The Current State Of Disneyland’s Innoventions
Disneyland’s Innoventions isn’t exactly a must see attraction. The building takes up a massive amount of space in Tomorrowland and sees very small crowds on even the busiest days of the year. I recently noticed Disney made some operational changes to the way the attraction loads. Admittedly, I have not been inside in over a year, so I decided to go in and take a closer look at the current state of Innoventions.
The original entrance to Innoventions, used from its opening in 1998 up until early 2012. Notice a temporary sign redirects people to the right.
Originally after going through the entrance, Cast Members would gather guests in groups of about 20 people. They would then play a video introduction hosted by a robot named Tom Morrow (voiced by Nathan Lane). After the video pre-show, guests would enter the building and either view a demonstration by a cast member or be greeted by an impressive Tom Morrow animatronic.
This is the current entrance to Innoventions. After walking under the very temporary looking entryway you make a left and walk up the former exit ramp.
After walking up the entrance ramp, you then make a hard right and walk across the second story of the building. This offers what ends up being the best part of the attraction, the beautiful sweeping views of Tomorrowland.
After walking across the outside of the second level, you’re finally at the actual entrance to the building. You enter through a door and find yourself on the inside of the second floor. Currently there is no pre-show.
One of the exhibits you’ll find on the second floor, the Honda Asimo Theater. A nice little demonstration featuring the amazing Asimo robot. Notice the homage to classic SMART 1 robot from the early days of EPCOT Center.
The next exhibit is Project Tomorrow Presented by Siemens. It is an almost direct copy of the Spaceship Earth post-show from Epcot.
The next area is a Microsoft exhibit featuring the Xbox 360 video game console. To the right you can see one of the games on display is Kinect Disneyland Adventures.
The final exhibit you see before heading downstairs is St. Joseph Hospital’s Healthy University. This exhibit has been a part of Innoventions for an astounding 12 years. Unfortunately, many of the features in this area sit broken or unused (as you can see in the picture above).
When you reach the first level of the building, you will see Innoventions Dream Home, which is somewhat impressive. It features mostly current-generation electronics such as touch screen computer monitors and electronic picture frames. The other half of the bottom floor consists of a lot of former exhibits that have now been curtained off.
Continuing around the bottom level, almost the entire outside bottom ring is covered up. The area pictured above is the former location of the Tom Morrow animatronic that would greet guests as they entered.
That’s the current state of Innoventions. Internet rumors have persisted for years that the attraction would be replaced, but so far nothing has come to fruition. At the very least I’m glad that Disney doesn’t just close the building and leave it empty for over a decade. This happened after America Sings was removed (America Sings closed in 1988, and Innoventions didn’t open until 1998). Do you think Disney should work on a replacement for Innoventions or focus on other areas of the park?
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I’ll be happy when they get around to replacing Innoventions. But there are a few attractions I’d skip in order to do Innoventions (Autopia and the Casey Jr. trains are two that come to mind).
Whenever I visit Epcot, I visit Innoventions. Whether I am fighting a fire, fixing up my house for a storm or visiting the house of the future, I always have a good time.
As a DL local, I NEVER go into Innoventions. If I venture into it once a year or so, I immediately regret it. DL’s tomorrowland needs much improvement. Bring back something on the people mover track and put something entertaining in the Innoventions building. Have Tom Bricker teach them about how kinetic energy makes a land appealing.
A waste of time. We checked it out and cruised through waiting for it to get better. It didn’t.
I visited Disneyland for the first time in May, and I was there solo. Innoventions seemed like it would be fun to check out alone. I was there maybe 10 minutes and left. There’s little to do, and The House of the Future was under construction. That area needs help! It took longer to walk in than I actually stayed.
At least it gave you 10 good minutes of air conditioning! I guess if it wasn’t hot you got nothing out of it haha.
Disney really should be cashing in on the Star Wars franchise at Tomorrowland, DR. They’ve done a better job of it at DHS where SWW is now a huge event. They’ve only really scratched the surface with the ST ride. There are a multitide of immersive Star Wars experiences they could tap into. It’s a big outlay however as many other large theme park projects have proven people will pay to see something outstanding and unique.
I’ve always been surprised that Disney doesn’t cash in more on Star Wars. Star Tours and Jedi Training Academy are hugely popular. Maybe it’s too expensive George Lucas wants too much control.
It would be great to see rotating exhibits there as technology and innovations change. A big draw for us at WDW is the exhibit at Innoventions where you can create your own roller coaster or even the robotics exhibit. Something that could change periodically and keep people coming back. Can’t imagine that there aren’t companies that would be willing to participate.
Rotating exhibits would be nice. Some of the current exhibits are so old that it’s embarrassing.
I’m usually one to defend Disneyland, but there is no excuse for this. There is absolutely nothing in that building that could be considered an “innovention”. I’ve got no problem with advertising, but at least show us something cool. Makes me sad.
But yeah… that view on the balcony is awesome!
What’s sad Disney probably sees no reason to spend money as long as companies keep spending money to sponsor exhibits.
You know how Disney decided that nothing (literally) was better than the Maliboomer? That’s how I feel about Innoventions.
Innoventions is the worst attraction (playing fast and loose with the word ‘attraction’) at Disneyland.
Not only is it the worst, it’s the worst by a long shot.
I have gotten some fantastic pictures from that ramp.
As far as replacing the current “attraction”…I wonder if it would be possible to somehow connect the PeopleMover track to the Innoventions building and have some kind of attraction that uses the same premise of the PeopleMover. A portion of the attraction would be inside the building and perhaps the load/unload as well and the rest would be a nice little tour of Tomorrowland. I have no idea what the premise of the attraction would be, but you’d get the PeopleMover back. Two birds with one stone.
Just now remembering that the PeopleMover track IS connected to the Innoventions building. Still…same question as to what kind of attraction could you create using the track and that building. And…would it be something people would come back to ride/enjoy over and over again.
As far as I know, the Peoplemover track is still a part of the building, it’s just been vacant for over a decade.