Looking Back: The Effects of 9/11 on Disney
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Getting people home from Disney World and the other local parks was not easy wrote the Orlando Sentinel:
Florida Highway Patrol troopers called for motorists who didn't need to travel to stay off the road while extra law-enforcement officers struggled to keep traffic moving. Authorities rushed dozens of Lynx and Mears buses to the parks to whisk people away from Disney, Universal and SeaWorld, which all closed. Nothing worked. "The traffic out at the theme parks was rather thick on I-4," said Lt. Michael Roden of the Florida Highway Patrol. "It was almost to a stop." Traffic on U.S. Highway 192 was "heavy but flowing," and on County Road 535 cars crept along at 10 mph, Roden said.
The Disney Magic cruise ship was on a 4-day cruise in the Bahamas when the attacks occurred. Their cruise returned home on Wednesday as scheduled as WESH reported:
Security has been tightened at Port Canaveral to prevent an attack on any of the cruise ships which arrive and depart from Central Florida. Patrol boats are being noticed in the water, and all public boat ramps have been closed, WESH NewsChannel 2 reported. Delivery trucks are also being inspected, and passengers scheduled to depart on Wednesday's afternoon cruise will face heightened security. But it's unclear how those passengers will make it to Port Canaveral. Many arrive at Orlando International Airport before taking a bus ride to Brevard County. Passengers arriving Wednesday aboard the Magic are also faced with uncertainty about their trip home.
Of course other theme parks closed that Tuesday as well. The LA Times reported on a decision Universal Studios made upon reopening.
...Universal parks have beefed up security and are operating as usual with one exception: management at the California park has temporarily closed the portion that shows an animatronic King Kong laying waste to New York.
At Disneyland the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walk-Through was closed in October 2001 (though the attacks were not specifically stated as a reason why) and remained closed until 2008.
Jim Hill wrote an article for the Orange County Weekly detailing some changes Disney was looking at in the wake of the attack:
Disney's extraterrestrial animated feature, "Lilo & Stitch," also may get a makeover. After all, the climax of this feature-length 'toon, produced entirely at the backstage animation facility at Disney/MGM Studios, was built around the then-comical notion that a cute little alien would sneak on board a 747, then take the jumbo jet for a joy ride through the towers of Honolulu. That sequence, which had gone over great with test audiences, now may be sacrificed. Consider also Disney/Pixar's big November release, "Monsters, Inc." Taken at face value, this computer-animated fantasy seems pretty innocuous -- until you dissect the storyline, which involves machines in the monster realm powered by energy given off when children scream. Only -- according to the film's plot -- today's children don't scare as easily, giving rise to a monster energy crisis. The worry is that by minimizing the fears of kids who now have witnessed the all-too-real horror of planes smashing into skyscrapers, "Monsters Inc." is no longer simply silly but instead uncaring and callous.
Hill also detailed another change at a since-closed attraction:
The million-point grand prize for Disney/ MGM's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? -- Play It!" attraction used to be a trip to New York to attend a taping of the ABC quiz show. The Regis wanna-bes have now removed any reference to the Big Apple from their spiels. All contestants are told is that the prize is an all-expense-paid trip for two. To where? Disney's reps will explain that part once they get the contestant off-stage.
One reported change that did not come to be was a name change for DCA’s version of the Tower of Terror. On September 21 the Orange County Register reported:
Anaheim Disney has started construction on a Tower of Terror ride at its new California Adventure theme park. The ride is like the popular Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride at Disney World in Florida, built in 1994. However, because of the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center towers last week, the Anaheim version of the ride will be called something different.