As excitement builds following the latest D23 announcements, Tony Desiere and Lauren Mallard take a reflective journey through the many changes that have shaped Disney World over the years. They explore the balance between nostalgia and innovation, discussing how recent attractions like Remy's Ratatouille Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind have invigorated the parks while stirring some skepticism among longtime fans. The duo delves into the evolution of beloved rides and lands, such as the transformation of Maelstrom into Frozen Ever After, and the introduction of Toy Story Land and Galaxy's Edge. They also touch on the impact of the Skyliner system and the upcoming Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, emphasizing the need for Disney to continually attract new audiences while retaining the magic for existing fans. Throughout their conversation, they highlight the ongoing dialogue between tradition and modernity, showcasing both the excitement and the challenges that come with evolving a beloved theme park legacy.

With the news about upcoming lands and attractions to the Disney Parks, Tony and Lauren go over a few of the changes that did come to fruition over the years and whether they landed as a hit...or did not go as well as anticipated. We go through the four parks at Walt Disney World in Orlando to grade out what has come before and what it replaced.

Takeaways:

• The D23 announcements have sparked both excitement and skepticism regarding future Disney park changes.
• Many fans express nostalgia for older attractions, yet recognize the need for new experiences.
• Epcot's transformation includes new attractions like Remy's Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After.
• The Guardians of the Galaxy ride has proven to be a significant upgrade in Epcot.
• Galaxy's Edge offers an immersive experience, but some fans desire more classic Star Wars elements.
• The Skyliner system has greatly improved transportation and access to Disney parks for guests.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Disney
• Universal Studios
• Epcot
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Harry Potter
• Moana
• Frozen

Well, with the latest D 23 announcements, it's time to look back a little bit on Disney World and some of the changes that they did actually make to the parks over the many, many years as anticipation arises for some new adventures, some new theming, some new lands, and what has worked and what may have needed to be like, tweaked up a little bit.

I'm Tony Desiri, along with Lauren Mallard.

This is Wands and Wishes podcast.

We are, with all the magic travel, helping you enjoy both the Disney World parks and the Universal studio parks in Orlando and everywhere else you'd like to go on your vacation.

But there was a lot of excitement at D 23 because there were a lot of new rides and a lot of new lands.

But there was also some skepticism.

Where would these lands be?

Would they actually get done?

What has Disney done in the past with some of the promises that were made that were not kept and some of the promises that were kept that turned out to be things that changed the parks and the dynamics over the 50 plus years that the magic kingdom has been around.

So we would thought in this podcast we would take a look at some of the things that have changed over the past couple of years, the initial response to them and how over time, they have been growing on its audience.

How are you, Lauren?

Good to see you once again.

How are you, Tony?

I'm wonderful.

I'm wonderful.

So I thought this would be kind of fun because we spent so much time talking about the future.

But as skepticism started to grow.

What about this?

What about losing this?

What about losing that?

It started to nullify some of the energy that was coming out of Anaheim for those announcements.

Yeah, it did for sure.

Definitely.

You know, I think that especially the bigger Disney fans like you and me are the ones that are kind of, kind of, kind of brewing that thought.

I think the ones that are casual travelers just think everything is awesome, which I think really it is.

I mean, there's really no reason to cause concern where concern isn't right now.

But yeah, I mean, there's been a lot, a lot out there.

I will put myself in the category because of my age.

I've been around the Disney parks for a very, very long time.

Understand, when I see some YouTube, youtubers and influencers who have been around a long time who remember the parks when they used to be and losing some of the nostalgic, but I'm not a fool to understand the business of what theme parks have to do and they have to constantly generate a new audience and that new audience is sometimes yet to have been born yet.

And so the nostalgia doesn't flay, you know, lay on there on their shoulders.

So.

But there were some, there have been a lot of changes in the past 15 years to the Disney parks and some of it has been a direction response to universal studios.

And some of it is just to change things up because they have noticed that there are certain elements that they want to add, some ip that they wanted to add.

So I created a list.

Now you're free to add to this list whatsoever.

No, I'm excited.

So I thought we would start around the parks.

We'll go through the four parks and we'd start with Epcot center.

Okay.

All right.

So there were a couple of changes that happened in the world showcase, and one was just recent with the Remy Ratatouille adventure that happened in France.

Now, this didn't change a ride.

This was an addition to that part of the park that had impressions of France and a number of little french area, but it wasn't a ride specific land.

Sure.

And I thought, I have not yet rode this ride, but everyone in my family has, everybody outside my family has.

And I'm getting nothing but great reviews because look, it had already been tried in Paris and they liked it there and they brought it here.

It's super cute.

And I think that it is something that really added a lot to the world showcase.

So if you think about the world showcase as a whole, it is so popular, especially with adult travelers.

But when you're taking your kids there, you know, they tend to yawn and get a little bored as they're walking through the world showcase.

So to have this along with frozen as being attractions that appeal to them, it helps with that.

It helps give them something to look forward to.

And so Remy's is, if you're not familiar with the ride, it is one of those trackless vehicles that is run on magnets.

And so you never really know exactly which way that the, that the vehicle is going to go.

And then it's a 3d attraction.

I get motion sick.

So I don't love that aspect of it, but I do love the ride.

And so I will get on and I'll take my glasses off and close my eyes just to experience it.

But it kind of takes you through the movie a little bit, kind of behind the scenes from a rat's perspective.

And so it's, it's just, it's really cute and it's something that kind of gives that element of something different to the world showcase that you're not expecting.

This is one of those rides.

Get on as quickly as you can.

In terms of your I passes and whatnot.

It is a one route.

It is the.

I would say it's probably the most popular attraction with the.

With the exception of guardians at Epcot.

And so it's the one that, for your regular lightning lane multi pass, it's always going to be the one that I'm going to suggest that you choose first.

All right?

So not just staying in the world showcase, you mentioned frozen.

This was Maelstrom.

This is what.

This was a very big ride.

This was a major controversy, despite the popularity of the movie.

But do you think anybody really remembers that controversy?

I asked this question a number of times when it was going through the process, and I said, how many of you really loved Maelstrom before the change?

Did you jump on the bandwagon of negativity?

Did you ever say to somebody, when you get to Epcot, you got to do Maelstrom?

Maybe some people did, but I didn't.

I never heard that a lot.

I think you're right.

And I can remember back when I was a kid and walking up to Norway.

And so it's the same.

It's the same sort of concept as far as the ride, the.

The mechanics of the ride, I guess you can say, but so I can remember walking up and seeing the boats.

So when you would go backwards on Maelstrom, which is now frozen ever after, and you go backwards, you would see the back of the boat come out of the little hole in the ride, which we don't have that anymore.

And so that's really what I can remember about Maelstrom.

But now I do think that frozen ever after is an upgrade to that pavilion also, I think, you know, ever changing.

Yeah.

And I think, too.

I know.

I understand the adding of the IP quality to it.

I mean, these were originally designed back when the park was first created, to be kind of not necessarily run by the country, but the country was supposed to have heavy influence on what it wanted to promote as a country.

So when you rode Maelstrom, you saw some of some of the oil drilling, you saw some of the culture, you saw some of the history of the country, and these were all done in coordination with the country itself.

You know, the king of Norway came to do the, you know, the ribbon cutting ceremony on that particular ride.

I do.

I understand, again, if that's your goal of that, if that is what you're trying to do.

But I think that in 40 plus years, they've sort of moved past that a little bit and said, look, in the end, how can we represent that country with something that is going to get families excited to take your kids?

Because I make no bones about this.

Because I was a kid, I had just wanted to ride.

Ride.

I was a young teenager.

Give me something to sit in and ride.

I didn't want to watch films, and I didn't care about the.

My father tried so hard to get us.

Take a look at this.

Take a look at that.

But my brother and I were teenagers.

Like, where is the ride?

What goes on with the excitement?

Where's the excitement?

I think that frozen as a movie has slated its existence for a long time.

And so I think having the ride there is not just gonna be a five year and done, and let's move on to something else.

I think that it's going to have a lasting effect there.

So, yeah, I think it's good.

And, you know, if I ask my kids, which I do often ask them, to rank their, the four parks from favorite to least favorite, they're all, they're gonna always say epcot is their least favorite.

Of course, even though my big kids, both of them, will tell you that Guardians of the Galaxy is their favorite ride in all of Walt Disney world.

And that's where I want to go to next, because this replaced Ellen's energy adventure.

Before that, it was energy.

I forget.

I remember it because it was the.

I remember the world of motion was.

Over there as well, I think was universe of energy.

It was called before Ellen's, and I remember it being a very boring video followed by dinosaurs.

That's what it was.

It was awful.

That was.

It was terrible.

And then they tried to liven it up with Bill Nye and Ellen DeGeneres and make it a little bit more fun.

I have zero problems with this, and I don't think anybody really does.

Like anybody who says Guardians of the Galaxy, as popular as that movie franchise, is as exciting as that roller coaster is, and here's how I grade roller coasters.

If my mother will go on it at her age, and she will still go on guardians at this, she loves it.

To me, it is an absolute tremendous upgrade from what was in that pavilion before.

It is a huge hit.

And in my family, we're not Marvel fans, but my kids absolutely love guardians and would do it over and over and over again if they could.

And I do wonder if they're going to eventually go to a standby line here because I think that the virtual queue and the individual lightning lanes are kind of limiting guests because that is all you can do to ride it.

I mean, once you've ridden it twice at most, you're done for the day.

Yeah.

Is the advice to say to people, look, if you gotta pay for it, pay for it, but you cannot leave the park without riding it.

If you're not coming back within a year or two years, you don't go down there frequently enough.

It's that good.

It's that good.

It's that good.

So I wanna talk about Moana's water adventure.

Is that I have not seen it.

I can't wait to see it next month.

It is.

But that really just replaced the center of the park, correct?

It did.

I don't think there was anything really that was there, actually, now that the walls are down in Epcot, I do feel like you get to that section of the park a lot faster than you used to could get there.

So you're taking a right.

Like, you're going over to the land for Soarin or for living with land, and it's going to be right around the corner on your left.

And it is a super cute little area.

It's not something that you're going to spend a lot of time doing, but it goes through the life cycle of water.

And so you start.

And there's different interactive water features that are all throughout that area.

And really, kids or adults can enjoy just kind of taking part in that.

You can get wet in there if you want to, or you can stay dry.

You talked earlier about your kids saying Epcot was the lower.

On the lower end of the excitement edge.

And I remember that as a youngster as well as I've gotten older, my respect for that park kind of.

It's becoming one of my favorite parts to go to as it.

And it's not drinking around the world.

Yeah.

It's just enjoyable.

Enjoying it.

Culture.

Yeah, I enjoy it.

But skipping out through Epcot center now let's go over to Hollywood studios.

Cause there's two lands there, and I've got mixed feelings on kind of both of those.

Yeah.

The first one I have no problems with, and I love.

And that's toy Story.

I think Toy Story land has been.

Is an out of the park home run.

Yep.

Toy Story land is actually my favorite land in all four of the parks.

I love it.

Although I do feel like you're on the surface of the sun when you're back there because there is nowhere for you to get shade but it.

Of all of the areas in all the parks, I think I would.

I would like to be in toy store.

My father took the entire family for Christmas Eve, went, spent Christmas Eve.

That was the goal of the park, was to go to toy Story.

We waited forever to ride slinky dog dash.

But I, and I knew slinky dog dash what it was.

It didn't try to pretend to be something it's not.

It's a pretty simple coaster as far as coasters go.

But the theming is so fun that we hadn't.

We enjoyed the queue, we enjoyed waiting in line and whatnot.

This is completely a home run.

Now.

Galaxy's edge, I'm a little bit different, and this is where my age is.

Going to creep in.

This is where my age is going to creep in.

So when I go to Universal Studios and I go through the Harry Potter world, I'm in a land that is coming from the movie.

I go to Galaxy's Edge and I don't know what it is.

Because if there was one movie of my youth that I watched over and over again on old Laserdisc, that's just how great old I'm getting is Laserdisc player.

It was Star wars.

I've seen Star Wars a thousand times, was the movie my brother and I would put in the machine and watch over and over again.

So I wanted a little more of the old Star wars in there.

I get what they were trying to do.

They were trying to say, hey, we're going to tell a future story.

That's what they do a lot.

Sure.

If you think about D 23 and what they're talking about with the encanto attraction, it's not going to be based on the movie.

It's going to be based on Antonio's gift, which is an advancement of the story.

Story.

Yeah.

So I know what Star Wars, I know what they were trying to do here, but I wanted a little more like, I wanted to be in Tatooine.

I wanted to be on hard.

I don't care.

It was just something I more or less recognize.

No, I get that.

And as I am not a Star wars fan, my husband Chris and my son Graham are big Star wars fans.

And so they do love galaxy's edge.

I get frustrated back there, to be honest with you, because it is so immersive that I get lost.

And so I'm like, I don't know how to read these signs that are back here, and I don't know what this food is over here, or, you know, the blue and the green milk, and it is a great spot.

But I do get where my son, Graham, he loved all of the classics, all the classic movies.

They're also into mandalorian.

But I get where you're saying, like, let's have a little more.

Let's go back.

Let's do something like the Phantom of the Menace back there.

That's just, you know, kind of.

Did I say that right?

Was that the right.

Was that the right movie?

Because, like I said, I am not a Star wars fan, but I remember that was one of his favorites back when he was really into them several years ago.

But, yeah, let's have something else.

Let's get one more attraction back there, because I think the land could use it.

And the Millennium Falcon ride, I was a little disappointed in, but I didn't drive it, so I just sat back and watched my kids pilot it.

Yeah.

So I haven't.

I can't give a full review of that until I actually do.

Yep, that's another one I can't do because I'm.

I'm motion sick.

So my kids ride that by themselves, or Chris rides it with them, but.

Yeah, but I will say that, you know, leading in the line, getting up to where the chessboard is, was an emotional experience for somebody who loved the movies, loved Han Solo, loved the linoleum Falcon, and just to be like, wow, you could sit here.

I could sit here and get a picture with the chessboard.

This was phenomenal.

Yeah.

But I also think.

And I.

This is why I said I've got mixed feelings.

While I kind of wish the land brought me back a little bit, I think it has the greatest attraction in the history of attractions and rise of the resistance.

I think the combination of every element of that ride, I think it's the greatest attraction.

It's a great experience.

It really is great.

Whether you love Star wars or whether you don't, anybody can enjoy that attraction.

It is jaw dropping.

How good that ride is, how good the attraction, the experience is.

It's not even just an attraction.

It's an experience.

Yeah, it really is.

I tried to explain it to a friend of mine, and I said it's, you know, you go on the haunted mansion, yeah, you can do the pre show, but that's just a holding area for you.

And it's cool, the stretching room and.

Whatnot, but it's not necessary.

Not necessary.

If they.

If they can get you through that on, on light days.

And they do where you can just walk right over.

They.

They'll do that.

They'll just leave the doors open.

You can just walk through.

If you.

If you asked to do that here, you missed out on, really, the purpose of the ride.

Right.

I.

From the line in the back to a.

To the car to the vehicle.

You missed out on the ride.

Right.

You missed out on why you're there in the first place, how you got there in the first place, what the story is to the ride.

It's that important to experience everything all the way through it.

Yeah.

And it's so smart that they added so much pre show because you don't feel like you're waiting in line, but you really are still waiting in line to the main part of the ride.

So having those pre shows, and they did it with guardians, they did it with, with flight of passage, you've got all of these pre show elements that are helping the guests feel like they are already experiencing, which they are, and just less just standing online.

And, you know, when you go into the haunted mansion, I keep using that as an example.

Sometimes you get out and you see the crowd still.

Right.

If you do that in this ride, you, again ruin the story.

It has to be timed perfectly so that when you emerge from the spacecraft, they're dealing with you and only you.

They're setting you up for this, for the rest of the story, of the attraction, and they do it great.

And so that's why I have, again, some mixed feelings about this, because it doesn't bring me back to a nostalgia.

It doesn't take me into something I'm familiar with, but there's enough there that I still love what they've done.

I don't think it's as good as what Harry Potter is at universal studios, because they literally said you're gonna put you right in the movie, that, you know, there's no.

There's no other world here.

There's no place you're not familiar trying to tell another story.

You like Gringotts?

Here it is.

You like the castle, here it is.

And I always tell people about the castle at universal.

If, again, you could go from the back of the line to right to the vehicle, you would miss out.

If you love Harry Potter, everything in the queue is worth it.

It's worth the line.

It's an experience.

It's an experience.

So, not to cheat here, because I haven't seen your list, but while we're on Star wars and while we're talking about attractions or experiences or things that were hits or misses.

We have to talk about the Star cruiser.

Yeah, unfortunately, that one.

And, you know, I think, I really do think that it was a good concept and I think that the whole thing could be a hit.

But I don't know where do you think they missed the mark?

Was it the price or was it how long it was?

I think all of it together has to be, because when you did see the price tag, and I'll be honest, I never sent any guests to the circle cruiser because I do think for two days when people saw the price, they got a little hesitant.

But if you were, I think it was really geared more towards the superfan, the Star wars superfan, when they saw there were going to be people that were in cosplay and that were really playing a role, I think some people got a little hesitant there, too, because it's like, oh, well, I don't really want to do that, but I want to stay there.

If they were to bring it back or bring it back as a deluxe resort or something like that, where it wasn't so just.

Limited, I guess it was very ambitious.

Extremely ambitious.

I been told by people who said, listen, those weren't cast members.

They were real actors.

They got actor wages.

That's one of the reasons why it was so expensive.

They were real.

They weren't just hourly employees that worked for Disney that had to do the shift on the cruiser.

These were really professionally trained people who acted out these parts.

And that's expensive when you talking about sag and all the fees of that.

But before anything ever came out about what this was, the price made people crazy.

It did.

The social media on the price alone set them 5 miles back before they even got to the starting line.

It really did.

But I have to wonder, now that they have the space and I've never been to it, I have no idea how big it is, how big the rooms are.

I really don't have that personal experience of it.

But I have to wonder with the space that they still have, because they obviously do.

What are we going to do with it?

Are we going to still create an experience out of it that can back up to galaxy's edge?

Are we going to create another resort out of it?

I think we still got to do something with it, but I don't think that that was right.

You checked in at like eleven and then you checked out like, like within 48 hours.

Yeah, it was about 48 hours.

And then a portion of that was in the park, which is, I mean, I don't know how people feel about this.

Me in a theme park.

I can go to the theme park anytime, right?

I can ride these rides anytime.

I've given you $4,000.

Entertain me for the 48 hours and I'm there with something no one else is getting.

Because if I'm in that park going, well, I rode this just three months ago.

Yeah.

It's really too bad that it lasted the short period of time that it did, because I'd like to see what they could do with it or, you know, I mean, Graham was excited.

He would have wanted to do it at some point, but not for the price.

When this first started hitting, I thought it was going to be a hotel, only I thought it was just a Star wars themed hotel.

Yeah.

I mean, and then it would be.

You go in the lobby, you go to the room.

Yeah.

Can you imagine how awesome that would have been?

Then you go to the parks and you come back to your Star wars hotel.

Yeah.

Like anything else.

And then when I saw, oh, my God, they're.

They're doing this.

They're doing this.

They're putting people in these, you know?

All right, that's a good idea.

But again, I think the price threw a lot of people off.

Yeah, I think that's one of the ones.

We gotta go.

It didn't work.

It didn't work.

Big, nice, you know, tax break on the heisman with the closing.

All right, before we get to Magic kingdom, let's go to animal kingdom.

And this was Avatar land.

All right, so I like avatar land.

I don't.

Navi river journey is a standard boat ride.

I never thought anything I.

Flight of passage.

I'll give you a quick history of this for me and my family.

My father's a pass holder.

He lives down in.

Down in Florida.

Before COVID he would.

He told me that him and my mother retirees, he would check the thing.

He would see how long the ride wait was.

If it was reasonable, they would go down there.

Now, this was before reservations.

And also, you could just go when you go.

Yeah.

That's how much he loved flight of passes.

That's awesome.

This is all he wanted to show me was flight of passage.

You're gonna love it.

You're gonna love it.

So with that build up, what did you think?

I thought it was great.

Okay.

I thought it was fantastic.

I thought it was great.

But I have to say it took so long for this land to be built from the initial time that they broke ground to when it was completed.

And I thought, oh, are they gonna run out of Avatar momentum?

Yeah.

Because the new movie wasn't coming out.

Sure.

Yeah, it was a while back.

So I'm thinking to myself, how many people remember the movie?

How many people are still emotionally attached to the movie?

Right.

How many super fans do we have that are back there?

And I think that this is one that you don't see as many super fans that are avatar superfans.

They're just.

They're back there to experience the ride.

And like you said, navi river journey is one of those.

It's pretty.

Yeah.

And it's colorful, but it's one that makes me scratch my head a little bit, because I'm like, hmm, okay, well, this always has a really long weight, and Chris and I always laugh at each other, and we're like, I don't know, if somebody's waited 120 minutes to ride that, what is going to be their feeling when they come off of that ride?

Exactly.

And so it's one that I always tell people, you know, definitely go either rope, drop it, or ride it when there's not a long line or get a lightning lane for it.

But please do not wait 120 minutes to ride.

Navi river journey.

Yeah.

My father says that him and my mother went down on opening day.

So they said, we're going opening day.

We're excited.

They get to the park.

They start walking over there.

They go, no, no, no.

You gotta get in the line.

They had to get in the line to get into the park.

And it was hot.

It was like May.

It was, like, really hot.

They spent the whole day waiting to get in, waiting on the two rides.

They got a t shirt, and now they've got an.

They said, we were there the day it opened.

You know, you come away with the t shirt.

I guess that's all that matters.

I would like to see a little more over there.

Maybe a restaurant or another attraction.

I could see a roller coaster over there.

That would really be awesome.

But, yeah, that's so pretty.

Imagineering is a great job with the rocks.

And I know I saw Joe Roady talking about how they built that and how they made that work, because that was something from the movie.

You're like, how would you do that?

I have no idea.

I'm not.

Which.

You don't get to see it at night very often, but if you can see it at night, it is absolutely gorgeous over there now.

All right, let's get to the Magic kingdom.

So there's a number of ones I put down, but feel free to jump in.

Okay.

And just to just, like, point of, I didn't put in new parades or shows.

I figured these come and go.

These are.

I thought these were things that dramatically changed the park from what people had a memory of to what it is now.

I'm going to start easy.

I'm going to go with new fantasyland.

Sure.

I remember seeing all the walls and the excitement for that.

We were wondering what that would look like.

Mine train wasn't up yet.

All that other stuff, we didn't know what that was.

But I'm very glad that they've expanded it.

This is almost like additional.

They went into the old cartoon town toontown and built this, for whatever reason, and I don't know why.

Journey of the Little Mermaid never has a line.

Every time I go walk on this thing as quickly as I can.

But you wind through there because it was almost like they were expecting it to have a really long queue because you're walking through there.

It's kind of like Nemo at Epcot.

That's right.

And it's like.

It never does.

But it is a cute ride.

I like it.

It is.

It's a good place to cool off.

And mine train is an interesting roller coaster.

It's not a dramatic roller coaster like space Mountain.

It does tilt side to side if you want to.

And it's.

Theming is pretty phenomenal.

But it's not a thrilling coaster like Everest, but it's needed in a park that doesn't really have those.

It is before Tron coaster.

So we took Cora as my youngest.

We took her on it on our last trip.

She was three, and that was her first coaster.

That and slinky dog.

And they are both very good starter coasters because they're smooth, they're not super fast.

Neither one of them are very long.

She still hated them both, but, you know, we'll get there, right?

But, yeah, it's a good one.

All right, Tron, same thing.

I think this adds another element to Tomorrowland, which I've said for many times.

I'm very disappointed in tomorrowland in a way, because it was my favorite part of the park as a child.

Always was my favorite place to go.

But I feel like over the years, it was neglected.

Carousel of progress is one of my nostalgic treats.

My family doesn't care for it.

It.

I love it.

Yeah, right.

But every time I go, I feel like it's being run down.

It's.

It's feel like it's wearing down on me.

This is one of Walt's prized things.

Can you imagine if they put one of those Walt animatronic.

Animatronics in carousel of progress?

I think it would really up the ante over there.

And the problem, obviously, with that traction has always been time, because by the time you get to the.

Where the modern, you got to keep modernizing constantly.

And it gets further and further back in history.

But then, you know, it still has the people mover, astro orbiter I never ride.

Buzz Lightyear, I feel, is a little outdated.

And they haven't done anything with alien counter slash stitch.

We used to be mission to Mars.

Space Mountain is still great, but I feel like the park, that part of.

The park doesn't thrill me as a love over there.

Then Tron and I went in December.

I was told by my doctor at the time I was dealing with a little herniated disc.

Just slight.

Said I wouldn't do anything.

I couldn't help.

I said, I'm gonna gamble on this.

And I went as a single writer, okay?

Lori wouldn't touch this with a ten.

Really?

I was very.

Come on, Lori.

I was very disappointed.

Cause we went there for the Christmas party, and I said, you know, and by the way, we were at Tron, and she goes, well, I'm gonna go stand in line to get my picture taken with Pooh and friends.

Love it.

And then she goes, how do I get there?

And I'm like, I'm so disappointed.

Put a blindfold on me.

I'll tell you how to get to pooh and friends.

I was like, my goodness.

But she went over there to do that.

I wrote, they put me in the front row.

So now I've got a little concern with my neck.

I'm in the front row of this ride.

It was great.

Pressure's on.

It was.

It was fantastic.

90 seconds of I do love that one.

And Tron was another movie I remember seeing as a kid, loving the racing angle of it and how the computers were doing that.

I think the theming is great.

I think the ride overall is smooth.

It's fun.

I always have this one problem, though, and I don't know how to fix this.

Whenever a ride sends you into a room, you lose your place in line.

Yeah.

You got to know where to go.

Like, I remember going, wait, why am I in the.

I'm at the wall, and now all these people that were behind me are.

Now you got to use it as a strategy.

You go into the room, you know where the doors are, and you go immediately to where the door is, and then you're first in.

If you don't have my problem of feeling, of having bitterness and anger at people who are just taking advantage of the system.

Yep, that's me.

The system is always taking advantage.

I'm in the back going, I just lost 20 places.

I was here first, but I'm on the back end of it.

And one other piece of advice, this goes for velocicoaster over at universal, if you can, if anyone in your party, and I was lucky enough to have somebody not ride the ride, and same thing when I went to universal, give them everything you have.

Don't use the lockers.

Go right to the right.

Let them, let everybody else deal with lockers.

Bolt right to the line.

Yep.

You'll cut a whole bunch of.

Absolutely.

Or go all the way to the end and get one of the last lockers, and then you're.

You're still kind of bypassing everybody.

Exactly.

All right, let's get to Tiana's bayou adventure.

This is probably the biggest controversial one.

People love splash mouth.

It was my favorite.

It was my favorite, too, to, and I get song of the south.

They dumped the dump that they don't want you streaming it.

They don't want to have any acknowledgement of it.

It still was a ride based on characters.

It still was a ride that was fun and it was feel good, and it was, it was a long ride, which I think is very important.

It took, you know, and I could ride it a hundred times.

Yeah.

And so the good thing is with Tiana is that the track is the same.

So still a long ride.

Still a long ride.

I think the update is really, actually really good.

The story, I could see it before they ever even opened the ride.

I could see, are we going to be going down on the bayou here?

And we're going to be going almost there here with all the music.

And it really is well done.

Does it theme well in frontierland or is it going to need the additional stuff to blend it in?

No, I think it does, actually.

This is the bayou and it's old west.

Right.

I mean, you got that aspect of it all when you look at the ride itself and the water and all of that.

I think it goes great there.

It was an absolute Tony Baxter classic, the old splash mountain.

So I hope I'm going to be seeing it next month.

So I'm hoping to see what they've done with it.

You liked it?

I loved it.

Yeah.

And they actually, right now, they also have the beignets and some gumbo and some hot chicken over at one of the key.

I don't know if it's gonna stay, but that was really good and a good welcome little food option over in frontierland.

Yeah.

The Super bowl is gonna be in New Orleans, so I'm looking forward to that.

Here we go.

All right.

I did throw this in there.

I wanted your thoughts, because I think you and I talked about this one other time.

Okay.

But I put it in here for me, personally.

Hat box ghost at the haunted mansion.

Yeah.

I like it.

I love it.

I love hat box ghost.

I like it, too.

Of it has people freaking out.

All right, now, if you don't know what we're talking about, because you say, well, what are you talking about?

A lot of these rides have a theme to it.

A lot of these rides, when you ride it, it's not just an attraction.

There is a story that is being played out in front of you.

Right.

The haunted mansion is supposed to be a ride in which there are spooks and movement and noises, and candles are floating and shadows are playing an organ, a piano, and a casket is moving, and somebody's trying to get out of a door.

With a fun element to it.

Right.

With a fun element to it.

It's exciting.

Then Madame Leota comes in, and she welcomes the spirit.

She wants you to now see all the ghosts.

Yeah.

And that's where you get the ballroom scene.

As soon as you come out of there, you go to the ballroom scene.

That's where you see all the ghosts, hitchhiking ghosts.

You go to the graveyard, everything.

The hat box ghost is right before all of that.

Now, here's the thing.

I'm glad they have it.

So to me, I'd rather have it than not have it.

Sure.

Because I.

In Disneyland, I'm like, why can't we get that in Orlando?

But nevertheless, a hat box is supposed to go in the attic, and constance is in the attic, and I don't think she's ready to give it up just yet.

Are you getting a little too deep with it?

Is that what I'm doing?

This is why I put this at the end of this.

You got to just sit back and enjoy it for what it is.

I got you.

I got you.

No, I think it's good if you're thinking logically.

No, it's not where it goes, but it's great.

Right?

I'm very, very glad that they threw them in there.

They threw them in there.

Cause that was the one thing that my other Disney friends, I have friends who live out in California, and we've talked about the differences between the parks.

And I've told them, I said, well, I said, your haunted mansion actually is an elevator, Florida is not.

And I said, but you have the hatbox ghost.

And we didn't.

And now we had the hatbox ghost.

But I go, okay, I understand.

Some of the people are saying, just, it's hard where they put him.

It's one of the first ghosts you see.

That's right.

In the haunted mansion.

So those, some of the changes, any others that you can think of where they have dramatic cause, again, D 23 is gonna alter Dino land.

It's gonna alter frontierland.

There's gonna be so many new additions that is gonna alter the way we see the parks.

Yeah, this is one that wasn't a change to something that was existing, and it's not inside one of the parks.

But I think one of the best additions to come to Walt Disney World resort over the last ten years is the skyliner system.

Yes.

And I look for ways of how can they expand it a little bit more, because it has made a tremendous difference in the crowd control as far as how people are getting to the parks.

And I wish that they would expand it a little bit more to a couple more resorts, at least so that we can see that, because it really makes a huge difference.

If you're getting in line with a skyliner, it is continuous movement.

And so it's not.

You're sitting there and you're waiting 20 minutes for the next bus.

You're just getting on the next skyliner that's coming to get to Epcot or Hollywood studios.

I'm gonna let my dog bark for a second on the podcast in the back room as somebody's got a picture coming up to the studio door.

No, no, I agree with you.

I think the skyliner has been a great addition because, I mean, I used to be tired and worn out, and buses would come and I couldn't catch that bus and waited for another bus.

And now you're right, the continuous motion of getting people back to the resorts has been just a phenomenal addition to that.

I know people say, look, the sky is cluttered, but listen, I don't want to wait for ten buses.

I'd rather just get on a scout.

It's a welcome chat.

I don't have a fear of those.

I don't have a problem with those.

I love them.

That's right.

I love them.

So I, you know.

All right, so one other note that I wanted to bring up, and that is about Epcot, because this is where, again, I am of an age where I do remember what Epcot was and what it was trying to do and how it's changed.

But I'm not one of those that hangs on to nostalgia so much that you're killing my childhood.

Yeah.

Because I don't remember anybody who went to those parks as a teenager in the eighties.

And we went in 84.

My first trip was in 82.

Epcot was being built.

My father wanted to come back to see it.

Two years later, we did.

I don't remember anybody saying how awesome it was as a twelve year old to go to Epcot Center.

Now, maybe, maybe you did, maybe you liked it, liked the dark rides of learning.

But I don't.

I didn't hear one person when I was a kid.

I don't think it was a majority.

It was ambitious.

So what they were trying to do, like, hey, look, you want to learn about communication, you want to learn about travel, you want to learn, I mean, look, there were rides there where it was just animatronics teaching you stuff.

And that's, that's great.

But when Michael Eisner came in and said, hey, I need some ip in here, I need something else in here.

Here on.

As an adult, I can see why that decision was being made.

For sure.

It would flop.

It was just.

There's no chance for sure.

It's one of the main reasons why he went in to Disney World and changed mission to Mars to alien encounter, which later became stitch.

Yeah.

He said, I have a teenage son.

He finds the parks boring.

I'm going to unboring it as best I possibly can.

Still keep that balance, but try to keep that balance.

They're doing a good job of that.

I mean, listen, is mission space, you know, I used to love mission space.

As I've gotten older, I can't really do mission space.

I can't as well as I can.

And if you can do the orange, God bless you.

God bless you.

But I'm more of a green mission space.

I'm a no color person, and I.

Could do orange all day, every day.

And as I got older, I was like, all right, my stomach is just, you know, is a little bit much.

But again, putting in some sort of high speed attraction, again, horizons is pretty popular elimination rather than what it was as a complete, completed part of the park.

So I completely understand.

Everything has got to sort of alter for, I mean, in the end, this is, this is a way for companies to stay around.

We got to keep it new.

We got to keep it exciting, and just be able to appeal to more people.

Yes.

So as, again, the D 23 announcements, whether we see some of these come to fruition, maybe some get budget cuts and don't become what they are.

This is what those kind of things usually are.

We shall see.

So anyway, I can't wait for my trip next month.

Yes.

I'm so excited for that.

Trying to bang out four parks, and.

We gotta do a full trip report on that one.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

We did last, last trip, we went down, we only did.

We go down there for family stuff and we try to sneak to the park for a day.

Okay.

So that's, that's our goal now.

This is the first time we've done the full.

Yeah, we haven't done that in a while.

I love it.

Yeah.

So we're pretty excited.

So.

All right.

Again, all the magic travel.

We'd love to help you again with your travel plans.

Whether it is Walt Disney world universal, whether it is sandals, whether it is any place around the world.

We'd love to help you with that.

You can hit Lauren up at Lauren at all.

Themagictravel.com dot.

You can also hit me up@travelwithtonydmail.com dot.

We definitely want to hear from you.

Please, like, subscribe to this podcast, this episode, two.

Many, many more to come as we explore the theme parks in the Orlando area.

I'm Tony Desiri.

That's Lauren Mallard.

And this is Wands and Wishes podcast.