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We are very excited to announce that Ear Scouts is now available on-the-go, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts! Want to learn more about Lightning Lanes during your morning jog? We've got you covered. Wish you were catching up on all things Disney with some friends instead of sitting in traffic or waiting in line at the DMV? Check and check. Each episode of our new bi-weekly podcast will feature a fun discussion of all the things going on in Disney Parks around the world, including news, events and reports from our adventures in the parks. We'll also share a sneak peek at some of the videos we are working on for the YouTube channel and upcoming Ear Scouts events. Most importantly, we answer the many questions we get through the comments on our YouTube videos and in our Patreon community. If you'd like to join us live as we record each episode, head over to Patreon and you'll be able to chat with us during the show, see all the bloopers and outtakes as they happen and join us for an exclusive "after party" chat at the end of each recording session. You can also listen to the finished show on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or YouTube . Meet the Hosts Rob & Erick Rob and Erick are the dynamic duo behind Ear Scouts. Rob has been creating videos with Erick on the YouTube channel Ear Scouts since 2021. While Erick spends most of his time behind the camera, he's been making more appearances in recent videos. When they're not crisscrossing the parks on an Ear Scouts adventure, Rob is a graphic designer and web developer and Erick is a professional photographer. Jessica Jessica is one of our Scoutmasters at earscouts.com and over at our Patreon community. She also hosts a scrapbooking channel on YouTube called Jessica Scraps . When she is not traveling around the country in her day job as a nuclear engineer, she is traveling to Disney World, scrapbooking or sharing her love for Star Wars and Judy Hopps. Craig Craig is a Disney history and trivia whiz who is known to our Patreon family as Quizmaster Craig thanks to the trivia games he hosts during our monthly Ear Scouts Jamborees . A lifelong Disney and theme parks afficionado, Craig made his first visit to Walt Disney World during the groundbreaking for Epcot. When he's not helping out on the forums here and on Patreon, Craig is a stage actor who has played such legendary Disney characters as Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and King Triton in The Little Mermaid . Subscribe to the Show

It's about to get a lot harder to get that castle shot without a lot of people in it. Starting January 5, 2026, Disney has announced that hotel guests at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim will no longer have access to the Early Entry perk that currently grants them 30 minutes of exclusive access to one of the two theme parks just prior to opening. Instead, guests at qualifying Disneyland hotels will be given a single Lightning Lane that can be used to book a Multi Pass attraction. In addition to ending Early Entry, Disney will also close the dedicated entrance to California Adventure that is currently available to guests staying at Pixar Place. Although it was located outside the Grand Californian, this special entrance was billed as a perk for Pixar Place guests and allowed entry into the Pixar Pier area of the park. Starting in 2026, Pixar Place guests may use the California Adventure entrance to the park, which enters into the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail area of Grizzly Peak. Although the primary motivation for Disney to make these changes is likely cost (an extra hour of staffing costs for an entire theme park is far more expensive than tossing folks a free Lightning Lane), this will likely be a popular change for those guests who prefer to sleep in on their vacation. For other guests, however, the loss of thirty precious minutes of virtually crowd-free park time will be sorely missed. Even with the addition of a free Lightning Lane, guests who plan to pay for the full Lightning Lane service will gain little benefit since the Disneyland system does not allow guests to book Lightning Lanes until they enter the park. With early park admission, hotel guests had the first pick of all the most coveted Lightning Lanes when they entered the park thirty minutes early. It is unclear if the free Lightning Lane will allow an attraction to be pre-booked or if it will be subject to the normal limitations that require entry into the park before booking. It is unlikely this change would come to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida as the offering is very widely used in all four parks and is one of the largest motivators for guests to book an on-site Disney hotel stay. The benefit was not as widely used in Disneyland, which has far fewer hotels and tends to attract a larger local crowd that tend to visit the parks more frequently. Even though it is not as popular, the Early Entry benefit at Disneyland granted a special kind of magic that will be sorely missed: the experience of the park without all the people. Better get that crowd-free castle shot while you still can.

© Disney UPDATE: Annual Passholder previews have been announced. They will take place July 13-19 and will require a park pass reservation for Epcot in order to join a Virtual Queue that will open at 7:00 AM each day. There will be a second drop of Virtual Queue slots that will drop at 1:00 PM, which will be open to any Annual Passholder with valid admission for that day. If you've been missing the fastest ride in Walt Disney World, we finally have a reopening date. According to a post on the Disney Parks Blog , the reimagined attraction will officially reopen on July 22. We have also heard that previews for Cast Members and a limited number of their guests will begin June 27, though it is possible Epcot Cast Members may get the ability to preview the attraction before that date. Previews for Annual Passholders, DVC Members, Golden Oak residents, Club 33 Members and other groups will also be announced soon, though we don't have any dates to share at this time. © Disney According to the announcement, the updated ride "will debut an all-new musical score, as well as new scenes that highlight technology making our cars smarter and our lives more fun." A video is included in the post that shows a scene from the ride featuring 29,000 light nodes to viusualize how modern cars are able to "see" the world around them. Although this scene looks very high-tech and futuristic, the blog also promises to balance that vibe with others scenes about "spending quality time in the company of friends and family while embracing the beauty of the world around you." This likely refers to a lush, plant-filled scene that was included in the announcement of the attraction's refresh. Although Park Pass Reservations are still available at the time of writing for July 22, it is likely that these will fill up soon. Annual Passholders and other guests who still need Park Passes to visit the park should make those reservations now if they wish to be there for opening day. We will be remaking our Lightning Lane and Early Entry videos for Epcot after the attraction reopens, so stay tuned for the channel for those updates.