People try to figure out what you mean. Look at this image:
If your wallet ID looks like that 1FCR... blue string on the left (startswith 1 or 3, and it's that long and strange ), that's your address/public key
If your "retrieval code" looks like that 5KK... string (at least the length/style is this), then that's your private key (which you should never share).
One very easy way to transform this into a wallet you can use to transfer your money is to import the private key into Electrum. Many other wallets can do this more or less easy.
If you'll confirm that the "retrieval code" is indeed the private key, people will guide you what to do next safely.
However, you will find the information stated in the seed or paper as this is private key and this public key. Then why we should confuse ourself with this starting number and all.
Wait let him confirm actually he is having the private key only. Still it is not clear and explained for importing information too.
Yes, all the wallets that have been created today will look like this, and most wallets that have been generated in the past will have the exact same generistics in terms of the length of the bitcoin adress, and private key.
Although the seed could indeed be different due to various BIP being used for the generation of it, but this isn't mentioned here.
Also, there is not such thing as a "wallet ID(entifier)", unless you were using a webwallet.. This is most likely something that blockchain.info used.
You might have used it before you switched to a cold storage? I'm not too sure.
Use the wallet identifier and retrieval key here, https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/login and see if it works.
( Is the retrieval key just a password, or a string of letters?, or a sentence of random words?)