TOMORROWLAND

From Disneyland’s earliest days, Tomorrowland has been a bit of a headache for Imagineers. From the beginning, Imagineers were dedicated to bringing real scientific advancement and cutting-edge technology to Tomorrowland. The problem is, trying to keep up with actual, accurate scientific progress is a time-consuming and costly endeavor, necessitating regular and frequent re-investment in Tomorrowland.

In the 1990s, Imagineers set out with a brave mission: to design New Tomorrowlands for each Disney Park on Earth. But these New Tomorrowlands would be different because they would never need updating; they’d be timeless, long-lasting Tomorrowlands that would not even try to guess what the real future could hold, and thus would never fall out of date! 

In Possibilityland, no expense was spared when a New Tomorrowland was crafted for Disneyland.

Tomorrowland 2055

Opened: 1993 
Status: A full-land renovation to the 1967 Tomorrowland

If you ever see photos taken by your parents at Disneyland (or if you yourself recall it), Tomorrowland prior to 1993 was a bit of a relic. It was a white, geometric land full of clean walls, simple shapes, open concrete expanses, white and red rockets, and bright pops of color thanks to the Peoplemover soaring overhead, the Monorail whizzing through the sky, and the Submarine Voyage below. That clean, white, simple view of the future was all the rage when Tomorrowland was redesigned in 1967, but the 1980s and ’90s have certainly changed popular culture’s view of tomorrow.

To catch up, Tomorrowland has changed, too. In 1993, the land had a grand re-opening as Tomorrowland 2055, supposedly set in Disneyland’s 100th anniversary year. Just as Frontierland, Adventureland, and Fantasyland all feel like real, habitable worlds, Tomorrowland does now, too! It’s a galactic spaceport where aliens stop over in their interstellar journeys set in a science-fiction timeline where a trip to Mars is as easy as a trip up the street. This wild, intergalactic Tomorrowland features a few stunning rides. Sure, Star Tours and Space Mountain are staples, sure to be here forever. And of course the  Peoplemover is still zooming around overhead (now cast a “real” transportation system in the “real” spaceport city) with a redesigned sci-fi Rocket Jets ride revolving three stories above the land’s central plaza.

But this living, breathing city has a few new additions. For one thing, The Timekeeper has taken over the old Circlevision 360 theatre, conducting drone-lead tours of the past. The old spinning Carousel Theater (once home to the Carousel of Progress, then to America Sings before its Animatronics were repurposed for Splash Mountain) is now home to Plectu’s Intergalactic Revue, a musical extravaganza on five rotating stages (above). 

Perhaps the land’s biggest draw now is a mysterious attraction called Alien Encounter, housed in an ominous Interplanetary Convention Center. The ornate carved exterior displays exhausted humans acting as living columns holding up all-powerful beings from the stars. Sort of an odd entry to a simple demonstration of interstellar teleportation, isn’t it?

But as we know, Alien Encounter is a terrifying, no-holds-barred simulator that sets an insectoid alien loose with you on the menu. There’s no doubt that Alien Encounter is the scariest attraction Disney has ever designed, and we chronicled the terrifying true story of this one-of-a-kind attraction in its own extraTERRORestrial feature. 

Submarine Voyage: Atlantis Expedition

Opened: 2001 
Status: A ride within Tomorrowland and Fantasyland

In 1959, Walt Disney himself oversaw the opening of the Submarine Voyage, the park’s first E-ticket attraction (alongside Matterhorn Bobsleds and the Monorail). The attraction was later duplicated and expanded at Magic Kingdom as the fantastical Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage. But both attractions proved expensive to operate and maintain, and with a pitiful hourly capacity for the two most-visited theme parks in the country. They both closed in the late 1990s, and fans imagined that their futures were sunk.

The good news for Disneyland guests is that Submarine Voyage was not gone… it was only being improved. In May 1998 – just as fans braced themselves for the Declassified Disaster: Tomorrowland ’98 – a pop-up Quonset hut appeared overnight in the recently-abandoned submarine lagoon promising something new. And in 2001 after extensive reworking, the ride re-opened as Submarine Voyage: Atlantis Expedition based on the 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

In so doing, the ride dropped its would-be futuristic styling (a remnant from its 1950s opening) and instead adapted the fantastical look of the Ulysses submarine from the film. Just as The Little Mermaid had reinvented Disney animation by reviving the fairytale musical a decade earlier, Atlantis took Disney into uncharted territory: a full-on, epic, animated sci-fi adventure spun from the threads of Jules Verne himself.

Fittingly, the Walt-original ride gained a storyline more in touch with the imagination: a quest for the ancient sunken city of Atlantis. In fact, guests would encounter coral reefs, shipwrecks, and the dreaded guardian Leviathan. And believe it or not, after the harrowing encounter with the guardian beast, guests would find their damaged subs had no choice but to dock in a deep earth chamber, disembarking inside the enormous showbuilding to find themselves ushered into the lost continent itself.

Consider it an Atlantean version of Indy’s Lost Expedition – a ride into a world where guests can interact with glowing crystals, subterranean guardians, and the mystical powers of the waterlogged city firsthand. Yes, long before the Wizarding World, Cars Land, Galaxy’s Edge, or even “a bug’s land,” Disney’s first-ever mini-land entirely dedicated to a single IP gave guests the chance to step into Atlantis to shop, dine, and explore along with Atlanteans…

Even if many lifelong fans would prefer to see the original Submarine Voyage with its entertaining, informative, and classic journey, the switch to Atlantis Expedition has at least given the ride a new lease on life and an exciting new cast of animatronics and scenes.

The Real Story

A walk through Possibilityland brings to light just how different Disneyland could be today if just some of the proposed projects had actually come to light. In many cases, multiple projects have been planned for the same plots of land in different decades, giving us the unique opportunity here to choose which we would see come to life in our Possibilityland. One thing is for sure: these projects did not arrive.

Why? On the last page, we’ll revisit these would-be attractions and explain where each disappeared, and where its DNA ended up…