Disney's Best Original Rides

One of the few rides present on the opening day of both Disneyland (1955) and Disney World (1971), the original name of this indoor electric cart ride was Snow White and Her Adventures, and it was told from her point of view, so the heroine never appeared. In recent decades, that was remedied, and the name was made more suggestive of the dark forest and witch that await ride-goers. Walt Disney World’s version, deemed too scary for young kids, even with the changes, will be demolished for a Princess meet-and-greet area, while Disneyland’s 1955 original remains.

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The indoor boat excursion—a ride about drunken pillaging somehow rendered family-friendly—was the last ride Disney oversaw, and it opened four months after his death. “Walt was intimately involved in the storytelling, from the earliest character and scene sketches to the full-size dimensional mock-ups,” says former Disney designer Bob Gurr. The second-floor suite above the ride’s entrance on New Orleans Square in Disneyland was intended to be for the Disney family.

Harriet Burns, the first female Imagineer, told Jeff Kurtti, author of Walt Disney’s Imagineering Legends, that Walt helped stock the intricate miniature dioramas seen on this outdoor boat ride in Disneyland’s Fantasyland. “He would bring little miniatures to us that he collected when he went on his trips. Beautiful little porcelain jugs and washbasins, and tiny things.”

In Disneyland’s early days, Walt Disney was known as a nature documentarian as well as an animator, and one of his greatest brands was the True-Life Adventures nonfiction series. He personally shifted film workers from the Disney Studio to his theme park project to approximate an experience that made guests feel like they were in a movie. That concept for a ride is standard in today’s heavily branded theme park world, but in 1955 it was novel. “[Walt] knew how animals move realistically and sometimes would act out a scene in animal motion to show the designers what he wanted,” says Gurr.

The carousel was built for the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, New York City, where the exhibit sponsor, General Electric, wanted to showcase consumer products. That made the 21-minute show, which moves audiences on a ring past short vignettes featuring audio-animatronic figures, “a living commercial,” as Gurr puts it. The result, now installed in Florida, isn’t a modern-day blockbuster, but it was reportedly one of Disney’s favorite accomplishments.

The maiden voyage of this steam-powered paddleboat, which sails on an unseen track in a loop on the Rivers of America, came four days before Disneyland’s official opening on July 17, 1955. Walt and his wife, Lillian, threw a private party aboard the boat to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Once the park was up and running, Disney used to hang out in the fourth-level pilot’s cabin to escape the crowds.

Walt Disney adored trains so much that he ringed his park with them and had another built in his backyard in L.A.’s Holmby Hills. But this miniature version gave him as much trouble as a full-size one. The ride’s hills caused improperly balanced cars to tip backward, and it was jerry-rigged to operate for the TV cameras on opening day before being shut down for overhauls. Disney also directed the sleighs to be removed from the nearby King Arthur Carrousel (he wanted only horses on his merry-go-round) and refitted them as train carriages here.

Walt Disney was already spearheading three attractions for the 1964–65 World’s Fair when, with less than a year to go, UNICEF commissioned him to rush a fourth to completion. He had to cut corners to get it done in time. “The Imagineers cleverly created a simple show using one design for all the hundreds of animated singing dolls, along with a simple but practical boat ride system that delivered very high hourly guest capacity,” says Gurr. Out of necessity, a childhood classic was born.

Walt needed something to disguise a support pole for the Skyway gondola and to discourage guests from using an empty space for romantic activities. “[He] was in Europe during the filming of Third Man on the Mountain and was fascinated by the Matterhorn and Alpine bobsleds,” says Gurr, who handled the track layouts and the sleds. Walt asked Arrow Development, his favorite outside manufacturer, for the fastest way to fabricate it. “Arrow said bent-up pipe would be the quickest way,” says Gurr. And the world’s first tubular steel roller coaster was born.

Walt Disney entrusted Gurr, then a green 23-year-old, with designing and making the bodies of the miniature cars for this automobile ride. “Walt had his very own unique car, quite typical of Walt wanting something no other amusement park had,” says Gurr. Walt’s ride had special upholstery and a bumper fashioned from a 1953 Pontiac. Gurr didn’t anticipate the rigors of a Disneyland ride—on opening day, there wasn’t a guide rail, and Autopia became a free-for-all. Although they were patterned after the Ferrari and looked good, by the end of the first week, only two cars out of 40 still worked.