09:20 PM CDT on Sunday, July 8, 2007 Disneyland is well-known for its Imagineers, the people who combine imagination and engineering to create the spectacular. Their most amazing work, of course, is seen in commercials for the Happiest Place on Earth. Ever notice how Disneyland isn t crowded in the commercials?
With some serious Imagineering, and a few actors, the most-crowded place on Earth looks like a park where you can stretch out your arms without knocking off someone s mouse ears. It s like Disneyland in an alternate universe. A universe where adults stroll leisurely on open walkways and kids skip down the street, hand-in-hand with Disney characters, without smashing into a family searching for Tomorrowland.
And you ll never see footage of one of Disneyland s truly awesome moments: The melee after the park opens in the morning. It looks like the start of a marathon. You hear screams of Hurry up, the lines are getting longer!
as guests secure their cameras and fanny packs and pick up the pace. Stroller speed records are shattered as parents worry that ride lines are spreading like a flesh-eating virus. Which they are, because it s Disneyland.
But we all know that waiting is part of the Magic Kingdom experience. It s just the price you pay along with admission, parking and the emotional cost of having your child need to go to the bathroom in the middle of a long line to experience Disney magic. The newest attraction, the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage that opened last month, is getting rave reviews.
It s a journey that passes by coral reefs, ancient ruins, a shipwreck and an erupting underwater volcano. There s also animation of all the characters, who say things like Let s find Nemo! and Watch out for that shark!
and We better make this good, because these people have been in line for three hours! More in some cases. That will be frustrating during my return to Disneyland, which is assured now that my 4-year-old son has seen some of the commercials.
(If our family doesn t visit the Happiest Place on Earth in the next few years, I ll be living with the whiniest person on Earth.) Still, I look forward to taking my kids to Disneyland for the first time. What I don t look forward to is seeing how much the park has changed.
After all, the Nemo voyage is the replacement for the submarine ride that closed in 1998. Remember that ride? Although you could actually see the surface of the water at times, the captain of the sub told us we were diving to a region of deep water where the sun has never penetrated.
The ride also had plastic fish, rubbery sharks and a sea serpent that looked like Puff the Magic Dragon, but as a kid, I was thrilled. I won t get to see that in my kids. They ll get a thrill out of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, but it won t be the same.
It will have stunning animation, no doubt, and other tremendous special effects. But so does every kids movie these days. Will the submarine ride just be a movie to them?
It was more than that to me. But then again, VHS was state of the art when my family first heard the submarine captain say steady as she goes as we plunged to depths seldom seen by man. Technological edginess rules our world, which means there s no room for the singing bears the Country Bear Jamboree Vacation Hoedown that my kids would ve loved.
The Mission to Mars is gone, too, and the classic Pirates of the Caribbean ride has been updated.
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