The Seas with Nemo & Friends

The Seas with Nemo & Friends: attraction at EPCOT, Walt Disney World — live wait times, operating status, and planning data on MouseHub.

Wait time history

Historical wait patterns for The Seas with Nemo & Friends accrete daily as MouseHub records waits every 15 minutes. Charts appear here once enough history exists.

Visitor sentiment

4.6· 4,127 Google ratings

People say this tourist attraction offers an aquarium, a ride featuring characters from the movie "Finding Nemo," and interactive exhibits. They highlight the immersive and educational experience, and the combination of real marine life with animated characters. They also like the low wait times, indoor air conditioning, and relaxing pace.

Summarized with Gemini · Report summary

The MouseHub take

The Seas with Nemo & Friends is a slow indoor ride inside the EPCOT pavilion that opened as The Living Seas on January 15, 1986 and picked up its Finding Nemo overlay in 2006. You board a clamobile and descend below the waves, dodging jellyfish, underwater mines, an anglerfish, and Bruce the shark before catching the East Australian Current with Crush and Squirt. Disney projects the animated characters onto the glass of a real saltwater tank, so cartoon fish swim alongside live ones. No height requirement, no drops, and the building runs cold.

The ride is the smaller half of the visit. It empties into SeaBase, a 5.7-million-gallon saltwater aquarium holding clown fish, sharks, rays, sea turtles, and more than fifty other species, with a manatee rehabilitation center on both levels. Families with small kids come off happy and then spend an hour at the tanks. Anyone who queued expecting a headliner, or expecting an aquarium without cartoons layered over it, comes off flat. Plan the visit around the pavilion and treat the clamobile as the way in.

At a glance

Best for
Families with toddlers, and anyone who wants a cool seated stretch plus a real aquarium in the middle of an EPCOT afternoon.
Skip if
You came for thrills, or you came for the marine life and would rather see the tanks without animated fish projected over them.
Ride type
Slow indoor dark ride through show scenes in a clamobile
Intensity
Gentle throughout. No drops and no height requirement, but the anglerfish and Bruce arrive in the dark and can startle small kids.

The good

  • The pavilion is worth more than the ride
    SeaBase holds a 5.7-million-gallon saltwater aquarium with clown fish, sharks, rays, sea turtles, and more than fifty other species. Most of the time you spend here happens after you climb out of the clamobile.
  • The air conditioning does half the work
    The ride and the exhibits are all indoors, and visitors describe the pavilion as somewhere to sit down and cool off before heading back out into the afternoon.
  • The line keeps moving when it looks long
    Clamobiles load one after another, so a queue that looks discouraging from the entrance tends to walk rather than stand. Riders regularly report a shorter wait than the posted time promised.
  • Everyone in the party rides
    Disney lists the attraction as Any Height, so infants and grandparents board the same clamobile. Nobody sits this one out with the stroller.
  • Crush, Squirt, and Bruce all turn up
    The ride passes jellyfish and an anglerfish before you catch the East Australian Current with Crush and Squirt. Bruce the shark gets his own scene on the way through.
  • The clamobile is a genuine rest
    The vehicle glides without jolts or sharp turns, which makes it one of the easier places at EPCOT to get off your feet mid-afternoon.

The bad

  • The music repeats until you notice it
    The same upbeat track cycles through the queue and the ride scenes. Adults regularly report it stuck in their heads hours later.
  • Screens sit between you and the fish
    Much of the show projects animation onto the tank glass, which is the point of the overlay and also the complaint that turns up most often. Visitors hoping to look at live animals find cartoons in the way.
  • Older kids check out fast
    Teens and anyone chasing Test Track or Guardians of the Galaxy find the pace slow and the story thin, and the ride gives them nothing to do.
  • The anglerfish scares small kids
    Disney's own description has you dodging an anglerfish in the dark, and parents report toddlers hiding their eyes through that stretch.
  • The wait spills outside when it backs up
    Visitors describe standing in the open before reaching the doors on busy afternoons, with little shade while the line creeps forward.

Veteran tips

  • Spend a Multi Pass somewhere else
    This sits in EPCOT's second Lightning Lane Multi Pass group alongside Spaceship Earth, Soarin' Across America, and Mission: SPACE. Those three are worth the slot far more than a ride you can usually walk onto.
  • Ride it when the heat peaks
    Save it for the middle of the afternoon and use the pavilion as a cooling break. Riding at rope drop spends the hour when EPCOT's headliner lines are shortest.
  • Head to Level 2 for the feedings
    Animal care teams feed and train rays, sea turtles, and fish on the upper level. Times vary, so ask a cast member at The Seas on your way in rather than guessing.
  • Find the manatees on both levels
    The Manatee Rehabilitation Center runs across Level 1 and Level 2, housing manatees recovering from boat strikes that left them unable to survive in the wild.
  • Grab the Dory scavenger hunt booklet
    Disney hands out a free self-guided hunt near the exit of The Seas. Kids solve clues and collect stickers around the aquarium, which buys you a slower lap of the exhibits.
  • Catch Turtle Talk while you're in the building
    Crush has taken live questions in this pavilion since November 2004, and the show is improvised, so it runs differently every time. Check the posted schedule on your way out of the ride.
  • Wheelchair and ECV users transfer to board
    Disney lists this as Must Transfer to Wheelchair, with a Wheelchair Access Vehicle available. Audio Description and Handheld Captioning are both offered.

MouseHub editorial, written from visitor reports and official Disney sources. Last reviewed .

Sources