Walt Disney Co, the world's largest theme park operator, opens the "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage" attraction today to help sustain attendance gains after a 50th anniversary promotion at its parks last year.
The ride is the first at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, based on Pixar's Finding Nemo animated movie. It replaces "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," shuttered nine years ago.
Nemo is the top-grossing Pixar movie with US$864.6 million in worldwide box-office sales.
In the ride, a submarine navigates ruins and a coral reef before entering the Nemo portion, where animated characters swim by the portholes. The attraction, which took three years to build, uses much of the infrastructure of "20,000 Leagues."
"The biggest challenge was the submarine itself," said Kathy Mangum, the ride's executive producer and vice president at Walt Disney Imagineering. "The audience is moving through scenes at different rates from each other."
The company didn't disclose how much the ride would cost.
Disney, based in Burbank, California, is also opening a "Pirate's Lair" on Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island. Last July, the company retooled Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction to include animatronic characters from the films starring Johnny Depp.
Last year's campaign helped boost attendance by 6 percent to 112.5 million visitors worldwide, data from the Themed Entertainment Association showed.
The increase was driven by an 8.6 percent rise at Animal Kingdom near Orlando, Florida, which added a roller coaster, and 5.2 million visitors at Hong Kong Disneyland in its first year.
Disneyland had a 1.2 percent rise, smaller than at Animal Kingdom or another newer park, Disney's California Adventure in Anaehim, the trade group said. Disney used the anniversary of Disneyland to promote all of its parks worldwide.
The theme-park division is Disney's second-largest by revenue after its media networks, which include cable networks, ABC and broadcast radio. The unit has the highest average two-year growth among any division.
Theme-park profits increased 19 percent to US$254 million in the second quarter ended March 31 on an 8.7 percent gain in sales to US$2.45 billion, fueled by higher guest spending, ticket prices and attendance.
Disney has six of the 10 biggest US parks. The largest US resort, Disney's Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida, had a 3 percent increase in attendance. Universal Studios in Florida showed growth of 1.2 percent.
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