Pirates of the Caribbean was the last attraction at Disneyland where Walt Disney had input in the design process. The initial designs had the attraction as a walk-through wax museum. The 1964 World’s Fair, however, changed those initial designs. Mr. Disney and Walt Disney Imagineering designed the highly popular It’s a Small World and the audio-animatronics behind the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.
From a story-telling perspective, the audio-animatronics and the regulated pace of a boat ride would bring the story of the Pirates of the Caribbean to life more than people walking, at their own pace, through a museum. As a result, the designs for the attractions were scrapped and replaced with the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction which we see at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland, and coming later this year to Shanghai Disneyland Park.
When my wife and I were walking back from EPCOT to Yacht Club, last week, she asked me a very interesting question. Why is the concrete at Walt Disney World not all white or black-topped?
I thought about this for minute and the best answer I could come with was that white concrete would be too bright and reflect too much sunlight. This would lead to many sunburned legs and the need for sunglasses through the parks. Black-topped pavement would be too hot and melt in the Florida Sun. And given that temperatures got above 100 on both Saturday and Sunday during our stay, this is a distinct possibility. Reddish-tinted concrete would not be as hot as black-topped pavement and is dull enough that it wouldn’t reflect light.
My logic seemed sound until I returned home and researched the answer further this afternoon. The concrete is colored because it provides more vivid colors for photographs when light reflects off the colored concrete compared to plain concrete. In the planning stages of the park, Kodak and Disney studied which shades of concrete provide the best colors for pictures. This is best seen in the Magic Kingdom where each land has a different concrete color which defines where one land ends and new land begins.
photo courtesy of easy wdwphoto courtesy of easy wdwphoto courtesy of allears
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