Here are four more images from the Magic Kingdom's first few months.
There's the stately Haunted Mansion across the river. I love that the Florida Mansion has its own unique architectural style, with amazing attention to detail.
Main Street USA is so darn huge that you need a much bigger marching band to make an impact during a parade. In this case the band appears to be made up of school kids rather than the grizzled veterans at Disneyland. Note to self: buy some stripey pants.
This is a great shot of the extinct "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" attraction, with the Skyway overhead. The Harper Goff subs really do look like sea monsters from this angle, and that lagoon looks considerably bigger than its Anaheim counterpart. Isn't this where the new Little Mermaid attraction is located now?
This picture was so dark that I couldn't do much with it; still, maybe some of you will enjoy seeing it anyway. That tower to our left is part of the Tropical Serenade attraction, aka the Tiki Room.
Stay tuned for more Walt Disney World images!
It's interesting to see what will eventually become Tom Sawyer Island in front of the Haunted Mansion. I can see the tombstones to the left and the show building is partially visible from the brand new landscape. This view is rare in that there's no canopy on the queue area yet to protect guests from the hot sun.
ReplyDeleteWhile the "new" Fantasyland occupies the general area of the extinct "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" attraction, the Seven Dwarfs Mine coaster (under construction) actually sits on the footprint of the long gone lagoon. The Little Mermaid attraction is located more on the former 20,000 Leagues show building site that was in back of the lagoon.
Beautiful set of images today. Its so nice to see early Walt Disney World. They really seem rare compared to vintage Disneyland. Thanks for posting these.
Great pics, Major! I can never get enough photographs of the early days of WDW and these are real beauties. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to WDW. I confess that every set of WDW pictures I see leaves me feeling that the place is "too big". I understand they built it for crowds and I know what DL feels like on a crowded day, but I can't escape the largeness of the design.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the old saying is true...stripes make everything look bigger?
Love the pics as always!!
Bill in Denver
Am not certain if stripes make things 'bigger', but in this case definitely shapelier. (Clearly, as if additional confirmation were needed, the second pic is from the pre Super-Size days). Thanks Major for more great images from WDW, and to you too, K. Martinez for your always informative commentary.
ReplyDeleteThat guy in the stripey pants has got it goin' on. Love the shopping bag in the center of that picture.
ReplyDeleteI'm generally a big fan of trees, but man, oh, man, that top picture reinforces my belief that there needs to be a serious pruning project around the Mansion today. What little you can see of the house is almost dwarfed by the trees that surround it now. It doesn't loom like it used to.
So 20,000 Leagues looks like it had a dual loading dock with a series of drawbridges to get to the loading island for the second lane. So that would mean there was an underwater switch track both before and after the loading to get the two tracks merged to one for the rest of the attraction.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty cool! To the best of my memory, our subs on the westcoast have only loaded from one lane.
K. Martinez, thanks for the clarification as to where the Little Mermaid attraction is in relation to 20K. And strangely, it does seem to be a bit harder to find good vintage WDW photos, for some reason.
ReplyDeletePegleg Pete, stay tuned, there will be more!
Bill, I haven't been to WDW either, but at this point I feel like I would be prepared for the size difference. That's not to say that it wouldn't have an impact, but it can't be a surprise at this point!
Nanook, horizontal stripes make things look prisony-er!
Melissa, it has to be a a tough call to tear out a big beautiful tree, though I know what you mean. I seem to remember reading that they used to dose trees with hormones or something to keep them from growing so fast, but maybe that was BS.
Kevin, that is an interesting idea! It could be that one of the slips was for boats that weren't being used, maybe they could put them "on line" if the crowds were big?
Kevin...like the DL version of the subs, 20,000 Leagues only loaded from one lane. It looks as though a sub is being brought online from the storage spur in this shot. The bridges in the picture are actually the loading dock apparatus that would drop down over the subs as two parallel lines would file into the sub at the same time (the two pairs of stairs on each end, were straight in, unlike the spiral stairs at DL). Unload would happen at the other end of the sub. Much like the way the theatres are setup at the MK.
ReplyDeleteFun pictures today. Hard to imagine so much empty real estate when you visit the park today :)
ReplyDeleteEspecially love the Skyway and 20,000 Leagues. Luckily my daughter got to ride on it for her only time in the last year before it went away....boo!
Cant wait to see more :-)