What has Disney kept from us..? What has Disney abandoned? Find out here... All the creepy, unnerving secrets that Disney hasn't let past its hushed castle doors....
*Obviously I'm editing this chapter and improving it. Please be patient as I correct grammar and fix paragraphs to make them more interesting. Your patience is appreciated and I hope you have a wonderful day. The revised chapter should be up soon. Thanks -C* ------------------------------------- It's been 40 years since the first waterpark in the world opened its doors, River Country was Disney's FIRST water park and opened on June 20, 1976. It was, and still is, located on Walt Disney World property. The water park is/was located across from Discovery Island (circled in the picture below (also closed- but I'll explain more about that later on in another chapter)), Magic Kingdom (squared in the picture below is the Magic Kingdom park and the Contemporary Resort), and located on Bay Lake. River Country was meant to have the aesthetic of an old fashioned swimming hole with part of the park having water that was filtered from Bay Lake and sent into the pool/lagoon while another part was the typical chlorinated pool.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Tickets back in 1976 were $4.75 for adults of the general public and $3.75 for children of the general public between the ages of 3 and 11. However if you were a club member you could get an adult ticket for $4.00 and a child ticket for $3.00. Various attractions that used to take residence there include: - Upstream Plunge A kidney-shaped pool filled with chlorinated water - Slippery Slide Falls Two water slides that fell into the Upstream Plunge - Kiddie Cove A kid zone with 2 large water slides - Barrel Bridge A bumpy bridge with barrels of water under it, keeping it floating - White Water Rapids The 330 foot inner tube 'lazy' river - Bay Cove A sand bottom lake with a tire swing, boom swing, rope climb, and T-bar drop - Indian Springs A small splash zone with fountains spraying kids - Cypress Trail A tree trail among bay lake Not to mention a picnic area, concession stands, gift shops, changing rooms, and other things that'll be talked about in more detail about later. River Country was fun for the whole family. That was one of the reasons why it was so popular, it was the first water park.
River Country had Goofy as its main character along with Chip 'n' Dale and occasionally Minnie Mouse. At times Goofy and Chip 'n' Dale would slide down the various water slides and into the pool.
If you go there now, it's unsettling. The there are remains of what the old water park looked like, some of which, can be seen from Fort Wilderness if you take the ferry ride to Magic Kingdom. Other people have snuck into the park via an entrance that was occasionally unlocked and unmanned by any guards or security personnel. To get to the park one must go past the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue and walk up the street past Crockett's Tavern along the street running next to Bay Lake.
River Country Now In one part of the park, there are at least 20 picnic tables piled very close in distance to each other. Growing all around them are weeds, bushes, and trees. One tree actually twisted itself and the picnic table is actually inside the tree!
All the various places to swim have moss growing on the edges of the pool. There is murky water, collected from when it rains. Inside the water is fallen logs, broken chairs and tables, and signs instructing people who went down the slides and into the pools.
It's it a mix of empty pools, picnic tables, fading signs, old buildings and mish-mash of random items such as flippers and deflated inner tubes.
River Country was opened on June 20, 1976 and temporarily closed in 1998. It's last operating day was November 2nd, 2001. In January 2005, Disney closed the park for good. Disney says the park's closing was due to "lack of public interest" and was a "strict business decision". However the lights inside the park, much like the lights in Discovery Island, were left on until around 2009 (8 years after the park closed, 4 years after the park permanently closed).
But there are two questions that have been nagging people over the years since it closed: 1. Why did they close the park in the first place? 2. Why didn't they demolish the park and build something else there or leave it as a nature area?
(Obviously) Disney decided NOT to demolish the water park. But on January 20, 2005 Disney made an announcement that they would never open the water park again. That left a lot of people upset and questioning the company that had shut down the small but charming water park known as River Country.
Safety One of the reasons why the park was closed down was safety. With slides that had 6 or 7 foot drops into pools and river rapids that knocked you off your inner tube into another guest, River Country wasn't the safest water park but that really didn't bug anyone all that much. What was a large complaint however, was the fact that all the slides dropped guests into very deep water and weak swimmers needed to be rescued by life guards several times throughout the day.
Interest As more and more water parks started to pop-up following Disney's trend (a notable one being the SeaWorld Aquatic Waterpark, often mistaken for the first water park), more and more advances were made to make waterparks safer, bigger, bolder, and more fun. It wasn't that Disney wasn't able to compete or didn't have the land- they have two wonderful waterparks on their Walt Disney World property at the moment- it was that Disney was at the time in it's company history where there were major cuts in budget and attendance dips. It was felt that a new waterpark would get more attendance. Not only that, but in order to expand the park and make it safer, there would need to be very costly changes. For a park that was becoming less and less relevant to the new age of thrill-seeking people, the rides existing in the park would have to be replaced with rides to attract such people. At this time the money wasn't present and the capacity of the park wasn't high enough to make the executives bat an eye in River Country's direction.
Death Then again, it could have been because a little 8 year old died in 1982 for unknown reasons. In 2001 the water around River Country was tested. They made a surprising find. In the water was a brain-eating amoeba called Naegleria Fowleri. Naegleria Fowleri is water-borne and found mainly in Florida and Texas in warm fresh water. Each year there are 10 reported cases of the brain-eating amoeba in just those two states alone. However, there are 32 states that have not reported any type of the amoeba, ever.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Naegleria Fowleri has a causality rate of 95%. This is because it causes a rare brain infection known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Several people have died from the amoeba but very few have survived- those who did were left with life changing disabilities such as not being able to walk or see. Two children, Kali Hardig and Zachary Reyna, have been the third and fourth individuals to survive the amoeba in 50 years. If you get it, it's best to get treated as soon as possible. But even after treatment, you are not guaranteed to live (see causality rate above).
That's what killed the little boy, but is that what closed the park? We may never know.
The video is not of the best quality- I get that. But others had information that I didn't deem necessary plus this showcased parts of the park that were pretty cool- ammiright? My favorite part of the video is the last couple minutes that showcases more pictures of the abandoned park. Make sure to check those out because obviously Wattpad only allows 20-21 pictures in the chapters so I can't fit everything I want to in. Thanks for reading and remember that warning I issued in the introduction chapter. Don't trespass!
