You’re given a handy horizontal fanfold brochure. When it’s open, it’s 7" wide by 16¼" high, with the pages cascading down. When closed, it’s just 7" by 3¼", with Mickey Mouse on a bright green cover.

Here’s the brochure in its entirety, along with a few comments about each page.

• The page about the Magic Kingdom says very little about the Magic Kingdom.
• Neither the Water Ski Show nor the Electrical Water Pageant took place inside the Magic Kingdom.
• The Water Ski Show was discontinued before the end of 1973.
• The Electrical Water Pageant is still a feature of Walt Disney World today.

• As a destination resort, not just a theme park, Walt Disney World offered guests various options after they left the park for the evening.
• The Top of the World dinner theater, with “name” acts, was on the top floor of the Contemporary Resort. The space is now the California Grill.
• The Eastern Winds, a cocktail lounge aboard an authentic Chinese Junk, lasted from 1971 to 1978.
• Leave it to the folks at Disney to coin a name like the “Sunshine State Exhibitorium.”

• With all of the developed parts of Walt Disney World near the Seven Seas Lagoon or Bay Lake, it made sense to offer yachts and cruises.
• It’s surprising that today Walt Disney World no longer offers readily available dinner cruises and cocktail cruises.
• The only option today for dining and beverages on the water is for guests to charter a pricey private boat.
• There’s still plenty of boat traffic on the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake, but it’s from transportation vessels, boat rentals, and some private charters.

• Polynesian Village was renamed Disney’s Polynesian Resort in 1985.
• In May 2014, Disney announced that the name would revert back to Polynesian Village—only with “Disney’s” appended in front of it.
• The Papeete Bay Verandah is now the location of ‘Ohana.
• The lounge on the second floor of the Great Ceremonial House is still called the Tambu Lounge.
• The Polynesian luau became the Spirit of Aloha dinner show from 2003 to 2020.
• Spirit of Aloha never returned after the COVID-19 shutdown.

• The “Golf Resort” here refers to two golf courses and their clubhouse, not to the hotel of the same name that opened later.
• Guests can still play golf at these two courses—the Magnolia Golf Course and the Palm Golf Course.
• The 125-room Golf Resort opened December 15, 1973, adjacent to the golf courses.
• In 1986, the Golf Resort became the Disney Inn, playing down the golf theme in favor of more of a Snow White theme.
• It became the Shades of Green Resort, an Armed Forces Recreation Center (AFRC) resort, when the U.S. Department of Defense leased the hotel from Disney in 1994 (and purchased it outright in 1996). It now has 586 rooms.

• Fort Wilderness Campground is now Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground.
• Although the campground has expanded since 1972, with a major upgrade in 2008 to accommodate larger RVs, Disney’s Fort Wilderness is arguably the most unchanged resort at Walt Disney World.
• Fort Wilderness no longer prohibits pets. In fact, it’s the only “pet friendly” Disney resort. Guests can request a pet-friendly loop when booking a campsite. Pets are limited to designated areas of the campground; there’s an additional per-night fee.
• There is no longer a kennel at the entrance to the campground. Walt Disney World outsourced its kennels to Best Friends Pet Care. A 27,000-square-foot pet care center opened in 2010, less than two miles away from the entrance to Fort Wilderness.

• In this brochure, “Recreation” was a catch-all category that included movies, boat rentals, boat rides, a show on the Seven Seas Lagoon, tennis, and water skiing.
• Movie screenings with babysitting available—what a great idea. This was long before there were any real movie theaters at Walt Disney World.
• I have no idea what the “High Speed Boat Excursion” was, how many passengers the boats held, how fast they went, or when they were discontinued.
• The Water Ski Show is listed again, this time with show times.
• The four tennis courts at the Contemporary Resort were closed in 2006 and removed in 2007 (along with the North Garden Wing) to make way for the crescent-shaped Bay Lake Tower (Disney Vacation Club) resort. There are now two hard courts adjacent to Bay Lake Tower.

• Back in the 1970s, any good first-class hotel had travel desks in the lobby. The Disney resort hotels were no exception.
• When this brochure was published in 1972, commercial flights to Orlando used “Orlando’s McCoy Jetport,” which was also McCoy Air Force Base. The base closed in 1974, allowing the entire facility to become a civilian airport. Its name became Orlando International Airport in 1974, after being granted international airport status—but the designator code remains MCO from the McCoy days.
• Cypress Gardens (which became LEGOLAND Florida in 2011) was the most popular attraction in Central Florida before Walt Disney World opened. Today, it’s hard to imagine Walt Disney World promoting any off-site attractions. But, in 1972, Disney could use the bus service to off-site attractions as another reason for guests to stay more than one or two nights at Walt Disney World.
• Yes, there really was scheduled passenger airline service to and from Walt Disney World property. Shawnee Airlines operated 19-seat de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft at Walt Disney World’s Lake Buena Vista STOLport.
• No other airline ever provided scheduled service at the STOLport.
• You can still see the now-inactive STOLport runway from the Epcot Monorail.

• Contemporary Resort is now Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
• Originally, the resort consisted of three parts—The Towers, Bayshore, and Lakeside. The Towers building is now called the Contemporary Tower. Bayshore, which had been renamed to the North Garden Wing, was demolished to make way for Bay Lake Tower. Lakeside is now called the South Garden Wing.
• The fancy Gulf Coast Room restaurant lasted until 1988.
• The Grand Canyon Terrace Restaurant was one of the restaurants at the base of the atrium. The name makes sense when you consider Mary Blair’s delightful 90-foot-tall Grand Canyon Concourse tile mural—and the soaring, canyon-like sides of the atrium.