For all of you who love the Magic Kingdom (MK) as much as I do, try not to fangirl/fanboy over the following factoids. You will want to load the car up with yourself and all of your favorite people and road trip to Orlando and/or Anaheim IMMEDIATELY. Or if you are really cool and are already there, knowing these tidbits will make your visit that much more magical.
The Monorail:
Mary Poppins is indeed practically perfect in every way!
Do not fight me on this one, the Monorail is a ride. And we have Mary Poppins to thank for it. The profits from the film were used for the Disney transportation company to build the Monorail system. Walt named the system that monitors the distance between each monorail train MAPO in her honor.
Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover:
A souvenir of Walt's vision for the future...
Originally named WEDWay PeopleMover in accordance with Walt’s initials (his middle name was Elias), this ride was intended by Walt himself to be included in his Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. It would provide mass transit around the city for residents. A large model of Walt’s Progress City can be seen along the ride’s tour of Tomorrowland.
It's A Small World:
Literally uniting the children of the world...with water.
I know this is everyone’s favorite ride! You are singing that jam in your head right now, aren’t you? For the ride’s opening in 1966 in Disneyland, Walt invited children from across the globe to help dedicate it. Each child brought a container of water from a natural body of water in their country and poured it into the ride’s flume track. 
Haunted Mansion:
I can unload 999 secrets about this place on you right now. The Haunted Mansion is riddled with endless stories and conspiracies, making it one of the most unique and historically rich attractions Disney has ever produced. I cannot give you just one secret, so I am going to spoil you with five.
1. Before you board your Doom Buggy, you will be introduced to the Haunted Mansion in the Stretching Room, the circular one with no doors or windows to escape. When you are escorted out, make sure you are the last one to leave, but before you do, linger for a few seconds.
…And keep your ears open for a sinister whisper telling you to get out.
2. There is a $500,000 bounty on Madame Leota’s floating head crystal ball. My favorite story about this concerns one guest who attempted to jump over the blockade around her to steal her (he was not the first, nor the last), but he fell through the floor, as evident by the hole that is still there to Leota’s right. Legend has it that other guests thought the screams for help were just part of the ride, so he wasn’t rescued until the ride closed at the end of the day. Talk about a good scare. And karma.
3. Constance is one of the 999 happy haunts, but most certainly not any run-of-the-mill ghost. The fictional backstory of the ride has countless versions, but she is a prominent character in every one, in some of which she is named Emily. She is first featured in a Stretching Room portrait as the elderly widow in black sitting on her husband’s gravestone. She is also the ax-wielding bride in the attic surrounded by a plethora of hat boxes which theoretically contain the heads of all her husbands.
4. The Hatbox Ghost was featured in the attic as well when the ride first opened. His special effect was supposed to cause his head to disappear and then reappear in the hatbox he held, indicating that he had the misfortune of marrying Constance. As if he hadn’t suffered enough, his effect did not work and he was permanently removed from the ride, but he still maintains a fan-base who pines for his return.
5. This brings me to our Ghost Host. Everybody knows him because he is our delightful narrator throughout the ride. He is also the body that hangs from a noose above our heads in the Stretching Room. (You can catch a shiver-inducing glimpse of him when the lightning strikes.) There is a popular fan theory that the Ghost Host is, in fact, Master Gracey, the fictional owner of the mansion. In some backstories, this serves true, but not in others. The good news is that we get to use our own imagination to decide what horrors were unleashed in Gracey Manor all those years ago.
Splash MountainBig Thunder Mountain Railroad:
2. There is a canary cage in the Ventilation Room in the queue with a bird named Rosita. In the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland (a show featuring animatronic birds), Jose the bird asks where Rosita is.
3. The queue also features a portrait of Barnabas T. Bullion, the fictional founder of Big Thunder Mining Company. The image is based on Tony Baxter, a famous Imagineer who played a large part in designing the ride.
Pirates of the Caribbean:
A sentimental farewell to an era of theme park building...
In order to get the ride experience before it was completed, the Imagineers pushed Walt around on a chair attached to a dolly at the expected speed of a boat. Walt was delighted by the ride, which was sadly the last attraction project he was directly involved in. Pirates of the Caribbean opened three months after his death.
Walt:
I am well aware that our beloved Uncle Walt is not a ride, but he is certainly worth a shout-out. One secret that you might not have known about him is that he designed and constructed his entire kingdom (movies, parks and all) with just as much intent for adults as for children. Walt spent his entire career striving to go back to a place only childhood can reach – a utopia for the soul. Nostalgia has become a physical place we can walk though, hear, smell and feel. When we walk down Main Street, USA, we walk down the main street of our childhood hometown. When we enter our favorite lands and attractions, we enter the dreams we once had. This is where Walt’s spirit thrives. This is the purpose of Magic Kingdom.
