Abandoned - Disney's Discovery Island

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake welcome to abandoned episode 21 this is the show where we talk about some of the coolest abandoned places in the world if you've been with the channel for a while or that you've seen our entire abandoned series you ready remember that we did a video on Disney's Discovery Island since that video was actually the first video in the series and the fact that it was made in 2014 I thought we should redo the whole video just because I think the topic is so interesting and cool I think it deserves a lot more than we actually gave it so let's take a look at the abandoned Disney's Discovery Island so this place has been a legend about Disney for years and honestly this place is kind of amazing when you really think about it so if you never heard of this basically Disney's Discovery Island was a zoological attraction on a natural forming island in Walt Disney World Florida also I think we should clear something up first Disney's Discovery Island and Disney's River country are two very different things no to be fair they are in very close proximity to each other like 600 feet close but they are two very different things alright now that we cleared that up let's get on with it so this island actually does have quite the history dating back as far as the early 1900s in its early days the island itself had the name razz island from the family that lived and farmed in the land this was until 1937 when the island was purchased and renamed to idle Bay Isle by its owner who lived there with his wife and pet crane while about 20 years passed after the islands owner fell ill the property was once again sold to a businessman who used the island as a hunting retreat and now called it riles Island now by the time the mid-60s came along Walt Disney himself began dreaming of Epcot the experimental prototype community of tomorrow and Walt Disney was adamant on making this dream come true so Walt Disney Productions began buying massive amounts of land in Central Florida and part of this land included Bay Lake with Riley's island in the mid in Walt Disney's concepts for the Florida project ballet can be seen just off to the east of where the parks and hotels were to be placed and with this Royals island was actually still there however in December of 1966 Walt Disney passed away as did the main concept for the florida project so is the early 70s approach and with Walt's brother Roy at the helm of the company Walt Disney World was in full development obviously the Epcot dream that Walt Disney actually had never happened but when Roy took over his CEO the company redesigned the whole Florida project idea into just a theme park now so on October 1st 1971 the entire resort opened to the public now interestingly when Walt Disney World was in its development the island was actually to be developed in its first phase of Walt Disney World all official master plans and models showed that the island was to be some sort of pirate themed and upon the opening of Walt Disney World the island was named Blackbeard's Island with Disney encountering financial and attendance problems in 73 they needed something to boost attendance so Disney continued with their plans for a pirate themed animal observation island in Bay Lake the island was expanded with over 55,000 cubic yards of dirt and changed the name to Treasure Island the island officially opened to the public on April 8 1974 Treasure Island had the theme of obviously pirates and had elements in the 50s film of the same name the island was given a variety of exotic birds and flowers along with winding paths and small waterways a pirate ship is added on the southern shore of the island for families to explore during the islands first two years attendance wasn't really meeting Disney's expectations as most people classify the island as a half-day attraction so with this in 1976 Disney closed the island to undergo renovations snack bars were added along with a brand new aviary and the Treasure Island name was now changed to Disney's Discovery Island Discovery Island was actually quite a lavish and secluded place and as the years went on the attraction grew in its popularity and size of species the entire island was laid out in basically one path essentially once you get off the boat and onto the dock you were in a small hub that connects everything together once you begin walking down the path that will lead you around the entire island the whole island is themed to be this tropical paradise and it really does present that quite well but then came a major shift to everything related to Discovery Island in the mid-90s Disney announced they would be building a brand new theme park which took the basic theme of Discovery Island called Disney's Animal Kingdom this was essentially Discovery Island just another five hundred and sixty eight acres larger also not really on an island and when this massive Zoological Park opened in April 1998 rumors began to be spread of the closure and demolition of Disney's Discovery Island since the opening of Animal Kingdom attendance numbers for the island began to fall and species that lived on the island began to be transferred to the new park this was putting up some red flags until Disney finally made the announcement on March 26 1999 that the island would close permanently on its 25th anniversary allegedly Disney had been planning the closure of the island for over nine years and to them they were essentially building a theme park to replace Discovery Island however it was refreshingly nice to see how honest Disney was being about the situation when a spokesperson stated that quote it's a bit sad when we have to say goodbye to an old favorite but change is just part of the process what a time Disney PR was so why did the island end up closing well honestly having something that's known for being a half-day attraction coupled with the fact that it's only accessible by boat just brought up poor attendance numbers the expenses to keep up an island that's not directly accessible to the mainland can't be cheap either especially for Florida weather Animal Kingdom was just the answer to a bigger and better discovery Island and the island now just had no purpose to be there I mean to be fair when we lay it all out it does kind of make sense people have always speculated and made accusations claiming that the island closed due to a deadly bacteria that contaminated the lake and that's just not true so on April 8th 1999 Disney's Discovery Island and closed forever the only thing is though of nothing really ever happened to it back in March when Disney announced that the island would close they did state that they were looking into new ideas to repurpose the island however nothing really happened to the island Disney continued to care and maintain the island up until July of 1999 when things sort of just stopped Disney had just left the island completely abandoned now sometime between August and October of 2006 the main dock was removed along with some other small structures visible from the shore of the island however everything else in the interior of the island remained there just the idea behind the fact that this is a real thing is just so surreal and kind of incredible but trust me this gets actually a lot more creepy and interesting so after the closure of the island in 1999 - somewhere around 2008 the lights actually remained active on the island every night the perimeter of the islands lights would shine to give the illusion that the island is still active however the island even had power in the interior of the island as service buildings could still be seen with their lights on that fact is just so creepy since around 2008 though it does seem as though Disney disconnected the power to the island or had simply deactivated its lighting systems throughout the island now to me one of the most creepy things about this is just that we don't know what this actually looks like to this day right now there have only been two documented explorations of the island one of whom means Shane Perez who explored the island - my best guess in around 2004 and the other being no meais from Fleur backs in 2007 so it's been almost 10 years since anyone has actually documented the island now Shayne claimed while he was on the island they did find some graffiti I'm not really sure the validity of the statement but honestly if it is true it probably was just from Disney employees or some workers that were authorized to be on the island but the complete lack of knowledge of the island just makes it that much more creepy and mysterious now the last picture we've ever seen on the island was all the way back in 2007 which is kind of crazy to this day right now basically everything from 1999 still remains on the island completely abandoned by Disney now when the island first opened it really did kind of just stay out of the media spotlight until some incidents began to occur on the island in 1989 Disney was directly charged from the state of Florida and federal officials with at least 16 accounts of animal cruelty which originated from the mysterious deaths and mistreatments of vultures on the island now this island had been plagued with vulture problems for years employees were suspected to beat the animals isolate the birds and small sheds with limited food and water Disney was even charged of having employees shoot at the birds so what is happening with the island right now and what does the future hold for it well as for the island right now not much is actually happening with it like I said before Disney removed some exterior structures such as the main dock however honestly that was it all the other buildings that were visible from the water have been covered by trees and vegetation the beached pirate ship which laid on the southwest side of the island is actually still there too it's been heavily covered by vegetation but you still can make out what it is the entrance to the island itself from the main guest dock is also still there and it's actually quite visible from the water just a few feet to the south from that building is what I can tell a service area for the island that dog had actually been replaced with a much newer one and it actually still remains there to this date was some sort of utility shed on it I think they left this year as if Disney ever needs to actually get on to the island they have a safe place to do so some buildings can actually be seen from the water but the vegetation on the island has really covered everything quite well from the air though it's quite of a different story most of the structures actually on the island can be clearly seen along with other structures such as the bird enclosure canopies so what's going to happen to the island well when Disney first announced that the island would closed back in March of 1999 the Disney spokesperson claimed that while the company wasn't announcing anything at the time they were considering other uses for the island rumors suggested at the time that the island would be repurposed to incorporate honeymoon cottages other rumors claimed that the island would be made into a treasure hunt game which would take place in the island for families kind of going back to what Discovery Island was supposed to be when it was Treasure Island later rumors began to be spread over Disney allegedly working with the team behind the popular game Myst and turned the land into an interactive island based off the one in the game however this was never really announced and nothing really ever happened with this now the island seems like a prime land to be built on however when I really look at it without a doubt this is kind of Disney's fault but think of how long the land has been sitting there with no maintenance or care at all Disney added small rivers to run through the islands so I can only imagine what trying to build something on that land would be like not to mention I don't see any way that they could salvage what's already there their only option now is to just clear the land and start fresh but honestly I don't even know if that's financially possible things have changed since the 90s obviously and attendance is pretty incredible at the parks now but I'm not sure Disney could find something to put on the island that would offset the costs of even building something there in the first place it seems as though now that Disney just likes to pretend that the island doesn't exist or at least what's on it just imagine how much would actually cost you know get the heavy machinery even onto the island since Disney actually put man-made waterways in there and having those just sit there for so many years I can't imagine that helps the land in any way so I would imagine that the land isn't that safe to build anything on right now anyway it's only interesting though when Disney's Animal Kingdom first opened in 1998 the main hub was called Safari village when Discovery Island closed in 1999 animal kingdom's main hub was actually renamed to be called Discovery Island which is kind of like a weird unknown reference to where animal kingdom even came from I kind of it's kind of nice I like that so what really is unclear as to what will actually happen to Discovery Island and I think at this point it would just be too expensive to tear down what's already on the island so we think it's gonna take a while for Disney to actually find what they want to do with the island just a quick update to the video actually while I was editing this I was sent a picture by someone on Twitter of the main entrance area that from the dock and this picture was taken on August 26 2016 and there's actually a fence now over the exposed area as to where the dock was uh I have no idea why this is here or the purpose of this fence but it really does intrigue me as to the reason why it's actually there it doesn't mean one thing though and that's that people have been on the island either Disney construction workers or some sort of employees to at least put up that fence so this might even mean that something may be happening on the island maybe it's for construction workers maybe it's a safety hat a safety thing that they need to put up or something um but yeah it's very bizarre as to why that's even there but I mean something's happening on the island and I thought I should update you guys for me though this is probably the most interesting and creepy place that I've ever done people always ask me if I were to choose any place to see for myself in person this would be a no down my mind the fact that the Disney Company has an abandoned island in the middle of the most visited resort in the world is just absolutely incredible to me so now if you're ever in Walt Disney World and you happen to be passing by the island take a bit of a harder look at the island and it's pretty incredible what you may just see anyway guys my name is Jake follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] from the air though it's quite a different story from the air though it's quite a bit for my guide

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 3,196,395

Rating: 4.8051848 out of 5

Keywords: disney, disney world, Disney Discovery Island, Discovery Island, Treasure Island, Disney abandoned, abandoned, florida abandoned, Walt Disney World, Disney world abandoned, river country, disney river country, abandoned discovery island, animal kingdom, disney abandoned park, abandoned water park, disney abandoned water park, disney abandoned island, abandoned island, abandoned by disney, abandoned disney ride, Abandoned treasure Island, Discovery Island (Amusement Park)

Id: En6GyaY484k

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Gonorrh3a]

Fyi, if you watched, the reason the fence was added was due to the recent alligator incident. Not really as cool as he makes it out to be.

[u/sadclownbadred]

Flashing "NOT LIKE IT IS NOW" in big red letters across the screen, loses it's punch when you flash it for under a millisecond