It seems Mr. Hill has been charging people $25 per person to walk them around the park and bestow them with some of his vast Disneyland knowledge as they go and some are asking why this is a problem. Mr. Koenig on the other hand was offering a free tour of the park to people who attended his book signing early in the day and was also asked to stop what he was doing by Disney officials.

To me, it seems clear why Disney would not want this activates to go on in their parks. First of all, not all the knowledge that these two men posses is necessarily the true facts, and if there is one thing Disney is famous for it is making sure that things are kept true to form and their great desire to crush any rumors that may come about from false information spread by others. Secondly, Disneyland does offer “Official” tours of the parks that are designed to share true facts about the park and to help visitors get a better understanding of the park and of The Walt Disney Company as a whole.

If you have even been to Disneyland, or any of the Disney theme parks around the world, you will know they do not want you to bring in your own food or drinks to the park, they want you to buy them there. Now let’s suppose you are able to sneak in a huge ice chest that is just filled with bottles of water. You walk over to the hub at the end of Main Street U.S.A., set down your ice chest and post a sign reading, “Free Bottles of Water!” You start to hand them out as fast as you can as people don’t want to spend the $3.50 for a little bottle of water at the park when they can get a free one from you. Now lets suppose in place of the water you have bottles of Coke products and you post another sign but this time it reads, “Soda $1.00!” What do you suppose the officials at Disney would do to you? Remove you from the park? Ask you to stop? Ignore you and go about their business? I would venture a guess that they would remove you from the park quite quickly.

So what does $1.00 sodas and free water have to do with these to “unauthorized” tour operators you ask? Well Mr. Hill was like the one having the sodas for sale and Mr. Koenig was the same as the one giving away water. Both of these are in direct competition with what Disney is selling at the parks and they have every right to remove someone from their private property for any reason at all, let alone competing with them! Disney did the right thing in these matters and their responses can be completely understood.

You might be wondering if you will get removed from the park yourself if you are leading a group of your friends around the park sharing your vast knowledge of everything Disney on your next trip and the answer would most certainly be no. I know I have been to the park many times with friends and family and have always shared the knowledge of the park I have with them and not once has a Disney official come up to me and asked me to leave. I am not doing it for a profit or as publicity or my web page or book I am writing. They have no problems with you sharing your insight of the park with family and friends but they do have issues with it if you are doing it for some kind of profit.

So you have nothing to worry about when you are walking around telling your friends about every Hidden Mickey you know of, or when a ride was built, or showing them the names of important people that are printed on the second story windows all down Main Street U.S.A., and don’t forget to show them the light on in Walt’s private apartment above the fire station.

May all your Disney dreams come true and we will see you at Disneyland Ma 3rd to May 5th for the “Official” launch of the Happiest Celebration On Earth, just don’t as us for a tour!