Bravo
Well-Known Member
- Aug 27, 2004
- 5,822
- 15
I just came back from a working-vacation in Orlando. We took our 9 yo autistic daughter with us.
The Disney company is great for handicapped people. They will provide you with a pass that enables you to skip any/all lines at the parks. So for us, you can go to ride after ride very very quickly. It's fantastic and my daughter loved it. She is about the equivalent of a 4-5 year old child mentally now. This was my 4th trip with my kids at various ages in their lives over the past 12 years or so.-
I paid $60 for a 'behind the scenes' tour of the Magic Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom is built on top of a vast underground tunnel system which is where much of the park operations are performed. Characters change into their costumes underground and climb steps to unmarked doors in the back of shops and restaurants and 'appear'...similarly, when their shift is over...they slip behind a wall, through the door and down underground. Commissaries, personal lockers and supplies are all located down there.
Their trash system is facinating. Walt Disney heard about a Swedish company that had developed the world's largest vacuum system and he brought them over to design the waste system. Behind the scenes of the Splash Mountain ride (which makes a lot of continuous noise because of the water pumps) is a three story building which essentially is a huge vacuum cleaner. This building is connected underground to a series of large tubes which run throughout the park. Whenever a trash bin gets full, a worker grabs the bag, ties the top and drops it into the vacuum tube. At that point, it travels at 35 mph/50kph to an incinerator which burns it at 1000 degrees F. Wild...but incredibly efficient.
I never really understood how brilliant Walt Disney was. On the first day they opened Disneyland in California in 1955, he took a ride on some attraction that took him way up in the air (probably a roller coaster..). He said he was very saddened when he got to the top and looked out and could see cars parked outside the gates and gas stations closeby. He said that, "This ruined the effect of the fantasy for me". So when they decided to open another park, he vowed that once you left your car and actually entered the park, you would never see anything of the 'outside world'. This is why DisneyWorld has a 2-3 mile monorail route between the parking lot and the front entrance of all the parks. Once you are inside, you never see anything other than the attractions in the park. What a mind...
When he decided to buy the land in Florida, he formed a series of 'shell corporations' under innocuous names. "Tomahawk Development" and other such companies were formed with the sole purpose of buying huge tracs of land in such a manner that they could not be traced back to the Disney company. As a result, they bought the land at an average of $187 per acre before the locals realized what was going on. When it was finally revealed that Disney was behind the purchases, land skyrocketed to $80,000 per acre overnight...
If you ever get a chance to go on this tour while you are there - spend the extra bucks. If you are the type who often asks yourself, "I wonder how that works?" - you will be facinated...
The Disney company is great for handicapped people. They will provide you with a pass that enables you to skip any/all lines at the parks. So for us, you can go to ride after ride very very quickly. It's fantastic and my daughter loved it. She is about the equivalent of a 4-5 year old child mentally now. This was my 4th trip with my kids at various ages in their lives over the past 12 years or so.-
I paid $60 for a 'behind the scenes' tour of the Magic Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom is built on top of a vast underground tunnel system which is where much of the park operations are performed. Characters change into their costumes underground and climb steps to unmarked doors in the back of shops and restaurants and 'appear'...similarly, when their shift is over...they slip behind a wall, through the door and down underground. Commissaries, personal lockers and supplies are all located down there.
Their trash system is facinating. Walt Disney heard about a Swedish company that had developed the world's largest vacuum system and he brought them over to design the waste system. Behind the scenes of the Splash Mountain ride (which makes a lot of continuous noise because of the water pumps) is a three story building which essentially is a huge vacuum cleaner. This building is connected underground to a series of large tubes which run throughout the park. Whenever a trash bin gets full, a worker grabs the bag, ties the top and drops it into the vacuum tube. At that point, it travels at 35 mph/50kph to an incinerator which burns it at 1000 degrees F. Wild...but incredibly efficient.
I never really understood how brilliant Walt Disney was. On the first day they opened Disneyland in California in 1955, he took a ride on some attraction that took him way up in the air (probably a roller coaster..). He said he was very saddened when he got to the top and looked out and could see cars parked outside the gates and gas stations closeby. He said that, "This ruined the effect of the fantasy for me". So when they decided to open another park, he vowed that once you left your car and actually entered the park, you would never see anything of the 'outside world'. This is why DisneyWorld has a 2-3 mile monorail route between the parking lot and the front entrance of all the parks. Once you are inside, you never see anything other than the attractions in the park. What a mind...
When he decided to buy the land in Florida, he formed a series of 'shell corporations' under innocuous names. "Tomahawk Development" and other such companies were formed with the sole purpose of buying huge tracs of land in such a manner that they could not be traced back to the Disney company. As a result, they bought the land at an average of $187 per acre before the locals realized what was going on. When it was finally revealed that Disney was behind the purchases, land skyrocketed to $80,000 per acre overnight...
If you ever get a chance to go on this tour while you are there - spend the extra bucks. If you are the type who often asks yourself, "I wonder how that works?" - you will be facinated...