When it comes to vacation destinations, millions of people every year plan and save for a dream vacation to Walt Disney World. Walt Disney World is one of the most popular destinations in the United States, and for good reason too. This amusement park captures the imagination of children every where with its exciting and thrilling rides, of which many share themes with popular Disney movies from both the distant past and more recent times as well. Walt Disney World is not just for children though with many individual resorts, rides and other attractions designed just for adults and older youth as well. Walt Disney World opened in 1971 after much attention and fascination regarding the construction of the park. The acquisition of the land by the Disney company was done largely in secret, but once the word go out there was a great deal of excitement. A great deal of information is known about this most famous of all amusement parks, but here are five things you may not know about Walt Disney World.
1. Walt Disney World’s boundaries actually stretch over a couple of small communities. One of those communities is the City of Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Prior to 1969, the name of the community was the City of Reedy Creek, it was changed after organizational changes were made in the boundaries in preparation for the opening of the amusement park.
2. The Sanford, Florida city council turned down Walt Disney’s request to build Walt Disney World in their community. They were fearful that the increased tourism and development would result in a higher crime rate.
3. Epcot Center, an independent Disney theme park located at Walt Disney World, took three years to build before it opened in 1982 and at the time it was the largest construction project in the entire world. It was originally intended to be a city of the future, but the design was changed to make it into what is basically a permanent World’s Fair with permanent displays of the nations of the World.
4. Due to the sell off of unneeded land by the Disney company, the current size of the park is smaller than it was at one time. At the peak of land acquisition, the park was roughly twice the size of the island of Manhattan in New York.
5. There are a number of lakes on the Walt Disney World Resort properties and nearly all of them are open for catch and release fishing. As these lakes are on private property, they are some of the very few areas in the state where a Florida state fishing license is not needed.
Visiting Walt Disney World is easy and somewhat affordable, all things considered. The park attracts millions of visitors each year and each and every one of them leaves happy and satisfied that they had just visited one of the most exciting and fun filled places on the face of the Earth. The proof that Walt Disney World is well worth the visit lies in the fact that they get a tremendous amount of repeat visitors. When it comes to setting up what will simply be one of the best all around family vacations anyone could ever take, selecting Walt Disney World as the destination is definitely the way to go. Walt Disney World has a long history as being one of the top vacation playgrounds in the United States, one visit there is all it takes to find out why.
