Tiggerific Tuesday Trivia is hosted by the Magical Mouse Schoolhouse Blog, My Dreams of Disney, Inside Heidi’s Head, and Disney Babies Blog. The purpose is to provide some little known facts about Disney.
Everyone knows that Walt Disney’s plans for EPCOT never came to fruition. Those weren’t the only plans that didn’t come to pass. Walt Disney and the Imagineers had an entirely different vision for the Magic Kingdom resorts than what we see today. Below is the original version of the Magic Kingdom loop:
In this picture, there are five Magic Kingdom resorts in the monorail loop. Three of those resorts were never built.
- An Asian resort which is where the Grand Floridian is now located.
- A Persian Resort tucked further back on Bay Lake than the Contemporary
- A Venetian Resort located across the canal from the Contemporary
All of these resorts had different reasons for not being built. The biggest reason is the Oil Embargo of 1973 which greatly reduced travel and the demand was not there for five resorts. The Venetian Resort ran into environmental issues since the land where it was going to be built was very soft. Long support piling would need to driven into the ground to hold up the structure. These added costs led to the resort’s demise.
dadfordisney 
That’s kind of sad. The idea of a Venetian resort sounds lovely!
I wouldn’t have minded seeing the Venetian concept in the Grand Floridian’s location.
I’d love to see the artwork for those resorts. I bet there would have been spectacular!
I’m sure some early drawings are out there. The question is: are they available to the public? Maybe when the Walt Disney Museum opens in Chicago, we’ll get to see some of this artwork.
Wow that is really interesting and I would have loved to see them
I would have liked to stayed in the Venetian Resort if it was built.
It’s sad they never came to be. I would have loved to see them
I really would have loved to see that Asian resort!
It would have been interesting to see which direction they chose to go with theme? Chinese? Japanese? Southeast Asian? Or maybe a blend of all three?