[00:00:00] Speaker A: Five nights. We got a five night is the shortest here, Tracy. Yeah, and we've got four nights if I'm paying for it and I'm not within driving distance. Three nights if it's part of a back to back or someone else is paying for it. I mean, if someone else wants to.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Send me one night if it has.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: A. Yeah, I think a one night.
Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live bonus edition of the DCl duo podcast. Brought to you by my path unwinding travel, we bring in my fabulous co host, Samantha. Hey, Sam.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hey, Brian.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Got your topo chico at the ready?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: I do. Drinking it right.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Drink a little Fiji water tonight, apparently. Thank you, Sam, for running downstairs to grab that for me before we got the show going. Let's bring in our guests as well. Sam, you want to intro our fabulous guests?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Yes. I'm super excited. We've had these guests on our show before on the regular show, but this is obviously their first time on our live show. They have their own YouTube channel. They are Krause Mouse adventures. So welcome to the show, Alan, and.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Nice to see you again.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Nice to see you too, as well. Yeah. But before we dive into tonight's show, we wanted to give everyone out there a heads up on a special opportunity to book a Disney cruise at a pretty big discount. So our show sponsor, my path unwinding travel, is doing a private sale on a cruise that they have booked. It's on the Disney magic from July 15 to July 20. So a five night it is going to Lighthouse Point. So you could be some of the early folks headed to Lighthouse Point. It is going to be a group cruise with several planned Disney panelists. And right now you can book it at a pretty big discount, I think. Karen has said online that there are ocean view rooms going for the prices of inside stateroom cabins. There's still some concierge rooms that are about $2,000 less than the published price. And she's got some veranda rooms lower than the currently published price. So if you've been waiting to book your summer vacation, you couldn't get on board with us. The DCL duo for our group cruise headed to Lighthouse Point. It's a great option. Reach out to mypath unwinding travel. You can head to mypathunwindingtravel.com dclduo and they'll let them know that we sent you. But reach out to them if you're interested. Again, pretty big savings on this Disney magic cruise to Lighthouse Point July 15 to 20th.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yes. Check that out exclusively through my path, unwinding travel. So it's not a savings you can get through another agency or booking direct on your own because it is a group cruise.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Well, Sam, we've been delinquent. We used to use these shows way back in the day. They were like news shows for us. And we have been super delinquent in talking Disney Cruise line news and have a bit of a backlog. But we are going to try to address that backlog tonight. I wanted to start off with a big thank you. It's not Disney Cruise line news, but it's news for our show that we came in number eight on a list of top 100 Disney podcasts. And so really, just not to toot our own horn, but to thank all of our listeners out there, that is not possible. Thank you. Thank you. Not possible without all of you.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: We're number eight.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: And that ain't bad. And that ain't bad.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: That ain't bad.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Also in big news for us, we put out our 400th episode last week at the end of last week. So that is episode 400 in the bag. It came kind of as a surprise to us that it was number 400 already. We got season five of the podcast starting later this month, if you can believe it. So, Sam, we were supposed to do about 20 shows and then quit, right? That's right.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I actually thought maybe less than 20 because back then we were only doing one show a week. So I thought maybe we'd get to like eight episodes or something like that. We got a great comment on YouTube from Linda saying, you guys are number one in my book. Thank you.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Just like my favorite duck. Just like my favorite duck.
All right, well, let's hit up. What we're going to do is just run through some Disney news really fast. I'm going to stop at a couple of these news items to give everyone a chance to comment on the panel here or guests here, but several of them. I'm just going to race right through. Going forward again, you can count on us being live every Monday evening, 05:30 p.m.. Pacific. 08:30 p.m.. Eastern. But going forward, the top of the show, we're going to try to hit some Disney cruise line news items as we have them available. So first up, dress to impress. This is a couple of weeks old now or a few weeks old now, but Palo brunch and I believe, is it just Palo steakhouse? Brunch and Palo brunch have altered their dress code to allow people to wear shorts.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: I'm going to pause here.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: What Alan thinks of this as a man. I want to know what you think of this.
[00:05:01] Speaker D: Yes, I'm totally in favor of this. I love this idea. I'm not a formal wear person, so I'm very excited to be able to wear nice shorts in Palo brunch.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: But how would you feel for the dinner?
[00:05:15] Speaker D: Yeah, it's still nicer to get a little fancier for dinner time in the evening.
So I'd be on the fence about that. But definitely 100% for wearing shorts at brunch.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I hope they don't change dinner. I like people to be a little like, I'm not a suit and tie person when it comes to dining at these restaurants, but I do like people to at least maybe put on some slacks and some nice shoes for dinner. So let's hope they don't change the dinner attire. Nothing in here, by the way, about Remy or enchante. Dress code remains the same for them. And also palo dinner. Nothing has changed.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: I want to say I don't care that much about it, but I'm not necessarily looking forward to seeing more men's legs. Let's just put.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: All right, well, there you have it. Sam's not interested in seeing your legs.
All right. You must like those, like, meta avatars. They have Sam that are just disembodied people with no legs.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: But the good news is you don't really see their legs if they're dining right. So you'll see.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Good point, Rachel. I love that. Stay seated, guys.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Good point. All right, next up on the list, the haunted mansion parlor. They had an announcement that they are going to have a bust in the haunted mansion parlor honoring Disney legend Roly Crump, who was a key designer of the Haunted mansion itself. And so nice to see them honoring him in that way. Will be great to see the bust and all of the other sort of decorations in the haunted mansion parlor when it's finally out and ready. So looking forward to seeing that they.
[00:06:47] Speaker D: Recently put one of the candlemen, or Waxmen. It's one of his Raleigh's original designs in the Haunted mansion. It's just a little part of you, you're careful, you can see it, but it's one of his original designs. Like a melting candle guy.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: I was going to say the bus is not melting.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, this looks like something out of a Terminator movie, but congratulations, Rolly.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: It's a nice, you know, Disney does a good job in doing those kinds.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Of is it is. All right, there was a little bit of a dust up last week about beer mugs being completely sold out. So for those of you who don't know, Disney Cruise line doesn't really do drink packages. They do some wine packages. Once you get on board, they do some things with know, buy a cooler, get six hard seltzers for the price of five or something along those lines. But one of the other things they did is they do these beer mugs that are supposed to be slightly larger than a regular beer. You get a few extra ounces of beer with each mug. And if you didn't want to take the mug home with you, they would give you a card that they called a beer token. And when you're done with the mug, too at a bar, you could hand it in and get the token. So you have to carry it all over the ship. You could preorder these mugs. That's what this graphic is. You could preorder these mugs through the onboard amenities ordering. They have been out of stock for a long time and we started to hear rumors last week that they just weren't even available for purchase on board. Folks who'd bought them were getting refunds. They weren't able to honor the beer tokens and so we were concerned that these were going away. We have heard from some folks who have talked to concierge on board the various ships. They are coming back. They were just out of stock. Fret no longer. The beer mug should return. So if you start to see them back on the ship, we'd love to hear confirmation of that. But I love the beer mug. So happy it's coming back. I've got a really nice version off the wish that they made for the maiden voyage. I'm hoping they do the same for the treasure so I can collect that mug, too. But they are coming back, it sounds like.
All right, this is a good one. So Disney treasure is the first ship in the fleet to get its own theme song.
It is a nice song. I think I'm going to turn it over to Sam to talk about this. It is a nice song, but it was written and performed by Jordan Sparks singing the anthem for Disney Cruise Line's newest ship. The name of the song, sam, do you remember the name of the song? Because I've got it here.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: I don't know. It's something.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Live the adventure. Live the adventure. However, the refrain is discover the treasure. Live the adventure. Which leads me to question, why would we not call this song discover the treasure since it's anthem for the Disney treasure discuss.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: I just need to say that I think that Disney probably got a two for one deal on this song. So the song, when I say a two for one deal, it's the theme song now for the treasure and the adventure. That's a two for in my book. I mean, I just think all of this haranguing about how the treasure is adventure themed, they should have named it the adventure. They decided not to. Then they decided to name the mega ship the adventure. That was just a bad decision. And then this is another bad decision. Not because it's just the name of the song and the lyrics of the song. It should not be so focused on adventure. I don't know. What do you guys think? Rachel, what do you think?
[00:10:08] Speaker C: I kind of agree with you, but I guess I'm not super bothered as long as it's a good song.
[00:10:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I haven't heard it yet, so I'm looking forward to hearing it and then I'll judge it.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: You can find it wherever you want to stream music. It's on Spotify.
We have added it to our DCl duo rapid fire Spotify hits playlist, so you can head over and search for that. We try to put new songs in there from the various rapid fire rounds. Although Sam has not asked. Favorite Disney songs.
[00:10:34] Speaker C: When are they going to even use the song? They for commercials or. What's the song even for?
[00:10:39] Speaker A: I could hear it playing on the top deck. Like with the screen saver. Well, I could see it in screen saver mode for the funnel vision because they have that kind of screen saver now. They do. I could see them doing that.
Yeah.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Maybe a deck party when they do the christening ceremony. I bet if they're smart, they'll invite Jordan sparks to come and sing it live at the.
[00:11:03] Speaker D: Place.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: She could be like the godmother of the ship, too.
[00:11:08] Speaker D: They're playing it too often, though, on the deck. You're going to get sick of it, so be careful.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yes, for sure.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Well, I've had it on repeat on Spotify and I can tell you that, yes, it started to wear on me.
All right, next up, new outfits for the Fab Five on castaway key. I'm going to just kind of blow through this with maybe one commentary. But Mickey and Minnie and friends got some new, very colorful outfits.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah, very rainbow ask. I like it. Very colorful, very 70s. They give me 70s vibes.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Donald's got the swim, swim shirt on. He's got the rash guard. He doesn't want to get sunburned. Here's the whole gang together with their outfits. Very colorful. But these are the saddest outfits of all. It is Chippendale. And someone pointed out this is Chippendale dressed like kid and play from the house party movies, if you're familiar. I got to say, and someone else said how they put it. They did Chippendale dirty on these.
I don't, I don't know. They look kind of with the. I don't know if those are life preservers that they're wearing.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: No, they're swim trunks. But because of the way that the shape of the costume.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: No, I think chips looks like a.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Life vest on about the bottom. So you're right. Chip definitely has a life vest as his vest. Yeah.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: But he's also rocking, like, an Indiana Jones kind of sash there. I don't know.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Anyway, it looks like it's a net. It looks like it's like a fish net. Right.
[00:12:43] Speaker C: Too much going on.
[00:12:44] Speaker D: Yeah. It'll take me some time to get used to it. It's kind of a little out there.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: It's a little out there.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Agreed. All right. Well, those are the new outfits on Castaway key. Other big news this week. We're getting into this week now. Marvel Day at sea is back. It has been confirmed on select, I have to keep saying select. Five night sailings aboard the Disney dream out of Fort Lauderdale starting January, embarking January 27 through May 15, I believe it is. Or March 15. May 15. March 15. I think it's eight sailings March 15. Yeah. So Marvel day at sea is back. Pretty excited for that. Sam was having me research cruises the other day while we were recording with a guest on their Marvel day at sea experience. So pretty excited. It's back. Wild card question mark. Pixar day at sea. No announcements there. We're silent. They only announced Marvel Day at sea. It's leading a lot of folks to say that Pixar Day at sea is at least on hiatus. I don't think they would cancel it at this point because it seemed pretty popular and they made some pretty big investments in shows and all that sort of stuff. So I'm going to guess that if it's not announced for 2025, it's just on pause. That's my hope. But Star Wars Day at sea is no more. So who knows? Who knows?
[00:14:03] Speaker B: I wonder if they're just trying to figure out what ship it's going to go on because the fantasy is not going to be doing the seven night itineraries and the treasure is, but they don't need Pixar day at sea on the treasure because it's the brand new ship, right? So I think there might be a gap just because of that and then maybe they'll bring it back in 26. But this is total speculation. I have no inside info on that.
But yeah, I would think if it's coming back, it's certainly not going to be on the treasure. If it's coming back, Karsh thinks it's coming back. I hope you're right. But if it's coming back, I just don't know which ship it's going to be on because it's certainly not going to be on the treasure.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: That would be my Aaron's asking in the comments, is it going to Australia? That's interesting because they did do some of the Marvel stuff in Australia, right? So maybe they'll do Pixar in Australia. That would be great.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: They certainly know they didn't promise Marvel day at sea on the australian sailings, and then they did it on a lot of them. So it could be that they do something like that. But I don't know. Now that they've put marvel stuff onto the wonder, I feel like it would just be easier for them to keep doing that. So I'm not sure.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, we will wait and see what happens. Let's get to our last news item so we can get to our topic for the night.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Sorry, we keep talking about all this other stuff.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Actually, we got one more news item. And then the last news item, I believe so, also announced, I think, earlier this week, late last week, was new treasure merch. So there's some stuff on the Parks blog about this, pictures of all the different merchandise. It is all like 20,000 leagues under the sea themed containers and things that look like they should be covered in barnacles and stuff like that. So lots of merch. They had some coasters. This is a planter that they had. They had a special goblet that was like, what do you call it? An octopus wrapped around a diving helmet. So go check it out. Some people are pretty excited about it. I think Sam has told me I'm not allowed to buy any of it. So we shall see.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: It's not my aesthetic. Sorry.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Doesn't fit with our mid century modern decor. I can totally appreciate.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Doesn't.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: All right, last news item. Pretty big one. So Disney's UK Instagram account. Disney Parks UK Instagram account posted today in their stories this lovely little graphic that you'll see on the right hand side for those at home. It's listening afterwards on the podcast channel. You can find it in our Facebook group as well. But it's a graphic saying, big summer 2025 announcement coming soon, or maybe you already know it. Study this postcard closely. And so if you study the postcard closely, and we don't take credit for this, but if you study the postcard closely, you'll see, and I have up on screen now some red circles in various areas of the picture. Sorry, the picture is not scaled well, but essentially there's numbers hidden all throughout the picture. And I think, Sam, you sleuthed out that those are the MMSI numbers for the fantasy, suggesting that the fantasy will be headed to Europe, specifically to Southampton, because there's a little british flag flying in the castle that they've built on the beach here for the european season, which I think tracks with your predictions from other shows, Sam, and the fact that the fantasy is probably going to go into dry dock at some point while she's over there following the dream.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: 2025, I tell you. So. Yeah, this is something, we talked about this on our last itinerary release show that we did, which was also a live show. And I sleuthed out from looking at all the itinerary release dates that the dream schedule did not align with her heading over and doing a transatlantic sailing to Europe. But the fantasy schedule did perfectly. And the dream is doing its dry dock this year at the end of its european season over in Brest, France, which is in September of this year. So if the fantasy is due for its strydock next year in 2025, it can do the exact same european season and then go do its dry dock in breast, France, in September of 2025. So I predicted this, and I would say my prediction has now been confirmed. So it's happening. Fantasy is headed for the first time since, of course, her transatlantic sailing when she was built, she's headed back to Europe. So that's kind of exciting news. I think the european market will be happy, and I think a lot of the Americans will be happy, I think. Rachel, you were saying you guys were thinking about sailing in Europe in 2025, and so you were pretty excited about this.
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. Our plans are to go to Europe, and then I just have to see what the cruises look like and if anything, matches what I want to do. But we love the fantasy and would love to go back on her.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Speaker D: It's a pretty impressive sleuth thing that you did to track that down.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: There is a wonderful comment, and udkarsh is calling me Nostradamus.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: I appreciate it.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Yet she can't figure out how to use her iPhone. So there you go.
All right. Well, with.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Nobody ever called me a tech wizard, Brian.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: No, they did not. All right. With that, we are going to move on to our show topic. The reason that we have Rachel and Alan with us, what we want to talk about tonight are taking short sailings on Disney cruise line.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Why?
[00:19:30] Speaker A: You might want to consider one, how to make the most out of one. And then at the end, we will talk about some drawbacks of the shorter sailings. But let's start with the first question here, which is why might you want to consider taking a shorter sailing on Disney cruise line? Alan, Rachel, why don't you kick us off here?
[00:19:49] Speaker D: Go ahead.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: So I think what happened for us and why we even came up on this cruise, we did do a two night cruise out of San Diego, was that we had just finished our seven night western cruise. And then I thought, okay, we don't have a cruise until many months later, which will be actually in April. And we live only an hour away from San Diego and never done a cruise out of there. So I thought, I looked, no one has to miss much. It was a weekend, so it was just a half a day of work for me, one period for them, for school. So I thought, good opportunity to just do something fun, have a good weekend. And that was one of our driving points of why we actually did it in the first place.
[00:20:31] Speaker D: Yeah, just kind of like a bonus couple of days for us. We didn't think of it as like a full vacation, but we had the mindset like, hey, it's just a fun getaway weekend. We drove down the same day that we departed, that we embarked. And then when we came back, when we disembarked, the kids and I drove directly to school and we just missed the first class, but we squeezed it all in. So it's just a neat little bonus vacation for us.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: I love mean, look, there are some great reasons to take these shorter sailings. I mean, if you're new to Disney Cruise line and you want to try it, know, maybe you've got some seasickness, apprehension, whatever it is, or you just don't want to spend the money on some of these longer sailings because Disney Cruise line is not an inexpensive proposition. For a lot of know, these shorter sailings are, know, two nights is rare. I'll say two night sailings are rare on Disney Cruise line. And that's really, I mean, that's like, get on board and I think you probably already have your luggage tags to disembark, your tip envelopes and your questionnaire, your survey in your room. But three night cruises can be found all the time on Disney Cruise line, so grabbing one of those three nighters is going to hit your pocketbook, probably a little bit less. Sam, what other kinds of, I mean, juice in your castaway?
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Oh, you just stole it. That's what I was going to say. I was going to say, hey, if you are looking to get your castaway club status up from silver to gold or gold to platinum or platinum to Pearl, a shorter sailing is the way to do it. You don't need to take, as Rachel pointed out, you don't need to take as much vacation time or pull the kids out of school for as long. And so it's easier to fit those in your schedule. And of course, if you live close to a port like the Krauses do, then that's even easier. But even if you live further away, you can rack up the castaway status by sailing on three night cruises. I say three night cruises because those are the most common of the shorter cruises. But yeah, if you've got an opportunity to do a two night cruise, why not? Why not?
[00:22:34] Speaker C: I see you just kind of tag it. Either it's part of you're doing Disney World or not making it the main part of your trip. Basically just like an extra add on. Nice, fun thing to do.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:45] Speaker D: It's also an opportunity to try something different. Like, we did an inside stateroom this time and we thought, well, maybe for seven nights we wouldn't want inside stateroom, but for two nights. Hey, let's try it out.
[00:22:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I was curious about it because I heard from people saying, like, you had had on that they had the best sleep. I did not like that room at all. So I'm 100% glad I only did it for a two night. I felt claustrophobic.
I didn't like it at all, but it was good to try. And then we also had wanted to try late dining, which we actually enjoyed a lot, so we're glad we did that.
[00:23:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Good idea. Trying different.
[00:23:17] Speaker D: Yeah, we have kids, so normally we eat earlier, but hey, we tried out and it worked really well with the shows. We didn't have as many little kids kicking our seats in the show, so that was a good experiment. That worked well.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Plus, you can walk on board with just a backpack, probably if you're sailing on a two night sailing.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: No laundry.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: No laundry.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Yes. Wait, are you lamenting not having to do laundry on a cruise like a bad.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: That's so weird. It's just weird. It's just strange. I'm like. I'm not lamenting so much as it puzzles me, the idea of not doing laundry. But to be fair, I don't usually do laundry on a three night cruise. I pack enough and then I do laundry when we get home, just because on a seven night cruise, it's easy for me to do laundry, but I don't want to take up my precious moments on a three night cruise.
[00:24:09] Speaker D: Right. Speaking of precious moments, it's more important to get an early boarding time if you have a short cruise, because every hour is important. So we worked hard to get an earlier boarding time so we could get as many hours on the ship as possible.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah, we just, I think, lucked out on that, to be honest.
Because even though we were still worried, I still got a boarding group.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Boarding group?
[00:24:30] Speaker C: Like eight or something like that. And our port oral time was twelve.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Oh, great.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: Yeah. I think there might have been a lot of first timers on our cruise, to be honest with you. That's my guess.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker D: So normally we're competing against platinum and pearls, but now we're just competing against platinum.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Don't care to go on the two nights unless they're working for Pearl, I guess.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Now let's talk about making the most out of these shorter sailings.
Let's set aside two nights. I mean, I think two nights is tough just because then you don't get to try all of the different dining venues if it's your first time on there.
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say I actually requested ahead of time because I knew we were only having two nights, so I called into DCL and requested which restaurants I wanted to have, and they gave me my request. And I think that might be even a priority if you're on a three night too. Let's say you for sure wanted to do this one as your highest priority. Asked it for number.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: That's a great.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Which. Which ship did you do the two night on?
[00:25:37] Speaker C: Magic.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: The magic? Yeah, Brian. Yeah.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So you obviously requested Rapunzels.
[00:25:45] Speaker D: Yeah, and animators.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Because I love that you requested rapunzels.
[00:25:49] Speaker C: And animators.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: You wouldn't request tritons. Sorry, tritons or lumieres.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:25:57] Speaker D: And I love that animator show more than the fantasy of the whole phantasmic stuff going on in black and white to color is really cool.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Well, let's talk some tips about making the most out of it. So let's kind of walk through the different experiences on board. We talked a little bit about dining just now, but would love to know how would you approach adult dining? Would you tell people don't do it? Or would you say, no, it's a great opportunity to try adult dining because it's a shorter sailing. I feel like might be harder to get adult dining on the shorter sailing because there's fewer opportunities. But what's your thoughts on adult dining?
[00:26:33] Speaker C: I think the adult dining might have went right away. I didn't even look into it because in my head there was no point to do it.
I think it's more to like if you want to kind of space it out, try something different. But if you only got two nights and two lunches, why would you even try adult dining? Or if you had three and three? So to us it was not a priority and we did not prioritize that.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:58] Speaker D: And we were with our kids, so we wanted to spend time with them or normally on a longer know, have some adult time, some family time. But we just figured, well, we'll just all be together during those meals.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say for adult dining you can take one of two methods. One is our friend Chris Kidder is saying, I actually kind of like his idea. On a two or three night sailing, you could just eat Apollo twice, once on embarkation day and once on another since most people will want to do the main dining rooms and experience those. I love that idea. But as he notes, that's for seasoned cruisers, right? For people who have been on the ships like a million times and are fine with missing main dining, the show, the food, whatever. But I actually would say in general, for a shorter sailing for your new ER cruiser, either brand new or somebody who's only been on a handful of times, I would say skip adult dining completely. One, so you don't miss rotational dining at night, and two, because if you try to do brunch, brunch is like, at least they put it on the calendar as a one and a half hour experience, but it's usually more like 2 hours, sometimes even 3 hours, depending upon how big your party is. And so that takes up a very large chunk of your day. Whether you're Apollo or Remy or Enchante, it's even longer. So I would definitely say as much as I love Palo brunch on a shorter sailing, if you're a newish cruiser, a new ish DCL cruiser, I should say skip brunch and experience the ship. There's so much to do on board.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah, but to the earlier point about trying new things, it might just be an opportunity for you to get in there. I feel like on a shorter sailing, and maybe we should talk about this. I feel like on a shorter sailing, the pre booking process is going to be pretty light because I don't know if you're going to want to book a shore excursion at all, because you're going to maybe want to stay on the ship that you paid a lot of money to be on.
And so maybe it's such just the opportunity to be like, I'm going to prioritize getting that one dinner that I've never had before. I'm just going to go straight there and get it, as opposed to I've got 15 other things. And adult dining is kind of at the bottom of the list and now I can't get it kind of thing. Right. So I think there could be an argument for. Go ahead and grab an adult dining and see. Give it a try. If you haven't tried it before, it's not the worst thing in the world to do.
Speaking of the activities, would we all agree on a three night sailing? We probably would not book a shore excursion.
Anyone disagree?
[00:29:34] Speaker C: I didn't even look at the shore excursions. I'm going to be honest. We did know we wanted to get off just briefly because I wanted to get my kids some mexican food from Ensenada. So we figured we'll have a quick meal off the ship and that was it. But we didn't do anything more than that.
[00:29:51] Speaker D: And actually we got a great recommendation from Chris Kidder about where to go for tacos, which worked out great. We just walked off the ship, walked to the restaurant, had some tacos, got some fresh made churros and came back on the ship. Because some of those excursions can be hours and hours, and you want to spend the time on the ship and experience all the ship has to offer, so you have to use your time wisely.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: I agree. I think the only exception would be maybe castaway. Right. So I'm wearing my castaway key five K shirt today, by the way.
But that would be the only exception where I would plan on getting off the ship. Still at castaway?
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Getting off, but not booking a shore excursion there.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: I don't book shore excursions very often on cast. Well, I guess. Except for parasailing. Yeah, but parasailing is only an hour long. So that's the thing.
Something like on castaway where they have some shorter shore excursions or a cabana of. Right. Like I might still go for those things. But I think, barring castaway, I would not book an excursion and I would spend most of my time. If not, I might not get off the ship at all. But if I chose to get off the ship, I would do it exactly as Rachel and Alan did. Just to get off, have lunch, get a good margarita and some tacos in Mexico. I feel like that's the perfect.
[00:31:07] Speaker D: It was a perfect lunch. And some of those excursions can take a couple of hours just to get to the destination. So you're really taking a lot of.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: You know, the only thing that I will highlight from all of this is these shorter sailings. I have a feeling a lot of people get on. They are seasoned and they don't get off. Or at least not all of. Not a lot of them. Maybe 50 50 or something. But I wonder if there's opportunity, the point of trying things if there's better opportunity for, like, I've always wanted to try that shore excursion, right. Maybe on a shorter sailing you could get it in a way that you wouldn't be able to get it on a longer sailing, right. Because probably not a lot of platinum pearl cruisers going on the three, four night sailings all the time. And so you might have a better shot at some of the stuff that's harder to get in some of these places that you might not otherwise be able to book. So that would be one argument for me.
[00:32:04] Speaker C: I guess it's making your priority, right? Like deciding what do you want to do the most? And focus in on that. And you're right, there could be something like you could probably not snag if you were silver or if you were a first time cruiser. And you might want to say, that's more important to me. And you just do that because it's all about making your own journey, right?
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker D: So ahead of time, we looked at all the options and decided what our priorities were and what we wanted to do. So we tried some new things.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Which Craig is saying his family secret for the three nights is research and plan as soon as you get on the ship. Many things are only offered once during the sailing. I think that's a good tip, but I think your tip is even better, which is research and plan before you get anywhere near the ship and figure out what is the thing you want to get done and recognize. As Sam likes to say, you can't.
[00:32:54] Speaker D: Do it all, can't do everything, right?
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:56] Speaker D: Right. You have to keep that in mind that you're just going to get a few things done. If you get that done, then you're in good shape. Don't try to do.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: You know, I love how in the app you can heart things. So for those who haven't used the Disney Cruise line app, but once you're on board, you can see the entire schedule of events and certain things will be automatically hearted for everyone, which is the show that's opposite, like your dining rotation. But anything else that's in the app, any other activity, you can sort of tap on it and it lights up the heart red and so that you'll get a reminder when those things are coming. I think it's like 15 minutes before you'll get a little reminder on your phone telling you bingo is about to start. Or actually it'll be sales for Bingo is about to start in D lounge. Right. So you'll get those reminders. But also you can look at your schedule instead of looking at the entire schedule, you can sort of look at what you have hearted and what you have booked, which will include like spa treatments and excursions and things like that in the app and see what your day looks like so you can kind of plan out. So I go through and I heart everything that I'm kind of, kind of interested in. And then I unheard once I look at what it's sort of next to in the app. But I think that's really helpful.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Hold on. I just want to say pro tip on that. Sam introduced me to. I didn't realize there's a way you can click in the app and see all of the days that a particular thing is going to be offered in times and then you can heart them all. So that's a great tip in the app.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: I do that for brain teaser trivia, by the way, because Sam's trying to.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: Come home with 14 medals. Yes.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: And that's the only trivia that we can actually win. It's brain teaser trivia.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: But Sam, you were going to ask about the spa. I think that's a good place to go, too.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Spa, would you spa, would you rainforest? I mean, this is know for a two or three night cruise, would you spend your time and your money on those things? What do you think, Rachel?
[00:34:54] Speaker C: What would you say? I think it's really, as you say, it goes to your priorities. For us, I think my priority was, and that's what we decided beforehand, we wanted to make sure we saw the shows. That was priority, getting the kids some time on the pool deck and then also try some things that we wanted to do but never seemed ever to have time for before, which was some trivia that we never did because those would always conflict with other things. So for us, that was not a priority. But let's say this is a priority for you, then I'm sure you could easily get appointments.
[00:35:28] Speaker D: Yeah. We had a couple's massage on our seven night cruise and we decided this time we just want to focus on other ship activities with the whole family.
So they don't want to spend time in the rainforest room this time. But, yeah, we did some things that we hadn't done before, like the silent dance party. It was kind of fun to experience. And like Rachel said, the trivia, the drawing. Oh, yeah. The animation class. Learn how to draw different Disney characters. That was fun.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: How did you fit that in and have time to go to the pool deck? I feel like all those things, I would just be, as I normally am, kind of just bouncing from activity to activity. Right.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: I was kind of calculating. So I figured as soon as we got on the ship, we go straight to eat and they were directing everybody to go to the sit down. I don't know why they were doing that, but we knew we didn't need to and we wanted to be quick. So we went straight up to the buffet. We were in and out of there fast, had our bathing suits already packed and literally our kids were the only ones in the pool.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: Yeah. Which is amazing. Normally it's kids soup and they had the whole pool to themselves, which is incredible. You never see that on a cruise. So that was great.
[00:36:34] Speaker C: So we got our pool time in before anyone else really did. And we were going to maybe do it the second day, but with everything else packed in, we asked them did they want to go? And the kids were like, no, we're good. We did what we needed to do the first day.
[00:36:46] Speaker D: Yeah. And there was no line for the aqua dunk. So we did that a couple of times.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Dunk even open because some open. I love that. That's the perfect timing because then there's no line. If there's nobody on the pool deck, it's empty. And our daughter did a rode it.
[00:36:59] Speaker C: Three times in a row. I was like, third time in a row, princess. Because she just went down, up, down, up, down, up.
[00:37:05] Speaker D: Yeah. Perfect. It got a lot in.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: That's awesome. Well, I think that's a great tip in general, I think on most of the ships, a lot of people don't think to pack or wear their bathing suits. And if you are pool deck people, one of the best days to actually do the pool deck is probably embarkation day if you have decent enough weather, of course. So that's a great tip for fitting that in.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: I want to flag. I want to go back for 1 second of the spa and just flag. One other reason. If you haven't tried the spa and you've been looking to try it, sure. One thing that you might want to do is on these shorter sailings, if there's a port day, you get spa discounts on port days. So it's an opportunity if you're like, well, I'm on a shorter sailing so I'm not going to get off the ship anyway. Go leverage the spa discount on a port day. Get treatments really early in the morning too. And so it doesn't really completely destroy your entire day.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: And they price the rainforest room based on the length of your sailing, too. So if it's something you wanted to try but didn't want to pay for the length of cruise pass, because that's now really mostly what they're trying to sell you, it's really hard to get a day of pass. Yeah. Or single day pass.
Yeah, you could try that as well.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: All right, so we got one listener who's saying cheers to your topo, chico.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: So just putting that out there for you, JD. Cheers.
[00:38:19] Speaker D: And we had some adult time too. We got in the adult Jacuzzi, it was just the two of us and spent some time at the COVID cafe. So that was nice. So we try to mix it up a little bit.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: We also did the, what do they call that? Theme ship tour.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Oh, you did? Oh, that's a great idea to do. I feel like the good thing about, well, if you're doing all these activities, you can bounce from one activity to another. Right. And so that's a perfect one to do. I love the art of theme ship tour.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: So I love this comment because it's bringing up for me another pro or plus of these or pro for these, which is if you've got kids and you've been waiting for a way to get in a little adult's vacation weekend, but you can't ask grandma and grandpa to watch them for a whole week. Watching them for three nights might be doable and you can kind of get away and go do a really short cruise, leave the kids behind and have a little adults weekend. I kind of like that idea. Sam, what do you think?
[00:39:19] Speaker B: I love it. I absolutely love it. But, you know, I love an adult only cruise. So, I mean, I love Nathan too, but I love an adult only.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Sorry, Nathan and Matthew, I just wanted to comment that they do sometimes do Palo brunch on Nassau day in port. That's the only day they do it in port is day.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: So it's not every time Nassau, they go to Nassau, it's only on cruises that don't have a sea day. Right. So if there's like a three night cruise that goes to Castaway and Nassau doesn't have a sea day. So the Palo day is your sea day, basically.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: And last comment, I want to throw up here just to actually directly talk to Craig for a second. Please put down the phone and go enjoy your cruise and stop watching us. You can listen to it later. You are on a Disney ship. Talk about things I would not do on Disney cruise line. Line sailing. It would be Ryan.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: So there you go.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Glad to hear the Wi Fi is working, though.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: He's watching us live on the.
Hi, Craig.
Anyway, that's hilarious. All right.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: What other tips do we have for making the most out of the you we talked about? Prioritize. Pick the things you really want to do, try new things. What are we missing, Alan? Rachel.
[00:40:28] Speaker D: Yeah, I think we got it. Do you have something?
[00:40:31] Speaker C: No, I think that's.
[00:40:32] Speaker D: Yeah, we really hit trying.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: I think your point about trying a new stateroom is a great one, though. I know you mentioned at the beginning.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: At the other end of that, Sam, trying concierge.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: It's a lot less money, but there's a lot less money on the line on a two or three night sailing to try concierge than there is on a seven night sailing. So if you've been thinking, like, I just want to see what the experience is like doing it on a shorter sailing, you're not saving money in any sense of the word, except that you're not paying as much for a seven night sailing. But some people, that's a good way to try out.
[00:41:11] Speaker C: Do you think you'd really get the real benefits of concierge, though, on a three night sailing? I feel like they really wouldn't know you. You wouldn't get all the special treatment, so you really wouldn't get the true taste of it. I guess that's what I think.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: You get a little bite or a little nibble, but you don't even get like a full appetizer, so you're probably.
[00:41:31] Speaker C: Not getting your money's worth. It's my guess.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: My pro tip here would be do it on the wonder or the wish or maybe the treasure when she comes out. If she ever does shorter sailings, do it on one of those ships, because the lounge itself on both of those ships, I think, is well worth kind of some of the expense that's involved. And the other thing you would be able to try and still get some benefit from is the shoreside support before the cruise. So if there were some items that were like, I got to get this, I'm really wanting to do this, you'd still get that recognizing there'd probably be fewer of those if you're a seasoned cruiser. But I just think it's good to try on the different stateroom. But if you've been sort of thinking about concierge but don't want to spend the seven night price, you might get something out of it on a three night sailing or a four night sailing.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: I think I'm more in Rachel's camp on this one. I think I'd be more likely to try an inside stateroom on a two or three night sailing, and I would definitely not book one on a seven night sailing. I've never sailed an inside cabin, so I might love it. I have no idea. But I would be hesitant to book it for a seven night sailing without having done it first on a sailing.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: This is unreal to me.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Mind blowing.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: This is unreal to me.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: Chris, you got to read it out loud.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I will. So real example, three night Disney magic from San Diego, April 18 to 21st, which might be spring break for some four people, $3,600 in an ocean view. Meanwhile, three nights in the grand Cal and three day Disneyland tickets with no meals included, $4,300. So Disney cruise line vacation, where the meals are included, is going to clock in, I would guess price of food for four people, at least $1,000 less than the comparable Disneyland. Yeah, that's true.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: That's a great example. Thanks for sharing, Chris. That's a fantastic.
I would. That's a great reason to try a shorter Disney cruise. Absolutely.
[00:43:35] Speaker D: Yeah. People think that the cost is high, but it's actually. Yeah. When you look at it that way, it works out well.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Craig has infected other listeners. Linda's trying to figure out how she's going to watch the live next month while she's on the cruise. Stop it. Go on vacation.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: I love this other comment, though. You got to pull up this comment from Daniel Short. Cruises are a great way to check off the ship. Off the fab Five.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Yes. So if you are trying to. You want to get all five ships soon to be six, the big hero six. That's what we're calling it. I don't know if it'll take, but we're calling it the big hero six. But yeah, if you want to get all five ships checked off your list and you don't have the time in your vacation schedule or the money or whatever to do a longer cruise, that is a great idea. I love that.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Well, we've talked lots of pros. Let's talk some cons, because I think when people ask us how long of a Disney cruise should we take, my typical answer is know your family, know what they want to know if you've got seasickness and that's a real thing for you and you want to test it out.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: No, I'm going to say no less than four nights.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: The word. Know I'm using the word.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
But our typical advice is get on board for as long as you can reasonably afford. Right.
Recommend a week because there's so much to do, including the port stops, all of that sort of stuff. So what are some of the drawbacks? Why do we recommend, want to, you want to start and then we'll send it down to Alan and Rachel.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: I'm going to start. And I know who Facebook user is for this comment. It says the longest cruise is the best cruise. Thank you, Tracy. 100%. And she also says four nights has to be the least. And I think in general, a shorter cruise is just too short. I'm not saying I won't do it. I will absolutely do it. But it's like by the time I'm relaxed enough to feel like I'm on vacation, guess what? It's disembarkation day. So that's my main reason. Feel free to come back to me. I got more reasons, but I'm going to throw it to Alan for his reason why maybe not to sail a shorter.
[00:45:55] Speaker D: Yeah, well, if this is your first Disney cruise, I would say two nights is not good. Don't even do it because you don't get the full experience.
You're not engaged and relaxed.
For us, it was just down to San Diego, just a quick drive, just a bonus weekend.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: It already been on the magic. We're going to do the magic again. So it like our one and done kind of situation.
[00:46:17] Speaker D: But I felt kind of bad for the people who are cruising the first time at DCL that they just got two nights and they don't really get the feel of it.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: But then one thing is, I don't know if they know what they're missing. We kind of know what we're missing because just in the dining room they didn't get to know you. It took forever. I was actually fairly disappointed in the quality of service. They didn't do basic things like make a Mickey ketchup, pour the ranch on their salad.
[00:46:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Cut the steak for the kids. The service was quite bad. I don't know if that was just because they were so rushed, like they had embarkation debarcation.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: I think they were the crew. So you're not getting that, as you said, the true vacation kind of feel.
And so if you want that true vacation feel, you probably do need at least four nights. We are going to do another three night because we want to do the wish. And it's like, what works out with our schedule. So that is to the point of if you want to check off the box on your list.
But otherwise, I think for us, it's pretty much seven night cruises because that seems to be our sweet spot.
[00:47:21] Speaker D: Yeah. And even though we prepped the kids, it was still sad getting off. Like, oh, is there last night?
[00:47:25] Speaker C: But I don't think they were as sad as they knew.
They kind of came to terms like, okay, this was bonus fun weekend.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Right?
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Let me throw this out to our viewers here while we keep talking, which is just. I want to know in the comments, what's the shortest Disney cruise you'd be willing to take?
Yeah. Because two nights, I think, is the shortest I've ever seen offered. They did almost offer one during the pandemic. They had one in Vancouver. That was literally like a one night.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: It was two nights.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Was it two nights?
[00:47:58] Speaker B: It was either Seattle to Vancouver or Vancouver to Seattle. I can't remember which, but it was a one way. And it was because there was some kind of gap in the was it never actually happened. It was when they thought they were going to be allowed to or they thought Canada was going to open up for Alaska sailings. But the CDC was only allowing sailings under five days or something, and so they changed itineraries. We were actually booked on this two night sailing because when it popped up, we were like, we need to do it. Because it was like I said, either Seattle, Vancouver, Vancouver to Seattle. We booked it. And then, of course, we ended up getting a future cruise credit because it never happened. Because Alaska never opened, or should say the Alaska season never opened because Canada was know saying no sailing. So, Brian, other reasons why you wouldn't.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Main. This is my main reason for the short sailings is like, it feels like you're unpacking to nights is I think.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Four nights is okay. I think really less than four nights to me is the issue. Right. But I think you don't get to know. Rachel made the point. You don't get to know your serving team. Alan made the point. Your serving team maybe doesn't even engage in as much effort to get to know you and to give you good service because they're stressed from the really quick turnover of guests. I think you don't get to do as much on board. You might not have all the shows in the main stage theater, which is huge for me. I want to see all the ships have three shows. I want to see all three shows. Usually. I'll occasionally skip certain ones. Those of you who listen to our show a lot know which ones those are old man in the flower.
But yeah. So there are certain things I don't want to miss and that's just hard with packing in a three night or an even or two night cruise. Somebody was asking, would we do? What do we think about a five?
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Let me put up some of these comments so we can get a sense of where people are landing. I think the consensus from people watching is Fortnite. We got a fortnight vote here.
Four nights from Daniel Lee got four night Fortnite there. JD saying four nights because three nights feels too rushed. Chris is saying he's done the two night. 40 hours was a whirlwind and four nights for him, unless it's the wish, which he wants to try. So do compromise on a three night there. Five nights. We got a five night is the shortest here, Tracy. Yeah.
And we've got four nights if I'm paying for it and I'm not within driving distance, three nights if it's part of a back to back or someone else is paying for it.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: I mean, if someone else wants to see one night.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Let me bring back up that question, though, that you mentioned, Sam, which was, how do we feel about the five night sailings?
Are they a sweet spot? I think they could be. I think they could be. Rachel. Alan, what do you think?
[00:51:07] Speaker C: Well, that was actually our first cruise. It was a five night and I thought it was actually perfect. I had no complaints because we went through know three. We missed one restaurant for the second time.
But I think it got us a good taste and I didn't feel like it was too short. Then, of course, when we did seven night, I was like, okay, this seems better. But really it seemed like a really good number and easy to work in your schedule because you probably just had to take one week out of vacation time versus seven night is going to pull you into another.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:42] Speaker D: Yeah. And even on the two night, we were able to see two shows. So that was nice. Just seeing those shows is good.
If you, like Rachel said, if you tag it onto a parks trip or if it's just a short drive, then it makes a little nicer.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:55] Speaker D: But yeah, if you had to fly across the country, then that kind of changes the equation. And that's the one thing you're.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: Going to answer.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: AJ's question though, Brian. And I would say, okay, hold on 1 second.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: I just want to say, because we've talked a lot about how the servers don't get to know you on the three night cruises, and I just want to say they are working hard. I don't want to put it on them. Those three four night sailings are the worst for the crew because they have to do the ship turn like every three to four days. And that is a huge thing.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: It's exhausting.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: They're up late at night, they're up early the next day.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: It's a lot of work every couple of days.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: I think they are just worn out, some of them. It's not to say that every server is not great on a three or four night sailing. We've had some great servers. I think it's really tough. Those are really tough. The crew love the seven night sailings where they get a whole week before they have to turn the ship again. So just wanted to be upfront about that.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: And as this comment says, somebody had the best service they've ever had was a four night sailing on the magic with a server named Aaron. So you absolutely can get great service on shorter cruises.
It's just maybe a little less common. I would. And. And point being, we don't blame the servers for that. It's really just tough on all the crew. Yeah.
So I want to address AJ's question to say, I think a five night cruise is great. The only thing better than a five night cruise.
Two more days or frankly, five more days and get like an eleven or twelve night. Right. But I think a five night cruise is a great. We've done several of those on the west coast because they're more typically offered out of San Diego and out of Fort Lauderdale. Those are more common, having five night itineraries and four night itineraries. And so I'm happy to take any of those. I'm always going to say a seven night is better, but not because a five night or a four night isn't a great to do. As Rachel mentioned, you get to do all the dining rotations, you get all the shows. That sort of a thing.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: I want to turn the topic on its head for a second. I want to go the other direction.
Let me first ask what's the longest sailing this group has done?
Sam and I've got to be the same. It's like the 15 night that we did from San Diego to Hawaii and back on celebrity. Right. That's the longest sailing we've done.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: That was longer than our. We did 14 nights in the Panama Canal. Right?
[00:54:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Rachel Allen, what's the longest sailing you've done?
[00:54:34] Speaker C: Seven.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Seven. Okay.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: I'm not at Postmore.
That's hard to fit in, I'll be honest.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: Well, to go back to the prior comment, someone else was paying for us to go on that cruise, so we would go as long as they wanted us to go.
It was a wedding gift for my parents.
But let me ask this. What's the longest you'd be willing to sail on a cruise ship? Because I think people have very different answers to this question. For some people, seven nights is it? For some people it's forever.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: The answer.
[00:55:08] Speaker C: It's a really good question. I never really thought of it, but I know I could easily stay much longer than seven.
I think two weeks sounds probably kind of. That kind of sounds like. I would think that would kind of be my max. But I don't know, hypothetically, I really haven't even done a vacation much longer than two plus weeks.
[00:55:30] Speaker D: Right. It might depend where you're going. If you get some variety. If it's just all the same, I.
[00:55:34] Speaker C: Wouldn'T want like two full weeks of just sea days. Like you obviously mix it up.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: We've been interviewing people on the Royal caribbean world cruise. It's like nine months, right.
[00:55:47] Speaker C: So there's no. I personally don't think I could do that because I just know that for like, I need to have real life, too. And that would be like. Of course it would be nice. I don't even know what I could do to be. You have to be retired, basically.
[00:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:06] Speaker C: Maybe it sounds interesting and fun, but I don't think I would personally do that.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: Alan, what about you?
Let's get Alan first and then.
[00:56:17] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree. I feel like two weeks is feeling like my maximum.
Like I said, it depends on the variety of what's going on.
But I don't know how many different shows and activities can they throw in there?
[00:56:31] Speaker C: They'd have to be on repeat. That would be.
[00:56:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: Well, we did an eleven night with Disney and I will say there was stuff we didn't get to do.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: And we did ten nights back to back. We did five and five back to back.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: Yeah, there's still stuff we didn't get to do. And I remember the comment on the eleven night that we had. We came to dinner, we were sailing with one of Sam's friends. We sat down to dinner. It was adults only, if you can imagine.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Glorious eleven.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: We sat down to dinner and for whatever reason, it was like night seven. No, it was night six. It was night six, I think it was. And our friend said, you know, night seven, maybe. Oh, maybe. But anyway, he was like, you know, tomorrow, we'd otherwise be getting off the ship if this were a regular sailing. And we all discussed and we said if I had to get off the ship tomorrow, if they docked and set everybody off, I'd feel like I got a really good vacation. But I'm super excited to have like four or five more nights on this puppy.
Personally, world cruise is on my list.
I would do a nine month cruise. My biggest concern is cabin fever. Like that you get a stateroom, that you just feel like I'm surrounded by all my stuff. But I would do that just as a way to see the world.
[00:57:45] Speaker B: So Brian needs his. He's a person who needs his space and his privacy from even me. I mean, so he needs his alone.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: The real reason we record in two different rooms.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: But for me, I am like, send me on. If work wasn't an option and school for Nathan wasn't a barrier. Right. If work wasn't a barrier and school for Nathan wasn't a barrier. I'm on that world cruise, like tomorrow. Yeah. I'd be nine months at sea. Sounds great. Sounds awesome. I can still connect with people over the Internet. I'll make new friends. It'll be great. Yeah, I would love that. I'd be all about that. But it has to be a world cruise or a cruise where you're going lots of different places, like I don't want to do.
[00:58:34] Speaker C: You wouldn't just be on repeat keep.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: No, I'm not on the wish. Yeah, I'm not going on the wish for nine months. I would probably go nuts if I was on the wish for nine months. I'm sorry. I feel bad that the cast members who are on the wish for nine months, because it's literally groundhog day every three, four days. Right. So that I wouldn't want, but something where I would be going to different destinations.
[00:58:56] Speaker D: You wouldn't feel cramped in the room?
[00:58:58] Speaker B: No, because I wouldn't be in the room. I'd be sleeping in the room, and then I'd be know at port or I would be know playing, doing trivia or singing karaoke or socializing with people, drinking. Like, I would not be hanging out in the room except when Brian would make me come back to do podcast recordings. So, yeah, that's.
He would be able to have the room to himself.
[00:59:25] Speaker D: We weren't in the room very much, but you felt it was like too.
[00:59:29] Speaker C: We were barely in the room, more or less asleep, but just in the room for that brief period of time. I did not like it, but that was because there was no window.
[00:59:37] Speaker B: I realized I really sunlight.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: That's how I am even at work. Like, I have an office that has a window. If I had to not see windows, that would be very devastating.
[00:59:48] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they do say for your circadian rhythm, that's important.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: Some great comments here. I want to roll through. So one, we're getting validation on the big hero six being the next iteration. It'll be short lived. Short lived. Before we get to the seven dwarves, I think is our next target. And after that, Disney has to stop building ships because I'm running out of numerical franchises that they have.
Someone's saying 14 nights was amazing, and honestly, they weren't ready to get off. Someone's agreeing with me here, Brian. World cruise. Heck yes. I want that world cruise. I want that world cruise. I think Tracy is saying, how long can I sail?
I've read articles now multiple times about retired couples who figured out that just doing constant back to back cruises is cheaper than the price of rent in some cities. So there you go.
21 days transatlantic to northern Europe. Someone's commenting, and then this person is saying, imagine visiting NASA 90 times in nine months. I think that's a special level of Dante's hell for cruise enthusiasts.
Thankfully, these world cruises do not stop at the same port over and over again. But thank God. And then somebody's saying the COVID cafe bill would be crazy after nine months. I will say if you do get interested in world cruises, someone mentioned Holland America is doing one now. I think princess does one occasionally. Royal is doing one right now. Expect that all these lines will offer them again in the future.
If you do get interested, you just got to look at what the perks are. So as we've talked to folks from royal, they've said, if you do the full thing, if you commit to the nine months, then suddenly they start throwing in things and discounts and stuff is free on board because they just captured probably, I don't know what it is. Probably at least $50,000 or more to be on that ship for nine months.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: But yeah, Brian, before we close out, I think we need to bring up Daniel's comment that he just made that they should do. Yeah, a world cruise on the magic before they retire her, whenever that is. I love that idea.
I don't know that I'd be able to do it because, know, school and work and all that stuff, but that's something I sure would try. I sure would try to fit that in.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Well, go ahead.
[01:02:05] Speaker D: You talked about how long the magic is going to last. We were on it shortly after it was in dry dock and our stateroom was definitely showing its age. Like, the carpet was kind of scuffed up. And I don't know how well they really redid all the rooms, but I don't know how long it's going to.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: Well, on that note, we have certainly reached the end of life for this episode. And so just want to thank Alan and Rachel for coming on and also want to let folks know we will be back next week. 05:30 p.m.. Pacific 08:30 p.m.. Eastern and our guests next week for all of those out there who really love podcast crossover shows, Rev West Hour, the DCL dude on next week with us live.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: But one thing before we close out, Brian, we've got to let Rachel and Alan tell 100% where they can find Kraus Mouse adventures.
[01:02:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:02:56] Speaker D: All right. We're on YouTube at Cross Mouse adventures. We're on all the other social things, too, X and all those things. But most of our stuff is on YouTube.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: Awesome. And they cover all of their Disney vacations or really fun videos. Definitely check them out on YouTube, you guys.
[01:03:13] Speaker A: All right, thanks again and we'll see everyone next time. Thanks so much.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Bye, guys.
[01:03:18] Speaker C: Thanks for having us.
[01:03:24] Speaker A: Well, a big thank you to all of you out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you can keep getting great content from the DCL duo each week. We'd also love it if you'd head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star review. If you hit those five stars, that's great. If you leave us a written review along with a five star review, we will be sure to read it on the air at the end of one of our main episodes. If you're hovering over anything less than five stars, we really want you to reach out to us so we can take your feedback. Best way to do that? Head to dClduo.com to find all the ways to connect with us. It links to our podcast, our vlog. Our blog has all the ways you can connect with us on social media. Has our Etsy store where you can find our fun beach bags and magnets that we designed as enthusiasts of each of the Disney cruise line ships. Has a link off to our Patreon if you'd like to help support the show. We really, truly appreciate each and every one of our patreons for helping to support the show. Each and every month has a link off to our show sponsor my path unwinding where you can get more information about booking a fabulous vacation, which also really helps to support our show. All the things are there, including a way you can sign up to be a guest on the show if you'd like to share your Disney Cruise line experience. Most importantly, you can always email us at
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