Many families scatter the ashes of loved ones at Disney World.The practice is so common employees have a code word and cleaning protocol to hide the remains from visitors.

1. 10/25/18, 10)38 AMDisney Worldʼs Big Secret: Itʼs a Favorite Spot to Scatter Family Ashes - WSJ
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A-HED
Disney World’s Big Secret: It’s a Favorite Spot to Scatter
Family Ashes
Fans say treating the parks as a final resting place is the ultimate tribute, assuming they can sneak the remains past security
Custodians at the Walt Disney Co. theme parks in Orlando, Fla., and
Anaheim, Calif., use code words to disguise the messier aspects of their
work from visitors.
When a
manager
radios for a
“Code V”
cleanup, it
means a
patron has
vomited.
“Code U”
signals urine.
No code is
kept more
under wraps
at Walt
Disney World
and
Disneyland
than the call
for a “HEPA
cleanup.” It
means that,
once again, a
park guest has scattered the cremated ashes of a loved one somewhere in
the park, and an ultrafine (or “HEPA”) vacuum cleaner is needed to suck
them up.
Oct. 24, 2018 10:10 a.m. ET
By Erich Schwartzel
Happily Hereafter

2. 10/25/18, 10)38 AMDisney Worldʼs Big Secret: Itʼs a Favorite Spot to Scatter Family Ashes - WSJ
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Disney custodians say it happens about once a month.
“Anyone who knew my mom knew Disney was her happy place,” said Jodie
Jackson Wells, a business coach in Boca Raton, Fla., who in 2009 smuggled a
pill bottle containing her mother’s ashes into Walt Disney World.
Once inside, Ms. Wells helped spread ashes on the platform of It’s a Small
World near a head-spinning bird, a moment in the ride that always made
her mother laugh. Later in the day, overcome with grief, Ms. Wells hopped
over the barricade surrounding the lawn outside Cinderella’s castle and ran
across the grass, flinging them as she crossed.
“I had two fistfuls of the ashes and I literally leapt like I was a dancer,” she
said.
Current and former custodians at Disney parks say identifying and
vacuuming up human ashes is a signature and secret part of working at the
Happiest Place on Earth. It is grisly work for them, but a cathartic release
for the bereaved, who say treating Disney parks as a final resting place is the
ultimate tribute to ardent fans.
Human ashes have been spread in flower beds, on bushes and on Magic
Kingdom lawns; outside the park gates and during fireworks displays; on
Pirates of the Caribbean and in the moat underneath the flying elephants of
the Dumbo ride. Most frequently of all, according to custodians and park
workers, they’ve been dispersed throughout the Haunted Mansion, the 49-
year-old attraction featuring an eerie old estate full of imaginary ghosts.
“The Haunted Mansion probably has so much human ashes in it that it’s not
even funny,” said one Disneyland custodian.
Jodie Jackson Wells, lower left, with her siblings and mother, in white shirt, during a trip to Disney
World. PHOTO: JACKSON WELLS FAMILY

3. 10/25/18, 10)38 AMDisney Worldʼs Big Secret: Itʼs a Favorite Spot to Scatter Family Ashes - WSJ
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A Disney spokeswoman said, “this type of behavior is strictly prohibited and
unlawful. Guests who attempt to do so will be escorted off property.”
Disney does everything it can to keep morbid thoughts out of its parks.
When Walt Disney World began installing personalized commemorative
bricks in 1994, the company banned the words “In Memory Of,” worried
they would remind guests of death.
Caryn Reker of Jacksonville, Fla., remembers her father growing emotional
while watching the Wishes fireworks show outside the ice-cream parlor on
Disney World’s Main Street. When time came for her to spread his ashes, in
2006, she opted to do it in numerous spots around the area.
“It’s a sweet way to giggle and remember—he’s here. . . and there. . . and a
little over there. . . yep, there, too,” she wrote in an email. She returned to
Disney World last week to spread the ashes of her brother, an Epcot
enthusiast who died this year.
Alex Perone, an actor from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., described an emotional
roller coaster when he took the ashes of his mother, Sandie Perone, to Walt
Disney World this past June. Immediately after spreading them in a Magic
Kingdom flower bed, he went on It’s a Small World.
“I was still crying. That song is playing over and over again, and there are
those happy little animatronic things,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘This
is weird.’ ”
Among a select group of Disney obsessives, the parks are also places to
propose, get married and celebrate birthdays. It is no surprise, then, that
some want to spend eternity there.
Smugglers say getting the ashes past security is easy if they are transported
in prescription-pill bottles or makeup compacts. Others hide Ziploc bags at
the bottom of a purse or knapsack.
When ash residue is discovered on a ride, Disney workers tell guests they
Visitors line up for Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction. PHOTO: SCOTT KEELER/TAMPA BAY
TIMES/ZUMA PRESS

4. 10/25/18, 10)38 AMDisney Worldʼs Big Secret: Itʼs a Favorite Spot to Scatter Family Ashes - WSJ
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must
shut
down
due to
“technical difficulties.” Then, a manager rides alone through the attraction
looking for any ash piles while colleagues may hand out “Fast Passes” to
assuage guests who must leave before the custodians turn up with their
high-powered vacuums.
One former Disney employee said she and others got in trouble after they
coined their own term for the ash cleanup: “Code Grandma.”
There have been false alarms.
“One time it was funnel-cake powder,” the former employee said.
Sgt. Daron Wyatt, a spokesman for the Anaheim Police Department, said
spreading ashes without permission is a misdemeanor. Officers “have
responded on calls for service regarding ashes” at Disneyland, he added, but
said the park’s on-site sergeant couldn’t recall any arrests being made.
It’s likely many ashes never get spotted by park employees. None of the
families interviewed by The Wall Street Journal believe workers
noticed them in the act.
Shanon Himebrook, a 41-year-old state-government employee from Kansas
City, Mo., grew up making summer trips to Disney World with her father, a
Alex Perone and his mother, Sandie Perone, at Disney World. PHOTO: PERONE FAMILY

5. 10/25/18, 10)38 AMDisney Worldʼs Big Secret: Itʼs a Favorite Spot to Scatter Family Ashes - WSJ
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worker at a plastic factory in Indiana.
At Disney, “he wasn’t my tired, graveyard-shift Dad,” she said. “He was,
‘Let’s get you the Mouse ears! Let’s get your name stitched in it!’ It’s like, ‘I
love this dad! Can we stay forever?’ ”
Ms. Himebrook spread his ashes earlier this year near the park gates.
Marty Lurie, an Amazon.com Inc. employee in San Bernardino, Calif., took
the ashes of his father’s partner, Robin Milnes, to Disney World in eight
baggies hidden at the bottom of a camera bag in 1996. His father, who had
been in a depression following Mr. Milnes’s death from AIDS, came along
but was reluctant to join in.
To cheer him up, Mr. Lurie had the group stop for photos with characters
including Mickey Mouse and Goofy, posing with the camera bag containing
Mr. Milnes’s ashes conspicuously center stage in each picture.
He even took the ashes on rides. “You want to go on this ride, Robin?” he’d
ask the bag.
His father, who died in 2010, got in on the fun. “He wound up having the
time of his life,” said Mr. Lurie.
Kym Pessolano DeBarth, a 47-year-old optometrist-office worker from
Northfield, N.J., dumped a small amount of her mother’s ashes in the water
underneath It’s a Small World. “I didn’t want to clog the filter,” she said.
Bill Lurie poses for a photo with Mickey Mouse with a camera bag containing ashes of his partner,
Robin Milnes, inside. PHOTO: LURIE FAMILY

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In December, she’ll return to the park to commemorate the 15th anniversary
of her mother’s death.
“Instead of going to a grave,” she said, “I go to Disney World.”
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
It's A Small World ride at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. PHOTO: BRYAN SMITH/ZUMA PRESS