Why For would Walt Disney Productions ever want to build a “Vacation Kingdom” right in the middle of the swamps of Central Florida ?

Jim Hill

18 years ago

Matt H. writes in to say:

I just finished reading Charlie Ridgway‘s “Spinning Disney’s World: Memories of a Magic Kingdom Press Agent.” And my favorite part of that book has to be all of his stories about WDW’s pre-opening phase, where Ridgway kept having to take reporters through the half-finished construction site. So that they’d then have some sense of the size and scale of Walt Disney World.

I don’t suppose that you have any stories about that same time in WDW history? Back before the resort officially opened and people were still wondering what Disney was doing out ithere n the swamps of Central Florida?

I’ll go you one better, Matt. How’s about I share one of my favorite pieces from my own Disneyana collection? Which is the booklet that Walt Disney Productions sent me back in the Summer of 1970, when I first wrote to the company seeking information about the Walt Disney World Resort.

Now what’s great about this “Preview Edition” of the “Walt Disney World: The Vacation Kingdom of the World” guide is that … Well, it’s written for the person who really doesn’t have a clue about the Mouse is building outside of Orlando. So — as a direct result — this booklet goes into great detail about this “New Concept in Vacationlands.” In effect describing exactly what a Walt Disney World might be. And this guide starts off by giving you the precise location of Disney’s latest project:

Almost at the very center of America’s number one vacation state, Walt Disney Productions is creating a land of entertainment and recreation so vast that it is already being called, “The Vacation Kingdom of the World.”

It’s a completely new kind of vacation experience, and it will be offered to the American family (and to visitors from around the world) for the first time when Walt Disney World opens in Central Florida in October, 1971.

Stretching three miles from East to West and over two miles North to South, Walt Disney World’s “Phase One” will encompass more than 2,500 acres and will include an almost endless variety of activities.

Copyright 1970 Walt Disney Productions

Here a family vacation will become a series of different and unique adventures. You’ll board a monorail train and ride right through a hotel “lobby” so different it is being “decorated” by landscape architects … sail a boat for miles and then step ashore just a few paces from your hotel room … play 54 holes of golf on courses lined by stands of pine and cypress, challenging amateur and professional alike … and dine in a stately restaurant inside an 18-story tall, 18th Century style castle.

Perhaps the most popular adventure of all will be a visit to the “Magic Kingdom” theme park — filled with some of the most famous attractions of California’s Disneyland, plus many new and unique attractions of its own.

But as exciting as the new “Magic Kingdom” theme park will be, Walt Disney World encompasses much more. In this complete vacationland, the new Magic Kingdom will be just one of many entertainment and recreation attractions. Visitors will not only play — they will also stay in Walt Disney World.

Copyright 1970 Walt Disney Productions

On the shores of beautiful Bay Lake and a broad man-made lagoon, the Disney organization is creating a series of specially themed hotels, offering a range of activities so varied that each hotel will almost be a complete “resort” in itself.

Two “theme resorts” — so-called because each hotel is being planned around a single theme that represents a culture or architectural style around the world — will be available to guests during Walt Disney World’s first year of operation. Both will offer far more than simply convenience of location to the new Magic Kingdom and its attractions. In design motif, food specialties, recreation activities, convention facilities and even the type of entertainment presented, these major hotels will complement each other and the adventures and attractions of the Magic Kingdom.

One of the world’s most unusual transportation networks will provide effortless travel at any time between the Magic Kingdom, the resort-hotels, and the visitor parking lot. Walt Disney World guests will leave their automobiles either at the day-visitor center (located nearly one mile from the theme park entrance) or at their hotel, in the case of vacationeers staying in the theme resorts.

Copyright 1970 Walt Disney Productions

Guests will then travel around Walt Disney World by water on board steam-powered side-wheelers and excursion steamers … and by land aboard surface vehicles including air-conditioned, high-speed monorail trains. These silent, electric powered trains will an attraction in themselves — a grand tour of Walt Disney World traveling over an elevated “highway in the sky” and passing directly through the open mall lobby of the Contemporary Hotel on the way to and from the Magic Kingdom entrance.

In these ways, all the attractions of this vacationland will be linked together as part of the same “world.”

In Walt Disney World, the Disney designers have planned a Vacation Kingdom oriented to land and water recreation entertainment:

Copyright 1970 Walt Disney Productions

On the land, in addition to the family adventures of the Magic Kingdom theme park, visitors will be offered dozens of recreation activities … 18-hole championship golf courses, stables and bridle paths, nature tours that take advantage of the pristene beauty of Walt Disney World’s wilderness areas, swimming, tennis, bicycling, archery, shuffleboard and many others. Dancing and nightclub entertainment at each hotel will feature popular entertainers — for both adult and family audiences — while nearby theatres present motion pictures and stage shows.

On the water, Bay Lake and the broad lagoon will offer a three-mile pleasure waterway dotted with natural and man-made islands. Along the shoreline, white sandy beaches will extend for miles, beckoning sun bathers and swimmers. Special lakeside facilities will be available for barbecues and picnics. And the waters of lake and lagoon will always be crystal clear, providing perfect conditions for swimming, water-skiing, boating, sailing and sight-seeing cruises.

Water will also serve as a “stage” in Walt Disney World. Lakeside and on the lagoon, fireworks shows and water spectacles will be presented — even including special “parades.”

Copyright 1970 Walt Disney Productions

There is no destination-resort today quite like Walt Disney World will be tomorrow. At its opening in October, 1971, Walt Disney World will present a complete vacationland for the entire family … a place of entertainment, crowned by the new Magic Kingdom theme park, with all the excitement and adventure of California’s Disneyland … a place of recreation, where land and water sports abound … and a place of relaxation, catering to the needs not only of guests who come for the day, but planned and oriented around activities and adventures for those who stay here for all or part of their family vacation.

Of course, what’s really great about this “Preview Edition” of “Walt Disney World: The Vacation Kingdom of the World” is that — since this booklet was originally put together in 1969 and then published in 1970 — it allows you to view this ambitious project as a work-in-progress.

Take — for example — the Polynesian Resort Hotel. Not the version that was eventually built …

… But –rather — the one that the Imagineers, Welton Becket and U.S. Steel had originally wanted to build. Which was to have featured a much more contemporary-looking tower at the center of that WDW resort.

Or — better yet — how about all of the other resort-hotels that were supposed to have been built during “Phase Two” of Walt Disney World’s Master Plan. The Thai …

… The Venetian …

… and the Persian. (Please note — in the foreground of the below photo — a spikier version of Space Mountain. This was back in the day when your ride vehicle was actually supposed to exit the show building at several points and then briefly zoom around the exterior of this Tomorrowland attraction before plunging back into the blackness inside.)

Mind you, there were other aspects of Walt Disney World’s “Phase Two” that never made it off the drawing board. These included:

An “airport of the future,” offering service to private and executive aircraft as well as commercial “commuter” service;

An industrial park designed to showcase American industry at work;

And an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) where, as Walt Disney said, “people actually live a life they can’t find anywhere else in the world today.”

Of course, in the end, Walt Disney World did wind up with an EPCOT. But not the one that was supposed be a “living blueprint of the future,” a fully operating community with a population of more than 20,000. What we eventually wound up with instead was a futuristic theme park that has been struggling for almost 25 years now. Trying to strike just the right balance between education & entertainment.

Anyway … That’s a brief glimpse at what Walt Disney World was originally supposed to have been like … Circa 1969 / 1970.

Your thoughts?