T he Polynesian Village Resort (originally planned to be to be a 12- story high-rise

hotel & at one time referred to as the "South Seas" resort) opened on the south shore

of Seven Seas Lagoon.



T he Contemporary (originally to be called the Tempo Bay Hotel) featured

something probably never seen before by vacationers ... a monorail running directly

through the middle of the A-frame structure's 10-story atrium!



Magic Kingdom Opening Day Attractions,

Shops & Restaurants:



Walt Disney World Railroad : including the Walter E. Disney (#1), the Lilly Belle

(#2), and the Roger E. Broggie (#3) locomotives (round-trip only)



Town Square : Town Square Cafe



Main Street transportation : Fire truck, Horse-drawn street cars, Horseless

carriages, Jitney vehicle, & Omnibus



Main Street : Market House store, Camera Center, Coca-Cola Refreshment

Corner, House of Magic shop, Penny Arcade attraction, Main Street Confectionery

shop, Emporium store, Main Street Bake Shop, New Century Clock Shop, Main

Street Cinema attraction, & Crystal Palace Restaurant



Adventureland: Adventureland Veranda restaurant, Jungle Cruise attraction,

Swiss Family Tree House attraction, & Sunshine Pavilion attraction (also known

as Tropical Serenade) sponsored by the Florida Citris Growers



Bear Country: Country Bear Jamboree attraction



Fantasyland: Dumbo Flying Elephants attraction, Mad Tea Party attraction,

Snow White's Adventures attraction, Pinocchio Village Haus restaurant,

Cinderella's Golden Carrousel attraction, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride attraction, Mickey

Mouse Revue Audio-Animatronics musical attraction, It's a Small World

attraction, & Skyway to Tomorrowland attraction



Frontierland : Frontier Shooting Gallery, Frontier Trading Post shop, Pecos Bill

Cafe restaurant, Mike Fink Keel Boats attraction, Mile Long Bar, Diamond

Horseshoe Revue attraction



Liberty Square : Hall of Presidents attraction, Columbia Harbor House

restaurant, Heritage House shop, Liberty Tree Tavern restaurant, & Haunted

Mansion attraction



Tomorowland : Skyway to Fantasyland attraction, Grand Prix Raceway

attraction, Mickey's Mart store, & Tomorrowland Terrace restaurant



Cinderella Castle : King Stefan's Banquet Hall



O n Friday October 1 , 1971 - after seven years of planning - about 10,000 visitors

converged near Orlando, Florida, to witness the grand opening of Walt Disney World.

The Magic Kingdom, encompassing approximately 107 acres, featured Adventureland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Liberty

Square, Tomorrowland, a Main Street USA, and about 5,500 Cast Members. (MK was the only theme park at WDW.)



A t the end of October 1971, the total attendance was around 400,000.

The day after Thanksgiving November 26, 1971 ...

an amazing 50,000 guests entered the Magic Kingdom!



W alt Disney World also debuted 2 property hotels,

the 15-story Contemporary Resort and the Polynesian

Village Resort - both built by U.S. Steel and both

connected by a monorail system. The hotels were conceived

by WED enterprises and the Los Angeles architectural firm of Welton

Becket & Associates. U.S. Steel was to originally own the hotels, but just

before opening, Roy Disney decided to buy out their interests and let

Disney run the hotels themselves.



R esort planners scheduled the opening in October in the hopes that estimated crowds

would be small - and they were. (Two days before the opening of Walt Disney World, the Florida Highway

Patrol had issued a statement that they believed as many as 300,000 people might try to be among the first to get into the Magic Kingdom.) Fortunately the small crowd of 10,000 on October 1, 1971 allowed any problems that sprang up to be

fixed with minimal inconvenience ... unlike Disneyland's chaotic grand opening day . Even official dedications and other media events were held off until later in the month so as to make sure everything ran smoothly. (The park's actual dedication didn't take place until October 25 .)



T he early morning found guests

driving around the toll plaza over and

over, trying to steer their way in to be

the first visitors to the Magic Kingdom.

William Windsor, Jr. and his family from Lakeland,

Florida, were among the first guests to enter through one of 14 turnstiles (they had slept in their car overnight at a nearby

roadside rest area). Mickey Mouse himself cordially led William, his wife Marty and their two sons Jay and Lee into the

new park. Reporters swarmed the Windsor family, bombarding them with questions as cameras flashed, and the Disney

Dixieland band played "It's a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight." The Windsors then took part in a Main Street parade

(riding in an antique fire engine) accompanied by Debbie Dane, Walt Disney World's first Ambassador, and Mickey Mouse.



OCTOBER 1, 1971





W alt Disney World held a three-day grand opening celebration starting

on October 23 . Celebrities like Bob Hope, Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson, Jonathan Winters, Annette Funicello and Fred MacMurray arrived in Orlando on that day to begin WDW's official opening festivities. The official grand opening celebrations of Disney's Contemporary and Polynesian Village Resorts took place on October 24 . The Electrical Water Pageant and Fantasy in the Sky Spectacular also debuted that evening. By October 25 (the park's actual Dedication Day) the Admiral Joe Fowler Riverboat, Peter Pan's Flight, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had all opened to guests as well. Television cameras caught all the action over these three days for an October 29 broadcast.



THE GRAND

OPENING OF

WALT DISNEY

WORLD



T he hotel's construction began with steel frames being erected on site. Later

modular pre-constructed guest rooms were lifted into place by crane. The original

idea of these modular rooms was to facilitate very rapid renovations and

maintenance. A supply of extra rooms could possibly be maintained and periodically

refurbished with updated decor and furniture. Once these new rooms were ready,

the idea was that existing outdated rooms could simply be unbolted from the frame

and swapped. But due to settling and shifting of the main steel frame, the original

rooms obviously became immovably bound into the structure forever. The guest

rooms originally inserted in the Contemporary remain in the resort to this day.



April 6, 1971 cover

of LOOK magazine



THIS SITE MADE IN THE USA





"On opening day, I remember Card Walker and I think Don Tatum going up in a helicopter to see the traffic coming

in to park. Originally, we had predicted there would be about 10,000 people but the newspapers kept increasing that

figure. One paper on the East Coast predicted 200,000 and that was picked up by a foreign newspaper that added

an additional zero so it was reported that two million people would show up. We purposely opened in the off-season

to work out the bugs and it turned out we were right that there was about 10,000 that first day. Anyway, they are up

in the helicopter and they see this long line of cars and they are smiling and then suddenly the line turns the wrong

way and they realized that the cars weren't guests but cast members driving to work. We had about 5,000 cast

members in those days." -Press Agent Charlie Ridgway



"Not all the construction was actually here on the site. The monorail trains for example, were designed and engineered

by our Disney staff in California and then assembled at the Martin Marietta plant in Orlando. We also required 337

monorail beams to be precision cast using the first major application for three-dimensional, pre-stressed concrete. The

nearest place that could handle the work was Tacoma, Wash., so we had to ship them 3,000 miles across the United

States to our property." -Card Walker (executive vice president and chief operating officer)



"Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas... Ladies and Gentlemen, please collect your belongings and watch your head and step. Please assist small children by the hand."





DID YOU KNOW ...

When Disney World opened in 1971,

it was the first theme park to have

continuously playing ambient music on

pathways between attractions.



DID YOU KNOW ...

The mosaic mural in the fourth-floor

lobby of Disney’s Contemporary Resort

was created with 1,800 one-square-foot

tiles. It took 18 months to construct!



DID YOU KNOW ...

Way back in 1958, Walt Disney asked

Economics Research Associates to find a

suitable location for a second Disney park.

The recommendation was Florida.



DID YOU KNOW ...

When WDW first opened, there were

just five Mark IV monorails in operation

(although five more longer trains were

later added).



A network of warehouse-sized rooms,

hallways, and office spaces were built

under Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

The park that guests see are actually the

second and third stories.



On opening day, the

Contemporary Resort

featured 1046 rooms.

Also debuting in the hotel -

Top of the World restaurant &

Gulf Coast Room restaurant.



T he resort's rooms were divided between eight guest longhouses - named

Bali Hai, Bora Bora, Fiji, Hawaii, Maui, Samoa, Tahiti and Tonga. (Although in

October 1999, the names were changed.) The Polynesian's restaurants were the

Papeete Bay Verandah and the Coral Isle Coffee Shop (later the Coral Isle

Cafe), supplemented by the Tambu Lounge, Captain Cook's Hideaway Lounge

and the Barefoot Snack Bar. The center of the resort - the Great Ceremonial

House (which still exists today) served as both lobby and focal point. In the

1980s the "Village" portion of the name was dropped, leaving the resort as

Disney's Polynesian Resort.



On opening day, the

Polynesian Village Resort

featured 492 guest rooms

(of which 6 were suites).

Also debuting in the hotel -

Coral Isle Cafe restaurant &

Papeete Bay Verandah restaurant.



You could fit the original Disneyland Park in

the parking lot of the Magic Kingdom and still

have room to park some 300 cars.



"I picked a family with a father who looked like (popular golfer) Jack Nicklaus

and a mother who looked like Mrs. Brady (from the television show "The

Brady Bunch"). They had two blonde sons. After the first family entered, we

opened the Walt Disney World gates and people came in to a well-staffed and

well-organized day." -Director of Marketing Jack Lindquist



W hen Disney World first opened (and for many years thereafter), guests purchased a

book of ride tickets (similar to what you would get at a carnival or fair). The book

consisted of A through E tickets, with the E tickets being the best rides. E ticket

attractions included 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Haunted Mansion, Jungle

Cruise, Small World and the Hall of Presidents.



S even Adventure Ticket Book: Adult $4.75, Junior $4.25, Children $3.75

(included transportation, admission to MK and seven adventures)



E leven Adventure Ticket Book: Adult $5.75, Junior $5.25, Children $4.75

(included transportation, admission to MK and eleven adventures)



G eneral Admission: Adult $3.50, Junior $2.50, Children $1.00

(inlcuded unlimited use for one day of transportation system, admission to MK and all

free shows, exhibits and entertainment)



P arking: 50 cents per automobile



October Preview Month



"My very first job on opening day was, for the folks coming over the bridge towards Haunted Mansion, I was the person that

was going to take that E-ticket. Breaking the code on that A-through-E ticket was a little bit more cumbersome for me than

I think you can guess. There were plenty of people that got in that morning on an A-ticket, I'm pretty sure." -Phil Holmes

(later Disney World Vice President)



It was Roy O. Disney who insisted that the name of the Florida Project be changed from "Disney World" to

"Walt Disney World" as a tribute to his brother. Roy’s foresight clearly set the stage for future expansion of the

Walt Disney World Resort; the infrastructure of roads and land development was in place, Disney was in complete

control of the property, and the philosophy of "exceeding guest expectations" was established and would

endure and prosper for years to come. One of Roy’s major decisions concerned the positioning of the

Magic Kingdom. The financial people wanted to place it at the corner of two highways, I-4 and 192.

That would make it readily available to the public and preclude the high expense of building

infrastructure of roads and canals and preparing the land for future use. Roy, however, had other plans.

He insisted that Walt’s original vision for the property be followed.

"We’re going to finish the Florida park, and we’re going to do it just the way Walt wanted it," he told WED staff shortly

after Walt’s death. Roy’s vision enabled future development of what is now Downtown Disney, Epcot, Disney’s

Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.



"Ponce De Leon couldn't find the fountain of

youth in Florida, so Walt Disney created it."

-Bob Hope



Opening Day Cast Member memories:



"In those days, there were no rehearsal facilities. We had been rehearsing in parking lots, gyms, schools, church parking

lots – wherever we could go. We traveled all over Central Florida getting performers for the parades." -choreographer

Forrest Bahruth (later Epcot Show Director)



"One of the huge memories I have from opening day was watching the rope drop on Main Street, U.S.A. and watching thousands of people stream into the various lands of the park and occupy this place for the very first time ever. You could imagine the fulfillment of Walt’s dream that he never got to see come to fruition." -custodial host Kevin Myers (later Vice President of Resort Operations)

