The Disney World Blog

Book Review - "Around the World with Disney"

I picked up a book on Ebay last week and thought I would write a mini review on it.  The book is title "Around the World with Disney" by Kevin Markey. It is basically a pictorial book that chronicles a lot of attractions at the various Disney parks that are similar and/or the same. It was released in 2005 and is hard cover bound.

As I said above, the book is mostly a pictorial with some beautiful pictures of attractions at each park accompanied by a paragraph to describe the pictures. The book begins with the Happiest Celebration on Earth which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Disneyland and then we get into the chapters.

Some of the chapters include "Castles of Dreams", which shows us all of the various castles at the Disney parks, "Riding the rails" (monorails, trains, etc) and "Water, water Everywhere (focusing on boat rides and the two water parks).

I did enjoy looking through this book, however I was disappointed in one way. I found the book focused too much on the US parks, especially WDW and not enough on the parks outside of the US. I was hoping for more pictures from Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris, and although some were there, I just didn't think there were enough.

This is a good book to add to your collection especially if you are a fan of pictorials. As I stated earlier, there are some beautiful pictures here and for that I would recommend getting this book. There is not a lot to read here but it is a great book to browse and appreciate for what it is.

You can find this book on Ebay and Amazon if you want to pick it up.

Realityland - True-Life Adventures of Walt Disney World

I was looking for a book that really went into detail on the creation and construction of Walt Disney World. I had read some information but I craved more detail and I found it when I picked up “Realityland”.

This book took me where no other book had taken me previously.  It starts in the beginning with the undercover operation to amass all of the land required to make Walt’s dream a reality. Then, it took me to new places. From the trouble with construction, the contractor issues and the challenges with the Contemporary, I learned a lot of new details in the first few chapters that I didn’t know previously.

The book then takes us through opening day, the continuing saga of the Contemporary as well as the issues with power that resulted in Orlando. I don’t want to give too much away but there are some really interesting stories. David even goes into a whole chapter on the many accidents and even deaths that Disney had to deal with  We often don’t hear about the struggles of the park but this book really opened my eyes to the “reality” that was the Magic Kingdom.

We also learn of Epcot and how the concept changed from Walt’s original vision.  I never realized about all of the sponsorship struggles at Epcot. The challenges of  the construction of Future World and World Showcase were many and the book goes into great detail of what Disney went through to give us this amazing park. Again, I won’t go into detail as I don’t want to ruin it but you can see the pattern here. David gives us the reality of constructing and designing the empire that is Walt Disney World.

As the book winds to a close we learn of MGM, Animal Kingdom and how Eisner put his touch on Walt Disney World.

Did I like this book? Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Keep in mind that this is coming from a self professed “Disney Geek”, but I really feel that anyone could pick up this book and get into it. There are some fascinating facts in here that the public never really gets to hear.  The book is appropriately named as David goes into great detail about the reality of creating this great resort.

I was only disappointed in the fact that I felt MGM and Animal Kingdom were not covered in enough detail but perhaps we can look for more detail in a future book from David. I also thought he maybe went into too much detail in the “Crash Mountain” chapter. We could have gotten away with less meat in that chapter and more in future chapters.

These are minor disappointments and I still HIGHLY recommend you read this book, especially if you are a fan of the parks (which if you are reading this blog, I have to assume that you are).  This was an extremely interesting read and this and my recent visit to Disneyland have inspired me to pick up his other books in the near future.

The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at its Peak

I just finished reading Jason Surrell’s recent release. “The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at its Peak.” I have not had a chance to read Jason’s previous two releases, “Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies” and “The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies.” but will take a look at them now.

The book basically takes you through the design and construction of the various mountains at all of the Disney parks including the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and even Mount Prometheus in Tokyo. The book is very colorful and has many beautiful illustrations taking us back through design stages of the various attractions.

We begin with the Matterhorn and move forward with each chapter being devoted to a different mountain. I thought some of the details were extremely interesting and I was fascinated by some of the details behind how some of these attractions came to be. I won’t give details as I don’t want to spoil it but needless to say, a fan of these attractions will be captivated by some of the information in this book.

My one disappointment with the book was that some of the mountains didn’t get enough press in the book. Mount Mayday at Typhoon Lagoon and Mount Prometheus in Tokyo were two that I was disappointed with. I just would have liked for those to have as much detail and background as some of the other mountans.

I do recommend this book. It is well written and provides some great information for the Disney fan. As I stated before, the book is full of beautiful illustrations and concepts, and is full of great information.