Welcome And The Big Surprise

Intro 0:03

Please stand clear of the doors. Please stand clear of the doors.

Alicea 0:23

Hello everyone. I'm Alicea.

Nathan 0:25

And I'm Nathan.

Alicea 0:26

Welcome to episode 237 of Adventures and Mouse Capades. This week, we're going epic.

Nathan 0:33

This is gonna be an epic episode.

Alicea 0:36

Exactly. We have strayed from the mouse on part of our last vacation here.

Nathan 0:43

Dear Mickey, please forgive us.

Alicea 0:45

Yes, we have sinned. This last vacation for us was kind of a celebration for Caitlin for her turning 21. Yeah. And one of the things that she has talked about was how much she wanted to go visit Epic Universe. And frankly, so did everybody else.

Nathan 1:05

Yes. Exactly.

Alicea 1:07

So we had this be a surprise.

Nathan 1:09

Yes. We did not say we were going to do it.

Alicea 1:12

No.

Nathan 1:13

We were going for a Disney trip, and we will cover that over the next couple episodes. But we surprised the kiddos and decided to spend a couple nights at the Helios Grand Hotel, which is right there at the brand new Universal Epic Universe. Universe.

Alicea 1:35

It's Universal Epic Universe.

Nathan 1:37

It's

Alicea 1:38

not universals.

Nathan 1:39

No.

Alicea 1:40

It's Universal Epic Universe.

Nathan 1:42

Yeah. I don't can we work on naming guys.

Alicea 1:46

You know what? All the theme parks are not great at naming things. It's either too long or convoluted or whatever.

Nathan 1:53

It's all right. Our own company can't name things either.

Alicea 1:56

So yes, this was a surprise. The kids did not know that we were going or that we were staying at the Helios. Now when we were going over there in the car, because we went directly from the airport over to the Helios Hotel. Grand Helios, whatever it is. Helios Grand.

Nathan 2:14

Um yeah,

Alicea 2:19

when we were driving over there, there's a sp there's a certain spot where Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn and I think Sterling too, were like, um

Nathan 2:27

Right. This this is the exit for Universal. We're like, yeah, we're we're gonna go to dinner.

Alicea 2:34

Yeah. There's a there's a dinner or a bar slash restaurant at the hotel that looked really cool on some of the vlogs that we watched. So we're gonna go have dinner there.

Nathan 2:44

Right.

Alicea 2:44

I mean, we were because I made reservations.

Nathan 2:47

That was a that was a truthful statement. And then we pulled around to the valet circle in the front of the hotel, and we took the bags out. So uh yes, they quickly kind of figured out like, wait, what? Yeah, oh boy.

Alicea 3:06

So, but we didn't say what we were doing, we just said we're gonna stay overnight. Of course, they're smart.

Nathan 3:12

Right. No, they were like, Yeah, we're going to the parks.

Alicea 3:14

Yeah, we're going to the parks, yeah.

Nathan 3:15

I think one of the valets there was like, so you go into the park tomorrow? And uh we just kind of like, maybe. Yes. So they knew we were going to the park uh that evening. That said, they didn't know what they know what that would entail. And we'll get to that here in a little bit.

First Impressions Of Helios Grand

Alicea 3:36

Uh lobby of this, Nathan, you wrote some notes here, and I fully agree with you. Uh, reminded me of the Riviera as well.

Nathan 3:42

Yeah. Yeah. It's not as grand of a lobby as I was expecting.

Alicea 3:47

Yeah.

Nathan 3:47

You know, I've seen, or maybe you, dear listener, have seen like these pictures of bar Helios and this circular bar, and the the ceiling is painted with like constellations, and it's this deep rich blue, and it's just stunningly gorgeous. And the lobby was nice.

Alicea 4:12

No, I thought it was I thought it was very pretty. It's it's more of the sun side rather than the evening side, I think.

Nathan 4:20

It felt like a DVC resort rather than a Disney like hotel resort. And I mean that by like it is an understated lobby. It uh does not have the impact of walking into the Grand Floridian or the Polynesian or Wilderness Lodge or even Aulani to a certain degree, um, where those are very tall, expansive lobby spaces that suck you in and start telling a story right there. It was just different. I it was not what I was expecting.

Alicea 4:55

It was very, I thought it was very pretty though. Um you walk in, you see what is that, like a two-story bay of windows straight ahead of you that look out directly onto Epic Universe, onto the park itself, which is pretty darn cool.

Nathan 5:12

Yes, it is the celestial park area and specifically the main fountain there,

Alicea 5:17

yeah.

Nathan 5:17

Uh where they do the evening show. Now, interestingly, I mentioned Aulani. This does you know remind me of Aulani, where you are drawn through from the front door, yeah, kind of through the lobby to a patio beyond a large set of windows where you can go out and survey, you know, in this case it's a theme park in Aulani You have you know the that whole center courtyard area with the lazy river and the pools and the volcano water slides and the ocean beyond. So, I mean, it's definitely eye-catching. And um, yeah, I guess I want to circle back and uh don't hear what we're saying as saying that this is not a nice or pretty or very styled or you know, it's a great modern, um, very clean, uh uh designed hotel. It's just not what I was expecting.

Alicea 6:12

Okay, it wasn't what I was expecting. I don't know what I was expecting. I thought the the decor in here was just gorgeously done. It is subtle and the touches that they have are beautiful. It's very nicely done, I thought.

Nathan 6:27

I thought the Helios bar was in the lobby.

Alicea 6:30

Oh

Nathan 6:31

so I walked in expecting to see like that as the centerpiece with the painted ceiling and like this, it is a show feature of the and it's it's like it's oh, this is different.

Alicea 6:45

That was no, I I knew it was all the way up at the top, so I don't know if that that may have tainted your view a little bit of it. Who knows?

Nathan 6:53

It's not tainted, it was just like, oh, I was expecting this huge show bar to be here, and it's not. And it was just like I just had to reset what I thought I was walking into. Um, as you do walk in, there is the Flora Taverna restaurant, and uh which also has a very nice bar there on the left. And then off to the right, you have the Aurora Market, which is kind of like a grab and go quick serve, um, light bites kind of place for food. There's also a Universal Studios merch store, and then there's the hallway off to the elevators to get up to uh the rest of the hotel and Helios bar up top. And of course, beyond that, you have the Helios Grand Hotel's dedicated entrance into the theme park.

Alicea 7:43

Yes. And um check-in, we did check in, and it it was a very long check-in. I'm not entirely sure why. It was just one guy.

Nathan 7:52

No, they had two people working.

Alicea 7:53

No, I meant it was like sorry, there wasn't anybody in front of us. Somebody jumped in to ask a quick question, but nobody else was checking in in front of us. It it did seem to take a long time.

Nathan 8:03

I want to say it was 20 minutes. Yeah. Like it was I I don't know, I I don't know what he was doing for 20 minutes.

Alicea 8:13

Uh maybe the system just wasn't cooperating. Um, he did say, like, somebody had come in and was asking about the Helios bar, and I think his name was Adam who was checking us in.

Nathan 8:24

Okay.

Alicea 8:25

Uh, he did say if you don't have reservations, the likelihood of you getting a seat up there is very low.

Nathan 8:32

Huh.

Alicea 8:33

Because of the timing.

Nathan 8:35

Oh, later in the evening.

Alicea 8:37

Later in the evening, because you can see the nighttime show that the park puts on from the Helios bar.

Nathan 8:44

Right, right. Now Helios, yeah. We should say that nighttime show as of uh just a few days ago completely changed. Yes. Uh we were recording this on Saturday, July 11th, and we were there, I want to say it was like Monday, the June 22nd, third, something like that. Yeah. So that show has changed. They have added fireworks. We'll talk about that here in a

Bar Helios Dinner And Nighttime Show

Nathan 9:12

second. But if you go to Bar Helios to see the nighttime show today, you will not see the entirety of the show because you won't be able to see the fireworks that are effectively going off behind you.

Alicea 9:26

Yeah. But you'll be able to see all the lights and everything else that happens in the park itself.

Nathan 9:34

Oh, absolutely. And you'll be able to enjoy some incredible drinks that are on this restaurant's menu. Um, and I think the food that we had, we went there for dinner, spoiler alert. We had an eight o'clock reservation uh or eight fifteen, something like that. And it's kind of basically like a tapas.

Alicea 9:55

They said that it's like a tapas menu.

Nathan 9:56

Yeah.

Alicea 9:57

Um, heavy appetizer type things. Yeah.

Nathan 9:59

Yeah. And we had like an antipasto plate, uh, some beef medallions, risotto a limone with asparagus, and some bacalo croquettes, which is basically a fish, like a salted cod. We all enjoyed

Alicea 10:17

it was very good.

Nathan 10:18

All of the plates.

Alicea 10:19

Yeah.

Nathan 10:19

The presentation was gorgeous as well. Especially the I don't really like risotto because I don't like the overly creamy texture of it. But this risotto was really good. The asparagus that came with it was fantastic. And the presentation was stunning. It's like a literally like a hollowed-out log chunk that they've turned into a bowl. Like it still has bark on the outside and all the rest of that stuff. I mean, clearly it's actually sealed. Yeah.

Alicea 10:52

And they just take and it just looks like they're presenting you with a chunk of wood.

Nathan 10:57

Right. But there's food inside.

Alicea 10:59

And it's delicious.

Nathan 11:00

Yeah. It's if you are hungry and want to go somewhere to have you know some food and can get a reservation, I suppose, would be, or at least later in the evening, make sure you have a reservation. Uh, this is a great spot. And then inside is just gorgeous. Yes, the ceiling and everything over the bar is uh decorated in kind of the constellations of Greek mythology. Um, things are labeled and stuff like that. There's all sorts of stuff going on. It's we'll post pictures of this.

Alicea 11:33

It's very pretty,

Nathan 11:34

it's gorgeous. Yeah, it is absolutely gorgeous.

Alicea 11:38

Highly recommended to go here, not only for the food and drinks, but if you can stick around for the the show that goes on in the park, it's really it's it's really neat, especially if you are seated outside, makes it really easy to see.

Nathan 11:51

And the the show is stunning. And for us, we didn't, it wasn't fireworks uh with this show. Um, again, that hadn't started yet, but it's a fountain show. So think of kind of like the Bellagio kind of thing in Vegas going off.

Alicea 12:06

World of color.

Nathan 12:07

Yes, world of color, great example. Although there weren't projections into the fountain.

Alicea 12:12

This is true, yeah.

Nathan 12:13

Um, and then the the lighting across the whole theme park. Because when you are sitting at the top of the the Grand Helios Hotel or Helios Grand or whichever order those words fall, you have a view. You are basically at the very back of the park, you are opposite the front entrance, and you can see all of the portals, all of the all of the lands, and the lighting throughout the whole park is synchronized to this show. So, from your point of view, you're seeing like these color pops and and lights come on and off and change color and do things and make designs like across this whole like was it a hundred-acre or some odd uh uh theme park, all coordinated at the same time perfectly in sync. It was really impressive from a technical standpoint and just an artistic standpoint.

Alicea 13:10

It was just phenomenal to watch. It was absolutely gorgeous. The technology involved in getting all that synchronized to even imagine.

Nathan 13:17

Yeah. Uh that was definitely running through my head like this is complicated. This is there's some engineering and some money that was thrown into this. So I can only imagine what this will look like uh when you with this new show. Um, that would be really interesting to see. Although I'd want to see the new show from from within the park.

Alicea 13:39

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of the new show, we'll we'll talk about the hotel room in just a second. But speaking of the new show, we got a sheet of paper saying that there might be fireworks testing going on in the evening.

Nathan 13:54

Yeah. So they were basically saying, hey, at what was it? It was like at 10 15.

Alicea 13:59

10 15, no later than 11 o'clock. As early as 1015, no later than 11 o'clock, there may or may not be some fireworks testing going on.

Nathan 14:08

Right. If if all of our gear works, yes, at some point in that window, there's gonna be a show.

Alicea 14:13

Yeah.

Nathan 14:14

We hung out by the pool, and uh, we didn't go down to the pool. The pool looked gorgeous, by the way.

Alicea 14:20

Yeah,

Nathan 14:21

but all of the cabanas were closed, and so we just hung out like right at the cabanas on the loungers there.

Alicea 14:29

Perfect spot.

Nathan 14:31

And and the firing off point for the fireworks is in the middle of this pond that is in front of the hotel when the pool is on the that pond side, not the theme park side. So we basically had this amazing view of the fireworks going off effectively just about right over our heads. Yeah. And there was some lighting, and I were there some like flares or something that went off from from Darkmoor.

Alicea 15:01

From where we were sitting, we could see part of the Frankenstein Manor.

Nathan 15:05

Right.

Alicea 15:05

Just like hanging out above the tree line to our left. And yes, they had some like small fireworks, perimeter firework type things going off there from Darkmoor and lighting, different lighting changes and stuff like that.

Nathan 15:19

It was kind of like this, like the little flares they'll pop off. Disney will do like from the castle.

Alicea 15:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan 15:25

Nothing big, but just a yay, color. Yeah. And this show was intense. This is like from a fireworks show. We did not have any of the music.

Alicea 15:37

No, so we just had the fireworks.

Nathan 15:39

This is just fireworks, but it was amazing, and we were close to it, so uh it was quite percussive, and the finale was fantastic.

Alicea 15:50

Yes, that was one of the brightest finales I think I've ever seen. So this is um, this is current now. On July 7th, they debuted it, which is the first major nighttime firework spectacular that Epic Universe has had, and it is called Universal Celestial Goodnight.

Nathan 16:07

There you go. I would recommend attending this show if you're there in the evening. Uh it really seems worth it. Uh, they've done a lot at this theme park to lean into having a nighttime show. And uh it it to me it's paid off. And the really cool thing is around that central fountain, they actually have seating like built in. It's like uh, you know, there aren't chairs, but it's like stepped uh, you know, grass and concrete, basically seating kind of yeah, like a you know, a 200-degree arc, 230-degree arc around it with the open side of that facing the hotel. And so that would be an incredible spot from which to watch the show go off with the fountain right there and fireworks above it and all the lighting around from the lands. Uh that would be an amazing, an amazing experience. Yes, I'm sure. And I'm sure uh if you really want to see it, if you go on YouTube, there will be some vloggers who have uh shown the show at this point.

Alicea 17:11

Oh, yeah. I'm sure yeah.

Park View Room And Tech Quirks

Alicea 17:13

So our room.

Nathan 17:14

Yes,

Alicea 17:15

we were on the seventh floor, and the room we got was a Park View Deluxe. It was two queen beds plus a sleeper sofa. It so it slept five people. Um, it was pretty much at the dead center of the hotel, overlooking Celestial Park, the the back part of Epic Universe, directly opposite the main entrance. Yeah. This had great views of the park.

Nathan 17:37

Yes. Uh we we loved, you know, getting to see what was going on, you know, see people queuing up for like the nighttime show and things like that before we went to dinner. When we got up uh the two mornings that we were there because we stayed two nights, we could see people queuing to get into the park for early entry or for rope drop and watch lands open and you know, various uh uh shows and things like that, like at the fountain and and things start up at the the very beginning of the day. And it was it was a gorgeous view. It's a really very comfortable room.

Alicea 18:14

Yeah, and you could see people um queuing up like g once they came into the park, because they let people into the park before opening time, but they wouldn't let people into the different portals until opening time. So you had people queuing up for Nintendo Land and people queuing up for um Harry Potter.

Nathan 18:33

Yes, yes. No real complaints other than that iPad was a little weird. Um there they have an iPad on the nightstand kind of between the two beds, and I couldn't find a way to turn off the TV. They had like stuffed the TV remote like in a drawer somewhere. I think it was in the dresser. It wasn't even at the nightstand or something.

Alicea 18:57

No, it wasn't even at the nightstand, it was like uh in one of the odd dresser drawers. So right.

Nathan 19:02

Thankfully, the the iPad, like its default screen, had like a TV power button on it. I was like, okay, well, at least we could do this. But it's it was just it's just clunky. Like I know we love leaning into all the technology, but like sometimes just a regular light switch is really cool too. They have motorized shades for like the blackout curtains for the windows and for the shears.

Alicea 19:26

Yeah, that was cool. I do like that.

Nathan 19:28

It was cool, but sometimes the buttons worked, sometimes they didn't. You know, it was funny that the second morning as we were getting ready to check out, I was holding the button down because when I had opened them the prior mornings, you know, I had to hold it down because I would push it and it would go like a foot and nothing would happen, and when they go backwards and blah blah blah. It's like so I just held it down to open it. And so I did that the next morning and it just went all the way. It's Sterling's like, you don't have to hold it down. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I yeah, I do. Maybe you have magic, but I I lack said magic. So yeah, it was you know one of those technology aspirations. Again, I I would just love a light switch.

Alicea 20:07

I don't think it's necessarily an aspiration. I think the problem with this is people.

Nathan 20:12

Oh, yes, 100%.

Alicea 20:14

Yeah. Uh I think if this was in a residential home, it would work perfectly. It would work fine. But because this is not an everyday thing in homes, people don't know how to use it. And so it gets broken. Uh people misuse it and and mess it up, and yeah.

Nathan 20:31

Yeah, yeah. It's the hotel equivalent of nothing corners like a rental.

Alicea 20:35

Yeah, exactly.

Why We Booked A VIP Tour

Alicea 20:37

So all right, let's talk the big day.

Nathan 20:41

So, what the kids didn't realize, because they figured we'd go in early and rope drop and stuff like that, and we just said, no, we have a different strategy.

Alicea 20:48

We have a plan.

Nathan 20:49

Yeah,

Alicea 20:49

we have a plan.

Nathan 20:50

We had a 9 a.m. check-in time at one of the desks there down in the lobby for a private VIP tour. And yeah, we went bougie on this. We figured

Alicea 21:04

This was pricey.

Nathan 21:04

This was yes, this was very pricey, but this was also probably we're we're mostly a Disney family. Uh, this is probably the one time we'll stay at the Helios.

Alicea 21:19

Yeah.

Nathan 21:19

It was worth it to us to knowing we only had one day and we wanted to basically kind of do everything, having a VIP tour was the way to do that.

Alicea 21:29

There and there are a couple other factors that made this well worth the money in my mind. Um, one of which being the heat.

Nathan 21:37

Oh, yeah.

Alicea 21:38

It was ridiculously hot out.

Nathan 21:42

Yeah. It was mid 90s with a 10 plus degree Real Feel penalty on top of that. It was bright and sunny. It was pretty insane outside.

Alicea 21:54

It was intense.

Nathan 21:55

Yeah.

Alicea 21:56

Yeah. Um, and because it's a park we'd never been to, we were Not familiar with it at all. And having somebody who knew the park and knew where we should go when really helped out immensely.

Nathan 22:08

Absolutely. Plus, we had a recommendation on a tour guide to go with uh from from our new friend of the show, Len Testa. Uh, and and yeah, that that worked out great. So Logan S uh cannot recommend Logan highly enough.

Alicea 22:27

Yeah.

Nathan 22:27

He was amazing.

Alicea 22:28

He was incredible.

Nathan 22:29

Yes.

Alicea 22:30

Um, so let's say we did a check-in at 9.15 in the lobby. Because we were staying at the hotel, we had an option to either stay at the hotel and have the host meet us there, or we could have gone to the very front of the park to where the actual VIP check-in is and checked in there. And then they would have brought us back to where we had breakfast. Um, but because uh we didn't want to walk that much,

Nathan 22:54

yeah.

Alicea 22:55

We thought it would make more sense to have them meet us at uh the hotel itself. Uh we also had two people joining us. Two of our friends were with us. Yeah, we had Rachel from HR and Heather

Nathan 23:07

from not HR.

Alicea 23:08

From not HR, yeah.

Nathan 23:11

Actually, Logan met them up at the front of the park and then walked back. So we met everybody in the hotel lobby at 9 15, and Logan had our passes and credentials and tickets and all the rest of that stuff, and we were off and running. And by running, I mean casually strolling because our first stop of the day was an included breakfast.

Alicea 23:37

Mm-hmm. We got to have breakfast at the Oak and Star. And this is in Celestial Park next to the portal to dark universe, so kind of back towards the hotel.

Nathan 23:48

Yeah.

Alicea 23:49

So they have this basically, I think, closed off for just the VIP starting, which is interesting because they usually have breakfast available for folks.

Nathan 23:59

So I think we needed to get there before a certain time. And then right after we got there, they opened it for Gen Pop.

Alicea 24:07

Got it.

Nathan 24:08

Uh, but we were, yeah, front of the line.

Alicea 24:11

All right.

Nathan 24:12

And the interesting thing is both for breakfast and for lunch, your food is expedited. So they will fire your food and bring it out to your table like ASAP versus it being in the queue.

Alicea 24:29

Yeah.

Nathan 24:29

Which I don't know that made a huge difference at breakfast because we were kind of the first parties in. Definitely made a difference at lunch.

Alicea 24:35

Yeah. So the Oak and Star Tavern is kind of a has a barbecue-ish feel to it for their food. So for breakfast, I think most of us got the traditional Southern, which retails for $12.99. It is two eggs, French fries, barbecue bacon, and brioche toast, and it was delicious.

Nathan 24:57

Yes.

Alicea 24:57

Um, I think some of the other folks in our party, I think somebody got the brulee Hawaiian mango bread, which is $11.99, and that is mango bread with pineapple, strawberry, whipped cream, and toasted coconut served with scrambled eggs and bacon. And then somebody else got the chorizo and eggs, I think, which is $11.99. That is spicy tomato and pepper stew, chorizo, baked eggs, feta, and brioche toast. So pretty much everything on this menu sounded amazing.

Nathan 25:30

Yes.

Alicea 25:30

Like I would go back here for breakfast, I think.

Nathan 25:33

Yeah, 100%.

Alicea 25:34

Of course, I don't know what the other breakfasts in the park are like, but this was a good one. We enjoyed it.

Nathan 25:38

Yeah.

Alicea 25:39

And um, we asked Logan to sit down with us and have breakfast with us so we could get to know him a little bit more.

Nathan 25:45

He was surprised at. We were like,

Alicea 25:46

He was very surprised at that.

Nathan 25:48

Yeah. What do you mean people wouldn't invite you to breakfast? Like, that's insane. Like he'd already had breakfast, so he didn't he didn't get anything, but it was great to start off the day kind of getting to know him a little better. Yeah. And he got to know us and understand that, you know, we're a little, you know, insane at times. And it's fine. We're fun people.

Alicea 26:07

Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Nathan 26:09

Yes, exactly.

Alicea 26:11

Um, and uh throughout the day he would go grab waters for us.

Nathan 26:16

Yeah.

Alicea 26:16

Because it was, like I said, it was hot. It was very hot, and we are delicate flowers.

Nathan 26:21

Yes.

Super Nintendo World Sensory Overload

Alicea 26:23

After breakfast, our first stop was Nintendo World. Kaitlyn Sterling and I have all been to the Nintendo Park at Universal Hollywood. So we kind of knew what to expect with regards to how overstimulating this portion of the park can be. And yes, it is very overstimulating, but it is amazing. You literally walk into the game. It is it is great. It's bright, bright colors, kind of the blocky thing.

Nathan 26:57

Um you go up an escalator through the portal.

Alicea 27:00

Oh, yeah, through the pipe. You're going up through the pipe, and it makes the noise. The whoop whoop whoop.

Nathan 27:04

You were transported into a Mario Brothers game, and it was overstimulating is the right phrase. Like my brain and eyes and ears just went into overload, and I I had I yep.

Alicea 27:21

Neither Heather nor uh Rachel had been either.

Nathan 27:25

Yeah.

Alicea 27:26

So um just looking at y'all's reactions was was was pretty cool. The eyes got so big. Like where do we look first? Yeah.

Nathan 27:37

The heck did I just walk into? Yeah.

Alicea 27:39

There's a lot going on, but

Nathan 27:41

there's a ton going on.

Alicea 27:43

It is like you walk into a Super Mario Bros. game. The colors are so bright. You've got, I don't know all the names of everything, but you've got the the Koopas going by, the I think they're Goombas as well, the um, there's a bullet bill going by, and the chompers, the the like piranha plant-like type things going around. There's so much movement in this park. There's also coins, like the gold coins are spinning around in different areas of the scenery.

Nathan 28:13

And there's there's blocks that you can go punch and like question mark. Oh well, you have to have a band on for to get the the the points. But and that was cool. Logan had a couple bands with him. So, like when Sterling wanted to go punch some blocks, he's like, here's your band. And yeah, you know, so it was we didn't get to keep the bands, by the way.

Alicea 28:33

But uh I will say we have some of those somewhere in the house. And

Nathan 28:38

you forgot to bring them up.

Alicea 28:39

No, I did not want to. I thought about it,

Nathan 28:43

yeah,

Alicea 28:43

but it's in it's in their rooms, and I'm like, if I ask them for the bands, they're gonna know what's going on. So I'm like, eh, we'll just miss this little part of it. It's okay.

Nathan 28:52

It's fine, it's fine. I felt at a disadvantage because like my friend up the street when I was growing up had the original NES, right? And so like I played Mario Bros. or Super Mario Brothers, the the first game, right? But I've never had at least that was out here in the US and had uh a wide popular thing, but I've never followed up and been exposed to like all of the subsequent games or Mario Kart racers and all the rest of that stuff. That's like I have no clue what any of that IP is. And so I was just like, I I get the origin of this, but you know, none of this stuff was available on my Atari 2600. Yeah.

Alicea 29:36

So I never played any of the Mario Kart games. Racing games just never really appealed to me at that time. But I played the Super Mario Brothers games. I liked those. I think I don't I don't remember them. I played there's like three different ones that I played.

Nathan 29:53

Yeah. I I think the art design and the set design of this land, of this portal, they nailed it. Like I 100% understand where they're coming from. You feel like you are in a video game.

Alicea 30:06

Yeah.

Nathan 30:07

Speaking of video games, speaking of Mario Kart, that was our first stop.

Alicea 30:11

Yes.

Nathan 30:12

This is kind of the premier attraction here. Uh, I will say, kind of if you haven't been to one of these uh parks yet, uh uh, but you are familiar with Disney. This is Toy Story, Midway Mania, or uh you know, that kind of 3D uh ride where you are doing a thing in a car as you go through some various sets. Uh similar to that.

Alicea 30:43

It's it's somewhat similar. The way the Mario Kart ride is set up, it is amazing. So they have practical sets in there, which you may not have been able to really appreciate because you're trying to pay attention to the VR stuff, the uh not VR. It's augmented reality.

Nathan 31:02

Yeah.

Alicea 31:03

Um the screen that gets put over your face. You can still see everything around you and you can still see the practical sets, but you're kind of locked in on the gamified portion of this ride.

Nathan 31:13

Right.

Alicea 31:14

There's and there's a lot of different sets out there. They're they're really neat. If you if you can, I would recommend watching a video if you can of the ride and seeing everything that it entails. Because there is a lot, it it is just as overstimulating in the ride as it is outside in the land.

Nathan 31:32

It's almost it's it's very similar to how I feel in Web Slingers and California Adventure, where I'm like, I don't know. I'm just I'm just shooting things and stuff. And the the interesting thing with the the augmented reality, uh, basically you have a helmet and then that you kind of put on like a visor thing. And then when you get up to get in the car, in the car there is basically kind of like a shield that goes in front of your eyes that the video is projected onto, and it's um it's cabled into the car for the the computer and all the rest of that stuff to do. But it knows where you're where you're turning your head, so it it understands that 3B that 3D space and what it needs to render on the screen.

Alicea 32:24

I think it's ingenious.

Nathan 32:25

Yeah, it's it's amazing.

Alicea 32:26

Yeah.

Nathan 32:27

Um, because it is overlaying digital characters and things like that going on uh in the physical world and sets that you are moving through. So it's not like a VR thing where you have to worry about uh having motion depicted in VR, but then that's different from the motion of the actual ride vehicle you're in. Like you're not getting sick from this. But to aim at something, you don't turn your head to aim at it, you just look at it with your eyes because they're doing eye tracking. So there's this whole interesting combination of remembering that I don't need to turn my head all the way. I can just like really quickly glance over at a thing I want to shoot and then press a button on the controller, and it it that's where I'm aiming. It was it took a hot minute to get used to.

Alicea 33:22

I very much appreciated having the guide tell us how to do this game because when Kaitlyn Sterling and I did this in Hollywood, the pre-show stuff that they tell you doesn't really give a great story on how to do it. Like I didn't know you could run out of you can run out of turtle shells or Koopa shells, whatever the hell it is.

Nathan 33:44

I heard him say that. I never did, and I just kept mashing the buttons. So I don't know what happened, but you can pick more up.

Alicea 33:51

I just I don't remember how

Nathan 33:53

I guess I did that.

Alicea 33:56

Um I have an issue with this this hat, this headset, whatever it is that you put on.

Nathan 34:03

Okay.

Alicea 34:03

There is something my hair is too slippery or something, it will not stay on my head no matter how tight I tighten this thing.

Nathan 34:11

Interesting.

Alicea 34:12

It will fall down into my eyes. So I'm like having to lift my head up super far to see it. Or I'm I'm always having to readjust this thing. And if I try to tighten it way too tight, it'll just pop straight up off my head. So um yeah. So both times I have done this ride, I have had issues with the dang headset.

Nathan 34:35

You're just too slick.

Alicea 34:37

I'm too slick. My hair is so soft and slippery.

Nathan 34:41

There you go, there you go. Um, this was a hundred-minute wait. Yep. Uh we basically walked right in. We will mention the weights for the rides as we get to them.

Alicea 34:54

Yeah.

Nathan 34:55

We'll total them up and share the impact of a VIP tour at the end of this episode. The next thing we went to go do was Yoshi's adventure. Um

Alicea 35:08

Well, this is this is a little kid ride. This is a little kid ride. Kaitlyn absolutely loves Yoshi. And I wanted to do this ride too because I mean it was a 45-minute wait.

Nathan 35:19

It was a 45-minute wait. And I'm we went through the thing. I'm like, for for what?

Alicea 35:26

This is a this is a little kid ride. You have to remember that. This is this is for smaller children that may not be able to get on some of the other rides. So this is a good ride for them to go on. It's cute. You see all the little Yoshis in there, and you're trying to collect the eggs or trying to match up the egg colors as you go through. My buttons were not working.

Nathan 35:48

No, your your unit was was broken. I thought I collected them all for you. You're welcome.

Alicea 35:53

And I think sterlings were broken as well. Uh, like one of his buttons didn't work at all. So there's there's some issues with this, and I noticed on mine under the buttons, there was some condensation on them. So I think they're not quite as weatherproof as they want them to be, and that is causing issues. So this was cute and very weird.

Nathan 36:17

Yes. Now I will also give a some constructive feedback to the ride designers at Universal. This was the first of several rides where you get onto a moving platform. This is like Spaceship Earth. This is like people mover, same thing, right? You get onto a disc that is spinning. Now, your entry onto the disc at Disney is set up so that you take a forward step the same direction in the direction that the thing is going. So it feels like you're getting onto a moving sidewalk. Every everybody's pretty good at this. So I'm I'm still recovering after my knee surgery. I've it just takes a long time because I am A old, and that was my eighth major surgery on that knee. It's just taking a long time. So I'm still using my cane, especially when I'm when I was out in public for the parks and stuff. And I almost went down because this thing, you step out onto the the rotating disc, I think it was going from left to right, perpendicular to it. So at a 90-degree angle. So I take a step out and it tries to basically pull your feet out from under you, going to the side. And I was not happy with that because I literally almost fell. That was that's a bad design. That is not a very safe design. I don't know that they can easily fix the rides that are designed and set up like that because that ship has sailed at this point, but I sure hope they get the feedback that that is a horrible, horrible design from an accessibility standpoint, and they need to not do that anymore.

Alicea 38:11

It's the the queue. They need to they need to modify how the queue gets onto the ride instead of making it perpendicular. Like even if they just change it to so it's like a 45 degree angle, that will help out immensely.

Nathan 38:23

But even somebody it like, look, this is a little kid's ride. So if you're a grandparent who has taken one of the little kids on this little ride while somebody else goes off and does a big roller coaster somewhere, you need to be careful. Because if you're not 100% steady on your feet and have any mobility impairment at all, like this ride can take you out. And there's a few other of them at the at this land, uh not just this land, but at this park too, that are like that. It's just it's risky, it's very risky. And this Yoshi's adventure was the worst of them. I think there was like three.

Alicea 39:00

There was this, it was the monsters unchained, and I think there's one more, but I don't remember what it was. Yeah.

Nathan 39:05

Um, this was the worst of them in terms of from a dead, you know, going from a dead stop onto a moving platform in a 90-degree angle. Um, anyhow, I feel like I have soapboxed on this enough. We can move on.

Alicea 39:18

All right. So

Donkey Kong Coaster Design Magic

Alicea 39:20

we went to another area of the Nintendo Park, and that was the Donkey Kong land.

Nathan 39:26

Yes.

Alicea 39:27

Which I loved.

Nathan 39:28

This does not exist in in California.

Alicea 39:31

No, no, no.

Nathan 39:31

It does exist in Tokyo.

Alicea 39:33

Yeah.

Nathan 39:34

This was very, very cool.

Alicea 39:36

This was really cool. I loved the music. It was very percussion heavy.

Nathan 39:40

Yes.

Alicea 39:40

Um, and just I was like, it was like Donkey Kong. There's all this Donkey Kong stuff around. It was it was a lot of fun.

Nathan 39:47

I mean, clearly there have been more iterations of Donkey Kong since I remember playing the arcade game that was very, very graphic basic.

Alicea 39:57

There's a whole family.

Nathan 39:58

Oh, yeah. So I didn't have a again a solid IP reference for a lot of this stuff, but it was still very cool. Like I didn't feel as lost as I did in the Mario Brothers section.

Alicea 40:12

It's also not as overwhelming as the Mario Land is.

Nathan 40:17

And it was it was fun. And this ride, Donkey Kong Minecart Madness, is fun.

Alicea 40:26

It's fun. It's it's a shorter coaster, but yeah, the design of this coaster is so cool. I remember when they first started showing this, I was like, how are they doing this? Because it looks like you are jumping over broken track.

Nathan 40:40

Yes.

Alicea 40:40

And the way the the car is designed is it's kind of like a sideways u, I guess that would be a C, um, where you have the main part of it underneath going on a specific track. And then the car that you're sitting in is on the top where it looks like you're jumping over things.

Nathan 41:02

Right. You feel and it's set up like your the ride vehicle, the cart you're in, the mine cart you're in, like takes jumps and is jumping gaps and getting you know tossed around and stuff like that. It's this was a super fun ride.

Alicea 41:15

And it was a 90-minute wait.

Nathan 41:18

Yes.

Alicea 41:18

No, yes, not for us. No, we're telling you the wait times, but it all of the rides we got on were walk-on for us because of the tour we were on.

Nathan 41:27

Yep, yep, yep, yep. So just know you are also going to miss things in the queues.

Alicea 41:32

Oh, yeah, quite a bit, quite a bit.

Isle Of Berk Rides And Dragons

Nathan 41:35

But okay. Uh we next went out of Nintendo World and headed over to the Isle of Berk, which was a highlight for our family, especially for our kids and Kaitlyn specifically. She loves how to train your dragon. And this is basically how to train your dragon land.

Alicea 42:01

The theming of this is phenomenal. It is like you are literally walking over to the Isle of Berk. They have taken the set from the movie and just made it real and planted it right here. It's so well done. It is absolutely gorgeous.

Nathan 42:18

It it was so cool. It's it's very cool. And you have all sorts of dragons that are, you know, a freezing dragon and a this dragon and a that dragon that are just out. You have the human characters from the movie just roaming, yeah, roaming and walking about and interacting with you. It's I love the immersion of this space. It's really, really, really fantastic. We got to see Pouncer, which is a little baby dragon,

Alicea 42:51

one of the night lights,

Nathan 42:53

out for a little meet and greet and show-off show. This is very, very cute. Um, this is the size of, I would say, like a Siberian husky uh dog. Um, parents, hold your your your kid's ears for just 10 seconds. It's one of the Boston Dynamics robots, you know, that has four legs and then it has a costume on it.

Alicea 43:17

It's so cute. It is so stinking cute.

Nathan 43:20

Incredibly amazing. It's incredibly amazing. Very well done.

Alicea 43:24

They're playing uh Simon says. I don't think they were calling it Simon says, but maybe Toothless says, I don't know. Something like that. It was really cute.

Nathan 43:32

It was very cute, and the eyes can move around, and I think it can wiggle its ears and stuff.

Alicea 43:37

Wiggle its ears, move, move its mouth and and its eyes, and yeah.

Nathan 43:41

Uh the next thing we got to do um was a meet and greet with toothless.

Alicea 43:47

Yes.

Nathan 43:48

This is the the star of how to train your dragon, the the big black night fury. Uh is that right? Night fury? Yeah. So yeah, I got. Something right. Yay. Yay. The main dragon at the center of the story. Right there. You get to go hang out and pet it and don't scratch it behind the ears.

Alicea 44:10

No, he doesn't like that.

Nathan 44:12

Yeah, doesn't like that at all. This was very, very cool. Yeah. This was an 80-minute wait that we didn't have.

Alicea 44:18

Yep.

Nathan 44:19

Yeah. I mean, it was cool, not just because of that, but

Alicea 44:23

we got to meet Toothless. That was pretty cool. Yeah. And then we got to go on Hiccup's Wing Gliders, which is the roller coaster.

Nathan 44:32

Yes.

Alicea 44:33

This was an amazing roller coaster.

Nathan 44:35

Fantastic. This is, I would say the closest Disney comparison I could give you would be like Slinky Dog Dash, but take the intensity level up by like a factor of three or four. Like it's not a big coaster. Like it's not a mega like huge thrill coaster. It's not a Velocicoaster. It's not like a

Alicea 45:01

its a family coaster.

Nathan 45:02

Yeah. It's not a rock and roller coaster. It's it's not an Expedition Everest. Like it's not that intense.

Alicea 45:08

Yeah.

Nathan 45:08

But it's really fun.

Alicea 45:11

It's very well done. It's actually a fairly long in length coaster. Yeah. This like I'd I'd love to do this one over and over again. It's a lot of fun.

Nathan 45:20

Yes. Yes. This was uh a 40-minute wait. Now, this one, uh, like many universal coasters, you do need to put your stuff in lockers. Yeah. Uh, and so our guide Logan helped uh make all that stuff happen where needed, which was incredibly helpful. The next thing we did after Hiccup's Wing Gliders is get some air conditioning because it was hot.

Alicea 45:46

It was really hot. I was not doing well.

Nathan 45:48

Yes. So we went to go see the Untrainable Dragon. This is a theater show there in the island of Berk, and it is the story, a stage show of basically protecting a dragon egg hatchery from a very angry dragon. Yeah. Like we're theater people. We all really enjoyed this show.

Alicea 46:13

Yeah, it was a cute show. It was it's geared towards younger kids, I think.

Nathan 46:18

It is, but I think the production is fantastic. The plot is pretty thin and it's pretty short, but you know, it's a 20 or 30-minute show. Like you can't do a ton with that. Yeah, um, it's very comfortable theater. The air conditioning was fantastic.

Alicea 46:35

Yep, I needed that.

Nathan 46:36

The dragons, the puppetry, the sets, the digital um, you know, projection wall behind Toothless makes an appearance um with hiccup, and they fly over the audience. It's really, really, really amazing.

Alicea 46:52

Not only do they fly over the audience, but then they go onto the stage and Toothless stands on the stage and hiccup gets off of them, and then Toothless takes off.

Nathan 47:01

Yeah.

Alicea 47:03

That part totally blew blew my mind. Like, okay, so you have, you know, an animatronic flying around and stuff, but to get it to move its legs and get onto a stage and then get off, I'm just

Nathan 47:14

it looked incredibly lifelike and realistic.

Alicea 47:17

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan 47:18

Uh, in its in the way that it landed, the way that it took off again, you know, wings flapping a little bit here and there. Like this was I'm glad we went to this.

Alicea 47:29

Yeah.

Nathan 47:30

To me, this is a must see. Um, if I was going again, I would want to see this one again, just like I want to go see Festival of the Lion King every time.

Alicea 47:38

Yeah,

Nathan 47:38

and it's not just because I want to sit down for a little bit and in some great air conditioning. I actually really enjoyed the show, and I feel like there were 18,000 different places to look, and I I could pay attention to something different every time.

Alicea 47:52

Yeah, yeah. There was a there was a lot, and and the puppets were great, just seeing all the different dragons and and just the production value of it was very good. And the AC helped out immensely. Now, after this, we went on to the last ride attraction over in Isle of Berk, and that was Dragon Racer's Rally, which you sit in a seat and it I don't know how to how to explain this. It basically brings you up into the air, you're in your own individual thing, and it has wings on the side of it, and you can make yourself flip if you want to. You don't have to flip.

Nathan 48:33

Right.

Alicea 48:34

It looked like a lot of fun. I fit in the test seat, but once I got in there, I didn't fit. Now they gave me the option, there's only one seat that has but I it was weird though, because I fit in the regular seat in the test seat. Uh they said I didn't need a modified seat. Um, you happened to be in the modified seat. Right. And um, there's only one per ride. So they're like, you can get the next one. I didn't want to go by myself. I'm like, all right, that's all right.

Nathan 49:04

Now, this is the ride that you can, if you get it right, you can get yourself to pivot around an axis like left and right, and basically get yourself to to roll. Yeah, I did not because I started to do that a little bit, and I was like, my my stomach was like, hey, let's not do that. And I said, Yes, sir. Somebody with our group did.

Alicea 49:26

Really?

Nathan 49:27

I for yeah.

Alicea 49:29

I think somebody tried and they almost got it, but didn't quite go all the way.

Nathan 49:32

Okay. I know Logan was saying because he was like, here's how you do it, and blah blah blah. Gave us the whole thing. He goes, It's a short ride, like the the whole thing spins and and kind of like goes on a an axis. So it's like you got up and down and you're going in a circle like three or four times. Yeah. He's like, Oh yeah, I've rolled 14 times. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's a lot. That is a lot. And for the record, the wait time we avoided here was 40 minutes.

Alicea 50:06

All right. And then we got to have lunch. Yeah. And we went to the meteor astro pub. Um, Logan had asked us like, what type of food do you want to have? And we're just like, if there's any like pub food or just like burgers and chicken sandwiches, stuff like that.

Nathan 50:23

Park food.

Alicea 50:23

Park food. He's like, okay, I have just the place. Brought us over to there. There was a wait to get in. Uh he did call ahead of time because he asked us probably like a half an hour beforehand what we wanted to do.

Nathan 50:37

So I think it was before we went in the show. I think it was probably closer to an hour beforehand.

Alicea 50:43

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a seat waiting and ready for us. And there was a line to get in.

Nathan 50:48

Yeah. So we had a big table for our our whole party of six. Yep. And uh yeah, and I think we had pre no,

Alicea 50:56

we ordered when we sat down.

Nathan 50:58

When we sat down, um And I want to say our food took all of perhaps seven, maybe eight minutes to be delivered.

Alicea 51:07

Very fast.

Nathan 51:08

Right.

Alicea 51:08

Alcohol was not included in our tour package. So anything alcoholic was additional. But the yeah, they they took our order and it it came very quickly. And as part of the order, as part of the prepaid, if you want to say, if you wanted to, you could get an appetizer, a main plate, and uh dessert.

Nathan 51:28

Dessert. And a drink.

Alicea 51:29

And a drink. Like waters or you could do sodas.

Nathan 51:33

Yeah, yeah. This was really good food.

Alicea 51:35

This was, it was, and uh it's it's like main main stuff is like, you know, they have like chicken salads, fish and chips, um, burgers, sandwiches, stuff like that.

Nathan 51:46

Yeah, yeah. I I do want to take just a quick diversion and and put the card in reverse just for half a second. There is one ride at uh how to train your dragon Isle of Berk called the fyre drill.

Alicea 52:02

We did not do that one.

Nathan 52:04

This is a boat ride where you get wet and you get to use water guns from the boat to shoot um targets and other people and people that are on land around the boats get to shoot at you. Um, we all said no.

Alicea 52:20

Yeah, it was hot, yes, it was very hot, but we didn't want wet shoes.

Nathan 52:26

No, no. So uh we did we did skip that one.

Alicea 52:29

Yeah.

Nathan 52:31

Okay, lunch was amazing. Yeah, it's fantastic that they expedite your food because then we weren't waiting for that. They did bring everything all at the same time. Yeah. So our desserts showed up at the same time as everything else, which isn't like a bad thing. We just weren't expecting it. Um, and it showed up so quickly. Like, I think half of our table were like off in the restrooms and stuff like that. So it was we're like, wait, who had what? Because nobody remembered what anybody else ordered, and it was fun. It all worked out.

Alicea 53:00

The downside of that is one of the desserts did have ice cream on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan 53:05

Well, what we spent an hour there because Logan has to take an hour break in the middle of the tour. So that was that was his chance to to go off and and uh take a break from our insanity and and uh have his lunch and stuff like that uh uh away from us. So we didn't we didn't have Logan with us, but uh we missed him for sure. For sure.

Dark Universe Monsters And Roast Sessions

Alicea 53:27

After this, we got to go to the dark universe portal into the darkmoor village.

Nathan 53:33

Yeah.

Alicea 53:34

This is really cool. I was excited to see this land.

Nathan 53:38

The theming and the the the design, the implementation, the set design, and the art. They nailed this.

Alicea 53:45

Yeah,

Nathan 53:46

this is really, really fantastic. Um, again, they have characters walking around and out and about. Um, we got uh the fantastic interaction with the invisible man.

Alicea 53:57

Yeah, nobody nobody wanted to go talk to him.

Nathan 54:01

No, he was just kind of standing there in the shade.

Alicea 54:04

He was in the shade, yes.

Nathan 54:05

Yeah, well, so I I went over to talk to him. I said, wow, that's a really amazing SPF factor that you have there with all the wraps. Yeah, yeah. He he didn't really have a great sense of humor. Uh well, he enjoyed roasting me back, which I kind of lean into. I was half expecting that and enjoyed out all my interactions. He did have a suggestion for me though. In that land, he suggested that uh uh basically from where he was off the side of one of the buildings there to go out to the main drag, take a write, keep walking for a bit, and I would find a cliff. And then once I find the cliff, keep going. So, yes, uh, the invisible man advised me to take a long walk off a short cliff. Exactly, exactly fantastic.

Alicea 54:49

The first ride we went to for this was the Monsters Unchained, the Frankenstein Experiment. This was only a 10-minute wait. Throughout the day, this doesn't usually have a very long wait. I don't know what it is about it, just the the way it's set up. It's done very well. The capacity, they just go through people so quickly on this ride.

Nathan 55:14

Yep, it eats it eats people, and not in a bad way, but uh this is a fun ride. This is uh a Kuka arm ride. You are in a a I don't know, kind of a set of four seats, and you're on the end of a robotic arm, and that arm glides across a track through various scenes and sets and stuff like that, and you get pivoted to look at certain things and upside down and backwards and over, and not upside down, but

Alicea 55:47

this is very much like Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

Nathan 55:50

Uh

Alicea 55:51

if you've ever been on that, it's the same type of ride setup where you're going through um you're going through practical sets and everything. This doesn't have all the screens like Forbidden Journey does. Um, because that I I actually got a little bit nauseous on Forbidden Journey um just from the screens. Uh this one doesn't it has screens, but it's not it's not like that.

Nathan 56:16

No, that's interesting that that you didn't so there's more practical sets and less screens on this, is what I'm hearing.

Alicea 56:23

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because the Forbidden Journey, you actually go into it's like a big, huge think of like Remy where you have those big huge screens that you just kind of sit in front of.

Nathan 56:32

Yeah.

Alicea 56:32

It's like that for the Forbidden Journey, and there's like a quidditch scene, and I'm like, nope. I cannot deal with this. I didn't have any glasses on or anything. It was just that the it didn't match up with the movement of the Koopa arm, and that's what gets me.

Nathan 56:47

Well, this was very good. This was actually very fun. Yes. I I could have done this one again. Yeah. This was fun.

Alicea 56:54

Sterling and I did this one a little later. So it was really funny. There's a part in this ride where you have a mummy character, you see him, he's above you, kind of upside down. And I looked at him and it goes by really quick.

Nathan 57:10

Yeah.

Alicea 57:11

And for some reason, I swear I saw the mummy character had a turkey leg. I'm like, and this is what my brain saw. And I'm like, does he have a turkey leg? What the heck? And I went back later with Sterling and we'd rode this again. I'm like, I need to see this. I he couldn't, it could not have been a turkey leg. There's absolutely no way. That just doesn't make any sense. He was it was a snake. It was the head of a snake.

Nathan 57:37

It's not a turkey leg.

Alicea 57:38

No, no, no. It was like a brownish red color, and it looked like he was holding a turkey leg. I'm like, but he is not.

Nathan 57:44

Got it.

Alicea 57:45

Because that would have been weird.

Nathan 57:47

Yes.

Alicea 57:48

This was a great ride. It was so well done.

Nathan 57:51

Very well done.

Alicea 57:52

The animatronics in here are just crazy.

Nathan 57:55

Yep.

Alicea 57:56

And yeah, the ride itself is a lot of fun. And just all the sets that are around you and everything look, it's super immersive.

Nathan 58:03

After that uh Frankenstein experiment ride, uh, we were walking over towards Curse of the Werewolf. But before we got there, we had an interaction with Ygor.

Alicea 58:14

Oh my gosh, he's so fun.

Nathan 58:16

And um, Ygor proceeded to effectively roast our whole family.

Alicea 58:21

Mostly Sterling.

Nathan 58:22

Mostly Sterling. He walked up to Sterling and he just goes, damn, you are pasty. Is this your first day out of the lab?

Alicea 58:32

We had a great conversation with him. It was a lot of fun.

Nathan 58:36

Three or four minutes, and he just kept going. Uh we have a video of it. Alicea pulled out her phone and started taking a video, and we got most of it.

Alicea 58:45

Yeah.

Nathan 58:45

Um, and you you could see me and Logan behind Sterling just losing it at the stuff that Ygor was saying to Sterling and then to us. And yeah, it was it was funny. It was amazing.

Alicea 59:00

Then we went on Curse of the Werewolf.

Nathan 59:03

Yes, you did.

Alicea 59:04

We did. Except for Nate. You did.

Nathan 59:07

I did not.

Alicea 59:08

If if you have ever been to Disneyland Paris and gone on Crush's coaster, this ride is that type of mechanism where it's four people in a car and the car itself will rotate around. The four people are basically back to back.

Nathan 59:23

Yes.

Alicea 59:24

And the the car itself will rotate around.

Nathan 59:26

There's one of these at Knott's Berry Farm out in Anaheim as well. I would say it's not the similar ride setup where you're you got people sitting back to back, but it is a similar mechanism on Guardians of the Galaxy, Cosmic Rewind, and Epcot, where your vehicle is going down a track and the platform that you were sitting on spins. Yep. Uh, and that that is a no-go for me.

Alicea 59:55

This was a very fun ride. We all enjoyed it. It was extremely short. It was the shortest coaster I think I've ever been on. But it was a lot, it was a lot of fun. I would do this one again.

Nathan 1:00:06

Nice.

Harry Potter Ministry Jaw Drop Moment

Alicea 1:00:07

After Dark Universe, we went over to the wizarding world of Harry Potter into 1920s, Paris, and the land of fantastic beasts, and where to find them.

Nathan 1:00:19

Where do you find them?

Alicea 1:00:20

All over the place.

Nathan 1:00:21

Okay, got it.

Alicea 1:00:22

This was gorgeous. It was like Kaitlyn and I were stepping back into Paris. This set is just jaw-dropping.

Nathan 1:00:30

The the thing that I've noticed, it's most starkly obvious here in the wizarding world in Paris there. And it they did this elsewhere in the park, though to a lesser degree, is they don't use as much force perspective. Like there is some used where you know, like the higher parts of like the the castle there over in Darkmoor and stuff like that are a little bit scaled down. But in Paris, these are three-story facades to buildings that are three stories tall. It's incredible. It is a very stark just to pick just it's very different comparing that to what Disney does, where they basically force perspective just about everything.

Alicea 1:01:19

Well, I think one of the reasons that they did that this is because the ride is so huge. Yes. Like it is tall.

Nathan 1:01:30

Yes.

Alicea 1:01:30

And so they were able to do this. Yeah.

Nathan 1:01:33

The ride is Harry Potter and the battle at the ministry. This is Dolores Umbridge's trial. So it's a little bit like it's not in the movies or or in the book, but is kind of uh imagining, you know, what her trial would have been like. And she was the person that who replaced Dumbledore for a little bit as uh headmaster there at Hogwarts. And she was, you know, she's on trial, so she's not a good person. Um walking in, you walk through into what's what they label the metro floo. So this is using floo powder, uh f L O O uh to traverse through fireplaces, and you basically are transported from Paris over to London uh to the Ministry of Magic.

Alicea 1:02:20

In the future.

Nathan 1:02:21

In the is it the future? Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be the future. Um let's not think about that too much. Okay, okay.

Alicea 1:02:29

It is just so well done. It is like yeah.

Nathan 1:02:32

Logan grabbed my phone to take a video of us like going through like the floo, through the fireplace, and they have an effect. You know, it's kind of like this park's version of you know, walking through the platform uh nine and three-quarters uh over at King's Cross Station that's at the other parks there. And then you get into the the main lobby there of the Ministry of Magic, and all of us like our jaws are just like on the floor. Yeah. And the Logan's video is so well done of capturing what we all six of us felt like in that moment because it was incredible.

Alicea 1:03:15

So neat.

Nathan 1:03:16

I would a hundred percent want to do this ride again.

Alicea 1:03:20

We got to skip the queue. So we didn't, there's a lot of the queue that we did not see. I know there's um Dolores' house elf. There's a whole scene with her that we didn't get to see at all. Yeah. But walking into this big, huge room at the Ministry of Magic was something else. This was so neat to see.

Nathan 1:03:38

And if you do do the queue, it's you're going to have plenty of time to enjoy said queue. This was a 90-minute wait that's actually pretty low for how long you're waiting for this ride on, typically. It's it's usually 90 minutes or better that you're waiting for this ride. This is another kuka arm ride.

Alicea 1:03:59

But it doesn't feel like one. It

Nathan 1:04:01

correct

Alicea 1:04:02

because it seems like you are you're in the Tower of Terror elevator, is what it seems like. That's what that's what the ride mechanism looks like.

Nathan 1:04:10

Yeah. You're in basically one of the elevators, or excuse me, a lift there within the Ministry of Magic. And of course, if you've read the books or seen the movies, you know that the lifts in the Ministry of Magic don't just go up and down between floors, they also move in all directions in all planes. So it's a little fun.

Alicea 1:04:31

Yeah.

Nathan 1:04:32

And you go through a story of things happening in the Ministry of Magic around Dolores Umbridge's trial. And I'm not gonna provide any spoilers, but it's a lot of fun.

Alicea 1:04:43

It's a lot of fun. There's a lot, like I could probably ride this thing five to ten times and not get everything. Yeah, there's just so much. Now, I I do believe there's a couple things that were in B mode that we didn't quite see.

Nathan 1:04:56

Yeah.

Alicea 1:04:56

But overall, this like this is just phenomenal. The technology in this park is crazy, you guys.

Nathan 1:05:02

This is an expensive park, but I actually I think it works. Yes. I I think the money is worth it. Yeah.

Alicea 1:05:11

There is a show in the wizarding world of Harry Potter here, but it was down for refurb that week. Unfortunately, I've heard this is a phenomenal show. So maybe we will have to go back to Epic and see this.

Nathan 1:05:22

Indeed. This is called Le Cirque Arcanus. And I don't know a ton about it. I kind of imagine it's a little bit like Cirque de Soleil with magic or something like that.

Alicea 1:05:34

No, it's it's it's the beasts.

Nathan 1:05:37

Ah okay.

Alicea 1:05:39

It's like um a circus zoo type thing.

Nathan 1:05:42

So it's it's Ringling Brothers with Yeah. Fantastic beasts.

Alicea 1:05:46

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Got it. So Nathan, you have a note about the restrooms in this area. I did not use the restrooms in this area.

Nathan 1:05:53

Okay. The the restrooms in the the the in Paris, uh here in Florida. Um, they're themed. Like all the restrooms are themed. You know, Disney does the same thing. Like the restrooms are themed to whatever land that you're in. And the restrooms here in Wizarding World have kind of a like a 19 teens, 1920s uh vibe, very European, um, with some exposed plumbing and things like that. And all of the brackets that are holding the pipes up, every single one of the slotted screw heads was horizontal. And my OCD-loving heart just really appreciated that with one note, they should have all been vertical, just like every single one of our light switches and outlets, uh, you know, plate covers here at home. All of those slotted screws are vertical. But anyhow, but they were all the same way. It was it was very cool.

Alicea 1:06:54

And then it was a conscious decision.

Nathan 1:06:56

I know.

Alicea 1:06:57

Okay.

Nathan 1:06:58

I just I love that attention to detail because and I don't know if they were actual screws that were functional or if this was just like a molded thing that was like stuck on the wall, like with adhesive or something like that, that may not have, you know, it may just have been set dressing. But like that level of attention to detail speaks volumes because whether it's on a grand scale or it's art that's on the wall, or it's the paint color used, or whether instead of using actual tile in the Ministry of Magic, that's vinyl decals because when you have hundreds of thousands of people walking over them, they will break, and it's easier to just replace a vinyl decal than it is a tile, like an actual ceramic tile. Like just all of these details and nuances and bits of set dressing are are beautiful and stunning and so well thought out and practical. And it just I'm really impressed with this park.

Alicea 1:08:04

Yes, yes,

Nathan 1:08:05

but yes, I don't mean we primarily talk about Disney stuff. This is the stuff I love at Disney too. Yeah, like it's this level of detail. Hey, why is this little section of sidewalk in the the middle of Magic Kingdom brown instead of everything else? Well, it's because you're walking through

Alicea 1:08:24

the river of crap.

Nathan 1:08:26

Yeah, exactly. Revolution and era America, and uh that's the sewer. Yeah. Um, so it's I just yeah, it's those details. They've really nailed it.

Alicea 1:08:37

Well, and they were able to do that because everything in here is new, right?

Nathan 1:08:40

Like it was totally imagined from the ground up in the past five years, however long it's true, but like just because it's new doesn't mean that they're paying that level of detail and attention to everything.

Alicea 1:08:53

Like they're but they are, but they are they did, and they are, and it's it's done so well, so well, yeah, so well.

Stardust Racers And Heat Reality Check

Nathan 1:09:01

Okay, so that was the four portals that are there today at Epic Universe. There is one other big ride called Stardust Racers. This is a dueling roller coaster,

Alicea 1:09:17

yeah.

Nathan 1:09:18

Two different trains. I'm gonna say, in hindsight, perhaps fortunately, was a little bit too big to uh get the uh the lap bar to uh uh secure me into the seat. Everybody else in our party did get a chance to go. Um how'd that go for it?

Alicea 1:09:39

Well. So I love roller coasters.

Nathan 1:09:42

Yeah.

Alicea 1:09:43

I absolutely love roller coasters. Um, this was too intense for me.

Nathan 1:09:50

Yeah,

Alicea 1:09:51

I think if this had had an over-the-shoulder type harness,

Nathan 1:09:56

yeah,

Alicea 1:09:57

I would have been okay. The way this harness comes down, it does go over your head, but it just fits at your waist, and that is it. You don't have anything on your shoulders to hold on to. It's just at your waist.

Nathan 1:10:09

Yeah.

Alicea 1:10:09

And I don't know what it's called when you lift up out of your seat. Is that negative G's?

Nathan 1:10:14

Yes, negative G's.

Alicea 1:10:15

Um, they were extremely intense on this ride, and I thought I was going to come out of that seat. And I really thought my brain, oh my god, my brain really thought this is it, I'm dead. Um, multiple times, because this happens multiple times. It's just like when you're going over the the big huge hills at the top, um, every other part of it I was fine. It was just those. Uh, and it does this quite a bit. The launches on this coaster are crazy. I loved them so much. Okay, so Sterling was sitting next to me on this, and there's been a couple of coasters that we've been on that he's like, Oh, this is too tight. This really hurts. I can't do this. Like, I need it a little looser. The lady would not. She's like, No, it has to be tight. This has to be almost uncomfortable on you.

Nathan 1:11:10

Yeah.

Alicea 1:11:10

And I totally understand why, because I'm a large person. I really thought I would be flying out of my seat. I thought my legs would just go straight through. Um, yeah.

Nathan 1:11:20

Wow. Wow. I will say, uh, when Heather came back, so I uh a lot of the rides have kind of like a family waiting area where for for people who aren't uh riding the ride can can wait. Uh I enjoyed this one because it was air conditioned. Yeah. Uh in the little building kind of in the middle of the the queue area. And Heather came in because Rachel and Kaitlyn went and did the other the other side of it.

Alicea 1:11:50

Yes.

Nathan 1:11:51

Uh, and and the rest of you guys came in, and the first thing Heather said, she's the first person to say anything. She just looked at me, she goes, I saw my own mortality.

Alicea 1:12:02

And I did too. Yep. Oh there wasn't even on the the lap belt, there wasn't even like a little handle or anything for you to hold on to. Oh so there's no like little bit of security for you to hold it. Right. Nothing, nothing.

Nathan 1:12:18

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, no.

Alicea 1:12:22

I am glad I went on it.

Nathan 1:12:24

Yeah.

Alicea 1:12:25

Uh I think maybe, maybe if I dropped some pounds, I may be able to go on it again. I think that was part of it that I have this weird, this weird thing in my brain that I'm too heavy for these things. Uh and it'll break the ride. I know that is not true at all. That's just my stupid monkey brain coming up with that.

Nathan 1:12:47

Well, my belly's too big. So that was that was my problem.

Alicea 1:12:50

Yeah. So I think if I were a little less in my belly area, I may be able to do this again.

Nathan 1:12:56

There you go.

Alicea 1:12:57

I wonder if it's okay for my heart. I didn't even think about that.

Nathan 1:13:01

Yeah.

Alicea 1:13:02

Maybe not.

Nathan 1:13:03

Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe this is one of the ones where you and I go get a beer or something.

Alicea 1:13:08

Okay. All right. I'm I'm okay with that.

Nathan 1:13:10

Yes. Um, we had Logan for a little while longer. Oh, by the way, Stardust Racers, so effectively went twice, 15-minute waits avoided. Because we were right on. Oh, and by the way, not only does Stardust racers have lockers for your stuff, but you have to go through metal detectors too to make sure you're not sneaking something else in.

Alicea 1:13:30

Which makes sense. Just going on that ride. Wow. Yeah.

Nathan 1:13:34

Wow. Yep. Yep. Um, so we had Logan for like another hour, and we decided to go back over and redo hiccups wing racers or wing gliders. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. So we did that. That was another 45 minutes of waiting saved there. Unfortunately, that walk kind of did Alicea in. Uh, and it's not necessarily the walk, but the heat that late in the day because it was just like 4 30, 445. It was uh a a little a little hot.

Alicea 1:14:07

And I had I had a sun umbrella too to help counteract that, but I am a delicate flower.

Nathan 1:14:16

You did amazingly well.

Alicea 1:14:18

The heat, I could not, and I could tell, like I was I knew if I kept going, I would faint. I I knew that was coming. Um, so I sat down and found a rock in the shade.

Nathan 1:14:32

Unfortunately, you sat down on a rock wall that was in the shade at that point, but it had not been in the shade. You baked yourself sitting on that wall. Because when we came back after the ride and we sat down there in the shade, we were like, I'm getting hotter sitting on this.

Alicea 1:14:48

Okay.

Nathan 1:14:48

If you had if we had found you an actual bench somewhere, uh I think you would have been a lot better.

Alicea 1:14:54

Yeah, yeah. I I couldn't, I I knew if I got up to walk, I wouldn't be able to do anything. Like I probably would have fallen down. Yeah. So we got um we got a a wheelchair for me just because I was I was not doing well.

Nathan 1:15:07

Yeah. Logan made a call and uh had one of his uh his peers uh or supervisor, one of them, somebody brought a wheelchair over and and uh we were able to to get Alicea onto our reservation. Now, the one thing I do want to say is throughout the day, I want to say at least three, if not four times. Logan, while we were doing like a ride, went and made water runs for us. So he'd come back with like six bottles of water for us all, and that was all included in the and the uh in the tour and everything.

Alicea 1:15:37

So I I was not dehydrated. No, it had nothing to do with dehydration, it was just the uh overheated.

Nathan 1:15:45

But I just wanted to share that like we had breakfast, we had lunch included, and we never asked for snacks, but we were trying to go through rides. Yeah. Um so I don't know if snacks could be included, but we definitely were able to get waters. Yep. Um and I don't think they are. Okay. The snacks.

Alicea 1:16:03

Just based on a conversation that Sterling had had with Logan. I don't think snacks are included.

Nathan 1:16:07

Okay, got it. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah.

Atlantic Dinner And Evening Wrap-Up

Nathan 1:16:10

We did have a reservation that Logan was able to get us at the Atlantic or just Atlantic, something like that. It is, I would call this a signature dining kind of restaurant in Disney Parlance. It is there in the middle of Celestial Park, as one might expect. It is very heavily um uh ocean themed, it is seafood heavy on the menu. It is very surf, but it has some turf options as well for everybody. Uh, the food is included in the tour as well as waters and non-alcoholic drinks. And the food here was phenomenal.

Alicea 1:16:49

So good. Yeah. Now, when I made reservations for this tour, we were given the option of either doing Atlantic or Blue Dragon. And Blue Dragon is a pan-Asian restaurant. And just looking at where Atlantic was, I wanted to do that just because it had, you know, sweeping views of the park. It was right on the water. It just looked really cool.

Nathan 1:17:12

And it is very cool. Like it was fantastic.

Alicea 1:17:15

Inside was really neat, too.

Nathan 1:17:16

Yeah.

Alicea 1:17:16

The food was phenomenal. It was it was very good. Um, I had a lobster roll. I think Sterling had a lobster roll. There's just a variety of stuff everybody had.

Nathan 1:17:28

Yeah. We had oysters at the table. We had all sorts of stuff. The dessert was fantastic.

Alicea 1:17:35

Yeah.

Nathan 1:17:36

It was um how what was

Alicea 1:17:38

it was a snickerdoodle something or another.

Nathan 1:17:39

But it was a deconstructed yeah, excuse me. It was landlubber's snickerdoodle loot.

Alicea 1:17:46

Ah, there we go.

Nathan 1:17:47

Yes. Basically, it looked like a little uh set of beach toys and things like that. It was just it was really good. We'll post pictures again of all this stuff, and I will make sure we actually post pictures this time. Well, I know sometimes we're not as good about doing that, but uh uh Scouts Honor, we'll we'll make that happen. This is a really great meal. At that point, once Logan got us there, his day with us was done. We did share contact information and have been in touch since. Looking forward to getting back together with him. Hopefully, if we can make it happen when we're back in February.

Alicea 1:18:23

Yeah.

Nathan 1:18:24

But um, we had basically the rest of the evening. Now, while we couldn't cut lines with our tour guide anymore, we did have express pass until the park closed. And so we chose to go off and do a few things. And basically, we were so focused on rides, we didn't get a chance to do a lot of merch shopping. And so we hit some of the stores over at Nintendo, we hit some of the shops back over in Paris at Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And then I think Rachel and Heather were calling it a day after uh being in Paris there. And uh we went over, the four of us went over to Darkmoor over in the dark universe again, because Alicea and Sterling went and rode the Frankenstein experiment again. And Kaitlyn and I wanted to go get a drink at the the windmill bar, otherwise known as the Burning Blade. Now we got over there about 8:30 or so, and unfortunately, it looked like the Burning Blade had closed for the day. Like the door, there weren't really many people over there, and the doors were closed. And so before we even got over to the door, Kaitlyn and I were like, well, um, the lobby bar in the hotel looked really good, and so that's where we went for our nightcap. It is so nice having our daughter be 21 now. And I'm excited for Sterling to get there someday too, so he can enjoy in uh some of the refreshments that we that we so dearly like. But it turns out the bar was open. Do you want to explain that one?

Alicea 1:20:15

Yeah, Sterling and I. So we did we did the monsters unchained ride again, and then we were looking for you guys, and I thought you were over at the Burning Blade, so we went over to the Burning Blade. The door was closed, but it was open.

Nathan 1:20:28

It was unlocked.

Alicea 1:20:29

It was unlocked. We just walked in. Um, and there was somebody at the bar ordering a drink. Um, yeah. So

Nathan 1:20:36

oops.

Alicea 1:20:37

It's okay. Now

Nathan 1:20:39

we'll just have to go again.

Alicea 1:20:40

We will because I don't think the lighting package for Darkmoor was working.

Nathan 1:20:45

Hmm.

Alicea 1:20:46

I didn't see. Did you guys see the burning blade?

Nathan 1:20:49

No,

Alicea 1:20:49

at all?

Nathan 1:20:50

The blade never burned.

Alicea 1:20:52

It never burned. Yeah, we didn't see that either. And I know throughout this the town of Darkmoor, there's supposed to be like the lighting cables that bring all the energy to the Frankenstein Manor. I don't think they were working.

Nathan 1:21:06

Some of the ones were working on the castle because I remember seeing those go off, especially uh when we were waiting for the fireworks show the night before.

Alicea 1:21:15

Yeah.

Nathan 1:21:16

But yeah.

Alicea 1:21:17

No, we stood in front of um Frankenstein's manor for a couple of minutes, waiting for that to show up. I mean, the windows were lighting up, but the cables never lit up. Huh. Yeah.

Nathan 1:21:29

Interesting. So well, I guess all that stuff, uh, you know, the technological, the technological marvel that is all of the lighting packages that we're talking about earlier. Uh, you know, technology has issues every once in a while.

Alicea 1:21:41

So every once in a while.

Nathan 1:21:42

Yeah, I'm sure they're working on it. Yeah. I'm sure.

Alicea 1:21:45

It was an amazing day.

Nathan 1:21:47

That was a fantastic day. It was. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Worth The Money Final Rankings

Nathan 1:21:52

Okay, so this has been a long episode. We had a lot to talk about. I want to finish here. Overall thoughts. What did you think of Epic Universe?

Alicea 1:22:04

I think it is a very well done park. There are 11 rides, I think is what Logan had said. Um, because it's so new, it is definitely a full day park. I think one a couple of years down the road, it may not be a full-day park. Um, with if you're trying to get all the rides in now, there are tons of expansion pads that they have already.

Nathan 1:22:31

Um they're already filing permits to start working on some of that stuff.

Alicea 1:22:35

Yeah, yeah. I think this is a great park. Um, this is the first new park domestically of this size in like a very long time. Yeah. And I'm very happy we did this.

Nathan 1:22:49

Yeah. Yeah. I think this is heads and shoulders above the other two Universal Orlando parks.

Alicea 1:22:59

Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely.

Nathan 1:23:00

I wouldn't mind spending another day here again.

Alicea 1:23:03

Yeah. Um when it's cooler.

Nathan 1:23:06

When it's cooler. Yes. Um, and even then, I still might pony up some money for Express Pass.

Alicea 1:23:14

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan 1:23:15

But I think I would want to make sure that we try some of the foods and snacks. Cause I know there's some stuff at Isle of Berk that look interesting and some things elsewhere. There's a whole steakhouse in Dor in uh Darkmoor.

Alicea 1:23:30

Yeah. Um Das Steakhouse.

Nathan 1:23:32

Das Steakhouse House. Yep. Yes. So yeah. All right. Um, favorite portal. Oh. Favorite land.

Alicea 1:23:40

This is difficult because I'm do I only have to choose one?

Nathan 1:23:46

Yes.

Alicea 1:23:48

I think Darkmoor.

Nathan 1:23:50

Yeah.

Alicea 1:23:51

I was gonna say how to train your dragon. It has more rides. It has better rides, I think. Well, not maybe not better rides, but just the immersion of Darkmoor, and it's kind of it's the spookiness of it. I love it. Yeah. Um Berk is a very, very close second just because they took the movie and made it real.

Nathan 1:24:12

Yeah. What's your stack then? What's third?

Alicea 1:24:16

Um Harry Potter or

Nathan 1:24:19

Harry Potter. I think I'm with you. I I if I'm just talking about the land and I'm kind of factoring out the the rides in my brain, I think it's it's either Harry Potter or Darkmore for the level of immersion. Uh, but I mean, we're talking that and Isle of Berk, they're all S tier.

Alicea 1:24:42

Yeah,

Nathan 1:24:42

like if you're stacking these things, these are all top-tier uh lands. It might change on on any given day.

Alicea 1:24:51

Yeah.

Nathan 1:24:52

I think I liked the fact, practically speaking, that in Darkmoor and in uh Harry Potter, there's a lot more opportunity for shade. And Isle of Berk is there's not a lot of shade in there.

Alicea 1:25:08

Yeah.

Nathan 1:25:09

Um, it was kind of remote giving off uh uh Toy Storyland vibes uh over in Hollywood Studios where you're just gonna roast. Yeah. Nintendo is look for the right audience, I'm sure it's incredible and amazing. It's I'm I'm not the target audience. It's just not me.

Alicea 1:25:30

No. It is cool to go in there if you have one of the power bands.

Nathan 1:25:36

Yeah,

Alicea 1:25:37

it is cool because there's a lot of hidden stuff that you can only access with the bands. There's like a little scavenger hunt type thing. There's there's additional games you can play only with the bands.

Nathan 1:25:47

Right.

Alicea 1:25:47

So that that is a fun aspect of it.

Nathan 1:25:49

Yeah. Of the rides you did, what's your favorite?

Alicea 1:25:53

Oh, Monsters Unchained.

Nathan 1:25:56

Yeah, that one was really good.

Alicea 1:25:58

Yeah.

Nathan 1:25:58

I I keep coming back at the hiccups wing racers. It's between that and Monsters Unchained.

Alicea 1:26:04

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan 1:26:05

Um Monsters Unchained was just fun and and just like, oh my god, over the top. Like you get into that, like you know, like the horror movie thing where it's just like it goes to like an insane level and just becomes funny because you just have to laugh at it. But I felt like giddy and joy on the hiccups wing gliders. Yeah, it was that was just it was joy. It was that ride brought out joy, and I think that was my favorite.

Alicea 1:26:39

Nice. Was the tour worth the price?

Nathan 1:26:43

Okay. So the price is well into four digits.

Alicea 1:26:49

Yes. Um and it does not include park tickets,

Nathan 1:26:53

right?

Alicea 1:26:54

Like with any VIP tour, you have the price of the tour and then you have to buy park tickets.

Nathan 1:26:58

Right. So there's another thousand dollars-ish there. That said, we told you we were doing math.

Alicea 1:27:06

Yeah.

Nathan 1:27:07

We saved 615 minutes of wait time.

Alicea 1:27:13

That is a lot.

Nathan 1:27:13

That's 10 and a quarter hours of wait time that we saved over the course of eight hours. And as part of those eight hours, we also had three meals. Nine hours, we also had three meals.

Alicea 1:27:31

Yeah.

Nathan 1:27:32

Um wow. And had somebody to go do water runs for us and included said meals.

Alicea 1:27:40

Yeah. We also did a fully private tour.

Nathan 1:27:45

Right.

Alicea 1:27:45

Universal also offers a semi-private tour where it is up to 12 people in the group, however many people you have in your party, and then other folks too.

Nathan 1:27:57

Right.

Alicea 1:27:58

That is a little less expensive. We could have gone that route, but we did not. We went fully private. So if we had gone the other route, I think we would have saved like another $2,000 or something like that.

Nathan 1:28:07

Okay. I I think this was worth it.

Alicea 1:28:12

Yes, I fully agree. I this was a very expensive day. Yeah. But we got to see everything we wanted to see. We got to ride everything that we wanted to ride. We would not have been able to do that if we didn't have a tour.

Nathan 1:28:28

Exactly.

Alicea 1:28:29

We probably would have been able to do it with Express. Probably.

Nathan 1:28:33

Probably.

Alicea 1:28:34

But also having a guide who knows the area who is telling us about the park, who's telling us about the lands, um, having your food included in there as well.

Nathan 1:28:43

And expedited.

Alicea 1:28:45

And expedited, and it included all the pictures too. And um, we did have express pass for later if we wanted it. I think it was worth it. I don't know if I would do it again. Because there are other options.

Nathan 1:29:01

Yeah.

Alicea 1:29:01

But I am very glad that we did this. I do think it was worth the price.

Nathan 1:29:05

So would you consider a shared tour?

Alicea 1:29:08

Yeah, I would.

Nathan 1:29:10

Okay. Maybe not a private. Unless

Alicea 1:29:12

we've been because we've done this before.

Nathan 1:29:14

Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Would you go back to Epic Universe again?

Alicea 1:29:20

I would.

Nathan 1:29:20

Yeah. I same. I would do this one again.

Alicea 1:29:23

Yeah. It's a I think the park is great.

Nathan 1:29:25

I don't have a draw to the other two Universal Orlando parks. I just I don't. They're not they're not compelling. This one I could do again.

Alicea 1:29:35

Yeah. It's absolutely gorgeous.

Nathan 1:29:37

Yeah. Well, at the end of that night, uh, we all crashed pretty hard. It had been a long hot day. And then uh the next morning we got up and packed up and checked out. But you're gonna have to tune in next week to hear where that story goes. So, with that, as we wrap up, a reminder that we are not affiliated with Disney or Universal in this case or any of their subsidiaries. Everything you hear on this show is based on personal experiences, opinions, and questionable snack choices. We are, however, proudly affiliated with fun.

Alicea 1:30:18

And fearing for our own mortal life.

Nathan 1:30:21

Yes, and facing mortality.

Alicea 1:30:24

If you are planning a vacation, we always recommend working with a travel advisor or reaching out to Disney or Universal directly to help make the magic happen. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a second to rate and review the show. It really helps people find us.

Nathan 1:30:39

If you have a question, a topic suggestion, or a story you'd love to share, please send us an email to podcast at our mousecapades.com.

Alicea 1:30:49

You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook threads at our mousecapades, and on YouTube at OurMousCapades Pod. And do not forget to share us with your friends, your family, and fans of all ages.

Nathan 1:31:02

Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back in your ears next week.

Intro 1:31:07

Thank you for flying Star Tours. Bye bye.