fey2k
Registered: February 2013
Posts: 3
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Review Date: Mon February 4, 2013
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Lots of info, special pin
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Cons:
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None
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Tour date Sat, Jan 26, 2013. We had Landon as the tour guide. I think he has learned a LOT since the time of another reviewer in April 2012. We really enjoyed his passion for Disney.
The details others have posted recently have not changed. Enjoyed getting our own boat on Jungle Cruise and hearing some stories of the molds of animals and characters. Really enjoyed the use of the headsets on Haunted Mansion, getting the behind the scenes info as we rode through the attraction!
We are not Disney history experts, so all of the information we heard was new and interesting. Would love to take similar tours in other parks.
As other have posted, get there early for check in and then wander main street for photos before the crowds let in.
Tour lasted a good five hours, including the stop for lunch.
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Lanmon
Registered: January 2007
Posts: 30
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Review Date: Thu December 27, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Learning Disney's 4 philosophies
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Cons:
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Facts depend on the guide's knowledge
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Having been on the fantastic tour two years ago I was looking forward to learning more Disney facts. The tour was not as phenomenal, rather a bit disappointing. James, our guide, was quite knowledgeable with Disney and Magic Kingdom facts. James was very professional and requested everyone to ask as many questions as possible. At times I asked questions or pointed out attractions so James could explain further. At times we felt rushed and quickly moved to the next stop. Some answers were not factual as learned on previous tours or found on a Disney website. The tour consisted of Main Street, Liberty Square, Frontierland, Adventureland, and the infamous utiladors. Lunch at Columbia House was good.
Best learned fact: Disney has 4 worldwide work philosophies...SAFETY, SHOW, EFFICIENCY, AND COURTESY. I visited Disneyland in California the following week and was quite surprised hearing those philosophies from 2 cast members!
I highly recommend this tour. There is so much to learn about Disney World and the best way is to take a behind the scene tour.
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k5xs
Registered: January 2008
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 9
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Review Date: Wed November 14, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Wowsers
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Cons:
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Absolutely none
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My wife and I have been visiting WDW for over 20 years, most recenty several times a year, so we regard ourselves as pretty savvy on WDW. But his tour taught us SO much we did not know.
I generally do NOT like tours. I feel like I am shackled to someone I may or may not like spending time with. I do not care for show-offs that seem to want to ask questions of the guide to show how much they already know. And I usually feel like they d-r-a-g on and on. Wow. This was anything but that.
The time flew by (~5 hrs) and every minute was a blast.
Our guide (Matt) was cool, friendly, and knowledgeable.
I won't repeat all that we saw (most is detailed below in other posts), other than to say it was all terrific.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the cool gold pin we were given at lunch--very nice.
Definitively a must do. Even for someone who hates tours.
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aurora3000
Registered: March 2009
Location: Fort Worth, TX
Posts: 9
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Review Date: Sat October 20, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Awesome Tour Guide, Very Informative
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Cons:
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none
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We arrived for our tour about a half hour early where we were able to select our lunch for later in the day at Columbia Harbor House. We were also able to pick up a coffee or water prior to the tour.
Our tour guide was Rae, and I could not have been happier to have her as our guide. Rae had passion and experience with Disney that made me want to run right out to Casting that day. Rae was very knowledgeable and organized, which was key as the park became busy and congested. It was helpful to have the headsets, as well.
I felt as though there were plenty of breaks where we could rest in the shade as Rae shared history on the Disney company. Our lunch at Columbia Harbor House was in a quiet, private spot in the restaurant.
The tour took us through the Magic Kingdom on a private boat on the Jungle Cruise, on the Haunted Mansion, and backstage areas including the Utilidor. It was a lot of walking over a period of about 5 hours. I do not recommend it if you are looking to preserve the Magic or if it is your first visit. However, it is perfect for those who have been coming to WDW for years and want that behind the scenes view of the Magic Kingdom. Overall a terrific experience.
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disneyhardin
Registered: June 2010
Posts: 37
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Review Date: Thu October 11, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Tour Guide, Information Presented
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Cons:
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Lots of Walking/Standing
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We went on the Keys to the Kingdom Tour Oct 6th with tour guide Robert. It was fantastic.
Robert had a true love of Disney that he shared with us. The information he presented was very interesting even to someone like me who has read lots of Disney books already.
The provided lunch was very good and was all spread out and waiting for us when we arrived at Columbia Harbor House.
The "behind the scenes" parts were great, especially the utilidors and being able to see what goes on down there.
The only negative is just the long amount of time you are on your feet. Robert did try to find places with benches/ledges for us to stop and have a place to sit while he talked/took questions.
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pooh2001
Registered: August 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 4
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Review Date: Sun July 8, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Most informative tour we have taken in WDW
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Cons:
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You must like to walk - we walked over 2 miles on the tour
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Keys to the Kingdom Tour at 8:30 am June 2012
Best Tour Ever - highly recommended
Included a ride on Jungle Cruise & Haunted Mansion
Lunch with tour @ Columbia Harbor House – Tuna, salad & chicken fingers were on the table with our KTTK pins, Food was fresh.
So much info from Claire, great tour guide. Saw the Splash Mt. water system, learned about the hidden CM doors, names on the buildings, info about Haunted Mansion, Pirates and Jungle cruise. Saw the utilidors, she explained how CM get around. We also went back stage and viewed the floats, Tinker Bell ‘flys’ on a guide wire @ 27 MPH – ‘lands’ in a net held by 2 large men. Tinker Bell has to be 5’ or less and less than 100 pounds.
We even had our groups picture taken by a PhotoPass photographer in front of the MK castle. Everyone got a copy of the picture on their PhotoPass cards.
Ye, we have read about Walt & Roy Disney and their history and parks, but this tour is still #1 for us. Loved all the information we were told.
Highly recommend the tour - even on a rainy day (Tropical Storm Debby) like we did!
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hliska03
Registered: April 2012
Location: PA
Posts: 27
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Review Date: Mon April 23, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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great information, backstage, rides with no waiting
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Cons:
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tour guide was just ok
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This was a great tour. We were able to enter the park at around 8:15 and the park was nearly empty. We booked the 9:00 tour, so we had 45 minutes to walk down main street all the way to the castle and take lots of park photos with no people in them! We even got to take time lapse photos of all of the guests running into the park. If you book this tour, definitely arrive early because being able to have this experience is a huge perk.
This tour offers free bottled water at the start - stock up. You'll need it. Lunch at Columbia Harbor House is included and we broke for lunch roughly 2 1/2 hours into our tour. The headsets provided were a godsend. They functioned very well and helped us to stay on top of what was going on.
Our tour guide was Landon. He was very young and didn't have a huge amount of experience conducting tours. He did a good job and was very informative, but at points, I felt like he was reciting a script that he had a hard time memorizing. This is partly a function of the fact that he didn't experience any of the historical events that he discussed first-hand. It would have been interesting to take this tour with a guide who had actually experienced more history of the park.
We spent our first hour on Main Street talking about the windows and the history of the concept. I've read roughly half a dozen WDW history/ behind the scenes books. Some of the things that I found most interesting from those books were not mentioned by our tour guide, but he was able to share some different insights and information, so I didn't feel like he was just rehashing things I already knew.
In our second hour, we rode the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. Let me say that I was not previously a Pirates fan because honestly, I didn't really "get" the ride. I rode it and enjoyed the little drop over the waterfall in the dark and the clever animatronic scenes, but I didn't understand the story. Landon offered an insight that made the whole attraction suddenly make sense to me. After Pirates, we went back stage to see the parade floats and see how Splash Mountain works. That was really fascinating.
After lunch break, we talked about some of the details about Liberty Square and rode the Haunted Mansion after an explanation about some of the effects that we would see. We also toured the Utilidors. You can't really see much in the Utilidors and the tour is mostly conducted with photos and maps. The highlight for me was seeing the room where cast members swap out the pins from their lanyards!
When we reemerged on Main Street, we went to one more backstage area where we were able to see the wire than Tinker Bell uses for her flight to begin Wishes every night. We received a very nice souvenir pin for our tour.
This was a very good tour with a lot of perks. The only thing the I would like to see is a take home list of all of the interesting facts that the tour guides reveal. There were so many interesting facts and figures that I could barley remember half of them by the time our five hour tour was over! Next time I'll take notes for sure.
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crafts715
Registered: December 2011
Posts: 4
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Review Date: Thu April 5, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 7
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Pros:
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informative
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Cons:
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not enough of backstage
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This was informative as I learned many things. But, I took this tour as I thought it was going to be more "behind the scenes" where you are not normally not allowed. My dad and I were disappointed that we did not see more "behind the scenes".
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DisneyDream44
Registered: February 2012
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Mon February 20, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Informative, Behind the scenes access
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Cons:
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only offered in the morning
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My husband and I went on Keys To The Kingdom for the first time last week. The tour lasted about 5 hours, so it does take up most of your morning and early afternoon, but it was absolutely worth it. Our tour guide was Wes and he was wonderful! He showed us a lot of areas inside the park and provided lots of information about the park and a lot of facts and information that I never knew about Magic Kingdom and Disney, even though I've visited many times before. We were also taken into behind the scenes areas which was a lot of fun. Going into the famous Magic Kingdom tunnels was a lot of fun, and it is absolutely worth going on the tour just to see the tunnels.
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liberrygal
Registered: August 2011
Posts: 3
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Review Date: Tue August 23, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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My husband and I finally got to go on a tour and we loved it. Our guide was wonderful, she was very knowledgeable and she really loved what she is doing and it showed. The walking was fine we stopped in cool spots that she found for us and between walking, going on rides, having lunch and the excitement of being behind the scences the time flew by. If you love Disney like we do it is wondeful to see and hear about all the details that have gone into each thing they do. Enjoy!
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tiggersmom1
Registered: August 2011
Posts: 2
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Review Date: Thu August 18, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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informative, Evelyn our guide,
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Cons:
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heat and humidity
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My husband and I did this tour last month and absolutely loved it. We learned so much about Walt Disney, Walt Disney World, the company and some family things. Our guide was great, she told us about things and it was like a personal story to her, not just a job. It's a lot of walking, but they do give you breaks to sit, relax and listen. We had lunch at Columbia Harbor House and enjoyed that as well. I've always wanted to eat there, but never managed to do so before. The backstage area was interesting, amazing how big it really is. The utilidors were good too. We saw packages being delivered to the front of the park in addition to workers coming and going. It was a great day and in a few years, when my son's old enough, I'd like to do it again!
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Magicmom
Registered: July 2007
Location: Florida
Posts: 3
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Review Date: Mon July 18, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Claire (the guide) & learning new, fun facts
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Cons:
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Weather
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We just got back from this tour and we really enjoyed it. Having been to Disney well over 30 times and knowing a lot of fun facts already, I still heard new things and walked away very glad we did the tour. Claire was our guide and she was great! She seemed to really love all aspects of Disney and loved to share that knowledge.
We went backstage twice and were not disappointed with the utilidors. I will say though, some people in the group seemed to have very high expectations of what they would see backstage and in the tunnel. Think of it more as you getting to go where few guests go and see what few guests see. Don't expect to see every detail of the backstage magic and you won't be disappointed!
I can't wait until our daughters our old enough to go on this tour, we'll definitely do it again!
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soccercat17
Registered: June 2011
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Wed June 1, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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everything!
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Cons:
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hot florida weather!!! yuck
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So, I was hesitant to take this tour.. I love Disney, but I'm never really excited about tours. However this was AMAZING!!! I've been going to Disney since I was 1 years old and I'm now a pass holder, and this was one of the best days I ever spent at Disney World for sure.
The tour guide, Janson, was awesome! He was so funny and knew a lot about Disney. He answered any questions we had and did an awesome job of finding shade for us. Also the lunch was very good!
I would definitely recommend this tour! I'm really thinking about taking it a second time if I can find the money! haha And I would definitely request Janson as a tour guide!!!!!
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worco
Registered: January 2011
Posts: 35
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Review Date: Sun May 15, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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Learned a lot about Disney
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Cons:
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Long tour wish there was more "back stage".
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My wife and I took the tour on May 11th. Scott was our tour guide and he was very good and knowledgable. We enjoyed his personality and his love for his job. We enjoyed learning about the Magic Kingdom and how it was designed and planned. However we felt there was too much explaining about how things came to be and not enough actually seeing behind the scenes.
We started the tour by walking down Main Street and learning about all the persons the windows give credit too. It was interesting. We then learned about the creation of the "partners" statue, and how the landscaping and building were set up to slowly transform from one themed land to another. Again very interesting, but for all this time we were just standing there listening to a verbal explanation of things. We then rode the Jungle Ride and had the creation of the attractions and characters on the ride explained to us. Pretty good. After the ride we stopped and hung out on benches outside the Pirates of the Caribbean for about 45 minutes and basically had a pow wow about how Disneyland opened and the differences between the two parks and so on. Again interesting, but now we were probably an hour and a half or so into the tour and still hadn't "seen" anything behind the scenes.
Finally we left POC and headed toward frontier land. We were brought to a location where they store the parade floats, and the back of some of the attractions. It was more interesting and what we expected most of the tour to be like. We spent a good amount of time back there and then headed back out through Frontier Land toward Liberty Square. Learning about the the development of that particular part of the park as we walked along.
We had lunch at the Columbia Harbor House which was a very good meal. We had never eaten there before and definitely will eat there again. After lunch we again had about a 30 minute pow wow on the creation of the Haunted Mansion, the difference between the different Mansions at other parks, and how the special effects are done. Really interesting. We then used a side door to enter the cast member area which ultimately was a hallway that took us directly into the stretching room. We rode the ride and were able to understand a lot of the special effects that were explained to us. You just had to know what to look for, and when you did it all made sense.
We finished the Haunted Mansion and headed out a door behind Main Street and into the Utilidors area. This was actually cooler than I thought. Most of the reviews I read were disappointed with this area, but it was exactly what I had expected it to be. I thought it was one of the more interesting areas of the tour. We again had another pow wow down there which lasted about another 45 minutes or so. By this time though, we were well over 4 hours into the tour and the length of time was starting to take its toll on us. We finished up and said our goodbye's and thank you's. All in all, the tour lasted about 5 hours and 15 minutes. While we enjoyed the tour we thought it could have been condensed and still given us the same amount of information. We also thought there would be more "behind the scenes" and expected to "see" how the rides work not just have them explained to us. Maybe that is just something that is not possible and the verbal explanation is the only way to do it. No matter what we are glad we took this tour at least once and can cross it off the bucket list. If you love Disney I would still recommend it, and if you get Scott as a tour guide you will definitely enjoy his personality and sense of humor.
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recmouse
Registered: April 2008
Posts: 35
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Review Date: Thu April 7, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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interesting stories and sights
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Cons:
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utilidors, cold lunch, tour guide was so-so,
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I had been wanting to do this tour for years. So I don't know if my expectations were too high or what. Our tour guide loves Disney so much we thought she was going to cry at times. Other times the way she spoke about Walt and Roy we thought she was their lover or something! She was very knowledgable but there were times you could see it was like she 'lost her place in the speech.' I think maybe she was a teacher before this because sometimes we felt we were in a classroom just listening.
Going on Jungle Cruise with her was great - lots of details and she showed us hidden Mickeys on there too. We also went on Haunted Mansion and she gave us a lot of information before riding that too. Going behind Splash Mountain and where they keep the Electric Light Parade floats was pretty cool. It's just at times after she spoke, we were just there staring at the stuff.
We had lunch at Columbia Harbor House. I normally LOVE eating there... and it is good - it's just the food was almost cold as it was sitting there waiting for us.
The biggest disappointment was the Utilidors. I thought we were really going to walk around and see things down there. We walked down two hallways, looked at some photos on the wall, watched a video, and then up and out the other side!
I think with a different guide, and seeing more of the utilidors, I would have enjoyed this more.
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