The park icon is Cinderella Castle, inspired by the fairy tale castle featured in the 1950 animated film. In 2023, the park hosted 17.72 million visitors, making it the most visited theme park in the world for the seventeenth consecutive year and the most visited theme park in North America for at least the past twenty-three years. The park has become a cultural touchstone and symbol of modern American pop culture.
History
Conception
Magic Kingdom entrance
Walt Disney was highly involved in planning the Walt Disney World resort complex and park, coming to Florida in person to survey the land, meeting with local officials and announcing the project to the media. But he died in 1966, before he could see the vision through. After Walt's death, his brother Roy Disney took over the project. Walt Disney Productions began construction on Magic Kingdom and the entire resort in 1967. The park was built as a larger, improved version of Disneyland in California.
Magic Kingdom was built over a series of tunnels called utilidors, a portmanteau of utility and corridor, allowing employees (called "cast members") or VIP guests to move through the park out of sight.[3]
Because of Florida's high water table, the tunnels could not be put underground, so they were built at the existing grade, meaning the park is built on the second story, giving the Magic Kingdom an elevation of 108 feet (33 m). The area around the utilidors was filled in with dirt removed from the Seven Seas Lagoon, which was being constructed at the same time. The utilidors were built in the initial construction and were not extended as the park expanded. The tunnels were intended to be designed into all subsequent Walt Disney World parks but were set aside mostly because of financial constraints.
Opening and operation
Dedication
Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney... and to the talents, the dedication, and the loyalty of the entire Disney organization that made Walt Disney's dream come true. May Walt Disney World bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place ... a Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn together.
Magic Kingdom Park opened as the first part of the Walt Disney World Resort on October 1, 1971, commencing concurrently with Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Polynesian Village Resort. It opened with twenty-three attractions, three unique to the park and twenty replicas of attractions at Disneyland, split into six themed lands, five copies of those at Disneyland (Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland) and the Magic Kingdom exclusive of Liberty Square, rather than the Disneyland New Orleans Square. The Walt Disney Company promised to increase this number with a combination of replicas and unique attractions. While there is no individual dedication to Magic Kingdom, the dedication by Roy O. Disney for the entire resort was placed within its gates.
The only land added to the original roster of lands in the park was Mickey's Toontown Fair. The land originally opened in 1988 as Mickey's Birthdayland to celebrate Mickey Mouse's 60th birthday. Later the land was renovated as Mickey's Starland and eventually to Mickey's Toontown Fair. The land was home to attractions such as Mickey's Country House, Minnie's Country House, The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm, and Donald's Boat. It closed on February 12, 2011, to make way for the expansion of Fantasyland. The Walt Disney World Railroad station in Mickey's Toontown Fair, which opened with Mickey's Birthdayland in 1988, was closed for the duration of the construction. In 2012, the space where Mickey's Toontown Fair sat reopened as a part of Fantasyland, in a sub-section called the Storybook Circus, where an updated Dumbo the Flying Elephant attraction was relocated. The Barnstormer was retained and was re-themed to The Great Goofini.[5]
Main Street, U.S.A., with Cinderella Castle in the far distance, pre-2000.
Since opening day, Magic Kingdom has been closed temporarily because of eight hurricanes: Floyd, Charley, Frances, Jeanne, Wilma, Matthew, Irma, and Ian.[6] The first non-hurricane related day the park has closed is on September 11, 2001, due to the terrorist attacks that day.[7] Walt Disney World was closed from March 15, 2020, to July 11, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8][9][10] In addition, there are four "phases" of park closure when Magic Kingdom exceeds capacity, ranging from restricted access for most guests (Phase 1) to full closure for everyone, even cast-members (Phase 4).[11]
"Magic Kingdom" was often used as an unofficial nickname for Disneyland before Walt Disney World was built. The official tagline for Disneyland is "The Happiest Place On Earth", while the tagline for Magic Kingdom is "The Most Magical Place On Earth".
Up until the early 1990s, Magic Kingdom was officially known as Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom, and was never printed without the Walt Disney World prefix. This purpose was to differentiate between the park and Disneyland in California. In 1994, to differentiate it from Disneyland, the park was officially renamed Magic Kingdom Park.
Alcoholic beverages had been prohibited from the park since its opening, but this policy has gradually changed. In 2012, the Be Our Guest Restaurant opened selling wine and beer for the first time. This was the only place in the park where alcohol was permitted until December 2014 when four additional restaurants began selling beer and wine including Cinderella's Royal Table, Liberty Tree Tavern, Tony's Town Square Restaurant, and the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen.[12][13] And finally in 2018, the park officially became the second Magic Kingdom-style park to serve alcohol at all table service restaurants, after Disneyland Paris in 1993.[14]
Early in 2024, a Disney executive confirmed that the park will expand with the addition of a 12-to-14-acre (4.9 to 5.7 ha) land located “beyond Big Thunder.”[15]
Magic Kingdom is divided into six themed "lands." The center of the park in front of Cinderella Castle is designed like a wheel with a hub and spoke design. Pathways spoke out from the hub across the 107 acres (43 ha) of the park and lead to these six lands.[16] The Walt Disney World Railroad circles around the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) perimeter of the park.
Main Street, U.S.A. is modeled after an idealized early-20th century American town, inspired by Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, Missouri. Main Street features a train station, town square, movie theater, city hall, firehouse, restaurants, emporium, shops, arcades, and several varieties of horse-drawn and motor-powered vehicles. Guests enter the park underneath the main station of the Walt Disney World Railroad and into the town square. At the far end of Main Street, U.S.A. is the park's hub, anchored by Cinderella Castle and the Partners statue.
Symbolically, Main Street represents the park's "opening credits", where guests pass under the train station (the opening curtain) at left or right, then view the names of key personnel along the windows of the buildings' upper floors. Many windows bear the name of a fictional business, such as "Seven Summits Expeditions, Frank G. Wells President", with each representing a tribute to significant people connected to the Disney company and the development of the Walt Disney World Resort. It features stylistic influences from around the country. Taking its inspiration from New England to Missouri, this design is most noticeable in the four corners in the middle of Main Street, where each of the four corner buildings represents a different architectural style. The second and third stories of all the buildings along Main Street are designed with forced perspective, and are actually shorter than the first stories. The musical soundtrack played at the entrance includes musical selections from the 1943 Broadway musical Oklahoma! and the 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man.[17]The Dapper Dans, a men's a cappella singing group, typically perform throughout Main Street.
Originally, Storybook Circus was the location of Mickey's Toontown Fair, which closed permanently on February 11, 2011. Some elements of Mickey's Toontown Fair were demolished, and others were re-themed to fit the circus concept. An expanded Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride was built, with an interactive queue, and a second Dumbo ride was built next to it, in order to increase capacity. The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm was re-themed to "The Great Goofini". A big top area was built for meet-and-greets, called Pete's Silly Sideshow. This attraction features Goofy as a stuntman, Daisy Duck as a fortune-teller, Donald Duck as a snake-charmer, Minnie Mouse as a magician, and Pluto as a special performer. Storybook Circus opened with a "streetmosphere" circus act called The Giggle Gang, which had a two-year run from 2012 until 2014.[18]
The resort's monorail system and ferryboats transport guests to and from the Magic Kingdom.
Magic Kingdom lies more than a mile away from its parking lot, on the opposite side of the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon. Upon arrival, guests are taken by the parking lot trams to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), which sells admission into the parks and provides transportation connections throughout the resort complex. Guests using city buses, non-Disney hotel shuttles or ridesharing services are also dropped off at the TTC.
To travel between the TTC and the Magic Kingdom, guests have their choice of taking a ferry boat or the Walt Disney World Monorail System.
The three ferries are clad in different trim colors and are named for past Disney executives: the General Joe Potter (blue), the Richard F. Irvine (red) and the Admiral Joe Fowler (green). The main monorail loop has two tracks. The outer track is used by the Express Line with direct service between the TTC and Magic Kingdom, while the inner track is the Resort Line with additional stops at the Contemporary, Grand Floridian and Polynesian Village resorts. Epcot is also accessible from the TTC on a spur monorail line that was added upon that park's opening in 1982.
Disney-owned hotels in other resort areas have Disney Transport buses to the Magic Kingdom, but these do not serve the TTC. Instead, they operate from three bus loops directly adjacent to the park's main gate.
In 2012, Jon Favreau announced he was planning a film called Magic Kingdom.[45] The film was described as “Night at the Museum at Disneyland,” meaning that the film would tell a story where all the characters at Disney come to life at night.[45] Marc Abraham and Eric Newman of Strike Entertainment were scheduled to produce the film.[46] Writer-producer Ronald D. Moore had previously written an original script for the project, which the studio eventually declined to use, stating that Favreau and a new screenwriter would develop a new script.[46]
In 2021, it was announced that a new project, now developed as a television series for Disney+. Moore was brought back to develop the series which will see that the various lands in the Magic Kingdom are actually gateways to alternate worlds, thus setting up a shared universe. The first in the series will be The Society of Explorers and Adventurers (SEA).[47]