Disney: Liberty Belle’s move requires digging, divers, darkness

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Disney World's Liberty Belle paddleboat makes endless loops around Tom Sawyer Island. But when theme park’s waterway was drained, the boat made its way elsewhere.

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Disney’s Liberty Belle has a well-established routine. The triple-decker paddleboat makes loops on the Rivers of America at Magic Kingdom, toting tourists around Tom Sawyer Island. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

But, recently, when theme park’s waterway was drained completely, the cycle was broken and the boat was able to see more of Walt Disney World than usual. Its journey included tugboats, an unplugged monorail, divers, Disney’s Contemporary Resort and a rare venture onto the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake.

And it happened under the cloak of darkness.

Disney World cast members oversee repositioning the 47-feet-tall Liberty Belle riverboat, guiding it beneath the monorail beam and back home to Liberty Square. (Kent Phillips / Courtesy photo)

Disney’s primary objective was to replace the steel rail that’s built into the riverbed and guides the Liberty Belle along its course near the back of the park. That spawned multiple projects, including repairs of the basin and rock work along the shore and general maintenance for the island.

“We replaced the entire main loop and a little bit of the spur and the track switch between them,” said Katrina Mutuc, a Disney World planner for facility asset management. She was with project from the beginning, which included coordination by multiple Disney departments, ranging from entertainment to watercraft engineering. Moving the paddleboat was a multinight, multistep procedure

“No one had drained the river in 25 years, so trying to pinpoint exactly what was the right time to bring her back here ... here ... and here — based on how high the river level was — was a little difficult,” she said.

First, Liberty Belle floated via a rail spur to an off-stage area, made a hard left down a canal, eventually going under the monorail line between the park and Grand Floridian resort. A pedestrian bridge was moved to allow Liberty Belle out onto Seven Seas Lagoon.

It was then maneuvered past the entrance of Magic Kingdom toward Disney’s Contemporary Resort and onto Bay Lake, moving north again to a watercraft maintenance facility within sight of Space Mountain. It waited out the Rivers of America repairs there.

It was a 2.5-mile trip that took between two and three hours, Disney said.

The Liberty Belle sails past Tom Sawyer Island during technical rehearsal at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World on Thursday, the eve of the famed boatÕs reopening to park guests. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Complicating matters: Liberty Belle’s rear paddlewheel works, but the vessel cannot be steered. Therefore, workers with ropes stood on the banks of the canal, guiding it to the lagoon, where a cruiser and tugboat anchored it into place as it sailed the Seven Seas, Mutuc said.

Before that, the 47-foot-tall boat had to get under the monorail line between Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort.

“For safety reasons, we couldn’t run the monorail over her so we had to do, like, a de-energizing of that section of the monorail beam, so that she could safely pass underneath,” Mutuc said.

The Liberty Belle is tugged across the water bridge that connects Bay Lake and Seven Seas Lagoon near Disney’s Contemporary Resort. (David Roark / Courtesy photo)

Moving Liberty Belle in the wee hours was an operational decision.

“She has to pass through the path of the ferryboats, so it’s really just to make sure that everything else runs as normal during the day,” Mutuc said.

Liberty Belle is a Magic Kingdom mainstay. It was the second riverboat for the Rivers of America and originally named the Richard F. Irvine for its 1973 debut. In 1996, it was rehabbed and renamed Liberty Belle, Disney says. The Admiral Joe Fowler riverboat floated through the park from October 1971 through 1980.

Liberty Belle’s most recent off-the-rails trip was in 2018 when it got a new boiler and paint job while in dry dock. It is inspected annually in-park, Disney said. That was the last partial draining of the Rivers area; it was last completely drained in 1996, Disney said.

During Liberty Belle’s recent staycation, there was work to do all along the river. After it was drained last fall, about 4,000 cubic yards of sand and sediment were removed and taken to a landfill.

“That was a very long effort, literally physically shoveling it out from under all of the docks across the river,” Mutuc said. With that and water out of the way, workers could inspect the property and assess what fixes needed to be made.

“You don’t get the opportunity to see it that up-close and personal very often,” she said.

Without water in there, it’s easier to do routine maintenance on items such as the lift stations for the bathrooms on Tom Sawyer Island. The Harpers Mill structure was treated to new wood and paint. Docks, both functional and decorative, received attention. Workers and trucks can be on the bed, and welders got the new essential rail in place.

The return trip from dry dock for Liberty Belle was spread over three nights, getting as far as the canal, then the underwater locks before approaching the new track. That step required hands-on, underwater work by cast members.

“There are divers that will install the guide wheels … and actually align her back onto the track,” Mutuc said. “We have dive-trained technicians.”

Liberty Belle paddles through its usual paces, including a pass by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster, on the Rivers of America after the area's recent four-month refurbishment. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

The paddleboat was secured, and Magic Kingdom visitors could spy her from Frontierland by Thursday. The attraction is scheduled to open to the public Friday. The process went much as anticipated, Mutuc said, who worked to keep all teams coordinated and “making sure that everyone’s piece of the puzzle is completed in time,” she said.

“I think that was probably the biggest challenge.”