A History of Typhoon Lagoon: Disney's (Other) First Water Park

1989 was a huge year for Walt Disney World on May 1st Disney opened its third theme park at the resort Disney MGM Studios and a new Entertainment District of Downtown Disney Pleasure Island and just one month later would welcome guests to yet another park with the opening of Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park Typhoon Lagoon was not Disney's first water park but in many ways it did represent a first for Disney a water park to exist as its own destination with a larger scope than ever before and the same care and commitment to design theming and scale as Disney would give to its more traditional Parks nowadays Typhoon Lagoon feels largely neglected and forgotten by many guests hidden away without the same draw as a place like Magic Kingdom or OT but I feel there's an underappreciated charm to this park that's lost at first glance so today let's take a look at the history of typhoon lagon its Origins its creation and the life of one of Disney's most underrated [Music] Parks you can't really begin to discuss the story of Typhoon Lagoon without first talking about Disney's earlier Water Park River Country River Country opened 5 years into Walt Disney World's lifetime in 1976 on the south shore of Bay Lake as an expansion to the Fort Wilderness Campground the park was themed as an old-fashioned Swimming Hall featuring two pools alongside three slides and a handful of smaller activities I've already covered the full history of River Country in another video so I'm not going to retell it in its entirety here but the necessary background is this River Country was technically Disney's first water park it was even most likely the first fully themed water park in the world but the park was very small it was effectively an Annex of Fort Wilderness and while it did achieve success by its own standards particularly in its early years it was a far cry from the large scale Parks we know today and River Country also came with a number of challenges the Park's small size meant it had a very limited capacity and would often sell out during the summer the main Pool River Country was also unheated as it was supplied with fresh water rather than the typical chlorinated water meaning that the park could only operate seasonally as during the winter the water would be too cold for guests and perhaps more significantly Disney's water park had some Fierce competition in 1977 less than a year after River Country opened to the public Wet n Wild opened its doors in Orlando Wet n Wild was almost twice the size of River Country and boasted bigger slides and better Thrills and provided a larger capacity than the small River Country was capable of and Beyond the capacity Wet n Wild had something else that River Country didn't its own wave machine Disney had actually attempted to build a wave machine first in 1971 a machine was installed on an island in the middle of the 7 sees Lagoon just north of the Polynesian Resort intending to turn the area into the ultimate year round surfing experience unfortunately for the project when the wave machine was installed and tested for the first time ahead of Disney World's opening it was found that the waves generated caused severe erosion on the Polynesian artificial Beach the machine would also break down frequently and running it would prove extremely difficult for water transportation in the Seven Seas Lagoon as boats going between the Polynesian and the Magic Kingdom would find themselves suddenly victims of choppy waves throwing guests around so almost as soon as it had been built the wave machine was permanently switched off and left to decay in the water before eventually being demolished and now 6 years later Wet n Wild had beaten Disney to it constructing a purpose-built wave pool as the centerpiece of their Park River Country simply couldn't compete and after an initial difficult year of poor weather conditions for Wet n Wild its popularity quickly skyrocketed as it became the most attended water park in the country this popularity continued into the80s as the park added more slides and a lazy river and the Wet n Wild brand expanded to new locations across the country if Disney was to realistically compete with Wet n Wild it was obvious to them that it wouldn't happen at River Country Disney had to go bigger than ever before combine all the Thematic elements that made a Disney park Disney while also giving guests everything that Wet n Wild had on a much larger scale and as the decade Drew to a close that's exactly what would happen on June 1st 1989 Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon opened to the public the Resort's second water park and the latest in a series of major projects that year hoping to finally turn Walt Disney World into a week-long vacation destination unlike a standard Disney theme park Typhoon Lagoon would take a new approach to theming with the whole of the park being centered around One Singular story during planning some themes for the park had turned it into a military encampment a Florida swamp a beached cruise ship and a logging camp but the final design of Typhoon Lagoon was of a small town that had been decimated by a tropical storm the park was set in the fictitious Placid Parts a once quaint Resort Village that had been hit by a severe storm which picked up many nearby boats fishing equipment and other Maritime gear dropping it onto the village and leaving it in Ruins with the town being recryst Typhoon Lagoon to reflect the chaos because of this singular cohesive story imagineers were able to design the whole park in a way that allows guests to gradually uncover the story as they walk through it and in fact this story was first presented to guests long before they even made their way through the entrance as a series of signs placed along the road that leads to the parking lot would provide an introductory poem a furious storm once roared across the sea catching ships in it path helpless to flee instead of a certain and watery Doom the wind swept them here to Typhoon lagon upon arriving at the entrance guests would find the first signs of the damage at Typhoon Lagoon a ship Mast lodged into the ground repurposed as a welcome sign from here they would Meander through a winding forested pathway before reaching another sign that read the storm is over the coast is clear so come and see the view from here and as they rounded the corner they would finally see the extent of the damage boats turned over all around and some buildings leaning to one side partially destroyed and the Vantage Point guests found themselves at would also provide a direct sideline to the Park's icon and centerpiece Mount Mayday 95 ft tall looming over the park this was a dormant volcano now home to a fishing boat named M Tilly which had been swept up by the storm and become stuck on top of the mountain every half hour M Tilly's fog horn would go off as it shot a geyser up into the air clearing leftover water that clogged the stranded ship Beyond introducing the story of Typhoon Lagoon the vantage point also revealed to guests the size of Disney's newest contender in the water park industry the brand new largest water park in Orlando with five slides many of which contain different Roots guests could choose from several smaller kid slides a lazy river encircling the park two waiting pools and of course Disney's own wave poool so let's start at that wave pool while Mount Mayday was clearly the Thematic centerpiece of the park the wave pool was the attraction centerpiece lying in the shadow of Mount Mayday Disney had built what was at the time the world's largest wave pool an absolute slam dunk on Wet n Wild the Typhoon Lagoon earth pool was capable of producing 6t high waves the wall at the back of the pool contained a set of large water tanks which would fill up over several minutes then when they were full a sound effect would play alerting guests and the water would dump out of the bottom of the tanks into the pool with the resulting pressure producing the enormous swells 18 years after the plans for a wave machine at Disney World had first fallen through Typhoon Lagoon had fulfilled the promise and the clues in the name you could surf on it for an additional cost Disney allowed guests to participate in open surfing sessions before or after normal park operations a practice that still continues today beginner Surfers can participate in surfing lessons as well typhoon Lagoon's five opening day slides also still exist today and all sit at the back of the park surrounding Mount Mayday closest to mount Mayday on the left hand side is Gangplank fools a family raft ride with tubes for up to four people Mayday fools is a long winding single Rider tube slide and kho fools is another shorter single Rider tube slide on the right hand side of Mount Mayday are the storm slides a set of three fast twisting body slides each with a different route named jib Jammer Stern Buster and Rudder Buster and humanga cowabanga is a set of three identical super fast fruitful body slides fully enclosed with a steep drop for young kids there are the bay slides which empty out into one of the waiting pools and catch a kitty Creek a kids play area with several smaller slides and a splash pad the lazy river that encircles the park is named Castaway Creek guests can take a tube around the entire Loop or get off at one of the many stops along the way the lazy river of Typhoon Lagoon Works in a similar way to the Disneyland or Magic Kingdom railroad providing a form of transportation around the park that works as an attraction in itself and just like the railroad costway Creek features theming throughout the journey to further add to the story of the park more destroyed boats and rafts litter the route alongside waterfalls and Cave passages as guests are taken on a Scenic journey of the park and lastly Typhoon Lagoon had an attraction on opening day named the Shark Reef according to an interview with the Orlando Sentinel from before the Park's opening Disney had received so many requests throughout the'80s from divers wanting to swim in the aquarium at epcot's Living Seas Pavilion that they decided to make an attraction out of it for Typhoon Lagoon this was a saltwater reef containing the remains of a capsized tanker ship the new home to multiple leopard sharks Bonnet head sharks stingrays and tropical fish guests could snorkel along the surface to view the fish and when back on dry land they could enter the cat-sized tanker to get another view through the ship's Port holes the experience was quite short as you weren't allowed to stop as you swam across the reef but it was a really interesting idea for an attraction that made Typhoon Lagoon unique among water parks at the time in 2016 the Shark Reef closed permanently making it the only attraction at Typhoon Lagoon to do so there were never any official statements from Disney as to why but the most common assumption made is that operating The Reef was incredibly expensive for what it was and so the closure was a cost casting measure Typhoon Lagoon opened to a largely positive reception and it very quickly overtook River Country and popularity Disney had surpassed their old water park in every conceivable way it didn't suffer from the capacity problems that River Country did it had more to do and importantly the pools at Typhoon Lagoon were heated meaning that it could stay open year round only closing for annual maintenance it was also the perfect combination of the intricate design fans had come to expect from Disney and the new modern water parks that had been springing up across the country in the past decade however it didn't manage to immediately Dethrone wet and wild in fact Wet n Wild continued to be highly attended throughout the '90s as it added bigger and crazier slides in response to Disney but with the opening of Blizzard Beach in 1995 Disney finally conquered the central Florida Market by 1999 as Typhoon Lagoon became America's most popular water park the opening of Blizzard Beach also gave gave Typhoon Lagoon a new mascot lagona Gator a companion to Blizzard Beach's ice Gator who gained a new Statue near the park entrance look at him he's just chilling as Disney World entered the 21st century its first waterp Park River Country closed and Typhoon Lagoon remained relatively unchanged from opening day but if it was to keep its number one spot it would have to innovate and so in the mid 2000s Disney would start designing the parks first expansion in 2005 Typhoon Lagoon opened crush and gusher crush and gusher was advertised not as a water slide but a water coaster a new style of slide that had been slowly emerging at American water parks since the mid90s this type of slide used a combination of high powerered water jets and conveyor belts to mimic a roller coaster allowing the slide to go up as well as down expanding on the story of Typhoon Lagoon crush and gusa takes guests to an abandoned fruit Factory damaged by the storm the pipes that used to wash the fruit that passed through the factory have now been Twisted into these fast moving water slides guests choose between three different routs all tube slides over 400 ft in length the longest slides at Typhoon Lagoon these are the banana Blaster the coconut Crusher and the pineapple plunger crush and gusher is in my opinion the best part of Typhoon Lagoon the up down set ction at the start of each slide is really cool and is still to this day a relatively uncommon size in water parks it wouldn't be until 2017 that the park would get its next expansion and its final one to date misadventure fools is another family raft ride and one that takes the theming of Typhoon Lagoon even further because the ride ties into the Society of explorers and adventurers a fairly obscure storyline about a secret society that's seen across a number of other Disney attraction ctions around the world like Disney se's Tower of Terror Jungle Cruise Hong Kong's Phantom Manor and Magic Kingdom's Big Thunder Mountain guests take a journey through the Shipwreck of Captain Mary oceaner one of the members of the society who ran ground at Typhoon Lagoon searching for treasure the raft hurtles past a variety of artifacts from Captain Mary's Journey scattered about the wreckage and it features typhoon Lagoon's first animatronic Captain Mary's pet parrot Typhoon Lagoon hits at exactly what a water park should be while you can point to other parks that got there first in regards to its many elements Typhoon Lagoon was the first Park in my opinion to combine these elements into one really well put together destination it was the first one that really understood how to apply the philosophy of traditional theme park design to a water park and it was Typhoon Lagoon that ushered in a new era of water parks it's obvious when looking at those that now exist around the world just how much the design of Typhoon Lagoon influenced the global industry indoor parks in Europe regularly use the same tropical Castaway theming as to places across North America and when you look at the water parks that have sprung up more recently in the Orlando area they've clearly taken inspiration from the design of Typhoon Lagoon SeaWorld's Aquatica expanded on the idea of including a reef with live animals in their park when they opened Reef plunge and the relative new volcano Bay is clearly an expansion on the ideas put down by Typhoon Lagoon with its own erupting volcano and a lazy river covering the majority of the park and featuring its own Cave System Typhoon Lagoon of course didn't come without its own problems it's a bit overs simplistic to say that you can just take a standard theme park and turn everything into slides it's often just not possible to ever reach the same scale of attractions and theming because of the nature of a water park water parks for one have to be smaller you can't expect your guests to be walking as much as they do at somewhat like Magic Kingdom because first of all people are walking around Barefoot and second they're typically leaving their stuff in one place and heading back and forth throughout the day rather than doing what they do in a normal Park and moving from point to point it's also much harder to create any of the intricate effects that you see in regular theme park cuz water slides require these large tubes that would obscure a lot of the view of theming and they're not as controllable as a dark ride system for example which can be stopped and started and moved in different directions a slide has to go in One Direction at speed even the modern water coasters have to be constantly moving so it's often not worth putting in the same amount of detail into something that's going to be seen only for a fraction of a second guests are unrestrained as well so safety becomes a more limiting factor than on a roller coaster and it's also typically not worth doing it because water parks don't make as much money as regular theme parks do and really this is the main thing that limits these parks in 2019 Typhoon Lagoon was the second most visited water park in the world behind a park in China with over 2.2 million visitors that year but that figure wouldn't have even put it in the top 25 most visited theme parks in the world with all four of Disney World standard Parks reaching over 11 million visitors water parks just don't bring in the same crowds that regular parks do their Reliance on good weather is of course one reason for this but I also feel a lot of guests just don't like them because I guess in some ways it's more of a commitment to go to a water park than a regular one there's more stuff you need to bring with you and you also just can't really hang out in a water park like you can somewhat like world showcase at Epcot many visitors to Disney World skip them entirely and as a result they're not bringing in the money to justify focusing on them unfortunately that's why throughout nearly 35 years of operation Typhoon Lagoon has only ever seen two major additions a minuscule amount considering Hollywood Studios which opened just one month before has seen three major additions in The Last 5 Years alone one of the key things that keeps visitors coming back to Walt Disney World Time and Time Again are the constant changes happening in the Parks but if you visited Typhoon Lagoon anytime in the last 7 years you're good there's nothing new to see which leaves the park feeling very neglected and overlooked by Disney there is unusually an upside to this because these parks are overlooked by a lot of visitors they don't suffer from quite the same crowding problems that modern Disney World has in the peak of the summer the most popular slides can have long lines but it's a rare occurrence and most of the time every attraction will either be a walk- on or at most a 15-minute wait my own collection and the trips I've taken to both Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach is that nearly everything took around this long to get on and while I have seen some reports saying that on particularly busy days you can get lines of over an hour most sources I've found support the short weight times and they also don't have lightning lane or virtual cues so you don't have to spend ages planning your day ahead of time a dare either water park is an uncomplicated experience you can do everything pretty early into the day which leaves you more relaxed there's no stress about not being able to get on everything you just get up and go something that modern Disney world is really lacking but don't just take it from me take it from someone who used to work there hello I am Mike from the party I also have a theme park YouTube channel I think the Viber Typhon Lagoon is very relaxed and laidback I the way I would describe it when I was there it felt like people wanted to go on a vacation from their vacation um I think Parks like Magic Kingdom are so much fun but especially in Peak summer it's quite a busy it's quite an overwhelming and it can be quite a stressful environment while tyen lagon the nature of it is it felt like everyone was there laidback people weren't rushing around people weren't power touring it and and the park is designed to create that kind of experience as well but I think it's also inherently what a water park is adding to your vacation when you enter there's all these sort of winding Pathways you can walk down as you and it's very much trying to set that tone of if you compare it to enterry Magic Kingdom and your funnel down Main Street USA to the castle with hyen lagon you can't see Miss Tilly yet you can pick what pathway you want to take and they all get you to the same spot and obviously that's a a design idea that then gets repeated in Animal Kingdom a decade later but I don't think it works in quite the same way because of the nature of Animal Kingdom being a theme park if if you want to be smart you want to power through and get to flight of Passage whilst at typ lagon there's no benefit of powering through that maybe get a great Sun lounger maybe from a design perspective Typhoon Lagoon feels incredibly well focused everything in the Park from the oldest attractions to the newest editions all serve the overarching story something that can't always be said for many other additions to Disney World in the past decade I was think about this this week this idea that when you go to a traditional theme park you normally have different lands with different tones and Aesthetics and you rarely have such a cohesive story to One Park which you have in somewhere like Typhon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach as well but what I think is interesting about it is it's not a really elaborate convoluted story you could describe the the the concept for Typhoon Lagoon in three words it's storm ridden Paradise you can sum up so quickly so guess when they enter grasp it immediately for all of these reasons I feel that Typhoon Lagoon is a highly underrated area of Walt Disney World the place is just fun in a very old school Disney way it hits that perfect Middle Ground of big exciting attractions and the high attention to detail we expect of Disney I am worried about the lack of attention both of Disney's water parks have received in recent years new additions are so infrequent that despite all the praise I've given Typhoon Lagoon it's still a place that I would be fine leaving out on a Disney trip if I really needed to also as of writing this video you can't go to Typhoon Lagoon right now cuz it's closed for maintenance but obviously we've seen that Disney is still capable of giving Typhoon Lagoon the attention it so desperately deserves and I just wish they would do that more frequently let me know what you think about Typhoon Lagoon Disney's other first water park have you ever been or are you someone that chooses to skip it when visiting Disney and if you like the video please consider subscribing I'm in a constant push to improve these videos I create I want to work on some much bigger projects later in the year that may take some more time to produce so I would really appreciate you sticking around to see them through but until then as always I'll see you next [Music] time

Channel: George Browning

Views: 65,478

Keywords: typhoon lagoon, disney water park, disney typhoon lagoon, disney wave pool, blizzard beach, disney's typhoon lagoon, disney water parks, disney world, theme parks, george browning, disney world water parks, miss tilly, mikefromtheparty, theme park history, typhoon lagoon history

Id: MrXTEWB09og

Length: 24min 29sec (1469 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2024