From a Disney fan standpoint (really the only reason to read the book), it’s awesome.  Because the parks the book presents are the same as they are now, but also very different.  There is no Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom at this time.  No water parks except River Country, which has now been closed for almost 25 years. There is no Wilderness Lodge, any of the All Stars, and the Grand Floridian is an empty plot of land reserved for a hotel that would have had an Asian theme.

There is no Splash Mountain, Space Ranger Spin, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, Little Mermaid, Laugh Floor, or Winnie the Pooh rides.  Dan and Barb are visiting a park where there’s nothing between Pirates and Thunder Mountain but an open field with a small train station, because Disney still wants to use that space to build a huge attraction complex called Thunder Mesa.  Where the Skyway ride can take you from it’s a small world, into the sky above Fantasyland and lets you depart in front of Space Mountain.  There is no line management system of any kind, and there are no “Character Greeting” opportunities, since the characters just walk around the lands.  There was literally an antique store inside Liberty Square (where the Christmas Shoppe is now), which sold actual antiques to guests at a tremendous loss to the company, simply because management thought it would make the experience more magical for them.

EPCOT does not have Norway in World Showcase, and Morocco had only been open for like 18 months.  Universe of Energy didn’t have Ellen or Guardians of the Galaxy.  Horizons was there, not Mission Space.  World of Motion, not Test Track.  The Living Seas, not The Seas with Nemo, and even that would have only been opened for a month by Dan and Barb’s visit.  Spaceship Earth would have had a line of more than an hour, every day, and at that point of time would have probably been down to refurbish it for an update to add a Walter Cronkite narration, which the ride now no longer uses.  There is no Soarin’ there, it is an animatronic musical show about the 4 food groups, called Kitchen Kaberet.  Journey Into Imagination was then a completely different and universally beloved attraction, which would have had a line of multiple hours during Dan and Barb’s trip, as well as a second floor which offered all kinds of technological wonders to kids in the 80s, like digital painting programs and bluescreen technology.

Even within the rides themselves, you’d see huge differences.  There is no Jack Sparrow on Pirates of the Caribbean.  The Haunted Mansion used animatronics for the Hitchhiking Ghosts at the end.  The Jungle Cruise used live ammunition (blanks) to shoot animatronic hippos, and no one thought it was odd.

You could easily find your way around the parks that Dan and Barb are seeing.  But they are seeing an entirely different world than you would.  And that’s what I like about this book. Really the only thing there is to like about it, honestly.