Join Tony Desiere and Lauren Mallard as they explore the joys and challenges of a recent four-day trip to Disney World, filled with valuable insights and tips for fellow travelers. The episode kicks off with Tony sharing his personal experiences navigating the parks, emphasizing the importance of planning and staying on property for the best convenience. They discuss the thrill of attending the Halloween party, the logistics of parking and shuttles, and the significance of managing lines effectively. From the delightful atmosphere of the parks during special events to the magical encounters at various attractions, the duo highlights how to make the most of your time at Disney. Tune in for practical advice, humorous anecdotes, and a reflection on the unique experience of being empty nesters rediscovering the magic of Disney together.

Tony and his wife had four days at Walt Disney World which included a night at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Tony recaps the trip complete with what went right and what could have been better with different planning.

Takeaways:

• The importance of staying on Disney property during your trip to maximize convenience and enjoyment.
• Planning ahead for special events, like the Halloween party, can enhance your experience.
• Utilizing Lightning Lanes effectively can save you significant time on popular attractions.
• Pay attention to line management and crowd dynamics to improve your park experience.
• Consider the time needed for transportation when planning your park hopping schedule.
• Dining experiences at Disney can be memorable, so choose restaurants wisely for best enjoyment.

It's another edition of the Wands and Wishes podcast.

I'm Tony Desiri, along with all the magic travels, Lauren Mallard.

As we get you ready for your next trip to Universal Studios or the Magic Kingdom, where I just came back from.

After four days, you'll hear about my trip and see more advice that we can give you based on some of my experiences.

We want you to subscribe to the podcast.

If you like what we've been doing so far, please leave us a five star review.

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How are you, Lauren?

Hey.

Hey.

I'm good.

How are you?

Very tired.

I am back from this trip, and I'm always tired from a Disney trip.

As I get older, I get more and more tired.

Got your steps in.

So we certainly did over 20,000 per day.

So the more I get old, the older, the better I gotta get to get do with that stuff.

But I'm really excited about this because I get to go over my experiences and help, and you can help me with some advice.

As we were navigating the park in a different way than you navigated that we had on the podcast earlier.

And hopefully, we can give some people some tips based on what I did and some of the mistakes we might have made and whatnot, because I've been a frequent visitor down there, but I always feel like I learn something all the time because I don't go constantly, like, let's say my parents do.

And I see the changes almost immediately.

I go every year or so, and then so things are different and whatnot.

Um, and so we're gonna start with the fact that this was a trip that actually, organically, is not probably the right word, but it started with the fact that my wife and I now are empty nesters.

Our parents live down in Florida, so we always try to go down there to see them and help them with some things as they're both in retirement.

And then we always go, well, let's go to, how can we sneak in a day?

How can we sneak in a day?

And so, months ago, after we experienced the Christmas party on one of these trips, and also, our son lives down there in Gainesville, so we said, we got to do the Halloween party.

Let's organize it in October to do the Halloween party.

So we did.

But then it grew from there.

How about not just a day?

Let's make it a few days.

And this is how it happened.

I said, well, I really need to get to epcot because I haven't seen the ratatouille ride or guardians yet.

She was like, well, if we're going to do Epcot, which is not her favorite part, then I want to do animal kingdom, which is her favorite non magic kingdom park.

Yeah.

I said, all right, well, let's do two days plus the Halloween party, and.

We can't leave out Hollywood studios.

And we can't leave out Hollywood studios.

And that's where that magic ticket comes in.

Exactly.

That's such a good ticket.

It is a great ticket, especially if you're going to the Magic Kingdom event and you don't need a day for it.

That's right.

I.

And so luckily, we found that and said, wait a minute, now we've got something here.

It's relatively inexpensive based on per day per part.

Sure is.

It works within what we were going to try to do.

So we expanded our responsibilities and we expanded our schedule a little bit and created this four day, cram it in Disney trip.

I love it.

With all four parks.

And it ended up being the first time we had done something like that since we were dating.

That's amazing.

In like, 19, 99, 67 was the last time we had done something like that.

So amazing.

It sounds like so much fun.

Just the two of you just doing whatever you wanted to do each of those days.

That's right.

Yeah.

Take me through it.

Start.

I don't know very much about it other than what I've seen you post online.

Tell me, like, did you guys stay with family?

Were you staying at a hotel?

So we were staying in a hotel off property based on the fact that we had been with, needed.

Needed to get access to family.

But we both admitted next time, if we were to do this as an isolated thing, we would be staying on property.

There is just too many benefits to stay on property, as you and I talked about last week, which we just could not.

After a while, it gets more and more daunting to park and take a tram and do all of those things.

By the third day.

You're kind of tired of waiting in line to park, waiting to park, et cetera.

So tell me about that.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the trip, I want to talk logistics for a second.

Since you are off property, tell me about what your day looked like.

Did you pay to park or did you, what did you do each day?

And then how did you get into the parks?

All right, so we decided to park every single day.

We had a shuttle service from the hotel that we were at, but it wasn't as reliable and it didn't really fit the schedule.

And that's the one tip that I would come up way with.

If you are planning a trip and you're like, look, I love to stay on property, but I'm going to have to stay off property.

And they, and they have a shuttle service, make sure that shuttle service gets you to where you want to go and takes you back when you want to get right.

Read the fine print.

Because we would leave in the morning and we would see people at the hotel waiting for the shuttle, and we would look on the thing and say, oh, the shuttle is not starting till ten.

We're already going to be at the park by ten.

Sure.

You know, so those were the kind of things that we wanted to, you know, we had, we had planned on looking into it when we got there, so we can not have to drive in, but we ended up going, look, we're going to end up driving every day because it just does not fit the schedule.

I think that's a good decision.

Yeah.

So it just worked out perfectly that we just ended up going and driving and parking.

So we started on Thursday at Animal Kingdom, and we made the strategy of, given that we don't have kids, we don't ride everything, we're more leisurely now at our age.

We said, well, let's see, we won't do the lightning lanes, and let's see how that goes.

And the two things, two reasons why.

Because one, my father and my mother go there constantly in their retirement, and I have a friend of mine who's a pass holder who lives in that area.

And they both were like, light day.

It's not crowded.

We're getting like, this feedback from them that says, hey, I was just there yesterday and there's no crowd.

I was there the other day and there was no crowd.

So we said, well, let's try it.

Okay.

In the end, if it's busy, we can live with that.

And if we had kids, I wouldn't live with that.

I would be like, we got to do it.

But no crowd Thursday, no crowd.

Oh, that's so great.

And it was very, very light.

Jumped on the safari right away.

That was her favorite ride.

When we got to flight of passage, it said 45 minutes.

We didn't have to stop until we got inside the air conditioning building.

Amazing.

So we walked right through the ropes, up and down, up and down.

And by the time we reached the end of that line, we were already in.

We were in the air conditioning part of that ride.

So that did not take long at all.

We did.

Everest was down.

We caught it when it was coming back up.

Oh, good.

Which was great.

But I will say this, and I have to.

I have a pet peeve, which is where, you know, pet peeve, by definition, is something that you're bothered by, but it's not a serious bother by sure.

And that is, I get.

We live in a phone society.

I totally understand this.

Sometimes the benefits outweigh some of the costs, but it means people don't keep up with the line.

That's right.

Drives me insane.

I want to be moving constantly.

Same.

I'm just that kind of.

When I'm in a line, I want it to be moving.

I have contemplated before, depending on how long we're standing there, it's like, okay, what is the statute of limitations before I can pass this person who's standing here?

So, you know, I think if they're standing there longer than 10 seconds, you know, it's free game.

Let's go, people.

If your back is turned to your party and you're the head of the party, turn around every now and then just to see where the lines go.

This was not a busy day, so we weren't getting inundated with lightning lane people.

The line was moving, and then it would just slow down when you get to the part.

And the best way I could describe it, I guess, is would be the yeti room on the Everest ride.

The ride is more dedicated to the yeti experience.

We entered that.

We kind of a few people in, and it started to slow down.

And this cast member came in, and she said, please occupy every available space.

And at that moment, I kid you not, we went almost out the door.

I'm sure, literally, once people started going, oh, okay, there's some I got.

Let's.

Let's crunch up a little bit.

Yeah.

Because while a roller coaster train is not gonna get filled up a doom buggy, there'll be ten doggies going by before.

If you're not ahead, pay attention.

So pay attention.

So that was a very.

I wanted to thank her.

Cause I was like, I'm just a guy that likes to move in the line.

Yeah.

Speaking of Everest, I know that Lori doesn't love heights.

How did she do with the big climb?

She likes that ride.

Okay.

And I point out, like, when we're up on the top, I go, look, there's Epcot.

Look, there's Hollywood studios, and I don't know if she digs that or not, but she didn't tell me, so.

So my son Graham is terrified of heights, and that is his least favorite thing, I think, on any ride in all of Disney world is when we're going up the hill on Everest, you'll look next to him, and he's just, like, just holding on for dear life, eyes closed, waiting until we get to the top of that hill.

So it's so funny.

Yeah, it is.

And you really can see.

You can really see far if you catch it.

Right?

And then we did dinosaur.

Cause I'm making a last pilgrimage to dinosaur.

I don't know when I'll go back to animal kingdom again.

And that's gonna be an Indiana Jones adventure.

And so we ended up having a little bit of a late lunch.

Where'd you go?

Barbecue place.

Yum.

Yep.

And then we literally left 230, part closed at six.

And we said, well, let's do everything.

We went back, rested, went to Disney Springs that night.

Nice.

And the next day, we had the magic, the Hollywood Halloween party, and said, okay, so today we're going to do some errands with family.

We're going to go to a store, we're going to do some things.

So we kind of handled some business in the day that didn't really tire us out because we were really pacing ourselves.

We knew this is going to be a late night, and we talked about the Halloween party.

Get there early.

You got to get there early.

Yeah.

What time did you get there?

We got there at three.

Awesome.

Right there at three.

And we ended up being in good spot in the line, and we had dinner reservations at 430.

So we weren't as pressured to get in to try to maximize time.

We knew we just get in and go.

So then once you got in the line, when you're scanning in with just your Halloween party ticket, did they go ahead and give you your wristband then?

No, you went to another person who gave you the wristband.

Now, it's not far off.

Okay.

But you had to kind of go to another person and.

Okay, so it is a two step process.

It was a two step process.

Now, I've heard people getting them immediately.

As soon as you scan, there's somebody right there.

Okay.

And I don't know if our group got pushed more as the more people started checking in, but that's.

She got hers a little quicker than me.

I kind of had to wait for it.

Wait for it and then go.

And then go get her.

But one of the things I do like about the Halloween party is so they're getting people out and they're getting people in and so they divert you off to this kind of the side route behind the park a bit.

Feel like you're like a little backstage.

You're a little backstage.

Yeah.

So there's like music and fun and they give you some candy and they give you your bag.

And then while they're doing that, there's the people exiting.

Cause they know the party's closing at six.

We were able after dinner to just catch some rides that were really short.

Oh, good.

I did Tron, we did seven doors mine train.

And again, as we talked about, the parties don't have the lightning lanes.

Right.

So everything is moving as it should, you know, without the.

Without the sort of interruptions.

Tiana's was interesting because when we got there, the line was very long, but everyone was saying it moves pretty quickly.

Right.

It did not break down.

We heard it might.

Would.

Might break down.

It didn't.

We were able to get on that.

Oh, good.

But you and I had discussed about having a game plan for what you want to do at these special events.

Sure.

We didn't really do that.

We're kind of winging.

That's the beauty of it, just being the two of you.

So did you see a character you wanted to stop for every now and then?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I missed out on them on the Mickey Mouse character meet and greet.

Okay.

But there was some of the villains that we saw and the lines were pretty big for that.

But, like, you see the kids trick or treating and it just sort of reminded me of what we talked about.

If you're going and you want to get things that are unique, make sure you do the things that are unique.

That's right.

Cause you can do Tiana's, you can do Tron, you can do that on another trip.

Sure.

But you can't see the queen of hearts on a trip.

Right.

You know, you can't necessarily get a bag full of kids.

That's right.

So how was the overall atmosphere in the park?

Did you feel like it kind of was totally transformed?

I know in the past when I've been at Halloween parties, I feel like the whole atmosphere just totally transforms.

Once the park is closed.

Did you feel like it was that way?

Exactly.

Exactly.

There is something about the way they do Halloween that is so fantastic.

And I think, again, it was something you and I discussed is that I can.

I can go to a Halloween horror nights.

I can go to another theme park that celebrated Halloween.

They all do that great.

I think Disney does Halloween the best.

Yeah.

And because it does feel so if you.

And I think, I was thinking about this on the trip, and I want to know your thoughts.

If I am running another theme park at Christmas time, I can get a Santa Claus to ride on a sleigh and I can do other Christmassy things, but if I don't have an ip of villains, then I can't really capitalize on Halloween as much.

Disney takes its villains and goes here.

That is a great point.

And this is, this is a time for them.

And now you're going to see them more, you're going to be able to be immersed more into their world.

And I, and I just think they, they really utilize that ip to a, to the top notch form of entertainment.

Yeah.

And they've done it so successfully that I think I, that's partly why we're seeing this vision for visions land, or whatever they're gonna call it, because it's been done so well for so many years now at the Halloween party.

I mean, they're getting cheers during the parade.

Oh, yeah.

I couldn't wait to see Cruella DeVille.

Yeah.

The most hated characters are now some of the most beloved people were losing.

Their minds with certain other villains on stage.

So it was, that's what sort of dawned on me when I watched the hocus Pocus show.

How was that?

That was wonderful.

And if you can make it, and again, some of you with little kids might not be able to make it, but if you can make it, it makes getting out of the park so much easier.

Hocus Pocus has always been one of my favorites at Halloween, but I think over the last couple of years, the more that Disney is really playing into it with now the Clarabelle and Minnie and Daisy that are being a part of it, and just really just giving that movie new life almost.

Not that it ever lost life to begin with, because it's an awesome movie, but, yeah, it's one of my favorites.

And you make a good point because, yeah, the Halloween event starts in August, and it certainly doesn't feel like Halloween in August.

So if you can get a little bit more immersed into that and they're going to capitalize it, it's a popular event, so they're going to try to make as many of these as they can, but it does make you feel like falls around the corner if you're in there in August or early September.

Like we were.

You feel like, yeah, maybe six weeks away to Halloween, but it feels like tonight is Halloween.

That's right.

You know, so that.

That was.

That's one of my favorite things that they do.

It's one of the reasons why we decided to go back down, because we hadn't been to that party in ten years and really just were like, you know, what was that?

One of the best things at Disney world.

You know, we haven't talked weather yet for this night, and we talked so much when we were talking about the Halloween party, about how weather plays such an important role in how the night goes.

So how was the weather?

Which parade did you see?

How did that go?

Weather was a little scary because we.

When got there, we had ponchos in the backpack.

Okay.

We were.

It was starting to drizzle.

We were saying, if this clears up, do we gamble?

Because we don't want this.

We don't want to miss the second parade.

But as the night wore on, the rain had stopped.

There was no rain.

It didn't feel like anything was coming.

We saw a little bit of the moon, so we said, okay, let's do the second parade.

It was.

It's a risk because you really don't want to miss the parade.

Yeah.

And we did.

It's when the headless horse.

I was gonna say, did he come down?

He did.

He came right down.

Right where?

Closer to my side of the street on Main street than the other side.

It's fantastic.

Oh, it's so good.

It gives me chills just thinking about that parade.

It's just the best part.

He's way ahead of the parade, though.

Oh, yeah.

1820 minutes.

Yes.

If you've got kids and you think that's the start of the parade, just pace yourself.

Pace yourself.

Cause we did see a little argument breakout between two kids that were sitting in the front, and then they got up to do a selfie in the street, and then two other kids took their spot.

And when the girls came back, oh, no.

Let's just say the parents of the other kids were not gonna let them sit back to where they came.

So don't leave yourself without somebody saving it.

That's a tip.

Keep your butt on the ground.

But it is a late night, and we did get.

We get done.

We stayed till way later than we should.

We finished with the hocus pocus show that runs about 20 minutes.

So now it's 12 20, 20 minutes past its closing time.

We went to a chair to sit for a bit, just waited out more crowd and then we left and got home around 130 ish.

Empty nester's gone wild.

It is crazy.

I know.

Both of our kids said that I couldn't stay up till 130 if my life depended on it now, but I could do it at the Disney.

But at Disney, it's different.

Yeah.

And so we wanted to make Saturday because of the late night Friday, a Hollywood studios show.

I like more stuff at Hollywood studios than my wife does.

We don't go to Hollywood studios.

She's not.

Doesn't care.

Okay.

But that changed because we wanted to go to space 220, and we got a lunch reservation on Saturday.

Oh, that's right.

So we ended up switching the dates.

Okay.

Which meant a little earlier wake up time, a little bit more tired, a little bit more full day on Saturday now with epcot.

So we had two days where one day we had our no crowd at Animal Kingdom.

Busy Halloween night, which we knew was going to be busy because the event was sold out.

So epcot was what's it going to be?

Right.

Well, you marry food and wine festival.

It's a Saturday.

It's locals who want to go to this, and it's packed.

Oh, no.

What time did you arrive?

I don't want to get anything in line in a crazy long line.

Let's navigate.

Let's walk around the world showcase.

Good idea.

Let's do it counterclockwise since everybody goes clockwise.

Okay.

You started at the wrong end.

You always start at the wrong end when you go to Canada.

Never do it unless you plan on doing it for a certain reason.

My reason was, I will need to take Laurie to Christopher Robbins because she didn't know that existed.

And she loves Winnie the Pooh.

And she loves Winnie the Pooh.

And I got to play.

I know something you don't know.

Oh, points.

So I found.

I knew where it was, and we went over there, and I said, this is where you can go to Christopher Robbins room.

Oh, my God.

This is great.

So we did that, and there was nobody on that side of world show.

Okay.

I got to stand at the square in Italy with no one around.

Oh, I saw that picture that you posted, and I couldn't believe it.

I had to go take that shot.

I said, amazing.

It was like we were closed.

I had a friend of mine say, what time were you there?

There's not a soul around.

There's more than a worker.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, no.

I said, we were.

It was.

It was.

It was early, but it wasn't super early.

I couldn't believe that, because, you know, there's that pizza window that's back there by via Napoli.

Even if you just wanted to grab a slice of pizza.

I couldn't believe that there was nobody in that shot.

But that was awesome.

Yeah, it was great.

Very rare to get that.

So I jumped on that.

We did Gran Fiesta tour, which is my favorite ride in world showcase.

Very fun.

And then we went to lunch.

Okay.

Had lunch for about an hour, plus came back out.

Places still pretty heavy.

Wow.

Yeah, pretty heavy.

So I'm guessing before lunch, obviously, you didn't stop at any booths to try any snacks or anything with.

Okay.

No.

Then we said, okay, now we make a choice.

What do we want?

You know, test track is closed.

Neither one of us go on mission space anymore.

Yep.

No, I'll swing maybe one.

No, not me.

So while we were at lunch, we had the guardians of the Galaxy virtual queue.

We got it at 830.

And then we said, all right, let's go back and let's get in line for Remy's.

Let's see what that does.

Now.

This was the old person's experiment of what's posted to reality.

Sure.

We didn't mind waiting.

We said, why not?

We got some drinks.

We stood in line.

The line said 75 minutes.

Okay.

We stood in line.

I started timing 40 minutes.

We were on the ride.

So it's a good.

That's a pretty good differential.

That's.

Yeah, that's huge.

And then the ride line kept moving, which was really important.

Again, I don't mind waiting in line if I'm moving.

That's right.

I can come up with a conversation.

I can check something on my phone, whatever.

But if I'm walking, I'm walking.

It's not bad.

You don't feel like you're waiting as long.

Exactly.

And in your case, you actually weren't waiting as long.

And I would say over half the time, those wait times are inflated like that.

So, you know, don't let it scare you away if you haven't done something and you see that the wait is a little longer than what you're expecting.

If there was a day to get lightning lane, it should have been that day.

Okay.

And that's.

That's something that, again, had I really thought about the dynamics of the day.

Yeah.

Locals love the food and wine festival.

That's right.

They may not go on the rides, but they're going to fill the park.

They love that.

So you.

I should have started balancing like it's a Saturday.

It's a weekend.

There's a lot of passholders.

Locals still.

Vacations starting.

Some vacations start on Saturday.

If I balanced that all out, I should have said that would be the day we would get it for what we wanted to do.

Did you mention frozen?

Did y'all make it on frozen?

I did not make it unfrozen.

And that was a choice.

It wasn't as bad, but there were.

Lori was getting hot.

It was really hot.

So she was like, I don't want to wait.

The line extends outside.

It's a long way.

They don't have the covered.

Like Remy's.

Right.

So we said, now she'll guess.

She'll do it another day.

That's right.

You know, but it gives you a.

Reason to go back.

It does give you a reason to go back.

But the food and wine festival was great.

There was a pasta, chips with, like, italian nachos, like a Bolognese sauce.

It was very, very good.

Sounds good.

So we got a little bit of that, and then we went to Moana's and walked around there.

And I do have a little thing about Moana's.

I'm in Moana's, and my magic band plus is lighting up all the time.

So now, I don't know.

I bought that.

My kids actually bought it for me.

It says Disney dad on it.

It's got Mickey Mouse.

I'm like, great, I need a magic band.

Fun.

Yeah.

I know that the kids can do fun things.

I kind of thought it was like Harry Potter and the wand.

I wasn't into that, but I was like, okay.

So I say to the lady, what exactly is this doing?

Yeah.

She goes, oh, no.

When you go to certain things and it's beeping, you can, like, wave it and we'll do stuff.

I'm like, she goes, like the statues.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

So I started doing that the rest of the vacation.

It was a form of entertainment.

I just went, every place I went, I'm waving to the magic band plus.

So this is where I'm cheap, because I.

So, you know, back pre Covid, every reservation got free magic bands.

That's right.

So I have so many magic bands at home.

Just the old magic bands, and they still work.

And so I have yet.

And I go to Disney pretty often.

No one in my family has a magic band plus.

And when they ask what the difference is, I just tell them, I don't know.

I don't know what it does.

And we just keep using the ones.

That we've had be getting away with that.

Because I got, Laurie's got a Winnie the Pooh magic band and whatnot.

But when we got to the fireworks that night, which is a story I'll tell in a bit, mine started going off for the fireworks show in sync with the fireworks.

And it was the colors of the fireworks.

Yeah.

It was remarkable.

It's pretty cool.

It's pretty cool.

And I actually did not notice, you.

Know, now that you're explaining it, maybe it is a little better form of entertainment for kids than I would have thought.

Because if kids are getting tired and cranky before the fireworks, then, hey, see what your band is doing?

Great point.

Well, I walk by figment, you wave it.

He talks.

He'll say something later in Magic Kingdom at Winnie the Pooh.

He said, happy Halloween.

So you can get different messages and whatnot.

It's pretty cool.

It was a lot better than I thought.

I mean, again, they.

I was.

This was, if I bought a magic band, I wouldn't have cared what it was.

Kids bought it for me.

It was like, okay, it's one of the pluses.

Now Laurie wants a plus because she was like, I'm kind of jealous.

Yours went off during the fireworks.

That was actually kind of neat.

So now, later in the day, we had the 830 guardians of the Galaxy.

So Laurie found some kids that were pin trading, okay.

And said they were with a guest right in front of guest services, and they were looking at her pins and they didn't find anything.

And then Laurie said, hey, I got some pins.

You want them, you can have them for nothing.

You don't have to trade with me.

Just wanted to get rid of some pins.

And the lady liked, since she was so impressed, she said, what, you guys going to the fireworks tonight?

You staying?

And we said, no, we got a guardians at 830.

We'll probably miss it.

She says, hold on.

She gets on the phone and then she does things with her pad, and she goes, I want to get you the vip area for the fireworks.

And she goes, and I'll give you a lightning lane for guardians.

You can go on now.

Oh, my goodness.

Because she said, that was so sweet that you gave kids pixie dust.

That was pixie dust.

That is amazing.

It's little things like that that means so much to the guest that I think Disney.

It's little things like that that really.

Those things don't cost Disney anything.

Obviously.

They can't do them for every guest that's there.

But when we see a little kindness going that direction, let's reward it a little bit.

And that's amazing.

So was the vip area.

So I've done it once before where it's kind of down in front of England.

Is that where you were?

We were in Italy.

Okay.

So the area of Italy, that's very cool.

There's tables and whatnot.

And it was right by the water.

So that was very cool.

How was the show?

I haven't seen the new one.

The show was magnificent.

Awesome.

I was in line to get a slice of pizza at the outdoor pizza place, which was a little slow because she couldn't get the reader to work very well.

She's trying to find a better signal.

Yeah.

But I got a piece of pizza, so.

And it was kind of starting to drizzle and we saw a little lightning in the distance.

So the first firework that goes off compared with, like, a little lightning, and you're thinking a lightning storm has hit Epcot center.

And everybody in line jumped.

So.

But I got the pizza back and we went and walked.

The show was great.

It was really, really great.

And the pizza's fantastic.

If you ever had the pizza slice.

Outside, that's for sure.

So that's a magical end to that day, for sure.

What did y'all think of guardians?

Had you done guardians before?

I had not.

So I was really.

That was one of the researched jobs to go to.

Epcot was Remy's and guardians.

And I think it's.

It's one of the best rides I've ridden.

Yeah.

It's exciting.

It's smooth.

The energy and the music.

I didn't know.

Which song did you get?

I don't remember.

I was asked this three times already, and now I have to remember what song I gotta get.

So how does that work?

It's a different song a day?

No, it's, you know, it might be like every track changes over depending on what train you're on or whatever.

Then the track changes.

But it's a rotation of, like, five songs, unless you're there at Christmas.

And when I wrote it, the one and done time that I wrote it, run Ren Rudolph.

Oh, very cool.

So, yeah, so the lightning lane for that worked out great.

We barely waited for anything.

Now, I don't know if I missed a queue or something cool in line, but we just kind of went right through it.

And that was a great time saver.

Oh, that's great.

So that ended up being great.

So Epcot ended with the fireworks we walked all the way back and extremely tired.

Oh, yeah.

But ready to go for the final day at Hollywood studios.

But that was a little different.

Now, Hollywood studios, it was semi busy, but not too, too busy.

But all the major rides were down, and they were down at the same.

Time from the very beginning of the day.

Well, we were in line for rise of resistance when it went down.

Slinky dog dash was down the whole day.

We had lunch at the rodeo.

The barbecue rodeo ran out.

That was great.

One advice on this, if you've never been or don't know much about it, when Andy comes in the room, you have to freeze.

You don't keep eating like I was doing.

Like, I'm literally eating a thing of beans.

And I'm looking and everybody's frozen like a statue.

And I either didn't hear it or didn't care or whatever, and I'm eating, and Lori looks at me and goes, freeze, freeze.

And I go, oh.

Oh, shoot.

Yeah, I gotta put.

So I gotta put the fork, you know, pause.

So you gotta pay attention to the cues because you're embarrassed.

Because what if you just don't know?

People are quiet and you go, hey, how are those ribs?

And you say it right there when everybody's quiet.

So give you advice.

Pay attention to what the overhead speaker is saying.

But with rise of the resistance.

Down, Arrow Smith.

Down.

And slinky dog.

She's three major people holders.

Yeah.

That's a bummer.

There's hundreds and hundreds of people that are going to be in those lines.

And now they're scattered around the panel to go.

Yeah.

So we were, everything just was.

We don't know where to go.

We don't know what to do.

We ended up going back to Magic Kingdom.

We ended up hanging out there till six because the party was coming.

Yeah.

And then we were able to come back to Hollywood studios.

Good.

That worked out really well for us.

And then we could do a couple of more rides in the day.

We did rides.

I was gonna say, what did you get in that evening once you got back to Hollywood studios?

Oh, we got in the star tours, we got in rise of the resistance.

And mostly, I think that was it for that, for that night.

We just kind of walked around a bit.

Nice.

But you saved the day by going to magic Kingdom, doing a few things over there.

That's awesome.

That was great.

That was great.

So the bus system.

We walked right over to the bus, but the buses do take a while.

So I always tell people with the.

Park hopper, that's right.

Is be.

They're great.

They're perfectly great.

Because if you want to spend just a little bit of time in the park, but unless you're on the skyliner or the buses, they're not right there waiting for you.

They're not continuously.

I mean, they are continuously running, but not in the way that the skyliner is.

That's right.

Allow a little bit of time, because if you walk up, chances are a bus might have just left going to magic kingdom.

And so just know that the next one is going to be a few minutes before it gets there.

And so we, we ended up on that bus.

And the first time, we waited a while for the bus, but the set, when we went back, the bus was there, so we were able to catch it.

So always remember that there's not a bus on top of a bus, on top of the bus all day.

That's right.

You might have to wait a while before you go.

So always account for the time difference between the two.

I was trying to get her to ride the skyliner to Epcot and back.

Okay, but you don't want to do that.

That was what I wanted.

I really want to.

Haven't been on that skyliner, have you not?

I have not.

It's a really fun ride.

So every time I'm on it, I try to figure out why exactly they didn't just build the track to go straight across from Hollywood studios to Epcot, because they could have just done a direct to be a reason for that, because you see Epcot on one side and you go all the way down to caribbean beach and then all the way back down to Epcot.

And so I guess it just was logistically better to do it that way.

But every time I'm on there, I'm thinking we could have been here in, like, three minutes and we're not.

But other than that, it was a.

It was a very busy four days and it was.

It was unique for us because, again, we go once, we'll go to one park a day, that's it.

Bang it out, leave, go do our other business.

But this was really the first time.

We were on a real vacation, a.

Yeah.

And it makes a difference because you can really get immersed in it and be in the bubble.

That's right.

Whereas if you're just popping in for the day, then it doesn't really feel as much like you're in the bubble.

I guess.

I definitely would say the next time I would be.

If I have to be outside of the park for a day or two to handle some family stuff, stuff, I would say, good, then let's do that.

And then let's get into the park.

If we're going to do four days where we don't have distractions and we don't have to be with her dad or my parents for whatever reason, then let's.

Let's do that.

Because, boy, those we.

And, again, you and I talked about it, I think, last week, those nights when you're done and your feet are swollen and you realize, I got to get back to my car.

I got to drive still.

I got to get back on I four.

Those were the nights where we were like, oh, goodness.

Wishing we could not wait to get to that hotel.

Yep.

That's right.

Sleep better than a night after Disney sleep.

That's right.

Oh, it's fantastic.

Yeah.

But other than that, those were the things that, you know, learned.

I would recommend, when you're doing the lightning lanes, if you're making that decision, see the crowd control.

That's right.

See how much crowd is there.

See if.

And also see, again, can you live without certain rides?

Right.

If you've been there enough and you say, I can do it next year or doing new years, we definitely would have done the Epcot one.

We definitely would have probably thought about Hollywood studios had we thought more in advance when we looked at Epcot, when we were there and realized it was busy, there were no lightning lanes available for the stuff we wanted, so we were late on that.

So don't make a last minute decision in that regard.

Yep, exactly.

But animal kingdom, we pretty.

We would have wasted the money because the lines were just not long enough to warrant it.

In fact, the idea of, at 230, we had ridden everything we wanted to ride that day.

We didn't want to ride the water rapids because we didn't want to get wet.

We don't want to be in wet clothes and.

But other than that, we got everything in.

That's awesome.

We saw everything.

So awesome.

What a good strategy.

Yeah.

But Epcot, it was, to me, the funnest part of the day to be to lightning Lane guardians and to do the fireworks was fantastic.

Yes.

What good memory.

And the pizza.

I brought a pizza back.

I said to Lori, do you want a piece of this?

She said, no, I bit into it.

I took off a piece, and I go, eat this.

You need to try this.

Please eat this.

And she ate it.

She goes, oh, my God.

That's.

That's the best pizza it's the best.

Pizza in the world.

I said, yeah, of course it is.

You know, and I said, this is great.

So it was great.

I told the guy, because he was making, I mean, these pieces, the slices are huge.

Yeah, they are Celian sliced pizza.

Yeah.

So I went up to him and I said, molto grande.

This is the side.

And he's just like, yeah, perfecto, perfecto.

And I go, yes, this is perfect.

This is really delicious.

What a great time.

It was a very, very good time.

But again, some of the tips that we've been given a while, we.

I decided to see what some of this would be like without them.

But I would.

I highly recommend staying on property.

I highly recommend getting those lightning lanes, especially with the family.

Don't risk a 75 minutes wait thinking it could be 40.

It might be 75.

That's right.

You know, always expect what it says.

Yes.

But be delighted if it's not exactly.

Be delighted what it is, you know, because a couple of times, it was right on the money.

Something was 25 minutes.

It was 25 minutes.

Sure.

And once again, keep up with the line in front of you.

That's right.

That's right.

Keep it moving.

Keep it moving.

Just.

Just don't have to get on top of the people.

But my goodness, when I see gaps, I go, I'm sounding like my father.

There's a gap here.

What are they waiting for?

Why aren't they moving?

If you take two things away from today's podcast, it's keep it moving and keep your butt on the ground for the parade.

That's right.

See the hocus pocus show.

It's been.

It's really, really well done.

It's fun.

If you like the villains, all of them show up.

It's great.

And please do not miss if you go there.

Do not miss Booty, you.

It's Disney at its absolute best.

That's true.

All right, well, one.

One of the podcasts I think you and I ought to do is talking about some restaurants.

We went to three, and I know you've been to a million.

I was going to ask you about the food.

I know we're probably out of time today, but.

Yes, let's talk about some restaurants, because that's one of my favorite things to do at Disney.

Yes.

We'll get, like, three from you, three from me, and we'll review our experiences with the restaurants in a future podcast.

So.

All right.

So that's going to do it for this edition of the Wands and Wishes podcast.

Again, please subscribe if you like what we're doing.

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If you want to contact us, you can reach Lauren at lauren all the magictravel.com dot.

You can reach me travelwithtonydmail.com dot.

We'd love to hear from you, your thoughts, thoughts.

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Again, I'm Tony, that's Lauren, and this is the Wands and Wishes podcast.