Storybook Land Canal Boats
Storybook Land
Canal Boats is one of the rides many people save for the little kids. It is an often overlooked treasure of the park. Storybook Land Canal Boats at Disneyland
is one of the special places that people often get engaged on. In fact if you
tell the Cast Member at the entrance your plan to purpose they will give you a
privet boat and stop beneath Cinderella’s Castle or wherever your favorite
character may be in the ride for you to pop the question. At the end of the
ride they will ring a bell and call out “Here ye here ye, this couple just got
engaged!”
Storybook Land Canal Boats is an attraction
located at the Disneyland and Disneyland
Park (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 version
in Disneyland Park, Disneyland
Paris, is named Le Pays des Contes de Fées and opened in the spring of 1994.
The ride's concept dates back to Walt Disney's plans for a
"magical little 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 be 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 miniature 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 miniature 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 two months of operation, the
Canal Boats closed while Storybook Land was constructed and the muddy banks
were landscaped with miniature 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 then plunged down a
watery path into a pond below.
The attraction reopened on June 16,
1956, under the new name Storybook Land Canal Boats. Over the years several
scenes have been added to and removed from the attraction. Most notably, the
Sultan’s Palace from Aladdin appeared where the miniature Toad
Hall had previously stood for a major refurbishment done in 1994. However, Toad
Hall returned the following year in another location.
For the 50th anniversary of Disneyland in
2005, the Tinker Bell boat was painted gold and the lighthouse given a gold and
maroon theme.
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 ticket booth from when Disneyland required tickets
for riding individual attractions. 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 Pinocchio. Monstro is partially animated: his eye opens and closes,
and periodically steam comes out of his blow hole.
The canals past the Monstro cave are
landscaped with miniature 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 settings
feature sound recordings of characters singing or working.
The miniature settings include:
·
Pinocchio's cobblestone village with Geppetto's wood shop
·
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
·
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
·
Prince Eric's seaside castle from The Little Mermaid
·
The Cave of Wonders from "Aladdin"
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 sixty minutes
before any parades and reopens after the parade has passed. During all
fireworks displays, the boats stop on the canal until the show ends.
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 on-board motor. Passengers enter their
boats via a slowly revolving platform. The whole transport system was developed
by Intamin (as
a Tow boat ride). The Cave of Wonders from Aladdin midway
through the voyage replaces the Disneyland version's Monstro cave. The boats
also float past these settings, accompanied by music from the respective film
and minimal dialogue:
·
The
dwarfs' mine and house from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
·
The
gingerbread house of Babes in the Woods
·
Rapunzel's
high tower with a braid coming out of it, from Tangled
·
Prince
Eric's seaside castle from The Little Mermaid
·
The Greek
temple and Mount Olympus from Fantasia
·
Snow-covered
landscapes from Peter and the Wolf
·
The
"Night on Bald Mountain" scene from Fantasia
·
The Cave
of Wonders from Aladdin, which swallows the boats
·
A scene
from The Sword in the Stone
·
Belle's
village and the Beast's castle from Beauty and the Beast
·
The
Emerald City and the Witch's Castle from The Wizard of Oz
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
Disneyland electricians can change the lightbulbs.
