Disney World (1971- ) is the most visited place in America. It is a huge park in the middle of Florida, twice the size of Manhattan, making it the largest man-made playground in the world. It gets four times more visitors than Florence, Italy.
It is run by Disney, the American film company that gave the world Mickey Mouse. It is like their Disneyland in California, but it is newer and far larger. The lessons learned in building Disneyland were applied to Disney World.
Disney World has four parks:
- 1971: Magic Kingdom: This is like the Disneyland in California: it has Cinderella’s castle in the middle, Tomorrowland and all that. Since it was built after the first Disneyland it is newer and somewhat better.
- 1982: Epcot: like a world’s fair. It has a huge white ball in the middle: inside it is a ride that tells the history of invention from fire to the Internet (first written by Ray Bradbury). Learn a bit about 11 other countries. The best part: “Mission: Space!”: see what it is like to journey to Mars in a rocket!
- 1989: Disney MGM Studio: Yes, Disney makes some of their films here. You can see them at work! There are also rides based on the Disney and MGM films. It is like Universal’s park which opened nearby the same year. Disney owns the old MGM films. It bought them in the 1980s.
- 1998: Animal Kingdom: a wildlife park. In the middle is the Tree of Life (44 metres tall). You can see animals from different parts of the world living in the wild. Animal Kingdom is made up of six lands:
- Africa – This is the best of the six. It is even better than Africa itself since you get to see more different kinds of animals than you would there.
- Asia – tigers!
- Dinoland USA
- Camp Minnie Mouse
- Discovery Island
- Rafiki’s Planet Watch
In addition to the big parks, you also have:
- Downtown Disney – for shopping, eating and bad nightlife
- Wide World of Sports – for playing sports.
- Typhoon Lagoon – water rides and swimming
- Blizzard Beach – another water park
It is not cheap, but children love it. For many there is nowhere else in the country they would rather go. There are parades and fireworks there every day! There are plenty of roller coasters too.
If you have the time, you should allow one day for each park. If you can, try to go when children are in school: the lines will be much shorter. Summer and Christmas are the worst times to go. Late afternoons are the worst; mornings are best.
The wait in line for some rides can be more than an hour. To avoid that you can get a FASTPASS, a ticket with a time printed on it that tells you when to come back.
Under Florida law Disney World has all the rights and powers of a city.
See also:
- Tips on visiting Disney World
- The four parks:
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom
- Disney-MGM Studios
- Epcot
- Magic Kingdom
- America
- Letter #30
Aloha from Honolulu!
I just stumbled upon your blog and it brought back some really great Christmas memories. My wife and I love traveling to Orlando at Christmas time, particularly for that extra dose of Disney magic that they distribute so generously during the holiday season. The candlelight processional at EPCOT is just amazing, and it’s best when you buy the dinner package (priority dinner seating and VIP seats in the processional). My favorite thing during Christmas is drinking hot chocolate on the streets of MGM while the snow is falling – even though the temperature is 70 degrees. Disney magic! Aloha from the Going2Oahu blog at http://www.going2oahu.com – we wish you Mele Kalikimaka!
LikeLike
I LOVE disney i have been there 13 times!
LikeLike
Yeah, it’s a great place.
LikeLike
I’m waiting to go back
LikeLike
I still have not been there 😦 but one day 🙂 lol
LikeLike
Disney World was kind of disappointing for me. I’m sure I would have liked it if I first went when I was five years old, but I waited until I was an adult, so I just ended up eating food most of the time and looking at music at Virgin Records. I agree that summer is a bad time to go. I went in spring and it was already too hot.
But the most interesting part (kind of off-topic, but eh) was that Jurnee Smollett was staying at the same hotel I was in Orlando and I ran into her one day and we had an interesting conversation about some activism she was doing. I thought to myself “…Is that Jurnee Smollett — why is everyone just walking past her?” I’ve seen celebrities before, but somehow she was different. She seemed almost ethereal and was very well-spoken. Also very sweet: I said “Wow, you’re so beautiful” and she replied “I was thinking the same about you!” She was very humble and cool about it all.
LikeLike