Liberty Belle Riverboat
| Liberty Belle Riverboat | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Liberty Square |
| Type | Steam-powered riverboat |
| Opened | May 20, 1973 |
| Closed | July 7, 2025 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Closed |
The Liberty Belle Riverboat, operated as the Liberty Square Riverboat, was a steam-powered sternwheel riverboat attraction in Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, Florida. The vessel carried guests on a slow circuit of the Rivers of America, around Tom Sawyer Island, past the waterfronts of Liberty Square and Frontierland. The boat that guests knew as the Liberty Belle entered service on May 20, 1973, under a different name, the Richard F. Irvine, and was renamed Liberty Belle in 1996. It closed permanently with the rest of the Magic Kingdom waterfront, its last public sailings taking place on July 6, 2025, and the closure taking effect on July 7, 2025.[1][2]
History
Riverboat service at the Magic Kingdom did not begin with this vessel. The park's first riverboat, the Admiral Joe Fowler, named for the retired rear admiral who had overseen construction at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, entered service on October 2, 1971, one day after the park opened.[2] A second boat was added less than two years later: the Richard F. Irvine, named for a senior Disney designer and WED Enterprises executive, entered service on May 20, 1973, the same day Tom Sawyer Island opened.[1][2]
For several years the two boats shared the river. That ended in fall 1980, when the Admiral Joe Fowler was destroyed in a dry-dock accident and retired, leaving the Irvine as the Magic Kingdom's only riverboat.[1] The names of both original boats later returned to the water elsewhere at the resort, carried by Magic Kingdom ferryboats on Seven Seas Lagoon.
In 1996 the Richard F. Irvine underwent a major refurbishment and emerged renamed Liberty Belle, a name chosen to tie the boat directly to Liberty Square, where its dock stood.[2] Under that name it operated for nearly three more decades, with periodic dry-dock refurbishments, as one of the park's most recognisable moving landmarks — its whistle and bell audible across Liberty Square and Frontierland.
Experience
The Liberty Belle was a working reproduction of a nineteenth-century Mississippi sternwheeler, about 47 feet tall with four decks and a capacity of roughly 450 guests.[3] It was genuinely steam-powered: a boiler converted river water to steam, and the steam engine turned the great stern paddlewheel that propelled the boat, although the vessel followed a submerged I-beam guide rail around the river rather than being steered freely.[3]
A circuit took roughly 17 minutes over about half a mile around Tom Sawyer Island.[4] Guests boarded at the Liberty Square dock and could move between decks during the voyage, viewing the working boiler and pistons on the lower deck, a salon with period photographs and maps, and the pilothouse on the top deck. Recorded narration framed the trip through the recollections of Samuel Clemens — Mark Twain — introduced by the boat's captain, Horace Bixby, as the pilot on his hundredth voyage, pointing out riverbank scenes, wildlife figures, Tom Sawyer Island and the growing Frontierland skyline along the way.[3]
Closure
In August 2024 Disney announced that the Magic Kingdom's Rivers of America would be removed for a Frontierland expansion themed to the American wilderness of Pixar's Cars films, together with a new Villains land beyond Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.[1] In June 2025 the replacement area was named Piston Peak National Park and the closure date was confirmed. The Liberty Belle made its final public voyages on July 6, 2025, and the riverboat, Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America closed permanently beginning July 7, 2025.[2] The drained riverbed has since been under construction for Piston Peak; Disney has announced two Cars attractions for the area but no opening date.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Liberty Belle Riverboat." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Belle_Riverboat
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island: Magic Kingdom's Lost Waterfront." WDW History. https://www.wdwhistory.com/rivers-of-america-tom-sawyer-island-history/
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Five Things to Know About the Liberty Square Riverboat." Touring Plans. https://touringplans.com/blog/five-things-to-know-about-the-liberty-square-riverboat/
- ↑ "There's Only One Way to Be a Pilot: Piloting the Mark Twain and the Liberty Belle." The Mouse For Less. https://www.themouseforless.com/blog_world/theres-one-way-pilot-piloting-mark-twain-liberty-belle/