On October 1, 1971, the Walt Disney World Resort officially opened, including Magic Kingdom Park, Disney’s Contemporary Resort and Disney’s Polynesian Resort. And 47 years later it’s still bringing magical memories to guests from all over the world.
The cost of admission to the Magic Kingdom in 1971 was $3.50 for adults and $1 for children, but that didn’t include ride tickets, including the pricey E-Ticket for the best rides. Those ran $0.90 for adults nearly 50 years ago.
The Resort officially opened its doors to guests on Oct. 1, 1971, however the official grand opening and dedication took place on Oct. 25, 1971. The dedication plaque was read aloud by Roy O. Disney with Mickey Mouse at his side.
“May Walt Disney World bring joy and inspiration and new knowledge to all who come to this happy place … a Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn together.”
The official dedication parade, called Walt Disney World on Parade, traveled through Magic Kingdom Park that day. It included 5,000 performers lead by Mickey Mouse playing the world’s largest bass drum at the time. The pinnacle of the parade was a performance by a 1,076 piece ceremonial marching band.
On May 30, 1967, the first ground was broken for the construction of the Walt Disney World Resort. In 1969, Disney announced five “theme resorts” for the project’s first phase. Two opened along with Magic Kingdom on opening day – we know them today as Disney’s Polynesian Resort and Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
An early concept for Disney’s Polynesian Resort featured a 12-story tower, a bold design that might have looked more at home among the luxury hotels on Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach.
By about 1970, the site plan had evolved to a more architecturally authentic “village” layout, much of which remains today. Incredibly, construction began in February 1971, less than eight months before the first guests were scheduled to arrive.
Disney’s Polynesian Resort and Disney’s Contemporary Resort were designed by WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering), the California architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates and United States Steel Corp. Each was built with a unique process called “unitized modular construction.”
Take a look at this early photo of Disney’s Contemporary Resort:
Once the central elevator shaft went up, crews assembled 13 steel-trussed A-frames around it, forming a 150-foot-high skeleton. A few miles away, assembly-line workers built rooms for both resorts at a rate of around 40 per week. When finished, each was a free-standing unit complete with air conditioning, bathroom fixtures, sliding-glass doors and groovy decor.
After being trucked to the construction sites, the nearly nine-ton rooms were slid into the building frames by crane, like dresser drawers. Despite a widely believed legend, they were never meant to be removable for future refurbishments, though.
To help learn the hotel business, Disney leased the Hilton Inn South in Orlando, Fla., which opened in May 1970, and used the 140-room hotel as a kind of living laboratory, developing everything from training manuals to restaurant menus later used in its own resorts.
The remaining “Phase One” resorts, inspired by Asian, Venetian and Persian motifs, never made it off Imagineers’ drawing boards. Four decades later, they remain tantalizing examples of what might have been.
Today, Walt Disney World is the most visited vacation resort in the world, with an average annual attendance of over 52 million. The resort is the flagship destination of Disney’s worldwide corporate enterprise, and has become a popular staple in American culture. Magic Kingdom’s 50th and Epcot’s 40th birthdays are right around the corner and you can expect the celebrations will be bigger than ever before.
