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Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the division of The Walt Disney Company which manages and builds the theme parks and vacation resorts for which Disney is famous. It is one of the four major units of the company, the other three being Consumer Products, Media Networks, and Studio Entertainment.

The Parks and Resorts division was founded in 1971 as Walt Disney Attractions when Disney's second theme park, the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, opened, joining the original Disneyland in California. The chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is James A. "Jay" Rasulo, formerly the chairman of Disneyland Resort Paris.

Administration

Disneyland Resort

The resort was founded by Walt Disney in 1955 in Anaheim, California. Disneyland soon became famous all over the world as a place that parents could enjoy with their children. Disneyland Hotel adjoins the park. The site's main building is the Sleeping Beauty's castle (modeled after the 19th century neo-romanesque castle Neuschwanstein of Bavaria's King Ludwig II who, after being removed from most of his authority, fled into commissioning the construction of his private world as a fairy tale king) - only much smaller and especially not that tall, as Disney wanted it to appear friendly.

In 2001, the area was officially named "Disneyland Resort" with the opening of Disney's California Adventure Park, two new resort hotels, and Downtown Disney. Disneyland celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on July 17, 2005.

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Walt Disney World Resort

The resort opened in 1971 with the Magic Kingdom Park (similar in layout to Disneyland) and three resort hotels in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The property is twice the size of Manhattan, with only about a quarter of it having been developed to date. It has become the most popular tourist destination on Earth, with four theme parks, two water parks, a shopping and entertainment complex, dozens of resort hotels, and eight golf courses.

The flagship building here is Cinderella Castle. Its overemphasized tallness might remind more of the neo-romanesque Neuschwanstein than Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle, like elements atop its highest towers do. Yet, except for the lean shape, here the inspiration was several French castles, among them the Château d'Ussé in the Loire valley region: its exterior wall towers prove this, and so do the roof windows which, like the interior high spires, show decorations in gothic style.

Properties:

  • Magic Kingdom Park
  • Epcot
  • Disney-MGM Studios
  • Disney's Animal Kingdom
  • Disney's Blizzard Beach water park
  • Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park
  • Downtown Disney
  • Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Port Orleans Resort, Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, Disney's Old Key West Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney's Boardwalk Resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, Disney's Yacht Club Resort, Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Pop Century Resort, Disney's All-Star Movies Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort, Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground

Tokyo Disney Resort

Tokyo Disney Resort, located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, opened in 1983. Tokyo Disneyland is designed to resemble Disneyland. In 2001 the resort expanded with Tokyo DisneySea. There are several resort hotels on site, but only two are actually owned by the resort, which boasts the largest parking structure in the world. Tokyo Disney Resort is fully owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company and is licensed by the Walt Disney Company. The resort was built by Walt Disney Imagineering, and Disney has a major say in what goes on at the parks - Nick Franklin leads the Walt Disney Attractions Japan team at the Walt Disney Company, which communicates with the Oriental Land Company over all aspects of the Resort, and assigns Imagineers to the Resort.

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Disneyland Resort Paris

Disney's fourth resort, Disneyland Resort Paris opened in 1992 as Euro Disney Resort. The name was changed in 1994 to fit the romantic image associated with Paris. Despite the name, the resort is not in Paris proper, but in a suburb about 30 km to the east of Paris. The resort has two theme parks, a shopping complex, a camping ground, six Disney resort hotels and a number of hotels run by other operators. It is maintained and managed by Euro Disney SCA, a company partially owned by the Walt Disney Company and whose stock is traded on Euronext.

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Hong Kong Disneyland Resort

Disney's fifth resort (the second in Asia) opened on September 12, 2005. The resort is owned and operated by Hongkong International Theme Parks, an incorporated company jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company the Government of Hong Kong. Currently, the resort consists of one theme park and two hotels, with land reserved for future expansion.

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Disney Cruise Line

Though it is part of the Walt Disney World Resort venture, Disney Cruise Line is an altogether separate branch of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Disney Cruise Line was formed in 1995; its two ships, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, began operation in 1998 and 1999, respectively, and were designed in collaboration with Walt Disney Imagineering. Both ships offer three-, four- and seven-night Caribbean cruises, each with a stop at Disney's private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. For a limited time, cruises along the Mexican Riviera were available, in coordination with the 50th Anniversary celebration of Disneyland.

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Other Properties

Disney Regional Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, runs the ESPN Zone restaurants. It also operated the failed Club Disney and DisneyQuest concepts. (The first DisneyQuest location continues to operate at Walt Disney World Resort.)

The World of Disney stores, including the New York City location, are run by the merchandise division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Disney Vacation Club sells timeshares at several themed resorts within Walt Disney World Resort. It has two properties located outside the Florida resort, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney's Vero Beach Resort.

Adventures by Disney is the operating name for a series of all-inclusive guided vacation tour packages run by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Logos

Abandoned concepts

Disney reportedly had plans to build a park named Disney's America. The park was to have been located in Virginia, but local opposition to the idea appears to have persuaded Disney not to go forward with it in 1994. *

Instead of Disney's California Adventure, Disney originally had announced plans for a West Coast version of Epcot, which was deemed too ambitious after the rocky financial performance of Euro Disney in France. Another concept for a Disney park in California was Disneysea, a contrasting park to Disneyland, to be built in Long Beach next to the RMS Queen Mary which Disney owned at the time. The park was to have led to a permanent West Coast ship in the Disney Cruise Line, which would dock at the park. The concept, although quickly scrapped, inspired the Imagineers to create Tokyo DisneySea, which has recently been deemed the second best-loved Disney park in the world, after Disneyland.

The Disney-MGM Studios Paris was a European copy of the movie theme park in Florida, to have opened in 1996 at the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Resort Paris). Imagineers had been working on plans for six months before they were told to stop by management after the resort was drastically underperforming financially. The Walt Disney Studios Paris opened in 2002 after the resort started to make a profit, though was almost completely different from the plans for the Disney-MGM Studios Paris.

Future properties

Disney has made no announcements regarding plans for another American theme park and CEO Robert Iger frequently has cited international expansion as one of the company's three strategic priorities.

Both Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Resort Paris have room for future expansion, though no plans have been announced. Scouts are looking for a suitable site for a Disney resort on mainland China in addition to the Disney resort in Hong Kong, possibly near Shanghai. Disney has announced that there will be no new resort on the Chinese mainland before 2010.

Disney sent scouts to Australia in January 2005 to survey a new site. A likely site is just outside of Melbourne (Rumored to be located on a site near avalon).

India is another area where Disney may build a new resort. Disney has been expanding a lot of their companies into India by buying TV stations and bringing the brand name to the region.

The only site that is extremely short on land is Disneyland Resort in California. Although the company has acquired enough real estate to build a potential third theme park on a former strawberry farm near the existing resort, the remainder of the original Disneyland parking lot, now behind Disney's California Adventure, more than likely will be demolished eventually to expand the resort.

While many foreign governments have made statements to the media that they have been in discussions with Disney to open a new resort, Disney frequently responds that the stories are false and talks have not taken place.

Celebrations

Since the 1960s, Disney's theme parks have used "celebrations" for marketing boosts, which usually honor a theme park or resort anniversary. The festivities started with Disneyland's Tencennial in 1965. In 2005-2006, Disney staged the Happiest Homecoming/Celebration on Earth, which honors fifty years of Disneyland and all Disney theme parks worldwide. Each of the participating theme parks generally are lavishly decorated and attendance boosts often are attributed to the celebrations. Each Disney resort often celebrates a milestone anniversary every five years based on the property's oldest theme park.

Celebrations that have not honored a theme park anniversary include 100 Years of Magic at Walt Disney World Resort in 2001-2002, which saluted the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney's birth on December 5, 2001, as well as the recently announced Year of a Million Dreams, which begins October 1, 2006, and will be the first to link all five resorts around the globe.

Year of a Million Dreams

The first celebration enacted by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to have equal presence at all five resorts around the globe, the Year of a Million Dreams will begin on October 1, 2006. It involves randomly awarding guests at all eleven theme parks with once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Experiences already noted by Disney include:
  • A one-on-one language lesson with Captain Jack Sparrow (boy) or a Disney Princess (girl)
  • An overnight stay in Cinderella Castle (only at the Magic Kingdom; Tokyo Disneyland is not included in this experience)
  • Private, exclusive use of the Magic Kingdom for one family
  • An around-the-world trip to all eleven Disney theme parks to act as a grand marshal for each park's parade
  • An overnight stay at the Mickey Mouse Penthouse at the Disneyland Hotel (only at the Disneyland Resort)
  • A Golden FastPass which allows direct boarding to every FastPass attraction during that day

Timeline

1950s and '60s

1970s and '80s

1990s

2000s

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Walt Disney Parks and Resorts".

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