Post-Trip Report: Heather and Tim’s Go Big or Go Home Vacation (June/July 2026)

[00:00:11] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, a Magical Trip Report Podcast. My name is Virginia and I am your host. Before we dive into today's episode, this is your reminder and my plug for how you can show your love and help others to find this podcast. First, please make sure that you have subscribed. It is so easy and costs you absolutely nothing to hit the plus sign on your podcast app. Second, make sure you have left a review on that podcast app.

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[00:01:10] This message box slash whatever you want to call it for anything that you would like to submit, whether it's a hot take, a travel tip, feedback on the show, whatever. And this week, I have another submission to share. Hey there, Virginia. This is Patrick, long time listener, two time guest and first time caller. I've noticed you've been asking for some Walt Disney World hot takes. Well, here is my hottest of hot takes.

[00:01:37] And that is that I think Luminous the story of us is the best nighttime spectacular at Walt Disney World. And that Fantasmic is overrated. Always love listening to the show. Can't wait to hear you reflect on this one. Maybe we can argue about it on a future podcast. Thank you for your time and keep up the good work.

[00:02:01] Thank you so much, Pat, for calling in and for sharing that hot take. And I have to say that most definitely was the hottest of takes. When you said Luminous was the best nighttime show at Walt Disney World, I was like, okay, to each their own because I personally can take it or leave it.

[00:02:19] But I know that some people prefer a nighttime spectacular without so many projections like Happily Ever After has. For me, Happily Ever After just brings the emotion and I will cry nearly every time I watch it, especially on those nights when Tinkerbell is able to fly.

[00:02:37] But dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. I literally gasped when you said Fantasmic was overrated. Again, to each their own. But I think Fantasmic has it all. It has the pyrotechnics. But for me, it's really the combination of the live performers and all those pyrotechnics and the water mist projections that just make it so magical.

[00:03:01] On top of that, I love the fact that it's stadium seating so everyone has a good seat no matter where you sit. Pat is going to be on the show again early in the spring. So, Pat, if you remind me, maybe we can debate it then. Listeners, if you also have a hot take, a travel tip, or feedback to share, you can leave that by visiting my website, which is wherelongtobepodcast.com, and by clicking the Leave Virginia a Voice Message button that is on the right-hand side of the screen.

[00:03:30] And with that, let's dive into today's post-trip interview. As a reminder, Heather and Tim's travel agent for the park tickets and dining plan of this DVC stay was Kristen Gallagher, who is a friend of the podcast and a previous guest herself. Her information is in the show notes if you're looking for some help planning your own magical vacation. Welcome back, Heather. Hi. It's good to be back.

[00:03:57] And it's you by yourself tonight, unfortunately, because you're doing the divide-and-conquer method of parenting, which we've all had to do at some time or another. That's what happens when you have all the children and they don't cooperate with the times that you've set to do things. Yes, it happens. It's a lot more simple with one, I will say. One kid is just easy breezy.

[00:04:25] The bee's knees, man. Those are simpler times. Yeah. And I say this as someone who just talked to their child who's currently out of state, and, you know, I take it back. It's not so easy. It's a different kind of hard. It is. He's like, I want to come home. I'm like, no, you're there for two weeks. Stick it out. You're good. You're good. He's just, you know, he's got a girl at home and he misses her. So, like, focus on what you need to focus on. Spicy.

[00:04:55] She'll still be here in two weeks. No, she's super nice. We really like her. So, very, very happy for them and hope that he can actually focus on what he needs to do out there. All right. Your trip.

[00:05:10] Yep. This was an exciting one because you were staying at the Polynesian for the very first time and you are DVC members. So, excited to hear all about that. It was a bit of a split stay. So, you did break it up with one night over at Beach Club, I believe. So, and I think you were on the wait list. So, you were maybe going to start your trip a little earlier. I can tell by your face that did not come through.

[00:05:38] It did not. So sad because we loved the Beach Club, but I can get into that later. Loved it. I mean, I feel like the wait list is, it can be so hit and miss. I'm currently on a wait list for a stay for later in, I guess it's the one that's in February.

[00:05:59] Where I want just one more night like this and I put myself on the wait list. I'm hoping it will come through. If it doesn't, who knows what I'll do. But I've mostly had success with the wait list, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. We got so tricked because we actually ended up booking the wrong style room at Beach Club when we first got it. We actually booked a one bedroom, which is one bed too short for what we needed.

[00:06:25] So, we got on the wait list and ended up getting the room that we needed. So, we're like, oh, we are wait list kings and queens. We absolutely can do this. Yeah, that didn't happen. So, we had the one night at Beach Club, which was clearly not enough. We really enjoyed our time there. The resort is absolutely stunning. It's my favorite resort area. And we had honest conversations on the way home if we need to purchase, even though the contracts are short, if we need to purchase some points somehow some way over there because we loved it so much.

[00:06:55] Yeah, I really enjoyed the time that I stayed over there and I definitely want to get back. And this time we were there, we did a couple of nights at Boardwalk and it was the boys' first time over at Boardwalk. And between the two, I prefer Beach Club. And it's not even because of the pool because I like the pool better at Boardwalk. But really, see, we stayed at Boardwalk our last trip and we really liked the pool at the Boardwalk too.

[00:07:25] But after we were at Stormalong Bay for us and the family makeup that we have, we really enjoyed it. However, we also were, we essentially rope dropped the pool at Beach Club. So, there's like nobody there. There wasn't a whole lot of people there when we got there. And I think that was nice. I would be terrified what that place looks like midday or like even later in the day when it's like the height, when people are coming back for their like, let's go back to the pool and take a nap style.

[00:07:54] Like, I think it would be out of pocket over there. So, I could see, we really liked the pool at the Boardwalk too. Yeah, my thing is I found Stormalong Bay to be a little overwhelming just because it's big and there's a lot to do. And because it is known to be such a good pool, there are people who build whole days around it. Forget just taking a break. Like, they're like, we're doing this the whole day.

[00:08:20] And then when you have younger kids, I think it's a little bit big to have a young child in where you can't readily see them. And Boardwalk, I just found it really easy to find seats in the shade. And that's a big deal to me because I burn very easily. So, I just want a seat in the shade and then I want to go in the pool occasionally. And then usually I will go down a slide like at least once on a trip. And then I'm like, okay, I did that.

[00:08:47] So, I just found it to be a lot more manageable over at Boardwalk. But as a resort, as a whole, Beach Club is amazing. I love the style of it. I love the feel of it. I love that you can very easily get into the quick service and refill your mug without having to go to the Boardwalk. Right? So, there's a lot of pluses to it. So, all right. Let's talk all the details of your trip. So, you didn't get your wait list.

[00:09:15] What time did you end up getting down to Orlando? Because you were driving, correct? Okay. Looking back at my notes. Yeah. So, we drove and we ended up staying like I think it was two hours, maybe an hour and a half outside of the bubble the night before. And so, what our crazy selves did, and we will never do this again. Listen, we are avid rope drop people. Like truthfully, we are rope drop to close people. No breaks. Like go, go, go.

[00:09:45] And we decided that we were going to rope drop Hollywood Studios that morning. We had that ticket deal where you got the two extra days when you had so many extra days. So, it was a freebie day for us. We weren't planning on it, but we had it so we're going to use it. And we got up and we made it to Hollywood Studios for rope drop. And I'm talking like park the car at Beach Club. Our room was ready upon arrival, which never happens. And Tim's like, do you want to unload the car? I was like, absolutely not. Booked it over to the Skyliner, got on the Skyler, made it to Hollywood Studios.

[00:10:13] And we were there like one of the first people ready to go, which was insane. And then probably, you know, a couple hours into the day, I was like, what were we thinking? This was a terrible idea. I am exhausted. We're not really sleeping the night before. And like, let's go hang out in 100 degree heat. It was nuts. But we went for- And stay till phantasmic. I wrote in my notes that you were planning to stay the whole way through. Let me tell you what didn't happen.

[00:10:42] A lot of pivot. That was, I think, the word of the day, or even the word of the trip. It was just a lot of pivot, which I guess if you're going to take a long trip to Disney, you have to be okay with pivoting. And I really, as much as I wanted to see Phantasmic twice, it was not happening day one. I am a firm believer in the Lightning Lane system that you need it for two parks. You need it for Hollywood Studios if you are planning on going on the big e-ticket,

[00:11:11] like the big attractions, you know, your Slinky Dog. Rise, you can get through with the single rider line. But truthfully, Slinky Dog. And then if you don't want to wait forever, Rock and Roller Coaster, since the refurb has had the most ridiculous lines as well. Tower was really long. And so when we got there, we went to go rope drop Mickey and Minnie's like we always do. It was closed. So we went to go head over to Toy Story Land to see if we could get on Slinky Dog to go like try and maneuver into that crowd.

[00:11:41] Closed. So we maneuvered into Midway Mania, finally got on that, went on Alien Swirling Saucers after that, got some breakfast tachos. And after that, it was kind of like, all right, it's almost 100 degrees real like with the heat index already. It's like nine o'clock at that point. The kids are already like, holy cow, it's hot and the lines are long. And when I say the lines are long, I'm talking like over an hour for almost everything between things going down, etc.

[00:12:11] And so it was our oldest trip essentially for his graduation. So I looked at my oldest and I said, hey, Dom, what do you want to do? Do you want to stick around? Do you want to go? Like what does this day look like for you? Ball's in your court. And he goes, I want to get on Rise and I want to go. And I was like, okay. I was like, we can always come back. You know, if you want to go back to the hotel and then we can come back later at night. We can just kind of figure it out. And he's like, well, let's leave for a little bit. Let the lines calm down and then we can come back.

[00:12:40] I was like, cool. So at this point, optimistic for Fantasmic. I've already kind of foreshadowed what's going to happen here, but it's fine. So we ended up getting in, trying to get in the single rider line for Rise. Literally as we're getting there, somebody pukes at the front of it. So they shut down the single rider line. Oh no. And so Dom's like, I want to get on this. So I was like, all right, go and hop and stand by. Meanwhile, Tim's got the two little people who, you know, he's thinking we're going to get in and out in 10 minutes.

[00:13:08] You know, an hour later we come back and he's like, what happened? I was like, vomit, vomit happened. Rise is still a phenomenal ride. I mean, I will wait an hour for that if I have to. Well, just for listeners maybe who have not done Rise of the Resistance, this was at the beginning of the queue. So it's not like somebody threw up from the ride, right? This was just like an abnormal occurrence. Somebody just was not, whatever they ate didn't agree with them. Not because of the ride.

[00:13:38] This is like the single rider line is off to the side of the entrance. And so you walk in the same direction as you would. And it was literally like right at the front of the single rider line. So basically at the entrance of the ride. So just our luck, you know, just our luck. But it ended up working out for us. So we ended up leaving and checking into the hotel, putting all of our stuff down and then doing what we normally do on check-in day. We are such creatures of habit.

[00:14:08] The kids wanted to pin trade and they wanted to get on the Skyliner. So we ended up doing that. The kids grabbed all their pin stuff and we just popped on the Skyliner and did some resort hopping, which is one of our favorite things to do. And that was awesome. We hit up some really cool boards. The boardwalk now has these like cool seashells that you can open and close and they used to have a different one. So it's kind of fun to see that. Yeah, it was fun because the last time we went, they had boxes. So it was, it's been exciting to like see how things change.

[00:14:37] And then we ended up somehow, I think we ended up, yeah, it was Art of Animation. And my travel agent was at the pool when we popped over to Art of Animation to go trade. And she's like, I'm watching your Instagram story. Are you, are you at the pool? And I was like, I'm watching your Instagram story. Are you at the pool? So we ended up just meeting up outside the, you know, the little, what is it? It's like Little Mermaid themed or whatever.

[00:15:06] So like, it's super cute over there and had a drink together and sat and chatted for a while. She's a teacher. I'm a teacher. So it was just like a cute little moment. She's like, well, I'm so happy we're all here together. So that was just what, what a coincidence, right? That you run into your travel agent. Travel agent. Kristen Gallagher over at Wonderful World of Kristen is her tag. She is my travel agent. And it's been wonderful because she's what I'm going to call DVC adjacent.

[00:15:35] So she has DVC points. So she's been helping me understand what she can do as a travel agent, what she can't do, what she can book, what she can't book because she knows the ins and outs. And I love that about her because I'm still new with the whole DVC thing. And I have, I've interviewed her before. Oh, no way. Yeah. Yeah. She did a, uh, like a, a girl's trip and was a part of a group. I think of, I think they were five people. Cause I think I called them the fab five or something. It's been a couple of years now.

[00:16:05] And then she's been on, I think one other time since like I've talked to her a couple of times. Yeah. It was super cute. She was actually there with two of her, uh, work friends that, and they were just having like a little mini, like post-school, like refresh together. It was, it was awesome, but yeah, that was awesome. And then we got back to, uh, we got stuck on the Skyliner. That's another, um, I've ridden the Skyliner hundreds of thousands of times.

[00:16:33] I am a Skyliner purist. I will stand by the Skyliner. I love it over the monorail, obviously over the buses. And I would take it over a boat any day. We have never gotten stuck on the Skyliner ever. Weather is clear. Things are beautiful. And we are up in the air over obviously a body of water because where else would you be stuck on the Skyliner? And it just comes to a stop abruptly. No, no. And I'm like, okay. So somebody with an ECB is getting on like, not a big deal.

[00:16:59] Um, and then we got the little announcement over the loudspeaker. That's like, stay put. The Skyliner is stopped at this point. Nico is screaming because the loud person is over the loudspeaker. And we were up there for like 15, 20 minutes. And it's just like screaming at us. Like, please stay seated. The Skyliner is stopped. Nobody knows what happened. No issues. We just kept on our merry way.

[00:17:28] But you know, if you've ever gotten stuck in the Skyliner, it's kind of one of those doom situations. You're like, well, if I am stuck here, how do they get me down? And if I'm stuck here for a longer time, like, what do I do? Just dooms planning in our brains. It was a wild time. Well, I guess you wait for the fire department. I don't know what you would do. Or if it's like one of those situations where like they have to like manually crank the line in. Who knows? I mean, like, yeah, I don't know. That's what we were wondering. Like if you're over the water, like how? Yeah.

[00:17:58] Anyway, that's that's a whole like mental game in itself. Like, how do I get down from here? So anyway, so after we do our little Skyliner crawl, we decided to go back to the hotel and we sat and we ordered dinner just from the marketplace there. I had this bomb Caprese focaccia thing. When I tell you the bread was bigger than my face, it was delicious. Probably one of the most crazy things I've had in a hot minute. And then, of course, it starts to downpour rain.

[00:18:27] And, you know, it's Florida. So we decided to like wait it out a little longer and it started to get later and later. And it was one of those like, all right, Dom, do you want to go back in the rain? Totally fine. Or do you just want to like call it and we'll go to studios? And then it like started raining harder. And then like the whole thunderstorm. And he's like, I'm good. So we ended up not seeing Fantasmic the second time. We ended up not going back. We just stayed at the hotel and like called it a day, which was totally fine.

[00:18:53] So we spent the night and then the next morning, my daughter's only request on this trip was that we get to the pool. You know, she's nine. And so her priorities are not to parks anymore. It's, well, can we go to the pool? So we specifically booked at Beach Club so we could get to the pool. Like that's on her bucket list. So we got there at like we rope dropped the pool, got there, got in the pool. And like we were going, man, exploring all the things. So Tim's got our like our psychotic. Psychotic is not the word.

[00:19:22] We call him Captain Chaos because he's three and he has so much. He does not stop moving ever. Like even in his sleep, he is just constantly moving. I've got our now eight month old. And so it's kind of like, all right, keep tabs on the nine year old. Make sure she's okay. We've each got a kid. And then our oldest is like, I don't want to swim. And I was like, okay, cool. Have a great time. So he like plops himself down on a chair and like is just chill for the rest of the time that we're there.

[00:19:49] He like recorded some content and was like taking pictures, which I thought was really sweet. But we loved that pool with every fiber of our being. I think because it had so much to do for our age gap kids because our kids are, you know, we range from eight months to 18, which is a large gap. And so there was a little bit of something for everyone. My daughter loved the really big shipwreck slides. So she was just up and down, up and down, up and down.

[00:20:16] And then on the other side of that, you have to like go across the walkway. There's like a little people slide that goes into a smaller body. When my three-year-old found that slide, that was his home base. Like he just would go up and down and up and down and up and down. I kid you not, like 200 times. And then our youngest, our eight month old is just happy being in the water. So it was plopping back and forth. Okay, we'll be over in this side of the pool. And then there's a zero depth area. He liked trying out the sand. So it was just kind of fun to see all the different things.

[00:20:47] I wish we would have had more time there. We ended up leaving around noon because we had a split stay. So we had to get to the poly. And so our plan there, because we had an entire resort day, was to switch halfway through and then kind of spend some time checking out the poly before we had dinner reservations later that night. My in-laws were joining us at the poly and we wanted to make sure we beat them there. With all the new systems in place too, with people coming to the resort, staying at the resort.

[00:21:14] I didn't want them to have any issues at the gate not being able to get in. So we just made sure we were in the lobby in case they were like, they won't let us in because blah, blah, blah. I mean, they were on the reservation. I made the lady at the gate check when I was there and they still had issues getting in. So like Disney is up in that secure. Yes. Wild. Right. And like Mordini is a very unique last name. And so the lady was like, oh, I see like a million Mordinis on here.

[00:21:43] And she's like, but you're not the da, da, da, da, da. And she was like, uh, Tim Mordini. Like I am. And Heather, she starts like naming all the people on the reservation. And the lady's like, I'm just going to let you go. I think some lady asked me about this earlier and I did. So talk to those cast members, man. It's worth your time. So we booked over to the poly, um, met up with my in-laws and then we had some extra time.

[00:22:08] We had, um, dining at story book dining at artist point over at the wilderness, but we had like a bunch of, uh, extra time in between. So we decided that we were going to pop on the monorail and go resort hopping. Cause like, what else are you going to do with the time? And we have never actually been to the other monorail resorts. Uh, we've just like been on the monorail, but haven't actually stopped. So what else are we going to do? But pin trade? Yeah. Right. So we had a blast.

[00:22:37] We again, packed up all the pins and went and stopped at all the monorail resorts and kind of checked everything out, uh, before, uh, heading over to storybook dining. And I will say the grand Floridian, which we are going to be staying at again in this August, we're staying at the Glare and Flow for the first time. We went there and we're like, this place is beautiful. Like it's sparkles everywhere. It is so pretty inside. Um, but the contemporary, I don't, I don't know how you beat, like that is such a unique

[00:23:06] hotel with the monorail going through and everything. Phenomenal. And they just did that renovation of Bay Lake tower. So I'm excited to try that out because when I stayed there, it so badly needed a renovation. I was like, I'm not staying here again until they fix this because it was so old. It was just like, everything was old and it was, it was not great. I didn't love my stay there, but they, they've done some beautiful things over there.

[00:23:35] So I'm looking forward to giving it a second try because you're right. It's an, it's like a classic. You have to go to the contemporary at some point. And I want to do it again. I want a redo. I, you are entitled to that redo. You absolutely should. So we took from the contemporary, we took the boat over to the wilderness. There's like a little ferry boat. So we could, and that was new to like, we had no idea that that even existed because why would we? Cause we were planning on doing all this bus transfer business.

[00:24:03] But if you are ever have ever been a stroller family, like the least amount of transferring with a stroller is the best. So the guy's like, Oh, the little captain dude was like, yeah, just fold it up. It's fine. And we had our solo boat. It was just our family on the boat over to the wilderness, which was super fun. And my son, my three-year-old absolutely was beside himself that we were on a boat. He just loved his life. So we told ourselves, Oh, we'll just take this back later. Cause then he'll get a second boat ride. It's cool.

[00:24:34] I mean, if you want me to foreshadow, we did not get to take that boat back, but we got to the wilderness and we did the storybook dining at artist point. And if you have not done that, like, if that is not something that you have not done, then everybody needs to go once. Everybody just needs to go at least once in their life. Do I need to go back? Not at this moment. The food was amazing. The character interactions, phenomenal. And I love that it wasn't just like the OGs that you always get, like Mickey, Donald,

[00:25:03] Goofy, et cetera. It was so fun to have a villain, which my daughter's in her villain era. So she loved that. And we had princesses and dwarves and the food was so good. I had this grilled salmon that I would love the recipe for and would love for somebody to make me at all times. Like it just, I would eat that by the pounds. The appetizers were good. My drink, I had something called an antidote. Very strong. Kicked my butt. Butt was so good.

[00:25:32] And everything at the table was delicious too. But again, everybody's got to go at least once. It's, I don't want to say a one and done, but a one and done for a while. Like I've had the experience and I won't need to go for a hot minute because I want to try some other stuff, you know? Yeah, agreed. I've done it once and I'll go back again at some point, I'm sure. But it's wonderful. I love it. And Wilderness Lodge is my favorite resort. Oh, after going.

[00:26:01] So we always ask the kids where they want to stay because it's something fun with DVC. It's like, what resort are we going to try next? And it's my daughter's turn to pick next. And she's like, well, I want to go to the wilderness. This place is really cool. And I was like, I love your taste because I want to come back here. I want to try Whispering Canyon. I've heard amazing things about that. And in the pool, when we like came down the little boardwalk area to go into the building, we saw the pool area and she was again in her pool era beside herself. She's like, we need to stay here.

[00:26:30] It's like, all right, well, I'll see what we can do. So again, the moral of the story is pivot, right? Like that is always our trip's motto. So we are heading out to the dock because we're going to head back to the contemporary to take the boat over to the contemporary and then just take the monorail back to our hotel. No, no. A storm starts rolling in. So we're like there. And the guy's like, hold on. Just let me wait a second because it looks kind of icky. And then this big cackle of lightning comes through. And he's like, boat's closed.

[00:27:00] And I was like, so I'm stuck at the wilderness. How do I get off of this island over here? Like this little wilderness island. So we ended up taking a bus to the contemporary because we could have taken a bus to magic. Like I can't remember how we got here, but we took a bus to the contemporary because we were going to just hop on the monorail and go. So by the time we got from the bus at the wilderness to back to the contemporary, this rain was insanely severe.

[00:27:30] They shut down the monorail. They shut down everything. So then we got to the contemporary and we were stuck at the contemporary because there are no buses that take. There's no inner resort loop because you take the monorail. And so we're talking to the people at guest services and they're just, I don't know, the cast members, the front desk. And they're like, oh, well, the loop will come soon. You just have to wait because you don't know. So we were at the contemporary for like an hour trying to figure out how to literally just get to the next resort over.

[00:27:59] And we eventually got a bus, eventually got to my father-in-law finds this animal kingdom bus. And he looks at the guy and is like, can you just take us to the poly? And the guy's like, I'm actually going off shift. So get on the bus. I'll drop you off there. And I was like, what? Way to go, Papa. So we pop on the bus and they dropped us back off and we made it back. But, you know, we still haven't checked into the poly yet.

[00:28:28] Like we haven't brought our luggage in. Our room wasn't ready. So we now had to do that in the pouring rain. And if you've ever, the Island Tower is nowhere close to the main building. It's far. And I didn't realize that when we booked, I was so excited about getting into the new tower, which is gorgeous. It is absolutely worth every penny of getting into. But it's super far away. So we didn't realize there was a second parking lot for the tower that was not shared with us.

[00:28:57] So we started bringing all of our luggage from the main area to my husband. Somebody goes, oh, my God. Where are you bringing all this? And a cast member told them, oh, no, bring your car around there. Like the Island Tower has its own parking lot. So figured that out. My son, my oldest son, is helping with the luggage. And they left him in because we had like a little break in the rain. They left him in the parking lot. He, I shouldn't be proud of this, but I kind of am.

[00:29:26] He wanted to make sure that there were enough parking spaces. So he went and took, stole two cones that he found in the parking lot and put them in parking spots to save them. So we had spots in the Island Tower parking lot because it's small. So you have to like hope you have space. It worked out. We got our spots. And it was great. We didn't have to move our car for the rest of the week. But the poly is everything.

[00:29:53] I walked into, so we got a two bedroom lock off, which is a ginormous room. Like you've got one complete room on its own that has like the two queens and then a center section. That's a main living space with more sleeping space. And then a king space on the other side. I walked in and my jaw was like on the floor. Just super clean, super pristine. It just, the most beautiful hotel room I've ever stayed in, in my entire life.

[00:30:19] Yeah, my February trip is going to be in the Tower. So I'm excited. You're going to love it. And I will say this. I think unless you absolutely need to have that view 24-7 of the Crescent Lake, you absolutely can get whatever view you want.

[00:30:42] Because the viewing areas, they have these beautiful viewing areas on like every floor for you to view the lake and the fireworks and everything. And we checked those out because we ended up having a weird view of construction in a golf course, which was fine. Because we had the other spaces. But oh my gosh, the Island Tower is gorgeous. Gorgeous. Yeah. I've been to Wailulu, so I got a little bit of a taste of it from the lobby. But I'm really looking forward to staying there.

[00:31:12] I want to pop back real quick to when you talked about getting the bus from Wilderness over to Contemporary. And just clarify for people who might be interested in this, my assumption, and tell me if my assumption is correct. I know that there are buses that are shared between Wilderness and Contemporary all the time anyway. That is what you were taking, right? It was not a bus that they put out there to replace the boat. No, no.

[00:31:41] There is almost – yeah, they have like a weird inner loop system in the same way that the monorail has shared busing. But that's the bus that we took to get us back to the Contemporary. There's a lot of sitting on my Disney Experience app trying to figure it out. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify because I think that there's an assumption that there are no buses that go between resorts. And that's not completely true.

[00:32:07] It's just, you know, in these certain scenarios you have buses. And with Wilderness Lodge and Contemporary, that is one situation. And then my friend Molly, who's been on the show a lot of times, was just recently posting on her stories – just today I saw it – where she was talking about buses that were shared between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. And she was like, we keep having to stop over there. And I was like – I chatted her and I was like, usually you go to the Contemporary.

[00:32:35] I don't know why you're having to go over to Fort Wilderness all the time. But you do sometimes have the ability to bus between certain resorts. Yeah. Yeah. It just depends, I guess, the weather and what's going on with other transportation systems. I feel like Disney does their best to make sure you can get where you need to be and you're not stuck for too long wherever you're at if something goes down or something changes. Yeah. But that was legit like only day two. We're only on day two, right?

[00:33:04] And it's an eight-day trip. So this brings us to Sunday, June the 28th. And I think you were going to Animal Kingdom this day. Yes, ma'am. We made it to Animal Kingdom. And as somebody who has always thought that Animal Kingdom was my least favorite park, this definitely popped it up for me, like up on scale. I will say I think that Animal Kingdom right now, just with all the construction going on, if you're going to drop a park, that's the one to do.

[00:33:32] Just because it's under so much construction as far as like all of Dinoland being gone. Yeah. Which is super sad. But we found that it forced us to try some new experiences, which I love. We went to Tusker House for the first time. And that's another one that everybody needs to go to at least once in their lifetime. Tusker House is probably something that I will try and go back to within a couple trips because it just – the food was so good.

[00:34:02] We went for breakfast slash lunch. The sweet spot is getting that like 10, 30, 11 time slot so that you get the changeover for both sets of food. So good. Unlimited Pog. Again, characters. Phenomenal. After that, the best choice. We went to see Festival of the Lion King for the first time ever. And I don't know how I have not seen that ever in my life. It was such a good show. It was so cute. I love the Lion King.

[00:34:31] And so do my kids. So it was really cool to experience that in such a theatrical production. It was seriously like Broadway quality. So phenomenal. I would do it again. And the AC was so needed. It was so, so hot on our trip. It was either like 107 degrees or raining. Like it felt like we didn't get any in between. Yeah. Which is fine. It's fine. Another day where we tried to rope drop. And we tried to rope drop Navi River Journey. And it went down.

[00:35:01] Which I was like, what the heck? So trying to pivot and figure that out. We ended up heading over to Everest. And I found out that my limit of riding Everest back to back is precisely two. And after that, I need a break. You're done. Yeah. I think my son ended up going four times like back to back to back because the line was so short in the morning. Which is great for him. Like to be 18 and to ride the rides like that. Man, I miss those days.

[00:35:30] But we ended up staying only until like two o'clock. We had hit everything that we had wanted to hit. We decided to forego the whole bluey area. Left that up to like the little kids. Like, do you want to go over there? But even the line to get over there was insane. So we're like, eh, let's head back. And so we ended up going back to the hotel, kind of chilling, enjoying the air conditioning for a little bit. And then we had Ohana for dinner. Things I will never do again. On exit. Just the way things worked out.

[00:36:00] I scheduled two buffets for the same day. Don't do that. Don't do that ever. That was a terrible life choice. We were so full. I mean, Tusker House is a buffet of choosing your own. Ohana is an all-you-can-eat family-style buffet, essentially. And so I think by the end of that, we were all just like, oh my gosh, what were we thinking? So I apologized profusely to my family for overfeeding them.

[00:36:27] And then we went to Disney Springs because where else are you going to go after you've had two buffets? We're going to try and go to Springs. I think we were at Disney Springs for like an hour and left because I don't know what I was thinking. It was a weekend. It's a weekend in summer. And it was insanely packed. My in-laws were trying to do shopping for all their grandkids. And so trying to get around. We are like little sardines, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder.

[00:36:55] I'm like, there's nothing being dropped. There's no pins, no Lorcanic cards. Nothing is being dropped. Why are there so many people in this store right now? And after a little bit, everyone's like, I can't. I need to not be in this space. So we checked out the pin trading store because, again, crazy Disney pin traders. Picked up some more pins. Went to the Christmas store in the back because every year we get a new Christmas ornament for our tree.

[00:37:23] We grabbed a Mr. Toad one this year just because it was the cutest little. It's like a Mickey Mouse shape and it's got Mr. Toad's head like popping out of it. It's so cute. I love it. We have a Mickey Mouse one like that too. So just they'll compliment each other nicely. And then after that, we decided to peace out and go back to the hotel and get some sleep because we had Epcot the next day. And we rope drop all the time. I don't think we've ever been on a trip where we haven't rope dropped.

[00:37:53] So that's, I don't know what that life is like. We also were planning on having extended evening hours. So we just wanted to make sure everybody was chill and like got enough sleep the night before. So we got to Epcot and we have always stayed at the Skyliner Resort. So coming in the front for us on the monorail was a new experience. We went to the TTC for the first time, had to figure that whole thing out. The people there were very, very nice helping us figure out where we needed to go. And we got to do the cool.

[00:38:22] If you've never been on the monorail before and like gets to the Epcot station, it does like a loop on the inside of Epcot. And I guess, I don't know why I never, like I've seen the monorail go through Epcot, but I didn't think like, oh, I would see that when I'm on the monorail. It just didn't make sense to me. But anyway, that was so cool in the morning to see the empty park before everyone got in there. So we had to figure out where we wanted to go.

[00:38:49] Because generally when you come in through the International Gateway, you head straight to Remy because it's right there. So we actually, our crazy selves, we booked our butts and went to Frozen all the way in the back. And we made it. We were like one of the first boats through, which was awesome. And then we tried to hit up Remy. Remy was closed. So it was a good move that we ended up in the front. So we ended up just kind of grabbing a snack and then hitting. We had lightning lanes that day.

[00:39:16] So we hit up our figment lightning lane because we needed something to tap into another one. Picked up another Frozen and just kind of meandered our way through the day, which was awesome. Kanye West was at Epcot that day. Oh, you were there that day? We were there that day. I saw video footage. I'm like literally just, you know, hanging out and all my friends are like messaging me. They're like, Kanye's at Epcot.

[00:39:47] Do you see him? I was like, I've literally seen nothing until we got over by Test Track. We must have missed Kanye at Test Track, like literally ships passing in the night. Because when we got on, again, rain, rain all the time. And if it rains at all or there's any inclement weather, Test Track goes down. So Test Track had been down for a good chunk of our day. And then it finally had like a little window that opened up.

[00:40:14] And I think everybody and their grandmother like ran over to Test Track and was like, we're going to get on this right now before it closes again. And Kanye must have thought the same thing because I swear we just missed them somehow. Because when we got off the ride, we saw all these like videos of him getting off the ride. I was like, I recognize the people in the background of this. Like, how did we miss it? It was crazy. But anyway, that's as close to a celebrity sighting at Disney I think I've ever had in my life. And we didn't even see him.

[00:40:44] After we hit up Test Track, we headed back towards the World Showcase because we wanted to grab food. I'll get to the dining plan. We were on the dining plan. Love it. Thank you for reminding me about that. Oh, yeah. We went and grabbed food in Mexico. We grabbed one of my favorite meals there is if you go to the Cantina de San Angel Inn,

[00:41:13] the little inn on the side that's across from Grand Fiesta Tour, they have a three taco trio. It's phenomenal. And then when you're on the dining plan, you get an alcoholic beverage with it. So there's my margarita. Margarita. And 107 degree heat. But, you know, I did. And it was an experience, let me tell you. Because after that, we went over and did Guardians. That was absolutely a choice that I made. I don't think I would choose to do that again.

[00:41:42] Maybe I would if I was younger. But that was a wild choice. And then after we did that, we came back and we started to just, the goal was to just spend the evening walking through the World Showcase. And pin trade, grab snacks. We had some snack credits to burn. I don't want to say burn, but snack credits to use up and just kind of enjoy that area. My in-laws love the showcase. I love the showcase.

[00:42:12] We made it to Germany starting from Mexico before, again, we hit one of those insane cells of rain. And it was like big dark clouds, insane thunder and lightning. We had lightning that was striking near us. So we took shelter in that little, like, there's a little bathroom in Germany that's covered. And when I tell you, there's like a bunch of people just like chilling in there really close together because we're waiting out the storm.

[00:42:37] And nothing takes the wind out of your sails, like sitting underneath, like waiting out rain. Like, I don't know. It just, it sucked. It sucked. So after that, I was like, well, what do you want to do? Do you want to keep going? Half the park went down because of all the lightning in the area. So it was like all the things we had wanted to stay for extended evening hours for were closed. So we ended up just slowly walking through the world showcase. We're kind of wet and soggy and sad.

[00:43:07] Stamped at a couple of the, it was just, I got great. I will say I did get great use out of our stroller, the rain cover for our stroller. I was wondering if it was worth it, worth every penny. Oh my God. Always bring a rain cover for the stroller. Yes. I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I have not really found the deluxe evening hours at Epcot to be that worth it.

[00:43:32] I mean, it's nice to be able to kind of walk around in a slightly emptier park, but in terms of doing things, the things are so spread out that even if you're using up that entire extended time, you don't get that much stuff in. It's not like Magic Kingdom extended hours. That's what we heard. So we ended up just like hitting up a couple more rides. We did end up getting on almost everything that day with the exception of living with the land.

[00:44:00] I don't know how we just, it just didn't happen. So we ended up missing out on living with the land, but got on everything else. And my son was like, I'm over it. Like we'll be back our trip in August. We're going to Epcot. We're doing the after hours party at Epcot. So he's like, I'll just get on what I want then. I'm not really worried about it. So we peace out, grab my fish and chips on the way out. If you have not eaten the fish and chips at Yorkshire fish shop, you're missing out.

[00:44:28] One of the best snacks in Epcot, I will invest fries on property. And I will stand by that. Those are the most delicious French fries on property. I love them so much. And then we peace out. So no early or extended evening hours for us, which was fine. It probably worked out better that day. The following day. How were the how were the littles holding up with a long day like that? I mean, you said you had the stroller. So I'm assuming that at some point they probably crashed.

[00:44:59] But is that is that the case that they were just kind of like rolling with it literally in a stroller? My kids literally roll with the flow. My three year old will go until he drops. So there is a very vivid memory. I do not know which day. He was talking about the ibises, the birds that are like the really long. Yes. Tiny pink beaks. And he kept saying, bird, bird. What is that? What is that? And I had told him it was an ibis and kept repeating ibis and then was silent.

[00:45:29] Well, he passed out. He just full on went into a nap after like losing his mind over this bird. So he is absolutely like when he's tired, he's tired. But he will rally. Not a lot of like he doesn't get grumpy or angry. He's just a really chill kid. He just wants to do all the things. The baby we were a little more concerned about because he is more like scheduled. And he also did really well. He just would like get a little crabby when he would be hungry or tired, but also just was super chill.

[00:45:57] Our double stroller, we have a front back stroller instead of a side by side. And so the cool thing is the back one, which is where our youngest is, it lays all the way flat. So anytime he would start sleeping, Tim would just drop him until he was flat. And he would just be in there with his fans, his multiple fans like a king and pass out. And he did great, to be honest. Good. Good. I could have used more breaks, but the kids did so good.

[00:46:27] Oh my goodness. The next day we had a plant. Originally it was going to be a full rest day, but it wasn't. We had those extra days. So we ended up doing a half day at Magic Kingdom, which was phenomenal. Actually, probably one of my favorite days that we had. So we did the poly pool in the morning. And I'm going to say this. I was really disappointed by the poly pool. Really? Okay. And everybody's probably going to be like, what? When you are coming, the last pool that you went to was Stormalong Bay.

[00:46:56] And the last pool you had before that was the boardwalk pool. The poly pool is like, okay, it's just okay compared to those two pools for me. So we were like doing a little pool ranking. And this may also surprise you. I think the pool at Caribbean Beach, I liked it better than the poly pool as well. And so maybe I'm not getting the right experience. Maybe I missed out on something. But we as a whole were like, oh, well, like, don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful pool.

[00:47:26] But we were kind of like, oh, okay. Like, that's fine. So we did the pool in the morning and then went back and headed over to Magic Kingdom. And surprise, you guessed it. It was raining. So we're like heading over there already like pre in ponchos, pre in, like got the stroller cover up the whole nine. And we get there and we're like, all right, we're going to just like head over and try

[00:47:56] and get as many things done as we can. I think we waited in line for like an hour for Haunted Mansion because the park was pretty much there's so many things down that like Haunted Mansion and I can't remember what the second one. There's like two rides open in the park when we got there. So we waited an hour for Haunted Mansion. Wild went on it. By the time we came out, everything seemed to be like up and happy and ready to go again. So we hit up the new Big Thunder.

[00:48:25] Unpopular opinion. I think they took a little bit of wild out of the wilderness there. Oh, my God. It is smooth. No, Jeanette and I call it now the mildest ride in the wilderness. Yes. Legit how I feel. Now, I will say this. We rode on the course of that trip. I think we ended up riding Big Thunder five times. And Tim and I got to ride it three times together, once in the very front, once in the middle, and once in the very back. If you still get that back one, I still feel like you've got a wild ride.

[00:48:55] You get whipped around a little bit. But if you were anywhere else, it is almost too smooth. They took some of that Western rickety fun out of it. And I know everybody's like, I love the re-theme. I love, not re-theme, but the additions that they put on it. But man, I missed a little bit of like, in there. I feel like it needs it. And what Jeanette and I had talked about when we rode it together was that it's now way too similar

[00:49:24] to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in terms of the feel. Yes. And the height limit changed for the ride and everything. And they're trying to be more inclusive of smaller folks. But it was nice having something that was a little bit different. Because I like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It's fun. But I prefer Bic Thunder because I like a wilder ride. And now when you ride it, it's just kind of like, it's basically the same.

[00:49:52] I actually, now that you say that though, I absolutely agree with you. And that's the vibe. It's just, even Seven Dwarfs has like the rocking of the carts and whatnot. I just, there's something missing from my wildest ride. But still good ride. Still going to go on it. After we hit that up, well, I should, I should backtrack a little. Before we went on Big Thunder, we had reservations at Beacon Barrel. And I've never been to Beacon Barrel. Really excited. Our family loves Pirates of the Caribbean.

[00:50:22] The whole pirates thing. So stopping there was super fun. My son didn't know we were going at first. And I actually dropped it into conversation. He's like, wait, what? We're going to Beacon Barrel? I was like, oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to tell you. I was both surprised and disappointed at the same time. So here's my thing. If you love a good theme, go to Beacon Barrel. If you love pirates, go to Beacon Barrel. If you love a really good, strong drink, go to Beacon Barrel.

[00:50:50] However, if you don't have a good seat at Beacon Barrel, that will make or break your experience. So we had to split our party in two. Yes. We had to split our party in two. And we knew that going in, Beacon Barrel is not meant for large parties. It's very similar to Oga's in that way, where it's just not meant to be a sit-down type situation. I will say I liked that there's basically a seat for everybody at Beacon Barrel versus Oga's where you could be standing.

[00:51:18] So Tim and my father-in-law and Dominic and the baby had a seat up by the bar. There's like a little table right next to the bar. But Tim said they were too far back where they couldn't really see anything else but the side of the bar. And he's like, it kind of sucked. Well, my mother-in-law and I and my daughter and my middle son get a seat all the way in the back facing a wall. We can't see the bar. We can't see anything else. My son is on a stool. And so I'm spending my whole time like making sure he's not falling off a stool and staring at a wall.

[00:51:48] And that was just so – if somebody was so excited to go, that seating truly can ruin your experience. I will say one of my favorite drinks that I had on the trip though, I had the Rum Punch Royale. And my mother-in-law and I split it and it was so good. We also got their trip trio because the little people needed something to eat. But word to the wise, Beacon Barrel is meant for parties of two and I will stand by that. And if you get a seat at the bar, you're going to have an amazing time.

[00:52:17] And if you're sitting anywhere else, it kind of sucks. And that's my take. I was there the week after you and I was sitting at the stools. Like when you come in the front door, just to the right of the front door, there's stools that face the wall. And so I was sitting on that and I kept turning and facing backwards so I could see the bird come out and everything.

[00:52:40] But it's very hard for – even for us as a party of three to split some of the appetizers because we were sitting at a counter like that. Yeah, it was not as good as my first experience with Beacon Barrel. Will I go again? Yeah, I'll go again. What Tim and I talked about is like we'll go again but we'll try and do it where like just the two of us can go or like a smaller set so we can actually enjoy the experience. It is what it is.

[00:53:09] So we went on more rides. The only reason I remember going on Big Thunder after that is Tim had whatever comes in that souvenir mug, whatever drink comes in there, and that thing is strong. And this poor man was on an empty stomach and he got knocked on his butt. So naturally, let's go on a roller coaster. So we go on Big Thunder and we get off Big Thunder and he goes, you need to feed me and you need to feed me now. Like I am not okay. So the best food for when you're not feeling great – well, let's go to Pecos Bill.

[00:53:37] And I got him like some big rice bowl with a whole bunch of stuff in it. It worked out. But there's nothing like seeing your husband borderline drunk in Disney off of one strong drink. But now this is the second time I'm hearing this from your family is you drank the margarita and went on Guardians. And he drank the drink and went on Big Thunder. So it's a family trait. I'm going to say this.

[00:54:04] The Disney dining plan favors those who drink alcohol. Beacon Barrel is not on the dining plan. Beacon Barrel is not on the dining plan. To be clear. To be very clear about that. Yes. But I drink, but I'm not a big drinker. I would drink in social settings. But when you challenge me and tell me that I can have an expensive alcoholic drink with every sit down and quick service meal that it's available for, I have not had that much liquor in my little tiny five foot body in a long time.

[00:54:33] So that's how margaritas and Guardians happen. That's how – what is it? The plunder's punch and Big Thunder happen. You know, maybe it's a tradition now. Maybe we just keep going with it. Something in Tron, right? Like that's next on the list. But we ended up doing just as many more rides as we could get in that day. And then my mother-in-law really wanted to see the fireworks because she has not seen them. We went with them in 2022 with Tim's whole family of 14. Wild.

[00:55:02] So we went and stayed and watched the fireworks. And I forgot how much I hate sitting and watching the fireworks in a crowd of people being like right next to each other. Where we usually sit and watch further back on Main Street. We're like closer to like Casey's Corner or even as far back as the Emporium. That way you're just not in that sea of people. What possessed us to get as close to the castle as humanly possible? We were like in front of the partner statue close.

[00:55:29] And there were so many people so close. It was wild. But the fireworks are beautiful. And did I cry? Yes, I did. Because I am a full-fledged Disney adult. And what would happily ever after be if you didn't cry? We got to see Tinkerbell fly. Which my daughter has never seen in person. Every time we've gone. She like even if we're watching from afar. She's never flown. It's just how it is. And that's wild considering we go two to three times per year.

[00:55:58] I just I think that's crazy. So when Tinkerbell actually like flew, she's like, Mom, look. And I'm like, oh, yeah, she does that. Sorry about it. Like, which was which was cool for her. And then we ended up leaving, not staying all the way till close because we were coming back to Magic Kingdom the next day. So the goal is to like get the kids as rested as possible. Nico had already been asleep for a while. Miles stayed up because loud booms. He loves stuff like that. So it was cute.

[00:56:30] So our where do we go? So we're on this is day six of our eight days. Day six, we had back to Magic Kingdom, back to back Magic Kingdom. And we are at Magic Kingdom because it's extended evening hours that day. And we're going to do extended evening hours. We didn't get to it the first day. And Dom's like, I'm going. We're going to do it. I'm staying. Somebody's staying with me. I was like, OK, I will fall on that sword. Like, let's do it. We also had Lightning Lane that day, which was a godsend.

[00:56:58] It was nice to just be able to kind of get where we wanted to go, book what I needed to book without having to wait in super long lines, which I appreciated. Again, firmly stand by the Lightning Lane choice at Magic Kingdom. We ate at Columbia Harbor House that day. The Boston cream pie there is their dessert. It's like it comes in a little dish. So good. I recommend that to everyone. It's so cute. It comes in like a little dish. It's super cute.

[00:57:27] It's a layered dessert. If you like Boston cream pie, like it's good. It's good. I do think it's gotten smaller, but I'm just throwing that out there. So anyway, we have most of our day. And then my high school best friend ended up being in Magic Kingdom the same day that we were there. Kind of half planned ahead of time. She ended up coming down with her friend just so she could see Carousel of Progress one last time, which I love that for her.

[00:57:56] I know that this is going to be so sad. I'm cool with Carousel of Progress being refurbed. I am not a big Carousel of Progress fan. I think it's fine. It doesn't do anything for me. I appreciate the history. I appreciate what Carousel of Progress is as far as the parks are. But I'm like, cool to see your refurb. Yeah, I'm excited about the refurb. But on your departure day was my arrival day to Universal.

[00:58:21] And because we have annual passes, we specifically came over to Magic Kingdom just to do Carousel of Progress one last time in its current iteration before we headed back to Universal. And I'm glad I did. I love that for you. But I'm excited about the refurb. I love it. I love progress. I'm excited to see what they do with it. I'm also secretly hoping there's like an underground petition to get Tom Selleck to be the voice of John moving forward. I think that would be hilarious.

[00:58:49] Wait, why are you a huge Tom Selleck fan? No, I just think that voice would be perfect. I would love to hear his voice every time I'm on Carousel of Progress. It might make it just a little bit better. Hmm. I think I agree with you. I think he has a good voice for that. My only question is, is his voice still like that? Because are you thinking about Tom Selleck in his, you know, cameos on Friends days?

[00:59:19] Because that's been 20 years now. I don't know. I could. I guess I that's where like my brain naturally goes. But I like I could take an old Tom Selleck, too. Like I could take a modern day Tom Selleck. Like I just like want a more personable John. That's I guess that's what I'm asking for. Disney gives me a John with a little more personality. Did you read the description of the new scenes? I have not. I know we're starting in what, like the 19th.

[00:59:49] We're starting with the moon landing scene, right? Like the 1960s area. I'm moving forward. But the interesting thing to me, in addition to the shift of time, is that John is not the focus of every single scene. Like a different member of the family gets their star moment. Oh, I kind of love that. Yeah. Because John got a little much for me. But anyway. You could tell it really went to his head. Right? John needed to be stopped.

[01:00:19] And this is the only way Disney could do it. I digress. This is the only way to stop him. I'm so sorry. Like, please don't come after me, people. Like a Parasol of Progress is fine. It's just not my jam. Same way with living with the land. Like, I worked at an environmental charter school for years. I love lettuce the same way that the next person does. I love plants. I love growing things. It's just not my jam. So anyway. I want a t-shirt that says, I love lettuce as much as the next person does. You know.

[01:00:49] Unless it has a parasite. And then. I don't want to. We're not about. We're not about that. No. So anyway. My friend, Danielle, doesn't tell the kids. And we are waiting for. She goes to surprise them when we're getting off of Tiana's. So I'm sitting with the two younger boys. Because we had to, you know. Rider swap is a way of life in my house. And she's like hanging out one of those windows by the exit. Just staring. Waiting for them to come by. Both my kids absolutely missed her. Came around the corner.

[01:01:18] Absolutely missed her. And she just turned around and stared at them. And my daughter comes and looks at me. Is like, mom. That woman is staring at us. And I was like, I know. She's like looking at me like, aren't you going to do anything? I was like, we know her. And she's like looking at me. She's like, oh, oh. So that was like a cute moment. They like had no idea that she had been like standing right there. They didn't put two and two together that like people that we actually know would, could and would meet us in the parks. Right.

[01:01:48] So we ended up doing. Yeah. Right? Like just those two did not compute. So we ended up doing a couple rides with her and her friend. We went to Casey's corner and had dinner and then like split off for them for a while. And we ended up meeting up with them during extended evening hours. At that point, my mother and father-in-law were kind of like, we're not going to stay for evening hours. We're spent. We're good.

[01:02:12] So they ended up taking the littles back just so they could sleep because obviously they're not going to make it through extended evening hours. And my daughter decided for herself to have a better day at studios the following day. She's like, you know what? I'm actually going to go back too. And we were like, as a parent, I was so proud of her in that moment because I knew she would have been an absolute pleasure the following day had she decided to stay.

[01:02:37] So just a lot of like reinforcement of, wow, you made a really great choice for your body and for yourself. You're already feeling tired. Like that's awesome. You know, so did that, which meant that Tim and I got to hang out with our oldest, just the three of us, which was such a special time because it was his trip to begin with.

[01:02:57] So the fact that he, just the three of us got the opportunity to like run around Magic Kingdom and do whatever we wanted during that extended time was phenomenal. We ended up settling on, we went on Pirates. We went on Big Thunder a couple of times. We, he really wanted to get on Seven Doors Mine Train one more time. We were going to try and hit up Tron, but it ended up going down. So I'm glad we didn't do that. But I will say this, it was packed. There were a lot of people there and I don't, I didn't mention this at all.

[01:03:27] Um, there were a lot of international guests there and most of them, we are pretty confident were there because of the world cup and all that brought to the scene. There were hundreds of these giant groups of people from other countries. And so it was just super crazy crowded. And even, um, my friend who had done several extended evening hours, she's like, this is the most busy I've ever seen it during extended evening hours. She's like, it's usually not this crowded. She's like, usually we can get on a couple more things.

[01:03:57] And then she's like, it's just, it's usually not like this. Like try this again. Not, not now. I was like, oh, okay. But we had a blast. Um, we, it was just like, again, really nice to spend that quality time together. Do I need to do it again? Not right away. I probably do extend evening hours, you know, a while from now, but, uh, it was, it was fun to try and say, Hey, I did this once. Um, so if you're on the fence, try it at least once. I think it's worth, worth it at magic kingdom.

[01:04:27] We definitely got more than I think we would have at, um, any, anywhere else. Our last park day. So that would be the next day. We went to Hollywood studios. And I think at this point, everybody was kind of feeling the heat and the rain and just like getting, getting crabby. Uh, we have never done a trip that long before. It's always been like four days max.

[01:04:52] So the fact that we were in the bubble for eight days was really, really long and we probably should have planned more downtime, but that's on us. And we have learned for the future. Our Hollywood studios day, we were stacked and good to go. Um, as far as our lightning lanes, we had our slinky dog for later. We had tower of terror and we had midway mania. So the only thing that we needed to knock out during that first, uh, our rope drop time was Mickey and Minnie and rock and roller coaster. And we had not gotten on the refurb yet.

[01:05:22] I'm not a huge Muppets fan. Um, but I excited to see what they did with rock and roller coaster. I really actually love Aerosmith. That is a weird, like little thing of mine. So it's kind of sad to see them go. I understand why it's weird. I mean, I grew up as a teenager listening to my Aerosmith CDs and yeah, it's not weird. I thought they did a pretty good job. I would have loved to see more Muppets.

[01:05:49] I would have loved to see Muppets just like thrown up more inside the ride. I don't know how much you can do with a dark ride like that. But my daughter said that she enjoyed the ride more because she knows who the Muppets are. So she's like, I, it just made more sense to me because I didn't know who those old people were. And I was like, oh, you're killing me a little bit here. Um, with that, but she enjoyed that. And then she's like, I like the music too. Cause I knew what it was. We had deaf leopard and I know she doesn't know who they are. And I was like, girlfriend, stop lying to me.

[01:06:18] But I thought it was cute. Um, I really enjoyed it. I absolutely would do it again. Is it still like in that top tier for me? No, I think the Muppets actually bring it down a little bit for me, but that's okay. Um, you know, Muppets aren't for everyone. They're cute, but you know, give me more Rizzo, give me more Pepe. I was lacking in both of those areas. It, you know, it is, it is what it is. And then we had our last, no, it wasn't our last.

[01:06:45] Uh, we had, I have to think about this. We had our, uh, dining reservations at Woody's Roundup, which, um, Miles is in his Toy Story era. So we basically picked Roundup Rodeo because Miles loves Toy Story. I will stand by the fact that for what it is, I wish there was more. The food I think is good. You have to love meat, must love meats. Um, it's, it's not like super authentic barbecue, but the food is good. And my kids love eating there.

[01:07:15] I wish it doesn't even have to be like meet and greets. I wish that the characters would roam around in there just for fun. Like give me a roaming Rex, give me a roaming Slinky, give me a, give me a ham cut out. I don't know. Give me something in there. And I think that makes that dining experience better, but it was good. And then it really would be meet and greets because it would be M E A T. And greets. But that was a good one. That was so good.

[01:07:44] I appreciate your humor. That was amazing. Oh my God. I've got like the most dad humor ever. So apologies to anybody who thinks it's too cheesy. More cheese, the more cheese, the better. So we get through a little bit more and my father-in-law is like, we can tell he's like fading, like he is getting tired. So after we did, ended up doing a couple of shows. So we went and saw the villain show because we just needed some air conditioning. That is cute.

[01:08:14] I do miss the lightning McQueen show. I hope they move the villain show over to villains land. We'll see what happens there. The music for the unfairly ever after was super cute. Do I need to see the show again? I do not. I do not. What I did sleep on for years is that frozen ever after show. That show is hilarious. I had no idea that was there. Like I knew it was there, but I didn't realize what it was.

[01:08:40] It's a lot for a glorified like rewatching of the movie, but the Arendelle historians are like the unsung heroes in Hollywood studios. And our two historians were so good. So after that, I could tell again, my father-in-law was like, just kind of tired. So Tim's like, oh, I think the kids, the little kids really need to go back to the hotel. I think I'm going to go back and right away. My father-in-law was like, oh, I'll go with you.

[01:09:07] So Tim like grabs the two littlest and my father-in-law and they ended up leaving. So I stayed because I was seeing Fantasmic. We didn't get to see Fantasmic night one. So I needed to see Fantasmic. And I was also meeting up with two friends of mine who happened to be in the same area. My friend Bree and her husband Alex live in Florida. So Alex was working. So Bree met me at the parks. And my friend Katie, who ironically also lives in Illinois, was in the parks too with her husband.

[01:09:36] So we all decided to meet up and watch Fantasmic together, which was just so special. It's really nice sometimes to just meet friends in the parks and just have a moment in the parks together. So we did that. It was the first time I got to see the dragon back in like four or five shows. I kid you not. I thought, much like Disneyland, that the dragon, they just decided to pull a Disneyland and like get rid of the dragon for safety reasons.

[01:10:05] Because we have seen the B mode with Maleficent rising up so many times that I just assumed it was gone at that point. So there's this phenomenal video that my friend Bree took of me just mouth wide open, like looking like, oh my gosh, wait, when did the dragon come back? She's like, it never left. I was like, oh, okay. Just having a whole moment to myself. So that was nice. And then we didn't have the stroller.

[01:10:31] So it was so much easier getting back at the end of the night, not having to get on the bus with the stroller and all that whatnot. And then the next day, our last day, exhausted at this point, got to sleep in just the smoochy pooch because we headed to the Riviera to go to Topolino's. And there is nothing. One way to end the trip with a Topolino's brunch. Oh my gosh. I'm going to recommend that you have brunch on property or breakfast on property on your exit day every time if you can swing it.

[01:11:01] That is my new thing. My friend Amanda recommended that. And she's like, oh, we do this every time. And I was like, what? And we did Topolino's by popular demand. Everyone's like, nope, you've got to go there. And I was like, okay, sure. By far the best breakfast I've had on property. Everybody got something different. So we all kind of like tried each other's. I got the sour cream waffles. They're so good. And my son, who doesn't eat a whole lot because he's three and very picky, absolutely annihilated the chocolate chip muffins like they were his job.

[01:11:31] Just so good. Cute little characters in their little, like, their little, what are they? Like a poet and a dancer. They're all like artists. And I was like, this is so cute. And I didn't know you could walk on. There's like a little terrace up there at the very top that you could go check out. It's gorgeous up there. So that was a fun surprise. It's called Topolino's Terrace. I didn't. You know, I didn't. Listen, there's a lot of like awakenings that happen.

[01:12:00] I was like, oh, that's why they do it this way. That's why they do it that way. So the other thing that like. It's beautiful up there. Really nice views. Oh my gosh. The other thing I've glazed over this whole time is we were on the Disney dining plan. And I don't know if you remember in our pre-trip. It's like, I'm going to beat this dining plan. I did it. I actually came out almost $400 a head. And so if there's anybody who's on the fence for the dining plan, absolutely kids need to eat free.

[01:12:29] That's like the best way to start ahead. Because you're essentially getting whatever the kids would eat as free meals moving forward. Two, it is absolutely worth it if you drink. That is how you beat the plan. You need to drink all the time. And I will say we only, you don't have to be like an alcoholic.

[01:12:46] But if you at least drink, if you do the table service plan, if you get a drink with all of your sit-down meals, all the table service meals for all the adults that are there, you absolutely, that's where you start to like pick up the extra money and make your value. Even better if you're picking up those alcoholic beverages on your quick service too. Now, when you are having 107 degree days, drinking alcohol in the heat without actually having like actual sustenance and water in your body is not the best choice.

[01:13:16] So like be smart about it. But man, alcohol is the number one situation there. And then the second one, or I don't even know what tip I'm on, is making sure that you make your snack credits count. And that, I didn't let anybody get a snack that was like not close. It had to be over $6. If it was anything less, I was like, nah, get something that's worth more, worth more. So I've got people who are like, I got this $7 snack. I was like, great job. So proud of you.

[01:13:44] So our favorite expensive snacks, the Sleepy at Sleepy Hollow, the fruit Nutella waffle, that's a $9 snack. Dining plan, amazing choice. So we got two of those, of course. And then in Magic Kingdom as well, there's a Rapunzel sundae. That's like almost $9 as well. It's got some like berry and lemon soft serve, roll whip business on top of a pound cake. Like, oh, we got that before we did fireworks. And that was phenomenal.

[01:14:14] I will say this. You need to come hungry on that plan. It is a lot of food. And so what killed us is that day at Epcot where we wanted to do the showcase. We were planning on using a lot of our snack credits to fill in for the meal that we didn't get. Well, we didn't get to walk the showcase. So we ended up at the end with a full quick service meal for everybody in our party. And I can't, we have like 18 snack credits left over.

[01:14:40] So we hit up Disney Springs and we ended up getting our lunch for the road at Disney Springs at Earl of Sandwich. So we got sandwiches to go and drinks to go. So now we've got lunch for the way home. And then we stopped at Goofy's Candy Company. And I have never felt more like some kind of Disney royalty. It's like, I'll take one of those and one of those and one of those and one of those.

[01:15:01] And we literally just cleared shelves of snacks because everything's over $6 there and still ended up coming out, you know, almost $400 a head, which is wild. Yeah. So dining plan, absolutely worth it. It just depends on the way you eat and do things. In certain circumstances. Yeah.

[01:15:20] I think that this was kids eat free, which you had two kids who would actually eat some food who were younger than 10 who counted for that. Right. Because Nico, you didn't have to get a dining plan for. Nope. And then the drinking thing. So in this case, it worked out. In a majority of the cases, it doesn't work out because you're, in my opinion, because you're choosing things that you wouldn't have chosen.

[01:15:50] Like, given the, if you were given the circumstance of it does not matter the price, order what you want to order. Order what you want to eat. You're ordering things that you might not necessarily have wanted as much simply to beat the plan. So for me, it takes a lot more thought. Like, it's too much thinking to try to beat it because I want to beat it monetarily. And so I just don't do it. I hear you.

[01:16:18] And honestly, if you're looking to save money, the dining plan is not always the best option for us. We absolutely would not have done as many sit downs as we would have. We only did them because we were on the dining plan. We also are like a split the snacks kind of family. Like, I'll get a bunch of cheap snacks, but we'll split them throughout the day. And that's kind of like how it was. So it was just a lot of food. And we totally could have done it for way cheaper. We're like a just have one sit down on our trip, if that kind of family.

[01:16:47] So just food for thought things to think about when you're considering getting the dining plan. Yes. Like, it can be done. You just got to price it out. Yeah. You have to weigh what your priority is. What's the most important thing for you? And I think in some cases it will work out. So I don't want to say, like, never get the dining plan.

[01:17:12] I think I will want to try the quick service dining plan the next time I do a split stay where I could just do it for like a couple days of the trip. That would be, especially if it's a split stay and you do it for the first day or two of your stay because then you get that refillable mug. And then it will be good for the rest of your stay even though you don't have the dining plan for the whole time if you're split staying. You're so smart.

[01:17:40] So that's what I'm going to try. So something we always do at the end of our trip is a happy crappy. Like, something that we really loved about our trip and something that we really hated. I don't want to say that, but something that was like, ah, I wish that would have been better. So always starting with the worst. I truly wish the weather would have been better. Probably the worst weather-related trip that we've had in a while. Everyday rain and not even, like, the misty Florida random rain.

[01:18:03] It was like the two to three whole evening sets of torrential downpour rain that, like, closed down a park style. Or we're sitting in living terrarium lizard heat where it's like 111 degrees with the heat index and just feeling like junk. So that was, like, the low points of the trip. High points definitely is my mother-in-law's birthday right before we went. So we got her one of those buttons.

[01:18:29] And watching her, like, just get happy birthday-ed all over the place and getting, like, cute little, like, extra desserts was awesome. And it was also my youngest first trip to Disney period. So it was, like, super cute to see him. Little seven, eight-month-old dude just, like, taking it all in for the first time. And I'm happy to report he's a Dumbo kid. So he really enjoyed that one. Not Toy Story Mania, though. That's really sweet. I loved hearing all about your family's adventures.

[01:18:59] In spite of the weather, that's just literally the nature of the beast at this time of year, unfortunately. The thunderstorms are a real thing. But my hope is that when you go back in August, it will be a little bit calmer for you. I think it's – I've experienced more thunderstorms in July. Well, good to hear. We go always at the same time. And this has been the worst. Crossing her fingers. Oh, yeah.

[01:19:25] I am crossing my fingers hoping that our weather is better this time. Listen, I'll take rain. Just let me be able to walk in my poncho in the rain from place to place without endangering myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a really bad rain trip one time, which is why I now have waterproof sneakers. I got some of that OnCloud brand sneakers. And they have some that are waterproof. And they really are waterproof. And I highly recommend those.

[01:19:55] They are expensive. I think mine were like $160 or something. Like, they're very expensive. But they work. Okay. That's good to know because I'm an avid OnCloud. Like, both my park shoes are OnClouds. But I've always wondered if the waterproof, water-resistant ones are like worth the extra little. And you're telling me it's worth the extra little. A hundred percent. Yep. Yep. All right, Heather. It's late.

[01:20:23] We both got to get up tomorrow morning for bed. I think you're on a different time zone than me, correct? I am indeed. So it's in two minutes. It's going to be 11 p.m. for me. So I need to pack it up, get to bed, and get some rest. But I did have so much fun chatting with you about this, especially because I don't know if you do this, but when you hear about other people's trips or like where people are in the world, I'm always like trying to place where I am at that point in time in the world

[01:20:53] as well. So as you've been talking, like when we got to Thursday, I was like, okay, I was getting ready for my own trip and I was packing. And then like on your day when you were having brunch at Topolino's, I was like, it was only a couple hours before I landed there and we were just like ships passing in the night. So I always think that's fun. And when you have trips that are close like this, listeners should know. That's what I'm doing in my head is I'm playing a game of where was I when this happened.

[01:21:23] Heather's mic cut off right there at the end. So she did not get a chance to say goodbye to you, the listeners, but know that she did tell you goodbye and wishes you all well and all the things. Thank you so much to both Heather and Tim for being a part of the show. I am looking forward to continuing to follow you on all the socials. And I hope listeners will do the same. Heather and Tim's energy is definitely infectious and they really do have that Mordini magic.

[01:21:50] I hope everyone has a wonderful week and that you can find your own magic in your day. Whether your next trip is already on the books and something that you're looking forward to, or whether it's just a wish for the future. Keep daydreaming about where you long to be.