Touring the Magic Kingdom Monorail Resorts – From Bay Lake Tower to the Grand Floridian

Join Jim Hill and Len Testa for a walking tour of Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom monorail resorts, from Bay Lake Tower and Disney’s Contemporary Resort to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. Along the way, they talk resort design, Disney history, transportation, dining, construction rumors, and even an unexpected tour of the Grand One yacht.

Touring the Magic Kingdom Monorail Resorts – From Bay Lake Tower to the Grand Floridian Transcript

Len Testa: Hi, this is Len Testa. We’re back for another episode of the unofficial guide Disney Dish with Jim Hill. Today we’re at the Magic Kingdom Resorts. We’re going to be doing a walkthrough of all the resorts that are on the Magic Kingdom Monorail. We’re starting off at Bay Lake Tower. Jim, it is a wonderful sunny morning. Congratulations on being out of jail for at least three days now. That’s good. We love keeping the record going. The orange jumpsuit looks smashing on you, by the way. I didn’t picture you as an autumn, but yeah.

Jim Hill: You’re definitely in autumn. Well, you know, and it’s a 6X this time. It’s really nice.

Len Testa: Walk them around. It’s slowly but surely. The cuffs are a nice touch. It’s like bling. Tupac would be proud. Don’t walk quite so fast this time, OK?

Jim Hill: Shackles are all the rage these days.

Len Testa: So we’re over at Bay Lake Tower. We’re looking at Disney’s newest vacation club. That is until they get, well, there’s a lot in which they can’t yet sell, right?

Jim Hill: Speaking of legal problems…

Len Testa: Just a little problem with the fee. Paperwork? What? I thought you filed the paperwork. we’re at the Bay Lake Tower. It’s actually shining. You stayed here, right?

Jim Hill: No, actually, but I did that. In fact, I was with you here when you did the room

Len Testa: That’s right. did the room inspection. That day was opened. It’s actually a lovely resort. It’s one of the most quiet…

Jim Hill: set of rooms in in in waltz is not like it is the quietest set of rooms in waltz is your we’ve got we’ve ever tested it’s almost like sensory deprivation and you know the irony here is that we’re on the bay lake side so this literally in a way is sensory deprivation you did you looking out on this amazing view of you know basically traditional Florida. In fact, out on Raz Island, thing that Walt, in fact, that’s what closed the deal for that’s where we’re going to build in Orlando.

Len Testa: Yeah. So we’re especially facing the back of the Bay Lake tower right now. So you guys recall it’s a, it’s a C shaped structure. We’re actually looking into the open end of the sea. And then we’ve got Bay Lake behind us. It’s actually a beautiful day. There’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s sunny. It’s about 72 degrees. Got people out there parasailing.

Len Testa: at uh… get some voting going on but uh… to have the answer how was the resort a done for disney

Jim Hill: well i think the interesting thing about the lake towers is this is actually why Disney is as heavily in the social media. In fact, the Disney Parks blog exists because of this hotel. The Disney Parks blogs is… I actually got this from the head of communications at Walt Disney Imagineering. Basically, if you remember when they were building this and the whole what hotel? Hotel? What hotel? What? It’s a giant satellite dish. It got so embarrassing for the company because it was like all these websites were taking pictures of the non-steel rising up out of the non-ground. and don’t forget there was that thing with the architects who designed it publishing the Disney’s Bay Lake Tower plans and then taking it down the next day like it was the Pentagon Papers or something.

Len Testa: absolutely, absolutely.

Jim Hill: And finally it was just one of these things where it’s like look, all these websites are, you know, they’re eating our lunch, all right. We’re a company of storytellers. Why is it that we’re not telling our own stories? Why are we least not controlling the story?

Len Testa: No, absolutely. So this is, it was on the back of that, you know, that construction that Disney got as aggressive into. Well, at least the Disney Parks blog and then sort of jumped in with both feet to social media.

Jim Hill: That’s right, was about the time that the social media division was formed, the Moms panel idea which came up.

Len Testa: Yep. Can I piggyback on that? So the resort here, is it doing well?

Jim Hill: It’s doing reasonably well. I mean, you can’t go wrong with a monorail hotel, which is why, coincidentally, we’re now seeing the work begin on the DVC for the Grand Flo.

Len Testa: Wait, there’s a Grand Flo reading? DVC, Jim? Oh, wait a minute. I thought that they’re just making the spa 60 times larger.

Jim Hill: La la la la, I didn’t say that.

Len Testa: It’s funny because we’ve actually asked, so when you guys that are familiar with things going on over at the Grand Floridian, when they, when Disney came out with the announcement that they’re going to stop the monorail from running an hour after park close to the Magic Kingdom, we wrote in to the media relations and said well is this just so you could got you guys could do construction at night around the monorail pylons you know with it you know and get more get more working or you know is there is there something is this a permanent thing they wrote back and said we don’t know anything about construction at the grid flooring like do you need a picture of the bulldozers is that would that refresh your memory I can go get those in like 20 minutes I mean or if you guys drive by to work

Len Testa: so so what about what about restaurants here at the Bay Lake Tower are there any plans to expand the the restaurants or anything, that’s kind of the, if there’s one thing, so there’s two things I don’t like about Bay Lake Tower. One is lack of on-site dining, right, so no room service or anything like that. But then the other thing is there’s a slight walk to the bus stop. I could live with a walk to the bus stop. What about dining?

Jim Hill: Well, to be honest, what they’re looking at is, you know, it’s just one of these things where you have pre-existing facilities that they can temporarily. And more to the point, such a short walk to the kingdom.

Len Testa: You know, mean, there is method to the madness here. It’s just the whole… Yeah, we could bring you food in 30 minutes, or you could walk to the Magic Kingdom in 10.

Jim Hill: No, that’s exactly it. It’s sort of the… You know, I mean, it’s not necessarily bad guest service. It’s just sort of restricted guest service.

Len Testa: Yeah, that’s true. You know, and again, know, it is no coincidence we’re now standing under the walkway, which leads straight into the Contemporary. So it’s an interesting walkway. The thing I like about the walkway is it’s not straight. It’s curved.

Jim Hill: But the curve is interesting too because the building itself is curved. The contemporary, I don’t think there’s a single curve in the entire damn thing. It’s nothing but straight lines and angles.

Len Testa: Well, that’s the… And again… I love the contemporary, by the way.

Jim Hill: I’m fond of it myself, but again, from the very day they named it, in fact what was interesting is that for the longest time was actually called Tempo Bay. again, was literally they’re putting it together, it’s like, okay, what’s the temporary metal model or name for this thing? And it’s like, temporary. Temporary thing on the bay, Tempo Bay. And from there, was one of these things that stuck, and then it was like, oh wait a minute, it’s contemporary.

Len Testa: What’s weird if you actually saw the original model for the park, not only was this done in sleek modern style, the Polynesian was actually done in sleek modern style. actually, it looked like it was something on 1960s Wackakee. I mean, just, you know, sleek and stacked.

Jim Hill: and you know don’t do that joke when slinking stuff charo joke in the summer you know and and but again that was because it was walter beckett that’s because it was u.s. steel i mean you have to remember disney wasn’t running hotels at that point in fact

Len Testa: that’s right just up until eight months before the opening of the park Disney wasn’t going to even run these hotels. were going run the theme park. didn’t have any resort experience. So US Steel built them and was going to run them. US Steel was going to run the resorts.

Jim Hill: Yes.

Len Testa: Had US Steel run resorts prior to that?

Jim Hill: Not really, no. And in fact, the fact that they were the ones going, by the way, the hotels are supposed to open for October 1st, or think in April of the following year. And that was when Disney was, you know, this was unacceptable. They actually, you know, they met with them. They flew back, they called and said, how much to buy you out.

Len Testa: Really? you know, they gave… How far in advance of the opening was this?

Jim Hill: This is eight months. This is literally… And in fact, know, what kind of sealed the deal is Roy Disney made a very famous walkthrough while they’re building the thing. And it’s two o’clock in afternoon and it’s Florida. So it’s brutally hot. And he’s walking through this building of guys just sort of laying down and sitting because it’s too hot to work. And it was like, what? You know, we open when? And, you know, they went home and…

Len Testa: They’re taking a siesta.

Jim Hill: Yeah. And it was just like, This is nuts. You we have to this is our you know on our property. This is our hotel our name Yeah, we have to take control of the situation and But it was that’s part of the reason that Walt Disney World went from originally budgeted for a hundred million dollars to by opening four hundred million dollars you know, just an interesting time in the company’s history, you know, that this really had to hit or they were in trouble.

Len Testa: yeah, seriously. So let’s walk out, let’s take the walk from the Bay Lake Tower over to the contemporary. What’s going on at the contemporary these days? know they’ve recently in the last few years did the room refurbishment. They’ve gone through a whole new set of restaurants, right? So they’ve got the Wave, which had just had breakfast at it’s fabulous for breakfast, by the way. Don’t need reservations for breakfast or lunch. You can just walk in.

Jim Hill: the contempo cafe is new with the the ordering thing what but chef mickey’s is relatively the same right you don’t follow the character now well and then more to the point it get it that’s part of the problem with this hotel is that it’s all steeled it’s all concrete and it’s one of these things were like okay here’s this giant space people have eaten in four years and they you know they like The monorail goes by, people look out the window and are like, ooh, what is that? I want to go there.

Len Testa: It’s a good selling point, actually. So I filled a story in the podcast before, but as a kid coming in on the express monorail, going through the contemporary, it was a dream of mine to stay at the contemporary. And now I can do it any day I want.

Jim Hill: But you know, literally going through it, my first question was what kind of person do you have to be to stay at the Contemporary? It was always, it was captivating. was something that when I get older, dude, and when I have some money, I’m staying there.

Len Testa: No, absolutely.

Jim Hill: That was, and in fact, you think about it, from the wonderful world of Disney, the shot of the monorail going into the hotel, how they changed out the opening of that show in 71, 72 to reflect all these new Disney-related experiences.

Len Testa: So many kids like, I want to go there, I want to do that. Including me, so apparently work. So we’re outside the back of the Contemporary right now. We see sort of off to the straight ahead of us what’s left of the garden wings of the Contemporary, which is interesting now that it’s not Bay Lake Tower. We’ve got Bay Lake Tower to our left. We’re now looking at over the marina and in the distance, Jim, I see Discovery Island.

Jim Hill: Yep. Ah, Discovery Island. Did you bring your scuba? Because we could do a whole other podcast from over there.

Len Testa: What is it, the Urban Commandos that actually did that?

Jim Hill: I know, I know. It’s like the three o’clock swim over from Fort Wilbeth.

Len Testa: The 3 a.m. swim. mean, know, yeah, three o’clock in the morning. I did not bring my water wings with me. I’m just curious about alligators in the water. don’t know if… Don’t alligators feed at night? mean, they probably didn’t think of it. That would probably be the only thing I was thinking of.

Jim Hill: But even then, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the photographs, but when they actually got over there, was clear that when they came off the island, they thought they were going back. So they were, you know, mean, the…

Len Testa: So when Disney left the island, Disney thought, we’ll just be back in six months or something.

Jim Hill: Yeah, it’s so much, you know, between the schedules that are tacked up on the wall and the food that was still in the refrigerator.

Len Testa: Jim, you’re working Tuesday.

Jim Hill: Yeah, I was like, I’ll meet you at the island. But yeah, this is… And there were no less than three different concepts that they toyed with for using this real estate. There was the lost interactive experience lost you know the other division right they actually had protracted conversations and they moved very heavily through a development of a mist themed

Len Testa: that’s right I heard that was like on and off and on and off and on and off

Jim Hill: and I think in the end it and this is weird to say this you know had given the deal that Disney just made with James Cameron for avatar but it ultimately came down to why are we paying for somebody else’s intellectual property. Can’t we come up with something of our own?

Len Testa: The girl days. Yeah. When they can still think like that with a serious face.

Jim Hill: And the last version was a set of 12 honeymoon cottages.

Len Testa: yeah. But then it becomes a question of, so you have to have a boat. Boat on call. 24-7. You have to build some sort of support facilities out there. And it’s just sort of like.

Jim Hill: It’s now kind of a blank spot on the real estate because it was like, alright, that kind of makes sense, you know, the way Disney works is like, okay. What we make off of that? Show me what we projected to make over 10 years. Now show me what we’d have to spend up front. And if it doesn’t deliver, if the return on investment isn’t significant enough, it’s like, we’ll circle around to it. We’ll find an idea.

Len Testa: What is their goal? to break even within a year or 18 months or something?

Jim Hill: And to be well, well into profit by five years. And that if you can’t be showing that you’re broken even by year three, they’re not even going to consider it.

Len Testa: So Discovery Island is just kind sitting there right now.

Jim Hill: Yeah, and likewise, you know, you think about Fort Wilderness and River Country and in fact the other DVC that’s not supposed to be built.

Len Testa: Oh, they’re not supposed to be building, yeah, heard that too though. heard that from a couple of different places.

Jim Hill: Yeah, it’s just kind of interesting to me to watch them try to figure out new places to drop these things.

Len Testa: And so the reason why we’re doing this, I think we talked about this on a previous show, but the reason why Disney keeps building DVC is DVC revenue counts as theme park revenue for Disney. So they’ve become addicted to it every, every, every year. Their, their theme park revenue bottom line is padded by DVC sales. So DVC sales. So if they ever stopped doing that, there’d be a huge drop in theme park revenue that have to explain. you have to keep those plates spinning. But at some point, Jim, they’re going to run it.

Jim Hill: Well, that’s why think that’s why they’re doing a lot of right. It’s it’s let’s let’s think about something other than Orlando. So far that’s going so well. Again with the paperwork thing.

Len Testa: Alright, so let’s walk back to the contemporary, maybe we’ll do a walk through the lobby, see what’s going on over there.

Len Testa: It’s still a lovely day there, really.

Jim Hill: No, absolutely. But just one other little thing. You have to understand that before they flashed on the idea, they were going to have to raise up the entire site because of the little water tank.

Len Testa: that’s right. So when they were building Disney, the idea was that they had to truck in. Is who are the blowfish playing like a wedding or something? They sound like they’re really close.

Jim Hill: That’s probably the only thing they’re doing these days. No, but anyway, so yeah, so they had to truck in tons and tons of dirt to build up the land because essentially it was swamp back in the 70s.

Len Testa: That’s exactly it. But the original plan was Bay Lake was going to be the body of water. And in fact, where we are now would have been…

Jim Hill: in the contemporary. Would have been… There’d been three different themed villages back here. There would have been a Cape Cod themed village. There would have been a Tahitian themed village. And actually, know, following through on what had been built or what they were planning to build, the Persian resort.

Len Testa: But three little coves, each of them. Really? Around the same… So they ended up with three resorts, just not in the way that it was originally envisioned.

Jim Hill: That was always sort of the… That’s what we think we’re gonna need. We think we’re gonna need three. They’re 27. Well, can stop any time now. What was the thing about capacity issues?

Len Testa: So we’re walking into the lobby. I like the lobby. It’s interesting though that the lobby’s on the first floor and all of the main things, all the restaurants are on the fourth floor.

Jim Hill: Except for The Wave, which is first one. But again, you’re married to kind of the 1970s thought about how you do a reserve. I mean, for example, we’ve just gotten on the escalator and notice how tight the escalator is. The escalators were definitely built for a thinner people like Twiggy. And again, when you consider the ever-expanding American ass, it’s just sort of like, you know…

Jim Hill: This has always been one of those issues with this hotel with the steel and the concrete it’s like we should really do something about that. We should really relocate the steel and the concrete. What are we gonna do? Are we really going to spend the money?

Len Testa: We have to go up one more floor, right? So we’re on the sort of the second floor of the Convention Center stuff right now. Looks like they’re doing a little bit of work. Oh the columns are blue now.

Jim Hill: but you also know the significant place to… the contemporary occupies in American political history, right?

Len Testa: American, I know that, no, the only thing I knew about that was that the Beatles broke up here, There is Or at the poly.

Jim Hill: Alright, but this is actually where Nixon did the famous I am not a crook speech.

Len Testa: No, this was here? Seriously.

Jim Hill: Alright, he was looking for a friendly audience at that point in his presidency and it came out for, you know, Republicans in the state of Florida and, you know, just the Q &A and it’s like, well, you know, that would mean I’m a crook. I am not a crook. It’s right here, right here.

Len Testa: Wow, so we’re at the fourth floor now. We’re on the main floor of the Contemporary. We’ve got the… Oh, we’ve actually got monorails going back and forth. in the Grand Canyon Concourse. Now, it’s an amazing area space. I this is the one area where the design really does pay off.

Jim Hill: Yeah, I mean, here you can sort of see the full effect of the triangular architecture. You’ve got a huge open space. It’s bisected by walkways to either end of the floor but overall it really works. And then you factor in that you’ve got the charming Mary Blair tile work. It’s very early on that helped make this more of a huggy space because that’s the other thing that…

Len Testa: It’s sterile. The thing is sterile.

Jim Hill: Without the mural actually be… You know, just, you know, and this is sterile in like Logan’s run 1973 kind of way. It’s like, I’m sorry, that little crystal is glowing in my hand. I have to die now. But first, a snack.

Len Testa: So this is Contempo Cafe. This is sort of their trial at Automating Food Service where you don’t have waitstaff. So you get to see the tables, but you order from touchscreens, you pick it up at a central place, you pay for it, and then you go sit.

Jim Hill: it’s… What the test drove at Captain Cook’s over at Polly?

Len Testa: So Captain Cook’s came after this. This was, think, one of the first… Or maybe they were doing it at Pecos Bills?

Jim Hill: there I think it was Pecos Bills, Contempo Cafe.

Len Testa: Got it. Okay. Yeah, but it’s interesting. The food is actually cooked to order, which isn’t bad. So it’s not heat lampy, which you wouldn’t expect at a deluxe resort anyway.

Jim Hill: And it’s just a little odd because of the way that you touch screen, pick up food, pick up drinks and then pay. You would think that it would be order, pay, pick up, but it’s all the same. The interesting thing is they do survey people who stay at this hotel and one of the issues, oddly enough, people love the Monorail except that it’s slow. And that coupled with the Monorail station up here is again because we’re talking about the 1970s when people were thin, you know, it’s just, it’s a very tight small space, whether it’s the queue or the station or that sort of thing. And people really just sort of kind of feel like, know, so, but it’s one of these things where they acknowledge it. Look, we get this survey answer all the time, but it’s like, it means in order to fix this, shutting down the monorail. for roughly 18 months.

Len Testa: it’s not like you’re gonna reroute the monorail. not like you switch tracks. There’s only one way to go. They could simply reroute TTC to Grand Floridian and then back again. But then there wouldn’t be an express monorail. Then it’d just be ferries.

Jim Hill: No, absolutely. Absolutely. And face it, people pay a premium to stay here because it is a monorail.

Len Testa: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, so yeah, the contemporary would be walking distance, but it’s a 10 minute walk. And then, and how would you get people to Epcot? It’d be buses.

Len Testa: Yeah, and it’s and and we’re already dealing with the situation now or tech I was coming over today You know 10 30 in the morning see a bus as an employees getting there on two-lane roads across to see property You know it just it’s one way each way

Jim Hill: Yeah, it’s just it’s an infrastructure that worked really really well with one theme park three hotels 30 years ago. Yeah, and now you know we’re at this point where they’ve maxed out the system and it’s just sort of like they have to bite the bullet at some point.

Len Testa: And build more infrastructure.

Jim Hill: But then if you build infrastructure, then you’ve got long-term maintenance, you’ve got ongoing capital stuff.

Len Testa: go. So we’re going to take a walk out to the viewing area for Magic Kingdom fireworks. We’re going to go out on the veranda, the patio. This is actually a great view, so to our right is Bay Lake Tower. Jim, what’s that fountain in front of us, straight ahead? monorail passing overhead, it’s monorail burgundy? Purple? What’s the giant fountain that looks like Old Faithful

Jim Hill: over actually just found out about this, because again, anybody who’s coming to the property will go, what’s that? And it turns out that it looks like a fountain, what it is, is it’s aerating the pond. so algae doesn’t grow.

Len Testa: That’s huge. mean that spout is over the treetops.

Jim Hill: That’s it exactly. And in fact, they’ve actually gotten, they’ve had an issue with people pulling into contemporary security and asking about it. Wait, can I have the water spout view? And it’s like, no, we’re just aerating the pond. really sorry. It’s like, it is attractive, but at the same way, it’s become something of a curiosity factor. there are just about can we lower the height of this so it’s not…

Len Testa: mean really so it’s above the tree line and we’re standing on the fourth floor. it’s depending on how the wind is blowing and guess minute to minute or second to second water pressure it’s actually it’s pretty darn I would say it’s what it’s at least one one two three four five six it’s at least six maybe seven stories high that’s about as high as you can get water I mean it’s as high as you can pump water

Jim Hill: It’s not old faithful, it’s old frothful.

Len Testa: Okay, just trying to keep the… So we’re looking, let’s go look at the Magic Kingdom here. So we’ve got a set of about 12 seats here. Overlooking the Magic Kingdom we’ve got… Oh, here comes another monorail. We’ve got Space Mountain in the distance. I can see two monorails queued up to go into the Magic Kingdom. And then, again, perfectly blue sky day, not a cloud in sight.

Len Testa: The only thing that we can see now, two construction cranes and Jim is that a new AT &T cell phone tower in the distance there?

Jim Hill: I think it is, isn’t it? Why yes, why yes.

Len Testa: So actually I heard from the Orlando Sentinel that AT has installed a new cell phone tower on Disney property just for capacity during Christmas. I think that’s actually the tower right there. if you guys are looking at it from the contemporary, it’s almost equidistant between Cinderella Castle and Space Mountain, literally right in the middle. It looks like a construction crane from here, but it’s not really a construction crane. Although there are, at this moment, fantasy land construction cranes on either side. How much of that do you think will double back into next gen? They’re obviously…

Jim Hill: Good point. I thought it was just because I was complaining about it. No. I mean, if they’re gonna need that level of cell service just for Christmas, imagine what’s gonna happen when Next Gen comes in.

Len Testa: So real quick, what’s Next Gen, Jim?

Jim Hill: Next Gen is… You got a minute and a half. I have a glorious three hour presentation of this. You got a minute and a There we go. Oh, all right. The notion of Next Gen literally is you basically can carry your theme park experience in your hand, whether it’s your fast passes or the notion of being on board an attraction and having the AA figure turn and talk to your daughter. In fact, we were talking about this the other day, the problem with next gen is it’s hundreds of little things that will add up ultimately to sort of the ultimate personal Disney theme park and resort experience. And the irony is it’s all built on the back of technology.

Len Testa: Yeah, it’s interesting. So it’s not story, it’s not attractions, it’s technology.

Jim Hill: No, but it’s all these little, little things. But again, at the same time you’re to need so much bandwidth and such to drive all of these little personal experiences. I wouldn’t be surprised if we come back here in a year and see a companion for the tower, if not two, just so they can triangulate. come lightning strike time, woo.

Len Testa: That’s right, yeah, so now they’re essentially at a single point of no. Actually, it was interesting, I was here during December and I literally could not get a signal. You can almost tell what the crowd size was in the Magic Kingdom by how badly your cell phone was functioning. like from 6 a.m. to like 8 a.m., everything was fine. About eight to nine, really, know, call quality diminished. It was kind of tough to surf the web. By like 9 o’clock, literally, couldn’t get anything. Couldn’t make a call, couldn’t get text, couldn’t surf the web or anything. Then about 11 o’clock at night, get this flurry of text messages like, hey, I’m in the Magic Kingdom, it’s 10 a.m., where are you? You know, 12 hours later. And you get to, all of a sudden you have 16 missed calls, 26 text messages, and oh, by the way, the web works again.

Len Testa: Speaking of cell phones though, I actually on Saturday got into Tiki.

Jim Hill: Oh yeah, the revised 1971.

Len Testa: It was so funny to watch. was like literally you had an attentive audience for like 45 seconds and then the first cell phone came up and then the next cell phone came out. And I stopped counting at 15.

Jim Hill: 45 seconds. You’re not even through opening number. No, but it was like, right, I’m sitting down. Okay, birds singing. Got it. What’s next?

Len Testa: I think that’s what amuses the hell out of me, the whole notion of, you know, we’re gonna bring this back for nostalgia factor and it’s like, nostalgia lasts 45 seconds. Isn’t that great? It’s a great idea. What’s going on in USA Today?

Jim Hill: There you go. There you go. Should we walk to the monorail?

Len Testa: Sure. Let’s see what’s going on in the monorail. This is a lovely space. They should rent it out. They should charge money for this.

Len Testa: So Jim and I are walking past the detris of last night’s fireworks viewing. there were some, you know, there’s a long, like foot long things filled with sugar, the candy sticks. There were a bunch of those in various colors scattered below the seat. So it looks like one family was probably up all night.

Jim Hill: that. children in diabetic comas, one or

Len Testa: And one of the other kids passed out this morning. Just need, just need some pixie dust. And we’re walking back in. It’s still lovely day, I really can’t get over it. It was gonna be hot all week and then it’s cool done. It’s beautiful time to be in Walt Disney World right now. So we’re walking back through the Grand Canyon Concourse, walking past the Fantasia shop. The thing that I don’t like about the Fantasia shop, round Mickey ears in an otherwise angular building. Doesn’t go. If this had been pointy, if this had been like a pointy thing where you could stick an eye out with it, it would have been perfect design.

Jim Hill: Right? But it doesn’t go. You don’t to run at high speeds at the gift shop, kid. It’s not dangerous enough. That’s what I don’t like about it. It’s not dangerous enough. Well, but at the same time, mean, you know, the new design, you know, to fit into this, this angular space to try to turn this into a retop.

Len Testa: that’s right. Yeah. So, so the reason the ears are there is because they couldn’t put anything low because it would screw up the walking. Okay. I kind of get it. Still not an excuse.

Jim Hill: No, no, I agree. I agree. But I don’t know. It just, this is… They’re going to have to address issues with this hotel. I mean, it’s coming. We are still years away. But it’s interesting. Keying off of the fact that we’re here for the 40th and Disney is already making plans for the 50th, the big deal redo of this, in fact, queuing into the rumor that we talked about earlier about the poly. This between here and 2021, they’re doing a massive redo.

Len Testa: Because this will obviously, you know… Of the resort? Of the contemporary?

Jim Hill: They have to. Because, think about it, before the 50th, you know, the pressure is actually going to be on, I want to be in the hotel, they stay again. know, for the opening. 50 years ago? Yeah. But at the same time, you just, you have to address how many people… Think about it. How few people in electric cars can use this space?

Len Testa: Yeah, electric carts. the trouble with electric carts would be you’d have to take the escalator, even then the Russia on the fourth floor right now or sorry fifth floor were navigating the the metal guide rails that get you to the monorail, but yeah, they’re pretty tight actually I don’t know that you would get a I don’t know that you’d get a An electric vehicle through this you’d come up you’d come up through the escalator, but it’d be tricky. Oh somebody did it

Jim Hill: But if you talk with the people at Ops, for example… I was talking with a friend who works at Taunted Mansion and it’s like, you know, they’ve now made the queue there.

Len Testa: That’s right, there’s a little side detour that you can use for ECVs.

Jim Hill: But it means when you put an ECV in the stretching room, that vehicle takes up the space of eight people.

Len Testa: because everyone has their personal space around it.

Jim Hill: Exactly. Yeah, so it’s not just the space of the ECV, it’s that no one gets within six inches of it so they don’t get run over. And so you multiply that by how many ECVs you actually see on property these days. It’s getting kind of interesting. They like the money and they want to be fair to all guests. between what you have to do to queues, what you have to do to make shows accessible, the bus system.

Len Testa: Yeah, it’s a lot of stuff. Over over over. and we have our own monorail queue. This thing is interesting. Ooh.

Len Testa: Alright, so we’re headed over to the TGC. Any last words on the contemporary, Jim?

Jim Hill: It will continue to be what it is. It’s going to try to be the most modern hotel and property. As Tomorrowland proves, that’s a hard thing to do. One of the things I heard for NextGen is that, is it contemporary or Bay Lake Tower will be the ultimate or the highest level of NextGen amenities that you can get. So the idea behind NextGen is that if you stay at a value resort, you’ll get a few amenities. amenities. If you’re at a moderate resort, you’ll get a few more amenities. If you’re at a deluxe resort, you’ll get almost all the amenities. But then there’s this idea that they’re going to pick one hotel and that if you stay at that hotel, you get every single thing that NextGen could offer. Which hotel is it? Well, again, it’s interesting you bring that up because that hotel, he who cannot be named over by the polly, or excuse me, the flow.

Len Testa: You know, the whole notion is to pull that off is a certain level of wiring, certain level of, know, Wi-Fi has to be built into every room and, you know, the notion is do we do that for Bay Lake? Do we go in and have to retrofit change of technology or right from the get-go we do this with the flow? so you do go back and pay the money to retrofit an existing building or as you’re building the Grand Floridian DBC from the ground You can use that building as your beta, you know.

Jim Hill: right, right, right. So that’s what I’ve heard, but again, I do know that there is a certain tug of war going on between Bay Lake and, again, DEC.

Len Testa: You know what they need to do? They need to put small Spanish ships in 17th legion and just let them fight it out like we did in the 17th century.

Jim Hill: That’s right. The Polynesian will be dug out, canoes coming out to fight. That won’t last long, but you know.

Len Testa: Yeah, so we’re actually passing now the Wilderness Lodge on our left. up on the skyway in the sky. Or the highway in the sky, sorry. And we’re pulling into the TTC. You can sort of see the poly in the distance.

Len Testa: Alright, Jim, so we’re pulling into the Polynesian… By the way, this is my favorite Walt Disney World Resort right here, the Polynesian. I love the ambiance, I love the landscaping, it’s beautiful. It’s actually one of the smallest resorts too, right?

Jim Hill: It is, it is.

Len Testa: So it’s my sentimental favorite. God forbid, Jim, God forbid, anything should ever happen to this resort.

Jim Hill: Why do you say that, Jim? Well, just this morning… are some rumors making the rounds in regard to the future of this resort, in particular what may happen. This may be shut for quite a while to repair some pretty scary issues.

Len Testa: Some, structural issues?

Jim Hill: If the rumors are true, we’re talking things like sinkholes. And, you know, mean, this, this, you know, the interesting thing is that it wasn’t all that long ago. They redid a lot of the longhouses here for, you know, mold issues and, you know, it’s just an older hotel type thing.

Len Testa: I’d heard some of the, some of the stuff that they did in the reef for back, what, like 2005, 2007 was actually propping up sides of the buildings that had begun to, to crumble. So, so like the ground giving way, by the way, we’re, we just came off the monorail. We’re now on the second floor of the Polynesian to our right is the new Kona Sushi Place. By the way, have you tried the sushi over here?

Jim Hill: No.

Len Testa: It’s fantastic. So apparently they pulled chefs from California Grill to staff this. So it’s actual sushi people, not people that, you know, were serving at Ohana and then coming over here and learning how to slice and dice rice. We’ve got Ohana, sorry, we’ve got Kona to our left. We’ve got Ohana in the far back and we’ve got retail spaces to our right.

Len Testa: But you know what else I like? I like the smell of the poly.

Jim Hill: No, it has always had a distinct sound, distinct feel. In fact, you know, it’s interesting that this is your favorite because this is, according to Disney’s own internal service and such, this is the hotel that when people have stayed here before, they’re most likely to request, you know, that they want to go back. They love the feel of it. They love the convenience of it. You know, in fact, just the other night I was over here and it was and was watching the Halloween fireworks from here.

Len Testa: Oh yeah, it’s a great view of the fireworks from here.

Jim Hill: Absolutely, and it was fascinating to watch literally the hundreds of people who had come out to do just the same thing. Whether they were sitting up on the little hillside where they built sort of the wedding platform or you know turning their chairs away from the screening of Tangled they were having.

Len Testa: Oh, they were doing on the beach?

Jim Hill: Yeah, there, they all screening.

Len Testa: I like that idea actually, it’s good for kids. we’re standing over right now, the waterfall in the middle of the lobby. We’re looking down, there’s a small circular not small, it’s actually huge. It takes up the entire center of the resort. But it’s a multi-level waterfall with a ring of water around it. It’s quite, see it’s not obtrusive, right? It’s just the right amount of background noise. We’ve got green plants that literally go from the first floor all the way up to the, almost to the ceiling. So we’ve got these palm trees on the side. We’ve got an open, clear roof again. It’s perfectly sunny day. You see the arches for the, main building, I guess the canopy that’s holding the ceiling up is above us. It’s actually not that crowded here right now, but it’s still a pretty dynamic place. So you’ve got smell, you’ve got sight, you’ve got sound. If someone was giving us pineapple drinks, we would have taste.

Jim Hill: There we go.

Len Testa: Let’s take a walk around, Jim. Let’s go out. You want to go restaurants or retail?

Jim Hill: Let’s start restaurants. In fact, we could wander over to Ohana.

Len Testa: So Hana is the family style, all you can eat meat, meat man, you’re right, sausage, pork. Pretty much if it’s got hooves, it’s on a skewer somewhere, plus shrimp.

Jim Hill: But at the same time, this is a ridiculously popular concept that, you know, they… In fact, it’s been interesting to watch how the lobby, which standing here in the lobby that is bumped out to be the waiting area for yeah, so this is new. So it used to be the one corner of the resort was dedicated to the Ohana waiting area. But now it’s essentially taken up one entire short side of the resort. They’ve moved the check-in desk all the way out so literally one that’s what one quarter of the one quarter of the square lobby is now dedicated to Ohana waiting and Ohana itself. you know the the interesting thing is again that this used to be a wonderful space on the second floor and and it’s still got chairs that guests can sit in and and you know during this time of day when there isn’t so much demand but this kind of doubles back on what we were talking about over at Tomorrowland where they have the terrace areas that sit empty for nine, 10 months out of the year that are then used for seasonal dining. And they make up enough money on the seasonal dining to let it stay closed.

Len Testa: So this is interesting in the way they’ve got the seats set up. they’ve got seats going all along one wall and then an open space of about, I would say, five or six yards, maybe 10 feet, maybe 15 feet. and then another row of chairs. It’s almost like the adults sit on the side and the kids run around in the middle.

Jim Hill: That’s pretty much it, know, just carameling between the parents. again, the two to three hours when Ohana is doing maximum business, they need this. The rest of the day…

Len Testa: So breakfast and dinner, right?

Jim Hill: you go. The two hours are on breakfast, the two hours are on dinner.

Len Testa: We’ll take a walk around. Anything new going on with Ohana?

Jim Hill: You know, it’s… know, in fact, when we were over at Animal Kingdom taking our survey on the way out, know, the Ohana is kind of staring down the gun. of every Disney restaurant right now where there is an initiative from on high about we need healthier food.

Len Testa: really? So hold on, so you’re saying that the pork, sausage, filet, and shrimp skewers are not…

Jim Hill: You know, with the complimentary bypass.

Len Testa: So wait, so Jim, if I understand correctly, each of those animals eat vegetables. And if you eat the animal, aren’t you getting all of the vegetable goodness?

Jim Hill: I think you actually have to eat a full vegetarian to get the…

Len Testa: Oh, one entire vegetarian. One entire vegetarian. That’s what does… Okay, I’m a little mistaken then. got to do poofs and everything. So we’re looking at Kona now, actually. Kona, like I said, Kona’s pretty interesting. They’ve got the new sushi place, which is fabulous. People should go to it. It’s very one-on-one service. Kona itself, actually, not very crowded, but it’s lunchtime right now and it’s an easy reservation to get.

Jim Hill: No, absolutely. But again, it’s just fascinating to watch. Again, go… 40 year old facility that they continue to tinker with whether it’s you know bumping out waiting areas or you know can we mix up the menu over here?

Len Testa: Have you tried the Eggs Benedict over here Kona? Okay I came here I was a little bit on the way to the airport. Everyone thinks Tonga Toast I’m telling you Eggs Benedict it’s got a pork hash pork hash with it best thing on the menu I don’t even like Eggs Benedict it was fabulous.

Jim Hill: No just literally came here to visit a friend on the way to the airport it was just like could not stop eating the Eggs Benedict.

Len Testa: Okay, well, I’m glad I made the trip. But yeah, it’s it’s, it’s, but the other thing I find fascinating is all of this straight off the monorail.

Jim Hill: Yeah. You know, I mean, just literally capture them as they get back.

Len Testa: Yeah, so this is, this is a great, lobby for either coming from the monorail or from or just getting it off of your car. Would you say that most people make the entrance, most people come into the poly from the first floor or from the second floor?

Jim Hill: Well, traditionally they come in from the first floor, but again, you know, when they’re tired and you know, that’s when they’ve got them off of the monorail, which is again, gift shop, you know, our little retail space here where it’s getting drinks or snacks or.

Len Testa: so you come back, you’re a little bit thirsty. It’s great design.

Jim Hill: It’s you know and again I know that they’re you know theme park fans will ding is the over and over again about getting The minor touches wrong or get the big things but something like this where it’s 40 years of finessing the design You know, that’s that’s brilliant up there.

Len Testa: yeah, it’s still it’s a hugely it’s lasted 40 years I mean, okay, so you get one or two complaints from the kids in the background, but whatever And but at the same time look we want to go to lobby and oh look a DVC sales point. So. Oh, it’s running and apparently the screen saver is running Windows XP Professional. By the way, Disney, you’re listening to this, that’s going out of support very, very soon. You definitely want to upgrade to Windows 7. All right, so let’s walk out to Lua Cove. So the big thing around Lua Cove is the redo of Captain Cook’s. How’s that worked out for them?

Jim Hill: I was in there literally a couple of nights ago and frankly. People like to be able to order their own food. They like, you know, it being freshly made. But the cash wrap, you know, is just, it does, it’s obtrusive.

Len Testa: The cash grab you say?

Jim Hill: The cash wrap, place we actually go to, you know, to pay.

Len Testa: Oh, the cashiers. Okay. It’s it’s kind of counterintuitive, the layout. It is. Cause you, cause you kind of go to the right to get your food, back to get your food. Then you’ve got to come back to the front to pay. Then you go up into the left to sit. is counter-artut. Up and to the left.

Len Testa: So we’re coming up on the volcano pool right now. So we’re actually looking out straight out towards the Magic Kingdom. Cinderella Castle is directly in front of us. We’ve got the main poly pool in front of us. In front of that we’ve got the giant volcano to our left. We’ve got the longhouse to our right. right in front of us. See if you can see the island there.

Jim Hill: can everything. Depending on the time of year and the growth, you can sometimes see the pieces of the wave machine. So the wave machine, the wave machine. This this was actually an opening day feature for this resort. A wave machine out in the middle of Bay Lake. Seriously, the stars seven seas lagoon, the exact same sort of machine that’s used at Typhoon Lagoon to make the artificial wave. is out there on the island.

Len Testa: Really?

Jim Hill: It ran for six months. And in fact, there’s this great shot of Dick Nunes, who was again, a huge surfing enthusiast.

Len Testa: I was going to say, he surfing?

Jim Hill: Yes, mean, literally. And it was such a wonderful, I mean, it was literally this authentic island experiences. The surf crashed in. But sadly, nobody at Disney had thought, well, when the wave goes out, what happens?

Len Testa: No one thought, oh, erosion.

Jim Hill: Yes, that’s exactly it. The beach went away. And it was like, all this beautiful white sand that they’d hauled up and rigged. it was like, and it was. And now it’s at the bottom of seven seas.

Len Testa: Well, you know, but it’s just it was literally one of these situations where it’s like, we love it. We know it works.

Jim Hill: But we just had not taken into consideration how it would do in an open body of water, which is when they revisited it, when they revisited the idea and built Taikun Lagoon, I mean it’s… cement bottom pool. You know, there is the little sand feature.

Len Testa: Right. But see, literally you can see, Oh yeah, you can totally see where the water would come out right there. There’s a, there’s a little inlet in the island. It’s a, it’s totally obvious. That whole piece right there. And it’s just literally a dump tank and it was just, and the wave would roll in this direction. So now we’re actually behind the Hawaii building at, at the Poly. Now we have an unobstructed view. We’re almost, if we stepped one foot forward, we’d be on the white beach sand. of the Polly in our immediately chair left you can see the Grand Floridian you can see the the spa the wedding pavilion there are a couple of a couple of small resort launches boats running back and forth again perfectly oh you got the ferry in the distance you guys can hear the ferry horn

Len Testa: Not crowded at all, but boy, is, the monitor is running. Jim, this should be a panoramic photo right here. This is beautiful.

Jim Hill: Absolutely, absolutely. But the interesting thing, standing here at this point, we actually have, we can see the contemporary, we can see the, but we can also see, you know, just. the other three hotels that were supposed to be built for opening day. mean, for example, we look across the way, this is the Grand Flo, but that is also, was originally the site of the tie.

Len Testa: know, that the- Yeah, the Persian resort?

Jim Hill: Well, no, Persia was actually going to be-

Len Testa: Oh, they’re going to do lots of- So they’re going to do- Oh, okay, Persian tie. Okay, cool.

Jim Hill: So that they, in effect, they tie in with the issues that the poly is supposed to have with, you know, in regard to sinkholes and that sort of thing. Right next to where the- Between the contemporary and the TTC, there is a piece of property that at one point was supposed to be the Venetian Resort, which ironically, know, again, they’ve got one those in Vegas. There you go. How about that?

Len Testa: Actually, it’s lovely to be in.

Jim Hill: Yes. Yes. But again, it’s a sinking city, which again, which was perfect about this spot because they kept putting in, you know, the pilings, the test pilings to see what the site could hold and they would just sink out of sight. But it was such a sort of accuracy in architecture that they didn’t want. So, you know, all right, they abandoned that idea. And but it’s such a primo piece of real estate that the Imagineers return later to the same piece of property. And they propose doing a Grecian. And the idea is, OK, we’ll do lower buildings further out and we’ll sort of put, you know, a dock area and same thing. They would just put in construction pylons, go to hammer them in. And they just there is no bottom over there. Wow. This is all, you know, just. Again, this was all swampland. And they built it up, But you know, the Persian would have been between basically out, in fact, very close to where the boat dock area for the sort of the harbor where everything is taken back to be worked on, that sort of thing was constructed. But it would have sort of loomed up over the horizon at Phanus Island. In fact, long range. That kind of sort of would have fit in.

Len Testa: That would have been terrible.

Jim Hill: but you it and again would have been kind of a hard sell as the oil crisis begins and they know exactly the person you know, it’s a sort of hostage crisis but Come stay at the hotel. Well, we promise you can leave but all beautiful blue minarets and you know, I mean it really was a fantasy building

Len Testa: Nice. So we’re walking. I’m still walking back behind the the Hawaii building. This is the concierge the club level building Wonderful rooms actually. you get some of the patio floors here, these are wonderful to watch the fireworks. In fact, the best Disney vacation I’ve ever had where I didn’t have to work, and those are few and far between, one of best ones I’ve ever had was Tiki Fest, Steve Seifert’s Tiki Fest. Back in 2007, we got a room at the club level here at Hawaii, and it literally did nothing but sit and relax and talk to Steve for like two whole days. Steve’s family. You know, just met people from Diggie. So this was funny. I brought Hannah. So it was just, it was the first father daughter trip that we’d ever taken. So we were staying in one of these buildings, one of these rooms right here in the middle of Hawaii. And do see that in front of the building, there’s that little hammock right there. Hannah fell asleep in the hammock because it was a day like this. It was, it was nice. It was cool. You know, sun out, not crowded at all. The thing that, the thing that was interesting was a rainstorm had come in. it got to, cooled off a lot and then the rain started to fall. Hannah was still asleep in the hammock.

Len Testa: There’s lightning crashing, there’s hail coming down, there’s pelting rain. I was like, Hannah, Hannah wake up. Hannah, you gotta get inside. Finally I had to pick her up in carriers. She’s like, something wrong? Why am I wet? She was out. She was out. I only had to walk the 30 yards, but this is really relaxing. The other interesting thing about this first floor here at the Pauley is because the walls aren’t that big between rooms, you actually get to know your neighbors. It’s not like a…

Len Testa: You know, at the other Disney Resorts, you’re essentially, you’re walled off. in your little cell and that’s it. There’s no conversation between the two rooms. Here it’s actually much more open and you’ve got this huge green lush lawn in front of you. can let the kids take their shoes off and run around directly in front of you and you’re sitting in the shade. They’re running around having a good time. You’re hopefully sitting on a lawn chair, sipping on Mai Tai or something and just watching everything go on. There’s plenty of activity to look at. mean, there’s boats passing by, there’s monorails passing by. the parasailing, occasional guy riding in the sky, you know. And you’ve got the Magic Kingdom up in distance. It couldn’t be prettier.

Jim Hill: No, absolutely. This is, know, is sort of a… Again, this is why people come back here. They have…

Len Testa: favorite resort, man.

Jim Hill: They do… This is the quintessential, you know, Disney theme park experience.

Len Testa: But think about it. I this is a much more intimate feel. I mean, look at it. You can’t… If you turn around, right, you can’t see more than 20 or 30 yards in the distance, but there are walkways there that you can see, right? So look, so now we’re turned around. The Hawaii building is on our right. Magic Kingdom is on our left. We’re looking at, Steve Seifert would kill me, but one of the long houses right next to Hawaii. There’s a little path that goes off to our left, but it’s just that you can’t see exactly where it’s going because there’s some lush green plants. You’ve got some palm trees in the distance that kind of tell you, yeah, it goes a little bit to the left, but we don’t really know where it goes beyond that. Why don’t you come take a look? And then there’s another walkway over here to the right. We’ll take the one to the right.

Len Testa: So you walk up to the right and then there’s another walkway and it goes somewhere towards the interior of the resort. But here’s the irony. This is the exact same construction technique for this hotel was the one that was used for the contemporary. This is the modular rooms built slotted, know, literally over here with a crane, slotted in. So it was a shell, like an erector set, that they slid rooms into. Now mind you, that was only for the original sets of hotels. By the time they began expanding.

Jim Hill: the buildings have settled right Nate? So the idea right, the idea was that as the rooms needed refurbishment you would just pull the room out almost like a semi trailer and then you would refurbish it and then you’d slide it back in. then the building started to settle, things became not square. And more to the point, know, the people, Disney had had the falling out with the people who actually had… created this construction technique, US Steel. So any of the new wings, the newer buildings, were all done traditionally. They all done in the traditional construction style.

Len Testa: That’s a shame. Conceptually, the idea was brilliant. You need to refurbish a room. You take out the old room. You put in something temporary so you don’t lose the room. right and then when the new room comes back you’re

Jim Hill: Brilliant. absolutely but at the same time it’s just that you know the weird thing of it is is our idea of Convenient and future. You know, I mean again, this is this is what Wow, this is groundbreaking for 71 now You know the whole notion of somebody is like wait a minute My hotel room is the exact same as every other hotel room in here. Yeah, you know, it’s like no I want special. I mean, that’s the age we live in now It’s it’s customization. That’s that’s the age that we live.

Len Testa: Yeah, we’re walking through now we’re we’re coming up on the Walking by Lua Cove and again Steve would kill me but there are a bunch of different longhouse Again though, same sort of theme, right? You’ve got the first floor balconies, people, patios, which people can walk out on. You notice too that everywhere we’re walking, they’re facing away from the sun. Very, very smart, good design. So we’ve got the Neverland Club coming up to our left here. That’s actually still pretty popular for kids night out, right?

Jim Hill: Yes, but I remember it had only been open a little while and I came by… to sort of take a look at it and actually it was one of these things where it’s like I had to borrow a child. There are theme parks like that in the UK where you can’t get in if you’re an adult alone. Can I rent a kid? That one will do right there. How much for the children? Just the one. Take that to toehead one please. How much for the ginger? Yes. But now, it’s just interesting to watch how they’ve marched this concept out, with the effect of, you’re a parent, do you want to get away from your children for while? Let us take them. Here, have a Mai Tai. There you go. As we’re coming to the Neverland Club, I guess a little bit of background music here. A little musical interlude for our…

Len Testa: So I love you guys know you guys are listening to the podcast know that I love Mike Nolan Mouse World Radio So I think it’s one of the most fun things that you could do Or to set up as background music while you’re going about your day So so at work if you want to get a little fix of Disney, there’s always there’s always Mouse World Radio They’ve got four channels some of them are subscriber base You got to subscribe to live 365 But the funny thing is is Mouse World Radio has this Polynesian loop and it’s the entire Polynesian background loop

Jim Hill: Oh, but they do this war drum thing

Len Testa: I love it all. mean it’s all very except they do like this 15 minute thing of war drums And I swear to God 30 seconds in the second time you hear it you’re like, I gotta find another channel. Let me see some Westworld radio too because it’s it’s it’s the one thing I don’t like is the is that particular part of the Polynesian background music. It literally is the only thing I don’t like about the resort is the war-tinting background music. know that’s a small quibble, but I just want to give a shout out to Mike and Noel over here. Again, you could save that song. Save up all your stapling for the day. That’s all your shredding. look, the war-tinting is on. Time to get the shredder out. So what is this? Is this runoff here? This looks new actually. So Jim and I are walking back to the main lobby. We’ve got the monorail on our left. And here looks like they’ve put a watch way almost for water drainage. They’ve got a huge number of rocks and this actually doesn’t look very Hawaiian because they’d be black. they’ve got these rounded sort of boulders. It looks like a gully or a basin for runoff.

Jim Hill: This is the new green Disney.

Len Testa: This is the new green Disney? so it’s less long? Because this is a lot of rocks. is about, so it’s a channel. It’s about… So at 10, 15 feet wide and running all along one entire side of a building. this, this a erosion control?

Jim Hill: More to the effect of it. it, you know, drainage here gets interesting. I mean, if you look up behind us, we’re dealing with a very, very heavy slope.

Len Testa: Oh, right. So yeah. So the, so we’re sort of a, about halfway down. There’s a mound of dirt that rises about six feet higher than us on the way to the monorail. And then it actually slopes down towards the building. And now that I’ve said that if there’s a six foot slope, actually like a 12 foot slope from the top of the one thing to the building, I totally understand why they just put a drainage dish there. Nevermind. Looks significant for a while there. But all right, this is where they put half. We’ll just leave it at that. Okay. All right. Good enough.

Len Testa: Actually, we’re walking back towards the main building. Actually, this is a pretty nice entrance. Once you get past security here, if you’re dropping off at the front, it’s not a bad entrance. I don’t think it’s as formal or as impressive as the Grand Floridian entrance, which is actually a pretty nice under the portico. But this still isn’t bad. the thing I like about it, the thing I actually like about this the most is, like any good entrance, you’ve got a transition area from outside in the sun to indoors, and that’s a covered space. right that introduces you to the architecture and the theming right so if you if pull in you’ve got sort of the dugout canoe effect with the with the brown cross beams here you’ve got the tiki torches going you’ve got waterfalls on either side and somebody gives you a flower lay to come in so it’s a it’s a great entrance it’s not again not as formal as the grand floridian but again this this resort isn’t as formal as the grand floridian

Jim Hill: no and more to the point you really do get a sense of you know this in fact I don’t mean to be mean about this given that we just spent a day wandering around animal kingdom but you kind of know where to look here you kind of know where to go here you know no one no one tells you the front desk is this way so they just kind of kind of guide you this is a wonderful

Len Testa: Oh, well, hey, look at that snake. The island is moving. It’s probably a water cleaner. OK. Oh, this is the city. So Jim and I are just to the right of the entrance. walking up. There’s a small island. it’s about four feet long, about two feet wide. It’s got plants on it. And it’s literally floating. And we can see it moving throughout the small waterfall lagoon area to the right. And by the way, that water is crystal clear. So I’m thinking the thing that’s floating there is an actual water cleaner. I want one of these areas in my house. So we’ve got the tiki torch. We’ve got the sort of the signage or the decorative stick figure that’s, there’s the fishes pointing you in the direction. And then you’ve got the waterfall, beautiful area. Also another waterfall to your left. Also wonderful. So we’re walking in, and a bridge too, a bridge. That’s a great transition experience right there. very good. So we’re coming into the lobby again, another waterfall. To the right we’ve got check-in services, to the left we’ve got Bell Services. It works out really, really well. I think this is a great one. You notice the hidden Mickey right here in the slate, right in front of the entrance. remember when there used to be animals in here?

Jim Hill: used to be parrots.

Len Testa: Yeah, there used be parrots in here. What happened with the parrots?

Jim Hill: Well, kind of like Discovery Island. Somebody has to pay to feed the animals and more to the point, you know, if you really want to go see animals, we have a theme park. me buy, you a ticket and get you on a bus.

Len Testa: this is a shame. All right. Any last words for the for the Polynesian gym? We’re going to hop on the monorail and go to the Grand Floridine.

Jim Hill: Works for me.

Len Testa: So we’re back. We’re continuing on our monorail resort tour. is singing because we’re over at the Grand Floridian wedding pavilion. We just walked over from the poly. The wedding pavilion is on our right. Sorry, the reception area is behind us. The pavilion itself is to our right. Actually, my brother got married here.

Jim Hill: Did he really?

Len Testa: He’s still married too, so there must be something to it. It’s lovely actually. the wedding pavilion. It’s sort of a non-denominational church-like structure. And there’s an altar. But behind the altar is an arched window which perfectly frames Cinderella Castle. It’s a complete coincidence, I’m sure, but it works just from a visual. You just can’t get anything better than that.

Jim Hill: Well, and that brings us to the classic story of the year of the… What is it? The 25th anniversary?

Len Testa: Yeah. Where they did the castle as the…

Jim Hill: As the cake.

Len Testa: by the way, you got this giant birthday cake in the background for your wedding photo. And they literally, they had brides who were just furious about…

Jim Hill: Apoplectic over it?

Len Testa: Yeah. I got a monorail going… Monorail black coming over us. Hello, Monorail Bach. Hello, people in the Monorail. So we’re walking towards the, we’re walking towards the spa, the soon-to-be-extinct spa, or actually something’s… Jim, there’s some… there’s a huge blue wall between the wedding pavilion and the main building, the Grand Floridian. says, please pardon our appearance. This area is being refurbished for your future enjoyment. Jim, what sort of future enjoyment might they be having?

Jim Hill: D-V-C. Again, this is where people want to be. want to be… to the Magic Kingdom? Close to the Magic Kingdom. They want to be near the monorail. so, they’re systematically walking around and doing just this. So the walls, by the way, the blue walls extend out past…

Len Testa: So from the beach, from the seven seas lagoon beach, all the way to the walkway, the blue walls extend out. In fact, the perimeter of the blue wall extends past the monorail. So again, Jim and you and I talked about this on the way over. know, Disney’s recently announced that the monorail is only going to run for one hour past park closing for Disney Resort guests. And so we contacted Disney and said, well look, is this a permanent thing? Is this a budget cutting thing? Or are you guys just doing this to… Increase the amount of time you have at night to do DVC construction for the Grand Floridian and of course Disney hasn’t announced Formally the construction of the Grand Floridian DVC. So all we got back from them was we don’t know anything about a DVC and Yeah, it’s as far as we know it’s permanent at least but you know So they were completely insulting our challenges because they had to file permits for the DVC. There are permits on file with the Orange County Construction board, you to a lot of the the construction to continue But at least they didn’t say, well, we did a survey and guests don’t want them on a roller run for more than an hour. Guests actually asked us to do this. At least they didn’t insult us and say that.

Jim Hill: Well, I think this is what I always find fascinating about. Disney’s as a company of storytellers in the… They’re remarkably bad about lying. The line could use a little bit more. For storytellers, that should be their unofficial motto. For storytellers, we suck at lying. The other thing, for them, it’s sort of like they’re big into the once upon a time and the whole notion of you’re doing once upon a time and somebody runs in and goes, Rosebud was a sled! this story.

Len Testa: No no no no no. Back up back back up. hold on. So we got a little bit to say there’s not a break. As you say there’s a little break in the wall but but there’s not. Can’t see anything from here. I’m sure Disney’s secure to be honest like yeah. Incidentally. Hello. So we’re walking. It’s actually a nice walk. It’s not as shaded as I as I originally thought it might be. They could put trees on either side of the walkway by the way to increase the shade. But now we’re walking up behind looks like we’re behind one of the the Grand Floridian pools and we’re coming up on the main building. in the straight ahead of us, we see the main entrance, the portico, also the monorail station for the Grand Floridian. We’re sort of walking into the west side of the.

Jim Hill: The building? was about right, yeah. It’s lovely structure, it’s big. No, but at the same time it was, this, as we mentioned earlier, is the site of what was supposed to be the Venetian.

Len Testa: This was going be the Venetian, right.

Jim Hill: But when Eisner came in, and again, this is for better for worse, this is the hotel that Eisner fell in love with and became the architecture patron. This one. All those ugly hotels are on the back of this one. Michael just got fat. with architecture working on this hotel. But the argument was if we’re putting a brand new hotel into Walt Disney World, rather than doing the Venetian, you know, because we have the Polynesian right there, why don’t we do something that ties in with Florida’s own history? And this is, the idea behind this is this is one of the great resort hotels from the 1920s.

Len Testa: So the Flagler era of hotels.

Jim Hill: That’s exactly. So you take the train down to Florida for your vacation and this is the sort of place you’d stay in.

Len Testa: And time as we’re walking, we’ve got an area here to our left that’s going along the walkway. Between the walkway and the monorail, there’s this huge path of overgrown grass. So this must be the grass equivalent of the stones we saw at the Polynesian, where this is supposed to be Disney’s cheap attempt at water runoff control. So if you’re standing here looking at the path, the grass in the median between the path and the monorail is a good foot taller than everything else and you can kind of see where the mower or lawnmower sunk into the the mud in one area so this must be where they’re doing a runoff between the monorail and this that’s kind of funny so so apparently they run out of they ran out of money for stones and they’re just letting the grass grow over here I guess can’t see it it’s fine it’s backstage

Jim Hill: More to the point, we are literally at the edge of the construction site. Trust me, when we have finished with our not DVC property, you will see all sorts of landscaping, all sorts of plusing because, you know, what people will be paying to stay there.

Len Testa: That’s right. and I heard that they’re actually, so one of the interesting things about the, the DVC, that’s not a DVC that’s going in here, they’re actually putting, they’re taking some of the beachfront real estate and converting it to parking. So you’re going to have beachfront parking at the Grand Floridian.

Jim Hill: That’s that’s an interesting use of real estate So but but again, it’s just the notion is they want to mix it up They want to mix you know the whole notion of you arrive I mean you literally park your current step out you’re looking at seven seas of Lagoon.

Len Testa: so what’s the so it’s the it’s the entrance experience that they’re doing there that Okay, I kind of make sense now now I get it. Thank you Jim Thank you Jim for making sense of Disney’s real estate design for me again storytelling stories all right So we’re walking into the Grand Floridian we’re open the doors by the way Jim have you ever had tea at the Grand Floridian?

Jim Hill: Yes, yes. fabulous. I’ve had, I mean, have a tea in England that’s not as good as this.

Len Testa: Well, get it, but it’s one of these things where, can I have another little tiny sandwich, please?

Jim Hill: Yes, please. More cucumbers, sir, more cucumbers.

Len Testa: So we’re walking into the Grand Floridian. again, oh, so one quick design item on here. So when you’re coming into the Grand Floridian, you don’t actually walk immediately into the lobby. Just like at the Animal Kingdom and just like at the Magic Kingdom where you walk in and your view is constrained by a low ceiling. Same thing at the Grand Floridian. You’ve got, um… You come in from the side, there’s a low, I’d say maybe it’s a 10 foot ceiling, that constrains your view almost all the way until you get to the lobby. And then the lobby opens up and it’s BAM, it’s four or five stories of view all available to you. So it really makes a remarkable thing. You’re walking in, you’re slowing down, you’re looking up. It’s really great way to do the space. And as beautiful as it is now, in five or six weeks when they do this for Christmas.

Jim Hill: yeah, they’ll put in the big gingerbread house, actually made out of gingerbread. It’d be like Home Depot meets Betty Crocker. it’s insane. And in fact, there are families that literally, you know, they book their vacation around when you’re putting up the tree. And they will come out.

Len Testa: When is the gingerbread coming up?

Jim Hill: But it’s literally, it’s an event. They will stay up all night and watch, you know, they…

Len Testa: watch the tree?

Jim Hill: They watch the tree go up. That’s nice. It’s a event. No, it’s just a wonderful moment.

Jim Hill: Now, it’s… What I love about this hotel is just, again, the sense of space. That, you you come into this feel of the 1920s, of what it must have been like to stay in Florida at that time. But yet, you know, the various little Disney touches. You know, in fact, this is also the hotel that a lot of the celebrities stay in, in fact. Besides that, Shamin.

Len Testa: Of course. I have a sister-in-law who was staying here and it was just one thing she kept, whenever she got in the elevator, it was Drew Carey. Like he’s operating the thing. Third floor, lingerie. After about the third or fourth day, it’s like he turned to her and said, okay, let me tell you where I’m gonna go.

Jim Hill: Exactly. In fact, you know…

Len Testa: You’re here again, it’s free? Is that good for you? Because clearly we’re on the same schedule.

Jim Hill: At one point, know, that’s like Sister La Sherie, it’s like they’re literally over at the ice cream place on Main Street and Carrie came up to her and it was like, literally, deliberately this big comic scene, like, look, I told you to stop following me. And then just sat down with the family and it was just, but he also, he loves the Disney parks. fact, he ran the Disneyland Half Marathon.

Len Testa: Did he really?

Jim Hill: Yeah, he was there. He’s lost a ton of weight. He’s lost like 180 pounds.

Len Testa: Yeah, he looks good.

Jim Hill: He barely looks like himself. Well, that’s a thing, you know.

Len Testa: The funny thing was, we were at the Disneyland Marathon, right? Half marathon. you know, they’re calling out the past winners of the race, know, like 10 minutes before the race, they’re calling out celebrities. So they put the camera on Drew Curry. And I’m telling you, that man could not care less that he was on camera. He was trying to ready to psych himself up to run. He was getting mentally prepared. Get that damn camera out of my face.

Len Testa: It’s either here or Yacht or Beach Club when they bring the people in. Candlelight professional.

Jim Hill: Candlelight professional. Yeah. you know, but the notion is that, if you’re going to put me up here and bring me to Disney, I’ll do it.

Len Testa: Yeah. So. That’s not bad. Should take a walk through the

Jim Hill: Sure, sure. We have a piano. We’ve also got on the second floor of the Grand Floridian, we’ve got space for the orchestra. And then we’ve got the, is this a bird cage here? This is like a two-story.

Len Testa: Yep. Or is it a people cage, Misbehaving children, go here.

Jim Hill: And for Rupa Salt. No, I mean, again, early on when they were trying to do this in the Authentic 20 style, again, your live orchestra at night, in fact that’s… And they do have a live orchestra at night. it’s such a definitive sense of space. And then you look here, you’ve got your caged elevator.

Len Testa: That’s right, the elevator and the birdcage are both cages that… one’s a people cage. There you go. it just… But it kind of makes sense thematically. The other thing I like too is that the stairwells are not So there’s one stairwell, it’s sort of off to the lobby. All the stairs are off the lobby. You can’t actually see them. It’s an interesting design thing. And the elevators too, as well.

Jim Hill: But at the same time, this is one of these hotels that because of the level of detail, because of the marble floors, there is so much upkeep, so much…

Len Testa: Oh yeah, have you ever been here like at 2 o’clock in the morning?

Jim Hill: No. So you should walk around at o’clock in the morning. It’s non-stop activity. It’s like they’re painting a boat every night. I think they start at one end and work their way to the other.

Len Testa: So we’re coming up on the Grand Floridian Cafe. It’s actually a nice space. looking out, we’ll walk out the back. Let’s walk out the back real quick. And we’ll come back in and do the rest of the main building. Grand Floridian Cafe, lovely view. And it’s got that of quintessential Key West, you know. early Florida sort of view you’re sitting at a table but all the tables have these views on these huge windows these windows are like two foot squares and they overlook well you can see the the other buildings in the background the one of the other K buildings in the background but it overlooks a fountain and then you’ve got a huge pool in this it’s the Grand Floridians pools are like the size of small small atolls they’re huge huge pools

Len Testa: Actually, one of the best photos we have for the color companion. I don’t know if it’s actually, if it made the cut or if it got cropped, but we’ve got this photo of one of the Grand Floridian pools. And it’s from the edge of one side of the pool. And in the middle of the pool is this family of ducks who apparently thought, Lake Tower, Grand Floridian, sorry, Bay Lake, sorry, Seven Seas Lagoon, Grand Floridian Pool, same thing. It’s nice. So we’re walking up towards Narcosis, sort of towards the Magic Kingdom. clockwise direction for the parks. Have you ever stood here?

Jim Hill: years and years ago.

Len Testa: Yeah. I have a love hate relationship with this resort. Why is that? So I think the theming, the outside theming is lovely. I like the walks. And I like the pool sizes, size. And I like the fact that it’s not very crowded late at night. The thing I can’t wrap my head around, two things. One, the cost is incredible. And then Disney bills it as its flagship resort and as a deluxe resort, but it doesn’t compare to, let’s say the Waldorf is a deluxe resort or the the Rich Carlton is a deluxe resort. I don’t think that anyone who stated those three resorts would put, or those two resorts plus this one, would put the Grand Floridian in that same category. Those are legitimate four and a half five star hotels. This is a four.

Jim Hill: But at the same time, it’s just, this is one of these hotels where the proximity to the Magic Kingdom coupled with the design, you know, it just, if it’s not a five star, it looks like a five star. On the outside, looks like a, okay, legitimately looks like a five star on the outside. again, it’s not, when it comes down to amenities and stuff like that, it’s, well, it’s got the spa. But they just think in terms of room quality and in terms of, let’s say, concierge service. probably not the same as the Waldorf for the Ritz-Golton. How many hotels have a yacht that you can rent? mean, have you?

Len Testa: I’ve never actually been on the Grand…

Jim Hill: Let’s go to the other…

Len Testa: So, Jim mentions the yacht because we’re actually walking by to the right between… on the way to Narcissus and we can actually see the Grand I. Yeah, we could rent a yacht. How much is the yacht to rent, wanted for the day of the evening

Jim Hill: I think for the evening it starts at 1500 really and then from there it’s like you want food you want you want a captain I’ll do it myself it’s it’s very impressive very fast

Len Testa: okay so we’re walking up towards the marina right now between between buildings we can see the the grand one this is the captain’s shipyard

Jim Hill: Yes, I did a fireworks cruise on this once. Again, not on my dime. Got invited out to, you know, chat with Thurston Howe III. There we go. Turns out, Thurston Howe IV. You know, but it was so bizarre. It’s just why? Because again, it’s just this whole notion of, you know, you’re out on the water and then you park and you sit there with your champagne flutes and you then talk about the little people. Actually, you probably don’t talk about the little people because it doesn’t occur to you to think about the little people.

Len Testa: I said to the flash then, well you can’t get off.

Jim Hill: Exactly. We’re going to be talking for two or three hours and it’s like. It’s like the event at the Magic Kingdom the other day where you could come in but you couldn’t leave until they told you you could leave.

Len Testa: So a lovely view actually of the marina right from right here. is our outside conkey. We’ve got the grand one right in front of us. I’m on a green walking by and then in the distance we see the the floats for the electrical water pageant.

Jim Hill: Again, we are here just for the 40th anniversary. And the irony is that was literally slapped together as a… It’s a bunch of lights on floats, on barges.

Len Testa: know, you know, this is only gonna be here for, you know, welcome to Mickey’s Starland.

Jim Hill: exactly. Hey, that lasted 20 years, In fact, it was funny last time in the hotel watching the Spanish channel for Disney and it’s like, hey, Spanish people can still go to Mickey’s Starland. That’s right, that’s They haven’t changed that. The, huh, that’s weird. How do you say I’m sorry in Spanish? This doesn’t exist anymore.

Len Testa: So the other interesting thing I think about this, so we’re looking at it, over the marina and there’s this little inlet where the electrical, the water pageant barges sit. Is that the only reason there’s not a walkway from here to the Grand Floridian to the Kingdom? Because you could, I mean look, you could walk to the Magic Kingdom from here. mean, it’s a little bit of a hike, but it’s certainly not much farther than what we just did from the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian. Why isn’t there a walkway? And the other thing too is, Jim, you noticed there’s lights over there by where the monorail just passed? There’s a walkway that goes from the Magic Kingdom Literally to the very end of the land by the inlet where the where the electrical water pageant barges are stored all they have to do is pave the other half between that and the Grand Floridian and put a put a bridges and they’d have a thing why don’t they have a walkway there

Jim Hill: well, you know if actually if you remember the The commemorative pavement stones.

Len Testa: Yes, I remember that we walked over a bunch of them actually on the way here

Jim Hill: If they had sold better There would be a walkway? mean, literally, was supposed to remember with the walk around the world. was, you know, of that was the plan. And they did. There was a plan or at least there were designs drawn up for, you know, what would

Len Testa: we like a tour of the Grand One? I would love a tour of the Grand One. May we have a tour of the Grand One? This is fabulous! do I do? This is total luck! Smile? How about a hug? about a hug? I am extremely happy about this. Wow, come aboard! We’re expecting you! The love boat! This is totally unscheduled, but we’re getting a tour of the Grand One. This is amazing! So we’re walking down, is Captain Gregory.

Len Testa: Thank you. Just Greg. Just Just Greg. Oh, it’s informal here. are actually staying at the Grand Floridian tonight, so this is totally could possibly be legit. Wow, this is we’re actually walking on the we’re on the dock right now. We’re walking onto the onto the boat. Wow, this is incredible. Laurel talked us into this. This is great. Thank you so much. Captain. Pirates. So.

Len Testa: So we’re on the grand windows, so we’re walking in. is a very plush room. Ooh, leather seats.

Len Testa: Wow, this is nice. Here’s the sink. So there’s a sink for drinks? guess we’re gonna do drinks. This is the sink for washing your dishes. Okay, so this is where someone else washes my dishes. This is stove. There’s a stove in here!

Len Testa: So we’re living room. Let me see if we can describe this. We’ve got seats for one, two, three, four, five, five people, all leather. It’s air conditioned. We’ve got a small TV. We’ve got a little console there. We’ve got a small kitchenette. We’ve got a table for dining with one, two, three, four, five, six more seats. It actually goes down. There’s more. Well, the bedrooms are down here. There’s bedrooms in this thing. Dude, I’m so renting this. my God. is amazing. One bedroom.

Len Testa: There’s more than one bedroom here. Here’s two bedrooms. my god. Look at this. so there’s okay. So we’re in the green one There’s a small bedroom here. It’s so what this This is a this is a full bed, I think But it’s got lighting. my god. This is amazing. It’s got a closet This is like a Japanese hotel room though. is wonderfully small. Oh, it’s got a little skylight. And then there’s another bedroom with, oh, there’s a bathroom too. Oh, this is like the world’s smallest shower. Dude, you’ve got to make up your mind before you get in this thing. What you’re doing. This is, wow, this is nice. That’s a small, it’s got to sit down in the shower. So we’re in the shower. It’s like an airplane shower times maybe, sorry, airplane bathroom times two. And then this is a door. Ah, door to the other thing. To the first bedroom. And then the other bedroom.

Len Testa: Wow, this is nice. It’s got, again, essentially the size of like two or three, maybe the size of three airplane bathrooms, but it’s got a full shower with a seat. It’s got a small sink. It’s got a medicine cabinet. It’s got, I guess, place to hold onto rails. It’s got a small head. But then the master bedroom is really amazing. Think it’s got an elevated bed. It’s about hip high, so about three feet off the ground. It’s a, what is this, a full? It’s a queen.

Jim Hill: It’s got a TV console, it’s got windows on either side with shades, it’s got a sunlight?

Len Testa: Skylight. Thank you. You can actually go out through there. It’s an escape hatch. That’s awesome. this could be, if I needed an evil lair, this could be the escape hatch. Wow, this is really nice. This is incredible, and this is storage. closet space. Nice. So could you spend the night on this if you wanted to?

Captain Greg: You could live on here if you’d like.

Len Testa: I mean, you could rent it for the night like an entire day.

Captain Greg: You can’t but I mean it worked this morning.

Len Testa: see if it works. Yep, it’s working. There’s another so he’s he’s pressed a secret button and and the stairs are raising up and washer dryer. There’s a washer dryer under the stairs in the boat. This is amazing. That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I think we lost Jim. Jim is stowing away apparently. Wow. for vacuum?

Captain Greg: Yep.

Len Testa: Central Vac? Of course, because every boat needs a central vacuum system. So what do you rent the Grand One for?

Captain Greg: rent the Grand One for… $520 an hour.

Len Testa: $520 an hour. So 24 hours would be $12,000 a day.

Captain Greg: Pretty much. These are bulk rate for…

Len Testa: You wouldn’t be able… I don’t know if you could 24 hours because it takes a crew of two. they would have to alternate two crews. Okay. But you could rent it from like 8pm to 8am?

Captain Greg: Probably could, yep.

Len Testa: But according to this you can rent it, you know, for example somebody took there for 25th birthday

Captain Greg: We have somebody who was in 25th

Len Testa: 25th Oh kids My husband my wonderful husband rented my 25th birthday Kids, I love them We have somebody who rented it so they could ask

Captain Greg: it was Ethan asked Erica to marry him on

Len Testa: Proposals? Oh proposals, that’s a great idea

Captain Greg: We have a couple that took their parents out for the 50th anniversary

Len Testa: Oh, that’d be so nice But again, it’s just it’s the sort of thing you do for Something hugely significant. So where does the crew stay while you’re living it up in here?

Captain Greg: Up above?

Len Testa: floor. There’s another floor?

Captain Greg: Yeah. That’s where you drive it from.

Len Testa: Oh, that’s right. There’s no wheel here. The wet bar’s up there also.

Captain Greg: There’s a wet bar.

Len Testa: Of course there’s a wet bar. How did I not know that? So 5.20 an hour. 8 p.m. to 8 It comes with two crew.

Captain Greg: Two captains basically.

Len Testa: captains. case the first captain can’t fulfill his duties. don’t think he’d be to get as many people in this as La Cama. It’s like a autopilot. We did an event yesterday where we rented out La Hacienda at Epcot for 300 people. And yeah, which was was a great event. It was a lot of fun. It was like signing for a house though at the end. But this is just a whole other level of awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you. This is great. Thank you so much for this. Coming up. Wow, that was unexpected. That was fabulous. that’s where the cruise stays. So wait, so just to tell you the difference between crew and guests, the guests have this lovely thing. The crew essentially have this plastic enclosed thing. At least you have a padded seat up there. So that’s not bad.

Captain Greg: Guests can also go up there some some guests go up there also to watch because they do the fireworks.

Len Testa: Oh fireworks cruises Yeah, so they think some of the guests will go up there and watch it too. That’s fantastic too many most of them Yeah, I’d say that 18 18 18 people It’s amazing. It’s one two Three four five. Oh, that’d be great. Does anybody get seasick on this? Is it does it rock a lot or is it because you’re on an enclosed bay?

Captain Greg: It’s not bad I don’t think anything on these lakes would make this thing rock.

Len Testa: Okay, yeah, looks like it’s a pretty substantial craft. Well, thank you, Gregory. Thank you, Gregory. This is wonderful. Thank you. Wow, that was awesome. I’ve never seen anything like that before. That’s incredible.

Len Testa: I don’t think we can top that. I don’t think we can top that. That was great. let’s walk back to the Grand Floridian. We’ll talk a little bit about it. Just sort of to wrap up this series. That was incredible. So anything, so Grand Floridian, DBC, when is the DBC coming online? you know?

Jim Hill: Oh, if all goes according to plan. And remember that they’re going to have to build out into Seven Seas Lagoon. There’s going to be construction footings out there for your parking lot entrance thing. We are talking… 2013?

Len Testa: Oh, so a couple years yet.

Jim Hill: Yep. It’s going to have lovely views, but the what is the view of the DVC going to be the poly or the contemporary? What’s the view?

Len Testa: Interesting question, because there’s actually an island that’s going to obscure a certain part of this, and part of the plan is, can we do some selective cutting there?

Jim Hill: On the island?

Len Testa: Yeah.

Jim Hill: Oh. you know, that gets interesting. know, because it just sort of like… If we start talking about demolishing an island?

Len Testa: Yeah, just to improve the

Jim Hill: Oh, I can see like a one-time Krakatoa type event. Where they sell the hell out of it. It would fit in with the Polynesian theme. Some sort of virgin sacrifice. We got the crocodile thing going on. Bring me a Disney princess, I’ll do the Completely fits in.

Len Testa: That’s great. Alright well, Jim what do say we head over to Epcot and see what’s going on over there?

Jim Hill: Fabulous.

Len Testa: Thank you guys for listening to the show. We’re heading over Epcot next so that’ll be another episode. This is Len Testen and Jim Hale signing off. Stupid Judy, stupid energy. This has been a production of Mouse World Radio.

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