Adventureland (Magic Kingdom)
Adventureland is one of the six themed lands of Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. Occupying the park's south-western corner, it is themed to the remote jungles, rivers and ports of Asia, Africa, the South Pacific and the Caribbean as they were imagined in mid-twentieth-century adventure fiction and film. It opened with the park on October 1, 1971, and is home to three of the park's most enduring attractions: the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.
Design
Adventureland is entered from the central hub across a bridge, and its planting does much of the thematic work: dense tropical landscaping separates the land from the hub's open pavement and from neighbouring Frontierland. The architecture shifts as guests move through it, from Polynesian structures near the entrance, through Middle Eastern and tropical colonial buildings, to the Spanish colonial fortifications of Caribbean Plaza at the land's western end. Unlike the Disneyland original, which is compact, the Florida land was given room to spread out, and its buildings — such as the larger ceremonial house housing the Tiki Room — are correspondingly bigger.
History
Adventureland opened on October 1, 1971 with three attractions: the Jungle Cruise, the Swiss Family Treehouse, and the Tropical Serenade, Florida's version of the Enchanted Tiki Room show. Notably absent was Pirates of the Caribbean. Disney had reasoned that guests in Florida, a state with genuine pirate history on its doorstep, would find a pirate ride unremarkable, and the land's western end was left comparatively undeveloped. Guest demand quickly disproved the assumption, and Caribbean Plaza — a new sub-area of Spanish colonial streets and courtyards — was built to receive the ride, which opened on December 15, 1973. The Florida version is shorter than the California original and is entered through a Spanish fort, the Castillo del Morro-inspired Torre del Sol.
Later changes came in waves. In 1998 the Tropical Serenade reopened as The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), which recast the show around Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from The Lion King; the version proved unpopular, and after a small fire in the building in January 2011 the attraction was restored to a shortened form of the original show, reopening on August 15, 2011 as Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, a spinner ride, was added in 2001 and brought a Middle Eastern bazaar theme to the land's centre. The Jungle Cruise received new scenes and an expanded backstory in 2021, and its dockside restaurant counterpart, the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen, had opened in 2015.
Attractions
- Jungle Cruise (1971) — a boat tour of the world's jungle rivers, steered by a live skipper whose commentary of puns and deadpan jokes is as much the attraction as the Audio-Animatronic animals along the banks.
- Swiss Family Treehouse (1971) — a walk-through recreation of the shipwrecked family's home from Swiss Family Robinson, built in and around a large artificial tree.
- Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room (1971) — a musical revue performed by Audio-Animatronic birds, flowers and tiki figures; the Florida show originally played as the Tropical Serenade.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (1973) — a boat-borne dark ride through a port town under pirate attack, entered through a Spanish colonial fort in Caribbean Plaza.
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin (2001) — an aerial carousel in which riders control the height and tilt of their carpet.
- A Pirate's Adventure — Treasures of the Seven Seas (2013) — an interactive game using a talisman and maps to trigger effects hidden around the land.
Dining
The land's table-service restaurant is the Skipper Canteen, themed as the headquarters of the Jungle Navigation Company. Counter-service locations include Aloha Isle, associated with the Dole Whip pineapple soft-serve that originated as a sponsorship product, and Sunshine Tree Terrace, home of the Orange Bird character created for Florida's citrus growers in the 1970s and revived decades later. The Tortuga Tavern in Caribbean Plaza operates seasonally.