2 Warps to Neptune

Continuing my earlier post, above you see the entrance to the Atari Adventure location at the Disneyland Hotel. The photos are from Mice Chat. The exact year is unknown, but the Atari name is gone, so it’s after ’85. You can see the original ‘Atari Adventure’ signage at The Original Disneyland Hotel. At the same site, there’s a 1983 article about the opening of the game room.

“The room, which is dimly lit, is also plush. Deep red carpeting, brass railings and hundreds of tiny lights give it the look of Monte Carlo.” If that doesn’t sound awesome enough for you, Atari Adventure was on the marina of the Seaports of the Pacific attraction, partially submerged—it’s remembered as the underwater arcade. Hours? “Early in the morning to midnight, seven days a week.”

Below are several more photos—interiors, this time—of the Atari Adventure in Northwest Plaza Mall, St. Louis. The black and white is from the The Golden Age Arcade Historian, and the rest are from the Bill Poon Company, the architecture firm that designed the space. All are from 1983.

The Atari Adventure mission was supposed to include hands-on computer instruction, but it sounds like the Disneyland location was just a giant, dark, gnarly, submarine arcade.

Atari Video Adventure, “the premier showcase for the newest innovations in computer learning and video excitement,” was a multi-stage attraction at Marriott’s Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, California. It opened in July 1982 and was completed in 1983. The photo is from a 1997 RePlay Magazine scan provided by Michael Current. (Current’s site is the most comprehensive web-based historical resource on Atari.) Here’s a description and walk-through, also via Current.

And here are some illustrations, probably concept art, from the Atari Museum.

I’m guessing the Hoth mural/scene is in the Computer Painting room. That looks like a trakball on the arm of the chair.

Atari Video Adventure was the first of several similar locations that opened across the U.S. in 1983. The others were called simply Atari Adventure. I’ll post some photos later this week.