| Watch the on-ride POV |
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| The ride in 1998 when it still had the Rainbow color scheme and old sign | |||||||||||||||||
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| Statistics | |||||||||||||||||
| Designer / calculations | WED Enterprises | ||||||||||||||||
| Capacity | 6 vehicles seating 96 guests and a ramp for 2 guests with a wheelchair each | ||||||||||||||||
| Hourly capacity | 1,930 riders per hour | ||||||||||||||||
| Power consumption | 7 Kilowatts | ||||||||||||||||
| Animatronics | 37 | ||||||||||||||||
| HELP | |||||||||||||||||
Ellen's Energy Adventure was a trackless Dark Ride that was formerly located at Epcot in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. The ride was a reimagined and more humorous version of the Universe of Energy that operated in the same building from October 1st, 1982, until January 21, 1996. The ride was later hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye.
History
When Epcot was in development as a park, one of the ideas proposed was a pavilion that was about energy. A building design would be chosen using a vertice-less design with Solar panels, to partially power the attraction. The ride's name was chosen to be "Universe of Energy" and ExXon was chosen to be the sponsor of the upcoming pavilion.
The ride was one of the first rides to emerge, with the structure finished as early as late 1981. The ride would open with the park and its rides on October 1, 1982. The ride was a 45-minute-long experience that took guests through pre-show movie, 2 documentary theatres, and a scene with primordial dinosaurs, that discussed Energy, its origins, fossil fuels, and future alternatives.
The ride received very little changes when it was still known originally as Universe of Energy. The ride used 7 kilowatts to be powered up, and each car sat 96 guests. The ride would remain the main attraction of the Future World East area and receive very little changes.
Although it was one of the main attractions at Epcot, the Universe of Energy was starting to get very outdated and was also relatively unpopular with guests, so the ride was closed on January 21, 1996, to make way for a very big refurbishment. It was decided that the replacement would have then-popular celebrities Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye as hosts for this new attraction. The plotline saw Ellen dream she was on Jeopardy against her old college rival, "Stupid Judy." However, the questions were about energy, something she knew nothing about. Bill Nye helped her understand energy more by taking her thru out time to explain its role in the world.
Filming started in early March of 1996, and concluded in early September of that year. The filming took longer than expected, and as such, for the Summer, on June 14, 1996, the original films and ride were brought back. All of the remodels that were made for the replacement were already installed on this version, and the Ellen animatronic was boarded up by a rock set piece since the new film was not ready yet. This version would close on the 2nd of September 1996.
13 days later, on September 15 that same year, the ride would open under the name "Ellen's Energy Crisis" although that name at the last minute would be changed to Ellen's Energy Adventure. ExXon would remain the sponsor for the pavilion. The ride had very little change during its 21-year tenure at the park.
In 2002, the original entrance sign was removed in order to incorporate a new sign, to accommodate ExXon's then recent name change to ExxonMobil. The company would eventually stop sponsoring the ride in 2004, leaving the attraction without a sponsor. In 2010, the ride's pillars at each side of the ride show building were repainted back to a gray, yellow and orange color scheme similar to the ride's original paint job. In 2014, the Ellen animatronic that fought the Elasmosaurus was removed, along with the Elasmosaurus animatronic. Throughout the years, the ride would become very unpopular with guests and become very outdated.
Closure
On July 5th, 2017, it would be publicly announced that Ellen's Energy Adventure would permanently close by the end of August. Big crowds would show up on August 13, 2017, on the ride's final day. During the Dinosaur Diorama scene after the first movie, the ride broke down, and guests were allowed to walk around and get up close to the impressive diorama. After a while, guests were required to leave the ride. The ride's insides were gutted, and the building's exterior was repainted and refurbished. The ride would be replaced with Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, a Steel Indoor roller coaster built by Dutch ride manufacturing firm Vekoma.
Images
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Ellen's Energy Adventure entrance with the 2001 logo
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The ride's preshow theater
