Wednesday, October 7, 2009

First Disney visit, circa 1975/1976, photos

Before I had a family, I had only been to a Disney theme park one time, and that was during my sophomore year in high school when I visited with our high school band. Of course, at that time, the only park in Florida was the Magic Kingdom, and my memories were pretty sketchy. I remembered riding on the overhead tram. I remembered doing Space Mountain. I recalled the WEDWay Peoplemover. I had some memories of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, but not of riding on it.

Yesterday, I came across these photos from that trip. I quickly (and badly, as you can see) scanned them, and though the quality is pretty poor, I think they're sort of cool, looking back in time like this.










Here's why I guess we didn't go on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: It was closed, and drained. They must have been doing maintenance.



Tomorrowland, with the WEDWay PeopleMover sign, and an America the Beautiful sign evident.








The last two were shots from the old Aerial Tram (what was it called?) that terminated in Tomorrowland, I think. I'm really not sure. As I've said before, I remember more about what the girls from the high school band from the New England area looked like than I do about the Disney experience, much to my disappointment today. But there they are, imperfect shots that they are. They're all I have of that vacation.

3 comments:

David Landon said...

Very cool! I remember the Skyway, but since the cars were too small to accommodate a family of four, I never got to ride it.

Scott said...

Thanks! The photography is that of a 15 year old (me), and the camera tech is that of 1975. So I guess I'm lucky that these photos even have survived...

I found the one of the Sub ride to be interesting, myself.

David Landon said...

Yes, the draining of the 20K lagoon was an annual thing. They had to clean the gunk off everything and repaint all the set pieces that the chlorinated water had bleached over the course of the previous year. It was a painstaking, hot, and nasty job, which was one of the reasons why management was so eager to close the ride when Eisner's accountanteers started looking for ways to cut costs.