All the Skyways in the Disney parks closed. Imagineers had a hard time thinking of a new attraction, but quickly thought of a Beauty and the Beast-like ride, with the same rooms and the trackless technology, but with a different scenario and with teacups instead of honey pots. The next version of the popular attraction, The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, considerably different in configuration, was Pooh's Hunny Hunt, which opened in Tokyo Disneyland. Due to a closure of all of the Skyways at Disney Parks across the world, including Tokyo, a space was left where the Fantasyland station once stood. With a budget of over $130 million, and featuring a never-before-used 'trackless' ride technology, Pooh's Hunny Hunt opened in late 2000 to large crowds and praise by many Disney internet fansites. To date, it continues to have some of the longest wait times of any attraction at the Tokyo Disney Resort.
Summary[]
As the guests enter a giant book, they enter Pooh's house with a large hole in its end full of book pages with Pooh's different emotion heads printed. There, the guests board their Hunny Pot vehicles and a Cast Member says good bye to them as they enter a room with more pages, but instead of Pooh's emotions, letters are printed in the pages. On one of the pages is a projection of Pooh asking Christopher Robin to borrow a ballon.
After Pooh acquires Christopher Robin's balloon, two book pages move away from each other to reveal the Hundred Acre Wood in the middle of the blustery day as Pooh goes floating with his ballon following each of the vehicles until they get together to see Tigger popping up and then entering into a room where 3 projections of Tigger singing The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers while running away from some bees.
The next room shows a new sequence where the cars move backwards, showing Tigger stuck in a bee hive and the bees circle around him.
As the cars slowly turn forward again, guests see a plaque saying Pooh with some of the letters backwards. This room features scary music and a dark scenario, telling riders that something is going to happen.
When the cars move forward again, they are in another room where Pooh is sleeping in his house, holding the blue balloon that Christopher Robin gave him earlier. Suddenly, the room morphs into a starfield with Pooh and the balloon still there. Pooh slowly spins and quickly disappears. While this happens, Pooh's balloon is given eyes, a mouth and an elephant's trunk.
The guests then move on to the next room, which contains the same elements as the Magic Kingdom's Pooh ride, including the objects with eyes and mouths, but in a gigantic scale. Some of the props have holes at the height of the guests heads and when the cars approach them, they show 3D projections of Heffalumps and Woozles doing comedy acts. The cars spin through a ballroom-like room, hearing a ballad similar to the Heffalumps and Woozles song and encountering false vehicles with a Heffalump & Woozle family riding in it.
After leaving the Heffalumps & Woozles room, the vehicles go backwards quickly through a tunnel with projections of Pooh flying and the monsters before the large doors block the guests from returning.
The guests then see Pooh enjoying honey inside the honey tree.
The final room shows an empty bedroom with a giant book saying The End while the other page depicts a picture of Pooh and his friends. The narrator says that the guests' "Hunny Hunt" has ended and the guests disembark from the Hunny Pot vehicles and enter the Pooh Corner gift shop.
Ride system[]
Although the ride system is like the other Disneyland-like dark rides, the car system is entirely new: a trackless, moving "Hunny Pot". The cars feature the new technology created by the imagineers, the LPS (Local Positioning System). This makes good use of the large building, so that the cars can move easily through the rooms. A similar technology is used at Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin at SeaWorld Orlando in Florida.
