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9. TOMB RAIDER: The Ride / The Crypt

Image © Paramount

Location: Kings Island (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Cost: $20 million
Lifetime: 2002 – 2007 (TOMB RAIDER: The Ride); 2008 – 2012 (The Crypt)
Video Evidence: Point-of-view video and Travel Channel special
 
Full Story: Lost Legends: TOMB RAIDER – The Ride

The Story: Unusual among seasonally operating parks (usually strictly limited in their budget and reach), Paramount’s Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio set out to do something extraordinary with their 2002 addition: TOMB RAIDER: The Ride. Based on the action film starring Angelina Jolie, the ride cost $20 million and gave the park a themed attraction unlike anything its competitors could match. The ride’s queue – filled with relics from the films – passed through dark corridors, sliding walls, rolling doorways, and special effects, keeping the ride itself entirely hidden from view – even when riders were sat and strapped in!

Once the lights dimmed and a synchronized musical score kicked on, the massive 77-person, three-rowed vehicle (which looked and felt like a theatre until the ride started moving) would slowly creep forward and up, lifting to the eyeline of the 80-foot tall Hindu goddess Durga carved on the temple's wall. As ancient crystals carved into fire and ice began to glow in her hands, the gondola would swing downward and flip through an upside down arc, rocket to the ceiling, stop inches from razor-sharp icy stalagtites, then flip downward and hold riders face-first over a pit of boiling lava. The three minute, dizzying flipping dark ride was on par with a Universal or Disney attraction, from story and setting to synchronized score and special effects. The experience was unlike anything else, and certainly far and above expectations for a seasonal theme park in Ohio. 

Why It Failed: Ingeniously, TOMB RAIDER: The Ride was really just a humungous version (twice as tall and holding twice as many people) of very typical carnival ride – a HUSS Top Spin – housed in a giant chamber with synchronized music, special effects, theatrical lighting, "lava" pool fountains, an 80-foot tall goddess, and a 60-foot volcano stretching up the back wall. After Cedar Fair (owners of Cedar Point) purchased all five Paramount Parks in 2007, the ride’s music, pre-show, and special effects were removed and it was re-named The Crypt. A third of the ride’s capacity was removed to allow for a more typical, nauseating Top Spin ride program, set in almost complete darkness to the sounds of jungle animals or techno music, depending on the day.

One season at a time, The Crypt got worse and worse until it closed forever in 2012. The details of Tomb Raider deserve a read, and we've got its entire life story recorded as part of our in-depth series looking at favorite lost attractions. To learn more about the secrets that awaited within one of the best themed rides ever (much less outside of Disney and Universal's mega-parks), check out the complete in-depth story in Lost Legends: TOMB RAIDER – The Ride.

8. Tomorrowland 1998

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland Park (Anaheim, California)
Lifetime: Roughly, 1998 – 2005 with some remnants today (7 years)

The Story: Each Disneyland-style park on Earth has a Tomorrowland, and all suffered from an unfortunate given: “tomorrow” always becomes “today.” In the 1990s, each park set off to correct for this error. Tired of predicting a future that always comes true, Tomorrowlands across the globe diverged to find more timeless styles. In Florida, Tomorrowland became a gleaming silver and white spaceport of alien languages, starships, neon signs, and mechanical palm trees. In California, the original Disneyland Park tried just the opposite: it left behind the sterile, metallic future of Florida in favor of a European, organic future: the entire land was painted in shades of gold, copper, and sea foam green. Iron-rich red rocks jutted from densely-planted hillsides, and a decidedly Da Vinci-style Astro Orbitor took its place at the front of the land, surrounded in rocks and wind sail towers.

Why It Failed: Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland 1998 tried very hard to emulate the beautiful, organic future developed for Disneyland Paris’s Discoveryland in 1992. The difference was that the new European overlay for Disneyland made little sense with its inhabitants: a new 3D “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,” a tired re-hash of Epcot’s Innoventions, and Star Tours. What’s more, a generation who had grown up at Disneyland was speechless at seeing their beloved Space Mountain painted in dreary copper and rusted bronze.

In 2005, a new park president set out to replace all of the gold in Tomorrowland with the original whites and blues – a process that is almost entirely finished (except for the now out-of-place Astro Orbitor) and refresh the dated attractions once more. Rumors still swirl that a proper, complete, head-to-toe redo is in the works to completely revitalize Tomorrowland as 1998’s renovation attempted.

7. Superstar Limo

Image: Lyle Scott Photography, Flickr - All rights reserved, used with permission

Location: Disney California Adventure (Anaheim, California)
Lifetime: February 2001 – January 2002 (11 months)
Full Story: Disaster Files: Superstar Limo

The Story: When Disney’s California Adventure opened in 2001, guests were less than amused by its comic tone, exaggerated architecture, and thoughtless, irreverent style. While the whole park was decidedly lacking on the careful, thoughtful, celebratory style of Disneyland Park next door, one particular dark ride was singled out for its sarcastic tone and horrendous quality. Located in the themed-to-modern-day-Hollywood-yet-45-minutes-from-the-real-Hollywood Hollywood Pictures Backlot, Superstar Limo was a dark ride (the park’s only) based on a limo ride through the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Built in the expectedly 1990s style of miserable cardboard backdrops, the ride was populated by Small World style dolls of C-list celebrities and ABC “stars” narrating your journey through Hollywood.

Why It Failed: Superstar Limo exemplified everything that was wrong with the original Disney’s California Adventure. Instead of transporting guests to an idealized place and time like Disneyland, the park and ride took you on a “zany” “edgy” journey through modern California past 2D, comic-book style locales. It looked cheap, it felt cheap, and it was cheap. It hardly lived up to the classic dark rides at Disneyland Park just a few hundred feet away!

It closed less than a year after the park opened, even with no immediate plans to replace it. The park was simply stronger without it! In 2006, a dark ride based on Disney & Pixar’s Monsters Inc. opened in its place, and in 2012, the land was given a much-needed 1940s overlay and renamed Hollywoodland as part of Disney California Adventure’s grand re-opening. We chronicled the in-depth tale in a standalone feature, Disaster Files: Superstar Limo

 
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Comments

In reply to by Melissa (not verified)

For sure! I only saw it open once but was too afraid to ride it because it was always broke down.

I remember ExtraTERRORestrial and I do miss it but I am a HUGE Stitch fan. Though a newly created dark ride would have fit him better I am glad he has an attraction at Disney. I enjoy it regardless.

I'm surprised Dollywood's Timber Tower was not listed. That ride was a mess. It was shut down more than it ran and riders were stuck on the ride, high up in the air frequently. Even when it was working properly (which was a rarity) it wasn't thrilling at all. Now, where the ride once sat, is a patio with picnic tables.

I have to laugh at mention of the alien ride. My dad forced me on it when I was 7, nearly 8. I'm not sure if it was he that wanted to go or my older brother. But he thought it was riskier to leave me in the park alone than to drag me onto the ride.

That was one of the most terrifying moments in my life. I vaguely remember the warning signs, but dear dad didn't seem to take them seriously. That warm breath on my neck nearly gave me nightmares for months.

As far as I recall, I was not the only kid crying after that ride, which is obviously why it became a problem. Several parents seemed to be consoling their kids. I really think they should've had more of an age limit. The warning signs couldn't really explain how and why it was terrifying without spoiling the ride. It came across as simply "Ooo this will be terrifying!" like you see before a cheesy haunted house.

Very interesting read. Thanks!

Windjammer Surf Racers at Knott's Berry Farm.

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