Boat ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom?

[noblemickey]

Whatever happened to the jungle boat ride at the Animal Kingdom? I've been there many times but have never seen it in operation. Disney features this ride in its four parks video which you can buy at WDW. Further, friends of mine were at the Animal Kingdom a couple of summers ago and they road it. Is it going to be revamped and reopened? Appears that there are some interesting sites such as a dinosaur and ancient ruins that you could see. As the park needs more attractions and inprovement to others I hope this will be reopened soon.

 

[Mousekateer55]

It closed down permanately a while ago for many issues. For one reason, the boats broke down a lot. Also people did not know what they were in line for--they thought it was a ride when it was only a transportation system. It may come back in the future, but I doubt it. If Beastly Kingdom ever gets built, I think we might see this ride again.

 

[toefungus]

It originally was suppose to tie in with Beastly Kingdom somehow. But when they cut that, they were just left with a plain old boat ride.

 

[All Aboard]

Originally they opened as Discovery River Cruise boats. Nothing more than transportation with a few sights. Guests thought there was more to the attraction and lined up in hoards to experience it. So few were circling the river, that lines became extremely long. The River Cruise got an enormous amount of guest complaints, both for the length of the lines and its lack of, well, anything.

It closed, the boats were rethemed, new signage was put up. It reopened as Radio Disney River Cruise. Now, along with virtually nothing to see, you were subject to a couple of hip DJ's and some really annoying music. Guest complaints continued and shortly thereafter the Cruise once again went into hybernation. A while back, the CM line was "we hope to have a new river attraction soon." Don't know if that's the spiel any longer.

 

[space42]

Does anyone remember the TV show about DAK before it opened? They were talking about all of the different rides and how it was going to be the largest Disney Park yet.
In that show, they mentioned that water would be one of the main forms of transpertation in the new park. Its too bad that there is no boat ride. The lines for the old boat ride and continued interest in them just shows that guests would love a boat ride. It would be great to have a Real Jungle cruise. Like the saffari ride on water!! That would be neat!

Oh well, maybe they will build it after they build BK! yeah right!

 

[paulde177jb]

Disney Radio (as it was called" was a nightmare. Long queues, and when you got on it tramped around the lagoon with one of the members of staff bringing up scorpions, snkaes & deadly spiders up in glass cases for you to look at. My wife is afraid of spidets, & having one (albeit in a case) put on her lap despite protests wasnt a great way to start our day there.

Frankly, I was amazed by AK. Youd think Disney, with all their experience, would know how to engineer a successful, easy to get around park. Instead you get crowds (particulalrly on the bridge into Camp Minnie), little respite from the sun, and frankly, little to do after 5 hours there. If you go now, & really moan at customer services before 3pm, I understand they will revalidate your ticket for an extra day. Im also disappointed that all Disney can come up with is a coaster (cheap and of the shelf) and a midway ride for dinorama. Where is Disneys sense of adventure? Look at IoA. You get Poseidon, Jurassic Park, Spiderman, which are not coasters yet truly original. Im going back to Orlando in Decmber & AK is definitely off my list of places to visit

 

[Carl]

I got to ride the SECOND incarnation of it. This is the one where a trained person had the animals to display and allowed the audience to ask questions. This person also pointed out animals which were along the waterside and told about them. I enjoy this ride, and I timed my ride to get on when there was not a long line.
Then, I was UNLUCKY enough to ride it during "Radio Disney." This really sucked. Of course maybe the preteens enjoyed it, but I found it annoying. There was no commentary or anything, just that horrible, loud Radio Disney.

 

[Janet2k]

I got to ride it during pre-opening. I enjoyed it. The riverboat guide was very informative. I seem to remember a dragon or something spewing fire from the river. I remember thinking it odd for an animal park. Now that you folks have mentioned “Beastly Kingdom,” I guess that fire-breathing dragon was part of the master plan. Of course it was years ahead of its time.

 

[Jane E.]

Thanks for this post. We went to AK back in January. I had remembered reading about the boat ride in my guide book. I was looking all over for that boat ride. Finally, the people we went with showed me in the AK pamphlet that there was NO boat ride. I think they thought I was imagining it! Glad to hear I didn't!!