Inside Golden Oak, Disney’s bizarre town for the super-rich

The security guard at the entrance is looking at me with suspicion. A lone male in an unremarkable rental car, I do not resemble the archetypal Disney customer – nor a family of archetypal Disney customers – who might ordinarily halt at his barrier. But I am here, I tell him, to eat at the Four Seasons. With one last squint of perusal, he waves me through.

It is not a lie. I am indeed planning to have dinner at the Orlando branch of Canada’s foremost hotel brand. And yet, I have not told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because I am mainly keen to sneak a peek at the Florida city’s most curious enclave of luxury accommodation; the “Disney-adjacent” residential community that is Golden Oak.

“Adjacent” is the correct word here. Directly over the fence, Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort is one of the wider Disney World’s more rustic accommodation options, all wholesome canvas, sturdy cabins and the whoop of children pushing back bedtime over bags of marshmallows. The contrast with Golden Oak is immediate and obvious. The latter is a monied enclave where the most regular noise breaking the gilded silence is the crack of balls flying off the tee at the Four Seasons’ 18-hole golf course. The average cost of a home inside it is US$871,750 (£688,263) – although most listings are in the millions.

Announced late in 2010, with properties going on sale shortly afterwards, Golden Oak was never meant to exude that tireless Disney cuteness. But the development is still aligned with the Disney brand; it just wears the uniform rather less gaudily. A statue in front of the ornamental pond that greets visitors just beyond the gate – of a young woman with a fish-tail – is about as overt as the connection gets, even if nothing on the sculpture states that this is Ariel, the headline act of the 1989 film The Little Mermaid (nor that the crab and tropical fish next to her are, respectively, her “co-stars” Sebastian and Flounder).

The allusions are even subtler in the case of the complex’s various “neighbourhoods”. Symphony Grove makes reference to Silly Symphonies, the series of cartoon shorts, made by Walt Disney Productions between 1929 and 1939, which gave the world its first glimpse of Donald Duck (in 1934’s The Wise Little Hen); Kimball Trace honours the Oscar-winning animator Ward Kimball. Marceline takes the name of Walt Disney’s home town, in Missouri; Kingswell tips its hat to the Los Angeles street on which the Disney brothers opened their first Hollywood studio, in 1923. “Golden Oak” itself is also a tribute – to the California ranch that has served as a Disney filming location since 1955.

The influence plays lightly across the hotel. At first glance, everything clings to the genteel Four Seasons template, all marble flooring, sense of space and tacit air of wealth. Certainly, there is no sense of infantilisation at Capa, the signature restaurant, where tempting staples include oysters, caviar and paprika-marinated octopus, as well as prime fillets (and even the children’s menu goes in for heirloom tomato salad and filet mignon).

It is only when you gaze more closely that any sort of Disney ethos seems to be at work – souvenir shop Fable, with its Frozen tote bags and Beauty and the Beast candelabra; the six “princess crowns” displayed in glass boxes, but again, without labels, in the corridor off the lobby. The well-to-do family in the Lickety Split cafe is at least making an effort as the children shovel down ice cream at $5 a scoop, mouse ears wobbling above their vanilla-smeared faces. They will become (even) more excited at 8pm, when the nightly fireworks at the Magic Kingdom theme park (four miles north-west) paint the firmament red. That said, anybody too eager to embrace the fairytale is given a sharp dose of reality by the sign next to the lake which fans out beyond the veranda. “Caution, no swimming,” it bellows. “Wildlife including alligators and snakes may be present – please stay clear.”

This is the swampy centre of the Sunshine State, so the admonishment is repeated, nine miles to the south, in what is Disney’s most successful foray into urban planning. “It is a violation of Florida law to feed or harass alligators,” warns a board in front of Lake Rianhard, one of the pools which shape the town of Celebration. Both intrigued and mildly anxious, I take care as I approach the water. We can quibble about the reptile in question, but we all know what happens to Captain Hook in that Disney staple Peter Pan.

This note of vague peril is just about the only atonal sound audible in this little pocket of idealism. Celebration is designed to look timeless – or, at least, like a classic kernel of small-town America, orbiting in some vague but gloriously sun-dappled corner of an uncomplicated 20th century. Of course, it is also a relative newcomer. A plaque at the base of the fountain which sprays the pavement where the lake meets Front Street – a merry spectacle in which children are giddily playing – gives the year of birth as “1994”.

The origin story goes back a little further. Celebration has proved to be the end-point of an ambition, initially conceived by Disney himself, to construct a “city of the future”. Dreamed up in the early Sixties, EPCOT – the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow – was meant to be an architectural utopia; a game-changer that would redraw the fabric and functions of city life. Wildly optimistic in scope, it was scuppered by Disney’s death in 1966 – with the concept, hugely diluted, eventually emerging in 1982 as the Epcot Center, a second theme park in the Disney World ecosystem.

But the idea was revived when (former CEO) Michael Eisner took hold of the Disney reins – finally resulting in a place that was less tinfoil sci-fi and more shortbread-sweet; a bijou dot on the map that, according to the last census (in 2020), still has a population of just 11,178.

Strolling around its spotlessly clean centre, I am minded to think I have somehow stumbled into the 1955 version of Hill Valley, the fictional Californian town at the heart of the Back To The Future film series. Passing the Downtown Diner, I half expect to see Marty McFly and Biff Tannen trading insults and fists between the rounded stools at the long counter – as the vintage jukebox at the back ignores the commotion to churn out rockabilly singles. Three doors down on Front Street, the vibe is even more saccharine, Woof Gang Bakery selling artisan dog biscuits and assorted treats for pampered pooches.

True, the picture is not without smudges. Back in 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that Celebration condominium owners were struggling with leaky roofs and balconies detaching from buildings, and had been forced to file a civil lawsuit (for repair costs) against the Town Center Foundation. The Celebration Theater, meanwhile, is a pretty piece of misdirection; a gorgeous white-walled cinema whose twin towers and Art Deco inflections disguise an awkward truth – that its auditoria have been out of use since 2010.

But as the light fades, and the Lakeside Bar & Grill prepares for dinner at the Celebration Hotel, I can just about buy into the fantasy – cartoon rodents and loquacious animated waterfowl skipping around my feet as I step into the evening. As luck would have it, the sky turns pink as I walk. Perhaps, in this Disney land, even the sunset can be coordinated.

Essentials

British Airways, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Norse Atlantic Airways and Aer Lingus all serve Orlando from various UK airports.

Doubles at the Four Seasons Orlando (in Golden Oak; 001 407 313 7777) start at £746 per night. Double rooms at the Celebration Hotel (in Celebration; 001 407 566 6000) cost from £216 per night.

For more information, see visitorlando.com; experiencekissimmee.com; visitflorida.com; visittheusa.com

Three more conventional Disney holidays

Disney World

Adding up to four theme parks, two water parks and a wealth of brightly themed hotels, Disney World draws almost 50 million visitors a year to the outskirts of Orlando. A week-long getaway for a family of four, flying in from Gatwick on August 2 – and staying at Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort – costs from £7,756 in total via the official site (0800 169 0730; disneyholidays.co.uk). This price includes seven-day park passes.

Disneyland Paris

The European incarnation of the Disney dream – pitched just east of the French capital in Marne-la-Vallée – comes with (generally) cooler weather but a shorter journey and a lower price. And while, as of June 2023, Eurostar no longer offers direct trains to the resort from London, it still sells packages (involving a change of train in Paris or Lille). A four-night dash under the Channel for a family of four during the Easter school holidays, setting off on April 9, starts at £3,502 in total, including park passes, and accommodation – at the three-star Disney Hotel Cheyenne (0330 880 5066; eurostar.magicbreaks.co.uk).

Disney Cruise

Fans of talking mice can also get their Disney fix without catching a plane or train. Next summer will see Disney Fantasy – one of the six vessels currently in the Disney Cruise Line fleet – make its debut in European waters. It will sail in and out of Southampton in August – with voyages including a five-night trip down to northwestern Spain, halting at Vigo and La Coruna. A package for a family of four on this particular sailing (August 5-10) costs from £5,231 in total (0800 171 2317; disneycruise.disney.go.com). Younger passengers can expect kids clubs’ and character encounters to help the hours at sea go by.