Walt designed the layout of Disneyland, which also then defined the Magic Kingdom in Florida. His use of the “weenie” has the purpose of drawing you from attraction to attraction. It is a great design, but you still should navigate with your intellect fully engaged!

Walt’s strategy of putting an attractive ride or enticing entertainment at the end of each path, is what he called a weenie. The general idea, often showing up in cartoons is the suspended hot dog, or weenie, dangling in front of a dog. Similarly, there is the carrot, hanging before the horse. This comcept is a tempting reward placed so as to motivate animal, or in this case, people to move forward.

The design of the park is masterful. They make it easy to walk around, intuitively transitioning from one land to another. The various lands arranged around the castle, at the hub, resemble a wheel. Simple to understand, hard to get lost. So where is the hack in that?

The Point

The weenie concept uses the metaphor of hunger, or food temptation. Walt wanted the audience to naturally, or even unconsciously work through the park. If we always allow our human hungers and desires, we may get what we want, but there may also be a lot of back and forth, chasing every thing that catch our eye.

A full day at a park is certain to make you and everyone in your group tired. There is more to see than most people can mange to hit in one day. If it happens to be in a moderate to heavily crowded season, you must be strategic in how you work your way around the park so your day isn’t wasted. It takes discipline to not chase the weenie, and to see everything in an area before moving on. But the benefits are that you get more done, and you save your time and your feet from unnecessarily walking across the wheel-shaped map.

Which Way?

When the Magic Kingdom opens, the crowd bursts in from under the Main Street train station. They flow toward the castle, the hub. Then there are a few options to help the crowd break up.

Thrill seekers, typically turn right and head for Space Mountain in Tomorrowland. I read that the path along the restaurant is a good 100 feet shorter than the main bridge off the hub.

The castle beckons the crowd to keep moving straight ahead into Fantasyland. You can also veer to the left of the castle and proceed straight into Liberty Square, if a shot of spook is your ideal wake-up in the morning.

Our family’s tradition wasn’t any of these. We turned left and started a thorough clockwise path around the Magic Kingdom. We enjoyed Jungle Cruise and Pirates when the crowds were at their lightest. The animatronic characters and boat drivers were at their perkiest selves following a good night’s rest.

Do it Your Way

It doesn’t matter which path you take. The important thing is that you concentrate on what is important to you and your group, and manage your time and energy wisely by sticking to one area of the park at a time.

The Fast Pass system certainly has thrown a monkeywrench into the traditional continuous stroll around the park’s map. But you can still look for opportunities to see attractions that are nearby first.

Does your family have a traditional path they use to work through the park? Or do you explore the park in a different way every time?

Photo credit: Alan O’Rourke of audiencestack.com Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic, (modified background).

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With so many resorts, you can’t help but feel like you’re trying to choose among the 31 flavors. Some families work their way up the price options over the years. What resort is your favorite?

I have a lot of experience visiting the Walt Disney World resort. I’ve been coming to the park from Ohio, about once a year since the 1970s. When I was very young, we stayed at outside hotels along the commercial highways. We learned pretty quickly that staying in a Disney resport property gave us a lot better experience.

As our family grew, our family started camping. I’m the oldest of six kids and for a lot of those years, Ft. Wilderness was the best over all option! How else can a family of eight stay on the property?

Now I’m a parent with my own family. My wife and I did the tent thing for a couple visits before we had kids. But when we needed a place to wash and give naps to the little ones, we began the climb, starting with the Pop Century and the All Star Resort.

During our last visit, our first with our third child, we needed a resort that could take a family of five. So we moved up the scale to the original value resort, the Caribbean Beach Resort. It was beautiful!

I started to realize that the general experience was fairly consistent at each of these parks. What you’re selecting is the theme, like selecting that ice cream flavor, I mentioned earlier. Then as you go up and down the price scale, you’re selecting a variable (based on the park’s current guest volume) level of people density and elbow room. Of course, when the crowds are very heavy, busses and other shared areas will all be fairly crowded. But if you go in the off season, you can really enjoy that extra space at the nicer resorts.

I have more to say about this, but I’d like to hear from you. » What is your favorite resort, or what have you noticed about the different resorts? Are the delux resorts really worth the extra cost? Please share from your experience!

Photo credit: Jared Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

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