Looking Back: Magic Kingdom in 1990

Time once again to Look Back, this time at the Magic Kingdom from the summer of 1990.

First up is this view of Main Street USA and Cinderella Castle. At first glance, there isn’t much special or different about this view, until you notice the large trees in the Central Plaza in front of Cinderella Castle. And you can’t really tell from this view, but there isn’t a Partners Statue there yet, either. Those trees are long gone now, probably because they blocked the view of the castle, especially now that the castle is used as a projection screen of sorts. Call me old-fashioned, but I still like the large trees. And speaking of old-fashioned, check out what the people are wearing in this photo. Always interesting to look back and see how the styles have changed.

Here is a view of the Crystal Palace restaurant between Main Street USA and Adventureland. It seems that I almost always take a photo of the Crystal Palace, even though we never have actually eaten there. And it looks here like there were several new palm trees in front of the Crystal Palace. Either that, or the existing trees had been trimmed back severely. Nothing big, but that’s what I notice when I look at these old photos.

I like this view of an uncrowded Adventureland. This was long before Aladdin and his Magic Carpets moved in. In fact, this was over two years before the release of the movie Aladdin. And is that tall palm tree even there any more? This area seems much more crowded now that the Magic Carpets take up so much room.  In fact, in looking at these photos, the whole park seems much less crowded than it does now on a similar June day. I guess all those price increases haven’t hurt business all that much.

I always enjoyed seeing J.P. and the Silver Stars out in Adventureland. Nothing like some good, live steel drum music. They were hugging the shade at this time, because it was apparently pretty hot out in the sun. Can’t say that I blame them. I just wonder why more people weren’t standing around to hear them play.

This view of Frontierland with Adventureland off in the distance was from the entrance to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And once again you can see that the area isn’t filled with people as it is now. Of course, back in these days construction hadn’t even started on Splash Mountain, which is now just to the right of this photo. And that addition was what brought on the major bottleneck of traffic that now is common in today’s view of this area.

And speaking of Big Thunder Mountain and its railroad, here it is. Nothing unusual about this photo, but I included it because I liked it. That’s a nice, blue sky!

This is a pretty bad photo, but it is from the show in Mickey’s Starland, as Mickey’s Birthdayland was called after Mickey Mouse’s 60th birthday celebration had ended. The stage show featured characters from the Disney Afternoon television shows, and you can see the entrance to Scrooge McDuck’s money bin at the left. And check out he host girl’s hair! Yes, 1990 was very much related to the 1980s, as you can see.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos that I have taken of Cinderella Castle. In fact, I had it hanging on my wall for several years. I didn’t have a tripod with me, but I rested the camera on a rail and did the best that I could to hold it steady. This was of course back in the old film days, so I had to wait a while to see if the photo actually turned out or not. When I got the photos back from being developed, I was quite happy with this one.

When we are leaving the Magic Kingdom at night, I usually take a photo or two as we are walking down Main Street USA. This partly to try to capture the nighttime atmosphere on Main Street that I love so much with the lights and all, but it is probably also partly to extend our stay in the Magic Kingdom as long as I can. Just one more photo! Okay, now one more! And another!

That’s it for this look back at the Magic Kingdom. Be sure to see the entire Looking Back series for more from the good old days!