I go to Disney World a lot. Between growing up in Central Florida, having worked the Disney College Program, and now taking family trips there quite often, I can say I've clocked thousands of hours on property. What's wild is...there are still things I haven't noticed before, so here are 19 easter eggs and design details I just found out about and love.
1.Keeping in character, the fountain outside of Gaston's Tavern at the Magic Kingdom has a plaque that mentions Gaston dedicated it to himself.
2.The Rocketeer's jetpack and helmet are hanging at Peevy's Frozen Concoctions at Hollywood Studios. Peevy, of course, is Cliff's engineer in The Rocketeer.
3.Roger Rabbit's outline is through the window of Eddie Valiant's Private Investigator's office above Hollywood and Vine at Hollywood Studios.
4.You can hear music and vocal exercises coming from the window marked "singing lessons" on Main Street.
5.If you ask the cast member to enable it, you can ride Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run in "Chewie mode" with Chewbacca helping you through the mission instead of Hondo Ohnaka.
6.You can see Lady and the Tramp have their paw prints in the cement in front of Tony's on Main Street. And, though I haven't tried it myself, I've heard you can take your autograph book into Tony's, and they'll take it to the back to have Lady and Tramp sign it for you.
7.At Muppet Vision 3D, the box office sign mentions they'll be back later and there's a key under the mat. If you lift up the mat, there is a key!
8.The ray that entered Sam and Kevin into the grid is at the entrance of Tron: Lightcycle Run waiting to bring people into the grid once they enter the building.
9.Mary Poppins's hat, bag, and parrot umbrella are on the hat rack at Citricos in the Grand Floridian.
10.The estimated wait time sign for Slinky Dog Dash at Hollywood Studios is actually the pendant on Buster's collar (Buster was Andy's dog in Toy Story 2).
11.Jack Sparrow's compass can be seen sitting on a couple of crates in Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom.
12.The inside of the drawers in the rooms at the Contemporary are already filled with things from Mr. Incredible including the remote to the Incredibile and one of Dash's textbooks.
13.At Typhoon Lagoon, the nautical flags actually spell out "welcome to Typhoon Lagoon" over the main entrance.
14.This is not hidden for those that speak Italian, but since I don't, I thought it was a cute little detail that "topolino" meant "baby mouse" in Italian. The name of the restaurant at the top of the Riviera Resort is Topolino's Terrace.
15.If you look closely on the ground at Galaxy's Edge, there are droid tracks everywhere!
16.Climbing gear actually salvaged from Mount Everest is used to decorate the queue for Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom.
17.The Orange Bird who can be seen in merchandise around Sunshine Tree Terrace, started out not as a Disney character but as a mascot Disney made for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1970 to use in promotional campaigns in exchange for the commission to sponsor Sunshine Tree Terrace. It wasn't until 2012 the Orange Bird came back as a Florida-exclusive character around Disney World's imaging and merchandising.
Finally, I'm a person of truth, so I have to admit these two I found out about last year, but I like them so much, I'm saying them again.
18.In line for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Star-Lord mentions he visited Epcot as a kid and is excited to be back to go to the Universe of Energy, Horizons, and Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit. These three attractions opened in 1982–83, and closed down in the '90s.
19.And because Ratatouille is in the France pavilion of Epcot, designers wanted to transition people from the accurate depiction of France to the Pixar depiction of France. One of the ways they did this was with the gutters. The gutters at the front of the France pavilion look like regular gutters, but the gutters at the back of the France pavilion near Remy's Ratatouille Adventure look cartoonish!
They really do think of everything! Have you noticed a little easter egg at Disney World you think was pretty clever? Tell us in the comments below!
