Some Disney Parks attractions feel so classic – so essential – it’s almost difficult to imagine the park without them… That’s exactly how fans feel about Space Mountain, a perennial favorite whose mid-century, Space Age silhouette is literally an icon of Disney. But believe it or not, there was a time when Tomorrowland existed without Space Mountain as its anchor; a time when Disney’s designers were hard at work figuring out what, where, and how an interstellar race through space should exist…
Walt Disney was a firm believer that his parks would never be completed; that they would continue to change and grow and evolve for the rest of their lives. But that didn’t just mean building new attractions and closing old ones. Walt spoke of “plussing” rides in his park – making simple (or not-so-simple) changes that would go a long way to improve the overall experience.
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
In an era of screens, special effects, and projection mapping, there may still be nothing more sensational for theme park fans than an encounter with a good, old-fashioned animatronic. Since the technology’s debut in 1963, Audio-Animatronics have become industry-standard storytelling tools, bringing to life everything from pirates to princesses; dinosaurs to dragons. That’s why our must-read Countdown: 25 Best Animatronics on Earth feature is one of the most-read Extras here at Park Lore, celebrating the most astounding animatronic encounters on E-Ticket attractions the world over.
But for those who prefer to keep their feet on the ground, a number of well-known animatronic figures are scattered across theme park paths, simply there to expand the worlds of “yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy” and present one-of-a-kind encounters outside of the parks’ rides and attractions.
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
Do you love to wait in line? If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Whether you know it or not, there’s one number that will make or break your day at any Disney Park: capacity. Tens of thousands of people visit each Disney Park, every day… and at some point, it will feel like most of them are in line ahead of you. That’s when capacity matters most. That’s when you’ll want to be in line for a Disney attraction with OUTRAGEOUSLY high capacity – “people-eaters” that can handle massive crowds with ease. Now, let’s take a look at the other side of the coin…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
Safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. Any Disney Cast Member can recite these Four Keys to exceptional guest service… And while the first three are deeply tied to Disney’s identity, the last – efficiency – is certainly not least. An estimated 60,000 people per day visit Magic Kingdom, and at some point, you’re likely to end up at the back of a line behind many of them. That’s when a very important number – capacity – matters.
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
If you think cloning is a divisive topic in the fields of genetics and biology, you haven’t broached the subject with theme park fans! In fact, what theme park enthusiasts call “cloning” has a long and storied past with Disney Parks, at least dating back to the design of Magic Kingdom. There, many of Disneyland’s classics were merely “copied and pasted,” albeit in entirely new contexts and often with the kinds of minor (and sometimes major) changes dictated by hindsight and budgets.
Today, cloning is a touchy subject because – by and large – Imagineering fans are torn between two extremes. In short, everyone wants “their” resort to keep its coolest rides exclusive, but to get the coolest rides from every other resort! It’s why Disneyland fans bristle at the thought of Cars Land being “soullessly copied” to Florida, but relish in recieving Runaway Railway; why Disney World loyalists would sooner die than see Pandora plopped down in California, but really, really want Indiana Jones Adventure.
Image: Disney
For today’s Imagineers, “cloning” takes many forms. Often, it involves multiple parks sharing research and development costs to set functionally-identical rides down into several resorts at once. Even then, by the way, they may still be presented very differently, attuned to their location in each park. (Look at Toy Story Mania, STAR TOURS, Web-Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, and Little Mermaid dark rides.)
Sometimes, cloning is kicked off when a ride is a surprise hit, spreading one-by-one to other resorts who want a piece of the pie. (See, Big Thunder Mountain, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’, or Frozen Ever After).
Image: Disney
Adding to the confusion, sometimes rides that are clones aren’t really clones at all (like how almost every Disneyland-style park has a Buzz Lightyear dark ride and a Winnie the Pooh dark ride, but none are actually identical to each other).
And even when attractions are “cloned,” they’re very rarely clones at all (though maybe it’s a little too nuanced to point out how Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was painted entirely differently in Orlando to compensate for Floridian sun.)
In other words, all “cloning” is not equal. But one of the strangest “clone” relationships you’ll find in Disney Parks are clones that most guests – even those who’ve ridden both – would never think are duplicates. Below are six pairs of attractions that are practically identical on the inside but so different on the outside, you may not even notice it. Though these rides technically are (more or less) bolt-for-bolt duplicates of one another, their dressings make these clones disguised in plain sight…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
“Aawwahhhh! My siestas are getting ‘chorter and ‘chorter!”
…But if we at Park Lore are going to keep up with our ongoing dream to tell the in-depth and complete histories behind the best (and worst) attractions on the planet, there’s no time to waste. And today, our Modern Marvels series gains a new tropical tale: the story of a genuine Walt Disney original and fan-favorite for more than five decades, the venerated and beloved Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room.
Some days, it seems that the only thing to stay the same is change. Luckily, that’s just the way Walt Disney liked it. It’s the reason that, among all the wonders at Disneyland during his lifetime, his friends and family say he singled out one attraction as his favorite, proclaiming that it should never cease operation. And fifty years later, it hasn’t… not for long, at least.
That’s what our Modern Marvels series is for: chronicling the complete, in-depth histories of today’s masterpiece attractions; living legends that are renowned the world over. Already, we’ve told fan-favorite stories of Disney’s most spectacular dark ride ever, Mystic Manor; taken the streets of New York to join The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man; faced Imhotep’s curse on Revenge of the Mummy; scaled to the frigid heights of Expedition Everest, and so many more. And now, our most magnificent Modern Marvel yet joins the collection…
Image: Disney
More than five decades after its opening, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress is still ever-turning toward a “Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow.” But for all its longevity, this “revolutionary” attraction has never stayed put for too long… From unexpected origins in New York, a cross-country rebuild at Disneyland, and a final flight to its current Floridian home, today we’ll trace the in-depth story of this Modern Marvel and watch as Tomorrowland (and the Walt Disney Company) changed around it.
And before we head off, remember that you can unlock rare concept art and audio streams in this story, access over 100 Extra Features, and recieve an annual Membership card and postcard art set in the mail by supporting this clickbait-free, in-depth, ad-free theme park storytelling site for as little as $2 / month! Become a Park Lore Member to join the story! Until then, let’s start at the beginning…
In more than 60 years of Disney Parks history, the only thing to stay the same has been change. From the blacklight cut-out classics of the ’50s to the epic and cinematic dark rides of the ’60s; the ’70s thrill rides to the “ride the movies” favorites of the ’80s and ’90s. Today, it’s IP that powers…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
If you’re a big theme park fan, chances are that you’ve found yourself in more than a few messes in your day… To name just a few, perhaps you’ve had your journey through the streets of New York co-opted by supervillains, ruined a run-of-the-mill temple tour by looking into a lost god’s cursed eyes, stumbled upon an…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
