Almost twenty years ago, I realize now, since I’ve been to Walt Disney World in Florida…. An entirely self-contained world.
This is long since I’ve got the whole trip in one entry. Click the extended entry for photos and a full trip report.
Almost twenty years ago, I realize now, since I’ve been to Walt Disney World in Florida. late ’86.
It’s like a fucking country now. An entirely self-contained world.
To a California kid, it’s simply amazing. I’m used to Disneyland, which until recently was one small park absolutely engulfed in motels and suburbia. Even now, now that The Mouse has bought up a lot of the surrounding property and expanded with another park (California Adventure) and a lot more, it’s a fairly small space, a few city blocks, and still, surrounded my non-Disney commercial properties.
Contrast this with WDW; about 47 square miles, I don’t know how many lakes, 8500 acres of wilderness premenantly preserved, four theme parks, two water parks, a huge mall and nightclub district (how many hotels?). I can only imagine how much power all this uses, how much waste it produces. And with all that, the feeling is of isolation. The real world is far away, the parks are far from each other, the resorts and hotels, mostly, cannot be seen one from the next.
When I was last there, it was much, much less elaborate. Two parks (Magic Kingdom and Epcot). Three, maybe four hotels. Nothing else. They’ve been busy.
We (Olivia, (11), Ruby (6), Barb, Me, and the In-Laws) were there for three and a half days; nowhere near enough. The parks (MGM, Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Animal Kingdom) each need at least a day, and Epcot could use two. We barely scratched most of the parks.