Thursday, July 16, 2009

Disneyland's Splash Mountain celebrates its 20th Anniversary



It's Disneyland 54th Birthday today, but it's also Splash Mountain 20th Anniversary! This Tony Baxter attraction opened officially on July 17, 1989 and was at the time it was built one of the most expensive projects created by Walt Disney Imagineering - $75 million.

Disneyland guests loved it from the first day and other versions were built in WDW and TDL - but unfortunately not at DLP.

To celebrate this 20th anniversary i wish i'll have more things, but at least the picture above is a real nice one, a beautiful high-res picture of the attraction. Enjoy it!

Picture: copyright Disney

8 comments:

  1. Wow, how great would it be if they'd build this in DLP?! It is a beautiful family-ride, and is finally a ride which really takes some time, instead of being 2 minutes in it.
    Bur I'm afraid that it costs way to much for DLP to build this ride, they probably need a sponsor to build this one.
    I only have one question, these log rides use t o have a low capacity, hoe is that with Splash Mountain? How many people can be put in one log?

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  2. Brian, in the new logs they can put 8 people and if i remember well the hour capacity is pretty high, so that's not the problem.
    As for the cost, Splash Mountain's price is now around $150 M, BUT the Little Mermaid or the Ratatouille attraction which are the two others competitors for DLP 20th anniversary have the same cost, so the choice between those three shouldn't be for a question of budget as they have more or less the same cost.

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  3. I could be wrong about this but...the version pictured I think is the WDW one, not the DL one?

    - Tasman.

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  4. Nope it's DL's Splash. Both versions at the MK and TDL have shorter logs with 4 rows of 2 seats each.

    -Justin

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  5. Ok, I didn't expect it would cost almost the same as Mermaid and Ratatouille. So now it's the question, what development does Disney want in the short future:
    * More families: Splash
    * More kids: Mermaid
    * More Studios-visitors: Ratatouille

    I think that after building Splash Mountain, Frontierland would be complete, as it feels now a little to empty around Railroad Station in Frontierland. I hope btw, that if Splash Mountain will be build, they won't call the area Critter Country, as they do in the other parks.
    The other option for DLP would be filling up Adventureland, however I think it would be a great opportunity for DLP to create their own ride for Adventureland as they don't have other good alternative rides for building in this part of the park.

    How much time would it cost to build an attraction as Splash Mountain, to make sure it's finished at DLP's 20th birthday?

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  6. Any of the three attractions listed above will take two years to be build, which means that works must begin early 2010.

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  7. My comment is a little off topic:

    Since my interest in the future of DLP is growing, I was reading through the older posts on your blog. I read the article you wrote almost a year ago about the future of DLP, in which you already announced ToyStory Playland, that's really cool because now you seem to have been precisely correct on that point.

    Now is my question, you wrote about this huge amount of money DLP would possibly get, it there any confirmation about that yet?

    And also another question, although I would like the Indiana Jones ride you expect to be built in the future, won't it be too much to have two Indiana Jones rides in one park?

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  8. Brian, No it won't be too much to have two Indy rides in the park, but what i can tell you is that Indiana Jones adventure will more than probably NOT be the next big E-Ticket at DLP

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