A blog by Cameron and Shannon

Theme Parks #6 - The Living Seas

Opened: 1986. Closed: 2005.

So when I said Body Wars was the only cool thing at Epcot, I lied. The Living Seas was also pretty cool, because I’m into aquariums. To be honest, I don’t really remember there being much to this ride; you just rode some little cars through aquariums and then got out of the cars to look at more aquariums.

However, around 2003, Disney started making some little changes here and there, and by 2005 had closed The Living Seas completely to do major revamps into The Seas With Nemo and Friends.

Now, I understand that part of what makes Disney World so magical is kids mingling with the iconic Disney characters they have come to know and love. But The Seas With Nemo and Friends appears to be basically 5 (very useless) lost minutes of additional Finding Nemo footage projected onto an aquarium wall so everyone can oooohhh and ahhhhh.

You can ride it here, but let’s review. Finding Nemo characters are projected onto empty aquariums full of water (until the end, when they swim with some unassuming and nonplussed looking real fish) and repeat the same five words of dialogue (“We have to find Nemo!”) in variated phrasing. They swim with some real fish and sing “It’s a Big Blue World.” The end.

This is a ride at Disney World.

Reasons this bothers me:

1. Disney World costs $75 a ticket.

2. This used to be an actually cool ride.

3. Epcot used to be known as the “educational” park within Disney.

4. It embodies the modern, overbranded Disney character view (of which I have an entirely separate rant on) that would cause present day families to actually think this is a cool ride.

Thank goodness according to everything I’ve read you can still see the actual aquarium life from The Living Seas at the end of the present-day Nemo attraction. Phew.