How Disney Makes Magic Through Your Sense of Smell

Everything You Need to Know About Disney Park Scents

Get ready to follow your nose! A festive new episode of Imagineer That! has landed on the Walt Disney Imagineering YouTube channel, and it’s a total treat for the senses.

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In this installment, our favorite bot Tom Morrow 2.0 heads to Magic Kingdom to investigate the delicious holiday aromas wafting through the air during Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. To get the “scent-sational” scoop, he teams up with Kaley from Disney Live Entertainment, who reveals exactly how the team brings those iconic holiday smells to life.

Scent has been used as a tool by Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Live Entertainment for many years, because aromas have the ability to trigger strong, nostalgic emotions. Attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean, Spaceship Earth, and Soarin’ Around the World have iconic fragrances that have become synonymous with those rides and leave a lasting impression thanks to scent memory.

Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade utilizes smells to connect guests to their own nostalgic holiday memories. Several floats in the parade have scents like pine, gingerbread, and peppermint as they pass guests by in the streets. The scents come from a device hidden inside our parade floats. Cannisters house scented oil that is heated until it evaporates and pushed out by fans.

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