Florida-Project.com
The Florida Project is my dedication to the history and future development of the Walt Disney World Resort and Universal Orlando theme parks.
If you’re going to make a website that’s going to require a lot of work, you’re best off doing it on a subject matter that you enjoy. This is true for most websites that are complicated or require constant updating or maintenance.
To me, central Florida is almost like a second home. My family has been spending spring breaks, summer vacations, and winter getaways there for over twenty years. I remember spending many mornings in the school year eating breakfast and looking through old park guidemaps and souvenir books. The central Florida theme parks is one of the areas where I consider my knowledge base to be at the expert level.
So what can you expect to find at this website? What makes it different and stand out from the other WDW fan sites on the internet?
For one, this is the home to one of the largest collections of old park guidemaps that you’ll find on the internet. I’ve used my scanner to personally scan and add over a hundred different theme park guidebooks and guidemaps spanning the last twenty years. (NOTE – As of right now I’m still transferring and reuploading my files for when I switched servers. Not all of the guidemaps are available again, but they’ll be back very soon!)
In addition to posting the guidemaps on their own pages, I went the extra mile to list every single change in the guidemap from the previous one in my collection. This includes everything from rides being refurbished, to the addition of new attractions / shops / restaurants, to even typos in the material. Yes, even major companies tend to make mistakes every now and then.
To go along with the old guidemaps, I’m also in the long process of scanning and adding old advertisements, fliers, promotional items, and vacation guides from over the years.
The Florida Project doesn’t stop there!
Right now my website has one of the largest collection of widescreen pictures from around the WDW theme parks and resorts, and the Universal Orlando theme parks. The Florida Project was one of the first websites to recognize the trend of widescreen monitors and the demand for widescreen desktop wallpaper from the parks and resorts.
In addition to all of the scanned guidemaps, advertising material, and widescreen digital photos, my site is is in the lengthy process of adding a complete 4:3 “regular” resolution photo tour of the theme parks and resorts, including photos of the local area and ever-changing billboards. This photo tour is also where I educate the website visitors by adding trivia, historic notes, general information and personal stories about the items in the pictures, whether it’s a hotel, land, or actual attraction.
With the massive amount of material being added to the website, there is no anticipated finishing date. By the time most of the website is finished I’ll probably have around 150 old and current guidebooks and guidemaps, over a hundred other scanned items, more than 1,500 widescreen images, and probably around 5,000 other pictures. Of course, these estimations will increase over time as future trips are made to central Florida.
Attached to the website is its own blog for when I have the desire to write about the progress of the website and other topics that involved the Florida parks and resorts. (NOTE – This is still on my old server and needs to be transferred. This will be available again soon!)