EarzUp! | After Five Years, We Finally Head Back To Disneyland!

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[00:00:32] It's time for the show that brings the magic right to your speakers. EarzUp! What's going on, everybody? EarzUp Podcast. We are back from our warwound vacation to Los Angeles. Can I just say huge episode? Huge episode here. Huge episode. Get ready for the app, everybody. Let's interrupt the intro to talk about how huge the app is. Huge app.

[00:01:01] Let's go ahead and do that. Absolutely huge. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I know you did, and that's fine, man. Yeah, well, welcome, everybody. We are back. We went to Disneyland. Finally, it was going to happen eventually, although it's a little sooner than I wanted to. But that's okay, because it's not my life. It's my wife and my child. I'm just the long to drive. You wanted to wait 10 years? I just didn't want to go back. I didn't care.

[00:01:31] But, you know, that's just me. Whatever. That's not entirely true. But closer to the truth than not. But we eventually went, spent a couple days in Disneyland, Disneyland Resort, and we want to tell you all about it. But big shouts out to our friends over at Consie Ears. You can go to ConsieEars.com. You can travel like ears up. Yeah. No, we worked with Jimmy, of course, over there at Consie Ears. And he was great to work with. The trip went off without a hitch. Everything happened the way Jimmy said it was going to.

[00:02:01] And it was great. He got us a great room at the Villas at the Disneyland Hotel, the DVC Tower. And it was a nice room. It was bigger than I thought it was going to be. They're pretty nice rooms. Yeah. We'll talk a little bit about the rooms in a sec. But yeah, it was good. And it was nice to be able to have somebody to text while we were there going like,

[00:02:24] oh, you know, does this like, we had a question about Trader Sam's if they were doing like reservations for the patio or something like that. Because Taryn thought she heard that. So instead of Googling that, right? And having to figure it out and like, well, is this person on Reddit, you know, accurate or not? We just text Jimmy. And then he gave me the wrong answer. And then we looked like buffoons. We looked like fools. Trying to admit. No, I'm kidding. What answer did he give you? I'm kidding. I'm teasing.

[00:02:54] I was going to say, because he asked me what the answer was. I will see. There you go, man. Yeah. So it was just, it's good to have a reference point, someone to run point for you on information while you're there at the parks, or at least maybe driving down and you have a thought, you know, that blind I-5 drive, all my Bay Area folks, you get to thinking about what you're going to do or planning stuff or whatever. And it's like, oh, oh God, I forgot we could do this. But when I'm driving, you just have Jimmy do it for you.

[00:03:24] Or any of the other lovely people at Concierge. So check them out, concierge.com. They do all this extra stuff for you at no charge for you. It's only what the parks charge to get in. And it was nice to be able to do the parks and the hotel all in one tab. It was already paid for. We were already, you know, we were just rocking, rocking down with a free vacation, which is a podcaster math. Yeah. Yeah. It was free. It was not free. It was free. It was not free. It was free. Okay. It was free.

[00:03:54] It was free after we paid for it. Yep. It was free. We just had to offload a bunch of cash first and then it was free. That's how it works. Yeah. So anyway. That's Disney math and podcaster math. Concierge.com. All right. On today's show, we are going to be running through essentially is what is just a trip recap. And I don't necessarily like trip recap shows that other people do them because it's like,

[00:04:21] it seems really, it's like looking at slides from your parents' vacation to Spain that they took 20 years ago. A time laundered tradition. Come on. Right. And it's just, yeah. So I don't know, but we're going to try to make them a little bit more exciting, a little bit more informative. And I think this is, you know, definitely a different kind of trip recap show because we haven't been in five years.

[00:04:47] And there's so much that is different yet the same at the parks that it was kind of a weird, it was a weird time to go back. Honestly, it was, it was, it was weird because things were familiar, but they were, they were new and there were, we'll get into it. Excuse me. We'll get into it, but there's, there's processes and different ways to do things now that there weren't before. And it was just kind of new, but familiar. It was weird.

[00:05:15] It was just, it was odd to be back after so long. Yeah. So how, how long was it? Well, I think it was like five years. 2019 is the last time we went back. So that's. Yeah. November, 2019. Yeah. November. Okay. A couple months before lockdown. Disneyland Ford was just a twinkle in, you know, someone's eye. They weren't even talking about it. Yeah. You know, Tiana wasn't anywhere near a mountain. Like it was just a lot of stuff, man.

[00:05:44] A lot of different things, but there's a lot has changed. A lot has changed. No reservations, no reservations. No reservations, dude. Yeah. I just realized that. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So it, you know, overall it was, it was good. And we'll, you know, we'll break it down and, and, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about Alice's stuff too. And if you want me kind of more of the personal stories, we just recorded and just posted the

[00:06:10] secret show for February because we're a little behind because we were in LA. But there we kind of talk a little bit more about what it was like to travel with a seven year old to go to Disneyland for the first time. And like, you know, we'll talk a little bit about it here, but if you want some more of those kinds of in-depth personal stories, check out the secret show. That was really fun. It was a good show. So, you know, there's that. Fun stuff. Yeah. Oh, that was good too, man. It was, you know, it was neat. So I guess we'll just jump into it.

[00:06:39] And Eric, you're going to be throwing us questions. And if you guys are listening live in the chat, go ahead and throw questions out too. And Eric can ask those or I can, you know, check them out or whatever, you know, just to see what you guys want to, you know, either about our trip or maybe a trip that's coming up for you because I don't know if anybody knows this, but I have a lot of opinions on stuff and I like to talk about them. Yeah. And like to formulate them on the fly with no sort of basis or ground for, for doing

[00:07:09] so, but I just do it anyway. And then I live in it. And so this was a good way to kind of re-examine those. So if I had said anything before and you guys want to know if that's changed, ask away in the chat. It's a, it's an AMA, but you know, for idiots like me. Hooray. Yeah. So that's basically it. So I think the first thing we should do, Taryn, is talk about the hotel. Yes. And that's the order I think we should go into. Let's do it. Yeah. Where, where, where did you stay?

[00:07:38] We stayed at the Disneyland hotel at the Villas, I guess, at the DVC tower, which is the newer tower. Yeah. When did that get built there? Cause Taryn and I were literally boxing about this the other day. Like how old is that room? Two years ago. That's what I thought. See, and Taryn said three or four and I said, it's like one or two. So I was right. Okay. That's not how that went. I don't know the exact date. I've stayed there a few times. I don't need the exact date. I just, two years is fine. Yeah. It's awesome. I love it too.

[00:08:08] It was great. It was, so just to talk about pricing, it was expensive, of course, cause it's the Disneyland hotel. It's on, it's on, on property, but it was a 25% discount. I believe because of the time that we went, we went pre spring break on purpose. There are, there are a lot of deals. There were a lot of deals going on right around then. There's still some deals going on at this time, I think. But, but yeah, that's great.

[00:08:39] Yeah. It was, it felt really new when you walk in, which I haven't stayed at the Disneyland hotel in a while, but like obviously, but when you walk in, they say, welcome home. I didn't like that. I thought it was cringy. Which is funny. It is a little weird. Yeah. It's funny because my coworker was talking about how she will only stay at on property hotels now because her daughter, who's like nine now or 10, like that's the thing she

[00:09:08] looks forward to the most on her trip. Is being told welcome home? Yeah. When she goes to Disneyland. Like, and it's so special for her that like, and so I was like, it kind of put it in a different light for me where it's like, okay, like I can see that I'm sort of like with you on the like, oh, it's my home kind of thing. Like it's just sort of. Yeah. Get over it. I think it's a little weird, but I, but it didn't bother me. I thought it was kind of nice. I was like, oh, that's a different way to say hello. It's a DVC thing. Yeah.

[00:09:38] And that's any of the DVC properties. That's what they do. Even if you're not a DVC member, if you're staying on any of these places, that's, that's just their kind of thing. That makes sense. Yeah. But yeah. So you've stayed at Disneyland hotel before. Is that right? Yeah. So what's the, what is your impression? I know what my impression is of the, the, the two different styles of rooms, the way they

[00:10:03] are now, but what's the main difference between these two styles of room? Oh God. For me, I think it was just the space of the room. I mean, the last Disneyland hotel we stayed at, it was, it was nice, but there wasn't a whole lot of walking around room. Yeah. But I think in this one, there was a lot of room in specifically between like the foot of the bed and then the TV, you know, like there was like room to kind of stretch out a little bit.

[00:10:29] You didn't feel really confined as much as a normal kind of hotel room, you know, would feel. Well, and design wise, it's, I mean, okay, this is, this is going to jump to probably the end real quick, but I already started looking at going again because that's what you do as soon as you come back from a Disneyland trip is you start looking to go again. No. And I was looking at the Disneyland hotel rooms and I was like, oh, I don't want to stay in those. I only want to stay in the villas.

[00:10:58] There is, it, it feels really new. It has, it doesn't have carpet. It has kind of that vinyl flooring or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That was so nice. It felt so much cleaner. It also has this very mid-century modern feel in all of the furniture, in all of the decor, in like the lobby. And then in the room itself, it's very mid-century modern, which I just really, for lack of a better term, vibe with.

[00:11:26] And so I would say that the Disneyland hotel, like those other towers are just very classic Disney, very blue and gold and castle-y, but also- A little dark. Dark. Dark. Looking at the pictures, like side by side, it looks really boring. Honestly. I mean, I like the old headboard where it plays the music and the stars light up, but it's-

[00:11:54] But that, it does feel very dated too. It is dated and it's fake old wood versus the colors in the rooms. Which floor did you stay on? What was your, what was the main character on your floor? Tiana. I didn't know there were main characters. Just Tiana was in our room. Different rooms are different. We're different characters. So the room that we got, we were either going to get Sleeping Beauty or Tiana. Oh, okay. And we got Tiana. Yeah.

[00:12:22] It varies based on your floor and where your rooms are. But yeah, the design is still very much the same from what I've seen a few times I've stayed there where it's colorful. There's like, you're saying that there's so much mid mod that's going on, but it's also focusing on these, these Disney princesses for most of it. And yeah, that's cool. I like the Tiana rooms. Yeah. I will tell you, you know, so speaking of the headboard and I mentioned this on the secret

[00:12:50] show, the, so the headboard at the Disneyland hotel, for those of you who have stayed, you know, it's like the, the fireworks thing is kind of inset into wood and it's, you know, it looks like a proper setup, but the, the headboards at this place, it's like colored, you know, plexiglass or whatever, right? Colored plastic sheeting of, you know, some scene imagined or maybe from the movie. I don't know with Tiana doing a thing or whatever.

[00:13:16] And, you know, there's just one backlight color and then, you know, the, the colored plastic makes it look different colors and it's fine. It looked impressive because of its size, but it was just like, this is literally three panels of plastic. Like it's not that great, but you leave the light on anyways, because that's what you're paying for the thing or whatever. Right. And then it's colorful. It's fun. It's colorful. Yeah. Yay. And it's actually really bright. It's actually brighter than the, than the main lights in the hotel room. Yeah.

[00:13:46] Cause like we turned everything off when we're saying, you know, when we're putting Alice to bed in the little Murphy bed or trundle bed or whatever it is. And we turn all the room lights off except those. And it's like, it's still really bright in here. What the hell's it going on? But as we're all laying in at night going to bed, you can hear the, um, the contraction of the box for the headboard because it had expanded.

[00:14:13] I'm assuming are those like the light system cooling down or something like that. But there were like these loud cracks and pops for an hour or two after we turn the lights off. So we just got used to not turning the thing on and it never happened again. So it's just, it's like the heating and cooling expansion contraction thing was very audible and it kept pulling me out of that sleep. It was like right, right on the edge, like 20 minutes.

[00:14:39] I'm about to go to sleep and it's like, what the, that's interesting. Yeah. I've only stayed there. Like I haven't stayed there with a kid cause I don't have a kid. So I haven't used that. If you did that. Well, but you know, it, but this is just the normal bed. It was on the main bed. The main headboard bed. Oh, I always turn that off. Oh no, it's too bright. Turn it on. Leave it on for an hour and then turn it off and let me know if it pops for you.

[00:15:06] Maybe it was just like a one-off thing, but like we couldn't, you know, we decided not to enjoy that part of the room because I would rather go to sleep. Yeah. Okay. Well that, that'll be interesting to try next time. Cause I, yeah, it, like I like the colors and everything, but I can't sleep with that much light. No, it's so bright. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Absolutely. Um, I, I also like, I don't know if we're ready to move on from the room. Like the room was great.

[00:15:32] It has a little, um, kitchenette, which was the reason that I wanted that room and not a Disneyland hotel room. That was the actual reason before having been there. Now that I've stayed in there, I only want to stay there. DVC rooms are, even if you're not a DVC member staying in a DVC room, you get that kitchenette, you get a little bit more space, you get better coffee. You get it.

[00:16:00] Like it's, it's, it's more, it's definitely more comfortable. I completely agree with you. Yeah. The room was spacious. The windows do not open despite the fact that they all had latches on them and it pissed me off. I tried five or six times just to brute force them open. It is disappointing that at, yeah, at Disneyland hotel, they don't open because every other DVC property I've ever stayed at, they've got a balcony and I love a balcony. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, that's fine.

[00:16:26] I just want fresh air, you know, COVID stuff aside, cause that's why we really want it. Right. To like, you know, air out the room or whatever, but also I like opening it at night. Oh yeah. I like the fresh air just in general, because also you don't have to keep the, um, the AC on like the sickest I've ever gotten on vacation. Second sickest was from staying at a hotel in Anaheim with the AC on all the time. And I think it was just dirty filter or whatever. And I just got just the nastiest respiratory virus for days.

[00:16:56] It was awful. So I'm like, I, I like having the window open. Yeah. And I wish you could have done that there. And they try, they try to find us a room. We talked about the secret show and they, they, we, we, we couldn't afford the upgrade is what it was. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the, the room we had was, I think it's called a premium view. Preferred. Preferred. Like I will never get that right. You are better off, I think getting a standard view or whatever, because our, our preferred view was mostly of the roof of the second floor.

[00:17:24] And you can see like half of Trader Sam's patio. That's it. And the top of the slide. That's why it was a pool view. It was, it was not, it was, it was one of those like tricksy hotel, you know, uh, you know, vocab tricks were like, oh, well it says pool view. Yes. If you lean all the way to the right and put your head against the wall and move your eyes to the left. Yeah. Then you could see it. Yeah. It's just kind of one of those things. Yeah. I did like the mirrors.

[00:17:53] They were kind of, they were all backlit. The ones in the bathroom had like soft, they had these patterns, uh, inset into the, uh, I guess, you know, into the mirror itself and they're really soft lighting and it looked really nice. It was done really well. Um, the perfect influencer bathroom. Yeah, it was great. It was, uh, it was really nice to put makeup on. Um, the shower like was awesome. It was amazing. Oh, they're great.

[00:18:18] I like, I realized I got out of the shower and I was like, I know what we need to do with our shower at home. Like I figured it out because like our shower doesn't go like the, the glass doesn't go to the ceiling. And so it just, it's always a little bit of a cold shower and the shower at that hotel was so warm and steamy. And I was like, this is what I want every day. I don't know. I've heard that, uh, modern showers, you turn the, you turn them on, the water doesn't come out, you know, same with the toilets. You flush the toilet, it doesn't fly.

[00:18:48] That's what I've heard. Turn the sink on, the water doesn't come out. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that's okay. Anyway. Um, yeah. So for the most part, they had a problem with the curtains on the bed because the, the, the end of the curtain closed at the head of the bed, but it doesn't close all the way. And so every morning you had that nice beam of light cutting through and waking you up. It's just, you're blinded by the sun coming through the room. And it's like, bro, that must've been your, your specific view.

[00:19:14] Although I have to say, I was at Riviera, um, a couple of weeks ago and I was stationed right across from the pool. Yeah. And I was on like the second floor. So they leave all of, so it was across from like the splash pad. Okay. So they've got the brightest neon lights available. Oh geez. And they leave them on all night.

[00:19:40] And one night I had the, the curtains open to crack because I want to see the sun come up. Yeah. That like, that's how I want to wake up. Okay. And I stood up to go to the bathroom before the sun had fully come up. And there was this massive shadow cast across the room on the front door. And I thought there was a guy in my room. Oh no. It was totally me. Oh man. That'll get you. I freaked the heck out. Damn, Peter Pan. Wow. And it happened every night. That's funny.

[00:20:09] I love that. I'm like, eh, it's just me. But yeah, it was a nice tower. It's all the way at the, across at the, the very edge of the hotel. But you know, you walk, uh, you walk out, you walk past Trader Sam's and there's like a separate, um, security checkpoint for lack of a better term. Um, that's not the way if you would go normally like past the wizard hat or whatever. Right. If that makes any sense. They've moved, they've moved the entrance. Yeah.

[00:20:38] Well, there's, there's just a second one now. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of neat. So which, which kind of leads us into, into downtown Disney, uh, the, that transition that they had, I do kind of like it, but it was a little weird because when you're at the Disneyland resort or Disneyland hotel, um, property, it's, you know, very tropical and whatever. And then you, you step out of that gate and cross the little road to go to the security checkpoint to get in downtown Disney and everything's like, uh, decomposed granite and cactus.

[00:21:06] And it's just, it looks nice. It's great. But it's just that like the tropical to desert. It's like, okay, we're, we're, we're not easing into anything. There's no transition. It's just, this is different, which is, you know, fine, but that was neat. And then that was our first kind of foray into downtown Disney. Yeah. And, uh, you know, so we hadn't been, of course, since all, all that stuff has changed. The theater's gone. They've moved or a sandwich.

[00:21:35] I think they even demoed that whole building and maybe built the new one for Din Tai Fung or whatever it is. Yep. But that's where that security entrance is. It's right between Din Tai Fung and then, you know, some other shops, but in the middle there in between these two buildings, they have this strip. And I think I made fun of this when it first, when it, when I first saw the plans, first heard about it's a, it's like AstroTurf and the stage. Yeah. It's a little concrete stage. And we went there, there were two DJs, which I don't know why I need to, but whatever.

[00:22:05] And yeah, there's like a big pad of AstroTurf with, uh, you know, chairs on either side. And there's a couple of little molded Hills at the back and Alice saw it. She's like, Oh, I'm like, yeah, go run, dude. Play, go away from me. Get out of here. And she ran over there. And then it's just, she just joined the three or four kids that were just rolling down the hill. That's awesome. Yeah, it was man. It was neat. Cause I'm like, okay. And that's when I started to kind of get it.

[00:22:33] Well, and this, this, this, these mounds and this AstroTurf as ugly as it sounds, it's not bad looking. And the whole thing is surrounded by these little groups of these mid-century modern outdoor furniture, like pods. Yeah. And I was like looking at it and I was like, this is fantastic. This is exactly what parents need. They want to sit where they can see their child.

[00:23:01] They don't have to deal with their child for a few minutes. Their child can run up and down the mountain and they can still see them and they know they're safe. They can have, um, I don't know if you could have a drink there, but you can have, you can have food. Like it was, it was great. It was such, I just didn't even, I don't remember even talking about it honestly. And so when I saw it, I was like, huh? And then it was great. It's a really cool space. I, I like it myself.

[00:23:28] And I, I mean, I, I've never considered the kid aspect of your kids can roll around and have fun and maybe meet other kids. And it's just so it's chill. Like, and they always have a band there. It's sort of like, it kind of reminded me of, um, maybe like a community park that would have, you know, hot August nights or whatever, where people would come together and see a band and just everyone from town kind of hangs out. It was sort of that, that vibe.

[00:23:57] So right next to that, it's those didn't tie fun, which obviously we didn't go into every time we walked past, there was a line, which I get, but the next building, there was like that Avengers store with this big, you know, life-size Hulk outside, which is kind of cool. And then there's this thing called like the Parkside marketplace. Oh, I have so much to say about this. I bet you do. Oh my. I bet you do. I don't even need to ask you questions. You're all upset. So you could go and get food.

[00:24:23] And then they had a little, a little window kind of outdoors of the coffee shop, but you could also order a drink. So you could potentially go get your food and a drink and go sit. And then your kids just running around playing. I'm not going to go anywhere. You know, it's probably the safest place to be because there's security, you know, wherever. And it was just, yeah, it was really nice. So I remember definitely going, okay, wait a minute. Maybe I should be not, not reforming my opinions.

[00:24:49] Cause who would ever do that, but definitely forming new ones maybe about, okay, not all the changes need to be catering to me. And that's the way I always approach it as a Disneyland fan where it's like, why are we doing this? Who, this is stupid. We have this whole open space with AstroTurf. What are you joking me? But it's not that way at all. It's definitely kids need a space. That's not Disneyland. And we learned that the hard way on this trip, like Alice was really difficult to ask.

[00:25:19] Acclimate to this new environment. It's so, I imagine it's just what aliens would feel like if they landed on this planet. You know, it's like, what the hell is going on? So it was kind of not like the time she had the most fun or at these little parks that had nothing in them, like in Toontown, which we'll talk about for a second. There's like not a whole lot. There's stuff to do in Toontown, but you're like beating on shaped hollow plastic drums. She loved that. She loved it.

[00:25:47] So, you know, the fact that like Taryn's saying, you can have a spot where as a parent, you don't have to feel like you need to guide your child's entertainment. And you can sort of like relax a little bit is, it was neat. It was good. It was awesome. I approve. And so that the Parkside Market, which is across from the Dim, Dim Tai. Dim Tai Fung. Dim Tai Fung.

[00:26:16] That place is awesome. It is like a smaller version of if the older people can remember, like a mall food court. Yeah. There's old people in mall. I don't, I don't know if I like these terms. I know, but it's true. Malls are a thing of the past. Um, but they have two places in there, um, to order from. They have like a fried chicken and then a Korean rice bowl place. And we tried both because Alice wasn't going to get a Korean rice bowl.

[00:26:46] Um, but we were. And then, so she got chicken and honestly, both were fantastic and reasonably priced. Like they were not terrible. Yeah. Um, then I, I found out too late. I found out on our last day that there's actually a bar upstairs. Um, with alcoholic drinks and things. And so, and, and like a big, um, balcony that you can look over the green area.

[00:27:12] So like, there's this whole like place that where you don't have to, it's like, it's like you go get your food and you go find a place to sit kind of thing. And then Jason found like the best coffee ever at sip and savor, which is right outside of this area. I was obsessed with it. I thought it was so good. It was, yeah, we ate there most of the time. And here's a tip. You can order anything from any of the menus. Like you don't have to go inside.

[00:27:37] You can go to the essentially, uh, you know, extended kiosk that's shaped into the, the, the coffee place. It looks like a coffee place and sip and savor or whatever. Taryn just said, I didn't pay attention. And you can order the food from there. You don't have to go inside. It doesn't look like you can, but you can. You can order alcoholic drinks from there. So at night we would just go and hit that place up for dinner and then take it back to the hotel. Like in the morning, uh, the thing that I got that I discovered my new favorite little sweet

[00:28:07] drink is a dirty chai latte. Phenomenal. I think there's like lavender in there too. It was amazing. I did not like it. Oh, so good. You, you folks are within a few hundred feet of the hotel at this point. Yeah. We haven't even ventured out yet. You're, you're, you're nowhere near Disneyland. Yeah. Well, this is definitely not chronological order. No, this is just, but still, yeah, there's so much to talk about here. I know. Oh, I see what you're saying.

[00:28:37] Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. There is. Um, but yeah. And I, I just thought it was important to, that we talk about how Disneyland forward is going with the downtown Disney rebuild. I think it's going pretty good. There were not bad. There were scrims up at the ESPN zone. Uh, we went to the rainforest cafe, which is now, uh, the star Wars launch bay. Basically they did a great job with that because it looks so great. If you ever been inside the rainforest cafe, they have these like, you know, like trees in the middle of it. Right.

[00:29:06] And when they took all the animatronics out, they didn't take those out. They left them. So now you're kind of like on indoor or whatever. So then they made it like a rebel base and it looks awesome. It was great. It was really neat to see. I was like, okay, you did the best of it. And I, I loved it because that place always sort of looked like, uh, an old temple anyway, you know, which is kind of what it was supposed to be. So it just, it all worked pretty good. One thing I didn't like, I finally got to see the Ralph Brennan's jazz kitchen redo.

[00:29:36] Oh, good. I mean, I just, the, the fact that they put like, like almost neon bright orange with a Swiss coffee color white. It was atrocious. And I thought it was bad in the pictures. Yeah. There's first of all, there's so much space downstairs. Like there's so many more tables. So I, I, from a space premium, I, I understand like from a business standpoint, well, let's

[00:30:05] pull this out and let's put more tables in. Cause that place, you know, when it got busy, it got busy. There were lines. But from what I understood when we, when we, you know, we used to talk to our friend who was a chef there, the, they, they weren't hiring enough chefs to keep up with demand anyways. So it kind of makes no sense to then put more tables unless they're hiring more chefs. But anyway, that's usually why Ralph Brennan's your food took forever because they just were not hiring enough people.

[00:30:34] They didn't want to fully staff it anyway. Um, yeah, it just, it looks, it just looked bad in person. It looked really bad and I was very disappointed. That was the worst thing about the downtown Disney redo. There wasn't, it is a, like I've said, it's, it's a, it's a drastic shift. Yes. Food's still good. I'm sure it is. I'm sure the food's still good. It has to be right. Because it's just, it's still the brand. But it looks like you're going to get a sandwich and a soup there.

[00:31:03] Like not like gumbo or like a good, a beat of beer. Like it doesn't look like what it is. And also, so one, zero redeemable qualities to that place. Like I look, I was, food aside. I was trying to find the positive in that revamp and there isn't. Also, as we walked by watching people sit there, those chairs look so uncomfortable. They really did. They're like the plastic, uh, woven. Yeah.

[00:31:33] Just like, I would not want to go there anymore. But I think before they were wrought iron. Yeah. Those weren't comfortable either. They weren't that comfortable. No. No. I still love that place. Well, that's good. I still have to go every time. Oh my God. Somebody needs to. That's right. Let me try and, um. I will say, cause it wasn't that busy whenever we walked by. It wasn't as busy as it used to be. And I don't know if it's cause maybe crowds are low or now there's way more options that are trendier. Um, but yeah, it just didn't seem as popping. I think both are happening right now. Yeah.

[00:32:03] Um, I will say I did find a place that was amazing for food. Um, it's called Tiendita and it's a little. She looks so proud of herself. It was. Cause she got that name right. So good. Um. She got a little smile on her face. Tiendita. I did it. It's, um, where is it? I don't even know. It's like in the curve, like when you're going through downtown Disney and there's that weird restaurant that's in the middle. Yeah. It used to be Uva bar. Yeah. Now it's something different. Centrico's. Yeah.

[00:32:33] Which by the way, speaking of that, it looked, that looks great too. I thought they pulled Uva bar out entirely. I didn't know that they just redid it. Yeah. It looks good. And it looks good. It's a little darker. It looks great. Yeah. It's cool. But yeah, it's like right across from there, kind of like by the sweet shop or whatever. Yeah. Like on the curve and you don't talk to people, which I thought I wouldn't like, but it's kind of awesome. There's like three kiosks where you order your food and then they put on this board up high your name, like, and it's like your food's being prepared.

[00:33:03] And it's like very Japanese, like even though it's not Japanese food. And then like the other sign is like your food is ready and your name pops there when it's ready. But you have to know Japanese. It's all in Japanese. No, it's, um, it was really cool. Your tacos are in Japanese. So I got this because, um, Jason and Alice had already eaten breakfast. I think I was the only one hungry. And I was like, okay, let's just try this place. I'm going to get the steak quesadilla. Like, why not? Dude. Dude.

[00:33:28] I looked at, I opened this thing and I was like, oh, I made the best decision ever. Like it was so good. I took a picture of it. First of all, I put it on Instagram. Like that's how good it was. It's not a quesadilla. It was an unwrapped burrito. It was a burrito that they folded over like a quesadilla and was like, wow, this is good enough. And didn't wrap it. They didn't seal the ends and right. Because there's so much filling. Yeah. That was beef or steak or whatever she got.

[00:33:55] It was, it was wild and it was good. And it was that when you go to, and you know, you live in Colorado, so you don't know real Mexican food. Yeah. Like we do here in the San Francisco in the Bay area. However, I will say, Hey, I've got Casa Bonita. We've talked to you. That's true. Whenever you go to a Mexican restaurant and that you can, they clearly put the, the,

[00:34:21] the tortilla like on the griddle where they just cooked all the meat. So the outside of the tortilla kind of has the grease on it and the flavors, you know, when that hits, it's just perfect. And that's what this, this was amazing food. It was very, very good from, and from a place you don't really, when you go to a place like, like a resort or a destination like this, you don't expect quality.

[00:34:49] I don't want to call it ethnic food because at some point like Mexican food and California are sort of just the same thing. Yeah. But you don't expect that kind of, that kind of thing. And the cool thing about, about Mexican food in general, it's street food. It's, you know, quote, poor food. Right. So it's like fast ingredients, easy ingredients, not a whole lot, but just done really well. That's what this was. It was frigging awesome. I got to try it next time. So much flavor. It was awesome. It was not expensive.

[00:35:19] It was, I think after tax, it was 12 bucks and dude, it was a big, big thing. Like it was huge. It was delicious. And I got the steak, which I think was even more expensive. Like highly, highly recommend. Yeah. It was good. Okay. Yes. Definitely. Next time I will try that. Yeah. And that's about it really. Oh, you know, I did, I did want to mention the downtown Disney. No, the world of Disney restaurant shop or whatever. Cause last time we went to the store.

[00:35:49] Yeah. Cause last time we went, they revamped it entirely and it felt more like a target or like a series. No, we didn't see it like that. We heard about it. No, you, we saw it a hundred percent. Remember that. And yeah. And, and then they did more to it. I feel cause now there's a different vibe to it. It feels more focused. It feels more like a Disney place than it did before. Before it was kind of just like bare bones and it kind of weird wonky feeling with a lot

[00:36:17] more kiosks in the middle, but this definitely felt, um, it felt more fun. It just felt like they used to feel like it didn't feel any different than six years ago. Let's say I liked it. It was perfectly. Yeah. There were times where it was just empty. That might be what we're, what we're thinking. Yeah. I think that the time that you're talking about, they had put it, had they put in the brick walls and stuff like that? I can't remember. I just remember like the flooring looked different.

[00:36:46] The, the, the kiosks kind of more in the middle. So they were just shoving more and then the walls are kind of bare and it just didn't really feel awesome. Yeah. There was a weird transition there for a while where it just like, well, where's the stuff? Where's the merch? I want to look at stuff to buy. You want buy thing. Speaking. Let's talk. Can we talk about merch since we're talking about that store? Sure. Go for it. Their merch this time. Like, I feel like they finally listened.

[00:37:15] There's a lot of like, I mean, retro-y looking stuff. A lot of Mickey Mouse sweatshirts that just have Mickey Mouse and just say Disneyland. Like. Oh yeah. Just less awful stuff. Like it was really, that was a really negative way to say it, but like it's, it was great. It was great in the way that like, I wanted to buy a lot of stuff and I did buy a lot of stuff and that part's not so great, but. You wanted to and you did. That sounds great to me. Free will. Yes.

[00:37:45] I think that they really upped their game in the merch. I think even some of the pricing, like, so one of the things that we did with Alice is we gave her a gift card and she could spend it on whatever she wanted. So she didn't have to ask us. She didn't have to go through the like, no, don't get that. Get, you know, so she got to do what she wants. And one of the things that she got was a princess Barbie and Barbies at Target.

[00:38:10] Let's say a regular Barbie is like 20 to 25 bucks for like a good one whose arms move and stuff. And they were, the ones that she got were $30 full princess, like actually sewn really well. The arms move and it came with a separate outfit and a bunch of accessories. And I was like, that is a really, really well priced piece of merchandise. Well, like as a kid, her age so did.

[00:38:37] She was like, I know, I know what people like me would want. I mean, I mean, you're probably actually not wrong, but it was. So some things were priced really well. I also found this blanket and I, I pointed to Jason. I was like, how much do you think that is? And he was like, I don't know, like 50. And I was like, it's $30. It's like, sometimes your eyes get a little weird in Disneyland and prices feel different. Seem normal. Yeah. $30 for an eight by 12 blanket. But it was like a nice blanket.

[00:39:07] And then, but there were other things that were very surprising. So when I got this gift card for Alice, it was at the hotel gift shop. And I was like, we're giving her this surprise sort of gift card, but I want to give her something else with it. So I was like, oh, a slap bracelet. It was right by the checkout, right? A little, little checkout thing. So I just pick it up and I, I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll get this. It was $10 for a slap bracelet. And I like, I have not stopped thinking about that.

[00:39:37] And like of all the other things I spent my money on, I spent so much more on other things. But like this $10 will not leave my brain. Cause I'm like, that was not worth $10. No. Also, she. It's a slap bracelet. It's a slap bracelet. Do you know what's in the slap bracelets? Have you heard this? Have you seen about this? Jason didn't believe it at first. The inside of a slap bracelet, Eric. You mean the, the hunk of like steel? Not only a hunk of steel.

[00:40:03] It's a literally, literally from everyone we've opened tape measure. It's a tape measure. It's a hunk of steel. It literally has the numbers. It's yellow. Oh, it's got the numbers. Yes. It's a, it's a piece. It's surplus tape measure. Yes. For $10. That's all it is. With a cover on it. Yeah. Yeah. That polyester. Which is why they, which is why they put it in that. That's why they build the little switch back.

[00:40:32] And they sell that with a bunch of crap. That's what you, that's what you grab. That's the French fry, right? It's where they make their money. Yes. They had you at the blanket, but then. Exactly. We didn't buy the blanket. We didn't buy the blanket, but there were three things that I thought were overpriced. And, and that was one of them. Another one was Alice. Alice got. Hotel. Everything. Um, Alice got an, another gift card from a very generous coworker I have. And, um, she was very sweet and said, I want to buy him something with this as well. And I thought that was so nice.

[00:41:02] And so she picked up, she got this, um, uh, magnet, uh, with a big D on it and Mickey mouse. And it says Disneyland. It's probably a. It's solid. I mean. Five, six inch magnet. It's big. It's big, but they go to bring it up and it's $20. And I'm like for a magnet. And you know, she doesn't know pricing. So she just goes with it and whatever. But like, so that I was like, that was stupid. That's a bit much. That's a bit much. You should have just got him a pen. He's an accountant.

[00:41:34] Um, um, and then the last thing was, oh, I forget. So, oh, the ornaments. So we went into the Christmas shop when we go on a trip. Now we want to get a Christmas ornament to kind of commemorate the trip. And so the one on main street. Yeah. So we went in there. Cute little shop. I love it. Cause I love Christmas and Disneyland. So it's perfect. Um, but I felt that those ornaments were all priced so oddly, like some of the ornaments

[00:42:02] that looked really nice and lit up were like $30 and that's a lot for an ornament. But then there was another one that was like not lit up and a little bit bigger, but didn't feel as solid. Felt like if it fell, it would break. And it was like $45. And you're like, wait a second. Like what is happening here? Like, so dude, they had, they had a Mr. Toad ornament. I'm trying to find the picture. It's not going to look very good on the thing, but this Mr. Toad ornament, if you can see in

[00:42:31] the, in the, in the zoom meeting, it's a Mickey, you know, it's like the, the, you know, classic kind of ball and then, you know, Mickey on the side or whatever. Like crystal inset. Yeah. And it's, and it's Toad's, you know, happy little face. And then on the back it says, you know, Mr. Toad. It's a very nice $35 for that. I'm like, what are you guys doing, dude? That's too much. That's too fancy blown glass. Yeah. It's insane. But is it really blown glass? No.

[00:43:00] I mean, a machine had to do that. Think of the machines, Taryn. The machines need value too. So anyway, I was really happy with the, with the merchandise. I thought it was really cool. Definitely. The Aristocats are making a huge comeback. Not sure why, but it's cute. Here's my theory. In the next 10 years, we're going to see a live action remake of the Aristocats. Dude, Alice will love that. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. Cause I think that's what they're doing. They're just testing the water.

[00:43:30] So anyway, that's our downtown experience. Let's take a break. Okay. And we come back. We're going to talk about the parks. We're going to start with DCA first. We're going to get to actual parks. We're going to get to actual parks. At some point. Yeah. Not just resort, but actual parks. So hang on everyone. It's ears up. We'll be right back. Back to ears up where the opinions never stop. Ever. Thanks for hanging around everybody.

[00:43:59] We're talking a little parks. Finally. Yeah. We have 40 minutes of terror and frustration. Oh, it was wonderful. We're talking about parks. So we did have, I guess we can, I mean, a little out of order, so forgive me, but no one's going to know. No. We did have. You did go to a park. We did go to a park. Okay. We did, because we stayed at the hotel, we did have the early entry to both parks. We only did one. Yeah.

[00:44:27] The first day we went to Disneyland, but I'm going to talk about DCA first. However, I do want to point out that it used to be magic hour. Mm-hmm. It is now a half an hour, right? It is now a half an hour. Yeah. We used to get into the parks an hour early for staying on resort. Now it's half an hour. Yeah. They are just taking, it's if one day it'll be 15 minutes. No, or just not at all. Or just not at all. But yeah. You know, you get front of rope drop. That's what it'll be. Yeah. Yeah. There's two rope drops. Yeah.

[00:44:58] It's just insane. Yeah. It's kind of weird. But you know, whatever. And even then when we got into Disneyland, you know, early, it was still a 20 minute wait, even before rope drop for Peter Pan. It's true. Dude, this is insane. Whatever. But I want to talk about DCA first, and then we'll get to... Excuse me. Then we'll get to Disneyland.

[00:45:24] So Alice seemed kind of, she seemed to react a little bit more walking into DCA than she did into Disneyland. And maybe that's because like DCA sort of looks more like a city. Disneyland is very much a fantasy land of a city. DCA is to a certain extent, but it still looks a little more kind of grounded in reality. Like before this, we were in Burbank and we drove around LA and stuff like that. So maybe she's used to some of that architecture. I don't know. Whatever.

[00:45:53] But she's just seemingly like, oh, this is really great. Carthay had scrims up, so we couldn't really see. And that was kind of disappointing. Yeah. But at this point, Alice is sort of having a hard time figuring out what she wants to do. She's a little gun shy because she just is. That's just her, right? So we're trying to walk around and be like, well, let's hit up Avengers Campus. Let's finally get a taste of this area and we'll see what it's all about.

[00:46:22] So this is your first time going to Avengers Campus? Yes. First time. First time. All right. My first impression is blank and you'll miss it. Yeah. It 100% is just, it is so small. I really hope they, the work that they're going to be doing on that to like put a new ride in and they've talked about upping it a little bit. I hope it'll make a better use of that space because it needs love. It needs some kind of attention or just not to be there. Like, you know what I mean?

[00:46:51] Either it was, it just wasn't a fully formed idea or they had budget cuts knowing the parks. And they just couldn't do what they wanted to do. But I was, I was surprised at, at the shape of it. You know, I guess in my mind or whenever the, I would see pictures online, it seemed like a more cohesive area. But when you go in it, it's sort of like this U shape, which kind of like an arm branch off. Yeah. Yeah. It was odd. Web slingers was hard to find also.

[00:47:21] I was. It looks like a bathroom. We didn't ride it. I looked around. Yeah. It was kind of next to the bathroom. The, the, the front of the building is odd. It's kind of like the, the line is recessed into the building, but I didn't know that where the ride was until we had passed it. And you can see the side of the building that had like flags on it that said web slingers or something like that. And I was like, oh, that must be the building. I could have literally walked right by it if they didn't have those things on the side of the building. Which side did you enter from?

[00:47:50] The, from the Hollywood side. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's a weird, that's a weirder side to enter from. Well, you know me. Yeah. Like, you know, the building that has like the plane on top. I don't know. I don't know. Avengers. Yeah. The Quinjet. It's, that's where the, the e-ticket is going to be set behind. Yeah. Well, and, and that's where all of the photos are taken from. And so they're taken from low down. It looks really big. It looks massive. It looks like it's like this big entrance into this land.

[00:48:19] And like in person, I was like, oh, it's a building. Like it did. It was just like, it felt like nothing. There yet. Yeah. Cause there's, it's like a placeholder, I think. Well, it's, there was a store. They used to do shows. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, there used to be more shows going on in Avengers campus and I know, right.

[00:48:40] I, I don't know what the current status is on the shows, but I know they've cut way back on, like they, they stopped doing the Dr. Strange show, but they used to have the Dora Milaje from, um, Black Panther. They would, they would have. Okay, good. Yeah. Cause that, that's a really great show. And then they would have different battles going on, on the balcony on that building. That I didn't see. I saw Iron Man and we saw Spider-Man. Um, but like we went into the Dr. Strange area.

[00:49:10] Love that area. That was super cool. Yeah. They did a fantastic job. It was like the, the weird fig trees and you know, the figs were all out. It was kind of neat. It was like, okay, I, this is cool. I can see the concept. Except I enjoy this. I wish there was something to do. You know what I mean? Like beyond just like the, you have the door and the sigils and stuff like that. Like if you can give me something else to like take a cool photo doing, I could see this. Or, I mean, I know that's where Dr. Strange, you would meet him or whatever, but like, right.

[00:49:40] There was nothing there now. So it's almost like a dead park. And you're like, oh, this is dead. Did they have PhotoPass people there? No, nothing. There's no, there's nothing. Actually, they've got like two or three different PhotoPass opportunities that are, they do weird optical effects. Yeah. I did see that. There was, so they do have an optical effect on the floor where it looks like the floor sucking in like a vortex or whatever.

[00:50:03] And this poor, poor man, when we saw him walking around and you know, him and his wife, they must've been, you know, late fifties, right? God bless them. They were having fun. And, uh, you know, this frigging Disney adult and this man, and I could just, I could hear, I could, in my mind, I could hear his thinking process. Like I'm going to get down on the ground and pretend like I'm getting sucked into the vortex. That'll be fun to show the grand kids, you know?

[00:50:31] But this poor guy took like five minutes to do this because he's just, you know, when you get older, my older folks out there kind of know, you're like, I, I, the gone are the days of misjudging how much effort it takes to move. Now everything is, now everything's an algebraic equation to figure out, okay, how, how much can I move now? Yeah. How fast can I get down to the ground?

[00:50:55] And, you know, it was just the most, the least graceful, um, comfortable looking thing. But he, you know, God bless him. He did it. His new balance sneakers were, were, were in the vortex and his, you know, wife was taking the picture and they were having the time of their lives, but this poor guy was rolling around on the ground. It was freezing. Yeah. It was neat. It was cool to see. There are times where there's a photo pass person there who, um, knows what, how to position you.

[00:51:24] Oh, he's just like, they've got extra effects. They can do. It was almost like he, he wasn't even buying into the thing himself, but he was having fun. Cause he was smiling, but he was like, that's good. He was like leaning on his elbow. It was almost like he was sliding in a home plate. You know, he did like doing the figure four with his legs. And it was cute. Yeah. I was like, Oh God. And we're like right here. I can't not look at you, but I have to anyway. Uh, but yeah, Avengers campus. It was, it was, I don't know. I, I, I'm, I'm going back and forth.

[00:51:54] I'm still trying to figure it out because I feel like I can see the need for it to have some kind of, uh, presence in the parks for the Avengers. But I just don't think it works like they want it to. I don't know. I was a little, I was, I, I can't say I was disappointed because I'm not as invested in the Avengers as like Ryan is, let's say, or something like that. Cause like the Avengers are fine, but now moving on to like phase 12 or whatever, I'd say I

[00:52:24] could care less. I don't care. I just don't, I don't, it's too much for me. Well, my question about it is like, aren't the Avengers done? No, the Avengers are never done. There's new Avengers constantly. You reform a new Avenger. The park exists outside of the movie universe. It's a different, it's a different timeline because Iron Man is still alive and you can

[00:52:48] see both a white and a black Captain America, like everything kind of like melds together and what really worked well for them. And we've talked about this on the show before when like the new season of Loki came out, they had multiple Loki sightings there where he's in his old costume and he's in his like suit from the time variance authority and stuff like that. Okay.

[00:53:13] They, they, there's a lot of potential there, but they have to lean into the, the live entertainers at this point because they, they, they only have the one ride. Yeah. And there are two more coming. They're working on it. And I think that might be part of my problem with it is I really avoid the live entertainers. I avoid them at all costs. I don't like that. Well, they avoid you too. I've never wanted to tell you this, but. I'm just not a fan.

[00:53:41] In our group chat, we talk about that. You get a little handsy. Taryn, Taryn, I get it. I, I don't know what to do with, with characters. It stresses me out. You stand there. Like we asked Alice, I go, you want to meet Iron Man? Do you know about Iron Man? She's like, no, no, thank you. I love your movies. And then we saw Spider-Man, which she knows I like Spider-Man because I played Spider-Man too, you know, the game. So like, she thinks I'm a Spider-Man. She goes, dad, she'll hold up a doll.

[00:54:11] It's Spider-Man. I go, whoa, I don't like, cool. I like Spider-Man. Don't get me wrong. But like we saw Spider-Man walk. He says, oh, you want to go meet Spider-Man? She's like, not really. Okay. Fair, fair, fair. I love seeing the way different kids react to characters though, because I love the kids that are, that are like, and run up and hug. And I love the kids that are absolutely terrified. Yeah. Well, Alice, I noticed she likes the characters where they're not human.

[00:54:41] Like she, she didn't really want to meet Elsa and Anna. She didn't really, like. She met Belle. She did meet Belle, but I think she was a little hesitant and it was, she was just right there. And so it was like, okay, but like she, she said no to every face character that had a real face, except for Belle. Yeah. But every character that was like in a costume, she was like, yes. All of her characters, she's in. Yeah. So it was interesting. Winnie the Pooh walks by. She'd be all in. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

[00:55:12] But yeah, Avengers Campus. It was, it was, it was fine. I, I, it was probably better, I would guess within the first year that it opened, probably because to Eric's point, they had more face characters out there. There was more stuff to do with only one ride, which is a good point that, and nobody to take photos at photo ops. There's kind of nothing to do. So it kind of doesn't almost exist. And that web slingers is so hard to find the entrance to for me.

[00:55:38] Anyway, I wasn't looking, but you know, it was just, it was a little odd and I expected more, but also, you know, yeah, I can imagine that just is a budgetary thing. They're working on it. It should be better. I hope it does because it does deserve some more, some more attention to it. Yeah. It's kind of in the middle of stuff right now. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I'm not a Dr. Strange fan. That's probably my least favorite character because he's confusing and his movie spaces me out. Like it's weird. Pun.

[00:56:08] But I loved walking through there. Like it's just this tiny little area, but like, it's just so pretty. It's a, it's, it's done in a very Disney way where it really transports you. And when you walk in and like the, like Jason was saying, the trees, like that, that turned it around for me that turned around that whole land. I was like, what is this stupid thing? It just felt like you were at like a, one of those like breweries that's in one of those like warehouse areas.

[00:56:35] That's what all of Avengers land felt like to me until I got to Dr. Strange. And I was like, Oh, this is cool. Fair. Yeah. Absolutely fair. Yeah. That's kind of, I mean, that's all I had to mention for, for, for DCA. Cause I have something. All right. Go ahead. Um, we, for the very first time in all of the years we've gone, we went, we did the, um, animation Academy. Yeah. And we did the first show of the day, which we were told usually is a Mickey mouse drawing.

[00:57:05] And I go get them. You want to see them? Yeah. Might as well. Um, I really, so you can go listen to the secret show to hear more about Alice's trip, but this was a, this was our second day. And Alice at this point had not really enjoyed much and it was disappointing for everyone. Which, which day was the rainy day? The rainy day was the second day. Oh, okay.

[00:57:31] Um, and so this was our first, this was the first part of our second day after the first day was a little bit rocky. And, um, and so we talked, we had talked to her about the animation Academy. It's not a ride. There's nothing scary. She loves drawing. Do you want to learn how to draw this thing? And so she said, okay. And so we did it and it was, it was really cool. I liked that. Like we only had probably 10 people in the whole class. So it was the first class of the day. It was very small.

[00:58:00] And there were two people, two older people who definitely have done this before because, you know, you get these big sheets of paper that they give you, but they had their own notebooks. Oh yeah, that's true. Like, okay, what else are you going to do? You know? And I thought it was really fun. There was informative. She told stories, the, the, uh, animator. Um, my only critique was that it was very fast and I, there's no way around that. You know, they're going through lots of people, but also it was the first one of the day. There was only 10 people in the class. Like I feel like she could have scheduled to be on. I know. I know. I liked it.

[00:58:30] I was like, get me out of here. That was great. I thought it was so fast. I didn't have time to finish. I was like, ah, here's Terrence. Now don't laugh. This is Steamboat Willie or whatever his name is. Steamboat Mickey. Mine's good. Nice. I did all right. She did great. I'm just kidding. It's amazing. It looks great. It's like pie-eyed, steamboat, whatever. Uh, here's, here's mine. Also good. He's got some. Why does he only have one? He's got some style. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You did one pie-eye?

[00:59:00] Well, I don't know, man. He's winking. All right. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, for sure. Definitely put on the freshman 15 for sure. Is where, you know, it's wonky. And here's Alice's. Oh, you can't see the ears, but they are there. Can't see the ears. Not bad. She did a good job. She tried really hard. She did. Is he smoking? No. So the lady was like, oh, you can put something in his mouth, like a churro or whatever. And here's the thing. A churro?

[00:59:28] Because we were talking about, you know, she mentioned Oswald and then she brought up churros. And I was like, I turned to her. I almost wore my Oswald with the churros coming out of his mouth as a shirt. It would have been perfect because it was right there. She would have seen it. And then everyone would stand up and clap. But Taryn, or Alice put a churro in his mouth. I'm like, oh, that's great. It looks great. Yeah, it was really cute. It was nice. I like that a lot. And now Dottie's literally sitting on all the paper. Of course she is. Okay.

[00:59:58] DC, are we done? Did you eat anything at DCA? No. Yes, you ate a shawarma. Oh, well, yeah, that's right. I had the breakfast shawarma, which we didn't go back in time. And it was fine. It was okay. They had like a sriracha maple syrup or whatever. It was like, it was okay. I was starving. So it was fine. I do. I prefer Pim's Test Kitchen for breakfast. We looked in there, but we didn't eat there. I did want to talk about that drink you got. The pickle drink.

[01:00:28] I think my wife just yelled no from the other room. Disagree. Oh, Flo's doesn't do breakfast anymore. Flo's! Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. They're doing it now again? Oh, I didn't know they stopped. Oh, did they stop? Oh, that was the best breakfast. I hope they didn't stop. Yeah, Flo's was the best. Yeah. No, so Jason got a pickle cocktail. And I want to talk about it. Why? Go for it. Go ahead. Because I, so he got it and I didn't know why. I guess a listener asked him to try it.

[01:00:58] Yeah, someone in the Discord, and I forget who it was. I apologize. I think it was Olivia. Olivia. Yeah, I think it was Olivia. There she is. Yeah, so Jason got it so that he could try it for her. It's disgusting. And he thought it was disgusting. He like filmed himself drinking it or whatever. And then he was like, here, try it. And like thinking I was going to think it was gross. And honestly, it was great. My only issue with it is that it is such a sodium bomb that like, I feel like it'll make you tired. And like, I don't know.

[01:01:27] But honestly, like I would get it again. That's disgusting. There was a little too much salt on the top because like a pickles already like really salty. So it maybe didn't need as much of the salt on the top. But honestly, it was pretty good. Great. And I was really glad that I liked it. And you thought I was lying. Awesome. And I was not. Yeah. Well, that's good for you. All right. Let's go to Disneyland. Okay. Let's cross the promenade. Or you have another question.

[01:01:57] My main question. Yes. As you enter Disneyland for the first time in five years. Yes. What are you feeling? You know, I've tried to make notes about this. It was weird, right? Because it was like being in a place that was familiar.

[01:02:19] But also I had to relearn almost because things had changed so much about, you know, like when you could park hop or I don't know. I don't know. It was it felt different. I don't I don't know how to answer that. Taryn, do you? I was a human being full of emotions. I was tearing up.

[01:02:47] I think I didn't let them fall, but maybe I did. I don't know. But like it was there was a lot at stake for me coming on this trip. There was just a lot of emotions already like in getting to this point. And so and I already knew walking in like I always sort of tear up when I walk in, even if I went two weeks ago. That's true. You do. I forgot that about you. It's just Disneyland is a very special place for me.

[01:03:12] And the fact that it was a surprise trip for Alice and that there was just there was a lot of emotions. I was very excited. I was so incredibly happy to be in this place and that we finally did it. And I was just full of joy for five minutes. No, I'm just kidding. Before before that five minutes is up. Ryan asked an excellent question earlier.

[01:03:42] Was there anything you didn't realize you missed until you were there? Hmm. I think so. I don't know. I'm trying to think because like I think I missed everything. So it's not a good question. Here's for me specifically. And I think Taryn also for a different reason. We were kind of dancing around it.

[01:04:10] We talked about on the secret show, which you go to patreon.com slash years up to sign up and get the secret shows. Alice, we had a hard time because we'd never been with Alice before like this. Right. As a basically almost seven year old. An adult. Yeah. Right. She drove us. And it was it was difficult because she is kind of, you know, she's kind of she takes a little bit of time to get used to any new environment. And Disneyland is very overwhelming.

[01:04:40] Oh. And I was like, you know what we should do first is we should walk around and get her acclimated. And Taryn's like, well, it means so much to me. I think we should just do rides. I'm like, OK, this is your trip with her. Like, I'm here. Let's just do that. Whatever. Whatever. So we did like the carousel. She got a tummy ache. We and then we're like, oh, well, let's do something calm like Alice in Wonderland. We get on Alice in Wonderland. It's twisty. It's loud. You know, sometimes they turn up the volume a little too much. It feels like she was freaked out.

[01:05:09] And so that kind of like ruined the trust that she had in us to like pick rides to do. So I had to instantly go, I need to rethink how I'm approaching this trip with Alice. It was no longer about me. It was about Alice and what makes her comfortable. So I kind of didn't really get a chance to process being there for myself, if that makes any sense.

[01:05:36] I didn't think about, oh, I really wish I could have done this or, man, I really missed this aspect of the thing because I was just working on making Alice comfortable. And also trying to find things that she liked. And I don't know. So it was kind of, that's a hard question to answer, I guess, for me, because I didn't think of it as a trip for me. Yeah.

[01:06:02] And on the opposite side, I really did think of it as a trip for me because like I said, I put a lot of emotion into this trip for various reasons. And one of them was Alice, but I really thought that she was going to love everything because I love everything. Of course she's going to love it. And it's like I forgot who my kid was for a minute. And I forgot that it takes her a long time to open up to things, even fun things.

[01:06:29] And I was not as quick to turn it around as Jason was. So I was still, I spent a lot of this trip grieving the fact that it wasn't going the way I wanted it to go or that I had imagined it was going to go. And a lot of that was just sort of like a sort of selfish behavior because I was like, like the way that he's saying that he didn't, like there's nothing that he missed, right? Or that he misses or that he feels like he didn't do maybe.

[01:06:58] There are several things that we didn't do a whole lot. And there's a lot of things that I wish that we had done. Looking back now, I can go, that's fine. We'll go back. It'll be fine. We'll eventually do that thing.

[01:07:11] But there were definitely moments throughout this trip where I was very, I was, I was having to sit in my disappointment while also masking it because I didn't want Alice to know that I was so disappointed, but I was so much more disappointed than I was able to show. And so it just, it was a, it was a tough trip in some aspects, but at the end of the day, you're still at Disneyland. We still had fun. We all turned it around.

[01:07:38] Um, and it was just, it was a learning experience. Actually, we were talking about what to talk about on this show. And one of the things that I, that I came out of from this experience at the park and this kind of new experience for us was that, um, when you go on a vacation, you, um, and I think especially at Disneyland, because like you're saying, you walk into the park. What did you feel? Because everybody has a feeling when they walk into this park, right? It's, it's magic.

[01:08:06] You walk in, it's your home. Everything is perfect at Disneyland. Everything is wonderful and everything is different. And especially if you're listening to this podcast, it's the best place on earth. And we all want to be there all the time. Well, here's the thing. You go there, but you're still going with your family. That dynamic you had at home the Friday before, it's still there when you're in this magical place. Like just because your venue changed doesn't mean that your personalities have changed.

[01:08:32] And that was something that I kind of had to put together after the fact and go, oh, that's right. Alice is very sensitive. She doesn't like loud sounds. She takes a long time to get used to a place. And in my head, I was like, well, but it's Disneyland. This is my safe place. Of course it's your safe place, but it's not. And so looking back. She's only been there, what, like once? Twice. But she doesn't remember it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That was, that was a long time ago.

[01:09:01] This was essentially her first time ever remembering anything. And so, yeah, it was so much for her. And I really didn't anticipate that. And it was just interesting. Like your family is still your family, whether you're at home or at Disneyland. Yeah. And I think honestly, not going for so long, it didn't, it didn't, I don't know. It was, it was, it was fine. It took some of the panic out for me, you know, and just kind of jumbling things because

[01:09:30] Disneyland is sort of like the target here. Right. So jumbling things on the timeline a little bit. But I didn't once open my phone to look at the wait times because Alice was so, excuse me. She was so, I don't say needy or sensitive because that's not what I mean, but she was, we were, we were targeting her. It was her birthday. So she wanted to do certain things. We'd walk around, describe things. She'd go yes or no or whatever. So there was no need to go like, Hey, this one ride is open.

[01:09:59] It has a 10 minute wait. Let's walk across and go do that. We weren't on the app. And it was so much more relaxing to not worry about that. And it was so much more relaxing to not worry about, Oh, is my phone going to die? This is the things that you always kind of worry about when you're on a trip and you're there for the entire day. But we took breaks. Some days we went back to the hotel, the hotel twice. I mean, once cause she had a tummy ache, but that's the thing where we just were like, whatever you want to do, we're floating around. And that part I really liked.

[01:10:27] And maybe it was hard for me to envision the thing that I really missed the most because this trip was wildly different on many levels than we've ever done before. It was like a brand new thing, but still in a familiar place. And it was just very odd. It was very weird one-time experience. I'm sure next time I'll, I'll figure it out, but it was, it was just, it was odd. That's all. Yeah. And you know what?

[01:10:51] We did do something new that we had never done, which was the, the runaway railway ride, whatever that was. Um, I will say that, um, we, this was the third ride that we were doing. So the first two rides were two for zero, right? Zero for two for Alice. And so we walk up to this one cause we both wanted to do it and cause it's new or whatever. And we're already in Toontown because like I said before, they had the weird play area and that's what got her to be like, okay, I'm in a familiar place.

[01:11:21] I can run around and kind of be a kid instead of being worried that my parents are going to take me on a freaky ride again. Yeah. So we go up to the, Hey, wait, let's stop playing and go on this freaky ride. And basically then that's what happened. But so we asked the guy like Josh was his name. I'll never forget it. Poor Josh. Piece of garbage. Uh, we ask him like, is, so she's been, she hasn't really enjoyed many of the rides yet. Like is, is this one, does it spin? Is it fast? Is it loud? And he goes, no, it's actually really slow.

[01:11:49] It's a slow train ride. It's really calm. And we're like, and she's listening and she's, she's like, okay. Like she didn't really want to say yes, but she said yes. She was being a trooper. So we go on it. Josh. It's not usually at all. Josh. Josh almost got his jaw broken by the biggest, baddest dad in Disneyland history. Benching 40 pounds coming from. No, um, I, I literally almost went out and talked to him, but I just like, you know what? I'm not, I don't care.

[01:12:19] Cause there's no, there's no height requirement on it. Right? No. And it's not fast, but it isn't, but it's jerky. It's jerky. It's loud. And there's big flashes. Oh yeah. I, I was on the ride once behind a family with a, their, their girl had to be like three. And at the point where you go over the waterfall. Yeah. She lost her mind. Okay. Yeah.

[01:12:47] She, she started screaming for the rest of the ride. Yeah. I mean, it not being my child. I thought it was hilarious. Well, it is. Yeah. So you have to deal with it. Like it's, it's cause it's, it's an interesting sensation as an adult. It's like, Oh, ha ha. This feels fun. We're not actually moving. This is just a screen that changed. And I feel like my, I feel my stomach drop a little bit. Yeah. That's so funny.

[01:13:15] Well, cause it's, you know, to have this child like totally buy into it. It's so sweet. Children are like dogs because they, they don't have the brain power. They literally don't have the brain area that processes these things that says like, I know this isn't real, but my, but I think it might be, but I know it's not, you know what I mean? Right. It's yeah. It's a cartoon, but it's, it, it's such a, it's, it's a new experience. Well, I'll tell you what, the crazy, one of the things Josh said that really got my

[01:13:44] burner burning was he was like, Oh yeah, well there's a, there's a nice movie in front, you know, ahead or whatever, like before it. So, you know, you'll be, you'll be, to tell you what to expect, be fine. Spoilers. The end of this movie, it's like the, basically the intro to, to, it sets up the ride, right? Frigging goofy or to blasts through the screen. That's right. So at some point, like we're in the front and she just gets a face full of the smoke and this loud thing.

[01:14:14] And I'm like, dude, and she got blown up and she was like, what did my parents just do? Yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, that's enough about Alice. Who cares? I did want to say one thing. I want to say something about Toontown because people talk about, is the magic still there at Disneyland? And they're worried that some of it's gone. And we had a little cute magical moment. And part of this was because of Alice, but so now this is after the three rides that have not gone well.

[01:14:41] And we're in Toontown and we see Donald Duck, which is one of her favorite characters. And so do you want to meet Donald Duck? Thinking she's going to say no. And she goes, yeah. And so, okay, great. So we're standing kind of in the line to meet Donald Duck. The group in front of us are two young girls and they are taking like a thousand photos with Donald Duck. It's like you think they're done and then they have another selfie they have to take. And you think they're done and then they have another one and you're like, okay, well, whatever. So we're just waiting patiently.

[01:15:07] And then Donald takes Alice's hand. So she's the next one. They're done taking their photos. He takes her hand and starts walking away with her. And I'm just, I immediately am thinking about the last three rides and how miserable she's been. And I'm like, oh, this is not, this is not going to go well. And I was wrong. She's very unpredictable. She got the biggest smile on her face.

[01:15:33] It made her feel so special that Donald was walking with her somewhere. They were, it was like they were going to walk backstage together. That stuff is so cute. When I see a character walking around with a kid, it's another hand. I think it's absolutely. Especially when the parents know about it. That's the best. That helps. But it was really not freaking out going, wait, my child. Yeah. And it was really like a kind of a, it was just, it was one of those moments that I was like, oh, okay.

[01:16:02] Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. This was a great moment. She's happy. She had fun. We got a great picture. So I did want to mention that because I do think that that Disney magic is still there. Excuse me. So. Great. Can I move on now, Taryn? Okay. Talking about our weird child. Speaking of weird. And how you, you took your, your, your child on Space Mountain. Yes. Yeah. Well, in the dark, it's loud. We gave her two Dramamine and she was out.

[01:16:30] And so at that point we're like, let's go on the ride. And she won't know about it. And she woke up going around one of those curves. And it's a good thing we brought extra pants. You know what I mean? No. Um, so this is going to be like a jumble, but, uh, I guess still on the Alice train, her favorite ride, Autopia. Of course. A hundred percent Autopia. Of course. So she's covering every question I've written down. Okay. All right. That's good.

[01:17:00] So Taryn and her share a car first. And then the next day we do Autopia, we come back and then her and I share the car. And she's like trying to tell me in line, like it's the, she loves this ride because it bounces her hands. And I'm like, awesome, baby. I have no idea what you're talking about. And honestly, I think that's 24 and a half percent of my parental experience is just going. That sounds great. I have no context to whatever you're trying to tell me, but I love that you're using

[01:17:29] words to talk. And that's awesome. I'm not saying that last part to her, but that's what it is because six, seven, it's the constant, it's the constant, um, commentary of whatever's running through their mind, whatever they want to talk, just every, I'm going to go do that. Good. You don't need to tell me that you're going to go poop. I really don't. I love that. You're going to go do it. Shut up. Stop telling me I'm walking now. Good. Keep walking. Please.

[01:18:00] You know, whatever. So going somewhere, you need to keep doing that. Yeah, please. So we, you know, we get in and she's like, and so you're, you're driving. And then the, uh, the, the little center, you know, thing that keeps you in the lane, right? Uh, if you hit the car or if you hit that with a car and it goes kind of too fast, it kind of bounces you. It kind of corrects off the ricochet or whatever. So she's doing that. She goes, see, and like her hands are like flying all over the steering wheel. I'm like, honey, that's not, that's not, that's cute, but that's not what it's for.

[01:18:29] It's just to help as a guide, but you're not really supposed to be running into it. She goes, yes, you are. Bam. And I'm just, I'm thinking of the poor maintenance people who have to just work on these cars. It's constant, just constant job security for people like this. And I tried to like, eventually I think I got through to her. Like, no, you try not to hit it. Oh, bam. Okay. She wasn't trying to hit it when she was on with me. She just did. Yeah.

[01:18:58] And I think it, it moved her arms and she thought it was funny, but I will say like, okay, we already know that no adult likes this ride. Like, it's so annoying. I like it. I like the ride. How, like my leg, my, my quad literally was on fire. Literally was on fire? I had to like, okay, it wasn't literally on fire. Then that's a problem. Then we could probably get free passes. It was like, it was cramping. Well, I do more exercise.

[01:19:28] No, I mean, look, there's a certain amount of discomfort to it. Sure. But I enjoy the ride and mainly because it's part of the park that you don't really get to see normally. Yes. Because like different, there's different stuff. The, even the landscaping is different. It's just, and it's kind of peaceful. I enjoy, I enjoy Autopia very much. I hope they never get rid of it. Stinks though. So we did that twice. She loved it. She also loved, which I didn't think she would buzz light year. We got off that ride and she loved it so much.

[01:19:57] She was jumping up and down like some kind of maniac. And then we, she wanted to do it again. So we went on again. She goes again. All right, cool. I do want to say. She sucked at it. One thing that we, we solved a problem by the loudness of the rides. We put ear plugs in her ears for the rides. Yeah. Some foam ear. A little foam ear plugs. Yeah. And it changed everything. Like once she didn't have the, just the intense noise in her ears, it helped her a lot. So just as a little tip for people. Absolutely. Big deal. Yeah.

[01:20:27] Yeah. Yeah. It was good. You know, and, and she just gets, I don't know. She just gets a little sensory, you know, things and that's, that's fine. I blame our neighbors for lighting off fireworks randomly. Yeah. But you know what I don't blame summer for being here? Basically almost. And the 21st amendment brewery has the perfect lineup to keep you cool and refreshed. They have hell or high watermelon, which is the ultimate summer classic brewed with real watermelon juice. It's crisp, juicy, and ready for sun-soaked adventures.

[01:20:58] Or you can get El Sully lime. They're award-winning Mexican style lager with a bright citrus twist. Taryn really loves that beer. Actually. I do. Smooth, refreshing, and made for warm days and cool nights. And to celebrate 25 years of the 21st amendment, they bring the 25th anniversary IPA, which I have not had yet. A bold West coast IPA packed with classic and modern hops bursting with pine, citrus, and a touch of tropical fruit.

[01:21:26] So whether you're kicking back on the beach, firing up the grill, or just raising a toast this summer, they've got the perfect brew for the moment. Find 21st amendment beers at your favorite store, bar, or brewery. Tap room because summer deserves great beer. What do you think of that? I love it. What I think I want to do is on our next secret show, Eric, I want to try to get Sully on to like taste that IPA with us. And then I think we'll have to send you some so you can have some too. If you can't get it out there. Yeah. Because I know you live in like underground in the mountain.

[01:21:56] You're a prospector, Eric. Yes. I'm in a bunker in the mountain. I would love to live in a bunker. That'd be so cool. Yeah. That's a good idea. There's one store that can, well, I can ask my local guy if he can ask your local guy if he can get it. Yeah. That'd be, that'd be cool. I will. I will. I will do that. Because Sully can't ship. Do this. Yeah. Sully can't ship. And then that would be up to me to do it. And I'm just not going to do it because it's expensive and it's a pain in the butt. Well, all right. Well, let's charge me. I don't know.

[01:22:25] Well, you know, whatever I'm going to do. Okay. So let's do, let's just kind of, I want to do Disneyland, talking about Disneyland by basically talking about opinions that I had no business forming, but I did anyway. Previously? Previously. Okay. So the first one, I want to talk about the haunted mansion. That's like the main thing. Cause that to me has gotten the most, most attention, the most work done on it since we've been at the park. Okay.

[01:22:55] Okay. Okay. So the Honda mansion queue specifically. Queue and barn wise. Yes. So the queue, I probably said I hated the idea of it. I'm not really sure. It sounds like something I would say where like, I hate the fact that they have to like pull up all this old brick. That's been there since it opened. But overall the mansion queue is pretty neat. I think they did a good job of whatever they had to do. The fast pass area is kind of gone, but it's like this faux little greenhouse kind of thing,

[01:23:26] hut or whatever. It looks neat. We didn't get to go on it, but it looks good. The mausoleum or the crypt or whatever that used to be embedded into the wall, into the retaining wall is now separate. So it looks more like a crypt would. It actually has, you know, four walls. Sounds good. Yeah. So that was cool. Overall, not bad. Not as intrusive as it could have been. It's kind of the same. I think. Yeah. Kind of the same. They sort of changed like the switchbacks.

[01:23:55] They took a lot of switchbacks. I would have 100% bought one of those old bricks that they tore out of the queue. If they had auctioned that stuff off or whatever, I would have 100% paid 50 bucks for it. What bricks did they take out? Well, because they had to, they had to refinagle the whole, the whole pavement and the whole line, right? They did? It was the same shape. No. Nope. Nope. Wrong. I don't know. Maybe it is. Who knows? Okay. So in the mansion, there's the new bride.

[01:24:25] We talked a little bit about it on the secret show in the attic scene. It was really neat. The attic scene now has like a model of the haunted mansion. Like right when you go into it on the right side, it's kind of neat. Yeah. It's cute. I liked it. It's fun. Yeah. The new bride in there is cool. I like the effect. It's kind of more projection. There's a little more movement to it. I enjoyed it. She looks sort of like a softer painting of Jesus on the cross, like the facially, because she's like looking off to the left and down. She looks very sunken and sad.

[01:24:53] I was like, oh, my friend's like, yeah, let me know what you think of it. I go, it looks like Jesus. And he goes, you know what? We get a lot of Mary. I'm like, okay. But either way, it's biblical. It's weird. Interesting. So I liked it. I thought it was cool. The graveyard scene. Tell me I'm wrong, but they have changed this scene up a lot. And I haven't seen anybody really talk about it. The singing busts used to be kind of the focus of that ride.

[01:25:22] Where are that scene where you have like a stretch where you would see the singing busts in front of you to the point where the singing busts would, you know, they wouldn't all be moving at the same time. One would be singing a solo or, you know, whatever. And then one would just kind of be pulling faces and, you know, you kind of get more of a thing. It feels like now the singing busts are maybe three seconds of the ride. It seemed very, and they're off to the side now. They're not even like facing you. They moved it all around. It was weird.

[01:25:51] And the whole scene kind of seemed shorter as well. I don't know if that's true or not, but things are definitely not where they used to be, which I don't mind. I'm not saying that's wrong because I do kind of like the fact that you can switch things up and maybe you get to see something different that you've never seen before because it's in a different place. So that's fine. But I like the singing busts. I didn't get to see him as much. I'll have to ask Brandy about that because she was just there last week and like right after you left, she was there.

[01:26:21] And I haven't asked about that yet. Well, that's when she, that's why she made it because she was safe for us to go or safe for her to go. Right. Because we left. I actually really liked you. She knew that we would want to hang out and she's like, I'm not doing that. And that's why she stayed at Pixar place instead of just in case there was overlap. Yeah. Just in case. I really liked the graveyard scene. I thought it was really well lit. It was bright. It was, it was like, there was a part, a true party happening there where in, and it felt

[01:26:51] a little bit more coherent in the past. It's like, oh, there's one person having a tea party and one person's drinking a martini. And then there's these busts that are singing and they were all cool, but they were all kind of like separate ideas. And, and now it felt like it was just a backyard, like a, I don't know, like a, a, a party, party, like a big party with a bunch of ghosts. And I thought it was kind of cool.

[01:27:19] Were the scrims pretty clean? Because so clean. Yeah. That's, that's what happened right after COVID when they had so much time to clean everything. It was so clear. Well, right after the, the COVID closures. Okay. Here, we'll be, I'm always going to, every show I do, I'm always going to do it. I'm, I'm trying to. Always. I do it to everybody. It's not just you. Right after it reopened. There you go.

[01:27:46] The, the scrims there were so clean that you could see everything very clearly. Yes. And yeah. So it was kind of like HD. They really kind of stepped it up. And I think the lighting was a little different too. The color seemed a little more vibrant, but not in just a clean versus dirty scrim way. Just, just a different color tone, which I kind of, I kind of enjoyed. And you know what? I was right when Taryn was talking, which I typically do kind of zone out.

[01:28:12] I was thinking about, I was thinking about Ryan's question about, you know, what I, what we realized maybe we missed or whatever. And I thought, okay, Honda mansion for sure. But in Alice was with us and she actually really loved the Honda mansion. That was our last ride. That was one thing that we really kind of always tried to do anyway, as a tradition is have that be the last ride before we go out and got to do that. And it was nice.

[01:28:37] But, you know, I guess it solidified like how much focus I was putting on Alice having a good time. That, you know, we didn't like, for example, she was really scared walking down the hallway after you go down the elevator. So it was more of like comforting her rather than be like, oh, I'm finally back here. You know, not that it took away from the specialness of it. Cause I would rather a hundred percent be, be focused on my child than the thing I've seen a hundred times.

[01:29:06] But that's probably the closest I got to like, oh yes, finally things we've, we were here again. You know what I mean? That's probably the closest answer I can get is walking down that hallway in, in Honda mansion. Yeah. Yeah. And she liked it. She liked it. It was her, it wasn't necessarily her idea to go on it. No, we basically bullied her. We bullied her, but she was into it and, and she really liked it.

[01:29:33] When we were going up the escalator thing on the afterwards, she goes again, again. And then she denied saying that later, but I heard it. Yeah, for sure. I absolutely heard it. Yeah. I remember that. Like that was my experience as a kid. My dad's like, we're doing this. Like, this is too scary. And then by the end, I'm like, yeah, I love it. Yeah. I was like, look, this is our favorite ride. We've done everything. We haven't asked to do a single thing. So I may be a guilt trip to her a little bit, but you know, I, I don't, I don't care.

[01:30:02] I said like, we're going to do this ride. We would really appreciate it if, if you wanted to do it with us, but we really want to do this ride. Here's five dollars, get a churro and stand over there. If you could be, you know, a brave girl, put your big, big brave girl pants on and do this. It's not going to be as bad as you think. I promise you're going to have a good time, but we really want to do this. She's like, okay. And she loved it. She absolutely loved it. So that's good. Which leads us to the carriage shack, the shed.

[01:30:33] This has been a focus for, for a bit, especially online. And we've talked about a little bit too. And you know, Ryan went there and he said, it wasn't that bad. And I disagree. So if you're coming up from pirates, right. If you start at pirates and you kind of come up the, the, the carriage house or whatever isn't terrible. It's not that bad because you see the house first, it's kind of covered by the tree. You don't really see too much. It's angled such that it's like almost hard to see. Yeah. It's not looking for it, I guess.

[01:31:02] But if you're heading down from Tiana's, it's a little more obstructive and we really only did it at night. And at night it is lit so thoroughly. It's like a searchlight on a foggy night because they have like five or six pendant lights just hanging from the roof at all times, like around the thing. And it was so bright. It pulled focus for me from the surrounding area because everything is so dimly lit.

[01:31:29] Like if you think about, think about rivers, America at night or new Orleans square at night, right? That's the best. It's softer. There's not a whole lot of lights. Yes. Right. There, this is not like that. There is so much light around this frigging shack that you're trying to get the vibe of everything. And that is, and maybe I'm a little harsher on it than I need to be because New Orleans square is my absolute favorite land in any of the parks. I love it so much. The vibe is great. Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride.

[01:31:58] And then you have this lantern in the middle of it. And you're like, what is this? So you can't help but like look at it. So like, okay, whatever. That's fine. The inside is, it's a shop. It's fine. I didn't see anything that needed to be there. I didn't see any reason for it still because you can just go to Le Baton Rouge and find all the same stuff, all the same merch. Maybe it said the same. Yeah. It just didn't really- She's like, I wanted more merch. I wanted cooler merch. Or different stuff. I wanted more of a reason for it to be there.

[01:32:27] I don't, I still don't understand why they have now two shops that have Haunted Mansion specific merch in it in the same area. It doesn't make any sense to me. It bothers me. Yeah. Isn't Le Baton Rouge, didn't that change to a Tiana shop? No, that was- Not yet, at least. That was- Oh, that was the other- It was the other shop. I think I may be getting it wrong, but Le Baton Rouge, in my mind, is the first shop like next to where you get the gumbo. It's like right there.

[01:32:57] Okay. That might not be it. Maybe. I just like saying it, I guess. It's been a bit since I've been at Disneyland. I probably could have always been getting that wrong. Who knows? I guess it's been a bit since you were at Disneyland, too. Well, that's true. Until last week. I did say the thing is much smaller than the pictures made it look as well, though I will say I wish they pushed it farther back. I think it's a little too forward. I don't know. And that's also the lighting, too, like you said.

[01:33:26] Yeah, the lighting, but it still is a little obtrusive. It sticks out. It kind of changes things for me. The inside is kind of- It felt kind of unfocused, also. Like we talked about, the merch doesn't really seem to- It doesn't seem to necessitate its own area, right? Because it's all- You can just get it anywhere else. It kind of felt like the idea someone had, let's put a store here, and then they backfilled it with ideas, right? Like, you know, they go, here's a store.

[01:33:56] We'll put merchandise in. Let's put merchandise in. Oh, let's backfill this with some ambiance. Instead of going, hey, let's do a fully incorporated idea that is a shop. So you have like a shed that has like half a loft, you know, with some scene dressing up in the loft that you can't really see unless you stand in one of the doorways and block the doorways to then look up and it looked like a bed or something. It's just kind of odd. I didn't really get it.

[01:34:24] The interior was kind of like shabby farmhouse chic with like exposed beams and some distressed paint on them. I don't know. It didn't really feel haunted mansion-y. It didn't really feel carriage house-y either. It felt like converted barn into loft that rent from Airbnb. That's interesting. Memento Mori. Have you been to Memento Mori in Walt Disney World? Yeah, that store's cool. Yeah, like that store is awesome.

[01:34:52] And that store has been there for decades. And yeah, it's got a lot of flair on the outside and on the inside. And it's a perfect choice to make it into a haunted mansion store. Yes. Which I agree. Like it sold skulls and stuff before. Which is awesome, dude. Right. Yeah, this was just, it didn't feel connected at all to the haunted mansion in a weird way. I don't know.

[01:35:18] It felt more, I would say vibrant is a weird word to describe it. But that kind of, that was it. It just feels a little disconnected. It didn't really fit for me. Overall, bad. I didn't really, I don't think it needs to be there. The lighting was weird. It did pull focus for me. And the inside, there wasn't any, if they had cool stuff inside, I don't know what that would be. Maybe that might be different. Yeah.

[01:35:47] Ryan is saying, I think it's pieces of eight that I'm thinking of. Pieces of eight is that one right when you get off pirates. Yeah. Yeah. It's all piracy. Then you go through that little alcove and then you're in a different store. What's that store called? You look that up, Ryan. So that's my opinion on the carriage shack. That's my opinion. And just basically overall on the Haunted Mansion. Yeah. Are you planning on talking about anything in Star Wars land? Yes.

[01:36:17] Okay, good. Cool. I have a couple. So I went to Star Wars land. And so by the way, when we were, when we were there at the last, this is Tuesday, no, Wednesday night. It was raining. Oh yeah. And I don't mean like it rained for five minutes. Like it usually does in Anaheim and then, and then it's, and that's it. But it drives the crowds away. Number one, it was nineties night. So there were still a bunch of people there. But it was like actively raining, like feet wet, just raining.

[01:36:43] And to the point and to Alice's like, you know, credit, we were in downtown Disney walking back. She rallied. She had a tummy ache and it was a whole thing, but she rallied on our last night. We walked all the way because we had just walked back, rested for a bit and she felt better. We walked all the way back. Her feet and Terrence feet were both wet before they even got to the park. Mine were dry for some reason. It was weird. But like, uh, or maybe I have no feeling in my feet.

[01:37:09] And, um, so we went four hours with wet feet and she didn't complain about it once. It was awesome. It was really good. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Um, but we did, uh, star Wars land in, uh, in the rain. We built a droid, which was cool. It was, it was weird, you know, to Terrence point about like the magic not being gone. There was nobody in the droid building area. Yeah. So I walk up to the cash register. I'm like, Hey, how do you build a droid?

[01:37:34] The guy's like, uh, like he asked, it was like, I asked him, you know, what two plus one is. He's like, uh, hang on. Yeah. He's like, um, do you have a reservation? No. He goes, are you a walk-in? Again? Yes. I'm a walk-in if I, yeah, whatever. So he's like, okay. My supervisor. Well, you start here and you know, you get rung up first and you go bring the receipt or whatever. And you do the whole thing. There's so much crap there to be upselled, upsolded, upsolded.

[01:38:04] Nobody upsolded me on anything. Nothing. Nothing at all. Like at the end of the day, I, I, I, we, we built the robot. Alice built the robot. She picked out all the things. It was really cool. She had a lot of fun doing it. And, um, then I was like, Hey, what are those like chips? The personality chips? She's like, Oh, it's just something you can buy to like change the sound of the robot. I'm like, Oh, okay. And she's like, yeah. Okay. At that point I would have bought one of the stupid things. I would have bought anything in that place because we're already doing it.

[01:38:32] And it's, you know, that's what she wanted as her, as her gift. And so we're like, okay, it's already 107 frigging dollars. And it came with batteries, which is really nice. I was really impressed with it. I was like, Oh, wow. Cool. It comes with the batteries. That's great. Um, so like, why not, why not just, why not sell me the other things then come to find out. And I only learned about this, uh, like a week later doing research because there's a, an extra button on the controller that doesn't do anything. And Alice is like, what does this do? I'm like, I don't know. Let me look it up.

[01:38:59] But apparently you can buy stuff for the legs, like, uh, lasers or rockets or whatever that you can use that button to, uh, to automate, not automate, you know, but like light up or play different sounds or whatever. No one told me any of that at all. No one tried to sell me on anything like that at all. And I was kind of like, Oh, as much of like an anti-consumer consumer, am I like, I, I

[01:39:24] would have, I would have at least wanted to hear the price and like you pitch me, bro. I totally get that. It's like, it's like, can you, it's the feeling when you're, when you're at a restaurant and you're like, you could, you could have offered me one more drink and I would have bought it. Yeah. Totally would have. You could have done it. You could have absolutely done it. So that was weird. Um, but the one thing that did solidify, um, for me was that the Ronto wrap is the best food at the parks. And I want anybody to fight me about that.

[01:39:54] I'll fight anybody over that. So I want to tell you about a mistake I made on this trip. It's going to be Taryn. I'm going to fight you, Taryn. Let's go. I, I did the mobile ordering for the Ronto wraps while they were making the droid and Jason goes, I want a Ronto wrap. And I was like, Oh, of course you do. Of course I do. And I go on the thing and I get the Ronto wrap. And then I see this thing called the Pijali wrap. And I'm going to read you the description.

[01:40:19] Mortadello ham, Capricola, whipped burrata, pistachio pesto wrapped in pita. Sounds great. And I'm going, yeah. Like as much as I love the Ronto wrap and I had been looking forward to it the whole time, I was like, you know what? That sounds fantastic. So I get it. Don't get it. Do not get it because the Ronto wrap is warm.

[01:40:44] It's a nice warm sandwich because it's a sausage and it's got the turkey and it's a warm pita and all that. But I assumed, I understand that like this sounds like a sandwich, right? A deli sandwich. But I still expected the pita to be warm because you don't eat cold pitas because they are gross and dry. And it is a sandwich in a cold pita. They took it out of a refrigerator and handed it to me. And it was not good.

[01:41:14] Well, and I don't think to their defense, but potentially because I had it and she's right. It's not good. I think that they just did it wrongly because it was, you know, when you put something in like an industrial refrigerator and it's like cold, it is cold to the core cold. That's how cold it was. I don't think anything needs to be, nothing you eat should be that cold unless it's ice. Like that's it. And it was, so I just think they didn't take it out enough, but that sandwich should have been warm to at least room temperature. Yes.

[01:41:44] They could have thrown it on whatever heater they've got. Yes. It just, it needed some warmth. A room temperature would have been fine, but it's just like it, because it was so cold, it lost all flavor. It was like 52 degrees. Like it was just cracking a tooth on that pita. Yeah. It was not good. It was not good. So just stick with what you know. Don't try new things. Or ask them, ask them to heat it up. You know what I mean? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. But that was good. So let's see a couple of things real fast before we just kind of wrap it up here.

[01:42:15] Runaway Railway. Awesome ride. Monsters Inc. Still rules. Yeah. We've got Alice to do that. She kind of liked it, but you know, not really. She was fine with it. I still love that ride. We did the Swiss Family Robinson tree. Oh yeah, that was great. Brother, that is a hike. Like you, I, if I wasn't as in quote unquote shape as I am now, I wouldn't have been able to make it. There's no way. That is a climb. And there's not a whole lot really to see. And then if you, because you think I'm going to get up on top and I'm going to look out on

[01:42:44] the views of the park. You can't see anything because of the brand, the fake branches are in the way. Oh, we've got a lot up there. I see the HVAC system for, you know, pirates. That's sweet. And I see a little bit of the water there of Rivers of America. Don't look that way. Look at all the fun stuff. I didn't even think to look out on the park. Oh, you got to, but you can't, you can't anyway. Cause it's all the dirty fake leaves. I really liked it. It was neat. It was fine. It is kind of a maze when we were walking down, people were walking up and they're like,

[01:43:12] oh no, we didn't see a sign that says, don't go up this way. Ha ha ha. And then I looked down and it literally says exit only. And they're like, other people are walking up. There's a sign. So I'm like, oh, it happens brother. So we walk out and we get down the stairs and then we go the way we think. We're supposed to be going. And then we almost went right back up. It's like a one in one out. It's a weird, it's weird. So I'm like, oh, let's not do that again, please. But that was cool. I liked the Swiss family tree at night.

[01:43:41] Looks great. So the thing looked great. Things that I didn't do things that we didn't do that I'm okay with not doing. Okay. Okay. Rise of the resistance. We didn't do. Yeah. That's one of my very big disappointments. Yeah. Taryn really, we tried. We just, we didn't, we didn't bother figuring it out. The rider switch or whatever, like timing wise or whatever. We just didn't do it. And I don't care. I'm fine with it. If she doesn't, if Alice doesn't like the noise.

[01:44:11] No. I mean, she was never going to go on it. No, we were going to do rider swap anyway. But, but the queue, you know, standby was already half an hour. The ride is 15 minutes. Like what, you know, what are we going to do? It's already kind of standing around. Yeah. I get it. Uh, pirates. We didn't get to go back on pirates. That was my other disappointment. Cause that's actually my favorite ride. Like yours is haunted mansion, but mine is really pirates. Wow. And so I think about that and I'm. Took this show to figure that. I guess for me, it's like pirates hasn't been changed. It's all the same. I just didn't care.

[01:44:41] Uh, web slingers. I would have gone on it had we, cause we were there, but, uh, I, I didn't want to go on it enough to do like a rider swap thing. Sensory overload. Oh, I bet. Definitely. Definitely not for her. Yeah. Um, Tiana's. Yeah. I wasn't going to do that anyway. I mean, it was a little too cold to do it, but I would have, if the ride time was fine, I would have done it. I would have done it. Cause I want to see it. Cause I, the videos I've seen look really great.

[01:45:09] Uh, food and wine stuff. Yeah. Whoops. It was food and wine time at DCA. And we should have probably tried some of that, but again, You got shwarma. But again, it was, it was very much like, this is Alice's trip. I didn't, I don't know. I, for me, I, I overthought it a little bit. We're like, I don't want to bore her with it. So maybe we catered a little too much to her, but, um, it was, I, I, I'm, I feel like I

[01:45:37] didn't miss anything that I couldn't find anywhere else, which is kind of always how I feel about food and wine anyway. One thing that I did miss. Um, so I, when Jason and I went to Disneyland on our honeymoon, um, one of the things that we did that I just forever will think is such a good idea is we went to the perfume shop and we each picked out a perfume. And now anytime I use that perfume, I think about our honeymoon. Like it, it brings that sensory memory back.

[01:46:05] Every time I use mine, I think of Johnny Depp in the desert playing a guitar while a wolf walks around it. Hey, I mean, to each their own, that sounds pretty cool too. Um, it's just a commercial for it. I know. Um, but I, so I told Jason, I was like, I'm going to get the perfume cause I'm out of it. And I'm like, I'm going to get it at Disneyland because I'm like so excited about it because that's where I got it before. And, um, it just seems, it seems right after five years, like this is my comeback. Right.

[01:46:34] And I go in and they don't sell just perfume, like normal perfumes anymore. It, I guess it sounds like it was, it looks like it was purchased by a particular perfume brand. And now they only sell those perfumes. There was like three only that were there. It was kind of weird. And they were all the same brand. And there was like different flavors for lack of a better smells. Um, but, and like, it was like men's and women's, but they were all, they didn't have my perfume. And I was very disappointed about that.

[01:47:04] That was kind of a bummer. And I was like, because like, that's what I was looking for. Like I can understand why they changed it. Taryn really wanted this trip to be about her and every step of the way. It could not be. No, it wasn't. It could not be about me. From the food to the perfume. Nothing. To the rides. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Taryn got me. I got, I got, I got put in my place. Double X to you, man. Mm-hmm. But that's, that's basically it. I mean, we can cover the stuff that we did do, um, which we kind of already did, which is, you know, monsters. We did mermaid.

[01:47:34] We did redwood, uh, trail, which Alice really liked. Yeah. She got lost at one point and started crying, but that's, you know, Alice. Uh, we did jungle cruise, but she wasn't, she was fine with tiki room. Absolutely loved mansion. Uh, did the tree house. Autopia twice. Buzz Lightyear twice. Carousel Alice. We met Mickey. We did drawing class to town playgrounds, runaway railway. So what else did we do with our time? Well, we walked a lot.

[01:47:59] We, every day, we were only there two days, but every day, 1130, 1230, we went back to the hotel for lunch and just to take a break. And I was happy with that. I was fine with that. That's, that's, that's why you stay close. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's, that's the thing that, that changed for me on this trip. Like Jason and I, we've been going to the parks for so long that it, and, and, you know, we were annual pass holders for so long that it would be like, okay, we're going for the

[01:48:24] weekend and we're going to stay at the best Western and, um, you know, the cheapest hotel. Cause we're not going to be in the hotel. And then as we got older, it was like, okay, well, we'll stay at the Marriott, but it's still the cheapest Marriott that you can find. Right. But okay. Now we need the nicer bed now that we are only going once a year at best. Like we're, it's, we're not going to be annual pass holders. We're not going to do the parks in the same way.

[01:48:49] I 100% see the value of staying on resort, um, on property. I absolutely loved staying at the Disneyland hotel. I loved the Palm breeze bar. Um, even maybe more than trader Sam's this time. Um, I just was, it had such a comfortable vibe. Like I just, there was, I'm seeing our future of, of Disneyland vacations and they're going to be at the Disneyland hotel. Yeah.

[01:49:19] We talked a little bit about, um, you know, what it means for now, for our family to go to Disneyland. And I feel like just in general, more people would be more happy. It would be happier if they went to Disneyland less. Yeah. Less times because there is a sense of ownership. There's a sense of familiarity there when you go all the time. And sometimes it takes not going for a while to kind of remind yourself that like, this is, it's just a vacation place.

[01:49:49] It's not, it's, it, the, the only reason it's special is because you make it special. And there's no, there's no magic behind it. There's no, so there's nothing in the air. What it is, is when you go there, you've already paid for your tickets, right? You're not handing over money at the, at the front. Right. So everything you buy there feels like, Oh, that there's no rules. It's Disney. You get the dopamine hits of everything. And if you, you kind of ground yourself by not going all the time, I feel like it, it,

[01:50:18] it reconfigures what Disneyland means, quote unquote, the people I look at it now is like, it's a nice place to go vacation and you hang out and you just be chill about it. And I think that I don't, I don't, I would lose that, which I like this aspect. Now I would lose that if we went back multiple times in a year, because if you go multiple times in a year, I feel like you're trying to push for the ultimate experience. You're trying to get all the rides done. You're trying to gamify everything you're trying.

[01:50:47] But if you go for two days, once a year or whatever, you can take your time and it's not that big of a deal. And for me, I mean, it's maybe this is my personality, but like I had a better time this time. And I told Alice this too. I was like, you know, the best, the, the, the, the, the last four hours in the park on Wednesday was probably the best time I've had at the park ever. One of them, because we weren't in a rush. We went back. It was in the rain.

[01:51:17] It was, we were taking our time. We were trying new stuff. We ate ice cream when it was 50 degrees and raining outside. Like it was just awesome. It was a very fun experience. And the more times you go and you try to fill that void with these kind of similar experiences to kind of chase that dragon. And it doesn't, I think you, I think you get like a skewed what? Oh no, I'm talking about Kat. Oh, okay. Staring at me. Well, you know, probably try to figure out what's going on. Anyway, that's, that's my, that's my big brained, you know, the thing on it. Stop going so much.

[01:51:47] You'll have a better time when you go. Maybe. That's me being a bully. But we did talk to Eric about being DVC members real fast. What a strange coincidence that I'm wearing my DVC hat right now. And I think, and Taryn reminded me, we did a show, a whole show about this because. Yeah, you did. Years ago. Yeah. And maybe it's time to do it again, but here's the TLDR. For us, it's not, it's not worth it. It's, yeah, I get it. It's, it's totally not for everybody. It's not.

[01:52:16] I think we realized that the part of the biggest reason that we wanted, that we thought about it, that we wanted to do it is because one loved the villas, absolutely loved them. And we'll want to stay there as often as possible. But also it's cool. It's like just one of those cool, like you're, you're a cool person because you're part of the DVC. Well, I'm glad you get the cool part of, of my personality. That's what makes Eric so cool.

[01:52:41] And I just, I think I realized like, um, I don't want to, I don't want to pay for it. Well, yeah. So here it is. Basically here's the rundown. It's a 24 grand to buy into the villas at Disneyland. And then that's my wife spent what last week. Did you guys do it? He did. Oh man. Wait, you did what? We bought in at DVC at, uh, at Disneyland hotel. That's why I've got this hat.

[01:53:08] I thought you were already at the Villa or the Riviera or whatever. We bought more points. Oh, wow. Look at you. Damn brother. We go, we, we go there. You go there enough. We go to the places. Yeah. Yeah. So for, for a hundred points, it's 24 grand. Then it's like 81 bucks a month for dues or whatever it is. Also though in Anaheim for every stay, you pay $68, um, for taxes per night. Yeah.

[01:53:38] You know what? I, I didn't know about the taxes. So now I'm going to, I, I know we met with the notary today, this morning to sign off on the documents, but I'm going to cancel all that now. Good for the 61 bucks. $60. No. Yeah. Um, and you know, it's, so to stay at the rooms, like we had, it was like 18 points a night or something like that. Or 20, 20, 23, 23, whatever. Yeah.

[01:54:05] Um, and it just, it, in my mind, I'm going like, well, we could just save, save up the money, especially if we're going to go once a year and a half to us. It makes more sense to do, to do that, you know, then we're not tied into that kind of cadence. Absolutely. Yeah. I completely agree that like the, the perks really are, if you're going too much, like if you've got it, I mean, like we were talking about it last night, if you have an annual

[01:54:34] pass, you have a better discount than you do with DVC. Yeah. Um, and yeah, Brandy's got an annual pass at Disneyland. I've got one at Disney world. Um, yeah, yeah. And I, we were trying to like sit and figure out, you know, how much money you're, you know, you're saving and, you know, the part of the benefit, I guess, or the, in the plus column to be a DVC member at the Riviera or the villas or whatever is, um, eventually downtown

[01:55:03] Disney, the hotel will be in the middle of Disney and forward. So it'll be like prime real estate. Right. So you could probably, you know, I would be willing to bet that those things will be as valuable as, uh, the ones in the grand Californian were for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And grand Californian is interesting because I've never been able to stay in those rooms because they, they're always sold out. Yeah. Um, but the, the Disneyland villas, they've been available since they opened up and I, I love them.

[01:55:33] Um, like I, I completely agree. Those rooms are amazing. Yeah. I would want to do the garden view or whatever it is, Taryn. Right. Yes. The, it's like they have a special garden room and there's not very many of them, but they open up to the pool. So they have a balcony or a, or a patio. And so they're like maybe a hundred dollars more a night, I think, um, for the exact same layout of a room that we had. And I'm like, yes, yes. I want that. Balcony is the way to go.

[01:56:00] And that's my only main complaint about the Disneyland hotel is I miss my balconies. I want to be on a balcony, sitting there drinking coffee in the morning. Exactly. Having my quiet moment or at night, you know, drinking a cup of coffee and playing, having a quiet moment on the switch. Yeah. Um, I don't know, but yeah, like it's that, that's always, that's always, I mean, that's one of those things that I love about the DVC rooms is for the most part until this latest

[01:56:30] tower, they've got, they've got balconies and that's just nice to like you were saying, Jason, open up the door, open up the window, have some air flow in. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Instead of just AC. Yeah. And my only fear about not being a DVC member besides not being cool anymore, um, is, is not being able to rent the rooms that we want to rent because eventually they're just going to be taken up by DVC people. Cause you can rent rooms 11 months before you go or something like that.

[01:57:00] So yeah. But is it worth 24 grand? No, it's a car. Yeah. It's a car. I think you can still get what you want with the cadence that you're talking about. I think you're fine. Yeah. And you can, you can get these rooms. It's it, this place hasn't been booking up like, it's going to be a while. Yeah. Like grand Californian always has. And I, so yeah. And can I just say that? Like no, the idea.

[01:57:27] So I knew there was a lot at stake. Like I was saying, going on this trip because Jason didn't want to go. Right. Like he, you guys know that he hasn't wanted to go and it was all me pushing it. Um, Alice didn't even know. So like, this was, this was my trip, which is probably part of the ownership that I was trying to grasp. Yeah. You carried a lot of weight moving, uh, moving into this. I did. Yeah. And, um, and it's funny because, you know, I didn't really know how it would go. And I was keeping an open mind and thinking, you know what?

[01:57:57] He might hate it. She might. I didn't think she would hate it, but I was like, you know what? Maybe we won't. She almost did though. She almost did. But I was like, maybe we're not going to be like a Disneyland family anymore. And maybe, maybe that's going to be the outcome. But when we came back and he starts talking about DVC, I was like, we're, we're back. We're back. When you texted me last night, I'm like, he doesn't know that I just bought in. He's not asking because he knows about this. He wants a room. Uh huh. And I was like, we're going back. I was like, oh my God.

[01:58:26] Like the, it, it worked. Like I felt, I felt accomplished. I will say like, you know, because we are who we are. We mass, we brought our HEPA filter into the room. And like, you know, we, and that's why mainly the reason why I want a door that, oh, I just want a thing that opens. But if I can get a room that opens with a window that opens, right. I'm, I'm, I'm fine. We were walking around, I guess we should talk about it real quick. The, we were walking around the parks and the resorts and stuff. There were a lot of cast members wearing masks.

[01:58:54] There were a lot of, not a ton, but there were a few guests wearing masks too. So it felt a little bit easier. It was, it was easy enough to take our masks off for like a break. Like it was, it was Alice and Taryn are more used to wearing masks for longer periods of time than I am. Cause I'm just at home all the time. So it was, it, there was, it was a challenge a couple of times for a bit. Like I need to, I just take this off for a bit. I need to like go someplace away from people.

[01:59:21] And so, you know, after, after having those experiences, I'm like, okay. And I didn't hate going back, but I don't know, I guess just to Ryan's question again, like there was nothing I really cared at. Like I could not go back and I would be fine, but I don't know if that's just where I am in my like mental health journey or like, you know what I mean? It's like, I just don't, I, I, I kind of have this neutral thing about just things in general anyways, right now that I'm trying to like work on. So it might just be that too.

[01:59:51] But I don't know. I, you know, if, if we can be, if we can be relatively, you know, uh, cautious about, about the quality of our air, um, which is funny because, you know, the next day you go on Reddit and it's like, I got the Disneyland plague. Ha ha ha. Isn't that funny? We've had fevers for two weeks. I'm like, yeah, that's hilarious, dude. Yeah. My sister came back from Disneyland very sick for like five days. Yeah. And I'm like, so even just beyond COVID it's like there, and there were people just the

[02:00:21] hacking and the coughing and the sneezing and the people like in the, in line, they just turn two degrees to the left and sneeze and then don't cover their mouth and then turn back to their friends and everyone's laughing. You're like, what the dude, this is disgusting. People are gross. So just that in and of itself, COVID aside, we're going to be, you know, wearing masks when we go back, but it would be nice to be able to have a room to be able to be able to, you know, open a window.

[02:00:48] And so if we can do that and guarantee that, then, then maybe that's, you know, then it is, you know, worth it. But, uh, it's still hard to justify, especially for the past three years, I've been sitting here complaining about the price of beer at Disneyland. And then now we're talking about, well, you know, it's only 24 grand, you know? Oh, and for those questioning it, Jason got drinks. He got $25 drinks and I got one $25 drink and enjoyed it by the way. And it was at the park, the poolside thing, but I didn't do what I said I wasn't going

[02:01:15] to do and I didn't get a beer in the park because I'm not paying for it. See, and I was going to, but at that point, like I didn't even know I was so outside of my whole body on what we were doing. And I didn't see the cart. If I had seen the Carl Strauss cart, I would have gotten a beer, but it's not there. And so I was like, I don't even know where to get a beer. I don't know what's happening. But whatever. Yeah. Last thing real fast. Then we're going to, we're going to get a shooting gallery. Frontierland, still the king, baby.

[02:01:45] Ronto rap shooting gallery. That's all I need in a day. And a Haunted Mansion ride. That's it. That's my three. That's all you need. That's a pretty good list. It's a pretty good list. Eric, what is going on with the other shows before we get out of here? Oh my goodness. Do you know yet? I already told you. I don't. But then you had some information. So don't give me that. What? Nonsense. And the Bantha, the Bantha boys are going to be doing plenty of shows on Andor once it starts back up. That's right. I guarantee it. Andor is the best.

[02:02:15] I can't wait for season two. It was good. It was, it was very good. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I actually might rewatch season one to prepare for it. Yeah. Yeah. That's not bad. Puny pod. They are talking a little bit about daredevil in their, in their news show. But they're also doing a complete review of the infinity saga, which is apparently all of the movies.

[02:02:42] And, um, they're also, uh, going to do a little bit of a weird hiatus where they're going to do the fast and the furious because of a bet that Ryan won. Oh, um, against David where that David, that was a, it was a poor bet to place to say that Deadpool, Deadpool Wolverine would not do as well as every other Marvel movie in the year that, that I'm pretty sure that was the bet.

[02:03:12] Oh, I recall the point of the bet. Yeah. That's a dumb bet. But yeah, David lost. So now Ryan gets to watch fast and furious movies on puny pod. And, uh, I think that's all they're going to do on that show from now on. Nice. Uh, scraping the vault. Um, they're nearing, they're nearing the tinker verse. Oh, God. I can't. All the straight to video Tinkerbell movies. Yikes.

[02:03:40] I don't know exactly how they're going to handle that. Not good. Instant vibe killer. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and on, uh, the Supreme resort, we are about to do our, uh, part two of our March madness business, um, where, uh, this year our bracket is hotel pools. Continuing our hotel theme. We set up the bracket on the last show and on this next one, tag from DL weekly.

[02:04:10] Our friend will be on to judge the show like he normally does each year. And we will figure out which is the best pool at a Disney resort or a Disney good neighbor resort. I love this. It's all the hard hitting information. I was just thinking that it's like, it's really the info that everyone needs, but it's, but, but truly, I mean, some of those have some really cool slides. Some of them don't. You know what? At the, at the, the culmination of this show, what you should do is you should pick all the

[02:04:37] winners and design the perfect Disney park with it. But, and, and you know what? It, that's finally useful information for some. Right. Right. After all this time. Yeah. Um, when's Buena Vista boys coming back? I don't know. I'm in talks with Matthew. Um, but, uh, you know, we watched our first movie, which is something wicked this way comes. Um, so I took notes on that.

[02:05:02] Um, when the works was doing, uh, they'd be doing something with Dan or Patreon only just to warm up a little bit, but, uh, we're talking April sometime for Buena Vista boys. So nothing new yet. Uh, but we're working on it. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Uh, let's see. All right. We're finally getting out of here. I know I said this a while ago, but, uh, I've got a, I've got a lunar eclipse to look at half an hour here. Yeah. That'd be fun. Huh? I guess everybody loves looking at the moon. Yes.

[02:05:33] Conchu. Conchu. Okay. Uh, thank you very much everybody for tuning into this show. It was helpful. Uh, if you have any questions on taking a, a, a weird, you know, sensory overloaded seven year old to Disneyland, please let me know. I'll answer, I'll answer everything I can. Uh, ultimately she had a great time and she wants to go back. So, uh, that's, that's all we can really ask for. You know what I mean? And oftentimes with kids, it's, uh, it's, it's fighting through the emotions that you have to then process and go, you know what?

[02:06:02] That's actually not as bad as I, uh, as I thought it was. So, you know, let's go back. I'm like, Hey, that's cool, man. Whatever. Eat this Benadryl, go to sleep. Um, yeah. Anyway, thank you very much. And a big shout out to concierge, uh, our friend over at, uh, concierge, Jimmy, who helped us out on this trip. And then of course, Sully, uh, from 21st amendment. Uh, I don't know, just cause, uh, he's Irish and it's almost St. Patrick's day. So what do you think? Hooray. Uh, thank you everybody for tuning in and listening live in the chat and asking you questions.

[02:06:29] I appreciate you guys very much and, uh, for downloading the show. And again, go to patreon.com slash ears up and sign up for just five bucks a month. You get the secret show, a bunch of other projects that we have on to a puny pod. There's a lot of stuff. Um, there's a lot of stuff going on over there. Uh, for everything else, there's a website ears up hyphen podcast.com until next time. We'll see you in the parks. And that might actually mean something this time. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah.