I was part of the original Discovery River Boat crew in '98 and "Tale of the Dragon" from the DCACentral site seems to be an accurate account of what happened. When I saw the pictures at E.B. Effects website of the knight's armor it really brought back some memories. I remember seeing pretty much all of the knights displayed out on the rocks in one way or another.
The earliest copy of the script that I still have is from after the removal of the knights (dated 3/18/98):
"This stretch of the river pays tribute to creatures of myth and imagination. Up ahead is Dragon Rocks, home to the last of the great fire-breathers. Of course we all know that dragons don't really exist. Or do they? <BIG BURST OF FLAME> Okay, we seem to be out of harm's way. We'll be passing by Africa soon."
I actually started putting together a web site about the Riverboats a while back, but never finished it. I have a couple pictures and some information about dragon rocks here:
http://cse.unl.edu/~jraises/boats/tour/03-dragon.html
If you look closely enough at the picture of the rocks without the flames, you can see one of the suits of armor sitting atop the rock just right of the picture's center.
The burst of flame was triggered from transmitters on board the boat. Were we given a small device that looked like a garade door opener that was to be used to disengage the flame should our boat drift too close to the cave.
During the days before cast previews, some of the construction workers had the dragon rocks sound system thumping some music for a while.
An amusing line I found in the script from 4/9/98 (after the "Animal Expeditions" were in place) refers to the caves:
"Tarantulas like to dig burrows into the ground ... live in out of the way places, like, under our houses, in burrows, or even in caves, like those over there on the shore."
I did hear of an attempt to use the boats in the seven seas lagoon at one time, but this never went through. As far as I know, the boats remain at their dock behind the tarzan show.
JohnBeaste