106 - THAT Powerful Bubble

Matt digs into one of the biggest reasons Walt Disney World became more than just a theme park destination: the Disney Bubble.

This episode looks at what the Bubble actually means, why it matters, and how transportation, resorts, convenience, immersion, entertainment, service, and little touches all work together to make a Disney trip feel different from a normal vacation. But it also asks the harder question: has the Bubble lost some of its power?

From the loss of Magical Express to the rise of paid add-ons, changing resort perks, transportation gaps, and a more complicated guest experience, Matt talks through what still feels special, what has faded, and what Disney could do to make the Bubble feel stronger again.

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Before/After Watch

Music in Dizhappenings copyrighted by Audio Jungle 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

What is it happening? Welcome to another episode of season one of this relaunch of our podcast. And in this episode, we're going to talk about that powerful bubble. That powerful bubble that draws you in. And for me, it's definitely, and I talked a lot about this during the prologue, on the evolution, right? On how I got here. And I think I think it's like really understated how powerful that bubble is. Why does Disney World keep pulling people back after they've experienced the same attractions and shows and dining? Why do they keep pulling us in? And it's it's not just about outgrowing those experiences. It's more about discovering how awesome the bubble is, how awesome Walt Disney World is. The parks will pull you in, no question about it. But it's it's the powerful bubble that kept me coming. Right? Now, Disney fans, we talk about the bubble all the time. You know, most people even kind of laugh when they hear about it, especially because we feel like there's so many bubble perks that have been stripped away over time. But if even if you experienced it for the first time in 2026, you know exactly what it means. You know, the Disney bubble is this huge Walt Disney World Resort or Disneyland Resort, right? That when you're in that bubble, there's safety, there's security, there's logistics, there's expectations that things are gonna work out okay. There's that unbelievable customer service that comes with the bubble, right? It comes at the resorts, it comes at the parks, it comes at Disney Springs. Like there is a level of excellence at the bubble. And the older I've gotten, the more I've realized how powerful the bubble really is. So think about like your own evolution, and I'll and I'll talk about my evolution. And I know I've kind of been down this path before, but you start out and you know the parks were Disney, right? It's it's the 14 parks. They were Disney to me. And it was all about the attractions, right? And you might have even had spreadsheets about the ride strategy, right? About what you're gonna do hour by hour, planning out sure, dining 180 days. Can you imagine that we did that, guys, and we stressed about it? And then you're fast past plus 60 days and 30 days. It was, I don't want to say overwhelming. It wasn't a bad thing, but I think over time, you know, you go and and you start unlocking other parts of your fandom. And it doesn't take away from your previous fandom. I don't, I'm not tired of the rides now, but instead, I take more pleasure in in the little things. I take I take a lot of pleasure in the resorts, and obviously how awesome the transportation is there, and the dining and the atmosphere and the entertainment and the safety and the security. And the parks to me, like they stopped being this the entire experience, it became part of this larger experience. And you know, like think about what makes Disney unique, right? You you land in Orlando if you're coming from you know another town, you're whatever, right? You're you're most likely you're gonna you're gonna your destination is gonna be Orlando, right? You're gonna travel through Orlando to get to to Disney World, right? And you enter, you enter Disney property, and you got you got those famous arch, right? That you're going under, you're driving under, and there's resort arrival, and you walk into any of their lobbies, and it's got music, theming, smells. The smells are awesome. And you just feel it just feels clean, it feels sanitary, right? Like it just, and it's that first walk in the resort, right? Like you might see a welcome home sign, but it just grabs you, man. Like that is when it starts. You land in Orlando, used to have Magical Express. I know that's a perk that was removed, but you get there, man, and you're in the bubble. And the vacation always started before the first attraction. You didn't get to Space Mountain, you didn't get to Big Thunder Mountain, you didn't get to Guardians, you got to your resort first, and you felt it. And to me, like, you know, I've had I've had the privilege to have a bunch of short trips in the last, you know, since I went back with my family. And, you know, I've had the opportunity to to check off a lot of different things that honestly maybe my family wouldn't have been up for, or at least my daughter's, right? And you know, I spent a lot of time, guys, at the boardwalk. A lot of time at boardwalk just relaxing, hanging out, taking in the atmosphere, right? Even on nonstays, I did have a little stay there, but my non-stays there enjoyed boardwalk. You know, I just sat in the lobby, sat outside, what you know, looking at the looking at Crescent Lake when the boats go by, or sitting there at night with everything twinkling. That's magic, man. That's like it's a magical spot. And the walking paths that are connecting you, of course, to Epcot, of course, to Hollywood Studios, but you know, you can loop around and check out Beach and Yacht Club and the Swan and Dolphin. Everything is there. It's all in front of you. And you got the atmosphere there. And that's just Chris and Lake, man. Let's let's talk about the monorail. The monorail, which again, so I one of my trips that I had, I didn't have park tickets, guys. I didn't have park tickets. Now I bookended Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and Jollywood Nights. Actually, I guess it was reverse. I did Jollywood Nights at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. And between that, I took advantage of the resorts. And one of the times I met my buddy Wheezy, you guys all know him from our Discord server. I met him over and we went to the perch. And then we went to Trader Sam. Again, experiencing the monorail loop, things on the monorail loop to do. There's so much to do that's not in a park that I enjoyed. There was the Christmas decorations up, no gingerbread display uh last year at Grand Floridian. We'll see what happens this year, but it was great, guys. That was the monorail loop. And then, of course, how about how about one of the days that I had? You know, again, no part tickets. I had two party tickets. And sandwiched in between, I had two nights. You know, one of the nights, you know what I did? I I'm trying to think. I think I went over to, I don't have the exact plan in front of me, but I think I started at Disney Springs. And then I took a bus to the boardwalk, which by the way, I could still do that because I had a resort reservation. I know that's been a very polarizing topic of late. Uh, and and if depending on when this gets released, it's been a pretty hot topic that Disney's going to start at the end of June to start to check resort reservations before you can get on buses to the resorts. Now, I don't I don't have super strong opinions about this. The only thing I can tell you is they identified a problem, and maybe for and here's the thing, I don't know what the exact situation was. My good feeling is if I had to, if somebody put a gun on my head and said, Matt, why do you think they did this? Do you think they want people in there because or do you think they don't want people there because they spend money and they do all that kind of stuff? No. I mean, I would think that would cut down on their revenue with the quick service places, and yeah, we'll help out Port Orleans, right? Um, you know, you'll be able to get beignets if you're staying there. What I think it's doing is, and I don't want to come off the wrong way by saying this, this is just a theory, but I don't think they like the idea of moving people, moving locals around for nothing. I don't think they want to do that. I don't think they have a strong desire to to let you park at Disney Springs and they'll just take you wherever you want to go on property. And let's face it, there are some stuff that's behind closed doors, like the pools. The pools are kind of tough to, you know, probably tough tougher to sneak in because a lot of them do have um they do have personnel there that kind of will check, you know, magic bands or whatever. They'll gatekeep some of those experiences, but a lot of them weren't. You can go to playgrounds, and there's a lot of pools still that don't have that locked down. You can go into the lobby and work from home and take take up lobby space, right? And again, it's I'm not giving you my opinion if that's acceptable or not. Honestly, I felt like whatever they had was a pretty good setup. Um, so I'll be interesting to see. Let's talk again in several months and see if this helped out the resort guests by having less people there or having having more space to move around at the pools or the lounges or whatever. I don't know that, right? I do know that you could still do all those things. You just got to drop money for parking. And I don't think that's why a lot of people are like, oh, they, you know, they just want they just want you to um, they don't like the free transportation to the parks. Honestly, gang, if you're doing that to get to the parks, it's not the most like I can understand maybe a Christmas party or Halloween party, maybe you start at Disney Springs, two o'clock lunch, and you kind of go over and use, you know, you do a bus to contemporary, whatever it is, right? But man, like you're not gonna get super efficient park access that way. You gotta take multiple buses. Disney Springs doesn't typically open till 10. So the earliest you're getting in a park is what, 1040? And that's if everything goes right. It's like it just seems a little silly to me to think that Disney's being that greedy. I think they're doing it because they do believe it will help the experience and they they don't feel great about the freeloading locals. That is my gut feeling. I could be wrong, but that's how they view it. Let's face it, every person that jumps on Disney Transportation, there's a cost associated with it. We can act like there's no cost, but maybe it costs two bucks to move somebody from Disney Springs to the resorts. There's a cost. They have a cost somewhere in their spreadsheets, right? Let's say it's two bucks. Let's say they have to move a thousand people a day, or maybe it's ten thousand. I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's five thousand people per day that don't have resort reservations. There's a savings there. I don't know what it is. I have no idea. I'm not gonna act like I know, but that's anyway. But then what I did was I just hung out at Boardwalk, and then I took the Skyliner over. I took the wonderful Skyliner over to the Riviera to have a late dinner. And you know what I did? I I experienced I I explored more of the Riviera. And I'm I'm just wondering and just enjoying these resorts. Again, not at a park. It's definitely more of a leisure thing. I'm not running from attraction to attraction, but I'm enjoying Coronado, I'm enjoying boardwalk, I'm enjoying boardwalk in, I'm enjoying, you know, the Skyliner, I'm enjoying the Riviera. And now I have a dinner reservation at like 8:15. And what do you think I'm gonna do from there? Right? At the end of my dinner, not even at the end of my dinner, interrupted dinner, lights all go out, and everybody takes their drinks and they go out to the terrace, and you can watch Luminous The Symphony of Us from the resort, from the outside terrace at Topolinos. It was magic, guys. It was great. If I stood at the right spot, I probably could have seen more than I did. You obviously see all the pyro, you see all the fireworks. You can see some of the effects if you're in the right spot. It was a very good meal. I feel like I probably didn't get the right stuff, but overall it was still good. And there I am enjoying the Disney bubble. But I wasn't done after that, guys. I found my way over to Port Orleans afterwards, right? Found my way over at Port Orleans, and I and I'm experiencing Yeeha Bob. This is the same night, and this is awesome, right? This is stuff that I always kind of wanted to check off. I never even was in Port Orleans Riverside before. And here I am, walking in, beautiful lobby, decorated for Christmas, and I'm I'm experiencing something new and different, and I get to see Yeeha Bob. And my point is, none of that stuff required a park ticket, guys. It was a full night of fun. And I had a full night of fun with with Wheezy the night before doing Trader Sam's and The Perch, right? And I think we I think we had dinner at at uh at Coronada that night. We did uh Maha Grill. So, or Maya Grill, excuse me. So again, guys, the bubble, the bubble is what makes Disney special. You need both, no question. But all that transportation back and forth, you know, so convenient. A lot of it walking distance, right? So much to explore. There's all these deluxe resorts, there's moderates that are interesting. And I have a new appreciation, as you guys have heard, about Coronado. That is an incredible moderate resort. And we didn't even talk about probably the best resort amenity on property. And that's Animal Kingdom Lodge. When you have a savannah outside your your window, a real savannah with animals that they tend to. They got a flamingo pen. I don't know if it's called a pen. I think it sounds good. Flamingo pen there, guys. A jambo house. Right into the pool. You can check out flamingos. Amazing bubble that they created. And there's a bubble out west, too. You know, if you stay at the Grand Cal, if you stay at the Pixar Hotel, if you stay at the the Disneyland Hotel, you'll got that same bubble. You're not crossing over side streets and um, you know, going through downtown Anaheim. Like everything is there. Gotta stay at one of those resorts. You can skimp, no question about it. You can skimp and you know stay. If your primary goal is, I just want to experience the Disneyland resort, um, theme parks, um, then you don't you don't necessarily need to stay in the bubble, no question. But man, if you can, I really do think it adds a lot of value. Because to me, my my wife and kids thought it was the same kind of bubble. And of course, everything's there. It's all walking, it's all pedestrian friendly, man. Like you stay at the Disneyland Hotel, you're walking distance, man. First off, you got a trainer Sam's there. You have you have table service restaurants, you got some towers you can explore, and then you're right at the entrance of downtown Disney, which is a smaller version of Disney Springs with a lot of outdoor dining and gated for security. You can't just get in there for the heck of it. You gotta you gotta pass through security. So you got that safety uh component and people there, especially because it's got the uh espionage between you know the two parks. There is you have to pay for parking there. So you're gonna have a different setup, right? You're gonna have kind of not a different crowd, right? People want to be there, they're paying for it. They're not just trying to hop resort to resort, right? They're they're they paid specifically for it because they have a purpose there. Um, and I'm not saying that people don't at world, but because they're paying for parking, it's a little bit different. And I hope Disney Springs doesn't charge a parking. It's not necessary, but I do think they were trying to keep some of the locals away from the TikTok home schooling parents and um, you know, some of the playground stuff that they were doing, and I think they were just trying to limit it. And honestly, they could the moms could still do it, the dads could still do it, they just gotta start somewhere else, start at the TTC and pay for parking or start a park. Um, still all possible. But it's um it's interesting, man. So if you stay, if you're if you're Disneyland and then you got the Grand Cal there too, which is just an awesome hotel where you got gates dedicated to a park. Like, if you can swing it, guys, stay at one of those hotels. Even if you're doing a split stay, the pools are beautiful, especially at Disneyland Hotel in Grand Cal. Like, it's just if you could do it, do it. Because you'll feel like you're in the bubble. And if you're nervous about going out west, start at the start at one of those hotels. You will feel like you're at Disney World, 100%. Um, and you know, for me, like, think about how it drew me in. You know, we had a bunch of stays, and we had a split stay. I'm trying to think when it was, but we started at Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani, one bedroom, which is a one bedroom at Kidani is awesome because you get the extra bathroom, which is glorious. Um, but it's so big, it's such a big room, it's such a big setup. The one bedrooms are huge, and that got us hooked on the DVC ID. I the DVC idea. It made me go from not only do I enjoy the bubble, but I'm willing to invest in the bubble with my vacation and money for years to come. That's what that's what a DVC decision is. You you're basically saying, I'm investing in this bubble. This is a place I want to return year after year. And look, the prices can be absolutely outrageous, especially buying direct. I totally get it. But man, when I was doing the pricing for a boardwalk, and I was, I think at that time it was $800 a night, and my head was saying to myself, you know, I'm kind of just throwing this money away in some ways. Like, I'm gonna go down for five days and I'm gonna spend $4,000. Man, for for quadruple that, I could get a contract and be able to return to the boardwalk every year. Now, ultimately, even though boardwalks got my heart, I knew I couldn't buy there, guys, because of the 2042 issue. Now, I'm not gonna say that I don't regret that, but I wanted to invest longer in the bubble than the 2042 expiration. And at the time when I broke down everything, and it's gonna be different now, the most banged for your buck was Animal Kingdom Lodge. My wife loves animals. That was not a hard sell. We had a great experience at Gadani. I knew that's where I wanted to be going forward. And honestly, I've been able to stay at Boardwalk a bunch of times already with my Animal Kingdom Lodge points. Now, at some point, I won't be able to do that, obviously after 2042, but you know what? Maybe I'll be in a different financial position. And if I want to invest in Boardwalk then, whatever they end up doing, I can do it. DVC was the right decision for me. It's not the right decision for everybody. I mean, I am the kind of person that loves the bubble so much. I could stay at the All-Stars and still still really max out on the bubble, no question about it. But it is, there is something charming about skipping the buses. And I'm not a bus hater at all, but it's nice not to have to do it over and over again. So, you know, that being said, guys, the you know, the things that pulled me in, you know, the resort atmosphere, the the resorts and the boardwalks, the boardwalk nights and the skyliner rides and pressing lakes and the lounges and the resorts that I have not stepped foot on. I still have not got those darn beignets from French Quarter. Complete violation. I don't think I've stepped foot in an all-star resort yet, which I know it's just a value, but it's like a completionist thing. I still want to do it. I'd still stay there. I've had bookings there and things have not worked out, or you know, or like maybe I'll get a DVC wait list that comes through. I am not opposed to a to a down and back and staying in all-stars with my girls, no question about it. And I kind of want to complete everything. I want to stay at Port Orleans Riverside, too. Um Coronada was an amazing checkoff. I you know, I still haven't stayed at Saratoga in Oakie West, I haven't even stepped foot in there. Um, I've only hit one of the water parks. Like there's still haven't done any of the golfing yet. Like there's still so much to do on property that aren't the parks that I haven't done yet. And that gets me that keeps me excited. Because you can always fall back and do have and here's the other thing, how about the restaurants? We all have our favorites. You guys probably know mine as it is, but think about all the dining. Like, I'd love to just have a month down there where I could just be like, you know what? I'm going to a World Showcase restaurant, a different one each week, a couple, a couple a week, you know, and just check them all off. There's still a bunch there I haven't done. I've done the new sushi place. You know, um, I never had a chance to do Marrakesh, which I don't think any of us are going to be doing now. Um, you know, I didn't I haven't done Tullio Italia in Italy, uh, Nine Dragons. I can't remember if I did Crawl Reef or not, but you get my point. You know, I've done Tradatory for breakfast, never for dinner. I've done flying fish a couple times. I haven't done cake bake shop yet, but I think I've done all the resorts. I've never done Olivia's, I've never done Turf Club, I've never done a bunch of Disney Springs. So much to unload. Um, I haven't done Victorian Alberts, I haven't done Narcusi's, I haven't done Citricose, I haven't done Chef Mickey's. How about that one? Um, I feel like the character meals have have been are so much better than that one. I feel like that might have been the pinnacle one, and now it's it's kind of a dime a dozen for character experiences, and my kids aren't exactly that age, but my point is the bubble offers so much. That was one of the things that drew me in with my first vacation with Sandals, because they had, I don't know, maybe like 10 to 12 restaurants at over the three hotels that you could pay at one and play at three. And it was cool being able to try out a Japanese one, the Italian one, the French one, right? Um and the the the pub type. Like I love that aspect. And I still feel like I haven't I haven't checked off everything. And even when I do, there's gonna be plenty of favorites that makes me want to return over and over again. So I think I think like what I want to stress to everybody here is embrace the bubble, man. It's not the same bubble, but it hasn't popped. It hasn't, and you know it. As long as they have complimentary transportation, especially for resort guests always, and as long as they have some perks, which they do, yeah, they don't ship magic bands. No, there's no magical express. You gotta pay for lightning lanes, it's not the 60-day thing, but they have enough there that the bubble's good enough. Walt wanted something huge. Because he ran out of space in Anaheim, no question about it. He wanted something huge, and he didn't have a chance to build world, but I just imagine that's what he would have wanted. This city on its own, standalone, where when people go in, they feel safe. They spend money, sure, but they have a good time and they make family memories along the way. And even though there's four parks, it's not just about the parks. It's really not. And I and I'm sure as I age, and I and with this DVC contract that I got, I could definitely see me doing resort all these days. I mean, I I'm still pulled towards the parks, and you guys know I'm crazy about the nighttime shows. But could I see uh you know uh a seven-day trip with my wife in a studio at Jambo or Kidani around Christmas time and maybe hit Napcot once, maybe, maybe hitting it twice. But the rest of the time, just enjoying the vibe, joining the parks. I'm sorry, enjoying enjoying the resorts, joining the decorations, I definitely could. So I never stopped loving the rides. I never stopped loving the nighttime shows. You guys know nighttime shows are my thing. The best part about the nighttime shows is you could still experience them without a park ticket. You could still walk over to Polly, you can still go do a Topolino's. There's ways to experience it. You can get close to Hollywood Studios and listen to Phantasmic in the background. Yeah, you're not gonna see much, but you'll hear blasted. The park's coming in, it's a powerful bubble kept me coming back. And my trips reinforced how important the bubble is. Alright, guys, I'm getting out of here. Everybody have a great day. We'll see you at the next episode at Diz Happens.