Walt Disney's Economic Research

Walt Disney's enchanting world full of magic and enjoyment was a result of one man's ambition to share his dream with all who could appreciate it. Each year Disney World gets bigger and more evolved with the help of people that have the creativity and ambitions like Walt Disney. As time has passed, the rides and attractions have been redone to keep up with the demands of our modern, changing society. Throughout time it has definitely changed and because of this, Disney World has grown into a contemporary multi-theme park with attractions galore.

Before Disney World opened, Walt went through the processes of finding land and location, buying it and finally creating and building Disney World. The process of creating Disney World all started in 1958 when Walt Disney started his economic research for another Disney theme park (Polsson, 2015). In 1963 Roy Disney's lawyer Robert Foster agreed to the proposal and then stealthily bought out over 5,000 acres of land (Polsson, 2015). On April 15th, 1964 Robert Foster started to buy land in central Florida under the name Robert Price to keep his identity secret (Polsson, 2015).

They continued to buy small pieces of land at a time in efforts to keep their plans confidential (Polsson, 2015).

Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney wanted to keep the land purchases a secret to make sure that they could keep the prices of land down because if they were to use their own identities the prices of land would skyrocket. After all of the land was purchased “Disney World cost a total of $400 million to create and is about 27,500-acre land” (Disney World: Pixie Dust over Florida,

1971).

In 1966 Walt Disney passed away, shortly after he introduced his concepts for the Florida Project to the public (Walt Disney Production, 1982). The Florida Project was continued on by Walt's brother Roy Disney (Polsson, 2015). On December 17th, 1966 “ Roy Disney [gave] a speech to Disney management and the imagineer team, making it clear that the company [would] continue to run according to Walt’s wishes (Polsson, 2015). Finally, after so much planning after Walt Disney died and wanting to continue the Florida project and Walt Disney’s dream, the groundbreaking for Walt Disney World began on May 30th 1967 (Polsson, 2015).

Several years after the groundbreaking for Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World opened in 1971 (Polsson, 2015) (AMagicProduction, 2012) (Reeves, 1991). On October 1st, 1971 “at 10:00 AM the Magic Kingdom park at Walt Disney World Resort [opened] in Orlando, Florida. Similar to Disneyland, the Seven themed areas [were] Main Street USA, Adventureland, Bear Country, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Liberty Square and Tomorrow Land.” (Polsson, 2015). Along with the opening of the Magic Kingdom there were several other rides and attractions. Some that opened with the Magic Kingdom included the Walt Disney Railroad, The Swiss Family Treehouse, The Jungle Cruise, the Sunshine Pavilion, Mr. Toads Wild Ride, The Mad Tea Party, Haunted Mansion and Dumbo Flying Elephants (Polsson, 2015).

Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Polynesian Village Resort opened along with the Magic Kingdom in 1971.(Disney World: Pixie Dust Over Florida, 1971) (Polsson, 2015). Connecting the Magic Kingdom and the two hotels was the Monorail, a space age way of transportation, it is a way for tourist to travel easily to the park to their hotel (Disney World: Pixie Dust Over Florida, 1971) (Polsson, 2015). With the convenient transportation, hotels and Magic Kingdom Disney World continued to grow. The rides that opened were Peter Pans flight on October 3rd 1971, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on October 14th 1971 and Pirate of the Caribbean on December 15th 1973 (Polsson, 2015). The construction process started on the Space Mountain Ride on December 13th 1972 (Polsson, 2015). After several years went by, they began to start their construction on the new EPCOT Center in 1979 (Polsson, 2015).

On October 1st 1981 “EPCOT Center [opened] at Walt Disney World in Florida. It [had] two main sections, Future World, and World Showcase” (Reeves, 1991) (Polsson, 2015). With the opening of the second park it gave visitors a whole new feel of what the Walt Disney Company can do and brings a whole new look of technology to Walt Disney World. EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow and covers about 260 acres of land (Polsson, 2015) (AMagicProduction, 2012). A couple attractions that opened in the new Future World at EPCOT Center included Journey into Imagination, Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy, Kitchen Kabaret and The Land (AMagicProduction, 2012) (Polsson, 2015). World Showcase features miniatures of some of the most popular areas in the world including the Eiffel Tower and Piazza San Marco (Reeves, 1991). The countries that are featured in the World Showcase include Canada, France, Japan, Italy, China, Mexico, Norway and several others (Reeves, 1991) (Polsson, 2015).

While EPCOT Center was being built they were busy building an extension of the monorail from the Ticket and Transportation Center to EPCOT Center (Polsson, 2015). Not only did they build EPCOT Center they announced their intention to build a Hollywood-style theme park (Polsson, 2015). With Disney World in the making they added another hotel including The Grand Floridian Beach Resort (Polsson, 2015).

On May 1st, 1989 the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World opened, covering 135 acres. (Polsson, 2015). As the third park opened it gave tourists even more to see and do when they traveled down to Orlando. Several rides and attractions were revealed including, The Great Movie Ride, The Backstage Studio Tour and The Monster Sound Show attraction (Polsson, 2015). Several themed restaurants were opened as well including, The Hollywood Brown Derby, 50’s Prime time cafe, The sound stage and The Hollywood Vine giving families a dining experience in a way that people would experience in Hollywood or back in the 50s (Polsson, 2015). On May 28th 1993 the construction was started on the new ride, The Tower Of Terror and later on July 22nd 1994 The Tower of Terror opened (Polsson, 2015).

Along with the Opening of Disney’s MGM-Studios Disney was busy opening other things including rides, hotels and even a Water Park. On June 1st 1989 “Typhoon Lagoon Water Park opens at Walt Disney World, covering 56 acres.” (Polsson, 2015). With the addition Typhoon Lagoon tourists have a whole new way to have fun as a family. With Orlando being a very hot humid place, going to the water park can be a relief from the usual day at the parks, it gives families an easy way to cool off as well as have a good time with the little ones.
Going back to where it all began Magic kingdom continued to be updated and expanded with the help of imagineers more rides were added to the park and existing rides were refurbished. On September 17th 1991 “The Main Street Electrical Parade made its last run in the Magic Kingdom” (Polsson, 2015). On October 1st 1991 “Spectromagic parade Replaces the Electric Light Parade at the Magic Kingdom.” (Polsson, 2015). As they changed parades in the Magic Kingdom it gave tourist more to see, it was something new for people to look forward to while traveling down to Disney World (Polsson, 2015). Splash Mountain was also added in the mid 90s to Magic Kingdom, a new thrill ride that takes people on a raft through a giant mountain full of fuzzy animals including Brer Fox, Brer Bear and of course Brer Rabbit (Polsson, 2015). In 1999 “the fastpass service debuts” (AMagicProduction, 2012). With the addition of the fastpass service families can now get through lines faster and are able to get this for several rides, this makes it easier for families with little children so they have a substantially shorter wait.