s never been released on home video in the United States? By cutting Uncle Remus entirely, Imagineers focused purely on the folk tales he told – tales easy to bring to life thanks to the 100+ Audio-Animatronics figures made available by the closure of Disneyland’s “America Sings!” carousel show. Splash Mountain opened at Disneyland in 1989, transforming the Country Bears’ Bear Country land into the more inclusive Critter Country. That positioned the ride perfectly as a new centerpiece along the Rivers of America, just past New Orleans Square and its Haunted Mansion. We even listed Critter Country among the 16 Disneyland-Exclusives That Should Make Disney World Fans Jealous… (We had no idea how right we’d be proven to be…)
In the midst of Civil Rights revelations around race and Black equality in the United States in 2020, Disney dropped the surprise announcement of a project they’d been working on for years: Splash Mountain would lose its Song of the South stories and instead become home to Disney’s 2009 film The Princess and the Frog – a New Orleans-set Jazz era story featuring Disney’s first Black princess.
At Disneyland, the move doesn’t just make sense; it’s perfect!
After all, Splash Mountain (and perhaps all of Critter Country) can be absorbed into the adjacent New Orleans Square so that guests circumnavigating the Rivers of America will travel from the Jazz Age French Quarter (Pirates) to the remote and eerie manor on the outskirts of town (Haunted Mansion) and finally to the wild swamps beyond (Splash Mountain)! In that way, transforming Splash Mountain into a musical Louisiana bayou of flickering fireflies and Jazz standards music doesn’t just make sense; it’s an obviously perfect fit! Done and done! Except…
Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom doesn’t have a Critter Country at all. It also doesn’t have a New Orleans Square. Instead, its 1992 addition of Splash Mountain was added in Frontierland. For folks used to Disneyland’s layout, it can be a double-take moment to see two mountains right next to each other – one stylize as Arizona’s Monument Valley and the other as a grassy southern hill. Sure, a 1912-set Jazz era New Orleans ride won’t make much sense in Frontierland… But neither did Splash Mountain.
Before we complain that Princess Tiana will destroy the thematic integrity of Frontierland, consider that few people ever criticized an 1860s desert mining town and an 1860s desert gold mine having a grassy mountain of singing woodland creatures based on a 1980s movie version of 1870s Georgia plopped down between them. We have yet to see how or if Disney will make the new Splash Mountain make sense in Frontierland, but we can be sure that it won’t be any more of an oddball than the original Splash Mountain was.
