The Case of the Hotel Pools: Salty 16

[00:00:16] 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 better. Thank you for joining us, I'm Jimmy. Thanks for joining us on this quest and greater good of humanity, etc, etc. It burns! Yada yada. Yada yada. Joining me as always is Dan.

[00:00:45] Hi, let's do the show. Great! And Eric is also here, Eric. It burns! It is March, ladies and gentlemen, it is March, it is time for March Insanity because we'd get sued if we call it March Madness. March Mental Illness. I will not say March Madness, I refuse to say it because we will get sued. Wow. So it's not March Madness, it is the third month and running down. Can we call it March Mental Illness, please? March Mental Illness.

[00:01:14] And this year... It's more sensitive. Yes. Last year, you may recall, we did the sexiest robot in all of presidents. This year it is pools. What is the best Disney pool? Hmm. Now, there are more pools at Disney World, so you're going to hear us talk more about Disney World pools just because there's more of them. But this isn't a versus Land V World, this is more which is the best Disney pool.

[00:01:40] Now, there is a wild card in there with some home or excuse me, some the good neighbor hotels because there are some of those and they need to be acknowledged. So we're going to do a little wild card on the good neighbor hotels. And then we're going to break down 32 pools at Disneyland and Disney World. And we're going to get to our not sweet 16, but because it's pools, the salty 16. Mmm. Lots of salt. Salty 16.

[00:02:09] That's what pools are known for. That's right. It's their salt. I mean, you got sweat and kids urine. It tastes salty. No, no, you're right. Anyway, don't taste the pools. Yeah, don't taste the urine either. Don't drink the water. Anyway, so the salty 16, that will be our next episode with our special guest host, Tag. And just as a reminder, Tag chose the best cue at all Disney resorts was Spider-Man. Just oh, yeah, that's that guy. That's that's how we.

[00:02:39] Okay. Last year. So this is this. This is an audio medium, but we the three of us can see each other. So this is going to this is an anonymous poll, but who has peed in the pool? Raise your hand. I've peed in the queue for Spider-Man. Eric. Okay. Hold on. It's an audio medium. Sorry, I didn't. I didn't raise my hand. I haven't peed any place inappropriate. I would argue that. Oh, I peed. Or is appropriate.

[00:03:08] Alternately appropriate. I peed at the at the Riviera. I it was it was late. I had to pee really bad. I was on my way to the car. You walked past a bathroom. It was so far. And then no, you literally walked past the bathroom. Maybe I did, but I didn't see it and I was on my way to the car. I had to go and there's a little square of bushes that are kind of covering up some backflow preventers and whatnot. So I just went in those bushes and it was liberating.

[00:03:38] Proud of you. But it wasn't good for you. Anyway, you walked past a bathroom. They I don't remember what it was or what the what the context is, but it was a joke. I want to say like my college roommate wet the bed and like, well, that happens like no from across the room. I just think that's funny. It's a funny visual. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, we are going to are we going to dive right in? Well done. Well done. Well done, Daniel.

[00:04:07] So before we do that, we have a special theme song for the pools. But again, we're going to take we're going to start with the wild card and are going to get us to 32 hotel pools. Listener for some logic here. We have broken it down into four categories, and I will explain the logic at a later time. But for now, we're going to get into the wild card and then Eric and I just got back from Disney World and we're going to talk about that trip after we've established the salty 16. Yep. So Eric, let's take it away with our theme song. Hello, my friend.

[00:04:37] Nobody asked for this. The water is warm. Let's take a dip. From welcome, dear friends, where the water shine bright. With palm trees a swaying and the ticky torch is light. At Stormalong Bay, the tide rolls so free. But down on harbor, there's a slight mystery well. The Polynesian calls you to rest.

[00:05:05] With a pineapple drink and a deep cabana chest. But slip past the gates to a budget motel. And you might just find yourself under a spell. A tropical scene where the chlorine is strong and the cocktails are means. To that motel steep end, just float on your troubles.

[00:05:35] But watch where you've been. Riviera's Pool. A Riviera's Pool has a European flair. While down the road, well you'd best not stare. At Grand Californian, the waters run clear. But across the street, a puddle of fear. Mork a band-aid flat to sanitize. But hey! It's a holiday so let's not be sad.

[00:06:05] Just sip your Mai Tai and ignore the ban. And the jets softly steal your own risk. But don't do the math. Gently call. Palm trees stand tall.

[00:06:34] But the lifeguard is sleeping. So hootie ball should be. And a mystery liquid drifts back to the sea. The best news is we can talk, but we don't have to talk during it because it's an original. Oh that's right. Yeah we should. Nothing like the swim at sunset. We should. I think we can, we don't need to play all the chairs. Yeah we can fade it out.

[00:07:04] How long is this song? I don't know. I think they're all around two and a half. They're around two and a half, four minutes. Yeah. And so this is for the listeners who have complained about the Hotels Hotels songs becoming increasingly ridiculous. This is a different song. It is. It's about pools. It's about pools. Not about hotels. No. Hotel pools. Hotel pools. So we have four categories, listener.

[00:07:33] They are deluxe, DVC, moderate, and value. You'll find that some of the, like for example, moderate hotels, some of them I ran out of room. I had too many hotels in the category and then others not enough. So there's some logic. I'm not going to explain it. It is what it is and nobody cares. So we're going to start with the wild card in our value hotel bracket. Now these hotels may not be value hotels, but they're going to be in our value hotel bracket.

[00:08:00] These four wild card hotels are the Cambria in Anaheim, the Courtyard in Anaheim, the Anaheim Hotel in guess where? Anaheim. Anaheim. Wow. And the Howard Johnson's also in Anaheim. Those are the four good neighbor hotel pools that are of note. And we're going to just go in order as they're listed on our spreadsheet. So we're going to start with the Cambria versus the Courtyard.

[00:08:28] Now you may remember if you listen to our series on the value and moderate hotels that we did talk about these pools. Uh, both of them water playgrounds to some extent and how this is going to work as majority rules, majority rules on the winner. Oh. The three of us, there are three. So if two or more agree, then that is the winner. This podcast is still democracy. That's right. It still exists somewhere. Okay. So Cambria versus Courtyard. Wait, real quick.

[00:08:58] Are we taking into account the hotel that the pool is attached to? Oh, no. This is a hotel pools episode has nothing to do with the hotel. It's about. Yeah. Okay. So the pool is good or is the pool? Not good. Okay. That's fair. Exclusively about the pool. Like, for example, would you rather sleep in the all star or go to the all star pool? It doesn't really matter about the sleeping. It's about the pool. Would you rather sleep in these pools is what you're saying. That's exactly right. We got it. Okay.

[00:09:27] So the Cambria or the Courtyard. Dan, talk to us a little bit about the Cambria hotel pool. Just a reminder. The Cambria is the hotel that is kind of by the five freeway on Catella. It's again, this isn't about the hotels, but just for reference, this is the one that's probably furthest away of all of them. It has water slides. I believe. I don't think that there are two water slides. There are water slides.

[00:09:55] So the slides considered part of this? Oh, absolutely. I would think so. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I'm going to look at the water park. It has two water slides. There's there are 30,000 square feet of water park at the Cambria. Wow. So much peeing that you could do in that pool. That's right. There's splash pads there. According to this, there are ethnically diverse children sitting by the pool having so much fun together.

[00:10:25] Um, I looks like it looks like, okay, my read on it is minimal compared to others in terms of water park. The water slides don't look like they're super high, but they look like they're high enough. Um, that said, I think do you, do we know, do you remember, do we remember if you have to pay or make reservations to get into the water park?

[00:10:52] Um, now at the courtyard, um, there are specific time slots that you're allowed in. Um, let's see water park. Uh, please note Augustine. It's a free breakfast water park. Uh, sure. Make, I'm not seeing anything about you needing to book ahead for the quote water park, which might be a plus, uh, featuring two water slides, pop up jets and a splash pad. Mm hmm.

[00:11:20] Have the time of your life without leaving the hotel. Our water park makes us stand out amongst other hotels near Disneyland. Okay. So they never let you leave the hotel, which is a negative. That's right. And the courtyard has specific time slots that you have to be in. You can't just come and go. Uh, there's an outdoor heated swimming pool, a children's pool with a beach style entry, smaller water slides.

[00:11:45] Uh, there's a, uh, a drench bucket and fountain features at the courtyard. Hmm. So in the interest of time, based on that information, they both look to have the little pop up jets. Uh, it doesn't look like there's a pool at Cambria as much as there are water slides. There is a pool. I have the ethnically diverse children are, that's right. Yeah. I see.

[00:12:12] Um, but I don't know as the size of the pool. Um, let, okay. So there is a pool, which is fine. And when you're, let's face it, it's probably for kids for the most part, when you're a kid, every pool is a pool. I'm just, I'm going to, I'm going to just, this might, every pool is amazing. Every pool is amazing. And this actually might come to bite me when we get to Anaheim hotel. Um, but I'm going to stick with it. Pools are pools and they're all good.

[00:12:39] Um, even a 30,000 square foot water park. Yeah. We'll see. Uh, yeah. Uh, in terms of water parks, I would, I'm leaning towards courtyard. I think has the better water park. Oh, okay. But, but you're not limited at the Cambria. As far as we know, I does. I, I'm, I'm, it appears that you are not courtyard.

[00:13:08] That bucket, that bucket, the buckets were very fun. Buckets are fun. Everybody likes buckets. And now it's time for a vote. Uh, Dan Cambria or courtyard? Uh, Eric, do you have anything that can sway me? Cause I'm my, my, my, uh, leftist populism is making me lean a little bit more towards Cambria, but I'm looking at that bucket. I want that bucket. I mean, the buckets cool. Uh, courtyard.

[00:13:38] They've got a taller slide maybe, but it's just one. It is just one. It is just one. It's not two slides. Um, yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to go Cambria. Yeah. Oh wait, hold on. They have, I'm looking, I'm looking at courtyard. I see two slides. I see two slides. Oh, one, one is open. The other one is a tube. Open. One is a tube slide. Okay. Okay.

[00:14:06] I have, I have, that's the same at Cambria. Dan same at Cambria. Okay. Okay. And an open, but this has, okay. At courtyard, I'm looking at these pictures. They have a splash pad combined with where all, and I'm going to use the proper terminology. Where all the little kid slides are not where the big kid slides are. Cause those are different. Um, so, huh?

[00:14:33] I, and a courtyard also has a little kitty, a little kitty waiting pool. Yeah. There's a little zero entry pool. Yeah. I think, and the bucket, the bucket really, I do love that. Oh man. Um, okay. So Dan, I'm going to go. Cartyard. Cartyard. Eric. Okay. I think I'm, I'm swayed. Let's go. Courtyard. Courtyard. Bucket wins. Look at that. Bucket wins. Okay. Well, in proximity and it's a Marriott brand.

[00:15:01] Although my wife just stayed in a Marriott brand, uh, in Valdosta, Georgia on Friday night and there were bed bugs. Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. Extra bonus. Um, life nightlife. A little extra. Okay. Now we're moving on to Anaheim hotel versus Howard Johnson's versus Howard Johnson's. Okay. First of all, Howard Johnson has two pools.

[00:15:30] One is the garden pool. That's where all that's right. That's where all that's the adult pool, which has so many implications. Nothing dirty happens there. Um, and then there's a castaway cove, which is the water ticketed thing. You have to get a ticket. Oh, do you pay extra? You have to pay extra. Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. But you do get speedy, the friendly turtle. Um, Reservations are not required. Seating is a

[00:16:00] Curvy water slide. Two water umbrellas. This one's themed. It is. And, and spoiler alert, the, uh, the Anaheim hotel is a giant rectangle. The end. Yeah, but it's, it's big and it has. That's, that's a pool. Um, maybe you don't have to pay for castaway cove. I don't, maybe you don't.

[00:16:27] Let's assume that you don't since we haven't done it. Let's, let's not assume the worst here. Okay. So here's another rule. Since we haven't done a ton of research, let's assume good as opposed to bad. Unless we have something. So four mini water cannons, water curtain, two waterfall umbrellas, toddler waiting pool, beach style entry speedy, the friendly turtle and 13 water fountains bubbling whirlpool spa with foot and back jets. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who's who's speedy? Speed is the friendly turtle, Eric.

[00:16:57] Well, I know he's the friendly turtle, but is he. And there's a bucket to Dan. Yeah. There's a bucket and water cannons. Um, oh man, this is gonna be tough. I do have to say though, I'm not seeing a strong presence for the big kid slides. No, but there's no slides at all at the Anaheim hotel. I'm going to go ahead and put my vote in, uh, Howard Johnson. Okay. Just put Eric on the spot. I'm going to go with Anaheim hotel because it has.

[00:17:24] So this is the one where the pool isn't necessarily for the kids. The kids still will love the pool cause it's a pool and it's big and you can play around and you could splash in it, but they have like movies at night. Uh, it's a bit, it's like an Olympic size pool. So if you actually want like a pool for swim, swim, you can do that. Uh, they have bar service by the pool.

[00:17:52] Um, that's not to say that Howard Johnson's doesn't. That's true. But Anaheim hotel has more of the, it's more of the adult party time kind of vibe. And the pool definitely reflects that, but not in an obnoxious way, which I feel like one of the pieces of music we'll play in a little bit. We'll demonstrate that. Um, but it's not like, Hey, it's a party. Like everyone's on meth or whatever people do to have fun these days.

[00:18:20] It's like, Hey, it's a, it's a pool. We're all adult. We're being reasonable. There's floaties. We're watching. The kids are watching a movie. The adults get to sip a little cocktail and then you get like perfect viewing for the. The fireworks. Okay. So just a little, your point has been heard. Uh, here's what I'm gonna say. Whoever wins this is going to go against the courtyard. So a vote for the Anaheim hotels, a vote for the courtyard. That's all I'm saying.

[00:18:48] And, uh, it's if you, if we choose Howard Johnson, if we choose Howard Johnson's it's bucket versus bucket. Oh God. Okay. I'm the Howard Johnson. You got me. You got me on bucket versus bucket. All right. So now we are Eric. Eric, you don't get a vote because majority rules. Don't wait. Okay. Majority rules. It doesn't count when there are two of you. I'm going to say, and so I'm going to say three. I'm going to say Anaheim then. And Eric gets to make the deciding vote. Hojo. Yay.

[00:19:18] There it is. Okay. I like the Hojo pool. It looks cool. Um, it's open until 10 PM. That's, that's too early. It is. Well, I think so is the courtyard. Yeah. Um, courtyard also has a great view of the fireworks. It's on an upper level. Yeah. But, um, I would imagine the Hojo also has a pretty good view of the fireworks because you can see the Matterhorn from. True. Yeah. I was still back at the, trying to convince Dan of not Anaheim hotel.

[00:19:47] Cause he said something about fireworks and I'm saying that there's a building between you and the fireworks at Anaheim hotel. Whereas at the courtyard in the Howard Johnson, there is no building between you and the hotel. I like Anaheim hotel, but it's, it's down the road a little way. No, it's across the street. It's fine. It's, it's both. Oh, I see your point from the fireworks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay.

[00:20:11] So now it is about the courtyard, courtyard bucket, courtyard bucket versus castaway cove, both with buckets. Uh, it does not appear to have an adult slide at the castaway cove. It is kind of more meant for children, but there is also a adult pool, like you mentioned, the garden pool, whereas the courtyard doesn't appear to have a garden pool.

[00:20:35] So I'm going to go ahead and say that there's that, that is a bonus because if you don't want to deal with the disgusting children, you can just go to the adult pool. Multicultural disgusting children. Mm hmm. No, equally disgusting in there. It seems like all of these are homogenous. These. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at the picture there. Yeah. I was lying. I just, I just, I just come ride the S curvy water slide. There is a big boy water slide. S curvy scurvy.

[00:21:04] Oh, okay. I am going to say from what I'm seeing and what I've seen in person, the castaway cove seems like you are less on display. Okay. Where the, the, the courtyard is, it's just a thing on top of the park, the parking structure. Where everyone can see that stay on that hotel.

[00:21:28] Well, and it's, it's, it's not so much that as it is the, like, it's just there, there's not a feeling of it being, there's no sense of place. There's no, like, I mean, granted, Howard Johnson, there's barely an enclosure, but there is an enclosure. There's a, there's a building next to you that is, you know, kind of. Yeah. Kind of shady. Now I will say it doesn't seem like a place. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. From the monorail. True. Oh yeah.

[00:21:58] But it's just like, by, by just enough of a margin to me, castaway cove feels more like a sense of place. Okay. Yep. I agree. Eric, what is your stance on Howard Johnson's Howard Johnson's wins the wild card bracket and Chewbacca's butthole is been disqualified. Oh no. Yep. Yep.

[00:22:25] Everybody who is not looking at this bracket, which is all of you. Okay. So now we are going to the main show. It's now we're down to 32, everybody. 32. 32. Hey, Jimmy, you want to talk about our trip to Walt Disney World? Not until we get to 16. We got to get to the salty 16. Oh, we got to get to 16 first. Okay. Yes. We're going to do business. Wow. Okay.

[00:22:51] So there are now four brackets, the deluxe, DVC, moderate and value. Oh. Howard Johnson is in the value bracket. So is the villas at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, because I didn't have a room for it anywhere else. Oh, good. That's a value. Yeah. Sure. And then the campsites. It was valuable for you to put it there. That's exactly right. It was useful and valuable. So there is value in it being there. Right.

[00:23:17] So should we start with the value or the deluxe? Let's go with your attention, please. Uh, DVC because, uh, and this isn't being critical. I, I, I've been kind of talking over Eric a lot and I don't know anything about these pools and he might. You too. I think we both do. I've stayed in all of them. You too. All you have special DVC privileges. I am still a member of Ralph's club and that counts for something.

[00:23:46] Um, so. So we're going to do this. How many Ralph's points do you have? I don't know. You guys talk and I'll look it up. Okay. So there are eight hotels in the DVC category. They are Bay Lake Tower, which is different from the contemporary. Boulder Ridge at Villa's, uh, Disney's Wilderness Lodge. Uh huh. Disney's Animal Kingdom Villa's Kidani Village, which is the DVC. Oh yeah. The Beach Club, which is also the Yacht Club.

[00:24:16] The Boardwalk Village. So the Beach Club Villas, excuse me, is different from the Beach and Yacht Club pool. The Boardwalk Villas, Old Key West Resort, Polynesian Village, and Saratoga Springs. Those are the eight hotel pools. Um, out of the gate, uh, Eric, the Beach Club Villas and the Boardwalk Villas are going to go against each other because they're both just kind of quiet pools.

[00:24:43] If you're just talking about the quiet pools, then, uh, then yeah. Uh huh. Because the Boardwalk Hotel is in a different category with the Scary Clown pool. Oh, well, the Scary Clown pool is gone. That's true. The Scary Clown is gone. The pool is still there. Yes, the pool is still there. Still a great, um, water slide. I couldn't find out how many Ralph, Ralph's points I have. Which ones are you talking about right now? So I could like the Beach Club Villas, which is quiet pool, and the Boardwalk Villas, which is basically a quiet pool.

[00:25:14] Hmm. Um, oh, the Boardwalk pools, the quiet pools versus the Beach Club quiet pools. So my vote on the beat, on the Boardwalk quiet pool, they both are on a waterway. Uh huh.

[00:25:36] The Boardwalk pool, the DVC pool is larger and it is on the way to the, um, it's across from the Swan and Dolphin and it is on the way to Hollywood Studios. Right. And there are two of them. Two Boardwalk quiet pools on the water, best place to see an alligator on property. Hmm. The Beach Club quiet pools also two.

[00:26:05] Uh, one is incredibly close to the entrance of Epcot and one is also on a waterway, but they're both very small. Well, from experience at both, I am going to vote for the Boardwalk pools, larger, close to a large body of water, a lot of alligator viewing and friendship boat viewing. Okay, that, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:32] So that's my vote is the Boardwalk pools and the Beach Club pools are just going to be overshadowed by Stormalong Bay. Yeah, I think that's fair. I, I agree. I agree. The, the Beach Club pools, the, yeah, they have quiet pools, but they're, they are tiny. It's like, well, why don't you go down to the big pool?

[00:26:53] When, when, when I do the big pool and, um, yeah, it doesn't, it, it diversifies. It's, uh, it's pool poolness. Yep. Mm-hmm. So I vote Boardwalk, Boardwalk. Dan, your vote doesn't count, but please vote. No, it doesn't count. I, you're saying Boardwalk. I, I've, I've only, I have been to the Boardwalk, um, but I haven't been to the villas. I am looking at the pictures though.

[00:27:23] And I, the villas feel like a more exclusive experience from the pictures alone. Which villas? Which villas? They're both villas, Dan. They're both villas. Sorry, sorry. Disney Beach, uh, the Beach Club villas. Um, look. Oh, they're, they're out of date, but okay. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. No, I'll, I'll go with you on that. I've never written that. Okay. So the Boardwalk villas win this round and we are going to move on to, uh, let's see.

[00:27:51] Old Key West and, um, trying to think. Okay. So we're going to do blue, the Boulder Ridge. Oh. At villas at Disney's Wilderness Lodge versus Disney's Polynesian Village Resort. Wow. Oh, so not Old Key West. Not Old Key West. I'm trying to keep them in. No, no, that's fine. So specifically. Yeah.

[00:28:20] Specifically the DVC tower at Polynesian. Is this the new? Yes. Polynesian Village pool? Oh, shoot. Versus the old? Oh, I've really made a mistake now. Oh no. Jimmy. Cause I, there should be two Polynesian and the, the villas. Oh, what have you done? Oh no. What have I done? What the hell? Oh no. Here's what we're going to do. Oh shoot. Oh no. Uh, okay. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Do we need a song break?

[00:28:50] Do we need a song break? Let's take a break. We're not halfway done yet, but we can. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's the thing. Okay. The Polynesian Village Resort is separate from the DVC. Is there a pool at the DVC tower? Put your hands up if you love to swim. Hold on. I'm putting my hands up because I love to swim. Eric? Sorry. I'm putting my hands up because I love to swim. Cause we're friends to water so blue. Is there a distant unrelated crowd?

[00:29:20] Sure. The pool deck is popping and the DJ's got you. The DJ hyping himself. Storn along his waves. The party is hot. But over on Harbor, uh, maybe not. No reason. Every word is shouted like it's the most important thing ever. Pools. Do anybody know? Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's a separate pool. I think. Yeah.

[00:29:49] There's a separate pool. There is a separate pool. There are so many pools at Polynesian. Okay. So what we're really arguing here is the cove pool. No, we're not. Cause that's one of the volcano, isn't it? Uh, yeah. Cause there's the volcano family pool. Then there's the like quiet. That's the lava pool. That's different. Yeah. So we're talking about the cove pool specifically, which is the different pools for the DVC. areas. Where's the second one?

[00:30:20] Oh, there's that big oval pool. The, the Oasis pool is different. I'm not seeing the villas on Google maps. Well, I'm looking on their website. Was the cove pool there before? Oasis pool. The cove pool was, um, it's a newer. Immediately air horns again. Yeah. Yeah. Because here's the problem that I have is that the Polynesian right now,

[00:30:46] there is no representation of the Polynesian village resort in the deluxe category. So what we would have to do is we would have to take one out because we could just say that beach club, the storm along Bay is going to win everything and just take it out of the, take it out of play. Or we give it a buy. Hmm. Well, is that the one, is that where you were saying we can add one? Yeah, but I just couldn't figure out how it would work. So a buy.

[00:31:17] So if we give storm along Bay a buy until like another round, but we're going to have to eliminate, by the way, I love how into sports this shows that we are. That's right. That's right. So we might have to give it storm along Bay a buy in order to put Polynesian village, or do we just decide that storm along Bay is the best hotel pool and it's not even up for debate. So all we're doing in the 32. I don't. Yeah. I don't want to do that. I mean, it's, it's closed now.

[00:31:46] Well, we know, we know tag is going to have some weird opinions. That's true. Some people don't like a sand bottom pool. Like talking to our, our coworkers. Some of them were not happy with that pool. Storm along. Yeah. Okay. Uh, in short, I don't know how to do this. Great. Okay. So, um, so here's what we're going to do.

[00:32:16] We are going to just ignore the village aspect of the Polynesian. Okay. We're just going to ignore it. Because they're boring pools. Well, I, yeah. All right. So we're going to say ignore that, but the Polynesian village resort is going to be in the DVC category still. So here's what I'm going to say. Uh, the, the, this current bracket is going to be Bay Lake tower at Disney's contemporary resort versus the Boulder Ridge villas at wilderness. Lodge. Okay.

[00:32:45] So this is the contemporary resort is the, sorry. Bay Lake tower is at the contemporary resort, but it's got its own pool. It's got its own leisure pool. Separate from the contemporary hotel. And it is a lovely pool. It's got a water slide. Uh huh. Does it have a bucket? It doesn't have a bucket. It's got a water slide, a big boy water slide, and it's got a little boy water slide too. Hmm. No bucket though.

[00:33:15] Hmm. No bucket. Hmm. No bucket. And then the, it's going up against the villas at the Boulder Creek, Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney's Boulder's Lodge. Also the Copper Creek. It's the same pool. So they've been bucketed together. No pun intended. Inspired by the Pacific Northwest. 67 foot long water slide. Okay. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

[00:33:40] So now the Boulder Ridge Villas doesn't have. Ooh, I'm liking the water slide. I'm liking water on water a lot. Okay. Water on water. What do you mean? Yeah. Like, like you're in the pool and you see the, the, the alligator infested lake right by you. Yeah. I'm not saying that that doesn't happen at both places, but I'm just looking at Bay Lake right now. You can see that at Bay Lake. Can't you?

[00:34:09] I, I mean, I'm totally. Yeah. I've been to Bay Lake tower. I own at Bay Lake tower. I I'm already going to vote for the Bay Lake tower pool. Although Dan from the, from the pool, you can't really see Bay Lake. Uh, it's more like the angle that the picture is taken on. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you, you, you can see it. Um, now the Boulder Creek is less of a pool.

[00:34:37] It doesn't have, I am going to say that though, the, the, the water slide though, it is, it is a big kid water side, which is, that's important. It's a big water slide has sort of, it's very nineties Mickey mouse club coded in terms of the design. Sure. Not necessarily a bad thing. I'm just saying. Yep. Uh, as well, the bridge does appear to have umbrellas and perhaps some cabanas.

[00:35:06] Um, the, the slide is going to win it for me. So I'm going to go to Bay Lake tower. I'm a little biased, but I like the slide. I like the feel like the vibe. It's fair. Uh, Bay Lake tower is the winner for me. Um, Boulder. Okay. There it is. Let me check out the pool for boulders. Eric, do you have a strong opinion one way or the other? Is this something that I should be looking up so that I can break a tie? Boulder Ridge is my, my vote. Okay. Okay.

[00:35:35] Um, make your decision. It's loading. Hold on. Take a minute. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Definitely. There's like fake rocks everywhere. Yeah. No fake rocks wins. And there's, there's a slide. That's maybe not a big boy slide, but it's a slide. Um, that's good to know you're both wrong. Um, well, it's in the end. Boulder Ridge, Boulder Ridge villas at Disney's wilderness lodge,

[00:36:04] builder Ridge villas, excuse me, in the cove pool. We're going to move on to Disney's. Is there a geyser at the pool? At that's a different pool. Okay. I'm saying a bucket. Lodge. I'm saying a bucket. Is that wilderness lodge also? It might be. I don't think so. Oh, Amber alert. Oh, no, they're looking for Jimmy. I'm turning that down. Oh, you can't mute that. Nope. Okay.

[00:36:32] Anybody see Grand Cherokee in Georgia? Alert the authorities. Okay. Grand Cherokee, what color? I'm in California. The next one is going to be Polynesian Village Resort versus Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas, is Kidani Village. Ooh. Okay.

[00:36:54] Kidani Village is the villas specific, and the Polynesian village has a volcano. Okay. Which, what's the name of the pool? Village resort. At which? Animal Kingdom? Uh, recreation. Name of the pool. Let's see. We'll get there. Is it the Uzuma or the Samawati? Samawati what? Bless you. Yeah.

[00:37:25] Um, let's see. I'm going to look up images. Oh, wow. That's okay. It's a little, looks like it has a longer slide possibly, or just a weirdly cropped photo. Uh. If it's the Samawati, it's 128 feet long. Okay. Not, but not like, does it's longer, it's long, but maybe less thrilling. It looks like. Okay.

[00:37:50] Looks like the water is, it looks, it looks natural. I'm not saying that it is, but I like that. I like that it looks like it could be a, like a dirty pond that you found, but it's not dirty. Um, like theming wise, you know? Um, Polynesian, there are no pictures. I have to look at it. Google images. Oh, wait, no, the volcano. That's a different thing, right? Yeah. So, well, that's what we're talking about is the volcano.

[00:38:21] Uh. So the Samawati Springs pool, there's a pool bar. Uh-huh. There's the Wanja camp for kiddos. I'm seeing a bucket. There's a spa. Are you seeing a bucket at? At Polynesian. Polynesian? Um, yeah. I see no reason to not go for Polynesian. I mean, it's everything I want from, at least from what I'm seeing here.

[00:38:50] It's everything I want from a Polynesian experience. It's got fake rocks. It has. It has slides. It's got slides. It's also like. It's, it's got just enough of an effort at authenticity that it isn't fully disrespectful, but it doesn't quite get there. So it's just disrespectful enough to be amusing. All right. Polynesian village resort is my vote.

[00:39:20] Same. Okay. Okay. Let's move on to the final two in this category. And I will remind you both that we are, uh, of the 16 we need to get to, this is the fourth. So we'll get there. We may want to speed this up. Those, those numbers don't make any sense to me. That's fine. I'm letting you know that once we're done with the DVC category, we have to do this three more times. Oh. Okay. Old Key West versus Saratoga Springs. They are both resorts that are DVC.

[00:39:50] Old Key West is the original DVC, the very first one. Saratoga Springs is, uh, the sort of the, not the flagship, but it's where the, it's where the, um, where the, like the, the main store or the, you know, the sales office for DVC lives. It's across from the, uh, Disney Springs. Right. Old Key West pool. Oh, okay.

[00:40:19] Is that the one with the sand castle? Yes. Yeah. Same castle as old Key West. Okay. That is that a big boy slide or a little kid slide there. They're both the same amount of, of slide. Okay. Almost. Okay. Now your Saratoga Springs has got a lot of fake rock. Yeah. I'm seeing it. Oh, I'm liking the, they don't have the bucket in the traditional sense, but I like that you I think it's fun. You're talking about at, uh, old Key West. Okay. West. Yeah.

[00:40:50] Um, now there's a Donald duck, kitty fountain, a lot of fake rock, a swimming pool, the bridge. Oh no, I'm sorry. That's at Saratoga Springs. You go down the water, the water tower. That's right. That's whimsical. I like that. It's quite, I've been on it. Um, Oh, and you have a little, Oh, you know what? I just based on what I'm seeing here, I think, I think Saratoga Springs, it's more whimsical. You go down the water tower, which is really fun for me.

[00:41:20] Um, I like, I like the cove feel of Saratoga Springs. It feels very enclosed. Yeah. Whereas the old Key West feels a little more exposed, a little less shade. Well, and, um, I think also older, obviously. Yeah. I think, and this is sort of counter to what I usually go with the, the theming for Saratoga Springs is thorough, but also vague.

[00:41:43] So you can, it's like, it, it can be a lot of different things depending on what you want it to be as you play your make believe games in the pool as children often do. Yes. Fair enough. Where my vote is for Saratoga. Yeah. The sandcastle is just, it's forcing, it's forcing something on me that I don't need. Okay. Eric, I I'm, I'm on board with Saratoga as well. Yeah. I like Saratoga. We have our four in the DVC bracket.

[00:42:11] They are Boulder Ridge Villas at Wilder, at Wilderness Lodge, the Boardwalk Inn Villas, excuse me, and the Polynesian Village and Saratoga Springs. Those are the four of the 16 for our salty 16. Deluxe moderate or value? Moderate. Okay. They are the Caribbean Beach Resort, Coronado Springs Resort, Port Orleans French Quarter, Port Orleans Riverside, Riviera, the cabins at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort,

[00:42:42] Pixar Place Hotel, and the Swan and Dolphin. Hmm. So we're going to start with Port Orleans French Quarter versus Port Orleans Riverside. Okay. Don't they. Same general property. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to step out and let Eric. Riverside has Old Man Island. Indeed. I'm listening. Which is the best.

[00:43:08] That's the one I conflated when we discussed Caribbean Beach. I said, there's a pool on an island. And I was corrected. It is not pool. It is a playground. Thank you, Bethany. Yeah. You were not corrected. You were scolded. Well, a little bit of both. Okay. Yeah. Both things can be true. Old Man Island, Riverside. Old Man Island versus young woman. The swimming pool.

[00:43:36] I'm going to tell you what it's called at the French Quarter. It is called swimming pool. Oh, and it's got, it's a, it's a dumb thing with the dragon. Yes. The dumb thing with the dragon. That's right. Okay. Just the, yeah, no, Riverside. I hate that. Riverside. I hate that. I hate that Supreme dragon so much. You know why? Because when I heard that they were doing a port, like an Orleans thing, and this is how old I was at how old I am.

[00:44:06] Like I was really excited because yeah, New Orleans square is of course the best land. And I really like it. And I was so excited. And it's like, oh, it's going to be all like, you know, the New Orleans square kind of stuff. And I looked at that dumb dragon. I'm just like, no, no, this is, this is a leftover from Disney's obsession with Marty. Sorry. Party raw. And no, I will not accept this. It's a holdover. Okay.

[00:44:33] Unless I'm there with Michael Eisner for him to show me why it should be the best. I'm not, I'm not into it. Okay. Good position. In a similar, in a similar vein, the next two hotels are Disney's Riviera resort versus Disney's Caribbean beach resort hotel pools. The Riviera has two pools. One as the song had intimated is kind of a European theme. Eric had a great view of it from his hotel room last week.

[00:45:04] Mm hmm. And then there's more of a quiet ish pool that's shaped like a grand piano. Yep. Uh, Caribbean beach. Each one of those villages has a pool. Each village has its own pool. Which one, you said the Riviera is a piano. Well, it not intentionally, but it just kind of generally or a coffin. I'm not sure which, but yeah, it's, it's not, it's not a themed pool. Yeah. It's not a themed pool. The quiet pool is just a pool. Okay. So it's got hedges.

[00:45:32] Each one of the villages inside of the Caribbean beach has a pool, but there's a main pool, not on an island. So this is following the Riviera is following in Disney's current thing where they have pool. They have hotels themed to hotels. Is that correct? Sure. Like where it's like, it is themed after other hotels in the world. Yes. No, but I mean like it's, it's themed after like, Hey, here's another hotel. Yeah.

[00:46:01] Like no, like story theme. It's just like, Hey, this is you've, you've stayed at a hotel before. Here's a very nice. The story theme is that Walt used to go to place and there are many pictures of Walt and there are a lot of pictures. Caribbean, Caribbean beach resort is my vote. Okay. So Caribbean beach. So basically what the, we're, we're really arguing here, the Fuentes del Moro feature pool, which has a little tower, splash pad, kitty area. Okay.

[00:46:29] Do you get to aim those cannons or are they just dripping? I'm looking at the website, man. It's just leaking onto random children. If you get to aim those cannons, yeah, Caribbean beach. If you get to aim those cannons, I'm that's, that's, I mean, I'm done. That's, that's the argument right there. But if it's just like weirdly dribbling, like, you know, I won't, I'm not going to make a joke about what it's like to pee as an older person. Okay. Okay.

[00:46:59] As much as I like the Riviera resort. Mm-hmm. Um, the, the pool is Fantasia themed. Okay. And no kids like that. Great. Well, that kid likes it. Problem solved. Both pools are very similar. The main pool has like a water slide and then there's a little kitty area and an adjacent pool. And so it's for my money. Oh, okay. Okay.

[00:47:24] I'm just saying that for just from what I'm seeing here, it looks like the pools at the Caribbean beach resort are like an event. Like if, if let's say like my little sister, you know, got, got sick and like everyone had to stay at the hotel. Be like, you know what? That's fine. Cause the pool is cool. Yeah. And there are lots of pools at Caribbean beach. They're, they're much more fun. Okay. Riviera is kind of like, we have a pool.

[00:47:54] No, I'm getting that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. So Caribbean beach. I'm going to do some of that. And so the. And I don't doubt that the, that the hotel is soup. It's great. It looks like a nice hotel. It's a wonderful hotel. Yeah. It's, it's fantastic. Is that the one that you two were saying is kind of a, a, an underrated gym at the resort? No, that's a Coronado Springs. Got it. Which we're going to get to. Next. Perfect.

[00:48:19] Disney's Coronado Springs resort versus the Swan and Dolphin. Coronado. There's a pyramid with a slide. Yeah. I mean, I would agree. I'm going to, I'm going to also agree that Coronado. Okay. For the, in the interest of time then I will, I'll stay out of it. So Swan and Dolphin is very large just for the listener. It's very large set of pools, pool service, bar service, et cetera. You can eat food. It's a lot. It's very massive.

[00:48:48] It's hard to keep track of your children. You know, what would be really cool is if the monorail went through the center of that pyramid. Yeah. That big, that big black spot that was clearly designated for the monorail. Yeah. That has hotel rooms in it. Yeah. Just crash through them. Yeah. I don't disagree. That should be how they destroy things. Just drive them on a road. We need to have a, have a, um, uh, conspiracy theory episode. Oh, that.

[00:49:18] Oh yes. Yes. You are absolutely speaking my language. So the final two hotels in this category are the cabins at Disney's Fort Wilderness resort and Pixar place. Oh, please hotel. Okay. I'd say cabins. Why is that the one with the big blue pole? Is there, is that's another one, right? That's art of animation. Okay. Okay. I'm seeing a, seeing a water slide.

[00:49:47] I'm seeing splash pad. Um, oh, there's where you get more pictures. Okay. That's fun. Um, nice square pool. Talking about sorry. I must be talking about the Pixar place. Pixar places. It is kind of fun, but I don't know what it's been closed for so long. I just haven't seen it. Like wilderness resort. I'm looking at it. It looks like I'm at camp and I like that. Okay.

[00:50:17] It does feel that way. It is technically, literally you are camping cause it's a campsite. Right? I mean, I will, my, I had to joke in the, in my back pocket of like, it's not dirty enough and I expect it to be dirty when I'm camping. Um, and I like this, this has this, it really does feel like, like there's, there's implied dirtiness to the overall experience, but I'm not, I wouldn't be worried about like whether or not the water is gross. And I mean all of that in a good way.

[00:50:46] Can you get this beginning March 3rd, 2025. That's for the listener tomorrow. Manana. Uh, Pixar place hotel pool will be closed for refurbishment. What the what? I just opened. Uh, anyway. Wait, so I'm going to vote for Pixar place because of the whimsy and the water slides. Okay. Well then Dan and I win. Okay. Cabins. Cabins. It is. Oh, you're talking about, oh, this is at, at that.

[00:51:16] I was, I was looking at him like, this looks like Pixar place at Disneyland. And it is. Um, yeah, no, I, um, one thing that just to pass it on, I don't, I've never done this, but I've heard that if you go to the pool deck, that's a good place to watch fireworks as well, but not, not to argue for it. That picks our place. I'm assuming. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just fun facts. It's what people can see the electric water pageant from, um, can you though? You can watch it all. Oh, absolutely.

[00:51:45] From, from the campsites. The, the, the campsites. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely goes down that far. All right. But from the pool though. Oh, from the pool. Yeah. Probably not from the pool. Oh, how far back is the pool? It's pretty far back. Maybe not. No. Uh, okay. So forget that fun fact. Nevermind. Next up for value. You can remember the fireworks for Pixar, but you cannot remember the water pageant from. Don't remember that. All right.

[00:52:12] We are at a halfway point to our salty 16. Right. It's time for another song. I have to load another song. Hang on. We could do, we could do that as the finale. I think we should for the, in the interest of time, Jimmy, I think we should just go through the values. Okay. Um, you all, you, you, the two of you have stayed at each one of these or been around each one of these. So I'm not going to step in unless it's a tie. Okay.

[00:52:38] Eric, uh, all we're going to start with art of animation versus pop century. Uh, art of animation versus pop century. Eric, uh, animation versus pop century animation. Why? 100%. Right. Big blue pool. If they don't play music in the pool anymore, but it's, it's larger. It's, it's bluer. It's pooler. Better than the hippie dippy.

[00:53:08] The hippie dippy pool. Now, obviously there are other pools that there are. Yeah. There's a bowling pin pool. There's the computer pool. That's a square. It is a laptop. Um, laptop. So. He loves a laptop. People from pop century walk across the generation gap bridge to the big blue pool. Big blue pool. Yeah. Oh, blue pool is the winner. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:34] I was just going to say though, fun, fun tip is that if you go, if you stay at either and you just want a pool, you could just go over to the other one, go over to the worst one. That's correct. If it's more, less crowded, et cetera. All right. Next is the. Oh, oh, oh, which all stars. Well, no, but the campsites at Fort Wilderness versus the cabins at Fort Wilderness.

[00:54:02] Ah, I don't remember what we argued for before, but. Well, we already did cabins. We did cabins. I was looking at campsites, not cabins. But anyway, so campsites pop pop century did not win. That's going to go yellow. Uh, all stars. This is tricky. So one of these all stars is going to have to go against something else. Should we just go ahead and say right now, which one of the three is going to go up against Howard Johnson? Yes, let's do it.

[00:54:32] Um, music seems like the best pools. Cause it's got a guitar pool. So music is going to go against Howard Johnson's, which means for this is going to be sports and movies, sports V movies. Okay. Okay. Uh, just stayed in the movies. Let's do it. That's right. I just stayed in the movies and that pools, uh, empty concrete, but that's can't work. You can't have that against it. Cause it'll be open in April. Yeah.

[00:55:01] Um, generally concrete just with, um, movies has, uh, Mickey like starts for Mickey. Okay. I think that's better than, you just disqualified fan. Uh, you just disqualified Riviera because of Fantasia. And yeah, but nobody knows where sorcerer Mickey is from. Let's be honest. That's fair. That's fair. Uh, so movies versus sports. Sports. I do want to throw in that sports swimming is a sport. Ooh, you could be living your hotel.

[00:55:31] My one is shaped like a baseball diamond. Yeah. That's a, that's a square pool with little cutouts. That's right. And one of them is shaped like a crescent roll. Okay. Let's start here. Which one has the most pools? Surfboard Bay and Kitty pool in the sports. That's one and two. Do any of them have a bucket? No buckets. No, there's no bucket territory. Uh, and then one and two.

[00:56:01] There are two pools in each. Okay. Uh, I have no argument here. So Eric Fantasia wins. Okay. So, uh, that means movies, movies, sports. So nerds beat jocks. It's about time. And it's about time. All right. Since we already know the last grouping, we're going to go with all. No, excuse me. The campsites at Disney's Fort Wilderness versus Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spas.

[00:56:32] What? All right. And Grand Floridian wins. Hold on, hold on. I tried to explain it earlier. I know. You try to create a bracket with 47 hotels. It's true. You already, you already put Grand Floridian as the winner. It does. Uh, cause the wilderness, the Fort Wilderness one's dumb. It's dumb compared to the Grand Floridian. It's got a waterfall. There's a fricking waterfall. It's Alice theme.

[00:57:02] This is the first time we're doing coast versus coast on. Well, besides, uh, Pixar. Uh, so that doesn't count. Uh, what I'm trying to say is that. No, this is not coast versus coast, Dan. This is. Grand Floridian. Yeah. They're within. No, no, no. I'm talking about, I'm moving on to the next one. I'm talking, I'm moving on to the next. Oh, we've already moved on. Yeah. All stars music resort versus Howard Johnson. Howard Johnson has a bucket. Right. All star music has a guitar.

[00:57:28] I mean, I think regular listeners of the show already know exactly where I'm going. No, I don't want musical instrument shaped anything other than the musical instruments. Um, but famously everyone knows. I'm just saying it wouldn't be a surprise. There is a bar at the guitar pool. Oh, yeah. Not a bar at the Howard Johnson. There's not a bar at the Howard. I was going to go. But I was joking. I don't actually know, but there's a bucket.

[00:57:57] I say again, let's assume that let's assume that you can. Yeah. I mean the bucket. Hojo is going to be a more fun discussion for the salty 16. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. And I was just, I was going to ask if the number of pools matter, but it looks like not. But oh, Hojo does have the two pools and they're two very different themed pools. That's right. Yeah. Which is, you could have two very different experiences. Okay. That's up. Moving on to our final category. Moving on up. Final category is deluxe.

[00:58:25] Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. Disney's Boardwalk Inn. Contemporary Resort. Grand Floridian Resort. Oh, son of a motherless goat. The villas at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort was what we just argued. The villas versus screw it. It won. All right. Animal Kingdom, Boardwalk Inn, Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Wilderness Lodge, Yacht Club. Where are we going? Who's up? Who's up against?

[00:58:54] Disneyland Hotel versus Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. Oh my goodness. Oh goodness. Disneyland Hotel has the monorail slides and e-ticket things in the pool. It's a better pool themed. Disneyland Hotel. And you can wait for Trader Sam's while you are in the pool. Oh good. Disneyland Hotel for me. Waddle up all wet and stuff and be like, I want to be on this drinking chair.

[00:59:24] We should address because this is the last time we're going to talk about the Grand Californian. Ever. I really enjoy the restaurant there. There's a couple of pools. Anything else about that? Yeah, it's a good pool. It's an okay pool. I've been there. I mean, the restaurant's good too. One thing that when I've been at the restaurant by the pool, you do kind of have, and not necessarily in a good way, that feeling of like, beyond that wall is a theme park.

[00:59:56] That's fair. Um, that's correct. Disney's Disneyland Hotel pool is better. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. But you're right. There is that feeling, Dan. I want to acknowledge that. You know what I mean? In that. I mean, it's cool, but it's also the feeling it kind of takes, it takes me out of the experience when I'm there. Oh, cause there's a theme park right there. And here I am swimming in this pool.

[01:00:19] Well, I mean, not, it just sort of, it, for some reason, every time I'm there, which is not super infrequent, it just feels like you feel the small, smallness of the resort in ways that you don't usually feel. Or at least for me. Hmm. I feel it. Okay.

[01:01:05] Okay. So contemporary. The pool is very ugly and boxy. Um, both of them are on bodies of water where the, the water pageant will float by. Uh, the grand Floridian theme is very lovely. So, um, probably it's lush waterfalls. Um, probably a better view of the fireworks because there's not a giant building between you and the fireworks. So you probably get a firework view. I got married right there.

[01:01:35] Mm hmm. Yeah. It's Alice themed. They have a theme. Okay. That isn't concrete. Grand Floridian resort and spa. Dan, do you have any opposition? Hmm. No. I mean, if I wanted to be difficult, I could probably make an argument. Yeah. The, the, the grand, excuse me, the, uh, contemporary hotel is 50 years old, the pool. And it's, it looks, it feels it. Yeah. I remember going there and you kind of telling us that. And then I was like, let me see.

[01:02:03] Cause, cause my thing with the contemporary is it's like, I get what it's going for. And I love that like old feel of things. Yeah. But I also, so when we went there, I was just like, hold on, maybe there's something there that like, I, that I will uniquely, but, but it's just, yeah, it's old and not in a fun way. It's not gross. You are right by the Marina. You can rent, uh, mouse boats, et cetera.

[01:02:30] But, uh, yeah, it's just considering is boring. Yeah. I mean, it, it's, if pools never went beyond this, it would be, it would be fine. But it, they did. The, the, the next two are Disney's animal kingdom lodge versus Disney's boardwalk in. Okay. Can I swim with animals? You cannot swim with animals. Okay. That's a boardwalk. Boardwalk.

[01:02:58] It's very well themed like a boardwalk. There used to be a scary clown. No more scary clown. Okay. Hold on. I think no, no, that might, that might actually be a negative. Yeah. It might be a negative. I'm not going to lie. Um, I do what I do. I do enjoy the scary clown. Well, you can't anymore. Yeah, you can't. Cause it's long gone. Cool bar. It's, it's now, it's now basically runaway railway, the pool.

[01:03:28] Uh, damn. That's interesting. I, I like the, you cannot see or swim with animals. Uh, there's the Hakuna Matata playground. Again, just implying, just implying that there would be animals. Uzima pool, water slide and a wading pool. And the, here's what I'm seeing in these pictures.

[01:03:56] The pool at animal kingdom lodge is, I don't know. Is there any character to it though? Well, there's a sense there's the character is that you are in the country of Africa. Yeah, that's correct. Oh, oh, that country. Yes. Yes. That very large country called Africa. That's right. Um, uh, the boardwalk pool also has a pool bar, which looks like a carousel. There is. Yeah. There's the carousel bar. One bigger water slide. That's the other pool.

[01:04:25] Luna park lay or crazy play area. No, I like that. I, I like the pool, uh, the, uh, the slide a lot. That's a fun slide. It's a fun slide. I feel like I'm going to get outvoted here, but which place would you rather just like hang out at? Just relax. The boardwalk boardwalk. Because it's on the boardwalk. Really? Yeah. Seriously. No, I, I believe you. I, I think this is one of those places where I'm just, I'm just the weird person. I accept that.

[01:04:51] It's, it's a wonderful, there is a Savannah overlook to be fair, to be fair in defense of animal kingdom, just next to the pool, there's a walkway where you can overlook the Savannah. So technically from the pool, you can see animals. So you can think you're swimming with animals. That's right. Um, you can imagine what it would be like. Hold on, hold on. I'm seeing water cannons. Um, and I'm seeing, Oh, they have little mini buckets. They have mini buckets. They have mini buckets.

[01:05:20] They have cannons at, at the place that you can't swim with animals. Um, yes. Although you should be able to, they have, yep. They have a, they, they have a water slide. It looks like a long water slide. I like that. Um, so here's, here's what I'm like. They both have slides. Yeah. Both have slides. Boardwalk slide is longer. Okay. I'm looking at both of these and there is a sense of place to both of these. Yes. But I would much rat.

[01:05:49] I'm looking at both side by side. I don't want to be at one place and I do want to be at the other place. And the place I want to be is where I cannot swim with the animals, even though I really want to. You can see animals. I can understand that there is some natural water as well. I mean, imagine swimming with the zebra. How whimsical would that be? How would they be able to do it? I'm seeing a body of water with animals in it. Well, I'd like to swim in a pool where a zebra, a zebra peed in the pool. Here's next to me.

[01:06:18] And you can imagine that one might have. Maybe a zebra's with a lot of the good amount of volume and anyway. There's a spa. I'm going to call an audible here and say, here's why I choose the Uzima pool at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Oh. Because there is water. It's a trick that Disney does well. They do it at the Wilderness Lodge as well, where there is water flowing in and out of

[01:06:46] the pool that isn't actually flowing in and out of the pool to other natural waterways. Oh, but it feels like it's interconnected. It feels like an interconnected waterway. That's fair. When you pee in the pool, as everyone should, Eric. It doesn't flow into the natural water. Then you think that. No, then you think it does. And that's good. Oh, so you're peeing with animals. You feel like you're watering the savannah. Yes. Which is much like swimming with them. So there we go. Animal Kingdom Lodge gets my vote. Okay.

[01:07:16] You've swayed me. Unanimous. All right. You did it. Peeing with unanimals. Unanimals. Our final two hotels, this is going to be tough. Disney's Wilderness Lodge versus Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Stormalong Bay. That's not. Okay. That's not. Does the wilderness have. Well, hold on a second. Let me make. Let me make a case. Wilderness does have a lot of rocks. Yes. Okay.

[01:07:45] Let me make a case. Okay. Yeah, go for it. I think I see where Jimmy is going, but go ahead. The Wilderness Lodge pool head springs are inside of the hotel lobby. Mm-hmm. These are the headwaters to Wilderness Lodge Copper Creek. Right. Inside of that lobby is themed after Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn. That is where the headwaters are.

[01:08:10] And that headwater flows down through massive rock formations into various pools and finally ends inside of the swimming pool. Then that water goes from the swimming pool down further rock features into Bay Lake before it passes by a geyser that erupts every hour. That is my case for the. So there is a geyser? There is a geyser. And it will get people wet that you can laugh at. Okay.

[01:08:39] So let me finish real quick before we go into debate. Okay. So you not only have that going through the headwaters from the inside of the building all the way into Bay Lake past a geyser that erupts every hour. And if we eliminate Stormalong Bay, then the conversation becomes more interesting later

[01:09:01] because Stormalong Bay would probably win best pool on property, sand bottom pool, lazy river, sliding down a mass of a shipwreck. But if we were to eliminate. That's across the way from the actual pool. Like it's across the street. Yeah. Literally across a walkway. I have to walk to get to. You have to walk to get. We have to go upstairs to get to the slide. Oh God, that's worse. But that's true for every slide. You have to go upstairs.

[01:09:30] No, I mean, but to get to this cooler pool area, I have to go away from the hotel. No, the pool area is in the hotel property. Okay. The slide starts across a walkway. So you slide over a walkway. Do you want me to add another nail to this coffin? Because you have to prove that you're staying at the hotel and they have to give you a specific wristband to enter this pool. You cannot access that pool without a specific invitation.

[01:10:00] It's an exclusive pool. They know how many people want to go into that pool. Whereas all the other pools, you could just go. Well, not really. Well, not really, but they're not going to be as strict about it. And this is an argument for or against the Great Life Yacht and Beach. I'm saying against because, yeah, this is not an egalitarian sort of. People stay there specifically for that pool. Yeah. So, okay.

[01:10:29] I'm just saying I get where you're going for the show. Yes. But why wouldn't we vote for this if we're being objective? However, if your answer is it's for the show and it's more interesting this way, I'm all for it. I just think we should own it. So two schools of thought. So yes, for the show, it's an exclusive pool that will probably win beat all pools. How about this? It's unique.

[01:10:59] It's sand bottom. It's got a super awesome slide. Yeah. Will, will tag be hilariously frustrated with us if we don't pick this one? Tag doesn't know about this pool because he's never stayed there. No. Can we tell him all about it in great detail? And yes, we can tell him that we purposely tell him all about this pool, then say we've already eliminated it. So we're, we're already. We're two schools of thought here, Dan. Yeah.

[01:11:26] Number one, we eliminate it because it's going to win anyway and it doesn't make the show interesting or we don't eliminate it and see where it goes and it gets eliminated because tag is tag and frustrate the hell out of the audience. Okay. I think I, I think the best, the best way forward that I'm seeing is that we acknowledge to any listener who's listens to the show mainly for like tips and tricks kind of stuff.

[01:11:55] I think we're, what we're saying right now is if you're, if you're like that pool family where you just want to, you just go for the pools and then you might eventually go on a ride. This is probably where you want to be. And we are acknowledging that this one probably at least could win if not should win the whole thing. However, for the sake of the show to make it more entertaining, we're going with Disney's

[01:12:22] wilderness lodge because a geyser is nothing is basically a better bucket. It's to be fair. I've, I've been at both pools. I like, I like storm along Bay. It's fun. Sandy Sandy bottom pool is fun. Really fun. Um, the slide is great. I really do like the wilderness lodge pool. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that pool. There's fake rocks. There are waterfalls.

[01:12:52] They're big, uh, hot tubs. There's a geyser. It's, it's a good pool. I like this is using an old, this isn't an ironic choice. And the guys are an old does. The geyser does get other people wet. Cause that's important. No, it's up. It's, it's like being a Yellowstone. You can't go near it. Hmm. It's not a, it's not a part of the, it's not a feature of the pool. I mean, if you're really into geysers, then maybe, maybe it'll get you wet.

[01:13:19] No, here's what I'm going to say using an old trope from the show. If I had a choice to go swimming in one or the other, I would choose wilderness lodge. Okay. Okay. It's, it's, it's a very large pool complex and it's easier to get into. You don't have to go through any rigmarole. You don't have to have a extra, like you don't have to show like your credentials to get into the pool. Right. And you got the headwaters in the lobby. It's a better story.

[01:13:49] It makes for a better listening experience. If we eliminate storm along Bay right now. All right. I'm all for it. All right. Storm along Bay is out. Here's our sweet, here's our salty 16. Listener, we hope you understand and you, we hope you agree that this is a better way forward. I think this is a good everyone wins scenario because we are acknowledging that we're, we're, we're being upfront about what we're doing, which I think is good. That's right.

[01:14:15] But storm along Bay is generally accepted as the best pool on Disney world property. So because of that, we're going to take it out of the equation. So this is our, like our rise of the resistance situation. A hundred percent. That's exactly right. Very much. Okay. It's no old man Island. I mean, come on. Here are the salty 16 in the deluxe category, Disney's animal kingdom lodge, Disney's grand Floridian resort and spa, Disney's wilderness lodge and the Disneyland hotel.

[01:14:44] In our DVC category, Boulder Ridge villas at Disney's wilderness lodge, Disney's boardwalk villas, Disney's, uh, Polynesian village resort and Disney's Saratoga Springs resort and spa. In the moderate category, Disney's Caribbean beach resort. By the way, Jimmy, thank you for saying Disney's before each one of these. Everyone gets confused. Disney's Port Orleans resort, Riverside and the cabins at Disney's Fort. Disney's the cabins.

[01:15:12] Disney's the cabins. In our value category, Disney's all-star movies resort, Disney's art of animation resort, Disney's the villas at Disney's Grand Floridian resort spa. And Disney's Howard Johnson. Disney's Howard Johnson. No, that one. I don't think they have the apostrophe S at that one. It's just Disney. Disney's Howard Johnson. That's a good distinction. It's at Disney. Disney Howard Johnson. That's right. Because it's at Disney. All right.

[01:15:41] That's our salty 16, everybody. So tune in for the next episode when we, we go into more detail. We make better arguments, a lot more research as to why we choose each off mic. We will talk about who is assigned what, but that will be our salty 16. Oh, friend. No, buddy. Ask for this. The water is warm. Let's take a dip. Oh, um, are we going to talk about our trip or is that it? I thought you had a hard out. I do. But if we want to talk about the trip.

[01:16:12] Do we want to talk about the trip? It's up to you. Do we want to end with J-pop death metal? Yeah, we can do that. Okay. So just really quick. Let's brief. A few things I want to talk about. The concierge, who is our sponsor. Most of the concierge spent a few days at Disney World. Hang on. All of Dan, where's the, where's the thing? Which, which folder? It's in the folder. It's called liquid pain or something like that.

[01:16:41] All of the vacation plan. The previous two of these events we've had were both at Disneyland Resort. This is the first time at Disney World. It's called liquid agony. Of all the planners, only four of the planners live east of the Mississippi. One of them is right on the Mississippi in St. Louis, but all of them, most of the planners live in the west, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, etc.

[01:17:07] So this was some people's first time to Disney World and others, you know, they'd been before. Eric and I probably have been the most along with Lindsay Wells, who looks like Sigourney Weaver. No, no, no. Fronzac looks like Sigourney Weaver. Thank you. Fronzac looks like Sigourney Weaver. See, there's Lindsay Wells, Lindsay Fronzac. Fronzac looks like Sigourney Weaver. So we call her Sigourney now. So we don't get confused with Lindsay's.

[01:17:36] We stayed in various properties. I was at the all stars movies, which I enjoyed. It is literally in a different county. It's very inconvenient. There's no way to get anywhere. That's Ocala instead of orange. It's Osceola. Osceola. Okay. Yeah. Instead of orange. Um, anyway, um, Eric stayed at the Riviera. Some of our, our favorite concierge stayed at the Caribbean beach. Um, we did, uh, you know, it was just, it was some meetings, some rope drops, some other things.

[01:18:05] Uh, I guess one feature for those of you who know and care, Yeehaw Bob was the keynote entertainment at our meeting, at our business meeting. I don't know who Yeehaw Bob is. I've never seen Yeehaw Bob. I've heard of Yeehaw Bob. Oh my goodness. But when I, I had a meeting, so I, I was late. I dropped people off and I had a conference call and I'm sitting in a conference call just outside of the little convention or that, you know, the meeting room area.

[01:18:33] And I hear this music coming from this room. And I think to myself, those poor bastards who have to sit and listen to this thing. And then I asked a worker, I said, where is this room? And they said, it's right there. And I was walking towards the music. It kept getting louder and louder until I walked in to this. I hear the music and I, uh, I, I, I open the door and I see, yeah, I'm in the right room

[01:19:02] and I'm going to play this audio for you. And I'm going to tell you the listener. This is what I experienced for a few moments before I walked out to never go back in. You sure did. And then I walked out. I did not come back. I sat outside, continued my conversation. And this is what I heard. Come on.

[01:19:27] He's taking off his hat. He's bald. Nothing wrong with that. By the way. He's wearing red suspenders and blue pants and a tie. I did not understand that song that you played. And I was there for the whole concert.

[01:19:57] You can't. Your, your cameras in the other. Oh, over there. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, I was expecting something way more fitting for a yeehaw statement. Okay. Where'd he go? Where'd he go? There he is. Okay. I'm imagining this is, okay. I just want to further clarify here.

[01:20:16] He is performing in front of a convention audience in a room with folding tables that have black. I mean, you've been to a convention sort of. Yes. It's a conference room that maybe accommodates 25 people. There are 18 people in the room and he's performing for a group of 18 people sitting at tables.

[01:20:42] And I'm only saying the back of their heads, but I, I'm imagining based on context clues that the front of their heads look politely tolerant of what's happening. Politely happy. There was a lot of, a lot of requests to sing along. Good. With yeehaw Bob. Evidently it was a thing. Eric, can you speak a little bit more to yeehaw Bob? I think you have more of an affinity. I really like yeehaw Bob.

[01:21:04] Um, I'm used to seeing yeehaw Bob at, uh, the, uh, at Disney's, um, uh, what would, Jimmy, what's, what's the official name? Uh, Port Orleans. No, the other one. Riviera. Not Riviera. What are you talking about? I'm just trying to, I'm trying to make fun of you and the, the, the, the, the name. It's, it's the, the Riverside Resort.

[01:21:35] The Riverside. I said Port Orleans. Disney's Riverside. Yeah. Disney's Riverside. Disney's Riverside. Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside. There we go. Technically. Formerly Dixie Landings. Yes. Yeehaw Bob fits really well in Dixie Landings. Let me put it that way. Oh yeah. Yeah. And he played, he used to play there most days of the week and now he plays there like one day a week.

[01:21:59] Cause he's, he's a, he's an older gentleman and, uh, Disney fired him after the, after that, that, uh, fake disease that we all endured for a few years. Oh, oh. So he used to play like, okay, I'm going to read between lines here. He used to do horribly racist music at, at the Dixie landing and then Disney got woke and fired. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was it.

[01:22:26] No, it like it really it's, it, it, he's got a fun show, but as Jimmy put it, I don't mind him, but I want to see him in his like normal element. So what you're saying, I think so much like for me, sorry, Dan, I'm going to just get this out real quick. That's fine. If you're enjoying a cocktail at a hotel bar and this guy's playing music and you're having a conversation, it's perfectly fine. Yeah.

[01:22:52] If you're in a conference room with 18 people and you're a captive audience staring straight ahead, you can't do anything else. If you talk, you're rude. Right. This poor man, I felt so bad for this man. I called my wife and I was like, I feel really bad for this man because he is having to put on a show for a bunch of middle-aged women in general. And me and Jimmy. Yeah.

[01:23:18] Well, and, and James, but, and, and Brian, but anyway, um, the point is it's just, it's not a good look for a entertainer in that environment. I felt bad for him. Yeah. It's a, it's a tough area. And, and most of the people that are with on this, this trip are Disneyland people. So they don't know. He hub. So they don't appreciate, like I, I'm a Disney world person. I didn't appreciate what that was. Yeah. I have great memories of seeing he hub. Bob.

[01:23:45] Like it was super cool to see him there at the same time, halfway through his set. I went, I could be done now. So like, he is a get, but like, he's been doing this act for so long to such. I'm not saying this in a bad way. Like adoring fans that like, he's not going to change up his routine based on the setting.

[01:24:10] So it's just becomes this weird, like dissonance of like, Hey, everyone sing along. And then there's like the pressures on everybody. Cause you want to be polite. That's right. Which is why I left. And what's weirder is because he's in that setting. He did more Disney stuff than he normally does. Oh, right. Like his, his second set when he, when he like, when he does his show, he does two sets.

[01:24:40] He'll take like, yeah, at, at, at Porter Orleans. Um, when he does the second set, he starts out with a really stellar rendition of Rhapsody in blue. So he does Gershwin. He does other. He's playing the piano. Yeah. He's playing the piano and he's playing a real piano instead of an electric piano. Yeah. It was a little Casio. Yeah.

[01:25:05] So when he comes and does his show at the, the second, like the second set is more adult quote, you know, it's, it's not a bunch of Disney stuff. That's right. Um, so just to move on from me, Bob, uh, to, to kind of borrow from what Eric was saying halfway through his set. He was only about 10% through his set. Nice. Put it that way. Uh, okay.

[01:25:31] So moving on from you, Bob, a couple of things, uh, from a vacation planner perspective, I experienced the behind the seeds tour. And Dan, I'm going to let you guess, I'm going to tell you what the behind the seeds tour is, and I'm gonna let you guess the total dollar value. Okay, here we go. The behind the seeds tour is available to anyone. It's every hour on the hour. Okay. From I think 9am to 5, uh, 5pm, maybe on the half hour or something. It's once an hour. Okay.

[01:25:59] The tour is an hour long and you're given a guided tour behind the scenes. You can see some of the agricultural technology that they have developed with USDA and NASA. You kind of see the scientists doing their thing. You get to walk behind and see all of the plants. You get up close. There's a plant you can touch. That's a special kind of plant that if you touch it, it will collapse on itself. Ooh. Um, you can go in and smell all the different things. You walk into the aquaculture area.

[01:26:28] And do they have a poop flower that you can smell that one too? Probably. Okay. Um, you get to walk around. Oh, you fed fish? Okay. That's important. That's important. I got to feed the fish. Okay. In the little depressing fish tank. Uh huh. Um, we got to. Well, they're tilapia, so it doesn't matter. Well, and bass and others. Okay. I think we fed the bass. Uh, anyway, so then. Tilapia don't need to be fed. They'll eat each other.

[01:26:55] They take you over to an area where there's a Mickey shaped pepper tree. You can see the peppercorns growing. Okay. Like Mickey. They pull out a tray of 38 different spices that they grow in the land pavilion and they pass them around. You get to kind of smell the different, uh, uh, you know, scents, you know, cinnamon. Okay. Peppermint. That kind of thing. Going up in price. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I got a, all the water you can drink. Ooh. Wow. They fed me.

[01:27:22] Do they scoop it from the waterway for living with the land and give it to you? And filter it right away. Okay. No, they're just water coolers basically, but you can refill your water. And then they fed me cucumbers directly from the land. Willingly? No, I didn't. I didn't have a choice. Okay, good. They tied it down. They held me down. Um, but yeah, it was interactive. It was an hour long. It was very informative. Very interesting. How much Dan? How many children?

[01:27:49] Because this, this matters how many children were on it or how, or, or how kid, how kid friendly is, does it seem? I would say on a scale of one to 10 kid friendly being 10 being the kid friendliest. Yeah. It was a five, five. Okay. And there were of the 10 people on the tour. Well, there's more than 10 people. I would say there were five children on the tour and there were 15 of us. Okay. I was, I was the 15th, by the way, there was only 14 slots.

[01:28:19] Jimmy talked his way into this tour. I talked my way into it. Okay. So before I, I guess I need you to, to remind me, generally speaking, Disney world, more or less expensive than Disneyland. Like what's the exchange rate there? That's a broad statement question. Less. Yes. I would say generally less. I feel like it is. Okay. I'm going to go with $86.

[01:28:45] Grand total for my 60 minute walking tour behind the seeds was $35. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a recommendation. I did get a Disney visa discount, but I think it was 39 without. Yeah. Right. It's, it's really affordable. It's cheap for Disney. It's very, I don't know how I haven't done this tour yet. I don't know how I hadn't. And that's why I tucked my way into it. Anyway, long story short, I was able to get the same day.

[01:29:13] I was able to get a tour at three 30 in the afternoon. But by the time I logged in and everything else, it was sold out. But the point is that it's not like one of those things you have to plan six months in advance. Right. Because if had I been staying another day, I could have gotten tomorrow. If that makes sense. Got it. Yeah. So behind the seeds tour. And then I went to the garden grill, which is just above the land pavilion. It's a rotating restaurant that rotates in the living with the land ride. It's a, it's an all you can eat family style. The food was incredibly good.

[01:29:43] Uh, underrated. I would say, um, I had a glass of wine. I looked at the thing. I was visited by chip, Dale, Mickey and Pluto. I was by myself. The food there to me, Oh, it has always looked like, like almost aggressively healthy, but like well prepared and good. The salad was wonderful. The dressing was very light. You could tell it was fresh. The salad had come from the greenhouses next door. Mm hmm.

[01:30:11] Uh, the, the cornbread was a full pan of cornbread. It was wonderful. The, the honey butter was incredible. The, uh, mac and cheese was just okay. The turkey was roasted turkey. The gravy was turkey gravy, the mashed potatoes. The way I described it, it was a scoop of butter with some potato in it. Perfect. Uh, green beans were fresh and very tasty. The steak was perfectly cooked, medium rare, thin shaved chimichurri sauce. And it is all you can eat.

[01:30:41] And also complimentary tilapia. Cause they want to get rid of those things. That's right. That's for dessert. Uh, desserts included. I, I, I did not accept the dessert. It was apple pie. I didn't want it. But anyway, I was visited by all the characters. Uh, it's an awkward thing for me. I don't like character interactions. Uh, it just, it just makes me uncomfortable. And there was no handler. So it was just me and the character and I'm not their target audience.

[01:31:07] I'm just some, as far as they're concerned, I am a weird middle-aged man eating by himself at a restaurant. Welcome to my world. Right? So the, the, the first thing I said, hi, I'm just here by myself. All of my friends are on a VIP tour. I just did the behind the seats tour. I'm enjoying dinner. Thanks for stopping by. Bye. Can I take a picture? Did a selfie. That was it. And then wave by, I did that with chip, Dale, Mickey and Pluto.

[01:31:34] But when Cinderella came around, you're like, Hey, what's up? I have a seat. Um, so I said, I said that thing to all four of the characters that came by. Pluto was the last visitor I had at the five minutes after Pluto left my table, he came back. And he presented me with a button. Listener. There are lots of buttons. This button was I'm celebrating. And then you fill in whatever you're celebrating. Pluto had filled out for me.

[01:32:02] I'm celebrating being alone. I love it. And he signed the back. It is a prized, prized possession that I love. I will cherish forever. What I love about it is I can tell from the handwriting that he like, it was actually Pluto writing it with the like Pluto hand on. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And it is wonderful. And I was, that was such a magical thing. Um, I, after that, I just, I had glass of wine.

[01:32:31] I had a second glass of wine and I was feeling very good. And I just walked around Epcot and I took pictures. I wrote on spaceship earth and I went on the land ride after that. And I went on soaring and there was no weight at all. And you know, the friends were still out and about. It was probably the six best hours I've ever spent at a theme park. It was wonderful. I'm telling you. Yeah. Yeah. It was wonderful. Going alone is pretty great. It's pretty great. Solo Disney can't. Okay.

[01:33:00] There are high highs and there are low lows. I'm sure. Yeah. It was just the right amount of time. I had, I had bought, I had bought the lightning lane multipass just to see how it worked. It's very similar to, to Disneyland, you know, for the record. Yeah. I got to pick three to start and it, I didn't need it because I didn't have to wait. There was no line anywhere. Oh, and by the way, Monday, it was February. It was a Monday. It had been raining all day. Oh gosh, Monday.

[01:33:28] We had bought lightning lane for avatar flight of passage. I'm sorry. Disney's avatar flight of pass. Thank you. And, and for the first time in my life, going on this ride, 5 30 PM, we walked on the ride. It was a walk on. It's a half mile of, of like line. Yeah. But it was empty. We walked on. I took a picture. There was no one in line.

[01:33:57] Oh, like not just because you bought it. It was like, there was no one there. No, this, sorry. We went standby first. Oh, got it. Because it said 20 minutes. Got it. Then we did the lightning lane. Then we did the lightning lane. Nice. Not only did we walk on the lightning lane, we were the only people on the ride. Sweet. It was incredible. Uh, anyway, uh, the Riviera resort is incredibly beautiful. I loved that property. It felt very European as it's meant to be.

[01:34:25] Uh, it felt like one of the European hotels at Disneyland Paris, where the lobby and all the things that are happening are on the second level and you have to walk downstairs to get to the pool level and bars and whatnot. Um, just an exquisite hotel. I loved it. I thought it was wonderful. Jimmy, what do you have to say? Sit on a bench outside of my room. I loved it. Sitting right under his room, sat on a bench and just sat and I didn't have my earbuds in.

[01:34:52] I just sat and it was just, it was quiet and glorious. I'm looking out on water, looking up into Eric's room. Where I'm napping. I'm like, oh, he's napping. He's downstairs. Yeah. You know, he threw his pants down. Yeah. Sending him a taxi driver once in a while to keep napping. That's right. Yeah. I'm good sitting here. Uh, Eric, what were your takeaways from the trip? Uh, pants. No, not your leave behinds. What was your takeaway?

[01:35:22] Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. That was a, you want that story? We can tell that story. Oh no. Okay. So Eric started his trip at the universal. We did some hotel tours at the universal hotels. Not the best. We didn't love them. We had a lunch there at the pool bar or pool restaurant. The, after an hour of waiting for our food, we asked about it and the waitress says, oh yeah, it's, it's about an hour for food right now. Yeah. That, you could have told us that.

[01:35:51] This is the thing, the like fancy, cool new universal hotel, right? Not new. Oh, okay. It's the, which one is the Portofino? No, it's the Asia Pacific. Oh, okay. There's one that I think just opened that like all the vloggers are saying kind of sucks. That's right. Yeah. It wasn't that one. He was, they were at the hotel that I stayed at for two nights. Eric had just stayed there. We decided to have lunch. They could have said when we sat down, sorry, the kitchen's backed up. It should be about an hour before your food. We would not have stayed. Right.

[01:36:18] But we wanted to go to that hotel as well because Eric had just checked out and he left his pants in the room. I managed it. Like, as we were discussing that morning, I said, I'm going to go to Epcot. Oh, ha ha ha. Funny story. Uh, I, I think I left a pair of pants in the, in my room. So we're going to be there anyway. We're like, we'll go get your pants. What was your room number? Gave us the room number, waited an hour for our food.

[01:36:43] We went to the lobby, the line for the lobby, for the front desk, which is where you have to go to get your pants. That's, that's the, the pants check in was wrapped around the building. Oh my God. It was insane. So yeah, it was, it was crazy. I, when I checked in, I was like, I waited behind one person. Any other time that I went down into that lobby, there was no one there. But that day.

[01:37:13] Yes. There were a lot of concierge Marie said, F this, I'm going to the online check in desk that had no people. Sounds like. Let me repeat that. The online check in desk had no people, meaning that all the people standing in line around the building didn't want to be bothered by going on their phone and doing online check in. Anyway, so Marie said, I'm, I'm going over here. So she went over there, called for the pants. 15 minutes later, lady comes looking around like she's looking for someone.

[01:37:41] She has a bag of clothes, like a very large bag of clothes. Oh my God. And we said, no, no, no. We just need the pants. Yes. We don't need all the lost clothing. No, they're in that bag and they're going to make you dig through the dirty clothes. Is that? No, I, hold on. I was there, Eric. Let me tell the story. Yes. We don't need all the clothes from the floor that was left behind just the room. Yeah. Yeah. This is just from that room.

[01:38:11] I opened the bag. Oh yeah. That's definitely Eric shirt. Oh, those are definitely Eric's underpants. That's definitely Eric's other shirt. He left a wardrobe behind, not just a pair of pants. Yeah, I sure did. It was that there's not a lot of space in that room, in those rooms for putting stuff away.

[01:38:35] And I had, I knew I put a pair of pants into one of those drawers, but I had also like run out of room when I was unpacking. I like to unpack my bags when I'm in a room. Right. And I just had like a whole other outfit that I shoved into that drawer. And I, I generally open every single drawer in the room when I'm leaving a place.

[01:38:58] And I was, somehow I didn't open that one drawer that had several shirts, a pair of pants and a pair of underwear. Yeah. Now the, the problem that I had was as I'm verifying that these are all Eric's clothes, I'm pulling things out of the bag and I pull out the pair of underwear. I'm like, I'm just going to assume this is Eric's, but I'm putting these back. Anyway, we delivered the clothes to Eric and everybody who was happy. It was great. Yeah.

[01:39:25] And was it like going to the bathroom where you all of a sudden the food arrived or was it still? I did do that. I did go to the bathroom and the food did arrive. Yeah. One at a time, but we had separate checks in defense of the waitress. We had separate checks, but anyway, Disney world's better than universal. Uh, all of this goes to why I, I really do believe that Epic universe is it. It looks, it looks super impressive.

[01:39:52] Everybody's talking about how it's going to, I don't think enough people are considering what something like that actually is in reality. I think it's gonna suck. I think there's going to be like a couple of things that are impressive. I think the cues are going to be really, really well themed. I, but I think that give it like two, three months and it's going to all feel like Vegas in the day. I generally tend to agree with you. We went to city walk and we saw the whole display, like the model of the whole car big. Yeah.

[01:40:21] It looks kind of cool, but it's just, it's, it's universal, which is just a little bit glorified six flags. Right. And I will make this statement and I will stand by this statement and good luck. Prove me wrong. If universal does not get the contract for Harry Potter, universal does not have a third theme park. Hmm. There's no way. There's no way that people, they, I mean, you could look at the attendance numbers without Harry Potter.

[01:40:49] Universal is just six flags. Yeah. And I also, I think a part of my opinion is also based in Disney kind of sitting back and going like, do whatever. Like, I think that they know the people on the inside cause they fired a bunch of those imagineers or they jumped ship and they probably got word that like, okay, yeah, the queue is really cool, but it's just a flat coaster or flat ride or whatever, you know? Well, here's, here's what epitomizes for me why universal is not as good as Disney.

[01:41:21] The VelociCoaster, which is an incredible roller coaster. It really is. One of the best on the planet. Goes past the Leaky Cauldron. Sorry. Goes past the Three Broomsticks restaurant. Multiple times an hour. A high speed, not themed to Harry Potter land roller coaster goes past Hogsmeade like 10 feet away. Right. It's just, oh yeah.

[01:41:51] An epic universe looks the same. You've got a giant roller coaster going through the middle of the park. Right. It just feels like Cedar Fair. Yeah. It's lack of follow through, I think is the general thing there. That's right. When they, when they, when it hits, it's great. It's like solo Disney. It's like when it's great, it's great. But when it's bad, it's real dark. I love, I love the rides. The few rides that I like. Yeah.

[01:42:16] But, um, but ultimately motorbike adventure is maybe better than anything Disney's ever done. Maybe. That's fair. It's incredibly well themed. It's not an intense roller coaster, but it's thrilling and fun. Right. And it's just, it feels right. It doesn't again. Yeah. It does interesting things. It doesn't go up. It's got seven launches. Yeah. It's on the ground. Most of the time. Yeah.

[01:42:41] It's, it's got the, the, the loading platform is constantly moving. All of people mover, all of whatever. It never stops. It's constantly moving. It's got seven launches. It's got a reverse. It's got a drop. Like the, the, the actual track drops down. It's just, it's just, it's technologically advanced. Unlike I think maybe anything Disney's ever done. It took expedition Everest and made it better. Yeah.

[01:43:10] Everest where you, you hang in that, that area as it has to like switch tracks. Yeah. This, that doesn't happen at Hagrid's. No, you just go up and then back. Gravity pulls you down. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a, that's an example of one of those places where I don't doubt that it's very impressive. It looks really cool. It looks impressive. But then like you have that, you have that thing. And I think universal has a tendency to be like, okay, we have that. We, who, why are you complaining about the Dr. Seuss carousel?

[01:43:43] Yeah. I mean, Disney's not perfect, but, but it's just, you know, it's, it's the velocity coaster. There's consistency there though. You know, the velocity coaster in the middle of Hogsmeade is the problem with universal. Right. Okay. Uh, Eric, any other takeaways from the trip? Uh, no, it was, it other than it was really great time. And. Oh, I have another one. Um, I made this comment cause we went to jelly rolls for the last jelly rolls. Man, it was a lot of lasts.

[01:44:13] Yeah. Um, another thing that we did that you can't do at Disneyland. We rented a boat. At the yacht club. Okay. There were 10 of us on the boat. Uh huh. Dan, I'm going to explain to you what this experience is and you guess the price. Dan, do you know what a boat is? Uh, it's a thing that they put sushi on that goes around a little current in the restaurant. Okay. That's correct. Now the difference is that you can put people in this sushi boat. Ooh. Okay.

[01:44:43] Okay. I'm in. It's a people boat. It's a people boat. Um, that we could, I mean to sharks, we are sushi. You know what I mean? Uh, okay. So you load the boat at the yacht club. You can fit 10 people on this boat. Comfortable. Everybody has a seat there. They provide you with blankets and towels. Okay. And a talkative, uh, boat captain, a boat captain. We can tell you all about it. Okay.

[01:45:07] Um, you, they give you snacks, popcorn, cookies, chips, Diet Coke, Coke, Sprite, water, whatever you want. You can have as much as you want. Okay. Not booze. They will take you. No booze. They can take you from the yacht club and they'll drive you down the waterway. You passed all the alligators. You passed the boardwalk pool. You passed that. You go to Hollywood studios and sometimes there's a firework show you can watch. They turn around, they go back through the waterway to the Crescent Lake boardwalk, whatever we stopped at the boardwalk.

[01:45:36] We watched a hula hoop show. We watched a hula hoop show on the boardwalk from the water. Mother and daughter team who have like 10 hula hoops and they're just all, you know, they're hula hooping. We got to watch that. Then we parked in Epcot. Ooh. On the water in Epcot. Like we are in the theme park. We didn't have to pay to get in. It was not, we'd have to pay admission to get in. Right. Remind you, we loaded from the yacht club, so we didn't have a theme park ticket that day.

[01:46:04] We parked in Epcot to watch luminous, the story symphony of us. Wow. Wow. We are on the water closer than anyone else watching the show. So much so, our boat and bodies were covered with firework shrapnel. Nice. We are that close. So much ash. So much ash. They handed out goggles, Dan. They handed out goggles on the boat. Knowing that all the ash would happen. To protect your eyes from the shrapnel. Okay, that's perfect.

[01:46:33] I like this. There were 10 of us, max capacity. Okay. How much did we pay for this experience? How long was it, the whole thing? One hour. 10, uh, $250. Total price was $450. Divided by 10 people, we each paid 45. 45. Yeah. Not bad. Family of four, not great. Yeah.

[01:47:02] Group of 10 paying individually, a really good deal. Yep. You can't do that at Disneyland. No, you can't. Um, you know, sitting on the boardwalk, having a cocktail or having a coffee in the morning. Uh-oh. Well, you're back on it. Recency bias, Dan. No, I got it. I got it. But also, this is the point of the show, Dan. I know. It is a statement of fact that you cannot do that at Disneyland. That's true.

[01:47:31] Also, what you can't do at Disney World is walk 100 feet to another theme park. True. Right? I'm not making that argument now. Um, but anyway, that's just one of those things you can't see at Disneyland that you can get at Disney World. And there were, there were what, like five boats out that night? Yeah. And they're all tied up together. Yeah. So we could, we could boat hop technically. Um, but yeah, it was a really cool experience. You sing happy birthday to a young lady. We sure did.

[01:47:59] It wasn't her birthday, but we did it anyway. It wasn't her birthday, but it's, it, by the way, today's Eric's birthday and, um, I've gone 40 minutes longer than I expected and told my children I would. So I think it's time to, our friends have officially passed my birth time, which is 310 PM. Is that when you talk to your mom? No, I talked to my mom earlier in the day. Okay. Usually babies don't talk when they get right out of the. Well, yeah, they talk after a fashion, but anyway. All right.

[01:48:28] Let's close up the old, uh, show bag. Uh, the old show bag. All right. Well, this is playing. Do you mind if I talk over it, Dan? Oh, that's fine. Please do. Uh, thank you for listening.

[01:48:53] Uh, the next episode is going to be the salty 16 for the Disney hotel pools, including Disney's Howard Johnson. Uh, tag from the, the hub crawl and DL weekly will be our guest host and he will be our guest judge. The Supreme crawl. Uh, concierge is our official sponsor. That's eight, five, six hour ears. Uh, a recent client booked their trip to Disneyland Anaheim hotel because of our show.

[01:49:22] Nice. They really enjoyed what we had to say. And they specifically asked for the Anaheim hotel because of our recommendation. Another recent, a listener is checking in tomorrow. The Petros family checking into the villas at Disneyland hotel. Uh, they booked through concierge. Um, and, uh, they asked questions that I answered. Like, can you get a reservation on the Tangaroa terrace? No, you can't. No, you cannot. You don't need one. You don't need one.

[01:49:51] Uh, but they don't like to be indoors. They're outside people. Um, they will be wearing masks most of the time. Yeah. They're, they're inverse agoraphobes. Uh, I asked if there's anything else that you need before your trip. And he said, please tell my wife to not make me go. Oh. And I said, I said, you're going to enjoy it. It's a wonderful place. If you need to hear any podcasts that are about Disneyland, I have some I can recommend. And one of them is not.

[01:50:21] Here's up. Anyway, uh, thank you both. It was fun. Thank you listener for listening. We will see you next time on the salty 16 for this year's third month throwdown. Uh, until next time, be good to each other and court is adjourned.

[01:51:12] Sorry for, uh, taking up a half hour of your time while I was talking to my mother. No, it's all good, man. It's your birthday. It's, it's good. I think we nailed it. I think we did. Uh, we did what we needed to do. Yeah. It wasn't overly exhaustive. I'm happy. I think it was good. Um, but I've, I've got a, I haven't yet fed my children today. Your children can find food on their own. They can. Uh, one of them will multiple times. The other one will not.

[01:51:40] And so he's just going to sit there wasting away. Yeah. Legit. Cause he's, he's been on a screen for however long we've been here and he'll just forget to eat. And like I left to go, uh, exercise with a friend while I had lunch. I came back. Did you eat lunch? No. Like, uh, I gotta go record. Um, anyway, I have a few of my children. I'm making chicken noodle soup. Um, so we should probably stop recording. We should stop recording.