Our last day consisted of an early morning Keys to the Kingdom Tour. Its a 4 hour walking tour where we got to learn the history of Disney World. We got to ride a couple of rides, but the best part was getting a tour of the Utilidor and learning how Walt and his brother, Roy, got Disney themeparks started.
How many times will you see Magic Kingdom this dead? The tour started 30 minutes before the park officially opened, so we got to wander around for a bit without screaming, nagging, and all around annoying kids.
Magic Kingdom was the first park built at the resort, and first opened its doors October 1, 1971. When the idea was generated and initial developments were beginning, the Disney brothers, Walt and Roy started buying up land in Florida. At first, they bought the land for $180/acre. Many "new companies" were started by the Disneys to hide land purchases. However, one of the reporters for the Orlando Sentinel uncovered what was really going on, and broke the story. Shortly after that, land prices shot up to $1800/acre.
Along the shops on Main Street, some of the windows have names. This is a tribute to all the people who helped make Disney World possible. Its sort of like opening credits.
Frank Wells was a pivotal player in the success of Disney World. Previously the vice chairman of Warner Bros., he was asked to run Walt Disney Company because of hostile takeover attempts. An avid mountain climber, one of his goals was to climb the highest mountain on each of the 7 continents, hence the name Seven Summits. The only that eluded him was Mt. Everest.
The first store on Main Street is the Confectionery. Right above the door are vents that pipe in wonderful smelling aromas to get people to come inside. Sneaky sneaky!
Disney employees who work on a ride have the opportunity to put in personal touches. Mark Davis worked on both The Pirates of the Caribbean ride, as well as Haunted Mansion. An avid chess player, he has the pirates working on a chess game. And with the Haunted Mansion, instead of gargoyles, chess pieces line the top of the mansion.
I've never been a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Although, like all things Disney, there's a fanatical attention to detail, I think the ride is fairly boring. But, during this ride, our guide notified us that the hair on the pirates is real. Freaking real!!! Disney can do this because inside the ride, they have the ability to control the humidity.
Character stop: Are you surprised?
The best part of the tour was when we got to see the Utilidor. This is the tunnel system (Utility/Corridor) where employees and characters can travel. It was built because Walt Disney did not want characters from one world to be walking through another. This is why you'll never see, for example, a Frontierland cowboy walking through Tomorrowland. Its not only characters, though. Necessities such as trash and supplies for the restaurants and stores also travels via the Utilidor.
The Utilidor layout is opposite of the Magic Kingdom layout; the visitor and main entrance to Magic Kingdom is actually the end of the Utilidor. Although it looks like an underground tunnel system, the Utilidor is actually on ground level, and Magic Kingdom sits above it.
Again, characters.
After leaving Toon Town, we Fast Passed the Winnie-the-Pooh ride and along with that ticket, we also got a Fast Pass to Mickey's PhilharMagic. Although we didn't originally plan on watching it, I'm glad we did. Once again, Disney's 3D shows are spectacular.
Almost 50 years ago, Disney had the idea of making a movie that would be experienced in a totally different way. It was supposed to incorporate all the senses. So, for example, if you saw flowers on the screen, you'd smell flowers. And if there was a water scene, the audience would feel mist. The problem was was theaters back in the days were not keen on this. Theater owners were unwilling to invest money to revamp a theater for one movie.
This movie was Fantasia. What the movie is is not what Disney had envisioned, and it is considered his biggest commercial failure. 44 years later, though, Mickey's PhilharMagic is what Disney had envisioned. Talk about forward thinking!
There seemed to be tons of parades that we somehow always missed. On our last day, we finally caught one of them-the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party. In front of Cinderella's Castle, we watched color floats pass us by with characters such as The Genie, Ariel and Eric, Cinderella, King Louie, and many more.
After Magic Kingdom, we decided to make one last stop at EPCOT. Thank goodness for our park hopper passes! I've always wondered what was in the famous EPCOT golf ball looking structure. Its a ride called Spaceship Earth. When we first hopped into the car, we had no idea what to expect. And then there was a steep incline, and I thought, "oh holy cow! Its going to be a fast ride like the Aerosmith ride or Space Mountain!"
Umm...not quite. I should have figured that out by the fact that there was no safety bar or lap bar. So its 16 minutes of traveling through time. I give the ride credit, its pretty educational. But J-Unit and I did not go to Disney World to learn anything. And all through the ride I'm thinking, "Man-the ball is freakin iconic and inside is a boring ride?!?! That's just not right."
Oh man...and then at the end it became "interactive" with questions. Questions? What questions? I can't remember, but all of a sudden it got interesting when we saw our pics.
Sadly, we had to go through the ride again once we figured out the picture we took in the beginning was going to be used later on.
Vroom Vroom
Faces of the future
We watched IllumiNations, the 12 minute laser and fireworks show above the World Showcase Lagoon.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 1:57PM 