Rivers of America

[SeaCastle]

Seeing how Disneyland's Rivers of America refurbishment worked out, is there any hope for WDW to have a similar refurbishment in which the river is drained? When was the last time the river was drained?

Thanks in advance! :wave:

 

[TP2000]

Seeing how Disneyland's Rivers of America refurbishment worked out, is there any hope for WDW to have a similar refurbishment in which the river is drained? When was the last time the river was drained?

I'd love to know that too. I tried digging around online, but I couldn't find any mention of Magic Kingdom's river ever being drained during the Internet Era of the last 15 years. Anyone know??? Any pics??? I love those kind of pictures!

Disneyland's river was last drained in 2003, and before that in the 1990's, and they have a basic 7 year schedule on that. The Rivers of America at Disneyland opens today after a four month river draining, and from the looks of things in the newspapers and online it's a really amazing freshening and upgrade to the existing stuff there. It's the first time they've ever segmented the Rivers of America up into actual American rivers with different themes and scenery; Mississippi, Potomac, Columbia and Rio Grande. Plus quite a few new animatronics and figures, and real live horses in the Indian Village for the first time ever!

Seems like there's plenty of room in Magic Kingdom to do the same thing with their Rivers of America. Although they'll need to get another riverboat of some kind and bring the Canoes back to Magic Kingdom to have enough capacity for everyone to see it. Magic Kingdom would also need to drain the river to make it all happen, which would get me those pictures I was trying to Google! :lol:

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[Exprcoofto]

I'd love to see MK's Rivers of America drained and a similar theme to Disneyland's applied. Have the river be divided up into separate rivers with specific wildlife, plants, show scenes, etc. While they're at it, TSI could be expanded with some more stuff to do beyond Fort Langhorn. (if you look at Google Earth, only half of that island is used) I really hope it happens...

 

[TP2000]

Here's a nice little graphic from the OC Register newspaper explaining what Disneyland added to the Rivers of America during the rehab this year. This is all stuff that could be done at Magic Kingdom, obviously. The rework of the landscaping and trees to move from one "river" to another is the most interesting, and it's already changed the look of the areas around New Orleans Square and Critter Country. Traveling the Columbia River on the Sailing Ship Columbia will now have more meaning!

Seems like there's plenty of room and space to do even more of this type of plussing and upgrades at Magic Kingdom. But draining the river will be a must!

The full newspaper article, including a neat little video, is at http://ocresort.freedomblogging.com...e-scenes-look-at-disneylands-new-river/43239/

 

[SeaCastle]

I've been following the river project every step of the way. I was disappointed to hear at first that all of the effects would be cut from the refurb but as the project progressed I saw this was no longer the case. Kudos to Tony Baxter and everyone involved for making this happen. :wave:

 

[Lee]

Good question.
As for the river's future....nothing to say about that.

I can't remember the river being drained since they were building Splash, and putting in the boardwalk around the water, so.....'91-'92-ish...:shrug:

And Martin settles this in....4...3...2...1...

 

[PrincessSparrow]

i had stumbled across pictures of the river drained before and am kicking myself for not saving the site... i found one picture on the link below (about midway down the page).... last time it was drained from what i have read was 1996. play around with different tags on google and you may get more ... i searched "drained rivers of america wdw" and hit google images and 5 or so pictures came up...


http://www.mouseplanet.com/7100/Betcha_Didnt_Know_Part_2

 

[unkadug]

http://www.disneypix.com/MagicKingdom/Frontierland/ROARehab/ROA-01.htm

 

[WDITrent]

You guys don't have Tony Baxter or the marvelous TDA, who work together to actively maintain and improve Disneyland.

Yeah, you have the cheap, careless TDO who probably think the RoA is just fine.

 

[ABigBrassBand]

You guys don't have Tony Baxter or the marvelous TDA, who work together to actively maintain and improve Disneyland.

Yeah, you have the cheap, careless TDO who probably think the RoA is just fine.

Can someone define TDO and TDA for me? I've gotten the last letters (Anaheim, Orlando), but can't do the rest :shrug: Maybe (BLANKDisneyOrlando/Anaheim)?

 

[joe80x86]

Probably should be added here http://www.wdwmagic.com/Acronyms.htm as they are currently not there. But I believe and someone please correct me if I am wrong it is:

TDA: Team Disney Anaheim
TDO: Team Disney Orlando

 

[TP2000]

Good question. As for the river's future....nothing to say about that.

Nothing to say because nothing is planned, or nothing to say because a similar Disneyland-style upgrade project is coming to Magic Kingdom next and you don't want to spill the beans? :animwink:

Great pics though folks! Thanks for sharing. So it looks like Magic Kingdom last drained the river in '96? That's a long time ago really.

I rode the Canoes at Disneyland yesterday late afternoon to check out the new river. It looks fantastic. One unusual thing... They've got real live horses in the Indian Village now, hanging out in a little corral behind the teepees with Indian style markings on their sides. That's a live horse back there, next to the moving animatronic Indian ladies making crafts and stuff. The Indian menfolk are a bit further up the river, listening to the Shaman. (Not my pic by the way, it's from ron_w on the Disneyland board. I'm not talented enough to paddle and take pictures, and if you stop paddling the CM at the front of the canoe will make fun of you. )

I think this might be the first time in Disney theme park history where they mixed up live animals with human animatronics, isn't it? Usually it's an all-animatronic cast, right?

.

 

[rangerbob]

No, up until about a year or 2 ago I might be wrong with the timeline there used to be a human game warden on the Safari Ride at Animal Kingdom. They used to be with the baby elephant at the end of the ride.

 

[TP2000]

No, up until about a year or 2 ago I might be wrong with the timeline there used to be a human game warden on the Safari Ride at Animal Kingdom. They used to be with the baby elephant at the end of the ride.

True, I forgot about that scene they used to do on the Safari.

I also just thought of the old Pack Mule ride at Disneyland in the 50's and 60's; that had guests riding real mules past animatronic animal scenes.

Still, it's unusual to put a couple of live animals in an attraction that is otherwise made up of animatronic and/or static animals and humans.

 

[TheTexasKid]

Re: Rivers of Ameica

Whether it was deliberate or not, but by choosing the four river regions that they did, they also choose the four regions of the United States.

Columbia - the North
Mississippi - the South
Rio Grande - the West
Potomac - the East