Mouse Extra

One main initiative of Walt Disney World’s marketing and planning over the last twenty years has been to try and appeal more to adults and not just those with small children.  Disney World had gained a reputation as a place to stay away from if you didn’t like the sound of screaming kids and the company didn’t like that much at all.  It was time to tap into a broader market.  On May 1, 1989 they took the first and most drastic step towards ending that impression with potential tourists.  They opened Pleasure Island.

For a place where alcohol was pretty scare 10 years earlier, opening bar-central was quite a leap of faith.  Sure, Epcot Center had offered adult beverages and the hotel lounges did as well, but those things were somewhat subtle.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, about Pleasure Island was subtle.  It was an in-your-face drink-fest with people selling mixed drinks of all sizes and colors on the streets and a New Year’s Eve party every night.  There were comedy clubs, dance clubs and more.  You couldn’t walk ten feet into a club without someone offering you some sort of unidentifiable alcoholic beverage that was probably glowing neon colors.  It was a fantasyland of a whole new kind.

Now guests had something to do after dark.  While families were going back to the hotel exhausted, and their feet burning, to put the kids to bed, other adults were getting ready for the fun to begin.  This was something entirely different at Walt Disney World and it made the experience an exhaustibly long but raucously fun time.  The only problem was if you had too much fun at Pleasure Island, riding Space Mountain the next day could be a whole new adventure…ouch!

When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, the Disney Company operated two hotels on property.  They were incredibly beautiful places, but they were also incredibly expensive.  Most families had to stay outside Walt Disney World in one of Orlando’s or Kissimmee’s many unimpressive chain motels.  Driving back and forth to the theme parks really took away from the feeling of being inside a magical place.  Only the lucky few could afford to stay “in the bubble”.   On October 1, 1988 that all began to change as the Caribbean Resort opened its doors.

The first of Disney’s moderately priced resorts, the Caribbean Beach is a huge complex with buildings sprawling all over lush grounds.  Different areas are themed to islands in the Caribbean and all surround a gorgeous little lake called Barefoot Bay.  The center of it is Old Port Royale and it offers a tropical themed market, restaurant, and a pool that looks like an old Spanish fort.  Imagineers had worked the kind of magic we all came to love.  It was a far cry from those off-site motels.

But what made it so special was that it was only a short bus ride from the gates of Epcot Center and the Magic Kingdom.  We were in the bubble and it didn’t cost a life’s savings to be there.  For many families it was the first time they could afford to stay in the bubble, and now they wouldn’t want to do it any other way.  If Disney wanted to keep people on Disney property and not be tempted by the competition, this was the key.  An affordable way to stay at the Mouse was all we ever needed.

What followed was a flood of hotels on Disney property for budgets of all sizes.  Staying in the bubble was once a dream and now many of us fans can’t imagine how we did it any other way.  That is a huge part of the Walt Disney World experience and it took off when the Caribbean Beach Resort opened.

September 22, 1984 was the date of another of Walt Disney World’s greatest milestones.  It was the day Michael Eisner became the company’s chief executive office and thus began a period of unprecedented growth in all areas of the company including the Florida theme parks.

Though whether or not Eisner’s impact was in the end a positive one is a debatable subject, few can deny how great the impact was.  When he began his reign Walt Disney World consisted largely of two theme parks and a couple of hotels.  Under Eisner, Disney began pushing the limits of the Florida property and began growing at a dizzying rate.   Many of his decisions were ill-conceived and politically controversial, and many times he would cut budgets in mid-stream making the final product something much less exciting then the concepts.  But during those twenty-plus years he led the way on an expansion that included some remarkably brilliant additions.

To the purist, Eisner is a four letter word.  It is a word that means a change from creative-driven ideas to marketing-driven ideas.  Many believe that Eisner removed Disney’s theme parks from Walt’s belief in making the best possible product regardless of cost to a much more corporate and unimaginative direction.  To some extent this is true.  However, most of what is in Walt Disney World now was built under Eisner’s reign and we all still love to go there.

Would things have been better under a more creative executive?  Would we have seen more of Imagineering’s amazing plans that were so often cut by Eisner for budget purposes?  Perhaps, but no one can ever say for certain.  What we can say, however, is that no single man has had a greater impact on the development of the Walt Disney World we see today…for better or for worse.

It is said that when Walt Disney was dying, some of his last thoughts were of his plans for Epcot, his experimental city.  Walt was one of America’s great dreamers, and this dream was a big one.  He wanted to build an ideal city that brought together all of the best ideas from around the world.  It was to be a utopia that all could share in.

But after his death, Disney executives concluded that such a Utopia would not be practical.  But they were not ready to abandon their founders dreams entirely and thus set out on a mission to design a park that would include the best of Walt’s Epcot dreams.  It was within this process that one of Disney World’s greatest and least known milestones occurred.

What we see now as Future World and the World Showcase were at first two very different and separate ideas for theme parks.  Both were inspired by Walt’s ideas, but both were being developed individually.  The Imagineers struggled to find something they liked, and then the moment occurred.  As Imagineer Marty Sklar tells it, he and fellow Imagineer John Hench each got on one end of these two models and then simply pushed them together.  In one stroke of inspiration, the idea for Epcot was born.  From that moment on, the mission was clear.  Epcot was to be a combination of the new ideas of the future with a sampling of the best the world has to offer.

In 1982, Epcot Center opened and it looked very similar to what it looked like when Hench and Sklar moved those models.  Here Walt Disney’s dreams of showcasing cutting edge technology and bringing countries from around the world together were both accomplished.  It may not have been the Utopia he invisioned, but for Disney theme park lovers it was pretty close.

Hench and Sklar are both Disney Legends, and giants in the history of developing the theme parks.  This was certainly not the only major moment of lasting inspiration that either of them had in their long and storied careers.  But when one considers the impact this moment had in the history of Walt Disney World, it is hard to argue the place it has amongst the great milestones.

When thinking of a list of great milestones in any history, some of them seem all too obvious.  When debating which ones to include, there are always a few that no one ever argues against.  Today’s milestone is just that obvious.  It is October 1, 1971, opening day for the Magic Kingdom and Walt Disney World.

Years and years of architectural planning, cutting edge engineering, covert land buys, political deal making, and one of the most massive construction projects the country had ever seen, brought the Disney Company to this remarkable day.  What would one day be a complex including four theme parks, countless hotels, numerous golf courses, and travelled by a fleet buses carrying guests from one corner to another, began on that October day as basically one theme park and two hotels.  Though it may have been smaller then, it was huge to those who worked years to make it happen. 

Learning from the mistakes that filled Disneyland’s opening day, this opening went smooth as one could expect.  It was carefully planned and purposely scheduled to avoid the type of massive stampede and widespread problems that are so often described during its California sister’s dedication.  About 10,000 people paid the less than five dollar admission price to witness history and the birth of a new American institution.

Thirty-six years later the Magic Kingdom stills inspires those who travel there much the same way it did upon its introduction to the world.  From the extraordinary monorail that leads through the lobby of a massive hotel to the awe-inspiring first look at the overwhelming grandeur of Cinderella’s Castle, it still brings the same sense of wonder as it did then.  But the success that began in 1971 was only just the beginning, as we would come to find out.

After Walt’s death, his brother Roy decided to rename the park from Disney World to Walt Disney World in his brother honor.  He said he never wanted anyone who came here to forget that Walt Disney was a man and not just a corporate name.  I believe he accomplished that goal.

Mouse Extra’s special holiday series, the 12 Milestones of Walt Disney World History, continues today with a look at the last time Walt appeared on film, and the impact that film had on Disney World. 

Walt Disney World operates with an unbelievable amount of freedom.  It is a freedom that is unprecedented among not only theme parks, but among any industry in the world.  They are essentially free to operate on their own without intervention from local elected officials or taxpayers.  Because of this freedom, Walt Disney World has become the giant it is today, and they owe this freedom to one of Walt Disney’s final efforts in his life; the famous Epcot Film of 1966.

As I am sure you can imagine, this type of independence does not come easily within the political realm in the United States, and some in Florida were not at all happy about the idea of leaving a California company completely in charge of a large swath of Florida’s land.  But Disney was convinced there was no other way, and the political wrangling ensued.    As a way to close the deal, and perhaps get the prevailing opinion on his side, Walt Disney shot a film promoting the “Florida Project” and laying out his plans for an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.   He was going to build the country’s greatest city, and the politicians agreed with him.  Thus began the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the legislative arm that allowed Disney World to operate with nearly complete freedom.

The film is a fascinating insight into the Epcot that never was.  It was also the last time Walt Disney appeared on film.  He died only a short time later.

So why is this film a milestone in Walt Disney World history?  Like I said before, it went a long way in helping pave the political road for the resort’s future.  And that reason should not to be diminished in the slightest.  Though much of this political freedom was manipulated by future Disney executives and few of the plans actually realized after Walt’s death, this freedom has fueled what seems to be a never ending expansion and has allowed Disney World a leverage among the local governments that is unheard of anywhere else.

But it also stands as a sort of reference point for what Walt Disney himself wanted out of Walt Disney World, specifically Epcot.  When Imagineers went to build the resort’s second theme park, they wanted to make a park that was somehow connected to their late-hero’s vision and ideas.  They couldn’t build the city, but they could build their own creative monument to the best of what Walt’s Epcot plans had to offer.  Whether Walt himself would be happy with what has become of Epcot not is infinitely debatable, but without this film one must wonder if an Epcot in any form would have ever happened at all.