The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (110 page)

I didn’t venture into the
depths of the
Submarine Lagoon
until the evening before Thanksgiving in November of 2008.  I had conjectured, rightly as it turned out, that with millions of people homeward bound on Thanksgiving Eve, the park would be relatively deserted.  Cool temperatures and a light drizzle further helped to clear out the park.  My first stop upon arriving was the
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
, and I found a queue of a mere 20 minutes!

The experience was impressive, but grew even more impressive upon later reflection.  It was a treat to escape the mildly inclement weather, climbing down one of two narrow spiral staircases into the warm depth of the submarine. 
Note Bene
:  Watch your step when you’re boarding and descending the stairs.  Hold onto little ones and keep a weather eye on any elders or mobility-challenged members of your party.

(
If anyone in your party is unable to enter the submarine for any reason, perhaps due to being in a wheelchair, they can enjoy the
Finding Nemo Submarine
Voyage
in the adjacent
Marine Observation Outpost
which shows the adventure in HD.)

Once Guests are below deck, they
sit on narrow fold-down seats, 20 on the port side and 20 on the starboard side, and peer through their own personal porthole.  (The
Submarine Voyage
subs only had 19 seats on each side, for a total of 38 passengers.)  Even though the entire submarine doesn’t submerge, Guests are seated in a portion of the sub that’s under water at the beginning and end of the trip; quarters are close.

Guests with phobias related to enclosed spaces, tight spaces, running out of air, and water will
probably not enjoy this voyage and would do better to remain on shore, perhaps enjoying the alternate
Marine Observation Outpost
experience.

As with the best
Disneyland
attractions, the plot of
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
is simple and the environment is rich.  Guests are boarding the subs to tag along on a scientific study of an undersea volcano.  Along the way, they’ll encounter new sights and effects, as well as affectionate tributes to the original
Submarine Voyage
.  And, of course, they’ll run into pals from the
Finding Nemo
film, most notably adorable little
Nemo
(who’s lost again), his dad
Marlin
, sea turtle
Crush
, and sweet, dopey
Dory
.

The explorer subs are the property of a different
NEMO
:  The
Nautical Exploration and Marine Observation
institute, to be precise.  Narration is provided by a Captain with an Australian accent, as the institute is Australia-based.

The sound effects and
nautical dialog are nifty–buzzers and bells and GPS pings and lines like “All ahead one third ...  Dive, dive!”  You have the sense of really being aboard a scientific vessel.

Another treat is t
he classical score for this attraction, evoking the weightless, ethereal beauty and dark thrills of the undersea world; it was composed by
Ed Kalnins
based on
Thomas Newman
’s Oscar-nominated score for the
Nemo
film.

Peering through a porthole sounds constricting, but somehow the
Imagineers
have engineered viewports that have a surprisingly broad view of the underwater landscape.

Whether viewed through the porthole or from the shore, the
Submarine Lagoon
is lovely, in large part due to the work of
Imagineer
Susan Dain
.  The author was lucky enough to hear her speak at the
D23 Expo
in September of 2009. 
Dain
is one of those brilliant, behind-the-scenes geniuses whose work we admire without really stopping to think that someone had to conceive, develop, test, and deploy it.

The challenges of the
Submarine Lagoon
were multiple and substantial. 
Imagineers
wanted to create an intensely colorful and exotic marine environment, without using non-eco-friendly lead-based paints, while using materials that could withstand the blazing sun and the lagoons’ chemicals.

Also, with the lagoon filled with only 6.3 million gallons of water (rather than the original attraction’s 9 million gallons) more of the lagoon’s banks and features would be exposed to view.

Dain
, a specialist in surface treatments, had been experimenting with using crushed glass instead of paint.  The
Submarine Lagoon
gave her a perfect laboratory.  She sowed layers of colored glass particles–30 tons of it!–throughout the drained lagoon, creating hues of astonishing depth and glitter.  She even created special colors for the project, unique tints only viewable at the
Finding Nemo Submarine Lagoon
, with playful, descriptive names like
Aqua Jazz
,
Burning Coal
,
Danger Red
,
Phantom
, and
Yamber
.

The results?  Another
Imagineering
triumph.  The colorful lagoon dazzles Guests, while being environmentally friendly and almost impervious to the elements.  And look for all sorts of hidden gems in the crystalline waters, even when you’re on dry land.  Guests standing above the shore of the lagoon, across from the
Matterhorn
, might spot a scuba diver holding an underwater camera, and a sunken head á la Easter Island.

Meanwhile, back in the sub: 
After you pass an
Audio-Animatronic
diver and move through the “living community” of the coral reef, the sub prepares to dive deep to avoid a storm.  The Captain turns on the famous
sonar hydrophones
letting Guests hear the surrounding fish, a reference to the
sonar hydrophones
of the original
Submarine Voyage
.  The surprise is that Guests hear the voices of the
Finding Nemo
fish! 
Nemo
is lost again and the whole gang is looking for him.

Very few of the
Finding Nemo
voice cast members recreate their roles for the attraction, although, notably,
Brad Garrett
is once again
Bloat
and
Andrew Stanton
(also
Finding Nemo
’s director) once again voices that popular dude,
Crush
the sea turtle.  However, you’ll be amazed at how much the
Disney
talent sounds like the original cast.

Y
ou’ll find it hard to believe, for example, that
Dory
is voiced by
Jennifer Hale
in the attraction, rather than
Ellen DeGeneres
. 
Hale
is an accomplished and versatile actor who’s given voice to numerous characters in anime, superhero, mystery, and science fiction genres, classic cartoons and animated features, not least playing
Cinderella
in
Disney
’s
Cinderella III:  A Twist in Time
(2007).

You not only hear the
Finding Nemo
characters, you see them darting in and out of the three-dimensional underwater landscape. 
Pixar
provided the animated footage and the
Imagineers
perfected a technique using innovative visual and audio
magic
to create the illusion of animated fish navigating a three-dimensional, real-world environment, properly synchronized to Guests located in one of four simultaneous viewing and sound zones within each sub.

Sound complicated?  It was, and the
Imagineers
play their cards close to their chest when it comes to how they did it all.  Suffice it to say that when you’re in your submarine, the Guests in the four quadrants of the sub will be seeing and hearing slightly different things at different times, but each Guest will automatically tune out the elements not applicable to them.  To each Guest it’s seamless–somehow the little animated
Nemo
characters seem to be alive and talking and swimming through the real underwater landscape just outside the sub!

After you encounter
Crush
and a legion of sea turtles, you pass the graveyard of lost boats. 
Nemo
and his pals stumble across it too–only to
Nemo
, in a reprised gag from the film, they’re lost “butts”.  There’s a brief encounter with sharks and then a mine field.  An exploding mine jolts the sub–alarms blare and red lights flash!  The sub returns to normal within seconds, however, so the incident shouldn’t be too upsetting to little ones.

Marlin
and
Dory
swim through a swath of ethereally pretty jelly fish, the lightning-like lights often the only illumination in the dark ocean, and
Dory
and
Marlin
then happen upon the red glow of an undersea volcano, which
Dory
mistakes for a “hot tub”.  It’s here that they finally find little
Nemo
and his pals, and they all head home to be reunited with family and friends.

Dory
is the last
Finding Nemo
character that Guests see.  She and the submarine are swallowed by a whale. 
Dory
swims alongside the sub, trying to attract the whale’s attention by speaking whale (her version of it, anyway!), and then the sub is spat back out into the ocean!  With another grand whoosh of bubbles, the submarine exits the show building and returns to the lagoon.

T
he Captain asks Guests to keep mum about the whale, and says he plans to surface before running into any mermaids or sea serpents (references to the mermaids and goofy sea serpent of the old
Submarine Voyage
attraction). The journey concludes as the sub pulls up to the dock.

As remarked before, loading and unloading 40 Guests from the submarines is a time-consuming process.  Cast Members handle it as efficiently as possible but safety trumps all, so you might find yourself cooling your heels for a few moments even after the show ends.

Once you can exit, watch your step on the stairs and when returning to the dock.  Firmly hold onto your kids and take care of any frail or mobility-challenged group members.

It’s a long voyage, about 12 minutes, and it’s
Disneyland
at its best, crafting a unique environment that combines visual effects, special effects, and music to immerse you in a world only dreamed of, a world once only seen on film.  And the joy of submerging Guests in a living film was one of
Walt
’s goals in creating
Disneyland
. 
Did You Know?
 
Disney
’s
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
, a live-action film released in 1954, is considered one of
Disney
’s best.  Based on the famous Jules Verne early sci-fi novel of 1870, and starring accomplished actors like Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas, and James Mason, the film had expensive, cutting-edge effects, including a show-stopping, stormy battle with a gargantuan octopus. 
Walt
himself ordered the re-shoot of the battle, with the addition of the storm, since early, fair weather footage looked flat and phony. The elaborate organ from the
Nautilus
set was repurposed as the organ in the
Grand Hall
of
Disneyland
’s
Haunted Mansion
.  Based on the success of
Disneyland
’s
Submarine Voyage
, younger sibling
Walt Disney World
included a submarine attraction that launched shortly after the Florida park opened in 1971. 
Walt Disney World
’s submarine attraction was bigger than
Disneyland
’s, with ten subs instead of eight and a whopping 11.5 million gallons of water.  It was named
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
after the successful film.  Unlike
Disneyland
’s military and later scientific subs, the
Walt Disney World
craft and fittings were designed to echo
Harper Goff
’s Victorian designs for the film.  The attraction closed in 1994 and was replaced in the new millennium by a
Winnie the Pooh
playground.  
Did You Also Know?
  In 1955 the
Tomorrowland Lagoon
hosted the
Phantom Boats
.  Unreliable and never particularly popular, they were retooled but ultimately closed in 1956.
FastPass:
  No.
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
’s configuration doesn’t make it a good candidate for the
FastPass
system.  However, now that everyone on the planet has apparently experienced this attraction at least once, if not more frequently, the queues are actually becoming more manageable.  Wait times of only an hour are not unheard of, and sometimes queues are even shorter.  Given that the
Nemo
voyage lasts for about 12 minutes, a wait time of up to an hour is actually reasonable. If that still seems too long to you, visit
Nemo
early in the morning or on an off-season weekday. 
Kid’s Eye View:
I haven’t been on this attraction.