Disney by the Numbers: Photographing Cinderella Castle

Every photo has a story.

I have an affinity for taking pictures of Cinderella Castle. There just doesn’t seem to be a bad angle, and unlike most buildings, the castle looks even better at night that it does in the shining sun, in my opinion. Especially at Christmas.  With a little help from Disney by the Numb3rs, my favorite source for all Disney numerical info., let’s take a little journey around and through the castle.

The highest point on Cinderella Castle is 189 feet, and you have a nice view even as far away as two miles away from the Ticket and Transportation Center. The castle boasts 18 towers with spires topped with sparkling gold-painted finials. While the original plans for Cinderella castle called for 29 towers, two were deleted during construction. The towers were pre-fabricated near the site, then slated, gilded, and hoisted into place.

Ah, Christmas time at the castle.

There are 200,000 LED lights adorning “Castle Dreamlights,” which made their debuted in 2007. 500 strobes are used to help create the sparkling lighting effect. It takes 32,000 square feet of fish netting to help hang the LED lights on the Castle, and an equally impressive 15 miles of cable were used to hang all the lights and netting, which was also dyed to match the castle’s colors.

3.37 million gallons of water is in the moat that surrounds the Castle at the Magic Kingdom. I do miss the Swan Boats, and it’s so rare to see pictures of them these days.

The Beauty of the Murals

Just inside the castle breeze-way, five large tile mosaics designed by Imagineer Dorothea Redmond depict the story of Cinderella. Each of the panel tile mosaics is 15 feet high and 10 feet wide.

The five murals contain about 500 colors and over one million pieces of glass, many of them fused with real silver and 14-karat gold. Smooth-faced Venetian glass and rough-surfaced smalti, which is enameled or glazed glass,  traditionally used by Italian craftsman were incorporated into the designs. It took 6 artists more than two years to complete the murals in the archway of Cinderella’s Castle. As I did when I was a child, I love to run my fingers along the surface to I admire the work. I am a little taller now but still equally enthralled.

My last fun fact from Disney by the Numb3rs is that an average of about 15 children get lost each day at the Magic Kingdom and need help finding their parents. They’re probably crying so they’ll be easy to spot. Or maybe not, because about 2 p.m. there are lots of kids crying, having skipped their naps in lieu of Magic Kingdom rides. You Disney Moms better hold their little hands.

Thanks for coming along for a photographical ride!

Amanda

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