Walt Disney World Florida Parks overview

Looking for a magical place to go with the family or by yourself? Visit Orlando, Florida, and head to Walt Disney World and its four theme parks [Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom], plus their two water parks, golf courses, restaurants, stores, and more! 

Some concepts and theories behind these parks were created by Walt Disney before his passing in 1966. These parks were not built consecutively; there was a significant gap between the launch of each park. Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, Epcot opened in 1982, MGM Studios (Later changed to Hollywood Studios in 2008) opened in 1989, and Animal Kingdom opened in 1998. Each park has a different theme, which brings in different characters and rides for people’s enjoyment. Every time you go to Disney, you can discover something you did not notice the previous time you were there. Let’s dive into an overview of each park to understand what makes them special. 

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Magic Kingdom Park Overview

Magic Kingdom is broken out into 6 core areas, which contain different themes and characters to highlight the area you are in. The six areas are: Main Street, USA, Tomorrowland, Fantasy Land, Liberty Square, Frontierland, Adventureland. The big theme point of Magic Kingdom is Cinderella's Castle, which you see when you walk down Main Street. This castle shines as a main point for photos, parades, concerts, and more! Magic Kingdom is the largest kid-friendly place where families will stroll the streets, rides, sit down for dinners, and more! Now this is not only for families, this park is enjoyable to grasp some of that Disney magic. 

Visit Orlando ranked these rides as the top 5 rides at Magic Kingdom:

1. TRON Lightcycle / Run Presented by Enterprise [Opened April 4, 2023]

2. Haunted Mansion

3. Pirates of the Caribbean

4. Tiana's Bayou Adventure [Formerly known as Splash Mountain] 

5. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

The rides at this park feature a lot of riding vehicles with animatronics. Magic Kingdom is getting a major facelift (as it needs it since it is the oldest park). They are adding two new themed areas to this park in the next few years. Cars Land and Villains Land, which are working to be built around the same time. This park has everything if you want that classic Disney spirit. 

EPCOT Park Overview

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. This park was always a big vision of Walt Disney because he wanted to create a community that was always changing and developing. Since they could not get it built before he died, they had to adjust the vision just a little. They developed EPCOT into four groupings of what makes the park special. 

1. World Celebration, which is when you first enter the park with Spaceship Earth, Connections Eatery, and more. The focus of this is connecting everybody to the global community and their connections. This is your welcome to the park that features the globe, which is this park’s main feature. 

2. World Discovery, which is focused on exploring science and technology and the future expansion of it. It contains one of the newest and most popular rides: Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind. This area also contains Mission Space and Test Track (Which is also being renovated and reopened on July 22, 2025. 

3. World Nature, which brings together Nemo themes plus the understanding of fixing nature and exploring the world through that lens. The core of this theme is to understand how to take care of the world around us, with the ocean, land, and air.

4. World Showcase is the last theme to cover. This theme is seen throughout the whole park, but in the back of the park, around a pond, there are 11 broken out. In each of their countries, there are rides, food, drinks, and more. You can understand a culture through its different themes. This area is known for drinking around the world, and going on a “country bar crawl” and drinking in each country. This area has stuff for kids, but you will see a lot of bachelorette parties and older people in this area.

This park is exciting and tends to bring in some older people over children. You will see families, but it is a very different vibe from Magic Kingdom.

Hollywood Studios Park Overview

Now, if you want adventure and fun rides, this is the park for you! Hollywood Studios is a mish-mosh themed park as it combines Star Wars, Toy Story, Twilight Zone, and a Hollywood-style theme. This park is exciting because it combines a ton of different themes, but the park does seem a tad out of place because of this. 

If you rank this park compared to the others, people will rank it as a top park because the shows, rides, and entertainment are exciting. The one thing this park lacks is food because they have not nailed down what their goal is yet. Also, if you think about the other parks, they all have a main attraction to attract your eye right when you walk in, but Hollywood Studios does not have that. Their main attraction is the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway ride in it.

Visit Orlando ranked their top 5 rides at this park:

1. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance

2. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

3. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway

4. Slinky Dog Dash

5. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™

It might sound like I am critical of this park, but it is just because this mish-mosh should not work, but it does, and it is continually improving. They have just removed the Muppets land to build Monsters Inc Land which people are very excited for. 

Animal Kingdom Park Overview

The last park is Animal Kingdom, which is the largest park by land, but the smallest by the number of rides they have. Some people call this park a half-day park, but in my opinion, you can ride a few great rides a few times, and enjoy some shows and drinks at your own pace. This park brings in live animal shows and experiences all throughout the park, which can change your view of this park every time you go. Now, this park does not have a lot of rides and is smaller because they have to be mindful of the animals, which is why the park closes at 6:00 pm. They cannot have a nighttime show because they do not want to startle or scare the animals. This park does have Avatar land, which is one of the strongest designs in all of Disney World. 

Let’s check in with Visit Orlando and see what they ranked as the top 5 rides at Animal Kingdom:

1. Avatar Flight of Passage

2. Expedition Everest — Legend of the Forbidden Mountain®

3. DINOSAUR (This ride closed as of June 2025 to make room for a new Indiana Jones Ride)

4. Kilimanjaro Safaris®

5. Festival of the Lion King (Broadway-style show)

Now this park is undergoing some construction as they are changing Dinosaur and getting rid of Dinosaur Land to make room for "Tropical Americas," which combines Encanto and Indiana Jones. This redesign will be a massive improvement for this park and will create some fun new rides and give a facelift to some of the older-looking areas of the park. This announcement created loads of excitement because it opens Disney to new characters and themes that they have not explored. 

Overall, Disney has something for everyone at any age. You can explore fun rides, shows, characters, food, and more! This is only the surface of what Disney has, but it can give you a quick overview of the four main parks and what they include. As we dive further, we will understand more of each park, plus the other add-ons that are included there.