Your best Disney fact or insider story...

[bcrook]

I found this quote in an Economist article...

At the opening of his first theme park, in California in 1955, Walt Disney proclaimed it “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” When Billy Graham told him later, “Walt, you have a great fantasy land here”, Disney replied—anticipating our late friend Baudrillard—“You preachers get it all wrong. This is reality in here. Out there is fantasy.”

This conversation between Disney and the great evangelist is reported in “The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust”, by Mark Pinsky.

 

[smraynor]

I found this quote in an Economist article...

At the opening of his first theme park, in California in 1955, Walt Disney proclaimed it “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” When Billy Graham told him later, “Walt, you have a great fantasy land here”, Disney replied—anticipating our late friend Baudrillard—“You preachers get it all wrong. This is reality in here. Out there is fantasy.”

This conversation between Disney and the great evangelist is reported in “The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust”, by Mark Pinsky.

I would love to find a link to the article that you mention. It would be interesting to get a better sense of the exchange between Walt and Billy.

 

[asbyrneva]

So the story of the Chandelier in the Boardwalk Lobby: The Hippocampus Electrolier Chandelier weighs 3,000 pounds and is finished entirely in 22-karat gold leaf, hand-cut Austrian crystal, and custom-blown glass. Underneath there is a glass globe that used to be filled with sand and a time capsule to be opened on the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World. The globe developed a leak (or fell and cracked depending upon who tells the story) and the sand and the time capsule were removed and are supposedly in safe keeping.
However, we were told that they don't know what happened to the items that were in "safekeeping". Evidently the kept them safe and forgot their hiding place. Waiting to find out what version of the story is true. 2021.

 

[bcrook]

I would love to find a link to the article that you mention. It would be interesting to get a better sense of the exchange between Walt and Billy.

I linked the article in my post click the blue "article". I think you might need to read the book mentioned though to get the whole story.

 

[bcrook]

So the story of the Chandelier in the Boardwalk Lobby: The Hippocampus Electrolier Chandelier weighs 3,000 pounds and is finished entirely in 22-karat gold leaf, hand-cut Austrian crystal, and custom-blown glass. Underneath there is a glass globe that used to be filled with sand and a time capsule to be opened on the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World. The globe developed a leak (or fell and cracked depending upon who tells the story) and the sand and the time capsule were removed and are supposedly in safe keeping.
However, we were told that they don't know what happened to the items that were in "safekeeping". Evidently the kept them safe and forgot their hiding place. Waiting to find out what version of the story is true. 2021.

2021 could be a good year. Besides resolving this mystery, MAYBE there will be a huge expansion ready for the 50th.

 

[Glencora]

Just wanted to add that there is now a revised edition of The Vault of Walt. It's available for free if you have Kindle Unlimited.

 

[perditax]

In obsessively researching my upcoming Disney cruise, I read the bit about Castaway Cay (née Gorda Key) previously being a base for drug smuggling operations.

Plot twist: my father was a drug dealer in South Florida in the 80s, and we knew the guys who would run the stuff back and forth to the Bahamas in little cigarette racer boats. I should ask him if Gorda Key sounds familiar. (I had an interesting childhood, not in a particularly good way, but to be fair a lot of my classmates' parents (blue collar/construction) were involved in drug dealing/trafficking at that particular time and place. Just the 80s/Miami Vice days, I guess. When I was a HS senior one of my classmates' fathers was in the same federal prison as mine.)

 

[kaceyo]

That guy is there all the time, and is I'm sure familiar with the flight restrictions. I bet what looked like "over Cinderella Castle" was in actuality much further away.

I saw a plane doing sky writing in August too. We have a picture of it from the safari in AK.

 

[kaceyo]

In Pinochio Village Haus there is a book on a stand where you can write wishes. If you are lucky the blue fairy grants your wish.

 

[jhoannam]

I love this thread. Now I need to go back to the beginning and take notes.

 

[MN96]

Bump hopefully people have more, these are awesome!

I read this on here before in a different thread, but supposedly a woman filed a lawsuit saying a piece of stone from the castle falling and hitting her in the head. This was squashed because as someone said earlier in the thread the castle is made of fiberglass.

Edited to fix a typo

 

[Fantabulously Cherry]

I HIGHLY recommend the Keys to the Kingdom tour! Great info!

 

[bcrook]

Other things that I haven't seen yet in this thread.

• Mission: Space is the first theme park attraction in the world equipped with barf bags.
• The 3D glasses for Star Tours, when purchased, were state-of-the-art and cost Disney $9 per pair.
• Backstage at Epcot has a large machine that washes all 3-D glasses used everywhere on property. DL also has one. If a machine breaks down in one location, the glasses are airmailed to the other until the machine comes back up.
• There's only one "real-life" application of the TTA PeopleMover technology - Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

I took my mother in law on the PeopleMover and she liked it much better than when I tried to "kill her" on Dinosaur. Also during my last trip through Space Mountain, all the lights were on, and I got to see the steel coaster in all its non-mystery. I wish I could un-see that.

I would not agree that HM is "virtually unchanged" with the replacement of the spider room with the Escher stairs room, the changes in the attic, and the changes to the Hitchhiking Ghosts. I'm not including the new queue elements since they are not part of the ride itself.

Dumbo also is at its root the same, but also pretty different--new location, over water, and two spinners.

Even though my avatar is of Dumbo. I didn't realize there was so much water on this ride until this visit! How funny. It is a nice addition.

 

[SparkleMommy]

I'm not saying I don't believe this, but I just can't imagine Disney saying no to someone willing to pay thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands (there are billionaires out there who might!) for one night in this teeny tiny suite.



This is so cool!

I've heard that ultra rich people can 'buy' a stay in the suite through charity auctions that Disney has donated a stay in the suite to or by arranging with Disney to donate a very large sum to charity. Tom Cruise supposedly did it for Suri. Not sure of the validity of most of that though, except for the charity auction part is most likely true.

 

[Robo]

 

[Hannahinwonderland]

This is a cool Zombie thread though, so I am not heartbroken to see it back! Before I post my insider knowledge I have to read through the thread and see if anyone else has already said it! haha

 

[Satchmo128]

She posed around my grandma and her wheelchair the one time we have been able to catch her. (Grandma was embarrassed at all of the attention it drew.) I don't think this is a regular practice and it wasn't upon request, just spontaneous. She also made eye contact with me a few times and my grandma while she was posing around her (I believe or is that just my wishful thinking, lol). Of course, I wasn't shy about telling her how beautiful she looked. We must have watched her for a good 20 minutes or more.

Divine has posed for me and made direct eye contact before. I have some amazing photos from our last WDW trip a year ago.

 

[Clifton Tesh]

Walt needed WDW to have is own government so that he did not have to adhere to building codes.

A lot of his buildings for EPCOT would not of been approved under the Orange County building codes. And to piggyback this, EPCOT was suppose to be an experimental city (Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow). After Walt's death, the big wigs at Disney decided that they did not want to be responsible for running a city so they did away with the original concept and decided on a world fair concept instead.

Years later, The Disney company decided to bring Walt's dream of an experimental city to life. They built the city of celebration in Osceola county.

It was originally managed by WDW but is now owned and ran by its residents.

 

[siskaren]

1. Walt needed WDW to have is own government so that he did not have to adhere to building codes.

2. A lot of his buildings for EPCOT would not of been approved under the Orange County building codes.

3. And to piggyback this, EPCOT was supposed to be an experimental city (Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow). After Walt's death, the big wigs at Disney decided that they did not want to be responsible for running a city so they did away with the original concept and decided on a world fair concept instead.

Years later, The Disney company decided to bring Walt's dream of an experimental city to life. They built the city of celebration in Osceola county.

It was originally managed by WDW but is now owned and ran by its residents.

1. The Reedy Creek Improvement District wasn't created so that Walt wouldn't have to adhere to building codes - it was created because the property straddled Orange and Osceola counties and it would have been difficult to have to deal with two governing bodies, and creating the RCID meant that there would only be one. Also, you can't seriously think that the Disney company didn't want to comply with building codes - those codes are there to make sure that buildings are safe.

2. As far as I know, Walt never designed any buildings for Epcot; he just had a concept for what he wanted EPCOT to be.

3. Disney didn't want to be responsible for creating an experimental city only to have it fail, since those types of communities don't have a good track record of success.

 

[Clifton Tesh]

1. The Reedy Creek Improvement District wasn't created so that Walt wouldn't have to adhere to building codes - it was created because the property straddled Orange and Osceola counties and it would have been difficult to have to deal with two governing bodies, and creating the RCID meant that there would only be one. Also, you can't seriously think that the Disney company didn't want to comply with building codes - those codes are there to make sure that buildings are safe.

Unfortunately the RCID history website is currently not working so I can't link it directly from the source.

I did not say that he wanted to build unsafe buildings. I said the buildings would not be approved under building codes.

Walt wanted to put industrial buildings and residential buildings in the same area and this would not be approved under orange county building and zoning laws.