Hello everyone and welcome back! Today's blog is a sort of catch up as some news did come out of Walt Disney World while I was working on the past couple of Six Flags blogs. Normally I would have jumped into a blog about the news, but considering none of it was all that surprising to me I figured it'd be okay to wait to react. On July 16th Disney announced that three attractions would not be returning to the parks. We all know that Walt Disney World is always moving forward so we can assume that these closures will pave the way for something new. The only problem with that is nobody really seems to know what Disney is going to do as they continue to roll back more and more projects due to covid-19.
The first of these I don't anyone was surprised about is Stitch's Great Escape in The Magic Kingdom. The attraction had not operated since January of 2018 despite being labeled as a seasonal attraction. Stitch had been meeting guests in the building prior to the covid shutdown. Since the ride hadn't functioned in over two years I figured that it had long been taken apart and pictures surfaced online of the endoskeleton of the Stitch animatronic from inside the attraction. I'll be honest this comes as literally no surprised. Rumors have been around for a while that the attraction will be converted to some sort of attraction based off of the movie Wreck it Ralph. I'm totally fine with that. I personally enjoyed Stitch's Great Escape as I am one who enjoys creepy things like the ride was, but I get why it closed and I also get why it was so incredibly unpopular. I just wish I had a chance to go on it when it was still themed to Alien. Oh well. I'm sure whatever goes in that spot will be far better for the general public. Even if it's just a meet and greet.
The second is the much maligned Primeval Whirl in Animal Kingdom. Prior to covid, the ride was operating on a seasonal basis, but basically the entirety of the summer closed. It reopened in September of 2019, but was frequently closed even after that. The spinning cat and mouse roller coaster was actually a pretty rough ride. It was fun and had a dinosaur/carnival theme to it (as does much of Dinoland USA), but both times I rode it I came off of it feeling like I got hit by an asteroid. The ride not reopening comes as no surprise to me, but without it, Dinoland USA is going to look even worse than it does now. Rumors will continue to fly about the end of the land as a whole, but my guess is that for now Dinoland is going to continue to be that area of Animal Kingdom where people go mostly for one ride, Dinosaur.
The third attraction that is closing is the nighttime show Rivers of Light. I wish I was surprised about this. I'll be honest. I never sat down and watched Rivers of Light. I watched it on Youtube and read a ton of reviews that seemed to echo what I felt just from watching the show online. That being Rivers of Light looks nice. The music is great, but it sorely lacks the show that all the other nighttime shows at the time provided. I'm not even talking about the fireworks either. I totally understand that fireworks will never work at Animal Kingdom and for good reason. The entire history of this show though is basically that it was never enough. It was never good enough. It needed to be changed (and was multiple times even after debuting). So it does appear that Disney just decided to pull the plug on it and cut some more losses. I cannot imagine Disney not coming up with a replacement show. Before covid there were rumors of the show closing in favor of something more along the lines of EPCOT Forever. I think something like that could work well. Of course there couldn't be fireworks, but the kites, fire, water effects, and hey perhaps even some drones could create an impressive show that wont freak out the animals.
So that's what has not returned to Walt Disney World. Again, none of these really come as a surprise to me. The most surprising is Rivers of Light, but again, not really a surprise to me. I don't really see Stitch's Great Escape or Primeval Whirl as big losses to the parks by any means. Rivers of Light does leave a bit of a hole for Animal Kingdom that won't be really seen until the nighttime shows kick back up again. Time will tell what if anything will replace these attractions. It's pretty safe to say though that nothing is going to be imminent. When the time does come though I'm sure Disney will come up for something to replace all three of these attractions. As always thank you all for reading and stay tuned for the next blog coming real soon!
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