The 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 with 492 guest rooms - of which 6 were suites. They 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.
The 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
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
On 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 (the only theme park at the time on Disney property) featured Adventureland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Tomorrowland, a Main Street USA, and about 5,500 Cast Members. The price of admission was $4.95!
At 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!
Walt 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.
Resort planners scheduled the opening in October in the hopes that estimated crowds would be small - and they were. This allowed any problems that might spring up to be fixed with minimal inconvenience ... unlike Disneyland's chaotic grand opening. 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 official dedication didn't take place until October 25.)
The 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 park. William Windsor, Jr. and his family were the first guests at the new park - they had slept in their car overnight!
By October 25 (the park's 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.
OCTOBER 1, 1971
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.
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THE GRAND
OPENING OF
WALT DISNEY WORLD
The 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 would be maintained which could be periodically refurbished with updated decor and furniture. Once these new rooms were ready, the existing outdated rooms could simply be unbolted from the frame and swapped.) Due to settling and shifting of the main steel frame, the original rooms would become immovably bound into the structure. The guest rooms originally inserted in the Contemporary remain in the resort to this day!
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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 Charles Ridgway
advertisement
"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
"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."
