The Disneylands That Never Were

by Shaun Finnie

In 1955 Walt Disney presented the world’s first theme park. Disneyland opened with just 18 rides and attractions. Today there are eleven Disney parks around the globe. Visitors can spend weeks at a time in these resorts, often staying in one of Disney’s own hotel rooms. But in the last fifty years the Disney Imagineers have designed thousands of rides, attractions, hotels, and even entire theme parks that have never been built. Many of these concepts have remained hidden in the company’s private archive for decades… until now. The Disneylands That Never Were documents the biggest, best and most outrageous of these abandoned plans. It details everything from Walt Disney’s initial ideas for Mickey Mouse Park to his planned ski resort in California. From small developments like The Disney Hotel in New York’s Times Square to the huge Port Disney concept, over five decades of dreams are brought to life in The Disneylands That Never Were.

248 pages, Paperback

First published July 23, 2006

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not the most well-written book I've ever read...and more than a little repetitive at times, but contains far too many cool things about the incredible world of Disney that it was hard not to love it. A must read for any Disney fans!

[Alan Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

i was saddened and amused and astounded by the fact that despite the number of rides and attractions that Disney Parks have built over the past 65 years there were lots of uncompleted unrealized concepts that never left the drawing board and never got built and because I am a fan of movie theme parks i read this book as a source of inspiration for my own future theme park

[Chris Blanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, must read for any Disney parks fan

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot of interesting information here, about rides and parks and hotels that were slated for development but never made it off the ground. Some of the ideas I'd heard of before (Disneyland, an Unofficial Biography goes into much deeper detail on several included here), and some were new to me. Unfortunately, the book isn't put together very well - grammatical and spelling mistakes abound, and the organization leaves a lot to be desired; skipping around between years, parks, and projects and then repeating sections (sometimes verbatim); it comes across as somebody's graduate thesis rather than a commercially published book. But if you can look past that, and the scattered amount of detail provided (some topics are very in-depth, others get barely a sentence, although that is part of the nature of the ideas themselves), this is an interesting look at the Disney that could have been, contrasted with the Disney as it is now (or was in 2007 - it's already out of date in some ways, with some of the ideas that never were now actually having been created). For Disney enthusiasts only.

[Amber the Human · Rating 4 out of 5]

My very nice husband gave me this for ... Christmas I think. It turned out to be very handy and very distracting when I needed a handy distracting book. Would not have guessed that the author was British until the use of "u" was pretty constant. Clearly this guys loves Disney - was a little weirded out by his push for Disney hotels, but, hey, we all have our quirks.

[Joseph F · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Disney fan, I love this book. Scratch that, even as a causal reader I love this book. It has tons of info about the things that we're never made by Disney. From rides to hotels and even whole parks, this book is thoroughly enjoyable. Also I really like the transitions in this book. It's a small detail but it just feels really smooth. Defiantly check this one out.

[Kristi Schoonover]

Can't wait to dig into this one...found it by accident on LuLu. Mostly interested in research for future Disney Park ghost stories, but I did flip through the first chapter and it seems well-written.