Another Bob-A-Round Boat Sighting
Bob-A-Round was the official name given to these unusual circular watercraft, and spotting one in early Walt Disney World photography always feels like uncovering a forgotten footnote from the Seven Seas Lagoon. In the Walt Disney World News (Vol. 1, No. 1), a striking black-and-white photo captures the Southern Seas, a striped catamaran, and a monorail near the dock at the Magic Kingdom. At first glance, it looks like a classic piece of early Vacation Kingdom imagery. But a closer look reveals something far more curious tucked into the scene.
It’s an interesting composition, and it is exactly the kind of staged “Vacation Kingdom” photo Disney would reuse 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 spot the striped awning and the lightning rod on top of a 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 that image. What’s interesting is that there is no place, and no practical way, for a Bob-A-Round boat to dock at the Magic Kingdom. However, a friend claims he rented a Bob-A-Round from the Polynesian Village Resort, took it to the Magic Kingdom dock, and left it there while he entered the park. That is either a fantastic memory or the most casually rebellious transportation story in Disney history.
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.
These boats were also notorious for dead batteries and tow-backs to the marina. They reportedly had a built-in sound system, and since it was the 1970s, an 8-track setup feels like a completely reasonable guess.
So, did you ever experience a Bob-A-Round boat, or do you have photos of these floating oddities in the wild? Drop a comment. I love tracking down the little pieces of Walt Disney World history that most people never knew existed.
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