Pre-Trip Report: Virginia & Alex’s Disney and Universal Vacation (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. Thank you all for tuning in again for another episode of the show. If you haven't done so yet, please remember to rate and review the podcast and follow me on all the socials. There are no new hot takes or comments this week, but if you would like to leave one for next week, you can do that through my website, which is whereilongtobepodcast.com.

[00:00:38] By clicking the Leave Virginia a voice message button that is on the right side of your screen. On today's episode, you will hear my conversation with Alex as we were planning our July trip. I want to give a huge shout out to Molly Kripata, who was our travel agent for the universal portion of our stay. She is just the best and was so attentive and it absolutely cost us nothing to use her services. Remember, the commission for using travel agent is baked into the prices of both

[00:01:08] Disney and Universal. So if you partner with one, you get that assistance that is already included in the cost of your trip. Anyway, Molly's website is linked in the show notes and from there you can find all her contact information. So make sure you check it out. And now let's get into today's pre trip interview. Please welcome back to the show. The one, the only Alex. Welcome back, Alex.

[00:01:35] Good to be back. Thank you for having me. We have a trip coming up in a matter of days. We do very exciting. We are going not only to Disney this time, but we are heading back to Universal Studios. First time in how many years for me? I don't remember. Well, for me, five years. No. Six years. Maybe six years. It was during the pandemic that I went. No.

[00:02:04] No, it must have been five years because it was probably 2021, not 20. For me. 20. For you, it's less time than that. What do you mean? I know. Didn't you go on that trip where you were with Uncle Jason and you guys went over there for a day? Yeah, I don't think that was when I was that age. Oh, you think that was before? That was before. Oh, it might be. Okay. I haven't been since before COVID.

[00:02:30] Okay. So it's been a really long time. Yes, you were right because you've never done Velocicoaster. Yeah. Yeah. Sad story. But hey, we're going back. So I'm really excited now. All right. We got a lot of plans to talk through. So we're going to just dive right into all of this. So the reason that we are doing our trip in July is because you wanted to add on these Universal Days and I am not willing to take away from my Disney time to go to Universal. It has to be a bonus.

[00:03:00] And so we had to move to summer so that we have time. So because of that, it's going to be hotter than the face of the sun. Are you prepared? No. It's already been crazy hot here in New York, but it's worse in Florida. So I'm scared. Yeah, but at least we'll be having fun in Florida and not doing work and school and that sort of thing. I'm still scared.

[00:03:23] Well, I'm going to be bringing our fans, of course, our cooling towels. We'll be drinking lots of water, etc., etc. Oh, God. I'm going to be sweating like crazy. I think we're ready. And also, the good news is for the Universal portion, at least, that we're staying very close to the parks. So, yeah.

[00:03:44] Before we talk about our Universal plans, I have to say that we used a travel agent for this portion of our plans because, of course, our Disney portion of the trip is through DVC, through our annual passes, all of that. So we don't really need assistance with that. But I used Molly Kripata, who has been a guest a couple times on the show, who you have also met in person, just like I have. Yes. Thank you, Molly, by the way.

[00:04:11] Yes. So Molly is the person I reached out to. She was the very first person I interviewed about going to Epic Universe. And so I like to spread the travel agent love around. So, of course, she came to mind for this trip because we're very much looking forward to visiting Epic Universe. So I reached out to her. She has been amazing. She has helped get some dining reservations for us over there.

[00:04:35] She got us squared away with our Epic Universe Express Pass and all of that. And she sent us some lovely stuff in the mail, including a little gift in the mail, which I won't spoil anyone on in case you are using her as a travel agent. So huge thank you to Molly for helping us with this trip. We are so excited.

[00:05:01] And I would recommend Molly to anyone that is looking for a travel agent of any kind, whether it's Disney, Universal or any other kind of trip. She's just the best. All right. Let's get into the plans. So we are leaving on Friday, July the 3rd. And we are going down instead of flying at the crack of dawn and diving right into our park time. We're going down the night before so that we can get a good night's sleep and then hit the ground running while we're down there.

[00:05:31] So July the 3rd, we're going to be dropping our dear dog, Walter, off at boarding. And I'm a little bit nervous about it. I'll admit I'm going to be missing him a lot on this trip. Well, we always miss him. It's just different this time because he's going to be around other people. Yes. Normally, he stays at home with my bestie Nancy and she is no longer in New York City.

[00:05:59] And so he will be going off to what I'm trying to think of as camp for him where he has some dog friends, I think. I'm not sure. There was a little girl Maltese over there the other day when I took him to go get groomed. And they told me that she was, you know, talking to Walter and he was interested. So I don't know. Maybe he'll have a girlfriend by the time we get back. Walter's got a special lady. They look like siblings. That's a little weird. Yeah. Awkward.

[00:06:30] Anyway, after we do that, we will be heading across the river to Newark Airport. And it has been forever since I've flown out of Newark Airport. But you were just there in April for your Greece trip. I was. Okay. Not that bad. It's fine. It's fine. It's a little farther away for us because, you know, we live very close to LaGuardia and JFK. But we have United miles and we use those to book our flights.

[00:06:57] We will fly out at about 2 o'clock, which puts us down in Orlando at about 5 o'clock. And I got us a random hotel for that first night at the Hampton Inn near Universal because it was a good price. It's near Universal. And really the only thing we were planning on doing that night was just getting there, having some dinner and getting to bed at a reasonable time. However. However. However. I have since learned in the time since we've planned this trip. Oh boy.

[00:07:25] That the renovations to Carousel of Progress will begin on July the 6th, which is the day that we go over to Disney and we're not getting there till the evening. And I do not want to miss out on riding Carousel of Progress one last time in its current form. And so I have. The original. The original. Yes. I've booked a park reservation for us for Friday night.

[00:07:47] And I don't know what you and dad want to do, but I will personally be taking a lift after we get our stuff settled at the hotel over to Magic Kingdom purely to ride Carousel of Progress one last time. I think I might go with you. Yeah. And then I thought maybe while we're there, we could get a Jaffreys or I don't know, some KC's. Yeah, let's do that. And then just head right back out. Okay. Maybe we'll ride it twice. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. Jeanette suggested twice.

[00:08:16] She suggested once because I love it and watch it and once and take a nap during it for old time's sake. Yeah, that's what I was just about to say. I was like, we should take a nap for one of those. The other one just like completely locked in. Only make one of them count. The other one was going to be passed out on a chair, a nice comfy chair. What are they doing with it again? Is it like more modern? Yeah. So they're updating it. So I think the time period where it's going to start will be like the 60s or something.

[00:08:46] So no, maybe the 60s, maybe later than that. I cannot remember. But it's going to totally shift the time period so that when you get to the last scene, it will be an imagined future and not the 80s with some, you know, decorations changed out. So wait, we're going to see the 90s? I think it might skip over the 90s. What? I'm not sure.

[00:09:16] Let's look it up real quick. That's so crazy. Oh, please. Okay. So the new timeline is going to start with a Walt Disney audio animatronic. So we'll see Walt Disney. Okay, that's actually really cool.

[00:09:34] And it's going to be based on the 1964 television special Disneyland Goes to the World's Fair where they talked about all the Disney things that were going to be at that World's Fair, which happened right down the street from us. Right where we are. Yep. Yep. About a, I don't know, less than 10 minute drive away from us. Yeah. Then the first scene will be in the 1960s. The second scene will be in the 1980s. Actually, let's just talk about the details of each of these.

[00:10:01] The first scene will be in the 1960s where the family will have returned from the World's Fair and Jimmy will invite the rest of the family to gather around the television to watch the moon landing. Okay, that's really cool. But here's the thing though. How are you going to like replace like the original people? I think they're kind of going to be the same characters. No. Because no, because they have to record like new stuff, right? Well, some. Yeah. They might have slightly different voices. Oh. All right.

[00:10:31] Scene two is in the 1980s set on Halloween night with 80s aesthetics. Sarah takes center stage and Uncle Orville complains about lack of privacy. So we're keeping the Uncle Orville line. Yay. Yay. The third scene goes to the turn of the 21st century where grandma and grandpa visit for New Year's Eve, navigating the emergence of the internet and the Y2K era. So it's going to be more focused on like specific family members? Yeah.

[00:11:00] It sounds like each person is getting their moment as opposed to it always being John Progress. I love John Progress. And then the fourth and final act is the future, an off planet home. What? Powered by advanced technology, robots, and space travel. No. No. That's my nightmare. Robots? I don't know. I think it sounds fun. Like robot butlers and stuff? Maybe. Okay. That would be kind of cool. Never mind.

[00:11:29] Let's keep going with our plans. Otherwise, this pre-trip episode is going to take forever. Are they going to do the AI takeover? Perhaps. Perhaps. All right. So after we get back from our jaunt over to the Magic Kingdom, we'll get a good night's sleep. And then we'll wake up on Saturday, July 4th at the crack of dawn to take a lift over to the Hard Rock Hotel to get checked in, to pick up our tickets, to drop our bags off, and to get our express passes.

[00:11:54] Because I would like to be over at Islands of Adventure by 8 a.m., which is the early entry time. And early entry at Universal, you get, I believe, a full hour of early entry. Ooh. So we will go over there immediately. And I think that we should try to rope drop Hagrid's because it no longer takes express pass. We can do that. After we ride Hagrid's, I think we absolutely have to go over to do the Velocicoaster. No, yeah, we'll do that.

[00:12:23] But I just realized that, like, the last time I went, they were talking about putting in Hagrid's. No, you rode Hagrid's once. No, I didn't. You didn't? I've never ridden Hagrid's, yeah. Oh. It's been that long. Wow. Okay. Okay. You're going to love it. There was a period. Don't spoil. There was a period of time there for a couple of years where Hagrid's moved over to using the express pass. So our Hard Rock Hotel express pass privileges would have carried over to Hagrid's.

[00:12:53] However, they are removing that, I think, like, tomorrow. Like, it's within this week. It's before we go. Hagrid's was just an idea, like, before I, like, when it was my last time. It is amazing. You're going to love it. But because we won't have express pass for that one ride, we will need to rope drop to get over there.

[00:13:18] My thought is because we're going to be staying at the Hard Rock and it's so easy to walk to the parks from there, that we'll take a pool break in the middle of the day. Cool off. Enjoy the pool. Do the water slide. Have some piña yadas. Oh, God. This is my first piña yada. Outside of Hagrid's, we'll have Express Unlimited because of our Hard Rock Hotel stay. So that is nice. We'll get to ride Velocicoaster probably as many times as we want. Yes.

[00:13:47] We'll get to ride Gringotts as many times as we want. I've heard legends about Velocicoaster. It's going to be amazing. And we have to ride it after it gets dark, too, because you know how it's different when you ride something during the day versus dark. Because Velociraptors are my second favorite dinosaur. What's your first favorite? The Tyrannosaurus rex. Okay. I could talk about the T-Rex for, like, a long time, but I'm not going to because we've been recording for a bit now. Yes.

[00:14:13] This pre-trip is going to take absolute forever unless we really kick it into gear. Sorry. No. Well, right back on track. You got me. Okay. All right. So after a potential pool break, we have a 6 p.m. dinner reservation. Thank you to Molly at Mythos or Mythos. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. In Islands of Adventure, which is sort of Mediterranean food. So you might enjoy it because maybe there's some stuff that you might have had in Greece.

[00:14:41] Sunday, July 5th is going to be our Epic Universe Day. So we're going to get over there for the 9 a.m. early entry at Epic Universe. Yeah. I did purchase the Epic Universe Express Pass, but because it is a separate Express Pass, we only get to ride each of the rides once using our Express. And that's, like, How to Train Your Dragon and stuff and Super Mario? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:06] There is one ride in the Isle of Berk section of the park that does not qualify for the Express Pass. Is it Monsters Unchained? No, no, no. It's in the Isle of Berk. What? It's called, like, Dueling Dragons or something like that. Oh, okay. But Monsters Unchained, we can use our Express Pass. I've been excited for that one, too. With the Epic Express Pass, you can only ride each of them once, which means if it doesn't have a long wait anyway,

[00:15:32] we should ride standby so that if you want to ride it a second time, you can with your Express. All right. In the middle of that day, I have a lunch reservation for us. Again, thank you, Molly, at the Blue Dragon, which is a restaurant I've heard a lot of good things about in Epic. We're not going to take a midday pool break for Epic Day because Epic is farther away from the Hard Rock Hotel,

[00:15:58] and so it would involve, like, a bus ride back, and that's just too much. So we're going to be locked in on our Epic Universe Day. When we're doing Epic Universe, we will be there all day. Yippee. Okay. Moving on to Monday, July 6th, which is our final Universal Day. No. I made a breakfast reservation for us at the Kitchen Restaurant, which is in the Hard Rock Hotel,

[00:16:26] and we'll just leave our bags there with Bell Services after we've checked out of our hotel room and do whatever we want in Islands of Adventure and Universal. We'll have that Express Unlimited for that day as well. Then, do you want to take over here? Yeah. At the end of our Universal Day. We are taking a lift to Animal Kingdom Lodge for the first time. I've never been to Animal Kingdom Lodge. I don't think you have either. I mean, we've been there to eat at a restaurant once.

[00:16:56] I do remember that. And to visit, but never to stay. So then we move on to July 7th, which is a nice, nice, breezy Tuesday. It's probably not going to be breezy. It's probably going to be super hot. But we're going to spend the rest of the day at Animal Kingdom Lodge. We're just going to sleep in, go to the pool, hang out, find stuff to do. And then at 6 p.m., we're going to have dinner at, I don't know how to say this. Gico. Gico.

[00:17:26] Thank you, Mom. Gico. It's a nice restaurant at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and we're very excited about it. And you are going to? Yeah. So this is a resort day for us, so we're just going to be hanging out and resting because we will have three days of Universal fun under our belts at this point. So because we'll be at the resort all day, I might go over to the outlets or to Disney Springs at some point during the day. But I'm imagining that you and Dad will probably not care to do that, and we'll probably just

[00:17:56] hang out at the pool and whatever. All right. Wednesday. What's on the docket for Wednesday? All right. Wednesday, July 8th, we're going to have a 9 a.m. breakfast at Boma, which is a buffet restaurant at Animal Kingdom Lodge. And then we're going to head straight to Animal Kingdom after our breakfast, and you're going to get us multi-pass this day. I did, and I already booked us for three Lightning Lane reservations. Would you like to hear what they are? I would like to hear what they are. Yes, please. Do tell.

[00:18:26] Okay. Don't laugh at some of these. I got Zootopia. What? Zootopia is here now? Better Zoo-Gether. Yes, it replaced Bug's Life. Better Zoo-Gether. So that's sort of like a throwaway one. I got us Everest, obviously. Yes. And then Kali River Rapids because it's the high heat of summer, so we might actually want to get wet on the Kali River Rapids. And then after that, we will go back to the pool and have a midday break.

[00:18:54] Yes, midday pool and rest. After our midday pool break at 5.45 p.m., we're going to head to Magic Kingdom for some extended evening hours, which are, in my opinion, some of the best days at Disney that we have. And then at 6.30, we're going to have a dinner at Beacon Barrel for cocktails for you guys, of course. I'll get mocktails. Yeah, maybe they'll have piña yadas. Maybe they'll have piña yadas. And then we're going to enjoy our extended hours at Magic Kingdom. And that's the end of our day.

[00:19:23] And yeah. Next is Thursday, July the 9th. So this is another Animal Kingdom day because I think it's good to lean into wherever you're staying and take advantage of what's going on near you. So Animal Kingdom, we're going to head over there. And at 10 a.m., I have the Caring for Giants tour scheduled, which is the one-hour tour where you get to meet the elephants. Yes, yes, I heard. Didn't one of them just have a baby? I think a while back.

[00:19:53] No, that was a giraffe. I think there was a baby elephant like a year or two ago. So it's a year-old elephant. Yep. Yep. That's a baby to me. I really wanted to make like a Jungle Cruise elephant memory joke right then. Yeah. No, elephants have the best memory like of any animal. Did you know that? They have a really great memory. It's fantastic. I was waiting for you to say it again like you're on Jungle Cruise.

[00:20:22] Oh, say what again? That elephants have a really great memory. Oh, they do. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Okay. So on July the 9th, after we are done with our Caring for Giants tour, I've got us multi-pass, and the three that I have booked for us is Kilimanjaro Safaris, because it will be easy for us to head right over there and do the safari after our Caring for Giants. Then we will do Expedition Everest again, because you love it so much.

[00:20:52] That is very true. And then we will do Navi River Journey, and then I have an individual Lightning Lane for us for Flight of Passage. Then, guess what? We're doing another midday pool break. Yay! And after the pool break... We're going to Hollywood Studios for the evening. So then after we head to Hollywood Studios for the evening at 745, we're going to go to Oga's Cantina for your guys' cocktails and my pina yadas, if they have any. I know how much you love Oga's.

[00:21:20] I only booked this for you, because I don't need to do it every time, but you love to do it. Thanks, Mom. You're the best. And then moving on to Friday, July 10th, at 730, we're going to head to Magic Kingdom, and at about 9 a.m., we're going to do the Keys to the Kingdom tour, finally, because I just turned 16 yesterday. I am so excited about this tour. I have been waiting. I've been talking about it for years. For you to turn 16, so that we could do it. For 16 years.

[00:21:48] Because, I mean, you probably never would have cared about this, but I was like, I'm not doing it without him. I'll wait until he's 16, and I'll do it for the first time. And so I held out, and now we're finally going to do it, and we're going to get to see inside the Utilidors and backstage, and it's just going to be so much fun. Oh, yeah, because you wouldn't want to ruin the magic for a 15-year-old Alex. No. Last week, Alex, couldn't have handled this. I would have sobbed. Today, Alex. Yeah, I would have had a meltdown.

[00:22:17] Then after our Keys to the Kingdom tour, which is about five hours, we're going to play the afternoon by ear. We're going to go back for a pool break if we want to, hop over to Epcot in the evening and just chill at the resort. Saturday, July 11th. Yeah, Saturday, July 11th is the day that we check out of Animal Kingdom Lodge. Oh, no. I didn't say earlier. We're going to be staying in the Kidani Village section of Animal Kingdom Lodge in a one-bedroom for our DVC, and that is for five nights.

[00:22:47] So on this morning, it's the morning that we check out of Animal Kingdom Lodge and move over to Boardwalk for two nights. Boardwalk is going to be a studio DVC room. And so we will have our stuff transferred by Disney because they make it so easy. We are going to have multi-pass again this day. And oh, I forgot to say on our Magic Kingdom day, we also had multi-pass.

[00:23:12] So for Magic Kingdom day, the three that I picked were Haunted Mansion, Tiana's Bayou Adventure, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, which is the newly refurbished one where you can see better what you're shooting. Thank God. And then I got us an individual lightning lane for Tron. I mean, not like the old Buzz Lightyear thing, like stop me from getting Galactic Hero. It's hard. I find it harder to get Galactic Hero on this one. No. Oh, on this one? Really? Personally.

[00:23:42] Well, yeah, because that's because you can like take the like laser gun off of the mount, right? Yeah. And I just, I'm not used to it yet. I'm locked in. I can do it. You're going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. You know what the cool thing is, is that when you get your photo, it shows the score of each person in the car on the photo. So you don't have to like, you know, struggle to get your phone and take a picture to prove what you got. It's on your Magic Shop. Yeah. I'm just going to have some shameful photos in my phone.

[00:24:12] I know. Yours are going to be like a million points and mine's going to be like 100,000. Oh. 100,000. That's still pretty good. Not really. I mean, it's not terrible. All right. So then back to Saturday, July 11th. The multi-pass selections that I chose for this day were, what did I choose?

[00:24:41] I chose Toy Story Mania, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock and Roller Coaster starring the Muppets, and an individual lightning lane for Guardians of the Galaxy, obviously. Once we get checked out of the boardwalk, we're going to head over to Hollywood Studios and do those lightning lanes. And at 1 p.m., we have a lunch reservation at the Brown Derby. Oh my God, yes.

[00:25:11] I know. You love it. Yeah. So good. What are you going to get? I have no clue. I want to get something different this time. Oh, okay. All right. We'll see what we have. Look at you living on the edge. I know, right? This is like when I stopped putting just turkey and cheese on my sandwiches. Oh my God, that was an amazing day. That's the day I grew up. Okay. Because we will be at Hollywood Studios and our hotel will be boardwalk, once our room is

[00:25:40] ready, I figure we can take a midday pool break. You'll see that there's lots of midday pool breaks here on this trip because of how hot it's going to be and all of that. So I figured we'd want to go back to the hotel in the middle of the day, take a nice pool break at Boardwalk to experience that pool. And then we can hop over to Epcot for the evening, which is when we'll do that Guardians of the Galaxy Lightning Lane.

[00:26:06] And then that brings us to our final full day, which is going to be Sunday, July the 12th. And that is Epcot all day. Nothing but Epcot. All right, cool. I'm fine with that. I did get a multi-pass Lightning Lance for that day. I chose Soarin', which is right now Soarin' across America and not Soarin' around the world. So it's a different version. Why? Because it's the 250th anniversary of America.

[00:26:36] Yay. Go America. I also got a Spaceship Earth and the newly renovated Test Track, which you have not done yet. Oh my God. It was so bad last time trying to get on that ride. I know. We failed. We had a Lightning Lane. It was down. We had to leave without Alex getting a chance to do that. Oh, and then we have another midday pool break. But after, after Guardians of the Galaxy. Yay.

[00:27:04] Yes, we have another individual Lightning Lane for Guardians that night after dinner. And actually our dinner reservation is at a restaurant in the Japan section of Epcot. It's called Shiki Sai. Yay. None of us have been there before, but they specialize in sushi. So I thought you and Dad would really enjoy that. Yeah. Big sushi lovers. Mm-hmm. And then on Monday, July the 13th, we check out of the boardwalk.

[00:27:32] And our flight at MCO leaves at about 10, 20 or so. And that'll get us back to Newark by around 1 p.m., at which point we will go and pick up Walter. Our baby. Those are all of our big plans. I think, you know, we've got a bunch of things that we haven't done before.

[00:27:56] We're really excited about the universal portion of our trip and getting to take advantage of all those express passes. What are we doing in Disney that we haven't done before? Well, first of all... Well, Keys to the Kingdom. Yes. Keys to the Kingdom. We haven't done Caring for Giants. You haven't done Test Track. You haven't done Buzz Lightyear. You haven't done Big Thunder. And pretty much everything in Universal is kind of new to me. Right.

[00:28:24] And Universal, I've stayed at Hard Rock, but neither of you have. And then for Disney, none of us have stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge before. And I have stayed at Boardwalk, but neither of you have. So lots of new things to go around for all of us. It's going to be so much fun. What would you say at Universal are you looking forward to the most? PhilosiCoaster and Harry Potter World.

[00:28:52] Are you excited about the new Ministry of Magic Ride that's in Epic Universe? Oh my god, yes. Yeah. Very excited. Are you bringing your interactive wand? Probably not. No? Nope. You don't want to do any of the new windows that are over in Epic? No. I think I'm okay. Plus, those were like a pain in the butt last time. I remember it just being a pain in the butt because I never understood how to do the wand movement.

[00:29:20] And I got really upset on the inside. I was like, I can't get these. I mean, your wand's not going to take up much space in your luggage. Why don't you bring it that way if you get down there and you're like, I wish I had my wand. Here's the thing. Then you can bring it the following day. I don't know which one still works. I don't know which ones still work. I think if it doesn't work, you could get it fixed. I think I have a Draco's is probably the newest. For interactive? Yeah. Okay.

[00:29:50] I think you should bring it just in case. I just realized something. I could check what day it was, was my last day, like before I, like my last day at Universal up until now. Hold on. All right. We're going to pause for two seconds and Alex is going to find that information. Yeah. I think I can find it. Maybe it was 2020? No, probably not. I think maybe. It was February. Here we go. This is it. Yeah. February 18th, 19th, 2020. That's crazy.

[00:30:18] See, here's the picture I took for you, by the way. Yeah, that wasn't a good picture. Yeah, I know. Okay. So Alex has found his picture and it was February of 2020, the last time he was there. And I believe that for me it was July of 2021, the last time I was in Universal. So I say bring your wand with you just in case. I will. Okay. They also have interactive things that you can do in the Super Mario land. I know.

[00:30:48] You got to get one of those bracelet thingies though. They're kind of pricey. Yeah. I don't really, I don't really know about that. I feel like it's just kind of like you're just punching the question mark blocks and that's it. I think you're like earning points or opening up things. I've been playing a lot of Mario Bros. 3 though on my little fake Game Boy. Please don't sue me, Nintendo. I'm serious, guys. It's getting ridiculous. They should not have discontinued the Game Boy. Yeah. Actually, yeah.

[00:31:17] That's what I thought. Come after me. I mean, you use other Nintendo products. So it's not like you're not giving them money, right? No, yeah, of course. Okay. In the Disney portion of our trip, what are you most looking forward to? Everything. Probably riding Carousel Progress one last time. Two last times. One to sleep, one to actually watch the show. Yeah. Are you going to be on the lookout for any merch while we're down there? Are you going to be shopping for anything? Yeah, I am.

[00:31:45] I'm going to be looking for a gift from my girlfriend. And I'm going to be maybe getting something for myself, Universal, as a souvenir. What are you thinking about a gift for her? It's a surprise. It's definitely going to be something Harry Potter related. Oh, you think? Yeah, because she loves Harry Potter. Okay. So, you know, I was like, okay, I'll go look in Harry Potter for you and I'll get you something special. There's a lot of good stuff in Harry Potter. Yeah.

[00:32:14] I always like all the different stuff that they have. They have such cute, like, notepads and shirts and all kinds of stuff. So, I'm sure we'll find something nice. Yeah. Wow. I just feel like they're just, like, dropped the bomb on everybody here. Yeah. I have a girlfriend. So what, guys? I feel like faithful listeners are very excited to hear that. Oh, thanks, guys. Because they've been listening to you for three years now. Three years? Wow. Yeah.

[00:32:43] Podcast has been on for three years. Isn't it weird? Weird. I'm now 16. Like, first time you guys heard me, that's probably, what, 12, 13? Yeah. Probably 13. That's crazy. Yeah. And. Thanks for watching me, guys. You're almost six feet tall now. I am six feet tall. You are? With shoes, yeah. With shoes. Sure. But who goes anywhere without shoes? I'm basically just six foot. Like, why say 5'11"? I'm just six foot. But why say six foot? That's such an awkward height. Just say 6'2".

[00:33:12] But you're not 5'11". You're like 5'11". And three-fourths. Yeah. So, basically 6'2". Anyway. All right. Well, I'm super excited about this trip. I have so much to do before we go. You know how I like to clean the house extensively before we leave. I got so much to do for work. And thankfully, we aren't leaving at the crack of dawn because you know how stressed out I get with packing.

[00:33:39] No matter how many times I've packed, especially packed for a Disney trip, I get stressed out. I love waking up at the crack of dawn. I mean, I do too. We're still going to have to wake up early, though, because, well, not super early, but I figure we got to try to leave here by like 10 to be safe to go take Walter over to the boarding and then get in the car and head. And I want to leave some time for the lounge at Newark. Walter's right here, by the way, folks. So, say hi. Aw.

[00:34:10] He's on his back right now. He looks funny. He's on his back all splayed out. Like, does not look very gentlemanly. Not a thought in that brain. You can't even form a thought. Aw. Okay. His eyes are closed. He's all cute. All right. All right. Anyways, folks. Yeah, I don't think we've ever posted a picture of Walter. Maybe including in our trip photos, I'll include a picture of us dropping him at the boarding. You took a really cute one of him after he got his haircut. I know. He was smiling. We could post that one.

[00:34:38] It's like he's got like a ribbon den on. He's smiling. And his little ears are showing. I'm looking at it right now. He looks like he's smiling. It's so cute. And he's looking at the camera too. I know. All right. Enough with pet talk. All right. Then we will be back. And next time you hear us on the post-trip episode, we'll be talking all about this magical trip that we have taken. Yay. Yay. I love you. Oh, I love you too, Mom. Thank you for having me.

[00:35:08] Thank you for being here. And thank you all for listening and for being cool fans. Yes. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave a rating, a review. Yes. Do that. Or send me a message. Or send me. No, don't send me messages. I mean, you could. Just say if you want to send me messages, send them to her and she'll report to me. She usually does. Yes. And as a reminder, I can take messages through direct messages, but I'm also taking messages through my website, which is where I like to be podcast.com. Yep.

[00:35:35] Through the Send Virginia a voice message link. Link. So if you click that and record a message. Message. Why are you repeating everything I'm saying? I'm ad-libbing. If you record a message for me, it might get played on the show. So just be aware of that. Aware of that. I love you. I love you too. Goodbye. Bye, everyone. Goodbye. Thanks to Alex for being game for my podcast shenanigans once again.

[00:36:04] There is a reason that listeners always tell me how much they love you and it's because you're the best. And I'm not just saying that as your mom. Our post-trip conversation is up next. So what are you waiting for? Until next time, keep daydreaming about where you want to be. . Have a good night. Bye. Bye.