Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA, is a theme park destination resort owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts segment of The Walt Disney Company.
It opened on October 1, 1971 with the Magic Kingdom, and has since added Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom. In addition to these four main theme parks, the resort contains two water parks, six golf courses, a sports complex, an auto race track, more than twenty resort hotels, and numerous shopping, dining, and entertainment offerings. The 47-square-mile (122km2) property is the largest theme park resort in the world. However once completed, the yet-to-open Dubai Land in Dubai, UAE is expected to become the largest entertainment complex in the world.
Concept
Walt Disney originally envisioned what would eventually become the Walt Disney World Resort as a resort that would have a Magic Kingdom somewhat larger and more elaborate than the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland. There was also to be of course various housing for guests to the resort, along with an industrial park, main resort terminal, and a futuristic airport, but most importantly was Walt Disney's "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow", or EPCOT as it is better known with respect as an acronym. EPCOT was also known as Progress City. However plans for EPCOT would drastically change after Walt Disney's death. EPCOT became EPCOT Center, the second theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Much later, concepts from the original idea of EPCOT would be integrated into the community of Celebration, Florida.
Walt Disney focused most of his attention on the "Florida Project" both before and after his participation at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, but died in December of 1966, almost five years short of seeing his vision realized.
There is no official documentation showing that the Walt Disney World Resort was to be originally spelled as "Disneyworld", for it was already going to be far different than "Disneyland". However Walt Disney did originally reference the Walt Disney World Resort as both "Disney World" and "The Disney World", with both of these versions using the same font that was used in the spelling of Disneyland.
After Walt Disney's death, the title of "Disney World" was settled upon, to be presented in a modern font instead of the original Disneyland font. To reinforce the updated name and image, Disney World's official symbol was to be an oversized "D" with the face of Mickey Mouse depicted as the lines of latitude and longitude of this new World.
While Disneyland has kept its original font, it has lost nearly all references to its offical symbol. Walt Disney World put an end to use of both its original font and official symbol at the conclusion of Walt Disney World's 25th Anniversary Celebration in 1996. The official symbol, however, can still be found in many places around the Walt Disney World Resort, as well as in recent merchandise that uses it once again.
In the end, it was Roy O. Disney, Walt Disney's older brother, who would dedicate the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World, and would officialy proclaim "Disney World" as "Walt Disney World" in his brother's honor.
Properties
A popular misconception is that the resort exists in Orlando, Florida. In fact, the entire Walt Disney World property is outside Orlando city limits; the majority sits within southwestern Orange County, with the remainder in adjacent Osceola County to the south.
Most of Walt Disney World's Central Florida land, and all of the public areas, are located in the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, located southwest of Orlando and a few miles northwest of Kissimmee. The land within Walt Disney World Resort is part of the Reedy Creek Improvement District which allows the Disney corporation to exercise quasi-governmental powers over the area.
Walt Disney World Resort's claim to being the largest theme park resort in the world will be passed on to Dubai Land, which will be twice its size, in 2006.
Walt Disney World Resort features four major theme parks, each with a main attraction that serves as its symbol:
- The Magic Kingdom (Cinderella Castle)
- Epcot (Spaceship Earth, the geodesic sphere.)
- Disney-MGM Studios (The Sorcerer's Hat, though formerly the 'Earful Tower' water tower represented it)
- Disney's Animal Kingdom (the Tree of Life)
There are also two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach (a third, River Country, is permanently closed), as well as the Disney's Wide World of Sports athletic complex.
The Downtown Disney area contains many shopping, dining, and entertainment venues, including DisneyQuest (a "virtual theme park" inside a building), the House of Blues, and a permanent Cirque du Soleil show (La Nouba).
Another notable aspect is the large number of hotel resort complexes on the Walt Disney World property. The non-themed hotels are owned by private, non-Disney hospitality companies such as Starwood, Holiday Inn, and Hilton. The themed resorts include:
- Disney's All-Star Movies Resort
- Disney's All-Star Music Resort
- Disney's All-Star Sports Resort
- Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
- Disney's Beach Club Resort
- Disney's Beach Club Villas
- Disney's BoardWalk Inn
- Disney's BoardWalk Villas
- Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
- Disney's Contemporary Resort
- Disney's Coronado Springs Resort
- Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
- Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa
- Disney's Old Key West Resort
- Disney's Polynesian Resort
- Disney's Pop Century Resort
- Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside (formerly Dixie Landings)
- Disney's Port Orleans Resort French Quarter (formerly Disney's Port Orleans Resort)
- Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa (formerly the Disney Institute)
- Disney's Wilderness Lodge
- Disney's Yacht Club Resort
- Shades of Green (named because of its location between two golf courses; it's currently leased by the United States Department of Defense and used for vacationing active and retired military personnel and their families)
- The Villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge
- Walt Disney World Dolphin (operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide)
- Walt Disney World Swan (operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide)
The Walt Disney World resort also includes five world-class golf courses. The five 18-hole golf courses are the Magnolia, the Palm, Lake Buena Vista, Eagle Pines, and Osprey Ridge (the last two are part of the Bonnet Creek Golf Club). There are two miniature golf courses: Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland.
Walt Disney World paved the way for many other theme parks and attractions in the area, including SeaWorld and Universal Studios, and helped make Orlando a popular tourist destination for people from all over the world.
When the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the Walt Disney World Resort employed about 5,500 cast members. Today it employs more than 57,000 cast members, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year. The largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World Resort has more than three thousand job classifications.
The Walt Disney World Resort also sponsors and operates the Walt Disney World College Program, an internship program that has US college students live on-site and work for the Resort, providing much of the theme park and resort "front line" cast members.
In a March 30, 2004 article in The Orlando Sentinel, Walt Disney World president Al Weiss gave some insight into how the parks are maintained:
- More than 5,000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering, including 650 horticulturists and 600 painters.
- Disney spends more than US$100 million every year on maintenance at the Magic Kingdom. In 2003, US$6 million was spent on renovating its Crystal Palace restaurant. 90 percent of guests say that the upkeep and cleanliness of the Magic Kingdom are excellent or very good.
- The streets in the parks are steam cleaned every night.
- There are cast members permanently assigned to painting the antique carousel horses; they use genuine gold leaf.
- There is a tree farm on-site, so that when a mature tree needs to be replaced, a thirty-year-old tree will be available to replace it.
There is a fleet of Disney-operated buses on property, branded Disney Transport free for use by resort and park guests. They are not to be confused with the Disney Cruise Line and Disney's Magical Express buses, which are run by Mears Transportation. Taxi boats link some locations. Two monorail lines also operate at Walt Disney World Resort: one links the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary and Polynesian and Grand Floridian resorts, and the Transportation and Ticket Center (with an express track in the other direction, only stopping at the TTC and the Magic Kingdom); the other links Epcot and the Transportation and Ticket Center.
Walt Disney World Resort covers a total of 47 square miles (122km2), about the size of San Francisco or twice the size of Manhattan. Less than one-quarter of the property has been developed. Another quarter has been set aside as a wilderness preserve.
According to Disney's "MouseMail" email newsletter: during the Christmas season, one hundred fifty truckloads of holiday decorations adorn the Walt Disney World Resort and 300,000 yards of ribbon and bows drape over 1,500 Christmas trees. Walt Disney World pastry chefs use more than 1,050 pounds of honey, 100 pounds of sugar, and 50 pounds of dark chocolate to bake gingerbread houses and other decorations for the holidays.
Popular attractions
- The Magic Kingdom
- Disney-MGM Studios
- Disney's Animal Kingdom
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Primeval Whirl
- Kali River Rapids
- DINOSAUR (formerly named Countdown to Extinction)
Development
In 1959, the Walt Disney Company, under the leadership of Walt Disney, began looking for land for a second resort to supplement Disneyland, which had opened in Anaheim in 1955. Market surveys revealed that only 2% of Disneyland's visitors came from east of the Mississippi River, where 75% of the population of the United States lived. Additionally, Walt Disney disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland, and wanted control of a much larger area of land for the new project.
Walt Disney first flew over the Orlando, Florida site, one of many, on November 22, 1963. He saw the good road network, including Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike, with McCoy Air Force Base, soon to become Orlando International Airport, to the east, and immediately fell in love with the site. When later asked why he chose it, he said, "the freeway routes, they bisect here."
However, the decision had not been made yet; no land had been purchased. If the news of Disney's new resort was leaked, land prices would soar. Thus everything was to be done in complete secrecy. To avoid a burst of land speculation, Disney used various dummy corporations and cooperative individuals to acquire 27,400 acres (111 km²) of land. The first five-acre (20,000 m²) lot was bought on October 23, 1964 by the Ayefour Corporation (a pun on Interstate 4). In May 1965, major land transactions were being recorded a few miles southwest of Orlando in Osceola County. Two large tracts totaling $1.5 million were sold, and smaller tracts of flatlands and cattle pastures were purchased by exotic-sounding companies such as the Latin-American Development and Management Corporation and the Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation. In addition to three huge parcels of land were many smaller parcels, referred to as "outs". Much of the land had been platted into five-acre (20,000 m²) lots in 1912 by the Munger Land Company and sold to investors. In most cases, the owners were happy to get rid of the land, being mostly swampland. Yet another problem was the mineral rights to the land, owned by Tufts College. Without the transfer of these rights, Tufts could come in at any time and demand the removal of buildings to obtain minerals.
After most of the land had been bought, the story was leaked to the Orlando Sentinel on October 20, 1965. A press conference was soon organized for November 15. At the conference, Walt Disney explained the plans for the site, including EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was to be a futuristic city.
The Reedy Creek Drainage District was incorporated on May 13, 1966 under Florida State Statutes Chapter 298, which gives powers including eminent domain to special Drainage Districts. To create the District, only the support of the landowners within was required.
Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966. From then on, his brother Roy Disney headed the project. For the past few years that the project had been in pre-production, it had been known simply as Disney World, but Roy Disney added "Walt" to the name to make it Walt Disney World. In his own words: "Everyone has heard of the Ford cars. But have they all heard of Henry Ford, who started it all? Walt Disney World is in memory of the man who started it all, so people will know his name as long as Walt Disney World is here."
On February 2, 1967, Roy Disney held a press conference in Winter Park, Florida. The role of EPCOT was emphasized in the film that was played, the last one recorded by Walt Disney before his death. After the film, it was explained that, for Walt Disney World to succeed, a special district would have to be formed: the Reedy Creek Improvement District with two cities inside it, the City of Bay Lake and the City of Reedy Creek (now the City of Lake Buena Vista). In addition to the standard powers of an incorporated city, which include tax-free bonds, the Improvement District would have total immunity from any current or future county or state land-use laws. The only areas where the District had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.
The laws forming the District and the two Cities was signed into law on May 12, 1967. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that the District was allowed to issue tax-exempt bonds for public projects within the district, despite the sole beneficiary being The Walt Disney Company.
Construction of drainage canals was soon begun by the Improvement District, and Disney built the first roads and the Magic Kingdom. Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground were also completed in time for the park's opening on October 1, 1971.
On opening day, Roy Disney gave an opening dedication, after which he asked Walt's widow Lillian what she thought of Walt Disney World. She replied, "I think Walt would have approved."
Development timeline
Tickets
Magic Your Way
Disney's "Magic Your Way" park ticket pricing, introduced in January 2005, is intended to make guests choose to spend more days on Disney property instead of visiting competing theme parks in the area; additional days at Disney can be much less expensive than a day at another park.
| Length | Adult ticket price (in US dollars) | The price increase to add this day |
|---|---|---|
| 1-Day | $59.75 | |
| 2-Day | $119 | $59.25 |
| 3-Day | $171 | $52 |
| 4-Day | $185 | $14 |
| 5-Day | $193 | $8 |
| 6-Day | $196 | $3 |
| 7-Day | $199 | $3 |
"Magic Your Way" also offers options such as the Park Hopper Option ($35 per ticket, allowing a guest to visit more than one park per day), the Water Park Fun & More Option ($45 per ticket, giving a guest between 2 and 5 visits to water parks, Pleasure Island, DisneyQuest, or Disney's Wide World of Sports), and the No Expiration Option (between $10 and $55 per ticket, without which the ticket will expire 14 days after its first use).
The Water Park Fun & More Option was known as the Magic Plus Pack Option from January 2, 2005, through October 1, 2005.
As part of the "Magic Your Way" package, Disney also created a service entitled "Disney's Magical Express" whereby guests staying on the Disney property will be able to take Disney transportation directly from the Orlando airport to their hotels, while their luggage is picked up (with participating airlines) and delivered to their rooms for them.
Annual Passes
The Annual Passes at Walt Disney World allows guests to have unlimited access to the parks during the year time period of their pass. There are a few levels of the Annual Passes including different prices for children.
- Premium Annual Passport - This allows guests to have unlimited access to The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, Pleasure Island, Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon, DisneyQuest, and Disney's Wide World of Sports complex. You also get complimentary parking.
- Annual Passport - This allows guests to have unlimited access to The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney MGM Studios, and Animal Kingdom. You also get complimentary parking.
- Florida Resident Seasonal Pass - This allows guests to have limited access to The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney MGM Studios, and Animal Kingdom. The ticket has black out dates that are around Christmas/New Years, Easter, most of June to August and Thanksgiving. You do not get complimentary parking. This is for Florida Residents only and requires proof of residency.
- Florida Resident Epcot After 4 Annual Pass - This allows guesets to have unlimited access to Epcot after 4pm. You do not get complimentary parking. This is for Florida Residents only and requires proof of residency.
(Tickets do not cover admission for activities or events separately priced.)
Business
The trade magazine "American Business" reports (as quoted by the Orlando Sentinel) these attendance figures for the four theme parks in 2004:
- Magic Kingdom, 15.17 million visitors
- Epcot, 9.4 million visitors
- Disney-MGM Studios, 8.26 million visitors
- Disney's Animal Kingdom, 7.82 million visitors
Park closures
The Walt Disney Company made history by closing its Florida theme parks for the first time during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which ended up avoiding the area.
The parks closed partway through the day on September 11, 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The parks re-opened the following day under heightened security.
Hurricanes Charley and Frances came through the area in summer 2004. The parks were closed for each. [1]
As a result of Hurricane Wilma, all the four theme parks, Typhoon Lagoon water park (Blizzard Beach water park already being closed for maintenance), resort amenities (Downtown Disney, the golf courses) and Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground were closed at the start of October 24, 2005. The Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Downtown Disney re-opened at 1:00pm. All remaining amenities re-opened at the scheduled time on October 25, 2005.
See also
- Carolwood Pacific Railroad
- Bay Lake, Florida
- Lake Buena Vista, Florida
- Reedy Creek Improvement District
- Walt Disney Travel Company, Incorporated
- Walt Disney World Company
- Walt Disney World Hospitality and Recreation Corporation
- Walt Disney World College Program
- Walt Disney World International Program
External link
Template:Noteworthy Amusement Parks
