Credit: Paul Beattie, FlickrWalt Disney World Resort recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and the legacy of this theme park destination is one that will continue for many more years to come.
Nestled in Orlando, Central Florida, Disney World consists of four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom), two water parks (Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon and Disney’s Blizzard Beach), and the Disney Springs restaurant and retail area, as well as over 20 resort hotels.
The sheer size of Disney World is one that is hard to comprehend. Coming in at well over 25,000 acres, Walt Disney’s Florida Resort is the same size as the entire city of San Francisco.
Millions of Guests visit the Parks year after year, with Magic Kingdom Park — which opened five decades ago in 1971 — being the number one most visited theme park in the world. Despite sharing the same Resort, the other Disney World theme parks fell below the attendance of Universal’s Islands of Adventure, which was revealed in a recent report.
Disney World’s location in the Sunshine State is what attracts so many tourists to Florida year after year. But let’s not forget that Disneyland Resort came first.
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Disneyland Park, Disney California Adventure Park, and the Downtown Disney District make up the Disneyland Resort found in Anaheim, Southern California. Opening in July 1955, Disneyland offered Guests to step inside the magic of Walter Elias Disney’s mind and experience 20 attractions that would set the precedent for the five other theme park Resorts to come.
Following the successful opening of Disneyland, Walt turned his attention to the next big thing: a Disney World. After secret planning, which included looking for land to house an even bigger destination than Disneyland, the site near Bay Lake — known to insiders as The Florida Project — became the beating heart of The Walt Disney Company.
Eventually, Disney’s plans became known after he and his team used various dummy corporations to make headway with the Resort planning. It was the Orlando Sentinel that caused Disney to reveal his plans in Florida. In May 1965, the Sentinel acknowledged a rumor that the mystery planning in Florida could potentially be tied to Disney, although stated there was no confirmation.
Then, in 1965, Emily Bavar, from the Sentinel, visited Disneyland for its 10th anniversary and, upon interviewing Walt, asked about the land purchases in Florida. His reaction, paired with previously attained knowledge, saw Bavar writing an article predicting that the land being bought in Florida was for a new Disney Park. Then, a few days later, the Sentinel published their now-famous piece, “We Say: ‘Mystery Industry’ Is Disney.”
Planning for a November announcement, the Orlando Sentinel‘s deep dive twisted Walt’s arm into announcing his plans for a Disney World in late October when he asked the then Florida Governor Haydon Burns to confirm the Sentinel‘s story.
What should have been years of celebration, excitement, and anticipation turned into mourning as just a year later, in December 1966, Walter Elias Disney passed away after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He would never get to see The Florida Project, or Walt Disney World Resort — as his brother Roy O. Disney would name it to honor Walt — which opened with the Magic Kingdom five years later.
Following Walt’s death, Roy took over the planning and execution of Disney World, and it was he who was responsible for the formation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Created with the idea to bring Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (later, EPCOT) to life, the Reedy Creek Improvement District was Disney’s in-house self-governing authority for over 50 years.
That was until the political disruption in Florida between Disney and FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, who renamed the RCID, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and appointed five non-Disney affiliated board members to run the special district.
The Magic Kingdom expansion.
Returning to the 60s and Roy would postpone his retirement to take on the lead in the project, ensuring Walt’s wishes were granted, saying to his team at the time: “We are going to finish this park [in Florida], and we’re going to do it just the way Walt wanted it… Don’t you ever forget it. I want every one of you to do just exactly what you were going to do when Walt was alive” (via Click Orlando).
But that didn’t stop some from challenging Walt’s wishes about the Magic Kingdom expansion in Florida, however, as some wanted Magic Kingdom built right by the I-4 and 192.
“Walt’s wishes remained top of mind the whole time. When some executives proposed building the Magic Kingdom where 192 & I-4 met to save on road costs, Roy shut it down firmly, saying, “I want to continue with Walt’s plan. So let’s quit wasting time on these meetings,” Click Orlando reports.
Walt would be passionate about his Florida theme park until the very end, as just hours before his death, he used the ceiling tiles in his room at St. Joseph’s Hospital to plot the layout of his Resort.
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Magic Kingdom would open, along with both the Polynesian Resort and the Contemporary Resort, in October 1971. Just two and a half months later, Roy O. Disney passed away from a stroke.
Now, the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is a behemoth of a theme park, featuring lands such as Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Adventureland, the iconic Main Street, U.S.A., and attractions like Space Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Most recently, the Disney Park opened TRON Lightcycle / Run in Tomorrowland and will potentially soon begin on a new expansion project teased at last year’s D23 Expo.
Josh D’Amaro revealed that “blue sky” plans were being explored for both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, with the former including new themed areas in the area beyond Big Thunder, including Coco (2017), Encanto (2021), and the iconic Disney Villains. At present, there have been no further announcements or reports on these plans.
Did you know the Magic Kingdom expansion of the Disney Park empire could have been closer to the roads? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!