Adventures by Disney 2023

abd2023

[00:00:00] Dan: Welcome back to another meeting of the Gold Key. Adventurers Society. My name is Dan Leonard,

[00:00:06] Jeff: Hi, Dan.

[00:00:07] Dan: joining me this week in the studio is Heather

[00:00:09] Heather: Hello.

[00:00:11] Dan: and Mr. Jeff Williams.

[00:00:13] Jeff: that's me.

[00:00:14] Dan: It sure is. Our show, as always, is brought to you by Key to the World Travel. Key to the World. Travel is a full service travel agency specializing in Theme parks, cruising, and destinations around the world.

Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com for more details into no obligation quote on the vacation of a lifetime. So you've been to Walt Disney World or Disneyland a few times. Maybe you've even, you have just a.

[00:00:40] Heather: Or twice.

[00:00:41] Dan: Maybe you've thought about branching out and taking a cruise on Disney Cruise Line, or visited Aulani Resort in Hawaii.

What is the next step for a globe trotting Disney fan, much like yourself?

[00:00:52] Heather: That's a great question, Dan.

[00:00:55] Jeff: I am gonna guess Adventurers by Disney.

[00:00:58] Dan: That's right. We'd

[00:00:59] Jeff: Ding.

[00:01:00] Dan: that you take an expedition with Adventurers by Disney. These guided immersive tours allow you to explore the world while enjoying the special brand of hospitality and storytelling that you've come to love on other Disney vacations. This week we're gonna give you the lowdown on what an Adventurers by Disney trip is all about.

Starting with what is Adventurers by Disney?

[00:01:18] Heather: What is it Dan? Tell

[00:01:20] Dan: is it?

[00:01:21] Jeff: Does Mickey Mouse go to Europe with you?

[00:01:24] Dan: Absolutely not. You're, this is guided tour groups by Disney, but without all of the cartoon. I guess there's occasionally a little bit of cartooniness, but that's mostly for the kids. It's really just a high

[00:01:40] Jeff: It's touring with all the customer service expertise that Disney's known for.

[00:01:46] Dan: The customer service, the storytelling, the attention to detail, hospitality, like I said it's really a different experience for most guided tour groups.

[00:01:55] Heather: really making the entire world accessible for families. There are adult exclusive departures, which we will talk about, but the biggest difference for me is how much it makes. Visiting places all around the globes. E so easy and so accessible for families. If you wanna start traveling with your kids to places outside the US when they're younger, which I

[00:02:19] Jeff: No thanks.

[00:02:21] Heather: I think it's the best thing to do. My kids started traveling outside the US when they were babies and. It's hard to do that when you have younger kids or a big group, multi-generational group

[00:02:33] Jeff: And don't live in Europe.

[00:02:35] Heather: Yeah. Or on your own. It's tough, but they make it so easy for everyone in the entire family to have a great time everywhere they go.

[00:02:43] Dan: and the other thing that they do is they really work on giving you an authentic experience of the place and the people that you're visiting. I've only been on one guided group tour, and that was many years ago, but you're not going to be. there's no like corporate partnerships here. It's like you're not going to go to France and be taken to a perfumery by a company that the tour group

[00:03:10] Heather: Makes money

on.

[00:03:12] Dan: with.

You're not going to go to Switzerland and visit the Swatch store.

[00:03:15] Jeff: Oh, I'd like to,

[00:03:17] Dan: you can on your own time, but they're not gonna drag you there and make you listen to

[00:03:21] Heather: The

[00:03:21] Jeff: yeah. Sales

[00:03:22] Heather: The couple that I've done that drove me nuts or one was in Turkey and one was in Egypt, and we spent half the excursion in a a rug factory to. Like really hard sales pitch on very expensive silk rugs. And honestly, nobody on this group was one. It was there on this vacation wanting to buy a $20,000 Persian rug.

They're very beautiful and wa it was very interesting watching some of them be woven, but it was a hard sell and it was not fun. And they, the tour group. a kickback for any that people bought, and that happens a lot on those trips.

[00:04:05] Dan: If you visit that factory with Adventurers by Disney, you're not getting that hard sell. You're very likely going to be they're gonna teach you about the symbolism of the patterns and what they mean, and then they're probably gonna give you a chance to get your hands on and try the craft of weaving the

[00:04:21] Jeff: and they usually leave there with a little something free or included,

[00:04:25] Dan: right.

[00:04:26] Jeff: like we've been to chocolate factories and weaving things and little, all sorts of little. Places where they make things that are popular in that culture and you leave there with something, you don't, you're not sold something. No hard sell.

[00:04:39] Dan: there's a lot of cooking, hands-on lessons, learning traditional things, traditional arts and crafts, Spanish mosaics, and you bring home a home, custom made tile and all kinds of stuff. Another big difference. From other guided tours, and this is one that is really one of their big standouts that they're very proud of, is the guides themselves, the adventure guys with Adventurers by Disney.

[00:05:03] Heather: The guides are extraordinary and really make the trip. You have, if you're on a traditional land guided tour with Disney, you'll have two adventure guides and a local guide. But then when you're on some of their other trips like Expedition or R River Cruising, you're gonna have five to six adventure guides along with local guides. And the best part is that there's always one guide who's in charge of the junior Adventurers, the kids. and there's so many opportunities that they offer the kids that the adults wouldn't be interested in. The adults are doing things that maybe will bore the kids. The, there's an adventure guide who's taking the kids and giving them an experience that they'll have fun with.

[00:05:50] Dan: Speak for yourself. I wanna go play hide and seek in a ancient

[00:05:54] Heather: I know this is true. When we did England and France, we were at the Louv and the adults were with the local guide and the kids were doing a scavenger hunt. And I wanted to do the scavenger hunt with the children because it looked really fun. And the luv, I've been to the Lou and it's not,

[00:06:16] Jeff: I do not

[00:06:17] Heather: don't know.

I didn't, I don't love it. It's not my favorite place in Paris, and we were there in the summer when it's hot and, but the local guide was very knowledgeable and definitely took the group to all the highlights that you would wanna see if you were going

there for your only

[00:06:34] Jeff: place to navigate on

[00:06:35] Heather: Oh, it

[00:06:36] Jeff: she did do a great job at here's Mona Lisa, here's blah, blah. Here's a thousand paintings of Jesus Christ.

[00:06:44] Heather: Yes, in one room.

[00:06:46] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:06:47] Dan: So beyond being they really are experts on the place that you're visiting, but they also They also pay really close attention to your needs and what the group needs, what each individual person needs, and what will make the trip perfect for you so that you don't have to worry about anything and you're taken care of.

[00:07:07] Jeff: They're so well planned. With that stuff about the, when we were doing a behind the scenes kind of tour of Disneyland Disney, California adventure, and like I had no sooner thought to myself, I'm thirsty, that our guide Christian walked up behind me and handed me a water along with every one of the other waters like.

Just before you even think you need a thing, they've got it right there for you. It's not an organized like at exactly this time we'll have liquid. It's just stuff is always readily available for you and

[00:07:39] Heather: Just paying attention

[00:07:40] Dan: Yeah.

[00:07:41] Heather: and listening and yeah,

[00:07:43] Jeff: they're like, this guy is sweating a lot. We should get waters for

[00:07:46] Heather: get him a water

[00:07:47] Dan: That guy looks hangry. Somebody get a snicker stat

[00:07:50] Heather: We

need a

[00:07:51] Jeff: a slim Jim

[00:07:52] Dan: Yeah. Yeah. They're ready. They notice when you need the snacks, you need the water, you need a Tylenol. They're also there to help snap some photos for you so that you don't have to spend all your time with your phone out taking pictures.

[00:08:08] Jeff: they give 'em all to you on a file after you're done. So pictures you didn't even know were being taken of yourself or there you with your friends or your family, whatever. You don't have to always be the one. I'm always the picture taking guy, so I'm never in pictures. It's always nice to have that.

[00:08:24] Heather: And every guide has a backpack full of whatever might happen along the way that you might need,

like when I

[00:08:31] Jeff: Band-Aid. Band. Band-aids and

[00:08:34] Heather: bee in Stupid Monet's house B.

[00:08:38] Jeff: was that you? Did you get

[00:08:39] Heather: Yeah. I was taking a photo of a flower and there was no sign of any insect anywhere, and all of a sudden I, it felt like I'd been stabbed with a white hot needle. It was some kind of wasp got me

[00:08:53] Jeff: that whatever got you was horrible. You could see the poison running through your veins.

[00:08:58] Heather: yeah. It was not fun and it hurt worse than any bee st or

[00:09:02] Dan: It's those angsty, angry French

[00:09:06] Heather: French Hornets. Yes. Oof. And

[00:09:09] Jeff: thing I love it has to do with them meeting needs is the second something goes wrong schedule-wise. Like we were supposed to go, where was that? In London. We were supposed to go

[00:09:20] Heather: in London. We were gonna be going to Westminster Abbey

[00:09:24] Jeff: ah, yes.

That was when an,

[00:09:26] Heather: the Houses of Parliament.

[00:09:27] Jeff: a terror attempt had been. Attempted there, it was thwarted, but they had the area all closed off. And before we even knew any of this had happened, they had completely rerouted our entire day. We never skipped a beat. We just like went and did the one other thing we were gonna do later and then switched to a different cathedral earlier or later in the day.

It was just amazing just, and if you're at somewhere like where they're so connected like that, they can call ahead and if it's not quite time for you to enter the thing, they find another. Fun thing for you to do while you hide your time till they can get you connected to, to get you into the museum or show or whatever thing you're going to, so you're never standing around waiting.

[00:10:10] Dan: Yeah, and so let's talk a second also while we're on the subject of that access, about the kind of access that Adventurers by Disney gets to some of these places, because it's not like when you plan. If you go to say, this is like, adventurous by Disney is one of their favorite examples to use. But if you go to the Sistine

[00:10:30] Heather: Vatican.

[00:10:31] Dan: Yeah.

If you go to the Vatican and you wanna see the Sistine Chapel, you're gonna be typically herded through there with hundreds of other people.

[00:10:40] Heather: not allowed to take photos. You're not allowed to take photos in. This is teen Chapel unless you're there with Disney, which is that's right. , at which point they take you there after hours or at the end of hours.

they do. Sometimes they do before it opens. Sometimes they do after hours. Either way, you're there before it opens, and you have your own Swiss guard who's taking your group.

and they, this is one of my favorite parts about this story, of this spec specific expedit excursion, expedition excursion on the Italy trip is that all the doors are, these buildings are so old and the locks are still super old. School giant locks with the Swiss Guard has these sets of keys that the key is like a foot long and.

Opening, unlocking every door, bringing your group in and then locking it behind them. You're, it's that exclusive and you're in the Sistine Chapel with no one else, and they let you lay on the floor and take pictures of the ceiling and it's absolutely extraordinary and just crazy cool access. They let the kid, there's a, they always let a kid take one of the giant keys and unlock a door and stuff like that.

It's. It's just that kind of thing you can't get anywhere else.

[00:12:02] Dan: In China, you get a private performance from the Hong Kong Opera, I believe it is. Go to Austria and after the zoo in Vienna shuts down, they. Bring you out and you get dinner in the

[00:12:18] Heather: take over the zoo.

[00:12:20] Dan: Yeah. For just your group of and there's no more than a few dozen people on this

[00:12:25] Heather: Yes. Land Adventurers ca are capped at no more than 40 people.

[00:12:29] Dan: right.

[00:12:30] Heather: Typically, there's around 30

[00:12:33] Dan: They open up the zoo or how about you go on the, on the Southern California trip and what did you guys get to do backstage? Nobody else will ever do this unless you take this trip.

[00:12:46] Heather: oh a few

[00:12:48] Dan: green.

[00:12:49] Heather: What's that?

[00:12:51] Dan: Didn't you meet somebody green and

[00:12:53] Jeff: Hello,

[00:12:53] Heather: Oh, yes. The Jim Hunton Studios and Kermit. I was, I've, I have a whole list of things we got to do on that one

that you can, which one are you talking

[00:13:03] Dan: There's Muffet studios when

[00:13:05] Heather: Frog here? Yes.

[00:13:07] Jeff: Jim Timson studio. Unreal for me, like the Muppets have been my number one jam since I was a, since they premiered. I remember watching the premier episode live on television when I lived in Hawaii. It was amazing. I fell completely in love with them. And so to get to go to Jim Henson's studios and see all these examples of some of the earlier Carmen to designs and things, get to see him, I got to do hands-on with and not Kermit.

It was just who was some random

[00:13:36] Heather: of the it was one of the Fraggle Rock

[00:13:39] Jeff: Yeah, it was a real character, but one of them puppeteers taught me how to, attempted to teach me

[00:13:44] Heather: It's harder

than

[00:13:46] Jeff: so hard to

[00:13:47] Dan: Yeah.

[00:13:48] Heather: Yeah, that is Jim Henson Studios isn't open to the public or any other tour company. We also went to Walt Disney and Imagineering, which. Is so cool. So did we've actually done that trip more than once. And it depends on what they're working on in some of the spots, how much you'll get to see the first time we went because they take you back where they're working on the miniatures of new.

Rides. And the first time we went, or yeah, the first time we went, we saw them working with the maquettes and stuff. The second time we did this one, the whole area was behind black curtains. Jeff has a fun story about how we figured out what was going on behind the curtains, how we accidentally

[00:14:37] Jeff: Yeah, a guy round at a corner holding you talking about that where the guy had the Yeah, cuz it's been there three times and things like that happened. But this guy literally just came out from behind a curtain not realizing the tour was standing right there. And he's holding like about a quarter or a third of Galaxy's Edge.

[00:14:55] Heather: Yeah.

[00:14:56] Jeff: in a tiny little they have all these different scale

[00:14:59] Heather: what was going on behind the black curtains, that they were

[00:15:02] Jeff: runs a corner and like, oh, . Like whoopsy, I'm fired.

[00:15:06] Heather: One of the times we were there, they were working on some new rides for Shanghai or

[00:15:12] Jeff: Yeah. It was the Beauty and the Beast ride and land there.

[00:15:15] Heather: Was that for Tokyo, Disneyland, or, think it was. It

[00:15:20] Jeff: the Asian parks has, I think it opened maybe a year after we were there that time, but it's one of the newer beauty rides. But they had a top down, like the roof, like if you took the roof off the ride, the entire ride, all the little things in the car, and they were looking at how you run.

And because those designs had already been made public and everybody knew what it would look like, they weren't as secretive about that. So we got to look at it and ask questions

[00:15:46] Heather: The other time there was something, they were working on a new parade and there were miniatures of a new parade. and they take you into the sculpture room. So much cool stuff, and that's not open to the public. You can't just go in and see Walt Disney Imagineering. We get the Walt Disney Studios.

You get access to that on that tour. The, it's called Southern California and Hollywood. Now. I think it used to be called Backstage Magic. That one is a fantastic one because they, it's all their own stuff, right? So you get access to some really neat things on

[00:16:23] Jeff: And they can on the fly just decide, Hey, we're here. Come look at this thing if people are available or it's not gonna give too much

[00:16:31] Heather: We've been through Walt's apartment on that one. Sometimes you'll get a tour of Club 33 on that one. We did a a 1901, which is a, the club 33 location in Disney, California Adventure. We got on that trip. Very cool stuff. And then they have they have stuff all over the world of a lot of domestic departures, which is how I saw a lot of the national parks out west for the first

[00:16:59] Jeff: See any red rocks.

[00:17:00] Heather: many Red Rocks. Yeah. Arizona, Utah trip that goes from Arizona and up, you see the Grand Canyon and arches, Nat National Park. That was a very cool trip. Some really neat national park stuff that I'd are bucket list things. I felt like, ah, I gotta see these before I die. And

[00:17:21] Jeff: and they make time for luxury on that one. Cuz didn't you start in Sedona there for

[00:17:25] Heather: Yeah, you start in Sedona at this beautiful resort called the Enchantment Resort, and I wanted to stay there the entire time.

[00:17:34] Jeff: You guys have fun out in the desert.

[00:17:37] Dan: Yeah.

[00:17:37] Heather: there were tarantulas on the sides of a couple of buildings. But that's Arizona

[00:17:43] Dan: Right.

[00:17:44] Heather: for ya.

[00:17:44] Dan: And they do there's a mix of. like we said, the active, more adventurous things. You're always in really nice hotels. Many meals are included and they're always

[00:17:58] Jeff: Yeah. Almost all the meals are included.

[00:18:01] Heather: Sometimes there's some of a lunch here or there that's not.

[00:18:05] Dan: Sometimes they say, go out and explore on your own. But I just wanted to like hit some of the other things on itineraries around the world that you can do, if you go to Vietnam, you can go into the tunnels used by Vietcong during the war, and they'll let the kids crawl around through the crawl spaces in the tunnels.

[00:18:23] Heather: Oh man.

[00:18:24] Dan: In Japan you can be down ringside in the sand while sumo wrestlers are doing their

[00:18:32] Jeff: Oh, I would love that.

[00:18:33] Dan: Oh,

[00:18:33] Heather: Isn't there some samurai stuff on the

Japan?

[00:18:37] Dan: anymore. That's the old itinerary. Switzerland. There's some really cool, go up into the mountains to a little like farmhouse and make goat cheese and stuff like that. Like we said, a lot of cooking stuff.

[00:18:50] Heather: Yeah, you

[00:18:51] Dan: France you made chocolate?

[00:18:53] Jeff: A lot of those things sound boring and stupid on paper, especially to teens or 50 year olds that have the. But they always wind up being really fun, hiking, archery. I still wouldn't go back to archery, probably just,

[00:19:07] Heather: But

[00:19:08] Jeff: but it was fun.

[00:19:09] Heather: and you were good at it.

[00:19:11] Jeff: I would've also had fun doing anything else,

[00:19:14] Dan: Yeah.

[00:19:15] Heather: that's, that

[00:19:15] Jeff: there's a lot of variety is the point.

[00:19:18] Dan: Yeah. Go to Buenos iris and there's a lot of cultural visit. These beautiful old libraries learn how to cook In a library. It's weird.

Yeah. So yeah, there's all kinds of different activities that you can do especially on the on the river cruises

[00:19:42] Jeff: was just gonna say that.

[00:19:44] Heather: there are typically more several things than you get to

[00:19:48] Jeff: Or sometimes a morning, then an afternoon. You can do one or the other, or neither or both. So they make that, and then often you choose like the Straits all went off kayaking while I did not

[00:20:01] Dan: And often there's an option with the river cruises to like do a morning activity if you want to eat lunch in the town, or you can go back to the ship and eat on the ship and then go back out for an afternoon activity.

[00:20:13] Heather: Jeff and I took our families on a river cruise and one day we all split up in different directions and a couple of us were actually in Germany and a couple of us were in France. It was because of the way the Rhine sort of straddles countries that my kids always liked to talk about that day.

Like me, dad and I were in Germany and you and Owen were in France.

[00:20:35] Dan: So let's talk real quick about the types of chips, cuz they have basically. There's a few others, but there's three main

[00:20:40] Heather: Three, essentially.

[00:20:41] Dan: So they've got land Adventurers, which are like your traditional, what you think of when you think of a guided group tour. You go somewhere

[00:20:49] Jeff: a lot of buses, two places.

[00:20:52] Heather: trains, planes, trains, automobiles.

[00:20:54] Dan: Yes, all of those are taken care of, included in the the booking of the trip. They handle all of your transfers. They even handle all of your luggage for you, so

[00:21:04] Heather: your luggage. That's magical.

[00:21:07] Dan: So that's nice. And the land Adventurers, and that's a lot of the ones that we've talked about the itineraries on already.

Then there's also, they, these are relatively newer and really popular, just in travelers in general, is the river cruise expeditions that

[00:21:23] Jeff: The river cruising, for whatever reason, for a lot of years, used to be an old person thing, whether. . It was true or not. That was the impression of it. But Adventurers by Disney really started getting more family oriented with some of this, because they work with Amma waterways and have some rooms that are big enough to house families and some of that they never had on

[00:21:45] Heather: Or at least are connected.

[00:21:47] Jeff: cruises.

[00:21:47] Heather: Of options for larger families, which typically River cruises were, it's a two person room and that's it. And it's just how they've always been.

[00:21:58] Jeff: It was like retired, couple

[00:21:59] Heather: It's been tricky. I'm not sure why it took so long for someone to get into the family space on that. It was really lacking for a very long time until Disney got into the category.

[00:22:11] Dan: And it's an amazing concept. You've got this floating hotel and every morning you wake up in a new fantastic city. So the river cruises that they do with Adventurers by Disney are, they do a Rhine River cruise Dan Cruise, and they do one on the sun also. And also the da, they have different themed ones on the Danube, and these are ones.

Look really cool. They do like one to visit Christmas markets. They do a October Fest themed one And those are adult exclusive ones.

[00:22:42] Jeff: I'd love to see both of those. Those are on by

[00:22:46] Dan: Yes. Yeah. They've got cruise through Switzerland, France, and Germany on the Rhine, the Danube, his Germany, Austria, and Hungary. And then the sun is the sun.

[00:23:00] Heather: the sun

[00:23:01] Jeff: as all places you think you've never heard of till you get there and realize what they're

[00:23:05] Dan: Right.

[00:23:06] Heather: and also gets you to the to Normandy for

the D-Day

[00:23:10] Jeff: A lot of the World War II.

Sites. And not only like if you think, ah, just my grandpa wants to hear about World War ii. Even if you're not a World War II buff, or think you're not interested in all that, the places you go are stunningly beautiful anyway. And then of course, everything there that happened.

But if you're not into all the details of that, you can wander around these beautiful areas and see some amazing stuff. And if you don't want to, don't learn about World War ii, whatever

[00:23:36] Dan: Yeah you're still in this beautiful French countryside, which is.

[00:23:40] Jeff: Yeah, the beaches around the whole Normandy area, they're just incredible. We went to these quaint little beachside boardwalk town and all kinds of little, I had never heard of any of these places. They were all gorgeous.

[00:23:53] Dan: And then the last main category that they have is the expedition cruises. And these are larger they're not big cruise ships, but they're bigger than a river cruise ship.

[00:24:04] Heather: Yeah, it's like a miniature ocean vessel.

[00:24:07] Jeff: shaped like an Ocean Cruiser, but they're a little bit small.

[00:24:11] Dan: Right. One of those goes to to the Heather, we've talked more than once about going to Antarctica.

[00:24:20] Heather: my new favorite place in the world.

[00:24:22] Dan: They also have one that combines Antarctica plus Patagonia, if you want even more. Variety in your penguins?

[00:24:32] Heather: And that's, yeah, that's the norm with that. Now during Covid, they cut out a lot of the Patagonia from that trip because all of that, the Patagonia stuff is all land based in your.

[00:24:45] Dan: no.

[00:24:46] Heather: Interacting with the general public. Yeah.

[00:24:49] Dan: right? They have two separate itineraries now, so they have one

[00:24:53] Heather: Yes. But I believe the one that's just Antarctic as being phased out because it was specifically because of Covid. So I think that one the Patagonia stuff, I believe is gonna always be, although we ha. It's a, it's very different. Patagonia is so different from where you end up, down in Antarctica, but it is, you have to go there in order to get on your cruise ships.

So they add and it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful area, really cool place in the world. They also do Galapagos

[00:25:26] Dan: the Galapagos. Yeah, I was looking

[00:25:27] Heather: on the Expedition.

[00:25:28] Dan: There's a short one to Buenos Aires. And these ones, especially the the Gala Galapagos, the Antarctic, they are definitely more outdoor active adventure expeditions compared to say, the river cruises. But there is an option that's not as much, and it's a brand new itinerary that they do to the Adriatic.

[00:25:50] Heather: This one looks killer.

[00:25:51] Dan: this one's on my list of ones that I would like to do. So it starts and ends in Venice and basically you go. All down the coast of Croatia and into Monte Negro. Beautiful

[00:26:05] Heather: places.

[00:26:07] Dan: history. It's very, lots of really old ancient cities that are still in use.

[00:26:12] Heather: Croatia is a hot, trendy spot in the world to visit right now too.

[00:26:16] Dan: a lot of food, a lot of locations from Game of Thrones.

[00:26:20] Heather: Yes.

[00:26:20] Jeff: What is that?

[00:26:22] Dan: this TV show with a lot of incest in it. I

[00:26:25] Heather: Williams has never seen.

[00:26:27] Dan: Right thinking person anyway. That one offers you a good mix of, there is biking, but it's. A leisurely bike through this UNESCO World Heritage site that's filled with fields of lavender and vineyards.

You can go kayaking explore caves, but there's also a lot of, we go to this estate and explore the wine cavern that they have and stuff. So there's options for go be adventurous and active outdoors or. Food and history and cool stuff in the old cities,

[00:27:03] Heather: Yes. More food, more history, more wine,

[00:27:08] Dan: Right.

[00:27:08] Jeff: That's my new motto for life.

[00:27:11] Heather: It's pretty good.

[00:27:12] Dan: Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. We've covered a lot of the kinds of, types of different excursions that you take part in. With the with these trips. Should I also say like, typically there's a night on the excursion where they, the adventure guides pull all the junior Adventurers off and they have their own kids only dinner.

[00:27:36] Heather: at least one night, sometimes more than one.

[00:27:39] Dan: they'll do like movie night or some kind of fun kids activities while the adults go and enjoy some really nice fine dining on their own kids free atmosphere there. So that's

[00:27:51] Jeff: They do such a good job with allowing opportunities for that to happen

[00:27:56] Dan: yeah. And they typically also do a farewell dinner the last night where they have some kind of big, phenomenal kind of saying goodbye to your group

[00:28:07] Jeff: often in an exclusive. Kind of place

[00:28:11] Dan: right? Yeah. Like they don't, I don't think they do the Venice one anymore, but like you went to Venice and were on a pirate ship and

[00:28:19] Heather: That looks

really cool.

[00:28:20] Dan: on there.

Yeah.

[00:28:22] Heather: we the England and Paris trip we did our closing dinner was in they closed down an entire restaurant for us, and it's a fairly well known place that makes fancy Macaronis called Lak. And they shut down the whole thing. And we had dinner in the, it was beautiful.

[00:28:42] Jeff: Yeah, the whole restaurant was ours. They had a guy playing accordion, going around and singing and beautiful, and everybody got a beret and fun pictures and all that. But the food was amazing and it was, by this time, you really just kinda have grown to love the people that you're traveling with. And it's always like, the kids are sad to say goodbye.

The adults are, it's really nice.

[00:29:04] Dan: Yeah. And that's one thing that I've heard a lot from people who go is that they really do make connections with the people on their trip. There's people who keep in touch, who plan to go on a fur on another adventure by Disney with people they met on their trip. So it's really a special activity like that.

Real quick what's your favorite place that you've already visited on an Adventurers by Disney Trip.

[00:29:29] Heather: I think everyone already knows what my answer is here,

[00:29:33] Jeff: There are

[00:29:34] Dan: mean the one you've gone to two years

[00:29:36] Jeff: mine was London. I love the age and all the famous things you've seen in London. I got to see some Beatles stuff, some Sherlock Holmes stuff and some. James Bond stuff. They, we were, we did a favorite thing in the favorite place was in London on the Tim's River.

We did the speedboat thing and when we first started off, you go up the river one way and look at all the sites and see Big Ben and all that stuff, the Ferriss wheel and all that, and then they turn around and cruise back through. I was like, this isn't all that fun. Didn't they get out of the no wake zone and turn this thing on?

And it was a fast, oh, we. Not touching the

[00:30:16] Heather: They simulate like a James Bond speedboat. Chase

[00:30:22] Jeff: So there's, there were three of our boat of us in boats, or three boats of us on the one we did. And they would chase and we were wake jumping and it was

[00:30:32] Heather: And oh, they're

[00:30:33] Jeff: And they're

[00:30:34] Heather: the James Bond.

[00:30:35] Jeff: they did James Bond and the the Avengers, the mission Impossible, like all the, it was That was a

[00:30:41] Heather: good

[00:30:41] Jeff: do that again if I'm ever in, in London.

[00:30:44] Heather: my second favorite one was probably either that or the Send River Cruise. I really loved that one too.

[00:30:51] Jeff: I love that. Just for walking around beautiful,

[00:30:54] Heather: That was why, yeah.

[00:30:56] Jeff: unbelievably beautiful little towns. And that was when we actually blew off several of their itiner excursions there. Just on that, that one in general, just cuz where you are is so stunning. I didn't, I was like, Ooh, I just wanna wander and look. And you can do that.

It's no big.

[00:31:13] Dan: Those are places that you love visiting. If you've had a chance to look at what they're currently offering do you have anything that's on your list for what you would really like to try next?

[00:31:24] Heather: I have two Japan and Scotland.

[00:31:27] Dan: Scotland looks really cool.

[00:31:28] Jeff: Not the Arctic

[00:31:31] Heather: Okay.

[00:31:32] Jeff: to see

[00:31:32] Heather: I

also, yeah, I do need to go to the top of the earth since I've gone to the bottom. I do wanna do that one as well.

[00:31:39] Dan: it'd be cool if you could.

[00:31:42] Heather: honestly, I have a long

[00:31:43] Jeff: There's, I'd go to any of 'em. For me, I think to spend the kind of money that, and these things are not cheap, they're amazing, but somewhere like Japan or China would be high on my list because I am not comfortable figuring out where I am and getting around and how to navigate. Just that whole trip in general, putting together my own itinerary.

I want my hand held for those

[00:32:06] Heather: Yeah. That's fair.

[00:32:08] Jeff: and I am. I know myself better well enough to know I'm not gonna do that on my own. So I would want to do it with Adventurers by Disney.

[00:32:17] Dan: right. So I was an overachiever and I picked an itinerary from each of the categories we talked about plus a bonus. So for the expedition cruise that a adrianic one sounds really cool to me. The Antarctic looks really cool, but there's just a little bit more variety of things to do in the Adriatic that appeal to me for the the excursions that they do. And then for a river cruise, any of the Dan River cruises look really good. But the, we mentioned that they do a special octoberfest one that's an adult only one. And they visit a lot of breweries and they do a lot of special food and beer themed excursions. That aren't on the normal itinerary.

And then they also do one that's a Christmas market where a Christmas markets expedition where you go during holiday season and everywhere you stop they take you to these famous the old town square where they have the Christmas market set up outside. And just to see those kind of fairytale places all in their holiday,

[00:33:27] Jeff: All done up in those beautiful lights. It looks so gorgeous, and I just love Christmas. Any.

[00:33:33] Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Who doesn't? Who doesn't like Christmas? That's like not liking the Muppets,

[00:33:40] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Like two places you have to see in your lifetime at Christmastime or New York City and Europe pretty much.

[00:33:47] Heather: Yeah.

[00:33:48] Dan: For a land adventure I was looking through, and this is one that I've never like seen anybody mention going on. It looks amazing. There's a, there's an itinerary that goes northern. It's northern Italy and Switzerland, and so it's a really alpine based trip. And you start a Milan, you spend some time at Lake Como and,

[00:34:08] Heather: Ooh, I would love to see that.

[00:34:10] Dan: Yeah, but then you cross over into Switzerland.

You spend some time in the Alps and end up in Lake Lucerne for a couple of days where you have all these opportunities to go up into the mountains, do these really amazing sounding Sorry, I have to find my, my, the itinerary tab or, yeah the tab for the itinerary. So I can find the excursion, like you can go up to the top of It's the highest peak in Switzerland, in the Alps.

And then you have an opportunity to spend the entire day doing, like slide down the slopes on the glacier and take a zip line over crevices and just all this like go into an ice cave kind. Yeah.

[00:34:56] Jeff: wanna see yours.

[00:34:58] Dan: And then you go to Lake Lucerne and you can go to a Swiss chocolate adventure. There's ropes course and zip lining.

Other places you can go have real Swiss fondue

[00:35:12] Heather: Fondue

[00:35:13] Dan: at a fondue place. In Italy there's a wine tasting on this like island.

[00:35:20] Jeff: Yeah, I want to do that.

[00:35:22] Dan: classes. So yeah it looks really amazing. It's it is a really good mix of that adventure and the you go to the matter horn, right?

It is just

[00:35:31] Jeff: I've ridden that a bunch of times.

[00:35:34] Dan: Yeah. But then my bonus itinerary that I'd love to be able to try, but I can't for two reasons. One, It's insanely expensive, and two, it's sold out in a matter of minutes when they announced it. They've, they're only doing it once this year, is the private jet adventure

[00:35:55] Heather: Ugh. Yes.

[00:35:56] Dan: started the price on this was $110,000 per person.

It's 23 night adventure. You go to every single Disney Park, as well as visiting the Taj Mahal the Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower you like, they take you to the Taj Mahal and you have before it opens up a don photo shoot experience where you have the run of the place to take photos. This itinerary is insane.

You go to Lucas film, Ooh,

you go to Skywalker Ranch. Skywalker Ranch is not a place where the general public is welcome. It is literally like right?

[00:36:39] Heather: it's, that's his, yeah.

[00:36:42] Dan: Yeah.

[00:36:42] Heather: George Lucas' Estate.

[00:36:44] Dan: Yeah. So you sit down and drink his wine and eat his Wagyu beef and Wait, he raises his own Wagyu beef.

no. I think it,

[00:36:53] Heather: Oh

[00:36:53] Dan: They purchase it like any other same person,

[00:36:56] Heather: cool. Somebody's out there massaging his cows.

[00:36:59] Dan: I'll take that job. Sign me up.

[00:37:02] Jeff: What do you do for Lucas Film? I massages cows,

[00:37:06] Dan: Cattle Masseuse.

[00:37:07] Jeff: that what we're calling it?

[00:37:08] Dan: So you start in Anaheim Disneyland, a private fireworks viewing. Go to the Disney studios pre-open access to Disneyland Park. Including Sleeping Beauty Castle, v i p, tour of Disneyland and Disney, California Adventure. Then you go to the Walt Disney Family Museum.

Lucas Film Studios stay at Skywalker Ranch. For two days, including you get to do special sunrise yoga at Skywalker Ranch go to Observatory Wines wine tasting. Then you fly to Tokyo. You stay at this insane, the Tokyo Disneyland hotel looks like this. Insane European, this crazy you go to Tokyo, Disneyland or Tokyo Disney Sea.

You go to both. It's.

[00:37:57] Jeff: You gotta think they're gonna do this two or three times

[00:38:01] Heather: I am, I, it sold out so fast that I'm certain they're gonna do it again. This, the ability to do this one opened up because of the acquisition of the Nat Geo product. And they have their own. Fleet of private jets. Yeah. So they're using one of the Nat Geo planes for this one, and it was popular and there was a long waiting list that there were a lot of people willing and able to put up the money for this one, so they'd be crazy not to do it again.

[00:38:36] Dan: It's amazing you get this high level of access to all the Disney parks, plus you stop at these locations. You, cuz when you're in, when you're in Tokyo, when you're in Shanghai, you don't just go to the Disney parks. You also do. Adventurers by Disney activities in those cities. You stop in India, you go to Agro Fort, you go to the Taj Mahal, you're there for two days, then you go to Cairo for a day, you go to the pyramids.

In the Sphinx, you go to Paris.

[00:38:59] Jeff: It sounds exhausting, but that would be amazing.

[00:39:02] Dan: day there you go to Orlando. One cool thing that's in Orlando that we talked about wanting to do before is you go to the Flavor Lab, which is like imagineering for the restaurants. and you get to visit the Flavor Lab and the Tri Circle Date D Ranch, which is where they keep all of the horses that they use for various things around the parks.

So yeah, it's just, I surely they'll have to do this again and

[00:39:29] Jeff: I would think they could do it a couple of times a year.

[00:39:32] Dan: Needs to sponsor us to report on what it's like.

[00:39:37] Heather: I know, right? I have volunteered as tribute. I've made it known. We'll, see,

[00:39:44] Jeff: that's very sweet of.

[00:39:45] Heather: wasn't it? It was very selfless. I'll give up 23 of my days to fly around the world.

[00:39:52] Dan: in the scheme of Theme things. Yeah. So that was new and very limited and exclusive for this year. There. There's also always new things every year it seems like, or just about every year. They've got, they're tweaking itineraries, they're bringing out new ones. So we mentioned the Adriatic Cruise is new.

They have a new tour of the British Isles that hits. Pretty much everywhere in Great Britain. Let's see, Dublin, Belfast, Antrim Coast, the Giants, Cosway, Glasgow,

[00:40:22] Heather: They have another new one that is just Disneyland, Paris vacation.

That used to be part of a Paris Escape that you could do and add on to another trip or added on to a Disney cruise line trip. And so many people really loved that. , Disneyland, Paris. Part of it that now you can do a six night vacation.

That's all. Disneyland, Paris.

[00:40:46] Jeff: This Grand Europe one looks pretty epic. If you had a family that's never done any Europe, do England, France, and Italy. Bang all that out in one.

[00:40:56] Dan: Yeah, that that really gets you everywhere you want to go in

[00:40:59] Jeff: Yeah, that would be good for my family. We've been to Europe, so here's the other three like that I you'd want to go to.

[00:41:07] Dan: Right? Also brand new is Sicily, eight days in Sicily which looks

[00:41:13] Heather: Saw that one on

here I

[00:41:15] Jeff: feels like a lot of Sicily.

[00:41:17] Dan: yeah, that is a lot of Sicily, but apparently there's a lot to see there. You go literally all over the entire island. I think any single one of these you did would you'd love it.

yeah, and it's another one of those things where you do it once and people come back for more once you get bitten by the Adventurers, by Disney bug that it's a pretty good way to travel the world.

[00:41:40] Jeff: This is just a little aside, but do y'all see, and maybe you know why some of these itineraries kids are more expensive. Some of them kids are less expensive

[00:41:51] Dan: Weird.

[00:41:52] Jeff: the adult price. Isn't that odd?

[00:41:54] Dan: Maybe they're trying to discourage children

Or maybe because of the kind of activities they have to plan extra kid activities.

[00:42:03] Jeff: yeah, maybe they're never off by much, but generally speaking, I was noticing kids cost more and I was trying to figure out,

[00:42:11] Dan: My guess

[00:42:12] Jeff: then some they were less.

[00:42:14] Heather: four? Yeah.

[00:42:15] Dan: yeah, I don't know, extra activities for the kids or something. Who knows?

[00:42:19] Jeff: Yeah. Bet you right.

[00:42:21] Dan: Who knows? But anyway, so that's adventurous by Disney and we think you should do it.

[00:42:28] Jeff: I think you should. I think I should. For that matter.

[00:42:31] Dan: You probably should

[00:42:33] Jeff: My son has decreed, for whatever reason, he wants to go to Greece, and I've been trying to figure out, do we do a land grease or a expedition grease or a cruise like.

[00:42:44] Dan: Ooh, that sounds rusty

[00:42:47] Jeff: Cruise grease. It's everywhere.

[00:42:51] Dan: Oh, uncomfortable

[00:42:54] Heather: That.

[00:42:55] Dan: and potentially Ray anyway. I think that's perfect time for me to say thanks for hanging out with us again this week. If you're excited to explore the world with Adventurers by Disney, Key to the World Travel has an Antarctic penguin colony full of expert travel planners who are ready to make your vacation dreams a reality.Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com to get started with a no obligation quote.

Word of mouth is the best way to help us grow our show. If you have a friend or two who you think would appreciate our special brand of Globe Trotting jackassery, tell them what makes our show so great and send them our way.

You can find links to subscribe to the show on your favorite apps and all the latest updates at www.goldkeyadventurers.com. Can't wait to hang out with you again next weekend. We'll see you real soon.

[00:43:41] Jeff: Thank you so much for listening.