Disney Nostalgia

Old Magic Kingdom Park map from 70s

In a tattered box in my mother’s closet, we found the disorganized shuffle of memories from our Disney vacation when Walt Disney World was new and young. As I sorted through the litany of things my mother saved, I was overcome with nostalgia. I always feel like my mom saves ridiculous things often to a hoarder level but this time her treasures, to me, actually were treasures.

I know the 50^th anniversary has pulled us all back to a place of nostalgia in their merchandising and so I thought this was a beautiful time to share some things from my personal Disney memory box. On both our trips as a very young child there was only one theme park – Magic Kingdom. They also had River Country as the water park and Discovery Island, the bird sanctuary, which still sits to this day, unoccupied, in the middle of the lagoon off the shores of the Ft Wilderness Campground. You can also see it from the shoreline of Wilderness Lodge or Contemporary. I call it Vulture Island since the vultures seem to have taken it over as their home base. LOL.

These photos also include the references to E-Tickets which were the best rides and the most popular. At this time, they had ticket books and you would use your tickets like at a carnival. I believe on our second trip I remember that you could do the coupon book or you could choose to have a more all-inclusive wrist band situation where you could ride all the rides. I could be wrong about that but I have a pretty solid memory. I also remember on the last trip asking my dad if we could ride Pirates of the Caribbean one more time before we left and I am fairly certain the answer would have been no if we needed a coupon for it.

There is also a ticket in here for Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue which traumatized my younger brother for life when he was brought on stage for the performance. There was a lot of crying and terror. We laugh about that to this day. And in a strange twist of fate my husband actually served as crew chief for a stint of his time as an entertainment cast member so it kind of brought it all full circle for us.

I also love the old maps and my personal favorite, the bill from our stay at the Polynesian Resort. Yes, it was indeed $48 a night!!! After my father’s death, my brother and I returned to stay a night at the Polynesian in his honor and that room was over $800 a night. Quite the inflation there. But don’t get me wrong. At the time, $48 was a big deal and I understand the hard work my father had to do to afford that trip for us despite that cost seeming, now, like a drop in the bucket.

I hope you all enjoy the nostalgia from the days of Disney past. I still smile all these years later looking at these amazing old memories.