[00:00:00] Speaker A: I mean, this is a Disney Cruise Line podcast. I'm here for a reason, right? I like Disney. It makes me happy. There's an intangible happiness quality that I get from being on Disney cruise line that I would not say that I got here.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to another live episode of the DC El duo podcast, brought to you by my path unwinding travel. Sam and I are back. We're back from our royal Caribbean cruise, but we will be talking about that on Thursday night.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Yes, but you can see I've got some sun on my nose, my cheeks, my forehead. You can tell if you see here.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I'd have a bruise on my forehead where I hit my head on the closet when we were repacking. Yeah, but he also has.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: He also has sunburn on the back of his neck, which you can't really see.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: My arms. My arms.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Our delicate Seattle alabaster skin. We glisten in the sunlight.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Us vampires here in west, we don't know this vitamin d the rest of the country gets.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: But we're not talking Royal Caribbean tonight. That is our trip report will be on Thursday evening. Going to try a little something different on Thursday evening and do the trip report live so you guys can ask us questions while we're doing the trip report. But tonight we got a different kind of trip report. We're going to bring our one of our favorite cruisers back. Haley.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: Hey, Haley.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: How you doing?
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Hi. All good to be here.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: We're so happy to have you back. Haley, tell Drew this is your show. You're the star. And not to saying hi, Drew.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Saying hi.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: This is Hailey's husband.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah, this is Hailey's husband saying hello.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: He can butt in. In the chat. That's fine, but not on stage. It's just. It's all for me.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: That's all.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Right. That's all.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Well, tonight we're going to be talking celebrity cruise line versus Disney cruise line. Hailey is a long time Disney cruise line aficionado and has sailed Disney cruise line quite a bit, and we cannot wait to hear all about. We had Hailey on a while ago to talk about. Wasn't celebrity, was nor no Holland. Holland America.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Holland America. Yeah.
Go to Alaska for free on Holland America. But this is my first time paying for a cruise line other than Disney.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: So there you go. There you go. So we're talking celebrity cruises tonight. Before we dive in, we got some folks saying hello. We got a CT over at tinfoil mouse ears. Really fun account to go follow. We just started that. So Tinfoil mouse ears saying hello. Dennis saying hi.
Jd over on YouTube saying hello. Annie saying hi. Tracy. Sam saying, look at that tan.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: She noticed a little bit it's more of a sunburn than the tan, but it'll fade into a tan. It'll become a tan soon.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Linda is saying hello to the DCl duo family Krause mouse adventures. Hello over there. Ashley can't wait to have. We're gonna have Ashley on at some point here real soon. I think next week, maybe on Monday night. Are we talking to Ashley about on the live show? So she's on soon, if not next week and then miles away right now.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Yeah, she's coming on next week. We're having Ashley next week, next Monday to talk about pre Alaska stuff to do in Seattle. Seattle? Yeah.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: If you fly to Seattle. Yeah. And Drew saying he'll limit his comments to the chat.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Well, thank you.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: All right, well, let's talk.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: We also have Jill on YouTube and Bridget on YouTube and Peggy on YouTube saying hi all the way from Lake Placid, Florida.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: All right. Yeah. Lots of friends joining us today. Hi, everyone.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: So let's dive in. Celebrity cruise lines.
Hayley, how'd you end up taking a celebrity cruise? Let's start there. What caused you to do this particular cruise?
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Why did you book non Disney when it wasn't free?
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Let's.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: So to rewind, when we talked to Hailey last, she had just come from a work trip on Holland America to Alaska. So she got a free cruise through work. So she didn't book it herself. And so it explained why she would veer from Disney, but, yeah, why veer from Disney, Haley, for this cruise on celebrity.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: So a few reasons. This was basically a long weekend. I'm sorry. My cat is, like, running around like a butt.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: She has a new cat, everyone.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: I have a new cat. And he loves a spring toy.
No. So it was, this trip was with a long weekend, a Thursday through Monday sailing with two of my best friends from high school. So it was a girls weekend. No boys, no kids. And we originally were looking at all inclusive resorts in Tulum, but trying to figure out the logistics of all of that and the transportation and all that. And drew, my husband, was like, you should just look at a cruise. And I was like, you're so right. So we had our travel agent price out a bunch of different cruises. We looked at virgin, we looked at celebrity, we looked at royal and felt like celebrity would be a good mix of just kind of chill, relaxing, not super kid oriented. Since the whole point for my two friends, was to get away from their children.
Our parents are small children, and they're amazing moms, but they needed a break. So we were looking at that, and it ended up being, like, maybe $900 a person for the fair. And this was out of Fort Lauderdale on the celebrity silhouette. And I'd heard good things about celebrity, I think, probably on your show, and was like, yeah, I'd like to try it.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: So did you. What kind of stateroom did you book? And I assume you were sharing with your friends. You weren't. You weren't doing the solo traveler or stateroom?
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Well, it's funny you should mention that, Ryan. So we actually had two separate staterooms because there was supposed to be four of us originally, and then one person had to back out, so there ended up being three. And so my roommate was the one who had to back out, which meant that I ended up with a solo stateroom. So my friends were next door, so we had Miranda rooms that they did. The rooms themselves weren't connecting, but the verandas were connecting, if that makes sense. We had the state lieutenant open it up.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: So solo stateroom without the solo traveler premium that you would normally have to pay. So that's. That's nice.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: My friend dropped out pretty last minute, so she lost all her money.
Yeah, it just didn't work out in her favor on that one. Always by travel people.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I was gonna say, that's an advertisement for travel insurance right there.
Yeah. So you did the silhouette out of Fort Lauderdale, where we. We already know it didn't stop where it was supposed to stop, but let's start with where was it supposed to stop?
[00:06:24] Speaker A: So it was supposed to be at Key west and Nassau and a day at sea, not in that order. And there was just. I think I'm sort of bad luck with cruise weather in the Caribbean. The last two times I've cruised the Caribbean, I have had my itinerary change due to weather, but. So we ended up not getting to go to Key west at all. And the captain turned what was our key west day into a sea day because it was going to be just, like, storming all day. And we ended up. The first full day of the cruise was a port day in Bimini in the Bahamas, which was not on the original itinerary.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Okay, but that's there. Bimini. Is there private island experience, is that right?
[00:07:01] Speaker A: No, it's not private island experience. There is, like, a Hilton that you can get, like, a day pass for as an excursion, which ended up doing loudest music ever.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: Brian is thinking of virgin voyages because virgin voyages has a private island experience.
Yeah, but celebrity's private island is, I believe, Coco key.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So they're owned by Royal Caribbean, but that was not a port on this particular itinerary.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And. Sorry, it was. How many nights, again, Haley, that you were on?
[00:07:36] Speaker A: So it was four nights.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Four nights. Okay. So just a little taste of celebrity cruise line. What was the. So compare the sort of lead up to the cruise, the. The pre cruise experience for us to what you've experienced on Disney cruise line in terms of, you know, booking activities, getting checked in, all of that sort of stuff.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you book with Disney Cruise line, as probably a lot of your longtime listeners know, it is like, go, go, go. When you get your activity booking window opens, you're like, I need Paulo brunch. I need a cabana. And there's none of that with celebrity, which is kind of nice and same experience that I have with Holland America, where it's like, yeah, like, you should probably get on there and book some stuff, but it's not like the minute it opens up, everything's gonna be sold out. And, you know, I had no status of any sort with celebrity, and that didn't really seem to matter in terms of being able to book things. One of my friends and I got a couple's massage.
Love it deeper that way. So it's like, we've been friends since we were 15 years old. Who cares? Whatever. That's awesome.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: So what kind of things? What kind of things? Could you book in advance or, you know. Yeah, what was available?
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Were there, like, shows to book in advance? Like, I know on royal, you know, you book shows. It's different than Disney. You book, like, even things like certain actors, even if they're included, activities in advance. What was it like on celebrity?
[00:08:56] Speaker A: So you don't have to book any shows in advance on celebrity, and there's not an option to do that. You just show up, and there's enough seating, and it was never an issue.
So you're booking your specialty dining, you're booking your port adventures, your shore excursions. For the not in Disney parlance, you are booking anything in the spa, and you can book. I believe you could book some of the tasting type activities, but it really did not seem like it was, like, imperative that you do that in advance. I mean, there were still. We booked some of our specialty dining, like, less than a week out, I think, and we were able to at least get some. And maybe it wasn't. It would not have been our exact preferred time but it wasn't like way terrible.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: And do they, do they charge you in advance like like royal does?
[00:09:45] Speaker A: They do. So they charge you in advance for your excursion. So I had to cancel an excursion that my friend who was my roommate had signed up for and had to get that refunded to my credit card.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. And then do they do like royal is always doing these flash sales right. So I'm assuming that maybe celebrity does something similar since they're only, it's not.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Quite as like sale sale but they do have like discounts if you wanted to buy the Wi Fi package before or if you wanted to buy the drink packages or whatever. Yeah, didnt seem quite as urgent.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: What kind of drink packages they offer is that the same as like youve got the all alcohol all the time and then like a soda package and something in between or.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah, and im so I dont drink any soda. I drink basically water and tea, like hot tea and alcohol but I dont drink enough alcohol to make a drink package worth it. I think I calculated you would have to have like I don't know, ten or 15 drinks a day or something for the drink package to work out. And I'm just, I'm not that hardcore. So, so small for people who, they're.
[00:10:53] Speaker C: Seeing you on camera, but you're a petite person. Like I'm not sure you could, I'm not sure you could be alive and drink enough for it to be.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: I'm five two on a good day. Like there's not a lot of places to put it so low. But um. Yeah, so from what I remember there was like the non alcoholic, not like so I guess like a soda.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: A soda package.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Yeah, sort of thing where you could have like sodas and juices and mocktails, I guess. And then there was the alcohol version and you know, a lot of the, anytime I was ordering a drink, the, the wait staff or the bartender, whoever, would be like, oh, you don't have drink package. And I'm like, no, I'm just gonna pay for it.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Like the mojitos are $9. It was a good deal.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: So how was the check in process? Because we found Disney's check in process is okay. I found Royal's check in process to be very fast and efficient. I assume since celebrities owned by Royal, it was fairly quick and easy on an app.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, no, the app was great. You just filled out your little questionnaire. I think they did ask you for. I think you do pick a port arrival time.
And then you take a selfie and put in your passport, and that's pretty much it. Like, it took three minutes maybe.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: So very easy. And then at the port was also very easy, um, as well. So this was the port, Everglades in Fort Lauderdale.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah. How was the port experience then? So you got there. How long did it take you door to door? Sort of when you got out of the car to get on the ship? Like, what was the, what was the time? Like.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: I didn't really have to wait. Like, we went, we, like, turned in our bags to the people.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Porter. Yeah.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yes. I was blanking on with that word. I was like, the people.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: The people that take the bags.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: So we took stranded. Our bags went through the metal detectors.
We pretty much immediately got intercepted by a person who scanned our stuff. And then I would say maybe like ten minutes. Like, it was really very easy. And we were not retreat class. We were not aqua class. We were not anything fancy. We were just regular brand of room people. And so I didn't, I didn't feel like I needed an express pass of any kind. Like I said, it's not like Disney where you have to, like, wait for them to call your boarding group number.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: I was going to ask, did you have to wait?
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Did you have to arrival time or did you show up earlier then or what was sort of, I think we.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Were maybe like five or ten minutes early. Like, so the, we stayed pretty close to the cruise port. I think the, the drive was like eight minutes or something. So, um, we got a little turned around at the port, but even so, we were pretty close to being on time. And there were people, like, sitting around outside, but I don't know if they were just trying to, like, get combo or what they were doing.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: But where did you stay in Fort Lauderdale? And would you stay there again?
[00:13:52] Speaker A: We stayed at the Renaissance marina. So it's a Marriott property. And it is.
It's nice. It's, there's like a strip mall right next to it that you can walk to. So we walked and had thai food for dinner, actually, the night before, which was nice. And it's got a nice pool area that has, like, cabana kind of things that you can sit in. So we did that the morning of the cruise. Our port arrival time was like noon, so we needed to kill some time. And we just went, took our books and read by the pool.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: So I'm definitely, again, so you get.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: You get on board the silhouette. First impressions. How does the, how does the celebrity silhouette compare to a Disney cruise line ship after boarding.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's different getting on any ship that's not Disney because you're used to, like, entering into the veranda or not the veranda, the. The atrium, with, like, all the pomp and circumstance and them announcing you. And when I worded this celebrity silhouette and the Holland America ship, it was just kind of like, here we are at the staircase and the elevators and go somewhere.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: Go somewhere.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: But what something that is different is they do let you go ahead and go to your room, and you can even put baggage in your room.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Even if they're not quite done with it, so. And. But my room happened to actually already be ready, so we just went and got our. They call them the sea pass, which is what, your. Your equivalent of the cue to the world card on Disney cruise line. And so, you know, it was not as exciting, but you're still on a new ship, so that's still fun.
Celebrity is interesting because they have artwork throughout the ship, and it's like. It's interesting. Artwork. Like, on Holland America, all the artwork is just, like, dutch masters paintings, like seascapes and Rembrandt looking things, which isn't bad. But celebrity, the art is very eclectic, at least on the silhouette. So we actually did a little photo series where we were copying the poses of people in the paintings and statues and artwork.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
I saw a giant elephant statue. It looked like in kind of the main atrium, at least at one of the photos I looked at. So, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: There was just this, like, big statue of. I think it was a person, but, like, the bottom of it had toes just sticking out. And so we have a picture of our toes with the toes on the statue, which is kind of fun.
We did go to the buffet for lunch, which is the Ocean View cafe. And it's definitely less crowded than, like, cabanas, which is nice. There's just. There was more room you could get from one station to the next. And it's not, like, all one line, so it's pretty easy to kind of go back and forth to different places. And there are people that are just, like, almost like a Walmart greeter kind of thing. There's somebody standing, like, out in the middle of the buffet area just saying, you know, welcome on board, enjoy your lunch. You know, those kinds of things just kind of nice.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Royal has the mister or Miss Washy Washy at the buffet who sings the washing hand song? So that was interesting. So let's talk about different. A few different categories of things here. And actually, before we get to the categories of stuff on board, you mentioned it was Bimini, and Nassau were the two ports of call on this one. So it sounds like you booked something in Bimini.
Let me just ask, did you do anything in Nassau, or did you just stay on the ship?
[00:17:06] Speaker A: We did get off in Nassau, so we did the Pearl island excursion. So we just took a boat out to Pearl island and sat on the beach, and then we came back.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: So, good things about Pearl island, we still have not experienced it ourselves, but we've heard it's a nice. Because Disney offers Pearl island as well.
I think most of the sailings that go to Nassau.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: It was nice. And side note. Okay, apparently two of the people in the chat were on my same sailing with me.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Yes, we're seeing that.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: We're going to bring.
Hi, people.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: And Peggy.
And they will. I want to talk later about something they're talking about in the chat, but I don't want to spoil it yet about some wedding stuff that happened you weren't a part of, but still.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: I was not. It was not my wedding, but I did. I did see the wedding.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: So.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: But anyway, let's get back to Pearl island.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: No, it was good. The boat ride was nice. So you got to see, like, some of the coastline. For those of us millennials out there. I got to see the Atlantis resort from the water, which made me happy because of the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie that takes place.
I was dying to go to Atlantis when I was a kid, and now I had a chance to go, and.
[00:18:21] Speaker C: I just didn't go well.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: I just. I think that the reviews were like, it's fine. It's a lot of money to go for. Not a lot of time.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: And for me, Atlantis is there, people.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: But your options are the aquarium, where you can go and use the pool. And I'm always like, why would I pay to use a pool when there's usually, like, a nice pool on the ship that we're on? And then the other option, of course, is gambling. I mean, when I was there 20 years ago now or 15 years ago, at least, the minimum tables that we saw were, like, $50, $50 hands of blackjack. And I'm so. That's a little too rich for my blood. So, uh, yeah, I'd rather just stay on the ship.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: And I am not a gambler at all. That is not my. My jam. I. I walked through the casino on this ship, and that was the extent of it. It's just not my thing. I'm not a big bingo on Disney cruise line person either.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: I'm just so so on Pearl island. What you. So you got the boat ride there? Uh, obviously. Probably some beach time. I'm assuming they had chairs, umbrellas, that kind of stuff for you.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, they do. They have. It's. They don't have as many umbrellas. Like, the place where we went on Bimini was a Hilton, and they had lots of umbrellas. There were not as many umbrellas on Pearl island, but I'm. I'm very pasty. Um, as everyone can see, this is a live stream, and so we were all like, let's go find a shady spot. Immediately. I wear, like, a long sleeve Disney cruise line spirit jersey on the beach. I don't play around with the sun. Um, it also, we got the version that included lunch. So they had, like, a lunch buffet sort of thing, which really, they just, you go through the line, and they give you one of everything, and then that's it. It's not like you can, it's not all you carry.
[00:19:56] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: And, like, so they gave you, um, like, little fish finger kind of thing, and then they gave you, like, a barbecue chicken leg, like a drumstick, and then rice and peas, which is like, rice and black beans and I think pork maybe was in that as well. So that's basically what you get on your plate. Um, they've got coconuts where you can get, you know, rum in there, or you can get coconut water. The one friend who was pregnant enjoyed getting her coconut water so she could feel a little bit like she had something special to drink. There's a little lighthouse that you can climb that's got some fun views, but it's a pretty chill place. There's a beach area, a couple beach areas where you can swim. They have cabanas that you can rent if you want to. We didn't do that.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: Were the drinks included in the excursion or just the.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: No, they were not. So we paid extra for drinks on top of that.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: And how long overall did you get? Sort of at the beach or the resort?
[00:20:57] Speaker A: So I want to say that the excursion was, like 5 hours or so. So it wasn't, like, super long, but, I mean, it was either that or, like, wander around Nassau, and I wasn't really feeling that. And this was just a supposed to be a very relaxing trip. Yep. And Drew likes to do activities when we are on cruises, so there's a lot of things that we did that he would not have been up for doing, and that was part of the fun of it for me.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Yeah, perfect. Perfect. Now, you went to the Hilton in Bimini.
Tell us, like, your day pass there. What did that include? Was it just sort of access to the pools? And obviously, I'm sure, towel service and stuff. But did that include any sort of refreshments or lunch with that?
[00:21:42] Speaker A: There was a lunch, and I can't remember if there were, like, two versions of it. Like, there were on Pearl island, where you can get one with lunch and one without. But I think we just went with the one with lunch because we didn't want to have to. You had to take, like, a tram from the port, so we didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of getting back to the ship to eat lunch. And this was. We didn't have great weather on the Bimini day, either, so. But the. The resort is nice. It's got a couple of pools. There's one that's marked for adults only and one that kids are allowed in. They've got loads and loads of chairs. They've got a long stretch of beach. Like, you can take a nice walk on the beach, which we did. They've got the. The food is just like a place where you walk up and you turn in, like, your ticket, and you get to choose from, you know, a burger or a chicken sandwich or a few other little things. Like, the food was not good, I'm not gonna lie. But, you know, it was there, and you got, like, a free welcome drink, which was a bahama mama.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: On brand.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah, on brand.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: It was good. Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Easy to please with that stuff. So I was like, yummy, you're on punch. Great.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: I love that. Every excursion where they include food, it's, like, almost always, like, eat hot dog, hamburger.
I came to the Caribbean. Let's see. Yeah. Like, I mean, the hot dog, hot dog, hamburger option for people. But, man, just like, give me some jerk chicken or some, you know, some caribbean food. A little spice or something. I don't know.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, no, the Pearl island was much more trying to give you somewhat of a cultural experience and was not trying at all.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: All right, well, let's jump back on the ship.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: I want to, actually, before. Before we do that, how do the prices of these two excursions compare to what you've done on Disney cruise line? Healy, if you remember?
[00:23:20] Speaker A: That's a good question. So the Bimini one, I want to say, was maybe around $110 for that. And we didn't really get our full money's worth out of it, because around we saw looking at the radar on the free resort Wi Fi and it was like giant wall of storm coming. And we were like, let's get back on the ship. And I think all aboard time was maybe 330 or four, but we were back on the ship at like 130 and got soaking wet along the way. Oh, wow.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it's fine.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: It happens, you know, nobody can control the weather. So the Pearl island one, I believe was around 90.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: Yeah. So probably pretty on par with Disney. So, yeah, this is exactly the question I was going to get to. Brian's just pulled up Dennis's question, which is what was the passenger mix like on this cruise? But first I want to ask you, how many passengers did the celebrity silhouette hold approximately? Obviously, I'm not asking you for an exact number.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to say around like 2800 maybe.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: Okay. So similar to wonder. Yeah, similar to a wonder. Magic size ship then.
Yeah. And then what was, what was the, what were the demographics like? Were, this is a four night sailing, so we know that's going to skew it to some degree. And it's, but it's in spring break time ish. It's end of march and obviously across the country we all, we have different spring breaks. Some of us have April like us, others have March. So, yeah. Curious as to the demographics. Did this skew older?
Celebrity does tend to skew a little older than some of the other lines. So just curious about this sailing.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's not as old as Holland America.
Holland America. You will wait forever for an elevator because there are many folks using walkers and canes and so forth and maybe particularly in Alaska, I don't know. But this one, I would say we were probably. So we're in our thirties. We were probably on the younger ish side. But I did see like some, you know, bachelorette type groups that were in the late twenties, early thirties kind of zone, if it gives you any indication, the entertainment offerings, which I'm sure we'll talk more about. But they had a sixties like themed night and they had a queen sing along and they had an ABbA sing along.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: So, you know, it wasn't actually, I told my friends, I was like, I kind of can't wait until we get to the age. Like, we've aged enough where they have like Backstreet boys and Britney Spears.
I will be living in my moment.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: You know, we just, we just, I won't spoil the review, but we just saw a show on royal that had eighties music wall to wall and it was fantastic. It was fantastic.
[00:26:17] Speaker C: Well, but the music at least. But we are children of the eighties, Brian, so that might be a little bit different than Hayley.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: No, but it reminded me younger than us when we used to sail celebrity and like, all the music in the shows was like sixties seventies review. Now I get it. I get why that was happening.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: Sure.
FYI. Thank you, Matthew, for the tip that I was too quiet. So I've turned up my mic, and it sounds like you have already confirmed that it's better. So thank you for that. As we tell people on these live shows, we can't tell the volumes. We can hear each other at a particular volume, but we can't tell how it's coming to you all. So it's helpful when we get that feedback if one of us is either too quiet or too loud. So, yeah.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Dennis is also asking, what was your stateroom configuration like? Were there separate beds for adults, if needed? My memory is celebrity does the same thing that other cruise lines do, which is the twin beds that can come together to form a probably what they call celebrity king or something like that. But, yeah. How was the state room?
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yep. So we. Mine was originally split when I got there because I was supposed to have a roommate with. I am not wanting to cuddle, but I never went back together because it was just me. So I figured I might as well make a celebrity king for myself. And my stateroom attendant, bless him, was like, I'm sorry, I was told that it was supposed to be separate. I'm like, you are good. You are fine. I am not upset. Like, we are all good here, but, yeah. So my friends next door had the split configuration, and they utilize that to the fullest.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Speaking of the stateroom attendant service on board, I mean, my memory, celebrity has a very high bar for service, so I'm assuming the service was overall pretty high quality. But what was your experience with stateroom attendance? Just general service on board. I'm assuming you ate main dining at least one night. How was that?
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Ten.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: How was the service? Kind of across the board.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: So I thought service was good. It wasn't quite Disney level, but, you know, like when you, for example, when you go into main dining room on Disney, like, they show you to your table every night on this celebrity silhouette sailing. They showed us to our table the first night, and then the rest of the other night we were there. We just went to. We knew where our table was and we went to it and we sat. But they don't like escort you. And I was telling my friends, the one of them, I actually had her reading the unofficial guide to Disney Cruise line book while we were on a trip, because she was interested in Disney Cruise for her family. And I said, you will love this book. Goes into so much detail. I've obviously told her about the podcast as well, and she, if she's not watching now, she will be.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Look at.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: We'll catch the replay of it.
But I told her, like, when you go on Disney, if you bring a glass of wine to your meal, like, they'll put it on a tray and carry it for you.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: There wasn't quite that level of service, which is okay. Like, I don't need to be waited on completely hand and foot. But I really did do think that overall, like, the service level was really good. The bartenders were all very friendly. Um, my stateroom attendant, I actually didn't catch his name, but he was, you know, really nice, and he took care of my room and did everything that I would need him to do. Um, the. My friends next door, they had a different stateroom attendant. I guess we were like, my room was the dividing line, and their guy had a, like, his business card in their tv, so they knew his name immediately, and it was Antonio. And we just would, like, talk about Antonio. Like, Antonio get you a towel for the excursion. Like, antonio's got you.
So it was. I mean, I, you know, there wasn't, like, the same effort at main dining, I would say to, like, try to get to know you, but, you know, it is a four night sailing, and, you know, we didn't have any kids or anything with us, so just a different vibe. But they're not like, you know, where are you from? Why are you traveling? Let's, you know, tell me all about yourself, which is okay. It's not a problem. But overall, good service.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: So I found. So the business card thing is funny because they did the same thing on Royal. They handed us their business cards, and it sort of struck me after the sailing, I was, that was a nice touch. And I thought, yeah, but the Disney, they don't need to give you their business card because they're, like, always there. Like, there's never a moment when there's not someone in the hallways, like, what do you need?
[00:30:25] Speaker A: They're just, like, magically hovering at all times in the event that you might need a wine glass or something.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: Right, right. Or an extra towel, as you mentioned. Speaking of towels, pool towels, I got to ask this question because this is something I think is really weird.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Speaking of towels.
[00:30:38] Speaker C: Speaking of towels. Yeah, I gotta. I. This is weird, but I don't know what it is. On celebrity. Do you have to check out towels at the pool and then, like, check them back in?
[00:30:49] Speaker A: No, you don't. There's like a. There's just a big stack of them, essentially off to the.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: So, like Disney. Yeah, celebrities.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: More celebrities. More celebrities. More upmarket than carnival or royal, where they make you like, $20 a towel.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: If they don't get returned towels on. Yeah, we'll talk about that more Thursday.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: But on the subject of pools, I do want to do a special plug for the solarium, which is the adult only pool area, and it is indoors and it is so relaxing, especially on that first day we went in there and it was just like, I remember we sailed.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: We sailed celebrity century or millennium, one of them. And they had the indoor pool, which I absolutely love because it meant if it wasn't great weather out, you could still go swim. And they had this. I'm going to get it wrong. Thalassotherapy philosotherapy. I don't remember, but it was like these bars that were in the pool that were shaped like a lounger, and you laid on them. They had little bubbles, which is kind of like bubble up on you, and it was like, oh, it was heavenly. It was so nice.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: That sounds lovely. We didn't have that, but we did enjoy the solarium area, particularly being that we were a group of only adults. And when we got back on board in Bemini, when it started pouring, we went and got straight in the hot tub in the solarium. Perfect. That was really nice.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: How was the pool deck overall?
[00:32:08] Speaker A: It was good. It was, I mean, much less chaotic than Disney. There just aren't as many kids. And so the energy in general, I would say, was just different. It's different on a Disney ship than the other ships I've been on.
It feels less like a community. Like when you get on a Disney cruise, especially like a seven night cruise, you kind of make a little village for the week, and you see the same people and just going through the atrium, and there are kids doing character greetings, there's musicians playing, and it's just. It just makes me happy.
And I don't feel like I got that same feeling on celebrity, but I don't. It, you know, wasn't bad. It just wasn't just the warm and fuzzy Disney feelings, but it also was not the Disney price tag, so.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: What other stuff that they have to do on the pool that was. It just pools was there. I mean, I doubt celebrity had a water slide on the silhouette. But I.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: There were no water slides. It's the pool, the pool bar, the hot tubs. That's pretty much it. Nothing spectacular. Just, you know, what you would expect there to be on a cruise ship.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Let's talk inside the ship and talk about, you know, entertainment spaces and activities during the day. So we'll start with daytime stuff, and then we'll move to evening stuff. So do they have, you know, trivias, game shows, towel folding crafts, the things that we've come to expect on Disney Cruise line to fill your day if you wanted to? Obviously, I know this was more of a relaxing cruise for you. Also, I imagine you probably opted more for, you know, reading on. In the.
In the adult pool deck, but, yeah. Were those things available?
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So they do have trivia. They do have.
They have, like, the tastings and those kinds of things. Didn't see any towel folding crafts? I don't think so. But they may have had crafts for kids. Like, they did have children's activities. I just didn't look into them because they didn't qualify.
There were. There were kids on the sailing, just not a ton, and certainly not like you would see on a Disney ship.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: They haven't.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: They have some kind of kids club on board. I just like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how it works. I don't know how it works. I don't know how big it is. Like, my assumption is it's a fairly, you know, small space. Might have some things going on, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: I mean, there are counselors. There are kid activities. I don't know what they are. They did have an excursion, basically, that you can book where it's like a behind the scenes tour of the ship. I was interested in doing that, but it was pretty pricey. I want to say maybe $170 or something like that. And my friends, one of them had not cruised before, ever. The other one had not been on a cruise since maybe since she was a kid, or maybe she and her husband took one, but not recently. So, anyway, I didn't think that either of them would want to do that with me, so not, you know, I think it was kind of similar to what it looks like you all did on the oasis, where you got to do, like, see the navigational bridge and so forth.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I did it on independent. We did the full tour on independence, Nathan and I. And that.
I will say this. I think I thought it was worth every penny to do it once.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: But if I had to do it, again, I'd pick the ship, right? I might actually have done it on oasis just because Oasis was so big. I was so curious. Where's everything going?
We got to see the bridge. We got to see. Then they took us down. That's where it got really cool. They took us down to the I 95, the quarter that runs the full length of the ship. Got to see the liquor storage locker, and the provisioner came to talk about how much, you know, liquor they, uh, they, they put on board and food in general, all sort of stuff. And then they took us down to the ABC decks where you had to use like, crew hatches and, like, ladders and things to get down to see the laundry and that sort of stuff. So I think it's really cool to see how the ship operates. But definitely for the, it was about $180 on the Indy, too. And I would say pick your ship for that because, uh, you want to see, you want to do it once and you want to get a sense of, like, how one of these massive cruise ships operates. I think that's, it's really, it's worth it. It's worth it. But hey, DCL duo fans, you know, we get the question all the time. Should I use a travel agent to book my next Disney Cruise or should I just book with Disney directly? And I'm going to tell you, if you have that question in the back of your mind right now, you should stop what you're doing and head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo. The folks over at mypath unwinding provide an amazing service. They are so knowledgeable and so friendly. We rely on them ourselves to book our family vacations and they provide an amazing service. And the best part is you don't pay anything extra for it. It Disney, other tour providers and other cruise lines have built the cost of their commission into their pricing. So if you're booking directly, you are just paying that money back to the provider when you could be spending it on the kind of service you would get. From my path unwinding travel, you've heard from their agents on our show. They are so knowledgeable, so giving of their time. They know so much about Disney Cruise line, sailing concierge, other cruise lines, other all inclusive vacations and adventures by Disney that if you have a vacation in mind, they are the ones to book it for you. So again, head over to my path unwinding.com dclduo so they know we sent you their way. Thanks. My path unwinding for sponsoring the show and with that, back to our episode.
[00:37:29] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about evening activities and what was sort of available as far as, you know, shows. Do they have, you know, a main theater? Do they have. Are there variety acts? Are they doing any kind of Broadway type activities, or are they more musician type acts? Yeah, what was available?
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's a great question. There was a comedian, so that's kind of your standard variety act. I'm not a big comedian person.
So that was very meh for me, went, and I was like, I could take that or leave it. And I think maybe part of it was this particular comedian, and maybe part of it was just that. I don't get that into comedy. I did go to the other two shows. One of them ended up going by myself, but the first one, and I have notes on my phone about this, because I was like, sam, I want to hear about this.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I was going to ask you about this, obviously.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: I mean. I mean, Ashley teed this up as, hello, fellow Broadway show Fiona Haley.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Yeah, listen, I know. I know that. I know that Hailey and Ashley both go to all of the national tour shows that come to their city, that come to Charlotte. In fact, they get more shows than we get in Seattle, even though they're a smaller city than Seattle. I'm very jealous, but, yeah, so I'm curious. Yeah, I'm curious what they had available.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so they had two, like, productions that were essentially a mixture of pop songs being sang live by their entertainment team. And they had, like an. Had a few aerialists who were doing things and then dancers. So it was like the shows were combining the pop songs, the aerials, and the dancing kind of all in one show. So the first show is called Cosmopolitan. And as far as I can tell, the loose plot is that there are these two tourists that you can. You can tell they're tourists because they have backpacks on and baseball caps, of course, touring around the world. And so they are experiencing different cities and different cultures. And when they go to a place, then the pop singers will do a song, and there'll be a dance. So some of the pairings of the cities and the songs made sense.
Some examples of ones that made sense were la vi en rose for Paris. Okay, sure. Song in French. Great. Empire, state of mind for New York City. Great. Logical. This, like, italian opera song for Italy. Yes. Although the costumes were interesting. One of my friends described that as Victor crumb, pirate, russian warlord.
It was like a furry collar with a peanut and a bare chest and some, like, furry cuffs it was. It was interesting.
[00:40:14] Speaker C: I love that description. As a potterhead, I especially love that.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Description, my friend, is hilarious. And then you had, like, paradise, the Coldplay song for tropical islands everywhere. Maybe Fiji. You know, it's not specified. There's, like, backdrop, like a screen with images that look like they came out of a nineties music video.
[00:40:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's probably Niagara Falls. What you're seeing.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: It was definitely an island.
There was, like, sand and water and, you know, blue sky, all of that. They had vivier mi viva for, like, Argentina, Latin America. And then my favorite nonsensical choices, we had a kind of a belly dance ish dance going on to rolling in the deep for the Middle east. You know, that classic, it's got rolling in it.
That doesn't make any sense.
I mean, like, the whole backdrop was Sahara desert at that point. I'm like, what?
And then we had umbrella for New Orleans. They were dancing with umbrellas. I mean, okay, fine.
But very favorite is for Japan. We had Miley Cyrus wrecking ball.
Why? No one knows. No one knows.
So the songs were like, what is this song choice?
[00:41:34] Speaker B: Was this the main stage?
[00:41:36] Speaker C: This might be my favorite description of a show since the last time we had Josh Wilson talk about the first show that he saw on royal career.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: I actually thought about that while I was sitting in this show because it was just like, I did miss, like, a show with a plot. But these were all extremely talented singers. The dancers were good. The aerialists were awesome. So the talent wasn't. Was fabulous. The show was a little bit of a head scratcher, but in, like, a fun way, not like in I hate this and I need to leave now way. Yeah. There was, I think, a couple near us that left. I was like, your loss.
[00:42:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: We were having a good time making faces at each other. Like, what is this?
[00:42:17] Speaker B: So they had a main stage show. You said they had a comedian that you didn't see what was.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: No, we didn't see. We just.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Oh, you did see. Oh. Didn't like it. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Sorry. It sounded like you were getting ready to talk about another show. Before we go there, though, before we go there, I realized we're a little out of practice, folks, because we took a week off. We forgot to do Haley's cruising creds, and someone asked in the comments, your cruising credits. How many Disney cruises have you been on, Haley, and which ships have you sailed with? Disney?
[00:42:47] Speaker A: I have been on five Disney cruises, and I have been on each ship once.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Okay, there you go.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: And she was on the magic with us in Norway.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Yes, I was. And I was on the dream in Europe last year, which is the shirt that I'm wearing, and have done the Caribbean a couple times or three times, including the southern Caribbean on the wonder.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Dennis. I love his comment wrecking ball. Must be Godzilla.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Dennis. I was like, maybe. Maybe so.
[00:43:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Good times.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Nice. So what was the last show, Haley? Let's go back to the shows for a second.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: The last show was called Life, and it was also a pop music, dance, and aerialist extravaganza. That's kind of their thing, which was good. Like, you know, cirque du soleil type aerials. I mean, it's cool. You're just going, these people's core strength is insane. There's no way that I could do it anyway.
[00:43:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So very impressive.
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Life.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: The pop song choices were more, I guess, just about, like, life and the human experience. It's sort of similar in some ways to harmonious at Epcot, except this is.
Harmonious is the one that's going on right now. Right? I think.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: No, no, that's the old one.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we saw it.
All the names are so similar. They're just so luminous. It's sort of like luminous, except if the songs were pop songs, not Disney songs. But it was good. I liked it. I saw that one by myself, but I enjoyed it. And the performers, like, stand. A few of them stand by the door on your way out of the theater. So that's kind of fun. You can take a picture with them or talk to them. So we took a picture with one of the costumes from the cosmopolitan show, and I sent it to my husband, and he said, actually what he did was he sent me back a gif from the movie Dune because he thought looked like it belonged in Dune.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Dune, the musical coming to a ship near you.
[00:44:42] Speaker C: They'll probably put that on. Yeah, on royal, actually.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: No, yeah, maybe. Maybe.
I want to shift gears away from.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: Shows after they take cats off.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the show that won't die, apparently. So I want to shift gears for a second. We got to talk food on celebrity. So again, Sam and I sailed celebrity a long time ago. I remember main dining food was adequate to good.
We like to eat in Murano. And to set this up for folks, I pulled up the list of restaurants on board the celebrity silhouette. They have a restaurant called Le Petit chef, which involves overlays on the table, basically video overlays. And it looks like a little chef will run onto your plate and do some things, and then magically, food appears not so magically.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: They probably put, I think it's similar to Wonderland on Royal, which we have not yet tried because it wasn't offered on the oasis.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: It wasn't on the oasis, but I.
[00:45:38] Speaker C: Want to try it. Yeah.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: They also have Tuscan Grill, which is their italian restaurant. They have Murano, which is, like, high end French. We've eaten at Murano before, actually Murano, like five, six, seven times on one sailing with my father, who loved that restaurant, the lawn club grill, the porch, which is a seafood and raw bar, and sushi on five, which, as its name suggests, is a sushi restaurant, probably on deck five. So, Haley, talk to us about, let's start with main dining. How was main dining? Did you have, like, assigned seatings? Was it any time dining? How was the food? Yeah. Give us your impressions of main dining overall.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Sure. So we had an assigned dining time I think we could have done anytime dining. Our travel agent just put us in the early dining, which was fine. We. The other two have small children, so they're used to eating dinner on the early side, and I keep small child hours, I suppose. So it, uh, it worked out. So we had an assigned table.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: What was the early time? Like, 5535.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: It was like something. 545.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: So, like, terrible pretty. No, normal. Not, like, not. Not old people early, as I would call it. I would say just, like, average.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Not blue plate special early or super blue plate special. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: And, you know, with any cruise line main dining, the tables are very close together, and one of my friends actually is deaf in one ear. So I ended up being glad that we only did maining dining room two nights because she had a hard time hearing, especially the first night, just because, like, there were the other tables around us also had people at them. And we try to see her strategically so that her good ear is facing us. But, you know, for anybody that does have a hearing challenge, that's something to keep in mind for any main dining room, because, I mean, the Disney ones are even louder because there's usually a show happening at the same time. You're like, I have to push the button. Or, you know, that's worlds of Marvel. But so the food quality, I don't think is as good as Disney's main dining room. I didn't feel like the presentation was as good as Disney either. You know, if you're looking for photogenic food, I would say adequate to good is about right. Maybe it's just what I ordered. I had a spaghetti bolognese that was good. The first night. The second night, I got, like, a pork loin with asparagus, and I think polenta and I just found it to be kind of bland. But that, I think, is kind of what you sign up for in many cases. With main dining room cruise food, they're trying to cater to the lowest common denominator.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: And appeal to the masses. Um, so that's. That's pretty much the main dining experience. They had a pomegranate mojito. That was nice.
[00:48:11] Speaker C: How was. How were your serving staff in the main dining restaurant?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: They were nice. It was interesting how they do it on celebrity, because you can't, like, if you want an alcoholic drink, then you have to order it from the sommelier, who is a different person than your, like, assistant server. So you have an assistant server, a server, and then a sommelier. So if you try to tell someone who's not the drink person what you want to drink, then they're just like, oh, that's not me. I'll send the sommelier over. And you're like, okay.
So that was kind of different and a little bit puzzling to us, but it was like, okay. Because, you know, on Disney, whatever you want to order, your serving team will take care of it. But it's just how they do it.
But, you know, that was fine. I just was like, do I need to talk to the Somalia to order a pomegranate mojito like recommendation? I just want to tell you what I want. Right. Like, a standard, like, offering on the drink menu, so it's not like I'm making something up either.
[00:49:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: What options do you have during the day beyond main dining? Are there, like, pool deck food options, or is it, like, buffet or a dining room or maybe. I mean, they got a bunch of bars, so I'm assuming they have an ability to order some small bites or something from a bar, but, yeah. What are your options?
[00:49:25] Speaker A: I didn't really see food on the bar menus much, but they do have the buffet that's open, you know, most of the day, and there's always, like, pizza, like, so a lot of the buffet area is closed off when it's not, like, at meal time, but you can always get pizza up until not 24 hours, but pretty late.
And then how was it?
[00:49:48] Speaker B: I'm gonna preempt. Sam. How was the pizza?
[00:49:50] Speaker A: The pizza was good. The pizza was really good.
[00:49:53] Speaker C: He knows me so well.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: The pizza was good.
It's not. I think it's better than the pizza on the wish, I think.
[00:50:01] Speaker C: Oh, interesting.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: That's a pretty high bar. Yeah.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: But not as good as the Holland America pizza.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Weirdly, the Dutch know their pizza favorite.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: On hell in America. It was not a big, hard contest.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I know from talking pre show you did two specialty dining restaurants. You did Tuscan Grill, which is the italian equivalent. And there was a comment here asking what the Palo equivalent would be and that I think Tuscan Grill is about as close as you're going to get. And you also did the lawn club grill. Let's start with the tuscan grill italian food. Let's just ask the question straight out. How does it compare to Palo?
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Well, it's. So it's not Paulo because they don't have the world's greatest risotto that you get with the chicken farm.
[00:50:47] Speaker C: Like, it's not.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: However, it is all you can stuff your face with for the COVID charge.
[00:50:53] Speaker C: Oh, interesting.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Used to be and is not.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: So was this a brunch you did or was this a dinner that you.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Did and then you can order whatever you want and they, you can order pastas and half portions. So I had like a wonderful burrata salad and we had a flatbread that we all shared, like a white garlic flatbread. And I got filet mignon and I got two half portions of pasta and I didn't even have dessert because I was so stuffed by the end of it. But, you know, the. And you had a few different sauce choices to go with your steak. So I had actually, I think I got two. I got a gorgonzola cream sauce and I got like a rosemary, like Anjou sort of thing.
That was really good. So we all thought that our food at Tuscan grill was great. It's located to the aft of the ship. So we got a nice view as we were sailing away from, from Nassau. This was on our last night and actually we saw a rainbow. So that was fun.
[00:51:49] Speaker C: Nice, nice.
[00:51:50] Speaker B: So risotto aside, I mean, food quality on par with palo, better.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought the food quality was really good in Tuscan grill. Would not hesitate to recommend it and particularly with the value of what you're paying. I think it was. I think it was 50.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:52:06] Speaker C: That's nice for a palo.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, and nice for, you know, having the option of ordering really whatever you want off the menu. That's, I would say that's in that way maybe better than Paulo even if. Well, it's not going to be better than Paulo because they don't have the chicken parm with the risotto. But, you know, and you don't have.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: The service that you have at Palo either. I mean, our server was nice, but, you know, one of our. One of my friends ordered lobster, like, a lobster pasta, and she didn't feel like the lobster was cooked quite the right way. Server actually was allergic to lobster, so he wouldn't know.
When she. When she commented on it to him, he offered to bring her more, and she was like, no, it's fine. And then he brought her more anyway.
[00:52:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: So, you know, they did try to make it. Make it right. Um, I. Dennis is asking.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Dennis is asking, is Tuscan grill all ages?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: I I don't remember seeing kids in there, but I don't know if it was limited in age or if it was just that there weren't that many children on the sailing.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: But I don't think it is. I don't think it is limited to adults, but I'm not 100% positive on that.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: I don't.
[00:53:14] Speaker C: I think only maybe one. I think it might only be, like, Murano or.
That's limited to adults only on celebrity. Don't quote me on that. But I think most of their specialty restaurants, like on royal, are open to. Are open to all ages, and I say most of because, for example, chef's table on.
On Royal was not open to all ages.
[00:53:38] Speaker B: So let's talk. Let's talk. Was it lawn club grill or something along those lines? Yeah. So what kind of food was that, and how was it? What would you compare it to? Anything available on Disney cruise line?
[00:53:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's. It's cool because it's on what they call the lawn. So they actually have, like, a. It's not artificial astroturf. It's actual grass growing on the ship, which is kind of cool. I actually.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: There you go, Wesley. They take greenery to a whole nother level.
[00:54:08] Speaker C: Wesley. Wesley's gonna get a shout out anytime we talk about plants on this show from now on.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: Plant guy. That's funny. So. And they actually had, like, a screen out there where I think they show movies out there. They had wonka, and they had some other recent movie that I don't remember right now. We didn't watch any of the movies, but they had movies out there, and they had the men's NCAA basketball tournament playing, so I did get to catch my tar heels a little bit during dinner, but. So it's kind of an open air restaurant. Like, there's a. Like, a roof, and there's kind of wall of glass windows around it, but it's semi open. The kitchen is fully open. So they're just, like, over there grilling, basically, while you're eating, and you can watch all of that. They've got a salad bar that's included, and it's also a cover charge, and then you can order whatever you want. So one of my friends got, like, a filet mignon, and she got, like, a whole fish. And we had the salad bar, and you got sides and dessert. So, um, good value. And actually, I think the long club was more expensive than Tuscan grill, but we liked Tuscan grill better. Um, I got a filet mignon, and I think cream corn. I wasn't wowed by the sides, mainly because there was no Mac and cheese. And I just feel bad when you have steak and. No, it's a whole. Yeah.
[00:55:26] Speaker C: If you're not in an italian restaurant. Yeah. If you're at a steakhouse, there should be a Mac and cheese option. At least one, I think.
[00:55:32] Speaker B: So is this dining area outside?
How did that go from. How'd that go from a weather standpoint? Because it sounds like weather was a little iffy on this cruise.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: I wondered how that would have been if it was not raining while we were there. Like, that was our sea day. But it had, like, finally cleared up around, like, 05:00 p.m. Or something. But because it has a roof and, like, it's only, like, semi open. Like, there's an kind of an open area between where the walls stop and the roof starts. So I don't know if it closes when it's, like, inclement weather. I I feel like if it's, like, blowing sideways, then they might have to close it. But, um, you know, I think my steak at Tuscan Grill was better than my steak at lawn club grill. I got a chicken tikka kebab also. They had some different kebabs. My friends had scallops, I think, and thought those were good. My chicken was actually a little bit undercooked, like, a couple of pieces of it. And they brought me a whole other skewer out chicken.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: Nothing to mess around with.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: So, no, I was like. I was, like, asking my friends, does this look cooked to you? And they're like, no. You should send that back immediately.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: How was the service in. In long club then?
[00:56:45] Speaker A: It was good. They took care of us.
It was a relatively small restaurant. I do have a tree net allergy. So I was going to order this warm chocolate chip cookie for dessert, because that sounds great. And they told me that I should not order it because they, like, I guess, get that from outside. They don't make it themselves, so they couldn't control whether it had nuts and they weren't really positive. So I thought they did a good job dealing with the food allergy and recommending alternatives for me. They were like, can we bring you a second dessert? I'm like, no, I'm really fine. Like, the apple truffle is good. I think my other two friends maybe got two desserts, but, you know, went on a cruise.
But, yeah, I felt like the service was good.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: So we've got. We've got a few questions I want to get to here as we wind down the show here.
There's one here that I want to make sure we asked, which was so Disney Cruise line Facebook groups had a whole show about it. We've had several shows about it, actually, our back catalog. Do they have a Facebook group for your sailing? Did you join? Did you look? How was it? Helpful?
[00:57:44] Speaker A: Kind of forgot to look. I just felt like celebrity did not require a PhD, unlike Disney, perhaps.
[00:57:53] Speaker C: I was like, I think you just like, that is a fair statement. I have to say I love Disney Cruise line, and I do love Disney Cruise line Facebook groups, but I will say it's fair. Like, I mean, Disney World is even more complicated. But anything. Disney World has some kind of.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: Although, to be fair, Sam, we had to do a whole episode with the founder of the Royal Caribbean blog to get you prepared for royals.
[00:58:13] Speaker C: We did. I think that's maybe me, but that might be a me thing.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: No, I think every cruise line has its tips and tricks, and if you sail it enough, you kind of. You know what they are.
[00:58:22] Speaker C: Yes. And if you want. And if you. There are certain things that if you really want to do, you have to figure out how do I book them or when are they going to be happening. And sometimes waiting until looking at the app on embarkation day is not going to be sufficient. And you don't know what those things are unless you do at least a little bit of research to figure that out.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: Yeah. For me, with this particular sailing, I just wanted to go with my friends and have fun and kind of just go with the flow and do what we felt like doing. Like, we did live band karaoke one night.
We went dancing to, like, midnight and then had pizza.
[00:58:59] Speaker C: As one does.
[00:59:00] Speaker A: As one does. But I didn't really feel like I needed to do a Facebook group to be like, what is. What do I need to know about my first time on celebrity? I was like, I think I can handle this. Like, I've been on cruises. I think it'll be fine.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: So, Ashley wanted to know, did it feel all inclusive, like DCl or mostly pay as you go? Like Royal Caribbean?
[00:59:18] Speaker A: I think somewhere in the middle. I mean, I was definitely like, you pay to go for drinks on Disney just like you do here. Unless, like, you need the soda and the soda package. But because I don't drink soda, that didn't really make a difference, me, one way or the other. But I wasn't being like Nickel and dime every time I wanted a pool towel. So I think in the middle is about right.
[00:59:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, before we get to the next question, I know Brian's going to ask you, I do want to ask you about. There was some chat about. There was a wedding party they were supposed to have. They were like, 80 people on board. They were supposed to have a wedding, I guess, in Key west. Your stop in Key west got canceled.
It sounds like celebrity maybe did the wedding on board as a, you know, to make it up to them? What did you hear about that? Or. And did you see the. Oh, I saw the wedding.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: I saw the wedding. It was in a space called the hideaway, which is like a little loungey area, not like a bar kind of lounge, but like a place with seating type of lounge.
And so they had the wedding there. And they had, like, the bride and groom and their wedding party were up on the top deck dancing. They had a full moon party, which apparently you're supposed to wear white for. And I guess if I had been in the Facebook group, I would have learned about that. But. But I just found out as we go, and I'm like, it's fine. I wasn't, like, gonna die if I didn't have an all white outfit for this, but.
And maybe they just did it because there was a full moon while we were on the cruise. Not entirely sure.
Again, maybe if I had been in the Facebook group, I would know. But they did let the bride and groom come up and dance on stage with the band. No fun for a song, which was fun. They seemed like they were having a good time and making the most of it despite the weather or not cooperating with them.
[01:00:59] Speaker B: You know, we forgot to ask. You mentioned you did a couples massage on board. How was the spa, Haley? And did they have an equivalent of the rainforest room? I don't know if you got a chance to take a peek or not.
[01:01:06] Speaker C: They did.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah, they did. And unlike the rainforest room on the magic and the wonder closer to the dream of the fantasy, this one does have the heated loungers that face the ocean, you know, windows.
[01:01:18] Speaker C: Nice.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: So that's nice. They have, you know, the showers and the saunas in there.
I think it was a little bit larger than the ones on the Disney ship. I haven't been on one on a Disney ship since, like, 2020 when we won Matt drama. Eight and one free passes to the rainforest room.
So we didn't really, we didn't do, like, the pass for it, but they do have it. And I felt like the spa was nice. They had a really big gym. So if you're into gyms, if you want to work on vacation, then I think you would be happy with that offering. And I don't feel like the spa was as much of a hard sell on the products as I've experienced some of the time on Disney. Like, on Disney, they're kind of weird. They're like, are you stressed out? You should take more baths.
[01:02:06] Speaker C: Here's some baths.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: Can you just give me a massage and leave me alone? I don't interviewed about my life and I have to.
I feel like I'm like, remind myself, you don't have to be totally honest with this questionnaire. Like, when you're giving them your stress rating. Like, you don't. It doesn't really matter what you say.
[01:02:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: So I got three questions to wind us down here to kind of get to the ultimate sort of questions that some folks are having. I think Thomas asked early on in the show, what do you prefer overall, DCl or celebrity? But I want to ask it this way. So first, I'm going to start with if DCl pricing is a ten on a scale of one to ten, where did celebrity fall for you on that scale? And let me just start there. Where would it fall for you compared to what you've paid to sail on Disney cruise line before?
[01:02:55] Speaker A: And I feel like Disney Cruise line has, like, gone from here to here in like two years. But I would say like a five or a six. Like, I feel like it was middle of the road. It's not like carnival.
[01:03:06] Speaker C: Like, you know, it's not super cheap.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: It's not super cheap, but it's not super expensive. I felt like the experience that I got for the price that I paid was about right, I think. I mean, I enjoy the entertainment they did. Like, I did enjoy, like, the Abba dance party and the. And sing along and the sixties themed party that. That space that in their, their little atrium is not quite big enough to do some of those activities, I think, properly. But you have people just, like, awkwardly, like, kind of dancing off to the side in the bar areas because they just ran out of room. But it was a good time.
[01:03:42] Speaker B: So if it was a five or a six out of ten for you, this is my new thing now I'm going to use with people as we talk about the cruises. Was it, you know, so let's call it. It was maybe three quarters of the price of Disney or, you know, something slightly less than that. Was it three quarters of the experience of Disney Cruise line?
[01:04:00] Speaker A: It was pretty good. I would sell celebrity again. I mean, if money is no object, I'm still picking Disney Cruise line. I mean, this is a Disney Cruise line podcast. I'm here for a reason.
[01:04:10] Speaker C: Right?
[01:04:10] Speaker A: I like Disney. It makes me happy. There's an intangible happiness quality that I get from being on Disney Cruise line that I would not say that I got here, but for the purpose of what this trip was. And if I was going to, I'll say, like, maybe the Mediterranean or some other really heavily port focused itinerary where you're not going to be on the ship as much. I think this would be great.
[01:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And Matthew's essay was an older ship. I mean, it's 2011. Was the build, I think you said, or was the. Was when it was launched. Yeah. So, yeah, but it's been refreshed and so, you know, much newer than the magic or the wonder, let's just put it that way. Yeah. So.
[01:04:47] Speaker A: And it was refreshed, I believe, two or three years ago. So, I mean, it was in good shape. I didn't feel like I was on, like, an old ship.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Not edge class, but. But I think the class right before.
[01:04:59] Speaker A: Edge, it's not state of the art, but it's not falling apart either.
[01:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:03] Speaker B: All right, so you answered my question, which is, would you sail celebrity again? Now, put to the choice, the cruise you took or a Disney cruise at Disney prices, same port stops. What do you think you'd do?
[01:05:21] Speaker A: I still feel like Disney. I still really like.
[01:05:23] Speaker B: There you go.
[01:05:23] Speaker A: All right.
But it's hard because it's like, depends on also, like, am I with Drew or am I with people who don't care about the Disney premium?
[01:05:34] Speaker C: And that's, I think, a really important part of this discussion. Right. You were going on a sailing with two girlfriends who are not big cruisers, one who'd never been on a cruise before, and one who hadn't been on a cruise in years. They would probably not willing to pay that Disney premium that you might have been willing to pay. And so that's a different calculus. I also know, like, you know, so if we're going to spend a lot of money on a cruise, it's probably going to be a family cruise. Like, Brian and Nathan are going to come with me, right? Like, I'm probably not going to spend that same premium to go on, like, a girls only trip. So.
Yeah, so I think that's also part of sort of the spend calculus for folks who are interested in hearing more about celebrity. We have a couple of episodes that we've done in our back catalog, one with Ganesh and her family, or about a family crew she took. I think they sailed in the retreat, and then one with Chris in the concierge lounge also sailed in the retreat. So we did some more compare contrast on those episodes with Disney concierge offerings versus celebrity retreat offerings.
[01:06:35] Speaker B: And I think both of those were on edge class ships as well. So if you're interested in hearing what the offerings like on kind of the latest and greatest on celebrity, those are. Those are good ones to go out and check.
[01:06:44] Speaker C: And the one with Ganesh also has a little bit more of a focus on talking about the family sailing experience, because I do think, especially on the edge class, that celebrity is trying to push more into that space on their older ships. I think those definitely skew to more adults only crowd.
[01:07:00] Speaker B: I think there's. I think there's a huge push in the cruise lines generally to go after some of the more family market, because doing it, yeah, I don't think cruising was always kind of a family thing. I think it did. You know, despite Emma's old name of her blog, cruising is just for old people. I actually do think that was a perception, and more and more families have gotten into it, and other cruise lines are saying, well, we got to start to offer more. So, yeah, princesses, latest ships are doing ropes, obstacle courses, and kids clubs, and just a whole bunch of stuff that you would not have dare seen on a princess ship up until now. Celebrity edge, the edge class ships really pushing into that market. Disney was there first. Now the problem is they're pretty expensive. And so when these other cruise lines come along and go, I've got some more stuff for you and your family, too, it's hard to not at least take a look. I know there's been some comments throughout the show about, oh, how could anyone not like Disney? Or Disney's the best.
You'll get no argument from us. We have a whole podcast built around it.
So we love Disney cruise line. But I will say this, it's getting harder and harder for us to spend if we're doing four Disney cruises a year or for a while there, we did five at 1.6 at one point. That's just not. We can't take that hit to our pocketbook every time for Disney. So we're starting to explore some of the other cruise lines just to see what's out there. Disney's still our first love. I think it does have some best in class service. I'll be honest with you. We'll talk about this more on Thursday. I think there's some places where it's fallen behind just a little bit or maybe a lot bit, depending on what we're talking about some of the other cruise line offerings. So Disney's a great cruise line. Won't say it isn't, but I think, Haley, what you're sort of saying is, I'd say celebrity again, I prefer to sell Disney, but celebrity is an option.
[01:08:36] Speaker A: It wouldn't be a question. But they didn't. And like Sam said, this wasn't, like, my primary vacation of the year. It wasn't a family vacation. It was a girls long weekend. And I think for what we were wanting to do, this fit the bill nicely.
[01:08:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Sounds like a perfect, sounds like a really fun trip and sounds like a perfect trip for what you were looking for, Hailey. So I'm glad you got to experience it. And thank you so much for sharing it with us and with all of our listeners and viewers. Now that we're on YouTube, of course, live.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: And for everyone out there, before we wrap up here, I'll just say, please, if you're watching us on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. It really, really helps us out a lot and love it if you hit the like button. We will be back Thursday evening. We're doing two live episodes this week. We're Thursday evening. 04:30 p.m.. Pacific. Uh, 07:30 p.m.. Eastern. Had to do the math. 07:30 p.m.. Eastern. Uh, we'll be doing our trip report of our time on the oasis of the seas, the seven night cruise. We just got back from Sam's first time on royal, my second, but my first time on an oasis class, uh, class ship. Uh, and we'll have this conversation about, uh, how we think it compared to our experience with Disney cruise line. But with that, I'll just say, haley, once again, thank you so much for coming on to share your experience. We really, really appreciate it.
[01:09:50] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. And if anybody has more questions, I hang out in the Facebook group and in the Patreon Facebook group. So ask me questions.
[01:09:58] Speaker C: Awesome. Thank you so much, Haley. All right, well, we will see everyone on Thursday. Please enjoy two live episodes this week as Brian said.
[01:10:07] Speaker B: All right, see you later.
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. 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, 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
[email protected] if you'd like to connect with us, or you can call our voicemail line if you'd like to leave us a message. We love to include the voices of our listeners in our show. Just dial 40 241-355-5590 that's 402-413-5590 and that will head straight to our Google Voice voicemail line. The DCL duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company, or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or a Disney vacation, please contact Disney directly or your own own travel agent or the great folks over at mypath unwinding travel. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time for another fabulous Disney adventure with the DCL duo. Goodnight.
