- Joined
- Dec 15, 1998
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I try to go on all the tours at the Disneyland Resort so I can share my personal experiences on them. Over the years, I’ve taken the "Walk in Walt’s Footsteps" tour three times - visited his apartment twice and the Dream Suite once.
I was happy to hear that they brought back tours, and a modified version of the "Walk in Walt’s Footsteps" tour was included, so I booked the "Walt's Main Street Story" tour for the first day I could go. When booking, I was happy to note that there were plenty of tours available.
Here is the tour as advertised:
We had a good group. Everyone checked in ahead of time so everyone was provided with a lanyard and a laminated paper tag for the tour. We were also given an earpiece so we could hear our tour guide at all times. This is such an improvement over the earlier years where you had to be next to the guide in order to hear the comments, and wouldn’t hear anything if the guide was pointing out interesting sites. With these we were connected at all times.
Our tour started right on time, and after a brief introduction in front of City Hall we went to the exit area of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln to listen about some anecdotes on Walt Disney’s early life and his vision for Main Street. From there we down Main Street, crossed the street to stop in front of Refreshment Corner, and continued back towards Town Square. We stopped one more time in front of the Emplorium and heard some more trivia about Main Street and Walt Disney’s early life then continued to Walt’s apartment.
Our group was small enough for all of us to go up to the apartment. In the past, they limited the group to 10 at a time, and there were 7 in this group. We all went up and once there were shown around the apartment and given some history and trivia about it. I thought this part of the tour was really well done. We had plenty of time in the apartment, and then a Disneyland photographer took a picture of us that included the lamp in it.
After visiting Walt’s apartment we went out on the deck patio. We still were not allowed to take pictures up there, but it was nice to sit down for a question/answer session, and to get a drink and a cookie. I had been on the patio before, and noted that now there is a new lattice fence that kind of blocks our view of the street below. I don’t know if they added that since the tour now includes a patio visit and they don’t want pictures of Main Street posted from that vantage point, or if there is another reason - but there are three fences between the patio and Main Street. After visiting the patio we were taken back down and out to Main Street.
My final thoughts about the tour: Only take this tour if you are willing to pay $160+ to visit Walt’s apartment.
The tour itself was 25 minutes before we were taken up to Walt’s apartment. I was really disappointed that more wasn’t shared about Main Street. We basically went to four spots along Main Street where we were given stories about Walt, and that his early years in Marceline inspired Main Street, and very few interesting details about Main Street. There was no commentary while we were walking, and we were given basic information and a couple of cool pieces of trivia. The total tour from the time we started until the time we ended back on Main Street was one hour. The Disneyland site advertises that the tour is 90 minutes. I was expecting the entire tour to be 90 minutes, not 60 minutes. If the Main Street tour is going to be 25 minutes (which it was), then 20 minutes in Walt’s apartment, and 15 minutes on the patio, the website should be more clear about what is actually going to happen for the money that we are spending so we can judge whether it’s worth it or not.
Pros:
I was happy to hear that they brought back tours, and a modified version of the "Walk in Walt’s Footsteps" tour was included, so I booked the "Walt's Main Street Story" tour for the first day I could go. When booking, I was happy to note that there were plenty of tours available.
Here is the tour as advertised:
We had a good group. Everyone checked in ahead of time so everyone was provided with a lanyard and a laminated paper tag for the tour. We were also given an earpiece so we could hear our tour guide at all times. This is such an improvement over the earlier years where you had to be next to the guide in order to hear the comments, and wouldn’t hear anything if the guide was pointing out interesting sites. With these we were connected at all times.
Our tour started right on time, and after a brief introduction in front of City Hall we went to the exit area of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln to listen about some anecdotes on Walt Disney’s early life and his vision for Main Street. From there we down Main Street, crossed the street to stop in front of Refreshment Corner, and continued back towards Town Square. We stopped one more time in front of the Emplorium and heard some more trivia about Main Street and Walt Disney’s early life then continued to Walt’s apartment.
Our group was small enough for all of us to go up to the apartment. In the past, they limited the group to 10 at a time, and there were 7 in this group. We all went up and once there were shown around the apartment and given some history and trivia about it. I thought this part of the tour was really well done. We had plenty of time in the apartment, and then a Disneyland photographer took a picture of us that included the lamp in it.
After visiting Walt’s apartment we went out on the deck patio. We still were not allowed to take pictures up there, but it was nice to sit down for a question/answer session, and to get a drink and a cookie. I had been on the patio before, and noted that now there is a new lattice fence that kind of blocks our view of the street below. I don’t know if they added that since the tour now includes a patio visit and they don’t want pictures of Main Street posted from that vantage point, or if there is another reason - but there are three fences between the patio and Main Street. After visiting the patio we were taken back down and out to Main Street.
My final thoughts about the tour: Only take this tour if you are willing to pay $160+ to visit Walt’s apartment.
The tour itself was 25 minutes before we were taken up to Walt’s apartment. I was really disappointed that more wasn’t shared about Main Street. We basically went to four spots along Main Street where we were given stories about Walt, and that his early years in Marceline inspired Main Street, and very few interesting details about Main Street. There was no commentary while we were walking, and we were given basic information and a couple of cool pieces of trivia. The total tour from the time we started until the time we ended back on Main Street was one hour. The Disneyland site advertises that the tour is 90 minutes. I was expecting the entire tour to be 90 minutes, not 60 minutes. If the Main Street tour is going to be 25 minutes (which it was), then 20 minutes in Walt’s apartment, and 15 minutes on the patio, the website should be more clear about what is actually going to happen for the money that we are spending so we can judge whether it’s worth it or not.
Pros:
- Tour guide was engaging and made sure we could hear and answered questions. Also asked questions so everyone felt included/not left out
- Enough time in Walt’s apartment, and pointed out different artifacts, shared trivia, and even opened cupboards, and allowed us to check out the bathroom
- Accessible now for guests in wheelchairs to go to Walt’s apartment
- Not worth the cost for the tour, in my opinion
- Tour time was too short and more could have been shared, even storytelling to make it last longer (I’m looking at this for the normal guest, not guests like me that know a lot about the parks)
- They used to hand out a really nice pin as a memento and include lunch. Now the memento might be the cardstock paper tag on a lanyard (not worth it, in my opinion), and we got a cookie to be eaten during ‘tour time‘, where before, in my experience, we ate our lunches after the tour was over.
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