Favorite Disney fact!

[Melanie]

One of my favorite Disney facts is that Lillian Disney's maiden name was Bounds, my married name.

[ransam]

When little girls are dressed up as their favorite characters, the cast will bow to her if she's a princess. If she's dressed as Allice, Wendy, or a disney character they may shake her hand or wave, but never bow, you only bow to princesses.

[WDWdriver]

I love the whole process to how the land was purchased for the "Florida Project." From the dummy corporation names, to tax breaks, to loopholes, it was a genius.

The names of the dummy corporations used during the land purchase are displayed on the windows above the entrance to the Crystal Arts shop on Main Street USA. They include Tomahawk Properties, Latin American Development, Ayefour Corporation, Bay Lake Properties, Reedy Creek Ranch Lands and Compass East Corporation.

I love the fact that all of the advertisements displayed on the upstairs windows along Main Street are actually tributes to those who contributed to the creation or operation of Walt Disney World over the years, including Walter Elias Disney himself whose name is on the only window that faces the castle.

[Main Street Jim]

The Tomorrowland Speedway race cars were modeled after a 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray

[yjgirl32]

This is a great thread. Love hearing all these wonderful facts. Thanks.

[ANG]

The general marketing genius. Free transportation from airport when you stay on site = less likely to rent a car and visit any other attractions. Price of park tickets decreases the longer you stay = longer vacations just at Disney.

The way they know people tend to walk towards the right, so Main Street has the candy store, bakery, and ice cream shoppes on the right as you enter, and the gift shops on right as you leave.

Never thought of this but makes a lot of sense!

[waymickey]

I think this is kinda cool- On Buena Vista Drive at the Team Disney building is the largest indoor sundial. 'We thought that time was important to Disney,'' said architect Arata Isozaki, "since the theme park plays fast and loose with our concept of time" (Tomorrowland, Frontierland, etc.).

It is open to the public.

[The Hitchhiking Ghost]

I love the whole process to how the land was purchased for the "Florida Project." From the dummy corporation names, to tax breaks, to loopholes, it was a genius plan. Walt was a great businessman as well, and every shrewd businessman has a little bit of bending the rules in them.

I think the credit for that goes to Walt's brother Roy. Walt was the dreamer, Roy was the guy behind the scenes that found ways to make it happen.

I read an article how Disney will monitor crowd levels in certain areas and if it reaches a certain capacity will "launch" a character or some other distraction to get people to move, without know they are being moved, to another less busy location. We were in WDW shortly after reading this and sure enough, we were in Frontierland and sort out of nowhere the the old time brass band comes out and walks and plays there way to Tom Sawyers boat docks. Next thing I know, what the heck, we are on the raft over to Tom Sawyer Island. So it works.

[sportsguy2315]

I love the fact that the park is built over the Utilidors. Just to know you don't see any "backstage" stuff is pretty cool. Plus the forced perspective of things, which is evident looking around Epcot at all the pavilions.

I once had a guest ask me if there were any dead bodies down in the utilidors. I laughed and explained the true purpose.

The Beatles broke up at the Poly when a vacationing John Lennon signed the paperwork to officially break up the band in his hotel room.

[texas211]

Yeah I like the fact there is interesting trivia. LIke you can fit San Francisco in the Magic Kingdom parking lot, etc.

[Main Street Jim]

Yeah I like the fact there is interesting trivia. LIke you can fit San Francisco in the Magic Kingdom parking lot, etc.

Umm, I think the city of San Francisco is a bit bigger than the Magic Kingdom parking lot (the Magic Kingdom parking lot is 125 acres; I'm pretty sure San Francisco is bigger. SF - 49.2 sq. mi. = 31,488 acres. Might be able to fit all 27,000 acres of the entire Walt Disney World property - all four theme parks, two water parks, 23 resorts, golf courses, Downtown Disney, and more - in the "land size" of San Francisco...)

On the topic of "land size":

The entire Magic Kingdom will fit inside the "footprint" of Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom - and inside the World Showcase lagoon at EPCOT.

Magic Kingdom: 107 acres
EPCOT: 300 acres
Hollywood Studios: 89 acres
Animal Kingdom: 500 acres