Walt Disney World is gearing up to demolish Tom Sawyer Island and commence construction on the Piston Peak ‘Cars’ area of Frontierland this month. The Rivers of America will not be saved, let’s be clear about that. This is not a last-minute plea for Imagineering to change course.
It’s instead aimed at addressing the aesthetic and artistic merit of this area of the park for posterity and precedent. My real hope is that the fans who have been dismissive about the ‘value’ of the Rivers of America can understand why places like this are an asset to theme parks.
Because this isn’t a conversation confined just to this one replacement–it’s an ongoing one that’ll continue in the years to come. That’s true generally, but also more specifically with regard to the Rivers of America, which is on the chopping block elsewhere in addition to Walt Disney World.
This comes against the backdrop of the in-park areas that Piston Peak National Park will replace permanently closing. Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and Liberty Square Riverboat will all close on July 7; the last day to experience any of these attractions and locations is today (or “was” if you’re reading on Monday).
I wanted to offer a closing ‘love letter’ to the Rivers of America, and the best tribute I can offer is making a case for it (yet again), and sprinkle that essay with my favorite photos I’ve taken of the RoA over the years. So you can either read what I have to say or simply scroll and enjoy the visuals if you’re sick of this debate.
From the outset, let’s make a few stipulations. I’ve seen much of the debate about replacing Rivers of America with Piston Peak revolve around a few points, which strike me as (respectfully) missing the point. With that in mind, I’ll agree to all of the following points and address them in turn:
Tom Sawyer Island and Liberty Square Riverboat are not popular.
Cars Rally Racers and the family-friendly ride will be popular.
Magic Kingdom will be more popular with Cars than Rivers of America.
Pixar’s Cars franchise can fit Frontierland.
Let’s start at the top. It’s no secret that the Liberty Square Riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island don’t have the hourly throughput numbers as most attractions in Magic Kingdom. Eliminating them reduces operational and maintenance expenses on attractions and areas that are underutilized and don’t offer as much operational ‘bang for buck’ to the company.
Because of this, some fans will likely be entirely okay with this decision to eliminate the Rivers of America–as is their right. Many longtime fans have probably never even been over to Tom Sawyer Island or done a lap on the Liberty Square Riverboat. Others probably have done so infrequently over the years, and will do these new Cars attractions more. This is necessarily true–hence the ‘underutilized capacity’ term.
There should really be no argument that the guest throughput of Piston Peak’s queued attractions will be higher than what it’s replacing. The Cars Rally Racers attraction will likely fall somewhere between Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and TRON Lightcycle Run over time, making it a top 5 attraction in terms of utilization. These are obvious points, not “gotchas.” It’s silly to pretend that any reasonable Disney fan advocating for the Rivers of America believes otherwise.
The more controversial stipulation is #3, which is that Magic Kingdom will be more popular with Cars than Rivers of America. I’ve heard some detractors of the Piston Peak plan claim this is the beginning of the end for Magic Kingdom. While I’m somewhat sympathetic to that line of argument (more on that in a minute), I don’t believe it.
If Imagineering delivers, Piston Peak will be a marketable addition and Cars Rally Racers will appear in ad campaigns. It’ll be on billboards, commercials, promoted social media posts, and so forth. Rivers of America isn’t on any billboards. Aside from saying their goodbyes, a large number of guests are not booking trips specifically to see it. Disney has metrics showing that Cars will move the needle; the same cannot be said for the Rivers of America.
From my perspective, this also at least partially misses the point. Theme parks are not just the sum of their ride rosters, to be raced around and checked off one by one. They are as much defined by the spaces in between; by the absence of attractions, too.
Viewing theme parks checklist style, with each ride being viewed in a vacuum is how you end up with studios parks where everything is housed in a big soundstage and the theme is “movies” or something nebulous because it’s the most efficient route. This approach yields the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, Disney California Adventure 1.0, and areas of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Moreover, this line of reasoning is antithetical to Animal Kingdom, Tokyo DisneySea, EPCOT Center, Disneyland Paris–and the other best versions of castle parks. As much as I love Disney’s Hollywood Studios and think it can have a great sense of place, this is largely true in the areas that did not faithfully re-create the backstage experience. At least, aesthetically.
Suffice to say, there’s a reason so many of Imagineering’s recent lands have been a departure from this style. Toy Story Land and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge are far from perfect, but they’re a stylistic breath of fresh air for DHS. The legacy lands at that park that are best, in my view, are Hollywood & Sunset Boulevard and Echo Lake. Many fans would agree, and that’s largely for the atmosphere. Guests feel the difference, even if they don’t realize it and it isn’t surfaced by satisfaction surveys.
Even Universal has realized this! So much of the praise heaped on Epic Universe isn’t about the attractions (although it does have several excellent and envelope-pushing rides), it’s about the sense of place. Ministry of Magic only has one ride and one show, but the newest Harry Potter land is such a triumph of design that guests enjoy simply being there.
The same can be said for Celestial Park, Dark Universe, Super Nintendo World, and Isle of Berk–every single land. Epic Universe has its issues, sure, but the bones of the park are positioning it for long-term success. They’ve been working at getting away from their soundstage-style for the better part of two decades now, trying to be more like old school Disney, design-wise.
Few areas at Walt Disney World excel from a being there perspective quite like the Rivers of America, Liberty Square Riverboat, and Tom Sawyer Island. These are incredible assets to Magic Kingdom not just for the guests who actively utilize these attractions. They offer serenity and delightful atmosphere even to guests who stroll along the waterfront promenade, stopping for a moment to catch their breath and take in the view. It’s impossible to quantify this. That’s precisely what worries me.
Sometimes Disney’s decision-makers view the parks as figures on a spreadsheet, and from that perspective, it’s easy to overlook “underutilized” things that are incredibly important to the Disney theme park experience from a holistic perspective. A fairly persuasive argument could be made that every guest who walks through Frontierland and gazes over at the Rivers of America, hears the Liberty Square Riverboat, and has their stress-levels drop by a percentage point or two has “utilized” these offerings.
It may not click in the moment, but it’s the “little things” we treasure just as much as a ride on Big Thunder; small details or quiet moments that become indelible parts of our memories from visits to the parks over the years. These little things might seem superfluous on paper, especially when the alternative is expanding the park and growing capacity by thousands guests.
By viewing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island as underutilized real estate that’s expendable, Disney is missing the forest for the trees. Spaces like these are what help make our days in the parks special and separate Disney from the competition. They give us little moments to pause and absorb the big attractions and experiences we’ve enjoyed. These things and places are what keep us coming back.
There’s a long term price to be paid for viewing the parks from the perspective that every square foot must be put to its most efficient use, have its capacity maximized, or be directly monetized. That’s too myopic of a view, and ignores the practical reality that guests form impressions based on the totality of their visit, with those little things or counterprogramming adding as much as the E-Tickets.
If everything is go-go-go, the guest experience as a whole can suffer. And that’s true even if the individual attractions replacing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island end up having higher guest satisfaction scores. There are some things that are impossible to quantify–that guests just absorb, even without realizing it. This is precisely why we value atmospheric entertainment–the energy can be felt subliminally even if not consciously. It brightens the mood, even if unknowingly.
It’s the exact same idea with the Rivers of America. There’s no guest satisfaction “metric” for how many guests per day walk along that waterfront promenade, pause for a deep breath, smile and take a photo. It could be an indelible moment burned into their memory, or, more likely, a fleeting bit of happiness. It is striking the delicate balance of experiences and emotions that makes Magic Kingdom, well, magical.
In other words, atmosphere can matter as much–maybe more–than a guest adding another notch to their ride tally. It was important to their day as a whole. It was a much-needed reprieve from the often stressful nature of the world’s most popular theme park. This has long been my perspective on the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island–that they are invaluable assets that serve as counterprogramming to give guests an expand from the paved pathways and hustle and bustle of Magic Kingdom.
Spaces like this also play a role in elevating the cultural role of theme parks, and reinforce our viewpoint that theme parks are not only folly for children. Theme parks as art. One of my favorite hidden gem books is Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance. This is one of the most academic and esoteric books about theme parks, and it spends a lot of time examining the design intentions of Disney Parks as symbols of Americana, and the cultural value they offer beyond consumerism. I believe that the Rivers of America fit squarely in this analysis, as a deceptively simple man-made “natural” environment that speaks to something deeper in us. I fear that this deceptive nature means we also won’t appreciate the full extent of what it offers until it’s gone.
Admittedly, it’s also a matter of nostalgia and sentimentality for those of us who lament the loss of the Rivers of America. This waterfront promenade is one of my favorite places in all of Magic Kingdom, and we have so many memories of this waterfront walk late at night with a cool breeze coming off the Rivers of America, or early in the mornings as the sun flitters through the trees. It is one of those places in the park that allows us to slow down, take a deep breath, and soak up our surroundings. Maybe that makes me biased, and overly sensitive to losing the Rivers of America when the average guest reaction will be: “Who cares? Bring on Cars!”
However, Disney is also biased as evident from lessons learned by the late 1990s and early aughts. The company recognized what a mistake not looking at the parks holistically was, and that’s precisely how we got Cars Land at DCA, World of Frozen, and pretty much the entirety of the Disney Adventure World overhaul. Looking back at the portions of opening day DCA that were good and are still around, they’re mostly well-themed, atmospheric locations–Grizzly Peak, for instance.
This is precisely why I’m receptive to the spirit of the argument that losing the Rivers of America could hurt Magic Kingdom’s popularity in the long-term. To be clear, I don’t actually believe that this will happen as an immediate or direct result of this decision. Magic Kingdom will become more popular in the 2030s than it is today.
The concern is with the line of thinking that views the parks as the sum of their individual parts, wait times, and Lightning Lane sales data. Taken to its extreme, this thought process is the one that gives rise to massive E-Tickets in big square show buildings. It’s how the atmosphere is gradually eroded, all in the service of the ride roster or maximizing every square foot of real estate.
Even this concern feels hyperbolic, honestly. The truth is that Walt Disney World has great bones, and was designed tremendously well nearly six decades ago. That there are a lot of cuts that can be made to the ‘fat’ (superfluous serenity and design) before that bone is hit.
We just saw this play out with Island Tower at the Polynesian. Its exterior is ugly; plain, cheap-looking, and discordant with its surroundings. If Seven Seas Lagoon were originally designed as a bunch of Island Towers in the 1970s, there would be no love for the area. No one would have nostalgia because it’d be utterly forgettable.
And yet, it doesn’t destroy the skyline because the bones of Seven Seas Lagoon are so strong that you can overlook it. To the extent that it succeeds, Island Tower does so by leeching off the quality of and love for its surroundings. Irreparable damage to Seven Seas Lagoon would take many more Island Towers, because the original design is just that good.
It’s a similar story with Magic Kingdom or even EPCOT; the bones are so good that it’s hard to imagine any single misguided decision dooming the park. At least, for me. Some fans have identified losing the Rivers of America as their tipping point, and while I hope they’re overreacting, I cannot fault them for the sentiment at this point.
Although this argument strikes me as hyperbolic, it nevertheless worries me because of how quickly fans are to excuse poor decisions or design. It looks fine. It’s good enough. For me, it’s concerning that we as a fandom often make excuses or do not hold Disney to its own high standards. (An issue I’ve had since the Court of Angels controversy and “it’s just stairs” debate.)
As a reminder, Disney itself returned to these high standards only after a series of decisions so poor in the late 1990s and early aughts that they culminated in a series of theme parks that were infamously not up to Disney quality. They were so bad that the tipping point was reached, normal guests noticed, and their attendance suffered as a result.
My view is that great placemaking, themed design, and those “unnecessary” details are precisely what makes Disney, Disney. We all have so many superlatives for why Walt Disney World is a special place, and it usually isn’t just a ride roster. It’s the little things that elevate the theme parks to an art form. It’s precisely what makes us the source of ridicule for outsiders who dismiss Disney as “kids stuff” and us as adults with juvenile interests.
Looking towards the future with a more optimistic eye, my final stipulation on my list is that Cars can work in Frontierland. I would hazard a guess that this is where I lose most fans of the Rivers of America. Many are rightfully worried about loud googly-eyed zooming around the wild west. On its face, this Pixar franchise in Frontierland seems utterly discordant.
My view on this is that Imagineering has worked its magic in the past, taking movies and characters that seemed at odds with their respective parks and lands, and making them feel incredibly cohesive. We saw this with Pandora in Animal Kingdom, as well as arguably Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT. With the exception of the Rat Ride, all of those were met with fierce fan backlash when originally announced. (Especially Pandora–it was just mostly pre-social media, so many fans have forgotten or missed it entirely.)
While thematic cohesiveness of those additions is up for debate, my underlying point is that framing devices and choosing the right canvas can work wonders. In the case of Cars in Frontierland, they’ve picked Piston Peak National Park as the setting. This could work. It could work well! Better than Cars in Future World or Tomorrowland, if you ask me.
When it comes to matters of timeline, lore, setting or story, my perspective is more ‘relaxed’ than many fans. The frontier is an American spirit. That sense of rugged individualism, manifest destiny, big folklore, and western exploration–all of it is as much an ethos as it is an era.
As America gets older and the 1800s are further in the rearview mirror, the case could be made that the bygone era of the U.S. National Parks are part of that spirit. It was a different time in America, but one that embodied a similar sentiment as the “go west, young man” age. Our National Parks are America’s Best Idea, and their spirit and landscape is at home in the modern American understanding of the frontier.
The America of today is further removed from that automotive boom and heyday of the western ‘Great American Road Trip’ than Walt Disney was from the Old West when he dreamt up the concept of Frontierland. At least as far as the passage of time is concerned, the middle of the last century is already older than the Old West was in the 1950s. I could go on and on–and do here: Can the Cars Franchise Fit Frontierland?
But the thing about this is that it only works…if it works.
Pandora could’ve been a trainwreck; a jarring break from the harmonious areas of Animal Kingdom. Ditto all of the changes at EPCOT. You might even contend that some entries on that list were failures, not success stories. I’d argue that Walt Disney World has made plenty of other thematic missteps. Just because Cars can fit Frontierland does not mean it will.
Piston Peak National Park is the right setting, but Imagineers must now nail the design, landscape, soundscape–literally everything. It’s going to be a very tough needle to thread; far more difficult than choosing an obvious thematic fit for any given land. (Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Toontown, for example, had no such concerns; nobody is truly worried about Monstropolis being an eyesore in DHS.)
The bottom line is that if we’re losing the Rivers of America, it had better be worth it. The marquee Cars attraction needs to be as good as Radiator Springs Racers. The themed design of the area must be superlative and in keeping of the rugged spirit of Frontierland. The new area must have great kinetic energy and atmosphere.
Since this project was first announced, I’ve been reassured that Imagineering understands the assignment. The new Fun Map looks promising and Imagineering’s explanation of their inspiration and how they’re working to ensure thematic integrity and sightlines is promising.
This Cars miniland is in capable hands. The project team clearly loves Disney history, classic animation, and Walt Disney World as a whole. They “get it” and will do everything in their power to lovingly create a land worthy of the American West and spirit of Frontierland. They realize they cannot deliver two overly-short attractions, a sea of concrete and some trees, along with a concept that feels at-odds with Frontierland.
This has gotta be strong. They have to make the skeptics (like me) concede we were wrong about ever questioning the wisdom of replacing the Rivers of America. The hesitation for me at this point is that we’ve been burned many times in the past. Beautiful concept art to sell fans on projects, with the finished product being a sad shell of the promise. Budget cuts and value-engineering into oblivion. You get the idea.
If the finished Piston Peak looks like the Fun Map, it’s going to be a triumph that makes all the above concerns sound like the silly rantings of a lunatic. But that’s still an “if,” and a rather large one, at this point. Here’s hoping the executives get out of the way and give Imagineers the resources needed to make this essay sound idiotic in a few years. I’d love nothing more than to sound silly; this is one situation where looking idiotic would be a massive win.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you feel about Walt Disney World retiring and replacing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island with Cars? Has your opinion on Piston Peak evolved or improved at all since Imagineering revealed the Fun Map, plus more about sightlines and inspirations for the area? Do you think the two all-new Cars rides coming to Magic Kingdom are “worth it”? Do you agree or disagree with our sentiment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
