So, uh. You may have heard. The termination date for the Rivers of America and all of its charming attractions has been set for July 7th, 2025.
I’ve been waiting for this news in slow motion since last summer. I was actually at the D23 Expo in August of last year. I spent Saturday at the MiceChat booth and had a lovely time meeting people and generally having a lot of fun. I went home to my Airbnb, excited to see what was about to be announced at the Park Panel. I was relieved that I basically liked everything that I saw. For the first time in a long time, I felt optimistic and excited about what was coming to Walt Disney World.
And then, the next day, the art dropped. So did my heart.
I could barely even look at the thing. My blood began to boil. Friends and strangers began to contact me and offer their condolences, as if my mother had died. Other people began to write me long letters venting their frustrations with the current state of Disney. I felt numb. I had no idea what to do. I still don’t. I can hardly even discuss this with people.
But, in time, I began to realize something….. It had finally happened. I knew that someday something would happen and the ride, for me, would end. It was only a matter of time, but in my heart I couldn’t accept it would be so soon. Maybe in another 20 years, but now now. But we are here. Walt Disney World is about to cross a bridge and I simply can not follow it.
Okay, that’s not a funny story……. it’s awful. And my heart is broken.
Everybody Do the Propaganda
I’ve heard the defenders saying that nobody rides the Riverboat and no one goes over to Tom Sawyer Island. And, yeah, I knew that part. I knew better than probably anybody else because I worked on the Riverboat and spent many hours on Tom Sawyer Island. I knew that theirs was a beauty that I was fortunate to be able to visit.
I understood that the features of the island were probably never going to last my entire life. I even understood that the Liberty Square Riverboat itself would probably one day be docked and turned into a gift shop or something. Every single time the boat went down for refurbishment, I would hold my breath and hope that they had announced a re-opening date. I did this twice a year for 15 years. But I never in my life thought that they would actually remove the river. Build something new on the island, sure. But dump a Pixar ride on top of the whole thing?!
The river. One of the few parts of The Magic Kingdom that hasn’t been turned into a desert, one of the few parts of The Magic Kingdom that still has shade, still has ducks that swim around on it, still has a sense of serenity and calm.
Yes, some may claim that nobody goes over to experience the island, but every single person who steps foot in that park experiences the river. Even if it’s just for a moment, even if they’re not aware of the fact that it was an important part of their day. Even if they only stop to look at the Riverboat as it makes its rounds, they are experiencing the river. Things like the Rivers of America make the difference between a Disneyland and a California Adventure, the difference between a compelling experience and just a collection of stuff. And I believe that experiences like The Magic Kingdom and Disneyland are as beloved as they are because of a million little things that aren’t quantifiable, that are impossible to put a monetary value on. The Rivers of America may have never made Disney a hot cent, but it absolutely paid its rent.
There simply has always been a river. Think of it.
There was a river even in the earliest concepts for Disneyland, when it was still a weird collection of ideas slated to be installed across from the studio in Burbank. There was a river after that, and Disney went through considerable difficulty in order to get this river built in the sandy Anaheim soil. The water simply would not stay put, being sucked up by the parched sandy ground. General Fowler, who was overseeing the construction project, began to have nightmares about the water disappearing from the river overnight. Finally, the bottom was lined with clay, and Disneyland had a river when it opened in 1955. Magic Kingdom had a river when it opened in 1971. Tokyo Disneyland had a river when it opened in 1983. Indeed, it’s only been in more modern eras that Disney seemingly began to forget how important that river is. Hong Kong justified the expense by merging it with the Jungle Cruise. Shanghai has a lake. Rivers with boats on it cost money and Disney is increasingly unwilling to pay.
And then there’s the stark reality that Walt Disney World has already gone down this path before with Epcot. They demolished the heart of the park and took out the iconic water feature, replaced it with a bunch of stuff that no one really cares for, and then ended up stopping halfway through and rebuilding part of what they removed and could have kept in the first place had they stopped for a moment and said “is there value in this existing design?”
None of that was a responsible use of money. All of that was ambitious future planning that turned out to be too ambitious and turned out to be a net downgrade of literally everything.
That’s the most likely outcome of what we’re looking at here at The Magic Kingdom. Embarking on the enormous project of removing the river, replacing the river with some yet undefined water features that will “make up” for removing the river, and doing all of this with the same bucket of money that really should be going towards making the Villains area as good as it can be is just going to result in a worse Villains area and a worse river replacement. I guarantee you that as you read, there’s someone inside Disney is running numbers trying to figure out how much they can afford to cut to bring this project in on budget.
My Bereavement
I may be simply too in love with that river to think straight about the whole thing. I worked on the river, the very best job I ever had was driving the Liberty Belle river boat.
It was nearly a perfect job. You would come in the morning — the air would be cool and thick. You’d walk down to the river and there would be a little bit of mist still clinging to the surface of the water. There was the wonderful first trip around the river with nobody on board to ensure that the ride path was safe, just you and the early morning area music and the hiss of the steam engines and lap of the paddle wheel. The sound of another century.
You’d spend the day following the boat around in circles, through the heat of a midday, always approaching and retreating from the beautiful back of the river, where the crowds fell away and even the background music faded out and you could breathe a sigh of relief. I love that back stretch of the river, where the rattle of Big Thunder Mountain becomes distant clatter, the trees drape the river like reaching hands and the bugs kiss the surface of the water and the plastic elk pose for pictures.
Then the night would descend, the humidity would break, and you can enjoy some true peace and quiet as you steamed around the the river, see the popcorn lights from the boat playing off the dense foliage, then the return to civilization and the reveal of Cinderella castle shining at the end. I love that, I loved it more when the Christmas Dream Lights were installed on the castle, a true reward waiting at the end of the road.
After a few night trips we would tie up the boat, hand control of the boiler over to Maintenance, and go home. Your clothes were invariably always soaked with some combination of sweat and humidity, but it was a wonderful job, a peaceful job. I still dream of those nights, think about those lazy afternoons drifting around the rear of Tom Sawyer Island, leaning over the side rail and watching the reflected sunbeams playing across the ceiling of the boat. The soothing hiss of the engines, a million and a half miles away from reality.
I firmly believe that river has a power.
Once a year, the cast of the Riverboat and the cast of Tom Sawyer Island would meet in the early hours of the morning to practice a water evacuation. I believe the call time was 5 AM, we would have a brief meeting in the Hall of Presidents theater. The meeting was rowdy… Cast Members tend to be boisterous and hard people… and there was a great deal shouting and throwing of wadded up papers and sarcastic remarks. Then the meeting would break and to go out on the river to put theory into practice. I clearly remember the Riverboat steaming out of the dark just as the haze of dawn was starting to break over Adventureland, the sky dark blue, the flickering yellow lights in Frontierland shining through the early morning fog.
We all stood at the bow of the boat and watched the scenery that we had seen a million times before pass before us as if we were seeing it for the first time. A sense of quiet reverence settled over the boat. Nobody spoke, we all knew that we were experiencing something that none of us would ever forget. Finally somebody said, very quietly, “We do work in a beautiful place.”
The moment lasted more minutes…. the sun rose…. the fog burned off….. and 15 minutes later we were happily crashing TSI rafts into embankments.
An Atlantis
So yeah, I’m a little emotional. Maybe you shouldn’t listen to me. Maybe debating logistics and money on the part of Disney is your main attraction to the company. Me, I consider it more of a hazard that comes with the territory than something I truly enjoy. The reason why I loved Disney, the reason why I continued to love Disney for so many decades, is because of things like the backside of the Rivers of America or the Riverboat or Tom Sawyer Island or World Showcase or The Disney Gallery or the weird little side areas in Disneyland Paris…… the little things that didn’t need to be there but were wonderful when you found them. If it were all pomp and flash and thrills, we wouldn’t have kept going back, we wouldn’t have kept discovering new things.
Look, I’m not gonna waste your time or insult your intelligence by trying to convince you that the river is worth retaining. If you already believe that the river simply must go, then there’s no point in appealing to sentiment, or even invoking the name of Walt Disney. Disney does that too, very often when they’re tearing down things I actually care about.
I will simply say the following. I love that river, and I love it more than almost anything at Walt Disney World. I’m not sure that I love it more than my favorite attractions, but I definitely love it more than the World Showcase lagoon, Cinderella Castle, any fireworks show or parade, practically everything in the Studios and Animal Kingdom, and more than a lot of the rides in Magic Kingdom. That river meant a lot to me. The Riverboat was one of the very few rides I went on every single time I went to Magic Kingdom. I’ve probably taken more pictures with the river in the foreground than I ever have of Cinderella Castle. I love the way it embraces the park, I love the way humanizes the park.
15 years ago I wrote an article where I attempted to put into words how much this area of the park means to me:
“The river feels intimate, essential and ancient, and it flows out into several “other rivers” which symbolically link Liberty Square with Frontierland. Just in the way that the Jungle Cruise extends the “world” of Adventureland, a short riverboat ride away is the “backwoods” of the river district, where the whole area suddenly comes alive as a beautiful pastoral of North America, multiplying on and on. The little white beacons which look so nice and mysterious at night littered around the river, the beautifully staged Native American Village which has been located on both sides of the railroad tracks – making it seem much larger than it really is – to the beautiful Marc Davis designed scenes which punctuate the landscape, the river is hauntingly perfect. It has an atmosphere about it that it may just go on forever. I find it to be among Disney’s most assured, fully articulated, haunting and beautiful creations.”
I spent an incredible amount of time in my book, Boundless Realm, justifying the theme of the attraction in relation to the river and its surrounding area. I have no idea what I’m gonna do now, but if there isn’t even a river, my entire aesthetic interpretation is being thrown out.
Seriously, can you even imagine The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World not located on a river? Isn’t it an obscenity to imagine it located next to a mere pond, or worse, a busy road? The whole atmosphere of haunting isolation is gone, the whole beauty of that brilliantly constructed dimensional scene, irrecoverable. The crown jewel of the park will be tarnished by merely being in proximity to such a thing. The thought sickens me.
So does the idea that future generations will not walk through Liberty Square in the evening, gaze across to Big Thunder Mountain, and be fascinated by the little red lights reflecting off the dappled surface of the darkened river, wondering what could lie beyond. The river and the island have a brooding quality which colors and deepens our appreciation of the Magic Kingdom as an enchanted place, a place where strange adventures may not yet be accessible over the next horizon. They help the place feel alive instead of simply a very clever movie set. They break up Liberty Square and Frontierland and help it feel natural, distinctive.
When I think of things like that I get angry, not angry because it’s leaving, but angry because I spent 20 years writing about these places as if they were art. I put my heart and soul into recording what these things meant to me.
But Disney doesn’t care about that.
They definately don’t care about the cultural heritage they are in command of, they have zero regard for the subtleties of the guest experience, and they care even less for the opinions of writers such as I. With the stroke of a pen they’re prepared to gut the heart of The Magic Kingdom….. aesthetically the best thing about it. This is undoubtably the largest aesthetic disaster to ever happen to any Disney theme park.
In short they are about to kill Magic Kingdom. Like Epcot, what’s about to get broken doesn’t go back together.
I no longer live near Disney World. Over the past couple of years, as I have liked less and less what the company been doing with these legacies that they control, I’ve been gradually unplugging myself from engaging with supporting Disney in any economic way. And I’ve come to understand that my Walt Disney World always was an Atlantis, already starting to vanish below the waves.
Many fans are going to be traveling to The Magic Kingdom to say goodbye to the Rivers of America prior to its July 7th, 2025, execution date. I never liked this sort of thing, and I really have no desire to do this. I could probably very easily arrange it, but my heart simply isn’t in it.
If I’m being truly honest, I have no desire to go back at all. On some level, that does pain me, because the memories light up my heart like a million fireflies in this growing darkness. I love that park….. or maybe perhaps more accurately, I loved that park….. and it was very important to me for a long time.
Now my memories are more important. It’s always hard to bury your dead.
If you’d like to let the caretakers of Walt’s legacy know they’re failing, you might consider writing to them. Most messages are filtered by assistants and deleted if they come off too heated. But if enough thoughtful notes hit the inbox, it might just ring some bells—or at least show up in a report.
And, just maybe, as has happened so many times before, the plan to drop a Cars ride into Frontierland will quietly vanish—like Mary Poppins, the Epcot Play Pavilion, the Main Street theater, and dozens of other projects that were once promised and never came to pass. We can dream, my friends, we can dream…
