Flashback Friday

                  

We're about half way through summer now, and it seems like everybody and their brother has either gone to or is going to Disney World.  It made me reminisce about my trip to Disney World when I was 11 years old.  (And yes, there was a Disney World way back then.)  Back in the day, there was no pay-one-price-and-ride-everything admission - there were Adventure Ticket Books.

The books contained a transportation ticket (you could choose the trams, monorail or ferry boats), an admission ticket and a various amount of individual ride tickets in different denominations from "A" to "E".  Yep, back in the day the rides required a separate individual ticket.  If by chance you just wanted to walk through the park, you could buy a general admission ticket that included your transporation ticket and admission to the park and you could wander around the park and take in any show or attraction that didn't require a ticket - such as the Diamond Horseshoe Review, the WED Way People Mover, or the General Electric Carousel of Progress.  Incidentally, Walt Disney declared the "Carousel of Progress" his favorite Disney World attraction, and proclaimed that it would never cease operation.  But back to the tickets.

The basic book contained one A ticket, one B ticket, two C tickets, three D tickets and three E tickets.  The A tickets were for the kiddie rides and tame rides, such as the Main Street Vehicles or Cinderella's Golden Carousel.  The E tickets were for the newest, most expensive and popular rides and attractions, like the Pirates of the Caribbean.  Even though there were more D and E tickets in the books than other denominations, there still never seemed to be enough.  So Disney set up ticket booths throughout the park where you could buy additional tickets.  The tickets ranged in price from 10 cents for the A tickets to 90 cents for the coveted E tickets. 

Most people would leave the park with some A and B tickets left.  If you were lucky like I was on my visit, you could score their leftovers.  I remember being given 8 extra A tickets bykind strangers as they were leaving, so I stayed driving the Main Street Vehicles for about an hour. 

Today, people still use the phrase "E ticket" to refer to something that is unusually thrilling, interesting, or expensive.  In Gwen Stefani's song "Orange County Girl", she sings "I know I'm living the E ticket dream, for the girl from O.C., it's almost unheard of."  Astronaut Sally Ride commented on riding in the Space Shuttle "This is definitely an E ticket!"