[00:00:00] Speaker A: And we saw believe. I know it's not your favorite. My husband really liked it. You know, I think I had played it down because I said, oh, you know, on the DCLduo podcast, she says this is her least favorite.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL duo podcast, brought to you by my path winding travel. And Sam, we got a review to read this week. As always, as I hope the reviews just keep coming in. This week's review comes from Jenny Kilmer, who writes favorite Disney Cruise podcast. Brian and Sam do an amazing job with their guest selection and variety of topics. Have been listening to them from the start and will continue to do so as long as they keep making content. Love the banter they have with their guests and each other. Hope to see you on a future cruise. Well, thank you very much, Jenny. We hope to see you out there on a future cruise. And Sam, I would say our guest selection today is no exception. We've got a really fun topic to cover, right?
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm super excited. As everyone knows, I love talking to first time cruisers. They give just such a great perspective because the things that we tend to take for granted and forget to even talk about are the things that they always want to talk about. And it's always helpful for other first time cruisers who are perhaps finding our show for the very first time and wanting to get more information about what to expect on their cruise. So today's guest is no exception. She is a now silver member of the Castaway club, but she was not long ago a first time cruiser and also found our podcast while preparing for her first cruise on Disney Cruise line. So welcome to the show, Michelle. Welcome, Michelle.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And you come from our northern neighbor, a Canadian. So that's always nice to have someone. We had a nice pre show conversation about my favorite beverage, Topo Chico, which apparently is not a thing in Canada, although I bet it is, is on in places that maybe have Costco but not a thing, at least in the grocery stores. And so Michelle didn't know that my, she thought it maybe like was an iced tea drink. And it's. I'm going to tell people who are listening, if you don't know what topo chico is, it is a fizzy water, is a mineral water akin to a perrier or a pellegrino. It's not quite as minerally as either of them. And I, and it has tiny bubbles and I love it. And it comes in a glass bottle for the most part. Occasionally can find it in a plastic bottle.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: But they should be a show sponsor.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: We talk about that all the time. They would only have to pay me in cases of topo chica. They would not even have to pay us any cash.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Well, I might have something to say about that, Sam, because I don't really drink the topo chico. So, you know, there you go.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Fair Brian would accept a sponsorship from vitamin Water. Citrus flavor, specifically the energy flavor.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Brian, brought to you by energy. All right, Tim, we got to dive into the topic here. So, Michelle, we always love to start by asking, we know this was your first Disney cruise. I suspect, based on what you sent in, it's your first cruise. But tell folks about your sort of relationship with Disney if you've cruised before that sort of stuff.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Well, relationship with Disney. I just basically was one of those kids that grew up watching the classic Disney videos.
I never went to Disney World as a kid because it wasn't something affordable for my family. So I went to when I was in my twenties, and I went one time, and then that was kind of it. And I thought, okay, well, this is a place that I'd like to come back to. When I had, you know, my own kids, the thought of spending that kind of money and them being too short and not being able to go on some of the better rides, I thought, you know what? I gotta wait till both of them are at least 48 inches, and then I'll revisit this.
So that was kind of my background with Disney, just, you know, just the movies, really. And my husband was kind of the same. Not so much the movies, more. So he just went to, you know, Disney. I don't know if it's Disney World in Paris or Disneyland.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Yeah, Disneyland in Paris, formerly known as Euro Disney. So it depends on when he went.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah, and that was ages ago. So he wasn't really, you know, a die hard Disney person. And my kids actually weren't really either because we didn't really show them too many movies. We kind of keep the technology limited. So before we had booked the Disney cruise, you know, when we actually did book the Disney Cruise story, we started showing them movies here and there just to get them familiar with the characters.
But that was my experience with Disney.
First time cruiser, never been on a cruise. My husband thought it was something he would hate, you know, reading the news articles of boats getting stranded or people getting sick. You know, that was not something on his list as a travel bucket of item to do. So, yeah, this was not something that was on our mind at all.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So how come, how, how did you get to the booking place then? I mean, how did the, I mean, you weren't like, you weren't regular parks goers. You live in Canada where Disney is big, but not as big as it is here in the US. And your kids weren't Disney enamored. How, how do you get from that place to booking a Disney?
[00:05:34] Speaker A: I know, right? And now I want to go on another one. It's weird.
So we had been thinking, you know, let's get away for the holidays. You know, let's go somewhere warm. You know, we have -40 degrees here in the winter, so, you know, my husband was like, you know, I'd really like to go somewhere warm. But time kept passing and things were getting more expensive and we didn't have time to plan anything. And then I was on the Costco website, just under the travel section, and there was like a little picture on the bottom of the app that had a picture of Mickey and Minnie and a Disney cruise. And I thought, oh, let me click this. And I presented the idea to him and I said, well, what about doing something like this? And we wouldn't have to really plan anything. It was just kind of a pickup and go, and I think it'd be really kid friendly. You know, it's Disney. I didn't really know much about the Disney cruise. I just remember seeing commercials when I was a kid and thinking, oh, that'd be fun if we could afford to go on that. But, yeah. So we had agreed to it, and we selected the seven night eastern Caribbean. It was a Pixar theme, and the sailing was in January.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: Oh, so a really quick turnaround, too.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was just a very short notice kind of thing, considering how when I listened to the podcast, people are booking like a year in advance or more. Right? So, no, it was a very kind of spontaneous thing.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Cool. Well, how did you prepare for it having, you know, at that point, you, you decide you're going to go, what kinds of research did you do in order to. I mean, I know you didn't have a ton of time for planning, but I imagine you wanted to get some exposure and you mentioned you wanted to give your kids some exposure to the characters. But what, if anything, did you do to kind of gear up for the cruise with that two months of time?
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Well, initially we booked with the hopes that, you know, this was a pack and go and we wouldn't have to plan anything. But then I thought, well, let me see if there's a podcast out there that talks about this, because maybe there are some things I need to know before we go. And I found your podcast, and that's kind of what I used to kind of start planning things, and then I thought, oh, my gosh, I actually probably do need to invest more time in planning this cruise. I thought this was a. Just pack your suitcase and go, but know there are things to do, like book your activities and all of that stuff. Yeah. So the podcast really helped a lot, and that was pretty much the main thing that I used to help us kind of get prepared and also, yeah. Showing the kids some Disney movies and stuff like that so they would be familiar with the characters.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Did you show them any YouTube videos of, like, the ship? Obviously, you're on the Disney fantasy since you booked a seven night itinerary, and it was a Pixar itinerary, which is only, at least right now, only been done on the fantasy. But, yeah. Did you show them YouTube videos to get an idea of what the ship would look like or the kids club would look like or anything like that? Like that.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: We didn't. We actually didn't tell them about the, like, where we were going until we pulled up to the port.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: So it was a surprise for them. Yeah. I mean, for the three year old, she didn't know any better, but, like, for the eight year old. Yeah, he. He was dying to know where we were going, but we didn't tell him, and we didn't look at videos ourselves. Cause we didn't want to have anything spoiled for us, either.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Did the fact that it was a Pixar day at sea sway, like, was that influential on you booking the cruise, or was it just sort of a happy accident, so to speak, that it was part of the cruise?
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was a happy accident. It didn't. It didn't really sway us one way or the other. I think there were some other choices. I think Marvel might have been one of them, but, you know, I thought, well, we're not. I'd rather do a Pixar day at sea. I didn't know what that really meant, but I would have rather had those characters kind of be around the ship than be surrounded by, like, superheroes and stuff like that, if that was what was going to be on the ship. But, yeah, it was just kind of a. It happened to be a Pixar day at sea kind of thing.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. The marvel day at sea cruises are also. They were also, like, four and five nights, not seven nights. So there would have been different itineraries that you'd be looking at and whatnot. So, of course, making it fit in your schedule and then having the bonus of Pixar day at sea is, I think, a fabulous, happy accident.
Well, let's talk about then activity.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Hold on, hold on. One more question. So you booked a seven night sailing, so reasonably confident no one was going to get seasick, you weren't concerned that maybe a shorter sailing would be the better? I guess you're traveling from Canada, so that's got to be a consideration. But was just curious if you felt like, okay, seven nights, we're going to be able to do this, or were you apprehensive about that when you booked it?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Well, I thought, okay, we're going on this cruise. We haven't been on one. I will not go on anything less than seven days because I didn't want it to be, you know, it takes a lot of effort. Yeah, it's too short. You know, it takes a lot of effort and the cost is quite high for us to fly down there. And it's an american dollars, you know, it's expensive. So I thought, you know, if we're going to do this and we do this once, I want to do this for the full seven days at least.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: So let's talk a little bit about activity booking. I try to tell people who are first time cruisers in particular not to panic about activity booking because there's so much to do on board. It really isn't a lot of stuff you have to book in advance, the one exception being deciding if going to do Disney excursions or if you're going to do excursions through a third party vendor or something like that. But what, what, if anything, did you consider booking in advance? And what, if anything, did you actually book in advance? We'll talk about what you actually did as far as port excursions in a little bit.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Well, we didn't do the adult dining and that was because our kids had never been to the kids club before and we weren't sure how they would enjoy it. So we didn't want that to kind of ruin our experience with the adult dining. So we left that for now. And we thought, you know, we heard the food should be great, the main dining, so let's just deal with that. We booked. There were some things we could book, like the hey, howdy, breakfast for Pixar day at sea.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: We did that. We couldn't get into the royal gathering, but that wasn't a problem because I think at the time, our daughter was really into frozen, and Elsa and Anna and those characters weren't at the royal gathering, so.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: That was okay. And we could book a meet the rex as well. But, yeah, we didn't get to that because my husband was already, like, done and over with the photos. So we booked it, but skipped that. So we did that, and we booked an excursion on each of the islands that we went to.
We did, like, the first one was a jeep excursion where my husband would get to, like, drive the jeep around the island, and then he'd go for a beach day. And then the other one was just a beach day at Serenity Bay beach.
And we did some, like, castaway booking, like of like the bikes and stuff like that. But then, you know, when I listen to the podcast now, I heard that you don't really need to book those things. But I did anyways. Yeah.
[00:12:59] Speaker C: I mean, you can. If you really want to, you can. It's just one of those things where.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: You save a little bit. You save a little bit of money if you book finance, if I remember.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: I don't think you do, actually.
I'm not 100% sure. I don't think you do.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: But it used to be like a discount. I thought there was a little discount. It wasn't a huge one, but a little discount.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: I don't think so. I think the only thing that you have to book in advance at Castaway, if you want to do it, is one of the boating excursions, because those do sell out.
And I think Stingray, if you want a particular time, I think you could probably sign up for Stingray at Castaway, but you might not get, if you want, like the 09:00 or the 10:00 or whatever spot, those might be full or something like that. So in general, the things it cast away are less important to book in advance. But it's fine if you do.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just. And I just did because I thought I didn't know what castaway cable is, and I just thought, oh, my gosh, I didn't want certain things to run out, like how many bikes are there? I should just book this stuff. I don't know how many tubes there are. So I did all that anyway. But now I can see I didn't have to do all that.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and I think, like I said, it's fine. It's not like those things are astronomically expensive, the bike rentals. Right. And you, you know, I think a lot of people do like to do those things, and when they go to castaway. They do it every time. We never rent the bikes or the tubes. We just don't feel like it's a necessary thing for us. But we, I see people who do it all the time, so it's really a personal preference thing. All right, well, let's talk, let's talk about, you obviously have to fly down to Florida. You stayed, I know you got there the night before because you listen to our advice on that. You don't go the day of your cruise because that's crazy. Because if your flight is delayed or youre luggage is delayed, you might miss the ship or your luggage might miss the ship. So we don't do that. But where did you all stay in Florida before your cruise? And I know you were, you sailed out of Port Canaveral. So did you do sort of cocoa beach area or Orlando? Where did you guys stay?
[00:15:04] Speaker A: We stayed close to the port. I think we were like a short drive away. It was a spring hill suite. Our boarding time for the ship was like 115, but our checkout time at the hotel was eleven. And we're just kind of sitting down at breakfast and thought it was like another spur of the moment idea that, you know, instead of just hanging around at the hotel, we'll go to the Kennedy space Center.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: So we did that. So, yeah, instead of hanging around, we just went to the Kennedy space Center the day of, but we did stay the night at the Spring Hill suites.
[00:15:40] Speaker C: Awesome. Did you guys rent a car then to get down to?
[00:15:44] Speaker A: We just ubered everything, which was really expensive and I don't think one guy was even a real Uber driver.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: And so what, how long did you get to spend at the Kennedy space Center? I've done that as a post cruise activity, but not something kind of, you know, before the cruise, you know, how much time did you get to spend? Did the, the kids enjoy it? Did you feel like you got your, you know, the value out of it that you were hoping?
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Well, we knew we wouldn't be able to see the whole thing. The last time we had gone there, our son was three and a half and he's really into space. And at that time we had spent the whole day there. So this time we knew he wouldn't remember anything from that visit five years ago. So I think we had about like 3 hours maybe to spend there. So we went to the two main attractions there in our minds, which was the Atlantis one and the Saturn five exhibit. So those were the ones that we hit up and then we're like, okay, we're good. Let's, like, drive to the port now.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Nice. Well, that's a fun way to kind of start off and kick off your vacation. So what time did you actually end up heading to the port to board the Disney fantasy?
[00:16:58] Speaker A: We did get there at 115. So, yeah, we did make it to the 115, and it was, you know, busy and chaotic, and we felt like, where are we going? What is this? There are tons of people. Yeah, it was kind of like a mad rush to get on the ship, I would say.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: Yeah, everyone wants to get their vacation started. So whether you're there at 11:00 a.m. or 01:00 p.m. i think it. It doesn't really make a difference in that sense. Everyone is kind of in a rush, and we'll push each other out of the way to get on the ship.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: But did you have a long wait to get on the ship, or was it pretty, like, seamless getting into the port? I mean, yeah, things are pretty much, the later you wait, the faster you can get on. You don't have to sit around. So I'm just curious, was it pretty quick, or was it. Were there a lot of people there?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: I would say there was a lot of people there, like, standing in line and. Yeah, but I don't really have much to compare it to because I haven't been on another cruise and I haven't done the early boarding time, so it was hard to say. But for us, I thought, you know, it did take quite a bit of time, and there was a far walk to get. To get to the actual ship.
[00:18:06] Speaker C: That is one thing. You know, we try to tell people, like, at least you're going to be able to drop your luggage off, right. You're not going to be carrying all your luggage onto the ship. You're going to drop that off with the porters.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Well, we did. Which. Oh, no, you know what? We traveled with all carry ons only. Oh, wow.
And we have a fear of losing luggage.
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: And I didn't know, like, me and my husband, we didn't know where that luggage was going. Like, we'd see them being tossed and then, you know, we're like, we better take these with us. Plus the fact that we knew our rooms would be ready by the time we got on board. So we thought, well, you know, I didn't know when these bags would mysteriously come back to us or how they would come back to us. So we just kind of dragged these bags, which was a pain.
I mean, gosh, it was not convenient at all to drag these bags around, even though they were carry ons.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: But, yeah, it was a bit of a disaster because, you know, when we boarded the ship, we thought, you know, we could get into our room right away, but we didn't know how to get into the room. And that was one thing. Like, as a first time cruiser, I had no idea how to bring these bags to the room. Like, where do you get your key?
[00:19:26] Speaker B: So let, let me, let me set mind at ease for first time cruisers listening to this. So first, I would say we have given our baggage over to the porters 100% of the time that we've sailed and 100% of the time it has made it to us. So what happens is you give it to the porters, they're putting it into large containers that then get forklifted into the ship. And then the room staff, the room attendant staff, and others gather the luggage. They're all tagged with these tags of color coding and numbers and stuff that tell them where on the ship it needs to head, what floor it needs to go to. And they distribute the luggage out and put it right out in front of your stateroom so that you can have it there. I will agree with you, Michelle. If you're getting on at 130 and your room's ready, you may not see your luggage until even after the ship sails away, which can be a real nail biter, because you're like, my luggage isn't here. And we have, yeah, we've left the port. It's usually not a big deal on sail away day because the dress code at night, I mean, look, Disney doesn't really have a dress code, but the dress code at night is relaxed. Everyone's kind of in whatever they wore to the port that day. And so our, you know, I would have confidence the porter will get your luggage there. I do always tip the porter really well to make sure, make sure that we've covered his bases. But I would make sure the porter, make sure your luggage gets onto the ship. We haven't lost a bag yet. Now, there are some horror stories of people whose bags have, like, you know, they've fallen into the water or something. Those are older. Like, I haven't heard about anything like that recently. Most of the lost luggage we hear about is more about luggage. Airplane that didn't make it on the airplane. Yeah, that got stuck.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: The airline lost, not the Disney cruise line loss. The other thing, though, I will say one caveat, though, to what Brian has said, is we always carry our backpacks on with us, which have any essential medication and have all of our electronics, right? So we don't send our electronic gear in our, you know, main luggage.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: I actually did have the porters one time. I had a hard sided case with a bunch of camera equipment in it, and I just had them put it on because it was protected. It was a hard sided luggage.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: But our laptops, our phones, and Nathan's like, switch like he wants. He's going to want to have access to earlier. And of course, our medications, those come on with us and we carry those on. But to allay other, the concerns about your room key and how do you get in your room? Your room key, and this is something that has changed post Covid, it was a little bit different before. You used to get your room key at check in. Now you get your room key by it being outside your door. It will be on the fish extender outside your door in an envelope. All of the room keys for everyone in your stateroom will be there. And don't worry, people aren't going to steal your room key. So this is one question and we've had asked before, but, like, what? My room key is going to be sitting out of my room? What if somebody steals it? It is all of the room keys. Like when you go to purchase something at a shop, your picture comes up.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: So more important, more fundamentally, more fundamental than that, there are cameras in all of the hallways and all of the common spaces. So, like, I don't worry about our luggage once it's on the ship, I don't worry about the room key, because if anything happens, they will figure it out almost every time. The other thing I was just going to say is, one caveat to that is, if you do purchase the Disney. What is it? Forget it. Now, it's not the magic band.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: It's the Disney band plus.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Disney band plus ahead of time, they will code it at the port, and your band will actually be a room key that you have with you, so that the room keys will be at the stateroom, but then you'll have your key with you as well. So. Yes, yes.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Just to know where the heck is this room key? And so we asked, like, the lady who was near the front where you enter the ship, and she said, well, you'll have to stand at guest services.
And it was such a long line, I know. And my husband was standing in that line for such a long time, and we have all these carry ons in our hands kind of waiting. And then I thought, oh, geez, I really wanted to go eat at that, at one of the main dining restaurants instead of cabanas. But then the clock was ticking, and so finally I asked somebody else, and they're like, oh, you know, it's in your room by, by your room. So I'm like, oh, my gosh, we wasted so much time. Oh, and we, you know, he, we got him out of the line, and then we went to the room, dropped that stuff off. But by the time we went to animator's palette, they were taking in their last guest. So then we made, like, this mad rush to cabanas before they closed to, like, eat something.
Yeah.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Was it. Was it a Disney cast member who told you that? Or another passenger that told you initially to go to guest services?
[00:24:01] Speaker A: A cast member?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: That hurts my heart, Disney.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: That hurts our heart. Because generally speaking, the cast knows this. Right? Like, they all should know this, that your room keys will be outside your room. It is a, that is a totally fair first time cruiser question. We've talked about it on the show before, but it's probably been a while, so I'm actually really glad you brought it up, Michelle, that we can, like, tell, tell people out there from this show, don't worry. Your room key will be outside your room door. And so if your room is ready, you go straight there, you will get in, no problem. And if you at any point, like, lose your room key, forget your room key, then you can go to guest services. But honestly, a lot of the time, your room attendant will be lurking in the hallway, and they will already have learned who you are. And so if you. I've had times where I'm just got my hands full of stuff, and I'm coming back from you shopping or whatever, and the room attendant just opens the door for me.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: So I want to get into the cruise itself here. Yes, I'm hurt. So, yeah, Sam, you're way too much detail there.
So we skipped a step here, which is you got on the ship. I want to hear about your first impressions getting on a disney ship. You walk into the atrium, but more importantly, you had hid this from your kids all the way up until they got to the port, and now they're walking on this beautiful Disney ship. Did they lose their minds a little bit, or how was, you know, I.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Think that it didn't really settle in because we felt that it was like a bit of chaos to get onto the ship. And then when we got on, we had all these bags, and then we were trying to figure out, where are we going? Where is everything? And how do we get there? And we were hungry by then, so it didn't really sink in probably until after, like, the must, and that was done with. And then we got to really just, like, relax and wander around the ship and kind of absorb it all. But, yeah, I think that's kind of where things sunk in, like, oh, wow, you know, we're on this really nice ship and there's so much to explore, but right when we got on the ship, like, I know they announced your name, and my son thought that was lovely, and he wasn't expecting that, so it was a pleasant surprise for him. But I think it was still, like, a lot of. Of nerves and chaos and, like, where do we go? And we see crowds of people going to the elevator. We didn't know what they were doing, but should we follow, you know, that kind of thing?
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say those first couple of hours, especially up until muster drill, are chaos, even for experienced cruisers with, you know, maybe some rare exceptions. I always find that first, like, hour or so to be kind of chaotic, regardless, even, you know, 25 cruises later, so. But once you finish your muster drill, you can start to relax, maybe attend the sail away party, all of that. Well, let's talk about the cruise, then. You know, one thing you, you told us ahead of time is that your oldest is deaf and does not use american sign language. So I'm curious to hear, one, how he is, how he communicates, and two, if you did any sort of pre planning or if there was anything unique about how you would prep him or the cast members for him to be able to communicate with them in the kids club, the dining, all of that.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So he has cochlear implants, and he just communicates through typical listening and speaking. But the areas that I was just unsure about was when it came to the shows and where he could sit or we didn't know. Are these reserved seating? Is there going to be a lot of space for us to choose from? And even I wasn't sure what happens during main dining. Is there a show that we need to pay attention to? So I contacted guest services and I asked them about the live shows, and I said, you know, is there a spot, you know, that we could get reserved somewhere in the middle, up close, but not necessarily, you know, the front row, just so he'd be able to see everything and, you know, hear better. And also, that was the same thing for some of the dining. So the woman, she told me that animator's palette had were the places with the interactive shows. So I asked to be placed close to the screen, and if there wasn't a show, then to be placed somewhere that was kind of private and really quiet. I mean, you can't get really quiet on a big ship like that, but, you know, kind of tucked away where, you know, he'd be able to hear better if we were having a conversation. So that was what I did beforehand. But when we were on the cruise for the live shows, you know, she. The woman had previously said, you know, go up to a member at the cedar, and then they'll guide you to where you need to go. But whenever I went for the live shows, the member had no idea who we were and didn't have our name and just told us to kind of find a spot. We were lucky enough that the disability seats were open each time we went there, so we were able to snag those spots, which was good. But the only downside, I guess, with those spots were that, like, for the Aladdin show, the pyrotechnics were so, like, crazy that my daughter was terrified and you're so close to the fog machine that, you know, you're coughing. So there was a bit of a trade off there, but he liked it, and we all enjoyed it. But I just thought that was interesting that, you know, I got a confirmation email saying that, you know, this was done, and. But when I went there, they. Our names weren't on the list, but luckily we were able to be accommodated still.
[00:29:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's often a disconnect between the ship staff and the land staff, and sometimes that communication gets lost. I will say, in general, my best recommendation for people who have a similar circumstance beyond what you did because you did the right thing in calling special services in advance, but is to just show up early for the shows because you really will be able to get seating wherever your preferred seating is, whether you have a disability or not. If you show up, like, a half hour early to the shows now, that can be a lot of time to wait around, though, especially for younger kids.
That's, or at least maybe one family member. You're not supposed to save seats, but they never enforce the no saving seats thing.
So that's.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm curious how you're. So you mentioned, you know, in the beginning, one of the reasons you didn't book adult dining was because you weren't sure how your kids would react to the kids club. How did they react to the kids club, and how did the kids club, you know, was the kids club a good experience for your son with, um, you know, with his hearing difficulties. So, like, did that work for him and how the.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, he really enjoyed it, but I think he enjoyed it a lot because there were video games there and he doesn't play that at home, so that was kind of his only way to get the chance to play video games, so he really liked it. My daughter, she's more shy. She went there. Whether she loved it, I can't say. But we also didn't really use the Kids club to the full extent. A lot of people do. We kind of used it as like a babysitting service.
Like, if me and my husband wanted to grab, like, a quiet cup of coffee, we would drop them off there. Or if we wanted to watch match your mate, per recommendation of your show, then we dropped them off there. Or if my daughter was napping and I wanted to do the art of the theme show tour, I dropped my son off there, but that was kind of it. But most of the time they were with us, kind of. We were just spending time together as a family.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a lot of people who use the kids club like you. You did, actually, Michelle. And I think that's a great way to think of it, especially for your first time cruise, and especially with a younger child, a three year old who's going to the kids club rather than the nursery, for example. It's a lot. It's overwhelming. And the most extroverted kids maybe will do a little bit better and will want to stay for hours and hours and hours. Your kids, I think it's a little bit of a more chaotic and difficult experience. But I think, you know, if you go back as your kids get older, particularly your daughter gets older, she'll probably be more and more comfortable and you'll kind of. And maybe you'll continue to vacation the way that you did this time, or maybe it'll morph a little bit. I think that there's. There's certainly for a first time cruise, I think that's the smart way to think of it, though. And I think your decision to not do adult dining was a good call for your first cruise. Let's talk about some of the onboard experiences, and then I do want to hit on your excursions because I know there were maybe some things you weren't expecting there in that respect. But let's talk about onboard activities. What stuff did you get up to as a family? Are you pool deck people? Are you family trivia, game show people? Or are you a little bit of all of the above.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Well, the first activity we did on the ship was one of those draw your Mickey, like, draw Mickey, and we did that, and we enjoyed that. We did a juggling class that we enjoyed. I did an art of the theme show tour on my own. The kids loved the midship detective.
We enjoyed that, and it was such a great way to get oriented to the ship. And, you know, I found that doing that, doing that helped me see parts of the ship that I may note have, like, been. I would not have taken my own initiative to go visit on my own. So those were kind of some of the activities that we did. Yeah. And then the live shows, but it was mostly pool deck ice cream repeat. Like that kind of stuff.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about pool deck ice cream repeat, because that's, I think, a very common thing to do on a Disney cruise line ship, especially in the Caribbean. What did your kids think of the pools, the pool deck? Are they, you know, did. And what did you all. You and your husband think of the pools in the pool deck? We always like to joke about the pools being kid soup, which they are, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun in them. It doesn't mean your kids won't have fun in them, but, yeah. Curious as to what they all thought of it.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I think they enjoyed it for what it was. Yeah, I think they enjoyed it for what it was. My son liked the aqua duck. Yep. He liked that. I tried it. It was okay. Seemed very short, but, yeah, that was fine, too. I think they just enjoyed the atmosphere of it. I found it really hard to get a chair, but otherwise, it was okay. I mean, I wasn't expecting too much for a pool on a ship.
[00:35:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: But I think it, you know, for them, it was just perfect.
[00:35:09] Speaker C: Yeah. What did you think about the pool deck offerings in terms of food? And, of course, the soft serve ice cream. Was that something that you. You guys took a lot of advantage of? Um, I know it's something that Nathan, our son, he loves soft serve. He loves chocolate vanilla swirl. That's his go to. And that's available typically every day. Um, as well as the pool deck, you know, food and, you know, burgers, fries, all that kind of stuff.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Well, the soft serve, definitely, that was an everyday thing, multiple times a day treat.
[00:35:40] Speaker C: I love that for them.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
It was just such a treat for everybody who doesn't love soften serve. So we had that. We also. I wouldn't say we had much of the pool deck food, except for the fruit. It was nice to just, you know, when we wanted some fruit, we would just go there and they'd give you a whole platter of fruit. So I think that was just the extent of the pool deck food that we had.
[00:36:03] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. Now, you mentioned, you went and saw the stage shows. What was, what would. What did you think overall? Obviously, the. The placement of where you were, and you mentioned your daughter was terrified of the pyrotechnics. But curious as to your impression, Michelle, of the Disney stage shows. And was that. Is that a big thing for you individually, like, it is for me, obviously.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: As people know, I definitely enjoy going to see shows. I haven't seen too many, but I do like seeing them, and I love the live shows. We saw Aladdin and frozen. Frozen was wonderful. And we saw believe. I know it's not your favorite. My husband really liked it. You know, I think I had played it down because I said, oh, you know, on the DCL duo podcast, she says this is her least favorite. But, yeah, I think because I played it down, he had low expectations and, you know, he really enjoyed that one.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: I'm actually really glad to hear that because I just don't want people to go in with really high expectations of that show because I actually. It's not. It's not a bad show. It's just my least favorite of the shows. Let me put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: No, it was. It was fine. We enjoyed them. Like, it was so nice to be able to go see a show every night.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's also nice to go see a show that's only like an hour long, because as we know, with having young kids, they're not going to sit through a two and a half hour production. And so an hour is kind of maybe at their outer limit for certain kids. And so it's something I always really enjoy.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Well, perfect.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation? Great news. The fabulous team over at my mypath unwinding travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable, and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. Mypath Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, relaxed at Alani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park, vacation, or adventures. Bye, Disney. Or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, mypath unwinding travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks, mypath unwinding, for sponsoring todays show. Now back to the episode.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Well, I'd love to kind of. Before we talk about food more in depth, because we always love to talk about food in a more in depth way, let's talk a little bit about your port excursions. You went to, I believe, St Martin and St Thomas and Castaway, and you mentioned, I think, at St Martin you had. Am I right? St Martin? No, it's Tortola.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: Tortola.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: Sorry? Tortola. I'm confused. They're both in the eastern Caribbean, and so sometimes the ships go to Tortola, sometimes they go to St Martin. So, Tortola, you booked the four by four thing. Maybe not four x four, but the jeep excursion. And then in St Martin, you booked a beach excursion. I think.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: So, Tortola, we booked the jeep excursion, but that didn't go as how we planned.
Before the excursion, we were called up to give my husband's driver's license to the shore excursion counter. And when we were up there, she said, oh, this excursion isn't for children under five. And so she said, you know, but it was weird, because when I had gone on the app to book the excursion, it had like, a price list. It said, like five is this price? You know, an adult is this price? But I just assumed, because my daughter was three, that she was free. It didn't say, you know, like, nobody under.
Yeah, that's right. So it would have been nice if there was like this big disclaimer saying, don't book this if your child under five. So by the time, you know, we found that out at the shore excursion, there were only, I think, like two options to choose from. And it was like a half beach day going on an open air kind of bus or car, and it was a similar kind of thing to the shore excursion we planned for St Thomas. So that one. I mean, we did go on that. It wasn't great by any means. I mean, the car that we were in, the driver, he was trying to give some narrative about the place and this kind of stuff, but you couldn't hear him because the speaker was so old and the traffic and the people, it just was by chance that the group we were with was extremely loud and nobody was paying attention to him. And even if you wanted to pay attention to him, you couldn't. So he had stopped the car several times and had scolded us for, like, why aren't you listening? I'm trying to give you valuable information here. You guys are very rude. You know, it was kind of that. Yeah.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: So, you know, did you give feedback to Disney? I hope you gave feedback to Disney on it.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: We didn't. I mean, I'm sure the other guests on that in the group probably did, but, you know, we were kind of just sitting quietly trying to get the ride over with and wondering, when are we getting to this beach? Because by the time we got to the beach, we really only had an hour there, which was so horrible because, you know, we had thought we'd be spending, you know, a nice, long day at the beach, but it just was not worth that. I think we would have, probably would have liked to just pay some cab to take us to the beach for a full day. But I, you know, we were worried because it was our first time, and then we thought we didn't want the ship to leave without us. We didn't know anything about this island.
Let's go with these Disney excursions. But, yeah, so that was not a great experience with this driver, the amount of time that we actually got to spend on the beach. And the beach was, like, absolutely crowded. So it was kind of not what we envisioned, you know, with the photos of the very peaceful beach. But no, it was not like that.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: So I'm going to give. I'm going to give three tips to listeners out there to try and help avoid this. The first tip on the age piece, the online, the website for Disney. And I'm actually trying to look right now for the activity booking through the app because we have a cruise where we could do that. But the website for Disney does have in the summary, it will tell you what port of call, what the prices are, the activity level on a scale of, I think, low, moderate, high, how long it is in total. And then at the very bottom of that, it says age. So for this Tortola, Jeep and Beach, at least the one I'm looking at, it says age five and up. I'm trying to look through the app to see if it. If it does.
[00:43:03] Speaker C: I'm sure on the app it doesn't.
[00:43:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:05] Speaker C: There's never as much information on well, so in the booking and the app, there's not usually as quite as much information, but also. But I do think if you can call, I know you can call Disney Cruise line if you have a child that is zero to three. There are some excursions that they can go on that will be that you can't book them through the app because they really are free, as Michelle thought, with this excursion. But sometimes you need to call to actually confirm that. And so, but I do think the website has a little bit more information than the app does.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Yes and no. So like I would say this, all excursions are going to cost you something. And so I do think when they say price five to nine and whatnot, like that should be an indicator to at least double check.
It does look like the app does not have the same kind of summary pieces of information that the website does. So you can always go to the website to double check. The other thing I want to say is definitely leave feedback about bad vendors because Disney prides itself on kind of selecting the best. And if they're getting consistent feedback about a vendor, they'll go find someone else to do the excursion. And then the last tip that I want to give is just on these beach adventure excursions. This is another opportunity I always, if I'm looking at a beach excursion, so I look at what the total amount of time is for the excursion. And then if you click view more or if you go on the website and look at like, know before you go or the, the description of the excursion, a lot of times it will give you like more detail about, you will have, you know, on a four hour excursion, you will have a 1 hour bus ride to this location, followed by 90 minutes at the beach with, you know, whatever, and then an hour. And so you can start to sort of figure out like, oh, wait, 4 hours. No, I'm only going to be at the beach for like 60 to 90 minutes. I'll just get a cab right. And do it myself. So definitely use the resources on the website to double check some of this stuff. Um, that's something we've learned over time to check these excursions.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: Yeah, but the beach excursions are notorious for this. So this is one area where like, definitely pay attention to the beach. Excursions are notorious for having these bus rides where they take you on a tour of the island before they take you to the beach and, or, and sometimes even on the way back from the beach. So look out for the beach excursions, especially the shorter ones. Uh, be wary of booking them if they say that they're going to have some kind of, you know, tour of the island if you really just want to get to the beach and relax and enjoy your beach time.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: So what about St. Martin? How did St. Martin go as a port stop?
[00:45:33] Speaker A: It was St. Thomas. Oh, st. Thomas, yeah. You know what? I think it would have been nice if the weather was nice, but it was kind of cold, I would say. And, you know, there was some rain in and out.
[00:45:45] Speaker C: Did you go to Megan's Bay beach?
[00:45:48] Speaker A: No. And I hear Brian talk about Megan's Bay beach, but I was like, oh, is that going to be crowded? You know, I wasn't sure, so I thought, oh, let's try the serenity bay, because, you know, they'd give you snorkels and stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, with the weather, it was really kind of tough to enjoy that beach. And it was so windy, and I remember, like, we were all shivering. I mean, my husband and son are brave. They'll go out no matter what. But me and my daughter were just kind of shivering in the little open, open roofed building. Yeah. So we spent most of our time in that building until I think there was about maybe half an hour where my husband was like, you know what? Just go in the water. It's not as bad in the water. And I was just shivering. And then I made it to the water. But again, yeah, it was one of those excursions where it was like a drive tour of the city, but for me, like, it's not even much of a tour. It's just, like, kind of going through traffic and there's nothing much to see. So, like, the vision I had of what, like, an island tour would be as very, like, you know, beautiful, and you'd see all these. It. It wasn't what I had imagined.
Yeah, I mean, luckily, the driver was nicer and didn't yell at us, and the people on our bus were, you know, quiet and, you know, we could hear the driver, but this driver didn't have anything to tell us, so it kind of didn't work out. But, yeah, I mean, St. Thomas and Tortola were okay, but I think, you know, we were just really dying for a good beach day. And they both were kind of let downs, you know, until we got to castaway, and that kind of redeemed everything.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So I want to put a plug here for.
There's a beach that you can get to called Jost Van Dyke. That is at.
You can get to it from Tortola. I believe you have to take like, a boat to it. But we hear really good things about that. As a place for a beach day, it's a little bit, it might take a little bit longer to get to, but everybody tells us that the beach is worth it. And then, of course, for Megan's baby, she'll put a plug in for that. But to take a cab there, it's going to still cost you less than an excursion, even though it's going to cost you cash both ways per person as well as a fee to get into the beach. But I still think it's probably worthwhile. And you'll get more time at the beach than if you do Disney's excursion that does that tour. But I also want to say with regard to some of these caribbean island, even St. Thomas, which is a us territory, they're quite poor. They are. The areas are, you know, the city parts are not really that lovely to look at. So you're really. You're right, Michelle. You're driving through a lot of traffic. There's not a lot of really lovely things to look at until you get to the beach. The beaches are generally lovely, but you're not talking about, like, I don't know, being in like a beach on the French Riviera or something.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's what I had envisioned in my mind with these descriptions of these port excursions. But then, you know, being on there, I'm like, where? I didn't know.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Where am I?
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Yeah, where am I?
[00:49:00] Speaker B: I will say this. Megan's Bay beach is gorgeous.
[00:49:03] Speaker C: It is a beautiful beach. Yeah.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: I do think it's gotten more about.
[00:49:06] Speaker C: This other beach, though, that you went.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Yeah. But I do think Megan's Bay has gotten a little bit more crowded over time. So it's definitely something to pay attention to. But it was a wide, big beach. There was always plenty of room for the locals and the cruisers and they had chairs and stuff. And this, the sand and the water were just sort of perfect. So I will continue to. I would continue to fly the banner of Megan's Bay beach being the best beach that I've experienced in the Caribbean.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: So, yeah, other than cast. Well, I guess castaway is technically the Bahamas.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: I would not raid castaway above Megan's Bay.
[00:49:37] Speaker C: Okay, well, let's.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:49:39] Speaker C: Well, let's go. Let's go to castaway because obviously you said castaway really redeemed the port stops for you. We know you ended up booking the tubes and the floaties and the bicycle package one. Did you guys use those things and two, what did you get up to on castaway? Was it just your hangout beach day? Did you walk around? Did you run the five k? What did you do?
[00:50:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a full beach day. We were probably one of the last people to get off that island. Yeah. We did the biking, we did the five k, we did the snorkeling, which was fantastic. We rented a kayak and we did the tubing. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Yeah. We squeezed everything in. I just wish, you know, the ship would just dock there for five days, and that's it. Like, that's kind of what we were like. That's kind of the place that we were hoping for to be in. Yeah. We had such an amazing day at castaway. It was lovely. Yeah, it was fantastic.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: So I think your next cruise that you have to book is going to be a double dip cruise where you sign twice.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: I know.
[00:50:52] Speaker C: Or perhaps a duo diphthere that stops at Lighthouse Point, lookout k at Lighthouse Point. So I think that's definitely in your future, because obviously, at such a great time at castaway. And I'm with you, Michelle, I think there's no better beach day than one at castaway. It's lovely. The only problem is, if you stayed there for five days, there would be other ships that would be there at the same time, and then it would be a really crowded beach and you wouldn't like it as much. You know, it is what it is.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: But it was wonderful. That just kind of made everyone's trip like that was. Yeah. Good memories. And we love the fact that the photographers were on the beach because we bought the photo package, and, you know, some of our favorite pictures were from that beach day.
[00:51:38] Speaker C: I love that. Yeah. What did you think about the photo package in general? I think, you know, people ask us all the time, should we get a photo package? And our answer is, usually, it depends if you. If you want a lot of family pictures, we tell people, yeah, buy the photo package in advance because you're buying it at a discount, but obviously, you want to take advantage of it and actually stand for photos either in the atrium or get photos on castaway or a combination of all of. All of the above. Yeah. How did you guys like that photo package? You said your husband got sick of taking pictures at one point.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, when I first signed up for it, my husband, you know, rolled his eyes. Cause he's like, why are we spending this much on the photo package? But I said, you know, I think we should do this because, you know, we wouldn't have to carry our cameras around, and then finally we could have pictures of all of us together.
That's what it really was. You know, it saved a lot of headache from having to take out our cell phone or my husband carrying his, like, fancy camera to have people just take the photos for us, and it was great. Finally we had family photos of all four of us. And even, like, the backdrops that they had were so great. Like, the different backdrops, some of them have, like, gone up on our wall. Like, they look. Yeah, like, some of them look like professional photos. Yeah, they were really excellent photos. My husband was, like, was sick of the character, like, standing in line for characters. But, you know, I felt like I had to because I paid for the photo package. So we did some of that. I think by day six, you know, that was it. Like, he was done with standing in line. But no, the photo package was excellent. Lots of great photos. And just the peace of mind of not having to carry a camera around. My husband did try, you know, for the first few days to also take a cell phone photo after, like, the photographer took a photo to see if maybe we would cancel the photo package, but just the lighting wasn't the same.
[00:53:43] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, they.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: I think they do a pretty good job. Now. One thing that I don't think they always do a good job, and it depends on the photographer, is the posing. Sometimes they're a little bit cheesy posing like prom and others, when others are great, it just really depends on the photographer, so. And it depends on how good you are at posing. I'll be honest, I'm terrible at posing. I am not photogenic, and I'm terrible at posing. So I feel like most of pictures end up looking silly when they pose me, but it is what it is.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, as long as you get, like, ten great photos to me, then it's worth it. Yeah. You're gonna get, like, 90 horrible photos with weird posing and things you normally wouldn't naturally do. But as long as I had, like, ten good photos to walk away with, then I was fine.
[00:54:30] Speaker C: Love it. Awesome. I'm guessing you walked away with more than ten, too, so.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Let's talk about some of the. Were there things that you. Before we get to food? Cause I still wanna get there. But before we get to food, were there other things that were maybe unexpected or you wish you had known before? One of the things we talked about pre show was that very thing that there are some things that you just don't hear about and perhaps we just take for granted that people know them, that we don't talk about enough. Obviously, we talked about the room key things, but were there other sort of expectations or where you just didn't know what to expect and you kind of wish you had had more information about any particular thing?
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Well, I think we covered also that with the shore excursion piece. So those were kind of the two main things. Yeah. I think we didn't know what to expect also with the deck parties.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: I mean, we saw everybody, you know, crowd in for the deck party and for us, it just wasn't, you know, it wasn't anything, you know, for us to stand around with, you know.
[00:55:32] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: I think we would have rather just spent that time doing something else. But, yeah, no, we did check that out. I mean, you have to. The first one and. Yeah. So I think we weren't really too excited about the deck party.
[00:55:46] Speaker C: I will tell you, we're not big deck party people either. I think that some of the. Brian always says, have you seen one party pirates parley?
[00:55:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Although I get criticized for the c one deck party. See them all because people are like, but we haven't seen. They're fun. They're fun. You should definitely see them once. And then after that, it's up to you how much enjoyment you get out of them. If your kids are into dancing around with characters on stage, fantastic. You should go to all the deck parties because that's essentially what it is. I will give one exception, though. Pirate parlay, deck party on the wish. Fantastic. One of my favorite deck parties. I think it's a great one. I see it every, not just for the fireworks aspect of it, the actual party and the music, and it's just a lot of fun.
[00:56:25] Speaker C: Yeah, but I. But we generally skip the other deck parties. Like, we don't, we don't usually. Well, I will sometimes go to sail away to get, to get some video or if it's been a while since I've seen it, just to be like, oh, let me see. Let me see if it's changed in any way or something like that.
And then I. We might hit up the pirate deck party because we want to see the fireworks on a random sailing and of course, on the wish. We don't really miss the pirate deck party because as Brian said, it's a really fun one. But, yeah, we're not huge deck party people, although I have heard, and I'll put a plug in for this, we hear that heroes Unite is a fantastic deck party for the Marvel day at sea cruises and for the cruises they were doing out in Australia, New Zealand. That's one I definitely have to see.
I feel like we're at the point in the show where we need to talk about food. Right, Brian? Have we missed anything?
[00:57:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we got to get to food. We got to get to food.
[00:57:21] Speaker C: Okay, now, I know that you. I think you said you and your daughter skew vegetarian and vegan, but the boys are meat eaters. I got to ask the question overall, like, were there enough choices for you and your daughter? Who are the non meat eaters?
[00:57:37] Speaker A: There was, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I typically have, like, a. I think a higher standard when it comes to food, and I'm a food snob, so I wasn't expecting much from this cruise. Yeah. But I was so surprised by the variety, and I had great meals all the time in main dining, so, yeah, we were all very pleased.
[00:58:03] Speaker C: I love that.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Even with the selection of vegan foods, like, I was surprised, you know, that they would have, like, vegan yogurt and, you know, the impossible burgers available, too. Like, that was great. I was very pleasantly surprised.
[00:58:19] Speaker C: I love that. And did the meat eaters like their food, too?
[00:58:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, they certainly did.
Yeah.
[00:58:27] Speaker C: Awesome. Now, did you find you ate more, did you eat more of your meals and. Well, obviously, you ate dinners and main dining, but what about, like, lunches and breakfast? Did you tend to go to main dining or did you go to cabana? I know you guys didn't eat a ton on the pool deck, but, yeah. What was sort of your routine if you had one?
[00:58:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Breakfast was always main dining. Lunch. We would try to do main dining, too. Usually that was like royal court, I think, for lunch. Once we did cabanas, and that was actually okay, too. You know, the first day when we were all flustered from that, onboarding the boat and then having only, like, 30 minutes to eat at cabanas, we didn't really scope around on, you know, the variety of foods, but during, like, the middle of the trap, middle of the trip, I got to go to cabanas, and I really got to see what was available, and I was pleasantly surprised. And I really enjoyed my meal there. Yeah, the food was excellent. Couldn't complain. I tried the churro waffles that everybody was raving about. Yeah. And they were great, too. I mean, it is like eating mini donuts for breakfast.
[00:59:37] Speaker C: Absolutely. Michelle. It is not like your standard breakfast food, and I could not eat those every day for breakfast, I would be sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: No, but it was great. It was, you know, it was great. The food was fantastic. Couldn't complain about any of that.
[00:59:52] Speaker C: I love that. So it sounds like you probably didn't feel like you missed out by not booking adult dining then, as well.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: No, not at all. But my husband did say if the food is this good here in Maine dining, I wonder what it is like in adult dining.
[01:00:05] Speaker C: Oh, I love that. So that's, I think, something to look forward to. And, you know, from what you've said, I'm guessing you might even enjoy going to Remy on the Disney fantasy or the Disney dream, because that is. They do have vegetarian chef's table or vegetarian menu option. So you can go for, you know, the omnivore menu or a vegetarian menu, and they'll do every dish for you. It's amazing, fantastic, fantastic meal. We always recommend it for people who are food adventurous foodie types and who like fine dining, whether you're a meat eater or not. I think they do a fantastic job over there. Yeah. And Paulo is, of course, amazing. We eat there, you know, anytime we're on a Disney ship. But I think that Remy is, you know, Remy's even the step above that, so.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll have to try that next time.
[01:00:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:55] Speaker B: Well, Michelle, let me ask, is there anything that we haven't covered from your cruise that you wanted to be sure to let folks know about?
[01:01:01] Speaker C: Oh, I need to ask what you thought of match your mate.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: Oh, it was funny. We really liked it. Yeah, it was just a nice way to kind of be without the kids and just laugh. Yeah, no, it was great. It was probably the only night that we went to bed late on the ship. But no, it was fantastic.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: Awesome. Sorry.
[01:01:23] Speaker A: But I did think of. That's okay. I did think of something as a first time cruiser that I didn't know also. So I kept hearing on the podcast, you know, you could do a PlayStation holder for your next cruise while you're on the ship. And I imagined in my head that there was a kiosk on the ship somewhere, because they do have, you know, the DVC here.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: Michelle, there used to be a future cruise planning desk, and you could either purchase a placeholder through that desk, or you could actually sit down and go through. Through with a Disney vacation planner and pick out a cruise and book it on board and get all of the same benefits as the placeholder during COVID they shut down, like, all of the desks, right? There was no DVC presence. There was no future cruise desks. There was no it help like any of that stuff. Those desks still exist. I suspect a future refurbishment. Maybe they'll get yanked out or something. But the only way you can do it now is you can buy the placeholder through the app while you're on board. And the tip is you do it through the app, take a screenshot of it, because there are sometimes technical glitches that cause it sort of not to take. But if you have the screenshot, Disney will honor it. You have to reach out to them to get it instated. But yes, you can't talk to a person to do it any longer, which.
[01:02:49] Speaker C: I will say having your envisioning is accurate, because that's how it used to be.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: Okay. Because I'd be on the ship doing the midship detective or the art of the theme show, and I'd be looking around saying, where is this? Because there's got to be one. If the DVC club guy is standing in front of guest services, I'm sure they must have something about the future booking. And it was only recently, I think maybe a couple days ago, that I only realized it's on the app and you had to be on board. But I didn't even notice it wasn't something. I just thought, I'm going to pass by them at some point, and it just never happened.
[01:03:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, I was going to say just real fast, before Sam interrupted me, that the one thing that I find amusing about this is Royal Caribbean has an entire six, seven desks on the oasis of the seas and its own space where people can go in and book cruises. And so I don't know why Disney has just not come back to staffing it. We've sat down and booked many a cruise before the pandemic with the Disney vacation planner while we were on board, because, like, half the time we're on board looking at other cruises anyway. So I hope they bring it back, because I don't see why they wouldn't. Just relying on this whole placeholder thing in an app seems like a missed sort of sales opportunity at some level. But, and you used to be able to in the app, what you still do in the app was just schedule a time with them. That's what you do, schedule a time. And then you go down and say, I want a placeholder. And then they move to a system where you could fill out a card and put it in, like, a mail slot, basically, and they'd send you one. But anyway, I think we've reached that point in show Sam where it's time for a little rapid fire, I should say. It's time for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and a dash of judgment or the round we know as rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:04:36] Speaker C: Absolutely. All right, Michelle, you knew this was coming. We are going to do rapid fire. So I'm going to ask you your Disney favorites, and then I'm going to ask you some Disney cruise line favorites. With regards to the cruise line, you can only answer with answers that are on the Disney fantasy. Right. So we're not going to imagine a ship that you haven't been on. The ship that you've been on is the one that you'll choose from. Okay, so obviously your favorite cruise cruise ship is the Disney fantasy, but we'll move on from that.
Okay, so starting with who is your favorite Disney character? And Disney means everything that Disney owns at this point.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: Gus from Cinderella.
[01:05:11] Speaker C: Oh, I love Gus. All right, your favorite Disney movie.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: You know what? My daughter's been on a frozen kick, so now it's frozen two.
[01:05:21] Speaker C: I love it. Samantha. All right, favorite Disneyland song.
[01:05:25] Speaker A: Show yourself. Frozen two.
[01:05:28] Speaker C: So good. So good. All right, favorite Disney cruise line stage show that you saw on board the Disney fantasy.
[01:05:36] Speaker A: Frozen.
[01:05:37] Speaker C: Yes, that is the right answer because it's better than Aladdin and believe.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: I knew you'd be proud.
[01:05:43] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. That is such a good show. Okay, favorite bar space on board the Disney fantasy.
[01:05:51] Speaker A: Ooh. You know, I still wouldn't know the names of all the bars, and I only went to 1 bar because that was the meetup spot for the art of the theme show. And I don't even remember the name of what it was called, so I couldn't answer that.
[01:06:06] Speaker C: Okay, fair enough. We'll move on. Listen, you have young kids. It's okay. I'm gonna say your favorite bar is the tube because that's where you watched match your mate.
[01:06:16] Speaker A: Oh, right.
[01:06:20] Speaker C: All right, favorite onboard activity.
[01:06:23] Speaker A: I really liked the juggling.
[01:06:25] Speaker C: Oh, fun.
[01:06:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like that.
[01:06:28] Speaker C: So. And that's only something they'll have when they have a juggler on board, so that's not something that they do normally. Yeah, I should say not normally. They do it normally. It's just not on every itinerary. Okay, favorite space to relax on the Disney fantasy.
[01:06:43] Speaker A: Probably that coffee shop.
[01:06:46] Speaker C: Oh, Cove Cafe. Yeah.
[01:06:47] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. The COVID Cafe.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: Love that. Okay, favorite rotational dining?
[01:06:54] Speaker A: Royal court.
[01:06:56] Speaker C: Oh, lovely. All right. Okay, favorite food items. We're going to give one sweet item and one savory item. But we start with the sweet because I think savory is better. So let's start with your favorite sweet food item on your Disney cruise.
[01:07:11] Speaker A: I think it was a soft serve. Oh, yeah.
You know, we tried, I think, like, every. Every dessert, every chance we got, you know, they'd bring them all out, and we tried them. They were all great. Couldn't remember the names of them. But I think soft serve was just, like, an overall favorite.
[01:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think you can go wrong. All right, favorite savory item.
[01:07:34] Speaker A: You know what? The meal on my first night was. Was memorable, probably because it was, like, the first night meal, and it was like a grilled eggplant and zucchini over some israeli couscous with, like, sun dried tomatoes. It was really delicious. And I had two servings of that. It was so good.
[01:07:52] Speaker C: Awesome. I love that. I love when. I love when the staff sees that you're enjoying something and they bring you another one.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: It's always, oh, yeah, I had that a few times.
[01:08:01] Speaker C: Awesome. Okay, favorite port. That's an easy one.
I love it. We already mentioned your favorite ship is the Disney fantasy. Yeah, but my last question is a bucket list cruise. If you could go anywhere in the world on a Disney cruise line ship, where would that be?
[01:08:21] Speaker A: Well, I think you had it right where you said, like, a double stop. So it would have to be, like, a stop at Castaway and lookout. So I think we're kind of. I think right now, we're looking at, like, the one way cruise to San Juan in March. So I think that's kind of what we're looking at right now.
[01:08:38] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, I'm sure that'll be a fantastic cruise. Brian always asks, what's next? But you already. For us.
[01:08:45] Speaker B: Wait, I have. I have a. We forgot to ask the one question, which is. So you did this Disney cruise. It sounds like you would do one again, but let's just confirm that, like, was this a great experience for you, your family looking at cruising again and.
Yeah.
[01:08:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, definitely. It was so. It was a wonderful time. You know, I didn't have to cook for a week. We didn't have to clean for a week. The food was excellent. You know, somebody laid out the itinerary for me. You know, you watch a show. Show at this time, you go have dinner after. It was perfect, by the way. Late dining was fantastic.
[01:09:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:09:19] Speaker C: We didn't talk about that.
[01:09:20] Speaker A: That's okay. It worked. I think that was the best for us. I mean, we naturally stay up a bit later, and eating late was no problem, and getting the show over with, in the beginning was great. Even, you know, we. Our routine was, you know, we'd watch the show, we'd spend that gap in time taking photos, and then we'd go have dinner and then take more photos after. So I think that was like a good, good routine for us. But, yeah, no, we loved it so much. I started looking into the next cruise on our flight home and trying to work out our schedule and the itineraries and things like that. So I was already thinking about it when we were leaving.
[01:10:00] Speaker C: Awesome. And that's despite, we'll say, two port stops that were not that great in your opinion, Michelle. So I kind of love that. That actually speaks so much to the onboard experience as well as the experience at Castaway Cay, because it made up for some less than stellar experiences. Experiences at port.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this time we would probably do things a bit differently. But being that it was our first time and not really doing a whole lot of planning for it, I mean, it was great. It was exactly what we needed. We had a great time. We felt rested, we were fed very well, and everybody was entertained. So, yeah, we really enjoyed ourselves.
[01:10:40] Speaker C: Awesome.
[01:10:41] Speaker B: Nice. Well, Michelle, we really appreciate you taking time out of your day to come share your first Disney cruise line experience with our audience and just want to say thank you and really, really appreciate it.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: Thank you, guys. I really appreciate both of you. I loved listening to you guys for like two months before our trip.
I would, you know, walk my dog and put the headphones on and listen to you when I'm washing dishes. I'm listening to you. And yeah, no, it was, I love listening to the podcast and I still do.
[01:11:13] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, you've got lots of back episodes, I guess, to listen to as well. Oh, I will send it all.
Love it.
[01:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you very much. It was lovely doing this.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows, so be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern over on YouTube.com dclduo. So be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show. Be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, mypath unwinding travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email
[email protected] so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to dclduo.com dot. It's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes, including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun, fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com. dclduo also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So dclduo.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also, of course, email
[email protected] comma or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 40 241-355-5590 that's 402-413-5590 the DCL Duel 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 the great folks over at Mypath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
