WDW Restaurants Photo Gallery – April 1975

A remarkable set of slides dated April 1975 capture a necessary and notable part of any theme park: The dining establishments. When we get a set of slides like this with no context as to their origin we are left to speculate or create our own backstory. At RetroWDW we choose to believe this set of slides was taken by a person doing research on how Disney does counter service and buffeteria-style dining. You’ll notice photos...Read More...

Oldman Slide Collection Returns! – 1980 slides of WDW

Today we return to the Oldman Collection – A set of slides chronicling 5 visits to Walt Disney World of a couple in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1983 and 1985. You can see the previously released 1978 visit here: https://www.retrowdw.com/pictorial-souvenir/brians-slide-carousel/wdw-september-1978-gallery-brian/ Some things you’ll see in this December 1980 visit: Lake Buena Vista & the Empress Lily decked out for the Holidays Brer Fox violating OSHA regulations A series of photos of Big Thunder Mountain because it had...Read More...

Slides of the Magic Kingdom from November 1979

This slide set from November 1979 features the Magic Kingdom in all its autumn splendor. As always we’re treated to lots of pictures of the afternoon parade. Back then each year ushered in a new parade and “Dumbo’s Circus Parade” was the 1979 theme. It features scary clowns in a miniature fire engine, Donald Duck in his fortune telling getup, Dumbo in a burning firehouse and plenty of other interesting and unique parade floats not seen...Read More...

Over 130 unique Magic Kingdom Slides from 1979

Recently Brian has been scanning hundreds of slides to add to our pictorial souvenir. This latest set comes from January 1979 and has a few interesting things to see: Interior of the Town Square Barber Shop Interior of the Main Street Clock Shop Interior of Crystal Palace Interior of the Main Street Ceramics Shop Interior of King Stefan’s Banquet Hall (now Cinderella’s Royal Table) On-ride photos of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride On-ride photos of Snow White’s...Read More...

Amazing slides that show a brand new Walt Disney World – October 1971

Another fantastic addition to Brian’s Slide Carousel This set of slides labeled Walt Disney World and dated October 1971 came to us by way of an estate sale in Michigan. Because of the date stamp from Kodak we knew the slides were from Walt Disney World’s first days of operation. Thanks to @Gulopine , we think we’ve narrowed the date down, as he wrote the following to us: “The extreme cloudiness got me wondering. Looking back through...Read More...

Walt Disney World Treehouse Villa #433 – 37 years later

Those that follow RetroWDW may remember that Todd’s first visit in 1980 included a stay at the original Treehouse Villas. Demolished in 2008, and subsequently rebuilt, the treehouse were and still are one of the most unique places to stay on WDW property. The newer incarnations share the same location and street layout as they did when they were first built. Other than the obvious differences to the buildings, the seclusion, silence and privacy remain. The...Read More...

204 photos from my 1980 visit to Walt Disney World

In December I released at 30 minute film of my trip to Walt Disney World from 1980, I bet you didn’t know that there were over 200 photos to go along with it. Thanks to the folks at ScanDigital I now have the entire album safely stored in digital format. I sent them the entire album…they went through it page by page, scanned each photo and then re-assembled the album before shipping it back to me...Read More...

10 still images from our 1972 film – Bonus full size frame demo – Vintage WDW!

We know you are all awaiting the restoration of the early WDW home movie film that we recently had converted. We expect, that by 5/9 we can release the first fully restored clip from 1972. But for now here are some resized (but not restored/color corrected) frame captures from our recent 1972 home movie conversion. [ The Film can now be seen here. ] Bonus full size frame at the bottom of the screen! Hmm, something is...Read More...

What A Find! – River Country Photos

When looking around the web, I am always drawn in by the vintage and retro photos people have of WDW.  If you really think about it, the entire complex is photographed so often and even when cameras were “tougher” to use, people still took tons of photos at Disney World. With that being said, the amount of unpublished and even un-digitized photos has to be huge. This collection we came across is no exception. These were...Read More...

Rare Personal WDW Construction Photos by “Bud” Benedum

Kelly Gallagher, granddaughter of the late Wilbert Charles "Bud" Benedum (pictured to the left) has given us permission to showcase the photos that her grandfather personally took during the construction of WDW. Mr. Benedum was the Chief Engineer of construction for the monorail at the time and he documented the construction of WDW through many wonderful photos. This is just the first photos that Kelly will be sharing with us over the next few weeks.Read More...