As the 2024 theme park season comes to a close, many Six Flags attractions, including one of the world’s most iconic roller coasters, were shuttered. Unfortunately for fans, these closures went unannounced until after their official demises. While many coaster fans found themselves mourning the unceremonious closures, missing out on a goodbye to some of their favorite attractions, this is not a completely uncommon occurrence in the theme park world. Let’s take a look back at some of Disney’s strangest attraction closings.
This year has been exciting for the theme parks. Two of the largest amusement park chains in the world, with Cedar Fair and Six Flags, merged into one corporation now known as Six Flags. Managing 27 amusement parks, 15 water parks, and nine resorts, the new mega corporation places destinations like Cedar Point and Six Flags Magic Mountain under the same leadership. As the season came to a close, some major changes were seen at the parks, with numerous attraction closures across the chain, all of which were unannounced. This included major coasters such as Kingda Ka and Green Lantern at Six Flags Great Adventure and Nighthawk at Carowinds.
The loss of any attraction is a sad thing to see. Even if these closures didn’t affect your favorite attractions, they definitely affected somebody’s. Usually, parks announce closures ahead of time to allow fans to come experience attractions one last time. This has become common practice across many theme park chains, including Universal and Disney, who often sell commemorative merchandise alongside closures. However, this isn’t always the case. Over the history of the Disney Parks, several major attractions were shuttered with no notice or intention. Let’s check out a few of the strangest Disney Parks attraction closures.
Horizons (EPCOT)
Let’s kick it off with, maybe, the biggest Disney Parks fumble of all time. The nearly opening day EPCOT attraction Horizons opened in 1983, just one year after the park’s 1982 opening. The suspended omnimover attraction explored the history of different visions of the future, what the 21st century may hold, and a unique choose your own ending sequence that allowed riders to choose their return back to the 20th century. Horizons was a unique pavilion at EPCOT at the time, not featuring any pre or post show opportunities, but it was a high capacity fan-favorite attraction when it opened.
Ten years after the attraction debuted, Horizons lost its General Electric sponsorship. At the time, Disney was recovering from its unfortunate financial blunder with Disneyland Paris. No one stepped in to help fund the E-ticket attraction, resulting in its unannounced closure in December 1994. Now this was not the end for the optimistic Future World attraction, as a year later, the sun would rise over Horizons once again. With World of Motion and Universe of Energy set to close for Test Track and Ellen’s Energy Adventure, the eastside of Future World was left with only the Wonders of Life pavilion. In December of 1995 the attraction would reopen as if nothing ever happened. No refurbishment was performed during the closure, it simply had sat for a year, dormant. Horizons would operate regularly until Test Tracks delayed January 1999 opening, when it would close its sliding doors once again. Come September, signage for the pavilion was removed, signaling to guests that the attraction would never reopen again.
Come October 1st, 1999, Horizons once again reopened, but only to press. Fans were buzzing with excitement at the potential reopening of the attraction, however, the attraction would never operate again.
Come March 2000, Disney announced a replacement for the attraction, known as Mission: SPACE. The high-thrill space travel simulator’s addition would mark the first time Disney ripped down a show building for another attraction.
The momentous closure sparked rumors that ran through the Disney Parks community. Why had Horizons closed? Thus the sinkhole rumor was born. While widely debated throughout the fandom, many believe that Disney wouldn’t close an attraction as large as Horizons without any kind of fanfare without good reason. The company has never confirmed these rumors, but the attractions cult following still debate this rumor to this day.
Thanks to RetroWDW, fans can watch an AI enhanced POV of the attraction, allowing those who weren’t around to experience the legendary attraction the chance to experience it.
Stitch’s Great Escape (Magic Kingdom)
In November of 2004, Stitch found his home at Magic Kingdom. Taking over ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter after the attraction was deemed “too scary” for the park, Stitch’s Great Escape would try to take the 4D theater experience from being horrifying to hilarious. Unfortunately, the experience proved to be scary more from its concept than from its content. The dark experience was created to test your senses, with bright flashes, darkness, smells and audio effects that simulated Stitch’s escape. Even with the adorable alien, kids would still consistently leave the attraction crying. Also, whoever thought a smell effect for a “chili cheese dog burp” was a good idea deserves jail time.
After 12 years of operating, Walt Disney World announced that the Magic Kingdom attraction would begin operating seasonally in September of 2016. During that season’s Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, the attraction's preshow rooms were used as a Stitch meet and greet, with one of the attraction's animatronics programmed to wave at guests as they walked through the experience.
A little over a year later in December 2017, Disney announced that Stitch’s Great Escape would open one last time for the holiday season and officially close for good on January 6th, 2018. With almost no fanfare, the attraction has slowly been disassembled from the inside, with no replacement announced as of December 2024. The large building eats a lot of space in the world’s most visited theme park, so, hopefully, Disney has something up its sleeve for this space sooner rather than later.
It’s Tough to Be a Bug! (Disney California Adventure)
Opening with the park in 2001, It’s Tough to Be a Bug! was a 4D theater attraction originally located in the Bountiful Valley Farm area of Disney California Adventure at Disneyland Resort. The copy of Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life attraction stood alone until the completion of A Bug’s Land in October of 2002, which continued the attraction's mission of shrinking guests down to the size of bugs.
Beginning in the 2010s, the attraction space began periodically closing for previews of upcoming Disney movies. This includes projects like Maleficent, the live-action The Jungle Book remake, Zootopia, and more. However, the show would periodically return to the resort during busier times of year, allowing fans to experience the attraction. After years of It’s Tough to Be a Bug!’s seasonal operation, it was announced that the theater experience and the entirety of A Bug’s Land would close in March of 2018 for a Marvel-themed expansion. The attraction did operate for a few months prior to the closure, much of the fanfare around the shuttered attraction was dampened by the inconsistent operations as well as its strange placement in the park. Another bizarre fact about this closure is that WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure utilizes the show building for the attraction. It’s pretty cool that Disney was able to retrofit the space for a whole new experience, especially one that still (kind of) has to do with bugs. The slow burn of the attraction’s death was definitely felt by regulars visiting the resort. Luckily, Walt Disney World is handling the closure of their original version of the ride with more transparency.
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