AME: The Disney Experience

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[00:00:49] Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before. I give you the Alan Mead experience.

[00:01:32] My son's band. My son's band. So it's kind of cool. We literally, oh man, like a year ago had a meeting where the band kids that wanted to go to Disney were set up. We set up an account, we put in a couple hundred bucks a month for the whole year. So it's like it paid for the trip by making small payments. and I signed up early on to be a chaperone. And like, it was okay. It was okay.

[00:02:01] I'm capable of being a chaperone. I'm not sure that I have the temperament, the correct temperament for a chaperone, even in retrospect, I'm not sure that I do. It was a lot. So one thing that was interesting, the band aspect of it was that the kids got to play a concert at Disney Springs, which used to be called Downtown Disney, which is basically the part of Disney that you can go to where you don't have to buy a ticket. It's like a shopping center area. And it's much larger than I remember.

[00:02:32] It's almost a park in and of itself, but it's just lots of stores and stuff like that. It's a great, just an absolutely great stage for bands to play on and performances and stuff like that. And I mean, it came right with its own sound guy and light guy and all this. It was pretty great. And there were two different bands that the Midland, Michigan kids came up with. There was a concert band and a symphonic band. So kind of two different levels. Both of them performed.

[00:03:01] I watched both performances. They were both great. It was really cool to see these kids that I had spent a bunch of time with on the buses and everything perform. They did a nice job. Honestly, that experience itself is probably worth it if your kids ever get a chance to do a band trip to Disney, because I think this is what they do for musical groups. They give them a chance to perform at a Disney venue and they then give them a chance to, I don't even know how to describe it. They call it a workshop.

[00:03:31] And basically, the kids go in for like a three or four hour recording session and they play Disney music. And then what's really cool is they take these arrangements that they have for the kids and they put them over Disney video, right? From the movies. The concert band played Moana. They did like an arrangement of Moana that was over the video. And they actually played it in the bus on the way home, which was really cool.

[00:03:58] And then the symphonic band played Lion King, like the intro segment to the Lion King where Mufasa is presenting Simba as the new baby or whatever. It was really cool. The music was great. They played it really well. It was really neat. And all the kids thought it was a really cool experience. Interestingly, for one thing,

[00:04:24] so Epcot is the park where they did this. And like there was this nondescript door between Italy and Germany in Epcot that opened into this wherever the buses got to. And it is so funny how much Disney there is. Disney is such a huge, there's such a, there's so much depth to what's going on there. You know,

[00:04:51] they put on basically world-class light shows and firework shows in every park every night. It's just, it's the, just the sheer depth. And then, so then these kids all sort of disappeared behind a nondescript door in, there was a full-on recording studio back there that they were able to use right, right in the middle of Epcot. It was pretty wild. So, they got to do those things. Totally worth it. As a band student, totally worth it. Now, less worth it, 24 plus hours in a bus

[00:05:21] on the way there and the way back. That was less worth it. That was, that was a lot. That was a, that was an awful lot. I would not have chosen to do it that way, but here we are. And the funny thing is, is, you know, Sean and I shared a seat and Sean is a big kid. He's over six too. He's as big as I am or bigger. And so two big guys in bus seats and there's not really a lot of room. You have a carry-on that has all your personal stuff in it.

[00:05:50] And there's frankly not a lot of room anywhere else except your seat. So literally, I just basically had this big backpack in my lap for 24 hours straight. It was, it was the whole thing. It is amazing how much stuff you can lose and find when you have a 24 hour bus ride. And the other thing is, I will tell you, sleep on this trip was, was not very much. I, allegedly, Sean tells me, I was sleeping as we were coming through Atlanta on the way back north.

[00:06:19] I don't remember sleeping at all. I sure didn't feel like I slept at all, but I guess I, I don't remember seeing Atlanta. So apparently I slept a little bit, but there's not much sleeping. And so I'm still kind of bouncing back from just the sheer sleep deprivation, which I mean, I'm not getting any younger in this, that, that part sucked. And the other thing is, I don't know who these people think they are, but we were in the park till it closed every night. So the only night that we weren't in the park late was the first night

[00:06:49] at 6 p.m. And they don't have a, they don't have a light show there. So like you left at 6 p.m. and they, you know, they had, they had, they checked, we checked in the hotel after that and the kids all stayed up swimming. And like, I, like their curfew was insanely late for me. I mean, their curfew, the earliest curfew they had was like 10 30 at night. And that was that first night after we'd been on the bus. Basically we did a 24 hour bus ride, showed up, got off the bus,

[00:07:19] had breakfast and then went to the park and went to Animal Kingdom. There was no hotel before Animal Kingdom. And frankly, the hotel was almost like we were in the hotel rooms for such a short period of time. We'd have, we'd have an 11 o'clock, you know, the, the park would close at 10. We'd get back to the hotel by 10. They close at 10, but actually their, their big light show is at 10 o'clock or whatever. I don't know exactly, but bottom line is we always, the curfew and, and lights out was always like 11 or 11 30 at night. I don't stay up that late. I never stay up that late.

[00:07:49] On a day that I was planning on staying up late, I make it to 10. I just don't, I don't stay up late anymore. It just doesn't happen. And I was required to do that. And so between, so that's less sleep that I was getting. Plus every morning, the wake up call was insanely early. Like there were no mornings. Well, let's just sleep in. No, no, we hit the park. And as it opened every single day, it was a freaking, not a lot of sleep. Like had I been able to sleep, fall asleep immediately and wake up only at the very last second.

[00:08:18] We're still talking a max of about six hours of sleep. Hotel rooms were nice and everything, but it's just, we weren't there for very long. So I am still coming off of a huge sleep debt. And then the two bus rides just made it that much worse. Plus, you know, you're doing 25,000 plus steps every day in these parks. And I had the, the, the added cortisol dump of keeping track of 13, 13 high school kids every few hours, making sure that they're not dead. And the other thing is,

[00:08:47] I'm going to tell you this high school kids, you would think that they'd be really good at texting. I don't think that's true at all. I think Gen X and maybe millennials are really good with texting. And these kids were not at all. They were not paying attention at all. They might've been paying attention to a lot of other stuff. They sure weren't paying attention to the text thread that we were putting together. Cause I had to chase them down every single check-in that I had. I had to chase them down to get them to tech check-in. Every single one of the kids was nice. They were nice kids, talented kids, musical kids, but they were as flaky as my kids.

[00:09:17] So I will say that's an age thing. Like if I get irritated at my kids, cause they don't check their texts. I'm afraid that I'm afraid that's all of them. None of them check their texts. I'm telling you, I feel like such an old man shaking my fist on the lawn, but it's true. They weren't that way. So it was quite a trip. It was quite a trip. I have to say that by the fourth day and certainly the fifth day, which was the bus trip back home,

[00:09:46] I was on a level of irritable that I, I don't know that I've ever had maybe back in dental school, but I just, and it was a matter of, I think it was like a physical, I just couldn't, oh my gosh, I had, I'd had enough of people. You go to those, the, every Disney park is, I love how people, well, you June, maybe not as busy at Disney. No, sorry. They're always busy all the time. And that's the end of the story. So, and I have some stuff to talk about that. Disney is a, Disney's a wild,

[00:10:16] we did it. We did a search for it at one point. And in the, the Disney like property, the Disney parks or, or the Disney experiences, including the resorts, the Disney resorts in Orlando area, have over 80,000 people working for them. 80,000 people employed by Disney in the Orlando area. That is insane. That sheer size of, of a business is mind blowing.

[00:10:44] People constantly talk about how the level of service at Disney is so high. And I will say the people that work there were, they, for the most part went out of their way to be friendly. I'm not sure that I believe that Disney is the same as Ritz Carlton, but it's, it's pretty good. I don't know. It's, it was fine. Oh, I had, we, with whenever we were interacting with Disney people, we never had any trouble with, you know, it was, it was not a thing. And I will say, I'll tell you what, man, the way that they do these trips, they would give us these, these Disney cards.

[00:11:14] Like every, every morning you'd get off the bus and they'd hand you a dining card. And the dining card had like 50 bucks per person per day for dining. And, and what's nuts about that is that they, there were a lot of places that didn't take it. Disney has this thing where they're happy to take your money. But when it comes to like, I, we went to several places. We don't, we don't take those. We don't take those. You can, you know, after a while you're like, well, okay. So it's not real money. Then you pay,

[00:11:44] I guarantee you, we paid $50 per ticket for that thing, but doggone, it's hard, hard to find a place to use them. I mean, we ended up being able to, honestly, we had leftover because there are multiple times we sat down to eat and I just paid for it with my credit card. Cause there's no cash. No one takes cash. So cash is talks to no one. Uh, and then I, we had these extra cards that had money on them at the end. My wife, luckily my wife and the rest of my family, my parents, my sister's family,

[00:12:13] we're all staying on site at a Disney resort. And so we, they use the left, the leftover money on these cards that we'd paid for in Disney resorts for like brunch or something like that. So they were able to use them for dining in that way, but we never, we didn't get a chance to use them because it was so hard to find someplace that would use them. So it's kind of an interesting, I know that this is how they do it. And honestly, when it never ends up in favor of the person at Disney,

[00:12:42] it always ends up in favor of Disney. And I get it. That's just kind of how this works. So when everyone talks about what a great Disney experience is, I mean, there's some things, there's some things, but anyhow, I, the other thing about Disney is that you pay your ticket. And then if you pay your regular ticket and you don't, you don't, you just go into, to, to ride the rides, you're going to wait most of the day, most of the day, like everything in the world nowadays is waiting, but Disney,

[00:13:11] you're paying a bunch of money to go in and wait. So, and I know for a fact that a bunch of the kids paid extra to have a lightning lane, which is, which is basically a slightly shorter weight. You pay money for slightly shorter weight. Now, my wife brilliantly checked in with the disability services at Disney. Sean has a diagnosis of autism. And, uh,

[00:13:39] they did a zoom call a week or so before he left. And, and he was given a disability services path pass, which is honestly, his autism presents in a very specific way, but it was enough that they decided that, that he deserved a disability. Well, you know, that's like essentially unlimited short lines one at a time. It was an amazing thing. And you could take up to three other people with you. So my sister, who is a Disney adult, she's one of these Disney people who just lives her life to go to Disney and all this stuff. And I'll tell you what,

[00:14:07] I can be critical of it while I'm here, but it's a pretty valuable person to have around when you're at Disney. Cause she knew everything about it. Uh, she had bought, she and my wife had bought multiple fast pass lightning lane things or whatever. So they, so they didn't wait as much as they would have. But if you, if you went there without planning on spending any more money than what you paid for your ticket, Oh my God, you would wait forever. You'd have no, you'd have, Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine the few times that we waited for,

[00:14:35] for a ride without either the disability pass or a lightning lane pass. We were in line for a long time, even for the older ride. It was crazy. Like the crush of humanity at these Disney parks. It is amazing that more bad things don't happen with that many people in one place. Unbelievable. I don't believe there is a time that Disney isn't that busy. I just don't. I just, I, it was, it was insane. So, but what's funny about Disney's whole,

[00:15:05] thing is that you're going to wait in line. And so the newer rides, like the theming of all the rides and so many, that's okay. It's a couple of things we didn't wait in line for. And we didn't wait in line for the hall of the presidents, the hall of the presidents, which is something I think I probably saw last time when I was a little kid. That was pretty cool. It's pretty good presentation. It was like 20 minutes or so. We did not wait in line for crazy. Dental already has some of the lowest prices on dental supplies anywhere, but you know, it's even crazier free shipping.

[00:15:36] Head over to crazy dental prices.com, load up your cart and use coupon code very ship. That's very ship for free shipping on every single order. Plus every time you use that code, crazy dental kicks back support to the very dental podcast network, save money, get free shipping and support the show. Use code very ship today. What else was it? Well, there was a cheesy tiki. Oh, you know what? The barnstormer. It's like the kiddie coaster at, at, uh, at, uh, at magic kingdom.

[00:16:04] We walked right onto the kiddie coaster at magic kingdom. So that was pretty cool. But so the first day we were at animal kingdom, the second day we were at Hollywood studios, the third day we were at Epcot and the fourth day we were at magic kingdom. And we were there the whole day. All of their, all of their open hours at all times. Now, some of the times that's not quite true. We didn't get to Epcot till later in the afternoon, later in the morning or early afternoon, because they did this big perform. No, not Epcot. Sorry. Uh, Hollywood studios. We didn't get there till the afternoon because the bands were,

[00:16:34] were performing at Disney. So we weren't there all day for Epcot, but we were there till the very end of Epcot. We were definitely there. Epcot was the third day. So, um, no, so we, okay, we were there to the end at Hollywood studios. That's what it was. And Hollywood studios has this shy, enormous show. And it's this huge amphitheater thing. And Oh my, it was huge. And we were at the very, there's only one, uh, one entrance and one exit that place.

[00:17:03] We couldn't have been any further away from it when we finally found seats. Cause we got in so late. I will say my boys and I pushed the limit of riding coasters as many, as much as we could. So we came in late to the shows both times. Cause we had just ridden the coasters, which was totally worth it. I would say the shows would probably my least and least favorite thing. Anyhow. So Disney makes a point of, of making the weight part of the deal. Uh, the better rides of Disney make,

[00:17:31] make the theming of the ride is the weight is sort of part of the ride, particularly the very newest ones like the, um, Oh, there's a, there's a guardians of the galaxy roller coaster. That's freaking insane. It's really good. And there, they have tons of theming throughout the ride. You're just not, you're just not back in the day. You just stood in line and stood in the lines of the line. Then you got on the coaster. And this one, the experience is more, the line becomes part of the experience, which is probably a smart move.

[00:18:00] Although I think everyone's kind of sees through it in a lot of cases, especially if you see, you know, it's only really effective the first time you ride it. So, uh, so much waiting, so much waiting. And when you think about that, people have paid a lot of money to be there to go and wait. And it's a shame on some level. So of course, everything that I think of, you know, for owning a dental business and, and, and being a dentist delivering care,

[00:18:28] I relate every kind of business to that. I've always sort of done that. I'm like, how could I, how can I relate this to what I do? For my patients. And, and I will say this, I'm a bit of a fanatic about not having patients wait. Patients rarely wait. And we have a waiting room. We barely need it unless you've got someone that's driven you to the appointment or something like that, because we were, we run on time about 95 plus percent of the time. And what's funny about that is I have discounted that as just being the norm.

[00:18:58] Like the, the fact that no one really waits for an appointment in my, once they reach the office has become so normalized that, I, I don't think of that as a plus. I think of that as just, that's how the, but I, but then when I go to doctor's appointments myself and I'm waiting and waiting in the waiting room for a really long time, I'm like, Oh wow, we do, we do a much better job about waiting. So it's rare that you have a patient in my office complaining about how long it took them. And if it does take them, if they're waiting for any period of time, I'm always very apologetic about it. I think that's,

[00:19:27] I think that's the way to run a clinic. I don't know. I may, maybe these high volume offices don't, don't have the capacity to, to, to do that. And I'm just, that's just not me. I'm not interested in it. I don't want to start the appointment apologizing to them. There's enough, there's enough stuff that's not very pleasant about dental, dental visits that I don't want to start off apologizing. So that's kind of where I come in with that. It's, we shouldn't, we shouldn't make patients pay for a lightning lane.

[00:19:58] We shouldn't like, like I wonder, I wonder if there are offices that, that there's a premium or like, or do that, the concierge thing where patients, you know, can get an appointment and with a promise to no wait or whatever. I'm just like, I can't see myself working that into the situation. Disney sure has. Disney sure has. I mean, they, it's amazing. They ask, they ask for money all the time for everything. Like there is not a thing that they don't, that they don't monetize at Disney, whether it's, whether we're talking about, you know,

[00:20:27] the weight, how long the weight is, the, the food, everything, you know, there it's, it is wild. And, and they make, I will say this, they make your ability to pay for stuff really smooth. Like they, maybe because it's digital or in low. Okay. So we had my sister, for Christmas, got us these, these, these magic bands. It's just a little, it's like a little, almost looks like a wristwatch. It's like an NFC thing. That's very Disney. And so when you check into a ride, if you had like a lightning rain lane,

[00:20:56] you had to check in to make sure it was you. And you just put your little, mine was, I think mine was a Mickey mouse and Sean's was an R2D2. And you just put the little thing up against the, and it would check in and it would, it was very smooth, everything like that. But you can also buy stuff with it. If you wanted to, you could pay for your dinner with it. You could do, they made it. So they've definitely taken the barriers out of payment for this now. And I think to myself, I'm like, that's where offices who keep a credit card on file, have it over the rest of us. As long as a patient knows, this is how,

[00:21:26] this is how they're going to pay for stuff. And they're not going to wait around and approve it. It's just going to get, that would make a ton of sense. Like that kind of, that kind of efficiency would be great. Like the patient doesn't have to wait at the, at the, you know, there's where the line is, right? Somehow or another, I have just a couple of patients in the office at a time, but somehow we all finish at the same dang time. And there's a wait to talk to my, the talk to the front desk on your way out. That's awkward. I hate that. So on some level,

[00:21:51] I don't think I need to send a set up mead family dental magic bands, but maybe we need to look into that, that credit card on file thing. That might make some sense anyhow. So it is funny to me how, how waiting is built into Disney. Now, the other thing that's really interesting, and I, and this happened, it got, it got worse and worse as I was there. And my suspicion is that's more, I just didn't have the resilience to, to, uh,

[00:22:20] it's just so many people there. The crush of people was insane. And I've noticed it. I've talked about it a lot. I don't know that I talk about it on the podcast because I, I come off as such an angry curmudgeon, but it bothers me when people do not have an awareness of their physical space that they take up. In other words, classic example, I'm at the grocery store. I am the guy who's going to pull the cart out of the way and park it somewhere where it's not in anyone's way. When I'm going to look for something,

[00:22:50] I cannot stand when people stand in the middle of the aisle with their cart and don't make room for other people. And maybe it's because I have low self-esteem or something, but I'm always trying to look out and make sure that I'm not taking up any more space than I need to. Disney is like the, the whole, every Disney park is insane this way. You'd, you'd be walking on the right side of the, of the path that you're walking on, which is that, you know, the, the social convention that we've all decided to agree to, or at least I used to think people agreed to that, you know,

[00:23:19] you walk on the right side. So you're kind of staying out of the way. Nah, nah, there are constantly, there were people walking backwards, not looking where they were going. There's constantly people four or five people across that blocking everything. There's constantly, Oh my God, the amigos and the strollers, the strollers as big as a car. Ah, it drives me so crazy. Like, like, and everyone felt completely entitled to take up all the space they wanted, even though there's just an absolute crush of humanity at Disney. I hate that so much.

[00:23:49] I, and I sound like such a grumpy old man, but I do hate it. I hate that so much. I don't know when we lost the awareness of, of looking out for other people. I'm not sure when we did that, but I think maybe the, the way I might relate that just being awareness of yourself is maybe the awareness of how the patient is feeling. There are some patients in my office that I've worked on enough times. There's like no anxiety, no matter what you're going to do to them, they are on board for it.

[00:24:19] They're good for it. And there are some patients that are incredibly frightened all the time, no matter what you do. And, and I think sometimes there's a certain, I'll tell you what, if I've been busy or if I've had a long day or whatever, my awareness of that is probably not as good. And, and I, I have team members that help me with that in a lot of cases. In other words, sometimes they'll particularly tell you when you got someone who's particularly afraid or particularly was, was their,

[00:24:48] their provisional was sensitive or, or what have you, something like that. That's an awareness in the dental office that, that, and I, I apply it to myself to be perfectly honest. I just wish that more people had awareness of their, of the space that they take up in the world and, and that, that they could look out more for other people than looking out for themselves. I got no other, I got no other words, but that. And then the last thing that I'm noticing and that, that really has a, has a relationship to the dental office is that I,

[00:25:18] I was more engaged and more honestly, more energetic. The first day that we were in the first park was animal kingdom. Even after I was on, we were on a bus for 24 hours. I was already pretty beat up in, but I, I must've slept some, I felt okay that day. But as we went, you know, further went, you know, staying up late and getting up early. And by the fourth day, I, my personal resilience for every, I was exhausted. I was cranky.

[00:25:47] Oh my God. Was I cranky? I'm still cranky. I'm still, I'm still angry at everything right now, more so than I normally am. I, I honestly, this really beat me up and I'll tell you what the last day. So I've had this foot wound that I've been dealing with forever for month, for years now. And I, I even went into my podiatrist, like right before we left for Disney to have him kind of to treat this wound. What happens is the wound callus builds up on it because the wound is exactly right where my foot, where my weight goes. So it calluses.

[00:26:17] And when the callus builds up, it gets painful. Well, 25,000 plus steps for four days straight will tend to build up pretty good callus. And I will tell you by day, the end day four, when I'm literally trying to get all of my kids, the, the kids, Oh my God, what a nightmare. We took attendance right after the big firework show at, at the magic kingdom on Thursday night. And then the idea was, okay, we know everyone's here. Let's get them to the buses.

[00:26:43] And we took these fairies and I lost every one of them on the ferry. I didn't know where they were. I'm like, I have no idea. And yes, they all knew that we're the goal was to get to the bus. I think I was probably the last person to get to the bus. I was so freaked out that I lost someone. We had the, we had this just absolute shit show of a, of a group chat of all the chaperones going, yeah, where's this one? Oh, this one did you're just, Oh my God, what a nightmare. We are set. It was, it was crazy. I never want to look at that thread again. It was insane.

[00:27:12] And I got back to the bus and I was, I was done and I was limping. I was limping badly. And, and one of the directors said on the way, like dude for the last two days, I kind of wanted to say no shit. I'm limping. I was so, I was so done in my foot. Oh my God. I changed the, the, I changed the, uh, the dressing. We stopped after like an hour on the bus so we could put on clean clothes. It was, Oh my God, I was half awake.

[00:27:42] It was terrible. And it was not at a nice, it was like at a gas station. Oh, it was horrible. We stopped at Bucky's several times and that made the experience a lot better. Cause I'm telling you what Bucky's might be. Bucky's is amazing. It's like, it is like the Disney world for junk food and bathrooms. I'm not, they have the best bathrooms. They have a million, they have a million stalls. They have a million, they have hundreds of gas tanks and they have all of the best junk food and all of, Oh my God.

[00:28:08] That the morning we stopped at Bucky's on the way up North and I had a breakfast taco. It was the first moment after that, that nightmarish night, Thursday night over to that. I'm like, okay, I think I'm going to make this. I had a Bucky's breakfast taco and it's like, okay, I can look at, I can look at the world again. It was unbelievable. I don't know why anyone who complains about Bucky's man, I don't get it. It is. It's like literally a Disney world for human,

[00:28:37] just for human basic needs, gas, bathrooms, traveling needs. It's like Disney world for all your traveling needs. It's there's plenty of room for everyone. You know, even if the line is long, they move through it so fast. There's so many checkout. It's like a, it's unbelievable. If you've never been to a Bucky's, Oh my gosh, they're coming everywhere too. There's not one coming to Michigan yet, but apparently they're, they're, they're spreading out from the South there. It's a fantastic place. When you're traveling, I'm saying a Bucky's is about as best place to do a rest area as anything, Anyhow.

[00:29:06] So I don't even know where I was going with that, except that I'm a big, big fan of Bucky's. And so, but my resilience was so low, was so low. And I, I can relate that directly to if you've had a particularly bad day where you've maybe had bad outcomes or bad patient interactions or just stuff didn't go well, or it's just been a long week and it's the second half of a long day of a long week and everything. I will get that way and I'll get short with everyone and I'll get in. And the other thing is, is when,

[00:29:36] when you're feeling that way, stuff just goes worse too. Like, it's almost like you have to have a stopper and say, okay, you you're better than this. You can do this. But I just remember the lack of resilience and the pain I was in. Oh my gosh. Oh, I remember I was the, when I, when I changed my clothes and I changed the dressing, I, I was, I'd been bleeding like my, like I, like it was awful. Like I, enough that I'm in, it happens sometimes. This, this, this wound doesn't bleed. It's sort of an open sore,

[00:30:05] but it doesn't really bleed. And usually it's quite good. But after four days of 25,000 plus steps, I was in horrible pain. And then I changed the dressing and it felt a little bit, you know, it took some ibuprofen felt a little bit better, but I'm thinking to myself all the way home. I'm like, I have done permanent damage. My foot is never going to be the same. Well, it's actually doing quite well. I, on Friday morning, as we were driving home, I called my podiatrist again. I got an emergency appointment. I'm going to go see him tomorrow.

[00:30:32] And because I was so worried something horrible had happened while I'm looking at it. And I'm like, I probably didn't need to do that. I'm okay. But in any case, that's the kind of, I just, I just didn't have any resilience. I was done. And rest is, rest is important. Taking a mental break from work is important. Taking a mental break from whatever you're doing. I would say this, don't plan four straight days of Disney. Don't do it. It's stupid. Especially with 24 hour bus rides, 25 hour bus rides on the beginning and end of it. That is, I mean,

[00:31:02] they wanted to get the, it was so funny. Disney costs so much and you make such an effort to go there. You don't want to miss a minute. Like everyone goes to Disney and they get there at eight 59. If the park opens at nine, cause they don't want to miss a minute. They want it. They want to get their money's worth. I get that. Also it, that's crazy. That's a crazy way to look at it. And you will burn yourself out there. And it's the same kind of thing. It's like, you just, you just got to give yourself a break on some level. So, um, and, and honestly, I wish that this dumb, uh,

[00:31:32] smartwatch, I have a Garmin watch. I wish it could tell me resilience rather than just like body battery, my body battery, my body battery is always low. I was like, the, the, the night before magic kingdom, I looked at my body battery and it was six out of 100. I'm like, thanks. I didn't need you to tell me that. I kind of got it. I kind of got it. Yeah. It was, it was something, but, uh, yeah. So I, we made it back. I will say that, uh, my wife and son that went separately got to fly back. They had a little bit, their experience on the,

[00:32:02] of the travel was significantly, significantly better. Their experience at Disney was the same where it was kind of a grind, but, but their experience of traveling is better. So the comparison is, uh, give yourself a break in traveling or give yourself a break in the time that you're not at work. I'm just trying to relate it, you know, trying to relate it to a dental office, but it was, it was cool. It was, it was, if you're asking me if I would do it again, I'm not sure I would do it again. I'm not sure. I, I wouldn't probably do it the way that we did it this time only because of things that I know now,

[00:32:31] but my, my son, both of my kids really enjoyed it. And my son who's in band really loved it. So it was worth it, but man, um, I don't know that I would choose the chaperone route again. I might just meet him there. I don't know. It was, it was a, it was quite an experience. So that's all I'm, that's, I have so many Disney concepts that I thought about while I was there. Probably several of the next Alan Mead experiences are going to be things I related to, but I just, I just was the, the whole human experience of, of Disney on a,

[00:33:01] on a grind like this was probably worth talking about. So anyhow, that's all I've got. That's all I've got for my, my first Disney report. I hope you guys are enjoying the podcast. We've got, we still have really good content coming out. Got mostly new content coming out and pretty happy with it. I wish you would tell a friend about it. I, the download numbers have never been this low in my entire life before. And I, I don't know if that's the algorithm or if there's just people not listening. I feel like we have the same number, same amount of interaction with people, but I would love it if you'd tell a friend. And,

[00:33:30] and if you haven't joined the Facebook group, go join the Facebook group, uh, Facebook and search very dental. All you have to do is give me a password. I'm going to give you a couple of them here. We got, you can use McQuethy, Lipscomb, Papa Randy, Hornbrook, Timmerman, Gary, Frank, BioClear. There's a bunch of them. Give me one or more of those and I'll let you in. It's a very safe, very quiet group. It's not, it won't take up too much of your time. And it's a good place where we can talk about stuff like this. So I sure appreciate you listening to the podcast.

[00:33:59] And I'm glad to be home. Honestly, I've, I've never been looking forward to just going to work so much, which is really something to say. So I guess it was a good experience, but I'm glad to be home. And I hope you guys are ready to have a great week and we will catch you next episode.