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History of Walt Disney World


History of Walt Disney World

Disneyland was an unmitigated success. Walt Disney had created not just an amusement park, where children could ride kiddie rides while their parents watched from a bench, but the world's first theme park, a place where children and grown-ups could both have fun, together. But it was not long after Disneyland's 1955 opening that Walt realized that the available space in Anaheim was too small. He had his park, but he and his Imagineers were constantly coming up with new ideas, ideas that just weren't going to fit inside Disneyland. In the sixties, Walt began looking to the east coast, for a place with enough space to hold all of the ideas his team could dream up. He found such a place in Central Florida, southwest of the sleepy city of Orlando. Here, along the new Interstate 4, there was plenty of space, far more than would be needed for just a single theme park. Walt had grander ideas in mind for this "Florida Project" of his. After buying up over 27,000 acres (11,000�ha) of land on the sly, Walt announced his ambitious Disney World plans to the world. A theme park would be built, of course?a Magic Kingdom on the north end of the property. But to get there from I-4, guests would need to pass through the true centerpiece of the project: EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. EPCOT was Walt Disney's largest, most revolutionary idea yet?a real city, with 20,000 real people living and working within, making use of the most advanced technologies to grow food, provide transport, and enhance quality of life. Much of the technology was already in use at Disneyland?PeopleMovers and monorails, for instance?but these would not be amusement rides. EPCOT was to be a place where the Imagineers' ideas were put to practical use, for the betterment of all mankind. Alas, it was not to be. Walt died in December 1966, just as the Florida Project was coming to fruition. Without Walt to drive the project, the company board refused to undertake the ambitious EPCOT plans. But Walt's brother Roy O. Disney insisted the project as a whole go forward, starting with the Magic Kingdom. Roy changed the project's name to Walt Disney World; this new resort would be a tribute to Walt's vision, but would never really be the fulfillment of it. The Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971, with two hotels, a campground, and two golf courses nearby. It was an immediate success, single-handedly sparking the development of the Orlando area as one of the country's busiest vacation destinations. Though Roy died before the year ended, he had succeeded in getting his brother's final project off the ground. Walt Disney World's first decade passed quickly, and by the time of its "Tencennial" celebration in 1981, a new theme park was being built in the space Walt had envisioned for EPCOT. The new park would be called EPCOT Center, though it bore little resemblance to Walt's original plans. Instead, EPCOT Center would be a sort of "permanent world's fair", combining Future World, made up of grand pavilions devoted to human progress, with a World Showcase of meticulously detailed recreations of foreign lands. EPCOT Center opened in 1982, and was followed by a combination theme park and movie studio called Disney-MGM Studios in 1989, and then by Disney's Animal Kingdom, a zoological theme park, in 1998. Over the years, numerous resort hotels and recreational activities were added to support the increased attendance at the multi-park resort. Two large water parks were added in 1989 and in 1995. In addition, a remote area of the property that started as Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village evolved into the Disney Village Marketplace, and eventually expanded to become Downtown Disney, an adult-oriented shopping and entertainment district. Walt Disney never would have imagined what Walt Disney World has become, and it is far removed from his original vision. But one of his guiding principles was to "keep moving forward", and Disney World has done just that, becoming the largest and most popular theme park resort complex in the world.

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Walt Disney World Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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