[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah, unless it's an animator's palette knife, which Sam has, I am willing and sell those.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: She bought it legit from the store, right?
[00:00:07] Speaker A: She didn't have it when they started selling them.
[00:00:09] Speaker C: Let me buy that one.
[00:00:10] Speaker D: They didn't sell them back in the day, so I would have paid for it if they sold it.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: The frying pan from Rapunzel's.
[00:00:18] Speaker D: Nobody from Disney is looking for.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: You're the reason they sell these.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL duo podcast, brought to you by my path unwinding travel. And we're joined by Alicia and Nathan, live from the Disneyland resort. Hi, Alicia and Nathan.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Hello. Hello.
[00:00:48] Speaker D: And they were on episode 442 just about a month ago with me telling our listeners all about their podcast adventures and mouse capades, where they cover all sorts of Disneyland experiences. And they're going to be doing an episode, I believe, as soon as they return home on all of these 23. Is that right, guys?
[00:01:11] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. I can't wait to dive into try to editing three days of content down to an hour or so of talking. It should be an interesting challenge.
[00:01:21] Speaker D: Love it. Love it. Well, we appreciate you guys, your guys willingness to come on our show tonight. Obviously, we mentioned you're still at Disneyland right now. You're at the Disneyland Hotel, at the Villas Disneyland hotel in a deluxe studio right now. I could tell. I see the Murphy bed right behind you, which is awesome. We love that resort. But thanks for joining us and being our roving reporters from D 23.
For those listening or watching us live, if you want to hear all about all of D 23, please visit Adventures and Mouse Capades podcast where they will be covering all of D 23. We're just going to talk tonight about Disney Cruise line, the 23 details. So we're going to focus on that because obviously we don't cover all the parks and experiences so much. So much.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: And Sam, before we dive into that, there's a group of people that we need to thank every now and again, and I want to make sure that we thank them tonight. And that's our patreons. And so I want to spend a send a special shout out to our patreons on the show. We really appreciate all of you out there. In no particular order, I'm going to name off our Patreon. So this may take a minute, but thank you. You deserve it. You deserve the shout out.
[00:02:40] Speaker D: Thank you, Patreon.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: So thank you to Jeff Opulca, Amy, why? Jeff Linwood, Eric Nyman, cross Mouse Adventures, Constance Presley, Erica Karen Shelton, Tracy and Michael Andreco. Art Joshua McHenry, Bridget Casey, Emily Faye Abbott, Chris Wynn, the Dillos Diz, Heather Wilson, Sonia Allen, Edward Lynn, Robert Taylor, Beth Gentry, Matthew Kowalski, Chris Brown, Sean Burns, Thomas Rogers, Ann Witten, Dennis Keithley, Robbie and Gillian Abney. Cindy Leichner, Doug Young, Ashley Norton, Adrian and Emily van Zuli. Drew curry, ct sweet. Christopher Vorabek, daily MTB writer, aka Josh Dave hall and Chad Swindall, I think. Nope. Jennifer Swart, Chris Braga and Steve Elsis. All right.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: And don't forget Drew's wife, Haley Curry.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: So yes, yes, I'm reading the name as they're given to me. So yes, Drew and Haley Curry. Haley Curry. Thank you all out there for subscribing to our Patreon. If you're not familiar with it, you can head over to patreon.com dclduo. These folks give us a little contribution every month to help us defray the costs of the show each and every month. And we really appreciate them for doing that. Now let's talk D 23. All right.
All right. So I did put together a PowerPoint. This is nowhere near as fancy as anything that CT offered, but I did bring in a PowerPoint presentation, and it looks like it skipped me all the way to the middle. So we're going to back up to the very beginning.
Alicia Nathan. So I want to break this down. There are components of D 23. There's the floor show, the booth, it's at the booths, and things that are going on at the Anaheim Convention center for D 23. Then there was the big Honda center presentations in the evening. And I'm sure that there was a ton of stuff in between for our audience. We're going to focus on Disney cruise line announcements. There is a lot swirling through Disney social media today about all kinds of rides, decisions that are being made around where those rides are going to go, permits being filed. We will not wade into the parks topics because we're not going to wait.
[00:04:52] Speaker D: Into the controversy on frontierland. We're just going to put it up here.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: No one's here, but I think we should all just collectively do. We're just going to take three deep breaths here and we're going to say, my identity is not tied to a theme park. Okay, there we go. All right. Ready to go?
[00:05:07] Speaker C: We're ready to go. It's tied to a cruise line.
[00:05:12] Speaker D: That's exactly right.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: People might accuse us of that for sure. For sure. But I wanted to start with, there was a bunch of stuff that happened, like the Horizons panel is on Saturday night. Saturday evening. But even before you get to horizons, Disney Cruise line has a booth out on the floor of the show where they have some stuff out to showcase things that are coming.
The first thing I've got up here is, I think it's like a rendering, or rendering is the wrong word, but it's basically a mock display. Yeah, probably you're going to see when you walk into the restaurant, but talk us through some of the stuff that you saw at the Disney cruise line booth, and I can advance slides and all that sort of stuff to get us at.
Sure.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: So it's actually really nice how it was set up. It looked like the side of a cruise ship. It was just a big box on the floor, basically. But the outside was designed like the cruise ship. And it even had the Mickey mouse shaped ears that you walk through in the portland.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Oh, I love it.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: To get in. Yeah, it was really fun. It was really fun.
[00:06:10] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: And you walk in, and directly on the left of you is this wall that you see here before you. So the Plaza de Coco has an actual guitar. So Ernesto della Cruz is a guitar that he took from Hector. That's that, the guitar there. Just a really beautiful mural there. And that's the only part of the display that had Coco on it. Everything else was something different.
Directly next to that was a wall of haunted mansion stuffs. And you have the wallpaper in the background. You have the fireplace there with the mantle has that really cool looking clock. And then the painting there of the ship, which I believe is one of the lenticular paintings that they have in a couple of the haunted mansions in the parks.
[00:06:56] Speaker D: Oh, cool.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: And there's also a plaque there. It says haunted mansion parlor. And I think there's a mock up up on another table as well. But that's basically what's in there. Oh, I don't think we took a picture of it. There's also a. The wish is in there.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: The.
[00:07:15] Speaker C: The model. Like the big.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: Oh, the model of the wish. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: The wish was in there, too. I'm like, we've seen that so many times, we don't need to take a picture of it.
[00:07:24] Speaker D: Oh, I love this. This is a bar, right?
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Yeah. So they had. They had you kind of skip through it, which is. Which is fine. They had. There was a big. Basically that the right side of the booth was a big photo op area. And sometimes they had sailor Donald over there. Sometimes they had adventurer, the adventurer version of Captain Mickey. That we'll see. Sorry, Captain Minnie. I apologize.
[00:07:50] Speaker D: She's Voyager Minnie. That's what they call her.
[00:07:52] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:07:52] Speaker D: But she's the adventure themed.
She's adventure treasure themed, but adventure treasure. She's Voyager Minnie. That's her.
[00:08:01] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:08:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: And so this whole area was set up, um, just looking at my notes. So I don't get this wrong. This was really based on what the treasure is going to look like. The scale is a little wonky. There's some other stuff we'll get to. Um.
This is kind of a rough approximation of the. The circle that will be in the middle of the carpet, but it's not this big.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Like, the scale is really wonky. Right.
[00:08:26] Speaker D: And the chandelier will be up above you.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:08:29] Speaker D: If you're in the middle of that. That circle or that design, the chandelier will be above you in the grand hall. So. Yeah, I mean, I totally get what you're saying. The perspective is definitely off. On this aside, the scale, we can see some Aladdin and jasmine in that background. The statue.
[00:08:46] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: You can see on the right here some, like, photos or maybe some tv displays. It kind of give you a sense of the. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: Those are like two by three foot kind of posters. They're on, you know, kind of flank both sides of this, this rounded photo op area. And these are really. It's all of the images that DCL has already released of the artist renderings with the treasure. So there's nothing groundbreaking or new to that. These are all images. Some have been cropped or zoomed in, but it's all stuff we've seen before.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Like the haunted mansion, the backdrop that you showed, I guess the bar there.
[00:09:25] Speaker D: That's one. That's the bar again. Yeah.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: It looks so cool. I am so excited for this.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, and you could tell from looking at this, this is like hyperspace lounge, right? So we know the location. This is going to be where hyperspace lounge is on the wish, and then that screen, like the screen in hyperspace lounge, but it's going to have, obviously, the. The ghosts. And so that's really cool. I wonder if that will change or if they'll move around. I mean, I'm sure there'll be something.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Otherwise they could just do, like, a painting or something.
[00:09:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I just. I just wonder if they'll, like, talk and stuff, too, though. That would be really, really cool.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: My guess is they'll probably rotate through a lot of the characters. Like, you see kind of after you turn that corner and that, they all follow you along with the. In your doom buggy, I'm guessing. You know, we'll see lots of folks show up along in this. In this screen, so maybe we'll see hat box ghost. You never know.
[00:10:22] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: I really wanted them to make doom buggy booths for this.
[00:10:27] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: It does. Just from the renderings, it doesn't look like they're gonna do that more of a parlor type thing.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: But I think it just wouldn't be effective for, like, seating. Right. And being able to move around the chairs and all of that. Like, they need to be able to clean, and it's just they have to have seating. That just makes sense from an operational standpoint. But I agree. I think that would have been really fun. Sorry, what were you going to say, Alicia?
[00:10:52] Speaker B: I was going to say maybe they'll have ghosts, the ballroom dancing ghost, like, dance through the scene or something like that.
[00:10:58] Speaker D: That would be so fun.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Haunted mansion is my favorite ride. I am very much looking forward to this lounge.
[00:11:04] Speaker C: The biggest thing I got out of this booth was that purple wall that is opposite you as you walk in with all the haunted mansion wallpaper that will be in our powder bath very soon, I'm sure. I know. The haunted mansion parlor sign that was on that wall will also be probably on the door to our powder bathroom.
It's a thing. It's just a thing.
[00:11:26] Speaker D: It's a thing. I love it. So here's some of the other images from haunted mansion that you guys took pictures of. Tell us what we're looking at.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: So this was all over in the imagineering booth, which was really quite special. So the imagineering booth was amazing and fantastic and, you know, shameless plug. We'll be talking a bunch about that in our episode that comes out real soon. It'll be out next week. But they had two tables and an imagineer there for Disney cruise line. And this was all sorts of inspiration and mockups and samples of fabric and tile and everything of what we're going to see on the treasure and on the destiny. And we got to talk to one of the interior design imagineers about that whole process and what it's like to, you know, take this. What the imagination of. It's easy for somebody to draw something on a piece of paper, right? And then how do you practically turn that into an articulate designed carpet that is dozens and dozens and dozens of square yards that are going to be in that grand hall? Like, just the logistics of that is a amazing to talk through. And it was so inspiring.
It was. Ashley was the imagineer that we talked with.
Every imagineer we spoke with in that booth was so excited to be kind of let out in public and being able to show off what they were doing. And I will say everybody was showing them a lot of love, and we saw that throughout the convention, throughout the presentations that we got at D 23 at the Honda center. It was incredible, the amount of love that was given back to the cast members and the imagineers that were going on.
It was fantastic.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: I want to go back for a second, because the other thing that came out were these uniforms for the crew. For the crew. The left is the periscope pub, and you can't see it, but they've got these little badges on their shoulders. I think there was actually two that they showed. One was an n, I think, for Neptune, and the other was like a p. I think maybe for the periscope pub, but.
So this is the uniforms. You'll find the periscope pub over on the left there. And on the right are the haunted mansion uniforms. These just look impressive to me. From that standpoint, I will say, I really hope that they lean into this and give these crew a little bit of a backstory to tell, why are we in a submarine? Like, you know, can we. Can we give them a little bit of a backstory for the haunted mansions? The one thing that I feel like the hyperspace lounge, it just didn't do as well as they could have is sort of giving them back stories and.
[00:14:25] Speaker D: You know, getting them in character as opposed to.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: But these uniforms and the spaces are looking stunning. So. Yeah.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Ironically, I think our favorite bartender at Hyperspace Lounge, his name is Kirk, and so I just always called him Captain Kirk, even though it's the wrong company in ipdev.
[00:14:44] Speaker D: I love that. I love that. Alicia, what were your favorites from the haunted mansion parlor? Stuff that we see here. I mean, you guys got some great pictures. These are awesome.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: That bust right there of the melting candle guy is. I believe they were initially wanting to put that in the original haunted mansion attraction. It's rolly crump, I believe.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: It has a specific name, and, of course, I cannot remember what it is right now.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: This is brother Roland.
It's on the base there.
[00:15:16] Speaker D: I love that. Oh, my God. I can't wait to see that. So there's gonna be something like that in the. Yeah, in the lounge.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: That's what we're imagining. I mean, this is. There was a lot. It's hard to tell what is a real prop? What is inspiration? Exactly. So there was a lot of stuff on these tables. And so it's real difficult to see inspiration versus reality. But I love that they're pulling in that kind of history of the Disney company. I mean, this is stuff that's, you know, 40, 50 years old that didn't make the cuck going to haunted mansion in the first place. And, you know, no idea is thrown away. It's just waiting for its right time to come back. And, you know, bringing Raleigh crump onto the ships like this, I think, would be, like, the quintessential way to do that in Disney cruise line.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: There was so much stuff there. I just wanted to pick it up and look at it closer. But, of course, we couldn't do that.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: No.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: And it wasn't exactly super close, either. So some of it. I couldn't exactly tell what it was. I'm like, photos trying to figure it out.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: I love this door handle thing that they have. That's really cool. I hope that makes it in some way. Maybe they'll put it. Maybe they'll put it at the actual, you know, because the hyperspace lounge has the, you know, whoosh. Although they started leaving the push button. Yeah. But it'd be cool if they had, like, a big, like, wooden door that you had to come through to get it.
[00:16:38] Speaker D: And it was creaky. Yeah, it would be creepy. And a door knocker on it. Right. Like a door. Oh, my God, that would be so cool. I actually like this, that we'll go back, Brian, like, that container thing, because it's got that little, like, evil eye with the triangle kind of design sort of around it. You know, it reminds me of, actually, gravity falls. So that's kind of why I love it. I. We're big gravity falls fans, and that just kind of reminds me of all the, you know, mystery shack. Yeah, the mystery shack stuff. Yeah. So love that. Yeah. We had some more concepts because haunted mansion is not really a scary. So I don't actually go into haunted houses at all. Like, I won't go in. I don't. I won't ever do, like, a fright night at universal or go in and even a haunted house at a local, like, amusement park. Yeah, I won't go in at all. I don't like being scared, but, like. And I will tell you, as a kid, I didn't even go into haunted mansion because I thought that it was, like, scary, even though I. Now I know, obviously, it's not.
And so we were able to take it. Our. Our kid. We took him, and, you know, before he had a chance to say he would be scared because I was like, oh, it's not scary. It's just. It's funny. But. Oh, Halloween horror nights. Somebody's correcting me. Thank you. Not great nights, but anyway, yeah, I won't do any of that stuff. I'm totally a wimp. But I kind of. But I love all these, like, strange and, you know, mysterious things. These are cool, though. I love this sign that we're seeing on the left.
That's like a serpent or something.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a sort of monster. Yeah, it looks like a. What do you call it? An octopus or something? Like a sea monster with ten.
[00:18:20] Speaker D: Yeah, like a sea monster. Maybe a kraken.
It's our hockey team. Yeah, exactly.
No, Alicia and Nathan actually live near us here in the Seattle area, even though they're at Disneyland right now.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: And they've got a little skeleton captain there at the bottom. You can tell he's got the big captain hat on with a skeleton head. So that's kind of cool. Yeah, these are all really cool. It'll be interesting to see what makes it in versus.
Versus what. What is. Just to your point, Nathan, inspiration for the imagineers or Drew? Inspiration from. Yeah, I have to say. I have to say. I hope. Hold on. I have to say that. I hope that the bar does not have bottles that look like that, covered in cobwebs.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Not ones that you actually get the drinks from. That may just be the ambience.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Those are great as decorative, but let's make sure that the actual bottles are a little newer. Yeah.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: There we go. Place in the booth. In the DCL booth did have cobwebs all over it.
[00:19:13] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Which I thought was fantastic. Like, they're going to lots of little detail.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah, they did have the plaque, the haunted mansion parlor plaque in there as well. So it wasn't like the white ceramic maquette markup.
It was actually designed and nice.
[00:19:33] Speaker D: I think that fish tank thing, by the way, I think is actually going to be. And I think they announced that previously that. Yeah, that was right there. You just passed it right in there. Yeah. So that. That's really cool to get to see, though, sort of the. Their, you know, renderings of it.
[00:19:49] Speaker C: You can see the evolution of it, too, because it goes from that kind of pencil drawing, and then it goes into kind of a more three dimensional, like, full color thing. Like, it's cool to see the process that they go through with their design as well.
[00:20:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: I just want to pull up a few listener comments here. Jeff is saying haunted mansion looks fantastic. I agree. I did. This is. This is all coming down to the execution on the ship itself. Otherwise, I think they are. They have set themselves up for success if they execute. Execute. Well, Linda was saying she thinks there was a burning man in last year's haunted mansion holiday as an homage to roly Crump. That would make some sense. And then Josh is tuning in. Just saying. Nathan's shirt is absolutely amazing.
[00:20:31] Speaker D: It's a club 33 baseball jersey, and it's got Alfred.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Alfred on the.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Not. Let me buy it the last time we were there, so I was not allowed to purchase that.
[00:20:41] Speaker D: Listen. No, Brian got the. Brian got the. He got the. The polo shirts. That is that polo that goes along with that. That same. That same series.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: I got the baseball shirt last time, and I got the polo shirt a few nights ago.
[00:20:55] Speaker D: So when Ryan also has the jacket, the bomber jacket. So I was, like, telling him, like, choose. You don't need all three, right? He doesn't wear that much purple. Let me just.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: So I also want to call out. There's a ton of comments in the. In the chat about the new ships and what classes they'll be and all that stuff. We will get to that at the end of the show. We're just. We're warming up here. We're building up to the big announcements that came. Just taking our time through some of the show floor stuff that was displayed that didn't get as much attention on social media. But I think it's kind of fun to see where they're headed.
So this is also cool because this is sort of some concepts coming now for the destiny and the treasure.
So walk us through what we're seeing here.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: So the first picture here, you have the mosaics and then the carpet that is from the treasure, and it's just being able to see some of the textiles in person there and some of the mosaic work that they did.
[00:21:53] Speaker D: I'm obsessed with that. Apu, that Abu is like, how. I mean, he's a carpet. It's like. It's amazing. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: And Ashley, the imagineer who we were talking with, was involved in taking this concept and then finding the right color and working with the artisans who actually execute the carpets to make all this work and figure out where on the carpet, like, things become three dimensional, because along the edge of, like, a boo. Like, along his back. Like, it's shaved down. So there's a hard edge. Like, it's not just, like, printed on stuff. There's all sorts of fabrics and different.
It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible.
[00:22:33] Speaker D: I'm also loving this blanket, this destiny. It looks like a blanket.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: This destiny blanket row that goes over the bed.
[00:22:41] Speaker D: I must have this. I must have mine. I must steal one. No, I'm going to buy one. Actually. If you take the bedding, there's always, like, a throw blanket if you take it. Yeah. They charge you for it, so it's not like you're stealing it. You'll get charged, like, $200 for it. But I want that bed. It's so beautiful.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: And I did ask if she knew where these mosaics were on the treasure. She did not, but we kind of guessed that it. These are the ones that are in the concierge bathrooms in the different levels, like the one bedroom or the suites or something like that.
[00:23:16] Speaker C: Or they're a little more fancy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the watercolors that you see down at the bottom, there's one that's fantasia.
You can kind of see the one on the left there.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: That is room theming.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Exactly. This is on the destiny. There's a. I was just going through our pictures before we got online here, and you can see a room mock that has, I think it was the Hercules one that's cropped off here in this image above a bed.
And so, yeah, this is kind of inspiration for what we'll see in the rooms and color palettes and things like that.
[00:23:55] Speaker D: I love this fantasia one with the sorcerer Mickey. Fantastic. Yeah.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: Sorcerer Mickey is my weakness.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: So, yeah, I gotta throw up this comment here, Sam, because I see Brian rolling his eyes at the mention of stealing. Yes. I'm also, however, eyeing that carpet square to see if it might compliment another carpet square we have in our house.
A friend of ours provided off of one of the ships. But, yeah. So, yes, I do not condone stealing off a ship.
[00:24:25] Speaker D: Yeah. No, no, no. I want to be very clear. I'm willing to pay for that. Unless it's an blanket. Yeah.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Unless it's an animator's palette knife, which Sam has.
[00:24:33] Speaker D: I am willing Ryan sell those.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: She bought it legit from the store, right?
[00:24:37] Speaker A: She didn't have it when they started selling them.
[00:24:40] Speaker D: They didn't sell them back in the day, so I would have paid for it if they sold it.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: The frying pan from Rapunzel's here.
[00:24:46] Speaker D: Disney.
Nobody from Disney is looking for.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: You're the reason they sell these now.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: She's the reason we can't have nice things.
[00:24:54] Speaker D: No, I will buy all. But let me be clear. I will buy all of the things I'm willing to pay for all of the things, just please sell them to me like this blanket.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Sam, I can neither confirm nor deny that there is a opening day menu from Oga's cantina that is framed and it's behind my home office desk.
[00:25:14] Speaker D: I love it.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:25:16] Speaker D: Thank you, Nathan. Thank you for making me feel better.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: And Tracy and Craig are coming to your rescue. Tracy says Brian's throwing Sam under the bus and Brian will get Sam in trouble. Yes.
[00:25:28] Speaker D: Thanks, craig. Yeah. See, my friends actually care about me, unlike my husband, is trying to get me in trouble with DCl, trying to get me banned from DCL. What happens? Brian can't be that. Well, he and Nathan, our Nathan, not you. Nathan will have to be the TCl duo. If I get banned from Disneyland is fine.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Oh, but, but here, though, this comment is even more fantastic if sam can buy all the things and Brian should be able to get the cut through baseball jersey. Thank you, Ed. I appreciate you. I appreciate you.
[00:25:57] Speaker D: Listen, if he had really wanted it, I would have let him buy it. He just chose other things, let's put it that way. Okay.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: I chose. I chose. Yes. All right. Yes. All right, let's keep going here. All right. We're at the big announcement, so we pause and just ask, was there anything else from, like imagineering or from this, the show floor about Disney cruise line that you all spotted that we didn't put pictures up around?
[00:26:22] Speaker C: They did have an area about lookout key with some of the environmental design concepts. It wasn't. At least when we were there, there wasn't a lot of people over there. They did have kind of a big huge.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Was it on the offensive opposite side of the convention center? So you had to take a long walk?
[00:26:39] Speaker C: No, it was on the opposite side of the imagineering booth. The imagineering booth was huge. It was. It had kind of the, I would say a photo op size version of the Junkanoo Donald. It was Junka new Donald. Yeah, that was stylistic.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I saw that in your photos and I immediately thought that would be really cool if they put it on lookout key because I'm a big Donald. I would love to have Donald backdrop.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah, they have.
[00:27:03] Speaker D: What are they, the Mickey one? Yeah, there's a big junk, a new Mickey backdrop near the Disney ting's shop right next to it, actually. And you can take photos in front of it and they'll even do like some magic shots. Not in front of the junk, a new sign, but just off to the side of the sign. So, yeah, so they do have the big Junkanoo Mickey display. But they don't have any of the other characters. And it's just. Yeah, it's a really nice, it's just like my junk. A new ears. The red ones.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, so let's get to horizons. Uh, so this is the portion. So horizons was the huge parks and experiences panel. Yes. That they put on on Saturday evening. It started about 25 minutes late, I think, and ran for well over 2 hours.
[00:27:51] Speaker D: It was almost 3 hours.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is surprise, surprise to many who had it on the schedule from seven to 830.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Uh, we have no shot that was going to run on time.
[00:28:03] Speaker D: How many songs? There was no way. You guys, I wanted, I wanted to.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Ask, I wanted to ask about that for a second. So before we get to the specific Dcl announcements, I will tell you, as an outsider watching, we were like, my lord, like a song for everything. This is taking forever. But in the room, I wonder, did that time just pass really quickly and you didn't notice it? Like, what was the vibe in the room like? Because I think people outside were commenting, like a lot of lead up, no substance. Like, what's with all the music? Where are the announcements? Do they have anything to say? Like all that kind of stuff. How was it in the room, though?
[00:28:37] Speaker B: It was electric in the room. It was, everybody was very excited and just ready for everything. And Disney knows what they're doing when they put on a show, so they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that this would hype people up and they would be ready to hear stuff. So it did not feel like stuff was dragging on from being there.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: And I was, I mean, my thumbs are still cramped from two nights of trying to like live blog on Instagram. Like every single announcement going on. Know how folks like Scott Gustin and everybody else is doing this, like, for a job and is always at these events. It was insane. But for me, they were, they were using the music except for one song that we'll get to. But in general, they were kind of using these musical interludes as transition points from one block of content to another. And it kind of helped give folks a chance to like absorb, digest a little bit of speculation, grab a little water, have a bite of popcorn, and get ready for what's coming next. So in the room, it wasn't really an issue. It didn't come across to us as an issue. I actually welcomed a little bit of a breather for instead of just hammering through content, content, content. And then I think you get that wall of, of information coming at you and you hear none of it. You've got to have some time to digest.
[00:30:04] Speaker D: Yeah. Except for the one song where they made like six announcements in the song. Right.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: That was fun. So they saw that, or we saw that starting to happen and we were on the side on audience left, stage right and fairly close, though, and we could turn our head to the other direction and see the giant teleprompter at the back of the arena. And we saw this starting to happen. And I looked back and it saw, okay, this is going to be a song about, like, a bunch of announcements. And I was like, oh, no, we're all here expecting to hear all sorts of great stuff about what's going on from Disney or from everything and from Disney cruise line specifically. And then the cram in to this song, like, hey, and by the way, remember we said about some ships. Yep. That's still happening. And that was going to be the only thing we heard.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: That was exactly, that was exactly what I thought when they started doing that. I'm like, okay, here comes the interlude with a bunch of, like, you know, Disney cruise line. Maybe they'll throw some abd in there. Like, it's going to be the experience and stuff, like, really fast.
And I was, like, going to use that as an opportunity to announce some new ships. But then they got through it. It was like, okay, we still got some stuff to do. Yeah.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: And then I think 2 hours later, I turned to Alicia and go, like, they still haven't said anything about Disney cruise line. Like, this is getting, like, what's going on here?
[00:31:25] Speaker B: There's a couple things they hadn't announced yet. I'm like, what's going on?
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah, well, so we come to the portion of the show where. So I remember they had the regular backdrop up. It fills with water. They've got, you know, the portholes up with the current ships and some islands and things like that. I did think it was interesting you posted this, Nathan. I caught at the beginning, too, that they had a ship sailing under, like the Alani thing. And that turned out to be sort of nothing specific, at least out of the announcements. But we get to this point, the first announcement up was some new art from Moana, sort of demonstrating the size and scale of the production. This is Taka is gonna be like the largest puppet that they have, I.
[00:32:06] Speaker D: Think they said 14ft tall. So it'll be. Yeah, so it'll be bigger than the puppet they currently have. That is the. It's the snake that's Jafar in the Aladdin musical. That's quite a big puppet, but this one's gonna be bigger. Yeah.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: And this looks more intricate as well, just with the arms and everything too.
[00:32:28] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. And the lighting too. I mean, right? Like, they're gonna have some kind of lighting effect to make it look like fire or pirate, unless they have it lit on fire, which you can also.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Get a sense of a stage in the theater decor, too, there. Looking around the edges, I mean, it looks amazing. It's another thing, though. It's like an artist rendering. It's not a photo of the thing. Right. So remains to be seen what it looks like in execution. But I don't know. I was pretty excited about this.
[00:32:55] Speaker C: I mean, looking at what they've done with some of the new theaters, some of the new shows on the dream, the fantasy, and especially on the wish and what they can do with these projection walls now, it's absolutely incredible. I don't have any second thoughts that they'd be able to pull something like this off. I mean, a lot of that stuff you see around the scrim may be digital, so they can change it out, but I think they'll nail it. One of the things we got to do was see the volume from ILM, which is where they shoot the mandalorian, and it's a whole dome screen thing. They had a version of that that you could walk into.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Oh, I saw this. Yeah.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: And it was amazing. But I, being the tech nerd that I am, kind of looked to the side because we were standing right next to the edge of it. Once you get 2ft away from the thing, the pixels just disappear. So being able to do something like. And the panels are super thin. Also, being the nerd, I walked around behind the booth, and you can see this giant wall of gear, and, like, it's not that heavy. It's not much to it. So I don't see why they couldn't be able to adapt that kind of technology and screens to the ship. I think it's totally doable.
[00:34:17] Speaker D: That's so cool. Well, this is. I love this. This rendering, by the way, because we have to. You can see Moana, and you can see Maui in it. You can also see these, what I presume are dancers, but I think they're the water. Like, they're symbolizing the water. Right. And to cause obviously the.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: Well, this is the scene where she's trying to return the heart of tee, and she's, like, out on her little heart.
[00:34:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Holding it up and. Yeah, yeah. This. I'm excited for this stage show for another reason that I'm a huge Moana fan. So this only amps up my excitement.
[00:34:49] Speaker D: And there's going to be, you know, the previous rendering we got showed the, the manta Ray, right? That's her grandmother. Right. So we already know we're going to have like two giant puppets, actually, because that's going to be done with some kind of, you know, puppetry as well.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Well, I should say, speaking of stage productions, the big announcement was the new stage production, Disney Hercules.
Is this. I should ask Sam, wouldn't. Sam, you'll know this, Nathan, Alicia, too. Like, is this, is this truly new or did they have a Hercules that they're bringing back?
[00:35:20] Speaker D: Well, there was a Hercules the musical on Disney cruise line many years ago. I don't remember when they retired it. So I. But I would still say this is a new production. Cause that was Hercules the musical. And they haven't called this Hercules the musical, M U S E. But here they're just calling it Disney Hercules. Now, they do have a theater production that's going to the West End. And so I was on, you know, I kept saying, I think Hercules is going to be the on stage musical. And other people were saying, well, well, no, because it's going to be on the West End.
You know, I don't think this cannibalizes themselves because the ship. The ship, the destiny is going to be based in Fort Lauderdale. Hercules the stage production is going to be in London, and we don't have any news about it coming over to the States. But even if it does, the ship production will be like an hour, hour and 15 minutes. It's not going to be a three hour stage show. And we have that with frozen. Right. Frozen was successful on Broadway, on the West End national tours and is still successful on Disney cruise Line. So I don't think these two are necessarily in competition. I do want to talk about the news of today, which is that Susan Egan announced that there's going to be a, a brand new song in this production. So we don't.
[00:36:46] Speaker C: Evidently, it's an original song that they wrote for the movie but didn't use. So interesting.
[00:36:52] Speaker D: I love when they do that. I love when they, you know, they've done that with. They did it with Aladdin. They brought a song, a new song on. I'm trying to remember if it was, I think it was in the, maybe the movie version, the live action movie. I can't remember. But anyway, they've done this before with, you know, doing a new song for a stage production.
It's fabulous. I'm super excited. What do you think?
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Hold on. I'm going to put one quick stake in the ground. Susan Egan will be on the maiden voyage. That's my guess.
[00:37:22] Speaker D: Oh, my God. If Susan Egan is on the maiden voyage and sings. No chance. No way, I won't say it. No, no. I'm going to be dying.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: All right, over to our guests for their reaction before Sam takes us into.
[00:37:38] Speaker D: Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: We don't want to get in the way of that.
In love, I will say that Disney has a rich history of being able to put out multiple versions of a show in multiple links. And it's not just for the cruise line, because there's, you know, Disney versions for, like, teens or Disney versions for youth. Disney versus Disney Junior, Disney kids. There's all these different versions of, say, lion King of Beauty and the Beast. Like, our song was just doing a version of that this summer. Exactly. Beauty and the beast, Junior. And it's 50 minutes long. So, like, there's. They know how to do this. And I don't think, like, you were saying that having a full length show, that's probably going to have an intermission. So you're looking at, like, a two hour runtime versus an hour, hour five or something like that. Like, they're not mutually exclusive. It's a yes, angel and.
[00:38:38] Speaker D: Yeah.
Yes and yes and more. I love, by the way, that people are saying Sam will lose her mind. Tracy's saying Sam will lose her mind. And then Tempest is saying she's gone, which is true. I am. I've already lost my mind with yet just the idea of Susan Egan being on the maiden makes me lose my mind. Yeah.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:59] Speaker D: So. And then somebody else was saying that might be the only reason to get on the maiden voyage. Maybe for some people. I mean, I want to see the ship.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to see the ship, too.
[00:39:08] Speaker D: This is not a rhetorical question, Taryn. Can you ever. Can you really ever have too many Broadway musicals? The emphatic answer is, no, you cannot.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Taryn's also saying, if it's as. If it's as good, as proud of your boy cut from the Aladdin animated movie, we're in for a thrill. Yeah.
[00:39:23] Speaker D: Yeah. Exactly.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Have they announced when the maiden voyage of the Destiny is yet?
[00:39:29] Speaker A: No, that will be in.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: We're still waiting for the it.
[00:39:32] Speaker D: We're still waiting. But they did say November 2025. So she did say sailing November 20. Originally they had said. Said December 2025 in some artwork they had released said December 2025, even though they never made a formal announcement. I think they just said 2025. And then when they made the announcements last week, they actually said November 2025, which is interesting because I think Josh D'Amaro had a slip of the tongue and said 2026 when he was referring to the destiny, I thought, but maybe.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: He was, maybe it wasn't.
[00:40:10] Speaker D: Maybe they meant November 2020, but it is November 2025. So that's. That's when it's gonna happen. We just don't know when. And so I'm keep saying this because I'm going to will it to happen. I want it to be Thanksgiving 2025, so I can be on that maiden voyage. And Ed is saying I should have gone on the DVC member cruise, that he has a selfie with Susan Egan. I know I should have been on that. Ed, I saw your post in our facebook group all about it, and I was very, very jealous. And then we had our guest, our friend Chris Kidder, come on and talk to us all about it, and I was jealous again. So thank you for that. Thank you for reminding me.
[00:40:47] Speaker C: So I will say that I was, you know, in an insomnia induced fever dream, watching the float out of the treasure in German, which was a live stream for the ages. And I did notice that, you know, after they pulled the treasure out, they had a block to move in for the destiny. But in one of the video images I saw, it sure looked like there was, like, half a ship, ship for the destiny already largely complete inside that building. So the fact that we are seeing this date kind of inch up isn't surprising to me at all. I think they're a lot farther along than I think we thought they were.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: I think people got skittish because of, like, the pandemic caused a lot of problems, delays. All sorts of those are gone now. And so.
[00:41:34] Speaker D: And the wish getting its maiden moved by, you know, six weeks, I think that really, really made people upset. And Disney ended up giving everybody, including us, you know, that basically 50% off. Right. And they don't want to have to do that one because maidens definitely still make them money, their premium price. And, of course, this one being on a holiday weekend, they don't want to, you know, they are holiday week. They don't want to move back a maiden. It screws everything up, for sure.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: All right, I'm going to. I'm going to push us forward on the announcements front because we'll get more on the destiny here in a couple of weeks once they release the itinerary.
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[00:42:55] Speaker A: Ready to talk to the experts?
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[00:43:12] Speaker A: Big announcement, right? So let me ask this, nathan, Alicia, you hear hercules and you're like, okay, that must be it, right? That must be it for Disney cruise line. Are you like, no, no, no. He's got one more thing. What were you. Were you ready for him to be done at that point, or did you think something else was coming?
[00:43:25] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: So. So they started this. She started singing the song, and Nathan's like, that's it. They're transitioning. It's a song. They're going to transition. I'm like, I know. No, no, no. They're not done. They're nothing done.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: Yeah. That threw me off because they had. They had trained me. Content, transition song. Content, transition song. There was a transition song. I was like, oh, no. But I mean, we were hoping. Yeah, we were. We got double our money because we were expecting, I think, Brian, like you, I think we were expecting, you know, plus two, Disney's never gonna announce negative news, so they're never gonna announce the retirement of a ship or a land being replaced at D 23. That will be an announcement when everybody's not in the same room as we saw this morning. So I wasn't expecting to hear any specifics about the magic or the wonder or timeframe for those going away, because that's a negative perspective of news.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Yeah. My thought was, this is not enough. This isn't a big enough announcement for them to just have this. This is amazing. Announcing more images for the Moana show and announcing Hercules. But that can't be it. It's not big enough. There has to be something more.
[00:44:41] Speaker A: They've trained us so well, though, to be like, okay, we got our stage production. Is there a stern character anywhere we can talk about? Okay, now we're moving on.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: But he came out, I think we wrote everything down that he said.
[00:44:54] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:58] Speaker C: He said, all of you know, that, you know, the fleet of our, our fleet of Disney cruise line ships are growing. There's five at sea right now, and there are four more in the works, including the recent announcement of the Disney cruise ship. Cruise ship from Japan. And then he goes, now I have the biggest news yet, and I promise you're going to love it. Actually, you know what? I'll do better than promise. And then, you know, I swear, I swear.
[00:45:22] Speaker D: I know it was.
[00:45:23] Speaker C: Now, I have to say, when he. Brian, Brian and I made the exact same mistake because I re listen, we re listened to your short little episode that you put out of, you know, that little section of the livestream, and you're like, oh, boyz to men. I posted on Instagram, it's boys to men. Like.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Bringing them out for the ridiculous. Yeah, I thought they were. He was bringing them out for the ridiculous nature of being like, see, he swears. He swears.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: That's prompting.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: It wasn't until they sang the harmony, which for everyone out there, yes, we have a little short that's posted on Instagram and a couple other places. Or you can watch our little short video on YouTube that we did. That just cut down to the cruise line announcements. We did live reactions and, and you can hear that they finish up the song and he's like, that's right. It's all in their name.
[00:46:10] Speaker D: And we're announcing all in their name. I went like this on the video. I literally, as soon as I would.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Have thought the opposite, I would have been like, all four one. You're just going to announce.
[00:46:22] Speaker D: As soon as he said, it's in their name. You can see on the video, I hold up four fingers because I was on mute at the time because I was listening to the it on my phone, because we were watching, there was a few people on YouTube who were streaming it from just their phones. And so I would mute myself when I was listening to that. And, yeah, so that's me discovering when he said, it's all in their name. I went like this, holy cow.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Let's cut to the chase. They announced four new ships. A couple of things that I wanted to highlight on this is that Josh at the show said, you know, so four new ships between 2027, 2020 or 2031.
[00:47:03] Speaker D: 2031.
[00:47:04] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: And he announced that. He said at the show several times, like, it will bring our fleet to 13 ships. And then the other thing that caught my attention was, this is direct from the press release that Disney. Disney put out. It says, Disney cruise line will add four new ships. Once these ships are built, guests will have 13 different ways to experience Disney's world class entertainment around it. So to go back for a second, uh, couple of things I wanted to talk about. All we know. All we know today is four new ships and 2027. 2031. Don't know names. Don't know theming. Don't know the exact timing. Although I would stake my reputation on 2027-202-8203 and OLC ship coming in 2029.
But that is all we know are four ships between 27 and 31. A couple of things that people have been speculating around. Okay, so are these going to be wish class ships? Is one question. Will they replace the magic and the wonder? And, you know, a whole bunch of other things like where they can be themed, where are they going to go? What does it mean for the existing fleet? We should talk about all of that. I want to start with them. Are they going to replace the magic and the wonder? I would have staked my reputation on them doing that, but now that they keep hammering this, our fleet will have 13 ships in it. Yeah, I'm less convinced. I'm less convinced.
[00:48:18] Speaker D: I agree.
[00:48:19] Speaker C: I agree. I think they will have to replace the magic of the wonder before the heat death of the universe.
But I think from a corporate speak, a Legalese speak, I mean, y'all are lawyers. Like, yes, there will be a period of time where there are 13 operating Disney cruise ships.
[00:48:38] Speaker D: I'm with you, Nathan. I don't think it's going to be a long period of time.
[00:48:42] Speaker C: I don't either.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: But I can see us getting to 2031 and they have 13 ships. And that's when they announced the farewell tour of the magic and the wonder. But they back that up. But they could also then back that up with, and we want to maintain our 13 size fleet. We're building two more, right? Yeah. I'm not sure that these are necessarily the replacements yet, because it seems like they're really bent on expanding this fleet.
[00:49:05] Speaker C: There was an Instagram post and then press release and all the rest of that from Meyerworth. That went out early today as well. And in it they said, let me. Hold on, let me find this. The Google translation of it. Have standby as I don't read German. We will be building four more ships for the Disney cruise line fleet. We continue the long and successful partnership with the shipping company. The ships will be delivered between 2027 and 2031. Last week, our managers, Bernard Meyer and Thomas Wigland, or Wieglend, or, sorry to those who know German, signed a corresponding agreement. And then here's the kicker. This order has the highest order value in the history of Meyer worth.
I think there's a couple reasons potentially for that. One, everything keeps getting more expensive. Of course, when you're looking out another, what, five, six, seven years? Yeah. Steel and everything else is just going to be more expensive. It's inflation, it's all the rest of that stuff. But my hope and dream is that as a part of that, the reason that this is more expensive is also because there's a naval architecture design build element of this as well.
If it's just taking the wish design and copy paste, you know, replace the name with a new name and, you know, the structure and everything is the same. I think it's a pretty inexpensive build because they're not breaking new ground, they're not figuring new stuff out.
[00:50:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:50:46] Speaker C: My, my hope that, and I am reading a lot into this. So this is speculation. There's no hard fact that I could point to behind this. But my hope and dream is that there is a lot of engineering behind this, of designing a new class of ships. I want it to be in that 2425 hundred size. And I hope at least two of these ships that they have coming of the four are going to be that smaller class.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: So my prediction here is. So a lot of people are reading into the artwork like, don't these ships all I look, this is cut and paste copy. Like it's artwork tells us nothing.
[00:51:23] Speaker D: Yeah, and these are, and by the way, people are saying that these look like river cruise ships. These are not river ocean liners.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: 100% none. They are not building a river cruise ship because I don't think they build those at Mayor Wharf, papa.
[00:51:36] Speaker D: No, they don't. They don't. These are cruise ships. These are ocean liner cruise ships. Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Beyer wharf builds ocean liner. So that is what they're building for sure. My prediction is this. So they have, they talked about four, but there's a fifth hanging in there. The OLC ship is represented here too. And shes unbuilt. And she was kind of a one off order for the wish. I dont think these are going to be all wish. I dont think that. I think what youre probably going to see is that OLc and one other ship was a wish because theyre going to build sort of two more and get some value out of that build. I would expect two or three of these are going to form a new class of ship. And I 100% agree with you, Nathan. I dont know that they will be the size of the magic and the one, but they will be smaller than the wish.
And I don't think they're going to revert to dreamclass building dream class ships. I think they're going to build something new and so where it fits, you know, if it's the same as wish class in terms of size but different design, I think that they will, I think they know people like the smaller, more intimate ships.
[00:52:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: And so I think that they will build something smaller, but maybe just a little bigger than the magic and the wonder to make them, you know, kind of be able to fit some more spaces and things on.
[00:52:45] Speaker C: Yeah, there is a, there was a live episode that y'all did a couple months ago and there was a lot of speculation around this and I don't remember the cruise line, but somebody in your chat on YouTube said that it was x cruise Line has a new order for multiple ships. I think it was two or three in the 2500 passenger size range, which to me was a hallelujah moment.
[00:53:08] Speaker D: Cause they, I think it was royal.
[00:53:10] Speaker C: Okay, cool. Cause that means it's not just a pipe dream of us going, man, I wish these cruise and these cruise lines would not just look at the numbers and how many people per staff and per ship and that they can squeeze out, but they understand that there is a market for smaller ships, especially if you look at a lot of these places in Alaska, some of these ports in Europe, where they're having trouble getting the dream or the fantasy into the ports they used to pull the magic into. Because even those ships are too big.
[00:53:44] Speaker D: And they're having people even doing excursions for those ports. Right. Even if they can get to the ports, they don't have enough excursions for the passengers. It's not enough to do in the town because the town is a smaller town. Yeah.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: So I want to address a couple of comments here in the chat. Just really quickly. I'm going to take down this, this art now that we've seen it so first up, Thomas is saying, but is the OLC ship going to be a Disney cruise line ship? It is a partnership that they will build a ship that looks. It is wish class. It will look and feel like a Disney cruise line ship. The interior design have a feeling is really being left up to OLC. The crew hiring some of those standards. We are planning a series of shows about how Disney Tokyo operates and Oriental Land company to be able to sort of talk through this in more detail. Looking for some experts on the asian cruise market. PS, if you know anyone out there, but that ship will look and feel like a Disney cruise line ship, there are some question marks around it, but it will be a partnership between Disney Cruise Line and OLC.
[00:54:42] Speaker D: But the question marks are about like booking and castaway club status and things like that.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: If they don't give you castaway club status, people will burn that thing to the ground.
[00:54:51] Speaker D: My guess is you're not going to be able to book this through the Disney cruise line website. You're going to have to book this through OLC's own website. Now, it may look exactly like Disney Cruise line website, but it will be so. It will be OLC's website. Like, it'll be like disneycruiseline.com Japan or something. Right? Like. Or dot J a.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: So, Rob, I think. I think to the question here from Robert there, the comment, there's no way they can introduce a new ship design. I just want to put in perspective, we have between now and 2031, that is seven years from now. And so I could see them building Triton class ships in the short term. They still got to finish or. Sorry. Wish well, yes. Thank you. Wish class.
Wish class it is. Wish class. I can see them building wish clash. They have to finish the destiny. They've got to start work at some point in the OLC ship. I could see them building another one for Disney Cruise line directly. Right. But that gives them like two years to develop the concept. And my suspicion is they already have a concept. They already have an idea of what they want to build because that's what they use to price this out with. With Mayor Werf. So I suspect they are not going to have, I don't think, a fleet that includes eight wish class ships. That is just too many of one class of ships. Yeah, I just don't think that's gonna be the case.
[00:56:09] Speaker C: And Josh started out the horizons presentation saying everything that you're going to see tonight is in active development. There's not blue sky stuff. And the fact that Meyer Werft made the announcement this morning that the deal has been signed for those ships. Means this is rolling. This isn't. This isn't blue sky.
I won that bet, though. I had two and a half, was the over under for blue Skyd. And he said it. He said it twice as a joke. And I was like, oh, thank you. He got me over.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: And given the financial situation with Meoworth Papenberg these days, it would not shock me. PS, if they approached Disney with, we've got some designs, potential designs for some new ships, some concept art. You interested in an order? And Disney was like, yeah, let's make that happen. Right? So, like, I don't think all the work is on Disney here necessarily, because Papenberg is in some real financial trouble. I didn't realize, by the way, reading that article, they don't pay until they take delivery. So 80% of the build has to be financed by Papenberg throughout the process. And that's what's causing all of this distress, that they need $2.7 billion to float them through construction right now. So this big order is coming at an opportune time and moment for Mayor Werft. And I think it is entirely likely they have these plans already.
[00:57:35] Speaker C: And I think that's completely valid. We did a bunch of cruise ship tours in Seattle, Seattle last summer, and I think it was a norwegian ship that we got on that was smaller. It was around the same age as the magic and the wonder. And I remember walking around with Alicia going like, this design seems super, super similar. And one of the places we walked by, I was like, oh, look, there's a nameplate for the ship. And it was built by Fincantieri, which is the same group out of Italy that built the magic in the water wonder. I'm like, okay, so there's a template that these folks have, and then each cruise line can make some changes around it, but it's not completely starting from a blank sheet of paper. So I like that thinking.
[00:58:23] Speaker D: I want to answer Rob's question in the chat, which was about how long between the dream and the wish class. Well, the dream started sailing in 2011, and the wish started sailing in 2022. So that was eleven years between the starting ship for each of those two classes.
[00:58:41] Speaker A: Well, and they were still trying to prove out the concept, so.
[00:58:43] Speaker D: Right, yeah, this would. It would be record time, though. I want to acknowledge he's right. This would be a much shorter time. But we already have records that Disney's been setting right now because we've never had them order three ships at once. Right. Previously they ordered, you know, magic, and then they ordered the wonder, and then they ordered dream and fantasy together. But that was only two ships. And then when they ordered the wish class, they ordered three ships at once and that the first time that they had ever done that. Right. So this is the, this is now ordering four ships at once. So I think it's a question mark as to whether or not we see, you know, a new class. But I would predict that, yes, we're going to see a new class, and I agree with Brian and we're not going to end.
[00:59:27] Speaker A: I will give you.
[00:59:28] Speaker D: Wait, let me finish, Brian. I agree with Brian and Nathan. We're probably not going to see all of four of these ships be within the same class. I think we're either going to have a one and a three or a two and a. Yeah, two, meaning there's going to be at least one wish class ship, maybe two.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: So I will give you the best indication we have that there is a new class of ship coming. They made no bones about announcing that the OLC ship in 2029 is going to be wish class. And if they wanted to, they could have said in the press release, we're building four new wish class ships. Josh could have said that on stage. It could have gone out with the mayor worth press release. They blasted it all over the place at the new one for token. So that tells, tells me that they may not be building wish class or they're building a mixed category of ship and they do not want to tell you what the new class is going to be or look like or anything like that, which is classic Disney cruise line. They want to dribble this stuff out and keep the excitement building.
[01:00:20] Speaker C: So, yeah, I think it's also important to remember that. And now we don't have firsthand knowledge of this, but I have second hand knowledge of this through some folks that we know, and I'll just leave it at that. That by and large, from day zero or year zero of Disney cruise line, they've paid each of these ships off. The return on investment is within a year. So it's not necessarily a gamble.
I saw somewhere the other day that in Q two of 2024, Disney Cruise Line had a 97% occupancy rate. They don't do discounts because the market will sustain where their price points are. And everybody who's watching this, we've all proven to them that we'll pay for it and we'll keep doing these cruises.
It's not a financial gamble from Disney's perspective.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: I will disagree slightly here in that they're expanding so rapidly. I do think we could see some pricing pressure. That's a lot of added staterooms to push through and sell. The other thing is the 97% occupancy rate is good, but royal reports over 100% occupancy. And what we don't know about Disney is how much of the 97% is made up with cast member discount rates. Cruise line staff taking a cruise on a discounted rate and so you start to get into the low nineties at some point and suddenly your occupancy isnt as good. And we know that there are sailings that are out there sailing less than half full. My suspicion on the financial side though is Disney makes money. Once the ship is half full, everything after that is just added gravy, right? Yeah. So thats my get. But I agree with you. I think the only concern I have is expanding too quickly on the cruise line side and then, you know, but hey, ultimately that benefits us because they expand too quickly and they can't fill these things. Guess what? Then the price point starts to drop and you just hope the service level doesn't come down with it.
[01:02:19] Speaker C: Well, I think that's the thing, though. It's not just price point and demand. I'm also, like, concerned about quality of staff, quality of experience, quality of all the rest of stuff like we saw. You know, unfortunately, there's a bunch of folks who were amazing crew members who left DCL after the pandemic because everybody had reasons and everybody's making good choices for them. Some of our best folks that we loved as crew didn't come back, and I totally understand why they didn't. But there was absolutely a struggle to restaff up the crew line for the four ships that they had. And then they added the wish in the middle of doing that and there was frankly definitely a noticeable decline and some of the quality, some of the food quality, some of the service quality that we experienced. Now, was it horrible?
[01:03:13] Speaker A: No.
[01:03:13] Speaker C: Was it like, you know, it's not like a complaint, but like, yeah, there was a.
[01:03:18] Speaker D: It was noticeable. Absolutely. I have, I agree with you, Nathan. They are going to have to do, I mean, they're going to have to do a lot in the next like two years to really ramp up staff just for the adventure and for the Destiny and of course, the treasure coming out later this year. Right? So they're going to have to do a lot. Three ships in less than two years is a lot of ramp up. And so four ships, actually, five ships, if you count the OLC ship, although that's probably. Well, that may draw from a different pool of employee candidates a little bit, although I'm sure there will be some overlap. But, yeah, they're going to have to be thinking about five ships staffing over the course of those. What is that, four years? So, yeah, it's going to, it's going to be a big undertaking, no question.
Now, other cruise lines do it all the time. Disney cruise line doesn't have a ton of experience ramping up that fast. So it. Yeah, I'm hopeful that they will be able to sort of keep up with that. Now, somebody was asking one question I just want to answer before we wrap up about Maya Werf's press release and stuff that they're building, they're contracted to build ten cruise ships, a research vessel and four offshore converter platforms. So the four, these are, just to be clear, the research vessel and the four offshore converter, those aren't Disney. They're not. Not just not Disney. They're also not cruise related. So, like, converter platforms are like wind, wind farms, like energy farms out in the ocean. Right. So that's they're talking about. And a research vessel would be like some kind of like NOAA or other type of, you know, vessel that's going to be doing research out in the state of ocean.
[01:04:48] Speaker A: Mayor of Papenburg builds more than just cruise ships, and they are trying to make a lot their case in the press about why they're financially stable and people should order from them and all of that. So they're trying to put out orders.
[01:04:59] Speaker D: Exactly.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: Well, much more speculation to come about these ships because we won't hear anything about them, in my opinion, until after the Destiny sails. I suspect DCL is going to take about a year off of all of this rolling announcement stuff, and we'll start to hear things in 2026 about a 2027 launch of a new ship. So lots more speculation.
[01:05:26] Speaker C: Come back to the next D 23.
[01:05:28] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right, Nathan.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: Alicia, let folks know where they can find and follow along with you.
[01:05:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. We are on socials at our mousecapades. We have a YouTube channel, which is just audio of our podcast. We are not delving into video because.
[01:05:49] Speaker C: I don't know how you all do it.
[01:05:50] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. But you guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, especially knowing you guys are still in California, aren't even home yet and you agreed to come on our show to do this live. We really appreciate it. Folks who are listening watching us right now. If you get a chance, go over to adventures and mouse Capades and give them a listen. They're on all of the podcast channels in addition to YouTube as well, and they'll be doing an episode in about a week. You'll hear an episode from them all about all of the things at D 23 that we haven't talked about because we're focused right now and talking to you all about cruise line. So we really appreciate you guys coming on. I'm going to tune in and listen because I want to hear all about all the stuff I didn't pay attention to. I didn't watch because I wasn't on the Twitter sphere and the Instagram sphere watching with bated breath as everything. And I also want to hear your guys takes on all of the controversy about Rivers of America and frontierland generally. I'm going to tune in for that.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: We've got a special guest lined up. If our schedules can align and stay aligned, I think you'll definitely want to tune in for the podcast that comes out next Monday.
[01:06:59] Speaker D: Awesome. Thank you guys so much.
[01:07:01] Speaker A: And with that, I'll just say we will be back next Monday. 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern I got it right that time. 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern our regular time slot. We'll be joined by Karen Shelton from my path unwinding travel, who's going to talk to us about talk river cruises and how they compare with the adventures by Disney offering on Ama waterways. River Cruising is one of our new favorite things to do. Even though we've only done it once, we were hooked. So we look forward to hearing from Karen about that. And with that, we'll just say thanks everybody out there for watching and we will see you next time.
[01:07:37] Speaker E: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it.
[01:07:40] Speaker A: Be sure to subscribe to the podcast.
[01:07:42] Speaker E: 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.
[01:08:00] Speaker A: Check that out if you want to.
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[01:08:09] Speaker A: So please head over there and hit those five stars.
[01:08:11] Speaker E: 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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[01:08:51] Speaker A: Also, as a way for you to.
[01:08:52] Speaker E: Sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written, dclduo.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also, of course, email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590 that's 40 241-355-5590 the DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company, or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views that Disney Company or Disney Cruise line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney vacation, please contact the great folks over at MyPath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
