Disney Destiny & Beaches Turks | Cruise Family Travel Tips

Jason: Grab your mouse ears and ready your wands. You're tuning in to 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 Dygon Alley, you'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. Hi, and welcome to episode 67 of Castles to Cauldron. As you can hear, we got Micah here. Terry is on the way to Miami as we are recording this to go on the Wonder of the Seas. Rachel is on the way back from Alaska from the Disney Magic. So over the next three weeks, we're going to have Cruz Palooza, I guess, because I'm going to talk about my trip on the Destiny a little bit today. Next week, we're going to probably get Terry to talk about her trip on Wonder and then Alaska with ⁓ Rachel and Amber from the travel agency because Amber did the wonder. So we're gonna get back information on both of those. So that's gonna be fun. To join us though, so it's just not me and Micah talking back and forth. Micah called her the best roommate ever. Christine said, I've had better. So never said that. Christine is here with us. She's been on a couple of times before. Christine, we are glad to have you back. Very happy to be here. Welcome back, Roomie. I was just I was gonna say when I see you today. To make sure I call your roommate. Yup. We we we mentioned it. We hung out with Christine quite a lot in Disneyland. She was pretty much sick of us, so she left us in the park when she went back to bed the last night. She's like, Yeah, at nine thirty at night and you guys got back at ten. You had like a half hour without me. You also did text and say, I'm kind of having FOMO and wished I would have stayed. No, I just know I was saving money because I wasn't spending it shopping. That's how I looked at it. That's true. Even though we had to figure out ways of saving money too. So we figured that out pretty easy. On the very last Christine's gonna do a little trip report. She just went to the beaches. So we've talked about sandals in the past. So this would be fun to have a little bit of information on beaches as well. So it's it's a pretty packed episode with a bunch of news from Universal and some from Disney. So we're gonna start with Universal. The biggest thing coming out is Fast and Furious Supercharges, closing August sixteenth. That's all I have to say about that. No one cares. It's gone. Boo hoo. I mean, they could close it sooner and I don't think anyone would care. Yeah, they when they announced the coaster, they could have closed it the same day and would be Yeah. Like if you want to take closing it so that they can get ready for Halloween Horror Nights. Right. That's that's the big thing. Yeah. It doesn't take anybody off the walkways having that ride open. We went on it once and that was it. I think I've been on it three times, but You know, it's mainly just because I brought somebody new to the parks one time. I wrote it once for myself. And I think there was just a l short wait and I was like, I need some air conditioning, so let's go do that. Yeah. That would be the only reason to use it. Yeah. Free free ace. But w we get the the roller coaster next year and they teased us with a hundred and seventy foot spike that you can see in City Walk now that they've topped off. And that's that's gonna be fun. I think that's gonna be really cool to see all these people 'cause I mean Rip ride was cool to see in the parks, but you really didn't see much of the coaster itself. Uh-huh. So having the spike in City Walk was is gonna be real fun. So this is not going to be the same track as the one in Hollywood. No, because the one in Hollywood goes on the side of a mountain. But I mean it's not gonna be the same type of ride. It is like turns and stuff. It's gonna spin and whatnot. ⁓ okay. It'll be fun. Maybe I can handle that one better than the one in Hollywood. I don't know. If you can't have I know the side. Having a roller coaster go off the side of a mountain is not really my cup of tea. I see I it adds to the thrill. I like Time Traveler in Branson because it does that. When you get in the load station, it comes off and it j just drops off the side of the the mountain and you're spinning the entire time. So just adds to the thrill, like you said. Yeah. So it spins more than Guardians. Yeah, that one's free spinning. I don't know how the one in Hollywood right now looks like it's is a controlled spin, like Guardians is. So maybe. There'll be controlled spin in Orlando too, but I kinda hope it's free spinning like Curse of the Werewolf. We tried to get that one to spin, but Yeah, we gotta figure that one out next time. I know. I think it's all about weight and balance on Well we tried that 'cause we put Jason in one corner and Terry in the other 'cause she's tiny and we didn't hard we didn't spin like at all. It it was still a fun ride. It's short. I don't I don't think I'd wait longer than what we waited for. Yeah, no. Half hour is the most I'd wait. Yeah. It's a it's a fun, fun little ride. Hopefully with the expansion that they're rumored to have, it's gonna be fun with the swamp thing or they said maybe a ride of Frankenstein. That'd be cool. Dark rides. Ooh, that would be fun. They need more inside rides there. They do. They need a lot more inside rides. Because when it rains Three quarters of the rides are down. Yeah. And then half the shows aren't worth watching anyway. And it's hot. They did just approve Donkey Kong to be rerunning in the rain, though. So that's the fun thing. Okay, good. Good, good, good. So at least that one keeps going when the when it starts raining. And when it starts lightning and stuff like that, naturally it's gonna go offline. Let's go to my favorite time of the year for Universal, which is H H N. Big news on the ticket stuff of Frequent Fear Pass. They announced the other day that It will no longer have express pass with it. So the way it worked in the past was you could buy your frequent fear, which depending on which tier you got depends on how like this is the annual pass of HHN. And that's what you get every year, right? Yeah, I get the ultimate screen, which gets me every night. You could buy the add-on of Express Pass so you have it every night that you're able to go. They're taking that away this year. So no frequent fear passes will have Express Pass detached. So you'd have to buy it individually every night. Yes. Which is a good thing. Mm-hmm. Because all the locals going in using Express Pass, like when we go, if we buy Express Pass, that line won't be as long as what it was when we were waiting last year. Okay. 'Cause you have all the locals that that have bought it, bought these express and last year the even the freaking fear pass expresses that they had very limited in numbers. Okay. Was it discounted though? Like 'cause you're buying it for the whole year? Well yeah, you're buying it for the whole thing. So it's it's still discounted based off of, you know, per night. But it's so you're not paying like I think it was like a thousand dollars for me to get the express pass on to my ultimate fear. Right. Which is another reason I don't go enough to actually say, Let me get the the fear pass on top of it. I'll get an express pass. Christine's getting one. So Christ Christine's not getting anything of the sort. She's super excited about the Nightmare Fuel Blood Noor Nior. Noir. Noir. Noir. ⁓ Noir. I can't speak. French. Learn your French. Remember when we did the epic episode, we had to have Micah do all the French and it wasn't even that good. Yes. Maybe I should have gotten to do this. This is the nighttime show. It was very heavily rumored that we were not getting a show a nightmare fuel show this year because supposedly the fuel girls are going to be on tour in the UK, which are they're a big part of the show every year. And that they had ended they usually do a three year arc on the Nightmare Fuels for story. And last year they kinda tied it up at the end. So the fact that we got this one, it looks like it should be pretty detective y and fun and Yeah. I'm excited. Is that a reason is that a reason people would go? Yeah. Like is that a the show was so good. Always packed. I can't wait to watch a show when I'm not exhausted. Like I was dragging at this point when we were there last year. And I really still enjoyed the show. And I think if it wouldn't have been for us going to the show and sitting down for that amount of time, I don't think I would have made it through the last two houses. But the show was really good. It's risque. A little risque. But it's a good show. Like it was really entertaining. Beth calls it a lot of sexy dancing. Yeah. Where does it take place? In the old Fear Factor theater. ⁓ that's a great spot. Yeah. And it like I said, it is one hundred percent packed every show. Yeah, because we missed the cutoff for the one of the shows we were trying to go to by like five or six people. They didn't let us in. And then we got there, what, forty five minutes before the last show started and waited in line to watch the show. Wow. A lot of energy. Everybody loves the music. It's usually about the same intro music. They play My Chemical Romance, Black Parade. Mm-hmm. It's just a It's a fun atmosphere. Like that's that's a big reason to go and just have fun. The best part are the ushers that were dancing to that music, getting everyone hyped and ready to go. Like they were doing a great job. So can I go to Halloween Horn Nights and just go to that show? I mean you're paying the same price, but yeah. I mean you do have to walk through some of the scare zones. Can I wear something though, like a wristband or something that says don't scare me? The necklace. Yeah, the fearless necklace or something like that. Yeah, I want one of those. See? There you go. You can come with us and you and Terry can review the food. How about that? Yeah, the food and 'cause they they did announce another show, which is the new show for Lagoon is Stranger Things Return to Hawkings. Okay. No idea. I've mentioned on previous episodes I'm not a Stranger Things person. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm not either. But they said that this is gonna explore the music and scenes from the five seasons of the show. So like eighties. Yeah. ⁓ that I'd be into. Mm-hmm. You'll see the Metallica. Like, they'll probably play Metallica in their Master of Puppets. I remember that from season four's House. Cool. I don't I haven't watched a single episode of Stranger Things. I haven't either, but I just remembered Master of Puppets was big for like six months because of Stranger Things. Moving over to some scare zones. We'll run through these pretty fast. Efernal Carnival of Nightmares. Is the first scare zone they announced. ⁓ this is Jack and Doctor Oddfellow. Invite you to step right up and see the horrors hide in every shadow at the sinister spectacle decades in the making. This is, I think, going in Hollywood because it's circuit. So are they getting a house and a scare zone? Yes. Okay, Jack and Oddfellow, Christine, they are icons from previous years. Jack is a clown. Oddfellow is the man who created Jack. People you need to reference that infernal carnival of nightmares. Is an acronym for Icon. So we might be getting some of the icons from H H N in this house as in this scare zone as well. But these are really cool. Jack is pretty much a Joker esque, very runs around hopefully he'll run around the park like Art did last year. Mm-hmm. Oddfellow is a time time traveler. He jumps back and forth through time and can take over people's bodies. Doesn't he kind of look like ⁓ like a witch doctor? Yes. Well like think of Doctor Facilier, mm-hmm, but rated R, I guess would be the best way to say it. Like he's he's a lot more scary. He does some bad things. Yes. The second scare zone we got is Side's show of decay. Cindy's time has come with Doctor Oddfellow's Dark Sorcery. She opens a portal in the carnival's junkyard, using it to resurrect decade nightmares from the past that are back to haunt you. Big note on this one. ⁓ Cindy was supposed to be the icon for HHN twelve, which was in Islands of Adventure. Cindy was taken away as the icon because at the same time little kids were being abducted and they didn't think that this little girl would be a good icon for a time when kids were being abducted. So kind of side put her to the side and let Everything else come through. But they're like leaning this year really heavy into the the Oddfellow and Jack stuff. Like this is multiple like a house, multiple scare zones. Yes. And when the Oddfellow was the icon a few years ago, every scare zone had an odd fellow. Like he he has a symbol and you could find the person having the symbol, whether it was on a scar on their face or on their jacket or something like that. He they were in he was in the scares scare zone in some place. So ⁓ the Cind Cindy is a daughter of the icon care g caretaker who ended up being the icon for that year that she was sidetracked. So maybe we'll see Caretaker throughout that. I'm I'm looking forward to both of those. I don't I don't know where this one's gonna be. I kinda think it might be like the ⁓ the Central Park scare zone. Mm-hmm. But I think that might be a little too small. The last thing was announced today, like we always do. This is recording on a Thursday. Killer clowns from outer space. It's not a scare zone per se. They haven't said anything. They said it's they're returning to the streets. More info to come. So I think this is gonna be like the zombies we had last year in front of Mel or the the Chainsaw Horde and Simpson. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They were there a few years ago. I think it was my second HHN or my third HHN. And they had a little spot in front of Transformers. Like it was just their Ice cream van and then the clowns. So it was very small. But I'm I'm looking forward to it. I I like the killer clown. Lots of clowns. Lots of clowns. Bad year for people that hate clowns. Terry hates clowns. So naturally I'm sending this to her every time we get something new about clowns or circus. So worth saying. I wanted to invite my best friend to come with us this year, but she also really doesn't like clowns, so I don't know if I could convince her now. That's even better reason to invite her. She's hilarious when she's scared. Like she'll do it, but like she's latched on to someone while going through the houses. Like when we did our local one, like she literally was like la and she's got a solid like Christine's tall. Like how tall are you, Christine? Five eight. Yeah, so Nick, my my best friend Nicolette, she's like five nine. So she's right there up there with you. And like she's latched onto me, like hunched over, grabbing my arm as we're walking through these things. She'll do it, but she gets scared. So we're waiting on two more houses and three more scare zones. Are they gonna be like IP houses or original houses? Because didn't we get all the original ones so far? We've got all the original houses. So unless something happens with the IP where they have to drop one, we're done with originals. So the last two should be IP houses. I'm really excited for us to do our ranking again. Now I love doing that last year. We will do that as we get closer to going, obviously. Yeah. But let's move over to something Christine actually likes talking about. Disney. Disney. Disney. And we'll start with something she's really been talking about in our Facebook group. Rumor has it Disney Cruise line might be heading back to New York City. What was it, twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three was the last time they settled in New York City? Twenty three. What ship was it? The dream. 'Cause I was on it. I would love to do this. I've never been to NYC. ⁓ my gosh. To to do a Disney cruise and attach it with a little weekend trip just to see if me and Bethany like NYC to take Travis up there and what to do and do the cruise I think would be great. There's nothing like sailing past the Statue of Liberty. Nothing. And then when you go underneath the Verizano Bridge, you're like six feet. Like, you know, you can hear the cars beeping and stuff going over your head. And then I like when I when you come back, it's usually like four thirty in the morning when you're coming up the Hudson River. I'll set my alarm and I'll go outside. On your balcony, you really can't see much except right in front of you. So I'll go to the top deck so I can see left and right, you know, of the Hudson River, the New Jersey side, the New York side, and like going past the Freedom Tower and downtown and everything. You know, all lit up, but still, you know, it's still quiet and peaceful. Yeah. You know, there's no lot of cars. Yeah, there's no cars like running around the whole city and stuff like that. But it is and then you see the Statue of Liberty lit up, you know, with the lights on her. That just seems like one of those things that's like check off like your bucket list. Like sail past the Statue of Liberty and get that view of the New York skyline. So because it goes on a Disney cruise. Because it goes under that bridge, then I guess the dream and fantasy are probably the biggest ships that can go with the Disney. Disney side of stuff. They couldn't bring the wish up there or something like that. I don't know. I mean, they do Royal Caribbean Oasis classes. I think their Norwegian Bliss used to be in New York at some point. That's one of their biggest shifts. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I had a trivia question. I've totally forgot. We're talking about Disney Cruz. I wanted to do a trivia question with y'all. Okay. And it's Disney related. Yeah. This is random, okay? But I was listening to podcasts out because of the Disney Cruise. What was the very first cruise that Disney was featured on and when was it? You know, I've heard this. Like I saw something about this, but I don't have an answer. So wait, Disney was featured on another cruise line? Yes. They've actually there were there's two. But the Are the cruise lines we know? Can we ask questions can I ask hint? The first one, yes. The second one I'm gonna say princess. No. No? Carnival? Royal Caribbean? No. Norwegian. Yes. Really? Yeah. They did a they did a seven night cruise. It was called Fantasy. And they were testing the waters for Disney to partner with the big red boat, the Premier Cruises, and do the contract with them. They want to see what the demand was. So it was out of if I remember right, it was out of Port Canaveral, maybe? I know Big Red Boat was because they pac packaged that with the Disney World trips. Right. And then they had their flight p ⁓ partner, which I can't remember the name of the f ⁓ air airlines, but you could buy a package that was Disney World and then the cruise. Big Red Boat. And then the fire or the air air park. Wow. That's perfect. I you know, I think I saw that on one of the things on Disney Plus when they were talking about opening the cruise line. Like that I think that was one of the episodes, but I didn't remember that it was Norwegian. So it was The SS Norway made a one week charter special cruise to the Caribbean on behalf of Disney. The cruise was advertised as Disney Fantasy aboard SS Norway. The cruise was born November third through tenth, nineteen eighty four. Well that's why. It's a really long time ago. Were you even born yet? No. Yeah. I don't want to talk to either one of you anymore. You weren't born yet either, Jason? No. I was a year from it. I'm I'm I'm signing off. Yeah, so there there's a trivia. I wanted to do it at the very beginning of the show, but I forgot about it. But now that we're talking Disney Cruise line out of New York, I think. I think we said when she said Norwegian, it like triggered your memory of the Yeah, I did. I mean, that's what it was. It was like, ⁓ yeah, I forgot about this, but 'cause I was like, This is this was a good trivia. Sorry. I said ⁓ between like myself and we have a couple other agents in the area and everything, we could probably fill up every single ship for a whole season. I mean I think part of the demand is gonna be because it's been gone for a couple of years. You know. ⁓ th the problem with what we've had in the past is it's always been in the fall. So it's been like the whole month of September and the first couple of weeks of October. And like everybody just went back to school. Nobody wants to take their kids out the second week of school, you know. So it it made it hard to maybe sell. ⁓ I think a lot of the ones in ⁓ the out of New York were mostly like travel agents who just do anything to get on a Disney cruise ship, you know, especially out of New York. But if they could just give us any other season. What itineraries did they do then? So I did the five nighter to Bermuda. Okay. ⁓ they also did a four nighter to Bermuda. But in twenty twenty two, I think in the years before that, they went down to and the first stop was Pork and Avril. Okay. ⁓ and really back in the day, like when I first started as a travel agent, They gave you a one day park hopper. Like that was an excursion when you got to Port Canaveral. And you would get into Port Canaveral like eight and they wouldn't leave 'til midnight. So you had a good like twelve hours that you could spend at Walt Disney World. And then they would go to Nassau and go to Castaway Key. And then Did they ever do those like fall cruises up to Canada? ⁓ yeah, yeah, they do that too. Like Nova Scotia. Yeah. Stuff like that. Yeah. That's what I'm interested in. If they decided to go up the coast instead of down, I would jump on the cruise in a heartbeat. Yeah, 'cause usually it'll stop like in Bar Harbor, Maine, Nova Scotia, ⁓ like Halifax, ⁓ places like that. Yeah. The rumor to do that too. The rumor right now is twenty seven twenty eight, right? Is Yeah, I mean we're waiting on the fall of twenty twenty seven releases, so that's what scares me, thinking that we're gonna get fall again if they do give it to us, which still I think will fill up every ship just because we haven't had it in so long and everybody's so excited, but it's not gonna make everybody super happy, you know. Right. But we'll take it, you know. There was a little bit of a rumor of it being a wish class as well. Yeah, that 'cause what the What we're seeing, ⁓ and I say what we we are seeing, it's not us. Somebody was digging on the ports information site and found Disney had been populated back into the site and three or four of the ships have been populated into there too as as options. So we don't know which ship is actually gonna be there. We don't know if this is actually gonna happen. This is just one hundred percent rumor at this point. But we should be getting It's one of the very few it's one of the very few Disney rumors I've seen really take off though. Yeah. Because everyone's I really think this could be. And we've talked about it on the podcast. Disney's good at like throwing little things out there every now and then to see what catches. So Disney could have leaked this on their own. They could have given the information to the person and said, see what this does. And see what people are saying online. What are what are their responses to this? Are they excited about it? Yeah. So I'm I like I said, I've never been to New York City. I I've already talked to my wife and said, Hey If they offer this, I would like to try to go up there and do this sailing just to me and you get out and do stuff like see what New York City's like. Off of Disney Cruise Line for a little bit because we're gonna go back to it at the end of the show. ⁓ Disney World, Magic of Disney animation opens September 14th. It's just the Olaf draws, the meet and greets with the characters, the play indoor playground, and then Once Upon a Studio, Short is coming into the theme park and they've added something to it. I don't know why. I'm excited for it. This air conditioning. So we know So this is mostly all the part where Star Wars Launch Bay was, right? It's the old animation building. So they're just putting it back. It's lot of space in there. And I don't think they're utilizing it well when it was Launch Bay. Right. So they're actually re they're utilizing it to its maxable maximum potential again, like they were when it first opened. Like this playground, is it gonna be like a big playground indoors for kids or is it tiny? I think I mean it's gonna be decent size. It's not gonna be like a play place at McDonald's or Chick fil A or something. Right. Like I'm wondering if it's gonna be like bigger than Dumbo, because Dumbo's isn't huge. I would probably think it's about the same size as a Dumbo. Okay. I mean it's a it's the the place it sits in. Like that tin is pretty big with ⁓ where places for people to sit. Yeah. But Play area maybe is about the same size. I think this is great for Hollywood Studios because I feel like sometimes it's not the best park with people with small children. There's not as much to do. Now you have an air conditioned spot for one of the parents to go sit with the younger kids while a parent and an older kid, or even just like grandparents can sit in there while the parents go ride something. I think this is a great addition, like to that. And there's multiple things that'll happen in there because like if the kids go into play and they're like ⁓ what's that? And then they want to go sit down and draw. Like I f I feel like it's a good addition to Hollywood Studios. It was also the only park that didn't have a playground. Right, yeah. It did. I mean it did, yes, but it had the honey eshrank the kids playground ⁓ over. I I used to remember. So cool. Yes. So if we can get something back for the kids, it's it's great. I do also hope they keep the interact the character interactions in the four in the courtyard open. ⁓ like Doc McStuffins and Fancy Nanny. How they have ⁓ Rapunzel walking around and Mulan walking around out there. They did when we were there back in May. Who was out there? Donald Duck was just out doing stuff. Like he was just out there walking around taking pictures with people too, not in a set location. I think that like adds a little bit to that, just having some of those characters walking around. Like Disneyland almost, like where characters are kind of just free roaming there with things. That's one of my favorite parts of Disneyland. Yeah. I mean it's great, but no one rushes the characters in Disneyland like they do in Disney World. I mean they do. I've seen, you know, Maleficent Rushed and Evil Queen. That was also before like pre social media and TikTok. Everybody trying to do that stuff. Even with a handler? Well, you know, at the s at some point those those characters just kind of walk around without even a handler. They might have no usually the Like the mass characters do have a handler, but the face that just walk around. I don't know if I've seen a handler like right with Peter Pan in Magic Kingdom. Like when he's doing stuff. So I wonder if it's like similar to that where they don't have a handler for the face characters, because they don't necessarily have blind spots like the mask characters do. What could happen? A bad could happen with a mass character and kids trying to get a hug. Next month we have D twenty three We've got the announcement that Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting the Disney Parks panel. They have some special name for it and it's like the future of Disney Parks experiences or something like that. And I don't care. It's the Disney Parks panel. The thing I cared about was that they got somebody to host it. Right. Which means maybe something big's gonna be done if they're having like a celebrity host. I'll I'll go one more step. Maybe something controversial big is going to be. I don't know. Canceling villains lineup. That be great. But like No, I want Villa's land. Josh Morrow, Bob ⁓ C Pek and all the presidents that have served over the parks have always been there to make these announcements in some form of fashion and bring out the imagineers to talk about it. But they're not they're not showing their face for this. You know, they might show up, but they're not announcing it that Josh Tomorrow So the fact that they're not coming out here, it I'm not saying something bad could happen, but like What if they were going to say, Okay, we're going to demolish it's a small world in Magic Kingdom? Josh tomorrow doesn't work. So you mean So you mean Neil Patrick Harris would get all the hate rather than Josh? That's what you're saying? There's a buffer. Because who can be mad at Neil Patrick Harris? I know. I'd be like if anybody's gonna make a bad announcement everyone will look at him like he's just delivering the message. He had no he had no like say in what's happening, unlike reading off the teleprompter. Tomorrow. Yeah. 'Cause he might not even know what's happening. He'll be like, Watch this short video and then he's gonna be like, What? What are they doing? Like, excuse me? This I get involved. Somebody comes bum rushing the stage and whispers in his ear and hands him an envelope and he opens it up and it's like something crazy, ⁓ controversial. They're gonna be like, You know what we're not doing anymore? Candlelight Processional. Sorry, Neil. That job you get every year during the festival of the holidays, no more. It's It's interesting. I'm looking forward to whatever they're going to do, whatever they're going to say. I think Disney still has a lot to do to catch up to where Universal is when it comes to new attractions and we're getting s a lot of new stuff. Whether we get villains land or not, it's there. You know, they've cleared the land, they've started prep work for for it. Cars Land is obviously coming. When is D twenty three? August. August. Yeah. It's usually right around my birthday, August thirteenth. They have its merch. at D twenty three this year. So I think Diane's going to D twenty three. We have to I had to pay that. So on the rumor mill when it comes to D twenty three announcements, this one popped up. This is the strange thing. So I was on the cruise all last week. And I text Mike, I'm like, hey, just add notes to whatever happens for us throughout the week and, you know, we'll look through it and find out what there was. Like literally nothing happened when I was on this cruise. Nope. You didn't miss anything. And then I get off the ship and all of a sudden everything blows up. Like we get all these informations, which this is the biggest one that we got. Rumor, one hundred percent rumor right now, Space Mountain might be getting closed for well over a year and they will retrack Space Mountain, but it will be a whole new coaster. It's not going to be the dual loading coaster that we have now. It will be a Disneyland style coaster with the potential of having A launch instead of the lift heal. I'm kind of excited about it, if that's true. Yeah. I mean, to have a major attraction like that closed for a year, year and a half, you know, stinks. But at the same time, we got through Big Thunder Mountain. You know, what else have we gotten through lately? ⁓ Like being closed. Splash Mountain was closed for why look at that. ⁓ my gosh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I mean we'll get through it and stuff like that. And that ride just hurts. hurt so much. I think just any kind of improvement to it will just be better for the park. I mean it's still, you know, it still runs between forty five minutes and an hour wait time and stuff, but it'll be a a showstopper if they change that track. You'll get more people on it. You'll get a lot more people. Also because it's gonna be a a the dual seats. Right, like in Disneyland. And you'll have two or three cars. And those cars will be longer. So it won't be th sitting just three p three rows. Right. It's like four or five, and then you'll have two cars of that. So you're So I won't have to I won't have to climb out of the car and worry about what I look like when I'm climbing out of the car, the vehicle. And you'll just you'll the ride capacity just goes sky high. Yeah. I mean it's it's all good. You probably will have on ride vehicle ⁓ audio now. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't be surprised if it they put projectors and stuff into the shovel. They could change the entire theme of Space Mountain by doing Like the entire thing could still be like, you know, Tomorrowland, like the future kind of thing, but they could just pull in, you know, if they wanted to do like a s like Stitch. Like you're with Stitch and you're taking off to do stuff. But it would be fun. Stit Stitch hater. I know. People love Stitch. I'm just saying there's a lot. Like I don't see them doing the Tomorrowland movie. As the overlay for Space Mountain. I'm agreeing with the overlay, but I'm thinking that what Disneyland has done in the in the past. So for like Halloween parties. They didn't I mean they do that at Disney World though. I mean they do the different No, they turn them on. Yeah, they don't do like the hyper Space Mountain. Yeah, but if you put this stuff in, you can do hyperspace, Ghost Galaxy. They did a a rock and roller coaster style one year w I can't remember if it was Vel Van Halen or Aerosmith, but they did did that. You also, if you didn't make it, if you didn't make it dueling, you could probably make it a longer coaster too. You know? Not that I ever thought it was short. I actually think it's a good length ride. But like compared to Tron, anything is good. Bringing up Tron, that brings up the other thing about Tomorrowland. Like you have tr brand new Tron right behind Space Mountain. Carousella Progress right in front of Space Mountain that's going to be brand new next year. They just redid Buzz Lightyear. Monsters Putting some work into Tomorrowland to make it more up to date. Yeah, so Space Mountain's obviously the next thing that needs to be really upgraded. 'Cause I think Monsters Inc.'s uh live floor, their num their days are numbered. I mean like I think they're gonna There's gonna be a point where it gets moved to Hollywood Studios. Like where that whole thing is just gonna get moved into Monstropolis. They're gonna either retire the show and just have that brand new sho like a brand new monster show in the glob. But I think some form of Live Floor two point up ends up there and they close that and they'll have to do something then with LiveFloor and this old stitch ride. Yeah. I was gonna say that space has been empty for years. Well well well before COVID. Yeah. I mean, and with Disneyland changing autotopia over to electric vehicles, that just kind of also puts it in for Disney World as well. It could put it on the chopping block too. I mean it could go. They could take out that entire thing. That's a huge amount of land for them to put another attraction in. I just think there's a there's a weight limit because I th if I remember reading right or or hearing right, is that because of the utilors right underneath? Mm-hmm. They can't put anything massive on top, but they can still do something there. I feel like they could do something similar to like Carsland of like the Luigi's like dancing cars or Like the tomato thing, like something like that that's not as heavy. 'Cause you already have cars and people and all that asphalt there. So it really wouldn't add you do that much more weight to it. The floating UFOs that opened with Disneyland in the original park. I mean something that they could put there that's so a family ride, but is way better than Tomorrowland Speedway. I think that might be the big announcement is like Tomorrowland is going to be overhauled. ⁓ that's just like Magic Kingdom just turning into Epcot right now, like with all the walls and stuff that's gonna be happening. I would say Tomorrowland is the one land in Magic Kingdom that needs it. Yeah, yeah. They've they've taken down some of the the props around the water area and Cosmic Rays and Tomorrowland Terrace. Th those have come down. Said we have walls around Carousel of Progress. We might have walls around Space Mountain next year. If you're going to redo Tomorrowland, it mut it's the one land that hasn't been touched that needs it in the past. Well, I've been going since two thousand eleven. It's like been this way. They put the retro signs up. That's about it. Mm hmm. Agree. Agree. Everybody in agreement, say, Yay. Yay. As long as they do it right. Now I don't wanna I don't wanna go into Carousella Progress next year and it's a sorry piece of junk show. I still wouldn't remember. It needed it. I'm not gonna say you ruined my childhood by redoing this. I was one that's preached, redo it, fix it. Well, I think part of it too is like my child at eight years old, all of that stuff in Carousel Progress, he doesn't really understand or know some of the significance behind that because he's again, he was he's a twenty seventeen baby. Like That stuff is very old. Like even some of it for me, like I know all that stuff because of my parents, but I feel like it does need to be updated to kind of make it to where people like me with kids that age, you Jason, with with Travis being young, it's just like it's not something that they're like, Yeah, let's go sit and watch Carousel Progress. Like there's no want for that. Versus like my child loves the tiki room and we will have to watch it three times in a row. Christine will sorely miss because of her childhood. That's very cute. Very cute. Very laugh it up, Fez Mall. You knew something was coming. I forgot to add to the show notes about Oogie Boogie. Did you see Yizma's coming to Oogie Boogie? I I did see the teaser that they haven't announced it, but is like obviously Yizma. Yeah. I hope so. Because she's fun. I think she's one of the fun villains. I like her. I wanna go know how they're gonna do her. She's like super scrawny. Like, are they gonna hire one of these I think it's gonna be one of those costumes that does like the illusion. Like where it's gonna look like her body's small, but then she's gonna have like like black and stuff on the outside that'll like blend in so it her body looks small, like with clothes on it. Yeah. 'Cause I really wanna go to Oogie Boogie Bash one year. Like I don't know when that'll be 'cause that's all the way out in California. But I thought that was fun because I love that they do all the like the villains and how they do that out there. I just think that's great. And Emperor's New Groove doesn't get enough love. So having Yisma there, I think it's great. Christine, we need to get you to mention that to Denise for next Disneyland AEP is got it. Oog Oogie Oogie Boogie. Got it. I get one wish a year. That'll be it. That'll be twenty twenty eight though. Because twenty seven we're probably gonna have to go back to you know Full Disney World. Yeah. Well, that too. Yikes. We'll be right back after this break. Are you dreaming of your next adventure but overwhelmed by planning? Magical travel has you covered. With over twenty-two years in the business, we specialize in Disney destinations, Universal Studios, cruise vacations, and all inclusive resort getaways. Our services are one hundred percent complimentary when you book a vacation package with one of our knowledgeable agents. Request a free quote to start the planning process at magicaltravel.com. Mention our podcast to be connected with one of our agents you are listening to if you like what you hear. And we're back. We're back. Christine, you went to You went to Beaches what a couple months ago weeks ago? June. In June. Couple of weeks ago. Yeah, last weekend in June. We're in middle July. So a couple weeks ago is June still. What ⁓ what resort did you go to in Beaches? ⁓ so it's Beaches, Turks and Caicos. So there's only two beaches ⁓ right now. There's one in Turks and Caicos and one in a grill. Turks and Caicos is like their flagship resort. ⁓ and Beaches is the family friendly resort. brand of ⁓ Sandals is its like sister resort. And so Turks and Caicos, if you've never been, is the most beautiful water you've ever seen. I mean, anywhere on Grace Bay is amazing, but Beaches has, you know, this designated probably mile long beach that's just theirs. And I I can't say enough good things about it. You know, it looks like your pictures are like, ⁓ my god. Yeah. They look like postcards. Like they look fake, you know, and I didn't filter anything. I didn't doctor them up. She just you know, but What's that? You just use A. Yeah, if I only knew how to. But you know, I was talking to someone the other day about going and they're like, ⁓ my husband just wants to relax. He doesn't want to go to this ginormous resort, you know, and have to walk all over, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know what? You can do whatever you want there. You can either go everywhere and do everything, or whatever village you're staying at, because there's five villages there. Whatever village you're staying at, just go to that pool, find yourself a chair. Go to that section of the beach, go to those restaurants. I mean, you don't have to go everywhere. ⁓ but we are the Rush family and we can't sit still. ⁓ So we went to we went to every village. So we stayed in the brand new treasure beat ⁓ village, which every room there is ⁓ concierge level or higher. So the higher level would be a butler, a villa or butler suite. So you'll have butler service. Our room was just phenomenal. ⁓ it sleep, I guess it would sleep seven. Because we had a sofa bed which was two, king bed two, and then bunk beds and the lower bunk had a tr ⁓ a trundle that came out. So I think you could sleep seven, two full bathrooms, kitchenette, you know, bar, and when you first get there, they leave a card in your room that asks what alcoholic drinks would you like. So Jason and I are probably the two driest people in the world, so we don't drink anything. So we had nothing to add to that card, but I did bring a card home so I could just add just coke and sprite. The Jason her husband's name is Jason, so she's not talking about me Jason. I didn't ⁓ go to We we did not go to Jason. Yeah. We just want to nail that one in the butt is that her husband I forgot. So I was like, I didn't go. What are you talking about? Like, ⁓ yeah. But anyway, there's like, you know, twenty five plus restaurants there, fifteen or so pools and you know, hot tubs everywhere, ⁓ water park, you know, a lazy river. And there's different At the different villages there's different vibes. So I always tell everybody, ⁓ I wanted to figure out what the Treasure Beach vibe was because the last time I was there it was still being built. So Treasure Beach is just like chic, you know, latest, modern, somebody that wants to be in the the the in scene, you know. Mm-hmm. But we really like the Italian village because they had a DJ there and they were doing like the girls versus guys Olympics in the pool. You know, there's just a really fun vibe there. But I always tell people too, if you're not wanting that kind of music outside your room, Or your kids are going to take naps during the day and everything, then you don't want to be in the Italian village. So it's important to know which village you would want and the different vibes, like I said, of each one. But you know, you can eat at any restaurant there. Only two of them require reservations. So that's good. You don't have to worry about, you know, as soon as you get there making reservations or anything. Most of them are just walk-up. ⁓ you know, buffets all over the place, the freshest fruit you've ever seen. ⁓ definitely was a Big time for weddings. There was lots of weddings there while we're there. ⁓ which made me want to like renew my vows there when it's our twenty fifth anniversary. But ⁓ we'll see. It's between that and Disney World. You said ⁓ but You you said the reservation thing, and I know you were worried about it when we were in Disneyland. Didn't and I know the answer to this, but you were it was Butch Butch's, right? Yeah. So Butch's Chop House, that's like their signature steakhouse there. That's probably the hardest reservation to get 'cause there I mean there's only two that require reservations, but that's one and I was worried about it. We did get an eight fifteen at night reservation one night and then my husband walked by one day and just kinda schmoozed somebody at the front desk and said, Listen, we got two kids, they're never gonna make it till eight fifteen. You got anything sooner? And she's like, Is five o'clock okay? We're like, We'll take it. So we got in right at five o'clock. ⁓ it was wonderful. The the aesthetics of the restaurant are great. Service was, you know Unimaginable. It was just one of the best meals of of my vacation life. Good. You know, and the and the cool thing about it too is which I didn't realize because I think the last time I went down I did a layover. So I think my flight in total was like four and a half, five hours. So I kept thinking like when I want to go on a three, four day weekend, do I really want to go somewhere so far? I really didn't realize it's only three hours from here. You know, for you guys that are down south, it's probably only an hour, hour and a half. But you know, it was a quick three hour flight. You're flying over some of the most beautiful water, so there's, you know, lots to look out, you know, out the window and see. The airport's hysterical. There's like six gates. Everybody sits in one room. We did get the VIP lounge coming back, like when we were leaving, departing, 'cause I figured I didn't want to sit in that kind of warm room with six hundred of my new friends. Right. That were co going home the same day. So we did the VIP lounge there, which is a separate like third party thing. ⁓ which was cool. They had snacks, drinks, bathroom, air conditioning, cushier seats, you know, so that was nice to experience that. But I mean, it's a great four day weekend trip. It's a great week long trip. You know, we just we had a blast. Absolute blast. I mean, you're doing nothing but saying positive things. Were there any like cons or like negatives that you saw? Well, I mean, this is the this is true, I think, of any resort where you have a lot of kids 'cause obviously beaches is is family friendly and probably the most popular one. When a child does, you know, have an accident in a pool. Yeah. Yes. Pools I you know, and I hear this happens at Alani a lot too, you know. But when the pools cl you know, major pools close down, it's closed down for like a good six hours. I mean, think it takes that long for them to they have to cycle all the water, put all the cleaners in. Yeah. Which I'm fine with that. Whatever you gotta do to get it, you know, up and going the way it should be. ⁓ but there was like two out of the five main pools were closed one day, you know, so that just makes other pools a little bit more crowded and stuff. So we decided to head to the beach when that happened. ⁓ they have lots of great excursions as well. So they have a catamaran sale you can do during the day for the families. They have a sunset catamaran at night. You know, it's usually more adult friendly, ⁓ you know, kind of romantic and stuff, snorkeling, ⁓ water trikes, paddleboards, scuba, and then they can s you can actually be certified for scuba diving there. They have two big scuba diving swimming pools that they'll ⁓ teach you and certify you for scuba diving, and then you can go right off the side of the ship, ⁓ the boat the next day. So great. Didn't you say the pools close kind of early too? Like once the sun goes down, they're not yeah, this is not a party resort at the pool type place. ⁓ they do have entertainment here and there around the resort, but it was definitely not the pools. Pools do close. And another thing, I guess I'll call this a con, believe it or not, is very little lifeguard. Most most pools did not have a lifeguard. The beach, I think, had one lifeguard for the whole entire mile. So I saw a lot of the families kind of converge to that area. So it could be right in front of the ⁓ lifeguard, which is usually what we do at Castaway Key and Lookout Key and stuff. So that was something I took notice of because this was my second visit. I didn't notice it last time because I was there with a a bunch of adults. Yeah. So that's something to take note. The other thing I'll say is a pro is their security is great. Like they have one or two security guards at both ends of their beach, twenty-four seven, that just make sure that nobody walks on the property, nobody comes in from the water. You know, no peddlers, nobody trying to sell you anything, you know, all that stuff. They can go do that somewhere else 'cause it's not happening at beaches. Yeah, 'cause I would think like we when we talked about sandals, there was they were talking about like the peddlers coming up in the water or what some of them the beach is public and not private so that those people are allowed to come within a certain distance of the chairs or something like that. Yeah. Like I went to Sandal Saint Lucia Latin years ago. And yeah, I'd say probably every fifteen minutes somebody walked past you know, if you're in the water, they're just walking through the water with whatever they're selling. You know, so, you know, it's part of being in the Caribbean, part of being in another country, whatever it is, but as long as you warn people, you know, expectations are set. Yeah, you know, you can handle yourself. At a at a family resort like Beaches, they The security's stronger because they don't want those people coming up to the kids so much. Yeah. It was I had I had no issues. ⁓ the one thing I will say is ⁓ you know, they're constantly going through refurbishments, very similar to Disney. You know, so they do this village, this village, this village, and then when they get to the end, they go back to the beginning, you know, probably start over again. So right now the Caribbean village, which was the lead in rate, the lowest rate you could get into beaches with, those rooms are being refurbished as we speak. So not sure if those will stay as the lead-in rate. They may be raised a little bit, but it is right next door to Treasure Beach, the new ⁓ village. Okay. ⁓ and you know, I always tell people, if you have the dollars to spend, go stay at the nicest. You know, there's there's I mean, I c I can't say enough good things about the r that part of the resort, the room, the restaurants were there because that's where Chop House was, you know. ⁓ I do feel like as soon as we cross that threshold in Treasure Beach. service just like kind of went up a notch. You know, it could be because it's new and those are all new employees. So they're all, you know or they just move the best employees over there. Absolutely. Like they do at Disney Cruise Line. You know, when a new ship comes out, they take their most tenured and put them on the new ship. So but it's a great vacation for families. It's a great vacation for adults. We saw a bachelor party, we saw a bachelorette party there. You know, there's plenty of places for everybody to go. Plenty of nooks and crannies. Never felt crowded. I did ask the manager what the capacity was. He said eighty percent capacity. That seems kind of, you know, a lot for me, but never felt it. Not once. That's that's good 'cause you said it's a pretty big resort too, right? Like it's really like kinda laid out. Yeah. So spread out. I wish I knew the acreage, I could tell you, but yeah, it's huge. But again, you know, sometimes huge resorts turn people off. I don't think it should. It should make you want to go there and know that you have plenty of options. You know, if The kids wanna do this with mom, but dad wants to, you know, go lay over here or listen to this music and this one wants to go play trivia at the pool over here. You know, every it's almost like a cruise ship. There's something for everybody. You just kind of find your spots. Yeah. So it's it's great for when people wanna do like a week long trip because then they they could feel like every day they're exploring a new area or finding something new versus some of those. much smaller all inclusive resorts, you're like, okay, we're on day two and I've seen everything. Like we've I've been everywhere. We've eaten at almost all of the restaurants because they have, you know, only like five or six total restaurants. So Yeah, you can't do that here. Yeah, with twenty five plus, I mean you'll hit most of them. But I can see it being a pro and a con for people, the size. Yeah. Like with that kind of thing. But and I will say, you know, it didn't rain at all. ⁓ it's you know, it's not underneath the hurricane belt or anything. I mean it's it could be in the way. ⁓ but we didn't have any afternoon thunder showers or anything. The weather was absolutely perfect. Awesome. Yeah, and it's about twelve, fifteen minute ride from the airport. So that's always a plus too, 'cause Beaches Nagrill is I think like one and a half or two hours from the airport. It's a long way. So yeah, you know, you gotta set people up with that expectation as well. But we had a great time and thanks for asking. Yeah. I love your pictures. Yeah, the pictures were great. Is there anything else like people don't really know about beaches that you might you you have found out on this trip that Well, all in case somebody doesn't know, all tips and gratuities, all that stuff's included. You're not tipping anybody except ⁓ if you do have butler service, you can tip your butler a daily because you'll probably not have the same butler every day. And then if you have any spa services, you would tip your spa attendant. Other than that, nothing. It's all taken care of. They are not allowed to accept a dollar from you. And I saw people try and give people money at the bars or, you know, somebody came over and gave ⁓ a drink at the pool and everything. And they just, you know, very gently push your hand away and say, No, thank you. I'm good. Okay. So not really much other money to shell out once you're there. I really want to do a sandals or beaches. Like I would like to experience it. That's that's one of my lists. So Well, the good news is is Beaches is expanding. So they closed the one in ⁓ they closed the sandals in Exuma, Bahamas. That's going to now be a Beaches, Exuma, Bahamas. So that'll be the closest one to the continental United States. So that'll probably be a real popular one. Yeah. ⁓ I think they have one in Beaches Barbados and I wanna say one another one in Jamaica. I'm forgetting at the moment, but They're definitely expanding that brand 'cause they realize how popular it is. You know, it's not going away, so let's keep it going. Yeah. So I think it's gonna be, you know, in the next five to ten years, we're gonna see a big, big push with the beaches resorts. You know, still like like all inclusive resorts are becoming a lot more popular too. Yeah. You know, especially for families with little kids, not having to worry about anything, you know, it really helps. Kind of to transition a little bit, but that's also like why cruise lines are getting Pretty big. It's like 'cause they're all inclusive at the end of the day is you're paying for all your food for the most part unless you want specialty dining and places. But depending on the cruise line, you have the the drink packages you can get prepaid. So I mean it's why not take advantage of somewhere where you don't have to pull your wallet out unless you're buying merchandise. So taking your playing bingo. Yeah. Down to the beaches. Yeah. You're getting to go to the beach and not have to go to a re like your restaurant is paid for already. You don't have to go down the street. And eat at Margaritaville, you know, where you might get good service, you might not, you might get good food, you might not. You're gonna get good food, you're gonna get good service, and you don't have to pay for it because it's already been paid. Yep. Yep. So speaking of cruises. Look at that Christine doing the transition. Not even part of the ep not even a part of the whole hosting crew and you're transisting Just jumping right in. Where we go for it. Well, ⁓ I went, we took our our son who's five years old on his first Disney cruise last weekend. So it was July ninth through thirteenth. We went to the Disney Destiny. I will s ⁓ start by saying we stayed at Cabana Bay for the night because it was it's about a twelve, thirteen hour drive from Montgomery, Alabama to Fort Lauderdale. So we figured we'd split it up Wednesday. Cabana Bay, I know you both know because we've stayed there with ⁓ AEPs. Very, very, very, very much need help. Yeah. It's tired. It is. It I wouldn't even say it's tired at this point. I think it's beyond tired. It's it's like been drinking coffee for the past six years. It's really living up to that retro vibe. Yes. But it has such potential. Like it really does. ⁓ you know, being so close to Volcano Bay and the price point and the bowling alley and all that kind of stuff. But the rooms themselves, they look like they may have been built in the 70s. Yes. And that's that's not a positive in that spot. ⁓ the the biggest things like in Art of Animation opened in like two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen. Cabana Bay opened about the same time. How many times has Disney refurbished Art of Animation, but Lowe's Universal has not refurbished Cabana Bay? They need this. I I told Micah, I've actually sent the pictures to Micah, Terry, and Rachel. The headboard like had finger fingerprint claws from where's too much fun was being had in the bed, it looked like. And it's just like kid did it. Like kids like to also like pretend they're Wolverine or something. Or a parrot? I'm gonna go with the parrot thing. Yeah, somebody brought their parrot to Universal. But it was just like that was there the our bathroom door was swollen at the bottom from where ⁓ the kid had probably flooded the tub or something like that. It's like this is stuff that Disney doesn't overlook. They don't let this stuff get this far. So Universal, that's that's my gripe. I always talk about how much I love Universal, but that's the gripe is like your your entry level hotel. And Cabana Bay is by far your biggest entry level hotel. You don't care for it. Like it's just falling to the wayside. And Al, our our Universal Rep had told us, I think it was the when ⁓ Christine when I first met Christine told us that you know. That was like two, three years ago. Yeah, they said that Cabana Bay was next on the list to get refurbished. And then Hard Rock got refurbished, Royal Pacific got refurbished, Portofino and now Portofino getting finished with their refurbishment. It's like When when is this supposed to happen? Like just let it happen. It needs to. It really needs to. So to go on back over to the cruise though, it's ⁓ what three hours drive from the Universal Disney property to Port Lauderdale. It was a it wasn't a bad drive. Travis was excited the entire time. As soon as we walked in, he was just jaw dropped. It was Yeah. Love it. The best did he have like I saw your video of like when they announced your name. Like, did he understand what was happening? That it like the Davis family. I don't think so because I that's why I was recording it was because I wanted to see his reaction, but I don't think he was understanding what was happening. But and on top of it, he was just taking in everything he was seeing right now. So much is happening. He's overwhelmed, overstimulated. What time did you get on the ship? About one o'clock. Both both thirty. So you probably had a a lesser group of people getting on with you, right? Slows down at that point. It was still we had a little bit of a line on the gangway. Still? Yeah. So it was moving constantly. They had, I think, four lines for announcing people. So that was great. It moved it we had it took us longer to get off the ship than it was to get on the ship. Just cause how they were having technology problems the day we left. Okay. ⁓ we had we were on deck ten. We had a Baymax room, Travis Love's ⁓ Big Hero Six. So when he walked in and saw that mural, he loved it. Did you have a veranda room? We did. And first thing we told him was, you know, don't climb on the veranda, you know, don't do our Don't climb on the chair. Yeah. But we walked out there at least once or twice a day 'cause he always wanted to go out there and see and sit. So we enjoyed that. We could see the bridge. We were like twelve rooms down from the bridge. Fun. So it was it was nice. They We got pixie dusted by our our host. Christina asked about it in one of my pictures. The first night, Travis had just regular sheets on his bed. The second night we come in and there were cleric sheets. I saw that was so cool. And he lit up. He just ran in there and he was like, ⁓ my god, look at my Spider-Man Queen, all my sheets. I'm like, Yeah, that's so cool. So the next morning when Aisha was our host, our attendant, and ⁓ We said s thank you so much. Like that just made his night and we had those sheets for the rest of the week and it was that is I saw that and it was like that's so awesome. Like that's I never saw the Spider Man ones before, so I asked Jason, like, where'd you get that from? 'Cause thought maybe ⁓ you know, you or Beth brought them with you, but you said you were Pixie Dust and I'm like, That's the most awesome Pixie dust for yeah, a five year old boy, my goodness. And was this Travis's First cruise. It was his very first cruise. So he didn't know any like he handled it like a champ. We've we brought drama dramamine down with us to make sure that if he got sick, like started feeling woozy or anything like that, that we'd have stuff. But he you didn't know anything was different with him. Like he just ran around. ⁓ we you we did the Oceaneers Club for about two, three hours each day because we wanted to make sure we're spending time with him, but we at the same time wanted to go s experience the adults only area. Which is on the wish clash. All over. It was all over, but at the it's like not great when you go to the back of the ship and it's the swimming pool. 'Cause my wife wanted to swim a little bit and not with kids. You know, she wanted cool water, not warm water. So again, in like there's no room for anybody in those pools. Like there's no there was a hot tub but nowhere to sit in the hot tub. It was like this is make it a little bit bigger. I'm after coming off the star of the scene they had this massive hideaway infinity pools on the back of the ship. It was great. Me and Glenn were able to walk around and stand ten feet apart and still have thirty people in this in there. We couldn't fit I think fifteen in that little pool they had. Food wise, naturally Disney does great with food. Travis very picky eater. I'm he's he's more picky than I am. He had a corndog at ⁓ the Marvel, which was biggest disappointment over the restaurant to me. And then the next three nights he had Noodles and French fries. And they specially made it for ⁓ every night. ⁓ Marvel they show all the like what the treasure and the wish have the show itself. Like the Ant Man and Wasp show. Spider Man. Yeah. This one didn't. This was trivia all night with Groot. And it was like, This is this is horrible. It's disappointing seeing as like the The statue in the atrium is Black Panther. So you would think they would put a lot of emphasis on the Marvel. And you saw a lot of Marvel around the ship, ⁓ Travis. We were going to dinner the night next night at Pride Lands and Travis we turned the corner and it was next to Wonderland Cinema. So ⁓ Sorabi's and there's Spider-Man. And we were able he we were able to get a picture with him. He got a hug. I mean, he spent a good five Almost ten minutes with Travis just interacting and it was great. So that's you know, that's something the Disney cruise line does that you don't get in in Disneyland or Walt Disney World is those characters actually take some time with you. Especially Especially if you catch ⁓ in the hallways. Yeah. If they're roaming, you know, like on deck somewhere. my kids played miniature golf with Goofy on the Dream Ones. See, that's great. You know? I have that video. I play that video like once a year. I'm like, this is why you go on Disney Cruise. Yeah. Disney Cruise line. I mean, you're you're not finding anything like this anywhere on land. No. He had ice cream naturally every night. Absolutely. I mean, everybody does, but he had a Mickey Bar. We swam our the biggest thing we found out, so deck ten is right below this main deck. School deck. School deck and everything. We loved it because at night we go eat, we come back and get dressed, go s upstairs and swim. 'Cause we'd see the one o'clock show. We saw Frozen, which he absolutely loved, kept his eyes on it the entire time. Watch Hercules Sunday. He's not as familiar with Hercules, but he watched it and he liked it, he said. But he was playing some, you know, trying to lay down and all that. So we saw the afternoon show and we would swim at night and then we'd be able to walk back down to the room. Perfect for us. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's how I was on Norwegian. Our deck was directly below the pool deck. Like we were one down and we were not that far from the stairs to just walk straight up. And I thought that was like especially with a kid who really likes to to be at the pool and do those things. And we were only one deck down from like the buffet. So like it really wasn't that far for us. I felt like when you have a kid That's a great location to be close to the pool and close to the buffet. Like you can't really ask for a better spot. And we do the same thing for breakfast. We'd walk up to Marceline. It's on the neck that's on deck eleven too. So we'd walk up there, go have breakfast and then do whatever's for the day. It was it was great. He loved every part of it. We spent all day at Castaway. Bethany went out and ran the five K. Me and him walked out, took some pictures in front of the ship. found our ⁓ Bethany had put our stuff her stuff on some chairs for us at Castaway. It was raining when we got there, so no one was really out. So we had the beach to our s the family beach to ourselves. So we enjoyed it. He played in the water for like a good six hours. We walked off Castaway around three, I think. Negative. What did think about Pride Lands? Pride Land was great. The entertainment was so, so good. I She came out the the band came out I think three times. Christine, you've done the cruise, right? You've done that. Yeah, I did it in April. It's three times, right? They come out once like round app at least. Like around appetizers. Yeah. A third of the show. Then they come out and do another part of the show like right after entrees and then as desserts being served or finishing, depending on where you are, that's the last time they come out and do it. I love the drama. Yeah. The whole thing, she's phenomenal. Like Yeah, she is. This is like Broadway type type singing. My friends They do stuff from from The Lion King and from Lion King Simba's Pride because they did ⁓ the main song from that one. Yeah, that was just a great, great restaurant, great theme. I would love to It was good. ⁓ I don't remember what I had. Like were you able to find something as a picky? Yeah, so at at ⁓ at World of Marvel I had steak, which I wasn't a big fan of. It it was the One they had every night, like gr grass fed sirloin or something like that. It was too neat and it just didn't taste good. It didn't look like it was cooked right. It was fine. I did go up on deck and get something later for absol actual substance. I had chicken, the the oven roasted chicken or something like that for Pride Lands. It had some seasoning for, you know, ⁓ some African s style seasoning. Then the next night I had the jerk chicken for Pirates Night, 'cause we had we did Pride Lands twice. Then I had the flay nineteen twenty three. Then I think Bethany pretty much matched whatever I got. But it was overall the food was was good. Good. I know I really like I see this ship being the ship, I mean, 'cause all three of us here, we all have boys. So it being more of like, you know, a boy focused ship more than like a lot of the other ones where you're gonna have like the royal gathering, which is all the princesses and stuff like that. Do they have something like that on Destiny? Bad Royal Gathering. They don't have like a a superhero meet and greet like they should. Yeah. Like but Black Panther was meeting in the Marvel Academy at one point when we dropped Travis off at Oceanears. And it would look like it was a good thirty, forty minute wait to meet him. I'm like, you should put him in the Great Hall and have him. Yeah, like I feel like if it's like a ship that the Black like Black Panther is the kind of the statue that's in the atrium. They're making the ship very much. They have a Marvel restaurant. They are very focused on this type of stuff that because I know they had Marvel Day at sea for a while. Like they were doing that. Just on this ship, it should be like a I don't know, all the time thing. Like this what makes you want to go on this one where it's different. They might not have the royal gathering. It's the superhero gathering. I don't know what a good name for that would be. I mean, I yeah, it's you still have to have the princesses, right? Because there's gonna be daughters on there that are there because the brothers are superhero fans. Right. There was still a lot like I was actually surprised the last night when they did the big farewell party thing. ⁓ Travis wanted pictures with R Rapunzel and Flynn. So we went up to the deck above to get that. But he got we got a picture with Captain Minnie. We got a picture with Captain Mickey. His d jaw dropped when Black Panther walked out. But there he never got a picture with him. It was just standing up there 'cause they say something and if whether you're here inner hero, you find your inner hero or something like that and there's Black Panther and then are your villain and Cruella walks out. Did you see Loki at all? Yeah. We saw Loki a few times. But we didn't like so they have the storytellers on the ship, which is I think we talked about when the agency went. Mm-hmm. Feels like it's something they brought from the ⁓ Star Cruiser because there's a story arc over the entire cruise that these storytellers are doing. But we never went to any of ⁓ We just went to that last one where they're like, you find your destiny. They introduce them at the sail away party and they wrap it up at the the farewell party. Okay. Did you ever do the kiss good night in the atrium? Not at midnight, but they sh like we were standing there at five o'clock the first night and they just started doing it and it was so, so cool. Well, I'm glad they do it for like people with younger kids that like they could still see it as well. And it's not like, ⁓ you need to keep ⁓ up till midnight when we're gonna be at castaway tomorrow morning at seven AM. Right. I think when the I think when the wish first came out, it was only at midnight and then like Within a couple of weeks the complaints started coming in. It's like, Hello, this is a family cruise line. You want these little five and six year olds staying up till midnight. Not gonna happen. You know. So then they made like a nine o'clock one or eight thirty one or something, and then the midnight one. We got it is completely it's mesmerizing, no matter what ship you do it on. We walked out of our room the first night. I can't remember what we were doing. We were just walking around the ship trying to find the ship trying to find stuff and get it oriented. And that's when They just started playing. And then Pirates Night, they do a separate show in there too. So they have two different shows. The fireworks were great. They do a a concert instead of a a show, like a pirate show. They do the pirate party at like seven thirty, maybe seven forty five, but it was still daylight, so they can't do fireworks. So they do a rock party toward eight thirty, nine o'clock, and then they do the fireworks at ten fifteen. Beth looked fantastic in her pirate outfit. That was so fun. I mean Travis was adorable, but like Beth looked great in her pirate costume. Well, thank you. I picked it up. Good job, Jason. I picked both of ⁓ out and I just bought ⁓ and said, here you go. So 'cause I don't I don't do the batching thing, but I wore like a Star Wars shirt that had the same colors of pirates. Mm-hmm. And that was my thing. Like, you don't know you what your your rotation is, right, for your restaurants. You don't know what the we bought the photo pass. So you don't know what the backdrops are in the g in the Great Hall. The first night I wore Spider Man shirt to go with Marvel. They had the Pride Lands background for that night. Well, when we went at Pride Lands, I wore my Lion King shirt and they had Marvel backgrounds. It was just reverse. Yeah, and then they did Pirates' Night, so I kinda matched that. And then the last night I wore a Fantasia anniversary shirt. So it 'cause we did nineteen twenty three and it kind of matched with all that. So I wish you could see your rotation at some point beforehand just so that you know, like do I need a what I need to do. Two of this. Yeah. Do I need to go run to the room, put this on, whatever, so I can match the backgrounds that you have. But yeah. So how when do you when do you find out your ⁓ dining rotation? When you get on the ship. And where is it look where is it said what you're doing? It's in the app. ⁓ I was hoping that I could get it in the so Fort Lauderdale I'll say this about Getting in this like you get on the Wi-Fi when you're in the port. The terminal. Yeah, the terminal. I don't like Fort Lauderdale's terminal compared to Port Canaverals. I think it's beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I just like the way you do everything over at Canaveral better. So I was hoping I could see it before we got on the ship, but you can't have to actually be on the ship before you can see your rotation. Yeah, because I remember when I went on the wish out of Port Canaveral and we had to do a I think a reservation or virtual queue, whatever it was for the ⁓ Star Wars lounge. Right. I remember we did that in the terminal waiting for like the security line. So I know for a fact we used to be able to do it before we got in. And they didn't do any of that on this because Corella's was always a line to get into. We never made it in. We did Haunt and Mansion. We we were there when that opened the first like the day at sea. So we just kind of stood around at Sanctum, which is the lob quote unquote lobby bar isque the lobby. So we went in there, had a couple of drinks. Haunted Mansion Bar, by the way, great. Amazing. Amazing. ⁓ we did take Travis in there one night just to see if he would 'cause we wanted to get drinks. He wanted to see what it was. He asked. So we walked him in and he got scared, so we took him out. Yeah, it's really dark. It is super dark. Yeah. It opens late. It opens at like twelve or one o'clock in the afternoon. I say late. But like Cruellas doesn't open until three or four in the afternoon. And then that like I said, there's a line for it. Biggest complaint that I had when it comes to the ship design, naturally the the elevators they have a lot of them, but they're they get crowded really fast. And there's long They're skinny. They are. And not everybody is smart enough to cram in. So like there's room in these elevators, but no one's moving back. Right. The smell of smell of s whatever, the scent things, the scent scent boxes they have, they're just out in the open, plugged in on the floor next to the wall. And I'm like, You're Disney. Can you hide these? Right. There's gotta be a way. So I just that was that's those are like my two biggest complaints. I overall I I enjoy the ship before we started recording. I said The Wonder is my number one. It's been well over ten years since I've been on the dream. But hopefully we'll be back on that in October. But the Destiny's a solid ship. I'm glad we we did that ship. I think, you know, I've been on the Wish and the Destiny, you know, same class of ship. I always say the Wish is, you know, all about the princesses with a sprinkle of Marvel and Star Wars in it. And then you have the Destiny where it's all about, you know, Marvel and still some Star Wars or anything with a sprinkle of princesses in it, you know. I think the treasure might like right in the middle. Yeah, the the treasures like if you have those kids that are about the same age. And and you have a split split children, so you have male f male female children. If you're very f ⁓ female oriented family, then Wish is gonna be right up your alley. Mm-hmm. The destiny is gonna be right up your alley when it comes to a a male dominated family. 'Cause I enjoyed it. Bethany enjoyed it too, but I know she would have enjoyed s ⁓ Cinderella and all that a bit more. I love the destiny. I mean, having two boys it was like a no brainer. I I love the color scheme of it. Yes. Did you go see Dr. Facilier in his parlor? We walked past it. I f I finally, like the last day, found out where it was. Yeah, it's like hidden. That's the best part about it. It's just like some door on the side of this hallway. Yeah, and if you wouldn't know it's there, like the sign for the door is on the door. So you know when you're walking by it, you see the other way. The shutters, photo studio, whatever it's called. But if you So if you're coming from aft to forward, that's what you see. If you're going forward to aft, then you can see the Dr. Phillips Basilier stuff. Yeah. One other gripe I do have is the stores. Mickey's main cell where they put that is a horrible location to me. Like right there at the exit of Pride Lands on deck five. Yeah. They should have put that where the lux like the watches, the purses, all that stuff is. Yeah, because it they need a s a space that's more open. Yeah. It was kind of just like along one side of the ship. It was a very narrow store, very crowded. I mean the first two days is like you couldn't even get in. But then you got that watch door and everything downstairs and it's like all this space and everything and nobody's walking around. Yeah, no one's switched. And that's the thing, like with Royal Caribbean when I saw on Star and everything, no one goes in like there's people who go on those ships to buy those things. Yeah. But there's a reason it works so well on the Disney Dream, the Disney Wonder, the Magic and the ⁓ fantasy is because they're across the way from each other. You have white caps on one side and you have main cell on the other side, the fancy stuff and the kid stuff. Yep. This is perfectly laid out to do the same thing. And you could put more merchandise for the kids because Travis couldn't find anything. we were like Travis can buy a toy and there was nothing for him to buy. What about that other cute store that's right outside Marceline Market? I forget what it's called. It's a little like a sundry store, right? It's the Yeah, I know there's bathing suits and stuff in there, but there were no toys. ⁓ we didn't go even go in there because ever when we walked by it was always closed for breakfast. Yeah, it's not open a lot. And we saw some pirate shirts and you know, but I never saw toys. Yeah. But overall, like great, great ship. I'm glad we're getting back into it. Did you have early dining? We did. We we had five forty five seat seating. The other the other thing about their pools right quick was that I don't like that there's so many pools because then they close off the pools. Like you'd go over there and be like, Okay, there's s you have five pools on the backside of the deck eleven, twelve, and thirteen, but three of ⁓ are closed. So everybody's tied into one of these small ones. It's like if you could open ⁓ up a little bit more. Great. And then you have the deck fourteen Chip and Dell, which has weird hours. Just to wrap it up, the when we got off the ship, we got up about six. We walked out of the room about six forty five. We were gonna go have breakfast at nineteen twenty three, 'cause you have breakfast at the restaurant that you last dined in. The head waiter came around. The the problem we had with our s weight service was the accents. So the head head waiter, the s whatever the server He comes up and says like something about breakfast being from this time to this time. We thought it was just one breakfast. ⁓ Not that it was two like you had to go during this time for first seating, this time during second seating. So we went down and then we're like, ⁓ we're here for breakfast. Like, well, are you first or second seating? We're like, We're first. And they're like, ⁓ well, you have to go up up to Marceline because we're done with first seating now. We're fixing seats second. I'm like, Well, that sucks. I would have gotten everybody up a little bit earlier to actually do a proper breakfast before we left. Our wait staff was amazing with Travis. The the assistant server server was doing magic tricks with him. They made a an origami fish for him. ⁓ Felix was our our main server. He was great. Thompson was our assistant server. Recommend him. Highly recommend him if you can request them for your your next destiny cruise. Absolutely. No. Well awesome. Next we upcoming upcoming trips for everybody. What's everybody's next trip? H H N. Yeah, I mean technically Halloween Horror Nights. I have some banana ball games planned. Sorry, I do I do VIP with ⁓ some of the Siobhan, Allison and some of the other agents. We're doing V I P at Walt Disney World, but I'll do that with an H H N trip and then H H N with Micah, Terry, Christine, and Beth is coming with us. So Yeah. That's right. Christine will be there. Yeah. We have another Christine in the agency? Yeah. Was she a recent hire? 'Cause I I wasn't told that I wasn't the only one anymore. Micah said she needed the the best roommate ever. I'll be a roommate. I'm just not leaving the room. I mean, we're looking at something the first week of October. Well, I'll have plenty to bring to the podcast in the next couple months since so I'm Jason, I'm doing the star of the season August. You'll love it. But I've been on the icon already. But ⁓ we are staying at the Evermore Resort for three nights before the star. So we got a seven bedroom house. We have friends of ours from Georgia coming down. ⁓ it's my son's best friend moved away in high school. And then in September, I'm going on a Norwegian cruise to be one of the first people to check out the Great Tides water park. Beautiful. And then in November I'll be on the naming sailing of Royal Caribbean Legend of the Seas. That's so exciting. So it'll be myself and my husband and Rachel and Siobhan. Lots of reasons for you to come back on the podcast to tell us all about it. Yeah, we need to do Yeah, that'll be cool. When you did we'll get we'll have you on the legend one for sure because usually when we when y'all do preview sellings we try to get the So next week we're gonna have I'm this is a surprise when she listens if she ever listens. Terry's gonna talk about her Wonder of the Seas cruise. It's her fur husband's first cruise. ⁓ so kind of see what the Wonder of the Sea was like for and what ⁓ a first time adult sailor would be like and how how he handled that. That'll be a great ⁓ podcast. And then like I said, next week in two weeks we're gonna have Rachel and Amber on about Alaska. Christine, once again, thank you so much. Thank you. They kinda they kinda made me. I didn't tell you that part. That's understanding. She w we told her she had to. Like she had no choice but to hang out with Jason and I. She ⁓ they said put the problem child together. So me and Christine were in one spot and then Micah just kind of defaulted because she was the roommate. So but it's it's always great to to hang out with you, Christine, whether it's virtually you're in person. So thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Can you tell people how to get a hold of you if they want to book a Disney cruise line, a beaches, a sandals, a anything you book type thing? Yeah. So you can find me on Facebook at ⁓ Christine Rush with Magical Travel. You can find me on Instagram as Mickey Mom Double O seven. Best Instagram handle ever. But I don't think a lot of people get the double ⁓ seven part. Uh-huh. Like I think like if you see Mickey Mom zero zero seven, don't you know that's double ⁓ seven? Like someone that could solve all your problems. Yeah. That's kind of what I went with. The person who's gonna kill Mickey Mouse. No Well Seven kills everybody. Seven takes care of everything. So that's why I am yeah, by killing he always knows what's happening and probably now I gotta go change my handle. I'll be back. ⁓ and then again my email address is just simply Christine at magical travel dot com. We'll have her email in the show notes if you wanna email her. But she's great, she's awesome, so just go I try. Yeah. I'm just saying that so that she's not mad at me later. She gave me about a hundred dollars. So There we go. You can find the rest of staying concierge. You can find the rest of us over at magical travel dot com. Our socials are always Castles of Cauldrons. We're TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. If you can take some time to rate and review our show, that helps us out greatly with Apple iTunes and our Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and and YouTube I think does rates, maybe. I don't know. I haven't paid attention. But No. You do I think you can just thumbs up it. Yeah, maybe just like like our shorts, like our reels. Yeah. All those who randomly listened to us this last week, like we hit saw a huge influx. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Amazing. Until the next time, we will see you on the next episode. Bye.