Old times at Disney

[YesDear]

I just found a tray of slides from my first trip to WDW in June of 1981. I will share some of them on this thread. We stayed at this brand new place called Vistana! I know some of you were not even born when these were taken.

How long has it been since we saw the side street as MK look like this?

These will all be slides scanned and converted! Either Ekatchrome or Kodachrome. No exif!! Taken with a Nikon F2 or FE

 

[luvmyfam444]

I remember that look - though I was a kid back then! LOL

What are you gonna convert your slides in? My mom has nothing but slides from when we were growing up (hence I have no pics of my childhood to show my kids)....I need to get her to convert them - but I'm not so sure she's not scared of ruining them....

 

[GoofyontheHiSeas]

1981, come on John lets go back a little futher. This is my first trip to
Adventureland at Disneyland sometime in 1955-56. I am the short one.

Tomorrowland around the same time.

When I was a little older with Mickey and Minnie

 

[YesDear]

I have an Epson scanner that can scan slides or negatives. I will scan them as TIFFs then do any fixing or alterations in photoshop or capture nx2. Then sort and store!

I recently scanned some 60 year old slides of my sister's father in law and fixed and printed and they looked like new!

 

[wenrob]

So cool! I have one or two from Disneyland in the 70's they are in really bad shape though.

I just read about scanning in TIFF. What dpi do you scan at? I've read 300 is plenty and then others say as high as you can go.

 

[Todd_H]

These are great, John and Roger! Please keep 'em coming (if it's not too much trouble).

I have some old pictures from my first WDW trip in 1974 (I was 2, had a bad ear infection in BOTH ears, and my dad drove us down there from NC pulling an airstream). My parents must have been crazy to go ahead with that trip with a screaming 2 year-old. As a matter of fact, there is one picture I distinctly remember where we pulled over at a rest stop and I'm sitting on a picnic table just wailing (I think dad took that shot to cherish the memory).

I'll have to dig them out and scan them.

 

[OK!]

Thanks for posting these! I absolutely LOVE looking at pics of DL and WDW back in the day.

 

[annnewjerz]

How fun! The flower carts are puuuurdy. Unfortunately I have to say that I have no such old pictures of WDW---as I am one of those that you mentioned that wasn't even born in 1981.

I do have some pictures from this island that we visited while in WDW that had birds, monkeys, etc. on it. I think it was a ferry ride from the MK. No clue where it was or what happened to it, but I do remember getting pooped on! Ah, memories

Edited to add: I don't know why I never just Google'd it, it's Discovery Island!

 

[ukcatfan]

How fun! The flower carts are puuuurdy. Unfortunately I have to say that I have no such old pictures of WDW---as I am one of those that you mentioned that wasn't even born in 1981.

I do have some pictures from this island that we visited while in WDW that had birds, monkeys, etc. on it. I think it was a ferry ride from the MK. No clue where it was or what happened to it, but I do remember getting pooped on! Ah, memories

Edited to add: I don't know why I never just Google'd it, it's Discovery Island!

It was closed when AK opened. They moved some of the animals from it to AK as well. I loved going there as a kid and wish I could have taken my children before they closed it.

I was born before '81, visited WDW every year but two since '76, but was not into taking pictures at that young age. I think my parents have plenty of shots from back then though.

 

[annnewjerz]

It was closed when AK opened. They moved some of the animals from it to AK as well. I loved going there as a kid and wish I could have taken my children before they closed it.

Just read that on Wiki---who would have thought!! I guess I just always assumed they closed it like they did with River Country and that was it. Glad to read the animals were relocated, like my personal faves from Discovery Island, the Golden Taramin Lion Monkeys.

(I, obviously, didn't take this pic---I borrowed it from Google. That would be impressive for an 6 year old though )

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I'll share a few pics from the late 60's and 70's that I scanned awhile ago. Most of these I submitted, and they were used, in several of the 50th anniversary mosaics that were done at Disneyland. I didn't do much more than scan and auto-correct in a program I can't even remember. I will have to try and do a better job some day. And I'll also have to get around to scanning many old WDW pics.

I think Dad looked pretty cool in his sunglasses. And of course me in my Mickey Ears with my name on the back! Can you guess who was taking the picture? As a clue - my Dad did not carry a purse! LOL

I still remember this ride - I couldn't keep the car going straight and it was a constant banging from side to side. Dad was not very impressed I must add.

And this one from a year or two earlier. One of those rare characters that I'm glad was removed from roaming. He was mean and gave me nightmares for a long time. I wouldn't have thought that pinching his nose would give such a reaction!

Donald was pretty nice though!

I think this may be from Knotts Berry Farm but AFAIK it could also be a DL ride that was removed. I'm betting on Knotts but I still have my DL leather beaded vest on! Obviously Dad wouldn't go again so he sent my Grandma for the adventure - she never ever had a drivers license!

These are from 1974 with DS and DBIL.

Last one - from 1974 again.

 

[Groucho]

I just bought a box of film stuff from a pro photographer just to get a bunch of archival negative storage pages and this morning I completed sticking all my negatives (that I can find!) in them, hopefully I'll get back into scanning them soon. I don't have the really old ones but my parents do have shots of me on our first trip to WDW back in the '70s, there was also a DL trip in 1982. Man, even the kid's clothes were pretty scary back then! Eek!

I just read about scanning in TIFF. What dpi do you scan at? I've read 300 is plenty and then others say as high as you can go.

I would skip TIFF and got with a lossless compressed format like PNG. If you're scanning slides or negatives, you'll want a lot more than 300 dpi - my Nikon scanner scans them at 4000 dpi and you get a photo that's somewhere about 5600x3700 pixels.

If you're scanning prints, 300 dpi is plenty for a 4x6 shot. A larger shot could be done at lower dpi.

Donald was pretty nice though!

I assume that this was before we all had to bail out Bank of America. (As seen in the background.)

 

[luvmyfam444]

KAt - I remember those cars - And I've never been to Knotts Berry Farm - I thought they were over there near Toon Town someplace....
I'll wait & see what the experts say....

 

[GoofyontheHiSeas]

A few more from early DL.

And here is one of IASW at the 1964 Worlds Fair in NY.

 

[oregondaddyof2]

CRAZY!!! I was born in 1981m so it is awesome to see pics of DL and WDW back before then... Like others have said, keep them comming!!

 

[zackiedawg]

I only have dug up a few so far from family albums that I borrowed, but I have a long Disney history. My first Disney trip was in 1971, when my grandmother drove us down from NJ for some big new theme park - being 3, I didn't know much about Walt and his California park! We were there opening month, and decided we would make it an annual pilgrimage. In 1974, my parents divorced and my mother moved us to California...now we could go to that OTHER Disney park! We lived in Long Beach, which is quite close, so we went 4 or 5 times a year. As if that wasn't good enough for a Disney boy like me...we would go to Florida once a year so she could visit her mother (my grandmother) who had decided in 1975 to move to Florida...you can guess where we chose as the meeting place! In 1976, my mother moved us to Florida to live closer to her mother, and we were hitting Disney World 4 or 5 times a year. That lasted through 1990, when I graduated college (went to college in New Orleans, but still Disney'd twice a year on summer break)...and I decided to move to...California! I lived there until 1994, visiting Disneyland at least 6 or 7 times a year (missing Disney World though!!). In 1994, I moved back to Florida, and back to Disney World. Annual passes had become available, a few years later I bought into DVC, and I've continued my tradition of never missing a Disney park any year since 1971.

I have a few scans from 1974 at Magic Kingdom:

I'm on the left in the above shot, and seated in the below shot:

Here's a 1986 shot of River Country, with Discovery Island in the foreground:

A very lonely Contemporary in 1983 or 1984 (no BLT, no Convention Center, no Wilderness Lodge):

1984 - center rotunda in front of castle - lots of trees, planters...and no Partners statue:

Long line for Space Mountain...with the old space men (I'm leaning on the trash can in the back)...circa 1984:

Still 1984...Pecos Bill much more open, and the train station sitting out in prominence...Splash Mountain wasn't there yet:

1983 - Double-decker busses were still running around Epcot World Showcase:

1983 - Who remembers Horizons? Before there was a Mission Space:

I don't have any photos of my own from before 1997 - they were usually snapped by family...so I have to see if I can get a hold of some more shoeboxes of photos to go through and see what else I can dig up!

 

[YesDear]

I think that pictures are also great to see. There is a picture I do not want to see though. The 25th anniversary Pepto Bismol castle! Please if you have one, spare us all!

Trust me if you have not seen it you do not want to!

 

[jann1033]

Last one - from 1974 again.

you look like you were one groovy, in fashion chick with those pants
my first wdw trip was in the 80s but i have no photos to prove it. nice to see the flower carts, i do remember them cause it really impressed me how even the more out of the way placesin the park were so pretty/well kept. and i loved horizons.
thanks for the memories

 

[Todd_H]

Here's a 1986 shot of River Country, with Discovery Island in the foreground:

Ah, River Country. I really wish Disney could do something to bring it back, but I think pollution in the Lake has prevented it.

Long line for Space Mountain...with the old space men (I'm leaning on the trash can in the back)...circa 1984:

Wow, I had forgotten all about those Space Guys in front of SM.

1983 - Who remembers Horizons? Before there was a Mission Space:

I always liked Horizons. It was my favorite ride in Epcot. I can still remember the tune from it's theme song.

Thanks for posting these, zackiedawg. They definitely bring back some great memories from my childhood visits to WDW.

 

[mouselovenfamily]

I think that pictures are also great to see. There is a picture I do not want to see though. The 25th anniversary Pepto Bismol castle! Please if you have one, spare us all!

Trust me if you have not seen it you do not want to!

I was just looking at that photo the other day...

It was on my kids first trip to Disney. I was bummed that I couldn't get the "castle shot" of my kids due to the new look.