WDW Radio: Your Guide to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise and More Disney Magic!

883 · Disney In or Out? Do We Agree on Disney Parks, Movies and Food? Is The Magic of Disney Animation a bigger addition to Walt Disney World than Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind? Should the original Star Wars saga ever be remade with a new cast? And can a Disneyland churro really settle an argument about which coast has the better snacks? This week, I invite you to join me and some of our friends around the virtual table for another round of Disney In or Out? I give them (and you) a statement, we each pick a side, and then we defend our answers while you play along wherever you’re listening. The Magic of Disney Animation: Does an experience the whole family can share beat another thrill ride, or does Guardians still have the edge? A new Skywalker saga: Would a fresh cast introduce Star Wars to a new generation, or should Disney spend that creative energy on new stories? More separately ticketed nights: When is a special event worth the trade-off for guests visiting on a regular park ticket? Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets: We talk about the music, the Easter eggs, and what we hope could happen in that corner of Hollywood Studios. A day without rides: We make the case for EPCOT, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and even a little holiday wandering at Hollywood Studios. The resort and food rounds: Animal Kingdom Lodge or Wilderness Lodge, Hollywood Brown Derby, Disneyland versus Walt Disney World snacks, and a Big Hero 6 sequel we would love to see. And more! There are no points, no prizes, and apparently no limit to how seriously we can discuss a snack or attraction. Which statement had you shouting your answer at the three of us, and why? Come tell me in the WDW Radio Clubhouse or leave a voicemail at 407-900-9391. 📣 Comment in the WDW Radio Clubhouse or 📞 Call the Voicemail: 407-900-9391 ✈️ Looking to visit a Disney Park, Disney Cruise Line, or any vacation destination around the world? Let our friends at Mouse Fan Travel help you with expert planning at no cost to you! - visit MouseFanTravel.com 📬 Stay Connected: - Subscribe for email updates + get my FREE Disney book! - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube 🎧 Explore More: WDWRadio.com - Blog, archives, podcasts, and more WDW Radio Nation - Support the show and unlock rewards WDWRadioLIVE.com - Watch and chat LIVE Wednesday nights Events & Cruises - Join us for group trips and in-person meetups! LouMongello.com - Creator or solopreneur? Turn your passion into your profession with coaching, courses, and events, including our Momentum events in Walt Disney World. I am also a keynote speaker who shares how to leverage lessons from Disney on customer service, experience, and leadership. 🙏🏼 Thank you for listening, being part of the WDW Radio family, and helping the show be recognized as the Best Travel Podcast for nine consecutive years - and for the incredible honor of being inducted into the ⭐️ Podcast Hall of Fame. Please subscribe, tell a friend, and join me again next week... and as always, sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio Show!

882 · Marvel in Disney Parks: Behind the Magic with Brian Crosby How does Marvel come to life in Disney Parks... and what does a little boy meeting Peter Pan have to do with it? This week, I sit down with Marvel Studios' Brian Crosby at the WDW Radio booth at D23 for a conversation about turning the characters we love into places, adventures, and memories we can experience for ourselves. Brian spent ten years as an Imagineer before joining Marvel, and he shares the thought behind experiences that stretch from Hong Kong Disneyland to Tokyo and beyond. We talk about the creative choices that help a story connect, whether you know every comic book or are meeting a character for the first time. You'll discover: Why the Iron Man Experience queue had to introduce the man inside the armor. How Groot became the guide to a very different kind of Marvel adventure. The childhood Peter Pan encounter Brian still thinks about when creating experiences. What it meant to Stan Lee to see Marvel become part of the Disney Parks. How ideas can travel from comics to attractions and back into animation. Which attractions Brian would want to share with Walt Disney. Along the way, we attempt a 55-second lightning round that goes about as well as you'd expect when the two of us start talking Disney, food, and comic books. You don't need to know the Marvel timeline to enjoy this one, just the feeling of meeting a character who means something to you. 🙋🏻‍♀️ What Disney character encounter has stayed with you, and what made it special? Share YOUR story at WDWRadio.com/Clubhouse.

881 · The Magic of Disney Animation: An E-Ticket Without a Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios The Magic of Disney Animation gives Disney’s Hollywood Studios a new way to explore how the movies we love are made. But I kept coming back to a bigger question: what makes a place feel like a studio when the movies are no longer being made there? This week, join me as we discover what’s inside, which details deserve a closer look, and why different people in your family might love completely different parts of the same experience. We’ll connect it to the original animation tour and explore why I think this is an E-ticket experience without needing to be an E-ticket ride. A studio open house: How Once Upon a Studio connects the experience, with characters taking over and artwork coming to life. Hidden details worth finding: A Lost and Found with references to Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet, plus a chandelier whose paintbrushes were individually named by Disney artists. Inside the Animator’s Office: Personal objects, familiar tools, and unexpected references that bring you closer to the people behind the films. Characters with a purpose: Why Mulan is in Story, Rapunzel is in Layout, and Goofy has somehow been entrusted with Lighting at Off the Page! An unexpected Mulan moment: The conversation that brought back a memory of my son and changed how I think about character encounters. Olaf Draws! and Eric Goldberg: The thread connecting Robin Williams in Back to Neverland to drawing Genie, and why my own attempt came with a written apology. Room to play and discover: Mary Blair’s influence on Drawn to Wonderland, and why I’d leave yourself time to wander. There’s history, humor, practical advice, and a drawing that probably raises more questions than it answers. What part of The Magic of Disney Animation would you most want to spend time exploring, and why? 📣 Comment in the WDW Radio Clubhouse or 📞 Call the Voicemail: 407-900-9391 ✈️ Looking to visit a Disney Park, Disney Cruise Line, or any vacation destination around the world? Let our friends at Mouse Fan Travel help you with expert planning at no cost to you! - visit MouseFanTravel.com 📬 Stay Connected: - Subscribe for email updates + get my FREE Disney book! - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube 🎧 Explore More: WDWRadio.com - Blog, archives, podcasts, and more WDW Radio Nation - Support the show and unlock rewards WDWRadioLIVE.com - Watch and chat LIVE Wednesday nights Events & Cruises - Join us for group trips and in-person meetups! LouMongello.com - Creator or solopreneur? Turn your passion into your profession with coaching, courses, and events, including our Momentum events in Walt Disney World. I am also a keynote speaker who shares how to leverage lessons from Disney on customer service, experience, and leadership. 🙏🏼 Thank you for listening, being part of the WDW Radio family, and helping the show be recognized as the Best Travel Podcast for nine consecutive years - and for the incredible honor of being inducted into the ⭐️ Podcast Hall of Fame. Please subscribe, tell a friend, and join me again next week... and as always, sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio Show!

880 · Tasting Disney History: The Unofficial Disney Parks Retro Cookbook What if you could taste your way through Disney Parks history? This week, I’m joined by theme park and travel journalist Carly Caramanna, co-author with Julie Tremaine of The Unofficial Disney Parks Retro Cookbook: 60+ Nostalgic Recipes and Stories of Yesteryear. And while “cookbook” is in the title, this conversation becomes something much bigger: a journey through Disneyland and Walt Disney World history using food as our time machine. Carly shares how discovering a 1981 Walt Disney World dining guide eventually led to the book, why the Adventurers Club became one of her first chapters, and how restaurants can tell us what Disney was trying to become during different eras. We wander through the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship Restaurant, Casa de Fritos, Top of the World, Aunt Polly’s, Writer’s Stop, Pleasure Island, the Handwich, ABC Soap Opera Bistro, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, and more. We also explore why Disney fans become nostalgic for places they never experienced, how old recipes were adapted for modern kitchens, why Disney Legend Bob Gurr was the perfect person to write the foreword, and which Disney foods Carly believes we may someday regret taking for granted. Most of all, we ask whether the food itself is really what we miss, or whether one bite simply brings back the people and versions of ourselves connected to it. If you could bring back one extinct Disney restaurant or menu item tonight, what would it be, and why? 📣 Comment in the WDW Radio Clubhouse or 📞 Call the Voicemail: 407-900-9391 ✈️ Looking to visit a Disney Park, Disney Cruise Line, or any vacation destination around the world? Let our friends at Mouse Fan Travel help you with expert planning at no cost to you! - visit MouseFanTravel.com 📬 Stay Connected: - Subscribe for email updates + get my FREE Disney book! - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube 🎧 Explore More: WDWRadio.com - Blog, archives, podcasts, and more WDW Radio Nation - Support the show and unlock rewards WDWRadioLIVE.com - Watch and chat LIVE Wednesday nights Events & Cruises - Join us for group trips and in-person meetups! LouMongello.com - Creator or solopreneur? Turn your passion into your profession with coaching, courses, and events, including our Momentum events in Walt Disney World. I am also a keynote speaker who shares how to leverage lessons from Disney on customer service, experience, and leadership. 🙏🏼 Thank you for listening, being part of the WDW Radio family, and helping the show be recognized as the Best Travel Podcast for nine consecutive years - and for the incredible honor of being inducted into the ⭐️ Podcast Hall of Fame. Please subscribe, tell a friend, and join me again next week... and as always, sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio Show!

879 · Return to Progress City: Imagining Walt Disney’s City of Tomorrow What if the most interesting thing about Walt Disney’s Progress City isn’t that it was never built, but that it was never really finished? Recorded live at the WDW Radio booth at D23, former Walt Disney Imagineering President Bob Weis and artist, architect, and former Imagineer Eric Robison join me to explore Eric’s extraordinary new book, Return to Progress City. What begins with Walt’s original vision for EPCOT becomes something much bigger: a conversation about imagination, architecture, storytelling, technology, creativity, and what happens when you give yourself permission to start with a blank page. Eric shares how a pandemic project to paint another 100 Mickeys ended at number 38 when his imagination pulled him back to the Progress City model that had fascinated him since childhood. Bob also reveals something remarkable from Marty Sklar’s archives: Marty’s original handwritten notes from conversations with Walt about EPCOT and the City of Tomorrow. We explore the wonderfully strange Progress City story Bob and Eric dreamed up over pastrami and martinis, how Imagineers move from rough “chicken scratch” to places filled with story and emotion, why Eric believes something human can disappear when we jump too quickly to the computer, the role of AI in creativity, and why even the most beautiful visual idea still needs a writer and a story. And then Bob hands Eric a blank card and asks him to draw the future, right there at the table. I also share something very personal from D23: the release of my new book, The Disney Interviews: Disney Legends Edition. This new 456-page collection preserves 18 in-depth conversations with Disney Legends including Julie Andrews, Marty Sklar, Richard M. Sherman, Tony Baxter, Alan Menken, Joe Rohde, Bob Gurr, Alice Davis, Don Hahn, Jodi Benson, Paige O’Hara, Dave Smith, and more, along with completely new introductions, stories, context, and artwork, along with completely new introductions, stories, context, and artwork. It is available now in paperback and Kindle on Amazon. If Walt handed you that blank page today, what would you add to Progress City? 📣 Comment in the WDW Radio Clubhouse or 📞 Call the Voicemail: 407-900-9391 ✈️ Looking to visit a Disney Park, Disney Cruise Line, or any vacation destination around the world? Let our friends at Mouse Fan Travel help you with expert planning at no cost to you! - visit MouseFanTravel.com 📬 Stay Connected: - Subscribe for email updates + get my FREE Disney book! - Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube 🎧 Explore More: WDWRadio.com - Blog, archives, podcasts, and more WDW Radio Nation - Support the show and unlock rewards WDWRadioLIVE.com - Watch and chat LIVE Wednesday nights Events & Cruises - Join us for group trips and in-person meetups! LouMongello.com - Creator or solopreneur? Turn your passion into your profession with coaching, courses, and events, including our Momentum events in Walt Disney World. I am also a keynote speaker who shares how to leverage lessons from Disney on customer service, experience, and leadership. 🙏🏼 Thank you for listening, being part of the WDW Radio family, and helping the show be recognized as the Best Travel Podcast for nine consecutive years - and for the incredible honor of being inducted into the ⭐️ Podcast Hall of Fame. Please subscribe, tell a friend, and join me again next week... and as always, sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio Show!