Walt Disney World is set to celebrate its 40th anniversary Saturday with a host of activities, including a parade and a ceremony to honor cast members who have worked at the resort since it opened.
The Magic Kingdom and three resorts — the Polynesian, the Contemporary and the Fort Wilderness Campground — opened on Oct. 1, 1971. Since then tens of millions of people have visited the Central Florida resort which now boasts four theme parks, two water parks, more than two dozen resorts and other amenities.
“There were all kinds of predictions and expectations about how it might grow, but not very many people I knew had expected that it would grow the way that it did,” Charles Ridgway, a veteran Disney publicist, said in a news release. “I knew that there were great expectations, but when we started out, they were relatively limited expectations.”
