[00:00:00] Speaker A: Because, again, the kids only want to go to the ocean ear lab. So that's the first part. So what were we doing? What were we doing every night? We were in Ogil's pub every night, watching Florida in the Little League World Series all week long. That's what we were doing.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Every single night. I don't know, but we don't normally watch it, but here we are.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: I was gonna say, do you have a connection to the Florida Little League team or.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: No, it was just on and we just got it.
[00:00:32] Speaker D: Got into it. I love it.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL duo podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding travel. And we got some great guests tonight, Sam. Some really truly fabulous guests.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: They are.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: We got Frank and Jen from the Dillo's diz. Welcome back, guys.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you to be back.
[00:01:09] Speaker D: Yeah, we're so excited to have you back. It's been too long since we've gotten a chance to talk. For those who don't know, Jen and Frank are a brother and sister, or sister and brother duo who podcast about Disney on the Dillo's Dis podcast. We're going to talk to them about their fantasy eastern caribbean sailing. But before we dive right into that, we gotta talk some news. Cause we've had some Disney Cruise line news come out in the past week since our last show. I'm gonna let Brian kick it off because he's got the list of stuff that we've heard, including some stuff, literally, today. So we have to, of course, talk about that.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Literally. Literally. Yeah. Okay, so big news out of Disney Cruise line from the past week. First up, the adventure. So they did release some new concept art for the adventure. So some details coming out now. They released concept art for the imagination garden.
That garden, I will say, looks suspiciously a lot like the Central park on the Oasis class. Shipped with a little Disney touch. They got a big castle, a three story castle at the end of the garden.
[00:02:14] Speaker D: So, yeah, beautiful, like, mural type thing.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Looking fabulous. I think that that is a great add to Disney ships. They also announced the themes for two of the restaurants.
One is Grandma Tala's kitchen, which will serve diverse flavors of the Asia Pacific. And the other, another one is Mowgli. I always mispronounce this mouth. Mowgli. Mowgli. Mowgli. Mowgli. When I say Mount Mowgli's eatery, which will serve indian food. So no longer do you have to ask your server for the indian food from the crew buffet. You can go get indian food at Mowgli's eatery. And last but not least, Sam's favorite announcement probably is that they are bringing Avengers assemble, a marvel show to the Disney adventure. And they've been hyping up that it's going to feature Deadpool, which.
[00:03:02] Speaker D: Yeah, crazy.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Which is going to be kind of crazy considering some of the backlash I've been seeing online about Deadpool in the parks and his off color humor.
[00:03:11] Speaker D: So I got to tell you, I am like, living for the clips of Deadpool and Deadpool and Wolverine in the parks, and we haven't even seen the movie yet, Brian and I, so we. But I've been loving seeing all the clips of them in the parks, at Disneyland, in adventures campus, of course, and in honor of the adventure and of course, the Disney Destiny, which is basically a Marvel ship, I'm wearing my Rogers the musical shirt today for those who are watching us live on or on video later. Yeah, super excited about all of these things. Avengers.
There's been the deck show on both on the wonder and on the dream. That is the what is it? Heroes unite. And I still haven't seen it, but everybody raves about it. And I'm guessing that Avengers assemble is going to be something similar to that. So sounds awesome.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: You can read all of our thoughts and commentary around these announcements on a sub stack to be written. I'm just kind of holding off on it because I was like, oh, they started releasing information. They'll release more information, but they haven't, suspiciously.
So anyway, later this week, I'll write something up, assuming that Disney has not sent anything more out on the wire about the adventure. Last announcement, big one. It's a big one. The Destiny. Destiny announced today. The destiny will have her maiden voyage out of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Everglades on November 20 for a four night sailing that will go to, correct me if I'm wrong, here it is, a island to island sailing, meaning it's going to go. We're going to call it a duo dip. That's the name for the official name.
It's not official, but I appreciate it.
[00:04:51] Speaker D: By official, I mean it's the DCL duo official name.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: If you guys say it, it has to be trash.
[00:04:57] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: Stop trying to make fetch happen, Sam. It's just not going to happen.
All right, so November 20, 2025, four night sailing out of Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale, including stops at Castaway Key and Lookout Key. As a reminder, Destiny bookings will open to Pearl Castaway Club members on September 6, and then cascade to other castaway club members until we hit the September 12 on sale date to the general public.
I will just say two things about this one. I've seen a few people saying like, I'm going for this one. I hope I have a good chance at it. PS, the treasure maiden voyage I discovered today is still available to book. So four months out from the maiden, you can still book on the treasure. So I think you're in good shape for a sailing on the destiny. I think the factors that will weigh into whether that maiden sells out are it is a shorter sailing. So as long as Disney has not completely lost its mind in terms of pricing that easier on the pocketbook. For most people, I wish it had been a five night sailing or even a seven night special sailing, but it is not as a four night sailing, which can make it difficult to see everything on the ship, to be perfectly honest. The other thing I'll say is the November 20 date is nothing. My opinion, not thanksgiving for families who may have to pull their kids out of school in order to do that. You know, I'm sure there are.
[00:06:15] Speaker D: It's a week before Thanksgiving. It's literally the Thursday one week before Thanksgiving. It's very frustrating and it's only a four night. So I'm listen, I've already gotten feedback out there from the community asking if we're going and it's TBD. We gotta find out what the second.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: The magic eight ball says. Outlook unclear.
[00:06:34] Speaker D: So we need to know what the second sailing is. And you know, maybe we would just do the second sailing, maybe we would do a back and we don't get.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: All the free stateroom gifts and I know it's.
[00:06:45] Speaker D: Yeah, this is very frustrating. We haven't figured it out yet. So they did also release artist rendering of the cask and cannon pub, which is the Pirates of the Caribbean themed bar that will replace what is the keg encompass on the wish and what will be the periscope pub on the treasure. And I mean, it doesn't look overly themed, but it's also just an artist's rendering, so it's kind of hard to tell. And there's nothing close up. Everything is sort of far away, but I think it's good. I mean, I like sort of the light theming on on a irish pub that is now going to be a Pirates pub. So I'm okay with it.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: I will tell you that Goldilocks syndrome has struck Diz Twitter yet once again, as people are like, don't have the ip in my face and the other side are going, it's too understated. So they can't win. There you go. They can't win. They can't win. But with that, if you are interested in booking any sailings on the destiny, we do expect full itinerary release to be coming here very soon in advance of the September 6 on sale date. For Pearl Castaway Club members, my guess is Thursday, Friday of this week or Tuesday of next after the holiday, we'll see the full release. If you're interested in booking, please reach out to our fabulous show sponsor, my path unwinding travel by browsing to mypath unwinding.com dclduo or emailing dclduo at mypath unwinding.com. and with that, the new segment comes to an end. So we can finally have a fun discussion with our guests. So, Frank, Jen, how many Disney cruises was this for you? Once again, remind our listeners and viewers out there.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: So for me, it was my third and for Frank, his second, so. But now some swag. Yeah, I got that because now he's part of the castaway club. So it's good.
[00:08:31] Speaker D: You got a tote bag. Good job, Frankenhein. And you got another tote bag. Exactly.
[00:08:39] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. All right, so you did this seven night sailing, the fantasy. Why did you pick the fantasy and this particular sailing?
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we did the exact same cruise in 2022. So two years ago for mama and papa Dillo's 50th anniversary and Jen's 10th anniversary and my own 10th anniversary, we did like a 50 1010 cruise on the fantasy. Same exact itinerary. Eastern Caribbean. It went so well. Maybe we'll touch on what we didn't like that time. But that went so well that we were like, well, let's do it again. Let's just run it back. And so that was the plan for August 2023. There were some health concerns with Papadillo. He has since recovered to the point that he could take the cruise this summer. So that was this past week was the official run back of the 2022.
[00:09:39] Speaker D: Well, yay for Papadillo. Being in better condition and able to do it. Yeah. So that's awesome.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: It's funny because our first, our first two cruises were on the fantasy as well.
[00:09:49] Speaker D: And they were also both seven night eastern Caribbean because we loved, I feel like it's such a good itinerary and the fantasy is such a great ship that it's like if it isn't broke, right?
[00:10:02] Speaker B: I mean, and as dillos, we tend to just stick to the thing that's working. And stick to the thing we like. We don't veer off too much. So.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Pun intended.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: I always say I love my father. He could walk into any italian restaurant in the world and order spaghetti and meatballs, and they said, we don't have it on the menu. And he's like, you got pasta, you got spaghetti, meatballs.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: We got some meat. Make it into a ball. Let's go.
[00:10:26] Speaker D: Exactly. Make it into a ball.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:10:29] Speaker D: Yeah. Some of us are creatures of habit. All right, well, let's. Let's talk about who was on this sailing, obviously, the two of you and Mama and Papa Dillo. But there's some kids and some spouses involved, too.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So my spouse, Frank's spouse, my two kids, and Frank's daughter as well, so. And the kids are ten, eight, and seven right now, so they still can all attend the oceaneer club altogether, which was a big draw as well, that they wouldn't be split up if they went to camp.
[00:11:00] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: We love it so much.
[00:11:01] Speaker D: That's huge. That's really. That's. That's very key. Well, let's. Let's talk about process of getting there and how that all went. Like, you guys fly down to Florida. Obviously you don't fly in the day of. Please tell me no.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Nobody's anxiety can handle that in our family. Come on.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: These are seasoned professionals saying, I mean.
[00:11:25] Speaker D: It'S only cruise number two and three, Brian. I know.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: You never know. They know Disney.
[00:11:30] Speaker D: They know Disney. They know rope drop culture.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: They know we know anxiety. We know all.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: We know all of them.
[00:11:38] Speaker D: They are fellow New Yorkers, so obviously.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: They know it well, because last time we came down on a Thursday afternoon and just did a quick day in the park on a Friday. This time, Papadilla wanted to kind of go a little bit bigger, and so we flew down on Wednesday morning and did a couple days into parks, maybe foolishly got some park hoppers to run us ragged before our seven day cruise, but nevertheless, make it feel like we.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Earned it, you know?
[00:12:11] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: We earned this rest.
[00:12:13] Speaker D: Right. Like you earned those trouble for sets, right. Absolutely.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: We gave ourselves a lot of time to make it to the boat on time.
[00:12:21] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: Where do you like to stay on? I'm assuming you stayed on property. So, like, where do you like to stay?
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So this time we stay at the boardwalk, which, I don't know. Frank claims he's, like, never stayed there. I don't think. I believe that. I haven't stayed, though, probably since the early two thousands and.
Yeah, but last time we stayed at the Swann dolphin, we kind of hop around. I mean, I think at this point, you know, it's always, we tend to have the deluxe resort mindset with the, you know, value resort budget. So we're always kind of playing around with numbers and we're, so we usually hop around from place to place. But it was cool to stay at the boardwalk again because it had been so long and the location, you can't really beat it. So it was, it was nice to be there and belt, you know, you feel like you're on vacation already because you're in Disney World. You're at a resort and you're like, this is great. And then, oh, you're about to get on a boat for seven. What?
[00:13:15] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. Well, and we, we love the Epcot resort area in general. Like, that's our preferred place to stay. I mean, we, we own at Riviera, so we stay there most of the time. But I love, like, yacht and beach club, like boardwalk. All of those Swanna dolphin like location there, I feel like is just, is an ideal location. Unless you're going to stay on the monorail. Right. That's the only thing that might be better is the even more expensive.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I was, I was 15 when Hollywood studios, hashtag always MGM, opened and, you know, and right after that, beach and yacht club opened. So we started staying there a lot. So that area is very, I feel, like, pivotal in both our lives. For me, I feel like it continued my love of Disney, you know, where some teenagers might have veered off. I did not veer off. I stayed on course, I think primarily because of the Epcot resort area and the studios. And for Jen, you know, she's. How much, how many years younger?
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Seven and a half years younger.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: But she was, you know, really coming into loving the parks at that time, too.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: It was really good for our family.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, back in those days when everything was way more affordable, like, we went. Our childhood consisted of, like, the Polynesian. And again, we're dillos. We don't veer. So we stay at the Polynesian most often. Then we switched and we went to the beach club. And that's pretty much where our childhood split.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: My childhood was the Polynesian and then, and my mom got into the grand Floridian and that's, that's where we went. So. Yeah. Yeah. I never, I always want to say it, the contemporary, but we never stayed.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: So we never did either. Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: If you're looking for deluxe vibes on a value budget, I hear grand Destino Tower is fantastic. So, yeah. So how did you get.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: Yeah, getting to the.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: How'd you get to the port from. From the beach club? Did you have like, a private transfer? Did you use Disney transportation? How'd you get out to the Portland?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: The age old question of, so how are we going to get there?
And two years ago, we did, like, a private transfer and just all went into a big van and whatever. This time we were kind of playing around with different ideas and we ended up just ubering and we ubered airport to hotel and hotel to port and board to airport again. So, yeah. Which, I mean, worked out.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: And, yeah, it didn't increase. You know, we didn't spend more money, I guess.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Right around the same price. So.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. So you get to the port boarding process, fairly smooth out of pork and Avril for you this time around.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Very, very smooth. And again, you know, compared to two years ago, they were still doing, you know, the test a couple of days before. You know, you got to talk to somebody. We were doing all that. So for me, it was great.
Minor panic attack in July when we realized that my daughter's passport had expired, because we didn't realize, like, a younger kid, it was less time. We were like, what do we do? So we went through a whole. Is the birth certificate okay? Process, but I still wasn't sure until I was.
[00:16:29] Speaker D: Until you're at the port? Yeah.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Am I on the boat? We're good. All right.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: Right. Then we're okay.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:34] Speaker D: So this is a good tip, though. Out there, you can often sail on just a birth certificate. It's very common for kids to do that, less common for adults else to do that. But not all sailings, but certain sailings. You can't do it out of Europe, but you can do sailings that come, you know, that leave out of the US and return to the same port in the US most of the time. And obviously, there are some exceptions. You can sail on a birth certificate, and it should be. That information should be on the Disney cruise line website as to when you can, when you can't, that sort of a thing. So. But it is actually pretty common. It's always recommended to sail on a passport because if something happens then, and you need to leave the cruise ship, then you can get back into the US. But it's definitely something doable.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: So let me pop a couple of comments here before we move on, which I have to put up. Like just about every.
[00:17:23] Speaker D: Brian always has to put up. Come on. Comments? Because he loves psych fan.
[00:17:27] Speaker C: A fellow psych fan.
[00:17:28] Speaker E: I love it.
[00:17:28] Speaker D: He loves his name.
I'm assuming. I assume. I always assume this is a man. And I don't actually.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: That's fair. That's good. That's a good point. We're making assumptions.
[00:17:37] Speaker D: We're making assumptions.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: My husband and I also think it's nothing.
[00:17:41] Speaker D: Well, it could be. Yeah, it could be. It could be a man or woman.
[00:17:45] Speaker C: Sam's getting ready to make bad double assumptions.
[00:17:48] Speaker D: No, I'm always assuming that. Come on, son is a male fan of psych. Because I feel like psych is a. I don't know. That's a.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Maybe.
[00:17:55] Speaker D: That's a prejudice of mine because Brian's obsessed with that shovel.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Just put the shovel away, all right?
[00:18:02] Speaker E: My husband.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: I also did the ship in itinerary for our ten year anniversary. Great trip. No. And, Sam, you are wrong.
[00:18:12] Speaker D: Sorry. Come on.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: All right. Wesley Davenport saying, before my first cruise, I stay at the beach club, set the bar high. That's true.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: That's a great resort. That's a great resort. All right, so I want to know, you get on the ship. Where are the dillos heading? First thing on board the fantasy. Are you a. Are you a cabanas? Are you a sit down lunch? Are you. We're hitting the water slide in the pool. We're all going different places. Like, what goes on for the Dillo family when they get on board.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Is there a place to take a nap? Yeah.
Yeah. I think two years ago, we had a really. Two years ago, we were just. I think still the times were getting to us because we were horrible at looking at anything ahead of time. We didn't, like, check in that early, so our.
Our time was, like, after 02:00. So by the time we got on the ship, there was, like, nobody around, and we just walked out. Are we the last ones to come on board today? What does that mean? So, this time, and I think that trip, too. Like, we didn't have our clothes then by dinner, and, like, it was. But this time, we were on board, like, 1215, I think. And I think we did go, you know, I think we hung around a little bit, and we tried to get the earlier seating because we were booked for the later seating.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: And so we were like, we really want the early seating. So we went down and, like, had that little chat first, but then our room was going to be ready within, like, five minutes of that. So we went to our rooms, dropped off some stuff, and then I think we all met at cabanas.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's what I mean. And really, the seating was twofold where we, we wanted our cake. We wanted to be icing the cake. We wanted to be eating the cake because we wanted to start in animator's palette. We wanted the extra night in animated palette. So they gave us that.
[00:19:59] Speaker D: Exploitation.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah, they gave us that. But they're like, you're still in the late seating. And we're like, so we had, did.
[00:20:06] Speaker C: They accommodate the earlier seating and keep you in your.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: They did. Nice but not animators palette.
Yeah, we got there earlier, so we're like, we will take it. Because with the kids in their ages, we feel like their earlier dinner is still better. Like, they're not going to be waiting till after eight to eat, and then they love to go to camp after. And so we're like, we don't want to as dillos, we don't want to mess with the routine that there's, they've come accustomed to two years ago. We can't mess with that.
[00:20:35] Speaker D: And our mom and Papa Dillo, early eaters, too.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: I think they could probably. They would probably go either way.
[00:20:44] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: I think, yeah, I mean, usually they're.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: On cruise ships where they like to gamble a little bit, so I think.
[00:20:51] Speaker D: That also comes late night.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: That was Mamadillo's worry about a Disney cruise. We had sent them on one for their 40th, I think, like, just a weekend one, really. Just go. Just try it. Of course they loved it. But, yeah, they, you know, they, they go on Royal Caribbean, they go on celebrity, and there is like, but there's no casino on Disney.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: We're like, what are we going to do? Yeah, exactly. Well, they still have bingo, but it's not the same. There are people who really love to go after dinner to the casino, before dinner to the casino, middle of the day to the casino on the port, you know, on a sea day.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: I mean, if they ever do. If they ever do a casino, I want Mickey behind the blackjack table. Like, dealing with cards. Like, could you imagine how much of a draw that would be? Like, you know, Donald, imagine twitter blow.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Up from that crazy.
[00:21:40] Speaker D: Totally never, never going to happen. People, those watching it, that will never happen. Even if Disney Cruise line ends up with a casino, know, someday Mickey will not be dealing cards at the card table and you will not have Mickey themed slot machines.
I would put money on that. I will bet on that. All right, well, let's, let's talk about what you, what the dillos get up to on Disney. Cruise line.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Can I, can I ask the question a little differently, Sam? I want to ask, like, each of you, as you head into this cruise, what were you most looking forward to?
[00:22:10] Speaker D: That's a good one. Yeah.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: So let me start with you, Frank. Were you, like, most looking forward to out of this cruise?
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, it's going to go. It's going to go in both directions because I was looking forward to the food being better because that was our disappointment last time. So I had a hunch based on listening to you guys for a long time, knowing what other people's experiences were, that we were some sort of anomaly and didn't have a good meal experience for our week. So that was the first part. And the second part was, I really enjoyed last time, just the character experience throughout the cruise, just who was out and about how the people were responding, like, necess. I want to get in line, but I just enjoy seeing that. I just enjoy seeing the characters roaming. I really, that's. That's my cast member experience in the nineties at the studios. That's what I did. So to see it kind of present throughout the cruise, I find real joy in that. So that was something I was looking forward to and seeing how they changed.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: It up a little bit and so did the food, did the food get better for you?
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah, 100% yes.
[00:23:18] Speaker D: Oh, yay.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Definitely immediately kind of knew, you know, where I think last time after the first couple of nights, I would become perplexed at dinner going, I don't know what to pick because I'm not sure what will hit and what will not. And it became anxious for me.
By the second night, I was like, okay, everything is fine.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: So, yeah, we're good.
[00:23:39] Speaker D: Yeah. Anomaly. What about you, Jen? What were you looking forward to for this cruise?
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think the characters were definitely huge for us. The fact that, you know, our girls had gone to bibbidi bobbidi boutique, come out, turned the corner and ran into Cinderella while dressed up, was like, what is this magic?
You know, while also setting the expectations of, like, it's probably not going to be exactly like that, so it's going to be okay. But I really wanted to for the kids, too. You know, they love Disney. They were super excited for the cruise. They had such an amazing time. They remember every detail about it. Last time, I wanted it to continue for them, and I wanted to see if there was something new for them that they were really into or if they still loved camp. And they did. I mean, they had the best time and probably went to camp more this time than last time. And, and going to camp.
[00:24:36] Speaker D: I love that, too. I was going to say the exact same thing. I love that you call it going to camp.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: That's what they call it. It. And I don't even know how that started. Did we start that two years ago?
[00:24:46] Speaker A: I don't know. Because on, because my eight year old, she went on a celebrity cruise a couple, maybe a year before we did the last fantasy trip. So, you know, that was camp and she went to camp. So I feel like I carry over to everyone else.
[00:24:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I love that. I love that. I thought it was, well, you know, growing up in New York, like, everyone goes to camp. Like, that's, like normal, right? So out here in Washington, Washington, people do camps, but it's not going to camp. Like, you go to a week long, like, camp for this and a week long camp for that, and it's like a mishmash of summer. It's such a pain, I can't even tell you. But, like, back in New York, like, you went to camp for the whole summer and that could be sleepway camp or day camp, but you went to camp for the whole summer, like eight weeks, nine weeks. Like. Yeah, this is just. Yeah. This whole, I don't know, this whole craziness.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: This is not.
[00:25:33] Speaker D: I know. I know.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Anyway, yeah, we didn't grow up going to camp, and Frank's daughter has been at camp during the summers. My kids refuse to go to camp during the summer. However, the only camp that they'll go to is.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: Eight weeks of Disney cruising. Eight weeks. They got to be similarly priced, right?
[00:26:01] Speaker B: It probably is. That's true.
[00:26:07] Speaker D: Anyway. Well, I want to, I want to talk about the character experience, though, Frank, because you mentioned that as being key. And, YoU Know, I'm curious because YoU guys are parks folks and obviously, You Know, YoU worked in the, in the parks back in the day. You know, how do YoU see the, the cruise line character experience as compared to the character experience on, you know, at the parks? And do you think one is better? Are they just different? Like. Yeah. What do you think?
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I mean, we grew, again, we grew up on, you know, the roaming characters. So, you Know, and obviously we knew, YoU KnoW, as Disney world became more popular, that had to, they had to find a way to not have a be madness all the time. So especially when I was working there as character entertainment and at the studios in the mid nineties that, you know, there was, it started to shift towards, and this character will be, you know, Buzz and Woody, who were very popular in 1996. You know, they're going to start having a. Then, you know, it's like the Beatles. Sometimes it would come out of Muppet vision to people be running towards buzz and Woody. And so I saw that develop over time. So there is that little piece that the roaming characters is still a big part, which is what I liked about our last trip on the fantasy was that we kind of had half. Half. We stood in line for some, we ran into others, you know, with. With the spontaneity, and that was great. This time, as we as misses dillow, as I say. And I found out on Wednesday, a cast member told us it was, the ship was at 106% capacity, so.
[00:27:42] Speaker D: Wow. Yeah.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: So the lines never really let up and. Or we didn't see as much of the roaming situation happen.
[00:27:51] Speaker D: Right. And they can't really do as much roaming if they end up with long lines because it means they're at their character spots for longer. So they just don't have the personnel available to do the roaming stuff because they're stuck in there. You know, one of the things when capacity is, is more reasonable. Not. Not necessarily back when it was Covid days and it was like 50%, but even when it's like 80%, the lines are reasonable. They're at their spot for, you know, maybe, you know, between anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. But when they have to stay at that spot beyond the normal 30 minutes, then they can't do all that.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: No wiggle room.
[00:28:29] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: And, you know, and, like, I don't fault that. It was just, that's how many people there were. And, like, I got up very early in the morning to make sure I went to camp. I mean, the oceaneer lab, to meet three po.
Like, I had to do that. So those were choices I made. But my wife and I were talking about our eight year old, who I think she likes the interactions more. And on the last night, when they all say goodbye there on the last night, you know, she ran into Cinderella and Belle basically just lucky hit them both right at the end, of course. Thanks for ending the cruise on the high notes. So now, oh, everything's magical.
And, you know, just. She likes that deeper interaction, too. And I think she likes character dining experiences more than. She's not going to wait in line, necessarily, for a character in the park. She's. She'll want to go to Ohana or Cape may or something like that.
[00:29:26] Speaker D: Right. Where they come around to you and they spend a couple of minutes and you're not waiting. You're eating right. Like, it doesn't feel like waiting in a line. Yeah.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: I wanted to mention something that Frank said, because we got questions about this when I mentioned it, which is the 106% capacity. People are like, how can they sail a ship fuller than 100%? The answer is, the capacity is determined by double occupancy for every stateroom. So any stateroom that has more than two people in it increases the capacity. Once they're at double occupancy for every stateroom, any staterooms that then have more people in them start to increase the capacity of the ship beyond 100%, they will always have enough life. They always have enough lifeboats and life jackets for everyone.
[00:30:02] Speaker D: Right. And that doesn't mean they're over the, whatever, 4200 passengers or whatever it is. The number of full capacity is actually a lot lower than that, because I.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Think he said in that same conversation, the cast members said, like, 3900, you know, but it also showed that, like, on the 2022 cruise, like, we didn't. We thought it was a pretty full ship, but it. No.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: In comparison. Yeah.
[00:30:24] Speaker C: So, Jen, you dropped a second ago kind of a little. You snuck in a little thing that I want to talk about. Bibbidi bobbidi boutique.
Was this. Was this their first time doing it, or did you do it last time?
[00:30:34] Speaker B: This was their second, because we did it on the first cruise, so obviously we had to do it again. And on the first cruise, we got away with bringing the costume and go, no, no. You guys have all the costumes, right? You have all the costumes this time they're like, we're gonna get one there.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: Oh, is that right?
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So all of them. Yeah, just. Well, just the two girls did it.
[00:30:58] Speaker D: Oh, there's one boy.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Yes. So there's seven and eight. And living their best life at Babbitti. Babbitti. Like, this is. This is where we belong every day. Why is this not happening to us?
[00:31:09] Speaker D: Your son didn't want to be Prince Charming, or he did not.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: He did think about being a pirate, and I was able to get him an appointment for pirate night, and then when it was almost time for the appointment, he decided he just wanted to be himself. So we canceled that appointment, but he has not had a makeover yet.
But the girls, they were like, we'll go again. Can we go again? We're like, no, no, you're good. You're all set.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Go again.
[00:31:37] Speaker D: Oh, they wanted to see the pirate ring over, too.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Actually, we did just interview some. Some people who their. Was it their daughters that went twice during the cruise.
[00:31:48] Speaker D: Oh, there are definitely people who.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: Yeah, they got. I was, like, blown away.
[00:31:52] Speaker D: There are people who. Because they want the princess makeover and the pirate one, or they want the princess one and the captain Minnie or Captain Mickey one. That's on the wish. Right. Like, so there's. Because there's a couple of different options now. They, you know. Yes. But Nathan has never done.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:09] Speaker D: Nathan has never done it. He. I, like, I almost. I thought I was going to be able to convince him to do the captain Mickey one. One time, but that he did happen. He did the one at out. He did the one at Arulani, which is just, like, color hair gel thing.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:25] Speaker D: Um, and some. And some, uh, you know, pixie dust, basically.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:30] Speaker D: Yeah. That was really. Oh, some temporary tattoos. He was, like, covered in temporary tattoos.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: He liked the temporary tattoos. He did not like the feeling of the hair stuff.
[00:32:38] Speaker D: He did not. Yes, correct.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah. My son's the same way, too. Like, he doesn't. Like, even for a crazy hair day, I've gotten away with, like, every year I do the same thing, which is I put a bunch of hairspray in his hair, but not where it gets too crazy. And then I put Lego guys in his hair, and that's the crazy hair day because he refuses to do. I'm like, what about a mohawk? What about color in your hair? And he's like, no, I don't.
[00:33:02] Speaker D: Yeah, we can get maybe a faux hawk out of. That's about.
[00:33:06] Speaker C: That's literally, I was like, just come over here. Daddy will put some of the product in.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: We'll make this happen.
[00:33:10] Speaker D: Right? Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: All the stuff I didn't get to do as a kid, we're gonna do so anyway.
[00:33:14] Speaker D: No, he won't.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: So talk to us about your port stops for a second. So you. You were at St. Thomas in Tortola. Well, did you get up to anything? Did you get off the ship? Some people don't.
No. You didn't get off the ship in either place. Awesome. All right. There you go. I mean, that's a strategy.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Two years ago, Frank got off at St. Thomas.
We did not. And this time, we all stayed on until castaway, and that's when we got off. But, yeah, we kind of. The boat's awesome when everybody's off of.
[00:33:46] Speaker D: It, so it is even more awesome when everybody's off of it. I get. Those are great. Yep.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:33:52] Speaker D: Yes. Those. Those ports are great ports. But the. I mean, the ship is the destination, right? So. Yeah. And you're in beautiful weather and you've got this amazing pool deck. Yeah, no question.
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[00:35:04] Speaker D: Well, let's talk about castaway then. This was Frank's second time to cast away. Jen, this was your third time to castaway I believe. Yes. Your other cruises all went there?
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:14] Speaker D: I take it you docked?
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:17] Speaker D: Okay, good.
Okay, well tell us, you know, how was castaway? Did you do exactly the same thing that you did the last time you went to castaway?
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Actually, we didn't. And so, yeah, this is like the downer part of it. I don't know. But it was a beautiful afternoon and we got off in the morning, which was threatening stuff. So we were on the far end of Scuttles Cove. What is it? Scuttles Cove. I don't know which scuttles. Scuttles, whatever it is.
And we all had seats, but which was great considering the amount of people rushing towards the seats. We had some people that we had to carefully navigate to their chairs, but the wind really picked up at eleven 3012 and so we didn't want to take the risk of anybody falling, slipping, being blown over by the winds. So we didn't even stay for, you know, we were a little disappointed that we didn't get to have the grill, as it were. And so we went back to the boat. But again, we hand the boat to ourselves all afternoon. Depressingly made packing get done earlier, but we had more fun on the back end.
[00:36:34] Speaker C: I hate that part of the fantasy itinerary because it ends on castaway, and the next day you're off and you have to, like, pack on castaway.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: It's not just the fantasy itinerary, like, most of the itineraries that go to castaway. Not all, but most of the itineraries that go to castaway. Castaways your last stop because they want you to end on a high note.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Right?
[00:36:51] Speaker D: Cause castaway is generally a great port.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Right?
[00:36:54] Speaker D: It's like. It's like running into Cinderella and bell on the last cruise. That's what's in your mind, right? Instead of, like some Nassau day or whatnot.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:37:03] Speaker D: But it ends up, you know, it can. It ends up cutting your day a little short because you do have to, you know, get off or get back on to pack and get your bags out in time for them to be taken off the ship.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know what?
[00:37:16] Speaker C: I have to show this comment. I have to show this comment. My favorite thing to do is watch people mad dash off the ship.
Yes. Yes.
[00:37:24] Speaker D: That I don't understand. And this is the thing that, you know, Brian is. Has evangelized over and over again about rope drop culture and how we need to stop bringing that into Disney cruise line. But I don't understand the running to the beach at castaway because, honestly, there is plenty of seating. You might not. It might not be the closest seating, right? But there is plenty of seating. You get on that tram, go all the way to family beach two, maybe even walk a little bit back from family beach two and go to the end of family beach one. Or continue walking to the end of family beach two. There are always plenty of seats with shade, with hammocks. I mean, there. It doesn't matter which ship you're on. There's plenty of seating. There are never two ships there. There's always only one. So it just drives me crazy that people run and then they're, like, fighting over chairs, and it's like, just walk like a yemenite, you know, ten yards, and there's, you know, plenty.
[00:38:23] Speaker C: And these are the same people who complain about the pure walk at lookout Key, so you can only imagine telling them to walk another 50 yards. Anyway. Anyway, Jen, we cut you off. You're going to. You're going to see something about your castaway day.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Oh, no, no. I have to remember. No, I think just that if the disguise had stayed a little dark because the darkness was moving around us, and we were just watching it because we're under the Disney dome. It's fine. There's not going to be bad weather.
[00:38:49] Speaker D: Right?
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Protection, it's fine. But it kept moving. But once those winds picked up and the water got pretty choppy.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Then, you know, mother and Papadillo, we're not the youngest anymore. And then we have three children. We were just like, if it just downpours and the winds are crazy, the picturing getting back to the ship.
[00:39:09] Speaker D: Getting back to the ship with the whole group. Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: No, we can't. But. But we. I also agree with the, you know, the debate of leaving on a high note versus having, like, maybe an extra day at sea right in the middle. And we kind of got to our own debate for that because most of us felt like, no, we don't want the last day to be at castaway because that's too good. And we don't. We're so sad to be leaving the next day as it is. Misses dillow was like, um, you're leaving on a high note, guys. What are you talking about? But we're like, no, we want a day at sea in between.
[00:39:43] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: And be sad.
[00:39:45] Speaker D: Yes. I will say my favorite itineraries are ones where castaway is the second to last day, and you're like, you have a full last day. Day at sea after castaway. Because I don't mind cutting into my sea day a little bit to pack, whereas I. More mind cutting.
[00:40:01] Speaker C: I don't mind. So the thing, the strategy I have with packing, just, you know, to get. To get off the boat if it's a short sailing ice pack in the morning that we're getting off, because usually it's like, I'll just pack that morning. There's not enough stuff or not a lot of stuff. If it's castaway day, I sometimes hope for a later arrival because then I'll get up in the morning and I'll pack the morning before we get off the ship. And then, yeah, on the sea day, I do the same thing because I'm like, I want to get packing done so I can just go enjoy the ship without a thought in my mind about having to come back here and pack stuff up. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:40:33] Speaker D: Well, I want to. Let's. Let's go back onto the ship. You guys had a ton of ship time. We got to hear some of the. Yeah, we got to hear something. Had six days of ship time gone, so we got to hear some of. Some of the highlights from your time at sea or parked at port, where you're on the ship, so.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Well, I feel like we're just going to keep getting judged here as we go, right? So we had Aladdin and frozen, and believe we only did Aladdin, because, again, the kids only want to go to the ocean ear lab. So that's the first part. So what were we doing? What were you doing every night? We were in Ogil's pub every night, watching Florida in the Little League World Series. All week long.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Every single night.
[00:41:23] Speaker D: That's what we did.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: It's hilarious because our, our new friend, Georgia Otto Gills, she was. She was like, what is this little league? Is that. You know, is that. She's from the UK. She's like, is that big here? We're like, I don't know, but we don't normally watch it, but here we are.
[00:41:41] Speaker C: I was gonna say, do you have a connection to the Florida little League team or.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: No, it was just on. And we just got into that.
[00:41:49] Speaker D: Into it.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: They did play a New York team early on, so there was a little bit of like, all right, we got a New York team. Let's see what's going on. But then we were. Then that was it.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, we were at Oak Hills every night, which was awesome.
[00:42:04] Speaker D: I mean, Oak Hills is great. It's a great place to hang out. Like, no judgment on hanging out at Oak Hills. A little bit of judgment that you didn't go see frozen, though.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: We saw frozen last time, and with Aladdin, the kids loved Aladdin. I really thought they were going to go to frozen. So we got to that night, and I was like, we don't want to see frozen.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: And even though there was a daytime option as well. And so we were like, oh, we can go in the afternoon. You guys can still do camp at night. And they're like, no, we're good. We saw it. We're like, okay.
[00:42:35] Speaker C: All right, guys, so apparently you are not alone in watching the Little League World Series.
[00:42:40] Speaker D: Yeah, series. Elizabeth is going well.
I don't know who was playing, but okay.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: I do. I do feel like I've been seeing more of it. I'm like, is this just a coincidence? Is my phone just listening to what I'm doing as usual? So I'm seeing more. And the algorithms. I don't know.
Yeah. And I think we did also, because you can't do this on Disney at home almost every day leading up to the cruise, but we saw descendants rise of the red in the movie theater on the boat.
[00:43:07] Speaker D: Oh, there you go. There you go.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Did that one afternoon, the kids were like, what? We have to go.
[00:43:13] Speaker D: We have to go see descendants.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: I've been listening to the soundtrack all summer. We've seen it. A couple. No.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Okay, did they have Wolverine and Deadpool on board? They did.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: They. Did we see it? We did not.
[00:43:26] Speaker D: Well, listen, it's just, it's. It's one of those things where we're not sure if they were going to have it because it is a rated R movie, right?
[00:43:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:34] Speaker D: Doesn't usually have rated R movies on this show.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:43:38] Speaker D: So. Yeah. Because they don't. I don't. I'm assuming they probably had it only on later at night, probably not like midday showings, so that it was only at night.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah. They were on an inside out to Indiana Jones in the dial of Destiny. Surprised me. And descendants and Deadpool. Yeah, I saw it. Not. It didn't run as much Deadpool in the memory. So.
[00:43:59] Speaker D: Yeah. Okay, I gotta ask about trivia. Do you guys, I feel like you guys would probably be good at trivia because you're such parks nerds, and I mean that in the nicest ways. I just want you to. That's a compliment to call you a parks nerd.
Yes.
Go to, like, the Parks trivia or any of the other trivias. And if so, how you all do?
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Well, last cruise in 2022, again, not realizing, like, what the capacity of anything was. The trivia was in Ogils, which was perfect for us.
I won one of the Disney trivia.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Night, a tote bag. Tote bag before he was in castaway.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Club, you know, and I think. And then did pretty well. And the other one. And so we were sad right away when we found out, oh, the trivia is not in Oak Gills. And a couple nights later, it was over.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Do we have to go somewhere else?
[00:44:50] Speaker A: What do you mean?
Walk out this door and go down this hall.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: I got money on a little league World Series game going on here. What do you mean?
[00:45:02] Speaker A: I did walk into the tube for the movie quotes, trivia and stayed for a little bit. I was getting killed. Got one of the Harry Potter quotes, right. Which I blame my child. For two years, until all the Harry Potter stuff we've been going strong on, and, and I was like, I'm. I'm out.
I can't even recall the easy ones anymore. What's going on? I gotta go.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but they did have. I mean, they had, and you said it was, like, packed in there every night and, you know, they had so much going on. Um, I don't think I don't think I walked into the tube at all.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: And yo yo, that's the cast members. Yo yo was the trivia guy. We talked to him outside the tube one night, but he was a great trivia host, and.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: And so highly recommenda if you're going on the fantasy time soon, if the.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: Kids like to go to camp, or do you two get to avail yourself of some of the adult pool areas then, or is it all family pool all the time?
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Yeah, we were able to do that some of the afternoons. Like, the kids, you know, they, well, actually, I will say they all slept in on this cruise, which was lovely because they were up late. So, you know, that was nice. But in the afternoon, sometimes they would want to go, like, after lunch or whatever, we're like, yeah. And then we could hang out in the COVID and have a drink or two and hang out and. But, yeah, so I don't, I don't think I actually went into the pool once I was in those areas, but I think I just sort of, like, hung out and chilled out there, which was nice.
Yeah.
Like one to two drinks a day in these locations now. Yeah.
[00:46:47] Speaker D: Tell, tell us about family pool deck time. Are, were you guys, you know, spending a lot of time there and doing, you know, aqua with doc a bunch? Because I feel like, especially when the ship is empty, that's, like, perfect timing for that.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And, yeah, we were in those pools a lot, and I feel like there was at least there was one day where I feel like we were almost there 4 hours straight. The kids were just nonstop swimming, and, you know, they like to jump back and forth between Mickey and Donald.
If we say anything, we have a thing with the pools. Why. Why do they feel so small?
[00:47:23] Speaker D: Because they are so small.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. So, and then, you know, so they go back, and then they go to the Donald pool, and then that one gets two credits, and then they go back to the Mickey pool. So it's usually just us going back and forth between the two, but, you know, they would go down the yellow slide. The ten and eight year old did aqueduct a few times. So, yeah, we spent, I would say most of our mornings, except for castaway day, was at the family pool time.
[00:47:51] Speaker C: If you want to know why the pools are so small, Jen, I will actually tell you there is a documentary you can watch. Uh, I have to look it up and send you after, but it was about the making of another cruise ship, and it's all about the amount of weight at the top of the boat. So, like, water is some of the heaviest weight. Right. So you'll see, like, sweets and stuff have marble in them. They're actually like a millimeter of marble on top of, like, you know, like some cheap, light material.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:16] Speaker C: So, yeah, yeah. So it's all about the weight distribution on the ship. They have to catalog every item and its weight and put it into a spreadsheet to make sure the boat doesn't, like, tip over. So, yeah, it's fascinating.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: I guess that's fine then.
[00:48:29] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, there are ships that have more pools and have bigger pools, though. Yeah. But sometimes they're not on the very top deck, like, they're indoor or whatever. So they do have. There are different configurations.
[00:48:40] Speaker C: That's why some of the older cruise liners had the pools, like, in the middle of the ship. Indoors.
[00:48:44] Speaker D: Right, indoors. Exactly. So that's what you tended to see in previous.
[00:48:50] Speaker C: What about. So again, the kids like to go to camp. Any adulthood dining palo a remedy?
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Like.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: We did a palo brunch with all of us two years ago. Me and my husband went to brunch. Frank and his wife did a dinner, and I think the first cruise mom and Papadilla were on, they may have done dinner, but when we did the brunch, we were like, next time we do this, we're all doing brunch. Now that we know the kids love camp where we're doing Apollo brunch. So we had a lovely three hour brunch for all the grownups, which was really nice. And, you know, the food was amazing. Obviously.
We had some Finland water, which was refreshing. Yeah.
Got sold on the Finland water.
[00:49:36] Speaker D: Hold on. The water upcharge.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: We're like, you know what? Yeah, we're trying it. Let's go.
[00:49:43] Speaker D: You know, bring two bottles of water for the table.
[00:49:47] Speaker C: We're a big fan of the Hilden water from the UK. It's delicious.
I praise for Palo from a couple New Yorkers. And it's italian food. So what did you have? Like, what did you like off the menu?
[00:50:01] Speaker A: I had the lasagna I think was my closer. So didn't I think that was most of our closers?
[00:50:07] Speaker D: That's what Brian, I love the lasagna, but I do really love that chicken parm, so I have a hard time veering from that chicken.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: I was debating between the two.
[00:50:17] Speaker D: They're both.
[00:50:20] Speaker A: So that's a whole other.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: Go on to gluten free path with malatu, which I thought they did pretty well by you on that.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, for sure. Because. And also, since they're using a flower that is from Italy, then I can kind of enjoy.
[00:50:37] Speaker D: Some gluten, a little bit of gluten, a little less gluten.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: And all of that. So it was nice. Yeah. But so I feel like everything except for the flatbread pizza, you know, mine looked very thin in comparison, but it was still good. And.
[00:50:54] Speaker D: And good news about that gluten. Gluten free pizza crust in particular, actually. Yeah.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:00] Speaker D: It looks different, but it. I heard it's very good still.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: I mean, knowing how, you know, the thick crust tastes, it's hard for me to look at it, but, um, you know, I say still, but I. It's. It was nice to be there and not, you know, not feel like, okay, you can only have these two things. I could pretty much have anything I wanted there. But, yeah, we did the trying to think. We did both antipastas, right? We had the seafood and the meats, and then I think, frank, you had the waffle next, right?
[00:51:34] Speaker D: The huge Mickey waffle.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Yes. And I wasn't expecting the Mickey waffle. I was like, oh, an apple cinnamon waffle. I could go for that right now. And then you get, like, the big Mickey head. I was like, oh, okay. No kidding.
[00:51:46] Speaker D: Remember, you're on Disney cruise line. It's going to be have a waffle. It's going to be a mickey shaped waffle.
[00:51:51] Speaker C: I would say frank was like, I feel seen. I feel scenery.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: No, I love it, I love it, love it.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: But I think the rest of. Or no, papadillo had something day of pancakes, or he went that route as well. I think for that course, the rest of us had eggs and various kinds, and then we did the flatbread pizza, but we did something else.
[00:52:14] Speaker D: The soups are excellent. Celery and the tomato.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: You know what? I will say that was one of the two things I didn't.
The celery soup. My soups were my kryptonite this week. Celery soup. And I love. I love celery. I love celery soup. I love celery salt, all the celery. But the celery soup, it didn't. I didn't take to it.
[00:52:36] Speaker D: It didn't hit for you.
[00:52:37] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:52:37] Speaker D: I'm not a celery person, so I don't order it. I actually think the celery soup is good for celery soup, but I don't like celery, so. But I love tomato soup.
[00:52:46] Speaker C: Did you get the off menu flatbread? Did you get the grape and gorgonzola? Flatbread?
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Oh, we sure did.
[00:52:52] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:52:53] Speaker D: All right.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I had done that two years ago as well, so I. I don't think I got that on mine this time, because I did have my own thing there, but I did have it two years ago. Yeah.
[00:53:04] Speaker D: So. Good. Well, I gotta ask, Jen about the main dining food. Frank mentioned that this was definitely a hit, as opposed to the last time that was really amiss on really every time. And so overall, great food or better food, at least, if not great, obviously not, Paulo. Quality. We always tell people, like, main dining is great. It's not Paulo, because it's doing. It's mass market. It can't be, you know, they have to serve so many people, so it's never going to be as good as, like, a smaller, fine dining type restaurant. But, jen, I got to hear, you know, how food was for you with, you know, with having to go, you know, having to be gluten free. Obviously, the servers always ask those questions. We personally are always. We don't have any food allergies in our immediate family, we have traveled with people with food allergies, but we're curious to what your experience was like.
[00:53:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Um, and I agree. I think the food was better this time because I think. And I think we hyped it up for frankenous last time. Like, wait till you taste the food on the Disney cruise. It's so much better than any other cruise food. But again, the expectations for me. Yeah, I know I did.
[00:54:09] Speaker D: You got to dill the expectations.
[00:54:10] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:54:11] Speaker D: Well, especially because you've been on a celebrity, Frank, which is also known for its food.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: Yeah. But 2022, things were happening. There were shortages. There were things, you know, so we don't believe that. But I do feel like the food was better this time. I think, um, there were a couple of nights that, because I would pick my meal, my dinner for the next day, the night before, and I think there were probably one or two nights where I was like, I don't really know what I want, because the menu would have gluten free items on it, um, which I can't remember exactly, so I could be wrong, but I felt like two years ago that sometimes I'd be like, I want this. And they would kind of just make it gluten free, or whatever I wanted. Whereas this time I was like, here's.
[00:55:00] Speaker D: Your gluten free options. Yeah.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And some nights there were more than others. Uh, but, you know, then I could kind of go back. There was, you know, they have, like, a lighter section. And in that section, there was kind of. I could have a repeat of something or whatever it was, but anything I had was really good. Um, and so it worked out.
[00:55:22] Speaker D: But I do feel like there was choice, though.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. There was one or two nights where I was like, I don't know. I don't really know if I. Plus, I'm also full from my meal that I'm like, I don't know what I want to eat in 24 hours from now after I ate a big meal. But I will say, shout out to Howard, our server, he and Howard, Gemma and our head server, Kendall, all amazing on this cruise. It was. They were all great. But Howard also hooked me up with some gluten free Mickey churro waffles. So that was great because I did not want to miss out on those.
[00:56:01] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: So I was able to.
[00:56:02] Speaker D: And you definitely have to request those. That's a great. Like, I'm glad that Howard mentioned it to you, but it's something you need to request, uh, you know, in advance. And we even request in advance for the regular ones because they're not always necessarily on the day that we are going to be eating in.
[00:56:18] Speaker C: I was just saying, yeah, they're. It's more because we're not going to be. They have them out, but we're like, yeah, but we don't want to eat them that day. Can we eat them?
[00:56:25] Speaker D: Can we eat them every day? Because we're kind of bougie like that.
[00:56:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: Thursday. We want them on Wednesday.
[00:56:32] Speaker D: I will tell you. Inevitably, it keeps happening that whenever we've got Paulo brunch booked is the day that they're going to do.
And we're like, I can't eat a plate of Mickey churro waffles and then go to brunch. It's not going to happen. Well, Ashley's got a great comment, I think, that you aren't misremembering regarding the tweaking main menu items. She misses those days that they have really. They have tried to move towards forcing you to pick from items like they have now. More gluten free stuff on the menu as set menus. But they're trying to do that versus create dishes, although not in Paulo and Paulo. Really, they'll do whatever.
[00:57:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:12] Speaker C: Our friend Rebecca even had, like, there was one night that she, like, I think she had ordered something, but then she came into the main dining. She's like, I just not feeling that. That thing that I ordered last time, I'm feeling it. I really want pizza. Can you just go get me some pizza? Because you know that we're on the wish and the pizza place upstairs is making gluten free pizza, and they're like, nope, can't do it. And I was like, appalled.
[00:57:30] Speaker D: I was like, yeah.
[00:57:31] Speaker C: I was like, they're already making it. This isn't, like, special.
[00:57:33] Speaker D: That was, I think, on the maiden, though, wasn't it? And so they were the DVC crews, or maybe the DVC. They were more like, persnickety about, like, you couldn't even order from a different restaurant and stuff like that. Whereas, like, normally, if you want, like, if I want the salad from the other restaurant or the soup from the other restaurant, as long as being served that night, they never give me any, you know, grief about that. And I'm always very appreciative when they do that. But I want to say on, like, the. When the wish first came out, they wouldn't do, you know, any of that. So.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:58:07] Speaker C: Well, we have, we have one final question for you here. The most important question of the night.
Do the Dillos have their next cruise booked? Did you get a placeholder? Did you look at another cruise? Or are you kind of, like, taking a pause? You know, you don't want to rush yourself into the castaway club. Too far, too fast.
[00:58:24] Speaker D: Too fast. I know, right? For me, too fast.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: And that just can't do. Too much too soon. Listen, my kids have ranked Disney cruising above Disney world. That's going to be an issue.
[00:58:35] Speaker D: You know, they're not, they're not wrong, Jen. I'm going to just put it out there and say they're not wrong. I'll tell you, our kid ranks Disney cruise line above the parks as well. But he also ranks Aulani above the parks and maybe even above cruise lines.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: So interesting. Yeah, that's, that's dangerous as well. And my seven year old was very sad on the final night because she was like, the next time we go, her brother will age out of Oshi and then her cousin will age out two years later.
And I'm like, okay, first of all, you have about two Disney cruises booked for us right now that are not booked. So let's cross that bridge when we get to it. But it's all gonna be fine. Don't worry.
So we don't have one booked unless for Frank has done something in the last two days. I don't know about one booked yet.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: No, not yet. And I. And the conversation that we have is about, you know, the value and what itinerary we would do, you know, in the future, I think. I think the itinerary would have to match, you know, a place like a Disney cruise of Alaska, maybe. You know, I'm not getting to Alaska anytime soon otherwise. But would I personally get more for.
[00:59:54] Speaker C: Yeah, we got to get you. We got to get you to Alaska.
I wish we could have gotten you on a Norway before they really. They're clamping down on the fjords now for a cruise ship. So Disney's not probably going to be able to sail in there. I think the Mediterranean. Mediterranean is always a fan favorite. Although I'm. I'm nervous about a mediterranean cruise because it's so hot. But, yeah, Alaska would be great. We got to get you. We got to get you on a maiden voyage of one of the new shooting. You got. You got five to choose from now.
[01:00:20] Speaker D: So I know you got a lot.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Of so much research to do.
[01:00:26] Speaker D: So one pro tip about your seven year old den. I want to just put this out there for her. So when cousin, who is eight years into the to edge, you can actually opt her in if she's ten at the time, you can opt her into edge with cousin. So that is. You can age up. You can't age down, but you can age up if you're within a year of being eligible for that club. And we only. We only just recently experienced that with Nathan. On our last sailing, he went into edge with a friend of his, and so he basically ended up in edge instead of at the Oceaneers club and lab. So, yeah, it's definitely an option, but just let seven year old know she's okay. She's gonna be. You will have to be separated from. From big brother because there's too many. There's three years.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:01:19] Speaker C: I'm gonna do a quick, rapid fire question. Just one question.
You've been on the fantasy. Now you've got, gosh, I can't even keep count anymore. But you've got, like, five or six more shits that you could go on a couple planned.
Which one piques your interest the most?
[01:01:35] Speaker D: Oh, that's a great question.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: And I'm not saying it's just because I know you're going on the maiden voyage, but the one that keeps coming, I feel like my algorithm is going. You want to go on the treasure? You want to go on the treasure? That's the one I keep seeing pop up.
[01:01:48] Speaker D: It's because of all the parks theming, right?
[01:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's probably why.
[01:01:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:01:54] Speaker D: Yeah. What about you, Jenkin?
[01:01:55] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, yeah. The parks theming is what. What kind of solidifies that? I think I still, from seeing the wish was like, oh, should I go on the wish? I guess. Should I go. I think we. We also be like, why is the wish done doing longer cruises? Yes. And we would want. Because I think that's it, too. That.
Not that I would total down. What? I'm just talking myself out of things here in my own head. That's fine. I'm like, I don't want to go on a three or four night. Yes, I would. I absolutely will go on. I did that the first time, so I would absolutely do that again. But, um. Yeah, I think the wish and the treasure are probably peaking, but now I feel like I need to do a deep dive on all of them and really gather the information to make.
[01:02:38] Speaker D: Well, the destiny is looking great, but it's definitely more heavily.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: Doing that.
[01:02:46] Speaker D: Yeah. The definite destiny really does veer heavy. Marvel, although not complete. I know there's some people who are saying it's just a marvel only ship. It's not. But it definitely goes more heavy into marvel. And the treasure is more, I think parks. You know, parks themed. The wish is more princess themed. Right. Like, there are, of course, exceptions to all of those things because there are spaces that don't necessarily fit within that overall theme in each. But. But, yeah, I think there is a ship. There's a ship for everyone. Not every ship is going to entice everyone. Yeah.
[01:03:17] Speaker C: I got to share this comment back. You're so close, Jen, that short sailing. Just do a quick back to back seven nights.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: That's a good point, Tracy. I can't really argue that.
[01:03:25] Speaker D: Yeah.
And then you're gold. You know it's true. All right. And then you get. You get the. The wet dry bag.
[01:03:32] Speaker C: Oh, my God.
That came in super handy for me, actually, recently when I went to Vegas.
[01:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:38] Speaker D: He took one of the wet dry bags. Yeah.
[01:03:40] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: There's more of us all right there. Okay.
[01:03:42] Speaker C: Let everyone know where they can find you. We have so much fun chatting with you anytime we get a chance to. So let everyone out there know where they can keep listening to you when you're not on our show.
[01:03:53] Speaker D: When you're on your show.
[01:03:56] Speaker A: Well, it's Jen and Frank, and we're Dillo's Diz. Dillo's with an S. Diz with a Z on all the socials, the X, Twitter, the Instas, the TikTok. You can find us there at that handle. You can just go to dillosdiz.com. we're all on your podcatchers with our theme park Thursday podcast that drops every Thursday. We'll be back. I think this Thursday we'll have, we did like three short recordings on the ship that like our musings. So we'll piece those together and have that up this Thursday. And then a couple weeks after that, we're leading up to a meetup in Walt Disney World from September 11 through the 15th or so 14th. I guess. So. Not so what's coming up for us. But yeah, all the things at Dillo's days. And come see, we're on YouTube too. Oh, we're on the youtubes too.
[01:04:50] Speaker D: You got to do this kind of thing, right?
[01:04:53] Speaker A: All your lovely people in the chat. We're telling Jen to go on back to back wish trips.
[01:04:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:05:01] Speaker C: Well, we just super appreciate you two taking some time out. It's late there where you are, getting late there where you are. So thank you for hanging in with us. We love having you on sail Disney Cruise line anytime. We want to have you back.
[01:05:13] Speaker D: And I'm going to make sure to listen to your episode on Thursday because I want to hear your on ship musings. Absolutely.
[01:05:19] Speaker B: You can't even remember what we were saying, saying as we were hiding.
[01:05:23] Speaker D: I'm sure you can because that's what happens to me. I can't remember when I shove a.
[01:05:26] Speaker C: Microphone in her face, she talks. I go off and I edit it. So there you go.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: The last gills on the last night.
[01:05:33] Speaker D: So I don't know, watching the Little League World Series.
[01:05:38] Speaker B: Exactly. Got crazy guys.
[01:05:43] Speaker C: Well, thank you both again. Great to see you and I out there watching. We will be back, we will not be back on Monday this week because it is Labor Day and so we.
[01:05:53] Speaker D: Will actually be in Disneyland. Yeah.
[01:05:56] Speaker C: But we have, I want to, I want to highlight this for everyone who spent the time to listen and watch this episode. We have a really amazing bonus episode coming out on Monday with a listener who reached out who is a coast guard rescue swimmer and came on to talk to us about doing rescues at sea, including on of cruise ships. We were so fascinated by this topic. We think it's gonna be really fun one for everyone to listen to. It's such a great time recording this show and it's just, it was fantastic. So be sure to watch for that dropping on Monday. With that, we will be back two weeks from tonight regular time 08:30 p.m. eastern 05:30 p.m. pacific with virgin voyages.
Voyages. No, no.
[01:06:36] Speaker D: That's that's not on. Nope. That's nothing on that.
[01:06:38] Speaker C: CBD TBD CBD.
[01:06:41] Speaker D: What the show topic will be and which guests we will have. But we will be back.
[01:06:45] Speaker C: We'll be back.
[01:06:45] Speaker D: We'll have something about on September 9. So we will be on please join us and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube and give us those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave a review, we will read it on our regular weekly show, not on our live bonus shows. All right, well, thank you everyone for watching and listening. And we will. We'll see you real soon.
[01:07:11] Speaker E: 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. over on YouTube.com dclduo so.
[01:07:34] Speaker C: Be sure to head over and check that out.
[01:07:36] Speaker E: 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 my path unwinding travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation, head over to mypathunwinding.com dcla or email
[email protected] so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to dclduo.com dot. It's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes, including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun, fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com dclduo.
[01:08:26] Speaker C: Also as a way for you to.
[01:08:26] 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. So 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 402-413-5590 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 of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or a Disney vacation, please contact the great folks over at Mypath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and well see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Good.
