The New Nautilus

After years and years of financial issues for the French resort, The Walt Disney Company assumed full ownership and control of Disneyland Paris in 2017. Since then, Disney has been aggressive in its attempts to reverse the resort's fortunes, including infusing billions of dollars into the underbuilt Walt Disney Studios Park and beginning an aggressive clean-up of the long-under-maintained Disneyland Park.

In keeping with Disney's vision for its parks, that's also meant infusing Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Star Wars into Disneyland Paris as quickly and efficiently as possible. Coco is the thematic basis of a re-themed Frontierland restaurant; Pixar's Luca will takeover hosting duties of a Fantasyland ice cream shop; Star Wars has overtaken Discoveryland. And of course, the French version of Avengers Campus opened just last year.

(Also in keeping with Disney's vision for its parks: the recent re-introduction of Annual Passes for Disneyland Paris basically saw almost all passholder perks cut, and prices uniformly increased by $200.)

But of course, at today's Disney, the parks are places to celebrate hot box office IPs... not old ones. So you can understand why fans were wary when the Mysteries of the Nautilus walkthrough closed for a year-long refurbishment, that quietly extended well past its announced April 2022 re-opening. Would Disney simply abandon this walkthrough experience altogether, deeming it a needlessly complex, low-capacity A-Ticket not worth the upkeep?

Even if the Nautilus was closed for 14 months longer than Disney expected, it was very good news when it did re-open in June 2023. Filled with refreshed lighting, restored effects (like leaky, misty pistons in the Engine Room, creating a mini splash pad), and more.

Of course, what guests noticed a severe lack of was any real, meaningful connection to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Notable props from the film were weirdly missing as if specifically removed even though they did no harm as general placemaking. Likewise removed were voiceovers from Captain Nemo and company... Nemo's iconic organ in the Grand Salon was silent, and the captain's face (which appeared in the organ via a two-way mirror) was absent, too... 

WDI Show Producer Louise Doré offered a sort of explanation: "We completely refurbished the attraction while also bringing a new story where our guests will experience the wonders of the oceans. To deliver that message, we recorded a new soundtrack specially orchestrated for the attraction as well as a new narration."

Huh... "A new story" where guest experience "the wonders of the ocean"? Wasn't this a walkthrough themed to the 1955 science-fantasy adventure film? To purposefully omit Nemo and the iconic score of 20,000 Leagues in the Nautilus was an odd choice. But the strangest omission was in the feature Disney tried to spin as a plus.

"We wanted to tell a conservation story that would be more relevant today to our guests, so now, as Louise mentioned, new encounters are happening in the Grand Salon scene," Principal Illusion Integrator Daniel Joseph said. "The cool thing was that with that project, we worked with our Disney marine biologists, animal keepers, and all kinds of talented and amazing people within the company who work with marine life. These scientific resources helped give a sense of realism to the Nautilus attraction that wasn’t possible before."

Translation? The squid is long gone. And in its place are new projected mini-shows where the iris opens to display stock footage of ocean creatures. As Theme Park Insider notes, "It's less Jules Verne and more Jacques Cousteau." When the iris opens now, guests may see a pod of whales or dolphins swim by for a brief, hazy encounter before the window closes again. It's... fine! Nice! Interesting! But it's also incredibly odd.

Clearly, Disney must've felt that after thirty years, the animatronic squid had met the end of its service life. Imagineers may also have decided that the encounter was too intense for families. Or maybe, for some odd reason, Disney is trying to distance the attraction from 20,000 Leagues, opting to merely use the highly-decorated submarine as a more conversation-focused, National Geographic-style experience rather than a science fiction adventure one.

So what do you think? Does Disney's new, ecological angle for the Nautilus make sense to you? Do guests care about the 60 year old film it's based on? And for that matter, do you think that the new National Geographic-style projected animal experiences are fine as they are? Or does this move worry you? Let us know in the comments below!