Description And Comments

Innoventions is housed in the large circular building last occupied by the audio-animatronic musical America Sings. Modeled after a similar attraction at Epcot in Walt Disney World, Innoventions was part of the 1996–2000 Tomorrowland renovation. In 2008 Disney borrowed a page from the park’s ancient past. One of the most beloved and often remembered attractions of Disneyland’s early years was the Monsanto House of the Future, a stand-alone building with a curved spaceship-style exterior and rooms outfitted with furniture and appliances forecast to be in everyone’s home before the millennium.

This time around, sans Monsanto, it’s the Dream Home, located in the middle of the ground floor of Innoventions. Surrounding the Dream Home are rooms from equally futuristic "neighbors'" homes, complete with actors playing the neighbors. Between the neighbors and a member of the Dream Home family, you are guided on a tour of the home’s wondrous rooms and the technology within them. A grand piano in the great room is networked to a music teacher across the country. In the dining room, touch screens in the dinner table allow the family to assemble a scrapbook. A 100-inch television dominates the family room. The kitchen, which will remind you of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, is of course the mother lode: among its many amazements is a computer that reads RFID (radio-frequency identification) “smart” labels on food packages and warns you if you’re about to chug a glass of milk past its expiration date; the same computer will alert you if you don’t have an ingredient on hand for a recipe you’re making. A story line concerning the Dream home family, the Eliases, sort of ties everything together.

A Washington reader likes the Dream Home but sees it as a Band-Aid:

Innoventions seems a little more coherent than it was, now that the model house was installed, but I don't get the whole point. It still strikes me as filling up room until the Disney people figure out what "real attraction" they're going to put in there.

Also currently showing inside Innoventions is "Say Hello to Honda's ASIMO," a show including the ridiculously impressive Honda ASIMO robot. One of the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, and can actually run (yes, run) autonomously -- which ASIMO does during the show.

Touring Tips

Crowds are rarely an issue at this attraction. We recommend that you spend time at Innoventions on your second day. If you have only one day, visit sometime during the evening if you have the time and endurance. Be forewarned that when you return home, your wife will want to remodel the kitchen.

Special Needs

Other Attractions in Tomorrowland

Lands