Abandoned Disney Attractions That Were Left Completely Forgotten

The Happiest Place on Earth only remains happy until people stop visiting. Reclaimed by nature, left to rust, or simply locked away behind closed doors, attractions from Disneyland, Disney World, and other theme parks look incredibly creepy when they’re no longer delighting park guests.

The Monorail

Disney’s many monorail cars need to be updated and switched out periodically, but when one is retired, it needs to go somewhere. This one was found by Twitter user @ThemeParkShark supposedly in the desert, although he hasn’t given specific details about where and whether it was being guarded.

The life of a theme park treasure hunter is often filled with grey areas.

Star Tours

This adorable long-necked droid checks in passengers aboard the Star Wars themed ride, Star Tours. While it may fit right in with the Star Wars aesthetic, it’s actually a refugee goose from the long-closed attraction America Sings.

When that attraction closed, the goose was plucked, and its metal skeleton was repurposed as a Star Wars droid. Creepy!

Shanghai Disneyland

Sometimes an entire Disney park ends up abandoned. While Euro Disneyland (later renamed Disneyland Paris) was famously virtually empty at the time of its initial opening, more recently parks have been left deserted as a result of pandemic lockdowns.

This aerial photo of Shanghai Disneyland shows a completely empty park, as under very strict lockdown conditions at the time of writing, nobody in Shanghai has been allowed to leave their homes for months.

The Nautilus

The Nautilus is very much still on display at Disneyland Paris, despite the fact that its bottom half has been left to decay.

Under normal circumstances, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-inspired Nautilus would be submerged in water, but here, it’s possible to see what the Disney park operators would rather keep hidden.