Delta Dreamflight

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Delta Dreamflight

Locations, openings and status
Magic Kingdom June 23, 1989
Closed January 5, 1998

Delta Dreamflight (June 23, 1989–January 1, 1996) was an attraction located in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom inside the Walt Disney World Resort, and was sponsored by Delta Air Lines. Dreamflight replaced an attraction called If You Could Fly, which was originally the attraction, If You Had Wings, sponsored by Eastern Air Lines.

1 Overview
2 Ride Through
3 Dreamflight
4 Take Flight
5 Aftermath
6 Attraction facts
7 See also
8 References

[edit] Overview

Dreamflight used the same basic Omnimover ride system that other Disney rides utilize today. Dreamflight was a pop-up book version of the history of flight using simplistic sets, some Audio-Animatronics and projection effects. Riders passed through scenes of barnstormers, an M-130, Tokyo and Paris in the 1930s, the jet age, and the future of air travel, and appeared to enter a working jet engine.

[edit] Ride Through

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Guests first entered the building that lead you into a small queue designed to look like an airport boarding terminal. The front-end nose and cockpit of an actual Delta airplane was situated on your left as you entered the queue, so it appeared as though you were actually boarding the jetliner. The Delta jet was marked as "The Spirit of Delta" in bright gold font. As you made your way into the queue opposite the jet, you entered a terminal gate with posters on the wall that included many exciting and exotic destinations of the world. Eventually, you would make your way back up the terminal gate and enter the side of the jet into a mirrored hallway with bright blue, green, red and yellow neon lights. As you walked up a ramp you entered the boarding area which was set up in a very similar fashion to the Haunted Mansion. As the bright blue 'cars' rode past you would walk onto a moving escalator ramp and board your flight.

By now guests will have seen a giant mural depicting the golden era of aviation in America was adorned on the wall in this room. The next room you entered on the attraction had a giant, pop-up book style spinning room which had a hot air balloon and other flying contraptions spinning by you as the Dreamflight song would play. Then you entered the second room of your flight which was designed to look as though you were in a giant crop field of the American mid-west in the roaring 1920s. Bi-planes, stunt planes and barnstormers were flying all over the ceiling above a flying circus air show. The pilot of a plane had crashed through a barn and was stuck in the rafters on the ceiling of the barn. The third room was just a big screen with a film clip of an aerial stuntman standing on top of a prop plane while it performed dizzying stunts in the air.

Next came the propeller plane era, where commercial flights started taking passengers all over the globe. On your left, you passed the inside of a posh, elegant airliner's fuselage that was the dining area of a first-class trip. Then a gentleman in a suit stood on your left in a Japanese garden where he was being greeted by the Japanese locals. Coming up on your right hand side below you were the rooftops and the skyline of Paris, France. You flew past the rooftops of a Paris street and could see quaint little shops and tourists sitting below on the patio of a French cafe. As you moved ahead, a sign saying Jet Age, spun in circles and a male voice notified you to "please prepare for supersonic takeoff". Then another female voice said, "Ladies and Gentlemen. Your Dreamflight will depart immediately for the future. Please prepare for supersonic takeoff". To the immediate left on the wall was a giant painting of a jetliner taking off towards the sky.

As you made your way forward, a giant spinning light along with fog and fans, gave you the impression that you were about to actually enter the inside of a turbo jet engine. The sounds of an engine roaring to life and taking off then blasted out over the sound system. As you entered a gigantic film projection room, you saw footage of a plane taking off a runway to simulate your flight's departure, eventually lifting off and flying through the clouds in the sky. The next room was another film clip on your right which showed computer-generated clips of you above the earth, flying in a canyon above water and eventually flying in a futuristic city with fireworks exploding all around you. The final room of the attraction was a giant pop-up book with destinations spread out in front of you on huge pages, while a little projection of a Delta jet flew by above the display into the clouds.

The exit area was a room with the Delta logo painted on the wall and with more posters of destinations from around the world to visit.

[edit] Dreamflight

From January 1, 1996 - June 1996 the attraction was renamed simply "Dreamflight" for a short time after Delta Air Lines dropped sponsorship.

[edit] Take Flight

From June 5, 1996 – January 5, 1998 the attraction was named Take Flight. It was a slight refurbishment of Dreamflight, which was sponsored by Delta Air Lines from 1989 through 1996. All references to Delta were removed and the attractions theme song was rerecorded to be Take Flight instead of Dreamflight.

[edit] Aftermath

Delta sponsored the ride upon its opening in 1989 until the final days of 1995. It understood Delta ended its sponsorship due to the costs of sponsoring the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.^[1] It reopened as Take Flight in later 1996 and finally closed its doors for good in January 1998 to make room for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which was inspired by Disney/Pixar's Toy Story films.

[edit] Attraction facts

[edit] Delta Dreamflight

Opened: June 23, 1989^[2]
Sponsor: Delta Air Lines

[edit] Dreamflight

Closed: December 31, 1995^[2]

[edit] Take Flight

Opened: January 1, 1996^[2]
Closed: January 5, 1998^[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Delta Dreamflight. WDWHistory.com. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Imagineers, The (September 1, 2005). The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Disney Editions, 121. ISBN 0786855533.