As part of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary which they are calling “The World’s Most Magical Celebration”, Disney created golden sculptures for guests to find as they explore the four main theme parks. While we have come across them in our travels, we have never taken the time to catalog them and because of that we decided to catch them all!
The Fab 50 Golden Sculptures, or statues as we will refer to them, are placed throughout the four main theme parks at Disney World – Magic Kingdom (MK), EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios (DHS), and Disney’s Animal Kingdom (DAK). While there are 50 characters mentioned, the reality of it is there are only 36 statues, in other words it is not 50 separate statues. Certain characters are placed on the same pedestal with their friends.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Let’s talk about our strategy for collecting the Fab 50 Golden Statues. We started our day early at 7:30 am at DAK. This park opens the earliest by 30 minutes than the rest of the parks. For this reason, we felt that we should start there.
Keep in mind if you are visiting Walt Disney World or even Disneyland at this time, you will need to make a park reservation. This means not only do you need to purchase a ticket, but you also need to decide on which theme park to start in. Also if you add a park hopper to your tickets, be mindful that you cannot hop over to other parks until after 2 PM.
Out of the 36 golden statues, only 4 statues appear in this park, however they do contain 7 characters. Luckily everyone of these statues can be found in the same general area. As you enter the park and head towards the main icon, the Tree of Life, you can spot all of the statues with a sharp eye.
Bambi and Thumper, who share a statue will be spotted on the main walkway on your left as you are approaching the Tree of Life. From there, if you look to the right side of the path, you will spot Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa. From those 3 statues if you turn to your right towards the Tree of Life, you will spot Nemo, and Dory. Luckily for forgetful Dory, Nemo is with her on the same statue to keep her from getting lost.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Next, we park hopped over to DHS to get some their golden statues. Pro-tip if you plan on park hopping, keep in mind you can not enter your next park until after 2 pm. This is part of the phased re-opening strategy from the pandemic. This can alter your plans for the day and should be at the forefront of your planning needs.
DHS has 7 statues which have 9 characters on them. Luckily everyone of these statues can be found in the same general area like DAK, which is the hub. While the statues are in the general area together, they take a little more effort to find than DAK. For starters we trekked up Hollywood Boulevard and took a right toward The Brown Derby restaurant.
Over here you will find Joe Gardner tickling the ivory keys. In the same garden area, you will find Flounder & Sebastian sharing a statue. Crossing the pathway heading toward Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, you can spot the tiny Woody and Bo Peep Statue. These statues are scaled so characters who are smaller have smaller statues and so on.
Crossing over the main hub in front of Mickey and Minnie’s, you will see Frozone and Edna Mode on their own separate statues. In the same garden section but on the opposite side, you will find your last 2 statues in DHS, BB-8 & R2-D2.
EPCOT
Next stop on our journey is EPCOT. This park has 9 characters on 6 statues. All of them, except one, are together, and of course that is Figment who went off on his own. EPCOT is currently in running their yearly International Flower & Garden Festival. You can read about the EPCOT Eggstravaganza we did a few weeks back which is part of the festival and Easter season.
EPCOT by nature is a huge park. The statues are mostly together, excluding that troublemaker Figment. Your journey will take you to the main walkway between the world showcase and the formerly known area of future world. EPCOT is undergoing a multiyear transformation in the front of the park which includes a new Guardians of the Galaxy rollercoaster.
Upon entering the park, make your way towards the world showcase. Use the middle bridge pathway to find Figment. He is alone and hiding from the rest of the statues which can all be found up the pathway running along side the main lagoon.
Once you continue past Figment, you won’t have to exert too much effort to find the rest of them in EPCOT. I should phrase that a bit better because Disney could have decided to place them all over the World showcase making you traverse the huge park looking for them. On the main pathway, sprinkled throughout the fenced off plant areas you will find, Miguel, Dante, Rocket, Groot, Olaf, Bruni, Pua & Hei Hei. These 8 are relatively easy to find as you walk in the middle are between the Mexico and Canada pavilions.
Magic Kingdom
Last stop is the Magic Kingdom. This park will cost you the most effort to find the Fab 50 golden character statues. MK has a whooping 19 statues with 25 characters on them. Also unlike the previous three theme parks, you have to exert some effort in finding them especially a certain fairy and pesky monkey! Let’s get walking.
Entering the Magic Kingdom, you want to go to the right side and under the railroad station. In the entry hub you should see Lady and the Tramp in the front of the American Flag area. They are across from their theme inspired restaurant, Tony’s.
Continuing down Main Street USA approaching the castle is the main hub with the partners statue. If you circle the hub you can knock out a significant chunk of the golden statues. Starting from the left side and going clockwise you will find, Chip, Dale, Daisy, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie, and Mickey.
While capturing the 8 statues in the hub, on the border of the hub, you can find Tinker Bell, however she isn’t easy to spot. She’s across from Chip & Dale hiding on top of a bush and very small. After her, make your way to the castle and go to the turret on the right to find Jaq & Gus from Cinderella. Moving on that pathway to the right, you will find Dumbo with Timothy Q. Mouse. Don’t worry they can’t fly away without the black feather.
With 15 characters down you need to do some cleanup work at this point to grab the last 10. Head towards Adventureland. Before getting to the sign, you will spot Winnie the Pooh & Piglet sharing a hug and a statue awe! Continue towards the Adventureland sign and look up on the right to find the hardest statue to locate, Abu. This one is easy to miss especially at night. Just past Skipper Canteen is the Orange Bird statue in the back of a terrace.
From Adventureland, you want to head towards the turrets that are near the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train coaster in the back of Fantasyland. In this area, you will find Pinocchio without Jiminy Cricket, oddly enough. Cross over from Pinocchio’s area to find best friends Cogsworth and Lumiere.
Heading towards Tomorrowland be sure to stop by the Mad Tea Party attraction, or as most of you know it as the tea cups. On this pathway you will easily spot The Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat.
This should leave you at 49/50 statues. Where could the last one be you ask? Well it is our favorite golden statue of the Fab 50 Stitch! He can be found against the purple wall that is attached to the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor attraction. And of course the 50th medallion is in his mouth. Come on Stitch, you can’t eat that!!!
Conclusion & Final Thoughts
There you have it, the Fab 50 Golden Statues as part of “The Worlds Most Magical Celebration”. If you are going to try and visit all of these, here is a couple of tips. Don’t do them all in one day, unless you want to put on 30,000 steps or more! Build them into your vacation plans as you visit each theme park. They make a fun thing to check off a list.
Our thoughts on the Fab 50 characters that were chosen to be included: We felt that some of the characters included seemed a bit forced for marketing purposes rather than celebrating 50 years of Walt Disney World. The biggest character missing in our opinion is Jiminy Cricket with Pinocchio. That one seems like a huge miss. There are other ones like Peter Pan, Captain Hook etc. who could arguably be included, and could be debated at great length.
What are your thoughts? Will you be seeking these statues out? Did you have a favorite picture of ours? You know our favorite was Stitch, in fact every time we go to the Magic Kingdom we do find ourselves passing by him and laughing.
Fun read! My fav is Nemo and Dory! Who is Forzone? He could have been left off in my opinion and replaced with at least one of the 4 you mentioned that were excluded.
He is from the Incredibles which of course Edna Mode is from as well. Easily could be switched out. Disney probably limited themselves with making this just about 50 characters instead of 50 statues. They could have made 1 “The Incredibles” statue and included the whole family plus Edna, and Frozone.