Long ago, in a kingdom where music is outlawed, King Triton’s youngest daughter, Ariel, discovers her love for music in a secret, underground music club. Torn with the choice of whether to hide her passion or share it with her father and risk losing everything, Ariel sets off on a daring adventure to restore music to Atlantica.
King Triton thinks that Ariel and Prince Thor would make a perfect couple, but not Urchin so he plays tricks on Thor to make him change his mind about Ariel. The prince gets exasperated and tells his kingdom to have war with Atlantica. Urchin stops it, and Triton explains that he wanted Ariel and Prince Thor to be a couple in the olympic sea games.
Prince Eric drops one of his boots down to the sea, and when Ariel finds it she thinks its a wonderful human thingamajigger, but Triton thinks its dangerous. Soon terrible things start to happen and every sea creature thinks that the thingamajigger is the cause, so every bad guy wants it to take over Triton's kingdom, but Ariel goes to the surface and finds out what they really do.
Ariel suggests that her family takes a trip up to the frozen north, but something else lies beneth the ice. Dinosaurs, and Ariel thinks that they're adorable so she free's them with her father's triton, but they seem more harmful than adorable. Later on King Triton stops them and after that he uses his triton to destroy all the ice and discover the dinosaurs' home. Now the dinosaur's can roam the land freely thanks to Ariel's curiosity.
King Triton, and the other residents from Atlantica are very happy to know that their hero Apollo is returning to Atlantica. Ariel and Flounder ask Triton who he is, and Triton explains. 20 years ago Atlantica was in a battle between the Octipins who contained a triton that was more magically than King Triton's triton. Apollo, in the vines snuck up on them and broke it. After the story Apollo appears. He and Ariel go on an adventure, but Ariel and Flounder soon find out that his victory over the Atlanticans was an accident. Ursula revives the Octipins and gives them 8 magic tritons, and now Apollo becomes a hero for real.
A sixteen-year-old mermaid princess named Ariel is dissatisfied with underwater life and curious about human life on land. With her best friend Flounder, Ariel collects human artifacts and goes to the surface of the ocean to visit Scuttle the seagull, who offers very inaccurate knowledge of human culture. She ignores the warnings of her father King Triton, the ruler of Atlantica, and his adviser and court composer Sebastian that contact between merpeople and humans is forbidden.
Morgana, sister of Ursula, almost steals the baby Melody from her parents, Ariel and Eric. To protect Melody, she’s told never to enter the ocean, but by her 12th birthday, she’s been swimming there for years. She discovers the magic locket that was to be her christening gift, which makes her visible to Morgana. Morgana tempts her by offering her fondest wish, to turn her into a mermaid; however, to remain a mermaid, she’ll have to steal the magic trident from King Triton (who, unknown to her, is her grandfather). Meanwhile, all the sea creatures are searching for her. Along the way, she joins up with comic relief sidekicks Tip (a penguin) and Dash (a walrus). When she returns with the trident, Morgana’s evil nature is revealed, and there is a massive battle of good and evil.