Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Categories: Disney parks and attractions
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is an attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim, California opening in May 2007.
It originally opened on June 6, 1959 as Submarine Voyage, part of a major expansion of Tomorrowland, which also included the Matterhorn Bobsleds roller coaster, an expanded version of Autopia, the Disneyland Monorail and the Motor Boat Cruise. It closed on September 9, 1998, with then-Disneyland president Paul Pressler promising a new attraction would open in 2003. It never did.
After he left, Matt Ouimet became the president of the Disneyland Resort, and activity in the lagoon caught the eyes of many. Neptune, one of the eight submarines in the fleet, was moored in the old Submarine Voyage station for inspection by Walt Disney Imagineering in 2004. Rumors about a Finding Nemo attraction were spread around the Internet fast.
On July 15, 2005, two days before the official 50th Anniversary of Disneyland, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage was officially announced at the new Turtle Talk with Crush attraction at Disney's California Adventure by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts president Jay Rasulo.
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The vehicles
The Subs are not submarines, but boats in which the passenger seating area was below the water level. Above the seating area was the conning tower, where the driver stood and controlled the sub's speed. The "diving" effect was made by bubble screens and using the waterfalls at the entrance to the caves that led the submarines into the show building, which is very cleverly disguised. Atop the building are the majority of the Autopia tracks, some monorail tracks, trees and other flora.
For the Finding Nemo version of the attraction, four seats will be added to each submarine, bringing each sub's capacity up to 42 guests. This will be done by replacing the old entry staircases with less space-consuming staircases. It is unknown if the submarines will be renamed or repainted.
Original nuclear submarine names (1959-1986)
- Nautilus
- Triton
- Sea Wolf
- Skate
- Skipjack
- George Washington
- Patrick Henry
- Ethan Allen
Exploration submarine names (1987-1998)
- Nautilus
- Triton
- Sea Wolf
- Neptune, formerly Skate
- Sea Star, formerly Skipjack
- Explorer, formerly George Washington
- Seeker, formerly Patrick Henry
- Argonaut, formerly Ethan Allen
Original attraction
In a recent auction in Disneyland, several pieces of the original attraction's scenery were sold, such as the sea serpent, the shark fighting with the octopus on a rock, and one of the fighting crabs. They were cleared out to make room for new scenery for an updated version.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Submarine Voyage was also a part of the Magic Kingdom park in Orlando, Florida, though themed after Disney's film version of Jules Verne's book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Contrary to popular belief, it was not one of the Magic Kingdom's opening day attractions and the fleet of Nautilus's did not actually set sail until October 14, 1971, almost 2 full weeks after the park opened to the public. It mysteriously closed quietly on September 5, 1994, supposedly for a lengthy major rehab, but was never re-opened. Although, Disney did not officially confirm the closure until sometime during 1996. Eventually, Disney cited that the reason for the attraction's closure was that it was simply too expensive to maintain and operate. After the lagoon sat unused for approximately ten years, it was finally bulldozed to make room for a Winnie the Pooh area. The attraction itself used much of the script of the original, though with re-recorded narration where Captain Nemo was your host as you traveled in the Nautilus. It also featured a climax with a giant squid attacking the submarine, but otherwise, it was very close to the Disneyland original.
A similar voyage attraction is now at the Tokyo DisneySea in Japan, except instead of boats in water, it is a dark ride through a show building, in enclosed suspended cars ("mini-subs").
There was a walk-through of the film at Disneyland in the 1950s, but it has since closed. However, a new version appeared in Discoveryland in Disneyland Paris.
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