pharmama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 6, 2012
- Messages
- 3,093
Just wanted to post a quick review of the tour which DD9 and I did on Sunday Aug 31. We have not done WIWF but DD is very eager to do that one now too (yay!) once Walt's apartment is back online.
Anyway, back to the tour. There were 2 couples on the tour, DD & I and one solo young woman. Our tour guide, Charity, is the lead trainer for this new DCA tour. She was great and quickly picked up on that everyone on the tour was pretty Disney savvy. As reported, the tour goes on Soarin' (via the exit, and directly to the best seats in the house
) and, in theory, RSR as well as an Animation Academy session.
Early in the tour you also visit 1901. A previous review I saw said the visit was brief, but I felt like we had plenty of time there to look around and ask questions about all the photos, memorabilia etc and to see the special 'guest'. The club was just beautiful and this was an unexpected highlight for me. As previously mentioned, photography is not allowed during the 1901 visit.
The recorded and tour guide audio throughout the tour was a nice mix of historical information about Walt and the parks and newer information about areas like CarsLand etc. Although I knew a fair amount of what was shared, there were some great new nuggets as well.
We had a little 'bump' on our tour when RSR went down literally as we were just preparing to walk in the exit. Charity said it was-amazingly- the first time it had happened to her on the tour. She stalled for a few minutes in case it came up quickly, but ultimately determined (in conjunction with other CMs) that it would not be up in time or we would miss the Animation session. So we went over to the Animation building early. This was an unexpected win because she decided with the extra time to go through the Sorcerers Workshop area. We learned several things in there about the area I had no idea about or had not noticed before (make sure you turn around and look at the wall near the entrance when you are walking out of the sorcerer's workshop and into the beast's library to see who is 'supervising' the area).
Our Animation session was Steamboat Willie. I have seen the same one reported for others on this tour so it seems like maybe they have it 'fixed' to be this way? Although my DD asked early in the tour who we would be drawing and got a typical non-committal answer so I'm not sure.
In compensation for the missed RSR, each tour guest got one of the "super fastpasses" that are each good for up to 6 guests on any FP attraction. We still used these for RSR since it was the main ride we had left to do before our flight left that afternoon.
Overall, DD and I really enjoyed the tour and I would definitely recommend it. Let me know if you have any questions.
Anyway, back to the tour. There were 2 couples on the tour, DD & I and one solo young woman. Our tour guide, Charity, is the lead trainer for this new DCA tour. She was great and quickly picked up on that everyone on the tour was pretty Disney savvy. As reported, the tour goes on Soarin' (via the exit, and directly to the best seats in the house
) and, in theory, RSR as well as an Animation Academy session. Early in the tour you also visit 1901. A previous review I saw said the visit was brief, but I felt like we had plenty of time there to look around and ask questions about all the photos, memorabilia etc and to see the special 'guest'. The club was just beautiful and this was an unexpected highlight for me. As previously mentioned, photography is not allowed during the 1901 visit.
The recorded and tour guide audio throughout the tour was a nice mix of historical information about Walt and the parks and newer information about areas like CarsLand etc. Although I knew a fair amount of what was shared, there were some great new nuggets as well.
We had a little 'bump' on our tour when RSR went down literally as we were just preparing to walk in the exit. Charity said it was-amazingly- the first time it had happened to her on the tour. She stalled for a few minutes in case it came up quickly, but ultimately determined (in conjunction with other CMs) that it would not be up in time or we would miss the Animation session. So we went over to the Animation building early. This was an unexpected win because she decided with the extra time to go through the Sorcerers Workshop area. We learned several things in there about the area I had no idea about or had not noticed before (make sure you turn around and look at the wall near the entrance when you are walking out of the sorcerer's workshop and into the beast's library to see who is 'supervising' the area).
Our Animation session was Steamboat Willie. I have seen the same one reported for others on this tour so it seems like maybe they have it 'fixed' to be this way? Although my DD asked early in the tour who we would be drawing and got a typical non-committal answer so I'm not sure.
In compensation for the missed RSR, each tour guest got one of the "super fastpasses" that are each good for up to 6 guests on any FP attraction. We still used these for RSR since it was the main ride we had left to do before our flight left that afternoon.
Overall, DD and I really enjoyed the tour and I would definitely recommend it. Let me know if you have any questions.
