Off the Monorail Episode: Becky Gandillon, Author of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2027

[00:00:11] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, a Magical Trip Report Podcast. My name is Virginia, and I am your host. Today is an Off the Monorail Episode, aka a non-trip report episode, and it's an exciting one. Thank you to my friend Renee, who is Magical Travels by Monty on Instagram and who longtime listeners will know from previous trip reports. I was connected with Becky Gandillon, the author of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. Becky is a self-proclaimed Disney data nerd who loves to be a magical trip report podcast.

[00:00:41] to dive into all the numbers and translate that into information for the rest of us to use for more successful Disney vacations. The 2027 version of the book was just released on August 18th. I first became aware of Becky and her work through the Main Street Dish podcast, of which I am an avid listener, on an episode where she broke down the Disney dining plan, which I think I've referenced that episode many times on this show. I've linked to that specific episode in the show notes if you want to check it out.

[00:01:11] She's been on their show multiple times since then and will even be joining their crew for the first day of the Epcot Food and Wine Festival this year. You'll want to make sure you follow along on all the fun, especially if you are heading to Food and Wine Festival like I am, to help you plan what you're looking forward to trying. I'm going to be heading down there in mid-October for anybody who is wondering. You can follow Becky at Raising Mini Me's on Instagram and the Main Street Dish podcast, of course, on all the major podcasts and social media platforms.

[00:01:40] Not long ago, on August the 13th, I was lucky enough to sit down with Becky and pick her brain about how she came to love the Disney parks, her journey to working with touring plans and taking over authoring of the unofficial guide, and some of that data she loves on crowd calendars, lightning lanes, and more. If you are listening to the typical audio version of this on your favorite podcast app, you will be surprised to know that I have also edited a video version for today's show.

[00:02:07] So if you want to really immerse yourself in the interview, you can check that out on YouTube, which I'll link to in the show notes, and I'll also see if I can figure out how to upload it to the Apple and Spotify platforms if I can. I know it is possible to have video podcasts on there, and that way you can choose whether you want to listen to the audio only or the video version. And now, without further ado, making her Where I Long To Be podcast debut, please welcome Becky Gandelon to the show.

[00:02:38] Welcome to the podcast, Becky. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm fangirling a little bit out because I'm familiar with you from mostly the Main Street Dish, because I'm a huge Main Street Dish person and a big foodie in general. And you kind of first came to my attention in the episode that you guested on to talk about the dining plan. Yeah.

[00:03:02] Because I have, for years, said I don't think the dining plan is worth it. And have done my own little test. I'm not a data person like you are so much as I am going to do my own little test, which involved me going to Disney, eating anything I wanted. If I wanted an appetizer, I get it. If I want the most expensive entree, I get it. If I want a dessert, I get it. Treat yourself. Exactly. It's a treat yourself moment.

[00:03:31] And then when I got back, sitting down after the fact and going, had this been the dining plan, where would I have fared? Eating the way that I wanted to eat. And every single time I came out less, even saying, Virginia, there's nothing off the table, so to speak. You can have whatever you want to eat. Thank you. We love puns around here. And by we, I mean me, since I'm the only person hosting the show. I do, too. So we can be a wee for today. Good.

[00:04:00] Fantastic. So that really, like, struck a chord with me. And so I was really excited to have the opportunity to talk to you about all things Disney. But especially to have somebody in my same mindset about the dining plan to talk to. Down with the dining plan. I love that that's how you first got introduced to me, because I love the Main Street dish. They are the best. I'm about to go do opening day of food and wine with them. I am super excited.

[00:04:29] I'm also trying Chef Mickey's for the very first time. I have avoided it so far in my many years of Disney research. I haven't done it. Yeah, me either. I really don't feel a need to do it. But they've roped me into it. So here at the end of August, I will be doing my first Chef Mickey's dining experience with the Main Street dish as well. So I feel like if you're going to do it with anybody, they're the best people to do it with. Sure. Right.

[00:04:58] And they're bringing their four-year-old along. So we have a reason to go. You know, it's not just a bunch of adults at a character meal. We can all say we're there for the child. But it'll be fun either way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I can't wait to listen, because I assume that you will be talking about it with them on their show. Of course. All right. Let's dig into some questions I have. And I've kind of grouped my questions into categories. And the first one is personal. Where are you from?

[00:05:28] I am from beautiful, hot, humid St. Louis, Missouri. I always – people ask me a lot about going to Walt Disney World in the summer and isn't it miserable? And I don't care if the wait times are low because I would never survive, et cetera. And I'm like, well, it's hotter and more humid in St. Louis than it is Orlando most summers.

[00:05:49] I did two trips this summer, one in middle of July with my 7-year-old and then one here at the beginning of August with my 10-year-old. And both times it was legitimately hotter and more humid in St. Louis than Orlando. So I go to Orlando in the summer to cool off. But I was born here in St. Louis, raised here in St. Louis, went to college here, raising my family here, all of our extended families in St. Louis. So it's a good place to be.

[00:06:16] Also a pretty great place for traveling the country. We're right in the middle of it. So we like to travel a lot and it's a good home base for that. Sure. How did you fall in love with the parks? Oh, my goodness. What's your Disney origin story? My origin story – so my mom loves to tell the story. So growing up, we went to the Walt Disney World parks about once every three years. My parents took us on plenty of vacations. We did road trips across the country.

[00:06:45] We went to the beach and then sort of in this rotation, Disney happened once every three years or so. My first trip to Walt Disney World, clearly I don't remember because I was 18 months old. But my mom tells me that I pretty much disliked everything and would tell every attraction, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye. And didn't want – so my Disney origin story probably starts there but not my love of Disney apparently. Did not start in that one.

[00:07:14] But I always loved going to the parks. I've always loved the movies. It's just sort of this place. The parks especially – so I'm an engineer. I am a math person. I am a design person. This is what I love. The parks are such a good engineering story. They were designed literally from the ground up to be this place where families come to live in this bubble of magic. And that fascinates me.

[00:07:40] Even when it breaks down a little bit, I just love learning about that and being immersed in it myself. So grew up going to the parks. My husband, when we got married, he had been to Walt Disney World once and it was when he was five. And his only memory was that he was not tall enough to ride Space Mountain. So for our first anniversary, I took him back to Walt Disney World for the first time. Then when we started having kids, brought my daughter when she was 18 months old for her first visit.

[00:08:10] And then had our second daughter. Brought her for her first visit when she was about two in the middle of COVID, which was an adventure. But just have always, always loved the parks and then started getting to learn about the data behind the parks. And that just amplified everything. Okay. Yeah, I like that you specified that it was your Disney origin story, but not necessarily where you fell in love with it. Because that can be totally different times.

[00:08:39] Some people, that sparks very early. I went a couple, like twice. I went to Disney World and Disneyland. And when I fell in love with the parks was when I brought my son when he was five for the first time. Right. And partially it was because it was his first trip. And the other part was my mother had passed away, I don't know how many months before. So it was April and she had passed away in November.

[00:09:04] And it was the first time since that had happened that I felt this weight fall away. And I could breathe easy and I could enjoy what was going on around me and be present. And that feeling has stuck with me. So that's the moment I identify. And you don't have to be, you know, a longtime Disney lover to be passionate about it. Right. And I think that sometimes people feel like you have to earn your spot in the Disney community. And that's not true at all.

[00:09:32] No, no. Go one time and love it. And like, so we're going to talk about the book that I write here in a little bit. But I get quotes for that every year, new quotes. And a lot of the quotes that I use that are published in this very fancy, thick guidebook for Walt Disney World are first time visitors that really just fall in love with something and can write so eloquently about it. So I love this. Like, yeah, you don't have to be the expert. You don't have to put in your time. Your perspective is always valuable.

[00:10:02] Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. Do you have a love of any other parks? And I'm not just thinking universal. Like, do you enjoy going to places like Busch Gardens, SeaWorld, Dollywood? Okay. Okay. This is good. So being a St. Louis gal here in Missouri, we have Silver Dollar City, which I have been to. Oh, I've heard of this. Okay. Uh-huh. It's a good one. Very Missouri. There's a Blacksmith.

[00:10:33] There's, like, little kid rides. But there's some legit roller coasters, too. They make saltwater taffy, and you can watch that. And they have some festivals. Classic. So a fan of Silver Dollar City. We haven't been in quite a few years. Also a big Cedar Point fan for the really big coasters. I enjoy that one. Not as much the Busch Gardens, Dollywood. Haven't been to either of those, actually.

[00:11:00] I'm more about, other than Cedar Point, I'm more about the theme than the coasters. So eventually we'll get around to it. But it's really hard when you are known as the Disney person to make time for going to many other. A lot of our other vacation time is spent at national parks. So am I a parks girly? Yes. Disney and national, mostly. Sure. The mountains are calling. I like to spend my time. Exactly. And it doesn't have to be Space Mountain. No. It can be the real ones, too. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:29] Silver Dollar City, I've always thought, was probably pretty similar to something that I went to growing up. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. I live in New York City now. And we had this place called Ghost Town in the Sky. Have you heard of it? I have not heard of this, but now I'm going to research it. It's like an old-fashioned town. You take a ski lift up a mountain, and then there's this old-fashioned town where there's a blacksmith, and you're walking around in this old town.

[00:11:58] There's also a coaster that was off the side of the mountain. I was not into coasters at that point in my life. Sure. And the kind of thing where you'd get dressed up in the old-timey clothing and get a photo taken and that sort of thing. Right. Yes. So, yes. This sounds similar vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I enjoyed that. But now that I've become passionate about Disney, I do like going other places, but you cannot help but compare. Yes. You're always going to compare, and that's the difficulty.

[00:12:25] But there's always something you can learn and something you can appreciate about mostly everywhere. Sure. Yeah. Have you visited any of the Disney parks around the globe? No. No. Disneyland, I have done a couple of times. Yeah. But we have not gone out of the country. So we do a bunch of Disney cruises. So I can't say we haven't gone out of the country.

[00:12:53] Our children have been out of the country, mostly to Mexico on the Disney cruises. But we haven't yet ventured across an ocean. My husband and I's goal was to go to Tokyo Disney by ourselves for our 10th wedding anniversary. That happened in 2022. And at that point, Japan was still not open to international visitors. So that didn't get to happen. We went to Disneyland instead. But it is high on our list of goals to do that.

[00:13:19] We just don't want to, at this point, now that our kids are 10 and 7, we don't want to do it without them. We want to do it with them and find the right timing for that all to make sense. So fingers crossed that it's soon. I know that when we had chatted just over Instagram before, you mentioned some trips that you had coming up. And I thought it was very interesting that in this most recent trip that you had, you mentioned that you were going to Victoria and Albert's with your 10-year-old.

[00:13:47] And so I wanted to ask you about that. How was that experience? And would you recommend it to others? Or is your kid just a foodie already? Okay. So my kid is a foodie. It was an incredible experience. So I'll talk a little bit about that. Would I recommend it for every 10-year-old? No. Would I recommend it for every adult? Also no. Sure.

[00:14:12] You have to be someone that appreciates not just the food, but also Victoria and Albert's is as much about the service and the experience as it is about the food. It's a whole evening of people getting to know you and serving you and telling the stories of this food. Like, it's a whole ordeal. So my daughter, we actually had the opportunity to visit the dining room and the kitchen of Victoria and Albert's about two years ago before dinner service started.

[00:14:42] Because I'm friends with Chef Gabby, who is no longer there, but was there at the time. And she invited us because we were in town one weekend. And so we sat in the dining room with several of the chefs and they made them hot chocolate and then we toured the kitchen. So she was familiar with, like, what it was. She knew it was fancy. She knew the concept. She knew all of this. And she is quite a bit of a foodie.

[00:15:04] So she had been building this up in her head for two years now because you have to be 10 to go to Victoria and Albert's. It does have an age limit. And so when she turned 10, which was in February, she asked for this for her birthday. And I told her it was too expensive but then decided to do it anyway as a surprise. So we went on her half birthday. We celebrate half birthdays in our family. It's just a silly fun thing. You get half a birthday cake and that's about it.

[00:15:34] But I was like, I surprised her. She did not know until the day before we went to Victoria and Albert's that we were going to Victoria and Albert's. And everyone took care of her so well. They all wished her a happy half birthday. She was the only person under drinking age in the entire restaurant, definitely. But she knows how to behave. She has been to nice restaurants. She's been to Narcoossee. She's been to Jico. Right? I know she knows how to handle herself.

[00:16:01] And she's okay eating quote unquote weird or different things. So it wasn't going to matter what they served her. She was going to eat it. And I was comfortable with that. Everyone came over to our table. They would explain the dishes to her as well as to me in a way that she could understand. We got her the zero proof pairing. And so she got to understand how the beverages were making the food taste different and complementing each other. They talked to her about what she wanted to be when she grew up.

[00:16:30] They let her request songs to be played on the harp. It was a whole thing. At the end of the meal for her half birthday, someone came over and gifted her an Ariel doll because she said, you have red hair. Ariel has red hair. And you want to be a marine biologist under the sea. And so we just wanted to. And the harp was playing under the sea in the background while they're. And I've. Oh, my God. Cue the mom tears. I'm like, what other kid gets this experience?

[00:16:59] So like knocked it out of the park ever since then. You know, even if I did not question whether it was worth it because for I knew it was worth it for her and for me. But after that, had I questioned it, like the value it is showing even since then. So the other Disney restaurants we went to, she was thinking about what to order and looking at the ingredients and figuring out what they meant. And even at home, she's participating in our meal planning. Right.

[00:17:27] So it's ignited this like, I know this stuff now and I can. So anyway, it was incredible. Very cool experience. Should any and every 10 year old do it? Absolutely not. But if you know your kid and know that's something that they would appreciate and is worth the hefty price tag, then I would say the staff are prepared for it. It is 10 and up for a reason. They can handle it. They know how to cater to kids, too. So yeah, it was amazing.

[00:17:58] I'm so happy that it went so well and that it was worth the wait till she was 10 to do that together. Yeah. Yeah. I recently took my son is 16. Alex listeners know him very well. He's sort of famous on the show. He turned 16. So we did keys to the kingdom finally. And I had been waiting and waiting. And it just I you know, I don't know that he cared that I was waiting for him. But I was like, no, we're going to have this experience together for the first time. Yeah.

[00:18:28] And it was so worth it. Loved it. Right. My yeah. Keys to the kingdom. I did with my husband for the first time on an anniversary trip that we did this, the two of us. And like, yeah, I was crying in the utilidors. Like they're telling stories about Roy built this for. Oh, I know that part. I was like turning to them and just like, what what is happening? I'm about to cry in here. Right.

[00:18:56] Meanwhile, somebody's walking past with some trash or something. Right. Like it's a very like it is a utilidor. It is very utilitarian. Exactly. But they're like tugging at your heartstrings. Yeah. Yeah. Where is your first your favorite place to say not your first favorite place to stay? Yeah. My personal favorite is Animal Kingdom Lodge has always been will always be. Love the architecture and design there.

[00:19:23] Love that it's quieter and less crowded than a lot of even the other deluxes. It's a little more spread out. Where else can you have a giraffe outside your window when you wake up in the morning? It is where both of my daughters did their first trips to Walt Disney World. So I have that sort of via DVC point rentals. That's how I usually stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. So it just has the memories, has the vibes, has the good dining.

[00:19:53] I mean, that is like if I didn't have to stay everywhere to research everywhere, that's where you would find me pretty much all the time. We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge in Kidani in July for the first time. And we're DVC. That was it's one of the last ones we're getting around to. So we've stayed pretty much everywhere. And we walked in and Alex, my son, was like, Mom, this is the nicest place we've ever stayed. Isn't it nice? It's so the new rooms are really nice, too. Oh, my God. They're gorgeous. Love the new rooms at Kidani.

[00:20:23] Again, is this the resort for everyone? No. If it's your first Disney trip and you're prioritizing like access to the theme parks, it's not the resort for you. But for me, it's the relaxing vibes that I want. For sure. All right. Let's get into how you kind of got where you are today. So I know you do things with touring plans. How did you get connected to touring plans? Magic.

[00:20:51] So when I was planning my first trip as an adult, so my first anniversary trip with my husband, at the time I was working at the Department of Veterans Affairs and my boss there was like, you would love this site. Touring plans, right? I didn't know of touring plans at the time. And you love data. You're planning a Disney trip. You will love this site. And so that's when I started using it. Shout out to Rick Eifnick for introducing me to touring plans. So I started. I just used it for my trip. I started timing weights.

[00:21:20] I started reading their blog, right? Became addicted to the whole touring plans thing. My how I got an in there, love telling this story, was just reading the blog. And it was at the time where Be Our Guest had been open for about a year. And on the blog, Lynn put just a bunch of the data. And he's like, here's the actual data if anyone wants to play with it. And so I did. I got all that data. And I did a bunch of analysis.

[00:21:47] And I sent it on back and sent it in the comments and to Lynn's email. I was like, this is great. I can do this. He responded. And he was like, this is awesome. And we started chatting. And I started not necessarily working with touring plans. At that point, I helped him do some ad hoc analytics to help support writing the unofficial guide since he was the author.

[00:22:11] And then I started blogging for touring plans because they wanted more bloggers and wanted more data-driven blogging. And so I started doing that. I got access to all the data. This is awesome. I was still, even at that point when I was writing for touring plans, helping Lynn with the book, I was probably going to Disney about once every two years. I wasn't going all the time. Probably more than the average human being still.

[00:22:38] But it wasn't and still isn't my job. So it was just one of the vacations that we took. Then, fast forward to 2024, and Lynn called me up and said, you know, you've been doing a good job on the blogs. I've been writing the unofficial guide. I think he's been writing it for over 20 years at this point. He's like, my kids are grown.

[00:23:04] I would really love to hand this off to someone that can do the writing but also has the younger kids and is doing the things that all the young families want to hear about. He's like, would you like to take over writing the unofficial guide? And of course, that's my fangirling moment. But I'm like, well, I already have a pretty intense full-time job and two kids. Can I also write a 600-page book every year? And then I decided, yeah, sure. Let's just, let's do it.

[00:23:34] Why not? We'll fit it in somehow. And so that's what I've done. So I started writing the 2025 edition of the unofficial guide. Lynn and I wrote that hand in hand and then have written the 2026 and now 2027 editions by myself. And now I go to the parks about once a month to do research for that. So now it really has. That's what really kicked off me being in the parks all the time, going to every resort, trying to hit a lot of the restaurants.

[00:24:00] Like it's changed the way that I Disney in a very fun and unique way. Now I see some of the books on the shelf behind you. Can we see what the new one looks like? Of course. So 2027 edition comes out on August 18th of this year. Writing the book is a fun and frustrating experience. So I actually started writing this edition in October of last year.

[00:24:31] And it went off to the printer in April of this year. So I haven't touched or edited this since April. Usually Disney makes some major announcement in May as soon as it's off in the printer. But not this year. Let's hope for D23 they don't change anything big. But yeah, Animal Kingdom's on the cover this year. Because 2027 is a big year for Animal Kingdom. Not only do they have Bluey and Bingo, which is already increasing the popularity of the park significantly.

[00:24:57] But Tropical Americas should be opening in 2027 too. Clearly not many details about it exist yet. But I did my best to write about it here too. So yeah, this is the 2027 guide. It is a beast at over 600 pages this year. But full of valuable information. It's a very thick book. I'm sitting here going like, that could be a doorstopper. Like that's huge. That's huge. That's, yeah, that's gonna... You don't want to carry it in the parks with you.

[00:25:27] You want to use it for research at home and then go along your merry way. And there is a digital piece to this, right? When you buy the book. Is there information that you have access to? You get a discount on a touring plans account. So you can use that. There is not much digital other than you can always go on my Instagram page. That's where I sort of keep most of the digital copy. I mean, you can get like a Kindle edition of the book if you want.

[00:25:55] We have in the back, they're clip out touring plans. And so you can take some of those along with you to the park. We do have on the unofficial guide website, we have a page where we do updates more real time. If things change significantly, that's where we do that. But that's about it. It is very analog, which I kind of love as I do the Instagram to do the up-to-date real time stuff. And then this is old school. So yeah.

[00:26:24] Which I think in this day and age, because there's so much available online, especially if it's somebody who is going for the first time or doesn't go very frequently, there's so much out there that you're kind of like, where do I start? Yes. And so by having something like this that you can turn to and just open up and read cover to cover and enjoy, it can get you started and have enough information to plan your trip

[00:26:53] without having to worry about, let me sift through what's good and what's bad out there. Correct. And I did a big reorganization of the book this year. Some of the chapters I felt like weren't in a... And you say read cover to cover, which you absolutely can. And now it's in the order that that makes sense, right? It's overview of Walt Disney World, then how you plan, and then budgeting for it, right? And then you pick where to stay.

[00:27:18] And sort of walks you through the decisions you need to make in the order that most people will probably make them. But it also allows you to sort of hop around and, oh, well, I already booked a place to stay, but I want to do my research on what to do. Like, you can do that too. So it's a pretty cool tool. Yeah. Well, congratulations on the new edition. Thank you. Do you plan to do the next year's edition as well? Yeah.

[00:27:45] I'm pretty sure I just keep it until I hand it, I bequeath it to someone else. Yeah. I mean, assuming I keep doing a decent job. We'll see how that goes. But yeah, it's mine for now. And I love doing it. So yeah, I envision myself doing it, at least for the near future. Okay. Let's see. In terms of touring plans, I personally use the site.

[00:28:13] I love the room finding function where you can go and look at the view. And so you can kind of request a specific room. And you can do it through the touring plan site where you can put in your specific room request. What features about touring plans do you think that people may not know about or that they're underutilizing? Yeah. Room finder is absolutely one of them. It's such a great tool. I still use it for literally every trip I take.

[00:28:39] Because I'm staying at all these different resorts and I book different room types each time. And so you filter to your room type and it will give you recommended rooms. Or like you said, you can click into the actual room and see pictures that people have taken from the window. So you get an idea of what you're seeing. And then it will send a request to Disney. It's a little bit different now. It's an email because Disney has changed their behind the scenes staffing for room requests. But that's very cool.

[00:29:07] Another one that's underutilized that I've used recently for my trips with my kids, they have a cheapest ticket calculator. So you can go on and they will look at all the third party sites because there are lots of reputable third party sites. There's also plenty of not reputable ones. But on the ticket calculator, it'll look at Disney site. It'll look at undercover tourists. It'll look at City Pass. It'll look at all these. And it'll tell you based on your dates and ticket types where you'll save the most money.

[00:29:34] So both of my trips this summer, I bought my kids tickets off of City Pass because that's what ended up being the cheapest. But that can save you a decent chunk of money. I love that one. The big core things for touring plans are their crowd calendar and the touring plans. I think most people know about those if you know about touring plans. But that really helps you decide when to visit, which parks to visit on which days, and then which rides to go to and which order so that you're minimizing your weights. That's the bread and butter of touring plans.

[00:30:04] But I like the room finder and the ticket calculator as sort of those bonus things that most people don't know about. For people who have not looked into the crowd calendars, what would you say are the best times to visit? It depends on your tolerance for heat. So I'll give a couple options. Typically, late August and early September are the least crowded time of the year because all those kiddos are newly in school.

[00:30:29] And so you're eliminating a vast portion of guests that would be traveling into the parks to visit as families with kids. So late August, early September, great time. Problem with that time. So those are always the lowest crowd times of year if you need a significant chunk of low crowds. But they're also the hottest and humidist and hurricane-iest times of year. Times of year as well. So if you need some backups.

[00:31:00] Other times of year, if you're okay with the heat but you want to avoid the hurricanes, July has become super uncrowded too because most people don't want to deal with the heat. July 4th is the least crowded holiday at Walt Disney World. And the least crowded single day of the year is July 5th because everyone goes and sees fireworks and doesn't go to the parks the next day. So if you just want to hit that least crowded day of the year, July 5th is where you should go.

[00:31:27] If you want better weather but still low crowds, the first two weeks of December, so October and November are really crowded. Lots of fall breaks. Lots of people enjoying the Halloween-y season. You pretty much want to avoid October and November if you don't want long waits. But those first two weeks of December, you get the holiday decorations. You get Festival of the Holidays at Epcot.

[00:31:52] But because you're in early December, you're once again in the period of school where people don't want to take their kids out of school right before the winter break. And so there aren't that many families traveling. The weather is perfect. So that's sort of like my sleeper hit recommendation. Other than that, you want to avoid spring break and you want to avoid Christmas to New Year's. But August, September, July, first two weeks of December. Yeah.

[00:32:20] When we took my son for the first time, it was spring break. And it just makes every other trip after that seem like kind of easy because it was so many people. So I made the mistake. Well, not a mistake. It actually ended up working well. We booked. So in January 2020, we booked a trip for September 2020. I still remember this because it was the first time my parents were going to come with us. And it was bringing both of our girls.

[00:32:49] It was my younger daughter's first trip. And my mom was like, do we need to buy travel insurance? I was like, the worst that can happen is a hurricane. And we've been through that before. So like, no, we don't need travel insurance. So we didn't buy travel insurance and booked for September 2020. Then, you know, COVID happened. So we still took our September 2020 trip because we didn't have travel insurance. So by golly, we were still going to go. And of course, the parks were empty. Like, no one was at Disney in September 2020.

[00:33:18] You walked on to every ride. You it was like, it was a weird time. We were all in masks. You couldn't hug the character. Right. But it was glorious from a wait time perspective. And my parents have said they're never going again because they can't. They will never be able to be like, oh, sure, I'll wait 20 minutes. No, they can't. They can only walk on rides. No. You know what I do miss from that time? And I can't remember when the first time was that I went after the pandemic.

[00:33:48] It was probably February 2021 because we tend to, well, we used to tend to go on President's Week. I miss the markers on the ground to keep people from standing right on top of you. And I don't think it has to be six feet. You know, I would be happy with just a couple feet. You know, that would be nice. This past trip was so bad. It's the worst. Like, I'm used to weird people behaviors in line at this point because I'm in attraction lines all the time.

[00:34:16] But this trip at the beginning of August with my daughter, I had so many people stepping on my toes and so many people running into my backpack. And like, it was off the charts. And I'm like, what happened to personal space? Especially when it's 102 outside. Like, we can give each other some breathing room. But no, it wasn't happening. Yeah. That's when you just become one of those people who just randomly twirls or stuff like that to just like keep people away from you. Right. Like, make your own little bubble. I start, yeah. I just start moving around.

[00:34:46] Bopping a little bit. Yeah. Oh. Oh. So, speaking of lines, I know that you have a lot of data about lightning lanes. So, I'm curious and I think my listeners will be curious as well. What do you think about lightning lanes? Do you think they actually make the wait times longer? What do you think about virtual queues? Give it all to them. Oh, yes. Lightning lanes. What a fun topic.

[00:35:13] We could attack this from many angles. Do lightning lanes make standby lines longer? Yes. Absolutely, they do. Because you're prioritizing those lightning lanes. You can really feel this at attractions. Buzz Lightyear is like the perfect example. Because you're in that room with the Buzz animatronic and you can see where you're going to load and you just sit there for like 20 minutes as the lightning lane people go past. And you're like, well, if there wasn't anyone in this lightning lane, I would have been on that ride 20 minutes ago.

[00:35:42] So, it does absolutely slow things down. Interestingly, it doesn't slow things down as much as it used to. Disney's trying to be really careful about sort of the ratios of guests they allow into the lightning lane. They are not, okay, they're selling as many lightning lanes as they used to. They are not releasing as many reservations as they used to to try to help balance that. That's why we're seeing some historically low wait times this year. Part of it is Disney isn't as crowded.

[00:36:12] I think Disney just announced they're 3% more crowded than last year. But last year was also historically low. But wait times are lower this year than they were last year, even though there are more attendees. And that's because Disney's being really careful about how they prioritize lightning lane versus standby. Virtual queues are a whole fun rabbit hole. It's something Disney has to do when they open up attractions that are unreliable.

[00:36:40] And as we get into an era of theme park operations where we want bigger and better, but also we have to open it faster. We can't have the Tron being built for five years fiasco anymore. You get rides that are opening while they're still unreliable. Epic Universe is the perfect example of that. But it happened with Rise of the Resistance that's still unreliable. It happened with Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

[00:37:08] Anytime where Disney's just not sure if they're going to be able to keep the ride up, they have to do a virtual queue so that it protects them, right? You're not guaranteed a ride, but you can try. And it's infinitely frustrating because Disney technology is also unreliable. So it's really hard to get those virtual queue spots in any sort of reliable fashion. But it's a necessary evil at this point.

[00:37:36] I assume we will see virtual queues come back when Tropical Americas opens is probably the next time we'll see the return of virtual queue in some former fashion. They did it for Bluey and Bingo, too. But that lasted like a week. And then they figured out they had plenty of capacity. Are Lightning Lanes worth it? Is an interesting question that I like to talk about because they're expensive, especially if you're traveling as a family.

[00:38:05] There are three different kinds of Lightning Lanes. Lightning Lane Single Pass, which gets you onto a single ride as named. Lightning Lane Multi Pass, which gets you all of the Lightning Lane attractions in a park other than the single pass attractions. And then Lightning Lane Premier Pass, which lets you not make reservations because that's the most frustrating part of using Lightning Lanes is making those reservations because they book up quickly. Premier Pass, you pay an exorbitant amount of money, but you don't have to make reservations.

[00:38:34] You can just use each Lightning Lane in a park once during the day. Premier Pass, if you are questioning whether you can get a value out of it, it is not the product for you. It is solely for people who are willing to pay a lot of money for convenience. And if that's you, that's great. You're never going to be able to do math to justify it. I have never personally done Premier Pass because I like being able to do the math to justify things.

[00:39:04] Lightning Lane Single Pass, I think, can be very valuable because they allow you to skip the ride at one attraction where there is absolutely going to be a high weight. And then you can plan the rest of your day to avoid weights, but you've paid for this one attraction and you've sort of got that one, that puzzle piece locked in. I think that's a pretty good value, especially at Cosmic Rewind, which is in Epcot, and at Tron, which is in Magic Kingdom.

[00:39:30] The other ones that offer single pass, you can actually plan around pretty easily. Multi-pass, Lightning Lane Multi-pass, a little bit harder to justify financially unless you're going during a high crowd season. In low crowd seasons, it's really hard to save a lot of time. I've done a bunch of analysis this summer. This summer, historically uncrowded, very low weights. On average, people with Lightning Lane Multi-pass are saving less than an hour of waiting total

[00:39:58] throughout their day by using Lightning Lane Multi-pass. And if that's worth it to you, yay, good for you. At the prices that Disney is charging for Lightning Lane Multi-pass, which I think as a good example, Magic Kingdom has averaged about $32 per person per day. I'm not personally going to pay $128 for my family of four to save an hour of line, but other people might.

[00:40:26] So we can crunch all of those numbers and try to figure out where we can spend our limited Disney budget best versus where we plan our days to hit attractions where they won't have higher weights anyway. Yeah. How do you feel like it compares now with the Multi-pass to Genie Plus and to back in the day when you got the three free included? Let's just rewind to where we got the free because that was the best.

[00:40:56] I'll even go back to paper fast passes. I'm okay with, I remember as a child, like hustling across the park and grabbing the fast passes for my family because I was small and could weave in between the crowds of people. That was great. Obviously, we would love to have it back as free. There were problems with that. And really part of the reason Disney got rid of the program, number one, because they weren't making money on it. But number two, it makes crowd distribution a little wonky.

[00:41:24] You have a bunch of people going for the popular reservations, and then you have to incentivize people to take the not popular ones. And it was getting a little weird on the free fast pass. Genie was terrible. Just truly awful. Genie was the era where... So Genie is essentially fast pass, but you couldn't pre-book anything, and it was paid.

[00:41:52] That was where Lightning Lanes really gummed up standby lines because Disney did not have a good idea of how to balance those attractions. They were just trying to bring this back. They really had no idea how many people were going to pay for it. Demand, I think, was a lot higher than they expected it to be. And you had to pre-book, but then you had to wait two hours. There were so many crazy rules. Everyone hated Genie. There were very few fans of Genie.

[00:42:20] I think Lightning Lanes is a good balance. As good as we can get, it works much better over at Disneyland compared to Disney World because over at Disneyland, you can't do advanced reservations. And so when you get to the park, everything's available to you. A lot of the frustration people have with Lightning Lane and Disney World is you start the day and all the popular rides are already sold out. And yes, that's true. So that's frustrating.

[00:42:49] But you also have three locked in when you walk into the park. And so it's a whole balance. It's a trade-off. I think Lightning Lane is infinitely better than Genie Plus was. Much less confusing. Has much higher guest satisfaction. I wish we could go back to the Arrow when it was all free. But Disney's making bank on this. So that ship has sailed. Yeah, that's one of the things I really appreciated about Universal,

[00:43:17] which we went in our July trip. We did a few days there before going over to Disney. And it had been, I think, five years since I had been there. And staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and having that built in and not having to plan when I wanted to go ride something, it just makes your day so much easier. There's just an ease about it. And you can play it by ear. And you don't feel like you're missing out on anything by taking a pool break or that sort of thing.

[00:43:46] And I think a lot of where the price hike and all of that is coming from is the fear of missing out. Absolutely. Because you see people online, on social media, getting to do all these things. And you want to come and you want to do it all. And we know, those of us who go frequently, there's no way to do it all. But it's really hard for somebody who is their once-in-a-lifetime trip

[00:44:12] or even if they go every three years, you know, like you used to do when you were younger. Yeah. To have that mindset, you know. Yeah. If you miss an attraction, yeah, you don't get to do it for three more years. That's huge, right? If I don't get to do test track this year, it's going to be totally different by the time I come three years from now. Yeah. That's really hard. And it is. Disney has generated huge amounts of fear of missing out.

[00:44:38] Um, not only because you want to write everything and there's so much to do and what if I miss it and will it be the one thing my kid loves, but also with the advanced purchasing and booking, like, you don't know what it's going to be like in the park the day you get there. You don't know if you're going to want to skip the lines or if you can do without it. And so almost everyone, and by the numbers, about 50% of the people in the park every day are buying it

[00:45:06] because they'd rather be safe and they'll spend, it's a drop in the bucket of a Disney vacation budget to buy those lightning lanes and try to do it. So yeah, it's, they've figured out how to sell that well to the masses. So let's talk about changes in the parks for a minute. So we know that Carousel of Progress is closed. I had to go over and write it one last time and it's current. It's not current anymore. Yes.

[00:45:34] And then we recently had the reimagining of Splash Mountain, the Tiana's. What do you think really could use a refresh or just a, let's take this in a new direction and see what could come of it? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I have the stereotypical, I've been a Disney fan since the 90s answer, which is Figment. We need justice for Figment. He needs a refresh. So I have a picture of my five-year-old self with Dream Finder and Figment.

[00:46:04] And like, boy, oh boy, does the current ride not do him any justice. But excluding that, my sort of wishes and dreams, I think everything that's currently announced, we have a lot announced at Animal Kingdom. We have a lot announced at Magic Kingdom. We have quite a bit announced at Hollywood Studios with Monstropolis. We need Epcot in general to get a little more love again.

[00:46:31] Epcot got a lot of investments in the past couple of years, while all the other parks were a little more stable. It got that big central core. But we're coming up on Epcot's 50th, coming up on, we've got six more years. But that'll be here before we know it. Disney construction timelines. Yeah. I want to be hearing some things about Epcot. Figment's just one of those. I think we need a Spaceship Earth reimagining. I love the current version.

[00:46:57] But when you get to the top of the dome, and it's still just all the things of the old version painted black or have blankets, like that top of Spaceship Earth gets me every time. I'm like, I hate that they just blacked all this out. We need a Spaceship Earth reimagining. I would love another pavilion or two in World Showcase. Do I think any of those things will happen? No. But there's got to be something coming for Epcot's 50th, especially with all the other

[00:47:25] parks having so many things planned right now. So my fingers are crossed for some announcements there. What do you think about IP and the World Showcase? Do you think it's a good balance right now? No, you don't like it. OK. No. I think mostly I'm OK with Remy in France. It's off in the back. It really does take place in Paris. So OK. That's fine.

[00:47:50] I'm salty about Beauty and the Beast sing-along being an Impressions to France. Yes. No. No. I want to see people riding bicycles and things like that. Correct. I will rope drop that occasionally because that's almost the only time it's open is there during early entry. So I'll rope drop Impressions to France. What really bugs me is Frozen. And I know why Disney made the decision. But Frozen does not take place in Norway. Frozen takes place in a fictitious country called Arendelle.

[00:48:18] And so it does not belong in Norway. Maelstrom. Rip. It was the best. So I think Disney has gone a little too far. I'm hoping they've learned their lesson. I would be OK with if movies happen in these real life places. Yes. Then they can be there. But we don't need to overly IP World Showcase. That's not the point of it. Agreed.

[00:48:46] And I like seeing things that are made just for the parks. Yes. Like Figment. Do I love it the way it is now? No. But I like that it was created just for the parks. Correct. Like we've seen a recent resurgence of Orange Bird as a character. Right. Orange Bird was created for the parks in the state of Florida. But like these things can also be successful. And I think we need a little more love and attention there.

[00:49:16] That being said, everything that's announced for the parks is all new IP going in. Cars Land. Villains Land. Monstropolis. Tropical Americas, which is in Canto and Indiana Jones. So will we get more of that? I don't know. But I agree. Let's get some just park specific stuff for the sake of the parks. Yeah. At this point in your Disney life, you've done so much. What's on your bucket list? Oh, goodness.

[00:49:46] What is on my bucket list? This is a good question. I want to try a club level stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge. That's sort of like the bougie haven't gotten to do it thing. I would love to do a VIP tour with other adults. I have done one VIP tour and it was with me and my kids. And so we mostly used our VIP tour to like repeat on Dumbo and the Carousel. And that's not a great use.

[00:50:15] No, not at all. Of a VIP tour. So I would like to do one of those with adults. A lot of my wish list, though, is not Disney World related because I have done so much of that. A lot of it is getting to the international parks and probably a little more Disneyland, too. So that's really my bucket list is expanding my horizons. Since you have been to Disneyland, can you tell me how you feel about it compared to Walt Disney World?

[00:50:43] Because I always say on the podcast that I really like Disneyland. I have to go every five, six years probably just to see how it is. But I don't feel the same in Disneyland as I do in Walt Disney World. And part of that I attribute to the fact that right outside the gates, you see Anaheim. And I like that when you're in Orlando, you go into the bubble and you're in the bubble. You're in the bubble. Yes, absolutely.

[00:51:13] I like Disney World for the bubble. I like Disney World for the scale of it all, right? It is a place you can go for a week and not do half of it, right? And just be in that bubble the whole time. What I love about Disneyland is that it is where Walt walked, right? It is. And you can still feel that. Like it's smaller. It's cozier. It's all walkable. You don't have to deal with the buses and the Skyliner and the right.

[00:51:44] So you can still feel that. What I don't like about Disneyland, it is a locals park, which is not a bad thing, but it makes it much more different to tour. Like people are camping out for parades for four hours because they don't care. They can sit there for four hours because they're here every weekend. It makes it a little more difficult to do all of the things. So I think they each have their place. But after about two days at Disneyland, I'm kind of done and good for a while.

[00:52:12] Because, yeah, you've pretty much checked it all off at that point. And you're right. What are you going to do next? Go out and hang out in Anaheim? No. No. No, thank you. And lastly, I guess, just in terms of the things that there are to do in Orlando, what do you think is keeping Disney innovative? Is the competition with Universal? We always hear about that. Yes.

[00:52:42] How much of a factor does that play into what we're seeing every day in the decisions that they're making? I think, well, okay, this is a multifaceted question we could get into here. Interestingly, I do think Epic Universe scared Disney more than they let on. And all the corporate speak was rising tide lifts all ships, right?

[00:53:07] Epic did what Disney does well even better than Disney does it, which is like theming and immersiveness, right? You go into Burke and it's like you're in those movies. That is still so cool. My kids, like, geeked out over that, right? That was their pinnacle of Florida vacation we took. Operationally, kind of stinks. Definitely stunk when it opened. Kind of still stinks. They didn't get that part right.

[00:53:35] But they got the theming and the immersion and the food and the walk around characters and the placemaking. Like, all of that was off the charts insanely good. And that's what Disney is known for, right? Universal is the roller coaster park. Or that's how it typically has been viewed. And like, eh, they try to do some theme. But really, it's about the thrill rides. And then Epic came.

[00:53:58] And Disney had to really think, oh, well, how do we get back to being that we're the theming and we're the storytellers? And I'm really hoping we see the fruit of that in Tropical Americas, in Monstropolis. And I think we'll see. We're recording this right before D23. I'm really hopeful slash expecting we're going to get some fast-tracked timelines.

[00:54:25] Fast-track, quote-unquote, for Disney as they try to show that they can build these immersive lands like Epic has. But I also think we are also lucky to have Josh as the CEO now. Oh, yes. 100%. I was a big Bob Iger fan. I have his books. They're here. Oh, here we go. They're right here on my desk. Oh, wow. You really, truly had that at hand. Yes. Like, it's right there. It is a really good book, actually. The Ride of a Lifetime.

[00:54:53] It's about his – it was written the first time he wasn't CEO. And so that's kind of funny in retrospect. But it's about his leadership lessons he learned as the CEO of Disney. So that's – I keep it there as one of my business-y Disney books. But anyway, he was a great CEO. But Josh is all about the parks, right? Bob was about the whole company, about sports. He grew up through ABC and – He just bought a basketball team.

[00:55:22] He just bought the Lakers, right? We see his priorities. Josh is about the parks. That's what he grew up in. And I think we're going to get this new investment in the parks for the sake of the parks, right? Yeah. All the things that have already been announced started when Bob was still CEO. And so it is a lot of that IP. But I think with Josh, I'm hoping – fingers crossed – we're going to see a renaissance of the parks. And they've already announced huge investments in the parks.

[00:55:51] And so some of that, I think, is inspired by competition with Universal. But I think more of it is the leadership at Disney World now. And now is the time. And they've really figured out that Disney World – Now is the best time. I'm glad you found that. That, like, this is their moneymaker. And yes, TV is good. And yes, Disney Plus is good. And yes, movies are good. But this is an important place for them to invest.

[00:56:17] So I think the next five, ten years are going to be a really exciting time to be a Walt Disney World fan. And I am super pumped about it. Well, what a great note to end on. This has just been so much fun chatting with you. And I hope that you will come back at some point. And, you know, this is primarily a Trip Report podcast. So if you ever want to do a future Trip Report – Right now I'm in my scheduling for 2027.

[00:56:46] I'm all booked up for the fall. But any future trips, I would love to have you and talk about what it's like to go to the park with Becky. There you go. Do a research trip report. They're very different. And people laugh at me. They're like, yeah, you go to the parks to research. Wink, wink. And I'm like, do you want to see my list of things I need to do? So, yeah, it's fun and work. And it would be fun to talk about. So I would love to do that. Okay, fantastic.

[00:57:15] And I will make sure to put a link to the new book in the show notes so that people can easily access it. And everybody should go get a copy. And I have said to people when I said I was going to be talking to you, like my husband, I was like, you know, you know this book when you see it. And then I showed it. He was like, oh, yeah, that book. Yeah. Yeah. I know it. The big book. I always say it's available at places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target. Like you can buy it anywhere.

[00:57:41] I encourage people to buy from their local independent booksellers if possible. Even better, request it from your library because the libraries will go out and buy it. And then not only can you read it, but a bunch of other people can too. So that's a great way to go read the book. All right. Well, thank you so much, Becky. Have a wonderful trip with your Main Street dish friends. Hope you are able to try every single thing. Sounds like a lot. We're going to try. That's the goal.

[00:58:11] All right. We'll follow right along. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much to Becky for taking the time to sit down and chat with me. I had so much fun and it was really an honor to have you. I will be reaching out in the coming months to try to get a trip report scheduled because I know my listeners would enjoy that. That will be all for today, folks. If you liked what you heard, please remember to rate and review the podcast on the platform

[00:58:39] you are listening on now or watching on and make sure that you share the show with friends. I hope everyone has a magical week. And as always, keep daydreaming about where you long to be.