Guide Tour of Tomorrowland, Disneyland Park, California, United States
Tomorrowland is one of the many themed lands featured at all of the Disney theme parks. Each version of the land is different and features numerous attractions that depict views of the future. Walt Disney was known for his futurist views and, through his television programs, showed the American public how the world was moving into the future.
Tomorrowland was the realized culmination of his views. In his own words: “Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.”
Disneyland producer Ward Kimball had rocket scientists Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley, and Heinz Haber serve as technical consultants during the original design of Tomorrowland. Initial attractions included Rocket to the Moon, Astro-Jets and Autopia; later, the first incarnation of the Submarine Voyage was added. The area underwent a major transformation in 1967 to become New Tomorrowland, and then again in 1998 when its focus was changed to present a “retro-future” theme reminiscent of the illustrations of Jules Verne.
Disneyland’s Tomorrowland is now in its third generation. The Walt Disney Company has mentioned that it wanted to keep Tomorrowland from becoming “Yesterdayland”. Current attractions include Space Mountain, Star Wars Launch Bay, Autopia, Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple, the Disneyland Monorail Tomorrowland Station, Astro Orbitor, and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage opened on June 11, 2007, resurrecting the original Submarine Voyage which closed in 1998. Star Tours was closed in July 2010 and replaced with Star Tours–The Adventures Continue in June 2011.
At the 2015 D23 Expo, Disney announced that on November 16, 2015, Tomorrowland would launch a Star Wars-themed “Season of the Force”, in celebration of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Among the changes launched as part of the event were the attraction Star Wars Launch Bay—an exhibition showcasing artwork and other materials related to the franchise, a Star Wars Rebels-themed update of Jedi Training Academy known as Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple, the addition of The Force Awakens-related content to Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, and a The Force Awakens-themed Space Mountain overlay known as Hyperspace Mountain.
Autopia also closed for a short period of time, but reopened in early 2016, with a new blue and silver color scheme to better fit current day Tomorrowland and a new sponsorship with Honda. In 2019, Disneyland began to remove the 1998-era Tomorrowland sign and rockwork popularly known as the “French fry rocks” in order to widen walkways and improve crowd flow as part of its ongoing Project Stardust beautification and improvement project.
Astro Orbiter
The Astro Orbiter is a rocket-spinner attraction Disneyland-style parks. Vehicles traveling through space by spinning around a central monument. In 1956, the first rocket-spinner attraction opened at Disneyland and was known as the Astro Jets. The attraction was made by Klaus Company Bavaria and similar to several versions found in traveling carnivals. The “jets” made a 50-foot circle around a large red-checkered rocket and guests were able climb upwards of 36 feet in their ride vehicles from the ground level they were boarded at. The attraction stood between the Submarine Voyage and Rocket to the Moon.
As each form of the attraction appeared, new designs and locations have been implemented to fit with changing schemes of Tomorrowlands. In April 2009, the Astro Orbitor at Disneyland closed for refurbishment and was stripped down to its skeletal structure. It reopened in June 2009 with a silver, blue, red, and gold trim color scheme.
Autopia
Autopia is a race car track Disneyland attraction, in which patrons steer specially designed cars through an enclosed track. The name Autopia is a portmanteau of the words “automobile utopia.” The Disneyland Autopia, in one form or another, is one of the few current attractions that opened with the park on July 17, 1955. When it opened, it represented the future of what would become America’s multilane limited-access highways, which were still being developed. President Eisenhower had yet to sign the Interstate Highway legislation at the time Disneyland opened.
Drivers can use the steering wheel along the track but the center rail will guide the cars along the track regardless of steering input. Drivers/children too short to depress the gas pedal are paired with taller individuals who can. Brakes are applied automatically when the driver releases the gas pedal.
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin is an interactive shooting dark ride attraction located in the Tomorrowland area of the Disney theme parks. Designed by Walt Disney Imagineering and inspired by Disney/Pixar’s movie Toy Story. This attraction combines a carnival game and a third-generation Omnimover system.
“Astro Blasters” and “Space Ranger Spin” are equal parts shooting gallery and dark ride. Visitors board an Omnimover space vehicle featuring two laser pistols and a joystick. The pistols are used to shoot laser beams at targets of varying point values. Targets that are hit while lit up will produce much higher scores. A digital readout on the dashboard shows the player’s score. The joystick allows full 360-degree rotation of the vehicle to assist in aiming. There are 4 different shaped targets which are worth different numbers of points: round (100 points), square (1,000 points), diamond (5,000 points), and triangle (10,000 points).
The ride begins in the robot attack scene with The Box-O-Bot. There is also a mini Space Ranger in what looks like an X Wing. The Guests enter Zurg’s Dreadnought down a hallway shooting batteries until you reach his laboratory. Zurg is shooting his “Zurgatronic Ion Blaster” (he dubbed it this in BLoSC). He is standing behind his now damaged Secret Weapon. Guests are about to transition into the next room which is completely dark while robots are being electrocuted trying to land the Dreadnought.
The Guests enter Planet Z. Guests can shoot aliens including a call back to the pterodactyl that belongs to Sid Phillips in the First Toy Story Film. The next room is similar to Space Ranger Spin. Buzz Lightyear is using his Astro Blaster to take down Zurg’s Secret Weapon. The Green Squadron are helping Buzz take down the ship. The final room has the LGMs signing the receipt to return Zurg to Al’s Toys Barn. Zurg promises revenge as the Green Squadron thank the guests. Buzz Lightyear then thanks the guests. He tells them to put the Blasters where they belong and to check the score board. Guests exit the ride to Little Green Men’s Store command.
Disneyland Monorail System
The Disneyland Monorail System is an attraction and transportation system at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, United States. It was the first daily operating monorail in the Western Hemisphere. The Disneyland Monorail has two stations: one in Tomorrowland, and another in the Downtown Disney District. The original Monorail was a round trip ride with no stops.
The monorail travels in one direction only. All passengers board at a single platform. Leaving Tomorrowland station, the monorail crosses the Disneyland Railroad and continues along Harbor Boulevard on the eastern edge of the park. Turning to enter Disney California Adventure, it passes Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! and the Sunset Showcase Theater. The track then crosses through the gateway to the Disney California Adventure park.
Passengers can see Disneyland Park on the right and Disney California Adventure Park on the left. The monorail then passes through Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa then makes a sharp curve to the right and enters the Downtown Disney station, which has a vegetative theme to match the floral motif throughout the shopping district.
Downtown Disney station has one platform. After a five-minute loading, the train leaves Downtown Disney and makes a short loop around the district before crossing above the esplanade between the two parks and heads back to Disneyland. Once inside the park, the monorail crosses the railroad again and goes into a series of sharp bends and curves around Tomorrowland. The track travels above the Submarine Lagoon and Autopia. The track crosses the lagoon four times. The track then curves around the Matterhorn Bobsleds, giving a view of Fantasyland, then turns left to reenter the Tomorrowland Station.
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is an attraction located in the Tomorrowland area of Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, which opened on June 11, 2007. Based on the characters and settings of the 2003 Disney•Pixar film, Finding Nemo, it is a re-theming of the classic Submarine Voyage attraction that operated from 1959 to 1998.
At the attraction’s entrance, guests enter the institute of Nautical Exploration and Marine Observation (NEMO). As the journey continues, guests see a giant sea bass swimming through a seaweed forest. The submarines then enter the ruins of an ancient civilization, which are being explored by the dentist scuba diver P. Sherman. Among the ruins lies a gigantic tiki head, embedded in the ocean floor. The subs then enter a coral reef with many bright reflective colors. Giant clams slowly open and close as the submarines pass. The captain commands the sub to dive much deeper to avoid a surface storm ahead.
At this point the submarine travels through a waterfall and enters the hidden ride building, where guests find themselves apparently moving through underwater caverns. The sub passes through a dark cavern where huge eels lunge toward the submarine, and lobsters can be seen as well. The sub passes Marlin, a clownfish, and Dory, a regal blue tang, as they discover that Nemo has gotten lost again. Farther along the reef, guests encounter Mr. Ray and his class swimming through the coral looking for Nemo as well. The first mate announces that the sub is approaching the East Australian Current, and the submarine enters the current along with Nemo, Squirt, Crush and other green sea turtles.
The sub then exits the current and enters a graveyard of sunken ships, Jacques, a cleaner shrimp can be seen nearby while Marlin and Dory continue their search for Nemo. Bruce, a great white shark, and Chum, a mako shark, swim inside a sunken submarine surrounded by World War II mines. (Anchor, a hammerhead shark is not included in the ride.) The submarine “hits” a mine, causing the mine to explode, resulting in the sub shaking and temporarily losing power. As the sub goes dark, Marlin and Dory are surrounded by small glowing lights, which turn out to be phosphorescent lights on several huge deep-sea anglerfish. After Marlin and Dory escape the creatures, they make their way through a forest of jellyfish.
The submarine reaches the active deep-sea volcano. Gill, a moorish idol, Bloat, a pufferfish, Gurgle, a royal gramma, Bubbles, a yellow tang and Squirt chant as lava flows down the volcano’s sides, while Marlin and Dory finally reunite with Nemo. (Deb, a four stripe damselfish is not included in the ride.) The volcano erupts just as the sub escapes and returns to the reef. The fish gather around and celebrate finding Nemo once again. Suddenly, a pod of humpback whales appears, and one of them swallows both Dory and the submarine. Dory swims about trying to understand the whale’s vocalizations. After a few moments, the whale shoots the submarine and Dory out through its blowhole. Dory then mistakes the sub for a “big yellow whale” and speaks whale; saying goodbye.
The captain tells the first mate not to enter anything that has happened in the ship’s log because “nobody would believe it anyway.” He then says, “We’d better take her up before we have a run-in with a sea serpent or an encounter with a mermaid” (references to the original attraction, which included mermaids and a sea serpent). Two rock formations can be seen, one shaped like a sea serpent’s head, and the other shaped like a mermaid. The sub then surfaces and reenters the harbor, where a pair of king crabs snap at air bubbles coming from a sewage pipe. An instrumental version of “Beyond the Sea” plays as the submarine docks and the captain thanks the passengers for riding.
Space Mountain
Space Mountain is an outer space-themed, indoor roller coaster in Tomorrowland located at Walt Disney theme park. Walt Disney originally conceived the idea of a space-themed roller coaster for Disneyland following the success of Matterhorn Bobsleds in 1959. However, technological limitations and planning for Walt Disney World led to the project’s postponement in the late 1960s.
Visitors board the trains in the Starport: Seven Five, which is enclosed within the mountain itself. As the rockets leave the loading station, they make a 180 degree turn past the loading area, the queue, and the Mission Control booth, and come to a stop at a holding brake, where they wait for the train in front to clear the block on the lift hill.
After a few seconds, the holding brake is released and the trains roll down a drop into a strobe tunnel of pulsating blue lights, which flash at a gradually increasing frequency as the train progresses down the tunnel. A repetitive warping sound signifies an energy charge as the riders roll towards a blue orb. At the far end of the tunnel, a field of stars appears as the blue strobe lights turn off. The train then makes a 180 degree turnaround and climbs the lift hill. During the turn, the on-ride photo is taken.
The lift hill is designed in the form of a launch bay and contains a large, narrow spaceship which was based on the Discovery One spaceship from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Full size figures of astronauts are suspended upside-down beneath the ships engines to give the illusion of zero-gravity.
As trains climb up the lift hill, projections of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, stars, comets, meteors, asteroids and the Milky Way can be seen when looking past the lift hill bay’s open ceiling. It is possible to make out trains climbing the lift hill on the other side and also rockets passing through on the side, as well as the trains of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover passing between the two tracks.
Once at the top, the trains then make a small and quick dip before plunging into numerous twists and turns as they travel around the mountain in near-complete darkness, including the coaster tracks’ steepest drop of 39 degrees. The ride ends with the trains passing through a red swirling wormhole, before hitting the final brake run and entering the unload station, located underneath the loading station. After unloading, trains then travel around a short turn and climb a short lift hill to return empty to the loading station.
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue is an attraction located at Disneyland, set in the Star Wars universe, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue takes passengers on a turbulent trip across the galaxy, as droids C-3PO and R2-D2 attempt to safely return a spy to the Rebel Alliance. The Adventures Continue features locations and characters from Episode I – The Phantom Menace through Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.
Television monitors show C-3PO, who has been assigned to maintenance on the StarSpeeder 1000 that guests are about to board, inadvertently getting trapped in the cockpit after the ship’s captain leaves. Following this, Aly San San presents safety instructions to the guests. Once the doors to the StarSpeeder 1000 open, guests enter one of several ride simulators.
The ride sequence is randomized; guests riding Star Tours will experience four out of 21 different segments during each journey. This gives Star Tours the advantage of being both highly repeatable and constantly surprising. Even though guests can experience different journeys, the main priority is always delivering a “Rebel spy” to safety. The “rebel spy” is chosen from the guests on the ride vehicle and whose photo is displayed to all the riders, with the dialogue in the ride accommodating to their sex or gender identity.
There are 21 random segments of the film: four opening segments, five primary destination segments, seven hologram message segments, and five ending destination segments. Combined, they allow for 700 different possible ride experiences. Locations and characters from the original and prequel trilogy do not mix with those from the sequel trilogy.
Alien Pizza Planet
Alien Pizza Planet is a restaurant located in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California in the United States It is known for its Chicken Fusilli. It is across from the Starcade, and directly underneath Space Mountain. During Pixar Fest, it was updated to be Alien’s Pizza Planet.
The restaurant uses counter service and features an Italian cuisine. The counter service is divided into three parts, mainly the Pizza Station which serves pizza, the Pasta Station which serves pasta, and the Salad Station which serves salad. Guests also have a choice to sit outdoors in front of the restaurant, indoor seating in front of the counters, outdoor seating located outside the back door of the restaurant, or even underneath the queue line of Space Mountain.
Tomorrowland Terrace
Tomorrowland Terrace is a restaurant located in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, California that is notable for its unique concert stage, which hydraulically rises out of the ground. The restaurant was sponsored by Coca-Cola from its opening in 1967 until Tomorrowland was redesigned in 1998. The stage’s original large planters and space age spires were replaced with a retro-futuristic design to match the Jules Verne-like design of the new Tomorrowland.
In 2000, Tomorrowland Terrace was renamed Club Buzz, as it started hosted a show called “Calling All Space Scouts: A Buzz Lightyear Adventure.” The 1998 designs were replaced with a Buzz Lightyear theme. In 2006, the stage was redesigned again, and is an updated version of the original 1967 design, with large bowl-shaped planters and tall spires, with colors of white, silver, and blue, going with the Tomorrowland and Space Mountain theme. The restaurant and stage reverted to the original name; Tomorrowland Terrace.
It currently hosts the Jedi Training Academy, where children between the ages of 4 and 12 are randomly chosen to participate in the show to become Jedi padawan.
Disneyland
The Disneyland Park, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955. It is the only theme park designed and built to completion under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the only attraction on the property; its official name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s. It was the first Disney theme park.
Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone expansions and major renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now Critter Country) in 1972, Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019. Opened in 2001, Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneyland’s original parking lot.
Disneyland Park consists of nine themed “lands” and a number of concealed backstage areas, and occupies over 100 acres. The park opened with Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, and has since added New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now known as Critter Country) in 1972, and Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.