It's the most magical place on Earth, goes the saying, and with roughly 17
million visitors annually, it seems like the saying might be right. Disney World
in Orlando, Florida is one of the top attractions for people of all ages, from
families with children to adults who simply want to escape their grownup
responsibilities and play like kids for a while. Walt Disney's vision for a
theme park in central Florida has come to fruition in spectacular fashion, even
though the visionary founder did not live to see all of his ideas come to life.
The staff at Disney World works extremely hard to keep the magic alive,
giving every guest a truly wonderful time during their stay at the parks.
Disney World has a unique history with complex multiple theme parks in one
location and the crew has determination to keep many of the parks' inner
workings out of public view in order to avoid spoiling the magic. There are
numerous fascinating facts about Disney World to explore and here are 15 of
the
highlights.
15) Lost and Found
When people travel and sightsee, it's inevitable that occasionally their
personal possessions are lost. With the number of great activities available at
Disney World, it's even more inevitable that distracted guests will misplace
their phones, sunglasses, hats, bags, or other items now and then. Every year,
approximately 6,000 phones, 3,500 digital cameras and 18,000 hats are turned in
to Disney's lost and found. Since it is Disney World, the process of retrieving
lost items is approached through art. A travel reporter describes his own adventures with lost and found items, gives some insight into
the process by which Disney does its best to reunite every lost possession with
a grateful owner. Every two hours all lost and found items are taken to the main
Guest Relations office at the front of each theme park, where owners can ask for
their missing items if they lost them earlier in the day. At the end of the day,
any unclaimed items go to a special Lost and Found office located near the
Transportation and Ticket Center. This office has its own phone number where
guests can inquire about their lost items.
A few of the most unusual items ever submitted to Disney World's Lost and
Found office include a potty trainer, a prosthetic leg and a glass eye. All of
them, incidentally, were later claimed.
14) It's Enormous.
No, Really Enormous
Anyone who has walked all day exploring even one of Disney World's theme parks,
especially the sprawling
Epcot or
Animal Kingdom, can tell you about the size of
the parks. Their aching feet might state the case even more eloquently and that
is because the property owned by Disney in Florida is truly epic in scale. When
Walt Disney was planning for his new theme park project in Florida, he was
guided by the experience of Disneyland in California where it was in a built up area
with little room to grow. Unsatisfied with the constraints of that location,
Disney wanted a vast area where his visions for a new theme park and resort
could really come about. As a result, Disney World actually owns more than
30,000 acres of land in central Florida, roughly 43 square miles. This is twice
as large as Manhattan, or roughly the same size as Boston and San Francisco.
Only about 35 percent of this land has been developed.
Aerial view of Magic Kingdom, just a fraction of Walt
Disney World
13) The Work Never
Ends
Talking about working in a place like Disney World should be a sin, you are
there to have fun! Forget about things like customers, deadlines, or working
shifts. None of that exists in Disney World, except for all the people
that work there. It’s odd to think about the people that get to dress up as
princesses, talking animals or even pirates as working but that’s what they are
doing nonetheless. There are also myriad people who work their shifts every day
in Disney World. From the ones you see, like workers at resorts and restaurants,
to the ones you can’t see, milling around in the shadows and behind closed doors
to make sure everything works as it should, so nothing can ruin your days of fun.
The number of people working in Disney World is as staggering as the size of
the park but perhaps precisely because of how big it is, it should not surprise
you to know that Disney World hosts a horde of more than 62,000 workers. It is the largest single place employer in the whole USA. There are towns
smaller than that and considering that many live right there in the park, it’s
as if Disney World is its own country.
Disney Crew
12) The Mice’s
Wardrobe
You would think that a mouse and his rodent girlfriend wouldn’t need much
clothing. You are already grateful enough that Walt Disney designed Mickey Mouse
to wear pants and that Minnie wears a dress. Considering that the
characters hardly, if ever change clothes in the cartoon, what kind of wardrobe
Mickey and Minnie Mouse have is not something you stop to think about.
That’s why it’s such a shocker when you hear that Mickey has more than 290
outfits, that's more clothes than most people have in their life. The
Mouse has everything from scuba suits to tuxedos and Mickey is not the
only one of course, his girlfriend boasts an impressive wardrobe of 200
pieces herself that range from cheerleader outfits to night gowns. It’s
interesting to note that Mickey
has more outfits than his girlfriend, the sassy rascal! You have to wonder if he is a fashion victim
but more importantly, when would he ever need to wear a scuba suit?
Mickey and Minnie in Lavish Clothing
11) Those Socks
Smell Awful
Everybody hates doing laundry because it’s annoying, it takes time and having to
shuffle through smelly clothes that have been sitting all week is not the most pleasant experience. But there is no choice
because you don’t have enough clothes to do laundry every day and who does that
anyway?
Disney World does that every day, several times in fact! Just imagine it, all
of those worker’s uniforms, suits, costumes and stuffed animal suits. It never
ends and in Disney World, it’s laundry day every day. Just so you can raise
your eyebrows really high and never again complain about washing your undies;
you should know that Disney World washes a total of more than 285 thousand
pounds of clothes every day. It would take you 52 years to go through so much
laundry.
And just to make things funnier, there is the addition of having to dry clean
more than 32 thousand items a day, too. Guess fake fur is not exactly something
you can shove into the washing machine with your undies after all.
Tiny Pile of Laundry compared to Disney World's
10) It’s All in Your
Eyes
Disney World is all magic and fantasy but what you don’t expect is to be
tricked into seeing things that are not even there. That’s not magic, just a very clever and neat optical illusion. If you have ever
heard or seen a picture of forced perspective, this is what allows those cool
chalk paintings on the pavement to look like they are real and
three dimensional. Seen from the right angle, it can make you seem like you are
about to walk into a chasm.
That’s what they did for the Cinderella castle but in a more incredible
manner, if that is possible. The fiberglass building is not small, not at all.
It’s a full 179 feet high but that is not quite impressive enough for a castle.
That’s why the bricks and windows at the top are smaller than the ones at the
base, this makes it look like they are higher up. The main road to the castle is
also angled in such a way that the castle always looks to be further away than it
really is and like it should be smaller. It’s cranking the forced perspective trick up to eleven
but a little tricking is worth it when the result is so spectacular.
Cinderella Castle
9) Message from the
Afterlife
Morse code is not exactly a skill everyone learns, mostly because it stopped being
useful centuries ago. Learning it nowadays wouldn’t help you find a job or boast
much to your friends, unless you hang out with octogenarians. Back in the
days of the Old West, Morse code was used as much as the Internet or cellphones are
nowadays. That’s why at the entrance of FrontierLand they are constantly
clicking a message in Morse code.
The good part about it is that it’s not just a random message urging you to
buy more Coke or Mickey-eared hats. No, the message you can hear is none other
than the opening day speech that Walt Disney had prepared for the inauguration
of the park. Sadly, the man died from lung cancer complications before the first
brick was even put in place, so instead you have this Morse message. It’s nice
to hear Walt’s welcoming speech every day for the inauguration that he
never lived to see.
FrontierLand Entrance
8) Animal Wars
All the animals you see in Disney World are of the cuddly, stuffed kind that
hides a sweaty, half-dehydrated person inside. Not only those but there are many
other animals in rides, statues, figures, projections, and
animatronics. You don’t usually expect to see living animals except at the
petting zoo. That’s why it comes as such a shock when you encounter a feral cat roaming around
parts of Disney World.
There are not just a couple of them either, a whole army of cats patrol
Disney World’s territory like a very scary and small version of Mufasa's
family. These cats are not some worker’s pets that run away and started having
kittens, either. Disney World has them on purpose and they have a very clear
task, dealing with rodents. No, they are not going to maul Mickey and Minnie any
time soon! It’s real rodents that these cats hunt down and keep under control
because pests are never fun, even less in your thematic park.
Feral Disney Cat at Work
Another cute animal with a hunting job in Disney World is the ladybug. These
adorable dotted bugs are released to fight and eat other more pernicious
insects. The park has a lot of gardens and flowers that need to be cared for,
so the little black and red warriors help the gardeners keep the plants
pest free.
Ladybugs help with plant pests
7) The Early Bird
Catches the Worm
When you are on vacations the last thing you want to think about is waking up
early, nobody likes rising with the sun if you don’t have to because that’s
something you already have to do when you go to work. Of course, your kids would
disagree a thousand percent of the time on that account. School days are to
procrastinate via waking up ten minutes before the school bus arrives but vacations are days to
get up as early as humanly possible and still be able to say it’s morning.
At least in Disney World, the kids have an excuse and it’s worth it!
For really early visitors, you can participate in special events that only
happen first thing in the morning. For example, if you go to Tinkerbell’s shop
then
your children will have the privilege of waking her up. Let’s hope she is a
morning person and doesn’t demand breakfast in bed.
Tinkerbell's Nook
6) Where Is the Car,
Again?
If there is something about Disney World you cannot complain about, it's the
parking space. Okay, there are a million things you can’t complain about in
Disney World because it’s Disney World! You would have to be the biggest grump in the
world to be complaining while in there but returning to the matter at hand, the
parking space would not be one of them even if you were a curmudgeon with a
severe allergy to fun. For starters, each of the parking areas is named after
one of the dwarves in Snow White. There can be little joys in life better than
being able to say that you parked all the way up in Grumpy. The other reason is
the space because Disney World’s parking lot is huge, really huge. If you think
the
Magic Kingdom is big, know that the parking lot could have the MK inside and
still have space to fit 500 cars. You are going to need a car ride to get to
where you parked, and thankfully there are shuttles to bring you to the area
where you parked.
There is a very infamous rumor going around that says that there is a secret
tunnel labyrinth going all around Disney World’s underbelly and unlike many rumors,
this one is 100 percent true. The net of tunnels was built very intentionally
and for a very normal reason. It’s Disney World sure but don’t think a system
of tunnels can only be built for some ham fisted villain scheme to conquer the
world.
The tunnels are used by the workers to travel from one point to the other of
the facilities without being seen by the visitors of the park. You don’t usually
see any maintenance workers, cleaning crews or dozens of laundry carts being
pulled around the place because they are all under your feet. Actors and
performers also use the tunnels to go to their scheduled performances without
being stopped by every tourist and never make it in time.
The most interesting part about these tunnels is that they are not
underground and they have never been. They are actually at ground level and
Magic Kingdom was built on top, using the soil extracted to make the Seven Seas
lagoon to build up the kingdom’s slopes.
4) Cinderella Suite
Perhaps the Cinderella castle is smaller than your eyes tell you but that
doesn’t mean it’s still not big enough to have plenty of room inside. Enough
room to build a whole apartment within its walls was the plan Walt Disney had
for it. The man
had planned to build a living space for him and his family at the top of the
fiberglass building so they would have a place to stay at when visiting Florida.
Due to his premature death, the project was never finished. However, Disney World decided to carry on with the plan and build a
deluxe hotel suite in 2006 that's not only for the obscenely rich. Every day the suit is
assigned to a random visiting family, who can spend the night in lavish comfort.
How lavish do you say? It has 24-karat gold floor tiles and a secret mirror that turns into a
TV, there must be a lot of luggage checks to make sure nobody tries to get some
floor tiles home as a “souvenir”.
Cinderella Castle Suite
3) That’s One Heavy
Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain is a very well known attraction of Disney World and one
heck of a roller coaster ride. It's obviously no surprise that it took a lot of
planning, hard work and tons of material to turn it from a draft on a paper to
reality. What is surprising is just how much planning, work and material it
required. After all it’s just some steep slopes, dips, loops and that’s
all. Right? Wrong.
The designers of Big Thunder Mountain would strongly disagree; they would
disagree for about ten years. That’s how long it took to design and plan the
rollercoaster. The building part took far less time, clocking in at a mere 18
months. This coaster took more than your standard concrete, paint and steel
seams. In all, 650 tons of steel, 4,675 tons of a specially designed mud and
9,000 gallons of paint were needed. Big Thunder Mountain ended costing 17
million dollars, just as much has the whole Magic Kingdom cost when it was built
in 1955.
2) Copycats
Disney World is a magic, unique place in the world or it was, until other Disney
theme parks began cropping up around the world. Disneyland came
first, so in a way Disney World was a bigger and brighter copy of the original.
Since then, other parks have been built in Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. Some of the most
popular, iconic rides that have been reproduced on the other Disney parks are
Space Mountain, Country Bear Jamboree, Innoventions and Mickey’s House. So the
mouse is not just happy with having a bigger wardrobe, he also has six residences abroad!
One thing that Disney World doesn’t have and Disneyland does is the
secretive, exclusive Club 33. This club is hidden from prying eyes
inside the park, only members know how to enter and can do so because the
waiting list is years long. On top of this distinction, each of the
international Disney parks have features of their own that set them apart from food items to cultural touchstones that have meaning to their host
countries. Each park therefore is at once familiar and new with something
unique to offer visitors despite their similarities to each other.
1) Hidden Mickeys
Probably one of the funniest games you can play during your visit at Disney
World is trying to find all of the Hidden Mickeys. These secret pictures of the
world's most famous mouse head were at first a private joke between the
Imagineers, the designers of Disney World, but soon it became a sort of
tradition. You can find some of the most obvious ones as paintings on walls and
corners but some of the hardest ones to find can be shadows, silhouettes or
statues that only have the right shape when you see them from a special angle.
Disney World updates the list of hidden Mickeys regularly, adding new entries
that the visitors can find during the stay but the real number of them might be
Disney World’s best kept secret!
Hidden Mickey
Conclusion
Disney World is certainly a magic place but it’s not only because of the rides
and cartoon characters going around giving free hugs, while staying in character. There is a magic that
lies deep in the bones of the place from when and how it was conceived, built
and operated even to this day. It's in the way everything is designed to make
you feel like you've really been transported to a fairy tale or in this case,
the stories that made up your childhood. This sense of wonder, nostalgia and
happiness is what makes Disney World one of the most magical places on the
planet. It's why so many people flock every year to see it, most returning
several times during their lives.
Fantasy and imagination are the way people escape from the harshness of
reality. You do it every day too, when work is too taxing, when money is tight,
when your health is not the best. Usually it’s small escapes: watching a TV
show you enjoy, reading a good book or playing a favorite game. However, it’s only
in Disney World where you can completely forget what worries are for a whole
day or for as long as you stay. It's about getting immersed in that wonderful
fantasy you dream about and it’s the reason it will keep having thousands of
visitors every year, for years to come. As long as there are dreams and
imagination, there will be a Disney World.
References:
10) It’s All in Your Eyes - 7) The Early Bird Catches the
Worm
"The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World" by Susan Veness, a book on
Disney World attractions. - (Cinderella's castle facts, welcoming
speech, feral cat colony, and early morning events.)
6) Where Is the Car, Again? - 5) Secret Tunnel
Disney Trivia – (Parking lot facts, tunnels under the park.)
www.disneytrivia.net
1) Hidden Mickeys
Hidden Mickeys – (Secret images of Mickey all over the park.)
www.hiddenmickeys.org
