We've seen the reasoning for bringing the Little Mermaid to Paris, now lets start walking up the "coral gardens" leading to the attraction and take that Clamshell for a ride "under the sea….."

What? The Mermaid Lagoon façade right in front of the Italian designs of the Pizzeria Bella Notte? 
Yes, I know this sounds very weird but Tom Morris actually devised a perfect solution to this esthetical problem: the façade would have faced more towards it's a small word instead of the Bella Notte with the whole area in front it, from the current gate leading backstage next to It's a Small World up to the Fantasyland archway next to the Castle Stage gradually developing from a normal garden to a coral reef, meaning that once you where entering the actual show building all your senses would have told you that you where entering an underwater kingdom!

Because of the thematically challenging color scheme and approach which Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) had for this ride the actual entrance setup would have been a gradual approach to the show building's facade - just the opposite to the approach taken with the much darker and more frightening entrance paths of the proposed Beauty & the Beast attraction (or the realized entrances to the Pirates of the Caribbean or Phantom Manor). As in the rest of this park Disney wanted the guests to interact with the surrounding environments and therefore gradually feel totally inside the ride's surroundings and its world.

Therefore the path leading to the show building would have meandered through a lush garden which would have evolved step by step from green grass to more sand like and coral colors. Plants, lights and every little detail would have gradually induced the guests to believe that they where approaching a coral reef, and therefore Ariel's world!

Imagine light poles done in the shape of shells or of seaweeds, a cobbled floor which would have felt soft as sand (an effect later used in Walt Disney World's Ariel Playground and the Cosmic Waves at Disneyland Anaheim), or fiber optic tiles which at night would have helped create the "under water mood" of the area (even these tiles were later used in Epcot) by imbedding light patterns of sea like creatures and flora. All this simply to introduce guests by the means of this beautiful garden leading to the facade - acting as a pre-cue!
Once in front of the coral facade guests would have been treated to a breathtaking sight, the same turrets, coral patterns, color scheme and designs now seen in Tokyo Disney Sea's Mermaid Lagoon as those where actually designed for Paris!

As much as we all love what Imagineering realized in Tokyo, it was the Oriental Land Company's wish to have the Genie and the Little Mermaid act as "hosts" to their new theme park which forced WDI to include the Mermaid Lagoon into Tokyo Disney Sea. The original plans (derived from the proposed Long Beach "Port Disney" theme park) called for a giant glass bubble containing the underwater castle of "Oceania" to act as centerpiece to the park (Mysterious Island in this concept was just another area) where the Little Mermaid would have been found - in the end Mermaid Lagoon's façade came directly from the plans created for Paris.

Anyways back to us Europeans now. Once inside the show building the cue would have directed us through rooms adorned with various paintings of both Eric's and Ariel's worlds. Royal portraits of the members of both families (including Ariel's sisters) and statues of King Triton and Prince Eric (the later one being a replica of his famous birthday gift) would have adorned the last meter before it would have been time for the boarding sequence.

The ride's vehicles where one of those WDI masterpiece: designed to look like Clam Shells with a little sea horse (the trumpet player) engraved on the forefront the inverted four passenger vehicles were suspended from above (technically an Inverted Dark ride vehicle like the Peter Pan ride's ships). Once moving a glass covering would have surrounded all the vehicles opening - still passengers would have had a close to 180° look since the glass started from above the 2nd row and ended underneath the feet of the first row passengers. The ride's track would have been coral colored in the under water scenes and camouflaged as the ceiling/sky in the scenes in Eric's world, meaning that guests would have had the illusion of traveling on the waters surface.

Entering the first scene passengers would have seen on there left Eric's ship during the party scene and Ariel, Scuttle and Flounder would have been on the ships side looking at the Party. Whilst the clam shell circled the ship the sky's color would have changed and the other side of the ship would have revealed the famous dtorm sequence from the movie, so we would have seen one of the ships sails falling and Ariel saving Eric, bringing him safe to shore!

Exiting this sequence through a cave like passage we would have heard the Ariel theme music and water would have surrounded us. This under water effect was designed specifically for this ride and was called "dry/wet technology". Passengers would have had the feeling of the vehicle diving into the underwater world thanks to a small amount of water "pouring" down what would look like the outside of the glass complete with bobbles. In fact there were two layers of glass with the water and air bobbles being in the small gap between those two layers. To further improve the effect the water level inbetween the two layers would have been changing  proportional to the actual diving depths and the vehicle would have actually inclined a bit so to give the illusion, along with the scenery using forced perspective tricks, that we where actually diving down into Ariel's world.

Once under water we would have found ourselves inside Ariel's grotto and seen her beautiful collection of human objects, including Eric's statue. From the center of the room we could have looked up straight through the hole in the center of the cavern and our sight would have revealed Eric's Castle with Eric playing with his dog on it's shores. This illusion would have been so strong that exiting the cave we would have seen Eric looking straight at us. Actually it was a trompe l'oeil, a painting giving a slight 3D illusion - by the way most of the Miracosta Hotel façade at TDS facing into the park has been realized like this!

Next up would have been one of the highlights of the ride: Sebastian would have been situated on a high rock right next to Ariel (like in the movie) and then started singing "Under the Sea"! Within seconds we would have found our clam shell traveling between all sorts of sea creatures (these where actual Audio-Animatronics) singing and dancing trying to convince Ariel to forget the land above. If any of you want a glimpse of what an Audio-Animatronic Sebastian would have been like just search for a Spectromagic Parade video (or head over to Walt Disney World to see it), since the AA Sebastian featured in that parade is the actual AA designed (and used) for the mock up of this ride which was featured in Euro Disney Resorts' opening TV special on the 11th of April 1992 (when the camera showed the future plans for EuroDisneyland at Glendale's WDI headquarters).

But we all know the story - Ariel is desperately in love with Eric, so we now see her with Ursula, a giant sea witch, who's tentacles seem to cover the whole scene. Ariel sings and while she sings we return to Eric's kingdom (and the dry/wet effect stops) where we finally see Ariel and here prince on the shore, where the little princess indicates to Eric that she cannot talk.

In a similar design to the previous "Under the Sea" song sequence the "Kiss the Girl" scene would have featured the clam shell circling Ariel's and Eric's row boat in the center of a lagoon whilst various Audio-Animatronic creatures would have sang guided by Sebastian (and yes, even Scuttle's incredible singing abilities were featured). The scenes finally would have had us watching Ursula's transformation into a human being and Eric being mesmerized by her voice finding her on the shore.
Our clam shell would have then passed next to the wedding ship on the open sea. While seeing Ariel diving off the pier and trying to reach the ship in the distance we would have circled the ship once more to reveal the moment when Ariel finally gets onto the boat and pours water onto Ursula, revealing her real sea witch features to Eric.

Bolts of lighting and dark sky's would have surrounded the battle scene, Ursula would have become (to our right) a giant creature and (to our left) Eric and Ariel would have desperately tried to fight her off with all they had on hand. Passing around the giant Ursula we would have seen that a spear had killed her and that Ariel had finally regained her voice.
As in every prince and princess Fantasyland ride I guess there is no need to say (could you have guessed it?) that the final scene featured Ariel and Eric finally married while Triton and all the sea creatures waved goodbye to the boat (and to us).

Yes gang this would have been a very long ride - near 7 minutes long meaning more than double the average Fantasyland ride and slightly less than Pirates of the Caribbean or Phantom Manor! But it would certainly have been an Audio-Animatronic extravaganza, in fact the first time complete AAs of the newest generation would have been used in a Fantasyland dark ride (all other rides have simpler AAs of older generations), most of all it would have updated the Magic Kingdom concept!
So what happened to indefinitely postpone its green lighting? And most of all: what happend to all these beautiful designs? Well, I believe most of you know some answers, but that's what I'm going to talk about in the next (and last) installment of this series, along with a few possible rumours and semi-official hints of where and when we might see a Little Mermaid in Paris!

For now it's TTFN - tatafornow

MickeyFantasmic