Ocala Florida/Disney Welcome center closing

[Erik Johnson]

I just heard from a friend that lives down in Ocala, Florida that the old Official Walt Disney World welcome center is closing next week. Anyone got an official word on this yet? If you never heard of the official (since there are many unofficial ones) Disney welcome center, it is a place where you could buy tickets and get all kinds of WDW information an hour north of the actual parks. It is located right by the third Ocala Florida exit right off I-75 and SR200.

[disneygurlz2s]

We never stopped there, but I remember seeing the signs, they usually started just south of Atlanta and became increasing frequent the closer you got to Ocala, and were always really cute with the characters on them.

 

I would imagine that with the internet, such a service was no longer necessary.

 

 

Shari "But I will miss the signs" Shoufler

[SharkTums]

Yeah, they even had a Chip n Dale Sign!!! Although I never actually stopped there so that does say something!

[Erik Johnson]

The welcome center basically was an early version of one of those Disney stores you may have at one of your local malls. You could also set all your reservations for the hotels while you were there as well. Someone did mention the internet may be the reason why they are closing it, that is probably true. But they did have cool "Macy's window style" (think Magic Kingdom Emporium) displays of different scenes of your favorite Disney movies/tv shows in the front windows...and yes they did have a Rescue Rangers display as well at one time.