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.

With the business and excitement of Christmas day, we decided to set the DVR to record the Disney Parks Christmas Day parade. As we settled down Christmas evening to enjoy each other and all of the toys with the boys, we decided to watch the parades (pre-recorded from Disneyland and Walt Disney World) and reminisce about our time at World last year and our coming trip to Disneyland in the summer of 2012. It was fun not only watching the boys play with their things but also enjoying all of their favorite characters dancing down Main Street USA.

Near the end of the parade, Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos announced details of the 2012 campaign at the Disney Parks, One More Disney Day. At 8:00 11:00 PM EST on December 31, 2011, during the Dick Clark New Year’s Rock-n-Eve broadcast, Disney will announce the details of the new campaign. Unfortunately, the official Disney website does not release any early information yet except a very cool video counting down until the announcement.

The Disney organization has a very moving way of exciting the audience in the new video. It is one of the many reason’s Walt Disney has always been an inspiration and role model to me. Most notably because it is incredibly moving to me to see how one man’s vision makes millions of kids (and adults) happy by embracing the magic. How can it not bring goosebumps to one’s skin seeing kids light up after seeing their favorite character point them out during a parade. Every ounce of you gets wrapped up in the magic of the entertainment as you walk through those gates and into the Parks. It is that magic that is priceless and what we hope to capture in our hearts as we take our boys in 2012.

While there are rumors that the campaign has something to do with the leap year and possibly being open continuously over the leap day, it is far from a year long promotion like previous years. More than likely, Disney will offer a promotion to earn an additional day at the parks. In the last (2010) big ticket promotion, Disney offered guests who volunteered a day a free ticket to use at the Disney Parks in 2010. It was an awesome promotion, and just as fast as registration went live, it filled up and was booked. We debated about doing it, but never did since we did not think we would be able to use the tickets. Unfortunately, we ended up going over Thanksgiving as a last minute decision and could have used the tickets if we had planned properly.

Luckily, in 2012, we plan on going to Disneyland, so we will be closely watching to see what the new campaign entails. I have to believe the promotion will be available for use over the entire year, and not just over Leap Day, but we will not know until New Year’s Eve.

Update 12/31/11: Details were announced tonight for the One More Disney Day promotion. First the details. As expected, the Disney Parks (Disneyland and Disney World) will remain open for 24-hours on leap day, February 29, 2012. In addition, every day until Leap Day, Disney will give away a vacation package plus some special offer.

In addition, there is an option to get One More Disney Day:

Spend an extra night for free at either a Disneyland Resort Hotel or a Walt Disney World Resort hotel when you book a Room and Ticket Package for 3 nights or more, between February 26 and March 10, 2012. Purchase before January 31, 2012.

Note the travel date restrictions. Now for my opinion. The offer is weak at best and is not a typical year long celebration like in years past. Basically, Disney is giving away a free night if you come during a very slow time of year. Oh, and if you happen to come over Leap Day, you can stay for 24 hours. Just my idea of a not so good time; being at the park when they are at capacity because they will surely do so. In other words, this promotion appeals to only a small handful of willing participants, and is not going to move people to want to come to Disney just to partake in this event. A family is more likely to use the free Dining offers at other times of the year before this promotion.

I was hopeful this promotion would spark some magic in my wallet for our Disneyland tickets, but besides the lovely video on the website now live, there is no reason to jump the gun on this one. If we win the daily contest though, I will be sure to let everyone know my opinion has been bought by the Mouse.