Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children

Ashleybanner.jpg

On Monday, March 28, the Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children hosted a media preview. The preview included breakfast and a tour of the facility. The state-of-the-art facility was announced in 2007 and is expected to be completely open around the beginning of April of this year. It is opening in stages and does currently have patients. This pavilion is for pediatrics and the specialties include, but are not limited to, asthma and allergy, cardiology, diabetes, intensive care management, oncology and pulmonology.

They currently have 185 beds now and hope to have 200 by the end of the year. Their goal is 240. All of the patient rooms are private.

Walt Disney Pavilion

I allowed a lot of travel time because of the rain so I arrived about an hour early. The pavilion’s ambient lighting is a treat to look at- as you stand and look at the building, the lights change colors.

Walt Disney Pavilion

Inside the pavilion, this sign greets guests:

Pavilion sign

Since I was there early, the wonderful staff of the pavilion encouraged me to wander the lobby. Four movies are featured: The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Brother Bear and The Little Mermaid. Dave was setting up the cameras in the lobby and was kind enough to take the time to show me some of the interactive elements that the lobby has.

Looking into the lobby:

Lobby

The Lion King:

The Lion King

The lobby is interactive. In this area, when you press your hand to the hand prints, the effects light up on the walls:

Hand print

Lit hand print

The Lion King lit up

Simba lit up

There’s also a game to play- when you press the red bug, you have to get the order of the bugs correct to win:

Mickey and Child play in the Lobby.JPG

The Jungle Book area:

Children playing

King Louie’s throne and organ were featured in the lobby as well. When you pressed the keys on the organ, it played music and the jewels lit up.

King Louie's throne and organ

The spots on the floor triggered animal noises, Baloo’s voice and other effects:

Jungle Book

The Brother Bear area:

Brother Bear

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The salmon pond was my favorite portion of the interactive area because it was the most unexpected. When you first see it, you see the salmon swimming around. But if you step near or ‘in’ the water, it ripples.

The Little Mermaid area:

The Little Mermaid

Ariel’s treasure cove features a bubble effect but the effect was not turned on when I was there… but it’s something to see!

Ariel's treasure cove

On the opposite side of the lobby, near the elevators, there is a waiting area that shows Disney movies and looks very inviting:

Waiting area

I was sent up to the second floor to check in. Ashley was telling me how much she enjoyed the interactive elements and watching the kids find them. She took me over to an area overlooking the lobby and pointed out the clouds. The kids are able to design their own fireworks from computers in their rooms and every night, they do a fireworks display. They video the performance and are able to put it on screens in the rooms of patients who are unable to go see the show.

Clouds

Not long after I went back downstairs, it was time to be seated for breakfast. The centerpieces they had for the tables were much admired:

Centerpiece

Around 8 AM, Samantha (left) and Marla (right) introduced themselves:

Samantha and Marla

Marla talked about how the pavilion is able to have advantages, such as access to capital and resources, of being a hospital within a hospital. Disney and Florida Hospital have had a long-standing relationship and when the plans for the pavilion first came about, Disney told Florida Hospital to “dream big.” The pavilion was built with a “high tech, high touch” philosophy. The staff of the pavilion were all trained at the Disney Institute.

Wyatt, a Disney Imagineer, was introduced and he spoke of how Disney featured movies in the lobby:

Wyatt

Tim spoke next and talked about how the theme continued upstairs into the patient rooms. The characters stayed in the lobby but their environment went upstairs. For example, The Lion King characters were in the lobby and a floor upstairs was savanna-themed to continue the story.

Tim

Next, Connie shared her family’s emotional story of how the Florida Hospital for Children helped save her son’s life from a form of leukemia:

Connie

We were then asked to break into our smaller tour groups to begin. My group went to the jungle themed floor first. The area we saw was called the “Family Zone” where the families can come to rest for a few minutes. There is also a wash station before they go back to the patient room area.

Jungle themed floor

The Walt Disney Pavilion is the first in the country to feature ambient lighting. The ambient lighting is the changing lighting- for example, the lights on this floor were yellows and greens. On the ocean floor, they are blue tones. Also on this floor, you could hear birds chirping.

Along the halls, these screens show different images depending on which floor you are on:

Screens

Next, we went to the ocean themed floor. The lighting is blue and it smells like the ocean.

The nurse’s station was lit with blue tones:

Nurse's station

We were told the nurses were able to customize the lighting.

We were taken to a patient room that had been prepped for us to see. The themeing extends to the room number signs:

Room number sign

The patient (or parents) have can change the color of the ambient lighting over the bed. So, if the patient wants red, the lighting can be red. If he or she wants blue, it can be blue.

Room

Next, we went to the pediatric emergency room. They have an emergency room for adults and one for kids. The hospital has a gorgeous lake on site:

Lake

Pediatric emergency room:

Emergency room

Again, the patients can control the lighting in the room. Images can be projected on the wall and the patients can change the image:

Image on wall

Image on wall

After that, we were escorted back to the lobby and the tour was concluded. I don’t know what I was expecting but the Walt Disney Pavilion far surpassed an expectations I could have had. It’s great to see that Disney is helping to make such a positive difference in their community- not just in the Orlando area but in the state of Florida and the region. I expect we’ll be hearing great things from and about the Walt Disney Pavilion. Kudos to the Florida Hospital for Children, the Walt Disney Pavilion and Disney.

The official opening ceremony for the Walt Disney Pavilion is Wednesday morning (March 30).

Florida Hospital Unveils New Details, Name for Disney Children’s Hospital – August 2008 – Press Release

Have a great day!

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Deb Wills, founder of AllEars.Net, is an internationally recognized expert on Disney vacations ranging from Walt Disney World to the Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland and Adventures by Disney. For many years she participated in events designed to raise funds and awareness in the fight against breast cancer, which she herself survived in 1986. She now raises funds for FORCE - Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered, to increase awareness of hereditary cancers.

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3 Replies to “Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children”

  1. Wow, Disney never ceases to amaze me. This truly looks like a magical place that will make children smile during difficult times. Absolutly wonderful!

  2. Kudos to Disney for doing this! What a great job. It’s great to see them trying to brighten the day of a sick child. Also, I think those images in the emergency room could be a distraction, which will help calm little ones. Great job, Disney!

  3. WOW! That is AMAZING! I wish the hospital I work for had this stuff!! What a wonderful partnership between Disney and the hospital! Where can I get an application to start working there? LOL 🙂 🙂

    Thanks for posting!!