Welcome And Trip Setup

Intro 0:03

Please stand clear of the doors. por favor manténgase alejado de las puertas. Please stand clear of the doors. Because this hear is the wildest ride in the wilderness.

Alicea 0:23

Hello everyone. I'm Alicea..

Nathan 0:25

And I'm Nathan.

Alicea 0:26

Welcome to episode 238 of Adventures and Mouse Capades. This week we are going over our parks trip, as in Disney Parks.

Nathan 0:36

Indeed. Last week we talked about our adventure over at Universal Epic Universe.

Alicea 0:44

Yeah.

Nathan 0:44

Of Epicness.

Alicea 0:45

Of epicness.

Nathan 0:46

It was universal. It was fantastic. So if you haven't heard episode 237, I highly recommend you jump back and listen to that one. It's a great episode where we covered everything there is to know. That's not true. About that newish park. Yeah, I'm really selling this hard, aren't I?

Alicea 1:07

About our experiences in Epic Universe. Yes. On a VIP tour.

Nathan 1:13

Yeah.

Alicea 1:13

Yeah.

Nathan 1:14

That was fun.

Alicea 1:14

Now we are talking about the Disney parks that we visited both before and after our Disney Destiny cruise.

Nathan 1:21

Yes. The cruise of destiny.

Alicea 1:23

The cruise of destiny. This is the parks stuff though. The parks of destiny. The parks of Disney. Yeah. Because we had time before and after the cruise, and because Kaitlyn wanted to drink around the world for her 21st.

Nathan 1:38

Yes. Which quite frankly makes me feel good about us as a parent.

Alicea 1:43

Sterling has already said they want to do this too.

Nathan 1:45

Yes.

Alicea 1:46

Okay.

Nathan 1:49

Only six, seven more years. Six, six, seven, six, seven.

Alicea 1:57

Stop.

Nathan 1:57

Okay. Moving on. Moving on.

Checking In Then Heading To Epcot

Nathan 2:01

Speaking of moving, when we checked out of the Helios Grand Hotel on the Wednesday of our trip, which was the last week of June that we're talking about here, we checked right in over at the Polynesian. Now, checking in is a term of phrase. We didn't really check in because our room was not ready yet. No. So we just left our stuff with valet and grabbed a bite to eat upstairs at the quick service counter. Got on the monorail and headed on over to Epcot.

Alicea 2:35

From one park to another.

Nathan 2:36

Indeed.

Alicea 2:37

Both starting with E. Yeah. Epic to Epcot.

Nathan 2:42

Epcot and Epe. All right, never mind.

Alicea 2:46

I don't know what you're trying to go for here. I don't either. Epic to Epcot.

Nathan 2:50

You said E. All right. Living on.

Alicea 2:54

Oh my gosh. Okay. We already had some plans set for Epcot. Yes. Uh the kids wanted to go on Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, so we got Lightning Lane Passes for that.

Nathan 3:09

Single Pass.

Alicea 3:10

Single Pass.

Nathan 3:11

Lightning Lane Single Pass.

Alicea 3:12

Lightning. Oh my gosh. I will get this terminology right when they change it. Yep. Ugh. We got fast passes for Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah.

Nathan 3:23

Well, you did. I did not.

Alicea 3:25

Just I was going to say, just me and the kids.

Nathan 3:27

Well, I guess technically I did acquire them. Yeah. Lightning Lane.

Alicea 3:32

And there are a couple other Lightning Lane single pass or no, we had Lightning Lane for this day. We had single pass for that one. And then we had Lightning Lanes for a bunch of other rides that we actually, spoiler alert, did not use at all.

Nathan 3:42

Multipass.

Intro 3:44

Lilu Dallas multipass.

Alicea 3:46

Mm-hmm. And um we had a couple reservations at various locations, food locations, sorry.

Drinking Around The World Basics

Alicea 3:55

That we partook in as well.

Nathan 3:57

Well, Alicea, I have a question for you. Uh-huh. If somebody who's listening to this isn't familiar, why is it called drinking around the world?

Alicea 4:07

There are 11 countries in Epcot, and it is called drinking around the world because you go around the world from Mexico to Canada.

Nathan 4:16

Exactly.

Alicea 4:17

In the whatever weird layout that they have there. Because yeah. You're going around the world.

Nathan 4:23

It's called a clockwise layout.

Alicea 4:25

No, but

Nathan 4:27

from left to right.

Alicea 4:28

Uh-huh. Mexico to Canada is left to right. Yeah.

Nathan 4:31

You go Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, the US, Japan, Morocco, France, United Kingdom, and Canada.

Alicea 4:38

Not actually going around the world that way, but okay.

Nathan 4:41

Well, it depends. Like if you're doing a around the world in 80 days and there's a bunch of severe storms, this is exactly what might happen.

Alicea 4:48

Might. Yes. Anyway, it's called drinking around the world because you get a drink in each country.

Nathan 4:52

Exactly. So what was our approach to that? Did we actually get a drink in each country?

Alicea 4:58

I don't think we did. We walked through all the countries, but that's okay. We we did our best, but there were other factors that came into this where it did not happen, um, meaning heat and rain.

Nathan 5:09

Yeah, severe thunderstorms and

Alicea 5:11

yes, deluges and ride interruptions, all that good stuff. We started out, of course, when you're an Epcot, you have to thank the Phoenicians. Yes, you have to go on Spaceship Earth. This is well, it may not be mandatory for everybody. It is mandatory for you for us.

Nathan 5:28

It should be mandatory for everybody.

Alicea 5:30

Of going onto Spaceship Earth. On this ride, you are spoken to by Miss Dame Judy Dench. And she does the narration for it.

Nathan 5:39

Yes. I don't know if you're spoken to. I'm

Alicea 5:41

sure you are.

Nathan 5:42

Okay.

Alicea 5:42

Alicea 5:42

Yeah. And one of the things she says is if you can read or write or understand words, thank the Phoenicians. So we thank the Phoenicians. We literally say thank you, Phoenicians. Thank you, Phoenicians. When we go by this ride. Yes. So we did that

Geo-82 Lounge Drinks And Vibes

Alicea 5:57

first. And then we had reservations at Geo82 at 11 a.m. This is a 21 and over lounge. So it is age restricted.

Nathan 6:08

Yes.

Alicea 6:09

Which meant Sterling could not go in. Sterling was rather put out about this. Uh we did let them know ahead of time that there would be part of the morning where they could go do whatever they want.

Nathan 6:21

They could go do a ride. They could go do merch shopping.

Alicea 6:26

Yep. We gave them money to go merch shopping.

Nathan 6:29

Sent them a hundred bucks.

Alicea 6:31

Child did not go merch shopping. Child sat on the cart that I had gotten because I needed it and literally just sat there the whole time we were in Geo 82. That's okay. We enjoyed Geo 82. This is in the like what used to be a corporate lounge area inside Spaceship Earth. They they redid it. It's actually really cool. It's smaller than I thought it would be. Very nicely done decor and expensive, but really delicious drinks.

Nathan 7:01

They have very, very fancy ice cubes that have the Epcot ball design. They do, uh obviously not at 11 a.m., but they have fireworks viewing packages that you can uh it does overlook kind of world showcase from a distance. Yeah, you can see the fireworks though. Yeah, absolutely. And they do pipe in the music and all the rest of that stuff. So it was super comfortable. Our server was amazing.

Alicea 7:30

Yeah.

Nathan 7:30

We did a couple rounds of of all sorts of libations.

Alicea 7:34

There's some flights that were involved.

Nathan 7:37

We got a bunch of snacks.

Alicea 7:39

Yep. And uh Sterling got antsy.

Ratatouille Without 3D Glasses

Alicea 7:42

So I left a little early and went with Sterling to go do Ratatouille because it was only like a 30-minute wait. And Ratatouille was new for both of us in the in the fact that it wasn't 3D anymore.

Nathan 7:57

Yes.

Alicea 7:57

And both Sterling and I actually ended up getting or had gotten nauseous on this ride a little bit from the 3D FX. Insane. And we're like, sure, we'll try we'll try this out. We'll see what it's like.

Nathan 8:07

So I had done this about two weeks before y'all.

Alicea 8:10

Yep.

Nathan 8:11

And what did you think?

Alicea 8:14

I thought it was fine. It didn't bother me. Now, there was something odd that I noticed, and I don't remember if we talked about this at all or not. It looked like they forgot to take the 3D out of some of the screens.

Nathan 8:26

Really?

Alicea 8:27

Like it looked like the animations were still 3D in some screens.

Nathan 8:32

Huh.

Alicea 8:33

Like it has like that kind of like doubled lines on it. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that. I was like, um

Nathan 8:40

Interesting. I didn't notice that when I was on it. But I meant what did you think? I mean, yeah, I figured it wasn't going to make you nauseous.

Alicea 8:48

It didn't make me nauseous anymore.

Nathan 8:50

I'm asking, what did you think about the ride? For me, it plussed up this ride. It made me like I actually really enjoyed it.

Alicea 8:58

So I enjoyed this ride in the first place, other than it, you know, making me not feel great.

Nathan 9:02

Yeah, see, that overrules everything for me. Okay.

Alicea 9:05

No, I thought I thought it was a really cute ride. I like the premise of it. I like that you get shrunk down. I like in the ride queue, you actually get shrunk down as well. Yeah. Not so much in the beginning part when you're getting into the ride, but when you leave the ride, you're still shrunk down. And then the floor tiles are like big, huge floor tiles. And then you go back to normal size and the floor tiles are back to regular size too. I think that's such a cool little touch that they do.

Nathan 9:33

I actually did not like this ride at all.

Alicea 9:35

Beforehand.

Nathan 9:36

Beforehand. And riding it without the 3D glasses and without the 3D effects, at least for me, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. And I it lived up to its full potential that I always wanted it to be. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, a quite enjoyable ride, and is now on uh likely on a must-do list for me when I'm in Epcot.

Alicea 9:58

Yeah, we really enjoyed it. And while Sterling and I were off taking probably about an hour or so to do all that stuff, you guys did a couple of other things. What did you guys do?

Nathan 10:08

Uh we had a brown butter old fashioned, we had uh aged Rambo Boulevardier. We oh, sorry, you meant not at Geo82.

Alicea 10:15

Yeah, I was already at Geo82. This is after. Jeez, keep up.

Nathan 10:21

I'm sorry. We did a little uh photo outside of the spaceship Earth Ball. Bill bought me a Sam Eagle popcorn bucket, uh, which is um much appreciated. Thank you, Bill.

Alicea 10:36

Add to our Fourth of July decor.

Nathan 10:38

Yes, exactly.

Alicea 10:39

He is a bird, he is a bird, goes with our bird decor.

Nathan 10:42

Yeah, now we have more birds. Yay! Um and then we of course started over in Mexico because when drinking around the world, Margarita's are first.

Alicea 10:54

Yes. And you went to the Cava de tequila, didn't you?

Nathan 10:57

Yes, we did go to the cave of tequila.

Alicea 11:02

In English, yes. I mean, it means the same thing in Span. Yes, okay.

Nathan 11:06

It does mean the same thing in Spanish. Cava del tequila does mean Cava del Tequila in Spanish. That's correct. Um yeah, uh Kaitlyn actually enjoyed tequila, so not a huge fan of straight margaritas, but some of their flavored options uh she did enjoy.

Alicea 11:27

Yeah, I'm not a fan of just regular margaritas either. It has to be a uh a flavor.

Nathan 11:32

Let's see, where else did we go? Obviously, Norway was first. I think we may have gotten a beer there.

Alicea 11:39

Okay.

Nathan 11:40

We got a beer in Norway, and then we all sat out by the lake under an umbrella at a picnic table while a little rainstorm came through.

Guardians Ride And Storm Chase

Alicea 11:50

Well, she left because we had a uh 120 reservation for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Nathan 11:57

Yes.

Alicea 11:57

So after Sterling and I got off of Ratatouille, I looked at the clock, and it was it was time for us to make our way over at to Guardians, and she had done that too. I just didn't know if you guys had gone to Norway or China or Germany or any of that stuff beforehand. So you sound like you did Norway.

Nathan 12:15

We went to Norway and I think I can't remember if Kaitlyn how long Kaitlyn stayed there with us. I think she may have taken off right after Mexico.

Alicea 12:24

Okay.

Nathan 12:25

Uh to go meet up with y'all. Uh, and so she she did miss Norway.

Alicea 12:31

Okay.

Nathan 12:31

Uh, we got beers and sat outside just under an umbrella because a little rainstorm was coming through.

Alicea 12:39

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I noticed when Sterling and I left Ratatouille, there was a little bit of rumblings going on. And right when we got to Guardians, Kaitlyn was there too. Like the thunder started in earnest. We got inside, and right when we literally like right after we got under the threshold, the heavens just opened.

Nathan 13:02

Yeah. So we were sitting outside when the heavens opened, and it was fine. We were still dry, uh, relatively speaking, and then it got windy, and we were not.

Alicea 13:14

This was a very intense downpour.

Nathan 13:18

Yes.

Alicea 13:18

Like, yeah, there's it's it's Florida. There gets there get storms. This one seemed really intense, though. Like really hard rain.

Nathan 13:27

Yeah. So we ducked into one of the shops. Oh, actually, I think we kind of just said screw it because it we were soaking wet because of the wind. And we were like, well, we could run into one of the shops in Norway, or we can just head to Germany, which is where we wanted to get to anyway.

Alicea 13:46

Yeah.

Nathan 13:46

So we walked through the rain over to Germany.

Alicea 13:50

Got it. Well, Sterling and I both had umbrellas because we planned more for sun and rain, but we planned. And uh on Guardians, we got the song one way or another, and that was just a lot of fun.

Nathan 14:04

Very cool.

Alicea 14:05

We enjoyed that. I don't think we'd ever had that one before, so that was new for all of us. And uh we slowly made our way. We stayed in uh the Guardians post queue for a little bit because it was still raining pretty hard. Right. Um, I think we stayed in there for maybe 10 minutes and then we made our way over to you guys and met you in Italy. You

Italy Stops And Via Napoli Feast

Alicea 14:27

all were at the Tuto Gusto wine cellar.

Nathan 14:30

Yes. So we were sitting in one of the stores over in Germany, uh, I think the one kind of closest to Italy. And uh Rachel was on her phone and was able to get on the walk-up list for Tuto Italia or excuse me, Tuto Gusto. And so we all went over there and got a nice seat and a table, and which was shocking considering everybody was looking for tables and all the rest of that stuff. Yeah, and that's where we had a bunch of snacks. I had a lemon cello flight, yeah. That was excellent.

Alicea 15:12

I'm surprised you guys got snacks because we had reservations at Via Napoli at 3 30.

Nathan 15:18

I mean just because when in Italy, when in Rome?

Alicea 15:21

Well, we were we were already having lunch and lunch, dinner, line in Italy. We had to you had more stuff to I guess you had to sop up the alcohol with your limoncello flights.

Nathan 15:32

We had to dry off. Uh yeah, okay. Yeah.

Alicea 15:35

With the food. All right, makes sense.

Nathan 15:37

Yeah, so you met us there, and then uh I guess we stayed there for a while because then we hit um via Napoli at about 3 30.

Alicea 15:46

So Yeah, we had standing reservations for for lunch there.

Nathan 15:51

Interestingly, this will mark the second time that we have attempted to go drinking around the world and gotten stuck in Italy.

Alicea 15:59

Yeah, I mean, not super surprising, honestly.

Nathan 16:03

No, but last time it was Lemoncello margaritas sitting in the sun out by the fountain. Yeah. This time it was hiding from storms by going into the restaurants. So, you know, that's different. Now we did have a reservation for Via Napoli because that is one of Bill's favorite restaurants.

Alicea 16:19

We had a nice big table, we had a couple of people meeting us there, and got a big ass pizza. It was delicious. Yes. And some other libations of deliciousness, good stuff. Via Napoiy is always good. It's really cool to see the pizza ovens that are named after the volcanoes of Italy. I forget the names other than Stromboli, Vesuias, and what's the other one? Aetna. Aetna.

Nathan 16:43

There it is. Yes. We do have pictures of them somewhere in our photo album. Somewhere, yes. Yeah, and then it cleaned up, uh, cleared up. It became a very nice and beautiful day out. It significantly cooled off.

Alicea 16:56

Yep.

Nathan 16:56

We strolled through the the Mitsukashi, Mitsukushi Mitsu, the store in Japan.

Alicea 17:02

Well, before we went there, we did go to America.

Nathan 17:07

Oh, don't skip America. No, no, never been there.

Alicea 17:10

No. We got some drinks from the Regal Eagle Smokehouse Outdoor Bar. There is an outdoor bar. Um, I got a strawberry Daiquiri and Kaitlyn got a blood orange cider. Good stuff. And then we went to Japan to bar over there. Yeah.

Nathan 17:24

Yes. Everybody loves the Japan stuff.

Alicea 17:26

Yeah. Did we get any drinks in Morocco?

Nathan 17:29

I don't think so.

Alicea 17:31

Okay. It's that one's a little, I mean, I think there's some food places there, but there's not really any that area has kind of uh declined a bit. So sad. Sterling really wanted a baguette. So Sterling and I went to France. We just bypassed Morocco and went straight to France to get baguettes from Les Halles and the Boulangerie and Patisserie and got some good stuff there. You guys eventually made it to France and got some frozen something or another.

Nathan 17:59

So yeah, they were the the wine uh slushies.

Alicea 18:03

Okay. Excellent. Yep, did there went to UK and got some beer.

Nathan 18:09

Also a must do.

Alicea 18:10

Yeah. This was around, I think, six o'clock, somewhere around there. Somewhere there. I think we bypassed Canada. I think everybody was just tired. Yeah. We left the park around seven o'clock.

Nathan 18:23

Yeah, somewhere there.

Alicea 18:24

Yeah. So we kind of semi-drank around the world. We had enough drinks. There was there was there was drinking done. Yes.

Nathan 18:32

We made it. We made the lap.

Alicea 18:34

Yes. Yeah.

Nathan 18:36

Uh and yeah, it was that was uh that was a fun.

Alicea 18:40

It was a fun day. It's always good to spend time with friends. Yeah.

Polynesian Island Tower And Fireworks

Alicea 18:43

And then we finally got to our hotel room, and we were staying at the Polynesian Island Tower. We were in a two-bedroom with park view, and this room is gorgeous.

Nathan 18:55

Absolutely.

Alicea 18:56

Would stay here again.

Nathan 18:58

We should get some DVC points there.

Alicea 19:00

Have you been living under a rock?

Nathan 19:03

No, I have not.

Alicea 19:04

Okay. You very well know that we have points here.

Nathan 19:08

I have a tattoo on my arm.

Alicea 19:13

Yes. This tower is really nice. We I had a little bit of time to look around. Um, there are multiple terraces at the tower. There's some facing uh the park area, there's some facing the golf course area. Uh just nice little areas where you can go to. If you are staying in a tower only, you have access to these areas. Yes. Um, kind of cool to if you want to watch the fireworks at night. You can go into one of these terraces that overlook the park area.

Nathan 19:44

Yes. If you don't happen to have a theme park view.

Alicea 19:46

Yeah, if you don't happen to have a theme park, you can you can do this. And they can fit a fair amount of people too. I'm just guessing you have to get in there a little early to make sure you get a seat.

Nathan 19:56

Yeah. They're about the width of like a one or a two-bedroom suite. Yep. Um, and they're two stories tall. So these were like the big holes, like boxes uh in the building that everybody was like, what on earth are those things while it was being constructed? And um the was the source of much derision. And uh, folks, stop pre-judging things until you've seen them in their completed state.

Alicea 20:22

Oh, these are gorgeous. Each terrace has a different theme.

Nathan 20:25

Yeah.

Alicea 20:26

Um, I think my favorite was the the lava terrace. Ooh. It's really cool. It has, I mean, it had the lava rock, like the black dark ro lava rock. Looked really neat.

Nathan 20:35

I didn't get a chance to see them all because I was doing other things while you were uh uh touring and taking photos.

Alicea 20:43

I wanted to get photos before we left.

Nathan 20:44

So I can't wait to stay here again. I'm excited to do that at some point in our future.

Alicea 20:49

Yes. That night around nine o'clock, we're like, well, we should probably get some food. Yeah. Um, so we went down to the Wailulu Bar and Grill. Is that what it says? Yeah. It is. That's we went down to the Wailulu Bar and Grill. They just happened to have like a nine o'clock reservation, so we popped in there. Yep. Uh, we were too tired. Yes. We ordered, ate maybe a little bit of it, but I think all of us were like literally falling asleep at the table.

Nathan 21:17

Yeah. The kids left early.

Alicea 21:19

Yeah.

Nathan 21:20

We at least finished out.

Alicea 21:21

We finished out, went up to the room just before the fireworks started over at Magic Kingdom, and we watched the fireworks from the balcony. The kids did come out um to watch the fireworks.

Nathan 21:30

I think Kaitlyn was already outside. Yeah. Um, but she fell asleep. She did fall asleep.

Alicea 21:37

Yeah. Um, so that was Wednesday and Thursday.

Hollywood Studios With Premiere Pass

Alicea 21:41

We went to Hollywood Studios. Yes. And this day we did something we haven't done before.

Nathan 21:46

Yes. This day we just splurged because we had something to do that evening. Uh, and so we couldn't kind of let the fates uh do what they wanted to do in terms of lightning lanes. Return times, but there was a bunch of rides that we absolutely wanted to do. So we fell for Disney's scheme, and we got a lightning lane premiere pass. Now, this is the third type of lightning lane pass. So you have single passes, which is for a single ride at one specific ride, excuse me, attraction. Uh, and the uh then you have a multi-pass, which is at a given park. You can go figure out uh any one of the rides that have lightning lanes, though you do have to gamify the system a little bit. You have to get specific wait times or excuse me, return times, and you end up spending a whole ton of time on your phone.

Alicea 22:50

Yeah,

Nathan 22:50

and you still aren't guaranteed to be able to ride everything you want. A lightning lane premiere pass is more expensive, but that said, it's actually kind of in the same price range as what Universal charges for their express pass.

Alicea 23:07

Yep.

Nathan 23:07

Um, and so it's not uncalled for. I want to say it was around $350. Now, this is on top of your uh park entry fee. So, you know, we're we're shelling out a bunch of money here. Uh now Disney Math says that the annual passes that the four of us have are already a sunk cost, and so they don't they don't factor into this day. But anyhow, the Premier Pass honestly, it was kind of a game changer.

Alicea 23:35

You should say exactly how it works, though.

Nathan 23:37

So the way this thing works is obviously you pre-pay, you pre-buy the premiere pass. I guess you could do it day of, but whatever. We we did it uh beforehand. And you basically are able to ride every single attraction that has a lightning lane available once during your day at any time. As long as the ride is operational, you walk up, you tap your magic band or your uh your ticket key uh card or your phone, or in my case, I discovered you can use your Apple Watch and don't even have to open your uh the the wallet to select your annual pass. I accidentally just tapped my watch and it worked.

Alicea 24:22

I couldn't get it to work.

Nathan 24:23

Well, I you I I'm not surprised. Do and technology aren't uh necessarily in sapatico, as you will. I'll help you set that up. There is a setting that you have to turn on. Okay. Anyway.

Alicea 24:36

So with the yeah, with the premiere pass, it's you get to go lightning lane on every single ride that has lightning lane at any time. You just scan in.

Nathan 24:43

Once. Once it's still one ride.

Alicea 24:46

It's still one ride.

Nathan 24:47

Yes. Yes, yeah.

Alicea 24:48

But you don't have to set anything up. You don't have to go into your phone and say, I want to ride this ride at this time. Nope. You just go up there and you scan in and it is good to go.

Nathan 24:56

You're good to go. So the way we started out, we slept in because again, the previous day was a lot. Yep. Uh, we got to the park around 10 a.m. Kaitlyn and I went off to Ronto Roasters. Sterling and Alicia went over to Starbucks.

Alicea 25:13

Yeah. We were gonna do Woody's Lunchbox, but we were walking by and both of us just kind of beelined into that. Nope, we'll do this instead.

Nathan 25:20

We um ended up meeting over at Rise of the Resistance, somewhere around 1015, 1020, or something like that. Yep. That was a 55-minute wait for those people who didn't have a lightning lane. And we rode it. It was A mode. Dominantly in A mode, although the cannons aren't moving. Wow. I don't think they've fixed those in Florida yet.

Alicea 25:46

No, they have not.

Nathan 25:47

I have some I have some people I need to make a call to.

Alicea 25:50

Yes. John. Yes, exactly. Um, yeah, so that was A-mode for the most part. That was A mode. Then we went over to Smuggler's Run, uh, Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run. Because this had the new Mandalorian and Grogu overlay that we hadn't been on yet. And this was cute.

Nathan 26:09

Yes, it was fantastic.

Alicea 26:12

This was a 45-minute wait had we done standby. One of the neat things about the Mandalorian and Grogu overlay is I think the engineer, whoever's the engineer, they get to choose what planet you visit. And there are three different planets. You can choose from Coruscant, Bespin, or I believe Endor. Yes, that's correct. Technically, the moon of Endor.

Nathan 26:37

True.

Alicea 26:38

But they said Endor. That is incorrect.

Nathan 26:40

That is incorrect. Yes.

Alicea 26:42

Moon of Endor. And we didn't know which one Kaitlyn chose because Kaitlyn was the engineer until we got there.

Nathan 26:48

Yes. And we went to Coruscant.

Alicea 26:51

We did go to Coruscant. Yeah.

Nathan 26:53

I I really like the changes that they've made. This is uh a new set of destinations, a new set of activities to do. I think it's much more immersive. I think it is the game physics are dialed down a little bit to the point where uh you don't just automatically crash uh because you blinked wrong. Yeah, yeah. Um I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun.

Alicea 27:19

That was fun. And then because we were on the way out, we went to Toy Storyland next.

Nathan 27:25

Yes, on our way through. We basically started off in Galaxy's Edge. There was one ride on this day that we skipped, and that is Star Tours. Star Tours, yeah. Because it gets to kind of all of us at this point.

Alicea 27:39

Oh no, we just I mean, we start off at the wrong end because Sterling and I went in through a different area. I think you guys are already in there.

Nathan 27:46

It was also not it gets to me at this point uh in my tummy. Um, and it just wasn't we were all kind of like, yeah, that's fine, we'll skip that one. Yeah.

Alicea 27:55

We did go on to Alien Swirling Saucers next uh at 1119. This was a 35-minute wait for this silly little ride that we all absolutely adore. It's so much fun.

Nathan 28:11

It is, and then we did Slinky Dog Dash at 11:38. That was an hour and a half wait. Yeah. Love this coaster. It was hot by this time.

Alicea 28:21

Yeah, it was it was very hot.

Nathan 28:23

It was very hot. We had that was probably the longest wait we had. It was probably 15 minutes to get through the lightning lane.

Alicea 28:30

Yeah. After that, because we were in that area, we did Toy Story Midway Mania, always a fun one. That ride had a 75-minute wait at that time.

Nathan 28:39

And I was the winner.

Alicea 28:42

You were the winner, yes.

Nathan 28:44

I felt really good about that.

Alicea 28:46

I always do horribly these rides, but they're

Nathan 28:49

I surprisingly did really well.

Alicea 28:53

Uh, then we got onto Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. That wait was 45 minutes.

Nathan 28:59

It was. Uh, since we were off and moving over to Rock and Roller Coaster, we uh had the timing worked out. Uh we went and saw the villains unfairly ever after show. Yeah. What did you think of that?

Alicea 29:16

I liked this. Yeah. Anytime you have like live entertainment like this, honestly, bring back more live entertainment is this.

Nathan 29:22

Yes.

Alicea 29:23

This is a really nice, I thought, addition to um to the show. They used to have the cars show over here. Um, and now they have the villain show. I wonder if this is just kind of figuring out if this is a show that they can do in the new villains land that they're building at um Magic Kingdom.

Nathan 29:44

Yeah, or what the reception to it would be in a year. Yeah. And I mean, it's been open for a year-ish at this point, I want to say. It's still packing the house. I you know what I pretty much every show.

Alicea 29:56

Yeah, I thought this was a great show. You have three villains that you're basically deciding who was treated the most unfairly.

Nathan 30:06

Yes. Although I have a funny feeling it just turned into a popularity contest of which of the villains that you uh liked the most, we'll say I thought that I thought all of them did a great job.

Alicea 30:17

Maleficent one for ours, um, which is awesome because she is my favorite.

Nathan 30:23

I also love the upgrade that they made to this theater because they it used to be uh bench seating when it was Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy, and now it's actually theater seats. So I think that's a fantastic upgrade. I'm looking forward to uh them keeping the theater seats when hopefully this show moves over to Villains Land, and then we can get another Muppet show back over here. That would be nice. Now that then you have we have recreated Muckpit's Courtyard on the opposite side of the park.

Alicea 30:53

Exactly.

Nathan 30:54

Love it.

Alicea 30:54

Um, speaking of Muppets, the next ride we did was the rock and roller coaster starring the Muppets. Yes. Um, it's funny. I was uh we were able to see the pre-show a little bit. I was just watching everything and totally forgot to get pictures. And as we were walking by the scooter animatronic, I'm like, oh, let me get a let me get a picture of Scooter. And spoiler alert, sorry, at the end of Scooter's Little Spiel, he kind of goes, ah, and just falls down, like his own little faint type thing. That's well, that's scooter. He does that anyway.

Nathan 31:27

Yeah.

Alicea 31:28

Um, and I took a picture and he had fallen down.

Nathan 31:32

Well, the good news is I took plenty of photos on my last visit. So you can get some of those uh out of our photo woman and share them, just like they were on this day.

Alicea 31:42

Yes.

Nathan 31:44

Uh so that was a 70-minute wait. Then we did Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at 150. That was a 35-minute wait. Love this one. I tell you what, I think Alicea, you may have said this in the park. But ever since they redid Tower of Terror in California Adventure to be the Guardians of the Galaxy, not Cosmic Rewind.

Alicea 32:07

It is Mission Breakout.

Nathan 32:09

Yes, not Escape from Gringot s. Um, I have a weird brain, y'all. Um, I have a newfound joy of riding these. It is fun. I did not like Tower of Terror previously. I did either really like it now.

Alicea 32:26

Yeah, it's it is a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

Nathan 32:29

Yep.

Alicea 32:29

And little tip here when you are going through the queue, there is the directory board inside the lobby of the hotel that that has like what's on each floor and everything. Right. It's all dusty because you know, it's all decrepit and everything. Right. If you look closer, some of the letters have fallen off of the directory. If you look in, it'll say at the bottom of the directory where the letters have fallen, take the stairs.

Nathan 33:00

All sorts of Easter eggs at Disney rides. Love it, love it, love it. And then we had done again, except for Star Tours, every single ride in the park that we wanted to go do basically between 10:30 and 2.15. Yeah. So we'll fuzz the math, we'll call it four hours. We completed Hollywood Studios on our schedule, had fun. The phones stayed in our pockets. We weren't worried about returning times, we weren't having to run from one side of the park to the other to, you know, uh accommodate whatever return time we were able to get to for something. We had plenty of time if we wanted to to go see the shows. We didn't because we had other plans on the day. But uh Lightning Lane Premiere Pass, it is expensive. Uh, it is not nearly as expensive as a shared or a private VIP tour. Yeah. I don't does Disney do shared VIP tours? Okay.

Alicea 34:06

Well, I mean, it's just a VIP tour up to 12 people. So technically, yeah.

Nathan 34:11

I mean, yeah, but it's not like at Universal where you can buy like a fraction, buy a seat on a shared tour that's open to everybody. Like you have to know somebody who's paying for the tour. Yeah. So like if you only have a day, you really want to do everything, and you have the money, obviously. Uh different parks cost different amounts. Yes, that's a that's a great point. So uh Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are kind of the A tier pricing for this. I don't know the price ranges off the top of my head, but like when we were there at the end of June, it was about $350 per person for a day of uh Lightning Lane premiere pass at one of those two parks. And then Epcot and Animal Kingdom are about half that price. Uh so they were like $175 or $169 or makes sense.

Alicea 35:10

They have a lot less rides, too.

Nathan 35:11

Right. Exactly. Yeah so if money is no object, but money is kind of an object because you don't want to do a VIP tour and you want to do everything in a day, I think this is an absolutely fantastic way to do it.

Alicea 35:25

Now, timing-wise, this saved us 450 minutes of wait time.

Nathan 35:32

Uh-huh. Seven and a half hours. Yep. We had seven and a half hours of waiting that we avoided to do eight rides, could have been nine easily, plus we did at least one show in four hours of total time elapsed.

Alicea 35:50

And it was hot.

Nathan 35:51

And it was hot, which even makes us even better. Yeah. This is again, it's an expensive day, but if you have the means, like I and you're not just there for the vibes for a few hours in the evening or something like that. Like, this makes a lot of sense

Brown Derby Then Disney Springs Errands

Nathan 36:06

to me.

Alicea 36:06

So we scored a uh late lunch at Brown Derby at 220.

Nathan 36:12

Yeah.

Alicea 36:12

Um, which is okay.

Nathan 36:15

Yeah. Our server was great. The kitchen was slow, which I don't understand because they were not busy. Like the lunch rush was long gone. Um it is what it is.

Alicea 36:29

Yep. And it was kind of about this time we had a conversation because of what we were doing later that evening and realized Sterling didn't have any flip-flops or anything, any sandals or anything.

Nathan 36:42

Yeah. By the way, we're we had uh a cruise coming up to the Caribbean, and all he had was sneakers.

Alicea 36:50

Yep. We did ask them to grab flip-flops, and they said, Oh, I couldn't find them. I'm like, and you couldn't tell us while we were still at home. Right. Okay, so we went over to Disney Springs, went to um Olokai and got some flip-flops and um got some Gideon's cookies and um stopped for Raglan Road at it for a drink.

Nathan 37:13

I think we divided and conquered.

Alicea 37:14

We did divide and conquer.

Nathan 37:15

You and Sterling went to Gideon's and Kaitlyn and I, I forget what we said we were going to do, but I remember maybe it was a slow walk back over towards the the bus stops. That's what it was, and you guys got very quickly. Oh, hey, there's a Raglan Road uh uh outdoor bar right there, and there's two empty stools right in the end. Yep, yep. Look where we're gonna take a quick sit-down.

Alicea 37:38

Exactly. So one of the reasons we needed to get flip-flops was because we had tickets for the Moonlight Magic at Typhoon Lagoon that evening.

Typhoon Lagoon Moonlight Magic Reality Check

Alicea 37:48

Moonlight Magic is a DVC offering. If you are a DVC member, you can visit a select theme park for a special celebration that they offer after the park is closed to the public. This does not cost anything. This is like prepaid in your membership. You do have to own points directly from Disney. It doesn't work if you have a resale contract.

Nathan 38:09

So you need at least 150 points direct, at least currently. Unless you've been grandfathered in. Unless you've been grandfathered in. Yeah, yeah.

Alicea 38:17

Some of the cool things are it uh you get shorter than usual wait times. There's different Disney character greetings, uh, a lot of entertainment stuff, and complimentary treats. And they have it at all different parks. While we were there, they happened to have one at Typhoon Lagoon. And we have never, ever been to Typhoon Lagoon.

Nathan 38:35

Nope.

Alicea 38:35

Not really water park people. I was when I was a kid. Um not anymore. Not anymore. But it was available, so I figured, sure, we'll try it out.

Nathan 38:47

Let's do it.

Alicea 38:48

You know, let's do it. Sterling had an absolute blast. I think I think they were the only one.

Nathan 38:54

Well, so we we got there. Uh it was a little late. Later when we got there. We arrived at about 7 45, and I think that you could get in as early as six. Yeah. And the event officially kicked off at eight o'clock. Yeah. It took us a while to even find some open chairs. Like it was it was pretty packed.

Alicea 39:17

It was pretty packed.

Nathan 39:19

And so we we've we found a place to drop our stuff that wasn't anywhere near uh entrances to the water, but that's fine. And then we um got into the the main pool, which is a wave pool. And there was waves going back and forth. It was like a kind of a choppy day on the ocean.

Alicea 39:40

I'm used to wild waves here in the Pacific Northwest, which as a wave pool, it has um it has it has waves that you can body surf on, you know, stuff like that. And it's it's a constant, not super big waves or anything like that.

Nathan 39:55

Like uh two to three foot waves.

Alicea 39:57

Yeah, that's what I was expecting.

Nathan 39:58

Yeah. Holy cow. And that's what was happening here. Yeah, yeah. And and then these horns went off, and we're like, what the heck does that mean? And the waves stopped. And we're like, okay, that's fine. And then, like a minute later, we heard whoosh. And we're like, uh, what? And we looked towards the end of the pool where the sound had come from, and this gigantic wave

Alicea 40:23

tsunami

Nathan 40:25

was barreling down on the pool.

Alicea 40:27

Oh my gosh. And we're like, oh no. Oh boy, oh no, what what do we do now? So we we dove underneath. Yes. It was a huge wave, it was ginormous, and everybody freaked out, like in the best way. Like, yes, this yeah, it was so fun.

Nathan 40:43

Yeah, it was fun. Those kept coming every several minutes. There'd be another one.

Alicea 40:48

I think it was every minute.

Nathan 40:49

It was no, it was it was more than at one point.

Alicea 40:52

90 seconds then it was it was pretty, pretty quick.

Nathan 40:56

Yeah, it did make it a little interesting for me who's not really stable on a knee replacement uh yet, yeah, uh, to try to get out because we were suffering from you know, the the water rushes through and and up onto the quote unquote beach, uh, and then it all has to go back. And so there was uh quite a current and undertow happening. Uh so that was that was a little fun for me to navigate on a little wobbly leg. That was interesting. And then we went into the lazy river. I liked this. Yeah.

Alicea 41:29

We we couldn't grab any of them, but they had like some, I don't know, they're like half inner tube seat type things. Yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. And and then other inner tubes that you can grab too. We just we just didn't grab an inner tube and just floated ourselves around. This is a humongous lazy river. It goes all the way around the park. Yeah. Um, I think we went around twice.

Nathan 41:50

We went around one one and a half times.

Alicea 41:52

One and a half times.

Nathan 41:53

I think Sterling went around like once and opted out of the the other, like continuing on. Yeah. And this is where it became an amazing night for Sterling and not so much for the rest of us. Yeah.

Alicea 42:10

They got adopted by a family, just randomly found a friend because that's what they do and had a lot of fun.

Nathan 42:17

Love it for them. We had no idea where they were.

Alicea 42:19

No. Nope.

Nathan 42:21

Um, so we kind of split up, went looking for them. I hung out by the stuff in case Sterling came back there. It wasn't horrible.

Alicea 42:30

No. Weren't mad.

Nathan 42:31

It was just like, well, this is inconvenient because you can't like go change or or like change locations or do things because you know, as parents were thinking through all the logistics of, well, if we move and then Sterling comes back to where our stuff used to be, um, they're gonna freak out a little bit. So that's uh not the play we did.

Alicea 42:52

No. And Kaitlyn and I went off to grab some snacks because that was part of this event. You get three vouchers uh per person to go get snacks. And there were different areas for snacks, and the lines were extremely long at all of them. The one that Caitlin and I stopped at had churros, pretzels, and popcorn. And then, of course, they had like drinks in a bottle too.

Nathan 43:15

You could get bottles of water, soda, yeah.

Alicea 43:18

And ice cream was available too at different places. The other location I think had some hot food available, but that line was even longer. So we're good.

Nathan 43:29

This is we've been to a few moonlight magic things before. The snack vouchers is very standard, yep. Um, very much appreciated. The lines at this event were the longest that I recall seeing.

Alicea 43:45

Yeah, I yeah. I don't know that I would do another water moonlight magic.

Nathan 43:52

No, I it it was the moonlight magic at the other parks, like um. Magic Kingdom, or they'll do um

Alicea 44:02

We've done Animal Kingdom, we've done Epcot.

Nathan 44:04

Yeah. It's a limited capacity of those theme parks. And so like lines are really short for all the rides, and you have special character interactions and photo opportunities and all sorts of stuff. And they have snack carts all around. And you may have three to five people in front of you for a snack cart. But this was it felt like the it was uh the normal capacity that they would do moonlight magic for in a theme park, yeah. Except it was crammed into a much smaller water park and it felt full.

Alicea 44:39

It did feel full. Um, there was also they had a DJ area on they have like a sand beach, and some of the characters were dancing over there, and that was actually really cute.

Nathan 44:51

A DJ was fantastic.

Alicea 44:53

A DJ was fantastic, yes.

Nathan 44:54

Disney has the best DJs, they're really good every time we've heard them. So yeah, it I'm with you. I wouldn't mind checking out the other water park, Blizzard Beach. Blizzard Beach. Um but I don't know that I would do another Moonlight Magic at these. Like I would it, it's just it's too packed.

Alicea 45:17

Yeah.

Nathan 45:18

I I I don't think these water parks are super busy on normal days. I mean, I think they get a bunch of people in, but I don't think it's like I I think we kind of had like a peak load for a water park.

Alicea 45:31

I think so too. Um, I will note if you are a DVC owner and use your DVC points at a resort, on your check-in day, you get access to a water park.

Nathan 45:44

That is a 2026 promotion. I believe they've said that's gonna no, they haven't announced what they're gonna do in 2027. Yeah, they started it last year. Um, and it's not just DVC, that's for any on property stay at a at a Disney World resort, correct.

Alicea 46:00

I was like, when we checked into the Polynesian, I noticed we had we had a a ticket in our in our My Disney Experience app for a water park.

Nathan 46:08

Yes, but we went drinking around the world instead.

Alicea 46:11

Drinking around the world instead, yes. So, like I said, we love moonlight magic, but I don't think we do a water park again.

Nathan 46:18

No, not not for moonlight magic. No, I might be compelled to go do a a water park again, not during the heat of the day. Yeah. I'd love to see Blizzard Beach and see what that's like at some point. The only kicker is is they're only open until 7 p.m. So like the typical hours during the summer for the water parks is 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Yeah. And like I I'd love to be able to stay later. Like if they were open till eight or nine, that would be like perfect for me. Yeah. Um, because I'd want to get there later in the day after everybody's kind of trying to clear out. Yeah. Uh rather than sitting outside in the heat of the day, because I don't think we would enjoy that at all.

Alicea 47:08

Well, if we do water park, this is how we would do it.

Nathan 47:13

Go on.

Alicea 47:14

We would get a cabana, because you can get a cabana at these. You can pay extra for a cabana. We could have done that here too. I just didn't want to.

Nathan 47:21

No.

Alicea 47:21

Um, and we'd rope drop.

Nathan 47:24

Yeah.

Alicea 47:25

This is one where we would definitely rope drop because that's 10 a.m. So it's easy to rope drop. Yeah, yeah. And but you'd want to to try and beat the heat, honestly.

Nathan 47:36

Yeah, yeah.

Alicea 47:37

All right. So the next day was our our day where we left to go down to Fort Lauderdale.

Topolino’s Breakfast Before The Cruise

Alicea 47:45

But that morning, we had reservations at Topolinos for breakfast.

Nathan 47:50

Yes. This is our second attempt at Tapolino's for breakfast. Our first was unfortunately during the aftertimes. It wasn't the before times, before the pandemic, but it was the soon after. Soon after. It was during uh it was in 2021. It was during pandemic protocols when they were not having any of the characters available to come around to all the tables. They would do a little dance kind of in the middle and supposedly come near your tables, but we were sat in a spot where they didn't really come near us at all. And it was it wasn't a great experience. Um so we did this again. So we did it again, and it was a great experience. It was a fantastic experience. Not everybody loves character dining, like our kids don't, because they'd rather just eat food and not be bothered with all these characters. Um, hey, you know, it's okay for them to be wrong. Uh we love it, but uh we love it. We we absolutely love doing character dining.

Alicea 48:54

And it was good. Food was delicious, yeah. And then we went on a cruise. We will talk about that next episode.

Nathan 49:00

Yes.

Alicea 49:01

But there's more. But wait. But wait. There's more.

Post Cruise Splurge At Bora Bora Bungalow

Nathan 49:05

After our cruise on the beautiful Disney Destiny, on July 4th, we drove back up to Orlando and checked back in at the Polynesian. This time we had a little bit of a wait for our room, but not too bad. We got some lunch there uh in the main building. And before you knew it, our room was ready. We had one of the Bora Bora bungalows. This was so nice. This was amazing. These are the overwater bungalows right there on Seven Seas Lagoon, directly across from the castle. It was amazing.

Alicea 49:43

We um, like Nathan said, we had to wait a little bit before our room was ready. We had lunch at Captain Cook's, which was pretty good. And we also got on the waiting list for Trader Sam's.

Nathan 49:54

Yes.

Alicea 49:55

Uh Kaitlyn had not done Trader Sam's before. Sterling and I had over in California, not here in Orlando. So we were able to get in, I think like around three.

Nathan 50:06

Yeah, it was a two-ish hour wait, a little bit longer than two hours. So just know that if you want to get on the list for Trader Sam's, you need to go to Trader Sam's to get on the list. And it will be a multi-hour wait because that's just the way this is there. Yep.

Alicea 50:24

Got some good drinks. Actually, I totally messed that up. My fault. We got into the room first, and then we got into Trader Sam's.

Nathan 50:32

Yes. Yes. And we made it over to Trader Sam's just as it was starting to rain. And um at one point, there was a storm inside the restaurant, which is, you know, normally part of its show. And the question went through my brain I don't know if that's inside or outside. Because it was a big storm.

Alicea 50:54

Yeah, yeah. There's quite a bit of those on this trip.

Nathan 50:58

Yes. It was glorious. As people who uh lived on the East Coast for quite a long time but have been in Seattle for 25 years, it was so nice to have some epic thunderstorms again. It was. It was. I loved it. Trader Sam's was absolutely fun. Uh I think we all enjoyed that.

Alicea 51:18

We got the uh oh.

Nathan 51:19

The uh oh. Uh oh. Uh oh, uh uh oh uh. Uh yeah. We got to swim when uh somebody uh at the at the place got uh one of the Nautilus submarine drinks, and you know, the waitress uh starts walking around with the spray bottle and uh squirting and it's just it is kitschy and it is amazingly fun. Yes. Yeah.

Alicea 51:42

And then all of our friends came.

Nathan 51:45

Yes.

Alicea 51:46

Because we invited everybody over to uh spend the 4th of July with us at the bungalow and watch the fireworks from our little porch there.

Nathan 51:54

Big shout out to Rachel and Mer for uh kind of organizing, getting all the stuff over there, um, all sorts of food. Uh thank you to Bill for cooking. We had all sorts of amazing uh uh stuff that he had smoked and uh that uh Rachel and Mer had cooked. It was it was kind of a really great uh uh up upgraded cookout, yeah, if you will, with all the cooking done beforehand. We just used the kitchen that's there in the bungalow. Uh one of the nice things about being DVC, it's a full kitchen. And yeah, we uh enjoyed the uh the the whole show, enjoyed the evening, enjoyed fireworks out on the deck, uh got in the hot tub that's out there for a little while.

Alicea 52:40

Plunge pool.

Nathan 52:41

Excuse me?

Alicea 52:42

Plunge pool. It's not it's is it a hot tub?

Nathan 52:44

I don't know, it's warm.

Alicea 52:46

Okay.

Nathan 52:47

Maybe not. It wasn't like a hundred degrees. It was yeah, I guess a plunge pool is would be a better description.

Alicea 52:54

And all the music for the fireworks shows and everything is piped through the speakers um uh uh outside there. So we got to hear everything and and it was really, really cool to watch the fireworks.

Nathan 53:06

Yeah, we we love this. Uh for those of you who are wondering, the Bora Bora bungalows are a two-bedroom unit, though it sleeps eight. Yep. There is a fold-out couch into a queen and kind of like the main living area, along with a we'll call it one of the DVC standard under TV uh fold-down single kid bunks. There is another bedroom, a dedicated bedroom that has a queen uh bed in it with another under TV bunk. And then there is a main bedroom with a king uh bed and an ensuite. Uh, I think you can also get like a pack and play in there.

Alicea 53:48

Yeah, there's different, not laws, there's different requirements. If you have an infant that like doesn't count towards the mainstus, yeah.

Nathan 53:56

But it's it's glorious. You have uh a table and chairs out on the veranda. There are a couple uh hanging basket chairs on the side of the building. Uh it's just a really fantastic place to relax. Uh, there's a couple loungers out there as well. Um I I would I mean it's expensive. It is uh points wise. This is pricey. Uh, but I wouldn't mind staying here again. I also wouldn't mind trying one of the cabins over at Wilderness.

Alicea 54:26

Yeah, yeah. Did it yeah. Um, one of our friends has stayed in the cabins, so we got to see what those look like. It's the same type of layout, but their their outdoor area is screened in, which is kind of nice.

Nathan 54:37

Yeah, yeah. Plus, they have a double-sided fireplace that uh hits both the living room and that outdoor space.

Alicea 54:43

Because it gets so cold in Orlando. Right.

Nathan 54:45

And I'm pretty sure it's an electric fireplace anyway, so whatever. Yeah.

Alicea 54:49

So that evening was amazing.

Nathan 54:52

Yes.

Alicea 54:52

And the next day on the Sunday, we were going to take it easy.

Nathan 54:58

That was our plan. That did not happen. No.

Animal Kingdom Morning Strategy And Tips

Alicea 55:02

We started out at Animal Kingdom. Kaitlyn definitely wanted to hit Animal Kingdom, and we had lightning lanes for a bunch of stuff this day. Yes. Started out at Everest.

Nathan 55:12

Expedition Everest Journey to the Forbidden Mountain TM.

Alicea 55:16

Yes. Something like that. Uh 9.15. And then we turned around and did it right again because the standby line was five minutes.

Nathan 55:25

Yep. So it was fantastic. Then we went over and did uh Kilimanjaro Safari. Uh that was a uh 15-minute wait, but we had a lightning lane for it anyway. Lightning lanes here are you may not need them at Animal Kingdom. It really depends on the day. Um, but you never know what the day's gonna be like. Yeah. And this was a holiday weekend, and so you know, the lightning lanes weren't super expensive. This was a multi-pass. We didn't do the premiere pass over here. Um, but I want to say it was like $24 a head or something like that.

Alicea 55:59

It wasn't it wasn't too bad. Yeah. And on the Safari, uh a tip for you all ask for the back row.

Nathan 56:07

Yes.

Alicea 56:07

Because you can turn around and easily look at the the animals behind you. And we saw some really cool animals. We did. We saw some babies. There were baby elephants, there were baby giraffes. Uh a lot of the animals were out at this time. This was around um, I think 10 or so. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan 56:27

Yep. Yep. Uh, and then of course, uh, after our safari, which was about a half hour, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, something like that. Then we were in time for our lightning lane over at Festival of the Lion King for the 11 o'clock show.

Alicea 56:43

This is always great. I love seeing this show. And we found out a little later that one of the performers there, it was his very last show. He'd been there from the beginning.

Nathan 56:54

last day. We were at the 11 o'clock show. He had a few shows after, but it was his last day. He retired. He was an opening day performer for this show. He's been there well over 20 years. Uh, this is Viril Jones, also known as VJ. Uh, he was uh the leader of the elephant section. This is Q May, or his character was called it Q May, and uh is a basically is the bear tone in the show and uh loves just like belting uh Scar's villainous anthem, Be Prepared. Such a good song. I love that song.

Alicea 57:31

The wordplay in it is phenomenal.

Nathan 57:33

And he just does it masterfully. Yes, yeah, yeah. It's very cool. Like to see him, I'm I feel privileged. I know we've seen him before. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And I think it was kind of neat to be there on his last day. Yeah, yeah.

Alicea 57:47

After that, frankly, phenomenal show, the kids went over to Pandora to do Flight of Passage, and we went to Nomad Lounge for no reason whatsoever.

Nathan 57:58

No, no particular reason. Never been there before. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Yes. Uh Nomad is our uh one of our favorite haunts there in Disney World. Just a 10-minute wait, just enough time to borrow the restrooms over in Tiffins, and then we're ready to go.

Alicea 58:14

Yeah. They sat us over in the dungeon, is what it was dungeon. Yeah, I don't know. The far side of the bar from the entrance, our waiter was Cam. He helped us out. And uh we learned a little bit more about the space, why we were sitting over there.

Nathan 58:30

And uh I'd never been in that space. Like I'd never even seen it open to be used as part of uh Nomad Lounge. So Cam shared some insider facts with us.

Alicea 58:41

This is a flex room that's kind of shared with Tiffin's. We were there on Sunday, July 5th, and they were only seeing around 140 guests at Tiffin's.

Nathan 58:54

That day. That day that whole day.

Alicea 58:56

Yeah, like the park, like the fourth.

Nathan 58:59

Right. Yeah, it was well the fifth, but I mean that holiday weekend, it's just like there was nobody there. Nobody there. In fact, he went on to explain that uh so on like on a normal summer day at Animal Kingdom, there's maybe eight to ten thousand people in the park. On the weekend, it's probably 12 to 15,000 people at Animal Kingdom on a summer day. Yeah. On the 4th of July this year at 1:30 in the afternoon, which is kind of like a peak time to be in a park, there were like less than 2,000 people at Disney's Animal Kingdom. That's crazy. Just whoa.

Alicea 59:39

Yeah.

Nathan 59:40

So uh yeah, everybody who was on property was either over at Epcot or they were at Magic Kingdom. Yep. Yeah. Or like us, they were at a bungalow. But you know, that's different. Much smaller, more uh unique and discreet, discerning audience with us at the bungalow.

Minivan Pro Tip And Carousel Goodbye

Alicea 59:59

Well, after our delicious drinks and munchies that we had, we took a minivan over from Animal Kingdom to Magic Kingdom because this was Carousel of Progress's last day before it gets reimagined.

Nathan 1:00:13

And pro tip with the minivans, uh, they drop you off in the bus loops at the parks. Yep. So while you may think Magic Kingdom, oh, you have to take the transition over from the transportation and ticket center on the opposite side of Seven Seas Lagoon, you've got to take the monorail or the ferry boat. If you take the bus or a minivan, you are dropped off right there at the front gate. Yep. So pro tip.

Alicea 1:00:42

Pro tip. Yeah. So carousel of progress. We went on it at um 1 40 p.m. and it was a walk-on. Later in the day, like it was there was a very long line.

Nathan 1:00:54

Yes. I didn't see a minute uh calculator on it. No, uh, but we saw some stuff on social media and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in line.

Alicea 1:01:06

Everybody wanted to be the last one. Yeah.

Nathan 1:01:07

Yep. Yeah.

Alicea 1:01:09

But we got on it, wasn't too bad. Um, I tried to get some pictures in video, but where we were sitting, there was literally somebody like right in front of me that their head was in everything.

Nathan 1:01:20

So yeah, I tried to get some pictures. We we got some. We'll we'll post some.

Alicea 1:01:26

Yeah, and we had some from earlier too.

Nathan 1:01:27

Yeah. And there was one scene that I'm pretty sure was broken.

Alicea 1:01:32

Uh yeah. I mean, there's a reason this is getting redone.

Nathan 1:01:36

Yeah. There was one of the side scenes where the son is uh, you know, talking with the dad, and you could barely hear him, and the lights never came on behind that curtain. So that that's happened before.

Alicea 1:01:49

For sure.

Nathan 1:01:49

Yeah. Yes.

Alicea 1:01:50

After Carousel of Progress, after we said it's a great big, beautiful tomorrow, we went over to the People Mover because that's another must-do for us. Must do. We'd love the people mover. After that, um, we were just, I think, getting a drink or something and happened to see Chip and Dale in their Tomorrowland outfits.

Nathan 1:02:08

Yes.

Alicea 1:02:08

But I don't think I've seen them in this before. They have this like weird helmet, half helmet thing with an antenna popping out the top. And I went and talked to Dale, and the attendant over there said, Oh, yeah, um, Dale's in charge of the Wi-Fi for the park. I was like, Oh, Dale, we need to have a talk. We need to talk. Nice little interaction there. Yeah. Um, then we also had a Tron

Tron Storm Then Beak And Barrel

Alicea 1:02:34

Lightning lane.

Nathan 1:02:34

Yes.

Alicea 1:02:35

So we uh we did that.

Nathan 1:02:37

Yeah, we had uh uh uh we got over there about 2 45. Standby wait was 45 minutes, but that is not what we did. Nope. We got on that train. Uh Alicea and Sterling went into the back of uh the accessible car, and Kaitlyn and I waited a couple extra trains and then got the very front of those light cycles. And man, that is so fun.

Alicea 1:03:00

It's a fun ride.

Nathan 1:03:02

It's an amazing ride. Yep. Uh I I hope someday, Alicea, you get a chance to get up front. Me too. I would love to. It's pretty fantastic. Yeah.

Alicea 1:03:11

Sterling and I got off the ride and popped out and saw there was a bench available, just a couple like inches, little enough for my bum. Sat down on it, and we're waited, waited for Kaitlyn and Nathan, and then the skies just opened. Oh, yeah.

Nathan 1:03:31

This was an intense thunderstorm. We have some amazing pictures. Kaitlyn loves uh thunderstorms, as uh you know, given her parents, and uh she was standing out on the side uh and just watching the the skies and the storm and everything. And uh, there were a couple lightning bolts that hit real close. Really close. Like like uh one of the trees over by the bathroom uh that's at the end of the uh the Tron exit there uh got hit. Um so yeah, that was a little loud. That was very it was very loud. Yeah, there was no opportunity to count between the flash and the thunder because it was it was right there. Darn near instant.

Alicea 1:04:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um we also had reservations at 350 at the beak and barrel. Indeed. Wanted to try this out. So we made our way over to there.

Nathan 1:04:23

Um and and thankfully the rain accommodated it because it pretty much ended and let up uh just as we were like, well, we're gonna get wet because we can't miss this reservation. Yeah.

Alicea 1:04:34

So we made our way over there. Um this is a this was a cute little bar. I liked it.

Nathan 1:04:39

I liked it a lot.

Alicea 1:04:40

When we were there, it was reservation only, two drink per person max and 45 minute maximum. Yes. Um, this has since changed. They are now doing walk-up lists, I believe, if there's any availability. Um, I don't know if the drink minimum or drink maximum and time maximum has changed or not.

Nathan 1:05:04

This is basically the Pirates of the Caribbean version of Oga's Cantina in uh Galaxy's Edge for Star Wars. So instead of being in a cantina, you are in a Caribbean bar. Uh you are uh being serenaded at various times by uh uh the local resident parrot who will come out and share his thoughts. Yeah.

Alicea 1:05:27

His name is Rummy.

Nathan 1:05:28

Rummy, yeah. He will comment on sometimes the weather or some magic or other things that are happening throughout that, uh, throughout that space. It's really, really well done. It's basically uh you could also call it a Pirates of the Caribbean tiki room. Like it's Trader Sam's, but just Pirates of the Caribbean.

Alicea 1:05:46

Um and there's Oga’s doesn't have any like show stuff that goes on. Beak and Barrel does have some show stuff.

Nathan 1:05:52

Yes.

Alicea 1:05:53

It'd be it'd be neat if Oga’s did some show stuff.

Nathan 1:05:55

That would be fantastic.

Alicea 1:05:56

Yeah.

Nathan 1:05:57

Uh the the drinks. Beak and Barrel are really good.

Alicea 1:06:02

The drinks were really good.

Nathan 1:06:03

I mean, it doesn't hurt that Alicea and I absolutely love rum. Yeah. But they're really good. Yeah. And Kaitlyn concurred. Yes. Yes.

Alicea 1:06:12

So after Beak and Barrel, we got out and it was a five-minute wait for pirates. So we did pirates. Absolutely. And Sterling did there's a um a pirate, it's kind of like a scavenger hunt. Yeah. You can get a map. There's a a place just past Beak and Barrel where you can go pick up a map. And there's, I think, five different adventures that you can do. And you do need your magic band or your ticket to to get that going. Got it. So he did one of those. We did Pirates. It was fun. It was good. And then we had Big Thunder at 5 30.

Big Thunder Upgrade And Buzz Refresh

Alicea 1:06:46

That was our Lightning Lane. We wanted to we wanted to get on that because it's a new track. They've changed it since we've last been on it. It is so much smoother. Oh my gosh. Still extremely fun. And they added a big, huge gold nugget. Yes.

Nathan 1:07:02

There's a lot more lighting effects and things like that, too. They did not add the TNT fuse kind of thing that they have in California. I think a lot of us were kind of hoping/slash expecting they'd do that, but they didn't.

Alicea 1:07:14

They didn't, they did the golden nugget instead.

Nathan 1:07:16

It's fine. I love it. I think it was great. And having a new track is oh it's great. Amazing. Yes. I I can't wait for a few other rides to get a new track as well.

Alicea 1:07:29

I'm hoping they will do this with Space Mountain.

Nathan 1:07:32

Um Space Mountain needs a new track. Uh I think Rock and Roller Coaster is gonna need a new track before two more. I think that one's due in like five years or so, uh, based on the average lifespan of a uh roller coaster track.

Alicea 1:07:48

Has Space Mountain ever had their track redone?

Nathan 1:07:50

It has never had a full refurb.

Alicea 1:07:52

Okay.

Nathan 1:07:52

A full rebuild. So yeah.

Alicea 1:07:55

We also hit Haunted Mansion because you gotta.

Nathan 1:07:57

You gotta mandatory, especially in this family.

Alicea 1:08:00

Yes. Uh we did Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger spin. Is that what that one is?

Nathan 1:08:04

Yes.

Alicea 1:08:05

And this one had been redone too.

Nathan 1:08:06

This has been redone. It's so much better.

Alicea 1:08:10

Yes.

Nathan 1:08:11

It is still the laser dots, uh, but you can pick up the gun now to aim. And they have speaking of the laser, it's kind of like a laser pointer that's always on. And so if even if you're not pulling the trigger, you can make the dot move around and you figure out which one is yours. And each car has two different colors.

Alicea 1:08:34

One's green, one's red.

Nathan 1:08:35

Right. Oh, it was which doesn't really help you if you're green red colorblind, but I digress.

Alicea 1:08:41

Um, and all the targets are different too. It's a lot easier to see if you have hit the target. Yes. It's it's I like I like the updates and changes that they did here.

Nathan 1:08:50

They've did a fantastic job. And I think I won on this one too. It's possible. I never win on these things. So I this was a fantastic trip for me.

Ohana Dinner And Final Night Wrap

Alicea 1:09:01

Uh, we got on the friendship boat back to the hotel at around seven o'clock. We saw the fireworks again.

Nathan 1:09:09

Yeah, they did the holiday fireworks on the third, fourth, and fifth, which was really cool to see.

Alicea 1:09:14

And uh then we did something we haven't done before for dinner.

Nathan 1:09:17

Yeah.

Alicea 1:09:18

We went to Ohana for dinner.

Nathan 1:09:19

Yeah.

Alicea 1:09:20

We've only done breakfast.

Nathan 1:09:21

It was so good.

Alicea 1:09:23

I would do this again. This was delicious. This is way too much food, but it was very good. Those noodles were so good.

Nathan 1:09:32

Mm-hmm.

Alicea 1:09:34

There's a lot of meat too.

Nathan 1:09:36

Yeah. Um, uh just a lot of amazing food. Yes.

Alicea 1:09:40

And that was our that was our last night.

Nathan 1:09:42

Yeah.

Alicea 1:09:43

When we came back home the next day.

Nathan 1:09:45

Yeah. You know what? I really want to just have Hawaiian food again. Have you got any theories on how we might do that? Uh, wait a couple months. You got something planned? You do too. Oh, yeah. We're going to Hawaii.

Alicea 1:09:59

Hawaii in December. Yes.

Nathan 1:10:01

That's more than a couple months.

Alicea 1:10:04

Uh six months.

Nathan 1:10:05

Yeah. All right. Yes. What do you mean we're not doing another trip until like another five months away to the end of the year? Boo. Oh, boo.

Teaser For The Cruise Plus Goodbyes

Alicea 1:10:16

Well, that was our that was our parks portion of the trip. Yeah. Next time we will talk about the cruise portion of the trip.

Nathan 1:10:23

Cruise, yes. We were on the Disney Destiny. We had one of its very first seven night sailing. So we had all the time in the world to do all of the things on the Destiny, right?

Alicea 1:10:37

Yeah, exactly. You will learn more about that next week.

Nathan 1:10:39

Next week. That's a teaser, folks.

Alicea 1:10:42

As we wrap up, a reminder that we are not affiliated with Disney or any of its subsidiaries. Everything that you hear on the show is based on our own personal experiences, opinions, and questionable snack choices. We are, however, proudly affiliated with fun and watching fireworks from a bungalow.

Nathan 1:10:58

And rum.

Alicea 1:10:59

And rum. Fun and rum.

Nathan 1:11:02

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

Alicea 1:11:17

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

Nathan 1:11:25

You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and threads at OurMousCapades, and on YouTube at Our Mouse Capades Pod. And of course, don't forget to share us with your friends, your family, and Disney fans of all ages.

Alicea 1:11:40

Thank you so much for listening. We'll be in your ears next week.

Nathan 1:11:43

Thank you for flying Star Tours. Bye bye.