Memories of your first visit to WDW.

[mdcpr]

1975
- Choked on a red lifesaver (the irony) and my grandma grabbed me by my legs, flipped me upside down, hit me hard on the back, and the lifesaver came flying out
- Hating the bears animatronics (not adding that one to my touring plan)
- Loving Dumbo (doing this again, and now with my children!)
- Hating the Jungle Cruise (debating whether I want to do this)
- Loving the Snow White ride and getting scared by the witch
- Almost breaking a tooth on a Mickey Ice Cream bar
- Feeling awesome because I was the only one in my Kinder class who had gone to Disney

And since I was 5, that's all I remember.

 

[Thingamabob]

The year was 2009 and I was 8 years old. My parents, my older brother and me stayed and POFQ. I remember I loved the pool a lot. My favorite park on the trip was the Magic Kingdom and my favorite ride was Splash Mountain. I loved the meeting the characters and the Nighttime Firework Shows. My favorite place that we ate was The Plaza Restaurant on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. I loved the milkshakes.

 

[Texas84]

I don't remember my first trip and it annoys me greatly. I do remember specific things about 90s Epcot, such as CommuniCore, Wonders of Life, and the Soarin'-less Land. Maybe it was because I had been to Disneyland several times when I was a kid WDW was just an extension of that for me.

 

[JillC LI]

Approx 1979 (10 years old):
1 - If You Had Wings - loved it
2 - Seeing Brer Fox standing perfectly still, thinking he was a statue, approaching him, and having him suddenly jump at me and scare the begeezus out of me! LOL

 

[HouCuseChickie]

April 1985

- My parents and I had a debate about the year a while back. They swore it was 1986, but I insisted it was 1985. They realized I was right after looking at our Kennedy Space Center pictures from this trip. We had the crazy luck of seeing a shuttle on the ground during our bus tour, just a few hundred feet away after they let us off the bus mid-tour to see it. That shuttle was Challenger. If we'd gone in 1986, it would have been after the Challenger disaster. In light of this, I'd like to say I'm also right that we took the monorail to MK and not the ferry...they seem to think we took the ferry. NOPE! I mean, this was my first memory of the Contemporary!
-My very first ride was Mission to Mars...and let's just say I was a little worried about things after that
-Second ride was Space Mountain...I started feeling much better about Disney
- I know we rode the Skyway
- I bought a Donald Duck shirt in Tomorrowland (Donald Duck #1)
- I remember waiting forever for 20,000 Leagues, IASW, and PotC
- World of Motion was my first attraction in Epcot...I actually liked it better than Horizons!
- Universe of Energy was considered a big deal among my friends because of the dinosaurs...so I thought I was super cool riding it.
- We waited close to 2.5 hours to ride Imagination...the original. At least the jumping water was very entertaining while in that area.
- We booked our dinner via one of the old video kiosks at the front of the park. I don't know if my dad was flexible on times, but the only option they found for him was Restaurant Marrakesh. We ate there, but oh boy...it was not good. I've heard it's improved a lot.
- My dad doesn't like crowds and didn't want to deal with park closing traffic, so he had us leave before any nighttime shows each night. We were staying off property and it was so sad to see bits of lasers from Epcot's 1985 version of Illuminations, knowing there were people in the park enjoying it.
- I was so sad when we left the Orlando area for the Sanibel Island portion of this trip. I wanted to go back to WDW.

 

[J_Carioca]

Wow, so many.....July '93 (I was in early elementary school):





-The chipmunk chatter in the Splash queue

Yes yes yes. This is one of the things that made a huge impression on me on my first visit!

 

[J_Carioca]

Wow, so many.....July '93 (I was in early elementary school):





-The chipmunk chatter in the Splash queue

Yes yes yes. This is one of the things that made a huge impression on me on my first visit!!

 

[Smiley/OCD]

October, 1993...our honeymoon me, 29, first time at the world, first time on a plane...I remember no FP, no DDP or reservations, using travelers' checks! I remember 20K, sky ride, Mr. Toad, SSE, Capt. E-O...had a car rental and ate off property several times, visiting Kennedy Space Center and saw Columbia on the launch pad...UNI had only one park: King Kong, Earthquake, Jaws & the Bates Motel high on the hill and remember the old time retro Texaco station in the parking lot. I was actually able to walk the parks...Backlot tour (Brady Bunch house) and a novel restaurant called Sci-Fi...never been to a drive-in movie, so I thought that was really cool.

Fast forward to 2006 with our 2 DD's first trip 5 & 7...seeing their faces on Main St. the first time they saw Cinderella Castle...man, I wish we had a picture!!! We will remember that forever! That's the trip that REALLY hooked all of us, Now, it's a tradition to go every 2 years or so...

 

[SteveAZee]

One thing that stands out most from my first trip in 1973 was riding 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I also remember If You Had Wings (which was free, also, and therefore better) and the Mike Fink Keel Boats.

 

[Smiley/OCD]

I forgot to add, we lost our rolls of film and had to spend a day reshooting every picture we took on our honeymoon. Oh, and back then the MGM-Studios were just that, a working studio...going on the tour, seeing the finishing touches being done for a movie called the Lion King

 

[Goofyernmost]

1975
- Choked on a red lifesaver (the irony) and my grandma grabbed me by my legs, flipped me upside down, hit me hard on the back, and the lifesaver came flying out
- Hating the bears animatronics (not adding that one to my touring plan)
- Loving Dumbo (doing this again, and now with my children!)
- Hating the Jungle Cruise (debating whether I want to do this)
- Loving the Snow White ride and getting scared by the witch
- Almost breaking a tooth on a Mickey Ice Cream bar
- Feeling awesome because I was the only one in my Kinder class who had gone to Disney

And since I was 5, that's all I remember.

Good, albeit a scary start. I thought I read someplace the "LifeSavers" were made that way with the hole in the middle to allow air to get through until it dissolved enough to just go down the throat anticipating a kid swallowing it whole. I would suspect it would hurt though. I remember as a kid I got an ice cube caught in my throat. I thought it is just ice so I went into the kitchen and poured some warm water into my mouth. It worked and slid the rest of the way down. Hurt something awful.

 

[Goofyernmost]

April 1985

- World of Motion was my first attraction in Epcot...I actually liked it better than Horizons!

- My dad doesn't like crowds and didn't want to deal with park closing traffic, so he had us leave before any nighttime shows each night. We were staying off property and it was so sad to see bits of lasers from Epcot's 1985 version of Illuminations, knowing there were people in the park enjoying it.

Don't feel alone, a lot of us enjoyed WoM more then Horizons.

I had that same problem with my wife. She never wanted to stay after 7 o'clock. The first few trips we never saw the evening shows.

 

[KaliSplash]

I've answered this before but it has been a long time. I thought Disney was just a roller coaster park when I was young and I was not a coaster fan. (I was thinking Six Flags on steroids. Then the woman who would become my wife took me to Disney. Did you know they trim their shrubs into the shapes of Disney characters? Of course you do. I was stunned in 1979 when I first saw this at TTC. And roller coasters, there was only 1 at the time, Space Mountain. When I first saw the AAs in COP, I was sold, hook, line and sinker.

 

[donaldtoo]

It was in Dec. of ‘88 for our honeymoon.
We stayed in an off-prop Holiday Inn in Kissimmee, and rented a car.
The cold rainy weather followed us from Texas.
We didn’t even pack sweatshirts, but, found some EPCOT Center hoodies in DTD (which may have actually been “Marketplace” at the time).
Only MK and EPCOT Center were open at the time.
I remember much more about EPCOT Center than MK, as MK mostly reminded me of a much larger Disneyland, which I had been to 4 previous times, the first being in ‘68.
Loved WoM, Horizons, The Living Seas with the “hydrolators”, The Land, original lmagination pavilion, etc., in Future World.
Loved all the countries in World Showcase, and the Norway pavilion with Maelstrom had just opened that year...
Good times...!!!!!!!

 

[eliza61nyc]

My first visit was a disaster, my family thought it was over priced, nasty food and not worth the trip down from NY.
My next trip was when my kids were little in 2001, that's probably when we warmed up to the place. We stayed at Ft. Wilderness and my kids still enjoyed the pool more than Epcot.

 

[John park hopper]

Have posted this before I had just gotten out of the service in May of 72 and was driving to South FL to start college stopped in Orlando --at that time the only park was MK. Having grown up with Disney in the 50's and 60's I fell in love with the place. Everything was new I was so impressed with the monorail-- MK was spotless and uncrowded. Got married in March of 77 and spent our short honeymoon at the Contemporary-- still remember $45 a night we spent 2 nights there I had to get back for classes and the new wife had to get back to her ER nursing job. Highlight we ate at Cinderella's Castle and rode Space Mountain Country Bears, I was stunned by the HoP. Loved Main Street and the brass bands.

 

[allymonkey]

My first trip was in 1981 and I was only 3. The only thing I only vaguely remember from that trip was riding in an airplane and getting a Pete's Dragon (Elliott) stuffed animal- it wasn't really fluffy enough to call it a plush.

Our next few trips we drove from WV to Florida in our family's van. I remember having a bunch of activity books and a bucket of crayons (that eventually melted into one giant crayon after being left in the van in the parking lot) and sleeping in the back of the van where benches folded down to make a bed. I remember my older sister attending some classes for Science and Animation that were held in a building near MK that might have eventually become the Lost and Found.

One of the trips, our cousins from Jacksonville came with us for one day. My cousin and I are very close in age and just happened to have the same outfit in different colors so they made us wear those matching outfits and styled our hair the same. That was also the trip that I eventually gave myself a black eye because I was so interested in looking at everything around me that I kept walking into trash cans and railings.

 

[danyoung56]

My first visit was in the spring of 1979. I was travelling with a show group, and we had a show near Orlando followed by a day off. I talked a few others in the group into doing a Disney day. Growing up in SoCal, I knew every corner of Disneyland. But this World thing just wouldn't conform to my memories. It was sorta the same, but sorta different. The Haunted Mansion was over here where Big Thunder should be, and Big Thunder was up in Critter Country. It was really disorienting!

I also remember looking at a big display for the now-building E.P.C.O.T., and talking to the CM there, trying to find out what happened to Walt's original concept of a real city. This clueless CM told me "no, E.P.C.O.T. was always going to be a theme park!"

 

[World_Showcase_Lover007]

First trip was in Feb. 1997. The first actual memory of the trip is pulling into Port Orleans and being blown away by the resort theming. I had never been to a hotel like this before. This wasn’t like staying at a Marriot lol. The whole trip was eye opening in this way bc I didn't know what to expect. It was magic I'm telling you.

During the trip, it seemed like the epicenter of MK was Frontierland for us. It’s where we found ourselves most of the time. It’s where I fell in love with Splash Mountain, and have been on the attraction every trip since. Hopefully next trip my daughter will be old enough to ride with me!

 

[MAGICFLOP]

It was 1977. I went on SM, but I forget the rest...