Disney Parks Worldwide logo
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the division of The Walt Disney
Company that conceives, builds and manages the company's theme parks and vacation resorts, as well as a variety of
additional family-oriented leisure enterprises. It is one of the four major units of the company, the other three being
Consumer Products, Media
Networks and Studio Entertainment.
The Parks and Resorts division was founded in 1971 as Walt Disney Attractions when Disney's second theme park, the
Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World
Resort in Florida, opened, joining the original Disneyland in California. The chairman of Walt Disney
Parks and Resorts is James A. "Jay" Rasulo, formerly the chairman of Disneyland Resort
Paris.
Administration
- Chairman - Jay Rasulo
- President, Operations - Al Weiss
- President, Disneyland Resort - Ed Grier
- President, Walt Disney World Resort - Meg Crofton
- Chairman and CEO, Euro Disney SCA (Disneyland Resort Paris) - Karl Holz
- Executive Vice President and Group Managing Director, Hong Kong Disneyland - Bill
Ernest
- President, Disney Cruise Line - Tom McAlpin
- Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion - Philippe Gas
- International Development and Walt Disney Attractions Japan - Nick
Franklin
- Walt Disney Imagineering - Bruce Vaughn
- Public Affairs - Leslie Goodman
- Finance and IT & Research - Jim Hunt
- Global Marketing - TBD
Disney properties
Disneyland Resort
-
Disneyland was founded as a single park by Walt Disney in 1955 in Anaheim, California.
In 2001, the area was officially named the Disneyland Resort with the opening of Disney's California Adventure Park,
two new resort hotels and the Downtown Disney retail, dining and entertainment district. Disneyland celebrated its 50th
anniversary on July 17, 2005.
Properties:
Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort logo
-
Walt Disney World Resort opened in 1971 with the Magic Kingdom Park (similar in layout to Disneyland) and three resort
hotels in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, a few
miles southwest of Orlando. The property is twice the size of Manhattan, with about a quarter
of it having been developed to date. It has become the most popular tourist destination on Earth, [citation needed] with four theme parks, two water
parks, a shopping and entertainment complex, 18 resort hotels and eight golf courses.
Properties:
- Magic Kingdom Park
- Epcot
- Disney-MGM Studios
- Disney's Animal Kingdom
- Disney's Blizzard Beach water park
- Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park
- Downtown Disney
- Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa,
Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Port
Orleans Resort, Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort &
Spa, Disney's Old Key West Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney's
BoardWalk Resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, Disney's Yacht Club Resort, Disney's
Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Pop Century Resort,
Disney's All-Star Movies Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort, Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's
Wilderness Lodge, Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort &
Campground
Tokyo Disney Resort
-
Tokyo Disney Resort, located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, opened in 1983. In 2001 the resort expanded with Tokyo DisneySea. There are several resort hotels on site,
but only two are actually owned by the resort, which boasts the largest parking structure in the world. Tokyo Disney Resort is
fully owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company and is licensed by the
Walt Disney Company. The resort was built by Walt Disney Imagineering, and
Disney maintains a degree of control; Nick Franklin leads the Walt Disney Attractions Japan team at the Walt Disney Company,
which communicates with the Oriental Land Company over all aspects of the Resort, and assigns Imagineers to the Resort.
Properties:
Disneyland Resort Paris
Disneyland Resort Paris logo
-
Disneyland Resort Paris, Disney's second resort complex outside the United
States, opened in 1992 as Euro Disney Resort. Located in Marne-la-Vallée,
in the suburbs of Paris, France, it features two
theme parks, a shopping complex and six Disney resort hotels. It is maintained and managed by Euro Disney S.C.A., a company partially owned by the Walt Disney Company whose stock is traded on
Euronext.
Properties:
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort logo
-
Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney's fifth resort (the second in Asia) opened on September
12, 2005. The resort is located in Penny's Bay,
Lantau Island. Currently, the resort consists of one theme park and two hotels, with land
reserved for future expansion. It is owned and operated by Hongkong
International Theme Parks, an incorporated company jointly owned by The Walt
Disney Company and the Government of Hong Kong.
Properties:
Disney Cruise Line
-
Though it is part of the Walt Disney World Resort venture, Disney Cruise Line is an altogether separate branch of Walt
Disney Parks and Resorts. Disney Cruise Line was formed in 1995; its two ships, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder,
began operation in 1998 and 1999, respectively, and were designed in collaboration with Walt Disney Imagineering. Both ships offer three-, four- and seven-night Caribbean cruises, each with a stop at Disney's private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. For a limited time, cruises along the Mexican Riviera were available, in coordination with
the 50th Anniversary celebration of Disneyland.
Properties:
Other Properties
Disney Regional Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney Parks and
Resorts, runs the ESPN Zone restaurants. It also operated the failed Club Disney and DisneyQuest concepts. (The first DisneyQuest location
continues to operate at Walt Disney World Resort.)
The World of Disney stores, including the New York City location, are run by the
merchandise division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Disney Vacation Club sells timeshares at several themed resorts within Walt
Disney World Resort. It has two properties located outside the Florida resort, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney's
Vero Beach Resort.
Adventures by Disney is the operating name for a series of all-inclusive guided
vacation tour packages run by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Abandoned concepts
Disney reportedly had plans to build a park named Disney's America. The park was to
have been located in Virginia, but local opposition to the idea appears to have persuaded
Disney not to go forward with it in 1994. [1]
Instead of Disney's California Adventure, Disney originally had announced plans for a West Coast version of Epcot,
WestCOT, which was deemed too ambitious after the rocky financial performance of Euro Disney in
France as well as protests by residents of Anaheim. Another concept for a Disney park in California was Disneysea, a contrasting
park to Disneyland, to be built in Long Beach next to the RMS Queen Mary which Disney owned at the time. The park was to have led to a permanent West Coast ship in
the Disney Cruise Line, which would dock at the park. The concept, although quickly scrapped, inspired the Imagineers to create
Tokyo DisneySea, which has recently been deemed the second best-loved Disney park in the
world, after Disneyland.
The Disney-MGM Studios Paris was intended to be a European copy of the movie theme park in Florida, to have opened in
1996 at the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Resort Paris). Imagineers had been working on plans for six months before they
were told to stop by management after the resort was drastically underperforming financially. The Walt Disney Studios Paris opened in 2002 after the resort started to make a profit, though was
almost completely different from the plans for the Disney-MGM Studios Paris.
Future properties
Disney has made no announcements regarding plans for another American theme park and CEO Robert
Iger frequently has cited international expansion as one of the company's three strategic priorities.[citation needed]
Both Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Resort Paris have room for future expansion. Scouts are looking for a suitable
site for a Disney resort on mainland China in addition to the Disney resort in Hong Kong, possibly
near Shanghai. Disney has announced that there will be no new resort on the Chinese mainland
before 2010.[citation needed]
The only site that is extremely short on land is Disneyland Resort in California. Although the company has acquired enough
real estate to build a potential third theme park on a former strawberry farm near the existing resort, the remainder of the
original Disneyland parking lot, now behind Disney's California Adventure, more than likely will be demolished eventually to
expand the resort. The strawberry fields were purchased in 2004 for 99.9 million dollars with a requirement to harvest them for
at least 5 years.
While many foreign governments have made statements to the media that they have been in discussions with Disney to open a new
resort, Disney frequently responds that the stories are false and talks have not taken place.
In October 2007, Disney announced plans to build a resort at Ko Olina Resort & Marina in Kapolei, Hawaii, featuring both a hotel and Disney Vacation Club timeshare units. Scheduled to open in
2011, the 800-unit property will be the first for the company not associated with a theme park.[2]
Timeline
1950s and '60s
1970s and '80s
1990s
2000s
- 2006 - The Happiest Homecoming on Earth as well as the Happiest Celebration on Earth ends, and immediately the Year of
a Million Dreams promotional period at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts begins
- 2007 - The Year of a Million Dreams promotion is extended another year
- 2008 - The Year of a Million Dreams promotion is scheduled to end; Disney-MGM
Studios is renamed to Disney's Hollywood Studios[3]
References
- ^ "On 28 September 1994, Michael Eisner announced that Disney
was cancelling its plans to build Disney's America after a bruising national media fight with Protect Historic America and
aggressive local opposition in Virginia from Protect Prince William and other citizen groups." http://chotank.com/disneyrom.html
- ^ Schaefers, Allison. "Aloha, Disney",
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 2007-10-04.
Retrieved on 2007-10-06.
- ^ http://wdwmagic.com/disneyshollywoodstudios.htm
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
