The Return of The Gold Key Adventurers Society

Jeff return host vox

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

Jeff: Hi, Dan.

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

Heather: Hello.

Dan: and Mr. Jeff

Jeff: Thanks for having me. Dan

Dan: It's a pleasure to have you as always, both of y'all.

Heather: Thanks, Dan

Dan: do we do now? That's what I say. Our show is 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 dot Key to the World Travel dot com for more details and to know obligation quote on the vacation of a lifetime.

Jeff: That's an aggressive.you have

Dan: I know I really wanted to drive it home. I don't know. It's fun to say you should try it.

Jeff: Dot Oh, I do that

Dan: It's kinda like Jingle Bell Jungle Bam.

Heather: I miss that show.

Dan: Only so that I could

have the chance to say, Jingle bell. Jungle. Bam.

Jeff: ba.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for coming back Feel like we haven't done this in

Jeff: so many 

Heather: been forever.

Dan: been like two months because we've all been so busy traveling around the

world, trying out 

Heather: the world.

Dan: new things, visiting old favorites. You're in the travel biz, you probably should travel

Heather: It's true.

Dan: usually a good idea. So first I wanna say stay tuned because the highlight is gonna be, we've got a firsthand look at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Disney

company. 

Heather: years.

Dan: a lot of years. They just kicked that off in Disneyland and Heather and Jeff were there. But first I thought maybe we could talk about some of the other places we've been since early December.

We've been what have we been up to? We've been visiting snow covered mountains, been on some intergalactic voyages, maritime voyages, and Dr. Capart two Penguin Boogaloo. I just got back from Universal Orlando Resort mere days after they took Witty Woodpecker out to the wood shed and put him out of his misery.

So

Jeff: Ah,

Dan: we got some stuff to talk about Yeah. You guys were on the Star Cruiser.

Heather: yes. We both took our second voyage on the galactic 

Jeff: went on the star cruiser.

again too.

Heather: I did, and it was just as much fun. The second time, I took a little bit of a different path and my first trip got up to some additional mischief. It was great. I went this time with my, my family and the most entertaining, yeah, the most entertaining part for me actually was my 16 year old son who I've learned is diabolical. cow. I thought the entire trip that he was doing the exact opposite of what he was doing. He had me fooled the

Jeff: That's the idea.

Heather: Yep. And it was so fun because he is, Generally kind of a shy person and he does not like, he is a typical of his generation. He prefers to be on his computer communicating via to people via text.

He's not the type to just walk up and start talking to someone. And he's completely different on the Star Cruiser. He is walking up to the characters, he's just joining conversations. He fully gets into it and I love it. It was so much fun to watch and Dan got to experience it with him on Owen's first trip, , and so I had a little bit of an idea that he was a bit diabolical.

Dan: Yeah that was fun to watch cuz I've never seen that side of him at

Heather: No, I mean, I rarely do either.

Dan: stoic.

Side. And so that was fun. Watching the wheels, turning things

Heather: Oh, and he taught me how to play Saba, which was fun on my first voyage. I didn't get any time at Hollow Saba, and we spent a lot of time at the table, and

Jeff: I

still don't get that game. Many humans and aliens tried to teach me and apparently I was too drunk. Putting the saoc table in the bar was probably a bad idea.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: fun. I prefer playing it at that table. I mean, now I know how to play it and could just play it with a deck of cards, but it's more fun at the Hollow Saba table.

Jeff: Yes. So my son and I went there. Also, I had gone with Heather before. It was just adults doing adulty things and my son is now 21 and he and I have actually never gone on a just a guy's trip together, which is weird as much as we do stuff together and I travel, it just hadn't worked out. So we went and did a boy's trip.

He got fully into. costuming thing. We both cosplayed harder than I had done before when I was a jaded turd who didn't wanna play along. But we

really got into it He loved it and I, being me, found that if I just hang around in the bar, all the action will happen around me and you can go run your missions and basically just stayed there.

 We had lots of space drinks. That was fun cuz he's a new 21 year old figuring out what he likes. And a lot of them were blue colored space drinks

Heather: which is fun.

Jeff: and he loved that. But he, it was so fun to see him doing the. , he got really into it. He ran, he was playing not one-sided, two-sided, three-sided, four-sided.

Every person that contacted him, he would go meet with them. So I never knew what he was doing. He was meeting with everyone, but by the end of it, and he never told me what they did. He was kind of funny, like, where'd you go? Do, who'd you meet? He goes, I'm not telling

Heather: Exactly

Jeff: but at the End show, there's his name came up again and he had been off with a musician writing a song, creating diversions. At the, after the whole final thing at the end of the night, the musician on board sings a custom song that Wyatt co-wrote and had lyrics about Wyatt in it. This was the, just the craziest thing that, that, that experience is so neat and it's so hard to describe in a way that makes any sense to someone that hasn't done it.

But he loved it. He said he would do it again too. He just absolutely loved it. And the more you do it, You start to see how you could play different angles and make all different things. There were stories going on that I had no idea about the first time, and even stories that he did that I didn't know were happening.

So people breaking in and out of jails and on and off ships and it's

Heather: smuggling things. Yeah.

Jeff: Creating diversions for a heist and a custom songs. I mean, it's bananas.

Heather: I didn't realize that Owen was working against me the entire time because I thought that he wasn't. And at one point, my older son, I texted him to say that I saw what he was up to and Owen was right next to him and I didn't realize it and was laughing at me or the texts that I was sending because he was hiding from me.

And Aiden knew he was hiding from me. It was a lot of

Jeff: oh, he was reading your text to Aiden over his shoulder.

Heather: and I didn't see him in there

Jeff: That

Heather: because Aiden was clearly working for the first order. And I knew that, and I thought Owen was working for the resistance, and he was actually not. And they were both kind of playing me.

It was fun,

Jeff: That is fun.

Heather: but it's, it is so hard to describe, but it's so involved and you, the second time around, I was wondering if I was gonna be a little bored by it or it was completely different. The experience was completely different the second time around and I think I could go back again. And even with the same basic storyline that they're running, have an a totally different experience.

Jeff: percent. And even like in the bar, there was different bar staff and they were creating experiences in there and more like the group that we had this time was really into the music and dancing, and I kept making everybody that came in, I would tell the bartender was their birthday. and they do this whole birthday thing and the, they never got tired of it.

They kept putting on the birthday song and singing and dancing and it's so funny, like one guy sat down and he just ordered whatever space Jack and Coke or whatever it was he was having, and I was like, oh, a little birthday space, Jack and Coke, and the girl, the la the bartender would be like, yeah, boom.

And hit that song. Everybody start dancing. We had Conga lines going. It was a much more of a party atmosphere in the space bar

Heather: every member of the cast gets in on it. Even 

Jeff: so great and they all have their different style. Some are very super secretive. Some make a big joke of not being secretive when you're supposed to like, Hey, this guy wants info

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: So fun.

Dan: Yeah. I, and I mean, just by the nature of how they work, a lot of the big story points through the the bridge training, you definitely, I mean, there's

so many 

Heather: training was at a different time, this trip, and so it was completely different what we were doing in there.

Jeff: same. We had ours. The first thing we did was bridge trading.

Dan: right.

Heather: Lightsaber training was a little bit different this time. I was a little better at it. That was fun.

Jeff: I had a thing, it was not working the way it had done before and I was telling the trainer like, this is not doing whatever. And she's you have to whatever. I was like, it's okay with the character, but I have done this before and it's not doing what it was doing before. And Wyatt said the same like his, something wasn't syncing up, but we had two very little kids.

There's four in the line. We had two very little kids. And then me and Wyatt are six three. And I think it was like

Dan: oh.

Jeff: the height differential was messing it up or.

Dan: Especially if you were trying to use the shield behind a small child.

Jeff: Anyway, still tons of fun, but depending on your timing and your schedule, everything can be different. Just from that,

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: I would do it again,

Heather: A hundred percent I would. I would definitely do again,

Jeff: road trip

Dan: Yes, please. Yeah. Speaking of road trips, I took a road trip Over Christmas we ran away from a ma, that massive snowstorm that hit pretty much the

entire 

Heather: got out just in the nick of time.

Dan: Yeah, we

Jeff: head into the Tennessee Mountains, where it was also snowy.

Dan: Yeah. We were supposed to stop in Kentucky and then we saw Weather Reports said, they basically said Get off the roads by six o'clock because it's going to hit over here hard.

So we just kept on going through to to Pigeon Forge that day, which it was a very long drive. But yeah,

Jeff: Did you guys Straight through the.

Dan: 13 hours from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Pigeon forged Tennessee.

Heather: No, thank you.

Jeff: That's a lot with a lot of children

Dan: that was my first time back to the Smokey Mountain since I was a kid. There's the rest of my family's first time there at all. They loved it. My kids wanna stop at every single place in Pigeon Forge because it's just this wonderful.

 Wisconsin Dells meets Las Vegas collection of gigantic weird

Jeff: country. Hoku,

Heather: Yeah

Dan: It's great. We did the Dolly Parton stampede, which if you haven't done that, please do it. It's phenomenal. It's like medieval times, but Country

Holcomb. 

Jeff: ostrich riding

Dan: Yeah. And

Heather: I've never done 

Dan: there were any 

Heather: times or that one I 

Jeff: Wait, did they not ride the ostrich?

Dan: No, because we had it was the Christmas show. We were there on the 23rd. And So they had

Heather: ostriches aren't Christmasy.

Dan: No they had a special Christmas show that included like a weird black light ABES and toy land segment. And then they had a live nativity and they brought out camels and sheeps and

Jeff: Oh, I haven't seen that. Normally they have ostrich racing

Dan: Oh fun.

 They did do Pig racing.

which which my kids loved. And they also had for one of the competitions between instead of the north and the south, it was the North Pole versus the South Pole for the Christmas show. And one of the other competitions was they got two kids out of the audience and had 'em chase a chicken across the arena.

and whoever's chicken got to the other side first won. That was a big hit with my

Heather: Chicken Chasing more 

Jeff: I love that 

Heather: do that.

Dan: shows great. The food is surprisingly good. It's a ton of food. We ate three meals off of it cuz every single person gets a entire rotisserie chicken plus a big slab of barbecue pork and all kinds of stuff.

So it's a good meal. It was

a ton of 

Jeff: my son learned that a chicken, that chicken was a chicken cuz they put a whole chicken in front of him and he said that looks like a bird.

Dan: Yeah, I got, there's a reason for

Heather: It is a bird.

Dan: Other than that, we just hung out in the cabin most of the time. We did go to the national park. Things were closed down a lot cuz of ice. But we did get out to Cade's Cove, which is gorgeous, especially covered in ice, which that was so cool. Singing in winter.

There's that there's that grist mill, that old mill that you can visit and that entire thing was iced over and it

Heather: Oh, cool.

Dan: beautiful. We did . We attempted Dollywood the first day we're supposed to go, they just closed down for the entire day because it was eight degrees in the morning and it didn't warm up enough to open any rides.

We went the day after Christmas and they were open, they opened late at one o'clock and then it started, flurries started and the snow got a little bit worse. By five o'clock they said, we are closing early. You have half an hour to get outta here

because throws are gonna be bad. So that was fun. The kids loved it.

We want to go back. Never been to d.

Jeff: I haven't either. I've been to Pigeon Forge in Gatlinburg a ton of times, but never went to Dollywood.

Dan: Put it on your list and go. Great rides, great roller coasters. Roller coasters weren't open cuz it was too cold for the track. The tracks have to get up to a certain temperature, but watching videos, the rollercoaster is great and the food is really good and a great we fed our entire family at a table service restaurant for two thirds of what it, Waco, Walt Disney World.

And the food was phenomenal. They're, they like to do a lot of like pot roasts and pot

Heather: Home cooking.

Dan: stick to your ribs home

cooking, 

Jeff: G on it. Cooking.

Heather: That's 

Dan: that's right.

 Which was perfect for the middle of winter in Tennessee. But yeah, I highly recommend Dollywood go

Heather: Did you ever see any bears?

Dan: we did not, it was too cold for the

bears.

 We were told, yeah, it was said. We were told that there would be a chance when they thought that it 

Heather: Kendra showed me a ring video of the cabin you stayed in from a few weeks before you were there and there were like seven bears on the porch

Dan: So when bears hibernate, they don't actually sleep all the way through the winter, like the cartoons tell

Heather: right? They have to forge and 

Dan: right. And, but when it gets below say, 40 degrees, they're going to be up sleeping.

Heather: Yeah. 

Dan: we didn't get to see 'em, but we plan on going back soon to see the bears and hopefully punch one in the face.

Jeff: the views expressed on

Heather: Remember 

Dan: share that part on 

Heather: don't try to punch a brown bear.

Jeff: If you punch a beer in the face, also don't post it on Facebook or you will get blacklisted.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: the weird thing is I've posted about punching bears multiple times on Facebook

Jeff: I didn't say bear my, what I typed was punch him in the snout and I 

Dan: Oh, that'll do

Jeff: Put in Facebook jail for inciting violence.

Heather: Next time. Remember to say, punch that bear 

Jeff: The animal, not human in his snout. Cuz people are known for having snouts.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: Wonder, I should have said boo. Is snoot

Heather: There you go. Boo him in the snoot.

Dan: 'em in the snoot.

Heather: I'm putting Dollywood on my list. I've gotta get down there

Dan: you should. It's a quick trip. It's fun. You

can do it in a day or two. They've, 

Heather: hours from West 

Dan: I mean the crowds aren't

bad. Is it from Nashville? I'll be going to Nashville this 

a couple hours. I think it's two

Heather: Ooh it's

Jeff: Yeah, I think Nashville to Knoxville is two hours, so probably three and a half

Heather: Okay. Might have to work it in.

Dan: Yeah. But I mean, you got time, right? Yeah. Go to Dollywood. It's a good time.

Jeff: go in the summertime.

Heather: was at Walt Disneyland, Florida campus for Christmas as we often do, and it was a great, we had a great time.

Dan: the Christmas magic.

Heather: Christmas match. I love Walt Disney World. During the 

Jeff: before, during, or after your star

Heather: this was before we went and launched into space, we spent some time at just our typical Christmas stuff. We're on the days when the parks are really busy.

We do things like miniature golf and bowling all those magical extras. I love to bowl. I suck at it, but it's so much fun. So we go to Splitsville and the food is fantastic. At Splitsville, it's half the reason to go for me is their food and drinks are so good

Jeff: Bowling and I do love eating.

Heather: and we, I always reserve Elaine ahead of time.

Because it can get really busy, especially during the holidays. There's a lot of people down at Disney Springs, and you can wait hours for a lane if you just walk in. And I always reserve one in advance and we walk in past the line of people who are waiting and get the dirty looks. But hey, it's easy to do online.

You just pay for it in advance, 

Dan: Or you have your travel agent do it for you, and then you don't even have to make a phone call and talk to another human being

Jeff: Oh, wish my whole life could be like that. President company excluded, of course. Ha.

Heather: And we always go mini golfing at Winter Summerland, which is a cute holiday themed oum, but 

Jeff: That's what I can't imagine ever taking the time to do.

Heather: That gets, that is really popular, especially during the holidays too. We make a, again, we make a reserve a tea time the day before, because if you just show up, you could be sitting there for hours waiting to get on the course.

Dan: I mean, when they give away a free game to everybody that books a hotel

package. Yeah.

it's going to be busy.

Jeff: I 

Dan: If you get something.

Heather: And they have they have two courses. One is winter themed and one is summer Theme. But the whole thing is Christmas themed. So the summer side is Christmas with sandcastles and Santa Claus is on vacation. And then the winter side is all fake snow covered. But it's fun. We always said it could use a couple of the holes, could use a little reverb, frankly.

But

Dan: Part of Theme Parks work best when they feel that way a

Heather: that is true. And that's part of, kind of part of the charm of miniature golf too, yeah. Have you ever seen a pristine miniature golf course? I haven't

Jeff: They're just getting hit all the time with balls and

Heather: Yes.

Dan: it sounds like a Saturday night at the Williams house.

Jeff: Just

Heather: What else do we do this time we didn't go see Drawn to Life. We did that last year, but that's always a fun thing to add on at the holiday time or anytime you 

yeah, the parks were not overwhelming. Christmas Day, everybody wants to go to the Magic Kingdom, but what I have found is in the earlier part of the day, it's not very busy because the locals are not, locals really don't wanna go anywhere near the parks Crisp the week between Christmas and New Year's.

So you don't have that traffic, and I hate to say it, but the park reservation system is still working to even out the flow of the crowds between all four parks. It was not. As crazy with the 

Jeff: Put my 

Heather: as it has been. Yeah. I think it's great. But I do tend to like Magic Kingdom in the morning on Christmas Day, because people are still doing all of their opening gifts and stuff like that.

So we're not really crowded. It gets more crowded as the day goes on, but,

Dan: I imagine the weather helped too.

Heather: oh, it was cold. Yeah.

Dan: yeah, and I don't remember seeing any big announcements about like phase shutdowns

this year, 

Heather: It, but it was very cold for Orlando on our Batu thirties. It got down in Yeah, our batu excursion day on the Star Cruiser. It was 32 degrees. It was so cold. I've never experienced that kind of cold in Orlando. And the whole 

Dan: for those three sons. 

Heather: Yeah, the whole week. It the hottest it got was low fifties because they had that.

Pretty extreme cold front for the area. And it was it was in the thirties at night and first thing in the morning, which is great because you, we can wear jeans and sweatshirts and we thought it was wonderful. The Floridians were not there.

Jeff: they freak out.

Heather: yeah. That also did help keep the crowds down the temperatures.

Dan: No

Heather: I had to buy an extra layer on btu. It was cold. And my family wanted to do every single mission on btu so it wasn't of course,

one and done like I would've preferred. We did a lot.

Jeff: Yeah, I did a lot more mission stuff on Batu this time than I did when Heather and I went before we, our mission was to the space bar and then pretty much left

Heather: Ogas and then a couple of things. But it was the opposite extreme with temperatures cuz it was very hot that day on Btu really hot. And this time it was very cold.

Dan: Speaking of very cold places

Heather: Very cold places

Dan: Went back to Antarctica cuz apparently one trip just wasn't

Heather: was not enough as it turns out. And much like the Star Cruiser experience, my second trip to Antarctica was a hundred percent different than my first trip. Every single s yeah, every single stop was different actually fewer penguins in terms of the colony sizes that we visited. But I got to see every kind of penguin that.

They have in Antarctica this time. Ordinarily these types of trips, you don't see emperor penguins because they are the crazy ones that that they prefer to nest much deeper in the continent. On the ice pack, all the rest of the types of penguins can't lay their eggs on ice or they will freeze to death.

But emperor penguins 

Dan: telling me there's parts of Antarctica that aren't ice

Heather: What happens is they arrive in the summer and the penguins, okay, Jeff's gonna love this part. I think I've told them this. The penguins pick their spot where they want to nest, and it is covered with snow and ice. And they sit there for a month pooping and it melts all the ice down to the rock.

Jeff: I have got to go on this trip

Heather: can lay their eggs on the rock. Yeah.

Dan: Again, you're telling me there's parts of Antarctica that aren't snow and ice.

Heather: Yeah. They're just penguin 

Jeff: It's either snow, ice, or poop

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: was today years old. Someday, I'll tell you the story about the guy who decided to to massacre the penguins in order to make penguin oil.

Heather: Ooh, I don't like that guy.

Dan: Yeah, that was a long time

Jeff: oil.

Heather: gross.

Dan: He came up with a machine that would render penguins into penguin

Heather: Oh, that guy is the worst.

Jeff: for

Dan: oil or whale oil. I don't know, I guess for lamp oil or something. I

Heather: Ugh,

Dan: I don't think he was cooking with it,

Heather: don't like that guy. What we did get to, we saw one lone emperor penguin who the naturalists told us was a bachelor, just out wandering. 

Jeff: is that? The Happy Feet Penguins with the yellow thing.

Dan: No, those

Heather: no, those are the yeah, with the em, emperor penguins do have yellow on 'em, but they're the big ones that can 

Dan: They're really 

Heather: up to or feet tall. Almost as tall as 

Jeff: So like your

height 

Heather: They're the ones. There's a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman called March of the Penguins. That's, those are the emperor penguins. This was just one lone guy out exploring, and he was standing on an iceberg, and we all got to get up close in the Zo Dx and take a peek at him. But it was fun. This time we actually saw some other humans we vis we were able to visit a working scientific station called Port Laroy. That's staffed by it's owned by the uk and they have four scientists that live there just in the summer months. So they drop 'em off at the beginning of the 

Jeff: What is it called for? For what?

Heather: port Laroy 

Jeff: Oh 

Heather: a p.

Jeff: yeah.

Heather: They lived there for five months, which we learned they lived there with no running water for five months,

Jeff: Ugh. I don't know how my buddy that was stationed there managed to live through that the fort

Heather: yeah. It's right now it's four women scientists who are studying the penguins who have moved on. When this was initially set up back in the fifties, there were no penguins in this little spot, and that's why they picked it. And the penguins have since moved in. Probably not.

Jeff: did you get to talk to those 

Dan: the research 

Heather: We did. They you ask them if their periods had synced up?

I did not ask them that.

No. I missed a good opportunity, didn't I?

Jeff: Cuz I bet they have,

Heather: They come onto the ship because they have no running water, so they can't take a shower. So whenever there's a ship that visits them, the ship invites them on and they get to take a shower and have lunch, and they do a little talk about their work. And then they do that in the morning, and then in the afternoon you get to go and visit their research station.

And it is tiny. But it has a working post office, which is kind of fun. It's the southern most post office in the world. They call it the Penguin Post Office. And it has a gift shop, which was a weird, surreal experience shopping in Antarctica in the middle of nowhere.

Jeff: that are post, that live there or work there.

Heather: Yep.

Jeff: So who runs the post

Heather: Those four people, what happens is they and we saw a little video of it, they get, whenever a ship comes in and you write out your postcard and you buy postage from them.

And then put it in the postal box, which is a typical English red post box that, that has the royal crest on it. And then once you leave, they take it all out and then they have to hand cancel it. And then periodically they have a ship that, a supply ship that comes to them and they they send your, put, send your mail back on that ship and it get, it goes to London and then it gets sent out from London to you, but it'll be canceled with the stamp that has a penguin on it and says that it came from Antarctica.

And they have I did, it has not arrived yet, it's all, they said it typically takes two to three months. Cuz obviously they have to wait for their supply ship to come and pick it up

Dan: we're about on us p s

Heather: or Exactly.

Jeff: Seems like they could have sent it with you.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: I mean, they could have, but they do not.

Jeff: take this to your home house.

Heather: And they have an internet connection that they only use for the gift shop. And it's for running your credit card. 

Jeff: What a time to be

Heather: Right. The little and the, this, it's a little museum. It's the original building that, that was put there back in the, they're back in the, I think it was actually the, I said fifties.

I think it was actually the thirties. It's old. And then they have a new little building where they actually live and it's even smaller. It's, I can't imagine they're drinking water. They get ice from the glacier and melt it. And that's, but they don't have running toilets. They don't have running showers.

It's

Dan: Jeff, how much money I saw that face. How much money do you pay for glacier water in a plastic bottle? Theirs is even more

Heather: It is.

Dan: got like next to zero carbon

Heather: That's right.

Jeff: amount I pay for glacier water somewhere is zero. I'm just imagining, like you talked about how much penguin shit there is everywhere.

 I'm not 

Heather: they don't take it from underneath the penguins

Dan: I imagine

Jeff: your pictures, it look like a lot of penguin guano.

Heather: at that stop. Yes, that's, but that's not where they're getting their water from.

Jeff: Yeah. Also, I don't want to melt glacier water just to have water.

Heather: That's, I mean, and it, they're only there, they're there for five months, so it's not like they're there years at a time. But it's it's still, it's rough in it. But it was really cool. It was a really neat 

Jeff: What are they researching out there?

Heather: They are studying the penguins right now.

Dan: You think by

Jeff: Yeah, I would think you'd know all there is to know about penguins at this

Heather: Really what they're studying the effects of climate change on the penguins specifically.

And so every single day they 

Jeff: a myth. 

Heather: every single day they go out and count the penguins and they can't, they watch how many eggs are laid and how many actually survive year to see what's happening to the penguin populations. I saw lots of humpback whales this time. It was pretty cool.

Humpbacks. 

Dan: kind of whale? No. The second sexiest whales,

Heather: What's the first sexiest kinda whale, Dan?

Dan: obviously a

sperm whale, 

Heather: whale. Right? I missed that.

Jeff: I don't know. I like humping more than sperm

Dan: one

Heather: were lots of hump. There were lots of humpbacks this time, which last time I only saw one humpback and saw lots of orcas and didn't see any orcas this time. So they really 

Jeff: get attacked by any sea lions

Heather: No, not this time. Cuz I avoided that evil kayaking trip. No. Leopard seals hunted me this time. I did see some,

Jeff: Oh, leopard seal.

Heather: yeah it was a lot of fun.

We had it was also an Adventurers by Disney trip and this time we had the most amazing set of adventure guides. They were so much fun and they made life on board a ton of fun. We, they did all kinds of activities that we didn't do last time and there's a lot of downtime on the ship.

You've got two full days on each side of the ship where you're going through the Drake passage and if they're not doing activities, there's really nothing to do. We played a lot of bingo. They did a lot of the kind of stuff that you do on On a Disney cruise line trip, like the, all the little stuff in the nightclubs, like match or mate and those silly games that are just, it's a lot of fun.

They had pajama days this time, which was really hysterical to watch the French staff getting in on this. They're not used to that sort of thing, and they don't have the fun Disney pajamas and stuff like that. So all the staff were walking around in the pinata robes.

Jeff: They all sleep naked.

Heather: I mean, I guess it was funny, even the captain had put some Ts on his robe and was walking around all day wearing Mickey Mouse ears and this robe with his Ts on it, and then no pants and just socks and slippers.

It was hysterical. It was a lot of fun.

Jeff: That is hilarious. The polis on the rope.

Heather: Yes. And 

Jeff: Did he have his captain's hat on? 

Heather: Sometimes he had his captain's hat. Sometimes it was his Mickey Mouse ears. He has Captain Mickey ears, which were fun and they were, they, there's an anarchy party that they have out on the pool deck on one of the days and the captain jumped in the pool. It's a lot of fun.

 The French staff love when a b d charters their ship cuz it's more relaxed. It's a different crowd. It's not 90%

Jeff: old

Heather: French, older French folks who want more of the structure and the dress up nights and stuff like that. It's just people wanting to relax and have a lot of fun.

Dan: those kinds of people sound really

Heather: Right.

Jeff: Old French people.

Dan: Oh

Heather: But honestly, that is the, that's the reason you're doing an Adventurers by Disney is for that the, that extra touch of entertainment and just fun. And it makes it really worth.

Dan: this would be a good time to point out that speaking of Adventurers by Disney, we've got coming up with Key to the World Travel, we have a webcast hosted by internet celebrity

Heather: Cameron Matthews.

Dan: To tell y'all about what what that Adventurers by Disney experience is give you a taste of some of the things you're gonna experience.

And if you visit,

Heather: Yeah, and it's a little bit like watching a travel show. It's called Passport to Adventure, and Cam really w puts you inside the action at a lot of the different Adventurers by Disney trips. So you can see yourself rafting or on a zodiac or just, he really is great at covering everything that's out there with Adventurers, by Disney and what you can see in the world.

And that's gonna be on February 23rd, and you can find it on the Key to the World Travel Facebook page.

Dan: Yes, please

check that 

Heather: gonna be a lot of fun.

Dan: register for that so that you get the link for the Zoom call.

Heather: And Cameron was with me on this Adventurers by Disney Expedition, so he got some really amazing footage of the places that we went and some up close and personal footage with the penguins, which is always fun.

Jeff: Is there any penguin poop in his footage?

Heather: I actually know for a fact that he got some pretty spectacular footage of a penguin pooping. I don't know that he will use it in this event, but ask 

Dan: You'll be a sh 

Heather: can see that. 

Dan: you'll be a shame not to Yeah. Definitely sign up for that webcast. That's gonna be a lot of fun. I am looking forward to it. Let's see what else did we get to? Jeff. Jeff went on a cruise,

right? Were you on the wish? 

Jeff: took my family on the all new beautiful Disney wish I had been on it for the christening voyage, which was an entirely different experience to be on there this time with families and children and not all media and adults and all that. I will say it was a lot easier to get into things like they have a cool hyperspace lounge.

Heather: Star Wars Bar. We love a space bar.

Jeff: Yeah, it's pretty great. And now that it's normal crowd levels, you can get right in. You might wait a few minutes or something. But we walked right in

Heather: Oh, that's fantastic.

Jeff: embarkation day. We were walking around on a little tour and I said, let's take a peek in here. And I thought there was gonna be a wait. There was no wait.

We got right in. Four of us sat down, had drinks while we waited for our rooms to be ready. Everything was kinda like that. Now, when we had gone before, it was full of media, so all of the fun stuff to do or see or look at was just full.

And 

Heather: that was the experience I had on the inaugural official maiden voyage. It was 100% adults, so it was impossible to get into any 

Jeff: This was a much more normal kind of cruise and everything was fantastic and the kinks have been ironed out of everything. The shows were all really great. I missed the show the third night, but I saw the little Mermaid show, which is great. And my favorite one was goofy what's called Seize the

Heather: see the 

Jeff: s e a s. And that's like each one of these Disney Cruise line cruises has some kind of greatest hits,

Heather: The 

Jeff: show. And this one was like Mickey's tasked with having to steer the ship. And of course everything

screws up and all these, what? What'd I say?

Heather: You said Mickey.

Jeff: Oh yeah, goofy has to steer the ship. And of course everything screws up, but then it's just the greatest hits of Disney movies, cavalcade.

And it was great. But we took my son. Who's 21 and his girlfriend, who'd never been on a cruise at all and loves Disney and loves Broadway shows. Watching her watch these shows was like seeing a six year old watch these shows. She was so into it and crying at the right times. She just was, it was so magical to her.

She loved every second of that cruise and did all the shows, all that we did all the pub games and laid into the night, all the match your mates and trivia and no bingo. But on Castaway Key, did the stingray experience. All that stuff was just magical for her. So that was fun cuz we've all done it a bunch of times and you start to everything's we're jaded.

I'll say we're spoiled and we're jaded. But it was great to see that through the eyes of someone who'd never done any of it before.

Heather: I'm looking forward to going on the Wish now that it's established and they've worked out the initial kinks and to be on it with the normal mix instead of just a ship full of adults, unlike Virgin Voyages, which is designed for only adults, so they have, every space is adult oriented. Yeah. So there's plenty of room for people to spread out on a Disney cruise.

Ordinarily, you have so many families that the mix of guests is different, and you wouldn't we couldn't, that maiden voyage, we could never get space on anywhere. Every single bar, every single night was overflowing.

Jeff: Tiana's Bayou Bar was great this time. You could always find a seed in there. We watched a great Beatles cover band. They weren't dressed like the Beatles doing the whole tribute thing, but he was just playing Beatles songs, great entertainment in there. The service is really impeccable now that they have all the

Heather: Did you get into the piano bar? The Nightingales.

Jeff: I did and nobody was playing, so it's

super boring. There was like four people in there and there was no piano player.

Heather: Oh no.

Jeff: we were in there long enough to have the Nightingale drink, which is a delicious little drink served in a bird

Heather: A little glass bird.

Jeff: but it was super boring.

Heather: When I was in there on the maiden voyage and ordered that drink, all of their little bird cups had either been stolen or broken. So my Nightingale was just served in a regular glass. It was not as fun.

Jeff: Dixie Cup.

Dan: And what you said too about being on that ship now, later on when it's established, regular mix kind of brings me something that I just wanted to talk about just for a minute. I keep on seeing these really. to me, really comments on internet discussions about how there's these jaded people who really, it's really just they hate change and they don't like new things, and they're used to the way the old ships are.

They're complaining about the wish and the way it's laid out. And they say they're all, they all have the same complaint. The adult areas are too small and the way they're spread out and they're all full up and they couldn't get into 'em. And they hate the pool, especially the grownups pool area and all this stuff is like, how did,

Heather: it's 

Dan: I don't know exactly.

Heather: actually like the fact that the adult areas are spread out instead of just being in one. Specific area of the ship because wherever you are on the ship, there is an adult area, a lounge you can go hang out in. And I can see where on the maiden voyage where it was all adults, that made sense why they were all full.

And that's, no one was there with kids, so no one was ever off doing things with their kids. So they were always full.

Jeff: I do not like the new setup of the adult pool area, the Quiet Cove and Cove Cafe. I can't stand it. I will say that

Heather: What 

Jeff: It's one tiny pool

Heather: It isn't a very 

Jeff: and it's about the size of a hot tub, and it doesn't have the bar in the old one. I like the privacy part of it where you don't have kids wandering through all the time, but there's some tables in front of a bar and then there's tables and then there's, you have to go up these stairs into, it's like climbing into a six foot high hot tub where about 12 people can fit in that pool.

And then they have these other things that are like circular benches right on the front of the ship. So it's a wind tunnel. I sat in this thing and your feet are in cold water. So the other place had a shallow. The old ships, I mean, in the adults area, had like a shallow sort of waiting pool thing at the bar so you could be in the water.

You were sheltered all the way around, but you're, you were sitting at a bar in the water and around there you could put like up to about your knees in the water, and then they had a deep pool and then a more shallow pool. This one is just one kind of hot tub

sized pool thing. And then these round, Dr. I don't know what this dry tile thing is, where your feet get wet.

Heather: yeah, I ki I know why they moved it to the back of the ship because they wanted that infinity edge thing that a lot of ship, a lot of other cruise lines have. So if you are in the pool and you're lucky enough to be at the back looking out over castaway key or whatever, it is a spectacular view. But it does feel a little too out of the way.

Jeff: It's small and there's no like lounge chairs right there. You have tables.

Heather: Yeah, that's 

Jeff: then you have the pool stuff and all of the lounge chairs are just down the

Heather: around the corners. 

Jeff: corner looking off the ship in this wasted space. And then literally like 25 yards from there is one hot tub you walk past thinking Surely up here in this adult area, there's gonna be more.

That part, that whole part sucks. I don't know. We, I, it was full of people when we went the first time. This time it still was kind of full of the adult area. If there's eight people in that pool, you can't squeeze in there. It's about hot tub sized and the rest of the time you're just sitting in the shade in a wind tunnel having a drink.

I don't know. I like the ones on the fantasy and the other one the, yeah, the dream and the fantasy, but particularly the fantasy that has that other, like adult area has the regular adult

area and then upstairs it has that other hangout area with lounges and other sort of waiting pool thing.

This has none of that.

Heather: It 

Dan: So other than the pool 

Heather: over-corrected a little bit. People really did complain on the dream and the fantasy that because of where the adult area is located, there's constantly kids walking through because they, those, the aft elevators are there. And so people come off those aft elevators and cut through and that was what people complained about.

This one, they made so remote that it is a little bit tricky to find that area on the wish. But the, but as far as the lounge is being spread out, I love

Jeff: I love that. You don't have to just go down to one, one little hallway with all these different lounges you come out of. In fact, one thing that was great, you come out of the show at night and there's all that shopping, and then a nice big lounge, two lounges actually, and then the two upstairs. So you, the crowd spreads out nicely after the show's let out.

Heather: And Tiana's is kind of centrally located and easy to get to all the shopping, and it's right by the Hyperspace lounge and it's very close to the central atrium. And it just, I like that. I love that about it. There's an, there's a few bars right off of the central Atrium and it really spreads the adult stuff out throughout the ship

Jeff: One other great thing they did was move guest services up above the central atrium. And what used to be on the older ships was shutters. There was a lot of space used for nothing. They've put all of the guest services up there so you don't have lines of people down in the main atrium waiting to go to guest services.

So they can use a lot more of that space to put on shows on the little stage they've added and character meet and greets and photographs and things like that. And you don't just have lines of people waiting to talk about their tab or whatever.

Heather: It certainly is a very different layout and people the next, the treasure is a sister ship, so it's gonna be the same sort of layout. People will get used to it. It doesn't matter what it is with a Disney experience, if it's change, people are gonna freak out. The Disney hardcore Disney fans are gonna lose their minds.

Yeah.

Dan: resistant. Yeah. It's

Heather: Like the nonsense that's going on with Splash Mountain closing. People 

Jeff: did it close? 

Heather: losing their minds that they're reaming that ride.

Dan: Yeah, it'll be

Heather: It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be the same basic ride, just different animatronics. Maybe they'll actually.

Jeff: I'm thrilled for them to change it. And I love Tiana and that whole world, but I question why they thought here's this movie. Everyone loves full of these songs. Everyone loves, let's make a ride set in a sequel world with none of those things.

Heather: None of the songs. None of the, yeah.

Dan: Yeah. I think it's still gonna be

Jeff: but I'm sure it's gonna be awesome.

Dan: And at the very least, finally things will work in that right. Again, because the last time I was on it was

Jeff: Yeah, it's been rough.

Dan: It was really sad. So I think that's good. I was there right before I closed down.

Heather: Did you snap up a cup of water and try 

Dan: I wish, man, I could have made a cool, I could have made a cool thousand bucks on that.

Jeff: That's so weird And

Heather: I'm 

Dan: smart, I would've 

Heather: me. I don't understand. 

Jeff: I'm just gonna sell cups of water and call it that.

Dan: Don't think anybody's actually buying

Heather: I've seen on eBay, people are selling those little Ziploc bags that they were handing out for a while. It's just bizarre.

Jeff: What to put, put your phone

Heather: Huh. 

Dan: Yeah. Cuz Ziploc sponsored the

Heather: yeah.

Dan: and so they had custom printed Ziploc bags for putting your cellphone in. Yeah.

Heather: So weird.

Dan: yeah,

Heather: never actually got one of those Ziploc bags. I was there all the time and they were never handing them out when I was there.

Dan: I could have put my kids through college with it apparently, but

that's not happening. Sorry kids. Especially if 

trade school for you 

Heather: especially if you had some of the water.

Dan: Yeah. No kidding. Yeah, I was there. Our arts festival was just as delightful as ever.

Heather: Oh, love that festival.

Dan: Everybody's crazy about that. Figment kitchen that's in

there, 

Heather: the figment kitchen? Tell us, Dan.

Dan: The Odyssey restaurant has been turned into Figment Imagination Station and it's got all rainbow stuff. They have a flight of rainbow beers.

They have a flight of rainbow cider

Jeff: they cave to the woke mob.

Heather: Thank goodness. That sounds delightful.

Dan: They have a delightful grape smoothie that comes in a really cute clear figment GL cup. So when they put the grape in there, it's purple like figment. And that's got these apparently the cool thing. Yeah, it's a souvenir cup that you can take home. I've got one. It's delightful. And apparently the cool new thing is freeze drying candies, and it's got freeze-dried Skittles on top

of it, 

Heather: dried, huh?

Dan: yeah it's like super concentrates the flavor and it makes it crunchy

Jeff: Because Skittles didn't hurt my teeth enough. Regular

Dan: No it's it's crunchier but brittle.

So it's almost like

a, it's almost like a pretzel or like a wasabi p kind of

Heather: Oh yeah. Okay.

Dan: Yeah. It's got that little crunch and that's delicious. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't love that? It's a great festival.

Heather: I love it. It's my favorite one, I think, and I love an Upcott festival.

Dan: yeah. Epcot festival's delightful. We caught the end of I mean this will come out in time. Yeah. Harmonious. We caught. That's what I was gonna say. We did get to watch Harmonious since that's gonna

Heather: I wonder how quickly they're gonna pull out the Stargate and the tacos

Dan: man.

Jeff: That's the name of my new scar band,

Dan: T-shirt. T-shirt. Tm. Star. The tacos,

Heather: We will be arriving there on the final day of that festival. So I was curious to, to see what happens on the following days, how quickly it starts coming 

Jeff: they just have a bomb

just blowing off. That'd be fun. Like the, like how they take buildings out with explosives. They just do that right for the finale, right after harmonious

blush, bluish, and it sinks

Dan: Yeah, I don't know if there's anything massively new about the festival. It's just a really good, fun festival. So if you have a chance this year, you'll still have a couple weeks before, after this comes

Heather: Yes. The final day of that festival is February 20.

Dan: Yeah. So it's definitely a fun little festival. Really fun, creative food.

Heather: In time for me to get that figment cup. Ooh, Nick of time.

Jeff: They'll 

Dan: two of 'em. They're delicious.

Heather: Yeah, probably

Dan: probably.

Heather: I'll get a flight of rainbow beers and or ciders.

Dan: Dave Green and blue beer.

Heather: Ooh,

Dan: It's weird. So yeah that festival is fun. I highly recommend it. And we are also

at 

Heather: eat anything cool at the festival?

Dan: Oh boy did I ever eat anything cool. I ate a lot of stuff. And I ate like voluntarily ate mushrooms for the first time in my life and actually enjoyed them.

Heather: did you like them?

Dan: yeah. They were fine. They weren't weird mushroomy you sometimes they've got that weird

Heather: Earthy flavor.

Dan: fungal kind of smell to

Heather: Ah, it's 

Dan: I think a raw mushroom 

Heather: called, Umami.

Dan: No. Yeah. No, it's

Heather: that is not true.

Jeff: It just kind of hits you in the face.

Dan: Canada, Canada has, it's, instead of beef tartar, it's beat tartar,

which 

Heather: no, not beets. 

Dan: no, It was really good.

It wasn't like, cuz I had the reaction to bees because my grandma always served Harvard beats, so they're like super vinegar and everything. But this was like fresh, sweet, bright with Jeff hates beats.

Jeff: so much.

Dan: It was like citrusy and vinegarette 

Heather: known him to spit out food, but I've, I he's come close with a beat.

Jeff: eat really anything, but I hate a beat. It tastes like my grandmother's basement floor.

Heather: Oh 

Dan: They also had bone marrow at that stop. I did not have the bone marrow. It wasn't

that.

adventurous, but I mean there was food all around the world. I almost lost track of what I had the encanto empanadas were delicious if food left and right. You can see videos of a lot

Heather: I love empanadas.

Dan: Facebook

Heather: Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of videos on our, on the Key to the World PA Facebook page of Dan Eating.

Dan: I got some more food photos I need to start sprinkling up there too before the festival's over. So yeah, check out the art. There's a lot of artists all around. The the chalk artists are really cool. They have a walkway where they're doing it and I didn't realize, apparently I didn't do enough research ahead of time that when the artists come in, they modify the picture that was at the spot.

 And they write down what it started out as. So if somebody did say the Mona Lisa with Figment as Mona Lisa, like the next person will come in, then they'll kinda modify it and turn it into another painting using the,

Heather: Oh, 

Dan: using that painting as the basis. So it's kind of an always evolving.

 And they try to do like art styles of different famous artists. So that's really cool. And they have a really cool perspective chalk thing where Like when we were there, it was a scene from Raya in the Last Dragon, and if you stood at the right place it looked like it was 3d

Jeff: those ones blow my mind. When you look at 'em from the other angle, they look all weird. And then you get around there and look and it's crazy 3D how they.

Dan: Yeah, so that was fun. Great festival. Then scooted on over to Universal. Did a lot of touring of the resorts which was nice. I've never seen like the inside of Portofino Bay. I finally got to see am Minions kids

Heather: Those are 

Jeff: They're cute.

Dan: It was really cool, especially cuz it, it threw me because I went in there to make a room tour video that I'll share eventually, once I have it edited, I stepped into the room, I was like, wait a second, what room am I in?

Because I didn't notice , I didn't notice the door into the kids section. And it looks like the kindest, it looks like the very fancy Portofino Bay room and it's wait, I thought we were seeing the kids' room first. Where's the kids

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: The front 

Dan: was like oh, over in 

Jeff: regular nice room till you go. In the kid's side it has the little minions, rocket beds.

Dan: Yeah. So that was fun. The walls are up around Woody woodpecker's play zone, rest in peace. You can still get back to et which I made sure I rode.

Heather: What's going in there?

Dan: It has not been announced yet,

but that shouldn't 

Heather: a churro stand is what you're saying? A churro cart

Dan: It's Universal's going to Universal and they're not gonna tell us what's there until we

all 

Heather: days before it opens.

Dan: Right, which I had a little chat with some people about that

and they agreed with me. we can talk about that some other time. They also have the construction walls up around what used to be Shreks Donkey Show for the Minions through

Blaster 

Heather: know what it's gonna be. What, so what are people speculating is going back by Woody Woodpecker. What are the wire theory? I haven't seen any theories.

Dan: I haven't seen yet, which is weird. Usually people figure out based on the patents that they found and

Heather: Initially people were speculating they were gonna put Mario Land over there, but that's gonna go at Epic. So 

Dan: universe. But I'm bad with my geography. I don't really know where Epic universe in relation to

Jeff: Down.

Heather: it's over there, down the road, 

Dan: It's farther down, isn't it? 

Jeff: It's on the other side of I four or whatever that is.

Dan: it closer to endless Summer?

 Okay. Yeah, so we saw that, oh, I saw the Born Show

and holy crap. You really can't tell where the screen ends and the real world begins

Jeff: should make that the tagline.

Dan: They should. That'd be really good. That was a

Jeff: have not watched that show.

Dan: I loved that show. That show was great. Highly recommend Bend the Bow in CityWalk. Those are those bow buns that they turn into tacos and they fill 'em with pork belly and all kinds of stuff. Trying to think if there's anything super exciting else.

I saw Road, Velossa coaster. Holy crap.

Jeff: that your

Heather: good. Right.

Dan: yeah, that was my first time. It was

so good. I was giggling like a little girl the entire time. It made me

Jeff: Did you get any sort of vertigo when you got off?

Dan: No,

Jeff: I did. You get off there immediately go down these stairs. I'm like no, I was fine on those stairs. I've started,

Heather: That was because you had ridden it, what, three 

Jeff: No. Even if I ride it a single time.

that first time we wrote it, I was like,

Dan: The first couple of times I rode guardians, I was fine. But then I've started getting a little swimmy feeling when I get off of that, which is weird. I've never gotten that

Jeff: I love it and I'll do it, but I can't. My son and I rode guardians two times and that was enough for me and he was gonna do it again, but then we just left. But 

Dan: yeah, I 

Jeff: That's just, I don't know. The older, I'm mad. The older I get, the less I can do these rights and I love them, but I don't like feeling yucky.

Dan: I think two is my limit on guardians as well. Other than that, we did a lot of exploring, kind of looking around and seeing things we haven't seen before. In the wizard areas, they have some really cool personalization options that they've started doing that they didn't have before.

So there's there's a shop in Diagon Alley where you get your school robes and they will embroider your robes. They'll embroider your house scarf, they'll embroider the backpacks, you buy all that stuff. They'll put your name on there or whatever you want they'll embroider, but then also really cool, something that's new, or at least newish we haven't seen before.

You can buy quidditch jerseys and on the back they'll put your last name. So it's like your jersey, but it is not just embroidered. It's like the, what do you call that? Applicate,

 The fabric letters that are actually sewed onto the back of the jersey. So it looks like a real

Jeff: Oh, I like that.

Dan: they'll customize, they'll do that for you in the shop. Could you get initials put on there?

Did you have something to mind?

Jeff: Like K T W?

Dan: Oh, you probably could. I should have done that. Oh, I gotta go back to Universal now.

Jeff: Oh, darn

Dan: they also have some really cool, I hadn't seen before roller their carryon size fake leather trunks in the various house colors. So it looks like a Hogwarts trunk that is

 Roll roller

Jeff: yeah. I think most of that is new.

Dan: Yeah, there's a lot of new stuff for there. Universal was great.

Heather: So I found some of the major rumors that are flying around about what's going where Woody Woodpecker is. And the leaders seem to be something with trolls, some kind of trolls area or secret life of pets.

Jeff: I think those rumors are because that's Universal's two children's properties.

Heather: That's, that could, that's true. There were 

Dan: a bunch of dreamwork stuff. 

Heather: some, serious rumors about a Pokemon area or Kung Fu Panda.

Jeff: whole thing into SpongeBob back 

Dan: That would be great.

Jeff: Make the whole thing look like Bikini Bottom.

Heather: Oh 

Dan: would be so cool. It could be under a roof. So it's a little climate controlled.

Jeff: Make, yes.

Heather: The last one is that it would just be some kind of Dreamworks animation land that would use all of their IP for that.

Dan: It makes sense. They need a kitty

Heather: Yeah. And I made 

Jeff: that was a great kid area back there, but they don't know who those characters are

Heather: right. I guess they do have a lot of great Dreamworks characters. They could use kung fu Panda Secret Life of Pets seems to be pretty popular, so maybe ride in Hollywood is 

yeah.

Jeff: there's a new kung fu

Heather: And they have the secret life of pets on a parade in Orlando, but they don't have any kind of attraction.

Jeff: one with King Julian? That was like the zoo thing. Yeah. That's some good characters

Heather: Yeah, that's 

Dan: They love King Julian. They trot him out whenever

they have a 

Heather: they do.

Jeff: That's such a great character.

Heather: they, you've also got the penguins and all of the animals from Madagascar. Yeah. So that was good. They had the shacks up for Mardi Gras, obviously that hadn't quite started yet when we were there, but they've got the kitchens out. I'll have to, next time we do a news segment, we can talk about the food cuz they've announced the food. The Theme is food around the

Dan: world. So it's not 

Heather: food and the concerts that are gonna be happening there too.

Jeff: Did they announce those

Heather: They did 

Dan: they did 

Heather: concerts. Yeah.

Jeff: good.

Dan: a couple of weeks ago. I could go back and look it up, but I wasn't

paying that much attention. 

Jeff: next time.

Dan: Yeah, there you go. So that's universal in a nutshell. The big news while. Slogging through Disneyland hundredth anniversary of the Disney Company,

Heather: 100 years

Jeff: a 50th anniversary. I love that. Disney World's wrapping up Disney World 50 and then they're already on a hundred. That's confusing to

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: I told my family I was going to this event and they were like, wait, didn't the 50th just happened? I'm like, no, that was 50 years

Heather: That was 50 years ago we did that. The two new nighttime shows at Disneyland are spectacular. They have better nighttime shows than Walt 

Jeff: we got to go to the cast member and media and a few of us got sales invites. But it was cool to be there for the cast preview cuz they all of the cast member, we were mad at first. Who are these people that get

Heather: why are we all the way in the back and there's all these people in front of us.

Jeff: and then they started filing in Cast and then the president, Ken Pot Rock of Disneyland came out and thanked all the cast and it was so cool.

These shows though, wow,

Heather didn't like them. 

Heather: I loved them. You liar. I thought we, so we got to see world of Color one first. Which was wonderful and I loved it, and it, they it's book ended by Walt's voice starts the show, and then ends the show. And it was just beautiful. It was a very windy night. So it was a little tricky to see the projections on the water because the water was just basically being blown away by the high winds.

Jeff: the next morning we had a breakfast and we're lucky enough to get to talk to Ken Pot Rock about it. And he was, he's so proud of the show and so proud of what he's doing at Disneyland, so it was great to talk to him. But he said that was a night. They probably normally would've called that show off, but because it was media and the cast preview and they weren't gonna be able to do it again, they went ahead with it.

But he said after it, there's a Star Wars portion. He said, why'd we get rid of the part where the Millennium Falcon flies away? He goes, no, it was there, but the water flew away.

So it was so windy that it displaced the water, and you could, the projections looked really blurry. I've since seen some video footage of the same show we saw, and it looks amazing.

Like the LA they're using, they upgraded all of the projection systems there to those laser projectors and theirs. Amazing. And they've added floating laser shooters out in the water too. So they've got lasers that like cut through all the, they get it all misty and then fire lasers through there. It's so killer.

Heather: there are some new fountains out back in the stacked parts of the audience, which there's shrubbery and all of a sudden a fountain shot off in my face. Who's startling?

Jeff: She took it like a champ though,

Heather: It's true.

Jeff: She was recording a Facebook Live and that thing went off right in her face and she didn't flinch

Heather: It's true.

Dan: A real

Heather: It's right. I am a pro. But what I really loved even more was Wondrous Journeys, the nighttime show in Disneyland Park. It is absolutely incredible. All, what is it? 62 or 63? 62,

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: Disney Studio's. Animated films are featured in some way, every single one of them. And then also a lot of old hand drawn test animation right at the beginning.

Just a lot of the those sequences reminded me a little bit of the drone to life. CIA at Disney World, it has a lot of the kind of early sketch cells that kind of build themselves on the castle. It's all about animation. It's all about Disney. It's not about Pixar, which is nice. There's zero Pixar, it's all Disney.

Yeah.

Dan: It's cool the way you can see them taking ideas from places because I saw that and I noticed that too, that it looked like drawn to life, but I like that they're kind of,

Heather: And so it's sometimes you would see part of the castle would say have Sor Mickey in his final form, and then in on other spots you'd see the earlier anime, black and white or earlier test pieces of animation. And then it all comes together with the final P. It's just beautiful.

Jeff: incredible on it. Whoever came up with all of the sequences and the songs that they use, and they blend two songs together at times. And it's not just like how the Enchantment one at Disney World was like, here's a song now. Another song now it was felt rushed. This thing is like the sound editing is so good on this.

It blends sound effects and voices from one cartoon with sounds and music from another. Oh, it's

Heather: new flyovers.

 Cool. Yeah. The first one is the Blue Fairy. There were a lot of people around us who could not figure out who it was. It's the blue 

Jeff: Including the two of us till we looked later at our pictures.

Heather: And then the spectacular one though is when Bay Max all suited up in his cool

Jeff: so cool The castle turns into the two posts of the bridge on San Franchi and then I don't know how they get Baymax out there where you don't see him. You don't see him at all to the lights hit him and he fires up and there's fire shooting outta his feet and he circles around the castle

and he's huge. It's so killer.

Heather: And then we didn't even, they, Disneyland has the projections on Main Street and back on. It's a small world. We didn't even see those. Cuz you have to stand in a different spot. There's some projections on the Matterhorn as well. It's just, there's 

Jeff: We were lucky enough to be literally the first people right in front of the Castle , and that happened because Heather and I left this party, this holding area, cuz we had to go to the bathroom. They closed all the bathrooms, so we had to go find

Heather: Yeah, they 

Jeff: and then we were just

wandering out amongst all the media. Outside of the thing. So we just went and got our good spot and then the rest of the world filled in behind us. So that was kind of cool. We were literally front row.

Heather: And they put all the cast back on Main Street where they could have a view of both the castle and the main Street projection. So that's where, back where they were, 

Dan: It's so 

Heather: They had a great, they always gave the cast the best spots for these two events, which was really great.

Jeff: Yeah, like from where we were, you couldn't see any of Main Street or any of the Matterhorn or

Heather: Yeah. We were literally 

Jeff: We were so close. Even a lot of the fireworks you couldn't see, but we could see the projections really well.

Heather: Which was cool. I love that. I'm usually further back from the projections and I liked being able to see that. And then next time I go, I'll stand somewhere else. Get a totally different experience. I love that about Disneyland's shows

Jeff: I don't know why it is, but Disneyland always outdoes Disney World on the nighttime. Spectaculars, the parades, the shows. It's always better.

Heather: Yes. And then they also opened Mickey and Mini's Runaway Railway back in Toontown. Most of Toontown is still closed. Ju it's just Mickey and Mini's that's open there and it is so cute there. I really love it. They've themed it. It is still themed as a theater. It's the El Capito theater, but what's great about it is the q the cue is very extensive and every single little bit of it is themed.

They've redone when you first walk in, like you do in a movie theater, there's all these movie posters and they've taken recognizable movies and spun them to be starring Disney characters, which is

Jeff: Yeah I I want copies of basically all of them.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. That mouse.

Jeff: Yeah. There's a Rocketeer Classic Rocketeer, which I've always loved that Art Deco poster anyway, and now it's the Mouseketeer with Mickey in the

Heather: Oh, so cool.

Dan: That's so good. 

Heather: Honey, I shrunk. The nieces is mini mouse and her nieces 

Dan: yeah. I just, the whole way the queue is a Museum of Mickey and they got, they put so many, not necessarily, they're not rare or obscure, but. They're not like I love, I keep on seeing new scenes that I didn't expect. I love the living, the fireplace, living room from the Christmas Pluto's, Christmas tree with with the mantle and the Santa Claus candles that Chip and Dale hide in.

Jeff: The plane from plain crazy that hangs huge down from the ceiling in this one thing. And the Q wraps around it. These set pieces are awesome. They, the Abe Lincoln Potato Abe Lincoln from Potato Land and there, and it's humongous. It's like a six foot tall big potato with a chin strap beard on like Abe Lincoln and a top hat

Heather: and no eyes. His eyes are missing.

Jeff: The pictures are hard to tell how huge this thing is, but it's so funny to round a corn and there's potato Abe Lincoln.

Heather: you go through the whole concession area and it's, every little detail is cool. A bunch of people were standing for a very long time in front of the like popcorn machine examining all the popcorn kernels, looking for hidden Mickeys

Jeff: Yeah, apparently there's some hidden designs in the popcorn in the window I didn't spend a lot of time examining the popcorn kernels, but if you're in the queue and you have time to look, Take a gander.

the ride is almost exactly the same. There's some subtle differences like Mickey and Minnie are on the right hand side instead of the left at the end and the picnic scene and some of that stuff is a little different when it's like the, we did it thing and it all opens back up. Those rooms are shaped a little differently there's a little,

the same ride.

I feel like the projections are better on this one and the ride moves around

Heather: it's the mechanics are much more intense. I nearly dropped my phone when the first part where it started. The car started to shake.

Jeff: when the mayhem starts to

happen and you're doing some of the, and the Congo scene was like more fun and more wild.

Dan: No,

Heather: There's one little sort of extent, it's not exactly a another scene, but you go through a covered bridge area that doesn't happen I think

Jeff: it's a transition between what was existing and new show buildings where you come back into the loading zone. So they turn that into a covered bridge scene is probably just a little hallway that

 Existing in new

Dan: makes sense.

Jeff: but it fits so well into Tune Town and they've removed some things like Roger Rabbit Fountain is gone now, but they've put in some green space there where kinda Hub Grass area and Disney World where people can just chill and picnic in there.

They've redone for anybody that's been there, Toontown has the sort of cardboardy fake backdrop. They've made that much bigger to hide the show building that's now Mickey and Minis. And it's different. The Hollywood sign is Katoon Town, Hollywood sign is gone and it looks more pastoral back there and we could see where they've built all the new stuff.

See the little tips of the new building. It's gonna be beautiful back there. And when's that open?

Heather: March 8th. I think it's either March, it's sometime between the eighth and the 10th. It's the all of Tune town will be opening back up. And Ken Pot Rock was telling us that they've spent a lot of time with the redesign of Tune Town thinking of making it accessible for families with autistic children or children with this other disability.

So it will be a really great place for all families and I'm excited to see what that looks like.

Dan: Yeah. Goofy's Garden. The Goofy's house is completely redone so that it's a accessible playground area. And Donald Ducks, you don't go inside the boat anymore, but it's better because of it. I think it looks like a really cool splash pad area.

Jeff: I love that they just have opened it up and put that sort of park Green space in there too. Instead, it was just concrete tone USA back there, and now it looks pretty nice. They pulled the walls down, Heather, between when you and I were there. next day. So by the time it opened on we were there Wednesday when it opened on Friday, they'd pulled the walls down and that whole green space is showing,

Heather: Oh, 

Jeff: they still had the walls around goofy's and some

Heather: That makes sense because it was a little tight back there for, with the media event. There weren't as many people who would be 

Jeff: Yeah. 

Heather: there. I'm 

Jeff: But we were so fortunate to get invited to go to that thing and see the premieres of these and see the ribbon cuttings, and it was just really cool to be able to be there for those little

Heather: Yep. And of course, the Fab Five all have new outfits for the 100. It's all. Purple and silver and some iridescent.

Jeff: stuff from Disney World's 50th, but somehow again,

Better

class, more classy looking and less

Dan: Yeah. I like the art deco thing that they've got going on with a lot of the merch designs that, that holographic monorail. Holy

Heather: Oh yeah. It's very 

Dan: so good. That looks

Jeff: And the I, the thing about the Disneyland monorail, I always forget it exists cuz it's just, you're there somewhere in a, it just goes by you and oh dang, I wish I had thought about it. And I saw a

beautiful shot where someone had set up by the NEMO water and the monorail goes right across that.

And so it was reflecting that hologram onto the NEMO water. That is the most beautiful picture. And I'm so mad I didn't take it.

Dan: Imagine how beautiful that would be in Epcot with the that field Oh yeah.

under their monorail track by the land that they plant for flower and garden.

Jeff: I hope we get a 

Dan: of the monorail there. 

Jeff: so I guess we talked to some executives that said a lot of stuff is coming, I guess when is the 50th of 

Dan: in 

Jeff: April or May or something?

Heather: March 31st is the end of the 50th

Jeff: so I would think by April or May we'll start seeing the hundredth stuff

Dan: nice.

Jeff: Disney World too. I hope they wrap the ons like that,

Dan: I did see for the first time in the wild, those ears that caused the internet

uproar At 

Heather: them in the wild as well.

Jeff: like the Silver Surfer got real excited over him.

Heather: They're not any better in person. I don't understand 

Dan: mini mouse was dripping with excitement. they put that in their ad

Heather: still don't know who approved all of that. Dripping with excitement. Ugh.

Jeff: hilarious.

Dan: Gross. Yeah. Do you have anything else to say about what we saw for the hundredth

Jeff: the castle is just so

decked out 

Heather: pretty, it's got some new fountains.

Jeff: too. Like the 50th at Disney World was like real ornate, and this is real simple. It's nice, it's

Heather: There are a new fountain on either side of it, really pretty, and there's always a little rainbow from a certain angle. 

Jeff: Yeah, the park looks

gorgeous. 

Heather: really does.

Jeff: done that much over, it seemed like over at Disney, California Adventure because it's still decorated up real heavy for the Lunar New Year festival that's

Heather: Which is a great little festival. If you ever get the chance to get out to Disneyland in January, it's fantastic. Lots of really delicious food booths. I do love festival that features food and beverages.

Jeff: really,

Dan: fortunately most of them do.

Heather: That's true

Dan: Yeah, we'll have some more coverage. Probably a little bit of a trip report and definitely coverage on the Key to the World Travel Facebook page. Later this month, we've got a couple of, I'm sending my wife. And another agent down there to Disneyland.

So we'll have some more coverage and more stuff to talk about and see

Heather: Yeah. And they're gonna, they're gonna hit the opening of super Mario World over at Universal, right?

Dan: If fingers crossed they get inside, I don't I don't know that they'll be able to get, actually, get on the ride, but

Heather: They're gonna try.

Dan: to get into the land itself. That 

one way or the other. 

Jeff: by the way, the augmented reality thing,

Dan: Uhhuh. . Yeah, it's super cool. So that'll be exciting. That'll be something to keep an eye out and an ear out for.

But first of all, next time we're all back together, we're gonna be talking about Virgin voyages exciting and very fun 

Jeff: in four short days on a big group sailing on the old Virgin voyages.

Dan: man, this could be great. Yeah, so keep an eye out Key to the World Travel social media and catch that episode when we all get back and have some time to talk about it. So that'll be fun. Let me load this thing up so I know what to say. That means I'm gonna say thanks for hanging out with us again this week. If you are excited to experience the hundredth anniversary of the Walt Disney Company or explore anywhere else around the world, Key to the World Travel has the former side of Woody Woodpecker's play zone full of expert travel planners ready to make your vacation dreams a reality. Head to www.KeytotheWorldTravel.com to get started with the no obligation quote. Word of mouth is the best way to grow our, help us grow our show. 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 tro jack assery, tell them what makes our show so great and send them our way. You can find links to subscribe to the show on your favorite apps and all the latest updates at www.goldkeyAdventurers.com. We can't wait to hang out with you again someday real soon. Can't wait to hang out with you again later. See your real

Heather: Bye y'all.

Jeff: That was great. Dan

Dan: God, I'm out of practice.