Fresh off a two week holiday break your hosts are back discussing our various adventures while away from the studio. We talk about how to keep a teenager occupied on an eleven plus hour drive. What it's like to stay at four different Disney Vacation Club resorts and some of the activities available. Then we'll give you a detailed look at the new Galaxy's Edge world of Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu recently opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park and some of the cool things we were able to do there.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
Fresh off a two week holiday break your hosts are back discussing our various adventures while away from the studio. We talk about how to keep a teenager occupied on an eleven plus hour drive. What it's like to stay at four different Disney Vacation Club resorts and some of the activities available. Then we'll give you a detailed look at the new Galaxy's Edge world of Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu recently opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park and some of the cool things we were able to do there.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
Insightful,
Speaker 2:informative insights, a podcast network.
Speaker 3:[inaudible].
Speaker 4:Welcome to insights into teens, a podcast series, exploring the issues and challenges of today's youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.
Speaker 3:[inaudible]
Speaker 5:welcome to insights into teens. This is episode 47. Vacation recap. I'm your host, Joseph Wayland and my mature and responsible cohost, Madison Waylon. Hi, how you doing today sweetheart? So we are back from a well-deserved vacation. We went South for the holidays to a Disney world. Um, don't hyperventilate. Okay. Ventilate. I'm doing what you told me to. I know. Okay. You should be fine. So we did take a vacation, um, which was for me kind of strange being in Disney for the holidays, despite all the decorations and uh, Christmas carols. They jammed down your throat. It just did not somehow feel like Christmas down there for some reason. So it was very strange. But anyway, we're going to do a recap of what we did, um, even, uh, to go into the drive down and kind of, uh, explain to folks how you can keep a 13 year old active on a 16 hour drive. Um, and, uh, let's talk about the resorts. We'll talk about, uh, some of the destinations. We didn't do a lot down there. Uh, we only actually had one day in the parks, but there's a lot more in the parks and Disney, a lot more than just the parks at Disney. Um, we did some cool new things down there for the first time. We're trusses is significant because you've been down how many times now? You've been to Disney world 20 times now. Um, so anytime we can go down after that many times and you can still do something new, it's pretty cool. And then we'll finish up with your closing remarks and shout outs. So ready to get started. Why not? All right, let's do it. So we drove down. We don't fly. Um, typically, um, for a number of reasons. One. I just simply disliked the whole airport experience. But we also tend to buy a lot of things which are very tough to get home on a plane when we're down there. So from where we live, uh, we're based in Southern New Jersey. Uh, it is about 16 now about a thousand miles, a little over a thousand, like 1100 miles. So we do an overnight on the way down. Right. So the first leg of ours was a little over 700 miles, which took us, was typically takes about 11 and a half hours. We ran into some traffic though.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Wow. Wow, wow.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I mean it's rough when you hit traffic going down. Um, usually we're used to hitting it in a DC area. I, we get down there cause we usually hit that around rush hour. Yeah. So we did an overnight down to Savannah, Georgia. And then we got up bright and early the next day and got back on the road for an additional 300 some miles and over five, six hours of driving should only take about four and a half. And again, we had traffic down and in Northern Florida there. So that was, that was kind of rough. And the second day we wound up on Disney property, uh, at, uh, the first of many resorts we stayed at this week. Um, and we took breaks every two to two to three hours or so, you know, bathroom breaks, food, whatever, get gas just to get out of the car and stretch our legs. So what I'd like to talk to you about is one, how do you stay active on what amounts to almost a 15 hour road trip. Um, and then we'll talk about, you know, how, what you thought of the drive. So first question to you is, what were some of the activities, some of the family activities that we did?
Speaker 6:Well, I think the first one was we did Disney trivia because where we have the Disney play app and we, um, one we repeatedly tried to do was the Galaxy's edge one. And for Hollywood studios, which I'm in the very beginning, we kind of failed out. Yeah. But like the fantas like, well maybe you went to toy story and fantasy land. Like those were the ones that we pretty much aced because we knew the most about because you've been through a 20 times. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5:So we did Disney trivia and then there was another app that you were using on your iPad. What was that?
Speaker 6:That was gosh to life.
Speaker 5:And I had actually made up that game asking you guys what kind of creature I should make, what color their eyes were, what gender, you know, all that core stuff. So that was cool. We wound up making, Oh I don't know, a dozen, maybe, maybe more different characters, um, with that app itself. And then did a good job keeping us occupy for a good portion of the time. Um, so that was very creative of you to come up with that one. And then there was another thing that we do, which I think just about everyone does on a road trip. We did our family sing along. What are some of the songs that we sing in our family? Sing alone?
Speaker 6:Well, we have a Celtic thunder playlist and whenever there was a song I enjoy, I would just sing along with you because you know, what else was I gonna do?
Speaker 5:Well, yes. And you, we know you do love your Irish drinking songs. Um, so aside from the family activities, what did you do to keep yourself occupied?
Speaker 6:Well, for most of the time I just repeatedly listened to songs that I liked. I don't know, I just listened to the songs over and over again just because I like them and they sound cool. And it's always cool to have an imagination of like I'm using video where me and some of my characters can like just sing along with the songs because they're kind of relatable.
Speaker 5:Okay. And what about, uh, videos and, and,
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, I watched a lot of videos.
Speaker 5:So you were, what were your watching like YouTube stuff?
Speaker 6:Pretty much. Um, I think I would occasionally go to my talking Tom apps and just play those games and
Speaker 5:[inaudible].
Speaker 6:Um, I would just periodically check on them and stuff like that. Then I'd go back to YouTube and then I, um, periodically switched between my iPad and my phone and I would always like make sure to have a good amount of charging them and I was actually pretty good at charging all of them.
Speaker 5:Good. And that, that's definitely key is making sure that all your technology has power. Right? Yep. So you were also FaceTiming, aren't you?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I w I would talk to my friends occasionally. I would either text them, I would periodically have FaceTimes with my friend Lily. Um, but most of the time I would just text with my other friends.
Speaker 5:Okay, cool. So it was, sounded like a, you know, pretty rounded set of activities that we did to keep things going. I'm sure there were some napping that happened at some point in time. I know I had napped
Speaker 6:now with me though. I did not nap, but single time, Nope. I tried when we were about to hit Savannah, but I didn't, I failed.
Speaker 5:Well, okay. So overall, what were your impressions of the drive 15 hours on the road?
Speaker 6:I mean, it was good. I could finally listen to a lot of music for because I don't, because most of the time when we're driving I don't get a lot of time to listen to music. And it was good to like have the time and the fact that I even got tired at one point to listening to music, which never normally happens and I want more time to listen to music. Yeah. So and it's all, and for some reason I just like the fact of how I sometimes just get bored on the road because it's a long drive. But I do appreciate the stops and how we get snacks and stuff.
Speaker 5:You know, it's funny to think that um, when I was a kid, the road trips that we would take would be down the shore, which for us typically lasted an hour, maybe an hour and a half was like the longest road trip we would take. And I remember as a kid that was just the most agonizing thing I would remember coming back. Cause we would vacation down in Wildwood and I would remember coming back from a week down on Wildwood trying to come up the Atlantic city expressway and it just seemed like an Aternity. And to think now we're literally driving over a thousand miles, you know, and we've driven the whole thing in one shot too. We'd all lose overnight.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I remember one time we drove the whole thing and like we got home at five 30, we got home at four 35 in the morning.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of a crazy drive to do that. Yep.
Speaker 6:That was like the only time I think I ever slept.
Speaker 5:I just think it's funny, like as a kid for me, an hour in the car was exceedingly long where you're spending, I think we were in the car 13 hours, the first leg down, um, which is now mind you, I didn't have all the tech technology in the car that you have either. So, but all on not a bad ride. I mean, which would you rather do? Would you rather do the 15 hour road trip down or would you rather take a plane and be down there in two and a half hours?
Speaker 6:The 15 hour one because one you can like stop whenever you really want to. And two, I have a deep seated fear of flying because you never know what could happen, especially after I learned about nano. Well a certain plane incident.
Speaker 5:Right. Okay. Well thanks for dragging that one in the gutter force. Uh, so we're going to come back and we're going to talk about the various resorts that we stayed at.
Speaker 7:Yay.
Speaker 5:So when we booked the trip this time around, we were kind of leading booking it and the time of year that we booked it makes it kind of difficult to get the room, you know, cause we're going down there at literally the busiest time of the year around the holidays. So what happened with us is normally we would, we would pick one resort, we'd the whole time there and just enjoy the parks. We knew we weren't going to be able to do that this time. Um, so for the time that we wanted to go down, we had to basically resort hop and we stayed at four different resorts. These are DVC Disney vacation club resorts during the duration of our stay. And we originally weren't even going to go to the parks until I saw the special for Galaxy's edge. And then I said, well I can't go to Disney world and not go to star Wars land cause they'll laugh me out of the building when I get home and go to work. So we did one day in the park down there. So the first place that we stayed at was um, Saratoga Springs, which we've stayed at before. Um, what did you think of Saratoga Springs this time? We only stayed there one night this time,
Speaker 6:honestly, I kind of wish we could stay longer.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it is a nice resort. It's actually one of our homes where it's for DVC.
Speaker 6:Plus there was actually like an art thing that was going on and it was going along and something art artsy was going on on Thursday and we were born there and we weren't going to be there for Thursday. So it was kind of upset about that. And I just saw like there were a bunch of paintings and when we went to the one DVC room I think, or the war room where you can do a some margin crafts that just saw people painting on canvases. And I just thought it was cool. Plus they have an arcade.
Speaker 5:Right. Well, and the one art thing that they were doing was a baby Yoda portrait.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Mommy like lost her mind when she saw it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So that would have been cool. Um, but you guys didn't wind up doing one little project there. Tell us about that.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah. So when we were at the one room, they were making cookies at a certain time. So me and mommy just, um, stayed, played a game there. And when it was time we had gotten, we got the cookies and apparently they only had three colors and they were Christmas colors and they were green, red and white. And I decided I would make baby Yoda. So when we got home, I made a baby Yoda cookie and mommy took a picture of it.
Speaker 5:That was pretty cool. Unfortunately we don't have the picture to show, um right now, but fortunately, um, with any luck we'll uh, we'll be able to show that off once we get all the pictures off of mommy's phone. Yeah. So after Saratoga Springs we went to old key West, which we've stayed at before and we liked there. Uh, and we were there for two nights, so two nights there. And what did you guys do there?
Speaker 6:Well, on Christmas day, since we stayed there, we base, I basically went swimming for the first time on Christmas day. Like now I can actually just say, I swear about Christmas day. Like I swear if I go to school and we're LA and like why one journal for ELA says, what did you do over Christmas break, over Christmas break? Or what did you do for Christmas day? I'm good. Just going to be like, I swear him in a pool on Christmas. I just want to put that just to say that I finally did that.
Speaker 5:Being in New Jersey, we don't get to do that very often.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Luckily within miss a white Christmas. Cause if I did I was just going up.
Speaker 5:No, but we did have a wet Christmas down it rain most of the time.
Speaker 6:Yeah. But overall I did like being, you know, old key West, eh. Um,
Speaker 5:what else did we do in Oakey West? Anything?
Speaker 6:Mmm, Mmm.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I don't think we had anything else to do.
Speaker 6:Yeah. We basically just stayed in our room most of the time.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Well, and we were at OQs when we went to star Wars celebration. We didn't go to celebration. Not this time around. I'm saying when we went to the park we were at, at, uh, old key West that day too. So from old key West, we did two days there. From there we then went out an hour and a half East and South to Disney's Vero beach resort. And we did three days there, three nights, three nights. So tell us about the stay there. What did you like about it? Um, what did we do? What was fun?
Speaker 6:Well, at Vera beach that was the longest time we stayed in any resort. So we got the most time there. I have to say the room was very nice. Um, it was actually a lot. Um, it had two beds, which was nice because, um, for the first two resorts I had to sleep on the couch because there was only one bed and I didn't want to take up anyone's space. So, um, but for both[inaudible] old key West and Vero beach, I actually got to sleep in a bed. So that was nice. Um, the balcony was definitely nice. The only problem was the fact that they didn't have a light because I was going to work late at night on my one project.
Speaker 5:And you did do a lot of your, your schoolwork on the boat?
Speaker 6:Yeah, and I enjoyed, I actually kind of enjoyed that. Um, we also, um, there was actually a beach right by it and it was nice because that was like the first ever beach experience I'll ever get to. I have ever got to experience, I mean we've been to the boardwalk and the shore before, but never really did I ever go to the beach in my bathing suit. And I only did that once.
Speaker 5:Well, and the fact that you could literally walk from the pool of the, of the resort, uh, to the beach was kind of, uh, uh, help with that.
Speaker 6:Yeah. We also did a campfire there, which was nice sense. A funny coincidence. Okay. Yeah, we'll talk about the coincidence in a minute. So, um, we are me and mommy also when we were at the pool because we had went from the beach to the pool because we weren't technically all in our, um, yeah. So, um, and you had told me I wanted to make, not judge when we had got back to those door because we had chips and cheese and I'm like a wave. I had to either go down the water slide or have to go to the DJ booth and request hotel California. And you know, how long I spent like pondering it like, do I want to face my fear of Heights or do I want to face my fear of social life?
Speaker 5:Well, and you did a fantastic job, you know, overcoming the social anxiety.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean I saw that out. That was B would be easier because I just saw how simple it was. So that's why I kinda chose it.
Speaker 5:Well, and let's face it, the slide was like three stories tall. So
Speaker 6:yeah. So, and you said before, like you said, like the entire trip, because we were on the third floor of the resort, you're like, we can survive, you can survive a three story fall. I mean, you might break your bones, but you know,
Speaker 5:the average human being can survive a three-story fall, including broken bones. You'd probably get injured.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Um, and we also, um, what are would normally eat at the market place and the food there is great. I recommend the burgers because they were really good. And the fries are good as well. Um, what else did we do there? Um, Oh yeah, we all, there was us guys play mini golf, right? Yeah, I said that before. Oh wait, no I didn't, I didn't say that. So after, um, I had gotten back from the DJ booth awhile, a few minutes later. Um, mommy had T had after, sorry. So, um, we had me and mommy, me and mommy decided to do mini golf. So we both went up to the stand and um, we had played mini golf and she rightfully won. I'm not particularly the best at aiming mini golf. I'm getting better, but still not great.
Speaker 5:Okay. So you guys played mini golf. That was that. That was another thing at the resort.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And immediately when you heard hotel California, you were just like, Hey, yay. Or something like that. Um, we
Speaker 5:also wound up going out to eat in a few places. There was a couple of interesting restaurants that we ate at a, we ate at a one place out by the airport there, which was kind of aviation themes with some creepy Lifesize mannequins strategically placed around that. And then we ate. Uh, and I don't, I'll have to look up, uh, the name of the restaurant, but I knew it was car theater. It was, it was car themed and had license we made of license plates. Yeah, it was, it was very cool. It was very cool. Um, so I, we had a good time there and, uh, we've, we've finished up there. We headed off to Hilton head, uh, South Carolina, which was on the way back. Uh, that was our overnight stay instead of Savannah. Uh, we just, one night there, we didn't really get a chance to take advantage of the, uh, amenities that the resort had. We did go out to eat one night there. Uh, but what did you think of the room there and the view from the balcony?
Speaker 6:Honestly, the room was pretty big and it was like almost three rooms because the kitchen was like separate from the bedroom. And the bathroom was quite big. Um, the view from the balcony though, it sort of swampy not the best view. Even the parking lot from VO that we saw from the balcony was better. I have to be honest. It was more Disney. Yeah, I agree with that. Um, and we also had the infamous Disney water incident.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah. Disney is famous for having really bad water, so that's because they're environmentally friendly. But I think all in all the trip itself went well. Uh, at least our stays at the resorts were, were acceptable. Um, one honorary mentioned for another resort that we had visited but didn't stay at. We had dinner reservations at the grand Floridian and we went out there and we got to see how they did the Christmas decorations. Uh, and it was really nice. I mean, they do a great spread for Christmas. Uh, they have, uh, a tree there that's probably three stories tall, but the real highlight was what? The gingerbread house? Yeah. They've got a giant life-size gingerbread house that they sell gingerbread from.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I have to be honest. That's really cool. Mommy even went up and bought it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. She bought a, one of the shingles that they make the walls from. So that was, that was kind of neat. We got tons of pictures from that. Uh, and we might put a little collage together to, uh, to tack on the tail end that is podcast once we post it or maybe next week's. Um, but the resorts turned out to be pretty good for us. Uh, we get back, we'll take a quick break and come back and talk about our Disney world destination.
Speaker 6:We, yeah.
Speaker 5:So we officially only had one night or one day in the parks, I should say. Um, but that isn't the only Disney destination that we are talking about here. The first one that we, we always go to is, it's today, it's called Disney Springs. It used to be called downtown Disney.
Speaker 6:Yeah. We're still having troubles getting used to saying it.
Speaker 5:Right. Right. So we're, we're still adjusting to that. Um, so one of the really neat things that we, we got to see at Disney Springs was their Christmas tree display. So the Imagineers down there, um, decorate a whole bunch of different Christmas trees with different themes. So tell us some of the themes that we got to see.
Speaker 6:Well, we saw a bunch of themes from the movies like Peter pan, um, Pinocchio and like all the Disney princess, most of the Disney princess movies. Right. And mommy's overall favorite, the haunted mansion one, which honestly was kind of creepy but also cool at the exact same time.
Speaker 5:It was cause it, Hey, it had a huge, uh, a figure of the bright emerging from the tree, which, which was a really cool effect. It was also sort of creepy. It was definitely creepy. So they had, I don't know how many trees did they have? There had to been 20 trees, at least all decorate at uni.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I don't remember how many there were.
Speaker 5:They had a star Wars tree, which is important. Uh, so this was actually the day after Christmas. Um, they have an area set up there where I guess obviously before Christmas you can go and see Santa. Uh, there he wasn't there, he was on vacation by that point. Um, but the Christmas trees were cruel. Um, then we did, uh, one of the cool things we did was we went to the lefthanders store. Yup. Uh, so tell us about the left-hander store
Speaker 6:store was just like a small little stand and they had a bunch of stuff for left-handers and coincidentally I'm a left-hander and they had like notebooks that have instead of the traditional spine to the left, it has it to the right because occasionally when you're writing left-handed your hand will get probably sorta hurt from the spring. So they put it on the other side. They also coincidentally had pencils for left-handers, which I didn't even think existed. Also, they had scissors. I'm not surprised that they had left handed scissors and they also had tee shirts.
Speaker 5:So let's see if we can get a shot of the tee shirt here. Give us a, give us a shot of the logo. So it's a L you got it. It's a lefty thing. You wouldn't understand.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I like this shirt so much and I felt it was like my personality. So I decided why not go ahead and get it. Cause I wanted to get something to prove that I went there. So I decided to get a tee shirt and this one just lit up for me. So
Speaker 5:I think that's great. I think, I think the fact that they, you know, have stuff out there that, that not only novelty stuff like the tee shirts, but practical things to help overcome some of the issues that left-handers tend to face on a day to day basis is kind of neat.
Speaker 6:Yeah. We faced a lot of issues. Unfortunately they didn't have those gloves that be, since you're basically go over your, um, your, um, your, the words you're writing, you're basically make you always get graphite on the side of your, and that's been a problem for me. And I only started to really notice it when like I would write on the chart chalkboard and before I actually learned how to write without my hand going on it, like the chalk would be erase and I'd have to it, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5:So yeah, that was kind of cool. And then the other thing that we did was they have a Lego store there. And we always love going into the Lego stores. And for the longest time they had the ability to build a Lego. Um, and they do this at the Lego stores in the mall too, where you have all the pieces on this little stand and you can put all the pieces together and make your own Lego. This time they had something different where you can actually have a Lego custom printed for you all or the torso. And we did that and we create it. Your own custom Lego. Let's take a look at that.
Speaker 6:Alrighty. Now I don't know how well this whole up here on here.
Speaker 5:So hold it towards the camera. There you go. So the block is standing on or was standing on before you dropped. It has your name printed on it and you designed the shirt, the torso. So tell us about the torso.
Speaker 6:Okay, I'm going to have to just take it. Tell us about how you designed it. Okay. So I went with a hoodie because I was actually going to make my character. So on the front I decided to make the hoodie blue because I didn't like the traditional white and green they had. And let me just say it was really hard writing it. Like you had the writing on the screen by hand, right? Yeah. The only real problem with it is that the w the shirt just covers some of it, but overall it's pretty good. I also decided to put, they also had like little pictures you could add to them and I decided to add an Orlando one to the front just to say that this was from Orlando.
Speaker 5:Basically your Lego's wearing an Orlando hoodie.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And I was able to also customize the bag that says I heart Orlando and it actually has Lego's made out of the heart made out of Legos, which is pretty cool. And I decided to make my self out of it. So I decided to make my traditional outfit a hoodie, jeans my face, which was kind of hard to find. Luckily a mommy was able to find a semi realistic hairstyle. I mean, I wanted to go blonde because I'm traditionally a blonde, even though I'm basic, I have pink hair. Um, and she was only real, we weren't able to find a braid, but we found this one which has a braid in the back. So good enough, even though I would never, even though I would never have this hairstyle. And since I play the trumpet in school, I also got a little trumpet because you could have one accessory for the hand.
Speaker 5:Nice. And that was, you know, fairly inexpensive to do. It was I think 12 bucks into change to doing so. So that was another thing we did at Disney Springs. Uh, and then we went to, uh, the one day we did in the parks was Hollywood. So before we get into all the crazy stuff we want to talk about, just give us your impression of Hollywood studios and what your favorite ride that wasn't in Galaxy's edge was.
Speaker 6:Um, overall Hollywood studios is a pretty nice park. I wouldn't say it's my fit. I don't know if it's quite my favorite park. I don't even know if I have a favorite Pope, but it's definitely an enjoyable experience. Um, it's basically seemed it, I remember it used to be called MGM studios because it was basically going to be a park where you, where Imagineers could or well could make things like it was an active studio yeah. And produce TV shows and stuff there. Yeah. And it's definitely become more, um, theme Parky theme Parky yeah. And I honestly like that. And they actually had a giant Christmas tree and I think, um, and also giant ornaments that look like floatables because you could just see them floating on the water, which was cool. Yeah. Um, we never really, we only really did have few rides other than the rod and galaxies edge. We did star tours and, um, me and you went on, um, toy story mania, which was, well, you, me and mommy all went, but you only you and me. Yeah. Um, and me and mommy went on, I don't remember what the ride was, but it was the one space one where you ride,
Speaker 5:Oh, the alien spinning ride. Deneen toy story. Storyland
Speaker 6:yeah. You don't even know what it's called. If anyone knows, please tell us. We don't really remember names. Me too.
Speaker 5:All right. So you managed to get on three rides of those three of, what was your favorite?
Speaker 6:Um, I think just riding towards, well,
Speaker 8:Hmm.
Speaker 6:Can I just say what I liked about dried? Absolutely. Okay. So the alien swirling saucer was fun. Although the fact that whenever it turned this way, mommy would always run into me and I'm just like, ah, physics. Honestly, I think me running into her is better than her running into me cause I'm kinda smaller than her. Um, for toy story mania, you and me were versing and that was fun. Um, you clearly want, and I'm not very good at first thing. My parents just saying, I mean, unless we're playing like a Minecraft battle, that's the only thing I think I'll be able to win. Um,
Speaker 8:for um,
Speaker 6:Oh my God, star tours. Um, we ended up having to get held back a little because one of the seats in the ride we were going in was broken. Just for the record. It was broken before we got on the ride. And it was kinda cool because they had based it off the new movie and pretty sure very rare people had seen the movie besides us cause you know, to star Wars fans. So we knew AGS, I kind of knew exactly what was everywhere, but like I would feel bad for the people who were just like, what are these places?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was, it was neat cause they had updated the, and they periodically they update the ride and the ride is three different scenes and they're randomly selected. And this time that we went through, all three scenes were related to the new movies. Um, and literally right out of the movie, I mean you flew into the death star that was out in the ocean, which was kinda cool. Um,
Speaker 6:although you saw like a bunch of the eye monsters, correct. Like I haven't seen so many and that scene just terrified me.
Speaker 5:Right, right. So, so, okay. So those rides were cool. So the big deal that we had was we got to go to Galaxy's edge for the first time down there, which is what we affectionately refer to as star Wars land. Yeah. So all the blacks by post or that to only get really official. Yeah. So what was your initial thoughts
Speaker 9:on
Speaker 5:Galaxy's edge?
Speaker 6:Well, um, before I even went in there, I'm
Speaker 5:no, no, like when you got in there,
Speaker 6:um, I definitely thought it was cool. I mean, the first site was just a bunch of trees for me, but once I finally got to see the whole thing, I realized that it was much bigger and you could barely see any of the other stuff. Like you turn the corner, Oh my God, there's a giant chip. You turn the other corner. Oh look, there's a marketplace. Do you turn the other corner? Oh look, the millennium Falcon, yada, yada, yada. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. It was, it was pretty neat. It was pretty neat. What was your favorite part of Galaxy's edge?
Speaker 6:Mmm Hmm. I really don't know. I like the whole experience. You could find, you actually felt like you had loved Hollywood studios. Like you would love Disney in general. You would just in a star, the star Wars world, um, that is black Spire outpost and like, and, and the first time I actually went out of it because we like went straight there and when we came out I'm just like, can I go back in? I just felt like I just wanted to go back in because I didn't want to see the reality. I didn't want to go back to Hollywood, Hollywood studios yet.
Speaker 5:So there was a couple of things that we did do there. Let's, let's talk about the food first. So the food is deemed to star Wars. So we had[inaudible] and something else. Um, and it was served, you know, instead of on the paper plates that you typically get from the quick serve, it was served on
Speaker 9:Mmm.
Speaker 5:Metal plates with metal forks and stuff.
Speaker 6:Yeah. It looked like they were really made out of the star. Like it looked like the plates, star Wars
Speaker 5:and the food. What did, first of all, what the food looked like.
Speaker 6:Okay. So I had gotten the cinnamon roll. Um, and they had had like, I don't know if it was chocolate or anything, but they were like, it looked like the toppings on it. Looked as though they were part of star Wars and they like tasted completely different than how they looked like. And they tasted really good. I have to be honest, they looked kind of gross, but they tasted amazing.
Speaker 5:And that was, you know, I can say the same thing about the dish that I got. I got, you know, BAMF the blah blah blah. And it was sausage and potatoes, which, you know, seems pretty simple, but the way it's prepared, it looks like an alien dish.
Speaker 6:And like your eggs, they were shaped into a[inaudible].
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. It was, it was very well done. Um, and the decor that they had there, like you were eating in a hangar, you know, there was a ship on top and the doors slid open and there was like alien slime on the doors and stuff. And then the other quick serve, they had a rotisserie spit going for the drawers, moving it. And it was being cooked and I say cooked in air quotes by the engine from a pod razor. And just that effect itself with the, the steam blowing down and everything. It was incredible.
Speaker 6:And the end like that's one of the coolest quick serves I think I've ever seen. Like you can just sit there and that basically sort of entertainment.
Speaker 5:I agree 100%. So, um, there were two other, I'm going to say exclusive things that you could do because you need it reservations to do them. Uh, one was building a custom light saver at Savvis workshop. Tell us about that experience.
Speaker 6:Okay. So you know how sometimes in when you're either in, um, this, um, Disney Springs or even in star tours, they have the build your own light saber. Yeah, I've done that. And honestly the experience isn't the best, but the fact that this, it's just a whole new experience. Like you can choose what type of lightsaber you want. There was justice and peace, I think, um, power and control. Right. And then there was a nature one and another type of justice thing that was worded differently. And you could choose what type of one you wanted and you even got like a Disney pin to know so that people know what you wanted. Right. And, um, and like you can go in, like there are automatic doors and you can just walk in and the whole experience is amazing. It's like you're actually going into a workshop and they have a whole sort of small backstory to it. Like how have parts and the fact that, um, the storm troopers may think of them as just junk, but they, but they say like, it's ancient Relic relics from the past. And like they even go into explanation on the colors of the lightsabers, like how red represents power and justice and the fact that it's that some of the colors are commonly used by famous Jed eyes and scythe.
Speaker 5:Right. And you even get kind of a cameo, uh, appearance with the spirit of Yoda offering some instructions at one point in time as well. So you get the pick a lightsaber style, right? And from that lightsaber style, you get to pick one of two different sets of, um, uh, parts. Okay. So each style has two lightsabers and you have the Hill, you have various parts of the Hilti have, um, and then you can mix and match between those to build your own custom saver. And then once you've built, you know, once you've picked the parts, um, they, you pick what they consider the heart of the crystal of the lightsaber, the Khyber crystal. And they come around with a special holder and the crystals are all lit up and they describe it is they describe what each of the crystals represents.
Speaker 6:And even like Jeddah or Seth who have used
Speaker 5:exactly, and you get to pick your crystal and then that crystal goes into the heart of the saver and then you assemble all the parts around the Sabre and you step back. Right. And what happens when they have you stepped back from the table?
Speaker 6:Um, the people go around and putting them in the little arm holders. I don't know what they're, what you want me to call it?
Speaker 5:So you, right. So you have workers in the workshop there that are there to assist. So after you've put yours together, you step back and they do their job, they take the saver and they put it into a mounting bracket in the table. Then explain what happens from there.
Speaker 6:Then the spirit of Yoda comes in and realizes that you're making led savers and eventually your lightsabers are activated. Right. And once you activate your lightsaber, the little compartment opens and you can take it out.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And the lightsabers turn on and you, you, you get your complete at lightsaber at that point in time.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Well, technically you activate them yourselves and then you take them out once the component opens. Right, right.
Speaker 5:So it was, it was, it was cool. The whole thing was story-based. Uh, you felt like you were part of the story. Uh, it, it, the way they do it, it's, it's almost a spiritual experience, but not in a religious cause. There's all the mysticism, the forced mysticism that you, you're introduced to. So you made yours and you have it here for us. Why don't you show us what it looks like, and I'm not going to do the table cam. I want to do your direct camp. Oh, this is kind of heavy. So, so that is your Hill. Actually we'll put it on the table and we'll show it on the table. What it looks like. So you got a, you have an emitter on one end where the blade comes out. Yep. So that end, then you have part of the hilt here, right? Then you have the two pieces where your activation stud is. Then you have another piece on the back end and then you have the pommel on the, on the, on the end. So why don't you dramatically pick it up for us. We'll give you the wide angle there and you activate your late saver for us.
Speaker 10:So how is that cool?
Speaker 5:Pretty cool. Now you can't really see. Let's see if we can see it from this angle. If we can get the color. We're a little bright in the studio here, so the colors washed up, but that is a green blade.
Speaker 10:Hang on. If you come to me you can tell it screen sort of, sort of. Um, so you chose which lightsaber? I chose the justice and peace one piece with the green crystal. And why did you choose that Seaver and that crystal? Well, for one, I am not exactly a SIF Zachary. No. Plus I prefer to go for peace and justice because I don't want to bring terror around. Um, the land I suppose. So you are peace, justice and the American way, right? Like Superman? No. No. Okay. So were you satisfied with the experience? Were you happy with your lightsaber?
Speaker 5:All right, turn it off before you book somebody out. Yeah. Alright, cool. So, so that was one of the really cool experiences. We had made reservations for that well in advance because it is so popular. The fact when we first got the tickets for the park, we tried to make reservations and they weren't available. So I was kind of bummed out about that. We eventually did check back again and Mahler was able to get us a reservation. So the other thing that we did when we were there was another custom experience and that was building a droid. So tell us about the droid experience.
Speaker 6:Okay. So the Jordan experience was really cool. You go into another one of this room and the first thing you probably see is a conveyor belt of a bunch of different parts from George, like C3, BEO, BB eight and our two D too. Mainly our two D two Archie due to sports and see through bureaus, parts there. And you also waiting in a small little line. And once you have, and you can decide to make any to either make a BB or an ARD to Oren are two.
Speaker 5:So either a ball or a three legged
Speaker 6:daddy. So yeah, once you do, when you're ready they'll give you the basket and there's like a smaller conveyor belt that has all the parts and you can choose what your color scheme. And I'm like, I just saw me and you decided to go for a baby and mommy went with an RTO.
Speaker 5:Right? So we have the pick all the parts that we need. So for the BB you had the pick the shell
Speaker 6:[inaudible] you had to pick the mechanic, the mechanic,
Speaker 5:the inside part to make your head and the head. And that was it. So that was pretty simple for the our two units though.
Speaker 6:Yeah. To get the legs, the smaller leg, the body, the head. And I think they were mechanic
Speaker 5:and there was a mechanic inside. Yeah. So it was a little bit more complicated. And then you'd go wait in line until one of the workstations opens up. Yup. So once the workstations open up, what do you do from there?
Speaker 6:Um, you follow the instructions to build it. You, if you have to add extra parts you can. And it took me a while to get past one of the step because I couldn't find where the antennas were. And eventually they, I realized they were at the head so, and, Oh yeah. You have to actually get a thing for the head as well. I forgot to say it that remember the thing.
Speaker 5:All right. There was a brain inside the head that you have to
Speaker 6:yeah, I forgot to add that
Speaker 5:for the BB units. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Um, and, um, and I couldn't get past a few of the other steps, but eventually I was. And then once you're done, you tell them and then like they put them in this small little box and put a remote in and activated basically and T and eventually they take you out and teach you how to use it.
Speaker 5:Right? And during that activation process, if there's status lights on the table that activate as it goes through the different process and you pay attention to those lights, that's them injecting the personality into the droid. So each droid, it has a unique personality.
Speaker 6:You can also get a chip where you can put it in and each drug will have their own personality and you can customize the personality.
Speaker 5:Right? So you made a BB unit, right? Yup. So let's take a look at your BB, you know, put it up on the table for the audience there. Boom. So what does he do?
Speaker 6:Okay, so I have the remote heat here. I'm going to turn it on and so on. There are different controls. You can turn him with the, Oh,
Speaker 5:I think he went to sleep. I don't think slapping around. It's going to wake him up. Sorry. Just describe what he does.
Speaker 6:Okay. So with these controls, he can speak these two buttons. He can, uh, turn with these two and he can move with these and this.
Speaker 5:Okay. So the blue buttons may can go backwards and forwards and left and right. Yup. And they can be activated at the same time so you can steer them. Then the round red buttons are the ones that make him say different phrases. And then the rectangular red button allows you to actually rotate the top of him where his head is. Um, so tell us, are you, were you satisfied with that experience?
Speaker 6:Yep. I definitely, it was, it was definitely a cool experience. And they also have the other small builder droid ones. We can completely customize it where this sort of had a limited amount, but it's, it was still a really cool experience. And the fact that your Jord can be alive once you get them working.
Speaker 5:So do you, is he hard to control?
Speaker 6:Uh, sometimes, yes.
Speaker 5:Mind of his own and he can, he can move. We were playing with them and the pain with them in, uh, in the hotel room and uh, they bumped a lot.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Ben, yours and your head felt
Speaker 5:Hawaii. I think I got a bad magnet on mine. Yeah. So all right. That was the droid workshop. Uh, the other thing that we did there was do, we did a lot of shopping. Um, we did a, I'm not going to show off any of the stuff that I bought today, but we did get you a couple of things. So why don't you show us the other two things. Did we got you one of the time because you are the consummate musician. Let's, let's give you the table shot there. So this is a unique, uh, star Wars, um, fluted instrument, which you don't actually have to blow into. It is all electronic. And this is similar to what was used by the, uh, bef band in, um, star Wars, a new hope. Do you know what the name of the band was? No. Um,
Speaker 6:I just thought the pled the song debt, that data data, data, data[inaudible]
Speaker 5:it was, I forget the guy's name, but it was the modal nodes was the name of the band. And you can give us the Cantina song. Can't you
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 5:try it again. Okay. All right. So that's one of the instruments that we got and that you can actually play it like a regular instrument
Speaker 6:can actually play a song.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 5:nice. Yeah, that's the most common song. All right, so let's see, the other instrument and this is another simulated wind instrument from the band. Um, this one, I think this one is a called a clue. S. K. L. O. O. I'm not entirely sure though. So this one will play us the Cantina song.
Speaker 11:Let me just find the button for it.
Speaker 5:You keep pushing.
Speaker 12:There we go. So this one is a range in a square keyboard, which is a little bit more commerce on the play, but still the same effect.
Speaker 13:Uh huh.
Speaker 5:So a couple of cool souvenirs to bring back that are unique to Galaxy's edge. Uh, and just another thing that I would like to mention, um, you can put that back down. Um, the one thing that I found very interesting was the Galaxy's edge was you couldn't buy regular merchandise there, um, which lent to that feeling of authenticity. So the, the shops that they had there, they had a creature shop that you could buy various creatures. Um, you could buy at the Tweed Darien toy store and it was all like wooden toys that were handmade and stuff. So it was, it was very realistic. Like you would've expected the bathrooms were very unique as well. Yeah,
Speaker 6:it looks exactly like you'd expect it to look in a star Wars in the star Wars universe. Cause we really don't get to see any bathrooms
Speaker 5:exactly except in Mandalorian on the ship. So in the last few minutes that we have, the one other thing that I did want to touch on here was rise of the resistance. Tell us about, without giving away too many spoilers, tell us about rise of the resistance.
Speaker 6:I think one of the best ride experiences I've ever had to experience. Why is that? Um, because it's a completely brand new type of ride that probably no one like no other Disney ride has experienced. Describe it for us. Okay. So there are three different um, experiences you can go through. Um, a virtual one which is similar to um, us star tours and walk through and the actual Radix
Speaker 5:and these are all in the ride. This isn't, you get the pick one, you get all three of these different experiences in one ride?
Speaker 6:No, no. So at the beginning you're just walking through like a tap, an entire resistance space. And let me just say the walk is very long. Yes it is. Um, once you get to the actual place, there's a group of you that goes in and they explain what goes on and stuff and there's even a hologram of Ray and eventually some of the other cats come in and they explain your mission and stuff. So then you exit the that and go into the transport,
Speaker 5:right? So you're outside. So they take you through a doorway and then you're outside in the courtyard and pose. Black X wing is off to one side and you get in to a transport, a resistance transport where the door opens on the side, everybody loads in there and it's standing room in there.
Speaker 6:Yeah. You basically just hold on to bars that are around there. Right.
Speaker 5:So the door closes, you see a pilot and you can add a commander in there and they're going to take off because the first order has found the resistance base. So you can see through the concrete in the front, you can see through
Speaker 6:the one in the bag in the back where we had to basically look,
Speaker 5:that's where we were. So the ship takes off, it goes off. And then what happens?
Speaker 6:Um, we get into some problems with the first order and some and the extra things tried to save them, apparently oppose the illness survivors. So he says he'll come back for them for us.
Speaker 5:Basically Pella abandons us after the other X wings get killed and we get captured in a very heroic.
Speaker 6:So the whole time you're supposed to be moving downward because through the same door you entered, you're in a completely different area. So through the whole experience, they're basically taking you downward and you can't even tell what you're going down at all.
Speaker 5:Well, don't ruin that. That's the spoiler part. So you get, you get captured by the first order and they tracked her BMU into um, a landing Bay and your order, they opened the doors and you're ordered to get out. So you step through this door that two minutes before was in a courtyard outside at Galaxy's edge. So you step through now and where are you?
Speaker 6:You're like in the entrance of a star to shore,
Speaker 5:right? So you're in a hangar Bay and there's an entire like platoon, a first order storm troopers lined up.
Speaker 6:And I have to be honest, I never thought they were robots. They look like real people
Speaker 5:don't ruin it. So there's a whole row of first order storm troopers and then behind them you see the entrance, you know there's a shielded entrance that is holding the air in and the space is outside. And you see the battle going on outside through this massive 40 foot door. And then what do they do? They lead you a dental hallway and what's the next thing?
Speaker 6:Then it's the walk through where you get to be in a star destroyer and just get to see the inside, which you've never really been able to experience in the movie.
Speaker 5:Right? So they walk you through the corridors and then you have to wait until it's your turn and there's first order officers there and they're not polite to you. They're kind of rough with you. Um, and what they do is they break you up into teams and you're assigned a color as part of a team. And then you go in for an interrogation. You get, you get directed into a room,
Speaker 6:clear. At that point, I actually thought they were gonna do stuff, towels, cause I, so I got real nervous.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'll absolutely, I mean it was very authentic. Um, so you go into this, uh, interrogation room and what happens at that point in the interrogation room?
Speaker 6:So then you, um, see Kylo Ren and I don't remember what officer general hugs come in. They say they're going to interrogate you until like they, because they know your hold presses evidence and then eventually there is,
Speaker 5:they get called away because there's something going on on the bridge with the battle and you're left in the interrogation room and then the resistance comes in to rescue you. So they break down this one wall here and they, you, you go in to, you know, you follow the resistance officers there and then you get into the transport that's being driven by this droid. And then everything kinda like gets crazy real quick because you go on this crazy ride through the, through the star destroyer. You've got store troopers that are shooting at you. Now you go into this giant room that's a cargo Bay or landing, bam. What do you, what do you encounter in there? Um, the cargo Bay, which one was that were the two big giant things are the two big giant things there, I think. I don't remember if they were guns or not. No, they were at ads. Oh, right. There's ads, but there is a scene where you're going through this hallway and there's these massive turbo lasers. So on one side there's these massive turbo lay lasers. On the other side is another um, window, we'll call it, that's protected by an energy shield. And you can see out in the space where the bad guy, where the battles going on and these turbo lasers are firing and every time they fire they recoil back. Then they slide them back up to the window and they recoil back when they fire and you have your, your transport has to move between these and not squish you in the process. Then after that, then we run into the walkers and we encounter who, what's his name that we in kind of Finn. So Finn's there and he's trying to help us at that point
Speaker 6:and he tells us we have to go down the elevator. But we ended up up,
Speaker 5:we go up and we go up and we're nose to nose with a 40 foot tall ATA T and he starts firing at us. So we start heading the other way and as he's firing at, as the blue massive blaster bolts are going by us overhead hitting the wall and exploding on the wall and uh, I'm not going to ruin the rest of it, but it gets even crazier from there. So that was about an 18 minute ride from, from all accounts with probably six different scene changes, um, probably dozens of different ride technologies. Uh, it was incredibly convincing seeing the blaster bolts because they're not, you're not just seeing lights show up and you're not seeing a laser because you have to think about star Wars when they fire blast or at you and star Wars. It's not an laser beam that instantly goes on and off. It's a bolt of energy that you see go flying and they actually achieve that effect inside this ride. So you'll, you'll see the bolt hit an area on the wall that was perfectly fine before and when the bolt hits it, it blasts a hole in the wall with smoke and sparks and everything. So the capture that effect was absolutely amazing. Um, so what was your favorite part? The whole rad experience, the whole ride specifically the end, the end, what happened at the end. So, um, I,
Speaker 6:you basically have to escape the star destroyer and to escape you have to be in a pod. And let me just say, since you go up in the elevator, what comes up must come down. So you're shot down and you have to basically try to land on this planet as best you can. And it's sort of a rough landing.
Speaker 5:Yes it is.
Speaker 6:And I won't give too much away, but I do know someone screened during that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a few people scream I think. Yeah. One thing to note, um, which is really interesting and we didn't actually find out until after the ride. There is a tie in between the rise of the resistance ride at Galaxy's edge and the rise of Skywalker movie where you as the participant on the ride get the play a small part in the movie. So it's kind of neat to find out about that afterwards. How'd you find that out? I had no idea. Well, if Italian I spoil the whole thing. Well you can tell me afterwards. I'll tell you afterwards, I don't want to spoil it for everyone else. So anyway, we had a blast. Galaxy's edge was incredible. Um, rise of the resistance was awesome. Uh, and we had, overall, I think we had a pretty good vacation.
Speaker 6:I also wanted to quickly note how they actually got you all on the ride cause they knew rods, the resistance with the newer ride and everyone was going to go on it and they did a virtual queue where you will given us a loading Bay number and when you, when your number was called between a couple other people, you had like an hour to get back to the park. So like if you were, let's say number 30, um, you could like go back to your room and just wait until you found your call and they gave you like one or two hours.
Speaker 5:It was a two hour window. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Two hours to get there and get on the ride.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was, it was a smart way of doing it and it was much more organized than I thought it would would be. Um, the trick was you had to get to the park at park opening because they open up, you can't actually get into this queue, this virtual queue unless you're in the park. They were letting people get into the park early. And then for us, the park opened at seven, they'd let us in at six 30, I think at seven o'clock they made an announcement that the queue was open and then everyone had to use their Disney park app to get into the queue. And once you got into queue, you're pretty much guaranteed a spot. Yeah. So, but very cool experience. Um, very cool vacation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The ride home wasn't that bad, didn't run in nearly as much traffic on the way home. And I think we had a good time.
Speaker 6:And overall being in the, in the park on Christmas Eve was definitely not as bad as we thought it would.
Speaker 5:No, it wasn't nearly as crowded as Hollywood studios. I can only imagine that magic kingdom was probably pretty crowded. Yeah.
Speaker 6:But like new year's Eve.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was that. It was at capacity. So, so I think that's it for our vacation recap. I think we're going to skip our closing remarks this week. We didn't really have,
Speaker 6:yeah, I don't really have any thoughts or shout.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so we'll skip that for this week. Next week we will be back with our traditional uh, show format, um, and are little bit more serious topics. We figured we'd have a little bit of fun this week. Um, so same time next Friday. Uh, we will have a podcast will be available for streaming video and audio Monday morning as usual at eight. Uh, you can reach us fi email and comments and insights into things.co and sites in the teens.com. Sorry, you can get us on the web@wwwinsightsintothings.com. You can get us on a Twitch at twitch.tv/insights into things where we're streaming live now on Fridays at 8:00 PM Facebook. You can get us at facebook.com/insights in a things podcast and on Twitter you can shout us at insights underscore things. I think that's everything, right?
Speaker 6:Don't forget to check out our other two podcast and said to non attainment, done by you and mommy and insights. And now tomorrow, a monthly podcast and by you and my brother Sam.
Speaker 5:Very good. And with that, I think we are out happy new year to everyone and we'll talk to you next week.