January 26, 2024 • 31 mins
Ever find yourself meticulously scheduling every minute of your Disneyland trip, only to end up more stressed than enchanted? Nathan and Alicia from Mouse Gepads and I share the secret sauce for that perfect balance between a carefully-crafted itinerary and the sweet serendipity that makes Disneyland so joyful. . We dive into how over-planning can actually derail the joy of your visit, swapping out those potentially stress-inducing timetables for a sprinkle of spontaneity.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Park Magic podcast, your place for
insider tips for your nextDisneyland adventure.
Whether you're a first-timer orfirst-time in a while visitor,
we're here to unwrap the secretsto creating and simplifying
your dream Disneyland vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Today I'm going to be talking about one of the most
important things about planningyour vacation, and this is
especially to all of you A-typepersonalities.
I say that as an A-typepersonality, but this is the
biggest mistake, where you seekids crying, being dragged
basically on the floor acrossDisneyland, people who are like
I will never, ever do Disneylandever again.
A lot of it comes from this onemistake that people make when
(00:53):
planning.
And I have some of the coolestpeople I got to know them when I
was on their podcast, mouseGepads, and they are so much fun
and wonderful and I wish Icould go on like seven cruises
with them.
So, nathan and Alicia, can youguys share a little bit about
you and your experience withDisney?
Sure, sure.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
We started I guess we started Disney probably in
around 2009 with our daughter,who was, I think, four or five
at the time, and did a cruiseand a couple days in the parks
and just totally fell in lovewith it.
And we have tried to do Disneysomething or another Every year
after that or every other year.
(01:30):
We've gone on many, manycruises with Disney.
We've been to Disneyland, we'vebeen to Disney World, been to
Owlani in Hawaii.
My daughter and I went toDisneyland Paris for her
graduation trip this past summerand we just honestly go as
often as we can.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, it started out being a once a year thing, or
maybe every other year, I think.
Now it's probably three or fouror more times a year.
We have three Disney cruises onthe books.
We just got off one a few weeksago.
We are often in the parks,which is ironic because we live
in the Seattle area, so we'refamiliar with getting on a plane
(02:09):
to either go down to Californiaor across to Florida.
It's just been worth it.
It's a little cliche, but it'sour happy place.
It's where we just loverelaxing and doing whatever and
letting the magic that is theDisney experience and the Disney
cast members just letting thatmagic happen.
It is our happy place.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I think that you said something that would throw a
lot of people who go toDisneyland once or once in a
lifetime for a loop.
Is you relax at the parks?
It's so stressful when I go, orI went, and it wasn't relaxing,
and I think that the experienceand that's kind of the reason
we started this podcast is tohave help people who love the
parks, help other peopleexperience the parks the same
(02:50):
way that we do, and I think thatthere's a lot of things out
there like you have to do someplanning and a little planning
does go a long way, like knowingwhat rides you want, knowing
hey, we love cars and what ridesdo they have in Cars Land.
Some planning goes a long way,but you and the three of us have
(03:12):
talked about how the biggestmistake people make is really
over planning.
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour thoughts on?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
that Definitely definitely.
Well, with Disney nowadays youreally can't do spontaneity
anymore.
You do have to have some amountof planning involved.
But also with that is you can'tover plan because Disney just
doesn't kind of allow that towork anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, you're in a park with 40,000 other people.
You're relying on a mechanicalset of operations for various
rides to never have a problem.
You're assuming that those40,000 people are going to be
doing things that you don't wantto do.
Let's just face it having thefully detailed, down to the
(03:58):
minute plan is kind of settingyourself up for non-success, for
failure.
You're not going to be able tostick to that plan.
I think when people have an ideaof minute by minute, here's the
blowdown of how we're exactlygoing to go through our park day
.
When something happens, thatmeans they have to deviate from
that plan, they're settingthemselves into failure.
(04:19):
And now, all of a sudden, youhave this negative thing and
like, well, I wanted to do this,but I have to go do this other
thing, versus if you just changeyour perspective and just go
like, hey, now I get to go dothis other thing.
I don't know what it was goingto do, but do I feel like a
churro now, or do I feel likegoing on Haunted Mansion, or are
we going to go check outAutopia, or I don't know?
Whatever we're going to do, youjust kind of go do it.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
When my son was five.
It was when Cars Land firstopened and we were obsessed with
cars.
We did the whole trip because Iwanted to do that Radiator
Springs Racers car.
Now, to give you an idea of myson, if you can imagine C3PO as
a four year old, that would bemy son.
And so you know, we went toCars Land.
I was so excited for him, wewent on it and he hated it.
(05:02):
You know he's like mommy.
I thought my head was going topop right off, you know.
So you know.
I think that sometimes thethings that we are really
excited about something for ourkids or we don't want them to
miss out on this one thing, yourkids haven't watched all the
TikToks, they don't know.
You know they might know one ortwo things and kind of like with
(05:23):
what you said.
You know when you build thatminute by minute itinerary,
you're probably going to be offschedule the moment you start
because even if you geteverybody out of the hotel at
the right time, even if youdon't have to go back to the
hotel because somebody left asweater or a shoe or a backpack
or a phone, then you know whenyou get you people try to rope
(05:46):
drop rise and then rise doesn'topen on time, which you know.
There's all it's in.
I've never been to Disneylandwhere all of the rides open
exactly when they're supposed toand there's some rides that it
is expected that they go down,Like it would be a miracle if
Indiana and rise didn't go downone day, or racers didn't go
(06:08):
down one day, and it doesn'tmean the rides are broken.
Space Mountain goes down forlike 20 minutes because you know
if grandma took too longgetting out of the car, they
have to recycle those things.
So if somebody paid me amillion dollars that I could
have lifetime passes, I don'tthink I could craft a minute by
minute plan for Disney, evenhaving gone hundreds of times.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
It's not only just the rides that have
unpredictability, it's peopletoo.
It's everybody in your ownparty.
Sometimes somebody will tripand skin a knee, or somebody
will get hungry unexpectedly, orthere's an emergency bathroom
break.
That has to happen, and theselittle things can throw a wrench
into your plans and just makeyou deviate from what you want
(06:50):
to do.
For us, the important thing iseverything's going to change or
something's going to change, andyou just have to go with the
flow.
We are very much go with theflow, people.
Oh, this unexpected thinghappens.
Well, let's change and dosomething else.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
And that's frankly where I think we've had.
Some of our best Disneyexperiences are from some of
those unexpected things thatjust happened to happen and we
were going to go to this ridebut we just weren't feeling it
or the line was too long orwhatever it was, and then we
stumble into some random, rarecharacter that you hardly ever
(07:24):
see in the parks and it was themost magical, almost like
one-on-one kind of experience.
And when you have that detailedplan, you almost are taking the
magic out of the hands of thecast members in the Disney
experience by trying to overplan.
You know, just let Disneylandhappen.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
You know that same trip my son was at Toontown and
they spent like three hours inToontown's playground and when
Toontown reopened he's 16 nowhe's like did they reopen that
piano part?
You know, like that was a corememory for him.
Not all of the other things,not the.
Let me rush you over to DisneyJunior.
Like it was those littlemoments.
(08:03):
In what you like.
There's so much magic thatpeople kind of dismiss as a
dapper dance.
I don't need to hear somepeople sing in front of a fire
station.
That's dumb.
And then you're like oh,they're singing this song and
I'm with my kids and I'm makingthis core memory and you miss
that magic.
And I see so many, especiallyon the playgrounds I'm sure
you've seen this too whereparents are like we did not pay
a thousand dollars for you toplay on a playground, and I
(08:25):
totally get that.
You paid a lot of money.
They can play on a playgroundanywhere else.
But you might be surprised thatthat might be the thing that
they really remember.
And for me, disneyland some ofyou love Disneyland.
It's a lot of sensory input.
So you know, I find that youknow my kids having a little
wiggle time or even going toPirate Slayer to even just walk
around giving a couple ofsensory breaks, and you can't
(08:47):
plan it to the minute.
It's just not really possibleto anticipate who's going to
need that five minutes or howtired your feet are going to be.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, we walked into Disneyland a few months ago.
When we were there and it was,it was in the evening, we had
just flown down from Seattle andwe wanted to go do the Mickey
and Minnie's Runway Railway.
We've done it a bunch inFlorida, we haven't done it
since it's open in Californiayet and we really wanted to see
that queue because it just looksamazing and Roger Rabbit had
(09:17):
just gone down and so everybodyhad kind of shifted over to the
railway and the line was like anhour hour and a half long and
we were just we weren't going towait that long and we spent 20
minutes playing around with youknow, lifting the cartoon
(09:37):
weights and breaking ourselvesout of jail and lifting all of
the crates up that say you know,don't touch this or you know
full of some you know soundeffects or whatever, and just
having that.
All that interaction Likethat's probably the biggest
thing that sticks in my memoryfrom that night was just playing
around for 20 minutes incartoon land.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And then the other thing I've done it Disneyland.
But I also took my family toCosta Rica and went on a hundred
percent recommended.
The float down the junglereminded me so much of the
jungle cruise Pretty sure it'ssupposed to go the other way
around, but it was great.
But there was one day where Ihad you know so many things on
IRI, tinnary, and you know,after we had done a hike through
the jungle looking for the rareQuetzal bird or whatever, and
(10:18):
then we had done trip lookingfor sloths.
And then I had another thingafterwards and my family was
like, look, I'm tired.
And I was like, no, we planthis, we're doing this, and
nobody had a good time.
It was the biggest waste ofmoney because everybody was
tired.
And I've done that atDisneyland too, where you're
like no, I have it on my listthat we're going to do these
three things and everybody'stired, everybody's grumpy, and
(10:40):
then by the end of it you'rejust snapping at each other.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, we actually.
We were in the parks for threedays over that long weekend and
we never made it on runawayrailway.
It just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So we've talked about some of the negatives, but I
kind of feel like all pastholders have some variation of
this same strategy.
Why don't you tell me what yourstrategy is and I'll tell you
how different if it's the sameor if it's different from from
our strategy?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
So usually we try to do when we visit, one or two
things that we want to do forthat day.
It'll be different if we havelike Genie Plus or anything like
that, because you're kind of onthe whim of Genie Plus.
If you're going to use that,it's whatever times you happen
to get, whenever you get them.
So if I say if we're doingGenie Plus, it's it's kind of up
to the program.
(11:24):
We have rides that we want todo, but it's it's really up to
Genie Plus what we get to do andwhat we don't get to do.
Other than that it's reallylet's pick.
Let's pick two rides that wewant to do, maybe a show, and
everything else that day is abonus.
We want to make sure we havesome breathing room throughout
the day as well.
We don't want to be go, go, go.
I especially need a little bitof rest times during the day
(11:46):
because I have a bad knee andNathan sometimes needs rest time
for his knee as well.
So you know we we do like to dosit down restaurants when we
can.
I know not everybody can dothat.
There's a lot of folks thatthis is their one time there
that tried to do as much as theycan, but I really recommend
giving yourself some breathingroom, only doing one or two
(12:08):
things a day if you can Bigthings.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm a big believer in the nap, Ah yes, the big, big
nap.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I was just going to say that, like, especially in
California, all of the well, notall, but many of the hotels and
especially the stuff onproperty is so close, it's
really easy to take off for, youknow, a few hours in the
afternoon and then come back inthe evening.
It's just so convenient.
It's not as convenient inFlorida you got to deal with the
(12:35):
transportation headaches andall the rest of that but in
California, I mean, it's, it's ano brainer to take a few hours
off from your long day and, youknow, take some pool time, grab
a nap, whatever you want to do,and it's easy to just hop back
in into the park later in theday.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And somebody's saying that's easy for you to say as a
pass holder because you'rethere all the time, but let me
tell you, for a while we didn'thave passes, none of us did.
For a while.
But, even when I only have asingle day ticket, I will still
take a nap, and the reason forthat is I usually don't rope
drop a ton.
But if I was to even get there,like nine or ten, I'll stay
till one or two go take a nap.
Now, that time that I'm takinga nap, that's when the lines are
(13:15):
the longest.
That's when the park is themost congested.
It's the least fun to be with.
It's usually the hottest in thesummer.
I go home, I take a nap andthen I'm able to be there at
Disneyland from 10 to midnightwhen the park is empty.
You can walk on rides.
You know, it's so much moreenjoyable.
Rope drop has gotten so intensethat it's no longer really as
fun.
It used to be a lot of fun.
(13:36):
Now I feel like it's like BlackFriday, so I like to get there
a little bit after that happens.
But by giving yourself a napyou actually get more time in
the parks, not less, from what Ifind.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I would say that we often have a game plan going
into a trip of hey, there's thisday that we want to try to rope
drop and I'd say we have aprobably 90% miss rate on
actually making it to rope drop.
But to your point, we wouldlove staying late at night and
we will always try to optimizefor being there when you know it
(14:12):
part close, like make thatSavvy's reservation or Ogas
Cantina or other reservation forreally late at night in the
parks, and then it becomes thisreally magical experience.
We haven't been pass holders.
We literally just bought ourannual passes Excuse me, magic
keys for Disneyland.
Just this week, when they wentnow on sale, we were able to
(14:33):
snag one before they almostimmediately sold out.
And so, to your point of like,it's easy for a pass holder to
say go take a nap.
We've never been pass holdersat Disneyland.
And, yeah, we go take a nap.
It's just, it's worth it,because when you get too tired,
you know you run up, you know25,000 steps a day and you've
been on your feet since you know7am and it's come you know 10
(14:57):
or 11 at night and you're stilltrying to do this because you
have stuff left on your listthat sounds like a job, that
doesn't sound like a vacation,disney, is there.
So much for the vibes, at leastfor us, that you know, like
Alicia was saying, we do acouple of things that we want,
like we'll try to go hit hauntedmansion or we'll go ahead of
Rise or the Incredicoster orRadiator Springs Racers.
(15:21):
You know we're not afraid tosay, oh, that's a fancy ride.
You want us to pay, you know 15or 20 bucks to just guarantee
we get on that.
Like we're lucky enough to say,yeah, we'll just do that.
So we know that we get thosethings in and then whatever else
happens happens.
This comes to reservations too,for restaurants.
We've done whole trips where wedon't have any advanced
(15:41):
reservations and when we were inCalifornia a couple months ago
we had no advanced reservationsand I was making like character
dining reservations for the nextmorning at like 10 or 11 at
night and getting greatcharacter dining or dinners or
whatever.
The world is your oyster if youjust have a little patience and
wait for people to startcancelling the day before.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If you have that flexibility then you're able to
do that.
So we do it as a family whenwe're going, and especially if
we're going with somebody whodoesn't get to go all the time,
everybody creates their threemust do rides, or three must do
attractions, or three must doshows.
If they're a kid, that's toolittle.
I ask them isn't anybodythey're excited to meet?
Is there, you know, do theylove cars or do they love Star
(16:24):
Wars?
And then you research theattractions and shows and you do
that planning ahead of time soyou don't feel like you're
meandering through the parkhoping that you find something.
Most of the time as a family wehave our most used will overlap
me and my son, both like StarWars, you know, like me and my
daughter, both like coasters,and so I pick the must do.
Is you just go in saying, ok,we've got three things, we've
got five things that are must doon this trip and that's what
(16:46):
we're going to do, then thatleaves you open for the magic to
happen.
It leaves you open for themthings and then you can have
like a list of things that Iwould like to do, things that
you know, if we have time.
So you don't feel like you'remeandering and if you're an A
type personality, you can put itall in a plan.
Just know that it's going tomove, it's not going to be tied
(17:07):
to a time and that order isgoing to have to change.
You know, please, I feel freeto be like that's not how we do
it.
I don't like that.
I think that's dumb.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I think that's 100 percent how we do it.
You know, alicia has to hithaunted mansion, I have to do
Rise of the Resistance.
Those are kind of our must do's.
I think there may be a fewothers that we love, things like
Jungle Cruise or Pirates,especially when we're in
California, because those ridesare just better than the
versions that are in Florida andso we have those on our list.
But we'll say, hey, we're goingto be here in the parks for
(17:36):
three days or four days orwhatever it is.
At some point we want to dothese rides and you just kind of
go with that just generaltarget.
You know it's less of a day byday kind of thing.
When it comes to the last day,of course we'll like, oh, we
haven't been able to go hitrunaway railway yet, for example
, and so, yeah, we try to dothat.
(17:57):
Now it didn't work out for usbecause of various and sundry
reasons, but it's okay Becauseyou know what we're going to be
back in and that is kind of aluxury statement.
You know, not everybody hasthat, and so sometimes you need
to put a bigger priority on somethings or make more of an
effort to follow up on yourpriority list.
(18:17):
It just really depends on yourfamily situation.
For us, we're blessed to beable to just be really flexible,
and if something doesn't happenthis trip, it's okay because
I'll guarantee you somethingelse really awesome did happen
and we'll be back to do whateverthat thing is that we missed.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I'll say we did very much used to be planned
everything down to the minutepeople and we learned pretty
quickly on that that doesn'twork the way we want it to and
over the years we have becomevery much more just kind of let
things go as they go type people.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, because it does and it stresses out everybody
in your group.
Now some things that I thinkthat Disney people you know it's
all about insider tips.
I think that when people go toDisneyland there's certain rides
that we know will break downoften and so we know if they're
make or break.
Then we usually prioritize.
So let me see if I miss any.
So Disneyland, indiana and Riseare the worst, probably followed
(19:12):
by Matterhorn and Mickey's andMinnie's runaway railway, and
then space can be a littleunpredictable sometimes, but for
the most part everything elsethey do go down, but it's not
going to be for three to fourhours at a time on most days.
And then in Californiaadventure I would say racers is
(19:33):
the number one that goes downthe most.
And then soaring and Soaring go, I think, would say probably
soaring and guardians can godown but they're not nearly at
the pace, kind of more along theline of matter.
So if those are on yourmust-dos Then you want to do
them or plan them or book theindividual lightning lane before
about 11 o'clock this way,because rise usually goes down
(19:55):
for about 90 minutes at a timeit feels like.
So you know, mickey and Minnie'srunaway railway is great, but
if you know, they're closed from8 to 10 for fireworks.
So if you plan on doing it at10 and they don't come back up
after fireworks, then you missedout on that.
So I usually will tell people.
For those that offer individuallightning things, if you want
(20:16):
to do them, do the individuallightning lane, cut corner
someplace else and Book them assoon as you get into the park,
because if they go down duringthat time period where you have
that, that past, then you can goback and use it later in that
day.
So it gives you the mostflexibility.
And then to prioritize IndianaJones is always something that I
, if somebody wants to do that,I always tell them to make sure
(20:38):
that they do that as early inthe day as possible.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Rise of the resistance is, for us, the best
Attraction that Disney has everbuilt.
I just wish it was morereliable because, boy Howdy, it
is not.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh no, there's just so many different effects and
different things that have tohappen to make it an a show and
somebody might be listeningthinking Well man, that must
mean that ride is unsafe.
If it's breaking that off, thenthere's different modes if
something doesn't work.
And we're not talking aboutsafety and nothing.
Safety, it's just.
It's just what's showing infront of you.
Really is all it is.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Sometimes those animatronics just break and and
it's not a safety thing, it'sjust does the full ride
experience Happen anymore?
And yeah, a lot of these thingsgo into b-mode.
I'll take rise.
For example.
You know there's there's onespot where you're on the car and
you're going through the, thegun battery on the Star
(21:34):
Destroyer, and those guns usedto move when they fired and they
don't anymore.
But I think, kind of like thethe Yeti on Everest at Animal
Kingdom in Florida, like I don'tthink those are ever gonna move
again.
I think it's the upkeep of themjust isn't worth their the
problems that they had with withmaking that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, and there's some rides that go down, mostly
because of guest issues.
So if you ever have a castmember who's like, take off your
glasses, or like you need totake your backpuck off now, it's
because of Like, if somebodyloses their sunglasses on the
track of rise, they have to reclear the track.
They've got to reset it.
It takes them a long time.
So if it seems like they'reextra excited about that, it's
(22:19):
because they're trying toprotect the guest experience for
everybody out.
And then this is also importantto know because lightning Leans
.
I usually tell people to planfive to twenty minutes online
but, like, for example, spaceMountain, if grandma takes too
long to get out, the ride willgo through a testing series.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It takes about 20 minutes, so that means you could
potentially be in thatlightning lean for 40 minutes as
much as I am not a fan of thewhole genie plus experience
where you have to now buy yourway into it, versus the old
fast-pass stuff where it justwas Part of your park day, I get
it.
And for us again, we're kind ofblessed to just go like, yeah,
we're just gonna more often thannot, cough up and and Get into
(22:57):
that genie plus experience, justso we can ironically have a
little bit more planning of ourday and what that's gonna look
like now, the exact order andwhat's available and when is
gonna be completely random.
And Sometimes you know that nextthing that we're interested in
doing, that lightning lanesgonna be, you know, two or three
hours out, and so you can startstacking those lightning lane
(23:21):
passes if they're really longout.
But that gives us also time tosay, hey, well, we're not gonna
be able to do this ride that wereally want, you know, for
another couple hours.
Let's go do a filler show,let's go have a meal, let's go
do this or that or the otherthing, and so it actually we've
incorporated that into ourflexibility, like it's become
(23:41):
part of how we do Disney in aUnplanned, if you will, way.
You know, we're still kind ofin control of what's gonna
happen, but the the genie plusservice really lets us have a
plan without having a plan.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
If you go to park magic comm for Slash LL, we have
a lightning lane and arecommended order and it's, you
know Somebody was like that's alot of Chris crossing across the
park.
Well, the way that you bookedthe lightning lane might not be
the order that you experiencedthe rides in, and if it means 50
less minutes standing in line,I'm over.
The parks are small enough.
It's not like Disney Worldwhere Chris crossing makes a
(24:18):
little bit more sense in landthan it does in world.
But the biggest thing is, youknow we want to look at the not
all lightning lane have the samevalue.
So an utopia Lightning lane isnot going to give you the same
discount on the amount of timein line as Space Mountain or
Indiana Jones or Mickey andMinnie's runaway railway.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Right, exactly, and you have to remember that if
you're doing a lightning lanethat sometimes you're bypassing
important areas or impactfulareas of the mainline queue.
That's the reason we didn'twant to do a lightning lane for
Mickey Minis Runaway RailwayLike we've done that ride in
Florida a bunch, love that rideIn California.
(25:00):
I want to go through the queueNow.
I don't want to stand in thatqueue for two hours, but I do
want to go through that queueand so I'm willing to wait or
time it until that queue is of amanageable, you know length.
You know a half hour, 45minutes maybe that we can really
enjoy the queue but not have tostand on our feet for two or
three hours or however long thatline gets.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And in Disney World that's a much bigger issue.
At Disneyland, I really thinkit's only Mickey and Minnie's
Runaway Railway that you have abig story element that's
bypassed by Jeannie and it'sbasically it's really cute.
And if you're not like a hugeMickey fan, if you're just like
a normal person, you might, butit's all of these cute little
vignettes of like the cartoons,like come to life, that we grew
(25:43):
up with.
So it is, it is really awesome.
So I think, when it comes toplanning, if somebody is like,
but I don't want to miss out, Ithink that what I usually tell
people is is that when you planto the point where you don't
miss out, you miss out justdifferent things.
So you miss out on, you know,and the shows that even people
like oh, tiki Room's the TikiRoom one is very entertaining
(26:07):
and if you have a toddler theywill love it.
And two, you're sitting downeating a dull whip.
Probably.
You know these are all goodthings and you need that rest
time.
And it can be hard, especiallyif you have teenage kids, to get
them to say, let's sit down andstay at Rivers of America for
15 minutes, but you can't getthem to sit down and watch a
show.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
And stuff like that is great to do as fillers
between.
Say, if you're using JeanniePlus and you've got a little bit
of a wait until you can go doJungle Cruise or whatever else,
hey, let's go do Tiki Room whilewe're waiting, because there's,
you know, there's never goingto be a long line, you're just
going to be waiting for the showin front of you to get over.
So you know, those kind ofexperiences, those are the great
(26:46):
ones.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
to just pick up on a whim and like the things like
there's like storytellingpavilion where Belle tells her
story and it's really fun, likeeven as an adult I enjoy it.
And there are these likeBroadway quality shows that you
know they're not alwaysavailable but like whatever, if
something's playing in HyperionTheater, in California Adventure
or something is playing likewhen Tails Align King was, these
(27:07):
are Broadway quality shows andespecially if you don't have the
budget to maybe go to Disneyand take your kid to Hamilton,
then you know these can be agreat way to get that your kids
to experience Broadway andexperience live performance.
And nobody is better at tellinga story than Disney.
These shows are not like theshows that you might see at
Cedar Park.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
That said, don't expect to see Hamilton at the
parks.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yes, that is not currently playing.
Well, he's tight with Disneyand not that tight yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
No, the cast members and the performers do such an
amazing job.
If you can go see a show, takea bit of the slow path, do it.
I highly encourage you.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So I hope this is helpful.
You know, kind of the summaryand planning the perfect day.
It means doing planning workahead of time, which I see in
like the Facebook group.
Pass holders will be attackingsingle day tickets, like you're
not on your phone all the day.
I don't understand why you'recomplaining about being on the
phone so much.
I think a lot of that goes toif you haven't done any research
about the rides and the menus,you end up doing that on your
(28:09):
phone on top of Genie Plus andit feels like a lot.
So making sure you have an ideaof what you want to do and
what's important to you, butthen letting the day unfold and
just prioritizing the thingsthat you would feel like your
trip was not complete if youdidn't do, but keeping that, I
would say, under like fivethings, including shows and meet
and greets.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, absolutely, I think three to five.
Whatever you want to do, youknow, have those top priorities
and whatever else is is is isjust great that that happens to
happen.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I agree it can be so overwhelming if it's your first
day, if your first time, or evenif it's your first time at a
specific park or you know thisis a huge budget item.
This is more money than youwould normally spend on a
vacation.
It can add to that pressure andespecially if you're watching
all of these TikToks that arelike, oh, this is the must do,
this is the must eat.
Those people all have passes,they have an unlimited amount of
(29:01):
time in the parks.
So you know you keep that inmind as you're watching those
that if I had an unlimitedamount of time, that might be my
must do experience.
But if you know, but reallylook at what does your family
need and what do your familyenjoy doing and build your day
around that, because that TikTokis not going to be with you.
So you live your best Disneylife and try not to yuck other
(29:26):
people's yums.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Absolutely, I think, the other thing, just because
you've brought it up a couple oftimes, I would just say to all
those pass holders who love toget a little negative on on the
single day passes or have verystrong opinions, just let let
people have their own magicalexperience and if you see
(29:47):
somebody struggling because theydon't know what's going on, or
or have those frustrationsbecause they feel like they need
to be on their phone a lot,maybe offer some tips.
We're all here in this bigDisney community to help each
other out.
It's the reason that that,robin, you've got a podcast.
It's at least the reason thatAlicia and I have a podcast.
We have a lot of knowledge.
That's been hard one and we wantto share that.
(30:11):
So, just to have a positivespin and and let's be supportive
of each other whether this isyour, you know 10th time to
Disneyland this year or this is,you know, you're one time that
you've been able to save up toget your family to Disneyland
let's all be there to supporteach other, no matter where our
backgrounds are and what ourpersonal experiences are have
(30:32):
been, and let's just all helpeverybody have the magic.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So people want to listen to you've got a great
podcast and what's the best wayfor them to, to follow you, to,
to find the podcast, those kindsof things.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I feel like I've spoken a lot.
Of Alicia, why don't you takethis one?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Our podcast is called Adventures and Mouse Capades
and you can find us on prettymuch all the socials.
We are at our mouse capades.
We do a weekly podcast.
It drops every Monday all aboutour Disney experiences.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Thank you so much for coming on.
I think this show will bereally helpful to people who are
planning their first trip, sothank you so much.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Well, thank you, robin, and yeah, good luck to
everybody who's going to go taketheir first Disney experience.
You're going to have a greattime.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Park
Magic podcast.
For more tips and planningtools designed to help simplify
your Disneyland adventure, visitparkmagiccom.
If you enjoyed today's episodeand want to hear more tips, be
sure to subscribe to the ParkMagic podcast, and don't forget
to leave us a review.
Your feedback helps us spreadthe magic even further.
Leaving a review could alsohelp you.
(31:34):
Each month, we will beselecting one reviewer to win.
A one hour planning sessionwith Robin Winners will be
announced at the end of thefirst episode of every month.
Thanks for tuning in andremember that we are here to
help you have a less stressfuland more magical trip to
Disneyland.
Welcome to the Park Magic podcast, your place for
insider tips for your nextDisneyland adventure.
Whether you're a first-timer orfirst-time in a while visitor,
we're here to unwrap the secretsto creating and simplifying
your dream Disneyland vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Today I'm going to be talking about one of the most
important things about planningyour vacation, and this is
especially to all of you A-typepersonalities.
I say that as an A-typepersonality, but this is the
biggest mistake, where you seekids crying, being dragged
basically on the floor acrossDisneyland, people who are like
I will never, ever do Disneylandever again.
A lot of it comes from this onemistake that people make when
(00:53):
planning.
And I have some of the coolestpeople I got to know them when I
was on their podcast, mouseGepads, and they are so much fun
and wonderful and I wish Icould go on like seven cruises
with them.
So, nathan and Alicia, can youguys share a little bit about
you and your experience withDisney?
Sure, sure.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
We started I guess we started Disney probably in
around 2009 with our daughter,who was, I think, four or five
at the time, and did a cruiseand a couple days in the parks
and just totally fell in lovewith it.
And we have tried to do Disneysomething or another Every year
after that or every other year.
(01:30):
We've gone on many, manycruises with Disney.
We've been to Disneyland, we'vebeen to Disney World, been to
Owlani in Hawaii.
My daughter and I went toDisneyland Paris for her
graduation trip this past summerand we just honestly go as
often as we can.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, it started out being a once a year thing, or
maybe every other year, I think.
Now it's probably three or fouror more times a year.
We have three Disney cruises onthe books.
We just got off one a few weeksago.
We are often in the parks,which is ironic because we live
in the Seattle area, so we'refamiliar with getting on a plane
(02:09):
to either go down to Californiaor across to Florida.
It's just been worth it.
It's a little cliche, but it'sour happy place.
It's where we just loverelaxing and doing whatever and
letting the magic that is theDisney experience and the Disney
cast members just letting thatmagic happen.
It is our happy place.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I think that you said something that would throw a
lot of people who go toDisneyland once or once in a
lifetime for a loop.
Is you relax at the parks?
It's so stressful when I go, orI went, and it wasn't relaxing,
and I think that the experienceand that's kind of the reason
we started this podcast is tohave help people who love the
parks, help other peopleexperience the parks the same
(02:50):
way that we do, and I think thatthere's a lot of things out
there like you have to do someplanning and a little planning
does go a long way, like knowingwhat rides you want, knowing
hey, we love cars and what ridesdo they have in Cars Land.
Some planning goes a long way,but you and the three of us have
(03:12):
talked about how the biggestmistake people make is really
over planning.
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour thoughts on?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
that Definitely definitely.
Well, with Disney nowadays youreally can't do spontaneity
anymore.
You do have to have some amountof planning involved.
But also with that is you can'tover plan because Disney just
doesn't kind of allow that towork anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yeah, you're in a park with 40,000 other people.
You're relying on a mechanicalset of operations for various
rides to never have a problem.
You're assuming that those40,000 people are going to be
doing things that you don't wantto do.
Let's just face it having thefully detailed, down to the
(03:58):
minute plan is kind of settingyourself up for non-success, for
failure.
You're not going to be able tostick to that plan.
I think when people have an ideaof minute by minute, here's the
blowdown of how we're exactlygoing to go through our park day
.
When something happens, thatmeans they have to deviate from
that plan, they're settingthemselves into failure.
(04:19):
And now, all of a sudden, youhave this negative thing and
like, well, I wanted to do this,but I have to go do this other
thing, versus if you just changeyour perspective and just go
like, hey, now I get to go dothis other thing.
I don't know what it was goingto do, but do I feel like a
churro now, or do I feel likegoing on Haunted Mansion, or are
we going to go check outAutopia, or I don't know?
Whatever we're going to do, youjust kind of go do it.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
When my son was five.
It was when Cars Land firstopened and we were obsessed with
cars.
We did the whole trip because Iwanted to do that Radiator
Springs Racers car.
Now, to give you an idea of myson, if you can imagine C3PO as
a four year old, that would bemy son.
And so you know, we went toCars Land.
I was so excited for him, wewent on it and he hated it.
(05:02):
You know he's like mommy.
I thought my head was going topop right off, you know.
So you know.
I think that sometimes thethings that we are really
excited about something for ourkids or we don't want them to
miss out on this one thing, yourkids haven't watched all the
TikToks, they don't know.
You know they might know one ortwo things and kind of like with
(05:23):
what you said.
You know when you build thatminute by minute itinerary,
you're probably going to be offschedule the moment you start
because even if you geteverybody out of the hotel at
the right time, even if youdon't have to go back to the
hotel because somebody left asweater or a shoe or a backpack
or a phone, then you know whenyou get you people try to rope
(05:46):
drop rise and then rise doesn'topen on time, which you know.
There's all it's in.
I've never been to Disneylandwhere all of the rides open
exactly when they're supposed toand there's some rides that it
is expected that they go down,Like it would be a miracle if
Indiana and rise didn't go downone day, or racers didn't go
(06:08):
down one day, and it doesn'tmean the rides are broken.
Space Mountain goes down forlike 20 minutes because you know
if grandma took too longgetting out of the car, they
have to recycle those things.
So if somebody paid me amillion dollars that I could
have lifetime passes, I don'tthink I could craft a minute by
minute plan for Disney, evenhaving gone hundreds of times.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
It's not only just the rides that have
unpredictability, it's peopletoo.
It's everybody in your ownparty.
Sometimes somebody will tripand skin a knee, or somebody
will get hungry unexpectedly, orthere's an emergency bathroom
break.
That has to happen, and theselittle things can throw a wrench
into your plans and just makeyou deviate from what you want
(06:50):
to do.
For us, the important thing iseverything's going to change or
something's going to change, andyou just have to go with the
flow.
We are very much go with theflow, people.
Oh, this unexpected thinghappens.
Well, let's change and dosomething else.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
And that's frankly where I think we've had.
Some of our best Disneyexperiences are from some of
those unexpected things thatjust happened to happen and we
were going to go to this ridebut we just weren't feeling it
or the line was too long orwhatever it was, and then we
stumble into some random, rarecharacter that you hardly ever
(07:24):
see in the parks and it was themost magical, almost like
one-on-one kind of experience.
And when you have that detailedplan, you almost are taking the
magic out of the hands of thecast members in the Disney
experience by trying to overplan.
You know, just let Disneylandhappen.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
You know that same trip my son was at Toontown and
they spent like three hours inToontown's playground and when
Toontown reopened he's 16 nowhe's like did they reopen that
piano part?
You know, like that was a corememory for him.
Not all of the other things,not the.
Let me rush you over to DisneyJunior.
Like it was those littlemoments.
(08:03):
In what you like.
There's so much magic thatpeople kind of dismiss as a
dapper dance.
I don't need to hear somepeople sing in front of a fire
station.
That's dumb.
And then you're like oh,they're singing this song and
I'm with my kids and I'm makingthis core memory and you miss
that magic.
And I see so many, especiallyon the playgrounds I'm sure
you've seen this too whereparents are like we did not pay
a thousand dollars for you toplay on a playground, and I
(08:25):
totally get that.
You paid a lot of money.
They can play on a playgroundanywhere else.
But you might be surprised thatthat might be the thing that
they really remember.
And for me, disneyland some ofyou love Disneyland.
It's a lot of sensory input.
So you know, I find that youknow my kids having a little
wiggle time or even going toPirate Slayer to even just walk
around giving a couple ofsensory breaks, and you can't
(08:47):
plan it to the minute.
It's just not really possibleto anticipate who's going to
need that five minutes or howtired your feet are going to be.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, we walked into Disneyland a few months ago.
When we were there and it was,it was in the evening, we had
just flown down from Seattle andwe wanted to go do the Mickey
and Minnie's Runway Railway.
We've done it a bunch inFlorida, we haven't done it
since it's open in Californiayet and we really wanted to see
that queue because it just looksamazing and Roger Rabbit had
(09:17):
just gone down and so everybodyhad kind of shifted over to the
railway and the line was like anhour hour and a half long and
we were just we weren't going towait that long and we spent 20
minutes playing around with youknow, lifting the cartoon
(09:37):
weights and breaking ourselvesout of jail and lifting all of
the crates up that say you know,don't touch this or you know
full of some you know soundeffects or whatever, and just
having that.
All that interaction Likethat's probably the biggest
thing that sticks in my memoryfrom that night was just playing
around for 20 minutes incartoon land.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And then the other thing I've done it Disneyland.
But I also took my family toCosta Rica and went on a hundred
percent recommended.
The float down the junglereminded me so much of the
jungle cruise Pretty sure it'ssupposed to go the other way
around, but it was great.
But there was one day where Ihad you know so many things on
IRI, tinnary, and you know,after we had done a hike through
the jungle looking for the rareQuetzal bird or whatever, and
(10:18):
then we had done trip lookingfor sloths.
And then I had another thingafterwards and my family was
like, look, I'm tired.
And I was like, no, we planthis, we're doing this, and
nobody had a good time.
It was the biggest waste ofmoney because everybody was
tired.
And I've done that atDisneyland too, where you're
like no, I have it on my listthat we're going to do these
three things and everybody'stired, everybody's grumpy, and
(10:40):
then by the end of it you'rejust snapping at each other.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, we actually.
We were in the parks for threedays over that long weekend and
we never made it on runawayrailway.
It just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So we've talked about some of the negatives, but I
kind of feel like all pastholders have some variation of
this same strategy.
Why don't you tell me what yourstrategy is and I'll tell you
how different if it's the sameor if it's different from from
our strategy?
Speaker 3 (11:04):
So usually we try to do when we visit, one or two
things that we want to do forthat day.
It'll be different if we havelike Genie Plus or anything like
that, because you're kind of onthe whim of Genie Plus.
If you're going to use that,it's whatever times you happen
to get, whenever you get them.
So if I say if we're doingGenie Plus, it's it's kind of up
to the program.
(11:24):
We have rides that we want todo, but it's it's really up to
Genie Plus what we get to do andwhat we don't get to do.
Other than that it's reallylet's pick.
Let's pick two rides that wewant to do, maybe a show, and
everything else that day is abonus.
We want to make sure we havesome breathing room throughout
the day as well.
We don't want to be go, go, go.
I especially need a little bitof rest times during the day
(11:46):
because I have a bad knee andNathan sometimes needs rest time
for his knee as well.
So you know we we do like to dosit down restaurants when we
can.
I know not everybody can dothat.
There's a lot of folks thatthis is their one time there
that tried to do as much as theycan, but I really recommend
giving yourself some breathingroom, only doing one or two
(12:08):
things a day if you can Bigthings.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm a big believer in the nap, Ah yes, the big, big
nap.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I was just going to say that, like, especially in
California, all of the well, notall, but many of the hotels and
especially the stuff onproperty is so close, it's
really easy to take off for, youknow, a few hours in the
afternoon and then come back inthe evening.
It's just so convenient.
It's not as convenient inFlorida you got to deal with the
(12:35):
transportation headaches andall the rest of that but in
California, I mean, it's, it's ano brainer to take a few hours
off from your long day and, youknow, take some pool time, grab
a nap, whatever you want to do,and it's easy to just hop back
in into the park later in theday.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And somebody's saying that's easy for you to say as a
pass holder because you'rethere all the time, but let me
tell you, for a while we didn'thave passes, none of us did.
For a while.
But, even when I only have asingle day ticket, I will still
take a nap, and the reason forthat is I usually don't rope
drop a ton.
But if I was to even get there,like nine or ten, I'll stay
till one or two go take a nap.
Now, that time that I'm takinga nap, that's when the lines are
(13:15):
the longest.
That's when the park is themost congested.
It's the least fun to be with.
It's usually the hottest in thesummer.
I go home, I take a nap andthen I'm able to be there at
Disneyland from 10 to midnightwhen the park is empty.
You can walk on rides.
You know, it's so much moreenjoyable.
Rope drop has gotten so intensethat it's no longer really as
fun.
It used to be a lot of fun.
(13:36):
Now I feel like it's like BlackFriday, so I like to get there
a little bit after that happens.
But by giving yourself a napyou actually get more time in
the parks, not less, from what Ifind.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I would say that we often have a game plan going
into a trip of hey, there's thisday that we want to try to rope
drop and I'd say we have aprobably 90% miss rate on
actually making it to rope drop.
But to your point, we wouldlove staying late at night and
we will always try to optimizefor being there when you know it
(14:12):
part close, like make thatSavvy's reservation or Ogas
Cantina or other reservation forreally late at night in the
parks, and then it becomes thisreally magical experience.
We haven't been pass holders.
We literally just bought ourannual passes Excuse me, magic
keys for Disneyland.
Just this week, when they wentnow on sale, we were able to
(14:33):
snag one before they almostimmediately sold out.
And so, to your point of like,it's easy for a pass holder to
say go take a nap.
We've never been pass holdersat Disneyland.
And, yeah, we go take a nap.
It's just, it's worth it,because when you get too tired,
you know you run up, you know25,000 steps a day and you've
been on your feet since you know7am and it's come you know 10
(14:57):
or 11 at night and you're stilltrying to do this because you
have stuff left on your listthat sounds like a job, that
doesn't sound like a vacation,disney, is there.
So much for the vibes, at leastfor us, that you know, like
Alicia was saying, we do acouple of things that we want,
like we'll try to go hit hauntedmansion or we'll go ahead of
Rise or the Incredicoster orRadiator Springs Racers.
(15:21):
You know we're not afraid tosay, oh, that's a fancy ride.
You want us to pay, you know 15or 20 bucks to just guarantee
we get on that.
Like we're lucky enough to say,yeah, we'll just do that.
So we know that we get thosethings in and then whatever else
happens happens.
This comes to reservations too,for restaurants.
We've done whole trips where wedon't have any advanced
(15:41):
reservations and when we were inCalifornia a couple months ago
we had no advanced reservationsand I was making like character
dining reservations for the nextmorning at like 10 or 11 at
night and getting greatcharacter dining or dinners or
whatever.
The world is your oyster if youjust have a little patience and
wait for people to startcancelling the day before.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If you have that flexibility then you're able to
do that.
So we do it as a family whenwe're going, and especially if
we're going with somebody whodoesn't get to go all the time,
everybody creates their threemust do rides, or three must do
attractions, or three must doshows.
If they're a kid, that's toolittle.
I ask them isn't anybodythey're excited to meet?
Is there, you know, do theylove cars or do they love Star
(16:24):
Wars?
And then you research theattractions and shows and you do
that planning ahead of time soyou don't feel like you're
meandering through the parkhoping that you find something.
Most of the time as a family wehave our most used will overlap
me and my son, both like StarWars, you know, like me and my
daughter, both like coasters,and so I pick the must do.
Is you just go in saying, ok,we've got three things, we've
got five things that are must doon this trip and that's what
(16:46):
we're going to do, then thatleaves you open for the magic to
happen.
It leaves you open for themthings and then you can have
like a list of things that Iwould like to do, things that
you know, if we have time.
So you don't feel like you'remeandering and if you're an A
type personality, you can put itall in a plan.
Just know that it's going tomove, it's not going to be tied
(17:07):
to a time and that order isgoing to have to change.
You know, please, I feel freeto be like that's not how we do
it.
I don't like that.
I think that's dumb.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
I think that's 100 percent how we do it.
You know, alicia has to hithaunted mansion, I have to do
Rise of the Resistance.
Those are kind of our must do's.
I think there may be a fewothers that we love, things like
Jungle Cruise or Pirates,especially when we're in
California, because those ridesare just better than the
versions that are in Florida andso we have those on our list.
But we'll say, hey, we're goingto be here in the parks for
(17:36):
three days or four days orwhatever it is.
At some point we want to dothese rides and you just kind of
go with that just generaltarget.
You know it's less of a day byday kind of thing.
When it comes to the last day,of course we'll like, oh, we
haven't been able to go hitrunaway railway yet, for example
, and so, yeah, we try to dothat.
(17:57):
Now it didn't work out for usbecause of various and sundry
reasons, but it's okay Becauseyou know what we're going to be
back in and that is kind of aluxury statement.
You know, not everybody hasthat, and so sometimes you need
to put a bigger priority on somethings or make more of an
effort to follow up on yourpriority list.
(18:17):
It just really depends on yourfamily situation.
For us, we're blessed to beable to just be really flexible,
and if something doesn't happenthis trip, it's okay because
I'll guarantee you somethingelse really awesome did happen
and we'll be back to do whateverthat thing is that we missed.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I'll say we did very much used to be planned
everything down to the minutepeople and we learned pretty
quickly on that that doesn'twork the way we want it to and
over the years we have becomevery much more just kind of let
things go as they go type people.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, because it does and it stresses out everybody
in your group.
Now some things that I thinkthat Disney people you know it's
all about insider tips.
I think that when people go toDisneyland there's certain rides
that we know will break downoften and so we know if they're
make or break.
Then we usually prioritize.
So let me see if I miss any.
So Disneyland, indiana and Riseare the worst, probably followed
(19:12):
by Matterhorn and Mickey's andMinnie's runaway railway, and
then space can be a littleunpredictable sometimes, but for
the most part everything elsethey do go down, but it's not
going to be for three to fourhours at a time on most days.
And then in Californiaadventure I would say racers is
(19:33):
the number one that goes downthe most.
And then soaring and Soaring go, I think, would say probably
soaring and guardians can godown but they're not nearly at
the pace, kind of more along theline of matter.
So if those are on yourmust-dos Then you want to do
them or plan them or book theindividual lightning lane before
about 11 o'clock this way,because rise usually goes down
(19:55):
for about 90 minutes at a timeit feels like.
So you know, mickey and Minnie'srunaway railway is great, but
if you know, they're closed from8 to 10 for fireworks.
So if you plan on doing it at10 and they don't come back up
after fireworks, then you missedout on that.
So I usually will tell people.
For those that offer individuallightning things, if you want
(20:16):
to do them, do the individuallightning lane, cut corner
someplace else and Book them assoon as you get into the park,
because if they go down duringthat time period where you have
that, that past, then you can goback and use it later in that
day.
So it gives you the mostflexibility.
And then to prioritize IndianaJones is always something that I
, if somebody wants to do that,I always tell them to make sure
(20:38):
that they do that as early inthe day as possible.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Rise of the resistance is, for us, the best
Attraction that Disney has everbuilt.
I just wish it was morereliable because, boy Howdy, it
is not.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh no, there's just so many different effects and
different things that have tohappen to make it an a show and
somebody might be listeningthinking Well man, that must
mean that ride is unsafe.
If it's breaking that off, thenthere's different modes if
something doesn't work.
And we're not talking aboutsafety and nothing.
Safety, it's just.
It's just what's showing infront of you.
Really is all it is.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Sometimes those animatronics just break and and
it's not a safety thing, it'sjust does the full ride
experience Happen anymore?
And yeah, a lot of these thingsgo into b-mode.
I'll take rise.
For example.
You know there's there's onespot where you're on the car and
you're going through the, thegun battery on the Star
(21:34):
Destroyer, and those guns usedto move when they fired and they
don't anymore.
But I think, kind of like thethe Yeti on Everest at Animal
Kingdom in Florida, like I don'tthink those are ever gonna move
again.
I think it's the upkeep of themjust isn't worth their the
problems that they had with withmaking that stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, and there's some rides that go down, mostly
because of guest issues.
So if you ever have a castmember who's like, take off your
glasses, or like you need totake your backpuck off now, it's
because of Like, if somebodyloses their sunglasses on the
track of rise, they have to reclear the track.
They've got to reset it.
It takes them a long time.
So if it seems like they'reextra excited about that, it's
(22:19):
because they're trying toprotect the guest experience for
everybody out.
And then this is also importantto know because lightning Leans
.
I usually tell people to planfive to twenty minutes online
but, like, for example, spaceMountain, if grandma takes too
long to get out, the ride willgo through a testing series.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It takes about 20 minutes, so that means you could
potentially be in thatlightning lean for 40 minutes as
much as I am not a fan of thewhole genie plus experience
where you have to now buy yourway into it, versus the old
fast-pass stuff where it justwas Part of your park day, I get
it.
And for us again, we're kind ofblessed to just go like, yeah,
we're just gonna more often thannot, cough up and and Get into
(22:57):
that genie plus experience, justso we can ironically have a
little bit more planning of ourday and what that's gonna look
like now, the exact order andwhat's available and when is
gonna be completely random.
And Sometimes you know that nextthing that we're interested in
doing, that lightning lanesgonna be, you know, two or three
hours out, and so you can startstacking those lightning lane
(23:21):
passes if they're really longout.
But that gives us also time tosay, hey, well, we're not gonna
be able to do this ride that wereally want, you know, for
another couple hours.
Let's go do a filler show,let's go have a meal, let's go
do this or that or the otherthing, and so it actually we've
incorporated that into ourflexibility, like it's become
(23:41):
part of how we do Disney in aUnplanned, if you will, way.
You know, we're still kind ofin control of what's gonna
happen, but the the genie plusservice really lets us have a
plan without having a plan.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
If you go to park magic comm for Slash LL, we have
a lightning lane and arecommended order and it's, you
know Somebody was like that's alot of Chris crossing across the
park.
Well, the way that you bookedthe lightning lane might not be
the order that you experiencedthe rides in, and if it means 50
less minutes standing in line,I'm over.
The parks are small enough.
It's not like Disney Worldwhere Chris crossing makes a
(24:18):
little bit more sense in landthan it does in world.
But the biggest thing is, youknow we want to look at the not
all lightning lane have the samevalue.
So an utopia Lightning lane isnot going to give you the same
discount on the amount of timein line as Space Mountain or
Indiana Jones or Mickey andMinnie's runaway railway.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Right, exactly, and you have to remember that if
you're doing a lightning lanethat sometimes you're bypassing
important areas or impactfulareas of the mainline queue.
That's the reason we didn'twant to do a lightning lane for
Mickey Minis Runaway RailwayLike we've done that ride in
Florida a bunch, love that rideIn California.
(25:00):
I want to go through the queueNow.
I don't want to stand in thatqueue for two hours, but I do
want to go through that queueand so I'm willing to wait or
time it until that queue is of amanageable, you know length.
You know a half hour, 45minutes maybe that we can really
enjoy the queue but not have tostand on our feet for two or
three hours or however long thatline gets.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And in Disney World that's a much bigger issue.
At Disneyland, I really thinkit's only Mickey and Minnie's
Runaway Railway that you have abig story element that's
bypassed by Jeannie and it'sbasically it's really cute.
And if you're not like a hugeMickey fan, if you're just like
a normal person, you might, butit's all of these cute little
vignettes of like the cartoons,like come to life, that we grew
(25:43):
up with.
So it is, it is really awesome.
So I think, when it comes toplanning, if somebody is like,
but I don't want to miss out, Ithink that what I usually tell
people is is that when you planto the point where you don't
miss out, you miss out justdifferent things.
So you miss out on, you know,and the shows that even people
like oh, tiki Room's the TikiRoom one is very entertaining
(26:07):
and if you have a toddler theywill love it.
And two, you're sitting downeating a dull whip.
Probably.
You know these are all goodthings and you need that rest
time.
And it can be hard, especiallyif you have teenage kids, to get
them to say, let's sit down andstay at Rivers of America for
15 minutes, but you can't getthem to sit down and watch a
show.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
And stuff like that is great to do as fillers
between.
Say, if you're using JeanniePlus and you've got a little bit
of a wait until you can go doJungle Cruise or whatever else,
hey, let's go do Tiki Room whilewe're waiting, because there's,
you know, there's never goingto be a long line, you're just
going to be waiting for the showin front of you to get over.
So you know, those kind ofexperiences, those are the great
(26:46):
ones.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
to just pick up on a whim and like the things like
there's like storytellingpavilion where Belle tells her
story and it's really fun, likeeven as an adult I enjoy it.
And there are these likeBroadway quality shows that you
know they're not alwaysavailable but like whatever, if
something's playing in HyperionTheater, in California Adventure
or something is playing likewhen Tails Align King was, these
(27:07):
are Broadway quality shows andespecially if you don't have the
budget to maybe go to Disneyand take your kid to Hamilton,
then you know these can be agreat way to get that your kids
to experience Broadway andexperience live performance.
And nobody is better at tellinga story than Disney.
These shows are not like theshows that you might see at
Cedar Park.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
That said, don't expect to see Hamilton at the
parks.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yes, that is not currently playing.
Well, he's tight with Disneyand not that tight yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
No, the cast members and the performers do such an
amazing job.
If you can go see a show, takea bit of the slow path, do it.
I highly encourage you.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So I hope this is helpful.
You know, kind of the summaryand planning the perfect day.
It means doing planning workahead of time, which I see in
like the Facebook group.
Pass holders will be attackingsingle day tickets, like you're
not on your phone all the day.
I don't understand why you'recomplaining about being on the
phone so much.
I think a lot of that goes toif you haven't done any research
about the rides and the menus,you end up doing that on your
(28:09):
phone on top of Genie Plus andit feels like a lot.
So making sure you have an ideaof what you want to do and
what's important to you, butthen letting the day unfold and
just prioritizing the thingsthat you would feel like your
trip was not complete if youdidn't do, but keeping that, I
would say, under like fivethings, including shows and meet
and greets.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, absolutely, I think three to five.
Whatever you want to do, youknow, have those top priorities
and whatever else is is is isjust great that that happens to
happen.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I agree it can be so overwhelming if it's your first
day, if your first time, or evenif it's your first time at a
specific park or you know thisis a huge budget item.
This is more money than youwould normally spend on a
vacation.
It can add to that pressure andespecially if you're watching
all of these TikToks that arelike, oh, this is the must do,
this is the must eat.
Those people all have passes,they have an unlimited amount of
(29:01):
time in the parks.
So you know you keep that inmind as you're watching those
that if I had an unlimitedamount of time, that might be my
must do experience.
But if you know, but reallylook at what does your family
need and what do your familyenjoy doing and build your day
around that, because that TikTokis not going to be with you.
So you live your best Disneylife and try not to yuck other
(29:26):
people's yums.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Absolutely, I think, the other thing, just because
you've brought it up a couple oftimes, I would just say to all
those pass holders who love toget a little negative on on the
single day passes or have verystrong opinions, just let let
people have their own magicalexperience and if you see
(29:47):
somebody struggling because theydon't know what's going on, or
or have those frustrationsbecause they feel like they need
to be on their phone a lot,maybe offer some tips.
We're all here in this bigDisney community to help each
other out.
It's the reason that that,robin, you've got a podcast.
It's at least the reason thatAlicia and I have a podcast.
We have a lot of knowledge.
That's been hard one and we wantto share that.
(30:11):
So, just to have a positivespin and and let's be supportive
of each other whether this isyour, you know 10th time to
Disneyland this year or this is,you know, you're one time that
you've been able to save up toget your family to Disneyland
let's all be there to supporteach other, no matter where our
backgrounds are and what ourpersonal experiences are have
(30:32):
been, and let's just all helpeverybody have the magic.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So people want to listen to you've got a great
podcast and what's the best wayfor them to, to follow you, to,
to find the podcast, those kindsof things.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I feel like I've spoken a lot.
Of Alicia, why don't you takethis one?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Our podcast is called Adventures and Mouse Capades
and you can find us on prettymuch all the socials.
We are at our mouse capades.
We do a weekly podcast.
It drops every Monday all aboutour Disney experiences.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Thank you so much for coming on.
I think this show will bereally helpful to people who are
planning their first trip, sothank you so much.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Well, thank you, robin, and yeah, good luck to
everybody who's going to go taketheir first Disney experience.
You're going to have a greattime.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Park
Magic podcast.
For more tips and planningtools designed to help simplify
your Disneyland adventure, visitparkmagiccom.
If you enjoyed today's episodeand want to hear more tips, be
sure to subscribe to the ParkMagic podcast, and don't forget
to leave us a review.
Your feedback helps us spreadthe magic even further.
Leaving a review could alsohelp you.
(31:34):
Each month, we will beselecting one reviewer to win.
A one hour planning sessionwith Robin Winners will be
announced at the end of thefirst episode of every month.
Thanks for tuning in andremember that we are here to
help you have a less stressfuland more magical trip to
Disneyland.
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