Podcast: The Ride - Disney Genie with Justin McElroy

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Justin McElroy (My Brother, My Brother & Me, Sawbones) comes on the show and we try to make sense of Disney Genie, Genie+, Lightning Lanes. If you like theme park logistics talk, this is the episode for you. Jungle Cruise (2021) episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Forever. Dog. Warning, the following podcast is about one of the most popular Disney characters, Genie, the lovable blue guy from Aladdin. You might be wondering, hey, where does Genie hang out these days? In Aladdin and Jasmine's Palace in Agrabah? In his magic lamp? Well, the answer is neither.

Genie is now confined to your phone, stuck in your various parks apps in order to analyze queue lengths and monitor crowd levels in order to carefully and effectively control the flow of traffic around the Disney parks. Also, if you slip him some money, he'll let you skip the lines. Justin McElroy joins us to chat about a new parks planning tool and the replacement for FastPass. Genie and Genie Plus on today's thrilling podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, a podcast about theme parks that's just like a genie, assuming that all three of your wishes are to hear 90 minutes about theme park efficiency and pricing information. I'm Scott Gairdner and i'm joined by mike carlson hello yes i'm here i've i want to break it down i want to i want to make even like say a disney executive who like has listened to like presentations i want to bore even that type of person with the

amount of minutiae that we're going to comb through today on podcast the ride someone whose job is to care about this specific thing i I know one of those people from the video that I'm going to be talking about. Yeah, I'm a big fan out the door. Yeah, all right. Well, yeah, we'll get boring, but we can't do it without the help of Jason Sheridan and I. Of course not.

This is Mr. Boring himself. Here he is. Listeners, listeners, you asked for more logistical nonsense. You asked, we listened. My co-host bucked at the idea. That's true, yes. Like a star in the night appeared, a star guiding the ship, and we knew we had to. This is exactly right.

Look, there's been a lot of these kinds of information drops recently. Everything is getting reset. There is no longer an annual pass program post-pandemic. So they reset that and there is a thing called the Magic Key program over on our Patreon, the second gate. We broke that down for God knows how long. It felt like

four days to me. But we did that. So when Jason brought up, well, now we got to do the same thing for Disney Genie. I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ. But you are correct. We are very incentivized to do it because the best thing that came from Twitter

losing its collective mind about this Disney Genie thing, which is essentially the replacement for FastPass and MaxPass. It's about making your day efficient and skipping the line and all that. We'll explain it. Yeah.

In theory, that's the idea. Sure. But, yes, everybody's freaking out about this program, and it caused somebody to reach out to us on Twitter, who we've wanted to have on for a long time, and I'm so happy he's here. He's a prolific podcaster from my brother, my brother and me, Sawbones and Adventure Zone. It's Justin McElroy. Hi.

Hi, what a pleasure it is. Hello, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. I don't know why I said welcome. That's weird. You welcomed us to our own podcast. What a joy. What a treat. That felt very nice. Yeah, it's nice. It's like freshens the things up. Yeah, I've been listening for a while and I wanted to connect faces with voices. And this is the only way that i i know how to do it it's just a guest on and then it all clicks into place beyond now you

know i'm scott hello uh mike's in a what mr toad shirt right and i'm wearing a mr toad shirt that's correct and jason's in the 82 the up cut i still have no idea what terry gross looks like because she won't have me on so i'm I couldn't spot her in a crowd. Someday. It's more official. If you Google image, then that will ruin the entire thing. I want to keep some suspense for when I'm actually on fresh air. Of course.

Yeah. We're so happy you reached out. And you were fired up about this situation this new disney genie program that has has been launched and um i'm i'm so glad that you are that somebody is not completely exhausted by disney information dumps and names as as at least i am uh so this works out perfectly it will carry me at least uh through this so let's let's dive in what like um is there anything else we need to set up about this in general did i did i sort of explain it disney for a long time yeah all right there's three things they announced three things at once

uh and and i'm gonna try to logline each one of them. There's Disney Genie. This is some sort of automated... It's not an app. It's built in other apps that will... It's part of an app. It's part of an app. It's part of two apps. The apps are different depending on Disneyland or Disney World. It's the My Disney Experience app if it's Disney World,

and it's the Disneyland app if it's Disneyland. Is that right? Yes, that's correct so this was announced a while ago at like the d23 in 2019 they said this is coming i think everyone kind of went like yeah what is what is this gonna be and it seems like you know in theory is one of those things like that old apple adage of like it just works where it's like i want to eat something it'll tell me what's not crowded i want to go on a ride uh it'll tell me wait times there's a then now they're saying it'll tell you forecast at wait times like in the way that ways will tell you if you leave at five o'clock you're gonna get there at this time but if you leave at eight

o'clock you'll get there at this time then there's disney genie plus which is a an add-on 15 in florida 20 in anaheim which is essentially functions like max pass which we used to have at disneyland and this is this is what fast pass is now free fast pass is dead dead and buried you pay you pay more fast pass is a thing where you would get little slips of paper and it would tell you what time window to come back and you could skip the line max pass is a thing where you would get little slips of paper and it would tell you what time window to come back and you could skip the line. MaxPass is a thing where you paid for that privilege to do it way out of time. In Florida, you would book three online. You would book three different FastPasses 60 days ahead if you were, I think it was 60 was 60 days yeah 60 days ahead if you were staying on

on the property and you could book three after you use those three you could book another one yes that's gone that's dead that's all gone that's all gone uh so now this is where it gets confusing there's a third offering uh those first two, they're referred to as services. And then this third one. It's service, service, punishment. Service, service, and then Lightning Lane. They're referred to as Lightning Lane entrances. So Lightning Lanes are both.

It's kind of two things. It's the lines that used to be the Fast Pass line. So you get in the Lightning Lane. But then there's also a la carte purchasable access to the Lightning Lane for the most popular rides within a park. Yes. So the Disney Genie Plus does not cover all of the premium ride experiences like, I assume, Guardians of the Galaxy, probably the Incredicoaster, anything that you think is like a mega e-ticket. Living with the land, all the major... Living with the land will cost you $100 to cut the line on it. But that seems to be maybe like a universal type like shifting money price depending on day and traffic.

But it also seems like the algorithm is going to shift. Like this has been, this is what's currently the most popular one. So it could potentially drop. Like, it seems like the one I, I kept seeing, which I was surprised by was seven dwarfs.

Mine train in magic kingdom is apparently insanely popular. So like, everyone's like, well, that one's going to lightning lane. So, but you, you buy buy all you buy lightning lane but then you also use disney genie plus to access the lightning lane so yeah so i'm i've been feeling a more like scott recently reading all this i i've gotta i've gotta come out okay yeah uh because i in the insanity i was visiting family and i i you know

my family is is planning a trip down the line and i'm explaining all this to my dad and he just looked like like i just made him eat a lemon and he's just like oh this is similar to how justin looks and i i so so what is what is your take in jet let's let's fire up some opinions yeah actually could i step i just want to ask is, what is your take in jet? Let's, let's, let's fire up some opinions. Yeah. Well, actually, could I step, I just want to ask Justin, what is your feeling about max, like about the fast pass program before, before even we get your reaction to the new news? Cause I just want to know what you were, how hard of it may be of a checker, how much of

a planner you were. It should. Okay. So, so things that sort of differentiate me from, from, I think your guy's situation is one, I am planning for one, I live in West Virginia, so I'm planning for a, you know, not regular visit. It is an event, right? Yeah.

I'm also traveling with at least three other people in my immediate family. I have ballooned up to as many as 15. Wow. Where I'm scheduling that. Right. So I actually liked, I like fast pass in the sense that it gave me a little bit of structure to hang my hat on. I'm going for efficiency in a visit and I want, you know, maximum impact.

So I liked that. It gave me something to hang my hat on. Like, at least I know I've got this, this and this at at these times and i could kind of plan around that a little bit um so i so i appreciated it from uh from that in that sense okay got it all right so now reactions now let's fire up our take machine the new thing um i've oh wow it it's uh god i'm real a lot of people i read a lot of the disney social media which if you if you even if you think you wouldn't just treat yourself every once in a while and hop in see how things are going yes it is yeah just be careful youazed in the abyss, the abyss gazed back sometimes. He can get pretty good. This was like,

this was it, right? This is finally the final straw. Chapek has gone too far. I'm done with Disney. You know, I'm out. But it's like, you're not.

Because fans of Disney, and I'm not like excluding myself from this i'm right there with you but you got to be honest about what you are people have proven time and time again they will fall all over themselves to pay any price to heighten the experience and this is just like this is the big one right this is the lever that was always kind of like behind mickey that he could like reach up and like pay to skip the lines pay to skip the lines i'm gonna do it it's like oh come on don't and then of course he does it the problem is the my my hesitations about it are are this what uh i so i have been one time uh when when number there was

like this this sweet spot where numbers seemed really low. There was a lot of masking. It seemed okay, right? So I went. But it was rough. Especially with the way queues were working at the time where it was like, you know, standing out in the sun for a lot of it. We waited for like an hour and a half to get into Jungle Cruise. And almost all of it was like standing just in direct sunlight.

Oh yeah, and if we haven't said this officially, like if, and just to mark this point in time, the pandemic has reset everything where there hasn't been any of these programs. So these ways to skip the lines have not existed. And we are just back to how it would have been several decades ago, where you're just standing in a line regular and there's no way to jump besides being like a vip and they have the idea behind fast pass which i should point out in in disney world it was democratized like anybody could get a fast pass you could get them earlier if you were staying on property but like they were open to anybody and the idea the cynical uh it was it was good for everyone right because cynically disney wanted

you not in line they wanted you buying drinks buying t-shirts you know spending money on other stuff right they don't want you to wait in line and you don't want to wait in line because it's boring so it's good so this is good it's good for everyone i will be really interested to see um and i think the thing that is is going to be i feel like the adoption rate of this, of the Genie Plus, is going to be so astronomical. I mean, you think about how much you're already spending to do this. The idea that you wouldn't kick in another $15 a ticket, to me, is unfathomable. Of course, $15 is so low that I wonder if they're going to get like overwhelmed by demand for it. They're going to limit the number of genie plus sales in a given day or if it's just going to be like, you know, everyone, everyone go for it.

I feel like no matter what it is, it'll still be better than what it is right now. Right. Which is just people waiting in a line, which is which is tough. Like it's it's and it's also hard to plan that way because the lines just are much less predictable than they were pre-pandemic. Yeah, it's like, there's a lot of, as you said, like Disney, Twitter, there's a lot of discourse because I've seen a lot of, there's people arguing with each other

because a lot of people are saying, oh, well, you know what? If you got rid of FastPass, actually that's gonna make all the lines much better because what FastPass did, and this is true, Fastpass put a lot more people into the park, but there was still basically like phantom people in the lines. So, you know, I forget exactly the numbers, but for every three people in the standby line, eight people from Fastpass would go in. So that was increasing the wait time in general for all the rides all over the park

so now people are going you know what this is actually better because all the lines are going to be short which i'm skeptical because as you're saying i feel like a lot of people would pay just 15 bucks if you're going to be able to like not have to wait in most lines i it's yet to be seen how many things they consider like top level e-tickets, I guess. But like say it's only like three things per park. If you're going to like breeze through lines much easier, it would make a lot of sense to do it, especially if it's your vacation in Florida. My big my big concern about it. And this is like, I don't know that there's a solve for this.

Like in the in Universal, there is a in florida there is a you pay a large much larger fee than 15 bucks i think it's like 70 something like that i just had an incident where i paid like 200 it was so accelerated wow yes yeah they do surge pricing on it that's but it's just like you you can just get there's just like a special path for you and you go on it um to me i wish there was an option like that because my main hesitation about this is especially with the genie thing where it's like the cloud is planning my itinerary which i feel like zero percent adoption i feel like i feel like yes you either don't know enough about disney to where you would ever know even where on the app to yes you either don't know enough about disney to where

you would ever know even where on the app to find this guy or you know enough where you're like i'm not fucking doing that absolutely not i know what i'm doing i don't need the genie to hold my hand i'm i'm a grown adult um i feel like you're gonna have zero percent people using this but the i don't like the idea that where it's like, you know, you could go to this ride right now, or this is the thing you have available to you, or you need to check the price of this experience. I just feel like you're gonna be steering your phone so much more. Like I would love the ability to not,

which I'm having to do already. Like if you want to eat lunch, as of the last time I went, you want to eat lunch at even like a quick service restaurant, put your order in at 10 AM because all the availability is availability is gone by you know it's gone by noon like you're already like having to watch this thing like a hawk to try to min max the experience and this to me the the big hang-up i have is like it just feels like another way to keep you like locked into your phone rather than like trying to enjoy your your experience Now I'm curious how that hits the room

because some of the three of us love to be on our phone checking things throughout the day. So what does the checker here, this spoiler is not me, think about this whole thing? Is it going to get more people checking? Is it going to ruin your line of free work?

Well, here's the thing. Max Pass, I loved Max Pass. And I believe, at least when I was doing the Fast Pass Plus in Disney World, the trick would be you make the three Fast Pass reservations early as possible. And then I could Max Pass the rest of the day. I could just be surfing and trying to find. And then we would be like in the line at Spaceship Earth. surfing i'd find a fast pass i go we're getting out of this line we're getting into fast pass line and i'd make a big i would feel like true elation like the only time i can ever feel anything is like when i would get a victory like that in a in an app so yes i do

like surfing i do i'm on it too much for sure i feel like this is just a this all of this is more complicated now you're making this more extra complicated like i don't know if it's going to be quite as worthy because obviously when i'm pulling stuff it's not always spaceship earth it's usually big stuff you're excited about the stuff that is a long longer line longer wait so it's a big pain in the ass to be like yeah you're not going to be able to get on guardians of the galaxy unless you just pay there's no way i'm going to be able to pull that unless i just pay 20 or who knows 50 or 300 if universal pricing is going to apply here uh as far as disney genie uh and jason and i and scott we already talked a little bit about this disney

genie hey i'd like to see you plan a Vacation or a day at Disneyland better than me pal I would like to challenge Disney Genie officially right now Full John Henry scenario Of like you have your robot family I have my human family That is exactly what we are going to do

On Podcast The Ride Jason is going to use Disney Genie I am not I'm going to be phone- the ride jason is going to use disney genie i am not i'm going to be phone-less and i still think i could beat disney genie at having a great disney day this will happen at some point this fall or winter i am excited for a day where i am just constantly set back and forth between ariel's undersea adventure and the bingo barbecue skewer skewer stand just there's no law it's like oh man they gotta do what the genie says i said i would do this yeah so look i could be we'll have to see genie okay because i

don't i'm trash talking them now but it's only because we're going to compete in some sort of a pro wrestling style contest um but it's possible that it's better or good if especially if you're maybe like a total novice when it comes to knowing where to go and it just kind of maybe it does send you on a nice Disney day well yeah oh go ahead Jason well I was gonna say I mean I am curious I think

it could come in handy because even I like there's a stretch between I always complain about that there's a stretch between like two and five where like some parks just everything is bottlene that there's a stretch between like two and five where like some parks just everything is spot on that there's a line for everything there's crowds everywhere that's when i would like something like you know machine learning to tell me like hey there's no one over here right now that would be great uh that's true that's true that that seems like if it works correctly but i was was in Florida the first summer they were doing the magic bands and the

my Disney experience. And that app was so buggy. It crashed so much. Our phones were only like a couple of years old. It was, it took up so much room. It was overheating. It's better now,

but I, the, the first generation of this, I am just predicting it's, it's, I just think it's going to be a mess. And one of the little side effects of COVID time, it's like everything is a little harder, right? Everything's got a little more friction. Restaurants or places close earlier,

places have limited menus, be itney or just out in the world uh you know uh everything's a little harder what's that smaller staffs at a lot of places smaller staffs a lot of places so to me it seems like this is maybe the worst possible time you could introduce a new software offering that your branding is kind of bad on and uh yeah a time when people are already exhausted of friction you know yeah it's also kind of funny i do kind of enjoy the idea that they're laying a beloved character just on the altar i mean it is really funny they're really letting get like this feels very sacrificial, doesn't it? Like, everyone's loved the genie for 20 years.

We miss Robin very much, but we are now going to desecrate this in pretty much the most monumental way possible. Like, he will be burned on pyres. People will abhor the very mention of his name if it doesn't go well. Genie, you're not free anymore You're fucked

You're fucked Just person after person at the city hall Being like this fucking genie I hate this fucking genie Over and over again and then there's just like negative Vibes surrounding Aladdin in general As an IP and Just sours us on the entire

Robin Williams' whole legacy as an actor is the only thing people remember in 50 years like oh yeah he's the guy that played the ai that messed up walt disney world so bad the the i i just have zero fit the website doesn't work now the website barely works usually the app is not much better if you think about the and i'm obviously not like uh you know someone who is planning this i can see the appeal if you're disney like you know if we just move these groups of people like you know like so many legos we could arrange a much prettier picture where everything is balanced but like it's not gonna work i I mean, imagine the challenge of, okay, there are 100 people that are just kind of waiting around in the area of, you know, magic carpets with Aladdin or whatever. And all of a sudden you send them all a notification.

It's like, hey, five minute wait on this bad boy. Come on, let's go. And all 100 of those people were like, oh, sweet. What? A 45 minute wait? No, wait. But it just said on the thing. And then what about the people that walked, you know, 10 minutes to get over to this five minute wait and now it's like oh now

it's an hour there's just no i can't imagine what an incredible challenge that would be and the idea that it's gonna work is uh frankly unfathomable to me i have the i will hold that hope but like yeah it seems impossible impossibly hard to do it because it's like it feels like it's gonna be sending you like it feels like if you're if you have maybe you don't know anything maybe it's first time at disney it's gonna be sending you to like the least popular rides back and forth over and over to the worst restaurant because they're all low trafficked so like you're gonna be going on, I don't know, what's the worst ride at Disneyland, gentlemen?

What do we think? This is not correct, but Astro Orbiter, that's not the worst ride, but it's kind of who cares a little bit. Sure. What is the worst ride at Disneyland? That's a good question. We should do a whole 90 minutes or two hours on that. How about like, hey, would you like to go on Mission Space again?

How about Mission Space? There's no wait for it. Over and over and over and over. Wow. And it's Mission Space. The Marlland Speedway is pretty miserable. Just inhaling those fumes over and over again. You're going, yeah, you're just in World Vacation.

Genie keeps telling you to go back and forth between the Speedway and then Mission Space, the intense version. The intense line. These parks are are big it's like a walk it's like a long a long journey getting from one place to another and you'd think i mean hopefully be smart enough to geolocate i mean they know where you're at right right finish it's a small world that like says goodbye to you personally like they know where you are like hopefully it could you know geolocate a little bit but yeah but like try explaining this with a straight face to my family their question was well how do we benefit what do we get out of this and i'm like ah you know that's a great question and i don't have an answer i have the potential like they're discussing about the app like they they literally said on the on like their blog,

like we put a lot of money into this cool new technology. And it's like, oh, cool, man. All right. They're bragging about the money. Yeah, one big thing, if we haven't properly explained this, just imagine the free part, the Disney genie part, that now we're in kind of a Netflix will pick something for you territory where I'm looking at the sample screen they have. And it's like thrill rides, experiences for little ones, slow rides, parades.

And you if so, this is for somebody in theory. I mean, you could go in and you know what all the rides are like we do. And then just I want to get on all these today make it happen but there's also the version where you don't know anything and you go in and say like well i like classic journeys so what is a classic journey near me that i could do i like swashbuckling adventures oh what's the pirates of the caribbean huh i guess i'd give that a try i don't like getting drunk on the tequila flight at Cava de la Tequila and then riding the Grand Fiesta tour

with the three caballeros six times because it's air conditioned. How about that, genie? You just described my day. If you're the genie, you got meat covered. Yeah. Which is granted. Is there a button that just says,

Dad needs to nap? Like, that will be the most popular way it's just suddenly like shoulder to shoulder at the hall of president genie what's a low traffic bench right now genie what's the wait for a table at the uva bar like how hardcore will genie be like i like i'd almost like the idea if they were like, Genie is a full AI. Put your headphones on. You can talk to him all during the day. He'll answer any question about the park. He'll tell you any wait time.

And then he'll, like, give you tips on, like, riding the ride. He'll say, like, if you have a hair tie when you're riding on Everest, you throw the hair tie out when they, it's like the track. Stuff like that. I wish they would go full crazy. You got a little friend on your trip, and it's like Dan Castellaneta doing the genie voice from when he did it in Aladdin 2.

It's wrong genie. There is a virtual assistant for very basic questions. My concern about what you're describing, Mike, is that do you remember a few years ago when Microsoft introduced a chatbot AI into Twitter? It was called Tay. No, I knew it.

Chocolate rain guy? I think it was spelled T-A-Y. You could tweet at Tay and get like a you know at back and forth going within i just very quickly tay immediately got racist so i yeah tay just whatever it's some of these machines like artificial intelligence i i don't know a lot about it but some of them whatever the input is you know the output ends up being very similar thankfully i don't think that will happen with disney genie right well yeah they're not letting you input i don't think or talk to it yeah um but i mean you i'm sure down the line yeah like you buy your own little

like genie that you could put on your shoulder like the um like salacious crumb and the yeah sits on your yeah and then genie directs you from there as opposed to your phone that's a more fun way to control crowds and to make people pay for the controlling device there's no line at the hat store michael head over there

what is great on you sixty dollars what a deal a bargain at twice the price Did you know there's an antique type glassware store in Genie, Jason? Yeah obviously I knew that Thanks Genie Alright sorry

Yeah I appreciate the reminder though The last time you had LeFou's brew It gave you a migraine you remember Don't want to go through that again I hope Disney Genie does The voices the impressions too I hope he does like Jack Nicholson When he's telling you what to do as well

Select what early 90s impressions you like You can have the same reaction that you have to about half of the Robin Williams genie lines where it's like is that okay I'm not sure we can that's right on the kind of voice you can do anymore that was Groucho

that's always okay back on board Mike you mentioning Groucho, that's always okay. All right. Back on board. Mike, you mentioning Uvabar kind of begged a question for me too, which is like, I'll pose this to the group. If there is anything that you could make the genie do specifically, that you could program your genie to do, what would it be? Because that made me think, I want to be able to not just know when there's a seed at Uvabar, but also control the temperature of the Chardonnay bottle.

I want to know where that is. I want to know if that guy can get a couple degrees down. Is that glass frozen? Can we get that cold chilled as well? If I can be dealing with my barware from the galaxy's edge then that's great feeling good um that's like the taco bell app level customization i think because taco bell is my favorite of all the fast food apps because you can really go to town as far as customization with the items and the sauces but that would be

a great thing if you could like truly say i'm gonna be there literally at like uh what time scott do you go like 10 30 a.m or so 10 35 a.m i think i think it's not yeah most theme park bars are not open until 10 30 and then it takes them a minute to like open the hatch and everything so yeah yeah i'll go so i'll cut him a break and say i'll be there yeah so happy to hear you say that about the taco bell lab because i thought that was a singular experience to me i have a nasty specific way i like it and i feel guilty like talking to the person like okay so here's what you're gonna do oh yeah trap throughout the diagram we're starting we're starting fresh it's a whole new palette so red strips no no look on the shelf they're behind the yes that's them i can't do that to a living person but the app doesn't care the judgment unless you click whatever box weird box you want yeah my app my orders are

shameful i would be ashamed to say them out loud but i one of the first times i don't do i'm not as bad the first time i went nuts with it and i didn't even think twice about what i was doing but i had five order five items and they were all had special differences from what they normally have on them and the person at the order at the box just laughed when they looked at it they went is this your order ha there was like a noise that came out of them like oh my god they probably just thought you were stoned i mean maybe yeah so bad as taco bell yeah so so this yeah this app like scott is describing that would be incredible if you could really customize exactly the temperature of the glass and exactly when you would be there.

That's great. That's a premium experience. I bet that's like Disney Genie plus plus or double plus. I can't imagine the thing that is is like in the in the one experience that I had, I cannot express to you the extent to which there was nothing like it wasn't like you have a bevy of options available. It is like there is one sliver of daylight where you can go to this one place at this one time and literally everything is gone. Like I started making dining reservations. You can do can do 60 days before you, you arrive, right? Yeah. There was literally like nothing.

Like I had to put in, uh, uh, some like wishlist type stuff and then hope that something opened up later on. Um, and when you got to the parks, there's, you know, you can go to a restaurant and try to get on the waiting list all full i mean there's no even to get into like the uh the ziggurat the mexico pavilion in in epcot was like a you stand in line for a half hour just to like walk into the facility um which i don't know how genie deals with that like deals with like there's nothing to do you can sit down bathrooms are open if you need that

pretend that's a ride uh maybe yeah sit down and think about your life how much did you spend how did you get to this point that trash can used to talk it doesn't anymore but it used to that's some fun trivia for you but the price only went up i yeah that's 60 day in advance i remember

not even knowing that was the case and a friend of mine was going and like okay i have my stuff ready and here's a giant list and i was truly like this is this is insane this cannot stand you have to know your day two full months ahead of time i mean if this all somehow dismantles that madness i think it's good maybe it just replaces it with a new madness but yeah that it it's over but you know first off i live for that shit i'm sad to see it go the the new substitution for that which sucks more in my in my opinion is that you can make your first uh reservation the day of at 7 a.m so if you're on your grind and you want one of the big ones at you know earlier in the day because you can only have one at a timem. So if you're on your grind and you want one of the big ones, you know, earlier in the day, because you can only have one at a time.

Right. So, like, if I want to guarantee that I'm going to ride Frozen Ever After at Epcot and I want to get there early enough so I'm not, like, wasting the entire day of Genie Plus, then I have to be up at, like, 7 a.m., which you already have to do for if you want to ride rise the resistance um on that day but now you're gonna have to do it every day if you want to get like a decent uh early fast pass because you want an early one because you can't get another one until you have used that one um as i understand the system so yeah yeah waking up every morning at like 7 a.m is is not i'd rather do that 60 days before i'm at the park and just get it done all at once well and my my family already has like calendar reminders for the for two because dining reservations will still be 60 days i think actually i think it's been up i think it's 60 days

uh and a week like so it's a little earlier or like 60 days but then you can go to the first of that it it's something insane and i think we're just like we're just gonna call a phone number um six months yes really felt insane because that is like i don't even know if i'm gonna like spaghetti in six months but i'm gonna book book a table at tony and tina's town square tantrum well he tony and tina's is with the tony's is reliable because you know you're gonna have a bad time yes you're not gonna enjoy it absolutely can i control how watery the sauce is yes that's true yeah i just remember like the day or two that disney opened watching someone live streaming like dipping a chunk of of steak into Alfredo sauce at Tony's.

And I was like, Oh, Oh man. Like, geez, Louise risking in the middle of the pandemic, getting steak Alfredo salt. Like,

Oh man. Uh, uh, here's, here's what this service or a service like this should actually be. And this is, I'm not, no joke. Here's what it service or a service like this should actually be. And this is, I'm not, no joke. Here's what it honestly should be. You should input in the app, I'm going to Hollywood Studios today.

You could, an ideal thing would be maybe I'm going from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or whatever. I want to do these five things. I want to have this restaurant. This is what I want to go to. And then the app does it for you. Yeah. And that's it. That's it.

That should be, that's the actual easy way to do it. It's not surfing genie. That would honestly take away any of the things that I feel like compulsive to do, uh, compulsion to do, which is search for faster time. As soon as you get off Tower of Terror. Now I'm looking for, see if somebody's canceled a rock and roller coaster. If you just put in all that, they literally said six fast passes. Here's a reservation. That's your schedule. That would be perfect. There's actually nothing you really need to do

other than that. That's the ultimate version of what they want to do here. But I don't know if that's too hard, if that's just dependent on too many factors that they won't do something like that. Because yeah, that'll get rid of the problem of being on your phone the whole time. But they're also incentivizing you. I think it's almost like they want you to be on your phone. They think that people want to be on their phones the whole time because there's also all of this, like, bonus stuff. I mean, one thing is that when they... Because they're also trying to get you onto rides that maybe you didn't know about

or that you might miss. And I noticed in this video that they made where they show you some of the components of this program, there's a thing that you can pull up. If you get a recommendation and you're suspicious of the recommendation, you can pull up a button that says, why this?

And it explains with a few factoids what would be interesting or fun about this experience. And what do they choose for as a sample? Why this? Somebody would click on this for it. They throw the people mover under the bus, the poor people mover, which I love very much, or whatever it's called there, the Tomorrowland whatever. But there's like a, they show somebody clicking on that and then there's

little factoids. Like, well, it's a nice slow ride to help you relax during the day. And you get to see a model of Walt's original plans for Epcot. And it's fun for the whole family. It made me sort of mad to see people mover have to justify its own existence.

Um, so I don't like that. It's like a ride has to beg for a reason to exist on the app. So like, why would I do this piece of shit? Right. And it's like, well,

no, it's actually pretty good. And, uh, you know, it's like, there's a cool breeze when you're riding it. So's nice waltz imagined that it could be implemented across in different ways like in airports and and uh you you like airport uh trams and efficiency

don't you so you'd want to experience this when you might want to do that yeah uh some of the bonus stuff made me like i i think augmented reality like inserting something into a foot, like I, those always look like shit to me. Yeah. But nothing is as disgusting to me as like the, the genie plus audio experiences. Like here, here are more facts about the, your magic ears talk about the ride.

It's like, Oh, I can't wait to hear tinny audio out of everyone's giant fucking phones, like giant shitty stupid phones like playing like you know when we were building soaring we studied real airplanes like oh goody thanks great that was thank you for playing that at the top volume because you don't know how you didn't bother to use this massive android phone you were forced to get by at&t well i'll tell you my problem with that old thing behind the scenes audio tales and it's listed in the video listen to interesting facts

about the parks at your leisure and i was like hey that's what we do quit stepping on podcast the ride disney genie this is where you get in audio try to to get a licensing deal going. They step in, what do they hear? And their headphones bringing them in. And if Disney Genie fucks up, which it might, and you end up in a line for two hours still, how do you fill that two hours? With the three Podcast the Ride Boys, sometimes joined by Justin and other fun people.

That's how you, if not with whatever, these little audio documentaries are gonna be and god help us if it's the behind the attraction people doing it then like you'll be you'll be going deaf from sproings and boings the whole episode yeah slamming on breaks and stuff we gotta pair with a software provider we gotta like we got maybe we can get a license something with touring plans and go like all all right, we're going to we'll do the behind the scenes. If you guys want a Disney Jafar genie, you know, when Jafar briefly becomes a genie, it's got a lot of the same features. But the audio experiences we tell you about the rides and there's a light profanity mixed in.

And that's going to really get the teens on board. Then they'll be interested in their vacation can you imagine what an absolute shit fit the genie plus will throw whenever you're within like a hundred yards of a hidden mickey like wait listen this is something i wouldn't you're gonna miss it wait stop there's a little bit of something you might have missed there's some there's some small scrap of meat left on the bone all right this sewage pipe with two broken mirrors next to it. If you squint. Then you hit the button that says, why am I looking at this?

It's like, well, no, there's like a lot of these actually. And like, it's kind of cool, isn't it? And you're like, no, it's not. So look, this stuff, I don't know how i feel about this stuff i i also really quickly i would just like to um you know i i as with magic key i i i was initially vowing to do zero research about any of this but then i thought wait a minute there is a 14 minute video about disney j this is in my subscription box i to know what the 14 minute video is. Um, and I started and I, uh, you immediately encounter not, I think I thought that the

genie was going to be your host, Mike, like you said, the wrong Dean genie, the cast Miletta genie. Um, but no, you're greeted by Gary Daniels, the VP of Digital Experiences at Disney Parks, which immediately threw my wife, Erin, for a loop because just immediately all she can do is talk about his ill-fitting shirt. It's just like really odd and like billowing up in strange ways. And like, why did nobody give him like a like a pat down? So a little bit distracting from the very dry information he's just holding a mask the whole time not wearing it but just gesturing with the this whole thing is one of the weirdest videos but especially this clip and i just wanted to

play this for everybody this is where he's demonstrating hey it's not just rides that disney genie will help recommend there's a little little sweet treats as well. Here's a little clip. It also looks like Disney Genie service also suggested a convenient location near my plans to mobile order lunch before I head over to Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger stand. I can place my order and ensure I add that chocolate bunk cake from Cosmic Rays. You know, the one with the purple icing at a time that works great in my day.

If I'm not familiar yeah yeah no it's the perfect moment for me to enjoy an entire butt cake while i'm being serenaded by sunny eclipse stop screaming tommy the phone's reminding us we have to get to the bundt cake there's a hundred yeah 100 degrees 100 humidity eat the bundt cake it's gary daniel's favorite stuff it down he loves the purple icing and so will you well we'll meet up with mom later okay she said she just needed a little time, all right? It's going to be fine.

It always is. Then I'm like, I mean, the whole thing is strange. And just this guy and this lil, it's like you heard it a little bit there, but I was saying on the video, it's like he, I'm not sure this guy's ever been on a camera before. So there's all these things where he like, the voice like goes up, it goes up and up and up. But then then by a certain point it has nowhere to go and he wants to keep modulating but there's nowhere that he is left and the that is the best way that you can maximize

your disney buzz experience like he did it like the lungs are gonna burst it sounds like the first time he's ever said buzz buzz lightyear space rangers you can't believe it's really called that like there's a take where he's like what is it this can't be right can you double check that that's what genie said genie said that's the name well i trust genie then you see you're wondering like how is this possibly going to sustain any more time and then you realize that the back half is a zoom q a that's essentially like a digital town hall where gary's back and i'm showing you guys there's like six this is where the the dichotomy of this being named after the fun character really struck me where half of the

screen is the robin williams boy the zany character we all love putting his arms out like hey it's me what are you gonna do and the other half is like six forced smiles in various offices where where everybody put up their one piece of disney more like uh it's kind of an epcot mug and all right i'll try to like it and everybody is addressing this guy with actual concerns like I liked this thing what's it gonna be now and he's like that's a very good question it is like a it it reminds me of like when every city blew up into protests and then every city had to have a town hall where the mayor and the police chief got taken a task forever like we're back to that but it's about this fucking app it's oh my god this thing in the old

does the does the does the i know we're all in different scenarios here but like the main thing the only thing that anybody it's really interesting to me that the the vast majority of people in the the Disney media Social media morass I should say like the reddit especially The only thing anybody was reacting to is the fact they were charging For the for the for this like this is what has freaked everyone out and to me. That's like the last like It's it's I said this on Twitter, and I feel like this is accurate. Disney fans have proven time and time again that they will pay any price for any small edge, and they are shocked every single time when Disney takes advantage of that fact. Like, this is just city, I mean, this is like the lowest hanging possible fruit.

They could have charged anything any price and i think it still would have people still would have gone i mean think about the the absolute press of people to like get back into the parks when there was like you guys didn't see it disney world probably like there's so little to do i mean like so much stuff is currently closed or or not not happening right now um and you know it's gradually sort of slowly opening back up but like especially with the labor stuff the you know issues that they've had like they're so little do and people are like ticket sales are ridiculous like they're topping what they were doing this time two years ago like it's there's no

uh a dip in sales. And it's like, of course, they're going to do this. They're going to. And I don't know. It just doesn't seem to me that to be that the surge thing will have to say what they're charging for. It seems like a really weird piece of the puzzle to leave out, honestly, to not even like sort of, you know, hint at what that charge might be.

Yeah. Is it going to be ten dollars a ride or fifty dollars? Like that's exactly a big sort of you know hint at what that charge might be yeah is it going to be ten dollars a ride or fifty dollars a ride like that's a big exactly a big sort of thing and this is all too like the opposite of like down the road at universal they're doing like buy two days get three free uh all hotel rooms on site are 30 off until next spring. Go crazy, folks. And where, like, I mean, it's been striking me every time I've been, I mean, I know I've just been twice in the last two years, but like, I mean, it's hard for me to not start thinking Universal,

the Universal Resort is better than Disney World. I think it is. I think there's more to do that's newer and and like uh you know like scarier and more thrills and better tech technology that's updated more you know what the parks themselves are like the the i've never i've never stayed there but jason has and he's a fan of it and i imagine you throw that in on top of how uh you know highly i feel about the parks i i mean and that it's all right there. You aren't running all around.

You aren't like potentially at the edge of a property and having to take endless buses everywhere. I mean, Universal is just kind of killing it. And I don't wonder what the status is. What you're describing though, the big problem, it's just fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Where do I go when I need to chill out and calm down with something boring? Disney has Universal there, hands down.

They got all kinds of chill-out tents. You get too worked up. Look at robots of the present. It's like, they got you. Calm down. It's all right you go to the fine uh lowe's hotel offerings uh that that that is the big like we my family would do this in the early 2000s when they were really giving away the rooms to get people to try staying at

universal but it's come back around again where it's like you could save yourself a large sum of money if you stayed even at the Hard Rock or the Royal Pacific or something, and just took lifts to Disney World. Like, that sounds crazy. It's not as crazy as you think it is. No, that's my plan next time. Yeah, I'm

at Universal next time. I think I've decided that. Yeah, and Disney, like, everything is, like, Guardians of the Galaxy rollercoaster At Epcot feels like it's like 2023 there's rumors that it's gonna open In 2023 and Tron is like 20 like they like everything's

Slow and like Universal's just building and I'm not saying they should Have just forced all the workers to build Through a pandemic but they did So there's more Rewards yeah Yeah but come on guys ratatouille ratatouille the ride finally we heard your pleas america ratatouille

we heard you 15 years ago when you kind of liked this movie we looked at our box office returns in the past 10 years and thought what do people really want and it turns out it's ratitude the rat who has a job that's right folks your job is your personality here at i mean i i do appreciate though like as someone with kids epcot once you get pat so if you if you've never been to epcot there's two halves right there's future world in the world showcase future world is like where you've got things like living with the land. This is the best stuff. Like talk about chill outs. You want to come see some hydroponically grown tomatoes.

We've got you. It only takes a half hour. It's the best. You sit down. And then like World of Imagination, which is an absolute nightmare. And should probably be leveled. And then a bunch of other walls that are protecting construction that may or may not be happening and i think there's a nemo ride

so that's like that have and then world showcase is like a big loop so you got mexico and canada on either side mirroring how those two countries uh border america they border your entrance to the world showcase and then it's a big loop and The boats aren't running so once you start that loop you better have a plan There better be to finish the loop or to go back if you got kids The thing is if you start the loop this way you do grand fees two or three caballeros at the Mexico pavilion Right after that you got Norway, which is where they they now have the frozen uh uh ever after and you get past that it's like well kids mom and dad are gonna get drunk now and there's not gonna

be a whole lot for you but you just gotta keep up okay because we're gonna get halfway around the globe and we're not gonna have another option we just have to keep going and drinking through there's nothing i mean do you guys want to watch a 300 cc degree film starring martin short because we have you if that's your kid's idea of a good time you're covered if you can make it all the way back around to canada but the red at france is like towards the back so that'll be a nice thing to like keep the kids motivated that there's a ratatouille uh experience for them you yes you bought them all tiny chocolates from each country That you were like you have 90 seconds to eat that Before it's goo

Like it's dark yet on that Yeah after kids Sorry did you say you have poutine It's 110 degrees The high that a child feels from going on frozen And meeting Gernes The perfumer The cologne man

The scent maker Yeah that would be never what is that his name did i get his name right here yes yeah i did okay great uh yeah then they they had to add that is so crazy that for this long it's and if you start that way hey fun boat ride hey like boat ride with more stuff more animatronics now what uh well do you want to learn about uh carnegie and his contributions to this modern world what will genie plus do for me there like what will the genie say like hey you're in spain i'm only hey do you want to go check no i don't genie it's a circle i'm going in the circle genie genannie will probably do some inappropriate accents.

Let's be honest. Yes, that is where we're at. You know how Italians like to say. It's going to be like Tay. It's going to be like Tay all over again. Careful, Disney. Do not open the app in the world showcase with Jeannie. Do not do it.

They're out of your range, Jeannie. Yeah. You know, Justin, just on this topic on like because i like hearing your other disney world opinion what are you like what do you enter into a genie plot what's what's a priority for you or or if you were doing it the old-fashioned way what's like what is the the most hit for you? What's the box you're checking? There's a really weird imbalance right now. Just from my perspective is like, like bringing your whole family.

Like Magic Kingdom is like this. It's almost like everything is either something they really like or something that we just feel compelled to like do because it's there. And we will do it like we almost always do like carousel of progress and people mover and that stuff because it's there and there's not much of a way you can get in like that's the other thing is you kind of have to keep a pace of like attraction to standing outside because it is so hot and there's young children like you need to like get them get them cooled off um epcot is really i mean i love epcot and as somebody who grew up like going to disney and that was like one of my formative memories is like uh the the

the original journey and imagination with with dream finder and figment and stuff um it's in a really weird it's really weird the the themes are sort of all over the place. The construction is very present. Um, and it's really hard to like make a, uh, a solid day there. Um, because you,

you know, you can, it's kind of all spread out and there's a lot of stuff that isn't happening right now. And is it, and is it working? And the kids really only like, like,

you know, uh, Nemo and frozen and grandfathers who were, and like, other than that, like spaceship earth, like my, my six year old finished the,

the, the journey through human history and spaceship birth. She got to the end of the first thing she said was, didn't women do anything? Yeah, honey, I know they were going to rebuild it, but JPEG thought it costs too much money, so we just

Left it how it is There's that one One scientist, there was a woman in the 70s, one The first woman who did anything I got stuck on Spaceship Earth last time I was there for 40 minutes in Steve Jobs' garage, just walking

Watching that sad robot Type into another robot for 40 minutes while i hear you know nondescript bleeps and bloops behind me it was bad man he's really throwing a lot of binders at wozniak jeez louise i haven't seen this scene fully play out before yeah you're right though it is like it's getting like it's it's slim pickings i mean it's sort of where disney studios was at for a little while and i think it's really some of it's out of their control because they were really pushing towards there's a like if you're following you know like one of my guys is this kid brayden he's like 15 he doesn't show mickey views so i've been

i follow his stuff because he seems to have an inside track this 15 year old kid Braden and he was talking about all the there was going to be a Mary Poppins ride over in the UK part of the world showcase and the spaceship earth revamp and all this stuff and I think that

the pandemic really did kick the legs out from a lot not only the construction but also like the funding of like how do we pay for this and still kind of keep the bottom line where it was so I think that that really like took the especially building up to

there's been a lot of focus on October 1st because that's the 50th anniversary at Walt Disney World right so a lot of the like the revamp and refresh and and that stuff i think was supposed to be building to that i think it really kind of screwed the timetable with the the uh the pandemic happening when it did um well if it makes you feel any better they're still gonna you know rename the neighborhoods world celebration and

world uh the other ones you know world magic world enchant yeah play pavilion where the kids go hog wild that's right i mean you're that actually like kids will probably like like if you just can unleash them and there's like a little inside playground and little like you know screen games and stuff like that probably will be a blessing for parents uh dumbo is like that dumbo in in disney world has a uh really cool like you get a pager and then your kids can go like run around on the the playground and sometimes you have to like peel them off of that to go get them to do i mean dumbo's boring i get it but we're here kids get on it's an iconic like it'll be iconic If you go on it

Right it's great for selfies kids They need to learn that early on I've got this change happening with me Now cause I have a pretty newish Kid and I like I think the first trip is 7, 8, 9 years away somewhere in there So the clock is ticking for me

In terms of Epcot having Things that make sense for an actual child who can enjoy things on their own merit. Because in my head, it's always been Epcot is the greatest place. What with all the brutalist architecture that almost nothing is inside of. That works great for me. I get drunk near brutalist architecture. Love it. But there will be a day of reckoning when I take my little dude. By that moment, though, you'll have Moana Journey

into Water, Space 220, Ratatouille, Guardians of the Galaxy, Galaxy, and hopefully some of the aesthetic construction will be finished. You'll have this play pavilion, some of this other stuff. Like, it's just a really rough, rough, rough spot right now.

But it's always been my favorite, favorite park. So hopefully they can, they can figure that out. Maybe by then they'll let you just throw food at Figment. Maybe they'll just, like, cut loose all the rules. You can throw that chocolate Bundt cake with the purple icing straight at figment's dumb face as adept as disney has gotten about exploiting their nostalgia it's weird that they kind of leave dream finder and figment like figment to a lesser extent because he's sort of in in the ride now but like they kind of leave the love for that guy behind glass like it's weird that they

haven't just like broken into it yeah like here okay he's back he's walking around come on okay now he burned himself to the ground there is a golden statue of him there there's a bunch of golden idols you know because these are our gods um coming for the 50th and they did announce there will be a figment one so but not dream fighter but not the dream like not the dream Finder They just left that dude to They haven't figured out how to Frame the Dream Finder yet That's such a home run I mean a lot of these beloved Characters

Hatbox Ghost people didn't even Really know but the legend of the Hatbox Ghost was something that they unleashed You know during the Disneyland anniversary And that was such a big deal You would think that it'd be low hanging Fruit for a character that actually a lot of people Have actually seen and know about

You think that would actually be even a bigger Deal but I guess I don't care I wonder if Dreamfinder was in Disneyland If there would be more Um I don't know more presence of him Because I do feel like Disneyland still The people in charge of Disneyland are a little bit More like I don't know more presence of him because i do feel like disneyland still the people in charge of disneyland are a little bit more like i don't know they're they're a little more in tune

with like the real hardcore nerds as opposed to florida where i think they're like those are tourists they don't know the lore as much like i you know i think there's this is just one side i've never been to disneyland um so i i this is my you know outside I think there's, this is just one side. I've never been to Disneyland. So I, this is my, you know, outside looking in, but I feel like at Disney World, there is, it is a sense of like, what can we do to make this place the most profitable? And I feel like Disneyland has the more direct connections to Walt. So there's like a little bit, a little bit shyer about like it changing anything. I mean, the only, do you guys know the only ride that had that that walt worked on that is in disney world uh no i can't progress oh all right all right

it's the only one original with the world's fair and then went there and then came back the only one that he like actually like worked on himself is that which i think is the only thing that has saved that boring that boring thing for as long as uh it has been but i think there's just like it's i think that there's there's less of a sense of like you know walt worked on this uh you know before yeah there's like uh and especially i mean it's interesting because if all the imagineers have to move out to florida um and i want to say to jason a lot of i've gotten a couple texts from people in Florida after your incendiary remarks about Lake, what is it called?

Lake Nona. A couple people saying, a couple people telling me, Lake Jason's wrong. Lake Nona is beautiful. I just want to put that out there. Oh, alright. But they're going to move a hard stance, so I don't know. We'll have to address it on another episode, but

if they all go to Florida, I wonder, because the Imagineers were in Glendale Based out of Glendale and going down to Anaheim Was that also Another part of it where it was like This is our park, this is like our little Pristine diorama We want to keep it Perfect in Walt's vision

And Florida's over there, we go out there once in a while Could it change? could there be more of that sort of like let's get let's sneak the dream finder in tinker they make it yeah it it just feels like though they used to be better at making people swallow like for a company that has a song

about a spoonful of sugar I feel like they used to be better at like you know hiding the like shitty like yeah and you gotta pay 15 bucks for this don't worry about it you know They used to be better at hiding the shitty, like, yeah, you got to pay 15 bucks for this. Don't worry about it. I don't know. I just feel like, I don't know if the marketing's gotten worse. I can't see the benefits are so hidden by the marketing lingo.

I'm like, did I just not know? I mean, I guess I was younger and i wasn't paying as close attention but it's simple simple is always the best for any of this stuff and if we're like yeah summing up even by full like like when fast pass debuted in the 90s it was like oh you go over and you get a little ticket and then the ticket says when to come back that's great okay got it done like that was what people liked the idea that now like disney disney whatever genie excuse me genie and genie plus it's like two different things but they're almost the same it's not simple anymore and lightning lane but but lightning lane is part of uh genie plus and but the one the lightning lanes that you pay for are not called anything. There's no lightning lane plus, right?

So that's a fourth thing, really, isn't it? It has no name. That service is nothing. It's simple. All of the stuff they want to do, honestly, they could do all of it. As Jason's saying, they could charge for things. They could do whatever. It's just that it's complex at this point. this yeah you just need a warehouse full of coders not like a bunch of contractors

you know doing it that you lay off after the thing launches so then there's no upkeep on it yeah this is my this is the but this is the grand plan this is what i've convinced myself of 18 months from now to see there's another video it's like aren't you tired aren't you tired of the of the inconvenience the maddening inconvenience of trying to manage lightning lanes and fast passes who has the time to keep track of all this stuff well good now there's genie double plus it's like it's all fused into one and it's a hundred bucks per ticket and it's like this does the cynical part of me really does feel like this is long con like bridging the gap to the full-blown like way bigger up charge right you see it like universal this is a

this is a this is a sort of a torture like and you're being interrogated with loud music yeah we've always paid we've alwaysated with loud music yeah we've always paid we've always paid for fast pass access we've always been at what we're doing right yeah yes i i i think honestly and i haven't done a exhaustive search exhaustive search we talked about on the other magic key episode about how there were a lot of rumors and like things bob chapik said about how like you know it's good there's going to be a loyalty program coming back as far as annual passes and it's like that language is very odd for annual passes i do think you can see if we really want to look there's a long-term plan here for all of this stuff if you look hard enough of like yes it's what you're

saying a couple hundred but just pay us a couple hundred dollars and just skip by everybody else. Just wherever you want. Just, yeah. Like, look, there's going to be a guy in front of the turnstile, hand him 200 bucks when you go in there and he'll, he'll give you a little thing like a secret.

Don't be like getting vaccinated. We get it. Just come on. It's a couple hundred bucks on the way in and you don't need to be vaccinated. Don't worry about it. Yeah. It's like sort of like it maybe we're all ending

up yeah in 10 years the most money yeah the ultimate plan is that go kiss Mark Twain it's fine just get up there give us 200 bucks and kiss him on the lips please uh I think Russell is there

it is odd to me that why like Disney like Genie you would i would think you would call these two different things i would think there would be like oh well you know on on the disneyland app you can like plan it's called plan my day and you click on plan my day or help me with the day that thing plant tells you where to go and what's a good idea as far as wait times and then there's then fast it's fast pass on your phone now and it costs 15 for most things like i don't know why the why lose the fast pass that right introducing more brand that's what i'm confused about where it's like yeah people know what it means but i mean i recognize it's not 1999 anymore people are more savvy with their phones not

everyone is more savvy though but um there was a brochure a scan of like an old marketing brochure going around recently on twitter you know uh one of the accounts that posts like old pictures of the parks and stuff and it it was it wasn't called like the big ticket but it it was something like that where it's like get the big ticket it gets you access to all the theme parks uh both water parks pleasure island and that was it it was like you know a three-page thing it was so simple it took like two pictures to the full scan and it's just like oh man we are far from 1999 because there's just so many terms. There's just so much. Yeah, it's like you literally go, like if like somebody who doesn't know anything,

fast, they go in and like, where's FastPass? Oh, FastPass, you have to pay for it. It's on your phone now. Got it. Okay. Like the overthink, I feel like the epitome of overthink of modern Disney is the Millennium Falcon ride.

And I've probably said this before, where it's like, awesome, a big video game where you get to fly the Millennium Falcon. Awesome And I've probably said this before, where it's like awesome, a big video game where you get to fly the Millennium Falcon. Awesome. Okay, but all six people are going to want an equal job. Alright, got it. Okay, well there should be one pilot, right? No, no, there should be two pilots. One gets to go left and right, one goes up and down. Oh, well that sucks.

Why would you do that? Somebody should just be able to go up and down. The person on the right is really going to want to have the same transformative experience. Okay, I guess so. Fine, split it up. Alright, there should be the right is really going to want to have the same transformative experience. Okay, I guess so. Fine, split it up. All right, there should be gunners. They should be able to aim right

and shoot at the thing. No, they shouldn't. There should just be three buttons because it has to be simple for anyone to be able to use. So it should be intuitive and you should just have three buttons. Okay, but they can't aim?

No, they cannot aim because it's too hard. It's like this is what's going on in a boardroom and you're like, it's got one person shoots like that's this is what's going on in a boardroom and you're like it's got one person shoots they can aim at the thing one person controls like satisfying for someone yeah experience meanwhile it was my six my three-year-old screaming because she couldn't reach the handle i feel just like han and julia this is transported look it's not she doesn't have

the spending power that a 37 year old does okay so the 37 year old has to reach the controls i think what they need i mean all these technology technology offerings they need to take an elevator to another floor and it's like i need the 20 biggest Luddites in these two departments. Get me the least technologically advanced people. Dumbest dudes. Dumbest dudes. Get me the oldest people here. We're going to unleash them in the parks with the beta version of these things

and see what happens. What's the catastrophe level here? I don't know how, I really don't know how regular sane people will be able to process this. I love doing this and when I take a group of people, it's always like

boy, we could do this and get over here this time and we don't know how to do it without you. To me, it's like, you guys are just being nice. At this point, I don't know. I don't know how you do it without someone for to me it's like oh you guys are just being nice and this way like i don't know i don't know how you do it without someone to like take your hand and and show you the the the old ways to get through the park yeah the screens that you look at are so like in this video the screens that they show you of this app are so complicated there's so many

different sizes of text and window and like times and arrows video doesn't make it look easy like it looks going in the video about how easy it is yeah whole point of it um i yeah i i know and and now i think that like yeah because i think we've all been in the seat of being the person who gets it i can get us around and i'll get us on the things so don't worry i got it and now we're all going to be like we're diffusing bombs and it's just flop sweating i don't know stuff you're looking at me there's an okay there's an update for the app and there's also an ios s update and if i don't update my operating system the app's not gonna work uh the wi-fi is still uh 2011 levels in all of these parts it's all your numbers off your cards let me scan your bar codes. While you're trying

to do your plan, there is an all-knowing robot in your pocket like, you should turn left now. There's not much ride at the frozen yogurt stand. Come on. You doesn't love frozen yogurt. It's like you got someone kibitzing, like second-guessing you with every step. Jeannie, did you prepay for my

frozen yogurt without asking me? I did. Yes, I did. Yeah. Jack Nicholson, was that you? You say you're lactose intolerant, but I think you're just whining. Okay, Genie. I'll work no frozen yogurt for a dull day. Did you just order four more?

Yeah, you should treat the guys next to you. Time to tank up. What? We're going to Mission Space later. Genie, I didn't get an entree. You just ordered me four sides of Alfredo dipping sauce. You don't want to miss these apps. I'm shoving it in your mouth now.

That's right. Now the app can do that. Open wide. You could be vegan at home. Time to party. Did you book me a night at the all star we're already staying at the contemporary yeah but what if you wanted a second hotel room just in case justin what if you meet somebody special if you want to cheat on your wife you're strange i've been looking at your at your browser history i know you've been you've had a i'm monitoring the pheromones of the women around you i've noticed some of them are feeling

slightly amorous searching for singles in your area you look in your partner's eyes all the time but when was the last time you really saw each other he never had a friend like me then you show up and it is your wife like yeah i came too for the exact same reason genie told me i'd meet the man of my dreams it's the pina colada song setting yeah that's right genie's good now genie's bringing people back together that'll be 800 for reciting your marriage why did you make me live the david fincher movie the game i just wanted to go to epcot do you appreciate your life more now i'm gonna come back in one year well actually i do have a trip planned for

you're still not gonna ride Ratatouille. Sorry, line's too long. Oh my God, what a journey. What a journey through this insane thing. Any closing thoughts about this? Or are we like, I don't know. Are you going to, well, look, Justin, after all this, are you going to do it? Are you going to do it?

You're going to go with a family? Are you going to try to make heads or tails out of this thing? I feel like no matter, I'm not going to do, I will try anything, right? Because it, why not? But like, I can't see it being like, I can't see like myself trusting the algorithm. I really, I may, you know, I don't know. I'll try it, but I can't imagine.

I will pay for the Genie Plus, obviously. And in terms of like the Surge price, I don't know, man. I don't know man i don't know that's that's yeah they haven't put the list out yet of what is surge and what is not which yeah for the genie plus they should just tack it on for vacation if you if you are buying park tickets and you're staying on site they should just give it away to anyone who does that for like you get people used to it i i think i saw theme park insider at disney tourist plot someone suggested this that it's like that's how you get people to adopt this and see if it really works it's just or if you're like vacation club or you know those people who are like already yeah dyed the wool like give it give it to the vacation club people

like that's that's how you're gonna get people on on board. And also like, they've taken away some, like they took away free parking. They've taken away so many perks. You may as well at least try giving them something, you know? Yeah. I think that like genie, like I obviously like we're going to test genie plus there are G seriously,

regular genie thoroughly, you know, in the coming, I don't know when is it? It's in the fall they haven't announced the date yet right yeah fall so that could be any time genie versus carlson genie versus carlson

is going to be the name of the episode thank you anyway yeah that's good jason said yeah it isn't it is like it's like deep blue it's like I'm going to try to beat the chess program deep blue that was jason's joke so I'm going to try to beat the chess program. That was Jason's joke.

So I'm going to test it out. I do suspect it is not going to be a thoroughly helpful program. I do suspect that, as Jason said, it's going to be glitchy and buggy. And I can't imagine it's going to... Should we make a prediction? Do we think Genie lasts? Oh, yeah. I think it lasts. I think it lasts because they put so much money into it.

I guess you're right. I just wonder if it's a... But it lasts as Genie. Is it a rebranded thing within the next five years? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, remember that mass in like 2014 or 2013 there was a massive like time or new york times profile about like we built a data center to manage the new my disney experience and like i

think someone told us a couple years ago like oh yeah we moved out of there ages ago it got way too big uh yeah and so that program didn't even last like 10 years as it was so yeah i feel like it'll be vestigial like it's some like they'll leave it there but it'll be like one of those there's things in the app now or if you open it it's like it like lights came on and the roaches went scattered scuttering under the carpet it's like nobody's supposed to nobody's supposed to be here get out there's something for you here yes uh so i'm i'm skeptical that that's going to be a really good thing and then as far as like genie plus genie plus is a similar situation where magic keys where you're like genie plus is just max pass but you don't

have all the rides so like that seems straightforward i guess at least i just i would just again i'd like to see the rides that are not going to be included before i know if it's like worth it to buy yeah i don't think we're gonna have a choice in the matter because i do think disney i do think disney genie is going to install himself and pay for himself on all of our phones and then go back and then once he's in our phones erase this episode and make us say only good things about him that's probably right yes he'll he can create podcast episodes a full podcast episode without voices yeah it is a perfect system i should have said this before but like this does jive with like a lot of what disney management it seems to be focused on now under chapek is like they don't actually there's so many people who are like oh

that's it i'm not going i'm done with this they don't care like disney does not want more people to come to the park they want the people who come to the park to spend more money like they they don't they're not having any problems getting people to come to them right that's why like i think the speed like the attractions and stuff is slowed down because like they don't they don't need to draw people in they need to just milk those people that are there for more cash. And as you said earlier, the people who tweet, I am never going again, are lying. They're there. They're actually in a bus going there at that moment.

They're in a full three-piece suit eating course number six at Victoria and Albert's. This is the last time, I swear to God. I can barely get this tweet out there with all this alfredo sauce on my phone i look i have this tuxedo for another day and yeah i'm coming back for lunch tomorrow okay um real quick guys just because i know we're gonna be wrapping up soon and i just thought was the best do you guys see the dj that they had at uh on main street i didn't get to watch people out of disney

world no no no well yeah what was this all about if i drop you know what if i drop a link to a video in chat would you be able to see it would that work i could pull it up yeah yeah okay okay great because the audio is well it's indiscernible but uh it's it's really it's really choice we got twitter we this is mickey view this is your guy you were saying you like mickey this is one of my guys one of my guys you know i roll with aj i got a career so here's here's your guy mickey views and this is a dj uh up at the train station as you're leaving the magic kingdom nostalgic beautiful like main street exit and this dude is in like a backwards black ball cap and looks like a tech crew for van halen but this is it

he's doing a raise the roof now in 2021 he's raising the roof happy bar mitzvah brandon you are a man today we're all celebrating three nights this poor dude someone puts up this video of like can you believe this the literal next day there is a report uh from another site where this guy set up his equipment someone came and said something to him he disassembled the equipment and it's not literally lasted like three days before they no one likes it no one likes it this is like we learned about this thing when the Mighty Ducks hockey team was owned by Disney. There was a halftime performer named Iceman who was a guy painted white who like played a keytar and got people pumped up to Gary Glitter. And then he was just fired that first.

That's even this. This is even less than Iceman. This is the least committed to character in Disney history because he doesn't even have a name. He's just black shirt dj get him up get him up it is 10 o'clock at night and my child hates me my wife hates me and i'm sweating everywhere i'm not going to get them up you you all said you wanted us to be more like universal okay what do you want usually it's usually like mickey and minnie and goof like waving gently as soft music plays yeah exactly like you feel this a nice little feeling in your

stomach and then you can't make it out of the video but this dude was also like directing people to where their boats were to get back to the resorts like if you're a wilderness lodge, you're going to tickle tickle right. Come on, get them up. You'll be a bitch to stand 17. Just distorted Owl City music playing as a guy in stage crew black screams at you that the monorail is not operational. There are extra buses running. I don't want to see any of you lie and say that you're staying in the contemporary to use it as an Uber or Lyft pool. Please do not do that.

Okay. Well, you know what? Hey everybody. I hope you had a really happy podcast listening experience. This has been a blast. Hope it's magical. Justin McElroy.

You survived. Podcast arrived. Put them up, put them up, put them up, put them up, put them up. Thank you.

Justin, put them up. Hey, let's exit through the gift shop. Is there anything that you would like to plug? We got to have. Yeah, you don't have to. If you go to McElroy dot family, all the stuff that we make is there. So you can go see it all.

That's where the whole tree branches out from from that. Yeah, we were going to have some live shows to plug. Now we don't have those to plug. So I got nothing to plug. see it all. That's where the whole tree branches out from, from that point. We were going to have some live shows to plug. Now we don't have those to plug. So I got nothing to plug. So just go to that website and listen to my content. Right. Well,

if you're excited about the live shows, then put them down. Um, uh, well, just, thanks for reaching out. It was so great to have you. This is,

this is a blast. Uh, and as for us, you can find us on the socials at Podcast The Ride. Merch is available in our Tee Public Store. And for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast The Ride The Second Gate at patreon.com slash podcasttheride, where, if you want to hear more logistics talk, we just talked about the Magic Key program and the Enchant Key and the Believe Key. And I'm sure we'll do an episode about the black shirt DJ soon enough.

So be on the lookout for all that. And as for us, I like the genie. I will close and say I'm free from having to talk about logistics anymore. Are you though? Could it be? There could be more things coming.

Stop recording. Stop recording. Forever. Dog. This has been. Forever. Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com

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