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YMMV / Disney Theme Parks

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  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • Some people complained that Jack Sparrow wasn't in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, not realizing that the movie was based on the ride instead of the other way around. To appease them, Disney put Sparrow in the ride, along with Barbossa (replacing Paul Frees' iconic pirate captain), the image of Davy Jones and snippets of Klaus Badelt's movie score. Reactions from longtime fans of the ride were... mixed, to the extent that Davy Jones disappeared from the Disneyland ride in 2018.
    • The original version of Splash Mountain is probably much better known by now than Song of the South, and that's just the way Disney wants it to be, due to the film it's based on largely being suppressed as much as Disney possibly can. Many too young to remember the film when it was in wider circulation aren't aware it's not an original IP (or simply based on the original Uncle Remus stories).
    • People confusing Walt Disney World for Disneyland as Walt Disney's first theme park. Assumptions that Magic Kingdom and Disneyland are identical have led to some cast members having to deal with guests irate that the Indiana Jones Adventure is nowhere to be found in Florida.
    • More people are familiar with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at this point than the animated version of The Wind in the Willows (from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad) that the character was taken from.
  • Alas, Poor Scrappy:
    • While the majority of Walt Disney World fans were happy that Duffy stopped meeting at Epcot, he still has fans who are upset that he no longer meets guests in the American parks.
    • A similar reaction was given to Stitch's Great Escape! upon its closure, given that it was a long-running ride and it had built up a surprising fanbase of parkgoers who enjoyed it for what it was, either detached from or unaware of Alien Encounter. That, and Stitch remains one of Disney's most popular and merchandised characters.
    • You can expect this reaction any time a long-standing but poorly attended attraction is removed, especially if its exterior had a distinctive appearance—people may not have liked it enough to actually stand in line for it, but they still liked seeing it there, as part of the whole.
    • While the replacement of the Disney Enchantment fireworks show with its more popular predecessor Happily Ever After was met with much excitement, there is a decent vocal minority of fans who admit that they're gonna miss seeing it.
  • Alternate Story Interpretation:
    • In Pirates of the Caribbean, the old man in the bayou is reminiscing about the days of pirates, which is why it goes from the bayou to skeletons to real pirates.
    • The current incarnation of Journey into Imagination is a metaplot where Figment's antics are actually him taking revenge on Dr. Channing for replacing the original ride with Journey into YOUR Imagination.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: Duffy the Disney Bear is massively popular at Tokyo Disney Resort, where he was first introduced; when he was brought over the American parks, however, he became The Scrappy among Americans, with many accusing him of being a Creator's Pet who is nothing more than a mere cash grab. While Duffy continues to be a mainstay in Japan and the other international parks to this day, he would be quietly retired from the American parks after a few years, though Disney in the States has not quite given up on him, as he will be featured in a reboot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: Disneyland was initially derided by critics early on, as the Burbank City Council would reject the plans (causing the park's move to Anaheim) due to a desire to not have a "carnival" in their city and was frequently described as "Walt's Folly" in Hollywood while he was building it and later "Walt's Nightmare" in the press after a disastrous opening day. While the park did struggle in its first few years of operation, by the late 1950s and 60s, it has become one of the most successful theme parks in America.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: While the Disney Parks are meant to be be aimed at everyone, their inherent association with the family-friendly Disney brand, combined with most of the rides being aimed at families and children, has caused the parks to become viewed as places that only young children (and maybe their parents/guardians) can enjoy and no one else, despite Disney's efforts to combat this by adding in activities and rides specifically aimed at older audiences (particularly in the '80s and '90s). As an unfortunate side-effect of this, many teen and adults who go to the parks without children are often stigmatized as immature manchildren.
  • Audience-Alienating Era:
    • WED Enterprises had one shortly after the opening of Tokyo Disneyland, where the staff was greatly reduced by Ron Miller, resulting in mass layoffs around Christmas and development slowing to a crawl. Practically nothing that impactful was built in any of the parks until Michael Eisner kickstarted new developments a few years later.
    • Disneyland had one from the mid '90s-to-the-early 2000s under Paul Pressler and Cynthia Hariss. Under their direction, several classic attractions would be closed down and replaced by inferior replacements, new rides would consist of cheap, off-the shelf attractions, the upkeep budget was cut — leading rides to suffer from a lack of maintenance and general upkeep — and the park would place a greater emphasis on shopping and dining experiences, leading to unpopular trends like the inclusion of gift shops after exiting a ride. This is largely blamed on Pressler and Harris being more experienced in retail than in theme parks, and this era also wasn't helped by severe cost-cutting measures from then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner. This era ended when successor Matt Ouimet (former president of Disney Cruise Line) stepped in after Pressler and Harris left in 2002 and 2003, respectively, as he quickly turned things around and cleaned up the park greatly in time for its 50h anniversary.
    • Speaking of the late '90s/early '00s cost-cutting from Michael Esiner, Disneyland wasn't the only park suffering from it. After the disastrous opening of Disneyland Paris in 1992 and the cancellation of Disney's America plus Frank Wells' untimely passing in 1994, Eisner took a step back from the creative side of running the company and to say the parks suffered as a result would be an understatement. The ensuing budget cuts he put in place ended up affecting pretty much all of Disney's parks note  for the next decade. The disappointing execution of many new additions/replacements at the existing parks note  and the swift cancellation many other officially announced ambitious projects note  all being the direct result of these budget cuts. The three parks that were constructed during the later half of this period (California Adventure, Walt Disney Studios Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland) suffered the most from this trend and their disappointing reception upon opening directly caused Disney to spend more money than it cost to build them in the first place to fix them after Eisner was replaced with Bob Iger in 2006.
    • For a specific attraction, Walt Disney World had The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management, in which Iago and Zazu host a Totally Radical '90s-targeted Retool of The Enchanted Tiki Room. Fans and casual guests alike found the revamp insulting and pandering, to the point that in 2011, when one of the Iago figures became damaged in a fire, they decided to just bring the original show back instead later that year.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise:
    • Snow White's Enchanted Wish, Peter Pan's Flight, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Alice in Wonderland originally didn't have the title characters in them - the idea was that you were the heroes and that everything in the dark ride you saw was through their point of view. However this was changed because a lot of people were asking "Why doesn't the Snow White/Peter Pan/etc. ride have Snow White/Peter Pan/etc. in it?" It was one of the reasons why Disneyland's Fantasyland was overhauled in 1983; not only were the title protagonists added to their respective rides, but the overhaul added another ride called Pinocchio's Daring Journey, which had Pinocchio in it from the start. Since 1983, along the same lines, new dark rides have been created themed to such films as Winnie the Pooh or The Little Mermaid, and they, too, have always had their main protagonists (i.e., Pooh or Ariel) visibly present from the start. Snow White and Peter Pan rides in the other parks have also featured their title characters since their respective openings, with the one exception being the Disney World version of Snow White's Scary Adventures until its 1994 renovation.
    • This, combined with a severe lack of attractions, is widely agreed to be one of the major reasons for the catastrophic failure of Disney's California Adventure: even if the execution had been better, the very idea for the park was flawed from its inception, because no one wanted to visit a California-themed theme park located in the already California-themed California.
    • It is widely agreed by fans and critics that this is the reason why Journey into Imagination's second incarnation, Journey into YOUR Imagination, failed so horribly. Beyond the fact that the fan-favorite Figment and Dreamfinder are absent from the attraction (outside of Figment getting a couple of small cameos), the second version would shift away from the ride's original whimsical premise about the wonders of imagination in favor of a more scientific-oriented story starring the comparatively less charming Dr. Nigel Channing, who constantly talks down to the riders and treats them as if they're unimaginative idiots throughout the entire ride. In short, it failed to appeal to longtime fans by lacking the elements that made the original attraction so beloved, while also turning off more casual riders thanks to its sterile and condescending plot that had little to do with imagination, on top of Nigel Channing being far less likable or endearing compared to Dreamfinder and Figment (and far less marketable to boot). Due to the swift backlash it received, Disney would shut down the attraction only two years after its opening (making it one of the shortest lived attractions in the parks) and replace it with the third and current incarnation (which brings back a few elements from the original incarnation, such as Figment and One Little Spark), with the second incarnation quickly going down in infamy as one of Disney's worst ideas.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Base-Breaking Character: People are split on whether Rex from the first Star Tours was either incredibly annoying or genuinely entertaining. Opinion on him has generally softened over time, to the point that he reappears in Galaxy's Edge.
  • Broken Base: Has its own page here.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Most people know Epcot originally acted as a showcase of the future before its Network Decay. However, this is only partially true. While Epcot did showcase and celebrate the future, that is only one part of Epcot's original premise. Epcot — as its dedication plaque indicates◊ — was meant to celebrate human achievements as a whole, celebrating the past, the creativity of the human mind and what it can lead, the many cultures humanity has created, and the possibilities of what humans can do in the future. Not to mention Epcot has things like World Showcase, Journey into Imagination, and the Land Pavilion, which don't have much to do with the future. This misconception is likely thanks to the fact that the primary core of Epcot (and what most people tend to visit) was called "Future" World.note 
    • Everyone knows the original icon of Hollywood Studios before the Sorcerer's Hat was the Chinese Theatre replica. While it was the park's centerpiece and was present in plenty of marketing, the park's original icon was the Earffel Tower, which was a tall water tower with Mickey ears, not the Chinese Theatre. This misconception is understandable, given that unlike the other park icons and the Chinese Theatre, the Earffel Tower was not located in the center of the park but on the former site of the studio backlot tour (now the site of Toy Story Land), making it very easy to miss (plus, a water tower isn't quite as glamorous or photogenic as a giant theater is).note 
    • Everyone knows Disneyland is the only Disney park that Walt Disney was personally involved in, a factoid that even Disney likes to heavily promote in marketing, to where it is often dubbed "Walt's park" by some. However, this isn't entirely true. While Walt did build Disneyland and lived to see its completion, he was also involved with Walt Disney World/Magic Kingdom Park up until his death (though he was more focused on the unrealized EPCOT city than he was on Magic Kingdom), meaning, technically speaking, Magic Kingdom also qualifies as "Walt's park", much like Disneyland (albeit to a lesser extent), even if he never lived to see its completion.
    • Everyone knows Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Even Disney commemorates the date as the park's "official" opening. However, that is not entirely true. Although Disneyland did first technically open its gates on July 17, it was only open to invitees and the press as part of a private "International Press Preview" event.note  Disneyland would not be open publicly until July 18, 1955, a day later.
  • Creator's Pet: Duffy the Disney Bear. Imagine a character who isn't connected to any of the Disney Animated Canon and/or Pixar films. Hey, Figment, Agent P, and Captain Jack Sparrow are well liked, right? Well, the problem is, this character isn't from any of the rides, shows, or live-action movies. He exists solely to sell merchandise, and yet had more presence in the parks than darkhorses like Flynn Rider or Sora. This is mostly a result of Duffy being a beloved Cash-Cow Franchise in the Tokyo parks, with desperate efforts to recreate the success abroad without realizing the cultural differences.
  • Creepy Cute: The Spectromen from Walt Disney World's Spectromagic can come across as this due to their bizarre movements and behavior. However, they also act very happy, energetic, and cute around certain guests such as the Trumpet Spectromen blowing a kiss to the guests when they finish their trumpet performance while most are heard singing.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The Hatbox Ghost in The Haunted Mansion. Despite not even being on the ride for nearly a half-century, the urban legend mystique surrounding him made him much-desired by fans. Ever since he was added on the ride in 2015, he remains wildly popular with fans despite his brief appearance on the ride proper, with him turning into an unofficial mascot of sorts for the ride.
    • Peter Pan's Flight is still quite popular. Guides will tell you that it fills up the quickest next to Space Mountain and Splash Mountain. What the guides don't tell you is the real reason it fills up so fast: not necessarily because it's popular, but because the ride isn't designed for such capacity. In November 2014, Disney decided to accommodate the long lines at Disney World's ride, by replacing the bathrooms next doornote  with an extended queue.
    • Alice in Wonderland over in Disneyland. In part because it's the only ride of its kind in the theme parks; it's not in Disney World, or the Asian or European parks.
    • ElecTRONica was supposed to be removed at summer's end after TRON: Legacy came out, but due to popularity its run was extended to summer of 2012. After this, it was rethemed to Mad T Party, another darkhorse which ran through 2016 (with a brief hiatus where it was rethemed to Frozen).
    • Dumbo the Flying Elephant, the little carnival-style hub-and-spoke ride that could, is the big ticket ride for preschoolers at the Magic Kingdom-style parks. Walt Disney World's New Fantasyland not only added a second Dumbo ride (as well as Fastpass) to handle demand, but built a whole subsection (Storybook Circus) around the two.
    • As far as retired attractions go, the ones that maintain the biggest popularity among Disney fans include Horizons and the original Journey into Imagination at Epcot, Adventure Thru Inner Space, Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland, and ESPECIALLY the PeopleMover at Disneyland, as well as The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Magic Kingdom. All of these attractions often rank right at the top of "What old attraction would you bring back?"-type polls.
    • Dreamfinder, from Journey into Imagination, is often idolized by the fans as a representation of the ride's original (and arguably most popular) incarnation. That Ron Schneider, the original voice actor and walk-around cast member to the character, is still passionate about his role and continues to write online about it only adds to the mystique. When Schneider was given an opportunity to reprise the role onstage at D23, his appearance sent the entire hall to its feet.
    • The Yeti from Expedition Everest. A technological marvel when he was first built, unforeseen technical difficultiesnote  mean that he hasn't actually been mobile in over a decade, and yet there are still many people who consider the "Disco Yeti" one of the best animatronics in any of the parks. Every month or so, someone excitedly posts on Twitter that "The Yeti is moving again!" Nope. Your eyes are deceiving you, but the animatronic is such a realistic-looking technical marvel that, even motionless under strobe lights, you can't help but feel like he's actually coming for you. That's the power of one well-placed strobe light.
    • S.I.R., the Tim Curry-voiced robot in the second version of the preshow for the long-dead ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, is generally well-liked among the fandom. So is the alien Skippy, who actually was popular enough to survive the transformation of Alien Encounter to Stitch's Great Escape!
    • Even though it was never built, the concept of Animal Kingdom's proposed land Beastly Kingdom has gained some popularity among fans, even with Pandora – The World of Avatar being built in the area where it was supposed to be.
    • Among the actual parks themselves, Tokyo DisneySea is considered to be, if not the best, then certainly the most underrated of the parks, due to its incredibly beautiful steampunk theming and a higher proportion of attractions with original stories (rather than licensed IPs) than any other park, which is always a hit with the fans.
    • The Recruiters of Disney Sea's "Villains Halloween" event are a fan favorite among Japanese parkgoers, especially Eight-foot Joe and Marfie.
  • Epileptic Trees: This fansite for Snow White's Scary Adventures raises the possibility that the ride, or at least its Disneyland and Disneyland Paris incarnations, takes place mostly in Snow White's nightmares.
  • Even Better Sequel:
    • Disneyland's port of Magic Kingdom's Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, named Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, was lauded for fixing what many see as the principal problem of the original - namely, in Astro Blasters, the guns are no longer mounted to the ride vehicle, making targeting much easier.
    • For those who prefer a smoother ride experience, Disneyland's Space Mountain is this to the original WDW version, which is a much more violent coaster. The soundtrack of Disneyland's version is also well received, so much so that it later became featured at the exit of Magic Kingdom's version.note  Disneyland Paris' De la Terre à la Lune variant (sadly discontinued) was also widely acclaimed for its heavy incorporation of Jules Verne theming.
    • While it lacks the The Twilight Zone (1959) theming of its counterparts, Tokyo DisneySea's version of the Tower of Terror has been applauded for its exterior design and original story, even including An Aesop that wouldn't feel out of place in The Twilight Zone itself.
  • Evil Is Cool: The classic villains tend to get almost as much attention as their more heroic counterparts, if not more.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • On fan forums, Disney's Hollywood Studios tends to be referred to as "The Park Formerly Known As Disney-MGM Studios", or "TPFKAD-MGMS" as a gag of sorts. More likely, however, fans will refer to the park as either "MGM Studios" or just "MGM", although at least some fans will call the park "The Studios".
    • Bucky, the original fire-breathing dragon in Fantasmic!. The updated model after Bucky is officially code-named Snaps McGee, but it's also known under its Fan Nickname of Murphy - a reference to the many problems it experienced when it was first unveiled. Both are pretty cutesy names for something that can spit a plume of fire 20 feet long.
    • The perpetually inoperative animatronic Yeti in Expedition Everest, complete with flashing strobe lights to give the illusion of movement, has been nicknamed "Disco Yeti".
    • The Abominable Snowman in Disneyland's Matterhorn is referred to as "Harold", both by guests and cast members.
    • The PeopleMover was nicknamed the People Remover by Jungle Cruise skippers due to the actions of a few guests.
      • By that same virtue, guests with weaker stomachs referred to the Pixar Pal-Around as the "Puke Wheel" when it was the Sun Wheel, and as "Mickey's Puke Wheel" when it was Mickey's Fun Wheel. This is in reference to the cars that swing.
    • When Fantasmic at Disneyland was updated in 2009, the dragon that Maleficent turns into had so many technical problems at first that the fans dubbed the dragon Murphy (as in "Murphy's Law"). In the same update, Flotsam and Jetsam were added to Ursula's segment, silently slithering through the water. Since both are animatronics mounted on Seadoos, they were nicknamed "Flotsam and Jetski" (sadly, both were removed from the show a few years later, suffering the same fate as the 20-foot tall Ursula animatronic that was used in the first few years of the show).
    • Longtime visitors usually refer to rides by simpler names. For example:
      • Pirates of the Caribbean as "Pirates".
      • Haunted Mansion as "Mansion".
      • Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage as "Nemo" or "the subs".
      • Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye as "Indy".
      • Mad Tea Party as "the teacups".
      • Space Mountain as "Space".
      • Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as "Big Thunder".
      • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as "Pooh".
      • California Screamin' was usually called "Screamin'".
      • Twilight Zone Tower of Terror as "ToT" or "Tower".
      • All of the Buzz Lightyear attractions as "Buzz".
      • Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover as simply "the PeopleMover" like its defunct Disneyland counterpart. Disney themselves would simplify it to "PeopleMover" in 2022.
      • Both of The Little Mermaid attractions as "Mermaid".
      • The Ratatouille-based ride at Walt Disney Studios Park and Epcot is usually just called "the rat".
    • Spaceship Earth tends to be referred to as a "Giant Golf Ball" by many parkgoers, due to well…looking like a giant golf ball. Even the Pal Mickey plushes referred to it as a "huge golf ball".
    • Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World is often called "Pop Half-Century Resort" by fans, since the planned other half of the resort, the "Legendary Years" section, would be scrapped and left abandoned on the property (until it was transformed into Disney's Art of Animation resort in 2012) due to the tourism crisis caused by the 9/11 attacks.
    • The reviled parade Light Magic got the nicknames of "Lite Magic" (for its cheap production values) and "Light Tragic" (for its disastrous previews and for being an overall unworthy successor to the Main Street Electrical Parade).
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
    • Even though it was deemed to be too impossible, a good number of fans wish Epcot had been the city that Walt originally envisioned as opposed to the theme park it ultimately became.
    • Many fans adore the concept of Beastly Kingdom (a scrapped land for Animal Kingdom that would've focused on mythological animals) and wish that Disney would realize the land over using its space for Pandora – The World of Avatar. Especially since much of the park's signage and logo still contains a dragon.
    • It is generally agreed that WestCOT (a Disneyland equivalent to Walt Disney World's Epcot) would've been a far better second gate than the one that ultimately opened, Disney California Adventure.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
    • Whatever you do, don't mix up Disneyland and Walt Disney World (or more specifically, Disneyland Park and Magic Kingdom) unless you want angry Disney Park fans to come after you.
    • Unless you want to anger the many teenage and adult Disney fans who visit the parks, don't say they are just for children. While the parks are naturally family friendly, they don't have a set target demographic in mind and are meant to appeal to all ages, not just children specifically. In fact, there are plenty of things to do in the parks that are geared towards, if not aimed exclusively towards older visitors (such as the presence of bars in Epcot).
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • With the Universal Studios theme park fandom, depending on the situation and depending on the type of fan. Intensified after Disney's acquisition of Marvel, whose theme park rights on the East Coast are largely licensed to Universal, hindering the potential for Marvel- or MCU-based attractions in Walt Disney World.
    • There's also an inner rivalry between fans of Disneyland and fans of Walt Disney World. Particularly over which of the two resorts is better and which one has the better attractions and things to do.
    • A much bitter rivalry between Disneyland and Walt Disney World fans is over which electrical parade is better (Spectromagic vs Main Street Electrical Parade, or Spectromagic vs Main Street Electrical Parade vs Paint the Night) beginning in the early 2010s which can get heated at times. While Walt Disney World fans relationship with the Main Street Electrical Parade wasn't always better, the introduction of Spectromagic in 1991 to coincide with the resort's 20th Anniversary has made WDW visitors become a bit indifferent with the Main Street Electrical Parade. However, when the Main Street Electrical Parade was announced to temporarily run at WDW's Magic Kingdom (later running until 2016 to move back to Disneyland). A majority of Spectromagic's floats were left to rot outside the Florida sun resulting with Walt Disney World's only exclusive electrical parade to become unrepairable (alongside one of the Pleasure Island float's to get badly damaged during it's road back to California). As a result, Disney World fans have become very bitter over MSEP's extended stay knowing Spectromagic was planned to get a major refurbishment and hoping the resort might someday get a new electrical parade of it's own. As for Paint the Night, WDW fans would quickly shoot down any suggestions on that parade to ever run on the same street as Spectromagic once did.
  • Fanon Discontinuity:
    • There never was a replacement for Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade called Light Magic that involved Celtic remixes of Disney songs and stepdancing characters.
    • Nor was there a replacement for Journey into Imagination that removed Dreamfinder, reduced Figment to a cameo and insulted the guests' intelligence right at the beginning of the ride.
    • To hardcore old-school Disneyland fans, there never was a second theme park honoring California, or an entire nighttime entertainment district — or even a third hotel.
    • For nostalgic fans who actually liked said California-themed park, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was never converted into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride, Soarin' never had its original Over California film replaced with Around the Worldnote  and Paradise Pier was never converted into Pixar Pier.
  • First Installment Wins:
    • Within the domestic parks, there has been a tendency for unique elements of some of Walt Disney World's versions of iconic attractions to be chipped away in favor of maintaining consistency with their original Disneyland counterparts.
    • As noted below under I Am Not Shazam, there is a tendency for people to think that "Walt Disney World" and "Magic Kingdom" are one and the same, as for 11 years it was the only park on the property. It is still far and away the most popular park on the property, and actually in the entire world.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • Again, with Universal Studios. There are Universal parks near both Disneyland and Walt Disney World and it's common for tourists to make time for both in their vacations. While theme park nerds might prefer one over the other, it's generally acknowledged that they're both good parks.
    • In Europe, Disney fans (mainly from Disneyland Paris) get along extremely well with fans of Efteling located in The Netherlands. Mainly due to a majority of tourists who visit Disneyland Paris are from The Netherlands and Belgium. There was even a popular dutch urban legend that Walt once visited Efteling sometime in the 1950s as inspiration for the construction of Disneyland.
  • Genius Bonus: At the boarding station for Dinosaur, there are 3 tubes with different chemical formulas written on them. The chemicals actually do make very real, very common mixtures. Even the pipes are color-coded as a clue. The white pipe is carrying Glycine Soja, Ovae, CH3COOH, H2O, NaCl, C6H12O6, and Citrus Limon note , the red is carrying Lycopersicon Lycopericum, C6H12O6, CH3COOH, C6H12O6n, NaCl, and Allium Cepanote , and yellow is carrying CH3COOH, H2O, Brassica Juncea, NaCl, Curcuma Longa, and Allium Sativum note . Those with enough chemistry knowledge to decipher the formulae, enough botanical knowledge to identify the plant names, and enough background in cooking to recognize the ingredient lists will be able to identify the substances running through the white, yellow, and red pipelines: mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup respectively. This detail is a remnant from when McDonald's used to sponsor the attraction.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • Disney in general is very popular in Japan. Even Tokyo Disneyland, the first park to open overseas, was done in the style of the American parks (combining the best aspects of the two), compared to the massive changes made to Disneyland Paris a decade later. Disneyland and Walt Disney World in the US still receive a massive amount of Japanese tourists, who treat the American parks as a sort of "Mecca". When Dave Barry went to Tokyo Disneyland, he was amazed at this. Why would the Japanese feel nostalgic about The Gay '90s version of small town America?
    • Marie from The Aristocats and Clarice from Two Chips and a Miss are not only very common meetable characters at Tokyo Disney Resort. But so popular that both characters are very frequent in a majority of Tokyo Disneyland's seasonal and regular parades (such as the former Easter/Spring-theme parades Disney's Easter Wonderland, Hippity-Hoppity Springtime Parade, and Usatama on the Run!). The same extends to Miss Bunny (Thumper's Love Interest) and Thumper from Bambi who are also popular at Tokyo Disneyland alongside Panchito Pistoles and José Carioca. Even Max Goof has become prominent at Tokyo Disneyland compared to the other Disney Parks across the globe in recent years◊. Disneyland Paris gives similar treatment to Marie, Clarice, Thumper, and Miss Bunny where all 4 characters are very common at the Disneyland Paris Resort.
    • On the flip side, Tokyo DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort is adored by western park fans, with many of them considering it to be one of, if not the best theme park Disney has ever crafted, due to the insanely immaculate and immersive theming that arguably outdoes Disney's past parks. It has gotten to where some western park fans recommend visiting Tokyo Disney Resort just for Tokyo DisneySea.
    • Disneyland Paris is full of Spanish guests, with many people wondering why the park wasn't built in Spain insteadnote .
  • Glurge: The overt cloying sentimentality of the Disney parks makes you try to forget the fact that they really want your money more than anything. On the other hand, this is one of the greatest aspects of the park – just going there will put a good smile on your face ASAP and stop any unhappiness from that point onward.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • Disneyland itself wasn't very successful early on, as its opening day was a notoriously disastrous affair and failed to make a profit for most of the 50s (often closing seasonally or during rainy days in order to keep the park financially afloat). Things would begin to turn around for the park starting in 1959 however and the year would mark what would be considered a decade-long growing of the park's beard, as the park would receive several of its most iconic attractions during 1959 and throughout the 60s, such as The Matterhorn Bobsleds, Autopia Submarine Voyage, It's a Small World, Haunted Mansion, etc, which, on top of many renovations made to the existing rides and the closure of more unpopular attractions, would see the park transform from a semi-successful regional attraction into the widely beloved and iconic Disney park it is today.
    • In its early years, many fans considered California Adventure a mediocre, generic park with only a couple of good attractions. This changed with the creation of Toy Story Midway Mania, which marked the end of the park's adherence to its California theme and the introduction of more Disney-themed attractions.
    • When it first opened, Dinosaur, formerly Countdown to Extinction, was Animal Kingdom's only E-Ticket attraction (and even that was a Palette Swap of the Indiana Jones ride from California), which led to the park's reputation as a half-day park primarily notable for the presence of zoo animals. All that changed in 2007 with the opening of Expedition Everest, which set an immediate gold standard for intensity, theming, and originality in roller coasters and immediately established the park as a place for thrill-seekers as well as nature fans.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • In Walt Disney's famous E.P.C.O.T. video, when introducing his plans for his original vision of E.P.C.O.T., he stated that "It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed". While Walt meant it in the sense that it will continue growing, akin to Disneyland, the line would turn out to be true in a less fortunate sense, as Disney would scrap the whole thing shortly after Walt's death in favor of making Epcot Center instead.
    • The short-lived Rocket Rods had the slogan "Ride the road to tomorrow." Neither the ride nor the road were indicative of an optimistic "tomorrow": the former was shuttered only two years after its opening day, while the latter - previously the framework of the Peoplemover - was left unused thereafter, left in an ongoing state of decay.
    • The Jungle Cruise originally had a line warning parents to "Watch your children, or the crocodiles will." In 2016, an alligator in the waters of Disney World killed a two-year-old. Obviously, Disney removed the line from the Jungle Cruise immediately after the fact.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Disneyland was originally designed to stand out from other common amusement parks at the time, namely boardwalk amusement parks. Fast-forward 50 or so years later: California Adventure's Paradise Pier was designed to bring back the feel of those boardwalk amusement parks now that they're pretty much extinct, and more people are familiar with Disneyland/Six Flags-style parks.
    • Disney originally considered building Walt Disney World on a site near the intersection of Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike, but ultimately deemed it too small. What eventually ended up being built on this site? Universal Orlando Resort. Indeed, the resort ran into space issues when expanding, leading to additional parks being built on separate plots.
    • You know how the grandmother at the modern day/future segment of Carousel of Progress is wearing a virtual reality headset? When that was first implemented, it was (and still is) a cool idea, but didn't seem feasible at that time, especially after the failed virtual reality fad of The '90s. Come The New '10s, we now have the Oculus Rift. Now if only Disney could update that old VR simulation with one that has better graphics and get grandma to put on a Rift headset.
    • Arguably Harsher In Hindsight; the reason Pirates of the Caribbean originally wasn't ported to Magic Kingdom was that Disney felt Floridians wouldn't find a pirate-themed attraction to be very novel, given the proximity to the titular location. Fan demand for the attraction (possibly related to the fact that a lot of the park's guests weren't native Floridians) led to the company quickly adding a Pirates to Magic Kingdom's Adventureland. Apparently, the company took the lessons from the experience too deeply to heart, as they later designed Disneyland's second-gate park as a tribute to California within California. This was met with exactly the negative reaction they had feared would greet a Pirates ride in Florida and took years to be converted into a popular park.
    • For an idea that would later come to Florida after Walt originally envisioned it: a central tower surrounded by two layers of communities, one on top and one below, divided into sections each dedicated to a different business or research facility. Are we talking about the original Epcot concept or Midgar?
    • Tokyo DisneySea introducing Younger and Hipper counterparts to the villains becomes this when Disney Channel put out their own take on the concept the same year. Granted, one is a group of their subordinates while the other is a group of their kids, but their interactions are remarkably similar.
    • When the Avatar-themed section of Animal Kingdom was announced, people complained about a non-Disney property being a major component of a park. Fast-forward to March 2019, and Disney bought Fox, making Avatar a Disney film.
    • Soarin' Around the World wouldn't be the last time Bruce Broughton would be, well, brought in to compose a soundalike to an iconic Jerry Goldsmith theme.
  • I Am Not Shazam:
    • Because Magic Kingdom at Disney World was the only park there for 11 years (and likely due to its many similarities to Disneyland), many people refer to Magic Kingdom itself as Disney World even after the other parks started opening, as in "We went to Disney World and Epcot." The Simpsons treated the two as separate entities with an Epcot parody in the episode "Special Edna" (ironically, most of the rides parodied are actually from Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland). Even Disney itself did this occasionally, with the 1988 soundtrack album being titled "The Music of Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Epcot Center" and divided into two sections, "From Disneyland and Walt Disney World" and "From Epcot Center". Also a case of First Installment Wins.
    • Something similar happens in Europe with Disneyland Paris, with many people still calling it Euro Disneyland. The resort changed its name in 1994.
  • I Knew It!: Given that Disney's attitude towards Song of the South since the late '80s has been to bury and not acknowledge the film (due to its controversial racial elements), no one was surprised by the company's decision to close down Splash Mountain, and many fans had predicted it for years before Disney officially announced its shutdown in 2020. Some fans had also predicted that the ride would be replaced by a ride based on The Princess and the Frog due to the ride's close proximity to New Orleans Square (which is based on New Orleans, the setting of The Princess and the Frog) in Disneyland Park.
  • It's the Same, So It Sucks:
    • A frequent complaint from Southern California residents about Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom is that it's almost exactly the same as their local Disneyland. This may very well be the point, as both sides of the United States can partake in the same experience in their respective places. The real incentive for a SoCal resident to visit Walt Disney World would be to visit the additional theme parks in the area, which, when combined, make the California Disney Resort look humble by comparison.
    • Conversely, Floridians visiting Disneyland for the first time tend to brush it off as a smaller-scale copy of the Magic Kingdom, especially comparing the diminutive 55-foot Sleeping Beauty Castle to the 189-foot Cinderella Castle. Of course, directly to the right of the castle is the towering Matterhorn, which should tip off that Disneyland has its own unique flair compared to its East Coast cousin. (Part of the appeal is also knowing that it's the only park Walt Disney personally oversaw.)note  It does help, however, that both the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland have a few attractions that are exclusive to them as far as the North American resorts are concerned ("Seven Dwarves Mine Train", "Tron Lightcycle / Run", etc. for Magic Kingdom and "Indiana Jones Adventure", "The Matterhorn Bobsleds", etc. for Disneyland) and others that are similar in name, theme and story, but executed noticeably differently from their opposite coast counterparts like Space Mountain, giving West Coast and East Coast residents some incentive to visit their respective opposite coast's main park.
    • Many Marvel comics fans ended up groaning when it was revealed that Avengers C.A.M.P.U.S. would be themed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seeing it as another case of Disney prioritizing the MCU over the Marvel comics and aggressively pushing the MCU and its imagery onto every project related to Marvel.
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
    • A common joke made amongst some is that Walt Disney World is the only reason to go visit Florida, indicating it has nothing else to offer otherwise. While this is obviously exaggerated for the sake of humor, there is a grain of truth to the statement, as many tourists do tend to visit Orlando, Florida purely for Walt Disney World, to where much of Orlando (and by extension, Florida)'s tourist industry is heavily driven by Disney. This has decreased over time thanks to Universal Studios and SeaWorld, who both brought extra competition with them, but to this day, many do continue to go to Orlando primarily for Disney. Likewise, many tend to only go to Anaheim, California for Disneyland.
    • When it comes to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disney Resort and Disneyland Paris, while they often have at least one other park (and in Walt Disney World's case, multiple parks), a good chunk of visitors tend to primarily go for the Disneyland/Magic Kingdom parks, with the other parks typically being less of a priority.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • They're going to add a loop!note 
    • DIDNEY WORL Explanation
    • The WDWMagic community has The Ladder, whose presence at any construction site is a good sign for the upcoming attraction or, in its initial appearance during Mission: SPACE's construction, being the epic ride itself.
    • The phrase "The moon will always be with us", referring to Nigel Channing's appearance as a singing moon at the end of Journey Into Imagination with Figment, became very popular amongst this community after the user "[insert name here]" said it on a thread where someone complained about the ride's current state. This phrase also spawned a meme where people would use the image of said moon to react to people on the forums.
      • And when Epcot opened Space 220 restaurant in September 2021, which ostensibly is located on a space station 220 miles above Earth with "windows" providing panoramic views of the planet and the stars, guess what Twitter jokesters photoshopped into pictures of it?
    • "Remain seated please. Permanecer sentados por favor." Explanation
      • "Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas." Explanation
    • The angry reverb voice of doom on Disneyland's Peoplemover.
    • This gif of Gaston and the Villains dancing at Disneyland Paris has been going viral over Reddit and can be brought up when ever anything Gaston related is mentioned. Mostly referred to as "No one fucking brings it like Gaston."
    • The Alien Encounter pre-show, due to its use of Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable and general unsettlement.
    • Some clips of Mike Wazowski tripping, led to things like this.
    • Right after its unveiling, the Trump animatronic in the Hall of Presidents quickly went viral for its... questionable resemblance◊ to the man himself. Some people even joked that it was clearly a re-skinned Hillary Clinton animatronic that Disney had built clearly expecting her to win and then panicked when it didn't turn out that way. The animatronic being quietly redesigned for the Biden update only added more fuel to that theory.
    • "Walt Disney attending the opening of X (1955)", photoshops usually produced when an attraction is closing or some new controversial addition is announced or opening up.
    • Among Defunctland fans, treating Michael Eisner as a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis for poorly-thought-through business decisions like Euro Disneyland and California Adventure.
    • "Thanks Shanghai" note 
    • The July 2020 commercials showing masked employees prepping the Walt Disney World parks and hotels for visitors or welcoming back guests after four months of closures due to the COVID-19 Pandemic — despite the fact that the number and rate of infections were rising in Florida at the time — quickly were subjected to this, with the music for the former substituted with the music from The Shining in one particularly popular case.
    • Since November 2019, Bob Chapek's infamous quote "More Disney, More Relevant, More Timeless, and More Family" — referencing guest feedback that indicated IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth was unpopular with guests because it wasn't "Disney" enough. It's become a Madness Mantra in the Disney Parks community due to Disney deciding to put more focus on IPs from the Disney Animated Canon, Pixar, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Star Wars at Disneyland and especially Walt Disney World — Epcot in particular — as opposed to celebrating original characters and concepts.
    • On the topic of Bob Chapek, after he became the new CEO of The Walt Disney Company in early 2020 and the fan community was very unhappy with the news, on Disney forum sites (such as WDWMagic), this screenshot of Chapek taken from an interview for Galaxy's Edge has became a recurring reaction image whenever Disney decides to make questionable decisions on budgets and IPs at the Disney Parks — mostly in a mocking and sarcastic manner.
  • Misaimed Marketing:
  • Misblamed: It happens; many an Urban Legend around the park stated stuff that Walt did that he didn't have as much involvement in. Really minor and/or innocent examples. One common one was that Walt ran and owned the company named after him. Yes, he was the creative driving force, but no he wasn't the person running the company; that was actually Roy. You can read more on Snopes for the urban legend that he made a film telling his employees what to do after his death.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • Jack Wagner's monorail safety warning: Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas.
      • Before you even ask, they've even sold merchandise with that phrase on it. That's how popular it is.
    • "Fire Mr. Smee!"
    • The five Star Tours paging tones. And yes, there are some who use this sound as a text-tone.
    • The beeping sound before the monorail doors open.
    • The Spectromagic fanfare!
    • The very moment a nighttime spectacular starts up, whether it's Wishes, IllumiNations, any of the Hollywood Studios' Chinese Theatre shows, Happily Ever After.
    • Just hearing a sci-fi theremin or the uptempo "Unchained Melody" by Vito and the Salutations is enough to remind any avid Hollywood Studios attendee of the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater restaurant.
    • "It's a Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah... tip for today!" from the late Walt Disney World Tour Channel of The '90s and the early 2000s.
      • The "Livin' it up, love that feeling" song that they play on the Disney Resort Must-Dos program on your resort TV.
    • Hearing the steam train whistle anywhere within the Magic Kingdom's (or Disneyland Park's) vicinity, especially when you're at a nearby hotel.
    • The long crescendo into Fantasmic!
    • Just hearing at least a measure of the Soarin' music is enough to make anyone smile.
  • More Popular Replacement: When Hong Kong Disneyland intially opened, it featured an replica of Disneyland Park's Sleeping Beauty castle◊ (similar to how Tokyo Disneyland has a replica of Walt Disney World's Cinderella Castle), which was quickly derided by critics and parkgoers as being very lazy and a clear cost-cutting measure (it didn't help that it came off the heels of Disneyland Paris' Sleeping Beauty castle, which is widely considered to be one of the best castles Disney had crafted). The reception would get so bad that in 2020, Disney would go on to, for the first time in the history of the parks, redesign the castle from scratch, which would lead to its replacement, The Castle of Magical Dreams◊, which was immediately praised by most for being far bigger, grander and original compared to the former.
  • Narm Charm:
    • A lot of the rides/shows, combined with a healthy dose of Nostalgia Filter.
      Walt Disney: All right. I'm corny. But I think there's just about a hundred and forty million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.
    • "it's a small world". Little kids actually tend to like it. And not just them, either.
    • The Jungle Cruise became this when the animatronics did not age well, and they re-tooled the script to generally mock them.
  • Nausea Fuel: Body Wars was notorious for causing guests to vomit, to the point where ride operators were told to watch the riders closely and stop the ride if any of them showed signs of nauseousness. Despite using the same ride system, Star Tours doesn't have this issue, suggesting that Body Wars' ride film was the root of the issue — it involves entering the bloodstream and coming face-to-face with blood cells.
  • Newer Than They Think:
    • Given how iconic the Partners statue (the statue of Walt and Mickey in front of Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella Castle) is, many visitors might be surprised that it was actually a very recent addition to the parks, as it was first implemented in Disneyland in 1993, nearly 40 years after it opened.
    • While pins have been around from the beginning, the entire sub-culture of pin-trading, which for many, has become an iconic staple of the Disney experience, is a very recent introduction to the Disney parks, only getting introduced in 1999 as part of Epcot's Millennium Celebration.
  • Nightmare Fuel: At a kids' park? Buddy, you better believe it!!
  • Older Than They Think: The term "Imagineer" was first used by Alcoa as part of an "imagineering program" they held back in the 1940s, a decade before Disneyland's opening and two decades before Disney began using the term to refer to their theme park designers.
  • Once Original, Now Common:
    • Some of the attractions, especially the original ones in the California park, seem like boring stuff compared to other theme parks that came after and catered more on the thrill side, rather than immersive side. The park thrives a lot on the Nostalgia Filter as it isn't uncommon to see parents taking their kids to the parks and talking about how they went there when they were their age.
    • River Country, Disney's first water park and one of the first ever of its kind, was revolutionary when it first opened in Walt Disney World. Later on, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach proved to be far more sophisticated making River Country horribly dated in comparison and unable to keep up with the competition due to its small size. River Country closed at the end of the 2001 season just a week before 9/11; it never reopened following the downturn in business.
    • Whenever Disneyland revives their first fireworks show, 1958's Fantasy in the Sky, fans of newer, longer, more elaborate displays (such as 2005's Remember...Dreams Come True and 2015's Disneyland Forever) seem to dismiss it as quaint.
    • Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle, while undeniably stunning for its time, looks incredibly small, simple and unimpressive nowadays compared to the larger, detailed and more elaborate castles that would become the norm for later Disneyland parks starting with the Magic Kingdom's Cinderella Castle.
    • Tom Sawyer Island was very impressive for the time it was opened, being essentially a fully immersive mini-land in its own right. These days, its lack of any real rides, shops, or restaurants makes it little more than a curiosity to most guests; it also sticks out as one of the few Disney attractions themed to a public-domain property. Because of this, Disney has reportedly considered filling in the Florida version to expand Frontierland.
  • Opinion Myopia: A look at old editions of tour books like The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and its Disneyland counterpart reveal that certain rides that were controversially closed, replaced, or retooled — 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, The Enchanted Tiki Room, the original Journey into Imagination, etc. — weren't nearly as well-regarded by casual parkgoers as hardcore fans by the time they were shut down. From there, many people are just fine with their replacements and/or don't think of them as significantly worse. (Not to mention that people who never saw the originals may have naturally developed a fondness for their replacements.) Similarly, while hardcore fans are still lamenting the replacement of Maelstrom with Frozen Ever After the families who have flocked to the latter since its 2016 opening couldn't care less. Captain EO, a rare case of an older attraction brought back, got a lot of hype when it did so...but the crowds dwindled quickly because it was so clearly a 1980s relic, which is why it was replaced in the first place!
  • Pandering to the Base: Disney doesn't do a ton of this beyond specialty merchandising when it comes to older attractions and/or less popular characters, but sometimes they will try to deliberately court older fans with certain events, with mixed results.
    • Captain EO was brought back for a few years in The New '10s due to demand from Michael Jackson's fanbase.
    • Epcot Forever, the 2019-2021 nighttime lagoon show that bridged IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth and Harmonious, was built around songs from vintage Epcot attractions ranging from the opening day ones to the original version of Soarin'. The problem was that with the key exceptions of "Golden Dream" and "One Little Spark", the music was unrecognizable to post-1990s visitors — and that's assuming they visited The American Adventure and Journey into Imagination with Figment. Diehards were mad that many of the rerecorded songs and all the spoken quotes from attractions were performed by kids and the finale was not an Epcot song but rather the Aladdin song "A Whole New World" despite that film having little presence in the park (and reminding them of the heavy pushing of Disney and Marvel characters the Epcot renovation is to feature); supposedly there was mass booing at the premiere over that alone. One Epcot fan created a remix that substituted the original recordings and soundbites and just eliminated most of the finale to substitute that of Illuminations: Reflections of Earth.
  • The Producer Thinks of Everything: Even the most mundane elements of the resorts adhere to strict theming. Really, where else on the planet are you going to find miniature golf courses with such elaborate backstories? The one time they really dropped the ball on this, we ended up with California Adventure, and now they're paying the 2 billion dollar price to rectify the situation.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • Dr. Nigel Channing at Epcot's Imagination! pavilion, who replaced Dreamfinder — a tough act to follow even for Eric Idle. He actually predated the revamp of the Journey Into Imagination ride (via Honey, I Shrunk the Audience) and was being used to knit together the pavilion's multiple attractions thematically. Alas, beyond the Dreamfinder fans objecting to the change, the penny-pinching Disney parks were suffering at the time crippled the ride's chances of comparing to the original, resulting in Fanon Discontinuity and a second revamp (making Figment the dragon the lead character and Dr. Channing a Straight Man to him, bringing back the "One Little Spark" theme song, and throwing in a few Easter Egg references to the original). This version is still up and running as of 2022, partially because Epcot has focused on retooling other areas but also because any replacement would be in the shadow of the original 1983 ride for Disney die-hards anyway.
    • Don't get fans started on Stitch's Great Escape!, which replaced the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. The ride was effectively a kiddiefied version of the very frightening and teen/adult oriented Alien Encounter, which had and still has a notable cult following. Unlike the Imagination ride, Disney didn't try to significantly improve it despite an alarming number of complaints from diehard fans and ordinary parkgoers alike! Even the end of its lifespan was tumultuous; it was reduced to seasonal operation in October 2016, operated sporadically until January 2018, and it was kept "temporarily closed" until it officially became permanent in July 2020.
    • Back in the 1970s, The Walt Disney Story became a Replacement Scrappy when it opened in the building that previously occupied Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. As a result, Disney decided to replace Walt Disney Story with a shorter tribute (that bore the same name), followed by the Mr. Lincoln video and speech. (Currently, the attraction begins with mementos and videos from the history of Disneyland, instead of a Walt Disney tribute.)
    • The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management) at Magic Kingdom. Many saw it as cynical and bizarre as opposed to the relaxing, charming and classical original. After a fire in the attraction's attic forced a closure and repairs, it was reverted to the original show, and few fans were unhappy with Disney's choice.
    • California Adventure's 2017 replacement for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!, garnered massive backlash among people who dreaded the ToT's disappearance even from before the rumor was confirmed. That backlash still exists even after Mission: Breakout's opening in 2017. This also goes for its Florida counterpart, Cosmic Rewind, which is replacing Epcot's Universe of Energy; a photoshopped picture of a young Peter Quill at Epcot that was shown as a Handwave for the franchise's incorporation into the park becoming instantly reviled.
    • Light Magic, a short-lived nighttime parade at Disneyland, was slammed for many reasons—particularly the creepy masks on some of the dancing characters—but one of the biggest strikes against it was that they canceled the still-popular Main Street Electrical Parade in order to bring in the new show. Many saw it as a reflection of Paul Pressler’s administration prioritizing cost-cutting above all else, and the show would ultimately close after just a few years. The Electrical Parade would start up again soon after, albeit at California Adventure next door, to help bolster interest in the new park, though it would make brief returns to Disneyland in later decades.
    • Epcot Forever was largely seen as this to IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth for being too obscure for non-Epcot fans and too condescending for those who recognized the songs from 1980s-Turn of the Millennium attractions, the latter of whom also took offense at the "A Whole New World" finale.
    • Its successor Harmonious arguably fell into this territory before opening just because of the fountain/pyrotechnic barges. Permanently installed in World Showcase Lagoon (as opposed to the movable barges used for IllumiNations), they're regarded as huge eyesores that have ruined lovely, longstanding panoramic views of the park, and the initial plan for them to double as regular fountains during the day didn't work out. Combine that with the show being focused on Disney/Pixar IPs, a very sore issue for Epcot fans, and it's no wonder message board commenters shortened the title to Harm. Disney ended the show in April 2023, then proceeded to begin removing the barges, and remove a proshoot from Disney+.
    • Disney Enchantment, the replacement for Happily Ever After at Magic Kingdom, seems to have fallen into this as well, with many finding Enchantment to be far less impressive and cheap in its special effects, on top of lacking any emotional impact compared to Happily Ever After or even predecessors Fantasy in the Sky and Wishes. Many park fans also complained that despite the show being considered as part of Walt Disney World's 50th anniversary, it doesn't focus on or celebrate the park's history at all, while putting a huge emphasis on IPs from the last ten years like Moana (a frequent complaint in regards to Walt Disney World's 50th anniversary in general). To say the fans were ecstatic when it was announced that Happily Ever After would be returning in 2023 would be an understatement.
    • Fans were absolutely furious when Walt Disney World's version of Snow White's Scary Adventures got replaced by the Princess Fairytale Hall meet and greet building. This would be slightly assuaged with the reveal and opening of a much larger Snow White roller coaster elsewhere in Fantasyland, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which even reused some of the older ride’s assets.note  Even so, fans are still disappointed that Disney reused the old space for a meet and greet area instead of a new dark ride, finding it to be a missed opportunity on Disney's part.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: They spent four years doing this with California Adventure. New additions included a re-themed entrance, a trolley system, a land based off of Pixar's Cars, the first The Little Mermaid themed ride in Disney Park history (surprised it took this long!), and the nighttime show World of Color. It ultimately succeeded in getting more business for the park, and brought forth some of the Disneyland Resort's most awe-spiring attractions and shops.
  • So Bad, It's Good: Disney KiteTails quickly fell into this category shortly after its debut. Largely due to the cheap-looking kites and Special Effect Failure, with the kites often being flown about in circles by jet skis, before landing and crashing unceremoniously into part of the seating area or into trees. The kites and the show overall quickly became subject to many jokes and memes by the fandom about how laughably and enjoyably bad it is.
  • Special Effect Failure: Sometimes during shows and rides, special effects don't work as planned. Sometimes if a special effect in a ride doesn't work, the cast members don't bother to fix it until closing time, so a lot of people can see something wrong.
    • The Jungle Cruise gets this a lot, perhaps the most out of the original attractions. Originally it was meant to emulate a real-life jungle cruise, but nowadays everyone just mocks the special effects.
    • One particular mention. In Epcot, they replaced "The Living Seas" with a Finding Nemo-themed attraction, with a couple of the seagulls programmed to move their beaks and shout "MINE" every now and then. One time, it malfunctioned. Hilarity ensued as the seagulls spouted out "MINE" non-stop.
    • During one showing of Finding Nemo The Musical, one of the "bubbles" on the side suddenly shuts off. What shows up next? A Blue Screen of Death◊.
    • Snow White once was seen wearing Crocs.
    • Once in a great while, the "Queen transforming into an old hag" part of the Snow White ride malfunctions, and the old hag animatronic is ALREADY facing the audience when the riders enter her lair (she's supposed to have her back to them at first).
  • Sweetness Aversion: Many feel this about it's a small world. Disney itself has acknowledged this, throwing in a joke about it in The Lion King (1994).
    Scar: Oh, Zazu, do lighten up. Sing something with a little more bounce in it.
    Zazu: (deadpan) ♪It's a small world after all♪
    Scar: No! NO! Anything but that!
  • Take That, Scrappy!:
    • A quick one is thrown to Jar Jar Binks, and the Gungans in general, in the queue to Star Tours.
      C-3PO: [after an ad for Naboo] I found those Gungans somewhat annoying.
      [R2-D2 beeps]
      C-3PO: Not just Jar Jar, all of them.
    • The same queue also mixes a Take That, Scrappy! with a Continuity Nod: the ride's previous (and rather divisive) host, REX, can be seen in a crate labelled "DEFECTIVE" and bound for the factory that created him.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Has its own page.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Many fans feel the Disney Villains are severely underused in the parks, as outside of shows and having meet and greet appearances during Halloween and special events, they rarely appear in the parks and none of them have attractions dedicated to them, despite the many possibilities they could bring and fans loving them. Disney would present a concept for a potential Disney Villains land for Magic Kingdom at D23 Expo 2022, but given it is currently a "blue sky" concept (meaning it is a concept that has yet to fully be green-lit), it is unclear if the land would materialize.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • The shops in Epcot's World Showcase sometimes carry merchandise of works from the country in question, meaning you can be wandering WDW and run into merch of The Beatles, Doctor Who, the latest Pretty Cure season, or even the Touhou Project! Anime merch in particular has long had its own section in the Japan pavilion's Mitsukoshi Department Store, helped by the fact that the shop is a branch of an actual Japanese chain.
    • Some meet-and-greet characters at the parks are unexpected and usually rare, particularly at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. For instance, Clarice from Two Chips and a Miss, a one-shot character who picked up a fanbase in the Japanese parks, or Scrooge McDuck and Launchpad McQuack, who made a comeback at Animal Kingdom to promote DuckTales (2017).
    • The main villain of Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind? at EPCOT? Eson, a celestial that only appeared in flashback in the first Guardians movie.
  • Unintentional Period Piece:
    • Disneyland's America Sings, a ride chronicling the history of music in America on a rotating stage, was clearly a product of the mid-1970s Bicentennial celebration. It showed with its patriotic theme and brightly decorated exterior with red, white and blue paint. Attendance dropped sharply after the era ended, rendering America Sings a relic until it closed in 1988.
    • Superstar Limo, the first ride in California Adventure to close, got hit hard with this before it even opened in 2001. Half of the featured celebrities in the All-Star Cast had seen their popularity crumble by the time the ride closed eleven months later.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
    • The more realistic Audio-Animatronics. Many of the original "human-like" animatronics, like on Pirates and the Haunted Mansion, were lightly caricatured to compensate for the limited technology; the more recent ones, especially on The Hall of Presidents, have a very realistic appearance that falls hard into the valley◊.
    • Some fans find various newer Audio-Animatronics' "video faces" (such as those found on the characters of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Frozen Ever After) to be creepy and cheap-looking instead of technologically impressive. Notably, the much-later Hong Kong Disneyland port of Frozen Ever After features fully-modeled faces rather than screens, with many fans considering it a vast improvement.
    • The animatronic celebrities featured in Superstar Limo weren't too easy on the eyes either.
    • Figment's flat, cartoony 2D character design? Adorable. Figment in some comic art with a more realistic art style and buggy, spherical eyes with a tiny pupil dot and a constantly-open toothless mouth? Not so much... Also applies to the revamped ride's very-aged CGI version of him, with an unsettling expression and too many wrinkles on his face.
    • While most of the animated characters (even the more heavily stylistic ones) translate well to atmosphere costumes (the full-bodied costumes) for the most part, some of them can look a bit off-putting, particularly those based on Disney's more stylish humans, such as the characters◊ from Meet the Robinsons or Lilo◊ from Lilo & Stitch. Mickey and Minnie Mouse have also been described as being unintentionally creepy by some, as their more abstract Inkblot Cartoon Styled designs don't translate entirely well to a real life human costume. Though in all fairness, they look a lot less creepy now than they did when the parks opened◊.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • The original Carousel of Progress attraction, in which an American family rhapsodizes about the ability of electric appliances to ease the woman's burden of housework. Since much of the attraction's script was written in the 1960's, it never occurs to any of them that her burden could have been eased a long time ago if her husband and children had pitched in more.
    • Universe of Energy:
      • In the original version of the ride, there was a long video at the end talking about how great Exxon was and how awesome their lovely oil rigs and tankers were. Three guesses as to why that was removed (just one if you live in Alaska).
      • The "I Love Fossil Fuels!" "Lesson of the Day" Speech in its Retool Ellen's Energy Adventure, especially hearing it from now-vocal climate change activist Bill Nye.
  • Vindicated by History: Disneyland Paris had abysmal attendance in its first few years of operation, but has become one of the top tourist attractions in Europe though it still has yet to fully recover from its initial financial woes.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
    • Many rides, including the Pepper's ghost effect on Tower of Terror, the light effects inside Space Mountain, and the fully-operating Yeti on Everest, but The Haunted Mansion takes the cake.
    • The Paris version of Big Thunder Mountain is more heavily themed than the others. For example: the roller coaster's trains are actually painted to look rusted and unused, compared to the other versions of the ride which feature clean trains. The ride also features heavy theming on all three lift hills: bats and a flooding cave in the first lift hill, a rundown mining camp on the second lift, an an earthquake inside a tunnel being dynamited for the third lift.
    • Mickey's PhilharMagic, due to the Imagineers working directly with the team at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Legendary animators like Glen Keane and Nik Ranieri returned to animate their characters (Ariel and Lumiere, respectively) in CGI. It's beautiful, if a little "plastic" due to its age — of course, the latter doesn't apply to the dazzling Coco sequence added to the show in 2021.
    • Disney Parks in general go to truly extraordinary effort to maintain the parks' illusions, with painstaking attention to detail. It shows.
    • Hong Kong Disneyland's Mystic Manor had jaws dropping for its beautiful effects.
    • Speaking of Hong Kong Disneyland, their first ever nighttime parade, dubbed Paint the Night, was the first time they used LED lights for all the floats!
    • Paint the Night did make its way stateside (with new Tangled and Frozen floats) as part of Disneyland's 2015 "Diamond Celebration" for the park's 60th anniversary. It's one of three new visually stunning nighttime shows commemorating the occasion, with the other two being a special version of World of Color, subtitled "Celebrate! The Wonderful World of Walt Disney" and focusing on Walt Disney's vision for Disneyland, and the firework and projection show "Disneyland Forever", whose projections actually stretch all over the park, including the castle, the Matterhorn and It's a Small World. Just take a look.
    • 20,000 Leagues and Submarine Voyage were this until their closures. The Californian replacement, the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, has kept up the tradition.
    • Like all of her sisters, Tower of Terror at DisneySea has some incredibly awesome visual effects, but one of the highlights is Shiriku Utundu disappearing in literally a split second. An incredibly simple visual trick that any thinking adult will probably be able to figure out, and yet even when you know how it works, you still won't believe just how freaking fast the little bugger vanishes.
    • The dark rides in Disneyland's Fantasyland had nifty projection effects added during The New '10s. Particular standouts include Queen Grimhilde's throne room transforming into a decrepit laboratory, the Cheshire Cat vanishing, and Tinker Bell creating pixie dust showers.
    • Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade Dreamlights one-ups the original Electrical Parade in sheer spectacle.
    • The over a dozen full-size or near full-size animatronic dinosaurs in Animal Kingdom's Dinosaur ride are still impressive even after 20+ years free of changes or upgrades.
    • Despite the constant technical difficulties with Rivers Of Light, which were a key reason Animal Kingdom gave up on the show, the water effects and various special effects were truly beautiful. Same goes for seeing the Tree Of Life at night.
    • One change made to Epcot that everybody loves is the "Beacons of Light" makeover of the Spaceship Earth exterior in 2021, which renders it a glowing, constantly shifting ball of colors come sunset. Likely because of how loved it is, it is the only icon in Walt Disney World to still have the "Beacons of Light" after the 50th anniversary celebrations had ended in 2023.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Magic Kingdom's former The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter attraction was advertised as being for the older crowd due to it being much more dark and violent than the typical Disney fare. Unfortunately, many parents taking their children into the attraction didn't listen to the warnings. (Could have been worse: The alien was originally meant to be the Xenomorph!) It was then redone to feature Stitch as the alien and renamed Stitch's Great Escape! Unfortunately, this didn't actually make it much less scary, and even parents who paid attention to the warnings often saw Stitch and figured it couldn't be all that bad.

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