As a kid in the 60's I watched Walt present his plans for WDW on The Wonderful World of Disney. I was so excited to see such a park! My parents never traveled anywhere. In those days a vacation was spent visiting family 5 hrs away. In Dec. of 1980 my husband and I traveled to Fla. during Christmas vacation. On a whim we stopped at WDW. We even managed to get a spot at FW for 2 nights. Can you imagine walking up and getting a camping site during Christmas week today?
My son was 10mo old at the time and I still remember waiting in line for 2 hrs with him to get on Dumbo--its one of my most cherished Disney pics.
Same here.
Growing up in the Cleveland area in the 70's we lived very close to the now-defunct Sea World park there, close enough that when I worked there in '76 and '77 I could ride my bike to work. My sister Claire started there the year it opened. She spent a few summers during high school working there, then moved into a position in Park Operations, and was offered a job at the Orlando park when they opened it.
We usedto visit her in Orlando when the only thing on International Drive was a Howard Johnson's (still there), a McDonald's (still there) and a Sheraton hotel (the one near Universal with the globe on top of it). She lived off Sand Lake road in an area which is now Universal Studios.
The only park was the Magic Kingdom, you paid a low price for admission and bought A, B, C, D, and E tickets for the rides. 'E' tickets were used for the big attractions, Haunted Mansion, PotC, etc. At the time, Sea World and Disney would give each other's employees free admission tickets to the parks. Folks who visited Claire would give her their left-over Disney ticket books. My first visit to WDW, we sat in traffic on I-4 to get to the MK - it was THAT crowded. We waited almost three hours to ride PotC.
When mom and dad retired, they would snow-bird down to Orlando in thier motorhome and stay at the old Yogi Bear campground that was along I-4 across from Sea World. Mom would work at Sea World, dad would work at the campground. One season he spent the entire winter replacing every single picnic table in the place. Eventually they bought a house in Plant City, and the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park campground went the way of the dinosaur. Last time I drove by the place, it still had not been developed and you could still see where the campsites were. It is a PRIME piece of real estate. If you go to
http://maps.google.com, and zoom in on the Orlando area, then choose satellite view - directly west of the Orange County Convention Center, across I-4 on the west side of Turkey Lake Road - I'm pretty sure that is where it was.
It was very nice campground, and probably could be again.
But our first visit to WDW was while on our Honeymoon in 1973. We stayed in Daytona Beach and drove over three times to visit the MK, which was all there was. We have 180 pictures from those visits.
. So, I started doing a little research and here's what I found: http://ebdevelopers.com/project_details.php?CategoryID=6&ProductID=9 Just what Orlando needs, another hotel! 
I still can't watch that movie...or hear that song!
