I could make the argument this entry constitutes the most under-appreciated attraction on property. As I've been working on its entry -- one of the hardest on the entire list to put into words -- it's honestly dawning on me that I, too, am underappreciating Tom Sawyer Island.
It really is very hard to put into words, though. TSI deserves to be experienced; slowly, at a deliberate pace, poking around to find its secrets, without a set agenda. More than anything else, if you let it, the island evokes the idea of adventure.
Legendary video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has talked about the inspiration he got in video game design from being a child and exploring the woods of Sonobe, Japan. He talks of finding a cave and gathering the bravery to go in, or climbing a hill and discovering a lake he didn't know was there. I know I once read a direct quote from the man on the subject, but I can't find it for this article.
The important thing is that sense of discovery stayed with Miyamoto, and was with him as he designed the genre-defining adventure franchise The Legend of Zelda. Those games evoke that sense of wonder, excitement, and mystery that comes from entering the wilderness, and having the freedom to be surprised by what you find. As a fan of theme parks and Zelda -- and wandering around in the woods -- Miyamoto's description of his formative years has always struck me as such a great depiction of where adventure comes from.
Tom Sawyer Island brings that experience in a safe, controlled, theme park setting.
First, you should bookmark and read this article on TSI from the Internet's greatest authority on themed design, FoxxFur, which is inspiring elements of this post, and was written far better than what I am going to accomplish here.
Early on, she has a perfect description of TSI that I love:
Tom Sawyer Island is essentially a collection of low-tech gags that build to an imaginative space of astonishing richness. Many of the gags could've been thought up and installed by almost any theme park - but they weren't. Like the best Disney special effects, the disarming transparent simplicity of the Island gags encourage our imaginations to fill in the blanks - and that's how it gets to us. Tom Sawyer Island is one of the very last flowerings of a primal mode of themed design representation which most closely resembles a magic trick - rather, misdirection.
For many of the attractions on this list, especially many coming up, a simple design pulling off an amazing effect is a common trait. TSI is absolutely covered in that sort of thing. There are no mind-blowing special effects here, just a collection of simple concepts arranged in a way to keep you excited.
She goes into detail into the Magnetic Mystery Mine being a bon-a-fide version of the roadside mystery spot still in operation today. This mine isn't even an advertised part of your experience, just an element you find as you wander around. You go inside, and you get your sense of gravity and orientation completely warped.
Keep exploring and you'll find a thrilling cave to spelunk. In the back of the woods, a rope bridge takes you to another island, where an old fort has plenty to mess around with; and yet another cave for escaping to a barrel bridge. Wrap back around, and you can travel through an old abandoned mill with a running water wheel. The meandering trails feel natural in their carefully curated aimlessness, giving you no direction or control over when are where you want your adventure to go, with the thick foliage simultaneously inviting you to find out what's around the bend and keeping you from the knowledge of what it might be. There's almost a sense of, "is it okay for me to be here?"
Balancing that at-your-own-pace excitement are spots for calm and serenity. One of my fondest memories in my entire life of going to Walt Disney World was a morning sitting on the dock playing checkers with a friend, while an audience came to watch. The sittin' spots of Tom Sawyer Island are away from the bustle of the park, but still with a view. As you sit in a rocking chair, or play a round of checkers, you can watch the crowds scurry through Frontierland, listen to the screams on Splash Mountain, and take in the splendor of the Liberty Belle spouting steam and splashing through the Rivers of America on its way past. It's an absolute idyllic experience like few others in the park if you're willing to take a moment to experience it, and it just so perfectly yins along with the yang of that Zelda-style adventure under the cover of trees.
It's important to the entire conceit, as well, that you reached this island by a whole ride system that separated you from the rest of the park. The rafts are fun and busy all on their own, but crossing that barrier of water creates an emphatic disconnect from the park at large. You are somewhere quieter, you are somewhere remote, and you are somewhere relatively on your own where there's stuff to be found.
That requires a little bit of effort, obviously, and taking some time out of your perfectly-planned time-sensitive theme park day. It also takes a little bit of turning off the part of your brain that expects to be guided, and switching on the part of your brain that is okay with finding; not necessarily easy to do, so it is perhaps understandable TSI maybe doesn't get the love it deserves.
Make no mistake, though, it is an absolute gem in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, and an important one at that. If you have not yet spent a few hours just existing there, you should probably try it. Again, quoting FoxxFur:
Why do I think Tom Sawyer Island stands high among WED Enterprises' finest creations? Because it both requires and supplies imagination - a little bit goes a long way. It's the retreat inside the retreat - the ritualistic crossing on the raft, the swaying of rocking chairs, the dapple light through the trees becomes a space which perhaps supplies little if we are not willing to stop, look, and listen, but becomes tremendously real and hauntingly deep. Harper's Mill and Potter's Windmill and Fort Langhorn feel as ancient and real today as anything at Walt Disney World, and the effect can be spooky as well as transcendent - like the rest of the Magic Kingdom was just built around it, and there it remains as it has for perhaps a hundred and fifty years.
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