Storybook Land Canal Boats
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Storybook Land Canal Boats is an attraction located at the Disneyland and Disneyland Paris theme parks. Passengers embark on a leisurely-paced outdoor boat ride through a winding canal featuring settings from Disney animated films recreated in miniature. The Disneyland version was one of the original attractions when the park opened on July 17, 1955, although the miniature buildings and landscaping were not added until the following year. The Disneyland Paris version, named Le Pays des Contes de Fées, opened in the spring of 1994.
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[edit] Disneyland Version
Passengers enter the attraction through a chain queue that winds in front of the loading dock past. A lighthouse at the queue's entrance was once a ticketbook from when Disneyland required tickets for riding individual attactions. Storybook Land canal boats originally required a "D" coupon.
The motor-driven boats are scaled-down replicas of Dutch, English, and French boats. All of the boats are named after female Disney characters except for Flower, the male skunk from Bambi. Passengers are seated along the edges of the boat, facing inward, although children are sometimes permitted to ride on the front flat part of the boat. A costumed guide sits just above the passengers on the back of the boat, perched above the engine housing, and narrates the ride.
After departing from the dock, the boat passes through a short cave sculpted to look like Monstro, the whale that swallowed Pinnochio. Monstro is partially animated: his eye opens and closes, and periodically steam comes out of his blowhole.
The canals past the Monstro cave are landscaped with minature trees and shrubs. Along the banks are small buildings representing the homes of characters from Disney animated films, although not all the locations were actually depicted in film. Many of these setting feature sound recordings of characters singing or working.
The minature settings include:
- Pinocchio's cobblestone village with Geppetto's woodshop.
- Toad Hall from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
- The Sultan's palace from Aladdin
- London Park from Peter Pan
- The village from Cinderella, featuring a gold-spired castle that is the highest point in Storybook Land.
- The dwarfs' cottage and mine from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- An English village, with a church and the entrance to the White Rabbit's hole, from Alice in Wonderland
- The pigs' homes from The Three Little Pigs
- King Triton's underwater castle, partially hidden behind a waterfall, from The Little Mermaid.
The boat then returns the passengers to the loading dock from which they boarded.
Because its entrance is located along the parks' parade route, the attraction closes approximately thirty minutes before any parades and reopens after the parade has passed. The ride also closes during the Remember…Dreams Come True fireworks display.
[edit] Paris Version
Unlike the original in California, a guide does not accompany the riders. The boats here are guided by an underwater wire rather than being propelled by an onboard motor. Passengers enter their boats via via a slowly revolving platform.
The Cave of Wonders from "Aladdin" midway through the voyage replaces the Disneyland version's Monstro cave. The boats also float past these settings, acompanied by music from the respective film and minimal dialogue:
- The dwarfs' mine from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- The gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel
- Prince Eric's seaside castle from The Little Mermaid
- The Greek temple from Fantasia
- Snow-covered landscapes from Peter and the Wolf
- Pinocchio's cobblestone village with Geppetto's woodshop.
- The "Night on Bald Mountain" scene from Fantasia
- A scene from The Sword in the Stone
- The Belle's village and the Beast's castle from Beauty and the Beast
- The Emerald City from Return to Oz
[edit] History
The ride's concept dates back to Walt Disney's plans for a small park across the street from his Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. This modestly-scaled, never-built amusement park was to include a gravity flow canal boat ride among its attractions.
When plans for the much grander Disneyland were being made, there was to a "Lilliputianland", inspired by Madurodam, a miniature city in the Netherlands that Disney once visited. However, the technology did not yet exist for creating the minature animated figures that were to inhabit the "Lilliputian" village, so the canal ride opened under the name Canal Boats of the World. It was intended to be a journey past minature recreations of the great landmarks of the world, but time and money prevented its completion. The ride was plagued by other problems. The outboard motors were prone to overheating, often forcing the boats to be pulled by hand, and because the attraction opened with little landscaping, it earned the nickname among park executives as "The Mud Bank Ride".
After only two months of operation, the Canal Boats closed on September 16, 1955 while Storybook Land was constructed and the muddy banks were landscaped with minature plants, including a bonsai tree planted by Walt Disney himself. The idea of having Monstro the whale consume the canal boats came from a never-implemented concept for a "Monstro the Whale" ride, in which small boats were to be swallowed by Monstro and hurtled down a watery path into a pond below.
The attraction was re-opened on June 16, 1956 under the new name Storybook Land Canal Boats. Over the years there have been many scenes added and removed from the attraction. Most notably, the Sultan’s Palace from Aladdin appeared where the miniature Toad Hall previously stood for a major reburbishment done in 1994. However, Toad Hall returned the following year in another location.
For the theme park's 50th Anniversary, the Tinkerbell boat was painted gold and the lighthouse given a gold and maroon theme.
[edit] Accidents
On March 16, 2005 a 4-year-old boy broke a finger and severed the tip of his thumb when the child's fingers were pinched between the boat and the dock while passengers were unloading. The ride was closed for nearly two days while state authorities investigated the accident. The authorities directed the Disneyland to lower and repair rubber bumpers along the dock's edge, and to make sure workers tell passengers to keep their hands in the boat while it docks.[1]
[edit] Technical
The canal contains 465,000 gallons of water, which flows via underground pipes to the moat around Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Jungle Cruise and to the Rivers of America, where it is pumped back to Storybook Land.
The attraction's 13 boats are powered by outboard motors. When not in use, they are stored in a boathouse hidden behind the waterfall containing Triton's Castle.
The houses in Storybook Land are fitted with six-inch doors and quarter-inch hinges that open and close, so the Disney electricians can change the lightbulbs.
[edit] Attraction facts
[edit] Disneyland
- Grand opening: July 17, 1955
- Reopening:
- Restoration: June 30, 1994
- Boats: 15
- Alice
- Aurora
- Cinderella
- Daisy
- Faline
- Flora
- Fauna
- Flower (No longer in use)
- Katrina (No longer in use)
- Merryweather
- Wendy
- Snow White
- Tinkerbell
- Ariel
- Belle
- Boat Capacity: 14 plus lapsitters
- Ride Duration: 6 minutes
- Required ticket: "D" (discontinued)
- Ride system: Boat ride
[edit] Disneyland Paris
- Grand opening: Spring, 1994
- Boats: 16
- Boat Capacity: 16
- Ride Duration: 5 minutes
- Ride system: Boat ride
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Bright, Randy [1987]. Disneyland:Inside Story. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 43, 81, 116-17, 119, 128. ISBN 0-8109-0811-5.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "Boy breaks finger, severs thumb on Disney ride", The Associated Press, July 30, 2005.
[edit] External links
- Storybook Land Canal Boats at Disneyland.Disney.Go.com
- Storybook Land Canal Boats at MousePlanet.com]
