Urban Legend Come True: Cinderella Castle’s Top Spire Removed
You’ve no doubt heard the urban legend that the spires on Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World are removable in heavy winds. Every time a hurricane is heading towards Florida, fake photos of the icon with its top removed go viral on social media. (Updated October 11, 2024.)
That got even worse with Hurricane Milton, “thanks” to the rise of AI services. I’ve seen images of a flooded Magic Kingdom, Spaceship Earth with a giant hole in it, and Cinderella Castle torn apart–all passed off as real on social media. More amusingly, I’ve also seen images of a jacked Pluto rescuing a drowning child and other nonsensical images created as parody.
All of this inspired us to revisit this post from the DTB Archives, when this actually did happen! Albeit at Tokyo Disneyland and not for a hurricane. Again, that part is an urban legend. Cinderella Castle cannot be quickly disassembled and it certainly is not lowered into the underground Utilidors during hurricanes. The photos here are real ones, from when Tokyo Disneyland undertook a massive multi-month refurbishment project!
During that refurbishment, its Cinderella Castle was entirely begins scrims, and the top spire was removed and repaired off-site.
To our knowledge, this has never happened before with either version of Cinderella Castle, or any other Disney castle, for that matter. Sure, there’s the expansion project at Hong Kong Disneyland, but that’s different. As such, we thought it’d be fun to share some photos of this unprecedented dismantling. Even if you have no plans to ever visit Japan, this isn’t something you see every day…or every decade, for that matter.
Before we delve into the details of the Cinderella Castle overhaul project at Tokyo Disneyland, I want to give a quick “plug” to the urban legend about the spire removal at Walt Disney World. If you’re unfamiliar with it, check out the Snopes page answering the question, “Are the Spires on Disney World’s Cinderella Castle Removable in Case of Hurricane?” It’s a hoot.
As that points out, this is an old but thriving urban legend. It documents several prominent instances of the Walt Disney World myth spreading, with some stories having appeared in the mainstream media as far back as the 1990s. From the supposed simple removal of the spires via cranes to the more far-fetched lowering of the entire castle into the ground, that features some debunked gems.
What follows is the original post and photos I took of Cinderella Castle with the top spire removed–before AI images were even a (mainstream) thing…
As for what’s going on with Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland, we were pretty surprised to walk into the park and see this today. We’ve been watching this project, but thought it was a relatively straightforward refurbishment to spiffy things up.
Last week when we last left the park at closing, we noticed a flurry of construction activity, including some flourishes being removed from Cinderella Castle (we’ve also seen a ton of visible progress in the Beauty and the Beast village, but that’s another update for another day). We spent the last few days in the city, returning to the parks today once the holiday weekend crowds subsided.
As we approached via the monorail, we couldn’t quite believe that the top spire had been totally removed from Cinderella Castle. In fact, we didn’t at first. It took seeing it again from the monorail platform and then confirming once more what we thought we saw wasn’t actually an optical illusion.
Here’s a closer look at the current spire removal and other (de)construction on Tokyo Disneyland’s Cinderella Castle:
We’re not sure what else this Cinderella Castle refurbishment entails–as noted above, we didn’t anticipate it being nearly this substantial of a project in the first place. We expected some reworked details, new roofing, perhaps a fresh coat of paint and a modified color scheme–akin to what happened last year at Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland. It would seem that Tokyo Disney Resort has more ambitious plans–with construction crews clearly logging long hours to meet the deadline.
It’ll be interesting to watch progress on these Cinderella Castle renovations, and see else is dismantled, rebuilt, added, etc., along the way. Even if you’re not planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort in the near or distant future, hopefully you at least enjoyed this unique look at a pretty uncommon project!
Planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort? For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea Trip Planning Guide! For more specifics, our TDR Hotel Rankings & Reviews page covers accommodations. Our Restaurant Reviews detail where to dine & snack. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money post. Our What to Pack for Disney post takes a unique look at clever items to take. Venturing elsewhere in Japan? Consult our Ultimate Guide to Kyoto, Japan and City Guide to Tokyo, Japan.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of seeing Cinderella Castle’s top spire removed? Is it surreal to see the castle without its top? Do you find this fascinating, or would you prefer not to see the park icon like this? If you’ve visited Tokyo Disney Resort recently, what did you think of all the construction? How, if at all, did it impact your trip? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment here? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I think it’s pretty ridiculous. Everyone knows they lower the castle down into the Utilidor for a hurricane
Well, I’ve stood on the rectangle directly under the center of the castle down in there more than once. Center of The World!
Mom recently showed me a clip of a supposed fire incident at the new Country Bears Musical Jamboree, where whoever posted it on Facebook said the audience had to be evacuated. I looked over Mom’s shoulder at the clip & it showed smoke coming out of one of the bears. Well, I had just recently seen the show myself so I told her, no, that’s a special effect. It was meant to be a joke about the bear playing fiddle so fast that smoke resulted. I didn’t see any of the clip beyond that, so if they actually showed the audience leaving the theater, that could have been at the end of the show, but the person who posted claimed it was an early evacuation. I can’t figure out the motives of whoever posted that post in claiming there was a near disaster like that at the Magic Kingdom. Just an attention seeker?
PS: I realized belatedly talking about Country Bears on a post about Cinderella Castle may seem unrelated, but I was inspired by Tom talking about hoaxes like damages caused to Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth; people trying to make it look like some big disaster happened out at the Disney Parks.
Crazy scaffolding there for sure! As a structural engineer and construction guy, I’d like to see that. When I was in the WDWCP in 1992, they actually told us in training that they could remove the very top of the castle for a major hurricane, and that they would run the Autopia cars down into the utilidors. Nothing like CMs spreading stuff to others, right? And I’m not just talking about STDs at Vista Way, which I heard actually happened on occasion…
I pine for the days when “believing established and well-researched facts” wasn’t considered a leftist concept.
I pine for the days when people actually looked for tak research and established fact instead of writing for one political party or the other. You know, like the scientific method, not skewing poll or research questions and results to achieve the answer you want! I can’t believe people use Weak-ipedia or snopes as a basis for anything.
I miss the days when people weren’t cowards, throwing insults at each other anonymously from behind a computer screen, and would settle their disputes like real men.
Oh boy! I’m visiting Tokyo and Tokyo Disneyland for the first time towards the end of March 2020. I’ll miss the opening of the new projects but hopefully most of the construction will be done by that point. I’m definitely going to be reading your Tokyo and Kyoto guides in preparation for my trip!
Did you ever make it there, Melissa?
I’m so sorry, the stage 4 right wing brain worms have gotten to you Mr. Nico and I’m afraid it’s terminal. Palliative care is available in the form of a 24/7 stream of Alex Jones, a carton of Pall Mall menthols a day, and a baseball bat to beat your wife with.
Well mootie, you win the stupid comment of the week award.
When I was in the WDW College Program in 92, they told us during training (called Traditions) that it was possible to remove the uppermost spire for an extreme weather event. They also told us they would drive all of the Speedway cars around and down into the utilidors but I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened either.
I didn’t see any evidence of an elevator, and if not, that’s a WHOLE bunch of steps to get to the top. Talk about a cardio workout!
More amazing is the apparent lack of a crane to lift construction supplies up. Remarkable photos.
Thanks for posting.
Watching the Imagineering series on Disney+ has me geeking out on all the engineering that goes into the parks. Those pictures are wild.
That series is amazing!
That is some pretty impressive scaffolding! I’ve never heard this particular rumor, but it’s interesting.