Tour?

[TSM1993]

I was wondering if anyone did either of these tours I read ALLEARS review but none were for this year. My DBF is into steam trains so one of the ones we would do is The Magic of Steam Trains. The other is Keys to the Kingdom Tour.

 

[webmomom]

I have not done the Steam Engine tour, but I had done Keys to Kingdom Tour. It was excellent. m you get to behind the scences, go into tunnel, and eat Lunch Clombia Harbor House. In Fact all the tours are very, very good.

 

[CDSTapisRouge]

I was a tour guide for the Magic Behind the Steam Trains tour for 2 years (hubby still is one) so I am a little biased when I say the tour is really good. But here is what I can tell you...

You don't have to be a total train enthusiast to enjoy this one. Most of the time the group is split 50/50 with people that are really into trains (some that work on them even) and those that are just along to keep them company. At the end of the tour, the ones that were "just there" have a tendency to rave about how wonderful it was, how much fun they had and seemed surprised as they didn't expect to get much from it.

The tour itself is pretty cool. You get the back history on Walt's childhood and how he became interested in the trains. You learn where the idea for the trains in the park came from, where the trains themselves were purchased, and what the significance is behind the names of the trains. You will board a train and ride it to Toontown where they will take you to the roundhouse (which by the way is not round) and you will learn about steam trains in general and be given the opportunity to go into the cab of one of the trains. You will get to watch the morning crew do all the safety checks necessary to bring a train into the park each morning and ride back out into the park with them. Once the tour ends you will get a tour exclusive pin (that was created by one of the engineers).

The tour itself starts at 7:30am (they will ask you to be at the turnstiles to MK by 7:15am) and is usually over between 10-11am (depends on the size of the group and the tour guide...some of them will stay and chat well into the afternoon if you want to). They will tell you no cameras are allowed (standard Disney tour procedure) however on this tour they encourage photos and will give you lots of opportunites to get them.

I think the tour is very well done. The information they give is interesting, yet informative, but not to technical that the novice will get lost. The ability to go back stage and see the roundhouse, sit in the locomotive and see the morning crew prepare the train is really a unique experience. Definetly a tour that is enjoyed by all that take it. (I never had anyone that did not like it on any of my tours)... I even have had people send me pictures they took on the tour, come back and take it again and/or find me when they come back just to say hi...

If you have any specific questions about the tour I would be more than happy to answer them

 

[rlovew]

We just went on both of these tours in March. We really enjoyed them both.

Keys to the kingdom had many interesting tidbits that made us appreciate the park more and I didn't find that it ruined the magic for us, it just helped us appreciate all the more what goes on out front.

The Steam Train tour was also interesting and allowed us to take pictures of the empty park (completely empty) which was neat. My husband is really into trains so I was just along for the ride. I found the roundhouse quite interesting and the stories were great. The only problem I had with this was that we sat in the train station for about 2 hours listening to stories and the benches were not that comfortable.

We also went on the Undiscovered Future World tour and that was our favorite of the three but we wouldn't have missed any of them.