The First Trip 1993 - The Background

[Laner]

As a kid growing up in the North West of England in a very working class family, we had never had any holidays abroad, partly due to the fact that we didn’t have much money and also because my dad was reluctant to go abroad. Later in life he started to travel extensively with my mum and even came to Florida with us for one holiday, however, every few Summers if we were lucky, we went to Wales in a caravan or I can remember holidays to Pontins or Butlins and a couple of Summers my sister and I were bundled into the car for a full days drive down to the South coast to Bournemouth and Torquay, which was as exotic as it got. It was all we could afford, but those holidays were brilliant and I have fantastic memories of long Summers on a beach somewhere, cold British seas and the escape from where we lived at the time which was a pretty rough area.

It is no wonder that kids of that era (late 60’s and early 70’s) sat in front of the Disney Bank Holiday TV programme – The Wonderful World of Disney - staring wide eyed at Florida and California theme parks, listening to American accents as though the people were from another planet. As a generation we were totally brainwashed into thinking Disney was the best thing since sliced bread. It was a real escape at the time from their own lives and where they lived. In 1972 as a six year old kid, a holiday to Florida for me growing up, could as well have been a holiday to the moon, it was that far removed from who I was and the world I lived in at that time.

Fast forward to 1993, a few of us had managed to take ourselves out of an environment where most of our mates were working in factories or were miners or were working on building sites or in a few sad cases had ended up in prison and despite not being spectacularly bright, I had managed to muddle my way through O and A level exams, get to university, get a degree and secured a job in Oxford. All went well, as my girlfriend, who became my wife, joined me down there and for three years we had some of the best times of our lives, before deciding we wanted to get married, settle down and buy a house, so we moved back North to our hometown to buy a property and have the support network around us that would eventually allow us to raise a family. We didn’t want to leave Oxford but remember this was the early 90’s and housing prices in the South of England were rising at a rapid rate and way out of our price range. I got a decent job in Manchester and after a short time with a bonus in my pocket, decided that now was the time to do something I had always wanted to do since I was a kid - go to Florida and experience what I had watched on the TV for all those years.

We had kept in touch with a good friend from university (who became my daughters godfather) and his partner and invited them to come along for the trip. Ironically, they now lived near Oxford where we had left not too long before. When I get around to the various days, I won’t publish any photos of them without blurring their faces because whilst we still see them from time to time, I don’t have their permission from them to do so. At the time, they were less enthusiastic than I was about going to Florida, in fact even my wife wasn’t enthusiastic about it. I think their collective view of America was the impression given by various cop shows and movies and it was going to be all guns and violence, but after a good selling job by myself, we were all set to go. All this was obviously 1993 BC – Before Children – so we had freedom to do what we wanted and what we liked. The other slight issue was that the two ladies in the party were not good fliers and a flight to Europe was just about bearable, but this was going to be 10 hours across the Atlantic. So again, they were persuaded that it was going to be an enjoyable experience.

Remember, that this is 1993, so no internet for the masses yet, no online bookings, no real idea of what to expect and where to go, so we purchased a Lonely Planet to Florida Guide and read it cover to cover and collected as many brochures from the travel agents as we could. I only knew one other person that had actually been to Florida at that time, which was a lady at work, so I picked her brain a little and worked through what we needed to do. We had been on a few holidays in Europe at this stage and as both couples were BC (before children), we decided that we would go in early September, so we didn’t have to compete with loads of families. Also, the lady I worked with, suggested we went in September as UK, American and South American schools would be back so the parks would be empty. As it wasn’t a huge destination for UK travellers yet, it did prove to be a great time to go and indeed the parks were very quiet apart from a few days when there were lots of parties of younger American kids and we found out that the local schools took them to the parks as a reward for returning back to school after their Summer holidays! However, they didn’t prove too much of a problem and I don’t remember queuing for anything.

In May/June time, our friends came and stayed with us for the weekend as they still lived in Oxford and we headed to Co-op Travel to book the most exciting holiday of our lives thus far. It was interesting in the travel agents as they had loads of brochures for Europe, but the Florida brochures used to live in the section for those looking for more exotic holidays with the cruise ship brochures and safari holidays to Kenya. We grabbed a couple more brochures and we all sat down with one of the advisors at the whim of her computer. Whilst we had money to spend, we had both bought houses so we were on a budget and couldn’t really afford to stay in Disney, so we went through what we were looking for with the advisor. She nodded sagely and started to work on the keyboard - remember when they used to just bang in your dates and the screen was just covered in loads of green coded writing which after about 20 minutes of tapping buttons, they would eventually find something? Lots of umming and ahhing and eventually we walked out of there two hours later with just over a two-week holiday booked, return flight to Florida flying out on Friday 10th September 1993 on Air2000 (remember them), we were staying in a motel/hotel on 192, a car booked for the 4 of us and 4 day Disney pass.

We wouldn’t see our friends again until September, so we went to the pub and did a little planning. One of the best things we agreed on was that because our friends were not big coaster fans, we agreed that we would do our own thing in the parks some of the time we were there and then arrange a time and place to meet up for lunch or dinner etc. and that is how it worked for the whole holiday which was great. It was right at the beginning of the mobile phone revolution and none of us had one, so we had to plan where to meet and what time, if we split up. So off they went on the Sunday afternoon back to Oxford and we spent the next few months finding out more about Florida and planning some of the holiday to some extent, although we just went with the flow most of the time we were there. In 1993, there was just three Disney parks, one Universal park, Seaworld, Kennedy Space Centre and Busch Gardens.

Over the next few months, we shopped for clothes and did more research. I met one other person who had been to Florida and he advised us that the Disney tickets we had were enough and that there were loads of people selling cheap tickets in little booths outside restaurants and that we would get a better deal there (which we did). The Disney tickets we had were 4 Day Super Plus Tickets and allowed us into the 3 main theme parks one day each. There was also the added bonus of entry to some of the other attractions at the time as well. There were literally minimal crowds there each day and we could experience everything with little or no queuing. I still have the tickets and there is still one day left on each of them because after we visited the three main parks, we decided to do other things and it didn’t occur to us to use the final day. I wonder if Disney would still honour these? They were long cardboard strips and were stamped with the date of visit and then clipped like a train or bus ticket. When I found these again, I was amazed to find that River Country and Discovery Island were part of the tickets and we never went to either and I can’t remember even considering going to them. Looking back now, I would have loved to have gone to Discovery Island.

Here they are below:

One day left on them!

I also remember getting cash and travellers cheques for the holiday. The first time you pick up dollars and the unique smell of the money was amazing. I know now it is because US dollars contain a large amount of cotton, but it was very different to other currency I had handled. We got around $1.5 to a £ whereas in 1992 it had hit $2 to a £, as it did once again when we went with our children for the first time in 2008. In our town at that point, nobody must have travelled to the US too much, so I had to order the currency and pick it up the next week.

At this point I will say that my memory isn’t great and as I get older is getting worse so some of the days I will recall might be shorter in length than others. Even looking at photos doesn’t help, so please bear with me along the way. Where I have photos, they are photos of photos so please forgive the quality and in other places I have used photos from the NET.

[sparks1]

This is fascinating! Really looking forward to reading more! 😊

[mickeyspal]

This brings back so many memories, the ticket booths outside the restaurants, Disney will honour your tickets as long as they say no expiry on them.
We did go to discovery island and river country, both of which were good, although they weren't easy to get to by car, it seemed to take forever, we didnt realise that we could probably have gone by boat.

[Laner]

I will have to have a look to see if there are expiry dates on the tickets but I don't think we will ever use them as they have become a keepsake now.

[SleepingBeauty]

Sweet. Thank you for sharing.

[Lostbrain]

Thank you for sharing this. I first went in 1990, and there are so many memories here! We flew PANAM and we were one row in front of the smoking section!

[Disneycraft]

I am loving this ,it’s almost exactly the same as my holiday from 93 . Even down to sitting in the co-op . I remember going into the bank to withdraw £2000 which was a lot of money and the cashier said is it for a house deposit ? When we said it was for a holiday her mouth fell open

[Girlw0nder]

Air-2000! Now that is a blast from the past! We flew to Tenerife on one the same year!

[MOUSEMARSH]

Sounds so much like the planning if my 1st trip in 89😁

I've also flown Air2000 to Florida in Gold Class as a free upgrade 😉

[joanna23]

Really looking forward to reading this! Loved the background.