Ask anyone if they like the Living with the Land attraction in EPCOT, and you’ll likely receive polar opposite responses. People seem to either love it or hate it, with no middle ground. For the unacquainted, Living with the Land is essentially a slow boat tour which highlights various greenhouses while displaying the innovative growing and farming techniques used to cultivate the crops. This attraction is appropriately located in World Nature (specifically, inside The Land pavilion) and is a nice complement to its neighboring attraction, Awesome Planet. What you might not know is that Living with the Land has a backstage tour that you can go on to learn more about how Disney World is helping feed people!
Behind the Seeds is a walking tour that gets you up close and personal with the future of agriculture, and the Cast Members who are leading the way. You will go backstage (Disney-speak for areas not available to the general public) and see firsthand the unique growing techniques Disney World is using to help cultivate crops even in the least sustainable conditions.
I accompanied Erin on a recent tour to see what it was about. Once the tour started, everyone was provided with an earpiece and a wireless transmitter with volume control. This is because the tour guide may be quite a ways ahead of or behind you during the tour (depending on the size of the tour group). There is also equipment that is quite loud in some areas backstage, so this equipment allows you to adjust your volume to your comfort level. As a side note, if a storm brews while you’re in the greenhouses (which happened while we were there), the rain and thunder can be pretty loud inside the greenhouses. Once everyone can hear the Cast Member through their earpiece, the tour begins.
Without giving away too much detail, Behind the Seeds has a heavy emphasis on continuing the story you’ve heard while riding Living with the Land. We started with a discussion about natural biological controls as well as the use of chemicals, which Disney attempts to minimize. You are then taken behind some of the very plants that you see while riding the boat attraction to learn even more about the challenges the crops face, and the techniques Disney has helped develop to overcome these challenges. At times, you will see the Living with the Land boats float by on the other side.
If you are not familiar with the concept of hydroponics, you will be well-versed after participating in this tour! Not only will you find out what that means, but also the types of crops that can be grown using the technique and some very unconventional ways in which they can be grown in areas that are space challenged. Be prepared to see some really, really gigantic fruits and vegetables!
Some of the crops you’ll see in the greenhouses include coffee, cucumbers, bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, cassabanana, and much more. For those who would like to try, there is a point in which cucumber slices are offered to the group. Spoiler alert: they taste much better than what you can buy from the grocery store.
Interestingly enough, there is also a section of the tour when you enter a fish farm. That was unexpected for us here at MouseHouseNews.net, as we was prepared for the tour to focus entirely on food that is grown from seed. Yet, towards the end of the tour, we were able to see huge tanks of tilapia, catfish, and hybrid striped bass. At one point, the Cast Member provided some food to a tank of tilapia. Quite the feeding frenzy ensued.
At the far end of the tour, you will be up close and personal with a coffee plant that has been trimmed to resemble a giant Mickey silhouette. The Cast Member offered to take a photo of each person (or group) that wanted their picture taken before we turned around and retraced our breadcrumbs back to where the tour started.
In the end, the MouseHouseNews.net team gave this tour a thumbs-up. The Cast Member who was our tour guide, Hannah from Buffalo, NY, was a great tour guide and very knowledgable with all questions asked by the group. One very interesting tidbit I learned was that not only is the food harvested from these greenhouses used in Garden Grill Restaurant (which I have heard a million times), but food produced here is used in MANY places around Walt Disney World!
You’ll really like Behind the Seeds if you are into gardening as Erin is, if you are interested in where food comes from, or if you just like interesting and non-traditional ways of overcoming challenges (which this tour definitely demonstrates). I would not really recommend this tour for children or adults who don’t love field trips to learn about science, as they may not enjoy this. If you’re reading this blog, you are likely a Disney Adult, but I mention this in case you are planning a trip with kids in tow (the minimum age for the tour is 3 years). The tour is just shy of an hour long, so not too much of a time-suck from your EPCOT day. Also, this is the one and only backstage tour on Walt Disney World property where cameras are welcome. So, snap as many photos as you’d like if you book this tour!
It does go without saying that because this tour is within EPCOT, you will need admission to EPCOT on the day of your tour to take part in Behind the Seeds. You book the tour up to 60 days in advance of your trip on MyDisneyExperience (the website or the app), or you can take your chance with getting on the walk-up list as some people were successfully able to do while we were there. The cost is $39 – $45 per person, and various discounts are offered (i.e. Passholder, Disney VISA, etc). On most days, the tours are offered at half-past the hour from 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM. The tour starts at the Behind the Seeds tour check-in desk, which is right next to the entrance of the Soarin’ ride queue.
If you choose to experience this backstage tour on your next trip to Walt Disney World, enjoy! Stay tuned to MouseHouseNews.net for more Disney Vacation News and Reviews for Disney Adults just like this!
