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Tucked away in plain sight in the middle of Disney’s Bay Lake lies the 11.5-acre abandoned piece of property formerly known as Discovery Island. The now off-limits Disney attraction was once home to birds and other wildlife and can be thought of as a precursor to Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park (which now also contains a section called “Discovery Island”).
Although Discovery Island has been closed to the public since 1999, a group referring to themselves as “urban explorers” decided to swim through Bay Lake and walk around (read: trespass) on the island. While their actions took place several months years ago in December 2009 [see comments for edit explanation], local WKMG Orlando reporter Mike DeForest recently reported about it, sparking conversation online. (Update: And perhaps earlier online conversation sparked the WKMG report…)
In walking through Discovery Island at night, blogger Shane Perez and his friends found that the lights were still running and a few vultures had made their home there. They also found old photos of Disney cast members:
Similarly, a few weeks earlier, a post was made on the DIS discussion forum showing off pictures recently taken throughout Disney’s abandoned River Country water park, adjacent to Discovery Island:
River Country closed its doors in 2001 and is now home to waterless slides and overgrown foliage. Like Discovery Island, it is off-limits to guests visiting Walt Disney World.
It seems that abandoned attractions encourage a certain sense of adventure and intrigue in some courageous types. I personally don’t recommend breaking Disney’s rules and venturing into the once-beaten paths of gone-but-not-forgotten attractions, but I do still find it interesting to see what has become of these areas. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone documents an unauthorized trip into the never-completed “Legendary Years” half of Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Oh wait…
Sources: ClickOrlando, The Photography of Shane Perez
I don’t know if I think this is cool or not – it’s certainly against the rules and probably not very safe or smart. Mostly I think it’s just sad, really. It also drives home the tremendous scope of Walt Disney World when entertainment properties like Discovery Island and River Country can just be left to decay.
Hey Ricky,
As someone who used to work for Watercraft at wdw, I used to drive past discovery island many times a day. I’m just glad they’re OK after swimming in bay lake. As some may know, bay lake, like all other bodies of water in Florida is infested with gators. I know this from seeing many of them myself. Some of which were up to 9 ft. In length.
“WKMG Orlando reporter Mike DeForest recently reported about it, sparking conversation online.” Try the other way around Ricky. I under my username over at wdwmagic (Next Big Thing) posted the blog in this thread (http://bit.ly/ctHuFS) on 4/18/10. It is about the 4th or 5th post down. I posted it b/c it was relevant to the topic. I don’t think it is any coincidence, that 4 months or so after this blog was posted (and it had died down big time), once I bring it up in a thread there and all of a sudden 3 days later on 4/21 it is all over local news.
Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn’t seen the thread you linked to, but I did see a number of people linking to the WKMG story (including the Orlando Sentinel), so additional conversation was certainly sparked by their report as well. But it does seem you may have been the one to kick off the whole thing (though I did not see WDWMAGIC cited as a source anywhere).
I’ve edited the post above to include the link you supplied.
Thanks, Rick. Yeah, I think, if that is what started it all (which I think is highly likely), that WKMG stumbled upon it somehow and wrote and article on it and also it found it’s way onto the news as well (seen here: http://www.clickorlando.com/video/23213132/index.html) and they probably didn’t see the need to cite WDWMAGIC as a source since the main source of information in the whole thing is Shane Perez’s blog. Since WKMG posted that, the sentinel also wrote an article and it’s been going around the internet ever since.
Just like these urban explorers, I have been intrigued by the island and river country. I would LOVE to explore these Disney “ghost towns”. I think that Disney could make some money taking people on tours of these places. I would definately sign up!
Ricky, Just wanted to let you know that it was NOT in December that they went on their exploration. Yes, it was posted on the blog in december. I emailed Mr. Perez and he told me that it was 5 years ago That they went before he had posted it to his blog. Id assume the main reason for this is b/c the statute of limitations for trespassing in FL is 5 years, so Disney now cant charge him with that. If you look at the pics, look at the one of the RC water tower. That has since been removed from RC before december to the FW pool area.
Thanks for the follow-up! I’ll update the post above.
I remember seeing his blog linked over at the DIS at least a year ago when I was browsing around. Definitely gutsy. Would I do it? Definitely NOT Discovery Island, that’s for sure. In that lovely link you posted though of Pop’s Legendary Years… one of the explorers looks eerily like me..
SO when i was like seven i learned to swim here. i remember how fun and beautiful it was and to see it so decrepped is kind of sad to me.
If they did I have a name for it: Lost Disney or Forgotten Disney. Didn’t Disney produce the TV series “LOST”?
I also have always been intrigued with structures & parks that were either abandoned or closed for the off season. The first abandoned building I saw was a catholic church that within a year of abandonment peeled every inch of its painted ceiling. All of that eerie texture and the dark smell. . …. Anyway this site is spectacular.
I was wondering why I never saw this article. I was at Disney when it was published!
I have always wondered what happened to Discovery Island. I would never do anything to mess with the set out rules at the parks but I would love to see the Island today.
I would love to explore!! 
What shame all of that is just sitting there wasting away.
as a Disney Vacation Club member who has visited WDW more than 30
times, I too miss RC. I liked the fact that it was slightly time-consuming
and inconvenient to get to-the reason being if you needed a little time
away from the huge crowds this was the place to go. Unfortunately, the lack
of big crowds are probably what led to its demise.
I’m just curious WHY there would be regular ferrie service (every 5 to 10 minutes??) from the mainland to an island that is abandoned??