Waterless Sub Lagoon, October 19, 1972
Today's photos are especially-nice views of the Submarine Lagoon, completely drained of water for a refurb. Seeing that these are from October of 1972, I am pretty sure that I saw the lagoon in this state with my own peepers. October was typically the month for Navy Nite (though I could find no records of it for 1972). I do remember trying to take photos of the lagoon at night with my little Kodak Instamatic. Sure, the tiny flash cube will do a great job illuminating that large area! I wound up with several pictures that were almost entirely black, with a few pinpoints of light.
ANYWAY, it's still cool to see the reef looking as if the workers were nearly done decorating it with new shells and seaweed, and painting the corals with bright colors.
Here's a second view, from the Monorail platform; we don't see the lagoon quite as well, but it's still a nice composition with the intertwining Monorail and Peoplemover tracks.
9 comments:
Major-
Those colors in the lagoon are quite powerful. Thankfully I have dark glasses to dull the glow.
Thanks, Major.
We've seen other 'dried up' photos of the Lagoon, but this one is the best! Wonderfully crisp and detailed. Plus we've got the full multi-level thing going on here, with the PM, Monorail and Sub track. (Probably a glimpse of the Autopia as well.) Some of those sea anemones look like flowers from the Flower Market! I don't think we're seeing any animal life in this pic; just plants and coral.
I wonder what the folks looking at the empty Lagoon are thinking? "Neato"? "Messy"? [Awestruck]? "Dang, the Subs are down!". We can see a bit of a ship waaaay over there on the left. It must be the Pirate ship 'cuz it looks like the Jolly Roger is hoisted aloft. Oh, and there's the Cinderella Castle too.
Fascinating fotos, Major. Thanks.
There was indeed a major rehab of the Submarine Voyage in 1972 …. However off hand I cannot confirm the months . During this rehab several elements developed for the 1971 Walt Disney World’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea “attraction were implemented in Anaheim. One if them was replacing some of the somewhat stylized fish that had a very simplified look with new sculpted WDW fish . Also the familiar concertina music recorded for Florida’s “Vulcania” themed loading terminals as implemented at Disneyland and played into the 1990’s.
Major, I love dry lagoon pics, and I’m pretty sure I saw this iteration too. I definitely recall seeing a dry lagoon and being disappointed that we couldn’t ride the subs, but OTOH, we could see the waterless lagoon.
Thanks for these!
JG
Nanook, the other Junior Gorillas don’t know that you ALWAYS wear dark glasses.
JB, if there’s one thing I never tire of, it’s Nacho Cheese Doritos. Oh, and photos of the empty Sub Lagoon, I guess that’s more relevant. There are regular flowers called anemones, maybe the Disney folks used those (I couldn’t tell you what a regular anemone looks like - but it probably has stinging cells). I would imagine that most guests would think the empty lagoon was interesting, but also were disappointed that the Subs were down for maintenance. That was my reaction as a kid!
Mike Cozart, it is likely that I would have seen the empty lagoon for “Navy Nite”, which I believe would have been in October, just like today’s photos are. I’d imagine that they try to fix up the lagoon as quickly as possible, but is that a matter of a few weeks? No idea. I also wonder how long it takes to refill it. Meanwhile, I guess the fish that I’ve seen at auction from this ride must be post-WDW, because they’ve all looked pretty good.
JG, I KNEW you’d comment at the same time as me! 8:30-ish, like clockwork. They should have mounted monster truck wheels to the subs and driven them through the entire ride. I have ideas!
I liked when the Monorail exit went this way, giving guests a sweeping overview of the lagoon
MS
"Please, no flash photography on the attraction." Sometimes, I'd explain further that the result would be exactly as you found, Major. That flash bulb, film and processing was an expensive way to find out! KS
MS, seeing the empty lagoon from the Monorail (in the broad daylight) would have been something!
KS, I was ten years old, so I didn’t really understand how cameras really worked, so I’ll used that as my excuse!
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