In this post we give an overview of The Seas With Nemo and Friends, a dark ride at Disney’s EPCOT theme park in Walt Disney World. We cover the basics of the ride, how to ride it, and our thoughts on the experience before closing with an FAQ. Read on to learn more!
Related Posts
This post is a quick guide to The Seas With Nemo and Friends, but we have related content that dives deeper into topics. Our Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy Guide covers Lightning Lane strategy in depth. The Epcot Rides and Entertainment Guide gives brief introductions to all the park’s offerings. For putting together your day at the park, we have a One Day Plan for Epcot.
And if you want to dive into more about the other rides at Epcot, we have guides to each:
The Seas With Nemo and Friends Basics
The Seas With Nemo and Friends is a dark ride at Disney’s EPCOT in Walt Disney World. The Seas With Nemo and Friends:
does not offer rider switch
is a Tier 2 ride on Lightning Lane Multi Pass
does not have a single rider line
is about 4 minutes long
Measured by wait times, The Seas with Nemo and Friends is the one of the least popular rides in Epcot. You should expect an average wait of about 0 to 20 minutes, but this will vary greatly by time of day and day of year.
If you’re visiting Epcot with small children, this will probably be a must-do as it is Nemo-themed and otherwise a nice, easy ride. There is a short tunnel portion that sometimes gives our little one some anxiety, but it is nothing too bad.
Where is The Seas With Nemo and Friends located?
The Seas With Nemo and Friends is located in the pavilion of the same name in the World Nature land at EPCOT.
Ignore “World Nature land”, that’s not helpful. Entering the park from the main entrance, there are three pavilions on the right side of the park. In order from the front, these are The Seas, The Land, and Imagination! So from the main entrance, head right, and The Seas With Nemo and Friends will be on your right.
How to ride The Seas With Nemo and Friends
For this section we’re going to talk about all the Epcot Tier 2 rides (plus Soarin’) together, before talking specifically about the one in this post. The next few paragraphs are going to be similar in the posts for these other rides, too.
General Notes About Epcot’s Tier 2 Rides (And Soarin’)
The tier 2 rides at Epcot are:
Journey into Imagination with Figment
Living with the Land
Mission: SPACE
The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Spaceship Earth
Turtle Talk with Crush (show, not ride)
Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival (show, not ride)
When it comes to tier 2 Lightning Lanes—plus Soarin’, usually—at Epcot, there’s not much way to go wrong. We typically recommend Spaceship Earth and Mission: SPACE as your advance bookings, but the overall ride strategy will depend more on (1) what times you’re able to luck into when booking subsequent rides and (2) how low you want to keep your step count.
The Tier 2 rides are all in the front portion of the park. It’s a long 17-minute walk from Spaceship Earth (at the front of the park) to The American Adventure pavilion (in the middle of the World Showcase). Because the World Showcase is itself a loop, it really won’t make sense to be going back and forth between rides and the World Showcase. If you’re near one of these rides and the wait is 20 minutes or less, probably just ride it.
If you have Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you should be able to time a lot of these to ride in quick succession. You might wind up with a Lightning Lane for Living With the Land that’s 30 minutes away, but that just gives you time for a 20-minute wait for Journey Into Imagination, for example.
Riding The Seas With Nemo and Friends
The Seas with Nemo & Friends is conveniently located near Spaceship Earth, Soarin’, Living With the Land, and Journey Into Imagination. Beyond trying to coordinate with your visits to those rides, one good thing to know about The Seas is that you’ll probably be able to fill a nice chunk of time in The Seas pavilion, too.
The aquarium has a lot to offer. If you need a 20+ minute wait that seems out of place, or if you can’t get an immediate Lightning Lane return, you might just spend 20 minutes in the pavilion waiting for the stars to align. (This works if you have a gap after your Lightning Lane, too.)
Just Keep Swimming (Too Easy, Sorry)
The Seas With Nemo and Friends is a dark ride that features characters from the Pixar films Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, including Nemo, Marlin, and Dory.
Guests sit in clams (like the seats on Under the Sea or Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom) that take them through a collection of mostly screen-based Nemo scenes.
There are a few animatronics, and the end of the ride includes the song Big Blue World and involves projections of Nemo characters into the real aquarium, an effect I have great fondness for.
There’s something about The Seas With Nemo and Friends that I just love. Because it so often has a short wait, it’s really one of the best “value” rides at Disney World. It’s simple, but still arguably one of the better—for kids, particularly—rides at the park.
Epcot can be…unsatisfying…for some families. Your family probably wants to walk right onto Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. They can often walk right onto Living With The Land and Spaceship Earth—rides I like but…I get why they might not be a clear substitute for Frozen. Nemo bridges this gap—it’s a low-wait ride that serves that IP itch.
The Seas With Nemo and Friends FAQ
Is The Seas with Nemo and Friends an aquarium?
Yes. This is a tiny bit confusing, but “The Seas With Nemo and Friends” is the name of both the ride and the larger pavilion (formerly The Living Seas pavilion), which is an aquarium. With 5.7 million gallons of tank volume, it’s also second largest aquarium in the United States. (When the pavilion opened, it was actually the largest saltwater tank in the world.)
Besides the usual aquarium features, you’ll also find the Turtle Talk with Crush attractions in the pavilion.
When did The Seas with Nemo and Friends Open?
The ride and pavilion were officially (re)dedicated on January 24, 2007.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.