Passenger Seat Radio Episode 2022-05-31

Disney 2022 Edition

Hello everybody this is Shane R. Monroe you’re in the passenger seat with me it’s passenger seat radio. It is Tuesday, May 31 2022. And you are hanging out in my backyard with me in my hot tub. No passenger seat today. Take a seat in the jets in the corner. The hot tub feels great. It’s a little warm outside though. Yeah, it’s a little warm outside, then again, it is summertime in Phoenix, it can only get worse from here. So hey, how’s everybody doing? I am back from Hey, Bruce Willard. Hey, oh, I am back from a full week at Disneyland. Well, almost a week. A Business Week. How about that? Almost a Business Week. And it’s time to talk about everything, the entire Disney trip we’re going to talk about and in this episode, hopefully we won’t run out of time. And I won’t have to extend it over another show. But somehow I figure you guys wouldn’t mind if we had a whole nother show, soon covering the Disneyland experience. So those of you who’ve been following along with this show know that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going to Disneyland. It’s not some Western Disneyland sounds like a good time. It really does. And it does turn out to be fun. But the thing about Disneyland outside of all the other things we’re going to talk about, it’s just a lot of work vacation time, you’re supposed to be chilling out and relaxing and resting. And Disneyland is none of that. It’s constant moving long hours. Very little sleep in most cases. There’s a tired feet blistered feet sunburns. You know, 25,000 steps a day. You know what I’m talking about? Disneyland is no vacation. It’s Disneyland. It’s work. So well. My wife was pining away for the Disney Experience. Let’s be honest, Disney for me has lost a lot of its magic. Over the years. It’s it’s become a machine much more than it ever was right? I lost I lost my love for Disney right around the Lion King. The Lion King was the last thing Disney did. And I’m talking about the original animated Lion King. Not that freaky s CGI. Fuck fest they put together recently. That was the last time Disney meant anything to me. And now that it owns Star Wars, it owns Marvel. It owns everything. It owns Fox, everything is owned by Disney. And I just I don’t know, I listen. I’m just I’m not as big of a fan as I used to be. And so listen, Disneyland, like I said, sounds great on paper. But after this show, you maybe understand why I wasn’t looking forward to it. Because we did this. We went to Disney World for seven days at Disney World with a travel day on the other side. So I know what pain and suffering is. I’ve been to Disney World for seven days in a row. And you know, that was 20 years ago. So yeah, we don’t get better with age when it comes to navigating theme parks. So here’s the agenda. Right. So we were planning to do a travel day on Monday. For my house. It’s about six hours to Anaheim where we were going. And so we had a travel day on Monday, a travel day on Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all theme park all day long. Okay, so I was talking a lot about the planning and the genie plus in the rides and all this other stuff. I’ve been conjecturing for weeks, maybe months at this point as to what Disney was going to be like under all of these new things that are going on, what rides were going to be desecrated, what things were changed, what things did they not leave alone, you know, all of this other stuff been talking about for weeks. Now I can actually tell you everything down to the last detail about how all of this works. And I can do it intelligently because I’ve lived through it recently. Okay, so the triptych was Tuesday was Magic Kingdom because that’s my wife’s absolute favorite part ever. Wednesday would be one day in California Adventure, which is the sister theme park right across the way. And for those of you who maybe have never been to the west coast and gone to Disneyland versus Disney World, you know, Disney World has everything cut up into four parts with Epcot Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and MGM Studios, right. So in this case, Disney Land. You know when I say Magic Kingdom, Disney Land is like the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. And then a lot of the MGM Studios stuff sort of made its way over to California Adventure. It’s all very, it’s all very confusing. But suffice to say, instead of there being four parks, there’s only two. And as anybody will tell you, that’s a longtime Disney Land goer, California Adventure is rather hit and miss. It’s one of those things where, you know, you spend a day there or you park hop to it, to ride the two or three things that you must experience while you’re there. And then you go right back to Magic Kingdom, right. So, one day at California Adventure on Wednesday, Thursday would be Star Wars day now, none of us had been to Galaxy’s edge. None of us had been to Star Wars Land, none of us had been to any of those attractions. So we thought dedicating an entire day to deal with Star Wars Land or Galaxy’s edge would be for the best. But last day was filler day. That was a day we plan to cut the kids loose. And I’ll explain when I say kids, no, we didn’t have another kid. This time we brought a friend along. We were going to cut the kids loose on Friday. And my wife and I would just go around and do whatever. Were we going to go with Jeannie plus. No, we we thought about it. And originally the idea was on Monday on the drive over right? Because Tuesday can’t be that far off from Monday, right? So on Monday, we’re gonna look at the park through the app, right. So they’ve got a mobile app now, which is it’s competent in some areas and not as competent in others. And I’ll explain more as we go on. So get into the app and see what the wait times are like, you know, we plan to be there roughly just after it opened or when it opened and we planned to stay late stay till 910 o’clock at night. So as we were driving on Monday, right, we left so we went to pick up my my son’s friend Ross, who has a friend from his old school that’s before he started going to the the high school here. But they they pretty much live with each other online on Xbox Live and they play games all day together. So in reality, like Ross is probably one of his better friends. And so, you know, the week before we had met his parents make sure that we weren’t these weird serial killers. Hey, Brian Holt’s on what’s going on, brother. Good evening from New York. Hello. Hello. So you went three hours at eight o’clock. Right. Welcome, welcome. Haven’t gotten to the meat yet. So you’re in good shape. So, so we met his parents, right? And, you know, it’s sort of one of those things where, listen, if I were gonna let my kid run off with one of his friends and their parents, for a week, I would want to meet him, I would want to sit down and maybe break bread a little bit. And get to know him. Right? Yeah. So we met, I’ve been sick for about like two weeks before Disneyland. Not sure what it is. I’m going to talk about that in a future show. I want this to be all Disneyland. But so we met them while I was still feeling like hammered crap. And I’m like, sorry, you know, this is whatever. I’ve got snot contagious. Some sort of inner ear thing. Yeah, don’t worry about it. Your son’s in good hands. Right. So we met the parents. So we drove we left here about 1030 in the morning, swung up to his Of course, he’s like, 40 minutes out because all of his old friends are up or my wife school is up in Willow Canyon. We’re out of dice art school district. So we had to go all the way out there to pick him up, which of course was out of the way. Right? It couldn’t be on the way and I’d be out of the way to go pick him up. So we go and we pick him up. And now listen, we’re there. We’re there for for six days, basically. And you’re talking for people six days. Nasty, smelly working the theme parks all day, you want more than one change of clothes, right? You want more than one set of underwear per day, that sort of thing, socks, extra shoes, you would not believe I should have taken a picture of how packed the car was, with every possible thing you can imagine. I mean, you know, my wife doesn’t pack light anyway, which is great, because we’re never for want of almost anything once we’re at our destination, right? When we go to Vegas, and we’re spending three or four days there, you would think that we were spending a month there based on what she packs. Disneyland was no different. And we were there longer than we would normally be in Vegas, right. So the car is packed. I mean, we’re like I’m playing Tetris, you could actually hear the Tetris theme playing in the background while I was trying to figure out how to how to organize everything into the trunk, and then we still had crap that bled over so we take so we leave his house probably about 1130 which would get us into a Anaheim at about 536 o’clock, depending on stops, food, oh, you know anything that we need to do to get there. And we stayed at the Tropicana, which is right across the street from Disneyland. If you go to Google Maps right now, my review is probably the most recent one. If you want to know all about where we stayed, I outlined it in great detail on my Google Maps review. But we end up getting there, right? So there’s, there’s a stretch of property right in front of Disneyland. It’s on Harbor Boulevard. For those of you looking it up in a map right now. Harvard Boulevard is where the entrance to Disneyland is. And literally Disneyland if you’ve been to Disney World, it’s almost an experience to get there. Right. So let’s say you’re staying at the outskirts of Orlando, right, because you don’t want to stay in Kissimmee because it cost too much. So you’re staying in the outskirts of Orlando. So you got this long drive along the freeway. And then you you you take the Disney World exit off the interstate, right. And from there, you’re like 15 minutes driving through like swamp land. It’s not swamp land, but it’s like there’s nothing there. You make this exhibit, you think you’re going to turn it into Disney World, and you don’t, you’re just driving. And it’s like Disney World here somewhere. And so, Disney Land is a left turn off of Harvard Boulevard, literally a left turn off of Harbor Boulevard and bang, your Disneyland and California Adventure. So what we wanted was a hotel that we could walk to Disney from. And what that means is a shitload of three star and below, hotel motels, there’s a couple of nice looking ones in that immediate area. But for the most part, if you’re wanting to stay in a short walking distance to Disneyland, you’ve got to you got a handful of choices, and the Tropicana is one of them. So that’s where we stay. So we pull in, we’re fresh, we’re you know, we’re not going to the park, we’re not going to the park, we’re going to pull in, we’re going to unpack, it’s going to be a chill night, we’re going to sit and watch TV, and go get something to eat, you know, we’re gonna have a nice sit down meal after being trapped in the car all day, right? It all sounds good. So we pull it to the Tropicana and I go in, check us in. That’s what you know, they spring on you that like like, nobody ever does the research up front. I knew about it. But they’re like, you’re you realize there’s $20 a day parking fee, right? Like, hey, and listen, I don’t leave anything to chance I plan this out well, in advance, I know exactly what it costs. And there’s no hidden surprises here. So I get checked in now let me first of all, let me talk about it’s a horseshoe shaped hotel or motel, I would say it’s more of a motel right. And so it’s a U shape in the middle of the U is like there’s the consider suites or something that looks really really nice. Right in front as you go in. And then behind there is a giant wall. It’s not giant, but it’s a big pool with a Jacuzzi. And the rest is like Matchbox car parking and only half of its available for you to park. So when we got there, there was literally one I’m swear to god, there’s literally one parking spot left I got a picture, one parking spot left. And the asshole on the left side of that decided to park like over the line. As if to say you’re not going to park next to me. It’s not like it was a you know, a Jaguar Mercedes or something. You know, I don’t want anybody digging my door. So I’m going to take up two spots. Now. Now this was some piece of shit, Chevy or something. Right? So it was like, you know, whatever. And so my wife’s like, can I get into that spot? I let her drive. She loves to drive. Especially long distances. Shit, I’ll sit in my passenger seat and play with my Steam deck right now. So she’s like, Can I get in there? And I’m like, I think you can get in there. But man, it’s gonna be really tight. So we get into this, this parking space and it literally it’s almost impossible to get out of the car. It’s a real it’s not a good way to start. Now so you’re saying you what your thing is? How come there’s only half the parking lot available? The other half of the parking lot is valet only. And listen, I would have been fine valet. Honestly, back in the days before COVID We used to valet all the time at the Plaza Hotel in Vegas. We love it. We just we pull up we drag all of our crap out of the car and the car goes away. It’s great. But in this case, you know we saw the spot so we thought we’d go ahead and park on our own. But you should see it is unbelievable. I got a couple of pictures of this to the valets. I mean they put like three cars for two parking spaces. I mean, that’s I mean, that’s how precise these guys these valets are Hey, it’s unfreaking believable. So we are in room 104, which is on the right hand side as you’re looking at the entrance, and it’s all the way in the back, of course. So pretty much, you know, half the distance of the entire parking lot we had to cover, which doesn’t sound like a big deal. It’s not just boo hoo hoo firstworldproblems I had to park a half parking lot away from my room. And it’s on the bottom floor, which is that will come into play later. So we get to the room. And so listen, it’s a small room. There are two queens and like this fold out chair thing. Now my wife and I were going to share a bed one of the boys was going to sleep on the queen, the other one was going to sleep on this chair hideaway bed. Now I’ve never seen anything like this personally. But it’s literally a chair that it’s like it’s like a it’s like one of those sofas that extend out into a bed. But it’s a chair that does the same thing I’ve never seen. It’s like a cat. It’s a cat that folds into a chair. And so it’s like, yeah, but we didn’t know how this was going to work out. We hoped it would be but you never know. So we get to the we get in the room, we get the chair pulled out, the kids are tired right from, from the drive, we’re all tired, but we want to go get something to eat. We’re all hungry. And so we bring all of our crap in, which was substantial. And the room is nice. Listen, for for a three star, I’m calling a three star thing on Google Maps. It’s a two star. Maybe somebody who’s listening live can look it up and correct me. But yeah, I would call it a three, two and a half to three star. And for that level, and sitting right across from Disneyland, you’d expect it to be not great. But while it was small, and was very clean, the linens looked clean and fresh. We had a decent size television, we had a little microwave, we had a safe, we had a tiny itty bitty frigerator I’m not sure what you’re supposed to put in the refrigerator, but there wasn’t much room for it. The bathroom was interesting because the sink in like this huge vanity counter, we’re all outside the bathroom, which is great. That way somebody can go in and drop a deuce while someone else putting on their makeup or brushing their teeth or whatever. So it kind of works out well the split that way. But it also made the shower area with the toilet really, really, really small. But the shower itself had one of those extended bars on it, that sort of arc out into the open space of the bathroom. And so while it took up a lot of space once you were in the shower, it’s like wow, there’s a shitload more room in the shower, than I would have expected there to be in lots of shelves. Good Lord. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to a hotel, where inside the shower, the only horizontal surfaces are the four corners of the tub. In this case, it was great. There was plenty of shelves all over the place. It was it was great, because we had four people and we all had our own shit. So we needed shelf space, and we got it. Good water pressure, good temperature, right sometimes, I mean, there’s always something to go wrong. If a hotel water pressure sucks, the water doesn’t get very hot. The toilet doesn’t flush? Well, there’s 1,000,001 things that could be wrong. None of that pertain to us. So I was rather pleased that that from you know, from a from a two and a half to three star perspective. It was it was in pretty good shape. You know what I’m saying? The beds were okay. Now something else that I really wanted to point out about this hotel. And I think this was done with a refurbish because they look new. There are power outlets everywhere. And God bless the Tropicana for having power outlets everywhere. You’re gonna one of those hotels, there’s literally three outlets and they’re all behind the TV, and the writing desk. Those are the only place you can find a fucking outlet in the whole room. And then and then the new outlets everywhere. It was great. So it couldn’t be perfect though, right? Something bad had to go down. We wouldn’t find out about that until later. So he chugged on down the street there’s a place called the pizza press. And it’s a it’s sort of like a pizza mod except for it’s all themed around the press right? So extra extra read all about it, you know, publish your own pizza, blah, blah. Kind of a dumb book if he asked me, but the pizza was really good. And we maybe it was just because we were starving and the trip was long. We got to sit down we have to stretch out a little bit. I was good pizza. So and then we went back to the hotel we throw on some so we got back to the hotel. And of course, I always bring my own entertainment because quite frankly I don’t like watching television with commercials. So I always bring something Amazon Fire TV. This last time I brought the Fire TV was a pain in the ass so I decided to bring a full blown shield. Well, except for the fact that I forgot to bring a power brick for it and of course the shield TV is a proprietary power brick I have plenty of other power. I’ve got USBC I’ve got micro usb a micro SD I listen I got it I got micro USB. I got it all I got everything. I haven’t had a mini USB if you can believe that just in case I didn’t know what the hell phone Ross had. But he had an apple. Do you have Samsung? What’s he got? I don’t know. Turns out he has a Motorola which is great that I mean that’s you know that follows into the Android family with us so we were all good to go. Plenty of charging stations plenty of cabling plenty of outlets. Forgot that god damn shield TV. power brick, so no custom TV for us. Now let me meet before you go. Boohoo firstworldproblems you forgot your shield TV when watch TV as all the commercials will do you good? Not enough. So first off, it’s all over the air TV. No cable, and that’s fine. Listen, it’s fucking Anaheim. For God’s sakes, there should be like 900 channels available over the air and there are here’s the problem. Finding something to fucking watch. And I say that with peace and love, peace and love. Remember, like 20 goddamn years ago, when you had basic K or comms or extended cable or expanded cable, you had like 40 channels. Right? But you the guide was like on channel 48 And you would go to the guide. And you would have to sit there and watches it scrolled through 40 channels and it only showed like at the time you want I’m talking about remember this lets your My people you’re my age. A lot of the people listening in the show know exactly what I’m talking about. So you turn to the guide channel. And you had to sip it didn’t scroll by the way you couldn’t control it. Now it’s not like it’s not like it’s not like Comcast or or or Cox where you can use the remote to scroll through the listings and then pick a channel. Wrong, sir wrong. You literally had to watch the screen for like 10 minutes to go through all the channels. And then once you did you had to sort of keep a mental track. I know when you have to keep a mental track of okay, Modern Family was on what the fuck channel 72 Dash 504 Somebody get a pencil and paper. Alright, what else do we got? Oh, Animal Planet’s on what channel? Son of a bitch. Right? So you’re trying to figure out all of this stuff, right? So finally, we found modern family that was playing on I think II and it’s like back to back monitor family. So we had like eight hours of straight Modern Family, which is perfect good background noise for us. Because we weren’t watching TV. TV for us a lot of times is background noise. You know what I’m saying? So you turn on something, you know, so that you have some noise in the background. The kids are on their phone. I’m on the Steam deck. My wife’s on her switch playing Atelier Atlee or however you pronounce it. So we’re all busy. But we want something on. Right. I don’t want commercials commercials make me mental. Because I know how these commercials work. It’s the same commercial every 8.7 minutes. It’s the same damn commercial that comes up. It’s like ever, ever. Anyway, so unfortunately, we didn’t stay up late, we decided we were going to go to bed fairly early. We were all excited, of course, to go in the park open I think at eight o’clock. Now my wife was very clear that there was going to be no nonsense with this trip. I’m not going to be running us around trying to hit every single ride in a day, right? We’re not going to be there 20 minutes before the park opens. We’re not going to be there until the last firework goes off, right? It’s going to be a chill we got three days at Disneyland, three days went to California venture. Three days, we got plenty of time. So calm down, don’t run me around. I don’t want to be stressed out. And she had a very specific itinerary for the first half of the first day at Disneyland. We’re going to ride the train. We’re gonna get off at this stop. She’s got the whole thing planned out. She knows. No, I’ve got Roku on my TV here. And I don’t like Roku. I don’t like the I don’t like any but I don’t like it on the television. I’m assuming that the stick is better. All my friends have Roku sticks. And they all seem to love them. I don’t like things I can’t really control the sheet the steam and sorry the steam Deck, the shield TV, I can I can pull whatever launcher I want I can put whatever app I want. It does exactly what I want when I want I can disable all the advertisements in it I can change everything I want around the Roku on my television in the era because I’m looking at right now I got a TCL with roku. I’m gonna write about my hot tub and I find it miserable to use. I’m assuming the sticks better because everyone seems to like it but I have the Fire TV I had the Google TV I tried them all except for the Roku stick so I can’t imagine it being a huge upgrade from all of those other things. I just got I just said screw Brittany she’ll bring the shield it’s easy, easy peasy lemon squeezy. So anyway, so we so we got so we set the alarm for like Seven o’clock crank. Everybody had to get up and showered. There’s four of us now, right? So it’s not just three of us. Four of us, everyone showers, everyone’s getting ready to go. Since have we had to go to breakfast we had to go. We had to go out to so we had IHOP and Denny’s. They’re literally a stone’s throw away from the entrance to the hotel. So we went to Denny’s the first morning, and we decided that we’ll go to IHOP I Hobbs got better pancakes. It turns out, by the way, not true. If you read my IHOP and Denny’s review, yeah, I was reviewing everything on the way back. He had six hours in the car, folks, I had plenty of time to write reviews. So if you read my reviews on IHOP, and Denise on harbor right in front of Disney World, Disneyland rather, you’ll see that they’re pretty much exactly the same. But if you go to IHOP, there’s these people running around, they want to sell you shit, they want to do balloon animals for you for 10. They want to take your picture and give you a complimentary postcard with an upsell package. I don’t like being accosted while I’m trying to have breakfast. They were very nice. They weren’t pushy, but it’s just like, oh God, here comes the camera guy again, you know, because you know what’s coming every single morning. We had I have like three mornings, three of the four mornings, or something like that, I’d have to do the math. So anyway, so we get on we have, we have Denny’s and it’s fine. By the way, a family of 480 to 100 bucks per meal, outside Disneyland. That’s what you’re looking at. That’s not even everybody having drinks that’s with two coffees, two waters and a regular, standard breakfast for each person. Not not breakfast, steak and eggs. I’m talking like the generic stuff. And listen, these guys all get together and they’re all in cahoots. Every single meal is for 1399 to 6099. Whether you’re at IHOP, whether you’re at Denny’s, whether you want this mixture of eggs and hash browns versus eggs, and waffles doesn’t matter what you want. 1399 is 1699 across the board. So, you know, after tax tip gratuity the whole big you’re talking about 80 to 100 bucks per meal, you know, outside exert talking, and that’s before you actually get into Disneyland. Gas was incredible. Yes. So we we, we worked very hard to make sure we paid as little as possible. So we filled up here in the mid $4, we topped off IQ, I believe at quartzite, which was also about 459. The second you cross the border $6.50 a gallon. Bang, right? I mean, literally two bucks a gallon more than a second you cross the border. And that was all the way. So we want we tried our best to time, the return right? So we couldn’t get away with topping off. Getting to Anaheim coming back to the top off point. Right. So we ended up having to buy four or five gallons at 679 a gallon or something crazy like that. Yeah, it’s really, really hard when you’re topping off and it’s like 50 bucks. 60 bucks. That’s the top off. That’s not the Phil. Yeah, so Alright, so we decided that we were going to have like, so we brought a certain amount of money. I think we brought about $130 a day for snackies in the park, that’s being able to have a couple of snacks each. Right along with you know, when I say snacks, I’m not talking about a frozen banana, I’m talking about something that’s not a full meal. But it’s not just a snack. And that’s really hard to find, by the way, that also ranges about so if you want to have a quality snack, you’re talking about 60 bucks per hit. For four people, you’re gonna pay, you’re gonna pay about 10 bucks for a meal. And again, it’s all measured out, dude, if you go to the, if you go to the honey bee in or whatever the hunger was called, that have the spicy chicken sandwich, you can go right across the way to the pizza place you go down the street to the burger place, it doesn’t matter. It’s all pretty much the same thing. You’re looking at $15 per person for what you would call like counter service, right? Not a full meal. Not a big meal, but something better than a snack. So we wanted to have one big meal, you know, biggest meal in the park and a couple of snacks one in the morning, one in the afternoon. So we brought enough cash to sort of cover that but it never goes as far as you’d like it to right. Everything else that we’re going to put on a card you know any sort of souvenirs or shopping or whatever. Alright, so we get in the park right? And so let me tell you about let me tell you about Tuesday, greatest day ever. And I say that with peace of love, peace and love because one crowd attendance was low. It was overcast, but still warm. The rides were flowing like wine if I bought a genie if I bought a genie pass that day. I would have been pissed. I’m going to talk all about Genie in a couple of minutes. I assure you, I have much to speak up, about about the genie pass, but we’re gonna get to that in a minute. So let me tell you what our first day was now. Now those of you who know the rides and everything you might have to look some of these up on day one at Disney World Disneyland Magic Kingdom. No Genie Fastpasses no pay to ride zero pay to ride. Here’s what we got done. We took the train we visited the Enchanted Tiki Room we wrote Jungle Cruise. We wrote Indiana Jones right haunted mansion, Splash Mountain Winnie the Pooh, Thunder Mountain Railroad auto topia, Star Tours, Astro Blasters and Hyperspace Mountain. All done one day, no pass. Nothing. That’s how beautiful Tuesday was. That was the greatest day ever. It was chill. You didn’t have to run around. Everything was great. So nothing really exciting to speak about. We’re going to talk about the app or we’re going to talk about Genie plus and stuff at the end. But that’s what we got done on day one. All of that. We hit every major ride and a bunch of minor rides now outside of Star Wars, right? I gotta say that Star Wars was planned for Thursday. We didn’t even enter Galaxy’s edge on Tuesday. Yes. So let’s move along. Wednesday, California Adventure day. But before that, let’s talk about Tuesday night, so we get back to the hotel. I don’t remember what we ended up having for dinner. I think we went to what do we have for dinner? I think we ended up eating in the park for dinner. And we had a whole bunch of snacks and stuff after that. When we got back to the hotel. So let me tell you, motel life is not good. It seemed like up until so we got home, we got back to the hotel. I think we crashed about 10 or 1030. Right? We were tired. And we’ve done a whole bunch of stuff we felt pretty accomplished. So we got back by 1030. It wasn’t until about midnight or one that whoever the fuck was staying above us finally stopped jumping off the bed and onto the floor. hours, hours of pacing hours of running around from bump bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, and then and then and then you’d almost be asleep. Right? Because there’d be some sort of a pause in the thud the thumping going on above you. You’re almost asleep. You’re drifting off, you’re starting to have those little alphas start kicking in. But what what that was that? Oh my god, what was that? What was that? And then you’d be like, some asshole jumping. I don’t know what they were doing upstairs. But it sounded literally like somebody jumped off the bed and landed both feet flat on the floor above us. And it’s like, oh, for fuck sake. And so this went on till midnight, midnight 30. And then finally it started to calm down. But you’re you’re freaked out, right? So every time there’s a lull in the noise, and you think that they’re done for the night, it comes back. So you’re like 2030 minutes sitting here waiting for the frickin shoe to drop again, literally on the floor on your head. So finally, we got to sleep. Now you’re in a strange bed. You can’t get comfortable. The temperature is not right, whatever it is. So let’s just say that it wasn’t a great night’s sleep, which made California Adventure. A little less fun. Everyone’s a little more grumpy. Everyone’s a little more tired. Everyone’s dogs are barking a little bit at this point. Right. So on the California Adventure, and the crowds were considerably more. We hit some of the major stuff. But you can already tell that the stress was running a little a little high already. My wife is starting to get a little pissy. Right. So we rode what used to be Mulholland Drive. It’s now like Goofy’s sky school or some dumbass name like that Mulholland Drive was a lot cooler. But that’s one of those rollercoasters where like you get in this little tiny mind car, and they whip you around really, really hard on on tracks that have no sides. It and you literally are scared shitless that the car is gonna tip over and fall off the side. I know we pay for this, and we plan for this and we love it. But yeah, I was you know, every time we ride that we’d say we’re never riding it again. But obviously that doesn’t work out. We of course went on soaring it’s no longer soaring over California. It’s now soaring around the world. And that’s one of our favorite rides. We really liked that we wanted the kids to be with us on that once we took the kids on that that was great. Again, not too long of wait times. From the second we walked in, we went straight to the grizzly bear rapids. grizzly bear rapids first of all, you get soaked sometimes you can walk out of Disney, the grizzly rapids dry as a bone, or completely soaked in anywhere in between. Now mind you, we’re here at 839 o’clock in this is SoCal. So it’s not really warm yet. And nobody really wanted to get wet that early but it’s a walk on. There’s not even a line. It says five minutes but you walk up there were there was some woman, I say black woman only because I’m going to do the dialect. And I you know, there’s this black woman yelling at her kids on the rap. There’s a great photo spot that you can see the last leg of the rapids. This woman is screaming at her kids. Like, you boys have been on there for five times you get the hell off that ride. I mean, something of that nature. And so and so my wife, you know, so funny. My wife considers herself an introvert but she was chatting people up left and right. Like it was nobody’s business, whatever, whatever. I do what I want. And so she was saying she was saying five times as we want mindset. Oh, hell yeah. They’ve been on that ride five times in a row. And I’m like, Wow, that’s pretty cool. So we’re just gonna walk in really no five minute wait, they just let him sit on there as long as they want. So we decided to go ahead and do it. I think that started off making my wife pissy because I’m like, Honey, it’s it’s walk on. It’s gonna be 45 min away later. I don’t want to get wet. I don’t want to get wet. And finally, you know, she finally says, You guilting me into this. She didn’t say that. But that’s how that’s how it came across. But we’re gonna do it. I’m like, No, listen, if you don’t want to go, let’s not get one. Oh, you want to go? You want to go? So it’s gonna be a long day. So we got on. A lot of fun. If you listen to the rap, the grizzly rapids you have to go on because it’s fun. It’s great. Breezy rapids are great. And my wife and I got a little wet. It wasn’t too bad. We’ve been a lot more wet on that right before. So the boys said, can we just stay on for another trip? And my wife was like, I’m getting off and I’m like, No, I’m good. I escaped getting a full face of water. I think I’m good with one right on here, right? So the boys went around again, that gave me a great opportunity to get up on that place where that woman was screaming at her kids and get some really nice pictures of the boys soaking wet on the right. It was it was good. It was good. So we did that. We did the in. It used to be called like The Rock and Roll roller coaster the Aerosmith roller coaster. Now it’s now it’s what is it The Incredibles roller coaster? It’s like they just have to change all this shit. I mean, who even cares about the Incredibles anymore? I mean, it would have been much cooler if you left it in Aerosmith, you know, I’m saying but no, no, Aerosmith doesn’t belong to Disney. At least not yet. So we’re going to brand it with something that we own. So we met we went on that ride we went we did the Buzz Lightyear shooting gallery which by the way, not to be missed. Highly recommended if you’re if you listen, nobody wants to go to California Adventure. I get it. But if you park hop over there, you take one day out of your five days and you go to California Adventure. The Buzz Lightyear shooting gallery is the real deal. It’s so much fun. It’s it’s great. I recommend it. So my wife did not want to get on the roller coaster. My my my son’s friend was starting to be a pill. We kind of figured out over the course of the days that he’s ADHD, not medicated. Maybe just a tad bit on the spectrum. We don’t know. But the kid doesn’t sit still. And so my wife did not want to go on the roller coaster. Ross didn’t want to go on the roller coaster because it had a loop in it. Despite the fact that he just went on Thunder Mountain he said he didn’t want to go on Thunder Mountain. He said he didn’t want to go on Splash Mountain. We went on all these rides and he loved them. But this time there was like, you know, it’s got a loop in it. So I’m not gonna go on it. It’s like, do you feel the loop? It’s a roller coaster Come on. And the wife was getting pissed because I was being pushy. Ross was getting all wigged out because Brian was pushing him. So it was starting to they were starting to tail spin quickly. But my wife’s like you guys go and ride the roller coaster. I’m gonna go try to find something to eat because we had like angry fire hot dogs. Right across in that Buzz Lightyear. There’s this hotdog stand. Looks like a big giant fired up hot dog. It’s great. And then and then then they do have non hotdog. Non spicy hot dogs too. So don’t let them fool you. It looks like there isn’t but there is. So we we’d had those. I don’t want hot dogs. Okay, well, we’re having hot dogs. So now she was off to go find food while we were waiting in line at the roller coaster. Brian, you know, Ross said I don’t want to go on the roller coaster. And so he jumps out of line and goes chasing after my wife. And I’m like, Brian, go get him. We you know he’s in our charge. We can’t just let him disappear. And I said call him he’s like, he doesn’t have his phone with him. I’ve got his phone on. Fuck me. Go get Ross. Go get him. And so he charges that alone. I’m still alive. I’m trying to hold our spot. I said go get him and bring him back. Tell him he doesn’t have to ride but he has to stay with one To the adults who can’t just run up, especially now without his phone, I suppose it’s a big part. What are you lost and found? You know, have you seen this ADHD kid with glasses, long black hair. So, so he went off charging after trying to find him and I guess Ross had doubled back. Because from my spotlight, I could look up to the Pierside. I could see him. The brains not with it. And so I call Brian like, where are you? I see Ross. I’ve got visual on him right now. Where are you? It’s like, well, I’m up the period. I’m like, Dude, get back here. Snake him and Halas aspect in line. Now I’m starting to freak out, they’re gonna end up losing his ass. So I jump out a line, I go pick him up, I bring him back to the line. Brian shows up. He gets in line with his horse. We lost our spot. So now we’re 30 minutes behind, he ends up not writing. My wife’s off having Mexican at the Pacific pier, which by the way is very, very cool. Very nice atmosphere out there. Good. Good choice on her part. So next up, what else do we do? We went back to Cars Land, which by the way, Radiator Springs was closed. Somebody said one of the cars caught fire or something. Right? Hopefully nobody was in it. But yeah, so that was closed down. But Ross wanted to ride like there’s these itallian dancing cars. I can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head. But he wanted to he wanted to. He wanted to ride those right. And so listen, he’s our guests, we should go and do some stuff he wants to do. And then he’s like, Oh, these weren’t the cars. It was the radiator, the whatever the Junker thing was from cars, there was another ride that was exactly like the Italian car ride. But it was the Junker cars. And so they wanted to write that. And I said, Listen, I’m watching, I’m watching these little tractors run around pulling these things behind them. And these things are swinging and circling around. I’m like, I’m not doing it. Listen, I know, I’m on Dramamine and the whole bit, but I don’t want to be sick the rest of the day. So they when my wife and Ross went on that when we’re Brian and I sat it out. Then it came down to Tower of Terror, which by the way, as you probably already know, Tower of Terror is no longer there. It’s no longer the Twilight Zone based Tower of Terror. Now, it’s all retooled to a property that Disney does own outright, which is Guardians of the Galaxy. So for those who have no clue what I’m talking about whether I say Tower of Terror, or I say Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s essentially a ride where they put you in a car, they lift you up, they drop you, they lift you up, they drop you, they lift you up, they drop you and then you get off. It’s it’s a lot cooler than it sounds. It’s a really fun experience, because you get G’s in both directions, right. So you would think it’d be like one of those carnival rides where they lift you up really, really slow, and then they like make you dangle there for a second then they let you go nananananana it’s a fast Russia a fast drama fast Russia, and it bounces you back and forth, and you don’t know how far up and how far down you’re gonna go. It’s a different experience every time you write. The core mechanism of the ride hasn’t changed. It’s still the same ride as it was when it was Tower of Terror. But now it’s all scheme with Guardians of the Galaxy, which I just don’t give a shit about. But listen, as long as the ride mechanics are solid, that’s all I care about. Now, the Twilight Zone of course, I like spooky. I like creepy. I like that sort of dark sinister shit, which is what the Twilight Zone version of Tower of Terror was. This of course was all decked out at all look like Guardians of the Galaxy. And it had like a museum in the front. You’d walk around and look at guardians of galaxies artifacts, and which I had no clue what any of it was. Right? And yeah, it was all. Okay, whatever. Listen, it’s a queue line. Whatever it takes to keep you interested. I will tell you right now. That was the most miserable queue of the entire trip. 85 minutes was what they said the line was when we got in it. I just don’t believe that’s true. It was pretty much 120 minutes by the time we got through. And half of that three quarters of that was outside in the sun mid afternoon. Which you think SoCal Ooh, big though so and who it’s like 76 degrees asshole combat. It’s not like you were at not like you were a Disney World in 104 with 98% humidity, so knock off your bitching. No, no, no, listen, it wasn’t it wasn’t. It wasn’t super hot. But dude, when you’re on your feet, and the lines not moving, and every time you think you’re gonna make a turn and go in the building, you’re now wrapped around to the outside of the building again. It was a law. It was a long ass queue. And it was definitely longer than what they said it was. But that was the longest we spent in any queue the entire time we were there. So Guardians of the Galaxy sort of tipped me off to what, what Disneyland is now. And what Disneyland is now. It used to be it used to be a lot of practical stuff, right? Disney land used to be animatronics right highly advanced animatronics, Pepper’s Ghost effects imagine Near shift, right? I mean when I say that I’m talking about doing amazing things with, like practically no technology, right? The new thing what what Disneyland is moving forward is it’s all screens now. Where there used to be Pepper’s Ghost and cool hallways with ghosts are flying things we’re in. Now they’ve read everything new. Listen, Haunted Mansion still has Pepper’s Ghost. So I mean, if you want to see those sorts of effects, it’s all there. But if you go on Guardians of the Galaxy, Rise of, you know, Rise of the resistance, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run any of these anything new that’s being built, or massively overhauled. It’s all watching videos, that’s the entire experience almost the entire experience. I will I will correct on a couple of these items in a minute. The Guardians of the Galaxy. So Tower of Terror, you used to like drive the cart through this creepy ass, hotel lobby, Dawn, and every time that you would fly up and the door would open, there’d be some sort of a scene to see. And usually it was like this big hallway there was spooky creatures walking at the end of it. There was something kind of cool was, like I said was a lot of Pepper’s Ghost effects and, and things like that practical stuff. Now, literally, the door opens and you watch a movie for 15 seconds, the door closes, they drop you. They open the door, you watch another movie for 15 seconds, they close the door, they lift you up really fast. They opened the door, you’re watching a movie for 15 seconds. They close the door. That’s what it is. It’s all it’s all watching video clips. I mean, that’s what you do now on Guardians of the Galaxy not targeted, not Tower of Terror. So once we were done with that ride, Ross and my wife had gone off because Roston one right that either spoil sport. So they’d gone off, they’d done some sort of a bakery tour or something and then had some lunch. And so we decided that we done pretty much everything that we wanted to do in California Adventure. So let’s pack it in early. And we went back to the hotel. My my, my wife and Ross went back to the hotel early Brian and I came back and got went back to the hotel a little bit later. But it all worked out in the end. So it was California mentioned on to Star Wars day Thursday. All we plan to do is spend the entire time in galaxies edge. So let’s talk about galaxies edge galaxies edge is on the ass end of Disneyland. So when you walk in the park at Disneyland, it is literally as far away from the entrance as humanly possible. You can take the train, which we did you get on the train, you take that up to Toon Town, which is all closed down for refurbishment. You get off there, you sort of make a fork off of Fantasyland and bang, you’re in Galaxy’s edge. One of the things about Galaxy’s edge that kind of blew me away was you can’t see it until you’re there. No, this is all part of the Disney Magic, right is to keep everything isolated, keep everything hidden. And I’m really really impressed that you can’t see galaxies edge unless you’re in galaxies edge. But you can’t see it. If you’re on the Matterhorn, you can’t see galaxies edge. So we got in there. And so we got into gouge and was, it’s cool. All right, I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s all it’s like an entire little city. All themed to like, I don’t even know what it’s based on. I mean, it’s kind of like you’re on tattooing in a city in tattooing. They’ve got a cantina, they’ve got numerous shops, they’ve got rides, they’ve got the lightsaber, you know gazebo where you build your own lightsaber. I’m gonna talk about that too. But there’s there are two rides that you need to worry about up in Star Wars Galaxies edge. One is Smuggler’s Run Millennium Falcon ride, which by the way, they have like a full replica of the Millennium Falcon built out front of this thing. And it is. Listen, you can look at pictures all day long. But to see these things at scale, it’s it’s kind of jaw dropping to walk around the corner. And there’s the Millennium Falcon in its full size glory, at least I’m assuming it’s full size. Maybe it’s a it’s a scale down just a little bit. But I’m telling you, your walk around the corner you see the Falcon, you’re going to Holy shit. There it is. And it is on this scale. Everything is kind of built to scale. The ships that you see the buildings, everything feels I mean, I know there’s prospective things that they do to kind of trick that scaling but overall, though, you walk in you’re going Holy shit, I’m in Star Wars. There are there are characters walking around right there stormtroopers walking around interrogating guests. Kylo Ren was running around for a while. harassing the shit out of this little kid in the stroller was great. Chewbacca is running around. I saw some Imperial officers walking around. So it’s pretty cool. I mean, listen from from an ambiance point of view. Galaxy’s edge is pretty fucking cool. What about the riots though? That’s what you want to hear about. You want to hear about the riots tell you about the riots, my dude. So let’s talk about Smugglers Run outside of the rescanning of Hyperspace Mountain or Space Mountain. Now, Hyperspace Mountain, aside from the rescanning of that Smugglers Run was our absolute favorite ride. And I’ll tell you why. One because it can be different almost every time you ride it. And two, there’s reasons to revisit it. So you go in, the idea is that there’s this Junker dude, that runs smuggle shipments, right? And so he wants to hire you to go and find these some sort of crystal crystal and energy pod container things. He wants you to go and get those and bring them back. Right. In the meantime, don’t damage his ship, which is like a miniature Millennium Falcon. Don’t don’t make no, don’t fuck up his ship and don’t and get as many crystals as you can. Which, by the way, you can get no crystal I don’t know if you can get no but you can get one crystal two crystals, three crystals. I don’t know if there’s more than that. It’s a video game. My dudes. It is a video game that has almost endless possibilities. So you’re sitting in the queue up line. And the guy’s talking to Chewbacca saying you know, you want to help the resistance I want to make money. So out you, you get me the stuff I need. I’ll take all the profit and you can have, you’re gonna have the energy crystals to help with the resistance. So you have this big queue up, right. And then they take you into probably one of the then they take you to another queueing room where you’re assigned a color. Yellow, red, blue, whatever. Then they let you into the Millennium Falcon’s like recreation room. My dudes, this is fantastic. There’s the hologram chess set table in there. You got this. I mean, in there’s like, there’s four colors in there. There’s so there’s four people. There’s four people, times four or five colors. So it can be there can be what 15 to 20 people in there. But but it’s chill, you’re just sort of hanging out waiting for them to call your color. It was it was the grill i Listen, I’ve been through a lot of rides with a lot of cues, and a lot of ways to, to have them sort of trick you into thinking you’re not waiting that long. But I’m telling you right now, the record, I don’t know what it’s officially called the recreation room of the Falken being able to sit there that chess set. No, there were no chest set pieces coming out or anything. But it was really cool to just sit there. Very, very, very cool. Then they call your color you go line up. And you can either choose if you have the right group, or if you’re a whole bunch of strangers, they will designate roles for your party. I need two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers. So there’s six people, and we were four. So we always had randos. With us every single time we wrote this thing like five or six times people. It was that great. So I was a I was the left hand pilot which steers left and right, the right hand pilot steers up and down. There are gunners on either side, I was a gunner, I was an engineer twice, I was the left hand pilot. I think we wrote it one more time, I don’t remember what I did the next time, I think it was engineer again. So the idea here is, so it’s a video game. And you control the ship inside the video game. So the more the worse you control, the more damage you take, the more damage you take, the more the engineers have to work to repair the damage. How you fly, how fast you fly, how well you fly, all everything that you do in there, even by role will dictate the next branch of the story. So you’re literally playing like a three minute video game. And the less you get hit, the less repairing you have to do, the higher the score you get at the end it it was amazing. And you could you could write that three times and never have the same job. Technically speaking the gutters do the same thing. The engineers do the same thing. But you could ride as both pilots, right going up and down and left or right. Preferably somebody who’s played video games should be the pilot in case you’re wondering. So when Brian and I were piloting he was the right pilot. I was the left pilot. We did pretty good. But we got on as gunners. On another trip. We had two experienced pilots, you could tell these people fucking lived in the park. These guys knew what the hell they were doing. And so listen, shooting the gun, no big deal when the light flashes you push the button. Nothing. There’s no the gunner sucks it listen if you’re gonna if you have a choice, no gunner, engineers even more interesting because it’s random licensed switches, you have to flip, you’re not just pushing the same button over and over and over and over again. You actually have to follow sequences on stuff. Right? So a little more challenging. Keep that in mind. But at the end, I mean, so when we flew with the experienced pilots, I think we ended up with three fricking crystals at the end of that, and we saw an ending that we hadn’t seen before. So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a repeatable ride. So you can go on you could do Buzz Light Years. shooting gallery one time and walk away going I’m good. I don’t have to do this for another year. Smugglers Run we’d like, like wanted to get out and get right back on. We wanted to play the other roles. We wanted to see if we can unlock another video or another. You know, another branch of the story is really awesome. All right. Now what about Reitzel resistance? This is it. This is the one that you can get a fast pass for. They want to charge you $20 ahead per person to skip the line. You can’t Genie plus it. The line is always 60 to 120 minutes. There’s no escape, either waiting or paying. And not just paying for Genie plus paying to ride the ride. It’s like buying loot boxes. You already bought the game. Right? You bought the Battle Pass, but for some fucking reason you still can’t have the Mercy skin without coughing up 15 bucks. Same shit. That’s That’s it in a nutshell. loot box city for Rise of the resistance. So when we got the Star Wars laying on Thursday, by the way, I told you Tuesday was beautiful. Like no people. Wednesday, California Adventure, more people but tolerable. Thursday, we discovered something Thursday and Friday, there was some tie into the local high schools. Seeing your graduation party shit. The park started getting packed. Star Wars Land was a complete mess. So I think we waited 6570 minutes to get into Rise of the resistance. We weren’t paying 20 bucks ahead. Vitamin 80 bucks. Fuck that. That’s, that’s a meal down at the Honeybear cafe. No, I’m saying. So we stood in line. And there’s nothing interesting Listen, Rise of the resistance as the most uninteresting queue line ever, until you get inside the building. And then at least their stuff to see. They have like weapons. They’re all behind cages. He can mess with weapons and uniforms. There’s stuff to see on the way in. But it’s like, oh my god, the outside was completely boring. There was nothing to look at. It was just a it’s hot, miserable. So okay, so what is Rise of the resistance? I have never seen more queues in a ride than on Rise of the resistance. It is q q q, q q, then the ride and then you’re done. Now, I will tell you though, that the queues are very interesting, as queues go. So you got to walk in and watch a hologram of Ray telling you how great it is to have you there. You’re gonna help the resistance blah, blah, blah. Who gives? Who gives a shit who gives a fuck, right? So then they move you to another queue where you wait, and you wait, then they lead you into like this. Then they lead you into like an Imperial ship. I’m sorry. Wait, wait, wait, wait back. backtrack. Reverse it. You get inside of a rebel spaceship. And that’s pretty cool. You got Admiral Ackbar a reasonable facsimile up front. You’re flying around. It’s a little bit like Star Tours, except for you’re standing up. And there’s video in the back. But again, it’s all screens. Remember I told you it screens screen screens, all screens my friends all screens. So you had a screen in the front of screen in the back. And then you have like five TV screens showing po trying to protect you from the the rebels are the Empire right? I’m sorry, whatever the whatever they’re called no first order who gives a shit? The Empire. So your your ship is pulled in by a tractor being okay. And you’re offloaded by the first order. And they take you into another queueing room. So this is QQ ride Q then they take you into a hall and by the way, this all looks authentic folks, you look like you’re on the set of a Star Wars movie inside the Deathstar. Or inside of an Imperial ship. It does look great. The stormtroopers you got Imperial people running all over the place. And get this get this this isn’t what I thought was really cool. The impure that first order. I’m going to call it Imperials. Fuck first order. So all the Imperial people are dicks. Now you’re going to Disneyland and everybody’s smiling at your ass. Everybody’s telling you Happy Birthday My wife had her birthday pin on everybody’s all the this first order shit, no have none of it. In fact, they get mouthy with you and I’m just like, damn, this is cool. You know, they’ll they’ll make fun of you. They’ll tell you to show Get the hell up and don’t don’t use the word hell, but they’ll tell you to shut up. I mean, you’re you’re being detained for questioning. Right? So you’re prisoners. And I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be those guys, you have to be really careful. I’m sure they all have perfectly, I’m sure they have like 10 different scripts they can choose from, they all have to stay on script. But for the most part, having the Imperials, you know, smack you around is actually kind of cool. They put you in a holding chamber, or they put you in a detention cell, you get broken out by the resistance, then they said, We’re gonna get you off of the ship. And that’s when the actual ride starts, you get inside this cart, and now you’re driving around, trying to get out of the ship. And so screen screens, screen more screens, we got an animatronic of Kylo Ren, you had a couple of practical effects, but for the most part, you’re driving through corridors with screens, you’re watching videos, that’s, you know, that’s a big part of the ride. But you’re being whipped around, you’re being shifted, but the best part ever, the best part of it is, and even my wife commented, The best part is, you go inside of an ad at hanger. And but they’re not full size ads, but they’re so fucking big. You would believe for a minute that they’re full size ads. And you go into this, this room, and then you’re in this giant, frickin hangar bay. It’s amazing. And they’re the ad that’s right there. You get away blah, I don’t want to spoil everything. I probably already told you too much in case you want to write it. Just forget that you know, any details. And then they run you around screen screen screen. Another practical effect, and then you’re out the door and you get out. What’s kind of cool, though, about this ride. Listen, it’s a good ride. It’s number three, right? It’s Hyperspace Mountain, Smugglers Run Rise of the resistance, and then everything else falls underneath that. So it’s still in the top three. Don’t let me downplay too much. But I would ride Smugglers Run five times in a row before writing Rise of the resistance again, that’s just me them. So anyway, we ended up writing that twice. We didn’t have to, we did stand in line for a short period for the second time through. That was on Friday, we did it as a filler because we came back up. But yeah, so it was, it’s okay. There’s no way to fast pass it unless you pay, pay to play. Alright, I gotta get a couple more things done. And I want to tell you about the app. But I want to tell you about g plus and how all this works. And then we’ll call it a show here running at 62 minutes. Why probably thinks I drowned back here. So okay, so the other thing to talk about in Galaxy’s edge is building your own lightsaber. Now I thought this sounded hokey is shit. My son has been saving up money for months to build his own lightsaber, this build your own lightsaber is 180 bucks, they get the lightsaber and you get to build it. Now, if you’ve ever been inside one of these stores, where you get to, quote build your own lightsaber, it’s literally like 10 bins filled of cheap plastic. You walk by you pick one up from each bin and you kind of slide them together and get one of those little telescoping you know, flicker things to kind of make it look like a lightsaber is energizing. When I’m thinking about 180 bucks, I’m thinking shit, it better be better than that. And so this required a reservation, you had to have a reservation, and they only took like 10 people at a time per reservation. So what happens is, is you gotta queue you gotta you gotta get in line, they check you in, you’ll sit in a queue with eight other people, nine other people until it’s your time. And then plus 10 or 15 minutes, right. So we had a 1210 appointment, we checked in at 1210 I don’t think we went in until 1225 or 1230 to do the actual building. But this is this is a full entertainment piece. I understand why it’s 180 bucks now. So you go in, you’re in this little dark chamber you each got your own crafting table. It’s like right out of fucking witch or something. Everybody, you know, all of these people are there. They’re playing music in the background. They’re talking about how the lightsaber represents this. The power crystals represent that you are amongst the secret order now. It’s literally an entire fucking presentation. And then they come you pick your crystal ahead of time so that you kind of have an idea what version of you know, do you want to be good side light, there’s like five different factions of lightsaber. And one of them of course is you know, power power of the force, which I think is the evil side. And what blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, who cares. So you choose like the color crystal that you’re going to have and the type of law I’d say if you want to build and they pre they pre stash it your station like they have they have pre stashes of each category of lightsaber right? So when you come up in the Choose a crystal like red, they know that you’re gonna get power of the Force pieces to choose from right so it’s it’s kind of like a mentalist mind game right? So they know. So they give you this nice intro and it’s like fully I mean it’s a full show it’s a show, except for your there is part of the show. And so they walk around with this big crystal, this big crystal dispenser thing, it’s really cool looking, you pick the color crystal you want, it’s glowing, it’s really, really cool. And then they talked about the colors of the crystal and how they affect this and yada yada yada. whole big thing. Listen, Star Wars geeks would be wetting their fucking pants at this point. Everything you want to know about lightsabers are being explained to you right now. So then they eat come in, then they got these little minions that come around each of your stations and they pull out a box of parts. And you pick for I think four or five parts. You know, you pick the pummel, you pick two decorative things, you pick an end cap. Maybe that was it. So maybe it’s 1234 things I wanted to say was five, but I’ve got it all on video. Have to go back and look. So anyway, so you build your hilt. And you insert your crystal. And if you don’t insert it right, it doesn’t make the noise Bundi so you put the crystal and just riding you can feel the saber start to energize supposedly really, really cool. I didn’t put my hand on it but my son assured me that it was cool as fuck. Then after everybody’s gets their their pummeled built, and they put their crystal and then it activates. There’s like this long tube at the end of your of your table. You stay they shoved the hilt into that too. There’s a big light show as your as your lightsaber is being energized or whatever, they use the term for it right? When you’re done. All the lightsabers turn on and you can see them shimmering inside the tubes. I’m telling you, it’s cool as hell, I am not super into this, but there was way cool. And then the little lids, the tubes if they’re in the tubes, they roll open. And the kids or whoever the adults, whoever’s the builder can then pick it up and wield it. And it’s like, it’s like one of those expensive lightsabers. It’s essentially one of the expensive lightsabers used to be able to buy like at Sky Mall or, or one of these other boutique shops that cost like 200 bucks. Same lightsaber except for you got to build it yourself and you got the whole show. And quite frankly, 180 bucks wasn’t that bad. Once you realize I mean, it’s all metal. It’s the real light up to but it’s not that it’s Listen, it’s it’s a quality product you end up with. They give you a specialized carrying case to put it in. Right I mean 180 bucks and get the fuck out of here. But no 180 bucks is not a bad deal if lightsabers are your bid. So we got to go out we came out we put the lightsaber away he’s all excited. I was excited for him and a little bit excited too. It was a really neat experience. Listen, 180 bucks, not chump change. But if you’re going to do this whole vacation thing anyway. Build yourself a lightsaber. Just make sure you make sure you get a reservation, like months in advance. Right? If you’re deciding to go as soon as you book your tickets, booked the reservation for the damn lightsaber, they will not let you in. You don’t have a reservation. It’s a whole thing. So Friday, let’s wrap it up. Friday was a filler day we let the kids go off on their own. They did what they wanted. That’s when my wife and I decided let’s get the genie plus, let’s take it out for a test drive. And let me tell you something Thursday was busy. Friday was a goddamn nightmare. It was like back to back fucking people. People were everywhere. There wasn’t a ride out there from Winnie the Pooh to Hyperspace Mountain that wasn’t looking at 45 to 6580 520 minutes. Forget about it. And so I told my wife I said, Listen 20 of the boys don’t want it. The boys did not understand the concept of you still have to wait. Right? So if I told them you can pull a fast pass or a lightning pass for two hours from now, to ride. Hyperspace Mountain, they’re like, Well, why don’t we just go wait in line, there’ll be less time. You’re missing the point. You don’t have to stand in line. You’ll walk up and you stand in the little five minute line and you walk in. You get to choose what you do for those two hours and not wind around in a queue. Boys couldn’t figure it out. Boys didn’t want it. They said it’s a waste of money. Fuck it and they left. It’s a great so I told my wife I said let’s try it out. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to talk about on the show. And we’ll know for next time that we come. Next time that we come we’ll understand how it is and how works. Alright, so let me tell you how it works. fast passes are gone. For those of you who are part of the old school days, there’s nothing but standby lines, unless you have Genie plus, g plus at Disney World is 15 bucks a day per person per day at Disneyland is 20 bucks per person per day. Now, one of the things that you might have been told is everybody has to have a genie pass, if you buy it for one person, you have to buy it for all of them. Not true, you may have also been told that you can buy Genie Plus, when you wake up in the morning at the hotel room. Also not true, you have to be in the park or pre buy it. If you pre buy Genie plus for your trip, everybody has to have Genie plus for every single day that you book it. If you buy it after you walk through the gates, you can buy for one person, your party, all of your party or none of your party. That’s good information. All the videos that I watched, all the information I consumed did not give me that little bit of tidbit of knowledge. Alright, so we were in the park and we activated Genie plus for our two our two tickets. So my wife and I had Genie plus. We managed to pull off I think five meant was maybe it was set no and the boys said they got on five rights. We got an eight rides. That’s probably the busiest day of the year, maybe we still managed to pull off seven or eight rides with Jeannie plus. Now did we have to work? The timings of course. Earlier in the day, we were getting 30 minute windows. So we would say oh, let’s go on haunted mansion bait, you’re locking in, you go in within 30 minutes. So it was nine o’clock in the morning. We said, Give me haunted mansion, cue up at 935. There’s a five minute by the way, there’s a five minute grace period, folks, there’s something else nobody bothers to fucking tell you. If your check in time for your lightning pass is 945 you can get in at 940 right word civilize because yes, there is a short line at the lightning lanes. So you get the five minutes early, your five minutes less lying to stand it. It’s true. That buys you an hour window. So if your time is at 945 You have until 1045 To redeem it. Now restrictions one right at a time, with one little caveat, one right at a time. The second you scan your fast passing check in the cooldown activates and you are ready to book another experience. So while we were checking in the Haunted Mansion, in the line as we were walking down to the getting the lightning lane, Bing Bang Boom, Jungle Cruise in 45 minutes. When we got to the Jungle Cruise and we signed in Bing, bang boom, Indiana Jones in an hour. Right. That’s how it works. Now, after Indiana Jones we wanted to write Hyperspace Mountain again. My wife’s favorite ride in the park is now Hyperspace Mountain. Probably mine too. Right? Hyperspace Mountain forget about at 90 minute wait minimum. So we’re looking ahead. It’s like a two hour it’s two hours. So we sign in the Jungle Cruise. Being cooldown period happens. We’re ready to go. So now we’re looking at Hyperspace Mountain. There’s nothing else we want to write. That was it. That was the last thing we wanted to ride that day. For sure. Once Hyperspace Mountain, so it’s two hours away. Okay. Okay, that’s fine. Book it. So we booked it. Now we can’t use it again. Right? We’re, we’re locked up. It was actually like three hours away. It was two hours and 45 minutes or something crazy. I don’t remember what it was. But it was a long way. So we decided fine. After we get off of Indiana Jones. We’re going to have a meal. We’ll sit down. We’ll rest. We’ll dig around a little bit. We’ll shop we’ll do whatever. And then we’ll go checking in Hyperspace Mountain. Again. You don’t have to wait in line, but you still have to wait. Now, here’s the other thing that some videos and some influencers will tell you other ones don’t. The cooldown isn’t just when you sign in. There’s a two hour cooldown window. Right. Indiana Jones we signed in to Indiana Jones. It cooled down we’re ready to pick another ride. We picked Hyperspace Mountain, which was three hours away. Right? We’re locked up for for three hours, right and once we get in Hyperspace Mountain, we can then choose another one, which probably is going to happen in three hours because it was getting late in the park was closing early for this graduation crap. So what turns out to be though, there’s another cooldown. It’s the 120 minute mark. So let’s say that you just booked Hyperspace Mountain, right? You just got an Indiana Jones you cool down you booked Hyperspace Mountain. Two hours later, we had another laning Lane available to us as well as haunted mansion in an hour. Hello, Thunder Mountain Railroad 25 minute window. Boom, we booked it. So then we had Thunder Mountain railroad and Hyperspace Mountain in the next hour. So we went to we went in we checked into Big Thunder Mountain Railroad we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. By the time we got done with that little short walk over by yourself a an ad at popcorn holder, we’re ready for Space Mountain Bing, bang, boom, we’re done. Jeanie plus, is it worth it? Yes, and no. Remember Disney dining at Disney World where you could pre buy all of your meals ahead of time. Right? They called it the Disney Magic dining experience. So for a flat fee, every day, you would get one character meal, one sit down, one counter service and a snack. Everybody will shit that’s pretty good. And for your whole party, you’re already booked, your food was done and paid for upfront. Okay, great. Unfortunately, though, unless you went to the right places at the right times for if you didn’t have a character experience, if you didn’t go to a little upscale sit down restaurant, right, you ended up paying more than if you just paid for the meals up front, you pre paid for convenience. But if you didn’t play your cards, right, and you didn’t have enough information on board, you didn’t plan out your meals well enough, you probably ended up losing money on magic, the magic meal system, sort of the way it is with Genie plus, if the park is packed, if the day before the rides were, you know, weren’t long, you know what I’m saying? If you know that it’s a light day at the park Genie plus is probably probably not worth your your your money, your time your effort. If we’d bought Genie plus ahead of time, and we’d gone on that Tuesday, when it was a cush day, I’d have been pierced because we didn’t need it. Wednesday, we didn’t really need it. Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy might have been worthwhile, that we we it was one one ride right? Thursday, didn’t really need it. Right. So the resistance was a little bit long, but we did okay, without it. Friday, probably would have been a complete clusterfuck. If we didn’t have Genie plus, we would have walked around, stood in line for Hyperspace Mountain for an hour and a half, and then went back to the hotel. So for 40 bucks, my wife and I got the genie plus. And we were able to ride almost twice as many rides and not have to ever, ever, ever really stand in line the whole time. We got to have meals, we got to sit around, we got to go sit in the shade. We weren’t surrounded by a bunch of nasty filthy people. Sorry, I needed a drink. So what Disney plus buys you is not necessarily faster times to ride. But it does buy you something that may be worth your time. And that is it buys you time down from the lines. Providing just get water my microphone, you guys will tell me right. In certain days, Jeannie plus will be a savior and other days it’ll be a complete waste of your money. It’s sort of a crapshoot. And you’re going to need to plan ahead and don’t Don’t, don’t buy it in advance. The second you walk through the gate, and you start looking at line times, that’ll let you know whether you need Genie plus or not. And then not everybody has to have it. Take that underway. So last last thing before I sign off here is the app. They tell you to download the app and use it in advance to get used to it. Yes, you do need to do that you do need to get the app on your phone and play with it. Everything is app driven, you will not listen there are some places you can’t even order food from the counter, you have to use your phone to order it. So get find out what that is if you’re dying to eat at the ice cream cone, you know the big traffic cone in Radiator Springs. You can’t walk up to the ice cream cone cone and order an ice cream cone, you have to do it on the app, or you have to go to some other location that does have a register and buy it ahead of time pain in the ass. So spend some time use the app ahead of time now what is not going to help you. You can’t simulate Genie plus, you can’t get a feel for how the tip board works. The tip board is constantly shifting all day long. The tip board is not necessarily your friend, the tip board works for Disney not necessarily you. So be careful. The tip board is going to understand that there’s low traffic at one end of the park, they may try to direct you there by putting things at the top of your tip board. So really the tip board. Listen, it can be useful, but again, it’s the dealer of the house, right? It’s the dealer always wins in the end. So but I do recommend you learn your way around, understand how the Interactive Map Works and understand how where you can see lightning Lane availabilities, because it’s not all in one place. If You want to see where something is that doesn’t tell you shit about it. Right. By the way, restrooms have their own section in the map took us about 10 minutes to figure that out, you would think that restrooms would be the one thing that’s on every map. But every map that you look at is filtered, either by attraction by restaurant, whatever, restaurants have their own category. If it were me, I would have put restaurants or maybe made it sticky. Right? Say, I want to always show restrooms, and then show me attractions. Or we show me restrooms and show me restaurants, right dining. So there are things about the map that you listen, when you’re when your wife needs to pee. You don’t want to have to try to figure out the restrooms have their own category, you want to do that up front. Right? Unfortunately, as I said before, practical application is not going to happen until you get to the park. And if you’re only at the park one day, that sucks ass because you’re going to be half the day trying to figure out how to best use the app. Even if you’ve played with it early on, before you get there. There are certain nuances of the app that only really work when you’re in the park on the day at the moment that you’re there. So I would say don’t make a single trip to the park. Make it two days, right make make and then take one day and make it a genie plus day. That makes sense to me. In fact, that’s what we’ll probably do if we go back again, none of this four days shit. We’re gonna do you know maybe three days two days at Magic Kingdom one at California venture maybe we don’t go to California venture at all. Screw it. We do two days at Disneyland and call it a day. All right, well, listen, I’m sure I could come up with more crap to talk about if you guys want to see video. Maybe I’ll post some video of the Jedi lightsaber buildings. I thought that was really damn cool. I got tons of pictures. Oh, I did buy a Salacious Crumb. Or I’m sorry a monkey lizard or lizard monkey. They when I said Salacious Crumb to the chick at the counter. She thought I’d lost my shit. When she said Do you mean the monkey lizard or the lizard monkey? I’m like him and I pointed over to salacious crumpets, I got a Salacious Crumb he sits on your shoulder. He’s got a little remote control to move his head and make his mouth open. And he laughs like Salacious Crumb does. So I’ve got my own Salacious Crumb you will start seeing him appearing in my YouTube videos sooner probably than later. Alright guys, I’m gonna get the hell out of this hot tub I’m turning into a prune hope you enjoy this rather long show all about Disneyland if you have any questions of course hop on the discord you guys know I’m not on Twitter anymore. So if you want to chat or do whatever you can put you put something in this chat I do get notified even after the show is over. If somebody posts something in here I can answer your questions. Or of course hop on the discord if you go to passenger C radio.com There’s a link to the discord where you can hop right on in and talk to other fellow passenger seat radio fans. I post videos in there I post pictures everyone there knew I got a spider monkey or not spider monkey lizard monkey whatever. Ahead of time but anyway. Alright guys, that’s gonna do it. Hope you enjoy the show. This is Shane R Monroe Patterson radio. Thanks so much for listening and take care