71 - 50 Years

71 - 50 Years

Author: Lake Buena Vista Historical Society October 13, 2021 Duration: 2:00:19
Listener Mail

The mailbag is full and ready to sift through. Be sure to reach out with questions, stories, memories, and more. You never know if your letter will be read on a future episode: podcast@retrowdw.com

  1. Brian is up next with a celebrity sighting at WDW. He spotted Mick Foley at Cinderella’s Royal Table, tried to snap a photo and made a minor mistake… This is a great story and we would love to see that photo!
  2. Katie wrote us about Mariah Carey and what she required to stay in the castle. This leads to a major tangent about couches, which of course is why you tune in to the RetroWDW Podcast.
  3. We heard from Michael Landis about the infamous Monorail Pilots License – if you have never seen one of these, check it out. Obviously, these aren’t around anymore, but this was a neat perk of riding upfront in the monorail.
  4. Miranda has a question – When did the Plaza Restaurant inside the Magic Kingdom open up at the current location?
  5. Joe, among many others, reached out about our challenge in regards to celebrities appearing in more than one attraction. We discuss a few of these that were emailed to us, along with some other ideas listeners had.
Main Topic

As we get started, this episode will be a little different than what you are used to. For the 50th Anniversary, how do we celebrate that at RetroWDW? We bounced many ideas around, including lists, top 50, sharing memories, and even going back to cover the various anniversary specials. Brian gets us started discussing the way things used to be, which all of us can do for hours on end, you the listener included. Each of us has stories and special things that we remember from the past fifty years. Experiences, memories, family trips, events; we all have so many things to share and reminisce about. This episode is all about that. Throughout Episode 71, we don’t sit on just one topic or park. Many of the stories are personal and lead to more tangents, but we think you’re really going to connect and relate to many of these observations from the past fifty years. As we worked our way through this recording, it’s tough to bring together fifty years of vacationing. The kingdom has so many things for so many people, including us. We are always looking for what’s next, our future trips, and making memories. This podcast is all about memories at Walt Disney World, even if they are super detailed and take us all down a rabbit hole. From Episode 71 all the way back to Episode 1, this show, website, videos, and our events have added another layer of WDW to all of our lives. As we continue to add to our individual and group stories about trips to WDW, we hope you continue to join us each month.

RetroMagic Fifty

We have set our date for the next big Lake Buena Vista Historical Society event: RetroMagic 50. We will all be back at Walt Disney World in 2022 for this weekend-long event which takes place April 23-24.

Please click the following link to sign up for ticket sale information and notifications. We hope to see you all real soon!


The Retro Disney World Podcast from the Lake Buena Vista Historical Society is a deep, conversational dive into the layers of history embedded in the Vacation Kingdom. Each monthly episode gathers four hosts with a shared passion for peeling back the contemporary veneer to examine what came before. Their discussions are less about listing facts and more about reconstructing the experience of a place in time, focusing on the architectural choices, attraction designs, and overall atmosphere that defined eras from the ambitious pre-opening plans up through the resort's evolution roughly twenty-five years ago. This isn't just a nostalgia trip; it's a thoughtful look at how the park's physical and imaginative landscapes were built, changed, and live on in collective memory. You'll hear detailed recollections and analysis of spaces that are now closed but whose influence persists, understanding why certain elements resonate so powerfully. The podcast operates at the intersection of cultural study, travel memory, and societal observation, making it a unique resource for anyone who believes the story of a place is found in its details, transitions, and vanished corners. Tune in for a consistently engaging and richly specific exploration of Walt Disney World's past, thoughtfully preserved in audio form.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 138

Retro Disney World Podcast
Podcast Episodes
71.5 - Listener Memories [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:23
Welcome to Episode 71.5 of the RetroWDW Podcast: 50th Anniversary Memories - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over th…
70 - Monster Sound Show [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:55:27
Corrections & Comments We start off this episode with some corrections and comments from the last couple of months. Jim is our first correction, which was very similar to some others we received. We were all corrected on…
69 - Pleasure Island Part III [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:52:45
Welcome to Episode 69 of the RetroWDW Podcast: Pleasure Island Part II – We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the ye…
68 - Magic Journeys [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:04:12
Welcome to Episode 68 of the RetroWDW Podcast: "Magic Journeys - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the years. We…
67 - Pleasure Island Part II [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:34:23
Welcome to Episode 67 of the RetroWDW Podcast: "Pleasure Island Part II - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the y…
66 - Retro Restaurants & Food - Part II [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:32:15
Welcome to Episode 66 of the RetroWDW Podcast: “Retro Food Part II” – We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our from over the years. We have visit…
65 - Pleasure Island Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:16:12
Welcome to Episode 65 of the RetroWDW Podcast: "Pleasure Island - Part 1" - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the…
64 - Crescent Lake [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:15:03
Welcome to Episode 64 of the RetroWDW Podcast: "Crescent Lake" - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the years. We…
63 - Project 90 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:00:35
Welcome to Episode 63 of the RetroWDW Podcast: "Project 90" - We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of our previous shows from over the years. We hav…
62.5 - Below Thunder's Deck with Parker Rabe [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:50
Main Topic In the last episode, we took you back to the early 1990s and discussed the filming and history of Thunder in Paradise! Now we've got an exclusive interview with Parker Rabe who's father was the brains behind t…