Ever wondered if a day at Disney could turn into an epic saga of laughter, frustration, and heartwarming tales? That's exactly what Ashley and Dustin got into this week on Orlando Unplugged. We're bringing our theme park highs and lows to the mic, from the whimsical whirl on Dumbo to the clammy clasp of a Space Mountain queue. Plus, we're not shying away from the heavier topics like Florida's proposed social media ban for minors and the recent telecom outages - conversations that had us balancing the scales of freedom and safety.
Navigating Disney World isn't just about the rides—it's an art, especially with dietary restrictions in tow. Listen as we recount the trials and triumphs of hunting down gluten-free bites amidst a sea of tempting treats. We're also tossing in our two cents on the upkeep of beloved attractions, sharing why it's crucial for the magic to stay alive through innovation. And for those who've faced the bewilderment of whether to take the monorail or the boat, we've got some tales that'll have you nodding along in solidarity.
To wrap things up, we take you through a stroll down Main Street with a Starbucks adventure that proves caffeine isn't the only magic bean in the kingdom. Join us for an episode that's as colorful and unpredictable as a Florida afternoon thunderstorm. Remember, life’s too short for boring podcasts, so plug in and let us take you on an Orlando adventure that's anything but unplugged.
Ever wondered if a day at Disney could turn into an epic saga of laughter, frustration, and heartwarming tales? That's exactly what Ashley and Dustin got into this week on Orlando Unplugged. We're bringing our theme park highs and lows to the mic, from the whimsical whirl on Dumbo to the clammy clasp of a Space Mountain queue. Plus, we're not shying away from the heavier topics like Florida's proposed social media ban for minors and the recent telecom outages - conversations that had us balancing the scales of freedom and safety.
Navigating Disney World isn't just about the rides—it's an art, especially with dietary restrictions in tow. Listen as we recount the trials and triumphs of hunting down gluten-free bites amidst a sea of tempting treats. We're also tossing in our two cents on the upkeep of beloved attractions, sharing why it's crucial for the magic to stay alive through innovation. And for those who've faced the bewilderment of whether to take the monorail or the boat, we've got some tales that'll have you nodding along in solidarity.
To wrap things up, we take you through a stroll down Main Street with a Starbucks adventure that proves caffeine isn't the only magic bean in the kingdom. Join us for an episode that's as colorful and unpredictable as a Florida afternoon thunderstorm. Remember, life’s too short for boring podcasts, so plug in and let us take you on an Orlando adventure that's anything but unplugged.
You're listening to Orlando, unplugged, celebrating life in living color with Dustin and Ashley. Grab a cocktail or a mocktail and let's get unplugged, orlando.
Ashley:Code Blue, room 305. So mean to me.
Dustin:You're under quarantine.
Ashley:I am under quarantine.
Dustin:Welcome back guys to another episode of Orlando Unplugged.
Ashley:I love it. You know, what I'm really loving is that how Canada episodes have gotten lately, Like there's people that passed by. I have a cold Julius, grab the ice. We just like it's so good. What's funny is if you're eating cores down there.
Dustin:Oh, that was headphones.
Ashley:It's because you're.
Dustin:No, don't let your headphone cord touch your mic cord. It's a, because it's electricity.
Ashley:What happens? It's not electricity, it's sound. Oh okay, hey, can I just do a cool fun fact Hold up, hold up because that was just way too much chaos.
Dustin:That was a lot of chaotic, so welcome back to another episode of Orlando Unplugged.
Ashley:What is this, you guys?
Dustin:In case you can't tell Ashley sounds like a dying winch.
Ashley:Wow, sweetie. Thank you so much.
Dustin:You're so welcome, and I feel like our audio just sounds way off today. I don't know what it is.
Ashley:I can't hear me at all. Oh no, I can't.
Dustin:It's, it's this stuff. It's move your arm. What is it? I don't know what it is either.
Ashley:I can. Oh, now I can. Okay, stop touching things.
Dustin:Well, whatever you do, it might be down here, it might be. You got your hands all down here, right here. Yeah, Okay, because you got your hands all over where the mic. Take that mic cord and push no, that's Okay. Now do this. See where the cord goes into the microphone. Push in Yep, okay, there you go.
Ashley:They go not on. The problem is, it just wasn't. Oh, here we go. Can we hear me now Am I sickly, death thing sound.
Dustin:Yes.
Ashley:Yeah, everybody's good now.
Dustin:Yeah.
Ashley:So welcome back.
Dustin:That was chaotic. Welcome to a normal day in our lives.
Ashley:Yeah, pretty much.
Dustin:We hope you guys enjoyed last week's episode. We've got a real fun one plugged in for you this week.
Ashley:We really do.
Dustin:We have opted out. We're not going to talk about what mother won't tell us at the end of today's episode, just because we think this episode is going to go on a little bit long. And then we were trying to read over it earlier today and in Ashley's illness.
Ashley:It was not good guys.
Dustin:It was a rough time, no, in that chapter that we're reading currently.
Ashley:it needs more full attention and I don't think me and my sickly death is giving it just enough of it. She's having.
Dustin:I know having playtime. Bruce is going at it. Everyone's just being loud today. I know, but this is what we get for recording in a living room. So, ashley, yeah.
Ashley:What are you eating Halls?
Dustin:Halls what?
Ashley:This is the Halls cough and throat relief cherry flavored. It has menthol in it.
Dustin:Manthal.
Ashley:Manthal.
Dustin:Which is good for you.
Ashley:It is good for me, but you know what I find really cool.
Dustin:What.
Ashley:Do you know what on every rapper of Halls has on them? They have like little little mantras. A man that I just am currently chewing on says keep your chin up, power through. You know you can do it, you can do it and you know it. Tough is your mental name and I just want Halls to know that I'm grateful, even though their, their rappers, are bullshit, but I'm grateful for them, wow.
Dustin:This episode of Orlando Pub is sponsored by Halls and. Kleenex, we are not sponsored. Do not come for us. Ashley is going to get us off the air before we even get sponsorship.
Ashley:It's sponsored by Trader Joe's Kleenex's Halls and Trader Joe's hand sanitizing spray.
Dustin:Trader Joe's, do you want to sponsor us? That would be so cool.
Ashley:Oh, my God, please, that would be great. I would love to be.
Dustin:Considering how most of my diet is fully Trader Joe's at this point.
Ashley:Most of my lifestyle is fully Trader Joe's at this point.
Dustin:So you know, I went to Trader Joe's the other day and I spent $68. Get out and that would have easily been equatable to like $150 to $200 at Walmart. Yeah $300 at a Publix Publix. And it was good because I didn't have to worry about whether or not anything had gluten in it, because they're very blatantly obvious with their packaging.
Ashley:Yeah, it's nice. I like it. I'm a big fan. We were just at Trader Joe's yesterday Me, Zach, Julia and Rob were.
Ashley:Yeah, yeah For the essentials like gluten free bread, and they finally in my Trader Joe's finally got gluten free everything bagels back in stock because they went out. They were out for like two weeks. I kept trying to go after I would leave work and I would call and be like how do you have them? They're like no Bless, yeah. So they finally got some. So I picked those up so I could give those a go.
Dustin:Hey, do you remember? Last week we discussed the social media ban and how it was moving forward in the state of Tennessee.
Ashley:Wow State of.
Dustin:Tennessee state of Florida.
Ashley:Where did just like railroad into that conversation? Yeah, I do.
Dustin:Yeah, it's called having to keep you on track, so we don't have another two and a half hour long episode Listen.
Ashley:that episode was not two and a half hours, just because of me there.
Dustin:It was sweet, but anyway, do you remember that time that we talked about that? I do, I really do remember. We should, we should, we should follow up on that today, shouldn't we?
Ashley:Yeah, that's okay. Okay, let's go All right, and here we go.
Dustin:All ready, guys. So we promised that we would bring you an update if we had one regarding the social media ban, and we indeed have that. So this bill that was created as one of the nation's most restrictive bans on social media for minors is heading to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis's desk Now. He has expressed concerns about this legislation to keep children under the age of 16 off of popular social media platforms regardless of parental approval, and I find this interesting because this is the first and probably only time I've ever agreed with this man.
Ashley:I don't agree with him for anything, so well, no, he's.
Dustin:He's saying he's not sure that the route that they're handling this is appropriate.
Ashley:I mean, okay, maybe I agree in that aspect, but I just don't, I don't, I don't know, like he has done so many things in the past that I just have a hard time with his views on things now.
Dustin:Gotcha.
Ashley:But anyways, the house passed the bill with a 108 to seven vote on Thursday, which was just hours after the Senate approved it at a 23 to 14 vote. The Senate made changes to the original house bill, which Republican Speaker Paul Renner said he hopes that this will address any questions DeSantis has about privacy.
Dustin:Now the bill targets any social media site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload material and interact with others, and uses addictive features designed to cause excessive or compulsive use.
Ashley:I'm so sorry.
Dustin:All nurses to their stations. Supporters have pointed out rising suicide rates among children, cyber bullying and predators using social media to prey on kids.
Ashley:Now I just don't. I don't know We'll get there, but opponents say that it bluntly violates the First Amendment and that it should be left to the parents and not the government, to monitor children's social media use. I couldn't agree more.
Dustin:I love, love it when you read bullet points, because you never pre-read.
Ashley:Did I mess it up?
Dustin:Does that say bluntly, that says blatantly?
Ashley:No, I like bluntly better. So I don't have sick brain. Okay, leave me alone.
Dustin:So Florida Republican Rhonda Santis excuse me, florida governor Rhonda Santis was at an Orlando based news conference earlier this week, before the bill passed, and he he said, and I quote we can't say that 100% of the uses are bad because they're not. We don't think that we're there yet, but I hope that we can get there in a way that answers parents' concerns. He continued on to say that he understood that platforms could be harmful to teenagers, but stressed that parents need to play in role in monitoring their children online. Again, the only time I have ever and probably will ever agree with this man. We need to put more responsibility on the parents.
Ashley:I just feel like, in that statement, though, he's going backwards Like he's going around in a circle.
Dustin:No, he's not. He's been opposed to this I know but what he just said.
Ashley:We can't say that 100% of the uses are bad, because they're not. I don't think we're there yet, okay, so do you think that we are going to get there?
Dustin:No, he's saying, oh my God, ashley. He's saying it's not as bad as these. The Senate and the house are saying that it is and that it can get to be that point, so we do need to do something about it. But he's saying that parents need to be more responsible. It's not Facebook's fault if your child's sending their nude photos to somebody because you as a parent aren't monitoring what your child is doing in your own house.
Ashley:I don't think we need to do anything. I don't think the government needs to be involved in our social media aspect. I don't think Ron should have any sort of opinion on this. I think the only way he should have an opinion is based on the fact that he's a father All those congressmen, the old men that probably have no idea even how to use their iPhones.
Dustin:Like that senator from Tennessee.
Ashley:Correct. Hey, none of those people should have an idea here on or an opinion based on this, because they, most of them, don't even have children. So, no, I don't think that you can sit there and be like, oh it's bad there yet Are you? You don't know. You don't know what's going on because your child is not in that situation, so you should not have an opinion about it. So just let it be.
Dustin:Well, I know in the news they were saying they're not sure if DeSantis is going to sign off on this bill or not. However, under the state constitution, he has seven days to sign or veto the bill after he officially receives it. If he doesn't do anything with it within seven days after it is officially in his hand, it will default and become law automatically.
Ashley:What do you think he's going to do? You think he's going to sign it? You think he's going to veto it?
Dustin:I mean, I don't know. He already pissed off a whole lot of people with his stunt with Disney last year and I think that by doing this he could make or break an opinion on a whole another generation. I mean, do I think that the internet is a dangerous thing? Yes, but I don't think that it is the government's job to come in, because a lot of people are saying this goes completely against our First Amendment rights.
Ashley:I don't disagree. I think that they're already in all of our uteruses, so they need to get out of my phone. That's all I'm saying.
Dustin:And a poop.
Ashley:Sorry but hey, in other news I really want to talk about something else, because this gets me so aggressively angry about it.
Dustin:You're doing that time that you thought you forgot to pay your phone bill.
Ashley:I didn't. Okay, you're hostile today. Yeah, I definitely did that. So on Thursday, if we're recording this on Saturday, so Thursday, what was Thursday's date?
Dustin:The 20.
Ashley:The 22nd the 22nd. The 22nd Thursday the 22nd, I woke up very late for work and Well, way to tell on yourself. I mean, I did no like. That's fine, everybody knows. So I woke up incredibly late for work and I am on my way actively. Had you had to have you drive me to work? Because?
Dustin:I was sitting there going?
Ashley:why isn't it working? When it comes to me recording, Like what's going on or not recording, I mean, I mean trying to get a lift to work and couldn't figure it out, couldn't figure it out. Anyways, you take me to work, grateful for you, and I'm sitting in the car with you and I was like why is it my phone says SOS in the corner, like this is so weird. So you advise that I turn my phone off, and I turn my phone off and I turn it back on and it's still kept coming up as SOS in the corner.
Dustin:I'm keeping in mind, you and I both have the exact same phone carrier and I'm having no problems.
Ashley:Correct. So I'm sitting here going okay, that's really weird. And I'm going in my head I'm going okay, no, my phone bill is due on the 15th, it's only the 22nd. I'm okay, like no, I'm good. And I'm sitting there and I get to the office and the very first thing I do is I immediately log into my computer and I go to Twitter or X and I hit up Twitter and I'm like AT&T phone outage, phone something. What's going on? And the very first thing that pops up to me is it says on there that Orange County, which is the county that we live in, it, stated on there that if we were having, we were an AT&T customer and you were having a hard time with your phone dialing out, that you could text 911. And I'm going oh my god, it's not my phone, I paid like my. It's not me that I didn't pay the bill. At&t is having a shortage. So tens of thousands of people just like me.
Ashley:You woke up on Thursday with no service. It was great, it was an. It was no, it was fucking horrible. And I had to have my. I had to connect to the, the Wi-Fi at the hotel, to to be able to use my phone. It was awful. I didn't. It will get into how addicted I am with this thing. It's it's just messed up. But the down detector, which is a website that tracks phones and internet service outages, reported that AT&T service was down in mostly in Atlanta, chicago, houston and the Miami service area. Now AT&T's Service suffered a nationwide outage on Thursday, which we're popping up around 3 am Eastern's. What is that Eastern standard time.
Ashley:Which is just well, and just after 9 am Over 73,000 customers were without service. That number drastically decreased and nearly about To nearly 49,000 just before 2 pm and service was fully restored by 6 pm. I got my service back at 4 o'clock.
Dustin:I had no service interruption. I hate you now during this time, it appears that wireless and some landline customers were affected. It wasn't just AT&T, though. I have heard reports that cricket, t-mobile and a few Verizon customers also were experiencing some downtime during that time. Now, during times like this, customers should sit. Now here's what I find interesting tell me you got on there and Orange County said hey, text 911 if you need them. Now, during these times, customers should still be able to contact 911. When your phone is in SOS mode, an emergency call 911 is routed to the nearest Cell phone tower instead of the company that the phone is serviced through. So if you're on SOS and you dial 911, your phone will hit a Verizon tower Instead of going to an AT&T tower.
Dustin:However, during this outage, it appears that customers in parts of the country were unable to make phone calls or text to emergency services and Oddly enough, it seemed to be that Orange County, orlando, miami area seemed to be the most affected area in the country, not being able to make emergency phone calls. So I was seeing on the news this morning that People were having to go to their apartment leasing offices. They were having to go to their neighbor's houses just to be able to call out to 911 because no one has landlines in their phones anymore. Like it was Crazy. Fortunately for us, you're like I know. I didn't have any issues with this or things like that.
Dustin:Well, I don't mean me Directly, I mean like people that we know or anyone that we know that would be affected. But one thing that I find out which is in our house.
Ashley:The only people that was affected was just me, because that can Jules have T-Mobile, so does Rob.
Dustin:Oh, that's weird, but One of the things that I thought was really neat that I saw in the news after the fact that I didn't know about is we're moving into a society where landlines are becoming obsolete. People don't have those, but do you know that you can get a free landline?
Ashley:in your house. I did not know that.
Dustin:So for you guys listening out there, you can contact any company that services landlines where you live and set up a landline phone to have access to 911, and this is completely free. So you you don't have the ability to make phone calls to anywhere else Other than emergency services through this, but I think that that is a really neat thing To be able to do to be able to call 911.
Ashley:I don't disagree. I think that's something that I'm looking to put in my house just because, just in case I need it. But no, I think it's great. I think that.
Dustin:You know what this begs the question of what is the beg the question. Was this a cyber attack?
Ashley:Oh my god.
Dustin:Was it.
Ashley:I don't think so, but the federal Communications Commission or the US defense and Homeland Security and the FBI Also. They were aware of the outage and in contact with AT&T and they were. They said there was no cause for concern of a cyber attack. So there you go. It didn't happen.
Dustin:I mean, I don't know. There's something else that we're gonna talk about in a minute that I think just has Like awkward timing to place on this, because I didn't find out about this next thing until later. But if you are an AT&T customer, you should have received a text message on Friday From AT&T with the following statement where they just said hey, it's AT&T, we apologize for their stays outage which may have impacted you as a valued customer. Your connection matters and we are committed to doing better. Now let's talk about this for a moment.
Ashley:I AT&T just forgot to pay the bill I.
Dustin:Did not Experience any downtime with this. So evidently, since AT&T was, they were silent through this whole downtime. They weren't saying anything, they weren't posting on their social medias, and then afterwards they explained that in the early hours of the morning they were doing Work to expand their network. I have no clue what that means. I'm not an engineer, so I'm imagining they put too many zeros and ones in their little computer formula and when they hit enter it screwed things up.
Dustin:Could be I don't know if that's what it is, I don't know what, but there were a lot of people that are angry and I get like I said it didn't affect my cell service, but I'm like guys, is it that big of an issue? You, I mean, I get it. We pay for a service, we expect to have that service, but it's like if you're a server or a waiter, are you gonna be right a hundred percent of the time? No, do you expect that person to scream and yell at you when you mess up? No, we are all humans, we all make mistakes, we all make errors, and I'm going look at AT&T's track. I think they have a pretty good track record up until this point. So I think they're allowed to screw up every once in a while, and I understand that you're shaking your head. No, karen.
Ashley:It's not that I'm a Karen, it's that my I realized during this entire thing because my phone. I went to work at 8 am. My phone did not come back on until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Dustin:But your phone worked while you're connected to the Wi-Fi barely because the hotel Wi-Fi isn't that great.
Ashley:So no, it wasn't. I mean, and I'm calling out the hotel Wi-Fi, we're working on fixing it, but like no it was, my entire life is on my cell phone, didn't?
Dustin:that sounds like a you problem honey.
Ashley:It's not a you problem, it's. It's what I've become reliable on. I pay for my life to be on my phone. If I have to get to and from work, it's on my phone.
Dustin:How old people are rolling in their chairs right now.
Ashley:Roll you want to, but like at the end of the day, but it happens, the power it does.
Dustin:The power goes out occasionally and you got to sit for hours without your power outage. It's cell phone.
Ashley:It is, yes, it is a cell phone outage. Dude. This is, this is people's livelihoods, this is people's life. What about those people that, literally, they do ubers or lifts or door dashes for their livelihood?
Dustin:Then they have to take a day off, just like you do when the hurricane hits and you know how many people struggle after they have a hurricane.
Ashley:It's the same concept here exactly.
Dustin:You don't get mad at the forecaster for telling you the hurricane's coming.
Ashley:I think the only reason you have such a stronger version to this is because it didn't affect you actually no.
Dustin:I think the reason I have a stronger version to this is it was an incident that was less than 124 hours, less than one day.
Ashley:I'm looking at all those people that couldn't call 911. You're telling me right now that, okay, great, we just get to go. Okay, no problem.
Dustin:No, I'm not saying that. Okay, is it their responsibility to have a landline in their, in their home?
Ashley:No, but it's their provider's responsibility Not to have an outage. That happened, okay. Well, it happens, it's gonna happen.
Dustin:It's gonna continue to happen as the world continues. Outages are going to happen. Well, they are going to, and if you place your livelihood on a business, that's your own fault.
Ashley:I don't think we place 911 on a business to have a landline in your home there come on. There's gonna be times where we're not gonna have one of those. What happens if you're not at home? Okay, you're waiting at the bus stop and Joe Schmoe runs past you and stabs with a knife. Oh, let me run back to my house real quick and dial my landline.
Dustin:I think that. I think you're pulling, I think you're pulling through the weeds on this one, I think you are trying to to change AT&T if you're out there. I have hard feelings for you. It happens and I think that the world would be a much better place if people were just willing to say hey, you fucked up once, it's okay, don't let it happen again.
Ashley:I think the only reason you're not upset by it is because it didn't happen to you. I did see a thing on Twitter, though, that I know.
Dustin:I just grew up at a different age with you, where our technology wasn't at my fingertips 24-7, so I know how to keep myself occupied and enjoy the silence.
Ashley:I think you're, you're, yeah, I'm done with you, and this conversation. But I did see a pretty comical tweet that went out that said that AT&T owes us like a month of Free bill.
Dustin:I tried that with my internet provider in the past. It doesn't work listen AT&T.
Ashley:I'm all for you giving me a free month because I was affected. You made that man across to me.
Dustin:Pay double Okay no, they'll just prohibit you for like 12 hours. That's fine Give me, you'll save a whole dollar on your bill probably, but you know what a dollar more than you got.
Ashley:Hey, speaking of cyber attacks, so let's, let's talk about this pharmacy cyber attack. Okay, yeah so this?
Dustin:so this was something that I just found of today. Actually, I've not seen or heard of it in the news prior to today, but American pharmacies are still dealing with difficulties providing prescriptions following a cyber attack against one of the nation's Excuse me largest healthcare technology companies that is now being blamed on what I don't understand. This is but a suspected nation-state associate Associated cybersecurity threat actor.
Ashley:That's a mouthful.
Dustin:I have no clue what that means. I Tried to look it up. I don't think the world knows what it means. Yeah, it was weird, but the company is called Change healthcare and it handles orders and patient payments throughout the US, and they first noted this cyber security issue affecting its networks Wednesday morning. Throughout the East Coast, a whole bless you. Bless you a whole day Before the AT&T mess up.
Ashley:Sorry, two seconds. You keep talking, okay.
Dustin:God bless, she's dying y'all, but it's just to me such an interesting scenario that that happens within 24 hours ahead of this AT&T thing that we have. So the this particular attack is affecting all military pharmacies worldwide and some retail pharmacies Nationally. So a CVS spokesperson told Fox Business on Wednesday that the company was aware of the outages, but there there were no indication that CVS health Systems had been compromised, and a spokesperson from Walgreens said its pharmacy operations and the vast majority of its prescriptions Were not impacted either.
Ashley:I'm sorry, I'm back, hey, welcome. Thank you this one says dust off and get up. The show must go on or work Well you know what?
Dustin:that's what I was trying to tell you earlier today when you were screaming. You just wanted to take a nap as you Scrolled on tiktok for four and a half hours.
Ashley:No, but you know what? I feel better than I did. I got to do that because I just feel like well, you know who you should think for that. Zachary.
Dustin:AT&T. They provided you with that service.
Ashley:And then I should be mad at them because they took it away. Okay, no, this, this to me was a big problem because you know, for me I was a military kid who had military insurance, who got my medicine through military places like this, through through change health cares, like a sister partner of change health care. So At any moment, if this stopped look at that judgment a little baby, how brucey. If any of this stopped, that could really screw people up. You know, like this, this whole concept of if you not getting what you need because this potential Suspected, nationwide associated cyber attack threat actor.
Dustin:Well, here's my question, gary why is this not on national news? Or I mean, I maybe it is and I've just missed it, but I everyone makes fun of me because every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is turn on the news and I watch the news In bed while I'm drinking coffee. I haven't seen hide nor hair of this idea. Wow yeah, I'm old. I am old, ashley. When are you gonna understand this?
Ashley:you are.
Dustin:You are nothing but the wee baby Compared to me.
Ashley:You know where I get my news from.
Dustin:X.
Ashley:Twitter yeah.
Dustin:But I just I don't understand how a cyber attack of that magnitude, something that is affecting Pharmacies that service United United States citizens worldwide and we're barely hearing I heard it on a local news station today.
Ashley:That was it, because we try to cover the shut up. I think that's the problem. I think we are so afraid to have the government say, oh, we messed up AT&T. Why do you think they were silent For all the hours? Because they messed up and nobody wants to say, hi, we screwed up here. The government in with this, with the situation, with the social media band. Oh my god, let's go. That's why.
Dustin:That's why they haven't been talking about the pharmacy, because they're too hung up on what children are doing on the internet.
Ashley:Correct, we have too many other things instead of out and we're not worried about what actually is important here. We need to stop pulling shit out of our asses and start paying attention to what actually is important. I'm sorry, I sick Ashley.
Dustin:She's violent. What a pre-show topic for us today. We've just been on it. I think we should go to something more happy, don't you know?
Ashley:I do. Can we really talk about our Disney trip please?
Dustin:Yes, let's go, let's do it.
Ashley:Wait, does this mean we get the clap back? Oh no, the clapping, not the clap.
Dustin:So that's why you're under the weather.
Ashley:No, it's not oh.
Dustin:God, you should see. I think we just clipped the audio. You were so loud. Gonna get feedback detection in a moment.
Ashley:We'll probably got feedback detection because my cough All right. Let's do it, let's go. I'm like laughing.
Dustin:No, we don't have clap music. We do different music.
Ashley:I Love that so much and that ladies, and gentlemen, was Ashley's clap. Inc clapping.
Dustin:We need to trim that down a little bit, I think. Never seems a little long to me for alone it's not.
Ashley:This is our eighth episode, and that is ninth, eighth, we just put it seventh. This is my. That is my favorite part of the episodes. Well, and now our new intro.
Dustin:God bless you I.
Ashley:Didn't sneak simple minds. All right, so for this, our main, our main little conversation. We want to talk to you guys about our Disney experience.
Dustin:We have this Disney.
Ashley:Yeah, I love how we're switching roles right now. Normally I'm the one that has like the cute little boo Disney, and now it's you, and I don't feel about it. So I know a lot of our listeners are Either here in Orlando, up in Tennessee or up in Michigan and shout out to you guys, we appreciate you all and that that one random person who downloaded two episodes in the UK, which I think was my friend Edward, but I'm not sure but we did have it in Germany.
Ashley:Shout out to the author of our book oh yeah, that we're reading, read that. Thank you so much. That literally made our entire week, month, year, literally made it so. Thank you so much for that. And but anyways, a good much chunk of our listeners are here, based in Orlando, so I Know right now everybody's hearing about Disney and the annual passes and selling of those and how to obtain all of that who's hearing this stuff? What do you mean? Who's hearing this stuff?
Dustin:Who's hearing this?
Ashley:well, like all last year, they took a pause from selling them. Oh yeah and now they're back selling them, but they're only selling a certain ones now, and you have to be a Florida resident to hit a certain kind of pass, otherwise you're paying a national amount of money to be a thousand dollars for the incredible pass, which is the top level. So I said they're quietly need your gluten-free cookie. Okay okay, but doesn't? I both had two different experiences when it came to how we Purchased our annual passes?
Dustin:and I judged you hard when you told me how you got yours, because I was like that was very complicated.
Ashley:Yeah, excuse me. Oh, I'm back. I'm sorry, it was my my, so you got yours online and I got mine in person, so I drove to Disney Springs.
Dustin:Hold on just a second. Don't, don't hold here.
Ashley:You're hitting here, and that's why you're getting cuz I hit my pinky on this. Mm-hmm. Okay, Ashley keeps messing up the wires, it's okay. We love. You know what it is. It's because I'm used to my holder, but because I'm sick I want to lay backwards because then I can breathe better.
Dustin:Mm-hmm.
Ashley:So I can't have that thing there because it doesn't stretch all the way up. So I'm not like this, I don't know anyways. So when I bought my annual pass, I did it at Disney Springs because I bought two of them I bought mine and I bought Rob's for his birthday. So I had to go there and purchase it and when I went, rob doesn't have a Florida ID. He is not a Florida resident, according to the Florida state people that one does not live here.
Ashley:He is a Florida resident, but according to all, like theme parks, he is not a Florida resident because he does not obtain a Florida ID. So I was very nervous because obviously I wanted him to get one, because that was his birthday. Present. For me was to get one and I had to jump through a lot of hoops. We had to pull up his bank statement where he works and then also pull up my lease agreement because Rob's not on our lease. I had to pull up our lease agreement to prove because my address isn't the lease address, it's a different address.
Dustin:On your ID.
Ashley:On my ID. So nothing matched at all. And then, luckily, thank God, we had a great cast member who was like no, you're fine, you guys are okay. Had to pull all of that up, had to pull my electricity bill up, and that way we got him his Florida or his Disney annual pass. Got me my Disney annual pass $410. Later the kid and I are annual pass all over the Disney world.
Dustin:Do you wanna know how easily my experience was?
Ashley:Oh, go ahead.
Dustin:I woke up on your couch, uh-huh, and I said I wanna go to Disney today and I was the only person so far in the group that doesn't have a Disney pass.
Ashley:It took a minute.
Dustin:I opened the my Disney app and I scrolled to tickets and I selected annual pass. And then I selected that I was a Florida resident. And then I selected the pirate pass, which is the second. There's four levels of passes. I got the pirate pass so I could go on weekends, just minus major holidays, and I put in my credit card information and all of that stuff and then I clicked complete and I paid. And actually, no, I didn't pay. First I clicked complete and then it took me to a secondary website which is a residency confirmation yeah, a verify and I literally put in my name and I believe it was the address that I lived at, and then it like goes to the little loading screen and then it was like congratulations, we've confirmed, you're a resident of the state of Florida. Enjoy your Disney pass. And then I went to the park. It was that simple.
Ashley:That's so great for you.
Dustin:And I was trying to explain to you when you were like we had to go to Disney Springs, we had to do all of this, and I was like, no, you don't. You can literally buy it on your phone. So this is what happens when you don't do your research.
Ashley:No, when I first bought my annual pass last. No, the year before last year, because I bought my annual pass in 2022. And then I moved away in 2023. No, yeah, I bought my Disney annual pass in 2022, the beginning of 2022. And then I moved away at the end of 2022. And then I spent like a year and some change in Michigan.
Ashley:We're still with my resident shut up still with my Florida resident or my Disney resident annual pass and you could only buy them in person. You could not buy them online at that point when I first bought them. So I think I thought it was a similar concept. Plus, it was gonna be really hard to throw out anyways because he doesn't have a Florida ID. So he wasn't a resident, so no, and his name's not on our lease, he's not on an electrical bill, he's not on anything.
Dustin:So I you just want Disney to hear this and take his pass away, don't you?
Ashley:She's fully aware of that lady that did it. She was fully aware of it, she helped and she got it, and now we're annual pass holders.
Dustin:So let's talk about our trip to Disney, though. That was a chaos day because you had gone to work that morning Did? Our friend Jordan was meeting up with us. I joined in.
Ashley:I hope you're having fun in Disneyland.
Dustin:This was Turd. Was this cell phone outage day? No, this was the day before cell phone outage day, day after, day after. Day after. Wait, no, what day was the outage?
Ashley:on. On Thursday we went to-.
Dustin:And we went to Disney on Friday. That's right, no yeah. So that day-.
Ashley:Cause I didn't work on. I work, I'm off on Friday. Was this on Thursday? I think it was Thursday.
Dustin:It was because it was the day that I had to wake up to take you to work, because then you called me and said hey, I have to work late now I need you to take Rob to go to his haircut appointment.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:Yeah.
Ashley:No, it was Wednesday, cause you were off on Wednesday. You worked on Thursday, babe.
Dustin:This is Wednesday, my dude.
Ashley:It was the day before the day of poor power outage.
Dustin:I'm sorry, Okay well, you went to work, rob, to get his haircut. I decided to get my beard trimmed up.
Ashley:Looks very nice. By the way, your haircut looks very nice. Thanks, I'll have to put it on social media so everybody can see that the mullet is gone.
Dustin:The mullet is gone. And then we all met back here after we got everything finished. Rob went to work. He was a sad boy that he didn't get to go to Disney, but sometimes being an adult sucks. And then Jordan got here. We all piled in his car. We stayed away from I-4.
Ashley:Tried to. We stayed away from traffic. Failed miserably.
Dustin:I don't think we hit bad. I mean, we never sat in traffic. There was traffic, but we didn't sit.
Ashley:I think once we got on the Disney side of it then that's when we hit the traffic a little bit, Cause I think everybody realized what we were doing and tried to tag along.
Dustin:Yeah, clearly they were just like, hey, look at that random car driving, let's just, let's join on, but I mean it was.
Ashley:It wasn't a bad experience.
Dustin:It wasn't too crowded getting into the parking lot either.
Ashley:No, and I also thought the weather was pretty nice too. It got really cold.
Dustin:It did, it did get cold, but I'm definitely glad I brought my jacket.
Ashley:What are you looking for?
Dustin:I'm looking for nothing. Don't worry about what I'm looking for Um.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:So we get, there.
Ashley:We asked we brought to TTC. So for those that don't know, that's transportation and ticketing. That's right before you go to Magic Kingdom.
Dustin:Let me tell you, the first time I went to Disney I was so confused. I went with my friend Curtis, was it Curtis? Yeah, I went with Curtis and we got there and like went through security and I rounded the corner and I was like where's the park? And he's like all the way over there.
Ashley:You see the water Swim there. That's how you get to it.
Dustin:My nose itches, but I I wanted to take the monorail to the park, because I've always taken the boat, because the monorails are closed in the morning.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:Like like the first hour that the park's open. You can't take a monorail over to the park. They make everyone go to the boats.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:And I could be wrong, but I think the way that it's been explained to me is both monorail tracks service just the hotel's first thing in the morning, but they don't open like the normal monorail. Someone, someone is gonna hear this and they're gonna know, so tell me, but I've, from my understanding, like monorail doesn't open from ticket transportation to the park till like 11.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:Do you know something different?
Ashley:Correct. That's a very false statement.
Dustin:Oh well, every time I run and open.
Ashley:They're open all the time. It may have just been. It was like an outage. It could be the monorails down.
Dustin:That tends to be a lot of the kids. The two times that I've been there, first thing in the morning, they made everyone go to the boats because the crowd was so large.
Ashley:I mean that could just be them trying to like crowd defected, like trying to pull the crowds away.
Dustin:Oh well, anyways, so this time we rode the monorail.
Ashley:Yes, we did. That was kind of a mistake. A big, massive one. We should have just walked, because you just swam across the name river as we were.
Dustin:As we were walking up, we saw the blue monorail pull into the station unloaded, loaded, and it pulled out right before we got up there and then we stood for what seemed like 20 minutes I know it wasn't that long, but it felt like it was that long Until the blue monorail returned again. Yep, so they were only running one Express monorail at that point in the day, which was like what? 3.30, four o'clock.
Ashley:Something like that.
Dustin:But then we got on the monorail and we got to go through the contemporary, which I have not gotten to ride the monorail through the contemporary in a very long time.
Ashley:Yes, we did not stop at the contemporary we did the Express line. Express You're so cute.
Dustin:I try.
Ashley:And then we got off the monorail and we headed to the Andres of Magic Kingdom and I think the part that made me so irritated with you is you're like do we have to go through the annual pass on their spot? Yes, motherfucker, we do. I pay all this money every single month. I'm going to take advantage of the fact that that sign says annual pass holders only okay, and we walked past so many open. Look, you got me coughing. I'm so passionate about this.
Dustin:We walked past like 20 open turnstiles just to go to the annual pass holder.
Ashley:Correct.
Dustin:And then I had an issue when I first walked up, because I used my Apple Watch and a long time ago I didn't have this issue, but I had to this time. I had to open my wallet, select my Disney pass and then hold it up to the thing, so it wouldn't go at first for me, and I thought the guy was like calling for help because of me and I was like no, no, no, it's fine.
Ashley:So I like I just finished and I did the thing and the light went green and I walked off and then I realized it was your fault that his hand was up, that's because I didn't have a plan to go with you guys to Disney World on that day, because I was at the office. I didn't know what time I was gonna be leaving, so I didn't make a reservation and right now you still have to do that.
Dustin:But not after. But there's no reservations after two, and it was after three o'clock.
Ashley:Correct. But I think because you guys, all I don't actually know, I can't give you a reason. But that's the reason the guy gave me as to why I was having some trouble getting into the park was because I did not have a reservation. So he approved me my little stick-.
Dustin:No, he put his little hand up yeah he got ready to see For those of you that don't know if you're at the ticket gates and you ever see cast members standing there with their hand up above their head that means that something's wrong and they need a supervisor, which I like because they can still engage with you, which is what the guy was doing. He was talking to you the whole time as his supervisor walked up, and I wish more theme parks in Dollywood would do stuff like that when they have issues.
Ashley:But then the supervisor realized that I was just trying to get into Magic Kingdom. I wasn't trying to do anything else. My bills was paid.
Dustin:I paid my bills.
Ashley:I paid my bills and I was just ready to go. So my little blue Mickey went from blue to green and I was good to go in. But you know what was really cool about this entire experience? So, as we did get to use the DAS Pass, which is the Disability Access Service Pass, and it's a service for guests who may have difficulty tolerating extended weights in a conventional queue environment due to a disability- Now, one thing I wanna say in preface is it was nice to experience this, so we went with a guest who we're not gonna discuss the reasons behind why they need that pass.
Ashley:I thought you were gonna say the reason why we weren't gonna say his name and I was like I definitely called Jordan out like five or six times, but that's okay.
Dustin:Yeah, well, it's fine. Sorry, buddy, but it was nice to be able to see how this system operates.
Ashley:Yeah because I've always seen it at like when I worked for Disney World. I've always seen it. And then obviously, like a lot of our friends are employees of Universal, so we kind of get to hear some of their stories with that and stuff like that. And I did experience this when I went to Cedar Point when I threw a beer keg on my foot. That's a story for a whole nother pop episode, but I got to experience something similar to this but I had never experienced one through Disney yet.
Dustin:And the thing that I have always had an issue with these types of systems is I do think that guests, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, should be able to enjoy these attractions.
Dustin:We're gonna discuss here in a few minutes our frustrations with how this is overused in some areas.
Dustin:But at Dollywood, for example, guests with a ride accessibility pass, which is similar to the DAS Pass at Disney, they get immediate entry onto the rides and it has really hampered in the last couple of years that I worked at Dollywood.
Dustin:It was a real big frustration because you have these guests that were waiting two or three hours and they finally got up there and they got into their row, that the gate would open and they would come in and then you would hear an attendant say hold the gates.
Dustin:And then they would load guests from the secondary entrance who had the rider accessibility pass on and they literally would just show up, show their card and get put on immediately, because Dollywood attractions are not built with secondary waiting spaces for these guests. So if they don't immediately get these guests on and get them back off, there's gonna be a huge backup, and a lot of times it's you come out of an elevator and you've got like 10 feet to the ride. So it's really a point of frustration for a lot of people, for me especially because guests pay a lot of money to come into these parks and to do this and then to see how Disney does it. So guests with a DAS Pass do not get immediate access to the attraction or experience, but rather it allows the guests to request a return time.
Ashley:So you're initially still waiting.
Dustin:You're just not waiting in the queue, yeah your wait is comparable to the wait time of the actual attraction.
Ashley:So most of it, some of it, I mean there were some rides that we did experience that we would did wait a little bit less than the posted wait time that was on there.
Dustin:Well, yeah, but I also think that that is because the DAS Pass is now fully integrated with the my Disney app, which is nice.
Dustin:So it's kind of like the my Genie. Yes, because you are using the Fast Pass entrance when you go in for 90% of the attractions because their queue lines are wheelchair accessible. So guests with physical limitations are able to access and go through those queue lines. So it was an interesting experience to see how that operates and to see that people aren't getting immediate entry if they have issues with having to stand in a conventional line for an hour hour and a half. So that was an interesting experience to do and I think here in a little bit we will get to discuss a fun person that we ran into at Space Mountain, but we'll get there.
Ashley:My eyes are actively rolling. No, but that was pretty neat to kind of get to experience that throughout our entire situation or throughout our entire experience. But we hit some bumpies on this trip and I cannot wait to dive in on it. But the first ride that we decided to do was the Liberty Square River Boat. And now you did. You have you done this before?
Dustin:I had not. I had walked past it a million and one times because it just seemed like a waste of time.
Ashley:And it was.
Dustin:It kind of was a waste of time. I mean, there were some cute things to look at Like we were going through, but I was like this ride is about five minutes too long.
Ashley:I could not stand, okay, so we got in on it and then we immediately went to the top and we're in the very back. So we're right by where this theme. Things pee on you where they're next to the horn, like In the paddle In the back, the paddle in the back and I did not like the fact that that had to be on the entire time, not the paddle, the steam.
Dustin:Well, it is a steam driven, I know.
Ashley:but like it was just so loud you couldn't hear anything else.
Dustin:Well, that was the thing, and I think that our experience would have been different if we would have gone to, like, the middle floor, because there is a narration that plays, there's a whole show, but we just didn't hear any of it, because we're on the top floor, there's a lot of noise going on up there and we weren't under a roofed area, so we were nowhere where the speakers were.
Ashley:But I think they should fix that. So then that way everybody can hear it, because there's definitely not enough room on that boat for all of us to sit in the middle of it. And I think another issue you can definitely stand that entire thing.
Dustin:I would have been interested to have actually heard that narration, because that ride is not very PC. I mean, over the years they have taken elements out and they've changed some things. Like you know, the burning cabin that the Indians set on fire is now just a smoking cabin with no flame, and I don't think they discuss it, but-.
Ashley:I'm really shocked that this to be honest with you, I'm shocked that doesn't even has this thing, Like we just got rid of Splash Mountain because that was deemed racist.
Dustin:I mean the riverboat itself isn't a racist attraction.
Ashley:But Splash Mountain wasn't a racist attraction either. It was a ride based off of a movie that's not allowed to be played anymore.
Dustin:Yes, because it was based on an extremely racist movie.
Ashley:Okay, the Damn Pirate. Okay, let's talk about the ride.
Dustin:We're not gonna dive into that. We're not, we're not, we're not getting into that today. Maybe we'll do that another day We'll talk about the history of Disney PC.
Ashley:I just find it comical to me that we keep some things and get rid of other things. But do you?
Dustin:know what we are gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about how people come to Disney and they don't have spatial awareness, or parents don't parent their children Because this family that was standing behind us and all these money on the strip, why are they gonna parent their child?
Dustin:They. This kid kept stepping on my feet, kept touching my ass and after like the fifth time of me turning around and making a snide comment to you and Jordan, did the father finally take the child away, because I was just like. You know, you bump into me once, oh, it's okay, you bump into me twice, hey, kid, you know, watch what you're doing. You touch my ass three times before we've even left the dock. That's when a parent needs to step up and parent their child, and I will go with that argument all day long and I love you're gonna say something about Bruce.
Ashley:No, I'm kidding.
Dustin:I was like, I was waiting on you to be like, oh my God, Bruce is doing this thing.
Ashley:She is, but like I'm gonna keep going.
Dustin:What is she doing? She's no, I see her now.
Ashley:Bruce can't stand my bed yet I got a new bed, so she's like testing it out. And now she's up there and I'm just like, oh my God, are we gonna go back to sleeping with mom on the bed?
Dustin:So the next attraction we went to.
Ashley:Yeah, cause there was a roll over that boat, right.
Dustin:Was my favorite. It was a haunted mansion.
Ashley:I don't like it. It's not my favorite, but I do like it.
Dustin:One of the things that blew my mind was the lightning lane, for that was backed all the way past the Colombian harbor house.
Ashley:Correct.
Dustin:Which goes to my expression of Disney is overselling their lightning lanes. That ride had over an hour wait when we went to it because the lightning lane is so long and they get priority entry that the standby lines are just having to wait for forever. But I mean we got in in a decent amount of time, I feel like, and then we made it into the pre-show room. So before you go into the stretching room, and the funniest thing happened, so you have Ashley standing behind me, and then it's me, and then no, it's.
Dustin:Jordan no, it's Ashley, then Jordan, then me and then a Disney cast member standing directly in front of me that Ashley did not see, correct. And Ashley just goes, hey, jordan. And as I turn around, there's like a knob on the wall, like the knobs that you see in queue lines that people play with and keep entertained.
Ashley:I thought that's what it was.
Dustin:And Ashley pulls on the little knob and the wall opens up to show the show panel for the pre-show rooms. What's the official name for that? What is it called that? This is something? Panel any who? And then you closed it very quickly when you realized that it was an operation panel and the Disney cast member was like, yeah, can you not? Which I thought was a little snide. She seemed a little unfriendly, which?
Ashley:I.
Dustin:Well, I think they're kind of in that character there. But you know the way that she spoke was, I was a little taken aback and I get it from her standpoint. You're like opening a Right on right control panel. From her standpoint, you know you're opening a control panel which could have seriously been dangerous. However, we now live in a society where theme parks have been building their queue lines with buttons and switches and levers and things to keep you entertained.
Ashley:I'm going to say some names as an example Transformers. Seven doors mind train seven doors, mind, train, that entire queue, all things that you can soren has the trivia game correct.
Ashley:There's. There's so many To me that are like this and it wasn't like I have. I have operated a ride. I've operated two rides in my my Year of being on this planet, so I know what a ride panel looks like. I live with people that work for theme parks. I have had theme park employees active, obsessive theme park employees be in my life and I know what ride panel control panels look like.
Ashley:This did not look like the like. I wasn't like, oh my god, I shouldn't do this, because this, I bet you behind this door, is that this look like a cabinet door handle. And I just was sitting there going, oh my god, not Haunted mansion and it's funny to me because I feel like Jordan, I literally were just talking about queues and stuff that day being out all active because we were complaining about lightning lanes queue being so long and we're like, oh my god, can you imagine if Haunted mansion had put one of those in there which sparked my conversation of oh my god, jordan, look, they put it in. And then immediately that was her reaction and I'm just like I get it, like I understand you have a job to do. However, what do you expect nowadays?
Ashley:my question stuff in a queue, like transformers, like soren, like all of these rides, how do you not expect people to go? Oh my god, this must be a similar concept so and.
Dustin:Then that brings me to two thousand points.
Ashley:Hit a button that you don't know what it is but you go well in seven doors. Mind train, I mess with buttons like that. At transformers, I mess with buttons like that didn't, didn't someone told us that day?
Dustin:someone told us a story on how there were buttons on a wall at some ride and they were playing with them, and then, apparently right beside that button is the actual is a real button and the person in the line, hit the button and shut down the whole ride.
Ashley:I think I'm gonna put a panel like that and you're gonna put a secret door on it. Then put a little magnetic Strip on the side that you have to hit a card and swipe in and then you can get into it that they.
Dustin:That brings up the point of that this was in a room on a wall, in a room, a wall, that there was no handrail, nothing to keep you away from it, nothing for you to reach over, right, it was just. It was built to look like the piece of wall, which I understand. Back in Disney time, when they were building this attraction, it was built to blend in so no one would do it.
Ashley:But in the current day that we're in, it's not letting in these things aren't letting in anymore and.
Dustin:But let's, let's look at men in black alien attack at Universal for a moment. You go into their pre-show room and you're meant to turn handles. No, no no, you go into the pre-show room. You don't turn handles in.
Ashley:That one for the record, yeah when you first walk in, not the no, no, no, the pre-show room, the pre-show room.
Dustin:I'm sorry, you walk in and you are in a circle, a chained circle, mm-hmm, and the wall is about two to three feet out and they have a control panel that is on the wall Now. Granted, it is behind that weird, like art deco glass looking stuff.
Ashley:But it's clear that that is not something you can touch exactly, and this, this was not no, because then when, if you keep going with men in black, if you keep going through that queue, you get to the doors that all the that they have, they're their quote-unquote employee break room and stuff like that you can turn those handles and they they create a mechanism or like a, a scene that will go off. That is supposed to be something to keep you occupied while you're waiting in the line.
Dustin:Is this here? I said in that dead ass.
Ashley:Like one of them. You spend the one and like smoke or like a steam comes out. Another one's supposed to like give you the thing.
Dustin:I don't know. I wish this was a video podcast, so people could have just seen your face.
Ashley:But no, like that's, that's an entire thing. So I think this this was to me. That was a similar concept. I'm going oh my god, I'm anxious shut down for like two days to put a handle in here when I was to screw with, but it's not. And my thing is is what happens if you aren't going with people that work for a theme Park and you open that. And then you just got back from transformers, you just got back from those rides and you saw that and you're like, oh my god, cool, look buttons.
Ashley:Yeah you hit a button and now you've just shut down on a mansion. Are you going to be punished because you shut? You hit a button. Yeah well, I just I don't know, and I think that we handle things with guests need to be a little bit more.
Dustin:Let's talk about some fun stuff.
Ashley:Yeah, that's with haunted mansion.
Dustin:So the hat box ghost Something I was very excited to see. I like the hat box ghosts. I love the lore of the original hat box ghost story. It opened with the attraction in California and then I think it was like within a year the hat box ghost disappeared, went into storage and then it disappeared and they never could find it. So Disney brought out a new movie, the haunted mansion movie, recently with Danny DeVito and some other few. Maybe we'll watch that tonight after this. And there is a character in the new haunted mansion movie that looks Exactly like the hat box ghost. I don't know if he's supposed to be the hat box ghost and that's Disney's reimagining of him, because he's not the hat box ghost in the movie, but he looks just like the hat box ghost.
Ashley:So okay, which one looks like the hat box ghost? The one in the movie or the one and that was in the ride? Now, both.
Dustin:They look like I'm talking about the one. That's the one that's in the new movie. Looks just like the hat box ghost. That is in no, looks no, no, no really confused the new Disney movie that just came out. Okay the main evil guy in that movie looks just like the new hat box ghost that went into the ride.
Ashley:Okay, now didn't you guys tell me that a few years ago, disneyland had this? Not a few years ago, when the original haunted mansion ride opened in like the 60s had the hat box ghost, yes, but it only had it for a brief period of time before that hat box ghost Look identical to the one that's currently there that hat box ghost is missing.
Dustin:No one knows whatever happened to it.
Ashley:What do you mean? He went missing, like he was put in.
Dustin:Disney storage, and then he disappeared. What so? He's somewhere on the black market, probably, or in a collector's home but why did they take him out?
Ashley:Do you know?
Dustin:I don't Wow, but here is something that bothered me. So when you go to the haunted mansion you're going through some creepy, you know. Just go in the creepy house and weird things happening. There are no ghosts. And then you come upon Madame Leota scene and she awakens the spirits with thine tambourine and that's when the ghosts materialize. So no ghosts have been seen prior to her. Yeah, they come out to socialize the hat box goes. Is before her now.
Dustin:Yes and it's in the the hallway. That is the illusion of an endless hallway that had the candleabra floating in it, the candles gone. Now that illusion, in my opinion, is totally ruined because the hat box ghost is in the corner of it, in the front. Why are we seeing him before Madame Leota has called upon the things.
Ashley:He has a bunch of those alien spot He'd actually fit. He is quite large.
Dustin:Well, this brings another point Okay, in the new movie, where this main protagonist looks like the hat box ghost but we're not sure if he is or not he has trapped Madame Leota in the glass ball Because he's he's the head honcho. He is the bad guy, he's the one responsible for collecting the 900 or the 99 ghosts and now he needs one. One more soul. Is it 99 or is it 99? It's 99 ghosts because you are the 100th when you fall out of the attic. Oh, you know.
Ashley:I didn't realize we fall out of an attic mm-hmm until I wrote it with you, yeah, and you were like oh, we're gonna fall backwards.
Dustin:It was like yeah, that's the hole. I think that's supposed to be. The whole premise is there's 99 ghosts and you fall out of the window to your death and the ghost materialize because you're dead now.
Ashley:It's another having a party just let me know the fact that I'm dead and I'm now the hundredth ghost. Yes, Um that's really cool. Thanks, disney, didn't know that. So you think that the hat box ghost being first that you see, is because he's now Madame Leota's boss and is like, alright, I'm giving you permission, yeah, open the rest if the Imagineers have sunk so much into this movie.
Dustin:I Think that's why we see the hat box ghost before we see Madame Leota in the ride.
Ashley:That would make more sense. Don't need to write it again. I need to watch movie, then I need and I want to.
Dustin:I want to have that conversation with Jordan and our other friends to see their opinions on it.
Ashley:That'll be next week's episode.
Dustin:We discussed everybody's opinions on it so this marked like my fifth time riding the haunted mansion and just like every single time, I Did not make it completely through the attraction without the ride stopping, and I know that in the past I have witnessed it's been because of loading and unloading of guests that are wheelchair bound or Guests that have complications loading and unloading.
Ashley:Yeah, but this wasn't that comp. That many complications, there's no way.
Dustin:Well, we don't know. We were on the ride all three times that it happened, but the first time we were in the staircase going up and it stops, and we were there for like four minutes.
Dustin:Yeah, it was a long time and this was three of us crammed in one of those doom buggies. We were crammed. I was literally my entire torso was out, hanging over the side of this omnimover. And for those of you that aren't familiar with this ride, so the haunted mansion, along with several other Disney rides, are omnimover attractions, which means the ride vehicle never stops. It is a continuous round track with seats I have every couple of feet and they just move in a conveyor like as a conveyor belt. So when one stops, the entire ride comes to a stop. And we stopped there, we waited, then we started up again and then it stops us. We get into madam leotas chamber and it stops us immediately. Enough to where we're going. Is that madam leotas back of madam leotas head, I see, or is that Miley Cyrus at the Grammys?
Ashley:the world may never know, but you know it, you know what that she finally won a.
Dustin:Grammy, she did, and then that one wasn't as long, that one was like maybe 45 seconds to a minute it wasn't long enough, though it was long enough that I finally got to go through that entire scene. Okay, well then it starts back up. We go all the way around, madam leotas table. We start to go up the hill out of the room and then we stop again. Yep, and that one was like another three or four minutes stop.
Dustin:Yep and then it restarted. We went up into the attic. We saw Constance. We fell out of the attic. Constance is the name of the bride.
Ashley:I didn't know she's a name Mm-hmm. Constance you know so much about the right.
Dustin:There's a lot of backstory to this ride that you know apparently nothing about no, cuz I didn't you remember.
Ashley:I don't do scary things. Don't imagine that's scary, okay, but at bullshit, jordan, I both agreed on this that you are full of shit you two are also babies. There's a small child, though. That has to be really scary.
Dustin:No, maybe don't take a small child on that ride and then the weight won't be so long. Thank you, I'm so glad you agree with me.
Ashley:No, you're so full of it. I'm sorry. I have a nice little coughing fit there.
Dustin:Yeah, we stopped recording and she died for about a minute.
Ashley:You're full of shit, the that is. That ride when you are a small child is terrifying.
Dustin:That right is did you ride it when you were a small child? I did. Okay, that's great you.
Ashley:I'm sorry that you only went to Disney World five times in your entire life, but I've been going to Disney since I was like three.
Dustin:No, okay, good, so you shouldn't be afraid of it now.
Ashley:No, every single time. It's just curious, because I learned more new shit. I didn't realize I was falling to my death.
Dustin:Hey, why don't you tell us about your new friend that you made at Space Mountain?
Ashley:Okay, so Our next ride that we decided to do was a space mountain. So we get to the entrance of the ride and there is a lady. We're about to well, no, let's just first discuss the line when, all the way back past the bathrooms, which is all the way behind this, right before, right next door to Paging Tom, no, the carousel of progress. Yes, I could not remember. It's like right next to that. You come out of the carousel of progress and immediately go ahead and make a right.
Dustin:Yeah, but it was right there, so we waited. In that line we get all the way up to the thing to scan in it was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.
Ashley:And then we're getting in line and there's a lady that was, um, she was standing at the entrance of it. She's like Not a cast member, not a cast member, lady, ecv inside her, but little bit heard. I'm gonna say buggy, but it's not in her ECV. And she goes how many, when does your party? And, ma'am, excuse me, when does your party end? And I went I'm sorry, and she goes how many's in your party, when does it end? And I said me One, two, there's three of us. Why? She's like oh well, okay, thank you.
Dustin:And she wanted to get in line behind us Trying to get in behind all these people, keeping in mind that line was still all the way back past the bathroom. Correct, because she was in any CV. She gets to skip that whole line.
Ashley:No, you do not, so we get inside. By the way, if there's ever a moment that I want to Decide to get arrested by Disney World, it's because I'm a jump in that ball pit inside Space Mountain the forbidden ball pit, I want to do it so bad, I want to do that and I want to go at the exit of space mountain. Really bad.
Dustin:Can we talk about how, once you pass that ball pit though, you enter into the chamber of no air flow? Oh, my god, it was so hot and if people fart in that space it just lingers. And I say that because I have been in there when someone has farted and there literally is no air conditioning. No, nothing in that section of the building.
Ashley:It was so warm.
Dustin:It was so bad.
Ashley:There we finally get in line, or we finally finally get up to it to grouper to grouper.
Dustin:Thank you to and we are in line for rose one, two and three. I've never ridden Space Mountain in the front. I was so excited to do it and guess who's there and guess who comes out the elevator the ACV Mofo with her group of like 20. No, it was.
Ashley:They had a whole train and then still have three rows. So this nine, there's nine people, nine people.
Dustin:No, it was two rows, because it they were. They got put in rows one and two and then they told us to go to four, five and six. So they were just gonna leave the last seat in the first car empty. And Jordan, very politely, we had a cast member that we were speaking to when the woman came out of the ACV. Super nice, super kind, we had a good, good joke and chuckle with her. And then the other cast member that had been dealing with the ACV comes back over and tells us to go to the back car and Jordan just says we were really hoping to get the front. Jordan didn't explain a whole live story, he just said we were really hoping to get the front and she clapped back with Attitude.
Ashley:Yeah, she did, she was nasty and I think she was worse than the Honomanche lady.
Dustin:I think that she I, to be honest, I think she'd had an unpleasant experience with that ACV party.
Ashley:Don't blame her. However, we were not part of the ACV family.
Dustin:No, and as many times if I'd ridden that attraction like we waited our turn, we were gonna be in the front row. We were excited for that. You guys were gonna give me the very front seat. And she was like well, we have a very long, long wait. And Jordan's like that's fine, we'll wait. And she goes well, it's gonna be a while, you can just stand over here. And at that point I stepped in because Jordan doesn't take the best social cues when people get angry at a theme park, and so I was like no, no, no, it's fine, we'll just, we'll just go back here and Jordan.
Ashley:Jordan was upset because so long that we just kind of wanted to get on the right and get off.
Dustin:Well, yeah, and I mean, Jordan was rightfully so upset because we had waited our turn, and that's what we wanted, but it was fine. I wrote on the front row of the second car. We screamed and yelled and had fun and we rode the ride and I'm sold and we got off and we went about our day. We did not ride Tron, even though it was over there, because we didn't get a virtual cue. But it's nothing special, it's.
Ashley:I have yet to do it, so I cannot give you an opinion on it.
Dustin:So the ride was announced in like what 2016, and they started construction and in the pandemic hit and they just boarded up the walls, yep, and and stopped construction and then, a year ago, decided, okay, we're gonna finish the ride, well, in 2016. The technology that theme parks were using is now considered outdated technology compared to what parks are kicking out.
Ashley:Correct.
Dustin:Like take Guardians, for example, that pre-show your teleportation.
Ashley:That's so good.
Dustin:The technology that they used in Tron, like to this day. What is actually there is definitely like technology that was new in 2015 and they didn't update it with new technology. And most recently, they went through and they have these decals that made the windows look really cool. They tore the decals out because people had been tearing the decals and made them look bad, so instead of replacing them, they just covered it up. Now it's a solid black wall, so their key line is just a black hallway.
Ashley:Where's?
Dustin:this Tron Really? Yeah, tron is, and their locker system is horrible.
Ashley:I can give you a new opinion. I've never done it. I haven't even walked over there.
Dustin:Well, ride it eventually, but it's not in my and it's also super short, so it's not worth it. It's, mummy, it's. I mean. It's all these same dark rides where you get in, you go outside for two seconds, you go back in. There's some glow in the dark theming that you drive by. That's it.
Ashley:What do I do?
Dustin:Yeah, I have no opinion at all. And then, where did you drag us?
Ashley:My favorite place in all of Magic Kingdom. We went to the storybook circus, which is the home to Dumb, with the Flying Elephant and a Goofy's the Barnstormer Two attractions that I worked at, the only two attractions I've ever worked at in my entire life. It is my home, my place, with my people. I love Dumbo.
Dustin:You know the Ving, so the sun had gone down at this point and it was starting to get chilly and I was not having it. I was not excited to go ride the Dumbo ride, but the thing that really shocked me about that attraction is we got in line and the queue line went into a building and I was like this seems like overkill for you know this little spinny ride. But then we walked in and there was like a five story playground, correct. And then in the middle of the queue line.
Ashley:It's like McDonald's and Chick-fil-A had a ginormic, appropriately beautifully well-kept, clean playground baby, and I love it.
Dustin:So explain to us how exactly that playground worked, because there was no line, so kids were just going and playing.
Ashley:I will happily do that.
Dustin:Tell them what you told me.
Ashley:It depends on whether or not Dumbo is at a certain amount of time frame. So when I worked there we had to hit I think it was 40 minutes. When you hit a 40 minute timeframe we forced everybody to go into the play area and then you got a like a buzzer that you would get at like a restaurant that would tell you when your table's ready and you would get one of those and then it would buzz and beep and let you know that it was time to fly with Dumbo so the kids could go in and play. They could do all those things. And then you waited. While you were waiting, kids would play while you were waiting and then buzzer would go off. Then you'd go fly with Dumbo. When it's not an excessive amount of wait time like that, they get an option to play. So a lot of parents I would notice during my DCP what it would be because, end of the day, Disney college program DCP sorry, you would need a break.
Ashley:Kids needed just to blow off some extra steam before nap time. There's also a couple parents that would take their strollers in there too, because or not their shoulders they would take their kids in there and kind of let them play around and then they take a nap in the shoulder while they were headed to a dinner reservation that mom and dad wanted to enjoy Like it was a lot of it, or towards the end of the day, like you know, you get tired kids, that kind of thing. So for me, I loved that concept. I thought it was fantastic, because you don't have a bunch of kids that are screaming inside of a line, freaking out, doing all of those things you were able to. They were able to be distracted, get everything done that they needed to, and then they were able to then go and fly with Dumbo. So when the three of us wrote it, it was so neat for me to be back there too, because I kind of got to like reminisce on my time there.
Ashley:I spent almost a year at Dumbo, met wonderful people. I I owe my entire life to Dumbo, the flying elephant, and I got to kind of like be like. Oh my God, I get to to kind of show you guys how this works. I get to be the tour guide through all of this, which was really neat to do. So got to explain the play area to you guys, got to explain that we were which how the grouper system would work between well, at my time it was FastPass and the standby line. So I got to kind of explain that whole concept and then why we got to go into the corrals, which is like where you would typically when, when they're busy, you'd get put into do different corrals, and this time around we were just being put into one of them and able to to go into that. And then straight onto the ride and I got to go in my favorite Dumbo in the entire world, which is number 14. It's actually the sticker that's on my refrigerator is, um, demo, number 14.
Dustin:Tell them about the bouncing.
Ashley:Okay, there's certain Dumbo's that you get into, that when you the whole purpose of Dumbo if you have not written it is that you get into Dumbo, you ride, you the blue, blue, white baby boys and there is a mechanism, a lever that you will hold onto, you play it, you hold it up and you go up and you hold it down and then you go down. So you get to decide if Dumbo flies up or Dumbo flies down, If you get into it's 13 and 14. And then I can't remember the other side, on the other. This is when you first walk in a demo. This is the one if you're staring at Dumbo at the entrance, trying to decide whether or not you're in lightning lane or you're in regular, Though my favorite Dumbo 14 is on the it's by the exit gate right hand side.
Ashley:Yeah, yes, but there's two Dumbo's, so my Dumbo is on the right hand side. Okay, and that's the 14. If you get into 14, you can bring Dumbo all the way up and then, about halfway that she goes up, you pull the mechanism down and she bounces. And she bounces hard. Dumbo, she be bouncy and you. I was so proud of you that you learned how to bounce her so fast.
Dustin:I had fun.
Ashley:I was so proud and you were so. It was so cute and I'm just like I was having a moment. It was great. It brought me so much joy. Dumbo is, is and will ever forever hold of Mary Massa part in me. Every time I go to Disney world I have to wear some sort of Dumbo, something as my homage to Dumbo.
Dustin:You wear your Dumbo socks.
Ashley:I did wear my Dumbo socks, my stance, dumbo socks.
Dustin:It was fun.
Ashley:She holds a Dumbo holds a very special place in my heart, so it was very nice. I was very excited to show you where I worked and where my love for theme parks came from.
Dustin:Now, about this time in our day we were getting close to the fireworks show at the castle, so we had a DAS reservation for big thunder mountain.
Ashley:Yes, we did.
Dustin:So we had headed, we were headed back over to that portion of the park and we were skirting around fantasy land, and that's when we noticed that it's a small world was walk on.
Ashley:Well, because we were actively trying to avoid H E eight, happily ever after, which is the fireworks show we were trying to avoid that is, at all costs, try to be in a building, try not to hear it. We were trying just not to to participate in that. So we stopped over at small world on the way over to big thunder mountain.
Dustin:But it was fun because, like we, it was walk on, which was nice, cause that's the only time I'll get on that more Peter Pan, as if they're walk on.
Ashley:Well, I've never seen Peter Pan be a walk on. Yeah, true, I won't do. I won't do Peter Pan if it's over 20 minutes. Same it's good, it's good, et is better.
Dustin:We got on the ride and when you get into these boats you're up on a conveyor belt, you're completely out of the water and then as you leave, the station use when it dips you down into the water and our boat, because it was walk on people, pretty much just piled in and we left the dock and as soon as we did our boat leaned all the way to the back, like the back of the boat was dragging and it was leaning hard to the left.
Dustin:So this whole time we're having to like lean the opposite direction because there's so many adults in the back and there's no one in the front of this boat because they load from back to front that we were just like holding on for dear life for the whole five minutes that we were going through hearing all of these children sing and we got to see the hippo with the, with the struggle and blinking eye.
Ashley:Did you get that vinegar smell too?
Dustin:Oh, the water. So yeah, the water smelled. It did not smell like chlorine.
Ashley:It smelled like vinegar.
Dustin:It smelled funky.
Ashley:It smelled like vinegar, Like the whole thing. It was real gross, but it was great to hear it's a small world after all.
Dustin:Okay, don't sing anymore before we get copyrighted. No, I'm serious, stop before we get copyrighted.
Ashley:Stop it. Is that really a thing? How do they dizzy with cover? Is that hard?
Dustin:You would be surprised. I probably would, but no it was a fun little little mark it off in the box. Now I'll have to write it again for 2024.
Ashley:That's not true. We'll write it five more times I probably won't.
Dustin:To be honest, what I like it? It's a small world. It's a small world. It's so boring. I want to write the original.
Ashley:Boring, the one in Disneyland, disneyland.
Dustin:Yes, I've been on that one.
Ashley:It's very good I do like the fact that that one you load outside.
Dustin:Oh yeah.
Ashley:It's not correct. It's very nice.
Dustin:So we made it away from that, and then we made it over to Big Thunder. But as we were passing through Liberty Square, lo and behold, here is Haunted Mansion with their Lightning Lane line still all the way out into.
Ashley:We didn't see it any further this time because it went past the restaurant and then was at the entrance of the boat.
Dustin:Yeah.
Ashley:It was ridiculous, it was crazy, so long.
Dustin:But we made it over to Big Thunder and then we went to Scanian and I guess there was a glitch or something happened, or Jordan accidentally hit his phone and our Das was gone.
Ashley:Bye, bye, bye, bye Das.
Dustin:It wasn't there. Sad Jordan explained to the attendant like we had the pass, we had it all set up, so they went ahead and let us go in and we get all the way up there and they turn us and tell us to go down the ramp towards the ride. And we're getting ready to get on the ride platform and the ride went down and at this point the fireworks were about to end, so we knew that all the attractions were about to get.
Ashley:No, they were halfway. It was halfway. At this point it wasn't close to the end.
Dustin:Well, they had already started, so we knew we needed to get out of here so we can get to another attraction before the show ends, because if not, these lines are going to get inundated with people and it's going to be a forever long wait.
Ashley:Correct and pull us their hearts. They were truly trying to do something nice for people.
Dustin:And so we tried to like we just turned around to go back out the way that we came and they were like no, you need to wait down there. And we were like we don't really want to wait down there. And they're like well, they're going to give you a line reentry. And we were like we don't want that.
Ashley:We just want to leave.
Dustin:Correct, we just want to leave. And so you could tell that I think we kind of irritated the cast members, but at the same time it was like they probably get yelled at all the time for stuff like this and we're like, no, no, no, it's fine, it's chill, we just we want to out, they just let us out. So we left and then we ran over to pirates, which was a walk on, but we still had our DAS return for that as well.
Dustin:Yeah, we did have a DAS reservation for it, but we, you know we didn't need it because it was it was walk on. So we got on the ride. We rode the ride again. Avoid the fireworks Boat was leaned to the left.
Ashley:So bad. Also, I do not remember that drop being that short.
Dustin:I don't remember that, that short and that dark. It was pitch black.
Ashley:But I think it was because we thought it was dark, because we could actually see.
Dustin:I don't know.
Ashley:But my eyes were adjusted because it was really dark. I don't know.
Dustin:But we, we wrote it and we came off and by the time we exited and got out through their gift shop, there was just a horde of people piling into that line.
Ashley:Did you see how long pirates' weight went up to? When we exited 60 minutes.
Dustin:And it was at five when we got there. It was walk on. So if Disney posts a five minute wait, that means it's walk on.
Ashley:Run.
Dustin:Um. So that to me was just bonkers, um, and so we decided to head over back to Tomorrowland.
Ashley:We did this part, this trip, by the way. So zigzaggy we did.
Dustin:Um, but that's because we had food and things in between it which we haven't discussed yet, because food is its own thing. So we made it back over to um people mover.
Ashley:Um I was excited to see this. Well, wait, before we get started in this. I was really excited to do people mover because I think it's a very underrated attraction, but I was excited to see the addition to the Tron's part of it because during the last time I had written people mover, Tron was not open yet. So we got, we used the people mover as a way because I mean, I uh, like I said, I've involved my life with quite a few theme park enthusiasts, so any chance to see something being built, something being done behind the scenes. You know it was very much a, a oh, absolutely, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. I think it's the people who were during the time that Tron was being built as a way to try to get a behind the scenes look of the building of Tron, because John had put up walls so you couldn't see anything. When you wrote people mover, you were above all of those walls.
Ashley:So you could kind of see some of these aspects, so I was excited to see how the incorporation of Tron was going to be affected inside people over here the whole sentence it got. Yeah, it was kind of disappointed. I'm not going to lie. I was really disappointed and he, and especially after everything we went through prior to getting onto people mover, I was even more disappointed.
Dustin:Yeah, so we waited like maybe 15 minutes, I think 15, 20, 20, 30. But in that time we watched the people mover stop like three times. And when the people mover stops. The way that you get up to the second level, where the station is, is by a moving walkway.
Ashley:So every time Like an escalator without an escalator?
Dustin:Yeah, it's just it's floor. It's solid floor that you stand on and it just takes you to the top instead of stairs. But it would come to a complete stop because the ride comes to a stop and the ride platform is a rotating platform, so everything stops and we watched it stop like twice and then we watched them restart it and we didn't think anything of it. So we go and we get onto that platform and no one is walking up the ramp, they just stand and let the floor take them up. So I was standing on it, we were all just kind of chatting and then suddenly out of nowhere, there was a total eclipse of the sun. Sorry, I had to throw that in there. It stops. And I don't mean it was like mew, it was like full on E-stop. The conveyor belt stopped moving. I was standing sideways, so my body shifted to the left.
Ashley:You know, I wasn't even holding on.
Dustin:Now there was I, and I'm like over here I had to grab.
Ashley:Jordan was holding on and I had to grab Jordan's arm to literally brace myself because I thought I was going to die.
Dustin:Well, see I, because we're standing uphill, my left foot is holding all of my body weight because I'm leaning that direction as we're going up on an incline. So when we stopped my foot to catch myself has to raise up extra high because it's it has to go higher on the ground because it's an incline and I could not get my footing so I'm falling before I can catch myself. A cast member was coming down the exit while when this happened, and like she didn't miss the beat, she stepped and she just starts yelling keep walking keep walking, so reaming.
Dustin:And I was just kind of like hi, can I catch my footing? Like I almost bashed my face open on your on the handrail here and I was just like ah, ah, ah.
Ashley:I thought I was going to go forward because I, I like I wasn't holding on. I had my phone in my hand and then I was. I was in mid conversation with Jordan and all of a sudden it stopped and I my left hand grabbed Jordan's arm. My right hand had my phone in it grabbed that and then I or like squeeze tighter. And then I was like, oh shit, I'm going down, like fortunately, neither of us died. No, but like I definitely thought that was going to happen, but we got to get fucking screamed at and gone like why are you moving, Mitchell?
Ashley:almost died.
Dustin:My question is where do you want us to go? Because everybody stopped now? Yeah, the whole platform. It's a moving platform, so it's constant movement and now no one's moving. So where are we supposed to go? Why are we walking up the ramp?
Ashley:Correct.
Dustin:You move. But they restarted it and then we got up top and then we got like right, getting ready to get on, and then low and behold, it stops again. Yeah, and they reset it and then we get on and I have never gone a full circuit in the people mover without having an interruption. And it makes me angry because I pay all of this money to go to a Disney park and I don't get to enjoy the attractions like people did in the early 2000s, because these rides stop every two seconds and it's very annoying.
Ashley:I have a lot of opinions on this.
Dustin:We get on and we ride the entire attraction. Correct, we got an intercom coming on and cutting off the audio without the ride stopping. We got the whole experience of the people mover, which made me happy because people mover is one of my absolute favorite attractions at Disney.
Ashley:It's so good. It's an underrated attraction. It's like living in the land. I think both of them are so good.
Dustin:It's the transportation of tomorrow that we never got Correct and I think that's what's wrong with the world. You know, I've always said that Pigeon Forge in Geltlenburg needs a people mover because they have so much traffic. You sit in traffic for four hours and a monorail. No, they wouldn't do a monorail. It's too big, it'll obstruct the mountain view.
Ashley:But yeah, my view on this I have. It took me a long time to get to a level of understanding attractions and understanding how businesses worked and how theme parks you know companies worked and stuff like that and understanding that you can't just snap your fingers and things magically fix. And I understand that now as 16, 17, 18 year old kid, it was just like I don't understand Disney world makes so much money. Why is it we can't put money into these things and fix it? As an adult, I understand that it's difficult. However, I am really hoping that with the expansions that are coming from theme parks that we're seeing with Universal and Epic, that we're seeing with SeaWorld and their new coaster that they announced, that we're seeing with Disney and Disney's new things, that Disney's coming out with, that at some point these theme parks are going to then turn around. I'm going to wait. Sorry, rob came in and is making a whole bunch of noise.
Dustin:You're fired, Rob.
Ashley:I literally told you we were recording today. To be silent, you turd and I'm just hoping that means you too, Bruce. Yeah, cause you'd be allowed to, that we. I'm going to get back to my rant here, but like I'm really hoping that these companies, these theme parks, these, all of it, will get to a point, I'm dead, just go away.
Dustin:Rob, we're not videotaping, you don't have to crawl across the floor. Oh my God, oh goodness, anyways.
Ashley:I'm hoping that we will see these theme park companies put money back into the attractions that were original.
Dustin:We know.
Ashley:Cause. Otherwise, I think they're going to lose generations like you and I, because we grew up on these things. You already took away so many good attractions and you replaced them with some that are yes, that are so good Like I never did. What's the one at Hollywood Studios that now has Mickey Minis on a railroad?
Dustin:Oh, the great movie. I never did that.
Ashley:And everybody, all of my friends, are like oh my God, you missed out on such a great thing.
Dustin:You really did.
Ashley:I'm going to ride Mickey Minis on a railroad and I think that is a fantastic attraction.
Ashley:Yeah, I'm sorry but I think it is so good, I think that is it's well done, well themed, all of it. I appreciate that so much. But then you look at the people mover, you look at Haunted Mansion, I'm looking at big center mountain railroad, I'm looking at all these rides that are still there that you have no plans to change and they're not getting the maintenance, the, just the, the simple upkeeping maintenance that they need to keep these rides going on a day to day, daily operation.
Dustin:And you know that's been a bone of contention with a lot of people these last couple of years, especially coming out of the pandemic and seeing the state that the parks were in now with Epic.
Ashley:And you're expecting us to pay so much to be pass holders to these parks. I mean it's for myself and Rob to be annual pass to be annual theme park or annual pass holders to Disney world. It is $1,600. Yeah.
Dustin:I made a cut. Yeah, it cost a lot of money.
Ashley:And I can't even get on through Pirates of the Earth, through through Haunted Mansion, without stopping four times. Well tell me how I can justify that here is one thing that I'm also going to say.
Dustin:You can't assume that every single time that is a maintenance issue. A lot of times, especially with the Omnimover rides and these continuous circuit rides, they have to completely stop the rides for guests with disabilities because they're getting on and off the attraction and they can't do these continuous moving platforms.
Ashley:But the hippo at Small World is not a people problem.
Dustin:Oh, you leave that hippo and it's blinking eye alone.
Ashley:Fix it though, come on, fix that.
Dustin:Well, like to go back to what I was saying a moment ago. With Epic and everything coming out, I think Disney got a little scared. And Bob Iger not Bob Iger, bob Iger, yeah, he just announced like $600 billion or whatever. And I've heard that PeopleMover is coming back in Disneyland and PeopleMover's been closed there for years and he's saying that they've got a lot of money that they're planning on spending. They're planning on doing a lot that's already there and bringing in new. So I'm interested to see how that goes.
Dustin:But like I mean, yeah, you have a point like the PeopleMover is a fantastic attraction at it's a people eater is what something where a theme park junkie refers to because its throughput is outrageously astronomical. But you go through sections now where it's just. When you go into some of the buildings, they have little vignettes and scenes built then you can look into some attractions and then you go through and then it's just windows where there used to be stuff behind it, and the windows are painted black and I'm like do more with it. Make the PeopleMover a 21st century version of what the original concept was, re-imagine it. Disney talks about reimagining so much, but we're seeing the.
Ashley:I'm also being honest to Walt, and I'm there for it. However, we live in a world where we still love Walt. We still want to do all the things that Walt had. We literally pay money to see Walt's dream come to life, but give us an updated version of Walt's dream.
Dustin:You know I'm going to say something here that may be controversial to a lot of people, but I feel like Disney and the Imagineers have lost sight of Walt's dream, because they Change that, caught and realized that it just wasn't gonna be feasible and they turned it into a park that was supposed to be ever changing and it has yet to change.
Ashley:And Guardians of the Galaxy is the first change that came to that park. In how many years?
Dustin:Well, no, the point of is there is no new. Like the imagination pavilion, we saw what happened to figment his ride got shrunk and the the technology in the play area when you come out of that ride is literally 90s technology.
Ashley:And most of it's always closed and they've not done like.
Dustin:Why are we not see it like test track? You know they reimagined test track well, I hate it.
Dustin:The only really imagine test track is because the people that that that co-owned test track pulled out well, no, but that's the thing that I hate, this current version of test track, that we have this new modern and technology type, because originally it was cool, because you got to see how they made cars and how they tested cars and then it turned into making your own computer version of a car and then getting in this ride and riding through and Apparently, now they're, they're re reimagining test track to take it back to its former glory. But I Just, I don't know. Sometimes I I wonder what is in Disney's mind when they do that. But I think I wonder what do you think? And then we need to move on to food, because we're we're going way off topic here.
Ashley:I wonder what we'll think of it. I Wonder if what was around right now, if you could come back for like oh sorry, if he could come back for like a week, but what would think?
Dustin:That would be interesting. It'd be very interesting, but let's move on now so we can get wrapped up here, because I think we've been going on for quite a while. Food and dining.
Ashley:What a joke.
Dustin:So this was my first time going to Disney with a fully gluten-free diet. So I was a little nervous on how to do this because I, depending on what I eat, that can get very sick. And Going to a park and spending a lot of time there and a lot of hours there, if I don't eat something, you know you get hungry and then you get a headache and then you don't feel good. So as we were pulling into the park, you were starved and you and.
Dustin:Jordan wanted to mobile order Casey's. I've had Casey's once and I know that it is just deep-fried corn dogs and hot dogs and and full of gluten things. So I opened up the mobile app and I couldn't find gluten-free on that menu. Couldn't find anything that said gluten-free. So I was like I guess I'm just not gonna mobile order, I'll order when we get there. So when we got there, I asked a team member or a cast member at the front entrance to Casey's. She was like yeah, we can make it gluten-free, and that's kind of all she told me. She was super sweet, super kind though, but it was very concise into the point of like yeah, we can make your food gluten-free, you just have to ask. But I wasn't given a like yeah, these are the different types of options that we have and I it was a busy restaurant, it's a quick service, so I just didn't get anything while we were there. You, on the other hand, you got. What did you get?
Ashley:Well, I don't eat meat or red meat, so hot dog, no, absolutely not. So I got their new plant-based sausage which was topped with Diced tomatoes, onions, yellow mustard and a Chicago green relish. She had a little heat to her, she was a little spicy.
Dustin:I did take one bite of your hot dog, and then I had a potato bun, so my bun was gluten-free, so that was not gluten-free. It's still had. It was a potato base a potato base.
Ashley:I'm sorry, it was good though I liked her, I did take a bite of yours.
Dustin:I did not like it. I didn't like the taste, I didn't like the texture. I was not a fan. But when we finished there, there was a guest services tent just off from Casey's. So I walked over and I stood in line to talk to a cast member about you know they're. I didn't do a lot of research because I assumed it would be easy, because I see people talking about Food and beverage at Disney and everything. So I got up to him and I asked him about finding, you know, gluten-free food and using mobile ordering, and his response, while not making eye contact with me, was yeah, you can order gluten-free food on the mobile app. So I'm told.
Dustin:He had no idea, he was not very friendly and I was like okay, thanks, I guess I just won't use the mobile app and I start to walk away. And that's when a guest runs up to me that had been talking to another guest services attendant was like hey, I heard that you're trying to find gluten-free food. Let me show you how to do it on the app. And she pulled up her app and showed me. So turns out what it was. When you go to a restaurant, they have at the top a bunch of different options like Entrees, beverage, dessert, and then at the end of it is Allergy friendly. And so I'm realizing is Casey's didn't offer allergy friendly Ordering. That I could not see because I didn't see the icon on it, which is why I was confused. So she pulled up one of the other restaurants and showed it to me.
Dustin:So when you pull up gluten-free ordering or when you pull up Allergy friendly ordering on the app, it takes you to a secondary screen and on there you have options to choose from gluten and wheat allergy, egg allergy, fish and shellfish allergy, milk, peanut and tree nuts, sesame and soy, and if you click on one of those so you click on gluten and wheat it then brings up a whole new menu of all of the items that you can order, modified to be whatever allergy you have, friendly. So, for example, I'm gonna use Columbia Harbor house because it's the only thing that I could think of. They had the grilled salmon with rice and green beans, but it was the allergy friendly one, so it didn't come with the glaze that the salmon normally gets, because that glaze is has wheat in the ingredients. So it takes you to a menu where the menu is edited out those options, so you click on the actual allergy that you have and then it pops up a whole new menu of things they're safe for you to order and then it notifies the Disney cast members, fulfilling that order, that you have an allergy so they know to prepare that food separately. And it comes with the little allergy toothpick in it so that you know. And it comes on a completely different colored tray, which I thought was really neat. But shout out to that girl I did not get her name, I have no clue who she is, but she definitely saved my experience Because I was a little bummed out that I wouldn't get to mobile order because you guys were mobile ordering.
Dustin:So that meant that I would then have to go get in line and then wait to order and then wait for my food, and then I would be getting my food by the time yours was cold or you guys would already be finished eating. So that's how that situation went. We stopped at the big top. Pop Right by.
Ashley:Dumbo right by.
Dustin:Dumbo. At that point I hadn't eaten anything and I was hungry and I was thirsty.
Ashley:So I got a.
Dustin:I was angry, so I got a. Popcorn and I decided I was gonna get it in the popcorn bucket because it was unlike $12. So I got a Tiana popcorn bucket and a Coke and my total came out to like $18 and 25 cents, which some people would say is crazy. So does are always like $4 or more there. But I think to get the popcorn bucket that I got, I think it was a Decent price because now I have a refillable popcorn bucket, I love it.
Ashley:I don't ever use mine. I display mine.
Dustin:Yes, you do.
Ashley:You have a thousand no, I don't have a thousand. I have meaning the popcorn buckets. You have a thousand.
Dustin:You didn't get the doll whip that you wanted, because by the time we made it to doll whip it was like 50 degrees outside.
Ashley:No dough whip, no mechanistic, no ice cream period. It was too cold, but I did get to go. We we rounded our house, or rounded the night up, with a trip to the Starbucks on Main Street, which is one of my favorite places.
Dustin:You're forgetting dinner.
Ashley:Oh yeah, I did hot. We did eat at Columbia Harbor House. I forgot Mm-hmm. I was wildly disappointed with this, like I was not.
Dustin:I am. I had high hopes, experience either.
Ashley:No, I had really high hopes with Columbia Harbor House because I had heard such good things and I was um wildly disappointed with it. I thought it was just kind of okay. I did not think for the price of it it was good for. For what I got it was 23.99 and I did not think that was that like worth it at all Did you get? I got what they called the trio plotters. It's a combination of fried shrimp, chicken strips, battered fish. It's good with fries and hush puppies.
Dustin:That is a lot of carbs.
Ashley:It was and it was not great and I I think out to answer the I just wanted to order something quick because I was hungry and I was just done with people and I was done. It was like one of the last things we did. My phone was dying so I needed to do something very quickly when they just wanted to be done.
Dustin:Yeah, and you get you and Jordan, like you placed your mobile orders and I went to look at mine and I went to the gluten-free menu and was great and I got the, the grilled salmon with rice and green beans. But when I went to order it and it said, choose your sides, it only had rice and rice. And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense and I'm definitely not gonna buy a piece of salmon and a huge mound of rice for $20. So I went up to the the register, or I went up to the girl like the grouper Because they have groupers even at their registers, because they tell you what register to go to and I asked her about it and she said, oh, we were out of green beans but we just got them back, so just order in person, because it hadn't refreshed or updated on the mobile app. So I went up and I ordered, I Ordered my food and I got up with the green beans and everything and then you guys had your food and I'm waiting. They actually gave me a like a little pager, because they had to make mine separately, so I Assumed I was like getting fresh or something I don't know.
Dustin:So I went and I sat down and I waited and then the buzzer went off so I went and I got my stuff and then I carried my tray all the way back over across to where we were sitting in the dining room and Needed a fork. So I went over to the little stand that the lady was just at like cleaning and refreshing. No forks, just knives. So I had to go to the other side of Harbor House, like fighting through all the people to get a fork, and then come back over and the rice tasted good, the green beans were good.
Dustin:My salmon was drier than dry, like it looked. It looked, looking at it. It looked okay. It had been sitting out for hours and I realize now it's probably because it was I they couldn't put the, the, the glaze on it. I mean, the salmon itself didn't taste bad, other than the fact it was very dry. But I, you know, to round out my eating experience, I did not have a pleasurable first experience at Disney With mobile ordering food for gluten-free. I love that the options were there, but the fact that the green beans weren't available and then they were available but they wouldn't put them back on the mobile app like it just Caused me to have to get. By the time I sat down and started eating, you guys had already gotten through half of your meals, and then you guys sat and waited on me while I ate my food and it was just a really long experience, but it wasn't, I don't know. I'm gonna give it another shot you know everybody.
Dustin:I wonder though. Well, here's my thing. I will go back only because we went At the end. Well, it wasn't the end of the day. They were open till 11, and it was like 9, 8, 9, 8 or 9.
Ashley:So no, I will now go back. Clarbia, humberhurst, columbia Harbor house. You did not longer have my business however. My penny was there, but you don't have my business.
Dustin:How did we finish out our night? With Starbucks and that was a good experience.
Ashley:I love Starbucks. I love it on Main Street too, because it just makes me more man fuzzy that I get something that has like a cute little Mickey thing on a cup and I think it's adorable and I like how most the time they write your name on it they are like a little Mickey head to it. I think it's cute. I got an oatmeal hot chocolate, which has been my late night thing because I'm trying to not to drink caffeine at night.
Dustin:As she made me a coffee at 10 o'clock made you coffee.
Ashley:But yeah, I'm been a big fan of their hot chocolate. I like it because they do it with a dark chocolate, so it's like thick.
Dustin:It's just mocha syrup.
Ashley:I know, but it's thick and I'm not.
Dustin:Mocha syrup is just cocoa powder and water.
Ashley:And I love it and it's great. I hate it, I don't know whipped cream because I don't do dairy.
Dustin:Even though she wanted ice cream all day. Yeah, I just got a decaf peppermint white mocha without milk because I just wanted something hot and they had like a decent sized crowd in there. But they, I always say, when you go into a Starbucks, if there's not a gay man behind the counter, it's a sinking ship. And let me tell you and I I I shouldn't, but if that, if that little boy was not a homosexual Calling out those drink orders, then I'm a straight man. But he was calling out those orders and he was getting that stuff out on the counter and this woman come up and she didn't issue With her drink. And it was so funny because the look on his face. It was one of those situations where, as a previous Starbucks barista, I knew exactly what his thought process was. And his thought process was that's not how you ordered it, but I will happily remake the drink for you. And he did it without any service interruptions, lol.
Ashley:It was not an.
Dustin:AT&T situation in there and we got her drinks and we headed out and we went through the Emporium on our way out, which I really didn't want to do, because I wanted to get away from these people and you just wanted to go.
Ashley:Because I'm looking. Okay, I saw a. They have a Dumbo, weighted Dumbo and I need him you know, you can buy that online. I don't want to buy it online because I can't use my pass order discount online.
Dustin:I think you can.
Ashley:No, you only can do it if you mo, if you do it in person, and that's what I want to do. So I'm trying to find it and I saw it when I went with Rob for his birthday trip to Epcot, and I should have just grabbed it then, but I didn't think of it.
Dustin:No, it may just be at Epcot.
Ashley:I don't know. So we may have to go to Epcot this week.
Dustin:You know what to finish up this story? Tell us about how you Wanted to walk back to the ticket and transportation, and I will happily right after I use the bathroom, rude.
Ashley:I love putting sound effects to you every time, ever since my kidney and I don't get along On my absolute fuel to go to the doctor's office, I, I pee every two seconds.
Dustin:Well, you know what? I'm really glad you didn't pee on this exit journey that we took.
Ashley:I had to, I had to pee so let's dive into that, shall we? I feel like there's some hostility coming from you. You know I didn't.
Dustin:I didn't want to walk. Well, boo, I wanted to get on the boat and I wanted to go home him.
Ashley:So we leave Magic Kingdom and we go over to Transportation and ticketing, or we had a plan to go over to that point, and then we realized Well, no, so this is a new.
Dustin:Like this, path is new, so there's a path.
Ashley:Our goal. Yeah, when you get to Magic Kingdom and you go to leave, you have to then get back to your car which is that transportation and ticketing? So if you've ever left Magic Kingdom before oh, this is nice, I like this if you've ever left transportation and ticketing, you know that you have to.
Dustin:You have to get on a monorail or you got to get on a boat back to, to where you're going to get back to your car.
Ashley:Well, they just opened up this walking path for Magic Kingdom and then you go past Grand Floridium, then you go past Polynesian and you get to transportation ticketing. So Jordan and I were like Fuck it, let's do this. All right, let's go drag Dusty along with us. And three of us decided to walk it. Well, there's a sign right before you get on to the the walking path that says Spot from this spot to this spot could be close.
Dustin:And there was no spot and like none of this said the sign was there, but the the places, the four spaces where they could put like from from Floridian to Polynesian.
Ashley:Nothing was there, so it according to that sign.
Ashley:It was open, the walkway was open, so we decided to walk it. I decided that I was gonna track it, because I track all my long mile, like walks, like that. They started to start to track us and we hooked it with our star books and we decided to walk it and we got to Grand Floridium, made it through Grand Floridium beautiful hotel, beautiful resort, absolutely gorgeous and then made our way to then proceed to head to the Polynesian. And it was closed. That walking path from Grand Floridium to the Polynesian was closed.
Dustin:Like boarded up, couldn't walk around it closed and done so.
Ashley:what happened buddy?
Dustin:I was not happy. So then we had to turn around and walk to the other side of Grand Floridium, all the way back to the other side of that, and that is a stairs. For those of you that are not familiar, that is a huge, huge complex. It is huge. So we walk all the way back, we go into the main lobby, we go up to the second floor.
Ashley:And we hope to have the stairs, because we didn't want to wait for the elevator.
Dustin:I didn't want to wait for the elevator, I was ready to go. So then we have to go, get back on the monorail, however. So we walked a total amount of one mile and we did it. What? 20 minutes, 1957.
Dustin:So we get back on the monorail, but as we look up, we're standing in the monorail station. There's nothing there. We look up and we see the headlight Beaming down on the station, going in the direction of Magic Kingdom. So we get on the monorail. It's fairly empty and then we go back to the Magic Kingdom and they fill it up completely.
Dustin:However, we didn't have a large compartment, like our compartment wasn't overfilled, because this gentleman was on an ECV and they loaded him into our compartment so it was only him, and then, like his five family members and then us on the other side, so it wasn't, we weren't crowded, which was nice. And then we stopped to the contemporary Yep and I mean, these stops are only like 30 seconds long, like it's just long enough for them to dump the resort guest out, them to get Off the dock and then go. So then we made it back to the ticket and transportation center and then the gentleman in the ECV told us to get off before they got him off. So we got off and we like Balted before the rest of the crowd could, because the good thing was is we were right there at the ramp. So we came off and we went Straight down that ramp and ran to the car.
Dustin:So tired but, um, you know, the walkout wasn't bad. We don't ever take the. What's the little transportation thing? You have trams. We don't ever take the trams, we just walk from wherever we are in the parking lot because it's faster and you don't have to get online and you don't have to go to people and strollers and all of that stuff. So then we made it back out to our car and then we came home. Do we do anything after that? Oh, claire, if you're listening, they have an Anna and Elsa frozen Starbucks mug and I'm gonna try to get it for you. Okay, but that was my first trip to the Magic Kingdom as a Florida resident annual pass holder. Um, fairly good, I enjoyed my day. I had fun. There was some a couple of hiccups along the way, some less than magical moments, as people would call them, but I mean, that's what happens when you go places and you do things. We still had fun. Um, anything else this week?
Ashley:No, we've worked. We went to.
Dustin:STP with all our friends.
Ashley:Which is La Vittaco Palace. We saw Gio and his partner.
Dustin:We got to hang out with him for a little bit, meet him.
Ashley:Wonderful, I had a fun blast and all that stuff we got to meet up with all of our friends, which is nice. We have rambled extra long today. Yet again, I like rambling though so it's a common theme with us.
Dustin:I've noticed Because we're good at rambling, let us know. We want to know, guys, what your favorite Disney experience is at the Magic Kingdom, just the Magic Kingdom, or what's your horror story from the Magic Kingdom? I want to know. Reach out and let us know.
Ashley:And until next week Um actually I'm Dustin.
Dustin:Do your thing, what? Thing?
Ashley:Your little outro, oh, the one about sharing.
Dustin:Yes.
Ashley:Oh well, um, share our podcast with your friends, your family and, most importantly, your favorite bartender.
Dustin:Don't forget like us and follow us on social media, be sure that you guys have subscribed so you can receive notifications from when our next episode airs. And please do us a huge favor, go ahead and rate and leave a review on today's episode, on whatever platform you are listening. It'll help us out tremendously. And, as always, if you have something that you want us to cover here on Orlando Unplugged, feel free to reach out to us on Facebook or Orlando Unplugged13 at gmailcom. Until next week, stay safe, have fun.
Ashley:And don't get a cold like me, yeah, woo.