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Designing Disney’s World (A dream brought to life)

Adam Gentry

                Walt Disney was many things, a storyteller, an innovator, but most of all he was a dreamer, a dreamer who believed that dreams do come true, and to prove it, he built his dreams. Bringing his children to theme parks, Walt Disney was struck by how children were having fun, while their parents tolerated the experience for the sake of their children, and Walt found himself idly wishing there was a park where families would have fun together. At the time it was just a flight of fancy for Disney. He never expected to be the one to build such a place. But years later, when Disney had become part of a new and innovative animation studio, he revisited the idea of a new kind of park. This time the impetus was fans, fans clamoring to visit his studio, expecting to find a place as magical and fantastic as the stories that were created there. Realizing that the reality of an animation studio would fall far short of their hopes, Walt Disney began designing Disney Land, and in the process he stumbled upon a third purpose behind the project, storytelling. Disney had always told his stories through movies and shows, but now he could bring characters to life through a theme park, which he regarded as a never ending life performance, where people could wander through and choose from a myriad of stories to experience first hand. The employees who portrayed these characters came to be called cast members, reminding everyone that this was not just a theme park, it was a live show. As Walt Disney walked down Main Street USA, he smiled at what he saw. Walt had created the park he dreamed of making for many years, a park where people of all ages could come together and have fun. His fans were thrilled with this new land, filled with the places and people they had seen in his films. Sadly, Walt’s rejoice was short lived.

                As Walt made his way to Tomorrowland, he came across a cowboy making his way to Frontierland. In order for cast members to make their way to the appropriate section, they had to traverse the rest of the park, in costume. And cast members being in the wrong place, was not the only problem that confronted Walt Disney. Disney Land was a magical place, but the city of Anaheim which surrounded it was completely mundane and real. Gaudy billboards and cheap hotels sprang up like weeds around Disney Land, seizing the opportunity to make a quick buck off the many visitors who were drawn to Walt’s dream. The substandard quality of the surrounding businesses detracted from the ideal experience Walt Disney wanted to create for his guests, and it taught him that what he needed was complete control of every aspects of his guests’ experience, and that meant expansion. He would need his own hotels and restaurants, and a wider variety of rides and facilities. But all the land surrounding Disney Land was already owned by other businesses, and even with all his success Walt couldn’t afford to buy the land from them. Walt realized that although he had learned from the mistakes of other theme parks, Disney Land introduced whole new mistakes that had never occurred to him. So, in true form, Disney began designing a new park, Disney World, which would incorporate everything Disney Land had taught him.

                Walt designed his new theme park with a hub and spokes design. The theory was that everyone would enter the park and come to a central location, and from this center patrons could reach any ride or event with ease, and if they ever got lost all they had to do was head back to the hub. Each hub would have a large iconic structure, which would serve as a symbol for the park, and a landmark to guide patrons back to this crossroad. This simple but innovative method of helping patrons navigate the park allowed Walt to build his park bigger than anything that had come before, but he wasn’t done yet. He still had more ideas, too many to be contained in one park, so he decided he would create two, and Walt knew this was just the beginning. But how would he obtain that much land? All of Disney Land could be contained in just one of the two parks he had designed, and once the parks were built, Disney would find himself hedged in once again. So Disney decided to build in Florida, where land was in abundance.

                Once Walt Disney had chosen Florida for his new Disney World, he was faced with a new challenge. To ensure that he had room to expand and add on to Disney World, Walt had to buy all the land he would need “now”, but how could he buy that much land without causing the price to skyrocket as soon as his name was uttered? The solution, don’t put his name on the project. Disney purchased large chunks of land through a variety of non-existent companies, with purposes ranging from agriculture and cattle ranching to building new homes. By the time Disney was done, he had purchased over 27,400 acres of land, more than three times the current park’s size.

                With the land purchased, construction was ready to begin. Unfortunately, Florida’s swampy land was ill suited to large construction projects. The land simply couldn’t support much weight, and they could not dig underground. Fortunately, Disney simply decided that if he couldn’t build down into the earth, he would build up. He constructed what would be foundations and underground support facilities above ground. This caused Disney World’s “ground floor” to be built fifteen feet above ground, causing it to be clearly visible for miles. Disney used these “under ground” tunnels as locker rooms and dining halls for cast members, as well as shops to repair and maintain machines and props for the park. As patrons walked down Mainstreet in the Magic Kingdom, cast members made their way to their assigned areas in costume, emerging less than twenty feet from their destination. And if anything was damaged, it could be whisked away from the eyes of the patrons, preserving the illusion that Disney worked so hard to craft. At long last Disney had perfected his design. Borrowing from theme park engineering, film and theater production, and even taking a few tricks from magicians, he had succeeded in perfecting his design. Disney World was a reality.