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Spooky Spinoff: Holiday Edition
5 Plays8 months ago
The spooky spinoff podcast has evolved to cover more theme park special events! This time we're discussing our favorite winter season and Christmas events. The crew recap trips to Phantasialand's Wintertraum, Europa Parks's Winter Magic, and other events that warm the heart. Then we go head to head in a winter event draft to create the best possible one! Merry Christmas!
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Banter
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome back to the spooky spinoff.
00:00:09
Speaker
Just kidding.
00:00:10
Speaker
We're in the wrong month for that.
00:00:13
Speaker
It's Christmas.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hi, I'm Joey.
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm Kelly.
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm Tyler.
00:00:23
Speaker
And I'm Rafa.
00:00:25
Speaker
And we're live.
00:00:26
Speaker
We're doing well so far.
00:00:30
Speaker
Start out strong.
00:00:31
Speaker
We love to see it.
Show Format and Beverages
00:00:33
Speaker
So we are a little, this is our second episode now.
00:00:37
Speaker
This, we have decided to become a bit of a recurring thing and to properly tie us into the TDR universe.
00:00:44
Speaker
We were going to say what we're drinking.
00:00:46
Speaker
So I'm currently drinking a lovely gin and tonic.
00:00:50
Speaker
There it is.
00:00:51
Speaker
Fancy.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm drinking nothing.
00:00:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:00:55
Speaker
Wow.
00:00:57
Speaker
I have a Member's Mark Sparkling Water Watermelon Lime.
00:01:01
Speaker
It's kind of trash.
00:01:03
Speaker
Okay, pause.
00:01:06
Speaker
I cannot stand sparkling water.
00:01:09
Speaker
It's so good.
00:01:11
Speaker
It's straight out of Europe.
00:01:12
Speaker
I can't stand that.
00:01:15
Speaker
So these are like the ice drinks.
00:01:16
Speaker
Do you like those at all?
00:01:19
Speaker
I don't think I've ever had them.
00:01:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:20
Speaker
I like that kind.
00:01:21
Speaker
I hate the La Croix's.
00:01:22
Speaker
I cannot do a La Croix.
00:01:25
Speaker
I'll have them.
00:01:26
Speaker
I'm always reminded of how much I dislike it when I remember that I have to specify that I want still water.
00:01:32
Speaker
True.
00:01:36
Speaker
Sorry, Rafa, what are you drinking?
00:01:39
Speaker
Yes, I am drinking an apple cider and pear margarita.
00:01:44
Speaker
Ooh.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
Shea came up with this little festive cocktail for Thanksgiving and I've been having her ever since.
00:01:52
Speaker
It's really good.
00:01:52
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:01:53
Speaker
Shea, drop the deets.
00:01:54
Speaker
I know, right?
00:01:55
Speaker
I'll have her send it to you guys.
00:01:56
Speaker
It's really good.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
Cool.
Return of the Show and Seasonal Themes
00:02:00
Speaker
So I guess due to, you know, extremely popular demand, we're back.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:06
Speaker
We are going to just kind of see how this little spinoff goes.
00:02:14
Speaker
We'll hopefully be back in the new year with some other seasonal events that we can talk about.
00:02:22
Speaker
We'll definitely talk about speculation for HHN as we kind of started as the spooky spinoff.
00:02:27
Speaker
We'll definitely cover some of that stuff moving forward.
00:02:30
Speaker
But let us know what you guys are interested in hearing from us.
00:02:33
Speaker
Today we're going to focus...
00:02:36
Speaker
on holiday events for the winter.
00:02:38
Speaker
So we have some recent park and trip reports from some of us of events that we've attended recently.
00:02:45
Speaker
We're going to talk a little bit about what makes the best Christmas or holiday events and maybe talk about some upcoming events as well.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:56
Speaker
So we kind of decided to do this because over the past five plus years, we've seen parks kind of evolve into this seasonal schedule.
Theme Parks' Seasonal Strategies
00:03:09
Speaker
They've continued to kind of pack their calendars with events to where it almost feels like there's constantly an event going on.
00:03:17
Speaker
And obviously that seems like it's targeted at bringing guests back to repeat their visits, to have new experiences.
00:03:27
Speaker
I think the Seas parks, you know, besides the large parks like Universal and Disney that already have kind of had some of those events, the Seas parks really kind of drove that for the regional market.
00:03:37
Speaker
And we've seen it expand over the last five years throughout the Cedar Fair and the Six Flag parks now.
00:03:42
Speaker
So everybody's kind of doing it.
00:03:43
Speaker
And it makes sense to...
00:03:45
Speaker
talk about kind of all of these events that are happening all throughout the park seasons.
00:03:50
Speaker
So I want to ask everybody, do you agree like kind of with the park strategy that this is a net benefit for the guests and it does help people bring back?
00:04:00
Speaker
Or do you miss kind of having a normal summer season without some of these events happening?
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think...
00:04:08
Speaker
I think overall, I like personally for me and my family, I like it.
00:04:13
Speaker
Um, I love a theme.
00:04:16
Speaker
I love a seasonal event.
00:04:18
Speaker
Um, definitely.
00:04:22
Speaker
From a business standpoint for a park, I could see how it could definitely be beneficial.
00:04:26
Speaker
Like just speaking from my experience, Hershey is not our nearest home park, but it definitely has more of this like seasonal event kind of calendar where they have, you know, their regular summer events.
00:04:41
Speaker
like calendar and then they have their kind of Halloween and fall events and then their Christmas events.
00:04:46
Speaker
And for us, for our family and including the kids and also my parents who go with us a lot, encourages us every year to repurchase a season pass because we know that we at least like to take the kids there
00:05:02
Speaker
you know, for each part of the seasonal calendar because the park feels different.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's decorated different.
00:05:09
Speaker
There's different, you know, food and beverage offerings and we like to experience that every year.
00:05:13
Speaker
So I think it's definitely smart on the parks part.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I think I personally enjoy it too.
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's great if you have a dedicated home park.
00:05:23
Speaker
So I could see it not being as appealing if your closest park is a few hours away.
00:05:28
Speaker
You don't get there very often.
00:05:29
Speaker
And then you end up going and it's the middle of some event and you don't get that bulk summer season with all the rides open.
00:05:37
Speaker
But for me, my closest park is like 25 minutes away.
00:05:41
Speaker
I love just popping in twice a month or so, seeing what's new, grabbing some food, a couple of rides in and then I'm out.
00:05:47
Speaker
So I think it's appealing in that way.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely agree with what Tyler was saying.
00:05:53
Speaker
I could see how it's not the best thing for those that don't have a home park as close as 20 minutes away.
00:06:00
Speaker
For me, my closest park is three and a half hours away, and that's the Orlando parks.
00:06:06
Speaker
I don't mind it because I still go all of the time, but I know that there are many people that can't afford to have a hobby like this and go so frequently.
00:06:14
Speaker
So I could see how it could be kind of a bummer when they go and then they find out, oh, it turns out the park closes at 5 p.m.
00:06:21
Speaker
because HHN starts at 6.
00:06:23
Speaker
Like, I could see how it could ruin the experience.
00:06:26
Speaker
But as somebody who regularly goes, I love it.
00:06:28
Speaker
It brings a new experience, like Kelly was saying.
00:06:31
Speaker
It's a new experience every single time you go to the park.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's 50-50.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, I pretty much agree.
00:06:39
Speaker
I mean, I think the business purpose, like it makes sense.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I want to kind of like counteract a little bit because I have experiences where I visited a park that's not my home park, but there was an event going on and it actually kind of added to the appeal.
00:06:54
Speaker
Because you're like, oh, cool, I wasn't expecting, you know, something additional to be happening here.
00:06:59
Speaker
And maybe you can try food that's better quality than you were expecting to get, for example, at a Six Flags park or something of that nature.
00:07:06
Speaker
So it's not always a negative, but I do kind of miss the sort of like...
00:07:12
Speaker
It's just a regular day in the theme park because sometimes, especially in a place like my home park is Busch Gardens Williamsburg for a long time.
00:07:20
Speaker
And when they started doing the seasonal stuff, you obviously have a very themed park to begin with, with very defined sections.
00:07:29
Speaker
Each section is a part of Europe.
00:07:31
Speaker
And when you put the thematic overlay over it, it does take away a little bit of that
00:07:36
Speaker
uniqueness and makes it, you know, because they'll often put decorations like throughout the whole park that make it look similar rather than like having the distinct aspect of each section.
00:07:45
Speaker
The way I think that they have improved that over time is they've started to like focus events in specific sections, for example, like St.
00:07:52
Speaker
Patrick's Day.
00:07:53
Speaker
They they do in the Ireland section and it fits and like Oktoberfest.
00:07:57
Speaker
They do that in Germany.
00:07:58
Speaker
And so it fits.
00:08:00
Speaker
But I could see like some people not getting like the
00:08:04
Speaker
quote unquote normal experience with a more themed park if it has some kind of overlay over it that's distracting you from like the core of what the park is.
00:08:12
Speaker
But otherwise, I enjoy them.
00:08:13
Speaker
I think that's a good point.
00:08:14
Speaker
I think I think.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with all of your points.
00:08:19
Speaker
I think like for you to be someone who enjoys seasonal events, especially outside of the summer season, you have to be somebody who enjoys theme parks, not just somebody who goes to theme parks, drag coasters, because it's just totally different.
00:08:33
Speaker
For sure.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yep.
Personal Christmas Memories
00:08:36
Speaker
Cool.
00:08:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:37
Speaker
Overlap where Kings and Minion had their Christmas tree out before Halloween Haunt was over.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, that is true.
00:08:45
Speaker
The transition season is going to get awkward.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
I mean, that's, we'll talk about it maybe later, but Europa park, the way they get away with that is they call the season in between like Halloween and Christmas.
00:08:56
Speaker
They call it hollow winter.
00:08:58
Speaker
And they give it a name.
00:08:59
Speaker
Cause they know that you're going to see both decorations at the same time.
00:09:03
Speaker
They're like, you can experience the magic of fall and winter at the same time.
00:09:06
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, we know what you're doing.
00:09:10
Speaker
You are not Disney world transforming your decor.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:16
Speaker
But I mean, I can appreciate it because as somebody who worked in that side of parks and entertainment, the amount of work it takes to convert from one event to the other, it's massive.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's wild.
00:09:26
Speaker
Especially for Christmas when you're adding like trees around the whole park.
00:09:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh, like it's a ton of work.
00:09:32
Speaker
So I get it.
00:09:33
Speaker
I get it.
00:09:34
Speaker
Speaking of trees, let's pivot into the season that we're in right now, which is the winter season where either holiday or winter or Christmas events are happening, depending on what park is calling it what.
00:09:47
Speaker
So I wanted to kind of start us out by talking about not necessarily theme parks specifically, but like some something about the Christmas season, like food activities or just a memory that sticks out to you that that speaks to you as like specifically of this season.
00:10:02
Speaker
I feel like I'll go ahead and, oh, you want to go ahead, Tyler?
00:10:06
Speaker
No, I'm thinking, go ahead.
00:10:08
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I feel like I don't have much.
00:10:10
Speaker
So like when it comes to the holiday, South Florida is not very big when it comes to Christmas things, especially with the heat that we have here.
00:10:19
Speaker
Like it's, it's kind of hard to like,
00:10:21
Speaker
enjoy all of the nice lights and all of the decoration when it's like 80, 85 degrees outside and still super humid.
00:10:29
Speaker
So anytime that I get to like not be in this area during the winter time, like it's always great to see like how they, you know, some places go all out with their lights.
00:10:39
Speaker
You know, we'll touch up on this later on, but my first experience going into
00:10:44
Speaker
you know seeing like a christmas event like not at this level like we have here in florida was actually in king's dominion and carowinds um i went a couple years back and seeing all the lights seeing how the park completely like transforms into um you know like the christmas wonderland really like it's you know it's really cool to see because i don't have much of that down here so it's just a cool little you know change of scenery
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, Joey, I know you said not park-related, but unfortunately, I'm going to give you one park-related.
00:11:16
Speaker
My family tradition is going to Christmastown.
00:11:19
Speaker
So I grew up in Williamsburg.
00:11:20
Speaker
My family lives there.
00:11:22
Speaker
So our tradition every year is we get the family together and we go to Christmastown one night.
00:11:27
Speaker
It's just great to share my love of theme parks with my family and make that into our little tradition and maybe drag my parents on a couple roller coasters that they don't actually want to ride and
00:11:39
Speaker
It's a lot of fun.
00:11:40
Speaker
The best.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:43
Speaker
Mine is kind of light based too.
00:11:46
Speaker
I, every year we try to, or, you know, we have since I was a kid, um, like drive around and find like the best local lights, like somebody's house.
00:11:56
Speaker
And, um, I've kind of,
00:11:58
Speaker
A lot of my life has been spent in the same area, but in kind of different towns as I've moved around.
00:12:03
Speaker
So it's fun to kind of explore new areas.
00:12:06
Speaker
And like now I'm on a Facebook mommy group of like our school district and people are on there like posting whose lights are good.
00:12:13
Speaker
So I'm like making us a little list.
00:12:14
Speaker
We're going to go out this weekend.
00:12:16
Speaker
But I think just overall, and this is very stereotypical mom, but I like...
00:12:21
Speaker
kind of taking the traditions that I remember from my childhood and, and making them our own for my kids and like seeing them experience like holiday, holiday magic.
00:12:31
Speaker
And like Christmas morning is, is the best thing ever.
00:12:34
Speaker
It's it's, and you know, we're doing the whole elf on the shelf and, um, there's a lot of like fun ways to be creative, um, for the kids.
00:12:44
Speaker
And I hope they, I hope they enjoy it for a while.
00:12:49
Speaker
The magic.
00:12:50
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
I feel like my answer is kind of similar to yours, not from like a parent perspective, but my mom like loves Christmas lights and she would do the same thing when we were kids.
00:13:01
Speaker
Like she would get us all in the van and say, we're out to go find the best ones.
00:13:05
Speaker
And we'd be driving around like our neighborhood and other neighborhoods next to ours trying to find the good ones.
00:13:11
Speaker
And then as a result of that, like I gained an interest for it being like a nerdy little kid and started to work on the lights on our own house.
00:13:21
Speaker
And like we started like having like specific sections.
00:13:26
Speaker
Like I remember I was like, all right, here's where the multicolor lights go and here's where the white lights go.
00:13:30
Speaker
And this is like the winter wonderland and it's a blue and white.
00:13:33
Speaker
And so...
00:13:34
Speaker
Like working on all of the Christmas lights was always a really fun part as a kid of like decorating the house and making it feel like it was time, you know, because you put those up like right after Thanksgiving and it's kind of the beginning of the season.
00:13:48
Speaker
Then you go inside and you put up the tree and hang the ornaments and everything and it brings back memories.
00:13:52
Speaker
So that's what I think of.
00:13:54
Speaker
I can totally see you nerding out on your house's lights.
00:13:58
Speaker
You have to show us pictures.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, there's some out there for sure.
00:14:03
Speaker
I'm sure at one point my mom was like, how much money are we going to spend buying more lights for this kid?
00:14:09
Speaker
But I mean, she was into it too, right?
00:14:10
Speaker
Because she was the one like bringing us around and everything.
00:14:12
Speaker
So yeah, it was fun.
00:14:14
Speaker
Are you guys colored lights people or white lights people?
00:14:18
Speaker
You got to have a combination.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, I like both.
00:14:22
Speaker
There's a place for both.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:25
Speaker
I love looking at colored lights, but I decorate our house in white lights only.
00:14:31
Speaker
We do white lights for our tree, but outside is very colored lights.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:36
Speaker
I like the old school, like bigger bulbs.
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:14:40
Speaker
I don't have them, but I like them.
00:14:44
Speaker
Cool.
00:14:45
Speaker
So we kind of already talked about it, but I wanted to also talk about like everybody's first experience specifically out of theme park or event.
Park-Specific Holiday Events
00:14:53
Speaker
Mine's going to piggyback off of what Tyler already said.
00:14:55
Speaker
Mine was Christmas Town at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
00:14:59
Speaker
And actually my first experience there was working there.
00:15:03
Speaker
in the inaugural season in 2009.
00:15:05
Speaker
That was my first year working in the park and it was also the first year that they did Christmastown.
00:15:11
Speaker
So it was exciting to be part of that and to be honest like it was really impressive how well they executed that event in its first year.
00:15:19
Speaker
I remember walking around and being like wow the the lights are pretty incredible considering this is the first year of this event and like
00:15:29
Speaker
how many they put up.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think the first year it was like 4 million or 5 million lights or something.
00:15:34
Speaker
So they really like executed that very, very well.
00:15:37
Speaker
And again, they were kind of a trendsetter because I feel like they were one of the first regional parks to do like a really large scale Christmas event.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I just have a lot of good memories from that time.
00:15:47
Speaker
Like,
00:15:48
Speaker
The shows that they did during that period, like Stick in My Brain and the way that the park was decorated, which some of that still holds through to today.
00:15:56
Speaker
The colors and specific sections are still the same way that they have been for the whole event, which is kind of cool.
00:16:03
Speaker
Brings back those memories when you walk through.
00:16:05
Speaker
Where did you work that year in Christmastown?
00:16:10
Speaker
It was an interesting... So, the first year, they didn't have the Italy Gardens formally decorated.
00:16:16
Speaker
However, when the park got really, really busy in order to facilitate flow of guests, they would open Italy in order to let people actually like flow through the entire circle of the park.
00:16:26
Speaker
So it wasn't really very well decorated, but they would open the rides there.
00:16:29
Speaker
So every once in a while I was working in the Italy gardens on those flat rides.
00:16:33
Speaker
And then other times I was working over in Oktoberfest.
00:16:38
Speaker
like at the big swings, little swings, the bumper cars, like those flat rides over there.
00:16:43
Speaker
I have a very distinct memory of it being Christmas Eve and it started snowing.
00:16:48
Speaker
And I was at the Kitty Swings in Oktoberfest and I was taking my height stick that I had for the ride.
00:16:55
Speaker
And I was like brushing the snow off the railing of the ride and then watching it build back up again and then brushing it off, just waiting because nobody was there.
00:17:02
Speaker
Everybody had already left.
00:17:03
Speaker
And then they finally like, we're closing the park early.
00:17:06
Speaker
I was like, thank God.
00:17:07
Speaker
Nice.
00:17:08
Speaker
That's actually my first memory also.
00:17:10
Speaker
My mom worked in the park that year.
00:17:11
Speaker
So there was actually an employee preview night and you can bring a guest.
00:17:16
Speaker
So she brought me to the first ever night of Christmastown.
00:17:20
Speaker
And I think tickets that year were like $14.99 or something.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:25
Speaker
Just crazy cheap.
00:17:27
Speaker
But yeah, that's a good memory.
00:17:30
Speaker
Kelly?
00:17:32
Speaker
I kind of said my part already, so...
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm thinking, I mean, I can't recall going to any like winter events when I was younger.
00:17:43
Speaker
I don't know that there were many around in this area at that time.
00:17:47
Speaker
I definitely remember going to Hershey's...
00:17:52
Speaker
winter event in like maybe the late 2000s, early 2010s.
00:17:57
Speaker
I think maybe I was in college at that time.
00:18:00
Speaker
But I remember specifically going and there weren't really any rides open, but there were a lot of like Christmas shows and Christmas decorations.
00:18:09
Speaker
But yeah, I think I've definitely seen the event at Hershey evolve quite a bit since back then and have been going pretty regularly.
00:18:16
Speaker
So it's interesting how it's changed.
00:18:18
Speaker
But I can't recall going to any other like
00:18:21
Speaker
Christmas events when I was younger, I don't think.
00:18:25
Speaker
Cool.
00:18:26
Speaker
So next up, we were going to talk about some of the places that we've been that have Christmas events.
00:18:33
Speaker
And we were going to start with, because some of us have been to Europe this year for Christmas.
00:18:38
Speaker
Wow.
00:18:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:39
Speaker
Go ahead and brag.
00:18:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:18:41
Speaker
What a flex.
00:18:44
Speaker
I'm not the only one.
00:18:47
Speaker
We figured we would talk about events in the U S first, just as a starting point.
00:18:52
Speaker
So I guess I'll go first.
00:18:55
Speaker
This will be quick.
00:18:55
Speaker
I went to Six Flags Over Georgia's holiday event, Holiday in the Park.
00:19:01
Speaker
They've been doing Holiday in the Park.
00:19:02
Speaker
It's been branded that for years.
00:19:04
Speaker
Multiple Six Flags have the same branding, the Holiday in the Park event.
00:19:09
Speaker
And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised this year.
00:19:14
Speaker
It's never been like a bad event, but it's been kind of fine, I guess.
00:19:19
Speaker
And I could...
00:19:21
Speaker
feel that there was more effort being put into it this year than ever before.
00:19:27
Speaker
The lights were like, there were more lights, there were more sections that had lights.
00:19:31
Speaker
The production quality of the shows that they had was a lot higher.
00:19:35
Speaker
They're like Christmas
00:19:36
Speaker
tree lighting ceremony that they had used to sort of just be like an automated thing that would go off.
00:19:41
Speaker
And now they had like every performer in the park was out there like for the Christmas tree lighting.
00:19:46
Speaker
And they had like the fake snow and I don't know, something was different.
00:19:49
Speaker
And so I do feel that it's a product of the merger and that,
00:19:56
Speaker
as a larger park, you know, with a big metropolitan area, they are investing and you could tell that there, there was a difference this year.
00:20:03
Speaker
So it's again, it's still not like the most amazing holiday event in the world, but I really did enjoy my time there and I was happy and I hope that it continues to head in that direction and get better and better.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:14
Speaker
I was surprised to see, I was following on your Instagram.
00:20:17
Speaker
I was surprised to see how much they had going on.
00:20:19
Speaker
So that's cool.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's an upgrade.
00:20:20
Speaker
It looks great.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
It's getting better.
00:20:23
Speaker
We'll get there.
00:20:27
Speaker
So the only one I've done this year is Winterfest at King's Dominion.
00:20:31
Speaker
And unfortunately, Joey, you're talking about how Six Flags is progressing.
00:20:37
Speaker
I feel like King's Dominion is regressing a little bit.
00:20:40
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's still good.
00:20:42
Speaker
It's a beautiful park.
00:20:43
Speaker
It looks great lit up, but they took out one of the shows.
00:20:47
Speaker
They don't have the parade anymore.
00:20:48
Speaker
They used to have a parade parade.
00:20:51
Speaker
through the Grove with Santa Claus and everything.
00:20:53
Speaker
It was great.
00:20:53
Speaker
They haven't had that for a couple of years.
00:20:56
Speaker
I don't know.
00:20:56
Speaker
I just feel like it's not as good as it used to be, but it is my home park.
00:20:59
Speaker
I love to stop in, just check it out.
00:21:02
Speaker
Like I said, once a month or so.
00:21:04
Speaker
I do have plans for BG Dub and I think Hershey park coming up.
00:21:10
Speaker
So hopefully those are a little bit better.
00:21:14
Speaker
JTD's really nice, though.
00:21:15
Speaker
I mean, I don't know.
00:21:16
Speaker
I only went to Winterfest there one time.
00:21:18
Speaker
It was back in 2021, I think.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, 2021.
00:21:23
Speaker
And like I said, that was my first winter experience.
00:21:25
Speaker
It was very cool to see all of it decked out with all the lights.
00:21:29
Speaker
And one thing that I do like, and this is probably just because I'm so used to Universal and Disney being so...
00:21:36
Speaker
since it's year round, you have the same merchandise all year round.
00:21:38
Speaker
But during Winterfest, I noticed that you have your Winterfest merch or like just Christmas related merchandise all around the park.
00:21:46
Speaker
So it's like, it really changes the experience of that visit.
00:21:50
Speaker
So I thought that was pretty neat.
00:21:51
Speaker
I don't know with Katie, I liked it, but then again, that was my only time going there.
00:21:54
Speaker
So you were, that was probably the peak I would say in 21.
00:21:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:59
Speaker
So I went on a good year then.
00:22:01
Speaker
You don't have to go back.
00:22:03
Speaker
So I'm good.
00:22:04
Speaker
I'm good.
00:22:04
Speaker
I'll keep those memories.
00:22:07
Speaker
I could talk briefly about Hershey.
00:22:09
Speaker
I went once this year.
00:22:10
Speaker
I go pretty regularly, at least over the past couple of years, I've gone once or twice.
00:22:15
Speaker
So it's Christmas Candy Lane.
00:22:19
Speaker
We went two weekends ago during the day with the kids and my parents and also Kyrie and Tifa and baby Kennedy and I
00:22:32
Speaker
It was nice.
00:22:32
Speaker
It was a really cold day.
00:22:34
Speaker
Hershey does a good job, obviously, with their lights and decorations and their extra like wintry food and beverages tied into kind of all of their normal candy related offerings.
00:22:49
Speaker
I do recall them having like more entertainment in the past, although I didn't look too, too much into doing that just because I knew that the kids wouldn't really want to sit for a prolonged period of time.
00:23:00
Speaker
They did have like a meet the Santa thing and a meet the reindeers thing with real reindeer, which we did.
00:23:08
Speaker
So that was super cute.
00:23:10
Speaker
They do try to...
00:23:12
Speaker
keep at least half of the, the parks rides open.
00:23:16
Speaker
I'd say on average, the day that we went, wasn't the best day for it.
00:23:20
Speaker
It was just really cold.
00:23:21
Speaker
So I think they had a little bit of trouble keeping things open.
00:23:24
Speaker
Typically they have both candemonium and wildcats revenge open, or at least last year they did.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I think that's the plan they're listed as open rides, but when we were there, wildcats revenge was closed all day.
00:23:33
Speaker
So surprisingly candemonium was running in like very cold conditions.
00:23:38
Speaker
So, um,
00:23:39
Speaker
It was nice to see that they were putting effort into that.
00:23:42
Speaker
I felt like the event, although we left a little bit early before like really it got dark and you could see the lights.
00:23:49
Speaker
But I felt like this year maybe there was like a little bit less going on overall.
00:23:53
Speaker
But it's hard to tell during the day and kind of when the kids are there, our goals of our park visit are a little bit different.
00:24:00
Speaker
So I'm excited we're going back when Tyler visits in like 10 days.
00:24:06
Speaker
So we'll have an update.
00:24:08
Speaker
They also have, I forget what it's called, Hershey Suite Lights, like a drive-through light thing, like across the street from the park, which I've always wanted to do.
00:24:16
Speaker
And we almost did it when we were there.
00:24:18
Speaker
But the line was like, it was a Saturday.
00:24:20
Speaker
It was like miles down the road.
00:24:22
Speaker
I was like, we are not waiting in that line.
00:24:24
Speaker
But it does look like it's really well done.
00:24:25
Speaker
So at some point, I'll try to check that out too.
00:24:29
Speaker
All right, guys, go ahead and brag about your Germany trips.
00:24:32
Speaker
Oh, wait, hold on, hold on.
00:24:33
Speaker
Before you guys break up.
00:24:36
Speaker
So I haven't gone to any events this year, but the two events that I normally go to each year are Universal Orlando's Grinchmas and the Macy's Parade events that they have going on at both of their parts in Universal and Island of Adventure.
00:24:52
Speaker
Both
00:24:53
Speaker
I mean, nothing really changes that much when it comes to that event.
00:24:59
Speaker
I mean, as you can see, the Grinch meet and greet has become like the talk of the town.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's all over TikTok.
00:25:04
Speaker
I mean, to the point where like the lines are like three hours long.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yes, I've seen those videos.
00:25:10
Speaker
It's insane.
00:25:11
Speaker
And you know, I'll just live through the TikTokers that are asking questions because I'm not about to wait three hours.
00:25:16
Speaker
But I mean, everybody seems to be having a great time with it.
00:25:20
Speaker
The parade is always really nice as well.
00:25:22
Speaker
SeaWorld Orlando, on the other hand, is actually my favorite Christmas event here in Orlando.
00:25:28
Speaker
I think that all around, like, they might not have the most lights, but I think the cool little display that they have with, like, the trees on the lake, I don't know if you guys have seen it before, that looks really cool.
00:25:40
Speaker
And then they have these really cool, all these, like, food offerings there where you get to have, like, you get to have, like, a lanyard.
00:25:47
Speaker
If you're a pass holder, you actually get it for a pretty discounted rate.
00:25:51
Speaker
I think it's, like, $60 for, like, 12 samples.
00:25:55
Speaker
And you can share that with whoever you're with.
00:25:57
Speaker
So it's pretty sweet being able to get as many samples of alcoholic drinks or food.
00:26:02
Speaker
So you get the most bang out of your buck, you know, from that.
00:26:05
Speaker
But SeaWorld Orlando is definitely the place to be for winter events, at least here in Florida.
00:26:10
Speaker
I love it.
00:26:12
Speaker
But yeah, I wish I could have gone this year, but I definitely missed out this year.
00:26:15
Speaker
Do they still have like the fireworks finale?
00:26:18
Speaker
I believe so.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think last year they did have it.
00:26:22
Speaker
I do remember them.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think like that's on the lake with the trees.
00:26:26
Speaker
It's I've seen pictures.
00:26:27
Speaker
I think of that.
00:26:27
Speaker
It looks pretty cool.
00:26:30
Speaker
Cool.
00:26:31
Speaker
I guess now we're going to brag about Germany.
00:26:32
Speaker
Now you guys can flex.
00:26:35
Speaker
Do you want to start out with what we both did?
00:26:38
Speaker
Sure.
00:26:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:40
Speaker
So we went to Europa Park.
00:26:43
Speaker
Separately.
00:26:44
Speaker
Separately within like two weeks of each other, right?
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:48
Speaker
And so I went on their website trying to find this and it's not really clear.
00:26:52
Speaker
I think it's called like winter season.
00:26:55
Speaker
There's not a winter magic.
00:26:56
Speaker
There's not really a specific name of the event.
00:26:58
Speaker
It's just like.
00:26:59
Speaker
Europa Park's winter season.
00:27:02
Speaker
To be honest with you, I don't have a lot to say about it.
00:27:06
Speaker
I definitely didn't get to experience, and I was there for two days, but because the park is so huge, I didn't feel like I had time to try to take in any of the specific holiday entertainment.
00:27:17
Speaker
But they do decorate the park quite well.
00:27:22
Speaker
There is...
00:27:23
Speaker
I guess it's, it's a very consistent vibe throughout the park.
00:27:27
Speaker
They don't really do what some other places do with like, Oh, this section's that color.
00:27:30
Speaker
This section's that color.
00:27:32
Speaker
They kind of like throughout the park, just have a Christmas trees with white lights and white light decorations for the most part.
00:27:40
Speaker
And then they did have a big clear.
00:27:42
Speaker
These are real trees.
00:27:43
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:27:44
Speaker
They plop into the middle of a, of a walkway and spray paint them white to make them look snowy.
00:27:51
Speaker
That's called flocking, which is a term that I learned about like two years ago.
00:27:55
Speaker
When you like put that white stuff on the tree to make it look snowy.
00:27:58
Speaker
But the funny thing is, like you said, they're in the, like, they just plop them in the corners of the pathway.
00:28:03
Speaker
And some of the pathways are kind of narrow.
00:28:05
Speaker
People like walk around.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, you're brushing past the flocked tree and like the snow is like falling off.
00:28:11
Speaker
It's falling off as you're brushing by.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's like snow on you.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:16
Speaker
It's not even like you see one tree every like 50 feet.
00:28:20
Speaker
It's like there are hundreds of these.
00:28:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
I kept saying to Tom, I wonder what this looks like without these trees.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
It was both our first time.
00:28:29
Speaker
So like that's what we experienced.
00:28:31
Speaker
We don't really know like what it's like without all that.
00:28:34
Speaker
I think it's hard to compare to and to really like comment a lot on the winter event at a lot of the European parks I've been to because it has been during winter.
00:28:42
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, I like to your point.
00:28:44
Speaker
We don't have a comparison to like the regular season and how different it feels.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I will say like it did look very beautiful.
00:28:53
Speaker
I just don't know how much of a step change that is from like the regular season at night.
00:28:58
Speaker
I'm sure like, right.
00:29:01
Speaker
But I will say like, I didn't find it as
00:29:04
Speaker
charming as other parks in terms of the way that they like try to create different vibes in different sections.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, I was kind of surprised.
00:29:13
Speaker
I was surprised by that.
00:29:14
Speaker
And like you mentioned before with Busch Gardens, like having the different countries, like I think that lends itself to the ability to make really different themed kind of Christmas decorations.
00:29:25
Speaker
And I kind of, I guess, expected Europa to do that.
00:29:28
Speaker
And it was very consistent, like you said, with the white lives throughout.
00:29:30
Speaker
I thought it looked beautiful, like up close, far away.
00:29:32
Speaker
However you looked at it, it looked wonderful.
00:29:34
Speaker
But I just think maybe like a little bit of missed opportunity to even tie some of like the cultural...
00:29:41
Speaker
like decorations from the different countries in because there are definitely different things they could have done.
00:29:47
Speaker
One thing that I loved that I noticed right away is, did you see how like all of the coaster stations had their own decorations like in the station, they each like have their own Christmas tree decorated in there.
00:29:58
Speaker
And then like the operator booth would have like their own Christmas lights.
00:30:01
Speaker
I loved that.
00:30:02
Speaker
They did do a great job with that.
00:30:04
Speaker
Like the exteriors of buildings, the interiors of buildings all had Christmas decorations, which was really cool, like to see it so consistently applied throughout the park, which is kind of how the park is themed as well.
00:30:14
Speaker
Like it's very consistently like wherever you go, pretty very well themed.
00:30:20
Speaker
Oh, and there was so at the at the front of the park, I guess it's the Germany section.
00:30:25
Speaker
There was a Christmas market that they had like built into the park, which was cool.
00:30:29
Speaker
It was much smaller scale than a Christmas market you would see in like a European city.
00:30:34
Speaker
But it was cool to see that like something else to do while you're experiencing the event.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker
And it felt very authentic on a small scale, like you said, to a Christmas market last year on our honeymoon when we were in Europe during this time of the year.
00:30:45
Speaker
We went to like, I don't know, probably six different Christmas markets in the different cities in different countries we were in.
00:30:52
Speaker
That was something that was really important for us to include in our trip.
00:30:56
Speaker
And it felt very much like that.
00:30:57
Speaker
And that was kind of nice to experience again since we didn't have... We were only there for the two days as well.
00:31:03
Speaker
And we only had time to really be at Europa.
00:31:06
Speaker
We didn't have time to go anywhere else.
00:31:07
Speaker
So it was nice to...
00:31:08
Speaker
get a Christmas market experience in, even though it was in the middle of the park, which is something like Europa kind of feels like, and I don't know how many people have like season passes to Europa or how many locals, but it very much feels like a park people just go to, to like hang out at kind of like universal is like,
00:31:26
Speaker
you walk down some of the streets and it's like people are just chilling, having their hot chocolate or like coming to the Christmas market just to come to the Christmas market.
00:31:34
Speaker
It felt very much like a, like a, we're just going to Europa park for the day.
00:31:39
Speaker
Just like you walk down a street in a town.
00:31:41
Speaker
I don't know if you feel like that at all, but no, it definitely had that kind of like,
00:31:47
Speaker
feeling of like the locals are here for sure for sure yeah and and you don't because europa has season passes that's different than somewhere like fantasia land where they don't so you know you won't have that kind of thing happening but also the park the scale of the park facilitates that there's so much space for people to spread out and hang out and everything
00:32:07
Speaker
Cool.
00:32:08
Speaker
So yeah, that's Europa Park.
00:32:10
Speaker
Oh, here's another one that we both did.
00:32:12
Speaker
So I did it this year.
00:32:13
Speaker
You did it last year.
00:32:14
Speaker
This will be pretty quick.
00:32:16
Speaker
We Christmas at Port Aventura.
00:32:20
Speaker
This was the first stop that we made on our trip.
00:32:23
Speaker
And it's probably the least decorated of the three parks that I went to.
00:32:29
Speaker
Not that they didn't do anything because there were decorations throughout the park, but it wasn't like there weren't as many lights.
00:32:35
Speaker
There weren't
00:32:37
Speaker
the scale of it wasn't as high.
00:32:39
Speaker
There were some shows that we noticed like outdoor shows walking throughout the park, which was cool.
00:32:44
Speaker
And we did go to their finale show, which was over the lagoon in front of furious Baco.
00:32:53
Speaker
And that was pretty cool.
00:32:55
Speaker
The fireworks were nice and well done.
00:32:58
Speaker
And they had a fountain show and also the like boat parade type thing on the water.
00:33:04
Speaker
So where they have the floats, but their boats.
00:33:08
Speaker
And then at the very end, which I was not expecting, they had the water jet packs.
00:33:13
Speaker
So like two guys came out and we're like shooting up out of the lagoon and like dancing around.
00:33:21
Speaker
And I think weren't they Santa?
00:33:22
Speaker
Is that what they were?
00:33:23
Speaker
Something like that.
00:33:24
Speaker
I think so.
00:33:25
Speaker
I think I've seen pictures of that.
00:33:26
Speaker
Like, yeah, on a jetpack.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
And like, while watching it, we're like, wow, that's really cool.
00:33:32
Speaker
And also, I'm jealous.
00:33:33
Speaker
I just want to be doing that, not watching it.
00:33:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:37
Speaker
Like, I want to be doing that.
00:33:38
Speaker
Right.
00:33:39
Speaker
Sounds like a fun Buzzbars activity.
00:33:40
Speaker
Right.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
What do you think, Nellie?
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah, I missed the nighttime show because we were kind of on to our next destination on our Port Aventura day.
00:33:49
Speaker
But I agree with you.
00:33:52
Speaker
I feel like there were some heavily decorated areas where you enter the park from the hotels.
00:33:57
Speaker
We stayed at Gold River.
00:33:58
Speaker
I think you guys did too, right?
00:33:59
Speaker
That whole area seemed really well decorated.
00:34:02
Speaker
And then as you kind of made your way around, it was a little sparse in some spots.
00:34:06
Speaker
But we didn't really take in too much of the Christmas-specific stuff at the park.
00:34:11
Speaker
I think it was probably...
00:34:13
Speaker
like average what you'd compare to maybe like, um, like a six flags park here as far as Christmas is concerned.
00:34:20
Speaker
I would agree with that.
00:34:21
Speaker
That being said, the, the natural, like the existing theming of Port Aventura is next level.
00:34:28
Speaker
So like, as you're walking around the park, you still feel immersed.
00:34:31
Speaker
You just don't feel immersed in Christmas as much as, you know, other places that that overlay is not super heavy.
00:34:37
Speaker
Besides, like you said, the frontier section, that was pretty, pretty well done.
00:34:41
Speaker
And that's the only part of the park that's,
00:34:43
Speaker
more of a village feel to it because a lot of it is kind of lush and trees and maybe not as much of an opportunity to put lights up anyway.
00:34:50
Speaker
So I get it.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:53
Speaker
Quick side note.
00:34:56
Speaker
I was curious.
00:34:56
Speaker
So I just Googled it.
00:34:57
Speaker
Europa season pass is 445 euros.
00:34:59
Speaker
So yeah,
00:35:03
Speaker
About on the same level as universal, I'd say.
00:35:05
Speaker
Wow.
00:35:06
Speaker
That's deeper than I expected.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, same.
00:35:10
Speaker
Dang.
00:35:11
Speaker
That's like 500 plus dollars USD, right?
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
Interesting.
00:35:15
Speaker
Huh.
00:35:18
Speaker
So you want to do one of your other ones, Kelly?
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:20
Speaker
Sure.
00:35:22
Speaker
Where else did we go last year?
00:35:23
Speaker
We went to Park de Atracciones in Madrid, and then we also went to Park Warner Madrid.
00:35:29
Speaker
I don't remember there being any Christmas decorations in Park de Atracciones, but maybe there were some lights.
00:35:35
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:36
Speaker
We were like, this was our first day there, so we were extremely tired and trying to crud run that park, to be honest.
00:35:41
Speaker
And then...
00:35:42
Speaker
Um, in Warner, they definitely had some areas kind of like Portaventura feel where it was like more heavily decorated in some areas where it was not.
00:35:52
Speaker
Um, they were definitely like playing the Christmas music and they had, I, we had some hot chocolate, um, hard to really take in.
00:36:00
Speaker
I mean, on our normal BS, we were just hopping around trying to get stuff done.
00:36:06
Speaker
So didn't get to take as much in there as we did, um, um,
00:36:11
Speaker
at some of the bigger parks and Fantasialand, which we'll talk about.
00:36:14
Speaker
We definitely spent, gave that place a little bit more time.
00:36:17
Speaker
We did also Wallaby.
00:36:20
Speaker
We went to Plopsaland, which...
00:36:26
Speaker
I don't recall very much Christmas there.
00:36:28
Speaker
And then we did Wallaby Belgium, which was in its first day of its first season of a Christmas event.
00:36:33
Speaker
The day that we were there, it was packed.
00:36:36
Speaker
I was shocked.
00:36:37
Speaker
And like, they really, they had a Christmas market in the middle of the park.
00:36:41
Speaker
They had a ton of Christmas lights.
00:36:43
Speaker
Like they really went all out and it was amazing.
00:36:45
Speaker
From what I recall in their calendar last year, a pretty short, like seasonal event that we were just shocked at how much they had, how much effort they had put in for what looked like would be not too long of an event.
00:36:57
Speaker
And we were only there for a couple hours.
00:36:59
Speaker
I would love to return, but it seemed to be really well done.
00:37:02
Speaker
I was surprised by that.
00:37:05
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:37:06
Speaker
I might have to check that place out sometime for that.
00:37:09
Speaker
And they have some new coasters on the way too.
00:37:11
Speaker
So that's a reason to go back for also Conda, but that too.
00:37:18
Speaker
All right.
00:37:18
Speaker
So the last one on our list you went to last year, I went to this year, which is winter traum at Fontageland.
00:37:26
Speaker
Um, this is easily one of the top events for me in the world.
00:37:31
Speaker
Um, it is, I mean, Fontagelan is already one of my favorite parks, so I definitely have a bias towards it.
00:37:38
Speaker
Um, but I think that their execution is very, very well done.
00:37:42
Speaker
Um, they have a lot of entertainment.
00:37:45
Speaker
They have a lot of lights.
00:37:47
Speaker
They have, um, specialty food and drink throughout the park, like these separate stands that they build, um,
00:37:53
Speaker
They built the ice skating rink into the main plaza.
00:37:56
Speaker
There's like so much stuff going on.
00:37:59
Speaker
What stood out to you, Kelly, from that?
00:38:02
Speaker
I think for me, and maybe this is just because I just love Christmas lights and love lights is just the sheer number of lights, especially like on that main entrance plaza, like going down when they turn all the lights on, it's so many lights that it's almost like blinding.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:18
Speaker
And it's just so beautifully done, like so classic looking.
00:38:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:38:23
Speaker
And that's a section where they stick with that like white, white color theme.
00:38:27
Speaker
It's just very consistent.
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:30
Speaker
Very consistent.
00:38:31
Speaker
It was like almost tear jerking the first time that we were there for two days.
00:38:34
Speaker
Like we had gotten the advice, like make sure you're in this spot at this time when they turn the lights on.
00:38:40
Speaker
And it was like overwhelming how beautiful it was.
00:38:42
Speaker
I always think about that.
00:38:44
Speaker
I mean, there's literally like a show that goes on with fireworks to like light all of the lights in Berlin.
00:38:51
Speaker
It's very, very well done.
00:38:52
Speaker
And like the way that they synchronize that with the music and everything, you're just like caught up in it very much like how Disney does.
00:38:59
Speaker
And I was like very impressed.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:02
Speaker
But and speaking of the difference between Europa and Winter Trom is they do have that kind of different vibes in different areas.
00:39:12
Speaker
They really let...
00:39:14
Speaker
Ruckberg and Klugheim speak for themselves because you often don't get to see those areas at night because of their park hours.
00:39:24
Speaker
So it's really cool to see the scenic lighting packages that they have in those lands.
00:39:28
Speaker
And they don't really do a ton for Christmas decorations like the the restaurants and the shops and things have decorations on them.
00:39:36
Speaker
But the land itself doesn't really have Christmas.
00:39:39
Speaker
classic christmas lights everywhere um it's more of the like themed land but then you have other areas like berlin which is blasted with lights it looks awesome and you have um the deep in africa area which has a completely different like softer purples and reds like different color christmas lights there and then you have more of the china section is really beautiful as well they have like the
00:40:05
Speaker
more yellows and reds over there.
00:40:06
Speaker
So each zone kind of has its own feel, which I really appreciated.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:40:12
Speaker
So pretty.
00:40:13
Speaker
Always think about going back.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:19
Speaker
Definitely make me want to plan a trip for like early December next year to Germany.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:25
Speaker
You have to do it.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
It's, it's such a special time for that place.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I think it was elevated having been there before because I know what it's normally like and to see it.
00:40:36
Speaker
On a different level was very, very cool.
00:40:39
Speaker
And to experience those rides at night, which you typically can't do, is also very, very cool.
00:40:44
Speaker
Definitely.
00:40:46
Speaker
And all of the, like... I didn't even get a chance.
00:40:49
Speaker
Like, there's so much that you could do.
00:40:50
Speaker
They have, like, an ice skating show.
00:40:52
Speaker
They have another indoor theater show.
00:40:54
Speaker
I didn't get to do any of the indoor shows, but we did watch...
00:40:57
Speaker
all of the outdoor stuff.
00:40:59
Speaker
So there's the Christmas lighting show with the fireworks.
00:41:03
Speaker
And then there's a show over by Chappas, which is projection mapping and this crazy fire effects.
00:41:10
Speaker
That was super cool.
00:41:12
Speaker
There's like a wheel of fire at one point just spinning around and it's all synchronized with music.
00:41:17
Speaker
They have a laser show in Rookburg.
00:41:20
Speaker
So they stop fly briefly.
00:41:22
Speaker
It's like, I don't know, six, seven minutes.
00:41:24
Speaker
It's pretty short.
00:41:25
Speaker
But the lasers are everywhere.
00:41:27
Speaker
And because of the time of year, I don't know, whatever it is, but they're very well defined.
00:41:31
Speaker
And like you're standing there watching it all.
00:41:33
Speaker
It looks crazy.
00:41:35
Speaker
And at the end of it, they launched it to the train full of people.
00:41:37
Speaker
It's super cool.
00:41:39
Speaker
And then they close it out with the Magic Symphony, which is the finale show.
00:41:44
Speaker
I think you got to see that, right, Kelly?
00:41:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, that is a Disney level show.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild.
00:41:55
Speaker
Some of the fireworks that I was not expecting, some of the fireworks that they shot off, they had the spinning ones and they had ones that were waving back and forth.
00:42:02
Speaker
And the way that they transition between different musical elements and they use the fountains on the swings in the center of the plaza as part of the show.
00:42:13
Speaker
So cool.
00:42:14
Speaker
The way that everything is integrated, it's just, yeah.
00:42:17
Speaker
And then you think it's just like...
00:42:19
Speaker
tiny little geographic plot of land in the middle of like a German town.
00:42:23
Speaker
It's like shooting off these crazy fireworks and having this show.
00:42:28
Speaker
It's like, what is happening here?
00:42:30
Speaker
When you take yourself like out of it, it's like, what is going on?
00:42:34
Speaker
Yeah, because those houses are like right there, like residence.
00:42:37
Speaker
On the other side of the tree.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how they get away with it, but I'm glad they do.
00:42:42
Speaker
I don't even know how that park makes money because everything they do is just so good and so well done, but yet it's so affordable.
00:42:50
Speaker
It is.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:51
Speaker
I mean, a regular winter Trump ticket is like 40 euro or something.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:56
Speaker
I don't.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
Like it could be a lot more than that.
00:42:59
Speaker
And it's like not that expensive in general to like stay in one of their resorts either.
00:43:03
Speaker
No.
00:43:05
Speaker
Like it's definitely like.
00:43:08
Speaker
Very reasonable.
00:43:08
Speaker
Way more affordable than Europa.
00:43:10
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:43:11
Speaker
The Europa hotels and food are quite expensive.
00:43:14
Speaker
I highly recommend staying at Fontagiland if you're, if you're going to go, it's, it helps add to the feeling of immersion for sure.
00:43:21
Speaker
Totally.
00:43:22
Speaker
Anyway, I could talk about that all day.
00:43:24
Speaker
You guys are making me more excited to go.
00:43:26
Speaker
I know.
00:43:26
Speaker
I hope so.
00:43:27
Speaker
The problem is I never want to like overhype people for things, but it's hard not to talk about it.
00:43:31
Speaker
No, that event is really hard not to.
00:43:33
Speaker
I feel like,
00:43:35
Speaker
And like, I, I feel very privileged that I've had these opportunities to travel places for the holidays that I never thought I'd be able to do.
00:43:43
Speaker
And like, as my kids get older, help to hope to share that with them too.
00:43:46
Speaker
But I feel like if, if anybody is going to make a bucket list park to travel to during the holidays, it has to be that like, it has to be on everybody's list.
00:43:57
Speaker
If you're only going to be able to go once, it has to be that it's, it's that good.
00:44:01
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, like having done multiple now in the Christmas season, that's the one that stands out.
00:44:07
Speaker
That's the one you've got to go to.
00:44:08
Speaker
Like the other ones, I would almost say go during the regular summer season.
00:44:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:44:12
Speaker
Although I will say that crowd wise, Port Aventura is notorious for having crazy lines.
00:44:19
Speaker
And we rode Red Forest 10 times that night, like in one night.
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah, we had no lines either when we went.
00:44:25
Speaker
Unheard of.
00:44:26
Speaker
So it's not a bad time to go for light crowds.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:31
Speaker
Yeah, we were scared into like.
00:44:33
Speaker
we bought like the highest level, whatever their fast lane system is, because I was so afraid of, you know, what you hear when people typically go in the summer and we didn't even really need to use it.
00:44:41
Speaker
So definitely, definitely agree.
00:44:43
Speaker
Good time here.
Holiday Event Draft: Favorites
00:44:46
Speaker
Cool.
00:44:46
Speaker
So, all right, up next, instead of just trying to like talk about our favorite things about winter events, we decided to do a very TDR thing and to do a draft.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
So let's see how this goes.
00:45:02
Speaker
We have- You're doing it live.
00:45:05
Speaker
I know, we're just going to make it happen.
00:45:07
Speaker
We have some categories related to holiday or Christmas events, and we are just going to go through and each person gets to pick something.
00:45:17
Speaker
And we have a predetermined order.
00:45:20
Speaker
And we're going to go forwards and then backwards.
00:45:22
Speaker
That way, it's not the same person going first every time.
00:45:26
Speaker
And we'll see how this goes.
00:45:28
Speaker
Maybe I can have Tom post our, our lists from, for, you know, after sometimes they post theirs.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
We should put them out there and see what people think is the best.
00:45:38
Speaker
See what people like.
00:45:40
Speaker
The interesting thing about it though, is I feel like maybe people haven't been to as many of these events, but I'm hoping that if they hear some standout things that we mentioned, maybe it'll be like, Oh, I want to go that, or I want to try that or whatever.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:53
Speaker
True.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:55
Speaker
I guess I'm up first.
00:45:57
Speaker
I put myself in this position.
00:45:58
Speaker
Darn.
00:45:59
Speaker
I was going to say, what do you mean you guess?
00:46:01
Speaker
You wrote it.
00:46:02
Speaker
I know.
00:46:03
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:46:03
Speaker
Like now that I'm looking at it, I'm like, why did I do that to myself?
00:46:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:08
Speaker
So our first category is food.
00:46:11
Speaker
And this is kind of a tough one because I, to be honest, haven't had super distinctive foods.
00:46:19
Speaker
So I'm going to throw something out there that's not super holiday related, but it reminds me of a silver dollar city in Dollywood at Christmas.
00:46:28
Speaker
And I'm probably going to steal somebody else's answer, but I'm putting cinnamon bread from SDC.
00:46:33
Speaker
Tyler's dad.
00:46:34
Speaker
Tyler's dad.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
I had to.
00:46:41
Speaker
I had to.
00:46:42
Speaker
On that note, this reminds me, make sure you follow Buzz Bars on Instagram and vote for the first annual Buzz Bars awards.
00:46:51
Speaker
There are some that this, this category has passed and best park food has passed, but there are some other exciting categories upcoming.
00:46:59
Speaker
So make sure you vote if you're a member of Buzz Bars.
00:47:02
Speaker
Is it my turn?
00:47:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:04
Speaker
Kelly's up.
00:47:05
Speaker
Best food.
00:47:06
Speaker
Okay, this is also not specific to winter events.
00:47:10
Speaker
And to the surprise of no one, I will be choosing the crepes from the Klugeheim crepe stand.
00:47:18
Speaker
Amazing.
00:47:19
Speaker
Still never had a crepe.
00:47:21
Speaker
Okay, to be fair, I can compare it to many other crepe, park crepes, and they are superior.
00:47:28
Speaker
I had one this year as well, and it was delicious.
00:47:33
Speaker
Also perfect for when it's cold.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:36
Speaker
They are warm.
00:47:38
Speaker
Very warm.
00:47:40
Speaker
All right.
00:47:41
Speaker
I'm going to go with the Thanksgiving dinner from Holiday World.
00:47:47
Speaker
Was that yours?
00:47:49
Speaker
I was thinking about Holiday World.
00:47:53
Speaker
That's a good answer.
00:47:54
Speaker
Well, Joey took mine.
00:47:56
Speaker
He took mine first, too.
00:47:57
Speaker
That was my first choice.
00:47:58
Speaker
I was like, oh, let me go to Holiday World.
00:48:00
Speaker
Oh my God, I can't even think of another one.
00:48:02
Speaker
It was a conspiracy.
00:48:03
Speaker
Food related.
00:48:04
Speaker
Damn, okay, food related.
00:48:06
Speaker
What can I go where?
00:48:07
Speaker
I'm like looking here to see like if something rings a bell.
00:48:11
Speaker
Something from SeaWorld?
00:48:13
Speaker
I'm trying to think for SeaWorld, yeah.
00:48:16
Speaker
I did try, I believe they had this, and it's funny because it was my favorite meal from HHN, but they also had it for their Christmas time event at SeaWorld.
00:48:25
Speaker
But the Tres Leches that they had there,
00:48:27
Speaker
Their dessert with that is always really good.
00:48:29
Speaker
So I'll definitely have to go with the Pesla cheese.
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds delicious.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:48:35
Speaker
And then now I get the advantage with the drinks.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah, next category is drinks.
00:48:41
Speaker
This isn't Christmas related, but I always think of it for Christmas time when it's cold outside.
00:48:46
Speaker
But hot butter beer is so good.
00:48:49
Speaker
I don't know if you guys have tried it.
00:48:51
Speaker
Solid answer.
00:48:52
Speaker
Solid Florida answer.
00:48:53
Speaker
Hot butter beer right there.
00:48:57
Speaker
I've only had the hot, actually.
00:48:58
Speaker
I've only had the frozen and the regular.
00:49:01
Speaker
It's so good.
00:49:02
Speaker
I haven't tried it yet.
00:49:03
Speaker
Frozen is just so good.
00:49:04
Speaker
I don't want to switch it up.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:06
Speaker
Nope.
00:49:06
Speaker
It's my favorite.
00:49:07
Speaker
It's actually my favorite style of butterbeer.
00:49:09
Speaker
I mean, that and the ice cream.
00:49:11
Speaker
I've never been cold enough in Florida to have a hot butterbeer.
00:49:14
Speaker
You have to be lucky.
00:49:19
Speaker
Sounds like a local thing.
00:49:20
Speaker
Low 70s, I'm like, ooh, it's hot butterbeer time.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:25
Speaker
Low 70s.
00:49:26
Speaker
Let me put my winter coat on.
00:49:29
Speaker
Literally.
00:49:30
Speaker
It's a thing.
00:49:31
Speaker
When I lived in Florida for two years, people would judge me hard for wearing flip-flops the whole year.
00:49:36
Speaker
I'd show up to class with flip-flops on in December and people would look at me like, what the heck?
00:49:42
Speaker
And they would have their scarves out.
00:49:43
Speaker
High 60s.
00:49:44
Speaker
The scarves are out with everybody around you.
00:49:49
Speaker
68 degrees.
00:49:50
Speaker
It's frigid.
00:49:50
Speaker
Let us enjoy it.
00:49:51
Speaker
Just let us enjoy it, guys.
00:49:54
Speaker
Love it.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:56
Speaker
All right, Tyler.
00:49:58
Speaker
All right.
00:49:58
Speaker
My drink.
00:49:59
Speaker
I'm going to do the peppermint hot chocolate from BG dubs.
00:50:04
Speaker
Damn.
00:50:05
Speaker
That's unfortunate.
00:50:06
Speaker
And I think it used to be better last year.
00:50:09
Speaker
It didn't seem as good.
00:50:10
Speaker
I don't know if it was an off year off night, whatever.
00:50:12
Speaker
So hopefully it's better this year.
00:50:14
Speaker
We'll see, but.
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah, that was going to be my answer.
00:50:18
Speaker
I have a steal, but it's different.
00:50:20
Speaker
I'm going to do the classic milk chocolate from Hershey Park.
00:50:25
Speaker
Hershey's milk chocolate hot cocoa.
00:50:28
Speaker
So rich and thick, like the thickest hot chocolate of life destined to give me the worst stomachache, but I will have it every time.
00:50:36
Speaker
Yeah, that would ruin me.
00:50:39
Speaker
So good though.
00:50:42
Speaker
Cool.
00:50:43
Speaker
So like a lot of good answers have been taken.
00:50:45
Speaker
And now it's stuck.
00:50:47
Speaker
See, I got the first one last time.
00:50:49
Speaker
And now I'm like, Oh, I don't know what to do.
00:50:53
Speaker
Because I, when you when you work at BGW, at the end of the day, when there's peppermint hot chocolate left, you get it for free on your way out.
00:51:01
Speaker
And that's so much that it was.
00:51:03
Speaker
So that's a big memory for me.
00:51:06
Speaker
Let's see if I can come up with something else.
00:51:09
Speaker
I'm feeling solid about my placement in this lineup in the middle here.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a bad spot.
00:51:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:17
Speaker
So I'm going to go with the glue vine at Fontageland because that was lovely.
00:51:23
Speaker
And it was hot.
00:51:24
Speaker
What is it?
00:51:26
Speaker
So it's glue vine is like a German mold wine, but it's warm and it has like cloves and sort of like Christmassy spices in it.
00:51:35
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:51:36
Speaker
I probably didn't spell that right either, but I'll fix it later.
00:51:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:43
Speaker
And that's that category.
00:51:45
Speaker
Next is entertainment slash light shows.
00:51:49
Speaker
So this isn't like the static lighting in the park.
00:51:52
Speaker
This is like a light show or a show in a theater or something of that nature, some entertainment option that the park is presenting.
00:51:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
This is kind of tough because there are some really good stage shows that I've seen over the years.
00:52:10
Speaker
But recency bias is pretty strong right now.
00:52:13
Speaker
And I'm going to have to put Magic Symphony at Fantage Land, despite the fact that I have a backup option that I'll just mention.
00:52:22
Speaker
I'll just throw it out.
00:52:23
Speaker
Well, actually, I'll wait until Tyler goes because he might have something.
00:52:26
Speaker
So yeah, fine.
00:52:27
Speaker
Yeah, totally by far and away the best.
00:52:30
Speaker
holiday entertainment I've seen as well.
00:52:33
Speaker
My standby answer, and I'll go with this one, is the tree lighting at Dollywood.
00:52:41
Speaker
That is cool.
00:52:45
Speaker
I'm going to go with the... Okay, to be fair, I haven't actually seen this in person because I haven't done yet, but I've seen plenty of vlogs about it.
00:52:54
Speaker
The fireworks Christmas show at Magic Kingdom.
00:52:59
Speaker
That's for all you Disney haters in the discord.
00:53:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:04
Speaker
And I was going to go with that too.
00:53:05
Speaker
And I'm a Disney hater.
00:53:06
Speaker
So you got me on that one.
00:53:08
Speaker
That's a good answer.
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:10
Speaker
All right.
00:53:10
Speaker
Now that you've gone, I'm going to say what my backup was.
00:53:12
Speaker
Cause I wasn't sure if you have seen this or not at a Bush gardens, Williamsburg, there's a show called Gloria in an indoor theater.
00:53:19
Speaker
That's very well done.
00:53:20
Speaker
I absolutely love Gloria.
00:53:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:23
Speaker
I didn't say it because most people have not seen it.
00:53:27
Speaker
Right.
00:53:27
Speaker
You're playing the draft.
00:53:28
Speaker
I get it.
00:53:29
Speaker
Exactly.
00:53:29
Speaker
What am I going to go with?
00:53:36
Speaker
You know, I'll go with the trees and the lake at SeaWorld.
00:53:39
Speaker
I'll go with that one.
00:53:41
Speaker
Not a bad option at all.
00:53:42
Speaker
Not a bad option.
00:53:43
Speaker
I think it's a safe one.
00:53:44
Speaker
I'll go with that.
00:53:47
Speaker
All right.
00:53:47
Speaker
And you get to go again.
00:53:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:49
Speaker
So this category is, I called it village lighting, but it's basically your favorite and it doesn't have to be, you can just say a park, but your favorite park that has the lighting throughout it.
00:54:04
Speaker
Like Christmas lights and stuff you're talking about.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yep.
00:54:07
Speaker
Like a light display.
00:54:08
Speaker
I mean, I only went one time, but carowinds during winter fest was pretty sweet.
00:54:14
Speaker
They had a lot of light going on over there.
00:54:15
Speaker
So.
00:54:16
Speaker
I think I'll go with that.
00:54:17
Speaker
I agree.
00:54:18
Speaker
That was really, really nice.
00:54:20
Speaker
I was like, okay, I didn't expect that.
00:54:23
Speaker
But yeah, very nice.
00:54:24
Speaker
I like that one.
00:54:25
Speaker
Nice.
00:54:27
Speaker
I'm going to go with the England section at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
00:54:33
Speaker
That's a good answer.
00:54:34
Speaker
Very classically lit.
00:54:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:54:38
Speaker
It also, in a way, it almost feels like it ties into Colonial Williamsburg, the way that they do that.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
It feels very, like, yeah, of the time.
00:54:47
Speaker
I agree.
00:54:48
Speaker
All right, Kelly.
00:54:51
Speaker
She's thinking.
00:54:55
Speaker
I think in the spirit of a draft and kind of keeping my answers separate and things that people in our audience
00:55:05
Speaker
listening group of friends have seen, I'm actually going to go with Europa's Christmas lights.
00:55:13
Speaker
Smart.
00:55:16
Speaker
All of our friends have just been there.
00:55:20
Speaker
It is really pretty and well done.
00:55:23
Speaker
I agree.
00:55:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:27
Speaker
Hmm.
00:55:31
Speaker
All right.
00:55:31
Speaker
Since Tyler picked a specific section, I'm going to go for another one at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which is the Polar Pathway, which is the light display on Escape from Pompeii at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
00:55:44
Speaker
That's a good one.
00:55:46
Speaker
If you haven't seen that before, it's pretty incredible.
00:55:50
Speaker
And the music that they play in that section is really nice and subtle and the lighting is pretty.
00:55:56
Speaker
So I like it.
00:55:59
Speaker
Cool.
00:56:00
Speaker
That closes out that one.
00:56:02
Speaker
Our next one is I call this pop up experience for lack of a better word.
00:56:08
Speaker
But basically some form of attraction or specialty offering that is not there during the normal season that is there during this the winter event or Christmas event.
00:56:22
Speaker
Gosh, I haven't really thought about this one too much.
00:56:27
Speaker
I think.
00:56:29
Speaker
I think I'm going to go with the s'mores at pretty much any Six Flags holiday in the park event.
00:56:35
Speaker
Just because I think it's a really cool idea.
00:56:37
Speaker
And they literally have a fire in the park.
00:56:40
Speaker
Well, multiple fires in the park that you can roast s'mores on.
00:56:42
Speaker
And that seems cool.
00:56:46
Speaker
Kelly?
00:56:48
Speaker
I'm hearing weird noises.
00:56:49
Speaker
Sorry.
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:51
Speaker
I am going to go with, and maybe I'm just like being a crazy Instagram, TikTok fangirl here, but I'm going to go with the Christmas overlay and living with the land seems to be a thing right now.
00:57:08
Speaker
And I love me some living with the land.
00:57:11
Speaker
I haven't even seen that.
00:57:12
Speaker
I love living with the land.
00:57:13
Speaker
I haven't seen the Christmas overlay.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:16
Speaker
I just saw like somebody posting some videos with the lights and there's like hour long waits for living with the land.
00:57:24
Speaker
What?
00:57:26
Speaker
I saw a 75 minute wait on social and I was like, wait, why?
00:57:28
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, there's lights.
00:57:31
Speaker
I get it.
00:57:32
Speaker
Interesting.
00:57:34
Speaker
That's very Disney though.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
I had to put a Disney one in there.
00:57:42
Speaker
I've never actually been to Disney park during the Christmas season.
00:57:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:48
Speaker
Someday.
00:57:48
Speaker
Definitely someday.
00:57:53
Speaker
You might book a flight next week.
00:57:55
Speaker
I don't know.
00:57:55
Speaker
We'll see.
00:57:56
Speaker
All right.
00:57:58
Speaker
I'm going to go with the Grinch meet and greet at universal.
00:58:05
Speaker
Strong choice.
00:58:05
Speaker
Strong choice.
00:58:07
Speaker
play into social media now.
00:58:09
Speaker
It's got a long line.
00:58:11
Speaker
Put it down.
00:58:13
Speaker
All right, Rafa.
00:58:15
Speaker
So I didn't get to do this.
00:58:17
Speaker
And I mean, if it sucks and it's not a great experience, you guys can make fun of me for it.
00:58:21
Speaker
But over in King Dominion, I noticed that there were these little igloos that you were able to like rent out.
00:58:27
Speaker
I thought that was the neatest little thing ever.
00:58:29
Speaker
I didn't get to do it, but it looked really cool.
00:58:31
Speaker
So I think I'm going to go with that.
00:58:32
Speaker
I'm looking at it.
00:58:33
Speaker
It says Jack Frost Igloo Village.
00:58:35
Speaker
over at King Dominion.
00:58:37
Speaker
I thought that looked pretty neat, so I think I'll go with that.
00:58:39
Speaker
That is cool.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that would be pretty cool.
00:58:42
Speaker
I think it's sort of like renting the cabanas like you can in a water park in the summer.
00:58:47
Speaker
So you just have a warm place to stay.
00:58:49
Speaker
I think they bring you food and stuff.
00:58:50
Speaker
It's all included.
00:58:51
Speaker
So it's expensive, but it seems like a cool experience.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, if somebody was like, come on in here, I wouldn't say no.
00:58:57
Speaker
Right, but I'm not going to pay $150 for it.
00:58:59
Speaker
Exactly.
00:59:03
Speaker
That is a cool offering, though, especially if it's freezing.
00:59:07
Speaker
All right.
00:59:08
Speaker
And this is our last category.
00:59:10
Speaker
We had to throw something in a little kind of roller coaster ish.
00:59:15
Speaker
So because a lot of parks have, especially in Europe, at least have hours that prevent you from getting night rides and the winter season.
00:59:24
Speaker
it gets dark early.
00:59:25
Speaker
So there's plenty of opportunity for that.
00:59:27
Speaker
And some of those rides, you might be able to see some of the little Christmas lights display, or maybe it's really dark or something about the experience is different.
00:59:36
Speaker
So we put a night ride on here.
00:59:39
Speaker
Rafa, you're up.
00:59:40
Speaker
Kelly is clearly.
00:59:42
Speaker
I don't have those Europe creds like you guys do.
00:59:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:46
Speaker
Hey, you can steal one.
00:59:48
Speaker
You don't have to have ridden them.
00:59:50
Speaker
There's definitely some U.S. parks where there's good night rides at Christmas.
00:59:57
Speaker
I don't know.
00:59:59
Speaker
Just play to the crowd.
01:00:01
Speaker
Play to the crowd.
01:00:04
Speaker
What is a good, oh my gosh.
01:00:08
Speaker
There's literally an Instagram poll today.
01:00:10
Speaker
That's night ride on it.
01:00:12
Speaker
Wait, was there?
01:00:13
Speaker
Yes.
01:00:14
Speaker
Hold on.
01:00:15
Speaker
Give me a second.
01:00:16
Speaker
I'm letting you cheat now.
01:00:20
Speaker
Let me cheat.
01:00:22
Speaker
Hold on.
01:00:25
Speaker
I don't know.
01:00:27
Speaker
This would be a good time for everybody else to go on Instagram and vote for your Buzzbars categories.
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:33
Speaker
Buzzbars awards.
01:00:35
Speaker
Instagram.com.
01:00:37
Speaker
Don't touch the photos because I don't take very good pictures of Ryan.
01:00:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
01:00:43
Speaker
That's my favorite photo of good gravy.
01:00:45
Speaker
I loved it.
01:00:47
Speaker
At least I got the Ryan type the same.
01:00:49
Speaker
You know what?
01:00:49
Speaker
We're talking about any night ride, right?
01:00:51
Speaker
It doesn't have to be for like holiday time.
01:00:55
Speaker
Right?
01:00:55
Speaker
I mean, sure.
01:00:57
Speaker
You know what?
01:00:57
Speaker
VelociCoaster is always a safe one.
01:00:59
Speaker
That's a crowd pleaser right there.
01:01:01
Speaker
I'll go with VelociCoaster.
01:01:02
Speaker
That's a good one.
01:01:03
Speaker
It's so good at night.
01:01:05
Speaker
Yes, it is.
01:01:06
Speaker
I was just thinking of like Christmas time.
01:01:08
Speaker
I'm like, I can't think of a specific one during Christmas time that would be like, you know.
01:01:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:14
Speaker
I'm going to keep playing to the masses here.
01:01:17
Speaker
Shout out Ohio fanboys.
01:01:18
Speaker
We're going Mystic Timbers.
01:01:20
Speaker
Nice.
01:01:22
Speaker
Very popular.
01:01:23
Speaker
Yep.
01:01:27
Speaker
I was going to say another one, but I saved it for one of you guys because I know one of you is going to say it.
01:01:34
Speaker
Well, I feel good about it.
01:01:36
Speaker
I had two, but I'm going to take Taryn.
01:01:40
Speaker
Yep.
01:01:41
Speaker
I almost took it.
01:01:41
Speaker
You're welcome.
01:01:44
Speaker
It's so much better at night.
01:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's very impressive.
01:01:51
Speaker
The way that that launch tunnel is just lit and steaming.
01:01:56
Speaker
And yeah, that's very cool.
01:01:58
Speaker
Is it true that it launches faster during winter trauma?
01:02:00
Speaker
I think it was Mikhail that said that.
01:02:04
Speaker
Who knows?
01:02:04
Speaker
That's what I've heard.
01:02:05
Speaker
I don't know if it's true.
01:02:06
Speaker
I couldn't detect a difference, but I mean...
01:02:10
Speaker
I don't want it to valley in the dark regardless.
01:02:13
Speaker
You know, one thing I did notice is that it, it must've been running slower because in the summer that trim before the airtime hill at the end usually hits and it wasn't hitting this time.
01:02:22
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
01:02:23
Speaker
It hit for us.
01:02:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:25
Speaker
So obviously I don't have a, uh, like frame of reference.
01:02:28
Speaker
I mean, it was pretty, it was pretty cold.
01:02:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:31
Speaker
Okay, anyway, last one.
01:02:33
Speaker
It's my turn.
01:02:35
Speaker
I'm not sure whether... I don't know if I should play to people who have only been Europe.
01:02:39
Speaker
That sounds limiting.
01:02:43
Speaker
So I'm going to go, well, which park is more popular?
01:02:48
Speaker
I feel like we've all been there now, but maybe not.
01:02:52
Speaker
I'm just going to go with my gut.
01:02:53
Speaker
I'm putting Outlaw Run at SDC.
01:02:57
Speaker
It's a fantastic night ride.
01:02:59
Speaker
And during their holiday event, you can see all of the Christmas lights as well while you're whooshing past.
01:03:06
Speaker
Also shout out to lightning rod.
01:03:08
Speaker
Same case as true.
01:03:08
Speaker
As you're coming back down the hill, you see all of Dollywood's lights spread out.
01:03:12
Speaker
So there's lots of them out there.
01:03:16
Speaker
Cool.
01:03:17
Speaker
All right.
01:03:18
Speaker
Well, we finished that.
01:03:19
Speaker
We did it.
01:03:20
Speaker
I guess we'll put it out there and see what people think.
01:03:23
Speaker
Was it enjoyable to listen to?
01:03:24
Speaker
Yes.
01:03:24
Speaker
No.
01:03:25
Speaker
Tell us.
01:03:27
Speaker
We can do more.
01:03:28
Speaker
Maybe people heard something that they haven't heard before, hopefully.
01:03:31
Speaker
There we go.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:33
Speaker
I mean, you guys are really making me want... I've never been to BG Dubs for Christmas, so now I kind of want to go.
01:03:38
Speaker
Same.
01:03:39
Speaker
It's a nice event.
01:03:41
Speaker
Joey and I apologize for the Virginia bias.
01:03:44
Speaker
Right.
01:03:45
Speaker
Don't apologize.
01:03:46
Speaker
No, I really do.
01:03:47
Speaker
I really do think it's one of the top regional events.
01:03:49
Speaker
I'm sure, like, over time, it's decreased in quality because that's just what happens at sea sparks.
01:03:54
Speaker
But... Yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:56
Speaker
It's it's the foundation of the event is is very nice.
01:04:01
Speaker
And I appreciate it at least.
01:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:04:04
Speaker
Shout out to Brambo.
01:04:09
Speaker
Cool.
01:04:10
Speaker
All right.
01:04:10
Speaker
Oh, and also what we're talking about, Virginia.
01:04:13
Speaker
Oh, we do have we just plug everything.
01:04:17
Speaker
We do have a buzz bar stumble at the Virginia Parks coming Memorial Day weekend.
01:04:25
Speaker
I'm sure most of you listening to this already know that, but if for some reason you didn't, you should go to our website, www.buzzbars.com.
01:04:36
Speaker
And we'll be registering for that eventually.
01:04:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:41
Speaker
Someday.
01:04:44
Speaker
All right.
Listener Questions and Fun Discussions
01:04:45
Speaker
Um, and next up is our listener questions that we put out today and got back a couple.
01:04:53
Speaker
Um,
01:04:55
Speaker
I guess I'll just read these out.
01:04:56
Speaker
This question comes from Sho.
01:05:00
Speaker
He asks, is the Nightmare Before Christmas movie more of a Christmas or Halloween movie?
01:05:07
Speaker
I feel very strongly about this.
01:05:09
Speaker
Do you?
01:05:10
Speaker
Then tell us.
01:05:11
Speaker
It's Halloween.
01:05:12
Speaker
Okay, thank you.
01:05:13
Speaker
I'll have to say, like, if you feel strongly about it being the opposite of what I think, like...
01:05:19
Speaker
It's spooky.
01:05:21
Speaker
It's very spooky.
01:05:21
Speaker
And it's called The Nightmare before Christmas.
01:05:25
Speaker
Nothing about it is Christmasing.
01:05:28
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:05:29
Speaker
I haven't seen this movie yet, and that's a strong argument, I think.
01:05:33
Speaker
Yep, I haven't either.
01:05:35
Speaker
Oh, man.
01:05:36
Speaker
I'm aware.
01:05:37
Speaker
I've seen clips of it and stuff, and I probably would have said that it's a Halloween movie based on those clips.
01:05:41
Speaker
So, yeah, that's all I can contribute.
01:05:45
Speaker
Sorry if that's not the answer you wanted, Cho.
01:05:49
Speaker
Also the like most popular song goes, this is Halloween.
01:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:05:56
Speaker
True.
01:05:57
Speaker
Exactly.
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:58
Speaker
That's pretty convincing.
01:05:59
Speaker
That's all you need.
01:06:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:02
Speaker
Also spooky superior.
01:06:07
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:08
Speaker
I'm going to skip around from Gary.
01:06:11
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:13
Speaker
Which theme park mascot or character would best represent Santa Claus and which would best represent the Grinch beside the Grinch?
01:06:23
Speaker
Hmm.
01:06:24
Speaker
I immediately read this in my head as which Buzz Bars member would best represent Santa Claus?
01:06:29
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:35
Speaker
I don't know very many theme park mascots to be honest.
01:06:39
Speaker
I'm trying to think Santa Claus.
01:06:42
Speaker
Hmm.
01:06:44
Speaker
Or the Grinch.
01:06:45
Speaker
Would the Grinch just be like one of the villain characters from Marvel or DC or something?
01:06:54
Speaker
Maybe.
01:06:54
Speaker
This is a hard one.
01:06:55
Speaker
I can't stop thinking about Gary as Santa Claus.
01:07:01
Speaker
I mean, it would be very convincing.
01:07:05
Speaker
Such a good Santa Claus.
01:07:07
Speaker
I would say Gary.
01:07:11
Speaker
So we can all agree the answer is Gary.
01:07:13
Speaker
So Gary is cute.
01:07:19
Speaker
I'm going to throw out the, the, I have no idea what his name is.
01:07:22
Speaker
The old, old man from six flags.
01:07:25
Speaker
He kind of gives Grinch energy.
01:07:27
Speaker
Oh, Mr. Six.
01:07:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:07:29
Speaker
Mr. Six.
01:07:29
Speaker
That's a fun one.
01:07:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:31
Speaker
I don't know.
01:07:31
Speaker
Something about him is a little weird and offbeat kind of like the Grinch, you know?
01:07:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:38
Speaker
He's up to no good.
01:07:39
Speaker
That's what I'm saying.
01:07:41
Speaker
And they ran him over with a bus for Halloween.
01:07:43
Speaker
Did you see that?
01:07:46
Speaker
No.
01:07:48
Speaker
They're advertising for what was it?
01:07:50
Speaker
Fright Fest Extreme.
01:07:52
Speaker
Their ad literally had Mr. Sex doing the dance.
01:07:56
Speaker
Hit by a bus.
01:07:57
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
01:07:58
Speaker
I was like, whoa.
01:08:00
Speaker
Okay, Six Flags.
01:08:02
Speaker
Calm down.
01:08:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:04
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:06
Speaker
Santa's hard, though.
01:08:07
Speaker
I don't really know a lot of like theme park mascots that have that energy or character.
01:08:13
Speaker
This might be a little bit of a stretch, but I'm going to say Hagrid.
01:08:15
Speaker
He'd be a good Santa.
01:08:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:18
Speaker
I was going to say Dumbledore.
01:08:19
Speaker
Dumbledore.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, there we go.
01:08:22
Speaker
We got two Santas there.
01:08:23
Speaker
Or maybe the dog from Holiday World.
01:08:26
Speaker
He's so cute.
01:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, that would be a good one too.
01:08:28
Speaker
Just put a Santa hat on Holodog and bam.
01:08:32
Speaker
He's Santa.
01:08:33
Speaker
Why not?
01:08:35
Speaker
But more so Gary.
01:08:36
Speaker
But more so Gary.
01:08:37
Speaker
Of course, yes.
01:08:40
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:42
Speaker
We got a lot of questions from different people.
01:08:44
Speaker
So I'm merging them together from Lucas Carl and Max Toxic Avenger about Christmas.
01:08:51
Speaker
I'm putting this in quotes, Christmas movies.
01:08:55
Speaker
And they're asking about Die Hard, Jingle All the Way, and Santa's Sleigh.
01:09:00
Speaker
Are any of these the best Christmas movie of all time?
01:09:03
Speaker
thoughts no i've seen none of them yeah come at me none of them guys listen i'm not a movie person i don't watch movies like people say hey you need to watch this movie i'm like okay i will i'll put it on the list there's no list i don't ever watch the movie okay i'm right there with you but i do know that
01:09:23
Speaker
Tom feels very strongly that Die Hard is in fact a Christmas movie and I've had that ingrained into my brain.
01:09:29
Speaker
So I think I would have to say it is, but definitely not the best because the best is Home Alone.
01:09:36
Speaker
That's fair.
01:09:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:38
Speaker
I can accept that.
01:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really have context for any of these.
01:09:43
Speaker
What is Santa's light?
01:09:43
Speaker
Does anybody know what that is?
01:09:45
Speaker
I have no idea.
01:09:45
Speaker
Is that spelled properly?
01:09:48
Speaker
That's how he spelled it, so I'm not sure.
01:09:50
Speaker
It's got to be like a whore.
01:09:51
Speaker
I don't know what that is.
01:09:58
Speaker
I mean, maybe if that's real and it's like a gay Santa, I'm here for it.
01:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's the Christmas version of the gay gasp.
01:10:08
Speaker
Literally.
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:13
Speaker
I don't know.
01:10:14
Speaker
Like friends, none of these would be like my answer.
01:10:18
Speaker
The ones that I always think about are the, the old stop motion, Rankin bass Christmas movies, like a year without a Santa Claus and Rudolph.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:28
Speaker
And, um, eat miser and snow miser.
01:10:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:34
Speaker
Classic.
01:10:37
Speaker
Okay.
01:10:38
Speaker
And okay.
01:10:39
Speaker
So we have a very silly question from Carl.
01:10:43
Speaker
You are at Six Flags Great Adventure on Christmas and you have to prevent the bandits from touching King Daka.
01:10:51
Speaker
What Kevin McAllister type of shenanigans would you do to protect King Daka?
01:10:56
Speaker
Kelly, considering you just said Home Alone is your favorite, I feel like this is right up your alley.
01:11:01
Speaker
I have the best answer for this.
01:11:03
Speaker
Right.
01:11:04
Speaker
I'm going to let everyone down.
01:11:06
Speaker
I don't have a good answer for this.
01:11:07
Speaker
I was looking at it earlier.
01:11:09
Speaker
I can't, I can't imagine ever creating such an elaborate booby trap, especially to prevent the closure of Kingda Ka.
01:11:19
Speaker
Honestly, I have hope that the Ka replacement will be worthy.
01:11:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:23
Speaker
Let them take it down.
01:11:25
Speaker
It's very sad.
01:11:26
Speaker
I loved watching that ride being built.
01:11:28
Speaker
We don't need to get into that whole thing, but, um,
01:11:32
Speaker
Yes, that park is close to where I live.
01:11:34
Speaker
I've ridden King to Cobb many, many times, and I'm excited to see what its successor brings.
01:11:41
Speaker
I had the thought that you could do a rollercoaster tycoon type derailment onto the pathway and just send it right at them.
01:11:48
Speaker
Why not?
01:11:49
Speaker
Send it.
01:11:50
Speaker
There we go.
01:11:52
Speaker
But to be honest, I kind of agree with you because my first thought was I probably would just let King Dekat die.
01:11:57
Speaker
Like, let him get to it.
01:11:57
Speaker
Because I'm not that mad about it.
Event Management Critiques and Suggestions
01:12:02
Speaker
I appreciate what it was, but I'm, yeah, I do think it's kind of terrible, like how the park dealt with that situation and didn't announce it properly, but I'm not really like, Oh my God, we need to protect it forever.
01:12:16
Speaker
I never even got to ride it.
01:12:18
Speaker
And I'm like, all right, well, let's see what comes from this.
01:12:21
Speaker
Well, and the thing about it is you still have rides like it out there.
01:12:25
Speaker
Right.
01:12:25
Speaker
Exactly.
01:12:27
Speaker
And maybe that's another bias to having just ridden red forest.
01:12:29
Speaker
I'm like, eh,
01:12:32
Speaker
Because that's pretty fun.
01:12:32
Speaker
Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I feel like they cannot take down the tallest roller coaster in the world and replace it with trash.
01:12:41
Speaker
Well, it's Six Flags, so... But it's Cedar Fair.
01:12:45
Speaker
But Great Adventure does get a pretty good share of the Six Flags wealth, I feel.
01:12:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:54
Speaker
We shall see.
01:12:55
Speaker
I'm nervous because I feel like
01:12:59
Speaker
cedar fair is sinking to the level of six flags rather than six flags rising to the level of cedar fair and i hope i'm wrong but that's just kind of the vibe that i've been getting so far see it over georgia it's the other way it feels like it's better i hope that's the trend then i hope so i haven't noticed much of a change at dorney since then we haven't talked much about dorney which is my closest home park because they don't really have they have um
01:13:27
Speaker
a fall event, but not a winter event, which they totally could feel like they need to.
01:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, they can have a winter fest.
01:13:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:34
Speaker
That's actually a lead into the next question.
01:13:37
Speaker
Perfect.
01:13:38
Speaker
Because Mike with the meat asks what parks need a winter event.
01:13:41
Speaker
So there you go.
01:13:42
Speaker
It's probably baiting me to talk about Dorney Park because we talk about this all the time.
01:13:47
Speaker
We drive past and we're like, why?
01:13:49
Speaker
Why, why?
01:13:50
Speaker
Is there nothing happening here?
01:13:52
Speaker
They have a beautiful lit up star on the lift of Steel Force.
01:13:56
Speaker
And that is all.
01:13:58
Speaker
And I feel like the park has really leaned into its seasonal events in the past couple of seasons.
01:14:03
Speaker
And I felt almost last year, like they were gearing up to maybe work toward a winter event, or maybe I'm making it up from like discussions that TDR has had with Ryan.
01:14:12
Speaker
I don't know.
01:14:13
Speaker
I feel like there was some discussion about it and I was kind of expecting it to happen, but maybe resources are just putting it, you know, just going toward other places or maybe there's not the staff to support it or anything, but I feel like there could be, and I feel like it would be a fun winter event.
01:14:28
Speaker
So Dorney is my answer because it benefits me.
01:14:33
Speaker
I mean, I think the answer is any park that doesn't.
01:14:36
Speaker
That's exactly what I was going to say.
01:14:37
Speaker
I can't think of a specific one, but any park that doesn't have one, why?
01:14:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:42
Speaker
Like even if the rides can't be open because it's so cold, wherever that particular place is, you could still do all kinds of things in the park.
01:14:49
Speaker
Totally lights.
01:14:50
Speaker
You could bring your, I mean, I feel like it would be just a great business opportunity.
01:14:55
Speaker
Use your, your infrastructure that you already have to sell seasonal foods and beverages and put some lights up and you have a thing people would come to.
01:15:03
Speaker
Yep.
01:15:04
Speaker
I don't know.
01:15:04
Speaker
I don't really want to be in Sandusky or at like Darien Lake in December, but that's just me.
01:15:10
Speaker
I don't like the cold.
01:15:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:13
Speaker
I agree that I probably wouldn't travel for some of those events, but I bet the locals would.
01:15:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:18
Speaker
Also, people just love Cedar Point, so they would go.
01:15:21
Speaker
100%.
01:15:25
Speaker
I mean, look at how many people show up to that winter chill-out event.
01:15:29
Speaker
It's, like, highly demanded, and it sells out.
01:15:32
Speaker
And nothing is even local.
01:15:33
Speaker
You have to imagine.
01:15:34
Speaker
I know.
01:15:35
Speaker
Literally, they just walk around.
01:15:37
Speaker
Like, here's our maintenance happening.
01:15:39
Speaker
Cool.
01:15:40
Speaker
So you and I just want to go.
01:15:42
Speaker
They're basically just like, hey, give us money for no reason and you can walk through a park.
01:15:48
Speaker
Literally.
01:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, sounds great.
01:15:50
Speaker
So just open the gates.
01:15:52
Speaker
The people will come.
01:15:54
Speaker
Just put a single solitary light at the top of Top Thrill 2.
01:15:57
Speaker
That's all.
01:15:58
Speaker
We're open for Christmas.
01:16:04
Speaker
Cool.
01:16:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:16:06
Speaker
So that's most of the questions.
01:16:07
Speaker
As we kind of wrap up here, the last question that we had from Brayden was, out of all of these events that we've been talking about, what's your favorite park winter event?
01:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think I answered earlier.
01:16:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:23
Speaker
Well, you know what?
01:16:23
Speaker
I said SeaWorld Orlando.
01:16:24
Speaker
I mean, SeaWorld Orlando I'm most familiar with, but I really liked Winterfest over at Carowinds.
01:16:31
Speaker
I thought it was a pretty solid event, but I'm just not as familiar.
01:16:34
Speaker
I've only gone one time.
01:16:36
Speaker
So just to be safe, I'll go with SeaWorld Orlando.
01:16:39
Speaker
Nice.
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm going to go with Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
01:16:43
Speaker
I haven't been to a ton.
01:16:45
Speaker
I do most of my theme park stuff in the summer, but I think that's got to be at the top.
01:16:50
Speaker
Hopefully Germany next year.
01:16:51
Speaker
We'll see.
01:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to be really basic and say Fantage Land.
01:16:55
Speaker
I just don't think it can be topped.
01:16:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:58
Speaker
Sorry if you haven't been there.
01:17:00
Speaker
I mean, that's my answer, too.
01:17:02
Speaker
Well, that's my like real answer.
01:17:04
Speaker
My nostalgia answer is Tyler's Christmas Town at BGW just because I have so many memories from working there and being there for so many years.
01:17:12
Speaker
But yeah, Winter Trump is better.
01:17:17
Speaker
Although I will say that.
01:17:21
Speaker
Busch Gardens Williamsburg's event is a little bit more complete in terms of having Christmas everywhere.
01:17:26
Speaker
Mm hmm.
01:17:27
Speaker
It's like how I was talking about with Klukeim and Rookberg not really having too much going on there besides the amazing theming.
01:17:34
Speaker
I like Busch Gardens has it everywhere.
01:17:37
Speaker
Agreed.
01:17:39
Speaker
All right.
01:17:39
Speaker
So our last wrap up question for the winter season events is what would you like to see in the future at events?
01:17:48
Speaker
Is there anything they're not doing now that they could do or things that they're not doing enough of?
01:17:53
Speaker
They should do more.
01:17:54
Speaker
What do you think?
01:17:56
Speaker
I mean, just go more with it.
01:17:58
Speaker
I mean, more Christmas stuff.
01:17:59
Speaker
You guys mentioned that was it Port Aventura that you guys said barely had any like anything Christmas going on.
01:18:06
Speaker
Was that what you guys were saying?
01:18:08
Speaker
But yeah, like parks like that, like just add some lights, add more to the holiday, you know, like, I don't know, make it a little different for that season.
01:18:17
Speaker
I think that's really it.
01:18:18
Speaker
Because so far, I mean, a lot of these big parks are starting to catch on to the food offerings, the drink offerings.
01:18:24
Speaker
Like they know that like that's a big thing, especially with like these travel influencers on social media.
01:18:30
Speaker
Like that brings in a lot of people.
01:18:32
Speaker
So I think as long as they start doing things that are very tick tock slash Instagram, you know, I guess worthy of battle bringing a lot of people.
01:18:41
Speaker
So I think just add more to it, just more, you know, marketable things, I guess.
01:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
01:18:48
Speaker
Um,
01:18:49
Speaker
For me, the winter or the Christmas events are more about the atmosphere and just walking around, seeing the lights, seeing the shows, just enjoying what's going on in the park rather than the rides.
01:19:02
Speaker
So I'd love to see, especially like Six Flags.
01:19:05
Speaker
And it's been a few years since I've been to a holiday in the park, but...
01:19:08
Speaker
Um, from what I remember, it's a little bit of Christmas, a little bit of holiday stuff here and there, but it's still kind of about the rides.
01:19:16
Speaker
I'd like to see them focus a little bit less on the rides, get some extra maintenance in them in the winter, honestly, and then lean into the decorations, specialty food, that sort of thing a little bit more.
01:19:29
Speaker
Yeah, they, at least in Georgia, they definitely are heading that direction, which is a good sign.
01:19:34
Speaker
Um, I, I agree with you that it's, it's more about,
01:19:38
Speaker
The other things that are going on, like give me a reason to come because I can ride the rides all summer long.
01:19:44
Speaker
And there's not really any difference there besides maybe it being a dark or Christmas lights are around or whatever.
01:19:49
Speaker
But different experiences is what pulls people in.
01:19:52
Speaker
And I saw that King's Island has snow tubing somewhere in the park.
01:19:57
Speaker
That's kind of cool.
01:19:58
Speaker
That's different.
01:19:59
Speaker
Like you can, I guess they have a fake snow hill that you can do, do snow tubing on.
01:20:04
Speaker
And then like some parks are building ice skating rinks into a pond or a fountain or whatever.
01:20:10
Speaker
I know that, um, with the winter fests with the, whatever that thing is called in the pool in the front, they, they build it in there.
01:20:17
Speaker
The fountain.
01:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:22
Speaker
And like Busch Gardens does the the sky ride so you can see the lights from above and they have the Christmas train.
01:20:31
Speaker
A lot of parks do things like that.
01:20:33
Speaker
So just any kind of experience that is differentiating it and making it special.
01:20:39
Speaker
I will say that.
01:20:42
Speaker
I do appreciate that this year, Kings Island Winterfest added more rides, not because I feel like the rides are important, but because the event needs enough activities.
01:20:52
Speaker
So that way the crowds are being distributed evenly in that kind of thing.
01:20:56
Speaker
And Busch Gardens event does that really well because they have
01:21:02
Speaker
entertainment and indoor shows like throughout the park.
01:21:06
Speaker
So guests are, you know, cycling through going somewhere they can get warm for food or for to watch a show.
01:21:12
Speaker
And that helps a lot.
01:21:14
Speaker
So having indoor options or having things open that increase like the capacity of the park and spread people out.
01:21:20
Speaker
So that way it's not like crazy because sometimes these Christmas events get packed.
01:21:25
Speaker
And so if you can give people more to do and spread the crowds out, that helps.
01:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you guys said.
01:21:33
Speaker
I think, you know, without, I agree that the emphasis doesn't need to be on the rides, but I think one thing, and I mentioned this earlier that I love that Europa did is they kind of allowed the freedom for each like ride crew, presumably to kind of decorate their area.
01:21:48
Speaker
So I loved like the different Christmas trees on the ride platforms, just like little things like that.
01:21:52
Speaker
that can really enhance and make the rides that are open feel different than what they normally are during the season.
01:21:58
Speaker
And I also agree with what you said, Joey, about having some indoor options.
01:22:02
Speaker
I was so thankful this past weekend to have dark rides and the queues because it meant that I didn't have to stand outside for a couple minutes when it was really cold.
01:22:11
Speaker
So at some of the more amusement park rather than theme parks, just having some offerings for people to do things indoors and take a break from being cold would be helpful, at least up this way.
01:22:23
Speaker
Very much so.
01:22:24
Speaker
I was wearing like three to four layers at Europa.
01:22:28
Speaker
It was quite cold.
01:22:29
Speaker
Yes.
01:22:30
Speaker
Not quite used to that.
01:22:31
Speaker
Rafa, I don't know.
01:22:32
Speaker
Oh, I'd be like in 10 layers.
01:22:35
Speaker
It would be awful.
01:22:36
Speaker
You would need like one of those suits with the tubing, like the hot water that runs through it.
01:22:41
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:22:42
Speaker
I'm going to look ridiculous.
01:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:44
Speaker
I saw a woman putting hand warmers into her gloves and I was never so jealous of anything in my life.
01:22:51
Speaker
The hot hand movies are amazing.
01:22:53
Speaker
She came prepared.
01:22:56
Speaker
She knew.
01:22:57
Speaker
She knew.
01:22:57
Speaker
My hands get cold first.
01:22:58
Speaker
That's always.
01:22:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:02
Speaker
So.
01:23:03
Speaker
Oh, and one thing that we can say to the U.S. parks is step it up with your rides if you're going to choose to operate them because I don't know what's going on in Europe, but they will run a roller coaster in the snow.
01:23:15
Speaker
Yeah,
Upcoming Seasonal Events and Speculations
01:23:16
Speaker
everywhere.
01:23:16
Speaker
Some of these videos that you see out of those parks are crazy.
01:23:21
Speaker
Like fly and Taryn just going through Hyperion.
01:23:23
Speaker
Remember that Hyperion?
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:25
Speaker
Covered in snow and they just ran it.
01:23:27
Speaker
Like what is happening?
01:23:29
Speaker
Whatever.
01:23:30
Speaker
I don't know.
01:23:31
Speaker
Um,
01:23:32
Speaker
Wild Wild West out there.
01:23:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:34
Speaker
But it seems like most modern launch coasters, as long as you program that in, like you can speed up the launch or do whatever you need to make it complete the course so you can still run it.
01:23:44
Speaker
I don't know.
01:23:45
Speaker
Can you imagine?
01:23:46
Speaker
That sounds so fun.
01:23:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:49
Speaker
All right.
01:23:50
Speaker
So that's winding down for the winter season discussion.
01:23:54
Speaker
Because we are now a spinoff discussing all of the seasons, we wanted to talk a little bit about upcoming events that are on the way.
01:24:04
Speaker
And the first one we wanted to briefly mention is actually related to a Buzz Bars event that's coming up.
01:24:10
Speaker
Which one is that, Kelly?
01:24:12
Speaker
That is Sunshine Stumble down in Tampa.
01:24:16
Speaker
On the weekend of January 24th to 26th.
01:24:20
Speaker
That sounds right.
01:24:22
Speaker
Yep.
01:24:24
Speaker
We will be at Busch Gardens on Saturday the 25th.
01:24:27
Speaker
But they have an event going on.
01:24:31
Speaker
Mardi Gras.
01:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, so they have Barney Grau.
01:24:36
Speaker
It's very, when it comes to their booth, their food booths and the festivities, it's very similar to the Christmas events that they have at both BGT and SeaWorld.
01:24:46
Speaker
I'm sure the same as BGW as well.
01:24:48
Speaker
But you'll have a lot of food options there.
01:24:51
Speaker
They do have lanyard options as well, which you can have discounted if you have an annual pass.
01:24:57
Speaker
And yeah, it's a really fun time.
01:25:01
Speaker
They have the parades, you know, they'll have a lot of beads to throw and all of that.
01:25:05
Speaker
So it's a good time.
01:25:07
Speaker
So along with the perks that we'll be getting with Buzzbars for the event, we'll also have that, you know, little bonus by having all of the cool Mardi Gras festivities going on.
01:25:18
Speaker
Have you tried any of the food before?
01:25:20
Speaker
Yes.
01:25:21
Speaker
So the beignets are really good.
01:25:23
Speaker
That makes sense.
01:25:24
Speaker
So good.
01:25:25
Speaker
And then they do have really good jambalaya as well.
01:25:28
Speaker
So, I mean, it's pretty generic to Mardi Gras, but it's so good.
01:25:31
Speaker
It is so good.
01:25:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:33
Speaker
And then they have a bunch of different cool options.
01:25:35
Speaker
Like they had a...
01:25:39
Speaker
I tried like a, it was like a s'mores whiskey or something like that.
01:25:46
Speaker
So yeah, so they have, it's very like, you know, you'll find your generic Mardi Gras, like beignets and jambalaya stuff, but then you'll also have some cool things that are, you know, pretty new.
01:25:56
Speaker
And, you know, to me, they were pretty new.
01:25:58
Speaker
So I'm sure it'll be new to a lot of people as well.
01:26:00
Speaker
So a bunch of cool offerings that they have there.
01:26:03
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:26:05
Speaker
I'm excited to have a little bit of something different going on because I've been to that park, you know, several times.
01:26:12
Speaker
Hey, as long as I and Gwazi is open, I'm happy.
01:26:14
Speaker
That's right.
01:26:15
Speaker
Exactly.
01:26:15
Speaker
Well, and Phoenix Rising.
01:26:16
Speaker
I need that to be open.
01:26:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:18
Speaker
Same.
01:26:20
Speaker
Have you written that yet, Rafa?
01:26:22
Speaker
Not yet.
01:26:22
Speaker
Not yet.
01:26:23
Speaker
I'm going to finally write it during the symbol.
01:26:25
Speaker
I feel like all of us are going to be plus one-ing Phoenix Rising.
01:26:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:26:28
Speaker
Rope drop, Phoenix Rising.
01:26:30
Speaker
That's exactly what's going to happen.
01:26:31
Speaker
That's right.
01:26:33
Speaker
So be prepared, bus bars.
01:26:37
Speaker
Cool.
01:26:39
Speaker
So that's on the way.
01:26:41
Speaker
And we just wanted to throw out there that, you know, there's lots of different events that happen over the course of spring and summer.
01:26:48
Speaker
And we'll probably cover some of those on a future episode if we end up going to some of those events like.
01:26:55
Speaker
There's St.
01:26:55
Speaker
Patrick's, there's food and wine events, there's July 4th fireworks, other summer events that are like brews and bites or barbecue fest or all kinds of stuff like that.
01:27:04
Speaker
So we'll see if anything like that comes up.
01:27:08
Speaker
And the last seasonal event that we want to look forward to is our favorite, Kelly.
01:27:14
Speaker
What is it?
01:27:15
Speaker
It's HHN.
01:27:17
Speaker
Speculation season is here, BBs.
01:27:22
Speaker
LFG.
01:27:23
Speaker
LFG.
01:27:25
Speaker
LFG.
01:27:28
Speaker
So what's new, Kelly?
01:27:30
Speaker
I have taken a little break from my HHN podcast.
01:27:34
Speaker
I need to catch up on a couple of those.
01:27:36
Speaker
Some of them are already talking speculation for next year.
01:27:40
Speaker
There's definitely some activity going on in the Reddit's world.
01:27:46
Speaker
I figured we could just quickly pull up.
01:27:50
Speaker
I don't like...
01:27:51
Speaker
love to speculate about the IPs as much because like I said, when we did our HHN episode, I'm not like a big horror movie fan.
01:28:01
Speaker
I enjoy them, but I don't like, I'm not like a fan of IPs generally.
01:28:06
Speaker
I usually will watch or catch up on an IP that is going to be at the event.
01:28:10
Speaker
So like those don't excite me as much, but some of the ones that have been mentioned a lot recently have been a
01:28:19
Speaker
Last of Us 2 I've seen a little bit about, which that was actually the one house last year that I didn't get to see.
01:28:26
Speaker
So I don't really have much to say about that, but I've seen a lot of Terrifier.
01:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, I heard about that recently as well.
01:28:34
Speaker
Some people have been talking...
01:28:38
Speaker
about Megan since Megan's getting a new movie and there's been like the Megan horde and then the Megan in the Blumhouse scare zone this past year.
01:28:48
Speaker
So I don't know if they would do some people have mentioned the success of them doing like the Blumhouse double feature where, um, major sweets was in the fast and furious plot.
01:29:00
Speaker
How I think it was two years ago, they did like black phone.
01:29:05
Speaker
And then in like the one half,
01:29:07
Speaker
when it was still a split house, they did two Blumhouse features in there.
01:29:12
Speaker
So doing something like a Megan where it can be a little bit shorter of a house and then maybe another Blumhouse movie in the other part some people have been talking about.
01:29:22
Speaker
I don't know if you guys have heard of any other like IPs people have been throwing around.
01:29:28
Speaker
Five Nights at Freddy's?
01:29:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:32
Speaker
I don't know anything about that, but I keep hearing it.
01:29:36
Speaker
I've also heard about Smile, Smiler.
01:29:38
Speaker
Smile, yeah.
01:29:39
Speaker
Smile, yeah.
01:29:41
Speaker
I feel like the tricky thing right now when it comes to IPs is that it sounds like some things will be greenlit and then next thing you know, it's like, nope, they've been scrapped because whatever reason, you know, it's an IP.
01:29:53
Speaker
So, I mean, we'll have more confirmation as we get closer, but... Yeah, I think it's, a lot of people speculate based off of what movies are coming out, like, within this time frame, but I feel like
01:30:05
Speaker
that can't even be that reliable because like exorcist, they did the house before they had movie even came out two years ago.
01:30:12
Speaker
So it's like, who knows, who knows what they're going to do.
01:30:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:15
Speaker
Stuff just changes so much this early on.
01:30:18
Speaker
I'm just not a huge speculator.
01:30:20
Speaker
Like I'll start paying attention in like July.
01:30:23
Speaker
That's when I start to care.
01:30:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:26
Speaker
Be prepared for a longer episode then about it.
01:30:30
Speaker
I enjoy more speculation about the universal like originals because I feel like a lot of those concepts are new and exciting.
01:30:38
Speaker
And it's like, Ooh, what are they going to do with that?
01:30:40
Speaker
The one thing that really, when we, I shared a,
01:30:43
Speaker
like a Reddit post a little while in our chat, the one that really excited me was somebody had mentioned a Lady Gaga house and that,
01:30:52
Speaker
would be sick.
01:30:56
Speaker
I love houses that are themed after like musical acts or performers.
01:31:00
Speaker
I feel like it's such a unique twist on what they can do in a house.
01:31:03
Speaker
I would live for that.
01:31:06
Speaker
I could see them doing aspects of different music videos that she's done because she's got some weird like crazy characters.
01:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, I love that.
01:31:16
Speaker
That could be very, very fun.
01:31:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:20
Speaker
And then
01:31:21
Speaker
The other big one is they were pretty clear about with Slaughter Cinema 2 trying to maybe see which room would make a good full house like they did with Slaughter Cinema, the original, and then the Yeti.
01:31:36
Speaker
So I don't know.
01:31:37
Speaker
I've heard people say a lot of different things.
01:31:40
Speaker
A lot of people like that first room, the Mardi Gras murders room, how that could potentially be a full house.
01:31:47
Speaker
And some people were saying like the
01:31:51
Speaker
the spaghetti Western, I forget what room that was mentioned, but like that kind of style of house.
01:32:01
Speaker
One would be pretty cool because they already have some props already.
01:32:04
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:32:05
Speaker
And then, and I feel like that one had a pretty full story when I kind of listened to the background of it, like the guy that a couple was there and they were celebrating their engagement and,
01:32:15
Speaker
In the scene, there was supposed to be like a ring box on the table, which I didn't actually see when we were going through because I was like, when's this guy going to puke on me?
01:32:24
Speaker
But then she was like out on the balcony.
01:32:25
Speaker
I don't know.
01:32:26
Speaker
There seemed like there was a little bit more of a backstory that could be expanded upon for that one.
01:32:29
Speaker
But it'll be interesting to see.
01:32:31
Speaker
And I don't even know that they would do that this year, like right after if they would wait a little while before they bring it, bring something like that back.
01:32:39
Speaker
I would be excited for any of them just to make that connection.
01:32:42
Speaker
That would be really fun to see one of those get expanded to a full house.
01:32:47
Speaker
Definitely.
01:32:48
Speaker
And we'll see what happens with scare zones.
01:32:51
Speaker
Do they keep getting worse?
01:32:53
Speaker
Hopefully it doesn't get worse.
01:32:55
Speaker
Hopefully it doesn't get worse.
01:32:56
Speaker
They did confirm.
01:32:59
Speaker
I saw somewhere that they were talking about that.
01:33:01
Speaker
The website had confirmed that it starts in August again this year.
01:33:05
Speaker
Yes.
01:33:05
Speaker
Oh, I did see that.
01:33:06
Speaker
It's starting early.
01:33:08
Speaker
August to November, it says.
01:33:11
Speaker
Crazy.
01:33:15
Speaker
How much more can they expand the season?
01:33:18
Speaker
Keep doing it.
01:33:20
Speaker
That's the thing.
01:33:21
Speaker
The demand is there.
01:33:22
Speaker
It's crazy.
01:33:23
Speaker
It's going to Vegas.
01:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
01:33:26
Speaker
We didn't even talk about that last time.
01:33:27
Speaker
That's a confirmed 2025, right?
01:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, 2025.
01:33:36
Speaker
That'll get me to Vegas if anything will.
01:33:38
Speaker
Do we know how many houses are inside of that building yet?
01:33:42
Speaker
They mentioned that there were like three properties in there.
01:33:45
Speaker
That's pretty good.
01:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, they mentioned, I believe it was Exorcist Believer.
01:33:49
Speaker
Scarecrow.
01:33:52
Speaker
Scarecrow, which was incredible.
01:33:54
Speaker
The original house was incredible.
01:33:55
Speaker
You did it, Tyler?
01:33:56
Speaker
I didn't, but I've heard so many good things about it.
01:33:59
Speaker
It's so good.
01:34:00
Speaker
Such a good house.
01:34:01
Speaker
And then I think it was Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the third one.
01:34:06
Speaker
So pretty solid.
01:34:07
Speaker
I'm very excited.
01:34:09
Speaker
I wonder if it's successful, if they'll deploy that model in other cities.
01:34:15
Speaker
God, I can only hope.
01:34:17
Speaker
Philadelphia, please.
01:34:20
Speaker
Philadelphia is scary enough.
01:34:22
Speaker
New York, I could see happening.
01:34:24
Speaker
I mean, the real estate is probably an issue, but maybe like somewhere in New Jersey, like out of the city.
01:34:28
Speaker
But yeah.
01:34:30
Speaker
Well, stay tuned.
01:34:32
Speaker
We will talk about it as much as y'all are willing to hear.
01:34:36
Speaker
Or not willing.
01:34:37
Speaker
I'll talk about it regardless.
01:34:40
Speaker
And let us know of any events that might be coming that we might not know about.
01:34:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:45
Speaker
So it's the one of them.
01:34:47
Speaker
We can talk about it here.
01:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of our...
01:34:50
Speaker
our last thing on the way out here was to talk about what our most anticipated seasonal event in 2025 is.
01:34:57
Speaker
And I know Kelly's answer and probably Rafa's answer and probably Tyler's answer.
01:35:02
Speaker
Yep.
01:35:03
Speaker
Is HHN.
01:35:05
Speaker
Always.
01:35:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:08
Speaker
I only refrain from saying that cause I don't know if I'll go, but I'll probably get convinced at some point.
01:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
01:35:18
Speaker
I know.
01:35:19
Speaker
No, you are my planning partner in crime.
01:35:21
Speaker
This is true.
01:35:22
Speaker
This is true.
01:35:23
Speaker
Whenever I'm like, oh my God, it's not going according to plan.
01:35:26
Speaker
What do we do next?
01:35:27
Speaker
I look to Joey as if he knows.
01:35:32
Speaker
I did make a map this year.
01:35:33
Speaker
I will say that of the entrances and exits.
01:35:37
Speaker
So I got involved.
01:35:38
Speaker
We're going.
01:35:38
Speaker
We'll be there.
01:35:39
Speaker
We'll be there.
01:35:42
Speaker
It's hard not to say something else when you have that kind of like stuck in your head as something to look forward to.
01:35:49
Speaker
And the scale of it is, you know, like so much bigger.
01:35:52
Speaker
It's just so good.
01:35:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:54
Speaker
And
Closing and Listener Engagement
01:35:55
Speaker
I'm not going to go back to Fantasula next year, so I can't say that.
01:36:00
Speaker
I should go to Christmastown next year.
01:36:01
Speaker
That's what I should do.
01:36:02
Speaker
It's been a while.
01:36:03
Speaker
It's been a couple of years.
01:36:04
Speaker
I hate that you have to pay extra to get into it, but yeah, I should go.
01:36:08
Speaker
Cool.
01:36:10
Speaker
So I guess that's all for us today.
01:36:12
Speaker
Does anybody have anything else they want to say?
01:36:15
Speaker
I don't think so.
01:36:16
Speaker
I think we're good.
01:36:19
Speaker
Let us know if there's stuff.
01:36:22
Speaker
We're still trying to kind of find our way and see how often we're going to do a little episode like this or what it's going to become.
01:36:29
Speaker
So if you like it, if you don't like it, we don't really care.
01:36:34
Speaker
We like doing it.
01:36:35
Speaker
But yeah, let us know what you're interested in hearing.
01:36:37
Speaker
And maybe we'll be back in...
01:36:43
Speaker
Maybe we'll say like the end of winter, early spring with another episode.
01:36:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:48
Speaker
At the very least after Mardi Gras.
01:36:51
Speaker
We'll be able to talk about that.
01:36:52
Speaker
True, true.
01:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, we will be able to talk about that.
01:36:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:56
Speaker
Exciting things to come.
01:36:57
Speaker
TBD.
01:36:59
Speaker
Cool.
01:36:59
Speaker
Please stand by, as TDR would say.
01:37:01
Speaker
Please stand by.
01:37:02
Speaker
Hold, please.
01:37:03
Speaker
Hold, please.
01:37:07
Speaker
All right, well, that's all.
01:37:08
Speaker
All right, everybody.
01:37:09
Speaker
Happy holidays.
01:37:10
Speaker
Merry Christmas.
01:37:11
Speaker
Happy New Year.
01:37:12
Speaker
Santa Claus emoji if you watched all the way through.
01:37:17
Speaker
If you listened.
01:37:17
Speaker
Wait, what was the emoji?
01:37:19
Speaker
I'm watching you guys.
01:37:21
Speaker
Drop a Santa Claus in the chat if you made it this far, which I'll say we were significantly shorter than last time.
01:37:28
Speaker
Let's go.
01:37:29
Speaker
We did it.
01:37:29
Speaker
All right, everybody.
01:37:30
Speaker
Bye.
01:37:30
Speaker
Bye-bye.