Disney rarely has entire ideas that just die. Most get converted into something else or end up getting built in a different park. But that is exactly what happened with Glacier Bay, a land Disney designed and was ready to build, but was canceled at the absolute last second, in not one but two parks.
Welcome to TPE. As a special three-part entry in our Attractions From Neverland series exploring canceled Disney attractions we are looking at the mysteries behind Glacier Bay, a land fully designed but never built for two different parks, Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. The first part will be dedicated to exploring the land’s attractions with the next two parts exploring what happened that led to the land not being built in Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.
Glacier Bay was proposed to be the third part of a phase two expansion of Hong Kong Disneyland, opening alongside Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Point. But this land would have been a little different. It would have been entirely indoors to create a cool atmosphere for the polar themed land.
Now the exact attractions for this land were never revealed, only describe briefly. They were described as a jet ski attraction, a sled themed attraction, and a roller coaster through the land that sounds like it would have been the first snow-themed mountain added to the Disney mountain range.
All of these would have been tied together by a general scientific research theme.
To me, it sounds like the sled and the jet ski attractions would have been flat rides, given the size of the proposed land and that its two counterparts each only had one major attraction.
Unfortunately, that is all we know. We can speculate, the sled ride could easily be an early version of the Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree ride system. The skiing ride would likely have been a half-pipe coaster, similar to the RC Racer that would eventually be located in this land's proposed location. The coaster is believed to have combined a dark ride experience with a Disney coaster similar to Expedition Everest or Escape from Gringotts. But that is all it is, speculation based on limited public information on the actual content of the land.
This land was ready to be built when it was canceled and was in the final approval stages.
So why was it canceled? Come back next week for part two of the series.
In the meantime, if you like hearing about canceled attractions visit our Attractions From Neverland page to access series like Epcot Center’s Cancelled Attractions and Never Built Disneyland.
What do you think of the Glacier Bay proposal? Would you have preferred to have this over Toy Story Land? Let us know in the comments below!
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