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Walt Disney World announces permanent closures of 2 attractions and Rivers of Light

Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. Disney has apparently announced in a memo to its cast members that Rivers of Light, the nighttime show at Animal Kingdom, has permanently closed, as well as Primeval Whirl in the same park and Stitch’s Great Escape at Magic Kingdom (which I thought had already closed): https://blogmickey.com/2020/07/brea...-and-stitchs-great-escape-permanent-closures/

Rivers of Light shocks me a bit, given that I remember that being built and it seemed fairly popular, but I won’t say I’ll really miss Primeval Whirl; both sides were among my personal least favourite coasters, and I know my entire family had a shared disdain of it. My dad’s comment upon hitting the brake run of “out of the 69 coasters I’ve ridden (not sure if he’d actually ridden 69 coasters or not), I rank that at number 72” kind of says it all for me! That being said, it’s never good when an attraction closes, especially in circumstances like these.

But what do you think to this news?
 
I expected Stitch to close cause that'll become a new Wreck It Ralph attraction. Primeval Whirl is definitely interesting and Rivers Of Lights is most shocking of all, 100 percent
 
I think Rivers of Light's canning has part to do with the park no longer staying open past 6 P.M, effectively making a nighttime spectacular useless.

Wouldn't surprise me though if it was either brought back or replaced somewhere down the line given that I don't see them taking out the seating areas.
 
I enjoyed Rivers of Light when I saw it back in 2018 so I'm sad to see it go. I hope they replace it with an even better show.

Good riddance to Primeval Whirl glad I managed to get the creds.
 
Primeval Whirl was always just a bit embarrassing . Completely out of place for the park. I’ve been 4 times to that park over different years and never had any urge to ride it.
 
Never got why Disney put Reverchon mice in, with all the cardboard cut out theming as well, looked super cheap. Although they do have those 'Intamin does a Pinfari extended looper' clones at Disneyland Paris and Tokyo DisneySea, though the theming on these look to be much better than primeval whirl, so it hides the fact.
 
bdrizzyb said:
Never got why Disney put Reverchon mice in, with all the cardboard cut out theming as well, looked super cheap. Although they do have those 'Intamin does a Pinfari extended looper' clones at Disneyland Paris and Tokyo DisneySea, though the theming on these look to be much better than primeval whirl, so it hides the fact.
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The whole thing with that area was that it was, apparently, supposed to look like a cheap, s**tty, roadside carnival.

Either that was Disney spin to excuse a horrendously piss-poor area, or it was actually deliberate, but too successful in that people just saw it as a genuine, s**tty area as opposed to the very clever theming Disney claimed to be going for.

Either way, it fails miserably.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk
 
Apparently there's a really well thought out backstory to Dinorama that hardly anybody knows, but I'm sure the people who know this - the ones who vehemently defend Dinorama as "the best put together section at WDW" - are the only ones upset to see Primeval Whirl go. I'll be curious to see if this is the beginning of the end for Dinorama. It seems like most want to see the land transformed into something else, and with Disney's plan to add a different Marvel campus at every locale, Animal Kingdom is just begging to have a Wakanda themed area added sometime in the next few years (aligns with some fairly low key rumors).

Good thing Primeval Whirl was a Reverchon product though - if they were Zamperla spinning mice I'd be prepared to throw hands.
 
Antinos said:
Good thing Primeval Whirl was a Reverchon product though - if they were Zamperla spinning mice I'd be prepared to throw hands.
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If you don’t mind me asking, how do the Reverchon and Zamperla versions differ, as besides the restraints being slightly different, aren’t they essentially the same?

Also, is Primeval Whirl still going to be SBNO for the foreseeable, or is demolition due to begin soon?
EDIT: Another thing I’ve noticed; there seems to be some inconsistency with regards to the listings of when Primeval Whirl’s last day of operation was. RCDB lists 15th March 2020 (which I think may have been the day the park shut due to COVID), whereas Wikipedia says it hasn’t operated for over a year, having last operated on 17th June 2019. I know it’s not important, but out of interest, has anyone visited Animal Kingdom fairly recently (i.e. end of 2019-start of 2020) know whether it was open when they visited?
 
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I'm not sure if there's something mechanically different in the coach design or if the coaches have governors that Reverchon sets for a more conservative ride or if it's just simply pure coincidence, but the Zamperlas spin soooooooo much more. Load as much weight as possible on the left side and your ride will be a spincycle for the rest of the ride on a Zamperla, but on a Reverchon the same strategy will result in a neutered experience, and if I remember my rides on Primeval Whirl and Exterminator (Kennywood) correctly, we actually reached a point where our spinning reversed somehow.
 
Antinos said:
Apparently there's a really well thought out backstory to Dinorama that hardly anybody knows, but I'm sure the people who know this - the ones who vehemently defend Dinorama as "the best put together section at WDW" - are the only ones upset to see Primeval Whirl go. I'll be curious to see if this is the beginning of the end for Dinorama. It seems like most want to see the land transformed into something else, and with Disney's plan to add a different Marvel campus at every locale, Animal Kingdom is just begging to have a Wakanda themed area added sometime in the next few years (aligns with some fairly low key rumors).
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I'm going to guess they're shelving Dinorama, at least in its current form. As you said, and Gavin elegantly summarized, the area has a rather deep backstory, but on its surface it appears so cheap and tacky it breaks immersion. Elegantly dressing up a corner of a multi-billion dollar park to look like a cheap roadside attraction has the predictable effect of giving the impression of a cheap roadside attraction, no matter how much money was spent making it look like that.

If I'm allowed to be Matt N-levels of optimistic for a moment, what replaces Dinorama may be Disney's answer to Universal's Epic Universe. Or part of it, at least. I'm going to guess they won't open a whole new gate at WDW in response to Universal, at least not in the short term, but instead reinforce each of their existing parks with big new areas. This could have been going on for some time already, considering what is underway at the other parks: TRON at Magic Kingdom, Guardians of the Galaxy at Epcot, and Star Wars at Hollywood Studios. Animal Kingdom would be next in line considering that Avatar was the response to Universal's Harry Potter success and not part of this (although it interestingly fills out a quartet of sci-fi themed lands at each of the four major parks at WDW). We could be looking at something big here. Rivers of Light and Dinorama (including the DINOSAUR attraction and the bafflingly located Finding Nemo theatre) essentially make up a good fifth of the park, and the biggest segment of land the park has available, so there should be plenty of room for expansion. It's also the part furthest away from the animal enclosures so the attractions there could be noisy of they want. To the extent that Disney does noise, at any rate. Wasn't this the part of the park that was meant to receive the "beastly kingdom" before everything went sour in the nineties and they had to settle for the cheaper option?

That being said, Covid is kind of throwing a wrench into things at the moment, so who knows what will appear when all the dust has settled. But I've got a feeling they would have kept the attractions running for a while longer if they had been uncertain about the feasibility of this, instead of announcing the closure in the middle of the pandemic. And even if things go pear-shaped and they have to build something cheap in replacement, I've got a feeling it couldn't get any worse than what is there today. Reverchon spinners and tents on a (carefully crafted) car park, one can't really go much lower than that.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Wasn't this the part of the park that was meant to receive the "beastly kingdom" before everything went sour in the nineties and they had to settle for the cheaper option?
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The part of the park that was meant to receive Beastly Kingdom was actually where Pandora now sits, apparently. They instead put an area called Camp Minnie-Mickey there, which was later demolished to build Pandora.

The original intention for the site that DinoRama sits on was apparently a heavily themed rollercoaster in the style of Everest named The Excavator, tying in with the theme for Dinosaur.

As I said in the Least Common Opinion thread, I did actually kind of like DinoRama in an odd sort of way, but I have full faith that I’ll like whatever eventually replaces it a lot more.
 
Sorry for double posting, but I just found out a really interesting fact; the two sides of Primeval Whirl are the first roller coasters ever to be removed from Walt Disney World, and other than the pre-2005 iteration of Space Mountain at Disneyland in California, they are the first roller coasters ever to be removed from a Disney theme park.

That’s quite a mind-boggling stat, when you look at it like that...
 
Matt N said:
Sorry for double posting, but I just found out a really interesting fact; the two sides of Primeval Whirl are the first roller coasters ever to be removed from Walt Disney World, and other than the pre-2005 iteration of Space Mountain at Disneyland in California, they are the first roller coasters ever to be removed from a Disney theme park.

That’s quite a mind-boggling stat, when you look at it like that...
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The smelliest poos always get flushed the quickest.
 
I wonder if a new coaster is on the cards then. Since they now going to shortly have a new spinning coaster at Epcot, I think something different might be on the table. Disney seem to only use a few different coaster concepts, Mine Trains (BTMR, EE, SDMT, BGMR) Shutttle (RC Racer) and enclosed (SM,R'N'R) Tron is properly their most unique coaster up to now. I would love to see a family suspended coaster, with loads of rockwork and terrain, like a family nemesis/black mamba on a Disney budget.

Then again it could be another simulator or dark ride, or maybe nothing at all.
 
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