The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure: Sneak Peek!

After we exhausted our allotted time at the Annual Passholder preview of Star Tours on Sunday, we went over to California Adventure to see if The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure was soft open, and we lucked out. The line was about 20 minutes, but, like the ones at Tokyo Disneyland, it moved constantly, so it didn’t seem that bad. We only rode once, and Patrick didn’t get our usual 87 bazillion photos, so consider this just our first impression, subject to change.

OK, I’m prolly gonna get flak for this, but my first impression of the show building is a resounding “Meh…” The original Palace of Fine Arts facade from Golden Dreams is nice, and the bas-relief on the water-facing section is OK, but the rest of the building looks like a suburban AMC theater. It’s certainly not as detailed as the exterior of Toy Story Midway Mania, and it may not even be as well themed as the San Francisco buildings across the street—there’s just a whooooole lotta stucco goin’ on!

The queue is classic Disney deception—when you get in it you see what appears to be a short switchback in the breezeway, with the end of the line facing you and leading into the building. What you don’t realize is that to get back to that entrance, the line runs all the way to the end of the building, out into an unsheltered garden, under a side porch, and then all the way back down the length of the building. And once you get inside, there’s one last switchback to negotiate! Fortunately, the Omnimover system keeps the line moving steadily, so it’s bearable.

Love this detail!

The landscaping in the queue is really clever—lots of those orange/yellow coral-looking plants, plus these shell-like succulents

The mural in the load area is colorful, but we were surprised by the lack of detail. Yes, the Fantasyland-style dark rides go for simplicity, but think of the gorgeously detailed murals in the Snow White rides at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. We’ll try to get a closeup of the ship in The Little Mermaid mural this weekend so you can see what I’m talking about. I love the brightly colored clam-mobiles though!

The clam-mobiles enter the ride through the hull of a nifty sunken ship

The Scuttle animatronic is wonderful—he looks so cuddly, you want to reach out and hug him. The vignette he’s sitting in is a little weird though—he’s off to one side and there’s this big blank wall behind him lit red as if another animatronic or maybe a sign should be there. I kept watching it to see if an effect would show up, but it’s just a big blank red wall…

The transition “under the sea” is a projection of bubbles on the clam-mobile behind you (you descend backward) and a whole lotta blank walls with nothing going on. Then you see a projection of Ariel swimming overhead so you know you’re underwater.

Patrick didn’t take a lot of pictures inside the ride because we wanted to completely experience it for the first time without distraction. This one of the Under the Sea show scene is blurry, but let’s pretend it’s cuz the scene is so EXCITING!

We loved how close you get to the scenes. The animatronics really are amazing, and you can tell because they look good up close. That Under the Sea scene was by far our favorite—so much color and movement and stuff to look at. Unfortunately, it kind of felt like they’d blown the budget right there. The Ursula animatronic is very cool, of course, and the scene with Ariel & Eric in the boat is nice, but we almost shocked by how bad—make that, how nonexistent—the climax of the ride was. You get a cute little silhouette effect of Ariel & Eric embracing as she gets her voice back next to what looks like a cardboard cutout of a pint-sized Ursula and that’s it! I guess the aim was to make the next scene, the wedding reception, the climax, but a cut-out…? Really…? I wish I had a picture for you…

I’m sure our opinions of Ariel’s Undersea Adventure will improve on repeat riding as we notice the stuff WDI *did* spend money on. But I really gotta stop reading the Disney Parks Blog, cuz it had me SO hyped up for this ride that I couldn’t help but be disappointed. I was expecting a long, elaborate, animatronic-packed spectacle like Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage at Tokyo DisneySea. Instead we get a handful of good-looking scenes linked by bare hallways and a few video and lighting effects. Pinocchio, Snow White, Mr. Toad and Peter Pan all immerse you completely in the experience from start to finish. Maybe the empty stretches in Ariel’s Undersea Adventure are due to the logistics of the Omnimover system, but Haunted Mansion doesn’t have any empty spots like that. The Little Mermaid just looks like they ran out of money!

I shouldn't complain about this mural too much—at least it's real paint, not a giant printout!

I promise to keep an open mind when we ride it again this weekend, though—and hopefully an attentive camera too!

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14 Responses
  • Kristen
    June 8, 2011

    I was totally underwhelmed when I watched the ride through of this on YouTube. I know Disney is spread a lot of money around what with Carsland and the redo of what seems to be all of DCA, but if they are going to heavily promote this through the blogs like they have, they better be working up to their potential.

    The whole attraction feels slapped together in response to the reaction of the public when they saw what the Little Mermaid ride was supposed to be on the Special Edition DVD. That ride looked WAY better than this turned out. Bummer.

    • lurkyloo
      June 8, 2011

      Interesting… I don’t even remember the what the DVD ride-through was like, so I’ll have to check it out. Though it sounds like then I’ll be even MORE disappointed!

  • Shoshanna
    June 3, 2011

    I agree with the Parks blog. I tell myself not to read it since it tends to get my hopes up only to be dashed but…..I just can’t seem to help myself! Thanks for the fantastic blog I love it!

    • lurkyloo
      June 3, 2011

      Thanks for reading!

  • Hope
    June 3, 2011

    See, that’s exactly why I don’t read the spoilers or the Park Blog. I did go to the Blue Sky Cellar often, but other than that I tried to get there with no expectations. I love Disney, but over the years I’ve learned to go in without expecting much and hopefully not end up disappointed. It worked for Little Mermaid lol

    I liked the detail on the floor and things like that, but I wish they actually played the score while you’re in line rather than the generic DCA music. Or maybe they did it so that by the time you actually get on the ride you’re not sick and tired of hearing the music?

    • lurkyloo
      June 3, 2011

      That’s a really good point! If they didn’t want to use the actual score, they could have done old-timey versions of the songs that fit in with Paradise Pier’s new era.

  • ATG
    June 3, 2011

    Gah! I really want to like this ride! Let me know how you feel after you SECOND impression…

    • lurkyloo
      June 3, 2011

      Can do! I think it will probably grow on me—it was just such a letdown from what I was expecting. I blame the Disney Parks Blog! 😀

  • Diane
    June 3, 2011

    Hi Carrie,
    Great blog entries–both this one and Star Tours. I’m having a little trouble viewing your photos & captions, though. The right side of the photos (like maybe 1/5 of the image), and the end of the captions, are cut off. Is this a setting on my computer that should be changed, or is it something that your website does? I just don’t want to miss any of the great pics! Thanks for the neat reports.
    Diane

    • lurkyloo
      June 3, 2011

      It’s prolly cuz my photos are so big—sorry about that! One thing you could try is making your browser window wider. Let me know if that works!

      • Diane
        June 3, 2011

        Hmm…I tried “Ctrl+” until the photos were as wide as the screen, but it didn’t change the dimensions of the photos at all. For example, no matter how wide the screen got, the final caption still just read, “I shouldn’t complain about this mural too much—at least it’s real paint, n”
        Each of the photos is the same width on my screen, even if it would appear from the way the image is arranged that some are vertical and some are horizontal, if that helps any. Anyhoo, I still love the blog!

        • lurkyloo
          June 3, 2011

          Dang! OK, I definitely need to learn more about testing my blog on different browsers. Which browser do you use?

          • Diane
            June 3, 2011

            Ah-HAAA! I just opened your site in Safari (My default is IE7), and it worked! The horizontal photos appeared wider (and complete) than the verticals in Safari, while in IE7, all of the photos are the same width as the narrative paragraphs. It may just be my settings–I know very little about setting up a blog/website or changing my own system, so it’s probably something on my end! But thanks for helping me do the forehead konk and try another browser; wouldn’t have come up with that on my own.

            • lurkyloo
              June 3, 2011

              Thanks for letting me know! I need to learn how to make my site compatible with more browsers—IE is kinda tricky and I don’t use it, so it helps that you pointed out the problem.

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