In this episode, we look back on 2024 to talk news and highlights before discussing what we are excited for in 2025. Today's December 31st, 2024, and this episode is 733 of the Main Street Magic Podcast. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Main Street Magic. I'm your host, Jeremy Stein, and as always, I'm joined by my lovely wife, Rhonda. Hey, guys! Make sure you check us out on the web at mainstimagic.com, as well as follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, mainstimagic, and on TikTok at MSN Podcast. If you want to be part of the community, and join the conversation in addition to live streams from the parks and our weekly live show, head to Facebook and search for the Main Street Magic community, and ask to join. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you can get brand new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Planning a trip to Disneyland or Walt Disney World can be overwhelming and at times just downright frustrating. But don't worry, because mouse dining removes the frustration of booking Disney dining reservations alerting you when they spot availability for your desired restaurant, date, meal, and time. Visit MSMFriends.com to use this free service. Ready for your next bucket list trip? Our trusted partner, MEI Travel, will handle the planning so you can focus on the memories. They offer free vacation planning services and have nearly 20 years of experience creating memorable vacations. At mainstmagic.com/travel for a fee free, no obligation quote today. Well Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. Yes Happy New Year's Eve and Happy New Year. Happy New Year. 2025 already. Yeah. That is crazy. That's crazy. Like this year, they say it goes by quicker when you get older. I feel like it really, really does. It definitely does. It's scary. And this year, I want to say looking back, which we're going to do, not only just like Disney World in general and things that happen there, but like our highlights and all like it was going back and go, wow, that was like this past year. Yeah. Because it either seems like it was forever ago or it just happened. Correct. But nothing feels like it actually happened in this past year. But time has been nothing, I guess, really to me since 2020. So it's never felt the same since then. Yeah. We had such a busy year. We did. And I just don't see it slowing down, which is exciting and scary. But I guess first and foremost, I want to thank you and thank everybody for this past year. Yeah. You know, just like cast members. Thank y'all. I appreciate y'all because we would not be where we are without y'all. Yeah. And we had a big year. We had a great year as far as the podcast goes. And growing and our partnership with MEI Travel and all, it's just been awesome. So and yeah, we wouldn't be doing this episode at the end of the year, getting ready for next year. If it wasn't for you guys, clicking subscribe, listening every week, following us on the social media channel. So seriously, thank y'all so much. So we'll do a couple of little sections here. We're going to start with kind of just a year in review, some things that happened this past year. We're going to stick to Walt Disney World because if we went to Disney News in general, all around the world, parks and resorts and movies and all that stuff, this would be like a ten part episode. So we'll stick to Walt Disney World, but go back the very beginning in January. There was a lot of updates. All day park hopping returned theme park reservations were gone for date based tickets. Disney dining plan returned. And that's crazy because it does not feel like that was almost a year ago. Right. Like that now seems like it was forever, which I was very happy when all this happened. Yeah. And we do these episodes every year and I can like remember like it was yesterday, sitting here going, oh, you know, the dining plans coming back January 9th, January 9th was such a big day. Yeah. This was four years, three and a half after everything reopened after COVID and you were still getting things like all day park hopper and no reservations for resort or for date based tickets. Like it took that long and that's the thing, another thing that makes the time either go so slow or so fast because you feel like you said, it feels like this has been going on for years now. Yeah, it does. It is not. Come May, they introduced a new drone show at Disney Springs, Disney Dreams that soar. This ran from the end of May to September 2nd. We got to see it several times. Yes, we did. Let's first talk about our enjoyment of it. I loved it. It was wonderful. It was. It was. It was incredible. It was neat to watch. I would I think love to have actually been a Disney worker and worked at maybe Helio or something. Yeah, the cast members were not big fans of this. No, I know. That's what I mean. Like inside were like basically Chris was right and yeah, the thing with this was this. This was only great if you were there to see it. Yeah. Otherwise, this was a mess every single night. Yeah. It was awful for cast member. For guests that were just there trying to enjoy themselves because of the influx of traffic and all those areas near Helio and down the House of Blues, like it was just a nightmare all around. Now, I hope that they'll bring this back to somewhere else. I don't know where that would be. I would love to see this in an animal kingdom, you know, because you have you don't have fireworks. You don't have those. Right. The noises you don't have to worry about the animals. Right. You can still play music. They've obviously done that before and you have all the seating, like you're saying. So I would like. And I think it'd be me, see one fall in the water, like I guess that's one thing that was. Well, that's the thing too is, you know, that's the one thing that, of course, I'm not aware of with this technology is the distance like right now, I know how far away we were right theory from this show, but is it like, all right, is that theater at animal kingdom or would you be too close if they're literally taking off right in front of you or would they have to sit further back like above the tree of life? And that's where you're viewing is. I don't know. And of course, with all of these, you have to be so careful with where these are operating because they can't be above people. Unfortunately, it was a very tragic accident recently at this Christmas show down in the Orlando area and with drones falling out of the sky. And so you they have to be careful on where they can put them. So that's another reason, like in the theme park over water is right, you know, which is the whole reason that's the way they did this one, they had everything staged. It went off from that parking lot over near Cirque des Salais. And then it was actually occurring over the water. So anything that did fall was falling into water. So you have to be very careful with that and those types of things. So we'll see something like that comes back, but June was another big time, especially for Epcot and June 10th, the opening of Communicore, Hall and Plaza, the opening of Mickey and friends, new meet and greet, as well as celebration, day, a conto, even though there is still some stuff kind of going on in that area. This was according to Disney, the official end of the Epcot transformation. Okay. You know, we got a long enough year before we got, yeah, long enough. Are you pleased with the outcome of where it is right now and how it is right now? I mean, sure, I'm pleased that the walls are down and things are out of the way. Am I pleased with what is there? I'm shocked that there's not, and I hope Disney has more. I think for as long as the walls were up and everything that was annoying, I think it's a very big let down for what's there. Yeah. It's a whole lot of nothing. But, you know, whatever. Yeah. No, agreed. And we're still seeing, as far as Communicore, Hall and Plaza and that flex space goes, we're still seeing what they're going to do with it. Because now each festival with Festival of the Arts coming up here in two weeks is going to have even more. It's supposed to have a little history walkthrough of Broadway, Disney on Broadway. Okay. You know, so, so it looks like they're trying to figure out more, it should not be taking this long. This should have been done long before. It should have been. Hey, this is what these spaces are going to be. This is how they're going to operate and they're going to do it from day one. So we'll see how that goes. Here in June, we got the opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom. Your favorite. My fave. I love it. And we have been several very many times, you know, Magic Kingdom in many of the ways that we used to make reservations for Epcot. Because while date-based reservations are gone, us pass holders still get to make reservations for parks. I'm constantly making them for Magic Kingdom now when we used to not just to get on this. I mean, we did it with Tron for a while. Correct. And I feel like we've gotten back, you know, when you say get back to the basics, I feel like Magic Kingdom is a basic. It is. And, you know, our kids are grown now and older that they don't ride all these rides. But I mean, we've still gotten back to the basics and ridden stuff and enjoyed walking around and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. When you, if you go back to when the kids were coming, then we would do just say talk about parks or park rankings, like Magic Kingdom was one of our favorites when they were very young. And then they get a little bit older and it becomes like Hollywood Studios or whatever. Then kids stop coming with us as they got older. Magic Kingdom, I think, was our fourth favorite park for years. For years. And now with the opening of Tron, the opening of Tiana's, it's gotten us back into that park so much more. And I think we're loving it. Like right now, it is my favorite park. Yeah. Yeah. And I love going back there and actually just doing some of the basic things. Like going into the confectionery and getting treats or getting the popcorn or just have some of that. You know, go. I mean, how many times do you, I bet, I bet in this past year, we rode something like haunted and something like pirates more just in this past year than we did in the five years combined, probably because we ride them every time we go and we go there a lot more often. We do. Also, coming, or I'm sorry, in July, on July 1st, the cabins. Yeah. Gee makes its way into Fort Wilderness Resort and opens up the cabins at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort. Yay, nay. We have not stayed in one yet. Yeah, we haven't. Maybe. Oh, I started to say maybe this July for my birthday, but I think we have other plans where we're working on there. Lacey is making other plans for me. Yeah. But yeah, we'll get there. I'm not worried. So yeah, we'll stay there at some point and give our true opinion. Yeah. I think they will be great for just Jeremy and I, um, you know, yeah, I don't, I don't want to sound like rude or cocky. But if you want a real true, I feel like opinion of the cabins, wait till we say in them and give you ours. And the only reason I say that is because we have done Fort Wilderness for every, almost 20 years now, we've been staying there. We have done it every way possible. We've done it with kids without kids. We've done it with pets without pets. We've done it in tents. We've done it, you know, with the pop up camper that we own with renting every type of camper possible pretty much the driving on the driving kind, your pull behinds the fifth wheels. We've, you know, we've done it. We've done the old cabins. We've done this in every way possible. And we've even car cams, yeah, and we've even car camped, you know, so we love Fort Wilderness. So for us, I'm super excited to stay in them and really go, all right, here's what we think. Correct. You know, especially compared to the old ones. Right. I mean, and again, no offense to anyone, correct. So many of the people that are talking about the cabins, or there's 50/50 of the people that hate them, because it's destroying Fort Wilderness and the tradition, they're the people that know Fort Wilderness very well. They've been going there forever, but haven't stayed in the cabin, then you got the people on the other side and a lot of those were the media and the people that were invited out to those types of things, okay, they had never even stepped foot in Fort Wilderness prior to staying in one of these new cabins. So they think they're the greatest thing that's ever happened. They don't know if it's ruining what Fort Wilderness was. You know what I mean? Right. So for us who have done it for so long in so many different ways, we've been there through, you know, a lot of the changes in the last decade or two, that's the ones I'm interesting to see how that goes. Yeah. So we'll see this year, but I definitely want to stay there. July was a big month because we also got the reopening of the country bears with the country bear musical jamboree. I like the change. I do too. I like it a lot. In fact, we should have set the last time we went to Magic Kingdom, but we didn't. I'd set through it again, like I enjoy it. It's fun. But simple fact is we've seen this twice since it opened back in July, which again is probably the same amount of times that we saw the previous version in a five year span. Oh, yeah. You know, so I really love the update. I think it's great. It's a perfect way of blending. I think old and new for Disney, you know, and I know it didn't make everyone happy, but they tried to do something to make everyone happy. So also that month, genie plus was gone. We were introduced to lightning lane multi pass and lightning lane single pass. I hate to say it. Nobody wants to pay for this stuff. We don't want to pay for this stuff. When you pay for this stuff, though, this works very well. Yeah. And I think it's the, I think it's great. I think it's the best version since free fast pass plus. I will agree. Right. You just got to got to get used to it. And I think this one potentially could have a longer life than genie plus. Yeah. Hopefully. In August, we're not going to go over all this stuff, but D 23, huge announcements of things to come. But that was all in the works. All in the works. Nothing was just allegedly or blue sky. It was literally permits have been pulled ground dirt is moving, something's going on. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cars land, villains land, monsters, inkland, South America with indie and Kanto, we're getting a ton of it. Will we see any of these open in 2025? We will not, but you will start to see the effects of them. We already have with, you know, some walls going up, cranes going up in Magic Kingdom. That was cool. Closing here in January for the year, part of that will be to refurb it, part of that will be as they start to prep and get cars and villains land. So you're going to start to see a lot most recently, not at D 23. We found that monsters, inkland will take out Muppert's courtyard, you know, Muppert's vision three day. That's right. And we will get the Mupperts and rock and roller coaster. So very interesting there. From October, along with lightning lane, multi pass and single pass, if it wasn't confusing enough, you now have lightning lane premiere pass. So that is where they are trying to be like universal little bed. Yeah. It's universal express pass, right? Pretty much the one time. Except one time. Press pass. Yeah. One time. Not the unlimited. This ranges in the hundreds of dollars per person per day. Richly open to deluxe resort guests, only it is now open to everyone. It was selling out Christmas week. So that's being used. Amazing. Yeah. Let's see what happens to lightning lanes, you know, over the course. Is there at a point where all of a sudden this is the only option like universal? Who knows? Yeah. We'll see. All right. December. DVC got their island tower at Disney's Polynesian villas and bungalows that also included the opening of Walulu bar and grill. So I know that this feels more like a new resort because it is a full building. It's got a lobby. It's got a pool and it's got a restaurant and all. The cabins was still an opening for DVC. So you got two major openings for DVC. Yeah. Yeah. Initial thoughts on, I know we just last episode, if you go back, we reviewed Walulu bar and grill. Oh, it was amazing. But happy with the addition. Very happy. Yeah. That's major points to it. Like I think it's just fantastic. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited to stay back and see I'm actually very excited to see what it will do to the Polynesian and how cheap of a room can we get there and maybe, you know, we could. That'd be cool. Yeah. And what are those things? You know, you'd have to go out to all the data people. It'd be interesting to watch what things do at Poly as far as a trader, Sam's and Ohana's a, you know, just Tambu at times that it's bit like, what is everything they're going to look like with this new tower open and these all being shared amenities. That part will be super interesting. Does the pool feel more crowded at the main poly pool? Like, what is all that going to feel like with this being open? Because it is, I mean, it's the biggest addition to a resort since like a grandestino, obviously, you know, when you're putting in these towers and all so and we think grandestino has gone pretty well. All right. Let's talk about the year that we had in Disney parks. Yes. This amounted to 26 trips over the course of the entire year of the course of the year, 26 separate trips. I feel like that's not as many as there has been in past years. That's two. That's two of them. Okay. A month. And that amounted to 74 total days in central Florida in the Orlando theme park area, which is it's 20% of the year. Wow. So while I believe this year are and I'd have to go back last year and see what it was. This year, our amount number of trips was less, but our average nights per trip was more. Okay. 2023, we did a lot more like one night trips and we did a couple day trips. I think we did one day trip. This entire year, we did a lot of three night trips and a lot of even just two nights. So I think that's where our days really went up. Okay. But let's just talk real quick about each month and these are ones. If you want to go back into our catalog of episodes over the past year, listen to some trip review episodes. These are some of our favorite trips. Let's start with January. This was not at Walt Disney World, but we did start a year in the theme parks at least. Kaylin, our big girl turned 16. So we took her on the day of to get her license and then after that, we were like, we can do whatever you want. And I asked if she wanted to do 16th birthday party or a trip and she picked a trip and she wanted to go to universal with talent. So we bought him a ticket and we were all like, the kids were getting over sick. I was getting over sick, Jeremy, I think got sick maybe on the back end, it was just, but it was still great. It was, I was a little tired, but the whole trip was fantastic. The kids had fun. We had to power through it. We really did. And then we did. It was a Friday night. We did over it endless summer because then we moved Saturday, we were doing parks Saturday and Sunday. We're doing, and we wanted the express pass unlimited. So we checked in the hard rock on Saturday. So we were moving resorts like, and then we were hitting the parks hard. Yeah. And even into the evening, like, you know, I went with the kids over to Portofino and had dinner one night and you were not feeling like I have to go back. But it was such an awesome trip and just the four of us and absolutely loved that one. What about February? Well, that was, unfortunately, our last universal trip, but as pass holders, and what we felt was going to be in the foreseeable future later, it turns out we did get a chance to go back. Yeah. But I guess last universal trip, I guess that shouldn't say last universal trip. It should say done being pass holders. In the end of an era. Because it just the kids didn't really want to go unless they were going with people. And we have so much Disney. We need to try to cover that it was just hard. And every time that money came out, I just felt like I could be taking that money and spending it at Disney, and I'm the type of person, just me personally, when I'm at universal, I miss Disney, like I'm, I'm, I'm fine to be there. I'm happy, but I'm, I'm like, Oh, I'm, I'm here, which I'd rather be down the street. Yeah. So that's where, but, um, do you miss universal at all? No, none. Not really. Whatever. Wow. I do. I, again, the older I'm getting to, I do get, um, my motion is not, I feel like it's going to be just that thing that probably gets older and I'm going to have crystals, and then I'm going to have to go to the doctor and they're going to shake them out or fix. You know, you can do all that, right? I have no idea what you're talking about crystals where in your head or something. Crystals in your head. Yeah. I don't know what they're called. Somebody's going to know. And like they're going to know exactly what I'm talking about. It's, it's vertigo and stuff. Yes. Like my one client. She was telling me all about it too. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I just hope it doesn't get worse in one day when I am a lot older. I'm going to have that, but that's where it's just hard for me cause I have to wear a patch every time. Yeah. I don't love going on the rides as much as I do Disney and I just, you miss it though. I do. I do. It's more like the actual parks and stuff or the people that I was with there, which included our girls for so long. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it would be a place we'd go often with Rob and Tina. Yeah. Since they're not Disney people. So I don't know which part of it I missed more. But yeah, I, I, I would like, like when we do Halloween horn nights in 2025, I would like to look at adding a day or two ticket and make a whole universal weekend. And maybe that's what we do once a year. And obviously figure out some time to get to Epic Universe if that's the time that we do it like. So I think that I, I don't miss being there like every month. Right. I don't miss that at all. Okay. But I do miss it. Like I wish once a quarter or something. Yeah. It was like, you know, like they had like quarterly passes, you know, look, you can come for three days every 90 day period. They should do that. Right. Something like that. You know, or, and, and heck, they can be like, you know what, those three days have to be consecutive and you have to stay at one of our hotel. Okay. Fine. I will do it. I just, but not have to, you know, not have to spend the money of a pass every single month. Yep. But somehow get it where you could do that. So I think that would be cool. All right. We also did some car camping that month in February. We did a couple car camping trips this year. Yes, we did. And we had February going into this last universal trip as APs, the car camping trip, what we're about to talk about next, I think it was one of those where we had a four or five week period that it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like it was non stop. And that's also something that I can't do. Yeah. And it was a lot. So what was the one of the highlights of March for us for sure, even though there were many? Yes. And this was our, the, the home as we call it, which stands for house of mouse expo. And that was really cool because we actually worked it and then we had a booth, which was super cool. We had never done anything like that. Chuck and Amy brand it for us. Yep. Which was just amazing. And then that's because we were work, we don't have done what three years now volunteering and working the event for helping Scott and Michelle out with this incredible event. Yeah. And this was your, what's bigger and better than ever. Um, that is where also we met Becky from MEI. Yeah. And it, I think just a little started, a little spark, that little spark. Yeah. Yeah. And that helped blossom into us, you know, being one of the people that gets to partner with them. So it just awesome month for all that was moving into April was a huge month. Yep. It was. It was main street 16, our third and we're working on four. We are working on the fourth. And then, um, we stayed at the poly with Chuck and Amy after and had a little vacation. Yeah. It was a very long weekend for me. It was vacation. We did. It was the, it was the most least we've done. You know what I mean? Yes. It was the most that we did that little. And then we totally poly the whole time we did. We did everything. Like we did. We did a perfect holiday. We did. Yeah. Yeah. We did. It was amazing. I mean, down to like doing the, the, um, coo, what are they, the kooie, kooie, whatever not plays. Yep. You know, and, and doing trader Sam's and dinner at California Grill. And then of course the main street 16 challenge weekend, like we packed the biggest bag ever because we went from the treehouse villas to, I don't remember after that, no, that we had one other. Didn't we? Before we moved to the poly? I think we stayed at three places that weekend or something because we were there Thursday till Tuesday. Right. So we're there Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. And then maybe we did. Maybe it was three nights at treehouse and then the two over at poly. But I mean, you can't get much better than that. And that month was just insane. What about May? May was. Yeah. May was our magic cruise. That was wonderful. That was absolutely incredible. Yeah. That's what I think. Yeah. And I think we became cruise people. Yeah. Right. That was like, all right. I want to, I really do want to do this like a lot as much as we possibly can. Yeah. So we are planning a next cruise. We are. So we'll, we'll let you know when that is all booked. Yeah. That's, that won't even be looking forward to 2025 unfortunately. Oh, that's right. That one we are looking out at 2026. But we do have something to look forward to in 2025 as well. June, we had the opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Yep. We went down twice. We went down for the preview. Then we went down for the actual opening. We stayed at Porter-Leans River side. That was cool. Which was like super cool. We did a lot that trip. We did. I can't remember at all. We ate, I feel like at all the places. We did so many places. I think that was an Ohana one. Yeah. Possibly. Was that when we did Cape May? Barriva. Like Cape May. Oh, we did it all. Yeah. I feel like we did. Yeah. Because that was. That was the original H20 glow nights weekend that I was going to pair up with the opening of Tiana's. Yes. And then the rain and all would just have different ideas for us. Yeah. So this year seems to be third to the charm. Yeah, right. Literally. Because we moved glow nights two times and on the third one we got it. Yep. And coming up something else we had three and on the third time. Finally we got to go. Yeah. So what? Moving on to then July. Yeah. Moving on to July we finally got to do the glow nights. It was the glow nights. And then we did something else. It was actually we hadn't done in years. Yep. This was Kees the Kingdom. Yeah. So this was like a birthday little thing. Yep. It was fantastic. Loved it. I love it. I would like to do it once a year now. I would like to do it once a year. I was just going to say. Oh, it's so good. Yep. And it's still so well priced. So good. It's like a little over a hundred bucks. It is still one of the best priced things we can do on Disney property I think. Let's move into August. This is one of my favorite, if not my favorite trips all year. Really? It was very last minute first of all. So we had applied for media for D23, which was that first weekend in August. And we had a lot going on with it. Yeah, there was a lot going on. And we just we kept waiting and waiting. And you know, we had some friends that get media each year. So we're keeping in touch with them. And they were sharing us like they haven't said it yet, waiting, waiting, waiting. And it was literally, I think, two or three days before that it was like, okay, they've done all the invites. We're not getting one because they were still sending them out that close. And we were thinking we might have to go to California very last minute. Like if we get an invite to this thing, you know, we submitted for it, if we get an invite, we have to go. Correct. We did not get to go. So we booked this Swan Reserve stay very last minute. And then even more last minute, we were giving these tickets to the Orlando and former meet up for the two nights. So we actually tacked on a night over at endless summer for the Saturday night. I'm like, I just remember this being, you know, Halloween stuff was all out. I got that Halloween hoodie, we were walking back from the boardwalk and like this was just the best trip. This was a really good trip. Loved it. I'm glad that you did because I do felt like there was, I was okay, but I felt like there was a major disappointment for you with D 23rd. Yeah. You know, we were hoping maybe this would be the year and it was. And I really, I don't know why this year I had a major feeling we were. Yeah. I wasn't sure why. And then. Womp, womp. I know. And it's so hard, but, you know, I mean, things all happen for a reason. But you don't have a chance if you don't try. That's right. We tried. And yeah, I think for us just to take our head out of it and not have to stare at social media all weekend and, you know, see a lot of the folks that were there and us not getting a chance to be there was like, let's just go have fun. Yeah. And it was one of those last minute that, I mean, everything was last minute. Yeah. And the last thing that we did was last minute and it was just the absolute best. It was great. What about September is one of my favorites every year that we. Yeah, this was when we didn't have universal passes. So we had to save our little monies and a kit and get a Halloween, Horror Night tickets because the girls always love it. We got it. We got them for all four of us. And not only did we do that, but we went ahead and for all four of us got Express Pass. Yeah. So I need to start saving my pennies again for that because literally that was so great. Oh, that. So great. You know, the, the couple of years prior, we, I think we, you and I both sat there. So, you know, we did seven houses without Express Pass. We did eight houses without it. The Express Pass is the greatest thing. Oh, yeah. For Halloween, Horror Nights. It really is. It truly is, you know, the kids and that was so fun and it's one of those things. If you budget and you have the money to spend for that, it is so worth it. You know, I mean, you look at this, we can joke all we want about premier pass and how expensive it is, is for Disney, it is 1000% going to be worth it. Oh, 100%. You know, now you, if, if you scrape by every penny just to afford it, of course, that's very different than if you just go, yeah, I can do that. Right. So, you know, it's one of those things, but I love this trip. I went down a day early with Lacey. We went and saw 21 pilots at the Kia Center and stated endless summer. You guys came and joined us with Rob and Tina and the kids and their friends and stuff. Like it was just so much fun. I love love this trip. The year before was only better because on my birthday was when you and I headed down and we did wilderness lodge club level, which is like what we did before we moved for the Halloween Horror Nights. So that was a cool like one. So we'll see what we do next year's actually. I know what we're doing. We're going to be in the Polly Tower with Chuck and Amy. So I already know that one is going to be up there and then we may just have to plan. It'll be different now that Halloween Horror Nights because it won't be the weekend of my birthday. I think my birthday is on a Monday next year, and we can't do it that weekend leading up to it. So we'll have to figure all that out. All right. What about October? Well, this is our third and last final threes, which was our last minute and Mickey's not too scary Halloween party. We had two times before two hurricanes this year that was coming to Florida came and took us out. And then we were like, we were going Jeremy booked a place to stay and I was like, well, you know what? Let's just try. And my, one of my best friends from high school college ages was coming down. That's right. Former roommate, Kathleen was coming down who I hadn't seen since our mutual friend had passed away and went to his funeral years ago. So this was all very, very last minute to come down because we're in the flood, because we were supposed to be down there the weekend before she was getting there, and then that got canceled for us. So that's why I never planned to go see her and then I was like, all right, now we really can. So it, but it was just awesome. Yeah, we got into that was still amazing, still amazing. It was, it was such an awesome, so great, like the last minute ones, you know, we did a last minute like car camping. We did the last minute with the swan reserve. We did this last minute like those are just some of the most fun, like I want to see if we can do more of those this year coming up where it is a little bit spontaneous in those types of ways. We can do that November. Pretty hard to beat seeing Josh Gad, but we did the day after and that was Victorian alberts. That was amazing. Highlight of the year for you. I will say it is my highlight of the year 100% it's, it's the highlight of my career. I'll call it and you can't call it a career, but of, of this show, I think for me, it, I don't know that I don't know what I could say it is number one without just going back and truly thinking about it. But it's one of those where somebody come up and just said like, what is your best Disney like thing that you did in the past decade? I'd probably just blurt that out first. Yeah. So I'd have to go back and see what else, but it was just unbelievable. Mm hmm. The best. Yeah. Best memory from the year, for sure. Now not to out do December was very good. Yes. December was fantastic. It was wonderful. It was amazing. So we started January off with our kid, our older kid. Yeah. And we are ending with C and Ralph Machio with Lacey. Yeah. It was super cool. I was like, we were like, do we tell you we're going to go see him? And she like was like, I want to go. And I'm like, okay, all right, my brain's thinking real quick. And I'm like, a couple hundred, sure, I can pay for it. So I was like, sure, you can go thinking, we'll see if she really wants to go. You can go, but you can't bring a friend. She goes, I don't care. And I was like, Oh, crap, she really wants to go. Yeah. So it was amazing with her. We needed our itty bitty time. We did. And like, that was great. And it was a good like whole, I don't know, you can go back and listen to that episode too. It was a great like reconnection weekend, like it was. It's been better around the old Stein dwelling. I feel like since that trip, don't you feel a little bit like some things have changed and all around, I think, and in all of us. Now we just need to get Caitlin and Lacey to go on a trip together. If they made it back together, yeah, and maybe that would make some changes and some ripples, but I don't know. But it was, I mean, anything else, 2024, it was a, it was a good year, it was a big year. It was a lot, a lot going on with all the trips and with everything else. But 2025 is got a lot going on too. We'll go over a couple of the details about what is coming in 2025, you know, Disney's very good at announcing when things open during a year of time, you know, just so so a lot of these, we know they're opening in 2025. Some of them might have a season, sometimes they'll be a summer, then later they'll say, well, yeah, it's July, then they narrow it down, they just, you know, so we are getting at some time in 2025, the Disney villains unfairly ever after this will be the all new show, it is taking over Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy over there in Hollywood Studios. I would assume this is probably pretty high on your list of things you're looking forward to doing. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I love me. Some villains. I just picked up me a Hades sweatshirt from the character warehouse. Yeah. This, this will be a neat precursor to Villainsland, you know, this is where they're going to be able to test Villains, you know, not only I'm sure in design and interactions and all, but popularity, you know, I mean, if you bring Esma out on stage all of a sudden at this show in the entire place, just explodes, then you go, all right, let's make sure she's in there. Yeah. But if you bring out somebody else and everybody's just lukewarm, they're like, okay, well, maybe that wasn't the villain we thought we had some real like crowd testing and sourcing. Absolutely. I think by doing that, so that'll be super cool. Also in Hollywood Studios, you know, talk about the things that are just a former shell of themselves since the COVID period, a little mermaid, a musical adventure is coming through that theater. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. Good Lord. That thing has been closed since COVID. So you're talking March of March of 2020. You're talking it'll be it'll have been over five years because this isn't opening in March. I would assume it could be who knows, but it'll have been five years. So yeah. Wow. Well, I hope that they maybe do one of those January 9th things for this one and all of a sudden just give us an announcement and open it here soon because, I mean, yeah, it's still the same precedence, correct? Like the same stage, you know, yeah, but it's a whole new show. I understand that. It's like same seating. It's not like you had to go in there and well, but I would assume, I mean, if you remember that place always smelled like barnacle bills, jockstraps. So I don't think I'm guessing I'm hoping they at least went in with some bleach or something. I mean, I would assume that it is getting, I would hope a major overhaul inside as well and potentially all new seats, all new carpeting or whatever, all new soft goods, all, you know, I mean, you know, the the waiting area, they haven't, you know, put up the signage yet. Like, yeah, so we'll see. And then I just hope that maybe this is the little kick in the pants that will get that area into launch bay doing something, which still, I think it blows everybody's mind. That's not where monsters ink land is going. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's nuts that it's not doing that over at Epcot. You will get the spaceship earth lounge. That'll be interesting. Very excited. Where is that going again? It's going in spaceship earth. It's going, I would assume it's in the areas, there's VIP areas that are up on that second level. I did, that's where I did the DVC thing that time. So I think that's where it is all going. I'm very excited. I mean, it should be an elevated atmosphere. I'm hoping they'll have some good lounge bites. Some, you know, for obviously me personally, I hope this is somewhere to bring some really cool zero proof ideas and options and get a little fancy with them, get a little showy with them maybe. So I think that would be super cool. Also, of course at Epcot, we're going to get the all new test track presented by General Motors. Are you excited for this? Do you remember World of Motion? Because I don't because of it, it's supposed to, I think, pay homage to World of Motion. I don't remember World of Motion in its, but I think it's, it's supposed to take us through the technology of vehicles along the years. So I think the indoor might be a slower paced thing. And then you're still going to obviously have a reason for high speed at the end. But do you miss test track? No. Not really. Do you think you don't miss it because you just were tired of the, what it was, it's theming and all? Like, are you excited for a new test track or a new life to this thing? I'm excited to see what they're going to do. And I hope I enjoy writing it. Yeah. So I might would want to write it more, but I mean, I feel like I'm in a car enough. Yeah. Like, I mean, I hate to say it like that. That's why I think I really need to bring something special. Yeah. Because it's just, I mean, it's a car ride. Yeah. No, I'm with you. Like, you know, when they're trying to test, it is, it's neat. When we first, you know, with the kids and everything, like, let's see who's holds up and who wins really, then you're just a, then you're just a car ride with a, like, whose car's going to win. Right. Yeah. And I think for us, test track was such, you know, a lot of people almost, I feel like want to skip flight of passage because they don't want to go through all the pre-show stuff. We would skip test track because we, we don't want to go make a stupid car. Like we're over making cars, you know, and so you, you couldn't go skip that as a family. You could do it as a single rider, but like, I wanted to be able to just have that option. I hope maybe that's something that comes with this is to maybe skip a portion like that. Because to, I mean, I understand that as part of a pre-show that does add to the story because then they do rank your car, but they can assign you a car and it can still be a part of the story. Unlike if you skip pre-shows on most any other ride, you are losing the story that's trying to be told. And even if you know what it is because you've ridden it a hundred times, like Disney doesn't want you to miss that part. Right. But here, nobody cares anymore. Let's do it best. Well, and not only that, I mean, you might not need to with this new, that whole area could be blown away. It might not be designed your own anything. Right. I'll be surprised, though, if there's not still a design, your own element. Really? Yeah. I just, I just think so. Because people still do love it. I mean, shoot, they love it so much. The guy around the corner has one in his driveway, but I'm pretty sure he designed a test track. It's a cyber truck with a unique paint job. I mean, it looks like something straight off of, of test track. It so does. Right? That like a six-year-old with design. A hundred percent. Coming to Magic Kingdom Park, we are getting a nighttime parade back with Disney Starlight dream the night away that is coming in summer 2025. So we have that narrow down. And for Disney summer, sometime between March and December, look somewhere in that period for that to be coming. And I cannot wait for that. Yeah. A nighttime parade. Oh, it's going to be so great. Yes. Especially a new nighttime parade. Yeah. So the Caribbean inspired tavern is coming in 2025. It says late 2025. So that will be December. Probably they've had walls up for a while, I just am shocked that it's going to take so long. Well, you know, this was announced at the other D 23 four years ago, two and a half now. Yeah. So now we're finally getting it animal kingdom. Not to be out done is getting Zootopia better zoo gather, which of course, will be going in tough to be a bug. Oh, that's right. Thoughts, concerns, excitements, excitement. Oh, excitement. I'm super excited. I love tough to be a bug and I mean, I believe it's kind of run its course. Agree. And I love it. I love it. It's one of my favorite. Right. There's nothing wrong with it. I think the Disney is doing a very good job by putting Zootopia in there. Yeah. I hope that we lose. Especially if there's a two coming. Yeah. And I hope we don't lose the effects and kind of the scare tactics. I hope we still get those. In the ways now they'll have to do them definitely of the spiders dropping, of the seats and the poking you of the spray of the fog. Like I hope we still get those boardy effects that get people screaming because that's one of my favorite parts about it. Yeah. That's what they say. Of course, it will be your last chance to ride dinosaur. But all year, guys, all year, will not close in 2025. Get your rides in. We will see some things here shutting down soon in Dino Land, like Triceratops spin, the games, all that type of stuff. In fact, they now are just resupplying the fun house little games with just generic prizes that you can just probably get from Oriental Trading Company. None are like the special little Mickey's or dinosaurs or any of the thing. We get our theme. Don't we have one? We have some one floating around here somewhere, I think, because I think we've got a Mickey at one point actually that was themed to that. And then there's a dinosaur, I think, somewhere as well. Disney After Hours is coming back in 2025. We will do one this year. We'll figure out an after hours. We'll do it at Magic Kingdom because I just think that is where to get your money's worth. And then after that, we would figure out doing it at one that we think probably won't be getting your money's worth. And then we can let you know if it's worth it. So we can potentially waste that money so you don't have to because you're already probably spending a ton on your trip. One of the things I'm very excited for in 2025, even though you and I always get the water park and sports add on, is that everyone staying at a Disney Resort in 2025 gets a day at whichever water park Disney has open on the day of your check in for everybody on that reservation in that room. And this isn't the year to, because we're fixing our new, this isn't the year to play with this and not at them, is it? We could. We would just have to only ever do water parks on the day that we arrive, which is not hard for us. Correct. And we do that a lot now. Correct. So it's something that would save us $200 on the year. So it is something that we could look at and think is it always adding back next year? Correct. So it may be it is worth looking at, but like we're excited because for us, and if you think, well, I'm a pass holder, I get water park add on. Well, one, you might not need it. Two, we take the girls usually, at least to the water parks once a summer. So now we can take them without buying a ticket. We will just stay on property. Correct. We'll have them on the room, you know, and we'll go that day, we'll do the water parks and then stay the night, come home the next day. So I think this is really cool. And if you think it's not a great perk, because you're not going to use it, then you don't really get to say anything, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, there's no way to say that this is a negative thing. The only way to say it's negative in which people do is to go, well, yeah, that gives that for free, but everything else costs more. Okay. I'll just be quiet. I think the sad part is, is if it will cost some people more as if unfortunately, obviously they are not locals and it's a situation where they fly all day and by the time they get out here to us, you know, it's, it's mid afternoon. Yes, it's where then they don't, they won't feel that they'll have that much time. But again, it's free. Yeah. But then what are they doing on that end to fix it to come? No, well, it's now the problem that we've always talked about, yeah, but never experienced. But now we do is going somewhere like who to do where alcohol is included for adults, but we're not going to take advantage of it. So we just lose out. Right. Yes, I do get it that people that are coming in, they're like, I'm not going to go to a water park the day I fly six hours or something. I've traveled all day. Nothing is done for them. I do agree. That is a negative Disney can't just say you get a free water park day. Anytime you're here, they're going to lose money that way. 100%. So I don't know. Could you say, well, it's usable on your check in day or check out day? Like, I don't know how you, you know, and then you just can't get into all the things of saying like when they used to do with, do you want to deny mousekeeping? We'll give you a $25 gift card. Right. You can't get into that. Right. Maybe you want to deny your water park ticket. We'll give you a $25 gift. Like, so there really can't be an incentive because you can't use it. You just can't. Right. But otherwise, I think it's a complete bonus. Oh, yeah. And I do think it can be worth arranging some, some travel to get in earlier or stay somewhere, you know, aiming, I mean, I travel, can help you stay somewhere off property that night before coming in early, come in early, go straight, you know, to a water park the next day. That's a great thing about Disney. Unlike Universal, where to get some of those perks, you've got to go check into your hotel. Right. Disney, you could show up, go straight to the water park, never have to go to your room on your arrival day. Right. Enjoy it for a little bit. Correct. So I think it's, I think it's a really cool offer and one of the, the coolest offers that Disney's given us. I'm excited. I'm excited to do it with the girls and I think I was already thinking while you were saying all this, like maybe starting out summer, maybe, you know, maybe into summer and doing and do an all star, like you could do an all star and put six people on the room reservation. And even if you and I just say have it or we don't have the water park one, that's four to six water park tickets for free on that day for us. So whatever the extra cost of that room is, I guarantee it's not going to outweigh the cost of what you would pay for those tickets for all these people. Yeah. Right. And then each kids bring in a friend, we've got six of it like, or if you have two connecting rooms, which then that's again, six, but I mean, no, two, four, six, eight, you'd be talking eight, eight. Yeah. Now again, you need to have people for that, obviously, right, but I'm thinking with the girls and stuff. Ellen would want to bring talent and Lacey would want to bring Cassidy possibly Alexia. Yeah. And yeah, that'd be fun though, like, be fun to let them do that. I love the idea of this and one other thing you can look at, not that I think you would adjust your entire trip just for this, but it is something to think about is split stays. You know, whether that is on property on property or off property to on property, that might be something that you look at doing, I mean, especially for the overseas folks, yeah, you know, that's a good way to split up a lot of them will do split stays. So you could look at doing something like that and then boom, you get a bonus day out your day of arrival and then that day that you're switching, you would also get a day for everyone. So I think it's an awesome perk. Yep. It's 20, 25, you're super looking forward to and maybe April or something for the first time. We have anything cool going on and then Oh, yeah, we are going for the first time ever to California Disneyland, I mean, that's we we don't have set and stone plans for much in 2025 yet. Mm hmm. We don't have our room yet for for farts weekend. Mm hmm. I'm good at here soon. Been the holiday. But this is set and stone and there is a separate countdown going on and I am so pumped for this. I'm so excited to go experience this like finally, where we're like paying off versus not we're paying on it like it's yeah, I know it's like it's real like we're going to book the flights here and probably the next four weeks, like then it's really real, which which will be, you know, interesting and I can't wait to talk about that stuff, you know, especially for us here, like, it's going to make more sense for us to fly out of Orlando. Well, that puts in a whole other, you know, throws a whole other wrench and everything by having to say, all right, we're now it's a two hour travel time to the airport and, you know, we want to arrive and have plenty of time to get settled in and go to downtown Disney. We're not doing a park on the first day. So then you're like, we got to get out of it. So it's going to be interesting and you guys will get to follow along the way. So of course, go ahead and make sure you're subscribing, following, liking, all that good stuff on social at Main ST Magic, MSN podcast on TikTok, of course, hit that subscribe button and you get brand new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. And if you are ready for that next trip, of course, no matter where you want to go, our trusted partner, MEI Travel, will handle the planning so you can focus on the memories. They offer free vacation planning services and have nearly 20 years of experience creating memorable vacations. It's at mainstmagic.com/travel for a fee free, no obligation quote today. And obviously, Ronda and I would be so super thankful and it would be the best way we could possibly kick off 2025 is by you going out and leaving us a rating and review because it helps our show grow. That's all we've got. We'll see you real soon. Bye bye. Bye bye. for now. [BLANK_AUDIO]
As we close out another magical year, we’re taking a look back at 2024 to discuss the biggest Disney news, park highlights, and moments that stood out. Then, we’re turning our attention to 2025 to share what we’re most excited for, from attractions to special events. Join us for a fun and reflective episode as we celebrate the past and look forward to the future!
