Which Tour for Surprise?

TurnR@TheMouseHouse

Mouseketeer
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
232
I am taking my father and brother to Disney the first week in Dec for the Christmas experience. We are going for 7 days and I have found a day that is open for "whatever". I am looking at tours and cannot decide which would be the the most worthwhile to spend my money on that would be a wonderful way to spend our time.

It's going to be a Surprise so I don't won't to blow it. I am looking for the WOW factor for them. I would appreciate any input on Tours you have taken that have left you with feeling you were so happy you did that and why.

Signed,

Obessive Planner when it comes to Disney! :cool1:
 
Undiscovered Future World is great. Be warned though that it is a long tour and A LOT of walking. There are a couple of short breaks, but no lunch stop or anything.
 
We did the Keys to the Kingdom Tour on 8/9 and found it to be rather boring. The best part of the tour was that we got to jump to the head of the line for the Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates. It was a very looonnnnnng day, and a very hot one! There was nothing really special about it.

Our tour guide was Jennifer and we started at 9:30 and finished at 2:30.

For what it's worth, we did hear numerous times during our trip that the Epcot tour was great
 
Can you tell what about the KTTK tour you thought was boring? Too much walking? Information you already knew? What were you expecting from the tour that did not happen?

Thanks
 

TurnR@TheMouseHouse said:
I am taking my father and brother to Disney the first week in Dec for the Christmas experience. We are going for 7 days and I have found a day that is open for "whatever". I am looking at tours and cannot decide which would be the the most worthwhile to spend my money on that would be a wonderful way to spend our time.

It's going to be a Surprise so I don't won't to blow it. I am looking for the WOW factor for them. I would appreciate any input on Tours you have taken that have left you with feeling you were so happy you did that and why.

Signed,

Obessive Planner when it comes to Disney! :cool1:
I did the Epcot seas Aqua tour and it was GREAT. My 11 year old son and i did this together. We were also the only ones on the tour that day and they let us do everything so as to kill time becuase of just the two of us.What you get to do is snuba in the living seas aquatic tank. They size you for full scuba gear, but you are so boyant that you are always in the top two to three feet of water, you cannot go ant lower. My wife was in the viewing area so she got pictures of us in the tank, and it's really cool because you can see the people in the viewing area and wave to them as well as the people in the restaurant below. This tank is so massive that Spacship earth at Epcot will fit in this tank with 5 feet still on each side. As we were the only ones on the tour that day when we were at the top of the tank, Brett one of the instructors said jump in the whole tank is yours, so off we went. This was one of the best things i have ever done on my life. To have sea turtles swim with you as well as a 350lb grouper swim by you was pretty cool, and the 7ft shark that was swimming below me was also awesome. the adrenaline rush lasted at least 2 to 3 hours after this tour, and i would highly recommend this. Good luck.
 
goofy 28 said:
I did the Epcot seas Aqua tour and it was GREAT. My 11 year old son and i did this together. We were also the only ones on the tour that day and they let us do everything so as to kill time becuase of just the two of us.What you get to do is snuba in the living seas aquatic tank. They size you for full scuba gear, but you are so boyant that you are always in the top two to three feet of water, you cannot go ant lower. My wife was in the viewing area so she got pictures of us in the tank, and it's really cool because you can see the people in the viewing area and wave to them as well as the people in the restaurant below. This tank is so massive that Spacship earth at Epcot will fit in this tank with 5 feet still on each side. As we were the only ones on the tour that day when we were at the top of the tank, Brett one of the instructors said jump in the whole tank is yours, so off we went. This was one of the best things i have ever done on my life. To have sea turtles swim with you as well as a 350lb grouper swim by you was pretty cool, and the 7ft shark that was swimming below me was also awesome. the adrenaline rush lasted at least 2 to 3 hours after this tour, and i would highly recommend this. Good luck.


Glad to hear that you had such a great time on this. I booked DD11 and I into it next week! :cool1:
 
TurnR@TheMouseHouse said:
Can you tell what about the KTTK tour you thought was boring? Too much walking? Information you already knew? What were you expecting from the tour that did not happen?

Thanks

I guess that I had other expectations that what was presented to us. I thought that we would spend more time "backstage" and get more "secrets" than we did. The walking didn't bother me because we would have done the walking anyway. Maybe it was our guide, I don't know. I can't pinpoint one thing in particular. I found that I knew about as much as our tour guide about the things that we did discuss.
 
We're going to do the Around the World on a Segway tour on our trip. It lasts two hours in the morning, so it won't take a huge chunk out of your day. The first hour is spent learning to ride and maneuver the Segway, the second hour is spent riding it around WS. The cost is $80, and there is a 15% discount for AAA members. I have heard a lot of great reviews on this, and can't wait to try it myself!
 
irisbud said:
We're going to do the Around the World on a Segway tour on our trip. It lasts two hours in the morning, so it won't take a huge chunk out of your day. The first hour is spent learning to ride and maneuver the Segway, the second hour is spent riding it around WS. The cost is $80, and there is a 15% discount for AAA members. I have heard a lot of great reviews on this, and can't wait to try it myself!


I'm surprising DH with this tour for his birthday next month while we are there.
 
We have done the Undiscovered Future World tour- it was good, we walked about 2.4 miles (I wear a pedometer around Disney), you see some thing backstage but not too much, it just kind of helps you see how Disney makes the magic happen. As a bonus you get special viewing for illuminations the night you go on the tour.

Keys to the Kingdom- We had the first tour of the day (starts at 8:30) and it was fun, we stopped at a sidestreet and watched the crowds as they came into the park, it gave me an different appreciation for the MK. I loved getting to see the utilidoors but their wasn't too much time backstage. This tour does include lunch. We found our tour guide to have good information although being Disney buffs most of it wasn't that new- especially since i had read a number of tour reports.

Magic Behind the Steam Trains- Being the first guests of the day into the Magic Kingdom was cool and provide great pictures of main street and the castle. Seeing the train and monorail housing was neat too, this tour does have a lot of technical information about trains that I found somewhat boring but my DH loved. Our tourguide prided himself on having the longest train tours because of the storytelling part at the end- we sat for 2 hours on the wooden benches inside of the train station on main street. We would have been their longer but he had somewhere else he had to be so he ended the stories.

I haven't been on the tour but did you know you could take a Yuletide tour only in December that shows you how Disney does Christmas? That would be something really different.
 
We've done the Segway tour several times and love it! Well worth the price. Cast member 'guides' you, while on a Segway, through the major part of World Showcase with narration about the countries. Of course you have to do the first hour learning how to ride the Segways but that's a BLAST!!!
 
My husband and I did the Keys to the Kingdom tour last June and really enjoyed every bit of it. We had an excellent guide (steve) who was a wealth of knowledge. It really opened up our eyes to all the work that went into the MK and little things we never noticed before, even though we had been there a dozen times!
We found the backstage park quite interesting.
You wear a headset so you can hear everything the guide is saying. A good lunch at columbia harbor house is included, plus water at the start of the tour. We got personalized name tags and a cool keys pin.

We thought the tour was well worth the time and money. We are taking the Futureworld tour at Epcot in October and looking forward to it.

We took the 8:30 tour, the park opened at 9 so we got in early and were treated to the view of a pretty empty main street- made for some cool pictures!

Bev
 
Definitely the SEGWAY tour if they are physically able...treated my 16 yr old son and his friends to that in March and it was the highlight of the trip for them!
 
I have done the Keys to the Kingdom tour twice (on different trips with different people). I enjoyed it both times. The cost is also resonable. I have also taken the Steam Train tour - quite enjoyable.
 
We sent MIL and FIL on the Backstage Magic tour in 2003. They LOVED it.
 
I vote for the Segway tour! It is a really great tour.

We did it last October, and the guys still talk about it all the time- how they are dying to go back and do it again, how they wished the tour was longer. :lmao:

I bet they will love it.
 
Regardless which tour you choose, you'll have a great time! :) If you have a Disney Visa, be sure to ask for the discount, which is 20% (at least on some of the tours). We just booked the Backstage Magic for 10/3...wasn't sure there would be any openings, since it's so close to time, but there was! I can't wait...we did KTTK last year, and really loved it, so I have pretty high expectations for this tour! :goodvibes

I noticed you said you're going around holiday time...I think there is also a special Holiday Tour, which you might want to consider doing, since it's only offered at that time of year.
 
We did two tours last week, and loved both of them. Our first was Undiscovered Treasures of the World Showcase. I really enjoyed this one. There were a few minutes backstage, but most of it concentrated on the imagineering that went into each of the countries. I found it to be very interesting and enjoyable. You really do get a great understanding of many of the "small things" that are in the World Showcase that frequently get overlooked when you're rushing from ride to ride and show to show.

I've not taken the Segway tour of the World Showcase, so can't provide a personal comparison between the two tours. However, one thing that was pointed out to us by our guide (granted he's a little biased), is that the walking tour has a guide who takes you into buildings and gives you insites on design features, hidden secrets, and the reasons why things are how they are. The segway tour takes you through many of the same areas of the World Showcase, but there's no information provided. The guide is just a leader of a neat drive through Epcot on a segway. Also, he told us to consider that on a Segway, you're basically standing still without moving your feet for two hours. It's actually more physically demanding than the walking tour.

I also really enjoyed the Keys to the Kingdom Tour we took a few days later. I didn't find it boring in the least, and couldn't believe 5 1/2 hours had passed when we were done. Our guide was Steve, and he was absolutely fantastic. Our group was very interactive and gave him lots and lots of questions. Most of the really interesting things he told us came from responses to those questions. So, the more you interact with your guide, the better. There were two things I liked about the Keys to the Kingdom tour over the Hidden Treasures tour. The first is that there was a headset to hear the guide on the KTTKT. This allowed him to continue talking to us even when we were walking through crowded areas and not huddled together in a group. On the Hidden Treasures tour, the guide could pretty much only talk to us when we'd stopped somewhere and had gathered around him. On that tour, there wasn't much talking as we walked from place to place in the World Showcase. The second thing I liked about the KTTKT was that we got to go on actual rides. During these rides (except for the Haunted Mansion), the guide continued to talk to us and give us behind-the-scenes details over our headsets. One of the neat perspectives was that our guide, Steve, had previously worked in several of the rides he was giving us tours of before becoming a "vest," and was able to give us interesting tidbits and stories from that perspective, as well. Lunch is provided on the KTTKT at Columbia Harbour House. During lunch, several guides sat with us at our tables and we continued to discuss the Magic Kingdom.

Before both tours, I was a little nervous about two things: that I'd get too hot and tired from walking, and that I'd need to use the restroom on the tour. The guides on both tours took these factors into consideration, and knew lots of places where we could stop and sit in the shade or air conditioning while we talked. There were also ample "biological opportunities" as they called them throughout the tours.

One thing to keep in mind if you're thinking about surprising someone with a behind-the-scenes tour: make sure they're willing to take such a tour. There are some people who specifically don't want to take a tour that goes backstage because they don't want any aspect of the magic destroyed. (I didn't find that to be the case, but others might.)

Also, go into the tours with a realistic understanding of what they are. On the Keys to the Kingdom Tour, you do indeed get to see the utilidores. This is, however, only about 30 minutes of a 5 1/2 hour tour though.
 
I got the Segway tour for my DH on our last trip and he loved it. We're both going to go on it this time because my mom will be along to watch our DS! Yippee!! This is the only tour we've ever done, but my DH liked it so much he wants to go again, so I'm thinking it must be cool! And where else do you get to ride a segway?
 


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