Nemo and Friends SeaRider Opens at Tokyo DisneySea

Disney fans here have been much preoccupied with the retheming of “Tower of Terror” to “Guardians of the Galaxy—Mission Breakout” at Disney California Adventure, and the opening of Pandora at Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World. On the other side of the planet at Tokyo DisneySea (one of the best Disney parks in the world—ask anyone who’s been there, or just look at a photo below) the latest attraction to open is “Nemo and Friends SeaRider.” The new ride, which opened on May 12, replaces one of the park’s 2001 opening day attractions, “Stormrider.” That ride was kind of like a bigger version of “Star Tours,” but not nearly as good. You could see the seams all over the large screen, thus destroying the illusion that you were supposed to be looking out a large observation window at the front of a new type of plane. Said aircraft was designed to drop a “fuse” into the center of a hurricane which immediately dissipates it. The ride was not the best thing Walt Disney Imagineering has done, and it usually had the shortest line in Tokyo DisneySea, about 20 to 40 minutes in a park where two- and three-hour lines are the norm.

They just fixed it by redoing the entire thing with an overlay from the film Finding Dory. There are many Disney park enthusiasts who bemoan the conversion of a ride with an original storyline and characters to that of an Intellectual Property (“IP”) which Disney owns. Personally, I don’t care as long as the ride is good. And from all reports “Nemo and Friends SeaRider” is good. As in the film Fantastic Voyage (or Disney’s own ride “Body Wars” which had a propensity to make its riders barf), you enter a vehicle, in this case the SeaRider, which is then magically reduced in size. Thus you are able to participate in the frolics with Nemo, Dory, and the other anthropomorphized undersea critters.

What surprised everyone on opening day is that there are at least two, and likely more, different films and ride sequences, making subsequent visits a necessity (at least for the Disney-infected, such as myself),

So take a looksee! 

https://youtu.be/oWyFr4jSBZ0

https://youtu.be/U4zNQCDiSeU

Via Disney and More.