WDW 15th Anniversary Displays

The year long 15th Anniversary celebration at Walt Disney World provided some unique picture opportunites for guests. Digital cameras have basically made picture taking a zero cost hobby. Cameras at the time had 24 pictures to a roll and you had to pay to get them developed. Now, with digital cameras, you can take all the pictures you want. Not so in 1987 when we took our vacation to the World. Back then, you had to pick and choose your pictures. You had to be much more selective. And, for my parents, this meant that most pictures would have us in them, but not all.


The Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center were the only two parks at the time and each provided a magic moment before you even enteredt the park. Each park had a different display erected near the front gate to celebrate the 15th anniversary. At the Magic Kingdom was a giant Mickey Mouse alarm clock with the number 15 in place the hour numbers. Flanking each side of the clock was a General Motors vehicle which was part of the car a day give-away promotion at WDW as mentioned in the last two posts.


At EPCOT Center, a giant yellow birthday cake was on display celebrating WDW's 15th birthday. Again, I regret saying that the only picture I have of this is with my Mom, two brotheres, and me standing in front of it. But, hey, it is a typical vacation picture. So, does anyone have any better pictures of this cake display?

Win a New GM Car

As mentioned in yesterday's post, each day, one lucky and surprised guest won a brand new General Motors car as part of Walt Disney World's 15 Anniversary celebration. We were fortunate one day in 1987 to witness a guy win a car at EPCOT Center. It was pretty cool. Mickey and the gang came running towards the surprised man and gave him a giant key. You can see the key in the picture.

Unfortunately, this was before digital cameras, so, my parents only took a couple of pictures. There was a news crew there, but, if I remember correctly, they were a WDW news crew filming the experience. I've always wondered what the person in line in front of this man or behind this man thought? Could you imagine..."oh, sir, go ahead in front of me, I'm waiting for my spouse". ARGH!!!!! Or, what if a family was waiting on their slow kid? NOOOOOOOOO! Or, what if this guy let someone go in front of him. No way! Now, I know this definitely made this guy's vacation special and unforgetable. But, I wonder if it ruined the vacations of the people before and after him in line? How would you feel? Anyway, since we were just walking up to the gates, we thought it was pretty cool to witness a car being given away on this day.

WDW 15th Anniversary Prizes

Starting in 1986, Walt Disney World celebrated its 15 year anniversary. As part of the celebration, the park gave a contest ticket to each guest that entered either the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT Center parks. The contest started on October 1, 1986 and lasted until September 30, 1987. I'm not sure if that was the official end date, but, that is what is stated on the back of the tickets. It might have been a few days before or a few days after. You can click on the image of the back of the ticket to read all the rules for the contest.

There were several cool things about this contest. First, the odds of winning a prize were pretty good. A different prize was awarded every 15 seconds, to match the 15th anniversary. This came out to be roughly 1 out of 24 tickets was a winner. So, a family of 4 that went for a full week to the parks probably won 1 or 2 different prizes. Second, the tickets were pretty cool and made a nice little souvenir even if you didn't win.


We actually won a couple of prizes--a button and a sticker. I have no idea what ever happened to the button, but, I still have the 4" x 4" sticker. If you did win, you would take your winning ticket to the Ticket Redemption Center where they would tear off the stub on the right of the ticket, stamp the back of the ticket with the date the ticket was redeemed for a prize, and give you your prize.


There were also a lot of other prizes including the big ones such as complimentary park tickets and a car. I don't recall them doing this at the 20th, 25th, 30th, or 35th anniversaries, but, I really hope they do it again at the 40th anniversary in a couple years.