A Look Back at Magic Kingdom,
Epcot, & Disney-MGM Studios in 1995
A few weeks ago while at my parent’s house my father came into the room and handed me an envelope with Mickey Mouse across the front that said “Your Reservations”. He said it was the receipts saved from our Walt Disney World trip in March of 1995, and that he probably didn’t need to keep those any longer! I took a peek inside the envelope and decided I wanted to explore them more thoroughly later when home.
Like many kids, I grew up surrounded by Mickey Mouse and the movies of Walt Disney. My childhood was filled with all kinds of Disney related toys, merchandise, books, clothes, movies at the theater and TV, and old Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes. Back then growing up in Ohio, I really didn’t know the difference between Disneyland or Walt Disney World but I knew that my neighbors across the street had a Grandma in Florida and they would go to Disney when they visited her. I distinctly remember them bringing back the Mickey Mouse head shaped balloons and being fascinated with them. I wanted one of those balloons, to meet Mickey Mouse, and to ride his train! But at the time the farthest away from Ohio I had been was vacations at Virginia Beach plus I had never been on a plane before. Florida or California might as well be the moon!
Years later the family moved from Ohio to Alabama, and by that time I knew very well what was just a few hours south of me! In 1995, I was about to leave my junior college and head of to university as well as leaving my parents for the first time. I don’t know whose idea it was (maybe mine), but for the first time our family was going to drive to Walt Disney World. Even at almost 20 years old I was ECSTATIC! Windows 95 had not been released yet, so there wasn’t any real preparation or research for the visit on the computer. The first Toy Story was months away, so PIXAR wasn’t really there. And the Star Wars prequels had not happened yet and the only Star Wars at the parks was the Star Tours ride. It was an interesting time to visit!
Our family of four drove down on a Spring Break in our brown ’89 Ford Taurus, and the receipts show we bought gas for $1.13 a gallon at a Shell station in Eldorado, GA. I also see some .79 cent cheese burgers bought at McDonald’s on the way down, too! It also looks like a Cracker Barrel was visited on the trip. When was the last time a family of four (three adults and a teenager) could eat at a Cracker Barrel for a total of $37.75? We arrived at Disney’s All-Star Music Resort and I thought it was amazing. Being a music nut and having no clue what any other Disney resort looked like at the time, I was enamored with the music themed décor both inside and out. However, I honestly think they have dropped the ball the last several years and all of their value resorts look too alike inside and have become somewhat homogeneous in their styling – but that’s for another story.
So the following short slideshow video below showcases a few of the photos that were taken on that trip to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney-MGM Studios (before it became Hollywood Studios). Of course, Animal Kingdom's construction would not begin until later that fall of '95.In the video I've added some smiley faces to hide our own faces and others that might have been facing the camera. But I love looking at old photos like these to see the differences in the park now! I’ve been very fortunate to visit Walt Disney World many times in the three decades since, but this first trip was start of it all. I fell in love with the place and knew it would not be my last time visiting! I’m a theme park ride lover as we as a movie and cartoon nerd – so it always checked so many things off the list for me! So if you are a Disney nut like me, please enjoy 53 second slide show of my first trip to "The Most Magical Place on Earth!"
A few things to note from the video:
The cost of the “Four Day Super Pass” comes out to $34.25 per day, which is equivalent to $73.93 today. I WISH I could visit WDW for under $75 a day now! Earlier in the article I mentioned gasoline at $1.13 per gallon. That is equivalent to $2.46 per gallon, which at the time of this writing (3/23/2026) was about where gasoline was at in my area before the current mess with Iran started.
The “newest” park at that time was Disney-MGM Hollywood Studios, and it would not change its name to Disney’s Hollywood Studios until early 2008. You can see some of the old New York City film set from ‘Streets of America’ with the street and building façade. I believe this would be where' Star Wars: Galaxies Edge' is now. You can see the bust of Andy Griffith outside of the Chinese Theater, as well as Clint Eastwood in ‘The Great Movie Ride’, which is of course now ‘Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway’ – which is think is a fantastic addition, but I really hate that we lost 'The Great Movie Ride'!
One of Jabba’s Skiffs from Tatooine and a Snow Speeder from Hoth are randomly placed in some bushes outside of 'Star Tours'. Of course, at this point “the adventure” had not continued yet. Eventually this area would become the ‘Jedi Training Academy’ and those mini-shows, and when I was there at Christmas of 2025 this is where I met Darth Vader as the 'Star Wars Launch Bay' is now permanently closed. A side note - riding Star Tours at the time was mind blowing. That was the first time this Star Wars kid ever got to experience something like that and it still remains a favorite of mine, even through all the changes! That ride, along with The Tower of Terror, are still my favorites at that park.
By 'Star Tours' was the store ‘Endor Vendors’ which eventually was remodeled to ‘Tatooine Traders’, where I bought a pin, poster, Jawa T-shirt, a Star Wars sign of some sort, and most importantly a Darth Vader mask! I still have it and it sits on top of a claw machine I have in my game room. It’s one of the old Don Post versions, long, long before these more accurate Black Series masks and the like! It cost $52 then, which is equivalent to $113 today. I was so excited to have this!
The Winnie the Pooh that I am standing next to almost looks like a knockoff like you would see outside the REAL Chinese Theater in Hollywood or Times Square. Notice the whites of his eyes are visible, unshaven brown snout, and they had to write “Pooh” on his shirt… so ya’d know? I think they really missed the mark with the costume during that time period!
You can see the Tomorrow Land entrance is different that what we currently have. Honestly, I think I like the one we have now. It is now sleeker, minimalist, and more futuristic looking to me.