10. JAWS (1993 – 2012) // Diagon Alley (2014 – Today)
You just can’t get more “Universal Studios Florida” than the Lost Legend: JAWS. Though technically it was the second attempt at the ride (the first, which opened with the park in 1990, didn’t work), the ultra-classic attraction is still envisioned as one of the park’s anchor experiences. Basically a demented take on the Jungle Cruise, JAWS stranded guests on the open water of Amity just as a Great White with a penchant for jump scares sets its sights on the New England town.
After the success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, many expected the remainder of Islands of Adventure’s Lost Continent to join Merlinwood in falling to the boy wizard. But instead, in 2012 Jaws closed at Universal Studios Florida. Operationally, it makes sense since it means guests need to at least upgrade to a Park-to-Park or Multi-Day ticket to see all of the Wizarding World.
Narratively, it’s a good fit, too, since London and its Diagon Alley street fit better among the other cityscapes in the Studio park (like New York, Hollywood, and San Francisco) than they would at the more mystical, literary, fantasy Islands of Adventure (where the storybook-style Hogsmeade village is a perfect fit).
THEN & NOW: What’s probably most surprising is just how much is able to fit into the former Amity Village and the JAWS ride, including all of the park’s new London waterfront (with Knight Bus meet-and-greet), Kings Cross Station and the Hogwarts Express inter-park ride, the entire Diagon Alley land (complete with restaurants, shops, a Knockturn Alley walkthrough, and a stage), and the Escape from Gringotts headliner.
Even where the most ardent fans of JAWS and the most nonplussed Potter-avoiders overlap, they’d have to admit that the former ride’s loss was “worth it” in many regards. Aside from giving Universal Orlando two Wizarding Worlds that practically print money via “in-universe” souvenirs and snacks, and being a net +1 to the park’s ride count, many industry writers cite Diagon Alley as the unrivaled best of the “Living Land” era.
11. Big Bad Wolf (1984 – 2009) // Verbolten (2012 – Today)
When the Lost Legend: The Big Bad Wolf opened in 1984, it was the first successful suspended, swinging coaster by legendary manufacturer Arrow Dynamics. On one hand, the ride was a vicious beast, casting riders as the creature of folklore tearing through a storybook German hamlet on the outskirts of Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s Oktoberfest – a perfect fit for the European-themed park and its focus on the legends of “The Old Country.”
On the other hand, Big Bad Wolf was something really marvelous: a true family coaster with substantial crossover appeal. Across its quarter-century life, generations of thrillseekers were born after “conquering” the Big Bad Wolf, and countless coaster enthusiasts cite the ride as their first “big” coaster. From its first half swinging through the woods of a remote town to its finale – an iconic climb over the trees to 100 feet with a dive toward the park’s Rhine River below – Big Bad Wolf was every bit an icon, a legend, and a classic.
In 2009, the park announced that the 25-year-old coaster had simply reached the end of its service life. (It’s true that Arrows are increasingly rare, and replacement parts for the suspended model must be hard to come by… but five of the ten produced are still operating, including Cedar Point’s Iron Dragon, approaching 40 years of life.) In any case, the Big Bad Wolf was felled in 2009… Kind of.
In 2011, a viral marketing campaign teased the ride that would take its place. Just as its predecessor and its neighbor (the Lost Legend: Curse of DarKastle) played with the conventions of Germany’s darker folklore and fairy tales, Verbolten would see guests “Brave the Black Forest” on a custom-created family coaster. Embedded in the ride is a bit of backstory, with guests taking a break from the park’s Oktoberfest festivities (mostly drinking beer, eating pretzels, and dancing to oompah bands in the park’s Festhaus) and book a road trip across the German countryside via Gerta & Gunter’s Tours and Rentals.
“In universe,” Gerta warns us that whatever we do, we mustn’t get near the Black Forest, lest we get lost in its brambles forever. Of course, a few sinister details in the queue tip us off that her brother, Gunter, has a dark obsession with the Forest and has a nasty habit of sending tourists there to their demise.
It doesn’t take long for our tour to go off the rails as our train is drawn into a crack in the wall that holds the Black Forest at bay, launching riders into an unseen showbuilding. Inside, the wild chase through the woods ends in one of three randomized story sequences: either a rumbling thunderstorm, awakening the otherworldly spirit of the forest, or (in a nod to its predecessor) being surrounded by a pack of wolves. All three result in the ride’s big moment: a freefall section of track that plummets vertically, launching the train into a final race to a decaying covered bridge a hundred feet over the water, and a plunge toward the Rhine River below… Sound familiar?
THEN & NOW: Given the impact that the Big Bad Wolf had across its twenty-five year lifetime, it was inevitable that Verbolten would have very big shoes to fill. At least on paper, it succeeds! Verbolten is still in that sub-genre of imposing and impressive family coasters. And just as Big Bad Wolf’s swinging was novel in 1984, Verbolten’s multi-launch, partially-indoor, randomized show scenes, and freefall drop track are all substantial headlining elements… even if fans generally preferred Wolf’s actual forest to the simulated one on Verbolten, and especially since United Parks isn’t exactly renowned for their operations, showmanship, or upkeep of special effects… all of which Verbolten hinges on.
But Verbolten does recreate the Big Bad Wolf’s finale note-for-note. Literally, the new ride re-uses the same concrete footings that once allowed the Wolf to plunge to the river below. In other words, Verbolten technically fulfilled the Big Bad Wolf’s spot in the park’s lineup and admirably checked all the boxes needed to fill its shoes. But the Big Bad Wolf’s esteem has only grown in the nearly two decades since it disappeared. Which maybe explains why the ride got a second “spiritual sequel” in 2025.
The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge isn’t an Arrow suspended coaster, but it’s close! It’s a family-scaled inverted coaster from Swiss manufacturer B&M. That means that it doesn’t “swing,” but riders still dangle under the tracks. It also races through a faux German village, just like its predecessor did – but it doesn’t include a river dive. Since Verbolten still occupies the real estate where the original Big Bad Wolf resided, the Wolf’s Revenge is set further back in the forest and away from the river, re-using the station and real estate once home to the Declassified Disaster: Drachen Fire.
For nostalgic coaster fans, even the combination of Verbolten and the Wolf’s Revenge still doesn’t sum up to satisfactorily make up for the loss of the Big Bad Wolf… but it’s interesting that this classic coaster has essentially been reincarnated twice.
12. Snow White’s Scary Adventures (1983 – 2020) // Enchanted Wish (2021 – Today)
Disneyland’s Fantasyland is a Parks historian’s paradise, with six – six! – classic dark rides, including all three of the park’s Opening Day Originals still intact (although modified first by complete rebuilds as part of 1983’s New Fantasyland, and then by piecemeal tweaks and updates in the 40 years since). To that end, the version of the Lost Legend: Snow White’s Scary Adventures most fans know existed for nearly 40 years of Disneyland’s history! Until…
Snow White’s Scary Adventures closed in January 2020 for a refurbishment that would not only update the classic with a few modern Imagineering tricks (projection, lighting, sound, and animation), but would also (somewhat controversially) lessen the ride’s “scare” factor. The redesigned Snow White ride would still feature the Witch who had rattled generations of visitors, but balance her presence with more of Snow White herself and a long-absent happy ending. The park’s 14-month closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the new Snow White’s Enchanted Wish didn’t open until April 30, 2021.
THEN & NOW: Despite fans’ fears, Snow White’s Enchanted Wish doesn’t look too different from Snow White’s Scary Adventures at all. Sure, there are warmer tones on the facade, the “dungeon” in the queue has instead become Snow’s bed chamber, and technological flourishes abound, but otherwise, everything fans loved about the original remains. The ride’s first third is largely unchanged, but for added figures, animation, and subtle projection; its second third (the Witchy one) is pretty much untouched but for show “plusses”; and its new final third manages to condense down what already existed in order to include a genuinely stunning and arresting new happy ending. So, all’s well that ends well.
13. Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin (2013- 2020) // Penguin Trek (2024 – Today)
SeaWorld is something of a chameleon. Since the first SeaWorld opened in 1964, the animal park chain has seen owners and eras come and go, ebbing and flowing in success as the brand tries to find the balance between entertainment and earnestness; animals and adrenaline; and of course, where it fits into uniquely powerful market of Central Florida. As we saw in our look at the Declassified Disaster: Journey to Atlantis, that has occasionally meant that SeaWorld goes big on theming and storytelling, determined to take on Disney and Universal… and pretty invariably regrets it, backs off, and is left with an albatross.
One of those ambitious eras birthed Antarctica: Empire of Penguin. It was a tall order: that SeaWorld – not Disney, not Universal, but SeaWorld – would open the first LPS-powered trackless dark ride in Florida (or at any major park in the country). Given that fans had gone wild watching videos of the same year’s Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor, the idea of sliding around icy scenes, swirling and dancing alongside real penguins was majorly impressive. Even cooler, it was just the headliner of SeaWorld’s own take on the “Living Land” formula taking the industry by storm – a cinematic, immersive space themed to Antarctica.
Unfortunately, Empire of the Penguin turned out to be a bit of a belly flop. Rather than the gleeful sunlit sliding of promotional images, riders spent most of the journey in fairly compact caverns without much to see or do. Then, an uninspiring “climax” saw the vehicles line up in front of screens for a discordant moment of “motion simulation” centered on CGI penguins before the reveal of the real creatures, where vehicles parked to continue through the habitat on foot. Basically, rather than a splashy American debut of a trackless dark ride, Empire of the Penguin was a ride in search of a reason for existing.
The seven-year old Empire of the Penguin closed at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and it never re-opened. For nearly half a decade, the ride’s elaborate queue was repurposed as a line to enter the penguin exhibit that served as the ride’s finale, while the dark ride itself was more or less sealed off.
But in 2024, the dark ride portion of the Antarctica showbuilding was repurposed as the station for a B&M launched family roller coaster called Penguin Trek. It was actually the third time in two years that SeaWorld Parks had turned the remains of abandoned dark rides across its parks into coasters. (The others were the 2023 debut of the Arctic Rescue launched coaster in San Diego replacing the Wild Arctic simulator and Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s wedging the enclosed DarKoaster into the hallowed remains of the Lost Legend: Curse of DarKastle.) All three are good embodiments of SeaWorld’s current era: trying to avoid ambitious (and expensive) dark rides and downplay their controversial animal collections, instead positioning themselves as thrill-focused coaster parks that just happen to have some underlying animal or cultural imagery.
THEN & NOW: SeaWorld repurposed the ornate queue that had belonged to Empire of the Penguin for the new family roller coaster. They also used a portion of the former dark ride to construct a short-and-sweet dark ride introduction to the new coaster. But obviously beyond that and nominally being themed around penguins, the two inhabitants of the building have almost nothing in common.
Like the dark ride, the coaster ends with the opportunity for guests to see the actual penguins… though “opportunity” is a strong word given that – at least as of 2025 – it’s not optional, oddly requiring that exiting guests join a new, unskippable, claustrophobic queue that sometimes has lengthy waits. It’s not even an option for guests to say that they’re not interested in seeing the penguins and exit on their own. That’s thanks to the reconfiguring that was done to operate the penguin habitat as “exhibit only” from 2020 to 2024, oddly reversing the “flow” of the exhibit so that guests enter it at the furthest end of the ride, then need to return to that end to exit.
14. Knott’s Bear-y Tales (1975 – 1986) // Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair (2021 – Today)
For a generation of Southern Californians, there was nothing quite as joyful as a trip to the County Fair on the Lost Legend: Knott’s Bear-y Tales – a one-of-a-kind dark ride designed by Disney Legend and Imagineer Rolly Crump. Guests “riding on the ole’ Knott’s Bear-y line” of red car trolleys (all to the tune of an iconic theme song) began at the boysenberry pie factory, then set off through the musical Frog Forest, a glowing Fortune Teller Camp, the treacherous Thunder Cave, and the wacky Weird Woods en route to first place in the County Fair’s pie contest.
By the mid-’80s, Knott’s homegrown, sing-along dark ride looked positively naive. After a surprisingly short lifetime of just 11 years, Bear-y Tales was closed so that its track and showbuilding could be repurposed for 1987’s cooler and more modern Kingdom of the Dinosaurs. (In many ways, it ended up being a lucky trade, equipping Knott’s with a dino-dark-ride just before prehistory hit big in the ’90s via Jurassic Park.) By 2004, that, too, had closed, leaving the second-story dark ride space empty for over a decade.
In 2015 – as part of a multi-year effort to restore Knott’s historic dark rides – the space was at last reactivated with a new dark ride called Voyage to the Iron Reef. A virtual shooting dark ride designed by the company Triotech, Voyage to the Iron Reef made use of digital screens over physical sets, and it didn’t make too many fans. But the ride did install the infrastructure needed for a fourth inhabitant of the space: 2021’s Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair (above).
THEN & NOW: Obviously, our Then & Now skips both Kingdom of the Dinosaurs (1987 – 2004) and Voyage to the Iron Reef (2015 – 2020), instead highlighting how Knott’s returned the Bear-y family to their home after a 35 year hibernation. Since the new “Return to the Fair” re-uses the track layout and conceit of the virtual shooting dark ride that preceded it, it physically occupies a smaller space. But it still manages to pack in the return of the Frog Forest, Fortune Teller Camp, Thunder Cave, Weird Woods, and County Fair in a wonderfully nostalgic, vividly-crafted, and altogether delightful ride that’s a smart use of a homegrown intellectual property.
15. Journey into Imagination (1983 – 1998) // Journey into Imagination With Figment
You’ve probably been waiting for this one, and here it is. The Journey into Imagination pavilion was a respite from the hard sciences of Future World; and more to the point, the “origin story” of where each of those industries was born from. Journey into Imagination was the park’s most heart-felt dark ride, whisking guests into the clouds for a whimsical, musical, and inspiring experience.
The ride’s heart – literally – was the “Flight into Imagination,” a scene in which a train of modified Omnimovers aligned with a rotating set of stages at the showbuilding’s core. There, guests would glide alongside the flying Dreamcatcher (above) – piloted by the inventive, red-bearded Dreamfinder and his dragon sidekick and creation, Figment – to learn how they turn “sparks of inspiration” into new ideas. From there, they’d set off into the worlds of Art, Literature, Performing Arts, Science, and Imagining Technology (basically, photography… thanks Kodak!), all to the tune of the Sherman Brothers’ anthem, “One Little Spark.” The Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination is remembered as a landmark ride for Walt Disney Imagineering… but in the ’90s, it looked positively passé.
As part of Disney’s ill-fated attempts to bury EPCOT’s “boring,” educational rides and ’80s identity, Journey into Imagination went under the knife. The resulting ride – the Declassified Disaster: Journey into Your Imagination – axed Dreamfinder, Figment, “One Little Spark,” the “Flight into Imagination” mechanics, half of the ride’s physical track length, and half of its runtime. (In fact, the Flight into Imagination turntable became the ride’s load area, with the abandoned half of the show being converted into the post-show ImageWorks.)
Instead of a joyful, musical, and inspirational trip through fantastical worlds, the 1999 ride sent guests on a tour of the “Imagination Institute” (tying into the pavilion’s then-new “Honey, I Shrunk The Audience” 3D film) to view optical illusions narrated by Dr. Nigel Channing (played by Monty Python’s Eric Idle). (Not for nothing: tours of “institutes” or “training centers” are a major red flag on our list of Signs of a Bad Theme Park Story.)
Journey into Your Imagination was such a bust that as soon as EPCOT’s Millennium Celebration subsided and its capacity was no longer needed, the ride closed again.
It re-opened in 2002 as Journey into Imagination With Figment – seemingly a mea culpa for the short-lived Figment-free version that had proceeded it. The “new” (okay, two decades old) version of the ride still maintains the Imagination Institute setting and Dr. Nigel Channing, merely re-inserting an annoying version of Figment and rewrites of “One Little Spark” among the ride.
To be fair, the third iteration of the ride also reorganizes the Institute into much more comprehensible “Sense Labs” (cleverly skipping Touch and Taste by way of a “detour” into the inverted house, now described as Figment’s). It’s a vast improvement over the 1999 – 2001 version of the ride, but still a major let-down compared to the 1983 original… which makes it strange to consider that the “new” ride has actually outlived the full lifetime of the original!
Given that the “Band-aid” version of the ride has now been showing for over two decades, fans felt certain a proper reimagining of the Imagination pavilion would be part of EPCOT’s ongoing, open-ended overhaul… Of course, Bob Iger declared that renovation complete with the opening of the Celebration Gardens (see next page) in December 2023 so… apparently not.
While fans still hold out hope that the Imagination pavilion will one day get a starring new E-Ticket that returns Dreamfinder, Figment, and “One Little Spark” to their starring roles at the heart of EPCOT, it’s seeming less and less likely. And with today’s Disney, any change that does come to the Imagination pavilion would almost certainly use the characters from Inside Out. After all, if somehow a reborn Imagination did use Dreamfinder, it would be the first major, IP-free addition to EPCOT in twenty years.
16. 20,000 Leagues (1971 – 1994) // New Fantasyland (2012 – Today)
When it came time to populate Walt Disney World with rides for Magic Kingdom’s opening, some Disneyland classics – like Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight, and the Enchanted Tiki Room – were obvious. But duplicating Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage was trickier. After all, by the late ’60s, submarines were hardly the stuff of “Tomorrowland” anymore. Under the eye of Claude Coats (and a young protege, Tony Baxter), Submarine Voyage came east with a new, Fantasyland-infused wrap.
The Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage was an absolute E-Ticket. Based on Jules Verne’s 1870 adventure novel (and Disney’s 1954 film adaptation produced by Walt Disney himself), the ride maintained many of the scenes from Disneyland’s sub ride, merely grafting the ride vehicles with Victorian, steampunk ornamentation to match Harper Goff’s iconic movie sub, and a new finale featuring an attack by a terrifying Giant Squid.
A first major loss in the cost-cutting wake of Disneyland Paris’ opening, Magic Kingdom’s 20,000 Leagues closed for refurbishment in fall 1994… and never re-opened. The lagoon itself remained until 2004 when it was filled in, but only so a portion of the property could be used to house a small “Winnie the Pooh” playground. The loss of the massive ride left a giant expansion pad in Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland… all it needed was an equally-ambitious project to fill it.
As our to-scale comparison of 20,000 Leagues and 2012’s New Fantasyland reveal, the absolutely gargantuan Submarine Voyage took up a whole lot of space. The entirety of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Journey of the Little Mermaid, and Belle’s town are contained in the lagoon, showbuilding, and maintenance dock of that single ride. It certainly lends context to the Submarine Voyage’s astounding scale…
… and perhaps it also lends context to discussions around Disneyland’s version of the ride, which feels “critically endangered” and frankly, unlikely to survive the 2020s. Beloved as the subs may be, that’s a massive piece of real estate in a landlocked park…
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