Sandwich bags and bottles of 'genuine' Splash Mountain water have flooded online auction sites. Photo / Screenshot
Sandwich bags and bottles of 'genuine' Splash Mountain water have flooded online auction sites. Photo / Screenshot
Disney fans are paying hundreds of dollars for “Authentic” theme park water, after an historic fair ride was shut down last week.
Listings from online auction site Ebay are now awash with theme park memorabilia from the log flume which was decommissioned after 30 years. Among the strangest appear to be plastic bottles and Gladwrap sandwich bags of water from the ride which closed last Sunday.
Bottles claiming to contain “Genuine Splash Mountain water” are flooding online auction sites.
A 250ml tin of water claiming to have come from the Florida park on the last day of operation had a starting price of $150.
As of Friday, a bidding war for a 500ml bottle of “genuine” water from the Disney ride was being led by a bid for US$1,100 ($1,550) after a fierce round of 39 bids.
The auctions attracted ridicule online with people splashing out huge sums for water that was not discernibly different from tap water.
“There’s no way to verify its authenticity. For all you know you could be buying pool water someone shoved in a jar,” wrote one sceptical Redditor to the Disney Parks discussion board. Other hardcore fans begged to differ.
Disney fans claim to be able to tell the 'difference' between park water and other sources. Photo / Unsplash, Brian McGowan
Peddlers said that water Disney parks had a unique smell and this was down to the water being sanitised using Bromine instead of Chlorine.
The Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s a Small World rides also use Bromine treated water, which some Disney fans claim to have a scent laced with nostalgia. Others refer to the odour simply as “weird” and “musty”.
Plug pulled on log flume after 30 years
Splash Mountain opened at Florida’s Walt Disney World in 1992.
In 2020 it was deemed that the themes of slavery in the ride based on the film ‘Song of the South’ were inappropriate.
After a petition on Change.org, Disney announced that the ride would get a total makeover to tie in with the Louisiana-based animation “The Princess and the Frog.”
In 2020, Disney announced it would replace the ride’s controversial “Song of the South” theme with “The Princess and the Frog.”
On its last day of operation last Sunday, fanatical park attendees queued for hours, pushing ride wait times to over 220 minutes.
