The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure (stylized The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's Undersea Adventure) is a dark ride attraction based on the 1989 Disney animated film "The Little Mermaid", located in Paradise Gardens Park at Disney California Adventure and in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, where it is titled Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid (stylized Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid). The ride opened on June 3, 2011 at Disney California Adventure, and on December 6, 2012 at Magic Kingdom. In the early-to-mid-1990s, Walt Disney Imagineering
The Little Mermaid (franchise) due to various circumstances. In 1985, "The Great Mouse Detective" co-director Ron Clements discovered a collection of Andersen's fairy tales while browsing a bookstore. He presented a two-page draft of a movie based on "The Little Mermaid" to CEO Michael Eisner and Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg at a "gong show" idea suggestion meeting. Eisner and Katzenberg passed the project over, because at that time the studio was in development on a sequel to their live-action mermaid comedy "Splash" (1984) and felt "The Little Mermaid" would be too similar a project. The next day, however, Walt Disney Studios chairman