My Grandfather at Discovery Island

An Old Photo

My grandfather stands across the way at Discovery Island at Walt Disney World in the late 1980s in this photo scanned in from an old negative.

Yes, this photo is a bit grainy and not well lit. But for me, this photo is definitely a keeper. That is because my grandfather passed away 29 years ago. So I was happy to find this photo when I was scanning in negatives. I am pretty sure that this photo was taken in 1987 if you are wondering.

This is just another reason to take photos when you can because you never know when you will not have another chance.

Discovery Island

Also if you are wondering, Discovery Island was a nature park kind of place in Bay Lake at Walt Disney World. It was the home of lots of different kinds of birds, as well as a few other animals. Discovery Island required a ticket for admission, and it was accessed by a boat that left from the Fort Wilderness campground.

We visited Discovery Island once or twice. I took several photos of the birds, and some photos of the plants and scenery, too. But I am sure I would appreciate it much more now than I did back then as a teenager. Things like that are somewhat lost on teenagers and younger. But I was happy to go just to say that I had been somewhere else at Walt Disney World.

The island itself is still there because there is not a good way to remove an island. And there appear to still be several birds living there, although now they live there by their own choice instead of in captivity. But there is no guest access to Discovery Island these days. It became somewhat obsolete when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998. And the name of the central area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom where the Tree of Life is located? Discovery Island. So they could not very well have two Discovery Islands, could they?

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. - Ecclesiastes 12:13