Customer Reviews

101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this book looking for something that would tell me things I didn't know about Disney (I've been to WDW countless times and love everything Disney). And while there were things I didn't know presented in the book, they weren't things that I found terribly interesting.

What you get on each page of this book is a brief statement of fact...like #48's "A former test car from Test Track can be seen in the ride's gift shop at the exit" or #89's "Africa is represented by the fictional village of Harambe." After this you get a paragraph (i.e. not alot) on the statement. For #89, you're told about the real village in Kenya that Harambe is based on. There is then a 'furthermore' section which may/may not be related to the info on the page. For example #89's furthermore section is on technology that can't be displayed and the authors talk about a 'makeshift insulator' which is really a Coca-Cola bottle. This is supposed to be 'a nod to both the inventiveness of African towns and the longtime sponsorhip of Disney parks by the Coco-cola company.' If that isn't a stretch I don't know what is.

As another reviewer said, there's little meat to this book and perhaps that's what didn't hold my interest. The one paragraph of info really did not give alot of info and the furthermore sections were hit or miss about pertaining directly to what was on the page. I read through the book once and put it away as I don't think it's a good reference.

The reading was okay, but there wasn't much meat to it. Each page has a paragraph or maybe two that tells a story. Only a handful are interesting as many explain boring stuff like where pictures of old executives are located. One of the most interesting pages told about how Disney bought up all of the FL property using fictitious companies. For the price, I was disappointed as most of it is not notable. If you're a Disney buff, get this from the library and save the $$$ - you can read it in a 1/2 hr sitting.

I've visited Walt Disney World several dozen times beginnng in 1986, have a shelf full of books and videos on Walt Disney World, and even was able to take two of the backstage tours (Keys to the Kingdom and the three-park backstage tour of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney/MGM Studios). Even with all of this under my belt, I found about half of "101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World" were new to me. Many of the trivia tidbits presented by Kevin Yee are part of the tour packages, but there is so much at Walt Disney World!

Compressing four major theme parks into just '101 items' is impressive because what would you leave out in your Walt Disney World book? There are actually over 200 items presented. Things like the "hidden Kermit" in Star Tours (#78) and where the hidden Mickey (and hidden R2D2/CP3O) are on the Great Movie Ride (#71) are things I was looking for during my last visit (July 2004) but just couldn't find. My copy of "101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World" will accompany me on my next Walt Disney World visit. It's almost as good as the guided tour, and much less expensive.

I was disappointed by this "behind the scenes" book. Not at all as entertaining and delightful as the author wants you to believe. Some interesting facts nestled in a whole lot of information available from other books or Disney themselves. Borrow from the library if you absolutely have to read it yourself

This was an unsatisfactory book. Beyond the lack of content, it was poorly edited with entire paragraphs being duplicated in various instances of the 101 'things'. There was little of value that I gained from the book. I bought this because our family will travel to disney for the first time next year and I can't say I have taken much away from it. This book seemed like the type of content that would be handed out on a promotional flyer which had a map of disney on it.

I found that I know about 95 of the 101 things in this book and the stuff I did not know was not that interesting. The book, in my opinion, is poorly written. Some sentences did not even make sense to me and they did not gel into a good paragraph. It was a jagged read and I would not recommend it for Disneyphiles that already know the "common" secrets of WDW. My family is part of the Disney Vacation Club, and we have visited WDW at least 2x every year for the past 20 years, just to give you my background!

I should have known from the cover of this book that there was trouble in River City. Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with B that stands for "bored now." There was literally not a single thing in this book that I hadn't heard/read/learned somewhere else. I suppose if you had absolutely positively never in your life been to Disney or read anything at all about the park, you might be interested... then again, probably not. It's positively insulting to Disney fans that the author tries to pass off what amounts to information readily available in a thousand other places as his own work.

I just read this book, and it was really cool. It lists a ton of interesting little tidbits about Disney World that I never knew existed...and I've been there a bunch of times. It's kind of a history book for Disney fans. Neat facts that help you better understand what went into creating the park. It's also a nice read. The stories are divided up into easy to handle snacks. You can put it down and come back to it whenever you have time. If you like Disney World, you'll like this book.

This book contained 101 things I already knew. This book would be great for someone who is going to visit the park for the first time. If you have been studying Disney trivia for awhile you will already know these things

After reading other reviews I thought this would not be full of things I didn't know. I've read alot of trivia books and visited WDW many times. I found a few things I didn't know in the book, but not many. I purchased the book as a guide to carry with me in the parks, and remind me to look for these "secrets". The book is laid out in order from land to land and park to park that would make this easy to do.