sweetpee_1993

hehe yeah... i didn't want to forget your screen name. I ended up riding toy story mania about 30 times the day after it kept breaking down .

So true. Just think, back then the only big coaster outside B & B was at BG in Tampa and there was only that one (it was big, yellow, and cork-screwed). My bf's dad took us once. LOL!

I was thinking HBJ owned Sea World at one time. I couldn't remember for sure. If I had said that it was I was sure to be wrong and have 50 people flame me relentlessly. My parents got a really good tax return one year so they bought season passes to the HBJ parks. That's how we got to go to those parks so much, including B & B. I think when HBJ bought the Sea World park didn't they also acquire the Stars Hall of Fame and close it down or am I totally off on that one? My dad has some pics of me, maybe 3 years old or so, outside Stars Hall of Fame. Also, I remember going to Mystery Fun House on I-Drive when I was little. A few of the scenes in that place are responsible for a lot of my biggest recurring childhood nightmares...and my vermin-phobia. LOL!

Orlando and the vacation areas have changed so much!

I remember when "going to Disney" meant going the Magic Kingdom. LOL! When I was 7 or 8 my grandparents came down with a whole load of the individual attraction tickets that they were able to trade in towards general admission for the whole family after they stopped using the individual ticket system. So funny to think back now. But even for several years after they still had the old ticket booths sitting out around the MK. That trip my grandparents took us out to the MK I recall being in the Epcot preview center on Main Street. I was so impressed by the model of the park they had on display.

I was in 2nd or 3rd grade living in Orlando when Epcot Center opened. A few of the kids I went to school with had parents who worked on that park. One little girl's dad was an engineer of some sort and worked on SSE. She told us all that her daddy swore on opening day the Jolly Green Giant was coming to tee off that giant golf ball. LOL!

I haven't lived in Orlando since I was 16 or so. Now I'm the tacky tourist we used to make fun of. We always joked the oober-tacky obvious tourists were all from Cleveland. I like to think of myself as a Cleveland-ite now (even tho I've never actually been to that city). LOL!

Your memory is good, I think. Circus World gave way to Boardwalk and Baseball, with the Royals' spring training site there. It just never took off, so they closed the whole thing down and sold off the coasters. HBJ did own that property at one time, along with Sea World.

In the 80s, only the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center were open for Disney. . . there was no Universal Studios, and Sea World had no coaster so the only place in Central Florida to get into some serious roller coasters (excluding Space Mountain) was at Circus World or in Tampa at Busch Gardens. How things have changed!