As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I know this is a very random and weird question, but I figured someone on here must know the answer.
I was reading an article/blog about some kids that swam out to the old Discovery Island about 5 years ago and took pictures of the old run down island at night. It got me thinking about the fact that I never even KNEW about Discovery Island or the old River Country water park even though they didn't close down all that long ago (1999 and 2001 respectively). I guess when I went we just didn't go to the attractions and it never occurred to me that entire parks at WDW would have been closed! Well I am very intrigued by the history of WDW now!
Does anyone know of any good books that give detailed information about the creation and existence of WDW or detailed timelines? I'm really interested in photos and real stories and info, not just the standard wikipedia type explanations.
I guess I always figured that when Disney opened something, it stayed open or at the very least was changed into something new! I learn something new every day!
P.S. I should add, the kids snuck onto the island and I would never do this myself, nor do I suggest that others do this. However, a history about what opened when and when and why things changed/closed would be very interesting.
I believe one of the islands was an animal preserve, and the other a water park. So they were made redundant when Disney opened up AK & the BB & TL parks. We rented SeaRaycers on Baylake and you can drive past these islands. They're near to WL.
Don't know about books, but surely they are in some WDW history books that a PPer can name.
After reading your post I went on U Tube. Was just watching a really cool video of River Country! It looked like so much fun. Going now to see what i can find on Discovery Isl
Talking to one of the boat captains and he said that another reason River country closed was something to do with bacteria from the Bay Lake water contaminating the water at the park.
Walt Disney World Hidden History is a favorite of mine.....
Talking to one of the boat captains and he said that another reason River country closed was something to do with bacteria from the Bay Lake water contaminating the water at the park.
Walt Disney World Hidden History is a favorite of mine.....
From some of the u Tube videos I was watching, it did sort of look like they had a swimming area roped off in Bay Lake. Some of the rapids rafting slides sure looked cool!
River Country was a water park that is located right next to Fort Wilderness and then a short swim from that is Discovery Island which was a little animal preserve of sorts. Both were still open for several years when their newer and bigger counterparts opened (i.e. Animal Kingdom, BB and TL) but were shut down for various reasons.
The only thing I can deduce for the reason that the water park shut down was a new law that required that all water park entertainment of sorts were in contained and treated water. River Country was filtered, but it was still part of the lake. The profits from River Country were not enough to justify the amount of money that would have been needed to renovate and comply to the new laws. At the time, most of the people that went to RC were from the campgrounds as it was only about a quarter of the size of BB. There is a guy who has an interesting video on Youtube where he pretty much pulls all the info that he can from other blogs and sites and tries to put out there what he can, but he fully admits that he does not work with Disney and that he did not gather the info on the record from a Disney official. I also heard that they are planning to expand Fort Wilderness and make that area into DVC sites. Not sure the truth on that, again, just what I've been reading.
No clue on why DI shut down, read rumors that it may have been in part to a few employees getting fired for something, but that might just be rumors. Either way, they obviously have a reason for the things the do, I can't imagine they'd have shut them down just because they "felt like it" or were too lazy...there's usually more to the story.
The history of Disney is fascinating. I think I'm off to You Tube now to look for some of those videos as well, as they sound really interesting. Thanks for starting this thread.
The original Discovery Island was a wonderful place and is still maintained as a wildlife preserve. Many of the CMs and animals are now at Animal Kingdom.
The Imagineering Field Guides aren't very detailed but they give some background on the parks. I've read several bios of Walt that give a lot of info on the creation of Disneyland but not so much Walt Disney World. I'll have to do some searching to see if there's another book out there.
If you take the boat from Magic Kingdom to the Wilderness Lodge or Fort Wilderness you can see Discovery Island and River Country. Discovery Island usually has lots of birds flying over it.
I was told years ago that Discovery Island was closed because a lot of the animals were dying (I don't know of what) and that Disney didn't want to admit it so it was just easier to close it to the public. Truth? Fiction? I don't know but I suppose it's possible.
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As far as I know, there were no animal health problems at Discovery Island beyond the normal. The Circle of Life is what it is.
They kept Discovery Island open for a few years after Animal Kingdom opened, but Discovery Island never had high guest capacity, and it was hard to get to (folks who drove had to park in the FW parking lot and take an internal bus, and like the rest of FW, taking Disney transportation was also not that speedy). AK's impact on DI attendance almost certainly made the attraction unprofitable.
After Discovery Island closed as a public attraction, they used it for group events, and as a location for TV shoots for the series that used to be shot at the Disney-MGM Studios sound stages (Zena?).
Note that the island in the center of Animal Kingdom is now named Discovery Island (although it didn't start out with that name).
As to River Country... No, there was never a swimming area out in Bay Lake. There was a low dam between River Country and Bay Lake, and there was a roped-off area in Bay Lake to prevent folks in boats from trying to land there. It is possible that a photo taken from the right angle might make it seem like folks were actually swimming in Bay Lake. Next door, of course, is the beach for Fort Wilderness, which is also roped-off. However, it's been a very long time, if ever, since they've allowed swimming there or at any of the other beaches on Bay Lake.
River Country certainly suffered from being in a hard-to-reach location (see what I said about Discovery Island). I think another factor that hasn't been mentioned is that the water from Bay Lake was not heated. With folks used to the heated waters at Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon, and the resort pools... Even though the water was filtered and treated, it always looked a bit murky, like Bay Lake and any natural lake water in Florida. Most folks prefer crystal-clear water.
Yes, there's plenty of talk about a new DVC resort. I'll repeat my previous comments about "needing" the space occupied by River Country for that project. Compared to the amount of undeveloped woods and shoreline between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness, I don't see why the fairly small area of River Country would be "needed." Might they use it anyway? Yes, but if they thought they could profitably operate River Country, they could certainly find a way to build a DVC property without it.
Basically, both Discovery Island and River Country were conceived when "Walt Disney World" consisted of Magic Kingdom and the MK-area resorts. Visitors from MK, the Contemporary, and the Poly would take boats to those attractions, and folks at FW would have very easy access. Once WDW grew well beyond the bounds of the MK area and daily attendance/resort capacity at WDW grew well beyond the original intentions for those attractions, the handwriting was on the wall for those attractions.
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Thanks for starting this thread. 
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