Pictures From My Family's First EPCOT Center Visit (1983)

rowanb73

Earning My Ears
Joined
Sep 27, 2012
I'm jealous that I can't write a trip report for last weekend's celebration of Epcot's 30th birthday (well, I could, but since I didn't actually go I didn't think it would be in good form to start my disboards posting career off with a lie), but I did recently unearth pictures from my family's first visit to EPCOT Center. It was actually my third Disney World trip, but given the recent celebration of Epcot's past this seems like a good time to share this.

* NOTE: I'm not sure how the images will look after converting this report to a format that I can post on this board, so if you want to see this in its original form, then I also posted on my blog.

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By March of 1983, my family had already visited Walt Disney World twice, but 1982 brought a couple significant changes. The year started with the birth of my only sibling, when my sister was born in February, then Disney World's Magic Kingdom added a sibling of its own, when EPCOT Center opened in October. Thus, this pictures that my father took commemorate our first visit to Disney World's second theme park!

[NOTE: I'm not sure why we have so few pictures of Future World, but I suspect it is because we visited those attractions later in the day and probably didn't have the high speed film needed to take effective night photographs]

We did follow Disney's tips and visit Future World's attractions in the evening and avoided some of the ridiculously long wait times for the new attractions.

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This was the first time we stayed on the Disney property and the view from the Contemporary, along with our Gold Key card kinda spoiled me from vacations to come.

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My parents really liked the topiary on the road to the Contemporary. This was the first time I ever heard the word "topiary" and I recall not being very happy that we stopped the car to take these photographs. I liked being in the parks, at the hotel, and on the monorail, and during this photo session we were doing none of those things.

Topiary1983-01.jpg



We visited the Disney Village Marketplace, on the way to our Breakfast a la Disney at the Empress Lilly Riverboat. This area looks quite a bit different these days.

EmpressLilly1983-01.jpg


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We also stopped to eat at the Polynesian Village Resort at least one day (maybe more, since I know we liked the old Coral Isle Cafe). I didn't realize we had an actual picture of the catamarans on the Polynesian beach

Polynesian1983-05.jpg



OK. Now that you have a feel for Walt Disney World in the 1980's, let's see what EPCOT Center looked like.
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We'll work our way around World Showcase, starting in Mexico
ECGuide-Map.jpg


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China, where my father seemed to like taking a lot of pictures every year
Epcot1983-China01.jpg



Germany
Epcot1983-Germany04.jpg



Italy
Epcot1983-Italy01.jpg



The United States, where were didn't seem to take pictures, but I guess living in Philadelphia we weren't too impressed by the faux-colonial style building (over the years, I've grown more impressed)
Epcot1983-WorldShowcase07.jpg



Japan
Epcot1983-Japan01.jpg



France
Epcot1983-France01.jpg



The United Kingdom
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Canada
Epcot1983-Canada01.jpg



Other World Showcase pictures, including some of the bus transportation that used to be available around the loop of countries
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As I mentioned above, we didn't seem to take pictures around Future World, but since it's required by law to take at least one picture of Spaceship Earth whenever you visit Epcot (or EPCOT Center), my father did catch the park's icon from the monorail station
Epcot1983-SpaceshipEarth01.jpg
 
I found this by googling Epcot 1983:) Our first trip was January or February of this year and we stayed at Contemporary as well! I don't have any photos, so this is amazing. Thank you for posting:)
 



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