Walt Disney World Resort - Hotels (2014) Documentary

0:03 coming up travel to Central Florida for an exclusive tour of Walt Disney World Resort Hotels and check in to a world of imagination there's always something exciting something to discovered get ready for an inside look at all the details that make Disney resorts a one-of-a-kind experience it makes you feel like you're right in the middle of the magic hear the story of how Walt Disney's vision went from dream to reality believe me it's the most exciting and challenging design what we've ever tackled at Walt Disney production go back to the beginning to discover the roots of a revolutionary hotel and its signature icon we were all screaming like oh my gosh we're going through then

0:50 discover the more than 20 hotels at Walt Disney World Resort today each with its own special story we create the immersive places for our guests to lose themselves in find secret treasures in rooms fit for royalty and experience an African adventure that gets up close and personal with the resort's most wild residents then explore Disney's Art of Animation Resort and see how this place puts you right into the scene you physically become part of the set here there catch it all at Walt Disney World Resort Hotels Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando Florida has become a world-renowned destination hosting millions of guests

1:36 every year it's our first time at Disney World ever and it's just amazing well when we were young couple became our first anniversary I used to since she was 2 years old brought her through a disney on her birthday for 25 years the entire property covers nearly 40 square miles and it houses for theme parks to water parks and the shopping and entertainment district at Downtown Disney there really are very few places perhaps no other place like Walt Disney World on earth that has such an offering of theme parks recreational activities shopping and dining I've been to Disney World probably close to a hundred times in my lifetime I have never had the same experience twice there are so many

2:23 things to do and see and another big part of the vacation experience is the array of hotels that allow guests to stay within Walt Disney World Resort there are special touches that can only happen when you're staying in one of our resorts and then probably the best advantage of all is the proximity to our parks you're so close so there's nothing better than coming to the park enjoying the morning and then being able to go back quickly to your resort lay around the pool and relax and then come back to one of the parks of the evening there are more than 20 Disney Resort hotels across Walt Disney World Resort with lots to choose from when it comes

3:08 to scope and cost you know we learned early on that if this is to be the place on earth where everybody comes you need to have accommodations that take care of lots of different kinds of guests and so over time we have built deluxe hotels we have value resorts we have everything in between the hotels also cover a wide range in regards to ambiance Disney's special team of Imagineers designs each of them to have its own look feel and storyline so as Imagineers we are the dreamers and doers we create the immersive places for our guests to lose themselves in I think that's obvious in the parks but some people may not know is that we also do that for all of the hotels and resorts as well so the same

3:54 attention to detail the same amount of thought goes into the design of the hotels so that we can allow our guests to continue that immersive experience and create memories together when you stay at a Disney Resort on property it makes you feel like you're right in the middle of the magic you may leave the theme park but you get to go back to a beautifully themed resort there's gorgeous rooms there's tons of fun those themed resorts come in many different elaborate settings walk among larger-than-life cultural icons if Disney's pop century resort enter the excitement of the Atlantic City Boardwalk or discover the romance of colonial Mexico at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort find island adventure at

4:39 disney's caribbean beach resort where guests can stay in themed pirate rooms with a swashbuckling motif once we pick a story for a resort we want to make sure the architecture of the outside and the interiors inside and the graphics in the lighting fixtures and the carpets and the furniture they all are part of the overall design part of the overall story creating an all-encompassing atmosphere means not limiting the storyline to just the hotel restaurants are designed to go along with each resort specific flavor will you stain Imagineering with doing a lot of work in making sure they create the most immersive experience for the guests and

5:24 it would be sad and not to do the same for the food and beverage and each resort has its own style of fun for example there's huge variety in the many different resort pools including all kinds of thematic water features at Disney's Yacht & beach resorts there's even a real sand bottom pool to go along with the seaside feel and when it comes to other recreation at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and campground the activities are far removed from city life with boating fishing horseback riding and marshmallow roasting over a campfire let me know when you're ready for your chocolate part of what you want

6:12 the guests want and what we as Imagineers know we must deliver and get very excited deliver is a variety of experiences a variety of themes that our guests can enter into and we know there's excitement in those varieties staying at one of the Disney Resort Hotels also has some additional perks we have extra magic hours that are available for guests who are staying in our resorts we have an incredible on-site transportation system so wherever you want to go there's a way for you to get there whether it's the monorail system the Vote system or our bus system we have Disney's Magical Express so if you're flying into Orlando you check your bag at your departure City you put your tag on it and your bag shows up in your room once you arrive

6:58 here in Orlando all you have to do is walk from your plane down to the bus get on the bus you have to worry about your luggage don't worry about taking anything with you you just get on and go as soon as you get here the fun starts and your luggage is in your room with you for you later on in the afternoon creating a magical place where families can take a true vacation goes back to the vision of Walt Disney himself when he designed his theme parks we hope that it'll be unlike anything else on this earth our place of hopes and dreams backs and fancy all in one he wanted a place where the guests could escape from the realities of the world and come to a place where everything was as it should be and coming up find out how it all began

7:43 here how waltz vision expanded from west to east and find out why he chose Florida for his ambitious project it finally ended up to be about the same size as the city of San Francisco plus go inside one of the original Walt Disney World Resort Hotels and discover its roots from the experimental building method everything was lifted into place and slid in like a chest of drawers to the revolutionary monorail this idea of being able to ride in a monorail that Disney built was just simply amazing Walt Disney found success in California

8:29 when opening Disneyland in 1955 so ten years later he announced a plan to open another venue and believe me it's the most exciting and challenging assignment we've ever tackled at Walt Disney production finding the ideal location for this new theme park meant focusing on another warm climate we started thinking well there's only one other place in the United States we can operate all year-round and besides California and that was Florida then Walt zeroed in on an area just south of Orlando thanks to its easy access for tourists the important thing is that the Disney World is located just a few miles from the crossing point of

9:15 interstate 4 at Sunshine State Parkway Florida's major highways carrying motors east west north and south to the center of the state finally ended up to be 28,000 acres which is amazingly about the same size as the city of San Francisco and twice as large as Manhattan Island the large property was able to accommodate Walt's vision to add hotels alongside the attractions he said I want to make sure that that we can provide not only enjoying for the theme park experience in the Magic Kingdom for example but also in evenings and night in the themed resorts and the and the

10:03 idea is that we want to give the guests seamless experience from the beginning to the end and so that is something unique because that's why did Walt Disney World became the first destination resort in America Walt never lived to see the completion of his dream he passed in 1966 and Walt Disney World Resort opened in 1971 with the Magic Kingdom theme park and three resort hotels Disney's Polynesian Resort Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and campground and Disney's Contemporary Resort the contemporary was very special because that term contemporary meant that we were trying to do something that

10:48 represented a step into the future and we made a deal with US Steel to actually build those hotel rooms off-site and put all the amenities into it all the beds the wallpaper the toilets everything was put in those rooms off-site truck - all dizzy were lifted into place and slid into Disney's Contemporary Resort like putting a chest of drawers into a framework but the problem they had was actually moving the rooms on the Florida highways once the construction was completed the contemporary became an instant icon it was considered

11:33 state-of-the-art largest hotel probably in the state of Florida at that point but certainly in Central Florida and it was iconic was guest you know arrived in those first days they walked into the hotel just simply stunned feeling like they were in the middle of the Disney experience already and only having just arrived to the property it just was jaw-dropping and the biggest sensation was the monorail running right through the middle of the hotel when we opened originally in 1971 there are many things that guests were excited about as you can imagine but this idea of being able to ride in a monorail that

12:20 Disney built was just simply amazing first time we came here was 1972 the first time we rode if we didn't realize it went straight through the middle of the hotel we were all screaming like oh my gosh were going through the hotel what a cool thing and these people were these weird little uniforms with these little round hats and when they get out of the car to open the doors they used to have to press buttons to let you out so they walk all up and down the monorail it was really cool throughout the decades the monorail and Resort have withstood the test of time even though what was contemporary back in 1971 when the resort open has changed and evolved over the years Disney's Contemporary Resort is timeless and his contemporaries still today we have guests that come back year after year

13:06 after year and it's a very special place for our guests you walked in and they say welcome home and really are it's it's like coming back to a favorite place over and over and otherwise why would we come back fifty five times inside the resort the restaurants continue to be a popular draw chef Mickey's is a place to dine with the big guy himself and the California Grill sits exclusively on the hotel's top level even though we didn't know exactly what Walt Disney World was going to be like exactly back in the 60s the forethought to put this restaurant at the very top of the resort overlooking the Magic Kingdom overlooking the monorail was visionary and and today it's it still serves that purpose that

13:52 our guests not only will have a terrific dining experience at the California grill but they can also walk outside on an observation deck so they can see everything across Walt Disney World property Imagineers wanted to keep that amazing view unobstructed so in a recent renovation they used an open streamlined design we knew we needed to stay true to Walt's original vision and so the concept behind the California grill with this reimagine airing of it is that it's mid-century contemporary or mid-century modern so if you think about the decade of the 50s and the 60s there are a lot of influences here in the restaurant that harken back to those that era even down to the carpet the carpets color and

14:38 design is an omage to Mary Blair a legendary Disney animator and Imagineer with a distinct artistic style Mary Blair is is known here at Walt Disney World for being the designer of our 90-foot mosaic on in the Contemporary Resort which which everybody knows and loves at night it's the California grills grand finale being on top of the world makes this room with a view one of the most coveted locations to watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom when the theme parks at Walt Disney World Resort expanded and Epcot opened in 1982 its success meant more demand

15:24 for accommodations so we embarked on a very ambitious resort plan that we want to build about 15,000 hotel rooms but we just don't want to build just any hotel every Hotel Disney designs or builds who have a story and where do we find the stories we research where people like to go on their vacation we said instead of for them go to those places we bring those destination to Disney World and coming up explore the many destinations that now fill Walt Disney World Resort travel to New Orleans to check out royal rooms filled with hidden treasures and taken luxury at a resort that embodies the elegance of old

16:11 Florida it evokes that timeless Victorian feeling of charm and grace plus journey into an international adventure these big thatched roofs establish a sense of being in Africa then check out the first disney hotel that puts you right into a movie Walt Disney World Resort hosts visitors from all over the world and for those staying in the resort hotels easy transport around the property is key so right away Walt Disney took advantage of Florida's natural waterways and even created his own to help the cause

16:58 with the design of the Magic Kingdom we had a natural waterway there called Bay Lake but we didn't have one right in front of where the Magic Kingdom park was actually going to be built and so we actually excavated that land and created what is now seven seas Lagoon is so that guests arriving would be able to have a ferry boat experience over to the park today all types of water craft carried guests of parks and hotels all across Walt Disney World Resort and for the hotels that surround seven seas Lagoon there's something else each has a different theme that ties directly back to areas in the nearby Magic Kingdom the contemporary hotel is

17:45 a backdrop of to Arlen so that's the only hotel you can see from the Magic Kingdom so if you and imagine it's Marlin you can glimpse because the story blends in the foreground tomorrow and the backgrounds tomorrow in tomorrow's architecture across the lagoon the Polynesian Resort was built to go along with Adventureland and the Grand Floridian matches up with Main Street near the Main Street USA is a turn-of-the-century that is a Victorian architecture so we pick that theme to design the grand for radiant resort to celebrate part of the Main Street therefore these three resorts are really part of the extension of the Magic Kingdom experience

18:35 the Nostalgia that's part of Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa harkens back to Florida's past the elegant design and architecture is reminiscent of the splendor of the 19th century resorts built by Henry Flagler the founder of Standard Oil and key developer of Miami and Palm Beach the atmosphere of the Grand Floridian is one of luxury it evokes that timeless Victorian feeling of just charm and grace every resort we say that has been different but when you walk in here it truly feels grand and when you think about the Grand Floridian and you walk the grounds of the grand Ceridian the things that you noticed most of all it's just how beautiful it is

19:20 the theming from an order culture standpoint just puts you in the mood of relaxation those typical English gardens that allows you to just wander and have relaxing conversation not just as a couple but as family and it's just a soothing environment we love to come back to the Grand Floridian after a long day at the park and just feel that peacefulness the Serena's look around at the beautiful landscaping to go along with the beauty of the resort is its signature restaurant Victoria and Albert Victoria Albert's is a Five Diamond restaurant it's been five Diamond restaurant for 14 years consecutive with a Five Diamond status it requires just every little detail to

20:08 be perfect and nothing can be overlooked once guests are tucked into the restaurants fine ambiance it's a big step away from the hustle and bustle of the theme parks for many is vacation from the vacation what I call it you know is a perfect opportunity for the adult couple to come in and have a very romantic evening and don't even think about time Victoria and Albert's has a main dining room and the cozier for table Queen Victoria's room and for a truly exclusive dining experience there's the chef's table located right in the kitchen well we do back here as we personalize and customize the menu it's a 10 course but it can go up to 13 or 14 courses the great thing about being back here you get full view of the culinary slicing dicing chopping flambe

20:55 and all that fun stuff that goes along with cooking things so it's all fun it's all relaxed back here it's like being in my house right here across Walt Disney World Resort traveled to Disney's Port Orleans resort Riverside a place where boats sail along the easy-breezy bayou the overall feel of the resort it's some think about the south and the rich history of the south we've got our own version of the Mississippi which is called the sass cooler River we've got our swampy Bayou called the alligator Bayou area so it kind of immerses people into that Louisiana feel we've got the beautiful majestic mansion it's kind of a little bit of time lost way back when where you

21:42 can come in here and you can just get immersed at the ambience of it Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside sits on 500 acres and can be explored by land on a Surrey bike or by water in a pontoon boat and beneath the majestic magnolias there are movies under the stars a nightly feature at many of the Walt Disney World Resort Hotels we will run a full length Disney movie for our guests and gives them just a moment to relax for a little bit in their vacation and just enjoy a Disney movie inside part of the resort our royal guest rooms inspired by Disney royalty with majestic headboards as the centerpiece you can push these little

22:28 buttons and we have beautiful fiber-optic fireworks that go off and the background is kind of a swampy Bayou so it's just like kiss good night for the little girls and boys that really brings the whole room to life and if you look closely around the room you'll discover royal treasure Cinderella has left her coat rack so it's got the coach on it Aladdin's carpet is embedded in the carpet as well as your sinks you've got the genie lamps for Disney these are the kinds of details they never want to overlook our way of hosting our guests at Walt Disney World is to always put them in a story so for us once we set the story then our job is to immerse the guests at every juncture in components

23:14 of that story and there are many more tales to be told coming up take a walk on the wild side it's Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge for an all-encompassing epic African adventure we have 46 acres of savanna over 250 animals 30 different species then dive into the world of animation and explore film favorites deploy the idea of creating one-of-a-kind places for families to enjoy has been Disney's mission ever since Walt Disney opened Disneyland in the 1950s which means close attention to every detail at their parks and resort hotels you know families today are are pulled apart by a

24:01 lot of what happens in the daily world so when a family chooses to go away on vacation one of the things that an environment like this does because it is so rich in detail it is so rich and experiences it it gives the family at all these different ages something to talk about and to really really be with each other one place with plenty to discover is Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge where guests enter the world of Africa even though the Animal Kingdom Lodge is of course a hotel for us it is also a show scene it's a series of scenes and the first one is this seeing as you come around the corner there's yellow grasses and thin flattop trees all around and is big thatched roofs of

24:47 the front entry of the lodge this sort of establishes a sense of being in Africa the next big moment is through the doors and into the main lobby and it's window that opens through to the Savannah beyond so now again you've sort of established this setting the grand lobby is six stories high and crowned with chandeliers made of shield fashion in the Masai tradition with each colour and pattern signifying special meanings this is part of the overall goal to create an environment that celebrates Africa's epic adventure while remaining as authentic as possible most every piece of art that we have here at the lodge over 800 pieces is all uniquely done out of Africa even the wood shields on each of the doors is

25:33 uniquely crafted and very authentic from Zimbabwe and the cast here also adds to the overall experience we actually have on any given time around 50 African nationals that we call cultural representatives and they come from various countries to share a little bit of themselves I'm a cultural representative here at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge from South Africa Victoria guests really interact with us and asks a lot of questions and it's one of my favourite things to teach people how we live and how it's different from American and culture the resort is shaped like a series of horseshoes each wrapping around a wild centerpiece for Savannah's filled with African birds and

26:18 exotic animals we have 46 acres of savanna here at the property over 250 animals 30 different species and the beauty is they are out 22 hours of the day it's just amazing I could live here it's beautiful you wake up every morning and see the animals have your coffee and the quiet and just kind of meditate and feel at peace the habitats are specially developed to provide the right enrichment for the animals and specialists are on hand to make sure they're all well taken care of that includes our veterinarians that includes our scientists we have an animal nutritionist on staff one fantastic vantage point overlooking the grazing animals is in the finest room in the house we're very proud of the Royal

27:05 Assent a suite our Presidential Suite it has around 2,200 square feet it does sleep 8 individuals and it's got a beautiful dining room and a beautiful beautiful patio area that overlooks our sunset savanna gasps staying at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge have the opportunity to get right out onto the Savannah with Animal Care Specialists on a special safari which ends at the resort's signature restaurant Chico means the cooking place in Swahili in features authentic African cuisine Disney's restaurant teams do plenty of research to ensure that their dining atmospheres and menus are an accurate extension of the resort theme we went together to Africa to discover Africa we

27:53 we went through Zulu tribe just to see how people live and anywhere you go in in Africa fire is a source of life so it was really important when you walk into the restaurant that big oven in the fireplace right there the first thing I expect from the guests especially the first timers is that they just didn't realize that they were to enjoy African food as much as they were because it's not something that we usually get an opportunity to taste a lot of different African flavors so it's it's just a new experience it was like the best food I've ever had and I like getting to experience the other cultures food and was so much better than you originally would have thought it would have been Zico is also known for its regional wine collection we feature a wine list here that is a hundred percent South African we house one of the largest collections

28:40 of South African wine outside of South Africa a restaurant located nearby at Disney's Animal Kingdom villas is the only place guests can dine while looking out at the savanna it's called Sanaa which means artwork in Swahili Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge is got the largest collection of african artifacts outside of africa and a lot of them is on our walls here in the restaurant those artifacts include everything from drums to recycle glass an ornate Gort plus colorful beads and african woodwork well we've got over here is a chair shaped in an African shield if you go into African villages you always find that on the doors there will be these shields to protect the family if you move over to the floor here you'll see where that we've got the giraffe pattern I here on the floor and

29:26 it links in with our Keysha trees atop now our crazy trees is the giraffes favorite mealtime snack and it provides a lot of shade for families and that's what we try and create here at Sanaa is the unification of family and togetherness I've got these beautiful lights over here these are weaverbird nests and the male actually makes these nest and he invites a female over to see if the neces to her liking and if she does like the nest they're together for life all this interior decor is inspired by East African spice markets which also influences the menu the minutes and I is uh really the art of African cooking with Indian influences and how that really comes about is we follow the historical spice rock from India leading down to South and African back up into Europe whether

30:14 it's in the food the decor or the experiences it's all carefully crafted to inspire guests to continue to explore even beyond the walls of the resort we want experiences that are challenging they are different they are as real as we can make them because we want to reassure people that the world out there is a place to see and you can start here you can learn things here and then you can progress from that and be assured that the world is out there for you and then there are things to see and do coming up discover film favorites in a whole new way at Disney's Art of Animation Resort as guests step right into the storyline of a movie we love

30:59 stories and so these films give us great stories to tell giving our guests a place where they can be immersed in the magic and again it's just attention to the details plus check out never-before-seen artwork and find out what makes this pool so cool throughout the decades Walt Disney World Resort has remained firmly planted in the company's filmmaking roots through its character interactions and storytelling and that heritage is more apparent than ever at Disney's Art of Animation Resort while Disney Imagineer was challenged to come up with a resort that celebrated

31:47 the art of animation so one of the concepts was to kind of take some of the great films that we have and bring them all here in this resort so we selected Cars Finding Nemo The Lion King and Little Mermaid and so what's really great about those four movies is that the artistry that it took to do Little Mermaid is a little bit different than what they did at cars right so it's a it's a hand kind of crafted thing versus a digital interpretation and then we celebrate them together that artistic celebration is on full display an elaborate theming everywhere you turn we love stories and so these films give

32:35 us great stories to tell and instead of creating an environment where you're replicating a scene you're really just kind of giving our guests a place where they can be immersed in the magic that we do and in the artistry and for them to experience it at a very personal level here the experience starts immediately when guests arrive we thought let's tell the tale about the art of animation and so when you come in through the portico show you'll look outside and you'll see Simba on a big sheet of paper you'll see Ariel on a big sheet of paper and you start to see okay well this is something about you know the art of what went into this and when you walk into the lobby you kind of look around everything's black and white and

33:21 so if you stepped into the animators head the initial thoughts of the movie would be in black and white and so they're hand sketches and we have this whole character development wall you'll see images that have never been seen before the further you move into the space you'll see colors kind of coming from behind the check-in desk but it kind of looks like a color wheel and when you end up at the rotunda you've got fairly rendered images with lots of color that start to kind of form the images that we know now and if you look up we have a great chandelier and if you look really closely we have a couple autographs up there the final step of the animation process is honored in the food court called landscapes of

34:06 flavor we have almost in like an art gallery quality display of these incredible backgrounds and landscapes from each of the movies step outside into the different courtyards and step right into the middle of the movies you physically become part of the set and so it's not a particular scene but you're there in the cars courtyard route 66 leads to Radiator Springs and all its inhabitants the cars are human scale so if you look at them they're a little bit smaller than real cars but they're like you would expect in the movie but the human scale and so they're very approachable and and you can relate to them boy accuracy was key when it came to all

34:52 these beloved characters so Disney Imagineers teamed up with their filmmaking partners to make sure the settings were perfect we partnered with feature animation on Little Mermaid and The Lion King and we partnered with Pixar for cars and Finding Nemo so that we had the people that literally that drew the drawings and did the color scripts and did all of the work in creating these great environments at our side to give us direction to make sure that we were holding true to the story so we literally took the model the 3d models from the cars that they developed in the movies and use them to create phone models to create the icons that are here

35:41 in the Finding Nemo courtyard things get super-sized crush the turtle is built three stories high the reason crush is really big and the reason that Ray is really big 27 foot Wings fan is because your Nemo size and so of course everything's really big putting you right into the movie means putting you right into the sea so the walls surround you with swimming fish and the landscaping mimics the oceans floor yeah we found really kind of waxy plants so that it would give you the image that they're wet and we have these snake pushes that kind of look like kelp Disney's Art of Animation Resort has over 20,000 square feet of water areas and the big blue pool in the NEEMO

36:28 courtyard is the largest swimming pool at any Disney Resort you know by the way if you jump under the water you're gonna hear a soundtrack it's the only pool at Disney that has music underwater in it and again it's just attention to the details the theming continues into the story rooms specially designed with families in mind we continue to get great feedback from our guests one of the things that we heard was more and more guests we're traveling together Multi Family Travel multi-generational travel so grandma grandpa traveling with their kids and so we've gone into a family sweet product now these rooms are free from rooms they sleep six it's got

37:13 a little mini kitchen in it The Lion King Suites that we're staying and the two bathrooms are great and I've called dibs on the one with the tubs but it does give us a lot more room to spread out and just have our own space and the thematic treatments are just simply wonderful when you walk into a cars room or a Lion King room or a Nemo room elements from the movie surround you coming up it's all about the latest gadgets see how Disney x' technology evolution is creating a revolution with a whole new approach to the family vacation from the beginning Walt Disney

37:59 emphasized the important role customer-service plays in maintaining a good business give the public everything you can give them keep the place as clean as you can keep it keep it friendly and that philosophy has remained steady at Disney's theme parks and resorts ever since when Walt created Disneyland and then Walt Disney World the whole idea was to invite guests into your home and so we hope that the guests can leave behind everything else and allow us to host them that means in a quickly changing industry Disney needs to always keep thinking about new cool ways to evolve the guest experience we're always trying to make it better for our guests

38:45 so we're always pushing ourselves for new technologies new services new experiences that make coming to Walt Disney World even better the next year one of Disney's latest developments as something that takes vacationing to a new era this little band is part of big changes aim to enhance the entire trip experience there's no question that the Magic Band is what we would call a game-changer it's certainly something for the guests that allows them to enjoy our parks and resorts in a much easier way because it is your ticket if you're staying in one of our resorts it is your room key you have the ability to purchase in our restaurants and shops it makes everything so easy it's faster to get into the parks fast passes magic

39:33 bands are provided to guests at certain Walt Disney World Resort Hotels and they link back towards something called my magic plus which is a way for guests to go online and set up their vacation details ahead of time Walt Disney World is an amazing place for family occasion it's also huge there's so many choices one of the things we do with my magic plus is allow people to better plan their vacation experience and with a feature called Fast Pass plus guests with valid theme park admission can pre-book things like times to meet the disney characters and lock in times for some attractions and rides the idea is that pre booking will free up more fun time for guests during their actual stay they can make sure they can have the

40:18 experience that they want the vacation that they want and then they can relax and just enjoy the ride and when people are able to do that they can immerse themselves in the stories even more and really make those memories with their loved ones that they've come there to make this new idea has come out of understanding the changing expectations people have for their vacation experience in this more interactive era the guests want it to be more convenient for them they want it to be more personalized and they want it to be on their terms so to speak so during the course of the day everybody has the ability on their smartphone to see exactly what's going on if you decide we want to do something else you just go online and change it this technological

41:05 evolution meant that Disney also had to undergo some physical changes we have removed all of the turnstiles at the entrances to our parks for my magic plus so now when a guest arrives at one of our parks you just walk right in you're greeted by a cast member no different than if you had a guest visit you at your home exploring innovation in order to stay ahead of the curve is a part of the Walt Disney legacy I have this photograph of Walt and it says it's kind of fun to do the impossible and I think so many things that Walt Disney did were thought of as being impossible but they weren't impossible at all they just took imagination and someone with big dreams and someone who

41:52 is willing to take a chance and all the possibilities that initial risk opened up may have astounded even Walt himself I started with Walt Disney World a couple of weeks before the park opened and I thought that was a really big place you know we had the Magic Kingdom we had three resorts just seems I Ganic to me and here we are today we've got nearly 28,000 rooms here so it's it's been an interesting evolution to see the business grow like it is but as much as it continues to grow the core essence of a Disney vacation continues to remain the same it's the only place where you can walk through the gates and no matter how old you are you're four

42:38 and a half again there's always something you know something new something exciting something to discover the Disney vacation is really one where I have entered into that sense of story and as long as we maintain that we know that our guests are more happy and as Imagineers we believe that happy people make the world a better place and we don't think that ends at the end of the day after the fireworks are done we think that continues right into the hotel experience the resort experience where I'm going to eat dinner where my kids going to play by the pool and I'm going to enjoy that time with them as well therefore when you stay at one of the Disney resorts under to say vacation you never leave that Disney brace you never leave that just met it you never

43:24 lose the sense that I've been transported to a magical place you