This is the unload, not the load zone, but you can see the clamshells better here.

The shells face outward, toward the moving sidewalk, and have a single opening in the middle. Later, the door will swing back into place to cover the opening. This reminds me a little of Horizons, another Omnimover ride that was boarded in the middle of the ride vehicle. And like Horizons, these Omnimovers don't really swivel; they just continuously face outward, and rotate to different directions naturally as the track snakes left and right. That means all the show elements are on one side, but don't let that fool you into thinking this isn't immersive. It's about as good as you'll ever see for a one-side-only presentation. In fact, this may be the only way the ride comes up short in a comparison with the Haunted Mansion. Because the Mansion has show elements on both sides, it feels like a "real" location we are traveling through. Had Nemo had this too (or should future dark rides do this), we'll have a basis for comparing it to the Mansion.

The show begins right away after the boarding zone. The very first scene is one of the coral reef off Australia, and it's resplendent with rippled sun effects from above as though filtering through the water, colorful corals sculpted in three dimensions, intricate rock formations in the background, and a screen in the middle dominating our attention. If you've even seen the screens in Mexico's El Rio Del Tiempo ride, inset amid three-dimensional sets, you'll know what to expect here.

The overall effect was one that reminded me of Journey to Atlantis: three of four feet of props and set pieces, and the back wall behind that, with colorful sets meant to represent an underwater scene. If memory serves, Journey to Atlantis actually includes a supposed coral reef set, also done in three dimensions and fully dry, though meant to imply it's underwater. Which led to my first question: is this the vaunted "dry for wet" technology? It's just a set piece painted as though it were under water. That said, most of the sets are pretty elaborate and detailed. Most dark rides don't lavish this kind of detail on scenes that are over so quickly, but the attention is obvious here. These are no simple painted flats!

On the first screen set amid the rocks, Marlin's anemone home is animated and "waves" in the current, while Marlin darts in and out and frets that Nemo is again gone (though in fact, Nemo is hiding right behind Marlin). Dark rides are notorious for their need to convey in a split second the important information, and this one does it perfectly.

The first scene, replete with coral and lighting effects.

We cross a rocky outcropping, apparently a new set piece. Another coral scene greets us, and another screen of animation. On this one, Mr. Ray and several of Nemo's classmates indicate their readiness to play, but prefer to wait until Nemo is found (for the second time, Nemo dances just out of sight—apparently he's a real precocious child). Again, the entire execution of a short segment is carried off with panache. You'd think that having to repeat this verbal message over and over would lead to guests in the clamshells hearing it before they arrive and after they depart, but I detected no such lack of synchronization. You only hear it when the scene is directly in front of you. In fact, that was true of all the show scenes in this ride, and one of the many ways that Nemo manages to perfect the dark ride experience.

After another transition, we see a third coral-scape with two screens. Marlin and Dory dart back and forth between the two screens, with Marlin imploring Dory to help him find Nemo, whose name she butchers repeatedly. At one point, Nemo himself creeps up behind Marlin and mimics (mocks) Marlin's movements. At another, Dory discovers Nemo and describes him to Marlin, but by the time he arrives, Nemo is gone and Dory has already forgotten him. Nemo, meanwhile, has moved over to a third screen featuring the small fry who was scared of the sharks in the movie, during the bring-a-friend sequence (you may also remember him as the one at the end of the credits who turns out to have a HUGE mouth and swallows a much larger predator). This scene contains perhaps my only gripe: the projections of Marlin and Dory bleed onto the rocks directly over our clamshells. It's distracting, and once you see it, you cannot un-see it (I blame my wife for pointing it out to me).

As our clamshells round a corner, we come across a sea full of jellyfish. A voiceover has Dory offering hints to a guessing game, and Marlin repeatedly knowing the answer is "jellyfish!" The effects here are not bad; you see large jellyfish directly in front of you, and others behind a scrim set further back away from you. In the distance, there are hazy reflections of still more jellyfish—this turns out to be a Pepper's Ghost effect. You may know this from the ballroom scene of the Haunted Mansion, and it's created by having actual animatronics above and BEHIND the clamshells, with the image of those jellyfish reflected in the screens visible to the guests. There appear to be other mirrors in the room as well, to multiply the apparent number of jellyfish. Overall, it's an effective illusion—it looks like we're drowning in a sea of jellyfish. Still, it's not quite breathtaking—perhaps they'll tweak this as times goes on.

More movie references, and the N-E-M-O sign.

Another corner, another transition. Suddenly it's quite dark, and we see purple bubbles illuminate and then go dark. While I don't get the reference entirely, it's clear that the implication is that we're suddenly quite deep under the surface. Sure enough, the next set will be the home of the angler fish trying to eat Marlin. Dory will pop up in animation on screens to the left and right of the main action, taunting the angler fish, but your eyes will almost certainly be on the angler and Marlin. Those two fish are puppets, not animation, and they are mounted on a "robo-arm" that swivels in pretty much every direction (actually I'm not sure about Marlin, but the angler fish is definitely on a robo-arm). This is the technology promised for the eventual Incredibles attraction at Disney-MGM and DCA, but done on a smaller scale.

The angler fish flops around here and there, but mostly seems to be realistically chasing Marlin. It's done with some loud special effects; not enough to be overly threatening to children, but enough to intimate real menace and imbue the scene with some urgency. Meanwhile, the entire event is illuminated by blacklight and reminds me of the Little Mermaid puppet show at Disney-MGM. It's a highly effective scene and arguably the climax of the ride. Certainly the technology is so new, it leaves many people wondering how they did that.

We round a sharp corner and are confronted with the ruins of the submarine seen in the movie (in pretty small scale). The shark with the hook in his nose (Chum? Or is that the other one?) pops his head in and out of a hole in the submarine. Up ahead are screens with animations of Bruce the great white shark and Nemo; Nemo flits between two different screens and hides from Bruce, who wants desperately to eat him, though his words to the contrary are dripping with irony. Amusingly, Nemo transitions between the two screens through a rusty pipe (not part of the animation or screens), and each time he does, sand and debris pop out of the pipe with him. He even gets mildly stuck once.

Bruce menaces Nemo.

A turn to the left (I've long since gotten lost about where we are in the building, compared to the old Living Seas), and suddenly we see turtles projected on the screen in front of us. In fact, we've entered a tunnel that is long and straight, and there are turtles as far as the eye can see. There are also bubbles, moving along in a strong current. As Squirt tells us by voiceover, we've entered the EAC and zoom along with the turtles (our clamshells don't change speed, but the effect is convincing). Then, disconcertingly, Squirt and Crush (who are animated on the screen in front of us as brighter turtles than the other ones), tell us to hold on, and the EAC enters the underwater equivalent of rapids. Squirt, Crush, and Nemo (who is also here) surf the wave, and disconcertingly, the bubbles and turtles that make up the background of the screen in front of us rotate up and out of view.

We become aware that the screen is not only in front of us, but wraps around above us, as well, and these turtles and bubbles are rotating out of our sight. If you've ever been in a "swirl tunnel" before, you'll know the effect. California's Universal Studios Tram Tour has one (now with a Mummy makeover), and you can still find one at Poseidon's Fury at Islands of Adventure (and arguably on Anaheim's new Space Mountain, during the uphill portion). Meanwhile, Crush proclaims "Righteous! Righteous!" as he surfs the wave. Eventually it dies down, and Crush reminds Nemo that everyone is looking for him. What's neat about the technology here is how seamlessly the multiple projectors come together to make an apparently single piece of animation. It's dynamic, fun, and visually arresting. (Follow-up Note: it was seamless on Friday, but by Saturday seams between the segments were suddenly visible. Is synchronization something done on a daily basis? I hope the beautiful effect isn't already ruined.)

Crush, Squirt, and Nemo.

The very long straightaway of the tunnel ends (apparently the EAC includes the old tunnel out into the aquarium and still visible from the second floor observation deck, though the new EAC tunnel must be longer than the old transition tunnel), and we round the corner to suddenly see the real aquarium through giant glass windows. This is the part of the ride that was there before, in the old Living Seas days. But this is no mere view of the fish. We pass several windows, and in each one, we see animated fish that really look like they are inhabiting the space somewhere behind the glass. The effect is a little uncanny. It turns out the projections are occurring in the space above the clamshells and are aimed out "into" the water, and if I'm not mistaken the effect is the same as the Chevron cars at Disneyland's Autopia. While the effect at Autopia may be cartoonish, here the illusion of depth is here a lot more realistic.

A view of the Mr. Ray window from the second-floor observation deck.
My guess is that these new metal platforms aren't needed for the visual
effect, but are needed to keep the divers out of the "animation" zone.

It's not too often that I ask myself "how do they do that?" but this was one of those moments. The animations really look to be somewhere deep in the actual aquarium beyond. It helps that the frame around the windows includes flat cutouts in the shape of corals. They are visible just as shadows, but they help frame the entire view.

Those window cutouts.

The first window shows the reunion of Nemo with Marlin and Dory, and a disembodied chorus sings one of the songs from the upcoming Nemo show at DAK, "The Big Blue." It's a catchy tune not too far removed from "it's a small world." The second window includes Mr. Ray and several of his charges clustered around his head, while Crush and Squirt take up the third window. They all sing along with the chorus.

Lots of real fish mix in with the animated ones.

In the fourth window, Nemo, Marlin, and Dory again appear and sing along.

The overall effect is impressive.

The last window is smaller and only has Peach the StarFish, the only member of the "Tank Gang" from the movie to make the transition to the ride. Peach laments that her new life here is much more boring than the dentist's office, and hopefully inquires if any riders have interesting dental work to show her. Hilariously, she reveals that she hates the song we've just heard over the past several windows. It's a nice enough song, she says, but they never stop singing it! The irony here recalls Scar's aversion to the repetitive song "it's a small world" in the Lion King movie: the reference itself doubles as an inside joke.

Peach begs for a ride.

We round one final corner, and see the unload platform (another long moving walkway). Mr. Ray's disembodied voice encourages us to explore the "seabase" beyond (a reference to the old Living Seas pavilion) and he even mentions "sea cabs."

The unload zone.

We disembark and note that the vehicles are right there, abutting the main lobby of the pavilion. The old Living Seas ride never came this close to the lobby. It reminded me that I was still unsure how all of this managed to fit in the small space allowed. It's true that the new queue, though large, only takes up a part of the pre-show area from the old Living Seas. What had been the theater and most of the hydrolators was space that could be used for the new show. Still, I came away impressed that so long a ride could be packed into so small a space. This was the Imagineering of my youth: the rules of the space-time continuum, especially the physics and limitations of geography, apparently took a backseat to the magic of the Disney Imagineers.

The new Nemo cast member costumes.

There have been minor changes in the rest of the Seabase. The sign for the observation deck now sports jellyfish too.

This way to the fish!

Meanwhile, the two upstairs "labs" visible across from the stairwell have gotten new murals to match the one in front of the pavilion.

One upstairs lab near the escalator that received a half-hearted makeover over the past couple of years (this was the home of the Mr. Ray lab) is now closed, as well as the lab below it.

One of the closed labs.

One report I've heard calls for these two being the new queue for Turtle Talk with Crush, which would be moving to the old theater where "The Seas" used to play. That confuses me, since I would have guessed all the space in the pavilion was used up by the ride. But if it's true, it would be nice to not have the entire central space of the bottom floor taken up with the Crush line.

I like the new Nemo ride. I like it a lot. You shouldn't read these comments as implying that a transcendent experience awaits you at Epcot—it's not THAT good. But it's a lot better than anything Disney has done lately, and it's just more "Disney" than most Disney rides in the past few decades.

That said, my enthusiasm is slightly tempered now versus my first ride. What's changed? I spoke with a few others. One Cast Member whose opinion I respect said he liked the ride fine enough, but it just seemed cute and fluffy to him. Somewhat deflated, I went on the ride with yet another friend, equally steeped in Disney culture, and he came off the ride actively dissatisfied. His gripes? It felt thrown together to him, and it became apparent that he wasn't able to pick up any of the storyline related above. He missed the key information that Nemo had run away again.

Furthermore, he didn't like the way the sets came so close to the vehicles. The cramped feeling forces the viewer to look at just one spot—whatever we're supposed to be seeing at this moment. He prefers rides that have large, grand sets that let you look wherever you want. The close-together sets were also frustrating because he couldn't hear or see the entire "loop" of animation in any given scene. In some cases, designers built two slightly different loops so that viewers wouldn't have to hear the same thing twice, but it has the downside that folks like my friend would strain to hear everything, and thus always be craning his neck backward, and worse, miss the start of the next show set.

His recommended solution? Slow down the ride vehicles. That would have a negative impact on the hourly capacity of the ride (all Omnimovers have formidable throughput), but it might be worth it to reduce confusion.

My own reaction is still positive. It's true that you don't hear or see every last detail on the first run-through, but that's an enticement to come a second time. Even if a visitor perceives no storyline, dark rides have a history of not having much of a story. Nemo is a little unusual in having a storyline, in fact.

I still rate this ride a hearty thumbs-up. It isn't necessarily that the ride is completely immersive (it's not), but every single show scene is satisfying and entertaining, and almost all of them use some manner of gee-whiz technology or special effect. It's done with wit and charm, and the overall execution shows a lot of love. They need to give raises to the designers and Imagineers who were involved with this ride. Why? Because something went right, for a change, and we are the beneficiaries.

On Labor Day, GM quietly closed the Dreamchasers simulator at the exit to Test Track. Like its long gone counterpart in California's Innoventions, this pseudo-simulator had guests climb into a personal seat and lean into a visor and encompassed their whole vision. These seats would swivel left and right in tune with the action on the screen, and everyone had the same movie, so all the seats would swivel in unison. That made it look cool from the outside, but the reality was a lot less interesting. The computer-generated animation was pretty crude, and I don't even really remember the storyline. I think maybe it had something to do with racing back to GM's headquarters in some test car, but I could be wildly off base. It never enjoyed great audience success, nor did it draw a crowd. And when a crowd did materialize, that just amplified expectations all the more. The result was often a disappointed guest.

Dreamchasers: never a big draw.

Behind the construction walls now there, a new exhibit is going up. Fuel for Thought will focus on hybrid technology, and provide a more pure edutainment opportunity (imagine that! Something that might fit Epcot's original mission!) There won't apparently be a ride in this space, nor will guests get to climb into a Hy-Wire concept car, like the one that can already be seen across the way. In fact, the Hy-Wire is already outdated, according to one worker on the spot. Fuel for Thought will focus on even newer hybrid and fuel cell ideas. If gas prices climb again, there will certainly be plenty of interest from the public.

Construction walls at Test Track.

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Kevin's most recent book is called 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World. There are lots of Disney guide books in the world, but where are the books detailing interesting stories behind odd theming choices, hidden tributes, or the weird references to names or numbers scattered around that probably mean something specific but aren't explained? This book fills that void and was created to be accessible for every level of Disney fan. Newcomers to Disneyana will be bowled over by the volume of detail, the rich layers of self-reference, and the abundance of insider tributes. Readers accustomed to such stories about Walt Disney World will find a useful resource that not only catalogs such occurrences in one spot, but goes far beyond the usual, and brings a wealth of new stories and anecdotes to the table.

The individual 101 Things referenced by the title are all items you can actually point to at the parks, so that the book provides a kind of walking tour of the parks (in guided tour format, rather than "question-and-answer" format) that yields a glimpse of the deeper history percolating below the surface. Moreover, each of the 101 "interesting facts" comes with an explanation as well as an embellishment that goes in related, but different, directions. These embellishments are practically interesting new facts all by themselves, so what you get is closer to 202 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World. Read more about it here.

Kevin is also the author of two books about Disneyland. Follow the links above to buy 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland, a volume that details the insider tributes and homage's at Disneyland, and Magic Quizdom, a trivia book dedicated only to questions (with long informative answers!) about Disneyland. To view a description and sample of Magic Quizdom, click here.

Kevin Yee may be e-mailed at his address, [email protected] - Please keep in mind due to the volume of e-mail he gets, he may not be able to respond to each note personally.