Roger Wilk - Keys to the Kingdom: Your Complete Guide to Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom Theme Park

Keys to the Kingdom

Your Complete Guide to Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom Theme Park

By: Roger Wilk

Copyright Notice
2014 Roger Wilk

All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder.

This book is not affiliated in any way with Walt Disney World or the Disney Company.

Maps used in this book are provided courtesy of Google and comply with Google policies outlined in the Google Maps and Google Earth Content Rules & Guidelines policies pertaining to guidebooks as posted at the time of this writing.

Why you need this book

Magic Kingdoms Main Street, U.S.A.

Each year nearly 20 million people visit Disneys Magic Kingdom theme park making it the most visited theme park in the entire world. Disney theme parks are consistently the most visited theme parks in the country and in the world- with good reason! Disney knows how to cater to their visitors needs and does everything right when it comes to customer service.

Because of this, Disney parks, especially Magic Kingdom are very crowded most times throughout the year. If youve already booked a vacation to Walt Disney World, or even if youre just thinking about going, this is the book for you!

Any visit to Walt Disney World will most certainly include at least one day at Magic Kingdom. You could spend hours wandering around the park without a plan. Youll still have a great time, but you will also waste a lot of time trying to figure out what to do, and where to go next.

Thats where this book comes in. Ill start by providing a bit of history about Magic Kingdom so you can get an idea of how it all began, and a sense of where its going from here. After providing that foundation, Ill explain the highlights of the park and provide details for every attraction and show.

Youll find a section in the book for each of the six lands of Magic Kingdom: Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Each section will include an overview and map of the land followed by descriptions of the cant miss attractions to visit while youre there. Ill provide some background for the other attractions and restaurants in each land too. Finally, Ive included charts rating each attraction in every land for Fun Factor and Fear Factor, and a chart explaining the available dining options.

Theres nothing like a vacation to Walt Disney World- and especially a trip to Magic Kingdom. The details in this book are sure to pique your interest and help you along the way. Prepare yourself for a magical journey to the happiest place on earth.

Please also check out my other Disney books (available exclusively on Amazon), too. Ive listed them at the end of this book. I think youll find them to be valuable resources as you plan and embark on your magical vacation of a lifetime!

Thanks so much for reading- and Let the Memories Begin!!!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HISTORY OF MAGIC KINGDOM

Walt & Mickey in front of Cinderella Castle

After the success of Disneyland which opened in Anaheim, California in the summer of 1955, Walt Disney dreamed of opening another theme park elsewhere in the United States. It would need to be located in a temperate climate in the eastern United States, and it needed to operate year round. It also needed to offer opportunities for future expansion- a luxury that Disney didnt have with the Disneyland resort.

During the early 1960s, Walt Disney and the Disney Company began secretly acquiring land for a new project internally known as The Florida Project. Disney officials began crisscrossing the country to scout locations and negotiate land purchases in central Florida, near Orlando. (The plane Disney used can still be seen today at Disneys Hollywood Studios theme park.) In an effort to keep the costs of acquiring land down, they did not want it to be known that such a large corporation was purchasing the land.

While Disney acquired the land in Florida, Walt unveiled his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). This was one of his original plans for the land. Unfortunately, Walt Disney never had the chance to see his dream realized. He died of lung cancer a year before construction of the Magic Kingdom resort and theme park began in 1967.

An interesting little secret about Magic Kingdom is that its actually been built over 100 feet above ground level in Central Florida. As park construction began, truckload after truckload of dirt was brought in to raise the landscape- but why?

Once while on a visit to Disneyland in California, Walt was disappointed to see a Frontierland cowboy walking through Tomorrowland. Seeing a character in a land where he clearly did not belong destroyed the fantasy and authenticity that Disney wanted to maintain. Beneath Magic Kingdom is a series of tunnels called Utilidors open only to cast members. They use these tunnels to maintain the illusion. Youll never see a Disney cowboy at Magic Kingdom in any place other than where they belong- in Frontierland!

Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971 along with the first two hotels of Walt Disney World: Disneys Contemporary Resort and Disneys Polynesian Resort. It opened with 23 attractions and six themed lands similar to those of Disneyland in California with the only unique land being Liberty Square.

Disneys Contemporary Resort

Since then, Magic Kingdom and Walt Disney World have grown and evolved. Magic Kingdom now stretches over 100 acres of the central Florida landscape. With the addition of Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios, there are now four major theme parks making up Walt Disney World and 23 resorts ranging from value resorts to deluxe villas on Disney property. Add to that two major water parks, Downtown Disney, and hundreds of off-property attractions and accommodations, and its hard to imagine what the Orlando area would be without the 47 square miles of magic that make up Walt Disney World.

The last couple of years have been a very exciting time indeed at Magic Kingdom. Disney has undertaken a major renovation with the newly expanded Fantasyland! When the renovation is completed, Fantasyland will have doubled in size with two new themed areas opening in phases through 2014. The new Storybook Circus section replaced Mickeys Toontown Fair, and The Enchanted Forest features some very cool new attractions- including two new castles!

Yes- Magic Kingdom has certainly never been more magical than it is today!

PARK LAYOUT

Magic Kingdom is laid out in a similar manner as the Disneyland theme park from which it is modeled. Its hub and spoke layout features Cinderella Castle at its center, with each of the lands of the Kingdom connected to the center via a series of walking paths. Main Street, U.S.A. which begins at the entrance to the park is the widest and straightest of these paths, and it offers a great view of the castle as soon as you enter the park.

Magic Kingdom

The other five lands of Magic Kingdom can be reached by following the paths leading away from Cinderella Castle. If you imagine Cinderella Castle as the center of a clock, the other lands of Magic Kingdom are arranged around it going clockwise. They are Fantasyland (at 12:00 oclock), Tomorrowland (3:00), Adventureland (7:00), Frontierland (9:00), and Liberty Square at (10:00). Main Street, U.S.A and the park entrance would be at 6:00 oclock.