EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first of many guest columns highlighting theme park memories. This column started out as Retro Orlando by Audrey Brown, but we’ve renamed it and expanded it to include theme park and attraction memories outside the Orlando area. This first Amusement Musings is by Audrey’s sister and her experiences with little [...]

By Joe Moody I was in fifth grade, which would have made me about 10 or 11, and for some reason, at that time I lived in a constant state of fear. I think it was a product of an overactive imagination, but anything remotely scary would freak me out for days. My brother talked [...]

Column by Audrey Brown Usually when I write about an extinct attraction, my column is filled with wishful thinking. If only I could go back, I muse on and on. It’s rare that a beloved attraction from the past actually gets the resurrection that the smattering of fans like me petition for. But sometimes, and [...]

Column by Audrey Brown Photos by JeffLangeDVD.com “One little spark of inspiration, is at the start of all creation.” I can’t tell you how often I have an internal debate about what to write for Retro Orlando. Mostly because it’s tempting as a writer to feel the pressure to always write something new. But in [...]

Column by Audrey Brown Movies are king when it comes to theme park merchandising, ticket sales and advertising. As early as Aladdin, the Genie was off to Disney World after being freed. Stop for a second and just try to imagine Disney World or Universal Studios without movie tie-ins – it’s impossible. But not so [...]

Column by Audrey Brown I went back to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay this month, for the first time in more than 20 years. One of my recent columns was dedicated to the patchwork quilt of memory that was my distant recollection of Busch Gardens. I remembered the pale pinks of stucco walls, the animal habitats [...]

Column by Audrey Brown Not that I want to hone in on Andy Rooney’s territory, but there was once a time when getting to an Orlando tourist attraction was half the fun. At risk of having to start a sentence with the phrase, “You know, in my day…” I do want to say that in [...]

Column by Audrey Brown Before the majestic hang-gliding sensory rich experience of Soarin’ in The Land at Epcot, in the very same space was a musical animatronic stage show called Food Rocks. From 1994 to 2004, it baffled and delighted audiences of parents and children, in precisely that order. Because like the sassy uncle at [...]

By Audrey Brown This month’s Retro Orlando is a bit more broad than usual. I typically try to take a look back at rides I can remember with perfect clarity, detail for detail. But I stumbled across some old vacation pictures that got me thinking about Busch Gardens. I tried and tried to come up [...]

By Audrey Brown This month’s Retro Orlando isn’t exactly about an attraction. It’s about a restaurant. A restaurant that once held a mythical status similar to that of an attraction, one created and tested in Orlando, and one that surely picked up attributes from the theme park town where its parent company decided to launch [...]

For this month’s edition of Retro Orlando, we take a look at Delta Dreamflight, which used to be where Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin is now at the Magic Kingdom.

By Audrey M. Brown For the first Retro Orlando column, let’s take a look back at “Monster Sound Show,” an attraction that no longer exists at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In fact, when it did exist (1989-1997), Disney’s Hollywood Studios was still Disney-MGM Studios. Theme parks are mysterious organisms that usually have good reasons for making [...]