Disney’s Biggest Theme Park Failures

The Disney Parks are the most popular and successful theme parks in the world. To hold such a stature, The Walt Disney Company clearly must be doing something right.

However, not everything that has come to the theme parks has been a success. The Disney Parks have also seen their fair share of trials, guest disappointments, and overall failures.

From shows, to rides, and even entire theme parks, Disney hasn’t always made the best decisions. Many of these failures leave us wondering, “What were they thinking?” In some situations Disney was clearly able to change directions and bounce back while other ideas they had to just give up!

Euro Disney

Due to the success of Tokyo Disneyland, no expense was spared when it came to Euro Disney. The elaborate planning and design led to an extremely large price tag. However, the higher ups at The Walt Disney Company were confident that the profits from the resort would offset the expenses that were put into its construction.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. Before the park even opened, the French were unwelcoming to the idea of having a Disney park in Paris. Because of this, and the lack of cultural recognition within the park, Euro Disney was not nearly as popular as expected. The amount of ticket sales were also quite lower than Disney had hoped for, and quite frankly needed, in order to make a profit.

Not only were there fewer Guests showing up than initially expected, they were also visiting for shorter amounts of time than Disney had planned on. It was anticipated that Guests would average 4-5 park days during their trips. However, most were only dedicating two days to the park.

Besides the theme park, Euro Disney also opened with six on-property hotels. These hotels are where Disney lost a lot of money. They simply weren’t being filled. Many of the Guests that were visiting were from Paris. Because of this, Guests would take a short train ride from the city to Euro Disney. Lodging wasn’t necessary for most Guests since they would return home at the end of the day.

Disney's California Adventure

The failure of Euro Disney, and the amount of debt that was acquired from it, ultimately led to the failure of Disney’s California Adventure. The second Disney Park that was built in California was not at all what Disney had planned on building.

Initially, there were plans to build a West Coast version of EPCOT – appropriately named WestCOT. This park would be very similar to EPCOT in regard to the fact that it would be a very forward thinking park. However, rather than viewing hopes and dreams of what the future may hold, WestCOT would transport Guests to a futuristic world.

WestCOT, however, was not going to be a cheap park to build. It was estimated that it would cost around $3 billion to create. Due to the mass amount of debt that Disney had just acquired from the Euro Disney flop, they couldn’t risk putting that kind of money into a new park.

Ultimately, the plans for WestCOT were scrapped. After going back to the drawing board, Disney decided to build Disney’s California Adventure. The park was intended to showcase the state of California… the state it resided in.

While the idea was to give Guests a taste of California so they wouldn’t have to leave the Disney bubble to go visit the rest of the state, it didn’t go over well with Guests. Of course, the Guests coming to the park were either California residents or out of state visitors. Neither of which were overly interested in seeing a knock-off version of the state. Many Guests were also discouraged by the lack of Disney theming within the park.

Disney's California Adventure has now received many updates which resulted in making it more popular with guests like the transformation of Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier, the addition of Avengers Campus, and the Big Hero Six theming.

Superstar Limo

Superstar Limo was a wreck from the very beginning. As an opening day attraction of Disney’s California Adventure, and the park’s only dark ride at the time, Guests had high hopes for the attraction. Unfortunately, most Guests were very disappointed by the ride they experienced and it permanently closed less than one year after opening.

Superstar Limo took Guests through a variety of popular locations and showcased many famous celebrities. However, rather than experiencing exciting celebrity cameos, Guests saw caricature-style faces on cheaply made animatronics. Overall, the ride was viewed as being extremely cheesy and boring.

The Superstar Limo that Guests experienced was quite different from what the ride was initially supposed to be like. You can say that Guests received a more “tamed down” version. Originally, Superstar Limo was going to be a high-speed dark ride. Guests were going to be the newest celebrity in Hollywood and experience a thrilling ride as they were chased by paparazzi on their way to a movie premiere.

However, after the tragic paparazzi incident involving Princess Diana, Disney found it in poor taste to continue with this storyline. The ride’s plot was quickly changed prior to the park’s opening and the final result was the Superstar Limo that everyone came to know, but not love.

Disneyland's Fantasmic! Dragon

Fantasmic! is an incredible nighttime spectacular that takes place at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. During the show, we follow along with Mickey as he takes an adventurous journey through his dreams. At one point in the show, we see Mickey use the powers of his imagination to fight off evil. During this portion, we see an extremely impressive animatronic version of Maleficent in her dragon form.

On April 22nd, 2023, the dragon caught fire at Disneyland Park during the second performance of the night. The fire started within the dragon’s head and soon engulfed the rest of the beast’s body. After the incident, performances of Fantasmic! were put on hold and did not resume until May 24th, 2024.

During the hiatus, Disney took that time to make changes to the show. One major change was made to the battle scene between Mickey and Maleficent. To the disappointment of many Guests, the dragon did not return. Instead, we now see Maleficent in her regular form. Rather than turning into a dragon, she’s simply raised up on a tall pedestal. This may be a thrilling part of the show for Guests who haven’t seen it before. However, for those who have seen the dragon, this new version is not nearly as climatic.

Castle Themes

In the future, Disney should refrain from re-themeing or elaborately decorating any of the castles. The few times they have felt the need to do so, it wasn’t received well. Specifically at Walt Disney World. Over the years, Cinderella Castle has suffered the brunt of bad theming.

For Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary, Cinderella Castle was transformed into a giant birthday cake. The castle was painted a bright pink, adorned with a variety of candies and icing accents, and topped with birthday candles. While some Guests did enjoy this overlay, others considered it to be a hideous eyesore.

Another time Cinderella Castle looked less than appealing was when Stitch’s Great Escape opened. On the attraction’s opening day, a giant Stitch inflatable sat outside of the Magic Kingdom entrance. If that wasn’t enough, when Guests entered the park, they were greeted by a castle that had apparently been vandalized.

The castle was decorated to look like it had been TP’d. On the front, there was graffiti that included images of Stitch as well as red “spray paint” that read, “Stitch is King!”. This look only lasted for one day, but it was long enough to upset Guests. Especially since a lot of people are only able to visit Disney once in their life. How upsetting it must have been for those who experienced their one day at Magic Kingdom with a less than magical looking castle.

Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser

Rather than being a Star Wars-themed hotel that put Guests in a Star Wars atmosphere and allowed them to choose their length of stay, the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was very limiting. Guests who “boarded” the Starcruiser set out for a two-night role-playing adventure. While this experience seemed extremely fun to some (and intimidating to the more introverted crowd), the price tag was a hard thing for most Guests to justify. The two-night stay was priced around $5,000 for two Guests and around $6,000 for groups of four. That’s a LOT of money for such a short amount of time. Especially when groups could do a whole Walt Disney World vacation at a similar price point.

Besides the price, the overall experience wasn’t appealing to everyone. Not everyone enjoys putting themselves out there and taking part in role-playing style activities. Many Guests wished that the Starcruiser would have simply opened up as a Star Wars-themed hotel, where they would have more liberty to come and go as they please, stay however long they like, and enjoy the rest of Walt Disney World during their stay.

Star Was: Galactic Starcruiser could have been a success had it been approached in a different way. Unfortunately, after the initial rush of interested Guests and Star Wars enthusiasts, voyages were no longer booking to capacity. It was very expensive to keep the Starcruiser up and running as well as pay all of the Cast Members and performers who were part of the experience. Therefore, lowering the cost of the voyages would not have benefited Disney and would have only aided in the company losing money. After only 18 months of operation, the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser took its final voyage in September of 2023.

Changing Journey Into Imagination

Disney Guests are never happy when a classic ride or attraction is altered in any way. Even so, while some Guests may miss the original ride, sometimes the new version or replacement is even more popular than the original. However, that’s not the case for Journey Into Imagination.

If you know anyone who absolutely hates Journey Into Imagination with Figment, chances are, they’ve experienced the original ride and simply miss it.

This attraction has had three different versions: Journey Into Imagination, Journey Into Your Imagination, and Journey Into Imagination with Figment. It’s widely thought that the original version was the absolute best and should have never been touched. It was a classic example of, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”.

One huge difference in the newer versions was a loss of beloved characters – Dreamfinder and Figment. Now, Figment has made appearances in every version of the ride, but he was never the same as he was in the original. The second and third version of the attraction made Figment out to be more of a chaotic goof, which was not his personality in the original ride. The original attraction also featured Dreamfinder who never did reprise his role in any of the newer versions. This loss is one that Guests still haven’t gotten over.

Kite Tails

KiteTails was a show that was brought to Animal Kingdom as part of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary celebration. It included energetic music, beautiful puppets, and colorful kites. Characters from different movies such as Finding Nemo, The Lion King, and Jungle Book were all part of the show.

While KiteTails was a fun show to see in passing, it didn’t quite compare to the high quality performances that are usually found with Walt Disney World shows. The biggest climax of the show was when the giant kites were pulled around the lagoon by jet skis. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun sight to see, but the show itself left many Guests with the feeling of “That’s it?” once it came to an end.

Oftentimes, it was considered more exciting to watch the kites come down after their set, since the performers did that by “crash landing” them. While these landings were intentional, there were multiple times where the giant kites did indeed crash unintentionally. At one point, both the Baloo kite and King Louie kite had encounters with nearby trees. There were also instances where the kites crashed into the stands.

Overall, this show was somewhat hit or miss, but definitely not great. The show lasted just shy of one year before Disney announced that it would be retiring and the entertainment of flotillas would be returning to the park’s waterways.

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