On the morning of September 11, 2001, the Walt Disney Company quickly closed its stateside theme parks that day, out of concern that the Disneyland and Walt Disney World resorts might also be on the terrorists' target list.
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Sept. 11, 2001, was only the third such event. Still, when the emergency was declared, detailed procedures were in place to clear the parks. Cast members were told to form “human walls” to link hands and systematically sweep and empty parks full of guests all at once.
Theme parksOn the date of the attacks, Walt Disney World Resort closed its rides and employees held hands forming a human wall to try and get visitors safely out of the park (in a calm manner without touching visitors) while walking towards the center of the park and eventually towards Main Street.
The closure of the Orlando-area Disney parks has only happened eight times before now, according to media reports: For Disneyland, the two parks, Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure, will close at midnight tonight and will stay closed until next month.
In May 2009, the Company suffered “a 46% drop in net income for its second quarter, blaming disappointing results from its movie studio and a weak global economy”, with “Disney's parks… feeling the brunt of the recession, mainly because of people's reluctance to take vacations during tough economic times” (LA Times).
On July 5, 2009, during a failed track switchover from the Epcot line onto the Magic Kingdom express line, Monorail Pink backed into Monorail Purple at the Transportation & Ticket Center station, killing Monorail Purple's pilot, 21-year-old Austin Wuennenberg.
Disneyland Resort's Disney100 celebration is in full swing, but do you remember “100 Years of Magic?” The 2001 campaign celebrated Walt Disney's 100th birthday with the iconic sorcerer's hat, new parades at all four Walt Disney World theme parks, and other anecdotes since lost to Disney history.
The first time Walt Disney World closed was in 1999 for Hurricane Floyd. In 2001, the park's closed for a day due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the park had also closed for short times due to other hurricanes that rolled through the state.
Disney has just revealed that one of its major theme parks located in Orlando, Florida, will be closing very soon. Following the news that Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park will be reopening, Disney just confirmed that its Blizzard Beach water park would be shutting down for a refurbishment.
Rather, the biggest reason for River Country's closure is that the park simply couldn't sustain demand next to its much larger siblings, especially in the midst of the massive travel slowdown following the attacks of 9/11. However, the park's closure isn't the end of its story.