Disney and Banana Ball | Universal Studios & Walt Disney World Updates

Jason: Grab your mouse ears and ready your wands. You're tuning into Castles to Cauldrons, your ultimate guide to the magic, the thrills, and everything in between. From strolling right down the middle of Main Street, USA, to dodging fire-breathing dragons in Diagon Alley, we've got your theme park adventures covered. And now, sharing their hottest takes and best tips, here are your hosts, Jason, Micah, Rachel, and Terry. Welcome to Castle of Cauldrons. I'm your host, Jason Davis. I'm here with Micah, Rachel, and Terry. We're all here together for like, for the first time, it feels like in forever because we took off a week. But me and Micah saw each other last week. We'll get into that a little bit later. Did y'all have a good Mother's Day? Because this is, we're recording this the week of Mother's Day. Because I didn't wish y'all a happy Mother's Day before the last episode. So did y'all have a good Mother's Day? Yes. I did. Yeah. Thank you. I think we all got what we wanted and that was best. I took a nap. like, yeah, love my kids, but take them away for a little while so I can... Yeah. Mine was not rest. I was not home. I was actually not with my family at all. was in Atlanta with my mom. was in Atlanta with my mom on a trip with her. But you were with your mom. That's a great mother's day. Yeah. So was with her. I want to start the episode with something we posted on Facebook and I figured it might be a little fun thing. If you answered it on Facebook though, I don't want you to use the same answer. So that's the caveat. What is the one hot take that would get you a canceled, I would guess in Disney, in the Disney community? can't use the one I used. I know that's my number one. Cause mine's actually, I like mine, but I don't think like I've been going back and forth, but I didn't want to use that one. So Terry, since you didn't, I know you didn't comment. what's your rule? Me and Facebook don't get along. So I'm really on there. I apologize. I have a lot of hot takes, I don't know how to get them to cancel. I hate every graphic design that Disney comes out with most of the time when they're merchandise in their parks and for what you're paying for what you're paying for. It looks horrible. And why don't they, I mean, the number of people at Etsy that do a much better job and independent graphic artists that do a much better job, but Disney doesn't let them thrive because they slap their copyright on everything. But then they put trash in their parks for $75 a shirt. Yeah, you can get the slings per... same shirt in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It just says the different resort on it. it's the same. We're a billion dollar company, yet we're eight, 10 years behind on trends. I don't get it. They're their own trend. They're not though. But they're just Disney. It doesn't matter. It's a Disney style, it's Disney product. They don't care. And they don't. think that feeds further into the, you know, a Disney adult is kind of like a Karen out in the wild. the gen pop as we call it. And I think it doesn't help that you're wearing like preschooler clothes with Mickey Mouse's face on it. You know I'm saying? Like maybe if they made their merchandise a little cooler than being a Disney adult wouldn't be as ostracizing as people take it as an insult sometimes instead of a compliment. And then maybe, like you see people Disney bounding a lot. And I think that came from not only wanting to dress like the characters, but wanting to dress cute and trendy in the park and be on theme. So maybe that's my hot take. I don't know if that'll get you canceled. No, because I think a lot of people would agree with you on that. Rachel, what's your hot Because wasn't on Facebook. What were your hot takes that Jason won't let you repeat? All right. So I said that Cinderella's Royal Table and Chef Mickey's is overrated. I think it wouldn't get you canceled for It's not wrong. But you want to know another one that I agree with that another one of our agents wrote? This one might. that characters are for only- I can go blind. 100 % on board with Because like when I was on the Destiny, like everyone's like, let's get pictures all, you know, like go in line. And I'm like, no. Like, I'm okay. Like when it's not face characters, I feel like it's kind of weird. But like- I go get the Mickey Mouse picture or something like that. Great. If it's a rare one, absolutely. Like I see value in that. I don't need to go up to a Cinderella. I've had pictures with her. I don't need to go up to Minnie or Mickey again. or goofy, I have all those. Like just, I want to eat. When we were in Alaska, like Cinderella walked past me in the corridor and I took a selfie with her because Bethany wasn't with me and that's her favorite princess. So I was just like, look who I ran into, but I'm not going to go and seek her out. Right. When I'm in Alaska in July, I'm getting those pictures with With them in their outfits. Because that's only on Alaska. Yeah. And it's about like a 30, 40 minute wait. So you got to get up there and do that. Micah, what's one of yours? So the one that you won't let me use again is that Magic Kingdom is my least favorite part. Like it's kind of at the bottom. Terry's like, no. I knew that's was happening. It's just, feel like- it's personality. Right, but it's just like, it's so busy. That's where most of the kids are. Like I have a child, but still. That's where most of the kids are. It doesn't have as many of like the thrilling and fun rides. Like it's just, there's so much crammed into it and it's just always so busy. Like I love to watch the fireworks there and stuff, but if I'm going to pick and it was like, I only have one day to spend at the parks, I'm probably going to pick like Epcot and Animal Kingdom over Magic Kingdom. That's just kind of, that's my hot take on that. Another hot take. This is really hard because I really, I don't feel like I have many other ones. I mean, I don't love sit down dining at theme parks. Because I feel like if you're spending a lot of money to be there, I'm all about quick service and I don't want to take the time to actually go sit down and eat and waste that time because you pay a lot of money to be in that park and then you're going to go sit down and spend an hour and a half on a sit down meal somewhere. Like if I'm going to do it, I would rather do it on my day off, like not in a park. Like don't think- Or if the food was worth it, right? Like if I'm in the park, I don't want to do that. But if I have a break day, I have no problem with like, ⁓ let's get a Topolino's reservation and go have breakfast there like on our break day or something like that. But in the parks, I just find it to be like a waste of time. That's where I would go against Rachel would be if the food was good at the character dining for Chef Mickey's or Royal Table, it's worth it because the character interaction there where you're not taking out time of your day to see characters in the But the food's not good at I always tell people you're paying for an experience. You're not paying for the food. I always say that. Why do you think most of the, or I would say all of the good dining, sit down dining is outside of the park? If they put flying fish in Epcot, I'd be going to flying fish in Epcot, but it does on the park. So mine that I posted was that they needed to get rid of Gut, Small World, and put a Tangle Ride right there. because it fit right with the Tangle bathrooms. You actually have a theme for Fancyland. That's the worst small world when it comes to small worlds in the US. I don't like it. And even like it's just not not good. You have a nice facade in Disneyland. You don't have one here. So just do it. It gums up that whole intersection there. I feel like where the bathrooms and Peter Pan and small world. Peter Pan always has a weight which blows my mind. And then Small World's there because people go on it because it doesn't have a weight and they just need to get out the heat. And then the tangled bathrooms are there. And I'm kind like, if there's going to be a gum up there, make it worth it. The one that I want to say here that's more original actually stems from a text message we got from Jerry. That was Siobhan, Rachel, Jerry, and myself in this group. The cast members being like the college program at Walt Disney World has ruined. the experience more so than what Disneyland has with their cast members. Cause you have so many temporary people working at Walt Disney World versus how many people you have at Disneyland that are full time and actually love the park more. Now you, I'm not saying that Disney college kids don't love the park. I'm just saying that they're there for only a short amount of time. Did I read that wrong? I will say the one place they shine is on Jungle Cruise. Jerry said that Disney World is better than Disneyland with cast That's what I think so But me, I'm saying that Disneyland's better than Walt Disney World because of No, I agree. Now, if you got rid of the college program, I would 100 % agree with Jerry because they have better, they have more cast members that really love this place, but it's so dependent on college program that it kind of loses something. There's more hangouts at Walt Disney World than Disneyland. figure that'd They're there for the experience. Yeah, the credit. the job. You can put it on the resume. But like I said, some of our best Jungle Cruise rides have been with the college. program kids. And I think that just because it's those flat jokes that they tell, the delivery is so much better with that generation than it is with like an older. And I've even talked about like myself as like an old, cause I'm plus 40 older, you know, they have like that just dead pan delivery of all the cheesy dad jokes and backside of water and everything that I think makes that ride. And that makes the ride funnier to me is how they dilute. Cause you know, you've been on some sometimes where it just didn't hit as funny. as the other ones. the vice versa, like Disneyland is that these people have been there for a long time. So they've grown up and worked with the park for as long as they have. So like the guy Oscar who celebrated 60 years at Disneyland, it's been years ago. He loved the park. So he was there forever. So he could tell you the history and he appreciated it and wanted everybody to have that experience. That person that's coming down from state university. Yeah, I to state university. They're just there for the parties and the get away from home. I figured that'd be good though to open up and kind of back and forth a little bit. What would, you can let us know what your favorite idea is that would probably get you canceled in the Disney community for what you think would be a hot take. We might do an episode where we go a little bit more into these, but. Maybe we could do like for the specific parks, like a hot take for very specific parks. Like I go to Canada sometimes and that's a Cardinal sin to Jason. It's a Cardinal sin to Didney. Disney actually posted this week that that is a Cardinal sin. I just go in through the ⁓ International gateway and I just wherever I go. I don't come in through the main. So we've got a lot of news we're gonna try to work through right quick. Fixing to work through it right quick. Fixing to work through it right quick. All right. I'm gonna mute all of y'all. All of y'all. All y'all. First. Bit of news, Disney had their earnings call and it was Demaro's first earnings call. He made some pretty big statements when it comes to technology for the parks and Disney. The first one was that they are talking about doing a Disney super app. And by super app, they mean everything in one apps. Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, Alani, Hulu, Disney Plus, Disney Store. It would all be built into one app and you could do everything there. I can see some benefits. but I don't think it works because the app- Like when you get on Disney Cruise Line, you're on that app, like doing everything. But it'd all be one app now. I feel like this is good old fashioned rage bait that they're putting out there to create discourse so people like us talk about it so it gets people to talk about Disney. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks this is good idea. I see nothing but problems. First of all, you have Hulu and Disney Plus gets paid for. The other apps aren't, you don't pay for them. How are they going to manage that paid versus non-paid platform? Then, like you said, is DCL. DCL is hard enough as it is just with the DCL app because you're often on wifi. You're going to put so much more information into that app. Imagine how much slower and how many more problems it's going to It's just going to crash constantly. Right. Yeah. Then I said the Jason, if you mix land and world, someone's going to buy something at the wrong park or the wrong side the country. like wrong person, you know? You're going to buy the wrong, what Rachel said was the wrong ticket for the parks. But even then, if you're just buying the Halloween ticket and it's closer to not, what if you buy the Oogie Boogie versus the not so scary. how the dining is going to work on that. got 60 days plus 10 for dining or 60 days one other time. Lightning lane, two different platforms. Ticketing is two different platforms as well. I know that firsthand. I would also like to point out that Disney tried this with their website because they bought the go.com domain. so if you go to www.go.com, it's going to take you to a landing page for the Walt Disney company. And that will list out everything that they own and all the links to get to it. That felled epically. Like they sold, they paid a buttload of money for that domain. And that's why when you go to the website, it still has like go.wdw or whatever, you know, so they're still using it, but it's. It didn't work then. What makes them think it's going to work in an app situation now? mean, there was a whole story about people that bought Disney Plus gift cards to pay for their Disney World trip. Again, that's like specifically says Disney Plus different logo. It's blue versus like most of the gift cards you buy at the store for Disney are red with Mickey on them. So. Which is weird because Disney colors are blue. So you would think like Walt Disney is always written in blue. or a client, I was trying to buy him a gift card for booking and I was looking through all the e-cards and there's the Disney Plus one and I almost clicked it because I was like not paying attention. Like, well, if I would have done that, that would have been screwed up. why, why do we think Disney can't, their apps are forever changing, like Lightning Lane changing. They had the genie on the app. had, there's never been like a three to five year span where the app for just Disney World has remained something constant that you can get used to and just. Because every other app I feel like has little updates, but it doesn't completely change. Because Disney for some reason can't find a way to make, because most people don't go twice a year or either every year. They go two and three years in between. it's like every time they go, they have to learn a new app. it's like, why don't they think that familiarity will breed consistency and people will enjoy that? and say, ⁓ let me book there again. Cause I've done it so many times. know exactly how all this works. It's like you just said though, like not everybody goes once or twice, like more than once a year. ⁓ Yeah, Terry, you're making almost too much sense. Yeah. ⁓ isn't there a billion dollar company? why do they just, it's- If you didn't use Facebook, let's go with Facebook since we talked about it. If you use Facebook once back when it first started and then after that every five years you use it. It's completely different. five years, you wouldn't know it. You'd just be like, okay, I've got to relearn this app. That's what Ridley's really doing. But their whole lightning lane thing changes all the time. And I'm not just talking about the layout of the app changes. I'm talking about they rename things. They rebrand things. I have to agree with Terry because I've had clients be like, do we still need park passes? Oh, so much has changed. People still call Lightning Lane's Fast Passes. We do on this podcast. We've slipped up and said Fast Passes a lot. I still do. Like, I don't care. And I might say MGM too. off the tongue better than Lightning Lane. Yeah. why do we need all the change all the time is what I'm saying, because in marketing, consistency breeds loyalty and that's what people like. So why does Disney consistently want to switch stuff up? I mean, they have a well-oiled machine here. I wouldn't say it's well-oiled. The machine has been running for a long time. I feel like that. well oiled machine with a engine light on the whole time. Yes, it's like we're throwing things at it instead of fixing the engine. We're just like throwing parts at it. like, here's a hammer, here's wheel. sticky note over the check engine light so we don't see it. Let's not fix the engine. Let's give it brighter headlights. And it's like, while that's eye catching, that still doesn't fix the initial issue. A well oiled machine in Disney's eyes is bad because if you think about a well-oiled machine tech-wise and app-wise, when Amazon goes, it's prime days coming up on these days, you don't have to get in a virtual queue to get into a place to buy what you're buying. You just go on by, then you get the reservation or your confirmation within 30 seconds. might take longer to come to my house. Yeah. Right. But the process of the IT side of it, seamless, like any other day. But when Disney dropped Anything new promos new tickets anything like that you get that virtual wait And then it takes you forever to get in and by the time you do it might crash it might not crash And you won't get your confirmation until after midnight. Yes. So why do they do that? That's fine. The question is they just don't what is their end game? Their system can't handle it. No They're worried about means to make they could literally hire Jeff Bezos and said hey, dude, what'd you do to Amazon? But you know do it over here That costs too much money for them. They're all about the profit. So they have this built, this infrastructure built. We're going to continue to use it as best we can without upgrading it so we can make as much money off of this. I have an idea. Let's make one less Star Wars series that no one's watching on Disney. Shut your mouth. Mando and Grogu come Let's not make a thing called shit no one wants to watch. Let's go to the next little piece. That was a lot of conversation when it comes to super app. But on top of Super App, and I'm glad, it's a big thing because it changes the dynamics of stuff. What also changes the dynamics is that Demaru has said now that ⁓ AI planning is coming to the Disney company when it comes to their travel side of stuff. So Disneyland, Walt Disney World. hate us. We just did a whole episode of how AI doesn't work too well. Like it has some positives, it has some negatives when it comes to this. Obviously probably by time this comes in effect, AI will be better. But Disney already has an AI built in their system to Terry's point. genie? Yeah. No one uses the genie. First of all, the recommendations it has is stupid. They're literally trying to push you to parts of the park that aren't busy at that time. Well, that's their game. purpose. That was their fuddling people. Yeah. It's telling you like, go ride in the carousel right now. It's like, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to ride in the carousel. And then isn't the chat half like AI too? everybody, there's all chat now. has AI. Chats for AI these days. Yeah. Fake. Yeah. But the, think, I go back and listen to the previous episode. We talk a lot about how AI is working right now between three of the major ones out there. AI planning. We kind of figure something like that is coming our way with Disney. There's slowly been a push for agent, like how does Disney take the money and keep it? Travel agencies, we already take a percentage of what Disney's making. So when you have a drop of, I think it was a drop of 1 % in their domestic theme park, but an uptick of 6 % in sales and revenue for the theme parks over the last quarter, they need to make money somehow. So as much as I hate to say it is that the agent side of stuff, while they play nice right now, when will Disney's finally go? We can let AI handle this and not have to pay y'all. That goes into my next question. was going to say, do you think they will kind of try to discourage travel agents from booking with them by like slowly decreasing like the amount to the point where you're like, I don't even book Disney vacations anymore because it's not worth my time. And so their AI can take over and therefore they don't have to pay out any commissions ever. This is a little controversial probably, but I wouldn't, I would imagine that Disney at one point will go to the Costco method of, we'll give you this much of the trip taking out the commission. portion or at least half the commission portion of what they would pay us and say, this is what your part, your package would be so that it looks better to book through them, them through us. Once again, the best way to book a Walt Disney World vacation is through a travel agent because we can talk you through stuff. are there for you. don't necessarily, like what we're talking about hasn't come to fruition. We don't know if it will come to fruition, but the people are the ones who experienced this. AI has not come alive yet where They've experienced the park. So they're not going to give you the best bet for the person you are that we have gotten to know. I'm currently texting a client that's in Walt Disney World because she's asking about recommendations for things. Where's the best place for this? Hi, Disney AI is not going to put you in the best place. It's going to put you where it needs you to go because... That's where they put the cast members to work. And is AI going to cancel your dining reservation for you by calling it in because you're stuck in a monsoon and you can't get to the other park because the bus line is too long? Been there. Done that for a client. No, it's not. Nope. And they thanked me up and down because I saved them the $10 a head fee for no showing because I was able to call and get it canceled because of what was happening down there. Like we said in last... and AI is not doing it. No. Like you said in the last episode, there's good things about AI. You can bring an AI to us and say, this is the outline that AI said would be the best bet. What do you think? How can we expand upon this, make it better? What's our... But this is also discouraging news to like Rachel, who's partial owner of a company, because if Disney's already announcing this, it probably means they're at least five years into development of some sort of AI to travel plan. So in her five-year outlook for her company, she might be like, well, I'm reading the writing on the wall. I'm no longer going to suggest Disney to people when they, you know, I'm going to suggest an all-inclusive sandals or to clients. She has had this gone Disney. Hey, your kids are now 17 and 19. They're not seven and nine anymore. Why don't y'all pivot to somewhere, know, universal or in the Dominican or somewhere like that. Because she's like, well, if I see that Disney is already putting it out there, it's like the government. If they ever tell you they're doing something, that means they've been doing it for 10 plus years. So that's discouraging to company owners to continue to basically for free sell Disney. It's not for free because they do get a commission, but she doesn't have to do that because she gets commission from other places as well, like Cruises. So I think, I don't like this move by Disney. I don't think anybody really likes it. The Teeles were there when they announced Genie as a tool to help plan. I just don't think we all expected it to come out as fast as it has because we didn't think AI would grow this fast as it did. And like I said, there's no formal announcement of like AI is taking over travel planning. I'd want to make that 100 % clear. And we are not doom and gloom about this. We were just talking about it. None of us rely on AI to travel plan for you. When you work with us, it's a brain working for you. Where other people do plug and chug kind of stuff in there and pump it out. Let's move to the next thing. While Disney's trying to cost cut, they canceled the opening show, the welcome show for Magic Kingdom while the castle was being repainted. That's just no longer coming back. That was all the characters coming out on stage, doing a little show and dance and then- With the little fire and the dollop. Yeah. They moved it from the train station into the park before COVID and now it's- been right there at the hub because they did the open up the main street and let people come in before the park officially opened so they can make money off of merchandise and coffee. Everyone go in the Emporium and Starbucks. Didn't realize that there was a welcoming show. Right, because usually we're already in the parks because we early-entered, so we're already past that point. Has the fireworks ever startled you while you're waiting in line for something else in the park? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've watched it once. And every time since then, I'm like, you know, kind of jump when you hear fireworks in a day and that's what it is. That's not something I ever told clients about because like, just figured it was like, just like, I don't know. But it wasn't just an opening show. They came out and did it a couple times in the morning. Like they would do it a few different times. The one I liked was the actual train station one where the train would pull up and everything like the mayor would come through. That was something I would tell them. about, because that actually was like, I felt like a welcoming show. This one, everybody's that's not saying on property is queuing up at whatever land they're trying to get to. Most of them were queuing up, you know, for Fantasyland, Tomorrowland to get to the seven-door Ctron. So no one paid attention to the show, but when it was out on the train station, everybody watched it. So that's, that's the only reason I put it in here because those who do enjoy it, it's no longer, it's going to be a little feel they're going to put over the speakers. I watched it while I was pushing strollers while people were waiting for like Splash Mountain. mean, that's how I caught it, is with babies. Next for Disney World, they announced that level 99, which is the experience that took place of the NBA experience, which took place of Disney Quest, will be opening this summer. They still haven't given us an official date. They gave us some more concepts of what it's going to look like and the fun that it's going to be. I think it's going be fun. I don't see myself going into it unless it's a... special perk we get for staying on property, which will be like a team building event. you, if you said, let's do this. I'll do it. Yeah, I get it. I'm just not going to, Travis might want to do it and we might do it then. Right. I'd to see something that's indoors though. So when it's raining and storming, you have an option to have fun inside somewhere. And it's yes, there's an admission, but it's not a theme park admission. You know, you had to go to Disney Springs for free, you pay 50, 60 bucks for the level 99. I was going say, that appeal to like, Locals that are looking for something to do more than it would like people that are actually in the park Maybe that's why they're doing it like a rival day departure day type thing if you have a late departure You don't want a theme park ticket You can go do this if you if you ride late after lunch one day you can go do this I feel like even if you have like teenagers on your like break day or something and you're going to Disney Springs And they want something to do. Yeah But still note that you get free mini golf if you're staying on property so Last thing for Disney for right now, we'll move out to West Coast. Disney lands Autopia. They officially announced that they are going electric starting in 2027. No closing date yet. So we're going on a Sunday ride on Autopia over there so we can get the fumes. mean, that just means it's probably going to happen in Disney World as well. Good. I hope it does because I want it to. be gone. don't want to smell the gasoline. I don't want to hear the cars. thing to be gone. Not even electric. I just want the whole thing to be gone. I wonder how much they're like they're putting up gas with how much gas is Well, I mean, it takes up a huge footprint. They could put a big ride out at Walt Disney World where it's at. I've never ridden the one in Disneyland because I was there with adults, so I have no reason to go on it. But like at Disney World, it takes up a large footprint. They could put a big ride there. but it's gotta be an open ride. can't be like a closed ride because of like the people mover. Like it's gotta be an open type ride like that. Disneyland is still big too. You gotta remember that's a huge track. But now Disneyland's to me was cleaner. Like it's still, it doesn't have that smell so much because it's so, there's the trees and everything like that that are holding everything back versus being open aired right there at the middle of the theme park. So I was, I'm surprised that Walt Disney World didn't get it first in Disneyland. That's California. I was going say, because they're pushing for like electric cars anyway. So. Gas is more money in California than it is Florida. probably have to pay more like for emissions and everything there too. Thank you. Let's move over to Universal for a little bit. Mythos is the final component that will be closing over in Islands of Adventure that's in the Lost Continent area. That's set to close in 2027. That's the theme park restaurant that is 10 times running the best restaurant. theme park food in the world or something like that. It's good. I've only eaten there the one time. have two questions. One, are they replacing it or are they refurbishing it? They are destroying it. Oh, they're replacing it. They're destroying it. They're technically going to replace it with another restaurant. So Thunder Falls and Jurassic World, Jurassic Park area, which is a quick service now, will be closing and they're going to rethink that to be a full service restaurant. Okay. So they're not like putting something in the same building. They're putting it. Like, okay, but okay, got it. two, do you think that they just made that up? That they're the best meat, part food in the world year after year? They just make that banner. That banner's been there every time I've been there. I was like, I've owned that. It's like celebrities pay for their star. Well, the celebrities don't. It's always like the company, like they have a movie. No, no. Well, when I was at an earmark conference, Kurt Russell was there and he said it. at the time he paid 50,000 for a star. Yeah. So they don't earn the star, they pay for it. So it's not like the restaurant, they just put their own banner up and it's like, hey, where's the best theme park food? Usually one of the, like if a movie's coming out, I think with Devil Wears Prada, Stanley Tucci got his. And Emily Blunt. But Disney fronted the bill for it because it was a marketing pull, it's a marketing event. You could see that. Yeah. It costs money to have, yes. You can buy it yourself or you can hold out for one of your movies come out and use it for that. But yeah, mythos. The rumor is that the restaurant for Jurassic Park that Thunders Falls will be coming to Hammonds, which is in Singapore, I think. I'm excited for something new in Jurassic World. There's two quick services right there and all the little huts that they have for fast food. that nothing big, but it's good. They also are closing. Hot Dog Hall of Fame. Did y'all, have y'all eaten Hot Dog Hall of Fame? Actually, yes. Same here. One of the first ones. were with a very picky teenager who, when we were walking up and down City Walk, and he's like, I want a hot dog. So we went there and ate a hot dog. I don't even know where it's at. It's by, ⁓ it's over there. by the Burger King? No. What's the Mexican restaurant? ⁓ cause you have to walk up those little stairs. It's around that little corner, right? post. Yes, Ante Hito. The Ante Hito is right there. And then Hot Dog Hall of Fame is like Caddy Corner. And it's stadium seating. Yeah. yeah, yeah. It's a baseball stadium. But they are, don't worry. If you want a hot dog, you will still be able to get one because it's just going to become fat ones, hot dogs, and Italian ice. Or water ice. It's silly. Right. It's water ice. I would tell call Italian ice is water ice. Yeah, water ice. Water. This is, this is Joey for tones hot dog place. I mean, might be able to say, yeah. just say out of all of the members of just boy bands, he looks like one that would own a hot dog place. think this, um, that's going to close in 2026. They did, they did say that we don't know when an opening date for the hot dog, for the That one's comes. I've heard good things about the end of 2026. It'll be a quick turnaround. Yeah. I figured it's just going to be a lot of re-thing. Name changing. That's a lot going on in that little area too, because right across the street, the walkway is where that, what the hurricane. The category 10. Luke Kahn's car. When we were saying there's not even a category 10 hurricane, like it doesn't make sense. That's a, yeah, I'll have an inside joke with some friends because. I didn't ride Rise of Resistance with them in Disneyland because I wanted a hot dog is what they thought I said. was like, I don't want to spend money. And I don't know how they got hot dogs. now they always joke about hot dogs with me. So I had to go eat here and send them pictures. The last, well, Universal, they just closed this week, I think it was Monday, of recording this. The horror makeup show is closed for a big refurb. They're going to redo the whole show, bring it back out, brand new and fresh. Disappointed in this. I like the show. The way it was? I'm excited. hope they do make it better. Like it's already good and it's fun and it's entertaining. So I hope they... I'm just glad Terry got to experience it the way it was. Yeah. I never, I never did it. You I made Terry and Micah go in there. Yeah. Not necessarily Micah so much, but I made Terry. I had seen it multiple times. Yeah. Is that the one when like Jennifer Shoemaker got pulled on? We were trying to him to get Terry up there, but they were like, we're not going to take her. Cause she already talked to the guy like they knew. he tried to make out with me and I was like no. So they picked Jennifer and that was even, it was still ended up being great cause was some of the group having fun. She had a great personality for that. But Jason and I like, we're like, no, we're going to be here. We need to be like first in line cause we want to be front row, middle. And we got it. So. And Terry was right there in the middle of They were very funny. Are the same two guys coming back? I think, I think we would try to, but. I hope so. Maybe they'll just update the horror movies for like some of the newer things that they use in movies. I'll probably update seating and stuff like that too. it going to be open by HHN? I think so. Cause that's the RIP meeting area is the lobby. Last bit of Universal news. It's pretty cool. There's, it's not really Universal. Universal is more like the university of central Florida, but Universal and UCF came together and they opened a school that were themed entertainment. So if you want to go to school for building theme parks. and more in depth for that. I think that's pretty cool that Universal threw some money out there and said, let's do this. Cause if you don't know, UCF is a really good school for the travel industry in general. They have a lot of hotel stuff and you can learn all that. ⁓ One thing I didn't put in the notes, I do want to mention right quick, the ferry. Disney World has announced a new ferry going across seven seas of Goon. And I can't remember the name off the top of my head. It's named after a former president. It's a female. ⁓ Margaret maybe. That's a pretty cool thing because they have that will be the fourth one. That means Disney never does something to just do something. They're not going to spend money on a fourth ferry. So speculation of course is that there are more attendance for the villains land, Carla's land. Somebody said like maybe we get some work on monorail. They can take the monorail down because four ferry boats would be enough to carry people back and forth on top of the buses in and out of the park. So maybe we get some help with the monorails at this time before this Villains Land and Cars Land comes online. Update it. don't take the ferry. I'm not a ferry person. I'm a monorail person. I think it depends. No, it doesn't depend. It's the monorail. That's going to do it for news. We're going to take a quick break. We're going come back and talk Disney and Banana Ball because me and Micah just came back from Banana Ball in Atlanta and Micah's been to 16 Banana Ball games all year already. So we'll be back after this. Are you dreaming of your next adventure but overwhelmed by planning? Magical Travel has you covered with over 22 years in the business. We specialize in Disney destinations, Universal Studios, cruise vacations, and all-inclusive resort getaways. Our services are 100 % complimentary when you book a vacation package with one of our knowledgeable agents. Request a free quote to start the planning process at www.magicaltravel.com. Mention our podcast to be connected with one of our agents you are listening to. Welcome back, Micah and I. Thank you. Went to Atlanta with her mom and my wife to see the bananas play, Savannah bananas, play the party animals, which was a great time. I very much appreciate Micah for getting us tickets. Welcome. I actually have a party animals t-shirt on under this, but I'm too cold to wear it without my sweatshirt. Now you have this Savannah bananas and you have the Texas tailgaters. Do the party animals have a location? No, so they're just there. So there's six teams in Banana Ball now. They started out with the first team. Let's hold off right quick. Let's hold off right quick. Okay. Because let's get to the point of why we're talking about the bananas on this episode. That's a good idea. and the bananas and animals. Yeah, that's why I'm the host because I have good ideas. The Banana Balls. Or you could just like conversation flow, you know. You know what? Mike, for that, I'm docking his next commission cycle. Just for that comment. It's like two blocks. Hey, you're gonna talk to Michael like that? So the Banana Ball organization has announced... have announced that Disney Plus and them will be partnering for live streaming of the Banana Ball, which will be happening in October. We don't know location. We don't know dates or anything like that yet, but that's all to come soon. Personally, I'm just gonna throw this out there since they're making a big deal with it being Disney. I would think they're going to try to do something Disney related, like not necessarily maybe the Angel Stadium since it's Disney. I don't know. Obviously then I'll come put it at ESPN, my world sports because it's not big enough. No, they need huge. So I think, I think it's going to be Disney adjacent. Okay. It makes sense. Okay. So Micah, tell us a little bit more about like the team layout of how many teams there are, what the team names are, all that. So we can, we can get to know this. So with Banana Ball, they started out with the first team, the Savannah Bananas. And like their name says, they're in Savannah, Georgia. So that's kind of how they started. And they started actually as a college team. So they started in collegiate ball. Well, then as it kind of moved forward, they did their own stuff, but would play in some other smaller divisions. And then they kind of started their own league. And so they needed a team to go against the Savannah Bananas. So they have the party animals and then their mascot. is a monkey because monkeys eat bananas. So it's their kind of whole like funny thing. So technically the party animals and his name is party and he farts a lot. ⁓ they eventually, I think are going to have these other teams put in other places, but the party animals home base is also Savannah. That's just kind of where they're at. ⁓ and their whole shtick is that they're the mom's favorite team because most of the guys are good looking. They're buff. They take their shirts off and dance. ⁓ that's kind of the Savannah bananas whole thing is like, they're more of like the traditional baseball team. then came. like in a traditional way. They, they look more like the Yankees than anything else. Cause the pinstripes and all that stuff. Yeah. They were in their white uniforms on Saturday when Jason and Beth were there. ⁓ so then they came out with the firefighters so that they could have them like rotate around. And it's not just the Savannah bananas and the party animals playing each other. ⁓ and then last year they came out with another team, the Texas tailgaters. So then that was four teams that they could do and they are based in Texas, not a specific city in Texas, just Texas. And again, their whole schtick is more like tailgating. Like that's the entire thing about them. ⁓ and then this year they have two new teams, which are the Loco Beach Coconut and the Indianapolis Clowns. So the Indianapolis Clowns are again, based technically in Indiana, ⁓ in Indianapolis. And then the Loco Beach Coconuts are just. Beach theme. the clowns are also based off of an pre-existing team. That started in the 1930s and then ended in 1989. And it was an African-American only team. And they were technically the first people to do trick plays and fun stuff in baseball. So they were like the original Savannah Bananas. So they're homage to them. Yes. So they are very much about keeping the history of that. Um, this weekend's actually their first headlining game. And before that team, we, went to watch the game on CW Sunday. I fell asleep. So I didn't watch it, but you know, it was cool to be able to know that we could watch it on YouTube. was what True TV was the Friday night. So I think the fun thing about them, the Disney connection with it was the, um, you know, the fact that they're so family friendly. The funny side of it is like I have friends slash clients that were doing the opening pitch, competing for the opening pitch of the game in Atlanta. And because it's a family environment, they wouldn't, they had to chug a drink, but they wouldn't let them chug a beer because it's a family environment. They had to chug a root beer. But at the same time, they're selling banana themed alcoholic beverages all around the stadium, all outside of the stadium. mean, naturally it's because- can drink responsibly, but they're you know, encouraging you to chug it down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was kind of funny to me of like, ⁓ we can't have that on screen. as a mother who has sat through many, ⁓ boys, sat through many of baseball games, I appreciate someone taking TikTok and baseball and putting them together because it, it's so enjoyable to watch. And like you said, like it's family friendly. So my kids can go and they're watching baseball. So they're excited because for, you know, for boys, it's hard to find an entertainment aspect of something. that's entertaining that's not girly. You know, there's no theater, there's no anything like, you know, everything's either a sport and moms generally don't enjoy sports. So I enjoy the fact that you can go and you can take them and it's a fun party atmosphere without worrying about the drunk guy beside you, you know, is gonna start cursing out someone. Because again, I can't imagine, I've never been to a game and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't imagine they get super competitive. you know, major league games, guys are like, you know, your audience members are. fans are cursing out each other in the stand, you know? So not so much as the players, yeah. The fun thing with the game too is that it's a two hour time limit. Like you know you're going in there for two hours. Like at maximum most of the time, you know, there are exceptions if you get into the ninth inning before that time limit, it might run a little bit longer than two, but you're not, you're not going to be there for 17 innings. You're going to only be there for nine innings. I think a lot of, they took a lot of The MLB is not helping themselves in any, you know, because they blackout markets all the time. So people can't watch games, even if you're in their region. You know, like she said, like they don't negotiate on the side of the fans when they decide on how they're going to distribute it. And they finally implemented the pitch clock, which cuts some of the game times down and they cut down the number of games in MLB season. But baseball is exhausting. If you're a true fan, like it's, it's exhausting. Yeah. And if you're not a true fan, it's an endurance play. See, I would go if I was invited. Like, I'll tag along. I'm never going to seek out and buy tickets for myself. don't care that much. Okay. And I will absolutely go with you. Perfect, Micah. Cause I need to, I feel like I need my handheld with that. I feel like it's like going into like rope dropping Disney. Like I need guidance with that. But I will never, probably one, I can get the tickets cause I'm not in that club. two- I know you can't go through Micah. She's the plug. I just- I don't really have any interest. I feel like as much as you got excited about the YingYing Twins when we talked about that at SeaWorld, you would be excited at a bananas game once things, like she said, I feel like they're guys that got to college on a baseball scholarship, but they know they're not good enough to go pro. So they dance. Like, I don't know if it's just I'm getting old, like, because I was on ship with Rachel, not by much, by like a year. I was on the ship on the Disney Destiny with Jackson Olsen. Yeah, I knew there was some type of merger with Disney. He looks like a baby. Yeah, he's like I could almost be his mom Yeah, he looks like a baby. He's a very good-looking boy. Yeah, he's too young like I can't I can't I don't know I just look a creeper. I'm just too old. Yeah, I'm too old Okay, he's my age and see like I watch y'all don't watch love island But I watched love island Australia a couple of seasons ago Andy Cosgrove was on there followed him now. He's on the party animals also also listened to the Bobby Bones show in the morning, because it's family friendly, so the kids are in the car. And a guy called in, he was trying to get his country music career off the ground, but he was also a college baseball player. His name was Jason Art, A-R-E-N-D-T. And now he's on the tailgaters. It's very funny how these people are finding, you know, I like how it's gotten out of the stuffy, like, you can't play ball. Like, you know, can't, you know. They obviously are looking for a career path. and they're not the best of the best, but they are so good that they should be somewhere on the map. And they're taking all these other talents they have. it's weird how like Love Island and like Bobby Bone Show and baseball, literally none of those three things have anything in common. Yet they're all merging and it's entertaining. Like I don't follow any one of those people on TikTok or anything, but they're always in my algorithm. I don't always watch it. You know, it's just... While we're talking players, this is the best place too, when it comes to getting to know players. I didn't meet any players that we had, but not to say we didn't have any opportunity not to. They were all outside the stadium before the game. They roped off areas where you could take pictures with them and all that stuff. But then in the game, there was, if you're, watching, we had to watch the Jumbotron a lot because our view for the batting box was blocked. So we're sitting there watching and there's, there's a whole. row of people just having a good time the entire time they're playing music the entire time they're dancing everything like that and then maybe third or fourth inning when the party animals comes up there and starts joining them and then by the end of the game there were two banana there were two party animals up there with them and then there were two or three on the field right in front of them dancing and then there's two or three running around with them that the party animal players Uh, the picture, I don't know the names like Micah does, but the opening picture for him, he, his mom was sitting three or four rows behind us. He brought up flowers when he got done. And then he hung around in our area for the good 30, 40 minutes. I'm Yeah. It was just like, it's a fun atmosphere because you go to the MLB games and it's so, you're paying so much for the tickets, right? You're paying, you know, told Micah, we couldn't sit where we were sitting. We were sitting what? Maybe 13 rows from the field. We probably would have had to pay two or $300 per person for those tickets. I'm not positive on that. We saw a proposal like they were. That was my worst fear. Don't ever propose to me on a Jumbotron. my God. was a kissing contest is what they advertised it as. there was a- Sweet. There was a butt rubbing contest where the wife had to figure out who it was. Yeah, it was a player, the husband, and then farty. And she said that the player was her husband. Such frat names. I gotta Google this guy. But I think people undersell it because it's not quote unquote serious ball. But it is. It is and they're dancing and like there's some guy on stilts somewhere and there's like backflips. There's back flips to catch a ball. You know I'm saying? Like there's stuff, no. I get nervous trying to learn TikTok dances with my nephews to do with those and try to look cool. So to learn, actually know how to play ball and do TikTok dances and look cool while I'm doing it. It's a, it's a, and I think it's undersold. It's like not serious, but they're, they're legit athletes out there. was talking to a guy at work who's very serious in a baseball. He's like, I don't, I don't think I'll ever go to a batting games because it's not real baseball. I'm like, it's pretty real. Yeah. But one of the trick plays that they try to pull off, you know, the guy, the ball was coming to the outfield. He tried to hit the ball with a glove to bounce it up and catch it. He missed it. He hit the ball up and it fell, which made the runner, you know, get another base. A trick play doesn't mean you're going to get that trick done. Yeah. It's not a performance. It's an actual game. Mm-hmm. It was a full-on party. And as a tech guy, as tech nerdy as I am, watching the cameras on the field, what they were doing, I've looked up the settings they used. I actually know that the products they use is what we use at the church, the Blackmagic Design stuff. So I'm trying to figure out how to get the best look for cameras. because they had some crisp looking stuff and those tech guys had to be in shape just as much as the baseball player. They're running backwards from outfield all the way up to the batter box. Wait, we have... Cameras in the infield? I was like, so this one about her, did a dance to, I can't remember that, but they turned off all the lights in the stadium. Yeah, they were out there in the outfield. They started at the gates of the outfield. So they had a guy with a gimbal and just, he followed him for a little bit and all of a sudden they all broke out in a run and this guy started running backwards the entire time, didn't miss a beat. And I'm like, oh my God. Oh yeah. That's always a good time. Another guy, had a, Micah told me that he has a, like I said, I don't know names. He has a tie to Disney because he was the, he was Aladdin on Broadway. He came out singing a song in the infield, which was pretty cool. Yeah. We're in the TikTok too, because they filmed it to our direction. I mean, you can't see us. You cannot see us, but we're in the You know where you're at. I don't have TikTok on my phone anymore. I don't have TikTok. think like, while we're talking about athleticism, like with Jackson Olsen, him announcing this week that he's going on Dancing with the Stars. I think that, yeah, he's saying it's still really hard to keep it a secret. But I feel like, because everyone you talk to, you talk to, but everyone they interview about Dancing with the Stars, they're always like, it's a lot harder than you think. They're like, you see people drop tons of weight because they just work out so hard, so many hours per day. And people are like, ⁓ my God, I've done a lot of stuff in my life, but this is literally the hardest thing I've ever done. So I think that says a lot for, know, they already dance on the field while they're playing baseball and now he's signing up for Dancing with the Stars. I love that. Yeah. million TikTok followers. I didn't go off to Talk about celebrity being fractured. Like she had no idea basically who this guy was and he has a million TikTok followers. Yeah. No, I knew who he was because of Micah and Siobhan. like the thing is, no, I don't care. You know why I care? That's just your job. I look at you as that's what you decided to do to make money. Yes. Like you're, I'm not going to be like starstruck and be like, ⁓ my God, like you're God. I don't care. that's just how I feel. They, the biggest thing between them and other athletes though, is that they don't care either. The approachability. Yeah. And like I didn't go up to him because he was with his family and I wanted to respect that. He was with his family and you know I wouldn't want to be bothered if I was in the know the limelight in my family. ⁓ he did ⁓ my god constantly and you know but also Lance Bass. Bass. Bass. I can never think. Bass. That's my accent. Never it doesn't come out right the two words together. He was on the ship too and people bothered him more but I feel it. He's insane. Probably bother Lance Bass more than I would bother Jack Norris. I by him three times and I regret know you had bothered John and knew you were gay before you announced it. same way Rachel does about celebrity. Because what are you gonna say to them? How are you doing? How's it going? Like... What I think when it comes to these guys know they're popular, but they also know that this is but a mere second of their life. Yes. I don't know. Michael was telling me these guys are only signed to a one-year contract. They might not make it next year. They might not be doing this, but for one year. Those MLB guys, they sign multi-year contracts, get traded back and forth, they're making multi-millions. They think they're the crap. These banana guys, they're just taking it all in and enjoying the fact that they're able to play something for at least a year that they entertain people. Do they staff based on performance, like their trick stuff or whatever, or do they do it like talent? I just mentioned this. Like, you know so much about like this entire league. That's like my husband's name, like who played a NFL team in 1992. It's impressive. How do you, how do you pull it out? Like, where does it go? How do you pull it out? Because I couldn't, I couldn't tell you the names of stuff, but the Mike guy she was just talking about, they, they mentioned all that in the pre-game. there, cause there was a big party out on the stage outside and They brought him out and they were like, this is the MVP from last year. And they, didn't give all the sets, but they gave a lot of them. And it's like, wow, this, this guy's pretty. Yeah. They brought, could be smart out the first night, somebody else. this banana bowl that's only been straight and it's only going to stream on Disney plus lab. What, what is the banana bowl? That's awesome. think this is a smart move by Disney. think, because this is, it's kind of out of their normal scope of what they do, you know, but I think this is a smart move because I feel like we heard about Wiener Ball like four or five years ago and then kind of heard about it, heard about it, heard about it, and then it just like pew, skyrocketed. Like they played our local, like the Durham Bull Stadium here in Durham three or four years ago. I mean, there's a ticket lottery. It's like some people didn't get tickets, but most people that entered did get tickets. And like, it was like after that, it was like, ⁓ well they can't come back anymore because they can't fit in that stadium. It's, and it's a big, you know what saying? Like it's big, but as big as they had gotten, they can't even entertain spaces that small anymore. to that point though, is that Jesse came out and said that they do want to do pop-up games now where they go to the smaller. I love that. That's a Texas high school though. It's probably nicer than most of our community colleges. Let's be honest. But that's a lot going on and we'll keep you up to date with everything going on with Banana Ball with it when it comes to the Disney stuff. Micah's going on a trip here in the next few weeks to go down and watch Banana Ball at Walt Disney World. Our Banana Ball correspondent. So we'll have her along. You need to wear your jersey next time so you can be the official Banana Ball correspondent. Bethany's jersey is sitting over there. I probably could have warned you. Do you in a lot? Are you like the outsider if you don't have a jersey on? No, because I didn't have a jersey. I wore a Joaquin Martin shirt and then Beth, like Bethany had her Jersey, but there was a lot of Atlanta Braves people wearing stuff. It's just like any other like sports game, you know, sports thing you go to. It's fun. I love that. That's crazy. I that. I have a million games. Did they ever come to Philly? They don't go to the... No, you said they go to Lehigh, so they go to Iron Pigs. No. That's the Iron Pigs, I think. I think I remember you talking about that. Yeah, Aaron Petties is Coca-Cola Park. That's Lehigh Valley. Yeah. Ugh. I got a spare room. You come up to Lehigh or Philly. You don't even have to get in a hotel. I got a spare room. We need to do a... We need to do a... This is a Cauldrons banana ball game. No. think that's why they're doing so much better than the MLB is because I wouldn't say better, excuse me, but their popularity is gaining so fast. Is everything right? MLB is kind of not doing. I said, we'll say on top of this banana ball stuff and see what's going on with them. What Disney has in store or how they're going to handle this. It should be fun. What if they say no villains land? We're going to push that off. We're going to build the official banana bowl. Arena, we're going to push down ESPN World of Sports and no Villains Land because we're going to do Banana Bowl and it's going to go all Banana content. We're going to take all that money and allot it over here. The only thing is this happens in October and Disney never builds anything that fast. No, no, no. I don't mean this October. I'm saying what if they announce a D23 that there's, we've scrapped Villains Land. No more. We're moving all our money to Banana Bowl. They would have to depend on this staying popular for the next 10, 15 years because that's how long it would take them to build it. Well, that's about as good as they've been playing in Villains Land. I mean, let's just keep it out like 15 years ago. Yeah. That's going to do it for this week's episode. We'll be back next week. We're going to have a couple more episodes before we go on to a hiatus because of our Disneyland training. So we're going to have Allison on next week. She's going to come on and talk to us about her there and back trip she did a couple, almost two months ago? No. Yeah, maybe a month. It was over a month ago for sure. A round of month ago. she went down to Disney and back home in a day. So she's going to talk us about that and how she accomplished it and if she would do it again. If you can go to socials and find us, we're at Castle Cauldron is everywhere. We would love to help you plan your next vacation. You can go to www.magicaltravel.com. Any of our great agents over there that are not AI will be glad to help you. Not AI, we are real people. Real people. It's a real travel agency. until the next episode, we will see you then.