Opened: 1972

Closed: 1983 (Retrofitted into Smurf’s Enchanted Voyage)

Location: The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera (today known as Planet Snoopy), current home of Boo Blasters on Boo Hill and Peanuts Showplace

Manufacturer: Arrow Development

Model: Boat Dark Ride

Length: 700 ft

Size: 28,875-square-feet

Duration: 5 minutes

Cost: $2 million 

Vehicles: Boats with three rows each, seating approximately nine riders per boat

Description: Enchanted Voyage was an indoor boat ride through Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The attraction was split into six themed sections: a dark cave with animated foliage, Land of Gulliver, Hillbilly Area, shark infested waters, Winsome Witch’s house, and a circus finale. The attraction included over 100 pieces of animation.

History: Enchanted Voyage was the park’s most expensive ride at opening at $2 million. It was created in coordination with animators at the Hanna-Barbera studios in Hollywood. The animators created a series of 29 drawings of what they envisioned the attraction to be, and those images were translated into three-dimensional models. Those models were in turn transformed into full-sized sets and characters.

Although many Kings Island visitors misremember the attraction playing the “It’s a small world” tune from Disney parks, Enchanted Voyage actually had its own theme song, “Cartoon Friends”. It referenced many of the characters found within the attraction, such as the Banana Splits and Scooby-Doo.

The attraction’s façade was a large television set that the boats would pass through. Over the ride’s lifetime, the TV and surrounding walls underwent minor changes. This included no less than three different Enchanted Voyage marquees, as well as the addition of an animated snail in 1974. The snail would greet riders with a “Hello! Welcome to the Enchanted Voyage. I sure hope you enjoy the ride. Have a ha-ha-ha-happy day!”

Enchanted Voyage was given a minor Christmas overlay for the 1982 Winterfest. No rides were planned to operate during the inaugural holiday event, but the park quickly opened Enchanted Voyage after larger-than-expected crowds attended the event.

Enchanted Voyage’s last year was 1983. The ride system remained for its replacement, Smurf’s Enchanted Voyage, but almost all props and theming were removed from the building. One exception was a frog on a toadstool from the first scene, which was retained in the Smurf’s incarnation of the ride.

Some of the props and pieces from Enchanted Voyage found life elsewhere: a large elephant from the finale can now be found at Mr. Ed’s Elephant Museum in Orrtanna, Pennsylvania, the dog Tagg animatronic from the second scene was listed on eBay in 2016 and later Facebook Marketplace in 2020, and other characters are in private collections.

The tune of the Cartoon Friends theme song was recycled outside of Kings Island. It was used in miscellaneous Hanna-Barbera TV specials. The song and its lyrics briefly returned to Kings Island in 2006, when the song played in the Paramount Action FX Theater before and after The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera show.

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