The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (109 page)

Guests boarded the
original subs at the lagoon-side loading zone under the
Tomorrowland Monorail
station for a voyage of nine to ten minutes.  In the course of their travels they passed, among other things, underwater foliage, mechanical creatures, Atlantis, a graveyard of lost ships, an octopus, divers struggling over a treasure chest, a famously goofy-looking fake sea serpent, and then the sub glided under the Arctic polar ice cap.  As
Audio-Animatronics
were developed over the years, effects evolved.

Considering that the subs never
actually, fully submerged, it was an amazing ride, and popular with Guests.  As with all the best
Disneyland
attractions, it was entertaining because it swept Guests into a beautiful, thrilling, and intriguing environment that fascinated them and could be experienced in no other way.

How many Guests could actually ride a nuclear submarine deep under the sea?  The same number that could
steer bobsleds down the real
Matterhorn
, or ride a cart into the
Dwarfs
’ glowing gem mines. 
Imagineers
build attractions that transport Guests into real and imagined landscapes, viscerally immersing them in unforgettable worlds far from their workaday existence.

Few
early Guests guessed that the upper portion of the partially submerged submarines remained above water during
the entire voyage
.

The ever resourceful
Imagineers
found a way to simulate water and bubbles in the thick portholes through which Guests peered; the scenes that they viewed were housed mainly in a massive show building concealed by caves, waterfalls and the sculpted, camouflaging landscape.

The subs were given names that evoked the patriotism and adventure and
romance of sea voyages.  There was the
Nautilus
, which means “sailor” in Greek and Latin, and is the name of a spiral-chambered mollusk.

It’s also the name of
Captain Nemo
’s amazing craft in
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
, both the Jules Verne novel (1870) and the
Disney
film (1954).  There’s the
Seawolf
and later the
Sea Wolf
, both named for author Jack London’s thrilling 1904 sea adventure story of the same name.  There’s the
Triton
, named for a mythological Greek ocean god, a messenger and son of the god of the sea.

Over the years the eight subs would change names and color as they evolved from
the military grey of U.S. Navy subs to the blinding yellow of oceanographic explorer subs and the subs of the
Finding Nemo
attraction.  The history of the subs’ names is an interesting one:

The only sub that’s maintained its name throughout the attraction’s history is the
Nautilus
, named after not only
Captain Nemo
’s ship but the U.S.S. Nautilus, the U.S. Navy’s first nuclear powered sub that navigated under the polar ice cap in 1958, not long before this attraction debuted.  All of the subs in the original 1959 fleet were, in fact, named for subs in the U.S. Navy’s fleet.

Periodically the park would add a splash (so to speak) of additional pizzazz to the
Submarine Voyage
, most notably in the mid 1960’s when they tasked some of the young female Cast Members with portraying
Mermaids
, who sunned themselves on rocks and swam and dove deep in the lagoon.

There
were
Mermaid
performers at the 1959 dedication, swimming underwater for the Palomar camera in an undulating, fish-like manner coincidentally identical to the way in which actor Patrick Duffy would have his Atlantean character swim in the 1977 to 1978 “Man from Atlantis” television films and series (a style imitated in pools across America by kids who watched the shows).

Guests–particularly young
men–responded favorably to the 1960’s
Mermaids
, in some cases
too
favorably.  Some youths leaped into the water and swam to the
Mermaids
, disconcerting for the Cast Members portraying the
Mermaids
and dangerous for the Guests splashing around amidst the submarines and underwater track and machinery.

The heavily chlorinated waters, the subs’ diesel fuel and fumes
, and occasional unwanted Guest attention all proved to be too much for the
Mermaids
to deal with, and after having debuted in 1965, the
Mermaids
vanished from the lagoon in 1967.

After an impressive run of almost forty years, the
Submarine Voyage
closed down and dry-docked its subs in 1998.  As time passed, Guest speculation ran rampant.  Although there were no submarines, the lagoon, the submarine track and the surrounding landscape remained.  Would the subs return?  If so, when and in what form?

There were statements, rumors and hints
, fueled in part by
Disney
leadership, about the possibility of a revamped underwater attraction based on elements of
Disney
’s modern animated features
The Little Mermaid
(1989) or
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
(2001), but those never came to fruition.

Atlantis
, although a beautifully rendered film, lacked the Broadway-quality musical numbers and cuddly sidekicks of recent
Disney
films and underperformed for a
Disney
animated feature, generating a disappointing $20.3 million in its opening weekend and only $186 million to date.  Compare that box office to
Disney
’s 1999
Tarzan
performance, for example, a $34 million opening and grosses of almost $450 million to date.  In that light,
Atlantis
hardly seemed like a film to pin an attraction upon.

Then along came the
Disney-Pixar
CGI animated blockbuster
Finding Nemo
(2003), about a curious little fish who gets lost and goes on an amazing journey while his worried father and a kindly fish with short-term memory challenges try to find and rescue him.

Finding Nemo
was a resounding success, critically and commercially.  Continuing
Disney-Pixar
’s tradition of wowing audiences with both artistry and a compelling story,
Nemo
had a $70 million-plus opening weekend, and went on to make more than $850 million worldwide.

Part of the secret of its success was a stellar voice cast overflowing with celebs, from
Albert Brooks
and
Ellen DeGenere
s to
Eric Bana
,
Willem Dafoe
,
Brad Garrett
,
Alison Janney
,
Elizabeth Perkins
,
John Ratzenberger
(
Disney-Pixar
’s “good luck charm”) and
Geoffrey Rush
.  The film was a juggernaut, a popular and beloved instant classic with comical and touching characters around which an undersea attraction could be
Imagineered
.

Imagineers
began mapping out the attraction, and were even testing subs as early as 2004, but it wasn’t until July of 2005, 50 years after the park opened and 46 years after the original
Submarine Voyage
debuted, that
Disneyland
officially announced that the
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
was in the works.

Anticipation had built to a fever pitch by the dedication of the
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
on June 11, 2007. 
Disney
’s CEO
Bob Iger
was there, as was
Jay Rasulo
, Chair of
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
,
John Lasseter
, creative genius of
Disney-Pixar
, and the
Imagineers
, including
Tony Baxter
,
who led the project.

Since
Walt
’s day,
Disney
has always handled these events with plenty of fun, pomp and circumstance, and this was no exception.  There were media events on June 10, concluding with a party at
Tomorrowland Terrace
.  The elaborate dedication followed on June 11.

One of the
Disneyland Monorail trains
was costumed like a bright yellow-and-blue
Nemo
sub; every time it drifted past along the
Monorail
beams above the lagoon, it was as if a sub was magically flying.  There were performers in blue-black-and-yellow diving suits, and performers carrying big, puppet-like mock-ups of famous
Nemo
characters like kindly, befuddled
Dory
.  Children wore
Finding Nemo
Submarine Voyage
T-shirts and little orange-and-white-striped
Nemo
hats.

Celebrities on hand included
David Arquette
, Sean Astin, Kobe Bryant, Courtney Cox, Geena Davis, Craig Ferguson, Leah Remini, Denise Richards, and Brooke Shields, and, of course,
Minnie
in a sailor dress and
Mickey
in a dashing yachting outfit.

After the ceremony concluded, it was time for Guests to queue up for the very first t
ime to ride the blazing yellow and pool-blue
Nemo
subs.  And queue they did!  Outdoing the
Star Tours
opening day queue of twenty years before, Guests created a
four-and-a-half-hour long line
winding from the
Finding Nemo
loading zone under the
Tomorrowland Monorail
station to the distant
“it’s a small world”
attraction.

The queues shrank as the weeks passed–shrank to two or two-and-a-half hours. 
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
had the longest queue in the park literally for years, longer than the
Indiana Jones Adventure
queue, the
Space Mountain
queue, or the
Splash Mountain
queue.  And where those attractions give Guests a
FastPass
option,
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
’s loading, launching, and unloading configuration and slow pace unfortunately make it a poor candidate for the
FastPass
system.

For the first couple of years
the
Finding
Nemo
subs were open, it seemed that every person on the planet was making their way to
Disneyland
for the express purpose of standing in two-hour lines to experience the underwater journey.  Besides being thronged with eager first-time riders, the lines were further extended by fans of the new attraction who made repeat journeys.  Many seasoned voyagers wanted to compare the new adventure with the
Submarine Voyage
of the past.