If you’ve been a Disney Parks fan for long enough, there are certain things that are just facts; there are deeply layered reasons and nuances to explain why things are the way that they are. And because frequent visitors come to understand the methods behind the madness, we become blind to… well… weird things.
Don’t believe us? Here are 7 things that Disney Parks fans just seem to understand or ignore, but that first-time guests must be totally bamboozled by. Put yourself into the shoes of a first-timer and imagine how strange some of these must be for someone who doesn’t have the history or context behind them!
1. Why do people love that pesky purple dragon?
THE QUESTION: Though a guest visiting Epcot for the first time today would likely have a lot of questions about the unique park, we can imagine that they must wonder about that purple dragon… After all, Figment is the subject of Festival of the Arts murals, trimmed into topiaries at the Flower and Garden Festival, plastered across t-shirts and sweatshirts, and present in plush form throughout most gift shops. In fact, he’s a full category in the shopDisney catalogue!
The result is that Epcot is somewhat synonymous with this strange cartoon character who looks like a Disney character, but was created just for the park… If you stepped into Epcot for the first time today, wouldn’t you wonder, who is that cartoon dragon? Oh, look! He’s part of that ride over there! For that dragon to be so popular, that ride must be the best one here! Yikes.
Any guest visiting Epcot for the first time today would have to be shocked to find that the character plastered across the park is… well… not very likeable! He’s a prankster and a nuisance who derails our tour through the tepid “Imagination Institute” with tricks meant to jumpstart our creativity, but in some pretty unwelcome ways.
Figment places us in the path of a (fairly frightening for kids) sound demo with an oncoming train, sprays us with skunk smell, and then blasts guests with air for a technicolor finale. The ride itself is mediocre at best, and the “iconic” Figment immortalized in art, topiaries, and t-shirts is pretty annoying! So why do people love him?
THE ANSWER: Of course, nothing at Epcot is quite what it used to be… and that includes Figment. The unsanctioned character ambassador of Epcot since 1983, Figment originally starred in the Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination. A playful purple dragon with limitless enthusiasm for ideas, Figment and his creator, Dreamfinder, sang along to the beloved tune of “One Little Spark,” leading guests through realms of art, literature, performing arts, and science in the sensational original.
Unfortunately, a horrendous 1999 re-do of the timeless classic created the Declassified Disaster: Journey into YOUR Imagination, axing Figment, Dreamfinder, and “One Little Spark” entirely in favor of a cold, unimaginative tour through the bland “Imagination Institute.” Poor reception to the new ride forced another redesign just two years later. The solution essentially inserted Figment into the Imagination Institute storyline, but as the somewhat annoying, pesky dragon we know today; one who’s fairly unlikable for being so visible in the park.
2. Why are the road signs purple?
THE QUESTION: Many first-time guests have heard the strange urban legend that Walt Disney World is literally its own city (and many derivatives thereof, including rumors that no one can technically die on Disney property). Of course, if that were true, it would give the Walt Disney Company – a private entertainment entity – governmental control over an area of Florida, and that can’t be true! … Can it?
THE ANSWER: It all goes back to a story Disney fans know well. When Walt Disney Productions secretly began to acquire massive landholdings in Central Florida in 1965, Walt wasn’t dreaming of a new Disneyland. A futurist and a forward thinker, Walt had moved on and was planning out the real, living city of EPCOT – a utopian, modernist model he thought would sincerely influence the design of any modern city to follow.
To make it happen, Disney petitioned the Florida legislature to create a “special municipal district” to provide Disney with the controls it needed, like oversight of building permits, road development, and sewer systems.
Naturally, plans for EPCOT died alongside Walt. Instead, “Walt Disney World” evolved into its modern form: a leisure resort and “Vacation Kingdom of the World.” But the “Reedy Creek Improvement District” was signed into law. That means that the two municipalities within – Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista – are served by their own water department, fire department, transportation systems (including those iconic ‘90s kitsch directional signs), and emergency services.
But it also essentially gives The Walt Disney Company governmental control… of itself. Disney can approve its own building permits, okay its own infrastructure plans, and even sign its own liquor licenses! A dystopian example of what happens when a corporation is given governmental oversight of itself, or a logistical necessity for operating a mega-resort? Hmm…
Maybe that brings us to our next thing first-timers would find confusing…
3. Why are Disney World’s parks so spread out?
THE QUESTION: If there’s one thing people know about Disney World, it’s that it’s big. Its parks are all pretty much enormous, and they’re accompanied by more than two-dozen resort hotels famously spread around a property the size of San Francisco. And yes, Disney World’s massive size is part of its identity; its story; its experience! But for a first time guest visiting the resort, it might appear to be… well… entirely random.
To get from one park to another, your trip may include any combination of bus, ferry, Monorail, walking path, personal vehicle, and/or Skyliner, each meant to get you one step closer to theme parks separated from one another by literal highways. Just ask a first time guest who learns that the only way between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Animal Kingdom is a bus, and they’ll agree… sometimes, Disney World’s size (and the solutions that have developed around it) can be weird.
It does make you wonder: if Disney World could be “reorganized” knowing what we know now, would Disney World planners do things any differently? Might there be a single plaza with four parks branching off from it? A main monorail loop around Bay Lake connecting parks rather than hotels? Why are Disney World’s parks so spread out?
THE ANSWER: Walt Disney World’s size is, of course, no accident! Walt and his team acquired their massive Floridian land-holdings intentionally so as not to deal with the urban sprawl that had hemmed in Disneyland (again, with the city of EPCOT as the centerpiece). Master plans for the property show a dedicated airport connected to EPCOT, then to a single theme park, via Monorail, with an extensive network of pollution-free Peoplemovers then radiating out to the finer points of the property – an elegant and thoughtful solution!
But the resort’s piecemeal construction since has seen the operation sprawl across its 40 square mile property, extending well beyond the initial Monorail loop and creating a situation where parks are connected by highways, oriented in different directions, and seemingly set randomly amidst lakes, hotels, sinkholes, swamps, and existing roads.
Disney World may have become the first “multi-park resort” when EPCOT Center opened in 1982, but it wouldn’t be the last. The only difference is that every other resort since has nestled its theme parks up against one another. So Disneyland, Universal Orlando, Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disney Resort each centralizes parking; each connects its destinations via walking paths, water taxis, and trams; each gives resort guests an entirely vehicle-free vacation as they stroll wooded paths or walk through purposefully-placed shopping districts to the parks.
While the compactness of other resorts is more a logistical necessity than a choice, it’s evolved into the de facto model for multi-park destinations, feeling fittingly modern, cozy, and pedestrian friendly versus Disney World’s gas-guzzling buses, blacktop parking lots, traffic backups, and inaccessible destinations. Could it be that Disney World’s greatest asset has also become its greatest guest liability?
4. What does California Adventure have to do with California?
THE QUESTION: In the mid-90s, Disney World was prepping for its fourth theme park. Meanwhile, Disneyland looked almost exactly like it had in 1955: a single park and its gargantuan parking lot. Efforts to expand the historic park into a multi-day resort to rival its Floridian sister ebbed and flowed through the ‘90s until executives dreamed up a park that would give guests the chance to see all California had to offer… without leaving Disney property. The Declassified Disaster: Disney’s California Adventure walks through the pathetic park, which offered guests “attractions” like a tractor, a restaurant made of soap opera sets, and an unthemed drop tower you’d find at a local amusement park.
But California Adventure’s real problem that it was too much California, and not enough Disney. The park played as a spoof of the Golden State, blaring Beach Boys music as guests strolled a modern carnival boardwalk of circus freak posters and stucco walls, an “extreme sports” takeover of an old, rusty National Park, and a facade-lined “backlot” of modern Hollywood. In a rare mea culpa, Disney issued a never-before-seen white flag and committed more than a billion dollars to an all-at-once, intentionally-designed reimagining of the park… Which is why it’s so strange that any first-time visitor would ask, What does California Adventure have to do with California?
THE ANSWER: Increasingly, fans have been asking the same question. California Adventure’s famous five-year renovation from 2007 to 2012 systematically deconstructed each of the park’s lands and rebuilt them with a nod toward California’s rich history rather than as a modern spoof. The switch transformed the park into one of the most beautiful and cohesive Disney Parks on Earth, with wonderfully themed lands resembling a 1920s Los Angeles, a 1950s High Sierras National Park, a Pacific wharf, and a turn-of-the-century Victorian boardwalk.
Unfortunately, in the years since, the park has categorically lost its three distinctly-Californian E-Tickets (California Screamin’ and the Lost Legends: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Soarin’ Over California). Disney’s purposeful play is to turn California Adventure into the resort’s Pixar-and-Marvel park (versus Disneyland’s Disney-and-Star-Wars lineup). As part of its ambitious reimagining, Disney California Adventure did get a name change and new logo in 2010… And since the continued shifts since have essentially bulldozed any Californian stories, some fans suggest it may be time for another.
But the truth is that Disneyland’s infamous second gate is still a park of beautifully themed Californian lands… it’s just that the rides inside those lands are exclusively themed to Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Avengers, The Little Mermaid, Inside Out, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Cars. The park that was “too much California and not enough Disney” seems to have become “too much Disney and not enough California”! But at least its continuing transformation still positions it as a fitting complement to Disneyland – something fans could never have imagined two decades ago.
5. What does Tomorrowland have to do with the future?
THE QUESTION: Disneyland and Magic Kingdom both have Tomorrowlands, but they don’t look very similar. Magic Kingdom’s is a quasi-comic book pulp sci-fi “spaceport” whose metallic, alien embellishments are being piecemeal removed and replaced with 70s-inspired white simplicity.
Disneyland, meanwhile, feels less like a real “city” and more like a collection of showbuildings with Space Age fins, mis-matched murals, and competing white, silver, and gold architectural and stylistic elements representing a whole lot of eras and styles mashed together in a small space.
And if you thought their style was un-futuristic, just imagine a first-time guest examining their substance. It’s bad enough that the only semblance of “real” futurism present in each land is Space Mountain (and even then, based on futurism of five decades ago), but the rest of the land is populated by Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Lilo & Stitch, Star Wars, and Monsters Inc. A first-time visitor would probably wonder aloud, What does Tomorrowland have to do with tomorrow?
THE ANSWER: Very little, on purpose. Tomorrowland originated with Disneyland in 1955. By the ‘60s, it was already outdated. Thus, the Lost Legend: Walt’s Tomorrowland was born in 1967. Four years later, Magic Kingdom opened with its own Tomorrowland… also incomplete. It took until 1975 for Florida’s land to take shape. Both Tomorrowlands were gleaming, white, utopian Space Age-inspired mid-century lands.
Unfortunately, the grim futurism and dark, dystopian movies of the late ‘70s and ‘80s (like Alien, Star Wars, and Blade Runner) changed pop culture’s view of tomorrow yet again. California and Florida’s Tomorrowlands were “upgraded” in the ‘90s to fantasy and sci-fi futures in an effort to make them less prone to the passing of time. Unfortunately, both were quickly overrun by cartoon characters, resulting in today’s creatively confused lands where neither style nor substance feels very futuristic… Is going back to ‘60s retro-future the answer? Maybe… but that mid-century style will look pretty odd with Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and Toy Story inside…
Which might bring us to the weirdest and most inexplicably-named attraction in any Disney Park…
6. That Ferris wheel is called what?
THE QUESTION: Disney California Adventure offers one of the most memorable panoramic reveals in any Disney Park: emerging from the densely forested Grizzly Peak, guests get a stunning glimpse across the choppy waters of Paradise Bay where an elegant Victorian boardwalk of criss-crossed Edison bulbs, clapboard siding, and turn-of-the-century towers await. A gleaming white wooden roller coaster darts along the shores, while an enormous Ferris wheel rotates along the water’s edge.
Of course, since this is Disneyland, that Ferris wheel is adorned with the giant, smiling face of Mickey Mouse presented in his classic “pie-eyed” style. Imagine your surprise when you check the park map to find that this colorful attraction is called… The Pixar Pal-a-Round?!
THE ANSWER: As part of Disney California Adventure’s never-ending metamorphosis, the park’s icon has been in a constant state of flux. When it opened in 2001, the park’s icon was meant to be the (aptly named) Sun Icon, a metal sculpture of radiating bronze spires. More fit for a mall than for a position opposite Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Sun Icon lost its duties to the faux Grizzly Peak. But the forced perspective mountain was oddly positioned (to benefit guests of the Grand Californian Hotel) and failed to resonate as a visual anchor.
In 2009, the “reimagined” Paradise Pier opened as the first step in the park’s rebirth. The “Sun Wheel” that once lorded over the lagoon had been a problem, representing all that guests disliked about the park. Its replacement was Mickey’s Fun Wheel, outfitting the classic amusement with the tried-and-true face of Mickey in a historic, pie-eyed form perfect for the pier’s new timeline. Even when the park’s real icon, the Carthay Circle Theater, joined in 2012, the silhouette of Mickey’s Fun Wheel was still used to instantly communicate Disney California Adventure and its new direction.
Then, in 2018, Imagineers swept through Paradise Pier with yet another reimagining. The curious result – Pixar Pier – mashes the Victorian styling with disconnected Pixar movies in “neighborhoods” dedicated to The Incredibles, Inside Out, Toy Story, and… well… other. Part of that last section includes the Ferris wheel. Though it continues to feature a ‘30s-style pie-eyed Mickey on its face, the wheel is curiously called the Pixar Pal-a-Round.
Initial art suggests Disney planned to replace Mickey’s face with Pixar’s familiar “Luxo ball” (a yellow ball with a blue stripe and red star), but Disney’s research must’ve indicated that Mickey’s face was too beloved to lose. Even still, calling the ride “The Color Wheel” or “Disney’s Wheel of Color” might be a more logical (and less anachronistic) alternative. The unusual sight of classic Mickey looming over Pixar Pier is far from the weirdest inconsistency in the creatively questionable land, but it’s certainly the largest.
7. Why does Soarin’ Around the World end with Tinker Bell?
THE QUESTION: Whether you take the skies at Disney California Adventure, in Epcot’s The Land pavilion, at DisneySea’s Mediterranean Harbor, or from Adventure Isle at Shanghai Disneyland, Soarin’ is one of the most beloved Disney originals around. Originally the Lost Legend: Soarin’ Over California, the ride was the single, solitary hit of Disney California Adventure – a poetic, epic, aerial tour of the state’s valleys, beaches, snowy mountains, and cities. The oddly emotional attraction was even known to earn a tear or two as it presents the endless beauty of the Golden State.
Which made it kind of odd that the ride’s finale – over Disneyland, of course – ended with a CGI Tinker Bell dusting riders with pixie dust… a strangely silly ending to a ride rooted in reality, majesty, and emotion. The newer “Around the World” flight plan first debuted in 2016, trading California’s habitats for world landmarks both natural and man-made. The new film also gave each resort a personalized ending, soaring over Disneyland, Epcot, Shanghai, and DisneySea, respectively.
The finale fireworks scenes over Shanghai and DisneySea manage to be grand, epic, sparkling finales without Tinker Bell… but she’s there in the Disneyland and Epcot endings! While most Disney Parks fans are so used to Soarin’ they barely register it, a first-timer would probably be taken aback by suddenly seeing the CGI fairy flitting around the screen at the end of an otherwise-epic original attraction?
THE ANSWER: More than likely, the inclusion of Tinker Bell in the original ride was simply meant to be a sweet and endearing cameo right as guests sail over Sleeping Beauty Castle (over which Tinker Bell famously ziplines in many fireworks shows) a la The Wonderful World of Disney. While Tink’s finale is admittedly strange at first sight, it helped cement the ride as distinctly Disney (in a disastrous park that was short on characters) and make the special flyover feel magical. Tink seems to have remained in the U.S. versions of the updated rides for the same reason.
