Another Bob-A-Round Boat Sighting
In the Walt Disney World News (Vol. 1, No. 1), there’s a nice black and white photo showcasing the Southern Seas, a striped catamaran, and a monorail the the dock to the Magic Kingdom.
It’s an interesting composition and one that would be seen in guidebooks for the next decade.
But if you take a closer look at the aft end of the Southern Seas, you can make out a familiar shape.
You can make out the striped awning and the lightning rod on top of the bob-a-round boat.
There is a similar photo in the Story of Walt Disney World book.
There are lots of bob-a-round boats in this image. What’s interesting is there is no place nor any way for a bob-a-round boat to dock at the Magic Kingdom. However, I have a friend who claims to have rented a bob-a-round from the Polynesian Village Resort, taken it to the Magic Kingdom dock, and left it there while he entered the park.
Gorillas Don’t Blog Photo
MajorPepperidge shared somePolynesian Village Resort photos from December 1971 over at his site a few years ago. One of the images has a spectacular image of a Bob-A-Round boat.
I cropped the image since it is a spectacular view of the interior of the boat.
They were well-known for getting dead batteries and needing a tow back to one of the marina. The boats also had a sound system of some sort. Being the in the 1970s, it could have been an 8-track cassette system.