Disney World’s 20,000 Leagues ride closed ‘temporarily’ in 1994 and never came back

Magic Kingdom’s submarine ride opened Oct. 14, 1971, ran 12 Nautilus subs through an 11.5-million-gallon lagoon and shut down for a “refurbishment” that quietly became forever. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train sits there now.

On Oct. 14, 1971, two weeks after Magic Kingdom opened, Disney World finally started running submarines.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage was supposed to be open on day one. The lagoon wasn’t ready and the subs kept misbehaving on the track, so it missed the Oct. 1 party. Once it got going, D23 says, “it quickly became one of the most popular attractions in the park.“

It ran for 23 years. Then, on Sept. 5, 1994, it closed for what Disney called a refurbishment. It never reopened.

What was the 20,000 Leagues ride at Magic Kingdom?

A fleet of 12 diesel-powered submarines, each styled after Harper Goff’s Nautilus from Disney’s 1954 movie, carried about 40 riders at a time on a trip that took roughly 20 minutes. You boarded through a hatch, sat at a porthole and watched a sea floor full of mermaids, a sunken city, a giant squid and a polar ice cap slide past.

The subs never actually submerged. Bubbles pumped up past the portholes sold the dive, and the ride ran in a lagoon that took up close to a quarter of Fantasyland.

The lagoon held about 11.5 million gallons of water. Disney drained it every year to repaint the sets.

Why did the 20,000 Leagues ride close?

Money and math. The ride was expensive to keep running, the lagoon leaked and had to be drained and repainted on a schedule, and the subs loaded slowly. A 40-seat vehicle on a 20-minute cycle moves far fewer people per hour than a modern attraction, which is a bad combination for one of the biggest footprints in the park.

Disney never published a cost figure. The closure came during a stretch of company-wide belt-tightening in the mid-1990s, when Euro Disney was bleeding cash.

The refurbishment story held for more than a year. It was 1996 before Disney admitted the ride was gone for good. The 20kride.com fan archive puts it bluntly: “It wasn’t until early 1996 that they actually admitted that the 20K ride was closed forever.“

What happened to the Disney World submarines?

They scattered. Two were sunk off Castaway Cay, Disney Cruise Line’s private island, as snorkeling props. One was later pulled after storm damage and one is still down there.

One sub was cut down and parked in the queue for the Backlot Tour at Disney-MGM Studios, where it sat for years as set dressing.

The rest were scrapped when the lagoon was finally drained and filled in during the summer of 2004.

You’ll sometimes read that one of the Florida subs ended up in the queue at Disneyland’s Finding Nemo ride. That doesn’t hold up.

Disneyland’s own attraction page says Nemo “uses the same lagoon and submarines as the original“ 1959 Submarine Voyage fleet. California kept its own boats.

What replaced 20,000 Leagues at Magic Kingdom?

For a decade, mostly nothing. The lagoon sat behind a wall. Ariel’s Grotto, a meet-and-greet, took over part of the old queue in 1996 with a King Triton fountain.

After the lagoon was filled in, Pooh’s Playful Spot, a small playground, opened on the site around 2005.

Then the whole area got flattened for New Fantasyland. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened on the old lagoon footprint on May 28, 2014, and Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid opened next door in December 2012.

So a mermaid ride and a mine cart replaced the mermaids and the mine cart of the sea. Disney has a sense of humor about these things, or it’s a coincidence. Either way it’s tidy.

Is the Disneyland submarine ride the same thing?

Close cousin, different look. Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage opened in June 1959 with eight gray subs modeled on Cold War nuclear boats, not Captain Nemo’s Victorian ironclad. The Florida version reused most of the same scenes and narration inside prettier hulls.

Disneyland’s ride closed in 1998 and came back in 2007 as Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, using the original lagoon and fleet. It’s still running. Florida’s never got that second life.

A few more things about the 20,000 Leagues ride

The lagoon’s edge is still there if you know where to look. Parts of the rockwork behind Seven Dwarfs Mine Train were built into the old shoreline.

The 1954 movie the ride was based on won two Oscars, for art direction and special effects. The squid fight took two tries to film; the first version, shot at sunset on a calm sea, looked fake, so Walt ordered it reshot in a storm.

Disney World turned 55 on Oct. 1, 2026. The subs would have turned 55 on Oct. 14.

Nobody’s throwing them a party. A few million people a year ride a mine train over their grave instead.

Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.

Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Hat Tips:

• D23 (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Submarine Voyage A-to-Z entries), opening and closing dates, fleet size, Harper Goff design, the 2004 lagoon removal, and the Disneyland timeline

• Disneyland Resort (Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage attraction page), confirmation that Disneyland’s ride uses the original 1959 fleet

• WDW Magazine, why the ride missed opening day and the lagoon leak problems

• Laughing Place (Disney Extinct Attractions series), Ariel’s Grotto and where the subs went

• TouringPlans (Attraction Archaeology), the Castaway Cay subs

• 20kride.com fan archive, the lagoon gallonage, the 1996 admission and the 2004 draining

• AllEars (Sept. 2024 retrospective), maintenance and capacity as the reasons for closure

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