Boats at AK??? What Happened?

[Tiggerafferty]

Does anyone know what happened to the boats that were supposed to be at AK? When the park first opened, they were in Birnbaum's guide to WDW. It appeared that they would circle the Oasis and go under all the bridges. The guide even described an area where "dinosaurs" would poke their head out of water and hit you with a stream of water (kind of like some of the animals on Jungle Cruise at MK). We were looking forward to riding them, but when we went, they were not there. In the subsequent 3 trips I have looked for them each time but - no luck. I have noticed that the loading docks are there so it appears that they intended to use the boats but must have changed their mind.

Just curious.

 

[jaysue]

This attraction was closed - I believe around early 2001

Thanks
jaysue

 

[emmagata]

Gone.

We were there the year after it opened and rode it. That was in 99.

We've been there in 2000,2001,2002 and it's still not running.

I don't really know why.

 

[DVCPAT]

I think the boats were intended to be shuttles, move people from one spot to another. People would stand in long lines expecting an attraction. After the ride ended, people were very disappointed in waiting so long for a short boat ride. It generated alot of complaints.

 

[Tiggerafferty]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. You have all been very helpful.

Does anyone know if they have any plans for the old dock sites? Will they be turning them into shops or anything?

 

[tjkraz]

Originally posted by Tiggerafferty
Thanks for clearing that up for me. You have all been very helpful.

Does anyone know if they have any plans for the old dock sites? Will they be turning them into shops or anything?

At least one of the docks is being used as a character greeting area.

 

[laurabelle]

Ooooh, I remember this. We were there the year AK opened too, and as DVCPAT said there were long lines and lots of complaints. We didn't bother after a CM told us the boats kept breaking down, so there was no sense waiting for it.

 

[BadgerBruce]

The first year the boats were a pleasant ride & made for great photo opps, but the wait to get on could be pretty long. The last year (?) they used it they decided to add a RadioDisney broadcast to the ride--at very high volume. For me, it turned a pleasant ride into a painful experience.

 

[pintrader]

Interesting how this topic continues to surface. Here are some more thoughts.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=393003

 

[MrShiny]

If you do someserachingaround the web, you can find Jim hill's article about this as well as pictures of some of the "melted knight" props created for the ride.

Originally, it was supposed to be much more of an attraction, with a lot of previews of the "Beastly Kingdom" area of the park. There was supposed to be a full dragon (if you remember the McDonald's soda cups that came out in '98 for the opening, you saw the concept are for this) instead of the "flaming rock" and even a unicorn.

Without this, the ride became basically a trip that didn't take you very far and showed you little. There wer long lines for it originally (as there were for many things in early days of the park) and they did get complaints from more than a few guests.

When we went there in December of '99, I do not believe the boats were running at all. I think they did come back after that as the Radio Disney cruise (with small animals in cages on board and Just Plain Mark and Zippy broadcasting from "the top of the Tree of Life") but that was very short lived.

I wish they would build a waterway to the AKL and use the boats for that.

 

[Tiggerafferty]

Thanks everyone for your responses. They were very informative.


PINTRADER:
Thanks for the link to the other thread. It had some informative information as well.

You guys are great!!!