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Walt Disney World

Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company, the Walt Disney World Resort is home to four theme parks, three water parks, several resort hotels and golf courses, and various shopping and entertainment areas. It is located in the City of Lake Buena Vista, Florida, southwest of Orlando and a few miles north of Kissimmee. The Walt Disney World Resort opened on October 1, 1971.

Walt Disney's concept for Walt Disney World was of a larger, more expansive version of Disneyland, so that it could constantly expand and not be as constrained by the need for land that Disneyland suffers from. Walt Disney World also was to be a sort of "Disneyland of the future" where breakthroughs in science and technology could coexist with the original Disney vision of themed entertainment.

Walt Disney also envisioned this project as incorporating a working community where his ideas about urban planning could be tested. He called this concept the "Experimental Prototype Community (or City) of Tomorrow," or EPCOT. The theme park that eventually opened under the Epcot name bore little resemblance to this vision, though the neighboring town of Celebration, which was founded by the Walt Disney Company, incorporates a few of the ideas.

Although he participated in much of the planning for the project, Walt Disney himself died in 1966 and never got to see the realization of his vision. The resort was originally to be named "Disney World," but before its opening Walt's brother Roy renamed it to "Walt Disney World" in his honor.

The land within Walt Disney World is part of the Reedy Creek Improvement District which allows the Disney Corporation to exercise quasi-governmental powers over the area.

Walt Disney World has four major theme parks, each with a main attraction that serves as its symbol:

The Magic Kingdom (Cinderella Castle)
Epcot (Spaceship Earth, the giant golf ball-looking geodesic sphere)
Disney-MGM Studios (the giant Mickey sorcerer's cap, though formerly the 'Earful Tower' water tower represented it)
Disney's Animal Kingdom (the Tree of Life)
There are also three water parks:

Typhoon Lagoon
Blizzard Beach
River Country (currently closed indefinitely)
The Downtown Disney area contains many shopping, dining, and entertainment venues, including DisneyQuest (a "virtual theme park" inside a building), and a permanent Cirque du Soleil show (La Nouba).

Another notable aspect is the large number of hotel resort complexes on the Walt Disney World property. The non-themed hotels are owned by private, non-Disney hospitality companies such as Marriott and Hilton. The themed resorts include:

Disney's All-Star Movies Resort
Disney's All-Star Music Resort
Disney's All-Star Sports Resort
Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
Disney's Beach Club Resort
Disney's Beach Club Villas
Disney's BoardWalk Inn
Disney's BoardWalk Villas
Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
Disney's Contemporary Resort
Disney's Coronado Springs Resort
Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Disney's Old Key West Resort
Disney's Polynesian Resort
Disney's Pop Century Resort
Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside (formerly named Dixie Landings)
Disney's Port Orleans Resort French Quarter
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa (formerly the Disney Institute)
Disney's Wilderness Lodge
Disney's Yacht Club Resort
Shades of Green (named because of its location between two golf courses; it's currently leased by the United States Department of Defense and used for vacationing active and retired military personnel and their families)
The Villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge
Walt Disney World Dolphin (operated by Starwood)
Walt Disney World Swan (operated by Starwood)
The Walt Disney World resort also includes five world-class golf courses. The five 18-hole golf courses are the Magnolia, the Palm, Lake Buena Vista, Eagle Pines, and Osprey Ridge (the last two are part of the Bonnet Creek Golf Club). There are two miniature golf courses: Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland.

Walt Disney World paved the way for many other theme parks and attractions in the area, including SeaWorld and Universal Studios, and helped make Orlando a popular tourist destination for people from all over the world.

When the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the Walt Disney World Resort employed about 5,500 cast members. Today it employs more than 52,000 cast members, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year. The largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World Resort has more than three thousand job classifications.

In a March 30, 2004 article in the Orlando Sentinel, Walt Disney World president Al Weiss gave some insight into how the parks are maintained:

More than 5,000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering, including 650 horticulturists and 600 painters.
Disney spends more than US$100 million every year on maintenance at the Magic Kingdom. In 2003, US$6 million was spent on renovating its Crystal Palace restaurant. 90 percent of guests say that the upkeep and cleanliness of the Magic Kingdom are excellent or very good.
The streets in the parks are steam cleaned every night.
There are cast members permanently assigned to painting the antique carousel horses; they use genuine gold leaf.
There is a tree farm on-site, so that when a mature tree needs to be replaced, a thirty-year-old tree will be available to replace it.
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Popular Rides
Magic Kingdom
The Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean
it's a small world
Space Mountain
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Epcot
Test Track
Mission: SPACE
Disney-MGM Studios
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Kilimanjaro Safaris
DINOSAUR (formerly named Countdown to Extinction)