The Horizons Story (Part 3)

On September 30, 1993, Horizons saw major changes implemented when General Electric’s sponsorship contract with the ride expired and was not renewed. For this reason, all references to General Electric including signs, dialogue mentioning the company, and the spinning General Electric logo at the end of the ride were removed.

Although Horizons remained open, it is important to understand that without the financial sponsorship provided by General Electric, maintenance costs could not always be covered for the attraction. The quality of Horizons began to spiral downward, and the ride would experience malfunctions and breakdowns much more often.

The ending of General Electric’s partnership with Epcot and involvement with the ride entirely caused Disney imagineers to consider replacing Horizons with a new space-themed pavilion. After all, Disney was now in complete control, and possessed total creative freedom to do what they wanted with the attraction and the space it occupied.

Ideas of a redesign circulated, and at the forefront of these would be a new ride where riders would be launched through space using individual harnesses and allowed to explore outer space and the universe from an astronaut's perspective. Disney never carried through with this concept, yet, to the dismay of many guests, Horizons was closed towards the end of 1994 for a brief period of time.

In December of 1995, the west side of Future World would see some major changes being implemented. Of these were the closure of the World of Motion to make room for Test Track, and the closure of the Universe of Energy during its major overhaul into the (very dated) Ellen’s Energy Adventure attraction.

Management soon realized that closing two major attractions on the west side of Future World was not good for attendance, so they decided to reopen Horizons once again for guests to enjoy. The ride had sat untouched since the initial plans for the space pavilion fell through, so it was easy to get it up and running again. Horizons would remain in operation until the beginning of 1999.

This is when the future of the ride was questioned once again.

On January 9, 1999, Horizons was permanently closed to the public unannounced. While no official reason was ever provided by Disney for the timeless ride’s closure, many guests and fans of the park had speculated several main possibilities over the years. The first of these reasons was the lack of corporate sponsorship used to finance the ride. It is believed that Disney did not want to continue to pour money into maintaining an older attraction like Horizons that had pretty much been taken care of for them during its entire run, and having to finance its operation would prevent them from investing in new, more exciting rides and future park development.

A wide rumor that spread concerned the condition of the pavilion building itself. Supposedly, the ride was built on top of a giant sinkhole, (typical Florida stuff), and over the years, it had started to become structurally unstable, making it unsafe for the suspended omnimovers to continue to operate. It was also rumored that the roof of the pavilion was in bad shape and was slowly falling apart. Allegedly, Disney cast members were told that they could no longer work inside the pavilion since it had become such an unsafe work environment.

Whether or not all of these claims were true is still up in the air, but when taking into consideration how long the building was left untouched and unattended by the park, they do seem to make a lot of sense.

On September 23, 1999, both signs outside of the ride were removed, which practically confirmed that Horizons was closed for good. This seemed to be the case for about a week, until a strange rumor began to circulate.

On the night of October 1, 1999, several press groups claimed to have rode Horizons after-hours as part of an exclusive event going on in the park. While evidence of this claim was scarce, riders confirmed to guests that the ride, indeed, had not been touched on the inside. No effort was being made by Disney to remove or demolish the ride for future development.

So what, exactly, was going on? Rumors circulated that Disney was unsure of what to do when it came to the space the attraction sat on. They were still trying to decide whether or not they wanted to revisit the idea of the space pavilion, or simply upgrade/refurbish Horizons and invest in fixing the preexisting structure.

Many park guests and fans who saw Horizons as a staple attraction of Epcot expected the latter and, despite its temporary closing, anticipated another few chances to ride the classic attraction. Hope would be reignited when Epcot unveiled its plans for the Millennium Celebration event, where fans believed that Epcot would reopen Horizons to the public once again.

It made sense for Horizons to reopen on New Year’s Eve, as it was predicted that guests would flood to Epcot to celebrate the beginning of the year 2000- the start of the 21st century. More attractions and venues would need to be operating in order to satisfy the anticipated massive crowds.

As the night went on, the park, indeed, reached its maximum capacity, but much to the dismay of guests anticipating one last journey on Horizons, the ride remained closed. The building remained quiet, unoccupied, and completely abandoned while the rest of the park boomed with the excitement of guests ringing in the new year.

Epcot fans were beyond surprised that the park chose to keep the doors of Horizons closed. The least the park could have done was properly inform guests of its closure, or perhaps even give Epcot super-fans a chance to depart Futureport one last time, but no. It went quietly, without any acknowledgement from the park. New guests would be oblivious that an attraction had ever existed inside the dark, unoccupied structure.

Horizons was really gone this time... for good.

But the story isn't over just yet. Please stay tuned.

Until next time. -Max