S03E14 — Universal Trip Recap

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for your next trip to Universal.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Alright baby listeners, this week we’re stepping away from book adaptations and heading straight into theme park chaos. We’re recapping our trip to Universal Studios in Orlando and sharing everything that made the adventure memorable. There were incredible rides, a few unexpected moments, and plenty of laughs along the way as we experienced the parks together.

We talk about the attractions that impressed us the most, the moments that caught us off guard, and why some rides instantly became favorites. It’s part travel story, part family chaos, and completely different from our usual episodes. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like exploring a massive theme park with our crew, baby listeners, this episode gives you the full ride.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

Donna: Walking into the Wizarding World was really emotional for me. The Harry Potter books have always meant a lot to me because of their themes of love, sacrifice, and courage. Being able to walk through those spaces and see them brought to life felt very special. It’s such a strong form of escapism, and I could honestly spend days just in those areas. When a park truly captures the heart of a story, it becomes more than just entertainment for me.

Rebekah: One of my favorite moments was sitting in Celestial Park at Epic Universe and just listening to the music from all the different lands. It felt like everything I had hoped the trip would be actually came true. What I loved most was being able to just exist in these worlds. For me, the Wizarding World areas really capture the feeling of the Harry Potter books. Walking through Hogwarts Castle and the Forbidden Journey queue was incredible because there are details pulled straight from the books that weren’t even in the movies.

Josiah: For me, the biggest thing was how immersive everything felt. My favorite ride was Hiccup’s Wing Gliders because it really felt like flying on a dragon. Walking into Nintendo Land was also amazing because it felt like stepping inside a video game I grew up with. I also loved trying the different foods in the parks, like at Three Broomsticks and Das Stakehaus. What stood out to me most was when the park made you feel like you were actually inside the world instead of just visiting an attraction.

Tim: One of my favorite experiences was riding Stardust Racers. It’s honestly one of the best roller coasters I’ve ever been on. I was also really impressed with Hiccup’s Wing Gliders because it genuinely feels like riding a dragon, which is exactly what that world is supposed to be about. I also noticed how much attention to detail there was throughout the parks, from the rides to the staff to the environments. For me, the parks really succeed when they take an idea from a story and turn it into a physical experience you can actually feel.

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to the book is Better podcast. We are a family of four and we review book to film adaptations and today we thought we would review. Book to film, to theme park [00:01:00] adaptations, uh ooh. Or in some cases comic book to theme park adaptation. But we’re just talking about the adaptations of things.

[00:01:07] Rebekah: And I just need to pick a bone with the internet right now because I watch a lot of like entertainment commentary more and more. My brother, Josiah, on the podcast here, has inspired me to do this. And my bone to pick is adaption is not a word. It will never be a word. Stop saying it. It’s adaptation. Or get that word outta your mouth.

[00:01:30] Rebekah: You know what I’m saying? I just need, I’ve, I’ve seen it a lot lately. I can’t handle it. This is my soapbox I’m getting on. And it’s important. The word is adaptation when you adapt something 

[00:01:39] Tim: or he was adapted. 

[00:01:41] Rebekah: Yeah, something can be adapted, but when you’re talking about it as a noun, it is an adaptation, not an adaption.

[00:01:48] Rebekah: So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I really appreciate you listening to me, um, in this moment. So. Uh, instead of giving fun facts, 

[00:01:56] Josiah: ofit of the 

[00:01:57] podcast 

[00:01:58] Josiah: series, 

[00:01:59] Rebekah: pretty much, I really 

[00:01:59] Josiah: [00:02:00] appreciate you listening to us. 

[00:02:03] Rebekah: Instead of spending a lot of time on that or doing our fun facts, which we normally kick off the episodes with, we’re just gonna be giving a lot of opinions in this episode anyway about stuff we love.

[00:02:14] Rebekah: Uh, and so the end of our episode, you’ll actually find out our fun facts, which are gonna be some, uh, fun stuff about the universal parts, but which of us are 

[00:02:20] Tim: opinionated. 

[00:02:22] Rebekah: Uh, it doesn’t sound like me, so I don’t know to scroll one of you guys. Mom, mom, mom is the opinionated one. Yes, 

[00:02:28] Tim: mom. 

[00:02:28] Rebekah: She has opinions.

[00:02:30] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:02:31] Rebekah: It’s hard to get her to express ’em sometimes, but she, they exist. Alright, so, uh, we recently went to Universal Orlando, uh, on our channel. If you haven’t already seen them, you can go check out our ride favorites, uh, as in the tier list format. Also on a tier list we did, uh, shows and what we thought of all of that stuff.

[00:02:50] Rebekah: We do not typically review theme parks. And so I thought it would be fun to just kind of tell you what we thought, uh, because, you know, we don’t do this every day. It’s, it was like a fun little out of [00:03:00] the, out of the ordinary for us. So I do think it’s interesting that a lot of the book to film to park adaptation that we saw in the theme parks in Universal Orlando this year are of things that we’ve actually covered or have on our list to cover.

[00:03:16] Rebekah: So just like to give you an idea, Harry Potter is a big one. We did a whole summer of Potter. I think we did like six or seven episodes. Do we do everyone an episode, right? 

[00:03:24] Donna: We did 

[00:03:24] Rebekah: every week to episode to seven. Uh, we’ve covered Jurassic Park. We are going to cover Cat in the Hat when it comes out later in 2026.

[00:03:31] Rebekah: We have covered how to Train your Dragon. Uh, we have covered Dracula and will be covering Frankenstein pretty soon. So. We are, you know, in the, know about a lot of these, uh, ips in terms of the source material. So I just thought it’d be fun to go around and talk a little bit about how we thought they adapted things to make it something you could be like immersed in and like live in.

[00:03:54] Rebekah: Uh, and I figured we’d start with Harry Potter ’cause I think we’re all big potter heads. [00:04:00] So what we, the first thing we did when we got to the parks was walk into Hogs Mead, which is in Islands of Adventure. One of the original parks. It was the second Harry Potter world that was opened, uh, as part of Universal Orlando and Hogs Mead is, uh, the place in the parks where all of the buildings seem to have snow on them, which is hilarious.

[00:04:24] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. And you can also see Hogworth Castle. It’s a summer 

[00:04:26] Donna: park. 

[00:04:27] Rebekah: It is. Although it was pretty chilly when we were there that day, which was nice. 

[00:04:30] Donna: That 

[00:04:31] Rebekah: was 

[00:04:31] Donna: perfect. Was 

[00:04:32] Rebekah: it? Oh, 

[00:04:32] Donna: it was perfect. A little like the effect. Yes, 

[00:04:35] Rebekah: yes. 

[00:04:36] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:04:36] Josiah: Second week of January around 55, 60 degrees. 

[00:04:40] Donna: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:41] Rebekah: It was phenomenal weather.

[00:04:43] Rebekah: Um, the first thing we did was the ol Evander’s experience, so I figure we can kick us off with that. So what did you guys think about the DER experience? Kind of compared to again, what we read in the books and then we saw it put to life on the screen? How did you think it compared? 

[00:04:58] Josiah: Well, I [00:05:00] think that I’m offended that I wasn’t chosen to get the wand.

[00:05:07] Josiah: That’s my opinion. 

[00:05:08] Donna: Yeah, that happens. 

[00:05:09] Rebekah: I was sad about that. 

[00:05:10] Josiah: Some Sweet 16 or Yes, I, it’s probably a magical 16th birthday, but you know what? I bet she wasn’t even turning 16. 

[00:05:20] Donna: You think she was just wearing that to trick them? Exact same thing. Yeah. 

[00:05:25] Rebekah: The, the exact 

[00:05:26] Donna: same girl. You’re not at 16 anymore than I’m 16.

[00:05:30] Donna: Get real. Tell us 

[00:05:32] Rebekah: how you really feel, Donna. Tell us how you really feel. 

[00:05:36] Donna: Uh, I love it. The, I really liked the fact that the shop was not lit wildly, like brightly lit. They worked, I felt like they worked very intently on little details like that. They could have put more light in there to highlight this or that.

[00:05:55] Donna: And even after the experience and when we walked into the shop, [00:06:00] the shop wasn’t brightly lit. And I, I hadn’t, didn’t think about that until partway through the week that even the lighting in the places we went. They took, in some cases they took that into account. And, uh, so I thought that was, that was pretty cool.

[00:06:20] Tim: I experienced it the way that my dad experienced it. The back backside of a lens experienced your childhood, Rebecca. Mm-hmm. And some of yours Josiah, but they had a smaller camera by there. You, six 

[00:06:33] Donna: years later, 

[00:06:34] Tim: whatever. Well, you had a smaller camera too, by the 

[00:06:36] Josiah: Yeah. Technology was kind of a big deal when I was a kid.

[00:06:39] Josiah: Unlike old Rebecca. 

[00:06:41] Donna: Tim, I mean, did anything strike you, even though you were in an, an odd situation? 

[00:06:47] Tim: No. It was, it was, it was a good experience. Um, I thought the, the effects were good. I thought the, the group, uh, the group that was in there with us, they responded well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They responded [00:07:00] to the little jokes and, you know, the, oh no, not that wand.

[00:07:03] Tim: ’cause you know, all the sound effects and things that happened, uh, I, I thought it was well done and it was not aand. The guy that was, that was with us was one of his assistants. Mm-hmm. And then one of the other people does portray Oliver Evander. So 

[00:07:21] Josiah: yeah, I didn’t realize that all, I assumed that, oh, okay.

[00:07:24] Josiah: We just don’t have Oliver Ander here. The, these are all his wand assistants. But then we were in the shop and I believe der came through the shop to replace that guy. I was like, that’s funny. Oh, we missed Garrick. 

[00:07:37] Donna: My other, only other comment would be what? That it was a perfect scene to pull out of the movie because you could recreate it easily within the one room.

[00:07:48] Donna: The little, the little things, the whizzes and bangs and the crazy things happen. And when the wand, you know, when she, when she swished the wand or whatever, I thought it was a really cool [00:08:00] scene to pull out. So 

[00:08:00] Tim: when we’re talking about adaptations, um, and finding the things in the books. That can translate easily.

[00:08:08] Tim: That was definitely one of them. That was very good. Scene. I agree. Very easy to translate. They did a good job of it. Uh, they could get a lot of people through that experience in a short amount of time as well. So 

[00:08:20] Rebekah: correct me if I’m wrong, that’s also the only thing in the Harry Potter world that’s like that, where it’s just the recreation of a scene where you kind of get to be in the scene, but it’s not associated with a ride specifically.

[00:08:34] Rebekah: It’s not a show that you’re in 

[00:08:36] Tim: except for the, I would say, except for the show things. The, 

[00:08:40] Rebekah: yeah, the, 

[00:08:40] Tim: the Frog Choir. Right. Frog Choir and the Yeah. 

[00:08:43] Rebekah: They talk to 

[00:08:44] Tim: you like you’re, and all that. 

[00:08:45] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:45] Tim: Tho those are kind of scenes pulled out of the, the movies and the, and the, uh, books. But those are a little more on the entertainment side perhaps.

[00:08:55] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:55] Rebekah: Yeah. I thought they did a great job with it. Um, we didn’t do it until [00:09:00] later in the week, but Haggard’s motorbike adventure is also in that area of the park. And I thought that was another, I know we had kind of differing opinions on it. If you wanna hear our differing opinions, you have to watch the other, the tier list video.

[00:09:12] Rebekah: Uh, but we had slightly differing opinions, but I thought it was one of, if not the best adapted, like, I don’t know how else you could change, like take something from a book or take something from a film, make it a rollercoaster, and then ride it. Now maybe, you know, you’ll disagree with me and there’s other things in the parks that you thought did a better job at that.

[00:09:36] Rebekah: But scenery e and there was a story to the, the rollercoaster and there are a lot of stories in some of the rides, but that was like probably the most from like the, a rollercoaster specific perspective that did that. Um, another thing that came to mind that I wanted your thoughts on, and feel free to also share your thoughts on Hagrid, but.

[00:09:57] Rebekah: I thought they did a good job of [00:10:00] balancing what muggle things weren’t allowed and then like not making it inconvenient. And so in the Harry Potter sections of the parks, unlike the rest of the parks, there’s no cook freestyle machines, even thematic of, you know, ones. There’s no muggle sodas. You can only get like wizarding world drinks that are specific to those areas of the parks.

[00:10:22] Rebekah: Um, there are like. There’s lots of like little things like that, but you can still go into a restaurant, you order from your phone, they bring it to your table. But even the restaurant stuff, they are in character. 

[00:10:37] Josiah: I was so spoiled by the first restaurant we went to 

[00:10:43] Rebekah: True. 

[00:10:43] Josiah: We went to the three broomsticks and it was the earliest I might have been at the park any day.

[00:10:49] Josiah: ’cause we were trying to get there kind of at the beginning of the day. And then it ended up being like an hour and a half after opening. But it was time enough to still have the brunch [00:11:00] menu, the breakfast brunch menu and breakfast brunch is less expensive than lunch and dinner. And I looked at the menu for the three broomsticks and first of all, all six of us absolutely loved our meals.

[00:11:15] Josiah: It’s top three meals in the week for me. That brunch at three broomsticks and the price was like. Because they don’t let you tip, which I was pleasantly surprised by, like that’s included in the cost presumably, uh, would be what they to, to make sure that they can pay their people an actual livable wage.

[00:11:38] Josiah: I assume that tips sort of money is included in food prices. It was less than I spend on a Sunday afternoon after church. 

[00:11:48] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:11:49] Josiah: Yeah. It was like eight or nine bucks for a full meal. 

[00:11:53] Rebekah: And especially in wizarding world, a lot of the kids, like they, you can order a child’s portion that actually [00:12:00] are sized for most people anyway and they are less expensive.

[00:12:05] Josiah: I got the child’s breakfast. Yes. Which I believe might have been $7 now that I think, ’cause I did get the child portion and that unlike most things, came with a drink. Oh my goodness. Revolutionary. And so, and one of the options was a dairy-free frozen butterbeer. The fact that it came with a drink, I could choose that it was a good breakfast with a nice variety of things.

[00:12:29] Josiah: You gotta go to three broomsticks for brunch. I, I wish I had the discipline to go to more places for breakfast brunch, but I just loved sleep so much. 

[00:12:39] Tim: One of the things in, uh, in Hogsmeade that I found interesting and thematic were the restrooms. It looked like for the men’s room you were walking through a subway cave to get to the restroom.

[00:12:57] Tim: And once you got inside, it [00:13:00] was very much the style of things that you would expect. The copper tubing and things like that. Now it was painted to look like copper and all of that. Sure. But the exposed things looked appropriate for that land. I don’t know what the ladies room looked like, but the men’s room.

[00:13:18] Tim: At first, I thought they were taking us out into the back of a field or something, you know, there’s a hole over here, do whatever you need, kind of thing. But actual restroom, I’m glad that that 

[00:13:28] Rebekah: wasn’t actually the 

[00:13:28] Tim: experience. It’s an actual restroom, but very thematic. Even now that’s going the extra mile for me.

[00:13:35] Tim: I mean, you know, hey, you could have a restroom and it’s just a plain normal restroom. But everywhere we went, the restrooms even were along the themes. 

[00:13:44] Rebekah: The ones over on the other side of the park where you get over into Diagon alley. The restrooms there are actually, I’m trying to think, I think there’s restrooms that are outside that area, but they’re right next to like, um, 12, uh, [00:14:00] Sirius’s house.

[00:14:01] Rebekah: Uh, I keep wanting to say platform nine recorders, black 

[00:14:03] Josiah: manner, 

[00:14:04] Rebekah: 12 grim old plays, no 12 grim old plays. There are restrooms right there that are decorated like what I imagine like nineties London to be like, ’cause it reminded me of the films in that way. 

[00:14:17] Tim: I think those restrooms, they may have actually been the ones that were a little more like comedy stuff from Jaws.

[00:14:22] Rebekah: I don’t think ours were, ’cause ours were like a deep purple, like lots of tile. Like it was, it was very Harry Potter coated. And so I think that was one of the weird things though, I will say, because some of the restrooms, they went the extra mile. They were so interesting. Like, like just literally gonna, the restroom was an experience.

[00:14:43] Rebekah: And there were a few places where I walked in and I was like, did you forget what you do the in the other restrooms? ’cause it was so confusing. 

[00:14:52] Josiah: Yeah, hogs Mead was amazing. I hadn’t talked to or seen my best friend in several weeks at that point, [00:15:00] and I called him about something. I, I thought about like, does, does he want a souvenir?

[00:15:05] Josiah: And he didn’t want anything, but I called him from Hogs, Mead, and it was, first of all, so cool. He was like, whoa. Because it’s definitely a place he would want to go sometime too. But it felt weird to be talking on a cell phone in, in Hogsmeade, you know? I was properly immersed. The sight lines were very impressive.

[00:15:24] Josiah: How the, the roofs are so steep, it doesn’t seem conspicuous because it, it feels aesthetically appropriate, but it does block out the rest of the park except for a straight path to see Hogwarts Castle on the vista. 

[00:15:41] Rebekah: Speaking of which. That was, we talk about, uh, the ride itself a lot in the other video, Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey is the one that takes you through Hogwarts Castle.

[00:15:53] Rebekah: We ended up there when there was a pretty long wait for that ride on. A lot of times that ride has like a five to 10 minute wait [00:16:00] and most of it is walking through the school, like the line part. Um, I’m actually kind of glad that we ended up in a long line. 

[00:16:08] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:08] Rebekah: Like that was maybe the most tell, to 

[00:16:11] Tim: see all of those things.

[00:16:11] Rebekah: Yes. I think that was the most Tell that to Monday, 

[00:16:13] Josiah: Rebecca 

[00:16:14] Rebekah: Immersive cue. I did not love that. I was mad. 

[00:16:19] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:16:19] Rebekah: Like that day. But now that I, it was a blessing. Went back and we went through it like that. I think that’s one of the best parts of adapting a book or a film, whatever, to a theme park is even in the queue.

[00:16:32] Rebekah: Especially in the queue as we’re learning. Like Universal’s done such a great job with it, obviously, but you feel like you’re walking. Through the thing that you read on a page. And it is, there is a another level of magic to that. I think more than like, obviously being in a theater and being immersed in the visual of it is like kind of you take the thing that like lives in your imagination and then you put visuals to it and then you take those visuals and you can walk into [00:17:00] them.

[00:17:00] Rebekah: Like that’s, it was amazing. That was a beautiful cue. 

[00:17:03] Josiah: Well, do you wanna talk about Diagon Alley? 

[00:17:06] Rebekah: Yeah, for sure. So we rode the Hogwarts Express, uh, in between. And if you don’t have a park to park ticket, you cannot do that. But as long as you have a park to park, you get to ride the Hogwarts Express and connect Hogs Mead over to Diagon Alley.

[00:17:22] Rebekah: Diagon Alley was the fir, or no, sorry, I think I said something wrong earlier. Hogs Mead was the first one that was opened. The reason I know that is because the Oli Evander’s experience at Universal is in islands at Hogs Mead, but in the books, the di the actual Oli Evander’s is in, um, Diagon Alley. So I will say one of the best things about walking out of the train into Diagon Alley is that you don’t immediately walk into Diagon Alley.

[00:17:54] Rebekah: You have to walk through this little part of the street that’s like London, and then you have to kind of find your way in. [00:18:00] And it’s not actually as obvious as you would think. Like once you’ve been there, you’re like, oh, I know where I’m going, but it actually feels like you kind of have to sneak into this place.

[00:18:07] Rebekah: Like it’s a really fun like immersion just to have to do that. 

[00:18:13] Josiah: We were like, okay, uh, Dagon Alley is around here somewhere, but let’s go to the restroom real fast. And I went into Dagon Alley thinking it was a restroom. 

[00:18:23] Rebekah: And you went in, 

[00:18:24] Josiah: exit it. I 

[00:18:24] Rebekah: thought it was looked 

[00:18:25] Tim: like an entrance to a restroom or, or a, an alleyway.

[00:18:28] Rebekah: Yep. 

[00:18:28] Josiah: Yeah, you did that. It was very uncons speak and I found you all I, I exited. I’m like, I just saw the most magnificent thing. I can’t wait for all of you to do that. What a great entrance. The visual, the aesthetics were so, so striking and powerful and overwhelming. 

[00:18:48] Tim: Once you get into Diagon Alley, there again, you’ve got the sight lines that keep you from seeing anything else.

[00:18:54] Tim: ’cause we were in London, walk through that little alleyway and then we’re in Diagon alley and [00:19:00] you’re not looking at a rollercoaster from some other part of the park or, you know, it, it, the sightlines keep you in the atmosphere, keep you in the moment. Yeah. 

[00:19:10] Josiah: Mm-hmm. I think the diagon alley was more visually impressive to me than Hogsmeade.

[00:19:17] Josiah: It might have been Olive Ander’s that made the difference. But I did find Diagon Alley just slightly lacking in content. Not that I would’ve bought everything. There was one vendor who wasn’t even there all the time, who was selling novelty, frozen desserts on a stick or something like that. And there were four for the different houses of of Hogwarts.

[00:19:45] Josiah: And I was like, okay, this is nice. I want this person, I want this type of person every 20 feet to try to, I want someone trying to sell me. Yeah, hawking their wares on the streets, but instead [00:20:00] it was basically two shops worth of stuff spread across six shops. And most of it you could find in Ho we already saw in Hogsmeade.

[00:20:11] Josiah: I 

[00:20:12] Rebekah: think I agree a lot with Josiah. Diagon alley is more visually like, whoa, when you first walk in. I think it’s also, oh, in the Dragon also colors. The colors. The dragon on the, oh my gosh. The fact that the dragon breeds fire just like blesses me. I love the big like quad area where they’ve got like the Celestina show and the other shows over there.

[00:20:33] Rebekah: Um, it’s nice to have that like slightly larger open area. Um, and I, you know, the leaky cauldron was good. I enjoyed the lunch we had there as well. Uh, but I do think, and Harry Potter in this Escape from Gringotts, which is the one in the bank, I loved that ride. Like, I think I rated that ride maybe higher than a lot of you guys, um, that wrote it as well.

[00:20:54] Rebekah: I would agree though, with Josiah, it was like, especially I think after seeing, [00:21:00] like when we went to Epic and we’ll talk about Wizarding World, Paris in a second. I think after seeing some of the other ways they were able to immerse you with people and like actors and making it feel like you were there in those ways.

[00:21:12] Rebekah: I did kinda look back and go, okay, Diagon Alley did feel like, I don’t know, the shops were spread out in kind of an uncomfortable way rather than a really helpful way. Um, it just felt like I was squeezing my weight into shops. And I will say too, they do sacrifice one big thing. They make a choice to ensure that you have access to all the merch at any given time within a very small space.

[00:21:39] Rebekah: Instead of saying Weasley Wizard Wheezes is going to sell what Wes Wheezes does, and like, there’s only one place in the parks you can go for this. And I, you know, I, again, I understand why they do it. I kind of wish they didn’t though, because out in City Walk, which you have to walk into to get to either of the original parks, they have stores for each [00:22:00] of the sections of.

[00:22:02] Rebekah: The parks, well, I guess it’s not all the parks, it’s the sections of Epic universe now that I’m thinking back to it. And you can literally go in there and get every single piece of Harry Potter merch. And so there’s no, there. You wouldn’t actually be missing anything if you just thought through it and did it like in that way, 

[00:22:19] Tim: I thought I saw some things in Wesley’s that I didn’t see anywhere else.

[00:22:24] Rebekah: That’s possible. I mean, I didn’t like go through piece by piece. And again, it’s like you have to figure out where to make the sacrifices and, and where to, you know, choose the things that matter the most. 

[00:22:34] Tim: Did you go into NOC Turn Alley? 

[00:22:36] Rebekah: Yes. Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:37] Tim: That was one of those surprise things for me. It’s like you walk through this dark hole and you’re in Nocturnally and we went, we went at night when we, by the time we were there, it was nighttime.

[00:22:49] Rebekah: I thought we went to Nocturnally during the day. ’cause it’s not open to the sky. 

[00:22:54] Josiah: Yeah. It might have just 

[00:22:55] Rebekah: dark the first time we were there. It was in the middle of the day. 

[00:22:57] Tim: Okay. Maybe I just felt like it was, 

[00:22:59] it 

[00:22:59] Josiah: just felt like [00:23:00] night. 

[00:23:00] Rebekah: Yeah. It has a ceiling. 

[00:23:02] Josiah: I feel like maybe Nocturnally is where they were or are planning to expand.

[00:23:07] Josiah: It felt like there was a lot of room for expansion. There was a lot of unused space. 

[00:23:13] Rebekah: Yeah. If you look at the map of how all of it’s laid out, there’s actually this whole section that looks like houses maybe, but they’re like behind the sight lines that you actually walk through. And so there is a little bit of space where they could probably put something else.

[00:23:27] Rebekah: I dunno if it’d be a ride or what it would be, because in this section of the park you’ve got Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts and you’ve got the Hogwarts Express and Escape from Gringotts, and then you’ve got a bunch of shows, but you actually don’t have is Are there any other rides? 

[00:23:46] Tim: There are Wand experiences.

[00:23:48] Tim: There are a few of those there. I don’t remember there being any other rides. 

[00:23:51] Rebekah: That is kind of interesting to me now that I’m thinking about it. I mean, I guess. This was second to come out. But it is a little surprising to only do [00:24:00] one because they get a lot of flack for only having done one in Wizarding world.

[00:24:03] Rebekah: Paris. Um, speaking of wand experiences, I have mine. You guys have your wand. Look at my pretty wand. 

[00:24:12] Josiah: I love my wand. I brought it out last time. 

[00:24:14] Rebekah: Oh, okay. 

[00:24:15] Josiah: No, I have, now I have my robe. 

[00:24:17] Rebekah: Yes. Mr. Slitherin. Uh, what did you guys think of the wand experiences? ’cause this is another part where they’re trying to adapt book to film to park, and they try to engage you and immerse you in what’s happening?

[00:24:30] Rebekah: What did you think? 

[00:24:30] Donna: The ones I did were okay. They were fun. Um, I kind of liked watching people for the little bits of time. I kind of liked watching people try it. Yeah. Like I didn’t mind trying it. That was fun. But I was more interested in seeing how different people interpreted the sign, you know, the, the, the motion they give you and 

[00:24:53] Rebekah: Yeah.

[00:24:53] Donna: Um, and things like that. So I was plus scootering. [00:25:00] True. You have to get up and down and that, you know, but I, but I kind of thought it was interesting, especially if there were two or three, like younger kids trying to do this, and it was kind of comical. And another thing that I, since this was the most prolific, um, merch, push the whole park everywhere we went, in the whole park, it didn’t matter where we were.

[00:25:28] Donna: Harry Potter merch was everywhere. 

[00:25:31] Rebekah: Yes. 

[00:25:31] Donna: And I thought that was interesting. One, uh, it’s, it’s telling of just how enormous this franchise is and this, this IP. But, um, I did find it fascinating ’cause I figured, yeah, I mean, I would see some here or there, but everywhere you went, it was a robe or sweaters and school outfits and whatever.

[00:25:58] Donna: I, I was really s [00:26:00] surprised by that. I thought that was pretty cool. So, Josiah, I don’t know why I didn’t try to get over there and go in. What was it like to go into Gringotts? 

[00:26:10] Josiah: Yes, I went into Gringotts Bank. Now there’s escape from Gringotts the Ride, which does have the, uh, lobby of that queue as the lobby of Gringotts.

[00:26:21] Josiah: There’s a smaller little bank you can go into, and it’s a nice old lady. I think it was Cheryl the day I went and she, I loved how she was in character. She knew what she was talking about and she was having fun. It’s a short little thing. Just a little storefront and it had a really cool goblin animatronic up high that said things and it was moving slightly, but then you talk to the human actual worker to exchange your money for wizard money.

[00:26:49] Josiah: And you remember my wizard money that I got this robe with. And so practically speaking, it’s the same value as money. There’s no upcharge and there’s no discount. Uh, it’s [00:27:00] just exactly the same as you paid, but in Wizard Bucks. And it was so fun. The, I say, it’s so fun for walking into a storefront, handing a person money and them handing me money in return.

[00:27:15] Josiah: It was the best possible experience in that context. 

[00:27:19] Rebekah: I mean, again, it’s another way that they immerse you completely. You came over to me and you were like, you have to do this. You have to exchange your money into Wizard Money and like you were excited about it and you should have been. It was cool. Yeah.

[00:27:32] Josiah: It was 

[00:27:32] Rebekah: funny speaking. Hey, nobody else commented on wand experiences other than mom. Did you guys like them? Like, no, dad 

[00:27:38] Josiah: decided. Did you do? Well, I felt like a fool. 

[00:27:40] Tim: I didn’t have one 

[00:27:41] Josiah: because every time, every single time that it didn’t work, which was half the time a kid would get in line behind me ready to do it, and I am this 30-year-old guy trying to do this thing and failing in front of a child, and I’m like, okay, this is not [00:28:00] meant for me.

[00:28:01] Josiah: It’s I’m, I don’t want to be the person who people like mom or people watching. 

[00:28:06] Rebekah: I think that the wand experiences Josh discovered that if you hold the wand, like instead of like holding it in position where you wanna stand, if you hold it as if you’re a child and like point up from below, it actually worked way better because they’re made for like kids to be able to succeed in, no, they were not super reliable.

[00:28:27] Rebekah: I agree. They failed a lot. I liked the wand experiences in Paris, Wizarding world, Paris over at Epic Universe. Way better overall, like the one with the water race. Did any of you do that? Me and Josh did it. It was by far the best wand experience. It was amazing. 

[00:28:44] Donna: Yeah. When I walked into Hogsmeade, I felt like Lucy pe walking into Narnia going, I, I had to stop what I was doing.

[00:28:55] Donna: I couldn’t even, I could, I don’t know if I breathed. It was [00:29:00] so, the, the look and the feel of all of it was unbelievable. When I walked into Paris, it, I almost went into tears because mm-hmm. It was this dreamy, I don’t know the, a dreamy, romantic world, and I’m not even a sappy romantic like that. Um, it was wild.

[00:29:23] Donna: I, I, I. I mean, I could say that about every portal we walked through, but, uh, but yeah, it was, it was significant. And whether it was daytime, that one was as good in the daytime as it was at night for me. All of them weren’t like that, but that one was, um, it was as lovely at night as it was at in the day. 

[00:29:44] Rebekah: I think the thing on Paris that’s so, was so weird was that they designed this.

[00:29:50] Rebekah: I mean, you can tell if you’ll hear it, if you listen to any of our videos on this, ’cause we talk about it ad nauseum, the Paris section is [00:30:00] in every way like the rest of Epic, which is, it’s just another level. Like you can tell that they have put so much additional time and effort and technology into developing these parks.

[00:30:10] Rebekah: So everything in Epic is like a whole step above in a lot of ways. However, the weird part is Wizarding World Paris is not familiar. So like OGs need and Diagon Alley you walk into and you’re like, oh, I have seen these movies. I have read the books. Well, Paris is based on the, uh, fantastic Beasts series, which they canceled after three movies.

[00:30:33] Rebekah: Right? They were supposed to do five, and it just, it wasn’t good. I like, I think we’ve all seen enough of them to say it was not good. And there’s a book called Fantastic Beasts that JK Rowling wrote, like from the original books. Um, and I don’t EI don’t, I own it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat down and read it page or cover to cover.

[00:30:53] Rebekah: I think it’s mostly just about the beast. I don’t think it’s about like a story. And then they tried to turn, 

[00:30:59] Tim: well, look, it’s supposed to be the [00:31:00] textbook. That’s what it would be. It would be about the beast. 

[00:31:03] Rebekah: Yeah. So I think it was like the textbook. And then they tried to turn the movies into this wizarding world, Paris, which is tough because the fact that the movies didn’t do well seems like it kind of changed some of the direction they took with actually.

[00:31:18] Rebekah: Like doing the park, like the way that they did that section of the park. So I agree with Mom though. There’s something about it that does feel so Paris and it’s so romantic feeling that it like is the place that you walk in and it’s just, it’s immersive. Not because you’re walking into something that you read or watched, it’s immersive because you like, believe you’re in Paris.

[00:31:43] Josiah: It’s kind of impressive that they made it such a beautiful, immersive, awesome place that didn’t rely on Fantastic Beasts to be good. ’cause fantastic pieces isn’t good. Like you said, I would rather go [00:32:00] to that park than watch fantastic piece any day. 

[00:32:04] Rebekah: Yes, I agree. Lacer car canoe is really the only thing I think in that section, other than the merch being so beast specific, like fantastic Beast specific.

[00:32:14] Rebekah: Um, the, the show is really the only thing I think other than that, that’s very, like, specific to the ip. Everything else just felt like a section of the world, but with Wizards, you know, and I, I thought, I thought that was wonderful. They have a dark section similar to the, um, nocturnally section that you have in Diagon Alley, uh, where you go back and it’s like the darker section with the roof on it, and it’s a little more, you know, whatever.

[00:32:45] Rebekah: Uh, this is also the place that they are gonna expand Epic universe first, from what I understand. And so I think that that’s a good call. Every part of Epic universe is incredibly packed, but this one is pretty to the brim all the time. Interestingly, it has [00:33:00] the fewest, so if you let go on the map, I have all the filters turned off to where it just shows you everything.

[00:33:05] Rebekah: So it’s just showing me every shop, every show, every ride, and every, um, like performance thing. And if you look here, I can count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. There are nine things. And in the other Harry Potter sections, there’s like 15 to 20 if you count all of the restaurants or snack spots or whatever. And so it is interesting because it felt like this huge step up.

[00:33:30] Rebekah: All of the wand experiences were better. It was a really incredible thing. The, I thought the cir, like Le Cirque AO was like such an incredible show. And the food was amazing. Honestly. We had lag noir. We was, 

[00:33:43] Josiah: that was very nice. 

[00:33:44] Rebekah: I very nice. Yeah, that was great. That was a surprise, honestly, how much I ended up liking that.

[00:33:49] Rebekah: Um, but the cafe layer was the one where we had like crepes and stuff, which was pretty good. There were a lot of things that surprised me in this. And somehow they do it [00:34:00] with fewer things and not connected to a specific ip. 

[00:34:04] Tim: Well, 

[00:34:04] Rebekah: I mean, it is an ip, but like not Yeah, not to like a movie, that 

[00:34:09] Tim: specific episode or movie.

[00:34:10] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:34:11] Rebekah: absolutely. 

[00:34:11] Donna: And the, they do in Paris, they do have like four wands that aren’t in Avens. Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:21] Rebekah: One of them is the, the gen two. 

[00:34:24] Donna: Yeah. And the 

[00:34:24] Rebekah: others 

[00:34:24] Donna: are all the older, they have a new gen two and then, and then gen one. But I thought that was even a little extra detail. Not that you wouldn’t want to go there, like you said about the, uh, the other thing, it’s like they stretch the merch, it’s all the same merch and they keep, just keep putting it in different places.

[00:34:41] Donna: On the other hand, I wonder if they repeat it like that because those three areas were so packed with people every time we went in, there were people everywhere. 

[00:34:52] Rebekah: Each of the parks does have a shop out front. If I’m remembering this correctly, not just Epic, they have a shop in [00:35:00] the front of the park section where they have all of the merch that you’ve seen spread out into a larger one.

[00:35:06] Rebekah: Epic universes for sure is like the one that’s the best experience. So one of the things I’d seen in a video that was really good, if you’re really enjoying just being immersed in the worlds and then you walk in a shop and you feel a little claustrophobic or you feel, Ooh, I don’t love this. If you’re not into it, literally, especially at Epic, you can just go into the shop at the park entrance and they have all the stuff you’re looking for, and it’s a much more spread out, like more enjoyable, like actual shopping.

[00:35:35] Rebekah: Yes. Anyway, uh, does anybody have any other thoughts on, it’s harder to kind of judge this as an adaptation, the, you know, third part just ’cause it’s so different. But did you have any other thoughts on Paris before we move on? 

[00:35:48] Tim: That’s where the entrance to the trouble at the ministry or whatever it’s called Battle.

[00:35:52] Rebekah: Battle, the ministry 

[00:35:53] Tim: Battle at the ministry. That’s where that’s at. 

[00:35:56] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:35:56] Tim: And the interesting thing for me is the ride [00:36:00] immediately while you’re in the line transports you from Paris back to the United States to the Ministry of Magic. 

[00:36:08] Rebekah: It is so weird. 

[00:36:09] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:36:10] Rebekah: The and the time jumps because it’s 1920s Paris like in Fantastic Beast.

[00:36:14] Rebekah: Correct. Then you go through the flu, you time and location jump ’cause you then are in the two thousands, um, London Ministry of Magic. So there was supposed to be another Ministry of Magic thing. I think it was gonna be the French ministry that was originally gonna be like a second ride. And again, from what I understand, some of that was just scrapped because the movies got scrapped.

[00:36:38] Rebekah: And so the setting where the second ride was going to be ended up not being something we actually saw on screen as expected. So 

[00:36:46] Tim: there were some spots where we were pretty certain that this is going to be the entrance of a ride. But it’s not ready yet. It’s not there yet. 

[00:36:55] Rebekah: You can tell they’re prepping for that kind of a thing though.

[00:36:58] Josiah: They had the sweets shop, [00:37:00] right? 

[00:37:00] Tim: Yes, they did have the caramel. Is it lock caramel? Hey, K, Ramel. Um, and I, were 

[00:37:07] Josiah: there any unique sweets in there? Was it, was it a lot of unique stuff? 

[00:37:10] Tim: I got, I got truffles. I got all those truffles and I got the, um, macarons. 

[00:37:16] Rebekah: Macarons or macaroons? 

[00:37:18] Tim: Macarons. 

[00:37:19] Rebekah: The good ones. They 

[00:37:19] Tim: were good.

[00:37:19] Tim: Not coconut. 

[00:37:21] Rebekah: Coconut, Hey, hey. Uh, 

[00:37:25] Tim: I enjoyed that shop. That one to me was better than the candy shop over in P’S, meat and the people inside were very attentive. You know, as soon as they saw somebody kind of wandering in, just looking wide-eyed at everything, she asked how she could help me and she would take my order and all that kind of stuff.

[00:37:45] Tim: So. 

[00:37:46] Rebekah: Which 

[00:37:47] Tim: is lovely, really nice. As we, as we move to the other parts, the Jurassic Park area for me was appropriate. It made me think of Jurassic Park, the book and the, and the [00:38:00] films, the whole, the whole series of films. Um, the, the experience with Blue, uh, where you take a picture. My only problem with that one is the best view of blue is behind your head.

[00:38:15] Tim: Yes, it’s perfect for pictures, but it would’ve been nice to have turned around a little more and experienced that. 

[00:38:21] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:38:21] Tim: And we didn’t really know what we were getting into with that. We weren’t sure if it was a ride, if it was something we are walking past. Um, you go through a line and it, it’s kind of a jungle line.

[00:38:32] Tim: So, I mean, it’s themed well, uh, but it’s unclear exactly what it is. And they’ve got, you know, blue comes up with, uh, with a handler. Uh, and, you know, does, does all that stuff there. I thought that was good. I thought that harkened to the Jurassic world part of the franchise, uh, very well. I liked the rollercoaster velociraptor and the 

[00:38:56] Rebekah: Veloc coaster, 

[00:38:57] Tim: veloc coaster, excuse me, the theming [00:39:00] going in the line and all, uh, was very good.

[00:39:03] Tim: There again, hearkens to Jurassic World, part of the franchise. Uh, but it was done very well. And I did think that the coaster was really good and they did a good job of being chased by a velociraptor that, that, that felt a bit like you were being chased, chased by that. So I think they did a good job of taking the feeling of the book and the film adaptations and making it a good experience, unfortunately.

[00:39:38] Tim: Some of it really harken back to Jurassic Park, like the quiz thing we did in the blah. Mm-hmm. And unfortunately 

[00:39:47] Rebekah: that 

[00:39:47] Tim: was very, it was just old. It was old. 

[00:39:49] Rebekah: It felt dated when I did like going into the Discovery Center, which is made to look like the main building, which like in the original movies and just as a reminder, Jurassic Park and The Lost [00:40:00] World were books.

[00:40:01] Rebekah: The Lost World was only a book ’cause Michael Kret was basically forced to make it. Um, he didn’t really intend for it, but the rest of the film series was not based on a book. And the book Jurassic Park is dramatically different than the film. I mean that’s true, but a lot of stuff we talk about. Um, but I do remember even reading the book, I had seen Jurassic Park, the film as a kid and then we watched it again, you know, last year to review it and all that.

[00:40:24] Rebekah: And it was interesting walking into the Discovery Center because when I read the book last year, when they talk about some of the places they go on the island, I actually do like, visualize that a lot, even though it meant much of the story’s different. It’s a little weird that the original Discovery Center is then connected to Velo Coaster, which is themed to the newer movies.

[00:40:44] Rebekah: I think this one, for me, it’s kind of weird because with the Harry Potter stuff, it feels so immersive into the story with Jurassic Park. I don’t feel that, but I think partly because it’s not sure what it’s trying to be. Are we trying to be Jurassic World? Are we trying to pay homage [00:41:00] to the original like 99 film?

[00:41:02] Rebekah: ’cause if you are trying to do the original film, some of that is done really well. We unfortunately did not get to Ride River Adventure. It’s closed a lot of this year. Um, and so we got there after they closed it to Update the Ride. Or do I think it’s like a long-term maintenance thing? That’s such a weird thing.

[00:41:18] Rebekah: ’cause like that’s an original Jurassic Park themed ride. But then the Discovery Center is the only other thing that’s like original Jurassic Park sort of. But then you’ve got like the kids Rock. I don’t know, it doesn’t know what it’s trying to do. And I almost kind of wish that they had have chosen to like, keep one of them as classic Jurassic Park and similar to how they do multiple Harry Potter sections, I wish they would’ve just done like the other, like done velo coaster or done the, the Jurassic World thing in one of the other parks.

[00:41:51] Rebekah: Do you know what I mean? Like mm-hmm. 

[00:41:53] Donna: Yeah. To connect, definitely. 

[00:41:54] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:55] Donna: A strong part for me in this and, [00:42:00] and Harry Potter as well. But in this, uh, world was, uh, the use of theme music and I, that is an emotional thing for me. Music moves me emotionally and I thought, uh, through most of the areas that we covered.

[00:42:20] Donna: This one for sure because the, the music is so incredible. Um, the themes are so incredible, but I love the way as, as you’re just, just perusing, just going through the whole thing, that the, the music was there. They, they just wove it through so much of everywhere you went. And in addition to that, uh, they have fossils and leaves and stuff in the, in the pavements.

[00:42:47] Rebekah: Oh yeah. 

[00:42:48] Donna: And that was so completely simple and just a little thing that they didn’t have to do. They could have just done stone, like just stones or whatever. But that little thing, [00:43:00] add a little addition to keep your memory, keep your mind thinking of where you are. I loved that about it. 

[00:43:07] Rebekah: I will also comment that I am being harder than is probably fair about some of like the adaptation part of it where it doesn’t necessarily feel like it totally knows what it’s doing.

[00:43:18] Rebekah: ’cause part of the issue is. We are thinking, well, at least I, I’m trying to think of like the perspective of a reader who also loves to watch the films and all of that, whereas Universal, like they don’t own the book rights. Like this wasn’t a book thing, this is them taking the film and let you walk into it.

[00:43:35] Rebekah: And so maybe that’s not as big of a deal. If you’re talking about, you know, Jurassic World versus Jurassic Park, ’cause they’re just trying to let you live in different parts of the franchise. 

[00:43:46] Josiah: I mean, I think the Discovery Center could use, uh, an update ’cause it would be such a cool, because I love the idea.

[00:43:54] Josiah: I wanna do trivia, I wanna do interactive little arcade games. I wanna do [00:44:00] something with a dinosaur that a kid can do, but an adult can do. It’s not something that’s gonna have a huge line, but just have like an arcade of stuff that has to do with Jurassic Park. Like you’re like, you’re in Jurassic Park and maybe that’s too much to ask.

[00:44:16] Josiah: Like, you’re at the gift shop of Jurassic Park. This is where the parents bring you at the end of the day after seeing all these dinosaurs. 

[00:44:25] Rebekah: Right? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:44:27] Josiah: It 

[00:44:27] Rebekah: is kind of interesting to, to realize. It feels, and I mean this may just be ignorance on my part, it does kind of feel like once something is established and open as a section of the park, the only things they put a ton of work into are brand new things.

[00:44:46] Rebekah: It doesn’t feel like gra like more granular or nuanced or like incremental improvements are in any way a priority. And maybe that’s just ’cause people are like, oh, I’ve been there, I’ve seen that, whatever. And so [00:45:00] maybe if you update the Discovery Center but you don’t completely hair down the building and redo it, like people won’t think to engage with it because they just already assume they know how they feel about it.

[00:45:11] Rebekah: I dunno, 

[00:45:11] Tim: I feel like the Jurassic Park area has, has been a little forgotten and perhaps it’s because they’ve closed the, one of the biggest rides there for big maintenance or you know, whatever. And the coaster’s really good and it’s, it’s good well themed, but there’s not a, there’s not a lot of stuff to go to with the other stuff closed, so it’s a little bit strange.

[00:45:35] Tim: Did you feel a similar thing when we went into the Dr. Seuss area? The cat in the hat stuff? 

[00:45:41] Rebekah: It’s hard ’cause it’s like one of the most visually interesting books slash films, tv, whatever that they have in the entire park. And like the circus McGurky cafe that we went into, the food was not as good as it was supposed to be.

[00:45:55] Rebekah: They phoned it in on the food after updating the food. They, you know, [00:46:00] whatever that restaurant was like peak in terms of design of Oh yeah, this is like in Dr. Seuss. I’m 

[00:46:06] Tim: in a 

[00:46:06] Rebekah: Dr. 

[00:46:06] Tim: Seuss book. Yeah. 

[00:46:08] Rebekah: But outside of that, like the cat in the hat ride was maybe, I knew I wasn’t gonna like be crazy in love with it.

[00:46:17] Rebekah: It was maybe the most disappointing thing we did because it was just. It wasn’t even that. The ride wasn’t good. It would’ve been good. It was dirty, the lights needed replaced. It just was dirty. I’m like, take it, close this ride for one day and you could make it feel a zillion times better and then add new lights and I mean, you’re talking about a completely different experience.

[00:46:42] Rebekah: The carousel is kind of cool looking, I guess. And it is nice that they’ve got the trolley, so it’s not bad. But like, this is one where I think maybe the fact that this is of, and very much an aging section of an older park right now is obvious. Like when you walk through, it’s like, [00:47:00] this looks cool, but like go to Epic universe and visit Super Mario World and it’s not cool, even though they have the same type of visual, like lots of colors, weird shapes, lots of, you know what I mean?

[00:47:13] Josiah: Mm-hmm. I love Dr. Seuss as a, as a. Property and 

[00:47:18] Rebekah: mm-hmm. 

[00:47:20] Josiah: There just wasn’t very much to latch onto with the re the restaurant being disappointing was such a nail in the coffin ’cause, ’cause you go to the Toad Stool Cafe at Nintendo Land, it’s like, oh. But you could have just done that. But like the Seuss version, 

[00:47:37] Rebekah: they had updated the food at that park a few months back because I saw a video on it.

[00:47:42] Rebekah: They invited some influencers, they re-shot the whole menu, re like, they completely updated what they did. ’cause it was one of the worst restaurants in the park. And some of the stuff we got looked cool and it was like the new photography, but like, there were a couple things. Uh, Josh called the guy [00:48:00] out and was like, Hey, I ordered this and it’s obviously not what I saw in the picture.

[00:48:04] Rebekah: And the guy literally looked at him and was like, oh yeah, we kept running out of the other stuff. And it’s like, well, you updated the food. You updated the food, somebody can purchase more of it. And they just went back. Literally it was chicken fingers and what they handed you, I think Josiah, you ordered that too.

[00:48:20] Rebekah: What they handed you and Josh was literally like, frozen chicken fingers I could buy at Walmart. Mm-hmm. It was so weird because it, it just, again, it feels like they phoned it in for that kind of stuff, which is disappointing ’cause it is a great ip. 

[00:48:33] Donna: So then the question would be, do you just bank on the fact that people are gonna wanna bring their kids into Cat in the hat?

[00:48:40] Donna: We’ve gotta see Cat in the hat. So you don’t take as much time with it. They 

[00:48:45] Josiah: gotta, 

[00:48:46] Donna: I mean, do you gotta see 

[00:48:47] Josiah: Cat a little bit? 

[00:48:48] Donna: Well, for you do it 

[00:48:49] Tim: for a little bit and then you get enough people that are disappointed and then nobody’s 

[00:48:54] Donna: going 

[00:48:54] Tim: on it. 

[00:48:54] Donna: Sure. And I’m not, I’m not, I I, I agree with you. I just have, I just kinda [00:49:00] wonder if you’re banking on the age of the cat and the hat and.

[00:49:06] Donna: Where for us, that was a, a thing when we were young, when the kids were young, blah, blah. I don’t know. I’m, I’m 

[00:49:11] Rebekah: just wonder. Yeah. But there’s been a cat in the Hat movie and there’s one coming out this year. Yeah. ’cause we’re gonna review it. Yeah. And I was kind of surprised leading up to that movie that they haven’t done more there now.

[00:49:20] Rebekah: We didn’t try all of it. It’s pretty, but there are, it’s fine to look at and there are a couple of cool, like, um, there’s an ice cream shop we didn’t go to, and Moose juice. Goose juice has some fun stuff, but when you actually try to experience it, it falls apart. Like that’s what is hard. 

[00:49:37] Donna: There’s a, there’s a drop, a missed opportunity.

[00:49:39] Tim: The other part that I felt like unfortunately was more of, more of a miss or struggled is, is the Marvel Comics. Part of that I’m sure has to do with the IP because they don’t own the movies. They’re just the comics now. I loved the Spider-Man ride. Loved it 24, 25 years ago. [00:50:00] Um, they’ve updated it, they’ve updated the, the walkthrough ahead of time.

[00:50:05] Tim: I thought it was really good, really fun. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the Hulk coaster. I liked it 

[00:50:12] Rebekah: is 

[00:50:12] Tim: how they, I’m, I’m 

[00:50:13] Rebekah: glad they redesigned it. Yes. 

[00:50:15] Tim: Yeah. I liked how they redesigned it. I liked the walk the line through the, I thought they did the theming there very well, but aside from those two things, it was just empty.

[00:50:27] Josiah: I just, what do they do? Because you, you can’t have Disney, Marvel’s, likenesses. It’s gotta be from the comic books, I’m pretty sure is what it’s contractually obligated to be. But 

[00:50:39] Tim: there are, there are hundreds of characters from the comic books, 

[00:50:45] Donna: not things that people know. If you’re not Travis, like there’s so many that are, there’s so many names there, but would you really, would they be worth it?

[00:50:57] Donna: Would they be worth seeing? Would you take your time? [00:51:00] And even Spider-Man, like Spider-Man is Marvel, but he’s, but then there’s also part of the IP that’s owned by Sony. So I mean, there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff going on there too that, that I’m sure they have to juggle because somebody would be looking to get them in trouble or whatever.

[00:51:17] Tim: They don’t know exactly how to make more of that part. 

[00:51:23] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:51:24] Tim: Because they’re having to juggle against their biggest competition. 

[00:51:29] Rebekah: Okay. So here’s my problem though. Storm four, they have four rides. Okay. In the section of the park they have Hulk. Oh they 

[00:51:35] Tim: do? 

[00:51:35] Rebekah: Yes. Hulk and Spider-Man, which we rode both of.

[00:51:38] Rebekah: And then Dr. Doom’s Fear Fall, which is just a really basic falling ride. And then the Storm Force Elron, which is literally just a teacups ride. Storm Force Elron is based on Storm because they can use X-Men comic like the Xen Comics is part of the IP they own. I feel like maybe, [00:52:00] again, this is suffering in such a large part because of the movies and because of the rights that they don’t have, but they could use X-Men comics and choose not to do that in a more interesting way, I think this is suffering partly because when it opened, I’m sure part of the reason that they did two smaller rides was just to get people on stuff.

[00:52:20] Rebekah: This park was supposed to be more about rides and less about movie shows and like, you know, Mo like the, the simulations and it was supposed to be about physical rides. And I think that they’re paying for that now because they opened it before the MCU and you know, obviously no one, they didn’t necessarily know how to predict that.

[00:52:40] Rebekah: But I, I do think it’s hard ’cause like they have character meets, which is like fine, except the characters can’t look like the movie characters, you know, because of the comic part. The store is fine, but like, let’s just be honest, cafe four and Captain America Diner. Um, they are two of the worst rated restaurants in [00:53:00] literally all three parks.

[00:53:01] Rebekah: Like, they’re bad. I’ve seen so many reviews and they are not good restaurants, so it’s like, it feels like they just kind of were like, well, we didn’t even 

[00:53:08] Donna: go in them. Right. 

[00:53:10] Rebekah: No, we didn’t. Like I, I, I just didn’t even bother ’cause they’re so poorly rated and I’ve seen so many people agree. And so it’s hard.

[00:53:18] Rebekah: The Hulk and Spider-Man are incredible rides, but this step, this part of the park does feel like it’s lost its identity. But then I think if they tear it down, I don’t know if like, part of this is they can’t build new rides. Like, I don’t know what the rights, you know, are about all of that, but it does, it is kind of an unfortunate thing for that section of the park.

[00:53:39] Rebekah: For sure. 

[00:53:40] Tim: It is. Although, and you know, uh, one of the things that I thought was really neat and universal is a movie production company as well. Um. I thought it was really neat. The, for the Hulk Ride, I liked the concept. There again, it was kind of a concept of wow, that would, that would be an interesting thought to [00:54:00] have as a, as a movie kind of, kind of thing.

[00:54:03] Tim: These, these people you’re injecting them with, with this formula to see how they respond. Different people. Mm-hmm. It was just, it was something that I thought, wow, that would be a neat concept for a Hulk movie. 

[00:54:16] Rebekah: I also saw somewhere else, and see, again, I don’t understand how all the interplay of this works, but there is something going on where, and I didn’t know this, but the MCU, because of the way that some of the rights are owned, can’t do a full Hulk movie.

[00:54:31] Rebekah: Or like he can be a part of the Avengers, but he’s, he, they don’t own the rights to do a dedicated Hulk specific movie. 

[00:54:39] Donna: There’s so much convoluted lot of stuff in there. 

[00:54:42] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[00:54:42] Donna: it’s really bizarre. And is it possible, and I don’t know the answer to this, that the potential of a Netflix acquisition, the stuff that they’re talking about buying, right?

[00:54:56] Donna: It’s them. Proposing that they buy a bunch of other, 

[00:54:59] Rebekah: they’re [00:55:00] trying to acquire Warner Brothers. 

[00:55:01] Donna: But the reason I said that was I wonder if that throws another level of kink in, 

[00:55:06] Tim: we can’t start construction on a new ride ’cause we’re not sure if we’ll have the rights to it in a year or whatever. 

[00:55:12] Rebekah: So interestingly, Warner Brothers owns the rights to Harry Potter.

[00:55:17] Rebekah: They are not connected to Universal except in that they have given universal the theme park rights because Warner Brothers doesn’t operate theme parks. So they’re connected in that way. 

[00:55:28] Donna: JK is just entrepreneur gold. There’s so much legality in so many little logistical, nitpicky things. Mm-hmm. That go on here.

[00:55:40] Donna: I mean, I can’t even imagine having to navigate all of it, especially when you start talking about. Like Marvel and like MCU versus Marvel, DC gets into some of those same things, which I know that’s not necessarily part of it, but the reason I even thought about that was when we were talking about why don’t they update?

[00:55:59] Donna: And I was [00:56:00] trying to just think of, you know, potential things to build on what you said. 

[00:56:04] Tim: And they may have decided that, that they’ll just leave those the way they are and they updated those two rides and maybe that’s enough for them. 

[00:56:14] Rebekah: That’s true. They have, it’s not like they’ve left them exactly the same.

[00:56:18] Rebekah: They have updated both of those. 

[00:56:19] Tim: One of the things that really impressed me was the Dracula Frankenstein stuff, the 

[00:56:27] Rebekah: monsters. So good. Beautiful. This one’s a different concept. The Dark Universe is a different concept than a lot of the other stuff we did because a lot of it, and we’ll talk about how to Train your Dragon, but same with like Mario and Harry Potter and Jurassic Park and all this stuff.

[00:56:44] Rebekah: This is all based on films that are relatively new. Even the original Jurassic Park is like 20 something years old, but Dark Universe was all built around the idea that u uh, universal wanted to focus on like the classic monster movies. Now Josiah, I feel like you were [00:57:00] the one that was explaining to us that they were supposed to be doing more.

[00:57:04] Josiah: Yeah, they were supposed to do a whole dark universe, uh, movie cinematic universe, and the mummy flopped so hard, rightfully so that they had to abandon that plan 

[00:57:17] Donna: because I’m thinking they were gonna start with a different one. And they decided, I think when, I don’t know if it was because Tom Cruise agreed to come onto it or whatever.

[00:57:26] Donna: But they started with that one and I hated that they didn’t just go ahead and try to do another one. Like the first original series, star Trek movie, the motion picture was horrible. It was, the fans went insane over how bad it was, but they said, look, let’s go on. They did Wrath of Con and it became the greatest thing.

[00:57:50] Donna: And it, you know, catapulted the rest of the series out six movies 

[00:57:55] Tim: and the other series too. I mean, none of those would’ve happened if they hadn’t [00:58:00] done the second move theatrical release. 

[00:58:03] Donna: Yeah. And so what does that tell you? Are we so entrenched in the dollar that you, that you go, oh my gosh, if this doesn’t work?

[00:58:13] Donna: Something else just recently came out that was a potential of, you know, building on a, on a series I, I wonder how different it is now. As opposed to 20 to 30 years ago, would you go ahead and take a risk on a next thing? 

[00:58:31] Tim: And I guess that also has to do with where those production companies are at the moment because for some of them they may have, yeah, that’s true.

[00:58:41] Tim: So much money into this particular movie and it needed to do well. And if it was a flop, then they were going to have to get stabilized before they could try to do anything else. 

[00:58:54] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:54] Rebekah: I looked it up ’cause I was curious and what it looks like is Josiah’s correct? Obviously in [00:59:00] that the shared universe was scrapped after The Mummy was such a flop.

[00:59:06] Rebekah: However, they’re not stopping the Monster films. They want to do standalone, like really director driven, it seems like they’re looking for directors who are really passionate. About like the IP that they are going to direct instead of trying to connect them all, which is like the Frankenstein experiment ride that connects all of them.

[00:59:29] Rebekah: I don’t know that I mind The ride was so good. I don’t even care that they don’t do it. As a connected universe, film, whatever. Just 

[00:59:34] Josiah: make good and we’ll be fine. Yeah, 

[00:59:36] Tim: yeah, exactly. If you, if you make good separate films, then you can decide to make a movie out of the ride trail. Except after the fact. 

[00:59:47] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[00:59:47] Tim: because, because the Ride is a about a future of, of these creatures.

[00:59:54] Donna: Why do you care about the Rod if you don’t have some memory tied to it? What? 

[00:59:58] Rebekah: Invisible Man was [01:00:00] released in 2020. Uh, the Wolf Man was released last year, which I also haven’t seen. I need to go see all these. Oh, what a huge marketing 

[01:00:08] Josiah: failure failure. 

[01:00:11] Rebekah: I know. Yeah, because why would not see sad? Because I would totally see these.

[01:00:13] Rebekah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, the bride comes out, uh, in like three weeks and we will be probably mentioning that when we record an episode on Frankenstein. It looks like there’s an Untitled Dracula project directed by Karen Kusama. It is not clear whether or not that’s gonna be followed through. There’s a creature from the Black Lagoon reboot directed by James Juan Wan.

[01:00:36] Rebekah: Yay Juan. Uh, there’s also a project, and I do not know, uh, if this is actually still happening. It’s saying that it’s an upcoming film called Dark Army. That might be, yeah. I don’t see any recent things. Paul Faig, um, is the director that was [01:01:00] originally assigned to this, but I think Dark Army was the one where they were supposed to connect all the people.

[01:01:03] Rebekah: So, did anybody else wanna say anything else about Dark Universe? 

[01:01:06] Josiah: I was just gonna have, we talked about Dust Steakhouse. 

[01:01:09] Rebekah: Oh yeah. 

[01:01:11] Josiah: Beautiful. 

[01:01:11] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. The restaurants and stuff in that section. Mm-hmm. It was a beautiful, it’s just again, perfect, epic, just up levels, everything. Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:20] Donna: I, I go back to those photos more than anything else to pull out stuff I’ve got because mm-hmm.

[01:01:26] Donna: It was so amazing. I don’t think we ever went in there during the day. 

[01:01:31] Rebekah: We didn’t. 

[01:01:31] Donna: Why would you? Honestly, 

[01:01:34] Tim: I went in at Dus while there was still a little bit of sun. 

[01:01:36] Donna: Whether you go for, if, whether you’re able to go for five or six days or if you just go for a couple of days, don’t even worry about going there during the day.

[01:01:45] Donna: Go to Paris, me, me, go there at night. It is everything and I’m sure it’s mm-hmm. I’m sure it’s creepy during the day, but, um, what they did with this was wild. And for me it was just, there was a lot of [01:02:00] nostalgia because my brother was, uh mm-hmm. Was of just freaked over. Uh, universal Monsters and 

[01:02:09] Josiah: yeah. 

[01:02:10] Donna: Uh, it, it’s really, it is just really cool.

[01:02:15] Donna: Was good too. I butchy there with 

[01:02:16] Josiah: us. 

[01:02:17] Donna: Yeah. The food was so good at Do Steakhouse. I had a, I had a brain, um, dessert. 

[01:02:24] Josiah: Oh 

[01:02:24] Donna: yes. You always have a brain. Don’t, 

[01:02:26] Josiah: I thought you were gonna say, I had 

[01:02:27] Donna: brain aneu. Don’t think deserve, but I ate this. Hmm. 

[01:02:30] Rebekah: I think, yeah, the, uh, again, epic just uplevels everything. Dark Universe is one of those that was like, it’s not based on any recent IP that I’m super into, which is one of the reasons I loved how to train your dragon.

[01:02:44] Rebekah: It’s one of the reasons I love Nintendo. It’s one of the reasons I love Harry Potter. This one doesn’t have any of that, and yet it was one of the ones that I would like to just go back and go back and just be there because they did such a good job creating an immersive experience. And I’m not gonna tell [01:03:00] you at which spot it holds, but.

[01:03:02] Rebekah: Monsters Unchained. The Frankenstein experiment was an STE ride for all of us. We were pretty obsessed, um, with it. It is the peak, I think, of that kind of ride and what it can be. And so, yeah. Love that. 

[01:03:14] Donna: Yeah. What about Born? Uh, what 

[01:03:17] Rebekah: did you think? So you said the Born Identity is a book originally. 

[01:03:20] Tim: It’s, it’s a whole series of books.

[01:03:21] Tim: Well, why, 

[01:03:23] Rebekah: why have we covered this? 

[01:03:24] Donna: Well, why Haven 

[01:03:25] Rebekah: covered this on the show 

[01:03:27] Donna: could be diaper. 

[01:03:28] Rebekah: Well, I 

[01:03:30] Donna: maybe this experience was the, the catalyst. The catalyst. Oh. And we’re probably gonna read the books. They’re gonna suck. Serious. No, I don’t. Seriously. And we’re 

[01:03:39] Rebekah: gonna hate ’em. 

[01:03:40] Donna: No, that so 

[01:03:41] Tim: they don’t have any, they’re they’re good.

[01:03:42] Tim: It’s, it’s a whole series of books. I thought The Born. Spectacular 

[01:03:51] Donna: Tacular. Yeah. 

[01:03:52] Tim: I thought it was wonderful. Mm-hmm. Okay. I spoke to my chiropractor who saw the, who saw it the week before we went. [01:04:00] Oh. He said he had seen it before and he felt like the actors weren’t as good as the ones he saw last year, but for most of those kinds of shows, they have more than one set of actors.

[01:04:15] Rebekah: It is interesting to me that they did the Stunt Tacular and it’s a show, but they haven’t used any of that IP to make a good ride and replace trash, such as Fast and Furious. Isn’t that weird? 

[01:04:28] Donna: We say nothing. Yeah. The and, and that’s, that was my parting thought about it for sure, is they don’t really do a lot of other things with it.

[01:04:36] Donna: They’ve got some merchant stores, you know, in in stores for it shows slash experience. Was, uh, was standout. And I liked the, I, I mentioned when we talked about this in the tier list, when the first time I walked past there, I think Josh and I were walking through that area to head somewhere, and there was a guy out on the street, kind of like the old style call, Hey, come and [01:05:00] get the, come and watch this.

[01:05:01] Donna: You gotta come in and see this show. And my first thought was, oh man, I wonder if it’s not really a good show and he has to be out there like selling it. Then when, then when we went to see it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I wondered, I don’t know, maybe, maybe that was just my weird take on it.

[01:05:17] Donna: But, um, I, I, I really liked it. And it, that whole area, was that in a, that’s in studios, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[01:05:26] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[01:05:27] Donna: There’s so much to take in, in that area because you get into other ips of Universal that they couldn’t really have attractions on, and I almost. Missed it the first time I walked through there, through this.

[01:05:43] Donna: ’cause you’re just kind of walking through city streets. 

[01:05:45] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[01:05:45] Donna: Um, they have a section where the building, the storefronts and stuff are all based on Godfather and I was like, oh crap. That’s right. It’s a, that’s an, and so that was nice to see Ginkgo’s, the, the [01:06:00] oil, you know, the olive oil company and see some of those things.

[01:06:04] Donna: And how I, when I stood back and looked, I was like, oh, they, they themed this so well, you’ve got that one little section where you’re there in forties and fifties, New York with them. And so I, I thought that was pretty cool. 

[01:06:20] Rebekah: Here’s a mini game question, like part of the way through the episode, but here it is.

[01:06:24] Rebekah: What would a Godfather ride consist of? 

[01:06:27] Tim: I think that would have to be an in an indoor coaster experience ride. And I’m, I’m pretty certain that Sonny’s Sonny’s experience at the toll booth. Would be part of it. And waking up with a horse’s head in your bed would do another part. 

[01:06:44] Donna: Might be a PG 13, 

[01:06:47] Tim: uh, PG 13 ride.

[01:06:49] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:06:50] Rebekah: Again, replace Fast and Furious. Just put anything there who care. 

[01:06:53] Donna: Yes. 

[01:06:55] Tim: Hang the uh, jaws Shark over there and get rid of that ride. You’d be [01:07:00] doing better. 

[01:07:01] Rebekah: True. We did see the Jaws shark and get a, get a picture with that. That was one. That’s 

[01:07:06] Donna: great. 

[01:07:06] Rebekah: We rode all four of us rode the, the Jaws ride back in 2001.

[01:07:12] Rebekah: Is that the year we went before? Um, the last time we went to Universal, obviously the Jaws ride was still open. I’m glad that they kept the Amity section just, that’s like large enough. I think there’s a restaurant that’s themed after that and then the Jaws, um, shark is hanging there. They also, I’m wearing my back to the future shirt that I got at Universal.

[01:07:29] Rebekah: Um, they also have in studios, they don’t have the Back to the Future ride anymore, but they do have. A, um, the car, you know, Marty Mcflys car is there DeLorean picture with that? DeLorean. Thank you. I was like, what is it called? Um, and so I think it is nice that they keep a lot of those things. 

[01:07:48] Tim: One of the stores over in that general area had a lot of those older ips we went, 

[01:07:54] Rebekah: that’s the one where you come out Ofour and out of the makeup show, both [01:08:00] of them exit into that same store.

[01:08:01] Rebekah: That’s ’cause that’s where I got this shirt. 

[01:08:02] Tim: Well, no, that was, that’s a different store than what I’m thinking. There’s a, there’s another store in, um, in Allens. I’m, I’m not sure which one 

[01:08:12] Rebekah: or are you even the one outta Men in Black that has all that classic 

[01:08:14] Tim: stuff? It was not too far, not too far from there.

[01:08:17] Tim: But it’s the place where your mom said the, uh, the Godfather buildings were there. Oh, the shops and things like that. And in that area, there’s some Back to the future stuff. There’s, uh, oh goodness. What are all the ips? They, they had. Like there was a dozen of them that are just universal 

[01:08:36] Donna: stuff. I forgot that was totally forgot.

[01:08:38] Donna: It wasn’t. And I saw the merch and I was like, oh, this is, I love that. Oh, that’s so cool. 

[01:08:43] Tim: I mean, there’s just, yeah, like you saw a purse there that, a small purse that, that was really nice. But, but that’s where it seems like they do merch from just some of their other movies. ’cause see the, the place, yeah.

[01:08:56] Tim: That empties from the Bourne stuff that’s looks like [01:09:00] primarily the classic monsters and stuff. But if, if I remember correctly, you know, I’ve slept since. 

[01:09:07] Rebekah: Yeah. They do have a lot of the monster stuff that’s actually, uh, merch from Epic now it looks like. And then it’s a couple of other types of things in there.

[01:09:13] Rebekah: Another IP that is a book to film, to park adaptation there is in Epic is how to Train Your Dragon. 

[01:09:20] Tim: Love the entrance. Yes. And 

[01:09:22] the, 

[01:09:22] Tim: the whole feel of it when you go in. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Fantastic. 

[01:09:27] Rebekah: I think it’s, this one is one of the ones where it’s painfully clear to me that they adapted this from a film.

[01:09:33] Rebekah: A film, which I love. I think I mentioned this before, but How To Train Your Dragon. The cartoon is like number two, like animated films on my personal preference list. Loved the way they adapted the film. All the places like Mead Hall felt so immersive, the show. I loved it. Like a lot of it was very, very immersive.

[01:09:52] Rebekah: The, the rollercoaster in that section makes you feel like you’re riding a dragon like it worked. Reading the book this year though, or last year and [01:10:00] reading how different. They just like took such a small part of the concept to make the film that I kept, I kept thinking to myself like, is there anything that’s from the book?

[01:10:11] Rebekah: And there really isn’t, which is fine. The film, honestly, I think, improved upon the book quite a lot. 

[01:10:16] Tim: They’re the names of the two main characters. 

[01:10:19] Rebekah: Oh, true. Pick up and stoic. 

[01:10:20] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:10:21] Tim: Right. 

[01:10:21] Rebekah: Josiah, what were your thoughts on how to train your dragon 

[01:10:24] Josiah: hiccups? Wing gliders might have been my favorite ride up.

[01:10:29] Josiah: There were stardust racers, but I love, Burke is my least favorite epic universe world. Even though it’s, it’s good. Um, it hurts that, and you’re big, two of the three rides were bad. Mm. The, that is 

[01:10:45] Rebekah: hard. 

[01:10:45] Josiah: The aesthetic was like wood. It was appropriate, but it wasn’t as magical for me. You know, I wonder if there’s a way to make it feel, I just don’t know if there’s a way [01:11:00] to make it feel like you’re on a little mountain, rose up, risen up from the sea, and you have to cross to other hills from the sea, o by bridge or something.

[01:11:12] Tim: Did you look at the whole world when you went through the entrance? Did you just kind of stop and take a gander? 

[01:11:19] Josiah: Yeah, 

[01:11:20] Tim: because you just to, to me, I, well, I are 

[01:11:25] Josiah: blind. You idiot. 

[01:11:27] Rebekah: Are you, 

[01:11:27] Tim: did I raise you correctly? I just thought that the look of that was really appropriate and I, I did feel like it was the Isle of Burke.

[01:11:38] Tim: There’s the mountainy kind of thing in the back that looked like where the dragons landed and such. I was disappointed with two of the rides. I had a struggle with my food At the meat hall or whatever. Yes. 

[01:11:54] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:11:55] Tim: It was called just a tiny, tiny thing, but it really bothered me [01:12:00] and it, it made the rest of that section a problem for me.

[01:12:04] Tim: The Turkey wing is about the hardest. You will never let 

[01:12:09] Rebekah: this go. 

[01:12:10] Tim: Of course I won’t. It’s about the hardest thing to eat. Yeah. Especially when it’s covered in barbecue sauce. Had it been a Turkey leg, would’ve still gone in with a theme? Would’ve been very easy to eat. The wing is the most difficult part of the Turkey to eat like that, and it just was like, wow.

[01:12:28] Tim: I just felt like that could have been better. The taste wasn’t bad. It was just very difficult to eat without being covered. 10 fingers. Barbecue sauce, you know, which is fine if every table is equipped with a sink, but they’re not, 

[01:12:45] Donna: as we’ve talked about some of these things and remarked of different food experiences we’ve had, in one respect, you could, you could, it’s like, what’s food?

[01:12:53] Donna: It’s park food. What are you expecting them to do? 

[01:12:55] Tim: Oh, I expected much better. 

[01:12:57] Donna: But you’re, it’s an investment. [01:13:00] And I think that’s the part that makes me not feel as bad for saying, Hey, that food could have been better. Or just like Rebecca talked about with Josh’s experience, um, where the picture in the menu and, and it, it was a highly rated meal too because they, he had been, he had looked at some of those things that he wanted to try that had, had really sparked people’s interest.

[01:13:26] Donna: And then to get it and know what you paid for, it was like, okay, I did not do the research. I let Rebecca do the research and let her. Order the thing, you know, get the things in order and kind of steer us this way or that way. But of all that research you did think of the small number of things that we experienced that we were like, oh, great.

[01:13:49] Donna: It wasn’t, it wasn’t as good as it was rated small number. The vast majority it was of what we, what we did. It lived up to the rating it got. 

[01:13:59] Rebekah: I really [01:14:00] enjoyed how to train your dragon like the, the whole Isle of Burke experience. I was great with it. I think Dad, you just wanted a Turkey leg. I think meat hall, having food that makes you messy when you eat it is absolutely appropriate because it’s supposed to be, to feel like you’re, you know, having Viking food.

[01:14:20] Rebekah: So like, in my opinion, even that for me made sense. But the Spitfire Grill. A couple of other restaurants is also where I got, uh, Nathan actually bought it for me a different day, uh, but bought the mac and cheese cone. That was my number one food item of the whole week. 

[01:14:36] Donna: Josiah, do you think it would be fair to say the appearance looked the most fabricated of the places we went?

[01:14:45] Donna: Oh, that’s interesting. Me, that was the, that was the, that was the feel I got and I wondered if they were trying to stay more closely to the animated, the fact that it was animated. 

[01:14:56] Josiah: Yeah. It looked so plastic. 

[01:14:58] Tim: Did you say about the visual [01:15:00] in Harry Potter and Hogsmeade and stuff? The um, line of sight. 

[01:15:03] Josiah: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:03] Josiah: Sight 

[01:15:04] Tim: lines in Burke, the sight lines. You could see other places in the park 

[01:15:08] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:15:09] Tim: Past them. So, so that took you out of it a little bit, I’m sure. Yeah. 

[01:15:13] Josiah: I’m wondering, were there photo opportunities that we just didn’t do? 

[01:15:17] Donna: Yeah, I think so. 

[01:15:18] Tim: They’re at the front where you could get both of the totems. You got the, the mountain in the background?

[01:15:24] Tim: I got one of those. Or are 

[01:15:25] Rebekah: you talking about like with characters? 

[01:15:27] Josiah: I mean I want a picture with a dragon 

[01:15:30] Rebekah: hiccup and Toothless. You can meet the character meetup for that was on an hour plus wait the whole week we were there. So it’s a very backed up thing. Um, but they do have other character meet and greets there as well, like for photo ops.

[01:15:44] Rebekah: And they occasionally have the baby dragons that come out that are like the robot things that are kind of cool. Um, we didn’t see those, the, when we were in there, but 

[01:15:54] Josiah: uh, yeah, ILA Burke was good, but it was, uh, my least favorite of the epic parks. 

[01:15:59] Rebekah: [01:16:00] The last thing I had on my list, and I know this is not fair ’cause it’s not really a book adaptation at all, but I literally cannot not talk about the immersiveness of Super Nintendo World.

[01:16:12] Rebekah: I think partly because just like I get so immersed in books and like the films that adapt them and then it’s so cool to see it in person and live it. I grew up playing Mario Kart and Mario Games. Like we had a Super Nintendo and played Super Mario World. Mm-hmm. And I, as much as I am a huge Harry Potter fan, I loved Dark Universe.

[01:16:32] Rebekah: I loved Oliver Burke. I mean, like, I was so into this whole week, I was holding Josh’s hand and we walked into the Nintendo land and he and I both like, at the same time, like, like grabbed each other’s hands, like gripped each other’s hands a little more and just stopped. And he goes, just take it in. And we just stood there and I actually did start to like, tear up.

[01:16:53] Rebekah: Yeah. I don’t know what, like, I don’t know what it was. I just, it was like walking into something [01:17:00] that just felt like innocence and childhood and delight and all of that. I don’t know. 

[01:17:06] Tim: It was oddly amazing. It really was. You felt like you were in the video game world. I mean, everything looked like you were right in there.

[01:17:16] Tim: Um, I also thought that the, um. The Donkey Kong area. It was fascinating that it was almost like a secret door. Yeah. A secret passage to get there. 

[01:17:27] Rebekah: It’s like a hidden door back to another section. Whole another 

[01:17:30] Tim: section. 

[01:17:30] Rebekah: Yeah. I. Josiah, you were a big Mario person too, growing up. 

[01:17:35] Josiah: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just growing up.

[01:17:37] Josiah: Not now. 

[01:17:38] Rebekah: You, we are Mario people. Yeah. I just finished playing a Donkey Kong game like last week. I just beat it, so yeah, I guess that’s 

[01:17:45] Josiah: fair. Yeah. What am I, what am I playing right now? I am playing a Zelda game right now, not a Mario game, which 

[01:17:51] Rebekah: is ip, the Universal Stain class. Mm-hmm. 

[01:17:56] Josiah: Yeah, 

[01:17:57] Rebekah: they may, yeah.

[01:17:57] Rebekah: It’s in the stain glass in [01:18:00] Nintendo Land, but 

[01:18:01] Josiah: soon coming. 

[01:18:02] Rebekah: Yeah. We went to Toadstool. Toadstool Cafe was the first place we ate in Epic Universe. We all had a great experience, which I will say Toad Stool Cafe is one of the ones where, depending on the day, the food quality is actually kind of like iffy occasionally, so they’re well-designed meals.

[01:18:22] Rebekah: But I have seen a lot of reviewers say that like depending on when you go and who seems to be back there, it’s not always as consistently. Delicious. But it was, everything was so good that we got, honestly, that’s also another place where they do experiences. No wands. These are the bands. I think that this is another win for Universal that they’re gonna need to start working into the new stuff that they open.

[01:18:46] Rebekah: Uh, if Pokemon and Zelda are both on the list though, both of those, I mean like there are so many easy ways to make that work. What would be a Zelda one that’s like something you’d carry around to do physical experiences? 

[01:18:59] Josiah: I [01:19:00] mean, other than a master sort of try force. 

[01:19:03] Rebekah: Wonder if you could do it as like pendants and you could do the different symbols for different, like for stuff like that.

[01:19:08] Rebekah: ’cause they’ve got a wristband, you’ve got a wand that you hold. So I mean you could, you could definitely do some sort of a pendant kind of thing anyway. Yeah. Super Mario. I just a carina. There’s just, Ooh, 

[01:19:20] Josiah: yeah. 

[01:19:21] Rebekah: Nice. There’s just nothing like it. It was, it was beyond. Honestly beyond my expectations even mm-hmm.

[01:19:29] Rebekah: Of how 

[01:19:30] Tim: it would feel. It was, it was truly so well made. 

[01:19:32] Donna: I am not as entrenched in Nintendo as you are, where the dark universe invoked one emotion. Harry Potter invoked an emotion. This just invoked, childlike wonder. But that just doesn’t seem, almost, doesn’t seem like enough of a word. Like it, it, the color is so vibrant in other places we’ve gone, the color wasn’t this vibrant.

[01:19:57] Donna: You had a lot of colors in [01:20:00] Burke, but they utilized this, this ip. So, well again, I mean that’s, it’s a broken record, right? But, um, I think this is another area. That unlike Dark Universe, this is good in the daytime and good at night. 

[01:20:15] Tim: We went at night and I thought we were in a room. I thought it had a roof.

[01:20:21] Donna: Yeah, 

[01:20:21] Tim: yeah, yeah, 

[01:20:22] Donna: yeah. 

[01:20:22] Tim: But then in the daytime it’s like, oh, wait a minute. Yeah, definitely. That’s the sky it this, it’s not a roof. 

[01:20:27] Donna: Mm-hmm. 

[01:20:28] Tim: Yeah. 

[01:20:28] Rebekah: They just designed it that well. 

[01:20:29] Tim: But there again, the, the sightlines were you were in this land and what else can you see? Nothing but this land, these things, which is very good.

[01:20:40] Josiah: I felt that the dragon glider was the most immersive wing 

[01:20:46] Rebekah: gliders. 

[01:20:47] Josiah: Yes. Hiccups wing glider from Isle Burke was the best adaptation ride wise, and Nintendo Land, for me, was the best adaptation. Uh, of, of a property, I suppose. Not a book or movie, but a video game By far [01:21:00] the best, uh, feeling walking in was tear inducing magical.

[01:21:05] Josiah: I think that universal probably didn’t even understand how good it was, 

[01:21:12] Rebekah: honestly. I wouldn’t doubt it. So here’s what I think I would love to do. We’ve got a tip at the end of this list, but why don’t we each give one, maybe a real, uh, maybe a second one if you can make it quick, uh, just like a tip or something that you would like to give to somebody going to the parks that you maybe didn’t expect or you found to be really helpful.

[01:21:34] Tim: I can start with a tip that would be very helpful and it’s something that’s very different from decades ago. I don’t know if parts have all gone this way for Christmas, we were given our water bottles and they’re really nice water bottles and everything. It’s a great thing because years ago you couldn’t take something like that into the park.

[01:21:54] Tim: You had to buy something in the park that was really good. At every one of those Coke [01:22:00] freestyle machines, you can get water, you can refill the water. There are lots of other places to do it, 

[01:22:04] Rebekah: and the water refills are free. You don’t have to pay for the freestyle. 

[01:22:06] Tim: That’s completely free. That was awesome.

[01:22:09] Tim: That was really good. Make sure that you can do that, because that was very, very helpful. Being able to do that kept us from having to fill the soda part as often, you know, and kept us hydrated and stuff like that. Definitely would, would say do that. 

[01:22:25] Donna: I expected staff to be friendly. I did not expect them to embody the worlds they were representing.

[01:22:36] Donna: Like that was a very pleasant surprise for me. And I could ask questions. Not one time did I get an answer that was like, I don’t really know the answer. What can I come up with? Every they knew. Um, and I’m not gonna say that there wasn’t somebody there that wouldn’t, couldn’t have answered something. But the people [01:23:00] I talked to think 

[01:23:00] Josiah: the men in Black Ride attendant, she was not happy to be there.

[01:23:05] Donna: I was thinking of the people like in shops. In places like that where you’re looking to purchase something and like even in the food, the food vendors, the people that brought things to your table, if you said, Hey, could, could you bring me such and such? Or I would like that, you know, they were right back there.

[01:23:23] Donna: There was no pause. Did we eat anywhere where we waited a long time for food. 

[01:23:29] Tim: The second Harry Potter place where we had dinner, we waited a little bit longer in the line and probably waited a little Oh, the line for the food, but not much. 

[01:23:36] Donna: Yeah. But now, uh, 

[01:23:38] Tim: not anything significant at 

[01:23:39] Donna: all. One, one thing we haven’t mentioned much of was a couple places that we went to eat were really special.

[01:23:45] Donna: Like we went to the blue dragon, 

[01:23:47] Rebekah: so good. 

[01:23:48] Donna: Very, very good. And we chose to do, uh, one really upscale place, so to speak. But my experience with staff was really cool. Um, we did [01:24:00] stay at a resort hotel and they were so. Good there. I mean, they were so helpful and, um, accommodating. And so one huge kudos I could give to the, to the marketing, the whoever drives the marketing for this, they’ve really done their homework to get people to engage with you and care about you, like you feel important when you’re there.

[01:24:28] Donna: Mm-hmm. And so that would be 

[01:24:29] Tim: staffing, you know? Definitely. Mm-hmm. Good. With staffing, 

[01:24:32] Rebekah: um, I would say if I had a tip, I mean, I, my tip is be prepared. I loved the hours and hours and hours that I spent watching all of these videos and like getting to know the YouTubers I liked and seeing the vlogs and things because I just, you know, we had five days, which going in, I thought, is this enough?

[01:24:54] Rebekah: But it really was, it was like, honestly, I would say, I was like, 

[01:24:58] Donna: okay, I’m getting, I’m [01:25:00] getting. 

[01:25:01] Rebekah: I was tired, saturated, like ready? Yeah. So I think that in terms of like trip length, if it’s the first time you’re going, I think four to five days is really good if you haven’t been there in like quite a while or whatever.

[01:25:12] Rebekah: I was so grateful that I had done all the prep that I had because I felt like it allowed me to honestly like avoid a lot that I probably wouldn’t have been super excited about. ’cause there were a bunch of rides. You know, if you watch our tear list, there’s a lot that I didn’t ride and it’s because I knew, you know, hey, I’m aware of what I like and I’d rather ride something a second or third time that I’m gonna really enjoy versus try to go to something that I’m just not into.

[01:25:37] Rebekah: So yeah, I would say like my, it’s stupid, but like my tip is prepare in advance. Like if you can make sure that somebody going with you or yourself. 

[01:25:48] Donna: Listen to our tear list. 

[01:25:50] Rebekah: Yes, listen to it. It’s so good. We have one on shows too. We probably should have done one on food, but I’m exhausted. But yeah, I think, I think that’s my tip is like [01:26:00] get on YouTube, watch vlogs, like watch people do this, read the lists.

[01:26:05] Rebekah: There’s a, there’s a few people that put out really fantastic walkthroughs and things and just make a list. Like I had a little notion page that had all of the rides that I knew I wanted to hit. The restaurants that were like must, must get and what items people seem to rave about and all that stuff.

[01:26:22] Rebekah: And so in the parks, like my plans did not always go, you know, as I planned them, which is fine. Um, but I felt like I didn’t really miss anything that I cared about because I was prepared in advance. So there’s 

[01:26:35] Tim: time. Make a plan, but be flexible. And I think that’s what we, we did and you know that worked very well.

[01:26:41] Josiah: Mm-hmm. I think that part of Rebecca being prepared ’cause she’s the one who planned the whole thing and told us what to do is if you’re going for multiple days, well no matter what, it was nice for us to go five days and spread it all out. And in those five days it was good to have [01:27:00] the fast pass for one of those days.

[01:27:02] Josiah: Fantastic. I thought it was a good move. Really good use of time and money. 

[01:27:07] Rebekah: I was fine with us not having had it for the other parks. ’cause we originally considered staying at one of the more expensive hotels to get the unlimited express for the original two parks. We realized if we didn’t do that it would reduce our cost quite a bit.

[01:27:22] Rebekah: And so instead of getting fast pass at the original parks, ’cause we went on a pretty chill week. That’s not super busy. We got an express pass for one day at Epic. Now for those of us who purchased it in advance, it was like $160 a person for the day or something like that. And then we bought one the day of, ’cause we didn’t know.

[01:27:40] Rebekah: So this actually leads into number one, our greatest tip. But before I say the tip, epic universe worked really hard to make the park really accessible. So when I say that, I don’t just mean like wheelchair access ’cause that’s what a lot of people think of, which is great. But the rides themselves focused on [01:28:00] accessibility, meaning they are made for people with larger frames.

[01:28:04] Rebekah: And so Josh struggled at a couple of the rides in EP or in, uh, the old parks. He actually couldn’t get on a few of them. He could ride everything in Epic universe like, didn’t have a single problem. And we actually talked to a couple of, uh, staff members that talked about how that was like a huge part of what they wanted in this park was to make sure that everyone could enjoy it.

[01:28:25] Rebekah: And it didn’t have to be limited in some of the ways theme parks have been before. So we, uh, mom, the first day realized pretty early on, ’cause we had gone, we got there Sunday night, didn’t go park, but we, it was Sunday night, I knew we went to a, we went to City Walk to get food and stuff and after just that much walking your arthritis in, I think your hips like really started acting up and all that.

[01:28:50] Rebekah: So Monday morning you’ve ended up getting a scooter at the front of islands. So part of the pro tip is if you do have a, like mobility issues at all, [01:29:00] get a mobility scooter, but order it from somewhere offsite if you can get one. There’s like a ton of places that you can just Google that offer mobility scooters locally there.

[01:29:09] Rebekah: But if you can get one, if you’re staying at one of the park hotels, they will deliver it to you. We never saw them. They delivered it to us. And then the place where you can like leave bags and stuff down in the lobby of the hotel, they charged it for you every night. ’cause you can’t take it up to your room.

[01:29:25] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Unless you have a reason to take it to your room. And so it was just a fantastic experience in that way. Like they made it really easy, but it wasn’t just that we, it, it was kind of an extra fast pass. And like, honestly, that’s part of why we probably didn’t notice that we didn’t have one the other days is, is because there were several rides.

[01:29:47] Rebekah: I can think of a few. Like The Mummy was one of them. Um, Mario Kart was one that we didn’t even realize was so much better. Um, uh oh. The battle with the ministry. There [01:30:00] are a ton of them where if you have someone that’s on a mobility scooter, you will skip a big, decent part of the line because you have to get in an elevator and they keep parties together, so you’ll go with the people in your party.

[01:30:11] Rebekah: So I hate to give that away. ’cause technically you can get one when you don’t need one. And I would say like, if you’re watching this, like, don’t be a jerk and like, don’t get one if you don’t actually need it. But it was great. 

[01:30:21] Donna: I will say that of all the things I did not wanna do, it was right around in a scooter.

[01:30:28] Donna: I just felt, ugh, it drove me crazy. I didn’t wanna have to do that, but my knees are my knees and that’s just the way it is. And then when I, you know, when I got it and realized, oh, I can share this with everybody, then it, the rest of the week it didn’t, it didn’t bother. Yeah, it didn’t bother me. And so I would just say to you, if you’re looking at that going, oh, I don’t wanna do that, and saying, I’m making a point about this because.

[01:30:57] Donna: The last two years that my mom was alive, she lived with [01:31:00] me and she had horrible trouble with arthritis in her knees and we had a wheelchair we had gotten from friends that we had to use and she hardly ever let me take her anywhere to use it. And I would say to her mom, we could do so much stuff because she was in decent health other than the mobility and, and I, so I just kind of learned from that.

[01:31:30] Donna: We had an opportunity a couple years ago to go over to the ARC and the Creation Museum in Kentucky and, and I thought the same thing, oh, I don’t wanna do this, but realizing what opportunity that opens up for you is great. It also gave me a huge appreciation for people who are bound to. That to that, which I was not, I could get up and walk here and there and short, short length, you know, short term walking.

[01:31:59] Rebekah: And there were [01:32:00] several rides where if you couldn’t take a few steps under your own strength, which you absolutely could, it was just an issue of like, the day after day would’ve been too much. Um, there are several rides where they said, we need to see you take a few steps. If you can’t, like you can’t get on the ride.

[01:32:15] Rebekah: So they do. There’s limitations to that for sure. 

[01:32:17] Tim: One other tip that I would give you is the experiences, the, the little shows, the little things all around the parks. Find some of those because those are little gems. We, we saw one jazz show that we happened across and all those things were just great additions.

[01:32:39] Tim: That didn’t take a lot of time. Um, we didn’t have to make sure we got there ’cause they were done often enough. We did make sure that we passed by some of them specifically, and then we ran into a couple of others. Um, they’re good. Take advantage of them. 

[01:32:54] Donna: Yeah. Don’t 

[01:32:54] Tim: they do a good job of them? 

[01:32:55] Donna: Yeah. I definitely don’t fill up your day with Rod [01:33:00] plans and miss those.

[01:33:01] Donna: Build, build some time in to do that. Did we catch every single thing that we could have caught? No. But in the preparation that Rebecca, in the preparation that, that she did, we came across things and saw things that we might have missed. 

[01:33:18] Rebekah: Well, uh, to close this out, what I was thinking was, I would love, there’s no way to like rate this in out of 10 like we normally do at the end of our episodes, but why don’t you give us what your number one favorite thing was?

[01:33:33] Rebekah: Um, just whatever part of the experience being universal Orlando, uh, was. And then what was the best book adapted feature. Was there anything that you noticed that you were like. It was cool to like experience something from a book that got transformed in this way. 

[01:33:51] Donna: To give you some context of why this affected me and why was this so important.

[01:33:55] Donna: Um, I have a few Harry Potter [01:34:00] paraphernalia before I had some, before we went to the park, and I have a Veer Bradley purse that is, uh, herbology themed. And so it’s got these really cool plants on. It’s really pretty. It’s a really pretty pattern. I was carrying that one day. We went to lunch, went to Wendy’s here in town, and there’s a, a lady that is out in the dining room and she keeps things clean and she greets people.

[01:34:22] Donna: And I walked in and she said, oh, I think your purse is so pretty. And I said, oh, thanks. It’s, uh, it’s patterned after, uh, Harry, the Harry Potter Herbology class, and she looked, she got watered and she said, oh, I, I mean, I don’t do witch stuff. I, I don’t do witchcraft. And she turned around and walked away from me.

[01:34:40] Donna: She was like, afraid. And I said, um, I was like. It’s just a purse. It’s just a pretty purse. Oh, uh, okay. I know. Okay. And she was trying not to be rude to me, but I freaked her out as a pastor’s wife. I think a lot about that and I try to be very respectful to [01:35:00] the fact that everybody would not be comfortable with that.

[01:35:04] Donna: And when Rebecca was young and Harry Potter was first published, I, we did not let her read it immediately when it came out, even though her friends were, and she was incredibly upset with me and tried to have her best friend’s mother come and plead her case. And I was like, I’m just, I just want you to be a little older.

[01:35:23] Donna: Okay. That was a personal decision. Parents make their own decisions. Right. But once she read the books as she was older, then not long after that, I listened to the books on I am audio book reader, so I listen to the books. Fell in love with this story and it’s this, this incredible story of sacrificial love that is full of biblical principles.

[01:35:49] Donna: And so my experience of walking into, I, I preface that to say, I don’t aspire to be a witch. 

[01:35:58] Rebekah: Well, 

[01:35:59] Donna: good. That’s good. So just throw that [01:36:00] out there to you in case anybody wondered. But when I walked into Bo all of the areas that we entered in Harry Potter World, it was hard not to just weep because of what the books and the stories have done for me.

[01:36:18] Donna: Like the things that God showed me through so much, uh, we could do, I could do a podcast on it. And so that, that’s my, that’s it for me. So I prefaced it with a lot of stuff to say, a very short that world and what they’ve done with that world. Was, was I could go back and not go to any other worlds and just go there for two or three days.

[01:36:39] Donna: And like Nathan had said, just go into Paris and sit on the sidewalk on a, on a bench and just look around or write poetry or, or, you know, um, it, it is the height of escapism and that’s what they’re going for and they achieved it for me. So, 

[01:36:59] Josiah: well, Nintendo [01:37:00] land, walking into it was, uh, spectacular. And the hiccups wing gliders, that was really special.

[01:37:10] Josiah: It felt just like riding a dragon. Uh, but I love the Toad Stool Cafe and Dos Steakhouse and Three Broomsticks, big highlights. Paris was beautiful despite being based on fantastic beasts. There were so many moments when you just got immersed the dragon breathing fire to, and most people, I don’t know, I think the majority of people in Diagon Alley like knew it was coming and so did for these hundreds of people to everyone be looking up at the dragon waiting for it.

[01:37:48] Josiah: It was started making noises and it’s just part of this big communal experience. A lot of really amazing special stuff. All of the most immersive [01:38:00] stuff was at Epic. 

[01:38:02] Rebekah: Yeah, totally. 

[01:38:03] Josiah: For sure. 

[01:38:04] Rebekah: Yeah. My favorite, I al I have talked about this a lot. I wanna go back as soon as possible. I would be going back in two weeks for my birthday.

[01:38:12] Rebekah: Uh, if Josh didn’t say, you know, maybe not quite yet, I would just go as often as I could get outta town. It was. It was what I wanted it to be. And it’s just, if I lived near a theme park, I would be a, I’d be a Disney adult or whatever. I don’t like Disney, but I’d be a universal adult. Trying to come up with my favorite thing is kind of hard ’cause I loved so many of the worlds that I’ve already talked about.

[01:38:34] Rebekah: But the thing, this is so weird, the thing that I dream about is walking into Celestial Park and just sitting there and like looking at Stardust racers and seeing far off like the top of the Frankenstein building and looking at this carousel and like being there for the, the, um, the show was what like, hit me.

[01:38:56] Rebekah: I think we sat there Wednesday night was the one I sat and watched it. Um, [01:39:00] we stayed there late ’cause that was like our, we were only at Epic that day, but we did E Epic the other days for part of it. And I remember sitting there and listening to all of the theme music from the four ips plus Celestial Park.

[01:39:12] Rebekah: And I think it was when they started playing the Nintendo music. ’cause I’d already heard Harry Potter and all this other stuff. I, I literally was like, I have spent. Years trying to make sure that I can do this and that I do it well. And like I did it. Like I, I knew what I wanted to go to. I, I did the things that mattered to me.

[01:39:31] Rebekah: I waited until Epic was open. I wanted to go on this trip before Epic opened. And then Josh was like, oh, do we want to do that or should we wait? And I was like, oh, let’s wait. You know? So glad we waited. But I think just sitting in Celestial Park and walking around and just looking at the way all of the lights work together and the Helios is such a beautiful, it’s just a site.

[01:39:51] Rebekah: Like, it’s not even, it’s crazy to me, but the, the seafood restaurant, which, which we didn’t even go inside because that wasn’t the nice restaurant. We ended up going to [01:40:00] like, just all of those things and just, I, I don’t even know how to describe it. I felt like I was immersed in magic and it was, it was truly amazing.

[01:40:08] Rebekah: I think the best book adapted part. I go back to Hogwarts Castle. Um, just the line for Forbidden Journey I think was just, there’s so much of that that pulled from the books, not just the films. Like there were little things with like, peeves and other characters that weren’t in the films. Even 

[01:40:25] Josiah: the Fat Lady wasn’t a huge part of the films.

[01:40:28] Rebekah: Yeah. And so I loved that you got to see all of that. Um, but yeah, I think that the Harry Potter lands stuff in general was the best adapted, especially if we’re talking books. Um, mostly ’cause the book source material was so not used in a lot of the films that they used to adapt the park, uh, areas. But yeah, that was, that was me.

[01:40:48] Tim: I’ll close that up. I thought, I thought the whole thing was a wonderful experience and I, I would love to go back too. I agree with Josiah, the hiccups wing [01:41:00] gliders. 

[01:41:00] Donna: Yes. 

[01:41:02] Tim: Great. Was a great roller coaster for that. That to me was one of the very best book. To film, to park experience? 

[01:41:13] Donna: Mm, yeah. Yeah. 

[01:41:14] Tim: Because when you were on that rollercoaster, it felt like what you expected it would feel like to be flying on the back of a dragon.

[01:41:23] Tim: It really did mimic that feeling. It gave you that feeling. Definitely agree with that. Um, so many of the rides were wonderful. My gripes are tiny. Even, even the wings with all the sauce on it, on all 10 fingers, that was a very small thing to gripe about, but it was, it was overall a wonderful experience.

[01:41:46] Tim: And I think for me, the Stardust racers, is that right? Mm-hmm. That the one Yeah, the rollercoaster 

[01:41:53] Rebekah: in Slush 

[01:41:54] Tim: Park. That is, that was my very favorite rollercoaster. And I think for me, it’s [01:42:00] probably the best rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. And it was not themed, uh, as far as a land, it was just. That entrance park, which is a celestial park and everything, and it felt very much like the Eiffel Tower kind of construction and all of that sort of thing.

[01:42:19] Tim: Uh, but it was, it was beautiful. It was a great experience. The people were good. Uh, they helped, you know, they were, they were helpful. You didn’t feel like you were bothering people by asking for help or whatever. I just, I thought it was really, really good experience. I’m very glad that we went. I’m very glad that we went as a family.

[01:42:43] Tim: It was a great trip and I would definitely recommend it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Disney. I have no idea what’s, what’s there now, but, um, I was really, really taken with all the whole universal, uh, resort parks. It was [01:43:00] very, very nice. 

[01:43:01] Rebekah: I love it. Well, I am very grateful that all of us got to go do that together.

[01:43:05] Rebekah: Um, and. Dear baby listener, I hope that you enjoyed this and I hope that it made you wanna go. And if you’re friends with me in real life and you don’t take me, I’ll be really, really upset about it. And you should definitely invite me when you go. Um, otherwise, uh, thanks for listening and until next time, go ride a roller coaster like a dragon.

[01:43:42] Josiah: Sorry, I just feel like a witch in this 

[01:43:46] Rebekah: not a wizard in your wizard road. 

[01:43:48] Josiah: I no idea why 

[01:43:49] Rebekah: that sucks. 

[01:43:50] Josiah: Double, [01:44:00] double.