Arda's Top Three: The Best Things About Disney's Keys to the Kingdom Tour
There is a version of Magic Kingdom that most guests will never see, and it starts before you have finished your morning coffee.
Disney's Keys to the Kingdom Tour is a five-hour, behind-the-scenes walking tour of Magic Kingdom. You learn how the park was built, why it looks the way it looks, and what it takes to put on the show every single day. You go backstage. You ride a couple of attractions the VIP way. And yes, you go underneath the park. Yes, underneath. Which is actually the FIRST floor, but we'll get to that.
There are a few ground rules ("Mousekeeping items" as they are called), so you know what you are signing up for. Guests have to be 16 or older, with photo ID, because this tour is built for people who want to learn the inner workings of the park. It is not for anyone who still wants the magic preserved exactly as it is. Phones, photos, and video are strictly prohibited for the duration of the tour, outside of breaks and lunch. Even walking down Main Street, U.S.A., our phones stayed in our pockets so we could give the guide our full attention and stay immersed.
We all wore listening devices, and there is a smart reason for that beyond hearing clearly. Some of what the guide tells you could break the magic for a younger guest passing by. So you hear the secrets in your ear, and you save your behind-the-scenes questions for the behind-the-scenes areas. Our group happily obliged.
With that in mind, here are my top three things about the Keys to the Kingdom Tour.
#3) The Easter Eggs
This is the tour you take when you want to learn the little details and Easter eggs hiding in plain sight all over Magic Kingdom.
Start with the names on the windows above the shops on Main Street. You have probably walked under them a hundred times. On this tour, you learn where many of them came from. Each window works like a movie credit, listing a company name or a profession attached to a real person, and every title is a nod to something that person actually did at the Walt Disney Company.
My favourite was Dr. Card Walker, listed in his window as a "Justice of the Peace." Walker was a longtime Disney executive, and the title was earned. The way our guide told it, when brothers Walt and Roy Disney were at each other's throats, Walker was the one man who could get them talking again. He got both brothers into a room, inviting them under false pretenses, and told them they were not leaving this room until they were brothers again. Keeper of the peace, indeed.
Here is the detail that ties it together. Magic Kingdom is a time capsule set in 1901, the year Walt was born, so everything on Main Street matches that time. You will never see a modern job title on those windows (like Imagineer, for example). You get clever company names and period-appropriate titles, each one inspired by the person's real contribution.
The Easter eggs are not just on Main Street. That shade of red on the pavement as you approach the entrance to Main Street is meant to feel like a red carpet at a movie premiere, rolled out for you. Every land tells its own story, and the transitions between lands are engineered so one story ends and the next begins without you noticing. We were shown one spot where a single building sits on the seam between two lands: Greenery on one side, a different awning and motif on the other, already dressing you for where you are headed. At one corner before Adventureland, there are at least three different styles of lamps and lanterns in a few feet, each one a signal about the story you are about to be immersed in.
We got this same level of detail on the two attractions we rode, Jungle Cruise and the Haunted Mansion. The Jungle Cruise on this tour is its own experience entirely, with your guide narrating the backstory you never get from the skipper's microphone. For the Haunted Mansion, we were brought in with easy access through the exit side.
Maybe you already know some of these facts from an Imagineering documentary or a video online. Plenty of people on our tour did. Seeing them in real time, standing in the exact spot, with the extra context, is what makes it worthwhile. You could spend days hunting for every nod and Easter egg in this park. We saw a small fraction, and it was plenty.
#2) The Cost
Let us talk about the number, because I think it is fair.
Keys to the Kingdom runs about $179 to $199 per person depending on the date, plus tax. Park admission is required and not included, so keep that in mind. (Annual Passholders and Disney Vacation Club members get 15% off, which takes some sting away.) For that price, here is what came with it:
Five hours with a guide whose knowledge of the park is genuinely staggering. Two attraction experiences, including that one-of-a-kind Jungle Cruise. Backstage access to places you would never see as a regular guest. Lunch, included, at Columbia Harbour House in Liberty Square (we ate in the Flying Dutchman room on the second floor). A commemorative Keys to the Kingdom pin, which pin collectors will appreciate as a tour-exclusive. And you keep your honorary Cast Member name tag from the day.
For a first-timer, or for anyone who has ever said "I wonder how they do that," the price matches the product. But one thing on this tour towers over everything else, and there was never any doubt what number one would be.
#1) The Utilidor
The main event.
The full name is the Utility Corridor, and Disney uses the term "Utilidor" for the series of tunnels that run underneath Magic Kingdom. Here is the part that surprises people: Magic Kingdom is actually built on the second floor. Underneath your feet is an entire working access system where Cast Members can move freely around the park without ever being seen by guests.
The reason goes back to Disneyland. As the story is told, Walt noticed Cast Members in costumes from one land walking through another land,
and it broke the story the park was trying to tell. A cowboy has no business in Tomorrowland, for example. So when it came time to build Walt Disney World, Walt wanted a way for Cast Members to get where they needed to go while preserving the story (and the magic) onstage. Enter the Utilidor.
Now, I am from the East Coast, so my first instinct was to call the floor we were on a basement, and I had to rewire my brain on this. There are no basements in Florida. The water table will not allow it. The Utilidor was actually built at ground level, and then the ceiling above it was fortified to carry the weight of everything sitting on top of it - streets, attractions, and of course a giant castle. Our guide pointed out that you might notice a subtle decline in your walking path as you leave the park, and that slope exists to account for the Utilidor underneath you.
It looks exactly like what you are picturing. This is a working corridor, with signs everywhere telling you exactly where you are and which direction leads to which part of Magic Kingdom. Service vehicles zip by on active roadways. We walked past a costume repair room where seamstresses were fixing princess dresses and character heads were resting on a rack. Cast Members and characters, including princesses, walk these halls on their breaks, and our group followed the rule that gets stressed down there: Give them their space and their grace. This is their area of respite for the cast members.
For the pin collectors out there, some of the walls were lined with pin sets released over the years, and you will want all of them. Our guide explained that Disney's pin culture was inspired by the pin trading at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, after Disney executives watched athletes trading pins from their home countries. Disney launched its own pin trading during the Millennium Celebration in 1999, and the rest is a very expensive history.
The Utilidor experience ends with a walk through the story of Walt and Roy Disney and the executives who helped build the place, with a tribute on the wall of their contributions. After hearing about them all morning, seeing it laid out like that is a nice bookend.
The rest of the backstage access holds its own, too. We saw parade floats up close, and our guide pointed out the spot where Tinker Bell lands after her flight from Cinderella Castle during the evening fireworks show. You have watched that moment a hundred times. Standing at the other end of it makes it even cooler (it's a pretty small platform from what I saw and makes the feat more impressive in my mind!).
If you enjoy behind-the-scenes information like this, the Keys to the Kingdom Tour is an absolute must. As a pro wrestling fan it reminded me of the moment I first learned about the inner workings of that industry, and it made me care about it even more.
For many on my tour — and, I’m certain, countless others who have taken it — this tour was that experience with the Walt Disney Company. But some just want the utilidor access, and that's fine too.