I make it no secret that I like this time of year.
It won’t be long before Christmas decorations start popping up around the neighborhood (and also, of course, at Walt Disney World itself!), we’ve got plenty of great meals to be enjoyed between three major holidays packed into a six-week span, and generally people are just happier around these months. Everyone is festive, we all try to think about others just a little more than we normally would throughout the year, and of course with Thanksgiving, it’s also a great time to sit back and reflect on the things that are most important to us in this world. And no doubt family, friends, food and shelter, and so forth are at the top of most lists, but this month I wanted to take the opportunity to explore a few other things that I know an awful lot of us are certainly thankful for…
The Ambition of One Man with a Dream
“Let us not forget that this all started with just a mouse…”
from One Man's Dream @ Disney-MGM Studios
As far as I’m concerned, the Walt Disney story is one of the most inspiring tales around. Walt had an imagination like no other and spent his life striving to bring his dreams to life, despite repeated taunts that his latest breakthrough project would be his last. Beginning his creative journey as a cartoonist, he first drew cartoons for his school newspaper and then later created advertisements before creating the icon that is Mickey Mouse back in 1929. But comic strips weren’t enough for Walt, who then began experimenting with cell animation to bring to life his characters during the height of the Great Depression. One animated short became one series after another of animated shorts before Walt finally decided that it was time to expand his vision even further to create his first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
They called it “Disney’s Flop” and vowed that it would be the last thing that Walt Disney ever did in Hollywood, but the masterpiece ended up not only winning Disney an Oscar (actually eight – one big statue and seven little ones, believe it or not!) but also funding the studio for the next two years so he could continue making movies. Of course, another decade and we’d soon find that even being a movie maker wasn’t enough for Walt Disney, as he began to toy around with the idea of creating an amusement park where parents and children could have fun together, as opposed to the parents simply watching their kids on one ride after another in a dirty, carnival environment. In 1955, Disneyland opened in California and although its opening day itself was regarded as a complete disaster at best, Walt learned from his mistakes and quickly built the park into one of the most popular tourist destinations in the west.
And all of that, of course, is even before the first inkling of a second property on the east coast ever crossed Walt’s mind! But as dreamers are known to do, Walt eventually realized some mistakes, such as nearby busy freeways and outside businesses, couldn’t be corrected and thus the idea of a second, even larger resort began to take shape. Each project was a bit more grand, magnificent, and arguably impossible than the last, and therein lies the key to it all – no matter what roadblocks he came across, Walt was a man that believed in his dreams and refused to give up even when the rest of the world was against him. He believed in family, fun, and imagination, and it’s hard not to be forever thankful for a legend like that…
a photo of Walt @ Disneyland from One Man's Dream
The Hundreds of Imagineers Who Brought Walt’s Dream to Life
“If you build it, they will come!”
From the men and women who worked side by side with Walt Disney himself back in the 1960s to develop and eventually finish a park that Walt sadly wouldn’t even live to see open to the next generation of Imagineers today that offer their creative efforts up to making the resort even better – I’m thankful for the seemingly everlasting imagination of these individuals who come together to design The Happiest Place on Earth. These are the folks who took those very first visions of audio-animatronics and gave us the interactive stories found within Splash Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean, to name but a few! It was their attention to detail that makes Expedition Everest one of the most meticulous theme park attractions in the world, thus setting the bar even higher for the company that is never afraid to shoot for the stars.
early construction days of Expedition Everest @ Disney's Animal Kingdom
A leisurely stroll through nearly any place on Disney property is an inspiring journey for the creative mind, as even the most minute of details were thoroughly planned out by Disney’s Imagineers to truly make the Walt Disney World Resort a world onto itself. These ladies and gentlemen may not have invented the magic, but we should all be thankful that they make such grand efforts to keep it alive in Walt’s memory…
The Thousands of Cast Members Who Continue in Walt’s Footsteps Everyday
“Our cast members and employees are the cornerstone of our magic…”
These are the countless ladies and gentlemen throughout the parks and resorts without whom our magical vacations simply wouldn’t be possible. They’re the ones who help us with our admission tickets when the turnstiles are being cranky and remind us with a sheepish grin when the three o’clock parade is going to start. They cook up both the most extravagant of dishes for our fine dining experiences, but can also whip up a mean batch of chicken strips or a quick burger when catching one more ride on Soarin’ or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before the park closes is more important than waiting for a full-course meal. They introduce the vast stories that encompass all of our favorite attractions, and some even don the costumes of their favorite characters to give kids young and old the chance to have a picture of the family posing with Mickey and Minnie Mouse for the mantle back home.
The cast members of the Walt Disney World resort are the lifeblood of our favorite vacation place, and we must never forget that the World would cease to operate without their efforts. Some have duties that offer a great deal of satisfaction, while others often times go completely unnoticed, but they’re still of the utmost importance and always deserve our respect and admiration as we walk through those gates to leave behind a more complicated world for one made of fantasy, magic, and dreams…
The Entire Resort as a Whole, from the Tiniest Hidden Mickey to the Final Bang Above Cinderella Castle
“Where dreams come true…”
At times it can be hard even for me to put down in words just exactly what this place means to me … creativity, wonder, excitement, imagination, love, happiness. I’ve created so many wonderful memories at Walt Disney World in the past – being lead from ride to ride by my parents twenty years ago, only to in turn lead them back to my favorites today; sharing the time of our lives with my sister as we recreate a day at the movies at MGM; getting down on one knee and asking for my fiancee’s hand in marriage in front of Epcot a year after we had our second date there – and the best part about it is that for every scenario that I relish in my mind, there are still a dozen new ones that have yet to come. Walking through the Magic Kingdom with my son for the first time, trying to tell him all about how amazing Walt Disney was without tearing up myself; writing the check so that my daughter can get all done up at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and then just melting when I take her picture with her favorite princess; or even walking my family onto the latest attraction that I actually helped to design after being hired as a Disney Imagineer … hey, if there’s anywhere that a guy can dream, this would certainly be the place!
Walt Disney World truly is The Happiest Place on Earth, at least compared to everywhere else I’ve already been so far, and anyone who wants to tell you that the line is just marketing owes it to themselves to take a trip down and experience the magic in person. There’s a unique happiness to be found at Disney World that can’t be replicated anywhere else in the world, but nonetheless it has and will always be a very important part of my life and for that I’m certainly very thankful, indeed.
“Remember, we must always believe in our wishes, for they are the magic in the world.”
