10 Walt Disney World Experiences That Closed Too Soon

8) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea This huge attraction was based on the 1870 novel of the same name by author Jules Verne. During this 10-minute submarine ride, Guests rode through an enormous 11.5-million-gallon manmade lagoon. There were 12 submarines in the ride’s fleet. The attraction was one of the largest and most expensive ones to ever be built by Disney Imagineering. Its costly maintenance would eventually lead to its demise, as the giant lagoon had to be completely drained several times each year, just so it could be cleaned. (All of those 11.5 million gallons of water!) After the lagoon was cleaned, it would of course need to be refilled, which was costly and time-consuming. Some of the submarines even had problems with leaking. The leaks caused the ride to close temporarily in 1994—or so we thought. Sadly, in 1996, Disney announced that the ride would not reopen. Ariel’s Grotto now stands where the overwhelmingly large lagoon once was.