What Happens When a Disney Ride DIES?

all right i miss her already we all do gene we all do do you think i don't know maybe one day it'll be back probably in 2027 gene probably in 2027 same spirit who that be him nobody really knows he just sort of shows up when attractions die stands and watches from the distance it's pretty cool actually is he the one responsible for all this no he just sort of talks about it wait what what what'd he be doing there what what is that stop asking questions it's getting honestly kind of on my nerves at this point but where he be going spirit probably to talk about it gene probably just to talk about it oh hey there everybody i'm sorry i didn't see you there you caught me on the tail end of one of my famous offhand disney field trips there don't worry about what i was doing it's not important we can talk about that at a later date what happens when an attraction reaches the end of its life that's right it dies recently it was announced that tokyo disneyland space mountain would be the very next attraction to close down and die but disney decided to bestow a very great a very big honor upon tokyo disneyland space mountain in the form of a complete from the ground up rebuild that's right everyone tokyo disneyland is getting new tomorrowland before anaheim and so is orlando we talked about that a while ago so if you're in anaheim and you're hoping for a new tomorrowland i know you need it the most but you're just i guess gonna have to wait not all attractions are as lucky as space mountain though sometimes they're bulldozed rethemed and sometimes just left to sit there abandoned and rotting away in the anaheim florida tokyo hong kong shanghai or paris sun we're not going to talk about attractions that are closed down and gone now we're going to talk about the lifespan of an attraction in this video what does it mean when an attraction has reached the end of its life it doesn't always necessarily mean that it's going to close especially in the case of the american parks we just love keeping old attractions open and operating we will also talk about some rides in the americas that do need to be completely ripped up torn down and rebuilt from their roots because this is quickly becoming a death sentence so what is the life span of an attraction just like people or internet memes my money don't jiggle jiggle it yeah that's that's gonna be out of date by the time this video gets posted disney attractions also have a lifespan but that lifespan can vary sometimes an attraction dies a glorious death by being raised to the ground or sometimes it just gets rethemed and dies a slow quiet death but there are also those rare few those very select attractions that have been around since opening day of their respective parks with little to no change but i will say some of these have reached their end of life and we're just keeping them on life support now to explain i'm going to start with autopia an opening day disneyland ride that was there in 1955 and while yes it has undergone a lot of changes over the years it is still at its heart pretty much the same attraction changes like the track being replaced in 2000 when chevron became the sponsor it has received patches and changes and fixes throughout the years to keep it modern with the times thus expanding its life although some would say that the autopia is due for either a complete overhaul or removal because it just hasn't aged that well another attraction that i fear actually might be dead forever even though disney swears otherwise is the submarines right next to autopia this though is a case of the ride vehicles being the only thing that's killing the attraction they were diesel when the attraction first opened but they were changed to electric powered submarines when it reopened as the finding nemo submarine voyage again patches can only stop so much of a leak before the entire ship is flooded in this case the submarine is flooded and i think in the case of the subs disney is trying to patch the hole so sturdy this time that they can get an extra 10 to 20 years out of it that's why it's been gone shut down for so long the the bay is drained nothing is there doesn't look like people are working on it i don't know when it's gonna reopen maybe soon maybe never this is what i'm going to refer to as a patch fix plenty of attractions all over the world have reached their end of life but disney is just putting band-aids over the problems hoping to keep them open just a little bit longer until they can figure out what to do with them one last example of the band-aids before we move on to another sort of fix is the former homes of the mickey mouse review and muppet vision at the magic kingdom and california adventure respectively both now sort of empty shells and home to mickey's fill her magic the old when in doubt just change out the show fix and although attractions like the subs and mickey's philharmagic don't really see the same amount of guests visiting them as they once did it's something it's a destination to put on the park map to draw people in to sort of reduce crowds elsewhere now keep that in mind the band-aid fix next we're moving on to the complete tear down this may be familiar if you look at photos of epcot recently or you know back in the day they did the same thing to horizons there was not something that could go in there a retheme or a new attraction so they just bulldozed it tore it to the ground big thunder ranch or apparently the entirety of the west end of downtown disney at disneyland or camp mini mickey making way for pandora in animal kingdom now although it's nice to bulldoze things sometimes so you can rebuild something completely new not influenced by what used to be there at all on its place other times though disney just bulldozes things and leaves them that way a great example being the current reflections a lakeside lodge hotel on bay lake at walt disney world it's been bulldozed it used to be river country and they started construction before covet and now no one knows what's going on it's just sort of sitting there in limbo right now waiting for a theme or a cancellation or to resume construction could i be either of those three they're all equally plausible and then we have two more subcategories before we really dive into the nitty gritty of why disney does this and if it's the right thing to do and that is a retheme or being left abandoned now everyone i would hope is sort of familiar with these two a retheme in this case like extraterrestrial alien encounter to stitch's great escape they got to keep the show building and many of the same show elements just with a new theme stitch instead of a horrifying insectoid alien maelstrom to frozen or whatever tarzan's treehouse is turning into over at disneyland seriously we we still don't know they've announced that they're doing it no idea what it's going to be though and then of course abandoned attractions ones that disney didn't remove they didn't bulldoze they didn't retheme they just sort of left there open exposed to the elements in some cases left to rot my most infamous example being the people mover in tomorrowland at disneyland what may seem like a simple walkway divider running down the middle of the tomorrowland avenue was actually the track of an old lost disney attraction one that disney should bring back in walt disney world you have remnants of the fort wilderness railroad not necessarily an attraction but i mean you could hop on it and ride it around the campsite so kind of or one of the rare cases of an abandoned attraction or hotel in this case that got re-themed the legendary years for the pop century resort being re-themed into the art of animation resort namely just the little mermaid area but still disney canceled the legendary years halfway through construction and then it just sort of sat there across hourglass lake looking distainfully at its twin brother looking at all those happy guests entering and then leaving the aforementioned stitch's great escape is also an abandoned attraction one that closed down is just being used at this point for storage or the rocket rods cue another tie into the people mover over disneyland again just sort of an empty hallway underground which brings me to my main question of this video oh eight and a half minutes in what is the best option for disney to do in the case of an attraction that has just reached the end of its life and is no longer feasible to keep running do you retheme it like the wonders of life pavilion into the play pavilion do you just patch up the holes and hope to god that it doesn't sink or explode like the submarines do you tear it down and replace it with something completely new like with mini mickey and pandora or is there another option is there something you can do that combines sort of all three it keeps the old attraction open but is also a complete teardown and maybe even a retheme my friends disney is doing that very thing right now over in tokyo with space mountain and i think that that is something to look forward to here in the stateside parks a very special way of dealing with old attractions and that is completely tearing it down ripping it up to the foundations and then just rebuilding it just building a new version in this case of space mountain now tokyo disneyland is not funded by disney they just license their characters and imagineers out and it is instead owned by the oriental land company which is why the asian parks are some of the coolest disney parks you will ever see in your entire life it's because disney doesn't have to pay for it the budget of the oriental land company sort of gives disney this free reign to blue sky and do really whatever they want within reason a luxury that cannot exist over here in the stateside parks because disney owns 100 of them in this case tokyo space mountain was pretty much a clone of the one in anaheim and my anaheim and disneyland friends you you've ridden tokyo's space mountain before even if you've never left california although because they had more money it had a more futuristic and updated theme than ours over in anaheim i mean look at this look at the difference does it just make you sad because it makes me sad but it's not like tokyo space mountain was super old and rusting away and super jerky and really not fun to ride no it had received a refurbishment in 2007 but as far as i know the track for tokyo space mountain was pretty much the same unchanged track it had when it opened in 1983 so the oriental land company decided it was about high time to retheme and rebuild space mountain from this to this not only is it bigger but it looks completely different and will be receiving a completely new track to make it one of the most unique space mountains in the world probably right up there with paris's except that star wars now change it back paris change it back and i think this method of rebuilding old attractions is something that disney should utilize more over stateside they've sort of done it in secret like really incognito before like they completely replaced space mountain's track at disneyland in 2003 which is why it's a much more noticeably smooth ride than the one over at the magic kingdom which is just sort of a retooled and reshelled matterhorn and speaking of the matterhorn if there were a disney attraction that is showing its age that is visibly falling apart that seems like it's doomed to collapse in on itself or explode or i get maybe even flood who knows it's the matterhorn bobsleds now i don't want you getting the wrong idea from watching this video don't take this as some sort of mindless matter horn hate video i don't hate the matterhorn in fact i love the matterhorn i think its charm is in the fact that it hurts a lot but that's the thing it hurts a lot and i think it needs to be rebuilt in the same way that space mountain over in tokyo is being rebuilt i don't want to get rid of the matterhorn i don't want a retheme of the matterhorn i think a retheme of the matterhorn would be a disservice to the spirit of disneyland but the current matterhorn that we have just isn't cutting it it's it's popular don't get me wrong it's a roller coaster and we've seen disney try to do these patchwork jobs in the past with the new 60th anniversary update with the new yeti and the wells expedition but it's just it still seems like it's just too broken and i think it's time that disney just needs to accept this they need to step in and put the old matterhorn out of its misery no matter how much we would hate to see it go it needs it i think it needs it and i think disney knows this i think they know that the matterhorn has reached the end of its life it reached the end of its life 20 years ago but of course they're sort of caught between a rock and a hard place either spend the money completely tear it down and replace it or rebuild it or keep it open because people love it so much it's a classic disneyland attraction they'd be mad if you closed it down for any reason and just hope the track doesn't break again because for some reason it really likes doing that now there are more attractions that i think could do with this complete rebuild i don't think either space mountains are bad enough to need this like the matterhorn even at disney world you know the track still sucks but they can do what they did over in anaheim and just completely replace the track without tearing the whole thing down a ride that i would argue at walt disney world could be completely rebuilt from the ground up and approved pirates of the caribbean i mean come on it's nothing compared to disneyland and i'm not saying make it a clone of disneyland but do something you know put a second drop in make it longer as of now pirates is just really lacking over at the magic kingdom or even a brand new completely reimagined rebuilt test track now i know there are people out there who dislike the new test track i personally am a massive fan i think it's so much better than old test track but i get it i understand maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle a compromise with a brand new extended test track one that's completely inside so it doesn't have to close down every 20 minutes whenever a lightning strike happens that would be that'd be lovely but obviously this method of a complete rebuild from the ground up has its cons it's not all just great oh look a new space mountain it costs a lot of money compared to just the patch jobs that disney can do or a retheme you're essentially building an entirely brand new attraction and you know how long that takes disney still waiting now one last thing before i wrap this video up before i take my leave and head on out to ride guardians of the galaxy cosmic rewind maybe if i can get a boarding group is that this might not all even be possible you might not be able to rebuild the matterhorn because it was built in a bygone era known as the 1950s when building codes were a lot looser it's why people are saying oh why does disney take five years to build tron now but they built all of disneyland in 1954 in one year it opened in 1955 it's because building codes mostly so if they were going to rebuild the matterhorn it would have to have a bigger footprint or they'd have to move it somewhere else entirely it's not exactly super feasible because this coaster is all fitted inside this tiny relatively mounted so what do you do do you keep patching the matterhorn up at this point i think that might be the only realistic answer if you want to keep the ride at disneyland because you can't really move it or rebuild it feasibly so patches every now and then sprained necks and backs as you ride past the yeti it's part of the fun for sure but part of me wishes they could just rebuild it a bigger better matterhorn maybe not bigger but definitely a better matterhorn i think realistically we have many many more years of jerky rough classic and fun matterhorn ahead of us that's not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing two-time best human bob gurr's signature will remain in the mountain the basketball hoop will remain in the mountain and i think until further notice from disney not for a good number of years it's gonna stay and if there's one attraction at disneyland that's completely safe from a retheme in the style of maelstrom to frozen i think it's the matterhorn i can't see any property going in there i don't think disney would be willing to spend the money on doing that and it has just occurred to me that this has now become a matterhorn-centric video let's get back to the topic at hand what to do with old disney rides that are due for demolition so i'm gonna leave you with two questions one if your favorite attraction say mine is the haunted mansion was falling apart at the seams pieces were falling out the track was not working half the time would you rather them refume it to something completely new while sort of keeping the spirit of the original or rebuild it from the ground up with some new special effects some new scenes improved and sort of modernized or just not touch it and refurbish it year after year to see how long it would be able to last before calamity struck which one of those would you choose i don't know if it came to the haunted mansion i'm not sure if i would trust modern disney to sort of make it good and in the same vein and spirit as the original but you never know i i underestimate the imagineers they could do it and then the second question you smell that that is the smell of the magic candle company welcome foolish mortals to the ad spot i am your advertiser offhand disney your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding almost as though you want to go to the magiccandlecompany.com and use offer code fan 15 for 15 off your order this room smells like absolute chaos right now they have so many scents and offerings that you will be frightened into enjoying them room sprays hand sanitizer hand soaps and of course the magic candles don't be like this loser using boring old hand sanitizer be like this guy who absolutely has a ton of friends who call him all the time and uses hand sanitizer that smells like the contemporary once again that's offer code offhand 15 for 15 off your order at the magiccandlecompany.com and i'll see you all a little later so whether you're a fan of the retheme the teardown or the rebuild we can all agree that some things around the park need them more than others right some things and who knows maybe space mountain in tokyo is a glimpse into the future of the american parks maybe one day we'll get a rebuilt space mountain maybe we'll get a rebuilt matterhorn maybe we'll get a rebuilt haunted mansion all of this remains to be seen but in the meantime if you'll excuse me i'll be enjoying living with the land while i still can until cpec inevitably comes for the land pavilion too it's only a matter of time hello everyone and welcome to the end card for this video i hope you enjoyed what happens when a disney park attraction dies or whatever this video is going to be titled at some point i wanted to make a video on like what happens when an attraction is old and decaying do you tear it down like just get rid of it or make a new space mountain out of it if you enjoyed this video please be sure to hit that like button and if you're new around here and want more videos like this let me know by all means by hitting the subscribe button i wait till the end of the video usually to ask for a sub and a like because i'm not trying to interrupt the flow of the vid you know how it is if you want even more content buy me from me you can go over to tick tock i make videos there sometimes when the inspiration strikes you can also follow me on twitter and instagram i am at offhand disney on both of those places so it's pretty easy to remember a massive thank you to all of my supporters over at patreon.com offhand disney they get early access to videos sneak previews and a bunch of other perks that the the normal layman viewer doesn't get so if you want to head over there and even just one dollar a month will get you access to most of the perks not to say i don't like my regular viewers you all help keep this channel going but the patrons do as well they just get cool stuff for it and i think that is where i'm going to wrap up today's video everyone thank you all so much for watching and i hope to see you in the next one goodbye

Channel: Offhand Disney

Views: 82,532

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Id: IS1YLxU0WMc

Length: 20min 2sec (1202 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022