Delta Dreamflight (June 23, 1989 – January 1, 1996) was an attraction located in
Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom inside the
Walt Disney World ResortWalt Disney World Resort is the largest and most visited recreational resort in the world, containing four theme parks; two water parks; 23 themed hotels; and numerous shopping, dining, entertainment and recreation venues. Owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts segment of The Walt...
, and was sponsored by
Delta Air LinesDelta Air Lines, Inc. is a United States airline based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta operates an extensive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Australia...
. Dreamflight replaced an attraction called If You Could Fly, which was originally the attraction,
If You Had WingsIf You Had Wings was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It was sponsored by Eastern Air Lines. The ride featured images of some of Eastern's tourist destinations, including Mexico City, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and New Orleans...
, sponsored by
Eastern Air LinesEastern Air Lines was a major United States airline that existed from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida.-History:...
.
Dreamflight used the same basic
OmnimoverThe Omnimover is an amusement ride system used for Disney theme park attractions. Roger Broggie and Bert Brundage developed the system for WED Enterprises, which patented Omnimover in April 1968...
ride system that other Disney rides utilize today.
Dreamflight was a pop-up book version of the history of flight using simplistic sets, some
Audio-AnimatronicsAudio-Animatronics is the registered trademark for a form of robotics created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequently expanded on and used by other companies. The robots move and make noise, generally in speech or song...
and projection effects.
Delta Dreamflight (June 23, 1989 – January 1, 1996) was an attraction located in
Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom inside the
Walt Disney World ResortWalt Disney World Resort is the largest and most visited recreational resort in the world, containing four theme parks; two water parks; 23 themed hotels; and numerous shopping, dining, entertainment and recreation venues. Owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts segment of The Walt...
, and was sponsored by
Delta Air LinesDelta Air Lines, Inc. is a United States airline based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta operates an extensive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Australia...
. Dreamflight replaced an attraction called If You Could Fly, which was originally the attraction,
If You Had WingsIf You Had Wings was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It was sponsored by Eastern Air Lines. The ride featured images of some of Eastern's tourist destinations, including Mexico City, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and New Orleans...
, sponsored by
Eastern Air LinesEastern Air Lines was a major United States airline that existed from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida.-History:...
.
Overview
Dreamflight used the same basic
OmnimoverThe Omnimover is an amusement ride system used for Disney theme park attractions. Roger Broggie and Bert Brundage developed the system for WED Enterprises, which patented Omnimover in April 1968...
ride system that other Disney rides utilize today.
Dreamflight was a pop-up book version of the history of flight using simplistic sets, some
Audio-AnimatronicsAudio-Animatronics is the registered trademark for a form of robotics created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequently expanded on and used by other companies. The robots move and make noise, generally in speech or song...
and projection effects. Riders passed through scenes of barnstormers, an M-130, Tokyo and Paris in the 1930s, the jet age, and the future of air travel, and appeared to enter a working jet engine.
Ride Through
Guests entered the building into a small queue designed to look like an airport boarding terminal. The front-end nose and cockpit of an actual Delta airplane was situated on the left entering the queue, "passengers" appearing as though they were actually boarding a jetliner. The Delta jet was marked as "The Spirit of Delta" in bright gold. As you made your way into the queue opposite the jet, you entered a terminal gate with posters on the wall that included many exciting and exotic destinations of the world. Eventually, you would make your way back up the terminal gate and enter the side of the jet into a mirrored hallway with bright blue, green, red and yellow neon lights. As you walked up a ramp you entered the boarding area which was set up in a very similar fashion to the
Haunted MansionThe Haunted Mansion is a complete dark ride attraction located at Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Park in Paris . Each incarnation of the attraction features a ride-through tour of a haunted house in Omnimover vehicles called Doom Buggies,...
. As the bright blue 'cars' rode past you would walk onto a moving escalator ramp and
board your
flight.
By now guests will have seen a giant mural depicting the golden era of aviation in America was adorned on the wall in this room. The next room you entered on the attraction had a giant, pop-up book style spinning room which had a hot air balloon and other flying contraptions spinning by you as the
Dreamflight song would play. Then you entered the second room of your
flight which was designed to look as though you were in a giant crop field of the American mid-west in the roaring 1920s. Bi-planes, stunt planes and barnstormers were flying all over the ceiling above a flying circus air show. The pilot of a plane had crashed through a barn and was stuck in the rafters on the ceiling of the barn. The third room was just a big screen with a film clip of an aerial stuntman standing on top of a prop plane while it performed dizzying stunts in the air.
Next came the propeller plane era, where commercial flights started taking passengers all over the globe. On your left, you passed the inside of a posh, elegant airliner's fuselage that was the dining area of a first-class trip. Then a gentleman in a suit stood on your left in a Japanese garden where he was being greeted by the Japanese locals. Coming up on your right hand side below you were the rooftops and the skyline of Paris, France. You
flew past the rooftops of a Paris street and could see quaint little shops and tourists sitting below on the patio of a French cafe. As you moved ahead, a sign saying
Jet Age, spun in circles and a male voice notified you to "please prepare for supersonic takeoff". Then another female voice said, "Ladies and Gentlemen. Your
Dreamflight will depart immediately for the future. Please prepare for supersonic takeoff". To the immediate left on the wall was a giant painting of a jetliner taking off towards the sky.
As you made your way forward, a giant spinning light along with fog and fans, gave you the impression that you were about to actually enter the inside of a turbo jet engine. The sounds of an engine roaring to life and taking off then blasted out over the sound system. As you entered a gigantic film projection room, you saw footage of a plane taking off a runway to simulate your flight's departure, eventually lifting off and flying through the clouds in the sky. The next room was another film clip on your right which showed computer-generated clips of you above the earth, flying in a canyon above water and eventually flying in a futuristic city with fireworks exploding all around you; the first theatrical-format 70mm computer animations ever produced. The final room of the attraction was a giant pop-up book with destinations spread out in front of you on huge pages, while a little projection of a Delta jet flew by above the display into the clouds.
The exit area was a room with the Delta logo painted on the wall and with more posters of destinations from around the world to visit.
Tomorrowland Transit Authority Dioramas
If You Had WingsIf You Had Wings was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It was sponsored by Eastern Air Lines. The ride featured images of some of Eastern's tourist destinations, including Mexico City, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and New Orleans...
had diorama windows that allowed riders on the
Tomorrowland Transit AuthorityThe Tomorrowland Transit Authority is a peoplemover system in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort. Themed as an urban mass transit system of the future, riders are taken on a train ride around the second floor of many attractions in Tomorrowland...
to look down into the ride. When If You Had Wings was replaced with Delta Dreamflight, the dioramas on the
Tomorrowland Transit AuthorityThe Tomorrowland Transit Authority is a peoplemover system in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort. Themed as an urban mass transit system of the future, riders are taken on a train ride around the second floor of many attractions in Tomorrowland...
changed. One diorama window was removed in the process:
- The first window was replaced with backlit panels depicting the ride's barnstormer scene.
- Window two looked into the Parisian Excursion
Paris is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
scene, from a viewpoint which heavily distorted the tableau's forced perspectiveForced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture...
.
- The third window would have had riders looking directly into an extremely bright light and so was completely obscured with plywood and black fabric.
Sponsorship Ends
Delta sponsored the ride from its opening in 1989 through the end of 1995. The decision not to continue sponsorship was made in part due to the costs of sponsoring the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. From January 1, 1996 to June 4, 1996 the attraction was renamed simply "
Dreamflight" while its future was being determined. On June 5, 1996 it reopened as
Take Flight. It was only a slight refurbishment; all references to Delta were removed and the attraction's popular theme songs were rerecorded. Take Flight closed its doors for good in January 1998, ending the dynasty of flight-based attractions to occupy the space. It was replaced by the interactive dark ride Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which was inspired by
DisneyWalt Disney Pictures refers to several different entities associated with The Walt Disney Company:Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner, was established as a designation in 1983, prior to which Disney films since 1954 were released under the name of the parent company, then named Walt Disney...
/
PixarPixar Animation Studios is a CGI animation production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. To date, the studio has earned twenty-two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, and three Grammys, among many other awards, acknowledgments and achievements. It is one of the most critically...
's
Toy StoryToy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated family/buddy film, directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. The film was co-produced by Ralph Guggenheim and Bonnie Arnold and was distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. It was written by Joss Whedon, Andrew...
films.
Delta Dreamflight
- Opened: June 23, 1989
- Sponsor: Delta Air Lines (sponsorship ended on December 31, 1995)
- Special note: After the attraction lost sponsorship it was simply known as Dreamflight between January 1, 1996 and June 4, 1996).