The 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Game (& Walt Disney World's 55th Anniversary)

This month marks the 55th anniversary of Walt Disney World. I thought I would honor this occasion by sharing another Walt Disney World-related item from my childhood.

In the past, I've posted pics of my Walt Disney World Board Game, my Haunted Mansion Game, and even my Mad Tea Party Game.  This is yet another Disneyland/Disney World-related game.  It's the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Game, manufactured by Lakeside Industries (the same company that made the Haunted Mansion Game).

This image is on all four sides of the box.

The game board:

The rules of the game:

Here are the four Nautilus-shaped player pieces, and a couple of the U-boats, which are actually a part of the game board:

The Nautilus pieces come apart, in order to represent when the subs are "diving" down below the surface of the water.

As stated on the box, the object of the game is to "Race Your Nautilus to Safety Past the Moving Gunboats!"  Turning that yellow tower in the center of the game board would move a turntable below, making the little gun boats move and rotate within their "tracks."  If one of their guns touched your Nautilus, you were in trouble.

 The artwork on the sides of the game board:

To see a listing of both this game and the Haunted Mansion Game, from a 1975 and 1976 Lakeside Sales Guide, click here for a post from the blog, "And Everything Else Too" - Lakeside Sales Guides.

To round out this post, here are a couple images of the attraction that the game was based on.  This first one was scanned from a GAF Pana-Vue souvenir slide.

Sadly, Walt Disney World's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ride closed in 1994.  In 2004, the lagoon was drained and removed and replaced by "Pooh's Playful Spot" (a small children's playground) which opened in 2005 and remained until 2010.  Today, the site is the location of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride.  I really wish that I had taken my own photo of the lagoon while it was still there.  But here's a picture taken in March of 1975.  It's from the "Swanson Family's" set of Florida vacation slides, which I purchased on ebay over 15 years ago:

Happy 55th anniversary, to Walt Disney World!