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I WENT TO DOLLYWOOD!!! · Very Amusing with Carlye Wisel - A Theme Park Podcast

0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: When welcome to very amusing, you're one stop shop for the story secrets and shenanigans of a pop review of its theme park journalists.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curly-wise out, and I am freshly back from dollywood.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: A sentence I honestly did not know I would ever be able to say.
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We did it!
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We did it!
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it to dollywood and back, and I'm going to tell you everything!
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: This place was so much...
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: better, different, surprising, more unexpected than I ever could have imagined.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I had this thing that I pictured in my head that was dollywood and it's not what this was.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not what this was, and I cannot wait to tell you all the details.
0:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the meantime, when you have two things we have to talk about quickly at the top of the show.
0:54
[SPEAKER_01]: One is that, okay last night, I went to this Spirit Jersey Star Wars event, which by the way, a Sunday night party signed me up a thousand times over.
1:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It was heaven.
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've never been a Spirit Jersey girlie.
1:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why I got like, I'm excuse me.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I got like choked up as I said that.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I've never really been much of a Spirit Jersey girlie.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't speak to me.
1:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not even speaking my language.
1:14
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't really calling out to me.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But I walked in the door this party and I saw a Spirit Jersey unammanic hint and went,
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That like I literally stopped my tracks and pointed at it because it slayed so hard.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so Good, I have been changed by this party.
1:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not often you go to a party and you're like, I've emerged a different person.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh Don't be sleeping on your jersey like the stuff they sell on their website, which is something I didn't even know they did again like
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a spirit jersey girl.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I am forever changed by this and the Star Wars ones that by the time you listen to this I might have posted the video, but I might not have so if not you're getting it early heads up to check it out Because oh They were so good the other thing I have to tell you about is we finally got the rock and roller coaster setlist And it's a little he-he-ha-ha because it's like oh, we know the songs, but they're you don't know
1:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know what they're gonna sound like because they're performed by electric mayhem with some stars in it like we don't know what they're gonna sound like so it's exciting to know the music But I really need I need to know I need to get my button that's it.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to get my button that's it.
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to be hearing the songs while I'm sitting there and I guess I'm gonna have to ride rock and roller coaster
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: A zillion times to be able to hear all these songs because I simply must, I simply must, I am pretty happy with the song mix.
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Simply because I know they chose these to go with the ride on its own wouldn't have expected a lot of these picks, but I have faith because remember, when we saw the setlist for Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic rewind, it was like,
2:33
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody wants to rule the world, what?
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But all the songs were so brilliantly on that ride.
2:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I have faith in whoever's choosing it's chosen the best songs possible.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: For us to hear the gang performing on.
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I really can't believe, I know that it feels like we're in an alternate universe most of the time.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But that alternate universe in this fever dream brought us a muffet upside down roller coaster.
2:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that when you walk out your door today and you see a child, I want you to point at them in your head not physically because that would be a little strange.
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to point at them and go, you're first upside-down rollercoaster could be featuring the muffins.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you ever expect that for the youth of America?
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I surely did not, and I'm so psyched about it.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: but enough about our money friends.
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're talking about Dollywood and I'm not gonna wait any longer because this episode has been in the works for so freaking long that I just can't wait to start it.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Stick around, move back so soon with more?
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollywood.
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Back to our dolly wood episode that day has come.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I made it there and I made it back in one freaking piece.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we are going to get deep into dolly wood in this episode because what a unique genness place is.
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Spoiler alert, I already told you, but we won't keep loved it.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: To the point where I can't believe it took me this long to go here.
4:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things where people are like, you gotta see it.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: People keep telling me, you gotta go to Silver Dollar City.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I gonna make a Silver Dollar City?
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, it's far away
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: like the number one thing I might have to do list.
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Tollywood was just always there.
4:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, there's a tour bus and she loves butterflies.
4:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'll make it there.
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not prioritize it.
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't believe that I lived this long that I did this job for so long without knowing what this whole thing was.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you were into Disney and you're in a versatile and you're like, I don't know about this place.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna be very glad you listened to this episode because I guarantee if you did not have Dollywood in your immediate travel radar, you're either going to be fully convinced to go
4:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not here to just preach about Hollywood and convince you to go.
4:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to tell you about my experience, but you I think are going to walk away from this episode being like, oh, I need to book a flight, or, you know what, cross it off, this place is not my bag, and I cannot wait to help you make that decision today.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as you know, this trip is rooted in so much lore at this point, truly so much lore about us trying to get to this freaking Tennessee thing park.
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to do a full-scale recap because I just have so much to tell you about.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We would just so much more than a theme park.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am calling this a theme park.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: A distinguishing factor, I do not give to most non Disney non-universal properties.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even see where all this getting that monochrome, okay?
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Dolly or like, I don't know, dolly ink.
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, her company should be called dolly ink.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever wants her business, they have their hands in a bunch of different businesses around town in the neighboring pigeon forge, which is a strip of mostly tourist junk that you've never seen in your life.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed with stuff we actually like to do.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But the dolly presence here is so big that it adds this fun thematic layer to doing anything in the area.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Truly, dolly ink has, again, that should be heard.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like Shondaland.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so good.
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: dolly ink!
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, dolly has three dinner theaters in operation here.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: three, and they're also in other cities, according to the sheet of paper menu that was under the Cornish, uh, Gini Hen, then I ate with my hands.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you thought whoopty do was a big deal, imagine if the crowd was 10 times bigger in their resources jumping through fire.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what Dalai Barton's stampede was, and that is what I am saying.
6:26
[SPEAKER_01]: This town is wild, and some of y'all got to be seeing it.
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to view our trip to Dalaiwood through the lens of all the mania, it took for us to actually get there.
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanna start by bringing everyone up to speed because, again, I finally made it to Dalaiwood.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: If you recall, if you recall, we back in 2025.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I traveled with my friend Heather, and Kelsey, and AJ from Disney Food blog, was meeting us at Dollywood.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We woke up so early, we got to the airport, and we slowly watched.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: As delay, after delay, after delay, after delay, after delay, after delay, because there were five of them.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We waited and waited and saw the glimmer of hope of us actually making it to dolly with that day.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely fliggle, fliggle, fliggle, fliggle, no, what's the word?
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Flicker.
7:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a dream run.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be flicker away and disappear Our dream for going to Hollywood that we had planned for so long We had a shared Google Doc.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We had an itinerary.
7:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I do this thing where I I have like the itinerary Then I'm back up stuff so if we spontaneously are like, oh we have free time What should we do?
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a go to hit list.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We had so much stuff dialed in and we abandoned it while at L.A.X booked
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: booked a flight and booked a car on our laptops on our phones and immediately pivoted took our carry on bags and we flew to Orlando with no Disney World stuff on us.
7:50
[SPEAKER_01]: If you remember AJ or beloved author of Disney Adults, a steamed colleague, a friend of the pod, a former podcast guest, AJ.
8:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Just ended up going to Dollywood.
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: She stayed for like two days.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I don't need to go to Disney World.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna do Dollywood and I'm gonna bounce.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so AJ did not make it on that trip.
8:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, AJ was in play for this trip.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The timing didn't work out.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: She is going to Dollywood soon.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it didn't make sense to go twice in a row.
8:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So we ended up inviting our friend Brandon.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Brandon has, you know, I've been on Brandon's podcast giving him gagging.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretty sure Brandon's been on this podcast.
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Ben has to put on this podcast, but Brandon is an occasional guest on Alicia Stella's podcast.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Brandon is a dear friend we met because I was at Universal Studios Hollywood and I was meeting the glitter troll and then Brandon said hi after and then he followed me and now we spent the entire week together.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just the beauty of the internet.
8:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So Brandon took AJ spot.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a forum cabin.
8:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And we made it work, we all made it to Hollywood.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So, leading, well, kind of, after us, let me explain.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in the days leading up to this trip, we're all on a group text, chatting, non-stopping, like, ooh, hope it goes well, like, ugh, we were all worried about jinxing this, because we didn't want anything bad to happen.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, last time we were so excited, and it just fell apart, it takes so long to get to Hollywood from California.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to connect, and so we were flying LAX to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to McGee Tyson Airport, which I believe is in Knoxville.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to connect, and so we were like, look, connect through Atlanta.
9:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Delta's hub.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be great.
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not great.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not great.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Three out of three flights through Atlanta got got, okay?
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Our flight home wasn't, it was a situation also.
9:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Delta really, oh, Delta got us on this one.
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: First flight of the day out of LAX to their hub, you'd think it'd be fine twice we got got.
9:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, we are like, we're like pretty discombobulated before we go on this trip.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all packing last minute.
9:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Our friend Kelsey is joking about us.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: She has PTSD with the D standing for Delta.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We bought her tickets to do all we would truly two weeks before because we were like, oh, we don't want to be locked in and have to beg people for credits again like we did last time.
9:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We just were like, oh man, hope it works, hope it works, hope it works.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, most people would think that was anxiety, but now it was four sites.
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we were all, you know, chit chat and try to figure out like, hmm, what are we going to pack?
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it cold?
10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it hot?
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we got the text.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We got the text.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It popped in my phone.
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: five hundred and fifty five minutes.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I get this text at like eight forty five p.m. Our flight is at six a.m.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The following morning.
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to wake up at like four a.m. To get on the plane.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm finishing packing.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like sweating from my clothes trying to get everything to fit.
10:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like just kidding, girl.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You're flying out at the end of the day, and we have no idea if you're going to get to Knoxville tomorrow or at all.
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: If you saw my video online, you already know what happened.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband arrived home at the exact right time.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And as the brains of any operation he is involved in, he went on the Delta website is we were sitting catatonic for people face timing being like, Should we go on a cruise?
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: should we go to Seattle?
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we go to Orlando?
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was no joke on the Disney World website looking up hotel prices when he came home.
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, you guys are out of your minds.
11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We were so traumatized.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, who
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: looked at the website with his analytical brain and was like, okay, you're going to take this flight out of LAX, there's seats for everybody, you can get an IOC, you're going to book it, everybody press book, everybody did it, and we were saved.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it to the airport for this 9 a.m flight.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it on the plane.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We made our connection at Lanna.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it to Knoxville, and we got there and we're like,
11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's on.
11:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like cowboy boots on the ground, in Tennessee, ready to freaking go.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Our lock was ready to turn around and we snatched it.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The rental car place offered us a Jeep and I was like, yes, sir, I will take it.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Much of the future dismay of our friends who sat in the back, but as someone who was driving and in the passenger seat, oh, it fricking
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Rocked.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing feels more like I am here and I am visiting.
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I am out of vacation than riding in a Jeep.
12:02
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever rented a Jeep in Hawaii, rolling up to one of those local beaches in your Jeep.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh!
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Heaven!
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It is my dream car.
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It is truly my dream car.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't even know about this.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeep community of Ducks like bathtub ducks.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess there's this thing when like people have jeeps and they give each other ducks because people kept talking about it Because we were driving a Jeep and we were like cool What is this um, and if I as someone who you know celebrates holidays that aren't Christmas I know celebrate Christmas.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't have a churchy holiday, which means like I don't if I had a holiday where I've been hang toys on a tree It would be game over for everyone
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have that, but if I had a Jeep and I was involved in this duck exchange, I could like, film my car with little trotches in front and people would be like, nice, that's cool, and not like, man, please clean out your car.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You're an adult and there's spider webs everywhere.
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be so lovely.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to Jeep so bad.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to Jeep so bad.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, having the Jeep fantastic.
12:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So we get into town late because of course our flight was three hours later than we anticipated everything is off-kilter and we take boom a straight straight shot to Bucky's and if you're like honey can you stop and tell us about the park we are getting there is going to happen in like two seconds.
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I went way too hard at Bucky's on the fresh jerky.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Last time I remember being fresher, I do remember things tasting better in the past than they probably did.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was pretty tough.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I still spent $25 on it anyway because I couldn't help myself.
13:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just like, you know, okay, I traveled for like 200 hours to get there.
13:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted some salted meat as though I made it this far on the Oregon Trail, because it actually felt like that.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a coffee at Bucky's.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you saw my video because I yelled so hard you'd probably reach through your phone without you trying voluntarily clicking on it.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But I put the concert up in it.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollar 99.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody in LA would lose their minds at the sort of that.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We picked up snacks for the cabin.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We picked up a bunch of waters.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And we mose it our way to our new home for multiple nights.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Arriving at a cabin at night was wild because the road was so windy We were so confused on where we were and if we were in the right place But we got there and it was gloriously cool Nears Hollywood.
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They have all these rental cabin companies that are like multi bedroom like these huge houses with these big wrap around Portches They're like Lincoln long houses and every layer has a porch are said four porches.
14:13
[SPEAKER_01]: How is that possible?
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even understand any buildings and the view was so
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Beautiful.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so beautiful.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got to say the company we booked with was a big there.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: No, bear co-cabins.
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They honored our payment from last time because we were all calling these companies from LAX when we tried to go last time being like, we physically can't get to dollywood.
14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so sorry.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And they very generously achieved
14:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out to my girl, Seneca, and Faircove Cabins.
14:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Very generously, it was like, we will hold your payment as credit and you can use it before May.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly what we did.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: They even had to change our cabinet the last minute, like four days before, which should have been a sign that things were gonna go sideways.
14:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But the new cabinet was great.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It was also lovely, it was just as cool.
14:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The fireplace though was completely fake.
15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so excited to be cozy by a fire.
15:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's kind of a bummer, but it also made me feel like I was unpired to the Caribbean because you'd turn this dial and it would just be like waving pieces of plastic and it was orange and I'd always be like, guys, I know you like the cabin cold, is it okay if you've turned on the fireplace?
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: They'd all be like, shut up and go in your room, you don't want to talk to you.
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just kidding.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They they enjoyed the joke.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the gag a few times and they enjoyed it.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They enjoyed it.
15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they enjoyed it.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They had fun.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You had fun together.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, we all talked about how never have we traveled with four people for this long and things have gone so well.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The day I got back, I got back like 1039 the next day I hung out with Brandon all day.
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's how nice it was.
15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We all just get along and when it comes traveling, we all travel so well together, which is rare and beautiful.
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So we get to the cabin.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We're finally there.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like we made it.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is the cherry on top of the Tennessee Sunday.
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But the next day was huge because we were finally going to tell we would.
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the first moment that we approached to tell we would.
15:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It was clear that this park was not what I had expected like when you hear the name dollywood There's so much wrapped up in that is it a theme park is it a six wags is it like Sam like is is the bit that it's this homage to this like now 80 year old star outdated I fear it would feel like it had this I don't know how to explain to like a Simson's episode sheen on it like it would just be a little too like
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: that all I could hear, and that wally world like expectation kept washing over me.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched a little bit of you to video before our last trip, and I could not wrap my head around what this park would feel like when I was there.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought we would be climbing these massive hills to get to these high up coasters, and it seemed like they were all in the mountains than inaccessible.
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had this vision of what it might be, and it was so disconnected from anytime I visited, anytime I'd spent in any theme park anywhere else.
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But most of all, above all, I just couldn't wait to finally know what this place was.
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter if it was campy or legit or extremely run down or just unexpectedly glorious.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't really begin to convey to you the scale of this park.
17:08
[SPEAKER_01]: but I will attempt to, by trying to describe how we first entered.
17:12
[SPEAKER_01]: With our cabin we got free from your parking which I didn't really bat much of an eye at.
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really think about it because when I park at a theme park and mostly parking at Universal Studios Hollywood and Disneyland which is a very different piece from the floor
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But still I'm not buying for like premier preferred parking.
17:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not spending my money on that because it is feel bad money to me If you don't know what that means listen to my trip planning episode that week before this feel good money Versus feel by money is like the the mindset I'm always in with parks now and it just it really helps a lot Anyway, we rolled up and we were like, oh, yeah, we have the premier parking whatever and they go Oh, okay, don't keep just keep your blinkers on and stay to the left
17:49
[SPEAKER_01]: and we truly drove two miles from there.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We drove past the biggest parking lot I've ever seen in my life.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The only comp I can think of is Dodger Stadium.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Just kept driving.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the way past it.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we went up a hill and then I think we drove the other way around and kept
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Driving until we finally made it to their premier preferred parking in an entirely different entrance.
18:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, we still trapped to the entrance.
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Long enough, when we were like, oh boy, this is a walk.
18:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are going to tell me one, pay the upgrade for the parking, trust me.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We bought two-day multi-day tickets, but we opted to do this thing called time-saver plus for one of the days.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There are three different tiers of time-saver, which basically lets you board a fast-pass style lightning lane line to get on board more quickly, and we opted for the middle one, which included most of the rides we wanted to go on.
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Once here up was one additional ride, but the tier we had had three or four rides the lower one didn't have, so we were like, let's just go middle of the road and that way we can just be a little more lucy-free
18:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I paid $124.99 for a two day ticket to Dollywood and $80 for time saver plus for one of the days.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: For a total of $205.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That is incorrect.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't come for me.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I do words not.
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's right, but honestly with me you never know.
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And unlike most other parks these days, their skip the line service was a wristband, a physical wristband that they put on you with a QR code that they scan at the right.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: we actually had to go to a physical location at the park like in office that we had to enter to get these bracelets put on us.
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And usually I'd be like, what a chore.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to have to get steps away.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It was actually so nice to be off our phone and not inside a theme park app all day because we didn't even download the dolly but app because we didn't have to.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't need an app to go here because it was on our wrist.
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was pretty refreshing.
19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That
19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I simply cannot because we did not wait in a single lie.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We did not wait in a single lie every time on the board with zero minutes, zero.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Gooseg.
20:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I have never seen anything like it in my life.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no weights and it stayed that way for the entire day.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no, there were no lines.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no lines.
20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Not there's no lines at Disneyland.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm waiting 10 minutes to go on snow white.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There were no lines.
20:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There weren't zero lines.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: When we rolled up at our first attraction, the attendant saw a wristman's last in us.
20:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He laughed in our faces and said, wow, you sure wasted your money today.
20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We were so taken back, like, oh my god, we're being clowned on.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Yankees who didn't know better, which on one hand just means we planned extremely well.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yay, go us.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who could have ever anticipated the crowd calendars would be this accurate and how quiet the week between festivals and spring breaks would be?
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, if the worst thing that happens at Dolleywood on the other hand is that I spend $100 on or $80 on a skip
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: then yeah, I'm good.
21:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just the most freaky, unpredictable thing I've ever experienced while visiting a theme park and it truly felt like this car makes shift for all the trouble we went through in getting there.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, after trying to visit Dollywood, so much, so many times, we finally made it, and we got on every single big ride with no weights.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And for the most part, they were pretty freaking awesome.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: This place is the closest I've ever come to feeling like I am in roller coaster tycoon in real life.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: No joke, they kind of have one of everything.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got a flying coaster, they've got a bunch of looped e loops, they've got one so fast that someone in our party's boobs flew out while they were on board in a knocking-in-a-name names, but I just wanted to emphasize how freaking fast that ride was.
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know I could use the professional terms I would use if I was writing a story right now.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, there's an arrow looper beyond vertical drop.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But that language always feels so exclusive to the coaster community.
22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to say the welcomely knowing what this park is like.
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's worth going to HE double Ellen back to try to get yourselves here like we did.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to give it to you straight from my own perspective.
22:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Dollywood has over a half dozen major coasters, a handful of smaller attractions, and then a bunch of random, like, kid friendly off the shelf type of little rides.
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got a fake dumpo, they've got this ridiculous one where you bounce on bears, which they let for adults on, and we're like, oh, they adults always come on boardwalk right in, bless their souls.
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And Dolly would also have plenty of entertainment like live music and shows and Dolly's freaking tour boss, which we will get into shortly.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is so wild about Dolly would, is that like I told you, this place is absolutely massive.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't even wrap your head around the size of this during your first visit.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no witty, there's no castle, there's no wayfinding.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It is just like truly four adults looking at pamphlet maps, trying to figure out if we turn lower left or upper left to reach the next ride.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And not only does these sheer size and scale of this place shock you, it's somehow this big and this absolutely gigantic, and you still can't see what you're going to get into when you're on rides.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: for multiple big coasters, like the biggest coasters in the park.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You could not see the entire track from where you were in the park, which is lunacy.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know, I don't even know how they did that.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: How did... How?
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's truly in the freaking mountains.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just see some of the coasters and just like, bye-bye!
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: These rides eating you over the hill and you'll find out what it's all about!
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: When your body is launched onto the other side.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Case in point.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the most thrilling rides, which became my absolute favorite.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so fun, was this beast of a coaster named a lightning rod.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, standing in the 50s inspired jukebox junction area of the park, all you can really see is this long lift hill and a few little passes on the coaster back to the load station.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: People are screaming, but I didn't look that intense and you can't really discern why.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's reclaimed is a little, boy oh boy did we find out, the majority of this ride is once again completely out of you even though you are lower than the mountains.
24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make sense and you just don't know what you're getting into until you were on board and that is so exciting and nervous and scary and fun.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so fun you don't know what is going to happen on an outdoor attraction which is so rare.
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this ride's story is nuts.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so fast and road so smooth that I assumed it must be brand new, but it's not.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It opened as a launch wooden coaster 10 years ago, but in 2021 they added in steel and this ride is, you guys, I could not stop laughing because it goes so fast that it doesn't make sense.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so scared and the entire time, both times I went on it, I was tackling.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I was scream laughing because it is, it is zoomier than you could ever imagine and you have no idea
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're kind of like flying out of the sea to the moon?
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You're kind of like flying out of the sea to the little, but you like you have a bell, and you have a straight, but you also need to find out a little bit.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Like your butt is off the chair a little bit.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're kind of flying into a little scary, but it's very, very fun.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And this ride is so dollywood, because you just think it's gonna be a regular old Rickety wooden ride, and it's like surprise.
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going so fast, y'all think you're going to the moon!
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll walk off with jelly for legs, deciding if you should turn left to explore Dully's actual tour bus again.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll highlight my visit, obviously, or turn right to board the cold train for a ride through the mountains.
25:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is why I love Dully Wood.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Dollywood because what is happening here?
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this place?
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't amusement park where the theme is a country singer or an actress's theme park where there are just a bunch of butterflies and extremely intense roller coasters and it makes no sense and yet it works perfectly.
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll walk around saying things like, want to go visit the blacksmith before we eat a loaf of hot bread and then you'll walk past a gaggle of bald eagles just so many bald eagles as though it has normal.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You wonder, why is my fantasy, your mountain home?
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Sucking my head, even though I don't even know if I've ever heard this song before, and you're standing there thinking that, well, looking at a little recreation of it next to you, and I almost just plummeted to my death inside a haunted mind, but now I'm eating an insect-themed funnel cake, and all is right in the world, and that, my friends, is the dollywood experience.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Dolly is such an enigma and so many people wrapped into one that you know what it just makes sense that her scene park is as varied as she is.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There is nowhere else on earth like this place.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I honestly like can't believe it exists in 2026 and it is just so delightful.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually explain the lands and the rides and do like the kind of awooks of the park, you know, like a little funky audio tour with my own opinions.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tricky to take you around this park because when you're there physically, it's even more tricky to be taken around this park.
27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It is laid out so crazily.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of shaped like the only way to describe it is that it's shaped like the first pancake you make when you're trying to make a pancake shaped like something else.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the only explanation.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like kind of themed, but also kind of not.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The most themed area is Craftsman's, oh, that's terrible to say out loud.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Craftsman's valley.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Where there are actual glass lowers, actual candle makers, actual blacksmiths.
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're all like doing it as you walk through.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the confectioners on Main Street behind that glass, but gloriously fully open to the public.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: in a way you could never imagine because they also have activities where you can join them to blacksmith stuff and to make class ornaments.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I know they'd be like whittling and working, but I didn't know it would feel so real.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're out here in the mountains, just surrounded by trees.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: There's again an unsathomable amount of birds nearby.
28:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a tiny little village church.
28:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The exterior's feel very not very far.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But all the stores are actually stocked with different merch.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The salespeople couldn't be friendlier.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's an apothecary store that you would expect you'd walk in and would just see Coca-Cola products and dolly with merchandise.
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, it had lotions and tinctures and like beer and oil.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just so cute.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We did go to dolly with twice.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We did use our two-day ticket, even though there were no weights.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And on our first day, we walked the entirety of the park and rode whatever we walked past, which means, because my friends aren't just like me, we walked the entire day and rode every ride they had.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to tell you all about that right after this break.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: of them.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, where I just left off, I was telling you that I had gone on every single ride at this park, and we started with one called Blazing Theory, which was the goofiest attraction I've been on in years.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, they're like urge some of the theme park fans have, where you like really want to go on fan of manner in Disneyland Paris, or even like Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland, imagine pairing that feeling with like the age and character of
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: and the unpredictability of journey to the center of the earth at Tokyo DisneyC.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you kind of got whatever this is.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Set in a town from the 1800s with a fire approaching rapidly.
29:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, would you know that's very lengthening on the right?
29:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No, do I know what cause I looked up in the website?
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, do.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dark ride with delightfully worn in animatronics.
30:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been up and updated it a long, long, long, long, long, long time, given that old Epcot feel.
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But also for like 10 gorgeous seconds, it's a rollercoaster.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a dark ride, which is like, well, it's a rollercoaster, and then it's a dark ride again.
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's a rollercoaster, and then it's over.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And the dude loading us into this said this was his favorite ride at Dollywood because his grandpa worked on it, which is so...
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollywood.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Which, speaking of the loading, I've heard a lot of people say that they do not like Dollywood, and I think I'm starting to understand why.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the veneer of a theme park with the operations of an amusement park.
30:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And what that means is that they are loading these things slowly for reasons outside of their control.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: First off, a lot of these are aggressive roller coasters, which means more additional safety checks than you would need.
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But second of all,
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: These are rhymes that are not built for you bringing your belongings on board.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone does that extremely irritating thing.
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Where you plop them in the little shelves before you board, which means everyone has to get in the right vehicle, climb out of the right vehicle.
31:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, stop down, step up, put their bag in a cubby, and come back and get settled in a harness or a lapar or sometimes both.
31:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're also doing all of that at the same time, everyone is exiting the ride and scrambling to try to find wherever they left their drink cup and their backpack and all of their things.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: and it is a mess!
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It slows these rides down so much.
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We again did not wait in a single proper line for a ride and it was still a cumbersome process.
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They also like don't really tell you where to go when you're lining up for a ride, which is a whole other thing.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So when ride weights are actually occurring when they're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes watching this slowest molasses process would
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But back to Blazing Fury, this like silly little dark ride coaster.
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just fun, it's just vintage fun, which is what many of the rides a dolly would are.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Fun, not vintage fun.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: If they were all vintage fun, it would be like, I've got, but no, they're all fun.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But for a theme park map, some of the attractions here do leave a significant amount to the imagination.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: When a ride has no onboard audio, you can feel the difference.
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And for maybe a regular person, like a normal person doesn't spend all day thinking about this stuff, it wouldn't be a big deal.
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But for someone who is used to their being a storyline, I'm out here being like, but why am I going upside down?
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand why my body is upside down.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand why my head is below my legs right now.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And while that's a demand to I am prescribing upon them, when Dolly would live in this liminal space between theme and amusement park.
32:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It does make some of the rhymes here fall flat for me, personally.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Attractions like Dragonflyer, a suspended family coaster where your feet dangle and your non-toddler kids can ride with you, they were kind of like this.
32:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They were fine, but I would never really wait for them.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Sunderhead, a fun but not scary wooden coaster, was kind of like that too.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was basically...
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of like a legitimate Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it had these patented seats that were, we called them arm chairs because they kept you from smacking against the side, and you just felt like you were sitting in a cushioned chair, and it was a great coaster, but again, no real story happening here, and it could have been, for like a wild ride in the wilderness, it could have been so much better.
33:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's Big Bear Mountain, a massively long nearly 4,000 foot coaster that opened in 2023 and is only offered on the biggest, most expensive time saver ticket, which even we didn't have.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw that and we're like, oh yeah, it's long, it's new, this one is gonna rock, this is gonna be the highlight of our trip.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean we have a clear theme in the name, we have a long freaking walk to the back of the park because it's on an expansion path.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means it's new, new technology.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: This one's going to rock and it has a little bit of a storyline and it has on board audio But boy, didn't leave a lot to the imagination.
33:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, but okay, if this is a coaster named Big Bear Mountain and it's a coaster about a bear
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I should see a bear.
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I should see a bear.
34:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me one animatronic.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me see a little paw move or something.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't go crazy as I've been doing this since 1955, baby.
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no excuse for this anymore.
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kept waiting and waiting and waiting.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the longest ride here.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was nothing.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think the dolly would claim to tell his father by this, given that it's not there to man to put on visiting.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mine.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: but these rides would have so much more oof and resonance to a wider audience and especially a thing per crowd if they had the small extra touches.
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, if your coaster is themed to a mountain of bears, let me see a freaking paw.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Just want to see a paw.
34:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the reason why I was so delighted by a ride called Fire Chaser Express, my other favorite ride here at Dollywood.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: This ride easily could work in Universal Studios if they had some sort of like minion firefighter
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: it launches forward.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It launches backwards.
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a theme party of a coaster is you can get.
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: They had actual practical effects in a garage full of fireworks.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was perfect.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: This one was so good and we all walked off so giddy.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But alas, my group was split on the last coaster that we have yet to tackle.
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the favorite of two people in our party and everyone else wrote it a second time, but me.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you know Dollywood, I think you know what I'm talking about.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: because we are discussing mystery mine.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: My friends were gung-ho about this.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was not at all.
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually stopped them from climbing the stairs because I looked at the track around us and went, excuse me, hold please, the track makes no sense.
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: This was one of the rare ones where you could see the majority of the outdoor track that was there.
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I looked up it in.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was an inverted track, not a loop.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Seems like the entire track was inverted in a way that gravity would not allow for.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the track was entirely upside down.
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what is happening here?
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked to my friends.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, just come on, just come on.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went, and boy, boy, this one was not the one for me.
36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the vibe here is kind of the essence of the haunted mansion just barely.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, a little spooky, but that's kind of where the comparison ends.
36:16
[SPEAKER_01]: that they did have the song playing and we boarded the ride vehicle and I was straight up like this is the melody of grim-grinding ghosts.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It was fully the melody of grim-grimming ghosts and the ride attended putting me in the ride was like, it's not grim-grimming ghosts.
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, yeah, but the melody is exactly the same.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he shut it down and I'm like, oh, he's definitely heard this before.
36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He's definitely heard this before.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But this ride, oh my god, mystery mine.
36:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I'm sorry.
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I just hit my mic because I've so many things to say about mystery mine.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Also not scared, but that's not the name of it.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the name of it, right?
36:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Mystery mine.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta look up a picture of it to understand what I'm talking about because this was one of those rides that's like a straight up straight down.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of like hang time at knots if you've ever done that.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're laying back and you're going up, up, up, up, up, up, laying down and then you go straight down the other way.
37:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like overloved like a big U.
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wild.
37:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I gotta give it to them, a bravo for the seeming.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so cool that they hid this vertical drop straight up straight down inside a random old beat-up mind-building.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's genius design that you can see the rest of the track, but could not see the vertical drops.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, to quote Bob Eiger, they built two.
37:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And they rocked me to my core.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a video that one of them took of me, I think Brandon took it to me walking off and just yelling at them, like, I told you!
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at the track I told you!
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just too rickety for me to ever do again.
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if I think that does the height of it was very fun, and if you are into theme parks, you'll probably like this ride.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I really don't enjoy rides that slam my head back and forth, like my head is one of those metal clickety-clack balls, people used to have on their executive desk in the 1980s,
37:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want my brain to feel slosh or rout, but it deems mentioning because honestly, mystery mine was done so well, it was very themed and it was like really inventive, even if it fully rocked my world.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, lightning rod?
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely favorite.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Firechaser Express, right behind it, they are both ones I would look forward to riding again.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Thunderhead, the armchair ride, truly fellow group in armchair or couch, the theme list, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and reluctantly mystery mine are the other ones that I would recommend to a theme park person.
38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's dolly wood, and we are there for so much more than just the rides.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And once again, I just want to emphasize, I did not know what to expect.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought there was a very, very big, not even more than zero, like a pretty large chance we were going to be hustled into a sad old amusement park vibe, so it felt barren and like a bummer.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: but not at all, like literally not at all.
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Being surrounded by real nature is so nice.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And you even have like crisp mountain air?
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know how refreshing it is to be in a theme park surrounded by actual trees that weren't planted two years ago under the guise of Oh, they'll grow in and then we'll have shade.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The park is beautiful, it is lush.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: The details are so good.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We were all so impressed by just the fabrication of things and the level of theming.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The level of theming that I did not expect.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: The quality is so high!
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm old enough to still remember when they open picks our peer and just slap some vinyl on some trash cans.
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like here everything felt handcrafted and like really well built and high quality things looked good and clean and beautiful.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: The plants, the trees,
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Is, of course, the dolly part and experience.
39:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this was a multi-building setup.
39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how they laid this out, but I'm not going to critique them, because it was heaven.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There is essentially a museum exhibit about dolly part, which is one of those new fancy museum exhibits.
39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when they get people who did theme park design, but probably left the business, because it's volatile, and they started to build museums and interactive displays, they got that.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who built it, but it is good.
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the walkthrough is fantastic.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I wouldn't expect that they charged extra for it.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Please don't.
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was so nice like being this dolly environment of like her whole career.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they had this other building that was her costumes and her shoes.
40:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And let me tell you her proportions make no sense to the human eye.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna leave it at that.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There was also a stage show which I believe her nieces in.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's like the one that her family is part of.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We walked in and found out it was gonna be about 40 minutes long and just
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: did not have the time so we had to leave before it started, which was a bummer.
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have loved to see that.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't able to.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But then we went on a tour bus.
40:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We went on dolly, partens freaking tour bus.
40:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the tour also, the, the, the gentleman who like helped us onto the tour bus was talking us new so much was so helpful.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You are literally in dolly
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So iconic and so cool that we absolutely overstate our welcome, like the people waiting in line for us to get out of the bus must have been so mad because we just couldn't leave.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We just couldn't leave and I just couldn't, I kept walking through these exhibits just being like, I cannot wrap my head around the dolly of it all.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I feel like I'm looking at a museum exhibit from 100 years ago, and now I'm standing in her theme park on my iPhone.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's aspects of her life.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: She grew up with what nine siblings in a Tennessee mountain house, which is also recreated in the park, and you can go in and see it.
41:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And it looks truly like the 1800s, letters like a pot that they made some sort of canna beans in.
41:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, I'm sitting here in 2026 on my phone, like Googling what Dolly has done in the last few months.
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: the split between those experiences should not join together and yet they do like I can't process the entirety that is Dolly Parton's vast and varied career.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to know everything there is to know about this woman immediately because I'm so blown away by her.
42:00
[SPEAKER_01]: because she's a musician, so there's tons of entertainment, but she's also a famous actress, and she's an icon, and she's kind of this like beacon of hope of charitable giving, she is so many different things, and they're all kind of wrapped up in this park, and it's just very, very cool.
42:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is the closest parallel to Walt Disney that I think will ever see in this theme park setting in our lifetimes.
42:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And because she is so rooted in music, there's tons of entertainment.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody talks about how great the entertainment was, and there are multiple stage shows,
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't be mad at me.
42:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't see any of them.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
42:37
[SPEAKER_01]: People loved them.
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to see them.
42:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to see the stage show about her life.
42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very badly.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But our priorities were one
42:45
[SPEAKER_01]: rides, two food, three merchandise, and because of the sheer complexity of visiting a park this boundless, like this endlessly big, there was simply no way we could do it all in the amount of time that we had.
42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: On our first day we did all rides and stay until almost closing, but truly like mid-morning to closing.
43:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But on our second day which was more of a half day really, we came primarily for food and shops, and we watched the entirety of the park again conquering
43:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Brandon, one of my friends was on the trip, really wanted to see the merchandise in every single store, because it seemed like the Emporium didn't have the stuff that we had kind of glanced at the day before, and he was so correct in this instinct.
43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever just merchandise this park freaking rocks at their job, because the layouts were so enticing, the product lines were so robust that
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I ended up buying random stuff that wasn't even dolly would related because the boutiques were so packed with things worth buying.
43:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought this big, huge pink hairbow for Pearl and like this like Southern style boutique that had like an old water mill in it.
43:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought a vintage looking dolly with keychain at another store.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They had patches for sale for almost every single attraction.
43:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had these little like patch and pin packs.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Postcards were all over the place.
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They were all different and they were 50 cents each.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: None of this 10 in a pack for $20 business, like we're getting a Disney, none, none, none, I was able to buy an individual postcard, which sent me through the roof.
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It was wonderful.
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But most of all, most of all, I bought a real souvenir.
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought a sweatshirt.
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you listen to the podcast regularly, you know it takes a lot for theme park merchandise to Wumi.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: When I buy something, I intend to keep it for years and years and years.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has to speak to me an a very deep, visceral level to make it all the way home to my closet because once it is there, it will not leave because I am obsessed with it and it is a part of my being.
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I tell you, I have not only already worn the sweatshirts since I got home, but I am wearing it right now as I record this,
44:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect and has like I would say like the energy of a spirit jersey, but is it's own person like the long distance relative of a spirit jersey that it did not know about because it is read with this big chunky white straw stripes right
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Chunky white stripe.
45:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There we go.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: A big old chunky white stripe across the middle that says dolly wood in the most gorgeous like varsity letter font It is divine.
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to have a Tabasco shirt that was kind of like this It's this is a half zip that was just a polo that had multiple buttons I bought it from my friend Jamie who used to sell vintage and after about six or seven years with it I was like, you know what?
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not wearing this that often.
45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's taking up space.
45:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I should donate it and just put it back into like the recycle factory like have another person discover it and love it And I regret giving it away so much that this fills that void perfectly.
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giddy over it So if you go check all the stores because this was in one single store it was in the general store in the Craftsman's area Which it belonged in the Emporium.
45:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why it wasn't there, but I'm so glad we found it in so glad that Brandon made the call to go into every single store
45:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But because we chose to do this, we weren't able to really sit down for some of the shows.
45:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We thought we'd get to it eventually and just time ran out.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've, and again, keep in mind, we had no weights.
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we had weights, it would've taken a lot more time to do everything.
46:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So we thought with like all of this we'd eventually get to it and we didn't and we thought we would end up just seeing live music because a lot of people said that we're walk around people They're bands playing all the time.
46:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's so joyful.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much live music.
46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw none of it because there was none.
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We went on a week between festivals.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody was there.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They're obviously not hiring musicians to play that.
46:32
[SPEAKER_01]: When on the eve of their big festival, the wad, the first day it's back, they're going to have all the live music for that.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We did see one person playing a bandro.
46:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it was one time.
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was it.
46:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the tradeoff for if you visit during a last busy time.
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I would rather have zero minute weights than someone fiddling.
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Personally, I love, I love, I love a fiddle.
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You play the upright bass, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But, which I did, Lord Drop, for four years, through all three of my school I have in my house.
46:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, like, I would love to see people playing string instruments.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But, again, I'd rather not wait for a rollercoaster.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just, it makes no sense they're not going to pay people to perform to nobody.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get it.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But we did not see dollywood in that way that most people
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Still, this place was full of pleasant surprises.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They had water bottle refill stations everywhere.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't even have that at Disney, bonkers.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They had extremely kind of stuff.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The food was pretty good.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think it's better for me to cover the food at length in a video, so you can actually see what I'm talking about.
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But, I mean, the food was pretty straightforward, and it was pretty good.
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We did two sit-down meals.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: One was at Aunt Granny's restaurant, which is kind of like, it's all you care to enjoy, which is the verbiage that Disney also uses sometimes, which feels like a legal loophole, so people don't like even self-secondance to the company.
47:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was not, it was kind of like a buffet, but you sit down.
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: you get a list of entrees and sides and you pick three entrees and four sides and then you can keep swapping them out for new ones.
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had fried chicken, they had some sort of, I don't really eat pulled meats.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was, you know, I didn't really, there's a lot of things that people probably recommend at these parks that I'm not going to recommend because I'm not getting like a plate of brisket ever.
48:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just simply not happening.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I had fried chicken, which was great.
48:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They had a bunch of vegetables.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I had braised cabbage.
48:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like that's the side I want.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: An entire bowl of braised cabbage was delicious.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We just had a great time sitting there eating all the food.
48:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It was lovely and the prices were so good dude.
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like $30 a person for all you can eat.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Came with a soda.
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: can't beat it.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It was wonderful.
48:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We went to another one.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the front porch restaurant and we all had chicken club sandwiches that had pretzels for bread instead of bread.
48:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just dolly wood pretzels.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wild out here.
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we also had some other yummies.
48:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a really great ice cream.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some other snackies but the highlight.
48:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason why I'm like forget all that food who cares is because the highlight here was the cinnamon bread.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe that I've been walking around town for about seven months in my homemade dollywood cinnamon bread hat.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not know truly how good it was.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It was going to be shameful if I went there and didn't like the bread and I've been walking around in my hat, which says, oh my god, I'll put on my head and let's see if I can remember reading some dollywood is what I'd say if my mouth wasn't full of cinnamon bread.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretty sure that's what it said.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a few more words in there because I tend to overwrite, but anyway,
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We got there and we were like no way the center of bread is going to be as good as the people say because I think don't wait for his overheif I liked all with I think it's good, but I don't think it's like earth shattering and this stuff took us out Cinnamon bread was so good because it was so fresh and so fluffy and so light But then it had this like cinnamon goo on the bottom that you could dip in the girlies in front of us in line We're like the icing is overrated and come with icing or apple butter
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So we didn't even really eat the icing.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I do wish it was more of a frosting because I'm not as much of a powdered sugar icing girly, but it was divine.
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It was absolutely divine.
49:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And Carly Caramona, who I'm sure many of you know, is also a theme park reporter.
50:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly's been to Dollywood a lot of times and said that her favorite cinnamon bread is not the standard one.
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the mini cinnamon bread that's more personal sized.
50:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And we ended up getting the mini one.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: In the mini one, it's three dollars cheaper than an entire loaf of bread that feeds multiple people, so I was a little like, currently better we're right, I'm losing money on my bread and money ratio here.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And Carly was right, Carly was right, Carly was right, the mini one is gooeyer, it has more of that like cinnamon liquid sugary yaminess.
50:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We really liked the mini one, we thought it was better, but you do get more bang for your buck with the bigger one.
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say definitely get both because there was
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So tasty.
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It was truly so tasty.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollywood has no fault.
50:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to come to the sentiment bread.
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But rather iced coffee, there was no iced coffee to be found in this entire damn park.
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is the devil's work.
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Truly it is, it is, it is unacceptable.
50:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It is unacceptable.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, there's no explanation for it.
51:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollywood is so severely lacking in the iced coffee, iced latte department.
51:05
[SPEAKER_01]: that all of the coffee offerings that I can see were those like automatic machines like they had an ice rinks at the 90s where you push a button for a cappuccino like there's only one iced coffee product I saw and I checked every single location in this freaking theme park and it was a cold brew for $7.99 American sense so take what you will
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: With that information, get coffee before you get there.
51:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope you can hold out while you're there because I almost couldn't Dante won and it was very, very dire.
51:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not spending $7.99 on a cold brew.
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, we probably serve Starbucks cold brew that I don't know what is happening.
51:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know what the cold brew is.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Did it come from a package?
51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's happening.
51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: $8, what are my milk options?
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are they the tiny cups?
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like the little cups of half and half.
51:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Was not taking part in that.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not spending $8 on a cold brew.
51:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Adollywood and they don't so coffee anywhere else.
51:53
[SPEAKER_01]: However,
51:54
[SPEAKER_01]: All I needed was night.
51:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want some espresso.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I want a nice latte and it was no
52:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting because regionally, you know what our theme parks, we have plenty of fun funky coffees, but here, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm,
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: and it doesn't make any sense because like they had to buy chocolate in the candy shop but neary of cold caffeine that isn't in energy drink to be found.
52:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make any sense to me.
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So follow my lead, get it, get a coffee, the night before, add buckies, get an ice coffee, put a little, put a little syrup in it, 199 maybe fill up the fridge with them and then you're ready to go for the parks.
52:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you would have asked me, while we'll shock me more on my trip to Hollywood, the many references to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or the availability of cold coffee, I would have guessed completely wrong, because there was a lot of faith-based stuff.
53:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Things for sale.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus saves signs on the wall.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ is present here.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of what I'll say.
53:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, there is literally a church inside the park, but even as a religious minority here,
53:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of liked it.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually kind of liked it.
53:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt so nice to be surrounded by people who were like, hey, welcome.
53:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We collectively believe in something and we really believe in caring for other people and we wish you a blessed day, which is also Dolly Parton's wheelhouse.
53:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Her imagination library, if you are not familiar with it, has gifted 300 million bucks to young children.
53:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that for a second.
53:42
[SPEAKER_01]: books and weaving that narrative of giving and charity and community into the religious beliefs that are kind of omnipresent here was nice.
53:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're done like a very low-key way.
53:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't like offensive about it.
53:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just kind of like nice.
53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It just kind of added to the
54:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you leave it at just like the theme park surface level with none of the other dark scary modern right snatching affiliations along with it just like the pure pretend small town happy collective like it It did not bother me at all because again, I'm in someone else's face.
54:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the other in this scenario.
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a park model after an actual living person
54:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And as much as we before we left, we're like, is this going to be a safe space for us as people from California or not?
54:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It absolutely was and we felt very great there.
54:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we did see someone at the park wearing a shirt that absolutely rocks me to my core.
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't see as much political garb as you'd expect to be more and as much like clothing that made us go yx, yx, yx, yx, yx, yx, yx, yx.
54:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There was some pretty horrifying stepping-shown being sold at shops outside of the park, but I didn't see a single political affiliation on a hat, on a clothing, anywhere.
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even see any of that merch that I mentioned that was sold in the stores of, like,
55:01
[SPEAKER_01]: snowflakes, you know, that type of stuff like I didn't see any of that in the park.
55:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, we were there in weekdays.
55:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was quiet.
55:08
[SPEAKER_01]: There were low crowds.
55:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be part of that.
55:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am very cognizant of the fact that this is not where I am from.
55:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I am different from these people.
55:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on someone else's turf.
55:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do not expect them to believe in the same things that I do and act the same way.
55:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You just never know what to expect when you're in a new place.
55:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was pleasantly surprised.
55:26
[SPEAKER_01]: As pleasantly surprised, people weren't delighted to see us like
55:30
[SPEAKER_01]: involved a gap jaw on the floor delighted to be a dollywood.
55:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The staff was so kind.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really, really impressed by the whole situation.
55:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean not all, not all of the staff was like that.
55:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The ride operators were like really stressed.
55:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure what the deal was there.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That perk needs some real like load on load baggage overhaul, as I mentioned.
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them, we went on like, they're like four staircases to go up to a ride.
55:54
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nobody there.
55:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't know what was going on.
55:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They kept yelling at us, then we went off the wrong way, and then yelling at us again.
55:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't like, they keep yelling at you to fill all available space, but they don't let you choose a row.
56:04
[SPEAKER_01]: If you like want to wait for the front after you've waited in line, I don't know.
56:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't choose where you sit in the ride, which is very bizarre to me.
56:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we just kind of were like, okay, we'll go in five.
56:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just so used to theme parks, it was just strange to me.
56:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But they got us in the ride safely, so whatever who cares, all in all, a fantastic time.
56:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Now before we go, I do want to go kind of over our highlight low light tips from our trip.
56:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I thought I would be out here giving you like a travel guide, but I went to an empty park.
56:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't really, I don't really know.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know to tell you what ride to go to first.
56:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I heard lightning rod my favorite ride there closest down often.
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So like maybe early in the day.
56:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know we played it by ear and it worked out very well.
56:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We were very lucky so consult a crowd calendar and I hope it goes well.
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: as I mentioned before, going every store.
56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The souvenirs are really good.
56:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The other merchandise, their party merchandise, they sell also great.
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We all bought more than we thought we would, and we were people who don't really buy theme park merch.
56:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So, going every store and checking out.
56:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, check the crowd calendars.
57:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Our timing was a bit of a pro when it comes.
57:02
[SPEAKER_01]: As I mentioned, we missed a lot of that lively outdoor music atmosphere that I thought we would see.
57:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We visited, I believe, right after the, I will always love you festival ended and a literal day before the flower and food festival began.
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So on our last day, we got to enjoy the topiaries, which was lovely.
57:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They were beautiful.
57:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And we kept noticing like, oh, this wasn't even planted here on Wednesday.
57:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were there on a Friday.
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't really nice to be able to see that.
57:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people would want to go for temporary food.
57:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know me, I don't care.
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I was happier to have the short weights in like midweek crowd, which was nice, but because it's spring and because the sun goes down later, we didn't get to experience dolly with it night.
57:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know dolly with it night during certain season festivals can be really, really cool.
57:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do hope to one day experience that, but that simply because of the way the earth moves and sun.
57:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
57:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, like timing, et cetera, earth sun, et cetera.
57:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But find those pockets, check a crowd calendar, and you will be as blessed as we were.
58:01
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are wondering, like, is this right for me I have small children?
58:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna have to think about it.
58:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there are a lot, surprising, a lot of things for small kids to do here actually.
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: There was an indoor play area, and Wildwood Grove, which is one of the newer areas, which is very lovely.
58:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of small rides.
58:16
[SPEAKER_01]: There's actually a country fair area with a lot of little rides.
58:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But personally, I wouldn't travel here with Pearl.
58:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no characters, we're so used to Disney, and I think she'd be like, Mom, why am I in an oldie-time candle shop?
58:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Get me out of here and into Judy Hops' arms.
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't think she would understand how charming it is at her age.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Give in how deeply exposed she is to Disney theme parks.
58:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and the size of it?
58:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my lord, there's not a chance I would be pushing a stroller this far and have a hand free enough to keep me hydrated.
58:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a camel back summer people, by the way, and I will be rocking mine at Disney World when I am there.
58:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, I just, I don't really have any interest personally in hosting it.
58:59
[SPEAKER_01]: because they would require so much travel for us.
59:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are like, wait, I know, I'm actually not that far from here and I don't feel that way at all.
59:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my kid would enjoy going on a bunch of random rides and being outside, then absolutely go.
59:11
[SPEAKER_01]: My viewpoint of this is really heavily colored by the fact that I'm far, far, far away and could barely even get my solo adult self there with my friends.
59:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So for us, I wouldn't be traveling here with her soon, but if you were driving distance, ooh, I definitely would get shot.
59:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, it's not the best for accessibility.
59:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Their scale is just so, so massive.
59:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Then unless you're using an ECV, which you can do, just trying to walk through this park with any sort of mobility issue would be really tough.
59:44
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was baby wearing and had to walk this much, I think I would collapse on the ground in tears.
59:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Then again, my core is essentially non-functional anymore, but it's just huge, it's just huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, so just keep that in mind.
59:55
[SPEAKER_01]: because it's not like we're used to where there's a thing in the middle and you can cut across.
59:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Here it's like a big ol' loop and then another kind ol' loop.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not laid out the way we're used to where you can cut back through the middle at all, so just keep that in mind.
1:00:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of shaped like a butterfly with one kind of weak wing in a way.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes for hiding to tell you and read the ride descriptions, you literally don't know what these rides will be because you can't see the tracks.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It got to a point where I had to stop at the sign and read the safety warnings for every single ride because I truly did not know if we would have a 200 foot drop or three inversions or go asillion miles per hour, I did not know.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And a quick note.
1:00:37
[SPEAKER_01]: because, you know, I'm not like a huge coaster buff, just like spewing nonsense to other coaster hits.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I love a theme park, I love a ride, but I don't always love massive coasters, especially ones without a theme.
1:00:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm simply not going to miss six flags ever, but I'm happy to say, I did every single coaster in this park, and I found none of them to be as aggressive, non-complementary.
1:00:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I found none of them to be as aggressive as Starlight Racers at Epic Universe.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_01]: that ride messed me up.
1:01:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It shook me so hard that I needed to take an adville after every single round that I went on it.
1:01:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not feel that way here for anything, which kind of shocked me.
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't go on mystery mine again because I did feel too shook and up, but no, we're in your meaning to take an adville because it felt like my head was going to explode because my brain slashed around in my skull so much.
1:01:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, most people, when I mentioned that to them, say, then why did you go on store-just racers so many times to which I say, because I'm a card, okay?
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I do my job well, and I need to know.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to know what this ride is like on both tracks, and then again, at night.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I have to take a few too many adults one time in my life,
1:01:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to do it.
1:01:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Also a quick edit and apology that I called it Starlight Racers.
1:01:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The original name of Star Just Racers was Star Fall Racers.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times when I go to say the name out loud, I short-circuit and panic in my brain because I said Star Fall Racers like a hundred times an epigeniverse opened.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I always panic, but it is Star Dust Racers.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Not Star Light, not Star Fall, not Star Right, not Star Night.
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Star Just Racers.
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I got it.
1:02:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I got it.
1:02:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, oh gosh, where was I?
1:02:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of the rides, very smooth, extremely fun.
1:02:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed them.
1:02:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Dollywood is kind of like this theme park of amusement parks in a way, if that makes sense.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really enjoyed what they had.
1:02:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe I have talked so much about Dollywood where I can't even tell you about the other stuff we did.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll get to it next week.
1:02:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll try to wrap it in.
1:02:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're gonna do a gab session next week.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we're gonna do a very fun episode after that.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that it's not fun, I think it's fun, and we just have an interview after that.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then yeah, reminder, where if you're a coffee head like I am playing out your coffee, I don't ever want to drink a hot coffee ever, especially for one of those rinky-dink machines.
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_01]: There are very, very, very limited independent coffee shop options in the area, so just keep that in mind.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and if you have any dolly would questions or any feedback, if you are a dolly would person, and you want to like let people know.
1:02:58
[SPEAKER_01]: stuff I didn't encounter because I went during such a wacky, wacky time.
1:03:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Please call in and let me know.
1:03:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I'm going to get yelled at for not going to one of the live shows I know.
1:03:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But we had, listen, we had a lot of merchandise and food-based aspirations, and I stand behind everything.
1:03:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We did, even if I need to read like $7 a part in biographies now because the woman is so fascinating.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I finally made it.
1:03:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I did nothing this day would come.
1:03:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited about it, and I hope you enjoyed!
1:03:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you, and you know, like I said at the beginning of the episode, I hope you now know if you are a dolly with person who is interested in going, or if you're like, now I'm good forever.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to stick with Disney universe.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I helped.
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you had fun.
1:03:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's all.
1:03:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I got.
1:03:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Carly, this is Rachel from Minneapolis.
1:03:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I first want to say it.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for all the love you showed my city when we were under siege earlier this year.
1:04:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate that you use your platforms to be out about topics beyond scheme parts.
1:04:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But on a theme park front, I am treating myself to a solo trip to Disneyland in May.
1:04:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my first solo trip ever, and first non-kid trip to the parks in 12 years.
1:04:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I love experience the parks with my kids, but I'm also looking forward to,
1:04:23
[SPEAKER_00]: only my scenery seeing pass 8 p.m. and getting all my own snacks.
1:04:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd love your tips for the best way to spend two solo day that didn't land with a parkhopper.
1:04:34
[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, I would love to know what are the best places to slow down and notice little magical or historical details.
1:04:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your favorite ice coffee spot?
1:04:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And what are the best tiny affordable souvenirs I can sit in my carry-on bag to bring home to my kids.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for your call and thank you for the kind words at the beginning.
1:04:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, if my job is to yell into a microphone and into a iPhone about things I care about, I have to be doing it for things that I care about that are massive, massive issues happening in the world that we live in.
1:05:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope your friends and family and loved ones were all okay and safe during that time even though the issue and the reason we all were talking about it is because not everybody's were and the that's the tragic end of it.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I really really really hope we don't have to live through more things like that again even if we are prepared for it it is extremely bleak and I just think that in general everybody needs to be kinder to each other in so many ways.
1:05:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I don't want to like hard pivot into Disneylands, but I do want to answer your call, which again, thank you for calling about this.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we did talk last week.
1:05:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it was.
1:05:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It might have been the week before.
1:05:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I just got off a plane.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little jumbly about when I know I recorded things and I know what I've said out loud, but I don't remember exactly which week they were in.
1:05:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do know that I did recently do a true call about a solo trip at Disneyland.
1:05:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But this one actually feels different enough that I don't want to snooze on this call, and I want to make sure that I address it, especially since so many of you are currently traveling to Disneyland solo.
1:06:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to barfe a bunch of worthwhile tips at you with that school and hopefully we will hit every single thing that you requested.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll ask you mentioned in previous episodes just to refresh your memory, single writer lines that Disneyland use them and abuse them.
1:06:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll love them, it will make your trip so much better.
1:06:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are so many of them at Disneyland Resort that you've got to be taking advantage of them.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Always, always, always mobile order food and advance.
1:06:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll save you so much waste of time at Disneyland because if you are like, oh, I think I want to eat this now.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You've already lost a half an hour.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, just order things in advance.
1:06:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You can always move the times around.
1:06:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You can adjust it.
1:06:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't pay until you pick it up.
1:06:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so, so helpful.
1:06:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That said.
1:06:42
[SPEAKER_01]: bring a charger because Brandon and I were realizing when we were a dolly wood that our phones just like really didn't die there and it's because we weren't using the dolly wood app because we weren't using the dolly wood app, the Disneyland app will drain your battery so make sure to bring extra charger because it'd be like a bit like you know like
1:06:58
[SPEAKER_01]: out of the park and be like, oh, I just wanted to make up my cookies.
1:07:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Bring a charger.
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to go.
1:07:02
[SPEAKER_01]: DCA I want to flag is busy with the festival right now.
1:07:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of my little Heidi holes there are pretty busy, but I do want to give you a short, lace of place, short list of places to chill if you would like them.
1:07:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, obviously Disney's Grand California great place to hang out.
1:07:18
[SPEAKER_01]: My favorite little hiding spot used to be the third floor.
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a table there that overlooks the balcony that I sat with a laptop.
1:07:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a life changing experience.
1:07:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They will kick you out of that seat if you are not a hotel guest, but because we're so low and if you might not be on a big device, they might not flag it.
1:07:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So you didn't hear from me, but I would give it another go.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know how it goes.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to, if you do research from me, I'd be very grateful.
1:07:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It is like, there is someone sitting there.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a club 33 check-in desk.
1:07:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're solo and you're just sitting on your phone reading a book, they're definitely gonna think you're a hotel guest.
1:07:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think.
1:07:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So give it a shot that is my favorite place, but otherwise the lobby is also fantastic there.
1:07:52
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to like a chill meal, I really, really like, this is me neither four.
1:07:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I recently did this and was like the third or fourth time I've done it.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It is my go-to move now.
1:08:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I will get food at Aunt Cass Cafe and I will walk it over to flows because you can watch the cars.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be in a lively environment and you get yourself out of that cafeteria overwhelm that the San Francisco area can be at meal time.
1:08:14
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, it is so chill to like, oh,
1:08:15
[SPEAKER_01]: get a bread bowl of macaroni and cheese and walk over there.
1:08:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Just be bunoring my little bread, my little mushroom cap of bread bowl bread.
1:08:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And just, oh, just sit there and eat it and watch cars like feel like I'm in a land and you'll see most of the time depending on where you're sitting, but I think you will always, I mean, if you're inside not really, but you'll see meater, you'll see like the McQueen drive by like it's just you feel like you are in a theme park land like you are part of it while also chilling and hanging out.
1:08:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That is kind of a favorite place to chill right now.
1:08:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't sleep on sitting up and hungry bear as the train goes past.
1:08:43
[SPEAKER_01]: There's usually pretty ample seating there, having the train go back same kind of feeling like you're at a theme park to read your relaxing, you're not in all of the hubbub.
1:08:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, really nice.
1:08:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, really nice.
1:08:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the hustle and bustle doesn't overwhelm you, I do recommend sitting in Jolly Holiday.
1:08:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the number one go to spot, but again, I tried to work there once.
1:08:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I never posted the video, but it's me being like, I can't do this.
1:09:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm overwhelmed.
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't get anything done.
1:09:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Also since you're traveling so low consider times where you're island like I never prioritize that when I'm there with other people and if you're going when it's not too hot out you may be should Don't forget also sitting at Disney around Disneyland at nighttime.
1:09:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh Gloria's taking it in is just having it is like chill ooh nighttime in Disneyland is a rare breed and I love it so much
1:09:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I would also recommend you just like do a little drive around on the monorail, but it's currently down or anything.
1:09:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's down for a minute, but that is a fun way I like to get a little bit of like chill Epcot whimsy into my day-to-day life.
1:09:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now to hit up the coffee that you mentioned.
1:09:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, before I do that, I do want to mention, don't sleep on the caramel corn that is sold in downtown Disney.
1:09:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worthers just like an Epcot and it's a really great sweet treat to toss in your bag where if you only want a few bites of dessert and you want to move on with your day and kind of spread the joy out.
1:09:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something I personally like to do to answer your coffee question.
1:09:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't have two sweet coffees in a day.
1:09:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I do Disneyland, I'll usually have one like business coffee and one party coffee, like business and pleasure coffee truly, I'll start the day with like serious coffee and later in the day have like a fun little coffee treat.
1:10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Since you are not starting at home, obviously.
1:10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: There are limited options like that serious coffee.
1:10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: These Starbucks and downtown Disney used to be my favorite for like a grab and go non themed coffee in the morning.
1:10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Just all business get that caffeine in and get to the park.
1:10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But the union busting happening there is extremely bleak and I have not seen an update otherwise.
1:10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do not enter that facility at the moment.
1:10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: those are more of a Disney establishment than a true Starbucks one outright even though like supporting Starbucks at all right now is a little bit questionable I'm personally struggling on where I land with it specifically inside the park because it feels like is it like it's kind of Starbucks there's also kind of Disney and a lot of times it's your best option we don't have joffries as readily available here in Disneyland Resort I'm always like uh but recently they're whole thing where they were like did you see the thing that they're promoting using chat GPT to like order your protein
1:11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: like that is so far from the wheelhouse of things I approve.
1:11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I'm not it full Starbucks blacklist yet.
1:11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not respect the company right now.
1:11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really horrified by their actions.
1:11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But as someone who travels a lot, I understand that it is very, very challenging to find an iced caffeinated coffee beverage that is not Starbucks, depending on like where you are, but airport you are at, etc.
1:11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to avoid it the entire trip at Hollywood.
1:11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so excited about that, but that is not always the case.
1:11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, I'm like one foot in one foot out.
1:11:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I did have to get it to Disneyland yesterday because their truly was not another option that was nearby.
1:11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I'm not
1:11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not feeling great about it.
1:11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to say that I'm like now for your fun coffee or your business coffee I do want to mention people swear by that Pixar place hotel coffee shop I have not been there, but I would consider mowsing over there if you have the time I'm also just seeing tears season the new like tickles your brain like doesn't mind I think that's very fun.
1:12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise dealers choice for that
1:12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, as for iced coffee, there isn't really much of one that I'm freaking out about at the moment beyond the one I've already said I loved, which is the black cherry tavern cold brew and red rose tavern, it is chocolate cold brew with a black cherry topper.
1:12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is delicious.
1:12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It is sweet but not crazy sweet.
1:12:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really good.
1:12:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, there is the blue, like dirt, mud, cake, coffee, not for me.
1:12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Capuchino cart always has a bunch of standard drinks as well as something funky going on.
1:12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they always have a, like before they had banana syrup, which was fun.
1:12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they have blue, they foam on a macho, which is exciting.
1:12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they always have something that feels like a local trendy coffee shop would have instead of kind of the standard theme park.
1:12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: offering.
1:12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I always love they had for the banana one.
1:12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: No was the banner one because they had the Banofi ice coffee.
1:12:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Who that was good?
1:12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Who that one was good?
1:12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I always try to mess with Captain I couldn't see what's up because they always have a fun option.
1:12:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What else?
1:12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, souvenirs.
1:12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: As you know, I don't mention on this episode.
1:13:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't buy a lot of stuff.
1:13:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't personally buy a lot of souvenirs I'm not really on the souvenir beat, but I have seen a lot of people talk about these new stickers that are at downtown Disney stickers Easy to pack affordable I tend to go like keychain sticker patch.
1:13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the things I like to pick up, which is basically everything.
1:13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to tell you what Easy to pack and then like easy to emphasize something you already own.
1:13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love like buying a souvenir that could make
1:13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: something functional feel better.
1:13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: A keychain makes my car keys feel more fun.
1:13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: A sticker can make my laptop more exciting.
1:13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Stuff like that is great.
1:13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I would follow the magical millennial and also chasing magic daily if you don't already.
1:13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They're two lovely ladies unaffiliated but they're just like them both and they post a lot about merch at the parks.
1:13:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would chasing magic daily posted about the stickers.
1:13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw the video and was like, okay, I think these stickers are the thing that's happening.
1:13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I would check that out and that way you can kind of peruse from home before you are there.
1:13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I answered most of your questions if I didn't you can call me back in yellow at me and have so much fun and if anyone's like too many Disney line calls I have so many more than I'm gonna get to I promise I promise I promise I promise they are coming Yeah, okay
1:14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you all so much for listening to this very special doll even episode and for those of you who have been along with me on this whole freaking journey We did it.
1:14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We did it together.
1:14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You are as big a part of this as I am Delta is a huge part of it, too Unhappily man, I add because Delta.
1:14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Delta.
1:14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Delta freaking Airlines.
1:14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I listen.
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to talk to customer service tonight.
1:14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do it because it's
1:14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like being nice to customer service people because they're people just doing their jobs but I also like we got to get stuff done, we got reach from the whole ground and I don't like having responsibility of that hanging over my shoulders.
1:14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, you can read review and follow us on Apple Podcasts and read and follow us on Spotify.
1:14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also give us a call at 7th or 7th or 7th or 8th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th or 7th
1:14:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Delta complained to me about airlines.
1:14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to hear it.
1:14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to me about your summer plans.
1:14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you on the fence about what restaurant to book on a Disney World trip?
1:15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you thinking about maybe going to Epic Universe but you're like, it might rain in the middle of the day.
1:15:04
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do?
1:15:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me a call, 747 terms.
1:15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy to answer.
1:15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are planning any of these trips, as always, do with any I mouse fan travel.
1:15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't, you're literally doing yourself a disservice.
1:15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: They will make your life easier and they will try to find you the best deal.
1:15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've navigated the Disney World website lately to try to find out what the rates are,
1:15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And me, I must be on travel.com.
1:15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, must be travel.com, such a music.
1:15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I've been on vacation too long.
1:15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: See, I don't even remember what you were all.
1:15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even remember my own URL.
1:15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I must be on travel.com slash of music is where you want to go to make sure that you have the best or possible because they will help you for all your Disney cruise line Disney parks, Universal Parks, truly anywhere you want to go, they will help you out.
1:15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Hit him up, hit him up, they are so fantastic and really great for the small questions where you know, like you have dinner, you watch like two episodes TV and you're like,
1:15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Who wants to be googling about like, try the car transfer if you have two car seats because you don't want to pack them what would the pricing be versus if you just rented a car and rented the car seats with it?
1:16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They will help you with all of that.
1:16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's gonna travel to Comps such a amusing.
1:16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Telling you, the best way to go.
1:16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that is a good solution.
1:16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You can follow me on Carly Waisell across the internet, join the foley at Facebook.com slash group slash currently Waisell.
1:16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I have to go because, sorry, I'm recording this on Monday and we have like the bookworm thread on Mondays and I'm reading a new book and I want to post about it.
1:16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I love to be a part of the bookworm.
1:16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Thread now that I've been for Backest Girls Book Club!
1:16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can subscribe to my Instagram at CurlyWiseL.
1:16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: 99 cents a month.
1:16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I posted a video about a week ago where I was like, you know what I'm always saying?
1:16:33
[SPEAKER_01]: This is worth 99 cents a month.
1:16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's why.
1:16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And the commenters agreed.
1:16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We're having a lot of fun there.
1:16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I am going to be posting more.
1:16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a way like it saves all your stories and mostly post stories.
1:16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also post reals to feed.
1:16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I'm going to be doing.
1:16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And we will have a private Q&A on the subscriber channel.
1:16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: for all of your questions about Tollywood and I usually go more in-depth even more than this over there and I answer your questions directly.
1:16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So 99 cents a month.
1:16:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everyone seems really happy with it.
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm loving it.
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically like just having a tree house in the middle of the internet and I thought that's so much.
1:17:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
1:17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you all for listening.
1:17:07
[SPEAKER_03]: See you real soon.
1:17:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey honey, this is an episode.
1:17:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it's gonna be late too.
1:17:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You're a planner, a great planner.
1:17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And you do start on very true something to say anything, but both for every trip.
1:17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I get a daily at Tinerary made by you.
1:17:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I study this at Tinerary, like a fine wine, like the Bible.
1:17:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I even print it out.
1:17:41
[SPEAKER_02]: This happens every trip.
1:17:44
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, here we go.
1:17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We will be walking through the park and I'm not going to say, what are we going to ask?
1:17:50
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?
1:17:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Never, ever, utter those words.
1:17:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Your head's going around that once, but why you said you say, prefer to your itinerary?
1:18:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I repeat, you do have fantastic job at planning.
1:18:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You plan so well that when things don't go exactly, if sometimes hard to be killed, you do great.
1:18:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you don't,
1:18:12
[SPEAKER_02]: put surprise meetings, like John Stamel's words, it was not on my SNR, but twice as I excited.
1:18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever you're doing on it, you just keep doing it because I think you are so amazing.
1:18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You are a perfectionist, I totally agree, and I appreciate all that you do for me and for planning each trip to perfection.
1:18:32
[SPEAKER_02]: But we have had many situations that we can't prevent.
1:18:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We took parole once in early evening to go on some rides that made the kingdom.
1:18:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And then in electrical problem happened in every single ride went down for over three hours that's hard to swallow telling a three-year-old sorry we have to leave and the next morning we left.
1:18:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And I am not a photographer, I am not a photographer, but I try so hard to capture the right lighting for you and the right picture and I mess up and I mess up a lot and things happen.
1:19:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But we do push the limit.
1:19:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You and I can go until we are thrown out of any part.
1:19:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We both have enormous amounts of energy.
1:19:13
[SPEAKER_02]: We leave the hotel after dinner, and we look at our watch.
1:19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, nice money, and we jump, and we go, and we run, and we make it from fireworks.
1:19:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We can still make magic in them, so that matter, we will get there.
1:19:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would go, we make it.
1:19:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We make it every single time.
1:19:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like, oh, we almost made it.
1:19:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We always make it.
1:19:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We run, we hike, we go.
1:19:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We invented the great race.
1:19:35
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, we were almost on that.
1:19:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a thought at one point.
1:19:39
[SPEAKER_02]: about the lightning lanes, I understand girl map 100%.
1:19:43
[SPEAKER_02]: If we are in Disneyland, the temperature is 85 to 95 degrees, you best believe lightning lane is worth anything in that amount.
1:19:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's too hot for young kids.
1:19:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So after traveling hours and packing and rushing in as hot, there's a credit card, and you're just credit card lightning lane immediately.
1:19:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you know, frozen will expect the kids so much best probably be highlight.
1:20:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, we're going to get a lightning lane for that.
1:20:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And that way too, I was in the sun.
1:20:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That girl map well spent.
1:20:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Or when I go into frozen gifts up and buy everything.
1:20:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
1:20:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I get a gift from with my membership.
1:20:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Girl math wins again.
1:20:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Great episode.
1:20:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I love you, Carly.
1:20:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I love you, Pearl.