Podcast: The Ride - UNLOCKED: Margaritaville Resort Orlando

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Enjoy this sample of P:TR-The Second Gate.  Available at Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide We put on fun shirts and set our watches to island time to visit the enigma that is Margaritaville Resort Orlando! 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

Forever! Dog! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 You go for it then. Alright, fins up! Welcome to the ride the second gate my name is mike carlson joining me as always skipper jason sheridan uh fins up and skipper scott gairdner i just got the same one two skippers on this journey fins up only one captain you are the captain now i am i this was a whole confusing thing about what a skipper and a

captain are didn't we do we talk about this already i believe we talked and then we kind of found an answer where it's like the captain like the skipper skipper steer a skipper mans the wheel right and the captain just tells him what to do i guess i think so i might be wrong anyway the skipper yells at the guy in the funny hat he hits uh sweater skipper hits the captain with his hat yeah that's the whole thing is gilligan the captain that's what i think that's what we were talking about and i think we've already forgotten what we like learned i think gilligan is the captain i don't think no he's the first i don't think maritime hierarchy was really well enforced on that three-hour tour.

No, I don't think so. But it was just... That was the problem. Had there been a solid captain, they never would have been in that scenario. There were only two crew members on the minnow, though, in Gilligan's Island. Yes? Two crew members of Gilligan? I guess that's the full staff.

Was there a captain who died i don't think anyone died on gilligan's island no but before they got there oh during the crash yeah or whatever and they just don't inspire don't mention him in the opening theme let's never bring this up again the dead captain the navigator or the corpse of the navigator they're all dead did i tell ever tell the story i knew someone who worked in entertainment on a cruise line when they were younger and she told me facts about like well the like the the lido deck the entertainment people and even some of the performers because they're like good with crowds and good at communicating they are the ones who get in charge of the lifeboats uh you know when everyone is put on a

lifeboat they become the one in charge and by the rules of the ocean uh you have to listen to them uh and also every lifeboat has a gun on it. And so your Lido deck person doing the limbo contest is trained how to use a firearm. Should there be a mutiny in a lifeboat? Potentially. Whoa. This was the long and short of it she gave me. Oh, my God.

So like a singing impressionist on a cruise is potentially yeah doing voices he'll do william shatner and then he'll shoot you in your head christopher walken uh uh the skipper is the captain what that's what it says or at least jonas grumby the skipper on gillingham's island which is his name jonas grumby jonas grumby played by alan hale jr the skipper uh was the owner and captain of the ss minnow and he owned the boat he owned the boat so once back on land he has to go through a sully-esque trial about like other options he could have taken yeah or maybe wait no because if he's the owner then he does he's not subjected to that had there

been a different boat ownership company so that's what you avoid by buying the boat yourself yes you never want to own the boat you know you never financial movie you never own your own boat uh do you know gilligan's first name i didn't vince no willie gilligan gilligan is the last name yeah i don't think that ever occurred to me it was like like gilligan goof feather yeah gilligan beckett or something well gilligan served in the united states navy with jonas Grumby during an unspecified war and saved him from being struck and killed by a runaway depth charge. Wait, so what war would it have been? We're in the 60s? I guess World War II or Korea.

Korea? I think Korea. Did they know? Wait, no, they didn't know MASH. MASH is a different, that's not Navy. Yeah, no. That was not a crossover. No. That would not have been

a good taste. But they would respect each other if they met. So Gilligan was the first mate. And the skipper was the captain, the skipper. Even though it was Gilligan's island, he was not the captain. I'm not sure they ever called it Gilligan's island. Right.

That's just what we know it has which has been grumpy's island yeah because i mean i like that you love the skipper i prefer in the same i'll always you know i really think of it as revenge of the jedi and i really think of it as grumpy's island i'm a purist like uh they're they star wars made a lot of um merch that said revenge of the jedi as well because they've just tried to make as much stuff so like there's like revenge of the jedi figures that were maybe had like alternative costumes that might have been in the movie or whatever there should be grumpy's island merch how rare a poster that would be yeah these islands

released only in france i don't know if i don't know anticipation was so high for grumpy's Island. Released only in France. I don't know if... I don't know... Anticipation was so high for Grumpy's Island. This episode, by the way, is all about Gilligan's Island, obviously. Yeah. Yep. You figured it out. A show I've never seen a full episode of. What, really?

I would catch it on Nick at Night sometimes. I've seen pieces of it, but I don't think I've ever watched a full one. Certainly on the Jaws episode, I assume we talked about when the harlem globetrotters yeah the harlem globetrotters meet go to gillings island when they throw a bunch of basketballs in jaws's mouth that's my main familiarity and then i think there's a big basketball game on the island but i'm yeah i'm more familiar with that than the show i guess but i don't know how i because i you know'm like a, I was like a Brady Bunch loving kid even when I was like nine. And like, I've been like a kitsch guy my whole life. How did I not know Jonas Grumby?

That's amazing. I didn't know that till now. Or Willie Gilligan. Did you know Willie Gilligan? Oh, I didn't know that either. Yeah. I'm just less obsessed with that because it's not as. It's not as funny.

Delightful as a name. Jonas Grumby was the skipper no one ever called him that yeah i well i mean i've never seen the show so maybe they did call him that every episode and i don't know well this is an uncle this is an uncle joey scenario uh the with the argument we've had about did anyone call joey gladstone uncle joey right he's not an uncle if you know that if did anybody call well it's got a if we know that name and somebody must have called him jonas gray but would like the you know would ginger ever casually call him jonas right let us know there's gotta be some forget that we said any of this and we'll go why

why someone telling us this in a year we'll have the same conversation about the skipper probably was he the captain? Yeah. Yeah. What episode? If you know what episode we talked about this already, please let us know. Are you sure we did? Or was this just in life, in conversation?

It's all one now. It's all a blur. Who knows? Was it content or was it our off time? There's no way to know. Just doing content for free. None of that is what we are actually talking about today what we're talking about is margaritaville resort orlando which you know from the file name but why are

we talking about this um you know again things we've talked about a number of times but to reacquaint everybody with the tail sit right back and you'll hear a tale uh how did this all play out uh mike uh a long time jimmy buffett obsessive a rare jimmy buffett fan under the age of 55 um you made a swear of all this uh this buffett culture insanity yes and specifically that they're opening a a hotel and timeshare community in orlando resort you can call it a resort. Mixed use was the term I saw thrown around a lot. Oh, sure. Okay, okay.

So there is like a main hotel building with restaurants and bars and stuff, but then there's a bunch of cottages that you can rent, thus making it kind of a bigger campus, thus there being a lot of street names and official street names that had to be figured out and named by a city like it's a real yeah yeah yeah uh real city streets so at some point you were you must have been on an email list yeah i'm just on the general you know margaritaville fans

email list i assume i don't think it was anything special um and there was an email that that was it were invite they were inviting fans to name help name the streets at this new resort this mixed use um place yeah and ultimately you go now that you look around there i feel like there's like probably only like nine streets all told i kind of figured it was going to be so sprawling yeah that they needed a giant amount which is why we sent a giant amount uh in a event that presaged the podcast yes uh the three of us two yeah over a year uh the three of us and anthony geo eerily that is the group yes all coming up with together a hundred jimmy buffett related street names uh to send to this this cup this email the person that probably never

anticipated that may be anticipated getting like three or four ideas from a couple people yes did not expect a hundred i don't think but never like at least had a poker face about being shocked if they were shocked at the amount yeah and let's just say what we knew of this resort then was very blue sky it seemed like it was going to be very grand yeah wonderful concept wonderful concept and it also seemed like it was going to be very finished. Which maybe it will. Which maybe it will. There's still.

There's still time. There's still working on it, which is very clear when you go there. But yeah, I, you know, honestly, and then, you know, so this is in Orlando and it's not that far from Disney World. So I thought, you know, like we start this podcast. We've had this obsession with this Margaritaville resort. I knew it seemed inevitable that we'd all be at Disney World together at some point in time. I think my picture of it was always that we would

all rent a cottage together and be hanging out and that that would be the grandest week we ever had. The combo of Disney World and universal and that we're in this crazy nice luxurious resort and keeping prices low by all splitting right fun party house i think that's what i imagined we would end up doing it didn't happen i hate to go back should we do a little should we say a little of the names that we've submitted i mean we've certainly done this and tweeted it but feel free no i know i try to say ones you don't think we've said before. It's a good reminder. It's some good callbacks.

Well, I just found the email thread, and I think I've said a little of this before, but they're giving you the name of Jimmy Buffett-related things, and then say alley, bay, boulevard, circle. So just a few of them. Again, we won't do all of them. Cajun Court, Damp Ramp, Rumba Ridge ridge i think these are all yours yours were at the end uh wink and wail way is that me i don't think it's me uh boogie board bend five o'clock cove steel drum summit tailgate turnpike these are all by the way i think we all wanted to not we wanted

to slip a couple weirder ones in but we wanted a good shot at getting an actual street yeah there's some broad ones in there a lot and my the one i like the best that i submitted is marshall park named after jim and i wrote after jimmy's friend movie producer frank marshall which that did not happen but uh skip and work circle uh tomcat trail moonshine alley uh jerk circle or no my favorite of yours scott was short street i remember it's straight um anyway and then david wrote back awesome list mike really appreciate your creativity and time to put this together i will keep you posted on the results he thinks you're one guy too right yeah i mean i i did not want to like take credit i guess i did take credit for all of it but i want to be like my three friends and i

you're trying to be like tyler perry saying you don't have a writer's room i guess that is what's gonna happen that's what i'm doing now but sure enough do you want me to email david hurst back right now and explain that it was not just me no no i'm just saying his perception oh i see like a hundred from one man right yeah yeah i mean he's he's on eggshells because like this is a crazy man yeah i think my idea was it was funnier even if i just was like yeah because i wasn't yeah no i i i agree with that i look we're getting plenty of credit here with our audience we're getting it uh what now what our audience. We're getting it. Now, what I think you should do with this person is email him and say, hey, we got to go down there.

We loved it. We walked around and we're so excited that you used one of our names and see if you get an acknowledgement. That's, I think, the missing component. We should have congratulated ourselves and said, you're welcome or because. And we've covered all this on the main feed at some point in time but in that of that list of 100 they did use one and that name is dreamsicle drive yes and it is one of his jimmy's songs is he has a song called dreamsicle um but i'm just saying well i'm taking credit for it, but also maybe someone else submitted it. I shouldn't even think that. It's crossed my mind.

It's occurred to me that maybe that was like one that was already on the list or somebody else submitted it. But I think we can't go there. You're right. We have to operate from. We got it. We named a street in America. There's only so many of those. It's such a huge honor.

We're not asking for a lot. No. I don't think we're asking. I don of those it's it's such a huge honor we're not asking for a lot no i don't think we're asking i don't think it's unreasonable dave i realize now david the last email i sent david uh he didn't respond he does not work for this company he has already gotten out of there i said so so after this and like four months later i said hey david just following up how did the naming go and he said mike we submitted over 50 names to the uh the county for approval oh once we finalize our site plan we will assign names to streets probably late this summer this is 2016 have a great holiday weekend we have to know what i want to know what that list of 50 was right we must have had more

on there we must have like really helped flesh out that 50 i mean surely the county would not have taken the one with moonshine in it or jerking in it just when i submitted drink and drive which doesn't seem like they would like name a street app but i wanted to see if i could sneak in may 27 2016 then i emailed david march 27 2018 and i say hey there david just wondering if the final streets were are the the street names were ever finalized thanks no response now he may have sniffed out by this point we are not or you are not a person who's going to buy property at this result well that's another good point because i kept getting emails from a different email address. You got the perspective. Asking me if I wanted to put a hundred grand down

to buy one of these places. And I did not put a hundred grand down. Do I regret it? No. Did I ever explain to you guys how I was always pitching the idea to our friend, had not been on the show,

but our constant and real life friend, Andrew Grissom, that I was saying like, and I think like, like you know what could be cool is we all go in on this uh margaritaville cottage and like doesn't he don't you think that'd be fun and he was really cross about it like no why would i do that like why would you not want to like go hang out at a at a time like we're gonna go to florida and all live in a house together and he for we had several of these conversations before i realized he thought I meant we were all going to buy it together.

Oh, cause he was so cross. It's like, what? We're going to go to a house that has like a hot tub and we're all going to hang out and get drunk. He thought you were doing an actual timeshare presentation. He was,

which he's correct. If that's what he thought, if me suggesting that seven adults all buy a Florida timeshare together in equal, but that is a terrible plan. He was mad. He wasn't mad at me, but I believe I threw it out to him to name some streets and he refused. Man of principle.

Man of principle. I'm pretty sure it's not a joke. I think he was the only other person I asked. I go, hey, you know, we're naming some streets if you want to get in on this. And I think he was the only Other person I asked I go hey you know We're naming some streets If you want to get in on this And I think he was I think he didn't know What I was talking about

And thus he's never Appeared on the podcast That's right That's right You had to have Gotten in on this bit Before you committed To have been on

Logging out Log the hours January 2016 Wow Wow Yeah Long time ago No

Yeah Could scarcely have dreamed Of what was to come this entire podcast and that we would successfully name a street and then that we would all get to go there together as you listeners know we were all in Orlando together in October and thus with this we were afforded the opportunity to go not by they would invite us or anything no it was like well we certainly have to go and see dreamsicle drive for ourselves um so we took time out of a kind of tight week in which which we were

trying to spend you know in fun theme parks and we carved out a couple hours uh to to make sure we stopped by the margaritaville resort um we took a lift we all shared a lift mike you brought this up in the live show in orlando uh but there was the very funny detail that the driver as we're pulling in is like hmm what's all this i've never been here before i've never been here before i'm certain i've never taken anyone here what's this about and like these orlando drivers lyft uber whatever probably taxi like they know everything so well that is something you know because it's such a tourist place sometimes in los angeles i think so many people have just started driving you know sometimes people i feel like i'm in a lyft or uber

in la they don't necessarily know this place and it it's obviously packed. It's got so much stuff. Orlando, nine times out of 10, when you're in those cars, people know everything. They know all the hotels. There's so many hotels. Right. They've been everywhere. You're going to the Marriott Village. You're not going to the Marriott Plaza. Okay.

Got it. Yeah. And there were retired cast members. There were other like. Yes. They know everything. Yeah. And he had never.

He had never been there. Never taking anyone there for any reason um and it took a while too because we went from disney springs to margaritaville resort which is closer to the it's like close to animal kingdom yeah yeah uh which i now first of all let me say thank god we did not for that as soon as I saw the distance, I was like, oh, thank God we didn't stay here and then try to commute into Disney World. The whole trip reminded me it's pretty important to be on campus or exceedingly near campus. Getting around is going to be a huge pain in the ass.

Maybe important context to say also, when did this hotel open? Was it beginning of 2019? It's so confusing, the timeline. Yeah. It seems like 2018. They were supposed to be open earlier. Yeah, we kept seeing updates and what's up.

There's a lot of drama behind the scenes. There's at least one lawsuit happening. And didn't, now on the way to this, somebody who we were talking to to coordinate things for our Orlando trip, didn't now on the way to this somebody who we were talking to to coordinate things for our lando trip didn't somebody say give us the little info like oh yeah it's not going well well somebody yeah somebody sort of told us that like buffett had pulled out of ownership wow the actual margaritaville company and they were like licensing the name they're distancing

themselves in a very trump manner yes there's a lot of trump properties that the trump it's just the name stamped on it but nobody in the trump organization like operates it right so there's still a lot of buffett stuff especially in that hotel obviously but he's not actually involved anymore that's very confusing to me because one thing i learned is that the presidential suite is called the jimmy buffett suite in the hotel yeah yeah that that name that's printed on the outside well there's so much stuff inside that's like his lyrics and stuff are printed around yeah and they're selling all the merch yeah they're selling the blender and and it's and

all the streets are named after his songs right so this is a weird distinction that he doesn't he has nothing to do with it but they're like licensing it's a it's a tokyo uh disney situation but like i think by necessity and not by choice maybe i can give okay uh a little bit of time so So that the vlogger Tim Tracker, who posted the walkthrough where someone spotted one of the street we named. That's how we know DreamSicle. That's how we named it.

He did a very thorough, his video was published on February 5th, 2019. And in it, he a few times goes like, so this isn't open yet. Or like this seems, they just took the walls down. Like there's a couple moments like that. So that's early 2019. We can pin that down.

Technically open. People can walk around it, but a lot of stuff not operational. So surely by October, they have their shit together. Right? And remember, we named stuff in January 2016 2016 yeah a long time ago a long time the estimate at this property in a news article at 750 million dollars does that sound high uh for like the full comp if you think about the cost to build everything they built the full yeah building licensing uh you know utility like that that's what i saw an estimate at and they also had to probably bulldoze that um uh the china the chinese the the what not a theme park like actual

china like physical china sort of stuff wasn't it yeah i don't remember what i don't know what that was it seemed very it seemed like it like a gardens that's probably what like a chinese gardens kind of situation yes yeah i think the tin tracker referred to it as like a roadside attraction the the nice way you refer to like ball of largest ball of yarn sure yes okay uh so uh yeah i that number doesn't ring true with me mainly because of the houses but here maybe that's okay so let's get to this moment where so we we land and i was going through my videos and photos and there's a video where the driver says so wait where do you want me to drop you off and i very pointedly say oh right here on dreamsicle drive this is really the hammiest i could do it um we didn't tell him

though right we weren't we didn't try to confuse him by saying we made the street no no yeah i think that would have been exceedingly confusing yeah yeah we also like there's a gate there is a gate and we're like oh i was like okay what lie do we say what lie do we and he just went drop it off and they're like okay and that was all they took the only thing that might have been weird is that again no one had ever been dropped off there before no one is dropping off huh that's never happened no one why are you really here no one gets out of here alive bail dive out of the car windows in that said same video jason you say oh we're meeting somebody you like jam in you get the excuse into the driver you got you were so anxious even before this started i will say right i i don't know why.

This place made me very, the hotel was fine. We didn't get attacked by ghosts, though. I'm just saying. No, but just the, it is rare you go to Orlando, a place notable for its crowds. And it's just empty. This was so empty. It was such a ghost town. I think that and the combination that for a while

we were just standing on a street corner like in the eyeline of the guard shack of like these the secondary entrance to the property and every time i would look over they would be looking at us and i'm like oh my god but you saw guards looking at us yeah you guys didn't notice that no like across the street there was a different there was the side entrance to the property and there was a gate when we were at dreamsicle drive yeah and people kept coming out and like looking right at us i did not notice that whatsoever okay so that might that changes the context like i i had been like oh god are we gonna get uh lost are we gonna just because it just felt like you know how when you want to be at disney world time goes goes so fast and you're like i wish you could just move slower this was the place in orlando where it felt like time was

moving very slowly to me and i think our show was that night too right our show was that night and i was like oh god we got to get back up i4 to my hotel to work on the show and then get to the hotel sure so i'm i'm always a little like anxious before i perform any i'm always a little like in like show mode days anyway you don't feel like walking around in a mostly abandoned timeshare community well and i i had such a nice time with you guys at disney like us like we had such a disney springs is so nice and i had such a nice time even though i walked out of the restaurant without my credit card it's oh yes you were chased down that's right i was just so it's such it's such a high and then like we're just driving we such it's such a high and then like

and then we were just driving forever and then we just show up at like an empty housing development and i was like oh no like highest highs lowest lows and i think down to the yeah you wanted it was just like you had not i had not seen you that anxious all trip. You wanted to leave immediately. And you kept saying like, I'm, I'm freaked out. This is freaking me out. Yeah. I don't know. I did not see the guards either, but bad energy, like just a bad vibes from that place. Did you think though, maybe the guards were just like, Oh, I've never seen somebody on

that street before. Wow. A person. There's a couple of people over there. Huh? Are they still there yeah they are certainly we weren't doing anything wrong there was no trespassing occurring that was the vibe i got from you jc i thought you were like i i thought you you seemed very much operating

from we're doing something wrong which we were not we're walking around a resort where anyone can go uh well kind of i think the hotel is more public property than like the like so that wasn't there's never like a who are you here to see that's what that's what that's what makes it different i had a relative at the place leisure world in orange county there's a check-in station like okay give us the name and it's not that scenario so that to me indicates it's fine anybody can go there i think it took me a while to process like oh they don't have their shit together finishing this they surely wouldn't have their shit together for operational security i mean but i think anywhere i think any like resort that has a bunch of like villas and stuff

i think you can go to i don't think that's a problem at all i i have i certainly have your good boy instinct of like uh-oh we're gonna get in trouble but if it's for the podcast now what i do my brain overrides that by saying it would be maybe the funniest greatest thing of all time if we were kicked out of the margaritaville resort that would be the greatest i guess that's true you're a little more yeah you're a little more but i'm not i'm saying i have that instinct but then i go man wouldn't this be great if the security comes over and i don't what would they even do i mean obviously like hopefully they don't kill us but they shouldn't kill us they should kill us but you never know if they call florida cops you never know that even

killing us is in the picture for you i wasn't saying we're gonna kill us fine say they were gonna kill us i wasn't worried there was no problem here whatsoever saying wouldn't it be funny if we ended up in the margaritaville jail or something like that would be great that would be so funny laid-back jail with pastel colors yeah with jimmy buffett lyrics on the wall little umbrellas stuck to the bars yeah i mean you also just the fear of the unknown you don't know the people who closed quickly and set up shop at the villas like you don't know what you're getting from that uh well those kinds of characters i i poo-pooed your they'll kill us thing. It is possible there are a number of gun owners in the Margaret of Bel.

I don't think they would come out of their balcony and just fire around. But maybe. I don't know. You actually have changed my perspective with that. Yeah. They go out on their porch. Someone's on Instagram live out here. Boom.

There's a gun tapes to that like Jimmy Buffett style chair. They're always hawking out on their balcony. They like rip it down and just like nail the three of us. Thank God none of us were in hoodies. Oh my God. Jesus. That's too chilling. But I. Okay. hoodies oh my god jesus um that's too chilling uh but i okay so we're we we did a little instagram video that people might have watched uh celebrate reveling in a dream cycle drive uh which intersects

with several streets fins up circle latitude lane and seaplane lane so it covers a lot of ground now these are called streets but they might more accurately be referred to as parking lots the the bulk of this is empty parking spaces that's so much of what we walked through we posted a couple photos we will post more but this was just this was mainly like walking through a giant parking lot that incidentally happened to have some like children's they look like giant kids playhouses is what these houses look like yeah they're what would you yeah pastel colors basically yellow blue orange and um i mean the big thing that i noticed and it's a little better by the hotel minimal landscaping like not a lot of greenery yes i mean there's a lot of like sections where you just see open swamp land yeah yeah open marsh zero definitely not like lakes portrayed

in all the concept art is lakes yeah it looks like it's like mining runoff like it looks like runoff or or i i don't know it's brown it's very brown water um and there's just no privacy in between cottages they're right on top of each other and there's like no trees no fences it's all like a share if you imagine if 12 houses all have one shared thin narrow backyard that's all like stones instead of grass and then you all you all have margaritaville branded jacuzzis which seem to be entirely industrial plastic yeah that look like they have margaritaville advertisements on this like they look like shit have margaritaville advertisements on this like they look like shit the margaritaville jacuzzis look like shit yeah uh the whole thing

i get this this whole thing was kind of like a perma fire festival yeah it felt in the way that like all those structures were like fema airdrops and sort of falling apart. And there's just like a lot of tarps peeling. And, uh, you know, you could see with the right color correction and aerial shot of this area, it might look like sand,

but you're there in person and you realize, Oh, there's maybe I might call this dirt. I think it was a thin line between sand and dirt. If like a hurricane, I think I said this in one of the, one of our previous episodes, a hurricane came, those things are flying away it feels like like those it feels like they didn't even like bolt them to the ground there's no stuff like they just yeah set them down

on top of the land and there's such rows that i think they would topple like dominoes if we leaned on one of them i think so yeah fall falling over whoops it's like peewee in the bikes in the whole thing and they would go around yeah the whole resort would have i think so next line next line next line a giant domino rally which would have been really fun again also would look very impressive in an aerial shot but would it would be less. And then we get shot maybe, but maybe we can tequila our way out of it. At least with a fun dance. Trying to find a picture, but I can't seem to find it.

Um, of the, uh, rubber utility line hoses just sticking out of the ground. Yeah. Oh, that's what those were. Yes.

A bunch of like black, just loose wires everywhere. Uh, loose gravel, just like unbuilt lots,built like lots you think this is a little close to the main building you think you would have finished these or at least put some temporary plantings or something it feels if like a if a plane accidentally lost some fuel or some gasoline while passing by above oh no it's sprinkled in

the wrong place you it might all just like poof if somebody lights a cigarette in there so it might be bad or a cigar because there is a cigar bar in the main hotel i mean we're we're making our way we're making our way over there chronologically the way we made it through that was the other thing it the space felt like i couldn't tell if we were three miles from the hotel or two blocks and i guess it was kind of in between we were probably maybe like a little under a mile like i don't know we were wandering in and out we were at a far. We were at a far point. We were at a far point, but it's, it was closer than it. I mean,

there, there it's far. It does go for a while. And there's a bunch of land that they haven't even started building. Seemingly yet. I think that's right. There's a phase two that may never occur. I just,

I feel kind of, I don't know. I think I also just feel bad for the people who may have like got in on this thinking it was going to be like, this will be our investment, our vacation home, our tropical paradise. And it's like, we love Jimmy Buffett. We're going to be living with a bunch of Jimmy Buffett fans. We're going to be old, drunk and horny together.

Lou Pearlman Jr. took our money and is in another country now. And it's, there's's it's like a key party but you don't even need the keys just like all the doors are open just go in just have sex with my wife whenever you want lift up the side of the whole house sneak under sure you don't have to have the door unlocked all right pleasure having sex with you you too bye bye now and they yeah it's it's very possible people very early were like holy shit this is it's not the retirement homes that jimmy buffett is also building and has built to margarita that is latitude margarita 55 and older i believe yes this is a different situation this is if you don't need assisted living necessarily

yeah this is a place to spend your last few uh mobile years yeah so this is also not a casino a margaritaville casino oh no there are those which you probably are safer putting your money there then um now we definitely i also i this i definitely have a photo of just a bunch of like cement blocks all that are like half formed something but they just bailed on like i'll get to that later yeah whatever there's a really good photo of the two of you like under a little shack sort of dispiritedly pointing out to a like to a marsh to a green tarp fence that's peeling off what would be interesting is sorry oh go ahead i was just gonna say like the walkways when you try to walk like between streets there would be a walkway

you know like sometimes how you like it's not the sidewalk but there's a walkway between two houses to get to the other street in between some of the houses yeah and those felt so unfinished and it did it felt like you were trespassing that yeah that i wasn't sure like is this public street or is this just like a guy getting from his front yard to his backyard unclear i think that whatever it seemed to indicate that because like you know where i grew up in the suburbs there would be those type of things that you would walk from it wouldn't be a sidewalk around with the street it would just be kind of a little shortcut through houses but the houses would have a nice space in between them so clear this and it would be a clear yeah fences and a little walkway to get to the uh other street you should not buy property somewhere where it's not

clear what is property yeah i don't it's it was not like when we were walking through it was like our shoulders were hitting both houses but it feels like that in my mind like there there's a phrase we haven't even said yet the bike share setup oh do Oh. Do we remember that? Not really. No. Okay. There was multiple bike share stations. Like, download the app to unlock this bicycle. Right, right. And they were all very full.

Like, they all were installed. Right. And they're like, download the app here to check check it out we should have ridden bikes around that would have been fun that would have been fun yeah yeah but at this point the desperation was kicking in to keep moving and get over to the hotel where we knew it was safe now because i love bizarre decaying places and abandoned not not that i'm going into i don't go into like fully abandoned malls or anything but i like when like oh this should be full of people and it is not this is some weird capitalism i like things like that i really eat up uh fries electronics episode coming oh yeah

speaking of uh so i'm like i'm eating all of this up and at some point i said to jason uh or just just to both of you like i think this is my favorite thing of the trip and jason shot back immediately oh fuck you are just to both of you like, I think this is my favorite thing of the trip. And Jason shot back immediately, oh, fuck you. I saw you were teasing me and I was just like... When we say that, like I sometimes, you know, sometimes I'm exaggerating if I'm telling a story

about you, but we are not exaggerating that you were like on edge this whole time. I think like five things hit me at once including like feeling bad if people who live there like like we're just making fun of their unfortunate decision but i guess we didn't see any of them so we didn't see a soul you need to wait for the sun to go down for the I am legend monsters to come out. There were like two or three places with cars in the driveway. Yeah. And then there was one person and they might've just been working on the house.

I couldn't tell. And this is out of at least. One or two people walking inside somewhere. Out of at least 200 houses. Something like that. Yes. Is it, is the total, I think one article had it at 324 units wow geez it's also unclear to me which of these are functioning as property you own and which are

timeshare yeah i don't know uh i'm so confused i don't know i don't know what any of this is they could have switched around because what the emails that I have been getting for a long time was, buy it. Like, fully, just straight up buy it. But I think maybe a lot of people buy it and then rent it. It's like a Big Bear scenario. It's like cabins that you rent out a lot. So, I bet a lot of these are owned by people who do not live there. But they throw them up on VRBO.

Right, yes. Yeah, I didn't find any. I searched Airbnb for this, like, map area. I didn't find any i searched airbnb for this like map area i didn't find any for this place but there's so many resorts like airbnb orlando is insane there's just so many resorts and so many people just renting out vacation places for sure i saw the things on vrbo because as soon as we like started seeing some street names i was like okay well we got to find out if any of these are so i was like at one point feverishly searching are there listings yet on vrbo and are any of these and then our names and like latitude lane fuck damn it i was so anxious so the revelation i love

that we within a 15 minute video that we just just via one zoom in we discovered dreamsicle drive do you now here's a question we kind of breeze past our name do you think that that street reflected the spirit of dreamsicles in any particular way first of all what is a dreamsicle well dreamsicle is a popsicle it's a it's a brand name popsicle but it's not his brand isn't it creamsicle. Dreamsicle is a portmanteau of dream and creamsicle. Right. I'm saying, but dreamsicle is a real, wait, say it again. Huh?

What did you just say? I said it was a portmanteau. It's creamsicle and dream. Creamsicle and dream together, isn't it? But dreamsicle is, it's a real. Is that at this point someone has the brand of that? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a, here, hold on let me find it oh i should have had this loaded up can you real quick scott what fill uh me in what is is vrbo vacation rental i believe yeah i think so yeah okay yeah um i'm not seeing anything i'm not seeing the actual like uh package with it but but people are referring to this as a dreamsicle, which is what you would think a creamsicle, orange and ice cream. Okay. So maybe that's like a casual terminology for the classic orange with the white coming

out of the bottom. But I think one brand has at least called it a dreamsicle over the years. I see. But I'd have to find... When you hear the song dreamsicle, that's what's um but i have to find that's immediate when you hear the song dreamsicle that's what's conjured to you yes gotcha um i uh it was i mean i know the answer but did anything did anything on that street make you go yep this is a street that is like a dreamsicle uh no and it didn't uh i'm trying to think of the lyrics to dreamsicle

which i've brought up before we definitely when this came before you read the lyrics yeah so let's not read the lyrics no we don't have to do that um but it's a very casual song he names a lot of food in it as i said on doughboys jimmy buffett writes about food more than weird al uh dreamsicle big dill pickle that's a line in the song disgusting combination no not those yeah do you chase a popsicle with a pickle get out of here yeah um the sickle part uh rung true to me because i saw a pale rider in a black hood in the distance something is coming the hammer is coming for this place those weren't security guards no security guards at all pestilence famine

so we keep we as quickly as we can make our way out of this neck of the woods we we say we say goodbye to dreamsicle drive uh and we make our way to the hotel area and we pass by the the pool and the pool is you know as you'd expect out of this a sprawling uh pool and i imagine the jacuzzi and slide type campus and now we finally see some people there are some people and i don't want to cast dispersions on everybody there but certainly there were a few specific people there who i saw who i would describe as looking like sex traffickers i well i don't mean to add to the joke but it seemed like there was a convention and i'm just saying that i'm actually being serious because i feel like there were itinerary signs Oh you're not saying a sex trafficker convention

Maybe though I would maybe It was probably some Generic name Like Paradigm Holdings Inc I'm like what is this Don't ask anymore but it's a sex trafficker Legitimate business I know that for sure

You know Concrete or something Headquarters in Little St. James Yeah The other legitimate business i know that for sure headquarters concrete or something headquarters i'm asking headquarters in little saint james yeah the other margarita was going to be built there we're going to build another one of these down there so um and i i also recently like i stumbled upon and this will this will come up a little more i found the youtube channel of margaritaville resort orlando um that and and it's a channel like hosted by this young like uh influencer type girl who i looked up and she hosts all of the things in the orlando magic at the game like all the little things right at the games like we're doing the you know the half court shot or whatever so it their

promotional material is hosted by like you know like young excitable millennial kind of girl and you look around and there is not that anywhere and if you are that don't go to this place or at least not when this particular convention is also booking.com has this room right like rooms this place right now for like one ninety eight two hundred dollars. I feel like you can probably find something comparable much closer to attractions. Well, how can any hotel justify the prices when you know only like 40 percent of it is full? I mean, yeah, I know deals the hotel. Yeah. Cut some deals. I mean deals the hotel yeah i cut some deals i mean the hotel

felt finished the hotel looked comparable to other margaritaville hotels yes i i have seen well it had the requisite giant sandal had the giant sandal and the did it have the it had the giant pop top behind it pop it's usually yeah step from the song it's a flip-flop if i stepped on a pop top my flip-flop what's a pop top though the cans used to have a little tab when you used to have to pull the whole thing off yeah and there's that behind the flip yes it's kind of on the floor behind it you see my photos here yeah they have those statues at all the hotels like that's the what did they call it in the imagineering story the weenie the big item to draw your eye yeah okay yeah and anna ran i know from the youtube channel that around christmas they put a big santa hat on

it here's another thing about the youtube channel some of of the videos that I saw, I was the 14th viewer of. There was a video about weddings, about getting married at Margaritaville Resort Orlando. I was the third viewer of this video. And there's pictures of husband and wife, woman in bridal gown, and they're both holding bizarre multicolor know bizarre multi-color margaritas together this is not a way to get huh um very strange very strange uh i we kind of breezed by it real quick there were a lot of different places in the area that are like fitness centers that were all named also after jimmy's oh you're right yes there was finn's up fitness and the saint somewhere spa okay so they still had that stuff there named those were not open when tim track

i remember tim tracker like banging on the like right how's this all right never mind i mean if you're in orlando and heading to orlando and your goal is to lay low. Full marks for this place. High marks. Yeah, and you could also lay low. There was like almost no one in the restaurant slash bar called Euphoria. I gave that a good look. And I imagine there aren't a ton of people in the comedy club bonkers with a Z. Bonkers with a Z.

Comedy and cocktails every Friday and Saturday. Doors open at 7 p.m. We were also told it was a cigar bar. The worst thing in the world. Oh, my God. Uh, for, especially for people who use their voices for their profession. Their only job is to speak. It's to speak.

And they have to do it in a room full of cigars. Full of people with stogie. There was the old days they had to do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Jimmy Hoffa did it all the time. Rickles did it. Yeah.

He was inhaling the smoke. The standards are different now. Should I tell the story then about uh someone telling us that we should perform at bonkers sure uh okay so we were in that hotel and they have a margarita gift shop margaritaville gift shop we walked in on a conversation between the employee and an older gentleman yeah and when none of us knew exactly what the context was but they were just lamenting the fact that things are changing this country man things are changing who knows what it was about this ain't what it used to be like like that's that's what i my biggest regret of the trip is

not catching we don't know exactly we all three of us heard it i think and we all were hoping one of us had the key to exactly what they had been lamenting but and they weren't they weren't doing it in an angry they were well yep things are different things used to be a different way i guess they didn't keep talking and then say well i'm sure for damn i all i'm saying merry christmas this year right i don't care could have been that who knows so we're walking around i tried to find something to buy that i would use and i couldn't i bought a visor yes uh now i do now have three margaritaville visors well that's pretty out of that that's good yeah um and then uh i believe scott you left uh you were walking around exploring

yeah of course uh and jason and i i we were looking at the clearance shirts and i found a design that i actually liked uh and i was trying to look for the large and it was like a kind of a minimalist compared to the average like parrot with a backwards baseball cap and a margarita and that's like an american flag flowing in the background like it was a lot a little more tasteful than that not that i wouldn't wear that parrot shirt but i just couldn't it was like all those shirts are like 35 or something and i was like i'm not i'll buy the parrot shirt for on clearance half maybe yeah so i so i saw and it was like margaritaville and it was a plane and i said to you just to you just to me i said oh is this the hemisphere dancer

and we were far we were far from the cash register we were outside the clearance rack outside to draw you in the cashier overhears what i say and she gets so excited and leaves the desk and runs toward us and she says yes it is the hemisphere dancer she's so excited she's an older lady she's very very nice uh and she's so excited that i know the name hemisphere dancer which of course to the listeners who don't know it's jimmy buffett's plane that was shot at by the jamaican government yeah he was not in the plane in the plane and was stocked he was he was somewhere else and of course he wrote the song jamaica about that incident really believe it or not that's what happened so i think i even i can't even remember exactly the details of the conversation i think

i said something to her about that whole story. And she knew the whole thing. She was way in. You dreamed this person. You conjured her from the Matrix. She was a lifer. Be a party to this story. All the employees in this building were very friendly, very nice.

And she wanted to know everything about us. I mean, obviously, they're not getting a lot of people in this gift shop also. Are they getting a lot of people that are as young as two men in their mid-30s? Probably not. We're probably the youngest guys that have ever been in there. And she was just like, oh, my, who are these guys? Why, we're from Hollywood. What?

So we said, we sort of told, we told, we were like, oh, yeah, we're doing allywood what so we said we we sort of totally told we were like oh yeah we're doing a show tonight in orlando we have a podcast it's about themed entertainment we're big jimmy buffett fans and she goes you have to perform at bonkers it's our comedy and cigar cigar bar that is comedy on the weekends and she was just like insistent that the weekends. And she was just like insistent that we, and I think she was even like, I'll go find the manager or something,

the manager of Bonkers and we're like, that's okay, we'll find an email or whatever. Well, it's okay. It's all right. Thank you so much.

But she was like, she, yeah, I think a couple times she was like, I'll go find the manager of Bonkers to talk, so you can talk to them about

she made a lot of sales that you got or sky you bought something that guy earlier bought something that was a big day that was maybe the biggest day in the history of uh what's do we know the name of the store oh i don't i don't have a picture of it you know margaritaville gear could have been probably sounds right uh so you came out and told us this told me this and my first thought is oh my god that is so funny if we performed because we like our odd venues we like performing in the abandoned sports authority we could perform at margaritaville resort orlando that's a great idea then i thought for two more seconds and thought no that's the worst idea with the kind of clientele that we with a bunch of cigar chompers we're gonna show up at bonkers

and like all right so let's talk about horizons uh now did uh uh do you like the farming path or do you like and then they would all take their cigars and just throw them at our foreheads like darts i think uh uh i i think we would have have to adapt to them so i think we would just do like a jimmy buffett cover show we would just perform jimmy buffett songs podcast the ride live at bonkers and we would just do like jamaica and stuff so just the the Sunday through Thursday programming. Yeah, right. We would just do the same show they do. And then in between we would say, you know, who likes to drink margaritas in here?

And then they would all hoot and holler, I assume. And then we would come back. Then they would offer us some sort of a residency. I think probably what we should do to really capture their hearts is to come out at the beginning and say like, Hey, what's up, guys? We're going to do a little comedy tonight. So I hope nobody here is triggered. Oh, yeah. And then they'd all go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, is that Stitch? Stitch here? No, I was trying to do like braying hogs. And then we'd lay out a margarita trough. They'd dunk their heads in and we'd go good night everybody wow that was the best comedy show i ever saw more millennials need to be like those guys you know i want to do this i want to do this all right let's start building the trough it wouldn't be the only live show we do in Orlando But it would be like You know like the late night Bonkers slot

And you earlier You just half an hour ago were saying You don't want to die You were hoping you didn't die on this property And now you want to do this comedy show there We would be the heroes of the thing We would be the heroes of bonkers We weren't gonna like

We're not gonna like trash them We're just gonna do Jimmy Buffet songs And tell stories from his life And we would be kings We would be kings of bonkers We're not going to trash them. We're just going to do Jimmy Buffett songs and tell stories from his life. And we would be kings. We would be kings of bonkers. You are really making the assumption that every person in the clientele is an encyclopedic Jimmy Buffett fan. That's obviously not true. You're making the assumption that anyone is.

You are. There's a lot of people who would say, big, hardcore Jimmy Buffett fan. Love Jimmy Buffett. Great. Name five songs. And then they'd run out after three. Gene Berger, Margaritaville, and then maybe a third if they... Sweet Home Alabama.

Brown Eyed Girl. I was going to do a funny bit where I try to light a cigar without cutting the end off. They're like, just kidding, fellas. Of course you got to cut the end off. You would, yeah, you would be the king. They would love it. They would sign you to an cut the end off. You would. Yeah. They, you would be the king. You would, they would love it. They would, you would be, they would sign you to an exclusive bonkers deal and you would never do this podcast again because it was too lucrative to stay at bonkers.

It's a residency. Yeah. Jason Sheridan performing, performing every night at bonkers for five straight years. And then he would have permission to be there because he'd have they'd give him yeah a luxury condo on uh latitude lane and as we said like you know mustard place or some shit there's who's here who here's got things to say about their spouse right ladies the husband right fella yeah handful right handful either way you would we've said it before you're there's no place you're more like happy and healthy than orlando florida yeah i'm just saying but there's nowhere he's i've nowhere i've seen him lately that made him unhappy he is margaritaville resort orlando

other than doing that close-up magic with that magician at disney at downtown disney that's no yes that was the only other time he was that anxious it's been some grumpiness um so anyway i'm not i'm not declaring we're doing it i'm just saying it would be fun let us know what you think orlando and if you've ever seen if you're a listener in orlando and you've ever seen a show bonkers or go see a show at bonkers for us let us know what you think the vibe is let me see who plays at bonkers sorry i keep talking it's like polly delunolino bonkers comedy productions oh it is polly exactly right yeah that is good bonkers featured comics oh there's a Is Bonkers a A chain? Yeah I believe it is

Oh okay So there's one in Waukegan I see So here's Carrot Top And Louis Anderson I don't know if they do I don't know if Carrot Top Plays the Bonkers

At the I don't think so I would assume he does Carrot Top is very popular But I'd love to see What his crazy mind Could make of Some of those

Margaritaville Glasses Oh my gosh Up on the Sid. They turned Margarita glasses into a chandelier. That's like if you look up at the ceiling. We haven't talked about that. I like that.

And one of the videos I watched, they said, Did you know that to fill all these glasses, it would take such and such 100,000 ounces of salt? And I'm like, we're're gonna fill the glasses with salt all the way you're talking about i have some problems with the margaritaville youtube channel um so we left there and uh again we had to like the weather's getting bad but we're thinking like well maybe we can make a quick stop over at Sunset Walk. Because we've talked about Sunset Walk a long time ago. Sunset Walk is a little like, we've even said maybe it's the Sunset Walk saga. And we walked around this very depressing little mall that had, like, a map saying what's open.

Like, the items on the directory were bold if it was open. And I think 20% of it was open yeah um there was like a shaved ice place it was a very depressing place a pet store called don't forget about me it is in like com it is the logo is a big bone it's got cartoon dog cat fish bird and then in comic sans fine it just says don't forget about me the number four it's me yeah sorry it's maybe the saddest i was like the saddest i felt there was looking at that sign don't forget about me we were i was away from my cat we were all away from our pets during this it made me

depressive maybe thinking about it now doesn't make me in the mood to buy stuff yeah right like what is that supposed to be like don't forget to get me a souvenir is that the idea no i think it's like don't forget to buy me food don't forget to i think you're saying i think it isn't supposed to be read like don't forget about me i think in their minds probably is it does sound sad though it does sound a little more like the sarah mclaughlin uh oh no yes it does commercials don't forget about then like i get a treat too it should be called like i get a treat too you know but there's something about the logo and the comic sans this is not the greatest photo of it uh that makes me sad just feels like a sign and with the miss with the four

it feels to me like a sign made by some pets and and so that like the the bad language is like them attempting to talk what it's making me flash to is if if your pet died and then they mustered up enough courage with their dying breaths to speak in english that they had accrued over a lifetime and in their as they die they so don't forget about me is a chain oh there's one in branson sure there's one in branson landing you know don't which we have to go unfortunately it's sugar next to don't forget about me across from horizon store this is like the the multi-century old mosques and i ran those cultural sites our cultural sites are just the sunset walk our cultural sites were set up earlier this year earlier this year uh uh they're out of candy piss

uh right we asked right did we ask No there was a stack of candy We saw the candy pit Yes so there was An it's sugar And there was The candy urine That came up on the show Not long ago

There was a little stack There was a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Doll Doll yes There was a And then near the it's sugar There was some Like there was a pub

That had weird fake British soldier statues And a really plasticky Big Ben shooting out of it so it's like a semi-themed mall a little bit and then it started pouring pouring right then studio don't forget studio movie grill a massive building that i think we eventually settled on like oh this is one of the movie theaters with food service it is one and again now i want okay so i have now transitioned from the margaritaville youtube channel to the sunset 365 youtube channel hosted by the same person who also hosts orlando magic games uh and she filled me in on all the fun stuff to do at sunset walk and one day she talked about studio movie

grill and said you know it's a place where you can chow down in your seat while you watch your favorite flick and that passed and then i was like but my favorite flip but i'm seeing in the theater right now how do i know it's my favorite when are you ever in a movie and then you declare it's your favorite flick while it's on that's all i don't think that's ever happened to me that's a they need new some i have again a lot of i have as many problems with the sunset 365 youtube channel as i had with the margarita full youtube yeah yeah they need to have a better copywriter the host is fine cory is a lot of fun yeah sure the the it's the copy is the issue right um now uh cory now i've now I know a lot about Corey.

Corey hosted the Sunset Walk New Year's Eve event not too long ago as we record this with Gloria and Emilio Estefan. They spent their New Year's Eve at Sunset Walk. What? Because Sunset Walk now is the home to Estefan Kitchen, the first non-Miami location of their restaurant chain. And you might be thinking, their restaurant chain that's at Downtown Disney slash Disney Springs? No, that's closed.

That was Bongo's Cuban Cafe. That's closed. Wait, okay, so I'm thinking of Lario's on the Beach. No, that is also a Gloria Estefan restaurant chain. Wrong, this is Estefan Kitchen. Get it straight. Estefan. This is like our Avatar doctors all over again.

No. No. I'm confused. Is Bongo's at Sunset Walk? No. Bongo's was at Downtown Disney before it became Disney. Wait, maybe it was at Disney Springs for some of the run of Disney Springs. It was, I believe.

It lasted a long time. The multiple name changes. The West Side. Bongo's Cuban was at Disney Springs. Now, is that... What's the one at City Walk? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't even think of the name.

Chiarusco?co yeah what's that called that's not the city walk one does nothing to do with gloria estefan don't ask about it don't forget about bongos don't forget about estefan kitchen and now and estefan kitchen express is different estefan kitchen is not estefan kitchen and now and estefan kitchen express is different estefan kitchen is not estefan kitchen express are they is that at airports maybe not totally sure what are they is it the same type of food don't know don't okay but but you know gloria and emilia are bringing the spirit of the cuban people to every restaurant endeavor they set up right and i say angrily no i look i get it and i understand you're trying to that's not bongos no it's not bongos samba is not bongos home of the

caipirina you've the favorite drink of the brazilian people brazilian you and zate kaiperinas they spit them out um so now that now this brings us to i'm sorry to extend this out but i thought this was going to be one of those that we just breezed through because we just talk about this bizarre walk that we do right but there is one place that i realized we didn't go into no it is on the property and that is the water park island correct yes yes you got it island h2o live so from that name what do we know is the kind of the vibe and the theme of this water park why of course social social media it's a social media themed water park so this is the biggest example i think of margueriteville kind of scaling back their closeness the ambition of 2016 i feel like i saw concept art early on of like a tropical lush paradise yeah you know the way

water parks are with palm trees it's a relaxing chill you feel like you're in key west or something you know exactly what you would expect from a margaritaville adjacent water park no no no this is slides some trees not many but there's a lot of plastic and a lot of booths where you can take selfies and stuff and there's a lot of corrugated metal an excessive amount of corrugated metal steps walls railings and if you climb to the top of it you can see the gas station across the street. I think you, from my memory of the very tall slide and its proximity to the street, I think you could climb to the top

and throw yourself off into traffic. If you wanted to end it all there, as did a mourning father, or as did somebody in a Baywatch episode I saw that was filmed at Raging Waters, good place to kill yourself. Wow.

So there's a hot tip. If anyone goes into this water park, that might happen. You may take a look around and desire to kill yourself. If it happens. It seems pretty deserted from a distance

and from driving by. And I'm assuming with a thunderstorm breaking out, they had to go into their like partial closure anyway or you might be cutting him a break because this might be a little desolate this place i don't know that it's doing great i read positive reviews that were like it was so great once we got in it's like we had the place to ourselves. Yeah. Which would be nice at any water park. Now, why? Why isn't this working better?

It's cheaper than the Disney ones. It's cheaper than, you know, than staying at Cabana Bay or, you know, the Volcano Bay. So why isn't this doing better? Well, it might have something to do with the theming um now so here's what i had in chat i don't know if you guys saw all this do you guys know the names of the slides i i cannot pull the exact specifics but uh the word rough comes to mind i just remember it's rough this i i would also apply that word to all of the names that I'm about to read. So here's some of the water slides you get to go on.

Hashtag Heights. Profile Plunge. Oh, my God. Reload Rapids. Follow Me Falls. Reply Racers. Oh, my God. It's a slide themed after replying to somebody.

You know know like what you do if you work in an office i liked uh ratio run the one where you get dragged as you go down the slide that's very yeah that's a hair raising experience bad take tsunami

to celebrate all the bad takes you see canceled cabana delete this den uh the okay you got the the drop down live streaming uh uh my my personal favorite chat creek that's the lazy river it's called chat creek and they try to justify it in the description of like lay back relax and have a chat with somebody you're swimming with have a chat fuck you they're the it's a chat room that is a lazy river and then maybe you're wondering is this like a pop century situation where there's like iconography and like a like a big hashtag or you know like a big uh you know michael ian black is looking over the top of one of the slides uh no it's not there's these are just regular sides they are not even they're

not painted there's not like the fate the twitter bird flying by there's no theming otherwise right it's just what they're called let's talk about convenience this water park is very far away from the hotel and even further from the cottages oh my god from from where we were dropped out from from our street dreamsicle drive this is like a three mile walk miles i saw no indication of an internal transit option no there weren't like golf carts buzzing around it's bikes you'd have to you have to buy i guess so i mean i guess you have to rent on top of living there yeah i guess you could buy a golf car or you could buy like a golf cart i guess or rent one somewhere or i just they will this one nice thing about this resort it won't stop You from buying your own bicycle They won't they haven't banned

Private bicycles as far as I know And one of the Videos they pointed out behind the hotel Because the pool overlooks That marsh runoff Body of water there is What appears to be a dock And I think they

Implied that if you were in a far away cottage you could get on a boat and come over to the pool because there's two identical there's like pools some just for the hotel some for the hotel and the cottages uh i don't know that that um you you want to count on that boat system being up and running anytime soon. That seems like a trim from the budget of this property. One thing they did think to do in the water park was have an area that's only for adults

where they don't have kids hassling them because kids go crazy in the water park. You want somewhere you can just have a drink and chat with your adult friends and that's why the adults area is called private domain and it's a little like hat and guy in sunglasses meant to conjure your private mode or your incognito mode of your browser so the the 21 area is themed after what you do when you're going to look at porn on your browser. Sure.

Adjacent to Polly Pond. Get to know your neighbors. Swipe right to something. Farmers only falls. No names. No names bar. There are also the food places. You have those too?

Yep. Yeah. You go for it. Megabytes. Yep. B-Y-T. But then it's spelled Y. Right.

I know. Not like bite food. Right. I don't know. I guess the burger is in place of the E. Something happened This was like alright Let's hole up in a suite at the hotel We have a weekend to figure out what we call

Everything at the water park Something that happened was that Five people got in a room and none of them had any Ideas until one of them Checked in Or got a text from his nephew And then went wait a minute. Say, nephew, tell me all the words that you use.

What are some things that an 11 year old would say? Did you get the did you see the name of the shack? Yes. Yes. Go for it. The tag shack. That's within private domain is tag shack. Oh, that's in private domain.

Tag shack. Tag your friend tag tag it's a bar themed after clicking on a photo right to indicate to an algorithm that a friend is in it this is all instantly it's so instantly dated it feels like it's themed after 2015 social media It is a pop century It's like let's blast back to the tens The only tags in this bar Just say well liquor and Hepatitis Oh man we should have gone here

This is a wrap You checked in at A yeast infection This is also really speaks to the fact that we need to get jobs doing this well what if i told you michael go ahead there is a way that you could earn money while you slide go ahead go ahead no no yeah i'm listening so there is a tab on the website of island h2o live which if you type in island h2o live.com what you will what your brain will see is island h2 olive.com so if you go to island h2 olive.com then you know it's slides restaurants stuff you expect to see

and then influencers What the fuck influencers What are you talking about I click on it And let me just read their copy Being an island h2o Live influencer means being in the know Plus perks for you and your Social network interested in spreading The fun of island h2o live and making

Money while you slide here's how And then there's a bunch of jargon Explaining that like okay so You have to you slide here's how and then there's a bunch of jargon explaining that like okay so you have to you submit if you're the first step you need an annual pass to island h2o live that costs 80 so you get your annual pass and now you can submit uh and i think you have to like send a a photo in i think they have to approve you in like a very influencer right like uh you know like how do they look kind of way so then so they're they're kind of eyeing you in like a very influencer right like uh you know like how do they look kind of way so then so they're they're kind of eyeing you in that way and then they will maybe approve you to become part of

the influencer program uh once you are selected you will be set up with your very own store in quotes with a discount link tools such as approved posts images and emails to help you start sharing earning and saving can be found by joining the Facebook page. Island H2O Live Influencers. So to recap, go to the Facebook page to download emails. What? An approved post. How do I get my approved posts?

Go to the Facebook. It's next to the emails. And then next to that inner tubular being an influencer means you are in the know with the most tubular team in town the fun times and perks you receive will be the ultimate hashtag fomo for your social squad what are we talking about so go to the facebook download the emails and then so you can give hashtag fomo to your your squad. If they're your squad, why do you want to give them FOMO? That's a bad thing. That's a mean thing to do, right?

I don't, this whole thing, what are we even talking about? Facebooks and there's also like, side note, there's events and there's an event called Splash Bash Out Loud and Proud. It's an LGBTQ plus event full of of drag queen performances go-go dancers stilt walkers and party goers they really i think they have a grasp on the community they know that gay people love stilt walkers that's true yeah something that is at least a choice like that is at least like that seems like there was some thought put into that that could be a fun event but if you want to learn about it you go to facebook.com slash splash bash slash splash splash bash 2019 okay and when you do that you will learn that splash bash 2019 has been postponed until 2020 but the url is still 2019

anyway that's a side note back to island h2 2 Alive influencers and giving hashtag FOMO to your social squad. Where are, what is all this? And I don't understand what you get if you make it through this fog. You get money for sliding and for like now you have to be an activated promoter of this water park. It sounds like that's right. I think so. But do you possibly make like enough money to recoup the annual pass? No, it's not very clear.

Can you possibly make like a lot of money? Could you make a thousand dollars off of this? You are obviously paid in splash bucks, which you can turn in for different megabytes and shareables i am what if i want to get paid in apps i'm on the island h2o live app right now oh great if you are an adult follow the instructions below otherwise hand this to your parents to enter the following numbers 61 59 right. I'm doing it. You're entering numbers. Why are you entering numbers?

Do you have a smart band? No. Do you have a Vantage account? No. Vantage. Nickname. Hashtag. It's a Buffett thing.

Inner tubular. Oh, okay. I was going to say like a little seagull. That's good. Hashtag little seagull. I do like inner tubular. if you're so if you're on yeah but that didn't relate to anything that's the i like that too but then what the copy i read after had nothing to do with inner tubular so it was useless but you're right the phrase

itself is fine again i'm the bar is so low i'm latching on to like okay still walker drag queen of an inner tubular these are at least, there's something. Something close to what a human being would want. Yes, there's something approaching fun. Little seagulls unverified. I don't know how to verify myself. You still have to get verified and get vantage points. All right, I'm looking at the wait times.

Oh, you can see the wait times. Oh, wait, drop down is three minutes. The downloader is three minutes. wait drop down is three minutes the downloader is three minutes follow me falls is three minutes reply racers three minutes reload rapids three minutes hashtag heights three minutes profile plunge three minutes live streaming three minutes lazy river three minutes pelican paradise teal which what is that it is oh that's right after all that hashtag shit reply falls suddenly there's one that's pelican's paradise they just forgot they forgot it was social media at that point 20 minutes

pelican paradise blue 20 minutes huh paradise pink 20 minutes what's pelican paradise blue 20 minutes huh in paradise pink 20 minutes what's pelican paradise orange 20 minutes that's a racing slide that's got to be a racing one every it's 67 in orlando and right now like this is the time of year most water parks close to do seasonal maintenance why is there even a three minute wait for the uh lazy river for chat creek you get a hundred jump right in that you get a hundred jump right in that you get a hundred points for going on the ride so that's another thing so you can earn money as an influencer but you can also earn points if you're just a regular if you're just a normie at the park so yes and you can so by downloading the app you can earn points as you slide now i watched a video

about this as well and they told me that This is very important Be sure to save time By downloading the app before you get in the park But remember don't set up your profile Until after you're in the park Oh no I'm screwing up here You messed up the process You need to go to the Facebook and watch the video

So then you can learn how to earn points Oh no Are vantage points the points that you can learn how to earn points no and van are vantage points are vantage points the points that you're earning or is vantage points different and how do you get verified i don't know how to get verified i'm trying to figure it out and i'm trying to figure i'm oh i've reset my theme now to a different color of the actual app cool uh my music here now i get to pick my favorite music okay now this i know about this is interesting uh this actually is kind of a cool idea so before you get on every slide you scan your your band it's a very magic band kind of situation i like this and that will choose and i think not on every

slide but on some of the slides it you'll choose so you just pick the color your color's green well that's done related okay but no no no no it's. I think you can choose a color and the slide will light up with your favorite color. Yes. Now that's the first thing that's actually good about this whole episode. It's kind of good. Yeah. And perhaps even better, you can pick the music that plays while you go down the slide. I'm seeing that.

So I'm in all out 80s here. You can play Belinda Carlisle, Heaven is a Place on Earth. Which, what better margarita perfect duran duran hungry like the wolf i picked all out 80s genesis land of confusion huey lewis and the news hip to be square and oh power of love imagine going down a water slide listening to power of love but why did we go to this fucking place yeah we made sure it was raining horribly yeah we weren't even thinking about it but but uh here's still the issue mike is that you what you just described i want to hear as i begin to slide i don't think you can pick that i think all you can do is pick

the station yeah and i don't know at what point the song begins playing um because i was curious i looked at the uh i looked at the playlist Girl Power, and I was thinking I would specifically choose to listen to Fight Song. Yes. And that if my ideal Waterside experience would be I would cross my arms, close my eyes, get ready to go down the slide,

solemnly intone, this is for Hillary. And then Fight Song would play during my side. But I couldn't do that. All I could do is pick Girl Power, the playlist in general, which is so open-ended. That's everything from I want to dance with somebody to garbage, only happy when it rains. That's like such a wide swath what Girl Power is. Right. So it's customizable, but not that customizable.

But this does say I can select. Well, no, no, you're right. Mike, you're not even in the part. No, I can't select it. If you do too much to your profile, they will force you to go down Docs Drop. The water slide that by the end of it, all of your banking information and your address have been leaked to the internet. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. Okay, Scott, you're right. You can't select the actual song. You can just see what's on the list. Yeah, I just hope you like something within that. What's also strange is there's no Jimmy Buffett option. No! No!

And here's another thing. So it's not clear how, like, Buffett seems to have distanced himself from Margaritaville Resort Orlando. Yes. I don't think Island H2O Live is related to margaret of old resort orlando in any way either right i think they're pretty separate i like i saw some description of it in a yelp review it was like tan like pseudo related they're like pseudo affiliated in that they are next to each other so no you can't you can't slide to buffett unless it happens to be on one of those lists. Now, one option is you could pick the all kids bop channel.

So if you want to slide while a group of 40 children all sing Thrift Shop en masse, then that is an option for you. But yeah, if you want to get more specific than that, I can't help you. So I Googled Margaritaville Resort Orlando controversy and got a couple. So, there's at least one lawsuit going on. And this is so confusing. Ace Hospitality LLC. This is from the Orlando Business Journal. A vacation ownership and management company and furniture provider for Margaritaville's vacation cottages filed a lawsuit alleging wrongdoings by several related entities, as well as some that appear to be related to Boca Raton based Falcone Group, the ownership entity of margaritaville resort orland so the management and the ownership but not the management of all of it of of some of it who is also the furniture

provider appears to be suing the property owner and representing 160 owners of about 270 units that it's like a like it is like an internal like i can't i can barely understand that but it's it seems to boil down to like well the the the people who the furniture people are supposed to have the first right of refusal for representing the people. But then the people who are represented by the units, the owners owners have those look nicer. And it's so very, very confusing. It's really confusing. But there's one thing that is not confusing at all, which is you don't cross the Falcons. Don't you dare cross the Falcone group.

You fucked up Margaritaville. That's the, uh, the Batman. Yeah, that's the big crime family in Gotham. What's his name plays him in Batman Begins? Um,

uh, Eric Roberts. Yeah, Eric Roberts. No, no, no, no.

Right. Uh, the one before the Batman Begins. Oh, it's Falcone, Falcone. And it's, uh,

it's, it's the English guy, but he's doing it. He's the english guy but he's doing an italian sunshine um he's a very good actor yeah yeah what's that guy's name why can't i can't think of anything today it's him somehow he got in league with the fictional character falcone the the other story that came up about this so the thing that was here before was called splendid china okay and oh my god we have to do a whole thing it's coming from the website click orlando so they call splendid china a theme park

and but i just remember when you we first talked about what was here before it was selling a lot of the you know china china like you keep in your house like in a kitchen oh uh but yes i think there was some garden stuff um the headline on this neighbors blame margaritaville resort construction for rat infestation the oak island harbor neighborhood near kasimi said rats are overtaking their homes and they believe it's all because of a nearby construction on a resort so the idea here is that splendid china sat empty for a while and nate quote neighbors think that over time the empty theme park attracted rodents and the new construction is pushing groups of rats out of the property into their neighborhood.

Resident David Weber said, it's creepy. It makes you feel like you're unclean. And we're not unclean. We take care of our house. We're clean people. Oh, God. The resident said he is. This is awful.

The resident said he has spent more than seven thousand dollars for damages caused by the rat infestation and to get rid of the rodents i guess for this community it was the year of the rat uh new six asked margaritaville Orlando owners for comment we have no comment at this time this is the first we have heard about it margaritaville resort spokeswoman veronica figueroa with hemsworth communications said this is back in 2017 all right we've done it we have bought a bunch of rat poison it is a white powder and we will lay it out to poison the rats oh no we mixed up the rat poison and the salt for the margaritas. Oh no.

All our guests have been drinking rat poison rimmed drinks for a week. The glasses are rimmed with rat poison. While all of the rats get bigger and stronger by eating pound after pound of salt. Oh my god. Don't tell the falcons. They they're gonna have our asses for this

this is my favorite this is one of my favorite ones ever i'm having so much fun i will i will repeat what i said while we were there i think is my favorite thing we've done i think i've come around hey no fuck you from Jason's side. No fuck you. I'm so glad. That's why I was so happy we were there. The content we were discovering. Maybe people haven't had a good time living there.

Maybe rats have ended up in people's homes, but we've had nothing but a blast. Well, no, the rats have been pushed to other people's homes. Hey, all right. They're out of the cottages. They're not even anywhere near. The empty lots that make up a large portion of the uh undeveloped part of the property it just seems like i mean honestly if they planted another few hundred more palm trees and greenery

it could fool me a little more yeah but it was just like the, the, uh, active construction site and that they had opened it up to guests and media tours. And like, it's just a little unbelievable. Well, I think what I want to do is get this place hopping. I want it to have the energy that I see when I watch sunset live three 65,

the YouTube channel, I want it to be full of influencers and i would love for that to be us but we don't live there yet uh we we live we live in ratless places in los angeles but it was my thought well i really want to know what is all the jargon i want access i want to be able to go to the facebook group and download the the emails uh and find out what it really is to be an influencer so i thought maybe i should just get an annual pass and just so i can apply for the influencer program and start getting all this stuff but there's a catch you have to physically be there for like a, what do you call it? Like an orientation session.

They offer you a choice of, can you be here for one of these five dates in November? And presumably that was November, 2019. So they haven't set up their new, unless this was delayed, like splash bash 2019 was. But here's what I'm thinking,

because I just really want to know what is it like to be an Island H2O Live influencer? And I think what I'd like to do, and it's your guys' choice, you can go in on this with me or not, I kind of want to sponsor an Island H2O Live influencer. Oh, interesting. The total cost of this would be $80.

I'm willing to pay it, but if you guys are willing to go in on it, what I would like to offer to a listener is, if you would be willing to go to but if you guys are Willing to go in on it what I would like to Offer to a listener is If you would be willing to go to There's a lot of steps here you have to get Approved first of all Whatever shady means They do to approve you you have to have

An annual pass And which you can build bill us Later bill me later And then you have to go to the orientation And make it through the orientation get, and then you have to go to the orientation and make it through the orientation and get approved. But then I want to see everything that you get. I want to see what are all of the emails?

What are all the things that you, what are you, what's the packet that you get to post about? Right. What, how many points do you get? Do you get verified? Is that how you become verified?

Is that how you get vantage points? Right. I want to know, um, actually as you keep going, own the island that doesn't seem accurate i don't think you can end up owning it although maybe this thing might be selling real soon the more passes you sell the more you are so this involves selling passes now

it's a pyramid scheme it's a pyramid this is a water park that operates its own pyramid scheme and i want to sponsor somebody so so what i will say just just like say i want to be an influencer to send that to podcast right at gmail.com and we'll do our own vetting as well unless we forget about all this and get too lazy but i just i really want to know if anybody out there has a lot of time to waste and wants to become in orlando an island h2o live influencer and is willing to go to the orientation just but you have to tell us everything that you do. Yeah, there's going to be multiple people I think that are going to want to be involved. I think there might be two.

So I'm not really sure. So maybe it's got to be the first. But we also have to know. I don't know when there's going to be another session. This is going to be hard to figure out, honestly. But I want to do it. I want to crack it. And you would be in an elite group because the facebook group

island h2o live influencers i checked it has 15 members oh my god there's only 15 of these is that including you or no i couldn't join because i'm not an influencer because i couldn't be there in person in november i wish i knew about any of this now What I would like is to sponsor a listener to infiltrate the sex cult rings at the hotel. So what you're going to need to do is go to an Orlando costume shop. You're going to need a tuxedo, a cape, and a masquerade mask. You run into your old friend from college who's now a piano player. He gives you the password Fidelio. This is very important.

There's only one password. Don't give it a second time and what happens if ever what happens if you get asked why you're there who you know then the whole group of men then everybody in the masks might be staring at you for a long time well that is true we gotta hold off on this part then okay we gotta hold on a little bit we need that whatever you do don't smoke any weed it will make you too aggressive this i this is a real this is a secret society yeah i want to figure out how to get in there um this the key do we keep going past the layers and discover this was all part of the Epstein scheme? We alluded to it earlier,

and I think the answer is 100% yes. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All of the answers are behind the wall of the Island H2O Live Influencers Facebook page. I think that's right. I think that's where Ghislaine is back there.

To be an influencer, you got to write on that wall and you got to get your squad, your hashtag squad to write on that wall to give them hashtag FOMO. Everybody who didn't get to be on the Lolita Express has a major hashtag FOMO. Yeah, that's Tom Wilkinson. Tom and Tom Wilkinson. Tom Wilkinson, wonderful actor. who i'm not implicating in any of this no absolutely not a wonderful man not on the flight logs as far as we know his hands his hands are clean so uh is there anything else i mean this is i i can't believe how much i don't know i don't think i really thought this would be a breezy 45 minutes but there's so much uh

and so please so let us know if you want to be part of the influencer program. Give us our, your social squad, your podcast squad, hashtag FOMO by going to the orientation meeting and taking pictures of everything you see, every soda that's offered to you, every email with points and emails.

How many emails come in an email to you? Hmm. Who knows who we'll find out i mean i also want to apologize there's gonna be so many people wanting to do this we only choose one so don't be brokenhearted if you don't get chosen by us to be our representative now i feel like i am island h2o live because we're also doing this yeah i know yeah well we're just getting in on the pyramid scheme except we're not all we're we're we're the pyramid scheme. Except we're not all... We're going to foot the bill. Like, we're not...

But is it followers? Is it social Instagram followers? Is that like the highest count? Whoever has the highest count? Maybe they ask that too. They must ask that. That might be something that... Yeah.

That's got to... Yeah, that's probably part of it. Right. Do you think you have what it takes to help the podcast, the Riot Guys, you know, like pull a casual scheme and get some more content? Whatever you do, protect Cody. Cody is the one innocent that we know.

Cody and the employees of the hotel, the nice lady works at the gift shop. Their hands are clean. Oh, yeah. She's fine. Yes. Just be on alert if you step into bunkers whatever you do just don't write any personal checks don't sign any land agreements just double check everything you can look organizations up on the internet don't end up signing a will don't sign sign anything

don't sign all your money over to the lawyer toyer. Lawyers. To the Inner Tubular Inc. Or the Falcone Group. All right. We got to get out of here. This was such a... This was a splash and a bash, guys. I have another answer to one of my questions. Creamsicle, creamsicle difference.

Sure, but like shell of the creamsicle is identical to that of the dreamsicle. But the payoff inside is ice cream in the former. Ice milk in the latter oh right because you have to have a certain amount of milk fat anyway i went out with a real bang on this episode yeah i feel like i feel like everyone wanted to know it was a dream cycle of an episode really and this is why it all happened this it's all now coming together four years after we created that list, we know what this was about. We're going to infiltrate a secret elite society of inner tubulars and find out what they're doing back there.

And we're going to earn points along the way. Wow. This is more engaging than like a multi-season television show. Yeah. The threads and the payoffs. It's like a damn round book. Our lives have been pretty interesting ever since that email of 100 street names came into our lives. Wow.

Who knows what will happen from here? Who knows? And unfortunately, they're coming to an end soon because we've gotten too close. Oh, yes. This may be the final episode of Podcast the Ride. We'll be sniped as soon as we leave. But as far as I know, we survived Podcast the Ride. You survived Podcast you survive podcast to ride email us to podcast or i gmail.com if you're willing to participate in the influencer program and i apologize if then that's too much of a mess and

we can't figure it out but uh there's something there uh nba keeps subscribing to the second gate how could you not after this point this kind of shit a lot of fun coming up in february uh it's a it's been a splash uh it's been a blast uh a blast it's been a blast it's really been a blast hashtag blast yeah we'll see you in the private domain at tag what was it we'll we'll tay we'll tag you at tag shack goodbye Yeah, tag shack. Tag shack. Goodbye. Goodbye. 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 and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.