Just my way of saying I don't do well with maps, so if you're trying to tell me something with a map my response will be: "Uuuuuhhh... wut?" lol. Much more of a verbal thinker.
Ok, the liberty belle is a stern-wheeler. And Lightning McQueen is (stops, Googles, copies and pastes from Reddit)... a Chevy with an iron block 5.86 L displacement pushrod V8. There are degrees of blending in, I would say Rivers did it a bit better than Cars, if not perfectly. By way of example - it is one thing to have dinosaurs from two different eras in the same scene. It's another to have dinosaurs eating at McDonald's. Different degrees of "not entirely accurate". One has kind of a superficial believability if you're just there to have fun, the other is going to pull even the most casual viewer out of immersion.
Maybe. But I kinda think they will backtrack on this one. Just my two cents, but Disney being a beloved landmark and all, I think there is a relative unity of opinion on a "What the heck!?" sentiment here that crosses a lot of demographics. If there is a pressing reason to fill in Rivers (like money or long term sustainability, which I've seen mentioned here,) I think they will still do that. But I think they will veer towards a more thematically appropriate replacement.