DHI DISNEYLAND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION~Submarine Ride

Walt Disney ponders a new sushi restaurant for Disneyland. (Gotcha! See we here at
DHI have a sense of humor.) Fall 1958, in the WED Model Shop when Walt was still
looking for a sponsor for the Submarine Voyage. In this early stage of development, it
was planned to be more of an "underwater dark ride" themed around a liquid space
exploration (similar to some of the material from the Disney feature film 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea). By early 1959 General Dynamics became interested, but they
did not want just an undersea voyage. Since their submarine the Skate (SSN-578) was
preparing to surface at the North Pole (which it did, on March 17, 1959) they wanted a
theme around the North Pole and Arctic Circle. Walt and WED obliged.