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The celebration will include a new nighttime show called “Disney Enchantment,” at the Magic Kingdom. The show will have enhanced lighting, fireworks and immersive projection effects that extend from the Cinderella Castle down Main Street, U.S.A. EPCOT will feature “Harmonious,” a show at the World Showcase Lagoon that Walt Disney said is “one of the largest nighttime spectaculars ever created for a Disney park.”

There was no guarantee that Disney World was going to be a success 50 years ago. Walt Disney, the pioneering animator and entrepreneur whose name graces the Florida resort, had died in 1966, just a year after announcing plans for "the East Coast Disneyland". His brother Roy Disney took over the reigns but he died almost three months after Disney World opened. Over the course, Disney World added three more theme parks, two dozen additional hotels and grew to have a workforce of 77,000 employees as it helped Orlando become the most visited place in the U.S. before the pandemic.

There were 6,000 employees who opened the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World to the public for the first time on October 1, 1971. Over a dozen of those employees who remain today say the theme park resort has allowed them to grow their careers and try on new hats.

Only around 10,000 visitors showed up on that first day - which at today's much larger Walt Disney World would represent about 90 minutes' worth of visitors entering. It wouldn't be until Thanksgiving 1971, almost three months later, when Disney executives had an answer about whether their new resort would be a success; that's when cars trying to get into the Magic Kingdom stretched for miles down the interstate.