Welcome back to our next installment of Uniquely Disney! In this Magic Kingdom Edition I’ll cover my 3 favorite Disney Details (what a tough choice!) that make this first Kingdom so Magic.
Don’t forget to comment below. I absolutely love hearing your favorite Disney details and experiences! Keep on sharing!
The Liberty Square Lanterns
The Magic Kingdom is comprised of themed lands/areas that are so well done you can easily forget where you really are and be completely carried away to another place and time. Liberty Square takes you to America’s proud roots, and this land is so full of details to weave its authenticity I could fill an entire article. However, that’s another Edition! Today I’ll start with one of the big editions. The lanterns that ornament the iconic Liberty Tree.
This colonial giant was transported specifically for the creation of Liberty Square, to represent the original Liberty Tree in Boston which served as a gathering place for the Sons of Liberty. If you look a little closer, you will notice even more Disney detail. The branches are adorned with 13 hanging lanterns, one for each of the 13 original colonies. The patriotism only begins with the Liberty Tree lanterns, and it is a perfect subtle touch to set the mood for the area.
Main Street Train Station luggage
One of my favorite things when I’m approaching Main Street, U.S.A. is hearing that familiar whistle from the Walt Disney World Railroad. I get excited just thinking about it! Main Street, U.S.A. is one of my favorite areas, and so this train station is one of my favorites from the three located around the park. The elegant decor details it perfectly and places you on a bustling main street at the turn of the 20th Century, where the sun is shining, businesses are booming, and the steam train that chugs its way into the station just waits to transport you to your destination. The accompanying period-appropriate music makes you feel as though you should tip your hat and have your ticket ready for the conductor. There is also one more thing that adds to the illusion that you are waiting patiently in a real-world train station in the early 20th Century. Looking to one of the corners on the platform you can see a cart piled with passenger luggage! If Disney knows one thing, it’s how to set the scene!
Main Street music and dance lessons
One of my favorite areas of Main Street, U.S.A. is a little side street off to the right as you’re looking at Cinderella Castle, tucked between the new Pandora boutique and the glass blower’s shop. A quaint side area winding back to a little peaceful cluster of tables and chairs overlooked by balconies and colorful blooming potted flowers.
If you look up at the buildings, you’ll notice the upper story windows on the buildings lining the streets bear the names and titles of business owner’s and businesses, and this is carried on down this side street. Near the back of this hideaway, the windows above the red brick building advertise voice and singing lessons, and music and dance lessons. These windows add such a great finishing touch. They are subtle and yet strongly reinforcing the illusion of a real functioning town.
But these particular windows don’t stop there. Every once in a while make sure to listen closely and you’ll actually hear a music or dance lesson. An instructor demonstrating a piece on the piano. A vocal student running through their scales (“mi-mi-mi-mi!”). An instructor counting a dance student in and the following tap of dance steps. It is by far one of my absolutely favorite details in Walt Disney World, because it is such a blatant and beautiful example of the attention to the small details that are essential to and irreplaceable in the creation of the story of a setting!
There you have it. My (so far!) Top 3 Disney Details in the Magic Kingdom. There are so many more details that make Disney unique! What are your Magic Kingdom favorites?
Nice that you mention the soundscape detailing !
Most visitors however (sadly) do not have eye for whatever detail anymore. One of the reasons behind that could be that nowadays a too great % of guests are blunt adrenalin seekers (what I call “Six Flags addicts”). But Disney did that to themselves. There are too much thrill and carnival rides nowadays in the parks, to keep focus of the core entertainment destination from origin. Sixflaggisation was the most apparent Eisner’s change to Disney parks ! (And HAPPILY the imagineers could spare DAK from that banalising downgrade, even if they had to accept the totally stupid carnival rides corner… being dropped down.. but, they could secure that Eisner-hub in ONE corner only, not spreading it like a disease over the park.
There is one fatal problem, still, in the parks (except DAK), that’s the way too loud Disney-MUZAK in every corner. The themed detail soundscape (where it still exists) is in constant battle with the blasted general soundscape. BLAST wins from detail.
PLEASE Disney, mute the music-trash in most areas, and provide the visitors with detail soundscape ONLY…. again. (As it once was…)
While perhaps not the most pleasant of concepts in the Magic Kingdom, I find the fact that the imagineers included a urine trough (represented by the brown pebbled concrete that gets larger as it makes its way along) in Liberty Square a fascinating detail. The amount of research that went into making the area authentic (the crooked shutters are another example) is absolutely amazing.
Yes! It’s one of my favourite Liberty Square details (it’s such a small area, but so packed with amazing theming!)
I love the horse shoe prints in the cement by the Tangled bathrooms that have Maximus in the horseshoe and the half eaten apple.
Me too!! That area is another amazing one for little details like that!
One of my favorite details has always been that the Sleepy Hollow snack bar at the entrance to Liberty Square is a replica of “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” author Washinton Irving’s home, Sunnyside.
I love it!! It’s the subtle things like that that I just love about Disney and how they do things.