Mickeyphile Podcast Episode 182 – Summer House on the Lake
Disney World announces free Water Park access on check-in days for resort guests in 2025. Extended Evening hours will return in 2025, too. And we went to Summerhouse on the Lake. Did we find a new go-to in Disney Springs? Or was it one-and-done? Find out on episode 182 of The Mickeyphile Podcast.
Highlights include:
Free Water Park access on check-in days
Summerhouse on the Lake Review
COOKIES!!!
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/946434275769168/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickeyphile_podcast/
Music: “Cân thema (Mickeyphile Podcast Theme)” copyright Scott Daves 2023
Mickeyphile Podcast Episode 182 – Summer House on the Lake
Disney World announces free Water Park access on check-in days for resort guests in 2025. Extended Evening hours will return in 2025, too. And we went to Summerhouse on the Lake. Did we find a new go-to in Disney Springs? Or was it one-and-done? Find out on episode 182 of The Mickeyphile Podcast.
Highlights include:
Free Water Park access on check-in days
Summerhouse on the Lake Review
COOKIES!!!
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/946434275769168/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickeyphile_podcast/
Music: “Cân thema (Mickeyphile Podcast Theme)” copyright Scott Daves 2023
Disney World announces free water park access on check-in dates for resort guests in 2025. Extended evening hours will return for 2025 as well, and we went to Summer House on the lake. Did we find a new go-to in Disney Springs, or was it a one and done? Find out on episode 182 of the Mickey File Podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Mickey File Podcast. I'm Scott, and with me, as always, is my lovely wife Karen. Hello everybody, it is the last couple days of February, yes, and it's leap year, so we're already like a sixth of the way through the year unbelievably.
Speaker 1:I know A's are just keep going.
Speaker 2:One after another. I know it's how that works. So we went over for the weekend, saw some of our friends who were running the princess races.
Speaker 1:Multiple, multiple. Some did singular, some did multiple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So we had friends that did all kinds of stuff over there. Yeah, very cool weekend. It was a good weekend and one of the things we did we tried to get into Haleo because we had enjoyed that so much a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Right For the happy hour time. Sangria hour, oh yes, sangria hour, yeah.
Speaker 2:And couldn't get a seat at the bar. And what it did find out is you have to be sitting at the bar. Yes, which I did not know, that, yeah. Otherwise you can't just like come in and get a table in the bar area, right.
Speaker 1:Because that's considered the dining room, even though it's in the bar area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had to move on down. Yes, so we decided, hey, let's try summer house. It's new and and it was an interesting place. It really was Three different bars, uh huh, and quite a varied menu. Yes, that's the short form, but we'll talk about it in a little bit. Yeah, so there's just a little bit of news this week, like a little bit, because mostly the news is Flowering gardens back.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And there were races last weekend. Yes, that's the news, and mostly the news is flowering garden is back Right. So there, that's that part of the news. Let's skip to DVC. We also recorded late last week, so we got most of the news taken care of. Yes, last week. Yes, there is some DVC stuff. So, karen, you can do that this week.
Speaker 1:Okay, free water park access on check-in days for DVC members in 2025. And it's really all resort guests, right? So it's all guests staying at Disney Resort Hotels, which includes Disney Vacation Club properties. We'll enjoy complimentary access to one of Disney's water parks, either Disney's Typhoon Lagoon or Disney's Blizzard Beach, on their check-in day, included with their stay.
Speaker 2:So is this a way to ease the fact that it seems like rooms are becoming available later and later every time you stay?
Speaker 1:You know I wouldn't put it past them. So the perk is valid For stays between January 1st 2025. And December 31st 2025. And it is exclusive to registered guests on the room reservation.
Speaker 2:So I guess, like I was trying to figure out why, you now say now, like why, honestly, it's February, dude, like you could do it now for 2024. But I guess it's because everybody is now, as of like two days ago, booking or February 27th, which yeah. Yesterday. Now everybody can book 2025 trips.
Speaker 1:So they announced it just before that, before the booking window opened.
Speaker 2:Going, please book lots of rooms so we don't have to keep giving 35% off all of our hotel rooms all year.
Speaker 1:You're not wrong on that, but it is a nice. I think it's a nice perk, especially during the summer and during, you know, when it's warm on spring. The fall gives you some option to do.
Speaker 2:It is. I mean, you know you fly in in the morning and maybe don't want to burn a ticket, Right?
Speaker 1:Because you may not get there until noon. Yeah, and then you know this gives you an option.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's pretty cool It'll be. It might be an excuse for us because we keep pondering adding the water parks. Now we don't have to Right, just head over there early on a day. We're staying on property, exactly, I'm okay with that, that's pretty cool, yeah. And then the other thing we do if we're going for like Friday night and Saturday night, do single night stays we do, we book two one night stays.
Speaker 1:And they just ask them to not move out of the same room.
Speaker 2:And then we got water park the whole time.
Speaker 1:I know you are so smart, baby 14 days of one night stays.
Speaker 2:That's fair to me, Would you also be? Then you only have to do the dining plan every other day.
Speaker 1:Oh, true, because, yeah, you know, you are smart guy, baby, figure it out. I know Got to plan this out.
Speaker 2:If my boy Bob is going to keep raising prices, we got to figure a way around it. Speaking of which, yes. So ticket prices are going up again in 2025. New base rate is going to be 129 instead of 119 or 119 instead of 10 bucks higher.
Speaker 1:Right, and they're talking currently as far as single day tickets.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that means that annual passes are annual prices passes always go up because, remember, we're in undesirable attendance mix, so we've got to keep trying to price us out. Yeah, so I think it's really funny Because, like one of the first things Bob did when he fired Bob Chapin and came back and you can tell me he didn't do it, except that, like everybody on the board is like his buddy, so whatever Right, he's raised ticket prices twice. Nope, since he fired Bob after saying that Bob had overpriced the parks, the Chapin Chapin was too aggressive and increasing prices in the parks, and then he just keeps raising prices on the parks.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Extended evening hours have been confirmed for 2025. It offers exclusively to guests staying at Deluxe and DVC resorts, providing two hours of night access for up to two theme parks per week. Generally it's magic kingdom and Epcot, but they have been throwing in some Hollywood studios periodically, so it's a nice per.
Speaker 2:You know, here's another little complaint.
Speaker 1:It's not really a complaint.
Speaker 2:I mean, I understand it and the animals need sleep time and all that, yes, right, but last night we went to moonlight magic, correct, and we may get into that. We probably won't this week because, be honest with you, I'm kind of sick and I don't want to record for an hour, okay, but the safari wasn't open. Yes, all right. So I watched this whole I don't remember if it was magic of the zoo or imaginary story or whatever and they showed you this super cool, like palm trees with lights. I know the animals aren't going to be out there, it's still pretty.
Speaker 2:And when I used to work on the train at bush gardens right, the train was transportation like it is at magic kingdom, but at night you couldn't see the animals. You were out there in a field and we didn't have any lights out there in the Savannah, right the belt, but we had a different nighttime spiel. It was all like history of the park. You know which gardens first opened its doors to the public in 1958. You know that kind of deal, right, right, and about how much beer we brewed and that's when we had a brewery and all that stuff, right, but it was a cool like history of the parks nighttime thing. You could do a cool history of the animal kingdom nighttime little thing and not have to close at dark.
Speaker 1:Right, no, every night Pre COVID, like when we went to February 2020.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1:Right, I went to February and they had a nighttime safari then.
Speaker 2:Well, if you went to the WDW news, they're like PR site, uh huh, because I was looking for some pictures the other day. Okay. The very first head under pictures for animal kingdom night is Kilimanjaro safaris at Disney's animal kingdom at night. Except I've taken the pictures away. Funny as that, it's a dead link. That's figures.
Speaker 1:There's links further down. They're all dead.
Speaker 2:All of them dead. That's hilarious. Advertisement night is still there, yeah. By the way, you could really tell that they have repainted the sidewalks and have oh yeah, so bright. Oh my God, yeah, yeah, no-transcript. I might be really negative because I'm sick. It might be a thing this week.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I did what I announced, that they also said that the early what is it? Early entry hours are continuing in 2025 for those half hour for staying on property, the half hour before in the morning. That's continuing to 2025 as well, for all of Disney hotels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:And then they've also added or made some decor updates at the DVC Epcot Lounge on top of that.
Speaker 2:They've been kind of steady doing that for the last few months, like repainted and put in, yeah. So now they've done new furniture. I want to say signs, but they're not really signs, it's just like painted words on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they've put like behind the seating, they've added some really cool geometric type things, and then the chairs are really cool now, very cool yeah.
Speaker 2:So we'll go try it out soon. Actually, don't go up there as much as we should.
Speaker 1:No, I really enjoy it up there.
Speaker 2:It's relaxing, but we will yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and that's kind of like.
Speaker 2:That's like it. It's on news. That is like it was all DVC stuff right now. Yeah, so that's okay, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, I looked at like a lot of sites there's like, hey, ticket prices are going up. That's about it.
Speaker 1:But it always goes up this time of year, basically right before we renew our pass.
Speaker 2:Well, and they always go up this time of year because they're releasing the next year's breakages, right, so anyway, that's cool, so all right. So I've been like thinking about this, okay, and I've actually like posted like some silly little things on Facebook, like you know, made up memes and stuff Okay, about Genie Plus Okay. But I've kind of made up my mind at this point. All right, genie Plus is like, basically, I want somebody to convince me that I'm wrong about this. I really do, because I'm super cynical about it. Now They've basically reinstituted the old ticket books from the seventies.
Speaker 2:Okay, and why Stealth mode? Because you can't write anything hardly anymore without paying them 35 bucks for Genie Plus. Okay, look at the lines. Are you going to wait? So I was looking at a site a couple of days ago, blog Miki. Okay, they have a pretty in depth statistical analysis of Genie Plus that they have been updating since the original article debuted November 11th 2021. Last update was February 24th of this year.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, there are three phases for Lightning Lanes. Okay, phase one is normal operating phase for the attraction enacted when there is normal to light demand. Normal operating procedures calls for a one to four ratio of standby guests to Lightning Lane. So if your family four gets let in through the standby line, they're going to let 16 people in through the Lightning Lane. Okay, okay, all right, so that's not too bad, right?
Speaker 2:Phase two this is when there is elevated demand and attraction moves into phase two of the Lightning Lane Merge Schedule. This phase is meant to work hard to prevent stage three, but does have a more extreme ratio in some cases than all of phase three. Phase two, the ratio varies from one to 14 to 20 to 90. Wow, phase two means the standby queue has anywhere from seven to 18% of the Lightning Lane. So 93% Lightning Lane up to basically 82 to 93%. So, using the family of four from phase one, the amount of guests allowed to enter through the Lightning Lane jumps from 16 Lightning Lanes per family of four to 56. Wow, right, so now you're staying there for a while. Yes, phase three, worst case scenario, it could be one to 10, down to one to five.
Speaker 2:Okay, so your family of four. There could be 40 guests that go in through Lightning Lane before you pull four more guests from standby. Wow, right, so they're clearly pushing you. If you want to ride more than a few rides and you want to ride any of the cool stuff, mm-hmm, you can ride any plus, right? Basically, it feels like this is the ticket books. You want to really ride rides? Pay us $35. Right, or 25, or whatever it is today. Right, right, this all started because the other day of president's day was 35 bucks. Yes, and just look at queue times all the time, right now. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not going to go in there and wait in line for those kind of rides. No, you know, now I'm perfectly happy going to the Tiki Room in Carousel of Progress and hopefully getting on PeopleMover Right. So, by the way, best ride in the park, my favorite, not my favorite, like my second favorite at Magic Kingdom. Okay, I'll see you at Disney World. It's boring and it's outside and it's not undercover. You're either roasting or you're getting rained on.
Speaker 1:What people mover? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the ramp doesn't work hardly ever anymore. None of them do, by the way. None of the moving sidewalks, like anywhere, seem to be working.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's intermittent.
Speaker 2:Yeah. More not than yeah, right, anyway, just my thoughts. Somebody convinced me I'm wrong, but I wanna be wrong. I just feel like they're just more and more forcing you to buy it. Bring the magic back, bob. Yes, okay, speaking of magic, maybe. So we went to Disney Springs last Friday. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:As we are want to do, mm-hmm, and because you know we got over there, I don't know two o'clock, ish, yeah, yeah, maybe noon, but I think we went. Yeah, we went and got food and yeah, then we went and got checked into our hotel. Mm-hmm, you had a meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a 1230, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:So we got to rid Disney Springs. We got into the hotel room and off property, mm-hmm. Speaking of which, karen was on Disney Crush podcast this week. Yes, I was Talking about off property stuff. I'm only like halfway through it right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I listened to it. I don't ever listen to myself, but I listened to it.
Speaker 2:So for some reason, for some reason like, even though you guys were like chatting about the picture that was used on the Facebook post, I couldn't even find it. I had to go search for that post. Like it was weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Facebook hates me.
Speaker 1:It was cold that day, obviously because we all had coats on. But yeah, on the picture, I don't know when, I don't even know where the picture was. I don't know, I can't figure it out, but Tony is one.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So I didn't realize that Antillo was on my way home in the car, that it was me. No, that it was Wednesday, if we're being honest.
Speaker 1:Oh okay.
Speaker 2:So I listened to another podcast on my way home and then that one came up, so I only got like half of it. Yeah, listen to it, but anyway sounds good so far. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:We had fun yeah.
Speaker 2:But we did stay at a hotel that I don't know if you talked about or not, probably not, because we didn't probably stay there for a while before you recorded last week.
Speaker 1:I talked about that one because I talked that we were going to be staying at it.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:And we had stayed at it before. Yeah, cool, cool, but only the one time Right. Theme park view.
Speaker 2:It's theme park view.
Speaker 1:It is theme park view Fun spot.
Speaker 2:Anyway, back to what we were talking about. Yes, so we got into the hotel, got our stuff settled, tried to decide if we were actually going to Magic Kingdom or not, looked at the wait times and went no, We'll go to Disney Springs. So we did. We started off at City Works for a few minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Each had like one or two, just trying to get to four o'clock so we could go to Haleo.
Speaker 1:Right for the Sangria hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we ended up by the time we let four o'clock slip up on us and then paid and got out of there. It was like 430. Right, went right across the road to Haleo and the bar was full, yes, so we couldn't really go in there, right? So right next door is summer house on the lake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're like you know we should try this. We're in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I walked up to the hostess. I'm like, all right, do you guys have a bar that we can just go in and sit down at? She's like, yep, we got three of them. We got this one right here, there's one in the back with a view of the lake, there's the summer house on the lake part of it, or there's this one right over here. Yeah, so my decision was the one right there behind her, which, right at the main entrance of the restaurant, was packed.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that left that one out of there, and I'm saying the one with the view of the lake feels like it would also be packed Right because it's a view of the lake. Yeah, it's a view of the lake, right. So we went to the other one which was Far left of the building. I had like. Nobody at it. No, not at the bar. When we walked in, no, the tables were full and stayed full, but at the bar there were like two other people. Right and Not a complaint, an observation.
Speaker 1:I already know it's not gonna.
Speaker 2:I don't know if everyone has lenders, furniture, leaders, leaders, it's leaders.
Speaker 1:Is it leaders? Yeah, it's leaders.
Speaker 2:They sell patio furniture. Yes, I don't know. It's funny, the place felt like a patio furniture store, decor wise it really did, and then the walls kind of felt Ikea-y. Well, like they had a shelf that had, like I don't know, six rows of 10 potted plants that were all the same fake potted plant.
Speaker 1:I know which is very Ikea.
Speaker 2:So it didn't feel like decor, it felt like A display, a retail display.
Speaker 1:And we kept talking about it the whole time. That was the whole thing. We're like it's seriously, they couldn't you know it. Just it was funny.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's their, that's their thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But here's another thing. The three chairs that we had at the bar were different than the other chairs around the bar Right, and all of the tables had like it was.
Speaker 1:Different chairs. Right, it was like a hodgepodge of chairs.
Speaker 2:It was like a come in and try out all the different chairs and see which one you want to buy for your patio, for your gazebo.
Speaker 1:It really did seem like that Really weird. It was weird, but I mean that, and it's not even a, it's not even critical, it's just caught us off guard. Yeah, I think it's the best way of describing it.
Speaker 2:Very light and airy and fairly open, like pretty easy to get around the restaurant. Yeah, it was just a little bit of a park, just weird. Yeah, and I don't know the rest of the restaurant cause we didn't see it.
Speaker 1:Other than the cookie area. Yeah, and that was it.
Speaker 2:But I mean, it felt pretty homey, like it was comfortable in there yeah.
Speaker 1:But it was just, it was it was entertaining. Yeah, it was Cause we continued to talk about it the whole time, right?
Speaker 2:So we had Shane E and Val T, yes, where our bartenders. They were both awesome, they were absolutely awesome. Shane was from Pasco County, so right up here by us and like between us and Tony and Dave. Yeah, pretty much I don't remember where Val was from. I don't recall that Maybe not even in Florida.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't recall that. We do know she does like to eat cookies the next day in her car.
Speaker 2:It was so funny. So we let's start off with we. We sat at the bar, we ordered some drinks, full liquor bar. Plus they have beers on tap bottles. Right.
Speaker 2:We ordered the jalapeno cornbread Uh-huh and a pepperoni pizza yes, they were both really good. I have to say I like the cornbread because it wasn't sweet. I can't stand sweet cornbread. That's not cornbread, that's Johnny cake, right. Texture wasn't quite right for cornbread, right. It was a little thin, which I think probably affects it. Yes, but it was very good, yes, and the jalapeno pizza was like the thing.
Speaker 2:It's just not like cornbread anywhere else at Disney, right, or maybe, maybe homecoming. I haven't had it there, but Right, it wouldn't. It wouldn't still be exactly like that either, but it was good, it was very good. It was very good and actually, weirdly, if you turn it on its side and ate it, it was more like cornbread.
Speaker 1:I don't understand how that happened, but Maybe it's just what hits your taste buds first when you and that's, I think that's what it is yeah, when it hits your taste buds.
Speaker 2:Right so it was served in a little cast iron skillet, right so. But it was very good and the honey butter was really good. Yes, the pizza was great. It's delicious, like it really was. Now, I know we were all hungry, but we weren't starving, but it was just.
Speaker 1:It was a good flavor pizza.
Speaker 2:Thin and crispy, with a ton of cheese and a ton of pepperoni.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not like some. Sometimes you get the thin and crispy ones and it's too thin, it just crumbles. Yeah, this wasn't like that. It stayed together enough, right yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was eight pieces, right, like eight regular pieces. Yeah, right, it was a I don't know 12 inch pizza, now, no, 16 inch pizza, I think it was 16 inch pizza. Yeah, so three of us easily shared Uh-huh. And it was like 18 bucks. Yeah, it wasn't expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was either. It was between 18 and 20. Yeah, it was kind of at 21.
Speaker 2:Right it still was not expensive. No, and we feed three people Right, so it was enough food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, because I didn't want to leave their stuffed, you know Right.
Speaker 2:So the pizza was yeah, Well played.
Speaker 1:Yes, good suggestion by them.
Speaker 2:Cornbread was also very good. Uh-huh, you know just not my aunt's cornbread.
Speaker 1:All right, um, and then obviously everyone knows it's a cookie, so they've got the cookies.
Speaker 2:Yes, they are huge, huge.
Speaker 1:So we were trying to figure out the cookies because they gave a menu but you don't have pictures to go with them. So I was going over into the cookie area. You took a couple of them, but taking pictures of the cookies so we know what to get, Because you really need to have a visual to go with your cookie when you're deciding on them.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so you were on the menu. Yeah, and there were more cookies than were on the menu, all right, and rice crispy treats and brownies, right, cookies were $5.45 a piece.
Speaker 1:A couple more 4.95.
Speaker 2:Oh okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they were at the most expensive, 5.45.
Speaker 2:10% off for annual pass holders, yep and DVC, I think, including off of beverages.
Speaker 1:Yes, which was very surprising.
Speaker 2:Unheard of Right At Disney, unheard of. So the cookies were less than five bites Right. I'm gonna tell you right now, I think they're better in Gideons.
Speaker 1:Oh, I I'm.
Speaker 2:They're not these like one pound cookies that are so ridiculously heavy and stacked that you can't eat it.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're considerably wider in diameter.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're huge around, but they're not an inch and a half thick Right, which is fine. Yes, fine, fine, fine, they were delicious. They were delicious. I had a peanut butter one. I also have an oatmeal apple when I haven't eaten yet.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've eaten all of both of them.
Speaker 2:We all got between the three of us cause Jason was there with us. Yeah, between the three of us. We got six different cookies and I haven't heard or anybody complain again about any of them, right, and so when we were trying to order, yeah, we asked the bartender, val, like all right, what's the best cookie?
Speaker 2:She's like I like the sugar cookie. She was like, in fact, like last night when I was leaving I got one and I ate like half of it on the way home. And this morning I was getting in the car to come to work and I was like I need to stop and get breakfast and then I realized I had half a cookie in my car, so that was breakfast.
Speaker 1:She goes. It was delicious Right. It was a perfect breakfast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also in the forties at night, so it wasn't like it wasn't refrigerated Right. Plus, it's a cookie.
Speaker 1:Right, and when Sean took our orders, shane, shane, I'm sorry. When Shane took our orders, he actually did it. So your cookies were packaged together, my cookies were packaged together and Jason's were packaged together, and they were bringing them out in the bag, so they were in little packages inside a bag and bringing us our cookies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he put in three orders of two cookies instead of an order of six, right, so that was cool. And then mine didn't come for some reason, right, so he went in and got them himself. Yeah, so super cool. They were delicious, they were outstanding. Definitely be back there. Yes, so cool to find another place to go.
Speaker 2:I know that is going to wrap up this week's podcast. We'll talk about Moonlight Magic next week, because we'll actually have two to talk about and we can compare Animal Kingdom and Epcot. I forgot, you're right. So yeah, that'll be next week. Yes, thanks again, everybody for joining us. Check us out on Facebook and the our private group, the Mickey file improvement district, instagram. We are at Mickey file underscore podcast and our email address is Mickey file podcasts. All one word at gmailcom. Goodbye, good night, everybody. Thank you. K ثat.