Episode 348: We are joined again this week by James as Jason is currently in Walt Disney World. We discuss the latest Disney news. The CEO has made a lot of headlines this week. We have updates on Tron and Guardians. Disney is adding more lightning lane capacity with meet & greets and the Festival of Fantasy parade. The first trailer for the Obi-wan series was released along with the first visual of Darth Vader. There is also a new record for the Every Ride Challenge that happened this week.
Episode 346: James joins us once again this week as we catch up on the latest Disney news. Disney is in the community building business once again but will this be more like Epcot or Celebration 2.0? Story Living is Disney’s out of the blue new way of making money without having to shoulder much of the work. In other news, Disney rules the box office again with Spiderman No Way Home. The prices for day tickets have increased once again and Disney has changed their mask policy to only be required on transportation. Disney has also been busy collecting data via surveys. One in particular caught our attention this week was about guests who have upcoming voyages booked on the Galactic Starcruiser.
Episode 345: Jason is back this week and we talk about maximizing Genie Plus! With the Q1 earnings call happening this past week, we know for sure that Genie is here to stay. We give our thoughts on how to improve it and how to best use it for your next trip. We also discuss more about the Q1 earnings call and what more we can expect Disney and CEO to do as a result. We also talk about some Genie Plus news. Jon and I have finished watching Book of Boba Fett and we try to talk about our feelings on season 1 without spoiling the ending for Jason. Another big Star Wars story in the news was the release date for the Obiwan Kenobi series on Disney Plus. I talk about how excited I am about it until I see who all is involved with the production and then I start getting nervous. How do you feel about the Obiwan Series?
Episode: 344. Today on the show we catch up on the latest Disney news and the Book of Boba Fett. its bee a few weeks since we talked about news so we do a quick recap of some of the top stories. we also catch up on discussing the Book of Boba Fett. It has gotten really good over the last few episodes!
Episode 342: Jon just returned from a trip to Walt Disney World! He goes through his trip in which he stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge. He gives his review of the resort and his recommendation for room location. He also had several dining reviews at places like, Coral Reef, Boma and Skipper Canteen. He also tried Genie Plus for the first time and he gives us his experience with that. Now that we’ve all had experience with it, should we give our list of pros and cons? Let us know!
Episode 341: This week we talk about some news and we give some reviews of some of the recent things we’ve watched on Disney+…We also go through some park strategy from a listener’s email. We get started with some news…We don’t talk about Chapek, no, no, no. (but we kinda do, a lot) The CEO recently talked about the 3 pillars for success in the Walt Disney Company and we go through each one. We cover some of the other recent news and then move into our Disney Plus reviews of Encanto and Book of Boba Fett. We wrap the show by going through a listener’s email about park strategy in 2022. We weigh in with our thoughts on a 2 day strategy for fitting in all 4 parks.
Episode 339: Jason just return from an impromptu trip to Walt Disney World. He is the first of us to try out Genie Plus and the individual lightning lane for a couple of attractions. Jason gives us his opinion on it and lets us know how he would improve it. Before we get to all of that we did cover some of the news. There was a new parade of emergency vehicles on Mainstreet recently but not the kind that we want to see every night. Bob isn’t happy about his reputation but will he do anything to reverse that? We also all weigh in on the galactic start cruiser and its questionable marketing strategy. Also, we acknowledge that we recorded this episode on December 15th…55 years since Walt left us.
Episode 338: We are back after the Thanksgiving break and we decided that with all of the negative news lately that we should take a look back at some happy Disney memories that we have had over the years! But first we hit some of the latest headlines from the past couple of weeks. There was a lackluster Disney parks update from Josh D’Amaro. There are a more shakeups in the leadership of the company. (Hopefully for the better) and Disney World has stopped selling annual passes. We all saw different things on Disney+ over the break and we give our reviews. Then we get into the happy Disney memories segment. We start by talking about our favorite holiday memories at Disney and the conversation evolves from there. We hope that it will be more uplifting than what the current vibe is around the Disney community right now.
Episode 335: We are back this week with another stellar episode! We discuss what we like about the being Annual Passholders at Walt Disney World. Jason is excited after booking his second Disney cruise so we talk about Disney Cruise line and what we can expect while sailing during the times that we are in. We also cover some news like the petition to fire a certain CEO, parking lot trams wont be coming back until at least 2022, and club level is starting to come back to the resorts at Walt Disney World. Oh yeah, we also give some updated thoughts on the Disney Genie and what we think of it two weeks since it went live. Jason doesn’t hold back.
Episode: 334 Well, it happened. Disney Genie is now officially a thing. We got a chance to play around with it and listened to a lot of first hand experience with the new service. We give our honest opinions of the service. We also go through each park and give a thumbs up or down on whether or not we think it is worth the extra money to add to your day. We also have other news to discuss. There’s a new road project around the Grand Floridian that got out attention. Could something new be planned for that area around the Magic Kingdom? Also, there’s some concerning news out of Imagineering. It seems that not everyone is willing to make the move to Florida. Could we be entering a new dark age for Imagineering?
Episode 332: This week Jon previews his upcoming trip to Walt Disney World! We also revisit our thoughts on the new nighttime spectaculars and see if our thoughts have changed now that we have had a week to mull it over. We also discuss some news like the return of character meets. It will be a modified experience than it was pre-covid but at least the character meets are coming back! Also, the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular is return in December. Cast compliments can now be done on the My Disney Experience app and passholders are soon going to have exclusive effects when entering the parks at the tap-styles. During Jon’s trip this week he plans to see the new nighttime shows in person and will also dine at Ohana and Steakhouse 71. We look forward to hearing all about it next week!
Episode 331: Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World! Jason and I just return from our last pre-50th trip and we have a report on what we saw there last week. At the time of our recording we just finished watching the Disney Enchantment fireworks show that is replacing Happily Ever After. We give our unfiltered feedback of it. We also give our review of Harmonious which just debuted at Epcot. We like one of them much more than the other. We experience Ratatouille Adventure and we dined at Space 220. We give our reviews of those as well. I purchased some of the 50th anniversary merch and I talk about what that experience was like. We also hung out at Trader Sam’s for the first time this trip. And experienced our first evac off of a ride. All in all a lot of new things that we experienced this week at Walt Disney World! What are you most excited about?
Episode:329 In today’s episode we talk a lot about food! Space 220’s menu is released and we take a look through it and talk about what catches our eye. Jason and I try to decide if the menu is enticing enough for us to try and get in the walk-up line for it. Yes, that’s right there’s no reservations for the first week, it is walk-up only. We also have a debate over how popular this restaurant will be. Space 220 comes with an out of this world price tag on the prix fixe menu. In other culinary news, some more buffet style restaurants are re-opening soon and we quickly rank the best sit-down restaurants at Magic Kingdom. In some non-culinary news Primeval Whirl looks like it will finally get demolished and Finding Nemo will get a new show next year. We only hope that the new show will be a little bit shorter than the last one. To wrap the show Jon and I do a brief recap of our trip to Disney 20 years ago. We were at Disney just 2 days after 9/11 in 2001. It was certainly a surreal experience.
Episode 328: Today we discuss the latest Disney news and we tease a trip report from Jason! I say tease because don’t actually get to it. Why? well, Jason fell asleep while doing the show. See if you can spot when it happens. Before all of that excitement, we start the show by mancrushing on Josh D’amaro. (hence, the title of the episode) We also discuss the new additions to the parks for the 50th anniversary. Ratatouille had a bit of a fender bender that caused some delay during the passholder previews. Lightning Lane signs continue to replace the old Fast pass+ signs. Expedition Everest will undergo its lengthiest refurbishment next year. We hope it is to fix the yeti but Jason places a wager that it won’t happen. Let’s hold him to it but only if he’s wrong. Creations gift shop is suppose to open in a few days at Epcot but will Club Cool?
Episode: 326 We catch up on the news this week and talk more about the Disney Genie. After a week to mull over the Disney Genie news we discuss how we feel about it today. In other news The monorail continues to have issues. Fingerprint scanning is back. Club cool is nearing completion. Rumors are circulating that the budget has been slashed for the Splash mountain retheme to Princess and the Frog. We really hope that these rumors turn out to be false. This leads us into a discussion about how the Chapek era so far has been a season of price hikes and decreased value. Perhaps some competition from Universal can help? Let us know your thoughts!
Episode 325: Disney finally let the Genie out of the lamp this week but is he working for Aladdin or Jafar? We break down what we think of the new paid fastpass service. Can we find a silver lining? We have known that this was coming for quite a while and now that it is here, we break down what we know about it. We are quick to say that it could certainly have been far worse in terms of the type of money grab that most people think that it is. That being said, we aren’t that happy with fastpass being a paid service now. We go through what attractions will be included in the lightning lane only upcharge for each park. Rumors are that there will be 2 attractions at each park that will require the per ride fee. We also, look at each park and decide would we pay the $15 per person fee for the Disney Genie+ service. Our answers might surprise you. In other news, I go through the list of construction projects and what we think will be the current opening time for each. We wrap up the show with a rapid fire of other news stories from the week.
Episode 322: I discuss my most recent trip to Walt Disney World to rekindle the magic. With all of the recent negative news about price hikes and money grabs I needed a good weekend at Walt Disney World to remind us why we love it so much. My weekend trip did just that! One of the often overlooked factors as to why Disney is so great is those special Cast Members that create magic for you. It may not happen every trip but in my experience there’s always at least one Cast Member that goes above and beyond to make a memorable experience for me. I tell about a few of those cast members that I came across this weekend. We do begin the Episode by discussing some of the news going on in the world of Disney. The big story of the week is the mask mandate returning for all guests indoors. This decision comes on the heels of the CDC guidance update in response to the delta variant. The Destination D23 event is already sold out but we preview some of the presentations and we can’t wait to hear from Josh D’amaro!
Episode 297: Today we say our goodbye’s to 2020! We also do some predictions about the next 10 years and what attractions do we think will see major changes and which ones won’t see much at all. We do discuss some of the latest news also like, we totally spoil the ending of Mandalorian season 2 so if you are the person that hasn’t seen it yet…ye’ve been warned. We also discuss the news of Snow White’s Enchanted Wish being revealed at Disneyland. This episode ended up being a little all over the place but we really enjoyed making it. We hope you all have a safe and happy new year…Here’s to 2021!
Episode 296: We discuss the latest Disney parks news but we focus a lot of attention on the plethora of new content coming to Disney+ over the next few years. (Along with a price hike). The roller coasters at WDW are starting to fill every row now and the parks are still feeling as crowded as ever even though the attendance is at 35% of capacity. However, as we discuss, 35% is not that far off from regular attendance at non-peak times. The Electric Water Pageant is making it’s return this week! We go through each of the Disney IP’s that are adding a lot of content to Disney+ and some to theaters. Star Wars is adding a lot of new shows and a movie or two as it rides the success of the Mandalorian.
Episode 293: There was quite a bit of news to discuss this week. Mickey Mouse had a birthday and so did our very own Jon…We discovered that he and Mickey are exactly 50 years apart in Age. We did get a few updates on attractions that are under construction. The biggest update was from the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster coming to Epcot. We got to see the train in action, as well as a peek inside the massive show building for the coaster. Josh D’Amaro confirmed that Ratatouille will be opening in 2021 and that the retheme of Splash Mountain to Princess and the Frog will be happening sooner than later. We mention 2 stories this week from teenagers doing dumb things at Walt Disney World and getting caught for it. We wrap up the news with stories that broke Dis Twitter this week. The new McDonalds toys, Testing of Fireworks at Magic Kingdom, and Figment got a new sweater! Jon gives us some details on his upcoming trip so be looking for his trip report after Thanksgiving. We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday….Wear a mask!
