Well remember I was 17!
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(It was actually awful the first time you saw it, too.)
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Maybe?!? It’s laughable how fuzzy my memory is of the whole trip.
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I know that now!
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My dad and I went to DW a lot together when I was a kid in the 80s. I remember EPCOT most clearly – it was my favorite park. World of Motion, Horizons (the orange smell!), and the original Figment ride are still quite memorable for me and I’m sorry my kids can’t experience EPCOT as it first was. I just remember thinking how cool and how futuristic everything was – great memories.
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My other fond memory was actually a pre-trip memory. I must’ve been about 6 or 7. The night before the trip I remember being so excited about Disney that I couldn’t sleep, so I went downstairs to find my dad (who usually sleeps like a log) on the couch in the middle of the night. He told me he, a 40-something grown man, couldn’t sleep either because he was too excited. My parents were like the beta-version of Liners in the pre-internet days. We had all the promo videos in the VHS cabinet, all the Birnbaum books from every consecutive year, and a bunch of Disney park picture books on the coffee table. 
it was only natural that history has repeated itself for me and our kids.
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What about pre-Ellen Universe of energy? Where else could you take a 45 minute nap with AC and an awesome soundtrack.
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Oh hells yeah! I remember being bored to tears during the video portion at the start, but those dinos were so cool. I was able to get my kids on it in 2016 and they were all like “this is stupid” until we got to the dino part. Then they were impressed. LOL
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We can just hope that somewhere there is a group of Imagineers dreaming up new attractions about the future of space travel and colonies on other planets to wow us with.
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I was less impressed by the Dinos than I was with the wonderment that the theater broke apart into ride vehicles. That was incredible to me at the time.
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As long as they are doing from home, at least six feet away from others! 
One of the problems with all the scientific progress we’ve made in the past few decades is that it has made us realize just how much harder and potentially pointless space travel would be. As a result, I think we need to see a future based on today’s speculations, not yesteryears.
I think the whole original Walt Disney vision for Epcot is more apt today than in his day, frankly. Let’s see a vision of the future world, including transportation and such.
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It’s funny how you think about things when you were a kid because yes, those ride vehicles were totally cool. But then experiencing them as an adult was not as cool. LOL
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And this is what makes it so disappointing that they’re inserting so much IP into Future World. I have no doubt the new rides they’re working on will be cool, but they don’t feel in the spirit of EPCOT as I think about it at all.
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Then, overnight, it turned into a sad little fountain with a tiki man.
To remove that impressive fountain has to be one of the all time blunders
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In a way, I am glad they are abandoning FutureWorld. It set us up for disappointment. The new World Discovery, World Celebration, etc, sets new expectations for the new future of Epcot.
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Chiming in late - as per usual.
My first WDW/MK memory is from January 1974 and it’s a bit different. I actually have no memory of parking, or entering MK. Or really any rides, shows, etc.
I do know it was HOT and we’d only come from Norfolk but they’d been getting snow.
My only real memory of this day is standing in the middle of a walkway (apparently I’m still that person) trying to make sense of a park map (a new thing for certain) while older DD is hollering that “we MUST go on it’s a small world!” And younger DD is chanting “Haunted Mansion, Haunted Mansion, Haunted Mansion”. DH and DS have disengaged completely and are crowd watching.
After about 20 minutes I realized the map was upside down. I think we got to Haunted Mansion and it’s a small world.
Oh wait, I do remember an iced tea. 
Tragic Kingdom made perfect sense. 
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I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days and I think I’ve figured out mine.
The first family trip that I’d remember would have been '85. I think we were staying at the CR and I remember getting off the Monorail to the EPCOT theme music and my middle brother was sprinting down the ramps 'cause he wanted to get to the old Universe of Energy. Loved that theme music.
And then my mom bought and played the EPCOT soundtrack for about two years straight…"…it’s got a great big memory like and elephant…" and “…veggie veggie fruit fruit…veggie fruit…”
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I went to Disney the first time over New Year ‘89-90. HS has just opened. I was in middle school. We stayed at the a Disney Inn which is now Shades of Green and no longer owned by Disney. I remember walking to the Poly to catch the monorail.
I remember spending New Years Eve at Epcot and watched the count down to 1990 projected (number countdown) on Spaceship Earth. It was very cool to see these very early and basic projections. Then the fireworks all around at Midnight.
Other Epcot memories are riding Body Wars, seeing Honey I Shrunk the Audience and riding Living with the Land.
I have vague memories of the Backlot ride at HS. I don’t know what else was there. We rode the boat from HS to Epcot and the CM pointed out the Swan and Dolphin under construction across the lake.
I have very few memories of MK but know we went twice. I had read from cover to cover the unofficial guide my parents had bought before the trip. SM had the longest lines at the time so we decided to skip it our first day and go on it after eating our prepark opening character breakfast that was at some random place in a Tomorrowland later that week. We would be the first in line then! I had done the research and surprisingly my family listened to me (I was the youngest). This plan ended up being a failure since SM ending up going down for refurbishment the day of our breakfast. We never got to ride it!
The only thing I remember riding in MK is Mister Toad’s. I must have ridden much more since I know we spent at least 2 days there but no memory of them. I do remember some of the character at the breakfast. They were very random-Eeyore, a princess (maybe Cinderella), Captain Hook, somebody from Robin Hood. Definitely no cohesive theme to them. It seem like it was just whoever wanted to come out that day.
I also know that I bought a stuffed Eeyore which I still have.
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I was around 4 and I very distinctly remember when we walked into the Polynesian to see my grandparents in the lobby. I was completely amazed that we just so happened to run into them and that they were taking a vacation to WDW at the same time as us - I think it took a few years for me to realize that maybe my parents had coordinated the trip with them
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My first trip was 1988; I was 6 and my sister was 2. I remember staying in the cabins at Fort Wilderness and sleeping in the bunk beds and we did a character breakfast with Chip and Dale in Pioneer Hall. I remember my dad trying to get me on Space Mountain but I was a big roller coaster scaredy cat so we did the Tomorrowland speedway instead. We have video of my little sister checking outbid size versions of the character’s houses somewhere…toon town, maybe?
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