Post-Trip Report: Beth and Alex’s Journey to the Center of Japan (July/August 2026)

[00:00:12] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, A Magical Trip Report Podcast. My name is Virginia and I am your host. I have a voicemail to share that came in through my website, which is whereilongtobepodcast.com, from one of my besties and frequent podcast guest, Jeanette, who was lucky enough to get to see Joe Rohde, Imagineer, Disney legend, author, all of the things, speak when he was here in New York last

[00:00:37] week. I desperately wanted to go with her, but since it was on a weeknight and started super late, I was not able to. Let's hear what Jeanette had to say. Hi, Virginia. This is Jeanette. I am calling to do, I don't know, we could call it an off the monorail express and share a little bit about an

[00:01:00] event that I went to last week where Joe Rohde was signing his new book, Floating Mountains, but also in discussion with the producer of the show Masquerade. So this is a new series that the theater that's doing Masquerade, which is the interactive Phantom of the Opera show. They just started it, first one. It was a little bumpy. It was supposed to start at 1030. It started at 11.

[00:01:29] But he's interviewing people. They're calling it OG Talks. And they brought Joe Rohde in to talk about creating themed experiences and the book a little, but it was really more a conversation between the two of them about themed experiences. Now, this was a little bit hard and not quite what I was hoping for

[00:01:50] expected because it wasn't actually Joe getting asked a lot of questions about his book or creativity or being a theme park imagineer or whatnot. It was definitely more of a conversation of when I was doing this for Masquerade, I did it this way. How about you, Joe? Back and forth, back and forth. And I haven't seen the show Masquerade. So that was a little bit hard to contextualize, but it was really

[00:02:20] amazing to be in the same room with Joe Rohde and hear him talk about his creative process. A couple of things that I took from it that I think are really fun are that Joe said that one of the things he does when he comes into a space, a design space, is sort of look at the way the light hits it. And I thought that was kind of an interesting like step into a room, look at the way the light hits the design of something when it's a fabricated space. But another thing that he said was that when

[00:02:47] they were in Bali doing research, they saw these shadow plays and they're very simple, you know, a sheet put up at somebody's house with a candle behind it and people using their hands. And yet they were very compelling. And so when he was designing Animal Kingdom, he said that he sort of started with the idea of like, could we tell the story with shadow? And if we could tell the story in a compelling way with shadow, do we need to go a level further? Anyway, I just thought that was

[00:03:16] something fun to think about. Maybe something to notice when you're riding Everest next time, because there's a little bit of shadow play on the ride. And yeah, that was my experience. I got to meet him, say hi to him. I made him laugh. We smiled. I got a picture and I got my book and I'm really excited to dive into it and read it. So that's my little off the monorail express for you.

[00:03:39] And I hope all the listeners enjoy. Bye. Thank you, Jeanette, for sharing all about your experience. I like the off the monorail express category you are putting this into, and I'm really looking forward to hearing how you like the book. If you'd like to leave me a voicemail sharing a comment, a hot take, or sharing a magical experience like Jeanette did, you can do that through my website, which again is wherelongtobepodcast.com by clicking the Leave Virginia a voice message button on the

[00:04:09] right-hand side of the screen. While you are there, please consider submitting yourself to be a future trip report guest. I am currently looking for people traveling in January, 2027 and beyond. Now it's time to hear all about this week's trip report with the lovely Beth and Alex, who are originally from the UK, but currently living in Australia. Beth and Alex traveled to Japan and met up with Beth's mom, Haley,

[00:04:36] who was coming over from the UK for a grand adventure experiencing all of the culture of the country, as well as getting time in both the Tokyo Disney Resorts and Universal Studios Japan while they were there. And with that, please welcome back Beth and Alex. Welcome back, Beth and Alex. Thank you very much.

[00:04:58] This is a while coming. You've been back on your current home turf in Australia for just a bit now because your trip ended, I think, August 2nd, right? Yeah. That's correct. Yeah, yeah. I've been back in Australia nearly three weeks now. And how much longer do you have to go in Australia before you're back in the UK? Before our imminent exit. So on our visa, we've got roughly around six months left.

[00:05:27] It ends officially next February the 26th. Yeah. So we have the majority of February left. We will be doing a bit of traveling before that, making a wonderfully exotic detour back to the UK before the inevitable happens and we find ourselves back in normal sort of work in regular life. So, yeah, we're going to stretch out the adventure as much as possible. But yes, only six months left in Ausd.

[00:05:52] I was going to ask, do you have any bucket list Australian items that you still have to check off your list? Yeah. Yeah, we do. We have a couple. Yeah. So when we finish our visa, we're going to travel a lot of like Western Australia because we've done a lot of the East Coast and we've done Tasmania, Sydney and like all those places. We've just never really spent a lot of time in the West Coast of Australia.

[00:06:16] So like Perth, Esperance, those kind of places that have got like the beautiful beaches and gorgeous blue sea. But there's loads of sharks, so you can't really swim in the sea. Oh no. We can look at it and admire it from a distance. Yeah. So some Australians would be daring enough to get on like a boogie board or a surfboard and go out to a certain point and just blend in with the nature. But yeah, we're far from that adrenaline sort of seeking rush.

[00:06:44] There's also like Aluru, like the middle of Australia, the northern territories. I think we are looking at going out to potentially Alice Springs and there's a mining town called Coburpedia where it's famous for mining all of the opal. So they are kind of desired places to go. A lot of Aboriginal places of like sacred sites, especially Uluru.

[00:07:07] So yeah, those are the big bucket list items we've never done in Australia in all our kind of three years and potentially maybe somewhere back to the East Coast. Yeah, we love the East Coast. Darling Island, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's got like 90 mile beach, champagne pools. Sounds delicious. Really nice, really gorgeous island. So that would definitely be something we want to revisit before leaving.

[00:07:36] Yeah, I've got to get there at some point in my life and do the whole Australia. And then also a lot of people do New Zealand at the same time just because, you know, while you're over there, you might as well. But I'm very, very exciting that you got to do that and experience that. And then that puts you in a perfect position to go someplace like Tokyo and have a little bit of an easier jaunt to get there. So overall, how was your trip?

[00:08:07] Yes, actually. It was brilliant. It was honestly fantastic, wasn't it? Yeah, we loved it. It was just incredible. All the different places we visited were so different to each other. And we did so much in time, like so many activities. Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, and to share it with your mom, too. Yeah, definitely. Did she have an amazing time? Yeah, she had a great time. Yeah, it was a bit crowded because my mom was like, she doesn't like big crowds.

[00:08:34] But like in the quieter places, like she really enjoyed that, like the more relaxing, calm places. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, you had a nice long trip. So there were plenty of moments for that as well as the craziness of the parks. So let's just dive in. How was all of your travel getting over to Japan? And I think your mom was meeting you there, correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So yeah, the flight was really smooth.

[00:09:02] And I always was daunted with Japan because people say how difficult the train systems are to work around. So I was a little bit worried about that. But actually, it was so easy. You just use Google Maps, it tells you exactly what exit to go from, exactly what you need to do, what time things are. Like there's English written in the train station so you can understand things. And just using Google Translate and stuff as well. So it actually was so easy to get around. Yeah.

[00:09:31] I think the biggest thing that probably would upset people is just the similarity of maybe some of the station names. Because something that we kind of picked up on, especially in the inner city, is the word Shin is usually used as a prefix for a lot of places. And all that means is like new. So you could have a station like Osaka and it could be Shinosaka and then there could be a Saka station. And new just means it's either the new developed area or it's only been recently installed. So that could be like the biggest hiccup.

[00:10:00] But we, when we stayed initially in Tokyo, we were on the JR, the green line, which is comparable to like London would be like the Hammersmith and City line, wouldn't it? Like the central or like the A train in New York where you've just got the inner ring. And that was easy. If you got on the wrong direction, you could either take yourself off, go back on the other direction or just wait on the loop. And it would loop around continuously for like 40, 50 minutes. Yeah. Then you had like the more regional trains that would take you to specific areas and they could take you so far as well.

[00:10:28] You could come two half hours outside of the city as well as then the Shinkansen, which are obviously the big bullet trains that go all across the West region or you can get them all across the North as well. They're obviously huge, go up to like 170 miles per hour. Really impressive trains, really efficient, really clean, really peaceful. But they're insane and expensive. Really?

[00:10:56] Well, yeah, really expensive, which is why you can still travel, I think, across the country with all the regional trains. It just takes, you know, hours. But we're glad we experienced them. Yeah. Yeah. How was getting used to the time difference? Well, from Australia, it's only an hour behind. An hour behind? Yeah, one hour. Not too bad. So it was easy for us, but obviously my mum being from London, it was quite a big jump for her. Yeah.

[00:11:25] But she did really well. Yeah. Yeah. I think her body clocked the first day. Well, we kind of just like situate ourselves and she rested, didn't she, in the morning until about sort of like mid-afternoon. It's eight hours. Yeah. So from London, GMT plus zero, I think it's eight hours in front, which is easy for us. Yeah. Coming from Australia. But yeah, she's a machinist, Hayley. She just takes the good and the bad in her stride and, yeah, endures.

[00:11:56] She's good with micro-napping as well. So we'd always like have a half of the afternoon, come back for like a siesta. That's a skill, micro-napping. Yeah. I sometimes have had times in Disney World where I have gone into an attraction, say Awesome Planet, and taken like a five-minute nap and literally just like out like a light

[00:12:23] and five, seven minutes, whatever the length of the program is later, I'm awake and it's just like, okay, you get a little bit of your juice back, so to speak. And so that's a good skill to have. There are some people who cannot nap and I feel so badly for them. You just sort of see them throughout the day. You keep asking, are you okay? They're like, I'm fine. And then you can see them sort of slide to the floor at the end and then it's usually on the coach's home or the transportation bus.

[00:12:52] They're out. I'm with you on that. Especially like the shows or the more kind of like theatrical element rides in Disney. Especially if there are dark rooms as well, as interested as I can be sometimes, I cannot help but kind of like go into like factory mode of just a quick nap and best usually like prodding me. Wake up, wake up. Especially when we're on buses or trains and you're like sat there with your mouth wide open. Babe, babe.

[00:13:21] But that's even worse because like on a train, the motion of the train is very lulling and you're just kind of like, oh God. Yeah. I was starting to do the very heavy eye nod on my way home today. So I got home with enough time that I was able to lie down on the couch for like 30 minutes. I was like, I have to take a nap because I need to have enough energy to talk to you guys. And then I also have like more work I need to do later tonight. So it really, really helped me.

[00:13:50] But I feel so badly for the people who can't do that. They just physically can't. All right. Let's get into the Disney fun because that was sort of your first destination. And let's talk about the hotel first, I guess. So you were staying at the Tokyo Disney Celebration Resort. Explain the resort to me. How was it? Did you enjoy it? Would you recommend it? Yeah. So the resort is actually split into two different buildings.

[00:14:18] So you have the Discovery building and you have the Wish building. We stayed in the Discovery building, which is themed more like Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise. Yeah. Whereas the Wish is more like Alice in Wonder and Princesses. And yeah, the hotel was so nice. We got there a little bit early and we did like a check-in, but we didn't like go into the rooms. We could check in and like hand our cases over and they'd put them in the room while we were out. Yeah. We really enjoyed staying there.

[00:14:48] It was immaculate. Yeah. There's a lovely little kind of like boat display in the middle. I think it was themed upon like David Crockett had like Mickey Mouse with the, is it like the raccoon hat? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a lot of theming of like Peter Pan, especially the Lost Boys and all of those kind of like uncharted islands. There was a big canvas in the room that had a lot of the rides and all of the rides were typical of like Indiana Jones. There was a volcano. There was a big Thunder Railroad mountain.

[00:15:18] So yeah, really colorful. Lots of parrots and jungle animals as well. Yeah. Beautiful building. Really staff. So pleasant. So polite. And all the shuttles, like with the Wish, I imagine as well, would have just arrived outside of the hotel to take you to either the parks or the Ixpiari, which is the food court. How long would it take you to get from the hotel to the parks or to Ixpiari?

[00:15:48] So I think from the hotel to Ixpiari was roughly around 20 minutes. Yeah. And then the parks, they would go sequentially. So from the hotel, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Beth. It was Disneyland first. I can't remember now. Or Disney, it would hit one park first and then another 10 minutes down the road, it would hit the other. Yeah. So like 30 minutes in total, probably. Yeah. Okay. So not too bad.

[00:16:19] All right. On this first day, you mentioned that there was some kind of 40th anniversary priority pass that you were intending to get. How did that work? Yeah. Just to rewind a little bit, we actually went into the park the day we got there. We got an evening pass. Oh, wait. Yeah. Was this a last minute decision? Because I don't think you mentioned that. Okay. It was a last minute thing. Tell me about it.

[00:16:44] So I was sort of researching a little bit and I saw that you can get like an evening pass to get into the park. So you can go from either 3pm to close. You can get one from 5pm to close. And we were just sat there and I was like, oh, I really want to go into the park. And everyone else wanted to. And it was quite like affordable as well to get in. And so we decided to go from 5pm to close, which was like 9pm. So we had four hours.

[00:17:12] And we chose to go to DisneySea just because it's the more popular one. And I thought, oh, it'd be a good four hours to try and get some rides in. So when we go for our actual day, we don't have to worry so much to be standing in queues for hours. Right. So yeah, on the day we checked in, that's what we did that night. Okay. And what did you get done during that time? So the first thing we did was Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

[00:17:42] It's like a rollercoaster. That was really fun. What would you compare it to? I would say it's a tamer version of Expedition Everest. I don't think it has, spoiler alert, I don't think it has the same level, personally, of thrill. But I think it's got that same level of immersion in the queue ride. There's that same mystery, the potential threat of some sort of monster. Obviously, and I'm going to try and bring up the name of the writer.

[00:18:12] It's based on the novel. And I know it was made into a Disney film. I think Dwayne Johnson, as he is wont to do, starred in it. I know he's starred in quite a bit of Disney material. So he was in the film version of the novel. So it's this idea of a great scientist looking for clues in the middle of a volcano. You know, yeah, but there's a real kind of like fun adventurer explorer element with some mysterious creatures.

[00:18:39] So yeah, I would say Expedition Everest would be the most direct comparison. Yeah, which is one of my favourite rides at Disney World. So it was really cool. What were the wait times like? So the wait time for that, I think, was around, was it 90 minutes for that? Initially, yeah, 90 minutes initially. Yeah, so we waited probably about an hour or just over an hour for that one. Okay, so you didn't do any kind of priority pass or anything this night?

[00:19:08] No, we just kind of just went in to see like what we could do, basically, in the four hours we had. All right, where did you head after your journey to the centre of the Earth? So after that, we went on the Peter Pan ride. Peter Pan's Neverland Adventure. It's like, it reminds me of the Ratatouille ride in Epcot. So you're kind of like on a vehicle and then you've got like all the screens and the 3D glasses on. It was really good.

[00:19:37] My mum said it was her favourite ride the whole trip. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Do they have a, I mean, this is DisneySea, but they must have like a traditional Peter Pan ride over in the Disneyland portion. Yeah, they do have the Disney, the Peter Pan ride. Yeah. Okay. All right. So this is some extra Peter Pan representation in their parks. Okay. What else do you do?

[00:20:02] In the DisneySea park, they have the new Fantasy Springs section, which is all themed on like Peter Pan, Tangled, Frozen. That was really cute. We went to the Snuggly Ducklin for some dinner. Yeah. Was there a man with a hook hand playing the piano? No. I wish. The piano was there and I kept seeing the I'm malicious, mean and hairy line. I've got his haircut actually, just not his hook.

[00:20:30] It was sat up on the stage and you could see all of the props and the aesthetic from Tangled, which was really cute. I so wish there would have been, or even a mine artist. I don't know if it, like maybe earlier in the day they might have some like actors there, but we went quite late. So there wasn't anyone. It was quite quiet when we went. Yeah.

[00:20:52] Aesthetically for that, I think, you know, the Avatar world in Disney, in Animal Kingdom, it felt very comparable to that. It was very luminescent, very bioluminescent, lots of blues, lots of haters of greens. Gorgeous area. Yeah. I think it had the same level of immersion as Batuu, as the Star Wars world, didn't it? That new section. Interesting. Yeah. It was so cool.

[00:21:20] It had carvings in the wall as you entered of Peter Pan, of Elsa, of Anna. It just, yeah, you could tell it was new or modern, but it just, it was like swimming in imagination. It was, it was gorgeous. Really gorgeous. That's really cool. We've got as well. Another ride that we did, I think between the first ride and Peter Pan, we've got Raging Spirits. What is Raging Spirits? Wow.

[00:21:46] It's an, it's an, it's an, it's like set in ancient Mesopotamia. So it's very sort of like Aztec-y, crumbled down kind of like wooden structure. Obviously not actually crumbled, but it has that kind of wooden structure in the middle of a jungle. It is a thrill ride. Yeah. It's a roller coaster. Okay. And it's gone. I don't, I feel like I haven't heard anybody mention this before.

[00:22:15] I've spoken to multiple people who have gone to Tokyo DisneySea. So perhaps my mind has just like erased it. But that just struck me as like, oh, that's new. I've never heard of that. Somebody's probably mentioned it before. I'm sure a previous Tokyo guest is like, no, Virginia, I told you about it. Why don't you remember? So how was it? I was calling it like Raging Tiger. Hidden Coaster.

[00:22:45] But yeah, it is more of a thrill ride. It has a bit of an atmosphere about it, but yeah, it's got a 360 loop as well. So it's got a full, full revolution. It's quite fun. And we did it in the dark as well. You've got all the torches kind of ablaze and all of the luminescent lighting. So it is an atmosphere. Again, I think Expedition Everest or maybe another ride in Animal Kingdom would be the most comparable to it. But yeah, it was fun. We had a good laugh.

[00:23:14] There was a woman, I think, next to one of us because we were the three people. It was one who was screaming her head off the entire time. So she enjoyed herself. I'm sure it was a woman. Maybe it was. Yeah. My mom really impressed me on this holiday. She won on every single ride. I just didn't think she would. Even the big scary ride she went on. So I was like really shocked. Yeah. And what was her response to the big scary rides when she got off? Was she like, I would do that again?

[00:23:42] Or okay, I'm glad I did that, but I don't need to ever do that again. There was all of the rides she would do again except one we'll get onto later at Universal Studios. Okay. Okay. That was too intense. A no-go. Okay. Peak. Ah, incredible. And then the last ride we did that day was? We did 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Oh, yeah. Do you want to talk about your experience on that one?

[00:24:11] I wasn't a big fan of that. It felt very claustrophobic. It was like you're in a submarine and you were kind of like going through this fake sea, but it was like you couldn't get out. You can't get out of a ride anyway. But I mean like there was just like you were just like surrounded in it. I just sat there and I was like, I just don't like this at all. I want to get off. This sounds like there's a submarine ride in Disneyland in California.

[00:24:36] You barely have any room to move, even if like not exiting the ride, but like let's say you just wanted to like move around a bit at all. You couldn't because it was bench seating. So you couldn't even like squeeze past the person next to you. It's like once you were in your seat, you were stuck. And I did not like that feeling. Yeah. At this point, like the seats were right near the window, like the screen, the window. You know, it's like you just, it's not even just like feeling claustrophobic. It's just being like there's no space to move whatsoever.

[00:25:07] Yeah. So yeah, that wasn't, it wasn't a fave. Didn't go on that one again. We kind of did that and then left that where it was. It's a staple really. I think obviously it's got that physical diorama as opposed to being like virtual. So it's of its time again, given the fact we know that it's like 40 years of Disney Sea. I think it's 40 years, isn't it? I don't know. 40 years of Disney Sea. Yeah, it's quite, quite old. Is it 40 years old? Oh my gosh. I think Disney Sea 40 years old.

[00:25:37] Sorry, no, Disney Sea might not be 40 years old. I need to, I need to fact check that. Yeah. But it felt like very much a night is right. I used to work in the dungeons back in England for Merlin attractions. And it felt like one of their kind of physical dioramas where you've got all these kind of creepy elements to it. Obviously no real water. And it's cool. But yeah, I think for anyone who doesn't like compressed spaces, they're sitting in that

[00:26:04] submarine with the kind of like the blown glass does feel weird. Okay. I have fact checked you here live on the spot. Tokyo Disney Sea officially opened in the year 2001. All right. Okay. And it opened on September 4th, 2001. So. You're not 40 years. Less than a fortnight before 9-11. And September 4th is my birthday.

[00:26:33] So it opened on my birthday. Oh. So interesting. Yeah. I, it said they broke ground on it in 1988. Not excuse me, 1998. So three years for that to, to all be put together. Wow. Carry on. So we did that just as the park was closing. So there was no wait really.

[00:27:00] And the only one we had the big wait on was the first one, the Jones and the Center of the Earth, the Peter Pan and the other ones. We were on within like 10 minutes because we were, the park was kind of near to close in time. And we were just walking to get out of the park. And that's when we walked past the 20,000 leagues under the sea. And they were still letting people on it with no wait. So we were like, let's just do that. And then we kind of made our way out of the park then to go back to the hotel.

[00:27:30] Did you catch any of the fireworks or anything that they had going on at that time of night? We saw a display from Disney Sea towards the very end. We saw a firework display in the middle of the day. They had the boat emerge from one of the kind of cavernous mounds around. And it came onto the middle of the lake, as it were, the prosthetic lake.

[00:27:54] And they had Mickey Mouse, Minnie, I think Donald and Goofy all in this beautiful kind of like blue garb, really, very aquatic, speaking in very high pitched Japanese. It was beautiful. It was really nice. Just the aesthetic of you've got like the mountains in the background, you've got the lake and you've got this wonderful castle structure. It feels very sort of steeped in almost like real history. It is. It's such an atmosphere.

[00:28:23] And they had fireworks in the middle of the day, as well as like songs and dances and balloons. So we caught that and we did catch the firework display. I think it was on the last day towards the end. And they had like the illuminations and the fireworks shoot up through the river, through the lake. That was stunning. And we noted that nearby there was with the hotel rooms, there's some hotels actually

[00:28:51] on site right in the middle of the square. And so there were people who obviously could afford like the penthouse watching from the balconies. I thought that must be an atmosphere. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Now, because you were staying at the Tokyo Disney Celebration Resort, which was a Disney resort, you had access the following morning to what they call happy entry, which is an extra 15 minutes.

[00:29:20] So did you make it there for that? And if you did, did that 15 minutes get you anything? Because that feels like such a small amount of time. Yeah. So we went to Disneyland and we got in for 15 minutes beforehand and we made our way straight to the Beat in the Beast ride. And we got on that ride really quickly. It was already started to be 60 minute wait, which it wasn't. It was just, I think, provisional because they could see how quick people were sort of

[00:29:50] billowing into the park. But we were on it in, what, like 20 minutes? Yeah. I actually got it written down here. Because we did like a little bit of a comparison to when we got into a wait queue and then when we actually got onto the ride. I'm just going to have, sorry, I'm just going to have a look and see. Well, I think definitely it made a difference because when we got in the queue and then literally like two or five minutes later, like the queue was huge. Yeah. They're just having that extra 15 minutes just to like sort of go straight there and get

[00:30:19] in the queue, like it saved us so much time. So I'd recommend that. Yeah. And I know this was a priority for you. Yeah. 20 minutes in real time. I think it had already said on the board, 40 minute wait time from this point. We consider that to be, you get into a certain point into the castle and then a pre-show begins before you then assume position on the actual like ride itself. And that's beautiful. I don't want this to obviously spoil too much for people who have not been, but because

[00:30:48] they have spoiler alert, but there's a gorgeous pre-show and the landing of the castle and it kind of narrates the, you know, the central plot and you've got the stained glass windows and that gorgeous kind of Gothic music that plays. And then the beast, the beast on the balcony was an animatronic and it was, it was incredible. It was mind bending the amount of like facial expressions, his eyebrows. I love the beast. I love his cute little eyebrows. They're so sweet. I don't know.

[00:31:18] Like he's so expressive. They did that animatronic justice and the rose as well. Yeah, that was great. Yeah. The ride was amazing. I grew up on Beauty and the Beast. Like that was my favourite film when I was younger. So like my mum cried. There's like a really nice, because the ride vehicle is like a teacup. Yes. And it's lovely. You go into the ballroom and you're sort of like gliding around and like there's the beast and bat in the middle, like dancing and stuff. It's just really lovely.

[00:31:48] Yeah, that was such a good ride to go on. Yeah, the skybox is really impressive as well, isn't it? They've got like the clouds like reflected in all of the buildings around. And all I'll just say is the transformation as well. Beast to man. How they did it visually, insane. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I love. I think probably you're the same way, Alex, being an actor.

[00:32:14] But when I see things, I'm sitting there the whole time going, how are they doing that? Let me see if I can figure out how they're doing it. Yeah. Were you like pulled out a little bit in that way? A little bit. I don't know too much about visual effects. I could kind of guess how they did it. But to look at it as it were in that setting and go, I could fully believe that he was there

[00:32:41] one minute and then he just disappeared into thin air the next or the other way they did it. And I think that says a lot for it as well. Japan, they really try and immerse their guests and all of the technical elements are so tight and are done to perfection that they make it ridiculously difficult for you to sort of scrutinize. But you're fully like in the imagination. I just spent the entire time on that ride laughing. I just found it hilarious because you were just whirling around in the teacups with Japanese

[00:33:10] versions of Be Our Guest. And watching the faces of some of the other guests because there was like five teacups in any point, weren't they? Some of the guests would just sat there kind of like absolutely deadpan. I just found the whole thing hilarious. I thought it was brilliant. That's really cool. You had told me that for your Disneyland day in particular, and I think this is true of your whole Disney time, but specifically on the Disneyland day that you really wanted to

[00:33:37] focus on the rides that are special to that park and maybe forego some of the rides that are just like other places in the world. So which rides did you end up getting on that were unique? And then any that you went on that you've experienced in other places, how did they compare? Luckily, when we were at Disneyland and DisneySea, the parks weren't too busy.

[00:34:06] So we actually managed to get on every ride we wanted to get on, which was really good. So we did all the special rides and all the rides we've already been on before. Nice. Tell me about your day then. So quite a few of the rides that we have straight after Beauty and the Beast were all iterations of rides that exist in other places. I think the first example of that was, of course, one of our favorites, Haunted Mansion,

[00:34:30] which I think for the most part is pretty much the same as the other two that we've experienced. The Florida one specifically and Phantom Manor from France, which I can't remember that much of, it was pretty much a carbon copy. Realistically, obviously, it was in Japanese for the most part, but there was the section with the crystal ball where the spirit is summoning the other spirits.

[00:34:58] And that was all done in English, I think, for the sake of it's a rhyme. The spirits, wherever they're at, come out and play kind of element. So the Grizzly Ghoul song was all done in English, I think, for the sake of translation. But that was pretty much the same, the Vaitum, really. Yeah. Okay. That's one of our favorites. Me too. It was brilliant. Thunder Railroad Mountain. Yeah, so we went off Thunder Railroad Mountain, and that's one that I used the 40-year anniversary pass for.

[00:35:28] And the thing is, as well, when we first got into the park, everything's just sold out straight away. Like, when you try and get any passes for anything, like, everything's just gone within, like, a second. So a lot of the shows, as well, it's kind of like a lottery system where you have to go onto the app and you have to sort of request a place at a show. I tried to do that, and they were just gone straight away. So we didn't get to watch any of the shows, unfortunately. Yeah, word of advice to anyone who wants to travel to Disneyland Tokyo, get in straight

[00:35:57] away on the lottery app if you want any chance of getting any of the shows. I think the theatre element, which is really nice, is really sold in Japan, and they love a good spectacle. I think more so depending on, you know, the crowd that you get on the day, maybe Florida, maybe Paris. But yeah, the shows sell out so quickly. So we didn't have a sniff. Not a chance. Yeah, so Thunder Mountain is pretty good. The rides were more important to you anyway, though, right?

[00:36:27] Based on our conversation before. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so we did Thunder Railroad Mountain. That was the same as the Florida one. Another favourite as well. And then we went on to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is, again, exactly the same as the Florida one. Except they have the bit where the redhead is still a slave in there. That was a bit weird to see that again. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:36:51] They've not updated the market with the women, where obviously they've transformed that in Florida and made it so that the female pirate is kind of like the power in that sense. Yeah. It still kind of hasn't been updated. Splash Mountain, which is obviously still there, which is no longer the case in Florida. It's Tiana's Bayou Adventure, isn't it? Yeah. Which I've not done you done. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:20] So there's still the original Splash Mountain there, too. Mm-hmm. Enough said. Yeah. Same kind of ride. Lovely little bit of the Deep South and the rabbit and the bear story. All in Japanese? Yeah. Yes. And then, speaking of rabbits, a ride that is completely different, Roger Rabbit. Uh-huh. Roger Rabbit's cartoon spin. They have that in Disneyland in California.

[00:37:51] Oh, do they? I think if it's the same. Yeah, I've seen that. I think it's called the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably the same ride. Yeah. Yeah, but that was fun. We like Roger Rabbit. That was good. Great. Yeah, zany, full of life. God, I could love that movie. We did like a little, like, ah, yeah. I re-watched the ending of it the other day, saying about how scary it is when Christopher Lloyd transforms into the toon. It's very freaky. It is. It is.

[00:38:21] And, like, when he's, like, dangling those cartoon shoes over the dip and the laugh he does. Oh, yeah. Maniacal. But, yeah, that was a lot of fun. Really, really good immersion of the queue as well. Some good wacky zany elements in the, yeah. I think you had the freedom to spin the taxi car, although I think it was on a pretty set path. But, yeah, it had a really good effect at the end.

[00:38:46] It had a big, yeah, shadow where the exit was and Roger Rabbit kind of pulled it over so that you could go through it. Really good illusion. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Then Star Tours. So, again, like the one in Hollywood Studios, the same style of ride. Obviously, I know with Star Tours, I can't remember how many preset options you get, but you get kind of a different story every time you ride.

[00:39:14] And we got, I kept shouting out in that one because obviously Hayley and Beth don't know Star Wars as well as I do. And I was screaming at the screen. I was like, Tatooine! Mark Sandsberg! Beau Faire! And, yeah, I think everyone just thought it was crazy. What's really nice, though, what's really humbling as well about a lot of the rides is I think the Japanese audiences are a lot more self-deprecating in the sense that they will happily, like,

[00:39:41] scream and shout at things that you wouldn't necessarily think about. Like, I suppose, I don't know, in some of the Western rides, we're quite desensitized to, like, little shakes and jumps and things. But there were people, like, screaming and jumping at every little turn in Star Tours, even though I would say it's quite tame compared to some of the rides. But it was nice to see, really. People kind of just, you know, let their own business go with it. Oh, Peter Pan's Flight.

[00:40:11] Yeah, so, like, the traditional one. He went on that as well. Yeah, really cute. Yeah, most of these are just exactly the same as the Florida ones. There's not really much to, like, note on them. But, yeah, everything was really fun that we did. That is pretty much all the rides in Disneyland, yeah, that we did. It was really hot and humid, so it's really hard. Like, we didn't stay out all day just because the heat was just very, like, too much.

[00:40:41] Hmm. So, did you take a break or you left the park earlier? We just left the park because we'd got everything done that we wanted to do. So, it just came to a point where we were a bit like, there's only a couple of hours left and we're just really struggling with the heat. So, we just kind of decided to just go pick up some dinner and just go back to the hotel. I had noted that you really, ironically enough, since you're in Australia, really wanted to go to Outback Steakhouse. Oh, yeah.

[00:41:10] Did you make it to Outback? Outback Steakhouse. We didn't. We actually just went to McDonald's that day, which is so bad. But we were all just really tired. It was quick, easy, and you knew what to expect, right? Yeah, exactly. Wow. The way you say that. Yeah. There was a couple of different burgers. I can't really say it was like an enhancement of a cultural experience. I did have a prawn burger, which I don't believe you can get in the Western world,

[00:41:38] and also a teriyaki chicken burger. Interesting. So, there you go. All right. The full range of McDonald's. I just got a Big Mac. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's a classic. There you go. Yeah. I noted some, you kind of gave me like a little list of some snacks you were for sure interested in trying, and I don't know if any of them were in the Disneyland portion of your trip.

[00:42:06] I know that one of them was to be on a popcorn journey, which a lot of people who go to Disneyland in Tokyo and Tokyo DisneySea have a popcorn journey. Shout out to Jeanette. Um, so did you start your popcorn journey this first day, or was that a Tokyo DisneySea? Sorry, Jeanette. I don't think we actually had any popcorn. You had not a single kernel. No, not a spec.

[00:42:36] I think we forgot all about that. That was literally the top of your list when you started creating a war. Well, it's settled. You have to go back. Yeah, we left it for other people. We know how much people love their popcorn, and we didn't want to get in the way of their individual journey. We just blatantly forgot. Well, were there any Disneyland-specific snacks that you would recommend for people? So we got the alien mochi.

[00:43:06] Mm-hmm. These are the green little alien mochi dumplings that have like strawberry custard and chocolate filling in. They were really good. They're from, I think it's called Tomorrowland. It's that kind of like Tomorrowland vibe. Um, yeah. They were really nice. Yeah. For anyone, I suppose most people know what mochi is. It's like, yeah, gelatinous rice dough, kind of compressed. Yeah, they were beautiful. They were really small, cute, quite, like quite springy texture. And yeah, they were vanilla chocolate and strawberry. I think the, or custard chocolate and strawberry.

[00:43:35] The best one, I think, was the chocolate one. So good. Yeah, delicious. Nice. Out of this world. I also got the mini, like, raspberry ice lolly. That's quite a famous one that people get and they take photos with it and stuff. So obviously I had to do that as well. But that was really good. Is this a Zootopia themed one? Uh, it looks like the Zootopia one. It's just like a, it's like a mini mouse head.

[00:44:03] Oh no, I'm thinking about the ones that, that look like the, like a little paw. Yeah. And I don't remember what they're called in Zootopia, but because I think in puns all the time, I'm like, it must be a popsicle, but because that's what we call them in the US. But, um, yeah, I don't remember what it's called. But yeah, I think that's a Tokyo Disney Sea thing if I'm remembering correctly. I don't know.

[00:44:29] Anywho, let's move on to your Tokyo Disney Sea full day. You planned to rope drop, did you? We did get there for rope drop. We also, with our hotel, we had the breakfast buffet in the morning, which was really good. They had like Mickey shaped, like sausage patties and Mickey waffles and stuff. So we'd fill up with that in the morning. Um, yeah, get the shuttle over to Disney Sea and yeah, we got there for rope drop.

[00:44:57] Yeah, it was extremely busy on the way. And I think some people kind of position themselves there about an hour beforehand. So you already enter into a pre-que before then going through security and the way that they sort of like compartmentalize all of that journey. Um, but I think once, once you start moving, you know, you can get to pretty much wherever you want really quickly. And there's still, you know, first thing be a lot of availability for rides.

[00:45:21] Um, you can't stress how gorgeous that first part of Disney Sea is with like the archways and the kind of like the agent kind of grounds. It's so, it's so beautiful. But we jumped straight away to Toy Story Mania, didn't we? Yeah. So we went to Toy Story Mania that had a really long wait. An hour and 40. A lot of it's outside and it's just really hot. So we just kind of wanted to get that out of the way first thing because the wait just keeps going up. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:50] Even though you're saying that the parks weren't extremely busy while you were there, there's still enough people to jam up the queues a little bit, it sounds like. Yeah. So I think like Toy Story Mania, that's probably the longest wait we did the whole time. It was one of those where we weren't sure whether it was objectively the best to do with the queue being as it was. But then also thinking later on the day, I can't see it actually slowing down. It's probably likely going to mass more people.

[00:46:18] It was the entire kind of like annex section before the ride queue was already kind of for like all that kind of white trellis area. They had like big murals, so like Woody and Buzz. But it was fine. I think it was started to be two hours and it was an hour and 40. And there were some of the soldiers. We'd not seen those in Florida before. Some of the toy soldiers from the bucket were walking around and doing like their own kind of like mime show, which was really cool. Yeah. We do have that in Florida.

[00:46:47] You just have to catch it at the right time. Yeah. Yeah. And I felt special to sort of see and a few people getting pictures with them. They were cool. And I think Hayley enjoyed herself on that ride, didn't she? Yeah. And shooting a load of things and throwing plates. And yeah, love that ride. It's so cool. Do you have like a grading yourself? Do you remember like the creatures that you get for the amount of points that you mass for it? I was trying to remember.

[00:47:14] I think I got something like Beaver or Cat. Yeah. I don't. If we have those levels, which they probably do because in the Buzz Lightyear ride in Magic Kingdom, you get, you know, your Galactic Hero or whatever level you are. I can't say I've ever paid attention to what the levels might be named on Toy Story Mania. And I think it's partly because I don't usually score so well on that one. It's not.

[00:47:44] I don't do as well at like the video game type rides. I try my best. It's hard though, isn't it? Because you don't have a shooting mechanism. You've got to pull that thing constantly. Right. If you're going to suffer from repetitive wrist strain. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, ow. No. Every time we ride it, I'm like in the warm up room. I'm like, save your energy, Virginia. Save your energy. I think that's how they rope you in with that. Yeah.

[00:48:11] There's like one of the displays and it says zero points, zero points. And you see people left and right going absolutely pell-mell. And you're like, don't. Don't get rubbed in. No. It's a trap. Right. Yep. So you actually noted down what your rank was there. Oh. That answered your question. So, hey. Hayley and Beth got Beaver rank. Uh-huh. And I got Bobcat. There you go. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to make the assumption that Bobcat is higher because it seems more fierce.

[00:48:41] Yeah. Not to give myself a medal there. But yeah. I think Tarn is like literally the next rank up. And then I think the best is like Fox was nowhere near that level. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's secrets on that ride that, you know, if you hit all of this thing, it opens up a possibility of higher point values, you know, associated with things. So you have to know what all those little secrets and triggers are. Yeah.

[00:49:11] Tricks of the trade. We then went on to Tower of Terror. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And how did this compare? I prefer it than the one in Florida. And the only reason being is the story is completely different. So instead of it being about the Twilight Zone, which is a fantastic concept and the idea of like a group of, you know, patrons go into a lift and then they never kind of come out. They disappear into like the stratosphere. Mm-hmm.

[00:49:40] This was about a gentleman called Lord Hightower. I think, assumptively British. So he was a British explorer who went to all of these different worlds, collected or, well, collected. He stole all of these great artifacts. And that was all depicted in these tapestries of him and his porter like running around getting attacked by the locals from like either Egypt or like Mesopotamia or the Congo. And so he'd amassed all this wealth by all these different artifacts.

[00:50:08] And that's, you know, why he had the Hightower Hotel. And then there was a bit of a pre-story about him inheriting this, not inheriting, stealing this tiki artifact, this voodoo doll. And he basically had animated it. It had come to life and it had cursed him.

[00:50:27] And because of his greed and his need for items that, you know, were from all these different cultural backgrounds, it basically cursed him and sent him spiraling into the other dimension, the twilight zone, as it were. So that was the whole premise of the Tower of Terror in this ride. Does it come out of the elevator shaft like it does in the U.S.? Or at least in Florida?

[00:50:58] I think it did, did it? No. No, I think it just stays. I think it like opens and you see like the tiki thing all lit up in green and then it sort of closes and you sort of drop again. There's no moving forward. Yeah, there's none of that kind of, that frontal movement where you move forward and then lift. I think you just stay within the Tower. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. That sounds really cool. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was nice to see, even though it was a same ride, like a different narrative spin on it.

[00:51:28] But my mum, because we went to Florida when I was younger, my mum and dad and my brother, and my mum said she'd never go on that again. And she went on it. And then she said, I realised now why I never wanted to go on it again. She said, I really mean it, never again. Yeah. Yeah, she was particularly screaming on that one, wasn't she? I think even before it went, she was like, like these high-pitched kind of like, lass. Yeah, gripping the sides.

[00:51:54] We've got plans to go to California next year with my mum coming to meet us there. So I'm like, ooh, it's not called Tower of Terror though, it's called Going to the Galaxy. So we can get her on it. You can get her into it. That's funny. And then we stopped for a little ice cream break. So we tried the sea salt ice cream. It's like a pink shell. A lot of people like take photos of it and stuff again. Yeah, it was really nice.

[00:52:21] It was sort of like a vanilla-y sea salty ice cream. And then inside was like a little berry raspberry sauce. That was really yummy. Yeah, we all got those. We didn't bother getting like various snacks. We all just had a shell each because they were really nice. Which led us on to Aquatopia. So where the pavilion was that we grabbed the snack from, there was like a huge sort of tower on a pier and all around like a surrounding

[00:52:49] like waterway with different like geysers and different caverns. And yeah, we went on Aquatopia, which I believe is endemic to Japan. Yeah, I don't think we have anything like that in any of the other parks that I've talked to people about. Yeah, yeah. It felt its own kind of creation. It was nice. It looked, you know what was funny? It looked more visually pleasing when we weren't on it than when we were. I think depending on what track you get, because there's two separate tracks.

[00:53:19] One is kind of, I think, a little bit more tamer. So you don't get spun around as much. You don't have as many geysers. You don't get as wet. And then the other side is like the hardcore mode where you get a little bit more soaked. But we didn't, did we? The three of us were on it. We never really got splashed. We went on the side where you're going to get soaked. And it was so hot. And we were like, we just need this to cool us down. And we hardly got wet. The girls behind us, we turned around and they looked like they'd been through like some sort of like sea storm.

[00:53:49] I don't know where theirs took them. They're all in like nice dresses. And I think like some of them were in like cosplay stuff. And they did not look very impressed when they got off. We were just like, oh, we could have done with a bit of that. We could have done with a good soaking. Well, that's like Cali River Rapids in Animal Kingdom, which I always say it's like roulette because you don't know which seats are going to get splashed or not.

[00:54:18] I mean, you can get off that ride nearly completely dry or you can look like somebody dunked you in the water. And you could be sat right next to that person, couldn't you? You both get off at the same time. One of you is just completely different. Whereas I think is it builds rat barges in Popeye. Yeah, there's no mercy on that ride. You get absolutely, I think you get absolutely like swamped.

[00:54:42] Yeah, I meant to ride that when we were in Universal in July and the timing did not work out where I wanted to get soaked at that very moment. So, of course, I missed it yet again. One day. Yeah, probably for the best. Yeah, that is a guarantee. But yeah, no, it's fun. Soaring? Yeah, we did Soaring next. That was a little bit of a long wait as well. That was that 100 minute wait, that one.

[00:55:13] Same, I think literally the same display. Apart from the very end, rather than going into Florida, you go into Tokyo and see the Tokyo Radio Tower and all the surrounding provinces there. So that was really cool. Just that little bit of cultural difference. But for the majority of it, like all of the landscapes across like the Snowy Cat Mountains, Bavaria, the Africa, Savannah, that was all the same. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[00:55:42] The ride has a different storyline, though. That's sort of like centered around like a female explorer. And like in the queue, there's loads of different pictures and stuff from like all over the world. Oh, that's interesting. She's Italian, isn't she? She's like... Yeah. She's an Italian explorer. She's also a hawker. She's got... She has like a bird on her arm and he kind of like flies off in this kind of virtual escape and then returns to her. So yeah, no Patrick Warburton. Sort of. That's a shame. I love Patrick Warburton.

[00:56:14] I missed him in that ride as well. I was like, just want his voice. Then, Nemo and Friends, Seafinder. Yeah, that was... Was it 3D? It was like the Muppets, wasn't it? The Muppets 3D cinema. It was like a theater show. So you go and sit in front of a screen with 3D glasses. It's like Finding Nemo themed. Mm-hmm. That was really cute. I think Ailey didn't really enjoy it. No.

[00:56:43] But I don't think she's got really that much affinity to Finding Nemo. She doesn't really know it that well. So she kind of came up and went, what was that about? But yeah. No, we liked that one. That was cute. Obviously all in Japanese and it had all the characters from both films. And it was just a journey through the sea and then onto the land and then the EAC. So that was nice. That's a really cool section.

[00:57:13] Agrabah. No Aladdin. Because I know that Disney Tokyo is a franchise of Disney and it isn't owned by Disney specifically. So I don't think they've got the rights for Aladdin himself because he wasn't mentioned or cited anywhere in the entire pavilion. That is very interesting. Mm. Like they've got a flying carpet, but it's called Jasmine's flying carpet. Huh. Yeah. That's checkers. That's checkers.

[00:57:43] I'm looking it up to see if it is. I did learn that. Yeah. It's not wholly owned. It is franchised. So it is their own kind of part, but they must have got the rights for the other names. But yeah, Aladdin. Aladdin wasn't mentioned at all. Huh. I don't know. I don't know what that could be about. It's not. But my immediate Google search is not giving me any information here because it makes it sound like he's there or at least he was.

[00:58:13] There was something called Aladdin's Great Adventure. It's on a something. And that was called Simbad's Great Adventure, I think. Yeah. It's called Extinct Attractions. But I'm just looking to see. Does it does it say why? Why he went away? Where'd you go, Aladdin? I know. On a long carpet ride. Yeah. My first thought was it was like patented because I know Aladdin's obviously the pantomime as well.

[00:58:44] I don't think there was a mention of Jafar or Abanaza either. There wasn't. Jafar, Iago weren't really mentioned. The genie was there. So there was a show, a magician show about a failed magician or like a magician who got the lamp and then he performed these amazing magical feats with the genie. And he had an assistant and it was a bit of like a slapstick kind of show with elements of magic and illusion.

[00:59:11] And the genie was basically used as all of the visual effects. Obviously, it was all dubbed in Japanese as well. So we didn't get any Robin Williams voiceover. But yeah, the genie was there as a character. And I think the sultan and Jasmine and Raja, is it Raja, the tiger? He was there. Okay. Did you get the impression that Jasmine was single? Like, are we in the storyline before he showed up? Maybe.

[00:59:40] It felt like that. Yeah. It felt like it was just more about homage to Agrabah and to like the culture. I know it's sort of meant to be set loosely in Morocco, isn't it? So it was more about like the atmosphere than it was. Yeah. Let's get rid of Aladdin. It's all about Jasmine. It's all about genie. And then there was a carousel ride that we went on, Junie's Carousel. Yeah. That's cool. Oh, really nice, yeah. And it played the Arabian Nights theme. Mm-hmm. That was pretty cute.

[01:00:08] That was pretty much everything we did in that part of the park. We went on Frozen. Yes. Later on in the day. Unfortunately, the Rapunzel ride was down for refurbishment, which is the one that I really wanted to go on. She had a haircut. There's a Rapunzel ride at Disneyland Paris, right? Like a floating lantern kind of almost like a teacup ride, I think.

[01:00:39] Oh, beautiful. Yeah. So what was this supposed to be had it been open for you? It's supposed to be quite similar to Frozen where you're on sort of like a boat and you're going through the story and there's like a nice little floating lantern section and stuff. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, but we did Frozen. That was quite a long wait, but we decided to do Single Rider and we got on pretty quickly. But the funny thing was, with Single Rider, we managed to actually all sit together still.

[01:01:08] Because there was like three spaces. Mm-hmm. So I think like maybe mom... We sat in a vertical line. Yeah. So like there was my mom and then me and then Alex all sat behind each other. Mm-hmm. So we managed to be on the same boat, which was really nice. That was lucky. Doesn't always happen. No. It felt like it was pre-planned. Like, oh yeah, we agreed to do this. Because I think there's like three rows of four isn't there on the boat. So there's 12 seats. But there were three families of three. So we all just kind of like sat.

[01:01:40] Yeah. And that felt very much the... Not a carbon copy, but very similar to the one in Florida. Again, in Japanese. It's beautiful to hear the songs in a different rendition. Mm-hmm. And it had the same kind of like thrill and Elsa creating the castle and the snow monster and Olaf. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's beautiful. Word of advice would be to, if you're happy to, and if you can, I know obviously people with kids can't really,

[01:02:09] can't separate, but try it single rider. Because I think it was already by that point about like two hours and 30 minutes. It was built. Yeah. I don't think... I'm not waiting for anything for that long. Unless it's like something brand new that I'm super excited about. Like, I feel like I waited that long the first time I wrote Flight of Passage, maybe. Oh, cool. Which is worth it. Like so worth it.

[01:02:39] Yeah. Definitely worth it the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, as you say, it's a, yeah. And that is located at the back of the park. Quote me on the... Fantasy Springs. Fantasy Springs. So where Peter Pan is around sort of like the side, tangles the other side, and then Frozen is directly at the very end of the, of that land, of that immersion. Mm-hmm. And then it was getting towards nowhere, the park was closing.

[01:03:07] So I think we went on Raging Spirits again, because that was showing like a really low wait time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Another 360 revolution. Mm-hmm. And the rumble in the jungle. Yeah. So we did that again. That was on our kind of way out. The only things I think we didn't really go on were the smaller kind of rides. There was like a flounder ride, a little mermaid ride, as well as a little mermaid installment where I think you could meet Ariel. And there was like a Neptune's, is it Neptune? Not Neptune. Trident. Trident.

[01:03:37] Trident's Cavern. Mm-hmm. We just weren't really interested in that section of the park. We just kind of like made our way. And it was as we were leaving that we saw the, the fireworks spectacle and everyone gathered for the show. Oh, also a little, little tidbit. But for Japan, we find that a lot of the queues and the crowds for the street performances get, sit down way earlier in advance.

[01:04:04] Like obviously I know for the fireworks at night, people in Florida will get there, you know, ahead of time to secure a good visual spot. But we found like in the day, they would sit down by the side of the pavement about 50, 40 even, you know, minutes beforehand. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They take the parades and shows very seriously in Japan. Uh-huh. And I've heard that they stay seated for them too. Like they don't. Yeah. Stand up.

[01:04:31] Which I think is kind of nice because then everybody can see. Yeah. There's, there's a real emphasis anywhere you go in Japan on being respectful, being quiet, public transport, um, just, just being aware of the people, people clean up after themselves like to a ridiculous degree. There's a lot, obviously there's the respect of sort of bowing and, and, and so we, you know, um, it was, that was really like humbling.

[01:04:58] There was a big, I think there's a big parade that we could have done with actually where they brought in this big machine. Like it was a super soaker essentially. And it showered people in water, which again, would have been a relief in the middle of the day. Um, mist, misters. Uh-huh. Yeah. And it was like a really fun song and it just kept getting in my head the whole time. Baymax. They're obsessed with Baymax and they're also obsessed with Zootopia. Oh, okay.

[01:05:26] So we saw a lot of the, um, the fox from Zootopia, loads of those like ears and the bunny ears. Yeah. It's really cute. That's really cool. Um, yeah. When, when you do go to Disneyland in California, there's like a little, uh, San Fransokio sort of area in California adventure. Um, no rides or anything, but it's just like snacks and stuff. Food really. The best. Oh, cool.

[01:05:56] I know that after your Disney time, you did have a number of days where you did other things off in Japan, but then you eventually made your way on July 19th over to Universal Studios. Mm-hmm. So let's talk Universal. How was that in comparison to your Disney time? Did you have a preference? Obviously it was a lot more brief. We were only literally there for the day for Universal.

[01:06:24] So not the same kind of, um, exploration as, as Disney and Disney Sea. Mm-hmm. But equally, I think with the rides, with the snacks, with the atmosphere, very enjoyable. Again, lots of comparisons to Florida, but then also quite a lot of places that were wholly unique to Tokyo. Mm-hmm. Uh, fun atmosphere. Obviously another hot, sweltering day. Lots of breaks for snacks and drinks. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, I love it. I love Universal anyway.

[01:06:53] Like, the one in Florida. I've just, it's so nostalgic to me. Mm-hmm. So it was nice because it was pretty similar. You can see, you've got Universal City Walk, haven't you? Yeah. Is that its official name? I think so, yeah. I tend to abbreviate, don't I? Yeah. That was a lot more sort of straight lines. So rather than it being a full, like, kind of immersion around the globe in the middle of the lake, it was essentially one straight line. They had quite a lot of the restaurants that were kind of typical of Florida. Voodoo Donuts was there.

[01:07:23] Mm-hmm. There was also, like, what is the name of the, before I forget, the name of the supermarket chain that we went to? Lawson's. Lawson's. There was a big Lawson's, which is a big, favorable, like, Japanese supermarket chain. And then the actual globe is over the river around the corner next to where all of the kind of queues are. So it's just up on a plinth. And you can go stand right next to it and take a picture, wait for the rotating sign. Mm-hmm.

[01:08:12] Mm-hmm.

[01:08:41] Mm-hmm. I wrote down that you wanted to prioritize Super Mario Land. Is that where you went first? So with that, you had to basically book in specific times. They would basically give allocated slots. Or you would literally have to just say, request for Super Mario Land, and then they would come back with a kind of, like, general time. We didn't actually get into Super Mario Land until 12, so midday. That was kind of our designated slot.

[01:09:12] So where did you head first after Rope Drop then? We went to Harry Potter Land. We went to Hogsmeade. Wizarding World. Wizarding World. So. The first thing we did was we went on the Forbidden Journey ride. I've put here as a title, you know, because we've done lots of notes and we put, oh, you know, Beauty and the Beast, blah, blah, blah. So I've titled this Harry Potter ride as I've put Harry Potter and the Mechanical Breakdown.

[01:09:41] Oh, no. Yeah. It's not our first time, I think, breaking down on it. But yeah, we got stuck, didn't we? Yeah. That's funny. We got stuck right at the bit where you're sort of in the room with the basilisk. Chamber of Secrets. Oh, yeah. And when the ride sort of tilted you forward a bit. So we got stuck like that. And my mum was adamant she was going to fall out of it and she was freaking out. And we got stuck for about, I'd say about 10 minutes. Yeah.

[01:10:11] Yeah. And all the lights came on and we thought we would have to get like evacuated off it. And then the ride went again. And as we got off the ride and were walking to leave, they were like, go back on it, go back on it, go back on it. So we went back on. And the mum, it was like, are we going to get stuck again in the same place? As soon as we got past that basilisk, we were like, okay, that's fine. Yeah. Because I think Hayley was preoccupied with the fact on the Whomping Willow that you get thrown backwards so that one of the tree branches sort of hits you and imagine if we got stuck there.

[01:10:40] I was like, yeah, the blood pressure on our heads would have been crazy. Yeah. So when we got off that, we went to get a butterbeer. Mm-hmm. Because when my mum came to Australia to visit us, there was a Harry Potter exhibition in Melbourne that we took her to. And we were like, you have to try butterbeer, it's so good. She got some, she tried it and it was so bad. So I said to my mum, we're going to have to make it up to you. You're going to have to try this. It's going to be good. And she tried it and really liked it.

[01:11:09] Which format? Because there's multiple options. There's hot, there's gold, there's frozen. Yep. Yeah, frozen butterbeer, yeah. Yeah, she loved it. It was good. And we took some photos outside the castle. And then... Then we went for a... Oh, we went on to Flight the Hippogriff. Mm-hmm. The only other ride they have in that... They don't have any other rides there? That's the only, yeah, the only two rides they've got.

[01:11:37] So they've got, yeah, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Flight the Hippogriff. So no Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure there? No Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. No Gringotts. Obviously, they only have Hogsmeade. They don't have Diagon Alley. Right. Or Diagon Alley, which is sometimes called. So yeah, we went straight to the Three Broomsticks for a nice, sizable kind of like mid-morning

[01:12:07] brunch, didn't we? Yeah. We got a platter. We got a... It was essentially like a platter of chicken breast, chicken wings, all seasoned. There was four massive cobs of corn. Potatoes, vegetables. A bigger like roast, almost like bonfire style kind of dinner. It was really nice. It was as big as we'd expected. Actually, it was bigger than we expected. We thought, oh, you know, it says it feeds four. I tend to eat for a small family of five.

[01:12:38] And it was massive. It was a huge platter. So that was nice. I think it was called The Great Feast. Yeah. We just shared that to fill ourselves up for the day, really. Mm-hmm. So... I just wanted to say, actually, as well, like on the front of staff, not that they weren't polite in Disney World because they were, but I noticed more so with Universal. They really went out of their way to talk to us. They were so attentive.

[01:13:07] I think because sometimes... I've certainly noticed the comparison between Disney and Universal is that Disney staff are often a lot more enthusiastic just in general and like Universal scene is more kind of cool. But I just noticed that the Universal staff in particular were just phenomenal at wanting to sort of help, wanting to know, you know, where you traveled from, wishing you well in your journey.

[01:13:32] They were like equally as lovely as Disney, but there was just an added element of like investment. It was so cool. Hmm. That's nice to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly in The Three Brews, actually, that's what triggered the kind of the memory. They were so lovely to us there. Mm-hmm. And then next, where did we go after Harry Potter? So next, you and my mum went on the Hollywood ride. Oh, yeah.

[01:14:02] Yeah, that was a roller coaster. You had the option of going backwards on that one as well. You know, if you like. I think it was a heavy awake time for backwards. Wait, what do you mean if you like? How do you get to choose whether you go backwards or not? Are some of the seats just completely backwards? Just at random. No, there's a specific ride queue for the backwards, which I think adds another 50 minutes an hour

[01:14:31] comparatively, you know, onto the wait time, which we didn't do. We just went on the single riders for that. And I think the estimated time was about 30 minutes or 20 minutes. And we got on there in like 15. We were on a separate ride vehicle. So I said goodbye to Hayley. She went off somewhere far left and sat like behind kind of like rip rocket ride. Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. R.I.P. R.I.P.? I know. R.I.P.

[01:15:01] Rip rocket ride. Such a cool pun, that. I can't. Yeah, I'm sad that that's gone. It didn't have the same vertical drop. So you weren't sort of like anchored on that vertical height and then drop. It was more just you were pushed forward. It was more just like horizontal and momentum. But that was really cool, really fast. There was a music option, which I couldn't figure out until one of the girls next to me went, you just press this. I went, oh, yeah, cool. Thanks. It was like only five songs. One of them was Taylor Swift.

[01:15:29] The other three or four were Japanese pop bands, the likes of which I've probably not heard. Maybe there was that famous one, BTS. But I ended up, I don't know why. I ended up listening to some sort of Japanese news podcast. I don't know what button I pressed. It just came through with radio. I could see these Japanese presenters. I was like, what's playing? Well, how disappointing to be on an exciting roller coaster and hearing a news report.

[01:16:00] I'm sure this is really important. If I could only, if I could only speak Japanese, I'd know what they're saying. And with that one, there wasn't any 360 revolutions, but it did take you very quickly. And there was like spirals and like a lot of like sway left and right. I was shouting out. I found it really kind of adrenaline like the other right is. So, yeah, comparable to Rip Rocket in terms of, I think, like the structure, but not the ride, but not necessarily the full adrenaline kind of experience.

[01:16:29] But, yeah, lots of fun. Really, really like that one. And Hayley, I think, equally enjoyed it as well. And then we headed off to the Zed ride. And that was amazing. We loved that ride. Best. It was the best one. Best. It's very similar to Cosmic Rewind. Oh, okay. Pretty much the same. Except you have like two people at the front, two people at the back. Like as in like opposite sides. Yes.

[01:16:58] Oh, like they're back to back. Back to back. Yeah, that's what I meant to say. Okay. It's like a waltzer, isn't it? Yeah. But the ride vehicle is like similar where it's sort of like a circle shape. You kind of get like launched a little bit and then you go around and there's Zed, who's a DJ, like a famous DJ. I am not familiar. There's a lot of his, like it's based around him. So there's all those songs playing. I could sing one of you, sing one of his songs for the podcast listeners, but I don't want

[01:17:26] to deafen or like scare them. But yeah, I think the song called Are You Gonna Stay the Night? Yeah. Yeah. There were hits which I wouldn't have been able to name going on to the ride, but recognised them instantly when we were there. I think I'd attributed them to be like David Guetta or Avicii, but they weren't. They were his. But yeah, it was so cool. It was all crystallised. It all had a lot of like hexagons, octagons. There was a bit where you sort of like came into this giant kind of bowl.

[01:17:54] It reminded me of being on like, you know, like a water rise as a kid, like disco lights, geometric patterns, crystal chandeliers and all of that. That was so fun. What about that girl that you saw in front of you? Yeah, there was, I was laughing so much because there was on the ride vehicle, like opposite us, there was a lady who obviously was having a, like, who's just not loving it at all. And when we got off the ride and I looked at her, she literally was like slumped in a

[01:18:23] seat with her head to one side and just looking like she'd been through a really bad time. Poor woman. Poor thing. I think she got dragged on it by her kid or something. Bless her. You know what? Shout out to her for being a trooper. That's going to be family lore. They're going to be talking about it for years to come. Yeah. Remember when we made mom ride this? Oh, that was so cool.

[01:18:52] We did that twice. In a row? No, we left it for a little bit, didn't we? And then we went, oh, we need to ride it again before we go. We need that DJ fix. I think there's just something so cool about being able to rave on a ride and just party as well. Like, you know, music that you recognize from when you were younger. And no, it was really cool. Really cool. And then by the time we'd done all of that, I was ready to go into the Super Mario world. It was very exciting.

[01:19:23] So yeah, it got to 12 o'clock and we went through and we were just amazed by what it looked like. Having played Mario, you know, all our lives, it was really cool. It was stunning. It was a lot more compact than you'd think. It was sort of like a micro world. So I think that as well aesthetically helped it rather than it being too far spaced. It had all the different like levels that you'd come across, all of the pipes, all of the

[01:19:52] Goombas sort of like being rotated around. Sorry if I pronounced that wrong. I think it's Goombas. Is it? Goombas? Yeah, Goombas. And the Coopers. The Coopers are the Goombas. Crikey. And then there were the mushrooms and it was just, it was a sensory overload. It was insane. It was absolutely insane. I think it's nearly identical to the one in Epic Universe from what I understand.

[01:20:19] And I found that to be a little overwhelming visually. And I said this on my episode with my Alex, that because of that sensory overload, it felt more cramped than it actually was. So yeah, it was a little much for me. I mean, we enjoyed the rides. But like once we were done with the rides, I was kind of like, I couldn't like hang out here.

[01:20:46] This is a little stressful for me just because of everything that's going on and all the sounds on the sites and everything. I feel like that's a really interesting point. I feel like that is exactly how it's designed. It doesn't, because I suppose it knows it's going to be so busy and so popular. It prides itself on being that kind of like, you do the rides, you enjoy the aesthetic, and then you go back to a bit more of a calming element. I think it kind of prides itself on it is that kind of, you know, almost Wreck-It Ralph style. You're in a video game.

[01:21:15] It's virtual. Everything's kicking off all at the same time. You've had your hour there. You've had your two hours. Go get some downtime. I think that, yeah, that kind of plays into this design because they don't want people like loitering for too long. Yeah, we felt the same. We felt like once we'd done it, we'd outstay our welcome a little bit. No one said anything, but it was like, yeah, we need to move on. Otherwise, we're just going to get caught up in, like, you know, hype. Oh, my word. The rides were fantastic.

[01:21:46] They were so good. And this is where we really used Single Rider queue because both of the rides were looking at a really hefty weight. So we were like, let's just do Single Rider. We got on the Mario Kart, I think, in about 25 minutes. Yeah, because I think the normal ride was projected to be about, was it by this time, about an hour and 50, maybe even more, maybe two and a half hours. So, yeah, we did Single Riders into Bowser's Castle.

[01:22:14] There was a gentleman, I think, who did the Single Riders, but he went on the normal queue because he wanted to see all the aesthetic of all the, you know, all of the Easter eggs and the hidden elements. And then he got let back into the Single Queue, which, you know, for people who want to experience the ride queue and then go as a single rider, they let you. But, yeah, there's a staggering amount of technology in that ride, wasn't there? They get in the gaming. Yeah, that was really fun. I found that very overstimulating, though. Yeah.

[01:22:46] So, did I hear you say two rides? Are there only two rides in this area? There's three. Okay, yeah. Then it's the same. The third one, which is... Yoshi's Adventure, however. We didn't really bother with that. Yeah. I mean, it was fine. It was cute. But it was very much a little kid ride. Yeah. But the John Pekong, the mine cart ride, I loved that one. I loved that, too. That was probably my favorite ride.

[01:23:16] Yeah. We did Single Rider for that and we got on pretty fast as well. I'd say probably like 20 minutes for that one. I think like even 10. It said 100 minutes for the Single Rider. I suppose they can't judge because they've got to, you know, guesstimate how many people are going to be in family groups. There's only four seats to a cart. So they put the Single Rider as 100 minutes. It was either that or 120. We got it in 10 minutes. So, yeah.

[01:23:44] I was with a Japanese family and they were really lovely. We were talking all the whole way around. The only thing I found with that was because of the weight was kind of throwing you around the track, it just pulled on my legs the entire time. Like it was crushing my upper legs. I was like in a bit of pain. I think that's because I'm sucking up, Alex. But it was a bit like, ow, ow. But, oh, yeah. It was cool how some of the track disappeared and it was replaced with it. Yeah.

[01:24:14] It was pretty, yeah, it was amazing. Really fun. And the whole, we enjoyed the vibe that we were dancing quite a lot. Yeah. In the Donkey Kong Aztec area. We played the drums. You know how they had the big drums. They had to have it in the Epic Universe. Yeah, we did that. That was fun. And then we got a picture with Mario and Luigi. And then pretty much after that, yeah, did the same, I think, as yourself and just went

[01:24:42] straight back out to the other part of the park. And that takes us on, I think. Jurassic Park? Jurassic Park. Yeah, Jurassic Park River Adventure. Which, again, is the same as the Florida one. Yes. Yeah, but that's like a really nostalgic one for me. So I love that. And my mum loved that too. And then we get on to Flying Dinosaurs. What is Flying Dinosaurs?

[01:25:12] Incredible ride. Sorry. What is Flying Dinosaurs? It's basically, I'm trying to think of a ride from Florida. I know there's one from Alton Towers in the middle of England, which is, you're basically horizontal. Oh, like the, I think it's called the, oh God, what is the dinosaur that flies? It starts with a P. Pterodactyl. Pterodactyl. Pterodactyl, there we go.

[01:25:40] I was like, I think it's called Pterodactyl. Maybe it's called Pterodactyl Flyers or something. I've never done it because I didn't, for some reason in Florida, I think I was under the impression that it was not for adults unless you had a kid with you. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there's tamer versions of it in other places. I think they had one in SeaWorld called like Manta Rail or something.

[01:26:07] But yeah, this one was an absolute like thrill extreme ride. There was, there was no holds barred. So you started basically on a tilt and you'd ascend to a certain point. You'd overlook all of the canopies and all of the ferns of like the surrounding Jurassic Park. And that's where most of the screams and the kind of panic happened. And what was, what was Hayley saying? Oh, when we got to the top, my mum was like, oh God, please, God, no. She was so scared. And she kept her eyes closed the whole time.

[01:26:36] That's the ride she was like, I will never go on that again. That finished her off, I think. Yeah. I loved it. I was, I was laughing like maniacally the entire time. I don't know. It just sent me into an absolute adrenaline overload. I guess, I guess go full kind of like crazy when, whenever I find a ride that's like, this is mad, this is mad. And it plummets you into like a dark kind of tunnel, which is again, like a ride in Alton Towers, Oblivion. And the Hulk actually, isn't it? I know you've not been in the Hulk.

[01:27:05] When you go through like a fog curtain and then you blast out the other end. It's just insane. And it's quite long. It's not like a few seconds and it's over. It goes on for a sizable amount of time. I loved it. Incredible. Real, real adrenaline wave. Probably, probably the most adrenaline seeking coaster. Comparable to Hulk and the Raptor. Velocicoaster. Velocicoaster. Yeah.

[01:27:36] Yeah. And then I think we just kind of like sat down and had like some ice creams and just sort of recovered a bit. And then we went to see like a really cute show. Like, is it called Sing? Yes. The film Sing. It's like an animated animal scene. The DreamWorks movie. Yeah. We went to see a little stage show of that and that was really cute. Yeah. They had all the animal masks, didn't they? Yeah.

[01:28:05] For a bit of air con and a bit of a relax after that flying dinosaur ride. Yeah. It filled multiple roles actually, didn't it? Yeah. A quick break. And then I think we kind of started in, I think it was like the Despicable Me minions area. Yeah. We did the villain con. I think I've got that in Florida.

[01:28:32] The villain con where you sort of stood on the conveyor belt and you're having to shoot things. I can't remember because when we went in July, I, we just didn't do any of the Despicable Me stuff. I asked Alex if he wanted to do it and he was like, no, I've done it all before. It's fine. Yeah. I didn't push it because I didn't remember like loving anything in it anyway. So. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really like, you don't want to miss out if you don't do it. Right. Right.

[01:29:02] I think we were just in the area and we thought there's no way let's just do it. It's a conveyor belt. We don't. Yeah. We don't have to do too much. Yeah. Similar to some of like Buzz Lightyear with the blasters and all of the coins dropping. Yeah. Really, really cool technology. Massive screens and there's more people shooting things at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose it wasn't so much Despicable Me. It just felt like the minions have taken over so much of the theming.

[01:29:31] And I suppose it's very, they are very popular on their own without Gru or without that story. So that was cool. Oh, we went on Jaws as well. Yeah. Oh, I'm jealous. They still have Jaws. Yeah. That was really fun. Because when, every time I've been to Florida, like when I was a kid, it was being refurbished or it had just been removed. So I'd never actually been on it before. So that was cool. Oh, okay.

[01:30:01] Yeah. First time for me. Freaky. Like genuinely pretty scary with the animatronic coming out of the water. They really sort of build up the hype of that. Mm-hmm. It felt a bit like, it felt a bit like a scarier version of Jungle Cruise. Because the, I think. Because the, yeah, the presenter on that obviously was being funny and sort of tilting the boat and whatnot and making jokes. But, yeah, yeah, no, really cool.

[01:30:30] A lot of suspense. Yeah, I think that was about it really, wasn't it? We were kind of, like, had problems with the heat again, so. It was, yeah, it was ridiculously hot and some of the areas were a lot more exposed than the others. Yeah, so I think we just kind of dipped out a bit early. Mm-hmm. That day. So that was really the extent of your theme park time.

[01:30:56] And we're kind of getting to the end of our time to chat just based on what time it is here in the U.S. And I suppose you need to get on with your day, too, because it's morning where you are right now. But is there anything you wanted to mention specifically about your Japan time outside of the theme park time? Yeah, so one of the things I wanted to mention is a restaurant in Tokyo we went to.

[01:31:24] If you did want to go and have a little bit of some Disney magic without maybe you can't go to the parks on your trip, there's a restaurant called Disney Harvest Marketplace. Okay. It's in one of the big shopping centres on the top floor, and it's all Disney-themed food, and, like, there's a big Mickey in the middle. So I thought that was really cute. I booked us in there. We had a nice time there. Other than that, a lot of things we did, so we did, like, a cooking cast in Osaka. That was really nice.

[01:31:52] And learned to make some ramen and gyozas. Mm-hmm. Did sumo, watched the sumo. It wasn't, like, a sumo match. It was more them sort of talking through, like, the history of sumo, and they did, like, a little match and stuff. Mm-hmm. We went to Fuji Kawaguchi Co., which is right where Mount Fuji is. Mm-hmm. And luckily we had two very clear days to see Mount Fuji, because in summer it's quite hard to see it.

[01:32:21] Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah, so we rented bikes and we, like, biked around the lake, and that was really special. It was insane. The amount of people who told me prior to us going that, oh, don't be disappointed if you don't see the entire mountain because it's cloaked by a lot of clouds, especially near the top. We got at least a day and a half where it was completely unobstructed. Lots of beautiful photos. So we felt very lucky and very honoured that we had that experience. And it was really cute at night as well because, obviously,

[01:32:51] everything went dark. Anyone who was renting a hut on the mountain or was doing the expedition, because I think summer is the only time they allow anyone to climb Fuji just because of weather restrictions. There were little huts twinkling, so some of the lights would come on, so you could see these gorgeous little lights so many miles away in the distance. And, yeah, biking around the lake and having the Fuji in the background, that, yeah, that was a highlight. Kawaguchi Co. was so nice, so quiet as well.

[01:33:19] So we went into Shibuya, the samurai and ninja exhibition about all the history of, like, shoguns, samurai, kind of like the Japanese empire, ninjas. And we even got to, like, throw some stars. Did, like, a whole demonstration in this kind of big foam room where you were throwing some stars, Japanese throwing stars. Wow. Wow. We did a traditional tea ceremony in Kyoto. That was really special too.

[01:33:51] Mm-hmm. And what else did we do? Oh, we went to see, like, a really cool show in Kyoto. It was called Gia. And it was all about, like, these robots. But, like, the scenery was really cool. And they all had different talents. There was, like, a magician, like, a breakdancer. That was really good. And we went to see a traditional kabuki theatre show in Hiroshima. Mm-hmm. It was, yeah, it was like an extension of kabuki. It was called, like, it was like kabuki. It was like Kaigura.

[01:34:19] So I think similar to kabuki where they do a lot of plays, it was sort of a lot of it was sung. It always had, like, a musical accompaniment. There was a percussionist on a drum the entire production and, like, flute. All in sort of, like, white-faced makeup with gorgeous, like, masks, beautiful, like, embroidered Japanese garb and swords. And it was, yeah, it was a story about an ancient and noble princess whose father was killed.

[01:34:47] And she essentially, like, wants revenge on the current emperor. It's, yeah, no, that was incredible. Hiroshima was a really beautiful place. We went to the museum as well, pay her respects there. Yeah, stunning place, stunning place. That sounds amazing. Yeah, you definitely need to go. I for sure need to go.

[01:35:12] I think we're planning right now that we will go to Japan for Alex's high school graduation. Slash both Charles and I turning 50. Slash our 20th wedding anniversary. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, it's all kind of, like, happening at one time. So I was like, that's deserving of a big trip. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we got a couple more years.

[01:35:41] But, yeah, definitely looking forward to the day that that happens because it will happen. It has to happen. You'll have a fantastic time. Yeah. Oh, no. That'd be amazing. Yeah. Well, it has been such a pleasure to have you both back. And I hope that you'll be back again at some point. I would love to talk to you about one of your local UK parks.

[01:36:06] I don't think I've talked to anyone who's gone to a park in sort of that area of the world. Probably the closest would be, obviously, Disneyland Paris that I've spoken to somebody about. And then also Efteling. But I know that you have some parks that are kind of a little bit closer to home. Maybe smaller, but closer to home. Yeah. That I'd love to hear about at some point. Alton Towers, yeah. Yeah. That'd be a big one. And we are getting universal in a few years. But it'll be a lot of time before that happens.

[01:36:37] Yeah. I'll probably get put back. Yeah. So coming in the next decade, probably. Yeah. Yeah. But Alton Towers, if you have an opportunity to go there and you want to chat with me about it, I would love to hear all about it. Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you again to Beth and Alex. It was such a pleasure talking with both of you again. And I really hope that one day our paths will cross in person.

[01:37:05] You are both such kindred spirits. Listeners, thanks for sticking with us to the end. I hope you liked what you heard. And if you did, make sure you share it with a friend. And leave a rating or review on the podcast app you're listening on now, which helps others to find the show. Until next time, keep daydreaming about where you long to be.