September 22, 2023 • 45 mins
Ever fantasized about wandering through the magical realms of Disney World? My wife, Colleen, and I are here to make that fantasy almost feel real. Join us for a lively recounting of our recent Disney adventure, where we journeyed through the Magic Kingdom and dined at the fabulous Steakhouse 71. Colleen vividly describes her first encounter with the enchanting world of Disney while we also reflect on how convenience in air travel has evolved family vacations from our parents' days.
Have you ever imagined a shopping paradise nestled in the world of Disney? Let us escort you through Disney Springs, where the allure of high-end stores meets the mesmerizing world of Disney. We savored delectable meals, indulged in dessert fantasies, and even visited the unmissable Lego store. Colleen and I also share our insider's perspective on the benefits of investing in a resort stay to elevate your Disney experience, using our own experiences at the Saratoga Springs and Polynesian resorts as examples.
Finally, we invite you to sit back and imagine the warm sand beach of the Polynesian resort under your feet, the mesmerizing fireworks show over the Seven Seas Lagoon painting the sky, and the joy of exploring different parks. Leaving nothing out, we share tips and tricks like knowing your departing airport in Orlando, and our personal recommendations for dining and activities. As we look back on our memorable stay at the Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, we welcome you, our listeners, to share your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. Here's your chance to step into a magical world and experience Disney, just like we did!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to another episode of this Won't
Teach you Anything.
We have a special surprise onthis episode and that surprise
is the fact that this will notbe a two-part, four-zillion-hour
marathon, and I'll be using alaugh track because I have it.
Actually, the special surpriseon this episode is having my
(00:32):
wife, colleen, on for the firsttime since we've been doing the
show.
So Colleen say hello.
So she's getting a little bitused to the equipment the mic,
to see where all the money isgoing that's been spent, so she
can actually get some use out ofit.
I brought Colleen on this weekbecause we're going to do just a
(00:53):
quick rundown We've initialthoughts on.
We had just come back from avacation down in Orlando to
Disney World and so we justreturned home here within the
last few days and just a couplequick thoughts on the vacation
(01:13):
itself.
We won't get into too muchdepth because I'd like to have
the rest of my family on to goahead and talk to them and get
their thoughts about the tripand what they enjoyed and what
we would do different next time.
So yeah, we'll have everyoneelse in a future episode to
really dig into what we likedand, again, what we would do
(01:34):
different.
But, colleen, there's a lot ofthings that I talk about on this
show that you enjoy some of thesubjects, but not to the degree
I think that I do to do anentire podcast around pop
(01:55):
culture type stuff.
So growing up, disney World wassomething that was part of my
upbringing with my parents.
I'd been to Disney World beforeI met you, six, six, seven
times probably over the yearsback when it was just the Magic
(02:16):
Kingdom was the only park downthere and then up through Epcot
and Hollywood Studios and thenthe Animal Kingdom, along with
what used to be downtown Disneyis now Disney Springs.
But where I'm going with thisis the appreciation I have for
movies and things like that, andgoing over with my friends and
(02:41):
repeating these movie lines thatyou always ask me how can you
go ahead and remember that stuff?
But not the stuff that matters.
And that's been covered adnauseam on here.
I don't know, but I think oneof the things that we can both
agree on is the enjoyment thatcan be had down at Disney World.
(03:04):
It's something for me which isa little bit counterintuitive to
who I am, which I am not a hugefan of big crowds and things
like that.
I do enjoy going to concerts.
For you, there's no way to getaround that with crowds and
whatnot, and there's really nota lot of ways to get around big
(03:27):
crowds down at the happiestplace on earth.
No, so this time around growingup, when was the first time
that you had been down to DisneyWorld?
Do you remember?
Or when was your first tripdown there?
Might not even been when youwere growing up, it could have
been when you were already grown.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think the only time that I can remember, I would
say I was probably 12, 13.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Okay, Who'd you go down there with with your
parents?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
My parents.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
My sister.
How long a stay was it?
Did your parents go for the day?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, we stayed for a little bit.
I cannot remember exactly howlong, but I would say probably
five, seven days, okay, and wedrove down there.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We did a lot of driving when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, it seemed like there was a lot more people
drove down there.
I think, sure, sure, or thenthen do now.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, definitely, I would imagine it depends on your
, your location to the area,right, yeah, with so many
different flight options andwhatnot, it just and people's
schedules, I know that that Idon't think living up here in
Indiana, where we do, and then a12 to 14 hour drive down there
(04:51):
and then running into thoseparks and crowds and things like
that is not something, at leastright now, that I really want
to do when I'm retired.
And can you know, go ahead andtake two or three days to get
down there and, and you know,see some things along the way to
where I don't have to be backto a job or anything like that.
You know, and or you have kidsand you know dogs, or you have,
(05:16):
you know your kids can dog sit.
You know you can.
You can do that and it's not amajor inconvenience to everybody
.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So I don't know how my parents did it, you know,
because they had two kids and wedrove our van down there and
they went right back to workafterwards.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, as we've talked about.
It seems like you know earliergenerations are just built
different.
It seems like so.
The for me right now where I'mat.
I need the plane to get downthere.
Right, you have that one.
One day we left, um, uh,actually, uh, flew out of
(06:00):
Chicago midway, yep, and wedrove up the night before,
stayed at a hotel near, near theairport.
Got up the next morning.
Our flight left, I think seven,yeah and yeah, so we had to be
there.
We were up probably at four inthe morning and got over there
to the airport, um, and caughtthe flight as soon as we got
(06:22):
there, grabbed an Uber or a lift, I should say over to, uh,
saratoga Springs, where we, westarted, uh, the vacation was at
the Saratoga Springs Resort,yep, uh stayed there for two
days, but as soon as we got offthe flight, we uh room wasn't
ready.
We just dropped off all thebags and my parents were already
(06:45):
there waiting.
We ran into them, um, and,honestly, the room was ready.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was that time it was.
So we, we got the bags overthere and then we headed over to
um, took a uh a bus over to themagic kingdom uh, to the
contemporary.
And then I walked to thecontemporary where we were
having lunch at Steakhouse 71contemporary resort.
So that was a.
(07:13):
That was a busy day.
So we didn't have what would beconsidered what we call a park
day that day.
It was just it wasn't.
We had no plans to go to anyparks that day.
It was just get there, Do lunch, get back, kind of relax, get
situated.
Yeah, so we did that.
But I think we went to DisneySprings that night.
Yeah, we did too.
(07:35):
So I mean, we had a full day.
And then the plan was the nextfive days were park days and the
day before we came back was nota park day, it was just kind of
a relaxed day and preparing tocome back.
But so we did two days at, at,at Saratoga, at the resorts, and
(07:57):
then what I didn't explain iswe are members of the Disney
Vacation Club, which isessentially a timeshare Down
there and at different resorts.
They have options for thisDisney Vacation Club that you
can basically buy into it.
(08:17):
So it's a deeded Real estatecontract for a term of usually
if you buy directly from Disney50 years, mm-hmm, and it's a
point-based system.
So if any of you are familiarwith Timeshares, it's similar in
that sense.
The difference is the resalemarket for these things.
(08:38):
It's not something that thatpeople really have a tough time
unloading, I would imagine, asthose contracts near the end of
the 50 years, that'll change alittle bit because it'll drive
more people, I think, to goahead and and spend.
You know, maybe wait it outtill then the next round of
contracts after 50 years areready to go.
(08:58):
You know, I don't know ifpeople are gonna be wanting to
buy a three-year contract.
Yeah, because that's usuallyDepending on how many points and
where you're staying.
You know your break even is afew years in, even if you go a
couple times a year.
But it's something we'replanning on doing.
Yeah, being down there and it's.
You know, if you've never beento Disney World and you, you
(09:20):
have an idea of what it is andthat it's, you know, a kid's
place.
Well, it is essentially born ofIdea for kids and families,
mm-hmm.
But there is so much more to do.
We've got another trip coming uphere shortly, within the next
few months, that we're gonna godown and Not even go to the
(09:41):
parks.
Yeah, we'll be staying atDisney's Old Key West Resort,
which again is another vacationclub Resort, our home resort
that we bought into again.
You buy into a different resortand that that enables you to go
ahead and Reserve rooms out 11months at that particular resort
(10:03):
.
So, for instance, we boughtinto Disney's Polynesian villas
and bungalows resort, which thePolynesian Hotel resort is one
of the original three hotelsdown at Walt Disney World the
Polynesian, the contemporary andthe Grand Floridian are the
original three.
(10:24):
So if you've ever heard, if youhaven't been down there and
you've heard of the monorail,which is basically an elevated
Train that runs on a single rail, runs between the Magic Kingdom
and those three resorts andthen over to what's called the
ticket and transportation Center, which you can transfer there,
get on another monorail over toEpcot.
(10:46):
So two of the four parks arecovered Just from those three
resorts without having to get ona bus.
Now, but it's nice, it's verynice.
We got we got very spoiled thebus System.
Every resort has that option.
It takes you, miss a bus to apark, you.
(11:07):
You basically go to these busstops and there's buses that run
that will take you to the MagicKingdom, that will take you to
Typhoon Lagoon, the water park,that will take you to Epcot,
that will take you to HollywoodStudios and Animal Kingdom and
Disney Springs.
There is some logisticsinvolved when you go down there.
You know, and I can't suggestenough to, if you are planning a
(11:32):
trip down to Walt Disney World,to go ahead and and and utilize
some of these Vloggers onYouTube.
Those have been a huge help Inin some of the stuff and and
I've got great resources in inmy my parents and my brother,
who know a lot of the ins andouts Of Disney World.
(11:55):
My parents go down there two orthree times a year, my brother's
down there a couple times ayear.
We plan to be down there acouple times a year, but for
somebody a bad idea would be togo ahead and just wing it down
there.
Do you just it?
It can be overwhelming.
I mean, oh yeah, we were.
We had five park days and I betwe didn't see I Bet we saw you a
(12:21):
quarter of the parks, if that,yeah, and we had a lot of.
We're not early risers, so wegot up later in the day, but we
stayed out usually till the endof the day and if you don't plan
it, you're going to burn timeand you're going to waste time
(12:41):
and down there, you know, it's atime is money situation, which
is why when we go in the nextcouple of months we're not doing
any parks, we are going to justtake it a lot easier and do
things like resort hop and, youknow, go to some of the
restaurants down on property,which will be fine for us,
because I, you, always need avacation from the go go go parks
(13:03):
.
I saw a lot of people withyoung kids, you know, and it was
hot in September.
Oh yeah, it was.
I mean, every day was above 90.
Yep and very humid, yeah, veryhumid.
We'll get into the rainstormonce I have everybody here, but
(13:25):
we'll kind of just cover theresort side of things on this
episode.
But again, reason I'm talkingthis is because you know, as far
as pop culture goes andvacation destinations, I think
the perfect mix of pop cultureand vacation is Disney World and
again, you know you may havepreconceived notions of you've
(13:46):
never been down there, but therereally is something for
everybody to do down there.
I mean you could have a greattime not even going to the parks
.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah.
You know, there's a lot to do.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, that's for sure .
Yeah, and there's a lot to do.
It is very easy to spend moneydown there.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It is perfectly constructed to take your money.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And everybody take everybody's money, because
there's something for everyonethat interests everyone.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, and you can go, for you know, I mean there's
things, t-shirts and the stuffedanimals and things like that
that you would think would bedown there.
But you're also looking atdesigner handbags that are, you
know, multiple hundreds ofdollars for those, and then the
Home, furnishings.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know all kinds of things for your home.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, that aren't the loud, yeah, the loud.
Mickey Mouse colors and thingslike that.
You know there's a lot ofhigher end and there's art
galleries down there that youcan buy high end art.
There's collectibles and when Isay collectibles not just a
little statuettes or figurines,there are things like Walt
(14:58):
Disney signed checks that areframed that you can drop 15
grand on for those type ofthings and really high end one
of a kind artwork down at DisneySprings there's an entire
shopping district and it's notall Disney.
There's plenty of Disney stuffin there.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But I mean, you've got high end stores and we went
there two, maybe three timeswhile we're down this time and I
don't feel like I.
You know, I saw maybe not evena quarter.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I mean, I think the world's biggest Disney
store is down there.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, I did see that.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Appropriately called World of Disney.
Yeah, we spent a lot of time inthere because I mean that's got
so much stuff.
Yeah, it doesn't make for goodpodcasting, but I am looking at
a shirt that Colleen did buydown there with Grogu on it, so
that is appropriate for thepodcast.
That shirt sweatshirt is justoozing current pop culture.
(15:56):
So good on you.
The yeah, I mean the dining atDisney Springs and the shopping
options and dessert options andthere's a huge Lego store down
there.
There's so many things downthere that we didn't run a car.
(16:18):
I never run a car when I godown there because I can get
everything I want.
Yeah, I get everywhere I wantto get to by using the Disney
transportation, by for stayingon Disney property at one of the
resorts.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
And now, with the, being able to get groceries
through.
Amazon through Walmart, youknow.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
To have a delivery.
They deliver it to you Mm-hmm.
So yeah, we had a split stayagain, as I mentioned earlier,
which was a couple of days atSaratoga Springs, which is not
our home resort, but it is alarge resort and you can usually
get rooms in there at what'scalled the seven month mark.
The seven month mark is whereyou can go ahead, since we
(17:02):
belong.
Our home resort is a Polynesian.
We have an 11 month window thatwe can reserve out.
My parents have bought intoSaratoga Springs and my brother
owns at Disney's Riviera Resort,so I cannot, at 11 months.
(17:24):
I can reserve the Polynesian,but no other resorts at 11
months.
My parents can reserve SaratogaSprings at 11 months, but no
other resorts at 11 months.
My brother can reserve theRiviera at 11 months, but no
other resorts at 11 months.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Do your parents real quick.
Do your parents only own atSaratoga?
Yes, Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So at the seven month mark you can go ahead and
reserve at other resorts.
The only difference there wouldbe if you are a non-direct
purchaser of Disney VacationClub points.
You cannot at this time stay atthe Riviera on those points
(18:07):
unless you buy direct.
But that's one out of a bunch.
So if we wanted to stay atSaratoga Springs, we have to
wait for that seven month periodbefore we can do that.
So basically, buying into aresort gives you four months of
(18:29):
a head start on everybody else.
It does not belong at that Togive those people who did buy
into that resort that extra timeto reserve rooms, and so that's
.
We originally were just gonnago down five days and I had
reserved the Polynesian for fivedays at the 11 month window.
And then it came to where myparents were gonna be down there
at the same time, my brotherand his wife were gonna be down
(18:51):
there at the same time and Idecided to add a couple days.
Well, wasn't able to getanything at the Polynesian
inside after it hits that sevenmonth mark.
So I stayed over Goddard'srooms at Saratoga, which we've
both stayed at before.
Great resort, great locale, withbeing within walking distance
to Disney Springs and you havesome different options there.
(19:12):
You can take a boat to DisneySprings, which, on the way back,
one night we did take the boatback, which is really nice or
the bus.
No other access to any of theparks, no monorail or the new
skyliner from Saratoga.
The other thing that you wouldwanna plan for if you were going
(19:36):
down there and hadn't been downthere before, is the logistics
of you know if you're staying ona Disney property.
Yes, they have the buses, butone of the things that's I
didn't appreciate.
When I was younger, my parents,my mom in particular told me
that she liked going to thedifferent resorts, the different
hotels and trying the differentrestaurants and just seeing the
(19:59):
architecture of how the youknow the theming of those other
resorts.
And when I was younger, I justwanted to do parks.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I didn't wanna any of the tests?
Yeah, you're really interestedin that stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Right when you're younger.
Now I am.
Now I like seeing that stuff.
But again, with logisticallyspeaking, there is no way to
take a bus from one resort tothe other.
You have to make a stop inbetween somewhere.
So that can be.
You know, if you wanted to goto lunch, say, at the Riviera,
(20:32):
at this place that I'd beenbefore on a previous trip called
Bar Reva, which has some areally great bacon cheeseburger
that I think I told you about,we didn't get there.
But next time you would have totake a bus to the ticket and
transportation center or a parkand then from that point take it
(20:55):
, take another bus or a skylineror something to the Riviera.
So there's always a stop thatyou have to do.
So you know, just going overthere isn't a 20, 30 minute deal
.
It can be 20 minutes to go tothe one spot and then, if you
don't catch the bus right, itcan take you 30 to 40 minutes to
(21:18):
get to your end destination atthe Riviera.
Now again, if you do yourhomework before you go, if we
were gonna do that, we would goahead and take it from the
Polynesian.
We can walk to the ticket andtransportation center.
I mean, we found that out abouthalfway through our stay of how
close that really is, I meanit's literally, it's right there
(21:39):
.
Yeah, an eighth of a mile maybe.
I mean just take a quick fourminute walk or something like
that if that.
And that's nice too.
Yeah, and so at the Polynesianwe can walk right over there and
then we could catch a directbus to one of the parks to be
able to go to a resort afterthat.
(22:01):
So that gives us a little edgelocation-wise to be able to
resort hop.
But that's something importantto remember if you've got
multiple people going andstaying at different resorts,
it's not just real, it's notjust point A to point B.
You will have a stop in between.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You've got a plan or you won't get there on time.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, it's real easy to go ahead and not have time to
do everything, but the bestadvice I can give is just do
your homework.
Some of the channels that Ilike on YouTube are the DFB
channel, disney Food Blog, whichis not just food related I
(22:47):
think at one time it was, but itjust went into pretty much all
things park related and theycover things at Disneyland and
Disney World, but it's one of myfavorites.
Yeah, I like it Again that's aDFB Disney Food Blog.
(23:07):
It's really well put together,really informative.
They've got a lot of stuff.
They've got stuff out every fewdays, so that's really great,
really well produced.
Another one that I really enjoyis Paging Mr Moro and that one.
It's basically a one man showon that one One man and then the
(23:33):
evening's one dog.
Yeah, I was gonna say one manand his dog, yep, gracie the
Dalmatian, but Nate Moro, whoruns that that channel, is just
seems like a really genuinefriendly guy.
It seems like what you see iswhat you get Very down to earth,
yeah, and very.
(23:54):
It just seems like somebodyyou'd like to hang out with on
vacation.
So, again, that's Paging MrMoro.
He doesn't just cover Disneystuff Primarily.
I see mostly Disney stuff, butI've seen stuff at Universal
Studios.
I've seen he's got family inPennsylvania and I've seen
(24:16):
things at Hershey Park that he'sdone and he's really caught on
with these.
On my YouTube channel this won'tteach you anything visually the
shirts I've worn on there froma company called Roosevelt's I
actually saw on Paging Mr Moro.
He'd been wearing them for awhile and eventually got
(24:38):
sponsored by the company and sohe's been brought out to
conventions and whatnot and Isaw just the other day it's got.
They put together a Mr Morocollection of his favorite
shirts.
Oh, really, yeah, on Facebook Isaw that.
So, but that's another greatone to watch and there are some.
(25:02):
There are a lot of differentones.
You know, I recommend mybrother's podcast, rudy's
Roundup, for Disney informationand really in-depth stuff.
That one is a Disney-centricpodcast that he puts on and it
is really informative much moreinformative than I am.
(25:23):
I'm just kind of going off thetop of my head with the resort
stay and what we enjoyed downthere on the resort side.
And you know, one of the thingsthat I really like about the
Polynesian one is the just afeel in the plants.
I know what were your thoughtson the Polynesian?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I thought that it was very relaxing to come back
after a long day at the parks.
To come back, it's very quiet,the lighting is low, especially
outside on the grounds.
You know, like you said,they've got a lot of plants and
(26:08):
foliage and stuff Tropical, yeahto look at.
But as you're walking throughthe paths you know they're kind
of they're low lit, which one ofour daughters said she wasn't
sure that she liked that becausethere wasn't a lot of light.
But I like that because youcome back from being at the
(26:30):
parks with all the noise and allthe lights.
Sensory overload yeah itdefinitely can be sensory
overload and you come back thereand it's just very relaxing.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And part of the lighting that's used around.
There are the actual torches.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, that was the other thing.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Open flame torches throughout there and then they
do have some more conventionalLED lighting in spots because,
as we figured out the nightbefore we left, when we were
doing a walk around and videoingthat, the torches seemed to go
off around one in the morning.
Yeah, we figured that out.
Closing down the walking pathsat the Polynesian.
(27:09):
The other thing that's reallygreat about the Polynesian it
sits on Seven Seas Lagoon andyou have a.
It's a man-made lake Lake andso you can't go out into the
water, and in Florida, going outinto water like that's a bad
idea, yeah, so it is roped off,but there is sand on what?
(27:34):
would be the beach, that you cango out there and sit and look
over the lagoon and you can goahead and see you're right
across from the Magic Kingdom.
And you can see Cinderella'sCastle, you can see Space
Mountain, and we stayed outthere and we watched Happily
Ever After, which is thefireworks the current fireworks
(27:54):
show at the Magic Kingdom fromover there, sat on beach chairs
Adirondack chairs Right there onthe beach and watched the
fireworks from there, which wasyou can't really see the
projection mapping on the castlefrom there, right, but you're
in.
You walk right back to yourroom in three minutes.
(28:15):
Yeah, it's great.
Yeah, instead of the again, ifyou've never been out there and
you are doing a fireworks showand you're watching it, it's a
great experience.
Until it's time to leave andthousands of other people are
trying to pile on buses back toresorts and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, the other thing , too, is not just when you're
leaving, but you have to planfor being able to find some
place to sit or stand to watch.
Yeah, and we just we walkedright up on the beach there at
the Polynesian.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, there were two chairs and nobody was sitting
there.
We just plopped right down andwatched the show.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm sure it's not always that way.
You have you know, when it'sreally busy, yeah, but I don't
think you'd run out of beach.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I mean, you could sit in the sand, right, I would
think.
But yeah, that's for me.
That's one of my least favoritethings is the end of the night
and and yes we know, and gettingon a bus standing back to your
resort.
You know, I mean, the buses onlyhold so many people and you
(29:21):
know you might be waiting twobuses and whatnot.
So, again, you know, homework isparamount, without going too
much into what we did in theparks because I, like I said,
I'd like to go ahead and get therest of the family on to go and
discuss that part of it.
There was an adventurous nightwe had over there at Epcot, but
(29:46):
we'll talk about that when we dothe full rundown of the
vacation with everybody therewas.
On the way back, you know it'salways at least I try and time
things out to go ahead and towhere it's not too early in the
(30:08):
morning to leave, because noneof us are morning people, nope.
And so you know, trying to getfull use of that 11 o'clock
checkout and then give you sometime maybe to eat lunch and then
take off, which is what we did,for I think our flight was at
four o'clock and getting over tothe airport.
(30:31):
One of the things that's reallyimportant for people who've
never been down there to know isthere are two airports in the
Orlando area OrlandoInternational Airport the
airport code for that is MCO,and then Sanford Orlando,
(30:52):
sanford Airport, and so youfound that out.
Well, I had known it, but I wastyping in too fast and wasn't
paying attention when we calledthe lift.
So we get, we call for the lift, get loaded up and head out,
(31:14):
and Colleen and I must have beensitting thinking the same thing
.
I was in front, she was in back.
After a while I thought, man,this has taken a lot longer than
I remember and I don't rememberseeing this stuff.
So I looked at my phone and Isaw that I had chosen a ride for
the Sanford Airport and had toask the driver.
(31:37):
I'm like, how do I stop thisride?
I need to reroute over toOrlando.
And our driver was great.
Yep, he said no problem, youknow, we'll go ahead and get it
taken care of.
And luckily we were only about23 minutes from Orlando Airport.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, we had gotten out of there early enough that
we had some extra time to makeup for that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So yeah, that was an adventure.
I'm very glad that I decided tolook down there, because we
would have pulled up to thatairport and then it would have
been a little tighter gettingout of Orlando, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I was in the back just kind of dozing and I just
thought, man, this has taken awhile, what's going on?
And then you asked, you startedasking him and I'm like, oh boy
, yep yeah, yeah, it wasn't notone of my better moments.
But yeah, like I said, I'm justglad that I didn't make that
(32:41):
mistake.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I bet you are.
I was not glad that I made it,that's for sure.
The anything else resort wisethat you enjoyed.
I know we had breakfast at KonaCafe at the Polynesian.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, that was really good.
The Tonga toast there wasreally good.
What was the Tonga toast?
That's like a really thick kindof French toast.
I mean it's a big piece ofbread, like cinnamon bread.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's like two big slices.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And then in between they stuff it with bananas, and
then you get a strawberryCompote, yeah, to pour over it.
Yeah, and that's really goodtoo.
I mean, I could only eat maybehalf of it, I think.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
But yeah that's very highly recommended.
We did have a reservation forthe restaurant there called
Ohana, but we did cancel itbecause we were just we were
gassed from doing so manydifferent things and I think one
day again, without getting intotoo much of the resort, the
(34:04):
actual parks, we hadreservations for the girls to
build lightsabers, and rightafter that we went to August
Cantina, which is in Galaxy'sEdge, the Star Wars portion of
the Hollywood Studios Park, andso we did lightsabers, walked
around Galaxy's Edge and thenwent to August Cantina, which we
(34:24):
had reservations for.
After August Cantina, we headedback out of the park to head
over to Epcot and then we wentto the.
To head over to Epcot, which wetook the Skyliner.
That made it easy.
The Skyliner is a gondolatransportation system and as
long as there's not lightningand heavy rainstorms it's always
(34:48):
running.
And so we caught from theHollywood Studios to Epcot, rode
that, and that made that ridereally, really easy, because
those drop off at the backsideof Epcot, so if you were taking
(35:08):
buses you get dropped off at thefront, which Epcot is a park
that has a big spaceship Earthsphere.
That would be the front of thepark.
Around the other side of Epcotis what's called the World
Showcase, where they have allthese different countries
represented, and we were havinglunch in Italy and the Italian
(35:33):
pizza place, which is it's veryhard to get into A brother
pulled it off and the Skylinersdrop off right at the back of
Epcot in the World Showcase.
So we didn't have a huge longwalk to make it over there, but
it was a busy day by that point.
At that point it's 3.30 in theafternoon.
(35:54):
Yeah, cause Epcot is huge.
You can do a lot of walking atEpcot, yeah, and then it was a
food and wine festival.
Again, I'm getting into parkstuff that we'll cover when we
have everybody down to discuss.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The other thing I wanted to say that I liked was
resort wise was being able to goover to the contemporary to
take the monorail again, whichmade it really easy.
But to go over to thecontemporary they had their
quick service.
They had a ton of differentthings to eat, and Polynesian is
(36:36):
nice.
They've got some differentthings on their menu, but I'm
kind of picky.
And so is Kira and Skyler to acertain extent, but they just
had a lot of different stuff andit was easy to get over there.
That was by taking the monorail.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, the monorails are running at what seemed like
about every seven minutes onecomes by.
I could be a little off that,but it's very easy to do that,
so it's gonna be hard to, Sincewe're not going to a lot of
parks.
It won't be bad at Old Key Westbecause we'll be on a lot less
(37:15):
of a schedule.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But yeah, I think staying atthe Polynesian is worth its
weight in gold, strictly justbecause of the monorail, the
(37:36):
other things that I like.
Resort wise and again, there'ssomething.
It's just something.
It's like there's something foreverybody when it comes to
those resorts.
Saratoga is infinitelydifferent than the Polynesian.
Saratoga is modeled after thehorse racing culture of Saratoga
(38:00):
Springs, new York.
Polynesian is exactly what itsounds like it's tropical.
All the plants and the flora isall tropical.
There's little waterfalls up inthe lobby when you're coming in
.
Again, the torches when you comein, a lot of Maui, yeah, Maui
the Tiki God when you enter theentrance, not the Dwayne Johnson
(38:25):
version of Maui from Milana,but a Tiki God right there in
the main lobby.
If you Google the Polynesian,you'll see it right away.
We also the next morning thesecond morning we were there.
That'd be the first morningbecause we got in the afternoon.
So the next morning we got upand went to Boma, which is at
(38:51):
the Animal Kingdom Lodge, whichis African themed and very, very
well done as far as the lobbyand things like that.
I'll be putting up some of ourfootage that we took on this
trip on the YouTube channel herein the next week or so, once I
(39:12):
get everything edited.
So some of the stuff I'mtalking about here you'll be
able to see when I go ahead andget that up on the YouTube
channel.
Again, this won't teach youanything visually and you'll be
able to see some of these thingsthat we're talking about,
colleen, anything closingthoughts here on the trip as it
relates to the resorts that youenjoyed.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I did like the fact that they were able to change
our room from the initial roomthat we had.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That's right.
We got into a room at thePolynesian that was a little
further away than we wanted tobe from the lobby area, which is
called the Great CeremonialHouse.
It's where the shops are, wherethe Quick Service Restaurant
and the Ohana and Kona are.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Oh, and don't forget the Lanai.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Pineapple Lanai, which is where you can get Dole
Whip, Dole Whip, Pineapple SoftServe Ice Cream.
And, yeah, being able to getthat every day is a plus if you
choose to do so.
Dole Whip Legendary Treat downat Disney World.
(40:28):
So, yeah, that's having itright, there is a plus.
But yeah, the cast members wereable to go ahead and get
Colleen taken care of.
The building we were in wascalled Pago Pago and it's a
little further away than wewanted to be.
Again from the Great CeremonialHouse Would be great if you
(40:50):
were going to the TicketTransportation Center.
I think that's the closestbuilding to that, but a little.
I mean we're not talking half amile, but just further than we
wanted to be, and it soundstrivial that it's too far away
from-.
But it never hurts to ask.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, and the thing is is that once you're there,
you start to understand howimportant it is to be kind of
closer to the lobby and theQuick Service and you know the
pools and things like that Notthe pools so much, but the lobby
and the Quick Service.
(41:28):
You know the shops and thingsbecause you have a lot of
walking when you're at the parks.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
A lot of walking and the Monterey Rail Station is at
the Great Ceremonial House, soto get over there, to that you
do need to.
So she just called down andasked if there was, if we could
get into a building calledTokulao, and they said, no
problem, we'll have somethingfor you tomorrow.
(41:56):
And so they took care of thatand I think that room was ready
at like 8.30 in the morning andso that was really nice.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
That building was right there and so and it was on
the third floor, which is whatwe wanted.
It was close to the elevatorand the ice machine and the
vending machines.
It was just all around.
You know, nice yeah, when theygot us.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, yeah, so that's that was.
I think it's recognized thatwhen you know it's, let's not
fool ourselves.
It is not cheap to do a tripdown there, and so you would
expect that that the servicewould be part of what you're
paying for, and in that instanceit worked out very well.
There was no back and forth oranything.
(42:51):
It was yeah, we'll take care ofyou.
Yeah, so that was, that wasgood.
I think that's a good spot toend this one on talking about
resorts and things that weenjoyed down there, and we'll go
and get our thoughts together,have the kids get their thoughts
together on on what theyenjoyed, and finish that one up
(43:14):
next time.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Sounds good.
So thank you for taking some ofyour time out of your busy
schedule to go ahead and discussthis.
It was great having you on hereafter a couple of years of not
having you on.
You seem like a natural.
You seem like it's somethingthat that you've been wanting to
do, and maybe even start yourown show.
(43:40):
Is that your attitude or is itmore?
I've got a lot of these buttonsand I've been dying to use them
.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I'd say more.
The first one Nice.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
So again, colleen, thanks for coming on and we will
see you upstairs.
Yeah, all right, thanks.
So there you have it, thelatest episode of this Won't
Teach you Anything.
Again, I want to thank my wife,colleen, for being so kind to
come on and talk about herexperiences down there at the
(44:13):
Disney Resort Polynesian Villasand Bungalows.
It really was a great time andI can't wait to talk about the
rest of it.
So again, as always, you can goahead and reach the show via
email at thiswon'tteach, atgmailcom, on Twitter or X, at
thiswon'tteach, instagram, atthis underscore won't underscore
teach, underscore, youunderscore anything.
(44:35):
And on Facebook at this won'tteach.
Now, again, I did mention theYouTube channel I have.
This won't teach you anythingvisually, got a couple of videos
up there.
Give it a like and a subscribe.
If it's something that youthink that you'll watch, I'd
really appreciate it.
And again, thank you for allyour support on the podcast, and
if there's any ideas you have,shoot them over to me.
(44:57):
We can go ahead and see if it'ssomething we can fit in or
maybe even have a guest join uson the show.
So again, thank you for yoursupport.
And this has been this Won'tTeach you Anything.
Hello and welcome to another episode of this Won't
Teach you Anything.
We have a special surprise onthis episode and that surprise
is the fact that this will notbe a two-part, four-zillion-hour
marathon, and I'll be using alaugh track because I have it.
Actually, the special surpriseon this episode is having my
(00:32):
wife, colleen, on for the firsttime since we've been doing the
show.
So Colleen say hello.
So she's getting a little bitused to the equipment the mic,
to see where all the money isgoing that's been spent, so she
can actually get some use out ofit.
I brought Colleen on this weekbecause we're going to do just a
(00:53):
quick rundown We've initialthoughts on.
We had just come back from avacation down in Orlando to
Disney World and so we justreturned home here within the
last few days and just a couplequick thoughts on the vacation
(01:13):
itself.
We won't get into too muchdepth because I'd like to have
the rest of my family on to goahead and talk to them and get
their thoughts about the tripand what they enjoyed and what
we would do different next time.
So yeah, we'll have everyoneelse in a future episode to
really dig into what we likedand, again, what we would do
(01:34):
different.
But, colleen, there's a lot ofthings that I talk about on this
show that you enjoy some of thesubjects, but not to the degree
I think that I do to do anentire podcast around pop
(01:55):
culture type stuff.
So growing up, disney World wassomething that was part of my
upbringing with my parents.
I'd been to Disney World beforeI met you, six, six, seven
times probably over the yearsback when it was just the Magic
(02:16):
Kingdom was the only park downthere and then up through Epcot
and Hollywood Studios and thenthe Animal Kingdom, along with
what used to be downtown Disneyis now Disney Springs.
But where I'm going with thisis the appreciation I have for
movies and things like that, andgoing over with my friends and
(02:41):
repeating these movie lines thatyou always ask me how can you
go ahead and remember that stuff?
But not the stuff that matters.
And that's been covered adnauseam on here.
I don't know, but I think oneof the things that we can both
agree on is the enjoyment thatcan be had down at Disney World.
(03:04):
It's something for me which isa little bit counterintuitive to
who I am, which I am not a hugefan of big crowds and things
like that.
I do enjoy going to concerts.
For you, there's no way to getaround that with crowds and
whatnot, and there's really nota lot of ways to get around big
(03:27):
crowds down at the happiestplace on earth.
No, so this time around growingup, when was the first time
that you had been down to DisneyWorld?
Do you remember?
Or when was your first tripdown there?
Might not even been when youwere growing up, it could have
been when you were already grown.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think the only time that I can remember, I would
say I was probably 12, 13.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Okay, Who'd you go down there with with your
parents?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
My parents.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
My sister.
How long a stay was it?
Did your parents go for the day?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, we stayed for a little bit.
I cannot remember exactly howlong, but I would say probably
five, seven days, okay, and wedrove down there.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We did a lot of driving when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, it seemed like there was a lot more people
drove down there.
I think, sure, sure, or thenthen do now.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, definitely, I would imagine it depends on your
, your location to the area,right, yeah, with so many
different flight options andwhatnot, it just and people's
schedules, I know that that Idon't think living up here in
Indiana, where we do, and then a12 to 14 hour drive down there
(04:51):
and then running into thoseparks and crowds and things like
that is not something, at leastright now, that I really want
to do when I'm retired.
And can you know, go ahead andtake two or three days to get
down there and, and you know,see some things along the way to
where I don't have to be backto a job or anything like that.
You know, and or you have kidsand you know dogs, or you have,
(05:16):
you know your kids can dog sit.
You know you can.
You can do that and it's not amajor inconvenience to everybody
.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So I don't know how my parents did it, you know,
because they had two kids and wedrove our van down there and
they went right back to workafterwards.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, as we've talked about.
It seems like you know earliergenerations are just built
different.
It seems like so.
The for me right now where I'mat.
I need the plane to get downthere.
Right, you have that one.
One day we left, um, uh,actually, uh, flew out of
(06:00):
Chicago midway, yep, and wedrove up the night before,
stayed at a hotel near, near theairport.
Got up the next morning.
Our flight left, I think seven,yeah and yeah, so we had to be
there.
We were up probably at four inthe morning and got over there
to the airport, um, and caughtthe flight as soon as we got
(06:22):
there, grabbed an Uber or a lift, I should say over to, uh,
saratoga Springs, where we, westarted, uh, the vacation was at
the Saratoga Springs Resort,yep, uh stayed there for two
days, but as soon as we got offthe flight, we uh room wasn't
ready.
We just dropped off all thebags and my parents were already
(06:45):
there waiting.
We ran into them, um, and,honestly, the room was ready.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was that time it was.
So we, we got the bags overthere and then we headed over to
um, took a uh a bus over to themagic kingdom uh, to the
contemporary.
And then I walked to thecontemporary where we were
having lunch at Steakhouse 71contemporary resort.
So that was a.
(07:13):
That was a busy day.
So we didn't have what would beconsidered what we call a park
day that day.
It was just it wasn't.
We had no plans to go to anyparks that day.
It was just get there, Do lunch, get back, kind of relax, get
situated.
Yeah, so we did that.
But I think we went to DisneySprings that night.
Yeah, we did too.
(07:35):
So I mean, we had a full day.
And then the plan was the nextfive days were park days and the
day before we came back was nota park day, it was just kind of
a relaxed day and preparing tocome back.
But so we did two days at, at,at Saratoga, at the resorts, and
(07:57):
then what I didn't explain iswe are members of the Disney
Vacation Club, which isessentially a timeshare Down
there and at different resorts.
They have options for thisDisney Vacation Club that you
can basically buy into it.
(08:17):
So it's a deeded Real estatecontract for a term of usually
if you buy directly from Disney50 years, mm-hmm, and it's a
point-based system.
So if any of you are familiarwith Timeshares, it's similar in
that sense.
The difference is the resalemarket for these things.
(08:38):
It's not something that thatpeople really have a tough time
unloading, I would imagine, asthose contracts near the end of
the 50 years, that'll change alittle bit because it'll drive
more people, I think, to goahead and and spend.
You know, maybe wait it outtill then the next round of
contracts after 50 years areready to go.
(08:58):
You know, I don't know ifpeople are gonna be wanting to
buy a three-year contract.
Yeah, because that's usuallyDepending on how many points and
where you're staying.
You know your break even is afew years in, even if you go a
couple times a year.
But it's something we'replanning on doing.
Yeah, being down there and it's.
You know, if you've never beento Disney World and you, you
(09:20):
have an idea of what it is andthat it's, you know, a kid's
place.
Well, it is essentially born ofIdea for kids and families,
mm-hmm.
But there is so much more to do.
We've got another trip coming uphere shortly, within the next
few months, that we're gonna godown and Not even go to the
(09:41):
parks.
Yeah, we'll be staying atDisney's Old Key West Resort,
which again is another vacationclub Resort, our home resort
that we bought into again.
You buy into a different resortand that that enables you to go
ahead and Reserve rooms out 11months at that particular resort
(10:03):
.
So, for instance, we boughtinto Disney's Polynesian villas
and bungalows resort, which thePolynesian Hotel resort is one
of the original three hotelsdown at Walt Disney World the
Polynesian, the contemporary andthe Grand Floridian are the
original three.
(10:24):
So if you've ever heard, if youhaven't been down there and
you've heard of the monorail,which is basically an elevated
Train that runs on a single rail, runs between the Magic Kingdom
and those three resorts andthen over to what's called the
ticket and transportation Center, which you can transfer there,
get on another monorail over toEpcot.
(10:46):
So two of the four parks arecovered Just from those three
resorts without having to get ona bus.
Now, but it's nice, it's verynice.
We got we got very spoiled thebus System.
Every resort has that option.
It takes you, miss a bus to apark, you.
(11:07):
You basically go to these busstops and there's buses that run
that will take you to the MagicKingdom, that will take you to
Typhoon Lagoon, the water park,that will take you to Epcot,
that will take you to HollywoodStudios and Animal Kingdom and
Disney Springs.
There is some logisticsinvolved when you go down there.
You know, and I can't suggestenough to, if you are planning a
(11:32):
trip down to Walt Disney World,to go ahead and and and utilize
some of these Vloggers onYouTube.
Those have been a huge help Inin some of the stuff and and
I've got great resources in inmy my parents and my brother,
who know a lot of the ins andouts Of Disney World.
(11:55):
My parents go down there two orthree times a year, my brother's
down there a couple times ayear.
We plan to be down there acouple times a year, but for
somebody a bad idea would be togo ahead and just wing it down
there.
Do you just it?
It can be overwhelming.
I mean, oh yeah, we were.
We had five park days and I betwe didn't see I Bet we saw you a
(12:21):
quarter of the parks, if that,yeah, and we had a lot of.
We're not early risers, so wegot up later in the day, but we
stayed out usually till the endof the day and if you don't plan
it, you're going to burn timeand you're going to waste time
(12:41):
and down there, you know, it's atime is money situation, which
is why when we go in the nextcouple of months we're not doing
any parks, we are going to justtake it a lot easier and do
things like resort hop and, youknow, go to some of the
restaurants down on property,which will be fine for us,
because I, you, always need avacation from the go go go parks
(13:03):
.
I saw a lot of people withyoung kids, you know, and it was
hot in September.
Oh yeah, it was.
I mean, every day was above 90.
Yep and very humid, yeah, veryhumid.
We'll get into the rainstormonce I have everybody here, but
(13:25):
we'll kind of just cover theresort side of things on this
episode.
But again, reason I'm talkingthis is because you know, as far
as pop culture goes andvacation destinations, I think
the perfect mix of pop cultureand vacation is Disney World and
again, you know you may havepreconceived notions of you've
(13:46):
never been down there, but therereally is something for
everybody to do down there.
I mean you could have a greattime not even going to the parks
.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah.
You know, there's a lot to do.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, that's for sure .
Yeah, and there's a lot to do.
It is very easy to spend moneydown there.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It is perfectly constructed to take your money.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And everybody take everybody's money, because
there's something for everyonethat interests everyone.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, and you can go, for you know, I mean there's
things, t-shirts and the stuffedanimals and things like that
that you would think would bedown there.
But you're also looking atdesigner handbags that are, you
know, multiple hundreds ofdollars for those, and then the
Home, furnishings.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know all kinds of things for your home.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, that aren't the loud, yeah, the loud.
Mickey Mouse colors and thingslike that.
You know there's a lot ofhigher end and there's art
galleries down there that youcan buy high end art.
There's collectibles and when Isay collectibles not just a
little statuettes or figurines,there are things like Walt
(14:58):
Disney signed checks that areframed that you can drop 15
grand on for those type ofthings and really high end one
of a kind artwork down at DisneySprings there's an entire
shopping district and it's notall Disney.
There's plenty of Disney stuffin there.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But I mean, you've got high end stores and we went
there two, maybe three timeswhile we're down this time and I
don't feel like I.
You know, I saw maybe not evena quarter.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I mean, I think the world's biggest Disney
store is down there.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, I did see that.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Appropriately called World of Disney.
Yeah, we spent a lot of time inthere because I mean that's got
so much stuff.
Yeah, it doesn't make for goodpodcasting, but I am looking at
a shirt that Colleen did buydown there with Grogu on it, so
that is appropriate for thepodcast.
That shirt sweatshirt is justoozing current pop culture.
(15:56):
So good on you.
The yeah, I mean the dining atDisney Springs and the shopping
options and dessert options andthere's a huge Lego store down
there.
There's so many things downthere that we didn't run a car.
(16:18):
I never run a car when I godown there because I can get
everything I want.
Yeah, I get everywhere I wantto get to by using the Disney
transportation, by for stayingon Disney property at one of the
resorts.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
And now, with the, being able to get groceries
through.
Amazon through Walmart, youknow.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
To have a delivery.
They deliver it to you Mm-hmm.
So yeah, we had a split stayagain, as I mentioned earlier,
which was a couple of days atSaratoga Springs, which is not
our home resort, but it is alarge resort and you can usually
get rooms in there at what'scalled the seven month mark.
The seven month mark is whereyou can go ahead, since we
(17:02):
belong.
Our home resort is a Polynesian.
We have an 11 month window thatwe can reserve out.
My parents have bought intoSaratoga Springs and my brother
owns at Disney's Riviera Resort,so I cannot, at 11 months.
(17:24):
I can reserve the Polynesian,but no other resorts at 11
months.
My parents can reserve SaratogaSprings at 11 months, but no
other resorts at 11 months.
My brother can reserve theRiviera at 11 months, but no
other resorts at 11 months.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Do your parents real quick.
Do your parents only own atSaratoga?
Yes, Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So at the seven month mark you can go ahead and
reserve at other resorts.
The only difference there wouldbe if you are a non-direct
purchaser of Disney VacationClub points.
You cannot at this time stay atthe Riviera on those points
(18:07):
unless you buy direct.
But that's one out of a bunch.
So if we wanted to stay atSaratoga Springs, we have to
wait for that seven month periodbefore we can do that.
So basically, buying into aresort gives you four months of
(18:29):
a head start on everybody else.
It does not belong at that Togive those people who did buy
into that resort that extra timeto reserve rooms, and so that's
.
We originally were just gonnago down five days and I had
reserved the Polynesian for fivedays at the 11 month window.
And then it came to where myparents were gonna be down there
at the same time, my brotherand his wife were gonna be down
(18:51):
there at the same time and Idecided to add a couple days.
Well, wasn't able to getanything at the Polynesian
inside after it hits that sevenmonth mark.
So I stayed over Goddard'srooms at Saratoga, which we've
both stayed at before.
Great resort, great locale, withbeing within walking distance
to Disney Springs and you havesome different options there.
(19:12):
You can take a boat to DisneySprings, which, on the way back,
one night we did take the boatback, which is really nice or
the bus.
No other access to any of theparks, no monorail or the new
skyliner from Saratoga.
The other thing that you wouldwanna plan for if you were going
(19:36):
down there and hadn't been downthere before, is the logistics
of you know if you're staying ona Disney property.
Yes, they have the buses, butone of the things that's I
didn't appreciate.
When I was younger, my parents,my mom in particular told me
that she liked going to thedifferent resorts, the different
hotels and trying the differentrestaurants and just seeing the
(19:59):
architecture of how the youknow the theming of those other
resorts.
And when I was younger, I justwanted to do parks.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I didn't wanna any of the tests?
Yeah, you're really interestedin that stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Right when you're younger.
Now I am.
Now I like seeing that stuff.
But again, with logisticallyspeaking, there is no way to
take a bus from one resort tothe other.
You have to make a stop inbetween somewhere.
So that can be.
You know, if you wanted to goto lunch, say, at the Riviera,
(20:32):
at this place that I'd beenbefore on a previous trip called
Bar Reva, which has some areally great bacon cheeseburger
that I think I told you about,we didn't get there.
But next time you would have totake a bus to the ticket and
transportation center or a parkand then from that point take it
(20:55):
, take another bus or a skylineror something to the Riviera.
So there's always a stop thatyou have to do.
So you know, just going overthere isn't a 20, 30 minute deal
.
It can be 20 minutes to go tothe one spot and then, if you
don't catch the bus right, itcan take you 30 to 40 minutes to
(21:18):
get to your end destination atthe Riviera.
Now again, if you do yourhomework before you go, if we
were gonna do that, we would goahead and take it from the
Polynesian.
We can walk to the ticket andtransportation center.
I mean, we found that out abouthalfway through our stay of how
close that really is, I meanit's literally, it's right there
(21:39):
.
Yeah, an eighth of a mile maybe.
I mean just take a quick fourminute walk or something like
that if that.
And that's nice too.
Yeah, and so at the Polynesianwe can walk right over there and
then we could catch a directbus to one of the parks to be
able to go to a resort afterthat.
(22:01):
So that gives us a little edgelocation-wise to be able to
resort hop.
But that's something importantto remember if you've got
multiple people going andstaying at different resorts,
it's not just real, it's notjust point A to point B.
You will have a stop in between.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You've got a plan or you won't get there on time.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, it's real easy to go ahead and not have time to
do everything, but the bestadvice I can give is just do
your homework.
Some of the channels that Ilike on YouTube are the DFB
channel, disney Food Blog, whichis not just food related I
(22:47):
think at one time it was, but itjust went into pretty much all
things park related and theycover things at Disneyland and
Disney World, but it's one of myfavorites.
Yeah, I like it Again that's aDFB Disney Food Blog.
(23:07):
It's really well put together,really informative.
They've got a lot of stuff.
They've got stuff out every fewdays, so that's really great,
really well produced.
Another one that I really enjoyis Paging Mr Moro and that one.
It's basically a one man showon that one One man and then the
(23:33):
evening's one dog.
Yeah, I was gonna say one manand his dog, yep, gracie the
Dalmatian, but Nate Moro, whoruns that that channel, is just
seems like a really genuinefriendly guy.
It seems like what you see iswhat you get Very down to earth,
yeah, and very.
(23:54):
It just seems like somebodyyou'd like to hang out with on
vacation.
So, again, that's Paging MrMoro.
He doesn't just cover Disneystuff Primarily.
I see mostly Disney stuff, butI've seen stuff at Universal
Studios.
I've seen he's got family inPennsylvania and I've seen
(24:16):
things at Hershey Park that he'sdone and he's really caught on
with these.
On my YouTube channel this won'tteach you anything visually the
shirts I've worn on there froma company called Roosevelt's I
actually saw on Paging Mr Moro.
He'd been wearing them for awhile and eventually got
(24:38):
sponsored by the company and sohe's been brought out to
conventions and whatnot and Isaw just the other day it's got.
They put together a Mr Morocollection of his favorite
shirts.
Oh, really, yeah, on Facebook Isaw that.
So, but that's another greatone to watch and there are some.
(25:02):
There are a lot of differentones.
You know, I recommend mybrother's podcast, rudy's
Roundup, for Disney informationand really in-depth stuff.
That one is a Disney-centricpodcast that he puts on and it
is really informative much moreinformative than I am.
(25:23):
I'm just kind of going off thetop of my head with the resort
stay and what we enjoyed downthere on the resort side.
And you know, one of the thingsthat I really like about the
Polynesian one is the just afeel in the plants.
I know what were your thoughtson the Polynesian?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I thought that it was very relaxing to come back
after a long day at the parks.
To come back, it's very quiet,the lighting is low, especially
outside on the grounds.
You know, like you said,they've got a lot of plants and
(26:08):
foliage and stuff Tropical, yeahto look at.
But as you're walking throughthe paths you know they're kind
of they're low lit, which one ofour daughters said she wasn't
sure that she liked that becausethere wasn't a lot of light.
But I like that because youcome back from being at the
(26:30):
parks with all the noise and allthe lights.
Sensory overload yeah itdefinitely can be sensory
overload and you come back thereand it's just very relaxing.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And part of the lighting that's used around.
There are the actual torches.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, that was the other thing.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Open flame torches throughout there and then they
do have some more conventionalLED lighting in spots because,
as we figured out the nightbefore we left, when we were
doing a walk around and videoingthat, the torches seemed to go
off around one in the morning.
Yeah, we figured that out.
Closing down the walking pathsat the Polynesian.
(27:09):
The other thing that's reallygreat about the Polynesian it
sits on Seven Seas Lagoon andyou have a.
It's a man-made lake Lake andso you can't go out into the
water, and in Florida, going outinto water like that's a bad
idea, yeah, so it is roped off,but there is sand on what?
(27:34):
would be the beach, that you cango out there and sit and look
over the lagoon and you can goahead and see you're right
across from the Magic Kingdom.
And you can see Cinderella'sCastle, you can see Space
Mountain, and we stayed outthere and we watched Happily
Ever After, which is thefireworks the current fireworks
(27:54):
show at the Magic Kingdom fromover there, sat on beach chairs
Adirondack chairs Right there onthe beach and watched the
fireworks from there, which wasyou can't really see the
projection mapping on the castlefrom there, right, but you're
in.
You walk right back to yourroom in three minutes.
(28:15):
Yeah, it's great.
Yeah, instead of the again, ifyou've never been out there and
you are doing a fireworks showand you're watching it, it's a
great experience.
Until it's time to leave andthousands of other people are
trying to pile on buses back toresorts and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Well, the other thing , too, is not just when you're
leaving, but you have to planfor being able to find some
place to sit or stand to watch.
Yeah, and we just we walkedright up on the beach there at
the Polynesian.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, there were two chairs and nobody was sitting
there.
We just plopped right down andwatched the show.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm sure it's not always that way.
You have you know, when it'sreally busy, yeah, but I don't
think you'd run out of beach.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I mean, you could sit in the sand, right, I would
think.
But yeah, that's for me.
That's one of my least favoritethings is the end of the night
and and yes we know, and gettingon a bus standing back to your
resort.
You know, I mean, the buses onlyhold so many people and you
(29:21):
know you might be waiting twobuses and whatnot.
So, again, you know, homework isparamount, without going too
much into what we did in theparks because I, like I said,
I'd like to go ahead and get therest of the family on to go and
discuss that part of it.
There was an adventurous nightwe had over there at Epcot, but
(29:46):
we'll talk about that when we dothe full rundown of the
vacation with everybody therewas.
On the way back, you know it'salways at least I try and time
things out to go ahead and towhere it's not too early in the
(30:08):
morning to leave, because noneof us are morning people, nope.
And so you know, trying to getfull use of that 11 o'clock
checkout and then give you sometime maybe to eat lunch and then
take off, which is what we did,for I think our flight was at
four o'clock and getting over tothe airport.
(30:31):
One of the things that's reallyimportant for people who've
never been down there to know isthere are two airports in the
Orlando area OrlandoInternational Airport the
airport code for that is MCO,and then Sanford Orlando,
(30:52):
sanford Airport, and so youfound that out.
Well, I had known it, but I wastyping in too fast and wasn't
paying attention when we calledthe lift.
So we get, we call for the lift, get loaded up and head out,
(31:14):
and Colleen and I must have beensitting thinking the same thing
.
I was in front, she was in back.
After a while I thought, man,this has taken a lot longer than
I remember and I don't rememberseeing this stuff.
So I looked at my phone and Isaw that I had chosen a ride for
the Sanford Airport and had toask the driver.
(31:37):
I'm like, how do I stop thisride?
I need to reroute over toOrlando.
And our driver was great.
Yep, he said no problem, youknow, we'll go ahead and get it
taken care of.
And luckily we were only about23 minutes from Orlando Airport.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, we had gotten out of there early enough that
we had some extra time to makeup for that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So yeah, that was an adventure.
I'm very glad that I decided tolook down there, because we
would have pulled up to thatairport and then it would have
been a little tighter gettingout of Orlando, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I was in the back just kind of dozing and I just
thought, man, this has taken awhile, what's going on?
And then you asked, you startedasking him and I'm like, oh boy
, yep yeah, yeah, it wasn't notone of my better moments.
But yeah, like I said, I'm justglad that I didn't make that
(32:41):
mistake.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I bet you are.
I was not glad that I made it,that's for sure.
The anything else resort wisethat you enjoyed.
I know we had breakfast at KonaCafe at the Polynesian.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, that was really good.
The Tonga toast there wasreally good.
What was the Tonga toast?
That's like a really thick kindof French toast.
I mean it's a big piece ofbread, like cinnamon bread.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It's like two big slices.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And then in between they stuff it with bananas, and
then you get a strawberryCompote, yeah, to pour over it.
Yeah, and that's really goodtoo.
I mean, I could only eat maybehalf of it, I think.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
But yeah that's very highly recommended.
We did have a reservation forthe restaurant there called
Ohana, but we did cancel itbecause we were just we were
gassed from doing so manydifferent things and I think one
day again, without getting intotoo much of the resort, the
(34:04):
actual parks, we hadreservations for the girls to
build lightsabers, and rightafter that we went to August
Cantina, which is in Galaxy'sEdge, the Star Wars portion of
the Hollywood Studios Park, andso we did lightsabers, walked
around Galaxy's Edge and thenwent to August Cantina, which we
(34:24):
had reservations for.
After August Cantina, we headedback out of the park to head
over to Epcot and then we wentto the.
To head over to Epcot, which wetook the Skyliner.
That made it easy.
The Skyliner is a gondolatransportation system and as
long as there's not lightningand heavy rainstorms it's always
(34:48):
running.
And so we caught from theHollywood Studios to Epcot, rode
that, and that made that ridereally, really easy, because
those drop off at the backsideof Epcot, so if you were taking
(35:08):
buses you get dropped off at thefront, which Epcot is a park
that has a big spaceship Earthsphere.
That would be the front of thepark.
Around the other side of Epcotis what's called the World
Showcase, where they have allthese different countries
represented, and we were havinglunch in Italy and the Italian
(35:33):
pizza place, which is it's veryhard to get into A brother
pulled it off and the Skylinersdrop off right at the back of
Epcot in the World Showcase.
So we didn't have a huge longwalk to make it over there, but
it was a busy day by that point.
At that point it's 3.30 in theafternoon.
(35:54):
Yeah, cause Epcot is huge.
You can do a lot of walking atEpcot, yeah, and then it was a
food and wine festival.
Again, I'm getting into parkstuff that we'll cover when we
have everybody down to discuss.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The other thing I wanted to say that I liked was
resort wise was being able to goover to the contemporary to
take the monorail again, whichmade it really easy.
But to go over to thecontemporary they had their
quick service.
They had a ton of differentthings to eat, and Polynesian is
(36:36):
nice.
They've got some differentthings on their menu, but I'm
kind of picky.
And so is Kira and Skyler to acertain extent, but they just
had a lot of different stuff andit was easy to get over there.
That was by taking the monorail.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, the monorails are running at what seemed like
about every seven minutes onecomes by.
I could be a little off that,but it's very easy to do that,
so it's gonna be hard to, Sincewe're not going to a lot of
parks.
It won't be bad at Old Key Westbecause we'll be on a lot less
(37:15):
of a schedule.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But yeah, I think staying atthe Polynesian is worth its
weight in gold, strictly justbecause of the monorail, the
(37:36):
other things that I like.
Resort wise and again, there'ssomething.
It's just something.
It's like there's something foreverybody when it comes to
those resorts.
Saratoga is infinitelydifferent than the Polynesian.
Saratoga is modeled after thehorse racing culture of Saratoga
(38:00):
Springs, new York.
Polynesian is exactly what itsounds like it's tropical.
All the plants and the flora isall tropical.
There's little waterfalls up inthe lobby when you're coming in
.
Again, the torches when you comein, a lot of Maui, yeah, Maui
the Tiki God when you enter theentrance, not the Dwayne Johnson
(38:25):
version of Maui from Milana,but a Tiki God right there in
the main lobby.
If you Google the Polynesian,you'll see it right away.
We also the next morning thesecond morning we were there.
That'd be the first morningbecause we got in the afternoon.
So the next morning we got upand went to Boma, which is at
(38:51):
the Animal Kingdom Lodge, whichis African themed and very, very
well done as far as the lobbyand things like that.
I'll be putting up some of ourfootage that we took on this
trip on the YouTube channel herein the next week or so, once I
(39:12):
get everything edited.
So some of the stuff I'mtalking about here you'll be
able to see when I go ahead andget that up on the YouTube
channel.
Again, this won't teach youanything visually and you'll be
able to see some of these thingsthat we're talking about,
colleen, anything closingthoughts here on the trip as it
relates to the resorts that youenjoyed.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I did like the fact that they were able to change
our room from the initial roomthat we had.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That's right.
We got into a room at thePolynesian that was a little
further away than we wanted tobe from the lobby area, which is
called the Great CeremonialHouse.
It's where the shops are, wherethe Quick Service Restaurant
and the Ohana and Kona are.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Oh, and don't forget the Lanai.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Pineapple Lanai, which is where you can get Dole
Whip, Dole Whip, Pineapple SoftServe Ice Cream.
And, yeah, being able to getthat every day is a plus if you
choose to do so.
Dole Whip Legendary Treat downat Disney World.
(40:28):
So, yeah, that's having itright, there is a plus.
But yeah, the cast members wereable to go ahead and get
Colleen taken care of.
The building we were in wascalled Pago Pago and it's a
little further away than wewanted to be.
Again from the Great CeremonialHouse Would be great if you
(40:50):
were going to the TicketTransportation Center.
I think that's the closestbuilding to that, but a little.
I mean we're not talking half amile, but just further than we
wanted to be, and it soundstrivial that it's too far away
from-.
But it never hurts to ask.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, and the thing is is that once you're there,
you start to understand howimportant it is to be kind of
closer to the lobby and theQuick Service and you know the
pools and things like that Notthe pools so much, but the lobby
and the Quick Service.
(41:28):
You know the shops and thingsbecause you have a lot of
walking when you're at the parks.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
A lot of walking and the Monterey Rail Station is at
the Great Ceremonial House, soto get over there, to that you
do need to.
So she just called down andasked if there was, if we could
get into a building calledTokulao, and they said, no
problem, we'll have somethingfor you tomorrow.
(41:56):
And so they took care of thatand I think that room was ready
at like 8.30 in the morning andso that was really nice.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
That building was right there and so and it was on
the third floor, which is whatwe wanted.
It was close to the elevatorand the ice machine and the
vending machines.
It was just all around.
You know, nice yeah, when theygot us.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, yeah, so that's that was.
I think it's recognized thatwhen you know it's, let's not
fool ourselves.
It is not cheap to do a tripdown there, and so you would
expect that that the servicewould be part of what you're
paying for, and in that instanceit worked out very well.
There was no back and forth oranything.
(42:51):
It was yeah, we'll take care ofyou.
Yeah, so that was, that wasgood.
I think that's a good spot toend this one on talking about
resorts and things that weenjoyed down there, and we'll go
and get our thoughts together,have the kids get their thoughts
together on on what theyenjoyed, and finish that one up
(43:14):
next time.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Sounds good.
So thank you for taking some ofyour time out of your busy
schedule to go ahead and discussthis.
It was great having you on hereafter a couple of years of not
having you on.
You seem like a natural.
You seem like it's somethingthat that you've been wanting to
do, and maybe even start yourown show.
(43:40):
Is that your attitude or is itmore?
I've got a lot of these buttonsand I've been dying to use them
.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I'd say more.
The first one Nice.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
So again, colleen, thanks for coming on and we will
see you upstairs.
Yeah, all right, thanks.
So there you have it, thelatest episode of this Won't
Teach you Anything.
Again, I want to thank my wife,colleen, for being so kind to
come on and talk about herexperiences down there at the
(44:13):
Disney Resort Polynesian Villasand Bungalows.
It really was a great time andI can't wait to talk about the
rest of it.
So again, as always, you can goahead and reach the show via
email at thiswon'tteach, atgmailcom, on Twitter or X, at
thiswon'tteach, instagram, atthis underscore won't underscore
teach, underscore, youunderscore anything.
(44:35):
And on Facebook at this won'tteach.
Now, again, I did mention theYouTube channel I have.
This won't teach you anythingvisually, got a couple of videos
up there.
Give it a like and a subscribe.
If it's something that youthink that you'll watch, I'd
really appreciate it.
And again, thank you for allyour support on the podcast, and
if there's any ideas you have,shoot them over to me.
(44:57):
We can go ahead and see if it'ssomething we can fit in or
maybe even have a guest join uson the show.
So again, thank you for yoursupport.
And this has been this Won'tTeach you Anything.
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