There’s a lot of history here. Disneyland’s original Submarine Voyage was a Walt-era classic attraction. And in its day, it was really something special. Guests traveled underwater into “liquid space” venturing deep into the ocean, ultimately encountering mermaids, and even sea serpents. The ride became synonymous with the California park, and even inspired a replica in Florida. However, as time went by, this attraction quickly became expensive, unpopular, and a little bit dated. For a while, it closed completely. After a few failed attempts to plug the “IP of the day” into the shuttered attraction – Disney even went so far as to post a banner indicating that an Atlantis-themed overlay was inevitable – the Subs “resurfaced” in 2007 as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It seemed like a logical fit, if there needed to be one. And the tech was at first impressive, as projection screens were overlaid and integrated within the underwater landscape. The story is fairly simple: Nemo is lost – again – and it’s time to find him – again. And while familiar, the ride journeys into some exciting places – including encounters with jellyfish, anglerfish, and ultimately even being swallowed by a whale. It’s clear how this adventure is going to end, but it’s a harmless and family-friendly adventure. Unfortunately, once again, time has not been friendly to the Subs, and what felt so fresh a couple of decades ago now seems quite stale. The integrated scenes don’t look as convincing, the attraction is slow and lacks variety, and anyone who has seen the movie isn’t going to find much new here in terms of story or show scenes. And the vehicles themselves, while interesting, have always been a problem: they are cramped, uncomfortable, and quite stuffy. By the end of the journey it’s more of a relief to get out of the vessel than anything else. Kids of course still love to see Nemo and his friends, but for the masses this attraction is probably best poised to meet its end like its Florida cousin did long ago. It’s dated, takes up an enormous footprint, and is no doubt costly and time consuming to operate and maintain. All of this results in Disneyland’s Finding Nemo dark ride attraction being at the bottom of our list.

The Seas pavilion in Epcot is brilliant. Here is one of the largest aquariums in the world – for quite some time it was the largest – where marine life of all kinds swim above, below and around guests. The interactive exhibits and viewing areas within the pavilion can consume hours of time. Turtle Talk with Crush is a fun experience, and Coral Reef Restaurant is fantastic, with fine dining alongside the aquarium itself. That brings us to the attraction. Originally a journey on a “Seacab” Omnimover vehicle through The Living Seas, this underwater exploration of ocean life was an opening day attraction at Epcot, and traveled through different show scenes, including the giant aquarium itself. It was an ambitious undertaking, to say the least. While popular in Epcot Center’s early days of Edutainment, as time went by the attraction drew fewer and fewer guests. And of course, with the Finding Nemo film a smash success and a logical tie-in, in 2007 the ride was given the Nemo treatment and overlay, borrowing much of the scenes and dialogue directly from the Disneyland version. Here, however, the vehicles remained of the comfortable Omnimover variety – though rethemed to better fit the Nemo motif. The ride, like Disneyland’s, loosely follows the concept of Nemo-gone-missing, and ultimately wraps things up nicely as he is “found” again at the ride’s finale as the vehicles pass by the giant aquarium. Here is where things really take off, as both animated and real sea creatures are integrated together, all while an original song from the Finding Nemo musical In the Big Blue World is sung by the film’s characters. It’s an inspiring tribute to the sea, and after watching cartoon characters for 10 minutes, the views of real ocean life spark an even more impressive sense of wonder as the sea creatures pass by so closely to the riders. It all blends together very well to provide a fantastic finale to an otherwise predictable ride. So while the Omnimover vehicles are certainly less ambitious than the actual submarines found in its California counterpart, The Seas with Nemo and Friends is a wonderful balance of old and new; animated and real-life. And it results in Epcot having the best Finding Nemo themed dark ride in the world.