There is a movement to save Walt Disney World’s original water park attraction, River Country. Fans are writing to the executives at Walt Disney World (at P.O. Box 10,000,
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-1000.) to bring River Country back to life. River Country opened on June 20, 1976 and closed November 2, 2001. In 2005, Disney announced it did
not plan to reopen this water park.
Disney World’s original water park, adjacent to Fort Wilderness, is now abandoned and off limits to the public… however many have snuck onto the space and posted pictures and video of what they saw, most famously :
The explanation given to fans as to why the utilities are still on and working given from Disney cast members has been the amount of effort needed to cut off water and electric to that site just isn’t worth it isn’t costing them that much. Fans were also told the
reason the music, water fountains, and lighting still work is that those system are all linked to Fort Wilderness, and Fort Wilderness is obviously up and running. The biggest area of concern, and likely the obvious reason for the closing was because there was a natural water attraction and according to laws passed after the park was opened, water parks had to operate attractions without standing bodies of water. The lake attraction inside River Country used the natural lake water (not-chlorinated) and other attractions were all connected to each other through the large, still standing, lake. This left River Country useless under this new law.
Apparently it is still very easy to get into river country, though we have never personally
tried it. This video was taken and posted just last month:
If River Country was still operating, it would by far be the smallest of the Disney water parks. Do you think it is worth saving?
They should fix up and refurbish or destroy the broken slides and pools and build new ones and reopen.