Walt Disney World

Today, I went to Magic Kingdom for a five-hour tour around the park called "Keys to the Kingdom."

It was a very informative tour where we learned many facts about the park and how everything started.

Disneyland in California is the original park, where Walt Disney himself was the driving creative force. But he also initiated what would become Disney World in Florida. Sadly, he passed away before they started construction on the first park, Magic Kingdom. His brother Roy continued the project and helped open the park in 1971.

The tour also included some backstage areas that are not open to the general public. We saw this enormous tunnel system that actually runs under the park, where the employees can easily get to different places around the park. It was fun to get a glimpse behind the scenes and to see what a huge operation it is to run the biggest tourist attraction in the world.

After the tour, I made my way to a different park, Hollywood Studios, where I tried some of my favorite rides there. One of them is modeled after the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. In fact, a big portion of the park is a very impressive Star Wars land.

At this point, after days of sunny and very warm weather, it started to rain. A lot. Nonstop. So this made it a bit difficult to enjoy an outdoor amusement park.

Eventually, I made it to my third Disney park of the day - the futuristic EPCOT. I tried out a new ride based on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which was cool. Then I had dinner at a very unique restaurant, Space 220, which is meant to look like you are in space! It looks like something out of the aforementioned Star Wars, with a big "window" that shows your view of space as you are dining.

It is one of the restaurants in Disney World that is hardest to get a reservation for, so I'm glad I was able to try it out.

I would have liked to spend more time at Epcot, but they were closing soon, and the poor weather made it a lot less enjoyable. Still, it's a nice end to two busy days at the Disney parks.Read more