Hundreds Share These Are the Retired Disneyland Rides They Miss Most

We all hope our favorite Disneyland rides will stick around forever, and while some have stood the test of time (here's looking at you, Mr. Toad!), Disney has held fast to Walt's belief in progress over the years.

This means the parks are always adapting to accommodate modern sensibilities and technological advances, and since space is limited—at Disneyland, in particular—sometimes the old must go to make way for the new.

Today we'll dive into the top rides and attractions that hundreds miss at Disneyland.

Guests Miss These Retired Attractions at Disneyland

As Disney enthusiasts, we look forward to new attractions and experiences at the parks, but sometimes we can't help mourning the loss of those on which we've created special memories over the years.

Our recent Facebook poll asked followers which retired Disneyland attractions they miss the most, and over 400 guests responded with their past favorites. A plethora of nostalgic rides received mentions, but here are the top ten experiences that they miss the most.

A Bug's Land

Disneyland's California Adventure was home to this retired kid-friendly land, themed after the 1998 Pixar film, A Bug's Life. A section called Flik's Fun Fair housed four carnivalesque attractions based on characters from the film: Flik's Flyers (a spinner Disney recycled for the Inside Out attraction, Emotional Whirlwind), Francis' Ladybug Boogie, Tuck and Roll's Drive ‘Em Buggies, and the crown jewel of A Bug's Land, according to Facebook user Becky Perkins: Heimlich's Chew Chew Train.

Outside Flik's Fun Fair, there was also a water play area, a walkthrough attraction highlighting the importance of California's agricultural industry called Bountiful Valley Farm (closed in 2010), and the 3D film and live show “It's Tough to Be a Bug!” which guests can still see (for now) at Disney's Animal Kingdom. A Bug's Land closed September 4, 2018 to make room for the Marvel-themed area, Avengers Campus.

In regards to its closure, Facebook follower TF Man commented, “I miss Bug's Land so much… they should really put it in Animal Kingdom.” Sadly for Man and others, Disney doesn't seem inclined to give A Bug's Life a bigger presence at Animal Kingdom, since the company recently announced plans to replace “It's Tough To Be a Bug!” inside the Tree of Life with a Zootopia-themed show instead.

America Sings

This comedic audio-animatronic stage show replaced the Carousel of Progress in Tomorrowland in 1974 with a celebration of America's music history in honor of the United States Bicentennial. Burl Ives lent his iconic voice to host Sam Eagle, who sang the attraction's theme song, “Yankee Doodle,” and prolific actor Sam Edwards (Escape to Witch Mountain, Winnie the Pooh) voiced his sidekick, Ollie the Owl. The rotating theater took guests through four acts, each representing a different era of American music. At the end of every act, a weasel character would suddenly appear and sing, “Pop Goes the Weasel!”

Since the show wasn't exactly a great fit for Tomorrowland, and its popularity had waned over time after America's Bicentennial, it closed in 1988. For years, the Carousel Theater remained woefully shuttered and eventually used as office space until Innoventions opened in 1998. Almost all of the audio-animatronics for America Sings moved to Splash Mountain when it opened in 1989. Disney legend Marc Davis designed both sets of characters, so stylistically, they were a natural fit for the attraction. Only two geese stayed in Tomorrowland, where Imagineers plucked them from the America Sings stage even before its closure and transformed them into droids for the Star Tours queue area.

Big Thunder Ranch

Victoria Overholtzer voiced a familiar sentiment in the comments on our retired Disneyland attractions Facebook thread when she said, “I miss the petting zoo, animals, and that all you could eat family barbecue and show.”

She's referring to Big Thunder Ranch, a simple rest and relaxation area that was tucked away in Frontierland for three decades. It included a walk-through rustic cabin, a petting zoo, and a dining location called Big Thunder Barbecue, which many guests mentioned specifically in their comments.

During its extended tenure at Disneyland, Big Thunder Ranch received several makeovers, the first of which was a Hunchback of Notre Dame re-theming in 1996, featuring a beloved theatrical performance called the “Festival of Fools.” In addition to the show, there were some low-key changes in decor at the ranch, and the rustic cabin became Esmerelda's safe house from the tyranny of Notre Dame villain, Frollo. After the show ended in 1998, the Big Thunder Ranch area served as a corporate event space for a while until it reopened in 2004 to coincide with the premiere of Disney's Home on the Range in U.S. theaters. This reopening brought the return of Big Thunder Ranch, but with an overlay themed after the movie, called “Little Patch of Heaven.”

Since Home on the Range was an instant flop at the box office, Disney transformed Big Thunder Ranch into “Santa's Reindeer Roundup” for the 2005 holiday season. Many guests remember this period of seasonal fanfare in the Frontierland hideaway with fondness. Monica Clark Coleman shared her memories of “meeting Santa at Big Thunder Ranch with the reindeer and the sugar cookie making kit.”

The following year, evidence of the “Little Patch of Heaven” overlay began to fade away, and the Big Thunder Ranch area eventually became home to country and bluegrass ensemble, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, who previously performed at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. Big Thunder Ranch finally retired from Disneyland permanently in 2016 to make way for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Although we enjoy the exciting new experiences available in this fan-favorite land, many still miss the simplicity and reprieve from the masses Big Thunder Ranch offered Disneyland guests.

Rocket Rods

Kayla Saavedra said the retired Disneyland attraction she misses the most is “hands down Rocket Rods. Every time I am standing in Star Tours I think about how the cars used to go through there. It was a cool attraction.”

Rocket Rods replaced the original PeopleMover in 1998 as part of the New Tomorrowland project. Using the existing track for a high-speed drag race, the attraction represented the imagined future of mass rapid transit. Because Disney lacked the funding or corporate sponsorship to redesign the old PeopleMover track to accommodate the faster attraction with banked turns, the Rocket Rods could not sustain their speed throughout the ride. This meant the vehicles zoomed along the straight sections of track and abruptly slowed to take the tight, flat turns. These changes in speed caused the tires to wear down quickly, damaging the engines.

Frequent breakdowns due to technical and mechanical problems eventually led Disney to close Rocket Rods for renovations in September of 2000, but the attraction never re-opened. Maryann Trozzo reminisced, “The Rocket Rods were such a bust. Every time we tried to ride them they broke down. But it was a fun ride the one or two times we caught it working. I wonder if with today's technology it would work better???”

Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters took up residence in the Rocket Rods queue area in 2005, but the dilapidated track still sits unused at Disneyland, a sad reminder of bygone days.

Carousel of Progress

Originally, the idea of a show chronicling the evolution of electricity in the home was a concept Walt Disney intended to develop for a Main Street expansion district at Disneyland called Edison Square, but in the late 1950s, the technology needed to realize the kind of show Walt wanted wasn't available. So when General Electric approached him about creating a show for their pavilion at the 1964-1965 World's Fair in New York, the idea blossomed into an audio-animatronic stage show, set inside a rotating “carousel” theater.

Imagineers devised a way for guests to remain seated while the stage rotated to reveal a new set for each scene, and the legendary Sherman Brothers wrote a theme song to bridge the gap between acts. Four acts comprised the World's Fair attraction called “Progressland,” each one exploring a different era in modern history from the perspective of an American family. Due to its popularity at the Fair, the show moved to Tomorrowland at Disneyland in 1967, where it entertained guests as “The Carousel of Progress” until 1973, when it closed due to dwindling attendance and the need for space to celebrate America's Bicentennial with a new show (“America Sings”).

After some extensive changes, the show opened in 1975 at Walt Disney World, where guests can still visit to get their nostalgia fix. Scott Di Bartolo commented, “CoP and People Mover are two must sees for us when ever we can get across country to WDW – they are lucky to still have those great rides.”

Splash Mountain

The most recently retired Disneyland attraction on our list closed just this year in May to allow construction to begin on a completely rethemed Splash Mountain version of the ride featuring characters from Disney's Princess and the Frog. Although it has only been closed for a few months, guests like Matt Da-man Cacciola “already miss it. I know the new ride will be good, but this ride was our jam.”

Beloved by many during its 34-year tenure, Splash Mountain was a log flume-style ride featuring colorful folktale characters and cheerful upbeat tunes from Disney's problematic 1946 film, Song of the South. The slow-moving journey through scenes evocative of an illustrated children's storybook included several small drops and a climactic 50-foot plunge over a waterfall near the end. Disney made the decision to close the ride due partially to its harmful source material and also in an effort to give Princess and the Frog a presence in the parks.

Adventure Thru Inner Space

According to Jill Weiner on Facebook, Adventure Thru Inner Space was “one of a kind.” The first attraction to use Disney's Omnimover system (the kind used in the Haunted Mansion), the retired Disneyland ride simulated shrinking guests down to a size smaller than an atom. Guests boarded an “atommobile” before journeying through the miniaturizing Mighty Monsanto Microscope (later just The Mighty Microscope) for a tour into the molecular and atomic structure of a snowflake. Highlights included walls of ice crystals, columns and rows of spherical water molecules, a flurry of glowing electrons, and a giant red pulsing nucleus.

Disney is always working to incorporate new stories at the parks, and Adventure Thru Inner Space closed in 1985 to make room for Star Tours. Guests can still spot a tribute to its predecessor on the Star Wars motion simulator attraction—the Mighty Microscope appears in the maintenance bay, where the StarSpeeder mistakenly arrives before course-correcting.

While the Star Wars franchise is popular with Disneyland guests, many still miss Adventure Thru Inner Space. Facebook user Michelle Bowling told us it gave her “such fond memories as a child.”

The Skyway

Our Facebook poll was full of guests mourning the loss of “the sky buckets,” as Mary Ball Parsons and many others call them.

Walt Disney Imagineering bought the aerial ropeway from VonRoll, Ltd. in Switzerland, and it opened in Disneyland in 1956, conveying guests from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland and vice versa in bucket-like gondolas. The attraction closed temporarily for the construction of the Matterhorn, during which Disney demolished its tallest tower and routed the Skyway through the mountain instead. In 1994, the transportation system/attraction hybrid closed due to stress cracks in the Matterhorn tower battery supports that would have required Disney to open the mountain to fix.

Country Bear Jamboree

Some Disney park-goers may not realize this audio-animatronic country music stage show opened first at Walt Disney World in 1971. Featuring a bear band and characters that rise to the stage on platforms, descend from the ceiling, and hide behind side-stage curtains, the show received such a positive response that Imagineers quickly began work on a replica for Disneyland with two identical theaters to double the seating capacity of the attraction. Country Bear Jamboree even inspired an entire new themed area, called Bear Country, at Disneyland.

Due to its immense popularity, Disney creatives developed a spin-off show for the 1984 holiday season, and in 1986, a summertime version called the “Country Bear Vacation Hoedown” was so loved, it became the standard show until the attraction's closure. Country Bear Jamboree retired at Disneyland in 2001 to make room for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Disneyland patron Steve Lambert commented, “I most miss the seasonal editions of Country Bear Jamboree–specifically, The Country Bear Christmas Special and The Country Bears on Vacation. Hilarious! When I first experienced the former, I burst out laughing when I first entered the hall and saw Max with a red light bulb on his nose, Buff in a dinky little Santa hat several sizes too small for his massive head, and Melvin's antlers festooned with colored lights. The show started with Melvin trying to sing: “Duh, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer…” immediately followed by Max protesting that HE was the deer. It only got better from that moment, although details escape me. I only remember that Teddi Beara and Big Al (in diaper, as Baby New Year) were also in fine seasonal form.”

PeopleMover

Audrey Shorter voiced the consensus among an overwhelming number of Disneyland fans, “Just bring back people mover.”

With much of the old track for this much-missed classic still punctuating the Tomorrowland skyscape, we can't help but wonder if Disney will submit to popular demand and return the PeopleMover to Disneyland. Originally, Disney intended the PeopleMover attraction to be a serious prototype for automated public transport. This prototype gave guests a narrated “grand circle tour” of Tomorrowland from small trains moving around an elevated track that wound in and out of various Tomorrowland attractions. Over time, guests began to view the ride as more of a place to put one's feet up than an exciting new mode of transport, and to save money, Disney closed the ride. Other than the short-lived Rocket Rods run on the PeopleMover track, it has remained largely unused.

Guests can still enjoy this fan-favorite in Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World, where it has been running since 1975.  Although the experience is somewhat different than the Disneyland version, it retains the charm of the original and is an absolute must-do for my family on every visit.

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