Disney has some great ride vehicles, but one in particular needs a much bigger comeback!
When you go to a Disney park, you are given a beautiful variety in your choice of ride vehicles. Disney pioneered making the vehicle match the ride with the Fantasyland attractions based on anything from old cars to giant animals to honey pots.
There’s also the logs, the boats, the coasters and more. Yet one particular ride vehicle doesn’t get quite the love from Disney or its fans as it should, despite how it’s not only a great transportation method but helps Disney with crowd control and adds more to a ride.
The Omnimover system.
What is the Omnimover?
One of the key moments in Imagineering development was the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The event gave Disney a chance to create some new pavilions using money from corporations. It was thanks to the Fair that we got It’s a Small World, the Carousel of Progress, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the start of new technologies.
Among these rides was Ford’s Magic Skyway, a ride that took guests through a “primordial world” with robotic dinosaurs. To match the car company, the ride track was a continuous parade of Ford cars.
Disney loved that system and saw its potential in rides that could run on a continuous track and give guests a wide view of the attraction. It just needed a new spin, literally, by turning around as it moved.
Imagineers Roger E. Broggie and Bert Brundage put the ride together, and the name comes from Bob Gurr. Disney was preparing a big update to Tomorrowland in 1965, with Adventures in Inner Space as a top attraction. This weird ride “shrank” guests to miniature size to explore atoms.
That led to a stunning ride area where guests saw this endless stream of pods heading into what appeared to be a giant needle and then miniature versions spotted entering the ride. It was a good trial run for the true advent of the Omnimover system.
Welcome to the Doombuggy
The Haunted Mansion had famously changed from a planned walk-through museum to a ride. Disney needed something special for it, and the Omnimover came at the right time. Thus, the Mansion showcased the “Doom Buggies” that made the Mansion so great.
Rather than just pods, the curved roofs of the Buggies connected with guests. They look like plush gothic seats and the way they turn to let guests see the Mansion’s gag remains a brilliant touch.
The Omnimover system would be used more in the Magic Kingdom with the long-forgotten If You Had Wings. In 1989, that was transformed into Delta Dreamflight, one of those out-of-the-way but charming rides that paid tribute to aviation.
While that ride was removed, the Omnimover would get a bigger showcase at Disney’s biggest park yet.
EPCOT and the glory days of the Omnimover
Anyone who visited EPCOT Center in its first decade would know the Omnimover first-hand. Aside from Listen to the Land and later Body Wars, every Future World attraction used the Omnimover system.
Spaceship Earth and Journey into Imagination are a bit different, more like “trains” separated a bit in distance. The Living Seas had the “Seacabs” that brought guests to Seabase Alpha. World of Motion was wonderful with the famous image of the cars moving up a huge platform at the exterior of the ride.
Then there was the beloved Horizons. Who can forget the announcer line of “the moving walkway is at the same speed as your vehicle” as you entered the cars? While these didn’t turn around, they were large and gave guests views of the screens and scenes that made this attraction such a favorite.
These rides worked for EPCOT, showcasing the edutainment aspects of the attractions and the gorgeous sets. There was something magical about these rides and it fit for the futuristic theme of EPCOT in the 1980s.
Sadly, the 2000s saw a dip in these rides, which not only cost Disney a good ride system but also one of the better ways to manage park crowds!
Why the Omnimover helps Disney manage crowds better
Disney still has the Omnimover around with Spaceship Earth, The Little Mermaid, Mansion, and Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, which lets guests control the spins while shooting. Yet one might think they’d try it out more given how good they were at controlling crowds.
The “people eater” rides are a theme park classic, rides or other types of attractions that can handle a huge amount of guests in a short time. Many are smaller rides yet also big ones like PIrates, Mansion, Autopia and others with the People Mover a famous one.
This is a careful strategy by the parks for rides that can supply a large number of guests at once. They can generate long lines, which is often difficult due to the start and stop some ride vehicles require, like roller coasters or boat rides, where there has to be a distance between the vehicles for safety reasons.
That’s why the Omnimover can be a benefit for some parks. Haunted Mansion does get long lines at times, but that’s because of the preshow, where guests are huddled into the library first before heading into the loading area. In contrast, Little Mermaid can run its cabs continuously so a line can move faster.
With guests more concerned about longer wait times (especially given how tricky all the apps like Lightning Lane can be), putting in an Omnimover type of ride can help Disney. The less time guests spend in line, the more they can spend in shops/restaurants, as well as take some of the pressure off the wait times for bigger rides.
There are a lot of options for an Omnimover attraction. Imagine one themed to Marvel touring Stark Labs or a Fantastic Four-themed one. Star Wars is a natural with alien worlds and ships and dare we dream of a huge tour of the Death Star?
For fans of the Muppets, a ride of a full-fledged Muppet Studios offers plenty of chances for humor and fun. There are also scores of Disney movies and characters that can be a basis from Wreck-It Ralph’s video game universes to the world of Wall-E.
Obviously, these rides require a large building, so finding the right theme is critical. That might hold Disney back from ordering one as the drawback of Omnimovers is that they're slower-moving and not as flashy as the screen rides Disney pushes these days.
Yet given how well they work (a lot less high-maintenance than a roller coaster) and how easily they can pack in crowds, the Omnimover is a ride system that Disney should really be trying to give new life to spark the parks up.
Have you enjoyed the Omnimover?