Florida Theme Park and Attraction Facts
»Disney's property includes five golf courses. The four 18-hole golf courses are the Magnolia, The Palm, Lake Buena Vista and Osprey Ridge. There is also a nine-hole walking course called Oak Trail, designed for young golfers.
»Halloween Horror Nights is one of the largest Halloween events in the U.S., presented annually at Universal Orlando Resort.
»The Daytona International Speedway facility includes a 3.56 mile (5.7 km) road course and a 180-acre (73 ha) infield, including the 29-acre (12 ha) Lake Lloyd, which has hosted powerboat racing.
»The Kennedy Space Centre site is near Cape Canaveral, midway between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. It is 34 miles (55 km) long and around 6 miles (10 km) wide, covering 219 square miles (567 km²).
»Walt Disney World Resort is the most visited and largest recreational resort in the world, containing four theme parks, two water parks, twenty-three themed hotels, and numerous shopping, dining, entertainment and recreation venues.
»Univeral Orlando Resort was originally named Universal Studios Escape but the name was quickly changed to Universal Orlando Resort.
»The clubs at CityWalk, Universal Orland Resort include Latin Quarter, The Groove, Pat O'Brians, Rising Star, Bob Marley's, Red Coconut, and Cigarz.
»Each Disney park is represented by an iconic structure: Magic Kingdom - Cinderella Castle. Epcot - Spaceship Earth. Disney's Hollywood Studios - The Sorcerer's Hat. Disney's Animal Kingdom - The Tree of Life.
»Daytona International Speedway is a 2½-mile (4 km) tri-oval race track facility with a seating capacity of 168,000 spectators.
»Epcot's 'IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth' is a thirteen-minute fireworks show. It takes place in the World Showcase Lagoon every night at the park's closing time (usually 9:00 PM). The show features Fireworks, lasers, fire and water fountains timed to a musical score over the World Showcase Lagoon.
»Daytona International Speedway hosts races of motor vehicles of various kinds, including go-karts, motorcycles (on and off road), sports cars, modified pickup trucks, and stock cars.
»Downtown Disney consists of three sections, Marketplace, Pleasure Island, and West Side, that contain shopping, dining, and entertainment venues. They include the DisneyQuest indoor arcade, a House of Blues restaurant and nightclub, and a Cirque du Soleil theater and original production, La Nouba.
»Walt Disney World Resort has a small aircraft runway located east of the Magic Kingdom parking lot. When the resort opened in 1971, a regular passenger service was introduced from the old Orlando International Airport directly to Disney World's runway.
»One of the biggest attractions at SeaWorld is the Shark Encounter, in which guests are carried through a submerged acrylic tube into the sharks' tank.
»There are two themed miniature golf complexes at Walt Disney World Resort, each with two courses, Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland.
»Walt Disney World Resort employs more than 61,000 staff, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year.
»The name Epcot derives from the acronym EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), a utopian city of the future planned by Walt Disney.
»The largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World Resort has more than 3,000 job classifications.
»More than 5,000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering or Walt Disney World Resort, including 750 horticulturists and 600 painters.
»Disney spends more than $100 million every year on maintenance at the Magic Kingdom. In 2003, $6 million was spent on renovating its Crystal Palace restaurant.
»The streets in the Disney World parks are steam cleaned every night.
»There are Disney cast members permanently assigned to painting the antique carousel horses; they use genuine gold leaf.
»There is a fleet of Disney-operated buses on property, branded Disney Transport, that is available for guests at no charge.
»The Walt Disney World resort's original logo was an oversized "D" with a Mickey Mouse-shaped globe containing latitude and longitude lines, with the property's name presented in a modern, sans-serif font.
»Walt Disney World Speedway is a racing facility located on the grounds of the Walt Disney World resort near Orlando, Florida.
»Currently, the Walt Disney World Speedway's primary use is as a venue for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, a program that allows fans to drive or ride in a NASCAR-spec stock car. It no longer hosts any professional competition.
»AutoWeek magazine and the Orlando Sentinel dubbed the Walt Disney World Speedway track "The Mickyard" (a portmanteau of the Disney icon Mickey Mouse and Indianapolis Motor Speedway's nickname, the "Brickyard").
»Billed as the "Alligator Capital of the World," Gatorland features thousands of alligators and crocodiles, a breeding marsh with boardwalk and observation tower, reptile shows, aviary, petting zoo, swamp walk and educational programs.
»Three linked ponds in the Walt Disney World Speedway track’s infield are formed in the shape of Mickey Mouse. The pond, dubbed "Lake Mickey", was built a year after the track opened due to drainage concerns.
»In 2007 Epcot hosted approximately 10.93 million guests, ranking it the third-most visited theme park in the United States, and sixth-most visited in the world.
»SeaWorld's main attraction is its Orcas, several of which are housed in 7-million-gallon habitats that are each known as Shamu Stadium.
»Epcot cost $1.4 billion to build, took three years (at the time the largest construction project on Earth) to build, and comprises 260 acres (more than twice the size of The Magic Kingdom).
»Catch-and-release fishing excursions are offered daily on Disney resort's lakes. Cane-pole fishing is offered from the docks at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground and Disney's Port Orleans Resort.
»The Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival, inaugurated in 1994, brings out the real colour of Epcot in specially-themed floral displays throughout the park, many including topiary sculptures of Disney characters. The 16th annual event is scheduled for March 18 - May 31, 2009.
»Discovery Cove is a theme park near Orlando, Florida where guests can interact with a variety of marine animals, most notably bottlenose dolphins.
»Walt Disney World Resort opened on October 1, 1971, with the Magic Kingdom theme park, and has since added Epcot (on October 1, 1982), Disney's Hollywood Studios (on May 1, 1989), and Disney's Animal Kingdom (on April 22, 1998).
»At its peak, Walt Disney World Resort occupied approximately 30,000 acres (120 km²) or 47 square miles (120 km²), about the size of San Francisco, or twice the size of Manhattan.
»Discovery Cove is one of the smallest parks in Orlando. Though due to its high quality entertainment and family enjoyment, it is one of the top-rated parks.
»The Epcot International Food and Wine Festival debuted in 1996. The festival draws amateur and professional gourmets to the park to sample delicacies from all around the world. Celebrity chefs are often on-hand to host the events.
»Holidays Around the World is Epcot's annual holiday celebration. The World Showcase pavilions feature storytellers describing their nation's holiday traditions, and a nightly "Candlelight Processional" features a mass choir and a celebrity guest narrating the story of Christmas.
»Busch Gardens is one of America's largest zoological institutions, with more than 2,700 animals.
»Nine Orcas live at SeaWorld Orlando: Katina, Kalina, Tilikum, Taima, Takara, Kayla, Trua, Nalani, and Malia.
»Kennedy Space Center will be the launch site for the Ares I and Ares V rockets, which carry the Orion spacecraft.
»Universal Orlando Resort is the second largest resort in Orlando after the Walt Disney World Resort.
»The Universal Orlando Resort park consists of six themed areas - Hollywood, Production Central, New York, San Francisco / Amity, World Expo and KidZone.
»Two theaters allow the visitor of Kennedy Space Centre to relive parts of the Apollo program. One simulates the environment inside an Apollo-era firing room during an Apollo launch, and another simulates the Apollo 11 landing.
»NASCAR was founded by William France Sr. and a small group of fellow race promoters at Daytona Beach, Florida in 1947.
»Wet 'n Wild Orlando is consistently rated as one of the top waterparks in America and is honored by Aquatic's International as the first true waterpark.
»The original premiere event in the NASCAR series was held at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
»When Daytona International speedway first opened on February 22, 1959, the spectator count was 41,000 people. Nowadays, the seating capacity if 168,000.
»Splendid China, a theme park which closed its doors in December 2003, housed a replica of the Great Wall of China. The wall comprised of nearly seven million inch long bricks and stretches about half a mile. The replica of the Leshan Buddha is four stories tall.
»The Daytona 500, the most important race for NASCAR's premier series, is held annually at Daytona International Speedway. It is a 200-lap, 500 mile (805 km) stock car race.
»Gatorland is a 110-acre (0.45 km²) theme park and wildlife preserve located along South Orange Blossom Trail in Orange County, Florida. It was founded by Owen Godwin in 1949, and still privately owned by his family today.
»Southwest Airlines is the "Official Airline of SeaWorld" and has three Boeing 737 aircraft painted to look like Shamu as an advertisement for SeaWorld.
»Gatorland has an active road show providing alligator wrestling, pythons, lizards and other animals with an informative animal talk for private parties and benefits. In addition, Gatorland manages the live alligator display at the Gaylord Palms resort in Kissimmee, Florida.
»Busch Gardens Africa, formerly known as Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, opened on March 31, 1959, and has an African theme. The park was originally tagged "The Dark Continent".
»Attractions at Wet 'n Wild Orlando include The Storm, Mach 5, Der Stuka, Bomb Bay, Knee Ski, Wake Skating, The Wild One, Disco H2O, Bubba Tub, The Black Hole and Brain Wash
»SeaWorld's commitment to conservation, research and animal rescue was recently formalized with the creation of the non-profit SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.
»Discovery Cove has an artificial saltwater pool containing many types of rays and fish for guests to swim among.
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