The Disney connection
It’s amazing where you find the Disney Connection cropping up these days. You expect it in the media, in the movies, at McDonald’s and, of course, at theme parks. But Disney’s influence is seemingly everywhere. The latest example of this phenomenon of Disneyana Omnipresentiae occurred for us on the tiny islet of Mackinac Island in Michigan (between Lakes Huron and Michigan), close to the Canadian border. Now, as a quick history lesson, Mackinac Island is a unique Victorian resort that banned all automotive transport in 1898 and is much the better for it.
This is the place to go for a complete get-away-from-it-all type of holiday, where you can just relax and enjoy the scenery and the local attractions (which consist mainly of horse rides, bicycle hire, a few small-scale museums, the 18th century Fort Mackinac and a collection of 19th century shops and inns). It is almost the complete opposite of Disney and theme parks. But it also has the Grand Hotel.
This latter opened in 1887 as the rich man’s escape of that era, an impressive, upscale and thoroughly genteel resort that still has a dress code after 6pm each day. You can’t just wander in, either. If you are not staying at the hotel, there is a $12.50 charge just to visit.
It is also the kind of hotel that has its own Historian, Bob Tagatz. And this is where the Disney connection comes in. For, back in the early days of Walt Disney World, the Imagineers were casting around for some real ‘history’ to import into their new World, and the call went up for a grand hotel in the best Victorian traditions. Bob was then working with some of Florida’s fine older hotels, and was able to advise on some of the finer points of building a ‘new’ historic hotel.
Of course, there is nothing particularly historic about the Grand Floridian Resort in Disney World. It looks the part, but it is far from authentic. In fact, as Bob told us: “Disney know you can’t build instant history. There is nothing ‘real’ or ‘historic’ about anything built in the 1970s and you simply cannot replicate the past with any meaning or feeling. That’s why Disney know they can never have a proper sense of history in the way that most people understand it. It IS a completely different world.” (It is also why you won’t see Bob in any of the theme parks!)
But it still serves to underline how detailed the thinking is behind everything Disney creates. Even when they know they can’t get the true level of authenticity, they go the full distance in establishing what can and can’t be done. And they extend their influence into a bygone world of Victorian resorts that, when you combine the two, give an amazing flavour of how things used to be.