Can someone tell me about the stuff I never saw?

[DJ Disney Kid]

What was Discovery Island and River Country and why were they shut down?

 

[Tiggery]

Discovery island was shut when Animal Kingdom opened and most of the birds got relocated there.
River Country was a water park that was shut due to the downturn after 9/11 and never reopened probably due to the fact that its concrete bottom cost a lot to maintain.

 

[Judy from Boise]

we really enjoyed the Island....great boat ride out, and then a nature trail walk through with lots of flamingso, gators etc.

 

[domiii]

we really enjoyed the Island....great boat ride out, and then a nature trail walk through with lots of flamingso, gators etc.

Ditto!

 

[Rhonna]

They had some really unusual creatures at Discovery Island.

Some that stand out were a Tawny Frogmouth (bird from Australia with a huge beak, it was featured on an older disney TV show that was set in Australia) I think it can turn it's head completely around.

Golden Lion Tamarin (monkey that has a golden mane around it's face so it looks like a little lion).

And when I came out of the bathrooms and was waiting on my sister I started looking at a cage right there that looked empty, at first. There were itty bitty and I mean TINY little monkeys called Marmosets and they had teeny tiny BABIES they were carrying on their backs! Sooooooo cute! I would have loved to have one as a pet. The adult would fit in the palm of your hand.

I miss Discovery Island. It felt like your own little island you accidentally discovered and it was never crowded. No disney theming, just nature. We took a picnic lunch. I think all they had were bathrooms.

The creatures I described above are not at Animal Kingdom - I wonder what they did with them????

 

[marydmjj]

Discovery Island sounds like it was awesome. We would have enjoyed that. Where was it?

 

[DepCor0311]

Discovery Island was in the lagoon behind the Contemporary Resort (Actually the island is still there). It was small, but a cool place to go for a few hours.

 

[webmomom]

WE also loved Discovery Island. As someone said it was neat. Just walking around trying to find animals and they were not hard to find. It was cool and as someone else also said it was like your own private island.

It was a nice break in a day, just to do something not Disney themed even though we love Disney.

 

[BeamsofLight]

I miss Discovery Island! ITA it was a great place to spend an afternoon, just wandering around looking at the animals and the birds. And the boat ride over was great too. I loved watching the vultures follow around after the giant tortises. Too funny.

DJ Disney Kid, it was a registered zoological park and part of the reason they shut it down was that pedestrian traffic was supposedly damaging the environment they were trying to preserve. Plus, of course, once the Animal Kingdom was open there was somewhere else for guests to see animals.

I never went to River Country, but you can still see that too, if you take the boat from the Wilderness Lodge of MK to Fort Wilderness. It was a more natural-themed water park. Not sure why they shut it down .. I once heard it was maybe cost issues since they had to treat water from Bay Lake?

 

[webmomom]

I once read and I am not saying this is true, but read it somewhere that they were going to incorporate Ruver County into the pool for Wildnerness Lodge.

\We went there back in 1978 when the kids were a lot younger and they loved it but of course that was the only water park at that time.

They thought it was great taking the boat over it was like taking another trip within a trip. It was something special to do.

 

[Got Quattro?]

river country DID NOT have a a concrete bottom.

It was 100% natural. They deposited sand to keep it from being muddy.

It had 1 traditional swimming pool, and a big lake...seperated from bay lake by a man made run off dam....ie, river country could spill into bay lake, but bay lake could not spill into river country.

It was closed back before 9-11-2001 due to water shortage in FLA.

Bay lake is the major resevoir of water for all disney water ways, and they are all connected vis canals in some way back to bay lake.

So, during the drought, they shut down river country to conserve the massive amounts of water it took from bay lake to keep this area clean and swimable. hoping they would rehab it and reopen it later.

Well6 months of no use, and no water filtering and chemicals, clogged all the pump. Weeds and moss grew out of controll and took over the area.

So now it would be 10X the cost to re hab it as originally planned. Since it has 1/10th of the attendance of TL and BB, it was decided to just let it sit untill something else can be decided.

 

[Spartan]

I remember when we went to Discovery Island being told something about how they also had specific tropical species of plants growing there that could not be grown anywhere else on property due to how they planted the outside of the island to protect the inner island from colder temps in the winter. They created their own micro climate for the animals. Does anyone else remember anything about this?

The other things I remember about it was the huge bird aviary and how well disquised the ceiling was so that you really didn't feel like you were in enclosed in any way, and the hammocks they had set up where you could lounge near the shore.