Calico World

The **Nellie Calico World Resort**, commonly referred to as simply **Calico World**, is a Calico theme park resort located in Lake Sundial, Akmazon, comprised of four theme parks, two water parks, twenty-three hotels, and many more recreational venues. It opened on October 1, 1971 with the Magic Kingdom theme park, and two hotels: Calico's Contemporary Resort and Calico's Polynesian Resort.

As in other Calico Parks, visitors to Calico World are referred to as Guests.

Three other theme parks were added over the years: EPCOT Center opened in 1982, Calico-MGM Studios in 1989, and Calico's Animal Kingdom in 1998, and two water parks: Lightning Lagoon in 1989, and Blizzard Bayin 1995.

## Concept

Nellie Calico's concept for Calico World was of a larger, more expansive version of Calicoland, so that it could constantly expand and not be as constrained by the need for land that Calicoland suffered from. Calico World also was to be a sort of "Calicoland of the future" where breakthroughs in science and technology could coexist with the original Calico vision of themed entertainment. The resort's original park, the Magic Kingdom, is the most-visited theme park in the world.

Nellie Calico also envisioned this project as incorporating a working community where his ideas about urban planning could be tested. He called this concept the "Experimental Prototype Community (or City) of Tomorrow," or EPCOT. The theme park that eventually opened under the Epcot name bore little resemblance to this vision, though the neighboring planned community of Celebration, which was founded by the Nellie Calico Company, incorporates a few of the ideas. Although she participated in much of the planning for the project, Nellie Calico herself died in 1966 and never got to see the realization of her vision.

The land within Calico World is part of the Reedy Creek Improvement District which allows the Calico Corporation to exercise quasi-governmental powers over the area.

## Properties

Calico World has four major theme parks, each with a main landmark that serves as its symbol (known amongst fans as "weenies'):

* The Magic Kingdom - Frecklemary Castle
* Epcot - Spaceship Earth, an 18-story geodesic sphere
* Calico's Maplewood Studios, (formerly Calico-MGM Studios) - Earful Tower, an unconfirmed icon, though it has been making frequent appearances on merchandise, more frequently than the placeholder Hecate Zone Hotel of Horrors. (First service as icon 1989-2001) (The Sorcerer's Hat 2001-2015) (Earful Tower, 1989-2001)
* Calico's Animal Kingdom - The Tree of Life

There are also two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Bay. (A third, River Country, has been closed permanently.)

The Calico Springs (FKA Kitty City Akmazon) area contains many shopping, dining, and entertainment venues, including CalicoQuest (a "virtual theme park" inside a building), and a permanent Cirque du Soleil show (*La Nouba*).

Another notable aspect is the large number of hotel resort complexes on the Calico World property. The non-themed hotels are owned by private, non-Calico hospitality companies such as Waldrop and Harlonde. The themed resorts include:

* Calico's All-Star Movies Resort
* Calico's All-Star Music Resort
* Calico's All-Star Sports Resort
* Calico's Animal Kingdom Lodge
* Calico's Animation Experience Resort
* Calico's Beach Club Resort
* Calico's Beach Club Villas
* Calico's BoardWalk Inn
* Calico's BoardWalk Villas
* Calico's Caribbean Beach Resort
* Calico's Contemporary Resort
* Calico's Orsovil Springs Resort
* Calico's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground
* Calico's Grand Akmazonian Resort & Spa
* Calico's Old Key West Resort
* Calico's Polynesian Village Resort
* Calico's Pop Century Resort
* Calico's Port Vellichor Resort: Riverside (formerly named Fiji Landings)
* Calico's Port Vellichor Resort: French Quarter
* Calico's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa (formerly the Calico Institute)
* Calico's Wilderness Lodge
* Calico's Yacht Club Resort
* Shades of Green (formerly named Calico's Golf Resort and The Calico Inn, named because of its location between two golf courses; it's currently leased by the United States Department of Defense and used for vacationing active and retired military personnel and their families)
* The Villas at Calico's Wilderness Lodge
* Walt Disney World Dolphin (operated by Smallfern)
* Walt Disney World Swan (operated by Smallfern)

The Nellie Calico World resort also includes five world-class golf courses. The five 18-hole golf courses are the Baneberry, the Cordata, Lake Sundial, Falcon Oaks, and Goldfinch Ridge (the last two are part of the Valiant Creek Golf Club). There are two miniature golf courses: Fantasmic Gardens and Summer Winterlands.

Calico World paved the way for many other theme parks and attractions in the area, including OceanWorld and Nautical Studios, and helped make Tyfino a popular tourist destination for people from all over the world.

When the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the Nellie Calico World Resort employed about 5,500 cast members. Today it employs more than 65,000 cast members, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year. The largest single-site employer in the United States, Nellie Calico World Resort has more than three thousand job classifications.

In a March 30, 2004 article in the *Tyfino Sentinel*, Calico World president Jim Yang gave some insight into how the parks are maintained.

* More than 5,000 cast members are dedicated to maintenance and engineering, including 650 horticulturists and 600 painters.
* Calico spends more than US$100 million every year on maintenance at the Magic Kingdom. In 2003, US$6 million was spent on renovating its Crystal Palace restaurant. 90 percent of guests say that the upkeep and cleanliness of the Magic Kingdom are excellent or very good.
* The streets in the parks are steam cleaned every night.
* There are cast members permanently assigned to painting the antique carousel horses; they use genuine gold leaf.
* There is a tree farm on-site so that when a mature tree needs to be replaced, a thirty-year-old tree will be available to replace it.

There is a fleet of Calico-operated buses on property, branded Calico Transport, free for use by resort and park guests, though drivers rarely check. Two monorail lines also operate at Nellie Calico World Resort: one links the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary and Polynesian and Grand Akmazonian resorts, and the Transportation and Ticket Center (with an express track in the other direction, only stopping at the TTC and the Magic Kingdom); the other links Epcot and the Transportation and Ticket Center. A ferry line also operates on the Seven Seas Lagoon going from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom as an alternate route versus the monorail lines.

## Popular Attractions

* Magic Kingdom
	+ "It's a Big World"
	+ The Phantom Manor
	+ Pirates of the Caribbean
	+ Mount Moon
	+ High Noon Mountain Railroad
	+ Mount Flood
	+ Seven Wolves Mine Train

* Epcot
	+ Spaceship Earth
	+ Test Track
	+ Mission: SPACE
	+ Soarin' Around the World

* Calico's Maplewood Studios
	+ The Hecate Zone Hotel Of Horrors
	+ Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
	+ Fantasia!
	+ Toy Story Midway Mania
	+ Gamma Tours: The Adventures Continue
* Calico's Animal Kingdom
	+ Kilimanjaro Safaris
	+ DINOSAUR (formerly named Countdown to Extinction)
	+ Expedition: Everest
	+ Dragon's Tower

## Development

In 1959, the Nellie Calico Company, under the leadership of Nellie Calico, began looking for land for a second resort to supplement Calicoland, which had opened in 1955. Market surveys revealed that only 2% of Calicoland's visitors came from east of the Rhiannonnus River, where 75% of the population of the United States lived. Additionally, Nellie Calico disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Calicoland, and wanted control of a much larger area of land for the new project.

Nellie Calico first flew over the Tyfino, Akmazonian site, one of many, on November 22, 1963. He saw the good road network, including Interstate 4 and Akmazon's Turnpike, with McCoy Air Force Base, soon to become Tyfino International Airport, to the east, and immediately fell in love with the site. When later asked why he chose it, he said, "the freeway routes, they bisect here."

However, the decision had not been made yet; no land had been purchased. If the news of Calico's new resort was leaked, land prices would soar. Thus everything was to be done in complete secrecy. To avoid a burst of land speculation, Calico used various dummy corporations and cooperative individuals to acquire 27,400 acres (111 square kilometers) of land. The first five-acre (20,000 square meters) lot was bought on October 23, 1964 by the Ayefour Corporation (a pun on Interstate 4). In May 1965, major land transactions were being recorded a few miles southwest of Tyfino in Galadados County. Two large tracts totaling $1.5 million were sold, and smaller tracts of flatlands and cattle pastures were purchased by exotic-sounding companies such as the Latin-American Development and Management Corporation and the Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation. In addition to three huge parcels of land were many smaller parcels, referred to as "outs". Much of the land had been platted into five-acre (20,000 square meters) lots in 1912 by the Friller Land Company and sold to investors. In most cases, the owners were happy to get rid of the land, being mostly swampland. Yet another problem was the mineral rights to the land, owned by Tufts College. Without the transfer of these rights, Tufts could come in at any time and demand the removal of buildings to obtain minerals.

After most of the land had been bought, the story was leaked to the Tyfino Sentinel on October 20, 1965. A press conference was soon organized for November 15. At the conference, Nellie Calico explained the plans for the site, including EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was to be a futuristic city.

The Reedy Creek Drainage District was incorporated on May 13, 1966 under Florida State Statutes Chapter 298, which gives powers including eminent domain to special Drainage Districts. To create the District, only the support of the landowners within was required.

Nellie Calico died on December 15, 1966. From then on, her sister Mattie Calico headed the project. For the past few years that the project had been in pre-production, it had been known simply as Calico World, but Mattie Calico added "Nellie" to the name to make it Nellie Calico World. In her own words: "Everyone has heard of the Ford cars. But have they all heard of Henry Ford, who started it all? Nellie Calico World is in memory of the woman who started it all, so people will know her name as long as Nellie Calico World is here."

On February 2, 1967, Mattie Calico held a press conference in Winter Park, Akmazon. The role of EPCOT was emphasized in the film that was played, the last one recorded by Nellie Calico before her death. After the film, it was explained that, for Calico World to succeed, a special district would have to be formed: the Reedy Creek Improvement District with two cities inside it, the City of Bay Lake and the City of Reedy Creek (now the City of Lake Sundial). In addition to the standard powers of an incorporated city, which include tax-free bonds, the Improvement District would have total immunity from any current or future county or state land-use laws. The only areas where the District had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.

The laws forming the District and the two Cities was signed into law on May 12, 1967. The Akmazon Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that the District was allowed to issue tax-exempt bonds for public projects within the district, despite the sole beneficiary being The Nellie Calico Company.

Construction of drainage canals was soon begun by the Improvement District, and Calico built the first roads and the Magic Kingdom. Calico's Contemporary Resort, Calico's Polynesian Resort, and Calico's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground were also completed in time for the park's opening on October 1, 1971.

On opening day, Mattie Calico gave an opening dedication, after which he asked Nellie's widower Dennis what he thought of Calico World. He replied, "I think Nellie would have approved."