DisneyQuest - Downtown Disney West Side - 1998

As a big fan of the nascent virtual reality industry that was getting started in the 80's I took a trip to Walt Disney World to check out their foray into an electronic games center in fall 1998. DisneyQuest was billed as an "indoor interactive theme park" and was going to be a chain of VR and other gaming experiences across the country but the return on investment was never high enough for the Disney board so only two were ever opened and the one in Chicago closed in 2001. DisneyQuest was home to some of the first and most immersive VR headsets and experiences available at the time and was a lot of fun. As you can see the graphics were quite minimal compared to what we can experience today wirelessly with a Meta Quest 2. The most popular attraction here was CyberSpace Mountain where guests design a roller coaster on a design kiosk, then sit in a pitch-and-roll simulator and "ride" it. Guests could also ride pre-built coasters. It definitely was fun. My favorite experience was Ride the Comix where players wore a large HMD to "enter the comic book world." Players battled with super villains by using a laser sword while riding on flying astride rocket cycles. This was exciting and the closest to the VR experiences we have today. The overall and design and layout of the place showed first rate Disney quality and sadly the company lost interest in it fast due to upkeep and it not making the huge profits they had hoped for and let it slowly fall apart until it was closed in 2017 to be replaced by the awful NBA Experience. I think DisneyQuest deserves an honored spot in the history of VR as a big corporation's first attempt at monetizing it. You can find more excellent video from this now lost attraction from Michael Sheehe here    • Disney Quest B ROLL   Archive 98