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Liberty Belle Docks Backstage as Magic Kingdom’s Rivers of America Prepares to Shift Into High Gear
The final whistle has blown, and the Liberty Belle has steamed off into the backstage bayou. New aerial photos from @bioreconstruct offer a bird’s-eye farewell to the beloved Liberty Belle steamboat and Tom Sawyer Island rafts, which officially ceased operations on July 6, 2025. While guests may not see the change just yet from Main Street, a closer look from above paints a clear picture: the Rivers of America is now in a state of transition and transformation.
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In the photos, the Liberty Belle can be seen quietly staged in a backstage canal that links the Rivers of America to the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. This tucked-away waterway, nestled behind Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, is now a holding zone for the Liberty Belle and the retired Tom Sawyer Island rafts following their final day of guest operations on July 6, 2025.
What Disney hasn’t confirmed yet is the fate of the Liberty Belle herself. Will the classic steamboat be relocated, repurposed, or quietly retired to the annals of Disney history? At the moment, she sits silently backstage—her paddlewheel still, her boiler cold, but her legacy very much alive in the hearts of longtime Disney fans.
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While it’s full speed ahead for the next generation of themed lands as this area makes way for the Cars-themed expansion, this change marks a bittersweet goodbye to one of Magic Kingdom’s most relaxing corners. For decades, the Liberty Belle offered a gentle escape—an elegant nod to 19th-century Americana that was more about the journey than the destination.
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