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Episode 305: Tom’s Trip Report, New Disney Park & Talking Mickey Popcorn Bucket
939 Plays1 month ago
On This Episode
Tom gives a report on his recent cruise on the Disney Treasure and quick visit to Disney World. Disney announced that they are building a new theme park. New details about the Pirates of the Caribbean themed bar were revealed, including the name, Beak & Barrel Tavern. As part of its 70th Anniversary celebration, Disneyland will offer a new Mickey popcorn bucket which can respond to verbal commands and move its head and eyes.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introductions
00:00:06
Speaker
This is Skipper Albert A. Wall, the voice of the jungle, broadcasting on the DVC to all voice unknown. If you're within the sound of my voice, you're listening to Welcome Home Podcast on the DVC.
00:00:25
Speaker
Music Music
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello and welcome home. This episode of welcome home is brought to you by DVC rental store. Thank you for joining us on episode 305 of welcome home, a Disney parks and vacation club podcast. I'm Tom here with Trevor. No, Trevor. Wait, what? No, I'm not Trevor. Wait, Blake. It's Blake. That's right.
00:00:46
Speaker
um but I'm going to practice on this. It's been a while. Yeah, it was almost going to be Tom and Damon COVID episode. Yeah, it was. Where we we didn't have Trevor for like a year and a half or something.
00:00:57
Speaker
Was it that long? I felt like it was months, but don't know. It was a long time. it's all kind of a blur. we we We held it down for sure. We did. ah But we we should welcome. So Trevor is traveling today ah back from his trip.
00:01:10
Speaker
So he don't know about that. It just sounded like he was too tired to get on. He could be. I mean, he was busy.
Vacation Tips and Country Bears Review
00:01:15
Speaker
He was doing a lot of stuff. So, I mean, he's on the other side of the continent, though. Give the man a break.
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's a long flight. It's got to go through time zone. I mean, stuff like you just you're napping through it, though. Like, what are you doing? Like, are you writing a dissertation are you just napping? What on the plane? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's fair.
00:01:32
Speaker
That's that's fair. ah Yeah, so i i'm i'm I am happy to be back. I know as it's been a couple weeks. It's felt weird. I i hope you miss me, Damon.
00:01:43
Speaker
o I know. um Yeah, for the show. for this i don't feel I don't feel bad. That was the most noncommittal yeah I've ever heard. It was so noncommittal. It's okay. ah But, oh, we have Blake on. Blake, like thanks for joining us for being Substitute Trevor today.
00:01:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Not Timu Trevor. Just Substitute Trevor. Oh, my gosh. Not Timu Trevor. oh That would be nice to say. That would be like an insult. I feel like it kind of was when I said it.
00:02:08
Speaker
Not here. Would you it? On the Facebook page. um on the and the um the facebook Oh, oh, well, you were talking about that guy on the other podcast, right? Yeah.
00:02:19
Speaker
Oh, i while i was doing that podcast, Damon, I was like, this guy is Damon. But not and not as good. no, no. That's the problem. Obviously not. Again, the Timu version of me. that's That's why I said it. That's what it felt like.
00:02:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, I get that. It makes sense. So. right. Well, I'm back. I obviously ah lot much of the show is going to be dedicated to me talking about my trip. And hopefully I can remember some of it. It has been a week over. I mean, it's been over a week now.
00:02:49
Speaker
ah So I'm going to try my best to remember everything. I tried to make myself some notes here and and remember all the stuff but but before that. Before that, yeah, we actually did get a, I don't know, which I guess this is a tip ah from Jeremy. It doesn't even matter. Someone dialed into the WHP tips line and left a message. I think that in itself.
00:03:07
Speaker
This is the first one, right? It is the first one. Jeremy will forever be yeah enshrined in the Welcome Home Hall of Fame. That's right. Yeah. So if you want to call in your own tip or your own quick trip report, 833-WHP-TIPS or 833-947-8477. we're going play Jeremy's clip right now.
00:03:23
Speaker
we're going to play jeremylip right now Hey guys, I'm hoping this is the Welcome Home Podcast tips line. ah This is Jeremy. I am calling with a tip and a mini trip report.
00:03:36
Speaker
The tip I had is make a list. We went down for eight or nine days and a couple of trips ago i started making a little note section in and on my iPhone in notes and Every few rides or attractions or whatever, i will just jot down what we did, just ah just a bulleted point, something to jog my memory.
00:04:02
Speaker
And then a couple of days from then, if we're just sitting around um not doing much of anything, I'll take out my phone and we'll just kind of relive the day with the bullet points, and it'll spark conversation. It's like we get to
Disney Treasure Cruise Experience
00:04:17
Speaker
relive the trip.
00:04:18
Speaker
um even while we're on the trip and definitely after we get home. Um, it's a nice way to spark memory. Uh, and the, um, the mini trip report is, uh, boy, probably the best I'm going to give most improved, uh, attraction to, uh, country bears.
00:04:37
Speaker
Um, we went to magic kingdom twice over the nine days that we were there. And, um, we went, I think a total of three times to country bears and, um,
00:04:48
Speaker
Each one of us wanted to go back once on that ride. Well, I guess it's not really a ride, an attraction. But I love the little tunes. they I feel like they did a really good job on the refresh.
00:05:01
Speaker
um And i would do Country Bears before, and it was fine. But now I actually like it, and everyone in my family likes it. So Country Bears, most improved.
00:05:13
Speaker
Oh my goodness. I have so much to say. well all All right. Wait a minute. I'm going to go first. Hold on. Go ahead. Go ahead. He should have called that tip in about a week ago, right? Before you went on your crew. were but How about but the tip in Like when actually made sense.
00:05:29
Speaker
First all, you should have called the tip in like at the iPhone, like I feel like, 4 level. I do the same thing, so that's okay. I don't know if that's a tip or not. There should be a hook for these, just like the Muppet hook, just so like you guys know.
00:05:41
Speaker
Oh, just like a gong sound or something? We need to hook somebody, yeah. And now the question is, who will have said the word um more this episode? Jeremy in his one minute or Tom in his hour?
00:05:53
Speaker
That is to be determined. i'm going to say Jeremy. Also, I'm actually amazed that his ah his somehow his phone quality in that voicemail was better than the one time he was on the show. and i like I like when like phone quality sounds like phone quality. Yeah, I agree, actually. yeah You know, if it sounded really good, like he was on a microphone, it just doesn't hit the same.
00:06:13
Speaker
They should have a filter to be able to recreate that artificially. They do. I'm sure there is, yeah. But I do – I will say though I do like that tip in general. I do, yeah. I've been doing that for a while. I think for me the thing is, like I said, since I use my Facebook specifically for sports trips and events and that's it. So I can create that book at the end of the year, the social book.
00:06:33
Speaker
I like to do kind of the same thing so that I don't miss things and then I can include them in that – And I think I'm up to like, gosh, I say 14 books now. And I told the kids when they leave the house, like I'll have a set created for them. it's It's ah like every year, just like kind of what went on.
00:06:49
Speaker
I do like that though. See, I've been kind of reliving my trip just through the photos, you know, because I have like a you know, a digital photo frame. It's not really a digital photo frame, but it's it's, you know, like a Google Home thing with the screen, right? So, and it does just a slideshow.
00:07:02
Speaker
And I added our, I made a Google photo album and then I added it to that. And so we've just been sitting here for the past week and seeing like the all the pictures we took flash by. And that's kind of, been helping us relive the vacation a little bit. But ah you know I also, I've talked about this before, I'm really bad about taking pictures on vacation.
00:07:19
Speaker
Although this time I took 360, which is like huge for me. Probably not even close to what you do, Damon. but I don't actually take that many pictures on vacation, to be honest with you. Oh, really? Okay. No. I mean, I did just shoot ah lacrosse match where I shot 700 pictures, but in an hour. in an hour. she Yeah.
00:07:38
Speaker
But no, normally on vacation, i try not to live behind the lens. i Just to his last point, by the way, about Country Bears, I was actually going to talk about this. This was on my list, ah not on the list on the on the actual like rundown, but it was I wanted to talk about it because we went and saw it as well. I thought it was awesome as well. I actually messaged Trevor because we were both in Magic Kingdom that day.
00:08:00
Speaker
and We weren't together, though. We were off doing you know separate things. And I messaged Trevor. I'm like, Trevor, you should go see the new Country Bears. They did a really nice job with it. It was a lot of fun. and it was I mean, the the room was full and people were like really having a great time with it, too. So like that, I i very much agree with Jeremy on this. i We had a really great time seeing Country Bears. It it was ah definitely a nice upgrade.
00:08:20
Speaker
Well, i I will say that whatever they do to it will make it better than what it was. And I'm going to catch some hate here. That's okay. But oh my gosh, I went to it one time and that's the only time i would ever need to go to it ever again. It's good.
00:08:35
Speaker
my they did They did a really nice job. I went to the old one, not the new one. I went to the old one. So. and The new one is really good because they they do. Yes, they do use modern songs. Right. But they keep a lot of like the funny, charming things that they had in the in the old of the old one. And like a lot of the like little jokes here and there. i will say i also appreciate it, too, that the heads on the wall got ah got more singing time. So the the ah you know, the the heads that are on the wall, the moose and the buffalo and them, they actually sing a lot more as part of this, which, my of course, my daughter also got a kick out of. So, yeah, no, I loved the new country beers. I thought it was great.
00:09:09
Speaker
ah But let me get into my trip report. I'll stop talking about my trip. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just along here. Yeah. let's i'm I'm moving stuff in Tom's thing already. So I get to talk about what I want. Moving things around and moving things around. It's not my thing. It's the outline for the show. You can move it. It's kind of your thing.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I write it, but you yeah. So anyway, so I went on the treasure and I think as everybody knows here, the treasure is still pretty new. It's only what we're four months in on it. Right. At this point. So, you know, no issues getting a poor Canaveral anything like that. I will say that the terminal at poor Canaveral for Disney is like light years better than the Royal Caribbean one.
00:09:45
Speaker
The Royal a Caribbean one, I believe was convinced that I was at like a, like a CIA like torture site or something like where they were going to like interrogate me or something because it was like just plain walls and like things were peeling off the walls and it was just it was awful not a great place the disney one gorgeous right really nice i can't wait to i can't wait to debunk this in a month but go ahead what do you mean the terminal yeah i thought you've been to it though To the Disney one, not to Royal Caribbean one. Oh, well, yeah. may I don't know if you're going at the same one than me, but yeah. go I mean, she go you'll see. It's it's not great. times It was not great.
00:10:19
Speaker
And I didn't think that was great, so I don't know. What did you think was not great? The Disney one. So now it's going to be interesting. Why didn't you like the Disney one? Wait a minute. It's a terminal. What are you expecting? I'm expecting more than what I got from Royal Caribbean. You're going to be here in like at an hour. Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
yeah I mean, yeah, I listen. I just thought the Disney one was really nice. i i really enjoyed the design. What did you not like about it? It's nice. don't know. i thought it's I thought it looked nice and everything was nice in there. Like I said, there wasn't any of that for Royal Caribbean. Okay.
00:10:51
Speaker
Anyway, ah ship was great. ah We really enjoyed the ship. It was really nice ship. ah You know obviously, because it is brand new, but is I mean, it was really beautifully done. Very detailed, obviously. I mean, that's what Disney's known for at this point.
00:11:02
Speaker
We did have a little bit of an issue with our rooms, ah which was not Disney's fault. It was, I think our fault. I, so I didn't book this, right? So I didn't book the vacation. My father-in-law did with a travel agent. And I think the travel agent ah kind of switched our rooms around and it, There were specific rooms we wanted to have just based on ah the adjoining rooms.
00:11:25
Speaker
ah My niece and nephew were obviously with us and they were in ah one of the rooms and and they wanted
Onboard Entertainment and Fire Incident
00:11:30
Speaker
to be in they wanted to have the adjoining room with my in-laws so that my in-laws could you know help out with but those kids.
00:11:36
Speaker
And that's not how we had it. I don't know how it got screwed up, but Whatever. we went to We went to, you know, guest services. They fixed it right away. And it wasn't a big deal. But i do I do have to say, so the the food was great. We, like, really enjoyed the food a lot. All the food was great. there the show the um The two dinner restaurants, the main ones that were not, like, 1923 was good. But it was, you know, obviously, it's a lot more basic.
00:11:58
Speaker
But like the Marvel one was a lot of fun. ah it was the the first night they do it. it's There's a, you know, much more of a storyline and there's much more stuff going on. The second night that was themed to like Guardians the Galaxy. So it's like, you got a lot of good. You only ate at two different places.
00:12:12
Speaker
Well, no, it was the, so you have the the three different restaurants, right? So there's 1923, Worlds of Marvel, and then the Cocoa restaurant. and So, yeah. And so, but 1923 doesn't have like, you know, like a show or anything like that. Like the other ones do, I guess. Yeah.
00:12:25
Speaker
But um so then, you know, we did... The Marvel one was great. We had a lot of fun there. i will say, like I said, the second night, it was more like Guardians of the Galaxy music, which is, you know, they have a lot of great music in that movie. So at the Marvel...
00:12:37
Speaker
Do they have like the a stand-in Iron Man and a stand-in Captain America? now Okay. they So the there's most of it takes place on video screens, right? So there's not they're not they're not there, right?
00:12:50
Speaker
but i will And listen, spoiler for anybody. I'm sure somebody you know will be mad if they hear this. but So just you know skip ahead 30 seconds here. Spider-Man does show up at the end. So Spider-Man comes running in and run and goes to all the tables extraordinarily quickly for like pictures really quick because they it's a big restaurant and there's, you know, not a lot of time.
00:13:09
Speaker
So Spider-Man runs around, does a little thing and then, you know, stops at all the tables and you take pictures and all that. Because his face is covered. and Exactly. So it doesn't have to be. Yeah. Exactly. I will say, though, that like all of the people in the video were the real people. Right. So like they they had all the the regular actors there.
00:13:25
Speaker
Right. um But ah the second day when they did Guardians, it was very clear that Bradley Cooper had not lended his voice to ra ah to Rocket for this experience because it was most definitely not him, which is, you know, it's fine. I could see Bradley Cooper being like, I'm not doing a thing for a cruise ship.
00:13:40
Speaker
But, you know, um anyway. So I'm surprised. I'm surprised Disney lawyers didn't strong arm that into being the, you know, there's got to be a contract somewhere like that.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe he like purpose I see I would want to be in those things. I think it'd be kind of cool for like people to hear that like every day and you or like being a ride or whatever. Like, how cool would that be? yeah But, you know, I guess, you know, I'm not a big movie star, so I'm not really jaded by these things.
00:14:05
Speaker
But anyway, so yes, the Marvel restaurant was great. We really enjoyed the food there and
Disney World and Castaway Cay Adventures
00:14:10
Speaker
the effects were really cool. They have these things on the table that you interact with ah that, you know, turn all sorts of colors and stuff. So it was really fun for the kids.
00:14:17
Speaker
I mean, and for me too, you know, I was, I like pushing buttons like anybody else, ah you know, and then we, ah you know, we also had the Coco restaurant, which i we loved the Coco restaurant. I think, That was probably our favorite. the ah The performance that they put on there is is amazing, especially if you like... you eat, though?
00:14:35
Speaker
What did we eat? ah So, I mean, Mexican food, obviously. So, ah what did I have? Let's see. sounds like food conversation. Oh, yeah. Look at that. There's a special podcast.
00:14:46
Speaker
No, yeah. This is Cruz. ah This is a food adjacent. You know, honestly, I'd have to look at the menu. um So, it wasn't that good, though? No, it was great. I just don't remember. I'm not... It can't be great if you don't remember. It can be good. I don't remember what I did yesterday. i mean, like that's you know it's not an indictment on on the restaurant. The restaurant was great. i just I just don't remember exactly what the... I mean, I know the one time I had ah the Teresa croquettes, which were really good. That was a really good appetizer.
00:15:15
Speaker
And then I had one of the nights I had ah fajitas, which were really, really good. ah The desserts were really good. i There was a Mexican chocolate tart that I had. And it had like, um i don't I don't know what spice it had in it, but it was like it was ah it was a chocolate cake and you eat it tastes like chocolate. And then the aftertaste was almost like a little bit of a burn because they put some sort of spice in there. there was There was spiciness. It was good, though.
00:15:40
Speaker
Is that an ooh good or ooh bad? No, that's an ooh bad. I just don't like – I don't want to ruin my chocolate with spice, man. Yeah. yeah I mean, they say it in the menu, though, so you could avoid it if you want. Like there was a Tres Leches cake and you know you could have done that or a lime cheesecake. you know That's a good – I mean, we usually get all the desserts because why not? You just get the whole thing? Yeah. do you get they'll let you They'll serve you 10 desserts if you want. Oh, I know they will. Yeah. No. And we, I mean, you know, we we got multiple desserts and multiple appetizers and actually really enjoyed the soups. I'm not really a soup guy, but every time I read the menu and it listed off the soups, so I was like, that that soup sounds really good.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so I just, I ended up getting a lot of soup and they were, they were all really good. There was like a corn soup and, you know, A bunch of different ones. But I just, so I mean, i listen, it was over seven days. we I don't remember all the meals we ate, but they were very good.
00:16:27
Speaker
ah we We really enjoyed them. I will say, so couple of issues I had that I was really, was kind of disappointed in because this is, and I'm not going to say that this is a Disney Cruise Line problem as a whole. It could have just been, that it's a new ship and it's fairly new people working on it. Or it could have just been the waiters I had. But the waiters were not great.
00:16:47
Speaker
ah They were great to interact with. But like my biggest pet peeve at a restaurant is when I have to ask for a refill of my drink like three times and it takes like 25 minutes. And that happened every single night. And that was driving me crazy. Last time I was on Disney Cruise as well.
00:17:01
Speaker
That happened to you too? Okay. Yeah, I was surprised because usually they're they're more on point with stuff like that. Yeah. i those You think they're loading down too many tables per server? i Maybe. I don't know.
00:17:11
Speaker
but it was weird, though, because it so like the assistant server, right, is like kind of responsible for the drinks. But our assistant server would take our drinks and he would bring them to us and then he'd disappear for like 45 minutes and we we wouldn't see him again. And it's like, yeah like what if you just need something?
00:17:25
Speaker
yeah like that's Yeah, exactly. Something. I will say, though, the head waiter was fantastic. but That guy was amazing. What's that? They usually are. Yeah, that guy was amazing. And not only that, I saw that guy. like i I said to him, was like, dude, do you like take a break? Because you're everywhere. like You're everywhere. You're up on the, up at the buffets, you're at dinner. Like, do you ever, ah you're there at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner? Like, do you ever get a break?
00:17:48
Speaker
But he was great. Uh, you know, he was, he was one that we gave more of a tip to than, than the rest because of how great he really was. And he always kind of picked up the slack of the waiters and which is what he's supposed to do. But he did a great job of like actually noticing, Hey, your drink's empty.
00:18:02
Speaker
Let me get that for you, you know, kind of thing. So, um, Yeah, so that was good. I just was a little bummed. and We did also have a couple situations, too, where food came to us and it was cold, which... I've never had that. That's interesting.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, again, I don't know if that's just a function of we were a large group, too. And so I don't know if maybe our food was sitting around while the rest of the food was getting... I don't know. I'll tell you the truth. I don't mind that so much. We go through this all the time in my house. like I don't like...
00:18:29
Speaker
Like even like not even super hot, just like extra warm. It's too much for me. Like, I don't know. So we were eating something and everyone was like in the house was like making fun of me. I'm like, dude, that's too hot. Like, and they're like, yeah, whatever. Remind me. It's the truth of a super taster, man. That's what happens. yeah Remind me how, how old is this ship? How long has it been out? Four months.
00:18:51
Speaker
format months Well, they had worked yeah they should have worked kinks out by now, I would think. Yeah. i Same things that I had, though. and Yeah. I don't think it's anything different. I just think it's the just the way that the ships are run now is just different. they're They're not going to give you the same amount of people, right, for your dinner. It's just not going to happen anymore. And because there's, there's such large
New Disney Park in Abu Dhabi Discussion
00:19:10
Speaker
ships, you know, like you're 4,000 people on the ship. You're, you're serving so many people at once. It's just, it's, i listen, I, it wasn't an issue. And, and honestly, when we said something to them, they would just, they instantly went and got us a new one. It was warm. yeah It was not a big deal.
00:19:22
Speaker
um And I, you know, I'll chalk it up to again, to the shipping new, but also a lot of the waiters we talked to, we talked to several, like when we were on castaway key, we talked to a couple, they had like just got on a couple, a bunch of them.
00:19:34
Speaker
Right. So like so a bunch of them just started their contracts, like recently. Yeah. ah which I was surprised by because the ship's only four months old. I would think they would have longer contracts than that, but that was not the case for the several people we talked to. So, you know, I'll just chalk it up to, you know, they were trying to,
00:19:50
Speaker
still trying to get out acclimated to the boat. It's still new. They're still iron out Kings. I'm fine with that. It doesn't turn me off from the whole experience. So, and like I said, the food was good. We really enjoyed it. We enjoyed the atmosphere. And like I said, the Plaza de Coco restaurant was great.
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, if you like mariachi bands, they were awesome. They had dancers going through the, you know, going through the whole restaurant. ah They had really cool costumes to the waiters and stuff like that. It was, it was just a lot of fun.
00:20:14
Speaker
ah We, we really enjoyed that. So one of the things that and was frustrating for me, and this has nothing to do with Disney, ah but you know everyone you talk to is like, Oh yeah, you you'll never see your kids on this cruise because they're going to be wanting to be in the kids club all the time.
00:20:30
Speaker
And you know when I heard that, I was like, my kid's going to be the exception to this. I just know that they're going to the exception to it. I just and just know it. And I was right. So... My daughter, I think, maybe spent a total of three hours in the kids club.
00:20:44
Speaker
And that was about it. She wanted to be in the pool all the time. She wanted to hang out with us all the time, which was fine. ah we you know We enjoyed you know we enjoy going to the pool and and hanging out and all that stuff. But I was like, I went down to check out the kids club you know during the open house. And I was like, this is so cool. i want to hang out here. This is amazing. All the cool stuff that's going on here.
00:21:02
Speaker
Why don't you want to do this? i I mean, I also think part of it is her younger cousin was also there who is a little younger than her and was maybe I'm not going to say holding her back a little bit, but they because of her age, she had to stay with a certain group.
00:21:17
Speaker
And because my daughter's age, she didn't. And so that you know cause a little bit of an issue. But I will say the thing that one thing that I don't like about the kids club is that there were a too many open houses.
00:21:28
Speaker
They were doing open houses constantly where like half the thing was closed. and so And, you know, like we couldn't just like, you know, leave the kid there to to hang out. And so my daughter kind of got not excited about it because the one time she went, they had, they were doing like meet and greets in two of the rooms and she was like, well, half of it's closed.
00:21:44
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, that's. Is that a hat on or is it included in? No, it's, it's included. Yeah, it's included. It's all part. My daughter didn't do it that much either. My boys, when they were together, did it. But once they were kind of out of that, my daughter didn't have a big interest in really staying there either, but more because her brothers weren't. You know what I mean? Yeah, I get the feeling.
00:22:06
Speaker
Interestingly enough, family kind of wants to be with family. Yeah, I know. That's true. I wouldn't want to dump my kid off on someone else if I'm on a cruise. Yeah. I want to have it. It's so cool, though. It is, though. It's so cool. It's so cool, though. I mean, they had a whole Marvel thing where you like, it's, I don't know how you describe it. There's a big screen and you pretend like you're Spider-Man and it reads your motions and there's games that you play.
00:22:31
Speaker
There's like a whole Star Wars thing that's like a whole, you know like ah like ah almost like a maintenance bay of a ship. There's... There was a princess area. There was an Imagineering Lab, which we actually... The one thing we did do, they did a ah thing where they were making stitch goo.
00:22:45
Speaker
so they were making like ah just they were making slime is what they were making, right? But they had it stitch-themed, and there was like... you know Stitch came in. And so i it was one of those open house times. I did it with my daughter. We we had a great time doing it.
00:22:57
Speaker
But um yeah, I mean, listen, the the kids' clubs are awesome. And and the fact that you can take the the slide down to there is very cool, too. But it's just... my My daughter really wanted to spend time with us. And listen, we want to spend time with her too. I mean, it's i it's not we didn't want to dump her off at the kids club either, really.
00:23:14
Speaker
We wanted her to have fun though. And we didn't want her to be doing stuff with us and not having fun. But like i said, she would she rather she would rather be at the pools. um We did the the the Aqua Mouse like 10 times. So that was a lot of fun.
00:23:28
Speaker
yeah What were you saying? Was that you laughing, Damon? No, no, it's good. Yeah, it's good. it was It was good. It was a ton of fun. I mean, that the the new the the newer one, too, you know, it's got like the cartoons in it, too, as you're going up a lift hill and they spray stuff at you. And that's lots of fun.
00:23:42
Speaker
I went on the regular water slide that they have on there. That's not the Aquamouse. And ah I was where I wear swim shirts. I don't know if anybody else does this, but I wear swim shirts specifically so I don't have to put slather myself in in in sunscreen constantly, but not great with water slides. Yeah.
00:23:58
Speaker
ah the The one in particular on the ship, on the ship for some reason, the water shirt but ah the shirt the swim shirt made me actually like stop in the middle of the water slide. I had to like push myself down because I got stuck.
00:24:10
Speaker
so um So yeah, that was fun. But the ship is, like I said, the ship is really nice, really well laid out. There's a lot of really nice stuff on it. ah the the ah Oh, so I have on here a bullet point that says fire.
00:24:23
Speaker
ah so So one of the things that happened while we were on the ship, about five o'clock in the morning on one of the days, there was a full ship announcement. And it was someone someone came on and they said, they said, ah red team, red team, incinerator. And then they said something with like a floor like a floor number on it. Right.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I was like, so that's got to be a fire on the ship. Right. Like, what else would that be? Yeah. And I mean, listen, it's the incinerator. So there's, you know, there's fire happening there. And they actually had a, I believe they had a fire already on the ship in the incinerator room.
00:24:58
Speaker
But I will tell you, ah many people not pleased because they woke up all the children at five o'clock in the morning. Actually, might have been early. it might have been like four o'clock in the morning. ah And so that was ah that was not great. But again, i if they have to make that announcement. You didn't you didn't have to mustard We didn't. No, we didn't. But we also didn't know what was going on.
00:25:17
Speaker
Right. Like they just like they just made that announcement. But like, I don't know. I take red team and incinerator room and announcement to the whole ship. Red team. I know. what Why is it red t yeah team? with me Yeah. Yeah. Red team doesn't make you feel good.
00:25:32
Speaker
No. I think there's blue team, though, I guess. Right. I mean, I don't know. Yellow and arms team, I feel like are are still above blue team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. but yeah team like i'm okay if it's teal team like i'm feeling a lot better aqua team i'm feeling better about that awkwardqua team yeah exactly uh yeah so i don't know what that was it's funny because i haven't seen any like fire or anything reported on any the disney blogs or maybe i just missed it but i mean something happened clearly otherwise they wouldn't have announced it to the whole boat and like you said damon safety first right like and that's why i was explaining to my sister-in-law too i was like they probably have to announce it to the whole boat right like they don't know where the
00:26:07
Speaker
cast members are at any time that they need. They probably have to announce it to everyone or they accidentally did it to everybody. Who knows? I don't know. But yeah. So what else? What else we got here? Oh, shows. So the shows were great. Both shows were great. We saw Beauty the Beast. What's that? Yeah, they're always great. Yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
So we saw Beauty of the Beast. Beauty of the Beast was um was really, really good. we the nice thing about Beauty and the Beast, we only lined up, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes ahead of share of when the doors were going to open, which was great. Moana was a different story. And I talked about this in the discord, but ah we so Moana was on the castaway key day, right?
00:26:41
Speaker
And they had three showings that day. They had a matinee at like three o'clock and the ship was leaving castaway key at four. Right. And then they had, you know, one that was happening like five 30 and then another one like eight or eight 30, whatever.
00:26:52
Speaker
Well, you know, our kids were going to bed earlier than 830, so we couldn't do that. And then we had the 545 dinner, so we couldn't do that one. So, of course, we're going the matinee at a three. So I was like, we should probably get back on the ship fairly early and go line up for this. Right.
00:27:05
Speaker
So we got to the lineup at maybe 45 minutes before showtime. And the line was all the way basically from the theater to the other side of the boat. Like, no joke, like, insanely long line. And I'm like, well, so much for the matinee being less busy. Because that's kind of what we what our thought process was. Like, oh, maybe the matinee will be less busy. People will be staying on Castaway Cay. It'll be, you know. I don't think I'm getting on the ship off a Castaway Cay for any show.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah. and Well, that's I mean, but here's the thing, though. Like it was it was just an hour that we lost, really. Right. Because I mean, we're like an hour and a half. I think we went back at like 215 or something like that. So, you know, it it we and we had a great day at Casualty. We did ah we did snorkeling, which was a lot of fun.
00:27:46
Speaker
Saw a stingray. That was good time. Did you see Barry? Who's Barry? The Barracuda? Oh, no, I didn't see any Barracudas now. There's a cool Barracuda that's there. You got to see all the things under the water, though, like all the buried things. Yeah, we did see we did see a couple of them. We we saw the Minnie Mouse statue and then he the Dumbo ride vehicle.
00:28:05
Speaker
um That's about as far out as we went because we my daughter was with us and she obviously had never done snorkeling before. so ah But we got her that far out, which was accomplish an accomplishment. The interesting one thing was that the actual snorkeling lagoon that you they usually have people start in was actually closed because there was like a fuel spill of some sort.
00:28:23
Speaker
Uh, so they they actually had it closed while they were cleaning up this fuel spill, which was weird, but I loved Castaway Cay. I, I, I thought it was great. Uh, it was nice. Yeah. I mean, and we actually, we actually really enjoyed the food on it too. Uh, we, we had a, we enjoyed the food. actually remember what you had? we had a pretty much everything. We had the rotisserie chicken. They had ribs, which were really good.
00:28:43
Speaker
it's some mac and cheese. There was some cornbread. i mean, i think that their stuff is is, okay. If you don't live in the South, It's passable. It's passable.
00:28:54
Speaker
I don't think it's as good as dinner. The Rids were pretty good. The Rids were pretty good. um i mean, they weren't, you know, what we get here, but they were good for what they were. You know? Absolutely. I also did, we did, my daughter and I did the water slide at Castaway Cay too.
00:29:07
Speaker
Um, which was, you know, it's funny cause I, I didn't, you know, I obviously wasn't wearing a life jacket. I can swim, but it's six feet deep on the bottom of the, of the water slide. And I just, I, I wasn't really thinking about that. Right. And so I hit the water and I was like, oh I got to swim. Yeah. You know, oh, gosh. And then, of course, I knew my daughter was coming right behind me, too. And even though she was wearing a life jacket, she was going to freak out when she hit the water, you know.
00:29:31
Speaker
So that was kind of fun. But we we did enjoy that. it was ah It was a lot of fun doing the the water slides there. And like I said, the snorkeling was great. We we had a lot of fun. We had perfect weather the entire trip.
00:29:42
Speaker
And I actually was, my wife and I were joking about this, but it's true. When we got off the ship in Florida, we literally were like, ugh, because it was hotter and more humid in Port Canaveral than it was in the Caribbean.
00:29:54
Speaker
but yeah like I mean, the Caribbean was like high 70s, like the humidity wasn't bad. it was it was great. We didn't see a drop of rain the entire time. it was it was really, really nice.
00:30:04
Speaker
But ah yeah, sorry. I was talking about the Moana show. yeah mo did Did you get into the Moana show? We did. you know so okay yeah So we. we and I'm not going to i'm notnna call out family on this, right? because you know But you know what happened was my wife, my daughter, and I were the only three that were online.
00:30:21
Speaker
And they started letting people in. and there's nine people at my party, right? That sucks for those other six, man. Yeah. Well, see, that's the thing, though. If I hadn't tried to save them seats, like I would like save them seats. yeah I know we did anyway. And I got yelled at several times. And then I would have been burning. Listen, if I was somebody else. I'm with you, man. I just don't want to cause family drama. I'd rather get yelled at by a stranger than than ah be in bad. But no, see, I'm the opposite. I can take I can take yelling from a family member all day long.
00:30:50
Speaker
because no Yeah. Oh, yeah. yeah but I think that almost is like ah a treasure ban. You should have a two-year ban for that. For saving seats. but i It was a very stressful time. I will say that. Tom's talking like it's like the Wild West. It was. Very stressful time.
00:31:09
Speaker
It legitimately was. I almost couldn't enjoy the show because I was so stressed about it. And then like you know you just kind of chill. I just wouldn't have saved them seats. would have spent my deuces to you guys. they Earlier, just... Like, if any of you have seen the show, they just wouldn't have been sitting with you. I can't do that to my niece and nephew, man. Like, come on. My thing is, you better prepare, like, you what do they always say, right? Like,
00:31:29
Speaker
Your problem and doesn't – Your lack of preparation is not does not constitute an emergency on point. That's it. Thank you, Blake. Nailed it. That's what I was looking for. not Nailed it. That's why we have you on, Blake, for these – Exactly. really That's the only reason we have you on. Hey, I want to know about the shows.
00:31:44
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. You've got to get through this. He's halfway through, and we have to talk about this new theme park. So, Tom, you've got to speed it up a little bit. Sorry. So what were you going ask, Blake, though? So you said there was Beauty and the Beast and Moana. Are they like condensed versions of the actual shows where they sing song? No, they're kind like new things-ish. Yeah, I mean, they're not Broadway show length, but they're Broadway quality length. Yeah. They're not Deepak quality. Oh, my gosh. Here oh yeah snapcha are we Yeah, it's not Beauty and the Beast in matt in ah in a Hollywood Studios quality. It's several steps up from that. Yes, I would agree. Okay. Yeah.
00:32:20
Speaker
And it's longer. It's you know a little over an hour for the – Are they still telling the same story just in a dense version? I mean there's a twist. Like when we saw Peter Pan, it was definitely not the same, right? Like it's based based on, right?
00:32:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And and the Moana show – Selections from – Yeah, the Moana show did, ah you know, and i wouldn't say made some changes, but they they made, you know, they cut out some things and, you know, did some different things with it. But listen, it's a fantastic show. And I mean, the the the the puppet they have at the end for Takah that turns into da Defeati is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
00:32:53
Speaker
Like my wife turned to me while it was happening and she was like, how are they doing that? And I'm like, I don't know. It's a giant puppet though. And it looks, I mean, it just looked amazing. And then when they make the transition over to Te Fiti, it's like, it's, it's just very cool. It's a very good transition. It's really well done. Everybody was great in the show. It was, it was a lot of fun.
00:33:10
Speaker
We really, really liked it. Uh, I will say one of my other disappointments, Damon, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but when we went to the pools a lot, like if you don't go into like, if you go before one o'clock, like half of them are closed. yeah Here's the thing.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah. Cruise ship pools suck. They do. They're terrible. That's it. I agree. So like, I don't even think about pools when I'm going on a cruise ship because they just suck. The pools themselves were fine. It just didn't like that. The half of them are closed before noon. you're Like, you know what i mean? And there's there's there's, you know, no seat saving, but there's seat saving. There's people that literally park up at, like, first thing in the morning. Like, in in my opinion, on a cruise ship, pools don't even exist.
00:33:48
Speaker
And I feel better about that. All right. Never been in a pool on a cruise just for that reason. There you go. That makes sense. Well, all right. So I'm going to quickly also don't want pool cooties either. Let's be honest. Pool cooties?
00:33:59
Speaker
I don't want cruise cooties. Thanks. Hey, listen, all of us managed to not get sick. So that was. Yeah, but pools are a different sort of cootie. i I understand. I'm just saying. They all do put chlorine in Oh, no. they drain don't they Don't they drain them and fill them with seawater every day? don't know if they fill with seawater. No. No.
00:34:16
Speaker
don't know what cruises you guys are on. The Disney one that I was just on. Now I'm going to the web. I know the cruises I've been on. Let me keep going. Okay. So there was a band. I was talking about this in the Discord because it was making me not understand what was going on.
00:34:32
Speaker
So there's a band on the on the ship called the Dublooners, right? Yeah. And they were in the Jungle Cruise Lounge, and they were awesome. I really liked them. So what did I do? I went and looked them up after I left the cruise.
00:34:43
Speaker
But they're not a real band. They don't exist. they they They're just a Disney-constructed boy band that they threw in the ship. And when you do Google them, the pictures that come up are completely different people.
00:34:56
Speaker
Because like usually when I've gone on the, on, you know, ships and stuff like this before, when you see a band, they're usually like a real band outside of this that does, you know, like shows on the cruise ship, but that was not the case with this band. They were great though. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about that. I got, I got old wives tales here, I guess.
00:35:11
Speaker
what do you mean? Oh yeah, you did. Yeah. So you're, you're wrong, right? yeah Absolutely. All right. ah so See? See? Lounges and bars. Okay? So, lounges and bars.
00:35:23
Speaker
Periscope ah Pub was really cool because it was themed to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was like a sports bar. We didn't really get a lot of time at night to like go and do stuff because you know we we had our daughter and she went to bed at late. She passed out at like 7.30 every night.
00:35:37
Speaker
So, you know and unless we could have our my in-laws watch them, and which we did get a couple nights of that, but we did other things. But the Haunted Mansion Bar is... insanely cool.
00:35:47
Speaker
I don't know how else to say it. I mean, it it was awesome. We sat there for hours. I mean, just watching the the different things that would happen. I mean, we sat there for hours and we didn't see the same thing happen twice as far as like, you know, a sequence of events happening.
00:36:02
Speaker
So they didn't put a time limit on it. I thought you could only be in there a amount of time. No, that was in the very beginning. They don't now. And in fact, the last night we went on there and it was empty. but so I guess because everyone was packing and we had done it already, but like it was literally empty. so and we So we just sat there for a while. I i don't even i don't even think I had a drink. i We...
00:36:21
Speaker
I take that back. I did order drink. But I mean, and I don't want to spoil this for anybody that's going on the treasure. So again, skip ahead. But like they have they painting they have the paintings from the Haunted Mansion all around the room. And when you walk in and you look at them, you think they're real paintings because they are extraordinarily like they look like paintings. They don't look in any way like a screen.
00:36:39
Speaker
They don't look in any way like anything's going to happen. And then as you sit there, you realize that the paintings are subtly changing as you're sitting there. And sometimes not so subtly changing. Sometimes the eyes are just moving. Other times there's, you know, things change. There are people turning their heads.
00:36:54
Speaker
ah There were times where they were singing the songs from the Haunted Mansion and the paintings were singing along. Like, I mean, it was is awesome. And then there's a fish tank right in the middle there. ah And there's basically at random, there are are skeleton fish swimming through the middle of the tank.
00:37:10
Speaker
And the fish also sing. So... So whenever they're singing like ah Grim Grinning Ghosts, the fish will come over and a bunch of them come out and they sing the chorus of the song. It's hilarious and also amazing.
00:37:24
Speaker
But the details in it are great. The drinks were great. We just had a great time, honestly. Yeah. Does Madame Leota show up Oh, she does. Yes. So the mirror behind the bar, you get the hitchhiking ghosts, you get the the ghosts that are dancing in the ballroom, and then you also get Madame Leota floating around sometimes in the back of it, too.
00:37:40
Speaker
it's ah it's It's very, very cool. I just can't even describe it unless you go. It's it's really awesome. Didn't really spend a lot of time in the Aristocats piano bar. We popped our head in for a few minutes and then and then left.
00:37:51
Speaker
But it was nice. If we would have more time, we would have definitely spent ah some time there. ah Man, I'm um really trying to go fast. I swear. ah ah we fought we finally did... um Bippity Boppity Boutique. We've been saving this for a long time until my daughter was a little older.
00:38:05
Speaker
And we also thought it'd be great to do on the ship because she won't be in 95 degree Florida heat all done up. Right. Makes sense. Yeah. And it was it was awesome. i It was everything I thought it was going to be. And it was it wasn't that expensive. And they give you like a ton of stuff. And I was shocked at how much we got for what we paid. It was it was awesome.
00:38:26
Speaker
I would recommend it to anybody. The other thing ah that, you know, the movie theaters on the ship, they were playing the the new Marvel of movie Thunderbolts. And so I i was able to to sneak away for a night and go watch Thunderbolts, which if you're a Marvel fan and you haven't, well even if you haven't watched one in a while, that movie was awesome.
00:38:43
Speaker
ah Like really awesome. It was fun to watch on the cruise ship and in the little tiny theater they have in there. But man, that was, that was, ah that was great. ah Yeah. So go check that out. If you haven't, cause it's, it's, it's a really, really good movie. It's, it's like Marvel back at its, back at its peak.
00:38:57
Speaker
So, All right. So then DVC party, I went to DVC party left halfway through. i really just went like, cause my daughter was with us and she got bored and was, you know, getting tired. I won so much cruise credit at that party.
00:39:11
Speaker
I listen, I, I wanted to stay. i was overruled. So, yeah. it was It wasn't me. I did stop at the DVC ah the dvc like area and each day and got a different piece of swag, which was nice.
00:39:24
Speaker
I got a nice hat. I got a reusable straw. I got but i said again i got a magnet. I don't remember all the things. I think I went there four times. I didn't go every day because I forgot some days. so Yes, that was a cruise. It was awesome. wait I really love the treasure. We we did book a placeholder.
00:39:40
Speaker
So we have the placeholder that we'll ah be doing for another cruise. I'm not sure when yet, but we will be doing another one. So really quickly, the the last part here of, ah you know, we got off the ship. We went straight to Disney World.
00:39:52
Speaker
We were staying at Wilderness Lodge. ah Proper, not Boulder Ridge. So Copper Creek, technically, right? Yeah. When we got there, well you know we checked in, and then, of course, we got the alert on our phone. The b room's ready, right?
00:40:04
Speaker
I had booked a studio. That's what I booked. Well, I look at the i look at the the the on the app and see that the room says one bedroom. So we had gotten upgraded to a one bedroom, which nice I don't think has ever happened to me before.
00:40:17
Speaker
and But you say nice, Blake, right? You say nice. There's three of us, right? ah Immediately, I knew that this meant we went from two beds two real beds to one real bed.
00:40:28
Speaker
Right. ah So, yeah yeah. So immediately I was like, oh, no, this isn't good. Now we're going have one king size bed and then the pullout bed in the living room instead of the two queens, which is I wanted the two queens.
00:40:42
Speaker
So it ended up and they don't have the Murphy beds, by the way, in Copper Creek. they They just don't. And so, and I knew because this room is gorgeous, by the way, it was, it was really nice size, ah really well themed.
00:40:54
Speaker
But I also knew because of where the, the, the pullout couch was and where the bedroom was that my daughter was probably not going to do well sleeping by herself in there. So I was like, all right, you and mom sleep together. I'll sleep out on the pullout couch, which is great. You know, when you have back issues, when you have that bar sticking in your spine the entire night, but yeah,
00:41:14
Speaker
um Yeah, but that's, you know, it is what it is. It was is a gorgeous room. was worth it. We just had one night there, so it wasn't that big a deal. Uh, we went to Epcot, you know, and walked around and we actually did a ton of stuff at Epcot. It was kind of not very busy. So we did really everything we want to do at Epcot.
00:41:29
Speaker
Uh, you know, and I won't get into all the stuff we did, but did everything that we want to do. Then we went on the Skyliner and you could see a thunderstorm coming, right? You could just see it. And I knew there was a thunder thunderstorm coming. So we took it to Riviera and then we took an Uber back to our resort, hung out for a little while, waited for the rain to stop and then went back to Epcot and then went to Via Napoli, which, um,
00:41:51
Speaker
you know It's a restaurant that we love. we We haven't been in a while, but it's one of our favorites in Epcot. it's the It's the pizza place in the in the Italian Pavilion if you haven't been there. But ah it was great. We really loved it. We enjoyed the pizza. It was ah it was a great experience. But it was very, very rainy at Epcot. So we bailed a little bit early just because it was raining a lot and it just was...
00:42:12
Speaker
You know, we were tired. It was this was a long day. ah Magic Kingdom the next day, we rope dropped. We did the early entry. My wife went straight to Tron to to rope drop that. My daughter and I went straight to the Barnstormer, which we proceeded to ride nine times in a row.
00:42:28
Speaker
not an Not an exaggeration. We actually went on it nine times in a row while my wife was waiting for Tron. let you They let you stay in the entire time or did you have to get out? So if there's nobody, if there was nobody waiting, they let us stay on. But if they, and which was the case a couple times. So there's maybe four or five of the rides that we got to just stay on and go again.
00:42:46
Speaker
ah But there were others we got off and went back on again. But I would have been happy because those seats are not the easiest to get in and out. Oh, man. have Really not. Especially when you got a backpack. like like yeah I got this backpack and ah they're like, oh, you have to put it in the thing. And I'm like, I'm saying to my daughter, I'm like, okay, I got to shove this backpack in front of you. um But yeah, that didn't that didn't go.
00:43:06
Speaker
ah that was That was fine. we We had a lot of fun. Again, we did a lot of things. We we did pay for um for Lightning Lane, right? And we we got a ton out of it. I think we maybe got eight attractions that day.
00:43:17
Speaker
which was great. I just out of ah just specifically out a lightning lane. And then we waited for a few other things. Like I said before, country bear, we loved, we thought it was great. Really well done. My daughter loved it. ah Yeah, it was its just great.
00:43:29
Speaker
And then we had Liberty tree for dinner, which I, I don't know if Lake or you or Damon have ever had Liberty tree, but, I love Liberty Tree. is that the Is that where they serve it family style? Family style Thanksgiving dinner, man.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I've had that. It's good. Yeah. I love Liberty Tree. Yeah. one of one of ah one of my One of our favorites in Magic Kingdom. So we decided to do that. And we actually we had dinner with Trevor and his brother.
00:43:52
Speaker
And so they they very much enjoyed that as well. So had a lot of fun there. The only other thing I want to talk about, because I know, Damon, you you want to talk about one other thing and you got to go. ah The DVC Lounge, McKim's Mile House, right? First of all, i had a hard time finding it.
00:44:05
Speaker
That's number one. But I found it eventually. And then when we did, it was like, I don't know, four o'clock maybe our dinner reservation. No, it was like three 30. Our dinner reservation was for five 30.
00:44:16
Speaker
And so we're like, let's just go hang in the DVC lounge for a while. Right. So we get up there and there's a lady yelling at the cast already. Not a good start. Lady yelling at the cast member.
00:44:27
Speaker
And then she turns around and she goes, if you're not on the wait list, you're not getting in. She yells that to everybody. So they had cut off the wait list already for the day by 3.30 because there were so many people on it.
00:44:38
Speaker
Uh, and so I get up there and she's like, she's like, I'm sorry, we cut off the wait list. And I said, well, what if you have, you know, I have membership, the and membership magic beyond. And she goes, Oh, she goes, well, you said the magic words then. Cause I can put you on a different wait list and we'll get you like right in.
00:44:53
Speaker
was like, okay. So yeah. So the membership actually got angry. Wait a minute. Was angry lady still there to hear that? Oh no, she was not. She was gone. Yeah. Luckily, because, yeah. yeah ah But yeah, so we we only waited like 10 minutes and then we got in, ah which, you know, shout out to the the membership Magic Beyond if you want to get into those lounges and not have to deal with a wait list.
00:45:12
Speaker
ah Honestly, the lounge was very nice. I thought it was pretty spacious. ah They had, you know, really cool. The the newest freestyle machines that were great. They were going around handing out cookies. I mean, it was it was great. It was a really nice...
00:45:25
Speaker
vibe in there. Really nice atmosphere. I also had asked them, I said, do you guys get yelled at a lot by people? You know, like, are you guys getting yelled at a lot? And she said, yes, but she goes, then we give them these. And then she she showed the pins. You know, they were either giving out pins for the lounge.
00:45:39
Speaker
And so I said, oh, can I mean, I'm not mad, but can I have one? She was like, yeah. She's like, how many are in your party? I'm like, three. And she's like she gave me three pins. I was like, score. So ah but yeah, listen, that was that was it. Membership Magic plus, you know, it's good investment if you want to get in lounges. So All right.
00:45:55
Speaker
So that was my trip. I sped through a lot of it, but it was a great trip. We had a lot of fun. ah Despite the fact that I didn't pay for the cruise, it might have been one of our most most expensive Disney vacations ever.
00:46:08
Speaker
but You're lucky if you pay for the cruise. they Well, du i just how much we spent on board. too i just it was ah It was crazy between merch and... My wife got a massage. We paid for some you know massages for my in-laws. and you know yeah I can't do that. A massage on board is just like so expensive in comparison to one like – Off the boat. All right. Well, we have to we have to skip. We have to go right to the new theme park. We have to talk. And then then I'll do the ad. Okay. You can do the ad after. All right.
00:46:37
Speaker
So let's talk about this. Yeah, go ahead. you want to do you want to say it? No, I'll let you go with the setup. Okay, Disney announces plans for new theme park and resort in Abu Dhabi, which is interesting.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, we're gonna talk about none of the political issues. So we'll leave all that aside. Let's stay away from that piece. Right. Yeah. The interesting thing. There's a lot of interesting things about this. First of all, Disney is they're doing the same model that they do with the Asian parks, right? Where they're basically taking royalties on this and the Imagineering is going to design it, but this other company is going to build everything.
00:47:09
Speaker
And own it. Yeah. i know Imagineering is only there as a in a consulting standpoint. Exactly. i feel like this is just such a blank check. Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. You know Imagineers are doing cartwheels right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
They are going to have so much... might be the place we get our first hologram or our first moving floor. It might happen here. you watch the Imagineering story, they actually talk about this, that the Imagineers that get to work on the foreign parks are like... It's like a coveted job to get the foreign parks ones because they have no budget.
00:47:42
Speaker
like They can spend whatever they want, basically. And that's just with the Asian parks. This is going to be the same kind of way, I'm sure. we On steroids. Yeah, they're going to be able to spend whatever they want, basically. And I'm sure those Imagineers are going to psyched.
00:47:53
Speaker
you know Moving floor or hologram, please. I just need one of them. Yeah. What do we think about this castle that they got going on here? It's not even a castle. i don't even know what this is. It's like a big giant crystal.
00:48:04
Speaker
Remember, this is an artist rendition. Of course. It's going change yeah quite a bit. but i'm I'm cool with it. like It's cool looking. again You got to tell me twice. That thing is, it's like a crystal mountain castle. Like, I'm good with it. It's extremely cool looking. As long as you can go in it, that would be cool.
00:48:19
Speaker
I don't even need to go in it. I'll be honest with you. i don't even need to go in it. like I think it's just that cool. What's interesting about this, though, that it's so different than all the other parks is that they're going to be surrounded by like SeaWorld. And I think there's like a WB Park there. And like, it's all the same. WB Park looks so awesome, by the way, if you've ever seen videos. It's the same company, though. Right. So that's what I'm saying. So this has got to be a W. Yeah.
00:48:41
Speaker
This is going to be a really cool park. It's going to be really interesting. I don't think it's a park I'm going to make my way to, unfortunately. So I hope that like what we see here is like trickle-down effect.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah And actually, they just confirmed, I was reading this yesterday, it's going to be all indoors. I saw that. I'm good with that. Is that like confirmed by Disney, or is that just like... It is confirmed.
00:49:05
Speaker
And the WB Park, though, I feel like is like that, too. yeah it's just interesting because all like the concept art shows outdoors, right? If not all indoors, at least most indoors. Dude, it's too hot there. It is too hot there, yeah. Yeah, like, come on. Like, you're not saying outside when it's that hot.
00:49:20
Speaker
You gotta do it like that. Listen, I don't disagree. I just think it's interesting that, I mean, that they, obviously, I guess in concept art, you're not gonna want to show a building that, like, it it's all underneath or whatever, you know? I think they should do, like, the glass dome, you know, like... Under the dome?
00:49:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah, do a big, giant glass dome, right? But you know what? That's probably... focus the energy... Yeah, it's got a tint on it. all right. It's got this tinted dome. Okay. What are you going to say, Blake? That's probably going to be part of the the the magic. You can't see me doing the air quotes, but making the walls of this indoor ah theme park look like you're outside. I guarantee you that's going to be part of the the theming there. That makes sense.
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, this is this is tremendously interesting, too, because they didn't really... They're they're not really saying what it's what's even going to be there, right? like They're just saying, we might put this there, we might put that there, we might put this there. like It seems like it's very fluid at this point. This is going to be a win, though.
00:50:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be going to be huge, especially. I mean, this is what you do when you have Universal doing what they're doing. You announce a park like this with no budget in theory.
00:50:26
Speaker
That's just going to be ridiculous because ah but yeah finish even though I'm super hyped to go Universal, I think it's going to be great.
00:50:37
Speaker
I think this is the park that just this was the announcement that they needed. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully we get more announcements for, you know, here too.
00:50:49
Speaker
we would like, I think, more things going on here, right? I mean, sure, but I don't know if that happens. This this we know should be spectacular. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, I would think so.
00:51:00
Speaker
So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see, as to find out you know more about this as it comes. Because obviously, like it like I said, it still looks very fluid and it feels like they're probably still developing this quite a bit.
00:51:11
Speaker
ah They didn't give any dates on this, right? like they didn't even give like I don't think so. Yeah, because you're talking. I mean, this is going to be, what, five years from now at least? I don't know.
00:51:22
Speaker
i mean, your day... mean, the company building this probably doesn't have to jump through as many it's a very regulatory loopholes as we do here in the States. So i would I would think this is going to go up a lot faster than it would if this were being built in the United States.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, maybe, yeah I mean, we'll have to see, though. i really and and It doesn't look like it's going to be a big park, though, either, because it's... I mean, and I saw somebody note that you know just the... Just the the the ah the place itself, right, is only like 10 square miles or something like that.
00:51:55
Speaker
Like just the land that they have there, which is like a fraction of the size of of Disney World. yeah it's goingnna be it's it's And that's not just for the Disney park. That's for all the stuff that's already there. So this is probably going to be fairly small, I would think. But I i don't know. I guess we're going find out, right?
00:52:13
Speaker
And you know, i don't know if you saw my post in the Facebook group. Did you see that they're starting flights from Charlotte? Yeah, to Abu Dhabi, yeah. i that's That feels like a long flight. i That feels like a really long flight. Yeah.
00:52:29
Speaker
ah Yeah, no. So I listen. This is interesting this was interesting news. I saw, you know, it's also really weird, too, on the cruise ship. I didn't pay for the Wi-Fi package. Right. And most of the time did not have signal. I was hooked up to the the cruise Wi-Fi and I was getting all the discord notifications, but I couldn't respond to them.
00:52:48
Speaker
I was just getting them. Yeah, it's the same way on an airplane. You can receive information, but you can't send it out. It's just odd. You know, it was really kind of annoying, too, because i like, I want to respond to that. Like, and I don't have Internet.
00:53:00
Speaker
But yeah. So anyway, this is going to this is going to be very interesting. You know, like you said, i'll I'll be interested to see what like they're actually going to pay. Like, how much is it going to cost? You know, it's going to be. po I'm assuming. Yeah.
00:53:12
Speaker
Oh, I thought you meant like, how much is it going to cost to actually attend the park? Oh, well, there's that too. Yeah. No, I meant how much it like they're going to spend on this. So going to spend like, you know, the Epic universe, $8 billion dollars or whatever it was, or, you know, how's that going to look? i I don't think we really know. I mean, really this, this concept art is incredibly vague.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, other than the, other than the tower, You can't really make anything else. I mean, I can almost make out on the right-hand side that almost kind of looks like Tron-ish.
Skepticism on New Park's Claims
00:53:46
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah, I see that. Yeah, and I mean, they did in the little video they they put together, they did mention that they might put Tron there, right? like So who knows? Then this might just be like like all of the stuff they've already developed. Who knows if they're developing new stuff? I mean, they're saying it's going to be...
00:54:02
Speaker
They're saying it's going to be the most cutting edge park that they've ever done in the most um immersive park they've ever done. But they always say that, right? So who knows what actually is going to happen? So, yeah. That was an interesting development when i as as I was gone, right?
Sponsorship and Beacon Barrel Tavern
00:54:17
Speaker
All right. So, Blake, I'm going to do the ad, okay? And then we'll we'll talk about a couple other things. We'll wrap this thing up. So the sponsor of this episode is DVC Rental Store. DVC Rental Store, a world of DVC company, offers magical vacations at incredible value.
00:54:30
Speaker
Save up to 60% off retail rates at premium Disney resorts. DVC Rental Store now includes deposits as low as 25% at the time of booking and a built-in cancellation policy for every reservation. And as always, DVC Rental Store pays out the most to members looking to rent their points.
00:54:44
Speaker
Want to learn more? Go to DVCRentalStore.com slash Welcome Home or call 1-855-DVCRENT. That's 1-855-382-7368. And you speak to them, be sure to let them know that Welcome Home sent you.
00:54:56
Speaker
Look, and and just ah from a personal standpoint, if you've never rented before, it truly is a way to save a lot of money on a Disney vacation. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
And it's a great way to like get started with DVC, too, right? to just check it out. like It's a try before you buy, you know? Exactly. Yeah. So, it's yeah, that's great. i'm i'm I've never actually rented, but I rented out to somebody. The process is super easy, too. Yeah.
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah. Very, very simple. I actually rented from Dan K., a member the group. Through the service or just? No, through, I mean, just I put into Facebook group one day, hey, I want to rent some points. Anybody got any available? And he responded and we did the whole thing. And ah it is a great way to to get into DVC.
00:55:41
Speaker
Agreed. Yeah, totally agree. So if you're listening and you're thinking about it, the answer is yes, you want to do it. Rent it. Yeah. Rent them. Rent them. There you go. Blake has become a shill for our sponsor. I am. And I'm not even not even getting paid to do it. And I'm shilling.
00:55:54
Speaker
I appreciate that. appreciate that. All right. So another piece of news we got while I was gone was we got some more information about the Pirates of the Caribbean bar or tavern, whatever. What are we going to call this? that A tavern? It's going to be a tavern. Yeah.
00:56:09
Speaker
All right. Well, it's going to be called the Beacon Barrel. And it's going to be opening later this year. So we got the name of it now, which is the beacon barrel. ah And then we ah you know we got some more concept art, which is is interesting.
00:56:22
Speaker
I'm assuming the this bird rummy here is going to be animatronic, right? Yeah, probably. Probably. Yeah. So, uh, I mean, how could it not be right? So Rummy is, uh, is just going to be sitting there. It looks like over to the side.
00:56:37
Speaker
Uh, and people are, you know, they, they also mentioned here that Rummy bears a striking resemblance to the original Barker bird that sat at the entrance to pirates of the Caribbean, which how long ago did the Barker bird go away? That was like a long time ago. It's been a while. Yup. Yeah. Cause that was, I mean, I feel like I remember that when I was a kid, but I could be wrong.
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah. remind me Remind me, where is this going? Is this going in Tortuga, or is this next next to it? I believe i believe it was it's going where the the Pirates League thing used to be.
00:57:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Okay, yeah all right. Yeah, so I'm trying to... Yeah, I want to figure out now like when this got removed. Okay, let's see. Oh, 2006 it got removed.
00:57:17
Speaker
So, okay, well... Yeah. i I seem to remember the bird being there, but it's cool that they're bringing this character back much like they did for the Star Wars cantina where they brought back ah the the pial the original pilot of the yeah of the Star Speeders, right? Yep.
00:57:32
Speaker
there Which was cool. And I'm glad they're bringing back. Oh, so in this other concept bar, you see it looks like the bird is up on like a the top of the bar somewhere. Something like that. Man, you know what would be cool is if they had somebody backstage and they did this like a live thing.
00:57:48
Speaker
Turtle talk with Crush where you could interact with actual people. that would Maybe they will, though. I mean, that's certainly possible, right? I mean, why can't why can't they? They do it with Turtle Talk. They do it with Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, which, by the way, i did it we did Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor for the first time with my daughter. We just never done it before.
00:58:05
Speaker
And this past time, please tell me you got singled out as the monster. Okay. So like, that's, it's funny you say that because we stopped going there because I kept getting picked. Right. So like, like literally three times in a row, we went there. i was that guy.
00:58:20
Speaker
Right. I, every time I was getting picked. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I was like, man, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not getting picked every time. There might've been one time too, where was I was the guy that was like, had to dance or whatever. Right. I don't remember. Right. So i'm like, all right, let's do this.
00:58:33
Speaker
Hopefully they're not going to pick me. And they, they did. And they didn't. So they, there was a, there was one part in the beginning of the show where they went to my daughter and i and it was, said it was something about smiling because they're happy to be here or something. I forget what the exact thing was.
00:58:47
Speaker
So it was just us smiling, but they only went to us the one time in the beginning when they're killing time while everybody's coming in. You know? Right. Yeah. um yeah So luckily I escaped at this time, but in the past I have not. So um yeah, my daughter loved it. That was fun. But yeah, like, I mean, why can't they do it? and There's no reason why they can't. I mean, they did it, you know, with Mr. Potato Head too, right? Like there's all sorts of different characters they do this with. So why wouldn't they do with this one?
00:59:09
Speaker
I think it'd be cool. Yeah. ah So let's see what else in here. They have an area called the mess. Oh, well this is like way bigger than i thought it was going to be. Okay. So there's like a whole other area over here that has like big tables. Yeah.
00:59:21
Speaker
Long tables that span the room. I didn't think there was that much room in this. That's what I'm saying. I thought it was pretty small. And yeah maybe the concept art's making it look bigger than it is. I don't i don't know. Or maybe they're taking over space, too, that we didn't we never we don't know about, right? That was there. Because there's lots of those, right?
00:59:37
Speaker
ah So this way, this also says, too, okay, guests may also spot the enchanted rum bottle. What is that? ah Oh, is that different than the the bottles with the ship in them?
00:59:49
Speaker
Because I see the... yeah It seems like it maybe. don't know. maybe Maybe it is that. I don't know. But obviously that's going to be something that's happening. Right. Right. And it also says Rummy hobbling along the bar's ledge, greeting patrons and keeping a close eye on the crew while Mary is away, which Mary is the proprietor, I believe, of this bar.
01:00:07
Speaker
So is Rummy actually going to be walking ah around like the. Well, if you look at the picture, it seems like he's on the ledge there. So he's got peg leg. Yeah. So listen, maybe this will be interactive because it says he's greeting patrons and keeping a close eye. I mean, yeah it could just be canned stuff, but I mean, that sounds more like interactive to me.
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah. Especially if they're going to be greeting people. Yeah. That would be really, that would be fun if they really made, if they really did that and they did it well, I think that could be a lot of fun. It kind of made it like a, like a snarky.
01:00:39
Speaker
Yeah. that It's gotta be snarky. Yeah. No, you have to, that that bird should be roasting everybody that comes in. Like, exactly. Like that's what you have to expect when you walk into that place. Right. yeah ah And yeah. Yeah.
01:00:51
Speaker
So, oh yeah, no, they see the the the ships and the bottles are different, right? So they said the ah mounted five miniature ships and glass bottles rumored to represent pirates from every corner of the world. ah But the... Okay, so these are due things too. This is these mysterious bottles have known to come alive and engage in fearsome battle.
01:01:08
Speaker
So... this This place just looks cool. I'm excited to check this out. Yeah, this will be fun. Yeah, like this is a really neat thing. I'm surprised they haven't done this anywhere else, you know?
01:01:18
Speaker
Yeah. it's It just feels like a thing they should have done sooner. One thing I'm not seeing from the concept art, if you look at all the people, all they have in front of them are drinks. Yeah.
01:01:29
Speaker
Yeah. I don't see any plates of food. um one See, I feel like in a previous announcement, they said something about food being there. But you're right. There's no food in any of these pictures. It's all drinks.
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. Which, you know. Yeah. It'd be nice to have finger food, right? like Just give me like some pretzels or something. Yeah. know Give me some soft pretzels. We're cool. Shareables and that'll be it. Yeah.
01:01:51
Speaker
They don't even need to cook it there. They just you know bring one of those carts over and drop off a bunch of pretzels. so All right. so
Mickey Popcorn Bucket and Disney Merchandise
01:02:00
Speaker
Let's go on to... ah well i only really want let's Let's just talk about this new popcorn bucket, okay? buts okay Unless you want to really talk about this the Disneyland 70th anniversary thing. There's a lot of 70th anniversary stuff, but I...
01:02:12
Speaker
There's also this article that I was reading about how it's and they're integrating the Muppets into some things there. But I really want to talk about this popcorn bucket. Okay. Talk about the popcorn bucket, man. come Did you see this?
01:02:23
Speaker
I did. i You know what? I'll talk about it, but I just don't get the big hoopla over popcorn buckets. And it's just a me thing. I get it. ah No, i listen, I understand that. i Damon doesn't get the big hoopla either, right? He says all the time. He's are you going to do with that thing?
01:02:37
Speaker
This one is like different, though, because this is literally I don't even know how to describe this, right? It's it's a Mickey. it's It's Mickey. He has kind of a bigger head than his you know his... His head is out of proportion with his body. However, this Mickey Mouse popcorn bucket can blink its eyes and talk to you and with With pre-canned responses.
01:02:59
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And move its head. Its head will move back and forth. And you can you know you talk to it and you say, hey, Mickey. And it responds to things.
01:03:10
Speaker
um Now, like you said, it's preroed pre-programmed, right? But the other part of it is that the popcorn bucket part of it is his head. So you're eating popcorn out of the back of his head.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. just so weird. Like, I don't know what else they would have done, but it's just kind of funny, right? so so it's like it's like eating popcorn out of a Furby.
01:03:33
Speaker
and advance yes pretty much Yeah, pretty much. I'm dating myself. Probably a lot of people don't know what Furby's doing. They made comeback a couple years ago. i My daughter has a Furby. So no, they they made a comeback couple of years ago. They did a new one.
01:03:44
Speaker
It's interesting, though. if you watch the video of this, the it's much bigger of a bucket than I thought it was. Like, if you see it in someone's hand, it's pretty, it's decently large. Okay. Well, so now here's the, all right, I'm looking at the picture right now yeah of of the screenshot and I see that sitting in their hand.
01:04:00
Speaker
Where, so the popcorn only goes in his head, right? Like none of it goes down in his head. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's, listen, it's this, it's again, the same thing with some of these popcorn buckets. It's not really functioning as a popcorn bucket, right? I mean, it's, yeah some of them are good because they hold a lot of popcorn. Others are, you know, more decorative than they are for holding popcorn.
01:04:21
Speaker
right See, that's the whole thing about the the Figment popcorn bucket that everyone went crazy about. I looked at it I thought, that's going to hold like two handfuls of popcorn and then you're done. mean, come on.
01:04:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. I will say this is, I mean, this is incredibly unique though, right? Like they are doing something very different here. And I don't know i don't know if this is even for sale yet, ah but it's, and I don't think I've seen a price either, but no I'm sure it's going to be a little more expensive. Right. Oh, you know it is. Yeah. this But again, it it moves its head, it blinks its eyes, and it talks to you.
01:04:57
Speaker
i it's It's so interesting to me. It's it's very different, but... When it works, when it works, it will be interesting. Well, that's the other thing. So in this video, they were saying that that it didn't, it didn't do a very good job of hearing them, but it also said that they were at all, they were at the loud event, you know, that was going on. So maybe it was hard, you know, to differentiate, which, you know, it was understandable, but it'd be interesting to see like how it is just by itself.
01:05:21
Speaker
But ah yeah, I just, it's, it's so odd to me. I don't necessarily have a desire to have this, but I am intrigued by the, the idea of it, you know? Right. At least it's different.
01:05:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's different, for sure.
01:05:36
Speaker
Listen, did it's funny because Disney's been doing the popcorn thing for a while now. But then like it it became also a thing with movie theaters again where they were doing these themed popcorn buckets.
01:05:48
Speaker
ah I will say on The Treasure, they had... probably six or seven popcorn buckets they were selling that were like themed popcorn buckets. I was surprised at the amount of them that they had there. Cause usually, you know, you just get one from one place there.
01:06:01
Speaker
Their little snack bars there had a bunch of different ones and they were, they were pretty cool, but none of them were talking to you and you couldn't eat popcorn out of its head. So I'd be like, I'd be scared. Like,
01:06:14
Speaker
I don't know. The grease from the popcorn would damage to the electronics. I like to believe that they thought of that, but yeah it does. It does kind of like it just, yeah, it's, it's, it's a weird thing. I, it's funny though. when think about it, I feel like goofy should be the one that has popcorn in his head because I feel like that's just more accurate. Right. Like goofy feels like he already has popcorn in his head. So, yeah.
01:06:38
Speaker
um But anyway, yeah. So, I mean, the other thing that was on here, too, was just, you know, they were talking about all the 70th anniversary stuff at Disneyland and they are doing a bunch of stuff. You know, they have the the new world of color that they're doing, ah which is called happiness. And there's there's a bunch of Muppets things in there, which I know a lot of people are are happy about because, you know, more Muppets, ah more good. Right. Yeah. I don't I don't think we've seen the last of the Muppets. I don't think they're going off there. They will make a comeback somewhere.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. Listen, I, I, I fully believe they will try to do something with Muppet vision 3d. I don't know what that's going to be, but they, I mean, they, they knew that there was going to be an outrage ahead of time and they were like, listen, we're going to try to do something with it.
01:07:17
Speaker
I don't think that they're hoping people are just going to forget because they're not going to forget. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So like that's, it's nice that they put the Muppets in here and that it's a main part of it.
01:07:28
Speaker
And I haven't watched it yet though. I do want to watch it. It does look very, uh, very cool and i know a lot of people love worlds of color so uh but that's have you have you done disneyland blake or i have not i it's it's on my bucket list on the list to go do it yeah it's on the list yeah me too it's gonna happen eventually yeah i gotta get i gotta to get the kids out of college first and well that is that is a priority yeah that is that is a priority man that's yeah once you get there ah i got a while for for that so uh Look, my wife, my wife and I have already said, like, as soon as the last one graduates, like literally, we're going to go to the graduation and then we're going to leave and go directly to the airport. Nice.
01:08:09
Speaker
Just go straight there. that yeah We're just heading there. Yeah, I, we, my wife have been talking about this for a long time. Like, what what we really want to do is like a combo Disneyland Aulani trip. You know, to do like a couple couple days at Disneyland and live from there and go do Alani.
01:08:24
Speaker
ah I think that's that will be in the cards at some point. Although now we're you know now we're on a Disney cruise kick because we did the Disney cruise. And now it's like, well, when are we going to do our next one? Which I knew was going to happen, right? Well, you should bank three years worth of points and do the whole Alani.
01:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, to do the Aulani one? yeah Yeah, to do the Aulani one. I want wait for my daughter to be old enough just so she doesn't, I mean, not that she... Oh, look, oh, do this. You'd bank those three years worth. You go to Aulani and then you do the Grand Californian.
01:08:52
Speaker
Oh, well, yeah, if I could get in. ah like I mean, that would be the challenge if I could get in. Yeah. Also, by the way, Blake, I don't know how I missed this little piece of news, and I don't know when this happened.
01:09:05
Speaker
I totally missed this, but we went on Soarin' while we were at Epcot. hu They fixed the... Oh, yeah. The Eiffel Tower's not bent anymore. Yeah. When did that happen?
01:09:15
Speaker
and How did I miss it? That's been a couple of months ago, I thought. i don't think we talked about it on the show, though. like How did I miss this? like That's shocking to me. Yeah.
01:09:26
Speaker
i Yeah. i'm i'm i so I'm sitting there, and we were off to the side, and I'm like, wait a second. The Eiffel Tower is straight. Yes. what's going on here? And then also I noticed that they had updated the ending too, with, you know, all the new Epcot stuff. So was like, Oh man, I, I don't know how I missed this news. I clearly did, but yeah, look at that. They, you know, know and then the Eiffel tower. They do listen to customer feedback.
01:09:50
Speaker
They do. My biggest disappointment by the way, Blake of Epcot is that we, I had a, and you know, listen, I don't need a lightning lane to get on spaceship earth. Most of the time ah we had, a we had a lightning lane, right? So we went and did other stuff.
01:10:02
Speaker
We get back. Spaceship Earth is down. ah like And they cleared the line too, which means you know you know it's a bad one. yeah like It's not like one of those quick stops. It's like... Let's go walk around the World Showcase and come back later.
01:10:15
Speaker
that's i mean that's kind of what we yeah That's kind of what we did. But ah yeah. I it was i mean, it was listen, we did it like a half a day at Epcot and it was it was great. and we We had a great time. and There was some cool stuff there. and ah you know We had a lot of fun. and my My wife got to do Guardians and I took my daughter elsewhere to go to the Seas.
01:10:32
Speaker
We had a half an hour for Nemo, which is nuts. you Wait a minute. You were in line a half an hour for now for a continuous moving ride.
Personal Disney Trip Stories
01:10:42
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. I don't know how it happened, but it I think it was down ah one point.
01:10:48
Speaker
But I don't know. All I know is that we got in there and there were parts of the queue that I have never stood in before because I feel like I've never, ever gone on that with more than a 15 minute wait ever.
01:10:59
Speaker
so I don't think I've ever been on it with a when it wasn't walk-on. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. like It's nuts. I mean, it was a little busy at Epcot that day. i mean i Don't get me wrong. i mean the And the rain didn't really deter deter that many people either. so And of course, I didn't bring... there's another thing. I didn't bring ponchos with us.
01:11:15
Speaker
The past like four times we've done Disney trips, we have not had rain once the entire trip. And so like we kind of got complacent. We used to be prepared. You know, we used to bring these things with us and we just got complacent. and And of course, these two days, it like poured for a good portion of the day. And in fact, when we were going to Liberty Tree, we it started pouring right as we walked in and basically finished right as we were finishing up, which was kind of perfect.
01:11:39
Speaker
Was it in the afternoon? Cause it's usually around four, four o'clock when you have that. It was like five o'clock. Yeah. It was like right at five o'clock and it was like an hour and you know, a half storm, but it was still raining pretty hard when we got out. And of course they didn't ponchos.
01:11:53
Speaker
So I had to run in the rain to go get ponchos. And then we put ponchos on for like 15 minutes and the stopped raining. And then you threw them away. Yes. Well, we didn't throw away. I kept them. I kept them. I kept them. So I did keep them.
01:12:04
Speaker
So I don't want to throw them away at just yet. So, all right. Well, listen, Blake, I really appreciate you subbing in for Trevor on this one. Yeah, man. i i was I know it was fairly last minute, so I appreciate you jumping in. That's right. I had to blow the dust off the microphone. to yeah I mean, I get that. that's That makes sense. I had to remember how to do this because i you know it's been a couple weeks. It feels like ah forever ago that I did one of these. so I mean, it was only two weeks, but...
01:12:31
Speaker
you know, it's, it's crazy how quickly, first of all, how quickly vacations go just in general, but then also like oh and no how quickly you get back into the swing of things, you know? Yep. Just, and it, and it just, it's gone, you know?
01:12:43
Speaker
But anyway, so, all right. So a couple of things here, we'll just wrap up. ah Anything you want to from promote Blake, by the way, I don't know if you have anything to promote, but. Uh, let's see. Yeah, sure. I, if you are happening to, Oh gosh, you caught me off guard here. Uh, about, how about I do the, the, the end thing here and then you think about it and then yeah I'll come back to you. Do it. I'm furiously typing away on my but computer right now. All right. So if you want to email us, you can always find us at welcomehomepodcast at gmail.com.
Upcoming Interview and Raleigh Ringers Tour
01:13:13
Speaker
Best way to get a hold of us. You can also ask us questions, you know send us questions in the mailbox, on the Facebook page, wherever you want. I do want to mention to everybody that we are doing an interview with ah with Danielle Kelly, who is also known as Dapper Danielle.
01:13:26
Speaker
Really? Are you familiar, Blake? Yes, I've listened to that. we are We are interviewing her this week in about her new book that she has ah that just came out of about Magic Kingdom.
01:13:38
Speaker
So, you know, listen, we we we pride ourselves on ah on an having you guys be part of this show too. So if you have any questions for Danielle, I know a lot of people know her, you know, please send them to us, send them an email, send them, you know, put them on the Facebook page. We do a Facebook post up.
01:13:52
Speaker
So we are excited to talk to her. It should be ah should be a really cool interview and she's got a, you know, cool new book out. So, but yeah, so like I said, reach out to us. We do have that coming up that, and that'll be in a future episode.
01:14:04
Speaker
ah You can find us on Facebook, welcome home podcast, YouTube, welcome on podcast, Instagram, welcome home picks. You have our store, which is stored at welcome home podcast.com. You get like branded stuff there.
01:14:15
Speaker
You can also support the show through Patreon, which is patreon.com slash welcomehomepod. They get you access to the Discord, which we talk about a lot here. And then, of course, please leave us reviews on iTunes. Five stars always, right? Even if you hate us, just give me five stars. Just, you know, to be nice to me.
01:14:29
Speaker
Like, you can hate us and just five stars. Tom's the worst. Totally fine with that. As long as it says five stars, I'm golden. Tom obsesses obsessively. Oh, I can't say the word. Obsesses? He obsesses. It's important.
01:14:44
Speaker
Yeah. He is obsessive over five stars. Listen, I'm obsessive over ratings in general in my life. I drive my wife nuts because whenever I'm going to buy something new, I have to review all the reviews and ratings and make sure that we're buying a quality product. And I want people to think that this is a quality product. So...
01:15:00
Speaker
So rate it five stars. So Blake, do you have your thing that you wanted to say? Yes, i do. All right. So I mentioned this before when I was on the show earlier, but I'm a member of a group called the Raleigh Ringers. We are a professional handbell performance ensemble.
01:15:13
Speaker
um If you know what handbells are, those are those things in church that people play. um We are going to be on our summer tour. It's going to be June June 14th through June 21st.
01:15:24
Speaker
We're going to be in Tennessee. We're going to be in Kansas. We're going to be in Texas. ah We're going to be in Georgia. And then we're going to wrap back around and come back to Tennessee. um If you want to know more, our website is www.rr.org. It's a very simple web website.
01:15:41
Speaker
And that's the Raleigh ringers. And that's Raleigh as in the capital of North Carolina. You can go to YouTube and just look us up and watch him in our any of our videos and If you're interested, please let me know. Reach out to me on the Facebook group and I i can score you some tickets to it. So you know what? Yeah.
01:15:58
Speaker
Just go look us up. It's interesting. It's a fun time. Thank you. Thank you, Blake, for that and that's that. That is interesting. ah So besides ah besides that and besides giving us ratings, we really also would appreciate if you subscribe to Welcome Home Podcast so you can be reminded every time we release an episode.
01:16:13
Speaker
You can find us on ah Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube Music, just about any podcast app that's out there. You can find us Just a reminder to our listeners, as always, welcome home podcast. It's for entertainment only. We are not employed by the Walt Disney Company. As such, all opinions we express on the show are our own.
01:16:28
Speaker
So please contact a DVC cast member or DVC representative for more information about anything we talked about today. Huge thank you to the sponsor of this episode, DVC Rental Store, for sponsoring us. Also, just World of DVC for being a constant ah supporter of this show since the very beginning.
01:16:45
Speaker
Join us next time for more Disney Parks discussion. Of course, more DVC talk. We hope to see you all real soon. This is Skipper Albert Wall, the voice of the jungle, signing off from Welcome Home Podcast on the DVC.
01:17:08
Speaker
I looked around from pole to pole, found her in a sugar bowl. Look out, here comes my ball and chain.