Disney has come a long way from that pathetic although strangely charming excuse for a ride. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was AWESOME!!!... This attraction succeeds on so many levels. More than any other ride I've experienced (anywhere), it transported me away from this world. It doesn't feel like a ride. It tricked me into feeling as if I was there. After all the attractions I've experienced, all the times I've been on them, and the analytical way in which I pick them apart, I didn't think that was possible anymore. I felt a sense of real wonder, real danger, real mystery, real suspense, real surprise... I'll admit it - real fear (I even screamed!).
And this attraction played with me like that in the subtlest and most ingenious of ways... Something seen out of the corner of my eye... (What the heck was that!) a perfectly timed creak... (Are we depressurizing!), a sudden lurch... (Umm, I think we hit something.), an unexpected deceleration... (I don't want to die here.) All those things and much more click together in an undersea environment so detailed, with so much movement, that the only words for it are - utterly convincing.
This attraction creates its thrills without reaching any sort of real speed. On the contrary - virtually everything seems to happen in slow motion... the sort of near death slow motion in which time dilates and the seconds seem like minutes.
We rode 20K several times and its effectiveness didn't wear off. Instead, both of us just came to appreciate it more.
Inside the Caldera, a crater formed at the base of the volcano, a large body of water provides secret access to the ocean beyond. Suspended above the water is a small submersible vessel, the Neptune, This is Captain Nemo's personal submarine boat, capable of taking him to underwater locales not accessible by his larger submarine, the Nautilus.
In an unprecedented decision, Captain Nemo has invited the world's scientific community to come to Mysterious Island and share in his discoveries of the countless marvels and mysteries of the ocean's depths. He has announced that his special guests will be permitted to board one of his fleet of submersibles, similar to the Neptune, and join his crew as observers to assist in his research and to share the ocean's majesty.
To board their vessel, guests descend a spiral ramp and enter a volcanic rock cavern that leads first to Captain Nemo's Private Study and Control Station. Discovering that Captain Nemo is working in another part of the facility, they are able to walk through these private quarters and observe Nemo's various notes, maps and research materials related to his studies of the sea and his efforts to develop the ocean floor for fanning. It is here too that they are introduced to the Aquaphone. Nemo's amazing wireless communications invention, which allows him to monitor activities throughout Mysterious Island and to broadcast information to his fleet of research vessels under the sea.
Moving along, they enter the Dive Hatch Area where they observe that Nemo and his crew are able to don diving suits and enter the ocean directly through a special pressure hatch. It is clear from the missing dive suits in the storage area, and from the seawater and kelp around the hatch, that divers must have recently used the hatch and that their dive is still in progress.
Soon the guests enter the Submarine Docking Port, a rock cavern that has been reinforced by large metal riveted plates. The submersibles are suspended from an overhead conveyor system for loading. They arc attached by large metal hooks that release the vessels into the water. Guests board the six-person submersibles and the conveyor moves them to the ocean's edge to be dropped into the water and begin their dive.
Upon release, Captain Nemo can be heard over the Aquaphone in the vessel. He broadcasts along the way and provides information to the intrepid voyagers about the sites they see. In their first view after diving to the ocean floor, they observe the beauty of the ocean reef around the perimeter of Mysterious Island. Then they enter one of the many undersea fields where Nemo is harvesting the limitless bounty of the ocean and continuing to develop and refine his Aquafarming operations.
Nemo reminds his guests that the ocean is a vast and wondrous place, but that it is not a domain that can be controlled by man-that man is merely a visitor in the sea. As evidence, guests next encounter a graveyard of lost ships. As they float through the Ship Graveyard, in and out of the wrecks of sunken ships from every era, they observe that all the power and riches the people who piloted these vessels might have possessed or sought, were only destined to become so much junk at the bottom of the sea-a playground for the denizens of the deep.
But there is little time to reflect on the irony of man's quest for fame and fortune. An unexpected encounter with a sea creature of mammoth proportions leads guests on a life-or-death ' adventure beyond imagination. Sinking to a depth far deeper than ever thought possible, the guests; soon discover secrets of the deep that even Nemo himself never dared imagine possible.
