The First Time's The Best Time

[lady ulrike]

Cast previews. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

No, you caught me, it was a typo (now corrected). My first visit was 1958. Still before the invention of the E-coupon.

Yeah, the Cast preview line doesn't really work either since, I believe, they didn't start working on the park until June or July in 1954, so unless you were previewing the orange orchards....... :D:

[TdcOgre]

Our first trip to WDW in March of ' 93.

We rented a van and drove all day and part of the night, thinking, "We'll trade off sleeping and driving. There'll be no problem." Ha! Little did we know the sleep inducing effects of Quarter Pounders w/cheese. Anyway, after trying to drive up a palm tree, we attempted to find a motel room in Ocala. A motel room in Ocala during spring break, yeah right! This led us to a rest stop along the Interstate. Unfortunately, this particular rest stop was being frequented by people selling pharmaceuticals from
their car trunks. We and two other families spent a long night parked under one security light, while those folks did business under another. Somehow we got to CBR the next morning and got out of the van. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the flowers were in bloom and the temperature was in the 70's. (When we'd left northern Indiana it’d been a balmy 32 degrees.) To top it all off, there was a CM driving a little tractor smoothing out the footprints in the sand at the beach. This was the moment that hooked me on Disney. Have things gone downhill at Disney since then? Yes, somewhat. But I'm still drawn back by the memories of that first perfect morning.

[Ms. Matterhorn]

For me it was January 11, 1958. Disneyland was so new they didn't even *have* E-coupons yet.
Some of the fences were chain link painted white -- not something you'll find there today!

1958 for me too. I was six. I wore a little red dress. I cried on Snow White. We had those white painted chain link fences in Fantasyland when I worked there in 1974.

[mechurchlady]

about 1959 for my second birthday or was it 1960 for my third, will ask mom.

[Theme Park Where]

December 1971 at the shiny new Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom. I didn't realize it was shiny new until about 20 years later when I started working there and figured out that the first time we'd gone had been right after they opened.

[I LUV Chip]

February 27, 1995. Our honeymoon. We stayed off site at a Marriot. But we really didn't spend a lot of time at the parks until we took the kids in March 2005. :D:

[Mayonnaise]

I first went to WDW in Summer 1995. I was 10 and 1/2, and the airplane had some pressure regulation error or something about halfway to Florida, that made everyone way more uncomfortable than I've ever been on a plane since. It felt like that ear pressure you get during takeoff... for the last hour and a half of the flight. Then I had to fly home with residual fluids in my ear from an ear infection. I was pleasantly surprised how little pain there actually is involved in a proper flight when we went back in '98 right after Animal Kingdom opened which is also the last time I was there.

8^)

[DisneyMom]

I must have been about 4 so about 1967. my grandparents would take us in to walk around probably during the week, and I don't remember it being crowded. If we were lucky, we could go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, My Favorite.
I remember being able to go on Dumbo a couple times as well, and always the Railroad. Dinosaurs! :) A couple times The Jungle Cruise and the Matterhorn. We have old home movies somewhere.....

[ktulu]

I remember going to WDW with my dad and seeing a 1/2 finished spaceship earth.

[BRWombat]

Disneyland, July 5, 1982, the summer after graduating from high school, while on a church choir tour.

I have to admit that for the first half of the day I didn't get Disneyland. I'd been raised on a couple of pretty decent Denver-area amusement parks, Elitch's (way before it was moved and bastardized into a generic Six Flags monstrosity) and Lakeside, both of which had awesome old, scary wooden roller coasters and a variety of other carnival-type thrill rides.

I knew of Disney parks' reputations, so when I finally got to DL, I expected most of the rides to be like the ones I was used to, only scarier or more thrilling. As you might expect, I found most of their rides to be pretty tame, and I wondered what the big deal was. And then, about halfway into the day, it hit me -- Disney wasn't trying to scare me, but trying to make me smile. And I had to admit the rides, park, theming, music, even the queues were magic.

At that moment I fell in love with Disney parks and had a blast. The day was capped off with getting a great spot on Main Street to view the original Main Street Electrical Parade. This teenage (at the time) guy was smiling real big and almost in tears from the magic of it all.

If things go according to plan, my second visit to Disneyland will be on an anniversary of that first visit: July 5, 2009, the day after the Vocal Majority competes for another gold medal at the international convention of the Barbershop Harmony Society!