3. Disney Institute

The Disney Institute was a very, very bold idea that sounded interesting... of course, by nature of being on this list, it didn't work. 

Like with so many of his wildest and most revolutionary ideas, Michael Eisner's plan for the Disney Institute came by way of outside inspiration. As the story goes, Eisner spent a week with his family at New York's historic Chautauqua Institute – a sort of residential summer camp of new age philosophical learning where visitors get to take classes, develop new skills, and learn from esteemed educators in a safe, inspiring, and supportive setting.

Eisner bet big that a concept of just the same type could literally redefine Walt Disney World, turning it into an international destination where guests would skip the theme parks completely and instead follow their far-flung passions. Eisner oversaw the conversion of a rental-neighborhood-turned-resort near the new Downtown Disney into a picturesque retreat of bungalows and treehouses meant to evoke upstate New York – a place for visiting families to live, learn, and lounge – amid a pastoral, pastel campus of clapboard buildings, theaters, studios, and classrooms.

At least in theory, the Disney Institute looked and sounded like a very clever idea! But as tended to be the case with Eisner's flights of fancy, things changed quickly... In fact, we wrote a full, in-depth history of the Disney Institute for those who want to dig deep into this weird '90s experiment.

WHAT HAPPENED: Eisner's plans for a residential, educational retreat just didn't gel. Guests who were interested in the Institute largely avoided staying on-site in its refurbished '70s bungalows, instead either opting for Deluxe accommodations or Value motels. Management's insistence that the concept be taken seriously kept its leaders from bundling Institute classes with park admission, or even leaning into Disney's in-house specialties. Pretty quickly, expert educators were replaced by in-house cast and prices were slashed, lowering the perceived value of the Institute's classes.

In 2000 – after just four years – the Disney Institute stopped offering classes. The program itself became today's Disney Institute – a corporate training program that holds classes to teach business leaders how to be more Disney-like in their guest service. The physical location was transformed into Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort – a DVC hotel that retains the Institute's upstate New York Chautauqua aesthetic.

4. DisneyQuest

DisneyQuest is such an absolutely absurd, unbelievably odd, unapologetically '90s artifact of Disney lore, it would be hard to convince anyone born after 2000 that it existed at all... except for the fact that it survived until 2017!

Another outing by Art Levitt's Disney Regional Entertainment, DisneyQuest had a pretty clever conceit: bringing the Disney Parks experience closer to you. More than just a "family entertainment center" or an "arcade," DisneyQuest was a massive "indoor theme park" defined by its surprisingly ambitious, technologically advanced experiences. At least, for 1998...

Inside the massive, mysterious blue cube in the middle of Downtown Disney's iconic West Side, DisneyQuest was the Mouse House's equivalent of International Drive's WonderWorks – a captivating, unusual icon that begged to be explored. After handing over a hefty admission fee, guests boarded a "Cybrolator" that carried them into the VenturePort – a central balcony from which guests could explore four "Zones" across as many floors, surrounded in a dark wood, brass, ancient symbols, celestial astrolabes, and wacky pomo design.

DisneyQuest indeed looked like the answer to Disney Regional Entertainment's prayers. A second location opened in downtown Chicago in 1999 – the first in what would've been a nationwide and global expansion effort, bringing the concept to metropolitan areas from Philadelphia to Baltimore and beyond... Yet for all the potential riding on the concept, Chicago's location closed after just two years, and further DisneyQuest plans were abandoned...

WHAT HAPPENED: The real problem is what didn't happen. DisneyQuest displayed pioneering virtual reality and simulation technology; it was a testing ground for Imagineering ride systems; it was, in short, a very strange and formative place for a generation of '90s kids, with the kind of chutzpah we'd love to see from Disney today. But there was one very, very big problem... 

TECHNOLOGY. As anyone will tell you, the graph of technological progress over the last 20, 50, or 100 years has seen a vertical climb no one could've expected. Who would've believed in 1998 that by 2021, 3D TVs would've come and gone; limitless storage would follow us on "the cloud"; virtual reality would be accessible from our own homes. 

The DisneyQuest that closed in 2017 looked... well... almost exactly like the one that opened in 1998. Seriously. DisneyQuest was an attraction built for Nokia phones living in the age of the iPhone 8. The same experiences that were groundbreaking in the late '90s looked laughably bad and comedically clunky by the late 2010s. Yes, on one hand, late-stage DisneyQuest was "so bad it's good." On another hand, the fact that Disney was still charging people nearly $40 to see what was inside is downright criminal.

Of course, not nearly as criminal as what it became...