History of Disneyparks

Walter Elias Disney

Walt Disney was born on december 5th 1901 in Chicago. The family included father Elias, mother Flora, three brothers and one sister. Walt’s most well known brother was Roy Oliver Disney, who was also responsible for the Disney imperium. After multiple moves throughout the country, the family returned to Chiago in 1917. After which Walt left high school to join the army in 1918. Eventhough being rejected because of his age, he went to France as a chauffeur for the red cross just after World War one. In 1919 Walt went back to the United States and got a job as a artist apprentice. After meeting Lillian, he married her in 1925 and the two got two daughters together. 

In 1928 Mickey Mouse was born out of the hands of Walt Disney and his friend Ub Iwerks, after losing the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Mickey Mouse was introduced through three animated clips and the first was called Plane Crazy. It was close, or Mickey would have been named Mortimer. But it was Walt’s wife Lillian who put a stop to this. She didn’t like the name and suggested Mickey and the rest is history. 

Disney had a premier with the well known steamboat Willy animation. It was the first animated cartoon with sound. Walt was the speaking voicing Mickey. After many shorts, Disney was able to make the first featured length animated movie in history, known as Snow White and the seven dworfs. The movie was very popular and won eight oscars. After Snow White, many featured length animated movies followed. During the production of the Jungle Book Walt Disney passed away from long cancer in 1966. 

The Disney parks

The idea of building Disneyland came to Walt when he was visiting the Griffith park with his daughters. His daughters were on a carrousal ride while Walt sat on a bench. He thought to himself that there should be a place where children and their parents should visit and spend a good time. However these plans ended on the shelfs for a couple of more years, until Walt had the idea to build a small themepark next to Walt Disney Studios. Allegedly, the park would have been named Mickey Mouse Park. However, with the absence of investors and the skeptical city council the plans for the build perished. 

Walt never gave up on his dreams and still went to other parks to get ideas. After getting the new concept on the table, it turned out that the 3.2 hectare or 7.9 acres weren’t enough to implement his ideas. Disney asked Harrison Price to look for a more fitting location of around 65 hectare or about 160 acres. They found that property among the orchards of Anaheim. The price was relatively low and the climate was favorable. 

The Opening of Disneyland Anaheim

On July 16th 1954 the built of Disneyland Anaheim started. The built of the park would cost 17 million dollars. To seperate the outside world from the park, a wall of sand of 6 meters or almost 20 feet was built. For the structure of the park, there was chosen for an accesible departamentalised park with different and structured themed areas. All areas would be connected and bordered to the famous Disney Castle. The advantage of such an infrastructure is that the Disney Castle could be seen from every part of the park and visitors wouldn’t get lost. 

The budget of the built of the park was exceeded three times during the project. To get everything ready, Disney cashed out his life insurance and pawned his house. To top everthing, there were multiple employees who did a voluntary gift to make it all happen. 

And in fact did it became a success. July 17th 1955 was the day that Disneyland Anaheim opened it’s doors exclusivly for press and invited people. However, people couldn’t contain their curiosity and forged the admission tickets. Because of this, nearly 10.000 people visited the parks, excluded the 11.000 invited people. The opening didn’t go very smoothly. For example, the asphalt hadn’t harden yet and several attractions had technical failures. 

The park opened for the crowds the next day on July 18th 1955. Disneyland received over 50.000 guest with only 20 attractions, like Peter Pan’s flight, Mr. Toad’s Wild, Autopia and Snow White’s Scary Adventures. These attractions can still be found in Disneyland. 

Disney’s California Adventure Park

Disney’s California Adventure Park, or DCA is the second park of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and opened February 8th, 2001. For the build of the park the big parking lot of Disneyland had to make way for 29 hectare or 71.7 acres ground. DCA was supposed to become the second EPCOT, called Westcot. But eventually the park focuses on “the spirit of optimism and promise of endless opportunities”, which are also accompied by the state of California and it’s stories and population. These plans were mostly provided by old Disney CEO Michael Eisner. To prevend a financial setback, just like what happened in EuroDisney (Disneyland Paris), Eisner decided to build the park with the least amount of financial recourses. That is why a lot of standard attractions, like a carrousel and a wild mouse rollercoaster. The only attraction designed by Disney was Soarin’. You can figure that the park received a lot of negative reactions. People thought it didn’t have a true Disney look and had the feeling they were in a mall. 

After Eisner left the company, new CEO Bob Iger decided to change the park completely and allocate 800 million dollars worth of funds for this project. The Entrance Area got a complete make over and got the new Buena Vista Street, just like we know it nowadays. On top of that several attractions got replaced by more Disney themed attractions. For example, Golden Dreams became The little mermaid – Ariel’s undersea Adventure and Superstar Limo became Monsters Inc. Mike & Sully to the rescue. In 2012 a new area opened with the popular movie Cars as the theme and Radiator Springs as the eyecatcher. 

Walt Disney World

Ever since Walt Disney opened Disneyland Anaheim, he dreamed of a opening a second park. This second had to be bigger and Disney started looking for property in 1959 and he found the perfect location. The property was 101 square kilometres or 40 square miles, the same size as the city of San Fransisco and was located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. 

Magic Kingdom

On October 1st 1971 Walt Disney World opened the doors of Magic Kingdom in Florida. Walt Disney deplorably never experienced the opening because of his passing in 1966. His brother Roy took over and opened Walt Disney World. The resort was supposed to be called Disney World, but it was called Walt Disney World as a tribute to the late Walt Disney. 

Disney’s River Country

Disney’s first waterpark Pop’s willow grove, later called Disney’s River Country, opened its doors on June 20, 1976 . With three slides and more than 2000 m2 or over 13.000 square feet of swimming pools. River Country was a water park that blended into it’s environment and had a wilderness theme. River Country closed for the last time on September 1, 2001. It was January 20th 2005 that the Walt Disney Company announced that it would remain closed.

EPCOT

10 years after the opening of Magic Kingdom, EPCOT opened on October 1st 1982. Experimental Protoype Community Of Tomorrow, abbreviated EPCOT, would not initially be a park, but a city designed down to the last detail with everything in it. To this day, the model of EPCOT can still be seen in Magic Kingdom when you take a ride through Tomorrowland with the people mover. The original idea of ​​Walt Disney was thrown overboard after his passing. Roy Oliver Disney didn’t like Walt’s idea of a city and turned EPCOT into an educational park. Because of its educational character, EPCOT differs from other parks. However, lately more and more educational attractions have been converted into a classic Disney attraction.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney-MGM-Studios, now called Disney’s Hollywood Studios, opened in 1989. The park mainly focuses on producing television programs and movies. With the Studio tram tour you could admire various film sets. In addition, it was possible to attend recordings of various TV programs. At a later stage it was decided to add more attractions and shows to the park and television broadcasts from MGM Studios stopped. The Studios theme is still clearly visible in the park.

Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon

When it quickly became clear that Disney’s River Country was too small and there was no room for expansion. on February 4th 1987, Michael Eisner announced that a much larger water park had to be built as growth of visitors increased. Disney`s Typhoon Lagoon finally opened it’s doors with an area of ​​140,000 m2 on June 1st 1989. Later in 2004, this area was expended to 250,000 m2. Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon is a water park with a backstory that can be seen throughout the park. Because of the great Thyphoon, which suddenly raged, the area was flood by a wave several meters high. When this wave was gone, it left wreckage everywhere in this tropical area. In the distance, you can still see a shrimp fishing boat washed up on top of the volcano Mount Mayday. The consequences of the big wave can still be felt and seen in the main pool where every few minutes big waves crash through the dam.

Disney’s Blizzard Beach

Following the success of Disney’s Thyphoon Lagoon, it was quickly decided to build a second water park. The tropical theme was soon exchanged for the icy slopes. The melted water formed the pools and the ski slopes were soon transformed into slides. Disney`s Blizzard Beach opened its doors on April 1st, 1995. If you walk around Blizzard beach you can still see the remnants of the ski resort. Even the chairlift that brought the skiers up is still up and running presentday.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Disney’s newest Park of the resort, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, opened on April 22nd, 1998. With an area of ​​​​200 hectares, it is also the largest park of the resort. Disney’s Animal Kingdom is the first park built with the basic idea of ​​​​a zoo within The Walt Disney Company. This did not go without a fight. People were skeptical and protested against the arrival of the park. Like the animal rights organization PETA. They had concerns about the park and Disney’s care for the animals. The contrary was proven. Disney had taken various measures to give the animals a stress-free life. For example, there were no fireworks shows or events that made a lot of noise. After the various expansions in the field of attractions, you can no longer compare the park with a zoo.

Tokyo Disney Resort

During the 80s, Disney had no plans to open a Disney park outside the United States, but the Oriental Land Company saw something in the Disney parks. They wanted to build the Disney parks in Japan. Disney itself did not see much in this at first and held off. They were already occupied building and designing EPCOT. After the CEO of The Oriental Land Company kept calling almost every week, Disney couldn’t avoid it anymore. Disney thought: if we now say that The Oriental Land Company will have to pay for the costs of development and construction and they have to hand over a part of the profit every year, then they will stop calling. On the contrary, they accepted the offer. Many of the Walt Disney Imagineers were hired and moved to Japan for a long period of time to design and build Disneyland Tokyo.

Tokyo Disneyland

The Oriental Land Company had done well to bring Disneyland to Japan. On April 15, 1983, Disneyland Tokyo opened a park that is virtually a replica of Magic Kingdom Orlando. Main Street U.S.A. was replaced by World Bazaar. The most special thing about the World Bazaar is that it is completely covered by glass victorian style to cover the guests from Japanese weather. In the first year that Tokyo Disneylad opened, 10 million guests visited the parks.

Tokyo Disney sea

Around 1987, the first thought was given to making plans for a second Disney park in Tokyo. Initially, this would be a similar park to Disney’s MGM Studios in Orlando and would be called Disney Hollywood Studios Theme Park. This idea was scrapped around 1992. After some design compromises due to cultural differences, construction of the second park could start in 1998. On September 4th, 2001, Tokyo Disney Sea finally opened its doors as the 9th Disney park. If you look around you can find older concepts like Port Disney that were on the table instead of Disney’s California adventure back in the park and concepts that were never used due to the disappointing Eurodisney construction figures. Fortunately, they were passed on to The Oriantal Land Company and they were able to turn it into this beautiful park.

Euro Disney Resort

Around the 1970s, there were already plans to build a Disney park in Europe, but these only became concrete when it was decided in the early 1980s to look for the right location. Of the 1200 locations that were in the first selection  in 1984, 4 eventually remained, 2 in Spain and 2 in France. The location in Spain had a similar climate to the American resorts, but the disadvantage was that they suffered a lot from the Mistral in that region. This left the two locations in France, one near Toulon and the current location Marne-la-vallée. The site near Toulon soon fell off when it turned out that there were thick layers of bedrock in the ground, which would greatly slow down and make the construction process more difficult. In addition, Marne-la-vallée had the advantage that it was a 35-minute drive from Paris with its 17 million potential visitors per year. On top of that there were 300 million potential visitors that could come in less than 2 hours by train or by plane.

When the choice was finally made, the first agreement on the Marne-la-vallée area was signed by Michael Eisner CEO and Prime Minister Laurent Fabius in 1985. With this signing, the first start has been made towards the 1943 hectare European Disney resort. in 1987 the official contract was signed stating that the french government will take care of the infrastructure and Disney will take care of employment. Something that was very welcome during the time. Also names of Magic kingdom Europe and Sleeping Beauty castle were renamed to Parc Euro Disneyland and Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant. The themed areas in the Disneyland Park kept their English names.

In 1988 a competition took place to which 15 architects were invited. A plan was made for the park and the hotels. They were commissioned to design a resort that resembled the European image of America. The design that was then realized ultimately cost 3.35 billion excluding the later expansions within the resort.

Disneyland Park

On August 2, 1988, the construction of the first Disney park in Europe had finally started. The built of the park had a rocky start and there were, therefore, various demonstrations, On an official occasion, even Eisner was pelted by eggs, tomatoes and flour by french communists. France was not waiting for these Americans.

On April 12, 1992, Eurodisney and Eurodisneyland were officially opened at 9.01 am. In the days before, expectations of visitor numbers ranged far from between 50,000 and 500,000 visitors. The actual number was drastically lower and is estimated between 20,000 and 50,000 visitors. After the opening, the demonstrations did not diminish.

Walt Disney Studios Park

From the start of the construction of Eurodisneyland, there had already been the plan to open a second park with the theme studios. The park would become comparable to MGM Studios in Florida and was then called – how could it be otherwise – Disney`s MGM Studios Europe. However, due to the disappointing figures, the opening year of 1996 had been postponed.

When the resort started to develop again financially, a small-scale park was chosen for the film world. The park must be designed at a fairly rapid pace and realized in the cheapest possible way. All this was partly done under pressure from the French government. They would otherwise lose the rights to build a second park. Due to the small-scale and cheap design, The park received a lot of criticism from visitors but also from the design team.

A few years after opening, Disney realized that the park had too little to offer to fill a whole day in the park. It was therefore decided to expand in the form of Toon Studio, which was added in 2007. New attractions were also added, such as The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Crush’s Coaster.

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary in 2009, the attraction Cars Quatre Routes Rally was added and later in that year a completely new area, Toy Story Playland, based on the Pixar movie Toy Story, opened. In this area you should get the feeling that you are in Andy’s garden. This was the first Toy Sory Playland of all Disney parks. On July 10th, 2014 the attraction  Ratatouille; LÀventure Totalment Toquée Rémy was added as the park’s first dark ride.

Future of Disneyland Paris

In 2017, the Walt Disney Company Takes over the European Disney resort. Shortly after this acquisition, the Walt Disney Company indicated that they will invest more than 2 billion in the resort. Part of the money is used for renovation and recapitalization, but a large part is used for the expansion plans and refurbishment plans of Walt Disney Studios. This multi-year plan has started in 2019 with the first phase.

The first phase is the refurbishment and conversion of the Backlot area into the Avengers Campus themed Area. They have started with this on March 31, 2019. The attraction Armagedon was broken down shortly afterwards to make way for a new Spiderman attraction called Web Slingers: A Spider-man Advanture. Not much later on September 1, 2019, Rock ‘n’Roller Coaster also closed its doors to be converted into an Iron Man attraction. The area was subsequently closed to visitors.

The attraction Studio Tramtour: Behind the Magic also closed its doors on January 5, 2020 to make way for the expansion of Walt Disney Studios. This to make way for the path that will lead to a large lake to which the new still to be built and existing Theme Areas will adjoin. Part of the Studio Tramtour has been reused in the new attraction Cars Route 66 Road Trip that opened on June 17, 2021. The new themed areas that will border the lake will be realized around Star Wars and Frozen.

Hong Kong Disneyland Resort

Hong Kong Disneyland Resort has only one amusement park called Hong Kong Disneyland. After a flight over and around Hong Kong, no suitable location could be found for the construction of a second resort in Asia. However, close by there was an area in economic development where major infrastructure projects were planned. But there just wasn’t room for a Disney Park unless they were going to reclaim a piece of land. And that’s what Hong Kong did for Disney at the time.

Hong Kong Disneyland

Hong Kong Disneyland knows one of the shortest construction periods of any Disney park in history. On January 12 2005, the first shovel went into the green and on September 12, 2005 13.00 sharp Hong Kong Disneyland opened. Just like the opening of Disneyland Anaheim, the opening did not go smoothly and the asphalt had not yet hardened. The park could count on some negative reactions in the beginning. They found that the park didn’t have enough going on to fill a full day and there was too little entertainment. Just before the opening, more natural elements were quickly added because of the advice of a Feng shui expert.

During the first expansion phase in 2006 to offer more, three new attractions were added to Tomorrowland. Later in 2008 the attraction Art of Annimation and the most famous attraction “its a small world” were added. The latter was the first version in which Disney characters were added.

Later in 2009, it was announced that the new expansion plans had been approved by the government. This plan resulted in an expansion of no less than 12 hectares or almost 30 acres and included three new thematic areas. The Toy Story Playland, Grizzly Gluch and Mystic Point themed areas have been successively opened from 2011-2013. In 2016, the attraction Buzz Lightyear astro Blasters was replaced by Ant-Man and Wasp Nano Battle due to the growth in interest in films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2020, the renovation and transformation of the castle was unveiled and renamed Castle of Magic Dreams.

Shanghai Disney Resort

Already in 2001, the first talks about a Disney park in Shanghai happened. But with the arrival of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in 2005, these plans were shelved. These plans were activated again when more details emerged about the Shanghai resort on August 11, 2006. The resort would be four times the size of that in Hong Kong and would cost a total of $3.75 billion. The name Shanghai Disneyland was also announced and the opening date was aimed in 2013. 

On April 2 2011, it was announced through the press that construction of the resort would start on April 8 2011. On that day there was talk of a resort with a park and an entertainment area with 2 hotels. the opening year was also moved to 2016.

Shanghai Disneyland 

Shanghai Disneyland opened on June 16, 2016. The park focuses on the themes offFantasy, romance and adventure in what Disney itself says is “Authentically Disney, Distinctly Chinese”. The budget has also been increased to 5.5 billion in the meantime to have more attraction offers at opening day.

Shanghai Disneyland has 7 themed areas, including 3 new areas compared to the current parks. These are Mickey Avenue, Gardens of Imagination and Treasure Cove.

Storytellers statue

A statue called Partners has been created as a tribute to Walt Disney in all parks except in Hong Kong. The statue shows Walt with Mickey Mouse to his left.