Horizons- The Dark Ride of Dreams

Let’s face it- there is a LOT of negative stuff going on in the world at the moment, and something we could all use right now is the promise of a bright, joyful future full of innovation and hope. When EPCOT Center opened to the public on the 1st October 1982, it let us experience this promise, through a mix of pavilions themed around the countries of the world and various aspects of technology, and, a year after its opening, a pavilion opened that tied together all of the key themes of future world: transport and communication, life and agriculture, and most of all, technology.

It’s time to take a look back at the past, specifically the 80s and 90s, and explore the history of the darkride that is now considered one of the world’s most legendary: Horizons!

Concept and Construction

Walt Disney envisioned EPCOT as a city of the future, integrating new ways of living, communicating and getting around- known as the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, with the name abbreviated to the one we all know today. Eventually the concept evolved into a theme park centring around the themes of innovation of technology, which would celebrate technology now and in the future using two main areas: Future World and World Showcase.

The pavilions for Future World would include a Life and Health pavilion (which would eventually become Wonders of Life, check out the link at the bottom of this article to learn more about this one!), an agriculture pavilion, and a pavilion showcasing the powers of imagination, as well as several others including the concept for a movie pavilion which would eventually grow into a whole theme park. (Hollywood Studios!)

Horizons was planned to be a sequel to the Magic Kingdom’s Carousel of Progress, which was first unveiled at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and went through several names during during it’s design. The ride would originally be named Century III, symbolising how, at the time, the US had existed as an independent country for just over three centuries. It was decided that the name would be changed to be appeal more to international guests, so Futureprobe was chosen, yet this would soon also be changed as the word “probe” as it was seen as having a bit of a medical connotation. After discussion with the pavilion’s sponsor, General Electric, who also sponsored Carousel of Progress in the 1960s, the name ‘Horizons’ was settled on.

While many of Epcot’s Future World pavilions were open ready for the park’s 1982 debut (although some of these weren’t actually completed until a little later), Horizons could not be completed in time, and so Imagineering decided to have the ride ready for the park’s first anniversary the following year. It was an instant success, yet never got much of a queue, due to the OmniMover ride system that resulted in a pretty high through-put. Horizons would continue to operate until the late 90s, when a discovery about the ride’s foundations would mean it was forced to close forever.

A Journey to the 21st Century

The futuristic experience of Horizons began right from the moment when guests entered the queueline, known as the FuturePort, a spaceport with vehicles departing for a journey into the future. On boarding their ride vehicles, riders would enter the first segment of the attraction: Looking Back at Tomorrow, which reminisced about all the different ways in which people once envisioned the future, from an advanced city full of flying machines, to an apartment with a robotic butler, which has since become an icon of Horizons.

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Next, guests would be greeted by a huge OmniMax/IMAX screen known as the Omnisphere, which was highly impressive at the time and still would be now, displaying the technologies and science of today, before they would finally visit the future, firstly in the form of an apartment in the city of Nova Cite. The residents of the apartment would be a grandfather playing a new type of musical instrument, and a grandmother conversing via videocall with her daughter, an agricultural engineer in the desert region of Mesa Verde.

Riders would visit the farm where their daughter was working, getting an almost birds-eye view of the new innovative methods of farming using aquaponics (which is now used in the Living Laboratory in Living With the Land!). Soon you could visit the engineer’s apartment home, where her son and husband were baking a birthday cake, and her daughter was on a videocall with her boyfriend, a marine biologist studying in the floating city. On arriving there, we meet her boyfriend, who is fixing some kind of submarine vehicle, before seeing an underwater classroom and restaurant.

We then travel from the sea to the sky in a matter of seconds, and meet a family who has just arrived at the Brava Century Spaceship. The final main scene shows a family celebrating their a birthday via videocall- something many of us have done last year and this year!

The next segment of the experience was truly revolutionary. Riders were given the chance to choose the final part of their ride experience, with an innovative “Choose Your Own Tomorrow” function that offered 31 seconds of adventure through a future within either the desert, space or underwater. This added a certain level of uniqueness to the attraction, and meant that you had to ride at least three times in order to experience everything that Horizons had to offer.

The First Closure (and Sudden Reopening!)

Back in the early days of EPCOT, many of the park’s pavilions, particularly in Future World, relied on sponsorship from external companies for much of their maintenance. Horizons was no exception, with a ten year sponsorship deal with the aforementioned General Electric, and when the ten years ended in late 1993, Horizons closed until further notice, much to the dismay of fans.

The much-loved darkride wouldn’t stay closed for long however, as by the end of 1995 it would suddenly reopen, completely unchanged from its original form, likely in order to bring up ride count while its neighbouring pavilions, were under renovation, with World of Motion being reimagined to become Test Track, and Universe of Energy undergoing a major refurbishment. The latter attraction would continue as to operate as Ellen’s Energy Adventure until 2017, when it would suffer a breakdown during its final ride (slightly unfortunate, but at least it allowed guests to get up close and personal with the ride’s sets during the evacuation!), and its former site is now being reimagined into Guardian’s of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.

The Second- and Final- Closure

Horizons would only remain operational for four more years, and by 1999, with Test Track and Universe of Energy having opened a few years prior, and Horizons appearing to be suffering from a lack of maintenance, the ride would close permanently in January of that year, with rumours of a space pavilion (which was planned to be part of Future World from the very beginning!) yet no announcement so far of what would replace what was Epcot’s most loved attraction. In 1996, plans for a space pavilion were seen in a document proposing the concept, so this was the most likely fate for the site- and this turned out to be correct, with Mission: Space being announced soon after Horizons’ closure.

Epcot’s space pavilion was originally planned to be housed inside Horizons’ show building, but a discovery by the Disney company shortly after the closure would make this impossible. Epcot had been built on marshy ground, which could no longer support the massive show building, which had been putting a lot of stress on the land due to the large sets and heavy OmniMover ride system, and the structure was becoming unsound. Subsequently, Disney made the decision to have the new attraction constructed inside a smaller building that would put far less stress on the ground.

Mission: SPACE made its debut on 15th August 2003, as the park’s second simulator attraction after Body Wars opened over at the Wonders of Life pavilion in 1989. The ride featured two missions: Orange and Green, with Orange offering an extremely intense expedition to Mars, and Green allowing guests to take a more-family friendly journey to the moon.

Today, although not a part of EPCOT Center’s first nine pavilions, and opening over twenty years after the park, Mission: SPACE is one of the few attractions that still truly represent the original vision for Epcot: education and entertainment in an immersive, futuristic environment, even if it is a little too intense for some people! (I may be a fan of intense ride experiences, but even the Green Mission is definitely not my favourite part at Epcot!)

References to a Missed Ride

We may not be able to experience Horizons anymore, but what is arguably the most missed Epcot attraction hasn’t certainly disappeared from the park. Imagineers have added little references to the ride throughout the entrance area, queueline and shop for eagle-eyed fans of Horizons to spot. As you approach the pavilion you can see a planter, which at first doesn’t seem to hold a whole lot of significance, but this is actually the same planter that held a marquee in front of the former attraction, and while you travel through the queueline, the rotating gravity wheel contains the simplistic Horizons logo at its centre. This same logo can be spotted at the front of the till in the gift shop.

Tying into the lore of the lost attraction, the upcoming Space 220 restaurant (which is looking amazing!) has been announced to be set within the Centuari Space Station! It’s pretty common for Disney to sprinkle little references to defunct attractions throughout their replacements, and what better way to remember such a beloved attraction!

Did you ever get the chance to experience Horizons? Do you prefer Horizons or Mission: SPACE? Let me know in the comments below!

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You are all clear… and outta here! Thanks for reading!

-Lily