Show Notes

Highly Suspect Headlines (Disney News Game)

Are cast members getting a special deal on Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser? Has a man visited Disneyland ever single day for almost 3000 days? Will Walt DIsney World build an underwater hotel at Epcot? Did Genie+ actually sell out? FInd out as Autumn does her best Deciphering this weeks headlines. 

A stumps J 

We bedazzle Justin with Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique trivia. Are you a Prince or a Princess? A Knight or a Pirate? Either way it’s gonna cost you some cash!

3 Tips from a Nerd

We dive into military discounts and special military only resorts at Walt Disney World. Shades of Green could save you pile of green!

Hey Easy Diz It!

Ever thought about visiting Disney World during presidents day weekend? Maybe don’t! Between schools being out, people expecting low crowds, and rides down for refurbishment it can be one of the busiest weekends of the year! We read a 1-star WDW review from Tripadvisor to help get ready for this less than ideal time to visit. 

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Support the podcast by purchasing Unofficial Guides through this link: https://amzn.to/3rLVVmy

Or booking your travel with Justin

Website: easydizit.com

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Transcript

Justin: [00:00:00] Welcome back and welcome new friends to the Easy Diz It podcast. I’m Justin, a hyper nerd travel planner. And I love nachos.

Autumn: And I’m Autumn. A new Disney enthusiast. And I’m also someone that’s realizing that it’s 8:07 PM. And I don’t have a

Justin: joke. Oh, Okay. Here on Easy Diz It, we share ideas on staying happy and healthy in the parks. And we have some fun while we do it this week on highly suspect headlines listen closely with autumn, as she tries to figure out if I’m telling the truth.

Where I’m lying about new hotels, Disney discounts and genie

Autumn: plus. And this week on A Stumps J we’re going to test Justin’s knowledge on how much he knows about the bippity boppity boutique.

Justin: Well, I just had some discussions about that. On three tips from a nerd, we will show you how we can save you money, avoid some hassle and have more fun. And this episode, we are talking about special options for military families.

Autumn: [00:01:00] Oh, that’s great. I’m excited to get into that.

And lastly our segment. Hey. Easy Diz It. We are going to feel the pain. That some family experienced on president’s day weekend going to Disney. Yeah, we’re going

Justin: to read a one-star review from TripAdvisor. They did not have a good time.

Autumn: They did not. And apparently we noticed that a lot of people didn’t have.

A lot of people. Yeah. We didn’t talk about that.

Justin: But before we do, we’ve got friendly transition banter. Hey, autumn. Hi.

Autumn: I’m good. I am. Very thankful to just have had a week off. And excited because it looks like we are now. Officially eight days away from having a new home. This is true. This.

We’ve been without our own home for since December.

Justin: Yep. So we’re going to have a place and that’ll be nice. That’ll

Autumn: be real nice. We actually went to Ikea this weekend. And we’re thinking about what our new office said. That might [00:02:00] be. So that was a bit fun. Yeah.

Justin: Ikea. Wow. We’ve, we’ve talked about Ikea on the show before

I think it’s set up in a way that is kind of like themed entertainment. Like there’s themes. Like you walk around and it’s all different shows. They’re there. It’s it. But the theme is shopping furniture. No. Yeah, the theme is like a house, which is kind of a boring theme for

Autumn: me. For you. But it is, it absolutely is. And when I was.

How’s world. Why? I love it. All three of us, our daughter. Came was that it it’s like entertainment. Like I was like, Justin, let’s get out of the house. But it was like, I always just enjoy the time. And most of the time you don’t get anything or you got like one or two things that we find, you know, you know, no big items.

And it’s just great. And they’ve got food there. And so it’s like a day, it’s just like a really nice day check in for our daughter. I was just saying it’s cool. When you have little ones, it’s hard to go out and do shopping because most stores [00:03:00] aren’t meant for little people. And so you have to constantly be watching them say they can’t touch that at night.

Justin: We would have to watch Darwyn at Ikea though

Autumn: I’m not saying you don’t have it. I’m just saying like, it’s not like going into like a Macy’s. Or a loft. You know what I mean? Like there’s plenty of kid things in most of the fragile stuff. If you notice, most of it is not accessible on a child level. She did.

Justin: She did find a fragile item.

Autumn: She’s not the elephant, which was. The dog. Yeah. Yeah. Was it an elephant? It’s a thick ceramic elephant. But still, and she’s good. She was pretty gentle, but like all in all, it’s definitely like a family friendly. That was also the IKEA might’ve mentioned, this was the first restroom and it was so nice and clean.

Where Darwyn used the bathroom outside of the Hottie. And our car.

It was great. It was great. So I love Ikea. It also got us through like the pandemic [00:04:00] and like when she, you know, it was like one place it’s so big, you can kind of go in mass, but like still go out and do something indoors. Yeah. Yeah, it was our

Justin: first outing. It was our first. Yeah. So next door. So we’re in new Haven next door to the Ikea. There’s a, Jordan’s furniture store.

And now there, if you go through some of the, you know, We have to walk through the furniture part, but they have in the back, what’s called it. And basically it is a giant indoor ropes course, but they also have a water fountain. That that but like a water fountain show type thing. That fountains along with music.

So Darwyn loved that. Like her mouth was just open wide for the first 10

Autumn: minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And she loves she’d point out because she, then you can zip line over the water. Spraying. And so she would just be like, whoop, whoop.

Justin: Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, I liked that better than IKEA.

Autumn: And while they did that for a little bit, I checked out. Yeah, to get an

Justin: idea, you went to. The [00:05:00] other house world.

Autumn: I went to the other house where I’ll be. To kitchen land.

Justin: Yeah,

Autumn: exactly. The Bedroom Land, living room land. Outlet lands.

Anyway, so it’s good.

Justin: Yeah, sure. Sure. All right. Well, oh, one more thing. So yeah, president, did you enjoy your president’s day?

Last week, did you enjoy. Did you have any presidential activities? No, no, no. Philadelphia.

Autumn: I went to Philadelphia, but then you worked, you basically worked from home. And I worked for two days. And when it was fun, we, we did some, one or two works. We What did we do? Made some banana bread.

Yeah, it was nice. Yeah.

Justin: So I went to Philadelphia. I went to see the Disney 100 thing. Disney exhibit. Yeah, it feels like that was definitely.

Autumn: I’m sorry, I just like

Justin: what everybody definitely go check this out. When it comes around to you, it’s going to be in Philadelphia through the summer. So we’ll definitely be going back.

But yes, the Disney 100 expedition at the Franklin Institute. Tons of cool Disney [00:06:00] history stuff there. Liquids, broken into 10 different rooms. One of them was dedicated just to the parks. And another one was dedicated just to Imagineering. And that was really cool.

I’ve got some good pictures and footage. But something I, I pulled away from this speaking of president’s day. Because they had one room where they just broke it into like the different Disney decades and for the seventies. They had a hat It was like a white, white hat with the red and blue ribbon. And it said Pooh for president on it.

And I’m like, what? Yeah, Winie the Pooh for president. Autumn. And I think we talked about this. You hadn’t heard of this either, right? No. Yeah. So like Winnie the Pooh ran for president. Against Nixon. And Jimmy Carter.

Autumn: When you say that, I think you need to clarify. Disney set up like Pooh to have campaigns that were like on television.

Justin: Yeah.

It was sponsored. Yeah, it was sponsored by Sears and they did. Yeah. Like they did a rail road tour across the country. 72 and 76, he had he [00:07:00] ran under the children’s party ticket. Dude even had a platform.

I can’t remember exactly. Yeah, honey. And every pot, he said uh, honey, in every pot. Ice cream. And he, this was actually pretty progressive for the seventies. He, this part of his platform was banning spankings. That was.

Autumn: Dangerously progressive for the seventies. Wow really? Isn’t

Justin: that funny though?

That they’re like, wow.

Oh, I

Autumn: see this. I, there are pictures you have

Justin: of this. I just have like one picture, but that I pulled all that. No, this is all like, if you just Google Pooh for president and I pulled it from fandom websites, that’s all. How much did they. They didn’t say. They didn’t highlight his platform at the exhibit.

I came from the internet. Okay.

Autumn: That’s awesome. Yeah. President. They’ll do something like that. Again. I think you should

Justin: run again. Yeah, Mickey mouse gets like a certain amount of votes. [00:08:00] Every time people vote for Mickey mouse all the time. They write him in. Yeah. Yeah.

Autumn: That’s great. Thank you for sharing that that’s like fun. I don’t know, it’s fun and good like that. You want it to be real.

Justin: We could do an hour on this. Maybe there’s an hour long, special.

Autumn: Because I bet there’s got to be a lot of details behind all of that.

That that I think would be great to go into. So let us know if you’re interested in hearing and learning more about poofer precedent, or

Justin: maybe you remember the pouf of president campaign. Correct. You ha you helped campaign for Pooh. Maybe you were a one, a Pooh’s campaign staffers 70.

Autumn: So I’m going to ask you.

I missed

Justin: my parents. If they yeah. easydizitpodcast@gmail.com or just easydizit on any of the socials. Yeah. All right. So we’re going to get into some stuff you mentioned you wanted to do. A Stumps J first.

Autumn: Yes, because we normally wait, but I’m all right. Every once in a while I’m excited

Justin: about it. Let’s take a break.

And when we get back, we’ll go ahead and do. A Stumps J [00:09:00] okay.

A Stumps J

Autumn: Hello, everyone. And welcome back. I hope you all a. You got to do whatever you needed to do. Right. That break. Yeah.

Justin: I hope you got a dog. It’s time to pay attention. Now it’s trivia. This is Disney trivia.

Autumn: I’m serious. This is very serious. This is very serious. You already had your break time. Yeah. I need your listening ears on. Okay.

You’re Mickey listening ears on. All right. So we are going to do A Stumps J now which I’m really excited about. So the theme I always do this in themes is bippity boppity boutique, and how A Stumps J works is that I all, I’m trying to stump my husband, Justin. With trivia related to all things, Disney world Disneyland, universal, et cetera.

And it’s a fun time.

Justin: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I am always.

Autumn: When, when do you say it’s the highlight of your week

Justin: justice? Yes, absolutely. It gives me an opportunity to demonstrate that I am in fact, never wrong. This is like, you know, like. [00:10:00] As a husband, I think it’s, it’s a struggle. It’s a struggle because like I’m always right, but not everyone always recognizes that.

So this lets it, it puts it on paper we’ve recorded, right? It’s

Autumn: evidence. Yeah, you’re always right.

Well, We all heard what Justin just said. So now let’s test a.

Let’s test those statements on his knowledge regarding the bippity boppity boutique. So I want to say this is something that neither Justin and I have experienced, right. But we now have a daughter that I think is. Would really love this. And so I’m been researching it. And I thought this would be, yeah.

Justin: She likes pink Jesus. She’s tending

Autumn: in that direction. She loves dancing. She loves, I got a new sweater from Ann Taylor the other day, and it’s like, got Jeweled buttons on it. And she just keeps saying mine and she keeps wanting, like, she just

Justin: loves. Yeah, she wants, yeah. She likes stuff. Like it’s going to

Autumn: be her thing. Okay.

All right. So Justin, are you ready for the first stump? Yeah, let’s go. Okay. What is [00:11:00] the name of the cast members who give. The child a magical make-over in the boutique. So what does it mean is

Justin: easy. All right. Cause it is the Liberty. Boppity boutique. Anybody who says bippity, boppity, boo. That’s not Tony.

No. Because I think that’s what a lot. Tony soprano. I don’t know. I’m sorry for everyone out there.

Fairy godmothers.

Autumn: Justin. Wonderful. Well, okay. Fair. Just fairy godmothers. I’ll give that to you. That’s not the full name

Justin: fairy godmother. No, that’s all I got.

Autumn: Yeah. So abbreviated, they’re called FGI Ts. Or fairy godmothers. Training. In

Justin: training. Oh, they’re not there. Shit fairy godmother.

Autumn: They’re training to be fair.

Oh, that’s part of the backstory of.

Justin: Why is it so expensive? I feel for that kind of coin. You need to be [00:12:00] interacting with a fairy godmother. But you’re

Autumn: in training to be a fair godmother. I’m making magic hat. They still are like keepable magical

Justin: names. Sure. But when you go to like a dentist school to you, her dental work is free.

Because they are dentists in training. Sure. So I just have. Oh,

Autumn: I see what you’re saying.

Okay. Well, they are. So the cast, the cast members, cast members, again, for those of you who might not know, it’s just anyone that, that works for Disney they’re. They’re all cast members. But yeah, you have a fairy godmother. So if you go into the boutique, Greg, Justin, would you like to just give a little bit about what the Liberty boppity boutique is and what happens?

Sure.

Justin: Well, I don’t know a ton. I know. A little bit like a kid, right? And you bring them in and they will dial them up like a princess or pirate. You got a choice. You can go the pirate route as well.

Autumn: I didn’t see this. You come up in

Justin: research. A little pirate package as

Autumn: well. Or pirate. Yeah. I’m sorry.

[00:13:00]

Autumn: Prince and night are the two oh. Yeah, I didn’t sell. Familiar with those? Yeah. Okay. So nice job. Yeah. So it’s, it’s this. Beautiful event in place that you can go to where your kid can basically get dialed up as a prince night princess, et cetera. Yeah. Very cool. Makeup makeup nails. Dress

Justin: dresses.

Do you pay extra for the dress? I believe right. Yes. There’s

Autumn: packages. We’ll talk about those. Yeah. You ready for number two? I’m sure

Justin: we’ll be talking about those packages.

Autumn: I’m already looking at. Okay. Are you ready for number two? Sure. Okay. Justin. There are two locations for the bippity boppity, boutique and Disney world. Where are they?

Justin: So there’s one inside the magic kingdom and there is one inside the grand Floridian, but the one inside the grand Floridian, I do not believe has opened back up. That’s yes. There’s also another one. [00:14:00] I think maybe we talked about this a long time ago. Yeah. But there’s also another one on Disney cruise line ships. So if you’re, if you’re going for a cruise.

Visit it’s a bippity boppity, but yet they have a legit bippity boppity. And see that.

Autumn: So that’s awesome. So now there is actually a place that you didn’t mention though, Justin.

Hm. Give it give it a think for a second.

Justin: So magic kingdom, you mean inside Disney world? I missed. Yes. Disney world. Grand Floridian and a magic kingdom are the two I know of. You said there was two.

Autumn: Disney Springs. So grand Floridian, I don’t know. Close that this is not on this grand, Florida, and it’s not on this sheet. Really? It says magic kingdom and Disney Springs. Wow.

Justin: Well, you got.

There then. Yeah, that’d. Good. We’re new sprints.

Autumn: Behind the once upon a toy store. Okay. Marketplace area. All right. And, you know, We could talk a little bit more about pros and cons of location. But in magic kingdom, obviously you have to buy a ticket to the park. [00:15:00] Oh yeah. That’s a good point.

He Springs, you can go to the boutique and you don’t have to buy a ticket to get to Disney Springs. Anyway, if you already

Justin: spent $120 to get into the park and then you have the PA, oh, that’s a good point, right? Definitely. I do that on the non park day. But then one thing though if I were to be a princess, I would probably want to be a princess.

Inside the magic kingdom, not inside a Disney shopping mall. So I guess that’s the other half of it. Right because it takes, it takes a while. It is a process.

Autumn: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. You ready for number three? Ready for number three. Right. The. Bippity boppity boutique is for children. Ages blank to blank.

Justin: Oh let’s say.

Three to 13.

Autumn: Oh, I’m going to give that to you. What’s the answer? Three to 12, 3 12. Okay. Okay. Yep. Ages three to 12. And I have to be honest after I read more about this at first I scoffed at it like. He wants to get that done. And now that I’m reading about it and I’m excited ever daughter to do it [00:16:00] now, I also kind of wish there was an adult option.

And I’m like, did I already say Disney’s for adults? Yeah. But there’s no bippity box.

Justin: I believe, I believe I, you did scoff at this when I told you. This existed. Like a

year.

Yeah.

Autumn: you ready for the last? Yeah. All right, Justin, how many packages are offered at the deputy boppity boutique?

Justin: How many packages? How many like different. Configuration options. Yeah. Well, I heard you told me before, there’s a prince and there’s a night. I did. I

Autumn: know there’s at least two.

There’s

Justin: at least two more. And each one is probably going to have like, probably a, the base and then at least one of the upgrade. I’m going to say there are eight package options.

Autumn: I’m going to give that to you because. Cause again, you’re in that light. Correct. Yeah, it’s it’s seven. So it’s seven. One of ’em again, you said eight, so I could kind of give you that, but there’s seven. I’m going to read [00:17:00] them to you. There’s the crown package, which is the base package that starts at 64 95.

It’s not bad now. Then, so they just give you a crown. Here’s the thing. So they do all of your options can include nails dress. Makeup hair. They don’t wash your cut here. That’s the one thing, if you’re live, you’re thinking they don’t do the why they want you to come with the kids hair clean I’m in, there are salons on Disney property. If you want to get that done, but they will not wash her. Cut. They just style hair, and then do it.

Gotcha. So the crown package starts at 64 95. Yeah. That’s like when you think about the cost of other things that Disney and. No. All right, the next one is the courtyard package. And that’s that’s 1 0 9 95 plus tax. The next package is the castle package. And this starts at 1 99 95. Now, this is where you start to really get here like this.

This is where you get a gown. With the coordinating, coordinating accessories. Okay. Okay. Then the deluxe package 2 29 [00:18:00] 95. So that includes, this includes the hairstyle, the makeup, the face gems, the sash. A bag, a gown. And then there’s the princess signature, which is four 50. What includes hairstyle, makeup face gem, nail Polish, princess sash.

Since sash, a choice of Disney Paris. Princess gown made with the heirloom quality fabric. So I think this is the fabrics that. No. It’s not a toy. And extra details. Additionally, a crystal Tiara organza garment bag and sat and hanger make this the ultimate extravagant. Is that one

Justin: better be done, but I want a legit theory godmother. I want let’s.

I’m sure Susie in training is very delightful. But I’m paying half a thousand dollars.

Autumn: Well, I’m going to say something. I want to say. I’m going to say something about that. There’s two more packages. So there’s the night package, which includes hairstyle with gel sward, shielding, confetti. That’s 1995.

Really a sword?. I scored. Wow. And then the deluxe night package, which includes a prince costume hairstyle, which else? Sword shielding, [00:19:00] confetti. It’s a big sword or a little sweaty.

But here’s what I want to say about, I know, cause Justin made up the point about them being godmothers and training. So, so I got a lot of this information from touring plans, but I also scouted like WDW Disney, food blogs, other big sites that like get their facts. Correct. I have experienced things typically multiple times and they have all said,

My child’s experience here a hundred, every time has been better than any interaction, even with a princess meet and greet. Yeah, it is. When you think of magic that you’re paying for it Disney like everyone has, you said the same thing. This is like, these are, they’ve got to just be like super professional actresses.

Like, they’re like not, it is hold it. If you met a princess. Cool. They’re like, yeah, that’s cool. But this is like, Way next level. And then to see it. So it’s set up so that family. I can. Can view as their child’s going through the process. [00:20:00] So it’s

Justin: like the carwash.

Autumn: Oh, no, no, no, but there’s like, if you get a gown, there’s like a dressing room and then there’s like an interactive mirror on the inside. But The parents. Yeah. It’s like the wa it just seemed like a really cool experience. Not only for the child, but the family that’s watching, but every single bug, everything is like,

The meet and greet with the princesses FA. Fabulous. Great. And this. Is like surpasses that by a million. Like this

Justin: is. You think about it now you’re dressed up like a princess and you’re going to meet other princesses. They treat you now like a princess. I know, which is

Autumn: cool. I want to do it.

Well, so this is the bippity boppity boutique. So I’m, I I’m sure that a lot of you listening, this has hopefully piqued your interest or it’s something you’ve thought about. It is something, of course, I’m sure you can guess that you that’s very popular. So please reach out to Justin because he has all the, yeah.

Justin: So if you’re going to, well, I’ll tell you right now, if you want to do [00:21:00] this, you need to book at 60 days out. You need. Or, yeah, I’ll book it for you, but if you’re going to do it yourself, you do need to be up early. 60 days out to make this happen for short. This is actually something you can also set an alert for. So if I had a client that is booking with me less than 60 days out, I would set an alert. You can use a mouse dining, our mouse watcher.

I’m set. To set an alert. You don’t, haven’t had a ton of luck getting these because they, they go quick and they book salad. Whereas with like dining people will book, dining, and then cancel when you book bippity, boppity, not a lot of people cancel. That is canceled. So these are tough to get your kids are going sick, even with alerts.

So, yeah, I would like, this would be something to farm out to like a good travel planner, not someone who’s. Just doing it. You know, for fun, like someone who’s seriously going to be there in the morning to get this for you. It’s going to set alerts for you. Can I ask you a question?

Autumn: Yeah.

So it’s so [00:22:00] popular. Is it like. Are there any other tips to like getting it? Can you book it more than 60 days out to really get you? Can’t it’s like just at 60 days. Yeah.

Justin: I think, I mean, if you’re going during less busy times a year, Okay. The better off if you’re going on the cruise line, it’s going to be a little bit easier.

And they’ll be 30 to 60 days there. It’s a little different there. But yeah, it’s just tough if you can’t get it, though, there are services. There are people that’ll come to your hotel room and, and do your kid up like a princess though, if you there’s a Facebook page. Ear for each other.

You know, back during the pandemic, when. All those Disney employees were laid off. They got together and started a Facebook group and offer these services. And there’s a few people there that offer this service. It’s probably not going to be the same thing. You’re not going to get a fairy, godmother and training.

But I know you’re going to pay a lot less and people have S you know, said that they really They found a great deal of value in that.

Autumn: Yeah. And it’s something else they will add to just about the Disney Springs location, which they don’t do in magic kingdom is they [00:23:00] ask so there’s time slots, right? So there’s, I don’t, I have no idea how many, maybe eight kids in, at a time.

But they asked them when they’re done, if they want to participate in a parade. Oh, cool. So then all the fairy godmothers come out and they like do a parade, which is cool throughout. They have like a specific, what would you call it that. Oh, a place that they walk, you know, a parade.

What’s Promenade. No like a.

I can’t think route they have a parade routes. There we go. They have a parade route. And I just think that was really cool.

Justin: So yeah, that’s A Stumps J. Thanks for that. You’re

Autumn: welcome. And if you have any more questions, I’m just, I’m really loving this. Cause it was, and I think it’s funny cause it was something I really frowned on. Yeah.

But, yeah, I’d love to talk about it. If, if you’ve gone and had the experience, we’d love it to take some time just to write in. Yeah. And let us know what that was like

Justin: easydizitpodcast@gmail.com or easydizit on, [00:24:00] socials. Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great. We’d appreciate that.

All right. Stick around. We’re going to take a break. And when we come back, we’ll have highly suspected minds. Yeah.

Highly Suspect headlines

Justin: Right. And we’re back at it’s time for highly suspect headlines now on highly suspect headlines. It’s how we do news here on the Easy Diz podcast. I’m going to read autumn some headlines and she has to determine which ones are true and which ones are outright lies. And if she gets this correctly,

We stay married. It’s how it works.

Oh, If you sounded disappointments. We’re still married to this chump. All right, you ready? For the first highly suspect?

Autumn: He’s got to worry about taking me to bippidy boppidy boutique. Okay.

Justin: Alright, first headline. Yes. Cast members offered 50. Cast members offered 50% off galactic star cruiser experiences. I hope

Autumn: so.

Justin: So two.

Autumn: [00:25:00] Yes.

I

Justin: hope. I usually do write these so that like the fake ones I write. Ones that you would like.

Autumn: I know I noticed I didn’t notice that. So now I’m like, is. Is this not right then? That’s false.

I feel like we’ve talked about how maybe. Though it got booked early on it hasn’t maybe been doing that well because of the cost of it pot. That’s our theory. Who knows why, but yeah, it is a lot of it’s a lot of money and people are, are hurt now. Inflation is no joke. So. I’m going to say it’s true. I’m going to be ballsy.

No, this is true.

Justin: This is true.

That’s great. So yeah, March through June and it is their, their bookings have been slowing down a lot. There have been some. This year, some cruises this year that I’ve only been at 25% occupancy. But if you think about like this collective star cruiser experience, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a two day experience where you go in this highly themed [00:26:00] hotel and it’s kind of like, it’s a cruise, you’re going into a cruise into space and there’s one excursion to B2.

But which is, you know start a quote. Star wars land at. Disney world.

Autumn: It’s in a park. So you. Yeah.

Justin: Yeah, so it’s, but it’s really cool. It is really expensive though. It’s like five to $6,000 a cabin. And I think you have to be a die hard star wars fan to want to pay that. And you also have to have the money and there’s only so many diehard star wars fans that have that kind of money out there and they might have already done this a couple of times. You know,

Autumn: that’s a good that’s.

That’s a good point. When you break it down like that, I’m thinking about how, how niche it is. It’s pretty niche.

Right. Right, right.

Justin: I think I’d like to take this time to an unrelated guys. I’m looking for friends or Disney cast members and also star wars fans. So if that’s you.

Autumn: easydizitpodcast@gmail.com To reach out because I know them

Justin: all right. Well, [00:27:00] reach out to them and ask them if they will take me on a cruise.

Okay. Are you ready for the

Autumn: next pet loss? Good for them. These in place take a lot. Don’t get a lot. It seems so.

Justin: They’re going through union negotiations right now. Good. Yeah, try to get some raises. So maybe this is part of it.

Autumn: We’re not going to give you a raise, but you’ll give you 50% off. Okay. Yes,

Justin: I’m ready. Man breaks, Guinness world record for consecutive Disneyland visits.

Almost 3000. True. This is true. This is true.

Autumn: Yeah, I read this. You

Justin: read this. Oh, oh. Did you send me. Oh, this one’s sent in by.

Autumn: I was like, Justin, this is

Justin: crazy. So then you were the third person to send me this. So three people signed this. Yup. Sean and Jeff as well.

So eight years, three months, 13 days, starting back in 2012. And it was consecutive. Yeah, every day, this dude rock and roll it’s it started on a leap day [00:28:00] celebration. So in 2012, there was a leap year and Disney’s like, correct. Oh, oh, did we talk about this? I

Autumn: think we know now. Come on the show.

Justin: It was a 24 hour. The for the park was open for 24 hours. That’s just madness. Oh, hopefully they’ll do that again. I hope so. Yeah, probably won’t but I hope so. Those days are gone. All right. Ready for the next one? Yes. Walt Disney world announced his plans to build an underwater hotel in Epcot center.

False. Well, it was quick fall, straight

Autumn: away and underwater hotel.

Justin: Yeah. No. Alright, well, this is true. No,

Autumn: it’s not. Yeah. Listen. I know you’re about to say beep. Okay, but it’s part of it is true, but it’s false. This is what you’re going to say.

Justin: Read from the website. In an exciting new development. Walt Disney world has announced plans to build an underwater hotel in its Epcot center. The hotel will be a first of its kind experienced allowing guests to stay in rooms that are fully submerged in a [00:29:00] massive aquarium, surrounded by a variety of Marine life.

According to Disney officials, this new hotel will be called the coral reef in and we’ll offer a truly unique vacation experience for guests. The hotel will feature 75 guests rooms with floor to ceiling windows that offer stunning views of the underwater world. Guests will be able to explore the coral reef environment.

Up-close with opportunities for snorkeling and scuba diving. The hotel will also offer a variety of educational programs and activities, allowing guests to learn more about Marine life and the importance of conservation efforts.

Autumn: Yeah, this, I was like, there’s no, where where’s the water coming from? And Epcot.

There’s no water.

Justin: The C the C.

That’s one of the pavilions.

Autumn: I guess.

Justin: all right. Okay.

Autumn: And how big it’s kind of like big and cement, you know, the thing. And then like, where’s their wine? Well, they’re

Justin: putting the journey of water right in the middle of Epcot. That’s the new exhibit there. We’re going to learn about how it [00:30:00] works. And then there’s the whole CS pavilion. There’s a whole pavilion devoted to the CS.

But there’s not

Autumn: water there.

Justin: Water there there’s the coral reef restaurant, which. Oh, anyway. Anyway, this is made up. This is completely false. I lied. This is what we call a double, a double height.

It’s not true.

Autumn: It’s false. You did all that. No, I don’t know what to believe, actually.

Justin: Easy Diz bot whip that up for me. Yeah. Easy Diz bot is now integrated with chat GPT. So I asked Easy Diz bot for a fake headline into writing a short article on it. And he did. That’s all AI generated. That’s good. Right.

Autumn: I don’t know. I’m confused. Wait a minute. Just even cows, because you told me.

Justin: No, you got it right? You guessed, you said it was false. It was false. You are correct.

Autumn: This is how it’s.

They’re doing an underwater. As soon as I wrap my head around that.

[00:31:00] Okay. All right. So three in a row. Correct?

Justin: All right. Last one, Jeannie plus sells out for the first time. President’s day weekend. Sure. Yeah, this is true. And so they saw that too. Yeah. President’s day coincided with Mardi Gras this year. Right. And. So like genie plus Disney announced that they’d be capping it back in the fall, but this is the first time it’s actually happened. It didn’t, they didn’t even tap it. They didn’t even sell out over Christmas.

This is the first time it’s actually happened.

Autumn: Yeah. You know what I think it is. I think it’s the lack, all these dang snow days from at least fair people in the Northeast.

Justin: Let’s go.

Autumn: I think that’s part of why I was talking to a coworker. We could go why this winter has felt so long. Like these, normally at this point there’s been at least three or four days off, like January to February. You’re missing a day, every two within every two weeks. Yeah. You know, for that eight week period.

And so I wonder if that’s

Justin: maybe. So, yeah, it was super busy. 10 out of 10, it was projected to beef. President’s day. Weekend is [00:32:00] always really busy. And it’s always the

Autumn: weekend and I’m like, I forget every year and I’m like, Justin. A lot of people, it’s only two days off. Like a lot of people I’m going to go.

Autumn. No, it’s pretty much.

Justin: Christmas. And so we’ll see that in the hay Easy Diz It that we do later on that’s exactly what happened. But yeah, so, I mean, I think this is good, honestly, that Disney’s like, no, you can’t buy this. First of all, they did Jack the price up to $29. And, but when they, by the time it quote, sold out,

You really couldn’t use it very much. Like you couldn’t get a ride with, for within two hours, you could only really get rides in the magic kingdom, attractions, whatever. Could you do lightning wanes? That’s what I’m talking about. Oh, you mean the individual lightening lanes, those sold out early.

Those are all the tasks you just had to

Autumn: wait. So when Jeannie plus sold out an individual lightening lanes. You just have to wait in line. There’s no other, yeah. Oh, that’s miserable.

Justin: Lightning lake. Like every day individually. LightSail out everyday. Oh, okay. Genie [00:33:00] plus doesn’t never sells. Lightening lanes become unavailable.

Autumn: Were there that day, right? All individual lightening lady till out. Genie plus is sold out. So you were just doing old school, going up to a ride and waiting in a regular standby line. Mike, correct. There’s nothing else.

Justin: No, actually, it’s not a regular standby line. It’s a 10 out of 10 park day standby lamb, which is miserable multi hours. But here’s the thing when they, when it quote, sold out there weren’t many attractions left and even the lightning lanes were significant weights. So you weren’t, you. You weren’t saving a ton. So it’s good that I think it’s good that Disney, like basically protected people from, you know, wasting their money on something that wasn’t going to really get them anything.

Oh, I see.

Autumn: Yeah. ’cause at some point if too many people have it. it negates. Yeah, not. Really getting to maximize anything. It’s not

Justin: helping you at all. It’s just costing me more money. I see that. Yup.

Autumn: Yep. Wow. [00:34:00] I mean, I’m feel I’m really having a moments, moments of empathy here of like, feeling for being there. Say we plan to go.

With a three-year-old I don’t know. I think at that point it would be like, we got to go do something else. Yeah. She can’t wait in a two an hour. And like, we couldn’t do that. Like maybe no. No, she can’t. I don’t know. We could do long

Justin: day. Yeah, we could do if, I mean, seriously. Yeah. We could make a walk around the

Autumn: park and eat.

Most rides

Justin: what we. We do Dumbo, right? Dumbo, the flying elephant. She gets to go play in the play yard while she’s waiting to. I’m sure. Right. So it’s not even a big deal. We do enchanted tales of bell, which is a nice 20 minute experience. So even though we probably have to wait for it. Yeah.

But it’s 20 minutes, so that’s nice. What else we make sure we see the parades, you know,

Autumn: That’s what I mean, I’m just saying rides would be pretty. That would not be a day.

Justin: At your bear country, bear jam burry is probably going to be fine. Yeah. Tiki room. The [00:35:00] Tiki Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Tiki room.

Yeah, I think we’d supply. The

Autumn: show things. Yeah, but I just mean, I was, I just meant like rides, like. I’d be like, all right. I’m not trying to

Justin: yeah. No, you’re not going to get on splash mountain. Well, that’s close.

Autumn: And I get most, most of the magic. The rides for her.

Ah, I feel small

Justin: world is probably a bit of a wait, but. Knowing

Autumn: this and knowing now that it is possible, it’s happened that Genie+ plus has sold out. Right. We’re going to talk a little bit more about this and then yeah. Easy Diz It. That’s right. Tips that will hopefully help you if this does happen to you.

Justin: Yeah, we’ll get there. Okay.

Let’s stick around for that. We’re going to take a little break. We’ll come back with three tips from a

Autumn: nerd. Oh, that’s right. Yeah. This nerd.

Three Tips From a Nerd

Justin: All right. Welcome back. Let’s do three tips from a nerd. All right, nerd. God, give us your three tips.

Autumn: Yeah. Number one. Go to bippity boppity boutique.

Justin: You’re not a nerd.

Autumn: go to Disney world and don’t ride the haunted mansion, I don’t know why you’re going to Disney [00:36:00] world. It’s

Justin: just solid advice.

The solid advice.

Autumn: All right. And number three, treat yourself to one of the fine dining options in Disney’s. Even if you, even, if you you do peanut butter and jelly for the rest of your things. It’s fine. I think the food in Disney that’s really good is like, It’s worth the cost. So I would say to save even for just one meal, even if you get in.

PBJs I think that’s worth it. Just some

Justin: solid advice. You just pulled out of your hat.

Autumn: There. Can I say that it means a lot. Both as my husband and as. E nerdy Travel planner of Disney. That. You thought that I just gave solid advice.

Justin: Yeah,

absolutely. Thanks for doing it, man. That’s crazy.

right. So I’m the nerd. And I’m going to give you some tips. I’m gonna have

Autumn: stuff to say about those tests. Yes.

Justin: So with three tips from nerd, we basically want to do to give you some tips on saving money, saving hassle.

And having more fun when you’re [00:37:00] in Disney world or other theme parks. And the tips this week are going to be really targeted towards the military families. So let’s start with saving money because Disney actually has some great money saving opportunities for military families. So if you qualify do qualify, you need to be a military or retired military.

Member. And if you go on the website, they’ll give you a full breakdown of exactly what that is. For tickets they have the Disney armed forces salute. So you for a five day military promotional ticket is $369. Yeah. Most days. In the year, this ticket’s about like 5, 5 50.

Oh, wow. So that’s a good savings. Yeah. A four day is 3 49. So the savings not quite as good there the five days, obviously a better deal per day, which is

Autumn: typically how Disney tickets run any way. It’s. Cheaper the more days you buy, but

Justin: this is especially good. The four to five day jump is only $20. That’s.

That’s more significant than That a regular ticket and then the park hopper [00:38:00] plus, which could add. $80, a hundred dollars to a ticket for, for military it’s only $30 more per ticket. So good deal. Good deal.

Autumn: That’s you, I mean again and just, what’s like generally. Ticket price for a person like a regular, a non vet.

Justin: These for, so for these five to four, you’re saving about a hundred, $150, $170 each yeah. Yeah. Each ticket. Yeah. For a family of four. That’s huge. This is really good. And so where do you get these military tickets? You can’t get them at Disney world. So you have to go to your military ticket office if uh, you’re in the military. You’ll know where that is.

Or if you can’t do that, you could actually buy them at shades of green. And shades of green is a armed forces recreation center on Disney world property. But it’s owned and run by the United States government.

Autumn: I’m just amazed that they have Like us government operated support on. Yeah. When you’re like Disney. Yeah. Does he does a lot and they have everything. I’m [00:39:00] just, I’m very impressed with

Justin: that. It wasn’t always owned by the government. It was actually sold to the government by Disney. I’m not sure when actually, but it used to be a Disney owned property.

Justin: So, yeah, I mean, wall. Walt Disney has always been easy. You know, he’s a Patriot. You know, back in the day he did cartoons for war bonds and all that [00:40:00] stuff. He’s always had a lot of, some of the characters did too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you look at like the park there’s. There’s a lot. There there’s a lot of respect for the military. So it makes sense that it’d be continued through to today.

All right, so that’s one way to save money. There’s like quite a few though, so that the, this armed forces salute also applies to room discounts. So there isn’t like a hard percentage. It varies by season. But you can get up to like a 50% discount on rooms for by staying on Disney property. Which is pretty significant.

So this would be something where you’d have to book a. You can’t do it online. You have to call them to book it. But yeah. Yeah, there’s some great deals.

Autumn: Oh,

Justin: okay. Another way to actually save money is so, you know, I mentioned the shades of green resort. Yes. That you can stay at the shades of green resort. So you can’t book this through Disney. You have to book this through shades of green and because shades of green is not a Disney hotel, right. You can’t go to Disney.

You have to book it through them, but the price is here. It’s [00:41:00] basically a deluxe resort for around a third of the price.

Autumn: Wow, but only for

Justin: military exactly.

So, yeah, so shades of green is a deluxe resort. It’s not like as Disney themed as something like the Polynesian you know, But it’s actually, it has the largest rooms in any deluxe category. Where is this located? It’s located right behind the Polynesia. So you can walk through the Polynesian and be on and jump on the monorail loop.

Autumn: Oh, that’s a

Justin: bit of a walk like. It’s not like a sh like a short it’s, like a 20 or 30 minute walk, but it is walking distance. Yeah to the monorail

Autumn: loop. So on a beautiful

Justin: day. That’s great. Yeah. And for the price, you really can’t beat it. You really can’t beat it. Another, the cool thing about the pricing here is it doesn’t go. It’s not there. Isn’t search pricing. So as you get closer to the date, it doesn’t go up. The prices are released at the beginning of the military calendar, and they’re just the same prices all year round. It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas or whatever.

So if you are [00:42:00] doing this, if you are a military member or a spouse of a military member. Definitely book it as soon as possible. As soon as possible because these do fill up quick.

Autumn: Great. Wow. I’m I, this is a great topic. I feel like we can even talk more about these things. Yeah, yeah,

Justin: yeah. I mean,

So if we have any military members out there that are interested in learning more shoot me an email, easydizitpodcast@gmail.com. And I’ll just forward you the links that I used to research this. So let’s talk about Hassell. Saving some hassle. Well, I guess, you know, I guess my piece there about shades of green, it being so close to the magic kingdom and Epcot loop, that’s going to save you a lot of hassle with transportation. Yeah. So if I were a military member or, you know, the spouse of the military member, I would be shooting to try and stay at shades of green, for sure.

Autumn: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Justin: And then have more fun. Right? So one of the things I’ve heard, you know, I watched some YouTube videos on this too. Is that there’s like a [00:43:00] comradery there because it’s, you’re surrounded by military members. Absolutely. And one blogger, actually the, with Tom Bricker from a Disney tourist blog.

His father is a member of the military. And what he liked about it is he said that the kids were more disciplined and respectful. Shades of green than other Disney resorts. I believe so. That’s. Yeah, I mean, I can see that. Yeah, so that would be more fun, I guess. And then another thing that’s fun for military members, or maybe fund’s not the right word, but important or memorable or.

Could be the flag retreat that they do every day. Autumn, you talked a bit about this. Do you remember the flag?

Autumn: Is that part of where they Oh, no, I think I’m thinking of something I’m confusing. It I’m conflating two things. When I was thinking of what happens at wilderness lodge, but that’s where they ask a family to base. At the flag. But that’s I think different

Justin: than this. Yeah. Yeah. So the flag retreat happens every day at the magic kingdom. And it’s, there’s only one real flag at the magic kingdom. Correct. And that’s on the pole. All the [00:44:00] other flags either have less stars or less stripes than a real American flag. So the one flag is lowered before sunset there’s, you know, they. They play like the patriotic medley. And they also have service members. They, they ask the service members to participate as well. And service members, families to participate as well. So it’s like a real memorable in some would say, I, you know, I’ve heard really emotional.

Part of. Of their experience at Disney and it might be worth checking out. Whether you’re a military member or not, it might be something worth checking out. So if someone

Autumn: wanted though to check it out, How would they inquire about that? The

Justin: flag retreat? Yeah. So you can, on your way into the park, you can stop a guest services and ask them what time the flag retreat is for the day.

Okay. Yeah. I’m not sure that it’s on the Disney app. It may actually be in the Disney app too, but yeah, I would, I would just ask it and guest services on my way in. No, that’s

Autumn: solid. That’s always Sutton guest services is great. They have the answers to everything, or I know the person that does have the answers to everything. [00:45:00] So we did.

Justin: So that’s three tips from a nerd. Yeah. For military

Autumn: members. I really, I can’t, I think this is a specialty and a population that isn’t like discuss a lot, particularly when you’re talking about. Trips to Disney. So I think this is really helpful. And if you found it helpful, let us know, because I think there’s a lot here. And honestly, we could probably do a bigger segment on this.

Justin: Yeah, no, I’d love to hear feedback from military members. Maybe what they like about the parks or, or if you have any tips you’d like to share, I’ll steal them.

Autumn: And if your experience is staying at that. Yeah,

Justin: I’d love to hear about it. easydizitpodcast@gmail.com.

All right, stick around. After this break, we are going to do a, Hey Easy Diz. It.

It’s a good one. It’s a good one. Stick around.

Hey Hey Easy Diz It

Justin: all right. Welcome back everybody. We’re going to go ahead. Get started with everybody’s favorite segment. Hey, Hey. Hey. Easy

Diz It, where we take all the one star review from the [00:46:00] internet. And try and use that information to make your next trip. A little bit less. One-star. Maybe sometimes. Three and a half stars and above.

Autumn: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not perfection. If it happens. Cool. No name for it. Right.

Justin: Solid. Yeah. Like four. Good for your high three. Yeah. Okay. So this one is actually coming from just last weekend. President’s day weekend. We touched on earlier in the show genie plus sold out the parks were cram packed on them. Like two year students were there.

I mean, yes. I think there’s just tons of people and, you know, people don’t anticipate February to be busy. Because it’s February who goes to Disney world in February. It turns out everybody goes to Disney World in February.

Autumn: Anytime there’s one, a three or four day weekend. People go.

Justin: Yeah. And here’s the deal like? So I was looking at TripAdvisor, right. And just looking at the most recent reviews. [00:47:00]

And since then, since that weekend there’ve been like seven reviews. Like four or five of them were one-star reviews. People are mad about last weekend. The other two reviews, like they were for trips back in may. They weren’t for this past weekend. And like one person who was super prepared, gave four stars and she really stressed how important it is to be prepared.

So, yeah, let’s read this one star review though. Okay. And just try and we’ll get an idea of what last weekend was like. And maybe we use that information. Decide if you do want to go on president’s day weekend maybe how to prepare for it and maybe change your expectations a little bit. Right? Sounds good.

Good. All right. So. This is Rena, from fishers, Indiana. Hey Rina. Hey marina. I feel like she’s writing into the show. Not really she’s writing on TripAdvisor. The headline is terribly long lines, frustrating trip, not coming back. Exclamation point. Yup.

So our family of four stayed at a Walt Disney world [00:48:00] resort, and paid for three days of tickets to go to Disney parks. I have never been so disappointed and disillusioned. We came in February because we thought it wouldn’t be so crowded and the lines would be manageable. We were very wrong. Yes.

Autumn: We want to stop you there. I know.

Yeah. We just said it. And just made this point, you know,

It’s there’s so many, so many people, so many people think, like you said, right, that it’s a less busy time. It’s not like Christmas, which is also very maddening. It is it’s

Justin: busier than

Autumn: Christmas presents. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but I mean that people don’t, it is, but people don’t think it’s going to be as.

Justin: During president’s day weekend. If you come two weeks before president’s day weekend, you’re fine. You’re good. You’re going to be, you’re going to be in a good spot.

Autumn: The moral of the story here is any, any little day, Martin Luther king. It was a very busy weekend. So any day you’re thinking, Hey, let me go. There’s a little bit of time off, but not lot. So maybe nobody else is going.

Yeah. Yeah. Incorrect. [00:49:00] There’s thousands and thousands of thousands of other people thinking the same thing. So I would say, I mean, one know that if you’re going to Disney world, chances are, it’s going to be very, very crowded. And if you’re going during a time where most people have some time off, cause it’s a federal holiday.

It’s going to be even more busy. If you have questions and we do talk a little bit about this, there are actual times of year where it is. It is less busy, but those don’t do not correlate with any holidays. People that people have off, but they do exist and we talk about them,

Justin: check your crowd calendars. You’ve got a touringplans.Com has a great one. Disney tourist blog has a great and free one.

There’s, there’s quite a few free ones. And I think all of them predicted. That this weekend was going to be. Really busy. Yeah. Alright. So we were very wrong. The lines to wait for rides were 60 to 200 minutes long that’s over three hours. Yeah. Mostly 90 minutes in all parks. We went to magic [00:50:00] kingdom, Hollywood studios, and Epcot. I can verify this. I was on thrilled data on these days.

That’s a lot. That’s a. Mostly not even it’s an all parks, the Disney app. That they force you to use is not reliable. So this, I mean, yeah, this is, this is true. I think. It’s it’s gotten better. It has gotten much better in the last four or five years.

But I wouldn’t say it’s the most reliable app. It is still proud prone on some phones to, to shut down. It definitely drains battery. Right? The user interface isn’t, you know, the best, but right. I would definitely want to have some experience using it before going into the parks, at least checking out the different features or watching videos on YouTube on how to use it.

Autumn: That is something we just did. I. I want to say for most of the, a good portion of the prep we talk about, that’s really helpful to making a Disney. Happy and healthy trip doesn’t fall. It does involve Googling and videoing. Just so you have some idea and comfort with certain things beforehand. Yeah. [00:51:00]

Really can take a lot of stress out of it for you and anybody else in your party. So we talk a lot about that, like, Hmm, this is the thing. I’m not quite sure how to use it, or I have questions about it. YouTube

Justin: all eaters allears.net on YouTube is, has got some great resources on how to use cheating plus. Yeah.

Okay. So the Disney app that they force you to use is not reliable. Sometimes it says no wait time, and you run across the park to get to that ride, but you find it’s actually a 60 minute wait. So I haven’t run across this yet. That’s stinks. That’s. Yeah, that must be, that sounds like a bug. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about in terms of not reliability.

Another time we lined up for the millennium Falcon ride. It said it was going to be a 90 minute wait, but the line took us three hours. Oh, That’s a bummer for. For a simulated five minute ride. It was definitely not worth it. Yeah. Three hours for that. No, no, no, you wouldn’t. I like, you know what I like about that ride? It has an awesome single riders line. Right.

You’re going to be stuck as an engineer, but it, it has a great single riders line just because of [00:52:00] the way the rides configured, it seats six people. And there aren’t a lot of parties of six, you know, Disney. So, so the single rider line moves really fast on that.

Autumn: Which is nice. So that’s an advantage. If you want to basically, you know, go by yourself, we get that. Sometimes that’s hard and just

Justin: not feasible with Fisher with a family of four. I wouldn’t do it, but I probably I’d rather do that and be split up than wait for three hours in that line.

Nobody wants to do that. That’s too many hours. Let me

Autumn: just go do something else. Yeah. That’s a long time. I feel. You know, I don’t know if she touches on this. But we know that it was so busy that genie plus sold out. I think we mentioned earlier in the show.

Yeah. So I wonder too, if there was maybe some extra funkiness going on, because it has never sold out. Yeah,

Justin: it’s right. It’s sold out because it was so busy. Right. Right. She doesn’t mention it here, but she does. So I’ll get to this. So first that was not worth it in all three parks that we went to, we were able to only go on [00:53:00] four rides per day because of the ridiculous wait times. Yeah.

Autumn: So generally most days, especially if you uh, Justin and I are big advantages of being rope droppers. So you get by the park opens I mean, that’s typically what you could do, like in an early morning time. So that’s not a lot of rise. You. If you rope drop typically by like 10 30, you could get, you can get.

Yeah. 11 o’clock. But that’s a half you’re down 50%.

Justin: Yeah. At that it doesn’t sound super fun being in these lines for that long. It doesn’t. I think you can still have, and men, you know, a good Disney trip, it’s just, you can’t expect to go on a lot of rides. You’re going to have to reconfigure your expectations in terms of what you’ll be spending the day doing.

Probably stay away from the headliners. But let’s continue. Let’s continue. In all three parks, we went to were only able to go on four rides per day because of the ridiculous wait times. You can pay for Disney genie plus for [00:54:00] $29 a person. And it had gone up to $29. But the rides you want may not be eligible for lightening lanes. This is true. This is true. And this is why it’s sold out because Disney knows people are going to be really mad if they pay $29 and they can’t go on any rides. Right. And that’s the point that it got to at a certain point in both Sunday and Monday of president’s day weekend.

Hmm.

Autumn: This is a tough situation. This is.

Justin: There’s even a ride guardians of the galaxy where you can only line up in virtual queue. Where you have to log into the Disney app at 7:00 AM or 1:00 PM. This is true. Yeah. Hopefully that, you know, either the, she found out from the internet, if she was using a travel agent, hopefully the travel agent told her about this. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. Cause that is not a fair surprise. No.

To get on your vacation. You need to wake up at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning. Both times I tried and it was already full. The moment they opened the queue at precisely 7:00 AM and 1:00 PM. Yeah. At least busy days. These [00:55:00] probably went, I didn’t check before I went on. Thousands of other people within seconds.

I’m sure they both filled up. Yeah. Yup. There was no way in, what did I say? It might even be less than that. I mean, what, what this is where, you know, your internet connection makes a difference. So where you, you know, you can do a speed test. You can do a ping test on your phone. I use app called wifi analyzer to maximize my signal.

I use it for different things, not just Disney world. You don’t need to use this app. But you can just Google speed test and take a speed test from different parts of your hotel room. Try it on the wifi. Try on 5g. See each one. See which one has the strongest connection? And, and use that for virtual queue in the morning. It, honestly, those seconds make a big difference. Yeah.

there was no way we could get on this ride. So frustrating. And that is a bummer. A few of my clients that have been recently have talked a lot about this. Right. And how awesome it is. So that’s sad to me when I hear that people can’t write it.

We didn’t get to the rides we [00:56:00] wanted to get on this trip. The star wars rise of the resistance broke down around noon and never opened again. I think that’s come up in like, That four or five of these one-star reviews. The prices of the food at parks have gone up while the quality has gone down a lot too.

You want four pizzas, personal 4″ size and soda. That’ll be $60. The tiny pizzas were not even good. It’s gotta be pizza Rizzo.

Autumn: It’s gotta be pizza. Be honest.

Yeah, I wouldn’t.

If you like a good pizza, don’t get pizza and Disney world. That’s always going to it’s a hundred percent of the time. You may

Justin: see your money. Italy and Epcot. Via Napoli. That’s the one exception for good pizza. And then I think Disney Springs has some good pizza too. But

Autumn: I don’t count Disney Springs because Disney Springs is like good restaurants.

It’s not park food at all. Yeah. It’s like high quality restaurant. So I, Disney Springs does not count that, but in the parks. Yeah. I would say skip it..

Justin: YOu’ll be sad, if you go to pizza, Fari pizza, [00:57:00] Rizzo, pizza, planet, Disneyland. You’re just going to be sad about your decision.

Autumn: You probably would be better off. Okay.

Pretzels pretzels, a burger like.

Justin: Yeah. Yep. You’ll be better. You can get some really bad burgers there too. Yeah. Burger from cosmic. Rays is probably worse than. Pizza planet

Autumn: pizza. I haven’t had burgers there.

Justin: Yeah. I think of like the grayest oh, okay. Pseudo meet that you’ve ever had. Yeah, maybe.

Autumn: Yeah, maybe a couple of pretzels and beer. And then you

Justin: go, there you go. And a milk for the kids.

You would hope that at least the food was good and the portions were filling. Also felt like Disney is nickel and diming. You. You pay for your own, right? Yeah. So Mikkel and diamond, we did a whole thing on nickel and diming. Remember. You have to pay for your own ride from the airport. She’s talking about the lack of magical express.

Autumn: That’s a bummer. Yeah. That’s about my, I hope they bring that back

Justin: at something. So here, you know, if you know this in advance,

We have sunshine flyer in Mears transportation. They both provide a transportation. It is [00:58:00] $17 per person. And then there’s Uber as well. Which if you have like a bigger party, for a family of four. You probably save a little bit of money by going by Uber.

Autumn: Yeah, correct. I must though. I think you have like multiple kids in car seats. Yeah. Those other transportations will already have. Equipped. Yeah, insured for all that stuff. So. Good point. I don’t know. I think if you have kids under three,

Yeah, I didn’t want to not do the Uber and get the. What are they called the mini

Justin: ears, but the mini minivan is. Yeah. Is the Lyft transportation. That’s a very costly. Transportation, but you can, you can bring a three-year-old on to sunshine flyer. And Mears as well. Yeah. They have seat belts for kids.

And also for kids, sunshine flyer that you get like a little gift too. So if you want and it’s themed. So if you want like a fun themed transportation to kind of replace the magical express sunshine, flyers, your best bet.

Autumn: Okay. And then we go.

Justin: You don’t want to wait in line for three hours. Half to buy genie. Plus for $29 per person and hope that the ride you want will still get you. The [00:59:00] lightning lane passes. They also require that you make a reservation for your family at the theme park that you’ll go to each day. And yet the parks are still crowded and the lines are still ridiculously long.

Yeah. So she’s talking about the park reservation system, which is still in place. You still have to make park reservations. If you want to go to magic kingdom on Tuesday. When you buy your ticket, you need to reserve magic kingdom for Tuesday, right?

Autumn: What do you think she’s talking about is like, It doesn’t seem like doing that right.

Like normally when that there’s a process for that. And part of that process is to mitigate. Busy-ness traffic and it didn’t. We’re going to cap attendance. And that’s kind of the question. I don’t know if we know why that still really is in place that you buy the ticket and then have to reserve it. It’s an extra step. I don’t think anyone like.

Loves that they have to do an extra step. So I don’t know.

Justin: Yeah, no customers love it. Every customer complains about it. Right. They’ve talked about this on re recent earning calls though. Why they’re still doing it because it’s saving the park a ton of money in terms of staffing. [01:00:00] It lets them know exactly who is going to be at what parks, the number of people that are going to be at each parks at each day. But I’m just saying,

Autumn: why can’t they, why is this two separate processes?

Just streamline it. When you get the ticket, ask. What day do it in one step. And it gets the

Justin: multiple states to change that. So for single day tickets, that is the case now. Oh, okay. It comes automatically with a park reservation, a multi-day tickets. You still have to use the system. And a pass holders will still have to use the system, but yet it still requires a reservation.

Interesting.

so, and then yeah, Disney has lost focus on customers. And I’ve heard this from people that this. The focus now is on getting more money out of you. I would argue that that’s always been their goal. From the beginning, but I think they were had maybe. They’ve in the past, had a longer view.

Like, we want to get more money out of you for the rest of your life. And then your kids, we want to get your kids money too, but we want to get your kids, kids money to. Right now. We do that exactly. To make this a [01:01:00] memorable experience, but right now and I honestly, I blame this on the way. You know, how corporations react to stock price changes. It’s about short-term profit gain.

And these things were good for short-term profit, you know? Yeah. Instead of magic, you get frustrations and disappointment, not a fun vacation place. It is not the happiest place on earth. Not anymore. Don’t waste your money here. Like we did go to universal studios. They do a better job.

Autumn: So I will say I love the last several reviews. Yeah.

I have talked about. How universal did a really did a, it was a rival job, especially for the cost difference that you spend. Yeah. And, and we do know that I believe it was last year that universal actually. Is it correct? It made more money. They make more money, money.

Justin: Ticket sales. The past every parking set,

Autumn: the magic kingdom.

Yeah. You know, so I mean, that

Justin: that’s, that could be due to the fact that they weren’t capping attendance. Right. So [01:02:00] universal doesn’t cap attendance, universal doesn’t require a reservation. Right. I will tell you, because I do read a lot of one star universal reviews. You’ll see a lot of those that say this place is trash. Go to Disney.

Sure. So, you know, that’s kind of a feature of a one-star review. I, you know, I think they, and I will say just from like, I wouldn’t bring my daughter to universal studios. Yeah. I’d like, and I wouldn’t not for a week anyway. And you know, I would probably wouldn’t even waste the money on a ticket for it, to be honest.

Disney world though. I would gladly shovel. Pilot cash. I

Autumn: think that’s more about her age. Yeah, it’s really isn’t for three year olds. Exactly. But

Justin: that’s what I’m saying here. Like, I wouldn’t say if you had a family of four and you’ve got a five-year-old and an eight year old. Even though Disney has these difficulties, even though you have to make the reservation. I think the advice to go to universal studios instead, I, I wouldn’t agree

Autumn: with that.

And it depends on your party, maybe that maybe it is better. I mean, maybe it is maybe really. It’s awesome. And you like the [01:03:00] theming there. They do do a decent, the theme. It’s good.

Justin: It’s awesome. It’s a great park, but it’s not the same quality and it doesn’t have the fully immersive magical effect that Disney does.

You know, it’s it’s you, you very near that. In my opinion in my thank you, autumn. No, that’s a good point. In my opinion, like what I was there, I was amazed. It was awesome, but I always knew I was in a theme park. I never really forgot that I was in the theme park. Disney world. There are moments where you’re just so wrapped up in everything.

You’re just like, holy cow. That’s amazing. Or holy cow, this is cool. Or just wrapped up in an emotion and you’re not thinking about the fact that you’re in a theme park. That didn’t happen to me personally at universal. Universal is more like, whoa, this is the coolest theme park I’ve ever been to.

Right.

Autumn: Yeah. Right. So we know being a deer, we feel for you Sarina.

Justin: We are sorry about this trip.

Autumn: We would really love to hear. And we would love to help you [01:04:00] maybe. Try to go again with, with some of our support and guidance. I think number one, what made this really tough in anybody that went this past weekend? I think current a bunch of people thought it was going to be not a busy time to go. I think even maybe Disney didn’t think it was going to be as busy as it.

B does not.

Justin: They have the park reservation system.

Autumn: That’s right. But still, I mean, they hadn’t, it was the first time that they’d actually sold out of genie plus, so they didn’t know exactly what that was going to be like until they experienced it, even, you know, So I think that’s stuff I think. Really, if you want to go when it’s less crowded for whatever the various good reasons are to go.

It’s less crowded. Really look that up. Oftentimes September end of August. October early October ish, even kids are in school, right? People are getting back to routine. Those are really the best times to go. Yeah.

Justin: Literally early February, mid January, just looking. January look out [01:05:00] for, just look at the crowd calendar. Yeah.

Autumn: As soon as March comes, it’s done.

Like basically in spring. It gets where it gets

Justin: progressively

Autumn: worse. It’s still the end of August. So yeah, so those are good times to go. I think the other thing is thinking about the cost. The genie pass class had gone up. I’m wondering. When this person, when Rena had looked at the cost of genie, plus. This is varies

Justin: they don’t tell you. The advance. This is a real frustration. Like, how am I supposed to. So my family, it can be as low it’s between 15 and $30. They don’t tell you. So it’s like if I’m planning here for a full four-day trip or three parks for four people. . Like a $15 spread is a big difference. It’s a huge

Autumn: times. People.

Justin: Thats $240 spread.

Autumn: Maybe Rena didn’t know that it upped in price. Unless you’re really into like planning and research. It is easy to miss some of these. It’s not like you Cause there’s just so much to it. So if you are. My other thing would be [01:06:00] definitely reach out to a travel planner. If you’re thinking about going any of that. When another time you had a bad time or you’re just like, yes, this is cool, but this seems overwhelming. It is. And you’re going to hear me say this and this.

It’s a million times. It is very overwhelming. I would reach out because we want you to, to have a good time and there might be a way that you’re thinking about or certain things that you’re expecting that might be different. Yeah. And we can help you sort through that.

Justin: And if you’re going, and we can also say, you know, if you’re going during a holiday time, if you’re going during Thanksgiving, you’re going during a president’s day. Growing during Christmas, you’re going during 4th of July.

Yeah. The plan for genie plus to be $30 going forward Genie+ plus will be $30 in the holidays for sure. And if it changes, we will let you know here on the Easy Diz It podcast.

Autumn: Yeah. And we’ll talk about two ways to adjust maybe. At playing with finances and way to even adjust expectations. Based on when you’re going and you might not know like what to adjust and there are [01:07:00] certain things to adjust it

Justin: certain times. I’ll tell you what I would do if I, if I had to go president’s day weekend.

I would rope drop, but I would get there more than an hour before park. And I’d be at the front of the front of the front. Yeah, he’d be touching the rope. I wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t take holding the rope. I’d be able to smell the room.

Autumn: I would too, because my behind would be out of there by. Yeah, 10 30 hard.

I’ve done it with that many people. And what I

Justin: think what I would do is I’d try and. Ride rides until I met that significant resistance. I met though what we call a balking point, where I look at the, how long it’s going to be. And I’m like, no, thanks. And then I would just chill. I’d get on the people mover and magic kingdom.

Autumn: I just ride, get some foods or some . Transition shows. I do some

Justin: shows Tiki room. I do a country bear a couple of times. I would just watched

Autumn: you back to your room and rest.

Justin: Yeah. Eventually I’ll go back to my room and rest, but I would just give up on trying to ride rides basically right after 10

Autumn: o’clock and you brought up a good point that we haven’t talked a [01:08:00] whole.

I mean, you touched on it, but right. That there are certain rides and rides, roller coasters and, you know, rides that are going to have long wait times. But there are also a lot of things that typically don’t have. And that are cool. And air conditioned. Which are just nice to do anyway, but certainly on a day when it’s really busy, you know? So again, that’s something there’s a lot of other things that you can do with it. You’re not going to have that weight even on the busiest day, because there’s just not as many people trying to go do it.

The country bear Jamboree for one is a great one and absolutely magic kingdom. What does it? Bells enchanted tales. Was it Epcot, you know, finding the most show or is that

Justin: animal. That’s animal kingdom. Just a few shows of finding Nemo ride in Epcot, which is. I mean not good. And the weight will probably be pretty significant.

That one’s going to be. Yeah, I’d probably skip that, but you could go to just the aquariums there. So you have the aquariums. In the, in the. The Seas pavilion. Yeah. Well,

Autumn: we’ve talked [01:09:00] about some of these tourists. Great.

Because no, one’s really thinking about that. So but anyway, so there, there is a lot that isn’t necessarily easy to find and navigate, but that’s why we’re here for you. Yes. Help us help you.

Justin: So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed this. Hey.

And I hope it makes your next president’s day vacation not happen and choose a different date instead.

All right. So that’s it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. That’s it enjoy? The

Autumn: snow.

Justin: Oh, and till next time, Easy, Diz It Easy. Diz It.