I go to Disney parks a lot, and my favorite thing is talking to cast members and asking questions. They are a wealth of knowledge and can typically point out things you can’t find in any guidebook. Here are some of my favorite things I’ve learned:
1.
Animal Kingdom is the only Disney park that has doors on its bathroom entrances because they’re safety spots for guests in case an animal gets loose.
2.
In the aviary, you can find a green jungle fowl, which was the inspiration for Hei Hei in Moana. (I guess take that with a grain of salt because he was hiding when I was in there.)
3.
And this is a quill from a Himalayan monal pheasant, which you can also find at Animal Kingdom, and it was the inspiration for Kevin in Up.
4.
Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar is my favorite place to eat, not only because their loaded pretzel is amazing, but the place is chock-full of Indiana Jones Easter eggs (since Jock Lindsay was the pilot in the movie). My waiter pointed out the idol Indiana Jones took that triggered the rolling boulder just chilling on a shelf…
5.
…the amulet used to uncover the map in Raiders of the Lost Ark in the lost and found…
6.
…and, my favorite, a dinosaur tooth given to Fred Sorenson, the actor who played Jock Lindsay, from Steven Spielberg. Sorenson was an aviator in real life. While Spielberg and his crew were filming Jurassic Park in Hawaii, they were caught in Hurricane Iniki, a Category 4 hurricane that hit Kauai in 1992. Sorenson evacuated Spielberg and his crew from the island, and in return, Spielberg thanked Sorenson with a dinosaur tooth that’s now framed and on display at the Hangar Bar.
7.
In front of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in Epcot, the carving on the rim of the fountain is in a zoetrope style where if you picked up the whole fountain and spun it quickly, it would look like Remy running fluidly.
8.
Chef Christine Weissman, culinary director of Walt Disney World, says they think about their menus with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. The problem is…they plan their menus several months in advance (like they develop their holiday menu in July), so what they’ll do is find ingredients with similar flavor profiles to the seasonal ingredients they want to work with. That way, they can test their dishes, then substitute in the seasonal ingredient when the time to roll out the new menu comes.
9.
During the holidays, Disney bakers make gigantic structures out of real ingredients like gingerbread, sugar, and flour. When the holidays are over, the structures are dismantled and given to the bee colonies around the property. The food you eat at the parks could be made with honey by a bee who ate a giant gingerbread house!
10.
The stingrays at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island, don’t have their stingers removed. They’re actually just filed down. Removing them feels like the human equivalent of pulling a fingernail off, and if they ever wanted to slink out of the lil’ net barrier into the big blue world, they’d still need their defenses!
11.
During the holidays, so much garland is hung around Walt Disney World that from end to end, it could cover 9 miles.
12.
There’s a rumor that it’s best to go on the safari at Animal Kingdom in the morning because that’s when the animals are most active, but according to Dr. Scott Terrell, director of animal and science operations, they’ve done studies that show the animals in Kilimanjaro Safari aren’t active at any particular time of day over another. There isn’t a better time to ride over another!
13.
The chest in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland is the actual chest used in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
14.
I wrote a whole post about it, but it’s so cool I’m including it twice: The layout from The Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad spans architectural styles from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States.
15.
Disney has a wildlife preserve in Central Florida separate from the parks that’s over 11,000 acres.
16.
According to Walt Disney World Ambassador Raevon Redding, the best places to take a picture for Instagram in each park are: against the iconic purple wall at Magic Kingdom (Raevon says there’s something special about the lighting there)…
17.
…the Lion King sculpture to the left of the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom…
18.
…on Sunset Blvd. in front of the Fantasmic billboard and Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios…
19.
…and in the Japan pavilion framing Spaceship Earth at Epcot.
20.
Disney Imagineer Kassandra Rose told BuzzFeed that while making Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the Imagineers were all allowed to suggest songs, plug in their devices, and ride the ride to figure out if they were the right vibe. They went through 100 songs from the ’70s and ’80s before they landed on the six in the attraction.
21.
Epcot partners with local breweries to bring different flavors to their festivals, where they might talk to their distributors to develop something in particular. For example, for the Festival of the Holidays, the team at Epcot asked 81 Bay Brewery in Tampa, Florida to develop a horchata beer to complement the menu at Nochebuena Cocina near the Mexico Pavilion in Epcot.
22.
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway was designed so there are some things you don’t see depending on which of the train cars you’re in, so each car has a different experience riding it.
23.
At Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto in the Polynesian Resort, you can peep the turtle shell ukulele that Kirk Douglas plays during “A Whale of a Tale” in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
24.
Finally, R-3X, the DJ at Oga’s Cantina at Hollywood Studios and Disneyland Resort got a job transfer. He was originally captain of the Star Tours ride until 2010 (C-3PO is now the unwilling captain of the attraction).
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