Twenty archive images have pulled Walt Disney World’s first year back into view. The newly released collection follows the shape of a 1971 vacation, beginning at the resort hotels and continuing through the ride to Magic Kingdom, an A-through-E ticket book and an evening beside Seven Seas Lagoon.
Every photograph in the collection dates to the resort’s first year of operation. Many were digitized specifically for the 55th-anniversary feature.
A resort built around the whole vacation
The Contemporary’s 184-foot A-frame held roughly 1,500 modular guest rooms, each assembled nearby and lifted into the structure. Across Seven Seas Lagoon, the Polynesian Village opened on October 1, 1971 with 492 rooms on 39 acres. Fort Wilderness followed in November, spreading campsites and recreation across about 600 acres with a nightly price of $11.
The photos make the differences plain: Mary Blair’s towering mural inside the Contemporary, the Polynesian’s original eight longhouses, and an Airstream parked among the pines at Fort Wilderness.
The trip to Magic Kingdom
Guests arriving by car paid 50 cents to park, then continued from the Transportation and Ticket Center by Monorail, tram or an Osceola-class sidewheeler. The familiar ferryboats did not begin carrying guests to Magic Kingdom until July 1972.
Inside the park, six lands surrounded Cinderella Castle. Admission still worked through A-through-E ticket books, with the E coupons saved for the biggest attractions. One photographed adult book cost $5.75 and included admission, 11 adventures and Walt Disney World transportation.
After the park
The evening images move beyond the park gates. Guests danced at the Contemporary’s Top of the World, watched the Polynesian Revue beside the lagoon, joined a Fort Wilderness campfire and saw the Electrical Water Pageant. The water pageant debuted during the resort’s dedication weekend on October 24, 1971.
Explore the complete 1971 feature from the Walt Disney Archives.