[00:00:00] Speaker A: We are the bigger Marvel fans. Nathan is not actually, like. He's just not really into superheroes. He's never been really into superheroes. Not that he doesn't like them. It's just not.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: It's nothing to do with superheroes. He's not into content that lasts for more than two and a half minutes.
Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DC podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding travel. And Sam, it's review time yet once again. And so our review this week comes from St. L Transplant, which I'm hoping might mean St. Louis.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: St. Louis transplant. Yeah, that's gotta be.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Let's hope that's it. Yeah. And so STL Transplant writes all good fun. This podcast is so fun. They cover cruising, parks, different types of vacations, and do it all with good humor and excellent information. I also appreciate that they bring on guests with lots of different vacation styles to gain information they can't provide themselves. Well, thank you for that review. We really appreciate it. And for all of you out there listening, if you'd like to hear your review at the top of the show, head over to Apple podcasts, hit those five stars, and leave us a written review, and we will read it on top of the. On the air. At the top of the show. Not on top of the show, at the air.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Here's a little blooper reel for you. There you go.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I will say I love that review. Although I have to give a caveat that we really don't cover all things Disney. We really focus on cruise line and adventures by Disney. And occasionally we might veer off to similar products across the cruising industry, unless.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: You'Re a Patreon, in which case you just get all of our rambling thoughts that aren't cruise line related, because we have to do something to make it interesting for you, make it worthwhile.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: That's right. That's right.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Sam, do you want to introduce our friends, our guests who are on the show today and what we're going to be talking about?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Yes. I'm so excited to have these guests joining us. For those of you watching on video, you can already see them. I just cannot tell you how nice it is to have people on the show after we've actually met people, the same people in person. And so, Amy and Rob, we met on the halcyon, which, for those not in the know, that's the name of the galactic star cruiser from Chandra La starline cruises. And so we traveled to a galaxy far, far away to Batuu with them and experienced the magic that was the galactic star cruiser, and they reached out to come on the show, and it's so exciting to have them for the first time on the DCl duo podcast. Welcome, Amy and Rob.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Thank you. Great to be here.
[00:02:47] Speaker D: It's great to see you guys again.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: We gotta do a Halcyon creds check here. Everyone ready? Ignite the spark.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Light the fire. Right?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Light the fire. There it is. Yes.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: It took me a second.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Or good journey.
Rising suns, bright moon.
[00:03:03] Speaker E: Right?
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah, something like that.
[00:03:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: What was the other? What was the call and response? One together as one.
[00:03:12] Speaker D: I remember that one.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Same. All right, so before we dive into talking about. We're not going to talk about Star wars today, guys. We're going to talk about Marvel Day at sea, actually. But before we start talking about the Marvel day at sea cruise you all just went on recently, why don't we start with your Disney creds and cruise creds? Where have you sailed before? Where did your love of Disney come from? We'll start with you, Rob.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: Sure. This is gonna be a little bit. So I started bright and early, probably. I think my first trip to Disney World was, like my mom tells me, like, one or one and a half. And I. They took me down there for a winter, and I was one of those kids that when it was, you know, 70 degrees, all the life, Jack, all the lifeguards were wearing, you know, you know, big bundle up coats, and I was in the water, you know, having a time. So I think we stayed at the contemporary originally, and then we moved to polynesian. As I got older, we were beach club people, but we were that old school. Like, you know, you go for a week, and everything's part of the package. It was the tickets, it was the meals. It was just every. And the resort. It was just everything. That old golden key program. Right? And so. And then as I got older, and my sister really even got into it more than I did, she was actually a cast member through the college program and did the great movie ride. She was one of the tour operators that, you know, halfway through, I guess.
I know, I know. Pour one out for the movie ride. But she was the person that got taken. Spoiler alert, I guess, and then would come back, back at the end. And so that was always her big claim to fame, and I got to see her do it once, and, yeah, it was super cool. I never ended up getting into that program, but have always had a love for it.
When I met Amy, right. She always thought that was kind of interesting, that the guy that she was meeting had this kind of strong affection for Disney. But as we got older, we actually got engaged at the pier at the grand Floridian, and then we were married for about eight years before we had kids. And when we had kids, like, they just really took to it, and it really kind of reignited our love of Disney and kind of the immersion of what they do. But we had never done cruise line, right. I had always been afraid of cruising. Amy did a couple of cruises, but I was always like, I get sick on a catamaran, right? I just didn't think I could handle it. And so then eventually, you know, as COVID, you know, kind of wore off, and I started researching. I said, gosh, this seems like old school Disney, right? The one that I remembered from the golden keeper and was a kid. I was like, we gotta try this. I gotta see if I can do this. Because one of my bucket list things was, I wanted to go to Alaska, right, on a cruise. And so we did a test cruise, right? And we did the fantasy. It was a six nighter maritime cruise, right. And absolutely fell in love with it. And it gave me the confidence to say, I can do this. Right. I took boney, and I was fine, right? Little wavy at the end. But I got the confidence, and I said, we're gonna do Alaska. So that next summer, right, we went ahead and did it on a whim. Like, it was just, like, we saw a guaranteed rate, and we're like, we're doing it, and we just did it that weekend. Yeah. And so then we did Alaska. Right? We did the wish later on that same summer, right? And then this is our fourth ship for the marvel day at sea was the dream. And our son, who's older, Luke, he's eight years old. He has a rule. We can't repeat any ships until we've been on all of them. So we haven't hit the royal flush yet. It might be in our future. And then we get to start repeating. So Amy's background's a little shorter, a little different than mine.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: I love that Luke has rules, by the way, about nurse.
[00:06:46] Speaker D: You can say he has expensive rules, too.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:52] Speaker D: So my history at Disney is different because, like, we went growing up, but we went maybe three or four times, and, like, we always stayed, like, cocoa beach. Like, we stayed somewhere in the air, in the vicinity, and then would come in for, like, a day. So we didn't do the dining plan. We didn't do the hotels. There was one time, I think I was in 7th grade, and my parents, they sold heating, air conditioning equipment, and their. The big company brought all the people who sold their equipment down, and we got to do three days at the dolphin. And that was, like, our first taste of, like, everything right there on property. But I liked it. But it was never, you know, we went to the beach. We just weren't Disney people at the time. And so when I met Rob, I joked that I'd become, like, a reluctant expert because we. We've just gone, like, multiple times a year for the past 20 years.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:35] Speaker D: And so I love it now, but it was just a funny transition. I never. I never thought I would get to a point where I knew what I know about it, you know?
[00:07:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And the reluctance is important because just recently, within the last year, we became DVC members. Very reluctant still. Cause we haven't done our first stay yet. Right. So there's still. The jury's still out on the side of the table, but she's gonna love it. We're gonna go to grand, California, in the summer. It's gonna be awesome. So.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Oh, you're gonna love it. Oh, you're gonna love going to grand. Cal is so beautiful. And the access to the California adventure park is just amazing. Unparalleled. And you can do what we did one day when you decide to do, like, you know, the rapids, what are they? What is it called, Brian?
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Grizzly River Rapids.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, grizzly River Rapids. And then head to the pool. Like, it's, like, perfect. Cause you're right. There you go.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah. He refuses to rise to do those rats.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Being wet, not in a swimsuit.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Well, that's what you have to go. What you do is you go, like, change into your swimsuit, go do the ride, and then go head to the. You know, take your pool for the afternoon. It's perfect. That's the only way to do it. We also do not. We hate being wet in the park, so we skip, usually grizzly river rapids. Or when it was up and running, we would skip Splash Mountain at Disneyland because you get soaked on that ride. It's a little. It's different than the Disney world version, although, obviously they're both. They're both being refurbished now to be Tiana, but when it was operating, very different ride. Well, anyway, I could talk forever, and we could talk forever about park stuff. I need to tell folks that Rob is a huge Star wars fan so much that he tricked Amy into naming their sons after, like, original Star wars characters. So I just need to put that out there because. And the reason I have to do that is I want to know, why did you choose. You're a big Star wars fan, Rob. Why did you choose a Marvel day at Sea Cruise?
Star Wars Day at sea right now.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: There is no Star Wars Day at sea because that would have been the focus. But so both of our kids are actually much more into Marvel than they are into Star wars. Right. So, one, it helped that there wasn't a choice, but two, they, like, they both love Spider man and Iron man. And so being able to be in an environment that we did go to Avengers campus when it, you know, the year it opened in 22, which was fine, but it wasn't. And we'll get into this. It wasn't the same level of accessibility to those characters that it is on. On a Disney cruise and especially on a Marvel day at sea. So I had been eyeing Marvel Day at sea way back when it was on the magic, so I feel like I came in Disney Cruise so late that, like, some of the things, I've got such fomo for what I missed, and so I wanted really to do it on the magic, right. But then it moved to the dream, and we looked at it last year, and they had that whole. Do you remember the Disney promotion? It was like, your Disney plus member, you can, you know, bring two kids for free, pay full price for the parents. And I was like, come on, let's do this. Amy is a straight a student. I am not. So my qualms of taking the kids out of school, I, like, have zero hesitation, but Amy's kind of like, I don't know how many so far, how many we're going towards. And she's got, like, a budget and checkboxes that she's. She's counting where I'm just like, are they doing okay? Do we get any complaints? Like, come on, let's go. Like, you only live once, and they're only this. This age once. So, yeah, so, yeah, so we didn't do it in 22. No, 23. We didn't do it in 23 because we just couldn't get the calendar to. To line up. And then I probably about the most lead time I've given to a cruise was this one, because I said, all right, if I pencil it in, we only have to do three days out of school for Luke, right? And so because we. We bundle it with Martin Luther King day weekend, right? So we said, if we. If we leave right after school, and we. And we, you know, get him back in school the next day, three days out. And it's, you know, it's always a negotiation. So we made that deal.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: So I got it in early, and so that's just what we were doing. And so that's why. Marvel day at sea. That's it. We wanted to do it. They only happened during the school year, but to find it on that holiday weekend was just. It was kind of like, too good to pass up.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. That's fantastic.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: How old are the kids right now? What grades are they in?
[00:11:54] Speaker C: So Luke is. He's. He's eight and he's in second grade, so he's born later in the year. So he's an older second grader. And then Ben, who likes to sometimes be called Benny, like, he's five and he's in preschool because he's also born, like, right at the end of December. So he's, you know, also older for his age, but, yeah, so start kindergarten in the fall.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: So I got. I got.
[00:12:15] Speaker D: He's.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: I gotta say. I gotta say anything up until middle school, I was a straight a student, but anything up until middle school I view as, like, you know, like, come.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: On, let's go take a trip.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Let's go take a trip.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker D: And I do. I do lean that way. Like, I'm getting better. It's just I. I'm in the school out. I volunteer there all the time. So they see me. They're gonna be like, Amy.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:32] Speaker D: Knock this off.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So over achiever over here, she's the co president of the PTO at his school. So, like, the optics are a thing that she's worried about, whereas I just don't care.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Well, I will tell you, we. We have a similar struggle. And it is getting harder. The older they get it, the harder it is to pull them out of school. Because, like, now if Nathan misses three days of school, which he did a lot this year, it is actually. He has sexually make up work. And it didn't used to be that way. Right. But he's in fourth grade. So I would say, like, you know, you're at the prime stage where taking them out of school for a few days, not a big deal. And it will, but it will get harder as long I may or may.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: Not of use the Nathan rule as an argument in the negotiations.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:13:17] Speaker C: So, yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah, he's. And he's doing. I mean, he's doing great in school this year. This year was a little harder just because. Yeah, just because we took a little. A little bit much time out of school. And he will at the end of the school year. But whatever. Anyway, it is true.
[00:13:31] Speaker D: I mean, you can't make up that time with family, though. I mean, that's.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Yes, it's perfect. Exactly. Well, so let's talk about this cruise. You, six nights on the dream, Marvel Day at sea. You are sailing out of Fort Lauderdale then, right? Okay. Port Everglades.
[00:13:47] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So tell us, like, what was, how did you get down there? Did you know, where did you stay? Let's talk some of the logistics.
[00:13:55] Speaker C: Yeah. It was a five night cruise. And so what we did was no worries. Just want to make sure folks know we went out that night after school and we flew down. We had a direct, we're in the St. Louis area, but in Illinois. And so we had a direct flight in the evening to take us down. And it was the night before, and we just got there late, got the free shuttle to the airport or to the, to the hotel. Right. And, you know, it was super easy, right. I'm a very frequent flyer, and I've actually flown our kids, gosh, Luke, since he was like one or two months old. And so we've, like, got it down, packed. We always get the cringy looks from folks in the TSA pre check. Pre check line. Right. But, but we're usually fast. We're usually faster than they are. And so, like, we've got it down, packed. So it was super easy. Right. We fly southwest a lot. And so what ends up happening is with my status, I usually get on board early, early. And I protect. People are going to, are going to love, hate this on the comments, but I protect about four seats right. By myself. I usually get a. Make friends with a flight attendant to help me. And so super easy, right. And then once I usually try to pick the seats that don't recline. So I can tell people, hey, you don't want these seats anyway. And so. And so it's very small. Yeah, yeah. And they're little light, so they're not reclining. So. So we get those seats. Right. And it's a direct flight. I used to fly into Fort Lauderdale. Lauderdale a lot for business before COVID so I was very familiar with the airport. This was Amy and the kids first time, but I knew how to navigate it pretty well. What we, what we neglected to tell you earlier is that this started out as just us, right. And then it grew to my mom, who's gone on a few cruises with us, and then it grew to my sister and her family. So three more Patrick was with us. And then it grew to Amy's parents. Right. So if you remember from the beginning. Yeah. So they had never been on a cruise. They aren't really park people at all. Yeah. And so it grew to them because they wanted to get to experience it. So we had ended up having a group of ten across four state rooms right next to each other.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: All right. So we had Amy's parents with us, who are not flyers. So they were more of, like, the. Like, here's what you got to do. Come on with me. Like, don't worry about this. And this is where we'll go to get our bags. Like, we're perfectly fine. I said, just look at me. If I'm stressed out, then you get stressed up. But if I'm not stressed out, we are fine.
[00:16:10] Speaker D: And I just have to add, my dad, he is. He is so not a park person and not a Disney person that I was. I was shocked he agreed to go, but we had to actually show him video of castaway Key to prove to him that there weren't rides there. There wasn't. It's not a park that we weren't tricking him.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: He thought there was gonna be a castle when he walked off the ship, and so we had to do a walkthrough.
[00:16:31] Speaker D: Just very relieved.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: That's hilarious, because I feel like most people are showing their kids the videos of, like, you know, the ship and castaway key and all that, and you're showing, like, grandparents.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: Sorry, dad.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: If you listen, I love that. Okay, so you stay overnight in Fort Lauderdale and head to the port in the morning. What hotel did you stay at? And what was a Marriott?
[00:16:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a Marriott at the airport. And so, you know, I travel on business in Marriott, so it's super easy. You know, I want to say it was, like, five. I'll just say Fort Lauderdale in terms of its logistics is really easy because the airport and the port are, I want to say, maybe a ten minute override with traffic. Right? Maybe I didn't see it heavy enough to say it's longer, but they're super close to one another. So we just stayed at an airport, you know, adjacent hotel Marriott. And then they actually recommended. We said, do you guys have transport that we could purchase? They were like, yeah, we do. But if you have more than two people, it's just better to get an Uber or Lyft. So that's what we ended up doing, was we did. Which is fun fact for anyone trying to plan so many people. You can only do one Uber at a of time. So I did. This is the first time I've done this. I did a simultaneous Uber and a Lyft to make sure we could all go in two vehicles together, but it worked.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: You know what's funny about that is I feel like a lot of the Uber drivers, also lyft drivers, I would be waiting for, like, the same car to pull up and be like, I got. I got two.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right, so you head to the port, obviously. There's the new, beautiful Disney terminal there at Port Everglades. How does the check in process go? And you know, how long until you're on the ship?
[00:18:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So I want to say it was probably about 30 minutes, but we tried to get there, like, right at our port arrival time. Now, because we had her parents, which were new new sailors or new new passengers, they didn't have any status, so they had to go to the, you know, the regular one, and we didn't want to leave them behind. Be like, see ya. We're going to our castaway line. We'll meet you at the end. I wanted to make sure it was as painless as possible for them, so we stayed with them while my family went through the castaway line. They probably got through 510 minutes before we did. And it wasn't security that was the bottleneck. It really was that check in process that was the bottleneck. So. But once we got up there, it was. It was totally fine.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: It was.
[00:18:54] Speaker C: But we didn't wait in the terminal at all. It was already calling all boarding groups. I think it was up to 25. And we were. I want to say we were like, 810 and 13 were the three.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Oh, wow. So, yeah. That's great. Yeah. Well, this was your first time boarding the Disney dream. You had been on the fantasy before, obviously, her sister ship. But how did you feel walking onto the Disney dream, and your family name is announced, of course, to start your cruise? What's that feeling?
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. And so I'm gonna do a call out to one of your guests who's very famous. He likes to call himself the Disney villain. I think Josh Wilson is not the Disney villain. I think he's the Disney rocket, the raccoon from guardians. We just haven't gotten him enough love to open that heart of his. I can tell you the announcement of.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: The best analogy ever, Rob, with my guardian shirt on.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Right. So. And by the way, I'm a huge fan of Josh Rosen. I love all of his episodes that he's been on. He's like, my favorite, right? Not that they're not all great, but he's awesome. But that moment of getting your family announced. I'm sorry. Is so super special. I can understand not enjoying percepts. I can't understand not enjoying that moment, because what. What we've done, we kind of had this tradition for Ben. This is, like, Ben's special moment when we. When we go on the ship. I asked him, how do you want us to be introduced? And so, like, the first time, he had a way of saying, like, talking about our family, he would. He had this phrase of, like, the whole nation family. Like, that's our last name. And so he. So I said, made sure that they announced us that way, like, all of our first names and then the whole family. Right, because that was the way he said it. And then when we got to our next one, he's really attached to his. His stuffed animals. And so we introduced the stuffed animal, and then the next one, it was a different stuffed animal, and then this one was, of course, somehow we got split up. Like, there were three different rows, and for whatever reason, like, the parents, the grandparents didn't stay with us. And so I had it written down phonetically, how to say all three family names. But then I turned around, and everyone was gone. And so really quick, I looked down at Ben and said, how do we. How do you say it this time? And he goes, I want, you know, our names. And then his favorite stuffed animals name is stuffy so. And stuffy and so, like, for us, I know it's like, it's 30 seconds, but it just kind of set. It's that. It's like that pallet cleanser of all the stress coming through the ports, right? And once you get through there, you know, your. Your. Your adventure has started, and now you are. You are on the ship. You are ready to go. It starts. It's about to become your fun. Like, it's the fun time. So. Yeah, so, I don't know. I feel passionately about that.
[00:21:39] Speaker D: Well, Benny, he's our shy one. He's quiet. He doesn't want attention. He just. He wants to stay out of the spotlight. But for some reason, he really likes that part. So I get always just. It makes me tear up every time. Like, oh, he's getting it for a minute, and, yeah, and it's just cute to see. So, like, it's just a really, really fun part of it.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I have to point out, you know, for those watching on video, I have to point out behind Rob's head is two animators palette drawings done by Luke and Ben. One of them is a Spider man, and the other is Iron man. And they're just really, really cute.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: They are really good.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: They are really well done, especially, as you mentioned earlier, they were done at, like, ages five and three, which is turn six. Yeah. So pretty amazing. All right, well, so you board the cruise. The magical moment begins. I'm going to actually ask for us to be, you know, now introduces Bear bear and family, because Nathan stuffy Bear Bear goes on every.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: You know. You know what we have never. We have never followed through with is just having them introduce us as the DCL duo on board. We toy with it every time, but then we're like, no, no, we're just not gonna do it.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: We're. Okay, we're gonna.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: All right, Brian Bear Bear and the DCL duo. Because celebrity.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah, and Nathan.
[00:22:53] Speaker D: I think we're gonna forget Nathan.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't forget Nathan. I think we're going to do that in June then, Brian, it won't be for the podcast cruise because we're actually back to back for the podcast cruise, so we won't get announced. That's one thing. People who are listening, if you're back to back, typically, you get on the ship before they start doing those announcements.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: You can buy, but you can bypass that by just going with the regular boarding. So maybe that's what we can. Okay, yeah, bypass your early on. Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: You just wait in the port until they open up. Regular boarding, and then you can do it. But, yeah, but most of the time, people just want to get back on the ship, Brian, so that's what you.
What were the ports that port stops that you all had? We'll touch on ports a little bit, and then I want to focus, obviously, on Marvel day at sea stuff. But what were the ports that you all had?
[00:23:43] Speaker C: Yeah, so we had. There was really just two ports and then two days at sea. So there was. Cozumel was the first port, but really, the whole activity of the ship happened on that first day at sea. That was the marvel day at sea. So the way the itinerary went was, like, embarkation day at sea, Cozumel day at sea. Castaway. Right. And so Castaway was a second port, and we've had our first experience on Disney cruise with fantasy, and we didn't make it to Castaway, so we always have it in the back of our mind, and we were prepared this time. I told the kids, I said, it does not look good right there's. Going to be rain. I don't know. There's going to be high winds. We probably aren't going to make it. And if we make it, it's a, it's a, you know, a pleasant surprise. And so I was shocked. We'll get to it. But I was shocked that we were able to get to castaway. Not only get there, but also have the day that we had. It was, it was great. But those were our ports. Was castaway and Cozumel.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Awesome. Let's talk Cozumel first. What did you book, if anything? And what did you guys end up getting up to on Cozumel? Or did you stay on the ship?
[00:24:42] Speaker C: No. So we, we on Cozumel have a place that we like to go, and I'm almost afraid to share it, but no, it's, it's amazing. It's called Nachi Kokom. It's not a secret. Right. We found out about it on the Internet, but basically it's, you know, you pay a fixed price, and they don't, they don't ever book with cruise ships, so you have to book them independently on your own. And you take a quick, like, I think it's like a 20 minutes taxi ride, which, you know, that's always fun. If you, if you're not used to, like, riding in a taxi in Mexico, it can be a little bit of a shock. It's not going to be like an Uber in the US.
[00:25:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: But, you know, once you get there, it's very much like that kind of castaway feel in that. It is a, you know, it's a beach club where they limit the access. I want to say I'm going to get the number wrong, but I think it's roughly like 150 or 200 guests maximum per day.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: And so, yeah. And so it's super laid back. It's, it's very relaxing. And then they, you know, they feed you like, I think, a four or five course, you know, mexican beach inspired meal. It's an, you know, an open bar. So that always gets, you know, Amy and I in trouble with the margaritas while having to parent. And so it's just a lot of fun. And it's not super expensive, I want to say it's something like, at the time, it was 60 for each adult, but I think it's gone up a little bit, maybe to 70. And the kids are like $20. And so it's just, wow. So long as you can get past the cab ride and the navigating, the, you know, the port and all the shops to get to where the cabs are. Right. Once you're there, it's just, it's pure relaxation. I almost wish we had had more time. Yeah.
[00:26:13] Speaker D: That's always our complaint is that we always have to get back. And so we're not quite ready to leave. We've done it twice and we'll keep going there. It's beautiful.
[00:26:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Now, how long do you usually give yourself?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Can you, can you spell that one? So if folks out there want to find it, you can misspell it so that folks can't find it, too.
[00:26:29] Speaker C: I guess that's, it's not so Nachi. And then I'm probably saying around, but cocom, I believe so cocom. And that's two words. Right. But it's. I cannot recommend it enough. So much so that I don't want to recommend it.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
We've never heard of it. And we, I will say, like, we've, we've done like the, the beach excursion that they, that Disney offers and we were kind of. I don't know. It's okay. It's not great. It's not. Yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: The playa mia, I think.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But I would love a better option. For sure. How long, you know, how long typically do you give yourselves to get back to the ship? I know that's the sort of the thing that I think makes some people reluctant to an outside excursion.
[00:27:19] Speaker C: So we're really safe and conservative. We usually give ourselves 2 hours. Right. So if it's leaving at three, we would start, you know, we try to get in the cab by one.
[00:27:28] Speaker D: So you got a cab for you?
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Yeah. They will get you a cab back. Yep.
[00:27:33] Speaker D: So, I mean, it's very easy. That's probably the easier part. Getting back is much easier.
[00:27:36] Speaker C: Yeah, getting there is a harder than getting back, but yeah, we try to make sure that there's no, there's no.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Poor running for error.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah, there's. Yeah. You don't want to be on one of those YouTube videos running for the.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Exactly. We'll be on this one, not that one.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Perfect. Perfect. Okay. So let's talk about castaway. You mentioned that you, you. There was some concern you weren't going to get into castaway because of weather. Yeah, you did.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: It was January. It was January. So, you know, the weather's hit and miss in that area. And so the whole time I was watching the weather and it was forecasting, you know, I've seen all the videos where there's, like, the washout castaway day. And I've watched all the videos where, you know, they're trying to get into the. Into the port, but they just can't. The wind is, like, knocking them off of their direction to get into the area that's dredged out before they pull into the dock. Right. And so I was just convinced. I just told myself, because I was hearing, like, I think it was like, 30, 25 or 30 knot winds where they were forecasting, which I'll be honestly, I don't know what a knot is, but I just had it. I had, in my head, I was like, we're just not going to make it. We're not. We've experienced it before where we did make it. It's just not going to happen. We're going to get an extra day at sea. Which, to be honest, I don't know why Disney cruise line does this, where they put cast away on that last day, but it is a special type of torture because you are. You want to enjoy that day. You want to relax. Right. And you want to have that really beach experience.
Right. And it takes a lot out of you, but then you got to get back, and now you got to do the packing up.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: I know.
[00:29:06] Speaker C: Which isn't hard, but it's extra hard after castaway. Right. So I just had it in my head.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. My favorite itinerary that includes castaway is one where you go to Castaway on the second to last day, where you have a full c day after. And there are some itineraries that have that. But more itineraries have castaway as that last full day, so. Yeah, totally agree. Well, I need to know, Amy, what your dad thought of castaway after showing him all the videos and making sure he understood he wasn't going to a theme park. Yeah.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: And it was not what he wanted. He didn't want to get off the ship and see a castle and a big roller coaster and.
[00:29:47] Speaker D: Yeah, that was fast passes.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: All right.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: He thought we had found a very.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Far away from perfect day. Stay far away from perfect day at KmUk. Okay.
[00:29:58] Speaker D: They are talking about a different cruise, and they're not sure what. What they're gonna do next time, but I will let them know that because. Yeah, he just. He wants to sit. He wants to sit with a beer and look at the beach, and that's all he wants to do. And that's what he did.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: He.
[00:30:09] Speaker D: He got a spot in the shade.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: I got a bucket. Yep.
[00:30:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Princess. Princess Key. Princess Key is for him, not for.
[00:30:17] Speaker D: Okay, I will tell him. He liked the barbecue at cookies.
[00:30:21] Speaker C: Yeah, cookies, too.
[00:30:22] Speaker D: Yeah, he just chilled, and he thought it was great.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:25] Speaker D: So he had a great time.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: And that's the beauty of castaway, right? Like this. Multi generational cruisers can have a wonderful time. The kids can be, you know, playing at the water's edge or swimming out to pelican plunge and doing, you know, a couple of water slides can go, you know, meet and feed stingrays, and their grandparents can just sit on the beach with a beer in hand.
That's what we did.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: We kind of spread out. Like, Rob and Luke snorkeled.
[00:30:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And it was cold, so that was the one thing. The water was very cold. So, yeah, we lasted about 30 minutes. And, you know, I have a real love of that snorkeling area only because there's a sunken nautilus in it. So it brings me back to my magic kingdom days, and I always go there, and I'm probably breaking the rules, but I always go swim over it. And I literally just padded for a second, and then I move on because it's just like, that's the only connection I'll ever have to that ride. Cause it will never come back anywhere other than what's in Tokyo. But that's totally different, so.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that means, I guess, you have to go on the treasure because you're gonna have to experience the periscope pub. Yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's 10,000 leagues under the sea themed. And it's nice because it's that nod back to the old ride that, of course, doesn't exist anymore. Like many. Like many rides. Like the great movie ride we mentioned earlier.
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Yeah, well, yeah.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: So let's. Let's get. Jump back onto the ship, and we're going to rewind to your full sea day, which was your Marvel day at sea. Now, Brian and I have not experienced Marvel Day at sea. We hear lots, of course, about the. The deck show heroes unite. But before we get to end, we've also heard, by the way, that deck show on the dream version is longer than the version that they have or that they have on the wonder when she's doing marvel stuff in, at least in the Pacific sailings. So. So, yeah. Tell us what kind of stuff was going on during Marvel Day at sea, and how does that come that experience? Compare, you mentioned at the top of the show, Rob, to the Avengers campus and the experience your kids had there at Disneyland.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So first thing I'll tell folks. And Amy, I want you to chime in too. But is that Marvel day at sea should be rebranded to Marvel Marathon. Go from beginning of the moment you wake up to the moment you can keep your eyes open. Day at sea. Right. It is a, it is an absolute marathon. And so, and it even backs up 30 days before the cruise. So. So we don't have you. We have two boys. Right. We don't have a daughter. So we've never had to do, like, the royal gathering. Like, we didn't have. We've never had to worry about getting those sorts of things. We've joked that we were going to make them do it once, but we've never actually done it. So this was the first time we had to schedule the, the character interactions early on. And it's not all of the characters. So there's three groups. There's the headquarters, there's Asgard, and there's guardians, I guess, inter cosmic folks, but it's basically guardians of the Galaxy. And those are the ones that you have to schedule 30 days, like, booking.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: The princess meet and greets and, like, what we used to experience on Star Wars Day at sea. You had a couple of meet and greets you would book at that 30 day mark. Now it's, I think it's the, it's basically when online check in is. And they're free. Free ticketed meet and greet events, let's put it that way. So.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: But it's actually.
Yeah, yeah, but if you have status, like, if you have silver or gold. Right. You'll check in days before it, and then everyone has the same 30 days that they have to. Yeah. And so. So that's the first thing you have.
[00:34:01] Speaker D: To worry about doing it.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: We didn't have issues, but we had three people on different computers from different locations going at it all at once.
[00:34:08] Speaker D: Each of us get one.
[00:34:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And there was a strategy to it because we wanted to make sure that we got as many as we could on that day at sea because there are some, like, makeup sessions on one's, on pirate night, and then there were two on the second day at sea. But what our strategy was, our second day at sea was going to be our Apollo brunch. So we wanted to get every scheduled thing done on that first, the official day at sea when everything was going on.
[00:34:33] Speaker D: So I think we had what the first one was, like at 1010 and then, so maybe ten one and two, I think, is how we.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it was something like that. But, but, but it sounds like we had a nice break. No. Every moment of that in between was this other character who you wouldn't know who was where until you got on the ship and you kind of strategized how you were going to do it. And so, you know, our nephew Patrick is a major Captain America fan. Like, since he was little, like, he's loved Captain America, and it doesn't matter which Captain America it could be Steve Rogers, could be Sam Wilson. He actually knows that there's five captain America's, and I'm just like, does he.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Read the comics then?
[00:35:10] Speaker C: Because he does, and his dad does, too. Right? So, and so, like, it was very important that he met both Sam Wilson as well as Steve Rogers. And then there were characters that we wouldn't have necessarily sought out, but they were so good. Like, I can only equate the interactions we had with some of these characters to the same interactions we had on the star cruiser. Right, where. But they're. But they're mainstream characters. They're not characters just made for this event where you had to learn who they were and what their personality was. These are characters, you know, from the movies, and they were just like, the theme is all the Avengers and some of the villains have come onto the ship and are going to be on the sailing with you for the rest of the time. And so it's just got that real, like, kind of, like, spontaneous nature to it. And so we had our three scheduled, but then everything else, we had to figure out how we were going to do and what was going to be our strategy. And there was a lot of getting in the line about 40 minutes before the line, like, actually opened or getting in the line of the character that was there before the character you wanted so that you could kind of double dip them. The only thing I can equate it to that I've done, Disney Cruise line, would be when we did our Alaska sailing, the glacier day characters on the top deck. Like, it was. It was that again. But that only lasted 5 hours for us. This was the entire day, and it was so much fun.
[00:36:34] Speaker D: It was so much fun. You're kind of making it sound bad. It was. It was great. We were exhausted, but we had a blast.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: So it was.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: It was.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: What characters? Like, what characters?
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah, give us some examples. Yeah. What were some of the Captain Marvel like?
[00:36:46] Speaker B: She.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: No, miss.
[00:36:48] Speaker D: Miss Marvel. Sorry. Miss Marvel was incredible. Just the amount of times we ran into her, and, I mean, she was amazing.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: Yeah. So Miss Marvel. Shang Chi. Black Panther. That's a black panther. T'challa. Black Panther. Shuri, you got both.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Black Panther.
[00:37:04] Speaker C: Yeah, both were there. So. And in some of the scheduled things. So when you got to Asgard, you might get Loki or you might get Thor. You might get mighty Thor, who some people call lady Thor.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: Jane. Right. And so we lucked out because our kids are very anti bad guy, so meeting a bad guy would have been not good for us. So we lucked out really well that we got Thor in mighty Thor. And I didn't even. I didn't even share this. Right. We went all in on costumes. So Luke was. Was Peter. Regular Peter Parker, Spider Man. Benny was Iron man. And I dressed up as what I like to call. Well, he's called Peter B. Parker from the Spider verse series.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:50] Speaker C: So I like to call him dad BoD Spider man. So that's what I was dressed up as. And I went all in. I had a steel toe boot on 1ft, and I had one converse slip on, on the other foot. Walk the whole ship that way the whole day. Right. And it's. And. But other people got really into. There were President Loki's. There was. Gosh, there was a guy. It was a Tony Stark. Stark closed. Tony Stark with an arc reactor in his chest and a Captain Marvel that was out. That was, I think, a little better than the actual Captain Marvel.
[00:38:21] Speaker D: Scarlet witches.
[00:38:22] Speaker C: Scarlett. Yeah. There was a scarlet witch. And so there was that. There was that, like, again, gave me a lot of star cruiser vibes because you had people that were just very into this, along with these very spontaneous character interactions that were happening throughout the ship. They would just pop up so much. So not jumping ahead, but on our. Our second day at sea. So one of our traditions Luke has really gotten into this is family karaoke at 11:00 at night for an eight year old.
[00:38:51] Speaker D: I wish they would change it. It kills me every time we have to do it, but I'm like, oh, my God, I'm tired.
[00:38:55] Speaker C: But the second day at sea, without warning notice in the back of the room, Miss Marvel and Shang Chi show up to karaoke. And not only that, they each do a song and bring kids on stage. So Luke and Patrick. Ben wouldn't do it. Luke and Patrick are the only kids in the entire party. The whole, you know, event that sung with Shang Chi.
[00:39:19] Speaker D: I want it that way.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: I want it that way.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah. It was no way he would have won it that way. Oh, my God.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Yeah. So just those little. That level of interaction is just something that, like, you can't plan for. You just got to be present and you got to be willing to just jump in with. And it was. It was great. Yeah, I think it was. This might rival our Alaska cruise in terms of, like, fun.
[00:39:42] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:39:43] Speaker C: There's a lot more things I loved about Alaska that this one just can't compare to you. But this was very fun.
[00:39:48] Speaker D: Yeah, it was.
[00:39:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: 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. 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. 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 mypathunwinding.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.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Ryan, as we sit here, are you looking up those dates for the 2025 Marvel days at sea that they just announced? Because as I'm sitting here, I'm not.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Because we have so many cruises booked.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Already so badly, and I just, you know, now. So right now, they, you know, they, as we're recording this, they literally, just like two days ago, I think, it was announced the dates for the 2025 Marvel Day at sea. And. And somebody, I think somebody online seems to have confirmed. I don't know if this is true, but they think they've confirmed that there won't be Pixar day at sea in 2025.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It's looking like no Pixar looking like no Pixar day at sea. Marvel Day at sea is happening on eight select sailings on the Disney dream out of Fort Lauderdale five night between January 27 and March 15, I believe.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, and so the reason I bring this up is, you know, you never know when Disney's going to end these things, I think. I mean, Marvel Day at sea is, like, probably a cash cow for them at this point. And they've invested, I'm sure, a lot in the.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Ton in Pixar day at sea.
I can only hope that is on hiatus. I think they invested far less in Star wars. I'm hoping that that might come back occasionally. But I think what's going on is you have so much Marvel content coming through Disney. Yes. They want to do Marvel Dancey for all the tie ins, and Pixar's got a bunch of new movies that are going to be coming out. Out. And so I'm hoping that that one's on, like, hiatus for the time being and comes back in 26. Well, later in 25 or in 2020.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Or later in 25. Yeah. Fair.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: I mean, there's a bunch of stuff that's on hiatus that I hope they bring back. New Orleans on hiatus, Panama Canal on hiatus. I'm hoping this is just like, you know, we're trying to get all the ships right and all the ports right. And then all that stuff will come back. But I'm hoping that Pixar day at sea is not a casualty of this. I'd love to see them bring back Star Wars Day at sea on occasion. And they're missing. I said this the other day on one of our Instagram X, which I refuse to call X Twitter.
I think they missed a sure bet by not putting star wars day at sea on the wish with the hyperspace lounge.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Anyway.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Hashtag end of rance.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Well, especially now that the halcyon is closed. Right. So, like, I understand there isn't maybe enough demand for a full time Star wars immersive experience, or, you know, at least it not.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: They should have. They should get the wish into a short, dry dock immediately, gut the lounge from the halcyon and put it on the wish. It would be amazing.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: And they could do some cool, like, stuff in the. That creature lab thing that they've got in the kids club when they have it for.
[00:43:54] Speaker C: Yeah, turn it into the engineering room. Right.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: All that holographic. Holographic sabacc would be fantastic. And they have the table just sitting there gathering dust, so.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: I know. Anyway, we could. We could talk about Halcyon stuff and Star wars stuff for hours. But let's. My. My point was in asking Brian this question is, I'm just afraid that we won't book it, and then it's, like, going to be gone or it's going to be on hiatus or something like that. When we want to. To be fair, we are the bigger Marvel fans. Nathan is not actually, like. He's just not really into superheroes. He's never been really into superheroes. Not that he doesn't like them. It's just not.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: It's nothing to do with superheroes. He's not into content that lasts for more than two and a half minutes.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Anyway. But it sounds like an amazing day with character meet and greets out the wazoo.
Did you go to any of the. I don't know if trivias or family game shows? And did they have ones that were Marvel themed? I know they usually do a Marvel trivia, but did they do special stuff for Marvel C as well?
[00:45:02] Speaker C: Yeah. And so they had entertainment as well. They had a stage show around doctor strange and, like, the magic Academy and students of his that were learning, you know, learning their craft and had to go through a trial type of thing, which it was good for what it was, right. I would say better than the golden Mickeys, not as good as believe type of thing. And so. But it was great. It was a nice, nice moment to sit down during the day. So that was great. They also had. And this one really, I feel, can't be missed unless if you're just opposed to, you know, kind of old timey. So it's basically themed after the first Captain America movie, the first Avenger. We love what it was called, but it's basically a USO show.
[00:45:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:45:44] Speaker C: From World War Two and supposed to be like, right after the war is won. And it's USO show. So you've got dancers, you know, forties style singers singing kind of that, you know, that really old style of music. Our nephew is like a really old soul, so he really got into it, loves that kind of stuff. And so we just. We got there. That's one where I had done the research beforehand and found out that we needed to get there about 40 minutes early. And so that was great. There was. Yeah. And there was trivia going on. Evolution.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Okay, so that was an evolution. And what about the Doctor Strange show? What venue was that held in?
[00:46:19] Speaker C: That was in the main theater.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Oh, the Walt Disney Theater. Okay, great. Yeah. But that's. I mean, that's smart to do the research on, you know, what do I need to prioritize and what, you know, how early do I need to get there, especially when. And you're trying to do all of these character meet and greets at the, at the same time. And you mentioned special trivias. We got to talk. The heroes unite deck party.
What did you all think? What did the boys think as well?
[00:46:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So heroes unite. I'm not even sure where to start. By the way, there's a pretty well known vlogger who is on our. His name is Adrian, and he does, his channel's name is theme park Express. So he documented every day of our, of our cruise. So anyone who wants to kind of understand our experience, five videos or about an hour each. But it's really great to see what he was able to capture. But heroes unite. And he does a really good review of heroes unite. Heroes unite. I can't even describe it. So basically, the storyline, not to give too much away, is you're going to go through a multiversal adventure where the only constant character through it is going to be Spider man. And it's just a really.
I. I love a lot of the stage shows that they do and the deck shows. This was next level, right? Because you just had stunts that were happening behind you, over you, in front of you, to the side of you. They were incorporating fireworks. It wasn't just like, here's the stage show, and now here's the fireworks. It was, like, in the middle of it, Iron Man's taken off. Boom, there goes a firework. Because that's.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:47:50] Speaker C: And so it's just, I don't know how to describe it. And I went into this sailing thinking we're finally going to see Beauty and the beast, and I'll finally be able to answer your questions correctly. But heroes unite is better, and I think it had a better story. And it's just. It's just a very good. It's such a good stage show, I think you thought.
[00:48:10] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I was just gonna say I don't usually love the stage shows up on deck, because, like, it's usually late, it's crowded. I wanna sit down. You can't do all that. And so, like, I'll go see them, but they're never my favorite part. But this show was incredible. Like, I would watch it again and again. I didn't know what to expect. Kept me guessing. Like, it was just really cool and such neat elements.
[00:48:31] Speaker C: And every hero, every character that we talked about having an interaction with made their way at some point into the show and then was there for the final finale. And so it's just the story in that show. It's just not to be missed. And it kind of. I get massive fomo thinking about the folks that were on the trans Pacific crossings that, like, weren't expecting heroes unite to happen, and then they just got it. So, like, I had my expectations, like, we're going to see heroes unite. We got to see it. But just to be like, oh, they're doing something on deck today. It's called heroes Unite. Let's go check it out. And then they get to see that. Wow. What a treat. So.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I will tell you, though, their show is a little bit smaller than the show version on the dream. I think it's just because they have less performers. Right. Like the. And for folks who have been on, I think the best. A good comparison is the fantasy and the wonderful. If you see frozen on both of those ships, it is the same show, but there's just a slightly bigger cast. So you get more trolls on the fantasy. So that's the way I like to tell people, because it's just, you know, the bigger ship has a bigger cast, a bigger. Because they have to have more stuff going on to fill, you know, the space, more character meet and greets, and, you know, so everything is a little bit, you know, a little bit bigger. So they. They can do. They can have more characters and more scenes on the dream than they can have on the version on a smaller ship, but. Sounds amazing, honestly. Sounds like the. The highlight, you know, for. For you all was all of this marvel stuff. What. What would you say was, like, what was the highlight for each of the kids?
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Gosh, for. For Luke, he would tell you his highlight was on the last night. There's a. There's a game show has nothing to do with Marvel. No, but there's a game show called, like, mount Mouseketeer Club or something. And literally, it's the show of, like.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: You want to medal your madness. I think it is.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker D: Yeah, that was it.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:25] Speaker D: But this may not always be that way, but when we.
[00:50:27] Speaker C: When we would, it was, like, five people. We have a lot of medals, and everybody who gets called on will get a medal. So if you really were hurting for that medal, let's get you in a lottery, and if you come up here, you're gonna get one, and we're gonna make. Even if you answer wrong, we're gonna.
[00:50:41] Speaker D: Make sure you don't crowd participation. Like, you just got to shout out and help him. So he was up there. He was nervous, but he did a great job. And he got his medal, and he was thrilled. So he's drawn pictures about it since we came back. He wrote a paper about it at school. So that was his highlight.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: Yeah, that was his highlight. Ben's highlight was probably when he got either when he got to meet Iron man, which happened really early on that marvel day at sea, or it was probably, I would say, like, he just loves the ice cream. So just, like, the walking with us up to the deck and getting the ice cream and enjoying that. He's always a fan of that. He's pretty easy to please.
[00:51:23] Speaker D: I think mine, though, for them, was watching Luke karaoke with Shang Chi, which is so fun. So it was a good time.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: I love it. And your nephew Patrick is twelve, I think you mentioned when we were talking before we started recording, do you know what his favorite part of the cruise was?
[00:51:42] Speaker D: Miss Marvel.
[00:51:43] Speaker C: I think just hanging out with Miss Marvel, followed her around.
[00:51:46] Speaker D: It was kind of like on the halcyon, he kind of hung out with Ray on this. I mean, he was off on adventures with her. She would, like, take him by the hand and run off with him.
[00:51:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:55] Speaker D: I mean, it was just like, day after day, he go. There he goes again with that.
[00:51:58] Speaker C: I think he just liked the fear, but he loved the feel of the ship, of, like, I don't want to miss a moment because it's so spontaneous that to the point that when we went on the wish with them, we couldn't get him out of edge. Like, he loved edge. He thought the Oceania club was fine. He could go in there that time, but he thought edge was really cool, and he loved the freedom. But this time, he didn't even really want to go to edge. He went there, like, the first day, but then he was really all about, I want to be in the atrium because I don't know what's going to happen next. And it was just being present and being there to see that next level interaction that he really just kind of relished, I feel. Yeah, I agree.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: I love that. Well, I want to ask just a little bit about the kids club as we're winding down here.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: Your boys are both. I have one more question about Marvel de at sea merch.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Was there Marvel day at sea merchandise in the. In the shop? And what was it like?
[00:52:47] Speaker C: Probably the one we point is the merch.
[00:52:50] Speaker D: There was one shirt, one shirt that said Marvel Gates with some characters on it. There could have been something better, you know?
[00:52:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:58] Speaker C: Just the normal. There was more of the Marvel regular merch that was always there.
[00:53:03] Speaker D: Well, I think I would have bought it for the kids, but I didn't see kids sizes. I only saw adult sizes, too. That was a bummer.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I have noticed a lot of people getting, you know, t shirts and things made before going on Marvel Day at sea. And I'm sure I'm surprised they don't.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: Have, like, the add ons. They sell it, like, eventually put some Avengers campus stuff on the ship or something, you know? I mean.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, there was some, like, there was tumblers, right, but those are the same tumblrs you can get on the wish for world of Marvel. Right. So as I said, there's one shirt, and it went quick. And so I've. I saw better shirts, I felt, on etsy than the ones that they were selling. So, yeah, I missed opportunity for them, but, you know, absolutely made me spend less the money.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and, you know, you mentioned a lot of people either, you know, dressed up in, like, full on, kind of, you know, themed costumes. I'm sure there were a lot of people who were just, like, sort of Disney bounding. A lot of people wearing, you know, t shirts that they either made themselves or bought off Etsy or just regular Marvel t shirts. Yeah. So it's a. It is a fully, you know, for those listening themed cruises on Disney people, it's not just wearing the ears. Right, like, where people do bounding and wearing the ears, like, on any cruise, but they really go, like, whole hog on a marvel day at sea or a Halloween on the high seas or even a Mary time. Like, they really dive into that theme and get dressed up for those events. But, yeah, I'd love to hear what the boys think of the Oceaneers Club. You know, obviously, the first, that first sea day, they're not spending any time in the kids club because you're running around to all these events. But, yeah, what did they think of the Oceaneers Club? And did you notice any sort of changes now that they've changed the age range? Obviously, it's now three to ten year olds, and both your boys are in that age bracket. But was there anything different about their experience in the kids club than on previous sailings?
[00:55:00] Speaker D: I just. I wanted to pop back for 1 second. We had forgot to mention there was, like, a fashion show on Marvel day at sea. Oh, yeah. So when you were talking about Disney bounding, I was like, yeah, there was this. It was in the afternoon.
[00:55:11] Speaker C: It was late, but, yeah, a celebration of costumes. Right.
[00:55:15] Speaker D: They play it up, and it was packed. I mean, like, there were tons of people participating, watching. So it was very cool. And if you are gonna dress up and participate, like, you gotta.
[00:55:24] Speaker C: You gotta make sure you do that. Yeah.
[00:55:26] Speaker D: So, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go back.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: No, I love that. I didn't realize they were doing that. That's awesome. That sounds really fun.
[00:55:33] Speaker D: That's very cool.
[00:55:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:33] Speaker C: And there were things we didn't get to do, too. So there was, like, a show that I think they also do an Avengers campus with the dormologe, the. The soldiers in Wakanda, where they teach them, like, the art of, you know, being a soldier and whatnot. We didn't end up doing that. I had researched beforehand, and I'd heard it's at Avengers campus, and there's more characters in it. Like, usually there's one soldier. It's just Okafi, I think is her name. But. But, yeah, so. So there were a few things we didn't get to do. We had to pick and choose. But, yeah, it's one of those. And you guys tell all of your listeners, which is great advice, you cannot do it all. You really just have to, you know, at least one person should research, even though there will be spoilers, and just kind of, like, prioritize what are those important things and make sure that as soon as you, like, even if you're waiting in the. In the port, in the terminal, as soon as you can get that ship, Wi Fi start going through. And Harding, the things that are important. Right.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: So really making sure that.
[00:56:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:30] Speaker D: Going back to the kids club, I think you. You dropped them off. I didn't do as much.
[00:56:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So what's interesting about the dream, which is why I think that, you know, there. There's kind of this reverse logic of why Marvel deity at sea is on the dream. There actually is no Marvel area of the Kids club on the dream. It's actually Disney Infinity, which is now kind of a defunct game on Xbox where you had, like, the action figures and they download into the game and you play as them, some of which are Marvel, but many of which are not. The kids loved it. Luke really enjoyed that area because he's just starting to really get into video games and starting to enjoy them, whereas before, it was kind of like, it was too much and he didn't really want to play. But I think they both really, really had fun. And we learned a new trick on this one because we've been late dining people even since Ben was three, and we've had at least four dinners across our sailings where he's fallen completely asleep right to the point you have to hold them. And so the new trick that we've learned, especially, like, when we're in a main dining room, like royal court or palace, the princess ones, we said to them, you know, do you guys just want to eat? And then we'll put you in the. We'll drop you off a kids club so you don't have to sit through the dinner. And so we started doing that, and they really had fun with that. They enjoyed that a lot more. So they would have, you know, room service or deck food, which is more their palate. And then we drop them off at the. At the kids club, and then we had a really nice adult dinner, like a grown up dinner. So it was a nice balance, I feel. But they loved it. They. They told me this was either their favorite ship or second favorite ship in terms of the fun that they had. And they said the kids club was part of that.
[00:58:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think I missed the. I missed the. When they used to come around and get the kids from dinner. That has never come back, and I think it's a real miss on their part. I also don't think. I don't think they've returned to feeding the kids in the kids club at all, have they?
[00:58:22] Speaker E: No.
[00:58:23] Speaker D: No.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: Correct. Not at all. Yeah. I don't even think they have brought back. They had for a while, like. Like, they would do cookie, like, making or something, and so then the kids could eat the cookies that they helped, you know, make, and I don't think they've brought that back even anything like that. Yeah. I mean, it's. I think the. The issue that they're worried about is not just like, well, of course there's, like, the cleanup issues and all of that, but I think part of it is just more of, like, they're worried about food allergy stuff. Right. Yeah. Which they have to monitor that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: Although, I'll tell you, once they get to. Once they get to a certain age, we will take Nathan to dinner. We'll get him fed, we'll get him his Mickey's Mac and cheese, and then he'll be like, can I go to the kids club? And be like, yep, have at it, buddy. See you later. And he just takes himself.
[00:59:05] Speaker D: I feel like we're close to that part.
[00:59:07] Speaker C: We're getting very close. We could have given Luke the checkout privileges. I just did not. There was just this.
[00:59:13] Speaker D: I wasn't ready.
[00:59:14] Speaker C: I don't know. Yeah.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: Aida's young for that. If he's, but if he, if he was there with like a friend who was like nine or ten, I feel like then, you know, that might be a little bit more comfortable, but eight sort of. Yeah, you're getting close, but maybe.
[00:59:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
And the problem with our boys is that they're very attached, especially Ben is very attached to Luke. So if Luke had the ability, and Luke was very fascinated by this concept. Cause I told, he's like, so wait, is there like a secret entrance that I go in and then a secret entrance that I come out? If I got in those persons, I said, no, no, no. It's just you don't have to have us here to go through the normal doors. And so he was just like, this is, this is amazing. Why didn't we do this? But, but we would have to leave Ben behind and we just, we know how that would go. That would be a instant message on the app that will give us the notification probably 15 minutes later that Ben is melting down, like, to leave.
[01:00:11] Speaker D: No, he does not. He's got to be a big brother.
[01:00:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:14] Speaker D: Yeah. And you had, you had asked about the changes in the, in the ages for the clubs and I think it didn't affect us too much yet because Luke and Ben still are together, still in the same club. Patrick, our nephew, he was not able to go with them, which, like we had said, he wasn't really in the clubs this time too much because he wanted to be out. He's, he does his own thing. He's a very mature twelve year old.
[01:00:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:34] Speaker D: And so he wants to hang with the adults. He's so mad he can't go to Palo. He can't even stand it.
[01:00:39] Speaker C: Yeah, those are the things that really bother him.
[01:00:40] Speaker D: He is counting down the cute, really. He orders like steak every night at.
[01:00:45] Speaker C: Dinner when he can orders up the adult menu.
[01:00:49] Speaker D: He's fine with it. But it makes me sad for in the future, like, I, you know, what will we do when Lucas too old and can't be with Ben anymore? Like, I wish that that wasn't the thing we have to worry about yet, but.
[01:00:59] Speaker C: Yeah, but we'll see. It's so weird to be thinking about that. But it's absolutely something that's like, like top of mind that once Luke turns eleven, what are we, what's going to be in our, like, what's going to be our plan for those three years? Right.
[01:01:12] Speaker A: So. Yeah, well, and, you know, maybe Ben will be at the point where he's not as attached to Luke at that point, but maybe he won't. Right. You don't know.
[01:01:21] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, we'll see.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:01:24] Speaker B: I actually don't think we've talked about this change much on the show, Sam. Just a little bit at times. You know, I was initially very anti this change. I still, I think, lean that way. I still think it's better to have some of those younger. I think the gap in age between a twelve year old and like a 14 year old in terms of knowledge and maturity about certain more adult based concepts is much broader than some of the other gaps that you would experience. So I struggle with it. At the same time, the age banding is narrower in some of these other cruise lines that we're going to sail. And Nathan really liked at one point he was. We did royal right. And it was like. I don't remember exactly.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: I think it was nine to eleven.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: Nine to eleven. He loved it. He absolutely loved it, because he's like, all these kids are close to me in age. So I think that first. I think that first year, like, you know, the first time you go, it's hard, and then as you go again and you're getting a little older, it's fine. I think my biggest criticism of the change overall is the way to solve whatever problem it was they had that led to this change is just more kids club staffing to help direct kids, make sure that they're able to monitor everybody, make sure they're, I think, frankly, can be inclusive of everyone, make sure all the kids are having fun, that they're all being included in things.
And frankly, the criticism we've heard from people who've now done it is lack of structured programming. In the older clubs, there's just. It's just basically a free for all, which, when you're a teenager, fine. But when you're kind of in between, some of those kids, especially in the younger age groups, need a little structure. They need something to glom onto to help them make friends, you know? And so, anyway, I just. I'd encourage Disney, who's probably not listening to the show and is yet, to take any piece of our advice. Increase your staffing and provide some structured programming if you're gonna make this kind of change. But otherwise, I think all you've done is shift the age gap problem up to another club and you're gonna have some incident in there and then what are you gonna do, right?
[01:03:17] Speaker A: So, yeah, now, there is one thing. There is one thing that they've changed that I have. We haven't, unfortunately, yet to have a guest on to talk about it. But I wanna put it out there right now that there was a change in programming for, I believe, the three to five year olds. They're now in sort of a structured activity group within the kids club. And so I think they can maybe opt out of that if they have an older sibling and sort of hang out with their older sibling. At least that's what we've heard through the Facebook groups. But in general, the three to five year olds are kind of in their own cohort within the kids club, which I think is a positive change. And I, you know, from the standpoint of a three year old and a ten year old really don't have much in common either. So. Yeah, so I'll just put that out there. But we. So if anyone's listening and they have a three, you know, maybe a three or four year old who is going to the kids club and is in that cohort and has had either a good experience or bad experience, we'd love to hear from you and hear how that's going well.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: And this is also now a problem. I think I've said this for. This is a problem for them for ship design, because they've built these massive kids clubs.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: Clubs.
[01:04:23] Speaker B: Massive. And I guarantee they were built on the demographics of the folks sailing, how much space, real estate they needed to accommodate kids of the age group that was defining the kids club at the time they built this thing. And now, you know, they're putting more pressure on spaces that were meant to accommodate, I think, fewer kids. The other thing is, I think that if they're going to make this shift, the other criticism I've heard is parents not loving the fit their eleven or twelve year old can check themselves out of edge on their own. Like, they're not ready to do it yet. They didn't have that privilege in the kids club. I heard one horror story of, like, a kid who just, he couldn't find his way back to his stateroom, so, you know, because he just didn't know how to do it and so got lost in the ship trying to find his stateroom. Right. And so I think it would be nice if they did have a way to let parents say, my kids shouldn't leave this space unless, you know, I'm here to get them. But again, space isn't designed that way on any of these ships. So. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We shall see. We shall see. But let's. Let's move on. Sam, where do you want to go? Next, as we sort of wind down this Marvel day at sea discussion, you.
[01:05:25] Speaker A: Know, I think the last thing we need to talk about is food. And then we can jump over to, you know, my torture in the rapid fire.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: All right, well, let's. Let's chat food. They don't do anything special menu wise for. Oh, no, they do. They have. Because someone posted a picture of. They have a. They have, like, a comic book menu, basically, right? Is that right?
[01:05:43] Speaker D: Yes. It's a very cool looking menu. It's all comic. And there's different foods from different themed characters. I mean, I like.
[01:05:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Different heroes.
[01:05:51] Speaker D: Like thors, something.
[01:05:53] Speaker C: Yeah. I will say that the comic book menu is the highlight of that food. Not that it's bad, but it's very forgettable. It wouldn't be on my top five or ten list, but it was fine. Yeah, the menu was very cool. We took pictures of it all. And it's very well themed, well designed. But, yeah, there is a special night during that first day at sea is Marvel menu, marvel dinner. But, yeah, it was fine. It wasn't the greatest. Maybe it was because we were in royal palace or royal court for that night, so it didn't feel very marvely. I wish we had been an animator so we would have gotten a lot of the art on the wall. But, you know, it was fine.
[01:06:32] Speaker D: Yeah, it was good.
[01:06:33] Speaker B: Let's talk Paolo.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So you guys did Paulo brunch, right? Not Paolo dinner. Correct.
[01:06:39] Speaker C: Correct.
[01:06:39] Speaker A: And this was not. But this was not your first time at Palo, correct.
[01:06:44] Speaker D: It was not our first time. It was my parents first time, which.
[01:06:47] Speaker C: We were very nervous about.
[01:06:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:06:49] Speaker D: My dad, he, you know, I keep teasing my dad. He likes. He eats a little teeny, tiny bit. We jokingly call him Giselle.
He doesn't eat very much. And so he was like, why are we gonna go eat more food? That's all we do on this cruise. But he did like it, so. But he just. He, like, ordered one entree and stuck with that.
[01:07:10] Speaker C: He didn't. Right. He didn't go crazy like we usually do. So we did Paulo brunch, which is. That's, like, now our go to. I wanted to find out a way to fit in. Remy or Remy brunch. There just wasn't any logistical way for it to work. So that's still on our list. We haven't gotten to it yet, but it's out there. But Paula brunch was great. I will say, though, the dream and the fantasy both. I don't know what is with those ships in terms of when they are moving the back of that ship, especially up where Paulo and where Meridian is, shakes, like, quite a bit. And to me, it's more of an annoying shake, but it really kind of gave my sister a lot of problems to the point that she really didn't eat anything, and they ended up not charging her for the experience because she couldn't eat. Oh, wow. And so that kind of was not great. So I would suggest for folks that are going to be on the dream or the fantasy, and they somehow have a NASA day and they're doing Paulo brunch. Go for that, so that it doesn't shake on you.
[01:08:09] Speaker D: Like, if you struggle with the season part or if the break bother you.
[01:08:13] Speaker B: What day was this?
[01:08:14] Speaker C: Like, the second day at sea.
[01:08:16] Speaker D: So towards the end.
[01:08:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Because there was no way it would fit in in Marvel day at sea unless if we decided we were going to forego half the day.
[01:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel like Paulo brunch. Like, it's on the calendar for an hour and a half, but if we. I mean, if you're really fast, you'll do it in an hour and a half. But I feel like in general, it's, you know, two. It can even be two and a half hours. And the bigger your party is, the longer it's going to be. Like, anytime we do it in the private room, it's like three plus hours. Yeah.
[01:08:45] Speaker B: Well, you said it was your second c day where you were going. You were heading back to.
[01:08:51] Speaker A: To Castaway.
[01:08:52] Speaker D: Castaway?
[01:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:53] Speaker C: From cozumel to Castaway.
Oh, yeah. No, I mentioned so you can get a non shaking experience.
[01:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I was gonna say. I was gonna say that's. That's probably a sizable distance for them to travel. So I'm guessing what's part of is going on is they are moving to try and get you on a cast away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:09:10] Speaker C: And. Yeah.
[01:09:10] Speaker D: We had seven people that day, and I think we were in there almost 3 hours. That was the longest one we've ever done. This is our third time, I think.
[01:09:17] Speaker C: Yeah, third time.
[01:09:17] Speaker D: First other two were just us. Oh, once with your mom and sister.
[01:09:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:21] Speaker D: So we've done just us two, then a group of five, and then this group of seven. And this was by far the longest day we had doing it.
[01:09:27] Speaker C: Yeah. But I so recommend. Granted, I've never been to Apollo dinner. I just can't recommend Paolo brunch enough. I just think it's a, it's a great experience, and it's very carefree. No decisions other than what do you want not do. I want to go prefix versus a la carte. Right. And we've taken your advice from the get go from the first time we went, which was we don't. We started to branch into the waffles. Right. But I don't really mess around with the breakfast stuff. I save all my appetite for the savory dinner stuff. But what I will say, and I'm going to have my. My josh moment here, is that the chicken parm is good. I would say you guys are sleeping on the gorgonzola grape pizza, which is never on the menu, but has always been available.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: And we always order it.
[01:10:13] Speaker A: We always order it. We always give it.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We recommended that.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: We didn't start out ordering that. Like, that wasn't one of our go tos. And then a waiter brought it to us, and I don't like blue cheese. And I actually was like, wow, this is, like, really good. So I will. I. We definitely order it now. But you're right. Like, that is sort of the. That is like a sleeper dish. One, because it's unknown because it's not on the menu. So unless your waiter offers it to you or you ask about it, you. You don't necessarily get it. But two, it sounds like it's disgusting and it's delicious.
[01:10:49] Speaker D: The first time I heard it, I'm like, what?
[01:10:51] Speaker C: No, it's the best.
[01:10:55] Speaker B: We always order, reliably a half sausage and gorgonzola grape. Like, we do half of.
[01:11:02] Speaker A: Well, sometimes we do. Well, if we are a bigger group, we order, like, one of each.
[01:11:06] Speaker B: No, but if it's just four of us, we order so everyone can have one piece of each and be satisfied knowing the amount of food that's coming. And then, yeah. Sam gets the chicken parm, I get the lasagna. And then I have taken to occasionally getting an egg dish, like an eggs Benedict. I've been trying the different eggs Benedict dishes that they have. I will occasionally get that in between the pizza and the main, but, yeah.
[01:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I had the frittata once, and I was disappointed with it. And so I've. I haven't. But I will say, I actually do kind of want to order the mickey waffle at some point because it's that really. It's the full size Mickey waffle. So I might have to. I think the next time we. To Apollo, I might have to. I'm not. I'm not going to cut anything from what I normally eat.
[01:11:46] Speaker B: Oh, you're just going to eat more. You're just going to eat more carbs.
[01:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't want to.
[01:11:52] Speaker B: I don't want to live with the sam that eats more in Palo.
[01:11:55] Speaker A: He doesn't. He doesn't.
[01:11:57] Speaker B: Because it's not my hot take on palos. I do not. There are lots of people out there who love that calzone. I do not like the calzone.
[01:12:04] Speaker A: Oh, I like. And I like the calzone.
[01:12:06] Speaker B: I'd rather have the pizza.
[01:12:06] Speaker A: Not as good as the pizza, but it's. But it's very good.
[01:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Anyway, controversial and hot tip with that Gorgonzola grape pizza. And this is where I'm really gonna show my stripes here, is that you have to pair it with the tomato soup. Now, I've heard the celery soup is really good. We've never gone that far, but. And this is gonna sound so unrefined, but you gotta get that tomato soup. And I've told the server the tomato soup and the pizza have to show up together. Yeah. That crust in that tomato soup is next level.
[01:12:35] Speaker A: That cr. Any of the crust. So if you get the pizza bread, like, that crust in the tomato soup is fantastic. It doesn't matter which. Yeah. Which pizza it is. That crust is awesome. And that crust is actually the pizza crust. They serve that in the bread bowl without toppings at dinner time. So you're one of your. One of the breads you get at the dinner time. Is that pizza. Pizza crust? Yeah.
[01:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:58] Speaker C: Well, okay.
[01:12:59] Speaker D: One of the bread says when the bread.
[01:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah, the breads in the bubble. Yeah.
[01:13:02] Speaker D: Cool.
[01:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:13:03] Speaker D: Yeah. We haven't got to do dinner yet, and that's next on our list. Sometimes time.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah, dinner is great. But the hard part is, like, when you're sailing with the kids and, you know, I mean, if you've got grandma and grandpa with you, then, you know, send grandma and grandpa with the kids to dinner and take Paulo dinner yourselves. Yeah. Love that.
[01:13:20] Speaker B: Well, I think we could talk about Marvel Day at sea all day. And Sam wants me to go online and book a cruise now, so I have to spend some time doing that this afternoon, apparently. But I think we have reached that point in the show where I need to hand you back to Sam for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules and a dash of judgment are the round we know as rapid fire. And, Sam, I think we have a special guest joining us for rapid fire.
[01:13:42] Speaker A: Morgan. We do. We have Luke Skywalker joining us for Rapid Fire. Hi, Luke. Welcome to the show.
[01:13:49] Speaker E: I'm not Luke Skatewalker, you know.
[01:13:52] Speaker A: I know.
[01:13:53] Speaker E: I'm just named Luke.
[01:13:55] Speaker A: I know. I'm just teasing. Yes, I know, Lucas. Well, thank you for joining us for rapid fire.
[01:14:00] Speaker B: Hold on a second. For those that, for those at home, you need to go check out the video of this portion because Luke's reaction was priceless. But, Sam.
[01:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah?
[01:14:07] Speaker B: You just lost points in your own rapid fire. Sam, way to go.
[01:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Lucas and mom and dad, I'm going to ask you, I know that Amy can't hear me, but I'm going to ask you guys your favorites. So let's start with your favorite Disney character. We're going to start with dad first. Rob, who's your favorite Disney character?
[01:14:26] Speaker C: Well, I have to ask. It can extend into Star wars or Marvel. Okay, yeah.
[01:14:32] Speaker B: Well.
[01:14:32] Speaker C: Well, spoiler alert, it's probably Luke Skywalker is my favorite character out of all things. Although my avatar in any Disney app is Darth Vader, because Darth Vader is Luke's dad, and so that's what I go by.
[01:14:47] Speaker A: But I love it.
[01:14:48] Speaker C: Luke Skywalker is probably my top.
[01:14:49] Speaker E: No, that's not true.
[01:14:53] Speaker A: Luke, who's your favorite character?
[01:14:55] Speaker E: Probably either Spider man or Luke Skywalker.
[01:14:58] Speaker A: Nice. And who's mom's favorite character? Amy.
[01:15:02] Speaker C: So who's your favorite?
[01:15:03] Speaker D: Sorry, I can't hear anymore, but my name is Cinderella, so I'm out of the Star Wars Marvel area.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: Would Benny like to answer?
[01:15:10] Speaker E: His favorite is probably c three po or Pluto.
[01:15:15] Speaker A: Oh, I love that.
[01:15:16] Speaker E: Because they're yellow. And he really likes the color yellow.
[01:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, our son Nathan, he really likes Pluto also.
But yellow is not his favorite color, interestingly enough. Well, anyway. Anyway, what's your favorite Disney movie? We'll start with Lucas this time. What's your favorite Disney movie?
[01:15:35] Speaker E: It's actually hard to pick. Well, I did really like wish.
[01:15:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's awesome. We haven't seen that yet. I'll have to see that soon. All right, Rob, what is your favorite Disney movie?
[01:15:49] Speaker C: So if we're going Disney classic, it's probably going to be Aladdin.
I really like the genie. If that had been the confines of the last question, I would have said the genie. But if we're going to go extended, probably either Infinity War or Star wars, a new hope or the OG. Star wars.
[01:16:08] Speaker A: Awesome.
All right, what's Amy's favorite movie?
[01:16:16] Speaker C: So Amy's favorite movie that even though that you go ahead and say it's.
[01:16:19] Speaker D: Beauty and the Beast, even though Cinderella is my favorite character, beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie.
[01:16:23] Speaker A: I love that. All right, favorite song now. Favorite Disney song. Let's start with you, Rob. Favorite Disney song.
[01:16:31] Speaker C: It's probably a friend like me.
[01:16:34] Speaker A: Nice. All right, Lucas, so at the end.
[01:16:37] Speaker E: Of Ralph breaks the Internet, there's a little hidden scene where he seems never gonna give you up. So that's probably.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: That is an awesome answer. I love that you get rickrolled in. Ralph breaks the awesome.
[01:16:53] Speaker C: He may have. Rick rolled the cruise on night one.
[01:16:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I did.
[01:16:57] Speaker C: Rick roll.
[01:16:59] Speaker A: I love it. And, mom, Amy, what's. What's your favorite song?
[01:17:03] Speaker D: I kind of obscured ish, but I like lost in the woods from frozen two.
[01:17:08] Speaker A: Fiona. I love that song. That is such a good song. Okay, we're going to move on to the cruise ship. Favorite stage show on Disney cruise line. We'll start with. Yeah, Lucas, let's start with you.
[01:17:22] Speaker E: Okay, so the one that mostly blew my mind was the doctor strange show, because they literally had, like, fire shooting out of this stage, and it was like, whoa. The fire was so bright, I I didn't know how it didn't burn the entire ship down.
[01:17:42] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Well, that sounds cool. I haven't seen that one. Dad, what's your favorite?
[01:17:48] Speaker C: Well, since you said stage show, it's got to be beauty and the beast.
[01:17:51] Speaker A: That's right. That is the right answer. Absolutely. And what about Amy?
[01:17:55] Speaker C: Same for me. Yeah, same for Amy.
[01:17:57] Speaker A: Perfect. All right, let's talk onboard activity. What's your favorite thing to do on board a Disney cruise ship? It doesn't have to be on the dream that you just went on, but any of the Disney cruise line ships. Lucas, let's start with you.
[01:18:12] Speaker E: Karaoke. Definitely.
[01:18:14] Speaker A: I love it. Family karaoke for Lucas. All right, Rob, what about you?
[01:18:19] Speaker C: It's probably got to be family karaoke with the emphasis on at eleven at night.
[01:18:25] Speaker A: Eleven at night. And Amy's favorite on board activity.
[01:18:29] Speaker D: Favorite activity.
[01:18:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:18:30] Speaker D: I like bingo, and I love watching the family karaoke. I don't sing it, but I love watching it.
[01:18:35] Speaker A: Awesome.
[01:18:35] Speaker E: Wait, who's bingo?
[01:18:37] Speaker C: The game. Bingo.
[01:18:38] Speaker A: Who's bingo? Not bingo from Bluey. Not that bingo.
[01:18:44] Speaker E: Confused.
[01:18:45] Speaker A: That's okay. All right, favorite rotational dining. Which is your favorite? It doesn't have to be on the dream again. It could be on any of the ships that you've been on, but, yeah. Which is your favorite rotational dining room, Lucas.
[01:18:57] Speaker E: Okay. I think mine is probably 1923.
[01:19:03] Speaker A: Wow. Very sophisticated taste, Lucas. I love that. All right, dad, what's your favorite?
[01:19:10] Speaker C: I'm just taking it back. Cause I thought for sure he was gonna say worlds of marvel, but that's the right answer. It was 1923 for him. For me, I have to say, it's animators, but only on the drawn to life animation magic night. That is one of the main reasons why we actually got into Disney cruise line was, you know, my. This one right here, Luke is. Is. Loves to call himself an artist. He's. He's very artistic, loves to. Loves to draw, and the ability for him to bring those. Those pictures to life, that was just like that. Like, take my money, Disney. Here you go.
[01:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. And Amy's favorite rotational diner.
[01:19:48] Speaker D: I totally agree that my favorite animators and the very first time we ever saw animation magic, is that what it's called? But it was straight up magical. Watching our kids watch their. Their characters go across the screen was just amazing. Like, it was one of my favorite memories of our first cruise.
[01:20:03] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. I love that.
[01:20:05] Speaker E: Speaking of animators, have you noticed behind us?
[01:20:08] Speaker A: I did. I actually mentioned that earlier in the show, I love your drawing of Spider man. It's fantastic. And I love Benny's drawing of Iron man. So good.
[01:20:17] Speaker E: No, that is ghost spider.
[01:20:19] Speaker C: Oh, that is ghost spider.
[01:20:20] Speaker E: Oh, and we also have the Muppets.
[01:20:23] Speaker A: A to z.
I love the Muppets. I'm a big muppets fan myself. Okay, my next question. You only have two questions left. My next question is, which one is your favorite ship? And we'll start with Lucas again.
[01:20:37] Speaker C: What's your favorite. Your favorite ship?
[01:20:39] Speaker E: The wish.
[01:20:40] Speaker A: The wish. Is it because of the kids club?
[01:20:43] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The kids club, I think, was better than any other.
[01:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool.
[01:20:49] Speaker C: But you did like the Dreams kids club, too, right?
[01:20:51] Speaker E: Yeah, I did like the Disney Infinity room, but the part I really enjoyed was, like, in that Walt Disney imagineering lab, there was, like, this thing that was a bunch of hidden secrets. Like, I saw something from rivers of light and small world, and I even saw posters for some rides, like guardians, cosmic rewind and Shane Heist, pirates of the Caribbean, and all that stuff.
[01:21:16] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. I love that. I love all the little. Yeah, the little Easter eggs that you can find in the. In the kids club. That's awesome. Love that.
Rob, what is your favorite ship?
[01:21:27] Speaker C: All right, so I'm going to disqualify myself and say it's the halcyon.
[01:21:30] Speaker A: I knew you were going to say.
[01:21:31] Speaker C: That, but since that's probably not allowed, I'll have to. My backup answer will be the wonder. Now, I do wonder. No pun intended. Is that, do I only love the wonder because I've only been to it in Alaska? I've not done a San Diego west coast sailing, but I don't care.
[01:21:46] Speaker A: That's my favorite and Amy's favorite show.
[01:21:50] Speaker C: Good to hear.
[01:21:51] Speaker D: I like the wonder, too. I think it was just. It was, like, cozy feeling. I loved how fast I could get from one end to the other, up and down the decks. Like, I just felt very comfortable and at home making my way around it, so I just really liked it.
[01:22:02] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, well, my last question is a bucket list cruise, Lucas. What that means is I want to know, if you could go on a Disney cruise ship to any location in the entire world, where would you go? And it has to be a place you haven't been to yet.
[01:22:17] Speaker E: All right.
I would go over to Singapore because it looks really cool.
[01:22:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:26] Speaker E: I have, like, Marina Bay sands and that. Oh, my God. So futuristic.
[01:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I love that answer. Well, I guess you're gonna have to go on the Disney adventure someday once she launches, because she'll be sailing out of Singapore.
[01:22:40] Speaker C: Oh. We've had this discussion about having to go on that.
[01:22:45] Speaker A: Get your passport ready, Lucas.
[01:22:48] Speaker C: You probably have to renew it by that point, but, yeah. So for. For me, I would build a mega itinerary around. It would have to be on the wonder. And we're going to do a Panama canal crossing, I'm thinking, starting in the east and ending up at San Diego. We got married in San Diego, by the way, so special place in our heart. And we would make sure that before we went down to the canal that we would do two stops at castaway. I'm only going to say one stop at Disney's lookout here at Lighthouse Point, which I'm going to keep saying in that way.
And then from there, we could probably stop at Cozumel and then make our way down and do that crossing, because I think that that's something like the Panama Canal I would never go to on land. Doing it by ship would be the only way that I would want to do it. And so.
[01:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. All right, Amy's bucket list.
[01:23:40] Speaker D: You would do, like, Iceland, Norway. I just. I want to be somewhere where I can see the northern lights at the time of year that I can see them. That's, like, my. My big thing.
[01:23:49] Speaker A: I love that. That is perfect. Well, thank you guys for playing. This has been. You all win. You all. You've all won rapid fire. So congratulations. You've all. You've all won, Amy. Yeah. So thanks for playing. Thank you guys again for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. It's been so much fun. Talking to now, all three of you. Bye, Lucas. Thank you for joining us. But anyway, we'd love to, of course, have you guys back on the show, but I know Brian wants to ask his last question, so I'll let him jump in there.
[01:24:22] Speaker B: I get the last word, Sam. I always get the last word. My show. My show. All right. So my last question is always, what's next? What's next?
[01:24:30] Speaker C: So what's been planned so far? We are definitely going to Disneyland right as school gets out to stay at the grand Californian. We don't own there. But I took about two weeks of sleepless nights to get to piece together six nights there. And so that's going to be a lot of fun. But then we actually wanted to get your advice because we are booked on two different cruises that we probably have to choose between them. One is a return trip to Alaska, but this time at the end or towards more the end of July. We did May before, and so the wildlife wasn't as active as it's supposed to be, like in, in late July and August. So that's option one. And then option two is to complete our royal flush. We have reservations on the magic for a cruise leaving on Halloween. Halloween. Because for some reason, the way that parent teacher conferences worked out this year is that we can get on that, that cruise. It's five nights and it's going to go to castaway Key and the new island lookout key. And it would, and it wouldn't miss any school if we time it just right. So we wanted to see what you would recommend between those two options. No pressure.
[01:25:39] Speaker B: I'm going to solve your problem for you. You should not do Alaska this year. You should come with us to Alaska next year.
[01:25:44] Speaker C: Year.
[01:25:45] Speaker B: Because that's when we're booking Alaska and you should absolutely complete your royal flush and do, actually, we're calling it, what do we call it? The fab. The Fab five?
Big hero six once the treasure launches, I guess. But, yeah, get on the magic because she's as good as she's going to be for now. And I am getting a little nervous based on guest feedback that we're hearing. I'm just not sure how much life that ship has left in her. So you may not have too many years of the magic to experience if you want to get on the original Disney cruise line ship. So, yeah, I would head for the magic this year and come join us on a, we're going to do a nine night, hopefully, Alaska cruise next summer on board the Disney. I guess it'll be the Disney wonder. Yeah. Disney wonder.
[01:26:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, unless they change things up. Yeah. I mean, right now, based on the itinerary release for the earlier part of the year, there's no other ship that's going to be there to do the Alaska sailing, so it's got to be the wonder for 2025.
But, yeah, I was going to say Alaska, because everybody says Alaska is so amazing, but you guys have done Alaska, and so I. So, yeah, I think Brian's right. I think wait another year for the kids to get a little bit older because then they can do a little bit more stuff in Alaska, too, and. Yeah. And hit the magic. She's a beautiful ship. You've got the new Soul cat lounge, you've got rapunzels. And I know the boys are not into princesses, but that Rapunzel's, like, dinner show is real fun, you know, kind of similar to what you get in Tiana's. It's a different show, but similar to what you get in Tiana's on the wonder. And then the tangled stage show is phenomenal. Like, really, really, really good. As good as, dare I say, as good as frozen. The only one I put above that is beauty and the beast. So it's. Yeah, I would say that that would be a great. A great itinerary. And if you can fit it without missing school, the only issue is, I don't know how your kids feel about missing a Halloween at home.
[01:27:41] Speaker C: That was going to be the trade off. We have to miss Trick or treating Nathan.
[01:27:46] Speaker A: That would be something Nathan would be upset about if we traveled and he didn't get to trick or treat with his, like, best friend. So that's the only. That's the only hiccup there.
[01:27:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, the way that it works where we live, trickery. You guys are going to tell us this is a terrible idea, but the way trick or treating works, it's actually the night before. So there is a flight.
[01:28:09] Speaker D: Well, there's these, like, parades that have gone on forever here on Halloween night. So everybody trick or treats on the 30th, and then the parade is on the 31st, and everyone goes to it.
[01:28:17] Speaker C: So. So we could.
Yeah, but we could technically fly the morning of which all the viewers, listeners here, that is never a good idea. And so that was. That was our. Our possibility of trying to make it all work was to go in the morning of. Which doesn't sound good.
[01:28:38] Speaker A: Eek.
[01:28:40] Speaker B: You know what, though? If I was a kid and my parents. And my parents came to me and said, we can either go trick or treating. Or we can go on a multi night Disney cruise. I might be like, I'll take multi night Disney cruise. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it could. It could work out in your favor. Could work. But we'll buy them a full size bag of candy bars and then, you know, they're good.
[01:28:57] Speaker A: Yeah. The only thing is, I would. It's probably not a. Well, I don't know. You might want to find out if it's a Halloween. A Halloween on the high seas themed cruise.
[01:29:06] Speaker C: It is.
[01:29:07] Speaker A: Okay. So that's the thing. That's the. They get to trick or treat on the cruise.
[01:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And we weren't sure how it was gonna work because it embarks on Halloween, so all the activities be on that first night. Amy is a huge hocus pocus fan, so it is on the list to get the kids with Clarabelle Daisy and many of Sanderson sisters, and we will not do that at Disneyland and wait in a four hour line to do so. This is our best shot at it. So that's another. Those are the. Those are the things we're weighing out here.
[01:29:38] Speaker B: Well, Rob and Amy, you'll have to let us know where you land in this discussion, and more importantly, whether we will might see you on a cruise, but be on a cruise with you in Alaska. But for now, I just want to say thank you for taking the time out of your weekend to come join us, share your experience with our listeners. We really, really appreciate it.
[01:29:57] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you for having us.
[01:29:58] Speaker D: It's been a lot of fun to see you guys again.
[01:30:04] Speaker B: Well, a big thank you to all of you out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from the DCL duo each week. We'd also love it if you'd head over to Apple Podcast and leave us a five star review. If you hit those five stars, that's great. If you leave us a written review along with a five star review, we will be sure to read it on the air at the end of one of our main episodes. If you're hovering over anything less than five stars, we really want you to reach out to us so we can take your feedback. Best way to do that? Head to dClduo.com to find all the ways to connect with us. It links to our podcast, our vlog. Our blog has all the ways you can connect with us on social media, has our Etsy store where you can find our fun beach bags and magnets that we designed as enthusiasts of each of the Disney Cruise line ships has a link off to our Patreon if you'd like to help support the show. We really, truly appreciate each and every one of our Patreons for helping to support the show. Each and every month has a link off to our show sponsor. My path unwinding where you can get more information about booking a fabulous vacation, which also really helps to support our show. All the things are there, including a way you can sign up to be a guest on the show if you'd like to share your Disney Cruise line experience. Most importantly, you can always email
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