January 15, 2025 • 42 mins
On a recent vacation Hunter visited Universal Studios. While there, he learned that in preparation for Epic Universe, their own improvement district was issued, rivaling Disney's. Shingle Creek will one day process the turds of Universal Studios. And to get a butt on the seats perspective, Hunter visited every bathroom in BOTH Universal Studios parks.
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-- Sources:
https://shinglecreektransitandutilitycdd.com/
https://shinglecreekcdd.com/cdd-info
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orlando
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Hunter Hoover (00:00):
And some of the poo that's going to be traveling
through that plant is very likely going
to be coming from Universal Orlando
resorts. And so on
my most recent trip to Florida, I
decided to visit these bathrooms.
Uh, welcome back to Privy.
(00:21):
Privy is a podcast about
bathrooms recorded
from my home bathroom. I'm your host,
Hunter Hoover, and I love
bathrooms. Welcome back everyone. Thank you so much
for being here. And if I haven't said it yet,
Happy New Year. I hope your new year is off.
Off to uh, a uh, u.
(00:43):
Just a real bang. Just,
just banging and clanging. You know what I'm saying?
At the point of this episodes released, we are well into the new year. I
hope your resolutions are doing good and they're not some
decayed husk on the side of the road like many people's
are by this time. We kick the year off here
on Privy New Year, New Privy. Not really. By
(01:03):
discussing some New Year's resolutions. You can go listen to that
episode about how our diets affect our pooping.
And we hope that your new year's off to a good start. You know that
that first month is crucial to ringing
in the new year. And um, hopefully your. Your diet
and your workout regiment haven't caused you to crap yourself
beyond repair yet. That's. That's always the. Those gyms
(01:24):
are banking on you not using their stuff
like they're banking on people signing up
after a few too many of them Christmas cookies. They're
banking on people signing up and not using it. That's what
they want. They want you to be healthy. But for a large
group of people, they do want them to sign up and
not and forget they signed up. At the point of you hearing
this, this record since the last time. So since
(01:47):
last time you heard me, I recorded that episode. I will
admit before I went on winter break, my
family and I Traveled to. To FLUF mandatedA we were
in Florida for winter break. Stay tuned for Toilet
Tuesday on Privy Social. Uh, you'll see some of those
Toilet Tuesdays from Florida here and in the coming weeks to
months. So we have traveled to
(02:07):
Florida and come back. And while in Florida
I underwent a. Another special
project. We're going to get into that here years
ago the last time we visited
Florida. And you can go check this out. It's
about three years ago. It's on an episode called Disney Dump
Peru. I got in my head that I wanted
to try out every bathroom in the
(02:29):
Magic Kingdom. And along
the way I learned a few things. I learned
about the less than magical side of the Disney
Magic. If you recall, I
was baffled at how a mere hour
to two hours into the park being open, someone
had totally just decimated the main
(02:49):
street bathroom. Like, right out of the gate. First
bathroom right out the gate for the day. Just
absolutely, just shazzed it. Uh, uh, it's just first
couple hours. It's truly wild. But something else that I
learned on, on my trip. We did go to Disney this
year. I did not venture into every Disney
bathroom this year. But I will say that
there's some bathrooms at Disney that are less
(03:11):
known and are not on the bathroom map. And
they're like, attached to restaurants and are not a part of the,
like, general mapping. Because
Disney got sedang busy most of the time that
they had to route the foot traffic through, like,
the back lot. And I got to see the seedy underbelly
of Disney. I got to see where they stack all the
Mickey's magical wood pallets. It
(03:34):
was, it was something else. But there's a bathroom back there that I guess
is public accessible. Ms. That one didn't know
about it. And so we returned to the swampy
South. Not with the swampy South. Try to keep my
South a lot less swampy than, than I used to.
And in doing so,
I began to think, what. What am I going to do?
(03:55):
Like, we're heading out, we're heading down here. I did like
an amusement park greatest hit bathrooms
hits in the Magic Kingdom. What? But I've already.
I've already traversed and laid beef on all
the Magic Kingdom bathrooms. What's next? And we went
to Animal Kingdom this time. And at the time
that I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking, man, maybe
(04:15):
I could hit every bathroom in the Animal Kingdom,
which maybe one day.
But I'm glad I didn't, because
when we went to Animal Kingdom, my children went
on the, like, Wilderness
Explorer, uh, where you got to go around and find all the
Wilderness Explorer things, which was super fun. But I would
not have been able to do these bathrooms if I had tried to do
(04:37):
them at the Animal Kingdom. We were on a time
crunch towards the end of that Wilderness Explorer
journey. Also, none of the Wilderness Explorer badges were near the
bathroom. It's kind of weird. Maybe, maybe put one in the bathroom next
time. And I'll be honest, I don't really want to give
Disney anymore free airtime. I'm'm, um, kind of annoyed with
Disney. We had a great time at the parks. We always do. Um,
(04:57):
we got to ride Tiana's Bayou. New ride,
new skin on an old ride. It was good.
It's the same ride, different coat of paint, um,
put lipstick on a pig. You know what I'm saying? But
I will admit my family and I did venture
to another park. And as I was doing some
research, preparing myself, I was like, oh, maybe I should hit
(05:19):
every bathroom there. And, and as I was doing that
research and looking at bathrooms and
looking at, at how many bathrooms are in this
park and some of the history,
I realized um, that, that I was going
to do another, another bathroom project and that this one
might even be bigger than the one I did. The Universal
(05:39):
Orlando Resort as it's known to people who are
not just dweebs. Universal
Orlando is a 1200 plus
acre theme park, an entertainment
resort. Universal Studios
Florida opened back in 1990 and at
the time there was plans to form
a single park into a large resort that would
(06:02):
compete with the likes of Walt Disney World. And when
what the Disney Corporation was doing nine,
a second theme park opened nine years later,
Universal Islands of Adventure.
This opened in addition to the
Universal City Walk, which is like the landing,
um, business and restaurant scape that exists at
(06:23):
the entrance to the Universal Parks, uh,
and incorporates a variety of themed hotels
and restaurants and retail outlets. And it had mixed
success at first. Then the third and first
ever 30 acre water park. This is the third
park for Universal Studios and it's, and it's the
first ever 30 acre water park. It's a big boy
(06:44):
called Universal Volcano Bay was added in
2017. Pretty recent, pretty
recent. Thank you. At the point of this record,
a fourth theme park called
Universal Epic Universe. It's a lot of
universe. It's a real, it's a real um, it's
real universe sandwich right there. This is
scheduled to open in the year 2025. Now. Um, and if you're hearing this,
(07:06):
you're going, well Hunter, it's 2025 later this year.
All right, just chill out. I didn't get into Epic
Universe. We're going to get to that.
Universal Orlando was originally called
Universal Studios Escape, but the name was
short lived and changed to Universal
Orlando Resort in July
(07:27):
2000. Universal Orlando ranks
as one of the most visited resorts in the entire
world with an annual attendance of 21
million people. The last time that was counted
seems to be in 2017. Univers Orlando
exceeded, they
exceeded three of the four Walt Disney
(07:47):
World Resort theme parks in
estimated attendance in 2021.
So attendance to Universal
seems to be on the rise after Universal
Florida. Universal Orlando Florida opened in
June 7th, 1990. Universal
Entertainment formed A joint venture with the Blackstone
Group. The Blackstone Group is one of those big
(08:09):
corporations that just kind of likes to own a little bit of
everything and likes to get their thumb and everybo_dy's
pie. They're just finger blasting pies left and
right. They just, it's just really frustrating. It's one of those
things where when you go to the supermarket and you got like 90 cereals
and you're like, ooh, they're really compete. They're not competing.
Blackstone probably is one of those companies or
Vanguard. They own like half of them and the
(08:31):
competition's all in your mind. But they began plans
for a future expansion that would
transform the single park, Universal
Studios Florida into uh, a multi day
destination resort. Construction began on
Islands of adventure in 1995 and as I
stated, it opened to the General Public in 1999.
This Universal Islands of Adventure
(08:53):
featured six themed
islands including the Port of Entry, Seuss
His Landing, Lost Continent, Jurassic Park, Tooun
Lagoon and Marvel Superhero Island.
If you hear those and you've been to the parks in
modernity, you'll go, wait, wait, wait, he missed something. More
to that. The
Islands of Adventure kind of had mixed success at
(09:16):
first. Uh, people didn't really gravitate toward it and
several attractions got closed almost as soon
as they got open. And this became something
that I've noticed about Universal. Universal seems
willing to reskin a
ride. Like it's like, you know,
when, when one fad moves out, they're willing
(09:36):
to like swap in the new thing and just kind of give it a
different coat of paint. U and it turns out maybe they're ont
to something because that seems to be what Disney wants to do
to. But the Islands of
Adventure opened up and they struggled at first. But fear
not, that struggle was nothing that Harry Potter
couldn't say. Universal cut a deal with
(09:57):
Warner Brothers and Harry Potter
World, quote, unquote. The Harry Potter World, the Wizarding
world of Harry Potter came
to be between 2010 and
2015. This addition
to, to both parks really
was a revitalizing effort and, and it
(10:17):
gave little Harry Potter nerds a
new draw to Universal. And as a person
who was drawn to the Universal
Harry Potter World Electric Light as
a, as a little Harry Potter bug, it
worked. Um, now you can get a wand.
You can also get an authentic butterbeer. And
I just want to tell you something. Butterbeer is so good. I
(10:39):
did overspend on my, on my most recent trip
to Universal, I must confess,
I overspent My Butterbeer budget a bit.
We don't need to count how many Butterbeers I
purchased in the course of my time in the parks. But
it's not single digits. Uh, we're not sitting
at single digits Butterbeer Now. I didn't consume every butter
(11:00):
beer but you. But the Butterbeer is just better.
It's better. The Butterbeer is better in. In
the Butterbeer source. And
so again, we're double digits. But that's
fine. You can register your house
with Pottermore. The people run around nerd.
First of all, nerd running around, flippity
dippity. Their wands all over the place. It's like, chill out.
(11:22):
This one dude made it rain. Like, there's a spot where you
can hook it. He poke your wand at the wall and it makes water come
out of a shower rod up above. But it made it rain.
Dude got me wet on the shoulder. Like,
dude totally wet my shoulder with his. With his magic
wand. Butterbeer, uh, is good though.
But this is the basic history, as I said,
(11:44):
the development of, of Universal
Orlando. The and
revitalization of it is one of kind
of competition and ego. This is the,
this is the founding of the parks. But we need to dig into like
the nitty. The just the shaggy nitty
under underbelly. You know what I'm saying? So backing up
before Universal or/o in
(12:06):
1982, Universal contemplated the
idea of opening an amusement park in Florida
to compete with Disney. And they did it.
They considered building a similar version
of their studio tour tram ride located
at Universal Studios in Hollywood, retaining
the studio backlot tour theme. To set it
(12:26):
apart from what Disney was offering at Disney
World. It would be an opportunity that have working
studios. You would drive around, see all these cool
studio sites and it would offer you
this experience that was different than what you could get at
Disney. Universal abandoned the idea after
attempts to partner with at the time
skeptical Paramount Pictures failed to
(12:48):
materialize. Good old spongebob
backed out on the deal. Look where we are now. I didn't see a
spongebob ride. I didn't see a Nickelodeon character in
sight. Figure it out. The studio tour in Los
Angeles continued to
thrive, especially in the addition of a new
massive scene based on the 1976 King
Kong film. It opened in 1986 as King
(13:10):
Kong the Encounter and became an instant hit with
guests. It boosts attendance prompted Universal
to revisit the idea of building this theme
park in Orlando with a cool backlot tour
that same year, 1986.
Former Disney Imagineer Peter Alexander,
who worked on the Life Size King Kong
(13:31):
animatronic and later became an executive
at Universal Creative, met with his friend and renowned
director Steven Spielberg to discuss the creation of a
Back to the Future similar ride, a backlot
tour for Back to the Future. This was met with,
with various opinions. Um, Star wars
creator George Lucas, who recently had helped Disney
(13:51):
design the Star Tours attraction at Disneyland,
boasted to Spielberg that Universal Studios
was, quote, incapable of buildings as such a
ride as what Disney had made. Bold move,
Cotton. Let's see if it pays off. That's some big talk
for someone whose whole franchise has gone so
woke that you can't even tell who the good guy is anymore. Um,
(14:11):
like even the bad guys are just a little bit good. They're just a little, um,
misunderstood. And they might be a man and
a woman's whatever. Spielberg and
Alexander gladly accepted the challenge and they began to
work on the rides concept. Universal Studios
was already working on the design for its
backt tram tour attraction in
(14:31):
Florida, which would include multiple scenes depicted
in the Hollywood location. However,
in 1987, Disney CEO Michael
Eisner, previously the CEO at Paramount
when Universal pitched their Florida park. And remember when,
when Paramount was like, uh, I don't know about that. Well, it seems
like he ran on over to Disney, became the CEO and
(14:51):
he announced their intention to create their own
studio. Backlot tour at Walt Disney were
classic. It's a classic move
of whose backlot tour is bigger. Let's compare
backlot tours and. And it's not a
compensation problem. The new area to
be called Disney's MGM Studios was a
preemptive move to counter Universal's
(15:14):
planned introduction into the Orlando
market. It looks like
perhaps they should have had my friend signed an
NDA because Universal claimed that Michael
Eisner took advantage of his prior access to their
plans for Orlando,
borrowed on some of the concepts. But Disney
denied Eisner ever saw those plans.
(15:37):
They also noted that planning for Disney and Gym
Studios began in 1981, long before Eisner
was hired. Huh? Yes. The corporate war
between the two companies, Disney and Universal,
had spilled over into the public relations
sector. Described as, quote, a nasty
feud by the New York Times. In
1989, Universal
(15:59):
had publicly revealed their plans for
Orlando ahead of Michael Eisner
announcement. But Disney was in a better
position to fast track construction on
this new backlot tour attraction and open it sooner.
This ultimately
forced Universal Studios to rethink their
approach and abandon the tram tour concept design
(16:21):
for the park. Instead, they
opted to build standalone attractions while
retraining the overall studio backlot theme.
Their projected opening day lineup would include
kongfrontation, Jaws and the
Spielberg Alexander collaborative project Back to the
Future. The ride, a large
(16:42):
theme park with separate attractions,
was a new concept for Universal in
1990 and their creative team ran
into multiple obstacles during development and testing.
Among the casualties from the early troubles was the Back to
the Future ride, which had its opening delayed by nearly a
year. Now
(17:03):
both parks, Disney and Universal
Studios Orlando have backlot
tours and although
Disney still outpaces Universal, as
was noted, Universal beat out all but
one Disney park in Florida last year.
But Disney, it seems,
has something Universal does not a
(17:25):
Specific Improvement and Tax District when
we discussed the Magic Kingdom and Mickey's Very very
Big Backstage Pass and Underground Tube,
we had to discuss Reedy Creek. You can
go back to that episode again, it's called Disney Dumpy Dumpero
Roo and learn more about Reedy Creek. But
in that episode we discussed how as Disney
(17:46):
was preparing to make their little slice of
Florida, they were granted and given a
specific tax and improvement district to handle the
infrastructure and levy taxes to be
used for the development of the Magic Kingdom.
This said, Universal is part of Orange County.
As a result, Universal Studios lays
(18:06):
within Orange County, Florida's tax district.
It's hooked to Orange County's infrastructure and
services that Universal has
accomplished what they have
without this specific bump.
This tax exempt bump
is telling. Today
(18:27):
Universal has two full size amusement parks,
a uh, record breaking waterpar, and it would seem
if they were going to make things any bigger,
an improvement district may be
in order. And this brings
us to a segment of Poo in the
no,
(18:48):
this Poo in the News article comes from
Central Florida Public media back in August
2023 and it says amid
controversy over Disney World's special
tax and improvement district, Reedy Creek
Universal Studios is asking the Orange
County Commission for a district of its
own. The Commission plans to
(19:11):
discuss that request at a meeting on Tuesday. And this
was back like almost two a year and a half ago.
Public hearing to create the district could come later. The
proposed Shingle Creek Transit and
Utility Community Development District or
CDD will be structured like 15
others around the state. It's unlike Reedy Creek,
(19:31):
the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District
was specifically created and revised by the
legislraator to have a greater scope of authority. This
this Shingle Creek Improvement District, as
I'm calling it, would help
Universal fund public infrastructure around its upcoming
Epic Universe through tax exempt bonds
and special assessments.
(19:53):
Now, Epic Universe is a new
theme park that is under construction and
based on corporate information is supposed to
open summer of this year 2025. The
CDD the Shingle Creek Development
District would cover over 700
acres which 380 of
(20:14):
those are actually being developed.
These are south of Sand Lake Road and west of
John Young Parkway. The Shingle Creek
Improvement district would fund
$174 million in
improvements drainage, water reclamation, transit
stations between between its
forming and 2029.
(20:35):
It's noted in a memo,
Deputy County Administrator John V. Weiss
said improvements will be owned, operated and
maintained by the Shingle Creek Development District
or by agreement other public entities.
It would also uh have improvements
to transit and stations and
tracks related to links in Sunshine Corridor,
(20:57):
certain improvements related to destination parkway, Epic
Boulevard and Southwest Regional Water Reclamation
Facility. They're they're looking to improve
much more than Epic Universe and that's
for this little installment of Poo in the
new
so that's fun. Um, Universal
or you know through
(21:19):
through the need Universal presents
as they prepare their Epic Universe is
trying to establish Shingle Creek. But looking at
Shingle Creek's website it seems that Shingle
Creek Improvement District has has
existed for some time at least since 2019 and
so perhaps they've had this work in the work for a
bit now but that's
(21:42):
because as it concerns Universal they're actually looking at
Shingle Creek Transit and utility Community
Development District bit different related
and in 20 and in October 2023
it was approved. Universal got
its improvement district. In a press
release at that time, Spectrum News wrote the
money would also cover a Sun Rail station
(22:04):
off destination Parkway, improvements to
the county's Southw Water Reclamation facility, improvements to
Epic Universe, the main entrance roadway to Epic
Universe. Funds would be raised through tax exempt bonds.
We already talked about that. We think this plan will serve more
than a 1,000 residents getting to and from their
jobs as well as millions of visitors that come to
(22:25):
our area attractions, said John
Spules, Executive Vice President and Chief
Administrative Officer
co no, I'm just kidding. Of Universal
Destination and experiences. Universal
revealed their plans for the district one year ago
in January 2024.
Epic Universe is set to open later this year
(22:46):
2025. It will feature restaurants,
shops, multiple multiple themed lands including
Super Mario Nintendo World. Super
Nintendo. You better watch your back, Mickey. Epic Universe is
coming. It could be the closest thing we get to the Pokemon theme park. This is
a podcast about bathrooms, not this is not
an amusement park podcast. I'm sure those exist. I bet
(23:06):
they're interesting. This improvement district, as was noted,
will bring improvements to the Southw Water Reclamation
Facility. This is a water treatment and sewage treatment
facility in Orange County, Florida that provides
services to Orlando and the surrounding area.
The the reclamation
facility has four MGD pumps near the end
(23:26):
of their life cycle. That means they're getting ready to die.
The IPS'faced accessibility,
maintenance and hydraulic performance challenges.
Frequent sanitary overflows. Don't want those
bad news when the sanitary is overflowing. Pump
failures. If the pump is pump IND deuce,
you don't, you don't want failure on that. You do not want a
(23:47):
deuce pump failure. But these underscored their
need to update things. They got to fix it and get it, get it
going. They they decided these pumps
removed via hatches and guide rails while at
grade at grade piping and
valves enhance accessibility. These are some of the
things that they want to do. This is all part of
Shingle Creek's coming plan.
(24:09):
Universal Orlando, via
preparation for Universal's
epic universe, got their
Reedy Creek, Shingle Creek,
the Shingle Creek Improvement District and
some of the poo that's going to be traveling
through that plant is very likely going
to be coming from Universal Orlando
(24:31):
Resorts. And so on
my most recent trip to Florida, I
decided to visit these bathrooms.
Every bathroom in both
parks of Universal Orlando
Resort.
First up, the entrance bathrooms. Our
(24:53):
first bathroom that we visited was
Dr. Seuss'Corus Circus
McGury.
All right, first bathroom at
Universal Adventure Island. Uh, we're
in the Cat in the hat Dr. Seuss bathroom.
And I promise you, we're an hour into the
park being open and this toilet is
(25:13):
fully streaked. So pictures will prove
it. Uh, but other than that, the bathroom looks clean.
It's got a cool Dr. Seuss theming. Um, and
big fan of the Seuss land over here. Never been to it, but now that I
got kids, we had to Good stuff. So first
bathroom, uh, the Dr. Seuss cat in the Hat
bathroom.
Next, we ventured to the Backwater
(25:34):
Cafe.
Al right, next up, we backpacked a little, backtracked a little
bit. Um, we're in the Backwater Cafe
bathroom.
Super cool.
Theming looks super clean, super accessible.
Um, we're about an hour and a half into the park day. This is a
definite stop right now. We might check back
on this one. But great stop. We'll give a complimentary
flush before we go.
(25:59):
We continued our journey to the
bathrooms and in the general
Marvel bathroom.
All right, number three on the stop here. We're in the Marvel
bathrooms at the back of the Marvel comic book
land. We just rode Spider Man. Super Fun. Um,
bathrooms are clean. We're like two and a half hours in the park
being open. Bathrooms are clean. Little spray on this
(26:21):
seat, but you know, what can you do?
Um, but yeah, lots of space. The bathrooms.
There's like no wait in here.
Although I'm a guy.
You know what I'm saying?
Those ladies are waiting all day. But yeah. So the Marvel
bathrooms.
Good stop.
So far, these bathrooms have been wonderful.
We moved up to the Tune
Lagoon bathroom. I have to tell you, the
(26:43):
cartoon space in
Universal epic Islands of Adventure,
that cartoon world is awesome. But the first
bathroom in there was the Toon Lagoon bathroom.
Bathroom number four in Universal Studios Islands of
Adventure is the tooune Lagoon bathroom. Super
cool, like old school, um,
(27:04):
90s type stuff on the wall.
Um, tons of room, tons of space. Very
clean. Little courtesy flush because I got a little too close
to it. There almost nobody in this bathroom. Two and a half
hours in. Great bathroom stop.
Also in this area was the Tune
Wimpy bathroom.
We just rode Popeyes's Bilge Rat
(27:25):
adventure stopping by
Wimpy's bathrooms right outside of it, soaking wet.
10 out of 10 ride. A little bit of a cool day. But
this is a great bathroom. It's kind of a smaller bathroom, but
it is a great one. Um, Wimpy's bathroom next to
Popeye's Bill Dr. At Adventure Great stop number
five.
And closing out the bathrooms in the
(27:46):
toonown area was the tune
Gasoline Alley bathrooms.
I'm doing this one from outside Gasoline.
Alley because this joker was slam packed.
Um, it's got a cool cartoon thing.
On the outside, but yeah, as far.
As going in, there was a line.
Of like six guys. So, you know, the ladies room was bad.
I gotta say. We got absolutely
(28:07):
soaked. The bilge rat ride
at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.
Just the amount of water that they
displace onto the human person on that ride is
just.
It's just criminal.
It's just soaking that you're just not prepared.
And so the rest of my day was spent
wet, which meant wet visits to
(28:29):
the rest of the bathrooms in the Universal
Studios, Orlando, Florida. We
moved up to the Islands of Adventure Jurassic park
bathroom.
All right, so we're in the Jurassic park
bathrooms right next to the Jurassic park
ride. If there's as much
splash m on this ride as there is on this toilet,
(28:50):
we're in for a treat. Unfortunately, this splash is yellow.
So, um, not the cleanest showing,
but it is a land of dinosaur, as I suppose.
And then from there I made my way over
to the Veloca pizza bathroom.
It's a Veloca coaster themed bathroom
number eight on our Universal Studios tour.
(29:11):
Um, we're in the velociraptor pizza
bathroom. This thing's got more
wet around the toilet than in
the toilet. Truly, it's a masterpiece of
failure. Um, it literally looks like a
velociraptor has venom spit everywhere around this
toilet. Pictures to come.
I kind of messed up. I had to super overt
(29:33):
trackck.
So here's the deal. In the middle of
Harry Potter land, there's a place called public
Conveniences. This bathroom is anything
but convenient, but it is definitely public.
I've never seen so many people in one bathroom in
my entire life. So, uh, my review
couldn't tell you couldn't even get through the door because there's so
(29:55):
many people wizarding themselves all over the place.
So enjoy that.
And then to Lost Continent.
We're doing a quick stop number nine.
I took a wrong turn.
Lost Continent. Uh, family bathrooms.
Pretty clean, pretty spacious.
Not bad.
We're here midday. Um, great bathroom here on the
back of, uh, Adventure island section
(30:16):
of Orlando.
Then number 11, I went back up to the
Diagon Alley public conveniences. We
crossed over.
All right, we're on the Diagon Alley side of
the Harry Potter land back on the universeal Orlando
section of the park. Uh, right as
you come off the thing in the back of Diagon Alley.
(30:37):
Big bathroom. These doors on this bathroom are kind of
like the bank for Greenottz. It's kind of cool. Big, tall
doors go all the way to the ceiling, even covering the floors on
one side. But somebody left me a big old log,
uh, in the turlet back here. It's a big one,
brother. So m it's pretty clean except
for some jack wagon forgot how to flush.
(30:57):
Uh, Gringotts. Diagon
Alley.
I made my way down to the World's Fair
South. You know that. I had Butterbeer in hand.
This one I coming out of Diagon Alley, I missed
one. I had to backtrack. But just outside of Simpson's
land is the, um, World's
Fair south bathrooms. Pretty clean,
(31:19):
pretty spacious. Um, it's kind
of one of those, like, chugi kind of
modernist feel. It's kind of a space speckled
lining. This, um, toilet's pretty clean.
I'd use it a little wet, but you
know, we're midday after lunch, everybody's dropping them. So,
yeah, World's Fair.
And then backtracking again, I went
(31:42):
to the bathrooms labeled the London Bathrooms
just outside of Harry Potter world for number
13.
I've never been to London, but I'm pretty sure that
there's about this much urine. Urine in the toilet, urine
on the toilet, urine around the toilet.
The flush on this toilet though is really
what we need to talk about because it is the most chewy looking flush
(32:04):
I've ever seen in my life. Um, check out the
pictures of this thing. But literally the flush mechanism is
not even attached to the toilet. Um, the repair
job on this is um, abysmal. But
it's functional. Maybe.
Number 14. I made my way to Fast
Food Boulevard heading towards Simpsons
World.
(32:27):
The fast Food Boulevard restrooms, they're
pretty clean.
A lot of uh, same
stuff that we usually got going on from BD bathroom
but.
A little busy.
A lot of foot traffic. There was a guy cleaning, so
(32:47):
yeah, one that's themed after fast food.
Not too bad. He to wash Hand sense.
And then I use the Expo Circle
bathoms.
All right, number 15 is the
Expo Circle bathrooms. Right outside of
(33:08):
ET's Flya Away Bike Adventure and the
Spongebob meet and greet. Actually pretty clean. And as
far as the artwork on the outside, I think this
one's my favorite. Um, a little bit of poo streak in here.
Not too bad for 2:30 in the afternoon.
And like the paint job, it's a cool place. Like this
bathroom. Polar.
(33:30):
Number 16. I use the bathroom inside of the
DreamWorks World.
Number 16 is the DreamWorks Land Restrooms. And I'm here to tell
you not only of these the cleanest, they have
the thickest doors. It's a small bathroom, but it's kind
of tucked away.
This is my recommendation.
If you have kids, go use the Dreamworks land
restrooms.
(33:51):
And 17, I use the bathroom
called Mel's.
You good?
Okay. Number 17 is Mel's restrooms. It smells weird.
It smells like Mel really dropped a fat Mel. Um,
but it's raining outside. Everybody's panicking.
So it's about as wet in this bathroom as it is outside.
(34:11):
Number 18. I use the bathroom at Music
Plaza.
Alghty guys, I'm in the Music Plaza
restrooms.
Cool layout of this restroom.
All the sinks are right in the middle. Um, and
for the amount of rain that's coming down, I am soaking
wet. Um, but for the amount of rain that's coming down, there're surprisingly
empty. Bathrooms are pretty clean. Um, for
(34:32):
4:45 in the afternoon.
So we're doing pretty good music Hal Music Closet
Restroom'Pretty great.
Number 19 was Gotham Ice.
Number 19's the Gotham Ice Company. Restrooms are pretty
clean. Dude just came in, did a fresh sweep. Um,
yeah, cool ceiling.
(34:52):
So you'gon to try to get a.
Picture of those, but um, yeah, Gothamia, they're way back in
the back of the right side of Universal.
At this point it began to dump PR rain and it
was starting to look like
maybe hunter'not gona get like
maybe hunters not going to get all 26
bathrooms. But my family went to
(35:14):
secure a table at BUBB Guum Shrimp Co.
And while they did so, I
braved the rain, the downpour, the
elements. No, no rain jacket,
no coat. Just a ball cap and a dream. It
put forth to Visit the last six
bathrooms. Number 20,
San Francisco bathrooms.
(35:37):
Number 20 is the San Francisco restroom. This restroom
is by far the busiest restroom. I've been two since
I had to wait. There's a huge. You'll see it in the pictures, guys,
but I'm rushingus. I'm trying to get back to my family at the
front but San Francisco bathrooms towards the back
of Universal Studio. Sor of the busiest bathrooms I've
been today. Not terribly dirty though, just very wet.
(35:57):
It was wet. Very wet. Number 21
inside the Hollywood world was the one called Studio
Audience 21.
I'm in the studio audience bathroom. Cool
bathrooms, high stalls, really cool patterning
on the floor. It's pretty busy because everybody's running for their
lives because of all the rain. Pretty clean too. A lot of pea
spray on the backsplash here. Um, I'd probably give it a
(36:19):
5 out of 10 usability, but nothing bad for me.
And on my my way up to fill my tum tum with
Bubb Gump Shrimp company I stopped by
the park exit for Universal Studios.
The regular one allgh.
Next up is the park exit bathrooms for Universal
Studios, Orlando, Florida. Um, pretty clean,
(36:40):
cool vibe. Uh, this toilet that you just
heard flush probably gets a 9 out of 10. I'd use it right
now. It's one of the cleanest surfaces I've seen all day.
So not a bad bathroom up here. As we leave the park to go get some
dinner.
A belly full of shrimp later, Anna and I
ventured back into Universal Studios
with a mission. I've got four bathrooms
(37:00):
and I need to get some more butter beer.
Number 23, the moose juice.
Number 23. We're almost done. We had to return
to Islands of Adventure for one that I missed in
Seussland. This is in the Seuss land next
to the Lost World. Um, and it's the
moose juice bathrooms. Uh, when I came in There
(37:22):
was a gentleman m cleaning it. They are very clean.
It's almost the end of the park being open.
Definitely would use this in a day. Vibes pretty
normal. Yeah. Looks like a great
bathroom. We're running little on time. I don't know if we're going toa make them all.
On my way out of the park, I've still got
three times a tick him we stop by number
(37:43):
24, cafe four in the islands of
Adventure.
All right, Another one that we missed from Lost Islands. Islands
of Adventure, Cafe 4 and Marvel Land.
It's pretty late in the day. Bathroom smells
pretty bad. Pretty, um,
sure. There's a dude watching the football game in the stall next to me.
Avoiding his family and his obligations as a man. But you
(38:05):
know, what can you do? It's the end of the day. It's
9:45 almost. The island's closing here in
15. I don't know if I'm gonna make.
It, but here we go. And then jumping up
to number 25, the waterworks
bathroom.
Another vacant bathroom at the end of the day. This is
almost the last one. It's the Waterworks. On the
(38:25):
way out of Islands of Adventure.
It's pretty clean. Floors are a little wet. Plenty of pea
space for the dudes. U um, yeah,
weird layout, but cool bathroom.
And finally, on my way out of
Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. On my
way to the car, it's about 9pm
(38:45):
Lou Lodge at the park exit for
Islands of Attention.
Alrighty.
This one's locked.
I set foot inside the bathroom. We made it
lose Lodge on the way out.
Uh, I didn't get to go use this one.
But we visited every single bathroom in
Universal Studios Orlando, Florida.
And the service worker who
(39:08):
was trying to tell me that it's locked,
who's super pissed that I stuck my foot underneath his little rope so I could
be in his bathroom for a second. So I'm gonna leave before I get
in trouble.
And with that, it was a load of fun. We
visited every bathroom in
Universal Studios Islands Adventures and
Universal Studios Classic. And I gotta say,
(39:29):
I really like the bathrooms at Universal Studios. The
inside didn't have the craziest vibe, but they were
all pretty clean. I mean, you heard a few in my
comments there. And every bathroom has its things. But
I was, I was impressed. It was fun.
What a way to. What a way to kick off the season.
And so, yeah, uh, thank you for joining me on,
(39:49):
on that little bathroom journey. I visited every
bathroom in the Universal Studios Orlando resort. I'm
here to tell you my Favorite is definitely that tooune town
and islands of adventure. It's just so cool. It's just so
cool. This brings us to the end of another
episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy New
Year and I hope that our journey around the Universal
(40:10):
Studios Orlando Resort was enough for you. Do with
this information what you will. As
always, we would invite you to leave us a rating, a review.
The five star options are preferred. For every rating you
leave will donate a dollar to the Wounded warriors and Living Water
International as a reminder to keep pooping in the free
world. That free world was not always free and to pursue
(40:30):
cleaner water for all. There's parts of our world that do not have
as clean of water as we do and we want to fix that.
Follow us on social media. We're at privycast. You can
follow me. I'm @owlet7. Follow Randy Bowless. If you're
brave, send us an email privycastmail.com do
we'd love to hear from you. Episode suggestions, feedbacks,
concerns, anything that you have and want to tell
(40:51):
us about, we would love to hear from you. Thank
you so much. For those who have left us a rating.
If you do it on Apple podcast, I'd love to read your name out on
Spotify. I can't figure out unless you leave a comment
how to read out your your rating or review. But
I see that there's a couple extra stars. So thank you
guys. Share the show. Tell them about, Tell them,
(41:11):
hey this rate this pod. The five star options are preferred
but tell them rate this thing he's trying to do. He's trying to,
you know, generate some, some kickback to the Wounded warriors and Living
Water. Share the pod with three people. Tell them, hey, there's a bathroom
podcast this gyax talk about bathrooms. He went and put his butt
on every, uh, bathroom in Universal Studios.
Might be something to check out. Thank you all again so much
(41:32):
for listening. Thanks to Kevin and Pottington for you you their
music. Thanks to the Universal Studios Orlando Resort for letting me
put my butt on every single one of your bathrooms in in
the last couple months. This brings us to the end of number episode of
Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Keep pooping in the free
world. Own your stank. And
now as always, don't
(41:53):
forget to flush.
And some of the poo that's going to be traveling
through that plant is very likely going
to be coming from Universal Orlando
resorts. And so on
my most recent trip to Florida, I
decided to visit these bathrooms.
Uh, welcome back to Privy.
(00:21):
Privy is a podcast about
bathrooms recorded
from my home bathroom. I'm your host,
Hunter Hoover, and I love
bathrooms. Welcome back everyone. Thank you so much
for being here. And if I haven't said it yet,
Happy New Year. I hope your new year is off.
Off to uh, a uh, u.
(00:43):
Just a real bang. Just,
just banging and clanging. You know what I'm saying?
At the point of this episodes released, we are well into the new year. I
hope your resolutions are doing good and they're not some
decayed husk on the side of the road like many people's
are by this time. We kick the year off here
on Privy New Year, New Privy. Not really. By
(01:03):
discussing some New Year's resolutions. You can go listen to that
episode about how our diets affect our pooping.
And we hope that your new year's off to a good start. You know that
that first month is crucial to ringing
in the new year. And um, hopefully your. Your diet
and your workout regiment haven't caused you to crap yourself
beyond repair yet. That's. That's always the. Those gyms
(01:24):
are banking on you not using their stuff
like they're banking on people signing up
after a few too many of them Christmas cookies. They're
banking on people signing up and not using it. That's what
they want. They want you to be healthy. But for a large
group of people, they do want them to sign up and
not and forget they signed up. At the point of you hearing
this, this record since the last time. So since
(01:47):
last time you heard me, I recorded that episode. I will
admit before I went on winter break, my
family and I Traveled to. To FLUF mandatedA we were
in Florida for winter break. Stay tuned for Toilet
Tuesday on Privy Social. Uh, you'll see some of those
Toilet Tuesdays from Florida here and in the coming weeks to
months. So we have traveled to
(02:07):
Florida and come back. And while in Florida
I underwent a. Another special
project. We're going to get into that here years
ago the last time we visited
Florida. And you can go check this out. It's
about three years ago. It's on an episode called Disney Dump
Peru. I got in my head that I wanted
to try out every bathroom in the
(02:29):
Magic Kingdom. And along
the way I learned a few things. I learned
about the less than magical side of the Disney
Magic. If you recall, I
was baffled at how a mere hour
to two hours into the park being open, someone
had totally just decimated the main
(02:49):
street bathroom. Like, right out of the gate. First
bathroom right out the gate for the day. Just
absolutely, just shazzed it. Uh, uh, it's just first
couple hours. It's truly wild. But something else that I
learned on, on my trip. We did go to Disney this
year. I did not venture into every Disney
bathroom this year. But I will say that
there's some bathrooms at Disney that are less
(03:11):
known and are not on the bathroom map. And
they're like, attached to restaurants and are not a part of the,
like, general mapping. Because
Disney got sedang busy most of the time that
they had to route the foot traffic through, like,
the back lot. And I got to see the seedy underbelly
of Disney. I got to see where they stack all the
Mickey's magical wood pallets. It
(03:34):
was, it was something else. But there's a bathroom back there that I guess
is public accessible. Ms. That one didn't know
about it. And so we returned to the swampy
South. Not with the swampy South. Try to keep my
South a lot less swampy than, than I used to.
And in doing so,
I began to think, what. What am I going to do?
(03:55):
Like, we're heading out, we're heading down here. I did like
an amusement park greatest hit bathrooms
hits in the Magic Kingdom. What? But I've already.
I've already traversed and laid beef on all
the Magic Kingdom bathrooms. What's next? And we went
to Animal Kingdom this time. And at the time
that I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking, man, maybe
(04:15):
I could hit every bathroom in the Animal Kingdom,
which maybe one day.
But I'm glad I didn't, because
when we went to Animal Kingdom, my children went
on the, like, Wilderness
Explorer, uh, where you got to go around and find all the
Wilderness Explorer things, which was super fun. But I would
not have been able to do these bathrooms if I had tried to do
(04:37):
them at the Animal Kingdom. We were on a time
crunch towards the end of that Wilderness Explorer
journey. Also, none of the Wilderness Explorer badges were near the
bathroom. It's kind of weird. Maybe, maybe put one in the bathroom next
time. And I'll be honest, I don't really want to give
Disney anymore free airtime. I'm'm, um, kind of annoyed with
Disney. We had a great time at the parks. We always do. Um,
(04:57):
we got to ride Tiana's Bayou. New ride,
new skin on an old ride. It was good.
It's the same ride, different coat of paint, um,
put lipstick on a pig. You know what I'm saying? But
I will admit my family and I did venture
to another park. And as I was doing some
research, preparing myself, I was like, oh, maybe I should hit
(05:19):
every bathroom there. And, and as I was doing that
research and looking at bathrooms and
looking at, at how many bathrooms are in this
park and some of the history,
I realized um, that, that I was going
to do another, another bathroom project and that this one
might even be bigger than the one I did. The Universal
(05:39):
Orlando Resort as it's known to people who are
not just dweebs. Universal
Orlando is a 1200 plus
acre theme park, an entertainment
resort. Universal Studios
Florida opened back in 1990 and at
the time there was plans to form
a single park into a large resort that would
(06:02):
compete with the likes of Walt Disney World. And when
what the Disney Corporation was doing nine,
a second theme park opened nine years later,
Universal Islands of Adventure.
This opened in addition to the
Universal City Walk, which is like the landing,
um, business and restaurant scape that exists at
(06:23):
the entrance to the Universal Parks, uh,
and incorporates a variety of themed hotels
and restaurants and retail outlets. And it had mixed
success at first. Then the third and first
ever 30 acre water park. This is the third
park for Universal Studios and it's, and it's the
first ever 30 acre water park. It's a big boy
(06:44):
called Universal Volcano Bay was added in
2017. Pretty recent, pretty
recent. Thank you. At the point of this record,
a fourth theme park called
Universal Epic Universe. It's a lot of
universe. It's a real, it's a real um, it's
real universe sandwich right there. This is
scheduled to open in the year 2025. Now. Um, and if you're hearing this,
(07:06):
you're going, well Hunter, it's 2025 later this year.
All right, just chill out. I didn't get into Epic
Universe. We're going to get to that.
Universal Orlando was originally called
Universal Studios Escape, but the name was
short lived and changed to Universal
Orlando Resort in July
(07:27):
2000. Universal Orlando ranks
as one of the most visited resorts in the entire
world with an annual attendance of 21
million people. The last time that was counted
seems to be in 2017. Univers Orlando
exceeded, they
exceeded three of the four Walt Disney
(07:47):
World Resort theme parks in
estimated attendance in 2021.
So attendance to Universal
seems to be on the rise after Universal
Florida. Universal Orlando Florida opened in
June 7th, 1990. Universal
Entertainment formed A joint venture with the Blackstone
Group. The Blackstone Group is one of those big
(08:09):
corporations that just kind of likes to own a little bit of
everything and likes to get their thumb and everybo_dy's
pie. They're just finger blasting pies left and
right. They just, it's just really frustrating. It's one of those
things where when you go to the supermarket and you got like 90 cereals
and you're like, ooh, they're really compete. They're not competing.
Blackstone probably is one of those companies or
Vanguard. They own like half of them and the
(08:31):
competition's all in your mind. But they began plans
for a future expansion that would
transform the single park, Universal
Studios Florida into uh, a multi day
destination resort. Construction began on
Islands of adventure in 1995 and as I
stated, it opened to the General Public in 1999.
This Universal Islands of Adventure
(08:53):
featured six themed
islands including the Port of Entry, Seuss
His Landing, Lost Continent, Jurassic Park, Tooun
Lagoon and Marvel Superhero Island.
If you hear those and you've been to the parks in
modernity, you'll go, wait, wait, wait, he missed something. More
to that. The
Islands of Adventure kind of had mixed success at
(09:16):
first. Uh, people didn't really gravitate toward it and
several attractions got closed almost as soon
as they got open. And this became something
that I've noticed about Universal. Universal seems
willing to reskin a
ride. Like it's like, you know,
when, when one fad moves out, they're willing
(09:36):
to like swap in the new thing and just kind of give it a
different coat of paint. U and it turns out maybe they're ont
to something because that seems to be what Disney wants to do
to. But the Islands of
Adventure opened up and they struggled at first. But fear
not, that struggle was nothing that Harry Potter
couldn't say. Universal cut a deal with
(09:57):
Warner Brothers and Harry Potter
World, quote, unquote. The Harry Potter World, the Wizarding
world of Harry Potter came
to be between 2010 and
2015. This addition
to, to both parks really
was a revitalizing effort and, and it
(10:17):
gave little Harry Potter nerds a
new draw to Universal. And as a person
who was drawn to the Universal
Harry Potter World Electric Light as
a, as a little Harry Potter bug, it
worked. Um, now you can get a wand.
You can also get an authentic butterbeer. And
I just want to tell you something. Butterbeer is so good. I
(10:39):
did overspend on my, on my most recent trip
to Universal, I must confess,
I overspent My Butterbeer budget a bit.
We don't need to count how many Butterbeers I
purchased in the course of my time in the parks. But
it's not single digits. Uh, we're not sitting
at single digits Butterbeer Now. I didn't consume every butter
(11:00):
beer but you. But the Butterbeer is just better.
It's better. The Butterbeer is better in. In
the Butterbeer source. And
so again, we're double digits. But that's
fine. You can register your house
with Pottermore. The people run around nerd.
First of all, nerd running around, flippity
dippity. Their wands all over the place. It's like, chill out.
(11:22):
This one dude made it rain. Like, there's a spot where you
can hook it. He poke your wand at the wall and it makes water come
out of a shower rod up above. But it made it rain.
Dude got me wet on the shoulder. Like,
dude totally wet my shoulder with his. With his magic
wand. Butterbeer, uh, is good though.
But this is the basic history, as I said,
(11:44):
the development of, of Universal
Orlando. The and
revitalization of it is one of kind
of competition and ego. This is the,
this is the founding of the parks. But we need to dig into like
the nitty. The just the shaggy nitty
under underbelly. You know what I'm saying? So backing up
before Universal or/o in
(12:06):
1982, Universal contemplated the
idea of opening an amusement park in Florida
to compete with Disney. And they did it.
They considered building a similar version
of their studio tour tram ride located
at Universal Studios in Hollywood, retaining
the studio backlot tour theme. To set it
(12:26):
apart from what Disney was offering at Disney
World. It would be an opportunity that have working
studios. You would drive around, see all these cool
studio sites and it would offer you
this experience that was different than what you could get at
Disney. Universal abandoned the idea after
attempts to partner with at the time
skeptical Paramount Pictures failed to
(12:48):
materialize. Good old spongebob
backed out on the deal. Look where we are now. I didn't see a
spongebob ride. I didn't see a Nickelodeon character in
sight. Figure it out. The studio tour in Los
Angeles continued to
thrive, especially in the addition of a new
massive scene based on the 1976 King
Kong film. It opened in 1986 as King
(13:10):
Kong the Encounter and became an instant hit with
guests. It boosts attendance prompted Universal
to revisit the idea of building this theme
park in Orlando with a cool backlot tour
that same year, 1986.
Former Disney Imagineer Peter Alexander,
who worked on the Life Size King Kong
(13:31):
animatronic and later became an executive
at Universal Creative, met with his friend and renowned
director Steven Spielberg to discuss the creation of a
Back to the Future similar ride, a backlot
tour for Back to the Future. This was met with,
with various opinions. Um, Star wars
creator George Lucas, who recently had helped Disney
(13:51):
design the Star Tours attraction at Disneyland,
boasted to Spielberg that Universal Studios
was, quote, incapable of buildings as such a
ride as what Disney had made. Bold move,
Cotton. Let's see if it pays off. That's some big talk
for someone whose whole franchise has gone so
woke that you can't even tell who the good guy is anymore. Um,
(14:11):
like even the bad guys are just a little bit good. They're just a little, um,
misunderstood. And they might be a man and
a woman's whatever. Spielberg and
Alexander gladly accepted the challenge and they began to
work on the rides concept. Universal Studios
was already working on the design for its
backt tram tour attraction in
(14:31):
Florida, which would include multiple scenes depicted
in the Hollywood location. However,
in 1987, Disney CEO Michael
Eisner, previously the CEO at Paramount
when Universal pitched their Florida park. And remember when,
when Paramount was like, uh, I don't know about that. Well, it seems
like he ran on over to Disney, became the CEO and
(14:51):
he announced their intention to create their own
studio. Backlot tour at Walt Disney were
classic. It's a classic move
of whose backlot tour is bigger. Let's compare
backlot tours and. And it's not a
compensation problem. The new area to
be called Disney's MGM Studios was a
preemptive move to counter Universal's
(15:14):
planned introduction into the Orlando
market. It looks like
perhaps they should have had my friend signed an
NDA because Universal claimed that Michael
Eisner took advantage of his prior access to their
plans for Orlando,
borrowed on some of the concepts. But Disney
denied Eisner ever saw those plans.
(15:37):
They also noted that planning for Disney and Gym
Studios began in 1981, long before Eisner
was hired. Huh? Yes. The corporate war
between the two companies, Disney and Universal,
had spilled over into the public relations
sector. Described as, quote, a nasty
feud by the New York Times. In
1989, Universal
(15:59):
had publicly revealed their plans for
Orlando ahead of Michael Eisner
announcement. But Disney was in a better
position to fast track construction on
this new backlot tour attraction and open it sooner.
This ultimately
forced Universal Studios to rethink their
approach and abandon the tram tour concept design
(16:21):
for the park. Instead, they
opted to build standalone attractions while
retraining the overall studio backlot theme.
Their projected opening day lineup would include
kongfrontation, Jaws and the
Spielberg Alexander collaborative project Back to the
Future. The ride, a large
(16:42):
theme park with separate attractions,
was a new concept for Universal in
1990 and their creative team ran
into multiple obstacles during development and testing.
Among the casualties from the early troubles was the Back to
the Future ride, which had its opening delayed by nearly a
year. Now
(17:03):
both parks, Disney and Universal
Studios Orlando have backlot
tours and although
Disney still outpaces Universal, as
was noted, Universal beat out all but
one Disney park in Florida last year.
But Disney, it seems,
has something Universal does not a
(17:25):
Specific Improvement and Tax District when
we discussed the Magic Kingdom and Mickey's Very very
Big Backstage Pass and Underground Tube,
we had to discuss Reedy Creek. You can
go back to that episode again, it's called Disney Dumpy Dumpero
Roo and learn more about Reedy Creek. But
in that episode we discussed how as Disney
(17:46):
was preparing to make their little slice of
Florida, they were granted and given a
specific tax and improvement district to handle the
infrastructure and levy taxes to be
used for the development of the Magic Kingdom.
This said, Universal is part of Orange County.
As a result, Universal Studios lays
(18:06):
within Orange County, Florida's tax district.
It's hooked to Orange County's infrastructure and
services that Universal has
accomplished what they have
without this specific bump.
This tax exempt bump
is telling. Today
(18:27):
Universal has two full size amusement parks,
a uh, record breaking waterpar, and it would seem
if they were going to make things any bigger,
an improvement district may be
in order. And this brings
us to a segment of Poo in the
no,
(18:48):
this Poo in the News article comes from
Central Florida Public media back in August
2023 and it says amid
controversy over Disney World's special
tax and improvement district, Reedy Creek
Universal Studios is asking the Orange
County Commission for a district of its
own. The Commission plans to
(19:11):
discuss that request at a meeting on Tuesday. And this
was back like almost two a year and a half ago.
Public hearing to create the district could come later. The
proposed Shingle Creek Transit and
Utility Community Development District or
CDD will be structured like 15
others around the state. It's unlike Reedy Creek,
(19:31):
the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District
was specifically created and revised by the
legislraator to have a greater scope of authority. This
this Shingle Creek Improvement District, as
I'm calling it, would help
Universal fund public infrastructure around its upcoming
Epic Universe through tax exempt bonds
and special assessments.
(19:53):
Now, Epic Universe is a new
theme park that is under construction and
based on corporate information is supposed to
open summer of this year 2025. The
CDD the Shingle Creek Development
District would cover over 700
acres which 380 of
(20:14):
those are actually being developed.
These are south of Sand Lake Road and west of
John Young Parkway. The Shingle Creek
Improvement district would fund
$174 million in
improvements drainage, water reclamation, transit
stations between between its
forming and 2029.
(20:35):
It's noted in a memo,
Deputy County Administrator John V. Weiss
said improvements will be owned, operated and
maintained by the Shingle Creek Development District
or by agreement other public entities.
It would also uh have improvements
to transit and stations and
tracks related to links in Sunshine Corridor,
(20:57):
certain improvements related to destination parkway, Epic
Boulevard and Southwest Regional Water Reclamation
Facility. They're they're looking to improve
much more than Epic Universe and that's
for this little installment of Poo in the
new
so that's fun. Um, Universal
or you know through
(21:19):
through the need Universal presents
as they prepare their Epic Universe is
trying to establish Shingle Creek. But looking at
Shingle Creek's website it seems that Shingle
Creek Improvement District has has
existed for some time at least since 2019 and
so perhaps they've had this work in the work for a
bit now but that's
(21:42):
because as it concerns Universal they're actually looking at
Shingle Creek Transit and utility Community
Development District bit different related
and in 20 and in October 2023
it was approved. Universal got
its improvement district. In a press
release at that time, Spectrum News wrote the
money would also cover a Sun Rail station
(22:04):
off destination Parkway, improvements to
the county's Southw Water Reclamation facility, improvements to
Epic Universe, the main entrance roadway to Epic
Universe. Funds would be raised through tax exempt bonds.
We already talked about that. We think this plan will serve more
than a 1,000 residents getting to and from their
jobs as well as millions of visitors that come to
(22:25):
our area attractions, said John
Spules, Executive Vice President and Chief
Administrative Officer
co no, I'm just kidding. Of Universal
Destination and experiences. Universal
revealed their plans for the district one year ago
in January 2024.
Epic Universe is set to open later this year
(22:46):
2025. It will feature restaurants,
shops, multiple multiple themed lands including
Super Mario Nintendo World. Super
Nintendo. You better watch your back, Mickey. Epic Universe is
coming. It could be the closest thing we get to the Pokemon theme park. This is
a podcast about bathrooms, not this is not
an amusement park podcast. I'm sure those exist. I bet
(23:06):
they're interesting. This improvement district, as was noted,
will bring improvements to the Southw Water Reclamation
Facility. This is a water treatment and sewage treatment
facility in Orange County, Florida that provides
services to Orlando and the surrounding area.
The the reclamation
facility has four MGD pumps near the end
(23:26):
of their life cycle. That means they're getting ready to die.
The IPS'faced accessibility,
maintenance and hydraulic performance challenges.
Frequent sanitary overflows. Don't want those
bad news when the sanitary is overflowing. Pump
failures. If the pump is pump IND deuce,
you don't, you don't want failure on that. You do not want a
(23:47):
deuce pump failure. But these underscored their
need to update things. They got to fix it and get it, get it
going. They they decided these pumps
removed via hatches and guide rails while at
grade at grade piping and
valves enhance accessibility. These are some of the
things that they want to do. This is all part of
Shingle Creek's coming plan.
(24:09):
Universal Orlando, via
preparation for Universal's
epic universe, got their
Reedy Creek, Shingle Creek,
the Shingle Creek Improvement District and
some of the poo that's going to be traveling
through that plant is very likely going
to be coming from Universal Orlando
(24:31):
Resorts. And so on
my most recent trip to Florida, I
decided to visit these bathrooms.
Every bathroom in both
parks of Universal Orlando
Resort.
First up, the entrance bathrooms. Our
(24:53):
first bathroom that we visited was
Dr. Seuss'Corus Circus
McGury.
All right, first bathroom at
Universal Adventure Island. Uh, we're
in the Cat in the hat Dr. Seuss bathroom.
And I promise you, we're an hour into the
park being open and this toilet is
(25:13):
fully streaked. So pictures will prove
it. Uh, but other than that, the bathroom looks clean.
It's got a cool Dr. Seuss theming. Um, and
big fan of the Seuss land over here. Never been to it, but now that I
got kids, we had to Good stuff. So first
bathroom, uh, the Dr. Seuss cat in the Hat
bathroom.
Next, we ventured to the Backwater
(25:34):
Cafe.
Al right, next up, we backpacked a little, backtracked a little
bit. Um, we're in the Backwater Cafe
bathroom.
Super cool.
Theming looks super clean, super accessible.
Um, we're about an hour and a half into the park day. This is a
definite stop right now. We might check back
on this one. But great stop. We'll give a complimentary
flush before we go.
(25:59):
We continued our journey to the
bathrooms and in the general
Marvel bathroom.
All right, number three on the stop here. We're in the Marvel
bathrooms at the back of the Marvel comic book
land. We just rode Spider Man. Super Fun. Um,
bathrooms are clean. We're like two and a half hours in the park
being open. Bathrooms are clean. Little spray on this
(26:21):
seat, but you know, what can you do?
Um, but yeah, lots of space. The bathrooms.
There's like no wait in here.
Although I'm a guy.
You know what I'm saying?
Those ladies are waiting all day. But yeah. So the Marvel
bathrooms.
Good stop.
So far, these bathrooms have been wonderful.
We moved up to the Tune
Lagoon bathroom. I have to tell you, the
(26:43):
cartoon space in
Universal epic Islands of Adventure,
that cartoon world is awesome. But the first
bathroom in there was the Toon Lagoon bathroom.
Bathroom number four in Universal Studios Islands of
Adventure is the tooune Lagoon bathroom. Super
cool, like old school, um,
(27:04):
90s type stuff on the wall.
Um, tons of room, tons of space. Very
clean. Little courtesy flush because I got a little too close
to it. There almost nobody in this bathroom. Two and a half
hours in. Great bathroom stop.
Also in this area was the Tune
Wimpy bathroom.
We just rode Popeyes's Bilge Rat
(27:25):
adventure stopping by
Wimpy's bathrooms right outside of it, soaking wet.
10 out of 10 ride. A little bit of a cool day. But
this is a great bathroom. It's kind of a smaller bathroom, but
it is a great one. Um, Wimpy's bathroom next to
Popeye's Bill Dr. At Adventure Great stop number
five.
And closing out the bathrooms in the
(27:46):
toonown area was the tune
Gasoline Alley bathrooms.
I'm doing this one from outside Gasoline.
Alley because this joker was slam packed.
Um, it's got a cool cartoon thing.
On the outside, but yeah, as far.
As going in, there was a line.
Of like six guys. So, you know, the ladies room was bad.
I gotta say. We got absolutely
(28:07):
soaked. The bilge rat ride
at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.
Just the amount of water that they
displace onto the human person on that ride is
just.
It's just criminal.
It's just soaking that you're just not prepared.
And so the rest of my day was spent
wet, which meant wet visits to
(28:29):
the rest of the bathrooms in the Universal
Studios, Orlando, Florida. We
moved up to the Islands of Adventure Jurassic park
bathroom.
All right, so we're in the Jurassic park
bathrooms right next to the Jurassic park
ride. If there's as much
splash m on this ride as there is on this toilet,
(28:50):
we're in for a treat. Unfortunately, this splash is yellow.
So, um, not the cleanest showing,
but it is a land of dinosaur, as I suppose.
And then from there I made my way over
to the Veloca pizza bathroom.
It's a Veloca coaster themed bathroom
number eight on our Universal Studios tour.
(29:11):
Um, we're in the velociraptor pizza
bathroom. This thing's got more
wet around the toilet than in
the toilet. Truly, it's a masterpiece of
failure. Um, it literally looks like a
velociraptor has venom spit everywhere around this
toilet. Pictures to come.
I kind of messed up. I had to super overt
(29:33):
trackck.
So here's the deal. In the middle of
Harry Potter land, there's a place called public
Conveniences. This bathroom is anything
but convenient, but it is definitely public.
I've never seen so many people in one bathroom in
my entire life. So, uh, my review
couldn't tell you couldn't even get through the door because there's so
(29:55):
many people wizarding themselves all over the place.
So enjoy that.
And then to Lost Continent.
We're doing a quick stop number nine.
I took a wrong turn.
Lost Continent. Uh, family bathrooms.
Pretty clean, pretty spacious.
Not bad.
We're here midday. Um, great bathroom here on the
back of, uh, Adventure island section
(30:16):
of Orlando.
Then number 11, I went back up to the
Diagon Alley public conveniences. We
crossed over.
All right, we're on the Diagon Alley side of
the Harry Potter land back on the universeal Orlando
section of the park. Uh, right as
you come off the thing in the back of Diagon Alley.
(30:37):
Big bathroom. These doors on this bathroom are kind of
like the bank for Greenottz. It's kind of cool. Big, tall
doors go all the way to the ceiling, even covering the floors on
one side. But somebody left me a big old log,
uh, in the turlet back here. It's a big one,
brother. So m it's pretty clean except
for some jack wagon forgot how to flush.
(30:57):
Uh, Gringotts. Diagon
Alley.
I made my way down to the World's Fair
South. You know that. I had Butterbeer in hand.
This one I coming out of Diagon Alley, I missed
one. I had to backtrack. But just outside of Simpson's
land is the, um, World's
Fair south bathrooms. Pretty clean,
(31:19):
pretty spacious. Um, it's kind
of one of those, like, chugi kind of
modernist feel. It's kind of a space speckled
lining. This, um, toilet's pretty clean.
I'd use it a little wet, but you
know, we're midday after lunch, everybody's dropping them. So,
yeah, World's Fair.
And then backtracking again, I went
(31:42):
to the bathrooms labeled the London Bathrooms
just outside of Harry Potter world for number
13.
I've never been to London, but I'm pretty sure that
there's about this much urine. Urine in the toilet, urine
on the toilet, urine around the toilet.
The flush on this toilet though is really
what we need to talk about because it is the most chewy looking flush
(32:04):
I've ever seen in my life. Um, check out the
pictures of this thing. But literally the flush mechanism is
not even attached to the toilet. Um, the repair
job on this is um, abysmal. But
it's functional. Maybe.
Number 14. I made my way to Fast
Food Boulevard heading towards Simpsons
World.
(32:27):
The fast Food Boulevard restrooms, they're
pretty clean.
A lot of uh, same
stuff that we usually got going on from BD bathroom
but.
A little busy.
A lot of foot traffic. There was a guy cleaning, so
(32:47):
yeah, one that's themed after fast food.
Not too bad. He to wash Hand sense.
And then I use the Expo Circle
bathoms.
All right, number 15 is the
Expo Circle bathrooms. Right outside of
(33:08):
ET's Flya Away Bike Adventure and the
Spongebob meet and greet. Actually pretty clean. And as
far as the artwork on the outside, I think this
one's my favorite. Um, a little bit of poo streak in here.
Not too bad for 2:30 in the afternoon.
And like the paint job, it's a cool place. Like this
bathroom. Polar.
(33:30):
Number 16. I use the bathroom inside of the
DreamWorks World.
Number 16 is the DreamWorks Land Restrooms. And I'm here to tell
you not only of these the cleanest, they have
the thickest doors. It's a small bathroom, but it's kind
of tucked away.
This is my recommendation.
If you have kids, go use the Dreamworks land
restrooms.
(33:51):
And 17, I use the bathroom
called Mel's.
You good?
Okay. Number 17 is Mel's restrooms. It smells weird.
It smells like Mel really dropped a fat Mel. Um,
but it's raining outside. Everybody's panicking.
So it's about as wet in this bathroom as it is outside.
(34:11):
Number 18. I use the bathroom at Music
Plaza.
Alghty guys, I'm in the Music Plaza
restrooms.
Cool layout of this restroom.
All the sinks are right in the middle. Um, and
for the amount of rain that's coming down, I am soaking
wet. Um, but for the amount of rain that's coming down, there're surprisingly
empty. Bathrooms are pretty clean. Um, for
(34:32):
4:45 in the afternoon.
So we're doing pretty good music Hal Music Closet
Restroom'Pretty great.
Number 19 was Gotham Ice.
Number 19's the Gotham Ice Company. Restrooms are pretty
clean. Dude just came in, did a fresh sweep. Um,
yeah, cool ceiling.
(34:52):
So you'gon to try to get a.
Picture of those, but um, yeah, Gothamia, they're way back in
the back of the right side of Universal.
At this point it began to dump PR rain and it
was starting to look like
maybe hunter'not gona get like
maybe hunters not going to get all 26
bathrooms. But my family went to
(35:14):
secure a table at BUBB Guum Shrimp Co.
And while they did so, I
braved the rain, the downpour, the
elements. No, no rain jacket,
no coat. Just a ball cap and a dream. It
put forth to Visit the last six
bathrooms. Number 20,
San Francisco bathrooms.
(35:37):
Number 20 is the San Francisco restroom. This restroom
is by far the busiest restroom. I've been two since
I had to wait. There's a huge. You'll see it in the pictures, guys,
but I'm rushingus. I'm trying to get back to my family at the
front but San Francisco bathrooms towards the back
of Universal Studio. Sor of the busiest bathrooms I've
been today. Not terribly dirty though, just very wet.
(35:57):
It was wet. Very wet. Number 21
inside the Hollywood world was the one called Studio
Audience 21.
I'm in the studio audience bathroom. Cool
bathrooms, high stalls, really cool patterning
on the floor. It's pretty busy because everybody's running for their
lives because of all the rain. Pretty clean too. A lot of pea
spray on the backsplash here. Um, I'd probably give it a
(36:19):
5 out of 10 usability, but nothing bad for me.
And on my my way up to fill my tum tum with
Bubb Gump Shrimp company I stopped by
the park exit for Universal Studios.
The regular one allgh.
Next up is the park exit bathrooms for Universal
Studios, Orlando, Florida. Um, pretty clean,
(36:40):
cool vibe. Uh, this toilet that you just
heard flush probably gets a 9 out of 10. I'd use it right
now. It's one of the cleanest surfaces I've seen all day.
So not a bad bathroom up here. As we leave the park to go get some
dinner.
A belly full of shrimp later, Anna and I
ventured back into Universal Studios
with a mission. I've got four bathrooms
(37:00):
and I need to get some more butter beer.
Number 23, the moose juice.
Number 23. We're almost done. We had to return
to Islands of Adventure for one that I missed in
Seussland. This is in the Seuss land next
to the Lost World. Um, and it's the
moose juice bathrooms. Uh, when I came in There
(37:22):
was a gentleman m cleaning it. They are very clean.
It's almost the end of the park being open.
Definitely would use this in a day. Vibes pretty
normal. Yeah. Looks like a great
bathroom. We're running little on time. I don't know if we're going toa make them all.
On my way out of the park, I've still got
three times a tick him we stop by number
(37:43):
24, cafe four in the islands of
Adventure.
All right, Another one that we missed from Lost Islands. Islands
of Adventure, Cafe 4 and Marvel Land.
It's pretty late in the day. Bathroom smells
pretty bad. Pretty, um,
sure. There's a dude watching the football game in the stall next to me.
Avoiding his family and his obligations as a man. But you
(38:05):
know, what can you do? It's the end of the day. It's
9:45 almost. The island's closing here in
15. I don't know if I'm gonna make.
It, but here we go. And then jumping up
to number 25, the waterworks
bathroom.
Another vacant bathroom at the end of the day. This is
almost the last one. It's the Waterworks. On the
(38:25):
way out of Islands of Adventure.
It's pretty clean. Floors are a little wet. Plenty of pea
space for the dudes. U um, yeah,
weird layout, but cool bathroom.
And finally, on my way out of
Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. On my
way to the car, it's about 9pm
(38:45):
Lou Lodge at the park exit for
Islands of Attention.
Alrighty.
This one's locked.
I set foot inside the bathroom. We made it
lose Lodge on the way out.
Uh, I didn't get to go use this one.
But we visited every single bathroom in
Universal Studios Orlando, Florida.
And the service worker who
(39:08):
was trying to tell me that it's locked,
who's super pissed that I stuck my foot underneath his little rope so I could
be in his bathroom for a second. So I'm gonna leave before I get
in trouble.
And with that, it was a load of fun. We
visited every bathroom in
Universal Studios Islands Adventures and
Universal Studios Classic. And I gotta say,
(39:29):
I really like the bathrooms at Universal Studios. The
inside didn't have the craziest vibe, but they were
all pretty clean. I mean, you heard a few in my
comments there. And every bathroom has its things. But
I was, I was impressed. It was fun.
What a way to. What a way to kick off the season.
And so, yeah, uh, thank you for joining me on,
(39:49):
on that little bathroom journey. I visited every
bathroom in the Universal Studios Orlando resort. I'm
here to tell you my Favorite is definitely that tooune town
and islands of adventure. It's just so cool. It's just so
cool. This brings us to the end of another
episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy New
Year and I hope that our journey around the Universal
(40:10):
Studios Orlando Resort was enough for you. Do with
this information what you will. As
always, we would invite you to leave us a rating, a review.
The five star options are preferred. For every rating you
leave will donate a dollar to the Wounded warriors and Living Water
International as a reminder to keep pooping in the free
world. That free world was not always free and to pursue
(40:30):
cleaner water for all. There's parts of our world that do not have
as clean of water as we do and we want to fix that.
Follow us on social media. We're at privycast. You can
follow me. I'm @owlet7. Follow Randy Bowless. If you're
brave, send us an email privycastmail.com do
we'd love to hear from you. Episode suggestions, feedbacks,
concerns, anything that you have and want to tell
(40:51):
us about, we would love to hear from you. Thank
you so much. For those who have left us a rating.
If you do it on Apple podcast, I'd love to read your name out on
Spotify. I can't figure out unless you leave a comment
how to read out your your rating or review. But
I see that there's a couple extra stars. So thank you
guys. Share the show. Tell them about, Tell them,
(41:11):
hey this rate this pod. The five star options are preferred
but tell them rate this thing he's trying to do. He's trying to,
you know, generate some, some kickback to the Wounded warriors and Living
Water. Share the pod with three people. Tell them, hey, there's a bathroom
podcast this gyax talk about bathrooms. He went and put his butt
on every, uh, bathroom in Universal Studios.
Might be something to check out. Thank you all again so much
(41:32):
for listening. Thanks to Kevin and Pottington for you you their
music. Thanks to the Universal Studios Orlando Resort for letting me
put my butt on every single one of your bathrooms in in
the last couple months. This brings us to the end of number episode of
Privy. Thank you so much for joining us. Keep pooping in the free
world. Own your stank. And
now as always, don't
(41:53):
forget to flush.
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