4. Superstar Limo

Lifetime: February 2001 – January 2002 (11 months)

When Disneyland opened in 1955, its Fantasyland was a fairytale fair packed with three classic dark rides: Snow White’s Adventures, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and Peter Pan’s Flight. Today, that same Fantasyland contains six (adding Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, and “it’s a small world.”) So you can imagine how surprised guests were to discover that the brand new California Adventure park taking shape just a few hundred feet away would have only one dark ride in the whole park… One that was so bad, it wouldn’t even last a year.

Concepts for a wild paparazzi chase through the streets of Los Angeles had been a part of California Adventure’s “bold, brash, MTV” design aesthetic from the beginning. But the unfortunate death of Princess Diana in 1997 of a paparazzi-fueled chase cooled interest in the concept, forcing the ride to be reimagined as a slow-moving tour of Southern California.

The result – Superstar Limo – was an exercise in cringe all the way through, with guests invited by a cigar-smoking agent to make it to a Hollywood premier by way of a limo ride through Los Angeles’ hoity-toity neighborhoods, passing cartoon-ified caricatures of ABC-associated celebrities like Drew Carey, Antonio Banderas, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jackie Chan.

Pretty quickly, guests turned on California Adventure. The fourth wall breaking puns, modern celebrity cameos, and “MTV” attitude that were meant to be the park’s hallmark instead left Disneyland’s guests feeling like they’d wandered into a post-modern Six Flags spoof of California. Superstar Limo – regarded even then as the worst dark ride in Disney history – closed in January 2002, less than a year after the park opened. Weirdest of all: Disney had no plans to replace it. California Adventure was simply better off with no dark ride than with Superstar Limo.

As part of a change in management (both at Disneyland Resort and The Walt Disney Company), a major push to polish the resort ahead of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary saw the ride repurposed as Monsters Inc: Mike & Sully to the Rescue in 2006. Comparing the two rides' layouts, it’s interesting to see how Disney made use of the existing Superstar Limo’s scenes, vehicles, and even animatronics to form something fresh. But for those who managed to get a ride on this dark ride disaster in the park’s earliest, saddest days, it’s an experience they’ll never forget.

5. Discovery River Cruise

Lifetime: April 1998 – August 1999 (16 months)

Anyone who’s been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom will tell you that it’s one of the largest theme parks on Earth. And like the animals who inhabit it, to get from any one spot to any other, your only real choice is to hoof it.

That wasn’t always the case, though. When Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, the park featured an attraction called the Discovery River Cruise. Churning through the waterway that encircles the Tree of Life, the Discovery River Cruise’s primary purpose was to shuttle guests between the park’s entry area and a second dock set back in the park’s Asia. While on board, Cast Members also brought out a number of small animals for guests to observe or touch in classic “zoo-style” experiences.

Imagineers also cleverly used the ride as something of a “preview” of the park’s lands so that guests could orient themselves and get a taste of what each area offered. The shores of Africa included a geyser gulch and a goat exhibit primarily oriented for riders on the boats; likewise, the boats drove past the Iguanodon rescued on the Lost Legend: Countdown to Extinction playing in the waters outside of Dinoland. (The coast of Camp Minnie-Mickey was, famously, a gnarled, volcanic cave with a flamethrower insinuating that a fire-breathing dragon lurked within; a preview of the never-built Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom meant to eventually occupy the space.)

Ultimately, the Discovery River Cruise ran into one big problem: its name. Animal Kingdom opened with just two “rides” (Countdown to Extinction and the Kilimanjaro Safaris). As a result, guests flocked to the boat ride expecting a “Jungle Cruise” style experience. After a lengthy wait, merely being ferried to the other side of the park was a major let-down. Six months after the park opened, the ride was renamed the Discovery River Taxi to emphasize that it was for transportation, not entertainment. Six months after that, it became the Radio Disney River Cruise, focusing on music and “live broadcasts” from Radio Disney.

Animal Kingdom’s boat ride opened with the park in April 1998. By August 1999, the ride was retired entirely, leaving its docks to be used for meet-and-greets… and leaving you and I to “hoof it” if we want to get around Disney’s Animal Kingdom. (Notably, Universal’s Islands of Adventure opened right in the same window – May 1999 – with its own similar intra-park transit system. The “Island Skipper Tours” made the exact same mistake, insinuating that it was more than just a taxi service between Port of Entry and Jurassic Park. It, too, was entirely phased out by 2003.)

6. Journey Into YOUR Imagination

Lifetime: October 1999 – October 2001 (24 months)

The big kahuna of all theme park failures must be the Declassified Disaster: Journey Into YOUR Imagination. An unspeakable scar for EPCOT enthusiasts, this short-lived ride remains one of the most infamous flops in the history of Disney Parks.

You probably know that among EPCOT’s classic lineup of epic, educational, entertaining dark rides, few can hold a candle to the Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination. An abstract, colorful, musical extravaganza, this incredible dark ride invited guests to join the enigmatic Dreamfinder and his imaginative dragon sidekick Figment for a flight of fancy. Guests floated through magical, glowing realms of Art, Literature, Performing Arts, and Science collecting “sparks of inspiration” to power new ideas, all set to the tune of the iconic Sherman Brothers’ song “One Little Spark.”

In an effort to update EPCOT in the ’90s, Journey into Imagination was closed. Every set, character, song, and prop was removed and the dark ride itself was shortened by nearly half. When it re-opened as “Journey Into YOUR Imagination” neither Dreamfinder, Figment, nor “One Little Spark” made an appearance. Instead, the ride was reimagined as a tour of the “Imagination Institute” – a laboratory-like setting that included illusions and narration by “Dr. Nigel Channing” (played by Monty Python’s Eric Idle).

An abysmal downgrade in every way, fans revolted against the embarrassingly bad rewrite with such fervor that Disney couldn’t close it soon enough. As soon as the Millennium Celebration ended and moved out of EPCOT, Journey Into YOUR Imagination went back under construction walls.

It re-emerged in 2002 as “Journey Into Imagination With Figment” – two decades later, still the current iteration of the ride. The third (and to date, current) version of the ride still uses the “Imagination Institute” setting and Dr. Nigel Channing as host, but re-inserts Figment (or at least, a very annoying version of him) with odes to “One Little Spark” throughout. The current Journey Into Imagination is not a great ride, or really even a good one. But for those “lucky” enough to experience the version that ran from 1999 to 2001, it’s practically a masterpiece.

We have to know – did you get a chance to experience any of these short-lived flubs and failures? If you managed to snag one of these incredibly “limited time” ride credits, we want to know your thoughts! Tell us about your experience on the ride in the comments below and let us know if these short-lived failures were better than fans tend to give them credit for.