[00:00:00] Speaker A: My dad ordered. I think the veal. My brother is just a really big kid at heart, and he got the Mickey waffle.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Well, as soon as he's a big kid at heart, I'm like, he's gonna get the huge Mickey waffle.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL duo podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding travel, and Sam, mail time. We have once again, we've got a review to read on the air. This one comes from Walter Chase, who writes a must listen for DCL fans. Nothing gets me more pumped for a cruise and hearing other people's experiences from their Disney cruises. The DCL duo will get you prepared for your next cruise and always have a great variety of discussion topics. Thanks for the great show, and I can't wait to hear more. Well, Walter, thank you for the review and get ready to hear more. Get ready to hear more, right, Sam?
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. Yeah. I mean, we're more than four years into this thing, and we have no plans on stopping, so, yeah, get ready to hear more. I like it.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: All right, Sam, do you want to intro our fabulous guest and topic for the day?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yes, I'm super excited. As everyone knows, I love first time cruiser trip reports. I just think they're so fun because as I've said before, I love getting to, like, experience a Disney cruise for the first time through somebody else's eyes, because I already had my first cruise and I can never have my first cruise ever again. But I'm excited to welcome first time guests to the show. Gina. Welcome, Gina.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Thank you. It's so fun to be here. I feel I was telling you earlier, it's like I already know you from listening to you for so long. So I'm so excited for the conversation.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Oh, well, thank you. And thanks for reaching out to come on the show. It's always important for us to get great guests, and we love when people who listen to us reach out when they've taken either our first cruise or their 15th cruise or their hundredth cruise and want to come and be a guest on our show. So we really appreciate it. But before we get to talking about your first cruise, we gotta talk about what, like, interested you in Disney cruise. Where does your love from Disney come from? What's your Disney credentials? Or Disney background, as we like to say it is.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: It is a new love. So 2021 was our first family trip. So I went once when I was a child with a my family growing up, and we waited. So we have two kids. Jack is eleven, Caroline's seven. And my husband Jim and I said, we are not doing Disney until there's no naps and no diapers.
So 2021 felt like a good year. They were obviously both out of diapers, not napping. We said, let's do it. You know, we'll take the one and only Disney trip. My husband, too, went one time when he was a kid.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: One and only. Famous last words, as you all know.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah, one and only turned into four trips since 2021. And we have another trip booked in February for the run Disney Princess marathon weekend. So, yeah.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. I love that. Okay, so it was obviously a success, you know, your first trip to Disney with the kids. Those are great ages. I mean, for Disney Cruise line right now, obviously, you know, you just went on your first cruise, and there's probably great ages for you to start with the parks, as you mentioned, out of diapers, done with naps. Still maybe a stroller, I think with Walt Disney World, just the amount of walking. But what sort of led you to look into the cruise line and to either research cruises or book cruises? And how did you find us? I always want to ask people.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: I think it's a chicken and egg there, Sam. I think she found us, and then she decided to book a dinner, maybe.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: We'll see, we'll see.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: Just kidding.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: It's a funny story, because since 2021, my husband, we would land, and he said, okay, we're not doing Disney again, Gina. We're not doing this again. And we were trying to plan our next trip, and he's like, you know, we should go to the Caribbean. I'm like, what are you gonna do in the Caribbean? You know, the kids are gonna wanna do. We're not gonna sit on a, you know, lawn chair and sip out of coconuts. We have young, active kids. So I'm sitting there in the chair and like, you know what? Why don't we do a Disney cruise? Cause that will fill my love for Disney. But then, you know, we can cruise to a couple different islands. He's like, you gotta be kidding me, Gina. All right, let's look into it. So then we started looking into it, and that's how it happened. So he wanted to do the Caribbean. I, of course, wanted to stick with Disney, and so we put the two together.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Love that. Well, that's a perfect Disney vacation and a perfect way to satisfy both needs. How did you land on the itinerary that you booked, which is a seven night western Caribbean on the fantasy? Seven nights, obviously long for your first cruise. I mean, not long by our standards, obviously. And we did our first cruise on a seven night also. But we do tend to tell people, if you're just not sure if it's gonna be for you or you're worried about seasickness, you know, shorter might be better. What landed you on this itinerary in particular?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: There was more stops. So I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the eastern only had three stops where the western had four stops.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Usually I was interested to see more ports, so that's why we chose that one.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So you satisfy your husband on the Caribbean when you've got four ports instead of three and less sea days.
How did that, like, affect you, though? Because you want more Disney, and the ship is the Disney part. The ports, other than castaway, obviously on this itinerary, they're not the Disney part. Were you okay with that, or were you just like, I don't care, any way I can get on a Disney ship.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: I finagled my way into a four day park trip before the cruise.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Ah, so I see a land and sea trip. Well, once we did the parks before. Once you're making your way all the way from the Chicago area to Orlando, right? I mean, what's a few more days and a few more dollars in Mickey's?
Okay, well, tell us about the planning process. I know you listened to our show. You mentioned you've been listening to us for a while. What other resources did you sort of lean on in the planning process, if any? Or did you just kind of go in and say, we're just going to wing this?
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's why I love Disney so much. My husband may see that, too. I just love the planning process of it. So I was listening to a different podcast for Disney before we went and did the Disney parks, and I still listen to those podcasts. I'm like, well, there must be some good Disney cruise line podcast if they're, you know, our good Disney podcast. So that's how I found you all and tons of hours. All my. If I. If you didn't have a new podcast released before, a long run for my training, I was like, upset. I'm like, what am I going to look?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: I love it.
I love it. Now, you mentioned, so you signed up for the princess half marathon weekend. What runs, I take it you've done other run Disney events. What run Disney events have you done and what were you training for when you were listening to us?
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah, the Chicago Marathon, because those are much longer runs for training. So if I could get an hour and a half podcast from you guys, I'm like, this is great.
[00:07:13] Speaker C: So jealous because I was supposed to do Chicago right when the pandemic hit, and then I fell off of training and never got to use my deferred bid. But what a fun race. So kudos to you.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: If you do it or you get back in, you got to let me know. That's awesome.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Wow. So that's a lot of hours of running. I'm going to put that out there. Um, you know, having only trained for my first half marathon last year or this past year, that's too many hours of running for me, to be perfectly honest.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Not if you have a good podcast.
[00:07:43] Speaker D: To listen to, says the woman who.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Just signed up to do the dumbo. So I did.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: I did. I just signed up for. I just signed. I haven't even announced it on Facebook, but I have just signed up for the Disneyland half marathon weekend Dumbo, which is the ten k and half marathon. I am still not doing a full marathon. I have no plans to ever do a half marathon because it would just take me very, very, very long.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: A full marathon, you said?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: I mean a full marathon I have because. Yeah, we just take.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: Just wait, Sam. Everyone. Everyone goes, I'm never going to do a full marathon. Then you're like, you run your first. You run a half marathon and you do fairly.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah, but I run, like, a three hour half marathon, so I can't imagine. Like, I mean, I understand for people who run, like, two hour or less, like, half marathon, that they can do, like, a full. But I just. It's. That's just too many hours.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: You know what they call the last person to cross the finish line at a marathon?
[00:08:34] Speaker B: A marathoner.
[00:08:35] Speaker D: A marathon.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Anyway. All right, well, I digress. Let's see. We'll get back on topic. Okay, so, Gina, you book your western caribbean cruise. You're listening to the detail duo podcast. What did you sort of plan on booking at when your booking window opened? Obviously, you're a first time cruiser, so you have the. The lowest level as far as booking is concerned, or the latest booking date for onboard activities and excursions. Did you have plans about what you wanted to book, and how did that pan out when your booking window actually opened up?
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, because of, you know, these podcasts and, you know, watching some vlogs as well, I had to temper expectations. And it was fun, though. You know, we had a couple dinners with the family, and we pulled up the computer and it's like, okay, look at first, second and third choices for each port. And, you know, there's our family, us four, my brother, sister in law and nephew, and then my mom and dad joined as well. So we really wanted to try and get Palo, but I thought that's going to be really hard. And there's six of us, so that's probably going to make it harder. But just kind of tempered expectations and had our top choices. So when it was time to go, if something wasn't available, we just went to the next thing.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Very smart. And the other tip is stalk the app, because sometimes people drop things closer to the cruise. They may have booked it when they're booking window open and then they drop them later and those things become available. Whether that's Apollo brunch or even your top choice excursion. It's not, it's not uncommon for that to happen, for there to be a lot of shuffling and even sometimes cabanas. We tell people, like, it is possible, and if you are not platinum and you're, or, sorry, not pearl or concierge, it is possible to get a cabana. It is just going to be complete, utter luck of when you are logged onto the app and somebody happens to drop something at the exact right time. All right, well, let's talk about, you guys fly, obviously, down to Orlando. You stayed, you said, at the parks for four days. What was your transportation to the port and how did things go? The check in process at the port?
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Another good tip that I found. Now, I don't know if this works every time, but it sounded like most of the times it did work, but we stayed at the boardwalk for the, a couple days before and we booked the Disney cruise line transportation. And I had heard that if you book the Disney cruise line transportation, there's not such a race when you're checking in for your port arrival times. You kind of just get what you get more often than not. It's, it's an earlier port arrival time. Again, not, this wasn't guaranteed. This, I don't think that's out there, you know, on the website, but I've heard that. So I said, well, we're going to need to book transportation anyway. It wasn't a terribly more expensive than an Uber or Lyft. So we did that and we got group three boarding and we were picked up from the boardwalk at 930. And I looked back at my pictures to see what time we got on the ship. We were on the ship at 1115.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Nice. Now, did the whole group then do all nine of you? Did you all nine do the Disney transportation from the boardwalk to the port?
[00:11:38] Speaker A: We did, and it was lovely from the moment we walked in the service. And it was very organized. They checked all of our passports or whatever documentation right there, like right in the lounge, you know, a boardwalk, which was so, so easy. I think the buses need a little TLC, but, you know, other than that, it was just a really like seamless experience.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great to hear. Yeah. We tell people, you know, for sure that the Disney transportation is one of those things where if you book that you don't really need to worry too much about your boarding group, it'll, you know, whatever you show up with the bus, they're going to let you into the terminal. You might wait a little bit in the terminal. It just kind of depends on how quickly customs cleared. The ship is usually what the issue is. It's not usually like Disney is not going to let you on, on the earlier side if you came through, you know, Disney transportation. So, yeah, it's a great way to do it. Super convenient if you're coming from either the airport Hyatt or if you're coming from a Disney resort in Orlando. Awesome. Well, sounds like a seamless. How was the boarding process? When you get to the terminal, you get to Port Canaveral, obviously, because you're on the fantasy. How did everything go with check in?
[00:12:53] Speaker A: You know, I've heard and watched that it's all pretty seamless. And, you know, you get there and you maybe wait a little bit and that was exactly what it was. I mean, we walked in, we didn't have to do anything with the luggage because with the cruise line, they take it from your, you know, they picked it up in the morning and then it was in our room. So that was nice. We just had whatever we carried got through customs, you know, then it's like you see the elevator that you've seen in vlogs 1 billion times. And, you know, I keep saying it's like it was like 90 degrees with 90 degree humidity or something. And I had goosebumps, like the whole time. It was so easy. We went upstairs, there were a lot of people, we were going to try and use the bathroom real quick, but by the time we got in line for the bathroom, they were calling our boarding already.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Nice. You're like, oh, I'll find a bathroom on the ship.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Ten minutes. Wait, wait, 1015 minutes. That's awesome. I mean, so easy.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Now with the kids, you've got three kids with you two of yours. And then you mentioned your nephew is also with you. So you've got an eleven year old. You said a seven year old. And how old's the nephew?
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Owen is five.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Five. Okay, so you've got three kids with you. Did you prep the kids at all for what they were going to see? Meaning did they watch YouTube videos or were they completely sort of going in blinden?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah, my son's a little more like my husband, where they didn't want to know a lot. I myself knew what I was going to have for an app. Dinner and dessert at every restaurant ahead of time.
So I watched all the vlogs and listened obviously to the podcast. And my daughter really enjoyed watching some of the youtubes as well. Yeah, she was interested to see what we were heading in for.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Awesome. Now, when you guys enter the atrium of the Disney fantasy and your family name is announced, how was that moment? Was that a. Woohoo. Well, let's party. We're excited. Was that a. Oh, that was kind of a letdown, like Josh Wilson tells us. But what did you think of that moment?
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's, it's. And this will probably kind of flow through this conversation, but it's. I think it's all about expectations. I tried to temper my expectations because I knew that was going to be like a really cool moment. And I also have heard, too, if there's bad weather or lightning, they may not do that and you have to enter some. So my expectations were very tempered and it was awesome. It was so, so I wanted to, like, I wanted to just tap them on the shoulder. Like, could you just do that one more time?
[00:15:16] Speaker B: I know it's one of those things where if you want to capture, you really have to have your, like, cell phone ready. Right? Like, right as you're walking down the gangway because it moves pretty fast and, you know, the. You're announcing the clapping and then it's the next family. So now, what was your plan of attack for lunch that day? You obviously have listened to our show and watched a lot of vlogs. Did you have a. Oh, I'm definitely going to sit down lunch or I'm definitely going to Cabana's point of view. And then how did that sort of work out for you?
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Again with our travel party, some wanted to do cabanas for the crab legs and the shrimp, but I let them know, like, you guys, I heard it's a little nutso up there and we all have our carry ons. I'm like, let's just go. It's the start of vacation. We'll all get cocktails, we'll take a breather. You know, we're not gonna have crab legs, but I think it'll just be an overall better experience. So they, you know, being the Disney guru of the family, they took, they took my advice. So we went to. Animator's palette was open for lunch, so we walked. Right. I mean, the doors actually weren't even open yet for animators by the time, because we entered 1115. I don't think the doors open there till maybe 1130.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: We were one of the first 1st guests to sit down.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Oh, nice. And you get to see animators palette for the first time in all its glory. And it's like empty, but it's all beautifully set up. That's awesome. Awesome. I love that. Fantastic. Well, let's. We'll talk. We're not going to go, obviously, exactly day by day on the cruise. So I think. Brian, what do you think if we should. So we start with ports and then.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Let'S do ports on board.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: Okay, let's do ports. So what were your four ports you had? Cozumel, Costa Maya, progresso.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: It was Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica. Jamaica. And then castaway key.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: Oh, castaway. Okay, all right, so you skipped Costa Maya. All right, well, let's start with.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: That's the typical western, Brian. The. It's usually the typical western.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: I've. We've always been on as Cozumel and Costa Maya, so those were all the only ones we've ever done.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yes, but that was the, like, pandemic, post pandemic western Caribbean versus the standard western Caribbean, which is Cozumel, grand Cayman, Falmouth, Jamaica, and then castaway, since you.
[00:17:27] Speaker C: Seem to know so much about it, Sam, take it away. Get us support information that we need.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: All right, well, let's talk Cozumel first. Did you book a Disney excursion? If so, what did you book? Or if you didn't, we want to know what you. What you got up to. And it sounds like you probably got off at all the ports, since that was your husband's criteria for going on the cruise was caribbean ports. Yeah. So tell us, tell us, with Cozumel as your first port, what did you get up to there?
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yep. So this will also kind of bleed into. We've changed. We had to change plans a little bit because of weather. We didn't have great weather on this cruise, even for cruising. It was. It was tough. We were talking to a couple that had been on ten plus Disney cruises, and he was like, this is the worst that I've ever been on. It was crazy. I mean, it was a little crazy at times.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Real rocky.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: I say that because we did have an excursion booked, and it was the fury catamaran, which our whole. The four of us, it was just my immediate family was going on. We were sadly the most excited about that excursion, and it got canceled. Again. Temper expectations. I let them know this could happen, but because that excursion was, you know, starts with a catamaran, the swells, they said, were just. Just too big. So it got canceled. We were so bummed. So, you know, we're down there in the atrium. It's like 820. We're trying to scurry and find something quickly because we wanted to get off. Because by this time, you're already at sea for a day and a half and kind of, like, itching to get off the ship at this point. So we booked, like a beach break excursion. And so we get, you know, we go down to the theater and we're sitting in line. We've got our stickers. We're like, okay, we're going to turn this around, you know, and then they made an announcement that. That got canceled. We had to come. It took. It took me a while to come back, but I'm like, okay, like, you know, the kids. Kids are going to follow us and we'll turn it around. We'll do something else. The kids were excited about midship, detective. So we just did a ship day. We did get off and took a picture so the kids could say that they went to.
It is a very large port, but outside of just like tchotchke shops and all that, there's, you know, why not just take advantage, you know, the ship. So. So we just did a ship day.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Interesting. I wonder if. I wonder how many of the excursions ended up getting canceled in the end. It's probably if the beach one got canceled. That tells me, like, a ton of them got canceled because, like, the water sports ones, like, where you're on any kind of boating. Right. Those things are more often going to get canceled for weather, but the beach one is probably. I'm not saying it's unlikely to get canceled for weather, of course that happens. But, like, that's sort of the tamest of the options, right? That involve any water. And so that's usually sort of the last to get canceled. So it must have been. Yeah, it must have been really rough. They were probably really concerned about the. The waves yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: And there was a lot of people. There's a group of us that were supposed to be on the fury catamaran, and all of us booked this one excursion and then that one canceled, too. And there's a couple next to us that had a cancelled excursion, tried to get on this one. So there was a lot, which also kind of. And again, nobody's fault. Right. It's weather. You can't do anything about it. But it made for a very crowded ship, even though we were at a port. And again, what are you gonna do, you know?
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So, absolutely. You got to roll with the punches. Sounds like you did and made the best of it. And, I mean, doing the midship detective agency is like the best activity on the ship. And you can get your steps in, you know.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: We got them in for sure.
That was a lot of fun, you know, what are you gonna do? My husband and son did, like, an origami class. Me and my daughter just ice cream and watched, you know, movies by the pool. So, you know, you play bingo. There's a bingo game that day, so.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: You made the best of it.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, well, let's talk about port day number two, which was Grand Cayman. What did you guys have booked for grand Cayman day?
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Yep. So a part of being a first time cruiser, we wanted to book the caves. There was, I think, some type of cave thing, and we couldn't get that. So our second was the Starfish and Mangrove tour, which my husband was really looking forward to that one. We got in late to Grand Cayman, I think maybe noon. We got in really late. The excursion went off. So we tendered off, and then we got onto another kind of like a speedboat. It was neat. There was probably 30 of us, 30 people on this excursion. And it takes you out to this little area of a beach, which, from all the pictures and youtubes that I watched, it was very, very clear water with lots and lots and lots of starfish. And as we were boating over, I'm like, this water looks like Lake Michigan. Like, I don't.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: It's dark. It's.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: I mean, if you. If you just. If I. If I didn't know I was in Grand Cayman, I would have thought I was in Chicago. I'm like, Michigan. And so we asked, we're like, what? You know, what's up with the water? It's supposed to be clear. The two gentlemen that were running the excursion, I mean, they were lovely. They said, because of all the storms that we've had recently, what happens is that sand kind of mucks up the water and it takes. He's like, it takes about two days for all of that sand to settle and then for us to get our. Our beaches back. Really? Really. And then also the storms pull the starfish out to sea, so. Oh, no, it's like three.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: So in excursion, where you expect to see, like, basically hundreds normally, right? Or at least dozens. Normally you see three.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: And we were kind of laughing. We're like, we wonder if they just kind of planted those there. Are they real?
[00:22:55] Speaker B: They took those, like, from the local aquarium and just, like, put them down on the ground again.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: What are you going to do? They were serving margaritas and they had beer and prosecco, and we all just, you know, had some fun and, you know, went with it.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: So did you get any, like, swimming time as a part of this or, you know, sort of beach time other than just looking at the.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: There's probably. What did they give us? Maybe an hour of beach time. It was, you know, really relaxing again. The water was just so dark. And I'm like, all right, you know, go into mom mode. How can I make this better? So then we just kind of walked around the island, which if you walk a little further, you almost feel like you were in a, like, on a deserted island. So it was just me and my daughter that took the walk, and she's like, mom, this is so cool, you know? So again, like, you gotta just make the best of what you're given. And it was. It turned out to be fine. Again. We expected a lot better, but we just made the best of it.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, this. This weather theme is killing me. Gina, for your first cruise, I'm, like, wanting it to be all magical. All right, well, let's. Let's go to Falmouth, Jamaica. What did you all have planned for your third port day?
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Okay, so this is where finally things turned around.
I had not things. I don't mean to be negative at all. It was, I mean, wonderful. So it's just kind of where, I don't know, it turns. So we did not have an excursion booked in Jamaica because through the videos that I watched, you know, that port was big and lively and, you know, I heard about the meat pies and I'm like, we don't need to do anything. We'll just kind of make the best of it in the port and talk with the locals and. Because our. Because. Oh, I forgot. I gotta go back. I forgot because we got a little extra. We got a refund from the Cozumel trip and then we got a little bit of money back from our grand Bahaman or the grand Bahamas. Grand Cayman. Sorry. Grand Cayman excursion. Because when we were done with the excursion, we got back to the port at Grand Cayman and. Oh, good lord. One of the. Where do the boats come up? One of the piers had apparently taken a severe hit from those storms, so there's only one pier open to tender people back and forth. The line. To get back on the ship. We were in line for an hour and a half.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: To get back on the ship. It was awful.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: And I. Again, I've heard that that doesn't normally happen. And we went into, you know, make it better mode and we kept going to the bar and getting drinks and trying to do our best, but, oh.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: The poor kids know. They're, like, sweating and. Yeah, and they're not having drinks. I mean, they're having, like, water or soda or whatever, but they're not having alcoholic drinks to make them feel better.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: That was a bust. I wish they could have done something, you know what I mean, to make that line and not that they could make the line go faster. It's safety. But I don't know, I was even thinking, like, could they have had cast members come out and, like, play games with the kids or get some music going? Just something, you know?
[00:25:53] Speaker B: But nonetheless, that's a long time to wait for a tender. I mean. Yeah. And I'm sure that they are, like, alternating, right, the MSc tender Disney tenor. MSC tender Disney tenor. But if they've only got one peer to, you know, they. And each time they. It takes time to load the. Load, the tenders, so. Yeah. Wow. Okay, well, that's rough. Okay, well, so going back to that.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Because that's a little bit of a refund because of that experience. So we said, you know what? Let's take this refund from Cozumel and then from, you know, the little bit that we got back, let's. Let's do a beach break. You know, it was called a vip beach break in Montego Bay. You know, whatever. We'll get off and see.
We were like, throw our luggage overboard and keep us in Montego Bay. Beautiful. It was such a lovely excursion. My husband and I just really enjoy kind of being in one place for a longer time. So I think that's why maybe, I mean, we may go on a cruise again, but we just found ourselves really enjoying the people in Jamaica, the food, the culture, the two tour operators, as we got picked up by the bus to go to it was called doctor's Cave.
Doctor's Cove was the beach. The tour operators were just, I mean, filling us with tons of, like, history and knowledge and, you know, what the people eat, and it was just so cool. They were just lovely. And then the beach break had, like, a big, like, bouncy thing in the ocean.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. One of those big blow up things that the kids. One kid can lay on, the other kid jumps on, and then the kid goes flying.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: The water was just crystal clear blue, stunning. We got lunch included. There was a jamaican jerk chicken and then rice and beans. And again, my expectations were, you know, I don't even know where this was coming from. Like, I'm not seeing anybody make it low expectations.
I was like, could you bring seconds and thirds out? It was so. I mean, we've had jerk chicken, like, in a restaurant in Chicago, but jerk chicken on the beach in Montego Bay, it was delicious. And the kids, even my two kids loved it.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Oh, wow. I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, that one of the things that. One of the negatives about a cruise, though, is exactly that. You only get to spend x number of hours at any particular port. So if you love a particular port, it's like, okay, well, we've got to get back on board and go. The benefit is, if you don't love every port is, oh, we're only here for a day. Right. So I think one of the. One of the great things about a cruise is it can give you an opportunity to see maybe, you know, four different places, and then you can decide which one you want to go back to and maybe book a resort for a week as. As you're your next vacation. So I'm guessing that this was one of the reasons why your husband was okay with doing the cruise, because he gets to experience a bunch of different islands. But I love that you had such a great time in Jamaica. All right, well, castaway Cay was your final port of call on this cruise. What did you all. Did you plan anything for Castaway Cay? And if so, what? And then, of course, what did you guys get up to in castaway? Away.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yep. So my husband and son booked parasailing, and I told them, again, temper those expectations, because I've heard, like, nine and a half times out of ten, it ain't happening. You know, the wind's got to. Everything's got to be perfect. And they ended up going. And it was. It was actually later, too. Their time was, like, 245 maybe. So it was later in the day, and I kept, like, hoping, you know, we're in the Caribbean. You always get some of those caribbean, like, rainstorms in the afternoon, and we were on the beach waiting for them, and in the distance, there was, like, dark clouds with, like, you hear a little thunder. I'm like. And my husband had texted me. He's like, we just got on the, you know, on the boat to take us out, and I go, oh, gosh, if they're on that darn boat and they don't go up, you know, but they ended up going up, and they loved it.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Oh, awesome. That's fantastic. Yeah, we tell people, and that's great advice to them. Temper your expectations. Parasailing is. It's got to be perfect conditions, but when it is, it's so, so wonderful. And doing it at castaway is great because you get these great views of the island and the ship, and the water is beautiful. And. And honestly, the. The crew that runs that parasailing operation is. Is fantastic. We. We've had several of them several times.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: And Terrence and Captain Terrance, and I can't remember now the other. The guy's name that we had. Love, if you're doing parasailing and you can get on Terrence's boat with. And I can't remember his name now. Now I'm going to message a friend here. I'm going to phone a friend in a second.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: My husband, if he remembers the name.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah, Terrence is the one driving the boat, and the other guy. And I can't remember his name either, but he always wears one of those buff things, so, like, most of his.
[00:30:38] Speaker C: Almost like a balaclava.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah. But he wears it, like, all the way up to his nose, which I understand. There's so much wind and so. And probably trying to protect his face from wind burn. Probably more than anything. Anyway, what else did you guys do at castaway? Just some lovely beach time on family beach one or family beach two? Did you do any snorkeling?
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Another good tip that I heard is do not stop at that first beach. Just keep going. And, you know, my whole family was like, Gina, where went come? How much longer? How much for them? Like, just rust me. Just keep walking. So we kept. I guess is that beach, too? We kept walking to that second beach. Tons of chairs, tons of shade. It was lovely. And then that's where the water slides and all.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: So it was, like, perfect location. We did the snorkeling. We actually purchased the snorkel, snorkel and tube and package, so we never got around to biking. But we did snorkel again. I was a little nervous because I've heard getting out to some of the things that you can see when you're snorkeling was. It takes a while. It did, and it was a good workout, but the kids did it, you know, so I would not discourage anyone from doing it with their eleven, seven and five year olds. All the kids did it. It was hard. We had to drag them at some place, but.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Right. If they're good swimmers and, you know, and they have to wear one of those, at least reflection investor and you can blow those things up to make them sort of floaty as well. And that's helpful. So for, for those who maybe aren't the strongest swimmers, that's a great way to do it. So you get some buoyancy and it helps the kids. Yeah. But it's definitely. I think it's great. I agree. It is a little. It does take a while to get out. All the way out in that snorkel. Well, awesome. I got to ask you and.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: Hold on, hold on. It's Ronaldo. Terrence and Ronaldo.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: I'm going to write it down and ask.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Okay.
There's usually two crews there, so it's, it's, um. And they do, I'm sure, have sometimes days off, but the Terrence and Ronaldo are usually together in one boat and then there's another. The other guys in the other boat, I can't remember their names, but we've had them as well. But Terrence and Reinaldo are favorites. What did you think of the food on castaway? I know we'll talk about food on board, you know, later, but I don't know. We, I feel like lately we've been hearing some more disappointment from folks from the food at Castaway. I don't know. To me, it's just a burger's a burger. It's not like, it's not. It doesn't wow me, but I feel like. I feel like it's free, it's included.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: I will tell you, I wasn't looking forward to it. I don't love barbecue food. It's not my first choice of go to food, and you're having all that great food on the ship. So I'm like, why do they choose barbecue, you know? Again, maybe my expectations were low. I thought it was fantastic, and so did everybody in our party bought the food and everybody got a little bit of everything, like the burgers and the hot dogs and the ribs and, you know, the sides. It was delish. It was delicious.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Oh, good. Yay. Okay. I like hearing that. Yeah, I like the ribs. The ribs are probably my favorite thing at Castaway. And, yeah, I mean, the sides are good, like, the pasta salads and whatnot are, I think, pretty good.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was great.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: All right, well, let's move back onto the beautiful Disney fantasy, and we've got to talk about some of those onboard activities we already talked about. Midship detective agency and origami, I think you mentioned, and bingo as well. What are some of the other things that you all got up to as a family? And then, of course, we'll talk about things you guys got up to as adults only and, you know, namely, you did. I know you did a drinking a drink seminar and you did a Apollo brunch, but, yeah. What did you guys do as a family on board?
[00:34:13] Speaker A: So as a family, bingo was mainly the thing that we did. So we did that a few times. That was fun. Swimming, watching the movies. We didn't really do trying to think of outside of going to see the shows together as a family, we really didn't do much else. We ordered room service every morning. We would go back and have some, you know, room service before dinner. That's all you do is eat, ya know, that. That was it. The midship detective agency was so fun. We did a lot of walking and looking at the artwork, too. That was a tip that I've heard is like, don't take that for granted, you know, as you're just kind of coming and going. So I loved looking at all the different artwork and, you know, walking the ship and finding different places to sit and eat, and that was the best.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: Now, you mentioned the pool deck.
Obviously, the kids, I'm sure, did some swimming on the pool deck. But did you all do the aqueduct?
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, of course we did it. We did that a few times. I think we got got around to five or six times on the aqueduct.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: That was a ton of fun.
Well, this is a. Even though it's a seven day itinerary or seven night itinerary, it's still four days of port. So it's not like you have a ton of days sea days on board the ship. You have essentially two sea days on the. The ship. Well, so let's. Let's talk adult activities. What did you, which, which drink seminar did you do? I feel like you did stem to stern wine. Is that right?
[00:35:37] Speaker A: So we did. We had that booked. Me, my sister in law, and my mom had that booked for our grand Cayman day and we had to cancel it because we didn't get back to the ship because of the line.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: We were so bummed. So there wasn't another, another one available. And again, what are they going to do? It's not, I mean, it's all weather, you know, they apologized and refunded, you know, our money so we could do whatever with it so we didn't end up doing that. And then the only other adults only activity was pal brunch.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:36:09] Speaker D: Are you listening to our show? Because you want to make the most out of your next vacation. Great news. The fabulous team over at mypath unwinding travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors, caring, knowledgeable, and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. Mypath unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, relaxed at Alani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, Mypath unwinding travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks Mypath unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: All right, well, before we talk about food, I need to ask about the Kids club. You've got one kid who is edge age, one kid who is kids club age, and cousin who is kids club age. Did the kids do the kids clubs? Were they into that? Is that sort of their thing? Or were they more wanting to spend time with you all?
[00:37:29] Speaker A: I was really hoping they were going to love it more for us to do some more adult things, so maybe that's why we didn't do a ton of adult things. And all three of the kids are daycare babies. They've been in daycare their whole life. So I thought that. I really just thought they would love it more. My son really disliked his kids club, and I think it's because he wanted to be with his sister. And he's the big cousin to Owen. I know that. I think if they were together, it would have been a little bit different. And I know that has recently just changed. And I did ask. My son just turned eleven in May, May 31, and it was like an absolute no. I mean, we're very sorry, but no, he cannot come. Come in, which is fine. You know what?
[00:38:08] Speaker B: It's just a bummer because honestly, there's really not a difference between a kid who just turned eleven and a kid who's about to turn eleven. Right. So it's. It is such a bummer. Yeah. But unfortunately, they've been, you know, they're. They are being strict and, you know, I'm sure they've got good reason for that.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: They have to draw. They've always had to draw a line somewhere.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:38:29] Speaker C: I disagree with the line that. I disagree with the line that they've drawn, but they got to draw a line somewhere and they got to hold it and it just. It is what it is, so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and to be fair, to be fair, I disagreed with it, but Nathan ended up really enjoying his time and edge on this last cruise. So maybe it's an okay line to have drawn to begin with, but, yeah, I. Yeah.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, I will say, and this is a tip that I know I've given before on the show, one way of making a kids club transition maybe a little easier. It doesn't always work, but I think it can work for some kids is making an introduction through the Facebook group of somebody with somebody else who, you know, kid the same age or similar age with similar interests of your kid. Yeah. Through your Facebook sailing group and then, you know, meeting first day on board, sending them to the kids club together, whether it's edge or Oceaneers club or, you know, or vibe, sending them together on that first day to get to know each other. And then they are, I think, more likely to want to go back, I do think, because some kids are just not that extroverted to, you know, walk up to another kid in the club and say, hey, you want to play? Right. And so. Or there. Some kids are not ready joiners to the activities that are going on. And while there's a lot of. While there are activities going on, it's a lot of unstructured time in Disney's kids clubs and Royal Caribbean's is actually a lot more structured, which. Good and bad, depending upon your kid. Right. So, but anyway, so let's talk about shows. Since you mentioned you all went and saw the shows, did all three of the kids go to the main stage shows? Wow. Awesome. What did you think? What did they think you obviously living in the Chicago area, you get great theater. So I'm sure you have seen great theater prior to being on a Disney ship. Yeah. What did you think of the quality of the, the shows on the Disney fantasy to see?
[00:40:21] Speaker A: So, full disclosure, yes, we are lucky to be close to Chicago for theater, but we're not theater folks. So again, maybe my expectations were low.
You hear so much about the shows, and of course we're there. I want to go. Holy cow. I don't know where they find these performers, but it's remarkable. I wish I could have seen them. There are two showings. There were two showings of Aladdin and frozen, and I would have seen both twice. They were fantastic goosebumps the entire time.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I love hearing that. Yeah, they are really just fantastic quality shows. Now, there are the occasional off nights, but in general, I would say the Disney shows stand up to anything, at least off Broadway quality, and certainly come close to the Broadway or national tour quality shows. Yeah. Love that. What do the kids think?
I mean, they're an hour long, an hour and 15 long at the most, but, yeah. Were they able to sit through them?
[00:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Owen, Jack, and Caroline, you know, owen, you get nervous because he's five. Is he going to be Caroline? I mean, this is just like her. I mean, her thing, seeing the princesses. She could have sat there for 4 hours, and then jack, you wonder, like, is this not going to be cool enough for him? And he was, you know, kind of staring the whole time. It's just, it really is. It's such a maybe dorky thing to say, but, like, it is a feast for your eyes. Like, you just, you don't even know really where to look. It's really neat.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: I love that. Awesome. Wow. Yeah. I mean, some kids appreciate it, some kids don't. So I love it. I love when I hear about kids who appreciate live theater.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: Speaking of shows, fireworks, what'd you think of the deck party and. Yeah, was it, did the kids have fun?
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody had a great time. We were rushing there after dinner cause we had a late seating for dinner. So by the time we got there, the deck was, like, really, really packed, you know, and you had to find space, and you were kind of fighting with other people like you do at the Magic Kingdom fireworks, which is really annoying. But we finally found a spot, and it was really cool. Again, there were some things that I had high expectations for and some things that I had low expectations for and some of these things I had high expectations for. Like, exceeded my high expectations. I'm like, how cool, you know, how cool is this fireworks show going to be? How. How much can they really do, you know, in the middle of the ocean? It was awesome.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I honestly think that all of the pirate. Now, we like the pirate party on the wish the best, but I think all of them are really well done, and the fact that you are even getting fireworks at sea is just kind of a cool concept. I don't feel like I have to see it every time, but it is really enjoyable and fun to watch. Love that. I'm trying to think before we move to food, are there things that we've missed? Brian are the things that I've missed, or Gina are the things that I've missed.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: There was another show, too. There were two additional shows outside of the stage shows. The one that we chose to go to was an illusionist. His name was Kid Ace. And again, you know, it's like, it's not the Broadway show, so expectations are low, man. It was really. It was neat. I actually got to, like, go up there and.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Oh, you got to participate as a volunteer.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was so nervous because I was like, I don't want to screw something, you know, like, if I don't say the right thing or whatnot for him. And that was really neat. And we. We actually ended up. My. My parents took the kids one night, so me, my sister in law, and brother got to see him again. He did a 21 and older show, and, yeah, I mean, the entertainment's just really great. High expectations for entertainment, and, man, they.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Really delivered awesome well. And, Gina, that means you became cruise famous, because as soon as you are on stage, on whether it's in match your mate or as a volunteer in one of the stage shows, like, people spot you around the, and they know who you are from then on. Was that. Was that kind of an interesting experience?
[00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah. As we were on the way out, it was more. They noticed more, but then after that, they. They really didn't notice, which was. Which was just fine, but nice.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: All right, well, awesome. Sounds like fantastic entertainment, as always. Okay, we got to talk about food. You mentioned.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: Yeah, you mentioned we can't do a cruise without food.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Should we start with main food, Brian? Or should we start with Paulo? Because she did do Paulo.
[00:44:43] Speaker C: Brianna, uh, let's start with main dining food and save, hopefully. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. The best for last. So. So, yes. What. What did you think of the rotational dining? Uh, I'd love to know what the kids thought about the dining experience and also the shows that you sort of experienced with rotational dining.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah, so we had. We ended up doing the late dining by choice, even with the young kids, you know, again, you have to know your family. But I thought it was really fun as we were on the pool deck or when we come back from an excursion, right around 334 o'clock. I mean, everybody was leaving, and that's a lot of the times when we did the aqueduct. It was just nice to not have to feel so rushed to get to dinner at 515. We were really able to take our time. And to your point, Brian, you're on a cruise. There's accessible food everywhere. I mean, it's insane. We've never cruised before, as you know. I just can't believe how much food there is.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: So you get an ice cream on the pool deck at 03:00 in the afternoon if you're hungry, right?
[00:45:42] Speaker A: 100 ice creams per day.
So, you know, if the kiddos got hungry, we would just go. We don't go back to the room and order room service real quick for them. And so that was fine. So the rotational dining was lovely. The servers, again, you hear so much about it, and I did so much research, so I just wanted, again, to temper my expectations because I thought, what if it doesn't hit? You know, you hear so much, and every now and again, you hear a negative review. But by the time we left that crew, on the last day, we had breakfast with our serving team, I'm like, I want to invite you to my home. Like, I want to serve you. By the time we left, I mean, they knew our family, and they knew our names, and they knew the drinks, and, oh, they were just lovely.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. That's how I feel about them, too. Like, I feel like by the time, especially on a seven night, like, they should feel like they're part of your family and exactly that. You want to invite them to your house so that you can serve them and take care of them in the amazing way that they've just taken care of you.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: They remembered what we were doing and the excursions, and they say, how was, you know, I don't know what Disney does. I like to start researching that after this is like, how do they. Where do they find this, these people with such customer service focus. It was. It was top notch.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: What about the shows in animators palette on? So the Disney fantasy, you have the two shows in animator's palette. You've got crush, and you've got animation magic. There aren't any shows in the other two dining rooms. So we'll talk about food quality, of course, for all of them, but, yeah. What did. What did you think of the shows? And did the kids enjoy the shows in animator's palette?
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the first night was crush, and that was the night we had the really, really bad waves.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: My son ended up getting pretty sick, so he ended up going back with my husband, and it was just almost a little hard to concentrate on the shows because, I mean, we were really moving.
[00:47:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: And even it was kind of comical watching how they carry all this food as they're like, kind of like going with the ship, you know, the movement of the ship. So that was fun to watch. They were remarkable at doing that. But it was hard to enjoy that night just because of the weather, and it was hard to hear, you know, like, you can kind of like this. What was happening on the screens was really cool, but it was. We weren't too far from the screen. We were like a table over. So my nephew Owen was able to do a little interaction, but it was hard to hear. And then Owen would speak, and I think it was just so loud that crush, you know, would say the wrong thing because he's like, no, I'm from Chicago. You know, what are you gonna do? But it was cool. I mean, it was nonetheless, it was a cool experience and something to keep the kids attention on. And then the second night, how neat is. I mean, that's just. That was really neat, you know, the animation and seeing it. And then in between that time, you know, they're playing all the fun, memorable Disney songs and clips from all the, you know, memorable Disney movies. That was. And kept the kids attention.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really the key. Right. Keeping the kids from being bored. And I love that they always have, you know, with the kids menu, they always have, you know, like, little games of things to play for them or things to color. And that's always a helpful thing because dinner is kind of long, and we try to warn people it's long for young kids. It's not what they're used to at home, and. Yeah. So what about the food quality for you all? And variety and, of course, for the kids as well.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you talk about being from Chicago, that's the food quality that I'm looking for, is those cool experiences and tastes, and I tempered my expectations, for sure, again, and far exceeded even in the rotational dining. If we didn't get palo, I would have been very satisfied with food from rotational dining. There's so many options for appetizers main meal, dessert. The kids could get the kids menu, or they can get the adult menu. There was so much for them. So it was. I mean, I can't imagine anybody being upset about it, Zachary.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I'm glad you said that, Gina, because I didn't pay you to say that about Paulo. But I like to tell people when they ask, you know, do I need. Because there, you know, there's an upcharge for Apollo or for Remy for a first time cruiser, especially if they're going on a shorter cruise. My advice is don't go. If you're on, like, a three or four night cruise, like, don't go to Apollo or Remy, because there is so much to experience in main dining, and you're going to miss out. Right. On a longer cruise. Of course, if you can get Apollo brunch reservation, that would. That's always my recommendation. But I just want to tell people, like, you can have a great food experience without paying anything extra, and you can skip the ice cream shop because you got soft serve on deck, or you get off ice cream sundaes or scooped ice cream and main dining as your dessert. Right. So, like, you don't have to do any add ons when it comes to food. Food, really? Unless you want to drink alcohol. That's really the only thing that's, like, an add on. That is. I mean, a must. Only a must if you drink alcohol. Right. Okay, well, we got to talk about Paulo. You. You did brunch. Did you get brunch right away at your booking window, or we. Were you stalking the app like we talked about?
[00:50:51] Speaker A: I stocked the app so much that once I finally got the reservations, I texted the family. I'm like, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my time. Time.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Yeah, because you were getting for six adults, right?
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Which is hard so much.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: But we got. And we got it pretty early on. Not right away, but I would say maybe five, six days after. And thank goodness, because had we not, I would have really wasted a lot of time, because I checked that app no less than 20 times a day.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Wow. Okay, well, what did you. What did you think of brunch? And did you take our advice on the dishes, or did you ignore our advice and go for waffles?
[00:51:32] Speaker A: I think that's. That's a cool tip, too, if you're able. We kept saying, it's really great that there were six of us. So it was my brother and my sister in law, my mom and dad. And then me and my husband, Jim, and because there were so many of us, we were able to try a lot without really overdoing x. I also didn't want to just order something to try one bite. I would have hated to do that. So we got a lot on that. I don't even know where to begin.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Let's start with the antipasti. Did you order the meat cheese antipasti or the seafood antipasti? Like, and, you know, try different things, or did you skip and go right to, you know, soups or breakfast or what? Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Well, even before that was the bread, right? The savory.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, the bread. Yeah, I know, right? It's like, where do I choose? Like, I will be honest. I usually go for savory breads, but that nutella muffin thing.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Is so good that I. Almond croissant. Oh, everybody loves almond. I'm not a big almond croissant person, but I feel like everybody loves that almond croissant.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Or even the little fruit pastry that's in there was delicious.
But it was so hard. We kept saying, okay, stop it. Little bites don't fill up on the bread, you know? So we did get both antipastas. It was nice. Each couple got the meat and the cheese, and we kind of worked our way through that, and that was delicious. And then from our server, his recommendation, I was not going to get the. Oh, gosh, what is it with the english muffin?
[00:53:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Eggs Benedict or Florentine or whatever.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: I had no interest in an eggs Benedict. I don't ever need to eat an eggs Benedict, ever. I just don't. She's like, you have. You guys have to order them, and I promise you, you'll never be able to have another one better. So I'm sorry if I'm going to ruin it for you, but you must order it. And so we ordered it, and again, I'm like, you know, how good is this really going to be? She had mentioned to us that they cook those english muffins by scratch every morning. Every single thing on that plate is from scratch. And we try. I could have licked the plate. It was. That surprised me. That dish surprised me. So everybody, I got the traditional one with the rosemary ham. My husband and my dad, I think, got the seafood Benedict. So everybody loved that. We did a couple pizzas. Those were delicious. I was hands down going for the chicken parmesan, because I heard all of that. It exceeded expectations. A couple people got the lasagna. That was delicious. My dad ordered. I think the veal. My brother is just a really big kid at heart and he got the Mickey waffle.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: As soon as he's a big kid at heart, I'm like, he's gonna get the huge Mickey waffle.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: That was good. And our server was great. I will say with the six of us and we're a little bit loud and we're italian, we kept feeling like we needed to be quiet. Cause it was. It's very quiet in there. And something that I did not hear before, but again, I'd like to just tell others is being at that back of the ship, there was motion the whole time. It was kind of like rattly the whole time. I didn't know about that. And again, did it really bother me? No, but that was. There was motion the entire time.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that is a good tip. And we don't even think about that. But yes, Paulo on all of the ships is in the back of the ship. It is, yeah. You're going to feel the motion. You're up on the top deck, just like you're going to feel it down on the, you know, sort of the bottom of the ship when you're eating dinner and animators, right. You. You start feeling some of that. You just feel the vibration of the engine. Vibration, yeah, yeah. And so up above, you're going to feel that, the movement and the vibration. And because you're usually, usually Palo is at a sea day, so you're moving. Right. If you do Paulo at NASA, for example, which is the only, really the only time that, that it's offered on a port day. Yeah. You won't have that vibration. But generally speaking, when you're doing Paulo or Remy, of course, on the other, on the fantasy and the dream and Enchantan, the wish air, you're going to feel that movement. So that's definitely a good tip. Well, it sounds like a lovely dinner on our lovely brunch on pal Palo, an italian restaurant from an italian family from Chicago. So, I mean, that's like a stamp of approval you can't really beat. I would say the service too.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: You know, they just. That they just make it, you know, it was just great. Carolina was our server there and she was just lovely. And, you know, her recommendations and, you know, they ask you, are you on a time limit? And how much time do you have? Would you like me to serve you fast or serve you slow? Like it was. It was wonderful.
[00:56:07] Speaker C: Overall, it sounds like you had a great cruise. Are you going back? Did you get a placeholder? Is cruising in your family's future or more cruising?
[00:56:16] Speaker A: I was. I was waiting for this question. Sadly, no. And I'm a pretty. Am a pretty.
What is it? I have an addictive personality, so I thought for sure, you know, we were going to book one. No, we didn't. We felt also during those at sea days, we're just more of an active, like movers and shakers. And we love being in the parks and the rides and, you know, all day long and. Or if we're not in Disney, we're doing something else where we're just out of there, moving more. I just felt like, I hate to say that we were bored, but there just wasn't enough entertainment, maybe for our family that we were really into. And I think we'd just rather stay, you know, like, we're definitely going back to Montego Bay, that's for sure.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: There you go. There you go. Well, see, this is a good thing to learn, though. I think about, like, it's. You didn't have a bad cruise. It sounds like you actually had a great cruise, right?
[00:57:10] Speaker A: I. I would. I loved the experience. Like, the experience overall was wonderful. And maybe we said maybe we would do something like Alaska, you know, let's look into that in a couple more years. That's still on the table. And I would love to do that through Disney, but I just. I had to even people on the ship, like, you know, that whole, you guys talk about that, the rope drop culture, it's like, everybody needs to be first, you know, first in line for the restaurant, first in line for that. And it just kind of got annoying. Or the fireworks, you know, like, we kindly ask, like, hey, can we just scoot in? You know, we had Owen, who was like, 20 pounds, and this woman's like, no, my husband's coming back from the bathroom soon. Well, like, is your husband like, a giant? Because.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Right. This five year old can't squeeze in to get a good view.
[00:57:53] Speaker C: So two comments here. One is a adults, let the kids watch the fireworks, for God's sake, please. Like, is the deck parties. I always make room. If I see a kid who is having a problem seeing, I always step back from the rail and let them go ahead of me. It's going to be fine if they're not directly with their parents, but if you're an adult, stand behind the kids. And second, to go back to my comment, the beginning of the show about the last person across the finish line is still a man of marathoner. It does, like, you don't need to be first to anything. Like, but you're going to get, you're going to get your picture with the character, and guess what? You still got the same picture everyone else did. So, like, yeah, yeah, you really are, though.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: And I don't want to say they, right, I'm on the cruise with them. I'm part of they. But that was, was prevalent a lot. I don't know what you call it. It just felt like very, like privilege. I'm like, okay, we're all here together. Like, we all paid, you know, to be on this ship. It's okay. Even at dinner, we, you know, we try to arrive, like, five minutes early, but the first night we realized, do not arrive five minutes early because there's 500 people waiting to go in.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: Right, right. Arrive five minutes late. That's what we tell people. Don't. If you arrive on time or five minutes early or ten minutes early, there will be a line. If you arrive five minutes late, that line is mostly gone. I mean, you might.
[00:59:08] Speaker A: I took my daughter to the bathroom while we were waiting to go into, I think it was animator's palette, and this woman's like, ma'am, ma'am, we're in line. I'm like, I know I'm not getting in line. I'm just cutting you so I can go to the bathroom. You know, just cutting around you. So that just got old. But anyway, that's not a Disney thing. That's rude adults.
[00:59:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It also is a culture that Disney instills of. Like, we have to be first. We always have to be first. If you're not first, you're last. Like, you wanna say it, but, like, it's, it's, it's frustrating to see it on a cruise line because cruising is supposed to be relaxing. Uh, park. Going to the parks actually used to not be terrible. Like when I was a kid, you know, you showed up, you did some rides, you had some fun. You know, like, it wasn't, it wasn't like it is today. And I hate to see that culture coming in to the cruise line more and more. So.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: I don't know, even though, about the parks though, Brian, because I remember as a teenager, Fastpass became a yemenite thing.
[01:00:06] Speaker C: And I'm talking about when I was ten or eleven and my parents, we would show up, the thing you had to do was park tickets, and that was about it.
And so they didn't even have Fastpass, I don't think, when I was a kid. So you stood in line, you got on the ride, and you kept going. So, yeah, anyway, I really, really hope people start to figure out that you just don't have to be first in line on the cruise line. Nothing is going to happen that you're going going to miss. If you're there on time, you're going to get your character photo. So.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah, and, you know, good tip. Speaking of character photo, I heard a tip. Hey, don't, don't wait in those lines in the beginning of the cruise, because by the end of the cruise, those lines tend to, you know, tend to tend to dwindle, and we're on a pretty packed ship. And that is a, that's a good tip. By the end of, end of that cruise, my daughter had a picture with every princess, and a lot of times we weren't in a line. It was, you know, we got a picture, my daughter, her shoes were hurting her at dinner, and she's like, I want to go to the bathroom. So she had her shoes off. I'm like, honey, you got to put your shoes on to walk to the bathroom. You know, there's your little bloody toe. And I'm like, forget it. We'll run to the bathroom real quick without shoes. Sure enough, we run into Cinderella, and Cinderella goes, you know, you crystal, you know, your glass slippers.
I have a picture of my daughter in her blue dress with no shoes on with Cinderella, you know, oh, that's iconic, actually. I love that. And that happened towards the end. So truly, you know, to all of the listeners out there, like, you will get picture with lots of characters.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I will give one caveat. If you're on a short sailing, like three nights, four nights, those lines are going to be crowded the whole time. And the last night actually will be very crowded because people are trying to get their last minute pictures. But on the longer cruises, absolutely. I would say, like, the sweet spot is like day four, right? Because most people are sort of sick of taking pictures by day four. And so, yeah, if you haven't taken any pictures, that's probably primed to time to take them. All right, well, Brian, is it that time?
[01:02:04] Speaker C: I believe it is. It is that time in the show where I have to subject you to Sam's arbitrary questions, arbitrary rules, and more than a dash of judgment or the.
[01:02:12] Speaker D: Round we know is rapid fire.
[01:02:13] Speaker C: So, Sam, take it away.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: All right, Gina, you knew this was coming. I'm going to ask you some Disney favorites, and I'm going to ask you some Disney cruise favorites from this cruise. On the Disney fantasy, we'll start out with, who is your favorite Disney character? And Disney means anything and everything that Disney owns at this point.
[01:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You'll start to see a theme, probably with my answers. It's got to be Mickey Mouse the Og.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: Love it. What is your favorite Disney movie?
[01:02:39] Speaker A: I'm going to say Aladdin. It's one of the only ones I could watch a million times over.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, the original Robin Williams. Not the live action, the original.
[01:02:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Yes. All right. Favorite Disney song.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: When you wish upon a star. Oh, lovely goosebumps and cry every time.
[01:02:56] Speaker B: Oh, fantastic. And I love that. I should say you're wearing a Mickey mouse shirt right now. I noticed immediately that you were. So that doesn't surprise me that Mickey's your favorite. Okay. On board Disney cruise line, Disney fantasy. What was your favorite main stage show?
[01:03:12] Speaker A: It was so close, but frozen in shock.
[01:03:17] Speaker B: I mean, that's the right answer. So congratulations. You've already won.
What was a favorite onboard activity?
[01:03:26] Speaker A: Midship detective agency was a lot of fun.
[01:03:28] Speaker B: Favorite rotational dining room restaurant?
[01:03:31] Speaker A: Enchanted garden.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: Ooh, really? I got to hear why. Was it like the food or you just like, the atmosphere?
[01:03:38] Speaker A: The atmosphere to me was a little more subdued and subtle. It was relaxed. It was a little bit more relaxing, and the food was really good there.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: Favorite space to relax on the ship?
[01:03:48] Speaker A: I would say on our balcony on the veranda.
[01:03:51] Speaker B: Oh, love that. Favorite port?
[01:03:53] Speaker A: Falmouth, Jamaica.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, favorite food item. We're going to talk one sweet and then one savory. So what was. Was your favorite sweet item on the ship?
[01:04:02] Speaker A: The. And I've heard this from you all. The sticky date pudding.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: Yes. So good. So good.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: So good.
[01:04:10] Speaker B: What was a favorite savory item?
[01:04:12] Speaker A: I have two, and I just have to say it because I cannot pick. And they were both appetizers from enchanted garden, the mushroom tart appetizer and the tuna tower.
[01:04:23] Speaker B: Yum. Awesome. Love it. Okay, well, your favorite ship is obviously the Disney Phantom. See? But I have to ask you my last question of rapid fire. A bucket list cruise. You mentioned Alaska. Is Alaska the bucket list. Meaning if you could go anywhere on a Disney cruise line, ship in anywhere in the world, even someplace Disney cruise line doesn't currently go, where would you go?
[01:04:46] Speaker A: Alaska will definitely be something we do and I think is obtainable. But bucket list, if money doesn't matter, it would be really neat to do. Do maybe a 14 day cruise in the Mediterranean. You know, lots of, you know, in Europe would be so cool.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I would recommend that for you, Gina. I think that if you're looking for your next cruise like your next cruise should be a more active one and maybe not a caribbean based or Bahama base.
[01:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah, or Gina, I'd recommend, actually, if you're still interested in cruising, two things you might want to look at for your family, especially as your kids get a little older. I would say one is a river cruise because then the destinations really are the star of the show. You're really just using the ship as a hotel that floats you from city to city along the river and getting off and experiencing those cities. The other thing would be to look at an expedition cruise with either Nat Geo or adventures by Disney where you're going to the Galapagos or something like that. We've had guests on who've gone to the Galapagos with their kids and their kids have just loved it. So we like to say, and we borrowed this from another content creator out there, but there's no cruise line is for everyone. But there is a cruise line for everyone out there. So I extend that to a type of cruising for everyone out there. So, you know, look at some of those expedition offerings and river offerings. You might, you might be pleasantly surprised at the amount of activity you can get on board. So.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and you mentioned you've got a Disney Parks vacation coming up in February. We hope you have a wonderful time. And we just want to say thank you for reaching out, for joining us and giving us your perspective on your first Disney cruise. We love to hear about it.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah, this was so fun.
[01:06:26] Speaker D: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week. Monday nights. 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. over on YouTube.com dclduo. So be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcast. 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 dc or email
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