Episode 70: The Bathroom Button

The INTERCOT Insder Podcast Live - Episode 70
The Bathroom Button!
The Cast: John, Cindy, Michael, Mel, Christine, Gary and special guest Shawn Kendrot developer of Disney Expedition


Disney Expedition App: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/st...9-b4c1857fc8ce


Get a Lumia 520 to play with for under $50 on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E45043A/intercotcom


The Bathroom Button! Pure Magic! Walking Directons too!


Toy Story Mania Experiement with no stand by


Segue into John’s Trip - Taking a trip is too complicated


Free Dining isn’t Free


Sea World lets you choose*


Universal Experience was great


Overbooking of MNSSHP


Michael’s Gay Days Adventures: Crazy crowded, but still not too crowded


Too bad DL and WDW aren’t part of the same company


Take It or Leave It: Guided Tours: Gary: Take it. Especially with Segways because machines, Cindy: Take it, when your children are appropriately aged, Michael: Take ‘em. Though he’d rather spend his money on booze, Christine: Leave it. She’s one and done. Walt’s Footsteps was all she needs, Mel: *Take it. But she’s never done one in Florida because of her kids’ ages (at the time), Shawn: Take it. They are planning on it, but kids are still young, John: *Take it. But he remembers some old obscure one that no one else remembers while in a cherry churro haze. Took the Behind the Seeds Tour on a lark.*


Viking boats trucked out the day after Maelstrom closed


Frozen ride budget still a nice $60 million


How long will this take?


Soarin’ is adding another theater but… will it go down while Maelstrom is retro-fitted to Frozen?


Soarin’ around the world


Lumberjack show - Everyone hates it
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


Haunted Mansion Tour very cool


We have tons of photos, check them out on all the feeds


The Four Seasons—So amazing, so spoiled. Cindy is spoiled now


Octopus burger traumatizes children


Still working things out, but overall it’s pretty great



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Great podcast..:mickey:
Listening to you all talking about how long the lines are and how crowded the parks are made me wonder..What is it going to be like when even more people aren't in line because of the mindset they have of not wanting people to wait for more than 15 min once they are in a line... Disney should know having people in line is what keeps the park in balance. Having more room in the parks because a large number is in a queue at any given part of the day.
I'm thinking people are at their breaking point now, adding more crowds in the mix is going to
alienate a lot of people. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into trying to fix something that was never broken. Do they secretly want the parks to fail?..:confused:

Great podcast. I really enjoy them all.

So, you were mentioning how WDW is trending toward all Fastpass, all the time, and they don't want any lines longer than 15 min, no standby...etc.

This got me to thinking...if they remove the ability to standby for an attraction, they are at the same time removing my ability to repeat an attraction....SO, how is this different from the ticket books they had in the beginning? Let's just issue the ticket books, one ride per attraction. Problem solved. Ding Ding Ding - Intercot Consulting! (just kidding- sort of)

John - the tour you were talking about was the Behind the Magic tour (I'm pretty sure that was the name). It was a full day and took you to 3 of the 4 parks. I took the tour twice, and both tours were slightly different. The last time I took it, the price was $199.

I loved that tour and would actually like to do it again as it's been about 8 years since the last time. However, we had a substitute tour guide the second time, and I had to correct him twice. Privately of course, as I didn't want to embarass him. He pointed to the shells of the Mickey Mania parade and tried to tell us they were from Tapestry of Dreams parade. But otherwise, the tours were excellent!

BTW - Shawn needs a radio show. He's got a great "radio" voice!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by goofy for pluto

I'm thinking people are at their breaking point now, adding more crowds in the mix is going to
alienate a lot of people. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into trying to fix something that was never broken. Do they secretly want the parks to fail?..:confused:

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This is purely my opinion(no inside information) but I think WDW has gotten stuck trying to milk what they see as their most profitable customer base (the people who are on their once in a lifetime trip). These people tend to spend more because they don't know if they will ever be back so they buy the souvenirs , the expensive meals, the special tickets because they are trying to experience it all. These people don't know what it was like before and probably won't be back.

I think this is short sighted but it appears. To be working for them for now because for every regular who doesn't want to come back there are more than enough first timers.

#70 PC, another great one! Very KEWL that the past few have had special guests. Shawn had some great info. Though I’m iPhone I can appreciate all the folks with the other phone types needing this app. And GOOD LUCK with the app.

Gary – I too back in the day had ZUNE. I had the first gen…figured I’d go against apple. Well it didn’t pan out well with them as they early on easily screw’d everyone’s library right out of the gate. YEA they did issue a patch that fixed it but that really stunk. I held on for a while but like the Blackberry Tour I had…which again was first release – ANOTHER TURD! I soon got rid of both and went apple. Never looked back since that point. Sure their locked down but at least they work about 99.2% of the time flawlessly. I do like my Windows driven laptops but past that my “toys” are apple.

I enjoyed the PC for sure. Really like to hear Michael’s input from his visits on those special days. Can we say “gay-dayz” on the board? ;) Never been to DL but man if you were able to get a party of 6 to a major place for breakfast the day of!!!??? WOW! No chance in WDW for that. I really loath making those plans so far in advance at WDW. Broken record…

Over booking special events? YUP! I’m feel the same from what many report and I'm out on that too. In 2008 we did a Christmas trip to WDW and booked MK’s party. It was nothing like you folks are describing now. We actually got to ride and enjoy the park. I’d bet it’s not that way now. That stinks too!

TOURS? I’ll take’em! DW and I have done the Key’s 2 times with about 8 years in between them or so and found both enjoyable. And Gary’s right…machinery is KEWL! We did Epcot’s Segway tour 2 times. First year on Segway Gen1 units then the following year did it on Segway Gen2’s. We also did the Outdoor Segway Tour at Wilderness Lodge – least I think that’s where it was at. It was fun to off road at Disney with the heavy duty Segways. And 1 year DW got me the Lunch With An Imagineer for our anniversary. Though not a tour it was super nice to have a great long lunch and talk with our Imagineer “Gary”. Had it at Brown Derby and the food was superb as was the conversation. A year ago we also did one at MK that was based on Walt’s small town. It was the first year for it and I can’t remember the name. Was priced low and we figured OK let’s do it. Our CM guide was OK…but the main thing was being in the park so early while it was so so so quiet. Hosing down sidewalks etc. KEWL! Never done the steam engine tour…not sure about that one or the ones you mentioned – Seeds? I’m all in for tours! The DL tour you all mention sounded SUPER!!! Bet that was just off the KEWL chart. And not bashing parents…but kids need to stay out of this type of stuff unless it’s designed for kids. 16 or 18 years of age please on these tours. If your attention span is not mature you ruin the tour for the adults who want to be there. Yea I get that some kids mature faster than others but some form/line must be drawn in the sand. Just like the Quiet Cove area on DCL and on Castaway Cay Serenity Bay – 18 please! No cannonballs in the adult pool!!!

And WOW AgentC’s report on the new resort – UNREAL experience! Sounds like a super posh place for sure. The tweets/instagrams of the trip and tours by CW and AgentC were great for that new resort. THANKS AGAIN for taking US along during ALL your magical journeys. ;)
And I feel the same stress about the future at WDW with all this planning nonsense. Mel B. said it right…I do hope they are not all sitting around a round table patting each other on their backs claiming success on over packed parks. I will say again…love the parks and the WHOLE experience that comes with. The resorts and parks are very nice. But if I need to schedule 180+ days out for what I THINK I’ll want to do on my vacation for ANY ride/attraction or event – I’ll be spending more time on the water/DCL and less time at the parks. My days are way too filled with the squares and numbers inside them, desktop calendar, as it is for me to now worry about over planning my vacation. Even APP wise…I still don’t want to have to use my iDevices on vacation unless I want to capture a photo moment or maybe check a ride wait/return time. To me that is nice to see real time ride times as well as maybe a schedule of parades and stuff like that. Maybe even IF a restaurant has an opening time. But I’m not scheduling stuff. Let me see it on the real time event schedule of what’s open/available and I’ll take the walk over to the place and book it. Course the bathroom locations and a MAP is nice. Think of all the print they could save by not printing maps? Past this bit of info – the need/expectation of PLANNING is getting WAY WAY WAY over done.

JY, my DW has been bumped with rogue strollers too many times. I always see this stuff in slo-motion as I’m assessing and try to prepare for damage control hoping she don’t get hurt or knocked down in the process. Yea it’s not fun being bumped into. My DW is a magnet for running kids who ricochet their path into her. Then usually the parent looks at US like it was us in the wrong and we should have moved. REALLY??? I’m standing there and your kid slammed into her. I get they are excited but WDW is no place to be running unless it’s with runDisney during an event! hehehetetetethehehe And your dad’s recipe for the day, we follow pretty much the same. It works!!!

Thanks PC’ers - thoroughly enjoyable again!!! Can’t wait to hear the PC from your Jan2015 runIcot Adventures for sure.

Just checking the podcast forum to make sure I hadn't missed one. I really enjoyed these last few episodes!

My 2 cents:

Tours - take them!

Over planning of WDW - why I haven't been in over 2 years and have no trips on the horizon. I will stick to the west coast for the foreseeable future where I can walk up to character meals even on busy days!!!

Oh and glad to hear that Soarin' (WDW) will finally get a new film - hasn't that been rumored since the attraction went in?

Any idea when next podcast will be up? Jonesing over here lol

Tonite... and another one before Christmas...

Nice. 2 before Xmas. Merry Xmas to all of the ICOT world.