The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (Disneyland Park)

This article is about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at Disneyland Park. For versions of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at other locations, see The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

## Dark Ride

Entrance sign to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

### Opened

April 11, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-04-11)

### Duration

3:15

**The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh** is a dark ride in Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort based upon the 1977 film of the same name, itself based on the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne.

After the rise in popularity of Walt Disney's film adaptation of Winnie the Pooh, Disney Imagineers made plans in the late 1970s for a Winnie the Pooh attraction at Disneyland Park's soon-to-be renovated Fantasyland. However, in 1983, when the renovated Fantasyland reopened, a Winnie the Pooh attraction was notably absent.

An original plan from the mid-1990s placed an indoor and outdoor light boat ride featuring a Winnie the Pooh theme at Disneyland. This plan was shelved by 1999, so a new dark ride was planned. Disneyland is the only one of the six Disney resorts to have little room for expansion. The solution to open this attraction in the park was to replace an existing attraction with this new ride.

Fantasyland was ruled out because it contained the least amount of available space and because of the age of its buildings; park managers anticipated that the attraction would be popular and decided to place it in an area that could better accommodate the crowds. Critter Country, a small parcel between New Orleans Square and Frontierland, was ultimately chosen since Winnie the Pooh already had his own greeting area in that land. The area already featured two attractions, Splash Mountain and Country Bear Jamboree, the latter being the first attraction to open in the land (then Bear Country) in 1972.

Imagineers chose to replace the Country Bear Jamboree with Pooh due to its lack of popularity and a proposal for a new Country Bear racing attraction called the "Critter Country 500" being rejected by management. This required major excavation for space and leveling for the ride. When news of the former attraction's demise broke, many fans were once more upset at the loss of another classic attraction and again sought to change the park managers' minds. However, management decided to continue as planned. As a tribute, the heads of Max the deer, Melvin the moose and Buff the buffalo are mounted in the wall inside the ride.

The budget for the attraction was set at a reported $30 million, most of it dedicated to reformatting the Country Bear Jamboree show building. When it finally opened in 2003, it received large promotions by park management and lines were somewhat long at first, but quickly dropped off. Disneyland was planning to have a media event scheduled for April 11, 2003, but on April 2, the park announced that it would be canceled.

Its turnover rate with guests was low compared to older dark rides in Fantasyland, with shorter wait times than comparable Fantasyland attractions, even on busy days. Those critical of this ride point to the shorter wait times as evidence that the ride is not as well-liked as other classic dark rides, though the ride's much higher capacity compared to other Fantasyland attractions makes wait times a questionable indicator. Another common complaint is that the ride was seemingly created to funnel guests into a gift shop, as the ride exits next to Pooh Corner. Advocates, on the other hand, claim that the discrepancy in wait times is due solely to the ride's out-of-the-way placement. Regardless, of the four versions of this attraction at the various Disney parks, this one is the least popular in terms of attendance.