Disney World/Travel News 6-8-2022

news 6-8-22

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

Jeff: Dan.

Dan: and joining me this week in the studio is Heather Straight

Heather: Hey guys.

Dan: Jess Evans 

Jess: hello. 

Dan: Hey Mr. Jeff Williams. 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 and a no obligation quote on the vacation of a lifetime. The only thing. How do then June 8th in west Michigan is the travel news starting with, uh, those nerds just can't let me go without a little more Star Wars to close out the month of May.

Uh, yeah. This year Star Wars celebration convention featured a ton of Star Wars related theme park announcements. Punch it, Jess 

Jess: Ah, yes. May the 28th be with you or I think something like that. Um, 

Dan: Orthodox Star Wars day.

Jess: yeah, we just had the big old Star Wars celebration. The, the biggest gathering of our 

Jeff: was it not on May 4th?

Jess: don't know. Yeah. 

Dan: Because it's the release of the first of 

Jess: Oh, yeah, 

Dan: May 27th. So that's official Star Wars day Orthodox Star Wars day has

Heather: Uh, 

Jess: that whole may the fourth thing. Yeah. It's, it's not really considered part of Canon or whatever, so, um, but yeah, they had a lot of announcements for things coming to Disney cruise, as well as the theme parks. Um, first up there's, Uh, some stuff That's going to be on the Disney wish. Uh, Kids club, Star Wars, cargo bay.

Uh, they showed off some animatronics that they're going to have of like porgs and loft cats that the kids are going to be 

Jeff: Oh, 

Jess: with. Um, they're going to take on important role of creature handlers as they learn to manage a mischievous menagerie of exotic beings from across the galaxy. And the poor they showed is, is like screen quality.

It's not, you know, it didn't look like a cheap, you know, like the stuffed one that you can get the kind of squawks at. But, uh, it, uh, looked like a real movie used poured that apparently the kids are going to be able to do things with. So it's going to be weird. 

Heather: hope they, let me go take a look on one of the sailings I'm on, on the wish of the next few months.

Jess: Yeah. I mean, you get to do the,

open house I'm sure.

So hopefully they'll have those guys out, but yeah, they also showed off some stuff for the hyperspace lounge for the adults. 

Jeff: Ooh. I 

Heather: My favorites.

Jess: Well, and, and they said that This.

is that may or may not be featured on the hyperspace lounge, but they showed off the cam Tono, safe, the round, a safe that's been featured in the Mandalorian and was actually made out of an old green machine from the seventies. 

Dan: he can buy those in Cox.

Jess: Yeah, they just announced that they're there. They're going, gonna, they're selling those that you can buy and fill up with whatever coins you want, but they showed off one that they might be bringing to the hyperspace lounge that they will be serving drinks in. So 

Jeff: What are we talking about? What's it called? 

Jess: of a Cantona safe 

Dan: a 

Jess: it's it's so it was originally featured in one of the original trilogy movies and somebody running in the background, carrying it. 

Heather: Yes. And it's literally an ice 

Jess: yeah, it's just an ice cream 

Dan: empire strikes back

Jeff: yeah. I know this thing. I just Googled 

Jess: it gained like a lower as just kind of a funny thing in the background. And so then it.

was used to hold, uh, some of the best scar 

Heather: Best car 

Jess: on, on the Mandalorian. 

Heather: That's. 

Jess: yeah, they brought it back. So let's hope that they actually do bring that. Cause I'd love to get a drink out of one of those. 

Heather: Absolutely.

Jeff: especially cause that's a big ass drink,

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: a big 

Jess: it looks, it has four little, uh, circles built into the bottom. So it looks like it would hold multiple drinks that for the table. So 

Jeff: like getting a bucket of beer 

out by the pool. You 

Jess: like, one of those full ones with a straw on the top. just I mean the size of the trader Sam's Tiki 

Jeff: fill, fill this bucket with a fringe 75

Jess: it's like a 

Heather: extra for that.

Jess: right. 

Jeff: or a Bessman fizz. I'll

Heather: Yes.

Jess: Um, and over in the parks, we've already got, um, the addition at Disneyland of Boba Fett and Finnick Shan from, uh, the Disney plus show and some word that Mandalorian and grow goo baby Yoda. We'll be also appearing in Galaxy's edge at some point in the near future.

Jeff: but only Disneyland

Jess: They only said for Disneyland, um, No,

word on Disney world at all.

And then they said others will follow. Um, so basically what they've decided with Galaxy's edge is that the timeline timeline no longer matters because 

Jeff: because they made it up. 

Jess: yeah, well, the time they, it was supposed to be taking place, I think between the like second to last on the last movie. And so they had said before that you weren't going to see any of the original characters or anybody that wasn't in that time.

Um, and I think they finally had enough complaints about that 

Jeff: They realized no one knows. When is this supposed to be? It's 

Jess: yeah. And it doesn't matter, you know, it can be an amalgamation and just do that whole 

Jeff: Dan thinks it 

Jess: thing and you know, 

Dan: It does matter, but nobody's good,

Heather: they had a

Dan: the reason they're not doing it.

Heather: goo at Star Wars celebration. Right. He was in one of the PA I think it was the Mandalorian panel. They brought him out on 

Jess: oh yeah, I think so. Yeah. 

Heather: and it kind of broke the internet.

Jeff: And then he took his helmet off and it was just Willow.

Dan: Uh, they're not pretty, certainly not bringing them to Walt Disney world because the galactic scar star cruiser ties that Galaxy's edge specifically into a timeline that those

Heather: That's true. That's 

Jess: I think what we're going to see is that those characters will come to Disney world, but they're going to be coming to launch bay, which they've announced. We'll be reopening at some point, because That's where they've dumped the characters that. Fit into that timeline so that you can meet them and they don't do the walk arounds like Disneyland.

So you throw Boba Fett in the middle of Galaxy's edge and one of those bottleneck areas, and you're going to have problems, you know, 

Heather: Yeah. Disney world. Yeah. That's true.

Jess: if the people are not storming, Kyla Ren, Because Skyla 

Jeff: Because he sucks.

Jess: Let's so they can get away 

Heather: He's a little bitch.

Jess: yeah. 

Dan: I hate to say it, but at this point, bulldoze, the Muppet show, which I love dearly well, but connect it through to star tours and have two separate Star Wars lands. And you've got a mini Star Wars

Jeff: two separate

Dan: Galaxy's edge safe for its own timeline because in the spirit of the star cruiser, Participate.

Nevermind.

Heather: but you could break week. You could put, you could put them up. It's over where launch bay is because launch bay doesn't make any sense over there.

Jeff: Starkers or could take place in any timeline though?

Heather: Just

Jeff: Why do they have to

Dan: No.

Jess: could offer a 

Jeff: Well, they do have Rey and Kylo on there. I guess.

Jess: they could offer specific timeline cruises. They could say like, okay, for these in may, you can do an original trilogy adventure. Um, and these dates for may, you can do a new trilogy adventure, or you can do ones based on the Disney plus show. you can do ones, you know 

Heather: Because eventually you're going to have to change up the story. Is he going to have, you

Dan: Yeah, but I

Jeff: cool idea. Jess TM.

Dan: Yeah.

Jess: Yeah. 

Jeff: how I trademark your ideas.

Jess: that works. Just give me a cut. Um, uh, also, uh, they're bringing new destinations to star tours. No info on what those will be, but I'm sure there'll be connected to the Disney plus shows in some way. Um, because they're. 

Dan: I bet you you'll

Jeff: Why is there not a Disney plus show called like greetings from or something? Right now they have all this. They have 14 shows going right now. Not one of them 

Jess: They have, they've done this 

Dan: Yeah, surprising. 

Jess: dance around adding. This property into things, they've put it in the backgrounds of comic books. They've put mentions of things in, in some of the shows they made the virtual reality game. That's supposed to take place on bat too. And literally you don't have access to anything.

That's actually in the land in the park. So

Jeff: It's So 

Jess: in a completely different part of bat too. so they've, they've never really fully like embraced it. I don't know why. 

Dan: There's several novels. And actually there's a comic book that takes there's. There was a comic series that takes place in black Spire outpost. So there's, there's some stuff, but I, they haven't branched out past that print stuff for some 

Jess: Yeah. And the fact that the Mandalorian, he hasn't made a stop in Galaxy's edge just for maybe like five minutes on an 

Jeff: Thank you. It set a whole set, a whole series. Just make a Galaxy's edge series. Make it cool.

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: And create some cool characters that then kids and I would want to see live at the places

Heather: Yeah, for sure.

Jess: Put them on the galactic star cruiser, you got like a really great set to film it on. It looks ready to go. So just take a day and film some stuff on there. And it's a commercial within that. If people say that Disney does that too much, then it's weird. Disney doesn't 

Jeff: They're missing an 

Jess: could. 

Heather: For sure. 

Jess: Um,

and then, yeah, so also there's going to be new pieces added to Savvis workshop lightsabers, um, 

Dan: not not only that, but they're removing some of the existing pieces from the different styles.

Jess: Yeah. They're taking some of those out and then they're bringing some new legacy lightsabers into dock onto ours and taking some of those old ones out as well. 

Jeff: Are they taking out the one with the plastic horn tips?

Jess: I don't know. They have been selling new pommels that you can add onto your lightsaber afterwards with like loft cats and, uh, 

Dan: they just add an, a Wompa and a, uh, there was a what's the, uh, is a pork. 

Yeah. The one that looks like it's carved out of wood. 

Jess: Yeah. So you can, you can buy little extras on there. Um, and then finally, there's going to be an augmented reality reality, Snapchat filter.

That will be available through July 7th, um, that is included in your genie plus purchase. So if you want to use that to add some weird stuff to your Snapchat, if you're still using Snapchat, you'll have to purchase Gini plus first. Err, yeah. So 

Jeff: Also a lot of shows.

Jess: Yeah, 

Dan: Ooh, that that trailer for, and or

Jeff: Yeah.

Dan: for 

Jess: That looks good.

I, I was, I was watching the rundown of all the new shows that were coming in at this point. I'm a Star Wars fan and I'm like, It's a bit much. I feel 

Heather: many things. 

Jess: bit with that stuff. I'm like, I don't know if I want to watch half of these. And I know maybe not all of them are meant for my demographic, but. 

Jeff: As long as they all have six year old kid versions of my favorite characters, I'll be in for it. 

Jess: The thing that the thing that gets me with the Star Wars, I think that's, that's that I'm not too into yet. Marvel's definitely trying to saturate the market as well. But the thing with Star Wars is that I was watching these rundowns and I was like, okay, so this one takes place at this timeline. And the next one you now announced takes place 10 years after that.

But the next one takes place three years before that this one takes place a hundred years before this. But, and so it's, I feel like for the people that aren't like the super hardcore follow everything. On Star Wars, they're going to start getting lost and just be confused by it 

Dan: Well,

Jeff: Yeah. I don't really care when they take place, basically, as long as they're a good story, I don't give a shit. What part of 

the thing they 

Jess: when they want you to do the homework before, like, when they're talking about a soca and how much it's connected to a cartoon, I've never watched. I'm like, I'm going to give it a shot, but I hope I don't have to have known all these episodes 

Jeff: far I haven't. Cause I, I loved the soca, uh, episode. I was aware obviously of her existence. Cause she's cool looking, but I was not a fan. I hadn't watched the whichever cartoon she's on. 

Jess: yeah. Clone wars, I 

Heather: Clone 

Jeff: loved her episode on the Mandalorian. It was the best episode 

Jess: Yeah. and it, as long as they do the. 

Jeff: I will watch a show of her.

That's awesome.

Dan: they seem to do a pretty good job of kind of putting you into what you need to

Jeff: And when CAD Bain showed up on the Boba Fett, I didn't know who he was. I was like, oh, that's that cool. I can dude, from whatever show 

I didn't care. He's just awesome. And then they went ahead and killed him within four minutes. That was great.

Dan: there's hours

Jeff: here. Oh, he's dead.

Dan: from him. Uh, and the, I think the other thing you'll find with the Star Wars series too, though, is like they each have a different flavor. There are different genres, so you can even just ignore the era's, ignore how they fit in the overall timeline.

And if you're into the, a top gun show, then watch the rogue squadron. Or if you're into the 

Jeff: was ready

Dan: movie, 

Jess: if you're into the dirt sand planet show, let me tell you, you got a lot of options. 

Jeff: It's like, they built that whole unreal engine of desert. They're just going to milk it. We got all this. Let's keep using it. 

Jess: when minor spoilers alert, spoiler alert for obiwan. When that second episode went to a planet that didn't have any dirt on it, I was like, oh wow, this is great. I forgot Star Wars had planets that weren't dirty. 

Heather: Yay older

Jeff: forgot all about jeopardize. It was just like a good enough with the space Western, but I like it all. I'm ready for some, for some jet pilot, east Def oh, and skeleton crew, they announced, which is showrunner John Watts from Spider-Man fame. So then that'd be cool.

Dan: I didn't see that one. I didn't see that. The only one

Jeff: I don't think they showed a preview. They just said they'd just started production on it. 

And I had never

Heather: not a lot of detail.

Jess: He just quit fantastic for it to work on Star Wars. So it was, they just made that deal 

Jeff: Hmm.

Jess: and it'll be interesting. And that's all I got on the Star Wars front. 

Heather: Yeah, well, just in time for new stuff coming to Galaxy's edge at Disneyland, a pause, the sale of annual passes

Jeff: To the surprise

Heather: of Noah, and you cannot buy them annual passes now for either coasts. And it's it's it was announced that it's a crowd control measure. Uh, they are going to let anyone who currently has a magic key to renew it, but no new keys will be sold indefinitely is what it says.

Jeff: I didn't realize they had stopped again, a P sales for a world.

Heather: Yeah. And

Dan: was several months ago.

Heather: been a while. Yeah.

Jeff: If I realize it, I promptly forgot it. I can't keep up. It's up. It's down.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: Yeah, everybody was excited that the new, you know, they were new annual passes, do levels new things that go along with each of them. And then they, they shut it down. I mean, not long. And after they launched the, the new sales of them at Disney world.

Dan: Well, and you know what I mean? What else are they going to do to help control traffic? They're raising prices. Clearly isn't doing anything. Uh, you know, people keep on, keep on saying the story about how old they're pricing out the average family. No, they're not because they average family is willing to go into, you know, do whatever they can to get there.

Jeff: Average family is waiting in line there right now,

Dan: yeah.

Heather: And this was, this was a T they had, they had actually previously stopped selling the top two tiers of their magic keys at Disneyland. Uh, the dream key and the believe key. But those got paused back in October, November, because they had the fewest blackout dates. Uh, they kept the cheapest options, the sale of those going, because there were a lot of blackout dates.

You couldn't hold very many park reservations at a time. And it wasn't seen as really affecting the crowds, but I guess now that they, they think it is and crowds are really up for the summer. So at least for the foreseeable future, 

no annual passes.

Jess: They've got that. A lawsuit that they've got to get through that I think is definitely going to have a factor on when That's coming back. So. 

Heather: That's a good point.

Jess: My, my Walt Disney world annual pass expires out this month. Actually I have until the 30th of June to renew it. And I still have not decided if I'm going to or not.

I just, I, I don't know. It's like, cause I still plan on making multiple trips next year, but I just don't know if you know it's with the way it keeps getting kind of jostled around and everything. I don't know if I want to lock myself into it. Just sort of buy tickets for every trip I take, 

Jeff: Yeah, I don't know. 

Jess: but then I'm like every time I think that then I go like, oh yeah.

But then if I don't renew And I regret, and then I'm unable to buy new. Right. I can't just call them back and be like, guys, I was just kidding. 

Jeff: you miss out on passholder preview opportunities or

Heather: Yeah.

Jess: I hardly make 

Jeff: discount is pretty good. I mean, if you go more than, 

if you go more 

Jess: are where I make it. Yeah. The discounts are where I make sure to make it work. Cause I spend a lot on, on merchandise and you know, I make sure to use it every time I eat.

So 

Dan: It's almost like they figured this a sense of FOMO in when they decide

Heather: Uh, 100%.

Jess: yeah. 

Dan: thing.

Jess: It sucks though, to be, you know, because I understand why they're, you know, pulling back on that for, you know, to try to keep the, the locals and, you know, the people, they don't feel spend money at the resort that just go for Eno a day and they bring their own food or they eat at home, et cetera. And then it's like, it's, it's hard being a, uh, annual pass holder that lives out of state and just goes a lot and does stay onsite.

And, you know, eats on-site and spends money and, you know, you feel like you're like, Yeah. but I kind of am the customer you want, I just kind of get lumped in with the rest of the annual pass holders, but

Heather: I wonder if they're also trying a little bit to avoid some of the genie plus problems that world has been having because of the demand. By keeping some of the local traffic out. I mean, those, those don't seem to be the people out there who are using it, but at the same time, it still limits the number of people in the parks.

So it, it could help to keep their system running smoothly.

Jeff: I appreciate that they're doing any effort to make everything run a little smooth like that. You can't just have everybody pile in there and the same people that cry about how they've priced everybody out. Also talk about how it's too crowded. So,

Heather: Yeah. I don't see how you can complain about

Jeff: that in the

Heather: things at the same

time, Yeah, 

Jeff: nobody can afford to go.

Why is it so currently, what, which is

Heather: yeah. Which one, which one of those things is the truth.

Jeff: I just keep going.

Dan: I'm really curious, like, will they ever find the ceiling that price increases actually start to have an effect on attendance because 

it hasn't yet. 

Jess: I think that we might actually see some of that effect once the revenge travel dies down. Like, because right now you've got everybody, like we were talking about. 

Heather: a good point.

Jess: They're pent up and they don't care how much it costs. They've probably been sitting on that vacation fund and that jar of quarters is pretty full.

And, you know, like, I feel like at some point soon once maybe summer's over people will, when they start doing their normal vacation planning, again, we'll start looking to other places than, than Disney world Disneyland, especially, you know, with hearing. 

Jeff: the last couple of years and for another couple, there's just cranking out more and more new stuff, new rides, new remodels, new, I mean, all of Epcot is going to be new. Tron yet to come it's it's not gonna slow down anytime soon. 

Jess: Yeah, it looks like they're adding a new ride to blizzard beach right now. 

Jeff: Maybe a water

Dan: unspecified.

Jess: Probably. 

Jeff: simulator. 

Jess: It's a VR experience and a pool. Just hold your cord up 

Jeff: Johnny got electrocuted 

Jess: feature, not a problem. Well, uh, my, I have a little interesting urban legend that actually might have become a lot harder to make happen since, uh, APS have been taken away at Disneyland, uh, and something that can. into what we discussed last week about giving birth on airplanes. Um, I discovered 

Jeff: do. 

Jess: for over 40 years now, uh, there had been a, a certain amount of women that have been clamoring to drop a child at the happiest place on earth, in hopes of that baby, getting a lifetime pass to the park. Um, it started in July of 1979 when little Theresa Sal Cato was the first baby actually born in Disneyland. Um, AF after her mom went into birth on a park bench. Uh, so although they, the family was then taken to the hospital and were given a special Disneyland birth certificate the very first, 

Jeff: the firehouse is right there. It's not a bad spot. 

Jess: put her in one of the stables with.

It's very biblical. Um, the, somehow a rumor began, uh, after she bathed main street USA and afterbirth that, uh, if, if you were to do the same and that, that, that child Was given a lifetime pass and that if you were to do the same, you'd be given one, two. Um, and since then four babies have actually been born and had their umbilical cords cut by Chippendales nasty little teeth.

Um, 

Jeff: it a, I thought they'd use like a gold, giant pair of scissors, like a ribbon cutting, 

Jess: Oh crap. Your water broke. 

Jeff: a guy wearing a sash and a top hat.

Jess: goofy comes through and 

Dan: a mayor of main street USA. 

Jess: Ooh. Um, no, none of those babies have gotten a free pass. Um, but they were actually retroactively charged admission under Che Peck's new attendance policy that he just started.

They'll there'll be getting a bill in the mail. So, um, and then one woman came to Disneyland while she had started labor with the intention of, of having her baby in Disneyland, went and hidden a bathroom.

Um, while her husband then went to first aid to let them know that she was waiting in the bathroom and in labor, and then she would not come out because she had heard about the lifetime pass thing and didn't want them to make her leave. Um, the park and they had to assure her that that is not true and she would not be getting a lifetime pass.

And she finally accepted an ambulance ride to the Western medical center where the baby was born. So, um, now, like, apparently now if you start to show that you are in labor cast members, like jump into high gear and it is like a fire immediate gets you out of the park into an annual. out of there.

because they've had so many people try to do this.

It's apparently annoying to them, but now you gotta make a park pass. So like, what are you gonna make a park pass and then an, an induce your labor appointment. And then you're like, doc, I gotta make a run out for a little bit. I'll be 

Heather: I got a Disneyland reservation.

Jeff: of Pitocin real quick and then get in there. 

Jess: Yeah. So don't try that. Apparently they don't like that. 

Jeff: It just seems like a lot of work for an annual pass.

Jess: a lifetime pass. though, but just for the kid, if that's, if the rumor is true. Yeah. So I don't see that that's a big deal. You 

Jeff: that's something they did. And the fund's spirit of a wild turn of events happening. And now people are in here trying to milk the system. It's like these women wearing these booby shirts, trying to get free, trying to get free. T-shirts.

Heather: that has ended, they aren't doing that anymore. So

Jeff: Yeah, you 

have to, now you have to stage getting puked or pooped on

Heather: Yes.

Dan: well, and that's my question. Did they ruin it for everybody else? And now next time, like my two year old peas on my lap there, am I going to be

Heather: No, it's just the, it's just the people showing up and getting dress coded. they 

they will, they will give you the choice. Yeah. They will give you the choice. They will escort you to a gift shop at you may purchase a different shirt or

Jeff: Or they will escort you

Heather: or you can leave. Yes.

Dan: Yeah,

Heather: But 

no more free shirts for showing inappropriate side boob.

Jeff: What about tasteful side boob? Like I usually show in my muscle shirt.

Heather: That's hot.

Dan: yeah. Something like the pop can test for like they have to measure. How much is this visible? I went to Catholic school. We had the pop can test. I don't know if y'all had to be some,

Heather: know.

Dan: uh, well, to see if short skirts were too short, they'd have to kneel down on the ground and they put up in, if the skirt didn't touch the top of the podcast, it was

Heather: I

Jeff: Oh, they had the fingertip test at my son's school. So like, if the skirt was not past your fingertips, then

Dan: everybody's got different length arms. What have you got? What

Jeff: It should be much past

Heather: so if you have

Jeff: but there was this one girl that they all called baby dinosaur that she, she had to wear pants. I thought the pop cam tasks was going to be, you had to kneel over the pop candidate.

If you could pick it up with your vagina, then you had to go.

Jess: You can open it without using your hands. 

Dan: It's silly regret 

bringing this up. 

Jess: to Griffin door. 

Dan: Oh, well, to save us from this, save us from this road that I took us down. Uh, do you see this, uh, opening up soon in the waterpark capital of America,

Heather: The Wisconsin Dells.

Dan: Oh, yeah, the first America's first rotating water slide.

Heather: I don't think I want to try

Jeff: Yeah, it looks crazy.

Dan: It sounded great until I watched the video of it in action. And then it's way too much back and forth. I thought it would

Jeff: like a lot of moving parts that some kids arm's going to get flayed off in.

Heather: no, thank you.

Dan: Yeah. It's it's a big, it's like a tube water slide. If you, if you look at it, it's actually tangled up. It's it's a star ship. And you, your raft goes into the center and then the star is constantly rotating to kind of give you a momentum to get through the Hills. And at some points you hit up to 25 miles an hour.

The problem is when you get to the bottom of a trough and it's rotating, you kind of go back and forth several times. Yeah. Yeah. And that back and forth just looks tedious and boring. Claustrophobic.

Jeff: It's a novel.

Heather: They say it's like a cross between a Waterslide and a Ferris wheel.

Dan: Ooh, boy, that sounds,

Heather: I don't know.

Jess: So, I mean, we've all been on, uh, enough rides to know that inevitable downtimes happen. What happens? How do you get evacuated off of this thing when you're stuck 

Heather: know, and it's and being enclosed in the tube that whole 

Jess: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like you just kind of sit in there for awhile like that. no,

I'm not. 

Dan: I'm going to assume certain sections of the tube have escape patches that they can open up. Uh,

Jeff: looks like it.

Dan: water.

Jeff: Design video. There's some clear passages. It can pop up.

Jess: Um, 

Heather: wheel. I don't know.

Dan: got a cool system to bring the rafts up to the top of the tower and it's kind of

Jeff: Yeah, I think it would make me sick that uppy, Downy

Dan: Um,

Jeff: forth art. Have you seen there's the cruise ship that has the Waterslide that goes out and you do almost a loop. It's not quite a loop. That's how I video recently of a girl got stuck in there and I'm like,

Heather: Hmm.

Jeff: She's hanging out over the side of the ship and then she didn't go fast enough to go back around.

They had to, I guess they sent her a rope down there for her to grab and they tied around and they pulled her back up.

Heather: Oh, no, thank

Dan: solution to him. Well, this, uh, this ride, if you want to check it out of those constant Dells, you spend 90 seconds inside the slide wheel. And then there's a little bit of a open air slide at the end to go through. And

Heather: 90 seconds. Isn't too bad, I guess.

Dan: yeah,

Jeff: 90 hours, if it breaks,

Heather: Okay. 

Jess: that's. 

Heather: thanks.

Dan: it looks pretty cool.

Jeff: I would do it once for sure.

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, one and done. I think

Jeff: Unless it's incredible.

Heather: And maybe it could be.

Dan: Let's go to the Wisconsin Dells

Jeff: I've never been.

Dan: I've driven through and stopped at a gas station that has a giant cement, dinosaur out front, kind of like a in Pee-wee's big adventure is not from Pee-wee's, but it's kind of like. Uh, I've never actually stopped in the Dells and written

Jeff: Everybody's kind of big.

Dan: a surprise how there's got pop quiz for.

Heather: I got a pop quiz. That's right. I figure we're coming up on a pretty popular travel time, summer travel. And it's getting to be the time when you got to start planning your fall trips. Right. So I have a quiz for y'all about some travel myths, and I want you to tell me whether it's true false, or it depends. And I'm going to start with an easy one, because we just talked about this one. Actually

Jeff: true.

Heather: Tuesday is the best day to book flights true. False, or it depends not true. Jeff is correct. Jeff is correct. It's it was, it used to be correct decades ago. The way that airlines released their inventory. It you, you know, and because Dov dynamic pricing, if you got in and booked the tickets on the first day that they were uploaded, you probably got the best deal, but it just isn't how it works anymore.

It depends on how far out you are from your trip, how popular the time period, that kind of thing. But yes,

Jeff: like it's so dynamic down to such minuscule numbers. It's not just weekly published air anymore.

Heather: There are three days that are cheapest to fly though. Do you know what those three days are?

Jeff: None of the days I've ever flown.

Jess: Yeah, I know. I don't pick those. 

Heather: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. 

Jess: Saturday. 

Heather: And that's because when the demand for business travelers

Jeff: Monday's when people Monday and Friday, they fly out on Mondays and come on Fridays.

Heather: How about this one? You should never ever drink the tap water in a foreign country. True. False, or it depends.

Jeff: Depends.

Heather: Depends. Absolutely. It

Jeff: I wear depends anyway, so I don't care about a temper.

Jess: If you make the wrong decision, you will need those. 

Heather: It really depends on where you're traveling. Uh, How about this one? Should you drink the tap water? Can you drink the tap water in say king Cancun?

If you're in a resort,

Jeff: I do not.

Heather: you totally, absolutely can. It's

Dan: I was going to say in a resort area like that, I'm sure that they're making sure that their water is safe.

Heather: the thing to think. The thing to look into, if you are going somewhere where you think it might be. Is do a little research and find out what the locals do. If the locals are drink, are drinking the tap water. If it's coming from a purified water treatment plant, there's no problem at all. If you're traveling somewhere in the, you know, Outback in the, in the middle of Africa, you probably shouldn't but most developed countries and especially most hotels.

Are not going to have unsafe tap water. Otherwise nobody's going to go back to those resorts and those hotels.

Jeff: notice they never ever served tap water. They always have those giant jugs of water at the resort. So if they're not serving it, I'm

Heather: Well, honestly I think that it's because they're not making the ice cubes that they put in your water out of bottled water. I think really it, those resources, Mexico, they're doing that because of the perception.

Jeff: makers have filters on them.

Heather: I think it's, it's the perception that you can't, um, most, most, actually most nice resorts in Mexico.

Not only is the, the local water system already safe, but they're filtering it as well. Oh, when we stayed at RTA, it was interesting. They, they don't serve any bottled water at all. They're actually, they put glass bottles in your room and they refill the glass bottles every day from their own filtered water.

It's not. especially like, you know, if you're traveling in Europe, there's no need to worry about it. And in Mexico, if you're staying at, at a nice resort in Cancun and Cabo, there's really no reason to worry about it. If you are a little hesitant, you can go ahead and stick to bottled water. I mean, I brushed my teeth in those resorts with the tap water.

I've never had a problem.

Jeff: I always noticed too, in those resorts, they put bottles of water directly next

Heather: A lot of times they

Jeff: cup and sink and toothbrush at the thing I figured if they're telling me do it,

Heather: Yeah. I think again, it's to make you feel comfortable,

Jeff: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's probably more, they know that that's what the reputation is,

Heather: heard about Montezuma's revenge and thinks that they can't drink

Jeff: That's actually from drinking Montezuma brand cheap tequila,

Heather: That's probably true. How about hotels never wash the comforter or do they cover,

Jeff: false.

Heather: true or false? It is false now. Interesting. Apparently in the BA a long time ago, before people were more worried about it, I guess. Um, they only wash them every 90 days. Which is, you know, kind of gross, but most

Jeff: soilage on some

Heather: thank you for sharing.

Most hotels have now gone to, instead of using decorative bedspreads. It's why most of them have taken those out because they're so much heavier, they're harder and more expensive to wash. So most of them have gone to a duvet cover. And they wash the duvet after the cover, after every single guest. And then typically the standards in the U S anyway are to wash the insert every 30 days. So,

Jeff: that's fair.

Dan: Because there's no way that your blood and semen can possibly penetrate the cover.

Heather: if it does, then 

if they are visibly stained, they will wash it 

Jess: How do you know about my. 

Heather: immediately growth stage.

Jeff: Yeah. So if you're going to do that dude on the outside, so they see it and change it out.

Heather: Yes. How about

Dan: climb inside the defect,

Heather: you? What, no.

Dan: slipping.

Heather: How about this one? And I don't think I had ever heard this one that dressing up is the best way to get a free upgrade to first class.

Jess: give a crap what you're wearing. 

Dan: Just for the seat. You want that for the seats you

Heather: right.

Jeff: And found that, um, the best way to get a seat in first class is.

Dan: Tobias.

Heather: To pay for it. That's

Jess: Actually I wore a 

Jeff: works for me every time

Jess: and they just made me buy another shirt. 

Jeff: I show my tasteful side boob.

Heather: This one is false and it's based on a lot of airlines have rules for their employees when they're traveling on a free or discounted ticket. And they have dress codes for what they have to wear in those situations. But the best way to get a free upgrade is to be a member of the airlines loyalty program and fly with them a lot.

Jeff: I have literally I am diamond medallion and fly a lot and I have never once gotten the upgrade.

Heather: you must be flying with a lot of other diamond medallions.

Jeff: Hmm.

Dan: You need to

Jeff: And I mostly fly first class anyways, so there's never to upgrade unless they're just going to let me fly the plane, but their air occasion when I'm, when I'm somewhere else, I've never been

Heather: Hmm. I have a fairly frequently, it's a lot easier if you're flying just by yourself.

Dan: Also, if you're flying out to some Podunk place, like grand

Heather: yes, that's

Jeff: well, I mean, Birmingham is probably the similar size.

Heather: When I'm with my family, typically, if we get it upgraded, it will be from, uh, Main cabin to comfort plus.

Jeff: Mm.

Heather: Um, I recently, uh, we're taking my oldest on his graduation trip, uh, at the end of the week. And he's take, he's bringing two friends. And so there were six of us and we booked main cabin and, you know, there's, there was no way we were getting.

And upgrade for all six of us. All our youngest has to take some exams at a time on Friday that I didn't realize he had. So I had to split myself and him off of the ticket. And about three hours after I did that, I got an email that we'd been upgraded. So the rest of

Jeff: So you got to fly later, but you fly nicer.

Heather: that's right. So there, the rest of them will, um, they actually got bumped up to comfort plus.

Uh, it was since there were fewer of us, it helped

Jeff: Who was that? Were they wearing crop tops or suits out of that?

Heather: they're just planning on wearing regular clothes. That's

Jeff: Uh,

Heather: Yep. How about hotels? Don't have 13th floors, true. False, or depends.

Jeff: true. Some of them 

Jess: That's depends.

Yeah. 

Heather: It is, it depends if you're talking about the United States, it's almost always true because that's a superstition here.

Jeff: the weirdest, dumbest

Dan: so

Heather: silly, because guess what? Even if they call it the 14th floor on the signs, it's still the 13th floor. Most, yeah. Most hotels in the U S do not, uh, other countries don't have that same.

The association with it. So

Dan: Why aren't we so dumb?

Heather: don't know, we're getting dumber by the day two. Damn.

Jeff: No,

Heather: about this one? I'd never heard this one before that you should always shop for flights in incognito mode. And the reasoning is that airlines track customer behavior and will raise prices. The more you click on fairs, but don't buy them. 

Jess: I've tried that and I saw no difference. So I'm going to say that's false. 

Heather: It's absolutely false and it doesn't make any sense to me if they want you to buy the flight and you're not clicking on it. Why would you make the price go up? wouldn't

Jeff: That's

Heather: Wouldn't it be braid? Wouldn't it be easier to entice someone to buy it? If the flight went down? Yeah.

Jeff: But then people would keep waiting. So it would keep going down if, if it goes up once and you're like, crap, I need to buy it now.

Heather: This the it's the technology also that it would take to just be adjusting the prices for you. It's they're really not tracking you quite. Closely if prices are higher, uh, you know, it, it, a few days later or a week or whatever, it's mostly likely just because the, the lower fares have sold out and you waited too long and the dynamic pricing made it go up.

Should you here's one. You should always use the local currency when traveling international.

Jeff: No,

Dan: I mean, doesn't it depend on the exchange rate

Heather: Right. It's it's it's this one's false. So you don't have

Jeff: I use a

Heather: get some cash, use a credit or debit card. Yeah, 

Jess: I always,

use rubles, no matter where 

Jeff: I got a rubles and

Heather: always pull, I always pull out some cash out of the ATM. When I land in the country, don't bother going and getting like euros from your bank before you go, because you're not going to get the best exchange rate. Just wait until you arrive at the airport and go to an ATM and pull some out and then you'll get your, because your credit card is going to be looking or your, or your debit card is going to be looking for the best exchange rate possible.

And that's the best way to get the cheapest one. Don't really use those, those booths at the airports either. Anytime.

Jeff: seen him open anymore.

Heather: And anytime you change to a currency before you've even gotten to that country, you're not getting a good exchange rate. They're there to make money. Your credit or debit card is on your side and they're looking for you to get the best deal.

But those, those change places are not,

Dan: our travelers checks still a thing.

Heather: I mean, they are,

Jeff: They

Dan: I was just.

Heather: nobody really takes them anymore. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, I was gonna say, I haven't heard of them being used in my adult

Heather: Decades. Yeah,

Dan: I used them in

Jeff: That was for people that couldn't get a credit card. And now that there's debit cards that have equal protection, they don't really have them anymore.

Heather: My last question is our duty free goods actually cheaper,

Jeff: Depends.

Heather: or depends. It depends. You know what? It depends on.

Jeff: What it is and where it is.

Heather: Yeah, really the, the product and how much the tax would have cost you. Interestingly, the article I was reading said that the duty free shops in the United States are almost never a good deal.

Dan: That doesn't surprise me. That's just like a branding thing. It's

Heather: And particularly if you are buying something that's produced in that country, a luxury item. So if you're in France, buying French perfume or a Louis Vuitton bag and not paying the tax on it, you are getting a better deal, but don't buy dumb little souvenirs or trinkets the candy and stuff like that.

You're not the tax on stuff like that is

Jeff: The only thing I consistently buy an, a duty free is booze. And they it's just cause like, especially in Mexico and Cancun airport, they have a crazy selection of all the stuff in a lot of it. I can't find it home.

Heather: Yeah. So anything that's heavily taxed and regulated, like alcohol, tobacco perfume, really high end luxury goods. Yeah. Those are going to be a great deal in duty free, but anything like don't go in the duty for you to buy snacks or candy or anything like that because the base price on those are going to be jacked up in a duty free shop.

Just go to, well, you know, try not to have to buy it in the airport, but. If you do, don't do it in the duty free.

Jess: Yeah. 

Dan: Can we get other to say duty a

Heather: I'm going to say duty. A couple of words. All right. Jacked up in the duty free. There you go. 

Jess: my favorite Bob Dylan album. 

Heather: you guys are pretty, pretty smart savvy travelers you passed with

Jeff: We should start a travel agency.

Heather: Could I deal?

Dan: We'd probably be good at that.

Jeff: No,

Dan: How did we do, is there like a

Heather: Oh, yeah, you guys got them. All right. I know you got them. All right.

Dan: does that like give a label, like when you're taking your team beat quiz and it's like, you would get four out of nine, you're a I'm making

Heather: Yeah. I didn't

Jeff: you get a hundred percent on the Ricky Schroeder quiz?

Jess: Dan learned all the ways to please his man from the Cosmo 

Heather: was just calling you savvy travelers, but now I regret not coming up with a teen beat style ranking system.

Jess: Maybe captain duty, 

Heather: a missed opportunity.

Jess: Admiral duty. 

Heather: Yes. Yes. You may just, 

Jess: hi, 

Heather: I captain 

Jess: I'm going to go swab the poop deck. 

Jeff: Yeah.

Heather: Get permission first.

Dan: While Jess is out swabbing the poop deck, I'm going to say, thanks for hanging out with us again for our weekly news Roundup. If you're excited to get stuck in an endlessly rotating water slide or explore anywhere else around the world, key to the world.

Travel has a selection of expert travel planners, bigger than the crowds on Disneyland's Main Street USA on Independence Day and they're ready to make your vacation dreams. Reality. Head to www.keepstheroadtravel.com to get started with the no obligation. Don't forget to catch up with our friend, the theme park professor for all the latest theme park news and tips at www.themeparkprofessor.com.

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