Go back in time?

[wedway71]

I was born the same year that WDW opened up in 1971. Living in Florida at the time, I went to WDW the first year it opened too. Being said, I would go to Disney about 4 to 6 times a year until I moved to Indy 5 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I love the 4 parks and every thing else the World has to offer. I do sometimes wish, I could go back in time to where it was only Magic Kingdom, a few Resorts, and Disney Village. It seemed to be the "Florida Disneyland" back then. Even the merchandise bags and WDW brochures had Palm Trees and a real Disney in Florida feel.

I also miss the quaintness of just the one park... Again, I love EPCOT and others but miss being a small kid and going to Disney World and the other attractions that are now closed like Circus World and some of the local well themed restaurants such as one that was off 192 and was an old train turned into a restaurant..

 

[rsoxguy]

Life is about today. Yesterday makes for pleasant memories, but today allows us the ability to savor each moment. I, for one, enjoy the "whole" experience of WDW. Your memories of yesteryear may be fantastic, but a great deal of the strength found within our memories is their distance.

 

[dave&di]

Life is about today. Yesterday makes for pleasant memories, but today allows us the ability to savor each moment. I, for one, enjoy the "whole" experience of WDW. Your memories of yesteryear may be fantastic, but a great deal of the strength found within our memories is their distance.

Wow, thats deep! If I had a time machine I would love to go to 'old fashioned' WDW to see what it was like. I would also loke to pay 1971 prices! :lol:

 

[Walt Disney1955]

I think nostalgia falls into a couple categories. For starters, we can look at the past with rose coloured glasses and remember it being better than it really was. For example we might remember there being a lot more snow when we were kids, or we might remember the summers being hotter. The truth is, it is all in our head.

On the flip side there are some things from the past that were better than today and that's where our nostalgia gets justified. Sometimes when we talk about old attractions no longer with us we are right when we are disapointed to see them gone.

However, to the OP, I think in your case the park has gotten better. We'd all love to go back to Magic Kingdom in 1971 but we'd also be disapointed that neither of the Mountains are there or that Pirates is even there.

But I think we should rejoice that the park has gotten more grand. There is more to do, there are more options and we still have our precios Magic Kingdom tucked away on its own in its own universe (and I say that without sarcasm because I love how MK is set up)

 

[wolf359]

I would love to have been able to experience those simpler times, and while my memories don't go as far back as 1971 I still have plenty of fondness for my early visits to Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

But I think it is important to not give away the opportunity to enjoy now just because it isn't the same as the "good old days." There are plenty of things I miss, from Horizons to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, to the Adventurer's Club, and even the magic shop on Main Street, but don't let those changes get in the way of having a great time when I visit. I'm still captivated by the parks and I love all of the positive changes that have happened over the years too.

I read a lot of the comments expressing the range of emotion from ambivalence to disappointment to outright anger over elements that are no longer there and I wonder if the more extreme feelings are preventing those folks from being able to enjoy what is there now and if it leaves them unlikely to make new positive memories.

To me that is far more sad than the missing attractions or elements themselves.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I was born the same year that WDW opened up in 1971. Living in Florida at the time, I went to WDW the first year it opened too. Being said, I would go to Disney about 4 to 6 times a year until I moved to Indy 5 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I love the 4 parks and every thing else the World has to offer. I do sometimes wish, I could go back in time to where it was only Magic Kingdom, a few Resorts, and Disney Village. It seemed to be the "Florida Disneyland" back then. Even the merchandise bags and WDW brochures had Palm Trees and a real Disney in Florida feel.

I also miss the quaintness of just the one park... Again, I love EPCOT and others but miss being a small kid and going to Disney World and the other attractions that are now closed like Circus World and some of the local well themed restaurants such as one that was off 192 and was an old train turned into a restaurant..

I miss it too. Completely seperate from any feelings I have over the current WDW, I do miss the old days.

The 'tranquility', the innocence, the elegance. It is like memories of an old Italian seaside town, before it was taken over by large malls and neon lights and loud bars with loud people.



Oh, to spend one more day with a morning spend on the tropical hideout of Discovery Island, followed by a leisurly boat trip on the tranquil waters around the Village, concluded by a dinner on a stylish moonlit Missisippi river boat...

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I read a lot of the comments expressing the range of emotion from ambivalence to disappointment to outright anger over elements that are no longer there and I wonder if the more extreme feelings are preventing those folks from being able to enjoy what is there now and if it leaves them unlikely to make new positive memories.

Guilty, you honour!

I must admit I find it difficult to love the new Future World. I can't help but try to look behind the abrassive scaffolding of Test Track for the sleek lines of WoM.

Other than that, I enjoy WDW's expansion. Animal Kingdom is awesome. The water parks are awesome. The Studios are great.
In general, once I'm at the World, I forget about the internet and criticism and everything, and I only see what is there in front of me. I soak it all up, love all of it and shed my tears at the end of another great day during the fireworks.

 

[wolf359]

The 'tranquility', the innocence, the elegance. It is like memories of an old Italian seaside town, before it was taken over by large malls and neon lights and loud bars with loud people.

Sadly, that quaint, innocent, naive vibe I get from the pre-EPCOT Walt Disney World is something I'll only be able to experience through the picture books from that era. It really is striking how different WDW seemed back then, so I can imagine that to have lived through it and see the resort go through the building boom must have been quite a time.

 

[Walt Disney1955]

I miss it too. Completely seperate from any feelings I have over the current WDW, I do miss the old days.

The 'tranquility', the innocence, the elegance.

Just out of curiousity, how would you describe WDW now? I'd consider it fairly innocent as well. Not to mention very elegant too. I get that same feel in 2011 about it that I got in 1991, my first trip. Things change, but the feeling never has for me

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Just out of curiousity, how would you describe WDW now? I'd consider it fairly innocent as well. Not to mention very elegant too. I get that same feel in 2011 about it that I got in 1991, my first trip. Things change, but the feeling never has for me

Walt, during his lifetime, saw Main Streets everywhere give way to shopping centers, eventually malls. This sucked the life out of the centre of towns.

In response, Walt build a main street from his childhood in Disneyland. A Main Street not taken over by large shops, but consisting of small shop, with lively cinema's, penny arcades, specialty shops like florists and magic shops.


In a bizarre twist of irony, the destructive forces from which Walt build an escape, managed to take over his nostalgic kingdom and do unto it what they had done to the real main streets before. That is, rip out the life, destroy the small shops, turn everything into a commercialised mall without life or authenticity.
This is what I meant when I said sometimes WDW feels like a quaint Italian seaside town that has been abandoned to crass mass tourism.

The old Main Street West Side Street. A MS with two side roads, with flowers, a cinema, arcade, specialty shops:

The current WDW is fine, but it is more commercialised, more in-your-face. Still a great place, but the feel of it has changed for me. Less elegant, for one.
Examples:
- Main Street's WallMartisation, see above.
- Attraction signs. The attraction signs nowadays are all ten foot high, instead of inobtrusive, carefully themed, modest signs. Apparantly, people nowadays have no other way of knowing that 'Pirates of the Caribbean' is located in that Big Caribbean Building unless there's a twenty feet tall sign in front of it.
- Characters everywhere. I like Disney movies, but I'm even more fond of original attractions, of 'real world' placemaking over 'cartoonlands', of Norwegian cuisine over 'that building looks vaguely like it would house Mediaeval princesses, lets dump some princesses in there too'.
- Forced exit through the gift shop. Once, this would make people feel like herded cattle. You tell your dog where to go, but not a paying customer.
- WDW was emptier. Crowds simply are not elegant. Once the MK had ten million annual visitors, sixteen million now. And that without added capacity, far from it, reduced capacity if anything I think. To add to this woe, operating hours have been drastically decreased. The MK would stay open until 1:00AM in the 1980s! You can do your tranquil pace during the day, and still get all your attractins done from 11 to 1. On any given hour, the MK has twice as many people in it as in, say, the early 1980s.


And, and...and...ah...I'm blabbering. Never mind. Current WDW is fine, but occasionally one can't help but feel nostalgic for hat has been lost.

 

[ChimneySweep]

Your thoughts on Main Street, Empress Lilly, is something I relate to very well. I was 12 years old the first time I visited WDW in 1978. I'll always treasure the memories of the way the park used to be and still try to tell my friend, who has only known the park in the past few years, about the shops in their golden days. They were all so special. What you found inside matched the charm of their designs on the outside. I tell him about how the bakery had large cakes that were sold by the slice instead of the coffee house standard items we find there now and so on. The stores were so much more unique than they are now. The were truly *special*. Much more variety of the Disney items, collectibles, Disneyana, etc.

While the park is wonderful now, I often miss the things that really were better back in the 70's, 80's, and part of the 90's. Two attractions that I still miss a lot are the beautiful 'Mickey Mouse Revue' and the full live show at 'The Diamond Horseshoe' that was so incredibly special. How I wish they would have continued with it.

So yes, count me in as one who can't help but mourn the way some of it used to be.

 

[Walt Disney1955]

WDW was emptier. Crowds simply are not elegant. Once the MK had ten million annual visitors, sixteen million now. And that without added capacity, far from it, reduced capacity if anything I think. To add to this woe, operating hours have been drastically decreased. The MK would stay open until 1:00AM in the 1980s! You can do your tranquil pace during the day, and still get all your attractins done from 11 to 1. On any given hour, the MK has twice as many people in it as in, say, the early 1980s.


And, and...and...ah...I'm blabbering. Never mind. Current WDW is fine, but occasionally one can't help but feel nostalgic for hat has been lost.

Yes that is something that I don't think WDW planned for as much back in 1971. They should have really, because by then they knew the vast popularity of Disneyland but while current MK is big and spacious they still don't utilize their space as well. The Swan Boats should start up for example. What else is that dock being used for? Put the attraction back there. The old skyway landings need to be used for something. I agree too that the crowds seemed less a long time ago, then I was 10 and a half in 1991 and it's hard to remember just how accurate your memory can be when it comes to that.

No doubt that WDW needs some more attractions to spread the crowds out more. Maybe the expansion will help but we're still losing Toontown in the shuffle not to mention the poor decision to scrap Snow White. Keep adding attractions, that's what I say