What WDW Tours have you taken??

[Goofnut1980]

So I have taken the Behind the Seeds Tour and loved it. It was really great to see the operations of the greenhouses.

In December, I have booked the Keys to the Kingdom Tour. Having been to Disney 38 times, I am looking to try something a little different.

What tours have you taken, liked, didn't like, and what was the experience truly like?

 

[JIMINYCR]

Keys to the Kingdom & Backstage Magic... both were excellent. In both cases we had great personable CM's that really made the tours fun and worth taking. I knew most of the information they talked about, didnt learn a lot of new stuff, wasnt impressed by the utilidors, enjoyed the behind the scenes experience at Epcot. Friends have taken the same tours but with CM's that were not as dynamic so their after tour opinions differed than mine. I wanted to take the Magic behind the steam train tour last trip but our schedule didnt allow it to fit in. Still hoping to make that one next time.

 

[DisneyPrincess5]

We've done two Segway tours which were awesome and my mom has done the KTTK tour which she said was very good. The Segway tours were so fun. You learn to ride them and then we rode them in World Showcase with a guide explaining little bits about WS. I don't believe the tour operates anymore but there is one at Ft Wilderness I believe.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Keys, Undiscovered Future World, The Hidden secrets of Worldshowcase, Backstage Safari, all good with the caveat that it is guide dependant.

 

[ABQ]

We've done two Segway tours which were awesome and my mom has done the KTTK tour which she said was very good. The Segway tours were so fun. You learn to ride them and then we rode them in World Showcase with a guide explaining little bits about WS. I don't believe the tour operates anymore but there is one at Ft Wilderness I believe.

The Ft Wilderness Segway is fun as you get the larger wheel and tire version, plus, get to see some animals. At least we did.

 

[WDW 3]

Undiscovered Future World, Keys to the Kingdom, Mickeys Magical Milestones (?) since canceled, Backstage Magic and EPCOT Segway also no longer available.
Liked them all except the Mickeys Milestones because our tour guide was dull. But we each got a pair of ears at the conclusion! The tour guide can really make a difference.
I want to take a holiday tour!

 

[ABQ]

Undiscovered Future World, Keys to the Kingdom, Mickeys Magical Milestones (?) since canceled, Backstage Magic and EPCOT Segway also no longer available.
Liked them all except the Mickeys Milestones because our tour guide was dull. But we each got a pair of ears at the conclusion! The tour guide can really make a difference.
I want to take a holiday tour!

I took Yuletide Magic, which was quite good. However, they've since cut back on so much decoration that I can't imagine it being worth the cash these days.

 

[seahawk7]

We really liked the Wild Africa Trek at AK. It was a lot of fun feeding the hippos, walking over the rope bridge above the crocodiles and driving in the safari from on a different path gives a new perspective.

 

[WondersOfLife]

I've never taken a WDW tour...

But, since this is a Disney "tour" topic-ish....

I live in South Carolina. There used to be a Disney shipping-plant that my sister worked at on the phones! She got me a private tour of the entire building before it closed. Apparently I am the only person they've ever given a tour of the shipping plant too as well. Photography was completely forbidden. But everything was so amazing!

There was this moving floor thing (like the checkout pad at walmart) that hung from the ceiling that went all around this huge storage-like building that moved a bunch of Disney toys to certain boxes. It was so advanced, it would drop the toy in the boxes filled with other toys that was the same as it.

Also, one thing that I thought was cool was that one room was dark, it had a long table and two lines of chairs on both sides. Like a meeting room. But there was a wooden cut-out picture of MK Main Street going down the wall on both sides of the room. It was neat.

The phone room (where you call Disney normally, this is where they'd pick up) was honestly just a box-office building. But it was neat because all the different call-people had Disney accessories all in their boxes.

Ahh..... I've never felt so proud to have my hair combed with my nerdy sweater on in my life!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

I have taken the Keys to the Kingdom and the Behind the Seeds tour. Keys was a fun tour, I knew a lot of information but learned a lot too, I thought it was fun to see the utilidoors (not that they were anything great).

The behind the seeds tour was a long time goal of mine and I loved it. It was fun to go up close and see the technology that is used to grow a lot of the crops. I probably liked this one since I have difficulties growing things; I've killed a cactus.

Also, at Disneyland, I took the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour and that was fantastic. It was worth every penny to go into the now old lobby of Club 33 and to go into Walt's Firestation Apartment.

 

[Worldlover71]

I took the Backstage Magic tour a few years ago. It was fun and I'm glad I did it but it was not what I expected. I thought for the high price, it would be for true die-hard fans and little would be off-limits, at least for discussion. What I got instead were a lot of people on the tour who were casual fans or had never even been to WDW before. I'm not sure why they would want this tour but I soon discovered it was geared more to them than to me. I already knew almost everything that was discussed and there were a lot of things the guide refused to talk about. When someone asked about the women who play the princesses, the guide (who was very good) looked at them like they were crazy and said the princesses play themselves. My feeling is that if you want to take this particular tour enough to pay the high price point, it should be really backstage and not just slightly off-stage. Still it was nice to see the scenic shops and utiladors and other backstage areas.

 

[LAKid53]

Keys to the Kingdom and Backstage Safari. Keys is an awesome tour and our CM was the best! But it is a 5 hour walking tour so wear comfortable walking shoes.

One of these days we will do the Wild Africa Trek if I can get my daughter to agree to walking across a bridge over a pool of crocodiles....

 

[WDW 3]

That's what was fun on the Undiscovered tour. We saw the costume department and salon where princesses were coming in carrying their wigs to be styled.

 

[DizneyPryncess]

Keys to the Kingdom and the Segway tour in the world showcase. I am not sure that the latter still exists but we really liked it. I loved Keys though! i ended up learning new things, and it was fun seeing the backstage areas. Our tour guide was Matthew, and he made the tour. He was great!

 

[cfry06]

Keys To The Kingdom and the Epcot Segway tour (rip Segway tour So wish it was still offered). Both were a blast! Having tried these two, I definitely want to sign up for more. I look forward to trying Wild Africa Trek, as well as the Family Backstage Magic (or something like that) once my son is a bit older.

 

[Goofnut1980]

Undiscovered Future World, Keys to the Kingdom, Mickeys Magical Milestones (?) since canceled, Backstage Magic and EPCOT Segway also no longer available.
Liked them all except the Mickeys Milestones because our tour guide was dull. But we each got a pair of ears at the conclusion! The tour guide can really make a difference.
I want to take a holiday tour!

I was thinking about adding Holiday D-Lights on this trip... I am a holiday freak! lol

 

[Bairstow]

We did Backstage Magic last September.
As others have said, the quality and tone of the instruction of the tour will vary quite a bit depending on who you get as your guides.
I didn't pick up a lot of new information I hadn't gotten elsewhere (here, for instance), but as such a longtime Disney World fan it was worth it to finally see the utilidoors and the internal workings of Tower of Terror (or at least the maintenance bay) and The American Adventure. The real highlight of the tour was the all-too-brief walking tour of Central Shops behind the Magic Kingdom. You never know what kind of fascinating attraction hardware will be sitting in there in various stages of disassembly, painting, or repair.

I've looked into Keys to the Kingdom but it doesn't really appeal to me. Seems like there's too much overlap to the actual backstage elements you see between that and Backstage Magic.
That one's kind of a "best of" so if you only want to do one tour at WDW, that would be the one.

Years and years ago when I was 10 or so I took some sort of all-day kids' class through the Disney Institute. It was focused on "art" but tended to bounce all over. We were taken by van to the Magic Kingdom and rode Mansion (no backstage there, to my disappointment) and then to MGM Studios for a really fascinating walk at cubicle-level through the animation studios. We had a chat with a couple of the animators there, then were taken back to the Disney Institute for various art-related activities, drawing lessons, etc.

Before that I did some sort of kids' day camp/tour thing on Discovery Island. I don't remember much about it though I do have a picture the staff took of me with a big white parrot perched on my arm.

 

[COrunner]

The one I'd like to and Mrs. CORunner has given her blessing is the scuba diving at the living seas. Anyone done that?

I just think it would be cool to dive and get the patch, plus in a round about way I still have that old vision of the divers waving at guest and always wanted to do that.

 

[PMC0849]

The Wild Africa Trek was pretty great. It really is like a more in-depth, version of the safari ride, plus walking across rope bridges. It was the highlight of our last trip

 

[rt06]

Sunrise Safari. There was an alligator feeding, and a lot of in depth information. Breakfast buffet was ok, with omelettes made to order. I wouldn't exactly put it on anyone's must do list.