Disney World and Travel News 7-13-2022

news 7-13-2022

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

Jeff: Hi, Dan.

Dan: joining me this week in the studio is Heather Strait and Mr. Jeff Williams.

 I always, I love waiting to find out which Jeff Williams is showing up to each recording session.

Jeff: me. It's the one that's more Mitch McConnell than Jeff Williams.

Heather: one. It's not my favorite. Yeah.

Dan: For a minute it was a little bit Wilford Brimley, and then I could get into that, but go have a bowl of. Yeah, go get you a bowl of oatmeal while I read the the introduction here. 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. Oh,

Jeff: You crushed that, Dan?

Heather: So good.

Dan: I didn't stutter or anything. That was man. Now

Jeff: as I might. You didn't crack.

Dan: it's a miracle cuz I really don't remember what we do now.

Heather: It's been a minute.

Dan: it has. It's been like a whole month. I think it's news time.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: get started with I, I had some trip report action for you guys. I was at Walt Disney world resort a couple of weeks ago.

Heather: I recall

Dan: It was.

Jeff: two part trip, three part trip.

Dan: It was an intense whirlwind of Florida vacation travel. So I just had little triple port share some things. So we started off at universal studios. We stayed at cabana bay beach resort,

Jeff: I love that place.

Dan: that was my first time staying there. That was my first time being inside there. I loved it. It was great. I didn't realize that was the first time you had visited there. I love that

Yeah. Yeah.

Heather: It has a groovy mid-century vibe that I

Jeff: The food court there is awesome.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: Yes. The food court is great. The rooms were not. I like I was pleasantly surprised at that family suite.

Jeff: Did you have one of those family suites?

Dan: Yeah, we were in a family suite. We had an in indoor entry one and I was

Heather: I love

Dan: We were as

 Away from everything as you can get just about, but it was fine. It was good. And it showed us age a little bit down those hallways and corridors to doing some work. Yeah.

 It was a beautiful resort. We loved it. How many of your children did you terrify with dinosaur attractions?

Two, only two of them this time. I took Presley and Alex, they are no. Oh, whoa. All of them were terrified by Velo Raptor. We Kendra for a long time has been wanting to do the Raptor experience the Raptor encounter

Heather: Raptor encounter.

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Dan: we got. Turned the bend where you could see the Raptor and Sophia immediately noded out on that one.

So I pulled her stroller off to the side, Alexander our five year old dinosaur fanatic also nod out when he saw that Raptor moving. And Wyat, Pressly looked actually nervous. And when they wrapped her, jumped out in the middle of the photo, shoot, Pressley looked really nervous. I know what that thing is and what's gonna happen. And it still kinda

Yeah, it's a little unnerving the way it's moving there and stuff, but it's

Jeff: That's a great

Dan: yeah, this is a really fun little photo op

Heather: Nothing scares me at all. I wasn't I wasn't jump scared by that at

Jeff: right? I recall

Heather: Freaked out.

Dan: we also spent some time in the what did the camp Jurassic? The kid playground there. That is a, that's the first time I've gone back there too. And that is a really fun playground. I know that not everybody wants to spend time in a playground at the theme parks, but you. If you haven't and you have some kids who need to blow off some

Heather: a great

Dan: it's a

Jeff: Yeah. Why loved that? When he was

Dan: The water cannons, my kids got in a huge battle with some other kids that were running around and those nets that are all over the place, those are real fun to run through. So

Heather: Taron flyers?

Dan: did not, we had a situation where two children wanted to ride it. One of whom needed an adult with them. and then Wyat is just a little too tall to go on,

Heather: Oh,

Dan: but he's not old enough to be an adult to go with the short

Heather: right? Oh

Dan: Wyat was devastated because he loved that ride just last summer when he went, he was short

Jeff: that's stupid. If I can write it with a kid and why can't, why it,

Dan: Cuz he's not.

Jeff: that makes zero sense.

Dan: adult. So he is not old enough to, if you, I think you have to be 14 to supervise a child under the age of

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: which is stupid. So in he wouldn't be able to go in four years because then Alex would be over seven.

So he wouldn't need supervision. It's really dumb. They should have just let him

Heather: I hate that, cuz that if an adult is actually able to ride it

Jeff: then, so should

Heather: just yeah. So should the a 10 year

Dan: it's one thing, if it's like a big gang of teenagers wrecking up the place, And that's what they're trying to prevent, but they just screwed over one little 10 year old.

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. He was pretty sad about that, but yeah. And then I, the other dinosaur attract traction, we did do the River adventure. And that was funny watching Alexander go down the hill Oh yeah.

froze when he saw that giant T-Rex head right at the top of the hill was, oh, this is serious stuff.

And I don't think he was quite expecting that hill. So he loved that. But Did you do the three water things in a row?

that was the only water ride we did. And that was Sunday morning, God, this was I, this was an insane decision on my part. So we showed up Saturday and we spent sat most of Saturday in the theme parks. The next day was father's day, which was the day that I was leaving the family to go on the galactic star cruiser.

So we got up. But crack of Dawn went and got voodoo donuts for father's day breakfast. And then we did early entry into into islands of adventure. And that was soul wash . It was such a long day for me, like cuz I had to walk all.

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: checked into the star cruiser in full costume.

Dan: Yeah, so it's I spent a few hours in the morning with the kids. We did the Jurassic park stuff, and then I walked all the way from Jurassic park to the boat docks at city walk and then walked from Sapphire falls over

 I decided to be a bad person and cross the street instead of going the approved

Jeff: I do it every time. saves you like 10 blocks of

Dan: But it's by the time I got to the star cruiser, I was just already beat, but it was totally worth it.

Jeff: A sweaty wreck.

Dan: I'm not,

Jeff: How'd you get over there? Did you

Dan: I lifted I'm banned from Uber for some stupid reason.

Heather: Your banned from Uber

Dan: A few years ago during during one of our company's conferences, I took an Uber from, I took an Uber from our hotel to Disney Springs and my phone was on the verge of dying and I didn't have any signal and something got messed up.

So it didn't finalize my payment. It like lost connection. And then my battery died while I was trying to apply the tip and finalize payment. I don't know what happened, but somehow I ended up stiffing the driver on that ride. And now I'm banned from Uber.

Heather: no. Oh no. For one infraction.

Jeff: I thought you had to pay before you

Dan: know what it was.

Some, somehow my payment didn't go through and they didn't give me the opportunity to be like, Let me pay. They were just like you're just

Heather: that's it. Your band.

Dan: So

Jeff: Like

Heather: Wow.

Dan: forever. I can't even, I can't order Uber eats my phone number is blacklisted from Yeah.

Heather: that's

Dan: is fine. Cuz there's

Jeff: that's hilarious.

Heather: It is funny.

Dan: I just use Lyft anyway. It's fine. But yeah, so I lifted over there. If they're gonna be that way then yeah.

Jeff: I'm also concerned that you're trying to move about Disney with that little battery

Dan: That was like, that was a day that I had been traveling forever and flight delays. And which always seems to happen to me at Kean. I don't know why, but I never get there on time. So yeah, that was fun. Yeah. So universal was good. The kids loved it. We mostly did Harry Potter stuff. The first day we traumatized the baby with the dragon ING gots. Various lizards

Yeah it was, yeah, it was fun. And then I took her we hung out back in curious George town for a while and we did, we, she, so everybody had fun, although. She was a little bit, little for universal. Universal has surprisingly restrictive height limits on their rides. There's hardly anything that you can do if you're under 36 inches and she's

Heather: even

Dan: Suland

Heather: and whatnot.

Dan: she could do and just,

Jeff: Yeah, Sue land and a little

Dan: Take that back.

She could.

Jeff: play place back there. What he

Dan: Yeah she couldn't do Woody woodpecker if she had wanted to. And she was able to do et, she did not like et, but she was able to do et

Heather: oh, no.

Dan: She liked it until they, you take off and start flying. Cuz she thought that she was really up in the air. She. It was too dark

Jeff: I an

Heather: Yeah,

Dan: yes. My two year old is an idiot but yeah, universal was good. I don't, there's not a lot of news from universal. So there's not a lot of news stuff to share just.

Jeff: How did she like fast and

Dan: we skipped that one. We did skip that one. She was a big fan of the Carus and one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. She she liked the cat in the hat.

And Yep.

 Other than that, she was,

Jeff: Did she get a lick of a butter beer ice cream?

Dan: Not an ice cream.

Jeff: Or are you a bad parent note,

Heather: doesn't that

Dan: no, I'm a good parent. I spent a million dollars on a whole bunch of butter beers and then all of them took one sip. It was like, it's too sweet and it's gross and threw it away. So

Jeff: note to other parents? Buy one, see how your kids like it before you buy four more.

Heather: taste,

Dan: a feeling that was gonna happen. We got the picture of them all taking a sip and getting a mustache together for the gram.

Heather: I saw

Jeff: That's

Dan: So that was fun. So that was uni

Jeff: Yeah. It's $70 worth

Heather: For butter beer. Yeah. And then you abandoned them and went on the

Dan: Yeah. Then I abandoned them on father's day and went to the star cruiser. We're gonna save the details on that until later this summer, after you guys get to go

Heather: Yep. All who went came back with rave

Dan: It was an amazing experience. I would,

Jeff: I do wanna ask you how many, what percentage of people would you say were some

Dan: I'd say there were varying degrees of cost playing. A lot of people were more like bounding almost worked. There were not as many like super spectacular outfits as I've seen pictures from earlier cruises. And I think that just varies from week to week or sailing to sailing who's there.

Jeff: Just how you and the boys looked good. You and Dave were

 Pretty in there and

Dan: kept it

Jeff: even though, and got in the

Dan: Yeah. You don't have to do a lot. They had a vest and a, and. A scarf and that that made it work.

Jeff: That's it essentially for Scol types.

Dan: It was good. At this point, I'll say it was amazing. I would love to do it every couple of weeks because it was just like my happy place.

Heather: that is what my family thinks as well.

Jeff: Every couple of weeks

Dan: Yeah. There's that if it was feasible, I would love to do it every couple of weeks. You there's almost endless possibilities for the way the experience could go. And I'm sure after you guys experience it, you'll, we'll be able to talk about that. Some,

Jeff: Have yet to talk to anyone that didn't like it even agency friends of ours that got to do it, that are not star wars fans at all. They're like, I didn't always know what was going on, but I

Dan: You don't really have to know. They put you in the middle of a brand new story and they like, I don't wanna say force you because if you don't wanna get involved, you could stay totally uninvolved. But it's if you want to play the game, every single person gets a chance to be the star and the hero at some point.

Heather: That's cool.

Dan: yeah, it's amazing. It's it? I hate seeing the question. Is it worth. Because the Mon the dollar sign. Isn't what it's about. It is 100% what a star wars fan wants to do. So leave it at that. Walt Disney world I joined up with the

Jeff: After your two day

Dan: two day cruise.

Jeff: you didn't see them at all while you were on

Dan: No, they were actually at Hollywood studios the day that we were on BTU, but they went in the afternoon and Kendra specifically didn't want to cross paths. She didn't want to take me out of the experience. that's very

Heather: Out of the story.

Dan: I wouldn't have minded seeing them there.

 They went in the afternoon. We were there in the morning when it was beautiful and sunny and not too super hot. And then in the afternoon there was torrential downpours while they were there. Yeah. So that worked out well, I will say that you can no longer give me crap about not having been on rise to the resistance

Heather: Yay. Finally,

Jeff: it

Dan: sucked airs.

No, it was amazing. I loved

Heather: That is a

Dan: was so good.

Jeff: Said no. And ever,

Dan: really was the greatest thing. Ever. It was just amazing. But yeah, so met up with the family after that, I will say it was crowded, but it did not feel as crowded as say last November did during food and wine, even though this is like height of the season, it.

Jeff: I never think this summer is it's more miserable cuz it's hot, but it's never as crowded

Dan: Yeah it didn't feel, it didn't feel jam packed. It was doable. We had really great luck with genie. Plus I almost feel bad for all the crap talking I've done about it the last few months, because we had good luck with it. We got good picks, but we also Kendra's very open minded. It's not it's oh, we have to get.

Big thunder and the, yeah, it's whatever's available as long as it. And there's nothing that we don't like really. So we just snag whatever's available and we're happy. And we manage to get the individual lightning lane passes for guardians of the galaxy cosmic rewind for an early, for nearly first thing in the morning slot.

And Isn't that

God, it sucks. No actually like

Heather: You're lying again.

Dan: to ever ride space mountain again, in my

Heather: I don't, I never want to.

Dan: mountain is what space mountain should be. It was incredible. But so yeah, genie plus worked great for us. We even got that. They managed to get rat TUI.

They managed to get Mickey and mini's runaway railway. We got.

Heather: think she told me the only thing that you guys didn't get that she wanted was slinky

Dan: Yeah, she didn't get slinky dog. We got seven dwarfs. She didn't get we got millennium, Falcon. So we got a lot.

Heather: and I hear the two year old loves the TEAC

Dan: The two year old rode the TEAC cups five or six times. And she would've gone more. That was one of her favorite things of the entire trip. So that was

Heather: That's great.

Jeff: That's pretty cool.

Dan: was great too.

Cuz she was like, I wanna go fast, dad, let's go really fast. I was like, okay, help me go

Jeff: So you're really working

Dan: and I'm working it fast, like as fast as her little hands could manage and I was like, okay, move your hands. I'll make this go really fast. I just go really fast. And it plastered her against the chair and she was.

Like blank face, like it's a little too fast at, she was surprised.

Jeff: But did, but

Dan: Oh yeah. She loved it. She loved it. It was great. So that was fun.

Jeff: I cannot spin like that. I can ride the tea cuffs, but you better not start spiting it.

Heather: I love spinning.

Dan: She was funny because every single thing up a hedge, I don't want to do this. I do not want to do this. I do not want to do it. And then afterwards, oh, I liked it.

Jeff: wanna do it

Dan: A lot of 'em she didn't like a lot of the ones that got dark. And she was really upset about ones that went high until she was actually up high in the sky.

I don't want to fly dad. I don't want to fly. And then she was happy flying when she got up high.

Jeff: cutie. I never went with a kid that small, why it was almost six. The first time we took him.

Dan: But that was great. The whole magic through her eyes, cuz it was her first trip. It was pretty awesome. She got to see.

Jeff: she have

Dan: She got to meet Minnie mouse. She got to meet Daisy duck. Her absolute favorites were goofy and Pluto actually Pluto licked her autograph book and she still thinks that's the funniest thing ever.

She tells me two or three times a day. Pluto licked my book. Yes. I know Pluto licked your book. But that was great. I'm trying to think there was there's one or two other things I was gonna mention, but I can't remember.

Heather: Alex got to take a walk through Galaxy's edge with

Dan: that was phenomenal. That's

yeah. And that's the second time though.

One, my kids has gotten abducted by a character in a

Jeff: I remember Gaston and

Dan: Guest Don took Pressley she's seven now. And she was like four, when that happened. off of the teacup ride and just walk through fantasy land and then this trip, Alex. Yeah. And you never see that in Walt Disney world, except for in Galaxy's edge.

 We were in the right place at the right time and Chewbacca was coming out to walk. Over to his meet and greet area, which is by the entrance to the marketplace. And we happened to, and there was a big crowd of people, but Alexander got right up next to him and gave him a hug and chewy held out his hand to him.

And Alex didn't believe at first that he was supposed to hold his hand, but I told him, hold take his hand. And chewy led him all the way across Galaxy's edge over to the meet

Heather: That's so amazing.

Dan: He had the biggest screen on his face the whole time. It really was

Jeff: that is, I love that.

Dan: that was.

Heather: It's so cool that's back now. I'm so excited

Dan: Yeah. And it's cool that it's cool that they're starting to get a little bit of that interaction. Like what at Disneyland at while Disney world. Like the fact that they're actually putting characters in the hotels. All of a sudden I forget where, but I've seen a few reports of characters.

Jeff: got a little bus that they arrive

Dan: Yeah. And that was one of the things that we really loved about the Disneyland hotel when we were, there is the characters that you would randomly see in the lobby and common area hallways there. So that's, that makes it pretty magical in the hotel. So we loved that. It was a great trip overall.

Oh we did, we ate at, did you guys have eaten at connections at this point. Yeah.

Heather: I love that's the biggest Starbucks on

Dan: Yeah, there's

Jeff: Yeah, I haven't eaten any food there. We just went. The

Dan: Yeah. I wish that the other side was open for breakfast, along with the Starbucks, but Oh, yeah.

there's not a lot of space in there. There is space, but it looks like it's closed at breakfast time, but you can go around the back cuz that's where the restrooms are.

 We had lunch there. It was really good. The lunch menu was good. There's some interesting burgers. I had like a.

Heather: Yeah. The menu

Dan: had some kind of Asian, like BIM bimbo type burger or a Bo it was a Bon

Heather: Oh,

Dan: burger. It was delicious. And it is really great for the indoor seating area. They have attendance and actually they have stanchions with a rope and they will not let you into the seating area unless you've got a tray of food with you to the point where

Heather: I love that.

Dan: Took the food to the table and then grabbed our cups to go get soda and coming back at first, she wasn't gonna let me in cuz she thought I was gonna try to sit down at a table with just drinks and she's oh yeah, wait a second.

I remember seeing you, I had to show her like I'm with them, with my food, but so that way

Heather: I just had to go get the

Dan: that way we, we don't have people camping out, holding tables for half an hour while they're waiting for their mobile order to be ready. I was that person sitting in the Starbucks for two hours.

Heather: Yeah,

Dan: think they're quite

Heather: It's different over in Starbucks, you can just, it's a cafe. You can just sit around. Jeff had to recover from doing guardians of the galaxy too many times in a row.

Jeff: and I just needed to have air conditioning and stillness and some caffeine

Dan: I get it.

Jeff: no, I didn't even get caffeine. We got the AAI E cooler

Heather: Those have caffeine in them.

Jeff: That's what I was saying. I needed that caffeine.

Dan: I hate saying

Heather: That's what I love about those that they are caffeinated

Dan: I only order those mobile order because I refuse to say the word Asai eat to a stranger. I feel silly saying it

Jeff: It's no failure than saying the names of their sizing scheme there. What'd you think of guardians of the galaxy? Did all of the, all of y'all write it the two year old, I

Dan: Alex, didn't write it. And the two year old didn't write it, but the rest of us did and even Pressly wrote it, which I was surprised because she's been really nervous about rides. Yeah can't see what

We told her that it wasn't any Ken, you told her that it, yes. That's what she told her. Or no, actually what got her to agree to try it?

Because she's. She decided all of a sudden that she's afraid of Heights, which is weird. She went on the Jurassic park river ride with me, and then she said she didn't like the drop at the end and that she didn't want to ride splash mountain anymore. Which splash mountain is her all time or was her all time favorite ride?

And she decided she doesn't wanna ride splash mountain this year. And I told her you're inside and you can't even see the roller coaster track. So you don't know.

Jeff: So you're never up

Dan: up high cuz you can't see the ground. So you don't feel like you're up high and that got her to agree to do it. But she loved it.

 She wanted to go again. She had a great time. Wyat absolutely loved it. Although his face in the online photo looks just like it did on Velo coaster. Somebody needs to tell his face.

yeah.

Jeff: Does he look scared or just look

Dan: Little Ash in face and scared. Yeah.

Jeff: Oh, Wyat always looks totally stone faced. He loves rides, but he always looks just like totally expressionless.

Dan: I often,

Jeff: My white.

Dan: Yeah. The one I stole the name from I often look

Jeff: Correct.

Dan: learned to force myself to look like I'm having fun when not rides . But yeah, they all loved it. So that was good. And what song?

 We got flock of seagulls.

Heather: Oh, I'm so jealous.

 Haven't had that one

Dan: both of

Jeff: and.

Dan: Yeah it was great. We both of our groups got the same song, which was interesting, cuz they went right after I did, but they got the same song.

 It was a fun song. The ride was fun. They, I couldn't tell you what the storyline is because you flash by all those videos so fast and I wasn't paying attention to the dialogue

Jeff: The whole thing is you're jumping through portals, just trying to get there and then you do get there. That's all you need to know.

Heather: This last time that I wrote, I tried to. Pay attention to what they were saying and what the screens were showing instead of just having a fantastic woo. I'm having a great ride. So I got a little bit more of it, but I think I'll just go back to just enjoying how

Jeff: All the story you need is in the videos you watch before you lunch. You're trying to jump through these portals to get there before the whatever big giant guy.

Dan: But that was fun. I was so busy laughing be that really big man.

that I didn't

Jeff: How can I say it's about time? Of course. It's about time. Have you not been paying attention

Heather: I love that whole ride.

Dan: yeah. The pre show was great. That's what It so

a really good pre that effect in the second pre-show room where you just like, they port you onto the ship and you're like, what?

It's

Jeff: that's so

Dan: simple, but it's so good. It's amazing

Jeff: Yeah,

Dan: there. Yeah, it's really good. So yeah, that was my trip in a nutshell, a very large nutshell.

Heather: Sounds like a good one,

Dan: it definitely

Heather: three distinct experiences.

Dan: makes me wanna take the kids more

Heather: Pretty good. Dan

Jeff: perfectly done. No,

Dan: we'll see about that.

Heather: who would bring kids to a place like that?

Dan: it was a mistake. Speaking of splash mountain, did you see we finally have a not an actual date, but a timeframe for the opening of the

Heather: year after the announcement, we finally have a timeframe.

Dan: of splash mountain and also a kind of well rename for it. I'm

Heather: it is a little they went with. Yeah. Or at least be a little bit,

Jeff: Thanks for

Dan: all of their names anymore are so long and have a colon and parentheses and

Jeff: Disney

Dan: right. Yeah. Tiana's Bayou. Adventure is the new name for splash mountain and it will be opening late 20, 24. So

Jeff: presents. Tiana's Bayou adventure. Also,

Heather: wow. When are do,

Jeff: that the name of the Rio is TBA.

Heather: my gosh. It is.

Dan: They have had, they've had a run of unfortunate acronyms

Heather: Yes. Do we have any idea of when they're closing a, the current iteration to start construction?

Jeff: It's gotta be soon cuz they already closed the Disneyland one.

Dan: Yeah, but I don't think that Disney,

Jeff: supposed to open late

Dan: think that Disneyland one is. Closed for for this layover, is it? Yeah.

Jeff: I thought

Heather: I

Jeff: had done it like last week or two weeks.

Heather: oh, I don't know when I was last there it was their normal January refurb.

Jeff: No, land.

Heather: I was there in

Dan: Yeah. I, man, it doesn't feel like it should take that long to,

Jeff: We were.

Dan: to do that late overlay, especially since they've had so long. Work behind the scenes, but who

Heather: January. Yeah. We'll see. That's a long time that we're still looking at solid almost two years.

Dan: Yeah. That's a very long time for one of their. Headline attractions to be shut down. So it's going to be interesting to see what that does be interesting to see what little things they come up with to soak up people, cuz I'm sure that they're gonna have weird little diversions, which reminds me now that the parade is back At Walt Disney world.

Heather: Of

Dan: cavalcades are like non-existent they've they've

Heather: I know.

Dan: on those.

Heather: I'm sad. I loved the cavalcades. I liked it better than a parade.

Dan: yeah. Me too.

Jeff: This short

Heather: Yep.

Dan: Yeah. So anyway yeah.

Heather: You didn't have people camping out in the street for, although I don't mind if a bunch of people wanna camp out while I'm still back enjoying the other attractions. That is fine with me. Yeah.

Dan: Fine. Bye me.

Heather: That's true.

Dan: so anyway, that's splash mountain, so probably need to get on that soon, cuz it'll probably shut it down for a couple years.

Heather: Yep. Get your last

Dan: Yeah, I,

Jeff: I'm sure it'll be just wildly different when it's I say it is probably just, they're gonna reskin all the same animatronics they already have and put some new paintings in there. The, to make that look like the Bayou would take

Dan: Really, all they have to replace is the actual, like rare characters from most of the rest of the animals. They could just leave and throw Tiana in at the

Jeff: Put the Louie the I hope that the firely or whatever. Yeah. Fireflies will be in there even though the main one is dead. Spoiler alert for a 15 year old movie.

Dan: Yeah but that'll be good. I'm excited to see it.

Jeff: I'm imagining. Ah, yeah. But doctor faci is

 It. Would've been so cool if it was, are you ready

Heather: That's what I want. Yes,

Dan: down into the laughing place. Could have been a at nighttime with the fire. That's where I, the Firefly should be down that first little drop into the laughing place and fireflies and. We'll see.

Jeff: I'm sure it'll be cool. Whatever it is. And the ride mechanics are fun. It doesn't really matter. What's I'm not like, oh God, I love bear rabbit. I don't care about that. It's just a fun ride.

Dan: So I'm excited to see how that changes. We've got a whole bunch of stories of things returning, which it felt like we had hit the threshold for things coming back, but there's still things left to come back.

Jeff: It's funny how much stuff was missing until they announce it's gone. You be like, oh, forgot. That was or announce it's returning you forget it was.

Heather: yes.

Dan: Fans of fans of hair and makeup will be happy to hear that BI Bobby boutique

Heather: Ah, yes,

Dan: the harmony barbershop will both be returning this summer to the magic kingdom.

Heather: August is

Dan: Yeah. August 25th for BTY Bobbi boutique three bees in each of those words, please. And harmony barbershop was I think a little bit earlier, the story doesn't wanna load up all of a sudden.

Jeff: I wanna get my cut there someday.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: Get a little

Dan: maybe you can talk 'em into giving you the first haircut package and you can get the tiny little ears hat.

Heather: print. Cut. Yes.

Jeff: get the little ear. Yeah. And I can save my little loft of my hair in a loft. That's not a word.

Heather: A lock

Jeff: Little lock of my hair in a little pillowcase thing.

Dan: Oh, wouldn't that be cute? I don't know why this won't.

Heather: that would be adorable.

Dan: I don't know. Are we excited to hear the opening date? I can. I can look up the opening date on my phone.

Jeff: No

Heather: It's this

Dan: Yeah. This summer, the the barbershop will be open. And let's see, I'm trying to see, look in this article. See if there's any difference.

It doesn't really say I wasn't sure if they had maybe

Heather: No, it seemed like it was pretty much gonna be back just back to usual.

Dan: Oh before I talk about this one we also did just see today that they announced characters will be returning later this year, although it's the fall for a few more restaurants crystal palace, Ohana.

And what's the other one I've never been

Heather: Finally,

Dan: Cape may.

Heather: Kate may cafe. Yep.

Dan: I'm a bad travel agent. Where is that?

Heather: is at the

Jeff: yacht club beach club.

Dan: I've never been.

Heather: The beach club.

Dan: there. So I don't know. They're all gonna be getting their characters back for their meals at various.

Jeff: you've never been in there, like the whole hotel.

Dan: past the beach club from fr

Jeff: Yeah, I quit having all these kids, dude.

Dan: dude. Like I go one, like to have a conference at one of these hotels.

Heather: Wells. Yes.

Dan: No, I stayed at

Heather: spoiler alert, there may be one in your

Dan: oh, then. Good to know. We have twice. It is.

so yeah, someday I'll stay at the beach club. Why

Jeff: maybe like in 23.

Dan: 23. That's a significant year for key to the world travel

 Let's see.

Heather: was also

Jeff: anniversary, I think.

Heather: no Coincidentally, it was also the site of the very first ke con conference. So do the math

Dan: 10.

Jeff: Number 10 it's number

Heather: number 10,

Jeff: the math

Dan: yeah. Oh, Hey, I found the story on theme park, professor.com. Woo.

 Crystal palace on September 20th. We'll be getting poo and friends back for gross.

Heather: Poo is

Dan: and

Jeff: don't want poo in my

Dan: lunch and dinner, which apparently they ditched the breakfast buffet there. That's the only time I've been there.

We did the breakfast buffet.

Jeff: That was my favorite time to eat

Heather: was a great breakfast buffet. Yeah.

Dan: exactly. September 27th. The Ohana best friend's breakfast featuring Lelo and stitch will be back so you can get your pineapple coconut breakfast bread, and Delicious juices there. And then beach club Cape may. Their characters will be back for the Cape may cafe minis beach bash breakfast on October 4th.

Jeff: So many words.

Dan: you can feast on your mouthwatering salted caramel beach buns and meet up

Heather: Maybe we can get the dining plan back in 2023. Fingers

Jeff: don't think it's ever coming back.

Heather: Stop it.

Dan: Not as we know it.

Heather: That part is probably

Dan: on saying it's gonna be coming back someday, but they also keep on saying

Heather: a huge money maker. It'll be back.

Dan: also keep saying that magic band plus is coming and I know it's was supposed to release

Jeff: still waiting for its release in June.

Heather: It's yeah

Dan: Let's talk to the doc workers or something about

Heather: I'm gonna guess they can't get it to work.

Dan: I don't know. Oh, that does remind me of something. I forgot in my trip report. So remember we talked about that bounty hunters game. That was, that's going to work with magic band plus, and that's located right next to the Ray and Chewbacca meet and greet area that

Jeff: No, I don't remember

Dan: it was a while ago.

We talked about it anyway. So if you're looking at. Ray Chewbacca meet and greet area, right on the right hand end. There's like a round building. There's some sort of event space back there, apparently because when we were there, there was those construction walls that looked like hedges set up.

And there was a couple of cast members in like star wars, themed street clothes with that were clearly like bouncers. And they. Tags on that said, or there was a sign up that said private event and they had a name tag with some sign of credentials thing. So there's some sort of space back

Jeff: Wait. So if I'm looking at Ray and chewy on their two story thing, is it to my right or my left?

Dan: There's like a round tower building.

 Know what was in there, but there was some sort of event going on there.

Heather: I want to know. And I want to have an event

Jeff: So I remember that tower we stood in front of that. That was right by where the buffet started at that other thing we

Dan: So I don't know what's there. I really wanted to know what the special star wars event that was going on was, but. Brave enough to go talk to the

Jeff: Hey, what

Dan: Yeah. If I had that voice, I could have pulled it off, but I don't. Let's see, going down our news story list. I think I have one more Walt Disney world piece for you.

Jeff: Y'all doing inhaler.

Dan: the top. Top of the world lounge at bay lake tower in the contemporary has been reimagined. And it's actually something that people have been clamoring for a while ever since the villains club. What was that club? Evil club villain, whatever it was at Hollywood

Heather: villain, I think. Yeah. That villain party that they replaced with the dumb lightning McQueen's racing academy.

Dan: Opening Opening yesterday. Not available to everybody. But at the day before this episode drops July 11th, the villain's layer is opening up in the top of the world lounge. It is exclusive. Yeah.

Heather: to be a DVC member or a guest of a DVC member to go up there.

Jeff: Hey, I was reading the they've changed the rules there, and it's now a major suckage.

Heather: Oh no. What is

Jeff: So listen to how it reads eligible members and their guests staying on that member's reservation are eligible.

Dan: yeah.

Heather: no,

Jeff: So

Heather: it's gonna be only available to people staying at bay lake

Jeff: so if you and your family have three that are in, not at bay lake

Heather: with a guest. Uh, But on it, you

Jeff: on property during your stay, you can go there,

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: but you can't like bring your friends in, like you could before.

Dan: You've got to present your, wow. You've gotta present your magic band, your membership card and an ID to get in.

Jeff: so you always used to have to do that, but our, one of our managers, Chad was a DVC guy, so he could bring in, he brought in several of us. I think there was a limit of four,

Heather: right.

Jeff: but now it looks like, and I don't know if it was always supposed to be that, but it looks like it's only people staying in your room.

Dan: Yeah. That's maybe that's Wa

know that it's gonna be popular, so they're trying to cut back. The di the Disney villains have briefly settled in while their lounge was closed and left behind a few infamous portraits and accessories. So from the one picture that I'm seeing, that's been shared, it's not super villainy theme, to be honest, although there's little things like.

Heather: It's just some

Dan: Yeah, there's some paintings and it looks like an Aladin lamp and some things like that. But the menu features the Churna board bog charcuterie.

 That you can get herb roasted

Jeff: who is that?

Heather: Cherna bog is from Fantasia from

Jeff: devil

Heather: yeah. The night on bald mountain piece.

Dan: Which I is he really a villain? All he does is wake up and get the party started. He's a DJ. He's not a villain. Like I don't get why he gets such a bad rap. Anyway. You can get herb roasted unfortunate soul shrimp layer made hummus, and who's afraid of pork belly sliders paired with cleverly named cocktails, like the other side, the underworld and mirror, moon shine.

Heather: All right.

Jeff: Looks like I'll be buying a

Heather: I was just gonna say, I guess I won't be going up there till I buy Jeff some DVC. Cause he wants to go to the top of the world. Dylan's.

Jeff: I wanna have, I wanna be a member of something

Dan: would you wanna buy DVD anyway? That's you already are. Something far more exclusive and cool. My friendship club

Heather: There it

Jeff: right.

Dan: oh, you didn't sound very enthused about

Jeff: Club, Danny

Dan: A few weeks ago, since we all did so well on Heather's Heather's travel savvy quiz that she gave us. She's got another question for us.

Heather: you guys were pretty good here. Here's my question. Could you land a plane in an emergency?

Jeff: Totally.

Heather: All the movies that some, oh, the pilot has been shot or has an aneurysm, and somebody has to step in and be talked down by someone on the ground. Is this actually plausible?

Dan: on my performance flying the millennium Falcon, it's gotta be easier than

Jeff: It's plot. Somebody did that if two months ago.

Heather: Yes. And the gist of this article is yes. If it's the right kind of airplane, all of those times when you've seen someone actually doing this was in Cessna. One of those little simple, not that many controls aircraft. The author of this article says basically, if it's a commercial airliner, you're screwed it.

There's your chances of actually landing the aircraft

Jeff: Oxygen.

Heather: are slim to none. And there's only been one time. where this happened. And someone took over the controls. What happened was the, there was a pressurization problem and everybody passed out except this one flight attendant who was able to quickly grab an air, an oxygen canister.

And this flight attendant was actually training to become a pilot. And even that person was not able to land this airliner

Dan: Now, hold on. What about that one? Ti what about that one time where everybody ate the bad fish that was served at dinner and then the one

Jeff: Excuse me, stewards. I speak Chi . Yeah, it

Dan: and then the one guy inflated the autopilot and they crashed, landed safely.

Jeff: Wasn't a guy that inflated it.

Dan: that's right.

Heather: the author says that if the aircraft was already on approach and everything had already been lined up by the pilot, that maybe you have a chance, but my favorite part of this article, they start talking about how they ask people. Do you think you'd be able to do this? And most people say, yeah, I don't think I could.

Then they talk about, they did a, this was a psychological study by a college in New Zealand. First, they have them play around on some flight simulators. and then they ask them again. Now, do you think you could? And my favorite part of this story says that yes, most people who did the flight simulators, they have a confidence bias and they think they could complete the task, but that the confidence bias appears to be worse in men than in women.

Dan: gonna say in white it is white men. Isn't it? We all think we can land the

Heather: white men that once a man watches a 20 minute video on YouTube, that he's gonna say, oh yeah, no

Jeff: I know that's a thing with men, but that is not a thing with this man.

Dan: To be I, to be fair

Jeff: I never think I can do anything. I don't even parallel park

 Make my wife do

Dan: how I do all the repairs on my car and on my home. And that's how I made this podcast is watch a YouTube video and go from there. I

Jeff: When 256 other lives depend on you, I don't think

Heather: This finding is in line with existing work that has found that men tend to be overconfident in their knowledge and abilities, much more so than women, especially in high stakes environments and involving competitive running diving in other.

Dan: Okay. I see

Heather: I saw a video. And so now I can do it, but then they end this article with stick a person in a true full motion airline simulator at 35,000 feet with no help and watch what happens.

It ain't pretty so unfortunately,

Jeff: even do the Microsoft fight simulator. I

Heather: oh, I know

Dan: what's going on here. yeah. Yeah. Landing's hard. You gotta control your speed and your angle. That's a lot of stuff.

Jeff: mean, most pilots I ride with aren't even very good at it.

Dan: oh yeah. We had a couple of rough touchdowns this

Heather: Here's a job that you might be better at. You could get paid to be a Las Vegas buffet, taste tester.

Jeff: Now I watched a YouTube video on how to do this and I could, I think I could

Heather: I think you could do this. This is a real thing. it's an online gambling site called time to play that is looking to hire a Las Vegas casino buffet taste tester this summer to review the four most popular all you can eat meals in Las Vegas, and you'll be reviewing the Bachanal buffet at Caesar's palace, which this looks crazy.

It's a 25,000 square foot restaurant. It has apparently a giant raw bar, a grill pizza is just everything you can imagine. Also the buffet at the be Bellagio, which is famous for its live action cooking stations, the wicked spoon at the cosmopolitan. Yeah, I

Jeff: I

Heather: was gonna say, I bet you've been to this

Jeff: yeah, it's awesome.

Heather: They have dim sum and bottomless mimosas plus day long brunch on the weekend. Thank you. and then rounding out the list is the wind Las Vegas buffet that has 16 food stations, including one that's all just pancakes and another one. That's Latin street food.

Jeff: you're just paid to taste, test. What are

Heather: taste us. You'll get a meal for two at each of the four restaurants, plus a airfare voucher to get out to Vegas four

Jeff: say, I

Heather: of the hotels.

Dan: Yeah. If they put me up

Heather: A thousand dollars spending cash. And here, this is my favorite part. They will provide you. They will provide you with Lulu lemon sweatpants.

Jeff: what?

Dan: so that you don't have to loosen your belt.

Jeff: I will do it. They, I will, they can keep their thousand dollars, just put me up and fly me out there.

Dan: What.

Heather: then after submitting all the reviews, they will also get $500 more. And then their reviews will be featured on the time to play website. So you still have time to enter us citizens. Yes. You have to be 21 years old or older. You have to visit the website and. Register with your name, your birthdate, your email address, and a 250 word essay about what makes you the ideal buffet taste tester.

All of this has to be to their website by July 31st. And it's the gambling site is called time to play with the number two, not the letters to time to play.

Dan: See, here's the thing at first, I, when I just saw the headline, you sent me, I was a little concerned that this was gonna be like the guy who got paid to taste, test all the emperor's food before he ate it, to see if it was poisonous, but there

Heather: Which stuff has

Dan: But these are classy establishments. So I assume that you're pretty safe for some reason.

Heather: oh yeah. They're not sending anybody to like any of the real sketchy

Dan: But maybe that would be more entertaining.

Heather: Just maybe avoid the shrimp salad.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: It's too

Heather: sorry.

Dan: Somebody have some

Heather: Jeff's had an encounter with some bad shrimp salad that he can never forget.

Jeff: everyone. Everyone in my family had that encounter with,

Heather: Yuck. Oof.

Jeff: we were in a small hotel room after.

Dan: boy, the family that has explosive diary together stays together.

Jeff: No, they just got to hear mine for 12 hours.

Dan: and now they're all in therapy.

Jeff: yeah. Splash

Heather: Oh Thanks for hanging out with us again for our weekly news Roundup. If you're excited for the chance to be chilling like a villain at Walt Disney world or explore anywhere else around the world, key to the world travel. That's a lot of worlds in one sentence. Or explore anywhere else, Key to the World Travel has the storm trooper room from rise of the resistance full of expert travel planners. Ready to make your vacation dreams a reality head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com to get started with a no obligation quote. 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. 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 www.goldkeyadventurers.com.

We can't wait to hang out with you again later this weekend. We'll see you real soon.

Heather: Bye y'all.

Jeff: Y'all come back now, you hear