[00:00:00] Speaker A: I had two margaritas at that lunch, so I I I don't remember a dessert. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. I'm just gonna put that out there.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Sam's a lightweight.
Welcome back, everybody, to a special live episode of the DC El Duo podcast, brought to you by my path unwinding travel. And we are live on a Thursday because we were out for the Memorial Day weekend. And that's right, we're gonna be talking about tonight is our royal caribbean cruise on the allure of the seas this past Memorial Day weekend. For those of you out there in our Facebook group, we have found a way to stream into that group. But I'm gonna tell you, we can't monitor the comments over here on streamyard, the platform that we use to stream the way that Facebook has set things up. So if you're watching over there, I'm just gonna gently encourage you, come over to YouTube and watch because you can comment. We can see those comments live, can answer your questions and address comments here on the live show. So you want to head over to YouTube.com dclduo. You can catch this live episode, the comments from the listeners.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: I do. I do. And I was going to call out, we've got CT on his tinfoil mouse years account watching, saying, welcome back. Hope you had an amazing trip. We've got Linda watching and she's saying, thank goodness for Instagram alerts. I'm so glad that Instagram alerted you that we were live. Linda, good to see you. So we got a bunch of people watching. Come and comment live with us over on YouTube. As Brian mentioned, you can't. We've got Gordon Grubbs also. Jeff Gordon, la thanks for the love. We love you, too.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Well, with that, we love to start these shows with whatever news has come out of Disney Cruise line this week. I will say most of the news this week has been focused on the tiana's Bayou adventure that will be opening later next month. Don't want to say later this month. We're almost at the end of May, but next month in June, Disney's announced that lots of spoilers out there over music and ride throughs and all of that kind of stuff, but, well, that is a water based ride. It is not our passion. So news out of Disney cruise line this week, I think there's one.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: The newest ship, Brian. It's the newest ship, newest fleet.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: It's a fleet of laws.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Newest fleet, Brian, I just need to point out, we've got Mariana, Blanca watching us all the way from Costa Rica. Hi, Mariana. Thanks for watching. Yeah, we've all. We got Josh McHenry on here. We've got Elizabeth Correa on here. Excited to see you guys both watching. Thanks for watching.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so news. News out of Disney this week, just sort of two items, one news item, one prospective news item. So the news item from today, which isn't. I don't think it's really that big news, but Disney did release a video of the, what do you call it? The filigree at the bow of the Disney adventure, showcasing Captain Mickey as the character that will inspire the Disney adventure. Beyond that, we know nothing new. We know nothing new.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: It's just a reel. It's just a reel that shows Captain Mickey on the hull of the new Disney adventure.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think a couple of things that are of interest from the video, which is it's posted, it's in our instagram, it's in our Facebook. Disney Cruise Line posted. They did start, by the way, a new Disney cruise line Singapore Instagram account. So if you want to follow that, that's where they said they would push out more news about the adventure over time. Maybe at D 23. I don't know. We'll get a bit more news. But I think one thing that's interesting is they did say at the end of the video, sailing from Singapore in 2025. So they're not pushing that ship out or its delivery out as we thought they might.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So that means just to get this straight and I gotta. I get to give credit to. I forget who was on X or whatever. Who pointed this out? DCL Cruising dad. Maybe who said that means in part, my take was the destiny will be having its maiden voyage in 2025. The adventure will be having its maiden voyage in 2025. And P's thanks. DCL cruising dad. I think it was who said this, the treasure will essentially be starting sailing of its own in early 25 because most people won't experience it at the Christmas maiden. They're all booking it in a 2025. That is a lot of crew to hire. That is a lot of crew to train.
That is a lot going on for Disney cruise line in 2025.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: A lot of rooms to fill, Brian. A lot of rooms to fill on those ships.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: A lot of rooms to fill because the event maybe lots of rooms to fill on that ship. So.
All right, the other piece of news that we have, it's really perspective for next week. Lighthouse Point, uh, will start operating next week on, I believe it's Friday. Uh, the first ship will head into Lighthouse Point. That is the digit Disney magic on her preview. Three night preview sailing. Uh, just for anyone who has not heard, I will be on that sailing along with a friend. Sam is unable to make it. Uh, but I will be on that sailing. Uh, so we'll be bringing you as much coverage of Lighthouse Point as I can.
I need to disclose that that sailing is being paid for by Disney, so it will be kind of a more first impressions of Lighthouse Point than a full review. But worry not, because the week after we already had planned the DVC charter sailing, that's going to Lighthouse Point twice, as well as our inaugural podcast cruise, a three nighter on the magic that will also be headed to, uh, Lighthouse Point. So we will be back at Lighthouse .3 times a week following on our own dime, and we'll be giving you our full throated review of the Lighthouse Point experience. So.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: But next week, Brian's going to be there four times within the course of like a week and a half.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, hopefully let's keep our fingers crossed at Lighthouse Point at than castaway key. Who. But who knows? Who knows? So check if you don't already follow us on Instagram. That is a great place for you to get the videos, the photos, everything. Lots of stories will be posted next week to Instagram. I will do my best to post some daily updates in the Facebook group, our Facebook page, and also over on X if you follow us over there. I'm just going to call Twitter. Twitter. It's going to be on Twitter.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: It's still Twitter. I don't care if anybody else calls it.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. With that, it's time to talk about the allure of the seas, Sam. So this was a three night sailing, which, ps, it goes by so fast. We're done.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I'm not doing anymore.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: Three nights.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We'll do back to back. If there's like. Like we're doing with the podcast cruise. We're doing a DVC sailing right before. So it's a five night and a three night back to back. We're not switching rooms, so that's fine. But like, in general, going all the way to the east coast for a three night cruise is just a lot of travel.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Exhausting.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Uh, yeah, it was, it was. It was rough coming back. It's never. We always are fine. We're going there and we still have a lot of energy at the beginning of the vacation. Then we come back and we arrive at home at like 11:00 at night, feeling like it's 02:00 in the morning, and then we have to wake up for work for the next day. So it's.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, don't get me started. The parking garage took us prisoner.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: We got home. I had never had a, I had to have a 15 minutes conversation over a squawk box to get out of the garage.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: I thought Brian was going to. I thought Brian was going to drive through the, the barrier arm. He was so angry.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: I was going to pull a Clark Griswold. Yeah. So, so, yeah. So three night cruise on the allure just to set this up. So we were on the oasis in April for seven nights. The allure is a sister ship. It is an Oasis class ship. It was, uh, you know, it sailed after the oasis, because the oasis is the, the namesake for the class of its class. Yeah, yeah. But the difference is the oasis has gone through royals amplify process. It has been dry dock up.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Uh, it is an upgrade or dry dock time. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And there are some pretty significant amplifications of the oasis class ships. So the allure is the, as I understand, the last and only Oasis class ship that has not been fully amplified. And so what that means is did not have all of the cool water slides on the top.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: No water slides. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Did not have the abyss dry slide that was off the back of the ship that we got to experience. Um, the pool deck is a main source of amplification. Um, some of the restaurants, uh, change over in amplification. So, yeah, there's lots of things. The allure is more like being on the original oasis class. It was much more sort of sedate and chill. Like a little less to do.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: A little less sedentary.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: There's no escape room. That's another good, like, note that there's, there's. We think we. So I think the laura is going to be dried off next year, I think, is what we heard. And supposedly it's going to get those updates. The water slides, the dry slide, and an escape room. And so, and some of the spaces may get changed, rearranged, upgraded, and some of, you know, they might change over. There's, like, right now, there's a sit down mexican restaurant in addition to, like, the pool deck mexican place on the ship that doesn't exist on the ships that have gone through the dry dock.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: So we're not going to do, like, a full review of Royal Caribbean, because as all of you who were here to watch that last time know, that took us, like, close to 90 minutes and if we're broadcasting on Thursday night, we got to go get our son from an appointment that he has every Thursday evening. What I want to focus on is some things that were different on this sailing that we. We either didn't experience on the last cruise or were just, you know, different from what we did on the last cruise. And so we stayed in the same kind of stateroom. I will say the boarding process out of Port Canaveral was. Was very smooth. We did have. I will say this. We did have an interesting issue before.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: We had to wait.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Well before the cruise started, we got an email notification that port arrival times were being pushed back and no one should arrive to the terminal earlier than noon. And the reason was? Well, the reason that was stated by Royal Caribbean is that there had been a food poisoning outbreak on the ship due to some, we believe, undercooked pork in an appetizer and main.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah, an appetizer, a taco appetizer in Maine dining, that was a pork taco or something.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: So out of abundance of caution, they were engaging in enhanced sanitation, I think, in case it was norovirus, but they. The cap, I think I heard the captain had specifically said, this is not norovirus.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: And so apparently people were vomiting all over the ship, though. That's what we heard through the face.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Let's not do that image, Sam.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Sorry. That I just had to tell people.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So we couldn't arrive until noon, and that put a pretty heavy crush on the port. So big line of cars to get in. Took a long time to park. The parking garage is actually oversubscribed. They ended up closing it and having to push people to outdoor lots there in Orlando to park.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Huge. Not Orlando. Port Canaveral, you mean.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Sorry. Port Canaveral. Yeah, huge line out the terminal door. For those who had just, you know, general boarding, we sailed again in Royals suite class. So we were able to kind of breeze through the terminal and get on the ship. I would say once we were out of the car, to get from the door at the terminal to onboard the ship was probably about 20 minutes. Took a little longer this time than it did in Miami.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd say it was probably closer to 30 minutes because we had to find, like, the right line. So there's, like, the general boarding line. Then there was an area for Star class that had no line, but we were not sailing Star class. We were in sky class, which is a level below star class. And so there was a separate line for the non Star class suites and people who had paid for the key, which, as Brian talked about previously, gets you, like, on board and off the ship quickly, and also gets you, like, a couple of other smaller benefits.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it's an add on you can buy for any class and room on the ship to sort of expedite your boarding. I would say our friend, who is sailing on a reduced casino rate, uh, he and his son, it took them probably the better part of 45 minutes to an hour to get through the line, through security, checked in and. And on board, and they did not have the key. So, um, yeah, the difference there is, you know, it's twice the amount of time, essentially. So it was nice that we had that, uh, with us, or had the. The sweet classic to get us there. Um, let's talk about a few experiences that we did on board that were very different than what we experienced last time. Sam, I want to actually start with the show, because when we were on board oasis, you refused to see cats on board. Allure. They had mamma mia. I think you were a little hesitant to sit through a two and a half hour Broadway production on a three night cruise.
So talk people through. Like, this is not Disney Cruise line. Broadway production, abbreviated for kids. This is the full on Broadway show of mamma mia. Right?
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, first of all, I'm going to put this out there and say, mama Mia's not my favorite show. I do really enjoy a few of the songs. The winner takes it all is a fantastic ABBA song, and dancing Queen is fun, and mamma mia. The song is quite fun.
I would say, in general, if I had, like, paid Broadway or national tour money to go see this show, I would have probably been kind of disappointed. But to see it free on board a cruise, I actually had a really nice time. The one big negative, I would say, is the length of the show. So it's the full two and a half hour production, including an intermission that's about, you know, ten or 15 minutes. This is not a show that is all that kid friendly, and it is also not a show that is, like, kid friendly, both in content and in length. Right. So this is not something you want to bring your family along with you to. I would say if you're a big Broadway person, you'll probably enjoy this because there's some really fun song and dance numbers, but it's kind of a dopey show, to be perfectly honest. So would I give it like, a ten? Definitely not. Am I disappointed? I went, no, absolutely not. So I had a fun time.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Hold on. Separate for me. Here's what I want. You, you don't like the show, that's fine. But was a show of the quality that you would expect to see on Broadway, right. In terms of sets, you know, actors, you know, quality of the sound, all that sort of stuff? Yeah, close.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I would say it was not Broadway quality, but it was maybe like a step below Broadway quality. So, like, the, the main character who plays the, the mother in the show was phenomenal. She was Broadway caliber. No questions. The other actors, I would say it was a mix. There were, the dancing was really wonderful, and there were a couple of other standouts in the cast. But overall, were all of the individuals Broadway quality? No, they were maybe a step below, like a really good regional theater, but not quite Broadway caliber. That's probably how I would put it.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: And let me step back and ask, now that you're comparing. So you've compared it to Broadway set aside again, the fact that it's Mamma mia.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: The quality of the production is compared to Disney Cruise line. Did you think it was on par with or not on par with a Disney. Could those actors, could those sets go over to Disney Cruise line, or would you say, nope, it would still need work?
[00:15:50] Speaker A: I honestly think that those actors and the sets and the staging and stuff. Yeah, I would say it's pretty similar to the Disney quality, with the exception of, obviously it's not Disney fied because it's mamma mia. And it's not, it's not tangled, the musical, not the set is much simpler than what you tend to see on Disney Cruise line. But I don't necessarily think that's a negative. I think that's more of a factor of it goes with the show. Right. It doesn't need a very complex set. So, yeah, I would say it's pretty close to Disney in that sense.
But I do think the big drawback is really the length and then the content. Right. It's not really family friendly show, and it's too long to keep the attention of kids. And then, of course, with a production like mamma mia, it's very uneven, whereas the Disney productions that I. That we've seen are. All of the songs are generally really great songs, and with mamma mia, it's just uneven. There's some really great numbers and some really meh numbers. So, you know, in that sense, they're not equal, but, you know, are the actors as good as what you tend to see on Disney Cruise line? I would say mostly maybe a few that are maybe a step below, but a couple sometimes that are a step above. So, yeah, I'd say pretty on par. You know, we skipped. I skipped the ice skating show. On this cruise. We only had three nights, so it made it really difficult to do everything we had seen the ice skating show.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: And Royal doesn't tend to counter program quite as neatly as, as Disney does. There's a lot of shows and opportunities to see things that, that, like, hit at dinner times and things like that. So you, in some ways, you're made to choose. The other thing is you have to get reservations to most of the big shows. So the, you know, the diving act off the back of the ship and the Aqua theater ice skating show, the main stage production show, comedy shows, like, you have to make reservations, and if they're full, then you got to go either at a time they have available and adjust your other plans or opt to not.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: And you can just show up. So most of the shows they have, you can just show up at the time of, but you'll be let in last, and so you'll have to find whatever seat is available. Right. So you won't necessarily get. You won't get a good seat, let's put it that way, and you might get shut out, although I think not that often. I think most of the time, it seemed like when I was at Mamma Mia, for example, myself and my friend Kelly, we got early entry because we were staying in the suite class and because we had reservations and people came in after us without reservations, and there was plenty of seats. I mean, the theater was, was wide open, so you could have gotten really good seats, and you would have been fine. But, yeah, so this time, we had to choose what stuff we wanted to see with only three nights, and so we chose to not see the ice skating show on this sailing, because, honestly, the ice skating show, it wasn't that the performers weren't good. The performers were fantastic on the sailing, on oasis, but the storytelling was just kind of. So I didn't really feel like I needed to see that again. On the other hand, we should talk about the aqua show.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Well, that's where I was headed next. So let's. Let's talk a little bit about aqua 80.
Well, not Aqua 80. What was the name of the show? It was the Aqua show.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I don't remember what it was called.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So the show we saw on Oasis was Aqua 80. We don't remember the exact name of this show that we saw on allure. It's the same concept. It's a. It's the same set. It's a pool. There's multilevel sort of areas where the, you know, the actors.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Divers.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Divers. Well, athletes can dive and swim. I will say this one started off more like a Cirque du Soleil style show. And that there was like a. There were like two what I would call clowns that kind of came out and did a little bit in the audience. And, you know, we're kind of doing the unintelligible speaking, but with tone of voice that gave you a sense of, like, what they were trying to get at. And then that kind of led right into the show. Now, unlike Aqua 80, that focused on popular eighties music that we were all bopping our heads to and singing along to and storylines that kind of tied into potentially some eighties movies and things like that, this one was a little, again, more like a Cirque du Soleil production with, like, kind of original music scored and, you know, lots of know.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: If it was original music, but the music, it was like, I feel like they were trying to tell a story about some kind of, like, ocean aria.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Ocean Aria is the name of the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Craig, for that. Yes.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think they were trying to tell a story about, like, some kind of. At first it seemed like some kind of polynesian culture. Then it seemed like it was like, maybe some kind of greek culture.
It was mind boggling. I had no idea what story they were trying to tell. And the diving was wonderful, as were, you know, some of the sort of synchronized swimming. But this show was terrible. Let me just put it that way.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Despite being amazing acrobatics, it wasn't for us. Right. Lots of people were enthralled with it. Right. I think after seeing Aqua 80.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: I thought after seeing Aqua 80 was starting. The one thing this show had that I appreciated over Aqua 80, they got right into the diving. So Aqua 80 was a little slow to build up into. And these, they was like, from. From Jump street. They were like.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: But I felt like Aqua 80 captured us from Jump street because it started with, like, a scene.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it was great.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: It was back to the future. And I'll just gonna say that for those.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: I'm not. I'm not arguing it was better. I'm just saying they got to the diving part faster. They did. But, you know, from there, it's like, what do you do next? Right? Like the.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Like, it didn't build.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: We ended up staying for about a half an hour and left. Now, we heard from a friend later that, like, the show that he saw at the later, like, 1015 only lasted, like, 35 or 40 minutes, which was surprising because Aqua 80 was, like, a full hour. So I don't know if they did.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: A 50 minutes show.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know if they did, like, an abbreviated version later in the evening or something, but, yeah, we only stayed for a half hour. I felt like the athleticism was great, and we got to see that, but then we were like, this just isn't holding my attention, and I'd rather go do something else.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: And we didn't bring Nathan to this. He decided to go to the kids club. And if we had brought Nathan, I feel like we would have been out of there even sooner than we were, because it, you know, like you mentioned, it just wasn't holding our attention. It wasn't captivating us. I think a lot of that has to do with just the music didn't really kind of draw you in in the way that Aqua Eighties music did now.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: So, cruising DCL family is asking, did you feel like you were in a floating mall again when on the promise promenade? So, I mean, like, look, the promenade is all but identical to that of oasis.
It feels like you're in a high end resort mall with, you know, that sort of thing. I mean, again, nice for all of the options in the evening to go listen to live music, do karaoke, get some pizza, grab some, and there never.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Felt, like, pressure, like, to buy things or to go into the shops or anything. That's. I want to, you know, be clear about that, because it's not that kind of a feeling. It wasn't that kind of feeling on oasis. It wasn't that kind of feeling on allure.
It is actually a very pretty mall or hotel lobby or something like that.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
Wesley Davenport here saying, we saw hero on. I think that's serenade of the seas. And it was so close to being excellent, but they faltered on the story as well. Yeah, I don't think that, like, these Aqua 80, you know, aqua eight. Like, the shows in general, outside of the Broadway main stage act, like, it doesn't feel like it's an exercise in storytelling. It feels like it's an exercise. And, like, we're gonna show you some really cool ice skating moves. Diving moves. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, it's more like a. Like, I hate to say this, because it sounds like it's downplaying the circus act. It's like a circus act.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah. But I feel like Cirque du Soleil does a good job in storytelling, whereas this didn't do that so, you know, that's, that's the thing we comparing to Cirque du Soleil is, is what we're doing that because we're trying to explain what the acrobatics feel like, but I also feel like that that doesn't give Cirque du Soleil justice. Ah. Tracy's asked if I did karaoke again. I did not do karaoke again. I don't know if they had the live band karaoke, but we honestly, we were just busy doing other things, and there was a karaoke bar on board. It was slightly different arrangements than the karaoke bar on the oasis, but they had karaoke, like, anytime you wanted it. So if you wanted karaoke, you could find it maybe not 24 hours a day, but almost. Oh, symphony of the seas.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Wesley, thanks for Clever. Symphony of the seas. Yes. Which we'll talk about the end of the show briefly.
All right. I think that exhausts the shows element of this I want to talk about. We did something different this time. So last time when we were on, oh, they did not have a really, like, they had a mexican outdoor restaurant more akin to, like, Donald's cantina on.
Yeah. Fast casual, this ship.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: And they had that also.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah, this ship, this had had what.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Also, it had the same fast casual on the back of the disc.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But this ship also had a sit down mexican restaurant that was an additional fee called Sabor. It is where we found the sports bar on the oasis of the seas called playmakers. And it's our understanding that Sabor will eventually turn into a playmakers, which little disappointed by that, because, like the Mexican, the quality of the food at Sabor was much better than the fast casual place that we experienced on oasis. We signed up to do guacamole making at Sabor.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah, guacamole making and included lunch and included a margarita for, I think, about $40 a person.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: It was $40 a person. Kids were welcome. And they just gave them, yeah, they gave them a non alcoholic beverage, but they got to make their own guacamole. And let me, let me tell you, like, a couple, couple observations I had about this, and I hope Sam will let me get through this uninterrupted. So, so let me just set that expectation for 1 second with my co host. All right, so a couple things I observed. So, one, I loved this activity on the ship, and one thing I loved about it, Disney does like that anyone can cook, but it's more like a cooking demonstration. It would be more like watching someone make guacamole, and then they might give you a sample of it. This was like we were at the table with mocha heades and all the ingredients to make guacamole, and they were not shy about the amount of ingredients they gave you either. So each one of us had a mocha heta, and we each use, you end up using one and a half avocados per person for our own personal portion of this guacamole. It ended up being like a restaurant size portion for each person at the table. And then you also got to say.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: I ate all of my guacamole.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: See, there it is. I can't. You can't do it. All right, so the one thing is, I just, I loved that it was an interactive demonstration or interactive making class. The food was excellent that came with it. We got some appetizers, we got the guacamole itself and chips. We had like a main course of some empanadas. There was some kind of dessert at the end, which is escaping me. What exactly it was. I was so full by this point, I just couldn't even think about food. The margaritas were fantastic. And if you had the drink package, you could get a second, like 2nd, third one, you know, whatever you wanted. Um, the kids had a good time. They got to make their own, like, there was nothing, there was no skimping on the portions on their side of things. So they got to make their own guacamole. They got the same food as the adults. It was a really lovely experience. And I just really wish they had something like that on Disney Cruise line, because I think it's more fun when it's interactive. So Sam, what did you now, what did you think of the Sagor guacamole making experience?
[00:28:07] Speaker A: So my only. I have two small criticisms. One is we didn't get to make our own margarita. For the margarita part, it was really just a demonstration. And then they gave us margaritas, but they were delicious margaritas. And then my other minor complaint is I didn't love the entree options. There were like four different entree options and they were all kind of adventurous for the kids and a little bit spicy for maybe some of the adults.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: One was tacos and the other.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: No, but it was spicy. The taco one was a spicy chicken taco. Brian. So. And the empanadas were the sort of the mildest of the different things. But I didn't love the empanadas. I loved the guacamole, though. I ate the entire thing of guacamole. And I ate the appetizers, and I hardly ate my empanadas because I didn't need to because I ate all that guacamole. I don't remember there being a dessert, though, by the way, so I don't. I think there was.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: I don't think there was. I thought there was some kind of dessert op. Maybe not. I don't know.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: I had two margaritas at that lunch, so I don't remember a dessert. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. I'm just gonna put that out there.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: It was a lightweight. Yeah. So, yes, Craig, guacamole making is more fun with friends. Thank you. We should say craig. Craig and Kelly and their kids came with us on this cruise.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: And actually, one of the things I wanted to point out, though, we did have the kids sit at. So we had to split up our party, which. A party of seven, the three of us, and then the four, uh, the moral family is another four. We. We put the kids at one table and the adults at the other table, and nobody said anything to us. I mean, they were just right next to us. But, um, yeah, it was kind of great. And they were able to make their own guacamole, like Brian said, and order everything that we did. And they got Shirley temples instead of margaritas, so it was perfect.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Tracy saying, dcl wasn't always like that. You got to make food. Yes. I know that from. I know that from celebrity. I did a cooking, some cooking classes on celebrity where we were in the kitchen making food, and then we would, like, all go outside and sit down and they would serve the food we just made to us. So it was much more like a cooking school than a demonstration.
Folks at adventures and mouse campaigns are saying rum tastings. At least on Casper, you still make your own. Yeah, but my. My issue is all of the stuff on Disney cruise line is, like, it's lots of drink tastings and things, and, like, it's just nice to have, like, a food element to it, because those. Those drink tastings can get a little out of hand in terms of the portions, in my opinion.
Josh McHenry saying, cruising has come a long way, but I think we should bring back desserts. More coming. Yeah. I remember on celebrity cruise line lobster night, and then, like, coming down the stairs with a parade of baked Alaska that was, like, on fire and thinking, this is an accident waiting to happen. But, yeah, it was. It was a really. It was really fun. Really, really fun.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Do you love planning vacations, but get tired of being the one that has to figure out all the details like Brian does. Whether youre planning a family vacation, a romantic getaway, or group travel, taking care of everything can sometimes be a hassle. Thats where my path, unwinding travel comes in. When you work with them, you can be as involved as you like, but have a trusted advisor sharing accurate information and giving you new travel ideas to ensure that your vacation is fun and seamless. And for group travel, they can help field all the questions and make sure everything is correct, coordinated like they did for us with the inaugural DCL duo podcast crews. They might even be able to get you special pricing or exclusive group perks. So whether you've got something booked or you're thinking about booking, reach out for a complimentary
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[00:31:49] Speaker B: Sam, let's talk about, should we talk about perfect day or. I'm trying to remember if there was something else we want to talk about. That was an onboard activity that, that we did. Sam's apparently still got the margarita hangover, so she can't, she can't really remember.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: No, no. Oh, we, the casino, we should talk a little bit about the casino because we didn't, we didn't go to the casino on oasis at all. But we gambled on, yeah, we gambled on this cruise two of the three nights, actually. We hit the casino for a short period, actually. You went the third night, I think, for a little, in the afternoon for a little bit, didn't you? Yes, you did. Right before.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I went, I went and lost $80 in the slot machine.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: The slot machine, which is such, I'm so, I was so mad at you for doing that just because you did it in a slot machine.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: That's why after winning $300 at table game.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: So this is what I was going to say was. So on night one, we decided to pop down to the casino. Let me be very clear. So there was a very large casino that is split, I think, like in half between a smoking and a non smoking section. But the non smoking section smells like smoke and you're breathing in smoke. They have a small one, single room, separate. That is a non smoking casino room completely.
That is where we spent our time gambling because I personally, actually, it's actually.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: So Sam liked it because it's non smoking. And I totally get that. And appreciate it.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Yes. I can't deal with it.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: It was kind of sad, actually. The light. The lights were a little brighter.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: I don't care.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: A little less frequent. Like, a sad, sad place for me.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: There were lots of people there, you know, it was. They were not as full as, obviously, the main casino and much, much smaller. But I was way happier to be in there because I can't breathe in a regular casino.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: But to put it in perspective, the non smoking casino had one table doing three card Texas poke, Texas Holden poker. You know, the casino game. Not a real game of poker, right? One table doing $15 limit blackjack and one roulette table, and then some slot machines kind of spread throughout. So, like, you had literally three tables you could sit at.
We played blackjack, and we did very well. Thank you to the casino in Royal Caribbean for paying the tips that we gave out to our concierge, host, and stateroom attendant. But I don't know. Like, I. It was. It was. I went mostly because you wanted to go to the casino, Sam, and because our friend Chris, who is with us on this cruise, really likes to go to the casino in the evening. So I went down there. I had a good time. I mean, literally only sat at the blackjack table for maybe, like, half hour to 45 minutes one night. So that was perfect.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: But that was perfect for me. Like, so we. I feel like we went down there because our friend Chris was down there playing at the. The poker table. And so we watched him play. Play for a while to figure out, like, did we want to play that game at all? And then the blackjack table happened to have a bunch of open seats open up right at once. And so you and I both sat down at that table, and I think that night, I walked away with, like, $90 extra. And you walked away with, like, $100 extra. And then we cashed out.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: No, no, no, my dear. I walked away with the first $100.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: That was when you walked. So, like, we both were smart about it because we didn't sit there for very long. Like, we were maybe there for at most an hour, um, you know, playing. And so. And then the next night, I was like, oh, I did. Well, I'm going to go again. And then I won another hundred dollars. So, yeah, I feel like, um, if you're smart about it, I mean, we don't. We're an. I don't like sitting at the machines. The slot machines. That's that. If you want slot machines, there's way more slot machines in the main casino than in the non smoking casino. Um, if that's your thing, that's great. I don't find them fun. I find them boring, because all I'm doing is hitting a button over and over and over again and not using my brain. So anyway, um, yeah, I don't know. I had fun in the casino. I wouldn't have enjoyed sitting in the main casino, though, because then I'd, one, be breathing in the smoke, and two, I would leave and smell like smoke, which I hate.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Your opinion. Your opinion of the main casino has been made well clear in this episode.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: All right, I would.
I do want to say hi to mister Chad Pennycuff out there from the my PVC points podcast. Hi, Chad, and hello, Vicki. Thanks for joining us. Uh, Tracy.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Oh, Tracy.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Yes, I will be buying the first round of drinks on our next cruise. Yes. And, uh, hello, craftsmost adventures. Great to see ya. Great to see you there. Um, all right, so I think we've drained the casino. Let's. We've drained the casino. We did not, by the way, I want to say we did not step foot in main dining again, not even once to see the dining room.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: We barely ate at coastal kitchen either, though. We only eat breakfast at coastal kitchen.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we. We did dinner at the steakhouse, chops, which we talked about on our last show. I'd say the meal was very similar. We did dinner at 150 Central park, which we also loved on oasis. And again, I think that meal was fantastic. I did try this time the special cucumber drink that they mix at your table on a trolley. It was a cucumber vodka based drink. And I will tell you, it was basically a vodka martini. And when I took my first sip of it, I could not taste any alcohol in this drink. It was very, very dangerous drink and refreshing drink. So, uh, if you're. If you're on royal and you go to 150 central park, highly recommend the vodka, special vodka cocktail that they made. Table side. If I thought was an excellent beverage.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: I would give one caveat to what you said about chops. I thought chops was a little bit better on oasis, not significantly different, but I thought that the, the food quality was just slightly better on oasis than it was on allure at 150 Central park. I'd say both were great. I mean, really, really great meals.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: I really. I really enjoyed my food on allure. I did not enjoy the service in.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Chops on allure and same and same at the hibachi. The. Actually, I think the hibachi, the food at the hibachi was even better. So it was. It's the same restaurant, but it was. The quality was just better. But our waiter, not our cook. Not our hibachi cook, he was amazing. But our waiter at the hibachi. Oh, my God. Probably the worst waiter we had all trip.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, didn't try anything new, really new from a food standpoint in terms of dinner and not go to the buffet. Although we did hear from our friend Chris, who he and his son ate at the buffet quite a bit, and they said it was fabulous. And french onion soup. They had mediterranean or not mediterranean. They had caribbean night jerk chicken. And he was raving about the buffet, which now I wish I'd set foot in there because my memory of it from the independence of the season. The buffet was really good, so I don't know if something was just off with oasis. But, um, he. Chris was raving about the buffet. So, uh, something to check out, especially in a longer cruise. The. The buffets, I think, on tend to be pretty good.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: You know, on the shorter cruise, we ate at Sabor and we ate at the, uh, on Coco key. So we didn't really have an opportunity to do a lot of. I think we had, what, the first day we had lunch on board. Am I even. Actually, I don't even know if we had lunch because we got on late. I can't remember at this point. Yeah.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: All right, well, speaking of Coco key, let's get over there, because we did something very different this time around on Coco Key. Our friend Craig, who's been commenting throughout this video, managed to snag what was an amazing deal on one of the most expensive kinds of cabana. And probably the most expensive kind of cabana they have at Coco Key is an over the water cabana. And just to sort of.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: At the beach club.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: At the beach club. So let me just set some expectations here. So Coco Key has an adult only, private kind of area that you can, I think, get a ticket into. Kind of like the beach club, but.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: For adults, that's hideaway.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: But they have always had, across the island, this beach club. The adult area is newer.
This beach club, the beach club. You can buy a ticket to get into the beach club. I think it's, like $150 a person to get into the beach club for a day. And that gets you access to, like, the beach club, restaurant and food. They limit the number of tickets they sell. So you don't have this, like, crowded experience either at the pool or on the beach that they have reserved there. Get loungers with umbrellas, an infinity pool. It's, it's a nice, it's a very nice experience. There's a hike to get there from the ship, but it is a nice experience once you're there.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: And higher quality food. Let me just put that out there.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: We'll get there, Sam. We'll get there.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Also at the beach club, they have these over the water cabanas, and they have a ton of them. Like, they are not, it is not like one or two. It is like, easily, it looks like a couple, couple dozen. Like two dozen of these things out over the water.
So about the same number of these over the water cabanas that Disney has on, you know, the family beach at Castaway and serenity.
They are about the size, the over the water cabanas. You have to walk out a pier, and then each cabana has its own pier. Out off of the main pier, you are out in the ocean. Each cabana, I would say, is about the size of two Disney cabana. Like, they're almost the size of the grand. Family cabana on the size of the grand.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: They hold eight people for the price, but you can add on, I think it's up to ten or twelve. I'm forgetting we had nine. So I think we had to pay for one person over the eight at like, an additional charge of, like, $50 or something like that.
You can still use all the amenities at the beach club, but in your cabana, you've got a couch, you've got a table for dining. You've got an over the water slide off the cabana that just likes a little water slide that has. That you can slide off right into the ocean. You can jump right into the ocean. From the cabana, there's an over water hammock that you can sit in. You get a cabana host, who we learned typically services about two cabanas. So unlike Disney, where you have, like, one drink host for, like, ten cabanas, this guy only has responsibility for two. And he started off the day by telling us he would visit us every 15 to 20 minutes throughout the day, like, so often that we would probably get sick of him just to make sure that we didn't need anything. And that was in addition to the fact that we had a call button that we could hit. Ours wasn't working perfectly, but there was a call button in the cabana where you could call him, and it was like a squawk box. Like, he could say, what do you need? You could tell him, and then he could get it and bring it out. And he had this, like, electric bike that he would roll up on with drinks, food, towels, like, whatever we needed. He said yes to. To the point where in the very beginning of the day, like, he was taking drink orders. It's, like, 930 in the morning. And I was like. I was like, can I just get a latte? And he's like, well, that might take a little bit. And I was like, you know, I'll just do, like, a coke or a coke zero or something. And he was like, oh, no, no. Like, we'll get you your latte. And he was back in maybe ten minutes. What was his name?
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Brian. Was that Charles? Charles. Charles, yes.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Charles wanted to adopt Charles by the end of the year.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Amazing. He was amazing. He was wearing. There was also a fridge. Did you mention?
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Oh, there was a fridge that was stocked with. Not just, like, water. And in fact, it didn't have water in the fridge. There were sodas and beer in the fridge. And if you had the drink package, you could just grab stuff out of there and didn't cost you a thing. If you didn't have the drink package, they would just kind of, like, you know, bill it. At the end of the day, I will say most of us had the drink package in the cabana, but some people didn't. And Charles just, like, finagled the drinks around so no one had to pay anything, which was just really nice of itself. And then there was a separate cooler that was just filled to the brim with, you know, bottled water for the day. The only thing that this cabana did not have that a Disney cabana has was, like, the free sunscreen and bags of lay's potato chips. But when we talk to you about what the food was that you could order, you won't.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: You won't be looking at those potato chips.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: So. Yes. Talk about the food for a second.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So there was, first, I want to tell you, you order the food to the cabana so you don't have to go to the restaurant to go eat the drinks. Alcoholic drinks come to you as well. If you didn't want the stuff that was in the fridge, there were also, like, truly and things like that in the fridge.
But the menu of food had, you know, burgers and Mac and cheese and chicken fingers and stuff like that for the kids, and french fries, which castaway key doesn't have, and mozzarella sticks, which castaway key doesn't have, and then the adult side of the menu has full on lobster and filet mignon and a lobster sandwich. Or you could get hamburgers or salad or things like that. So everything came with truffle french fries, by the way, and you could get more than one thing.
So I ordered the lobster and the lobster sandwich because I couldn't decide between the two. I ended up mostly eating the lobster.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: The lobster sandwich, to be fair, tell that story accurately. You asked Charles, which is better, the lobster or the lobster sandwich, and Charles said, get both.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Get both. Yeah. So I did. And I will tell you, the lobster was better than the lobster sandwich. The lobster sandwich was not bad. It just had a coconut breading that would overpower the flavor of the lobster.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Brian, it was fried. It was fried lobster. Yeah.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And so it was good. It just. You. It tasted more like the. Like, coconut shrimp because all you could taste was the coconut.
And our friend Craig got surf and turf, so he had half a lobster and a filet. Um, you know, the kids were happy with their Mac and cheese or their chicken fingers. I will say Nathan still thinks that Mickey's Mac and cheese is the best Mac and cheese, so. But he seemed to enjoy his food. Um. Oh, and they brought us appetizers. You. We forgot to talk about that, Brian.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: So we didn't have to. We'd have to order. We'd have to order appetizers. And unlike, you know, cassowary key, where it's like, here's some fruit.
They brought out these, like, uh, like, tiffin boxes or something. Anyway, it was. Yeah, they brought out two of them.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: One like a big bento.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. One was shrimp cocktail and ceviche, and the other was hummus.
Baba ghanoush. No, not baba ghanoush. It was. Yeah. Baba canouse, tzatziki, and hummus. And, like, vegetable crudite, basically. These are.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: Oh, and pita. Yeah.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: And pita. Yeah. Yeah. And so brought all that out and then.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: And then dessert. Don't forget dessert.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Well, we barely touched dessert.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: I didn't eat the dessert at all.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: I couldn't even dream of so much food. So much. It was. But it was just. It. So I just to pull up this comment, um, where somebody. Well, Tracy first says bougie. Yeah.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: And I'll talk. I'll talk about that in a second. And then, uh, adventures and mass facing. Now that feels like a level of service commensurate with the price DCL charge. Let's talk about this for 1 second. So, DCL cabanas, I understand. I haven't checked the latest pricing, but we were talking about this in our cabana, I think they're up to around twelve. $1300 in peak season for Cabana. It used to be around 8900, but they've raised the price, have not added a thing to the experience, as far as I can tell.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: These cabanas go for like $2,800 for the day or three grand. We got it at half off, so we were like $200, $300 over the price of a Disney. Similar Disney Cabana, although similar here, is very subjective because I don't. I don't think Disney offers. So for that price, for that marginal couple hundred dollars difference on the luxury product here, the service. This gets back to when we talked about Royal last time. I said, if Disney's a ten on the price scale and royal's a six, is the gap there worth it? Are you getting that extra additional on Disney? Is the experience 150% more? Whatever you want to call it. This cabana is like 200% of the Disney offering for a couple hundred dollars more like it's a no brainer. If you are booking cabanas on castaway key and you go to perfect day and you can find a deal, like we did, like, no brainer. Now, I think the calculus is more difficult when you're talking about dropping $2800 to $3,000 on a cabana for eight people. That said, if I had that kind of income in my budget for that kind of experience, I think the experience was well worth the price that royal wants to charge for it, in the sense that you're getting one on one, practically service, you don't have to go anywhere. The food was excellent, the access, the ocean was great. I personally won't book it at that price. I would probably buy a ticket to the beach club and get most of the benefits, but, you know, without the cabana attendant and, you know, that sort.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Of stuff in the private space.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: But for the discount, it was way worth it. Yeah.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: Can. We need to answer this question from Elizabeth, though. Got to know what the deal was and how. How did he get it? So the Brian just explained what the deal was, but how you get it is just by stalking the website. Yeah, it's. It's not like we got some deal because we're a DCl duo. No, nothing like that.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: And we didn't book it. We didn't book it. Someone else booked it.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: He was the one who just. Just happened to see it in either the app or on the website. They. With Royal Caribbean, things go on sale all the time. So Brian's talking about the beach club costs. Sometimes you'll see tickets for the beach club at dollar 220 or dollar 230, right. But then they have these sales, and so you can go in and get the same thing for, you know, 40% off or 30% off, something like that, say. And so you.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: 35% off. I see a lot. It's not all the time. Sometimes it's 25, sometimes it's 15. But if you kind of wait and you're patient, you'll get to 35. Now, if you book something at 15 and it goes on sale for 35, all you have to do on royal is cancel the thing you booked and rebook it at the lower price. And so it's, you know, you got a credit card, you know, you're going to wait a few days for the money to come back to your credit card, but at the end of the day, it's all going to wash out. Right.
So on this, our friend Craig was just checking the website and they happened to have a 50% off sale and he grabbed the last one of these they had available at that price.
I will say this, too, Royal is also prone to mistakes in pricing that sometimes they just honor. So while we were on the ship, I was reading an article about a woman who booked a seven night suite on a royal caribbean ship for $2,000 for her family of three. A complete mistake on Royal's part in terms of a sale or price they gave her. But they honored it. They said they would honor it. So sometimes these things happen and whatever, but it's really just checking their website and constantly watching. Unlike Disney, they don't do stuff six months in advance or 130 days out or whatever it is, or 123, depending on your castaway club sets. All that stuff, stuff doesn't book up far in advance. Stuff remains open and available, sometimes all the way up until the cruise sales. So it's really just checking their site.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: And we had actually originally booked a different cabana. We had booked essentially the same thing we had booked for our Oasis cruise originally, which was just a pool cabana. And we switched because Craig had found this, you know, what we thought was a great deal. So. Oh, Tracy's asking, how easy was it to get a cabana on perfect day? I think it's pretty easy. You might, you know, you might have an issue if you want a cabana at, like, the adults only beach, the hideaway, like, there's, there's, I think, less of those. But if you just want a cabana and you don't care where it is, definitely, I would say way easier than on Disney.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Specific area you want a cabana in. Once they start selling them, you'll be able to get one pretty easily. It's only a matter if you wait till the very last minute that you might have an issue.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the things you need to watch out for. So the, I think the pool cabanas. Cabanas go pretty quickly because theyre lower priced. Theyre by the pool, which was where a lot of people kind of want to hang out and tend to hang out. So those pool cabanas can go pretty quickly, but you can still get, I think we got a deal on the one we booked in April. So, I mean, its not like they open up and they sell out. Theyre kind of available for weeks and months, and eventually they sell out, but theyre not going like they are on Disney. I think those over the water cabanas actually do tend to book because theyre so unique and people come and you.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Can fit a lot of people in them, too. So you can split it. That's the thing is, like, even when you're talking $2,800, that's, I mean, so that's a lot of money. But when you're splitting it ten ways, that starts to look less expensive. Right. It's, you know, so that, you know.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: I don't think you have to rush. You don't have to rush out to book it, like, but, you know, just kind of pay attention and watch as the inventory kind of drops and you'll get a sense of how quickly that they are. They're booking out over there. So, anyway, it was an amazing day. We didn't leave the beach club until the very, you know, until about 03:00 in the afternoon when things were just getting too hot and we had hibachi at, like, 515. I'll tell you, walking back on the ship, uh, anticipating going to dinner at Hibachi at 515 after being in that cabana, I was like, I need a stomach pump. But, uh, because it was just so much food. But it was, um, uh, it was very, very, uh, it was, it was a very, very good day. Craig's got a tip here that I just want to throw.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, this is a great tip.
[00:52:49] Speaker B: I'll be careful with cabanas on perfect day. They aren't all equal. Thrill island is not. Yes, I I 100%.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Thrill island is the water park for those who are not, um, into the RCcl lingo, so that the water park is another add on experience. You can buy a ticket to go to the water park, but they also have cabanas. So if you buy a reserve a cabana at the water park, it includes your thrill island tickets for, I think, up to eight people or something like that. So, yeah, so he had mentioned to us that they did that on a previous cruise and was not the same experience as either the pool cabanas or the over the water cabanas. Us.
[00:53:26] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Ashley saying, love the idea of a pool on the island. Yeah. Ashley. I am a big, like, I prefer that pool swimming to being in the ocean, just from the salt getting in my eyes and all that sort of stuff. So it's really nice. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see Disney put a pool on the island because it's just not to be perfect. It's not very environmental. Maintain a freshwater pool in the middle of the middle of an island. So I do enjoy that. Royal did it, and they seem to be continuing to do it, but it's, you know, Disney probably won't do it from an environmental standpoint, so. All right, Sam, anything that we missed as a new experience off this sailing, before we wrap things up?
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Nothing that I can think of. Brian, I would say this was. Oh, I will wanted to mention one thing I was worried about that didn't end up being an issue, was that this was a three night cruise versus a seven night cruise. Sometimes you tend to worry about what kind of a crowd you're going to have on the ship. Is it going to be a family friendly crowd, or is it going to be a party friendly crowd? And I would say there. I mean, there were a little bit, maybe more partiers on this boat than on the Oasis cruise. But honestly, it was. It was a nice crowd for the most part, except for the elevator etiquette. So elevator etiquette was not great on this ship, I'll put it that way. And in general, you know, whether you're on Disney ship or a royal ship or whatever ship, elevator etiquette is not always the best. And you might have to wait a long time for an elevator.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: So I love that question from cruising USA. Can we just answer this one question, Brian? I think this.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: I'm gonna. I'm gonna answer it. I'm gonna answer it. All right, so are we in the same location? We do the show. Why not be in the same room? We used to do the show in the same room when we first started as a podcast, and it is a much cleaner audio feed for us to have separate audio in separate rooms and I use multi track audio editing. So this, this keeps the feed cleaner and better. And so we sit in separate rooms with our own little setups. So. Yes.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So we're in the same house. House, but in separate rooms.
[00:55:27] Speaker B: Yes. All right. With that, we're going to wrap things up. I wanted to give folks a heads up one more time on a couple things. One is don't forget, if you haven't subscribed to us on our instagram, going to be a great place to see the first. We're going to be some of the first people, or I'm going to be one of the first people to step foot on Lighthouse Point. I got a lot of video planned, hoping to get some snippets from crew members. Not crew members, PR members who will be on the island. So lots of fun content planned for that trip next week for the Magic's first stop ever at Lighthouse Point. Fantasy will be there, I think, the next day, and then the magic will start her regular rotations to the island. So head over to instagram, subscribe. I'll try to push out another channels, too. But Instagram, I can just kind of do real time while I'm on the island. The other thing is, I want to highlight.
We've got one more live show coming up on Monday. We will be back in our normal time slot. 05:30 p.m. pacific I always get this confused. 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern time on Monday evening, we have the venerable Josh Wilson, the DCL villain, coming on the show to talk about his cruise that he did on Princess cruise line.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: Talking about trouble per sets.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: No, not cannot be more excited to talk to Josh because we have a princess cruise coming up next year that I'm getting pretty excited for having seen some videos of the ship. So we will not have live shows for, I believe, a couple of weeks after Josh, our next live show will be on, I believe it is June 24. So we're going to take a little hiatus on the live shows because we will be traveling ourselves for the inaugural podcast cruise, DVC member cruise to Lighthouse Point. So June 24 we will be back and we will be doing a live episode about the three night, not the three night podcast, the five night DVC cruise that we were on. And then after that, we'll get back into our rotation with some guests coming on live. And Sam desperately wants to say something.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: Yes, because you promised that you would mention something about the symphony of the seas. And it goes along with Wesley's question.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Oh yes, sorry. Yes, Wes. Symphony of the seas. So when's your next RCCL cruise? Which ship? Wonder icon YouTube. Okay, so here's the deal. I can't get on Utopia Wonder icon the newest ships because their pricing is so close to what Disney does. And my main driver for being on Royal Caribbean Caribbean as I feel like I can get 80 90 in some cases 100% of a Disney experience on board royal for much less than Disney. So we are planning to do another royal cruise. It will not be until April of 2026 at this point. So we have a cruise card.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Let's just put it that way.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: Well, so just to put it in perspective though, you know, royal will, it has booked April 2026. Disney, not so much. So we booked a spring break of 2026 for our son and we are going to go on Symphony of the Seas because Sam wants to experience, I think it's the Wonderland restaurant and also the the escape room that neither of us have done on Symphony of the seas before. So we did book that this week thanks to the fabulous agents over at my path unwinding travel. Kaylee, we love you. We did book that this week and so we'll be back on, but not for a while. I'd love to get on icon. I'd love to do wonder. Love to see you top, but you know, I just the pricing there is too close to being on the treasure and at that point Sam will make me stay on the treasure.
Yeah.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: For those who are wondering if we're going to become the RCCL trio, the answer is no. I still prefer to cruise on Disney Cruise line even though I am happy to also cruise on Royal Caribbean. Let's put it that way.
[00:59:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love Chad's comment. Is it appropriate to boo Josh? Isn't that applause for a villain? Yes, I think Chad takes or sorry, I think Josh takes all of the anything he can get. So come on Raz, him as much as you want. And yes, Ashley, I will be your roving correspondent from Lighthouse Point. So yes, that will happen. So with that, we will wrap up. Thanks everybody out there for watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for commenting. Love it so much. If you want to help support the show, be sure to reach out to our show sponsor. My path unwinding travel. If you're looking to book your next vacation, regardless if it's Disney or not, just let them know we sent you their way. You can go to mypath unwinding.com dclduo or dclduoypathunwinding.com via email. We also have a Patreon program. Head over to patreon.com dclduo. If you want to be part of our Patreon crew that really helps us put this show out every month.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: And with that and like and subscribe us on YouTube.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: Yes, like and subscribe. Like and subscribe with that. We will see you next time.
Well thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows, so be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern over on YouTube.com dclduo so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want to help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, Mypath unwinding travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email
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