Product Description

The first in a series of pocket-sized paperbacks will answer the question, "What would it be like to walk through the Disney Theme Parks with an Imagineer by your side?" The Imagineering Field Guide to The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World provides that experience: pointing out details and telling stories, back stories, and Imagineering insights never before heard, condensed into a portable, easily-referenced park guide. You'll never spend time at Walt Disney World the same way again.Each spread contains fascinating textual information and related images (drawings, photos, graphics) such as:

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50934 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Released on: 2005-08-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

I was pleasantly surprised
I will admit to being disappointed when I got these books in person and saw how small they are (I purchased the Field Guides for Animal Kingdom and Epcot, as well). I consider myself fairly well versed regarding the parks of WDW as far as attractions, history, trivia, Hidden Mickeys, etc. are concerned. However, I have learned a LOT in these small guides. The guides do an excellent job of presenting how each park tells its own story as a whole and how the individual lands and smaller areas within each park contribute to its story. These guides do not spill behind-the-scenes secrets, so they do NOT spoil the magic; in my opinion, they only enhance it for a Disneyphile. We have gone to WDW almost twice a year for the last few years so we know a lot about the parks. We just returned from a trip and I can't wait to go back to see in person some of the things I've read about. I didn't see a similar guide for Disney Studios; I hope one is in the works.

My only complaint about the books are their size. They are, obviously, meant to be sort of a pocket guide, though this is not the sort of thing I would read while in a park. Because of the small size, the print runs pretty close to the gutter of the book and it is difficult to read at the very inside edges of the pages. I have to really spread the spine open and I'm not sure how well the books will hold up because of that. However, I would still recommend these Field Guides to my fellow sojourners and lovers of Walt Disney World.

A good overview resource to Magic Kingdom
I am admittedly a Disneyphile, but this book was great as sort of a pocket reference to many of the details at Magic Kingdom. I thought it was great to read about many of the little touches many people probably miss. In a park as detailed as the Magic Kingdom, truly a huge book could be filled, but this guide was great as an overall overview while still calling out some key details.

Lightweight coverage of a detailed topic
It's not that this is a bad book. It's just short. Some of that has to do with the fact that it is little more than pocket book sized. Why they chose to do a book that relies on illustrations and photos in this format, I'm not sure. But coverage and detail are pretty superficial. A few words on a topic you could easily fill a paragraph with. It's also written in the "everything is great" Disney style, which I can't complain about since it is a Disney publication. But it'd be nice to know what problems and challenges they had with attractions too.

It's pleasant and informative for those who have never read on the topic before, but as a serious study of imagineering it's mostly fluff. Which isn't that much different than its subject matter, the magic kingdom.