...allow guests to skip the boring film and go straight to Sea Base Alpha. But that was the same problem that all of EPCOT suffered. The Land was a ghost town prior to Soarin'. They couldn't get people to ride Journey Into Imagination 1.0 or WoM or Horizons or WoL and WoE. They were fun to see a few times but they quickly became boring and boring and boring and boring and it rained... and rained... and rained... and rained...
You're quite mistaken. As someone who visited EPCOT all the time back in the early-mid 90's up until '97, I can tell you that none of these rides suffered from a lack of interest whatsoever. Even the Land had (and still does have) a number of people who ride. They had short lines not because they bored anyone or didn't attract guests, but because their ride systems were ridiculously efficient and high capacity. Omnimovers are well known to be insane people eaters. At that time, EPCOT had 4 incredibly popular and impressive E Tickets (SSE, Horizons, Imagination and WOM), but their incredible efficiency and capacity kept the guests going through without causing lines to back up. Not to mention there was no Fastpass at that point in time to artificially engorge the lines (something that has been proven to increase wait times and lines several fold). But in actuality, there were almost always people riding them and there weren't really usually a lot of empty seats even in less busy seasons. The rides were just so efficient that there was little chance for a long line to form.
Soarin attracts long lines for a huge amount of reasons not even all related to popularity, including all of the following-
1- It has nowhere close to the level of capacity and efficiency as any of the classic EPCOT rides
2- Fastpass makes the situation worse by artificially inflating lines by many times what it would have been
3- Future World lost 3 incredibly efficient rides long ago, their replacements either being hated and avoided by most people (Imagination 3.0) or also being inefficient (Mission Space and Test Track)
That's not to say Soarin isn't popular in addition to those factors. But it's 100% guaranteed that it wouldn't have anywhere close to the huge lines it gets now if the three elements above weren't an issue. EPCOT in its original form was very well balanced due to there being quality E tickets everywhere that were almost universally adored, but they were also very high capacity and efficient. The double punch of quality at every turn and efficiency kept the crowds even and balanced.
Imagination 1.0 had a problem of its own that negatively affected attendance. It wasn't that they couldn't get people to ride, it's because they deliberately TRIED to get people not to ride. I believe it was stated by insiders on this site that at one point later in its life, management began to sabotage the ride's popularity to give them an excuse to close it down and redo it anew (they apparently didn't like its maintenance and operating costs). Apparently advertisement for the ride was reduced and cast members were told to direct people away from the ride and towards the 3D movie instead, downplaying there even being a ride there. They didn't want people to ride it. Maybe @
Lee or @
WDW1974 or @
marni1971 could clarify the matter (it may have been one of them that originally revealed this).
But it sounded like it didn't deter people too much. My last visit to EPCOT before Imagination was gutted was in 1997. It wasn't at an incredibly busy time of the year, but there was still a constant stream of people riding all the remaining EPCOT classics at that point in time. Imagination was included in this. And in busy season even in their later years, these rides could definitely get some lines.
