Walt Disney World Quotes

Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.

Disneyland is like Alice stepping through the Looking Glass; to step through the portals of Disneyland will be like entering another world.

That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget.

To all that come to this happy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America... with hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

Here is the world of imagination, hopes, and dreams. In this timeless land of enchantment, the age of chivalry, magic and make-believe are reborn - and fairy tales come true. Fantasyland is dedicated to the young-in-heart, to those who that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.

Landscapes of great wonder and beauty lie under our feet and all around us. They are discovered in tunnels in the ground, the heart of flowers, the hollows of trees, fresh-water ponds, seaweed jungles between tides, and even drops of water. Life in these hidden worlds is more startling in reality than anything we can imagine. How could this earth of ours, which is only a speck in the heavens, have so much variety of life, so many curious and exciting creatures?

Over at our place, we’re sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don’t think of grown-ups, and we don’t think of children. But just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us, that maybe the world has made us forget.

We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.

Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.

Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.

We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

Conspiracy theorists like to claim NASA’s moon landing was faked. Well of course it was! But the biggest conspiracy of all is the Columbus landed in the new world in the late 15th century. There is no new world. It simply doesn’t exist. And Amerigo Vespucci? He was a character out of Walt Disney’s diary.


You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

He had passed beyond the afflictions of this world. Walt Disney had at last attained perfection.

I believe in the power of imagination. I believe in the unexplained possibilities of the spirit. And I believe that the heart, like any other muscle, grows stiff if it is not exercised regularly. I believe.

Mr. McMurphy... my friend... I'm not a chicken, I'm a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a rabbit. All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, don't misunderstand me, we're not in here because we are rabbitsーwe'd be rabbits wherever we wereーwe're all in here because we can't adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.

It is a curious thing that the more the world shrinks because of electronic communications, the more limitless becomes the province of the storytelling entertainer.

Walt Disney World is nearly 30,000 acres, or 48 square miles. That is more than 80 times the size of Monaco. Grace Kelly would have been queen of a larger and wealthier, kingdom if she'd married Uncle Walt instead of Prince Rainier.

Maybe this is the case for many of us: No matter who we become or what we accomplish, we still feel that we’re essentially the kid we were at some simpler time long ago. Somehow that’s the trick of leadership, too, I think, to hold on to that awareness of yourself even as the world tells you how powerful and important you are. The moment you start to believe it all too much, the moment you look yourself in the mirror and see a title emblazoned on your forehead, you’ve lost your way. That may be the hardest but also the most necessary lesson to keep in mind, that wherever you are along the path, you’re the same person you’ve always been.

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

Just watch Snow White. Just visit Disneyland or Walt Disney World in Florida—he was laying the plans for the Florida park while he was on his death bed. People kept telling him his dreams were impossible. Walt knew better. He had wished upon a star.

Yet all of these accumulated contributions paled before a larger one: he demonstrated how one could assert one’s will on the world at the very time when everything seemed to be growing beyond control and beyond comprehension.

Dream big dreams, and pursue those dreams with courage, optimism and perseverance. Commit yourself to making the world a better place.

A whole new world is a dazzling place

That’s the real trouble with the world. Too many people grow up.

There is only one name on the door at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Don’t let life’s unfairness, don’t let how poor you are decide who you are. You choose who you will be, Aladdin.

But wealth isn’t a magic lamp that suddenly erases all your problems,

Enthusiasm and optimism together. He was enthusiastic about everything. He never thought anything would turn out badly. ----Lillian Disney (on Walt)

Walt’s grandson, Walter Disney Miller, told me, “EPCOT was my grandfather’s biggest dream—the city of the future that would point the way to a better world. His dream remains unbuilt.

Walt Disney’s brother tells an amusing story about Walt’s budding genius as a fifth grader. The teacher assigned the students to color a flower garden. As she walked among the rows examining the student’s work she stopped by young Walt’s desk. Noting that his drawing was quite unusual, she remarked, “Walt, that’s not right. Flowers don’t have faces on them.” Confidently he replied, “Mine do!” and continued his work. And they still do; flowers at Disneyland and Disney World all have faces. An

Cinderella, until lately, has never been a passive dreamer waiting for rescue. The forerunners of the Ash-girl have all been hardy, active heroines who take their lives into their own hands and work out their own salvations .... Cinderella speaks to all of us in whatever skin we inhabit: the child mistreated, a princess or highborn lady in disguise bearing her trials with patience, fortitude, and determination. Cinderella makes intelligent decisions, for she knows that wishing solves nothing without concomitant action. We have each been that child. (Even boys and men share thatdream, as evidenced by the many Ash-boy variants.) It is the longing of any youngster sent supperless to bed or given less than a full share at Christmas. And of course it is the adolescent dream. To make Cinderella less than she is, an ill-treated but passive princess awaiting her rescue, cheapens our most cherished dreams and makes a mockery of the magic inside us all—the ability to change our own lives, the ability to control our own destinies. [The Walt Disney film] set a new pattern for Cinderella: a helpless, hapless, pitiable, useless heroine who has to be saved time and time again by the talking mice and birds because she is “off in a world of dreams.” It is a Cinderella who is not recognized by her prince until she is magically back in her ball gown, beribboned and bejewelled. Poor Cinderella. Poor us.

Riley knew that she and Lucas could have a story—a potentially amazing story—ahead of them. But it was never going to be told unless she took that leap and talked to him.

The real problem with the world, too many people grow up.

I don't want the public to see the world they live in while they're in the Park. I want them to feel they're in another world.

Okay, I know--my superpower--I'd be able to shoot lightening bolts out from my fingertips--great big knowledge network lightening bolts--and when a person was zapped by one of those bolts, they'd fall down on their knees and once on their knees, they'd be under water, in this place I saw once off the east coast of the Bahamas, a place where a billion electric blue fish swam up to me and made me a part of their school--and then they'd be up in the air, up in Manhattan, above the World Trade Center, with a flock of pigeons, flying amid the skyscrapers, and then--then what? And then they'd go blind, and then they'd be taken away--they'd feel homesick--more homesick than they'd felt in their entire life--so homesick they were throwing up--and they'd be abandoned, I don't know...in the middle of a harvested corn field in Missouri. And then they'd be able to see again, and from the edges of the field people would appear--everybody they'd known--and they'd be carrying Black Forest cakes and burning tiki lamps and boom boxes playing the same song, and they sky would turn into a sunset, the way it does in Walt Disney brochure, and the person I zapped would never be alone or isolated again.

As the Christian world is celebrating the Nativity once again, the roar of the guns, the cries of the dying and the wails of innocent people are heard on the battlefields. And an even greater holocaust threatens. Twice before in our time we have seen tyranny and lust for power thwarted by those who believe in the freedom of all mankind, only to see them circumvented in a brief few years. In America, we have only one thought at this Christmastime, to pray that the world again be restored to a sanity that will insure all peoples the right to think and live as they choose, to respect the beliefs of all and to help humanity live a better life in the short span allotted to us on this earth. In this aim we feel we are joined by all peoples who believe in the Divine Spirit. It is my sincere wish, in which I know I am joined by 150,000,000 other Americans, that we will be guided by the Supreme Being in restoring peace to the world, that all may live in hope and happiness.To all peoples of good will, I extend greetings of the Season.

To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide–eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon — a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism. . .in short, not a tale originally intended for children's tender ears. Disney's well–known film version of the story, released in 1937, was ostensibly based on the German tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Originally titled "Snow–drop" and published in Kinder–und Hausmarchen in 1812, the Grimms' "Snow White" is a darker, chillier story than the musical Disney cartoon, yet it too had been cleaned up for publication, edited to emphasize the good Protestant values held by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (...) Variants of Snow White were popular around the world long before the Grimms claimed it for Germany, but their version of the story (along with Walt Disney's) is the one that most people know today. Elements from the story can be traced back to the oldest oral tales of antiquity, but the earliest known written version was published in Italy in 1634.

The Indiana Jones films have a built in Disney connection, as director Steven Spielberg sent his sound designers down to Disneyland to record Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to provide a soundtrack for the second film's mine chase scene!

To help cement the friendship between Japan and Disney, Emperor Hirohito personally presented to Roy O. Disney, for the dedication of the Magic Kingdom, a stone Japanese lantern known as a Toro to light the way to success and happiness.

His life would become an ongoing effort to devise what psychologists call a “paracosm,” an invented universe, that he could control as he could not control reality. From Mickey Mouse through Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through Disneyland through EPCOT, he kept attempting to remake the world in the image of his own imagination, to certify his place as a force in that world and keep reality from encroaching upon it, to recapture a sense of childhood power that he either had never felt or had lost long ago.

Horizons opened exactly one year after Epcot Center opened. Amusingly, the phrase in the attraction—“If we can dream it, we can do it”—that is often falsely credited to Walt Disney was in reality the creation of Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald, who modeled for the Audio-Animatronic “young man” character with the solo submarine.

One Disney “urban myth” is that in the event of a hurricane, the castle can be dismantled. That is untrue. The main building has an internal grid of steel framing, secured to a concrete foundation. The turrets and towers also have internal steel framing and were lifted by crane, then bolted permanently to the main structure.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new: an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook." But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere*. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.

It was speculated that a car manufacturing company like Ford, or a space or aircraft project like NASA’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Project, or millionaires like the Rockefellers or Howard Hughes were secretly purchasing the land. One account even suggested the Mafia was buying land to launder ill-gotten gains or dump bodies in the swamps. However,

The list of names on the windows are taught to cast members as the credits to the beginning or end of a movie, just like showing the actors and film makers who created the film you had just seen. Susan told us that if you’re walking toward the castle, the names on the windows represent the opening credits to your day, and walking away from the castle represented the closing credits.

My former boss Dan Burke once handed me a note that said: “Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest trombone-oil manufacturer in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year!” He was telling me not to invest in small projects that would sap my and the company’s resources and not give much back.

I do love Alice in Wonderland though. That’s something I think I could do very well. Don’t you think we ought to do an A.W.? A.W.’s Alice in Wonderland? Andy Warhol’s Alice in Wonderland? A.W. stands for a lot of things, I understand. It would make a fantastic film, so I wanted somebody to write the script for it in a modern sense. I think it would be the most marvelous movie in the world if it could be done, don’t you think? Really, I don’t think they’ve done one since they did a Walt Disney one - which isn’t really doing it. In a sense it is, but not in the way it really should be done. What’s needed right now is a real scene. I mean not just cartoon characters, but the actual character of people because there’s so many fantastic people that you might as well use the people.

The two little girls and I crossed the Delaware River where George Washington had crossed it, the next morning. We went to the New York World’s Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

His (Walt Disney's) favorite song, 'Feed the Birds' from Mary Poppins. The lyrics give insight into Walt's benevolence--his belief that small kindnesses go a long way. Disney Legend and lyricist Robert Sherman once explained the sentiment: ' Doing just a little extra and going just a little bit out of your way to make someone feel special. Sometimes it makes all the difference in the world to a person.' Come feed the little birds, show them you care And you'll be glad if you do Their young ones are hungry, their nest are so bare All it takes is tuppence from you.... When the song was finished, Walt would say under his breath, as an aside to himself, 'Yup, That's what it's all about.' Robert overheard that whisper and concluded, 'I do think this song summed him up. He was a simple man---a simple, wonderful man who understood that the greatest gift life bestows upon a person is the chance to share with others.

Walt Disney bought some orange groves in the middle of Florida and built a tourist town on them. No magic there of any kind, although I think there might be something real in the original Disneyland. There may be some power there, although twisted, and hard to access. There’s definitely nothing out of the ordinary about Disney World. But some parts of Florida are filled with real magic. You just have to keep your eyes open. Ah, for the mermaids of Weeki Wachee…Follow me, this way.

This world… belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn’t challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it?” He lets go McMurphy’s hand and leans back and crosses his legs, takes another long pull off the cigarette. He pulls the cigarette from his thin crack of a smile, and the laugh starts up again—eee-eee-eee, like a nail coming out of a plank. “Mr. McMurphy… my friend… I’m not a chicken, I’m a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a rabbit. All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we’re not in here because we are rabbits—we’d be rabbits wherever we were—we’re all in here because we can’t adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.

Warren Bennis, one of today’s leading thinkers on the art of leadership, spent years studying groundbreaking groups such as the Walt Disney Studios (while Walt was still alive), Xerox PARC, and Lockheed’s Skunk Works. Here are some of the highlights from his study of groups: • Great groups believe they are on a mission from God. Beyond mere financial success, they genuinely believe they will make the world a better place. • Great groups are more optimistic than realistic. They believe they can do what no one else has done before. “And the optimists, even when their good cheer is unwarranted, accomplish more,” says Warren. • Great groups ship. “They are places of action, not think tanks or retreat centers devoted solely to the generation of ideas.” Warren characterized the successful collaborations he studied as “dreams with deadlines.” Part

There is no real reason why Disney should not buy up the human genome, which is currently being sequenced, to turn it into a genetic attraction. Why not cryogenize the whole planet, exactly as Walt Disney had himself cryogenized in liquid nitrogen, with a view to some kind of resurrection or other in the real world? But there no longer is a real world, and there won’t be one – not even for Walt Disney: if he wakes up one day he’ll get the shock of his life. In the meantime, from the depths of his liquid nitrogen he goes on annexing the world – both imaginary and real – subsuming it into the spectral universe of virtual reality in which we have all become extras. The difference is that, as we slip on our data suits or our sensors, or tap away at our keyboards, we are moving into living spectrality, whereas he, the brilliant precursor, has moved into the virtual reality of death.

Being raised evangelical in the Midwest gave me a personal experience of the phenomenon called “religious fundamentalism.” A story illustrates. When I was a boy in high school, I was interested in a girl from our church. It was an evangelical church, although some might have called it a bit fundamentalist—taking a hard line on cultural issues. But I took a chance and invited her to a movie, which was certainly frowned upon back then in our church culture (though my own parents snuck us out to Walt Disney movies at the drive-in, where we were unlikely to be spotted). I chose The Sound of Music, thinking it was “safe.” Who could object to Julie Andrews, I confidently thought? I was wrong. As we left the house, my girlfriend’s father stood in the doorway, blocking our exit, and said to his daughter, “If you go to this film, you’ll be trampling on everything that we’ve taught you to believe.” She fled downstairs to her bedroom in tears. We missed the movie, and the evening was a disaster. A year later, the fundamentalist father watched The Sound of Music on his television—and liked it. Fundamentalism is essentially a revolt against modernity. It is a reaction usually based on profound fear and defensiveness against “losing the faith.” My girlfriend’s father instinctively knew that his religion should make him different than the world. That is a fair religious point, and to be honest, there is much about modernity that deserves some revolting against. But I wish he had chosen to break with America at the point of its materialism, racism, poverty, or violence. Instead, he chose Julie Andrews.

If a man jumped as high as a louse (lice), he would jump over a football field. In Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was 19 years, but for those who survived childhood, the average life expectancy was 30 years for women and 34 years for men. The volume of the moon is equivalent to the volume of the water in the Pacific Ocean. After the 9/11 incident, the Queen of England authorized the guards to break their vow and sing America’s national anthem for Americans living in London. In 1985, lifeguards of New Orleans threw a pool party to celebrate zero drownings, however, a man drowned in that party. Men and women have different dreams. 70 percent of characters in men’s dreams are other men, whereas in women its 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Men also act more aggressively in dreams than women. A polar bear has a black skin. 2.84 percent of deaths are caused by intentional injuries (suicides, violence, war) while 3.15 percent are caused by diarrhea. On average people are more afraid of spiders than they are afraid of death. A bumblebee has hairs on its eyes, helping it collect the pollen. Mickey Mouse’s creator, Walt Disney feared mice. Citarum river in Indonesia is the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. When George R R Martin saw Breaking Bad’s episode called “Ozymandias”, he called Walter White and said that he’d write up a character more monstrous than him. Maria Sharapova’s grunt is the loudest in the Tennis game and is often criticized for being a distraction. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for “kangaroo” translates literally to “bag rat”. The first product to have a barcode was a chewing gum Wrigley. Chambarakat dam in Iraq is considered the most dangerous dam in the world as it is built upon uneven base of gypsum that can cause more than 500,000 casualties, if broken. Matt Urban was an American Lieutenant Colonel who was nicknamed “The Ghost” by Germans because he always used to come back from wounds that would kill normal people.

One of the class leaders was working on the front desk in a Disney resort at the time of the incident. The housekeeper had encountered something very rare. She knocked on the door and, having gotten no response from any guests inside the room, opened it to reveal a cow standing between the beds and the TV. If you think that’s funny, then it gets better: this room was on the second floor, and whoever put the cow there had to get it onto Disney property and past all the cast members working at the resort, before taking it to the second floor. The moral of the story: EXPECT EVERYTHING.

Disney foresaw the danger from lightning when they built the park, and if you look at the very top of Cinderella Castle you’ll see a spire: that spire isn’t for Cinderella to hang a washing line, it’s a lightning conductor which is meant to redirect any errant bolt of lightning into the ground to discharge, with no harm to cast members or guests.

Goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting. — J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)

He did not live to see the opening of Walt Disney World in Florida in 1971.

In Attractions, don’t be afraid to say “no”. I was tentative at first because I didn’t want to cause problems. However, you must get into people’s faces in Attractions. You are actually trained to yell at guests if necessary.

However, while the work of the experience stager perishes upon its performance (precisely the right word), the value of the experience lingers in the memory of any individual who was engaged by the event.” Sounds a lot like practical magic, doesn’t it? They went on to use Disney as an example of a notable experience stager. “Most parents,” they wrote, “don’t take their kids to Walt Disney World just for the event itself but rather to make the shared experience part of the everyday family conversation for months, and even years, afterward.” 5

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” — Walt Disney

a world remade in the image of Walt Disney, and driven by an increasingly sophisticated communications technology, is the total breakdown of civilization.20

One night, Walt and I looked out over the audience and saw hundreds of Olympic athletes from around the world, people of every race, language and nation. Walt’s eyes shone as he said, “Isn’t that amazing? Here are all of these people, different in so many ways, yet united by their hopes and goals and dreams. This is how the world should be.

Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Try Tart Cherry Juice. Studies have shown that drinking 6 oz. of Tart Cherry Juice twice a day seven days prior to the run and two days after can substantially reduce delayed muscle onset soreness.

I believe there are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper. The first way is that the blank sheet is the most frightening thing in the world because you have to put down the first mark and figure out what to do with it. The other way is to look at it and say, “Wow, I’ve got another blank piece of paper. This is the greatest opportunity in the world because I can now let my imagination fly in any direction and I can create whole new things.” I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that the blank sheet is the greatest opportunity in the world and is not frightening at all. —Marty Sklar, Executive Vice President/Imagineering Ambassador, Walt Disney Imagineering

You can get popcorn in all four theme parks, and at several other locations as well. Although it tastes buttery, the popcorn sold in the parks is vegan.

Beaches & Cream Soda Shop (Disney’s Beach Club Resort) is home to the ultimate Walt Disney World ice cream treat. It’s called the Kitchen Sink and it serves four. The sundae contains eight scoops of ice cream. Other items in the creation include brownies, cookies, cake, banana, whipped cream, and, according to Disney, “every topping we have”. The colossal sundae is served in, you guessed it, a kitchen sink. Beaches & Cream also has other sundaes, and hand scooped ice cream by the cone or cup. Shakes, floats, and ice cream sodas are served as well.

Disney’s Candy Cauldron (West Side, Downtown Disney) is a lot of fun. You’ll enter the Wicked Queen’s dungeon as a “villager”. The cast members speak in Old English and might ask you to pay with “pebbles and stones” instead of dollars and cents.

admission to enter the park. Disney hotel guests get a MagicBand by default but may request a plastic Key to the World (KTTW) Card instead. If you’re staying off-site or you bought your admission through a third party, you can upgrade to a MagicBand for $13; otherwise you get a credit card–size laminated ticket. Like the MagicBand, the two card options use RFID.

Not only is Cinderella Castle the symbol of the Magic Kingdom, it is also the most photographed item by amateur photographers in the entire world.

Children should be a fairly mature 7 years old to appreciate the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom, and a year or two older to get much out of Epcot or Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

UNOFFICIAL TIP To find out where any character is or will be appearing, call 407-824-2222.

one of the many prohibitions in the Disney College Program is that we are not allowed any pets—not even a fish.

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” WALT DISNEY (1901–1966)

Take advantage of the opportunities you have during your program. It’s not every day that you get to live in Florida with incredible people and make magic daily. During the last two months of my program, Sara and I made sure we conquered as much on our bucket list as possible. If you make a bucket list, use it. Don’t regret not doing something when you have the chance.

perspective distortion to the extreme, if you go all the way to the TTC, those bursts behind the castle will appear huge in relation to the castle.

That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up.

All of the natural elements that went into creating the murals at the pavilion's entrance were made from materials found on Walt Disney World property.

Other perks of working for Disney are primarily in the form of discounts. The money I’ve saved through Disney discounts is unbelievable. I remember working at Staples and being excited when they finally gave us a 10% discount, which is nothing compared to what Disney offers. I got up to 60% off hotel rooms, 20-40% off merchandise, 20-40% off dining, a variety of discounts on Disney recreational offerings, 20% off quick service meals at Animal Kingdom and the resorts, and a holiday coupon book which included 30%, 40%, and 50% off meal coupons, free popcorn and soda coupons, free PhotoPass downloads, free rounds of mini golf, and extra park tickets.

To perform the Disney Scoop, you simply reach down and scoop up the trash while still walking and deposit it into the nearest trash barrel, which should only be about 20 feet away. (Disney executives did research into how far people would walk before littering so that they knew where to place trash cans. Unfortunately, guests still litter occasionally, but it was an interesting idea.)

If you want to tell a boy dog apart from a girl dog in the 101 Dalmatians, simply look at their collar! All of the females wear blue, while the males wear red!

Imagine That! As Manager of Entertainment Staffing, Gene Columbus knew how to create the kind of special events Disney does so well. But there was one event that stands out for him: “There are so many special events and productions to be proud of, but the one that sticks out in my mind was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Special Olympics. We kept adjusting the scope of the event so Disney could provide more experiences to the families attending the event, and as the producer I had to keep adjusting and working with my operational partners to find ways to reduce costs. Everyone worked hard to make it happen and I am sure many of those people share how proud they are for pulling this event off in such a grand scale with a small budget. As part of the program there was a drawing to select the Special Olympian to carry the torch to light the cauldron on stage, and this was done only hours before the big celebration. When the young man arrived at America Gardens stage in Epcot he was in a wheelchair, and as I briefed him he was very clear that he would not use his chair but would walk to the stage carrying the torch. I was so taken with this young man and his determination, and when that moment came he proudly stood up and began walking toward the stage. The audience jumped to their feet and you could see the joint emotion of the young man and this large audience. About halfway, it became apparent that he was having difficulties and was not going to make it, but his father came out of nowhere and grabbed his son before he fell and helped him to the stage. He did not take the torch as his son continued on his quest to light the cauldron. The moment the flame burned brightly the young man turned to the audience, with his father stepping backward to ensure the glory was for his son, and the brilliance of this young man’s smile and pride shined as brightly as the flame. I admit that tears were rolling down my cheek and each time I see the America Garden stage I have a flash of that very magical moment.

When he died, much was made of how singular Steve Jobs had been. For comparisons, observers needed to reach back to the mythic inventors and showmen of earlier eras, particularly Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. Jobs was singular, to be sure. But he also was of a type. He was what psychotherapist and business coach Michael Maccoby called a “productive narcissist.” In 2000, Maccoby published an insightful article in the Harvard Business Review that applies Freudian terminology to three categories of executives Maccoby had observed in corporate life. “Erotics” feel a need to be loved, value consensus, and as a result are not natural leaders. These are the people to whom a manager should assign tasks—and then heap praise for a job well done. “Obsessives” are by-the-books tacticians with a knack for making the trains run on time. An efficient head of logistics or bottom-line-oriented spreadsheet jockey is the classic obsessive. The greats of business history, however, are “productive narcissists,” visionary risk takers with a burning desire to “change the world.” Corporate narcissists are charismatic leaders willing to do whatever it takes to win and who couldn’t give a fig about being liked. Steve Jobs was the textbook example of a productive narcissist. An unimpressed Jobs was famous for calling other companies “bozos.” His own executives endured their rides on what one called the “bozo/hero rollercoaster,” often within the same marathon meeting.

In front of the restaurant, on the side walk, just like in the movie, someone outlined a heart when the cement was wet and there are two sets of dog paws. To the left of the restaurant is a sign for the Chapeau shop that features a hat box exactly like the one that little Lady was in at the beginning of the film. Details like these enhance the overall experience for sharp-eyed guests.

Disneyland hugs you but Walt Disney World swallows you.

We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.” WALT DISNEY Katherine

should you purchase anything and it breaks during your visit, Disney will replace it free of charge. 

hibernation,

The Tri-Circle-D Ranch at the Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground at Walt Disney World is now the home for the famous Dragon Calliope. It can be viewed by guests and it is free to do so. It is even rigged so that by pushing a button, it briefly plays a tune.

Magic Kingdom’s tree goes up on Dec. 9.

The archives acquired the original 1967 letter from then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, written to the postmaster general, suggesting that a stamp be issued for Walt Disney. Reagan wrote, "I hesitate to even mention California's pride in his vast accomplishments for fear of detracting from his true image as a world-renowned and world-beloved figure. There is no necessity for me to itemize his contributions to humanity; they can be summed up by simply saying that because of him the world is a richer, better place,

data-crunching in the world: If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.

I've learned that old arguments are just that: old, and out of step with where the world is and where it should be.

Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest trombone-oil manufacturer in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year!” He