Would You Like Magic with That?: Working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations by Annie Salisbury Page B
Authors: Annie Salisbury
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If you dig down into the ground, what are you going to hit? Water. So if the Utilidor were a true basement, or underground tunnel, then all the cast members down there would be wading through about four feet of water every single day.
Walt visited the Magic Kingdom property a few times before he died, and he had a grand vision for how he wanted the land used. He designated the area for Magic Kingdom, but it was a swamp. So, the nice construction crews working on Disney World in the late 1960s needed to make it not-a-swamp. They took the dirt from the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon and brought it to the swamp and made the whole area usable. The Utilidor was built on top of this old swampland.
The Utilidor is not technically underground. It was built first, and then the dirt from the Seven Seas Lagoon was brought in to fill around its walls, so I can clearly see why many assume that it’s underground when you look at construction pictures of the Magic Kingdom. But it’s not, and I can’t stress that enough. The Utilidor is the first floor of Magic Kingdom, and everything else was built on top of it.
Like all things at Disney World, the Utilidor serves a few purposes, but the main one is simply moving cast members to and from their work location without being seen by guests. If you’ve ever been to Disneyland, you’ve more than likely stood on Main Street and watched cast members from all different lands walk back and forth across the area, on their way to their work locations. On Main Street, you’d see Frontierland cast members, and Fantasyland cast members, and New Orleans Square cast members. This drove Walt INSANE.
But, when he was building Disneyland, he wasn’t thinking about how cast members were going to have to walk through other lands in full costume. He was just thinking about building Disneyland. For his next park, he needed a way for cast members to get around without being seen, and henceforth not breaking the show or theme of any of the areas. If you see a Frontierland cast member walk down Main Street in Disney World, something is horribly, horribly wrong.
The Utilidor also took care of things like deliveries, and it had a few breakrooms scattered throughout and lockers and other typical employee stuff. Honestly, there wasn’t anything too exciting about the Utilidor. Guests would always ask about it, as if I were going to spill its marvelous secrets, and I’d always tell them, “It’s dark and kinda smelly.” It was the truth.
It had its moments, like when it was raining and you didn’t want to walk across the park in the rain. But for me, as a Guest Relations cast member, I had to walk outside to get to City Hall, no matter what.
The grand plan was to put a Utilidor in every park. One was started at EPCOT, and it’s still there. It runs from one side of Future World to the other. Disney quickly realized that Utilidors are outlandishly expensive, so all plans for future Utilidors were scrapped. Hollywood Studios never really needed one, since their park was built with lots of backstage space to get around. There’s no way an Utilidor could have ever been built at Animal Kingdom, just due to its massive size.
So Magic Kingdom gets the Utilidor, and no one else does.
For about two days I decided that I should call the Utilidor the Magic Kingdom Catacombs, and I was quickly told by a manager not to call it that.
14
You never forget the first time a guest yells at you for something ridiculous.
It was late in the evening. It wasn’t quite park close yet, but it was late enough that guests were starting to leave, and no one else was wandering into the Magic Kingdom for the day. It was after parade, but before fireworks. It was an all-around awkward time without much of anything to do. I was leaning on the counter with my head rested nicely in my palms, staring out the big glass doors ahead of me. I probably shouldn’t have been leaning this way, but I think guests always understood that
Walt visited the Magic Kingdom property a few times before he died, and he had a grand vision for how he wanted the land used. He designated the area for Magic Kingdom, but it was a swamp. So, the nice construction crews working on Disney World in the late 1960s needed to make it not-a-swamp. They took the dirt from the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon and brought it to the swamp and made the whole area usable. The Utilidor was built on top of this old swampland.
The Utilidor is not technically underground. It was built first, and then the dirt from the Seven Seas Lagoon was brought in to fill around its walls, so I can clearly see why many assume that it’s underground when you look at construction pictures of the Magic Kingdom. But it’s not, and I can’t stress that enough. The Utilidor is the first floor of Magic Kingdom, and everything else was built on top of it.
Like all things at Disney World, the Utilidor serves a few purposes, but the main one is simply moving cast members to and from their work location without being seen by guests. If you’ve ever been to Disneyland, you’ve more than likely stood on Main Street and watched cast members from all different lands walk back and forth across the area, on their way to their work locations. On Main Street, you’d see Frontierland cast members, and Fantasyland cast members, and New Orleans Square cast members. This drove Walt INSANE.
But, when he was building Disneyland, he wasn’t thinking about how cast members were going to have to walk through other lands in full costume. He was just thinking about building Disneyland. For his next park, he needed a way for cast members to get around without being seen, and henceforth not breaking the show or theme of any of the areas. If you see a Frontierland cast member walk down Main Street in Disney World, something is horribly, horribly wrong.
The Utilidor also took care of things like deliveries, and it had a few breakrooms scattered throughout and lockers and other typical employee stuff. Honestly, there wasn’t anything too exciting about the Utilidor. Guests would always ask about it, as if I were going to spill its marvelous secrets, and I’d always tell them, “It’s dark and kinda smelly.” It was the truth.
It had its moments, like when it was raining and you didn’t want to walk across the park in the rain. But for me, as a Guest Relations cast member, I had to walk outside to get to City Hall, no matter what.
The grand plan was to put a Utilidor in every park. One was started at EPCOT, and it’s still there. It runs from one side of Future World to the other. Disney quickly realized that Utilidors are outlandishly expensive, so all plans for future Utilidors were scrapped. Hollywood Studios never really needed one, since their park was built with lots of backstage space to get around. There’s no way an Utilidor could have ever been built at Animal Kingdom, just due to its massive size.
So Magic Kingdom gets the Utilidor, and no one else does.
For about two days I decided that I should call the Utilidor the Magic Kingdom Catacombs, and I was quickly told by a manager not to call it that.
14
You never forget the first time a guest yells at you for something ridiculous.
It was late in the evening. It wasn’t quite park close yet, but it was late enough that guests were starting to leave, and no one else was wandering into the Magic Kingdom for the day. It was after parade, but before fireworks. It was an all-around awkward time without much of anything to do. I was leaning on the counter with my head rested nicely in my palms, staring out the big glass doors ahead of me. I probably shouldn’t have been leaning this way, but I think guests always understood that
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