Disney TBT - Vintage Tickets From “A” to “E”
Hey, guys! I’m on the road again, southeast a bit from the Wonderful World of Walt, hanging out on the coast for a couple of days with my mom and super dog, Loki. There’s even a leash-free beach so he can meet friends and eye up the ladies. We got here last night, so I wanted to get my TBT up before we get too busy, too tired or too sunburned.
This week I’m taking a break from the Throw-Back-Thursday ride I usually do. In a couple of recent posts, I mentioned “E” Tickets and “A” Tickets, so I thought I’d do this TBT on those. I’m gonna educate you whipper-snappers on some prehistoric Disney!
(Above: A vintage ticket booth displaying ticket packs)
What are the “Tickets”? There are five of them: A, B, C, D and E. Actually, if you’ve ever heard someone say something like, “That’s an “E” ticket ride!”, this is where that saying comes from. I don’t think it will be long before no one remembers or uses that expression, especially the last two generations.
Step one: Immediately upon arriving at the Happiest Place on the east coast, you bought your transportation ticket; you literally had to take the monorail or ferryboat across the Seven Seas Lagoon to get from the parking lots to the Magic Kingdom gate. Now they have buses from the various resorts right to the gate, but that’s a fairly new thing. Disneyland also used the “A to E” ride tickets in the park, but there was no transportation ticket required. When I went to Disneyland the first time, I saw all the people standing in the monorail line, and I asked my friend where they were going. She said, “They’re waiting for the monorail ride.” Ride? They think it’s a ride? OK, weird. There has always been a monorail in my memory, so I guess I always took it for granted. It was just a means to an end for us. What I could never figure out was, instead of having 100,000 flat parking spots, why not build parking structures? Especially at Disneyland where real estate is prime and hard to come by. The new Downtown Disney here at WDW just finished building parking garages and I’m thinking, “What took you guys so long? Did someone not ask the Imagineers about the parking?”
Step two: Once you got across the lagoon, you would pay your park admission fee and buy your ticket books. When Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, in order to get in the park, each person would pay a $3.50 entrance fee (that rate has almost consistently increased every year since and continues to this day…no joke) and then buy their ticket books.
DISNEY TRIVIA! When Disneyland opened, who bought the first ticket for $1 dollar? Walt’s brother Roy (of course!)
I believe there were two standard sizes of “Adventure” books: 8 tickets and 12 tickets. These books came with a variety of each of the lesser rides and about one or two “E” tickets: The golden ticket of Disney rides. There were also special tickets from time to time, for special events or coupons and such. Sometimes if you were staying at either of the only two resorts at the time, they sometimes had special tickets as well.
(Above: An example of a specialty ticket. This person may have had a bad experience or something similar and may been given this ticket by a manager)
The reason there were individual tickets in the first place was because when Walt would go to a World’s Fair or a circus and such, he had to buy an individual ticket for each ride or attraction. Walt followed that idea, but decided to put them together in booklets, and let the guests decide how many and which rides they wanted. They could pick the booklet that most closely suited everyone’s needs. If there wasn’t a book that really met your needs, no worries! You were allowed to “bundle” tickets, even from several books, to get on other rides; bundling before bundling was cool! For example, if you wanted to get on a “C” ticket ride, you could trade in two “A” tickets. And if you didn’t want to deal with that, or you used up your lesser tickets, there were, of course, kiosks within the park where you could purchase additional tickets…namely, those coveted “E” tickets. Believe it or not, the “E” tickets cost under a $1. Each letter-ticket had the rides it covered printed on them by area; Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland, Liberty Square, etc. The tickets evolved into other colors, shapes and watermarks over the years, but the rides listed on each letter-ticket always stayed the same.
(Above: A vintage ticket kiosk where you could buy extra tickets)
I was a big kid for my age, so I wasn’t restricted to the “kiddie” rides for very long. As I’ve mentioned before, my family and I have always lived within an hour of WDW. It’s my second home. While my mom and grandma shopped all day, my grandpa, my aunt (8 years senior) and I would hit all the rides. My grandpa was my roller-coaster buddy, and he started me young! I still remember screaming my head off the first time we went on Space Mountain. Back when dinosaurs ruled the world and they still had the little rockets to climb into; when there were no individual seats, no seat belts, no lap bars…just you, basically sitting flat on a bench with the other rider cradled right behind you, and you had a silver handle to hold on to on both sides of the car and prayed inertia was with you! That was literally the way the ride was built back then! Those rides ruled! Which brings me to back to “E” ticket and His alphabetic friends…
The following is based on Magic Kingdom tickets, but Disneyland was very similar:
“A” tickets covered the “snore” rides. Basically any of the horse carriages or Main Street transportation, the Carrousel, Main Street Cinema and such. (see below)
“B” tickets covered the next level up. I always remember these as the “Dumbo” tickets, because that was one of the favorites when I was still small. This was also the ticket for the Mad Tea Party, which surprised me because that ride had the capacity to make people hurl big time.
“C” tickets covered quite a few of my favorites: Specifically (and now departed) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the Grand Prix, Snow White’s Adventures and Swiss Family Treehouse. We definitely never had leftovers for those tickets. Especially since Grandpa convinced me that I really was driving the cars on Mr. Toad’s and the Grand Prix. No worries…he told me the truth when I was 18. Ha!
“D” tickets were my mom’s favorite, I think. And my uncles’. It was kind of “the boys” ticket. Tom Sawyer’s Island, the Skyway, the Enchanted Tiki Bird Show, the River Boat, Steam Trains and such. I took mom to the Magic Kingdom last year for the first time in almost 40 years and all she wanted was to see the Tiki Birds and the Country Bear Jamboree. You gotta love her.
“E” tickets. Glorious “E” TICKETS. These ones covered the cool rides. We’re talking: Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and of course, Space Mountain (the tickets were gone before WDW built Big Thunder Railroad, but I believe the E’s covered Disneyland’s Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain after Nature’s Wonderland closed). What always confused me, was that these tickets were suppose to increase in “thrills” the higher the letter. But also on the “E” ticket was It’s a Small World, the Country Bear Jamboree and the Hall of Presidents. What the…?!
At the time the Magic Kingdom opened, the ticket books had already been in use at Disneyland for 16 years. But, the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland both stopped using them in 1982…right about the time EPCOT opened. I suspect it was much easier, cost-effective and less confusing to just charge one fee and be done with it. Not to mention, the earlier tickets weren’t very hard to counterfeit, so they had to deal with that and scalpers, too. Later as WDW expanded, the Park Hopper pass was created. Not long after EPCOT opened, Disney execs decided they needed a “3-Day World Passport” which you could use in either the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT. I’m pretty sure this was in response to guests being unable to complete EPCOT in only one day. There are almost two parks there: You’ve got the high-tech rides and pavilions in front of the lake, and all the countries to visit on the backside of the lake. Trust me, before they started closing and abandoning attractions, you would get a work-out even doing it in two days!
EPCOT TIP! - Speaking of “World Passports”, go to any of the country pavilions at EPCOT and ask for a passport. This is an inexpensive souvenir for guests of any age (I just took a 25-year old cousin a few weeks ago and she loved it). Every country represented at the park has It’s own page and flag in the book and you get it stamped at each country like a real passport. Actually, since they don’t really stamp real passports anymore, this is better. If you ask them very nicely, they may even write your name in the native language and writing style (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, German, etc.)
In closing, most of you will probably never see a letter ticket, other than photos. They’re just fond, vintage nostalgia for the Gen-Xer’s and older. If you do want to check some out or if you have a well-kept booklet tucked away somewhere, you can find them (or sell them) on Ebay for around $200.
Photos Source: http://www.bigfloridacountry.com/ , http://www.yesterland.com , and http://davelandweb.com
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