The Walt Disney World Resort, commonly known as Walt Disney World and informally as Disney World, is the world's most-visited entertainment resort, located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Covering 30,080 acres (12,173 ha; 47 sq mi), it is owned and operated by Walt Disney Company through its Parks and Resorts division and is home to four theme parks, two water parks, twenty-four themed resorts (excluding eight more that are on-site but not owned by the Walt Disney Company), two spas and fitness centers, five golf courses, and other recreational and entertainment venues.
The resort was developed by Walt Disney in the 1960s to supplement Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. In addition to hotels and a theme park similar to Disneyland, Walt's original plans also included an "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow", a planned city that would serve as a test bed for new innovations for city living. After extensive lobbying, the Government of Florida created the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special government district that essentially gave the Walt Disney Company the standard powers and autonomy of an incorporated city. Walt died in 1966 before his original plans were fully realized.
The resort opened on October 1, 1971 with the Magic Kingdom as its only theme park, and has since added Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Read more about Walt Disney World: History, Location, Resorts, Executive Management, Attendance, Name and Logo, Twin Town
Famous quotes containing the words disney world, walt and/or world:
“Disney World has acquired by now something of the air of a national shrine. American parents who don’t take their children there sense obscurely that they have failed in some fundamental way, like Muslims who never made it to Mecca.”
—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
“In the far South the sun of autumn is passing
Like Walt Whitman walking along a ruddy shore.
He is singing and chanting the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were and will be, death and day.
Nothing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire and his staff is a leaping flame.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“There are few places outside his own play where a child can contribute to the world in which he finds himself. His world: dominated by adults who tell him what to do and when to do it—benevolent tyrants who dispense gifts to their “good” subjects and punishment to their “bad” ones, who are amused at the “cleverness” of children and annoyed by their “stupidities.””
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)