Walt Disney World has it all—four theme parks including Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, two water parks, and 34 hotels and resorts. There’s truly something for everyone at the Florida entertainment complex.
But one thing you won’t find are mosquitoes. While Florida is known for its humidity and swamplands, which the pesky insects are drawn to, you’ll have to look really hard to find any of them at the park.
That is just one of the things that make “The Most Magical Place on Earth” special. Read on to find out how this place came to be and the genius solutions that make it so different from its surroundings.
Disneyland’s Success
“The Most Magical Place on Earth” opened its gates in October 1971. Walt Disney World is situated in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. After the major success of Anaheim, California’s Disneyland, which opened in 1955, Disney decided it was time to build a resort in the Sunshine State.
At the time, according to market research, only 5% of Disneyland’s visitors travelled from east of the Mississippi River, even though 75% of the country's population lived there.
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Walt Disney wasn’t a huge fan of the businesses that had come up around Disneyland and he wanted control over a larger area of land, and so, the idea of Disney World was born.
Untapped Market
With the potential that the eastern side of the United States had, Walt Disney was excited to explore the untapped market. Before deciding on Bay Lake, Florida, Disney flew to potential sites in Orlando to find a central location.
Disney was a fan of the well-developed roads and the planned construction of Interstate 4 and Florida’s Turnpike, with McCoy Air Force Base (which later became Orlando International Airport) just east.
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This made for the perfect location for what would one day be known as Walt Disney World.
“The Florida Project”
After finding the ideal location, Disney was ready to start building its resort. But most of the planning was done in secret with the development being referred to in-house as “The Florida Project”. Walt Disney World Company even used a series of dummy corporations to acquire the 30,5000 acres of land.
In fact, the project was so secretive that real estate agents didn’t even know their client’s identity and rumors spread that the land purchases were by NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes.
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The plans for “The Florida Project” included a Disneyland-style theme park and resort area, Epcot, an industrial park, airport, and entrance complex.
Epcot
Walt Disney’s original plans included Epcot, which stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. Epcot was supposed to be a test for new city-living innovations, but after Walt's death, the company passed on this idea in December 1966 during early development of the complex.
It was Walt Disney’s brother Roy who made sure that the complex would happen, coming out of retirement to ensure his brother’s dream came into fruition.
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Construction of the project began in 1967, but the experimental concept of a planned community was abandoned. Ultimately, Disney decided to build it as a resort to supplement Magic Kingdom.
Walt Disney World
While the concept for Disney World was developed by Walt Disney in the 1960s, Disney World didn’t open until October 1971, almost five years after he passed. To ensure that people knew that Disney World was the late Walt Disney’s dream, Roy Disney insisted that the name should be changed from Disney World to Walt Disney World.
The first theme park to open was Magic Kingdom, followed by Epcot in 1982, Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 1989, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998.
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And Walt Disney World became more than Walt could’ve ever imagined—it’s not only the most visited vacation resort in the country, it’s also the most visited in the world!
No. 1 Theme Park in the World
On average, 58 million people visit the theme park each year. In 2018, Magic Kingdom earned the No. 1 spot on Themed Entertainment Association’s Top 25 Amusement/Theme Parks Worldwide list with 20,859,000 people visiting each year! Also in the top 10 were Animal Kingdom at No. 6, Epcot at No. 7, and Hollywood Studios at No. 9.
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Now if that’s not impressive, we don’t know what is. If only Walt Disney could’ve seen his dream come to life.
