Adventures By Disney Italy [Trip Report] – 119

Are these top-notch trips worth the price? Ryan’s Adventures by Disney Italy trip report unveils why these vacations are worth every penny!

Adventures By Disney Italy [Trip Report]

Listen to the show for details of the sighs, sounds, flavors, and other experiences in these amazing places!

  • Rome
  • Orvieto
  • Tuscany
  • Florence
  • Venice

Question: Which day of the Adventures By Disney Italy tips sounds best to you?

Please let us know in the All Things Travel Podcast Facebook group!

More Adventures By Disney Episodes

Start Making Your Magical Memories!

Ryan and Shayne are both Travel Advisers with Creating Magic Vacations, an authorized Disney Vacation Planner. Feel free to reach out to us for a free quote and to start making magical memories.

Where in the World is All Things Travel?

  • Charlotte, North Carolina

Check out the complete list of where in the world you’re located.

Never Miss a Thing!

Subscribe to All Things Travel Show on your favorite app so you never miss anything:

Please share it with some friends while you’re here.

Download your Top Items to Buy Before Your Theme Park Vacation to Save You Money and Stress!

Check out the complete list of episodes.

Episode 119 Transcripts

Episodes are transcribed with artificial intelligence, so there are likely some highly amusing translations!

Shayne: Hello, and welcome to All Things Travel. You know, Ryan and I love Adventures by Disney. It’s the combination of world class Disney service and insider access to the world’s top destinations. Well, Ryan’s family just returned from Italy with Adventures by Disney, and we discuss all the amazing details.

Andiamo! You’re listening to All Things Travel, episode one 19 original air date, July 27th, 2022.

Ryan: all right, Shayne, I feel like we’ve been talking about this trip coming up forever.

Shayne: Well, you had it planned originally in 2020 and I don’t remember something happened and you had to reschedule it and

Ryan: some, yeah, I, there was some sort of family issues in 2020 that didn’t allow us to try. Oh wait. No, it was the worldwide pandemic. And this started as a river cruise. You remember that? If you go back to one of our very first episodes where we talk about adventures by Disney, I was previewing.

Going to Southern California and Disneyland with a, B, D and doing a Ryan river cruise with B D and I haven’t done either of those

Shayne: that’s just a pivot into a different trip.

Ryan: that’s okay, man. I cannot wait to talk about this trip today. You, you know, from talking to me during the trip maybe I was bragging from time to time. I would accidentally send you pictures of the beautiful Tuscan countryside or my fabulous meal. And, from social media, with all things travel that I was having a good time, but I am so excited to talk about this today.

Shayne: Yeah, me too. It’s been fun seeing the picture’s been, but you haven’t really told me a lot of the details yet. A few things here and there. So on this recording, I finally get the entire story.

Ryan: All right. But before we do that chain, I wanna know as always where in the world is all things travel.

Shayne: Charlotte, North Carolina has been downloading some episodes the past several weeks.

Ryan: I have had a good vacation in Charlotte, so I bet you’re gonna pick a really cool bar for us to meet our listener at

Shayne: I had a difficult time. There’s this area, the Charlotte center city. And it is packed with cool things to do restaurants, bars, but I did settle on one the prohibition bar.

Ryan: very nice. Can I wear a fedora?

Shayne: I’m pretty sure it might be required along with the password to get in.

Ryan: All right. That sounds great. I bet there’s gonna be some good whiskey drinks at the prohibition bar.

Shayne: Yeah. It’s one of those speakeasy salad bars. So definitely some good whiskey drinks.

Ryan: All right. Well, Hey Charlotte, thank you so much for listening to all things travel. We really appreciate seeing where everybody’s coming from. Reach out to Shayne, or I, you can do that either on Facebook, on the Facebook group or via email that we’ll share at the end of the show, because I have a thank you gift for you being featured on today’s show.

Shayne: And to make sure you hear where in the world next week, be sure to subscribe to the show so that you never miss any of our travel tips, travel ideas, or travel stories.

Ryan: Okay, Shayne. So first off, before we start, there is so much with these, with this two weeks of travel. I’m gonna break it up a little bit. In our episodes, we did a bookend trip with adventures by Disney, with another great company that we work with called chow Italy. And I wanna talk about that separately.

So I wanna talk about our trip to Italy our first couple days and our last couple days separately. Does that sound okay?

Shayne: Chow Italy is one of our great vendors and they can plan an excursion or weekend before a weekend after a trip such adventures by

Disney trip,

Ryan: yeah, absolutely. I mean,

they can do anything from a single TA train ticket to a full blown Italian vacation. So, so I wanna give them their due and talk about their service and our experience with that separately. And I also, as I talk about adventures by Disney today, you’re gonna hear. All this awesome stuff that these guides did for us.

But I also want to have a separate episode later on where I talk specifically about some of those pixie dust moments that just made this trip over the top.

Shayne: Yeah, Ryan’s told me a couple of examples of what he experienced during that week. So you definitely wanna subscribe so that you can hear the incredible stories of customer service that he experienced on this Adventures by Disney vacation

Ryan: So let’s do a trip report. Let’s talk through this trip, Shayne.

Shayne: sounds like a plan. So what happened day

Ryan: So yeah. So the first day we were at our other hotel and we were told by a, B D that we needed to be to our hotel by afternoon because our first tour was gonna meet at 3:00 PM. So I wanna say about noon. We went over to our new hotel, we just took an Uber.

And that was one thing that was nice in Rome. Was Uber worked just as good as it does in the United States. So it was very easy to get around. Um, Uber eats actually, we used while we were in Rome and that actually works really well, too.

Shayne: So when they say win in Rome, do as the Romans

Ryan: There you go

Shayne: Uber and Uber

Ryan: you do at home, I guess.

A and so we went over to the hotel and we checked in and we realized that most folks had stayed at the hotel the night before.

So we were one of the only families that hadn’t stayed there. And I can talk about why we did that on the show when we talk about chow Italy. But anyway, we checked in with one of our adventure guides. And to give you a reminder, each trip has two Disney adventure guides and then a local expert.

So for instance, when we were in Rome, Our adventure guides that were with us the entire time was Mickey, who was from Rome and dusty, who was from Orlando. And then in each city we were in, we had a different local guide. So for instance, Stephano was our Roman guide. And he was with us for the several days that we were there.

So we met with Mickey and she went through everything with us. So here’s the information we have about your family. Here’s the room situation we have, you know, let me check in about dietary things. Let me check in about medicine things.

Here’s an overview of everything that we’re gonna do just to help us. Settled, you know, to know that we’re where we’re supposed to be. Everything’s great. Of course, with the theme that we’re gonna hear throughout this show, there was a big bowl of snacks sitting there. There was water and snacks.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much, so many bottles of water and so many baskets of snacks that I did through throughout this trip.

Shayne: to clarify, Mickey was a young lady that was one of the guides, not Mickey mouse.

Ryan: It was not Mickey mouse. No. Mickey was a young woman who was our, one of our adventure guides and she was absolutely awesome. She was Italian and she has done the from what I remember, she has done several of the Italian based trips. So this Italy trip, but then also I just got, I was actually just texting with her last night and she was in the Alps doing the Alps in Italy.

Adventure. And then dusty has done adventures all over the world. And so we really got, I really got to pick his brain about what’s your favorite adventure. What’s an adventure that you wish more people would take? You know, I started I kind of geeked out a little bit with him and both of them were very willing to answer questions and kind of geek out with me about B D.

And then we waited for our room to get ready. Once our room was ready, we got our luggage, they took care of our luggage with adventures by Disney. You don’t worry about your luggage. Once it’s at the hotel, it’s taken care of you don’t touch it. We had two rooms cuz remember when I’ve talked about booking ABD in the past, it’s based on double occupancy.

So my family could have had a room for four or we could have had two rooms for two and Shayne, you know what we chose.

Shayne: Oh, yes. Went for the two rooms of

Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And they actually asked us several times, do you want a room for the adults and a room for the kids? We weren’t as comfortable with that primarily because they told us that since our kids were the oldest kids on the trip, they could not guarantee adjoining rooms, some of the, some of the rooms that had younger kids, they had Ajo rooms and we just weren’t as comfortable with that.

And our, and we just felt better kind of breaking off into pairs.

Shayne: That’s what I would’ve done as well.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So at three o’clock, we all met in the lounge. That was kind of our clubhouse for our time at the, the grand Malia, which was the name of our hotel, which you was a beautiful hotel. You could actually look out and see the walls of the Vatican.

It was that close to, to the Vatican. And we did a little round table introductions. And I was really afraid to be quite honest that we were gonna do a bunch of icebreaker stuff, you know, everybody. And we really didn’t. I real, and to be honest, I really appreciated that because it allowed us to kind of informally get to know people.

Like we went around that first time and said, you know, where are you from? Who’s your family? What are you most looking forward to? But that was it. And then you kind of met people as you sat down with them for dinner, or as you’re sitting by them with the bus. And I appreciated more of that informal kind of nature.

Shayne: Without having to give a little public speaking

Ryan: Exactly a, exactly. So with our families, there was one adult couple without children, then there were eight families with children. Some with single parents, some with both parents. And then there was one set of grandparents that was with one of the families. So total there were with the guys, there were about 35 of us in the group and it, it really never felt too big. We didn’t necessarily get to know everybody on the trip, but we had time talking to everybody.

Our group was never too big to get into places we sometimes would split up, but it felt very manageable. I would say about a third of those were kids. Again, with my kids being some of the oldest ones, there was also another 16 year old and a 20 year old. But most of the kids were younger. And, and again, so they would’ve time for the kids to do stuff time for the adults to do stuff.

And then times that we’re all together,

Shayne: And then mostly families, but thin the one, couple without kids. Okay.

Ryan: absolutely it. And it also seemed of note. Most people had booked this for 2020 and then had done what we did just kind of waited it out. So for instance, there were, and it was really sweet because throughout the trip they celebrated the birthdays, they celebrated the graduations, they celebrated the anniversaries that were supposed to happen over the last

Shayne: ah,

Ryan: that were the reason for the initial trips.

And I thought that was really cool.

Shayne: that is cool. So they didn’t miss a thing. I mean, the timing was a little different, but they still got all the ni

Ryan: They, they didn’t miss a thing. And that was, and, and again, that was something, when I look at a trip like this, it didn’t need to happen, but boy, it felt really good that it did happen.

Shayne: We’ll talk more about that Disney difference, I guess little that’s one example of that.

Ryan: Yep. So our first stop then Shayne, we got on our bus and we went to the Coliseum and we met with Stephano and he gave us a great tour of the of the Coliseum, a couple things that I wrote down in my notes, what this was, we always had water. One of my, one of my wife’s big things was how are we gonna get water?

We need to stay hydrated. It’s hot. It was very hot in Italy and they always had water for us. You know, the, the, the bus was a, a nice big coach bus. We had the whisper ears, which I don’t know if you’ve ever used that, where the. As a microphone, you have an ear plug and a little receiver box. We got one set of those and then used them throughout the trip.

So that was nice because you weren’t having, you, you could kind of wander a little bit and still hear what the guide was saying. And then, you know, you have heard the phrase, the paddles power when it comes to adventures by Disney, you know, the, the adventure guides holding up the orange paddle with the star on it.

And let me tell you that was my first vision of it. And it rang true. We just cut through those crowds. We were in the shortest lines possible. It was awesome.

Shayne: So that’s kind of the I guess the parting of the seas where you didn’t have to stand on those long lines, followed your guide with that paddle and went pretty much to the

Ryan: Everything that could be expedited as far as tours or spaces to stand or things like that. We, we had, we had that at our disposal. It was really, really good.

Shayne: So a great reason to just not go to those places on your own versus an adventures by Disney is you’re gonna have that power of the paddle ahead of you. Very

Ryan: a and one of the things that I noticed from that first day was pictures were really important. Any place that you wanted a family picture, they took it for you. They took it with your camera. They took it with their camera. They took tons of pictures of the group, of the families, of the activities.

And then we have since received all of those pictures to do with whatever we want.

Shayne: Very cool. And then everybody is in every picture,

Ryan: everybody has pictures of places. And if you didn’t want a picture, I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but if you didn’t want a picture, you didn’t have to they would take pictures of the full group. They would take pictures of your specific family, however you wanted to break up.

So there’s some of just my wife and I there’s some of just the kids. It, it was really cool. It, it was really, really cool. So that was our first tour. And have you been to the Coliseum chain? Have you been to, to

Rome?

Shayne: I have not.

Ryan: It’s pretty dang and cool. Let, let me tell you,

let me tell

you. Yeah, it’s my second time there.

And it it’s just it’s jaw dropping. I mean, to, to imagine what they were able to do when they did it and what it actually was because the, the Coliseum at one point was kind of the picking grounds for we’re building other stuff in Rome. So the fact of what’s even still there is amazing. Yeah, it, it’s a great, it’s a great spot to see in Rome obvious. Then we finished that day with a very nice buffet dinner. Most times, well, every day on the trip, breakfast was included. Most times, at least lunch and dinner was also included. Sometimes all three meals were included on this tr on this first night, we had a very nice lunch beer and wine, whatever, whatever you wanted.

And they just kind of did an overview. The, the guides introduced themselves. The kids always had a kids’ table that they had their own space. Adults could kind of mill around on their own. And then they basically told us to go to bed because they said tomorrow’s gonna be our longest walking day. You need to get some.

Shayne: and then on these days you also have the snacks and the drinks. So nobody’s ever hungry or thirsty.

Ryan: In, in, in fact you know, on the bus, especially when we would, when we would travel on the bus, you know, the guides would come around and they’d say, well, you haven’t eaten for 20 minutes. So, so take something in the, you know, and, and, and anticipating, you know, you’re not gonna have a, you’re not gonna have access to snacks and water for a while.

So take one. Now, for later, you know, one of the things I really appreciated was they, they planned head on as to what our needs would be. It wasn’t just, how are you feeling right now? It’s, here’s what we’re doing at three o’clock this afternoon. And let’s prepare for that now.

Shayne: And we know that Disney caters to dietary needs. Did you see any examples of that on your

Ryan: Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes. So, so my, my daughter’s a vegetarian. My wife is order to seafood. Our family doesn’t eat a lot of beef and that was certainly noted and, and taken care of. There were also dietary with way that kids ate gluten different things like that. It wasn’t even an issue. You know, it was, and there were even times where like in Tuscany, you know, they were going around and they’re saying, no beef, no beef, no beef.

And I’m like, well, actually I wanna try the quarantine steak. Is that okay? And they’re like, yeah, absolutely. You know, it, it, it was

more, we wanna make sure

Shayne: today. I want beef

Ryan: Today I today I’m a B feeder. Yeah, it, it, it was, it was phenomenal. The, the way that they’ve quickly knew our family and what we wanted,

Shayne: yeah, you didn’t have to remind them every time, every stop. Right. They knew who needed what restrictions.

Ryan: absolutely, absolutely.

So our next day, Shayne, this was our, this was our full day in Rome and we started at like four in the morning

Shayne: It’s a lot to do. You gotta start early.

Ryan: because by five 15, we were at the Vatican. We had had a light breakfast. We were at the Vatican and we were met at the doors by the master of keys

Shayne: Wow.

Ryan: and we helped the master of keys open the Vatican museum,

Shayne: That is awesome. Wow.

Ryan: keys in the door, turned the lights on. I opened shutters. In the map in the map room

to let the light in

it was the coolest thing ever.

And I, and I had been to the Vatican before, and it was amazing. Then let me tell you, when you’re in a group of 35 people and that’s all that’s standing in the 16 chapel words, can’t even do a justice.

Shayne: So we knew based on, we knew that you were gonna get to open. I mean, you were gonna be the first end to the Vatican that day for the adventures by Disney trip, but did you know you would be helping open it and then opening

the

Ryan: they told us that they told us that the night before and, and adventures by Disney, this is the first year anyone’s allowed to do it. And adventures by Disney is the only group that’s allowed to do it.

Shayne: interesting. Wow.

Ryan: And it was amazing. And so we had Stephan O our guide with us who was explaining everything, helping us understand things.

And again, this is one of the things that they did, Shayne, the families with the younger kids went with one group, the family with the older kids and the adults went with another group. So the, so sometimes they would, they would have another guide that would, that would kind of, add on if there were multiple groups, because the conversation was different, right?

The little kids are gonna wanna see things and know things differently than the older kids and the adults. So that was really nice. The, the way that they did that, and, and again, it culminated in the Sistine chapel and literally there’s like the 35 of us and a couple security people.

Shayne: because I’ve heard stories where it’s just jam packed with people and it’s hard to see anything

Ryan: So later after breakfast and I’ll talk about breakfast in a second after breakfast, they walked us back through going the other way and you could see the wall. The, and so I actually took pictures of this is what it actually looks like compared to us. I mean, literally we’re walking down the hallways and it’s just the 35 of.

Shayne: that that’s incredible.

Ryan: So after the cistine chapel and yes, we were able to take pictures, but we’re not able to share those of, of the ceiling in the cistine chapel. After that we had a, a private breakfast in the VA in the Vatican gardens. And so they had everything laid out for us. We had a family style breakfast, and then we went to the, the Basilica St Peter’s Basilica and got a tour of that.

And by that point, things had opened up. People were there, but again, our guide Stefano knew exactly what to do, how to lead us. You know, you really felt like you had a concierge tour through there.

Shayne: And then see he know exactly where to go. So you, you don’t have to wander anywhere and then you get to skip some of the cues. Very

cool.

Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and they’re always good about, you know, I could always wander off, take pictures, see something else. As long as I was with the group, it, it, it was fine. You know, you couldn’t be in a completely different place, but they, they did let you go at your own pace. Then after that, we went back and we had we saw that afternoon, we saw three big hitters in Rome, but before that we had our pizza lunch.

And so we had a piece that pizza tasting lunch is what they called it. So they actually had per, per family, they had four small pizzas that you could try. There was a margarita, there was a four cheese, there was a pepperoni. And then there was a Nettella. Dessert pizza. And you could, you, you could try them.

And they were phenomenal pizza. I mean, it was just amazing pizza and you could have whatever you wanted. I mean, you as far as to drink, but also if you wanted more of a certain kind of pizza, it was, you know, when we ate with adventures by Disney, it was what we wanted, how we wanted. And it was fabulous.

Shayne: Sounds delicious.

Ryan: one of the things that they did during that meal that they did repeatedly during the trip is they came around each family and they said, do you have dinner reservations or dinner plans tonight? If not, can we make reservations for, you can make, can we make suggestions for you? Things like that. We actually just, like I said, we actually, maybe this sounds a little lame, but.

We had, had spent a couple days in Rome already. We were tired. We knew we were gonna be tired after this, after this, after this day, we just got, we said, Hey, we were on a food tour a couple days ago. We love to this restaurant. We’re just gonna Uber eats from it. And so that’s what we did. We had a, we had a a movie night and Uber eats and that fit us quite nicely.

Shayne: Okay, so you did Uber eats, but it wasn’t from taco bell. It was from a

Ryan: No, no, no. It was free. No, it, it was, no, it was from an Italian restaurant that we had been to a couple

Shayne: I,

Ryan: Yeah. And so, but again, that was, they just, they wanted to know, do you have plans? Can we help you in any way? And we heard that time and time again. After lunch, we went to the Trevi fountain.

We went to the Spanish steps and we went to Plaza Navona and also to the Pantheon. And so saw the big things. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was amazing.

Shayne: everything that you wanna see when you go to Rome,

Ryan: E everything that you wanna see when you, when you want to go to Rome. And then we went back and had a lovely, after later afternoon at the resort we swam in the pool, we just chilled what a great day in Rome.

Shayne: so then you get a night, a little bit of rest, then the next day you had to another Italian.

Ryan: Yep. So then we headed out towards Tuscany. So, you know, it, it, it felt like, I mean, you had to view this, you had to view this trip as highlights of multiple places, rather than, you know, it was definitely travel broad rather than travel deep. But from it, there’s definitely places I want to go again.

Shayne: that day, you got to go pretty deep. It might be difficult to do all of those things in one day, otherwise.

Ryan: Yeah. So the next day we get up and, and we have breakfast at the, at the hotel. We board our coach, which was more of a travel coach, not just a tour coach. Again, they told us when our bags were gonna be out in the, outside the room, they took care of all of that. We loaded up and we headed to Tuscany and we usually drove about an hour, I would say.

And then we would stop. When I’ve gone to Europe before on tours like this, I find that they stop more than we tend to in the United States. And so we would stop we’d stop at a convenience store, which are a lot nicer than what they are in the United

Shayne: I bet that’s cool.

Ryan: And you know, the guides, I have a picture where the guides just loaded up on snacks to put on the, on the bus for us.

And we spent the, we, we got to Orvieto, which is a beautiful walled city up on a hill. As you go into Tuscany and we had lunch there, we actually had lunch in a, in a cave. Restaurant which was

really cool.

And we had some time to see Orvieto and do some shopping. And again, as we’re walking around, they’re pointing out.

If you, you know, this is what Orvieto is known for, they’re known for this type of wine. If you want that, here’s where you go. They’re also known for ceramics. If you want that, this is where you go. So it, you, your tours curated, right? Like they’re telling you kind of the, the things to know to be more savvy in that, in that place had a beautiful time exploring Orvieto.

It was Sunday. So it was nice and quiet after being in Rome for a couple days. It, I, I enjoyed the quietness and slowness of it. And then we got back into our bus and we went to our BOGO in Tuscany and it, this was a nice little country in that was just again, a, a world away from where we had been for the last couple days.

And it was just absolutely gorgeous. Shayne, you know, you’re on the country side, it’s quiet. It’s quaint. I loved it.

Shayne: So pretty relaxing and restful after

Ryan: Pretty relaxing. Yeah. So that night the kids and the adults split up. the kids went and did a soda tasting and had their own dinner. and watched a Disney movie, the adults did a wine tasting and had our own dinner in the restaurant there.

So we had the Soma from the hotel would tell us about different varieties of wines. We had appetizers with different varieties of wines, and then they brought out a meal. So we had, I believe we had a salad. Then we had a pasta dish. Then we had a pork and vegetable dish. And then they brought out the, the quarantine steak, which was a large pieces of steak that was cooking on the, on the slate skillet.

So you could basically cook it as long as you wanted it to be. And then we had a nice dessert to round that out. And again, as much wine as you wanted, if you wanted more bottles of a certain wine, things like that, it was a very nice night.

Shayne: That is a lot of food. And

Ryan: it, it is a

Shayne: lot

of

each thing, it’s a lot of varieties to taste.

Ryan: Yes. It is a lot of varieties to taste and not every meal was like that, but that was kind of a special meal, if you will. And most things were served, family style. So, you know, you could get what you wanted as much as you wanted or not.

Shayne: cool. Yeah. I love the family style restaurants.

Ryan: So day four then. We are in Tuscany and we spent a day in Tuscany and they, they entitled this, our Tuscan holiday. So they said, we’re not gonna start till 10 in the morning. You’re gonna get up late. You’re gonna have a nice leisurely breakfast. You’re gonna have a, a couple cappuccinos and just kind of take it in.

And so that was what we did. And we went to a farm outside about, I would say about a half an hour from our BOGO. And this is Sarah’s farm. It’s not Sarah’s farm, but I don’t. But this is who was with us. And Sarah taught us how to make pasta. And so we went into this room and she, they had it all set up.

Each of us were given an apron with the farm’s logo that we’re able to keep, she showed us how to make pasta. And then we all quote unquote, attempted to do what she had just showed us to do. She talked about the farm. She talked about cooking, come to find out later, Shayne she has her own cookbook, which we’ve purchased.

She also has been a featured chef at Ebco food and wine festival and their, their farm wine is featured at Topo Lenos at Rivi resort. So there was Disney connections kind of all over this

Shayne: Yeah. Yeah. Very cool.

Ryan: And so we did a farm tour. We did a tour of the winery. We saw the, we saw the cows, we saw the garden, and then we sat down on the balcony, overlooking the Tuscan countryside and they served us, oh, this beautiful pasta lunch, there were, there was salad, several different types of, of pasta, homemade pasta from the farm ingredients, from the farm.

We tasted several of the wines that they make there. And, oh, by the way, it was 4th of July. And so they had decorated everything for 4th of July. There were red, white, and blue balloons all over the place. And then at the end of the, at the end of the meal, they brought out sparkler

for, for everybody. So, you know, I just thought that was kind of a neat little thing, you know?

If, if it was that way, I, to be honest, I could spend 4th of July in Tuscany every year.

Shayne: That’s a good idea. I might have to think, consider that

Ryan: And so we spent some time there just relaxing. They had a nice little farm store where they sold a lot of their wine, a lot of their stuff. And it was just a really nice day. And we spent the rest of the day then relaxing at the resort. We had some pool time. We had some rest time. And then that night Shayne, we boarded the bus and we took it about 45 minutes, I would say to a castle in where we had dinner.

Shayne: dinner in a castle.

Ryan: So I think our, our group that texts each other, I think, I think you were answering a universal question. And I think at one point I made the comment, Hey, I’m texting you guys from the wine cellar of a castle. Do you remember that?

Shayne: yes.

Ryan: That’s where I was.

Shayne: that’s awesome.

Ryan: I was in the, I was in the dungeon slash wine cellar of a castle in which we had a beautiful family style meal

Shayne: So you were in the, the SL the ring common room.

Ryan: pretty much, pretty much. And then after dinner you know, they didn’t tell us before, but B D likes to surprise you with things. This really fun musical group comes out and they’ve got guitars and they’ve got an accordion and they get everybody up and they’re dancing with them. And, you know, it’s just one of those things where it’s like, it, it’s just a fun, little surprise.

And, and, and that was really nice. You know how many times you can have dinner in a castle?

Shayne: Once so far, it sounds like . Yeah, that sounds awesome.

Ryan: So that was our time in Tuscan countryside because the next day we went to Florence and I do have to say, Florence forensic was a really beautiful, cool city, however, compared to everything else I saw and based on how hot it was, I think it was my least favorite. And I kind of got some, some, some hate on social media from some of my friends who had been to Florence.

Cause it was like, it was a really cool city. And one of my, one of my ex teachers goes, it’s a cool city. Like that’s all you can say. I’m like but anyway, it was really, really neat. We saw again, this is one of the things we go right to David. The, the statue of David were let right in the fast pass line.

If you will. We have a private G guide from Florence. Who’s right there talking to us about it. You know, I, I almost feel. They must have places on the, on the four mapped out for us. Cuz I feel like all of a sudden it’s like, boom, we’re right there. Like these guys are so slick, they know exactly where you need to go.

And and so we saw David, he talked about Michael Angelo. He talked about kind of the, the, the art culture at the Renaissance time in Florence. And then we walked down the city. Then we walked to the Domo to the church. Which is very interesting in architecture, very different from what we had seen. And then Florence is known for jewelry and for leather.

So the guides took us to a place where they taught us about jewelry and leather, and it was a store. It was definitely a shop opportunity, but never on this trip that I feel like I was being sold to. It was more, you know, here is, here’s an example of a good place to buy. Rather than here’s, you know, let’s lock you in here.

So you have to buy from them.

Shayne: Well, if you’re gonna go to a place known for leather, you wanna get the good leather. You there’s gonna be some, some vendors or stores that are gonna sell the knockoffs and the

Ryan: Oh,

100%.

Shayne: you find the best quality, whatever that place is known for,

Ryan: Oh, yeah. One, 100%. So, so that, that was nice. And again, along the way it was, Hey, we’re, you’re gonna have the afternoon free. So here’s a good place for gelato. Here’s a good place for lunch. if you wanna do high end shopping, which Florence is known for, these are the streets you want to go to, anticipating what we’re gonna want to do.

And then they offered us two different times to go back to Florence. We could meet at, I believe it was five o’clock and we could meet at nine o’clock and our, most of the families chose to meet early and just go back to the Boga. That night Florence was great. It was very, very hot. We saw everything.

Oh, one thing I didn’t tell you about in the afternoon for those that wanted to, we could do a tour in the MEII palace of the secret tunnels.

Shayne: Very cool.

Ryan: And so we had a tour guide that took us through some of the secret tunnels of, you know, that the families would use to be behind the scenes if you will.

And so at one point, my favorite point was we actually went back into a map room that people were milling around looking at. And all of a sudden the door opened out. One of these maps on our whole group walked out and it’s like, you could see the hook on people’s faces, like, who are those people? And where did they just come from?

Shayne: That’s awesome.

Ryan: So that was really good. That was a fun day. And then the next day, I think was my favorite. The next day was a day where I, my jaw just dropped the entire time. So day six. So we’re on the home stretch of adventures by Disney here, we took the Ferrari train to Venice.

Shayne: Ferrari train

Ryan: the Ferrari train.

We took the bus back to Florence, and went to the train station. We had pre-ordered boxed lunches, which was one of the things they took of day took care of day one, because we were gonna be on the train during during the lunchtime and this train we were in.

I don’t, if we weren’t in first class, we were definitely in business class because the seats were nice. Everything was really nice and taking care of.

Shayne: And I wanna reiterate too, what’s happening with your bags, right? When you’re leaving you’re leaving your rooms, not carrying your bags, that they’re being taken to the coach for you to the train for you. You’re not

loading

anything on the ch on and off the B the coach, but the train, your bags are completely taken care of

Ryan: absolutely. So, so our bags, we put outside our room at the Borga in Tuscany, and I didn’t see them until I was in my hotel room in Venice.

Shayne: Now, did you even think about them?

Ryan: I did not think about them.

Shayne: see,

Ryan: So this for our

retrain, Went at one point I took a picture. It was going 250 kilometers an hour.

Shayne: Now, how did you see this measurement? Was it, are you

Ryan: They, they had a sign that was

showing. Their information sign. So we had a nice trip. It was about a two hour trip, very relaxing. You know, there was wifi. I think I watched stranger things. , you know, there, there was wifi, nice box lunch snacks. Everybody was together. It was just a really nice way to travel.

And then when we got to Venice, they, they said, okay, when we leave Venice, get your phones out because you’re gonna wanna take pictures or a video, because this is the nicest exit to a train station you’ll ever see in your life. And we walk out of this train station chain and the grand canal of Venice is right in front of us.

Shayne: Oh, wow.

Ryan: Venice is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been in my life. And you know, me, I’ve been around the block a little

Shayne: You’ve been to a few places.

Ryan: It was so cool. So, so cool. I mean, it, it just, it has this, this other worldliness to it. That is, I can’t even explain it’s, you know, you’ve seen the Italian job. You’ve seen other movies that take place in Venice.

It’s exactly like that. Like,

Shayne: But

Ryan: it is so cool to just watch boats, watch gondolas go by. And so of course, what’s the first thing that we had to do.

Shayne: I think I would get a gondola ride.

Ryan: I think I would get a gondola ride. And in fact, when they gave us our train ticket, our train seat assignments, they gave us her gon to a number and each family had their own Gond. and right outside the train station, we took a little bit of a walk and the GOs were waiting and we took about a 15 minute go ride.

That was our first introduction to Venice.

Shayne: So you don’t have to figure out where to go. You don’t have to stand in line and buy tickets and wait

Ryan: Oh no.

Shayne: to get ready. You it’s assigned and you go and you get in your boat and

Ryan: the GOs are waiting.

Shayne: that’s awesome.

Ryan: And so we go on our gondola ride. It’s magical. It’s so cool. I’m just, I’m taking pictures left and right. The boat’s rocking, but they’re, I have to keep reminding myself they’re flat on the bottom, so they’re not gonna fall

Shayne: They’re not going anywhere.

Ryan: You know, some of the gondola boats of our folks had had musicians in him, so. Like the grandparents that just had the two of them, there’s a guy in there singing another guy, playing a guitar at some points we’re with other gr other gondolas, other points were by ourselves and we’re just doing it. And we, and all the gondolas go to a certain point, I would say again, after about 15 minutes.

And then we have a nice walking tour of that portion of Venice with our guide marina. Who’s gonna be with us for the next couple days.

Shayne: So are you able to dictate your, are you able to suggest a pace for your gondola ride or do they have to follow a certain flow of traffic in the

Ryan: I, it it’s, it’s pretty much flow of traffic. Yeah. So, so what I learned later is you can’t have your private boats. In the canals, you, everybody has a boat, but they don’t use them in the canals. Otherwise the canals would be congested. So there is certainly a flow of traffic. There’s gondolas, there’s water, taxis, there’s water buses.

So for instance the, if the, the fairies that shuttle you around our, our buses, just like there would be in a, in a town, in a city there’s there’s personal water taxis, and then there’s police, there’s fire. There’s people delivering things. I mean, it’s the roadways. I mean, very much so.

Shayne: yeah. You know, with my love of flume rides that

Venice and it’s

Ryan: my gosh, you would be in the love

Shayne: that is heaven to me. That’s my ideal place to live and work and write and record

Ryan: it, it is, it’s an amazing, amazing city. And, and not only because of the gondolas and the, and the water taxis and just kind of the, the mystery of having water everywhere. But when you’re walking along the streets, everything is, has little alleys, little walkways. And like the last day we were there, you know, we, we were kind of off in the shade, having a drink, waiting for our, waiting for our shuttle to come pick us up.

And I just said, I’m gonna walk down this way. And so I started walking and it opened up to this square. Or as in Venice, they call this, they call thems and you would have no idea. It’s. Except you walk down the alley and Venice is safe. It’s it’s, you know, alleys in other places would mean don’t go in Venice.

That’s how they go. And so, you know, Venice is very safe. I had always heard that Venice was very dirty. I didn’t find it to be that way. I mean, I, I mean, it, it, to me, it felt more, no more dirty than a major city. And not even as dirty as that,

Shayne: Okay.

Ryan: the water wasn’t yicky, I mean, you wouldn’t wanna swim in it. You wouldn’t want to get in it, but I mean, it wasn’t like stuff was floating in the wa I mean,

Shayne: Or didn’t smell or anything you didn’t smell.

Ryan: really.

And people did ask about that and, and my guess is it does from time to time, but I didn’t really notice it.

Shayne: Okay.

Ryan: Yeah. So anyway, we’re, we’re on our walking tour then and Marco polo shows. VE Venice’s one of Venice’s most famous you know, sons, Marco polo. So this guy comes out in, in Marco polo guard, pulls the junior adventures, the kids up front and tells a story and has them interact and, and passes out a prize for being involved in the story.

That’s those things, right? that,

that, I, I don’t even know how you organize something like that, but adventures by Disney does it.

Shayne: And their timing is great and the presentation is great. They know exactly when to show up and where to be.

Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. A and so, then we, we went to St. Mark’s square, which is, you know, what, what you think of when you par other than gondola, that’s what you think of when you think of Venice. And we went into the church, we went into St. Marks, Basilica marina talked to us about about the, the church.

She suggested that we come back at night because it has a very different feel, very different look to it. And then we took a private boat to our hotel. Our hotel was on another island. It was the Hilton Stuckey. So it was a Hilton property that was an old flower and bread factory. So it was almost a campus.

If you will, it was a beautiful, beautiful hotel. They had their own shuttle every half hour. That would take you from the hotel to St. Mark square. So you never had to figure out how you were gonna get back and forth. So that was nice. We had a ni, so we kind of acclimated ourselves, got into our rooms.

We went to a place where they suggested for dinner that was on our island. Again, they made the reservation for us, so we didn’t have to worry about that. And then we went back to St. Mark square that night to kind of take it in, wandered the streets a little bit, got Joe OTO and just kind of soaked in Venice a little bit.

And that was our, that was our day six

Shayne: That sounds extraordinary. That’s I mean, that’s not a lot. That’s a, that’s a packed day, right there. That’s a lot of things to see and do.

Ryan: Yeah. So, so I started the morning. In the Tuscan countryside. I took the train from foreigns to Venice. I explored the canals of Venice. I was in the famous Saint mark square. And then I’m ending the night eating gelato.

Shayne: That’s sounds amazing.

Ryan: Our next day then was our main Venice day. And so we went to we met marina in the morning and we met her at the dos palace. The Doss were the leaders, the government leaders of the city of Venice. And again, the kids were split up. The kids had their own activity, and we saw this during the week.

So they had a scavenger hunt. And by this point in the tour, my son, who was 13, decided that he would rather do things with the kids. And I think that was really good for him because he made some friends that he didn’t think he was going to. And walking in, listening about paintings were not really his thing, Miriam, our 16 year old daughter, that was perfectly fine with her.

She found it interesting, but him not so much. Now, what I will say is this was my kid’s first trip to Europe. I wasn’t quite sure how it was gonna go. I was bold over how proud I was during this. They were, they wanted to be up close to the guides. They wanted to ask questions for the most part, they were interested in everything the guides were talking about.

You know, they, they fell in love with our Disney and a B D guides from the first moment they met them. So they were always interacting with them and talking, I couldn’t have been prouder as a dad because, you know, I’ve led trips like this before with college students and other people. I know that it doesn’t always go smoothly and I was really pleased to see my kids really engage it.

Shayne: Yeah. Lot of teenagers and college kids will be kind of shy and reserved and quiet and introverted. And when like your kids, when they do that, when they’re more engaged, they get a lot more out of the experience

Ryan: Absolutely. So my son decided he wanted to the scavenger hunt, which was great. And again, the guides were very sensitive. They’re like, Hey, we know your kids are older. Do they want to be involved in stuff? Do they not? Miriam wanted to stick with the adults. Caleb tended to go more towards the kids and they totally left that up for us to us.

There were also times on the trip that some people didn’t do things either because personally, maybe they weren’t feeling that great that day or they had other plans. May some people met friends that were in cities. That was a okay. As long as the guides knew what was going on, they accommodated all that kind of stuff.

The dos palace was amazing. It was so cool. And again, I love history more than I love art, but I love when they’re woven together. And this was exactly that it was just, and our guide was amazing. Marina was amazing able to tell us stories and, and understand things and weave things into both Venetian history and worldwide history.

It was so cool.

Shayne: that sounds like a blast.

Ryan: Yeah. It, it, it was really neat. after that we did a little bit of walking and again, they would say, Hey, after our next activity, we’re going to, you know, here’s a good place for lunch. Here’s a good place for shopping. And so I kind of would take pictures or take mental notes of where we wanted to go, things like that.

And we went to a Venetian mask maker and made our own Venetian masks,

Shayne: That’s cool.

Ryan: which Shayne. The first day when we went around the room and people talked about what they were most excited about. And several people said I’m intra, I’m most excited about painting Venetian masks. And to be quite honest, I had forgotten that we were gonna do Venetian masks is I’m not an already, I, I’m not a crafty person.

I’m not, I have no artistic ability whatsoever. And so I’m like, this is gonna suck

Shayne: Yeah. I might want to have a Venetian mask because they look cool and it’d be, it’d be a great piece of, you know, a memory of souvenir, but to paint them, myself, I I’m

Ryan: But you know what? It was a lot of fun. So first of all, we go into this workshop. And it is unreal. The mask that they have, I mean, just insane. The mask that they have for sale, for display. And then they take us around to the workshop and we each, so first of all, we choose our mask, our base, and everybody could choose whatever they wanted.

I would say they probably had at least a dozen different forms of masks And we chose what we wanted with. They had they had mask makers there, mask decorators there to help us. We said, Hey, we’re thinking purple. We’re thinking blue. We like sparkly. They would help us and get stuff for us.

And so we started painting and low and behold, our adventure guide, dusty shows up with a tray of Mickey and mini cookies that the bakery across the street just happened to cook for

us, bake for us that morning. And because Venice is known as the invention of the Bellini, of course, Bellinis had to be served during during mask making.

Shayne: very nice. So the, and then did you get to keep your mask and

Ryan: here’s what happened. You would paint your mask. Then you would take it outside. And the master ma mask maker was there and he would add any embellishments that you wanted. And then you could choose. I want my mask to be just like this, or I want you to put a little pixie desk on my mask. And later that night at the dinner that I’ll talk about in a few minutes, they arrived.

And let me tell you, they looked pretty, dang cool.

Shayne: Very cool. Because they have to be fired or something, right.

Ryan: Well, they, they basically let them dry, but then they also added jewels. So Elizabeth wanted a feather. And so they put a nice big feather plume on hers. There were different embellishments if you will. And so there was a, there was a, a young man who was not feeling well that day. And so him and his mom stayed back at the hotel lo and behold, that night when they showed up, they had made masks for them

Shayne: still got masks.

Ryan: because again,

Shayne: cool.

Ryan: It’s part of the experience.

And then, so that was really fun that I, I did not expect to like that, but that was a really cool activity,

Shayne: When, when you’re on a trip like that, especially out of the country and you are. Participating in things that you don’t usually participate in and you get into that mindset, that mentality of, of doing things that you’re not used to doing. I, I, I think that you are gonna enjoy something that either you wouldn’t ordinarily enjoy or that you didn’t know you would enjoy until you just went ahead and tried it and, and had the experience and figured out that, Hey, that was kind of fun.

Ryan: Absolutely. So we had the afternoon, then we went back to a couple places that they suggested Elizabeth and the kids went ahead and they went to a place. It, it almost had in Spain, Are you, you know, it was almost like a tapas feel or P Chos, have you heard of P Chos in, in Spain, kind of the Christis with different toppings.

It was like that you could kind of order at the counter, which you wanted. And I went to a place first that appealed to me and I got a box of fried seafood. I think I sent you maybe a picture O of that. This was a place that both Mickey and dusty said, you ha, if you love seafood, this place is amazing and you just walk up and you’re like, I want that box. There was a box. It had shrimp, it had Kaari, it had sardines in it and it was all nice and yummy, fresh fried. And so they give you chopsticks and they give you a little piece of polenta in there too. So I’m just happier than I’ll get out. I’m walking down the street in Venice, eating my eating my seafood.

And I’m like, this is the best day ever. And I meet up with Elizabeth and the kids and I try some of their food too. And we spend the afternoon shopping. We go over the Rialto bridge. Caleb and I geeked out and took pictures where the Venice scenes in Spider-Man far from home were taken.

We went to a glass blowing demonstration, the, a, B D had arranged for us. We just relaxed and did it enjoyed the city?

Shayne: That sounds fabulous. Venice is one of the top destinations on my list. So you’re really making me wanna go there a lot sooner.

Ryan: Yeah, it, it, yeah, I, I, that was out of all of the places we’ve been now. I had been to Rome before, but that’s the only place on this itiner and I had been to every place that I talked to out in Rome. Before I hadn’t been to Tuscany, I hadn’t been to Florence. I hadn’t been to Orvieto. Venice was by far my favorite, because it was so unique and so stunning.

Yeah.

Shayne: Now, are you ready to come back? Are you ready to go back and spend an extended amount of time? Any one or two of those places that

Ryan: I am. I don’t know if my family’s ready quite yet.

Shayne: Not quite yet.

Ryan: yeah. We’re about a, we’re about a week out of the trip. Yeah, I could totally do that a absolutely. So that night we had our farewell dinner and usual B D style. We did not have it in a conference room. We did not have it in a banquet room. We were told to meet down at the lobby

Shayne: mm-hmm

Ryan: and at that time they went through our kind of departing information who’s leaving when.

Things like that. So that they could make sure that we were taken care of because I was telling you before we started recording, they took care of us until we were on the train. Not just let’s get a taxi for you, but they literally took care of us until we were on the train until we were at the airport, you know, they wanted to know exactly what they could do to take care of us.

and and we walked out of the hotel then and parked or, or docked in front of our hotel is a pirate ship.

Shayne: seriously.

Ryan: The jolly Roger is parked in front of our hotel and we had our farewell dinner on a pirate ship

that

Shayne: a pirate ship. See, they could have just as easily had it in a banquet room, like you said, or even a restaurant and everybody would’ve been perfectly happy with

that, but

Ryan: Yeah.

Shayne: ship.

Ryan: And, and we knew that was gonna happen. I mean, we knew that there, but, but to see it, there is really, really cool. And so they had, they had drinks, you know, kind open bar with and, and, and on this trip, open bar meant beer and wine. It didn’t mean alcohol per se, but, but, you know, open beer and wine.

There were appetizers, they kept setting food out the entire time. The kids were kind of, it was kind of cool because. The weather was not great when we first started and I wasn’t quite sure how this was all gonna play out, but the kid, as the weather cleared, the kids kind of gravitated to one end of the ship, the adults to the other.

So we kind of had our own time, if you will. And then at the end they had us, they had a, they had us all go around. We were sitting around the ship on the inside, cuz it was covered. It was covered. So you could hear everybody and they had us go through and they had us say what our favorite thing about the trip was.

And I kicked you nod chain. I got choked up

Shayne: I could see that

Ryan: by the end of the trip. And I was thinking back because I, at the first day, the thing that I said I was most excited about was seeing Europe through my kids’ eyes because they had never been here before. And I got choked up when they got around to me because of how amazing.

This trip was how they took care of everything, how they cared about my family. They cared about my kids. And just the experiences that we had had over the last seven days was insane.

Shayne: and then when you can get, because you get to have those experiences without worrying about all the details, you just go and do the next thing and

Ryan: So they ended that time with a slideshow, a slideshow of our entire trip and it was chronological. So it went through and it had pictures of everybody. It had candid pictures, it had family pictures, it had staged pictures. And then it got to that day, Shayne, the day that we were, that were on the ship, they had pictures from us on the ship.

Shayne: How did they do that?

Ryan: they literally had pictures that were, must have been taken like 10 or 15 minutes before that were in the slideshow

that they’re showing us. It was it, it was mind blowing and like everybody, like we got to that point and they were like, wait a minute. That’s now

Shayne: that just happened like space balls when they were fast forwarding the

Ryan: and and by, by the end of that night, everybody had a copy of that slideshow.

We also had access to pictures. Most days there were about 150 pictures that the guides took. We had access to those, not even just pictures of people, but also pictures of places. So if you missed something, you know, that you didn’t quite get a good picture of this, chances are, it was in that photo dump that they provided to you.

And the jolly, Roger went back to the debt, to the. Everybody kind of said their goodbyes. It was the last night of camp. Right. Nobody’s quite ready to go inside. They all want to keep talking a little bit you’re not gonna see these people again and again, we weren’t close with everybody, but we had spent time.

We had a shared experience with everybody.

Shayne: Yeah. You still made good friends from a pretty intense, extraordinary experience. Now, hold on a second. I think I missed something at first, but you said the ship docked. So while you’re having this dinner on the jolly, Roger, it’s not just at the dock. It’s sailing around

while you’re having the dinner. Okay. Okay. Let’s not bury the lead there. That’s pretty cool.

Ryan: oh, no. It’s sailing around. Yeah it’s sailing on the canals, not the canals, but the rivers, if you will, the larger bodies of water within Venice.

Shayne: Wow.

Ryan: Yeah. So you’re getting pictures. I, I, you know, I’m getting pictures of sunset over the tower. That’s at Ebco.

Shayne: Uhhuh,

Ryan: Italian pavilion, that’s the Venetian Clocktower right. Like I’m getting pictures of a beautiful sunset over that.

Shayne: Very cool.

Ryan: That’s the trip. And then, like I said, they knew our travel schedule. They took care of us. We had arrangements made for us. Someone was with us from the hotel lobby all the way to the train station with us to the train, got us on board. And then we took off to Rome. And we’ll talk about that second half that or that last part, when we talk about chow Italy.

Shayne: What a trip, Ryan? That’s

Ryan: Oh my gosh, it was, I cannot wait to have our episode where I talk about some of these things that the guides and we’re talking about it as the Disney difference with a B D it’s not even. You don’t even have to look for it. It’s there. It’s just in the DNA.

Shayne: So when you’re looking at these Adventures by Disney trips and you see those prices, those are pretty big prices. It’s worth it.

Ryan: yeah, I, yes. There are obviously people that are doing this as a bucket list trip. This is something, but there are also people who already on this trip. I think everyone, this was their first trip, but there were people who had already booked more with the idea of they, they knew from family and friends that they got the feedback and everything was confirmed.

About the trip. Yeah. That no brainer. I mean, we have a trip scheduled. That my daughter picked out for her last spring break before she graduates. And we on the trip, we’ve already, we already talked about another one and my wife has indicated that we will be doing a, B D on a somewhat regular basis from now on, based on the experience because she wants everything taken care of and everything was taken care of.

I mean, everything was taken care of. And so is it expensive? It is a pretty pricey trip. Is, is the value there without question,

without

Shayne: cuz you are able to be for every single place you are seeing every, every place you are exploring you are there. You don’t have to worry about where your bags are, how you’re gonna get to the next place. So you know that every step, every transition along the way is taken care of every detail is handle

Ryan: and again, I don’t wanna get in too much into the weeds with talking about the Disney difference, if you will, cuz we are gonna address that later. But the ability for the guides to anticipate, not your needs now that was important, but also your needs later.

So they knew where the bathrooms were. They knew where the best gelato places were and, but they also knew what information you didn’t need. So it was, Hey dusty, I’ve got a question about this. Yep. We’re gonna talk about that tonight. Hey Mickey, what about this? Yes, we’re gonna handle that on this day. So it was not my Uber planning mind.

Didn’t have to think. And in fact that’s what they said on the first day they said, check your brain at the beginning of this trip and just let us take care of everything. In fact, they said, empower us. To make this a magical trip for your family, tell us what you need and we’ll make it happen

Shayne: Then just enjoy and

Ryan: and

enjoy,

Shayne: present in

Ryan: spend time with your family. Spend time with the group, look around and see what amazing places Italy has. Th this was a stat that we kept coming back to Shayne over and over Italy is the size of California. It holds 65% of the world’s UNESCO sites.

Shayne: I did not know that. That’s

Ryan: the entire city of Venice is a NewCo site in itself. The places that you’re going to, you’re probably not gonna take a trip that connects all these places again, take the time to experience it. And that’s what they allowed us to do.

Shayne: Yeah, you’re in one of the official, most interesting places in the world. Just be there.

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, the only time I had to look at a map was when we were on our own and most of the time I didn’t have to, because they told us where we needed to be and how to get there.

Shayne: Wow. Fun. That’s just, yeah.

Ryan: what do you think, have I sold you

Shayne: I think I’m convinced. I think I’m ready to go. I think I’ll do it.

Ryan: yeah, it was nuts. It was an amazing experience. And what I loved was talking to these two experienced guides, I love picking their brains about B D in general. You know, they would not, I, I tried a couple times I tried to get some nitty gritty. I tried to get some candid opinions and they wouldn’t do it,

Shayne: okay.

Ryan: But they certainly talked. Different trips. Good, good things about different trips, their favorite trips, their favorite places. You know, I really felt like I, I, I said this to Elizabeth. I felt like our family really developed close relationships with our guides and the magic is I bet every family felt the exact

same way.

Shayne: probably. So, yeah.

Ryan: And that’s the thing, man, like seriously, like I walked away from there saying, Dusty and Mickey, I’m friends with them on Facebook Mickey. I was texting, two nights ago. You know, dusty, I’m sure I could text him right now and we could have a conversation that was, ABD related and I bet everybody feels like they have that relationship with them.

And that’s really cool. And that’s not something that is easy to create.

Shayne: no, no. Yeah. To, to make friends that fast and someone that you feel like you can communicate with that easily is pretty rare.

Ryan: Yeah. All right. So that’s the story. That’s my a, B D

This is what I would like to do Shayne and I talked about this at the beginning of the show. I would like to do a show about all those little things, those pixie dust moments that I experienced about the Disney difference. And, and to, to really show you the level of service that you get with adventures by Disney.

And that I’d also like to do is show about chow Italy who handled the first couple days, and the last couple days of our, of our trip. Does that, does that sound like a good place to go.

Shayne: That is a great idea, and we will be recording and producing those episodes here in the next few weeks.

We would love to help you plan your next amazing vacation, particularly and Adventures by Disney vacation. Ryan and I are both travel advisors with Creating Magic Vacations. And you can reach out to us@ryanryanatcreatingmagicvacations.com. Or to me, Shayne S H a Y N E. Creating magic vacations.com.

Ryan: Most families are confused and overwhelmed. When planning a vacation, we work with you to plan a trip. That’s perfect for your interests, saving you time, money and stress.

Shayne: Me, me, me, me.

Ryan: All right. That sounds great. Thanks for listening. No, no, don’t do that. No.

Why don’t you just go to the

Shayne: round of

Ryan: Yeah, just go, just go to the