BudgetTravel

Two telling relics remain: an abandoned overhead track and a giant marble ball on a blue mat. The track was built in the 1960s for the PeopleMover tramway. Once the PeopleMover felt more like Yesterdayland than Tomorrowland, Disney tried to save money by using the track for the high-speed Rocket Rods, introduced in 1998. The vehicles were ill-suited for the winding, unbanked rail, and after two years of breakdowns, the Rocket Rods vanished. The giant ball marked the center of a water fountain called Cosmic Waves. Designers figured guests would enjoy dodging the five-foot spurts of water. Wrong! Children preferred to get as wet as possible, splashing around in their underwear, or even naked. As the area devolved into a public bath, it began to smell like one, and Disney turned off the tap.

Other recent additions that have already started disappearing are Fastpass machines. The ride reservation kiosks, which allow guests to sign up for a specified entrance time rather than wait in line, seem to have grown too popular. I'm guessing that Disney officials removed Fastpass dispensers at rides such as Winnie the Pooh and Pirates of the Caribbean because they were sick of visitors milling around the machines--and clogging up the walkways--instead of waiting in the standby lines.

Top: Jim Hill; David Koening RELATED STORIES • More From the Dweebs

One activity you never have to wait for is tracking down all eight graveyards inside the park. Here are hints: There's one in Storybook Land, another in the shooting arcade, two on Tom Sawyer Island, and four in and around the Haunted Mansion. One at the Mansion is particularly tough to see--it's a pet cemetery, on the right side of the house, if you're looking at the front. Rumor has it, by the way, that a pet grave near the entrance is real. During construction, an employee reportedly buried the remains of his pet under the doggy tombstone.

Stranger yet, three years ago a family is said to have smuggled the ashes of their late son into the Haunted Mansion, his favorite ride, and began distributing his remains. Attendants watching via hidden cameras feared the powder might be anthrax. They quickly evacuated the ride and called in a HazMat crew.

Jim Hill's tour of Walt Disney World

In the fall of 1963, Walt Disney was up in the corporate plane scoping out central Florida real estate for what was then known as Project Sunshine. He spied a pretty little island among the cypress-filled swamps and imagined taking guests there for treasure hunts. "Treasure Island" was a big reason why Walt bought more than 40 square miles of land outside Orlando. Walt died in 1966, and the 11-acre retreat eventually became known as Discovery Island-- spot for hiking and observing flora and fauna, not treasure hunting. The island, which never drew the biggest crowds, has been off-limits to guests since 1999, around the same time Disney began steering visitors to the newly opened Animal Kingdom. The latest rumor has it that the island will open as an attraction based on the ABC series Lost.

Treasure Island isn't the only one of Walt's ideas not to work out as planned. The apartments he wanted inside the spires of Cinderella Castle were never built. And a much bigger project, Epcot, has almost nothing to do with the futuristic city Walt envisioned. You can catch a glimpse of what Walt had in by mind riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Before speeding toward Space Mountain, look on the left at the model of Progress City, used in the 1964 World's Fair--a sleek, Jetsons-style city with a prominent tower in the center. Walt wanted Epcot to be the most technologically advanced town in the world, with its own actual residents, not a park for day visitors. (It's also worth noting that Walt's ideas for urban planning have little in common with Celebration, the early-20th-century-style planned community Disney opened in 1996.)

One battle Walt did win, posthumously, was for the location of the Magic Kingdom. Walt believed it should be constructed far from the highway, so that visitors driving in would get a dramatic view of Cinderella Castle rising out of the forest. Building a five-mile access road through a swamp was going to be costly, however, and for a while after Walt's death this and other ideas were scaled back. Walt's brother, Roy, convinced the board of directors to build the Magic Kingdom right where Walt wanted it.

While the cost of the Florida park ballooned from $100 million to $400 million, the company tried to save money by canceling plans for new rides in Fantasyland based on Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and instead building replicas of rides at Disneyland--Snow White's Scary Adventure, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Peter Pan's Flight. The accountants trying to pinch pennies, however, didn't keep a close enough eye on the designers. Known as Imagineers, the designers built bigger, more elaborate versions of the originals, negating any savings netted by attempting to use carbon copies. The folks in Disneyland, in turn, tore down the original Fantasyland in 1983 for a full redesign.

Fantasyland in Orlando has changed over the years as well. The Snow White ride originally had no Snow White--you were supposed to experience the story from her perspective. Not everyone appreciated the concept, and the Imagineers eventually placed a Snow White figure in the opening scene. Fans of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride wrote letters, held "toad-in" protest rallies, and wore green T-shirts saying Ask Me Why Mickey Is Killing Mr. Toad, but that didn't stop the ride from closing in 1998 to make way for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. There are tributes to Toad inside the new ride: As you're cruising along in a "hunny pot" through Owl's house, look for two paintings. There's one of Toad handing over the deed to Owl, and another of Winnie standing next to Toad's friend Mole.

Another mainstay that will soon disappear is the Swiss Family Robinson. The tree house, boat wreck, and other backdrops will become part of a Tarzan area. Robinson family props will be replaced by Jane, Kala, and other characters from Disney's 1999 animated feature. The cross-promoting doesn't stop there: Look for an animatronic Johnny Depp, dressed as film character Captain Jack Sparrow, to be staggering around the final sequence of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in 2006. (Something tells me Eddie Murphy won't be doing a similar cameo in the Haunted Mansion ride.)

Disney plays up its magical image, as if every detail in the park was and always will be perfect. The truth is that rides are always getting tinkered with. Young kids found Stitch's Great Escape confusing and frightening, so Imagineers removed scary moments and added audio of an unseen child saying such things as, "Look, Stitch is headed for the ceiling."

Like the rides, Disney staffers aren't always perfect, or particularly well-behaved. During the Watergate hearings, prankster employees in the Hall of Presidents would tie Nixon's hands behind his back--like, well, a crook. And in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the statue of Bill Clinton invariably wound up with condoms stuffed in his pockets.