Mammoth Cave & Disney World Trip Reports

This is episode number 314 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another live episode. In the studio. What's going on, Kevin?

Oh, man. You know, spring break is over. It is warming up a little bit outside. Life feels good right now.

Yeah, buddy.

I mean, we—

A little nip in the air.

Yeah. In the mornings and in the evenings. Definitely there. You know, cool in the morning, warms up in the afternoon. Yeah. March Madness is coming.

Yeah.

So lots of fun stuff.

I was, I was playing a gig last last night and one of the guitar players had his iPhone propped up on his pedal board because he's a Kentucky fan.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I would be eh too if I was an A&M fan. So you would be what? I'd be eh too if I was an A&M fan.

Oh, I don't even know. Are they not doing any good?

Well, I mean, no, they'll be— they've not done great. They were doing better and then they tanked. At the end.

They tanked at the end.

Yeah.

Are they in the— are they not gonna be in the tournament?

No, they're in the tournament.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. But they, they were ranked pretty highly.

I, I think I remember seeing them. They were ranked pretty high.

Yeah, they were in the top 10.

Uh-huh.

And then they tanked.

Well, they've, they've been ranking over the last several years in basketball, which is weird for them. And they're not a basketball school.

No.

Um, more of a like, you know, baseball school.

Yeah.

I mean, like they always seem to do really well in baseball.

Yeah.

And what's girls basketball?

I think they do well there.

I think they do really well in girls basketball.

Interesting.

Maybe they've got some fellas.

It's very possible. Very possible.

Oh, who knows?

Yeah, who knows?

So which, by the way, man, I know, okay, so we've both been outta town.

Yeah.

On separate trips.

We're gonna talk about it.

Continuing our getting outta the house series. Yeah, the trips that Craig and Kevin take. Um, but to, uh, to, to whip on a dead horse, I am, I am loving the complete implosion of Bill Burr. Oh, it's happening. Oh, it's so beautiful.

Yeah.

So, and like, there's, there's people still standing behind him because they're morons. Um, but pretty much, like, now, like, have you heard about his most recent rant?

No.

So I've been—

I Look, when I left, I disconnected.

You disconnected, good.

Oh, like—

Good for you.

Complete, I turned my notifications off. Like, I didn't even take my computer. I disconnected. So no, I did not hear.

So one, and I think I talked about this last time, is some of the bigger podcasters have now jumped onto the Homeowner Show bandwagon.

Yeah.

Which is that Bill Burr is horrible.

Yeah, shocker.

And like, here's the thing I appreciate that people that are going after him, they're acknowledging that like Bill is funny.

Which we wouldn't disagree with.

We wouldn't disagree. He's hilarious.

Yeah.

He can be hilarious.

Yeah.

On these issues, he's stupid.

Yeah.

He doesn't really seem to understand economics. He doesn't really seem to understand civics. Like, you know.

Or basic humanity in general.

You know, maybe it has something to do with his, know, his mutation. Um, but I don't—

maybe, maybe.

Um, but, but here's, here's the thing is now he's ranting about Elon Musk and he's— I, I kid you not, he is saying, I don't understand why people like this Nazi.

Oh, calling, calling names again. Well, with the names.

Yes, with the names.

Yeah.

And be— Did you see the infamous supposed Sieg Heil that Elon did at a rally?

Yes, I did.

That's what he's referencing.

Really?

Yes.

Okay.

And like, okay, like, did it look kind of like that?

Oh, I mean, especially outta context.

Okay, to be fair to the critics, was it a good call on Elon's part?

No.

No, probably not. Probably not great.

And he probably knows better.

I don't know. I don't know. So here's the thing is it's not confirmed, but he said on Rogan one time that he's autistic.

Oh, I can see that.

Yeah. And so like, it could be like an awkward social thing.

Maybe.

That, you know, he just did and didn't really like think through like, what does that look like?

Yeah. I don't know.

I try to like, with, with most things, including Bill Burr, I try and give like, what's the most generous—

Until you give me a reason not to.

Right. Like, what's, what's the most generous description or reason I could give for something like this happening?

Sure.

And like, I'm sorry, like the Elon Musk thing, like he's given me no reason to think that he's actually like some secret Nazi, right, that's operating in the US trying to overturn the republic. Yeah, I'm— no, sorry, that's, that's just not on my bingo card.

I mean, I'll tell you who I really love listening to about, uh, Elon is Charlie Kirk.

Okay.

Listening to him like talk to other people who are just down, down, down on Elon for what he's doing.

Sure.

Charlie, the way Charlie approaches it is just really, really— I like the way Charlie approaches a lot of things. I, I, but I do, I do appreciate many things that Charlie says. Yes.

Um, like, not, not all of them, of course. Um, but many, but many of them. Yeah. Um, so anyway, Bill Burr is just— and, and then he's like going after Elon's like physical appearance.

Okay.

And making fun of that. And like, like, here's the, here's the thing is like—

Pot or kettle?

Wait, he, he went after him. Have you seen like old pictures of Elon?

Yes.

Where it looks like he's balding.

Yes.

So he went after that.

Okay.

And I'm like—

You're bald.

You're bald.

Right.

I don't understand why this is a thing, but like, you're bald.

Yeah, clearly. Clearly bald.

Like, okay, Elon had some work done. And then he was like, he was saying something about how he looked like a laminate face. And I'm like, dude, like, okay. He's, yes, he's a very successful billionaire.

Yeah.

But like, he's also said that he's autistic. So are you making fun Oh. Of an autistic guy?

Uh-huh.

Is that what we're doing?

Yeah. And I don't—

I like— which, by the way, I don't actually care.

Sure. But like, where— what, what are you doing? How far are you going?

Yeah.

And, and it is, it is a little odd too, because like, of all the things that I've understood about Elon, one of the things that I don't—

He also said that his cars were Shit. Oh, well, I'm quoting him, by the way, which is hilarious because they're not.

But the, the, the thing that's bizarre to me is I don't see Elon as someone who's gonna be like, hey, you know what I'm about to do? I'm gonna take time to go get plastic surgery.

And maybe he did.

Maybe he did. I just don't see him as the type of person that's gonna take his time to do that. Now, obviously he got some hair work done.

Obviously.

But nevertheless, I, you know, this is the same guy that's been sleeping on the floor while he's doing his work. He, and, but again, if, if he is even somewhere on the spectrum, it makes sense with the way he works.

Yeah.

I mean, he gets fixated on things.

For sure.

And then things get done.

Right.

Which, by the way, part of my trip report that I probably will forget to say is that we watched the space rocket take off.

Oh, nice. That's rescuing—

Yes, that's going—

The astronauts from the space station?

That's exactly what they're doing.

I mean, this is the thing I don't understand about people is like, this is a guy who literally, literally wants to go save people from the space station.

Right.

And like, you're telling me he's a Nazi.

Right.

And we shouldn't let him do it.

Right.

Because you think he's a Nazi.

Right.

Because you think that the hand motion that he made at a rally, which really wasn't even like a Sieg Heil, like if you've ever actually seen any videos of German Nazis doing that salute, it doesn't look like that. But like, you wanna, you wanna, those people in space who have been sitting up there for months.

Months. Close to a year, right?

I don't know that it's getting close to a year.

Okay.

I don't know that, I think it's been like 8 months.

Oh, that feels like close to a year to me.

I'm sure to them it feels like a year.

Yeah.

So, and somebody can fact check me. I think it's been like 8 months.

Okay.

But like, you want that to stop and not to go get them.

Yeah.

Because you think a thing about him.

Right. I'm sorry, I don't— It's ridiculous.

And those same people would probably be celebrating and clapping if the Chinese space program sent a rocket up there to go get him.

Sure, because it's not Elon.

Because it's, yeah, exactly.

But it was very serendipitous. I'll cut to the chase. I was having a bad day. And I can explain why later, but I was having a bad day. We'd gone into the Magic Kingdom and we were rounding the corner from the main hub there near the castle to Tomorrowland.

Right.

And we see just a bunch of people standing around. I mean, nothing crazy. And then all of a sudden we hear people clapping. We look up and we see the— and cheering, and we see the rocket taking— this is just so serendipitous. The rocket is taking off over the top of Tomorrowland of all places. And, you know, taking off from Kennedy Space Center. Right. And so, um, just awesome, dude. Just so cool.

I will tell everyone in the audience right now, I grew up near Cape Canaveral.

Yeah.

And one of the most amazing— I saw several, uh, shuttle launches in my youth. Um, and I saw like from across, across the St. Johns River, Um, we're like, we're like NASA employees and like Lockheed Martin and Boeing and all those, all those guys. Had dinner with, you know, astronauts. I lived with, in a community with lots of astronauts and, and things like that growing up. Um, and many times we didn't get to go to the launch, but we lived close enough that when the rockets would take off, it would shake the windows in our house.

Oh my goodness.

Like being near one of those things when it actually lifts off, when like you You feel the literal earth tremble from the sheer power of those things. It is an incredible experience. Like one that everybody should get to see close up, you know, as close as you can be that's safe.

Yeah.

You know, and you can feel it.

Sure.

Everyone should get to experience that. Like that is something that we have accomplished as a species.

Absolutely.

You know, for all those people out there that are like doubters about like the moon landing, I don't really care if like you think that we landed on the moon or not. I know that we've been to space.

Sure.

And that we've accomplished that and just feeling that and being able to be around that and then talk to people that have done it. Incredible.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And I don't know what it was like when you saw it there, but like—

Oh, it was just, we didn't feel it that far away, but seeing, I mean, you know the feeling even as a dad watching your kid shoot off rockets in the parking lot or wherever.

Right.

It's like, wow. I mean, that thing just shot up there, whatever. seeing an actual rocket take off, it's unbelievable. Yeah. It's absolutely incredible. You know, just the, the fire coming outta the bottom, the, the smoke, uh, the, the, the contrail that it, that it left. Like, anyway, very, very cool.

Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a big fan.

Yeah, me too.

So anyway, let's, let's get to these trips because you took one. I took one. Yes. Mine was a little bit shorter than yours. Sure. Which one do you wanna do first?

Let's go with yours first.

Okay. So mine, mine's pretty simple. Um, we, uh, right before, um, spring break hit, we had a family wedding that we had to go to in Alabama.

Okay.

And one of my wife's goals for us as a family is to go to as many national parks.

Oh, I thought you were gonna say weddings. No, I—

we would—

it feels like that sometimes.

We would probably not be married if that was the goal. We have different goals.

Very different goals.

Um, but, you know, the— one of my wife's goals for us as a family is to go to as many national parks as possible before, before the kids move out.

I love it.

Um, so we've done several already, um, but this wedding was going to be in North Alabama.

Okay.

And, and so anytime we have a trip that we're obliged to go on, she always looks around that area and, and says, what's the closest national park?

Okay.

Um, and interesting enough, there are no national parks in Tennessee.

Really?

Yes. Now there are national monuments.

Okay.

And there's a difference. There's a difference.

Yeah. Like Graceland. Not a national park or national monument, actually.

Like, because like there's like this, the Smoky Mountain.

Well, yeah. I mean, you got the Great Smoky Mountains right there.

Which is not a national park.

It should be.

Maybe it should, but anyway, it's not. But anyway, there's, but like just none in Tennessee. Um, at least not that we could find. I mean, somebody, somebody, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but we couldn't find one. There are national monuments.

Yeah.

There are national, I mean, there's, there's other national things in Tennessee.

I mean, the Parthenon is there.

Yeah, but it's not a park.

It's not a park.

Um, and like, there's like this whole language around parks.

Oh, I'm sure.

You know, and, and like, Parks and monuments and things like that are managed very differently.

Yeah, I'm sure.

And treated differently, funded differently. So the closest national park to where we were going to be in northern Alabama was in Kentucky.

Oh, okay. So you had to go through Tennessee.

Through Tennessee.

Okay.

So what we did is we went to the wedding, had a good time, spent the next day. We, we hiked at a state park.

Okay.

In Alabama.

Yeah.

Which was really fun. Mm-hmm. Um, it was, uh, Cullman, Alabama.

Okay.

Um, there's a little, there's a little state park there with a, you know, cute little waterfall. We hooked there. There, there's even like a little cave you can walk through.

Really cool.

Called Twilight Cave. I mean, it's, it's kind of scary cuz it gets really dark in the middle. Oh, love that. But like, it's like actually something you can like walk through.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but anyway, so we did that and then the next day we got up and I've, Up until this trip, I'd never been to Nashville.

Really?

And it was like right in the middle of our drive. And so I told, I was like, look, let's plan a stop in Nashville. So we stopped, we parked, we walked up and down Broadway.

Okay.

Which I assume you've been. Yep, I have. And if you've never been to Nashville, Broadway is where all like the little honky-tonks are. And they've got these huge windows outside where they'll open 'em up and musicians will actually come out of the window and like talk to you while they're playing their gig and like, you know, trying to like, hey, come in here, we're playing good music in here.

Because these stages are like the size of this table.

Yeah.

Yeah. In these little like restaurant bars. Yeah.

So we went to Hattie B's. Oh yeah. Um, and had some Nashville hot chicken.

Good.

And my, my daughter, um, look, the heat on Nashville chicken is just different. Yeah, it is. It hits different than like what we're used to here in Texas with like salsa.

Yeah. It's just a diff—

it's like different than Cajun heat.

Mm-hmm.

It's just a different kind of heat. I don't know what it is.

Mm-hmm.

It's just different.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and my daughter, my eldest, mm-hmm, got the second from the hottest.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That, that's hot.

It is hot.

Yeah. That's hot.

And so she ordered it and she was eating it and she brought me a piece down and she's like, I need you to try this. And I ate it and I was like, that's not so bad. And then like 5 minutes later, I'm like, this is the worst day of my life.

Is it milk? Is it vinegar? What do I drink?

It's give me something. I'll pour mustard in my mouth. I don't know. Just like whatever it takes to fix this. It was the worst. Um, so Nashville was cool. The other thing, um, is right down the block from Hattie B's is an Ariat store.

Oh, nice.

And I'd never been to an Ariat store.

Okay.

And so I was like, I'm gonna go check this out.

Yeah.

So, and they had a lot of cool stuff in there that you don't really find at other Western stores.

Sure.

And you and I have talked about like Ariat, like we both love Ariat boots.

In my opinion, the most comfortable boot available.

Agreed. And I mean, I think I'm wearing some right now.

Yeah.

Yep, facts. I learned something about them that I did not know.

Okay.

Do you know where the name comes from?

No.

I didn't either. They're named after Secretariat.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I would've never even guessed that.

Me either. So like they took the end of his name—

And just made that the name.

And made that the brand of the boot and the clothing. And so like they have a big poster in the store talking about why they named the company after Secretariat.

The developer, the person that made the boots, is a big cowboy.

Yeah.

She is a big cowboy.

Yeah.

And she worked for Reebok.

Yeah.

And she wanted a pair of boots that she could run around like her Reeboks in.

And like, when I saw it, I was like, that makes total sense to me.

Yeah.

Like, that's interesting. The best performance horse of all time.

All time.

Like, name your boot after him.

Yeah.

Makes, I mean, that's cool.

I love it. One more reason to love them.

Yeah.

Well, and so it is Ariat.

Yeah.

Secretariat.

Secretariat.

Ariat.

Yeah.

I always called it Ariat.

Yeah.

But it's Ariat.

Ariat.

Okay.

Yeah, now you know.

Now I know.

I didn't know that either.

That's cool.

So, and I was literally walking through this door and I was like, hello. Hello.

Okay, cool.

Um, so anyway, we did that, and then, you know, we kind of walked up and down Broadway, and then we went to, uh, Kentucky to Mammoth Cave.

Oh, I've heard of this.

Yeah, Mammoth Cave is incredible. What a cool park. Um, so I learned lots. Um, most of it was privately held. There have actually been cave tours going on there for over 130 years.

Oh my.

Right?

Wow. And that seems dangerous.

Yeah, well, and like, so, and back in the day, the cave tours lasted about 18 hours.

Really?

That's how long and how big these caves are. Now, part of the reason it was 18 hours is because they— this was something that the wealthy people did, and they know that it's the wealthy people that did it because they found broken heels and top hats Interesting. And things inside the cave left over from when people used to tour the cave.

Okay.

People, and so like the wealthy people would get dressed up in their finest, go on these cave tours that were like 18 hours long.

Oh my.

In like their, their fancy duds.

Um, that sounds terrible.

Well, and, and they didn't have the lights. They had candles.

Sure.

And that's part of what took so long.

Because they just couldn't go very fast.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and so it's been going on for years and years, but it was privately owned.

Okay.

And, and now— and so what they know now is it's the longest— um, it's, it's hard to say that it's the longest because it's not like one contiguous line.

Okay.

But it's the most miles in any cave in the world.

Really?

Yeah, I think it's like close to like 550 miles.

Oh my goodness.

Of caves that they that they have discovered.

There's probably more than that.

Well, what they said while we were there is they're expecting, as they continue to explore, which they're still exploring, yeah, is they're expecting to discover about 1,000 miles.

Jeez. Um, that's incredible.

Yeah, it's, it's, it is awesome.

Yeah.

And there are a bunch—

We've been to a cave together.

Yes.

And it's awesome.

It is. It's incredible. The Natural Bridge Caverns.

Yeah.

Which are awesome. These are just There's more to them. Mm-hmm. And they're not, the caves aren't as big.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Like they're not, they're not as like expansive. Sure. On the inside.

Yeah.

But there are big caverns that you can still get into.

Okay.

Um, but then there's like really cool, like smaller tunnels that you can get through in order to get to other big ones.

I like it.

And I think the first tour that we did was like an hour and a half long.

Okay.

And then the second one that we did was like an hour long.

That's, those are, that's a good amount of time in a cave.

And those were 2 tours that we took out of about 6 different tours that you can take.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah.

Y'all needed more time.

We got to see a lot.

Sure.

And so we took the historic tour, which is like the main tour that you can take. And then there's another tour that's a separate set of caves. that this oil and gas guy back in the day set up as an alternative business venture to the main cave.

Okay.

And so he would like name things in his cave very similar to the one that everybody else knew.

Okay.

And like this guy was telling us all kinds of stories.

Interesting.

Like back in the day, he would actually hire employees and then have them dress up as police officers and stand out on the road because his cave was on the road first.

Ah, and direct people to—

And he would have the cops go like, where are you going?

Oh, that's over here.

And, oh, you're looking for that? That's actually shut down, but there's one right here that you can go. And like I said, have them lie.

Wow.

You know, and stuff like that.

That's awesome.

So it was, yeah, it was kind of cool. Um, so we did, we did his cave tour.

Okay.

Um, and it, well, it because he was an oil and gas guy, he had access to dynamite. And so he inadvertently attached his caves—

Oh.

To their caves.

Okay.

Um, and then ended up all of the land ended up getting seized by eminent domain.

Oh, of course. Yeah.

And, and so there, there's actually like some controversy around that.

I bet. I can see that.

Yeah. So, um, and, and so like the, the park rangers are like, we just kind of own it. It's— we're not proud of it, but we did it.

But here we are. You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

So, so I mean, the park itself, highly recommend going.

Okay.

There is a restaurant on the— because there's actually like a hotel right there in the park that you can stay at.

Okay.

And there's a restaurant in the— and we went to the restaurant because The restaurant had some Kentucky-specific dishes and some themed bourbon for like, that was only, you could only get it in the park. And then some beer that was only for the park that they had brewed specifically for the park.

Okay.

The beer and the bourbon was good.

All right.

The food sucked.

Oh man. So don't do that.

Come on. For those of you that don't know, Kentucky has a very specific dish and I think it's centers around the Kentucky Derby.

Okay.

Uh, called the Hot Brown.

Oh yeah, I've heard of this.

Yeah, it's, it's a turkey and ham sandwich.

Sure.

Smothered sandwich.

Didn't it have like brown gravy on it or something?

It's like a brown cheese gravy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and it was like, I've had a Hot Brown before and it was way better than this. This was just like thick.

Yeah, I kind of feel this way about like the Masters getting pimento cheese Sandwich at the Masters. I'm like, look, come on. I mean, like, I don't want pimento cheese.

You can have a good pimento cheese sandwich.

Maybe I just haven't.

So let me put it to you this way. You've had a good grilled cheese, right?

I have, of course.

Okay.

Not all.

Not all. Right. But like, if you took some good pimento cheese, some bacon, tomato, and some pickles, grilled that booger.

I can see where you're going.

Right. You can do it right.

Sure.

Um, just like you could do the hot brown right.

But they just didn't.

Their hot brown sucked. So they did have some decent fried green tomatoes.

Oh, I love fried green tomatoes.

I do. I'm a sucker for that. Yeah, me too. So like, look, if you come— if I come to your restaurant and you serve me fried green tomatoes, don't screw them up.

No.

It's like my favorite. It's like my favorite thing.

And it's very difficult. It's, it's not an easy dish.

It's not.

Right.

It's not. Like, you need some good remoulade to go with that. But theirs were pretty good.

Okay.

Everything else was terrible. The food, the food-wise.

Yeah.

The bourbon was good. The beer was pretty good.

Yeah.

Tried that. The facilities themselves were nice. The park rangers were incredible.

Yeah.

Great guides.

Love that.

Really like engaging, good storytellers, knew their stuff, you know, weren't suffering from Elon's evil Doge cutbacks. At least it seemed like it.

Yeah.

Um, so anyway, really good experience.

Yeah.

So anyway, Florida, your trip was much longer than mine.

We were gone for a week.

Right.

Um, and we went to Disney World. And I'll tell you, this has been a year in the making. We intended, well, last minute last year, spring break, we were like, let's go to Disney World.

Right.

Let's just do last minute. Well, it was going to be— the plane tickets alone threw us off, so we didn't do that. So we planned this year.

Yeah, you told me the ones last year were like $1,000 more than what you paid this year.

It was almost $1,200 more. Yeah, that's nuts. And it was just like, yeah, it was ridiculous. So we were just like, we need another year to kind of prepare for this. So, but— Gird your loins. Yeah, that's right. But the thing that I'm glad we didn't go last year is because What I realized very quickly by going this year is that my kids were at what I consider the perfect age. And it, I'll say this, people have asked me, I don't know how many times, when's a great time to take your kids? And my answer is always now. Take 'em now. Like now's the best time.

I mean, here's, here's my only caveat to that, man. Like if you're, if your kid's like 1 and that's like the only, if that's like the only kid that you have.

Yeah. I mean, Here's the thing. I would even say go. You can still get some incredible pictures with them. They're never going to remember it.

Yeah, that's my issue is they're not going to remember it.

It's still for you at that point.

It is for you.

But if they're 3, take them. If they're 5, take them. If they're 10, take them. If they're 18, take them. Like, whenever, but take them.

I agree because 3 is different than 1.

Oh, it absolutely is different.

3, there's some stuff they can do.

Absolutely.

1, I mean, like, you're literally just torturing them, pushing them in a stroller the whole day.

Yeah, you're holding them.

So, I mean, like, that's about it. Or pushing them. Look, if you have like a 5 and 6-year-old and a 1-year-old.

Yeah, that's still different.

Go.

Yeah.

Like, but if it's just a 1-year-old, I mean, like, if it, like, if you just have to go, go.

Yeah.

But like, just understand.

That's what you're doing.

It's not for them.

No, it's for you. Don't lie to me. No, it's for you. Yeah, we actually have some friends that had a baby just before Christmas and they just took their kid to Disneyland, so.

Like, that's their only kid?

Yeah, only one.

Oh, is this from your work?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, of course.

So.

Yeah, and that wasn't for that kid.

No, it wasn't. It was for them, but nevertheless. So I tell people, go now. Maybe a caveat here or there, but go now. But there's some really cool ages.

Yes.

And my kids are 10 and 12 right now.

Right.

And they are old enough, you don't need a stroller, you don't need to take massive breaks. You can wake up early and stay late if you want to, but they're not old enough to go, that's not cool. whatever that is, right? Everything is still cool. Everything is still magical. When Tinkerbell flies from the castle to, you know, the back, you know, we're really the front of the park, they're like, wow, that's awesome. Is she really flying? You know, like, still very magical but old enough to do everything. Like, they can ride literally everything.

I was gonna ask, was there anything they were too short for?

No, nothing. Yeah, they were Like, both of them rode Guardians of the Galaxy.

Okay. Is there a height restriction on that?

There is.

Okay.

There is. Um, and so everybody could do everything. Um, and so when I realized that, I was like, okay, here's the deal. We're gonna do this trip as if it is our, like, perfect trip. We're gonna do everything that we wanna do, how we wanna do it, but we're not gonna tell them we're going. And so my wife is like, what do you mean? Like, do you want to tell them at Christmas? And I'm like, no, I don't want to tell them we're going.

Yeah.

She's like, oh, so do you want to tell them like the week before we're leaving so we can pack? I'm like, no, I don't want to tell them we're going. She was like, what do you mean? What are we going to— I was like, I want to wake them up and say, get in the car, we're going to Disney World. And she was like, how are we going to do that? And I was like, I don't know. But that's what I want to do.

Yeah.

Like, I just think that sounds awesome. And she goes, well, how are we going to get them packed? I was like, I don't know.

We'll pack them. Yeah.

I was like, she was like, well, our daughter's getting a little more picky about what she wears these days. I'm like, she only has so much clothes.

Right.

Like, we don't have 2 weeks worth of clothes for her. So we'll just put it in the suitcase and go. And she's like, well, I won't have time to do it. I'm, I'm, I'll take a day off. I'll do whatever I need to do. I'll pack. I'll take care of it. So that's what we did. We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and I videoed the whole thing. Did you see it yet?

No, I haven't watched the video.

No. Okay. So I videoed, and my wife and I are sitting there going, okay, it's 5:40 in the morning. We're about to tell our kids.

They don't know.

And so we go wake them up, put them on the couch, tell them we're going. They freak out. And we literally hop in the car and go. Like, the bags were packed in the car already. We literally went straight to the airport. And we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Uh-huh.

And we got 5— we got 6-day tickets. And we were there for 7 nights. So we basically— the plan was we would do 5 days in the park and 1 off day. And then we would have a flex day if we wanted to. If we wanted to go into the park during our off day, we can.

Right.

Or the last day we're there, we're not planning on going and doing anything, but our flight leaves late. Maybe we'll go ride one, that one last ride or something. Who knows? So we got plenty of park tickets to do whatever we wanted to. Uh, we, we wanted to stay at, uh, a deluxe resort.

Mm-hmm.

And we decided to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge because It's got the animals.

Sure.

I mean, again, this, this crazy cool age where, you know, we got a savanna view to where you can just look out, see the animals out your balcony. We got a 1-bedroom suite, um, which one of the things that's really cool, uh, um, Animal Kingdom is the only Disney Vacation Club resort that has 2 bathrooms in the 1-bedroom suites.

Oh, okay.

So that's another reason we're like, okay, we get 2 bathrooms instead of just the 1. Uh, you got the animals out the, uh, the balcony, and you— there's animals in different places, the resorts you can go, you can go see as well.

Yeah.

And, uh, so we, we did literally everything that we wanted to do. We ate at Really great places. Uh, some of the places we ate at, we ate at, uh, Woody's Backyard Barbecue, which is a newer place in Hollywood Studios. You feel like you are in a toy box.

Okay.

That is the, the goal of, of eating there is you're in a toy box. There's no characters, but they do some special things. Like for example, um, things come over the loudspeaker and every once in a while Andy comes, like Andy's coming. He's gotta go get the pizza at the door or something. And when he's coming, everybody has to freeze because you're a toy in a toy box.

Right.

And so that was really good. Great food, great atmosphere, lots of fun. We went to— we took the kids to the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, which is a dinner show at Fort Wilderness. Have you ever done that?

I've never done it, but I know what it is. I mean, I've stayed at Fort Wilderness.

Okay. So it's a really corny stage show. But again, if you knew my son, the 10-year-old, he's pretty corny himself. He absolutely ate it up, loved it.

Yeah.

My daughter did too. But we did that. We ate at a place called Space 220, which is, it's in Epcot. And the idea is that you're 220 miles up in space at this space station eating, and you can see out the windows.

Earth.

And there are things that happen out there. At one point, there are a couple of astronauts that come by and they're floating in the air and all of a sudden they pull out lightsabers and start fighting each other. Little crazy stuff that happens. The food there, I'd heard really mixed reviews on the food, that it was really terrible, not great. And for the price you pay, which is hefty, Not worth it.

Is that the one where you have to take the elevator up to it? Yes.

Yes. You're—

It's like a simulated—

It's a simulated 220-mile-in-the-air elevator.

Right.

And so you see down below and up above, you see yourself going up this elevator 220 miles in the air. Now you're not moving at all.

Right.

But you, Is that— feel like you are.

Is that worth it?

The experience?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I, I loved it.

Okay.

I loved every part of it. But again, I, I probably look at Disney different than some people that maybe go for the first time where they're like, okay, I've spent a lot of money to do this, it better be worth it. I walk into most things going, this is gonna be cool, right? And I just choose to enjoy it.

Sure, sure.

And I loved it. The food I thought was great.

Okay.

The only problem is I think I got food poisoning there.

Did you really?

Yes.

Oh no.

It was the only dark spot in our entire trip.

Nobody else got sick?

Nobody else got sick. And now I didn't—

Did you have something different from everybody else?

So my kids had their own thing. My wife and I both ordered the same main dish, which was a filet mignon.

Okay.

I ordered a different appetizer than my wife. My wife ordered a butternut squash soup and I ordered some shrimp tacos.

Okay.

And they were, it was like a crispy shell with shrimp inside, but it wasn't warm shrimp. It was more like a cocktail type shrimp.

Okay.

And now again, it's hard to pinpoint food poisoning.

Sure.

But If you had to guess, you'd guess shrimp. If I had to guess, it was a shrimp.

Yeah.

If I had to guess.

I think that's fair.

Because that night, about 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and I went, something's not right. 4 o'clock in the morning, it—

Things were definitely not right.

It exited. Yeah, the food exited.

Yeah.

And that was—

Things were swimming.

That was not a fun day. I will tell you, thankfully the—

Was that the bad day?

That was the bad day.

Okay.

That was the bad day that I mentioned earlier. My kids woke up, went to the park with my wife. They had lunch reservations at Tony's, which is kind of the Lady and the Tramp Italian place.

Which is a nice— it's like a nicer— it's one of the nicer places in Magic Kingdom to go to.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's just one of their table service restaurants.

It doesn't get good reviews.

It gets horrible reviews. But my wife loves Italian food. You know that. And She loved it this time, and my kids loved it. My daughter got a meatball, spaghetti and meatballs. The meatball was the size of her fist.

Right.

And she loved it. I don't actually know what my son got. He probably got chicken tenders, but I don't know. Anyway, but they loved it. And then I went, I finally got enough Pepto and Imodium in me that I finally, about 2 o'clock, I went into the bar. Got yourself together. Yeah. And I was there for about an hour and a half before I was like, I got to go. I mean, I hadn't eaten anything all day. Anyway, went back, rested, and then about 6, we went back and I stayed till the park closed.

Okay.

And was able to do that. But that's when around 6, that's when we went back in and saw the space shuttle take off.

And that was at night.

It was. Yeah.

Or an evening, I guess.

It was evening. And man, that was just a cool experience.

Yeah, glad you got outta bed for that.

Oh yeah, yeah. And that was one of those deals where I was like, I will do a lot to go to Disney with my kids. If I'm here, like that, it was just terrible that I was like feeling the way I did. But I will tell you this, the staff at Animal Kingdom was incredible. They came in, changed all the bedding and they cleaned the toilet area and they just took care of everything. They had like 4 people come in.

Oh, wow.

And just change it all.

Yeah.

And new linens, new towels, all of it.

That makes a big difference.

They really took care of me. In fact, they called me the next day. They were like, hey, we know you're checking out. We just went ahead and extended you to get a late checkout so that you don't have to rush around too much. Then they started asking me questions like, hey, uh, do you think it was Space 220 that you had the problem? I was like, yeah, I think so. And they're like, what did— did you have some— can I ask you some questions? They asked me all these questions. They're like, we're going to relay all this to Space 220 just so they know.

Yeah.

I was like, that's, that's awesome.

Yeah.

So we—

Which probably helps diffuse it.

Oh, I'm sure it did with me.

You know what I mean? I mean, that way you're not, you're not taking to social media being like, well, Space 220, right? The word, blah, blah, blah.

And honestly, look, that, that could have happened to anybody.

Sure.

And stuff like that happens. And they— there was no ill intent. The food actually tasted great. Yeah, I, I would go back. It did not make me go, I'm never going to that restaurant again.

Okay.

You know, I— and I know a lot of people probably would feel like I'm never going to that restaurant again. I'm just kind of like, hey, it happens. It happens, you know?

All right, so I, I have, I have questions for you.

Ask me.

All right, so I know you said that your kids were tall enough Yes. Was there anything they didn't wanna go on?

Yes. So I had Lightning Lanes for, uh, which if you don't know what that means, um, basically there are certain attractions that if you wanna ensure no matter what that you're not gonna have to wait in line for it, you can just go through it quickly. You can pay extra to go on those. I had Lightning Lanes for Tron.

Okay.

Uh, and, and some other things, but Guardians of the Galaxy as well, but Tron. Um, that was— so the very first day was the Magic Kingdom. I had Lightning Lanes for them.

Did you guys have Park Hoppers?

We did.

Okay.

And we did not utilize those the way we have in the past. Uh-huh. I probably next time probably won't get them, but I wanted to have them just in case.

Sure.

Um, and we did Park Hop once, but maybe twice. But anyway, they saw Tron. And were like, yeah, I don't wanna do that. And I was like, look, you don't have to. I'm not gonna make you do anything, but I'm gonna go on it. I paid for me and the two of you. My wife wouldn't do it if you gave her an island. She wouldn't do it. She's death— she does not enjoy the feeling of her stomach dropping.

Uh-huh.

She does not enjoy that feeling. And she's like, look, I'm in my 40s. I don't have to do that. I'm like, all right, good for you. So, um, I had Lightning Lanes for me and my 2 kids, and they were like, no, I, I don't, I don't think so. I'm like, look, you, you like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, you like Space Mountain, you— one of their favorite rides at— in all of that, uh, all of Disney World is, uh, Expedition Everest.

Okay.

And that's one of the bigger roller coasters.

It is one of the bigger ones, yeah.

And I'm like, look, if it goes backwards, like, if you can do that, you can do this. And they're like, eh, I don't want to. Okay, no, no problem. I'm, I'm sitting here going, they're never gonna go on Guardians. If they, if they can't do Tron, Guardians is next level.

Uh-huh.

Different. Um, but they did not wanna do that.

I, the other thing that, so let me ask you this because I know, I know a little bit about Guardians. You can't see what's going on in Guardians. Um, you know what I mean?

Like, it's more like Space Mountain in that, in that it's dark inside. Yeah, but there's big screens and you can kind— you can kind of see, but no, it's still in the dark.

You don't actually see people in the cars moving through the— because Tron, you can see the—

You can.

Okay.

Yes, you— and no, you cannot. Yes, it is indoor. You're not— you can't look at the ride and go, that looks scary, right? And I think that's because I told, I told my daughter, I was like, look, Expedition Everest, that thing is, is tall. That was her thing. I don't want to go that high up in the air. I'm like, that's not as high up in the air as Everest. And she's like, it looks like it is. That was the thing for her. Um, and so they didn't want to do it. Well, my son decided that he did actually want to do it.

Okay.

On Friday.

All right.

So, cause we had Lightning Lanes for it again on Friday. That's the day I got sick.

Oh no.

And I was like, I can't. Like, I cannot get on that ride like this.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just can't. And so he was disappointed that he didn't get to do that. Now, the other ride that they didn't wanna do, and my son actually did it anyway, was Tower of Terror.

Oh.

And I think, again, my wife, Doesn't like that feeling. She's also scared of heights. So it's a double whammy on Tower of Terror. Uh, those of you who don't know, it's a, it's a drop ride.

Yeah.

And so, uh, he, he went on it and it scared the bejesus out of him.

Really?

He did not enjoy it. Uh, I think next time we go, he'll probably do it again because I think he thinks—

Now he's gotten it out of the way.

I'm a little older. I can probably do it. And he's got it out of the way. Um, the one that I did not take them on for 2 reasons. Number one, I didn't want to stand in line for it. Number two, I, I genuinely did not think they would enjoy the inversions was Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.

Okay.

We didn't even try. I didn't even— we didn't even try it on this trip. It's the only inversion coaster in all of Disney World. Um, and it takes off at 60 miles an hour.

Right.

Like the launch is 60. So I, I knew that that was gonna be a, a tough one for them. Uh, even if you, you see the launch once you get into the line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I think that we would've gotten there, they would've been like, uh, we're out. Heck no. Uh-huh. I'm out.

So, which I think is most kids' reaction when they see it.

Sure.

Well, that was my kids' reaction.

Yeah. And one of the things that I, that I tell people about that, right? Yes, it has inversions, but never have I ever ridden that and felt like there were inversions in it.

No.

Because the way they have it, it feels like you're going down a highway and you're banking. You're banking, but the signs are right side up as you're banking. So they're curved like this. And anyway, it doesn't feel like you're doing inversions to me. It just feels like you're going really fast. Yeah. Beyond that, Um, I mean, they love Flight of Passage, which is the Avatar ride, right? They, you know, they love Slinky Dog Dash. They love— It's a great roller coaster. Oh, it's so good. Um, Ryland, uh, loved Rise of the Resistance, which is, uh, it's got its own scare factor. Uh, my daughter doesn't want to ride it. She just doesn't like Star Wars. Um, he does. He—

we were all about Star Wars. The other thing we did, uh, as a caveat, We chased pins. So they did the pin trading. Uh, my sister got the last trip we went on, which with them, which was 2021, she got them a slew of pins to trade.

Okay.

And so they, they traded some then, but they really got into it this time. They started chasing after specific pins and trying to get some sets. And we actually, I mean, there were pin boards everywhere, cast members wearing them. We traded pins a lot during this trip.

All right. Yeah, because we're actually, we're thinking about going for like a day in May.

Okay.

Because we're going to be there anyway. Specifically because they're closing Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.

They are. They're changing it out.

And Muppets.

They're, they're, yes. So Muppets is closing in May. Yep. And Rock 'n' Roller Coaster is changing from the Aerosmith theming to Muppets.

Okay.

They're changing it to Muppets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like we're, we're thinking about going just so we can go on the Aerosmith ride one more time. Yeah. Just so we can go see the Muppet Show one more time. Um, so like if we go, we're probably just doing Hollywood for like a day.

But I, I don't know when y'all are going. Is it the beginning of May?

Yeah.

'Cause you couldn't do it then. I think May 15th is the last day.

Yeah, it's like at the beginning of May.

Yeah.

So we, yeah, we looked at the date. So the other question I had was, so you did the Toy Story barbecue.

Yep.

You did Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue.

Yep. Space 220.

Space 220 and Chef Mickey.

Yep.

If you could only do one of them again, which one would you do?

That's a good question. We've done, I've done a couple of them. Okay.

And so I'm interested to see.

We've done, we've done Chef Mickey every time we've gone with the kids. Uh, I don't know if we'll keep that up forever. Um, but that, that one's unique in from the other ones because there you get the Fab Five Disney characters. That one is unique in, yeah, in that. Um, if I could only do one, If I could only do one, I would probably do the Hoop-Dee-Doo.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay, why?

Uh, it's, it's just fun. Uh, it, it's unique, it's fun. Uh, the, the kids really got into it. The food is good. It's fried chicken and ribs. It's hard to, hard to beat that.

Um, if the, if the food, if the food is better than other places, that helps.

It does. It, and Here's the thing: the the food at Woody's barbecue is pretty good. I we're so spoiled. The barbecue here, like it's it's hard for me to be like that was really good barbecue. It's just you're not gonna get it. No, it was it was Florida. It's Florida. It was fine, but the atmosphere. is a lot of fun. We thoroughly enjoyed it. As far as Hollywood Studios go, I think it's the best sit-down restaurant at Hollywood Studios. I think it's great.

Um, really?

I— yeah.

Brown Derby?

I've never eaten at the Brown Derby, I gotta tell you, because I don't— there's nothing in there that I think I, I really want to go there. Yeah, it's— I'll tell you, that's the best one there. Okay.

I, I've, I've eaten there. It's, it's really good.

I, I'm glad you think that. I'm never gonna go. I've never been and I'm never gonna go. I don't— there's nothing on that menu that makes me go, I really wanna go there.

I mean, unless they've changed the menu, like it's been a long time.

No, it's the same. So, I mean, I don't think it's ever changed.

It's— when I went, it was fantastic.

Okay. I'm glad to know that.

And like, it was like the only— I think it was like, I think it still is like the only fine dining restaurant in, in Hollywood.

It is. As far, yeah, as far as like fine dining, it is.

Yeah.

Uh, it, it doesn't get great reviews from most people, uh, which, but for some people it does. Yeah. And especially if you want Cobb salad, they got a great Cobb salad apparently.

They do. Um, it is good.

Yeah. So, but, but, okay.

So would you rather, would you rather do the Toy Story barbecue or would you rather do Sci-Fi?

Toy Story.

Really? Yeah. Why?

I like the atmosphere better.

Just like you like the theming better?

I like the theming better.

Okay.

And I think for, I think for kids, with my kids, I think for kids in general, the Sci-Fi can be a little scary just because of the images that are on the screen. It's old sci-fi movies.

Yeah.

There's crazy big tarantulas that come at you and things like that, which, and I think the food's better. I think the food is very mediocre at Sci-Fi. I do like the scenery personally. But the other thing is I don't like having to sit in rows when I'm with my family.

Yeah.

I like kind of sitting in a circle.

Like, I've never been to the Toy Story one, but I'd probably still pick sci-fi.

That's fine.

One, for nostalgia.

Yeah.

Two, suck it up, kid.

Yeah.

Three, I like the seating in there because I like, I can actually, like, my kids will stay engaged and I don't have to sit with them.

And you can sit with your wife.

Yeah.

Yeah. I like that.

I'm, I'm, I mean, I mean, if I had to, like, those are my reasons and I've not even been to the other one.

Yeah. I will tell you, I like 50's Prime Time too.

I've actually never eaten there.

I, I've, I've done it multiple times.

Uh-huh.

They've changed it up a little bit over the years. It used to be a lot more like— I used to be a lot—

I have eaten there one time. It's been a long time. Okay. Like I, I was in high school.

Okay.

And so they used—

yeah, I, I can see. But they used to be very much like, get your elbows off the table type of thing. Which is why we went.

We wanted to be sassy.

Sure. And they used to be way more sassy than they currently are. I've always thought the food is pretty good. They got good shakes. Meatloaf and stuff like that. Yeah. And you get to watch Andy Griffith on the TVs and Mork and Mindy and different things like that, like old school stuff. Um, so I do like that, but overall I think Woody's is great and I, I don't disparage it at all.

I've liked everything that they've done in Toy Story Land. I think, um, well, I say that I didn't do like the spinny—

Oh, I didn't either. Alien swirling saucers.