November 22, 2024 • 11 mins
Mike Yardley admits he’s a child at heart, and believes that nothing can reawaken your inner child like the escapist innocence, magic, and sparkle of Disney.
On his visit to LA recently, he decided to stop by the Disneyland Resort and swing through the parks.
He joined Jack Tame to discuss the dos and don’ts for those eyeing up a Disney holiday.
Read Mike’s full article here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at Me.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That is the sweeping epic Disney theme which Mike Hadley,
a travel correspondent, absolutely insisted he must be introduced with
this morning and fair enough, Mike, I reckon, I reckon.
You know, it's it's the kind of the level of
grandeur that we would expect for someone like your good self.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Indeed, Jack, by the way, congratulations on all of your
momentous news and achievements. So you will soon have another
child to lug off to Disneyland.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, you see that. Don't mention anything I see. I
reckon that seven year old. I reckon he would be Look,
I'm sure he would be very excited by the prospect
of Disneyland. But yes, I've never been. I've never been.
So I'm looking forward to your do's and don't your
tips this morning, because they do say that Disneyland is
one of those places that even if you're not a
(01:22):
huge Disney fan, it can be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, so I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, okay, So look, twenty twenty five is a big
anniversary year for the Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, right.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yes, indeed, Jack, the original Mouthhouse turned seventy. Guess how
many visitors have trawled through Disneyland since nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Okay, let's think about this, seventy years. Let's say what
would be an appropriate number of visitors a day.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I reckon they can house about one hundred and fifty
thousand a day.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, So I reckon if they can house one hundred
and fifty thousand a day, let's say that it's one
hundred thousand a day. So let's say one hundred thousand
a day. Okay, So you know, are we I mean,
are we? Are we getting into the Are we getting
into the hunt? I mean we must be in the
hundreds of millions, if not.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Billions, Yeah, eight hundred million.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Hundreds of millions, if not billions.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well done. I mean there's a.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Ridiculous number of visitors.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Isn't it. Yeah, it's just yeah. You can fully expect
plenty more to add to that Q next year for
the big seventy. And they've got a lot of milestone
festivities in store. They haven't really saw the details, but
what I have managed to find out is there's going
to be a really big focus on nostalgia. A lot
(02:49):
of sort of retro theming a lot of returning parades
from over the decades. And there's also going to be
this new stage show which apparently is going to be
very cutting edge with all of the technology, which is
basically going to prize open the vaults on Walt Disney's
Made Life. So yeah, a lot of new stuff in
store next year.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Where should you start in the park?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh my god, Jack, once the gate's open, it's just
incredible to watch all of these billowing queues form at
every single ride. You know, it's just the mess march
of humanity. So if you are a kid at heart,
what I would suggest is forget about the rides the
starters go straight to Tomtown for a personal photo inside
(03:35):
Mickey's house with the mouse themselves. I just reckon, that's
one of those little golden moments, and then you can
rinse and repeat that right next door with Mini. So
if you do that early, you will only have to
wait about five minutes to get those immortal shots.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's good at two o'clock in the afternoon, and you'll
be in trouble, that's it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, at two o'clock in the afternoon, you could be
waiting two or three hours, so I know it's just insane,
So go and see Mickey first up and also by
the way into town. And I've just opened a new
ride called Mckenmonnie's Runaway Railway and it's absolutely superb, so
tick that off early as well before the queues build.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
What would you rate as the do not miss experiences?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, I reckon the original rights are still the best,
so think it's a Small World, Mister Toad's Wild Ride,
Peter Pan's Flight obviously, the Mad Tea Party, Spinning Cups,
the Matter Horn, Bobcats. Something more recent time Star Wars
Galaxy's Edge. I think that ride on the Millennium Falcon
(04:40):
is truly riveting. And then also you've got that epic
battle scene experience Rise of the Resistance and then in
the adjoining park California Adventure Radiator Springs Races. I just
adore that experience very much. From Cars the movie. Yeah,
and also Guardians of the Galaxy that should also top
(05:01):
your bingo cart nice.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
How can you expedite time spent queuing?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah? Well, the Disney theme parks they have chopped and
changed the way they've operated priority lanes in recent years,
but to keep things simple. I would strongly suggest you
spend a bit more for lightning lane access. So these
lightning lane passes that are available on the most in
demand attractions, and the way it works is you book
a time to write via the Disneyland app very short
(05:31):
during time, and yeah, you can basically just jump the ques.
The multi pass is available for a lot of the rides,
but you can also buy single lightning lane passes for
the likes of Radiator Springs Races or Rise of the
Resistance And honestly, that will just save you so many
hours that you would waste in queues.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, that being said, it's a smart idea not to
try and do everything in one day.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, this was the saddest insight I had a few
weeks ago at Disneyland Jack By about four o'clock, five
o'clock in the afternoon, I was just alarmed at how
many families I saw in a state of total implosion.
And it was like they were frantically trying to make
every single minute count and the sugar high from all
of those turos and the Mickey Waffles had well and
(06:19):
truly worn off on the kids. They were in like
a state of meltdown. And it was just the most frazzled,
tantrum prone scene that I thought was just a big
spoiler on what Disneyland should be about. So don't try
and pack it into one day. Definitely by a multi
day pass and just take it at a more leisurely
(06:40):
paced I know it's going to cost you more, but
it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, But I mean if you're already spending the money
to get there, you sort of wonder if actually maybe
the premium gives you that you know it's worth it
a ultimately, would you recommend staying on site at a
Disney hotel.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, the closer the better, I reckon to once again
eliminate a bit more stress. I mean, there is quite
a bit of fath involved getting to and from the park,
particularly if you're staying further away. So I stayed at
one of those onsite Disney hotels, the Grand Californian. And
the other really good perk about that is you actually
get a head start on the crowds, so you get
(07:15):
access to the parks thirty minutes early. So yeah, it
just gives you that jump on humanity which is particularly appealing.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yes, yeah, when would be the best time for key
we used to visit.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Well, A good thing for us is that if you're
planning a post Christmas holiday, say like January right through
to March, they are actually the quietest months at Disneyland. January, February, March.
Also mid September to mid November is a quieter period,
so September school holidays is quite good for that. Definitely
avoid July and August like the plague that is jam packed.
(07:52):
And the other thing, try and book your visit for weekdays,
particularly Tuesdays and Wednesdays for some reason, are the quietest
days of the week year round. So yeah, weekends very
very busy, try and avoid the weekends.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Nice should we add to the list, And I would
not dare suggest you'd be speaking from personal experience here, Mike,
don't lose your cell phone at disil.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh my goodness. My misadventure with my cell phone which
happened to a ride on the Millennium Falcon and my
phone was indadvertently dislodged from my side pocket. The whole
experience opened my eyes to what is the most amazing
loss and found machine that hums across Disneyland. So I
(08:37):
employ hundreds of cast members to locate and repatriate loss items.
But it's like an army of wompu lumps and they
have a very high success rate. So in my case,
it took six hours for the umpulumpers to wave to
weave their magic. But I got my phone back and
my phone was one of twenty thousand that are misplaced
(09:00):
every year at the Sea Land, along with one hundred
and forty thousand hats, wallets, in sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Twenty thousand cell phones plus all stuff. So that's a
that's crazy. That'll be fascinating. There's a little film on
that just following the team behind it found I mean,
is amazing. Yeah, the twenty thousand are reunited.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Apparently it's ninety two percent.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Cell phone. That's amazing. Cell phones are easier to be
feared to to reunite than some other things. But still the.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Only year sort of. Yeah. The impression I was left
with when I found out this was they would suggest
that people who go to the Zeland are good people.
You know, they're honest people.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, although cell phone isn't. Maybe I'm just being naive here,
but some is maybe not as valuable as it once was,
right because in order to unlock it you need to
facial or a pen or whatever. So maybe I don't
know that. Yeah, I'll be interested to see how much
cash that's lost in wallets is really but still, yeah,
(10:05):
maybe maybe that's a well, the happiest place in the world.
You don't want to be thieving at the happiest place
in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Do you.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, not a good log.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I had a twelve hour stop over in La on
the way back earlier this week. So it was one
of those terrible things where it was like you land
at six am and you leave at seven pm or whatever.
You know, so oh yes, And of course we had
to take all of our luggage out and all of that.
So I ended up getting a You can actually go
and get a locker. So this is useful for anyone
who's in LA and maybe has a day and maybe
(10:34):
even once suspended at Disneyland, you can't keep your baggage
at the airport, but nearby they have locker services and
so you can go into locker for the day. So
we ended up going and putting our equipment in a locker,
and then we went out to Santa Monica and had
breakfast and went for a bit of a stroll and
you know, went up to the Griffiths Observatory and that
kind of thing. So you know, with twelve hours, it
was much better to spend it out and about in
(10:55):
La or Anaheim than it is to spend it in
lax But yeah, yeah, thank you so much for your tips.
We'll put all of those on the News Talks. He'd
be website so you can keep Mike's dos and don'ts
for Disneyland at the forefront of your mind if you're
painting a trip there. Johnny flicking me a note so Jack.
Fun fact to it. My mother's cousins, Jerry and Marsha McDougall,
(11:15):
were the first two kids through the gate at Disneyland
in nineteen fifty five. It's amazing, Johnny. Thank you only
two ninety two if you want to send us a
message just like Johnny did it.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at Me.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That is the sweeping epic Disney theme which Mike Hadley,
a travel correspondent, absolutely insisted he must be introduced with
this morning and fair enough, Mike, I reckon, I reckon.
You know, it's it's the kind of the level of
grandeur that we would expect for someone like your good self.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Indeed, Jack, by the way, congratulations on all of your
momentous news and achievements. So you will soon have another
child to lug off to Disneyland.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, you see that. Don't mention anything I see. I
reckon that seven year old. I reckon he would be Look,
I'm sure he would be very excited by the prospect
of Disneyland. But yes, I've never been. I've never been.
So I'm looking forward to your do's and don't your
tips this morning, because they do say that Disneyland is
one of those places that even if you're not a
(01:22):
huge Disney fan, it can be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, so I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, okay, So look, twenty twenty five is a big
anniversary year for the Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, right.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yes, indeed, Jack, the original Mouthhouse turned seventy. Guess how
many visitors have trawled through Disneyland since nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Okay, let's think about this, seventy years. Let's say what
would be an appropriate number of visitors a day.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I reckon they can house about one hundred and fifty
thousand a day.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, So I reckon if they can house one hundred
and fifty thousand a day, let's say that it's one
hundred thousand a day. So let's say one hundred thousand
a day. Okay, So you know, are we I mean,
are we? Are we getting into the Are we getting
into the hunt? I mean we must be in the
hundreds of millions, if not.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Billions, Yeah, eight hundred million.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Hundreds of millions, if not billions.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well done. I mean there's a.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Ridiculous number of visitors.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Isn't it. Yeah, it's just yeah. You can fully expect
plenty more to add to that Q next year for
the big seventy. And they've got a lot of milestone
festivities in store. They haven't really saw the details, but
what I have managed to find out is there's going
to be a really big focus on nostalgia. A lot
(02:49):
of sort of retro theming a lot of returning parades
from over the decades. And there's also going to be
this new stage show which apparently is going to be
very cutting edge with all of the technology, which is
basically going to prize open the vaults on Walt Disney's
Made Life. So yeah, a lot of new stuff in
store next year.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Where should you start in the park?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Oh my god, Jack, once the gate's open, it's just
incredible to watch all of these billowing queues form at
every single ride. You know, it's just the mess march
of humanity. So if you are a kid at heart,
what I would suggest is forget about the rides the
starters go straight to Tomtown for a personal photo inside
(03:35):
Mickey's house with the mouse themselves. I just reckon, that's
one of those little golden moments, and then you can
rinse and repeat that right next door with Mini. So
if you do that early, you will only have to
wait about five minutes to get those immortal shots.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's good at two o'clock in the afternoon, and you'll
be in trouble, that's it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, at two o'clock in the afternoon, you could be
waiting two or three hours, so I know it's just insane,
So go and see Mickey first up and also by
the way into town. And I've just opened a new
ride called Mckenmonnie's Runaway Railway and it's absolutely superb, so
tick that off early as well before the queues build.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
What would you rate as the do not miss experiences?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, I reckon the original rights are still the best,
so think it's a Small World, Mister Toad's Wild Ride,
Peter Pan's Flight obviously, the Mad Tea Party, Spinning Cups,
the Matter Horn, Bobcats. Something more recent time Star Wars
Galaxy's Edge. I think that ride on the Millennium Falcon
(04:40):
is truly riveting. And then also you've got that epic
battle scene experience Rise of the Resistance and then in
the adjoining park California Adventure Radiator Springs Races. I just
adore that experience very much. From Cars the movie. Yeah,
and also Guardians of the Galaxy that should also top
(05:01):
your bingo cart nice.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
How can you expedite time spent queuing?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah? Well, the Disney theme parks they have chopped and
changed the way they've operated priority lanes in recent years,
but to keep things simple. I would strongly suggest you
spend a bit more for lightning lane access. So these
lightning lane passes that are available on the most in
demand attractions, and the way it works is you book
a time to write via the Disneyland app very short
(05:31):
during time, and yeah, you can basically just jump the ques.
The multi pass is available for a lot of the rides,
but you can also buy single lightning lane passes for
the likes of Radiator Springs Races or Rise of the
Resistance And honestly, that will just save you so many
hours that you would waste in queues.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, that being said, it's a smart idea not to
try and do everything in one day.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, this was the saddest insight I had a few
weeks ago at Disneyland Jack By about four o'clock, five
o'clock in the afternoon, I was just alarmed at how
many families I saw in a state of total implosion.
And it was like they were frantically trying to make
every single minute count and the sugar high from all
of those turos and the Mickey Waffles had well and
(06:19):
truly worn off on the kids. They were in like
a state of meltdown. And it was just the most frazzled,
tantrum prone scene that I thought was just a big
spoiler on what Disneyland should be about. So don't try
and pack it into one day. Definitely by a multi
day pass and just take it at a more leisurely
(06:40):
paced I know it's going to cost you more, but
it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, But I mean if you're already spending the money
to get there, you sort of wonder if actually maybe
the premium gives you that you know it's worth it
a ultimately, would you recommend staying on site at a
Disney hotel.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, the closer the better, I reckon to once again
eliminate a bit more stress. I mean, there is quite
a bit of fath involved getting to and from the park,
particularly if you're staying further away. So I stayed at
one of those onsite Disney hotels, the Grand Californian. And
the other really good perk about that is you actually
get a head start on the crowds, so you get
(07:15):
access to the parks thirty minutes early. So yeah, it
just gives you that jump on humanity which is particularly appealing.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yes, yeah, when would be the best time for key
we used to visit.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Well, A good thing for us is that if you're
planning a post Christmas holiday, say like January right through
to March, they are actually the quietest months at Disneyland. January, February, March.
Also mid September to mid November is a quieter period,
so September school holidays is quite good for that. Definitely
avoid July and August like the plague that is jam packed.
(07:52):
And the other thing, try and book your visit for weekdays,
particularly Tuesdays and Wednesdays for some reason, are the quietest
days of the week year round. So yeah, weekends very
very busy, try and avoid the weekends.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Nice should we add to the list, And I would
not dare suggest you'd be speaking from personal experience here, Mike,
don't lose your cell phone at disil.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh my goodness. My misadventure with my cell phone which
happened to a ride on the Millennium Falcon and my
phone was indadvertently dislodged from my side pocket. The whole
experience opened my eyes to what is the most amazing
loss and found machine that hums across Disneyland. So I
(08:37):
employ hundreds of cast members to locate and repatriate loss items.
But it's like an army of wompu lumps and they
have a very high success rate. So in my case,
it took six hours for the umpulumpers to wave to
weave their magic. But I got my phone back and
my phone was one of twenty thousand that are misplaced
(09:00):
every year at the Sea Land, along with one hundred
and forty thousand hats, wallets, in sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Twenty thousand cell phones plus all stuff. So that's a
that's crazy. That'll be fascinating. There's a little film on
that just following the team behind it found I mean,
is amazing. Yeah, the twenty thousand are reunited.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Apparently it's ninety two percent.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Cell phone. That's amazing. Cell phones are easier to be
feared to to reunite than some other things. But still the.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Only year sort of. Yeah. The impression I was left
with when I found out this was they would suggest
that people who go to the Zeland are good people.
You know, they're honest people.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, although cell phone isn't. Maybe I'm just being naive here,
but some is maybe not as valuable as it once was,
right because in order to unlock it you need to
facial or a pen or whatever. So maybe I don't
know that. Yeah, I'll be interested to see how much
cash that's lost in wallets is really but still, yeah,
(10:05):
maybe maybe that's a well, the happiest place in the world.
You don't want to be thieving at the happiest place
in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Do you.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, not a good log.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I had a twelve hour stop over in La on
the way back earlier this week. So it was one
of those terrible things where it was like you land
at six am and you leave at seven pm or whatever.
You know, so oh yes, And of course we had
to take all of our luggage out and all of that.
So I ended up getting a You can actually go
and get a locker. So this is useful for anyone
who's in LA and maybe has a day and maybe
(10:34):
even once suspended at Disneyland, you can't keep your baggage
at the airport, but nearby they have locker services and
so you can go into locker for the day. So
we ended up going and putting our equipment in a locker,
and then we went out to Santa Monica and had
breakfast and went for a bit of a stroll and
you know, went up to the Griffiths Observatory and that
kind of thing. So you know, with twelve hours, it
was much better to spend it out and about in
(10:55):
La or Anaheim than it is to spend it in
lax But yeah, yeah, thank you so much for your tips.
We'll put all of those on the News Talks. He'd
be website so you can keep Mike's dos and don'ts
for Disneyland at the forefront of your mind if you're
painting a trip there. Johnny flicking me a note so Jack.
Fun fact to it. My mother's cousins, Jerry and Marsha McDougall,
(11:15):
were the first two kids through the gate at Disneyland
in nineteen fifty five. It's amazing, Johnny. Thank you only
two ninety two if you want to send us a
message just like Johnny did it.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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