16 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Disney Parks

1.Fourteen of the opening day attractions in the Magic Kingdom are still running.

The 14 attractions are: “Country Bear Jamboree,” “Dumbo the Flying Elephant,” “Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade,” “Jungle Cruise,” “Mad Tea Party,” “Peter Pan’s Flight,” “Prince Charming Regal Carrousel,” “Swiss Family Treehouse,” “The Hall of Presidents,” “The Haunted Mansion,” “Tomorrowland Speedway,” “Walt Disney World Railroad,” “Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room,” and “It’s a Small World.”

2.The colored concrete walkways in the Magic Kingdom seem to correspond to each section — but they’re actually colored because Kodak and Disney did a study and found that light reflecting off colored concrete creates more vivid photographs.

3. If you look closely at the second-story windows near the “Hall of Presidents,” you’ll see two lanterns. They are referencing the line “One if by land, and two if by sea” from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

4. The brownish winding path in Liberty Square is meant to represent raw sewage that flowed down the streets of Colonial America, since indoor plumbing wasn’t yet invented.

5. While most of the lawns at Disney parks are meticulously tended to, the lawn at “The Haunted Mansion” is left to grow out and die, to match the mood of the ride.

6. Toy Story characters used to drop to the ground when guests yelled, “Andy’s coming!” but the practice has been discontinued for safety reasons.

7. It took an act of Congress to install the Presidential Seal in the “Hall of Presidents” attraction. There are only three seals: one in the Oval Office, one in the hall containing the Liberty Bell, and one in the “Hall of Presidents.”

8. The futuristic palm trees in Tomorrowland actually fold up at dusk, and unfold at dawn.

9. Epcot was originally designed to be a model community and home to 20,000 residents. You can still see a diorama for Walt Disney’s vision on the “PeopleMover” ride.

10. There is a secret basketball court for staff in the upper third of the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland.

11. In the United Kingdom pavilion, the Rose and Crown got its name from the two most common words found in pub names in the United Kingdom.

12. The aquarium in “The Seas” is so large that the “Spaceship Earth” sphere can fit inside it.

13. You can see a dragon on the signs for Animal Kingdom, and a dragon’s head hanging above the front gates. They were there to represent a scrapped area called Beastly Kingdom, which was going to be dedicated to mythical animals.

14. On the “Dinosaur” ride in Animal Kingdom, there are three pipes in the queuing area with chemical formulas printed on them. The formulas on the pipes are for ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

15. The 14-story “Tree of Life” in the middle of Animal Kingdom is actually an old oil rig.

16. If you look closely at the hieroglyphics in theIndiana Jones sections of the “The Great Movie Ride,” you’ll see Mickey and Donald, and C-3PO and R2-D2.