question about coins in attractions

[goofymania]

hello board, i am actually in disney mk rite now at the speedway having a blast.. i was on its a small world which really sparked me question of... what does disney do with all the coins and money thrown into a ride? any help would be highly appreciated... thanks!

[MickeysEars]

people throw the money in and make a wish, like a wishing well. I know that the money is collected periodically and donated to a charity. So if you have an extra dime, throw it in. BTW, HAVE FUN!!! Kiss Mickey for me.

[tinklover]

Disney donates more than $60,000 a year to organizations ranging from the Coalition for the Homeless to Give Kids the World. I am sure a portion of that is from the fountains and such.

[Imagineer1981]

yep, as far as I am aware it gets collected and put into a charity

[KAT1811]

I too heard that the money collected gets donated to charity. I wish they would post that somewhere; maybe a few more people would throw in that extra change they have in their pockets if they knew it was going to help the needy.

[joelkfla]

I think there is a sign (or was one) at the fountain in front of Spaceship earth -- not the big Fountain of Nations, but the small one between SE and the main gate.

I've also heard it on tours, I think it was Keys to the Kingdom.

Apparently they don't collect the coins from the Seven Seas Lagoon. Some of the ones around the ferry landings look like they've beem there for decades!

[CaptainJessicaSparrow]

The fountain near the tipboard at Studios is exclusively for helping with the YOAMD and Make a Wish groups. There is a little plaque that says so.

[Meerkat]

Coins and bills found at AK go to the Wildlife Conservation Fund.

[handmaidenofprincesses]

you know, I've always kind of wanted to know, how do they get the coins up out of the water? Like at IASW... there's got to be 5 bajillion coins along the bottom at any given moment... how do they collect them all?

[RobWreck]

There are magnets on the bottom of specially designed "It's a Small World" boats that draw the coins to it... when they rotate that boat out of the line-up, they simply put it up on the lift and scrape the coins off it. The magnets are strong enough that coins not directly in the path of the boats are pulled slightly towards the center... after making 500 or so rounds through the course of a day, even coins far away tend to get stuck. You can always tell when you're in one of those boats because they sit much lower in the water... partially due to the weight of all the exta coins stuck to the hull, partially because they need to be closer to the bottom to attract the coins...
That's the way I had it explained to me by one of the Imagineers that helped work on it for the World's Fair back in the '60's...
Rob





:thedolls: :thedolls: :thedolls: ;) :thedolls: :thedolls: :thedolls:

[grwoolf]

Pretty funny. It would be interesting to know if they need to drain the water or just use a high power pool vac to grab all those coins. It's got to be quite a job.

[joonyer]

There are magnets on the bottom of specially designed "It's a Small World" boats that draw the coins to it... when they rotate that boat out of the line-up, they simply put it up on the lift and scrape the coins off it. The magnets are strong enough that coins not directly in the path of the boats are pulled slightly towards the center... after making 500 or so rounds through the course of a day, even coins far away tend to get stuck. You can always tell when you're in one of those boats because they sit much lower in the water... partially due to the weight of all the extra coins stuck to the hull, partially because they need to be closer to the bottom to attract the coins...
That's the way I had it explained to me by one of the Imagineers that helped work on it for the World's Fair back in the '60's...

That explanation sounds really good, except for one thing: U.S. coins are not magnetic (with the exception of the Steel pennies minted during WWII). Somebody was pulling your leg.

Note: There is some foreign coinage that is magnetic, but not a lot.

[RobWreck]

That explanation sounds really good, except for one thing: U.S. coins are not magnetic (with the exception of the Steel pennies minted during WWII). Somebody was pulling your leg.

Note: There is some foreign coinage that is magnetic, but not a lot.


It does sound like a good explanation though, doesn't it? I figured that most people would miss that one little detail... :thedolls: ;) :thedolls:
Rob