Day 3: The Enchanted Experience of Magic Kingdom

Today was a very fun and busy adventure in the exciting world of Magic Kingdom. The day started bright and early in Tomorrowland at the Tron ride at 8 in the morning, followed by Space Mountain. We then explored Frontierland's Haunted Mansion and Hall of Presidents attraction. In Adventureland, we gave the Enchanted Tiki room, Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean ride a visit. Our last ride for the night was the People Mover for a break from walking and a calming view of the park just before sunset.

Once we finished up with park attractions, we went on a pontoon boat ride in the lagoon to finish the day with a firework show. We had a perfect view of the magical Disney castle! It was a breathtaking experience that captivated our excitement. It was the perfect way to end our day. My personal favorite moment of the firework show was when the Pirates of the Caribbean theme played. The amount of fireworks and bright lights amazed me. It is such a unique feeling how all visitors and workers can meet together at the end of the night to pause time. The fireworks unite people from all over the world in a powerful way to distract people from hardships in order to feel like a kid again. The way they play songs from different movies and how each night is different is so unique. I was truly in awe of the beauty of these amazing fireworks.

We finished discussing the book Married to the Mouse by Richard Foglesong. The main theme of this book was that Disney World and Orlando share a relationship similar to a marriage. Disney's corporate power shaped Orlando's urban growth, governance, and economy. This led to immense prosperity and significant costs like low wages, housing shortages, traffic, and a unique private dystopian government structure for Disney. We also discussed how Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fought Disney by revoking its long self-governing status through the Reedy Creek Improvement District after Disney opposed the Parental Rights in Education Act. He replaced its board with his own appointees who then sued Disney to void development deals. This led to legal battles over free speech and government overreach. Ultimately, both Disney World and Orlando came to an agreement to collaborate together.

Brayden got to explore Magic Kingdom for the first time today which is very exciting. Unfortunately, he could not seem to make it passed any of the security checkpoints without getting patted down. He also had the opportunity to pull the magic sword. I had a great time riding the Tron ride for the first time. It is now my second favorite ride, after Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. All in all, it was a wonderful day full of adventure and laughs. Tomorrow, we plan on wearing our Be Kind to a Team Member shirt to appreciate all of the wonderful, hard working team members that go unnoticed. They are ultimately the people who make the park such a great experience since they offer top quality service. These team members are always so generous to everyone despite being mistreated by angry visitors at times. It is now our time to return the generosity back at them. I am extremely excited to see their reactions to our shirts and hopefully make their day better. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!

-Andrew Spomar

Day 2: Around the World in 13 Hours

 Day 2 of our exciting Disney Adventure, as recorded by Drew Furgeson!

We started our day off bright and early getting on the first bus to the EPCOT Center at 7:30 AM to take advantage of early entry.

Our first task of the day; ride Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind. Thanks to our early entry, the wait times weren't terrible. Afterwards, we took a group picture then set out to do our assignment for the day; examining how EPCOT handles its position as both Theme Park and Global Showcase.

 

(I'm the one in the purple shirt! More on that later)

 

EPCOT, in its park incarnation, was proposed to be a permanent World's Fair, showcasing technologies of the future and global cultures. Our assignment for today was primarily focused on the many pavilions that make up the world's showcase, and how they educate others about other countries. A large part of this was interviewing cast members, as the cast members at EPCOT's world showcase pavilions are all from the countries the pavilions represent. Trying to stay ahead of the crowds, we decided to stay together and head to our first stop for the project: Frozen Ever After in the Norway Pavilion.

 

Frozen Ever After is flume-style dark ride that takes guests on a magical (and musical) journey through various scenes that continue the story of the popular Disney movie Frozen. It is very popular among younger park guests due to its theming, often accruing wait times of over 50 minutes. Is it fun? Yeah. Is it educational? Absolutely not.

The Norway Pavilion was once home to a different attraction called Maelstrom, which was later re-themed to Frozen due to low attendance. According to a cast member we talked with at the pavilion, Maelstrom had a much more authentic approach to Nordic culture, drawing on both history and myth to provide an educational (but still thrilling) experience for guests.

Nevertheless, we got our ride photos (Thank you Jenny!) and continued on to the next stop; China!

 

 

 China was much less crowded than Norway, especially this early in the day. This was likely due to the fact that China does not have an attraction like Norway, France, or Mexico. Instead, like many other pavilions, it has a walk-through museum and a short film meant to pique guests interest. The film itself was very dated and, according to a cast member, had not been updated in 26 years! The museum was also lacking, as it was primarily dedicated to showcasing Shanghai Disneyland, rather than Chinese cultural artifacts. It's a shame that Disney has been neglecting their less popular pavilions, but hopefully in the near future they will receive their much-needed updates.

After China, we traveled on to Germany, to talk with the cast members there. While in Germany, some of the group decided to partake in a cultural experience and try German Chocolate Liquor. When talking to the cast members at Germany, they said that the pavilion was very accurate to German culture, but they wished that there was more emphasis placed on Germany's robust public transportation system and technology. I couldn't agree more.

As our final stop as a group, we went to the America Pavilion to watch the animatronic show The American Adventure. The thirty minute show was a very sanitized showcase of American history from the founding fathers to the 1940s. While the animatronics and special effects were very impressive, the show was very patriotic and often brushed over more complicated elements of America's past.

After our American experience, the group split up and decided to travel to different attractions throughout the park and to try different foods. A lot of this time was spent heading back up to the front of the park towards Future World. Technically, the front half of the park goes by a few different names now, but it's just so much easier to call it all Future World. This is where we come back to the shirt.

EPCOT was, as mentioned before, meant to be a showcase of the world and new technologies. An "Edutainment" park, if you will. However, in recent years, Disney has decided that educational experiences do not sell as well as attractions based off of their intellectual properties (movies, television shows, established brand mascots, etc). Many of EPCOT's original attractions have been either slowly eroding over time, or have been replaced by IP (intellectual property) based attractions. Thankfully, several still stand, like Living with the Land and Test Track (originally World of Motion). It's up to all of us to preserve the legacy of "weird" attractions past and support EPCOT's "weirder" modern attractions.

We ended the day off by watching the fireworks show, Luminous the Symphony of Us. The show featured stunning fireworks, light displays, and beautiful music. It was a relaxing way to end the night. After such a long day, we all loaded up into the buses to head off to All Star Sports and get settled in for the night.

 

 Now to rest up for the night so that I can bother everyone with trivia tomorrow.

Signing off, Drew. 

PS - to Brad back at home - we miss you!! Wishing you a speedy recovery!!
 

Day 1: Welcome to Walt Disney World!

 And so our adventure begins! We met as a group at 10:15am this morning at the Indianapolis airport. The weather was not bad for this time of year in Indiana, but I think it is safe to say we were all looking forward to warmer temperatures down south.

Our journey through security was uneventful, and things seemed to be progressing smoothly (if a few minutes behind schedule) right up until we were next to board the plane. Just before our section was called, the pilot came up the gangplank to talk to the boarding agents (never a good sign). Apparently a hold had been put on our flight! After a brief discussion as to whether to unboard the people who boarded or just keep boarding, the decision was made to continue boarding the plane. 

Soon we were all loaded and waiting to pull away from the terminal. The was a brief (10-15 minute or so) delay, but at least we we given the all clear. We taxied out, and then taxied, and then taxied some more. At this point, I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one wondering if the plane was just planning on driving to Florida!  Finally, we stopped on the runway and were told that there was another delay. They would try to get us moving, but in the meantime we could stand up and walk around the cabin (never a good sign!). Eventually, we were able to take to the skies and after an uneventful flight we landed in Florida where we were greeted with some liquid sunshine (aka rain).

A Mears shuttle bus ride later, and we arrived at our first hotel of the trip: Disney's All Star Movies! We were all starving by this point, so after check-in we headed to the World Premiere Food Court for a meal and a discussion of the first half of Richard Fogelsong's "Married to the Mouse."

It is interesting tracing the history of how Walt Disney World came to be built in Florida, from the failed St. Louis project through the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District meant to help Walt built his vision of the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. The creation of Walt Disney World has left a major impact on the central Florida area, both for good and bad. Class discussion was great, I look forward to continuing it further as we enjoy our time in the parks!

After our meeting wrapped up, we headed our separate ways, some to get a good nights rest, others to Disney Springs to explore the nightlife there. Tomorrow is an early morning for us, we check out of Movies and send our bags over to All Star Sports where we will be checking in next evening. We will also head to EPCOT to see what became of the reason the RCID was created in the first place. Exploring how Disney portrays various cultures will be the topic for tomorrow, along with a possible Cosmic Rewind on the way!

All for now, join us again tomorrow when the students get to take over the blog!

Paul Fonstad

Math and Computing Department and lead instructor on our study away trip

PS Brad, if you are reading this we miss you on the trip and hope you are back to 100% soon!

 Transformational Tourism

Welcome to the Blog for Franklin College's 2026 Study Away travel course on "Transformational Tourism: How Travel Changes Us and the Places We Visit."  I am Dr. Paul Fonstad, course instructor and creator. While most of the posts will be student led, before the course began I wanted to explain a little more about the journey we will be embarking on this January.

Course Inspiration

This will be my third time leading a Disney study away course for Franklin College (you can catch up on what we learned during our past two courses here. 

Taking to students to Disney is always a great experience. The parks make for a great learning environment on many topics, and the students always come away with a greater appreciation of just what it takes to make the magic happen (I'm not the only professor who thinks this, in fact there is a great new book on the subject!).  Beyond learning the topic though, it is great to see the students really grow and change through the process as well.  For some, it is their first time on a plane flight, for others it may be overcoming their fear of a ride. For such a short experience, it really is such a transformative one.

Disney itself meanwhile has had a profound transformative effect on Florida as well.  Swampland became prime real estate. Orlando grew from a small country town to the tourist capitol of the world.  Each of these developments radically transformed the landscape, both in good ways (influx of tourism money, new jobs, etc.) and bad ways (low wage jobs, infrastructure burdens, etc.). 

The final inspiration for the course came from a Caribbean cruise my family took. Much like Disney has transformed Florida, the cruise industry has transformed the Caribbean, growing from a single Royal Caribbean ship capable of carrying fewer than 800 passengers in 1970 to a massive industry today, with over 45 million people taking cruises every year on over 150 different ships throughout the region.

Further, much like Disney offers an amazing microcosm for exploration and discovery, the mobile nature of a cruise ship offers many opportunities to learn and grow as well. From shore excursions to ship explorations, learning about the various ports we visit and discovering what it takes to make a floating city like this work goes beyond what we could possibly do in a classroom, giving the students a unique and hopefully memorable experience.

The Plan

We will depart for Florida on January 3, spending one week at Disney World, followed by one week aboard the Royal Caribbean Grandeur of the Seas. Each day will include various readings and activities related to the notion of how the act of tourism both transforms us as individuals as well as changing the places we visit. Once we are in Florida, the students will take over blogging responsibilities, keeping this up to date with all that we are doing and learning during our time away from campus.  For our final class project, each student will research and apply their learning to another tourism hotspot, thinking critically about the challenges they face and what possible solutions could be implemented to overcome them.

See You in the New Year!

To say I'm really looking forward to teaching this course is an understatement. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading our opening post, and I hope you enjoy following us on our journey as much as we will enjoy taking it. All for now, see you in January!

Dr. Paul Fonstad

Professor of Mathematics, Franklin College