If this is your first time watching the channel, hit that subscribe button and click the bell

icon to be notified when we upload a new video.

Since the inception of both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, the parks were built with

unique attractions all thanks to Walt Disney Imagineering.

The imagineers have designed dark rides, spinners, water rides, thrill rides; attractions for

the entire family.

Now there's many attractions that have been huge successes and have become Disney classics

such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, It's a Small World, Haunted

Mansion and the list goes on.

Although Disney's Theme Parks are a magical place where everything seems perfect, not

every attraction Walt Disney Imagineering built has been perfect.

There are the few attractions built in the Disney Theme Park history that didn't meet

expectations once they were built and operating and some that were just complete flops.

So today, we're gonna be looking at the Top 5 failed Disney rides and attractions.

Number 5- The Flying Saucers 1961 marked the year when Disneyland opened

the Flying Saucers attraction in Tomorrowland.

It was located on the footprint where Space Mountain's queue and the Magic Eye Theatre

is today.

This ride gave guests a chance to float on air, control their own ride vehicle and possibly

engage in a futuristic version of bumper cars, or bumper saucers to be more exact.

The blue platform sat on a basement below the ground that blew air up through the holes

of the floor.

As you sat in the vehicle, you would lean your body to the left or right and this would

cause the saucer to move across the platform.

It was a pretty cool looking ride, and it definitely fit the futuristic look of Tomorrowland.

Although guests really grew to enjoy this attraction there were some downsides to it.

Little kids had some trouble if they didn't weight enough and were too light.

The saucer would just sit there in one spot bouncing up and down if they tried leaning

to either side, sometimes even knocking the rider out of the saucer.

And if you were a bit too big the saucer wouldn't move at all.

It was an operations nightmare back in the 60s that required upwards of 25 cast members

to start in the morning, as well as 15 to maintain the ride according to a past Disneyland

operations Director.

It was one of those rides that would constantly break down since the ride's technology wasn't

really perfected, not to mention that it didn't have a good rider capacity either.

Ride technicians did their best trying to keep it operational but they eventually gave

up. and in 1966 The Flying Saucers, along with many other attractions in the land, closed

to make way for a newly reimagined Tomorrowland that would open in 1967.

When Tomorrowland reopened guests weren't too thrilled that the flying saucers were

no longer at the park, and according to former imagineer Tony Baxter;

Even to this day you hear people taking about when you gonna bring back the flying saucers

well that year just happened to be 2012

Number 4- Luigi's Flying Tires As part of the 1.1 billion dollar renovation

and expansion plan for Disney California Adventure, Cars Land would open in 2012.

One attraction that was part of the new land was Luigi's Flying Tires which paid homage

to the old Flying Saucers attraction at Disneyland.

Imagineers took a crack at this concept once again.

This time instead of using single rider vehicles, imagineers designed a much larger vehicle

in the shape of giant tires that could fit up to 3 riders.

In the same fashion as the flying saucers, the ride vehicles were designed to have riders

lean to either side which would move the tire across the platform.

It looked cool, but Luigi's Flying Tires encountered problems even before it opened.

For starters, when Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney company, tested the ride he was EXTREMELY

underwhelmed.

Iger immediately went to the imagineers and said it needed to go faster, but the imagineers

told him the ride vehicles were going as fast as they could.

So imagineer's went back to the drawing board and quickly came up with a plan.

Originally, the ride didn't have a soundtrack so they created 8 Italian style songs as well

as adding beachballs for guests to throw around, like what was seen in the Fying Saucer's

promotional footage in the 60s.

They also added an additional 45 seconds to the ride since it would take riders more time

to figure out how to make the tires move.

All this was done as an attempt to make the experience more livelier for the guests.

Only about 60 days after opening, Disney began receiving lawsuits regarding injuries from

impromptu games of beach ball dodge ball, so naturally they were removed.

They also never solved the problem of the ride vehicles moving too slow either, so there

would be many times when your tire would move at a snails pace or not even move at all.

On top of all this, people kept tripping as they were getting out of the ride vehicle

due to its bulky design, resulting in ongoing small injuries such as twisted ankles or scrapped

knees.

Disney's legal team saw this as a major lawsuit waiting to happen, so in February

of 2015, just 2 1/2 years after its opening and with very low guest satisfaction scores,

the ride closed to be reimagined into a trackless ride called Luigi's Rollickin Roadsters.

Number 3- Journey Into YOUR Imagination Now you might be saying, wait, Journey into

Imagination is still open at Epcot, and you're right, but we're talking about Journey into

YOUR imagination.

So back in 1983, a little ride called Journey into Imagination opened in Future World at

Epcot.

The ride's two protagonist characters, The Dreamfinder and Figment, explored the power

of imagination in this one of a kind 12 minute omnimover dark ride, which also featured the

Sherman Brothers composed song “One Little Spark.”

{Singing} Imagination

The ride's characters became the ride; Epcot fans adored theses characters.

In October of 1998, Journey Into Imagination 1.0 closed to make way for what was to be

a substantial improvement to the original ride, but this was far from reality.

Journey into YOUR imagination opened in October of 1999 and was lacklustre to say the least

since the budget for the ride was severely cut.

The ride's new incarnation took riders in the Imagination Institute, where you'd be

testing out the Institute's new Imagination Scanner, capable of telling you just how creative

you are.

After traveling through a series of different experiments that test your imagination, at

the very end you'd learn you're a creative genius!

Go figure!

The new ride was VERY different from the 1.0 version.

Although it removed the problematic turntable issue the original faced, it also removed

about 40% of the original ride track length taking the ride from 12 minutes to approximately

5.

Everything from the original ride was gone including the use of the Figment and Dreamfinder

characters and animatronics as well as the beloved “One Little Spark” song.

Figment only appeared once on a screen for a brief couple of seconds just before the

ride ended; hardly the representation you'd be expecting this character to receive.

The ride just felt bare, was too short and lacked the heart and soul that you'd usually

find in Disney attractions; it was very un Disney of Disney.

It was not received well at all, everyone hated it- from guests to cast members, to

the pavilion's sponsor Kodak (who at the time didn't have an actual say in the attractions

refurb design and concept) Even former CEO at the time Michael Eisner hated it.

What was once the highest rated attraction at Epcot in its original form, Journey into

Your Imagination became the lowest rated attraction at the park.

Disney had no choice but to quietly close the ride on October 8th 2001, and you know

a ride is really bad when Disney closes it just two years after opening it.

With the closure Michael Eisner, who hated Journey 2.0, allotted a 5 million dollar budget

to refurb the ride once again into what we now know as Journey into Imagination with

Figment.

This new version was Disney's attempt at saying, yea we kinda screwed up so we brought

back as many references to the original as we could.

This time figment had a much larger presence and was placed into every scene.

Imagineers refurbed all the old figment animatronics from the original ride, and brought back the

ONE LITTLE SPARK song and used it throughout the entire ride as well.

{Singing} With just one spark with me and you.

Imagination- One Little Spark!

Number 2- the Rocket Rods The 1967 refurbishment of Tomorrowland in

Disneyland introduced the PeopleMover to the theme park.

It was an elevated track around the land that took guests on a grand circle tour above Tomorrowland.

The ride unfortunately closed in August of 1995 as part of another overhaul that Tomorrowland

would be receiving between 1995 to 1998.

During this re-imagination of the land, Imagineering decided it would be a great idea to repurpose

the old PeopleMover tracks into what became the Rocket Rods: a dragster style thrill attraction.

It was supposed to be a more intense and thrilling experience than that of the PeopleMover, turning

the former 16 minute ride time into a 3 minute experience.

Like the PeopleMover, Rocket Rods offered an overhead view of Tomorrowland at more rapid

pace.

The ride started off with a very quick launch but then at every turn the vehicle had to

slow down, since due to budget cuts and the loss of GM as a sponsor, they kept the flat

people mover tracks and didn't instal banked turns.

The entire ride was filled with speeding up and slowing down, over and over and over agin.

Upon opening, the ride did have mixed reactions from guests.

Some claimed it wasn't thrilling enough to be considered a thrill ride and some said

it was too thrilling when comparing it to the PeopleMover, not to mention that wait

times were ridiculously long for this ride.

On top of the mixed reactions, Rocket Rods also started to experience some mechanical

issues.

The infrastructure of the PeopleMover support beams and track weren't altered at all since

they were working with the tight budget.

With the constant speeding up and slowing down, this put a lot of stress on the track

and ride vehicles.

Only weeks after opening the ride went down for a 3 month maintenance period to try and

address some of the issues.

The ride reopened in fall of 1998, and even after the 3 month closure it was still constantly

breaking down, becoming very unreliable.

It would later be discovered that due to the speed of the vehicles the PeopleMover support

beams were also becoming structurally unsafe, showing signs of cracks and even some concrete

broke off the beams.

Its also said that one instance of concrete breaking off ended up in a lawsuit with Disney.

In September of 2000, the ride closed once again for another refurb announcing it would

reopen again in Spring of 2001.

Well, spring of 2001 came and went and the ride didn't reopen.

In May 2001, Disneyland issued an official press release stating that Rocket Rods will

close permanently due to the complexities of operating the ride.

Number 1- Superstar Limo Disney California Adventure opened on February

8th 2001 with Superstar Limo being one of the opening Day attractions, which just happened

to be the only dark ride in the park at the time.

You boarded a stretch limo, when you get a call from your puppet, waxed figured, real

human handed “agent.”

{Agent}- Just get to the Chinese Theatre pronto; y'hear me!

The ride then took you on a very slow paced journey through a variety of stereotypical

Hollywood locations and situations that included charachaure style celebrities through the

use of very basic animatronics;

How about a map to your house Drew Carey!

these were no A-100 figures.

The ride featured a lot of inside Hollywood gags that really only amused people in the

entertainment industry, like Michael Eisner.

It was a bizarre attraction that really just added to the lukewarm response Disney California

Adventure was getting at the time.

What a lot of people don't know though, is that this ride concept wasn't what was originally

intended.

Originally, the guest took on the role of a big time celebrity who was late to the premiere

of their new movie.

The limo driver would get you there as quick as possible only to then be chased by the

paparazzi.

This would result in the driver trying to evade the paparazzi taking riders on a much

more thrilling and quicker ride through Hollywood.

Superstar Limo was shelved for a little while, but then was reimagined into the concept that

opened in 2001.

There were very few references made to the paparazzi in this new version and the ride

vehicles moved as slow as possible, so no one would make a connection between the ride

and Princess Diana.

The guest reaction to the attraction was so negative that on January 11, 2002, less than

a year after opening, Disney closed Superstar Limo.

People said Journey into Your Imagination was very un-Disney but this ride takes the

cake.

Really, it looked like something you'd see at Six Flags and didn't belong in a Disney

Park.

So in your opinion which would you say is Disney's biggest failed attraction either

from this list or maybe there's even another ride we didn't mention.

Leave a comment down below and start a conversation.

If you have any videos from the Disney Parks that you'd like to share to be used in future

videos, follow the link in the description below.