Making Memories While Drinking at Pedro’s with Mary Ann Adams

All right, we are live with my friend Maryann from Mickey Mouse. Hi. memories. Travel— is it— how do we say that? It's memory-making vacations. Point it right at me. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we are live here with Annette at Pedro's with my obnoxiously large pineapple jalapeño margarita. I'm a little offended you didn't bring anything to the party, but that's okay. So let's talk about it. One, you've been on the show many times before in a longer form, but remind everybody what you do. So I own Memory Making Vacations, so where I say, from the mountains to the Maldives to the magic of Disney, we plan and you pack. So my vision is to take the stress

out of planning. Right. So it's kind of what I do. Absolutely. Well, and you just, you actually helped one of my best friends just plan his honeymoon. I did. Yeah. They are actually currently in Greece. In Greece, yeah. They are, they are on a Celebrity sailing. I'm a little jealous, but that's okay. Me too. Yeah, right? Me too. They're kind of cruising around the Mediterranean. They are. But I mean, that's, that's part of what you do. I mean, you take those special moments, those special family moments, those special occasions where they're going to take a special trip, and then you help take the stress away from planning those things. Right, right. So for me, I think the biggest thing is that I recognize that what my clients are doing is they're not spending their bill money.

Like, this is not your mortgage, this is not your power bill, this is not your insurance. This is literally something that you have worked and saved to be able to have memories and make memories with your family and your friends. And I don't take that lightly. That is a trust that I take very seriously. And so my vision is to always plan your trips as though I would plan my own. Yeah. Well, and like, I know that you, I mean, you talk a lot about Disney. I do, but I mean, like, we have 2 kids that work there. Right, it kind of helps to have the insider track, right? Well, I don't know if that's true. They never tell me anything, though. You would think.

But you're not limited to that? No, no, I do book a lot of cruises and a lot of all-inclusives. Right now, Europe is really popular. A lot of people going to London and Scotland. Normally Italy and Greece is always high on everybody's list. Okay, is that something that's just kind of trending right now, or? Right now it does seem to be a little bit more this year than usual. you know, Paris, you know, of course you get France and you get— everybody wants to do Italy and Greece at least once, right? This year Scotland and London seem to be really high as well. Is there like a particular reason why, or is it just sort of happening? You know, honestly, I'm gonna kind of sidetrack a little bit. I

think a lot of it is because here lately we've seen a lot in the news about being— it being dangerous in the Caribbean. So I know a couple of days ago Travel Weekly came out with an article that advised raising the threat level for the Dominican Republic, which they have a tremendous amount of all-inclusive resorts. They tend to be relatively economical if you're looking for an alternative to Mexico, to Cancun. What people do not realize though is that they, they're looking on a scale of how we feel safe here, but not necessarily on a global scale, right? Yeah. So a lot of people do not actually realize that the US is actually listed at the same threat level right now for 7 other world countries, first world countries,

as Mexico and the Dominican, so for domestic terrorism. So we are literally on the watch list and the do not travel list for other first world countries. Oh my gosh. And people don't realize that, so they start seeing these articles about, so Dominican Republic was raised to a threat level 2. We've been at a threat level 2 for a while, so— and that's where Cancun typically stays. Oh, really? Pretty much, right? And it's— if you look at it, for those of us— Is that because like all the cartel activity and stuff? Well, that's the thing. Threat level 2, that's kind of where we are, right? Right. So if you think about it, the cartels really don't want to bother with tourist areas that

much. A lot of what we see is just more sensationalism, I think. But what it does is it just puts fear there that honestly you're just as safe here. And statistically, there's a couple of websites that you can check crime statistics around the globe, and one of them actually does show that the crime index in Houston is twice as high as it is in Cozumel, which is where you would stop if you went on a cruise out of Galveston. That's crazy. Most people would— I don't think most people would think that. No, you are twice as safe in Cozumel as you are in Houston. We just need to move. No, don't. Just book your trip with me. Just book your trip with you and then stay. For sure.

Well, okay, so let's, let's talk a little Disney because I know that's kind of your wheelhouse. So I mean, when was the last time you went? Oh gosh, April. April? Okay. So I went in January, end of January, first of February, and then I was there in March, and then I was there twice in April. Okay, so what'd you do when you went last? Well, we went and spent the day there. Got off a flight from St. Maarten and actually flew into Fort Lauderdale and said, why don't we just go to Disney because we don't have to work tomorrow? And so we rented a car. Why not? And drove over. And I honestly don't remember.

I think we went to Epcot and to Magic Kingdom. Okay. And then we flew home. So I know one of the big announcements coming out of there right now is they're closing their newest resort. Yes, right. Well, they've got— they've actually got a lot of things right now that are, that are coming out. And, you know, they're in the process of building the DVC between Poly and Grand Floridian and Magic Kingdom, right? Yeah, so they're in the process of that. They just also came out with the fall, um, Mickey's Not So Scary. I keep wanting to say Mickey's Very Merry Scary. Very Merry Scary. Right, they just came out with those tickets. for the fall earlier. They've announced some 2024 changes. Um, they're doing some

park reservation changes for next year, and they're doing some changes with Genie. Okay, good. So that's nice. Yeah. They also announced, for those people who travel to Disney a lot, know that they have had Park Pass reservations since, um, COVID, right? Yeah, for park capacity. And then it became more of a just being able to manage staffing and kind of what their parks were going to look like. So it made sense for them to keep it there. Um, but they have a ticket this summer that is a single park. You go to each of the 4 parks, right? So you would hit Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. And it's just single-day tickets to each of those

4, and you don't have to have a Park Pass reservation for it. Oh, nice. So that's a little bit different. That's very different. And they're, they're probably trying to compete with like what Universal's been doing over there, right? They kind of took that away pretty early. Yeah. And then they're also bringing back Dining Plan, which everybody is very excited about for 2024. Yeah. So are they putting alcohol back on that thing? That'd be nice. As I sit here with my giant obscene margarita. I don't think they have. Well, actually, you might probably get one of those at Food and Wine in Epcot. Oh yeah. And that's like my favorite event to go to. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that thing. I bet. So, I mean, is the, is the, is the Star

Wars Resort officially closed now or is it open for like another month? Till September. Till September. So like, This is why I want to bring this up, because it's a— it's something that you can experience. It's ridiculously expensive. Very. But it's going away now. For sure. And it was only around for like a year, right? A little bit more. A little more than a year? A little more, but I mean, the cost was very prohibitive, and the experience, it was very immersive. Right. So you would have stormtroopers running through the halls, and you get to build a lightsaber and you get to— And you're like in costume and everything. Like you can if you want to, right? And You would have battles and things that you could, you know,

participate in, right, in the— like, without ever even going to a park. So if somebody like this— because like, I think, I think what they've created actually is a lot of demand, correct? Because now people know it's going away, right? So what's the latest they could book something like this through you to actually get in before September? Well, keep in mind that those— they're very short trips. It's not like with traditional Disney where you can say that it's a predetermined date thing. So it would just be— and that fluctuates very much like everything else. I would love to be able to answer that. You just don't know. Right. With availability, you just don't know. I mean, I could leave here tonight and there could be nothing. Right. Right. So

because it is very structured, so you have an itinerary, you pull up, you have a full itinerary they give you about when certain things are going on, when the dining is happening. You know, when are they— So the dining is even immersive with part of that? Yes, the dining. That's crazy. Yes, it is. And you can have droid races in the halls. I mean, they do— they build your own droid lightsaber training. They do lightsaber Jedi training. I mean, right, of course. So, so many things that you can, that you can do. And it is, it is a very specific set itinerary though. So you check in, then you have 2 days and you check out. Right. Right. So those dates are going to kind of fluctuate on availability. Okay. So I think

if it— like, it's going away. Yes. If you want to experience it, call you now. For sure. Because it's, it's the limited time on this thing. And we can book pre and post hotels with it as well. So if you book a, a Disney vacation at another resort on property, they will move your stuff to and from whether you're going into— They can roll it into like a— Right, we can roll it into one big package and do a pre or post, either one, so that you could transition from that experience to another resort, add in extra park tickets. Your park ticket to Hollywood Studios is included in your package. That's cool, okay. Right, so, but you could include other park tickets as well. Awesome, okay, so we got about, we got just like a minute here. Awesome,

where are we sending you next? Well, I wanna, I think one of the questions everyone always has because Disney now having like fully reopened, yeah, right? What is going to be the most family-friendly and like affordable resort from your perspective? Like what's going to give you the most bang for your buck from a family perspective to actually get into Disney? So I think that my new favorite resort, and I'm gonna— I cringe every time I say this because I always said I would never be a value resort person, but for a family with more than one kid, I really like the design of the new All-Star Family Music Family Suites. Okay, because they've got like some new rooms and stuff. They did just remodel it, and now they have 3 queen beds, 2 full

bathrooms. It's a decent size. They have a— their kitchenette is actually a legitimate kitchenette with a decent-sized refrigerator. So I really do like that for larger families that are just looking for— we just need a place to sleep, and we want to be comfortable when we sleep, and we want to be able to run to the grocery store and and eat breakfast in our room or have snacks or we need milk or whatever. It's a great alternative then to 2 rooms. It's actually more economical than 2 rooms. Yeah, because you got the 3 beds and the kitchenette. Yeah, that's awesome. And the 2 full baths. So that's the All-Star Family Music? It's in Music. Music is the only ones that have them, and Music is the second stop on the All-Stars. So you would hit

Sports, Music, and then Movies. So you're gonna stop at Sports coming you know, coming back at night and you're gonna stop at movies going out in the day, but that really you don't have to stop a lot of different places. Right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sitting down. I hope we get to talk again at length about all this kind of stuff. But thank you for— and thank you guys for watching us. We'll join you next time on the, on the net here.