Since it was just us, Hubby and I decided to take the Keys to the Kingdom tour – one of the behind the scenes tours. We headed over first thing the second morning and discover this is a five-hour walking tour. Between the EB and the un-replaced knee, no way. So we rented a wheelchair. Hubby got his exercise but thank goodness he’s the best there is.
The tour does not allow pictures because of course that would be like the magician showing his trick, but it was fascinating. A lot of the tour was history. Walt, of course, was the artist behind the dream, but a lousy businessman. Enter Roy, his brother and a great businessman who wanted to make his brother’s dream come true. Thank goodness we had both of them.
Disney Land came on-line in 1959 (and the story of their opening day was incredible). Disney World followed in 1971. They learned their lesson about being land bound in California, so they kept very quiet and bought land through M. T. Lott (say that to yourself three times fast) and bought what they needed. For example, after they discovered who was buying these orange groves in the swamps the cost went from $150 an acre to $80,000 an acre. But Disney had already bought what he needed before the news broke. Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, 2 water parks, Downtown Disney and all the hotels (Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian) take up 1/3 of the available land. Another 1/3 will remain natural and they still have another 1/3 to build on.
After the tour we headed to the new area – Under the Sea, with Ariel (hey, she’s a redhead so one of my favorite princesses) (one of the littler princesses we saw)
Then to keep up with the nautical theme, we had our special anniversary dinner over at the Coral Reef in Epcot that evening. Beautiful setting, excellent food – Our complimentary dessert – chocolate!!
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It truly sounds like you enjoyed yourself! The inside of that restaurant looks beautiful!!
It was so cool – I didn’t eat anything that swam in there either!