Universal Studios Update: Halloween Horror Nights & Family Travel Insights

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 episode 56 of Castles of Cauldrons. I'm your host, Jason Davis. I'm here with Micah and Terry. Rachel is doing co-owner of Magical Travel Business tonight. know, she took them- actually work. Responsibilities. When you co-own the agency, you kind of have to do stuff every now and then. Being on the podcast is not one of them when that's important. Right. When we come back in April, maybe she'll be with us. So you've been missed all this month of March. She's been a busy woman. On the go doing a bunch of stuff. I wanted to talk to her about her Phoenix trip that her and her husband went on. I know it great. looked like they had fun. Whatever off-roading they were doing was really fun. Yeah, by the they get back, or by the time she comes back on, she'll probably forgot half of it. I know, we'll have to pull up your pictures. Talk to us about your trip. know this is a podcast about travel. You've got to tell us about this stuff. So we're going to, got some news naturally like we always do. Some small stuff, some big stuff, some really fun stuff because it's my favorite time of the year now. But we're going to start off with something pretty interesting. Disney announced this week that the Disney Cruise Line Japan is officially a thing. We talked about it, I think last week that... Japan, the Oriental Land Company will be owning one of the Disney cruise ships. So they signed and made it official that there is a cruise line of Japan. And supposedly it's going to be two ships over there. So one that's confirmed and one that's just being rumored. I think that's pretty cool. I don't think I'll ever make it over there for a cruise. I just didn't think that. Yeah, I didn't know that the cruising I guess there was as popular to need two Disney cruise ships there. Cause I know they'll do things like Thailand and stuff too. Like they don't just do around Japan. And it's even like the adventure, you know, it's just going out to sea for three days and coming back. It's not actually doing anything. It's just loading there. There's a lot to do on the ship. So it makes you wonder what, how they're going to focus this. that going to be like a regular cruise? Well, cause they do have cruises around Japan. I've, I've personally looked into them because one of the places Robert wants to go is Japan. And I was like, A good way to see a lot of the country would be like a cruise where you're stopping in different places every day. So maybe they'll do something like that. you could do an Asian cruise where you stop at all the parks. I don't know how far inland Hong Kong is or Shanghai is from the ocean, but that would be pretty cool. You if you could, your excursion would be that. I would do that cruise for sure. I'd fly over and pay whatever to go to the Asian parks. four birds out with one stone because you're getting... Like you said, by the you did the cruise adventure, then you had to get off there and go visit the parks and then... You do the cruise like as the excursions would be going to the park. So you spend all day in What if the park is like 400 miles inland? See, that's the thing. I don't know where they are. I'm speaking with my butt right now. I'm just saying like if it's feasible, even if it is going like to the Japan, because I know Japan, Tokyo, is near Tokyo, it was built on the bay. So it's right there near the ocean. Like you said, Hong Kong and Shanghai and I don't know where they're at. Hong Kong is close to the water too, because I remember hearing that they had to use reclaimed land for it. They pulled water, the dirt out and built it on reclaimed land. So that might be close. Shanghai I don't know about, but it would be fun. I mean, yes, if they can do something like that, like you said, and then. Take care of the travel inland and you have like a day at the park or however many days they deemed it would be necessary to spend in the park. Shanghai looks like it's on the shore. So. I guess the biggest thing then would be like if how close to the a port it would be. Hong Kong is also on the shore. just said it was. Okay. I know, but I am- No, I'm pretty sure Shanghai is also a port city. It is. Yeah. So you can make like a triangle there and then I'm just going to show all my ignorance here. And then there's Singapore because isn't there one in Singapore too? Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Singapore is where the adventure is located. Okay. So, I mean, you can go like a whole little thing over there. You're right. Like if you, Japan's right there. Two days in Japan, cause you need Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. Right. But if you're, if you're actually going out of Japan, you know, you'd build that into your vacation. Speaking of which, have you guys noticed a lot of influencers for Disney are over in Singapore and Hong Kong and everything in the past two weeks? They're doing the adventure. Yeah. But I think it's so funny how. And then in Paris, just opened, was it Paris where they just opened Frozen? Yeah. It's like all of a sudden you're like, wait, why am I seeing all this the same stuff, but from. a different country, but all of us say, you know, it's on your feed and you're like, but it's all in Asia. Cause I was like, oh, that's cool. want to see it. And then it's like Hong Kong. Like, oh, well, guess it never will. like Lauren, um, if you notice none of us went to Singapore or the adventure. It's just a little, little note to you, Lauren. I don't know what, what will you have? How many followers do we need Lauren? So wait, so now Asia is going to have three Disney cruise ships? Singapore and then two there because of Two officially. And then one that's being rumored. Let's just say like because you know, you're not going to make Disney Cruise on Japan with just one ship. You're going to put another ship in there eventually. And I haven't... of there. Yeah. So I would be interested in it. Especially like I said, if you could visit the other parks on the ship, that'd be pretty fun. ⁓ Somewhere where we could figure this out, maybe they'll announce some more stuff with it is D23, which we got news about ⁓ today, this recording. always, we try to always record on Thursdays, y'all know. So this is the March 26th. D23 announced that tickets will be going on sale on April 2nd. The dates for D23 are August 14th through 16th. Well, hopefully we'll get a lot of big, big announcements. This is tomorrow's first time being the CEO for it. We always hear from him when it comes to the park. So this will be his first like, Hey, what, here's what. I'm bringing to the table a CEO. Maybe we'll get a new land, some more information on this villain's land that, know. Groundbreaking dates. Jason and I are going to be up late texting each other during the announcements like we were almost two years ago. This becomes our thing is when these things start happening, me and Micah are texting and we start in our group texts and end up just going to each other because- Because we're the only ones responding because everyone else is asleep. We sleep. ⁓ the big, besides the parks panel, which we don't have any announcements on the panels that are happening. That'll be closer. That comes out. We'll let you know what we hear. would love to go this year. There's just too much going on. I went one time in 2015. Absolutely had a great time for that was the year they announced Galaxy's Edge. So was part of that hype and everything. it was great. want to go so bad. And I feel like such a nerd for wanting to go, but it's so fun. You'd be, you'd have like in two years, castles and cauldrons going to D 23, 20 28. But the big thing that you always do, they've actually shifted it from the first day. Now it's the last day. If I understood it right is the Disney legends, ⁓ ceremony. This is where they, you know, honor some of the most important people that has happened. help Disney grow, whether it's as a CEO, the imagineers, actors, producers, those type of people. Animators. Animated. They cover a lot of people. Usually you only see front-facing people that they cover in those things. So they do a good job of the people that are actually behind all the magic. They usually throw one of those behind the magic in there just to kind of like, hey, here you go. Because it is an important award when you go onto the studios. There's a courtyard with all their handprints right there in front of the CEO building the executive's offices ⁓ It's pretty cool to go through and put your hands on there and see how big your hand is compared to you know ⁓ Elton John or Han Solo Harrison Ford those people So this year they announced that Chris Berman who's in TV some some way I've never heard of him I don't know who it is either Anne Hathaway, my theory for Anne Hathaway, me and Michael were talking about this before is that this is a very big plug for Devil Wears products. I was going say, what's the publicist trying to promote that are trying to get them on these things? Yeah, the movie comes out in May. This is in August. you know, they'll have that point has already gone by on what they can do with the box office, but she's fresh in everybody's mind. Maybe they announced the Princess Diaries 3 to go around with it. Really, like I said, Jason and were talking, Julie Andrews is like 90 years old. If they're going to do Princess Diaries 3 and have her in it, they need to do it very soon. Or are they going to pull a Bridgerton and just have her as a voiceover, have her record what they want her to record and throw it so nice. I love, like, this is definitely off topic, but Julie Andrews. Kova's absolute favorite song right now is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And I have to listen to that song so much, but he sings along with like every word of that song and just loves it. mean, but Julie Andrews is just fantastic. I love her. if they're going to do it, they need to. My ignorance, there is a Princess by Diaries 3. No, they did, but they haven't really, they said it's happening, but that's it. That's all we have. So maybe they'll release a little bit more about it. A date. Yeah, a date. A trailer would probably be cool, but they haven't filmed I don't know if they've started filming it yet. I was going filming. But they definitely said it's happening. Like Anne Hathaway has said it is happening. Chris Berman is a sports commentator. He's the, he could go all the way. He's that guy. Okay. I coined that phrase. Jerry Bruckheimer, if you've watched any movie in the past 30, 40 years, it's him. He's most popular for. ⁓ Pirates of Caribbean franchise. He also did National Treasure. mean, there's so much, but those are the two big Disney movies that he's attached to. So we wouldn't have Jack Sparrow if it wasn't for Jerry putting his money up for that. Susan Egan, who's the voice of Meg. She was also the first Belle on Broadway. Love her. Yes. Rachel actually got to meet her at the Destiny. She's the godmother of the Destiny. So when she went to do the media thing for that, that's... Pretty cool. She sent a picture to us of meeting her. Eric Goldberg. He's an animator. He animated the genie most famously. And he's going to be one of the animators, if I remember right, that's going to be in the Olaf draws. That should be pretty cool. Kimberly Irvine. She's an Imagineer. She's most famous for Madame Lyota, who is her mom actually. That's right. I have watched that Imagineering story thing where they're talking about that. Yeah. So when, when she recently retired, but her mom was the original Madame Leota when they redid stuff, Kimberly came in and did that. Jonas Brothers. I don't like them, but they deserve it. They've been around for a while. That's not my style of music. They don't scream. So he's not a millennial woman. I mean, they're, fun. They are. fine. What I've seen, they're talented. You know, they're funny. They're ⁓ I like some of the, they're from up the road. Their family has a restaurant. an hour away from me in Belmont, North Carolina. bet the thing ends with them singing something. Like you don't have somebody that big not sing. I'm come out and sing some Camp Rock. They're gonna do the, what's the viral, the camp rocks, all the people stomping and clapping and whatnot. Oh yeah. Gosh, I haven't seen that movie in so long. I've never seen the movie, but I've only seen those clips of people doing the thing. Only watched those with my kids, because I was past that point, because I'm old. You are a little bit older than me, not much, but just a little bit. We both are. Also, Alan Tudrick, he does a lot of voices, like a It's Hey Hey and... He's K.K. Minow, he's King Candy, he did Mad Hatter in the Once Upon a Studio short. um. Hey again for the live action Moana. He's the Mr. the whatever Weaselton and then also the Weasel in Zootopia. He's Prince of Wesselton. Wesselton. And then he's the of Weaselton. Yeah. I and you can ask like I've seen interviews where they're like, what about this voice? And he jumped right into King Candy. What about this? And he does hey, hey, what about the, I don't know, roly poly thing from Raya? He makes those noises. Like literally this man is so talented. He's talented. Okay. Let me, let me just say though, like you're doing a voice of a chicken. You're doing the voice of, uh, I can't remember the roly poly thing. But King Candy, Tuck, Tuck, Tuck. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. But uh, King Candy. didn't realize it until watching Once Upon a Studio is Mad Hatter. Like that is his, like the voice he does is. And he looks like Mad Hatter too. Yeah. But he's also in a bunch, he's in a show on FX about being an alien. He's ridiculously talented to be able to do all these voices. It's along the same lines of like, I don't really like this person, like Seth MacFarlane, the amount of voices he can do and stuff too. Like he's not as, I think. Alan is way more talented than Seth MacFarlane because Seth MacFarlane and all his voices sound very similar. But this man can like completely morph his voice into something else. ⁓ There was a interview with where he's talking about doing K2 from Rogue One. And he talked to Anthony Daniels who plays C-3PO in the original trailer. Well, in all the Star Wars movies really. They were talking about how the costume fit and Andy was just like, well. I don't have to wear a costume. just walk around on stilts with a mocap on. ⁓ Anthony pretty much just custom out. So it was like hilarious to see that these two guys doing the same, not the same character, but the same style of character. ⁓ Everything has gone since then. And naturally they're going to give one to Bob Iger just retiring from B. He's probably like, guys, I'm actually retiring this time. Like, I'm tired. need to enjoy the rest of my life. Give me my statue. Yes. Which is a really cool statue, by the way. Like, I've talked about going to the studios a few times, but in the legacy courtyard, they have a huge ⁓ statue of the statue, of the award, whatever. So it's really cool to see. And in the inside of the hat, because there's a sorcerer hat on it, you can see the mice from Cinderella. Wow. And then when I went into the archives, they had one sitting next to some of the other awards that are very rare to get, like the 60th year reward or something like that. So I have a picture of me holding an Oscar with the legacy award behind me and the paintings of Walton Roy, which is really cool. There's my little crag, but it's a cool statue. wish I could have one. I might find something so I could print it. ⁓ The last two, and this will segue into some other stuff we got this week. ⁓ Lin-Manuel Miranda, who I'm not a huge fan of. Okay. Music and Moana was great. Music and Incanto great. Mary Poppins Returns was horrible. Hamilton great. Hamilton's great, yes. And the only reason he's associated with that is because with Disney is because Disney has the rights to it. Yes. I just don't feel like he's done as much. No. He suffered a lot of blowback just from overexposure. I don't know why he gets on my nerves. He just gets on my nerves. I think he thinks he's better than what he is. Yeah. Yeah. Because he did the music for the live action Little Mermaid. He had extra songs in that too. Well, he did that in conjunction though. with Alan. He did the original music. it was still... So he had that new song for Scuttle, which was not good. My thing with Lin is like everything he does has to have some type of rap to it. Correct. And I don't It sounds the same. Yes. You know his... You can tell it's him. Yeah. So I'm not a... Would he be deserving of this in about 10, 15 years? Probably so. He did make some iconic, you know, we don't talk about Bruno. That's a very iconic song. Moana and Incontel, fantastic soundtracks. Like they are so good and have those songs that just get stuck in your head. Mufasa the Lion King, not the Give me a song from Mary Poppins Returns. Nope. I know there's one where he's running around and he's lighting things and singing, but I can't tell you what the song is. We know almost every song from the original Mary Poppins. the Sherman Brothers deserve, and they have one. mean, they both have theirs. They deserve this right after Mary Poppins. The award wasn't made back then. But Lynn, not so much. And then we come to probably, I think the biggest. grab out there is the Rock. I don't know, I feel like Anne Hathaway too, because she really just has a double wear of Prada and the Diaries. The Princess Diaries though for Anne Hathaway is a big thing with Disney and growing up with our generation. I remember my sister watching it all the time. Well did too. I had the biggest crush on Chris Pine in the second movie. I had a big crush on Anne Hathaway. I had a big crush on Chris Pine. I was like, okay. So it was like one of like seeing her like that makes sense. She's like a she's a Disney princess more or less because she has an iconic role That's still referenced today the rock though Like he's the only thing for Disney That you know him for is Maui even though he was in the jungle cruise. Yeah, I jungle cruise but that was yes, the only thing from Disney is Moana it was also like the tooth fairy I think yeah, that's Game plan, one of those two. was definitely tooth fairy because Kova watched it recently, but that's so long ago. But he hasn't done a lot for Disney. Does he have like producer credits or anything like that behind the scenes that we're not aware of? the scenes, he was a producer for that on Disney plus. Like, I just again, they're just promoting Moana live action coming out. That's why he's in it. And unless that's why Lin-Manuel Miranda's in it too, and they're using some of the same songs. Yeah. Also the fact though that these two are just like Anne Hathaway, the movie's already out by time they're getting these awards. Anne Hathaway's movie will probably be in and out of theaters by the time she gets her award. He's probably going to announce The Jungle Cruise 2. No, it's not. Back to the jungle. Backside of water. That's what they should make. The movie wasn't horrible. No. And I can see why they could take the movie down different rivers around the world with him, which would be an interesting concept. It's kind like the concept with Haunted Mansion. They kind of used Disneyland's Haunted Mansion in the latest movie, and they referenced Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion. You could do different expansions that they were going to go to. Yeah. They didn't make enough money, so it's not going to be happening. And I don't think Jungle Cruise makes another one. No, but speaking of the Rock and the live action Moana trailer that he shared, he is too old to be playing live action Maui. Maui is supposed to be a demigod who doesn't age, who is young and strong. And the fact that this man is wearing a full body suit in this movie, his head looks extremely too small for his body. Maui has a giant head in the cartoon, but he looks old because the Rock's what, in his 50s? I mean, even this promotional picture they put out, getting the award, it's... mean, he looks old. And I don't want to say old because I'm not that far from turning 40. Like, I've only got three and a half years. But he's not the rock you remember in your head. Like, when you think about him, it's not him. But also, like, you're looking at someone who is supposed to be playing, again, a immortal being. He doesn't look immortal. He doesn't. They... I think they should have given this role... to a young and upcoming like Polynesian or Hawaiian actor to let them get their start in a movie that's going to have people going to see it. Like, I don't know if it's going to be that great, but people are going to go see it. People who like Moana. And I think he's being selfish by keeping the role. Like the original, when he first cast the thing, he said that it was going to bring back a lot of the original cast and then none of the original cast showed up besides like Andy. Well, the grandma is the voice of the grandma. Mm-hmm. So it's the same. I knew that he was trying to get the girl who played voice Moana But she's like, I'm too old for this. I'm my mid to later 20s. I'm too old to play this teenager. And she doesn't want to. She's also separating herself from that type of stuff more, where she did the role in the Mean Girls musical. she cut all her hair off, so she didn't look like Moana. She literally... cut her hair short. So she was kind of separating herself. And when she was at Disney World singing when the new Epcot show came out, she had a wig on because they wanted her hair back. It was a whole thing. But I just think that The Rock shouldn't have played Maui again. that comes back, think, I think I cut it from last week's episode, but we talked about it when we recorded that it's a cash grab for him. None of his movies are really hitting the way that he wants them to hit. No. So we, the Jumanji 3 coming out at the end of the year from Sony, we just said Moana. These are movies that he knows he can bring money into. see, me and Beth will go see both of these movies in theaters. Yeah, I mean I'll probably see them all. I may wait for that to come to I'm not a big fan of the live actions. I'd rather wait and then be surprised by how good they are. Because more often than not when you go you're just a little disappointed. I think I've seen all the live actions in theater. Yeah, I think I went to see all of them. have. My favorite was Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, like out of all the live actions. Those are my two favorites. Well, it's been the best. This is my favorite. I think Cinderella is just one of my least favorite Disney stories in general. don't know. just have never like, Cinderella wasn't my favorite. I know I've said this on the podcast, but the reason Cinderella is the best one is because they actually add a lot to the story. They do. That fleshes out a character that was all... a beloved character to begin with, it really adds to it without trying to make it the classic it was on top of adding new stuff. mean, it's in my top three. Like it's definitely like, would say like my favorite was Aladdin just because like that's my favorite movie growing up. I loved Aladdin and then Beauty and the Beast and then Cinderella, like kind of in that order. Well, since we're talking about all the characters now, big news that hit from Disney was that Open AI has dropped. Sora, which was their video making app where it was AI based. You can say, Hey, make me fight Yoda. And that was the thing Disney had just in December, did a handshake deal for a billion dollars. was with a B. So open AI could use their characters in Sora. So now this effectively kills that deal because Sora is no longer available. So Disney's looking, I don't think they ever paid the billion dollars. think like Nothing was signed. What was I going to say? It better be better than that. ⁓ yeah. And the thing is, like, you're going on social media if you're like, my stuff's all filled with Disney news, quote unquote. It's like, Iger or Demaro kills Iger's open AI deal. I'm like, no, that's not what happened. AI killed open AI's deal. Yeah. They said, Hey, your billion dollars isn't worth us keeping Sora open. So we're just going to cancel it. And keep going from articles I've read it said that it was up until Monday night Disney was still working with open AI on projects and how to do stuff so this was going into Still they wanted this stuff happening. They wanted open AI They wanted chat GPT stuff in their system in some way or they wanted their people in and there I Think it's a it's a pretty decent blow form, especially how we've talked about how they should utilize Yeah. Maybe that, I mean, they'll go find a different one. ⁓ They probably go to Gemini. to say, if they haven't already, you know, I feel like that kind of thing, you need to have a backup for a backup situation in case something like this falls through to familiarize. It got a lot of backlash because naturally, Iger had said that they were going to implementing Sora into Disney+. You could go make your own videos and put it in there into Disney Plus. A lot of people hated it. I didn't like that idea. I think that was stupid. I feel the last thing we need are more people's videos. Right. Easily accessible. Like if you want to make them for your own thing on your phone or whatever, that's fine. I don't want to see people's videos. As we're making video right now. Yeah. We're not forcing on Disney Plus. No, we're not. That someone has to pay for it. But it's, you know, that's, it's a news. It will happen. Disney is going go back with AI. Everybody says tomorrow wasn't too sad about it. It wasn't his deal. So it's like, okay, whatever. One of his deals that I didn't put in our show notes was Fortnite, Epic Gaming. They just laid off a thousand people because ⁓ Fortnite isn't doing as well as they wanted. Disney once again put a billion dollars, I think it was 1.5 billion into Epic Gaming. And there was rumors for Disney to buy it. So that is a hit, because that was Demaro's deal. Demaro worked that out, so that kind of does hit him in a bad way. I wonder what's going on there. Supposedly they were building a world for Disney in there with all their characters that you could go play something similar. I heard that. It's been... Naturally, they're taking as long building fake stuff as they do building real stuff. Cause I think that was like three or four years ago and we still don't have anything coming. Would they have the deals where you know Star Wars and Fortnite and what not? announced two years ago at D20? I think so. Yeah. If I remember that was one of the announcements was the Fortnite stuff. Yeah. that's, that's that. That's the tech side of the Disney stuff. Now to the meat and potatoes because it's my favorite day of the year. ⁓ huh. like this is like all year. If you know, I don't know if people can see our background behind our faces. Maybe. I don't know how the layout sets yet, but ⁓ last weekend we got word about HHN and we'll talk about that in a minute, but the tickets went on sale today. Like I said, March 26 for your single night, your RIP, your express, your premium scare night, you're behind the scares, ⁓ behind the scene tour. What am I missing out? The early in dreams. Early screams. Which fantastic change to that. Fantastic one. Yeah. These dates, the first, there's two premium screams. Let's start with that. Premium scream is usually, it's all included, all food included, all non-alcoholic beverages included, lower crowds. It will be two nights this year versus the one night in the past. So the two nights are August 27th and October 19th. Great. If you can go to both of those, you'll get like the first run. Like this is how it's, we're working out kinks, maybe how we need to figure out stuff. And then go back in October 19th and that'd be a better run because everybody's so used to how to operate this house. That's why I go once in September, once in October, just to see what changes. And because I love it. and like last year when you did the art house, like you said, it had more water when you went through. in October than when we went through in September. was also the last weekend. know, they said that during the premiere nights, it was really just drenching people and then they toned it down. And I think they, for the last weekend, they just turned it back up and said, you know, let's go all out. So that's going to be a fun little thing. And it's also free self parking if you're just staying off site. To the scream early, what Mike was mentioning earlier, those tickets used to get you in at 5pm. ⁓ sorry, 4 p.m. And you go in and you would go into a corral and you'd wait in line for the house that you wanted. Well, last year they changed it where it was free room around the park and you could ride whatever rides you wanted up until the event started or the house started opening. had first dibs on houses because they would open before the actual event let in. This year, you get in at 2 p.m. and they're saying at least three houses will be ready for you at 2 p.m. That's nuts. This is I guess that's the way, cause I mean. That's 12 hours of Halloween. is. Which is crazy, you think you're going a haunted house at 2 PM, but we went for like what, six hours? No, eight. Eight? And we barely got through them? With all? pass. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess if you don't have an express pass, you might want to start at two to make sure you get through them all. If you're going for one night. I'll say this much, if the houses they open up are the soundstage houses at two, we're fine. Because those houses are closed off, they're dark, they're usually do a good run through. The tent houses I could see would have a lot of light coming through. Yes, those would suck. In fact, I think we, I said that when we went through one of them. Cause like you could see the light coming through the top of the tent. Yeah. Cause the first two we did were tent houses. Yeah. The first three. The dollhouse, the... Graveyard house wasn't that? Falcon and... Yeah. Fallout. Fallout, ⁓ yeah. And there's nothing wrong with them like that. I mean it's not taken too much away, but it does see some stuff coming through. Once again though, if you got three houses out of the way before the event even opens, and that's not saying they can't open more houses. So 2 p.m. by 5, you could end up having two or three more houses open. Before the event starts, you have half the houses done. And you don't have to stay till 2 a.m. You could leave that earlier. Or if you want to, you could stay and you could run through the house, like spend more time in the scare zones or, you know, wait Spend more time getting food. Like actually taking your time. Actually eat. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a great little deal and it's $70 for those tickets. Not a bad price. No. It is up from previous years. It used to be 50, which is naturally, you you would think so when you're adding three hours to what you were going into. You should be noted that you don't need a scream early ticket if you're already in the park and you have an HHN ticket. Waiting for full confirmation that still stays the same this year. It should. Some of the Facebook groups I'm in, they were talking about it, talking to agents that they were on the phone with trying to get RIP tours and whatnot, saying that they couldn't give information away. I think it's going to be the same thing. think you gave a bigger prize. You're just going to... Well, I feel like people might do this instead of buying ExpressPass. Because if you can get through three to five houses by the time... it's actually opening and letting the regular people in and then you only have five houses to go. You won't need to get express pass either. you get breakfast and be able to run through the houses twice in a night. Or you can go home. Or you don't stay up until 2 a.m. Yeah. Or in Terry's case, you don't even go. Or you can just eat more. Maybe this is a ploy to get people to actually like... By food. Like you said, if you're Russian, like we didn't eat a lot or, you know, drink a lot, but if people are wandering around your park longer and... because it didn't... Wasn't there a rumor too that there's going to be almost like a second show almost over like the animal encounter? That's one of the rumors is that. Yeah. So, and then you have two shows to go to. Like you have Nightmare Fuel and another show. You have to have more time. There's a, there's a good rumor around too that Nightmare Fuel is done. What? That was a good part. The contract for the, like, somebody said the contract for the Fuel Girls, which are the Fire Girls, was done. They can't find new people to twirl fire? I was gonna say, they can't replace talent. They would end up just going, and the show, a lot of people were complaining because the show felt the same. Well, for us, it was fantastic because we'd never seen one before. like the best part of the night. My favorite part. I don't know, that was when I was dragging. I didn't know if I was gonna make it to the end by the time we got But we did. Maybe she gets just new production and choreographers and like a whole new scene instead of chunking it. Well, it was Academy of Villains for a few years, which was pretty much the same premise, sexy dancing. And then there was some stuff that happened behind the scenes. But they got rid of that crew and brought in the nightmare fuel crew. And I've enjoyed all the shows. think, you know, yeah, the story gets repetitive because they did one story for three years, the circus theme. It's gone for two years. I don't see why you wouldn't want to bring him back since it's a circus theme for your third year because the theme is supposed to be the circus. Yeah. I guess I just bring you production and choreography and have him do something different. So, ⁓ the theme, the official theme for this year, ⁓ HHN35 is Infernal Carnival of Nightmares, which they pointed out is an acronym. for Icon and our icons this year are Jack the Clown and Dr. Oddfellow. They said the way they talked about it, the first house they announced is Jack and Oddfellow Chaos Circus, I think was the name of it. I don't have it right in front of me, but it's the origin of Jack and how Oddfellow is involved with that. Oddfellow a ⁓ voodoo? Kind of. Dude, kind of like Dr. Facilier? Kind of, but he's a time shifter too, so he can go through time. HHN32, if I remember correctly. Somebody will probably correct me. That was the year that he was the icon himself. He was 32. Yeah, 32. His 33 was chaos and control. And then last year, I can't remember who the icon was. Even though that was last year. So I felt like art was everywhere. Art, but not really art. So Oddfellow was the icon a few years ago is what I'm getting down to. And every scare zone had an odd fellow and he was different time periods. So he had his little edges on his on his ⁓ skull or his face. You could find somebody that had those on him. So it's gonna be cool. The house. gives you a way of how Jack and Odfel take control of Universal Studios and how those scare zones all interact with each other based off those two characters. So was, they've started really getting into this theme of the scare zones or is the theme of the park for the night. And that started kind of back with 31 when they did the Halloween theme, because it was all like the big scare zone in New York was the trick or treaters, the uh... major suites where all the trick or treaters had been turned into monsters and were dying pretty much zombies. Then chaos and control, they they split the park in half. So you went one way, it was one version. The other way was the other. Oddfellow did his thing. So it was, I liked that they were starting to do that. I'm excited to see what houses are announced and like see how the theme goes and everything is. There's like everything I hate. Carnivals and clowns and nightmares. It's like just... I'm curious to see if they bring Chance in. So Jack is like the Joker. I don't know how much I've watched if anything come out. But he's very much a very Joker person. And then Chance is like his Harley Quinn. but not the Harley Quinn Joker story. ⁓ Harley Quinn is obsessed with the Joker, but the Joker is not obsessed with Harley Quinn. I think Jack and Chance are very much a couple. So I'm excited. We're starting down countdowns now. We were talking about when we want to go and do RIP and office soon. The agents want to go. I have to get us a group. We're going to have one. I'm excited. Like I said, I just, I'm tired. So I don't sound excited, but my goodness. We know this is Jason's favorite time of year. I've ordered my shirt. like six months away. So they, they did the panel Saturday. The thing was the 21st. And I was watching it at work because I went to work for some stupid reason last Saturday and I'm watching the panel. They're doing this announcement. And they're like, oh, by the way, you can go ahead and buy this shirt at the end of panel. So I took a screenshot of the QR code that the person had on the screen and I went and bought my shirt. So I already have my HHN shirt for 35, one of them, because the other, I always get the house shirt for the year that had list out all the houses. That's there. I'm ready. We'll be wearing it. You're already ready. Yes. We'll be back after this and we're going to talk about Universal theme parks over spring. 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 a 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 www.magicaltravel.com. Mention our podcast to be connected with one of our agents you are listening to. We're back. Terry and I went to Universal, not together. Not together. With our respective families. Yes. So was separate weeks. You went like a week before I did. You missed the crowds like I got. Yeah, there was like no crowds. Did we talk about the Mardi Gras Parade? Did you go do that? No, we didn't do that. But you did talk about it. Or I don't know if we talked about it on here, but I know as a group we discussed it. We talked about it in our text group and I think we talked about it on a pre-show. That parade is so amazing. H.H. will always and forever be my favorite thing to do at Universal. But Mardi Gras is going to be a close second. Travis like did a great job with Travis came out with about 6,000 beads. My secret is to stand at the horror makeup show. And that's where the The parade starts, that's where the parade finishes. So Travis was on Bethany's shoulders the entire time. Go Bethany, by the way. can't, never been able to hold my child on my shoulders for that long. have a bad neck, but like good for her. Her working out is really paying off. Yeah. She took him off in between the parade. He stood up there and our sat up there and he caught bead after bead. There was a couple of times that got rung around his neck. And naturally... How many hit Bethany in the face? I was gonna say the next thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna be ducking and diving and like, so these things are flying in my face. I know. She's a good mom. But it was fun to just stand there and watch how fun, like, cause he did not want to be in that parade. He not want to go watch it. Then as soon as it started, he was having a blast. I feel like that's a normal kid thing though. You're like, just try it. You're gonna like it. Like, come on. when you just wait for it. Yeah. When you tell them what I don't want to wait. I don't... Wait, I want to go do something. I you guys got to stand here and watch things go by me. Like what's the fun in that? The ride transformers for the umpteenth millionth time. But that was the first thing like we were like, okay, let's, we're just going to sit, relax, watch this parade because it got canceled the first night. I'm kind of glad now it got canceled the first night because I could have only imagined how many beads we would have had if we done two nights of that parade. But if you go during Mardi Gras, we also, the first night was Zed. We didn't stop and listen to him at all. Because it had stormed, that's why they canceled the parade. People were just lined. I don't even know what Zedd plays, what his popular song is. He's like a DJ. Well, I know that, but like, here's a remix that got popular at some point. That's why it's universal. I couldn't tell you, but the lines during that concert? It's short. We got on Transformers five minutes. We got on Minions and 10 minutes, we got on BillinCon in five minutes. I mean, it's all very much worth being in that park during that timeframe so you could get on those rides. We ended up riding every ride that I don't like riding at Universal because we were- How many times did you ride ET? ⁓ I rode that just once, but I wish we could have ridden it like 16 times. It went down while we were in line, everybody evac'd out and we stood there and then like 10 minutes after it went down, it came back up and we got- right on the ride. He got to see Gabby. He got to see hashtag Panda. know when you said he saw hashtag, I'm like, who's hashtag? And then you sent the picture. was like, ⁓ the Panda thing from Jimmy Fallon. Yeah. And we wrote Jimmy Fallon. I don't think I've even written it with y'all. No, we didn't write it while we were there. Jimmy Fallon. That's how long it's been since I've ridden it. And I don't care for it so much, but he loved the thing. And he's like, we raced to the moon and we won and we cheated. I'm like, OK, kid. So he wanted to do that again. He wanted to do Minions. I think we did that two or three times. It's just fun to go. I'm glad, though, we didn't ride Cat in the Hat like 16 times. We rode it just the one time. And he rode one fish, two fish. That was with Bethany, right? Because you took the picture of them on there? That's what I thought. Because I don't. try not to do spinners unless it's like Dumbo the classic one. Tova has no interest in those. He's like I'm too big for that. I don't want to ride that. We didn't even stop in Suisse Landing. It's so like they I think they need some help there. Like they need to go back and just start repainting everything to make it brighter again. Yeah it's definitely bleached out from the Florida sun. It is a good land. It's a very fun land to walk through and to see. The characters kind of look kind of weird when you see like Sam and Cat in the Hat and Lorax. Like my kids aren't huge Dr. Seuss fans, but like they love the Cat in the Hat movie. Like from like 15, 20 years ago. Like they will laugh out loud at that all the time. So maybe if they went more like that route, if they read it as a lay-in, like kind of, like you said, towards the live action version of the cat in the house. Updated it more, you know. ⁓ What were your highlights of Universal as you take a bite of cookie dough? It was about to fall off the desk, so I had to catch it. Our highlight was for sure Harry Potter and Jurassic Park. Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Universe. Your son passing out on Lhasa coaster. out. mean, you can't get any better than that. And like, you ask him if he'll ride it again, he was like, yes. I mean, not immediately. I need a break. But I will definitely ride that again. And, you know, so that's a... I don't think he's been on a real roller coaster, like outside of Disney World. Like those are the most, the biggest coasters he's been on. Cause we've never been to a Six Flags or Carowinds or Busch Gardens or anything. We were watching a video. on a YouTube video of Universal and the vlogger was pointing at the Hulk and Travis goes, I'm not gonna ride that one. It goes upside down. I'm like, but you don't know how it's gonna feel. He goes, yeah, but I might throw up so I'm not gonna get on that one. That's a valid point. Valid, that's exactly what he's talking about. I very rarely get on Hulk. I love the coaster. I think it's a great coaster if you can sit up front. I just. Like if we went as a group, I would go on it, but on my regular trips, it's not a must do. When we rode it at that AEP, we got in the front because we were with the VIP tour guide. Right. ⁓ And I still hated it. The only reason I liked the front is because you can actually actively see what's coming and yeah, I don't know the coaster by the... Like I know the first half. don't know the back half. I was so dizzy when we got off of that ride. Like it made me so dizzy. I was just like, I don't want to ride this anymore. I'm also in my mid thirties and my back hurts. And like, don't want to do this. After you ride something like Velocicoaster and Hagrid, which are so smooth, and then you go get on like Hulk and you're just like plastering your head to the back. So it's not being jostled around the entire time. I just have no desire to want to ride Hulk ever again. Yeah, I'll it. might do it once a year. I don't think I rode it at all last year though. Now if Kofa goes, like if he gets older and he's like, I want to ride that, I will put my big girl britches on and I will go ride that with him if he wants to, but it'll be a one and done. The surprising thing for me for Universal was how much construction is going on in the parks, especially in Iowa. Cause we walked in and You can't remember what it was, it's the bar. It was all behind scrims. The castle was starting to get scrims put up around it because they were fixing to start doing refurb on that. They had a lot of scrims up in Lost Continent for different things. We were trying to start moving stuff around. I was just like, holy crap. And not to mention the walls in City Walk for the Fast and Furious coaster. Now in the Lost Continent, are you hoping? I know there's rumors for things going there, but what are you hoping goes there, Jason? So let me start off by saying that there is stuff going around. The CEO of Universal or Comcast, I can't remember which one, was seen in the park this week filming in the Lost Continent. And people are like, there's only one reason somebody that high up is filming in the Lost Continent. An announcement. Right. There's a lot of speculations of we're fixing to get an announcement because by the end of the year where the construction or demolition of lost continents was start happening. The rumors have been Zelda and Pokemon. And then one of them also included the Forbidden Forest. Right, like expanding out. Yeah. So you have a good transition from whatever land into Harry Potter. Personally, I would like to see Zelda. think that would be a good anchor over there. You could put Hyrule Castle and then you'd have two castles in that park. It would kind of match the theme in a lot of areas over there. So it wouldn't need a lot of construction. Like naturally you'd have to re-theme mythos. you know, the Sinbad show back there, you would tear down and the show building for the attraction, all that would be torn, but the stores and everything can stay the same. The Pokemon stuff, you'd have to pretty much demolish everything. that would be much harder to... That would be a lot more work. That would make more sense to me as a new land in Epic more than IOA. definitely the cash cow. I think Pokemon works good in studios. Okay. That's what I was thinking. Ooh, Take Over Simpsons? Yeah. Exactly what I was... bring the Simpsons contracts up next year, if I remember right, or 2028. And then... You cut, destroy Simpsons, that whole land, you destroy animal actors. And that children's area flows from DreamWorks into Pokemon. So you have another nice buffer area. then you have exclusive little PokeStops and everything like that. They're built in. That's what I would like to see. would like to see those two. think they would do a whole thing with Pokemon Go? Yeah. I think you would do it all over both parks or all three parks. They would integrate something like that too. Yeah. would have ⁓ more stuff happening where the Pokemon land is. Like special Pokemon you can probably get in the park or... Right. Because I was a Pokemon Go person when that came out. played... Still play it. When we go in the park, think like Universal's coming into their own. We've talked about the permits they filed for Epic. Another step forward to that. came through this year or this last week, where the permit said that it's a new attraction coming through and that's supposed to be for Harry Potter and that Ministry of Magic area. mean, they need another one back there. They only have one ride and a show. Like I feel like they do need something. In general needs more stuff. Yeah, skin and bones right now. Need some fleshing out. I think a structure is there. Universal. So the big difference between Disney and Universal when it comes to stuff is like Disney is very much a, this Moana can only be in this park. might've mentioned it somewhere, so I might've been on this before, but Universal doesn't care. So you have Harry Potter in three different parks. I think that's what they're going to do with Nintendo. All the Nintendo fans are going to have to go to all three parks to be complete. If you want to go and see Pokemon, you It incentivizes you. Yeah. You know, to go to all three parks. Well, I was on the phone with Universal for a client. They had ⁓ a, one of their kids had an accident and they hadn't moved their trip and they wanted to get move it to a three day ticket over four days or something like that. When I called in, the person was like, well, why don't you make it a four day ticket with volcano Bay? And I'm like, cause then they said, because we're a four park destination now, you know that, right? I'm like, yes, I do understand that you consider your water park a theme park, but my, most people don't consider that a theme park. Unless you have people who really want to go to a water park and do that kind of thing, they're not going to go. Right. It's usually like a day off day. People do it. It's not factored in as like a park day, quote unquote. I will do it before it closes in October because it's been a while since I've been to the park. But I'm not going to plan a whole trip around going to Volcano Bay like I would for a Pokemon land. Or let's even say an expansion to Epic where it would be... Luigi's Mansion or something like that Bowser That's already there. Yeah, I Would think like epic the next expansion we get for epic That's a land is going to be another portal and if you look at the how everything's set up Those portals are pretty good. You can see where they want to put them because dirt work and there's nothing in between And that's what they want. They want six portals where you can go in and spend your Majority of time doing stuff in there. No, what do we think the next portal will be? That's a good question. Would love it back to the future one. I think back to the future would be Wizard of Oz I Don't think they could do it. Maybe Wizard of Oz fan. Oh, yeah the home the first move like the first It is the second is what I'm referring to It freaked me out as a kid, flying monkeys, witches, but I just feel like it's a natural like yellow brick road through a portal, a lot of imagination. don't know. I feel like something more family friendly along lines of like the secret life of pets or something along those lines. I feel like you could almost do a whole little like area for something like that too. I guess I just don't know universal stuff as well. I think like the Secret Life is a great attraction in Universal Hollywood. It's fun. We will go on it every time we go just because it's cheesy fun. I don't see how a whole portal would be Secret Life of Pets. I want to say like a whole like, I don't know, DreamWorks like land-ish. where you like went into like the Shrek Swamp and then off the Shrek Swamp. Yeah, it's not immersive. But in respect to that, I don't know the whole Back to the Future land, if that's a whole something. It's so old now that I don't think it would resonate with. We'll consider it most perfect movie. Well, yeah, but you're 40 years old. I'm not the only one who says that. It's not my favorite movie by any means. No, but what saying is my kids would not be interested in that. They've seen the Back to the Future movies and they think they're cool, but they would not. care about it, you know, it's like a Ghostbusters land. Like they've seen the Ghostbusters, they like the movies, but saying we're going to go somewhere specifically for Ghostbusters, they'd be like, but that's an old movie. So what would happen would it be like a Lord of the Rings style? Something like epic. Please let it be Lord of the Rings. I don't know how you compete with Lord of the Rings with Harry Potter in the same park. They're so different. They're so different, but yet they're the same. A lot of the same people like those things. So they would compare a lot more. Well, I would a hundred percent choose Lord of the Rings over Harry Potter. I also think Lord of the Rings would work better in the original parks because you could have the two towers, one in USO and one in islands and you could see them from each other. Right. But Lord of the Rings works so well because there's so many like, could have your dwarf area and the Shire and you could have Rivendell, you could have Lothlorien. could have- again, you could put them all in three theme parks. Yeah, I mean you could. You could have... I've never seen Lord of the Rings either. Or The Hobbit. can't I remember the name of the place where they... Mount Doom. You could have Mount Doom. And they can go. They can sell elf ears. So Mickey ears, you could have a headband that gave you elf ears. Zelda has the same ears as elves, so... Rohan, they have the whole land of the horses in Rohan. Would they do Zelda since they already have like a video game theme thing like Nintendo? They have two Harry... three Harry Potter lands. Yeah. But that's like- That's magic. There are three magic lands. So it's the same thing. I mean, I get that, but Harry Potter is bigger than Zelda. No, I would argue that Zelda is just as big as Harry Potter in the division that it's in. But not in like the zeitgeist, not in like the general like population. It has its place with us. It's like Dungeons and Dragons. Like among the people it's big with, it's big, but you ask the average guy on the street, they've heard of Harry Potter. They've seen a Harry Potter movie, but people have heard of Zelda, but I know that people like play the Zelda game. think Zelda is the Super Mario still though, where it's, I played Zelda growing up. Travis might play Zelda. You know, it's passed down just like Harry Potter is passed down. know, we all read here. played Mario and like Mario Kart, but I've never played Zelda or anything like that. I've never played Zelda either. too fantastical. What if they did like not to... Not in the exact words I'm going to say, but like a Barbie land. I'm trying to think of big movies that had big themes. So there's a rumor going around with Warner Brothers since Paramount supposedly buying it. Yeah. One of the lots will be demolished and be turned into a theme park. And since Warner Brothers owns Barbie, they would have the whole thing. I was just trying to think of movies that had like a big... Population impact in like the past five ten years and that's why you know, it's like Barbie, huh? What universal needs to do is one of the portals Should be the Steven Spielberg portal would be pretty cool. He has so many movies that could easily go in there Yeah, there's a third kind jaws ET AI Minority Report, you know I was 12 terrified me in Universal Studios Literally at 12 years old was almost sitting in my mom's lap from an animatronic shark. I knew it wasn't real, but it terrified me and I hated it. I think it'd be fun. They could do something with where- that is like a Hollywood land, not Spielberg land saying it doesn't really roll off the tongue, but I knew it wouldn't encompass all of Hollywood, something's like, just say you're like walking down the walk of fame as you go through the portal, you know, and then you go into like The jaw. They could bring back like Twister too with the new like Twisters and aren't they coming out with a third movie now since that one did so well? Glenn Powell can walk around. Can he just be in there? All day long. Cowboy hat. With the white wet shirt. Yeah. I've never heard people talk about Glenn Powell like this. I think Steven Spielberg, he's taken like 3 % of the gate. or all the theme parks. They might as well make it worth it. mean, they just go ahead and say, look, you you're getting percentage of this. Let's just make you a portal. And the top of the portal could be your face or something. I don't know. But he's got enough. He easily like if it is like a Spielberg What's his company? Amblin. Amblin. That's I mean, it's got to keep like I said Spielbergland just doesn't roll off the tongue. What's another big Universal movie like? how to train your dragon. That was such a big thing where you could make an entire land out of it. minions. Like they don't really have, they have the monsters. Like I said, like it would have to be something all encompassing. I'm thinking like DreamWorks. Like you're going to like Shrek Schwamp and then you go from there to the different- Schwamp. Shrek Schwamp. Then you go to like the different DreamWorks movies, like Secret Life of Pets and- Seeing- Was bad guys from that because those are great movies to the bad guys movies I got news are great. We just the second one show You know like that big great show and like you said the bad guys movie could be like your 3d ride and Then your secret like the pets movie could be like you're like it is in Hollywood just slow right you know I'm I think all encompassing like you said Spielberg land or I we're trying to do another like land type thing like Hollywood land, like what they do in USO, they want this portal. Like they don't want you walking down the, something that looks like Hollywood or New York. Right. And it's fantastical in some way. That's how you go to the swamp. Right. But you would have to able to move through this. I just do really want it to be lorthering since they do have that and they are doing that in the UK. The of the Rings seems very viable, as not a Lord of the Rings fan, that seems very viable because it's got enough world building around it to build a world. two more movies coming out. You've got the one that Andy Serkis is working on right now and then Stephen Colbert, they just announced is writing It's the Something of Gollum. can't remember the name of it. Does Universal have anything like space oriented? Because that's one thing they're lacking is like... They had the rights to Star Trek for a little bit. I don't think they have it anymore. You know, like an interstellar or, you know, like a, they don't have anything space really. They have like monsters. have Harry Potter, Nintendo, like different worlds. Well, and they don't even technically have Harry Potter. They just pay for the rights to Harry Potter. They need like deep ocean or space or something that's completely different. Is the Meg from them? They need sci-fi land where they just take crappy sci-fi movies from the sci-fi channel and make like sharknado ride. Ooh, Planet of the Apes. No, that's Fox though. You can't do that. That was a Fox movie. Well, I don't know. Look, we're just throwing stuff in the walk. See what comes out. So I do want to pivot right quick because we're running out of time. We've talked about Harry Potter a few times. Have y'all seen the new trailer? Yes. No. What are your thoughts? The kid that they have playing Harry Potter looks like Harry Potter. Like, he really does. Definitely know they are not gonna be the same as the movies, as in they're staying closer to the books and like the beginning of like Harry's start and how I think it's showing more of the how mean his family was to him in the beginning. And they're also being more accurate to the books as in his aunt and Dudley both are blonde. Apparently that was a big thing for the movies versus the TV show. I'm excited for it. feel like is it going to be family friendly? Like am I going to be able to have a watch it too? So I'm excited because Kova is getting into liking these kinds of things. And I think this would be a fun show. And I think he would enjoy watching it as well. Here's my negative. I think it's gonna be great. I think it looks great. Christmas 2026 is when it's gonna come out. Big positive is, like you said, following the books. Completely. So it's a series. You're not having one movie. You're going to have, would assume, almost like a chapter type thing. it's going be two or three episodes. Right. Like each season's a book. Yes. Because the trailer was The Sorcerer's Stone, not Harry Potter. But the negative though is that they're talking this is going to be very much like the Game of Thrones movies where... It won't be every year coming out. It's gonna be like, here's one and then in a couple years, here's another one. are gonna grow too much. Like that's the negative about having a show. Stranger Things. ⁓ wait, does Universal own Stranger Things? No, that's Netflix. I was gonna say, do they own Game of Thrones? Cause the Game of Thrones land would go hard. That's one first. didn't know, the umbrella is always big. don't know who owns owns everything. So I don't know the Universal umbrella. I think I'm going to enjoy it. Yeah. Everybody I saw. looks good. Somebody didn't make the point of Snape. But she never in the book says what Snape looks like. Yeah, I think and I think we need to think of it as like introducing it to a group of kids like my son who loves Harry Potter that doesn't have their preconceived notions. Like he's only seen like two of the movies. he you know, so his if he watches this first and that could be his version of Snape. And you can watch it in the movies. It'd be like weird. I'm sure he was the best audition for Snake for what they wanted for the TV show. Yeah. And I think he can be great. Like I'm not, I'm not, I said it last week with the Little Mermaid stuff. Hire whoever you want to as long as they can portray the actor or the character the way that the character is written. Maybe it'll be like more kids in Hogwarts will be of different races and colors because the movie's pretty whitewashed. think the girl they have playing Hermione is also going to be great. looks like she's gonna be fun. Yes. So my two big gripes that I hope come to fruition. John Williams score needs to make some type of appearance. the soundtrack they have behind sounds really good, very magical, but I want to hear John Williams score. There's a reason it resonates. It's so good. It's a classic. It just needs to be there. Whether it's Hedwig's theme just every now and then. not the overall arching thing. Two, I want to know what the castle looks like. What does Hogwarts look like? Are you keeping the general look because you have these castles built in three theme parks now? The universe will be like, hey, we need you to keep these castles the same so we don't have to go and overhaul our castles to make it look like it. Because eventually, they're going to have to overhaul the rides to make them look like these characters. Yeah. Because we grew up with Daniel, Emma and what's his name? Rupert. Yeah. That's what we grew up with. Our kids are not going to grow up with them. Travis will still watch these movies and as long as this series is successful, there's a whole new face to Harry Potter and you're going to want to recast these things. Yeah. So. And I just really hope that it's done really well and they're sticking very close to the books. I personally have not read the Harry Potter books. It's on my list to read. Well, you get started. You better get started. Christmas 2020 is it. But again, like I was saying, like we're stranger things with the kids growing up. It's going to make sense because that's what's happening in these books. It's them in the years of Hogwarts and them growing up and each book is a different year that they're there. So that's going to make sense, but they can't drag it out too long because the kids are going to then be adults. Stranger things that they can't 25 out there trying to be 18. Everything ready and like. Do it in six months, them like two or three months off, do it the next six months, give them two, they gotta like push through to get them out. That's why they push the movies through so fast. Yeah. Didn't they do like two in one year or something? Like those are huge movies. they got a couple months off in between. It'll definitely be something that's going be on my list to watch. Definitely. And it's, it's going to be something that I'm, I need to reread the book myself. It's been forever. I've been listening through driving to Orlando, but. I'm halfway listening there. I'm interested, like I said earlier, of what they do in the theme parks with Harry Potter. Like, when do they start transitioning to the new cast if they ever transition? I'd say they don't because I feel like this is where it started. Like, I don't, that would be a lot of work to completely switch over. Well, that's like in 10 years, they had to update the entire ride. You need to shoot new stuff, you use new film material, things like that, and they might choose that turn. I don't think it'd be too hard to redo it if you're just filming on green screens like they did. don't know, but like they just came out with Ministry of Magic last year. Like, they don't need to change that. But Ministry of Magic happened so far into the battle for the ministry. That's Professor Umbridge. So you still got, you know, maybe six or seven years before that move, that series is even filmed. So it wouldn't be replaced overnight. They're not just going to go and say, okay, we have these young kids. Let's go ahead and replace everything. If the series doesn't make it past season three, they're not going to replace anything. Right. They also have to see how successful it's going to be. Like how do people really love this as much as the original movies. And then maybe they'll build, instead of rehashing the old Harry Potter rides, they'll build new ones in Ministry of Magic and Epic maybe that. Or, know, kind of combine, you know, kind of thread it through the three parts. Instead of replacing things, they'll just do new things. Well, that's all we got today for this episode. A bunch of hodgepodge of random topics, you know, sometimes we're taking next week off the Easter. We're going to spend time with our families for Good Friday and all that stuff. You know, hunt some eggs, the Easter parties with the kids. And then I probably won't be on the episode after that because I'll be on a cruise. The next step is that Wi-Fi and take time to, you know, you should on the cruise for us. Like film on the cruise, like, a podcast. Yeah, just you can come in and do the podcast from the. You know, honestly was like. How much of this stuff can I take? If you want to get a hold of any of us, you can go to magicaltravel.com. Any of us or any of the great agents over at Magical Travel will be glad to help you plan your next Disney, Universal, or family vacation. You can find us on social medias, Castles of Cauldrons, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. And we've got stuff going on everywhere. We're going to try get better at doing more with it. But you can always leave a review, share us with your friends, and let them know that we're here to help. Until the next time, we will see you on the next episode. Bye.