It was the Summer of 1956, and the Phantom Boats took their last cruise around the lagoon at Disneyland. Overhead, the recently opened Skyway attraction gives guests a birds-eye view of the Park below. In just one year, the Viewliner Train Station would stand where the dirt lot can be seen on the lower right. Today, these boats look like something out of the 1960’s “Batman” TV series with their retro fins and bright colors.
If you want to know why they were replaced with a much less exciting looking boat, look no further than the lower portion of today’s original image. This little boat with a spare gas can in it had to be ready to go at any moment to rescue guests who were stranded mid-ride in the lagoon because they had over-heated.
Did you spot the tiny little house that once resided on Harbor Boulevard? Today, the land that little hut was built upon would be worth quite a bit today.
Here’s a previously posted shot of one of the fiberglass Phantom Boats:
…and the necessary close-up:
See more Disneyland Motor Boat Cruise photos at my main website.
4 comments:
I was going to say they took their last cruise "halfway" around the lagoon, but you covered that point. Since 1966, I think everyone would agree they needed to all be black. Of course they were long gone by then. I can't help but think that since the outboard motors actually were semi-outboard, they could have rigged some sort of forced air fan to blow cool air over them. Still, maybe it just wasn't worth the trouble when they had so many more interesting attractions popping up. I doubt if any still exist, but I'd love to see one now.
Dave, these are fun pictures, early Tomorrowland was a very different place.
For the motorboat cruise that came in 1959, were those boats gas or electric? I think they were gas, but can't be sure. Whatever they were, the reliability problem seemed solved.
JG
JG - Not sure about the gas question; I just know that I read that they were put on a track. No freedom!
I'm surprised they overheated since the engine is exposed. True, there's no directed airflow around it but there's also nothing containing the heat inside a fiberglass chamber since it can rise out. I guess the conjecture doesn't matter when the fact is it overheated. I much prefer the smaller boats of the Motorboat Cruise, and that highly annoying bell they added a few years into it.
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