If we’re being honest, it’s pretty understandable that Disney World’s “Golden Anniversary” is lacking some of shine fans had hoped for. Still mired in a tourism downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the timing just couldn’t have been much worse for the resort to launch a global marketing campaign around the 50th Anniversary. Stalled construction and pared-down budgets have left Disney World woefully short on the major projects once envisioned for 2021, leaving specialty food and souvenirs, two nighttime “same”-taculars, rising prices, and a lot of new upcharges to make headlines instead…
No doubt hoping to get ahead of any unflattering press, Disney did launch a pretty adorable mini-initiative ahead of the Florida resort’s 50th Anniversary: slowly unveiling – one-by-one – 50 Disney characters who would be immortalized as golden statues around the resort’s four theme parks. Ranging from Mickey Mouse to Soul‘s Joe Gardner, the list is strong, and the statues themselves are beautifully-made, Instagrammable, and certainly tap into Disney’s limitless and priceless catalog of characters.
But fans couldn’t help but notice that – consistent with the largely nostalgia-free 50th Anniversary – just two of Disney World’s 50 golden statues were devoted to characters made for the parks! (Those two – the Orange Bird and Figment – were replaced with movie characters in the otherwise-copied 50-character McDonald’s Happy Meal toy release.) Disney movies are a wonderful thing, and yes, most guests probably come to Walt Disney World specifically expecting to see characters from Disney films…
To celebrate 50 years of Walt Disney World, though, should be to reflect on the rides and attractions that have shaped it! The experiences that generations of visitors have shared! The moments – funny, frightening, enchanting, and extraordinary – that are baked into the minds of visitors! I love Pua from Moana as much as the next guy, but what if rather than celebrating Disney’s films, Disney World’s fifty golden statues celebrated the history of the Resort? What rides would be worth immortalizing in gold? Let me start by saying – I’m no artist! But here are the 50 statues I imagined as Walt Disney World icons.
Magic Kingdom
In real life, 25 of the 50 characters brought to life by golden statues reside at Magic Kingdom. It makes sense. After all, technically, Magic Kingdom is the only one of Walt Disney World’s parks that’s actually fifty years old. (The next oldest – EPCOT – will turn 40 in 2022.) Therefore, it’s also the home base of the celebration, and probably the most fitting place to house golden statues of the “Elite Eight” (that’s Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pluto, Chip, and Dale), Tinker Bell, Pinocchio, and other classics.
If we were to reimagine the statues of monumental rides rather than characters, Magic Kingdom would still probably earn more than any other park. It wasn’t easy, but narrowing it down, I arrived at 21 attractions of the past, present, and future that define the first fifty years of Magic Kingdom. Think you can name them? (If we’ve published an in-depth history of a given ride, we’ll link to it in the list below.)
1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2. The Skyway
3. Alien Encounter
4. Space Mountain
5. The Enchanted Tiki Room
6. The Timekeeper
7. Main Street Electrical Parade
8. Big Thunder Mountain
9. Haunted Mansion
10. Country Bear Jamboree
11. Pirates of the Caribbean
12. Carousel of Progress
13. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
14. Walt Disney World Railroad
15. Jungle Cruise
16. Snow White’s Scary Adventures
17. Peter Pan’s Flight
18. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
19. Mad Tea Party
20. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
21. TRON Lightcycle Power Run
Get the picture? With just Magic Kingdom spoken for, nearly half of our 50 golden statues have been spoken for… so on the last page, we’ll figure out how to memorialize the past, present, and future attractions of Walt Disney World’s other three parks, and how these statues can tell the story of the resort’s first half-century of growth and change… Read on!
EPCOT
Splitting the remaining 29 attractions among Disney World’s other three parks isn’t that tough since each has far, far fewer rides than Magic Kingdom. But at least for EPCOT, it’s not just the park’s current ride lineup that offers attractions to be memorialized… For a park ostensibly built to celebrate the future, EPCOT has a past that can’t be ignored. Perhaps more than any other park, EPCOT’s golden statues would probably lean toward the nostalgic… which is perhaps why Disney purposefully avoided building a history-focused 50th. (Admitting that you’ve closed a lot of beloved rides isn’t exactly a great PR move.)
So for our selections, we’ve chosen 14 EPCOT attractions of the past, present, and future who – together – tell the story of Walt Disney World’s second gate from its ambitious, intellectual, industrious start to its much more modern march toward the future. Try to name each ride we were immortalizing… We’ll list them below to help you out, and again link to any in-depth attraction histories we’ve published here.
22. Spaceship Earth
23. The Living Seas
24. Living With the Land
25. Soarin’
26. Journey into Imagination
27. Test Track
28. Maelstrom
29. Horizons
30. Wonders of Life
31. American Adventure
32. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
33. Illuminations: Reflections of Earth
34. Kitchen Kabaret
35. Captain EO
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is wrapping up its own multi-year transformation with three brand new anchor experiences: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Toy Story Land, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. The days of being a “real, working studio” are long, long gone. But even the reimagined Hollywood Studios has a history of landmark attractions that tell its story – and by extension, the story of Walt Disney World.
With just 15 statues left before we reach 50, we dedicated a full 10 to Studios stars. While they’re far from all the attractions this park has hosted, they are ten very pivotal ones.
36. The Great Movie Ride
37. Muppet*Vision 3D
38. Toy Story Mania
39. Voyage of the Little Mermaid
40. STAR TOURS
41. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
42. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
43. The Backstage Studio Tour
44. Fantasmic!
45. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Disney’s Animal Kingdom is both infamously short on rides, and the least old of all of Walt Disney World’s parks (though it’s 23 – nearly half as old as the resort itself). That’s why only the last five of our 50 golden statues are dedicated to the park’s lineup.
Still, condensing Animal Kingdom’s contributions to Walt Disney World to just five attractions isn’t easy. Millions and millions of memories have been made across the park’s offerings, not the least of which being these five landmarks…
46. Kilimanjaro Safaris
47. Pandora: The World of AVATAR
48. DINOSAUR
49. Expedition Everest
50. Festival of the Lion King
Your 50
What do you think? Would 50 golden monuments to Disney World’s landmark attractions have been a better fit for the resort’s anniversary than 50 characters? More to the point, did we pick the right attractions to memorialize? Which quintessentially Disney rides (of the past, present, and future) do YOU think would make the best celebratory icons of five decades of memories? Let us know in the comments below!
