Epic Universe Saga: Super Nintendo World

Join two (middle-aged) adult daughters as they explore Super Nintendo World at Epic Universe. Join Jasmine and Michelle as they continue the Epic Universe Saga by discussing the Diddy Kong animatronic, an unnecessary amount of staircases, and a (Yoshi) People Mover! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to 1313 Harbor the Podcast. My name is Michelle, and I'll be your player one.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

My name is Jasmine, and I'll be your player two, aka Princess Peach.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Let's go into this warp pipe and get it started.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Don't sue us, Mario. This land is my land. This land is your land. We are talking about Super Nintendo World, an epic universe. And as a woman, you shouldn't apologize for things that are not your fault, but I am very tired and I apologize if things are funnier than usual or less funny than usual. It could go either way. We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

We don't know.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

We don't know. We don't know what the future may hold. We just know that Super Nintendo World is an epic universe. And while it is an amazing land, it was probably our least favorite land, and that is no due to no fault of the land itself.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I would say Nintendo Land and while still great, they Nintendo Land and Harry Potter Land were my least favorites. Yes. But only because Burke, which we're saving for last, is S tier and or S plus tier. And then Monsters University Unchained Inc. The Land, Monster Land. What's it called? Umbridge? What's it called? Dark Universe. That's it. Literally none of the things I said. That was my sleeper. That was like, I think this is gonna be stupid. And then I was like, I even though I can't eat here, I really like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, and like I would say probably Super Nintendo is better themed, maybe than like has more details in Epic Universe, but I don't know. And maybe if I was like a bigger, I like Nintendo, but like I don't know. It was it was good. It was good.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah, GL was really happy. I really loved it at night, but the the lands are so good that this land is great and it's still like it's still like A tier.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah. Yeah. Um and also this land is the only land where 100% of everything in there pretty much is at a different park. So the so basically this exact land is in Japan, Universal Studios Japan. Um we have an abridged version of it in Hollywood, like a very abridged version.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Very abridged.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Um and I think they're building this land in Universal Singapore as well. So none of nothing is unique to this land unlike every other land. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't think any because in Burke everything's I mean, it may be built somewhere else eventually, but as of now, February is all original 26th. Harry Potter's all original, and Dark Universe is all original, and Celestial Park is all original. So Mario. What are your initial thoughts of the land overall? So you enter through a warp pipe and you go up the escalator, and it's the most exciting entrance by far. And I believe the thing over on the um the Kronos, the uh portal, it says, Let's go. Um does it say, Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

unknown 2:48

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Let's go. Let's go. That's gonna be a whole episode where we're gonna just say all the um portal entrances in as many different variations as possible.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

That's great. We'll have different versions to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yes. And then you can call out emotions from the audience.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yes. It'll be our live show.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Melancholy. Let's go. Let's go. So you enter through a warp pipe. To the right, there is so every land in Epic Universe has the main entrance through the portal, and then they have a little side entrance. The side entrance has my favorite water feature, which is a fountain with coins on it. And that's the one where either you or Dale, when I said I like this fountain, said you're Persian showing.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Because every you can hear it in this podcast. She talks about the water feature in every single land.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And she's like birthright.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

It's it is. It's just so funny because you're like, This water feature, that water feature. And I don't think you're doing it on purpose to make fun of us making fun of you, but you keep doing it, and it's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I'm like Persians love a water feature that they can own or somebody else owns. Like the ocean's cool, but like, do you own a fountain with little coins on it? No.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Sorry, did you hear that motorcycle just go past my window? I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Is that um cool writer? I want to see O-O-L. When I was a child, fun fact, I thought it was writer like R-I, W-R-I-T-E-R, like a writer, like someone who writes fiction, but it is not that. It is a motorcycle enthusiast.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

My mom said it was cool water. I hate drinking water. I've always hated drinking water. So everyone has tried to make drinking water for me fun since I was a child. I've always hated drinking water. And my mom would say, she's saying, I want a cool water, a cool, and then she would be like, Don't you want to be like, Stephanie, do you want cool water? And I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

No, she's dating um Rexy because he's so sexy. Have you seen Empire Records?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Of course I've seen Empire Records.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So, you know, the guy who is the main guy in Greece too is um Rex Manning. Yes, I know. I'm telling the audience because they might be uneducated.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Oh, I thought you were telling me. I was like, no.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Like, I know. I've seen the film. He's also married to Juliet Mills, who is the sister of Haley Mills, and Juliet Mills is in one of my favorite movies called Ivanti. Which is about a woman and a man who go to Italy or Greece. They go to somewhere in Europe and they find out that their parents were having an affair together. And they basically, so their parents die in a tragic car accident, and every year for the last 10 years, they've been going to this resort in I think it's I for Italy, I forget where it is. It's some very beautiful island place. And every year they've been going to the resort, and the guy is um, his father was like a rich business tycoon, and Jack Lemon plays the guy, and the girl, her mom was just like a maid who worked at a hotel, and they found out that their parents were meeting every year at this hotel and they were deeply in love and they were having an affair and they considered each other like the main relationship, and then they die in a car accident, and basically the kids who are, you know, both adults, like the lady's probably 30, Jack Lemon's probably 50, they have to like clean up this mess, and then they fall in love and they repeat what their parents did. Spoilers, but yes, okay. We were really going off topic. Okay, back to Super Nintendo.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

It's a really good movie. It's one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Is it funny or is it sad? It's funny, romantic, and a little sad.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Not sad like Jack Lemon. They allowed that person to be a movie star. That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

He is one of my favorite actors. He's perfect, he's done nothing wrong ever.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah. Um, he, yeah, it's just such a good movie, Avante. You can watch it. I think you can buy it on Amazon. A really good movie. There is some nudity in it, but in the very 70s, what I'm intrigued. Okay. So Nintendo. Super Nintendo. So it is divided. So once you go through the warp pipe, there's a lot of stairs in this land. You are in the middle of the street.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Oh, wait, because you should we should specify when you're in the every other like portal, you just walk through it. This one, you take an escalator up to like a second level. So through a warp pipe. It's very um mall of the 90s.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

So like you're on the second floor and you kind of look down and so you go, the first land you enter is Super Mario Land, and then there's a second land within this land called Donkey Kong Country. So you enter, um, so this land is the largest version of Super Mario Land in any Universal Park. So it's bigger than the one in Japan. Um, and apparently it's the same amount of stuff, it's just everything's wider. Like all the roads and entrances are whiter.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

It didn't feel like that. It was It did not feel like it. It was so packed because people are very passionate about Nintendo, which is great. Give us a Pokemon land. I'm wearing a Pokemon shirt because Pokemon. I love Pokemon. But wow, that's really interesting because it did not feel like that. I but I think it was just because it was so packed and popular, which bless its heart.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So you walk in, you're in Peach's Castle. If you go to the left on this level is um the Mario Kart ride. If you go down the stairs, you can um that's where like Toadstool Cafe is, the Yoshi ride, that's where you get on. And then you go around the corner, and then there's Donkey Kong Country, just to give you an idea of the layout. And Donkey Kong Country dead ends. It's not a circle, you kind of just walk to the right and back. Yeah. It's very beautiful, very detailed, a lot of kinetic energy. It's beautiful. Everything's moving at night. At night, it is gorgeous. It literally single land, yeah, is more is better at night.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

It literally looks like Rainbow Road if you've ever played a Mario Kart. It looks like Rainbow Road, but in real life at night, because the dark sky and it's so colorful and very purposeful, purposefully chosen shades of green, blue, yellow, like it's so extra. Primary colors, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Um, you could see Donkey Kong ride from my window in my room. So I would watch it often, and it was just like this golden glowing orb.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Ah, Donkey Kong.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Also, another side note, my nephew yesterday was talking about throwing barrels. I said like Donkey Kong, and um his grandpa was the only one who got that joke. So, yeah, so the land is so you then you walk down the stairs. So you do also you can purchase or you can use them um from the our Universal Park power-up bands. So we happen to have power-up bands that we bought at Universal Hollywood. They work there just as well. There's no like version two, it's the same. And they have the little boxes, and you're supposed to, okay, so a little tip for you all a lot of people take, so it's like a watch, the power-up band. They take the band itself and they try to touch the box. That's not how you do it. You take your fist, like in the ride, and you punch up on the box, and that's how you get the points. And this connects to your app and this gives you points. And then this is something we didn't do. If you get enough things in the park or do enough points, you get to go to the special VR experience that's like a little secret ride, and you can only do it if you have the right amount of points. Really? It's just like a room, I guess, but it's yeah, it's an extra experience where you defeat Bowser.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, we didn't this is something I found out about later. We didn't use the power-up bands too much. I used them a few times, and then I was like, okay, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Um there's-cause it was so crowded and like it was like overflowing with children. Like if you think of a barrel of monkeys, but children, just so many of them.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And it's frowned upon to push children out of your way. Rude. So you can do the power-up band. There are a few that are tall enough for adults, but most are pretty small for children. Or shorter people, you know. We don't know. We don't know, but not for five foot eight middle-aged women. Uh so let's talk about the rides. So the first ride we went on was Minecart Madness. That line might be longer or about the same length as the Harry Potter line. It was never under two hours.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

It did not move. It was really, it didn't move. The line.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

We went, so the park doesn't open until so you can get an early entry at nine. Certain lands, now all lands are open at nine. But at the time when we went, you couldn't get into Super Nintendo World before 10. They let us in at 9.45. We got in line at 9.45. We still, and we had our fast pass, but the regular line was still, I think, 120 minutes or 90 minutes for the ride. We didn't get to experience the queue that much. Um, there is a what is the old man Donkey Kong called? Old Man Donkey Kong. The old Donkey Kong. The old man Donkey Kong. Is it not Diddy Kong's the baby? So this is Cranky Kong.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Oh, I was like, Carl, Carl Werthers.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Carl Kong. Carl Kong. So you go in, there is a Cranky Kong, really cool animatronic. You you walk, so basically Donkey Kong country, you walk in, there's a crash plane to the side, and then there's the beautiful golden temple. There is a statue of a Kong, and it's supposed to be like water supposed to come from its mouth, but it didn't work the whole time we were there. I don't know if that they turned that effect off. Or maybe it was too cold. Yeah, it was probably because it was too cold. So this is the um the shtick for minecart madness, if you will. So it's up to you to help Donkey Kong protect the golden banana on Minecart Madness trademark. Enter the majestic golden temple, board your minecart, and take off in this thrilling family coaster. Speeding through the mine, you'll appear to jump across gaps in the track and perform other eye-popping feats from Donkey Kong Country video games. So this roller coaster type is called a boom coaster with a false track. And this is a new ride system developed by Universal themselves. Oh neat. Yeah. So basically you get on the ride. It is an omni-mover style ride, but the boarding process still takes forever for some reason. Four people fit per cart, so two in the front, two in the back. I sat in the front with a stranger who ended up being a very nice lady, and then you and Dale sat behind me. Yeah, to make out. To make out, obviously. Um, and then I made out with a lady, the stranger. Yeah. It was but like very respectfully.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

So you get on the thing, it looks like there's like a really rickety old track under you, but really you're on an arm and the real track is underneath that track.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

So there's a show track. It's rickety, but you're very safely on a real track track.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah. With like gaps in it. And it it looks in the videos, you can very clearly see the track, the real track underneath. In real life, it was a lot harder for me to see. So the effects look much better in person. Yeah. As it as it was meant to be experienced. Exactly. So you're going, you go like around the corner, and then you go, and then like right away, you hot you see there's a gap in the track, and then there's a sound that's like boom, boom. And like it feels like your cart literally jumps over the track. It's a pretty short roller coaster. Um, at one point you have a near miss with Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Like they are about to run into your track, so you go and jump to another track. Um, there's a part towards the end where you jump from side to side, going from track to track, and you feel that like thump, thump, thump. And then the end, I believe there's just a Donkey Kong animatronic. It's all very well themed. You go inside, outside. You go past the gold waterfall, but it the waterfall was off. Thoughts, Michelle?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Uh it was very fun. It was too short. That's always my critique with universal roller coasters, is like, man, this is so fun. I it could be longer. The Ministry of Mag the Bank, not the Ministry of Magic. The Gringotts. I wish we went through all the screens and then there was like 30 seconds of track, like to just like run like a roller coaster, but it just kind of ends. And this one, I was like, oh, this is really neat. I wish there was more track. I wish today was just like going through the jungle.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, there was beautiful. It was my second favorite ride of Epic Universe. Beautiful, like the track was great. Everything looked visually great. You go in and out of the temple. There was a couple animatronics, you jump over water at a certain point at the very end. It was like beautiful, bright colors, a lot of kinetic energy. It was just short. That was my only complaint. Um, but I really enjoy it. It felt fun. I love a family coaster because you feel more fun than thrill, which I like.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So you and Dale enjoyed it. Yes. You were making out in the back.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

We were Dale really loved Donkey Kong, the Donkey Kong area. That was cool. He he got all the references. He was so excited to see the crash plane. I don't know what that means. Funky flies in by. It's a store. Sure. He was very excited to see all of the things. So that was really cool. So as it was neat because, like, I I know who Donkey Kong is, but I don't know anything about him. I've never played any of his games. But then someone who grew up playing his games and loved it, like we both loved that area. So I think that kind of speaks to how good it is.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

It was aesthetically the prettiest area in that land to me. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they also had drums that if you hit them in a certain sequence, a little secret animatronic would pop out. We did not get it to work. I love the music in that land. The drums like bump bum ba dump bum ba dump. Like that. It's just very exciting. Um, it's very melodically pleasing. I would have gone on that ride more, but the line was just so ridiculously long. All the time. I don't know why though, because it's it's an omni-mover. So constantly, like people are getting on, but like you wait for a moment. Like it's like they load you and then you get to go on. Like it's not a constant thing, like where they're just letting people on. And then it stops for a minute when you get to the front. About like, I don't know. I just feel like they could have put more three people put more people through per hour and they did not do that. I feel like there was a way to do it. Yeah. But I don't know. I'm not an engineer. I'm yeah. I don't make monkeys, I just train them. Hey. Um, but yeah, the whole land was my favorite in that area. It was gold, beautiful, jungly. Maybe because it wasn't as overstimulating as the rest of the land.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, I think it felt more open because like think about it. When you are in Mario Land, in like the main area, you go up, so you're on the second floor, and then like you go down to the first floor, and there's just like literally wall-to-wall stuff. And then in the Donkey Kong area, it has more room to breathe. I'm not complaining about the Mario Land. I'm just saying there is it's an ADHD's dream or nightmare, depending on how your brain works. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

And yeah, it's just the and I'm like, we don't have Donkey Kong country in Universal Hollywood. So again, it's also the uniqueness of something we don't have. But also their Super Nintendo world is blows ours out of the water. So moving on to Mario Kart Bowser's Challenge. So we have this at Universal Hollywood. This was the second to last ride we rode. We almost were gonna skip it because we're like, we have it at home.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

But I insisted because I wanted to. I'm happy we did. Just have the crown of we rode every single attraction we saw, every single show. We did all of Epic Universe. We at least beheld as the kids would say.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yes. We at least beheld every character with our eyes, whether we interacted with them or not. So the Mario Kart ride is identical to the one that we have. Yeah. As far as I could tell. So on Mario Kart, Bowser's Challenge, you'll put on special goggles and steer through iconic courses alongside Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach and other people. I added that. They didn't have that in there. In this interactive ride, you'll collect digital coins and throw shells to try and defeat Team Bowser and win the Golden Cup with multiple outcomes. It's a different experience each time you ride. It's been the same experience every time I've ridden, except just different people win in the end.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Not for Dale, remember? It didn't work for Dale the first time.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

It did not, so it's a very different experience. Yeah. But we got to ride twice. So his misfortune was our benefit. Thanks, Dale. So you go through, there's a line. It still has that awkward like you go into a room and you're not in line anymore and they do the pre-show and then you're out, and then you kind of just like, I guess I gotta figure this out. Um I always hate that in rides. I get why they have to do it, but it's just very awkward of like it's like you're in a line, like structure, structure, structure.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Dale calls it dump into chaos. And then it's like go into a room, the local yokels rush to the door, they push on the door, and then then you kind of get back into a line. It's like structure, chaos, structure.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

So you get on the ride, you're in a little car, it's four-seater, you go through various lands. It's really cool. It's again, it's like real sets mixed with screens, mixed with um the projections you're seeing in front of your like literally, there's like floating shells and floating things in front of your eyes because of the goggles. Um, you go through various scenes. If you've ever played Mario Kart, it's it's Mario Kart. But you end with Rainbow Road. And I guess like it's cool because like the scene with like the ghost, you're actually in like a swinging room. It's not all projections. Like they built actual sets. They built the actual like cloud man who's like, ooh, blowing. And um, you know, it's just I don't like I feel like I'm not commenting on it a lot because like I've been on it before, but I have to remember other people haven't. So yeah, you go through different scenes, you shoot. I just shoot randomly. I try to aim to stuff. You're supposed to like turn your wheel. I don't know if that works or not. Um, because all the beats felt the same for me every time I've ridden this ride. Uh, but we lost because Dale says it's our fault, but it's also because the other car had four people and we only had three.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah. So it's also it was our fault.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. Also it was our fault.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

No, I think it was Dale's fault.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, it was Dale's fault. He couldn't see. He can't because, you know, he's a ghost.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

The other ghosts were like, oh, we're gonna attack you. You're one of us. Get on this side, brother. And he's like, Yeah, you traitor.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

And my head, oh, so it's Team Mario versus Team Bowser. Team Bowser won. I guess we lost, or were we Bowser? I can't remember. But yeah, it's a great ride. Give it a chance. It's just, you know, it's cool. It's cool. If you like video games, it's really cool. It's not as cool as the Donkey Kong one, though. And you can also ride it in Hollywood and Japan and Singapore. Singapore. So my favorite ride that was like, I guess, a C ticket ride, as you would call it, not an A ticket. Probably even a D ticket.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

I'm sorry, not a D ticket, like an A ticket, A or B. Like it's it's a low-tech ride, but there's nothing this, I think this again speaks to a good theme, can uh elevate something super basic.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So um picture it, Yoshi's adventure. You're hunting for glowing eggs in a people mover, but Yoshi. So you're basically the ride is a bunch of Yoshis, and those that's the c the vehicle, and they're different colors, and you get on one and you go around mostly the ride is you can kind of see the land. You can see the Super Nintendo area of the land. Then you go into two show scenes, one inside, one outside. The inside one is like a little fairyman, and there's like little baby Mario, baby Princess Peach. When you see the eggs, you're supposed to hit there's a blue egg, green egg, and a pink egg, you're supposed to hit the corresponding egg, and then once you hit it, it lights up gold, and then in the end you get the gold egg. Then there's an outdoor scene where um there's like a high Yoshi.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah, which is some really weird Yoshi.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Um who's very high, and then there's like a knockoff.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

He looks like Schmoshi.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yeah, look at Smoshi like that we're selling in the back of my truck. Yeah. Then you see uh like a few of the typical characters, the smushy guys, the guys who roll around. I've played Mario, but I'm not like the super like, and I love like my literal my ringtone is the coins, but like I don't know all the ins and outs of Mario.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

That's okay, nobody's mad at you.

unknown 21:34

I'm mad at me.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I'm looking in the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

What wrong with you, you idiot.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

You stupid lady. Uh then you end seeing a toad with a gold egg, and he's like, You won! Yay!

SPEAKER_02 21:46

And that toad, okay, this this park is not a year old, and that toad animatronic looks like it's begging for death. Yes, it is outside.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

It is outside all the time, to be fair, but like, God forbid they put Like a little touch of paint on it.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

It's like, let me die. Release me from my prison.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

But I really enjoyed that ride. I do enjoy a people mover, obviously. Um, we went on that twice. So the other rides we went on once, that ride we went on, it was our what I think our very first ride and one of our last rides. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

It was our last ride because we ran over to Mario Land and we I think there was a miscommunication between the three of us. One of us said, Oh my God, I'm so tired. And the other one of us said, We should go on Yoshi, and someone else said no, and yet we ended up on Yoshi.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

I'd like to think I'm the one who made us all go on Yoshi, but I think I might have been the one who said no.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I'm not sure. I honestly don't remember. I just do remember that everyone was really tired.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah, it was literally like the park was closing and we jumped on because it had no line. We got right on. I mean, we could be loud because there was no one else on the ride. So I could do my um, we were in two different cars and I could do my impression for Michelle. Like, yay!

SPEAKER_02 22:54

I got the points. And I just got to hear the lovely song. It's like ba, ba ba, ba ba.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

But yeah, it's a very cute ride. Um, I would not wait more than 20 minutes for it.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

I wouldn't make wait more than an hour for Donkey Kong, but then you'll never get to go on Donkey Kong. And I wouldn't wait more than 30, 40 minutes for Mario Kart. But we are also from California where our line times are a lot shorter because I think people are just like, I'm just here for vibes. Yeah. I'm just here to hang out with Nintendo. I'm just here because I'm a regular and I'm going to have my alcoholic beverage of choice while looking at the view and making fun of people's outfits.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Yeah. Like you know, that's how we do.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

All the rides are very well done, all beautiful. I'm glad they have varying levels of ride because Epic Universe, one of the bigger complaints is there's a lot of e-ticket attractions. There's not a lot like a fluff in the land.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

I'm fine with that. I mean, I'm completely fine with that. Cause like, I don't know, I'd love a theme park that's all e-tickets, but it's just me.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

It would just be nice to like have more rides so there the lines aren't as long. But then that makes the the good thing about Epic Universe is the park, except for this land feels empty, which is really nice. You can actually enjoy yourself. Yeah, so I enjoyed all the rides. I love Donkey Kong, but that also is because it's the most unique to me. So yeah, the rides I like the most are the ones are the most unique to me. Again, a theme. So now let's move on to we did not experience these and we didn't see too many of these character meet and greets. So there's Mario and Luigi. We did see them together. We did not talk to them, but we saw them. Their eyes blink. It's cool. They're articulated. There's Toad, Peach, and Donkey Kong meet and greets. We did not see any of those characters, or at least I didn't. I didn't either. Yeah. Donkey Kong, I think, meets in Donkey Kong, and then the other two meet various places in the land. Yes. Oh, she does have a gazebo, yeah. I think her and Toad are in the gazebo, and then Mario and Luigi were in the lower part of the land. In the lower, yeah. Right. Because they're working class. They stay lower where they belong. The working class. It's a real downtown abbey situation. It is upstairs, downstairs, literally. And if you want to leave, so you go up the huge warp pipe, and then you're like, shoot, to leave, do I have to go up all these and then you walk down a huge amount of stairs. Do I have to walk back up? No. If you go to the left of the stairs, you can just enter at park level. And you don't have to walk up and down a billion stairs.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

And when you exit at park level, there's the beautiful fountain and a beautiful castle store that has all the Mario, the Nintendo merchandise. When I say Nintendo, they had only Mario and they had Pikmin. Yes. Pikmin things? Pikmin. No, I'm kidding. No Zelda, no Pokemon, but you know, we're gonna be optimistic and hope that those IPs come later.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

So the rumors are that for the expansions for Super Nintendo World are either gonna be Luigi's Castle or a Zelda subland. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Zelda.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

And I think they're making a Zelda movie right now, so it makes sense that if that movie does even nominally well, they will be adding a Zelda land.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

I just want Pokemon. I don't know if you can tell, but I really just want Pokemon in the parks. They're so cute. You can have you know, like Nurse Joy, you can buy your Pokemon Pokemon and you could do things with it with your phone and your watch and your Poke Steps and your Pokemon.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

You can meet Pikachu, you can meet Ash, you could meet the other characters. Christy and um Peter Peter Gabriel and and um Bilbo Baggins.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Ugh, love him. He's my favorite Pokemon.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

So let's move on to the food. We only experienced two food places. So one was Toadstool Cafe, and the other was the bubbly barrel. So we'll get bubbly barrel out of the way. That's the little food cart. It's not a food cart, like it's a very beautifully themed tree, stump, log situation where you buy. So the only item they offer is a it's like Dole Whip but banana with an actual banana in it and popcorn on top, and it's in a it's a drink and a waffle cone, and there's pineapple juice. It's not very banana-y. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. I didn't love it. It wasn't terrible. I did not finish it. It was really aesthetically gorgeous. I don't know if you guys tried mine. I don't think so. I did. I took the bite. Oh, okay. It was yeah, it was good. I didn't like the banana, the solid banana on the inside. That was weird. Like don't give me a few. I love banana, but don't give me real fruit and fake fruit. Don't mix the two. Give me all real fruit or all fake fruit. Do not give me part and part. Then the other place is Toadstool Cafe, which we have at our Universal, which I've never been to ours. And we went to eat there and we got a free superstar lemon squash, which was good. But so, Michelle, tell your tale of how we got those free drinks.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

So there was a very handsome man standing outside who worked there, standing outside, yes, and he had very muscular arms. And then I said, Hey man, do a push-up, why don't you? Because he very clearly has very muscular arms. That's the joke. And he laughed and he was like, Oh my god, do I need to? And I was like, No, you're so like strong. And he's like, Oh my gosh, you're so sweet. Do you want to come in and get a drink? And I'm like, Okay. So he got us some free drinks and we just chit-chatted. And he lived in Nashville and he went to school at Rosen School. And he's so nice, so sweet, so handsome. And uh it really was a magical, I don't know what you would call it in Nintendo, a power-up moment. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Oh, yes, power up, a power bottom moment.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

I got a free life from this experience.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

So we were sitting down in the restaurant and we were so grateful for our drinks, but then one of us, it was probably me, was like, I really wanted to order food, but we didn't really have that opportunity. We did not. But it was very kind and the drink was delicious. It had boba on the top and on the bottom. The bottom was like popping boba. The top was like little stars that I guess wouldn't you wouldn't call it boba, but it was like a fun thing to chew in your drink. Yeah, Dale actually, he doesn't like boba and he was craving it yesterday. I love boba all the time. It is my favorite drink.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Boba in the morning. Boba in the evening, in the evening. When boba is bobael, you can get up anytime.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Anytime. I also love bagel bites, but I can't have them.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Oh, bagel bites. I'm gonna hold on. I'm gonna text Dale to see if we can get some bagel bites.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I can't have them anymore because I'm old and my body's like, what are you doing? It's literally plastic with some with some tomatoes. Yes, and something called bread, Mark? A bagel. The restaurant was really I don't know how big ours is, but this one was huge. You walked in, there was a huge seating room. It was early, so there was nobody there, and there's screens everywhere, and you're like looking out the window, and it's like, I'm toad and I'm making food. And then like another one's just like outside, yay!

SPEAKER_00 29:30

And I'm another toad and I want you to kill me.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

One has a guillotine. There is no guillotine, I'm sorry. There was um, but like a Mario guillotine. Yeah. And then Bowser's like, I'm gonna bite your head off, but also peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches. So I'm a peach girl and you're a daisy girl. Rosalina. Rosalina. Yes, sorry. I meant Rosalina.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

She's coming in the new movie, and she will be voiced by Bree Larson. And I'm so excited because I've been wanting to cosplay her five ever, and I need to do her wig. I'm gonna do that thing where so I normally buy my cosplay wigs when I'm gonna do that thing where I'm gonna try to make it where I take two wigs, but I cut up the wefts and then I put it there, and then I um what's it called? Uh, crimp it so that it has more texture. And then I'm gonna do, I'm gonna try to do all the things. And then if I get really frustrated and cry, I'll call the beautician beast and be like, can you style me a wig, please?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

So the last two things we'll talk about are the two stores. So there's a few stores. We only experienced two: the one up factory, which is like the generic Mario store, and then Funkies Flying By, which is that crashed plane that had some Donkey Kong merchants.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Oh, Dale bought something there. I went into it. It was small. It was like a yes, like a uh New York place that you get like a newsstand. That's what it was. It was like a newsstand, but for a little bodega.

unknown 30:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

The bodega of Donkey Kong Land.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Uh yeah, and they they were selling stuff. It was a cool set, a cool store. The other one was just looks like the one we have in Florida, but you know, it was cool themed. They had every character you could want. Every there was something that you guys wanted that they didn't make, they only sold in Japan that they didn't sell here.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

A boom hat, a kaboom hat, but they had like a big floppy one and not like a um not kick baseball hat? Yeah, baseball cap one.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

So yeah. Um, so there is some stuff that is unique to Japan that we don't have.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

So any final thoughts on our favorite land, Super Nintendo World? It was nice. It was a great land. We just spent the least amount of time in it. It was very crowded. Um, and it's it's you know, it's all repeats. It's nothing new or original, but it was beautiful, spectacular, aesthetically pleasing, very well done.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

That's the thing, the bar from the other lands is just so high that this is an A class land. It's just Burke is S plus plus plus plus tier, and everyone else is A. Like again, I think because of Igor and how much fun you and I had in Monsters or Darkmoor, that was my second Burke is my favorite, that is my second, and then Wizarding or Wizards and Mario are tied for third. But then also Celestial Park is probably tied with Burke, but I'm a woo-woo celestial girl.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

So that one is hard to count as a land or not, because it is a land, but it is like the entrance land.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Yeah, but it does have an attraction, it does have Captain Cow, and it does have soup dumplings, so it does.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

And originally, I guess there were celestials that walked around, but they were literally there only the first day of cast previews, and then they never came back. So, you know, there were supposed to be characters. Um, yeah, loved Mario, it's great. You can see it from my hotel room.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Just Jasmine's hotel room.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

No one's just hotel room. It's beautiful, it's enchanting, it looks better at night. Um, the characters aren't as exciting because they're like, you know, not face characters. What do you call it? Like costume stuffies. Stuffies, but you know, I always see cool interactions people have with Toad. I don't know how people fit in that costume. It's tiny. Yeah. Love Mario. Would recommend, would recommend Donkey Kong. Definitely go there, but just, you know, you're probably gonna want to spend more time in the other lands. Yeah. Also, like, you know, kids. I love kids. And I, you know, there's kids in every other land, but they're like concentrated here in a way that I'm like, I can't see you because you're below my sight line and you're you're doing the thing I want to do, and I'm waiting in line for it, but then another kid comes up and does it. And I can't say, like, you can't do that, kid, because they're a kid and this is their land, but like I'm waiting in line and I'm gonna die before you, so I should be able to do it first.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

This land is kids' land. This land is the land. Yeah, it was a lot of, and I get it. It looks like a jungle gym. Of course, the kids are gonna run around. It's so colorful. I get it. The kids wanna be free.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

On that note, to all who come to this happy podcast, welcome.