The Case of Disney Parks Tours: Part 1

[00:00:01] Welcome to the Supreme Resort Land V World, a podcast about Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and which is The Supreme Resort. Each episode we will discuss and explore each resort ride by ride land by land park by park to determine which is.

[00:00:33] Why? Hi, welcome to the Supreme Resort. I'm your host Jimmy and thank you for joining me on this quest to help the greater good of humanity answer this long elusive question, which is better? Disneyland or Walt Disney World and joining me as always is Dan.

[00:00:49] Hi, I'm Dan. I'm here. Let's do this. And Eric. Hi, I'm Eric. I love the Beatles. Oh, that's just a character though folks. So do I very much. Just a character for the rest of the day. I don't actually love the Beatles.

[00:01:04] Hey, it's David Bowie. I love the Beatles. I don't have a lot of tests about that. Not yet. Anyway, so listener we Dan Eric and I just returned from a week at Disneyland Resort and that's very far. We could talk about that if we want.

[00:01:17] But what you're going to hear is some audio from our trip at Disneyland just some brief audio with us sitting next to the Mark Twain and partially on the Mark Twain. Yeah.

[00:01:30] This trip was a the concierge AEP Eric you're going to have to help me with what AEP stands for. And engagement park. No, I don't know but everybody kept saying AEP. I don't know what it means but it's not. Not blanking. Oh gosh.

[00:01:47] It's like an annual meeting with the planners so annual education program is what I'm going to say. That's what it is anyway. So we met most of the concierge were there and we converged on the Disneyland Resort.

[00:02:02] We spent Monday starting rope drop at DCA and then Tuesday at Disneyland. And then some of you which we'll hear later went on a VIP tour with Philander who is a phenomenal cast member. Eric will talk about his blue tag and what that means.

[00:02:22] And we toured some hotels and in general we had a really nice time at the Disneyland Resort. There are things that I want to talk about that we'll get to. I want to talk about some of the new things we tried, some of the new experiences.

[00:02:37] But in the meantime Dan joined us as well. Dan is not a concierge although he may as well be. Dan, he advises us. You say words. Huh? You say words. I was there.

[00:02:50] I went to DCA on a rope drop and I was like why would anyone do this? And that was fun though. I enjoyed meeting the people and saying, proving that I was a real person. Dan, you don't realize how useful your experiences at non-Disney hotels are to us.

[00:03:12] Really? Like you're the most experienced of anybody. Everybody else has like, oh we always stay at the Hojo. We always stay at this. We always stay at that. You have tried everything. I've tried most of them. Most of them. The airs and yeah.

[00:03:28] Close by far away and you could really speak to so much of it. So that which was interesting because we toured a few hotels I want to talk about.

[00:03:36] We started with the, which what I would argue of the tour that we took this time was the nicest of the hotels. That was the Hyatt House. Yeah.

[00:03:47] For those of you who are not Hyatt frequenters, it's very similar to what I would say a residence in by Marriott. Most rooms are suites in that there is a separation between rooms. Televisions aren't super expensive.

[00:04:02] One of the things they were real excited about is the separation between the quote-unquote master bedroom and the living room air quotes was a television swivelled. They were very excited about that. The swivelling TV. The new swivel technology.

[00:04:17] So which means that not everyone can watch the same thing at the same time because the television swivels. So you can face the king bed or you can turn it around and face the fold out couch but everybody can watch at the same time.

[00:04:31] And they were real excited about it. The adults are going to watch a movie that you can't hear. You can't watch. You can hear it, but you can't watch. That's right. Everybody look at your phones. Mom and Dad are going to watch Inside Out. You've seen it before.

[00:04:44] Imagine. That's right. But in general, the Hyatt House was delightful. It's right on the southeast corner of Catella and Harbor. It's a very happening corner. I've stayed there quite. Yeah. It's connected to a wall greens across the street from the CVS. But a wonderful hotel. 2016 is fairly new.

[00:05:04] What I thought was interesting was that the lobby, the breakfast is free. Yeah. It's not really easy to get on art, but you can get on art. But ultimately you can also walk. You have to know what you're doing if you're going to take art from there.

[00:05:19] That's right. You have to go in the opposite direction of Disneyland to get on art. Sometimes. They recommend just walking from there. Yeah. Which is fair. It's in its way. It is fair. However, I am also a fan of...

[00:05:33] You're going to be doing a lot of walking anyway. So if you want to take the art, no one should shame you for doing that. That's correct. But it is in the opposite direction. The first place we visited...

[00:05:44] Forgive me guys if you don't want to do this, but I'm going to go through these hotels and get your impressions. The first place we visited was the Candy Cane Inn. Now this is on the northwest corner. It hasn't melted yet. It touches the Disneyland property.

[00:06:01] This place free transportation to and from the hotel. Free breakfast and free parking. And if you're nice to them and you ask and you're departing that day, you can leave your car...

[00:06:14] If there's space, you can leave your car in the parking lot until you leave for the day. That's phenomenal. Speaking of transportation, it is behind Cars Land. So you could very easily... It is a very, very easy walk.

[00:06:29] But they also have a trolley that takes you there for free. Like if you're not feeling it. No art. And it's running all the time. That was really a surprise. Free breakfast, free parking and free shuttle. That's miraculous. Completely redone within the last year. Yeah. Lovely rooms.

[00:06:47] And a whole place smells of peppermint. Like peppermint. So what I thought was interesting about that, both those hotels really is the free breakfast aspect. You don't get free parking at the Hyatt House, but you do get free parking at the Candy Cane Inn.

[00:07:03] Dan and I stayed at the Fairfield Inn, which is across the street. I'm a Marriott loyalist. And the one cool thing when I travel with my family about Fairfield Inn is breakfast is free. They don't have a kitchen at this hotel.

[00:07:16] So there is no free breakfast, which I thought was interesting. And it was $27 a day to park. I love revisiting that answer because now... In the moment, I was just like, oh yeah, no kitchen. That makes sense.

[00:07:30] And now that I hear that answer again, I'm like, you can build one. Yeah, exactly. There's a whole floor with nothing there except for a bunch of tables and a gym. Like build a restaurant. Anyway, it felt very much like a motel, the Fairfield Inn.

[00:07:46] It was pretty comfortable. Here's what I thought was interesting. The theme. The theme of this. And when we checked in, Dan and I, and by the way, everyone, we're in our mid 40s together at Disneyland.

[00:08:01] How I explain it to people is that my brother-in-law, friends of mine, whatever, they go on golf trips with their buddies. Like they just, you know, they go on when they stay in rooms together and they go golfing, you know, it's a straight man deal.

[00:08:13] When Dan, when 240 something year olds show up at a hotel across from Disneyland, they're 100% gay, right? So this gay couple checks in at the Fairfield Inn. Is there nothing wrong with that? No, not at all.

[00:08:25] And so this gay couple checks in at the Fairfield Inn across from Disneyland. And the guy was very excited to tell us that we have a Disney themed room with a Disney view. This is Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, California.

[00:08:37] We walk in the room to see our Disney themed rooms on the main wall where the headboards are of the hotel is Cinderella Castle. Okay, hang on. Back up. Do that again. You just, you froze. Oh, no. Is it when I did my Cinderella Castle?

[00:08:59] You're holding your hand up here. So we're checking in. You are a chubby chaser and yes. I'm a twink, I believe. Yeah, a little old for a twink. An aged twink. And they're very excited to tell us that we had a Disney themed room.

[00:09:19] We get into the Disney themed room and the Cinderella Castle, which is Disney World's castle, Earful Tower, which was the icon for Hollywood Studios like 10 years ago. I think Kilimanjaro Safari's are like the Everest was on there.

[00:09:34] Like this is sure it's a Disney themed room, but you're about 3,000 miles in the wrong direction. Yeah, that's all that was out of touch. It works a little bit. And you know, the air conditioners in the window, which was wonderful for sleep because it was loud,

[00:09:47] but it felt like a motel and no free parking and no free food. Then we toured a couple of best Westerns. And Dan, give us your impression of these best Westerns. They are the best Westerns that one can Western. I don't know.

[00:10:08] I mean, you've stated a best if you stated a best Western, right? You know what I mean, there's always that smell. I'm not complaining. I like the smell. I grew up on the smell, but there is definitely a cigarette smell. The stale.

[00:10:22] You can still smell that pack of Marlboro's from like 1978 that somehow is like just stuck in there. Air conditioning cranked up way too high. That's a smell, not a feeling. And that cleaner they use. I don't know if it's best Western brand cleaner. It's like a best Western.

[00:10:43] The smell is like it's like the Juergens smell, but for hotels, it's just like it's always there. No matter what or like the farmer John flavor, no matter what product you get, it's always going to have that underlying like that thing.

[00:11:01] Best Western is definitely that they have breakfast at both places. The person who was running the tours was aggressively British. And I feel like possibly being a really passive aggressive, terrible person to his employees.

[00:11:21] But they were nice enough to have us visit and I was tagging on because. Yeah, it was nice that the Hyatt House gave us bags branded bags with like they gave us a drink from Starbucks to open the tour. Flavored water. Mine was pineapple pineapple chunks in it.

[00:11:41] So we walk into the best Westerns with our Hyatt House bags and like mugs and stuff and they gave us water was lovely as it's very hot. We were walking around.

[00:11:52] We got bottles of water from the best Western, the aggressively British passive aggressive manager says next time maybe a little cooler the water. Maybe treat our guests. All right, next time. All right. As we're walking around with our Hyatt House bags on our shoulders.

[00:12:11] Yeah, but in a tone that was definitely not joking like you tried to play it off as joking but not joking. Yeah, Eric, what were your impressions of the hotels? Yeah, I like the Hyatt House.

[00:12:22] I think, I mean they were bragging about how the rooms were haven't been updated because they don't need to be. Yeah, there's some weird, some weird things like the TV and all of that. But yeah, but ultimately they were very clean, very nice.

[00:12:38] I do want to add since we're talking about these hotels. I have stayed at the Hyatt House, that very Hyatt House and the rooms are fine. The rooms are nice enough. Everything's great. The breakfast it's decent. No complaints there.

[00:12:52] It is very nice basically living above a Walgreens because if you forget anything, it's just right there. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've been to the CVS or that Walgreens multiple times over the years. But yeah, the best Westerns, yeah they're a best Western.

[00:13:12] It was, it's what you expect. It's clean. They were, I mean they were pretty nice, pretty updated. I'm not excited about the price. Yeah, they were right across the street. They say something between $300 and $400 per night. Yeah, yeah. You're paying for proximity. And that's it.

[00:13:33] To be fair, I believe the Park View Inn which is technically closer than all of those is probably about $100 cheaper. And I never stayed there but just I have priced it before so. Oh okay. Yeah. I'd go Candy Cane in. I would do.

[00:13:52] Yeah that was the biggest surprise. That wasn't part of the tour. It's just we happen to have someone, a concierge staying there and she was kind enough to let us in. It seems like a very pleasant place to be.

[00:14:02] Yeah, it's right next to the 7-Eleven and a liquor store so there you go. Dan's Frosted Tips from all your experience you've stayed in most of these places. Do you have a couple of pointer suggestions for our listener who may be planning a trip to Disneyland?

[00:14:19] My go-to is our generally I've really started to appreciate the Anaheim Hotel. It is one of the least expensive of the Harbor Boulevard places. Fair, a big property. They're recently renovated too right? Yeah but not aggressively so.

[00:14:38] One thing I like about that place is you can kind of see where they let the old stuff be old but not in a lazy way. Which I really appreciate. My family used to go to Palm Springs about once a year and we'd stay in hotels there.

[00:14:57] It has a very Palm Springs-y sort of feel. Those old-ish hotels that have like it's held up but you can tell that it was built like in the past 50 years or so. And again, not a bad thing. It's just something that's kind of charming about it.

[00:15:16] Let's see, other places on Harbor, the castle and if you want a little touch Vegas and both in good and bad ways there's that. Also relatively inexpensive. It's usually one of the cheapest places on Harbor. You can get good deals there, yeah.

[00:15:35] Yeah and I've actually booked a few people there and I have had no complaints that people have just said listen I'm in the room it's comfortable. Totally. I'm there to sleep. Del Sol is underrated I think but possibly overpriced depending on when you book.

[00:15:51] One of the nice things is you have a Denny's right in your parking lot. But it's a decent motel. Still one of my favorite places to stay even though it's not the most convenient is the airs in orange. It's a delightful place to stay.

[00:16:07] You got to be able to, you need a car if you're there. I wouldn't trust Uber. I wouldn't trust Uber around that area because they will drop you like a bad habit if they feel like it.

[00:16:19] But yeah, that's, I'm still kind of, I'm an airs boy when it comes down to it but Anaheim Hotel is slowly winning me over. A couple of other things I want to talk about about the trip.

[00:16:32] So thing number one is that the concierge have a service called Travify and our entire agenda was produced in Travify. Ultimately you as a client of concierge can access Travify.

[00:16:48] What will happen is your vacation planner will create your touring plan where you're staying, the address, pictures where you're starting your day each day, park hours, all the details where you're having lunch, where you're having dinner.

[00:17:02] Like all the things that you book with your vacation planner you'll have in a QR code ultimately and you can see your entire agenda on a web page or in an app. So it's like, it's almost like what Jeannie was, was intended to be.

[00:17:16] But yeah, it doesn't give you suggestions but it's your trip basically in an app form.

[00:17:22] And then if something changes and you say I want to stay here or excuse me, I want to go dinner here instead of there and your vacation planner changes it, it'll now be changed in the app. So it's a really nice fluid, what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:17:38] Interface. Yeah, the word I was looking for is, for lack of a better word, fluid. Water. Dynamic is the word I'm looking for. Anyway, so Travify is a great service. I'm going to learn how to use that.

[00:17:53] So if you ever use me as your vacation planner I can do that for you. A couple of things we tried for the first time or I tried for the first time because I haven't been in a couple years. Thing number one is I did the Adventureland Treehouse.

[00:18:07] I've never heard your feedback on this. Oh yeah, to steal a line from 10 Things I Hate About You which is a 90s rom-com taming of the shrew told in a modern era. You can be overwhelmed and you can be underwhelmed, but can you just be overwhelmed?

[00:18:29] I think that's fair. I was just overwhelmed. Yeah, okay. That's all it needs to be. It's still there, they saved it. Swissapolka is there. It's not based on a 100 year old movie or whatever it is, you know, it's not necessarily relevant. It's also not based on that.

[00:18:50] Exactly, exactly right, Dan. Well put, when and if they really do go all in on C, the Society of Explorers and Adventures, it will become more relevant, I think. But to date they haven't really done much with that in the States. But yeah, I was overwhelmed.

[00:19:08] Jimmy, there was a whole C book in one of in the Daughter's Room. Yeah, that's the top of it. She's the astronomer. Yeah, she likes stars. Now, and then I also for the first time ate at Tiana's Palace.

[00:19:24] I had the gumbo because I wasn't super hungry, but it was delightful. I liked it. It's a counter service. It didn't feel any different from the French market for me. It's not pretty much.

[00:19:37] Yeah, I didn't really spend much time in the French market, and I didn't see Tiana, so it may as well been the French market. Dan, your impressions of Tiana's? I think it's, I think that people made a big deal out of it when it opened.

[00:19:53] And I think there was a lot of, I don't know, it's fine. It's the same kitchen as the French market. It is, it is, it's fine.

[00:20:04] I don't want to give anyone any other impressions, but when it opened, I think people really, really, really overplayed how good it was and how like, I mean, I think there's currently a lot of, I want to be really careful how I say this.

[00:20:21] There's currently a lot of sort of hedging of bets when it comes to adding Tiana into things where people in a, I think there's some amount of overcorrection that people are doing in response to people being upset about the Splash Mountain change,

[00:20:45] where when they're adding Tiana to these things, it's almost like, and you're going to love this so much. It's the most amazing, like they've never had Cajun food in New Orleans Square before. Have you had a beignet? Have you heard of a beignet?

[00:21:05] This is a, look at this beignet. And it's like, okay, I get it. I'm not upset that you're doing this, but it's just kind of, I have no problem with you adding these things, but at some point it's almost like talking down to us, you know?

[00:21:24] And I understand what they're doing. I'm not opposed to some amount of overcorrection there. I promise I'm not going down the right wing pipeline or anything. It's just like, there's a point where it does feel a little bit like Nancy Pelosi wearing the kintake cloth, you know?

[00:21:47] And it's an okay rest. It's fine. It's a good, it's a workable, good restaurant. Every, I, some of the food items I don't necessarily love. The chicken I thought was good. Everything needed a little bit more seasoning as far as my taste goes, but it's fine.

[00:22:10] It's the French mark, you know? And is it blasphemous to put stuff inside of a beignet? Well, as a gentile New Orleans gentleman myself, I have no opinion because I'm actually not that. It feels blasphemous to me.

[00:22:32] Like there's this big tub of yellow goo sitting in the middle of the thing and they just... Right inside your pen. Yeah, I mean, Ruff Reynolds was doing it for years too. Or they could. I will say the filling in Disneyland, it was tasty. Yeah.

[00:22:52] No, I generally prefer just a regular beignet. Yeah, I mean, look, if you want to fill your beignet with jizzy goo, go for it. I don't care. I just don't... You put it that way. Eric, what's your impression of Tiana's? Well, I just had the beignet.

[00:23:11] So did it have the jizzy goo in it? It had plenty of goo. All the goo. So another thing that we did, or I did for the first time, I think we all did for the first time was Centrico. Oh yeah.

[00:23:25] Listener, this used to be the uva bar. It is now Centrico, which is a Mexican? Yeah, sure. I think it... No, it's Mexican. Okay, so the service was terrible. Thank you, Dan, for getting the reservation. It was terrible. It was pretty bad.

[00:23:44] For being a hot new restaurant in downtown Disney, it was bad. We were probably 20 minutes before we were even greeted. Like we got sat pretty quick. Yeah, that's fair. The restaurant wasn't full. Not every table was sat. It took 20 minutes just to be greeted hello.

[00:24:04] And then every other thing after that was of the same amount of time. We get some extra salsa situation or whatever. You do have to pay for the chips and salsa, which I probably isn't uncommon. The salsa was good. The chips were okay.

[00:24:18] Dan and I both ordered the burrito and Eric and Marie both ordered the taquitos. The burrito was good. Now, what was interesting about it is when it came out, it looked like a... What we call an enchilada style burrito where you have the red sauce on it.

[00:24:38] It was not red sauce, however, it was burned cheese. On purpose. On purpose, yes. Thank you. It looked like an enchilada style, but it was burned cheese, which was delightful. It's wonderful. And if not for the salsa that came with the chips and salsa, very bland. Yeah.

[00:24:57] The salsa made all the difference. Eric, what about you and the taquitos? Bland. Yeah. B land. Yeah, both Marie and I were like, what do we eat? Yeah, there was no flavor. They had a tomatillo style salsa with it that was just slightly bitter.

[00:25:22] It was just this tiny cup that didn't make any difference in anything. Yeah, really not great. The beans were good. Another thing that I experienced for the first time, and I think Dan as well, rope drop as a resort guest. Yeah. This is rope drop.

[00:25:44] Take that everybody else. Decent. As you heard, listener, we were at the Fairfleet Inn. We are not resort guests. How did we get in? Well, Eric and basically all the other concierge were staying on property at either the Grand Hotel or Grand Californian.

[00:25:59] When you are staying at one of those places and you get into the park, you go to a separate rope drop area from the rest and you show your room key or you scan your magic band to say, I'm staying here.

[00:26:12] And they say how many people are with you? And in one case, they said 12. And 12 people walked on through, including Dan and I who were not staying on property. Well. So that was kind of interesting.

[00:26:26] And in that rope drop before the park opened 30 minutes prior, we went on Guardians. We went on web slingers. And what else did we do before Soren? Anything? Is that it? You did better than me and Mike where we just did Radiator Springs. Yeah. We didn't do that.

[00:26:51] Anyway, it was interesting going back with family in a couple of weeks. I learned lessons. But it was nice. It was nice to pre-rope drop as a resort guest, non-resort guest. That was a new experience for me. Pixar Fest, oh, Phantasmic Dining Package.

[00:27:06] If you can get a Phantasmic Dining Package, we did it at Rancho del Soculo. It was $35 for the package and it included an entree and a ridiculous piece of cake which... Nobody touched. Nobody touched. It was awful. It was just very plain. The raspberry... Just a sheet cake.

[00:27:28] Yeah, it was a sheet cake. It was dry and whatever. Anyway, I don't want to be negative. That's not the point. However, the point is that for $35 and a meal that I would have bought anyway because I always go to Rancho, we got to sit.

[00:27:43] Think about Phantasmic Listener. There are three missed screens. There's one in the center and there's one on the right and one on the left. And that would be stage left, stage right. Doesn't really matter. Anyway, we were essentially... On mansion side and center mountain side. That's right.

[00:27:57] And we were essentially in the center. Maybe there weren't a lot of Blue Bayou guests that usually get those spots but it was the Rancho area. I suspect that is the case, yeah.

[00:28:06] And we got to sit basically in the center and we got there 30 minutes before the show started and we got phenomenal seats. Better yet, four minutes after Phantasmic ended, the fireworks show started and the entire projections of the fireworks show were projected on the same missed screens.

[00:28:25] So effectively we got the same show and for $35 in this case, we got to get prime seating for both Phantasmic and the fireworks show. Was the fireworks show better? I hadn't seen it on Main Street but I love the fact that I could watch the fireworks show

[00:28:44] with projections without having to move. Well, I suppose that's good. I wasn't all that impressed with the Pixar Fest fireworks. I wasn't either. It was... I make fun of character dumps a lot on the show. It was essentially a character dump.

[00:29:00] Having said that, I enjoyed it more in that setting than I would have had I made an effort to see it. Yeah, sit and wait for 30 minutes or whatever. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I thought that was cool. That was a new experience.

[00:29:13] I would highly recommend that if you like either of those things. Even if you spend more money in Dublo Bayou, if you can do that. Now, going back to be fair to Centrico, I was just looking this up.

[00:29:24] The chef Carlos Gaetan, I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong, is from a state in the very south of Mexico. So the cuisine might actually just be different than what we're used to. Yeah, possibly. More like South American instead of Central American. Possibly.

[00:29:46] I mean, I don't know for sure. This is just a Wikipedia real quick lookup. Okay. In fairness to Centrico, maybe we were bringing the expectation of typical Southern California and Northern Mexico, Mexican stuff that we're used to. It's possible.

[00:30:06] It was still planned, but it's possible that that's what happens there. I don't know. That's fair. And it's also new. Maybe they're working stuff out. Yeah, I know. Anyway, sorry I didn't want to step on you on that. Not at all.

[00:30:21] So that's sort of the end of the new experiences for me that I wanted to talk about. And I think we basically did a giant plug for concierge at the same time. It's a bit of an interesting episode. Well, it's also touring planning and tips and whatnot.

[00:30:38] But a couple of other things that we're going to talk about. But one of the things that was interesting was we rope dropped Disneyland to take pictures as a group. So it felt like if you've got a group of vacation planners, don't rope drop to take pictures.

[00:30:57] That's like rope dropping to go have a breakfast. What's that? You know what? That's just my preference. Okay. No slight on the concierge. But so Eric and Dan and I very kindly Dan and his late father provided a tour that you're going to hear about.

[00:31:17] We went on the train tour and then we talked about it. You're going to hear about that next. And then Eric went on a special VIP tour with most of the concierge. He's going to talk about that.

[00:31:27] And then Dan is going to talk about his tour of Walt's apartment and Walt's main street on that tour. I can also do that individually so we can individually see you guys are going to talk about that. And then Eric, do you want me to sign off now?

[00:31:44] You want to timestamp this and I can sign off and you can fill in the gap. Welcome to the Supreme Resort. Land, bean, land. Land, bean, land. Land, land. Land. Yes, just land. Where we... You're Dan. Trying not to have Asher too much apparently.

[00:32:17] Asher's not as popular as we thought. But he's been in Jumi for a while. Yeah, he's been out. He's been either traveling the world with Uncle Jeremy or in Jumi. We'll find out. Well, Uncle... Oh yeah. The friend you called. Tio. Tio. Yeah. Tio Jeremy. Yeah.

[00:32:39] Well we're here at the Rivers of America in Disneyland USA. And Eric and Dan and I, I'm Jimmy. That's Dan. Oh yeah, I'm Eric. Yes. And that's Dan. We just finished the train... Dan, what was it called? We just finished the train. Yeah. It was great. Train great.

[00:32:56] I know that means something, but I don't know what it means, but I think it's probably dirty. Oh, okay. That was not like a human centipede sort of thing. No, no. Okay. They don't call that train. So Dan's father has posthumously, generously given us a tour of...

[00:33:21] What's the official tour called, Dan? The train. The train tour. I'll edit that in. You'll sound very intelligent. So also you'll sound like me. We had... We were able to take the tour. Started at 1230 and our tour guide was named Mario. Excellent. Mario was the non-Turdub.

[00:33:41] He's Italian by birth. There was only three of us. And there was just the three of us. There was just the three of us on the tour. And it was just quite the light for him. We hit it off quite well at the beginning.

[00:33:51] And the tour was really about... For me, this is my initial impression. The tour is really just about transportation, Walt Disney and Disneyland. Yeah. And it was the evolution of the train... Oh, excuse me. Evolution of transportation and Walt Disney and Disneyland from the train

[00:34:08] and the origins of the train and history with Walt and Ward Kimball and Harper Gaw. Harper Gaw. Yeah. And a lot of what I got from it was that this part came about because there were just these like nerds who were nerdy

[00:34:25] about the same thing at the same time. And they were just like, hey, I have this kind of a train set. What about you? What if we combine them? What if we did this with it? I know this other nerdy guy over there. Yeah, that's right.

[00:34:40] So do you want to know what the actual term is... The term they would use when they would meet up when these train enthusiasts... Trainify? No. It's called a steam up. It's called running a train. A steam up. They would have a steam up and they'd meet

[00:34:55] Oh, God, that's so true. And show each other their trains. And I think they went to Chicago and they had a Chicago steamer. Maybe it was a Cleveland steamer, I forget. At what point did they put the keys in the fishbowl? So anyway...

[00:35:09] It's just the keys to their trains. Without going into like, minute detail of getting into the minutia of the tour just for those of you who have not done the tour it's fairly brand new. It started May 11th, 2024 in its current iteration

[00:35:22] and sort of how it went was the origins of Walt Disney and the trains we started at the main street station and then we went into the main street cinema main street cinema that went over to the bench from Griffith Park

[00:35:37] We all bit our tongue about the horse. We saw the scorch marks from the bench. I still love to call that dragon. But the tour actually probably mentioned the tour started with a warm cinnamon cinnamon bun, a cinnamon roll with what they called caramelized apples

[00:35:57] and a bottle of simply orange. Which we're not complaining. No, but we're wondering... A real combination for 1230 PA. 1230 cinnamon roll which was delightful. It was. I don't like warm fruit. I didn't eat that. I scraped it off. But the rest of it was great.

[00:36:12] Orange juice, because you know, famously Walt Disney loved... Orange juice and chilies. It's a bit of a roll of chili. And put chili on top of cinnamon roll. And then wash it down with orange juice. They didn't have chilies and they put warm apples on top.

[00:36:28] To symbolize the beans of the chili. The chili that's in our hearts. So we did that then when it evolved into the next iteration of transportation at Disneyland which was the view liner. And Eric got that correct. Eric got that correct. Jimmy had it ready to go.

[00:36:46] Just right behind. Yeah. Mario was very excited because very few if not... There was a nine-year-old some weeks ago that also knew about the view liner. But he was excited high fives all around because of the view liner. We talked about the monorail. He mentioned, should I remember

[00:37:01] if that was cool, listener, that the monorail made its current iteration in the origins of 1959 as a United States national landmark. So you're not allowed to do anything with it. You can't touch it, you can't change it. Nope, can't destroy it. So that presents some challenges for Disneyland.

[00:37:18] Some of those ideas, yes. So he also mentioned that the train is also a national monument, historic monument which is why you can't change it. Which is why they can't add an ADA compliant elevator, that kind of thing. I don't know if that's an excuse,

[00:37:37] but that was kind of cool. It's like a convenient reason. And so I said, oh, then in that case the people mover must also be a national monument because you're not doing anything with that either. At which point he was very candid

[00:37:48] about his opinions about the people mover. We enjoyed Mario. Mario was great. Yes. He had some really incorrect opinions about Star Wars. Which he was also very forceful about. Yes, quite. But yeah, then we went backstage at the roundhouse where the trains are stored. Did some backstage stuff.

[00:38:07] It's also where the middle school children are stored. Middle school children were from the band. Middle school bands, yes. Hillcrest band that both. Dohawks. Dohawks, they keep them in the roundhouse as well. That's right. And then we ended up on the Lily Bell.

[00:38:22] Which is I think the sort of the reason you go around. The reason for the season. Went on the Lily Bell which was really cool. Maybe we'll post pictures. I don't know what the show knows but we should. The Lily Bell, we did this grand circle tour.

[00:38:37] Some interesting facts. And we ended back at the Toontown station. And we got this really cool poster. It's a beautiful poster of the Disneyland Railroad and all the different lands. So that's sort of the tour high level. I think so. I mean I'm going into like all the...

[00:38:56] The Manusho. So I guess what I want to know, what I always want to know going in. And this is the second tour I've taken. But I don't want to say I know everything but I probably know more than your average like Marmy. Sure.

[00:39:13] And it's not that I go in there thinking like, oh it impressed me. But I'm always like, okay are there going to be at least a couple of things? And I'm like, oh I didn't know that. There were definitely that for me. No for sure. Yeah. I think...

[00:39:30] There was a child trying to grab my water. Okay, your water is safe. So Dan give an example of one of the things that you learned. I don't remember. Well there's one, the train. Like there are the people who run the train. The engineer, the conductor, the fireman.

[00:39:45] Yeah, there's four people on every train. That I probably could have figured out but I didn't know how structured it was. Honestly from just a nerdy part of that point of view, I liked finding out when they bring out the trains. Oh yeah, they went to like 7, 1, 8, 10, 30. Yeah, 1, 8, 10, 30.

[00:40:04] So now I'm not going to ride the train before 10, 30 even though it's really something I don't want to wait that long. You know? But yeah, just... I mean there's no... I don't want to say there was nothing. There's nothing that I remember as like,

[00:40:21] oh I'm going to take this. Because I have an awful memory. But also it was just nice to have a thing where it's like, oh I didn't know that. It can get boring if it's just like, did you know that Disneyland opened in 1955? Yeah right.

[00:40:37] And they have things in windows above made in-screen. Yeah I think once he realized that we... I'm sure they tailor it to the audience. Right. In a lot of ways. Does that make sense? Yeah. You know it's not like we were...

[00:40:52] We weren't saying, we knew all of this. Right, right, right. Impress us. Yeah but there was some nodding and acknowledgement that we understand. But it was fun that he... Instead of do you know when the park opened it was more like do you know what the next iteration

[00:41:05] of trains were? Right. And it was the view liner and very few people would know that. So that's kind of fun information. Yeah. Should we go on the Mark Twain? Let's go on the Mark Twain. Let's do it. We're going to get on the Mark Twain

[00:41:16] and come right back. Yeah, we're going to get on the Twain. We're going to get on the... That's great. Oh that was another thing on the tour we talked about. Choo Choo Twain. It's the steam train in Mark Twain. I can't get it now.

[00:41:28] We got Tweety Bird with us. Okay. Okay well we'll pause. Oh wait, wait, wait. So real quick. The other thing we stopped at Frontier Land and we saw the steam, we talked about steam and steam trains and then the steam engine of the Mark Twain. Yeah.

[00:41:43] Well and he also, one thing that like he didn't say explicitly and it's probably obvious to people that don't, that have linear thoughts in their head unlike me. I was just like oh so Frontier Land wouldn't exist if it wasn't for like a train for people

[00:42:01] to get out to these... Oh interesting. To the old west. These old west areas. Frontier. Alright we'll be right back. Very impressive. Very impressive. First thing. Now tune from our sponsor. Tune. Oh we should have talked about it before about David Fresh Bates. And we stared at him.

[00:42:16] We did. We did not say hello. No. Is that it? Your attention please. And we're back. And we're on the Mark Twain. And a place I've never been on the Mark Twain. You never been to? It was standing at a bar. There are mirrors everywhere.

[00:42:34] Looking nowhere near them. And life jackets. They're in the bar. That's what it's there for. In the bar? Down. Down. Right here. Down. Right where the sign reads life jackets. Oh okay. And they're life jackets. You want one? No thank you. Okay. Close it up.

[00:42:52] There are no shining bartender ghosts here. To launt us. Oh wow. So we were ashamed. We couldn't go for a ghost drink. This is also our first... The three of us. Our first time here sober. That's right. We want to get into that.

[00:43:04] Well we've already talked about that. To clarify, we've been at Disneyland sober. As we've been at Disneyland sober. As children. No, I'm talking even as adults. We've shown up here been... Right right right right right. But not through having stayed that way. That's right.

[00:43:20] At no point in recent memory have we stayed. So okay quickly before we get back to the train tour conversation. Is it still fun? I think it is. I think it is. I'm having fun. I guess I've done this alone. I did this like last December. Yeah.

[00:43:38] But not with both of you at the same time. I think... Do we still entertain each other? Yeah. Seems so. Seems as much. As much. As much. If not more just in that... I find that I have more energy.

[00:43:53] But also I find that staying up later was fueled by alcohol. Yeah. As I'm processing it and that sugar turns into energy. So I don't feel bad about being done at eight o'clock tonight. Going back to the room, being asleep by ten.

[00:44:09] And up at five o'clock to be back. There's so much more you can do with less people at the road drop. And we rode so many rides and did so much stuff before. So next we're going to talk about... We're going to cast Judgement on everybody who...

[00:44:25] Who dreams. And everybody else on the trip. I think they've all been behaving too. I don't know. I don't know. Replacing the alcohol with heroin was... You know what I mean? It's better. It is better. You know what I mean? It's like... It's like you're just...

[00:44:42] It's almost as though we've been driving on the... Like side streets. We could have been driving on a freeway all the time. Freeway, yeah. So it's been highly recommended. Life choices. Yeah. Less readily available but... You know. So we kind of left off with... Worth it.

[00:45:01] Is it worth it? Is the train tour that we still don't know what it's called? You know, you go... If you start talking... Don't worry. I totally will. Train emporium tour. Extravagant. Extravagant. Brought to you by... Mon Sante. The Mutsu. Disneyland Railroad guided tour. There we go.

[00:45:23] Oh, that's pretty simple. Okay. There's lots of members there. Worth it. I mean, of course worth it is entirely subjective. Correct. It also depends on what... Of course, how much of your budget it would be. It's about like 100-ish dollars a person.

[00:45:47] I can tell you, I don't at all regret doing it. I'm glad I did it. Would I do it again? Probably not. But that's not to say that it's not worth it. So before we get to would you recommend it,

[00:45:58] I want to just kind of walk through what that means. So let's say it's 100 plus, so less than 150. Yeah. And so let's just call it 120. You figure $60 an hour for a guided tour. Right. You get over... It was over two hours for us. Let's say it's two hours.

[00:46:19] You get a delightful cinnamon roll and orange juice. So retail value of that is probably 15 bucks, right? Sure. You get to ride... Yeah, it's 30. Well, that's what I meant by retail. Right, right. Anyway, so you get the tour, the Lily Bell, which is... That's kind of the reason...

[00:46:38] That's why you do it. Yeah. I guess the point is because you can't do that otherwise. So how do you put a price on that? Right. So how much does that worth to you? Is that worth 120 dollars? Then it's worth every penny. Hey, Jimmy. What's the Lily Bell?

[00:46:52] Oh, the Lily Bell is a special train car that was... What did they call that? Did they call it a... Oh, it's a... The Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon. They called it the Grand Canyon... Expedition? Something. It was a kind of car. We're letting Martin down.

[00:47:10] Yeah, I'll put it on. I'm tired. Grand Canyon car that was original and then they remodeled it in the 70s. And they christened at the Lily Bell. The Lily Bell, of course, being the train that Walt had in his backyard, the Carrower of the Pacific.

[00:47:26] Anyway, the point is it's a caboose of the train. Listen, if you've seen the Disneyland Railroad, the train that has a car at the end of the back of it, you can't get on. That's the Lily Bell. The number 106 on the back, that's that.

[00:47:42] We got to go inside of that. And it looks very like Walt's apartment tea. Walt's apartment carpet. Yeah. The lamp. Yeah, at one point the train was apparently the same carpet. Yeah, the train was debuted for the Bicentennial in 1776. That's right. So much later than I thought. 1976. 1976.

[00:48:04] Not the original. Non-tenial. I think going back to the question that I'm thinking about, what did we actually do? I mean, it's aside from the tour. And it's kind of, Lily Bell is a big part of it.

[00:48:18] And I think that it's also you have an extended conversation with this nerdy fat that is someone that is happy to have that conversation with you. Absolutely. And it's paid to take care of it. Is that prosecution? Possibly. Possibly.

[00:48:39] I mean, in a way more, but I mean, I mean that not entirely sincerely, but it's like, yeah, are you actually just paying for companionship at this person? I mean, a little bit.

[00:48:56] But it's like they have a wealth of knowledge and you have basically you have this person for this period of time that will not only like have the conversation with you, but like will kind of guide the conversation and say like, hey, there's that, there's that, there's that.

[00:49:15] And they're totally open to questions. Secure all cargo! And they're securing all cargo. All passengers are aboard. Now, what does Mark Twain mean? It means... It's a depth. It's a depth measurement. Mark one. I thought it was just, I think his name is Marcus and he likes Twain's.

[00:49:41] This is the Twain episode. Anyway. So is it worth it? For me, I didn't pay for it. Like you said, I probably wouldn't do it again, but it was worth it for me if I would have to spell it out. For one sign? For sure.

[00:49:56] It was worth it. I think with the Waltz part, it's like, I'm really glad that I did it and that's probably a conversation we can add later. For sure. I'm really glad that I did it. Would I do it again? No. Oh, why would you?

[00:50:14] Yeah, and that's the point. It's a why would you do it again kind of thing. So it's a question of rewrite ability. Right. I mean, you know, maybe they ask some screen to the little bell and then they'll totally go again.

[00:50:25] I think you know what I kept thinking? This is really stupid, but I kept thinking that the end's like we were cool. Like we were nice. We gave him a tip. He did accept tips, by the way. Good to know. Yeah, that is actually good to know.

[00:50:38] They I asked at the end, do you accept things? And he said absolutely and I did the whole in the palm hand shake thing. Well done. Yes. He was Italian so I figured he's just. Um, and so, so I did tip him.

[00:50:53] He was grateful, but I thought that's stupid. But like here's some lightning lanes guys. Like, you know, I know that's the only thing. That probably opens up a door for them that they don't want to open. Yeah. Well we did the poster.

[00:51:09] The other thing we talked about is the poster. That is, I don't know if you could buy the poster, but if you were to be able to buy the poster, I would imagine it's a $20 poster. Easily. I mean, the paper stock itself is really good. Really good.

[00:51:22] It is the current map of Disneyland including Galaxy's Edge and the new Toon Town and everything. So, I mean, if you're going to spend money on those things, you probably have $35 worth of stuff, physical stuff, flash food. And I think also the, is it worth a question?

[00:51:41] Part of this needs to be like, if this is going to set you back even though it would be meaningful, if it's going to set you back in any significant way, you probably know a lot.

[00:51:55] Yeah, but if we set $120 for a two hour tour and you get the rival a little bit, I like to do it. Yeah, yeah. Do it. For sure. That's for Mario. Mario is great. And he speaks Italian. Mama.

[00:52:08] He's not allowed to have that name if you don't speak Italian. He could speak Spanish. That's true. How else can we sit closer to a speaker? I know how we can sit closer to speakers, we're just going to walk around the Mark Twain. Let's do it.

[00:52:21] Well before we do, just a final question on today so far. We also got a solo event all week. We have a solo event all week. We're going to be doing a solo event all week. You're going to be singing a lot of it. I am.

[00:52:36] But it's probably important to know, listener, that the silhouette you're seeing was done in three separate sittings. Silhouettes are $12 per face per second. We have been doing it for over a month now and we're just taking a little bit of time Zillowettes are $12 per face in the picture.

[00:53:04] So if you have one picture, one face is $12. Then you go shockingly quickly. Oh gosh, shockingly quickly. Eric sat down first. She looked at his face and just cut his face out of paper. And then Dan sat down. I sat down. Fall in maybe 10 minutes all in.

[00:53:23] I mean, I thought I had to go that side. Yeah. It took longer to pay for it than it did for her. She did not want me to pay for it. So everything that's... I mean everything was done. So, but it was really fun.

[00:53:40] So if you ever wanted to do your Zillowettes, it's super simple. It's very informal. No reservations, a stand line. And we did it in the three of us. It's great. She did such a good job. She's got Eric's glasses in there. Eric and Dan have facial hair.

[00:53:55] My eyelashes were on there. Your eyelashes, yeah. It was really good. You will be seeing it. It might be our new logo. I think we're going to try to work it out as well. And also, I could say this because Jason doesn't listen to the show.

[00:54:15] And Listener, if you talk to Jason, don't tell him that because he's got me a surprise. We're going to find an old scary Victor from the Frank. And mail it to him. And we'll see if he posted...

[00:54:29] If you have any old scary Victor or even Frank sitting around there. Call 856-HOUR-EAR. 856-HOUR-EAR is today. How do you... Do we want to... Where are we in the timeline? Listener, Dan and I have been talking about Downtown Disney for 45 minutes. You're Eric, right? Oh yes.

[00:54:59] Well, we already started the show earlier. Sorry. I'm just... I'm having difficulty. The Listener doesn't need to know that this is three days later. Two days later? Listener, don't say anything. Twenty minutes later. So I'm going to just assume that you can figure out where to put this.

[00:55:15] We were talking about Downtown Disney. Yes. And... We were getting into some stuff. Yeah. And how I'm legitimately excited and I don't really get excited about things. That's not just like me being in character. It's just a true thing. Hey, there's a new thing. My name...

[00:55:36] My name Dan. Yeah. I mean it's more just like... I'm expecting everything that they make to be within a certain range of equality. Which is why I have difficulty with another show that I do on this network. But like, I'm just...

[00:55:55] I'm looking at the things that are doing at Downtown Disney, at Disneyland. I know that no longer exists at the other place. And it looks like they're kind of doing what they always should have done with these districts.

[00:56:09] Which is like, hey, here's a cool, coherent, intertwined, interesting place where you can go and hang out. And not just hang out. Like, you can go grab something from over here. And then your friends can go grab something from over here.

[00:56:26] And you don't have to have a reservation. You can just hang out and watch some local band that Disney has vetted. So you know there's going to be... Less scares than usual. Less swears. Like the quality, the entertainment quality, the floor is going to be like...

[00:56:45] It's not going to be low. I'm not saying everyone they get is going to be great. But there is a vetting process, right? I don't know. Some of the bands that I heard done at the entrance stage or the west side stage...

[00:56:59] Do they have a name for that? Uh, stage. The Din Tai Fung stage. The Tai Fung. The Walter Nott stage. They've been phenomenal. Like really, really good bass players, really good guitars stuff. Like every...

[00:57:17] So, listener, we were all at Disneyland last week and I spent six days there. And every day I walked past that stage at the end of the night. Let's be fair. I never stopped to hang out and listen. Right.

[00:57:35] I wanted to go back to my room and then I wanted to go to Trader Sam's and get some... Some long beans fried. And some sugary fruit drink. But every band that I've seen there, and I haven't seen a ton, but I've seen enough. They're good.

[00:57:53] At different points of time. They're at least good enough that if I was inclined to sit down and like hang out and watch the band, I totally would. And there are plenty of people that were doing that.

[00:58:08] That were actually sitting there on the ground, watching the band on the ground. So the fake grass, they've got seating there. Plenty of people just kind of hanging out and watching the bands in a way that I don't remember as many people doing that at the old stage.

[00:58:25] The one that was kind of in the middle of the concourse. You couldn't because you'd have to just disrupt the flow of traffic and then get people with little hand cones being like, eh, good, you're right.

[00:58:38] Not that that actually happened, but no, it introduces the possibility of casual spontaneity, which I may or may not actually engage with when I'm there, but I like that it exists. And I like that they're building towards that existing more.

[00:58:54] They are going to have Tintai Fung probably opening very soon. And then there's the marketplace that has multiple places you can grab and go. And same thing with the mess hall. The food court.

[00:59:12] Yeah, it's basically a food court but with...it's like an upscale food court kind of. Right. And then they got a bar if you're doing that. And then like, I guess there's going to be a barbecue joint that I will probably have a takeout window.

[00:59:27] The Centicro and Paseo, they have a takeout window. I forget what it's called. It's like Tienda or something like that. I believe you're correct. Yes. Yeah. I heard it was good too. I heard it's as good as the place. Right. You know?

[00:59:42] I guess my point is I like the direction that the new parts of Downtown Disney are going in. A dress sort of the...I don't want to say it was stuffy, but Downtown Disney was never super inviting as a place.

[00:59:58] It was always sort of like, I have reservations at Brennan's at X amount of time and isn't that cool because I like that place. Right. Let's go get a milkshake that weighs 50 pounds because they're doing that over there.

[01:00:12] There's a beef sandwich crammed on a skewer on top of my milkshake. Yeah. I got a milkshake with like a decorative onion ring on top because it's all just Instagram food. Where this place seems to be more like, it's just, hey, come hang out, watch the band maybe.

[01:00:32] And it's weird because I don't, I'm not a huge fan of live entertainment or live music rather. I just like... That doesn't like people. It's fine. That's not true. But I'm aware that I come off that way.

[01:00:51] It's interesting seeing where they're going with it and kind of seeing it slowly percolate to the surface. And it looks like it's gonna be a legitimately cool place to hang out. It can be fun. Maybe not cool in the same sense of like teens and what people like.

[01:01:13] I mean, teens are the coolest. Right. But... We could just men like us. We could go be lame boomers there and feel like we're doing that. We could drink a drink or Arnold Palmer's and our liquid IVs and talk about our podcast while watching vaguely ethnic bands.

[01:01:39] Vaguely ethnic. They have one Hispanic man playing the bass. I don't mean that. I mean, I kind of do mean that, but I don't really mean that. It looks promising.

[01:01:52] And having said that, I'm completely aware that anytime Disney does something cool, there's a good chance they're gonna figure out a way to mess it up. There's a good chance that it was cool five years ago and they were just realizing, oh, we could do this.

[01:02:08] Also, when I say the word cool, I'm recognizing that I am a 47 year old person who probably has no idea what cool is anymore. I probably never did if I'm being really honest. But hey, if you want to hear more about live music, listen to Bowie's play anymore.

[01:02:28] We're gonna go through the old David's live. Should we just do that episode now? Yeah, if you want to hear a cracked actor with a weird saxophone solo in it. Spoilers. Yeah. Right. So, Jimmy's not here to reign us. Yeah. Jimmy drank too much purple stuff. He's asleep.

[01:02:54] So what were we talking about? And how do we get back to where we were with the show? What we need to do on the show at this point, we need to talk about the Walt's Main Street Story tour.

[01:03:09] And we need to talk about my VIP tour experience. Okay, which one do you want first? Jason laughed at the name Philander, but Philander is amazing. It's a funny name. By the way, Philander, he's the tour guide.

[01:03:24] If you watch any Disney vlogs or this kind of stuff, I looked him up because I thought, is he that guy? And yeah, he's the guy that you see in all those videos. Yeah. He's that guy. Yeah. Yeah. This was a big poll.

[01:03:42] I guess maybe let's do that. I guess we're doing this. Yep. This was a big poll because we as Concey Ears, sorry, not sorry everybody, we're kind of a big deal.

[01:03:53] And we used our status as a tour company and got ourselves a VIP tour in the parks with Philander. Lindsay, our president of Concey Ears, she is friends with Philander on the socials.

[01:04:15] And last year during our first big team meeting, he came to talk to us about Disney and how he basically spent two hours talking about how they, how Imagineering does what it does and talked about how the parks work. Very operations focused, very knowledgeable guy.

[01:04:36] Like Dan said, you will see him on everything. Mm-hmm. He's trained. He's kind of like free to do media stuff where not a lot of folks have that opportunity outside of like the executive suite. But Philander is a legacy.

[01:04:56] That means he is one of the very few people at the company who gets to wear a blue name badge. That means he is, did we talk about this in the last or did we just allude to it? I don't think we actually talked about it.

[01:05:11] So, so stepping outside, stepping outside of Philander specifically, what does the name badge mean when we see it in the wild? The new, the new, the blue name badge means that you're part of the 1% of the Disney company that was nominated by your peers as a legacy.

[01:05:32] So essentially there are, you know about the windows on Main Street. You know about the Disney legends who are at the Disney studios. They have their plaques. They have their statue or their, their, yeah, it's a statue that you get. Right. Or award.

[01:05:51] But Eric, do they know about the opening day speech at the train station in New Orleans Square? Because not everybody knows that. Oh, you mean the Morse code? Yes. What, what if this entire show that like, what if just interrupting me with more facts?

[01:06:12] Just, well, the dumbest, the dumbest possible. Does he know who Joe Fowler is? Did you know that the Main Street confectionary pumps sugar smell into the air? Does he know that? Did he tell you about the basketball court? Have you learned about hidden Mickey's?

[01:06:31] Oh, I bet he didn't tell you about those. He did actually. What if this was our show? Like, like from the very beginning, it's like, did you know that in the Haunted Mansion, the stretching room actually goes underground.

[01:06:48] Did you know the Haunted Mansion has been closed for a while and will not be open for also a long while? But yeah, the legacy. I'll let Dan calm down. No, no. Heal? What do you have to say? Heal? I'm Heal Howl, no. Oh, thanks, Heal. Ah, okay.

[01:07:11] Yeah. So the legacy name badge means that you have been nominated by your peers as an example of Disney excellence. So it's a very big deal and they really do cap it out at 1% of the entire company.

[01:07:32] And so there's no, like, there's no number of years you can work to get it. There's no, like, I went to all these parks. You know, there's no, I gave Bob J. Pic a handy and Pirates of the Caribbean. It's just like, you need to be nominated.

[01:07:52] Correct. Yeah. And in, in Philander's case, he was nominated by five people in the same year, which was apparently a record. Wow. You can't get nominated by one person. But, but yeah, the company makes a big deal out of this.

[01:08:06] This is, this is one of those that they don't, it, this is the first time I've heard of it because when we were hanging out with Philander before we started the tour, Mike, the founder of Concierge leaned over and said, why is it so blue?

[01:08:21] And I went, I actually don't know. We should ask him. And there you go. That that was it. He is a, he is a legacy. So we've got Main Street windows. We have the hidden mickeys legends. He knows that Star Tours used to be another ride.

[01:08:41] You know, back in the 60s, the Monsanto Hall of Chemistry was right over there. You know, this was an old space movie that came out in 1977. Pirates of the Caribbean was a ride before it was a movie. Oh wow. Okay.

[01:09:03] So I guess I'm just trying to point out that it's not so much about Philander, even though he's, it sounds like a really cool guy. Right. Like for the listener who might not have easy access to Philander.

[01:09:15] If you see someone with that blue name tag out, out, you know, in the parks, it's significant. They're a big deal. You don't necessarily need to poke them. You don't have to shake their hand.

[01:09:28] But it's just, you know, you don't have to give them a hug and a kiss. If you, well, I mean ask first, but you can. I'm sure ask. I have a nice hug from Philander. That was very nice.

[01:09:40] I guess my point is that if you've ever wondered what that's about, cause I know I did. And I thought for sure it was just like, eh, he's probably just worked there for like 20 years. Right.

[01:09:50] Well yeah, it's easy to think that it could just be a random thing. Kind of. Yeah. Like you said, you've been here for a long time or. Yeah. I've been to all of the, all of the parks, but no, it's, it's a

[01:10:04] lot, it's a lot more than that. So it's, it's a big deal to be in that group, to be a legacy. Yeah. So very impressive. I am fluent in audio animatronic. There we go. Exactly. So, okay.

[01:10:22] So what else did you learn about being a VIP, being a VIP tour guide in general? Like of course, you know, we're using Philander as an example, but like using that as an example for like in general, when

[01:10:37] I was out doing one of these things or, I guess a lot of people just think that it's just like this person is going to wait in line for us and hold our, hold our backs, which that could be what they do. We can. Right.

[01:10:52] That seems kind of a waste, but, but yeah. Well we, did we end up, gosh, it was two days ago when we recorded the Mario part. Did we talk about the qualifications to even be a VIP tour guide? I believe we did. We did. Okay.

[01:11:11] Just in case you did very briefly, let's go over it. Two years as a VIP tour guide in song form. You must have two years of experience. Good job. There we go. And the process of going through auditions and everything, it's a big deal. Yeah.

[01:11:33] These folks are way more than your average, well, I don't want to discount other, other cast members, but they really know their stuff. Yeah. I mean, they're like beyond lead, beyond, they're like, they, I guess the point is they don't like necessarily

[01:11:52] like go to an attraction and be like, Hey, you're a nerd. You want to put on this uniform and do this? You definitely have to like want to do it. Want to go through the paces, want to like do the

[01:12:08] research are in cli- and also be a good performer in delivering the research. Basically it's like, it's more than just, you know where the secret passage is by the Splash Mountain. Right. Yeah. And he didn't talk to us for hours, constantly talking.

[01:12:30] He had one-on-one time with everybody in the group at some point, he delivered specific messages like, okay, we're outside space mountain. Let me tell you about the weight limit on space mountain. This is how many people can actually fit in a car.

[01:12:47] And here's what happens if you don't, you know, the reason space mountain goes down all the time is because people might not load in the car within 15 seconds. It's so tightly controlled. So he's talking about operation stuff. He tailored everything for us because he knew who we

[01:13:05] were and that's what these tour guides do. They learn about you and your group and essentially say, what do you want? What do you want out of this experience? Do you want me to walk quietly and just get you to the top of the mountain?

[01:13:22] Do you want me to walk in the mountains faster? I'll do that. Or do you want me to tell you about everything because they are founts of knowledge? My goodness, this guy, I brought up our theories about the skyliner and he said, oh yeah, that's a big one.

[01:13:42] I really hope they do something like that. Like he doesn't have complete insider knowledge. He probably knows what's going to happen or he won't tell us. Right. He probably knows. He probably has some kind of inside track. But one thing I've noticed a lot of times in talking

[01:13:59] to cast members there is that they're just as ill-informed as anyone. There's not much of an inside track. They probably do here. I heard so and so is doing such and such this thing. Even the people building Tiana's bio-adventure currently, they don't sell popcorn. They're a construction company.

[01:14:26] They come in and they do the job and they don't necessarily like, hey, what's up? A person who I've met two weeks ago, let me tell you all about this animatronic that I just unpacked. There's not a lot of conversational information going on.

[01:14:45] There's apparently an alligator and his name is Louis. Louis? He's a gator. It's a brer gator. Brer gator. So they also, it sounds like they, if anyone is interested in or maybe you weren't interested until hearing this. If someone is interested or has been interested

[01:15:09] in doing a VIP tour, you can act. It sounds like they want you to tell them basically what you're looking for, what kind of tour you want. And it sounds like they can do really anything within the realm of things that are possible

[01:15:25] to do at the park, right? Pretty much. Yeah. Everything is completely custom since we're a group of travel agents that are talking to this guy. He explained really the mechanics behind it. So if you ever see a plaid walking around, checking their phone, they're not just texting

[01:15:48] their friends. They are looking for wait times. They're looking for reservations. They are actively managing your day throughout the day. So if you tell them, hey, you know what? We really love Avengers stuff. They're going to make that a priority.

[01:16:05] Or if you say, we just want to go on all the rides, they'll get you on all the rides. Or if you say, we really would, you know, it would just be so great if we could have like lunch at Carthage Circle. Yeah. That's what they will prioritize.

[01:16:20] Right. And I remember you saying that they want like non-negotiables or what was it? Yeah. What was it? That was the term he used. Give me a few non-negotiables so I will make sure that we get those done. Right. So that you feel like you got the most

[01:16:38] value out of this. And if something's completely not going to happen, Rise of the Resistance was down all day. Right. And he said, I'm sorry, I know you all want to go on Rise of the Resistance, but it's down. But we can do all of these other things.

[01:16:53] We can move around. We can make this work. So like just off top of my head, if I wanted to like, and this is not going to sound like it's off top of my head, but it is because it's just immediately what I thought.

[01:17:08] If I were to do, if I were to have a VIP guide personally, I would really want them to create like almost like a narrative flow of the day with a coherent beginning, middle, and end that begins with Pirates of the Caribbean and ends with Phantasmic. Perfect.

[01:17:30] They'll do it. With like really fun, cool, chill out time in the middle. Where we're still where we are, we are actually doing things but we don't necessarily feel like we're doing things. They'll do it. Yeah. Absolutely. If you want to go on, if you want

[01:17:47] like Casey Junior five times, they'll do Casey Junior five times. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I believe you and I think for me it would be more like, I don't want to decide. I just want it to run smoothly. I don't want to feel like... You're giving an end. Yeah.

[01:18:04] I just want a coherent beginning, middle, and end because that's just interesting to me. I want the middle part to be really chill but not boring. We're beginning with Pirates of the Caribbean because... And ending with Phantasmic. And that... So I guess my point isn't necessarily

[01:18:23] like, listen, this is the way you approach this. I'm just kind of offering this very vague idea. Sounds like something that they would totally be able to do, right? Absolutely. They would totally do that for you. Their ability to just manage your

[01:18:40] day and look at things and look at crowd flow. This guy knew the parks. Like I can imagine only Walt did. Like he was... As we were discussing, we were talking about... So we're talking at Pirates about were there ever real bones in Pirates?

[01:19:00] And he's looking off in the distance and somebody said, what are you looking at? And he went, oh, I'm just checking to see if Big Thunder is moving. Yep, there's a train. Okay, Big Thunder's up. Let's go. Like this is the sort of thing that's

[01:19:16] going on in his head and he explained to us, I'm looking at what is open and open. What is open, what is not open, what is changing. And I'm going to move things around and I'll never tell you. He told us at the end of the day,

[01:19:31] I changed your reservation for August Cantine two hours ago. I think I mentioned that on the earlier segment but still. Like these folks, they're just on top of it. It's... If you can afford this experience, it's kind of phenomenal. It's really... I'm kind of ruined now.

[01:19:53] Well, I think where I'm going with this and this is going to sound profoundly arrogant, maybe it is of me, but you know, I... Friends and family who I go to Disneyland with, we jokingly say that I'm their Disney butler. Because I kind of am.

[01:20:13] It's a role I'm happy to take on, mainly so that they don't do all the things wrong. And you're good. I mean, as somebody who Disneyland a good amount of time at rope drop, you're like, no, we can't do that. We have to go do this.

[01:20:31] That's a waste of your time. We need to focus on this, not that. Right. And you're on the money. I have a pretty good intuitive sense of how things are supposed to work or how they do work. Anyway, that's not... I... That's just repetition, right?

[01:20:50] And it's also just watching a ton of stuff and like, basically this is my sports. It's my fantasy football. You've got the experience personally. You've got Gothic Rosie and all these other folks that you you've interacted with and... So for better or for worse, I

[01:21:07] am basically marinating in this crap all the time because I want to because it's interesting to me. I think personally, I really want to go on a VIP tour experience mainly to have someone else do that for me. It is relaxing. I can imagine.

[01:21:29] And not in a way that's like go, go, go. Also, not in a way it's just like let me tell you about the history of this blah, blah, blah. Let's just have a fun, chill day. Let's be people, hang out. I would love to

[01:21:45] want, I would love to experience being in the arms, the cozy arms of a Disney butler who I'm sure is so much better at it than I am. And not in a competitive sense, just to be able to have that feeling, you know? Right. Yeah.

[01:22:02] No, I get it completely. And this was a group of travel agents where we're all we're all used to ordering our families around. And planning everything. And then to have somebody go, all right, we're going to head over here. Looks like we're cycling through Big Thunder.

[01:22:21] Let's just keep walking. It's Ronto Wrap Time. Hey everybody, it's Ronto Wrap Time. Well, and that was interesting in in more often than not, it worked out really well, but there were some moments where there was definitely a too many cooks feeling with this group.

[01:22:42] And it was really amusing to me because it was like, I think it really struck me when we were supposed to meet at the Stroller rental place. And we were like a group of eight or 12 or whatever that was coming from one place and then another group

[01:23:00] other groups were we were all just supposed to meet there. And never we all went the way that we were used to going and a bunch of people looked at everyone else like, but wait wait, I just left

[01:23:16] and like we all know where we all had to get there. We all have our way to go and it's every one of us has the best way. So let's just do that. There were multiple times on this trip where I heard about people saying, all right,

[01:23:32] I'm going to go this way. You go that way. Which way is fastest? Let's see. It is so great. Because I've been there. I've done the same thing like, no, this way is faster. No, I'm going this way. I don't care. And yeah, it was everybody testing things

[01:23:50] out and collaborating but yeah, you're right Dan, that was pretty funny to see that one was just natural. Everybody just kind of wandered off in the right direction and we all knew where we were going so it didn't matter how we got there.

[01:24:06] Well, and I think we're also, and this is something that I hope listeners can relate to outside of this trip, is that like when you go with people who are who go a lot, you know and you can it's almost like you forget that you're there

[01:24:24] with somebody who knows what they're doing because you're used to going there with a bunch of idiots. What? Meridombo. It's like and it's funny because it's like I caught myself overhearing being second guest and immediately going into a defensive place and I was just like, oh wait, no

[01:24:50] they've forgotten that we all know where everything is and this is the way I'm going we could just meet there however the way I'm going is the best way so is the way you're going. Right. We all have the best way. We'll all be fine.

[01:25:10] Listener, you'll be fine. Dan will be fine. Jimmy's already fine that's why he's not on this episode. Right and that kind of brings to mind something that we talked about I think it was the last day we were together where we were talking about how when

[01:25:28] going with people who know what they're doing and this applies of course to any place it's kind of nice to be able to rather than have that pissing contest of like, well no over the head you just kind of agree

[01:25:44] that we're all kind of heading towards the same goal I happen to be a very good opening game person my middle game is weak, my end game I don't care because my opening game is generally very strong I'm just waiting for a phantasmic at that point.

[01:26:00] At that yes, get me a phantasmic. I'm good, I already did like eight things I want to do I think and this has happened in trips that we've had before where it's like, okay so and so is going to be kind of the navigator

[01:26:12] for X amount of time and then they're naturally going to lose interest and then someone else can take over and it's not so much about like, okay well now let me show you what I can do it's just like okay well we've laid some great

[01:26:26] groundwork now this is how we do middle of the day right I don't know I'm fascinated by that kind of thing and especially when and I'm not used to going with people who know not so much it's not fair to actually say that people I've

[01:26:48] gone with are idiots because they just don't live this stuff they don't live it's not their sports you know so it's fun to go with people who have a different approach but also have a more or less equal amount of knowledge and like at wanting to direct

[01:27:10] yeah, yeah but it's also important in those situations I think for everybody to kind of step back not turn into an argument which we did really well with that I mean this is the third time the concierge have all kind of shown up at the same place

[01:27:28] at the same time so it was fun it was a large group and it's only going to get larger we're going to hire more people to and I'm not one of them we tried yeah no I know you're all clamoring for Dan to plan your fix

[01:27:48] yeah you really want to have that conversation with me where I like you tell me what you want and I you can hear me holding back my very strong opinion about how that's the worst thing that you could possibly want to do that's a bad idea

[01:28:04] no, I will not make that reservation for you or more likely they're like well I got you your blank reservation under duress I genuinely hope you have a good time I don't think you will can I recommend Disney we didn't do Disney Junior I know

[01:28:26] oh man we forgot no we it came up it was conveniently avoided I didn't actively avoid it I swear we're going to have to oh no we planned on doing this we're going to have to like go back to the part

[01:28:44] we're going to have to trick Jimmy into a van to take him to Disney Junior but you and I speaking of tours you and I separately also went on the main street unless is there more VIP stuff we'll wrap up real quick VIP very expensive

[01:29:04] that's what the V and the P stand for very expensive actually any of the tours you can tip your plaid that's something we learned on the train tour I didn't realize that you could tip any of the tour guides so now I feel bad

[01:29:22] for not tipping on my main street story but but yeah VIP tour I don't think they're necessarily expecting it though it's not like of course if you are inclined to tip then absolutely do so here if you're paying a lot for it

[01:29:48] and I'm sure that they're well compensated I don't think that they're working minimum wage or anything but they are allowed to take a tip unlike most people most cast members I think that's the main thing it's not so much like listenary you must

[01:30:04] make sure that you tip just more more so that like hey FYI you know they're not gonna hand out like a little envelope at the end of the tour or anything but if you're so inclined they are able to take it yeah

[01:30:20] that's fair and that wasn't the closing argument I wanted to make I think doing this VIP tour it's something to aspire to it was a very very incredible experience it was amazingly custom and that's the way that they're designed these folks can just quietly

[01:30:46] escort you to all of the rides you want to go on they can push your stroller around they can hold your bags but you could also use them as a resource and learn from them about the parks that you hopefully love yeah it just phenomenal I

[01:31:08] I can't stop thinking about it this is one of those few instances in my life where I just keep going back to that day it's been almost a week wow I still daydream about that experience that's crazy yeah really just just phenomenal really great speaking of phenomenal

[01:31:30] Walt's apartment and Walt's main street story the tour that currently exists and you can take yeah and I think maybe a theme for all of these is it doesn't sound like any of these are you haven't lived until you've done this or that like you absolutely

[01:31:50] have to or should you're not a real fan if you don't that stuff it's just more like if you happen to have X amount of dollars sitting on like in the street metaphoric seeing Walt's apartment my life didn't change because

[01:32:12] I got to spend time with a really great cast member who got us on all the rides and also talked to us but yeah like if you have the means it might be something to look forward to might be something to invest in save some extra

[01:32:28] cash or I guess even I'm trying to put on my socialist hat a little bit here and like I mean people have different opinions no no I love the Beatles I it's not so much that like I think the question is more like so I know these

[01:32:54] things exist I'm kind of interested in them is it worth it to me to maybe I don't have that amount of money like right now sitting in front of me but I could maybe put aside a little bit here and there so that in a year or two

[01:33:12] I can do this thing and I guess what you're saying is that if that's something that someone is inclined to do after whatever amount of time of course take care of your more important needs first your mortgage and you know pay for your insulin

[01:33:32] so okay how about this thought experiment time VIP tour versus staying at Disneyland hotel or Grand Californian for the same amount of time that would be the same price oh I love I love the Disney properties if they've never done either before Oh yeah yeah stay at

[01:34:06] the Disney resort okay at Disneyland resort stay at the Walt Disney World resort the money is worth it now that said you know you could spend the money on a VIP tour and make your trip significantly shorter

[01:34:24] they will get you to all of the things that you want to see but I'm not a ride completist I'm not a person that needs to hit all of the things I've been there enough times I'd rather have the experience of waking up in the morning

[01:34:40] at the Disneyland resort looking up my window and seeing Trader Sam's seeing the Tiki churches burning it's it's pretty great okay maybe Tiki churches have gotten a bad name but that was years ago I don't know what you're talking about we're fine people on both sides yeah absolutely

[01:35:09] but seeing being part of the bubble being in there seeing everything and just feeling a part of it that's what I like I want to spend four days at a Disney resort hotel so it sounds like maybe VIP tour would be like the final boss level

[01:35:33] of Disney parks yeah I can't afford it right I mean I'm pretty good as far as money is concerned but I I wouldn't spend the cash right if I had the cash then yes I would I would do it again absolutely I don't have the cash right now

[01:35:55] I'll stay at the hotel got it this was a rare opportunity because I'm part of this amazing company where I was invited to be part of this experience phenomenal experience that company being the supreme resort the supreme years the supreme years the supreme years the main street

[01:36:19] magic time the main street cookie time yes we'll get to the cookie I didn't need the cookie I didn't need the cookie so we went separately I don't know that we need to necessarily go through every detail but kind of just broad strokes how was your experience

[01:36:49] it was a good experience I thought I'd be more emotional than I actually was yeah but I wasn't which is I think good so the tour takes you down main street for those of you who know things and if you're listening to this show you're very smart people

[01:37:11] and you probably know about the windows on main street so some of the things that came up were were windows some of the things were here's the theater look you can you can look at all these old Mickey shorts wow Mickey's got a gun in this one

[01:37:27] look at the other one well and I got the feeling from both Mario and my guide who I don't remember her name for the main street tour I got the feeling that they they kind of politely gave off the vibe that they're very tired of people

[01:37:51] trying to get into a trivia pissing contest with them however ah yeah they might invite it from time to time and they will appreciate it and I also discovered that they generally enjoy and encourage like good questions like questions that aren't like

[01:38:15] I'm gonna sit here and think of a question like if you have a question and it's rooted in like I'm actually paying attention and I'm putting things together and I maybe just need a bit of information to get me to the next place they seem

[01:38:29] legitimately pleased to have those sorts of interactions absolutely on my main street tour I said hey you know what I've actually seen the test wall mm-hmm and my guide said oh well yeah hey it's right over here we were just there earlier I didn't point it out

[01:38:49] let's go and we went and we looked at a wall but because I said here's a thing that I know about and I'm interested in learning more he was you're right Dan it was just that he was excited to take me over to the place

[01:39:05] and talk about the test wall talk about for the listener who doesn't know what the test wall is apparently they tried out this chunk of brick wall just off of main street by the locker room mm-hmm

[01:39:21] where they said do we want to have more of a wavy design or do we want to have a more clean brick design and there it is they left it that's the legend of the test wall and they tried out two different designs and while it said

[01:39:37] nope I like the clean one and they stuck with that and from what I understand that was when we were when you were in like the bonus question time and so that was appreciated whereas when we went on my tour and we were right by the test wall

[01:39:57] and she was talking about the stuff in the windows and all that so they've got sound here you can hear about the dentist all that crap the part of me that I try to keep in check constantly when I go to Disneyland with people

[01:40:15] was like are you going to say test wall it's right there test wall and I grabbed that part of me and I was like that's not what this is you can say something but I will not be appreciated I have no right to take over this tour

[01:40:33] this tour is clearly talking about Walt Disney's connection here we go more narrative for the listener is clearly talking about Walt Disney's connection to Main Street and how he put in elements that connected to his memory of Marceline Missouri and Harper Goff's memory it's like this collective

[01:41:01] this collective memory and how that was shared and expressed in theme park form test wall cool story but that has nothing to do with that story yeah it's not really the Main Street story like you said it was bonus round

[01:41:19] we had an extra half hour with our guy because the patio was closed because it was raining and he said what else do you want to see and I said can you show me the test wall yeah let's go yeah and I think that would have

[01:41:35] in that moment it would not have been welcome if I would have been like did you know they have a test wall here but yeah just I don't know don't be that person everybody they left it open and it was fun there's that little endorphin rush when Mario

[01:41:59] our guide said he was deliberately baiting us to say the original train was the people mover and no he was looking for the view liner and when I said view liner he high-fived all of us he's like yes you got it I'm a nerd

[01:42:21] that sort of stuff is fun but you don't want to be you don't want to push up your glasses I guess you want to follow their lead it's still their tour still their show and I don't know yeah anyway how did you like the apartment

[01:42:39] we haven't really talked about this because you were initially reluctant to do this tour because you said I've been to an old person's apartment um I so there's there is a feeling of I think my hesitance to see the apartment was rooted in a couple things it was

[01:43:06] I guess the shorthand is never meet your heroes that sort of thing like I kind of there are certain things that I like having kind of veiled in mystery it's very similar to when I was significantly younger but still an appropriate age for this story to be happening

[01:43:28] I was at you're 40 yes I think I think it must have been like 19 or 20 or something and I like most boys who grew up at that time had a huge crush on one owner writer right and yeah obviously yeah totally unoriginal but no regrets and I

[01:43:58] I guess I'm not ashamed of saying that but I recognize how unoriginal it is right in and I was chilling out in some area of the whatever that museum is in the big weird building at San Francisco storytelling everybody you lost me

[01:44:20] basically the point is I was chilling out upstairs in this space and it was really cool and I overheard a bunch of people I think there were people who are working there and they're like oh is there anyone owner writers downstairs and there's this thing in my head

[01:44:36] just like I really should like go like be creepy oh I love you I but then the other part of my brain was like what are you going to get out of it what is she going to do be like oh

[01:44:54] I've been waiting for you to say hello to me let's go to the stinking rose downtown and get married but it's just there was nothing to be gained from doing that and it was I like unlocked the thing in my head where I was like you know what

[01:45:14] sometimes it's really better to just have the mystery and I'm just going to allow myself to have this mystery and I'm just going to continue hanging out in this space that I'm enjoying and that's kind of how I felt about Walt's apartment just like well what if

[01:45:32] it's not cool what if it's just an old guy's apartment all that stuff and you got to see the pot that you served coffee from and the jug that he served Tom and Jerry's from yeah but I mean like what if it doesn't hit

[01:45:52] the way I feel it he's a small man he's a very tiny person and then I was going through some decisions about how to deal with recent events and it occurred to me that this is something that had my father been with it and around to go to

[01:46:22] the park with me he would absolutely insist that we do this mm-hmm there's an opportunity to do this and it only cost $100 do it right he would definitely he wouldn't tell me that we were doing it because he would know my my hesitation and he would just

[01:46:48] surprise me with it and knowing that and knowing the significance of that trip I thought well I'm going to at the very least be able to have an emotional connection to this apartment that actually means something because I'm doing it at this time in this way

[01:47:12] that's a very specifically me way of dealing with the motion and memories but that's just hey no that's important yeah you've got this connection with your dad in the parks and yeah I think that's very significant so I figured if the apartment itself kind of is underwhelming

[01:47:34] it will at least always have this tie this connection that I will know that I don't necessarily need to share with anybody else um so having said that you're a podcaster so you're going to share five shower heads everybody right shower oh my god um but

[01:48:00] to answer your question um I remember that moment where our tour guide was like okay now it's my very personal privilege to him like okay yeah whatever lady um and I'm like trying to work up like how should I feel about this which like what's this is weird

[01:48:26] I'm not a big deal it's something that I've thought about for longer than most people think about anything like this and this is kind of this is this is this is significant right yeah and and I remember going in and kind of being like this is really weird

[01:48:48] that just that I'm here because it's somebody else's house it's somebody else's house and on top of that it's like I feel like the way that they handle this part of it is really good because um they know that this is why you go on this tour

[01:49:06] right they sprinkle on some other things but this is really why you go on it and I was worried that it would be just like okay here's the apartment take your picture and goodbye um but I think that they really understood or they understand kind of the emotional

[01:49:28] weight that it can be for people for various reasons um and I think that um being in there and this is just my experience being in there the the emotion the significance that I expected to feel while I walked through the door kind of just slowly

[01:49:52] and in a very manageable way like faded in on me where it was like oh this is the place and I can look out that window and that's the view I mean it's changed but that's the view that this person that I admire very much had and

[01:50:14] yeah from the opening day of the park and how must he have felt to see it busy as opposed to how I feel seeing it busy you know um did your guide tell you the story of the mouse kateers on opening day that was the time I cried

[01:50:32] yeah me too was hearing that Walt was crying watching this all happen yeah Mr. Disney why are you crying gosh that hit me so hard like what is that like to have this massive dream fulfilled built the park in a year right he mortgaged everything he owned

[01:51:00] yeah that's significant like wow yeah and I think that you know it's it's just it's weird because it's like I'm sorry I haven't given you a chance to share your experience Eric what I had like an old apartment back to you Dan okay yeah I get it

[01:51:26] it was an interesting experience like I said I thought I would be more emotional because it was so built up in my head like wow this is the place Walt Disney slept here entertained guests here and I get to $100 to go and see it yeah but

[01:51:50] like the man was naked in that shower over there he sure was wow five shower heads that's way more shower heads than I have I only have two in my shower um I'm a pretty big deal but just being in there and spending so much

[01:52:10] time in there it made it it made it real in a way that was humbling but it's just a place yeah and I liked how they kind of you know they can oversell the Disney magic and they can get into over imagine their nonsense from time to time

[01:52:34] I think one at least my tour guide was very good at this she was very good at just kind of pointing out that like he was just a dude who was really into some stuff and he had the ability to engage in this insane hobby that he had

[01:52:58] and isn't it cool that we're all able to like kind of continue to share in what that was you know yeah that's just it yeah it made him feel like a real person again right a man spent time here regularly yeah and so do you think

[01:53:22] he will feel more or less like a real person when part of the tour is seeing the Walt Disney animatronic they had to great moments Mr. Lincoln oh dan you know there's you know that that's right I have not heard that now just bring the hologram

[01:53:45] the weird one that was from an age where everybody's like I don't remember Walt Disney being 56 or bring that guy that they weirdly hired like a couple years ago when they reopened the parks to walk around dressed like Walt Disney oh gosh oh that ugh

[01:54:07] step into the bathroom folks so you can't pee in Walt's toilet because the tiles will crack so yeah next time next time I go in there I'm gonna come up with a brinino contraption to do that and that's a reference that Eric will get sometime later

[01:54:25] in Bowie's planning some of the Bowie's planning folks we've had a good time everybody Jimmy wasn't here to win the terror it's just the two of us giggling for an hour I suspect that if it's any combination of two of us doing this it will be that

[01:54:53] yeah I think you and Jimmy would have the giggles me and Jimmy would speak very somberly about a topic and then giggle maybe I don't know we used to do those ad spots together it's a weird balance it's an interesting interesting balance to the three of us giggling

[01:55:15] now even at all I haven't known you for too long enough yeah so yeah I guess the point is these tours are I think for me my concern was that I would walk away feeling like okay that was all scripted you know that fake disney

[01:55:43] improvisation that can happen where it's just like and it happens usually in the middle of shows where it's like ooh so and so forgot your guitar ooh and it's just like it's planned chaos and it's sound it's played off like this is the first time

[01:56:03] that it's ever happened meanwhile you can tell by the like social cues from the people slinging funnel cake at you at the snack stand right by it it happens all the time I was a little bit worried that it would be a lot of that

[01:56:21] with disney it's always there's always some of that there's always some degree that's just what disney is it was a good mix of somber and respectful and fun yeah and I think that that's I think that um I think this goes back to the training

[01:56:43] idea is that like they don't let just anyone do these tours or do these jobs it's like you have to at least be able to do spontaneity convincingly if not legitimately and either one I'm fine with like it didn't yeah there are moments where it's just like

[01:57:03] okay that's in the script and they have to say that but then there's there were times in between with both of these where it was just like oh I'm actually just this is actually just a person and they're it's it's it's that weird feeling

[01:57:17] where it's like when you have an issue at like say the gap and like you're like these pants aren't being pants or whatever and you talk to like the person at the cashier you talk to the cashier they're like I do you want to refund

[01:57:33] they just like I just want you to more I am more pant please and it's like I don't know what you're asking me for I do you have a receipt like they're just it's all very like canned like within the realm of let's figure this out together friend

[01:57:51] right right and then they're like okay I want to talk to your manager and they give you a shift lead and the certificates like well we have other pants that you might be interested in right over here and we can use store

[01:58:03] credit like oh my god I just want some to acknowledge that what I just said is a thing that can actually exist and then they have like and then you go through all the management levels and then all of a sudden the like district manager

[01:58:15] just happens to be in the building and you're like they tell you about the other pants and there and the district manager's like oh yeah totally these pants can totally need to be more pants you're like thank you you can keep my money I just wanted

[01:58:29] someone to acknowledge that that's that and it's like you have to go through all these layers of people who have to engage in like the Tom Fullery of corporate crap in order to reach this like other person who has been approved to kind of play Lucy

[01:58:51] customer service jazz with the very same words like yeah like with the very same customer service crap they just like they know how to deal with it and they know how to treat you like a person that's kind of what the tour guides are they're like that district

[01:59:07] manager's like yeah totally pants are weird right but we have a sale today yeah and they're so genuine I mean seeing Mario the day after our tour when he walks up and you literally punched me in the arm and went hey buddy and then ran away that's awesome

[01:59:27] that he came back again later and said hi and talked to me for a minute but but you know that was like he's just having fun this is the epitome of a Disney cast member is somebody who's like I get paid to tell people things

[01:59:47] by the way listener if you see Mario around tell him we said hi I mean that I think he might look at you funny but he might appreciate it has to touch his hair his hair was immaculate my good is that man's

[02:00:01] hair I should have complimented his hair when we were there I think he might have actually taken a selfie on my phone I haven't checked it took a secret selfie on all this like because we handed him the phone to take pictures of us and then

[02:00:15] that was a picture of me maybe that should be our cover we'll do the silhouettes everybody he totally did he did take a picture of oops there we go that man that's awesome that was so great what a great experience you can't go wrong with any

[02:00:39] of the cast members that are working at that level doing these tours they had like Dan was saying they've got a script to memorize they've got a giant book of knowledge they have to memorize but they're allowed to have some fun right and clear

[02:00:57] I'm not saying that begrudging I understand that they have a job to do I totally get that it's just really nice for me I love when you can deal with people like people and that doesn't happen very often he even asked us at the start

[02:01:11] of the tour informal or formal oh please informal please yes and yet he very quickly gauged the temperature of the group and understood these guys know most of the things I'm going to say let's go yeah it was really fun I think that's kind of

[02:01:31] is there anything else we didn't get to you want to talk about David live we totally saw David from fresh baked oh yeah we did we were oh David live oh you're right the album he did see I feel like we covered it in about 10 minutes

[02:01:51] and he was across the street and we didn't go say hi and as we debated about whether we should go say hi to him he walked away and that was fine because like I said to everybody I was there with him he doesn't know who I am

[02:02:11] I was there with Lynn where Lynn's like oh I've interviewed you multiple times on my show and that was the time that I met David up close where he's like oh here's my friend Eric he does a podcast too cool I don't actually know the guy

[02:02:27] I don't even I think if I'm being really honest with myself he is the person that I have the most parasocial I've watched in that there is a part of my brain and I recognize that this is just entirely my fault but I understand why it exists

[02:02:47] there's a part of my brain that because I see him in the like I want to say three or four times when I'm there I'll see him he's almost always around and I know listener believe me I have insane points of view but like I recognize

[02:03:07] when they're insane and like this isn't one of them I mean wait no this is definitely okay wait how should I go with this I recognize the parts of my brain that function well which is most of it recognize that there is absolutely no reason

[02:03:25] for this man to know who I am or even recognize me from multiple times and like I recognize there would be there's no reason for any amount of reciprocity there whatsoever however there's a part of me a big enough part but I recognize it's insane

[02:03:49] big enough part of me that is sad I walk by him and immediately because like with anyone that you see all the time you'll be like oh hey and then like nothing and I like of course he doesn't know who the hell I am

[02:04:07] I just all I want and I recognize this is stupid and parasocial I just want him to be like oh hey what's up that's it that's all I want I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think that is a noble goal

[02:04:27] and you just need to talk to him and say I'm the troll from the chat who says the things Eric why would you ever assume that I would troll a chat I'm sorry I'm the clever gentleman with all the witticisms in the chat I don't say inflammatory remarks

[02:04:47] I respond to inflammatory remarks I've never been dated Bowie I don't know what you're talking about anyway I get it though I think that's the end we've been doing it's just the two of us we've been doing this for an hour and ten minutes

[02:05:06] Eric I hope while you're editing this that you're able to come up with some sort of a coherent edit I'm not looking forward to making sure we all match up on on the Mark Twain it should be fine I'm going to be slightly out of sync

[02:05:28] and it's not going to be easy because there's so much background noise we clapped we did clap, we all clapped at different times but then we realized maybe only Dan should clap so if you would also like to clap along with the podcasts or several podcasts that exist

[02:05:50] on this network did Jim do the full did he? on Sunday I recorded the end of the theme song now go ahead tell people about our shows our friends let's see we have a show called puny pod it's where they talk about very small things

[02:06:16] also they will sometimes talk about Marvel movies and Eric I think Jimmy is going to be on that show oh is he? maybe, I think he's going to talk I'm going to be on the next adventures one I should be on there again that was fun

[02:06:34] my goodness the way you your take on Thor 2 being what they could have said is this horrible pun my goodness what a good take I was very impressed just pointing out that it could have been way worse always happy to do opposite punch up let's see what else

[02:07:00] puny pod Bantamilk also known as milk milk lemon eliminated around the corner Bantamilk, I'm pretty sure that's why they changed their name they talk about did you drop off water at their trailer the other day? a while ago oh I hope they're still alive yeah

[02:07:22] you feel like there would be a smell if they weren't anyway, if they're still alive in making podcast episodes they're probably talking about a little something that everyone loves called the acolyte everybody loves it starring a squid game guy and other people matrix lady and all in high

[02:07:48] definitely not birthed by two women definitely not I have disengaged entirely from Star Wars everything after episode 9 I'm sorry Star Wars fans, I don't like you anymore these people if you're really super into Star Wars and you don't have a podcast oh they need podcasts

[02:08:21] and I don't know how to say this Star Wars has officially become the most divorced dad thing that ever existed that's fair I'm worried I'm worried about Star Wars fans this is not part of the plug for the podcast it has nothing to do with it's positive but

[02:08:49] holy crap Star Wars fans when Tiana's Bayou Adventure opens and all of the Disney fans forget that Splash Mountain was a thing which is gonna happen you're gonna be the loudest voice in the room and you're a bunch of babies I don't know what to tell you

[02:09:13] anyway listen to that show they're not babies not my Star Wars yeah I don't look I see what they're seeing and like the whole like but it's just like you know at some point you just also there's my favorite podcast scraping the vault

[02:09:39] you don't need to go into this place of grievance and like how it's so hard to be a white male and it's like shut up you're right shut up Star Wars fans listen to scraping the vault I mean you're watching a movie that's just

[02:10:01] space magic and you're complaining about like I can't believe it's a diversity okay cool does the complain about the story the story sucks you don't need to complain about like so and so has slightly more it's just like you know look it's just shut up Star Wars fans

[02:10:25] we all agree Boba Booy Frick is pretty great though I don't even know who that for all I know that's Howard Stern's producer Boba Booy I have no idea you need to learn about the Frick because you know what I saw that Star Wars was becoming stupid

[02:10:43] around episode 9 and I was just like he's never really 9 is there a best part of 9 is there a best part of 9 yes Boba Booy Frick who is that he's a very small man oh yeah okay no he's fine he's totally in that but

[02:11:07] Star Wars fans the point is shut up uh script that fault my favorite show on the internets yep we just finished Cinderella 3 and we'll have another episode sometime in August they're doing the tinker the tinkerverse soon maybe next year for the next episode we're working on being more

[02:11:33] your twice annual podcast yeah we're working on it uh what else do we got ears up if you want to give me talk about old men yeah ears up now with less in depth which is a good thing yep he doesn't listen to the show that's fine yeah

[02:11:57] until how does it go this is why I don't host the show until next time he did the court is adjourned thing okay court is still adjourned court is still adjourned uh we love it fresh baked at the end alright well thank you listener thanks

[02:12:36] for listening hope you enjoyed that touring plan a little bit about concierge a little bit about new experiences with Disneyland a little bit about VIP tours and other tours you can take at the disney resort so again listener thank you for listening also until next time sorry

[02:12:50] I if you don't mind me adding because we are kind of thinking about new ways to approach the show if this is the kind of show that you would like to hear more of please let us know absolutely like the the trip report

[02:13:02] kind of thing something that we intend to do a lot of but if it's if it's something that you want from us then it's something we can do you know absolutely because we are going to the parks a lot also we went to benihana dan's first trip experience

[02:13:14] to benihana oh yeah will we do an episode about tepanyto versus benihana yes absolutely um anyway alright well until next time folks be good to each other and court is adjourned and fresh baked oh we saw him