A couple of weeks ago, Disney announced that the Richard Petty Driving Experience would be leaving the Walt Disney World Speedway in June. Disney also announced that the area would be undergoing “transportation enhancements.” To me, this is very vague and leads me to believe that “The Mickyard” will be no more. This makes it a perfect candidate for #ImagineeringFriday.
Usually, I set up some rules and restrictions for these projects. But with this one, there are no rules. You can design whatever you want into that space. It’s a blank canvas.
One of the things that I have never been able to do at Walt Disney World is play one of the two mini-golf courses in the EPCOT Resort area. Why? It’s a pain in the butt to get to while staying in the Magic Kingdom Resort area. So, my thought….bring the mini-golf courses to the Magic Kingdom area. Given it’s location near the Ticket and Transportation Center, Guests could access the new mini-golf location via a tram from the TTC or, if they have their own car, the ample parking around the former speedway.
What I want to focus on is the golf courses. I would put two 18 hole mini-golf courses on the property. The first 18 hole course would feature scenes and attraction icons from The Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. Imagine trying to hit your ball through Spaceship Earth or timing your hit to the cannon blast from Captain Hook’s pirate ship.
The other golf course would feature scenes and attraction icons from Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. On this course, you may have to hit your shot before Doctor Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker’s experiment goes crazy and completely changes the hole or an animotromic lion from Kilimanjaro Safaris swats your ball into the rocks.
On the other side of the property, there would be an 18-hole pitch-and-putt style course for those who are willing to take a step up from the world of mini-golf. None of the holes would be more than 75 yards long and each green would be designed in the shape of a different Disney character. The 18th green would, of course, have the iconic Mickey head logo. The most menacing hole would be the 13th hole with a green shaped like Maleficent’s horns.
With mini-golf on one side and pitch-and-putt on the other, what is going in the middle? There would be a two-floor building in the middle. On the first floor, there would be a typical registration and check-in/waiting area to get on to the courses. The second floor would house a clubhouse grill overlooking the three courses. Food here would be standard “post-round” grub like burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches. There would be some of Disney’s “forgotten” characters roaming around during the meals as well. Hollywood Studios has it’s “Character-palooza” on some days. This grill would have a rotating cast of characters varying from the Elephant that Saved an Empire, Dumbo, to Disney princes to the moose from Brother Bear to Max Goof. A rotating set of characters not frequently seen in the parks.
This is my reimagining of the Walt Disney World Speedway. What yours? Leave a comment or if you are blogger join the link-up with post on your ideas.
Thanks for reading!
dadfordisney 