Category: Disney World

Dear Tony Baxter: How one Disney Imagineer’s fearlessness taught us all to be brave

Disney Cicerone May 7, 2026 0 Comments
Dear Tony Baxter, It must have been frustrating to be so youngwanting to be heard but wondering if you had a right to do more than listentrying to find your place at 22 in the shadow of Walt’s legacycobbling together a new idea from pieces of older onesfragments from the original dream-buildersof the park that you loved. It must have been heartbreaking to watch your detailed models go into...

Making Peace With Our Lost Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts

Disney Cicerone April 29, 2026 0 Comments
These hitchhiking ghostsused to haunt our Magic Kingdom Doom Buggiesand now they are relics of a timewhen we valued magic tricks over technology. Subtle over silly. Seeing them now brings mixed emotionsremembering the first time they hitched a ridewhen I gazed in wonderat the character whom I hadn’t invitedbut who had chosen me to follow home. When change happensoften the fading pieces of our...

“Did you know that… ?” Seeking the Truth in Disney Stories

Disney Cicerone June 14, 2022 0 Comments
I once had a conversation with a former Imagineer who told me something along the lines of, "Disney people are storytellers." And boy, isn't that the truth? Sometimes Disney fans, creators, and even Cast Members hear a story about something in Disney history and get so excited to hear a "secret" that they immediately pass it on as fact without tracking down the primary source (my professor...

Repurposing The Magic: How We Reimagine Our Moments

Disney Cicerone November 2, 2021 0 Comments
It occurred to me the other day that so much of what we see at Disney isn't actually what we think it is. Or it used to be something very different, but we don't realize it. Let me explain. When you ride on Splash Mountain and sing along (jubilantly, if you're anything like me) with the geese and the swamp critters at the end, you probably aren't thinking about how they were all...