The Disney Frontier Blog

Nancy Wride wrote a nice piece on the Submarine Voyage Lagoon in the September 3, 1998 issue of the Los Angeles Times - just a few days before it closed for good. Thankfully it was reprinted for us to enjoy. Here is a small snippet:

In the 1960s, there was no Ariel. We had living mermaids who greeted you from the rocks of the Submarine Voyage lagoon at Disneyland in Anaheim. If you were lucky, one would swim over with her big fin and wave through a porthole.
With ride operators who resembled sailor boys, the attraction was very romantic - “Guys and Dolls” meets “Beach Blanket Bingo” - even before submerging “80 fathoms down,” past the Lost City of Atlantis, the North Pole and a giant sea serpent.
The Submarine Voyage was one of the first three rides awarded an E-ticket when it and the Matterhorn and Monorail were introduced in the summer of 1959. I was born six months later. No surprise that the Submarine Voyage is embedded in my memories of childhood.