Sunday, September 16 and Monday, September 17

This post is a twofer, because both of these days are quite similar and offer a useful forum for comparison. On Sunday, CP and I took the “Keys to the Kingdom” backstage tour at the Magic Kingdom, and on Monday, we took the “UnDISCOVERed Future World” tour at Epcot.  If you’ve ever contemplated taking a backstage tour, you might want to read on. Spoiler alert: one tour was great, the other not so much, and it’s probably not going to turn out how you’d think.

Sunday:

After a good first night’s sleep at the BoardWalk, we got up a little after 7am. We dressed and got ready and had a fairly leisurely breakfast in the lounge; it’s oatmeal, pastry, and fruit for us, plus some chocolate milk and some coffee. Around 8:10 we head to the car and drive to the Magic Kingdom, where we park in the 2nd row and walk easily to the TTC. Since it’s before 8:30am the Express monorail is closed (why?!), so we queue up and miss the first resort monorail since they send it away nearly half empty.  A second monorail comes soon enough, but we board and wait, wait, and wait some more. We take off, stop at the Poly, and wait again. Now I’m getting nervous – and kind of grumpy – as we’re supposed to check in for our Keys to the Kingdom tour in six minutes. I’m sweating a bit, and not just because it’s another unseasonably humid day.

We finally arrive at the tour check-in (the package pickup building on the left side, just after the train station) around 8:50 and find out that we’re not even close to the last ones there. Figures! We get our name tags  headsets, and make our lunch choices (a vegetarian sandwich for CP, chicken garden salad for me, and Diet Coke for both), and then head outside to wait for our guide. In the meantime, we watch rope drop from the back, and then delight as all the characters from the welcome show walk down the train station stairs toward backstage right next to us. We grab some great pics, and I notice my mood steadily improving.

A little after 9am we meet our guide, Kate. Our group has 16, but it’s a sedate crowd.  Kate doesn’t seem particularly lively, either, but I hope she’ll pick up steam as the tour progresses. We begin with a walk down Main Street, dodging the rope drop crowds, and then we dart down Center Street, where we get our history lesson and pop quiz about the four Disney keys: safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency.  Kate isn’t the most compelling speaker, and her habit of spontaneously yawning isn’t helping. Neither is the degree to which she’s easily distracted by passers by, so she repeats herself and trails off a lot.

In any case, we depart Center Street to look at a few windows on Main Street, and then we make the trek to Adventureland to stop at the Tiki Room. Here, Kate tells us about the building’s design, and how its function as a lightning rod embodies the principles of the four keys. We then ride Jungle Cruise as a group, with Kate narrating. This part of the tour is actually pretty entertaining, and in spite of my own knowledge of the park, I learn a few new things – the water is dyed! One of the natives loves disco!

After a group bathroom break, Kate informs us that we are running a bit ahead of schedule, and offers to take us on Pirates of the Caribbean. Unsurprisingly, no one protests! Afterwards, we regroup and walk toward Splash Mountain, where we go backstage for the first time. En route, we see all the Country Bears coming off stage. They are AWESOME, total troublemakers, and stop to interact with our group before they disappear behind the Mountain. Kate then leads us to a sitting area, where Kate talks some more. (I wish I could tell you what she talked about, but the yawning and wandering and distractions got in the way.) We then see the parade float storage, and then head back onstage to walk to lunch.

Lunch is at the Columbia Harbour House, and it’s honestly pretty mediocre. Our tablemates aren’t great, either, and they make some pointed Chick-Fil-A comments in front of us that give us a clue as to the source of their discomfort.  We’re kind of relieved when the awkward 30 minutes is up, and then we regroup and head to Haunted Mansion. Kate tells us first several neat facts about the Imagineers who worked on the ride, who the real Leota was, how Tony the Tiger has a Disney connection, and a few other tidbits I won’t publish here in case you want to take the tour. We enjoy the ride, as well as the opportunity to sit for a few minutes in some much-needed air conditioning.

Finally, we head through Liberty Square and back to the Crystal Palace area for a quick restroom break before we head backstage again near First Aid. We head down in the Utilidor, and Kate tells us about how the four keys apply to life offstage, too.  We then look at a series of pictures that depict the company’s history, and watch a short video about the costuming department. The tour is then over.

So, here’s my review of Keys to the Kingdom: And….really?  I have to admit, based on the glowing feedback I’d seen online about this particular tour, I was a bit let down.  I found the backstage access to be overhyped – we barely left the entrance of the Utilidor, and the backstage areas behind the Crystal Palace and Splash Mountain were nothing more than parking lots. While Kate’s basic knowledge of the park was satisfactory, I didn’t feel I learned much about the park that I couldn’t learn looking online or in books. Maybe this would suit a first-timer or a relative newcomer to the Disney experience, but given that backstage tours are directed more toward professional fans and serious amateurs, I felt we had paid a lot of money to not get a lot of new information or experiences in return.

Back in the 90s, I was lucky enough to take a backstage Magic Kingdom tour for adolescents who had an interest in the performing arts.  It was roughly a six-hour tour, and it was notable not only for its length – especially the extensive time away from our families, something that was exciting to 12-year-old me -but also for its thoroughness. We actually toured the Costuming department. Our walk through the Utilidors was extensive.  We not only had lunch and saw a show at the Diamond Horseshoe,  but also went backstage and met the performers. This, all in addition to what Keys to the Kingdom offered.  As much as I understand protecting corporate secrets, “the Magic,” and the privacy of Cast Members, Keys to the Kingdom felt a bit like a naked money grab. Maybe a better tour guide would have helped, but even the best tour guide can only work with what Disney officially sanctions.

Moving on!

After our tour, we contemplate having a snack at the Magic Kingdom but can’t find anything to our liking. It’s also a worst-park day and while the crowds aren’t huge, they’re definitely annoying. We head out to the ferry, gossiping about our tour, and then head back to the car.

We decide to try and find a snack on the BoardWalk  and end up splitting a piece of Peanut Butter cake from the BW Bakery. It’s pretty excellent! Then it’s naptime, snack time in the lounge, and time for an evening visit to the Studios.

Although I have a lot of issues with the general stagnation of the Studios, it’s one of our favorite parks to visit around dusk:

The crowds are fairly light, although the area near TSMM is choked up. The standby time is 50 minutes, so we walk through the backlots and end up at the Muppets, which we enjoy from the very last row. We browse the dump shop, head back through the backlot, and then gaze upon the mystical toilet paper tree – AND the newer paper towel tree! Seriously -why do these things exist?!

Then we scope out TSMM and see the wait is still a bit high, so we head to Hollywood Blvd to pin trade, take pictures, and indulge CP in a Mickey’s premium bar. After that, we head back to TSMM and see that the wait is down to 30 minutes, so we hop in line. It moves quickly, we’re pulled out at the FP/standby juncture, and board through the handicap line. Both of us lose about 12-14k off our earlier scores, but the ride is fun as always. We head out to a closed park, snapping pictures, and head back to the resort for dessert in the lounge, showers, and sleep.

Monday:

Day two of our backstage tour extravaganza!

On the docket today is a backstage tour of Epcot’s Future World.

We get up again a bit after 7. We dress and get ready, grab breakfast in the lounge (where I have one-but-wish-it-was-twenty delicious chocoalte croissant like pastry, omg), and then head to the car to drive to Epcot – we had decided the night before not to walk through the International Gateway in the morning in order to save our feet.  We expect to find a pre-rope drop entry gate for tour participants like you do at MK, but instead we see nothing of the sort. We ask a CM where to go, and we’re misdirected, all the way to Guest Relations near the bus stops.  After we walk all that way in the wrong direction, we ask a manager what we should do, and he tells us to pick whatever line is shortest. Apparently at Epcot there is a dedicated tour line before 8:30 am, but at 8:30 everything switches over to regular admission lines. I’m not pleased – we’re late again, and this could have been avoided if the pre-tour instructions had been clearer.

So, this is day two that sees me a bit grumpy. We head in to Guest Relations near Spaceship Earth – so the first CM who misdirected us was only *half* wrong – and today find that we are, in fact, the last two to check in for our tour.  Luckily our guide hasn’t shown up yet, so we get our name tags, headsets, and bottled water and head outside to wait.  Our tour guide then shows up – his name is Robert, and he is a bundle of Disney energy in all the right ways -let’s just say right up front that his tour blows Kate’s right out of the water.

We start the tour off backstage, walking back through Guest Relations to a Cast Member break area that eventually takes us into Innoventions.  We spend a few minutes talking about the general history of Epcot, and then peek into the Vision House, something CP and I will come back to tour later. (Talk about another bad tour, oy.)  We then follow Robert back outside to the Fountain of Nations, where he tells us about Epcot’s dedication ceremony as well as the precise weather measurements that are required to precisely calibrate the fountain every day, sometimes every hour.  We then walk into the building attached to Fountainview, where we take bathroom breaks and spend some time looking at the timeline created for Epcot’s 25th anniversary. Robert has to yell over another tour guide who is accompanying a group of school children on a YES tour, and Robert makes some choice and snarky comments about his competition. I like this guy.

Robert then leads us to the Land pavilion, where he sets us loose to procure snacks and take a fifteen minute break. CP and I get some tasty breakfast pastries and water, and then rejoin the group before our next backstage experience. Robert takes us out an emergency exit and behind the pavilion, eventually leading us through a Cast Member entrance to Soarin’.  Robert entertains us with stories of the “Easter Eggs” in the film, and then we all ride as a group, bypassing a significant line. (That felt GREAT.)  Afterward, we walk backstage again, coming back on stage near the Imagination Pavilion.

Our next stop is The Seas pavilion, where we learn about the pavilion’s original cost (more than the cost of the rest of Epcot combined!) and its transition from the Seas to the Seas with Nemo and Friends.  We are also brought into the Seas’ private  lounge – 1989 called and wants its dark, swanky-but-cheesy lounge back – where we all gaze transfixed at the marine life in the aquariums.  Here’s a pro-tip: I know you might want to, but please don’t hold your wedding reception in this lounge.  The fish are cool, but you deserve a better location.

Anyway!  Our next stop was the Universe of Energy, where we went backstage and got up close and personal with some retired audio animatronics. It’s actually the only picture we were allowed to take on the tour:

This was one part of the tour that I found particularly fascinating – as much as you might know about Disney, it’s not every day you get to feel an AA in person.

After all sixteen of us got our fill of AAs, Robert lead us to Mission: Space, where we visited yet another private lounge. Although much smaller than the lounge at the Seas, the HP lounge at M:S was a lot nicer, definitely more modern. Also, there were real people in the lounge, as HP employees and their families can stop by for beverages, bathrooms, and some TV time.  You also get a pretty choice view of the ride loading area from the lounge, and Robert told us some interesting facts about the design and development of this ride.

After we left Mission:Space, it was time for the part of the tour I had been hoping would actually happen: heading back to the Epcot Cast services building. A place I had been countless times during my College Program, but whose contours had grown fuzzy in my mind after ten years back in the real world.  The building was much as I remembered it – as were the harried, somewhat dour Cast Members not yet forced to smile onstage – but Costuming was much improved since my time as a CM. How do I know? Why, we got an extensive tour of Costuming! So extensive, in fact, that Robert took us to areas not typically shown on backstage tours – the costuming workroom, where costumes from all over property are repaired, and the wig/makeup room, where the princesses of Epcot do their makeup and have their wigs styled and attached.  To see princesses with wigs and makeup but no costumes was a bit jarring, so if you’re someone who is sensitive to losing the magic, you might want to avoid at least this part of the tour. But if you’re curious about how things work, you will probably love this part!

The tour concluded with a bit more wandering backstage, and then Robert escorted us back onstage through a door in the back of the shop in the World Showcase’s China.  He presented us with Spaceship Earth pins, and let us know that our names were on a list for VIP IllumiNations viewing that night.

So what did we think of this tour? It’s obvious, I hope – our Epcot tour was an absolute delight.  While acknowledging that a tour guide certainly can make or break a tour, UnDISCOVERed Future World offered so much more in the way of raw material than the Keys to the Kingdom tour at the Magic Kingdom.  The experience was much more in-depth, and I thought Robert did a good job presenting what can be a contested history of Epcot.  Of course, it also helped that our fellow tour-mates were avowed Epcot geeks, but in general the whole experience of this tour was so much more gratifying than our Magic Kingdom tour, and the VIP fireworks viewing was a nice touch, too.  I felt this tour was absolutely worth the money, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take the tour again.

To finish up our Sunday:

After our Epcot tour, we decided on a whim to check out Via Napoli for lunch. We waited only a few minutes to be seated, and we found the dining room to be light, airy, and only pleasantly chaotic.  We shared arancini for an appetizer, and then split the Picante pizza, a sausage pizza that had a great crust, excellent spice, and plentiful toppings.  Rounding out the meal was the delicious carafe of red sangria that we also split. It’s a good thing we had a long walk back to the car, because both of us were a bit tipsy from the sangria. It was worth it, however – Via Napoli was GREAT. We will definitely be back on future trips.

Tired after two days of extensive touring, we headed back to the BoardWalk for naps, appetizers in the lounge, and some rest in the room. We actually decided it would be a good night to stay in and get some laundry done, and so we watched TV, browsed the internet, and went about reorganizing the room. Dessert and cordials were had promptly at eight, and we made it another early night. After all, rope drop waits for no one!