We’re Building a Disneyland App to Help You Use Your Phone Less

00:00:15Hey guys, it's Tim. And welcome to episode 141 of the Dreaming of Disney Podcasts. I'm with my beautiful wife, an amazing Disney adult, Audrey. Thank you. Hello. One of the best, if not the best, Disney adults. No. If there was a Disney Adults it would be you it. OK, that doesn't make sense, but. It doesn't. I was trying to go somewhere. There's lots of Disney adults. I was a Disney kid. I'm a Disney adult. We lived in the prime time of the Disney era. We really did. You know those early 90s, the resurgence of the Disney, the

00:01:03Renaissance of Disney animation. It's. True. Nothing, nothing like that time. There's no better time. No better time to be alive. Yeah, than the 90s. Well, I don't know. Now, there's some pretty bad stuff to happen in the 90s, but you know, we think about it like wish the world was like the 90s. You know, the world's just horrible all around. OK, we're not OK. OK, anyways, let's took a turn this that escalated quickly. Brick, kill the guy. Name that reference. To try it, I saw that OK. Love Lamp. I love lamp. Do you really love the lamp or you just say?

00:01:49I love lamp. I love lamp. Yes, I yes, OK, 90s great TGIF yes, but I also think I've always wanted to be like in the 60s, like when Disneyland was new. I know it opened in the 55 you guys, I am aware, but give it a few years, right, give it a few years and and yeah, like I would. That's why I saving miss. One of the reasons saving Mr. Banks is like one of my favorite movies is because it's like my favorite thing, Disney, one of my favorite movies, Mary Poppins and one of my favorite time periods, the 60s. So you know. Going to the moon, NASA, Apollo, Apollo 13 I think. That's like. 70s it was 70s.

00:02:40No, it was 60s. 60s OK on. The moon. Yeah, yeah, the moon. The moon anyways, so I don't even know if we're going to end up talking about what I was going to talk about because we've had other things come up that. I guess I mean we could, we could see, see how much time we have left. I don't know. Did you even come up with any of the things? I kind of did, but I don't remember. No, so we were talking, we were going to talk about Disney opinions we've changed our minds about. But before we get into that, so I saw something apparently this was announced back in.

00:03:16Oh, that's great. You were going to tell me something and then. Earlier today, you were going to tell. Me and then you were like, no, I'm saving it for the podcast. And so, OK, this apparently is announced back in August and I just missed it. What? What was funny about that? Oh, someone said. As I said, the moon was in the 60s and he said the moon was there before the. 60s If you don't know by now, when we record the podcast, we also go live on TikTok, so our TikTok friends are here. And they distract me. They do They do. I'm too far away. I can't really read the comments

00:03:50because I'm old but so this is announced back in August but I didn't see it but I saw it that starting tomorrow September 16th. 16th. The Disney play app is getting being retired. You know that app that you used to play games and while you're waiting while. You're waiting. Was that only land or was that world? Too is being retired, they're not going to offer anymore. So that means like one of the biggest things 'cause I mean, in in Disneyland at California Adventure, they have the Toy Story Midway Mania games. Those are fun. And they have like different trivia stuffs, just stuff to help pass the time while you're

00:04:33online. But one of the big things when they announced Galaxy's Edge was this Star Wars data pad. And so how you use it, it was kind of like scavenger hunts. You can use it to decipher the language and the symbols that are on buildings and like hidden things and a lot of different, like really cool, you know, games to really immerse yourself. For kids in Galaxy's Edge and all that's going away, they're not doing that. I wonder if they just found like it just didn't. It probably wasn't. It probably wasn't being used. Because it's not like we did it all the time. Yeah, and we didn't a lot of times, like with Toy Story

00:05:17Mania. I'm thinking specifically if we get a Lightning lane for it, we bypass that whole part. Oh. That was me. OK, We bypass that. Yeah, that whole part where you at least in land where you can like do the games, yeah, can scan them or whatever. I just remember when Jack got his phone for the first time, he was doing a lot of that stuff, especially Galaxy's Edge and a lot of the different. Well, yeah, you may have done it at first because he was excited he got a phone, but then now it's like old news and he's not doing it. But they still have the, they have a bounty hunters like scavenger hunt game that uses

00:05:59magic bands. That's still going to work because they're, they've they put screens throughout the park within the land there for, for that bounty hunter type game. But but yeah, I saw that and I was like, oh, that's that's kind of sad because it was, it was kind of kind of cool. Well, forget it. I'm not. I'm no longer a Disney adult. That's that's it. I'm done. I'm. Just no more. Just. In the podcast right here, we're done closing the count, cancelling this to. Cancelling everything, Disney not doing it. We may have just started a

00:06:36brand, but we're done. Speaking of starting our Main St. Dreamers merch. That's right. So if you didn't listen last like well, like a month ago, no, maybe it was like 2 weeks ago I think. Maybe 3? Weeks ago we started a new clothing line I guess. You could print on demand, print on demand. It's not just clothing, 'cause we got phone cases we're going to do, we have, we have tote bags, we're going to do, we have stickers lot more to come too. So, you know, I, I was saying it before you got in here on our, on our TikTok that it's hard because we've got a lot of ideas.

00:07:27But you, I, I did a story a while back saying that you're the, what did we say? I'm the creative director. Yes, I'm the designer. You're the designer, but you have a full time job. So we come up with these ideas and we talk about it and we're like, Oh my gosh. And you'll kind of start it and we're like, oh, that's great. We have so much more than what's actually on the site, but I don't know how to do it. You're the designer, so we talk about it. We have ideas, but it it's on you and. I and. You started this other thing that we'll talk about in a second and so. That's why you take away so

00:08:11much. Time so that has been taking up and like your free time but stay tuned because we do have these ideas and we do want to get them out there. Peeping temperature, but what we do have on there, so Main Street, Main St. Dreamers dot COMI have to be careful what I say on our TikTok live, but you know, we got stuff there that is cool. We got some cool stuff. We got some stuff and we have like so many more ideas coming. Just just be patient. Yeah, check it out. Check out the site or I guess I can't say that. Check out, check it out. There's some If something interests you, it's there. It's for the for the grabs.

00:09:07Take it, take it. OK. Enjoy it. So, so this other thing that that you alluded. To Arrested Development, we're doing a lot of what we always do, a lot of like if you caught that reference. Oh yeah. I'm doing a lot of quotes, Go ahead. OK, anyways, so this has been an idea for a while. It has. Not. I I have thought about it for a while. What It's true, Aaron. Are you saying what to me or are you saying what to the to the Tik tokers? I'm saying it to you. Oh.

00:09:50OK, it has been. No, I've thought about it and why? Why you look at me like that? You have never mentioned this until. Because I never thought it was actually doable until I actually started working on. It all right, I will trust you because I love you. I've looked at it for a while and I never told you about it because I was like, you know, I can't, I can't do it. But now I'm actually doing it. OK, so. We have to give credit to the people that you're obsessed with first. Rude, rude. I thought about it before that. You have no idea how long sometimes Ben was thinking about

00:10:27this. I just feel like we need to give credit. I love them too. I do. Our friends at Disney World is awesome podcast, yes, but you, you need to give them credit for giving you the confidence. And they're like, Oh my gosh, I could do that. And I get that because of the print on demand thing. Like our TikTok friends would say you should make merch. And I was always like, no, no, no. And then I got into something that was teaching me different things and I was like, Oh my gosh, we could actually do it. And now we're doing it. So I'm just saying the maybe you had the idea.

00:10:58You didn't know how it how you could do it. They started doing something and you were like, oh, that's how. So we just need to give credit to them giving you the confidence. OK, all right, so our friends at Disney World is awesome. They built an app, a smartphone app, specifically iPhone and just for Disney World because they are Disney World is awesome. They built an an app called The Dapper Dads. Go check it out if you're a Disney Worlder. If you're a worlder, if. That's where is, if that's your Home Park, go search the App Store on your iPhone, Dapper Dads. And they built a whole app

00:11:38around Disney World and it's not. And so it can, you know, it has all the wait times, it has the weather, it has park hours, all that kind of stuff. You may think like, oh, well, the Disney World app has all those things. What sets it apart is that you can set push alerts for rides. So if a ride goes down, it'll send you a push alert. Oh, the people mover is down. And so you know, OK, I'm not going to go to people mover, but then I'll send you a push alert. Oh, the the people mover is back up, so you know to go there right away. It can also send you push alerts when rides get to a certain wait time, all these different things.

00:12:24Oh my goodness, Tron is under 45 minutes. Let's go. And so their, their app is centered more around their podcast and their community because they have a really big following. Yeah. And so they have it's kind of like a mini social media app. They have their podcasts in there. They have the wait time, the wait times and the the park out is kind of like a secondary part of it. Oh OK, I haven't downloaded. It yet it's more centered around their community, but it does have the park hours. So that got me thinking we could do the same thing but for Disneyland.

00:13:05What? But ours is going to be more park focused. Not so much about our podcast because we don't have a big following. We have like you. Guys are we have our we have our great friends. We do. We appreciate every single one of you. Quality over quantity, that's what I say. We got quality listeners. But we we also haven't given it as much as they have. I mean, they have not missed a week. No, they I think they've missed one week. One week in five. Years. So I mean, they are, they are on

00:13:32it and they have amazing ideas like if you are a, even if you're a Lander, because we started listening to them before we ever went to Disney World. Like if you're a podcast listener, even if you're not. I honestly wasn't. They were like the first podcast I ever listened to. So Disney World is awesome. Disney World is awesome is the podcast. They're really funny. They're really fun. Listen. They're such fun games. 3 gads, 3 dads, same neighborhood. That's their that's their tagline. They all live in the same neighborhood in Minnesota and they go to Disney World all the time.

00:14:04TJ therian. If you don't the the the guy on social media does. The oldest, middle, youngest. He was he's been on our podcast a couple of. Times videos, he's a part of Dapper Dads and so check out their podcast. So that got me thinking because I thought about it'll be cool to do a Disneyland app that's focused on wait times and all that kind of stuff. And so I started talking to sometimes Ben, who's one of the sometimes hosts on their podcasts about how he built it and what he did. And so that got me thinking, it's like we could do something for like that for Disneyland, but obviously focus more on the park and how you can make it the

00:14:47most out of the park. Because one thing we've always talked about is since Lightning Lane and the the the Disneyland app, ever since Max Pass, which came out after Fastpass, where you use the app for light for fast passes, you are so tied to your phone the entire time that you're at Disney park, you're constantly scrolling through it. You're looking at the map. OK, what are the wait times? What are we gonna do next? Oh, we gotta get this Lightning Lane. How could we make an app to let that makes you use your phone less? What? Yeah, yeah. So using the technology to use less of the technology, that's the whole thing.

00:15:39That's the point. Max pass was awesome. I love Max pass because it was 8 bucks to get for fast pass but digital version which was amazing now what is like 30 something dollars? 35. 3540 depending on. Anyways, whole other story. So I've been working on the app. You guys. That. He has been working and working. I don't even. Know what is on his computer screen? I'm like what even is that? I it's coding thing. I don't even know. I don't even know what it is. So I, I had a like, not even the beta version, it was like alpha. It was like not even the alpha. It's like like bare bones app.

00:16:26I had a coworker who went this past weekend and I was like, Hey, do you want to test this out for me? And so he had to be, he had to connect to my computer to get it loaded onto his phone. And he text me over the weekend and he was like, you can't make this public, Like you can't give this away because this is too awesome. It like 1 was. It was really hot in Anaheim that weekend so the wait times were low anyways. True. So, but still it it helped him find out what he could do. So the whole premise is like I said, using the app so you use your phone less. So the whole thing is it tells you, you, you open the app for

00:17:10the first time and it asks who's in your party. So you got say like for us, for us, we have two adults, 4 kids. You put in your height for each kid. So the app automatically knows which rides your your kids can and can't do based on their height. Two of the children are taller than me. And so pretty much all our kids can do all the rides now, but if you have young. Oh my gosh, that's that's almost true. Yeah, so my. Daughter is just like there's like 212 rights she can't do crazy. And so, so not only do you put in your your kids height, but you also put in your

00:17:51preferences. Do you like thrill rides? Do you like dark rides? Do you like classic family rides, slow rides? Do you like shows? Do you like characters? Do you like to say as a group? Do you like to split up as a group? So you put all these all these preferences in and it automatically knows based our on where you are in the park, the current wait times and your preferences and how your family and your, your party is made-up. It knows what to suggest for you to do next and suggests whether you should split up, whether you should do a rider switch. Future versions are going to take into account your lightning lanes, if that's what you want

00:18:30to do. And so it will send you alerts saying, you know, hey, you should do this next. If a part, if a ride goes down, it'll send you alert, hey, rise of the resistance has gone down. It'll tell you alert when rise of resistance has come up. Is it called Tim AI? There is no AI involved in this. Dining plans I don't know if we can connect to. No. So unfortunately we cannot connect to anything that's tied to your Disney account. So Lightning Lanes, dining reservations, those types of things, Disney locks that stuff away. Tim GPT land. So, so anything that's tied to your Disney account we don't

00:19:14have access to because of safety and privacy and all that. So that makes sense. But there are ways to where we can connect to that on a later version when they you would there, there's a manual process to, to add that, but that's for future development. But it will send you alerts when say Space Mountain is below 30 minutes. It'll say, hey, Space Mountain's below 30 minutes go. Now you get. There's also a setting that I put in there because one thing that we've talked about also is how since Lightning Lane, you bounce around the park constantly. You'll go from Tomorrowland to New Orleans Square. You'll go from New Orleans

00:19:55Square to Toontown. All this bouncing around because of Lightning Lanes and the times and all that stuff. There's a preference in this where you can take it land by land, do the things that are in that land before doing other things. Nice. OK, Amy asks. Yeah, if you entered it manually. Entered what manually are? You talking about your dining plans? You could do that, yeah. I mean, that's not a feature in the app yet, but in the future we can do that where you put it in manually so it knows your schedule. I'm trying to do it to where you do as less entering of

00:20:31information as possible. I want to keep it simple so that way you're not bogged down with another app that I have to learn and enter information. I want to be able to know who's in your group, what do you like to do, and then let it just tell you what to do. But something we're adding, that's mine, I take it. I take it I made a digital product, a Food Guide for Disneyland that takes, you know, sit down quick service, breaks it down by land, breaks it down by what else. The big thing I wanted was food type because we have, you know, we, we have 4 kids and you know, from ranging from 16 to 5. And so especially when they're young, you know, when your kid goes through that phase of only

00:21:34eating one thing. And while you can look at the menus on the Disneyland app, you cannot search a specific food. So there have been times where our daughter, our youngest will, she's only will eat macaroni and cheese. And you know, when you're in the park especially, like around, it doesn't matter actually, lunch, dinner, you just want the kid to eat, right? I still only eat tenders and fries. That's true. It's so good. And that's what our boys actually eat too. But like, there's a lot of places that don't. Chicken tenders and fries are pretty easy to find in land. Macaroni and cheese is not as as

00:22:14hard as not as easy. So I made the guide where you where buy food. So Mac and cheese, these are the places that serve Mac and cheese. These are the places that serve chicken tenders. This is the places that serves cheeseburgers. So or you know, etcetera, etcetera. But you are going. To you are going to add that into the app, so the Food Guide is going to be in the app as. Well, yeah, so that's going to be coming. Right now I'm just kind of finalizing, making sure everything's working. So far everything is working great. It doesn't look pretty right

00:22:51now. So that's kind of the next phase that I'm working on to kind of make it look nice. But another cool feature is that you can favorite your your, the attractions that you know that are your favorites. And when you you can click on the app saying, you know, start my park day. So like you, you start your day there. Now your six favorites can now show up on your lock screen on your phone. And it has a lot it's called a live activity on on your iPhone to where it'll show you the wait times for those six rides right on your lock phone lock screen for your phone. So that way all you have to do is glance like, if like Space

00:23:38Mountain Rise, Tiana's Indian credit coaster, Indiana Jones and Racers are your six favorites. They'll show up on your on your lock screen. So you can just glance at your phone like, oh, and credit coasters, 10 minutes. Let's go. So that way. You're not always having to unlock your phone. Look at the apps. Right there and and that way you don't have to open up your app and look and try to figure out what you want to do next. We're going to make Fuel Rod really mad because people aren't going to need to charge their phones as much. So, I mean, you're still going to need to use the Disneyland.

00:24:18App and I'm just kidding. With mobile ordering, lightning lanes, your account, all that stuff. Right. Like we can't connect anything that's like. And really this is kind of like, you know, if you don't want to buy Lightning Lane, this is a really good alternative for that to where you can just let let this to tell you give you suggestions on what to do next. So, and it also includes, you know, shows, parades, all that kind of stuff. So in your preferences, if you say that you like shows and parades, it's going to it's going to suggest those things depending on the time of those parades and shows and depending on where you are in the park.

00:25:02So just trying to just make it so you can focus on having fun in the park and not so much trying to figure out what to do next and looking at your phone the whole time. So it's taking a lot of work. I've been working on this. Seriously. Like every night for the past like couple of weeks. And then all like the holiday weekend, Labor Day, so you had Monday off. So like all that weekend, all Monday, it was like you were on your. Steve, I like your idea. Make photo pass easily available on your lock screen. I think there's a way we could do that. I think there might be a way. I'll have to look into that you.

00:25:41Want me to write that down? Yeah, I'll write that down. Like your secretary? Write this down. Steve says Photo pass on lock screen. But so yeah, yeah, I've, I've delved into the world of coding apps, a lot of research, a lot of stuff that I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's working. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's well and the fact that, you know, you had a Co worker going and that could you know, test it out and that is, you know, liked it. Have you talked to him since? I'm assuming he's bad. Yeah, I talked to him on Monday and he's like, dude, that app is great. It's like.

00:26:33Which is really exciting. It's like, you know, he was like, you can't let people have this because everybody's going to want to use it. Now we just need to go and test it out. I know I was telling our boys about it and our 13 year old was like, yeah, I want to download that. I was like, no, this is not really a useful feature, but I thought it was interesting because I was always curious about this as I started using it about once because I'm seeing I get I have it turned on even though I'm not here. I'm not. There, I know. You keep telling me things like, oh man, Rise is under 30 minutes right now.

00:27:07I'm like, and so I, so I'm seeing like how many times rides, rides, attractions are going down and coming back up and down and back up. And, and so I was curious, like it'd be really interesting to keep track of how many times a ride goes down. Like how many times does Indiana Jones go down? It's down for refurbishment right now, so oh is. It Yeah. So I've noticed that Roger Rabbit goes down a lot. Well, that's because it's lame. It is a lame ride. You guys that ride? But it goes down at least 4 to 5. Times a day. So now on the app, it tells you how when when a ride goes down,

00:27:51there's a section on the app that shows you what rides are down currently and it'll tells you how many times they've gone down that day. And Roger Rabbit's Roger Rabbit is usually at the top of that list. Going to make Disney mad. You know, 5 to 6 times a day it seems like. Really. Remember when we went, where were we? Oh, we were there for the last day of Splash Mountain. You had never been on it. And we had time to kill for whatever. I don't know what we were doing. And I was like, OK, well, let's go. The the line was not long. Oh, it's horrible, but it broke

00:28:24down. It broke down, but it broke. Down while we're in line. We ended up waiting like an hour for this ride. And then afterwards you were like, what in the world? Why? Chad had some great questions about Indiana Jones. Oh, man, Chad. Chad doesn't know what it's talking about. I'm trying to see what right now, man. I mean, it's kind of late. Butler's is 35. That's pretty long. That's pretty long for 9:00, almost 930. Yeah. The fireworks are about to start, or no, they're going wait.

00:28:59Fireworks are going to start in 3 minutes. 9:30 They used to be 915. I think Tiana's is only 10 minutes right now. Haunted Mansion is 50. Is it a party? Tonight, I don't know, but. Pirates is a walk on you guys. So. So that's the app still trying to come up with app name. With a name, yes. I'm I'm floating around Park Scout I. Don't know. Because it's scouting the park for you. Another one was Ride Radar. But it's not just rides. It's not just ride. So if you guys have a good app name idea let me know. Yeah, leave a review and let us

00:29:41know. You got a good app name? Leave us a review and maybe we'll we'll give you a shout out if we pick it. Oh, we absolutely would. We absolutely. Would the best places for a fireworks show? So best places to. Add Yeah, best places for a firework show? What? Because land is so small and there's not that many places to watch. There's lots of places to watch. There's lots of places to watch Tom Sawyer, not Tom Sawyer. Rivers of America overlooking Tom Sawyer's Island is a great spot. It is a great spot. You get a really.

00:30:21I have some really beautiful pictures of the fireworks coming up over the Mark Twain. Yeah, and they have the water fountains where they project. Oh dis tracker. Dis tracker. I like that. Dis Tracker. I like that. Line it down. Is Tracker easy to see over the small cast? You know what, Jamie? You know what? Jamie is banned from. Using, not the size that matters. I thought of a shirt but I was like no I don't want to use it and if something is in downstate you can say it is dis. It's dis. Dis but yeah, so we're excited.

00:31:08So we'll we'll keep you guys posted on that. I am. Now when I was doing research with you. Thank you doing research for this app. There are other apps that do something similar. No, they're not. There are similar apps out there, but nothing that I've seen that that has a algorithm type suggestion feature. I like to call it Park Brain is why I call it. It's the Park Brain. It's. The park brain. So none of it all they all they do is kind of like tell you, oh, here are the wait times and you know, push alerts and stuff like that, but nothing that helps you

00:31:48plan your day. Like even the Disney Genie app or the Disney genie feature on the main Disney app. It doesn't work that well. I mean, it take what they have advantage of is they get to know your lightning lanes, they know your Disney, your dining reservations. So that helps. But it just kind of tells you like, oh, here's what you're doing for today. Not so much of Hey, here's what you should do based on where you are and what the wait times are. It doesn't really work that well so. Well, and I think like adding like we'll have, we have the Food Guide going in and and something too is that I'm sure. Else mind, I like that.

00:32:34Oh, I'm sure as time goes on, like, we'll think of things and we'll add things, you know, or we you again, I'm the director. I'm the designer. You're the designer. The coder. I am in charge the. Hacker. The hacker. But no, I'm excited to to try it when we go. Yeah, never. If we ever go again. I'm excited about all our Disney ventures and yeah. Yeah, good job. Thank you. One thing that I wish we had that we can't. I am a drama queen, Amy. One thing that I wish we could do, but we can't because it's theirs is if you listen to

00:33:31Disney World is awesome. They have always ended their podcast with the world famous three questions where they at the beginning it was the the three dads and they would each ask a question like. Hypothetical question. Hypothetical question like if you could make a ride based on a movie that doesn't exist right now, what ride would you do if you could make a land based on a, you know, rides like that. They have now made that a card game that we made a podcast episode playing, but always a highlight of their podcast. The boys when we would like binge listen. When we first found their podcast, the boys always loved that part and they are putting that into their app for the

00:34:16world. Yeah, they actually play games into the app so you can play while online, something that Disney is taking away, they're adding into it. But it's like, that's their game. You know, Karen, we. Can't take that. But they and they. 'Cause I love, I love that. Ben, I have it Ben who, who made the apps? He he he's actually going through all the episodes and adding the three question questions from the episodes into the app. So he's just not using the card game. It's like actual ones from from the. Trivia could be fun.

00:34:55We'd have to like that. But then again, it's like I don't want it to be an app that you're using. That's right, you're trying to make it where you're not on your phone as much, where you're more present with your family. Sweet. Like would you rather have an 8 day trip with two park days or a four day trip with four park days? Eight day trip. Eight day trip? Yep. Oh yeah, no, I. Think No 8 day trip. Sorry if you're on the podcast listening, I just grabbed the card game from Disney World. That's awesome. Hey guys, Dapper Dad's great game by the way.

00:35:34We we do have it. Would you rather have an 8 day park trip with two park days? So that's six non park days or a four day trip with four park days. Yeah, 8 day trip. Eight day trip, 2 park days. There's four rest days resort hopping. Four rest. We're going hard on those 22 park days. We need that. We need the rest days. But you got you got resort hopping, you have Disney Springs, you have the water parks, Yeah, mini golf, you know, anything to your heart's content. Disney World, they got everything. But so Speaking of Disney World,

00:36:22we have a flight to Florida on hold. For the next two hours. For Yeah, until midnight tonight for a possible trip to Florida in February. Five months in February. Because one, we're itching to go, 2, we want to go on Disney Cruise and three, we haven't been to Florida in Yolo. Two years Yolo. It'll be 3 years then. No. It'll be it's been a year. And a it's been a year and a half it'll. Be two years, it'll be. Two years. So here's the thing. So you and I have been wanting to go on a Disney. Well, I've been wanting to go on a Disney Cruise since I was a

00:37:11child. I had a friend. This is a story I probably shouldn't tell. So sad. So what? I don't know where this is going. I had a friend who his mom got remarried and then they had a kid so he had a half brother. His mom, stepdad and brother would go on Disney cruises and leave. I shouldn't be laughing if I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, Oh my gosh. See, like seeing a picture, you went on Disney Cruise and our my friend who was my age, so we were in school together. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I didn't get to

00:38:01go. Yeah, only the. They would like go on vacations and take the younger boy. And they wouldn't take him. Only the full son got to go. The half son got to stay home. He didn't get along with his stepdad, really, but anyways. That's so random. I know, but when I think of Disney cruises and when I think of Disney cruises as a as a kid, I remember. I remember when they went and him not going. And anyways. But but yeah, so. OK, so here's the. Deal we don't we don't have to pay for it because we I held it for 24 hours before buying it so so is it the the the price has fluctuated it's.

00:38:52Really, it's a really good price. Like 200 bucks per person flying across the country, which is a really good price right now. Which is. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Now we we have been a little more open about what you do and the fact that you get a discount, yeah, on Disney cruises. But the way you get a discount is if all the rooms are not booked. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a, it's a last minute. It's a space. Available discount. So that means that we have because people are like you should get on this if you're because I like say like, oh, we

00:39:35were hoping to go on a cruise in February and people are like book their Disney cruises years in advance. We have to book it if we want the discount price, which is the only way we can do it pretty much last minute like it. It might even be like a month. It's a month or two months before. Before. Yeah, but the discount is like 50%. But it's amazing, Yeah. So the hard thing about that is a couple things. One, we our first Disney Cruise, we want to go just us multiple reasons. One, we enjoy taking a vacation by ourselves at least once A. Year We like spending time as a couple.

00:40:13If we can, we try to do one thing a year, or at least just us two, our children. Yeah, we'll book another stateroom. Come on, let's. Go our children do better when they when we can guide them because we know what's going on. So we have never been on a cruise. And just from the little bit that I hear from posts and things, it's going to be like a whole different world, right? I've been on a cruise, but it was like a Carnival cruise. It was like a three day thing. I've never been on a cruise. Like, and I give this example, the first time we went to Disney World did not go great. We took our children. It was our first time.

00:40:56It was our kids first time, didn't go great. Then you and I went back alone, figured things out better, we're more comfortable. We took our kids back and they loved it more. We loved. So if we are steady, they are much more steady, right? So like we do not have adventurous kids that are up for anything, which we are not those people either. So makes sense that our kids are not those people. But so if we go first, get our, get our trip in our couples trip and then someday be able to, I would love to take them. There's so many things where I'm like, Oh my gosh, I want to take them to that. But what makes that hard is we

00:41:36have to leave our kids with someone, especially the youngest, you know, like our oldest could like just go with their cousin. They're fine. They don't take much, you know, planning, but the younger 2 take more planning. And so it's hard to get someone like, hey, can you take our kid for a week? But we don't know exactly when that's going to be. It might be last minute. We don't have people in our life that can just pick up and take our kids for a week last minute. Yeah. So that makes it a little difficult. Very difficult. Amy brought up a good point. It's like, book the flight.

00:42:08If you can't do the cruise, we're just going to Disney World. OK, so I thought about this and Spunky Red said this earlier. The only thing is, is then we have to get a hotel for that week and I don't because we have already done a Disney World trip just the two of us and I would do it again. It was amazing. We had such a good time, one of our best getaways. We have been wanting to do a cruise for so long and. We can't do more than one trip in a year. Yeah. How am I going to say this delicately? We're broke. We're broke. We're house poor, that's what

00:42:56we're house poor. That's the. That's the. So if we are going to take a vacation just the two of us next year, there is going to be 1. And if it can be a cruise, like what if something comes up in May that we could do? Yeah, You know, so it's like I, I thought about that too. And I was like, but I really want to do a cruise and I want to go on the wish so bad and it's moving. Yeah. To Europe. Which of? Course I would totally do that but but practically I can't. Like I. They do have they do have cruises in February for the wish to the Bahamas.

00:43:35And which is I've always wanted to go to castaway key. Yeah, but later that year they're going to Europe. Which of course I want to go to Europe, but like realistically it's. Not what? Here's what I think we should do. Let's book the flights. No, you're Disney poor. Yes, we're not house poor, we're Disney poor. United will give us credits if we cancel our flight. That's what I was going to say was where this is with American, which is who we have our our loyalty points through. If, if we have to cancel, they'll give us credits back. So technically that money's gone, but which is what?

00:44:23We did our very first Disney World trip right because our very first Disney World trip we booked and then we had to postpone. Because of the weather, it was like a hurricane, no? Or it was super hot. No, no, our very first Disney trip, Disney World trip with the kids, it was because of COVID. We we were going during, but there was was. There a outbreak. What did they call it? The like the like different strain. Oh, there was like, yeah, it was a, it was the, I want to say omnivore. Omnivore. It was a different variant that was like highly contagious. And it was like, and we didn't

00:45:02feel right, like our daughter was only nine months old and it wasn't Delta. It did start with an O. But like or something like that. We didn't feel right. We were getting more and more uncomfortable and so we decided to postpone and hope that it got a little better, which it did. And it it's still like that was still the first time we went was still masks everywhere and all that. But anyways, we had to postpone. We had our flights, we had our room, we had everything and we decided. Omnicron. That's what it was. Omnicron. So we. Decepticons. So we decided to postpone but

00:45:39and we had everything. Oh, and telling the kids was so hard. Oh my gosh. But we still got. But we still went. We still and we still did animal Kingdom. I mean the the. Oh, that's right. Because we had, we had poor Orleans. We had poor Orleans. And then? We got better. Available yeah and we got a better deal and again you get you get deals on Animal Kingdom Lodge which. Safari view. Amazing for our at the time 8 year old. He was about to turn 8. Yeah, who loves animals like so

00:46:23it was so it, it that part was really cool and and worked. Out except when we found out the rooms were really small for. Six. We had six people in that room and we didn't know. We were new to Disney World, so we didn't know about split stays. We didn't know anything. Yeah, we were so new to Disney World. We're so crammed in that room for a. Week. Oh, we were there for over a week. That's right. We were there for over. We were. There for 9. I think it. I think it was 10 days, two

00:46:49travel days. I think we were there for like 8 nights. Oh my gosh, yeah, it was. We were like done. By the end of that trip, we're like, let's go. Yeah, but anyways, the point was we had to postpone, but we got credit and blah, blah, blah. So we'll see if what Tim does when he gets. Yeah, we we got, we got an hour and 15 minutes before they cancel our hold, so. It was a different time so it's so crazy. It's so crazy like how all of it just crazy. My our daughter who is 5 now was born during and this Sorry this is a side note but she is getting over a cold and we we tested her just to make sure and

00:47:38because it had been going around where Tim works and. Dropping like flies man. It was like every day. So my coworkers are like guess. Guess who got it today? Oh great, babe it. Was. Like, but she like doesn't remember so she's asking us like, if I have COVID, do I have to do this? And like, she'll look back at pictures and be like, why were you all wearing masks? And it's crazy that she was born during it, but like doesn't remember it. And our boys who were young like because. She was, she was too young to wear masks and then by the time she was old enough, wear. Masks and I'm like no.

00:48:16By the time she was old enough, she, yeah, she didn't have to wear them. And was like looking back at pictures and talking about like the the boys different masks, like, you know, Boston had a a dinosaur. I was like, yeah, they you know, you could buy a pretty mask. It was like a thing, right? Go to Old Navy, you go to Target, get your Disney mask. Disney sold masks. Disney sold masks like get your Disney. Hey Liz. Anyways, just just crazy how? With your ears. How it was our life and then it's over, you know, just crazy. Just crazy. What, 2-3 years? As as you get older and like

00:48:53history and when there's big things in history that you lived through and it's just crazy. That's not what this podcast is about. But Joe. Hey friend. Anyway, sorry that was a total tangent, but. I'm leaning towards. He's going to do it. You're going to do it. I'll. Kick myself just seeing how far. I mean we are very far away. Usually you don't buy tickets. Well like 6 weeks in advance usually is loyal I feel like they say is a good price. You know, I've been tracking for the last few days these flights on Google, and Google sends you alerts when they drop. And they send me alerts saying,

00:49:30like, this is the lowest it's been in a long time and, like, flying from California to New York, not New York. I don't know. We were talking about New York. Earlier I'm I might go to New York. Hey, hey Florida. California to Florida for $200 per person is really cheap. I mean, if we can change 'cause the my big thing is the the person that we need for most of the time for our daughter is currently out of the country. Yeah. And while I am in contact with her, my sister, I cannot have this conversation with her right now. She is in Africa. So I can't be like, hey, are you available?

00:50:16If I'd be worded to watch her like I I need to wait till she gets home and like decompresses a bit from her month long trip to Africa. And you know, because it's it's. Well, our our daughter, she's getting a little bit more comfortable with other family members, so hope she. Is I. I that would help put the pressure off are. You doing a wake? Boy, putting the pressure off your sister, Yeah, so. And and that gives us a few months to work on it even more. Oh, oh, I think it is. I think that's why they stayed so long. It was expensive to get there, but then cheap to be there. She doesn't listen to my podcast

00:51:07or does she? I don't know. Live from Africa. But we go, hey, so that's my thing too, is it's just like, that's a whole other thing. That's a that's a whole other difficulty. And it's a lot. It's a lot to leave your kids. It's a lot. I I might do it. I think you probably. Will I might do? It we have been talking about it. We were hoping to go over the summer and we we couldn't do that. But you know, Yolo, Yolo. So we'll see it's. Probably not the smartest decision right now, but you know what?

00:51:53Yeah, it might not be the best decision, but again, what did I just say? Yolo. So we we didn't even get into what I was going to talk about, and that's totally fine. That's fine. We were going to talk about Disney, Disney opinions that have changed over the years. So I I say we just say we just do 1. Oh, oh, do one. Oh, OK. Let's just do 1. Let's do one just so Disney. Opinions that we, you know, we had you and I that have changed over the years. OK, that's true. Amy says you'll regret it if then you go and the flights are twice as much.

00:52:33I know, I know it's true. I know. Save it for the next week. Should we save it for next week? I honestly didn't come up with that many because my opinions have not changed that much. Yeah, it's true. Me too. I was going, I'm not going to lie. I'm using my AI personal business assistant to come up with ideas and so there are more ideas. Magic King to being your favorite to Epcot. So now Epcot is your favorite. So my, I think the biggest 1, cause a lot of them I'm kind of like, I've talked about this, I've talked about this like we've talked about our first trip, how we weren't crazy about

00:53:21Disney World and then we went back again, just you and I and we fell in love with it. Disneyland is still our favorite, but there are things about Disney World that we absolutely love. But I think one of the biggest for me was from the time I went at 14, because I went as a little kid, then there was that a span where I did not go for a while. I went back with school, with choir in high school and was like, Oh my gosh, it was like a new awakening of love. Even though I was always a Disney kid. But from that trip, my freshman year of high school was like, you do not miss the fireworks. I parked out for the fireworks for hours and I did not miss the

00:54:10fireworks. And now I will miss the fireworks, Yeah. I will say, though, that that was when I was going like once a year. Yeah. If I only went once a year, I wouldn't miss the fireworks. If I go more than that, which typically we do, I can skip the fireworks sometimes, yeah. So that's just like you're not getting like a because you have like a whole list of. I have a couple things. OK, what? What? Just give me one of yours. One one that I saw was a ride that you always had to do, but now that you're you're willing to skip now Yes, at first I was going to say, well, this, this

00:55:09ride is is relatively new, but I always wanted to ride it whenever he went was rise of the resistance is one that like you have to do every single time because it's amazing and it is it's an amazing ride. But now it's like, actually, you know what I think I can skip it even though it's like one of my favorites. The fact because it's it doesn't change a lot of the other rides they put like over like space mountain. Space mountain is my ultimate favorite ride of any ride and they do the regular space mountain and then they do hyperspace mountain and like I have to do it. At least there's been a few times where we've gone and we haven't done Space Mountain and

00:55:54I feel. Rarely, but. Yeah, rarely. It's usually when it's just me and you. Yeah, it's like. A and we and we go, yeah. And we go just for quick sees and like if we don't ride Space Mountain, it's like I hurt. That's how I feel about Small World, like it doesn't feel like a Disney trip if I don't go on, it's small. World and so for Ryze, like even though it's like one of the greatest rises, greatest inventions Imagineering has ever done, I'm OK if we don't ride it. Like the first first few years when it came out, I was like, I have to ride it every time now. I was like, if we miss it, like

00:56:31I'm OK with it. I have been OK with missing becoming a mom has made me way more OK with missing rides. Also just we go more often. But like, I mean, I miss I, I miss smugglers, I miss rides most of the time because our daughter, our daughter, if you're new, our daughter is our youngest. We have three boys and a girl. She, she now can ride both of those rides, but is not ready to. And our boys are Star Wars loving boys. You are Star Wars love it. So you, they're going to have more fun with you. Every once in a while I'll be like, oh, I kind of want to ride smugglers. And so you'll wait out.

00:57:14But really, I know it means more to you. So I will miss the Star Wars rides quite a bit. Star Tours. I don't even remember the last time I rode Star Tours, and you guys write it all the time, but Indiana Jones is another one where I'm kind of like, even with Lightning Lane, it takes a while. Yeah, at least 20 minutes. At least 20 minutes even with Lightning Lane. And so by the time you have gone with the boys or whoever, and then I'm kind of like, you know what, I'd rather if it's time for our cuz, we'll take a midday break with the kids or whatever. I'm like, you know, it's not that big of a deal. Like someone said, I can't

00:57:53remember who, I'm so sorry, but right past your doorstep. I think it was you who said used to be more about the rides. Now it's more about the experience and that has that's more the case for me now and the older I get. So it's like, OK, I'm not going on smugglers or Ryze or, you know, Indiana Jones because I'm hanging out with my daughter, standing here playing with bubbles, which is most of the time, you know, I'm taking her on the carousel 18 billion times. But it's more about just being there and the experience, which is something if you would have told me in my 20s, like no, but I no way. It's like those, it's like those reels where like what you say

00:58:40before your parents, yes, before your parents like, oh, the kids are gonna, they're gonna eat what I give them and they're not gonna be on iPads. They're not gonna have screen time and. Before you're at Disney. Oh, that's an idea. Oh there's a a post idea, there's a reel or a tik. T.O.K. Yeah, Danny. Things you say as a Disney is all before you have kids. Things you say as a Disney adult before you become a Disney parent. Yeah, there you go. Is different. It is. It's like, you know what? She's throwing a fit. She doesn't want to go on Mickey

00:59:11and Minnie's, even though she loved it last time. She wants to stand out here and play with bubbles. That's what we're doing. Yep. That's what we're doing. Then again, that that's again why we like to take trips. Just us to yes. Also, real quick, if you're in that phase, if you go to the park somewhat regularly and you are in a phase, if your kids are toddler ages and they're going through all of a sudden and you don't have any older kids, these are your first kids and all of a sudden they don't like what they used to like and you can't do any of them throwing fits. It gets better. Hang in there. You will get through this.

00:59:45You will get through this. Our last trip, our three oldest kids went off on their own, which was nice and also heartbreaking. I cried and it also I cried tears of sadness and like. Joy. Not joy because they were away from us, but just like, oh, look at them. Like look at them go off together and ride Star Tours. Like, look at them walking and they're big and they love it here at all. But also, like, it breaks my heart. And I wish we could go back to when they were like little and watch the parade and like, slept in their stroller. Yeah. You know, so Disney trips lately

01:00:27have been like an emotional roller coaster because we have a age gap between our oldest and our youngest is 11 years. So we've got kids wanting to go off on their own and they have phones and they can go do something. And then we have still a young child who wants to ride the little rides and it is like a whiplash of emotion. You know what it help you with that I'm building an app just for that. To help me with my children and the age gaps and the fact that my oldest kids don't want to do what my youngest. Does well, they'll help you plan and what you want to do, how you can split up and do what you what you want to do when you split up.

01:01:00So there you go. We actually, Justin, we actually did have that in their bags. We did air tags. Oh, air tags. Yep, Yep. All right, we should wrap this up. But yeah, so we didn't when I, yeah, I don't know, I when I planned what we would talk about a few days ago, then we decided to talk about the app and then also the flight just came up last night. So, you know, whatever, that just means we have more to talk about. Later we can talk more about opinions. But yeah, last thing, Disney announced today that on the 21st of September, Cosmic Rewind, it's going to be playing

01:01:53September. Oh. For every remember every ride all throughout the day. September every ride. Yeah. Didn't they? They did. That last, they did that last year, yeah. Which is remember good one. I wonder would that be on Cosmic rewind so bad I'm. Picturing it, because we have said it, our very first song that we got was Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and that's our favorite. I feel like they could have done better music choices for Cosmic Rewind. Definitely, although that one is. Everybody loves conga.

01:02:25I don't see I, I don't. Hang on, I'm I'm picturing it. Yeah. But stay tuned friends, stay tuned for a more merch. Stay tuned for the app if you are a Lander or if. You have. I'm hoping that the app will be out within the next couple of weeks. I just need to get it out there. Just need to do it because that's the thing too, is you can always make it better. You can always, you can always change it, you know? Yeah. So he's working on the on the design he. Says we want the app. Pretty. You need to get it out next week.

01:03:09Yeah, she's going next week. Oh, yeah, Joe, you missed it. Tim is making a nap for Disneyland. For Disneyland. So it's not for world, but you're both right. You're both long there to see. It's been a while. It's been a while, so if you are just joining on on TikTok, this podcast will be available tomorrow and you can you can listen and learn about the app. We will obviously be talking about it more. We'll be posting about it, all the things once Tim gets it all finalized. Yeah. All right, well, you can follow us on TikTok dreaming of Disney podcast. You can follow us on IG dreaming

01:04:03dot of dot Disney dot podcast. We also have our merch Main St. dreamers dot COM Check it out. It's also not don't spell out St., it's just St. Main St. dot no Main St. dreamers dot COM if you like some Disney merch, we're just starting now. Got a few things on there, check it out. But more ideas, more things. More, more things are coming. So we appreciate you guys always. And if you listen on, if you're watching on TikTok, you can just listen to this on podcasts. Anywhere. Everywhere you stream podcasts, we're there. Anywhere. And leave a review if you like the reviews please I'd.

01:04:45Do it. All right, until next time, I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.