Florida, 1975 – Day 5: Circus World, Sea World, And More Swimming

The following is a series of handwritten letters my grandmother filed in a scrapbook for me documenting my visit to Disney World in the spring of 1975. She wrote the entries in my voice as if I was telling them to my parents back home. I am so grateful for this gift. I call it a blog, because it is no different than what I am doing nearly 40 years later when I archive the stories of my kids.

Wednesday, April 23, 1975

I cried when we left our motel today. I didn’t want to leave Disney World.

Nanny says “Ok,” I could stay and she said good bye to me, but I decided I’d better go with her. We packed up the car and drove for 20 minutes to have breakfast just outside of Circus World. It is a great big tent. We saw 5 elephants doing a show. Then Karen and I went for an elephant ride.

We went into the movie theatre and they told us all about Circus World. It will be finished in 1977, and will be the home of the circus and clown school. The screen to show the movie was 6 stories wide and 9 stories high. Nan and Grandpa had never seen such a huge screen. It was a great movie – parts made you feel like you were riding the roller coaster, walking a tightrope, doing acrobats in the air, looking down a tiger’s mouth, and riding a plane.

Nan says “they sure know how to do things in this country.”

Then the clowns put on a show. I went and shook hands with one. We all had a ride on the largest merry-go-round and had popcorn.

The we drove there to Sea World. It was lots of fun. We saw a dolphin and whale show, then a girl diving for pearls. We had lunch, fish and chips, they were so good. We went to the Hawaiian Village, The Dolphin Pool and we fed them fish. You could pet them also if they came to you. Karen would like one for a pet. The Fountain Fantasy was done with fountains, music, and movies.

Nan said it was “out of this world,” when they did the four seasons. I didn’t like it. We went to see the seals and penguin show. It was now 5pm and Grandpa said we had better leave to look for a motel.

We drove over to the coast to Titusville. We are at a Holiday Inn. I picked it. Nana says I’m a “good picker” because kids eat for nothing!

It only takes Karen and I 10 minutes to get our bathing suits on after we register. Nan says she is going to time us to see if we can do it faster. At this motel, I have my own pool. I like that. We can see the Space Center across the water. Grandpa says he is going to send me to the moon. After our swim we went to the dining room for dinner. Then it was back to our room, watch tv, and off to bed for another busy day.

SEE ALL OF THE BLOG ENTRIES FROM MY 1975 TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD