The Disney-Sode

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and thirty nine, which is airing at the beginning of March twenty twenty two. This is going to be a Disney SDDE All Things Disney because it is something of a parental rite of passage. Not really, you can live a very happy life never having gone to Disney World, never taking your family to Disney World. However, many people do wind up doing this at some point, and we thought we would share our experiences, our thoughts, you know, because Sarah just got back from Disney World, so it's on our minds. But Sarah, growing up, you went to Disney World a few times, correct, I did. I remember three trips in particular. Now I have shared on this podcast that my parents are of a very frugal ilk. They still are, and thus Disney World would not have normally been on their radar. However, both of the times I remember going in childhood were trips where my father had business trips and we were comped really nice hotel rooms and I think passes to Disney as well as part of that, and so the normal friction between spending money on something this frivolous was removed, and those were really fun trips. I did develop a pretty significant taste for nice hotels as a child that I shouldn't have developed because it did not match with the rest of our lifestyle or even kind of just where we were socially by it was the perk of my father's jobs. So the first time we went, I think it was nineteen eighty eight, and I think I was pulled out of school, perhaps because in the pictures it looks very cold, and that must have been like January or February, and there's a really cute picture of my sister and I maybe I'll try to drag it up in yellow sweatpants. And mini sweatshirts, looking very cold in Orlando and really enjoying it. I remember writing a recap of this trip in my I guess like second or third grade journal that like detailed the curves of Big Thunder Mountain railroads. So I guess not a lot has changed in Disney World since then. But anyway, that was the first trip. We went again in nineteen ninety two, stayed at the Grand Floridian, again free and I still have yet to stay there again, and amazing, amazing trip. I spent like hours pouring over some unofficial guidebook that we had, like I knew every store, every special meal, every gift shop, every ride, and I'm sure we didn't actually hit them all, but I just I like remember the incredible amount of anticipation that went with that trip. And then finally, my third trip was with my cheerleading squad in around ninety seven or ninety eight, because we competed at the UCA Nationals which were held there and we did not win. And funnily enough, on our trip this past weekend, there was a cheer competition there, so I just was like wow, I even told one random person, Hey, I did that, and then they were like great, were like it was this crazy woman. Oh that's great, So so you had Yeah, you'd been several times then it wasn't very different going as a you know, high school student with your crew versus Yeah. I mean, the focus of that trip was the competition, but I think we did get at least like a day or an afternoon to spend in the parks, but it was it was more about the actual like UCA competition. Yeah time. Yeah. Now, my oldest son, I said, Jasper is theoretically going in the next year. I think it was like rescheduled from this year or something. They decided not to go this year, but next year. I hope with his high school musical department that they would go and perform there. I guess. So that would be a similar to your tier competition. It could be pretty awesome. He would definitely love to do that. He's our big Disney person. I think at one point he maybe still was maybe he wanted to be the CEO of Disney, which would be great. I'd be all for that if that winds up happening as a career option. Many other career options one could have, but that sounds great too. Yeah, we never went when I was growing up similar My parents are relatively frugal people and Disney World does not necessarily mesh well with that lifestyle. But then my father's work did not involve any Disney trips either, so that never wound up happening for us. Different memories of like staying in hotel in Chicago where he was on a conference once, but Disney was not part of the Old Testament in Hebrew Scriptures conference world. I don't know why not. It could have been wonderful thing. The you know, Society for Biblical Literature had chosen to meet at Disney World, I would have been in favor of that, but we never went. So in fact, my kids have gone the exact same number of times that I have gone. In fact, they've gone more because my husband took them to Disneyland in California when we were there on a trip once and I skipped that particular day trip. So we had an agreement each of us got one day. I took the kids to the zoo for a whole day and he was off doing whatever, and then he took them to Disneyland and I was off doing my thing. So that was that was kind of a fun thing. To do on a trip. But anyway, yes, Disney is an experience. So we're just gonna talk, you know, about Sarah's recent trip, about some of our hacks, things we've enjoyed doing, things we didn't enjoy doing so much, maybe a few tips for people who are considering it. So Sarah, tell us about your recent trip, because you just got back from the Land of the Mouse. So we took a relatively short trip. It's pretty not that big a deal for us to get there, although it isn't for you either, as you'll discuss. But it's about three and a half hour drive, so you can leave after school and get there that evening even in time for dinner if you're more efficient than we were on the day that we left. But we just went for a long weekend. We did pull the kids out of school. They missed school on Friday. I was honest with their teachers and just said we had a family trip to Disney plans, so sorry. And luckily I didn't really get any get in trouble, I don't think. And so we went Friday, Saturday, Sunday or I guess we left Thursday night and then we had all day Friday and Saturday, and then we did brunch on Sunday, So it was kind of a short trip. I know from past experiences, I don't necessarily have the endurance to do like five days of Disney, so just fit both our schedules and also kind of my way that I liked to do Disney. You know, this was our first Disney trip since COVID. LA will talk about how she's done a couple. I felt very comfortable, but I know your mileage may vary if you're still feeling like you want to avoid getting COVID at all costs. I don't think Disney would be a great place for you, honestly, because there are lots of crowds, and yes, people have their masks on, but like, if it's going to make you very anxious sitting in a large datium with lots of people not who are all perfectly wearing their masks, then it might make you anxious to be there. I'm not in that place. I'm kind of like, we're pretty protected at this point and I'm in a place of acceptance and living and so for us, it didn't bother me. But I definitely have friends who still I thought of them, and I was like, I don't think they would enjoy this experience where they are right now. Although somewhat ironically, you came back with something completely different, not what you did, but with other illnesses. Yeah, so we came home with a classic Disney souvenir of a gibug. I mean, I said, Nora virus. I don't actually know that it's Nora virus, but I feel like when you take an ichy trip and multiple people come home with fairly significant GI symptoms, that's like the most likely culprit. I actually, I pointed out to Laura, I have like a scar on my face because I had such a terrible episode that I then passed out walking back to my bed and hit my nose on the floor, which is kind of hard to do, but somehow I did it anyway. So we did come home sick, but not with COVID, and we're all better now. It was a very quick, kind of twenty four hour process, and I think I should knock on something, but it seemed to only have hit myself and Genevieve because no one else has had any symptoms. And then we're now like a day out from anybody, so hopefully, hopefully, yeah, there is nothing like the stomach bug going through all every member of the family, like falling, like dominos. We've experienced that fun. It is not fun, no other way to describe it. But yeah, we have gone twice since COVID. A lot of it's outside and then you're, you know, in your own little ride thing. And Disney has been pretty good about sort of stretching out the lines at least during the deepest days of COVID. I don't know how they're doing it anymore. They probably don't care anymore because a lot of people don't care anymore. But you know, we wore our masks the entire time. We tend to go for longer trips. I guess we just like to, you know, by the time we go down there, you may as well stay and go to all four of the big parks. But you know, some of the stuff has been different, Like when we went in twenty twenty, they were only doing takeout, for instance, so that changed the entire experience of dining obviously, but then with you know later that started opening pools or of course is fun. It was also different going with different age kids. So let's talk about frequency and ages of kids, Like when would you take your kids. Well, I love Disney at age three for the like characters and the quote unquote Disney magic aspect, not for the comfort of the trip. Obviously I have gone now. I guess when Cameron was one and Annabel was three, the trip was terrible. I don't think it would have been bad with like three and five. Well, actually we did that too. That one was fine, one and three terrible, Like I remember, like even the shortest lines were torture with the two kids. Josh remembers carrying both kids at once because like they somehow both wanted him like he had one kid in each hand or something, and got a lot of back being from that experience, So that that was I mean, I like the aspect of like, you know, three year olds think the characters are like full on real and when they meet the princesses, it's like the cutest thing, because you know, Annabel was like awestruck by the Elsa Princess and the Cinderella Princess and by even four honestly, or maybe it's just Genevieve's personality or having older siblings, or the fact that the princesses are now like behind a tape and you can't actually like really get anywhere near them. It was not the same this time I'm around, So I love it for that aspect. And there are a good number of very young child friendly rides. So if you kind of have a different experience in mind, like, Okay, we're gonna do like Aladdin's Flying Carpet and the teacups and like just keep it on like the very kind of low key side of thing and not do the things that are very popular and that your kid isn't going to be tall enough to do anyway, at age three, I think you can have like an okay time. But I will say like the younger the kid is, the more waiting in lines is torture, and even a short wait by Disney standards, was is like a fifteen minute wait or a twenty minute wait can feel like a really long time if you're carrying multiple towers this time. Obviously, my kids are the oldest they've been for obvious reasons, and I would say I can see why, like if I although Cameron was just as antsy as Genevieve, so I don't know, like it probably depends on the personality of the child as well, But you did say, your sweet Spot was like nine and above, and Cameron just is turning eight. So maybe we just have like a year or two before waiting in lines becomes a little bit less stressful. Oh, let me add one more thing. In previous years, we always stayed on property and used fast passes. Fast passes are gone and you have to do Lightning Lane and Genie plus. I did not find that system nearly as workable, and thus there was more line waiting. And I think for me it's the line waiting with the young kids that kills you. Yeah. Yeah, So we've gone a fair amount over the years in different iterations. I mean, the flights from Philadelphia to Orlando are relatively cheap and plentiful. I mean, it's about two hours in the air, even if they say it's longer than that on the flight itself. I have, in fact given speeches in Orlando where I've left in the morning and come back at night, like it is entirely doable to do in a day. Like we haven't done that with the trip with the parks obviously, and tend to go for seeing all four of you know, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, what's the other Hollywood studios, but it could be done very quick and at least the getting there a part wouldn't have to be such an ordeal. But I think so, having done it with a bunch of different age combinations, I really think it's best for older kids. And that's the ironic part of this, because kids get hooked on Disney young, Like I mean, the whole Disney Princess is aimed ages you know, three to seven roughly with girls. That's like the target market that they aim the advertising too. And yet that's not a good age to go to Disney. And so the problem because I mean, you have to wait in line, like you are saying, it's going to be hot most of the year. Some of the rides are scary. There's just a certain stamina required to walk around gigantic parks for hour after hour. So I have taken when I took the big kids in May this past year for basically for Jasper's birthday, because he tends to request it as a combo Christmas Birthday present, which is one of the reasons we've been as often as we have. But he was fourteen, Ruth, Ruth was nine, Sam was eleven at the time. It was perfect like it was absolutely perfect, Like they didn't need any items with them, Like they were completely like self sufficient of stuff that you could get at the park if you need it. They were old enough not to whine too much about waiting, and I could, you know, Dasper and Sam had their phones and I could give Ruth mine and like it was, you know, I can stare up at the clouds, I don't care, you know, or I talked to them right like it was. It was totally fine for that. And you know, they had the stamina to walk under their own power everywhere, to stay up late if necessary, and understand why they are doing that, to know that when it's hot at three pm, that's not the end of the world. Like you can just you know, get a drink, get some ice cream, and rally and go again. And so the rides are good for them too. So I really do think that the older kids is where it really works now I have taken We went in early twenty nineteen when Alex was four and Ruth must have been, oh seven, so four seven, nine eleven, I want to say, And that was also pretty good too. If you have one younger child, you could kind of assign a parent to that child, and as long as that child is capable of going on the rides and is not in which four is. You know, you're over forty inches, so it's a lot of it's open to you now and they can walk. But so we actually had a stroller for generally okay trip because I knew that, and I'm so glad we did because it would have been a limiting factor and like we walked. I mean, listen, some kids can walk ten miles without whining at age four. None of mine. Yeah, yeah, been that child, So it was really I mean, obviously you have to park it, but that was very helpful to have on the trip, even though like part of me is like I wish she could have been And we told her, we were like we're like once you we're like five is the oldest age you can possibly have a stroller after that, like you're on your own. Yeah, you set the scene now. Yeah, well, so when we went, we have been taken you know, when Henry was like a mobile baby, and it was just like it's miserable, right because then you know, I couldn't like Alex would act up because he couldn't have a parent solely on him. And you know, because a parent was constantly occupied with with Henry, and you know, we one of us would wind up leaving every day at three o'clock or whatever with the two little kids, which is fine, like you go to the pool, you relax, and then one parent would stay with the big kids till late, which is you know, another way you can make it work. And so that wasn't so bad either. But you know, I just don't bring somebody I think kids under floor. It's just they're not going to appreciate it. It's going to diminish the experience for everyone else. So I just think long and hard about it if you're going to do that. But on that note, you know I did take them when when you know, we had a four year old to two year old and a six month old and we just because I didn't know any better, always still had some fun. All Right, we need to take our ad break and we will be back in just a minute with more of this Disney Sode. So we are back with best of both worlds. Are Disney Sode talking all things taking families to Disney World. So, Sarah, you had a couple of hacks and tips to share. Why don't you start with yours. So first of all, with Disney, if you haven't done this before, there is there are many many blogs out there with a million different tips, but one of the most important things to do is figure out how early you can book various things and make sure you do that in a timely fashion. And the rules keep changing, so you're really going to have to look them up closer to your actual trip. Sometimes there are different rules for people staying on a Disney property versus not. So for example, if you're staying at the Animal Kingdom villas like we did this time, you could book like you're dining sooner than say, if you were staying at an outside property. So look that up, look at your windows, get out your planner or your phone calendar, and put in a little reminder in your whatever app you have to like get up and do that, and you know, don't be like thinking about where you want to stay at that moment. Have that figured out so that when when that window comes you can just click on them. I did do that this time. And although I will say, and this may be a COVID era thing, sometimes things also pop up later. I think as people cancel their trips, like maybe people booked a whole thing and then decided never mind. There was Omicron, I didn't want to go, and like, there were some restaurants we could have popped into that are incredibly popular. We didn't end up doing that because we were honestly tired at the end of our Magic Kingdom day. But I was like, oh wow, we could go here or hear, and you know, I hadn't seen those as options when I was booking, so we did do it. We love Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge, It's a like African themed buffet. It's just really like good range of food and my kids really enjoy buffets actually, I think because we don't normally go to them in real life. Although we got neurovirus, so I mean, I'm not link. It could be the pool, and it could be the pool too, right, we did we did not didn't. It was freezing so the pool is heated, but we happened. It was February and I think the lows were like high forties, which for Florida is like crazy, so we didn't actually swim on this trip. But yeah, Boma is really good. I love doing brunch at the Polynesian It's like, that's a childhood My mom used to like love their French toasts, so I just like going there. So yeah, booking your dining in advance, and then I don't know a lot of people use travel agents. I'll have Laura talk about that. I kind of maybe wish we did. I didn't fully understand the ride booking system this time, and I still don't. Like, I'm like, what did I miss like or did it just get a lot worse? Because in the past, if you stayed on property, you could book fast passes earlier than other people and reserve like three rides for the day in different time windows, which was pretty good. Three I liked it. Now you can pay, so there's a fee that didn't used to exist, in addition to your paying to stay at a fairly pricey hotel to use Genie Plus, which will allow you to only reserve one experience at a time. And I thought that those windows only opened at seven am on the day that you're there, But Laura's shaking your head. Maybe they really opened up earlier and I missed it because by the time I would like log in and I'm like, oh, the first experience I can book at the ride that I want, like Avatar and Animal Kingdom, Like the popular stuff was at like one pm, and you can only book one at a time, So that means, okay, if I book a one pm thing all the way from park opening, which is eight at Animal Kingdom till one, I can't use any kind of special like fast pass type thing, and we're gonna have to wait in like actual lines. And we came during a pretty crowded weekend. So I'll just say I was not super happy with like I stayed on property in part because in the past I felt like it was very advantageous in terms of being able to get on a few popular rides, and that advantage did not seem to be there. So maybe use an agent or figure out another way, because I I don't know it. Yeah, I don't know they put that system in. This is one of the things that Jasper has been unhappy with the parks management of and so when he's the CEO, apparently he's going to replace all those people anyway responsible for the lightning past anyway, the yeah, they won't still be working there because it's like forty years from now. You know, there's different schools of thought, and you know, Disney is just trying to ramp up the extra income from their parks at the moment, and that is one way to attempt to do it. Yeah, I was, you know, I kind of liked the fast pass system in the past, and that you could you know, you had three cool rides for the day, plus if you had a booking for a meal at the park you were going to. It's like you knew you were going to have four cool things for the day, right, So if nothing else happened, it's like, I know, I'm going to be on those three rides and have this character dining experience and it will be great. Then. You know, with COVID they got rid of the fast passes and it was actually okay because they were also limiting park capacity, and the fast passes do make the standby lines longer because half of the ride is reserved for the people at the passes, and so you're shunting everyone else into the other half, and so you wind up with these ridiculous weights. So something like Avatar in the fast pass era, you had to get a fast past because other it was like like a four hour wait to go on it. Whereas when they got rid of the fast passes. It would be you know, thirty minutes for everyone, and so there's there's some upsides to not having them. But on the other hand, then once they raise capacity of the parks, you have to do something to manage it as well. And people don't like waiting an hour for every single ride, and you know, so anyway you look into that. But one thing you could do, yes, I would say, is consider using a travel agent, especially for like the eating bookings, character dining. Having somebody else sitting on the reservation system is just a lot better than having you sit on the reservation system. So Disney pays the travel agents that work with them, so you know, you don't pay them. Disney pays them. Which the only reason it would be an issue is if you were neutral between Disney and other options, you might be doing like they're going to steer you to Disney. But that's whatever. If you know you're going to Disney, you may as well use the service. So we've done that in the past, and you know, have gotten bookings and ride bookings that way, and you know, our hotel bookings and all that stuff too. Ones we've liked Cinderella's Royal Table. Also, you know, it used to be really really cool because it was all the princesses and you're in the castle. I mean, you're still eating in the castle now, but they've sort of changed the character experience now that they don't want you breathing on the characters. But that was always a good one to get the Beauty and the Beast place at Magic Kingdom as well. So if you can get a day where you do like lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table and dinner at Beauty and the Beast, like you're getting the Great Princess Experience. Ocker SEUs when it was open, it wasn't during the past Covid eras, but you know that's the Norwegian restaurant in the Norwegian Pavilion at Epcot, and they turned it into a Princess experience where you know, you had like eight princesses come through that. Again they changed with you know, Covid, but that was always cool. And Tusker House at Animal Kingdom is actually really good food. Like Sarah was saying with Boma Flavors of Africa at Animal Kingdom Lodge, Tusker House is also really good. Like just for whatever reason, Disney does the African flavors buffet, like well, and if you are an adult who is tired of pizza, I would recommend that, like it's better, better food. So you tend to cut your days short, right, Sarah nuts, Well, we've improved. I mean it used to be that we were like the three PM like we're done, Like I'm done, I'm done holding my toddler in line, like it's over, let's go nap, Let's go watch a movie, let's go to the pool. This time we were more like six pm rolled around or five pm, and we're like, I just don't feel like waiting in another line. I you know, I would have stayed if I could have scored another good lightning lane or whatever, but that you can only do one paid anyway, So we made it till I think I think we were like nine to five the first day, and then like maybe nine to six the first day, and then like eight to five the second day, so not like a twelve hour day, more like an eight hour day, and both times we did dinner somewhere else. Again, one day we had reservations at Boma, So we actually kind of liked the idea of like decompressing in our hotel for a minute and then going because we were staying right nearby anyway. And the other night we really struggled with dinner. I should have figured out some reservation and we ended up doing it takeout that like took forever and was, you know, not amazing. So yeah, I would say I think that when my kids are more nine and over, I could totally see making sure we have dinner reservations in the park and trying to stay for fireworks. But I don't think they're doing the firework. So yeah, So what is COVID. I guess it says they don't want people crowding. I don't know what COVID has to do with Oh that is so silly, because the whole park is cuting. I mean, like at least on the weekend we went, like there were times we were walking and you like can only see like a foot in front of you because it was just people. And I think I read that there's like a lot of pent up demand because we went during Super Bowl weekend, which I had read was a very low traffic Disney weekend, but not this year. They apparently had record crowds. People wanted to go. They hadn't gone yet. Yeah, so we I mean we tend to stay late, sometimes ridiculously. So sometimes you know, like in twenty nineteen, they were doing a thing where you could stay till one am, like you'd buy a special ticket from like ten pm to one am. So Michael stayed with the big boys like for a night doing that, and I mean it was great because it wasn't crowded, right, Like you could just go on ride after right, like you'd come off the ride, go on it again, like within the next five minutes. So you know, that was cool, Like you could go on all the rides with zero weight and offen. Things are clearing out by the end and the air is getting cooler. It's like a lot nicer. It's just that three pm is always rough because everyone's tired and it's you know, so again, when you've got older kids, you can push through it, like go get your ice cream at three pm, sit somewhere cool, eat it, and then you'll rally for the evening. But if you have little kids, one option is to try to stay, especially if you're only going to do Magic Kingdom. For instance, you could stay in say Contemporary, which is right next to Magic Kingdom, so you can walk, and so you could leave at you could go at eight when I've opened or whatever. Leave at one, go do the nap, or go do the pool if you've got you know, early elementary of school age kids, and then come back in the evening when it's better again. So that would be an option that you could do. I mean, going back and forth if you're staying anywhere else is going to be ridiculous because it's just so far away. But you know, similarly, if you are staying at one of the hotels that's right by Epcot, you could take the nap too. But yeah, one thing I'd say we didn't bring. I mean, obviously, when I had hand I brought a diaper bag in the stroller, but when I go with big kids, no bags, nothing for the day. I put a little travel sunscreen in my jacket pocket. I wear a light jacket and I put that in the pocket and my phone. I look really cool by the way. I have like my pants with zippers in them, like cargo pants, and I put my phone in there, my keys in there, my credit card if I need it, but you don't, like you just need your ID in case you need it for something. You know, if you're staying in the Disney ecosystem, you don't need cash because you just put it on your band your charge account and yeah that's it. You know, have the sunscreen and a little tube in your pocket. You can brush up with that and you don't need to have a bag anywhere that you're chucking, which is no, it's true much. And we had a stroller, so like we did have we had like jackets for the kids because it was so cold in the morning, but we could just layer them on the bottom of the stroller. And I had like a bag, but it was a tiny bag. It was just like for masks, extra masks and I don't know, bugs bray, sunscreen, credit card, how's about it. Yeah, you don't need that much. But with that because you don't want to go. I did want whites, Oh, I wanted whites. Well, Genevieve is still at the age where like when she eats half the time, if it's like ice cream, like her entire face is disgusting and there's like no neck and it's hard. It's not always easy to find a bathroom, like right when you needed if nobody wants to go to the bathroom. So if I had packed one thing, it would have been like a small container of like wipes that had like some alcohol in them to like really like clean her off on a few occasions. Yeah, well there you go. I would say, you don't want to get bags in the course of the day, like you want to have a souvenir policy from the get go in general, like your kids are going to show up and they're gonna want a giant sing at nine am, and that's just going to be a disaster for the entire day. So our policy we tended to say people could get one thing in the course of the trip, and so you know you want to get it at the end of a day, that's fine because then you can bring it back to the hotel or you can wait till later in the trip to get that. They're wound up being a little bit of leeway on that because then it'd be like, oh, well it was this one tiny thing like cantie, you know, but whatever. It's the point is to have some policies so they're not constantly asking for stuff and like you're having to say no all the time. So if you're like, okay, but remember we get one thing and we have to get it at the end of the day. Then that can keep you from like carrying some stupid you know thing around all day long in them whining and constantly asking for it. We did get a bubble wand for Genevieve as her one thing, which we did the same thing. We told each kid they could get one thing, and it worked out fine. But it was the world's most It was pleasing and it made her happy. It was also the world's most annoying. It was a spewing bubbles everywhere, so she was always like putting the bubbles on other people, including strangers who were like, why is my leg what? Well, you know you don't want to dear old four year old, you shouldn't go to Disney. Once I noticed the dross to stop doing. If you'd stop, she would apologize, and she's pretty charming, so it worked out. But yeah, it was a cute gift. She will treasure it forever until it breaks. Then she will just treasure the memories. So things you were not so excited about. It turns out Disney is trying to make some make some cash. Huh. Yeah, I just felt, well, I think you kind of said it best, like you pay for a luxury hotel when you're staying on property, but you do not get a luxury hotel experience. And I think that was even more so with COVID. I mean, I know there's staffing issues. I was horrified the first night to realize they had gotten rid of their room service because that was my plan. I'm like, oh, look it says on the website they have twenty four hour room service. Oh look at this great menu I found. And then they're like, oh no, that's been shut down for a year. And I'm like, oh okay. And it wasn't like clearly delineated anywhere. So I guess maybe they thought we wouldn't notice. I don't know. So I was disappointed about that because when I paid that much for a hotel again, hotel snob whatever, I expect room service and there wasn't any. So that was number one. Number two is like, I again like the nickel and diming, So you don't actually have to pay for parking in the parks if you're staying on property. You mentioned that, but if you tell them they're on property, they wave it. But the funniest thing, well maybe that's how they knew. So I get this bill and it's like, here's your parking charges for your animal kingdom. And I'm like, I never even told you I had my car in your lot, Like how do you know I was parking there? I could have flown here, I mean, you know anyway, So that was just kind of weird. And again like not complaining. I knew what I was signing up for, but I guess when you're buying a package that expensive, I expect it to be a little more inclusive than it was. Yeah, that's that's all I will say. Yeah, No, I mean, saying on property has some upsides, like you not have to drive to the parks, and some of the parks you park so far away it's like you're in a different county. I swear. Like with Magic Kingdoms, you go to the transport center, you know, and then you park there and then you take the whatever monorail to the park and it's just like, you know, it takes like an hour to get there, and it's ridiculous. Whereas if you are on property, like you're saying one of the Dizzy hotels, you just take the bus there and they drop you off there and then you go to the park or you could take the monorail, or you take the you know, gondola system, all kinds of stuff, which yes, you can wind up waiting for too, But it's not like parking doesn't actually benefit you. In many of the parks now Animal Kingdom Lodge not Lodge Animal Kingdom, you can park pretty close. But anyway, the buses are often a good deal. But yeah, you're you're paying like Ritz prices for some of the Disney properties and you are not getting the Rits like, so you just have to kind of get your head around that idea. Theoretically, you could take the Magic Express from the airport if you are staying at a Disney hotel. I would not do that, just take an uber because you can wind up waiting forever for that one too. We have the thing though, I do like staying at the Disney properties, even if they are not the Rits, because they're built for families and so we have you know, they have condos too, because they have all the huge like timeshare business going on. So we've stayed at ones that are you know, have a kitchenette and so then you just buy a thing of frozen waffles, keep it in the freezer, and you know, pack of yogurts and your kids can eat waffle and yogurt in the morning and then you just get out the door. Like it doesn't have to be an ordeal. So that's that's been something we've taken advantage of a lot to aim for off season. If you can, like Sarah's parents, pulling her out of school in January might have been a good idea. She's because like when kids are out of school, it's, yeah, it's be busy. So like Disneyland, disney World with fewer lines is so much better than Disney with long lines. So if you can look at historic tables of attendance, among the things that my son does is compare which weeks have had lower or higher attendance with varying probabilities. Right, you know, obviously it's it can be crazy if you go during say a week everyone has spring break when it is not crowded, though, it can be very magical. And so I would say just as a hack to dial down the pressure on yourself, this is not a hack, this is maybe a mindset. So there's a couple of ways you can do this. One is to assume you will go more than once. I know some people are like, well, this is our one Disney trip of the lifetime, and then that's going to ratchet up the pressure because if you don't get to do something, it's like the end of the world. Whereas if you kind of assume you'll go every couple of years, then you know you probably will get to do it the next time. You know it's it's again. There's a million things one can do. So if it's a season of life where you're being more careful with money, I would maybe not go to Disney because it's just going to be expensive, and I think that ratchets up the pressure on a lot of people that like, I've spent all this money, and if the kids are for whatever reason, not having a good time on something, it's like a personal affront. And I've seen families screaming about this because you're hot, you're tired, you're waiting in line, and then if the kid's not happy and you spent more than you really wanted to on it, it's just going to be very, very stressful. So maybe you know, do something else and maybe a different season of life would be better for Disney, or maybe your kids can go with their high school cheer team and then they'll fundraise for it and they don't expect to be saying in certain places or whatever. So that's that could be, you know, But anything you can do to take the pressure down a bit rather than hoping for a trip of a lifetime and then you know, life is never completely blissful, might be a good idea. So Sarah favorites your favorite rides. What were your favorite rides? We didn't get to go on that many rides this time, but the far and away favorite was definitely Avatar. As I mentioned, that is such a cool virtual reality ride. I love Sourin as well, but I think I think Avatar is even better. That whole world building that they do Animal Kingdom in the Pandora Land is actually beautiful and like so well done, so that was really really fun. I also love the nostalgia of Disney like almost as much as Disney itself, and I think that does come from a having childhood memories and b having memories with my kids from a younger age because one of the things we did that was so much fun was just to tell stories of prior Disney trips and my kids get such a kick out of it. Whether there's stories like for my husband's past, he used to go a lot because apparently his father used to teach a course at Disney, like a surgery course, and the family would be dragged like every other month, and apparently like they got to the point where they're like, oh, not again, dad, But yeah, so we just heard, we got to tell all these stories. And the fact that Disney doesn't change much. I like that. I hope they don't get rid of a lot of the really old nostalgic things. They can build around it, they can add to it, like again, that whole Pandora world wasn't there the last time I was at Animal Kingdom, and that wasn't that long ago. So please feel free to expand don't get rid of like the core, because I think that's something that I love. Yeah. No, they all are always innovating in various ways. It was funny to watch like Epcot slowly turn into each country now being the themed of a Disney movie, like that they're doing cross content promotion there, that Mexico was just Mexico and then it's gonna becoming Cocoa, and and you know, Norway was just Norway and now of course it's frozen and frozen and ratituey with France, like it was just France and now there's there's that. So it's funny to see that happen, although you know kind of like, yeah, you are expanding and innovating, but yes there's some old nostalgic stuff like you know, space Mountain and uh, the it's a small world that. Yeah, it's they're not great for what they are, it's just that they are have been there forever. And so many people went as kids and have you know, gotten to do that again with their kids. Avatar is amazing. We always love that soaring, you know what I would say Avatar. We had one experience when we did go in twenty nineteen. It was at its peak of like popularity, and so the wait literally was like three hundred minutes on my app. The kids got to go twice in a row because there's the baby swap and so Alex couldn't go on it, and so my husband got to take all of them after I took them, so they got to go twice right in a row. It was like, wow, you know, that's like seven hundred minutes you didn't spend in line. It was really really awesome test track at Epcot is just so much fun. You're soaring around on a you know, car on the roof in like the Florida. We went once at night and it was just like so amazing to go sixty miles per hour and a you know, basically a with the top down, a go kart down. It was fun. I liked Big Sunder Mountain Railroad. The shooting games. I like the carnival shooting games like the so Toy story Mania and similarly buzz light Year at Magic Kingdom. And then we got when we went in twenty one, we did get to go on Rise of the Resistance. That was a whole ordeal of you know, being on the system right when you could make a reservation. We got a boarding group and we were able to do it. It was really cool. It was like a combo world building of Star Wars plus a ride where you are you know, you're captured by the forces, the Empire forces, and then you are trying to escape. That was actually pretty fun. Kilimanjaro Safari. Just seeing animals, I mean it's like Africa, only here in Disney, and the animals are always there. I mean, so I have gone on a safari in Africa and you're driving around in a jeep hoping to see animals, and often your guide knows roughly where they will be, but you know there's no guarantee. Then in Disney they're always there. So I do have to admit though, this was the first time I went to Disney and the world words cultural appropriation kept zooming into my head because if you really think too hard about it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll say, And you know, I gotta say the Rock and Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith is probably the only Disney coaster that's like a real coaster. But it's actually pretty cool. Like you're you're zooming through the Los Angeles night listening to Aerosmith's songs and like have the neon signs of the freeway in Los Angeles and you do, what is it, you know, an inversion and all that stuff. So it's one of the only Disney coasters that's like a real coaster. So if you're into that, that's a definite must do while you're there. All right, So this question do our question? I guess Disney is our love of the week for or no that we have a different one. Never mind Okay, our question is a bit of a plant, Sarah, what are some good Disney alternatives? Like, if you've decided you don't want to do Disney World with your family, what are some other fun experiences. I think if you're looking for the theme park experience and your kids are younger, and perhaps your budget is smaller, you should consider Legoland. He will get the Florida Sun, You will get lots of rides. It is so low key in comparison, but there's still a lot of theming. The rides are kind of small child friendly. There are more areas that are fun for toddlers, and it is just a lower stakes experience. My husband loves Legoland. He always compares the two and it always seems like Legoland wins. They're different, but that's a great alternative, all right. And then let's throw in that Universal is obviously right there and just has sort of a different vibe. There's some similarities in that you can stay in like Universal affiliated properties that have some benefits in terms of I don't know if they're still doing this, but you basically got the fast pass equivalent by staying in the Universal affiliated hotels. Harry Potter World is amazing, So you know, you could definitely do a great Universal experience, and particularly if you have like older kids, because I think they're they're roller coasters are better. So if you are a roller coaster aficionado, you are definitely going to prefer the Universal experience to the Disney World experience because it's just aimed differently. So you know, teens might have a more fun time going to Universal. And I agree on Lego Land that was I didn't go to the one in Florida, but I went to one in California when we had little kids, and it was, Yeah, it was great. It was wonderful, like they had such an amazing time. It was just more aimed at children that age. So let's do our love of the week, all right. Mine are the on Running brand sneakers. Like you've probably seen people wearing them, because as soon as I bought my first pair, I saw them everywhere, and actually they were a very popular shoe choice at Disney World. I got the cloud varieties. I think some of them are called like on clouds or whatever. I don't use them for running, but they were really really comfortable during my call week. I actually did not wear them to Disney because right before we left, I started to worry that like a tiny part of my foot maybe didn't like the shoe, and I was like, that's not a good thing to risk for that many hours on my feet. But they're really cute and they worked really well for call, and I didn't really know about them before, So you go, there, you go. I was gonna say this is totally non Disney, but my love of the week is my Eddie Bauer knee length coat. Because we are still deep in winter up here in Pennsylvania. It has now seen me through another winter. I've probably worn't it five years. It was maybe two hundred dollars and I think I had a Eddie Bauer coupon, so I got some discount on it as well, and so on a cost per wear because I wear it every day for approximately five months every year. That's pretty much as non Disney as you can go in terms of, you know, being very economical, pretty good cost per wear there. So I'm going to give a shout out to my Eddie Bauer coat, but definitely like to put it away now and have some warmer weather. I am not going to Disney World anytime soon, but that would be an option if you are you know, suffering from the cold and wanting to you know, have a little bit warmer. Florida is about to get warm, so something to look into. Anyway, this has been best of both worlds. We've been doing our Disney sode. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.