When Walt Disney World officially opened in October 1971, it had an immediate positive economic impact on the surrounding area.
In less than a year, sales at local area restaurants, lunch rooms and catering services increased 94 percent. Even candy sales at stores surrounding Walt Disney World were up 18 percent.
Hotels and motels were booked solid with tourists being diverted to Tampa and Daytona Beach for lodging, with an additional hour's drive back to Walt Disney World part of the experience.
Before Walt Disney World opened, the Orlando area offered about 5,800 hotel and motel rooms. By June 1972, the total had jumped to about 10,000 rooms with another 7,000 more rooms under construction.
Citrus growers often awoke early in the morning to find people in their groves either wanting to buy fresh oranges or to buy the land itself.
In 1967, Orange County showed 68,005 acres in citrus trees. By 1972, that figure, according to the most recent survey, had fallen to 60,551 acres and was continuing to drop.
The same decline in citrus groves was seen in Seminole County and Osceola County as farmers simply could not afford to turn down the prices being offered for their land.
When Walt Disney World opened, the only recreational campground open in the immediate area was Yogi Bear Jellystone Park near Turkey Lake Road and Central Florida Parkway.
Owner Jon Peterson stated in November 1972, “I figure there are 4,000 new sites within 10 miles of me today.”
Walt Disney World's Fort Wilderness Resort campground had already announced in the near future it was expanding from 500 to 800 sites, even though the cost of staying there was sometimes double the cost of other non-Disney sites.
The opening of Walt Disney World had an impact on the surrounding existing attractions, as well.
Cypress Gardens reported that, by June 1972, their business had increased 38 percent already with expectations for the summer months to be “something that Florida will long remember.”
Cape Kennedy (Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy from 1963-1973) stated that visitors taking tours of the space facility increased more than 27 percent in just the first four months of 1972.
During that same time period, St. Augustine recorded a 29 percent increase in visitors. Even Silver Springs, with its gentle glass-bottomed boat tour, saw an increase of visitors of 28 percent within the first quarter of 1972.
So it was no surprise that other folks decided to take advantage of the goldmine of tourism, thanks to Walt Disney World.
Some amusement parks did get built and some MousePlanet readers might remember them or even visited them.
Circus World was a theme park built near Haines City, Florida, near an intersection of US 27 and Interstate 4. It was owned and operated by Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and was intended additionally to become the circus's winter headquarters.
It opened in 1974 and, during the first two years, added several attractions, including a carousel, a wooden roller coaster, and a Ferris wheel, in addition to live shows. It closed in 1986.
Boardwalk and Baseball was at the same location as the previously defunct Circus World and was owned and operated by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. It opened on February 14, 1987, and closed January 17, 1990.
While the area was themed to baseball, the park recycled some of the existing rides from Circus World.
Splendid China was a theme park near Orlando that opened in 1993 and closed on December 31, 2003. It was a sister park to a similar park in China, which is still open and flourishing.
Splendid China was 75 acres with more than 60 replicas at one-tenth scale. Each piece was handcrafted to maintain authenticity, and included landmarks like the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Confucius, the Summer Palace, and Three Ancient Pagodas in Dali, as well as more than 50 other buildings.
The attraction was surrounded by controversy because of the direct involvement of the Chinese government in its operation. Once the park closed, it was victimized by vandals stealing the minatures or parts of them. The park was officially demolished in 2013.
Other projects were announced with great fanfare but never built.
Building a new entertainment venue can't be done in secret. Someone cannot just buy a big chunk of land and start building. A project would not get to the construction stage without a lengthy and complicated zoning approval process with a series of hearings before the local government.
There are permits to be applied for, at which point the project becomes a matter of public record and, in this era of the Internet, all of that information would be instantly reported.
Environmental impact statements must be filed.
Even though the Disney Company was able to purchase large chunks of land in Central Florida in relative secrecy, before building began on the property that was purchased, after the purchases, there were press conferences, appeals to public officials and business leaders (that was why Walt's “Epcot film” was made), and even the need for a special act by the Florida Legislature to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
Disney had to let its stockholders know what was going to happen with their money since they are a publicly traded company.
In other words, it is a long public process from announcing the plans for a new amusement park and it actually being completed. Buzz Price estimated that a new amusement venue needed to come up with at least 50 percent of the financing before other investors would show any interest.
However, the allure of all the tourists coming to Florida to visit Walt Disney World (and many more to come) spurred many imaginative entreprenuers to sometimes prematurely announce their proposed entertainment venues.
On May 16th, 2005, Paidia Parks announced its intention to build its first resort in the Orlando, Florida, area in late summer 2007 to be called DestiNations Theme Park and Resort.
According to the official press release: “Paidia's DestiNations Theme Park and Resort will be a celebration of the beauty of our world. We seek to bring the world's most exotic and exciting places together and put them within reach, and at the very heart and essence of our mission is the quest for peace and hope through the understanding and appreciation of the many diverse cultures on Earth.”
The amusement park would focus on the cultural and natural wonders of the most exotic and diverse reaches of the world: Egypt, Thailand, Peru, Russia, and New Zealand. The resort would be educational and family friendly and supposedly plenty of thrilling rides, shows, and attractions.
For the first time at a theme park, DestiNations would offer a “Mild or Wild” pass so that guests with limitations of age, height, physical restrictions, etc. would be able to “share the same experience without the bumps and jostles that may cause discomfort.”
This new park was planned for a 430-acre parcel west of Kissimmee, once planned for Doug Henning's Vedaland Theme Park, to build Paidia's DestiNations Themed Resort, a 1,000-unit condominium and fractional resort with nearly 200,000 square feet of retail space and a 140-acre theme park.
The property under consideration was purchased in 1986 for $11.2 million by the Maharishi Global Development Fund. Apparently, the group also looked at the now closed Splendid China location as well as a possibility for Paidia's DestiNations.
At the time, whether the group would get the funding it needed to build (supposedly just the theme park section would cost in excess of $300 million) was still questionable.
Obviously neither the funding, nor public interest in the endeavor, reached the point of it actually getting built.
As I mentioned, the land was originally going to be the home of another theme park that was never built, Vedaland.
New-age magician Doug Henning, who had just finished producing illusions for Disney's Pleasure Island nightclub, The Adventurer's Club, announced plans in 1990 to build a theme park in Kissimmee, just west of Old Town, based on Magic and Transcendental Meditation.
Henning announced that he would build the first “Vedaland” in Canada, near Niagara Falls, with the Florida property following shortly. The entrance would have included a floating pyramid over a huge lake.
Henning had said the park would also include a magic flying chariot carrying riders inside the molecular structure of a rose, a ride over a rainbow emerging from mist, tunnels that guests floated through and buildings that changed color. The core concept was using entertainment to create spiritual enlightenment.
Henning hesitated to reveal too much, for fear that cheap copies of the experiences might be produced before the park opened. The press release stated that the park would “combine astonishing, unique visual and sensory effects, state-of-the-art 3D imagery, and ultra high-tech entertainment technology with [Henning's] best and most original magic illusion secrets.”
Henning had been consulting with dozens of firms that had been involved in creating other theme parks.
Planned for 450 acres on U.S. Highway 192 in Kissimmee, the park was the brainchild of Henning and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru of transcendental meditation. The estimated cost was one billion dollars and the developers deliberately avoided setting a timetable for fear that it could not be met because the concept was so new.
The park was also designed to sell the Maharishi product line from herbal treatments to organic dietary options.
In 1994, the group got the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council to give their development plan an extension into late 1997. However, with Henning's death in 2000, the interest in the park dissipated and today remains just an illusion.
(Another disappearing trick was the proposed 1996 magic restaurant experience, David Copperfield's Underground that was originally to be located at Disney Hollywood Studios or later at Pleasure Island.)
While the Holy Land Experience did open in Central Florida, the Bible World biblical theme park announced in the 1970s for Kissimmee did not, although obviously the concepts were similar.
And don't get me started about Hurricane World. This Orlando project was supposed to be both a serious hurricane research center, and a tourist attraction featuring giant simulated storms.
If I told you that Florida Governor Haydon Burns had a famous public press conference with a major entertainment figure in the early 1960s to announce a unique themed park experience would you realize I was talking about the “King of the Cowboys” Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans?
Yes, Roy Rogers Western World would have been in Orlando and it would have been a huge Old West themed resort that would have included a dude ranch. Governor Burns pledged his assistance in making the project happen.
When it didn't, he had to content himself shortly afterward with meeting with the Disney Brothers on their little proposed project for the area.
Rogers was not the only movie celebrity to be associated with a theme park in Florida. Actor Johnny Weismuller, best known for his continuing role in the Tarzan films, was involved with Johnny Weismuller's Tropical Wonderland in Titusville, Florida in 1970. (Originally it was to be called Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan's Jungleland.)
It had electric boat rides, an Old West town (Dodge City in 1890), a train ride and, of course, lots and lots of animals. The park originally opened in 1959 before Weismuller's involvement and then closed in 1973 after Weismuller pulled his support supposedly over issues of the treatment of the animals. Of course, poor attendance didn't help matters either.
Walt Disney's discussion of an “Epcot” that would be a cultural experience was not a unique concept for Florida. In the early 1950s, the State of Florida created the “Inter-American Center Authority” to build a cultural and trade center. A permanent international exhibition park was to be built in north Miami. That park was inspired not only by World's Fairs, but by the then-new Disneyland in California.
Called Interama, the plans were that the governments of various countries would contribute to the building and staffing of their representative pavilions. Complications in the financing and zoning process haunted the project right into 1985 when the 300 acres were eventually sold to expand Florida International University's Bay Vista Campus.
British grocery store magnate Lewis Cartier saw the huge influx of British tourists to Walt Disney World so he started developing a British themed theme park slated for Kissimmee in the early 1980's called Little England (and at one time British Kingdom).
Actual building materials, and even buildings, were imported from England to create a small but authentic country village for the first phase but those English tiles and wood rotted in the hot, humid Florida weather awaiting the beginning of construction. The notorious Florida insects took care of whatever the weather didn't destroy.
Florida, especially the Central Florida area, is home to many interesting attractions including my personal favorite, Gatorland. It is always fun to take out-of-town guests there for a half-day experience and have them chow down on a gator nugget (“tastes like chicken…after it was eaten by an alligator”).
Founded by the late Owen Godwin in 1949, and still privately owned by his family today, Gatorland is a 110-acre theme park and wildlife preserve. This was the location where the Indiana Jones' villain fell from the bridge to his death in the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. among many other landmark experiences.
I ran out of space to mention Xanadu, the Home of the Future in Kissimmee built with polyurethane insulation foam rather than concrete for quick and inexpensive construction.
Try to imagine a styrofoam cup turned upside down and the interior filled with an automated system controlled by Commodore computers handling security, an entertainment center, a kitchen (that could be programmed to cook a meal at a future date and time) and even things like fire protection and energy consumption.
It was opened in 1983 to take advantage of the interest in the newly opened Epcot Center. It closed in 1996 and was bulldozed in 2005, but, at its peak, it welcomed more than 1,000 guests a day.
I have out-of-town friends who when they visit are such intense Disney fans that they steadfastly refuse to even eat at Crossroads because “it is not Disney property,” let alone go and explore some of Orlando's other minor amusing diversions from Wonderworks to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium.
Maybe that is one of the reasons that some of the other non-Disney entertainment enterprises were never able to survive.
Besides, I have been told by one of the Disney bus drivers that the Magic Bands explode if you ever leave Disney property, so it must be true.
