Disney World Part 3- Epcot and Hollywood Studios

Leave the kids home if you're going to Walt Disney World Epcot. That’s what Jon and Jenn did when they went back to the park at night. It’s one of the benefits of staying at the Disney Beach Club. Plus, they have the best pool of all the hotels!

Also, our favorite Disney park (Hollywood studios) and the best ride ever made- Rise of the Resistance! Is it hard to get on the ride? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes! Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan.

Plus, dinner at Disney Springs. We promise…this is our last Disney filled episode!

Transcript from Podcast:

John: I love that in episode one, we were like 'Oh, we're not Disney folks. We don't really care.' And how we thought it was gonna be one episode of us talking Disney World and we're on the third one.

Jen: Disney, Disney, Disney.

John: So, we were there for a week.

Jen: I know.

John: So, much happened.

Jen: And it was so fun. It was so fun.

John: It's like a trip of a lifetime. Like we're probably not going to do it again.

Jen: And you know what, neither of us were able to do it as kids. And it was something that we always dreamt about doing. And then we were able to do that for our kids.

John: I've had friends who have gone out to like Orlando and they've done the Airbnb and then just go to the park and I think that's cool.

Jen: Yeah.

John: We wanted to do it to where, like we were always on the resort. Always having that Disney level of service. And then I wanted to try all the transportation stuff.

Jen: I know you can take the boat.

John: Yeah.

Jen: The skyliner.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Which are like these big old buckets that go through the sky that you can what's your

Jen: Which are so fun. The magical express.

John: A bus or a bus. It was always lame when we got on the bus. Cause like you’re on a boat one moment and then you're just like, on this Bus mass transit, but it was fine. It was still look, it's still Disney quality and everything. So, yeah. This is our third episode of Our Savings Starts Tomorrow. If you haven't followed us on Instagram, please do so that's like all the photos that we're talking about are out there. And then don’t, you don’t be shy. Rate, review.

Both: Good reviews.

John: Let's go. Let's do it. And we want to get to the next resort that we stayed at, which was the Disney Beach Club, which really the Disney Beach Club and the Yacht Club are the same resort. Why did they, why are they calling it two things?

Jen: Well, the Yacht Club is a little classier.

John: Did you feel like walking through it was?

Jen: A tiny bit.

John: Really?

Jen: Yeah. Don't get me wrong. Beach Club, very nice. Beach Club was more easy, breezy beachy vibe.

John: Laid back.

Jen: Yes.

John: Like Martha's vineyard.

Jen: Yes. And then Yacht Club was like a little bit...

John: stuffy?

Jen: Stuffier. Yes.

John: I didn't feel that way. They're combined.

Jen: They are.

John: Half the time I didn't know which pool I was in.

Jen: Well, then pool area is just one big pool area for both.

John: And I did the research and they say that this is the Disney pool to do.

Jen: And it was very cool.

John: Yeah. In fact, when I started talking to like cast members, they were saying that people constantly try to sneak into this pool. It's called Storm Along Bay?

Jen: Yes.

John: Because it's just, there's a huge water slide that actually it starts not even on the resort. You have to leave like the pool, go over to this pirate ship, climb up to the top of a mast and then go down the slide underneath a waterfall, two waterfalls, to get back to the pool.

Jen: Yeah.

John: It's awesome.

Jen: It was very fun.

John: There's a lazy river. The pool, like the bottom of the pool is sand. So, you're not getting like your feet cut up on like anything.

Jen: And there's a whole sandbar area so if you've got little ones, actually, even our kids, they played over there in that sand area a lot.

John: Yeah.

Jen: Just building sand castles and

John: it was great. And there’s tons of lifeguards. And of course, I guess I felt safe with our children. They could swim and everything, but yeah. Everyone was there. And then when you're, when we were there, it was during the pandemic, but you didn't have to wear masks. And then they still had like drink service going on and food. And that's where we found the Frozays.

Jen: Oh, I cannot recommend those enough.

John: It's really what you're all about. And they had the hot tubs. You know what I will say, they had hot tubs. They realized that kids always want to be on a hot tub. No matter if it's 90 degrees or 50 degrees, kids love being just in hot water for some weird reason.

Jen: See the kids, you and I would be laying out just enjoying ourselves. It's like it's Florida, it's 90 plus degrees,

John: Just a constant sweating.

Jen: 120% humidity

John: Dehydrated.

Jen: Yes, because we had one too many Frozays. And then our kids would be like, 'Can we go in the hot tub? Where you go in the hot tub with us?' And I'm like, Oh, my. No, I can't.

John: I would die.

Jen: I would die.

John: So, I would put my toe in because he had to have an adult there. And that was it because this is miserable.

Jen: Why do you want to be in here?

John: And they also had like activities out by the pool though, which were cool.

Jen: Yeah. They had trivia and. There was like

John: a dance and songs and some arts and crafts out there. Like they were just busy with things. So, yeah, there were always things to do. And the pool was open late.

Jen: I loved that. I actually really, I really liked that it was open when we were there. I don't know if it changes, but it was open until 11.

John: Yeah.

Jen: And all the parks were closing fairly early, which we were okay with. We're an early family.

John: Yeah.

Jen: But it's so hot, we would come back and then we would instantly just change into our suits and go down to the pool at eight, nine o'clock and just hang out for another hour and just cool off and splash around. And it was great.

John: It was a big resort.

It was our room. They put us in the Disney Club. We're not Disney Club vacation members, but that's what was open. And it's like at the back of the resort.

Jen: Yeah.

John: Or the front of the resort.

Jen: We definitely got our steps in.

John: Just to get from there to the pool.

Jen: I understand why there's so many people in Jazziz.

John: Everywhere, everywhere. Now they need like a jazzy lane.

Jen: They should.

John: We almost got ran over constantly. So, it is a large resort be aware of that. Maybe if you're looking for rooms, if you want to talk to them about being somewhere closer to the pool, because we weren't. There was also next to the pool, right on the outside a restaurant called Peaches and Cream.

Jen: It was like a fifty’s soda shop. Although we talked to one server who actually said that it's not supposed to be fifties. They want it to actually be like 1920s.

John: I don't know.

Jen: Anyways.

John: Do we know the difference?

Jen: No, it’s like a nostalgic ice cream soda shop.

John: All I know is they offer something called the kitchen sink, which is this huge ice cream dish. It's about 30 bucks and the kids wanted it so we did it and there's a photo of it up on our Instagram. And it's huge. And we did a terrible job eating it. I felt like we were so wasteful.

Jen: Yes. It's the kitchen sink. It's every kind of ice cream that they have with every kind of topping.

John: Yeah.

Jen: It just everything. There was brownie and there was cake and there was chocolate syrup and caramel and just, yeah. Everything.

John: So, the burgers though, there weren't as good.

Jen: Man.

John: It's weird.

Jen: I was really hoping it was going to be a decent burger.

John: I know, for all the food we had at Disney world for the whole week, most of it was like really good, like surprisingly good.

Jen: I know.

John: They missed on the burgers every time.

Jen: I know,

John: I think it was the bread.

Jen: I know, I agree. I wasn't a fan of the bread. The bun wasn't good.

John: I don't know. But the Disney beach club is right next. Right next to Epcot. Like it there's the tiny little bridge and there's Epcot. So, we actually realized that you could show up early. We talked about that in another episode so we got to Epcot like I don't know, 30 minutes early.

Jen: Yeah.

John: It was already open. And we had been tracking it on the app, like where to go first. And we knew the first thing we wanted to do was soaring over the world.

Jen: Yes.

John: Which is like soaring over California.

Jen: You go, when you walk through the building though, to get there and I was like, this is old.

John: So, dated. Have they changed?

Jen: I don't think so.

John: It just lame. And there's as you're waiting in line in this building, there's like another ride. I swear, it's called the history of corn, this stupidest thing. And then also once you've gone on the avatar ride At animal kingdom,

Jen: it just ruins it.

John: This is just not as cool because now you're not sitting on a dragon, you're just sitting in a chair

Jen: swinging around.

John: And so, it's almost if you're going to do it, do Epcot first.

Jen: Yes.

John: Then head over to them.

Jen: And if you've done soaring over California, and it's just, I think soaring over California is better.

John: Do you really?

Jen: I do well, not to ruin it for those who haven't done soaring over California, but it's they have, you're going through the orange groves and you smell oranges and then they do the ocean. And I think it sprays you with water. This one, I think that they, I don't even know if they had smell, but they definitely didn't have any water.

John: No, I think you're right about that. Yeah, because we didn't get any of that stuff. And I don't know if that was COVID or just because Epcot as a whole for us, we have a seven and a nine-year-old. I don't know if I'd recommend it. They're building a bunch of rides right now, maybe in a year, maybe when they have everything open, but our kids was bored.

Jen: Yeah, it also disclaimer, it also was the hottest day that we were there.

John: So, hot. It was miserable.

Jen: It was, yeah, it was very muggy. So, that could have a tiny bit to do with it. But for the most part, there's just not cool rides there.

John: And you think Disney world Disney land you want rides. And there's not that they have food everywhere.

Jen: Oh, my gosh. And it's boozy there.

John: It's like a drunk Fest.

Jen: I love it. I want to go back there

Both: without the kids at night.

Jen: Yes.

John: And just drink in every country.

Jen: And eat drink, and in, in every country. Yeah.

John: In fact, we did that. So, we left the kids in the hotel room and we went back that night, just the two of us for an hour. And we had so much more fun.

Jen: Yes.

John: It was a blast because then we could just try the drinks and.

Jen: Yeah, we got an egg roll in China, and then we got a maker's mark and Coke, frozen Coke in Canada with some maple popcorn.

John: It was that.

Jen: I know what was fun.

John: So, maybe that's when not to take the kids to.

Jen: Yeah, they do have the frozen ride.

John: Yeah. So, we were excited about going on the frozen ride.

Jen: And our daughter, Ella, big frozen fan frozen.

John: Loves Frozen.

Jen: Yes.

John: We get on this thing. I thought it was amazing. Like your voice went up.

Jen: It was okay.

John: Really?

Jen: You thought it was amazing?

John: It was a water ride that went backwards at points. The animatronics were cool.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah, no, it was.

John: So, it was lame?

Jen: I'm kind of with Ella on it.

John: Ella, I hated it.

Jen: She was not a fan.

John: She was like this week, like she did not like the ride.

Jen: No, she didn't like it at all.

But

John: it

Jen: was beautiful.

John: They're singing. Let it go at some point. You're not into it the way I was, I thought you'd at least be on my side. Okay. So, that one sucked, I guess. we also did that test track, which is a rollercoaster kind of those kind of. What do you call it?

Jen: I don't know. It's just, you're in like a test vehicle.

John: It's like a big advertisement for GM.

Jen: Chevy?

John: Was it Chevy? But didn't work on me, whatever they were advertising.

Jen: I don't know.

John: You had the whole lot, way in line and they're just like advertising this car and then you get on it and you're like, okay, now we're going to go. But instead, yeah. It literally is like doing a test track oh, look at the car swerve. Oh. Look at it. Stop and go. Which, why are you giving us stop and go?

Jen: And then speed up and then slow down. But it wasn't even like a cool speed up and stuff. I don't know.

John: And then finally they go fast for 30 seconds. And there's your ride? But the kids loved it.

Jen: They did love it.

John: That was like one of their favorite rides after we talked about it. The other one we did was okay. Oh my gosh that was

Jen: mission space.

John: Okay. Mission space is unlike any ride at Disney World.

Jen: Yes. And there's two, you could do mission space, earth. We did not go on that one or missions base Mars.

John: We did do.

Jen: Yes. It's the more intense version. And we figured when we saw it, we knew nothing about it. Ella was tall enough and it's oh, it's the more intense one. I'm like, okay, it's Disney. How intense could it be?

John: A lot of warning were out saying it's intense?

Jen: Yes.

John: We didn't realize how intense.

Jen: Oh my gosh. When you get into the ride itself and you put the harness over and then you looked and saw that there was barf bags there, I realized it was going to be intense.

John: I know.

Jen: And we're getting older and the motion of the rides, I just.

John: It takes off. So, the idea is you're on this rocket ship to Mars, and you're flying it. So, everyone has like a button you have to push, and this was a fly this sucker there, and it's spinning to where you're feeling jeez, as you go and you're looking at this video of yourself flying. And I remember thinking to myself, if it doesn't stop soon, I don't know if I'll make the bag.

Jen: I know.

John: Like I'm just going to let it rip and see what happens. And it stopped just in enough time, but then it gives you enough time to feel better. And then it goes again.

Jen: Yes.

John: I couldn't get off that ride quick enough. If there was like an emergency stop button, I would have hit it.

Jen: Yes.

John: And we got off and then we had to sit there. I think it was, we weren't drinking. Oh, the people who drink go on that ride.

Jen: I don't know. I don't know. And I tried to close my eyes thinking that would help. I just made it worse.

John: They say, don't close your eyes. That's one of the things, it was just terrible.

Jen: It says, don't move your head.

John: We've tried it at all.

Jen: Yeah.

John: It was like, there's a little air thing and I was like trying to suck in air just to keep myself, okay.

Jen: I know that I would recommend going on it.

John: To experience it?

Jen: To experience it.

John: It's something we continue to talk about.

Jen: I know.

John: The one cool thing about Epcot was they had this garden exhibit going on. They only do it in the spring, but it's all of these like shrubs that have been designed to be the Disney cartoon characters. And I thought that was really cool.

Jen: All of them.

John: It's beautiful.

Jen: Yeah. The gardens in general is very pretty dated? Yes. And I think that they're working on updating it.

John: It does feel old.

Jen: But it is very pretty.

John: And also, like some of the shops. I don't know what we, why would we want a parasol from France? Like when would we use that again?

Jen: I know it's a lot of knick knacky store.

John: It's just junk that I'm thinking like afterwards is it even going to be something we would use? So, that would be my only though.

Jen: There, it was just an older park. I saw a lot of people wearing shirts saying I'm 21, I'm going to drink around the world. And I thought that was cute.

John: Yeah. If I do that, we're going to do that.

Jen: Totally.

John: I'm 21. So, people don't judge us. After Epcot we took a day off from the parks and so I think we would recommend, if you can.

Jen: If you can fit it into your vacation schedule, I would totally recommend having a down day for sure. Just enjoying the resort that you're staying at, enjoying the pool, and maybe heading over to Disney Springs. That's when you get over there.

John: Disney Springs is far from where we were. There are some resorts that are around it. I thought the waterways connected all the resorts, but they don't. And so that's why when we booked it, we were like, oh, we'll just hop on a boat over to Disney Springs, but it didn't work. We had to take that bus over. I think that was the longest bus drive we've booked.

Jen: Besides to the airport, yes.

John: It took a while. Lots of shops,

Jen: lots of restaurants and it's all chain stuff that you've seen before. There's nothing new. There's the really big Disney shop. Again, I liked going there just because I didn't want to buy things at the resort or at the parks. So, like our thing is we always get a Christmas ornament, so I wanted to get a Christmas ornament. I didn't want to get it at the parks cause I didn't want to be carrying it around. This Disney store has everything.

John: But if do you buy at the parks and you're staying on the resort they will take, send it back to your hotel room. It will take a day but we didn't do that.

Jen: No, I'm like, here's one ornament. Will you please send this? Yeah, I wasn't going to do that. But yeah, it was, I don't know if it's fun to walk through there.

John: It was nice to do something different in the restaurant we went to was great. There's a good charcuterie.

Jen: Yes. We went to George's wine bar and We just wanted to like an adult meal. And although we had the kids with us, they did great. They enjoyed the charcuterie board.

John: They got addicted to it. We've had it since we got home, we've had three different meat and cheese trays.

Jen: I know they've enjoyed doing different concoctions.

John: Yeah. And then the last resort we went to on the last day was Hollywood Studios.

Jen: So, fun.

John: Best one. Don't you think?

Jen: Yes, I wish we would have left earlier, because again, now, knowing that it was the last one and we could have gotten there earlier, it took us a long way from where we were staying it took us a long time to get there.

John: I took the skyline over, which are the buckets that go up and over all the different resorts, which I don't think is a good idea.

Jen: We should have just walked there.

John: Yeah. Oh, walking there would have taken 10 minutes, but instead it took us like 40 minutes. There's like lines at each place. We get there and we knew we wanted to book it right to tower of terror.

Jen: Yes.

John: Which was fun. The kids had a good time on it and it wasn't bad. And then we decided, we had been tracking on the Disney app, all the different rides. I knew that I wanted to take our son Liam on rock and roll rollercoaster. He was tall enough. Ella wasn't that's a great rollercoaster.

Jen: It was fun because he wanted to ride it again. So, him and I went on it. And I'm glad that I did.

John: It's like space, mountain, like it's a roller coaster.

Jen: But it was upside down.

John: Yeah. But it's in the dark and the soundtrack because it's Aerosmith.

Jen: It was fun.

John: So, good.

Jen: I would have gone on and again.

John: Did you like Toy Story Land?

Jen: Here's my problem with toy story lands.

John: Okay.

Jen: Just like a lot of these kid lands. There's no shade.

John: None. None.

Jen: It's cool looking, but I'm like there's no trees anywhere.

John: It was so hot right there.

Jen: So, hot.

John: In fact, the longest ride out of all the parks, I think was like the slinky. Yeah. It was the slinky roller coaster.

Jen: And we never made out on.

John: No, I was like we're not gonna stand in the sun for 90 minutes.

Jen: On the toy story mania ride, which was fun, it's like the one that's the interactive like video game kind of one that was really fun with the kids. And then the alien swirling saucers. We did that. You missed those two?

John: I was in line at Starbucks for like an hour. We needed a pick me up after.

Jen: Oh my gosh, we definitely did.

John: So, much. Okay. So, if you didn't love toy story land, did you like star wars land? Cause you're not like a star wars person.

Jen: Our family is not.

John: No, none of us. I'm not.

Jen: We couldn't even get our son to really watch the movies. I hate to even say that we're just not. But

Both: it was awesome.

Jen: It looked so cool.

John: Yeah. Even if you don't know what it is, you're like, oh, that's. Amazing. Yeah. Everything about it. Even the cast members and what they have to wear. And then the different drinks that they had the Coke bottles were different star wars land. And there were a few rides. There's two.

Jen: Yes.

John: Is that all there was because there was the smugglers

Jen: and then the rise of the resistance.

John: Ok smugglers was the one that you actually get into the millennium Falcon and you fly it.

Jen: Yes.

John: It was cool. Like it's cool because if you are a star wars fan, you go on site like inside, you see where they played like that chess game. And then when you fly it, I don't know. I hate the fact that they're making me do things.

Jen: And we had, our son knew it and our daughter, and

John: And they did not fly well.

Jen: I know I would like someone that could actually do it.

John: So, there's a lot of crashing.

Jen: Yes.

John: It was fun though. I thought it was awesome, interactive. Like it's amazing what they can do now. But then we were able to get in, I don't know, this queue, you woke up early to try to register for this queue online.

Jen: Yes. You had to be on an, in an online queue for

John: rise of the resistance.

Jen: For rise of the resistance.

John: How cool can this ride really be

Jen: at 7:00 AM. And can I just tell you at 6:59 AM, I had it in my hand, right when it turned to seven o’clock, I pushed the button and it had already sold out of the queue.

John: We were bummed.

Jen: Yeah.

John: Because we heard it was cool, but then they reopened like a few more at one.

Jen: Yes.

John: And we were right about to get on the, actually the smugglers. And you're able to get us. On it?

Jen: Yes.

John: The queue was like another four hour. Let's say it's a four-hour online queue do then go wait in the two-hour line,

Jen: I think it was 2 hours?

John: An hour and a half? It was long as long.

Jen: What's nice though is because of the social distancing you're just walking the whole time.

John: Yeah. And it was worth it. I would have waited six hours for that.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Even though we're not star wars people, how could you not think it was amazing.

John: Yeah. The things Disney can do now on these rides, like

Jen: you're not on a track.

John: No. Even in the line, there was a part, a point where they actually move you from one line to another, or you get like this mini ride in between and that was cool. And then you get off like this transporter, and that's when like the you know, the bad guys get ya. And they take you on to the spaceship and you see all these stormtroopers and it's massive.

Jen: I wish we would have taken a picture of it.

John: Like the one thing we,

Jen: oh, and then the cast members. Totally their character. Yes.

John: Their mean. It’s great, they yell at you.

Jen: Yes.

John: And you get on and you go in and you start the next part of the ride. Like I don't even, we did this other ride that was trackless to this Mickey and Minnie off-screen. I just think it's cool that now they're not using tracks.

Jen: Right?

John: Like it's crazy.

Jen: I know, I think that a lot of people that were riding that making a mini one were like, nah. But the fact that it was not on it.

John: It was track less.

Jen: Yes.

John: It was doing things that you've never done on a ride before.

Jen: Totally.

John: I just think that's the amazing part. So, that's Hollywood studios. Okay. We've already gone over again. Can we finish Disney finally?

Jen: I think so.

John: Thank goodness. Cause we finished a bottle on the half of wine, so

Jen: yeah.

John: Okay.

Jen: Gosh, don't jive. This is judge free.

John: Thanks for listening to the podcast though. Follow us

Jen: Follow us. Rate us.

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