I need to give my wife credit for what I believe are some of our most interesting articles and ideas. Recently, she reminded me that my grandparents have bags of tickets, brochures, old postcards, and all kinds of invaluable travel documents that they acquired from all of their travels. I always knew my grandma held onto everything from traveling, but it was not until my wife mentioned I should gather the documents, start scanning them, and researching them to find out their story, did I really start appreciating that my grandma held on to this stuff all these years.
My grandma showed up with bag #1 with various different Disney World tickets and documents, as well as various other cool travel documents. I will slowly be scanning them in and trying to document some more of the history behind the pieces. I think I have found some very interesting pieces of history. Several of the items I believe to be so rare, I have not been able to find very much, if any information on. If anyone has any additional history behind some of the items, please feel free to share.
To start off, we have two 1972 parking tickets from Walt Disney World. What I find most amazing was that my grandparents decided to head down to Florida for Disney World the year after it opened, and to top it off, they took along my mom and her two sisters. My grandma reminded me that the vehicles did not have air conditioning back then, and they traveled with the windows down because of the heat. My grandparents fondly remembered my mom and her sisters hanging their feet out the windows waiving at passer-byres. I now know where I get the desire to travel with my kids everywhere, as my grandparents always took their three daughters, and my parents always took my sister and I everywhere. So I now consider it a family tradition and upbringing.
1972 Walt Disney World Parking Pass Front
Ticket prices for parking in 1972 were $0.50 with $0.48 going to Disney and $0.02 in State tax. Can you imagine paying only $0.50 to park when it now will cost you $14 in 2012? Believe it or not, tickets to the Magic Kingdom were only $3.75 in 1972. What we all would do for such affordable admission prices now.
In 1972, you also only had the Magic Kingdom as Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and the Animal Kingdom were yet to be constructed. Think of it this way though, 40 years from now, we will be looking back at 2012 prices and wishing we could pay them.
1972 Walt Disney World Parking Pass Rear
What I like about the rear of the tickets is that they had a map of the Magic Kingdom parking sections, and one could write where they parked for easy finding your vehicle at the end of the day. An interesting fact is that the sections remained classic character names up until late 2011, when they were switched over to a Hero’s and Villain’s arrangement. The transformation is suppose to provide helpful visual clues to guests (somehow the previous ones must not have worked well after almost 40 years) as well as help divide the parking lots into two distinct sections with corresponding trams.
So there you have it, classic 1972 WDW parking tickets. While it may seem trivial and worthless, I find it charming that my grandparents held onto these tickets for 40 years. In addition, I feel they tell their own history of the park, that from my research, I have not been able to find anywhere else on the internet.
If you have some old travel tickets, brochures, or anything else that you feel is interesting, please feel free to send me a high quality scan as well as any history you may have, and we will get it posted. Thanks! Save Money, Travel More.
Do you still have the little Disney vouchers for rides from back then? I recently found some old ones. I can’t believe they used to have to do that.
Actually, we were excited that there were some in the bag. I did not even know what they were as they were long before my time. I will be posting more about them in the future!
Having just returned from Disney, all I can say is Wow – I can’t believe it cost so little for parking and admission in 1972! Amazing that you grandmother kept all these documents – what a treasure!
Yeah, I am really excited to see what other stuff she can find in her attic, as she already eluded to some of the other neat items she know about.
Do you have any E-tickets hanging around? Those were my favorites, although we never had any E’s left over because they were for the best rides. Almost always brought home an “A” ticket or two. I kind of like the map on the back of the ticket idea though. Wonder why they got rid of that?
I had no knowledge of these tickets until my grandmother pulled them out of the bag and explained the tickets to me. Unfortunately, there were no E tickets, but several of all the others. They were the precursor to the FastPass system.
FYI, the “Complementary” ticket was given to WDW hotel guests in their welcome package, one for each day of their stay! This was before computers that would print your a pass with your name, hotel and dates of your stay.
Mark, thank you so much because I specifically asked my grandmother why one was marked complimentary, and she could not recall why. So you filled in a valuable piece of the puzzle!
I Love this! It is so cool to look back and see these types of souvenirs – so much better than a stuffed animal!
Thank you for sharing it with us!!
Thanks! I have found a real interest lately in all the cool, nostalgic items related to traveling, and can not wait to see what else we can find.
These mementos are so interesting and cool. What a great keepsake for your family. Those prices were crazy cheap but back then probably seemed like a lot. We were at WDW in 2008 so I haven’t seen the Hero/villain parking configuration yet.
At first thought, I would think people are crazy to have held onto this type of stuff, but 40 years later, I am thankful that my grandparents did hang onto the items, at least from a memory standpoint.
That is really cool!
What a great walk down memory lane. Thanks for sharing.