Disney Dad 3000
Well-Known Member
Team Kermit
presents
Mysteriously closed in 2001 and never reopened, Disney’s River Country was a popular watering hole for Walt Disney World guests for 25 years until its abrupt closure. Rumors abound why it never reopened. Was it overshadowed by its siblings Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach? What exactly was in the water? Was it early prep for the demo and resort that would come 24 years later? Ok, now that one’s ridiculous. Even Disney construction schedules aren’t that long.
No, the answer as guests would soon find out, was a bit simpler. Something else had moved in. But what?
What lies at the edge of the Wilderness?
With two new, bigger, fancier water parks opening on property in the prior 13 years, the once popular River Country, while still a solid water park, had lost some of its luster. What could invigorate the park? What could be added to reshape the park for the decades to come?
No good idea at Imagineering goes to die (Exhibit A: Monsters Inc. Door Coaster). Such would be the case with the revitalization of Disney’s River Country.
Opened 3 years prior in 1998, Disney’s Animal Kingdom would become arguably Disney’s best themed park top to bottom in the States. The level of detail, theming, care and craftsmanship was superb. As popular as the new park was, what would become almost as popular in the years that followed was the initially conceived Beastly Kingdom that would have found its way into the park. Money. Deadlines. Planning. All factors, but Michael Eisner decided he wasn’t ready to let the grand idea go just yet. While the money wouldn’t be available for a full-fledged theme park land centered around mythical beasts, it was too well conceived an idea to not use the concept in some form. Thus, the idea of Beastly Springs was born.
Opening in the summer of 2004, Disney’s Beastly Springs is the reimagining of Disney’s River Country. Keeping and enhancing the natural aesthetic of the Fort Wilderness area, the water park becomes a destination on property once more. New pathways and streams lead to further exploration. Existing slides are refurbished and rethemed while new attractions are woven into the park’s footprint along with updated dining and more. Darker, moss-covered rock work mutes some of the bright colors with the park leaning heavily into earth tones. Guests of course will want to find out what mythical creatures have taken up shop at the edge of the wilderness as multiple, lifelike figures are integrated throughout the land and its slides naturally. Dragons, fairies, and unicorns are but a tip of the iceberg on what guests will find around the park.
Enjoy your adventure to Disney’s Beastly Springs!
Cypress Point Creature Trail
The first area guests reach in the park, the former Cypress Point Nature Trail remains largely unchanged with guests still able to take a leisurely walk among the numerous cypress trees and loop around the bridge out onto Bay Lake. Renamed Cypress Point Creature Trail, a few mythical touches are added to blend it into Beastly Springs. A light fog effect added every so often throughout the day adds a mystical effect, while small woodland mythical creatures have been scattered among the trees making for a scavenger hunt of sorts to locate as many as one can on a walk along the trail.
The Springs Bridge & Baylee the Sea Creature
Up to its last opening day, River Country was separated from Bay Lake by a rubber bladder at the water’s edge and the Bay Bridge, all to give the illusion of the Lake being part of the park. With the reworking of the park into Beastly Springs, this area sees a major change both physically and visually.
The Bay Bridge renamed Springs Bridge, itself will stay largely intact, still providing the opportunity for guests to traverse the walkway exploring the park, and to get great views both towards the park and the lake. Rock work added around various points of the structure creates a reef of sorts with a small cave entrance on the beach side of the bridge opening up after 15-20 feet into the rampart ahead. The rocks serve dual purposes providing both visual theming and assisting with complete physical separation from the lake itself.
The most notable change in this area though will be the mammoth, scaly sea creature at rest up against the rocks. In a perpetual, nocturnal slumber, the lake’s own resident sea creature, Baylee, lies end to end parallel with the Bay Bridge with her large back, tail and head rising above the water at various points. Large in size, but friendly in nature, Baylee, modeled loosely after the Loch Ness Monster, has been resting here as long as anyone can remember. She’ll be far too large to climb on, but makes a great sightseeing trip along the bridge, or for guests swimming up in the lagoon. Occasional bubbling effects in the water, accompanied by sounds of her breathing and snoring make her a living, breathing, part of the park.
Dragon’s Cove
One of the bigger changes to the park results in the transformation of the area occupied by White Water Rapids and Whoop-n-Holler-Hollow into Dragon’s Cove. Redone rockwork blends with the aesthetic throughout the rest of the park as numerous dragons now call the caves among the slides home.
Whoop-n-Holler-Hollow remains a pair of body slides but is renamed Wyrm. The large serpentine dragon is a good fit for the looping slides that remain, though resurfaced and painted like new. Guests sliding down either slide of Wyrm will encounter its namesake at various points in the journey with the dragon’s head and upper body greeting them at the first turn and later wrapped around the slide just before splashdown creating a small tunnel effect before escape.
White Water Rapids finds itself in for a major overhaul as the mini river with various small drops is replaced by a 4-person raft slide named Fire-drake. Modeled after the four-legged dragon with a fiery breath, this fast-paced raft ride whips riders around its turns presumably to escape the menacing dragon. Scorch marks scar the rock work in several places along the ride as evidence of the dragon nearby. Resting on an outcropping in the middle of the slide, riders quickly spin past the lifelike dragon for a white-knuckle finish into the cove below.
The large swimming hole remains at the base of the slides, though reshaped in various places. Dragon’s cove introduces several rock outcroppings in the area around the slides splashdown area to create the cove effect and keep the area clear of swimmers nearby.
Fairy Playground
Fairy Playground is the reimagined Kiddie Cove section of the former River Country. Guests, especially the little tykes, will enjoy splashing around in a magical world in which they have been shrunk to the size of a fairy. The four kiddie water slides have been redesigned to appear to be larger-than-life apparatuses including a watering can (tipped over), a watering hose, an outdoor water fountain, and a gutter splash block. One each of the Disney fairies–Tinkerbell, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather–are found near the top of each slide. At the playground, The wooden-and-rope Barrel Bridge has made the cut from the original park, but now kids can float on foam lilypads (rather than the previous wooden alligators). The playground links together items that have been arranged by the fairies including flowers, acorns, and pinecones. The main pool still has a sand bottom and a sandy beach next to it.
Fantasy Float River
Beastly Springs gets the most popular attraction that is not a slide or a ride–a lazy river called “Fantasy Float River.” This attraction links the three areas that include Fairy Playground, Phoenix Landing, and Mythic Meadows, each with its own place to enter and exit. Guests will encounter additional fairies, phoenix, unicorns, and other mythical creatures along the way. At 1500 feet, this continuous flowing lazy river is half the length of Cross Country Creek (at Blizzard Beach) and 30% shorter than Castaway Creek (at Typhoon Lagoon). Various water features, including waterfalls and trickles, allow for some interaction along the way. The lazy river is 3 feet deep, which allows for some shorter guests to comfortably use the attraction.
Flight of the Phoenix at Phoenix Landing
One of the more daring attractions at the former River Country was Slippery Slide Falls, two water slides that featured a 7-foot drop into the waiting pool below (formerly Upstream Plunge). With similar rock work updates made throughout the park, additional foliage and palm trees have been added to the updated area. Now occupied by the legendary phoenix, the area has been renamed Phoenix Landing and the slides dubbed Flight of the Phoenix.
With the overhaul, lounges and chairs are updated in a mixture of scarlet and gold tones. The palm trees provide an ideal nesting spot for the phoenix, with the brave souls who venture onto Flight of the Phoenix capturing a birds-eye view of the nest and Beastly Springs resident phoenix herself from above before making their daring plunge into the waters below. At day, Phoenix Landing stands slightly in contrast from the rest of the park, with the grove of palm trees mysteriously present. At twilight, the area comes alive thanks to special lighting on the slides with a fiery glow, and the occasional effect of the phoenix “flaming on” in her nest.
Mythic Meadows
Among the many core issues of Disney’s River Country was capacity. Newer parks at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon had newer slides, and larger footprints. With the top to bottom retheme into Beastly Springs, we expect increasing demand as travel rebounds in the latter part of the 2000’s, and with that a new expansion will be added in the form of Mythic Meadows.
Inhabited by all manner of horse-like creatures ranging from centaurs to hippocampus, the unicorns represent the main icon of the area with each represented in statuesque form in various semi-hidden spots throughout. The heavy rock features of the main park become sparser when venturing into Mythic Meadows. The rock elements remain, though interspersed among rolling hills and tree lined walkways creating a canopy of sorts around the meadow. A large wooden bridge takes guests over the new lazy river the park now offers to venture in and check out the newest water entertainment the park has to offer.
Tidal Rush
The “thrill ride” of Mythic Meadows comes in the form of Tidal Rush, a 2-person raft slide themed after the hippocampus. Part horse, part sea-creature the hippocampus has ventured from the depths into Beastly Kingdom, ready to show its full force to riders on this high-octane slide where you will get wet at every turn.
A winding path and stone stairs take guests to the boarding station within what resembles a small boathouse which seems a bit out of place, though a small pool of water off the back edge helps sell the narrative. Once boarding at one of two loading stations for 2 separate blue hued slides, the raft takes off at a steady pace after a slight drop into the beyond.
The raft funnels through a series of short-banked turns and straightens out just long enough for riders to catch a view of the drop ahead. Surrounded on all sides by water and boulders, the slide drops into a cave, simulating an underwater plunge. Overhead projections turn the surroundings into a world of water as a large hippocampus zips along with riders.
A gradual incline approaches at the bottom, but the rafts have ample speed to proceed banking left (or right depending on the slide), into a series of cascading loops with water spraying above riders on the angled slide. After what seems like an eternity, the raft exits the stacked loops into a straightaway, and an offshoot of the Meadows main pool area. Just off to the side of the two slides drop off into the pool, a large hippocampus sticking partially out of the water, daring riders to return.
Rainbow Rapids
Rainbow Rapids is a family raft ride taking guests on a quest to find the legendary unicorn. Holding up to 6 riders, the attraction is part water slide and part lazy river rapids. Featuring several small drops mixed with rolling turns on the slides among the meadows’ larger hillsides and small rapids like areas in between.
Approaching the centrally located boarding station through a grove of trees, the ride begins with a slide at a gentle pace with a whimsical and vibrant landscape all around. A small drop leads into another series of slide maneuvers before a second drop leads into a small river. Weaving through both guest spaces and hidden areas, the river is just wide enough for a gradual turn of the raft, but not so wide that riders and raft are floating side to side.
Hidden waterfalls, glowing plant life and a rainbow-colored mist are just a few of the sights around, along with several smaller mythical creatures spotted. No unicorn just yet though as the raft picks up a little speed thanks to underwater jets that help propel it in a rapids like motion down the river. Just up ahead, the canopy of trees grows, and the raft heads toward the only opening available as a thick mist (thanks to the sprayers nearby) guard its opening. Floating through the foliage, the raft is immediately bathed in light and a life size unicorn, seemingly glowing in the light, stands gazing at riders as they float by.
With just enough time to gaze at the unicorn, the raft catches a short conveyor out of the river into the waiting slide ahead. The conveyor takes only about 10 seconds to gain a little altitude before dumping the raft into the slide. Several wide turns and a drop later, the raft arrives at a small pool and the exit for guests.
presents
Mysteriously closed in 2001 and never reopened, Disney’s River Country was a popular watering hole for Walt Disney World guests for 25 years until its abrupt closure. Rumors abound why it never reopened. Was it overshadowed by its siblings Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach? What exactly was in the water? Was it early prep for the demo and resort that would come 24 years later? Ok, now that one’s ridiculous. Even Disney construction schedules aren’t that long.
No, the answer as guests would soon find out, was a bit simpler. Something else had moved in. But what?
What lies at the edge of the Wilderness?
With two new, bigger, fancier water parks opening on property in the prior 13 years, the once popular River Country, while still a solid water park, had lost some of its luster. What could invigorate the park? What could be added to reshape the park for the decades to come?
No good idea at Imagineering goes to die (Exhibit A: Monsters Inc. Door Coaster). Such would be the case with the revitalization of Disney’s River Country.
Opened 3 years prior in 1998, Disney’s Animal Kingdom would become arguably Disney’s best themed park top to bottom in the States. The level of detail, theming, care and craftsmanship was superb. As popular as the new park was, what would become almost as popular in the years that followed was the initially conceived Beastly Kingdom that would have found its way into the park. Money. Deadlines. Planning. All factors, but Michael Eisner decided he wasn’t ready to let the grand idea go just yet. While the money wouldn’t be available for a full-fledged theme park land centered around mythical beasts, it was too well conceived an idea to not use the concept in some form. Thus, the idea of Beastly Springs was born.
Opening in the summer of 2004, Disney’s Beastly Springs is the reimagining of Disney’s River Country. Keeping and enhancing the natural aesthetic of the Fort Wilderness area, the water park becomes a destination on property once more. New pathways and streams lead to further exploration. Existing slides are refurbished and rethemed while new attractions are woven into the park’s footprint along with updated dining and more. Darker, moss-covered rock work mutes some of the bright colors with the park leaning heavily into earth tones. Guests of course will want to find out what mythical creatures have taken up shop at the edge of the wilderness as multiple, lifelike figures are integrated throughout the land and its slides naturally. Dragons, fairies, and unicorns are but a tip of the iceberg on what guests will find around the park.
Enjoy your adventure to Disney’s Beastly Springs!
Cypress Point Creature Trail
The first area guests reach in the park, the former Cypress Point Nature Trail remains largely unchanged with guests still able to take a leisurely walk among the numerous cypress trees and loop around the bridge out onto Bay Lake. Renamed Cypress Point Creature Trail, a few mythical touches are added to blend it into Beastly Springs. A light fog effect added every so often throughout the day adds a mystical effect, while small woodland mythical creatures have been scattered among the trees making for a scavenger hunt of sorts to locate as many as one can on a walk along the trail.
The Springs Bridge & Baylee the Sea Creature
Up to its last opening day, River Country was separated from Bay Lake by a rubber bladder at the water’s edge and the Bay Bridge, all to give the illusion of the Lake being part of the park. With the reworking of the park into Beastly Springs, this area sees a major change both physically and visually.
The Bay Bridge renamed Springs Bridge, itself will stay largely intact, still providing the opportunity for guests to traverse the walkway exploring the park, and to get great views both towards the park and the lake. Rock work added around various points of the structure creates a reef of sorts with a small cave entrance on the beach side of the bridge opening up after 15-20 feet into the rampart ahead. The rocks serve dual purposes providing both visual theming and assisting with complete physical separation from the lake itself.
The most notable change in this area though will be the mammoth, scaly sea creature at rest up against the rocks. In a perpetual, nocturnal slumber, the lake’s own resident sea creature, Baylee, lies end to end parallel with the Bay Bridge with her large back, tail and head rising above the water at various points. Large in size, but friendly in nature, Baylee, modeled loosely after the Loch Ness Monster, has been resting here as long as anyone can remember. She’ll be far too large to climb on, but makes a great sightseeing trip along the bridge, or for guests swimming up in the lagoon. Occasional bubbling effects in the water, accompanied by sounds of her breathing and snoring make her a living, breathing, part of the park.
Dragon’s Cove
One of the bigger changes to the park results in the transformation of the area occupied by White Water Rapids and Whoop-n-Holler-Hollow into Dragon’s Cove. Redone rockwork blends with the aesthetic throughout the rest of the park as numerous dragons now call the caves among the slides home.
Whoop-n-Holler-Hollow remains a pair of body slides but is renamed Wyrm. The large serpentine dragon is a good fit for the looping slides that remain, though resurfaced and painted like new. Guests sliding down either slide of Wyrm will encounter its namesake at various points in the journey with the dragon’s head and upper body greeting them at the first turn and later wrapped around the slide just before splashdown creating a small tunnel effect before escape.
White Water Rapids finds itself in for a major overhaul as the mini river with various small drops is replaced by a 4-person raft slide named Fire-drake. Modeled after the four-legged dragon with a fiery breath, this fast-paced raft ride whips riders around its turns presumably to escape the menacing dragon. Scorch marks scar the rock work in several places along the ride as evidence of the dragon nearby. Resting on an outcropping in the middle of the slide, riders quickly spin past the lifelike dragon for a white-knuckle finish into the cove below.
The large swimming hole remains at the base of the slides, though reshaped in various places. Dragon’s cove introduces several rock outcroppings in the area around the slides splashdown area to create the cove effect and keep the area clear of swimmers nearby.
Fairy Playground
Fairy Playground is the reimagined Kiddie Cove section of the former River Country. Guests, especially the little tykes, will enjoy splashing around in a magical world in which they have been shrunk to the size of a fairy. The four kiddie water slides have been redesigned to appear to be larger-than-life apparatuses including a watering can (tipped over), a watering hose, an outdoor water fountain, and a gutter splash block. One each of the Disney fairies–Tinkerbell, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather–are found near the top of each slide. At the playground, The wooden-and-rope Barrel Bridge has made the cut from the original park, but now kids can float on foam lilypads (rather than the previous wooden alligators). The playground links together items that have been arranged by the fairies including flowers, acorns, and pinecones. The main pool still has a sand bottom and a sandy beach next to it.
Fantasy Float River
Beastly Springs gets the most popular attraction that is not a slide or a ride–a lazy river called “Fantasy Float River.” This attraction links the three areas that include Fairy Playground, Phoenix Landing, and Mythic Meadows, each with its own place to enter and exit. Guests will encounter additional fairies, phoenix, unicorns, and other mythical creatures along the way. At 1500 feet, this continuous flowing lazy river is half the length of Cross Country Creek (at Blizzard Beach) and 30% shorter than Castaway Creek (at Typhoon Lagoon). Various water features, including waterfalls and trickles, allow for some interaction along the way. The lazy river is 3 feet deep, which allows for some shorter guests to comfortably use the attraction.
Flight of the Phoenix at Phoenix Landing
One of the more daring attractions at the former River Country was Slippery Slide Falls, two water slides that featured a 7-foot drop into the waiting pool below (formerly Upstream Plunge). With similar rock work updates made throughout the park, additional foliage and palm trees have been added to the updated area. Now occupied by the legendary phoenix, the area has been renamed Phoenix Landing and the slides dubbed Flight of the Phoenix.
With the overhaul, lounges and chairs are updated in a mixture of scarlet and gold tones. The palm trees provide an ideal nesting spot for the phoenix, with the brave souls who venture onto Flight of the Phoenix capturing a birds-eye view of the nest and Beastly Springs resident phoenix herself from above before making their daring plunge into the waters below. At day, Phoenix Landing stands slightly in contrast from the rest of the park, with the grove of palm trees mysteriously present. At twilight, the area comes alive thanks to special lighting on the slides with a fiery glow, and the occasional effect of the phoenix “flaming on” in her nest.
Mythic Meadows
Among the many core issues of Disney’s River Country was capacity. Newer parks at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon had newer slides, and larger footprints. With the top to bottom retheme into Beastly Springs, we expect increasing demand as travel rebounds in the latter part of the 2000’s, and with that a new expansion will be added in the form of Mythic Meadows.
Inhabited by all manner of horse-like creatures ranging from centaurs to hippocampus, the unicorns represent the main icon of the area with each represented in statuesque form in various semi-hidden spots throughout. The heavy rock features of the main park become sparser when venturing into Mythic Meadows. The rock elements remain, though interspersed among rolling hills and tree lined walkways creating a canopy of sorts around the meadow. A large wooden bridge takes guests over the new lazy river the park now offers to venture in and check out the newest water entertainment the park has to offer.
Tidal Rush
The “thrill ride” of Mythic Meadows comes in the form of Tidal Rush, a 2-person raft slide themed after the hippocampus. Part horse, part sea-creature the hippocampus has ventured from the depths into Beastly Kingdom, ready to show its full force to riders on this high-octane slide where you will get wet at every turn.
A winding path and stone stairs take guests to the boarding station within what resembles a small boathouse which seems a bit out of place, though a small pool of water off the back edge helps sell the narrative. Once boarding at one of two loading stations for 2 separate blue hued slides, the raft takes off at a steady pace after a slight drop into the beyond.
The raft funnels through a series of short-banked turns and straightens out just long enough for riders to catch a view of the drop ahead. Surrounded on all sides by water and boulders, the slide drops into a cave, simulating an underwater plunge. Overhead projections turn the surroundings into a world of water as a large hippocampus zips along with riders.
A gradual incline approaches at the bottom, but the rafts have ample speed to proceed banking left (or right depending on the slide), into a series of cascading loops with water spraying above riders on the angled slide. After what seems like an eternity, the raft exits the stacked loops into a straightaway, and an offshoot of the Meadows main pool area. Just off to the side of the two slides drop off into the pool, a large hippocampus sticking partially out of the water, daring riders to return.
Rainbow Rapids
Rainbow Rapids is a family raft ride taking guests on a quest to find the legendary unicorn. Holding up to 6 riders, the attraction is part water slide and part lazy river rapids. Featuring several small drops mixed with rolling turns on the slides among the meadows’ larger hillsides and small rapids like areas in between.
Approaching the centrally located boarding station through a grove of trees, the ride begins with a slide at a gentle pace with a whimsical and vibrant landscape all around. A small drop leads into another series of slide maneuvers before a second drop leads into a small river. Weaving through both guest spaces and hidden areas, the river is just wide enough for a gradual turn of the raft, but not so wide that riders and raft are floating side to side.
Hidden waterfalls, glowing plant life and a rainbow-colored mist are just a few of the sights around, along with several smaller mythical creatures spotted. No unicorn just yet though as the raft picks up a little speed thanks to underwater jets that help propel it in a rapids like motion down the river. Just up ahead, the canopy of trees grows, and the raft heads toward the only opening available as a thick mist (thanks to the sprayers nearby) guard its opening. Floating through the foliage, the raft is immediately bathed in light and a life size unicorn, seemingly glowing in the light, stands gazing at riders as they float by.
With just enough time to gaze at the unicorn, the raft catches a short conveyor out of the river into the waiting slide ahead. The conveyor takes only about 10 seconds to gain a little altitude before dumping the raft into the slide. Several wide turns and a drop later, the raft arrives at a small pool and the exit for guests.
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