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No Mosquitoes at Disney World? Here’s Why!
Did Disney World use some special magic to make all the mosquitoes disappear? One might think so, especially considering that these annoying insects cannot be found at Walt Disney’s magical resort. Is that strange? Regardless, visitors are thankful for whatever they might have done to eliminate these pesky pests. The truth is, there’s more to this than meets the eye. What makes it even more impressive is that the park is located in Florida, which is the home of many swampy places that mosquitoes love so much.
Below, click Next and check why mosquitoes are never seen at Disney World!
Image Source: Conde Nast Traveler
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The Magic of Walt Disney World Resort
Mosquitoes have never been part of the audience at Walt Disney World Resort. However, this might be quite a peculiar aspect if you managed to pick up on this detail instead of having fun! What you might not know is that Florida is usually a huge attraction for mosquitoes considering its dry and swampy areas. This is what usually spreads hordes of nasty and annoying mosquitoes everywhere. Thankfully, the only tourists at Disney World that we can find are humans, not insects.
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The Beginnings
Before Disney World opened its gates to the public in October 1971, the destination was a completely different one. In fact, the success of Disneyland led to the decision to build the amusement park in the Sunshine State. Disneyland was unveiled in Anaheim, California, back in 1955. Some research studies conducted in the 1950s proved that only 5% of all the visitors to the West Coast came from east of the Mississippi River.
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The Happiest Place on Earth
Walt Disney did not hesitate to notice the huge potential market. Quickly, he became very eager to expand his dream to the eastern side of the United States. He decided to go with the beautiful Bay Lake, Florida, as it was so close to Orlando and Kissimmee. This is the place we would all come to know as the happiest place on earth – the magical Disney World, a dream for children and adults alike.
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The Florida Project
Walt Disney decided to start planning his resort. Not many people know that he did not choose to share his plans with anyone, so he called it “The Florida Project”. He dreamt of creating a place that was not merely an amusement park. He wished to have lots and lots of attractions that stood out from the crowd and provided everyone with the best entertainment of their lives. For example, he happily envisioned Epcot, which is a very popular Disney World area.
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EPCOT
For anyone who doesn’t know, EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. How impressive does that sound? Disney aimed to create this area as an urban community that reflects the latest developments in urban life. After Disney’s death in December 1966, these experimental dreams were quickly dropped. Unfortunately, Disney World started to look more like Disneyland and jumped off the tracks of Walt Disney’s original intentions for the place.
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The Disney Dream
Unfortunately, Walt passed away before his dream came true. The first part that was open to the public, the Magic Kingdom, was made available in 1971. The beautiful Epcot area came to life more than a decade later, while Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened much later, in 1989 and 1998. Despite the death of its creator, Disney World has seen massive, unprecedented success. The park enjoys a larger number of visitors per year than any other amusement park on the globe.
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Best Themed Parks
Can you believe that 52 million people visit Disney World each year? In fact, all four parks inside the resort earned their places in the top-visited best theme parks worldwide. If you are wondering which one is the best of the best, it is the Magic Kingdom! Nearly 20 million visitors enjoy its wonders annually.
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Cast Members
Knowing this impressive number, only one question arises: who manages to keep these things going for so many people? More than 74,000 cast members are part of the Disney team, which means that it is the largest employer in the country. These people have to be kept happy to make the customers satisfied, so they are paid more than $1.2 billion in wages per year and an additional $474 million in benefits.
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Managing Disney World
Managing the resort is more difficult than you could ever believe. Disney World has an impressive total of 34 hotels and resorts around its property. In other words, if you wanted to spend only one night in each of their rooms, you will have to spend nearly seven decades there. How surprising is that?
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Area
To accommodate so many tourists, Disney World is as large as San Francisco or twice the size of Manhattan. However, only half of this area is currently being used. One of the reasons is that Disney himself wanted to have enough space for the park but also keep one-third of this location for conservation purposes. Fortunately, there is still some expansion area.
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Four Hundred Buses
Realizing the number of workers and tourists, the next step is to try to imagine how they travel around the huge resort. This requires a complex, solid infrastructure to keep a constant flow without hindering any of the activities carried out by tourists or workers. As a result, the resort owns more than 400 buses. This is more than the fleet of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation!
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No Detail Is Neglected
Management and infrastructure seem like sensible aspects to focus on when you have such a huge resort. However, it is clear that Disney never failed to take the details into account, either. For instance, each trash can in the park is 30 steps from the previous one. This choice was made by Disney himself who, apparently, went to other amusement parks and checked how long people travel before they discard their waste – approximately 30 steps.
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The Tunnels
Paying attention to each detail isn’t only important for areas above ground. In fact, just as you’d imagine when it comes to a magic kingdom, the resort is placed upon an extensive network of tunnels. An online publication, known as Thrillist, describes these tunnels as a complex “underground city”. Florida is at sea level, so engineers could not dig underground tunnels. As a result, they placed the park on top of the tunnel network.
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Utilidors
The network of tunnels described above is known as Utilidors. This is where all the cast members do their magic or take their breaks, and they use them to get around the park quickly. Walt Disney supposedly designed the system himself, as he didn’t wish his members of the park to go through all the public areas to reach their desired destination.
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Sprinklers
Another way of preserving the magic of Disney World, the Sprinklers are devices that are placed in strategic areas of the resort. These devices release aromas according to the thematic places in which they are located. For instance, Main Street has sprinklers that smell like cookies and vanilla. The Pirates of the Caribbean section smells just like fresh sea air, according to its theme.
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Shrubs and Plants
The Sprinklers are only a tiny part of the decorative aspects of the resort. Apart from the scent, the amusement park also needs to look as magical as possible. One of the main ways they achieve this is by placing more than 3 million flowering shrubs throughout the resort per year. Additionally, Disney’s gardeners consistently take care of more than 2 million plants, 13,000 roses, and about 200 topiaries.
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Disney Bans
The main idea of all these efforts is to keep the place as neatly maintained as possible. As a result, Disney also came up with a few bans in order to maintain a clean look. For example, Disney stated that there should be no stores that sell chewing gum inside the resort so that the tourists’ shoes remain as clean as possible. If you cannot live without a fresh mint feeling, make sure you take your own gum with you!
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No Mosquitos!
We can easily notice by now that there was a lot of thought that went into designing this beautiful place. Each person did everything they could to improve the experience while maintaining a magical atmosphere. It seems that part of the plan was to keep all the mosquitoes at bay, which is absolutely ingenious.
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Mosquitos Love Florida!
One could argue that Disney’s ability to get rid of these nasty insects was even more intriguing, considering that the Florida resort was actually built on an old swamp. We all know that these insects love these moist, warm places. It seems inevitable for mosquitos to swarm this place! However, Disney’s decision to remove these insects was purely based on improving tourists’ experiences.
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General William Potter
How did Disney come up with such a great idea? It all started back in 1964, when he met General William Potter during the New York World’s Fair. William Potter was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as MIT, and he was a reputable engineering specialist. Before meeting Walt Disney, he used to be the governor of the Panama Canal Zone.
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The Panama Canal Zone
From 1903 to 1979, the Panama Canal zone was not incorporated in the United States. This region was also known as a red flag zone for malaria. This is a disease commonly transmitted by mosquitoes. However, in order to build the Panama Canal, authorities recognized the vital role of controlling the mosquito population and reducing the spread of the disease. This is where William Potter got his knowledge of how to control the nasty pests.
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Potter’s Contributions
It is assumed that Disney heard of Potter’s experience as an engineer working on controlling the mosquito population in the Panama Canal area, so Walt decided to offer him a job on the spot. Undoubtedly, William Potter accepted the new job and started to use his pest-fighting experience to keep mosquitoes away from the so-called secret Florida Project, which later turned into the Disney World we all love.
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Potter’s Legacy
As a result, it was Potter’s knowledge that helped Disney World eliminate mosquitoes. This still works nowadays, although there are other methods put in place, too. Completely eradicating these insects is impossible, of course, but their techniques seem to be more effective than most other solutions we have nowadays.
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The Prevention Policy
Instead of killing these insects, Disney purports to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in the first place. Their prevention policy ensures that there are no mature insects around by making the resort as unpleasant as possible for insects ready to lay their eggs. This ensures that tourists are not being disturbed by insects.
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No Stagnant Water
One aspect that Disney uses for its prevention policy is to ensure that there is no stagnant water within the Disney World resort. Mosquitoes are attracted to standing water, as it is ideal for laying eggs. The park staff dramatically reduces the mosquito breeding grounds by ensuring that there is no standing water around.
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The Challenges of a Swampy Land
Eliminating the sources of water may seem straightforward for some of us until we remember that Disney World itself was built on swampy land. William Potter’s main task was to decide how to eliminate the still water sources in the area, transforming it into a land that is suitable for buildings. This, of course, employed a complex drainage system.
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Joe’s Ditches
Affectionately called “Joe’s Ditches”, these are the original drainage ditches that William initially installed, and they are still functional today. The main purpose of the system is to ensure that there is no standing water throughout the park at any point, so it keeps flowing continuously.
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Continuous Flow
The concept of the system was discussed by many Disney experts. For instance, Cristopher Lucas explained to Reader’s Digest magazine that, even though tourists might not notice, water is always flowing at Disney World. There are many components in place ensuring that the drainage system never leaves any still water behind.
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A Successful Idea
The concept behind the drainage system was extremely successful. In fact, Disney always took into consideration more land next to the property for drainage ditches every time they bought a new property. However, despite its success, there is a lot more to their efforts of removing mosquitoes from Disney World completely. The architects looked into a few other methods to ensure that there are no water droplets settling anywhere on the property.
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The Park Structures
Lucas further stated that each building was specially designed to ensure that water flows out of it. During rainfall, any water caught inside the buildings would form a puddle of still water that would ultimately attract mosquitoes that would lay eggs, which could result in thousands and thousands of mosquitoes all over the resort.
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Water Flow
As a result, Disney ensures mosquito prevention by allowing water to flow directly off the buildings. Lucas recognizes that each building is designed so that they have curved sides or other shapes that do not allow for water to stop and remain still. Despite the obvious visual attractiveness of their magical buildings, the design is also highly functional by making it less conducive for mosquitoes.
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Water – The Enemy?
So far, it seems that water is the main enemy for Disney when it comes to their battle against mosquitoes. What seems less believable is that even the flowers and plants around the resort are specially picked to help with this fight. More specifically, only certain types of plants are chosen so that they prevent water puddles from being formed in their foliage.
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Designing the Fountains
Another impressive feature is that the Disney team managed to design each water fountain so that it repels mosquitoes. In fact, they were specially created to eliminate any flora, including water lilies. These can hide mosquitoes and help them flourish. Lucas further told the magazine that they often pack their waters with goldfish because this type of fish is known for its appetite when it comes to mosquito larvae.
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Fighting Mosquitoes – The Traditional Way?
Apart from all of these impressive efforts to fight mosquitoes, Disney still uses the more common methods that we are all used to. In other words – mosquito sprays! An admirable aspect is that Walt Disney wished to protect the environment, so he decided not to ever use any pesticides to control the insect population or for any other reasons. It would have been much easier to spray everything in the resort and ensure that there are not bothersome pests coming around, but he wanted to keep everything as natural as possible.
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The Magic of Garlic
One question would arise – what type of natural spray do we have around to keep pests away? Of course, Disney World had to go for garlic spray in order to follow Walt’s wish of not using any pesticides. Insects do not enjoy any strong-smelling plants, so the team often spreads garlic smells around the resort. Lucas explains that they only use a tiny amount of it, so humans cannot notice the garlic. However, since mosquitoes are extremely vulnerable to it, it is enough to keep them away.
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Disney Chickens
If you believe that the garlic smell inside the Disney resort is a bit too much, you will be surprised by the next method. They also use chickens to fight the annoying insects! These birds are kept throughout the resort and have a normal life. The team frequently checks the chicken’s blood to see whether they have been exposed to anything transmitted by mosquitoes.
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Zika and West Nile
Two of the many diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are the West Nile and Zika viruses. Chickens are not affected by these two viruses, but the blood test still shows if they were exposed to them. As a result, these cute birds help determine whether there are any mosquitoes in the park. When they find any pathogens, they know it is time to adjust their attention back to fighting the insects.
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An Evolving Legacy
William Potter’s efforts to defeat the mosquito population remain clear to this day. However, the park never ceased to develop its Mosquito Surveillance Program. For instance, Disney World constantly researches and scientifically tests the mosquitoes in the area, ensuring that they deepen their understanding of these creatures. In return, this will help them develop better prevention mechanisms and be even more efficient.
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William Potter
Finally, Potter’s influence will always live on, and he will never be forgotten. The former President of Walt Disney Attractions, Dick Nunis, who passed away in 1988, stated that Walt Disney liked Potter a lot. Without his help, there might be no Disney World.
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