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 Review of Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage @ Disneyland Park
0 Rating Posted by: praxis on 3/4/2008 2:28:00 PM
Wow - Im the first to review a ride at Disneyland! Waaaay back in the day, I remember fondly the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea sub ride (I think Jules Verne was alive when I rode it...) and was sorry to hear it had been retired. Now its back, in California at least, unsurprisingly rethemed to the excellent Pixar flick, Finding Nemo.

Be warned, this ride is new, very popular, loads slowly and has no fastpass... so the lines are very, very long, easily the longest in the park. Is it worth it? Heck yes.

Once you board the "submarine" (it doesnt actually dive, but you sit looking out windows below the water), you start on a ride that lasts about 15 minutes. At first, you travel through a typical Disney kinda landscape, the underwater scene filled with mock-up coral reefs, and mostly static figures of divers and fish. Youre thinking "This is ok."

Then the PA announces hes turning on the sonar to hear what the fish are saying, and theres a moment where you think "Holy crap!" Because swimming around in the real life reefs and scenery are the fish from Finding Nemo. I mean theyre Pixar quality cartoons, and they sure as heck seem to be moving around amongst what is clearly live sets. Its a big whoah moment.

From there, the plot more or less follows that of the movie - Nemo and his sea turtle pal have wandered off, his dad (along with amnesiac partner) go off in search of them, and the animation mixes with live sets, live AA and some sweet special effects. Almost every character from the movie is in it, along with the movies trademark humor.

Make no mistake, DL has come up with a big winner here. Its the one ride Ive been on whose fx may equal those of Spderman at IOA.
 

Review Comments

Pete C on 3/5/2008 1:13:43 PM said:
Wow, thats great. I recently went on the pathetic Nemo ride at Epcot. While the visuals were quite impressive, the ride was so short it was almost laughable, as was the story. I guess, once again, DL got the long end of the stick.
praxis on 3/6/2008 12:51:31 PM said:
DLs Nemo ride does indeed live up to the hype. Surprisingly, there are a lot of instances where the California rides are better than their Florida twins: Pirates, Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain (tho maybe the WDW version is due for an upgrade like DL got...) Even a couple rides that are different, though the same basic type, are better in DL. (Kali Rapids at AK was a letdown, Grizzly river at DCA was quite good.) The only Florida versions that I thought were really better were Jungle Cruise and Winnie the Pooh.
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