DisneyQuest was an indoor interactive theme park. It opened on June 19, 1998 in Downtown Disney at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. It was housed in a five-story, windowless building. Guests entered the first-floor lobby and were transported via a "magic" elevator to the third-floor atrium as the start of their visit. DisneyQuest contained numerous virtual reality attractions for all ages, as well as classic and recent arcade games. A second DisneyQuest location operated in Chicago, Illinois from June 16, 1999 to September 4, 2001, when it closed due to low attendance. The Orlando location closed on July 3, 2017 to make way for The NBA Experience.
Background[]
DisneyQuest logo
DisneyQuest facade
The DisneyQuest project was designed as a way for the Disney brand to reach populations that may not have the chance to travel to its various theme park destinations. It was meant to target large cities and urban areas. Had the project continued, Disney had plans to construct locations in many major cities in the United States.
The second DisneyQuest was built and opened in Chicago, but it was permanently closed on September 4, 2001 due to low attendance. After the failure of DisneyQuest Chicago, the DisneyQuest project was officially brought to an end. Construction that had begun on a DisneyQuest in Philadelphia was scrapped, and a DisneyQuest at Disneyland Resort in California never proceeded past the planning stage. Disney announced another location to be built in downtown Toronto (at the Dundas Square inside the new high tech mall Metropolis), but the project was also canceled. After the closure of the Chicago location, Disney Regional Entertainment turned over control of the remaining location to Walt Disney World operations.
Design[]
The locations were to be similar in layout and attractions. This was so the various locations could contribute financially to new attraction designs (which cost in the range of several million USD), thereby reducing the cost that each location has to foot itself. The attractions at DisneyQuest are of a modular design, so that they could be easily replaced and updated. Originally, the idea was that no attraction would ever go unchanged for more than two or three years. However, after the Chicago location and the DisneyQuest project overall were closed, the one location in Florida has not been significantly changed. The only time an attraction has been changed out was in preparation for the opening of DisneyQuest Chicago. An attraction based on the Disney version of Hercules was replaced with Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold.
Mascot[]
Genie from Aladdin is an unofficial mascot of DisneyQuest. Upon entering at ground level, one is brought by an elevator (here called a "cybrolator", which, until 2011, formerly contained a short and humorous animation of Genie, voiced here by Dan Castellaneta, welcoming you and lampooning the airline industry and Star Trek) up to the center of the third floor (the "Ventureport"), where one's visit begins. He is also heard on the end-of-day closing announcements. When a game or attraction is down, a sign reading "The Genie has spotted a technical problem..." is displayed.
Attractions[]
First floor[]
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold: Man a pirate ship and destroy other ships, sea monsters, and fortresses to collect gold. One player captains the ship by steering and controlling the throttle, while up to four gunners control the cannons.
- Virtual Jungle Cruise: Paddle an inflatable raft (with real paddles) as you make your way down a prehistoric river, avoiding dinosaurs and occasionally getting sprayed with water while you seek out Wayne Szalinski's time machine to find a way back to the present.
Second floor[]
- CyberSpace Mountain: Guests design a roller coaster on a design kiosk, then sit in a pitch-and-roll simulator and "ride" it. Guests may also ride pre-built coasters. It is hosted by Bill Nye the Science Guy, who instead refers to himself as "Bill Nye the Coaster Guy".
- Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride: Players wear an HMD as they ride a magic carpet through Agrabah, collecting gems to find the Genie, who has been hidden away in the Cave of Wonders.
- Animation Academy: Regular sessions throughout the day teach how to draw characters, with lightpens on computer screens. Guests can purchase a printout afterward.
- Sid's Create-a-Toy: A program featuring the evil Sid character from Toy Story that allows one to custom design a toy out of parts of other toys, and then actually buy it later.
- Living Easels: An interactive touch screen program where guests can place various images onto several selectable backgrounds. A full-color printout of a guest's design may be purchased later.
- Radio Disney Song Maker: Where you can create your own song and then buy it later.
Third floor[]
- Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam: Based on The Disney Afternoon cartoon, players "become" a pinball in a gigantic projected pinball game; by rocking their "duck" back and forth, up to twelve players at a time control their corresponding pinball on the screen, attempting to collect the most points.
- Buzz Lightyear's AstroBlaster: Players board bumper cars and attempt to navigate over foam balls ("asteroids") on the floor. By doing so, the asteroids will be sucked up into the cabin where players can then load them into a cannon and shoot at the other cars. If hit in the correct spot, one's car may spin around uncontrollably for ten seconds. Usually there are two players to a car; however, it is possible for one person to pilot and shoot at the same time.
Fourth floor[]
- Ride the Comix 4: Players wear an HMD to "enter the comic book world". Players battle with super villains by using a laser sword. Up to six players can be on a team at a time.
Fifth floor[]
- Ride the Comix 5: Players wear an HMD to "enter the comic book world." Players battle with super villains by using a laser sword. Up to six players can be on a team at a time. (This attraction is identical on both the 4th and 5th floors.)
- Invasion! An ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter: Four players ride inside a rescue vehicle to save astronauts: one player drives, the other three shoot enemy aliens. Based on the now-extinct Magic Kingdom attraction ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter.
Removed attractions[]
The corkscrew "Cave of Wonders Slide", 150 feet (46 meters) long, took guests from the third floor to the first. It was closed in DisneyQuest's first year of operation.
In "Treasure of the Incas", players drove small remote-control toy trucks through a maze in search of treasure. Along a wall were stations with a steering wheel and a video screen by which to drive the truck; the floor of the room was clear plastic through which people saw the trucks driving around and shouted directions to drivers. This attraction was plagued by interference from emerging technologies such as cell phones, and was finally closed after one of the vehicles caught fire. The clear flooring and mazes could still be seen near the Virtual Jungle Cruise area, adjacent to the Safari hunting games until 2007 when the floor was recovered and new games moved to the area. This area is now entirely jungle themed and is home to a number of Let's Go Jungle! games.
At "Magic Mirrors", once located on the second floor in the Create Zone, guests could take a picture of themselves and then edit their faces to appear like cartoons. The attraction closed in 2005 and has since been converted to seating. "Hercules in the Underworld" was a team game where six guests would each control their own character from Disney's Hercules with a joystick. The object of the game was to collect lightning bolts and defeat Hades. This attraction was replaced with "Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold".
Other Games[]
A row of arcades in the DisneyQuest game room
Classic arcade games, such as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, the Tron games, BurgerTime, Zaxxon, Pengo, Kangaroo, Berzerk, every single Donkey Kong game, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Marble Madness, Moon Patrol, Spy Hunter, Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Millipede, Q*bert, Missile Command, Frogger, Arkanoid, Mario Bros., Dig Dug, Mr. Do!, Gorf, Galaga, and others appear in the area.
Arcade games from the 1990s and 2000s such as an eight-player linked Sega Daytona USA (which has been recently replaced with EA Sports/Global VR's NASCAR Racing), a four-player linked San Francisco Rush 2049, a four-player linked Sega OutRun 2, two Pump It Up games (Fiesta and NX2), Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova 2, several Guitar Hero Arcade games, a number of fighting games such as Tekken 5, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and the arcade edition of Soulcalibur. There were many Sega games, such as Crazy Taxi, Sea Hawk, and Star Wars Trilogy Arcade. Other games were double two-player linked Mario Kart Arcade GP cabinets, several sports arcade games including Sega Air Trix, Virtua Tennis, Sega World Series Baseball, Bowl-O-Rama, Sega Marine Fishing, F&F Super Bikes, an extremely rare Sega Flash Beat, two Fruit Ninjas, and many others. Also Skeeball, "shoot-the-hoops", air hockey, and other games of skill.
- Upcoming games from DisneyQuest are the 4-player Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX+, a single deluxe Motor Raid cabinet, and a Dance Dance Revolution Solo 4th Mix cabinet.
Closure[]
DisneyQuest was closed in 2017 to make way for the NBA Experience, an interactive, basketball-themed entertainment attraction inspired by the NBA and WNBA.
The NBA Experience opened on August 12, 2019. In March 2020, the NBA Experience was closed alongside the rest of the Walt Disney World Resort due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Walt Disney World Resort reopened on June 11, 2020, the NBA Experience did not. On August 16, 2021, Disney announced that the attraction would remain permanently closed, but that its partnerships with NBA would otherwise be unaffected.[1]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Carter, Ashley (August 16, 2021). "NBA Experience at Disney Springs will not reopen", Spectrum News 13. Retrieved on August 16, 2021.
