Walt Disney World Resort

Walt Disney World serves as the concrete setting for one of the book’s most striking illustrations of The Secret: a family holiday is transformed from a day of waiting into an extraordinary day of access. The episode centers on Colin, a ten-year-old boy who turns his dissatisfaction with long lines into a confident expectation and then interprets the unexpected result as proof that his thoughts can influence events.

Setting and Initial Disappointment

The story takes place during Colin’s family’s weeklong visit to Disney World. On their first day at the park, the family encounters long lines, making the attractions associated with the visit difficult to enjoy. The location is therefore introduced through a contrast between its promise of excitement and the immediate frustration of delay. Rather than treating the queues as an unavoidable feature of the holiday, Colin responds by imagining a different experience for the following day.

Colin’s Nighttime Wish

Just before falling asleep, Colin thinks that the next day he would like to go on all the big rides without having to wait in line. The timing matters: the wish is formed privately at the end of a disappointing day and concerns a precise, practical outcome rather than an abstract desire. Walt Disney World becomes the imagined field on which that expectation will be tested. In the book’s account, Colin’s thought functions as the initiating act in a larger Creative Process, linking the child’s mental picture to the events that follow.

Epcot’s First Family

The next morning, Colin and his family arrive at the gates of Epcot Center as the park opens. Hundreds of families are waiting to enter, but a Disney staff member approaches Colin’s family and asks whether they would like to be Epcot’s First Family of the Day. The offer changes the family’s position immediately: they receive VIP status, a special escort by a staff member, and walk-on passes for every big ride in Epcot. The result fulfills Colin’s wish in unusually complete form, providing not merely shorter lines but direct access to the attractions he had imagined enjoying.

Meaning Within the Book

The episode is presented as a small-scale demonstration of the law of attraction. Colin does not regard the selection as random; despite the many families present, he has no doubt that his use of The Secret explains why his family was chosen. The location’s crowds make the outcome appear especially improbable within the story’s logic, while the First Family designation supplies a visible, institutional sign of the wish’s fulfillment. Walt Disney World thus functions as more than a backdrop: its gates, queues, rides, and VIP privileges give physical form to the book’s argument that expectation can create an experience in advance.

The scene also gives the doctrine a child’s perspective. Colin is only ten years old, yet the narrative presents him as understanding the connection between his imagined day and the extraordinary welcome that follows. The closing emphasis is not on the mechanics of park entertainment but on the scale of the lesson attributed to the event: a child discovers that the power to move worlds lies within him. In this framing, Walt Disney World becomes the place where an ordinary family outing is converted into a miniature universe apparently rearranged around a focused wish.