We Cheated on Disney… and It Made Us Love It More

00:00:14Hey guys, it's Tim and welcome to episode 126 of the Dreaming of Disney podcast. And I'm with my beautiful wife. Audrey, why are you? Why are you talking like that though? I don't understand. I don't know, I'm just trying to do something different here. You know, just close it up a little bit, OK? Yeah, sure. Nice. Good job. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the podcast and we'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Just can't. Anyways, we've been off for a few weeks. A few weeks because we were out of town, Yeah.

00:00:47And we were not experiencing new things at a Disney park. We were not at Disney park. And for those of us not us, for those of you who are not listening to this in your car on the way to work or while you're working or doing whatever you do while you listen to podcast, those are also joining us live. What was I don't know, it was just word vomit joining us live on TikTok. He. This is harder than he thinks. He's harder than he thinks. I'm just trying to trying to, you know, acknowledge those on the TikTok streets. I know, I know. You know, so you know we. Should switch jobs. Yeah, yeah. You should take over one of my

00:01:33lives. OK, let's do it. Let's do it. Would you guys we should do that one we. Should have to switch over. OK anyways. So we were at San Diego. Don't, don't. Which is German for. Don't quote Anchorman right now. But no one really knows because the translation has been lost. No one, really. Knows no one really knows. That's a good. Movie. We have been saying for like years that we need to watch Anchorman and Anchorman and Talladega nights again 'cause it's been a long time. Yeah, it's been really. You know, watch those.

00:02:23Brick killed a guy. I saw that brick killed a guy, got out of hand quick. 60% of the time it works every time. It's great anyways. It smells like straight up gasoline. OK. 1st or last? Not Anchorman, but Talladega nights. Another good one. Oh, oh, I I still to this day, I don't know if there is a movie that I have laughed as hard at in the theaters as Talladega Nights. I like we went and saw it, didn't you? And I see it together. I. Think we did. I don't. Remember, I mean, it was before we were dating.

00:03:01I think just a group of friends went, but I was like, I was like, OK, whatever. Like all of our friends wanted to go see Will Ferrell movie. I was like OK, whatever. And I was like crying, laughing. Like I did not expect to think it was as funny as it really is. You need to give me back my filter. OK, get your get your eyelashes. I don't want them anyways. Anyways. You know what? We want you in the wedding. We are no longer friends. We're no longer friends. What? Why? OK, seriously. Did not know that. This is not OK. We're watching this movie.

00:03:45Little OK 5 lbs sucks. Baby Jesus, this. Is not This is not a Talladagnet podcast. Oh, Will Ferrell podcast, Save Me Tom Cruise. OK, OK, OK. We were in San Diego. That's where all this started. And just. Remembering the comments. I like the baby juice's best. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's happening. Doctor Quinn, We. Wanted a couple 60s? OK, OK. The moral of the story is we need to watch that movie, not talk about it on the podcast anymore. We went to San Diego, that's we went to.

00:04:33San Diego. How this all transpired? Which Anchorman takes place in? San Diego, what was nice, so we were with your family and it was very nice that your family has a. Timeshare. Or no has a timeshare, but surprised. Why does it want to give you There we go with SeaWorld a day at SeaWorld. Because we were looking at we, we've done Legoland and it's like, it's Legoland's really, you know, geared towards little kids. That's what I feel like and. We did it once and we feel like in one, we're one and done. But we talked about the Sea World would be cool. But being that there are six of

00:05:25us, we're like, that's a lot of money. Yeah. So it was very nice that your family went in and got us all tickets and. Mom and dad. And your sister and but then your poor sister like woke up sick and so didn't get to come with us and it was like her idea and she. Didn't miss much. We had never. Been. We had never, I had never been. I had been to Marine World Africa, USA in Vallejo, Vallejo, Vallejo. I always mix it. Vallejo in Valencia. Yeah. And then it was. Yeah.

00:06:02So I had been there, but I had never been to SeaWorld. But I was excited about like the Orca show because our kids love, well, two of our kids, especially the middles, the middle ones love animals and especially our almost 13 year old. And I said. Disney. Oh my gosh, shaking my head. Someone commented on our on our post about it. Hashtag shame. Yeah, how dare we go? And someone was like someone else said, like something about so you spend your money something that I was like, actually I didn't because I didn't, it was a gift. I didn't spend my money. Someone was just like, you know,

00:06:47shake my head, you know, like we like, what are you doing for conservation? Are you an activist? Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. Anyways, we're really squirreling this. I know, I know. But anyway, so we were not in any way expecting it to be like Disneyland. No, we we weren't. We were not comparing at all. But you can't help but to. There's certain things that you're like, oh, it just reinforces your love for Disney. OK, I'm just looking that post I so I did a if if you were on did you put it on IG? The My Free Willy yes, yes, so. It's on IG, so it was the one of

00:07:35me doing the move, you know, where Jesse is on the rock and he puts his arm up and Willy jumps over. He jumps over him, you know? Yeah. And it has 95 comments. How many of yous. If 55.4000 nice has. 90. 96 shares. But I was just having fun with it, you know, like I refuse to go and refuse to take my son. Good for you. And some people are like, oh, wait, this one, this one was the moral of the story was the whales and SeaWorld are miserable. Did you miss that or dot, dot, dot? And I said no, that's why I'm doing the move, so that the whale would jump over me and

00:08:27free itself. You snarky? I know. And then someone else said what was it? Oh, I didn't see that comment. Stop going to SeaWorld. And then I said like, well, where should I go? The zoo? I was having fun with it anyways. Brandon Walker on TikTok says It's like when people see me at Dizzy and be like it must be nice. It is. It is nice. It's true. No, it is. You're right. Yeah. Yes, yes, we're on IG. We're not as active as we used

00:09:09to be now that we spend more time here on TK. You can say TikTok, 'cause we're on TikTok, we just can't say IG because we're on TikTok. Yeah, but anyways and. They're like a jealous boyfriend. OK. But anyways, the Orca show is really cool. Our kids loved it. It was definitely more educational. Copter Dancer wants to join us. Is that what the name was? Yeah, I didn't even look more educational than focus on entertainment like it was when I was a kid. And, and I, and I after that post was like, Oh my gosh, people are like, oh, I did do a little like a little bit of

00:09:56research and they do, they have shifted kind of their focus and they, you know, they do more on conservation and rehabilitation and they're not breeding orcas anymore. And the ones that are there have, were born in captivity and wouldn't survive out in the wild, you know, blah, blah, blah. So people just like to comment. They see something and they just want to, you know? Just haters. Yeah, but but it was like one, it was like dead, like no one was there. And we were like, like every ride was a walk on you. I was very surprised. I know I was feeling adventurous. Like, 'cause when we first got

00:10:39married, the first time I took you to Disneyland, you did not want to go on California screaming. You did not want to go on Tower of Terror. Neither of those rides are those. Those are both different rides. That's true. But you loved both of them. Yeah, but still not like that was it for you, you've. Just unlocked the adventurous side of me. That is adventurous. Then What were you before? Like in a coma? Yeah, pretty. Much I was a scaredy cat. But. On some things I still AM. Like there was, there was a roller coaster that I was like,

00:11:16Oh, I'm not doing that because it like you like rocked back and forth and then you like shot straight up in A twist. And then when you got to the top, you did a Corkscrew, but slowly. It wasn't fast. And when I saw that it was slow, I like when I was because I was watching it on line and I was like, Oh, that's going to like I already tell like that's going to make me feel sick because it wasn't like a quick and you're done with it. It was a slow twist, and then you drop and I was like, yeah, Nope. And you were like, I'm going to do it. And I'm like, OK, I didn't like watching you do it. Honestly, when I saw you, like

00:11:55hanging upside down, I was like, I don't. And you think you can hear me say it? I'm like, I don't like this. I don't like this. You say that in the video, yeah. I'm like, I don't like this. Yeah, it's called the Eel or the electric eel at SeaWorld in San Diego. And yeah, it's like you, you, you, they, they shoot you off like in credit coaster. So you go up and but the you go straight up. And so you obviously the first run, you don't go all the way up, you know, then you start going backwards and you go forward again. You so you rock back and forth a couple of times at full speed. And finally you go fast enough

00:12:32where you go all the way up, you know, going straight up do a Corkscrew and then you get to the very top and you're going slow. So, you know, like on the credit coaster, I mean, you go to do the loop or any other like rock and roller coaster in Disney World, when you're doing the Corkscrew, you know you're going fast. So gravity keeps you in your in your seat. This you're not going fast. And so when you do the Corkscrew at the top, you literally feel your butt fall out of the seat when you're upside down. And that part was very scary. It's like, Oh my God, I'm going to fall out and then then you drop straight down like a 90° drop after the upside down

00:13:17Corkscrew at the very top. After that it was fun. But but yeah, when I got into the ride, like the harness, like it's a harness over you. But then you have you have like a almost like, you know, like a bench press where you where you have like the, the the the rest like in front of your shins or like a sit up. Bar thing. You have that in in front of your shins and behind your knees. And when you did that, I was like, oh, this is what keeps you in because you have to use your legs to keep yourself in the seat. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad our cause our a couple of our boys almost went with you and I'm glad they didn't because that

00:14:02was. It was terrifying, but it was fun. Yeah, I yeah, there was. We went on another one that was like, it was fun, but OK, so here's where we started noticing things that it's just like I was doing a little bit of homework. And what I found is, yes, Disney's more expensive, but the quality you get is just so much better. Like so at each ride and I don't know, I didn't look into it. So I don't know if you paid for the day or what. And then like how to code, but there were lockers at the roller coasters because you couldn't get, yes, fast, fast radio. You get what you pay for. You couldn't take your bags on the roller coasters.

00:14:52Like, you know, in credit Coaster you can set it by your feet. Cosmic Rewind or Tron? There's the lockers there that are free. They're free included. Cosmic Rewind What do you do for Cosmic Set up by your feet? No. Cosmic, yes. Well, yeah, you don't invert on cosmic, Yeah. Yeah, but this one you, like, twisted a bit. And so I had my backpack and they were like, oh, you can't bring that. Like they're, I couldn't even like leave it to the side. They're like, oh, you have to go get a locker, which you have to pay for. Yeah.

00:15:23It's ridiculous. So thankfully your brother-in-law was with us and he was just like, oh, I'll just go because you were waiting to go with one of our other kids because our daughter couldn't go on it. And so he's like, oh, I'll just go back with Tim and go the second time. And I'm like, OK, thank you Because he like took my backpack. But but yeah, so you have to pay for that. Then I found yeah. And Credit Coaster has the loop but I have my bag by my feet like it's fine. Because you're going fast enough to where everything is going to be stuck to the floor because of gravity.

00:15:58And they have the like, you know, the bag in front of you where you can put like your hat or whatever, like a small bag actually in credit coaster, it's in the middle. So you share it with the other person. But I'll, I just put my feet like through my straps in my backpack and it's, it's never been a problem. But but then when we got off, I saw that they had the fuel rod and I was like, oh, I brought mine and my battery was getting low. So I went to swap it and in Disneyland it's free. Disney World, it's free. It was $2.00 to swap it and someone asked and I didn't look at how much it was to buy it there.

00:16:31I wonder if it was less or more. I don't know because it someone said too in Disneyland it's now 40 yeah. So definitely look on the zon look on the rainforest yes, I love the fuel rod. I got 2 for the price of one on a deal on the zon. And then in Disney parks it's free to swap because you will need you will need to charge your battery. We swap a lot, but so there was that. So there's lockers you have to pay for because you can't take a bag on a ride or even just set it like by your feet or like on the other side of the track. You couldn't just set it there. Like you had to pay for a locker. They wouldn't let me off my bag.

00:17:16And then you have to pay for the chargers. And then thankfully, your sister got this Costco deal that included one meal. With the ticket. With the ticket, it was, there was a meal voucher and we were only there. Yeah, the fuel rod is like. It's like a portable charger, like a portable battery charger. It's like a little looks like a, it's like a, it's bigger than a AA, but it's like, you know, it's about like this big about, you know, it's about like like a lipstick. It's it's shorter than that, but it's like that. Yeah. And then they have like vending vending machines in Disney. To where you can swap them out

00:18:01for fully charged ones so you don't have to charge it to use it again. You swap it out and you get a fully charged one for free. Yeah, so you pay for it once and then yeah, swap it out for free. But look on the Zone. Yeah, get them on there. Not always I've seen them, I've seen them the same. But like I said, I got a really good deal when I got ours. I'm going back to food. OK, so thankfully. Oh my goodness. It was we were only there for lunch. So we go and we should have looked around more, but I think it probably would have been the same because also it was like a maze. Oh I know, I had no thought out

00:18:41in how it was laid out. I could. I kept getting lost and being like where in the heck are we? Like, there was no like, clear paths, like. And so we were like, OK, let's just eat here at this has something that everyone will like. We were at SeaWorld in San Diego and yeah, like pizza, burgers, chicken strips. Had macaroni and cheese for our daughter. That's what she wanted. And so we only had to pay for our drinks. We got what our daughter didn't get 1, so we got 5. 5 drinks. And that cost $37 just? For the drinks. For the drinks. That means the the drinks were

00:19:22$7.00 and change. It would have cost us about 145, right? $145.00. $145.00 for two cheeseburgers, I think 3 chicken strips and like a kids small macaroni and cheese. None of this tasted good. It was disgusting. The hamburger was like a stale McDonald's hamburger. Like the bun was the exact same, but it was hard. Like it was not good. My daughter, our daughter liked the Mac and cheese, but she had me take a bite and I was like, she was like, look mommy, it's good. Taste it and like put it and I was like, it was really. Sitting out for a few hours. It didn't have any flavor. It just tasted like pasta.

00:20:05I was like, yeah, I mean, I don't know what. How were the chicken strips? They were dry. The fries were fine and they weren't the. Best by the time I got they were cold. No, yeah, our fries were. They were. I was watching cold. I, no, I was standing there. You know, it's kind of similar to Disneyland where or Disney parks where you pay for it at the cashier and they give you the receipt and go up to the counter and they bring it to you. So it's kind of like that. But I was waiting there for about 20 minutes and I could see that they had some of our order done and it was just sitting on

00:20:36the tray. I'm like, that's getting cold. That was another thing. The employees all moved so slowly. So, so at first I thought it was just like the first place I got something I don't remember. And then I went when we went on the roller coaster, like it was just like, all right, go ahead. Yeah, OK. But going back to the food, it was just for the price of it, it was worse than cafeteria food. It was just, it was $145.00, a $145.00 for six entrees, one of them kids meal and it it's just and when I was waiting for our food, I was watching just sitting there, not not even under the heat lamp. I was like, at least put it on the heat lamp guys, so it stays

00:21:30warm. And I'm like, we're getting food voicing. I'm all wake up in the middle of night. I'm going to be throwing my guts up and. Well, and you can't take food in. Yeah, they don't. So like in. Disneyland you can pack food, you can't take food in. I did see someone with. It's fresh. A brother-in-law did get salmon. I didn't ask him how it tasted. Yeah, I don't. Know, but yeah, I did see someone somewhere with a snack and I was like, oh, I probably could have, maybe I they would have let me, but I, I looked online before we went in and it

00:22:08said like no outside food, no outside snacks. I was like, God darn it, OK. We did get popcorn for the orchestra. The popcorn was good. The. Popcorn was fine. It was like movie movie. Theater. Well, you you can't. I guess you can't. It was like it was movie theatre, movie theatre, popcorn. It was fine, but and we they had like Dreyer's ice cream shop. We got ice cream and that was just dryer. You know, it's fine. But I do wonder if other places like how would other later we walked by a place and I can't remember what they had. There was like a Taco shop and I

00:22:43was like, I wonder. If that would have been better. But every place it was just, it was dead. There was no people it was our day. Odd coming from Oh Ross I read that wrong and I was like what? I OK churros and Disney World are horrible. Disneyland fresh and better 100% I flipped that. I read that wrong at 1st and I was like what taking? Crazy pills. Yes, 100% agree. Another Will Ferrell quote. So, so anyways, like again, like and then we saw that dolphin show and that was awesome, but the food, the food and the price was ridiculous. So I was looking at what tickets are there and they have, hang

00:23:31on, I wrote it down. I wrote it down. I was trying to see if it was like, Oh yeah, you know, the tickets to get in are cheaper than Disneyland, But once you're in there, you spend so much more money. It's not really true. You are going to spend more money on food there, it seems. And then like the things like the lockers and the having to pay for the fuel rods and all that. But they had like their their pass, their top tier annual pass is only 246 dollars. Yeah. And then you can get you can get a ticket and then add it was like 30 or $40 more to get unlimited pretty much or no, not unlimited.

00:24:13I'm not unlimited meals, but all your meals like a dining plan. It's every 90 minutes you can get an entree, a drink and a dessert. I don't know why you why you would want. I don't know why if you if you'd want to eat that, but it was a much better deal that would have saved, saved money at least for that. But still definitely like cheaper than Disneyland. But when we were there, we were like, yeah, it's cheaper to get in. But so then on our way home, we went to Disneyland, we went to California Adventure and did for just for a little bit because that's where our reservation was. And Disneyland.

00:24:50And we ate lunch at Red Rose Tavern. We got pretty much the exact same meal. Burgers we got chicken strips a. Couple of cheeseburgers, chicken strips and fries. Daughter got Mac and cheese. It would have cost us if we didn't have our discount like $85.80. $5 and it was a million times. Better. So much better. Million times so much better. Everything was better and so much cheaper, so that was interesting. Yeah, and going to Red Rose Tavern, I I kind of missed because it used to have tater tots there didn't have tater tots that's. Right, we just had fries even

00:25:34though like on the menu it said with. Tavern Fries. You want a bud? Can I bud? Retainer love you buddy, good night. Way to be. Did the other one go to bed? Yeah, he went to bed at 8:30. Yes, say it louder for everyone who says food is too expensive at Disney. Yeah. It's actually, you know, food at Disney is actually pretty comparable if you go to like a restaurant or, you know, any other fast food place. I mean, it's not, I think we're just where it gets expensive is that you just buy a lot of buy a lot of snacks and, and, and stuff.

00:26:18And so it adds up pretty quick, but. Well, and it's expensive. Like OK, let's say Disneyland. Let's not, I mean, Disney World's a whole other beast, right? But let's say for Disneyland, I feel we've talked about this a lot. We feel like a good amount of days for Disneyland is 3 because you get one in each park and then a day to park hop, do what you miss, do what you love, whatever. So that is if people aren't packing lunches, which we do for our kids, not all the time, like the day we leave, we usually don't mess with it, but other times we'll pack lunches for our kids. So if you think that's three

00:26:54meals a day eating out, that is going to be expensive. You're most likely not doing that at home. And if you go places like what we did with a timeshare, you know, and have a kitchen and so we're cooking sometimes, like, yeah, it's going to be more expensive, but not as expensive as SeaWorld. Yeah, that was I was not expecting. That it was crazy. Thankfully we had the voucher and we only had to pay for the drinks. But still, 37 bucks for five sodas. Fountain sodas? Yeah, $7.00 each. Yeah. And then what did oh, our son got, he got an icy.

00:27:32He got an icy and it wasn't even that big. And he paid for it himself, but it was $10.00 for like a what? Maybe it was like this? Grande size Starbucks. Yeah. 16 ounce probably. Maybe. And it was $10. Yeah. And I was like, well, I'm glad you bought that yourself, buddy. I'm not buying. I'm not buying. But other than that, like the shows are still really cool. And it's, I mean, it's it's not the quality, but you're also paying. Like everyone is saying, you're paying for what you get. It was weird when we went the one roller coaster I went on, like the line was weird.

00:28:09I couldn't figure out where it started. It started in a gift shop, Yeah. And like, but I guess our brother-in-law said like he asked and I guess their regular line was like they were doing like a refurbishment on it. So this wasn't the regular line. And I was like, oh, OK, because I was like where is it? And then he found it and I'm like, oh, OK, And then but. Yeah, it's like but. There was no like the the person working. There's no direction once you get to the line. They're just like, OK, I waited for him to ask, like how many we had, and he didn't. He just said, like, you couldn't have my backpack. And then you just go in whatever

00:28:48line you want, like the rows of the roller coaster. It was just like, free for all. And you didn't tell him how many were in your party or anything. He's just standing there and I'm like, OK, we'll just go over here. Guys like you can go on Space Mountain, they're like, OK, how many of your potty OK, take row one. Party. Party how many of your potty I'm just I'm. Boston. From Boston, yeah. And so you're OK, row one, row two, row 3 and so on and so forth. And so this ride had like 9 rows and, and so there was like 6 of us going together. And we're like, OK, I guess

00:29:23we'll go over here because he says, you know, he had, he did ask us how many are with us. Oh, OK, he didn't ask us. And then I was waiting for him to be like, OK, take row one or whatever. And so we had to figure out, OK, you're in that row. We all want to kind of be near each other. But there, there's different, you know, amount of people in each line, right? Yeah. So we had to figure out. And so there was people in front of us. They're like, oh, you can go in front of us where we want to ride with our friends. Yeah. And we were the same way as like, oh, no, we're waiting for

00:29:52our group. So you go ahead. It was just like, man, yeah. You really take for granted how well Disney has thought these things out to make it so much more smoother. Well, and what you know, Disney adults often say is it's in the details, like the little details and then like going to a different park, those details of like a cast member figuring that out for you. And like, typically it goes very smoothly. You know, every once in a while they're like, oh, wait, actually, why don't you go here? But like they're just on it. They know like there's that Mickey Mouse knows how to run. That's how to run a proper business.

00:30:31But so, yeah, so interesting experience. But the, like I said, the orcas were really cool. The dolphins like, which is so cool. Like they're like the animals. We didn't see a lot of animals. We saw like on the app, they had all these animals, but we were like, where are? Yeah, I don't. It wasn't laid out very. Well, no, like our my daughter, our daughter loved the swinging ride that I had to take her on like 18 times. And but the orcas and the dolphins are just, they're the, they're just amazing animals. And so I hadn't been to anything like that in so long. And it was it. That part was really cool to

00:31:12see. And I want a dolphin. OK. And an orca. I got you some doonies, so you know. Dolphins next. When are you going to stop saying that? Like, no big deal. I got myself a doonie too, you know, I was like, OK, anyways, so then you know what? I'm a helicopter dancer. I am not going to battle you. What? What is a helicopter dancer? Do I want to know what a helicopter dancer? Is helicopter dancer. He's swinging his legs around like a helicopter. Anyways, so then on our way home from San Diego, of course we had

00:31:51to stop, oh of course, into Disneyland, which we weren't sure if we were going to get a reservation. There was like nothing for our past, like nothing I. Had to keep checking, you know, refreshing for like over a week and finally got. One which we're going in like a few weeks, but we're like we told our kids, OK, we might just go to Downtown Disney and grab some lunch because we can't, you know, get in. So we went into California Adventure first. It was busy it. Was super. Crazy. It was really busy parking. I mean, we got there what, like 10? We got there a little after 10

00:32:29for the parking. There wasn't. And we did Pixar Pals parking structure, which every time we've done it, we've only done a few times, it's been closed or not open. Right. We'll drive over to that side and it's like not open. And so then we have to get back in the long line. Why was it so busy, Mr. Sprinkles? I don't know. I think just because. From what I heard is that they have a special deal for California residents to where it was a it was a cheaper ticket and you had to, you know, prove that you're a California resident. You had to show your ID.

00:33:01That's why they talked about that, huh? Yeah. So it's a, it's, I assume probably people got a lot of those tickets for Christmas or they, you know, surprised their kids for, hey, you know, Christmas, we're going to Disneyland and and so they're, you know, redeeming those tickets then. And it was also. Their school wasn't back in. School school in LA wasn't back in yet, but yeah it was crazy busy but about that during that day cuz like Radiator Springs Racers was like 140 minutes. At like 10:00 AM which I mean. In the morning, Space Mountain was over an hour. Sauron was over an hour, which isn't unusual, but at that time

00:33:48of day like it was 10/30 by the time we got in the park about. And so I was curious, I was like, OK, if, if it's this busy, I assume lightning lanes have probably sold out or are like way later in the evening. You could if I were if we were to buy lightning lanes by a multi pass, we could get on Space Mountain within 45 minutes. Which tells me it was a lot of locals. That it was it. Was a lot of the Southern California, you know, whatever deal they had going on because it also like I said this when we got in the car, I was like, I feel like like a different vibe today, Like we weren't there that long, but like, I don't know, it just felt different

00:34:29like. People are taking their time. They're just mosing down Main Street, just blocking up the entire. St. No, it felt like it was just like a different vibe going on. I don't know. But yeah. So we got into California Adventure 'cause that's where our reservation was. And it was a little before 11, we did a a TikTok battle with Mr. Sprinkles kicked his butt. Oh yeah. Finally realized we made some mistakes, like I forgot to mute him because I had my volume down. He didn't mute me. Probably annoyed some people but you know, whatever.

00:35:08When the Christmas crowd comes to Orlando, it feels like different and they treat the park like trash. I remember I went on one of your lives after the fireworks. There was trash like everywhere was horrible horrible. A battle fast pass radio if battle on TikTok is basically where you have you Co host with another live host and it's 5 minutes and basically any gifts that are thrown are points and whoever has the most points wins so. That's it. That's what it. Is, but he was in front of Cinderella's Castle and I was in California Adventure in front of like the Ferris wheel and in Credit Coaster Pixar Pier. And I really liked that 'cause I

00:35:59was planning on being in front of Small World, but we couldn't go over there yet. And I liked seeing the different. Different vibes. Yeah, yeah, it was cool. I like that. But it was fun. It was fun. And then you took the kids on, like Jesse's carousel and the jellyfish. Jellyfish. And then we were just heading over. Then we could head over to Disneyland because we were only staying for a few hours. We had to get home, had lunch at Red Rose Tavern, Rose Tavern. But yes, so you when we were when we got into Disneyland and we were walking down Main St.

00:36:34like the the lines of people were covering the width. You are very breathy. That's how I always talk. Extra breathy. That's extra breathy. But the the people took up the width all going in One Direction. Everyone walking down Main Street towards the castle. It was taking up the width of Main Street and they were walking like a snail. Yeah, it was. I've never seen it so slow. And like, I'm always trying. I'm always trying to weave through the crowds because I like I wanted to. And well, and I kept telling you to slow down because you you walk too fast for the little. I'm sorry if my legs are too

00:37:26big. Well, you're, you walk too fast for sometimes for me because I have short legs, but also for our younger kids. Well, I mean the little, little, little. They need to keep up. They, the older ones can keep up, but the, the 9 year old did little legs anyways. But like, so there was like, you know, an older lady with like her family and she had a cane. And I was like, oh, she, you know, she has a cane and you're like, oh, but then there was no room to get around because then there was just a group of people about our age, maybe younger, like maybe early 30s, twenty, you know, walking so slow. Eventually she didn't fall. She didn't fall.

00:38:15So then we eventually got around them. Well, you and the boys did. And I was like, I can't with the stroller. Like I couldn't because there was the tracks. And I was like, if I try to get around right now, I'm going to like my daughter's going to fall out of the stroller because I'm going to get in the tracks. Eventually got around. But then it was just another group of people and like younger people that were just like standing there. There was one family that just picked, you know, there's the people down Main Street that like just stand in the middle to get a picture. But it was past that, like when it starts to curve around the

00:38:45partner statue towards Tomorrowland where there was like a few families standing there taking pictures and you were like, this is awkward. Like it was just I hadn't seen it. Like usually at that point it clears up and you can get through. But it like it wasn't clearing up like until we got like halfway to like by Tomorrowland like. Yeah. It was it was really busy through there. It's. Infuriating. Yeah, he really doesn't like slow walkers. I hate it so. Much. You really don't, you know, But

00:39:20yeah. So we ate at Red Rose Tavern. Good food. Yeah, good food. I wanted to try something. They had. They still had like the 70th. It's like the Gray stuff. The Gray stuff, but it's called like the celebration stuff or something. But like it's like this is the thing. It's like I see all these like foods that are there for the season or for celebrations and I'm like, oh, I want that. I want that. And then it when it, when I'm there, I don't feel like it. So I don't want to spend $10 on this dessert when I'm like, I don't, I don't feel like that. Like, that doesn't sound good

00:39:54right now and it stinks because then I don't try these things that I want to try. I don't know how these vloggers do it. You know, these food vloggers. So it's like they just have to do it. Anyway, they do it for the gram, they do it. For the tic tac they do it. The 70th stuff. The 70th stuff, maybe I'll try it next time because I did want to try it, but I was like, that doesn't sound good right now. And my like I was so hungry I just needed to eat food and but anyways, so then we only had time. We didn't have much time. So the boys wanted to ride Space Mountain. So you took the boys to ride do

00:40:25single rider? Space. Mountain up until this point, like our nine year old and even I'm going to keep saying 12 he's got he's got one more month, one more month. Our 12 year old like he didn't want to do single rider on in credit coaster. He had been on it, but he was like, no, I don't want to do I'm getting so many requests tonight. Oh good, Danny Danny at Disney says I heard the black cherry coffee is terrible. I almost got it. I almost got it. But I want then we wanted to get the cold brew, the black half cold brew. And so I was like, no, I'd rather have that.

00:41:04We didn't end up getting that because then I realized we still are driving home and we stopped like halfway for like a bathroom break and I'm like I'm going to want coffee on the drive home. So I didn't get the black half, but that's good to know because I almost sorted it. So I won't try it next time, but yeah. So I was glad that they were all OK with single rider because like we're like, well, you guys, we're not going to get on anything if you don't do single. Rider like the the wait time for space Mountain was like 55 minutes by the time we got there and so we waited about 30 minutes and and single rider and so I went by myself, Boston went by himself, our nine year old, but then our oldest and.

00:41:50Two oldest. Two oldest actually rode together. Oh, they got you right together. Yeah. Did you take a picture of the picture? Yeah, I have pictures. Oh. I never. You never showed. Me. Oh yeah. Oh well, my phone's recording. Right now. Can't show it to you now. I wanna see, but Noah got Mike Wazowski as usual. Me and and our son Noah, we always get Mike Wazowski in like every single ride photo. Someone is blocking our. Face it was the The girl in front of him was wearing a a

00:42:22Mickey ears or mini ears and so the bow was like covering his face. You only see it's like his eyes like right above the bow. It was kind of funny, but. Every time I got to find it now. And then you rode Dumbo. I took Georgia, really wanted to ride Dumbo. That's all she wanted to do. But the Dumbo wave runners weren't good enough for her SeaWorld. Nope. When was the last day of Splash Mountain? There it is. OK, here's our I know. I'm sorry podcast friends, you can't see this, but the last time we rode Splash Mountain was nine. It was around 9:40.

00:43:02He was during the fireworks on the last day of Splash Mountain in Disneyland. So my very last picture of me on Splash Mountain, my favorite ride I got Mike was out like completely, that's me that with my arms out to the side. So I put my arms out to the side because I'm like, I don't want to block Tim's face, so. So. Considerate. Right. And I didn't block Tim's face. You can see, you can see Tim's face, but I did not because this 7 foot man in front of me put his arms up. Oh my goodness, guys. So Speaking of Splash Mountain or Tiana's, did you hear about how Tiana's one of the ride vehicles flooded the other?

00:43:54Told me. I told you, but so for our listeners. This was our last ride on Splash Mountain. You guys last day. Last day of Splash Mountain, our last ride. That was pretty awesome. But but yeah, so it was the day before we went. So it was the Wednesday of last week, right? Yeah, Wednesday of last week There there's, you know, sometimes, you know, on Tiana's like the the the logs, they kind of like jam up. Our friend Tina Rose on TikTok says your friend posted that she was on it. Was she on the boat that flooded or just the ride during the flooding?

00:44:32So at one point they all kind of like, but it, you know, sometimes there's like a traffic jam and you kind of like, you know, all hit each other. But this one log was at an angle. It was on a turn. And so because it was on the turn, it was tilted to like one side like this. And so water started flooding in on in the log. And so they had to be evacuated. And one of the people that were on it, they took a picture and like it was completely submerged under the water. And so Disney, they gave them clothes vouchers so they could buy new clothes. So. That's nice. That was.

00:45:08Nice of them. Can they give you clothes vouchers when you just go on Grizzly River run and get soaked? Well, that's kind of part of the fun of the ride. No, I know, but. And then another ride that broke down, we were actually there. Oh my gosh. On. Thursday Well, hang on back up though. Back up. So when we were talking about leave, when we were going to leave because you took the boys, I took Georgia. Then I said, we'll meet you. We're like, oh, should we take the monorail back? Because we were parked? We're like, we could take the

00:45:37monorail back, get off in Downtown Disney and take the walkway back to the parking lot because the boys wanted to go to the Star Wars store. Star Wars. Trading Post. In Downtown Disney. So we were going to do that. We were going to ride the monorail so we could get off because the monorail is right by the Star Wars Trading Post store. But then after you guys went on Spot Space Mountain and I met you guys over at Star Trader, they found like our son really wanted a hat and he found a hat he liked there. So we're like, OK, we don't need to do that. So we can just go down Main Street, get on the tram and

00:46:11whatever. Good thing we didn't do that. Thing Oh. My gosh. I don't it it was close to the same time. I I mean, I don't know if it would have been that monorail, but it. Meant not be, but it was close. So the monorail lost power like it had a power outage while it was going. So it wasn't just like no, the monorail stopped working at the monorail station. It was in the middle of the track where you could not get off. Like there's no way to get off. There's like, you know, a 20 foot drop and so the people that are on the monorail were stuck on it for hours.

00:46:52It was oh you said you on our drive home you read that was over 2 hours over. Two hours. They had to call the fire department. They had to get a ladder truck to evacuate the people from the monorail. And one thankfully it wasn't in the summer because. There's no air. Conditioning. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It's not like Disney World where it's like a subway type, you know, train where you have, you know, lots of room and air conditioning. This is, you know. And then I was just thinking like, OK, everyone probably had to because you have to collapse

00:47:27your strollers. Unlike in Disney World where you can leave them up, you have to collapse your strollers in Disneyland so you couldn't take any of your stuff. Like I'm sure they said OK, come back to this point when we get it back running, you can come collect your things. But I was just thinking because we were leaving the park and I was like, and my son was like, oh, I need to go to the bathroom. I was like, well, let's wait till we get to at the end of the tram. Let's go to the bathroom right before we get in the car because we have a four hour drive home. So let's wait to go to the bathroom till like right before we leave and I'm like Oh my

00:48:03gosh, we all would have had to pee. Pull out your water bottles. And like, be on there for over 2 hours. And then I was just thinking of, especially to our two youngest kids, having to try to get them to go with a firefighter down a ladder, they would have freaked. Like especially our daughter, like, yeah, we're about four hours north of Anaheim. Like completely panicked because she won't go to anyone but me. She barely goes to you. Like she would have, oh, it would have been horrible. And it's like firefighters, they deal with that. So I'm sure they would have known what to do. But like, Oh my gosh, I'm just so I'm, I was like, wow, I'm

00:48:47really glad. That would have just been so awful. It would have been so awful. I mean, it was awful for those people too. It's not like it would have been worse for us than them. Like it was awful for everybody. But I'm like, man. But thankfully it wasn't summertime because that would have been that would have been dangerous like that would have. I remember seeing 1 summer. We were there and Incredi coaster broke down and the car was like up in the sun and it was hot and they had cast members up there with umbrellas like holding it over the people that were stuck on on the ride. These needles are probably, still probably, probably,

00:49:32probably. They're never going to go again. Yeah, maybe the firefighters could have got the big trampoline out and just let people jump off. Jump. Yeah, but yeah, I'm just stinks for those people. I'm glad it wasn't us. I'm glad we chose to walk down, which I usually when we're leaving, I usually like to leave down main. Street. Main Street. Yeah, because one last look. Gotta look at the castle. But yeah. So that that was it. It was really short. We're going. That was just. We had to stop by.

00:50:03We just had to, yeah. It's on the way. But. So we'll be back. We'll be back in February, so in about 3 weeks. Hang on, like how many days do we have you? Keep going, you. Keep so something fun that we're going to be doing, or at least one of us is going to be doing. You gave me permission. Don't give me that. One, I'm going to Disney World by myself, so that's OK. You go ahead, you do your thing. OK so so I saw that D 23 did a post that this year is the 25th anniversary of California Adventure and they're doing a special panel with Disney Imagineers at the Disneyland Hotel. 24 days. 24 days until we

00:50:50are going to Disneyland in February, but they're on the February 7th, they're having a panel with Walt Disney Engineers, Imagineers D-23 exclusive panel for D-23 members on the 25th anniversary of California Venture. And so I was like, I'm AD 23 member. You are. I am. We get it free with Disney Plus. Am I? Well, you can be with me. I want to be D-23. So, so yeah, I was like, hey, that's cool. We're going to be there. So, so yeah. So I'll be there for the D-23 California Adventure 25th anniversary panel with Disney Imagineers where they talk about

00:51:41California Adventure. You get like a commemorative ticket and they did have a special where you could also get the the dessert party included with it, but it was like a no, it was like a. I'm like, you're going to be alone where me and the kids are going to be in the park. Wait, what? I have Disney plus. They. Had a deal. I don't know if they had it anymore that they had a deal if you're a Disney Plus. If you have Disney Plus, you can get a free D-23 Gold member membership. It was like, it was like the like base level, you don't get anything cool, but you get like you're at least a member to

00:52:21where you get access to exclusive events like this. So for Fast Pass, Radio says I'm a member too. I feel a bromance coming. Disney World asks who's the bigger Disney fan between the two of you. She's the OG. I I grew up in a Disney house. My mom grew up going to Disneyland. She grew up in LA and grew up going to Disneyland. So I I grew up in a Disney house where he didn't as much I. Mean we watched Disney movies. I like the Disney movies. Toy Story was my all time favorite movie for a long time and I went to Disneyland for the first time. Actually I went to Disney World first.

00:53:09You were like 3-3 or four vaguely remember? Anything. That's when you guys lived in North. Carolina S North Carolina, North Carolina and I didn't go to Disneyland until I was 7 or 8, seven or eight. I think you were seven, but then when I'm we after we got married. Until we got married so. After we got married, I was like, OK, no, that's not OK. You haven't been since you were seven. And he was like, I don't remember anything. Like, I don't remember. So I was like, well, that's and but he was hooked. He was hooked like as soon as I took him.

00:53:41But we didn't go after that first trip. We didn't go again for a couple of years. We had our oldest son, Hugo. Can you guys hear that? I heard it. You heard it. OK. Yeah. So we we didn't go for a couple years. It was after our oldest. Actually it wasn't. It wasn't until our second son was born that we started going more regularly because we took our oldest when he was nine months, then again at 18 months. And then we didn't go again until for a couple of years again, because I got pregnant with our son. I didn't want to go when I was

00:54:20pregnant. And but then once our second was born is when we started going like every year, every every year at least I think we started pretty close to every like twice a year at that point. Yeah, yeah. So that would have been 2013. We started going like at least usually twice a year, if not more. I think 2023 we went like 6. Times or something like that. Yeah. But that was our trip, our San Diego trip and what we have looking forward to in February. Yes, I'm very excited. We're staying at Pixar Place. I stayed there when I did my solo trip, but the boys haven't seen it since they redid it. I.

00:55:04Haven't seen it either. And I think they're really gonna, I think you're all gonna really like, like the pool area, yeah. Pool's gonna be close. Here we go. What? It's gonna be, it's gonna be too cold. Anyways, it's OK, it'll be it's February, but they had games out there. Now they have like a quick service restaurant, which I think the boys will really like. They're not like they all eventually go around. It's true. They do. Yeah. So I'm excited. And then our last day, we're doing something different.

00:55:41Yes, to help with my Disney Blues. We're not, so we're not going. We usually go to the park the last day for like half a day and then we drive home, but that always ends up being not good because someone's always in a cranky mood. You know what we were just talking about how our oldest 2 used to both cry hysterically every time leaving the park. They would cry the entire walk back to either the parking lot or the hotel, wherever we were, You know, till we got in the car and they would scream and cry because we were leaving. And then they would be asleep within the first like 10 minutes of the drive home. Hugo reaching level 10. But yes, I do.

00:56:25I get in a bad mood and I it, it, you know, I, I'll admit it, I get grumpy and I don't like leaving in the middle of the day. I just don't want to go back to real life. And so I was like, we should stop doing that. We should stop going half day. So what we're doing? Oh, I get cranky. I get. I get quiet. Very. Yeah. Quiet. In the park, in the and not at home when I'm cranky, but in the parks I get quiet. I don't want to leave and. You snap at the kids a little bit more. Do IA.

00:57:10Little bit, yeah, you snap at me. Nobody wants to leave. Come on. So what we're doing instead is that we the African hope. They want to join us. They. Want to join us? What we're doing is instead of going to the park the last day, we're doing a character breakfast. So we're doing Storytellers Cafe character breakfast. We've never done it before at Grand Californian, so we're going to do it for the first time here. It's amazing. I'm really excited. We've never done a character breakfast at Disneyland. We did it in Disney World for

00:57:47the first time Kate May and so, well technically we did be our guest. Is that considered character cause the beast is around? It's a character. Do not understand why Belle is not there. Like come on, if you are paying for be our guest, Belle should be there. Well, I think she was. Why is it just the beast? I don't, I never know. I don't know. Belle should be there. Like, come on, I love breakfast. It's my favorite kind of food. It's my favorite meal. And so, yeah, so we won't be going into the park. We are not going to. We are not. We are going to have

00:58:27self-control. We are not Oh, that's right, that's right. Belle is locked up in the in the dungeon. She can't. Come out. Is it the? West Wing No, no, no, no. She can't go to the. West Wing. That's ATV show. She can't go to The West Wing. That's where he has his room. Is it Martin Sheen? As well as Sheen, he was. He went. To Martin Sheen. Oh yeah. West Wing is the beast's wing where he has the right. Yeah, No, not his library. Oh my gosh. Who's the bigger Disney fan

00:58:57guys? Not his library. It's forbidden, yes, or she's busy being Johnny Cash's sixth cousin. She's a she's She can't come Sorry podcast That's a. That's an inside Joe that you're not part of, sorry. But anyways we. Storytellers Cafe. We're doing it last day breakfast never done before. We're excited and then we're leaving. What time is our reservation? It's like at 9:00-ish. We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to book at home because then we found out after we booked our trip that we have something we need to be at that night. Yeah.

00:59:39Well, if we do and if we leave by, you know, 11:00-ish, then that's earlier than what we usually leave. That's. True, but stressing me out a bit. But anyways, I'm really excited about that. And yeah, so should be good. All right, well, we hope you enjoyed our recap of our San Diego trip. And we do things other than Disney sometimes. Rarely. Rarely. But sometimes, and that's how the stinking. What's the what is it called? OK, literally, I can hear crickets outside right now. And that was funny. I just realized we forgot to

01:00:20play music for our our TikTok. Friends oh sorry TikTok friends. I would love to go to Aulani. Yeah, that would be amazing. But anyways, wait, wait timeshare timeshare. Timeshare People almost got us at Your Parents Timeshare by telling us that they would give us a free week in Orlando. Yeah, we almost bought a timeshare. We didn't. Almost. It was pretty in in, you know. It was, it was because we've only ever met with DVC and so I'm expecting that price and this was quite a bit less. This was Hilton and it was quite a bit less and I wasn't expecting that. So yes, it made me think for a few minutes.

01:01:02But no, no, we didn't. But anyways, they tried to get us as Disney adults. They were like, you can, you know, we'll give you a free week in Orlando. What do you say? What would you say if I gave you a free week in Orlando? First it was a, it was a free week in Hawaii and then he's like, I'll throw in another week in Orlando for you guys and we're like. Like, but Orlando is where I want to stay on property where Disneyland, now that they took away our biggest perk, I'm kind of like I would stay off property in Disneyland, but they didn't have anything here where Orlando I'm like, I want to stay on property in Orland. Yeah, yeah.

01:01:43So we dodged a bullet, but we got we got a free weekend getaway out of it. So the reason we went to the presentation was because we'd get a $200.00 gift card and a free two night, three day weekend getaway and we were like, OK, sure. Not weekend, but just. Any any getaway getaway. Yeah. The only place that here. Here we were like, let's let's do something other than Anaheim because go to Tahoe because his parents. Did the same presentation and some of the places they can go is like Tahoe. And we were like, oh, that would be fun, let's go to Tahoe. We've never done that. That would be nice.

01:02:21No, They're owners, though. We weren't. We're not owners. We're just guests of owners. So the only place in California that is available is Anaheim? So guess where we're going? We're like, well. Yes, it was. It was Hilton Grand Vacations HV. Yes, it was them. Yes, we are not going anywhere else and it's also like you have to book between Sunday and Wednesday. Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday to Tuesday, that has to be your check in day and it can't be on. It has to be off peak times. Yeah. So we're like, well, shoot, like cuz then our kids are in school

01:03:01and we need to get someone to take care of them and take them all to school. And we're like, all right, it's going to be a while till we use this. We got two years. We got two years. Yeah, my parents are HIV owners and we use it a lot off of them, so. Yeah, so. But anyway, so yeah, that they almost got us. Not this time. Maybe. Maybe. Well, I told you, I said if we're going to be timeshare owners, we want to be DVC owners. Like, let's be real. That's where we want to use it. So like DVC is the best.

01:03:37Yeah, I. Well, even the, even the sales guy said, you know, cuz we told him like, oh, the last time we looked into timeshare was DVC, Disney Vacation Club. And he's like, Oh yeah, that's a great. If there's any other program that I would buy into, it would be Disney Vacation Club for sure. Yeah. So it's just crazy expensive. But anyways, maybe someday. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast. You can follow us on TikTok on Dreaming. This is thoughts. For your thoughts, this is thoughts. For your thoughts, that's. What you sounded like.

01:04:08Thoughts for your thoughts? Thoughts for your thoughts. I forgot. Well, see SO. I don't know either. But that's a Parks and Rec reference if you don't know. But thank you for listening. Follow us on TikTok. Start streaming of Disney. We're also on IG. Or if you're on watching us here on TikTok, you can listen to this podcast on all streaming platforms that you listen to your podcast. We're there. Check us out, leave a review. We appreciate it. We appreciate you, Mr. Sprinkles, but thanks again. And until we talk again, we'll talk to you later. Bye.