I admire Walt Disney. It is sad that he died at a comparatively young age  the year I was born while working on plans for Disney World in Florida. His plans came to fruition five years later under the guidance of his brother Roy – who in turn died before his time in 1971 on the day he was to open the first Christmas Parade at the recently opened and renamed Walt Disney World. In all, quite a tragic beginning for the Disney family for a creation that has become the most visited theme park in the world.

I have visited this ‘world’ three times now and, much to my surprise, I don’t get bored of it. In fact, I found this last visit even more pleasurable than the previous ones. In part it is because I am in awe of a place that is almost as old as I am now and how they manage to keep it all in such good condition and running so smoothly. The logistics of the operation are immense and I didn’t, until this visit, appreciate just what is happening under the Magic Kingdom. It is also because I have great respect for those with vision and those who can inspire amazing creations that are ahead of their time.

Walt Disney’s animated films were often described as being 10 years ahead of their time, as were his original ambitions for Florida. My favourite park, Epcot, was originally Walt Disney’s vision for an ‘Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow (EPCOT)’. I have seen the models and the original concept film and it was an ambitious idea that was a bit too ambitious for the Disney leadership to take forward following Walt’s death. The Epcot park incorporates some of the original design concepts and Disney has revisited the community ideas with the creation of Celebration during the 1990s.

So why, as a pretty cynical contrarian (read some of my posts and you’ll see what I mean) does Walt Disney World manage to tug at my heart strings and drive me to describe it as a ‘magical’ experience?

Theme park creators are masters of the ‘pleasure principle‘ and how our brains work to produce dopamine. The trick it appears is to get that dopamine flowing even before tickets are booked and Disney’s “So when are you going to tell them” campaign is masterful at that. Once in the parks they need to keep the dopamine levels elevated by making sure everything is as ‘nice’ as you believed it would be. The real trick however is providing enough of a thrill to increase the supply of dopamine to the brain. Achieve that and you are in the territory of drug dealers and the punters will keep paying you money they don’t have to re-live the experience.

Quite what this whole ‘magical’ operation costs in terms of environmental impact is a question I raised in this earlier post about Floridian energy consumption. Beyond that, I don’t dare think about the impact of the massive firework displays that light up the skyline around Orlando almost nightly… but they are very ‘magical’ …