BY RAIN BLANKEN
The next time you scan your MagicBand at the front of Magic Kingdom , consider Disney fans who entered in 1971 with a paper admission ticket ($ 3.50 each ). And then there was the transportation ticket to ride the monorail . And still , there were the ride tickets to purchase for the attractions not included in the general admission .
The attraction tickets followed the established Disneyland model of A , B , C , D , and E Ticket levels that granted admission to different groups of attractions . An A Ticket , for example , could get you on more tame rides like the Main Street Vehicles . Meanwhile , the coveted E Ticket could land you in a Doom
Buggy .
A through E attraction tickets . Many of these ticket books survive today , but not many of those much-used E Tickets remain .
In anticipation of the opening of EPCOT in 1982 , Walt Disney World needed a different kind of ticket system to accommodate two parks . Disney introduced World Passports , which gave admission to all of Magic Kingdom , and later EPCOT , for a single price . No more A through E Tickets were needed to access the attractions . In the years that followed , Park Hopper , Annual Passes , and Key to the World cards would emerge as the latest ticket options .
The old ticket books have an appealing vintage look , and it ’ s fun to imagine myself in a 1970s jumpsuit carefully tearing a ticket out of the book in front of “ it ’ s a small world .” But the convenience of the MagicBand and My Disney Experience era can ’ t be beat . I ’ m happy to not be fumbling through a bunch of paper tickets or even trying to keep track of a ticket book as part of my already-hectic park-bag-and-popcorn-bucket situation .
The more rides , the better , so guests could purchase ticket books to get a better deal on attractions in bulk . The Adventure Ticket books ($ 4.50 in 1971 ) included a transportation ticket , admission ticket , and
Vintage Magic Kingdom ticket booklets . SCAN AND RESTORATION BY RAIN BLANKEN