What was it like....

Mom and Dad took me in '71 when I was 2-1/2. Dad said I was quiet during the trip and for about two weeks after I did not speak of it. Then, he says I spoke in one continuous sentance for the next month about WDW.

I wound up living in SoCal in the 90's and went to DL during Christmas. My first impression of it was dissapointment in that it lacked the grandeur of WDW, but as I walked around a bit, it was clear to me that the level of detail Walt built into the park was just amazing.

Took my son to WDW for his first trip in '06 (he was 4). Watching both he and my wife see it all for the first time was incredible. I had not been since the openings of DHS or AK, so we all got to experience those two for the first time together.

My first visit to the Disney Magic was Disneyland when I was 19 and I fell in love with it. I was a "Mouseketeer" at home in front of our black and white tv and watched Walt's magic all my life, but entering that Magical Place was awe inspiring, heavenly a dream come true and I have been hooked forever.
My first step into WDW was with my 1 year old daughter and my husband and it was just as wonderful, more so maybe because my little girl was smiling at my first love, Mickey Mouse, and he was smiling back...OMG I will love everything Disney til my dying day and then I would like my ashes spread over MK and Epcot.....My idea of Heaven!:faint:

Everything around me stopped and I almost cried! I saw the castle as a big pink birthday cake and I don't care! It was the first time I saw Disney and I loved it! I was speechless!

as much as I like the MK, Epcot just feels like home, everytime I am there.

ecpot is our favorite park. seeing town sq and the castle in mk you really feel like this is so special.

I visited the MK for the first time in 1973 at the age of 10. Even though I barely remember anything from that age, I still remember the MK. It was cold and rainy the entire time. Space Mt was under construction. PotC was shut down, as was Jungle Cruise. The Race track was closed due to weather. So we rode Its a Small world @ 20 times. The whole place was sort of diserted but it was still the MK in a very imagnative 10 year olds eyes. As we walked around we found many disguarded or lost ticket books and we found that if you hung out down by the entrance folks leaving would give you ticket books also. All us kids had only been given 1 ticket book each at the start of our day and would rip threw that by lunch, so all those extra ticket books we aquired came in real handy.

And most of all I remember being scared silly in the stretch room in the Haunted Mansion on my first trip threw.

The first time I went to Disney World was in 1973. There was only the Magic Kingdom then and it was indeed a magical place. After you left the public roads, it seemed like you drove for an eternity before you reached the ticket area and then took yet another short journey by monorail or boat before you were finally there. The whole effect was one of leaving the real world behind and traveling to a magical, faraway place. Once inside, this feeling continued as you browsed through the shops on mainstreet, which were filled with actual merchandise, not the cheap trinkets so common today. The place was clean beyond belief and everything was fresh and new. It was so easy to be caught up in the magic, it actually felt like an honest to goodness fantasy world. It's so hard to describe the feeling you had. Sadly, it seems like the magic is gone now. I still love the place but it's just not the same as it was then.

Oh my goodness, such great memories!!! I love the Magic Kingdom the most, but I really had to vote for Epcot this time. My dad and I had annual passes (which are great!!) and we went to Magic Kingdiom a lot and I still felt the magic, but I think I have more memories from Epcot. I lve to just walk through the world showcase and find those little details about the country. i absolutely love to ride Maelstrom and scream like its a scary ride down the little hill. (I have to say, that ride is awesome...my dad and I can quote most of the ride. Plus, we have lots of fun quoting the lines at home. My favorite line- "Disappear! Disappear!! I say that to my brother a lot...) Even though Future World may be different and not the same, I love it. It's plain, but nice. Ears (not hats) off to Epcot!! :epcot:
Magic Kingdom definetely comes second. Although, I was quite surprised how big of a lead MK had, I would have thought the others would stand a chance!! Anyway, MK has a special place in my heart. It's where I first saw my favorite character, Minnie (if you couldn't have guessed). It's where I rode my first, well shall I say, mountains. It's where I have been with friends and rode rides with them. It's where you will always feel magic, whether its a normal day, or halloween magic, or christmas magic. Ears (not hats) off to MK!!! :mk:

:ghost:
'Your cadaverous palour betrays an aurora of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? or is it your imagination?'
:ghost:

(Going by a waterfall)


'And now everyone, we are going by the famous Schweitzer falls named after the famous explorer, Dr. Falls.'

:lol:
So corny, yet so funny...

I dont remember going to Disney for the first time! i was young and i have a few snippets but not many memories! My friends mom tells me about their first time they went though! My friend Gabby was about 3 at the time and when the walked on Main Street, she had the biggest smile on her face and couldnt stop giggling after she saw the castle!

Mine was "Um what is the huge golf ball?" haha. Because on my first day ever in Disney I went to EPCOT and saw the huge dome, but at the time i was 8 and thought it was a golf ball. haha

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Originally Posted by FutureImagineer

i loved magic journeys...it was so great! Now, that its closed, i miss it so much. but, i recently found the theme song to it. how nostalgic!

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Someone has posted the Magic Journeys movie on YouTube in two parts. It appears to have been filmed by someone in the audience with a video camera so the quality is not too good but it might help bring back some pleasant memories. Just do a search for "magic Journeys" and you'll find it.

I was 11 years old when I first visited Walt Disney World. It was only 6 months old at that time, and people still couldn't wrap their heads around how amazing the whole area was. We stayed at the Polynesian Resort, and riding the monorail to the Magic Kingdom for the first time was unbelievable!!!!

I had the blessed opportunity to be a Magic Kingdom Tour Guide 11 years later - so the Magic Kingdom will always have an extra special place in my heart!

I was only 3 on my first trip and all I remember is meeting mickey and bits of a show with a cake and a surprise that I thought I made up, until a few years ago when I found out that there WAS a show called Minnie's Surprise Party :)
However, the first trip I remember I was in grade 5 and my family ran into my best friends family on main street on our very first day at the parks in the morning. We ended up spending pretty much everyday with their family and their enthusiasm and love for Disney for sure helped me love it so much. I remember crying my eyes out for almost a year after that trip everytime a Disney World commercial came on because I missed it so much... it was like being homesick! I'm 23 now and I've been to Disney 10 times and 5 of those were with that same best friend. Last summer we did a two week trip just the two of us... something we hopefully will do many times again!

I first went to WDW in 2000, when I was 8.... My grandparents and I went with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who are Florida residents who somehow manage to get there twice a year. Because of this, it was more planned as "well, this is just something to do in Florida" than "this is going to be one of the most magical weekends of your entire life...."
Every time I've been there, it has always been with them. I love my family, but it is kind of sad being the only real Disney fan there, especially when the only other young people there have a very "been there, done that" attitude about the whole place.
For example, FantasMic struck me as so beautiful that I nearly wept, and yet, a full 3 minutes before it ended, my aunt went "Well, we better get out of here before the crowds try to leave," and my cousins just nodded and started walking away. I got yelled at for wanting to see the pretty fireworks! :no:
Luckily, I was extremely stubborn and got to see the end anyway, but still... it was depressing. My family doesn't really support the Disney addiction. Oh well, maybe I can go without them someday!

My oh my.........This was back in 1977, our first trip and not knowing anything about Disney. My Dad was an amusement park junkie and thru his work, US Steel, they made the steel for the CR, he was offered into the Magic Kingdom Club, so he said lets take the trip and stay at the CR. We all went, my mother and father, my wife and me and our son, then 5 years old, we took the 1100 mile drive to WDW. Words can not describe what we saw, upon entering the state of Florida it began to rain and our thoughts were, "there goes the vacation" and we were staying for 5 days, couldn't believe we would need more time at an amusement park. Entering and seeing the monorail and then the CR shocked the beejeebers out of us. Checking in was like going to the White House and then hearing then seeing the huge game room we knew we were hooked. The resort was so much fun, swimming, gameroom, restaurants, Bay Lake and the boats we were so overwhelmed and then the room. Never mind we haven't seen or been to the Mk yet so we poured over the info in the room and was more confused but managed to take a monorail ride around the loop and caught our first glimpse of the MK. We couldn't wait for the next morning to check it out, being tired form the travel down, we retired early but hearing a strange sound coming from the lake we ventured out, all of us in our PJ's, Disney makes you feel so at home, we saw the Electrical Water Parade for the first time and were in complete awe.

Now we go to the MK for the first time, ticket books in hand and entering the MK and looking up MainStreet still brings goose bumps, even after 42 trips, memories of those first trips the good feeling we have and have had brings tears to our eyes. There was so much new knowledge we've gained from those early years, not even counting the added parks and attraction in WDW that we decided to stay an extra day and once home we said we had to go back, soon. Now we knew what was there and what we didn't get to see and do that the second trip down was even more exciting.

Fast forward to the present, children grown and gone, parents passed away and me and the wife headed down in 5 days for trip 43. Our daughter came along 7 years after our son and has many a trip and did the CP her senior year of college and went back after college graduation to work for WDW for a year, we did many trip a year during those times, CM discount can't be beat, and they still come along when they can on our trips. Though the trips are different now, memories are reminisced and new one made but nothing can take the feeling of seeing the MK, no matter if it's your first trip or 100th trip, it still stirs the stomach and take us back to the old days. Nothing, nowhere can give us that feeling or the memories we've made on Disney property thru the years, just our little bit of magic, all reserved for us.
Thanks for letting me ramble and share.