Thursday, July 26, 2007

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Here's an interesting photo of Florida's submarine lagoon from 1976. The water has been drained for maintenance, and you can see at least one workman walking around down there. It sure looks like that lagoon is (was) considerably larger than the one in Anaheim, and I like the tropical themeing, reminiscent of Vulcania in the movie.

I think I saw Disneyland's lagoon drained at least twice when I was a kid. I took some photos...at night. Naturally the flash on my little Kodak Instamatic was unable to light the scene sufficiently, and I got back mostly black prints.


Let's take a closer look! I have no idea if this ride was a carbon copy of California's (not counting the cool "Nautilus" subs, of course)...does anybody know if most of the famous scenes were duplicated? Sunken Atlantis, the Killer Whale battling the Giant Squid, and of course the silly Sea Serpent? I'd love to hear about any differences.


This is the first image I have posted of Walt Disney World (I think)...while I don't have a lot of slides from there, I'll put up a few more once in a while. Come on, it'll be fun!
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:54 PM

    As I remember, Florida was very similiar to the Disneyland sub version. I was very disappointed when they filled in the Florida lagoon for a Pooh play area! I'm glad Disneyland didn't do the same thing.

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  2. Joe Shelby7:14 AM

    I have (but haven't scanned many in yet) photos of WDW in 1973 where the Haunted Mansion was just completed, and they'd drained the Rivers of America so they could build the piers for Tom Sawyer Island which hadn't opened yet. You can see the track they laid down to keep the riverboat on its course. Someone else has a shot from the year before where the Island is nothing but woods.

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  3. Steve Tanner at Magical Trash9:08 AM

    Wow, I miss the old 20,000 Leagues ride. Nice no water shot!

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  4. FoxxFur10:11 AM

    20K featured greatly improved depth and set dressing than the '59 Submarine Voyage, but the general idea of the scenes was essentially unchanged.

    The outside area featured most of the same things (including the octopus vs. shark), plus some members of Nemo's crew harvesting sea turtles and farming the ocean floor. Then the order went: graveyard of ships (really creepy scene, too), beneath the polar ice cap (with viking longboat jutting out of the ice), deep ocean trench (no squid vs. whale), Atlantis with a silly but different sea serpent, tottering columns and the giant squid attacked the sub at the very end which essentially traumatized me. Great ride.

    http://www.20kride.com/

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  5. Anonymous9:47 PM

    i really wish the company had the guts to keep this one of a kind attraction! 20k and Horizons are my most missed attractions. thanks for these images!

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