Cars Attractions to Replace Rivers of America

Artwork courtesy of Disney Parks Blog

 

This past weekend, Disney unveiled a bunch of blockbuster announcements at the annual D23 event in Anaheim.  It was easy to come out of that event with an air of positivity, as these projects will generally push the parks forward.  My next post was actually intended to be a follow up on the Villains Land announcement, a victory lap of sorts for a project that was almost universally lauded.

One of the things about events like D23, however, is that they give you all of the good news but rarely any of the bad.  In the case of Villains Land, we already know that it is going to be "beyond Big Thunder" at Magic Kingdom, in an area that wasn't utilized as park space.  Some of the other new attractions didn't mention where specifically they were going.  There's still a possibility that the Monsters Inc. Land at Hollywood Studios, for example, will lead to a closer of the beloved Muppetvision 3D. 

The project that left me the most confused in terms of location was the addition of a Cars-themed area in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom.  Two attractions were announced for this area, in what was called a "reimagining" of Frontierland.  If these were not beyond Big Thunder, then where WOULD they be?  There's only so much space in Frontierland, and they obviously wouldn't be replacing Big Thunder Mountain or the newly reimagined Tiana's Bayou Adventure or Country Bear Musical Jamboree.

We now know the answer to this question, as Disney Parks Blog put out a post noting that this area will replace the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island.  Disney Tourist Blog had speculated that perhaps part of this area would be repurposed, turning Tom Sawyer Island into "Tom Sawyer Peninsula".  It turns out that this was more optimistic, as the entire area will be replaced; Disney even filed for the permit that covers this section of the park just yesterday.

This kind of thing is not uncommon, and suggests that Disney knew the reaction to the news would not be positive, and therefore wouldn't want it to be made public during their D23 presentation.  And from what I've seen online, "not positive" is putting it kindly.  There are always a subset of Disney fans that will complain about everything the company does; I've talked about this before.  But even with that factored in, it seems like the reaction has been especially severe.

So why is this exactly?  Let's first talk about why Disney must have made this decision in the first place.  From a park utilization perspective, this change actually makes a lot of sense.  I feel hypocritical to criticize park expansion when I call for this sort of thing all the time.  Both the Liberty Belle boat ride around the Rivers of America as well as Tom Sawyer Island must have very low guest usage numbers.  On the other hand, two new rides based on a popular franchise would obviously draw more people, and more capacity is a good thing.  Problem solved, right?

And to be honest, my own personal utilization of this area is not very high.  I've never been to Tom Sawyer Island - I couldn't even tell you what it looked like.  And we rode on the Liberty Belle all of one time, on the last day of a trip a few years ago.  I'm pretty certain I will spend more time riding these new attractions than I ever did in this area before.  I'm probably the kind of guest Disney is trying to speak to with this change.

And yet ... something doesn't sit right with this situation, and I know I'm not alone in my thinking.  First, there is the usual crowd that talks about what Walt would have wanted for the park and how he's "rolling over in his grave" at a change like this.  I appreciate that line of thinking, but I don't necessarily agree in this case.  Walt was a forward thinker, so a lot of times, the nostalgia for Walt-era attractions seems misplaced when Walt would likely have replaced them himself for the next big thing in his mind.

In this particular case, I have some sympathy for the Walt-centric ideal.  The River, the boat, the Island where kids could play ... these are all very much ideals that Walt espoused when creating Disneyland.  Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom was basically put in to honor Walt's legacy.  The boat is even listed as the "Liberty Square Riverboat" on a map, meaning Disney is really taking away from two areas here to enhance Frontierland.

The bigger issue to me is more about the intangible aspect we're losing here as opposed to the attractions themselves.  Rivers of America is a beautiful and tranquil area of a park that, as anyone who has visited can attest, can be quite busy and overwhelming.  It was one of the rare spots that you could slow down for a bit and admire the beauty of what you were seeing.  I may not have ridden the riverboat very often, but I certainly spent a lot of time walking the "scenic route" through Frontierland, with the water on my side.  Some of my favorite Photopass pictures are from this area.

Water is an important part of the Disney World experience.  One of the best things about the monorail resorts is gliding along next to World Showcase Lagoon as the Magic Kingdom comes into view.  Losing the fountain in the middle of Epcot was quite a blow.  Heck, guests spent a lot of energy being mad about the visual blight from the barges for Harmonious in the middle of World Showcase at Epcot - it's not a coincidence that this show was replaced at the first available opportunity. And let's not forget about replacing the water feature in the Polynesian lobby.

And that's what we're going to miss here at Magic Kingdom.  There is no true way to quantify this kind of thing, and it's not as simple as maximizing efficiency or guest spending or whatever.  This is as much of a seismic change to this area as Villains Land will be, though I'm much more positive on that one.  The optics of replacing a serene, nature-forward area with (presumably) loud, car-centric attractions is very on the nose, even for Disney.

This brings me back to the initial announcement of these Cars attractions.  I thought it was an odd fit at the time, though Disney at least tried to spin and enhance the definition of what the frontier is to try and make it make sense.  But couldn't they have found something that wouldn't be as diametrically opposed to what was there as possible?  If they wanted a family friendly Cars attraction (as one of these is scheduled to be), why wouldn't they look to replace or retheme the Tomorrowland Speedway, which is already there and hardly a beloved attraction?

It's unfortunate that this follow up took some of the wind out of Disney's sails so soon after the positivity of D23.  I have heard unsubstantiated reports on social media that the new area will have lots of natural features, being compared to Grizzly Peak in Disneyland.  Perhaps this assessment is too harsh, but this post isn't about judging what's to come, it's about mourning something that we are losing.