Lido Loop Podcast
Lido Loop is a podcast dedicated to the joy of cruising, theme parks and travel. Hosted by Jack and Jesse, these two blend travel insight, industry news and personal stories to inspire your next adventure.
Lido Loop Podcast
The Lido Loop: Cruise Hacks & Tips
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Welcome back to the Lido Loop Podcast! This week, we kick things off with an incredible travel story after a lucky traveler turned a layover at the Las Vegas airport into a life-changing $3.3 million jackpot on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine.
Then we dive into the latest cruise news, including a guest making a major art purchase at sea, Celebration Key receiving another upgrade and what it means for the Cruise Legend app, and Carnival rolling out its new milestone rewards program.
We also cover the latest in theme parks and travel, including whether Universal Kids Resort has improved after early criticism now that it’s officially open, Frontier Airlines lowering fares and cutting routes as summer travel slows, and Tormenta’s long-awaited soft opening and official opening date announcement.
To wrap up the episode, we share some of our favorite cruise hacks to help you save money, avoid common mistakes, and get the most out of your next vacation at sea. Thanks for listening to the Lido Loop Podcast! If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and send us your cruise and theme park questions—they could be featured in a future episode.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Leto Loop. I'm your host, Jack McCraw. With me as long as my good friend, Jesse Barboza. How are you doing today, man? Oh, I'm doing great. Definitely not as good as that person who won a lot of money in Vegas. Yeah, so for those that haven't seen a person on a layover in Las Vegas had a little bit of extra free time and went to a slot machine, put $10 in, and ended up winning $3.3 million. Now, Jesse, if you won that much money, are you going on your next flight or are you just gonna have a little bit of more fun money to spend now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it definitely makes you wonder like what was the next like what was she going to her final destination? You know, I did it say in the article by chance. Uh no, it didn't.
SPEAKER_01Uh I imagine that like if it was a work thing, I mean like forget the work thing. Yeah, what if they're just coming home? Uh and you and I kind of talked off air about this. You've actually played that Wheel of Fortune game, haven't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, is it was probably the exact same Wheel of Fortune game too. Because the it was actually my first time in Vegas, what, like four or five years ago, I think it was. Um coming back, I actually had a good time in Vegas. I actually was up like about 300 bucks, I think. And then I was like, let me play this Wheel of Fortune while we're waiting for the our flight out. And I put I just did I think I did the minimum bat at the time, it was like 75 cents or $1.50. And I won $100 first spin. So I was like, I cashed out and I left.
SPEAKER_01So apparently, this is not the first time that that's happened because there was another time in May of 2025, another travel won $1.8 million on the Wheel of Fortune in uh airport's D gates. So it's got the Wheel of Fortune. He's got the Wheel of Fortune. I think I have a new favorite game. Forget Buffalo, forget Dragon Link. I think Wheel of Fortune is the way to go. You gotta add that Buffalo sound right now. Buffalo! Hey, ask and you shall receive. And who's to say that this can't happen to us in the future? $10 is all it takes to win $3.3 million. Uh, I would spend a lot of ten million dollars just to even get a chance at that.
SPEAKER_00But it probably didn't say how much they put in the machine. They probably put two million dollars in the machine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the thing they're not telling us. It's like this guy spent the last amount of his money and then somehow walks away with 3.3 million. He could be operating at a net loss. We don't know.
SPEAKER_00Can you imagine all the people who are like leaving Vegas after losing so much money and mad at this one person? They're just on layover and they won all this money.
SPEAKER_01Could you imagine? I mean, the most I've seen on a Vegas slot machine is like $10,000 on a dollar bet for one of the Dragon Link games. So actually, didn't we see something like that in uh Lake Charles, right? We did, yes. I mean so look, we when we go to casinos, people win, just not us. Yeah, that's that's the thing. Just have us have us with you. We'll make you win, but we won't win. In any group setting, I feel like there's always one person that comes away on top, except that last time we went to Lake Charles, we all just lost. But hey, someone was there to win because of our bad luck. But we do have good luck as on cruises. Now, Jesse, what's the latest and greatest in the cruise world?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I got three stories this week. Uh, the first thing is there was a lot of art purchased by a guest. Uh and uh Celebration Keys get an upgrade, and Carnival rolls out their milestone rewards.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the reward is gonna be a very interesting story. Can't wait to talk about that. In the theme park travel news side of things, Universal Kids has finally opened up, but have the reviews gotten better? Justin and I are gonna discuss that. Tormenta has now officially soft opened and has announced a new official opening date finally at Six Flags Over Texas. And Frontier is both cutting flights and offering lower price flights, and we'll tell you what that means for your potential next cruise or next vacation. And then Jess and I are gonna break down some of our favorite cruise hacks. That and much more on this week's episode of the The Leto Loop. So for those of you new here, we are the Leto Loop where we talk about all things cruising, theme parks, travel, casinos, and much, much more. And we always like to start the show with the latest and greatest in the cruise world. Now, Jesse, I'm hearing that there was someone who bought a bunch of paintings, or excuse me, art rather, at one of the art shows on a cruise ship. Now, you and I have been on these, you know, cruise ships. I don't think I've ever been in there for more than five minutes max. Um, what was a person's end goal in all this? Like, are did they just want to buy all the art and just take it home with them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so actually, so the hat this is a story. So actually, a guy named Jack, he actually called into the not me, the different Jack. Yeah, not not you, or may have been you. We'll we'll find you'll find out at the end of the episode. No. Uh a guy named Jack, he called into the Ramsey show asking for advice because apparently his mother, who whose husband just died not that long ago, went on six or seven cruises and they spent a whopping one point one million dollars on cruise art. Now, Jack, do you think one point one million dollars is appropriate amount to spend on cruise art? If you're a museum, sure.
SPEAKER_01Um, I I have some art in my household. I one, I'm not gonna buy art on a cruise ship. If I'm gonna buy a majestic piece of painting, it's not gonna be some carbon copy that they sell overpriced at a cruise ship. And I'm as I have assuming it's carnival, those things are they might have some unique paintings, but everything there has just been a photocopy that they put to make it look like an art form. So no, 1.1 million dollars. What did Dave Ramsey say about that? Did he just hang up the phone on him immediately?
SPEAKER_00No, no, he pretty much he first said that he feels like because apparently this caller actually said that their mother was actually before he died, they actually saved money like all the time. So they never spent any extra money. I guess they m she might be like in grief still. So that's maybe why she spent spent all this money. But they're they spent so much money that the amount of art was taken up rooms in their house. And Dave Ramsey actually said two options he gave them. First to call the cruise line and try to like for good press purposes, like a purchase it back at the same price you they sold it to for so that you know because since their their mother was apparently going through s going through something because her husband just died. And then the other thing said just selling it, but they tried selling it, but they were getting pretty much ten cents on the dollar for it. So they may have gotten two hundred thousand dollars max back.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I I've been through grief before. I've never wanted to buy a bunch of paintings to cope with my grief. You know, I people grieve differently, so that is kinda a very sad situation that that woman had to go through and you know make her feel this happiness buying all this cruise artwork. But that's a crazy story. I'm I'm surprised that Dave Ramsey was very calm about that and not just, you know, yelling. I mean, he'll yell at us for spending $8 on a cup of coffee, let alone buying a whole cruise. Yeah, going a cruise vacation, should say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I wouldn't doubt I he probably did end up yelling her for even going on the cruise, even though he offers his own cruise. He probably yelled at her for even going on the cruise.
SPEAKER_01And we've talked about that in a previous episode where the Dave Ramsey cruise just sounds like something that he he just gonna yell at all everyone for going on this cruise and not saving their money doing something else. Uh yeah, that is definitely a crazy story. And cruise art really, I mean, that $1.1 million dollars could have spent getting better art pieces, in my opinion, instead of just cruise art, which we'll talk about a little bit later on in the show. But it's so funny because like I don't even I walk past that all the time. I n it's never full. Like that's normally the club that they have as an art show during the day, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. But yeah, definitely let us know if you uh ever do buy this, like let us know on a YouTube channel or Facebook channel. This hey, if you do purchase art from it, do you feel like it's worth the value of it? We definitely want to know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean there are other ways to spend your money on a cruise ship, and especially going to the place like Celebration Key, which I hear is getting an upgrade. Uh Jesse, you want to tell us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Celebration Key just received a major expansion that pretty much is going to significantly increase the number of guests and ships to handle. The biggest upgrade is they added a pier expansion which doubles the destination's docking capacities. Uh so now, as of currently, right now, they actually before expansion, they uh could only hold up to two ships at a time on the dock. Now they can hold up to four cruise ships alongside. So with a bigger pier, they can now add two hundred more ships visits every year, which is an additional seven hundred thousand guests annually. So as of currently how the park is, they can hold 13,000 guests in a single day. So, Jack, the one one question I asked you is when when you were there, because me and you were there what about a year ago, is that right? A little less than a year ago. Yeah, it was October of last year. October last year.
SPEAKER_01Did you feel like it was crowded with the two ships that were there? Honestly, no, not at all. Uh, maybe certain places were like food because we were pretty limited in as far as what food we could get because we just ate from food trucks, and that was also the free food.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which I hated because they didn't give you a drink with it. Like if they give you if when you when I think of a free meal, would you think that a drink would come with it? No, instead of just a free hot dog, like what we got, or I don't know if that's what you got, that's what I got. I got the I think the chicken strips and fries, and then I was about to get a drink and I was like, it didn't include that. I was like, I'm I'm just gonna get the free water.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I ended up just paying like whatever it was for a Coke, just so that way I could have something to wash down the hot dog. But the I think that Celebration Key as it holds like it's it looked like it was an unfinished product whenever we went. Because the lagoon was perfectly like fine, and there was plenty of places to sit on the beach uh around the pier. And I know they also have their private beaches that we didn't go to, but it seemed like one there wasn't as much to do, like there was only that one slide complex with the the blue marlin, the pink flamingo slide. I know we talked about it in our first episode, but it felt like an unfinished product, and you and I kind of also noted off air that it looks like there's so much room to expand because this is on the Grand Bahamin Island, but the area surrounding Celebration Key is just undeveloped land.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So I know they haven't given an official like opening date, but they are already working on the expansion project, which is supposedly like supposed to double in size, which would make sense why they double in size up here, so that means that they have to double the size the park. So apparently the new park's gonna be mainly the water slides, so I think they're definitely competing against uh they were originally gonna um compete against that perfect day Mexico. Remember, they were having like six slides, they were gonna have a ton of slides. It was pretty much like a whole water park they're gonna have. Um but and they're also gonna I think they're still gonna work on it here soon, is actually because me and you notice on the beach itself they had a bunch of rocks everywhere. They're supposed to be removing all those rocks, so it's a lot more family friendly, and you don't jam your toe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you don't have to go out and get water socks or flip-flops just be just to go to the beach. But it does look like there's more coming to this island, and that's gonna be really awesome, especially I think in that area too, isn't the Royal Caribbean. They have their uh own private island with like that massive water slide complex. I'm blanking on the name right now. And it it's celebration or excuse me, it's Carnival's answer to that. Like this is gonna be their own Carnival's private destination island that you know you go from Florida or you know, you're going on the Jubilee in September, and you're gonna go to the back to Celebration Key then. So it's gonna be Carnival's main place that they're gonna go to for ships that can go there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So and they're actually gonna be adding other cruise lines that are gonna be going to this, which is still under the Carnival umbrella. So Princess and IADA will actually gonna be expected to make the calls there too, which is pretty cool, I guess. Um, but the biggest question I I know I hear a lot of people say is so everything that you purchase, like cruise line-wise, all the excursions and all that, you have to purchase through the cruise line there. They don't have third party like they do in Mexico where you go to like Mr. Sancho's or Paradise Beach. Uh, you have to purchase it through the cruise line. So the big question a lot of people are asking is if there's four ships uh on board, how fast do you think the stuff is gonna sell out?
SPEAKER_01Really fast, and especially because there's really not a whole lot to do there. I mean, the slide passes almost ran out. I think they did run out when we actually were there. You could only buy them ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that was just two ships, and we were on one of the smallest ships they had, which was we were on conquest, we were in Gloria. Gloria at the time, that's right. We're on Gloria, which is one of their smaller ships. I don't remember. Do you remember the last ship that was? I don't remember. I know, I don't. We we'd have to go back to the archives for that one. But um, but there is a way that you can determine if you're if the day you're in port, there's gonna be four ships, and they could be like if you had like Mar de Gras, Jubilee, and Celebration in Port, those are three XL class ships, that would it'd be ridiculous, like the amount of people there. So there is an app called uh the Legend app, the uh cruise legend app. It actually if you go to that port for and it you scroll down to that particular day that you're actually visiting that port, it'll tell you all the ships that are at that port, and it'll tell you the approximate amount of people that will be at that port too. So you can kind of make the decision like, hey, maybe I want to choose a different day or a different, you know, a different week when I'm cruising, because you know, everything's probably gonna be sold out. And that also makes you look at the excursion and say, hey, as soon as I book the screws, you need to look at excursions and go ahead and purchase it ahead of time. Because I guarantee you, if you wait too long and you wait till you get on the ship, everything's gonna be sold out. You're gonna be you won't be getting the cabana you want, you probably won't be getting the you know, the excursion that you want as well. So just make sure you down definitely download that legend app and it'll definitely help you out.
SPEAKER_01It's almost like flight radar, but for cruises. That's uh one way we've talked about it off air.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. And the the cool thing about that app too is also talks about the destinations you go in. So if you're going to Celebration Key, it talks about the highlights of it and what people like it, like how big if the area is, it talks about if you say CoZumel says the same thing, or Rootan or or uh Nassau, where wherever port is, it tells you the good things, what you can do there, and and like the great excursions go on and about the island too. It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that sounds like a definitely a worthwhile app to have, especially for any kind of big cruise planner. So, so you know, in coming from the theme park side of things, it's like having you know the Disney or Universal app to help plan out your day, and it could tell you a little bit about the wait times and rides and whatnot, and like you know, place to go eat. So it's cool that cruises have something similar to this as well. And this isn't just Carnival, correct? This is multiple different cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, even Margaritaville.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Any yeah, that that app itself you can use is through for all cruise lines, even cruise lines that you never heard of, they're on there. So it's really good to look at to see uh if hey, you got a friend that's cruising at the same time if they're gonna end up meeting up. Because that's what happened to us before. We were like we were in Kozumel, and then uh my niece was actually on Jubilee at the time while we were on uh the breeze, I want to say, and they ended up being it was pretty cool that we ended up meeting up at the same spot in Cozumel. And all this happened because of an app.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, definitely download that app, everybody, and like especially if you're a big ahead-of-time planner and like to kind of book things out, like this app. Can you remind our audience what that app is called again, Jesse? It's called the the Cruise Legend app. So download that Cruise Legend app today. We're they're not a sponsor of this show yet, but for any of those you know great cruise travelers, definitely worth the app. Now, how about the carnival milestone rewards, Jesse? What's the newest and latest and greatest info about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the current policy, how it is right now, is every like once you go on your first like 25 cruises or 50 cruises, they'll give you a milestone, like they'll give you a free gift or you get something. You get a little badge or something, or you get a badge, and then after I think after you hit uh 100 cruises or 50, I forgot how many cruises it is, they'll actually give you a free cruise. So the new rewards is gonna be based on days selled instead starting in September when the uh uh carnival rewards actually kicks off. So with 50 days sell, you'll get additional car you'll you'll get 5,000 additional carnival rewards points. Uh you'll get a special sell and sign card. With a hundred days, you will get the same stuff, but you'll get 10,000 carnival reward points, a special set sell and sign core card, on board recognition recognition, which I'm guessing you know they'll say something about it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I think they'll have your name displayed on there and says, Welcome, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's that sounds fun. Uh they also have a com commensitive coin, and they'll also give you a milestone onboard credit. So I it doesn't really say exactly what it is, like maybe like if it's a hundred dollars, like if it's a hundred day sale, maybe it's a hundred dollars you'll get on board, like the amount of days I'm guessing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Now can you use this at the casino? That's the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean on board credit, yeah. I mean Maddie can use it too. So yeah, she's not gonna do Buffalo anymore. She's found a new game, apparently Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, which we all are. Uh so with 200 and 4 with 200 to 400 days cruise and every hundred afterwards, you're gonna get print the same stuff as the hundred, and you also get actually it's the exact same thing. Looking at it, you actually get the exact same stuff. But it really changes when you get to the 500 plus, and then every hundred days you'll get the same stuff, or you'll get the same stuff as previously, but you also get a commensurative award and a and a gift. Um, the gift is actually gonna be a one dollar gift from the dollar store. Oh my goodness. No, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say give me at least a you know a towel plushie to go home with or something.
SPEAKER_00A lot of times it's really not that big. It uses like a tumbler or like a backpack. It's something that honestly under $10 they're gonna give you. So of course, I mean I mean, so so with $500 days, you'll spend probably a million dollars to go on them, but hey, you will have that fanny pack.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say you know you realize a hundred five hundred days is a little under two years, correct? That's yeah, 365 times I mean it's yeah, that's an insane amount of days to sail. Yeah, if you're a 500, you're probably you you're either You're probably living on cruise ships at this point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're probably either been cruising since the 50s or or you're literally living on these cruise ships. So, I mean, hey, I could do that in two years myself if I had the money, but um, yeah, I have this thing called a job.
SPEAKER_01So I mean, I think I have less than 30 cruise days in my entire lifetime, let alone like 500. I mean, I might not get to 100 in this lifetime, but yeah, hey, wait, you know, with that kind of attitude, you never know. But it is nice that Carnival is rewarding these people for like day sale instead of just cruises, because I mean 100 cruises, that's seemingly impossible. I mean, we do have friends that go on cruises very frequently, uh, so you know, it's definitely something that they can look out for as far as you know going on with all these multiple cruises, and even like you know, the short like three-day sales that you can at least add three days that way really quickly and keep adding towards that total.
SPEAKER_00And I think was I think it was last week we talked about how they changed the orientation of the selling sign card carnival is yeah, it went for what'd you say, TikTok from it went from YouTube to TikTok? Was that what you said? Yeah, exactly. So now it's more vertical. So no matter what, they still are gonna have the days selled at the bottom. So even if you don't, not in between, if you're at 50 or 100, even if you're at 10 days, it's still gonna say that 10 days sell on the bottom, which is I guess cool. It tells the newbies, you know, from the from the people who've been cruising like as long as I have.
SPEAKER_01So so when you're at the craps table and you see someone that says, you know, three days sailed, like no, no, no. When they're rolling the dice, we're we're not going trusting that person. Yeah, you can take advantage of those people. Yeah, that that's that's called hustling right there. Or the ones that you know are at the bar and they have like two or three days sale, like, oh, first time. Wait till their drink package runs out, then we'll talk. Uh, but yeah, it's certainly very interesting that Carnival is trying to roll out these new rewards. I remember the last time we've talked about the Carnival rewards, weren't that thrilled by it, but it does seem like it's getting a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00They're winning you back a little bit. I'm still not chasing rewards. I'm still gonna be chasing whatever I want to go to, whatever cruise line I want to go to. It seems like I'm going towards Carnival more often because the price and the amount of fun and the food is honestly. I mean, there's no cruise line I don't think can beat Carnival when it comes to the amount of. Food variety. I mean, no guy's burgers alone makes Carnival worth it. Exactly. And yeah, I can put up with the fights and everything else that happens on board as long as I get my guy's burger.
SPEAKER_01The one thing I will say about Carnival, put the comedy shows in the big auditorium because I'm tired of the comedy shows like running out of room and like it's 30 minutes before the show starts. It's kind of like the piano bar, too.
SPEAKER_00Like the first night of the piano bar. Okay. You can't find a seat. Yeah, exactly. Usually by the end of the cruise, everyone's like, ah, we've already listened to Journey. Hung over. We listened to Journey for the 20th time. We don't want to hear them. So they're they're down to go anymore. By the end of it, there's like five people. But the first couple nights, they probably need to make it a little bit bigger, it seems like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like you know, that's a good way to promote it too. I think we did see one comedy show in the big theater, and it was like it was the family-friendly comedy show. Yeah. And that's kind of to promote it so that way you can go to the other theater. Yeah. But yeah, you know, I've I've never truly had a problem with Carnival. Like it's you get what it's not get what you pay for because essentially you're you're getting more than you pay for with all the food that you get and all the you know entertainment offerings you get, if they will. And and in reality, have me and you have ever seen a fight actually on the ship? No, we see it on social media, but like I think we said on a previous one, we had some guy escorted off of a basketball court because he refused to leave, but the security pretty much doesn't, hey, please leave, and they walked away with him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh yeah, exactly. Um so that pretty much covers all the cruise news. So on theme park and travel news, so universal kids have finally opened here in Texas. Have the reviews changed at all?
SPEAKER_01Yes and no. I know that's kind of a loaded question, but from people's initial expectations, it doesn't look like a universal park. It looks like a car a carnival like in your local, you know, church parking lot that just happens to be themed to different, you know, intellectual properties like Minions, SpongeBob, Jurassic Park, Puss and Boots. But it it does look like Universal is listening because they're adding more paint to make it a little bit more colorful. Uh but yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying like they're trying, but it's like a cheap fix, but that's all you need to do. Because a lot of the people saying the park just looks too great and there's not a lot of shade. Like they planted trees, but you know, it's gonna take a couple years for those trees to grow to give that natural shade. So I you know, early on, I think this park is just gonna go through some growing pains, but the attractions also really didn't help. I mean, you and I have talked about that Shrek attraction where you you pass like five cardboard cutouts of Shrek's adventures with Fiona Donkey and Dragon. Yeah, yeah, some major drops on the ride. Yeah, like 0.00000001 degree drop. That's a drop when you first get in the car before it takes off. That's the that's the scariest part of the ride. Oh man, it's i i the memes write themselves for that, but you know, it will eventually look better. I mean, it does look like that most of their budget went to the hotel because the hotel itself is a pretty nice hotel. It's family friendly. And is it like a themed hotel? Yeah, you can go into the rooms.
SPEAKER_00What what would do you know the name of the hotel by a chance? It's just Universal Kids Resort Hotel. Oh, okay. So do you think that they would have characters in the hotel as well?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, I believe there is some meet and greet areas there. And I think that there's like the rooms, like they'll like they'll have like you know, cardboard cutouts of you know, like Shrek. I know that sounds actually kind of scary to have like Shrek just standing there watching you sleep. But with this particular hotel, it looks like that's where the majority of the budget went because most of these attractions are like off-the-shelf, like mini roller coasters with one dinosaur animatronic for Jurassic Park. The Puss and Boots ride is just you know your typical you know swing chair ride. Uh they have a mini drop tower that's cut painted to look like DNA from Jurassic Park. So what's what's the anchor like ride you feel like at this park? It has to be that minions versus minions like water raft ride. It looks pretty nice for you know a water raft ride. But I mean, do you think is that I mean, I guess it would still be open, you think, during the wintertime? I that's a thing. I don't know because you know, we are in the Houston area, so it doesn't get too too cold. It sometimes does, but Dallas DFW Fort Worth area it snows more there than here, I guess. So I mean I think Universal Kids might be a seasonal park and you know, maybe open on certain weekends, and maybe they'll have like Christmas overlays, you know, that's you know still do to be determined. But it definitely looks like if this is Universal's first uh you know entrance into Texas, it's it's kind of going with a meh instead of a resounding, oh my goodness, we need to add more parks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I could definitely see this park doing good long term if they had like an anchor park as well. Like if they had they built their own adult and older kids park. I feel like what do you think? Do you feel like cause then they will have a spot for the kids and you know, like they would offer like once you get admission here, you can also get free admission to this park or something. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Because I think that was initially their end goal because where they built it in Frisco, there is a lot of land up there that they could still develop into a full-on theme park. And I think you could have the kids' park and you could have the regular park. And I think at some point you mean that's just this is just me like spitballing ideas out here. You can have some sort of pathway where you can go to both parks in one day, like kind of have a park hopper option. Um, Frisco was an interesting choice. I I know that there's it's a very heavily developed area where the Cowboys have their headquarters there, you know, Dallas's major league soccer team plays up there. It's a very tech in the high-tech industry, like there's double minor league teams in that area. A lot of people are moving to that area of Dallas.
SPEAKER_00Do you think they built that? Because it's of course northern Texas. You think it's so that they can try to get people from like Oklahoma and neighboring states, not just Texans? Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I mean, uh when you know, we work down here in the Houston area, I still see billboards for our universal kids. Because, you know, you have to take, you know, I-45 north to get to there, so I've seen uh plenty of advertisements advertising it. So it's not necessarily it's made for kids, I think is the ultimate statement that I could make about this park. And I mean they specifically say that this is not a universal park, this is for kids ages three to eight. Uh you know, you you have your nieces and nephews, they might enjoy it more than your actual kids. So what it well, how how big is this compared to a normal, like, universal park? So this one is 32 acres, and for for perspective, Islands of Adventure is nearly a hundred acres. So think about it. Over three times the size. Yeah, exactly. So it's definitely a much smaller park, and you easily could get through it in an hour or two. And there's not there's really isn't a whole lot of rides, so I imagine that crowding could be a big uh factor in that. And the fact that they didn't have a dark ride in the summertime is definitely a questionable choice.
SPEAKER_00So do you feel like there's universal like offering like discounts to parents? Because honestly, parents aren't riding these rides. Is that correct? I mean, some of them probably maybe, but are they gonna have to pay full price for a ticket compared to like a kid?
SPEAKER_01Well, kids' tickets are always gonna be a little bit cheaper. Um so the last I checked, it was around fifty dollars a ticket for both adults and kids, I believe kids was just a little bit cheaper, maybe like thirty to forty dollars. So it's uh it is kind of uh not great deal in my opinion, but unless you have you know young children. I have seen influencers go out there and you know with no kids and say that they still had fun, but this park is specifically made, you know, to entertain younger kids.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, see, like to me, of course, it wouldn't be worth it because my kids are a little older, and I I'm still of course a young dad, and going to like Universal, I enjoyed the rides probably just as much, maybe even more than the kids.
SPEAKER_01I know you were pushing other kids out of the way to get in the front front of the line for uh Velocicoaster. Exactly. I mean, hey, that is the best coaster. I mean, it's up there in my top two with Iron Rattler. Uh to clarify, so it's $49.99 plus tax for a one-day ticket, and that is for adults and or kids.
SPEAKER_00Oh, so it's the same price no matter who you are. Correct. So a family of four, you're looking to spend about $200 to go to the city. Is there like an age limit?
SPEAKER_01Like if you're under a certain age, you get in free? I believe it's two and under they get in for free, because if this park really is made for, you know, guests three to eight, so those younger kids, I mean, they can still do th I mean, what can a, you know, kid two and under really do at a theme park to begin with? But just cry. Yeah, just cry. Ruin the ever ruin it for everybody. No. But if you're a parent wanting to take your kids to Universal Kids, I would just definitely do your research. Watch some YouTube videos, show them to see if this rides would be interested, if they would be interested in these rides, or check out our Facebook page where we do post about you know cruising and theme park news, including Universal Kids.
SPEAKER_00So another ride that actually opened it at Six Flags was Tormenta. They apparently had a soft opening already.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so as of right now, you can ride Tormenta Rampaging Run at Six Flags over Texas as long as you have a season pass. So what it is right now, it's technical rehearsal. So the official opening date of Tormenta is July 9th, which is only two weeks after it was announced that they were going to open this attraction. It's supposed to open on June 26th. July 9th, it's a little weird that it was pushed by two weeks. I can't imagine that there was anything too very like very wrong with it to push it, but I think I just want to get a little more test in. And it looks like you can now be the testing dummy, Jesse, because as long as you have that pass, you can ride it, and it's under what they call technical rehearsal. So sometimes it'll be open, sometimes it won't. But hey, would you do that if just uh preview the ride a little early? Hey, yeah. I mean, I am willing to make the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00All for the content, all for the good of the channel. Hey, if I die or or whatever, just at least you're riding Tormenta.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. At least I'm riding Tormenta. At least you're riding the world's tallest drop tower, which you know, I can't wait to go out there and ride eventually. I I plan on making a trip back to Six Flags over Texas sometime this summer, you know, get some more content for the YouTube and Facebook channel. So I'm excited that it's the date's finally here. I won't be there opening day, but I'll definitely make that trip up there either sometime this month or next month. So I hear that Frontier is now offering lower flights. Yes, so it's actually a little bit of a double-edged sword. So Frontier is restructuring in the sense that they're cutting down you know smaller flights, but they're kind of focusing more on certain elements, certain destinations where Spirit used to be. So cities that they're cutting, Corpus Christi, Knoxville, uh, San Martin, Sarasota, Spokane, and San Jose and Costa Rica. So you know, destinations we normally wouldn't otherwise go to. You know, I'm surprised Corpus Christi even has Frontier Airlines.
SPEAKER_00I think the the only like then cruise destination on there would be the San Jose for Frontier. Uh there's a but there's very few cruises that actually like you're those mainly a ship that like the ships go there. There's not like a the embarkation port, so you really wouldn't be flying there anyways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this all comes about where other airlines are trying to you know pick up where Spirit essentially left off, so some of them include Atlanta, where Delta Airlines is, you know, essentially just taking over where Spirit left off, and they want to be the predominant airline that hub, which they already are, they're just kind of doubling down on that. American Airlines is you know adding more flights out of Charlotte, Dallas, Fort Worth, Miami, Philadelphia, and then United, of course, is you know trying to add more flights to Denver and Houston. So you know, Frontier is being affected by this because these larger airlines are they can charge kind of whatever they want and still be able to you know make a profit. They could charge more people still pay for them. These other budget airlines like Frontier and then a little bit other ones, including like Allegiant, are trying to have to diversify their portfolio a little bit, where Frontier now is more so focusing on the leisure destinations, kind of like what Spirit is. So, you know, a lot of tropical island destinations and then the touristy areas like Vegas and Orlando.
SPEAKER_00So do you feel like that since Spirit has gone out of business, that Frontier's price have changed either up or down?
SPEAKER_01How do you feel like they're fluctuating, they're fluctuating a little bit higher, but Frontier is offering certain discounts. Uh so I I've noticed this when looking at flights. If you look on weekends, they tend to be a little bit higher. And then you know we'll kind of talk a little bit more about that on the cruising hacks about finding different better flights. But if you look on weekdays, they're generally cheaper. And since like you're looking on a Tuesday, you're looking on a Wednesday, not just looking for flights that happen on those particular days. So it's just more about look at to see what's out there. Because as of right now, if you do look for most destinations in America, Frontier is the cheapest option, even if it is like a $200 flight from here to Los Angeles or wherever.
SPEAKER_00Frontier or probably what Legion's is too pretty cheap. I know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Allegiant. And there's also um I think Jet Blue, some of them are now. Am I completely off? Yeah, Jet Blue is also another budget one. There's another fast-growing one called Breeze Airways that's you know kind of taken up where Spirit left off. I mean, the days of like $30 flights to Miami are kind of gone now at this point, though. And same with to Vegas, too, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00Um I I miss those days, you know. We I remember I still remember the time that me and my wife went to Vegas like it was like under $90 round trip for me and my wife. It was like crazy.
SPEAKER_01I know it's like we're living in 2026, and sadly we lost, lose spirit, and now we have to pay full price for airlines. Gosh. Where's this world come to? I this is why the Lido loop is here to help make your travel a little bit easier and trying to find you those better flights. So I mean, yeah, it's just something to look out for as far as you know, looking for the better deals. Because yes, even though Frontier is losing some of its airlines, excuse me, airports, they are going to have more to these leisure destinations. So especially if you're a cruiser, Miami, I mean Fort Lauderdale is predominantly owned by Spirit. I imagine Frontier is going to be planting their flag and other airlines. I think jet blue is really stepping up their game for uh Fort Lauderdale as well.
SPEAKER_00I mean, someone has to, because I mean the impact that Spirit had, some it's like the demand is still there, right? And it's not like the demand disappeared, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just because it just became too expensive for Spirit to operate at the business model that they were trying to do. Um, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility for Spirit to come back. I wouldn't count on that though. I mean, unless some you know multi-billionaire decides I want to bring Spirit back and to its glory.
SPEAKER_00What wasn't there like a TikTok or YouTuber that tried to bring it back? Or they got they actually got a lot of money out there.
SPEAKER_01They had like I think it was like 300 million plus dollars in commitments. So I mean, hey, if this guy keeps doing what he's doing, I mean he can save spirit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, go to the spirit auction and buy all the planes and then I mean that's probably as as of right now though, it's still a spirit.
SPEAKER_01And he'll rest in peace. Well, we're gonna go ahead and transition over to some of our cruise hacks. So one of the first things that you know you and I, when we first started getting into cruising, was we were watching YouTube videos and just you know, kind of seeing the ships layout, what there is to do, would you say that's a pretty good idea before you go on a cruise ship to kind of s get a feel of how it is visually?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've so pretty much if there's a ship like like this Carnival Jubilee, I've already been on the ship, but ever since if you look at my search history on YouTube, it is Carnival Jib Jubilee. Even though I've been on the ship, I always just want like to watch the videos and see like new stuff that they added and how it changed from year to year, because stuff on the ship do change.
SPEAKER_01Well, because you went on the Jubilee, was it 2024? Or no, it was 25, uh early 25 or last year, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it was like April of last year, I think. April or yeah, it was March or April last year I went, and it was had a blast. It was a great ship.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think YouTube videos, they're definitely even not from a cruising perspective, but like any sort of travel aspect, it kind of gives you a lay of the land. Even when I we went to Washington, DC, I was saying, like, okay, this is where you should park, or oh, this is where you know the best museums to go to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, that probably would help you with parking. Yeah, I still hit the pole regardless. We'll talk about that story another day. But yeah, yeah, definitely YouTube videos definitely give you a good layout of all the ships. And there's so much stuff that I learned watching YouTube videos. Like when I was on Seascape, I learned about how that the elevators work, how they were destination elevators. So if there were three people in your party, you hit that floor three times. So it was a smart elevator, so it kind of told you exactly like what elevator to get on to. So, but a lot of people didn't know that. So, what was happening is if there's ten people waiting for the elevator, they were pushed the button one time, and when it came down, there wasn't enough room for 10 people, it's only enough room for one person because it was a smart elevator. I've never heard of that. Is that a European thing? No, it it's actually on a lot of the newer ships are getting that way.
SPEAKER_01I'm surprised Jubilee hasn't. Um so what happens if a kid just hits it like 10 times, like I want to go up? It's gonna think that there's gonna be 10 people coming up there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh, but it you may have a little bit longer wait time because of that. So it's not in your best interest to do that. But if you only put one and there's ten people, then y'all aren't getting you're definitely not getting on this because there's not enough room. If that happens, just take the stairs at that point. Hey, that's what that's what I like about the smaller ships. You know, Jubilee's a little bit bigger, or even Seascape or Icon class or any of those ships, but it's kind of hard to take the elevator when there's uh you know 20, 20 steps you're going through or 20 uh flights of stairs. It's a little bit diff more difficult. I mean, yeah, you'll go work out and you burn off all the food you've been eating.
SPEAKER_01The worst is after dinner when like everyone like leaves kind of around the same time after the dinner show, and it's like, you know what, I'm just gonna go walk up these stairs, especially well mo most of the time, you know, it's just been my bad luck. I've been on like the second or third floor, so it's well, I don't have to travel too too far to get there. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Another good hack is magnetic hooks. Now, is this more so for decorating purposes or functional purposes? A little bit of both, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Cause uh so uh as a lot of people they might not know that all the walls in your cruise cabin and most cabin doors are also metal, like steel, so they're all magnetic. So it's really great because you can put these little magnetic hooks, they sell them on Amazon, and you hang your lanyard or or some of these they they got strong like the rare earth magnets that actually hold a lot of stuff, and there's m multiple things you can you it'll even hold a purse, a bag, a swimsuit that's drying, or something like that. But they are a great investment. If they're super cheap, you can buy probably ten of them under five bucks or at least under ten dollars, you know. But they're great for decoration decorating your door because a lot of the cruise lines, I know we talked about a couple, they're kind of putting restrictions on uh uh cabin door decorations, but magnetics you can put it around and it'll it won't damage the door or anything like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's definitely worth it, especially if you need a little bit more space and need to hang things up instead of having everything on the floor, or you can because you can even use these in the restroom, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you use it anywhere. Anything you need to like hold something up, it's it's great. I've seen some people even hold like uh like a mini fan up above them so that they got like air blown on.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's smart because when I had that really bad bed on the top of the interior cabin, it gets really hot up there, regardless of what floor you're on. Uh, another thing that I didn't know until the day of the cruise is a refillable cup. Because I had a coffee cup with me and you you asked me if I have a refillable cup. I said no. So I poured the coffee out and like, well, I got one now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, it's always great to have a refillable cup, especially the ones that have like the drink package, like always get the drink package like in Galveston. But the things about Galveston, the drink package with carnival at least doesn't start the first day. I don't know why they say it's because the state won't allow it, but everyone else does. So I don't know what it's a Texas thing, we're just different. Yeah, exactly. Um, but anyways, so it is definitely great because you you saw how small the cups are that they provide, those little yellow cups that hold like exactly a shot of water or or juice. A shot of water, that's funny. But it's that but yeah, the first day is great because you can go in there and fill it up with water, ice and water one time, and you don't have to worry about going 20 times to refill it. And plus you can even if you're like going off the ship, who says you can't fill it up with margaritas, you know, and and get it. Yeah, I mean, I ain't gonna lie, a lot of times they make you pour stuff out when getting back on the ship, but well, the staggering on the dock will definitely like give your you know intoxicated state away, not just what's in your cup.
SPEAKER_01Hey, it's the waves, it's not the mouth cup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. It's the ocean of the ocean at that point. Another thing that's good to bring is Ziploc bags or trash cans. So, you know, Ziploc bags, you know, first thing I think of is like, you know, you're at a you're at the buffet or you're at a dining, you know, restaurant and you don't finish it, you can just put it in a ziploc bag to go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess some people will do that, like if they want like a little uh uh midnight pizza.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's not open after midnight anymore. What's going on, pirate pizza?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Uh but a lot of this there's multiple things you could do for food and stuff like that. I really don't use it for food because honestly, there's so much food around. Like I I I'll just get fresh, you know, me personally. But it's really good for the Ziploc bag. To like organization and like say you get like wet clothes, like like when you go to the pool and you get s like your your shirt got wet by accident. You don't want to mix it with your regular clothes because it's gonna get all your clothes wet. So it's good to have a little zip ziplock bag to put stuff in, and also it kind of like a waterproof thing too. So like if you go to the beach, you can put your phone, your wallet, and stuff like that. So you don't have to worry about it actually like getting wet and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And trash bags would be more so if you have more clothes or you know, uh it's even uh it's not exactly a classy way of storing things, but I mean it's it can be essential for any kind of like room storage or even just you need to throw stuff away.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I think yeah, trash yeah, exactly. The reason it's a trash bag is because it holds a lot more, especially at the end of the cruise. I don't care how who you are, at the end of the cruise, there's gonna be a ton of wet clothes. You're gonna have like a beach towel or something, you know, that spill on something. If you have kids, you definitely have like 50 things that are wet. So it's definitely trash bags good to throw it all in, just take it off the ship like that, and wash it at home.
SPEAKER_01I and also you just you just never know when they might be able to have it. I mean, we did kind of bring up swimsuits a little bit, and that's something that you've told me before. You know, our cruises is always bring at least two swimsuits because you know if you bring one and you're in the pool, it's not gonna be ready for the next day when you're go to any sort of you know destination where you require a swimsuit. So I would say even depending on your cruise, maybe even longer, but two should be the minimum for swimsuits, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I think two should definitely be the minimum. Honestly, I would probably push for more than three. I usually bring two because I like to backpack most of my trips. But two swimsuits are definitely important because, like you said, you know, you go to the pool now, no one wants to put on a wet swimsuit the next day, you know. You want it to have time to dry. It usually takes at least a day for it to dry out completely, right? Especially because I know a lot of the like the showers, they got that little like clothesline, I guess you can call it, and you kind of hang your clothes on to so they dry. Um, I mean, that's kind of the only way to really dry it. Or you can actually use the onboard laundry service, but I I ain't gonna lie, usually I just hang myself out and then I don't think I've ever done laundry on a cruise shop.
SPEAKER_01I know some people have, especially if you go on a longer cruise, it might be in your best interest to you know have those clean clothes instead of just like re-wearing the same thing or bringing, you know, two suitcases full of clothes. So yeah, I'd say two swimsuits is good and also a reusable straw. So yeah, because they don't have actual straws on the cruise ship, correct? Because you have to drink out of a cup.
SPEAKER_00On Carnival, they don't have reusable straws. MSE for some reason, they actually do, which I think is great. I love actually having real straws, like real straws. But on Carnival, you either have to drink directly out of the cup, like without a straw, or they give you like this sugar straw. Oh yeah. It's like, you know, there's different like lime ones. I I'm not gonna lie, I actually kind of like it, but it does kind of suck when you're drinking a drink and it becomes you get this flimsy sugar straw that like is like pretty much falling apart. So either drink your drink faster or uh get a reusable straw. And me personally, I get this like a reusable straw, it's like a bendable one, and it goes in this little pouch that attaches to my lanyard. So that's just easy access, right there. Yeah, you get your margarita and you just pull it out and just put it in. Yeah, exactly. And then the next item actually on the list actually is I do the same thing with the travel size germx. So I always get the they have a little thing that attaches to a lanyard also as well. And so we have like my crew, my cruise card, my um reusable straw, and then my germ X. Because Germex, I mean, every time you go in the buffet is always good or anywhere before you eat, just you know, put a little germ X there and rub your hands because man, everyone thinks, you know, cruise the cruises are super spreader, so the more uh sanitation that you can do for yourself, the better it is for everyone else overall.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00But still, if you do have germx, if you're before you eat, please wash your hands because the noravirus does the germ X will not kill the noravirus. You have to wash your hands. That's the only way to get rid of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, remember even during the COVID times that they shut down cruising for a while because it's just if someone's on there, there's nothing they can do. So I mean, yeah, the more that you sanitize, the better it is for you and everyone else. Um, you know what also is good is free drinks. And you know, we kind of talked about this earlier in the show with the art auctions, but people don't go to these just to buy, you know, $1.1 million worth of art. You can actually get free champagne here, right, Jesse?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So that that's kind of like one of those things that gets people in the door, I guess you can say, is they offer free champagne while you're bidding on the art. So if you have $1.1 million that you're gonna spend on art, you get free champagne. It's kind of worth it, right?
SPEAKER_01I we wait until Dave Ramsey that I mean now I think then he'd actually say this woman was pretty smart because what if she drank, you know, $1.1 million worth of champagne. And that you're right, that would be worth it then. Also, another thing that we like to do is the 12 pack of soda or bring a bottle of wine on board, Jesse. I mean, tell us the audience a little bit as to one why we can do that, and two, how beneficial it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh at least I know Carnival allows this. Carnival actually allows you to bring a 12 pack of soda on board. You can actually bring it when you stop at a port also. Uh, but you bring one pack of 12 uh 12 pack of soda and you can also bring up to 750 milliliters of wine on board as well. Um I know like when we went to uh Port Canaveral, we actually I know Maddie's of course has to have her Dr. Pepper, right? And they don't serve Dr. Pepper on board. So she we stopped and she got a 12-pack of Dr.
SPEAKER_01Pepper, am I right? I mean, yeah, it is a lot cheaper than buying the soda package for a three-day cruise when you could just get a 12-pack of soda and just you know, she she made it last the entire trip.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So a three-day cruise with 12 pack of soda is probably pretty good, you know. Even her. Hey, four a day, that's perfect, that's all you need. Yeah, exactly. That's her drink limit. Yeah, exactly. So it's definitely a way to save money. They don't think it kind of sucks. You gotta kind of carry the soda around, or do you guys, oh hey, you want to soda, you gotta go all the way back to your room, you know. But in the like in the in the main dining room, they'll just give you a glass, like it's nothing. They don't care, you know, they really don't care that you brought your 12 pack. Uh, but me personally, I usually just make it easy and just buy the drink package for my kids, and I usually get the alcohol package every single time, so I don't have to worry about ever not having a drink in my hand.
SPEAKER_01So just to clarify, you can get the drink package and that includes the soda package, or do you have to get them separate? So the drink package will include soda as well.
SPEAKER_00Uh I know on carnival for some reason the soda package doesn't include bottled water, which doesn't make sense. I would think that it would include it. I mean, it should be free, really. It should be water, yeah. Bottle water, yeah. So if you have the soda package, you still have to like go and get your like a tumbler or whatever, like uh, you know, a Yeti cup and fill it up with actual water if you that's what you want. But with the cheers package, which is the alcohol package, you you will get bottled water and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's really beneficial to bring that on board just so that way you have a little bit of variety in case you want to save a little money and not buy the soda package. Uh, other things, you know, we can kind of go over them a little quicker, is like over-the-door shoe organizer, especially you know, girls that want to bring a lot of different shoes. I'm a Crocs guy. Um, but you know, having that option is could be beneficial, but more so, how about medication? Like, so for me, I need to bring at least PEPTO, uh uh C bands, which is those little wristbands that you wear on a ship, and some sort of dramamine for my first day, just so I can get my sea legs in. After I'm good, after that, then I'm good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. We actually bring this thing to call it like a pocket pharmacy. I know you you've gotten stuff from us many times on cruises, but it's like a a miniature thing that you actually if you order Amazon, um it actually has like little labels you can put on the actual thing and it tells you exactly like if you got tums, uh you always want dremamine or uh Tylenol, anything you would pretty much bring anything that could possibly happen, we bring it on board just in case something could happen. Because you never know, because if you have to go down to the medical for Tylenol, it's like fifty dollars, it's ridiculous. So it's way better just bring your own personal medication thing for anything that could happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, better to come prepared than not prepared at all. And kind of finally, the last thing we want to hit on is the cheap flights or where to get these cheaper tickets. So if you're looking for different cruising destinations, especially Florida, so uh uh use Google Flights. That's how I've always booked any of my trips. It's just you know, Google Flights will tell you the cheapest days when you can fly out. Usually it's on like a Tuesday or a Wednesday to a Saturday or Sunday. I understand most of these cruise ships are you know, even a three-day would be a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, come back or on Monday. You know, some cruises, you know, go out on Monday, come back Saturday. But you can look into flights first and then book your cruise for vice versa, where if you look to the cruise first, then you kind of have to try to hope and see if those flights line up for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Because typically, of course, when me and you book a cruise, yeah, we always do it the opposite way, right? We always go and book a cruise and we try to find flights, and it we're always like, man, it's too expensive. Sometimes the flights are more expensive than the actual cruise.
SPEAKER_01Am I we got lucky when we went to Orlando last year? It's because we went to kind of during the off season in October, so we were able to for the most part get relatively cheap spirit flights, which you know we can't have spirit anymore, but you do run that risk of, oh, there's a $30 cruise, or excuse me, $300 cruise out of Miami for a three-day, but your flight could be $300 each for that particular weekend in Miami because dolphins could be in town or some festival, whatnot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So it's definitely good to look at, like that's another thing. Like, good to look at what's going on in that town, especially like Miami, the big cruise ports, what's going on? If there's a big festival going on, it definitely you know those tickets are gonna be weighed up. If the Super Bowl is gonna be in town, like the time like in Vegas, like imagine going to Vegas. Remember how expensive the hotel rooms were whenever the Super Bowl was there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because we got there like the weekend before the Super Bowl, which you know, they were still in the process of getting everything ready, which we still got decent rooms for. But yeah, that weekend of the Super Bowl, I I don't think you could stay in the state of Nevada for any kind of like thing under $500 a night. Um, but yeah, go ahead and try and find those cheaper flight options with Google Flights, and especially if you're okay, you know, planning a cruise a little last minute, you know, you can still book a cruise a month or two in advance if you just could just pay it all down right there. And that's usually when you go to the best flight deals as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and definitely let us know. If y'all have any other cruise hacks uh that we don't know, definitely comment on our Facebook page or YouTube channel, and we'll definitely bring them up on the next video.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And like I said, we are the Lido Loop. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you get your podcast. Jesse, you did mention the Facebook page and the YouTube channel. I'm Jack. That's Justin. We will see you on the Lido deck, but not Flying Spirit anymore. Rest in peace.