January 10, 2025 • 27 mins
Tony Desiere shares his insights from a surprise family trip to Walt Disney World during the busy holiday season, highlighting ten key observations about the Magic Kingdom. One of the main takeaways is how surprisingly efficient the ride lines were, even on one of the busiest days of the year. He discusses the ongoing evolution of the park's attractions and services, reflecting on the changes since his childhood visits.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Universal Studios
- Walt Disney World
- Magic Kingdom
- Hollywood Studios
- Casey's Corner
- Pinocchio Village Haus
- Haunted Mansion
- Rivers of America
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign it is Wands andWishes, your podcast on Universal
Studios and the Walt DisneyWorld Resort.
I'm Tony Desiri of all theMagic Travel.
My podcast partner LaurenMallard, she is not able to join
us this week under theweather, but plans to be back next
(00:21):
week and next week's podcastwe will be talking about 2025 and
what's on the horizon for bothUniversal Studios and Walt Disney
World including ride closures,the opening of EP Universe, some
deal packages that you can getin the upcoming season, things like
that.
So be on the lookout for that.
Please subscribe and like thepodcast and you know, share it with
friends if you enjoy whatwe're doing and giving you all the
(00:43):
information and ourexperiences with going down to the
theme park World in Orlando Ihad a chance to go to Walt Disney
World on December 27, two daysafter the Christmas holiday.
It was a surprise trip for mywife and my two college age children.
Chance for us to get a littlenostalgic as we walked around the
Magic Kingdom like we did whenthey were little.
And I came up with a couple ofobservations that I want to share
(01:05):
in the podcast.
Now.
Whenever somebody does anobservation podcast, some of the
observations are prettyobvious, but they may not be obvious
to either everybody or theperson that is delivering them.
And that's certainly going tobe the case with my list.
Some of these you're going toroll your eyes and say, yeah, we've
known that for a long time.
And some of them you mightsay, oh, I didn't see that way.
So I just wanted to give youmy thoughts on 10 Things I Noticed
(01:29):
about Walt Disney World,particularly Magic Kingdom while
I was there for one day, fullday, while two days after the Christmas
holiday.
And it was a cool surprise.
It was really neat.
We want, we're thinking, wewere thinking about doing it, but
kind of wanted to see what thelay of the land was like and next
thing you know, boom.
We were surprised with a daytrip to go down to Disney World.
(01:50):
So I've been to Disney Worldmany, many times as Lauren and I
have talked about it's it'sone of our favorite vacation spots
for my wife and I.
We took the kids many, many times.
I grew up going to Disney World.
My parents lived down there.
They're senior citizens.
They've got retired down in Ocala.
They have season passes, theyenjoy the theme park.
So it's been a part of my lifesince I was about 8 or 9 years old.
(02:10):
But I've been there duringbusy times and I knew What I was
expecting going to Walt DisneyWorld on December 27th of all dates.
We all knew as we were drivingin what the day was going to be like
in terms of crowd wise.
So Here are the 10observations that I have and again,
roll your eyes at some, but Ihope some of them are a little bit
more eye opening.
And the first one is, I knewthe crowds were long, but I was surprised
(02:33):
how quick the, the lines movedfor some of the attractions, not
all the attractions, but for alot of the attractions.
And here's why I was surprisedby that.
When I was young and I went toDisney World, one of the things about
going to amusement parks as akid was you knew when you were in
a line for a major rollercoaster, the line wasn't designed
(02:53):
to really move very fast.
They'd load, they'd unload,you would move ahead, you'd kind
of wait for the ride to bedone and then you'd load and unload
and then the ride come backand you'd load and unload, etc.
Etc.
Until you finally got on the ride.
And when I went to DisneyWorld for the first time in 1982,
I was very young, but I wasstill smart enough to realize that
(03:15):
Disney was doing things differently.
They were unloading passengersbefore the loading area.
There was a continuous ride loop.
You know, they, they the sortof the, the mover system of on conveyor
belts to get on rides.
So they did a good job ofmoving lines.
Well, that had always workedfor Disney.
And then other theme parksstarted copying that.
(03:38):
But when Fast Pass becameavailable, it bogged down the system
a little bit.
Not tremendously, but itbogged it down enough.
You'd be in line in thestandby line, there'd be a bunch
of people coming in for fast passes.
But what happened with theGenie plus was something that drove
everybody crazy because if youhad a fast pass for a ride, that
(04:00):
line was long.
And if you were in standby,forget it.
You're hardly ever getting on now.
They've tweaked it up now withyou've got the lightning lane, you
could buy the lightning lane.
But I was surprised howquickly the lines were moving, even
with long wait times.
I was at Pirates and the linewas outside.
I've never seen the line outside.
Deep, deep, deep.
(04:20):
In Pirates of the Caravanthey've got a very long queue inside
the building.
I've never seen it wrap aroundthe building.
And so we decided, you know,why not let's get in this line, we're
going to we want to ride oneof the classics.
Let's all get in it.
We never stopped moving.
Never stopped moving.
The moment we were in theline, we just kept inching forward
all the time.
And I think for a lot ofpeople, when you go on a ride and
(04:43):
you are waiting in line, ifyou can get that line moving all
the time, it takes a lot ofthe anxiety of being in a long line,
of feeling like most of yourday is being spent standing in line,
if you can get the line tojust feel like you're making progress
all the time.
And that happened to us onSeven Doors Mine Train.
(05:03):
It happened to us on Space Mountain.
It happened to us on Pirates.
It happened to us on Haunted Mansion.
There were a number of lineswhere we went, that's a long line.
Let's get in it.
But it just constantly kept moving.
Now, there was one examplethat where that didn't happen, and
that was Buzz Lightyear.
I'm going to get to that laterin this podcast.
(05:24):
But for the most part, everyline moved at a good clip.
Now, I don't know how theLightning Lanes look like they were
sold out for the day.
I don't know if they weremanaging them a little bit better.
Right.
Making sure that those who getthem could use them effectively and
those who didn't get themweren't really deterred and had a
(05:45):
bad experience because theycouldn't get them.
Yeah, we thought as a familyabout buying it, but by the time
we were surprised with it,most of the rides were sold out.
Most of the Lightning Lane andthe tiers, we're.
We're.
We're gone.
So we just went without it.
And the purpose of our daywasn't really to see as many rides
as possible.
We'd all been on many of therides there.
We'd all experienced Disney World.
(06:05):
We were just there to have afamily fun.
But I was really impressedwith, again, of the movement of the
lines and how in the busiestday, one of the busiest weeks Disney
World has it did not feel likeI was overwhelmed by how long I was
waiting to ride some of the attractions.
All right, my secondobservation, and I know this is going
to be controversial, some ofyou are going to agree with me, and
(06:26):
some of you are really goingto disagree with me with this.
And that is the Liberty Belle Riverboat.
That can go now.
That can go.
I have never been on theLiberty Bell Riverboat.
Never.
I don't know why I haven't.
I've been to Disney World somany times, I can't count it was
never an attraction that Iwanted to go on.
It was never something thatappealed to me.
(06:48):
I do remember a number ofyears ago, I said to my wife, we
were with the kids, and Isaid, you know what?
I want to get back to Magic Kingdom.
We were at, I think, Hollywood Studios.
We had the Hopper Pass.
And I said, you know what?
We should go to Magic Kingdomlater tonight.
I want to ride the riverboat.
I never ridden it.
I think it's the only thing Ihave never done.
I want to get.
We never.
We didn't do it.
(07:08):
Something got.
We got lost.
I said, I forget it.
We're not going to do it.
Never went on it.
When we got to the park, mywife wanted to watch the parade,
which was scheduled at noon.
She wanted to get an early spot.
We got there kind of a littlelater in the.
In the morning, and my son andI just decided to walk around the
park, see what was around, seehow busy it was.
We just passed the riverboat.
It was wide open.
(07:29):
No one was in line for it.
I went up to the cast member,I said, how?
What?
When is it launching?
He said, a couple minutes.
It's 20 minutes around.
I said, great, let's just jumpon it.
My son and I chatted about hiscollege, some life things, and when
it was done, I went, allright, I did it.
I know people want to keep this.
I know there's some symmetryto this attraction.
(07:49):
Rivers of America that sort ofcomes together in the Frontierland
experience.
And they're afraid that withcars and that not being part of a
western sort of atmosphere,that something is going to be lost.
I'm okay with it.
I am.
I'm okay with it.
I know some of you aren't, butI am.
I was initially like, this isgonna be weird to not have the riverboat.
(08:12):
Now I'm on the riverboat.
I'm good with it.
I will say this.
It does give you an awesomeview of the Haunted Mansion in a
different angle than I've ever had.
So I took a number of picturesof the Haunted man, my favorite attraction.
I got to see it, see it in adifferent way because of the riverboat,
but the Liberty Bell, I'm notgonna miss it.
I.
I'm just not gonna miss it.
(08:32):
Number three, if you go toDisney World after Christmas for
a period of time, you canwatch the magical Christmas parade
that they have there.
That is.
That accompanies the Mickey'sMerry Christmas Party.
And you can see the actualChristmas parade, the Once Upon a
Christmas Time Parade.
And I've seen all the videosand many of you have seen all the
(08:55):
videos of Tally the Elf.
He is a real celebrity.
I was getting kind of tired ofthe tie of the Tally the Elf tick
tocks and, you know, over andover and over and over again.
But I get it, I get it.
When he was coming down, thisis when everybody was kind of going
a little.
There was a buzz about Tallythe Elf.
(09:15):
Everyone had their cameras outanyway, taking pictures of all the
characters.
But when Tally came down,everyone was screaming.
And I remember going, allright, this is real.
This, this social mediaphenomenon had, had just caught lightning
in a bottle and Tally the Elfwas eating it up.
He stayed in character, but hemade sure to kind of go around, smile
(09:38):
at people, do the thing withthe list, et cetera.
Even though it was afterChristmas, he, he really plays that
part well.
That cast member plays thatrole really well.
And I, I got to experience it firsthand.
It was kind of neat.
I was a little starstruck.
It was kind of cool to seesomebody who's been getting so much
(09:58):
attention on social media.
It's a real Disney celebrity.
I don't know what happens toTally the Elf going forward with
the Christmas time being doneand what he might be a part of next
year's parade.
I don't know if there'll besomething else people will be into.
It'll be something else theymay emphasize.
But in 2024, the tally elfinTally the Elf phenomenon was pretty
wild.
(10:19):
All right, my fourthobservation, this is the one I was
talking about earlier, right?
So many of you are going tohear this and you're gonna go, yeah,
duh.
Right.
But I, I'm going to prefacethis by saying I'm really reluctant
sometimes to dive in to mobile technology.
All right?
There's something about itthat I don't know if it's because
of my age.
(10:40):
I'm a, you know, I'm olderthan the generation that will always
have this and will always use this.
But mobile ordering your foodis absolutely the way to go.
Now, here's the thing.
I, I get, I get it.
I'm in.
I'm in the technology business.
I'm in.
I'm in broadcasting.
I'm in.
I mean, the advancements thatwe've had in radio and television
(11:02):
have been fantastic.
I've embraced all of that.
There's something about when Igo to, to a theme park that I don't
necessarily want to be soshackled to my phone.
And I've been very reluctantto absorb that.
Technology into my theme park experience.
I don't mind going on checkingwait times, but I just don't want
(11:27):
to be managing my entire dayon an app.
Right.
So even something as simple asmobile checkout for merchandise,
it just.
I'd rather just go to the lineand wait for the young lady to tell
me register four is open andjust buy it.
(11:47):
That way I understand howgreat it is and convenient it is,
but I think I have ageneration that just doesn't embrace
that stuff as well as ayounger generation.
But mobile app ordering, mywife said, no, this is how we're
doing this.
After our parade experience,everyone wanted a hot dog.
At Casey's Corner, we found atable, which is impossible to do,
(12:09):
but somehow we did.
Luckily, there was a couplethat was like, you guys want this?
And we were like, yes.
Just went on the app, orderedthe food, waited for it to come up.
It came up.
My son and my wife went to goget it.
My daughter and I stuckaround, saved the table.
Boom, done.
And we did it again atPinocchio Village House later when
(12:29):
we got our flatbread pizzas.
Way to go.
All right.
I know some of you are rollingyour eyes at that because you use
it and it's awesome and you'vebeen using it forever.
I'm in.
I'm in.
I'm on T.
Mobile ordering number five.
Disney should have a linemonitor if they're going to be very
long.
This is what I was talkingabout earlier.
So there was one exception tothe line not moving as quickly as
(12:55):
we had experienced that day,and that was at Buzz Lightyear.
So we were.
We came off the people mover.
We went over to Buzz lightyear.
It said 45 minute wait.
We were like, yeah, we alwayshave a good time on that ride.
We have fun competitions.
Let's go.
Let's wait.
We're good.
But that line didn't move.
(13:17):
That line wasn't like theother lines that we felt like, man,
we're always progressing,always moving forward.
That line was pretty slow.
And we.
I kept saying, guys, you wantto stay in this line?
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
I was like, yeah, I'm kind ofcommitted now.
We've been in it for half an hour.
Like, I kept doing that thingwhere you.
(13:38):
You sort of justify, like, howmuch time you've given to something
and not getting a payoff.
But, man, we were crawling.
Absolutely crawling.
I said, well, once we get intothe building, it'll be fine.
Well, we got into the buildingand it wasn't fine.
And I looked and I saw theLightning Lane line.
That was as long as the line Iwas in.
(13:59):
And then we found out that theride kept breaking down and the ride
just kept stopping.
They had to wait.
Yeah, they fix and they getgoing again.
Then it would stop and keepgoing again.
That was what we had heard.
And in this way I think Disneyowes it to the people that are that
they can see waiting in verylong lines that they know is an hour.
(14:21):
There's a guy standing with a,you know, a sign like he's in another
place within the park that'snot that close to the right.
But he's like, this is wherethe line begins or ends.
I should say this is the end line.
Get in this line.
There's got to be a way tocommunicate to the people, hey, so
ride's having some technical difficulties.
It's no longer the 45 minuteswe told you it, it, it's having if
(14:45):
you to make a better decisionrather than just keeping people guessing
as to what's going on.
Now I get it.
Some people are going tofigure it out.
Some really experienced peopleare going to say yeah, no, no, no.
I, I, if I went from point Ato point B in X amount of time that's
way too long for a ride like this.
I know it's ride capacity, Iknow it's load and unload mechanism.
(15:09):
Something's not quite right.
But not everybody is like that.
So again, not everyone.
But every now and then sendsomebody into a deep line and say,
hey, this is what's happeningright now.
Maybe that's grumpy old medoing that, I don't know.
But I, I just would like tosee that happen.
(15:29):
It did was not necess on SpaceMountain, on Pirates 7 dwarves, mine
train on rides again that hadlong extensions beyond its border
but yet moved quickly.
I didn't need that.
But Buzz Lightyear, I couldtell something was not quite right.
Number six, Space Mountain andJungle Cruise.
And the Christmas overlays are fantastic.
(15:51):
If you hadn't had a chance toat least experience that, I really
urge you to do so.
I, I get Christmas time is avery stressful time to go to the
parks.
Even if you're going December10th, even if you're going December
15th, if you have kids andthey're in school, I get it.
But if somehow you can make itto that park to experience some of
the extra Christmy things thatcan occur with these attractions,
(16:13):
I highly recommend it.
Space Mountain with the redand the green lighting and the rock
and roll Christmas music was fantastic.
Jungle Cruise, which we didn'tride, but I have ridden in the past
with its Christmas overlay.
It's always fun to do.
So I highly recommend those.
That's a very quickobservation, but I did want to bring
that out because I know someof you have not been able to go down
to Disney World at Christmas time.
(16:34):
They do a lot more than theChristmas parade and a tree and some,
some nice decorations.
There's really some cooldifferent experiences that you can
have with a Christmassy theme.
Seven is another obviousobservation, but I want to, want
to stress especially whenyou're planning to go to Disney and
I don't care when you go.
This is, this advice fitsperfectly because we had a perfect
(16:57):
example of this when we wereat a capacity filled park and that
was do rides during the parade time.
Nail the parade times.
All right.
If you got a parade at noonand 3:00, know when 3:00 is coming.
If you've seen the parade, thefirst iteration and know when 3:00
is coming, head over to yourfavorite attractions.
(17:18):
The lines are exponentiallyshorter when people are gearing up
for those parades.
You can start at like 2:00 fora 3:00 parade.
You could start at 11:00 for a12:00 parade.
People want their space.
They're willing to stay anhour for it.
It's one of the main reasonsthey're there.
And so really manage yourtime, especially if you're doing
(17:42):
it like us, which was off thecuff, no tied into, no fast passes
or anything like that.
Get on those lines that youwant to do as soon as those parades
start or getting close tostarting dramatically.
Ch.
We did Haunted Mansion andthat was a ride that just flew.
Hardly anyone was in linewhile everyone was waiting for the
(18:02):
parade number eight.
Again, some of you do this,but some of you can't.
So I want to preface this observation.
If the park is open late,10:00, 11:00, plan to stay as late
as possible.
Look, if I had a choice, if Iwasn't going, rope drop to close,
(18:26):
if I knew my family justwasn't going to do a 6am Wake up,
drive to the park, stand inline, get on the monorail.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait, wait.
Rope drop, Boom.
Stay till it closes.
If I knew we were going tohave to, you know, chill out a little
bit in the morning, have alittle breakfast, get there a little
bit later as the park'srolling along, I would, I would always,
(18:50):
always choose to stay late,rather than get there early.
If I only could do a portionof the day.
Let's say the park is open for15 hours and I was only going to
do 10 of those hours.
I would backload that dayrather than front load that day.
Now, some of you are rope droppers.
I get it.
I hear from you all the timerope dropping is the way I've done
(19:11):
it before.
But if I'm gonna not do opento close, I'm back ending it.
I think Disney World at nightis magical.
One day we're gonna do apodcast on the after hours event
that I did, I got to do twoyears ago that I would love to do
in 2025 again at another park.
I think it's fantastic.
We'll talk about that inanother podcast.
I think the night, thenighttime at Disney World is wonderful.
(19:34):
The late night at 1 at WaltDisney World is even better.
Parents, young kids, they'reall fleeing that park as soon as
those fireworks are done.
That's Walt's kiss good night.
You can see him pouring out ofthe park.
And there's still three hourson the clock or two hours on the
clock.
So again, we were there pretty late.
(19:55):
My wife had slipped and fellat the aerial ride.
And so our day was cut short alittle bit, but we still stayed enough
to sort of really, we kind ofhung around late.
And then it's an easy get onthe boat or the monorail.
Get to the parking lot.
You're not fighting a hugeline to get on the monorail.
Not finding a huge crowd of,of just cramped people on the boat.
Stay late.
(20:17):
Especially if you're going ina holiday time where the park is
really, really crowded.
You can get, you can getrides, you can get merchandise at
a little bit more.
Less stressful wait time orcrowd experience.
If you stay on the back end ofthe park.
Number nine, get the magicBand plus.
(20:39):
Treat yourself.
Trust me, it's fine.
Even if you're an adult andyou don't have time for the silliness,
it's cool.
I'll tell you a quick story.
My wife and I went down inSeptember and I have a magic Band
plus.
I got it, My kids got it, kindof got it for me.
And it's cool.
Magic band.
My wife had a normal one, theregular one, the Winnie the Pooh,
that's her character.
(21:00):
So she had a normal one.
Well, I didn't do a lot ofresearch into Magic Band plus and
I was walking around the parkand all of a sudden it's going off
all the Time.
It's buzzing all the time.
And as I explained earlier,I'm not really a big technology person.
I just use it to get in andout of the parks, if it's attached
to my credit card, if I'mstaying there, and, you know, all
(21:20):
the things you normally use it for.
So I.
I went up to a cast member.
They said, what exactly isthis buzzing for?
And they explained to me whatit was.
Oh, if you go off by a statue,you can wave it.
It'll talk.
There's all these other thingsyou can do with it.
It's.
There's a little bit more.
The fireworks go off.
It lights up in the colors ofthe fireworks.
(21:41):
There's so many.
So cool.
So I was using it, and my wifedidn't get to experience it because
she had a regular magic band.
I said to her, do you want amagic band Plush?
She goes, no, I'm fine.
I said, okay.
We were at the fireworks atEpcot, and mine's going off like
crazy.
I mean, it's lighting up.
It's got all the different colors.
It's really cool.
(22:01):
And my wife goes, that's neat.
You know what?
I'm jealous.
And I'm waving it.
I went to the Winnie the Poohstatue at Magic Kingdom.
I'm waving it.
It's talking.
She's kind of like, oh, now Igotta get one.
So I got her one.
It was my little extraChristmas present to her.
And we had so much fun using it.
Like, we're just adults.
We're Disney adults waving it.
(22:24):
Statues are talking to us.
Like, someone told us about agame you can play on the app where
you visit all the statues.
We.
We just loved it.
Fireworks went off later that night.
It's going off.
My wife is just enjoying it.
Get the MagicBand.
Plus, I know it's.
I know it's costly.
It's close to, like, 50 bucks,but I.
It's.
It's really cool.
It's a really cool addition.
App at number 10.
(22:45):
This is my final observationon this podcast of my experience
at the one day I had duringthe Christmas holidays is know what
you're getting into when youdecide to do this.
Okay?
Now, again, we were surprisedwith the trip.
So it's kind of cool.
Great.
But we're Disney experts.
We've been there many, many times.
We knew what the day was.
(23:05):
That's why we didn't get tothe park early.
We didn't fight the crowds.
We didn't fight the trafficgetting in.
Everyone got to sleep in alittle Bit we're a family where again,
as I mentioned earlier, weweren't there to see everything.
We had seen it many, many,many times.
We were just gonna have fun,do what we could, but mostly have
(23:27):
fun as a family.
We're at a point in our family.
We're all kind of going ourseparate ways a little bit.
My wife and I are empty nesters.
My kids are starting to buildtheir life in college out of college.
We're just having a good time together.
If you are planning a trip andit's your first time down there,
or maybe you haven't been in10 years, know what you're getting
into.
It's packed.
(23:48):
It's packed.
So when you get that, you getall the frustrations of a crowd.
There's a billion strollers,there's a billion scooters, there's
lines that go again beyond theboundary of the ride and you don't
know what it is until you seethe person holding the sign.
The parades, if you don't geta good spot, you're not going to
(24:08):
see it.
People start lining up an hour before.
Now if you go in September,it's a little easier.
If you go during again the nonpeak hours, it's a little easier.
But know what you're going toget into.
It's magical.
I can use all of thedescriptive language that they would,
they, they would advertise,it's all of those things.
(24:31):
But we knew exactly when wewere there, what we were expecting
and because of thoseexpectations, there were hardly any
frustrations at all.
Right.
Everyone in the car on the waythrough the arch, down the road to
(24:51):
the parking lot to the monorail.
Everyone in my family thatwent that day knew exactly what was
going to happen when we walkedinto the park.
And because of that again,you're not stressed to ride everything,
you're not stressed to see everything.
I would recommend if you'renot, if you do not go a a lot, try
(25:15):
to get down there during nonpeak hours so you can experience
everything.
So that later down the roadwhen you want to do a at a time where
you know it's 50000 people,whatever it is, and it's near capacity
that you're going to be ableto say I want the Disney Christmas
Experience.
But I'm not pressured to ride Tron.
I'm not pressured to ride Tianis.
(25:36):
Those were two rides.
We didn't do those standbys onTron with close to two hours.
We didn't even because againof, of, of a last minute sort of
surprise trip.
We didn't get a in the queueto get Tiana's.
We weren't, we didn't get itup, get up that early to put it together.
Didn't matter.
We, we've all kind of beenthere done that.
(25:59):
But if you're a family thathasn't been there done that, I would
go during the non peak hours,see it all if you can then do it
at a, at a time where you canhave a little bit more of your expectations.
Sort of managed.
I highly recommend it.
So again, those are myobservations again on my surprise
one day Disney World excursionwhile we were down visiting my folks
(26:20):
for the holiday season.
It was again, for somebodythat is watching his kids grow and,
and sort of, you know,formulating their own life, it was
really cool to have a familyDisney moment together again.
They that's, that's the way wesort of remember a lot of our vacations
and it was kind of neat to doit again.
So that's going to do it forthis edition of Wands and wishes.
(26:40):
Again, my 10 observations fromour one day Disney Christmas Day
at the Magic Kingdom.
Please like and subscribe thepodcast if you like what we're doing.
Lauren Mallard will be backnext week.
Again, we'll be looking aheadto 2025.
There are two ways to reach us.
For me,travelwithtonydmail.com for Lauren
laurenlthemagictravel.com Onceagain, please subscribe like podcast
(27:02):
really help us build thealgorithms up as we head into 2025
and beyond.
Thanks for listening.
It's the Wands and Wishes podcast.
Foreign it is Wands andWishes, your podcast on Universal
Studios and the Walt DisneyWorld Resort.
I'm Tony Desiri of all theMagic Travel.
My podcast partner LaurenMallard, she is not able to join
us this week under theweather, but plans to be back next
(00:21):
week and next week's podcastwe will be talking about 2025 and
what's on the horizon for bothUniversal Studios and Walt Disney
World including ride closures,the opening of EP Universe, some
deal packages that you can getin the upcoming season, things like
that.
So be on the lookout for that.
Please subscribe and like thepodcast and you know, share it with
friends if you enjoy whatwe're doing and giving you all the
(00:43):
information and ourexperiences with going down to the
theme park World in Orlando Ihad a chance to go to Walt Disney
World on December 27, two daysafter the Christmas holiday.
It was a surprise trip for mywife and my two college age children.
Chance for us to get a littlenostalgic as we walked around the
Magic Kingdom like we did whenthey were little.
And I came up with a couple ofobservations that I want to share
(01:05):
in the podcast.
Now.
Whenever somebody does anobservation podcast, some of the
observations are prettyobvious, but they may not be obvious
to either everybody or theperson that is delivering them.
And that's certainly going tobe the case with my list.
Some of these you're going toroll your eyes and say, yeah, we've
known that for a long time.
And some of them you mightsay, oh, I didn't see that way.
So I just wanted to give youmy thoughts on 10 Things I Noticed
(01:29):
about Walt Disney World,particularly Magic Kingdom while
I was there for one day, fullday, while two days after the Christmas
holiday.
And it was a cool surprise.
It was really neat.
We want, we're thinking, wewere thinking about doing it, but
kind of wanted to see what thelay of the land was like and next
thing you know, boom.
We were surprised with a daytrip to go down to Disney World.
(01:50):
So I've been to Disney Worldmany, many times as Lauren and I
have talked about it's it'sone of our favorite vacation spots
for my wife and I.
We took the kids many, many times.
I grew up going to Disney World.
My parents lived down there.
They're senior citizens.
They've got retired down in Ocala.
They have season passes, theyenjoy the theme park.
So it's been a part of my lifesince I was about 8 or 9 years old.
(02:10):
But I've been there duringbusy times and I knew What I was
expecting going to Walt DisneyWorld on December 27th of all dates.
We all knew as we were drivingin what the day was going to be like
in terms of crowd wise.
So Here are the 10observations that I have and again,
roll your eyes at some, but Ihope some of them are a little bit
more eye opening.
And the first one is, I knewthe crowds were long, but I was surprised
(02:33):
how quick the, the lines movedfor some of the attractions, not
all the attractions, but for alot of the attractions.
And here's why I was surprisedby that.
When I was young and I went toDisney World, one of the things about
going to amusement parks as akid was you knew when you were in
a line for a major rollercoaster, the line wasn't designed
(02:53):
to really move very fast.
They'd load, they'd unload,you would move ahead, you'd kind
of wait for the ride to bedone and then you'd load and unload
and then the ride come backand you'd load and unload, etc.
Etc.
Until you finally got on the ride.
And when I went to DisneyWorld for the first time in 1982,
I was very young, but I wasstill smart enough to realize that
(03:15):
Disney was doing things differently.
They were unloading passengersbefore the loading area.
There was a continuous ride loop.
You know, they, they the sortof the, the mover system of on conveyor
belts to get on rides.
So they did a good job ofmoving lines.
Well, that had always workedfor Disney.
And then other theme parksstarted copying that.
(03:38):
But when Fast Pass becameavailable, it bogged down the system
a little bit.
Not tremendously, but itbogged it down enough.
You'd be in line in thestandby line, there'd be a bunch
of people coming in for fast passes.
But what happened with theGenie plus was something that drove
everybody crazy because if youhad a fast pass for a ride, that
(04:00):
line was long.
And if you were in standby,forget it.
You're hardly ever getting on now.
They've tweaked it up now withyou've got the lightning lane, you
could buy the lightning lane.
But I was surprised howquickly the lines were moving, even
with long wait times.
I was at Pirates and the linewas outside.
I've never seen the line outside.
Deep, deep, deep.
(04:20):
In Pirates of the Caravanthey've got a very long queue inside
the building.
I've never seen it wrap aroundthe building.
And so we decided, you know,why not let's get in this line, we're
going to we want to ride oneof the classics.
Let's all get in it.
We never stopped moving.
Never stopped moving.
The moment we were in theline, we just kept inching forward
all the time.
And I think for a lot ofpeople, when you go on a ride and
(04:43):
you are waiting in line, ifyou can get that line moving all
the time, it takes a lot ofthe anxiety of being in a long line,
of feeling like most of yourday is being spent standing in line,
if you can get the line tojust feel like you're making progress
all the time.
And that happened to us onSeven Doors Mine Train.
(05:03):
It happened to us on Space Mountain.
It happened to us on Pirates.
It happened to us on Haunted Mansion.
There were a number of lineswhere we went, that's a long line.
Let's get in it.
But it just constantly kept moving.
Now, there was one examplethat where that didn't happen, and
that was Buzz Lightyear.
I'm going to get to that laterin this podcast.
(05:24):
But for the most part, everyline moved at a good clip.
Now, I don't know how theLightning Lanes look like they were
sold out for the day.
I don't know if they weremanaging them a little bit better.
Right.
Making sure that those who getthem could use them effectively and
those who didn't get themweren't really deterred and had a
(05:45):
bad experience because theycouldn't get them.
Yeah, we thought as a familyabout buying it, but by the time
we were surprised with it,most of the rides were sold out.
Most of the Lightning Lane andthe tiers, we're.
We're.
We're gone.
So we just went without it.
And the purpose of our daywasn't really to see as many rides
as possible.
We'd all been on many of therides there.
We'd all experienced Disney World.
(06:05):
We were just there to have afamily fun.
But I was really impressedwith, again, of the movement of the
lines and how in the busiestday, one of the busiest weeks Disney
World has it did not feel likeI was overwhelmed by how long I was
waiting to ride some of the attractions.
All right, my secondobservation, and I know this is going
to be controversial, some ofyou are going to agree with me, and
(06:26):
some of you are really goingto disagree with me with this.
And that is the Liberty Belle Riverboat.
That can go now.
That can go.
I have never been on theLiberty Bell Riverboat.
Never.
I don't know why I haven't.
I've been to Disney World somany times, I can't count it was
never an attraction that Iwanted to go on.
It was never something thatappealed to me.
(06:48):
I do remember a number ofyears ago, I said to my wife, we
were with the kids, and Isaid, you know what?
I want to get back to Magic Kingdom.
We were at, I think, Hollywood Studios.
We had the Hopper Pass.
And I said, you know what?
We should go to Magic Kingdomlater tonight.
I want to ride the riverboat.
I never ridden it.
I think it's the only thing Ihave never done.
I want to get.
We never.
We didn't do it.
(07:08):
Something got.
We got lost.
I said, I forget it.
We're not going to do it.
Never went on it.
When we got to the park, mywife wanted to watch the parade,
which was scheduled at noon.
She wanted to get an early spot.
We got there kind of a littlelater in the.
In the morning, and my son andI just decided to walk around the
park, see what was around, seehow busy it was.
We just passed the riverboat.
It was wide open.
(07:29):
No one was in line for it.
I went up to the cast member,I said, how?
What?
When is it launching?
He said, a couple minutes.
It's 20 minutes around.
I said, great, let's just jumpon it.
My son and I chatted about hiscollege, some life things, and when
it was done, I went, allright, I did it.
I know people want to keep this.
I know there's some symmetryto this attraction.
(07:49):
Rivers of America that sort ofcomes together in the Frontierland
experience.
And they're afraid that withcars and that not being part of a
western sort of atmosphere,that something is going to be lost.
I'm okay with it.
I am.
I'm okay with it.
I know some of you aren't, butI am.
I was initially like, this isgonna be weird to not have the riverboat.
(08:12):
Now I'm on the riverboat.
I'm good with it.
I will say this.
It does give you an awesomeview of the Haunted Mansion in a
different angle than I've ever had.
So I took a number of picturesof the Haunted man, my favorite attraction.
I got to see it, see it in adifferent way because of the riverboat,
but the Liberty Bell, I'm notgonna miss it.
I.
I'm just not gonna miss it.
(08:32):
Number three, if you go toDisney World after Christmas for
a period of time, you canwatch the magical Christmas parade
that they have there.
That is.
That accompanies the Mickey'sMerry Christmas Party.
And you can see the actualChristmas parade, the Once Upon a
Christmas Time Parade.
And I've seen all the videosand many of you have seen all the
(08:55):
videos of Tally the Elf.
He is a real celebrity.
I was getting kind of tired ofthe tie of the Tally the Elf tick
tocks and, you know, over andover and over and over again.
But I get it, I get it.
When he was coming down, thisis when everybody was kind of going
a little.
There was a buzz about Tallythe Elf.
(09:15):
Everyone had their cameras outanyway, taking pictures of all the
characters.
But when Tally came down,everyone was screaming.
And I remember going, allright, this is real.
This, this social mediaphenomenon had, had just caught lightning
in a bottle and Tally the Elfwas eating it up.
He stayed in character, but hemade sure to kind of go around, smile
(09:38):
at people, do the thing withthe list, et cetera.
Even though it was afterChristmas, he, he really plays that
part well.
That cast member plays thatrole really well.
And I, I got to experience it firsthand.
It was kind of neat.
I was a little starstruck.
It was kind of cool to seesomebody who's been getting so much
(09:58):
attention on social media.
It's a real Disney celebrity.
I don't know what happens toTally the Elf going forward with
the Christmas time being doneand what he might be a part of next
year's parade.
I don't know if there'll besomething else people will be into.
It'll be something else theymay emphasize.
But in 2024, the tally elfinTally the Elf phenomenon was pretty
wild.
(10:19):
All right, my fourthobservation, this is the one I was
talking about earlier, right?
So many of you are going tohear this and you're gonna go, yeah,
duh.
Right.
But I, I'm going to prefacethis by saying I'm really reluctant
sometimes to dive in to mobile technology.
All right?
There's something about itthat I don't know if it's because
of my age.
(10:40):
I'm a, you know, I'm olderthan the generation that will always
have this and will always use this.
But mobile ordering your foodis absolutely the way to go.
Now, here's the thing.
I, I get, I get it.
I'm in.
I'm in the technology business.
I'm in.
I'm in broadcasting.
I'm in.
I mean, the advancements thatwe've had in radio and television
(11:02):
have been fantastic.
I've embraced all of that.
There's something about when Igo to, to a theme park that I don't
necessarily want to be soshackled to my phone.
And I've been very reluctantto absorb that.
Technology into my theme park experience.
I don't mind going on checkingwait times, but I just don't want
(11:27):
to be managing my entire dayon an app.
Right.
So even something as simple asmobile checkout for merchandise,
it just.
I'd rather just go to the lineand wait for the young lady to tell
me register four is open andjust buy it.
(11:47):
That way I understand howgreat it is and convenient it is,
but I think I have ageneration that just doesn't embrace
that stuff as well as ayounger generation.
But mobile app ordering, mywife said, no, this is how we're
doing this.
After our parade experience,everyone wanted a hot dog.
At Casey's Corner, we found atable, which is impossible to do,
(12:09):
but somehow we did.
Luckily, there was a couplethat was like, you guys want this?
And we were like, yes.
Just went on the app, orderedthe food, waited for it to come up.
It came up.
My son and my wife went to goget it.
My daughter and I stuckaround, saved the table.
Boom, done.
And we did it again atPinocchio Village House later when
(12:29):
we got our flatbread pizzas.
Way to go.
All right.
I know some of you are rollingyour eyes at that because you use
it and it's awesome and you'vebeen using it forever.
I'm in.
I'm in.
I'm on T.
Mobile ordering number five.
Disney should have a linemonitor if they're going to be very
long.
This is what I was talkingabout earlier.
So there was one exception tothe line not moving as quickly as
(12:55):
we had experienced that day,and that was at Buzz Lightyear.
So we were.
We came off the people mover.
We went over to Buzz lightyear.
It said 45 minute wait.
We were like, yeah, we alwayshave a good time on that ride.
We have fun competitions.
Let's go.
Let's wait.
We're good.
But that line didn't move.
(13:17):
That line wasn't like theother lines that we felt like, man,
we're always progressing,always moving forward.
That line was pretty slow.
And we.
I kept saying, guys, you wantto stay in this line?
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
I was like, yeah, I'm kind ofcommitted now.
We've been in it for half an hour.
Like, I kept doing that thingwhere you.
(13:38):
You sort of justify, like, howmuch time you've given to something
and not getting a payoff.
But, man, we were crawling.
Absolutely crawling.
I said, well, once we get intothe building, it'll be fine.
Well, we got into the buildingand it wasn't fine.
And I looked and I saw theLightning Lane line.
That was as long as the line Iwas in.
(13:59):
And then we found out that theride kept breaking down and the ride
just kept stopping.
They had to wait.
Yeah, they fix and they getgoing again.
Then it would stop and keepgoing again.
That was what we had heard.
And in this way I think Disneyowes it to the people that are that
they can see waiting in verylong lines that they know is an hour.
(14:21):
There's a guy standing with a,you know, a sign like he's in another
place within the park that'snot that close to the right.
But he's like, this is wherethe line begins or ends.
I should say this is the end line.
Get in this line.
There's got to be a way tocommunicate to the people, hey, so
ride's having some technical difficulties.
It's no longer the 45 minuteswe told you it, it, it's having if
(14:45):
you to make a better decisionrather than just keeping people guessing
as to what's going on.
Now I get it.
Some people are going tofigure it out.
Some really experienced peopleare going to say yeah, no, no, no.
I, I, if I went from point Ato point B in X amount of time that's
way too long for a ride like this.
I know it's ride capacity, Iknow it's load and unload mechanism.
(15:09):
Something's not quite right.
But not everybody is like that.
So again, not everyone.
But every now and then sendsomebody into a deep line and say,
hey, this is what's happeningright now.
Maybe that's grumpy old medoing that, I don't know.
But I, I just would like tosee that happen.
(15:29):
It did was not necess on SpaceMountain, on Pirates 7 dwarves, mine
train on rides again that hadlong extensions beyond its border
but yet moved quickly.
I didn't need that.
But Buzz Lightyear, I couldtell something was not quite right.
Number six, Space Mountain andJungle Cruise.
And the Christmas overlays are fantastic.
(15:51):
If you hadn't had a chance toat least experience that, I really
urge you to do so.
I, I get Christmas time is avery stressful time to go to the
parks.
Even if you're going December10th, even if you're going December
15th, if you have kids andthey're in school, I get it.
But if somehow you can make itto that park to experience some of
the extra Christmy things thatcan occur with these attractions,
(16:13):
I highly recommend it.
Space Mountain with the redand the green lighting and the rock
and roll Christmas music was fantastic.
Jungle Cruise, which we didn'tride, but I have ridden in the past
with its Christmas overlay.
It's always fun to do.
So I highly recommend those.
That's a very quickobservation, but I did want to bring
that out because I know someof you have not been able to go down
to Disney World at Christmas time.
(16:34):
They do a lot more than theChristmas parade and a tree and some,
some nice decorations.
There's really some cooldifferent experiences that you can
have with a Christmassy theme.
Seven is another obviousobservation, but I want to, want
to stress especially whenyou're planning to go to Disney and
I don't care when you go.
This is, this advice fitsperfectly because we had a perfect
(16:57):
example of this when we wereat a capacity filled park and that
was do rides during the parade time.
Nail the parade times.
All right.
If you got a parade at noonand 3:00, know when 3:00 is coming.
If you've seen the parade, thefirst iteration and know when 3:00
is coming, head over to yourfavorite attractions.
(17:18):
The lines are exponentiallyshorter when people are gearing up
for those parades.
You can start at like 2:00 fora 3:00 parade.
You could start at 11:00 for a12:00 parade.
People want their space.
They're willing to stay anhour for it.
It's one of the main reasonsthey're there.
And so really manage yourtime, especially if you're doing
(17:42):
it like us, which was off thecuff, no tied into, no fast passes
or anything like that.
Get on those lines that youwant to do as soon as those parades
start or getting close tostarting dramatically.
Ch.
We did Haunted Mansion andthat was a ride that just flew.
Hardly anyone was in linewhile everyone was waiting for the
(18:02):
parade number eight.
Again, some of you do this,but some of you can't.
So I want to preface this observation.
If the park is open late,10:00, 11:00, plan to stay as late
as possible.
Look, if I had a choice, if Iwasn't going, rope drop to close,
(18:26):
if I knew my family justwasn't going to do a 6am Wake up,
drive to the park, stand inline, get on the monorail.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,wait, wait.
Rope drop, Boom.
Stay till it closes.
If I knew we were going tohave to, you know, chill out a little
bit in the morning, have alittle breakfast, get there a little
bit later as the park'srolling along, I would, I would always,
(18:50):
always choose to stay late,rather than get there early.
If I only could do a portionof the day.
Let's say the park is open for15 hours and I was only going to
do 10 of those hours.
I would backload that dayrather than front load that day.
Now, some of you are rope droppers.
I get it.
I hear from you all the timerope dropping is the way I've done
(19:11):
it before.
But if I'm gonna not do opento close, I'm back ending it.
I think Disney World at nightis magical.
One day we're gonna do apodcast on the after hours event
that I did, I got to do twoyears ago that I would love to do
in 2025 again at another park.
I think it's fantastic.
We'll talk about that inanother podcast.
I think the night, thenighttime at Disney World is wonderful.
(19:34):
The late night at 1 at WaltDisney World is even better.
Parents, young kids, they'reall fleeing that park as soon as
those fireworks are done.
That's Walt's kiss good night.
You can see him pouring out ofthe park.
And there's still three hourson the clock or two hours on the
clock.
So again, we were there pretty late.
(19:55):
My wife had slipped and fellat the aerial ride.
And so our day was cut short alittle bit, but we still stayed enough
to sort of really, we kind ofhung around late.
And then it's an easy get onthe boat or the monorail.
Get to the parking lot.
You're not fighting a hugeline to get on the monorail.
Not finding a huge crowd of,of just cramped people on the boat.
Stay late.
(20:17):
Especially if you're going ina holiday time where the park is
really, really crowded.
You can get, you can getrides, you can get merchandise at
a little bit more.
Less stressful wait time orcrowd experience.
If you stay on the back end ofthe park.
Number nine, get the magicBand plus.
(20:39):
Treat yourself.
Trust me, it's fine.
Even if you're an adult andyou don't have time for the silliness,
it's cool.
I'll tell you a quick story.
My wife and I went down inSeptember and I have a magic Band
plus.
I got it, My kids got it, kindof got it for me.
And it's cool.
Magic band.
My wife had a normal one, theregular one, the Winnie the Pooh,
that's her character.
(21:00):
So she had a normal one.
Well, I didn't do a lot ofresearch into Magic Band plus and
I was walking around the parkand all of a sudden it's going off
all the Time.
It's buzzing all the time.
And as I explained earlier,I'm not really a big technology person.
I just use it to get in andout of the parks, if it's attached
to my credit card, if I'mstaying there, and, you know, all
(21:20):
the things you normally use it for.
So I.
I went up to a cast member.
They said, what exactly isthis buzzing for?
And they explained to me whatit was.
Oh, if you go off by a statue,you can wave it.
It'll talk.
There's all these other thingsyou can do with it.
It's.
There's a little bit more.
The fireworks go off.
It lights up in the colors ofthe fireworks.
(21:41):
There's so many.
So cool.
So I was using it, and my wifedidn't get to experience it because
she had a regular magic band.
I said to her, do you want amagic band Plush?
She goes, no, I'm fine.
I said, okay.
We were at the fireworks atEpcot, and mine's going off like
crazy.
I mean, it's lighting up.
It's got all the different colors.
It's really cool.
(22:01):
And my wife goes, that's neat.
You know what?
I'm jealous.
And I'm waving it.
I went to the Winnie the Poohstatue at Magic Kingdom.
I'm waving it.
It's talking.
She's kind of like, oh, now Igotta get one.
So I got her one.
It was my little extraChristmas present to her.
And we had so much fun using it.
Like, we're just adults.
We're Disney adults waving it.
(22:24):
Statues are talking to us.
Like, someone told us about agame you can play on the app where
you visit all the statues.
We.
We just loved it.
Fireworks went off later that night.
It's going off.
My wife is just enjoying it.
Get the MagicBand.
Plus, I know it's.
I know it's costly.
It's close to, like, 50 bucks,but I.
It's.
It's really cool.
It's a really cool addition.
App at number 10.
(22:45):
This is my final observationon this podcast of my experience
at the one day I had duringthe Christmas holidays is know what
you're getting into when youdecide to do this.
Okay?
Now, again, we were surprisedwith the trip.
So it's kind of cool.
Great.
But we're Disney experts.
We've been there many, many times.
We knew what the day was.
(23:05):
That's why we didn't get tothe park early.
We didn't fight the crowds.
We didn't fight the trafficgetting in.
Everyone got to sleep in alittle Bit we're a family where again,
as I mentioned earlier, weweren't there to see everything.
We had seen it many, many,many times.
We were just gonna have fun,do what we could, but mostly have
(23:27):
fun as a family.
We're at a point in our family.
We're all kind of going ourseparate ways a little bit.
My wife and I are empty nesters.
My kids are starting to buildtheir life in college out of college.
We're just having a good time together.
If you are planning a trip andit's your first time down there,
or maybe you haven't been in10 years, know what you're getting
into.
It's packed.
(23:48):
It's packed.
So when you get that, you getall the frustrations of a crowd.
There's a billion strollers,there's a billion scooters, there's
lines that go again beyond theboundary of the ride and you don't
know what it is until you seethe person holding the sign.
The parades, if you don't geta good spot, you're not going to
(24:08):
see it.
People start lining up an hour before.
Now if you go in September,it's a little easier.
If you go during again the nonpeak hours, it's a little easier.
But know what you're going toget into.
It's magical.
I can use all of thedescriptive language that they would,
they, they would advertise,it's all of those things.
(24:31):
But we knew exactly when wewere there, what we were expecting
and because of thoseexpectations, there were hardly any
frustrations at all.
Right.
Everyone in the car on the waythrough the arch, down the road to
(24:51):
the parking lot to the monorail.
Everyone in my family thatwent that day knew exactly what was
going to happen when we walkedinto the park.
And because of that again,you're not stressed to ride everything,
you're not stressed to see everything.
I would recommend if you'renot, if you do not go a a lot, try
(25:15):
to get down there during nonpeak hours so you can experience
everything.
So that later down the roadwhen you want to do a at a time where
you know it's 50000 people,whatever it is, and it's near capacity
that you're going to be ableto say I want the Disney Christmas
Experience.
But I'm not pressured to ride Tron.
I'm not pressured to ride Tianis.
(25:36):
Those were two rides.
We didn't do those standbys onTron with close to two hours.
We didn't even because againof, of, of a last minute sort of
surprise trip.
We didn't get a in the queueto get Tiana's.
We weren't, we didn't get itup, get up that early to put it together.
Didn't matter.
We, we've all kind of beenthere done that.
(25:59):
But if you're a family thathasn't been there done that, I would
go during the non peak hours,see it all if you can then do it
at a, at a time where you canhave a little bit more of your expectations.
Sort of managed.
I highly recommend it.
So again, those are myobservations again on my surprise
one day Disney World excursionwhile we were down visiting my folks
(26:20):
for the holiday season.
It was again, for somebodythat is watching his kids grow and,
and sort of, you know,formulating their own life, it was
really cool to have a familyDisney moment together again.
They that's, that's the way wesort of remember a lot of our vacations
and it was kind of neat to doit again.
So that's going to do it forthis edition of Wands and wishes.
(26:40):
Again, my 10 observations fromour one day Disney Christmas Day
at the Magic Kingdom.
Please like and subscribe thepodcast if you like what we're doing.
Lauren Mallard will be backnext week.
Again, we'll be looking aheadto 2025.
There are two ways to reach us.
For me,travelwithtonydmail.com for Lauren
laurenlthemagictravel.com Onceagain, please subscribe like podcast
(27:02):
really help us build thealgorithms up as we head into 2025
and beyond.
Thanks for listening.
It's the Wands and Wishes podcast.
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