Welcome to River Country?

I love Disney. For regular readers, you know this. For newbies, I come from a family of pseudo-Disneyphiles. My parents aren't true die-hards, but they love Disney enough to be considered just on the outer ring of addicts.

I am trying to bring Kaitlyn up as a Disney Girl, which is getting more and more difficult thanks to a certain explorer. But she's getting to the age where the princesses are starting to be a little more appealing, so it's all good.

Part of Kaitlyn's initiation into Disneyhood is the regular trip to Walt Disney World. We went last year with my parents (of course) and Kaitlyn did great. Loved It's A Small World. Played her heart out at Mickey's Toontown. Scared her to death to meet Daisy Duck. Like I said, it's all good.

We're planning on going back again in February with Nana and Pop-Pop. Hopefully she'll do a little better with the characters, but even if she doesn't we'll have a great time. Just like we did when we were kids. Which is why Disney is so great, because while there are always changes in the works, everything is the same as when you first walked in and saw Cinderella's Castle.

Almost everything.

Remember River Country? That ol' swimmin' hole that was the premier water park before Disney gave us Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach? While I've known its been closed for years, I figured it was leveled to make way for the next big thing from Disney. Guess again.

In my internet surfing I ran across a post from Tri-circle-D on DisBoards.com. It's quite amazing that Disney has let this once proud part of their resort become what it has. Don't they have Imagineers that could do something over there, like they did with the rest of the Magic Kingdom from my childhood?

All pictures courtesy of Tri-circle-D on DisBoards.com