[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yes. That's the right answer. Thank you. Okay. We don't have to. We don't have to be unfriend. We don't have to unfriend you now. Okay. All right.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: That's not how this works, Sam. That's not how any of this works.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: I unfriend you.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DC l duo podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding, travel. And Sam, I'm actually excited for this listener review because we just recorded with this person. It's coming from. Well, I think the username is kn clear, and I think we just recorded with Kevin over the weekend.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yes.
It was a fantastic show.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: By the time this episode comes out, it will already have happened. And so I don't know if you're listening to this episode. You didn't listen to the episode we did with Kevin. It was about Coast Guard rescues. And I will tell you what, it was a fun episode to record. And the photos he sent over, Sam hasn't even seen them yet. They'll be out by the time we're talking about. This are epic. So I cannot wait for this episode to come out. But with that, the review comes from Kay and clear, who I'm assuming is Kevin. He writes best DCL themed podcast. The DCL duo has quickly become one of my favorite podcasts. Sam and Brian have the unique ability to regularly deliver fresh, new content. They have built a fun community where we can all be transported on board our favorite Disney ship at the touch of a button. Well, thank you, Kevin. We assuming it's Kevin. Thank you to k and clear for that review. We really, really appreciate it. And with that, Sam going to throw it over to you to intro our guest and our topic for tonight.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I am so excited to introduce to the show first time guests to the show, Marie. Welcome to the show, Marie.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: Hi, Brian and Sam. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: We're so excited to have you. We've got, like, a lot of, like, ground to cover on this. On this episode. So I'm going to just, like, dive right in before I tell folks, like, what the cruise is that we're going to talk about, because we have. I feel like, like I said, at multi generational, there's, like, an autism angle. There's, like, concierge angle. We've just got, like, lots of stuff. So let's just dive right in and start with your cruising background and your Disney cruising background.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: And your Disney background because you didn't have a Disney cruising background before this cruise?
[00:02:28] Speaker C: No, no, this is our first one. But I grew up in southern California, Orange county. So growing up, my mom and I would go to Disneyland for special occasions. Like one of my best memories, she would play hooky. We would go on a school day to celebrate her birthday, since it was just the two of us. And so I've always kind of had really fond memories of Disneyland. Growing up, she and I actually did a couple run Disney. We did the Tinkerbell inaugural tinkerbell half on. And we did it the next year. My husband and I, we, once we got married, and when I was pregnant, we did our baby moon there. So I'm very Disneyland centered as a californian. I've never actually been to Disney World and never had a desire to go because I used to have fear of Florida, but that's been wiped clear fear of Florida. I love Florida now, so I did a lot of Disneyland. And then December 2022, we took our first trip with the kids before my daughter turned three. Wanted to get her in while she.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Was still free, while she was free.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: And it was so magical. We all just had an amazing time. I remember sitting on the ground watching the parade with them, and it was the holiday parade, and it was just so magical. And then I remember walking back to our hotel at the end of the night and seeing 25,000 steps or something. I was just so exhausted.
And so when we came back, that's when the cruise started to pop up. I think I was at a holiday work party, and someone was talking about a cruise, and I had remembered my mom and I actually did some carnival cruises out of Long beach. So the Sonata Catalina. And I loved those. They were great. I have no, like, we are not partiers. We're like, booze cruising. But we really enjoyed the, those carnival cruises. We actually took a few carnival cruises, including a Mediterranean one when I was in college.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: And they were all great. I don't know. I had nothing. No problems with it. But then after we came back from Disneyland in the present with my children, we decided to. I started to look into Disney cruises. I was like, oh, a cruise in Disney. We could do it together, never having researched it at all. I think we saw maybe a YouTube commercial or something, my son and I. And he was really excited about it as well. I was like, this is Disneyland at sea, kind of. And that kind of sparked his interest as well. That's how I found Disney cruise was just sort of putting two and two together. Like, oh, we can maybe relax a little on this vacation because they had this kids club I was reading about.
There's no possible way I could be walking 10 miles a day on this ship. Close, but not actually. Right.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: You can walk a lot on a ship if you avoid taking the elevator and you zigzag and you do things like, I don't know, midship detective agency or things. There are ways to get more steps on the ship, but it's not like Disneyland or Disney World, for sure.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: Yeah, no. And when we started researching and I was looking as a, you know, we live in the Bay Area, I was looking at the cruises out of San Diego because that's so close to us. And I was researching it, and they totally seemed fine. We were thinking of sort of spring break the following year. I started planning this in January of 2023, and that's when I started doing research. And then, you know, doing more research, I was like, oh, it's not all that much more to book a cruise out of Florida. And it's longer, and spring break, you're going to get nicer weather. And the Pacific coast in April is not exactly warm.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: It's not exactly warm, exactly. I mean, you have to, especially if you're doing, like, one of those cruises out of San Diego. They're typically, like, four and five night cruises. And so you don't really get far enough south. Like, Ensenada is really not that far from San Diego. It's like, only, like, I don't know, an hour and a half drive.
So, yeah, it's just harder to get to, like, that warmer weather, whereas if you go to Florida, of course, you're going to get warmer weather and then go down to the Caribbean. Yeah. So, so you would decide to book a seven night cruise. Now tell us, like, you know, this is your first time booking a cruise yourself, of course, having gone on cruises with your mom as a kid and then as a young adult. But, like, how did you sort of figure out the booking process and which itinerary specifically you wanted to go on?
[00:07:04] Speaker C: So I think that by the time we were ready to book, the only thing the furthest out I could book was April of 2024. And I even had to email my work and be like, talk to them, the calendar department. Like, do we think that spring break is going to be this week? I'm a teacher, so I have to do some, like, do we think? Yeah. And they were like, we can't confirm, but I looked back at calendars, made some predictions, and then that's when I was kind of joining Facebook groups I like to research. As you can tell, I started to look for a TA. It just seemed to make more sense to book it through a travel advisor rather than doing it myself. It didn't seem like it was going to hurt me in any way, that there was no cost, that there was only going to be benefit to booking with a travel advisor. And I think one of the Facebook groups I was in had a list of recommended travel agents and that's when I just reached out to one who looked like they had positive reviews on. I think I used Google reviews or something like that.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, I bet you were in the Disney cruise line Facebook community run by Rebecca Sutcliffe. That's what I'm guessing.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: I think so, yeah. Now I'm in the Instagram too. Yeah.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Okay. There you go. Yeah, that makes sense. It is the biggest, I think, Disney Cruise community on facebook that exists. And they have a list of recommended travel agents that they, she has sort of arranged an agreement with. And obviously they vetted different agents and agencies. And our sponsor, my path unwinding, is on there. And Marie, tell us which travel agency and which travel advisory you used.
[00:08:44] Speaker C: Karen Shelton at my path unwinding.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is such a funny, like, coincidence because it wasn't like you didn't find them from our show. In fact, you found our show from them. Is that right?
[00:08:58] Speaker C: It was more. I think I was just, I once I had booked the trip and the excitement was growing and I was devouring everything I could find because we don't go on many fancy vacations, and this is kind of fancy, let's admit.
I was just, and I'm not a big podcast listener at all. But now I wanted to listen to Disney Cruise line podcasts and yours came up. And then I was like, oh, that's so funny. The travel advisor we used is the sponsor of this show. That must be a good sign.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. It was a good sign. All right, well, okay, so you get in touch with Karen, you get booked. Was there anything in particular about this itinerary? You chose a seven night, I believe, western Caribbean. Was it just that this was what fit in your schedule and so that. And you wanted the longer the cruise, the better?
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. Yeah. I'm just doing research about if we were going to be going out to the east coast at this timeframe, you know, going back to. I've been to Cozumel before and I really liked it. And so I kind of felt like going back there would be fun for the kids. I've never been to Grand Cayman or Jamaica, but I've done Cozumel before and I enjoyed it. So I felt like this would be a good stop. And I also, part of the research process and part of the reason why I wanted to do a cruise out of Port Canaveral was I found out about the private island, the castaway key, and I was like, oh, they don't have that out of San Diego.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: That is true. I do think there are a lot of people who end up booking cruises out of Florida because they just want to go to castaway. Right. And cruises out of other ports generally. There have been cruises in the past that have gone out of Galveston that have gone all the way to castaway, but most of them don't. And then, of course, nothing on the west coast can cruise. Right.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: I did look for Texas, or I think maybe New Orleans was an option. I'm not sure. I tried to find something closer because it's a big flight, especially for young kids. This was the only one that was going to hit castaway key, and I felt like my kids would really like it. And I felt like I would really like it.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: I love it. Now, you ended up booking concierge. Did you book concierge at the outset, or was that something you upgraded to later? And how did you come to that decision? Because that's obviously for a first time cruiser, it is a more unusual decision to make. I'm not saying it's a bad look. It's actually, I think, a great decision.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: It's pretty crazy.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah. But what made you come to that, that decision? Obviously, there's a much bigger price tag. Everybody knows that.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: I think it was because I have a fear of missing out. I have that fomo. And as a first time cruiser, I was realizing through research, like, gosh, it would be nice to get this appointment or get this tasting and figuring out, like, oh, we're not going to get a shot at that. I mean, it sounds like, yes, there's always a possibility once you get on board and things open up, people cancel. But I'm not that type of person. I can't wait for someone else to decide they don't want it. I had this.
Not only did I want to go to castaway key, I wanted a cabana on castaway key. And since we were booking so far enough out, we really did have time. It was. I know this will sound crazy. It is crazy. It wasn't that much more than a family veranda stateroom. I mean, comparatively, not too much more. It was more but it wasn't so significant that when I brought this proposal to my husband, he didn't completely shut me down. So I think because we were over a year out, we had plenty of time to. And we're not big vacation takers. We're kind of. Especially now that the pandemic's over, we really haven't taken any big family trips besides that trip to Disneyland where we drove and stayed off property. So it just kind of felt like, well, go big or go home.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: And your kids are young. I mean, they're younger than Nathan. They're not little any. I mean, they're little, but they're not little, if that makes sense. They're not babies. But obviously, when they're really little, I mean, I think, like us, most people, when the kids are really, really little, don't do a lot of, like, vacationing because it's not easy to do. I know there are people who do, and I give them lots of, like, kudos because I remember that time where we had to bring, like, the diapers and the stroller and all of the gear everywhere, and it was just harder. It's just harder to travel.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: We really haven't taken any trips with both of our kids because of a mixture of COVID and because of the reason you just said it's hard. And now that our youngest is four, she's so much easier to travel with. We have less gear. We didn't bring a stroller. We didn't bring a car seat. It felt much more accessible for us to go on a cross country trip rather than, you know, a couple years ago.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, now, you also mentioned to us in some communication before coming on the show, but also in our pre show chat, this was a multigenerational cruise. So who else? So it's your family of four, right? Your two kids. So ages seven and four, you and your husband. And then who else was with you all?
[00:14:11] Speaker C: So after we booked the trip, I talked to my mom, and she's a single lady, and I said, we're doing this trip. It would be great for you. If you'd want to join us, you can. And I started to give her some of the information. And then, because you have to make that fair, at least in our family, I also offered it to my mother in law, who is also a single lady.
Yeah. And our two kids are their only grandkids, so they, I think, also something that we never really got a chance to do with our own grandparents have this sort of big trip like this. And they. I was surprised. They were immediately on board. And they also booked concierge rooms for themselves.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Wow. Now, each individually, or did they bunk up? I mean, I don't know if, you know, mother in laws. They may, or they may get along great. They still may not want to bunk together, especially if there are folks who are used to living alone. What did they end up? What did they end up? Each booking.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: They each ended up booking their own room. So my mom was right next to me, which was nice, because we could open up the balcony, and we had one of those rooms on the 12th floor that had, like, a bump out, and her room had a bump out. So we had a really nice big balcony. And then my mother in law was just a few doors down. And they also booked with Karen Shelton.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Look at that. Karen got three rooms out of this deal. That's pretty good.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: And I think when we were in the booking stage, I talked to both of them that they didn't have to book concierge. I really kind of encouraged them not to. I didn't really want them to spend. And hindsight 2020, I think it was way afterwards, I was like, oh, I could have put one kid in each of their rooms next time.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: I was just thinking that I was going to give that pro tip that if you have a grandparent who is a singleton or just a single friend, and you are a family of either three or four, put one of the kids in the adult's room and you'll end up paying a full adult fare for that kid. But overall, the cost will be less because you won't end up paying for a phantom person that doesn't exist because all the rooms are based on, like, a double occupancy. So a single person on Disney, unfortunately, on some other cruise lines, have some other options, but on Disney, a single person is basically paying a double fare.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: So, yeah, next time, I totally. It was one of those things that, like, way after the fact, I was like, oh, we could have done that. But I really explained to them through all my looking up, like, concierge, the only thing that we won't be able to do with you is we won't be able to come to the lounge with us. If we go to the lounge, you won't be able to. Like, I know we're not technically allowed to save seats at the theater if we go early. Like, we wouldn't save you seats. Seats, which sounds awful.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to put out there. You're right. The rule says you can't. But if you're saving like, one seed or two seats, I probably would have.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Just saved them a couple.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: I would have. Yeah, just. Just like, the annoying thing is when people are saving, like, an entire row, and I don't mean concierge. I mean anyone, right? When they're saving an entire row and they're like, literally one person is there and they're. They're trying to save a whole row. It just. Just. It's not obvious to everybody else. It's really kind of annoying. But if you're, like, saving. If you're, like, one person, you're saving one seat. I mean, it's just as. It's the same as if, like, your person had to go to the bathroom or went to the bar to get a drink or whatnot. So it's not. Not too big of a deal, but just. Yeah, just don't be that guy who saves the whole row when you're the only person there. All right, so you all decide to book concierge. What kinds of things? I mean, you.
[00:17:52] Speaker C: You.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: You obviously started listening to our podcast. What other resources did you use to kind of prepare you join. I know Karen has a great Facebook group that is focused on concierge sailing. Did you join that Facebook group, or were there other resources that you used?
[00:18:09] Speaker C: I think I'm in all the Facebook.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Groups.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: And I think I'm on all the instagrams, and I think I've watched.
My family kind of is annoyed with me for how many YouTube videos I watch of Disney cruises. Like, we have our favorite. And I even tried to be, like, a little vlogger on our cruise. It's hard.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: It's hard, right? It's not that easy.
[00:18:33] Speaker C: I tried. I gave up when I got back and I was trying to edit it, I was like, why do you think.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: We'Re audio only most of the time?
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Why do you think we do live shows with video? And then we do. We try to do our recorded shows just audio, because it's just the editing process.
Folks who do vlogger, who do vlogging, it's awesome. But, like, you, I don't know. I mean, one cruise, they have to make into multiple videos, right? Because it's in order to have enough content. Because nobody save for a few people who are very, very wealthy. Nobody can really, like, go on a cruise every week. I mean, there are some people who've made a living out of it, and that's awesome, but most people can't.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: What living is that?
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Sign me up. Right?
[00:19:17] Speaker C: Like, sign me up every day, once a year. I'm feeling pretty lucky. I'm seeing people going a lot more. I'm like, hmm, I got into the wrong field.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Totally. All right, well, let's talk about booking ahead of time. You were sailing concierge, so it's easy for you, but what kinds of things did you book ahead of time or what were you hoping to book ahead of time and did all that all sort of work out?
[00:19:40] Speaker C: Yeah, working with the concierge shore side worked out really well. I ended up sending the email because we're west, so it was a 09:00 p.m. it wasn't that bad.
We got everything we wanted. We wanted the cabana. We got the cabana. We wanted a bippity boppity boutique for my daughter and the pirate league makeover for my son and the Palo brunch, a champagne tasting, I think. So we got everything. And yeah, working with them was awesome. I think the waiting was the hardest part of seeing. Did we get it?
Checking the app and everything worked out really well and they were really great to work with. I know that I had been kind of stockpiling gift cards from Costco and, like, sending them to our account to pay things and I could call them up and be like, are these really in my account? Because there's no easy way to, like, make sure it's actually there. And they were really nice to talk to and easy to get ahold of.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. That's great. Yeah. I know that you did excursions sort of on your own, so we'll talk about that. But was there anything else that you, like, wanted to pre book? Did you do, like, the royal. What is it, the tea?
[00:20:54] Speaker C: Yeah, we didn't do the tea. We did the royal gathering. So we got, we requested that, too in our email, and they booked that for us.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Oh, great. Awesome. All right, well, let's talk about, like, getting on the ship. You, obviously, you're flying from California. You, I'm sure, because you listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos. You do not get in the day of your cruise. You get in at least the day before. Where did you guys stay, in Orlando or down in Cocoa beach area?
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Yeah, we stayed at a Radisson in Cocoa Beach. Karen helped us book a shuttle, and so I felt like the excitement was going to be after that long trip, we might as well just go an hour more and kind of get that out of the way so that the next day we don't have, like, an hour long drive. I kind of felt like we would all combust if we had to wait, that much more. And it worked out fine. We got in really late. The hotel was basic hotel, but it was right near the port, and they had a shuttle that was like $6 per person in the morning, and it was five minutes away. And it worked out really well.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You weren't really spending any time at the hotel. It's just really a place to lay your head. So you don't really care, I'm sure, very much about, like, the amenities of the hotel other than maybe breakfast included.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Right. And there was no breakfast included.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: There was a McDonald's across the street. I think that was maybe my kids first McDonald's breakfast.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Listen, I love me a McDonald's breakfast. I'm not going to hate on a McDonald's breakfast. I'm all about the egg.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: McMillan. Yeah, it was like, I think I woke up that morning and I went for a run or something and then went to McDonald's to get breakfast. I was like, oh, this is really pretty.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: What was I so afraid of?
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Nice. All right. Okay, so you take the shuttle to the port. I imagine you get to the port on the early end because, you know, you can board at the earliest boarding as concierge. How did the check in process go? The boarding process, all of that.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: So smooth. We got the magic bands, got them on sale, so they weren't too bad, and they were able to hook them up for us. And, yeah, it wasn't a challenge at all. We were on the ship as soon as we wanted to be. Basically, I think we sat down in that little concierge lounge thing at the, the port for maybe a minute, reporting.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. Now, you mentioned when we were chatting earlier that your oldest child, your son, has autism and ADHD, sounds like has a kind of a similar profile to Nathan. Did you do anything to kind of prepare him or did you feel like you needed to? Obviously, like, as I mentioned to you before the show, you know, when you've met one kid with autism, you've met one kid with autism. They're all different. Some of them need lots of prep. Some of them don't need a lot of prep. Some of them want to be surprise. Some of them hate surprises. Right? Like, like every kid, they're all different. But did you do anything in particular to prepare him or did you feel like you needed to for either the ship experience, the kids club or anything in particular?
[00:23:57] Speaker C: So I think for Grant, my son in particular, he really did benefit from a lot of preparation beforehand in terms of watching YouTube videos. He was really curious about the Kids club in particular, his focus really became the kids club, and so he was really eager to get to that space. So much so that I think when we go next time, we're just gonna let him go. That's his happy spot. I think sometimes I kind of wanted him to be a part of, like, our family experiences because I wanted him to be a part of maybe a deck show with us or something, and, like, he wanted to be in that kids club, and that was a space where he felt really happy and he was doing his thing, and he didn't want to leave. And next time, I'm not going to fight that.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: I love hearing that, you know, Nathan is the same. He doesn't want to go to a deck party. He's not that interested in meeting a character, not super interested in the family trivia type events, although he will do, like, a, you know, like, a family game show. He might do, you know, one if I, like, beg him to. But in general, he just. Yeah, he wants to do his thing, so I totally understand that. Well, let's talk about boarding the ship. You board the beautiful Disney fantasy. Your family name is announced. Seeing the atrium for the very first time. Is this moment a wow, or is this, like, a.
Like, I always want to ask.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: We only ask this question now because Josh, like, planted the seed that it's not a fun moment, but that's, like, wow.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: It's a wow. It's a wow. It was a wow. Oh, my gosh. The one good video I shot out of the whole week was, like, that first five minutes when we got on board, and my kids, they have the happiest look on my face. I was like, ah, this is what I wanted. When way back. And, you know, it had been, like, a 14 month build up for these kids and me and my mom and my mother in law, who was kind of, like, along for the ride, like, we're going on a boat. Ooee.
Okay, how much for this? All right, well.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: I take it she's not the Disney person in the family. And your mom, your mom is probably more on the Disney track.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: Yeah, my mother in law, she just had this huge jaw drop grin, and I think maybe because, you know, we're one of the first ones on, and Captain Nikki is up waving at us, and he's all by himself, and, like, we were one of the first folks up the grand staircase to get a picture with him and, yeah, it was just, like, the highlight of the trip. I mean, everything was great. Everything was great. But that moment, like, we definitely look back on that moment a lot as a family and kind of relive that sort of getting on.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I love that. Yeah. You know, I feel like it can. It can be a really great moment because it's such a beautiful. I mean, all of the ships are beautiful. When you walk into that atrium or the grand hall on the wish, I think there's. And you kind of don't know that first time, like, what it's going to look like, even though you've seen it in videos. Right? Yeah. I feel like it's grander than you kind of even expect.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it just felt like. It almost felt more intimate than I expected. You kind of watch the video and you kind of think like, well, this is going to be very big. It's going to be overwhelming. But you get in there and it's just kind of, like, very elegant. It was lovely. The smell, everybody was so friendly. Like, every single cast member was just so nice, and everybody was happy. Again, this is 11:00 in the morning. I'm sure if you get on at 215, maybe you're less happy. I don't know.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: All right, well, did you, did you take advantage of a sit down concierge lunch? Did you, did you go walk around the ship? Did you do cabanas? What was your sort of game plan for that?
[00:27:38] Speaker C: We planned on doing the sit down lunch and we did the sit down lunch, and it was lovely. It was maybe a little bit too long for my kids that I could sit forever long, but my kids, especially Grant, he was ready to go. He wanted to go to the kids club. And so I think next time, and I do want to do that lunch again next time, but I might. I don't know. I don't know how to speed it up besides ordering everything all at once, or. I don't know how to speed it up. It was like, again, the servers were so friendly. Maybe it's because our party was slightly larger, but we were there for close to an hour or more.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I would say that lunch in general is, like, definitely slower. It's a more leisurely lunch. It's usually closer to an hour and a half. I would. I mean, my only tips are skip maybe appetizers and dessert if you want to get out there quicker, or if one of the parents, you know, like, just does entree only and has it come with the kids food, because they tend to bring the kids food, you know, right away, and then they eat, and then they sort of go off and explore with the kids, and then the rest of the party can kind of stick around because at that point. Yeah. Because at that point, there isn't secure programming open in the kids club. Right. So you can't just, you can't drop off. Like, it would be great if one, if you could just leave lunch, drop the kids off at the kids club and then come back to lunch. Right. And finish your lunch. But that just doesn't work because it's open house at that point for Kids club, if it's even open. Yeah. That's my only tip. It is a long lunch, unfortunately.
I think they kind of do it on purpose, though, because they're trying to spread out like people on the ship and they've got a, you know, not all the spaces are staffed yet because everybody's sort of transitioned from the previous sailing, so. All right, well, let's, let's jump topics and talk about your ports and your port excursions, because I know you booked things separate or outside of Disney, and I feel like.
[00:29:46] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, one thing. We booked outside of Disney. Yeah.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, yeah. So I feel like we should talk about. Yeah, let's talk about your port excursions, and then we'll jump back on board to talk about some of the highlights from your cruise. So. Yeah, so you had three port stops plus, well, four port stops if we count castaway key. What was the order? I know you did. Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica.
[00:30:08] Speaker C: That was last.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Oh, there we go. Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica. I love it. I guess that wasn't on, that wasn't purposeful. Let's start with Cozumel. What did you book for Cozumel, and did you book it through DCL or outside for Cozumel?
[00:30:22] Speaker C: We booked outside of Disney. We did the Paradise beach club. So I was researching different beach clubs, and I had narrowed it down to Nachicacombe or Paradise beach, and it kind of seemed like Paradise beach was a little bit more family friendly. And this is my level of crazy. I went on to the Cozumel port and I, for the day that we were going to be there, to see how many other cruise ships would be there that day, to kind of gauge how busy the beach clubs would be. And the day that we were going to be there, there was only going to be our ship, the fantasy and a small ship. I want to say it was a Viking. It was like a teeny tiny ship. No other ships. I was like, oh, so Paradise beach will not be busy that day. It was also the day of the solar eclipse, I think in cozumel, it was just partial or. I don't know, it wasn't the full thing. I really recommend that if you're going to go outside of a Disney cruise, check to see what other ships. If there was going to be a bunch of other carnival or royal caribbeans, I might have gone to a different beach club or done something in Disney. But I felt like there was only one ship in port that day that had a sizable amount of passengers.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: And most of the folks on Disney Cruise line were probably going to be booking an excursion through Disney, which Paradise Beach Club and Nachi Kakom. Neither of them can be booked through Disney Cruise line, but I've actually heard from folks in our Facebook group and folks we've talked to on the show before. Those two have been highly recommended. We have not been to either. We have been to, I think it's called Playa Mia, which is the beach club that Disney does. And that was good. I have no complaints about it. It wasn't particularly fancy, but it was decent. But when we went, it was like reopening from COVID So it was limited in their sort of activities and whatnot, but not because they had, like a water park. We just didn't have access to it because they were trying to keep groups of guests separate. Well, all right, well, tell us, how was Paradise beach club?
[00:32:22] Speaker C: It was great. I would definitely go back. The reason why I wanted to do a beach club was because I knew the pools on the ship were going to be impacted. And Paradise Beach Club had the most giant pool that was 3ft deep, which was perfect for my kids. I packed my daughters floaties and there were a ton of floaties in the pool, too. And my kids just spent, like, three solid hours in the pool. And we had the poolside service and some really good seats by the pool. We had some smoothies, we had some drinks, not too many. And we mostly kept to, like, appetizers, but everything was included. And then after, you know, a few hours in the pool, we moved towards the beach. They had a bunch of inflatables. My son was really interested in those and that he wanted to go on them. And I said, go waist deep in the water.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Show me.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: You will go waist deep in this ocean. And then all. But he did not go waist deep in the ocean. So we saved some money.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Right, right. Because, yeah, you have to pay extra for those. It's like the things that you bounce on, right. All the way out in the water.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: His eyes were bigger than his stomach. Like, he would not actually go on those. He wanted to, but mom won.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Yes. Maybe in a few years, maybe when he's a little bit bigger, braver, stronger.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Swimming skills before we climb Mount Everest in the water.
But the water's really calm, and it was fairly clean. It was not super seaweedy. And again, it was. Was very quiet that day. We only had, like, a super scary taxi ride there. I was, like, doing math in my head, like, 90 km/hour how many miles per hour is that? Like? It was.
But on the way, they had a ton of taxis waiting to take us back. And on the way back, it was a very, like, seemed like a good speed limit in the car. And we got back around. Maybe it's a 15 minutes drive, maybe around 230 or 03:00 we were back on board.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Oh, fantastic.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Wait, that's the. That's the excursion you arranged with the cruise line, or.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: No, no, not outside of. You can't. Yeah. Both Paradise beach club and Nachi Kakam, which are two of the. Two of the most, I think, popular as far as recommendations that we've seen in our Facebook group. Neither of them are ones at Disney books. Those ones are both. You have to take a cab to either. I think both of them are relatively, you know, easy cab rides, though. And like you said, there's cabs. I think when we talked to Rob Brian, he had mentioned they went to Nacho come, and they had said the same thing. There were cabs waiting at the end of the day to take people back to the ship. So it was super, super easy. All right, well, let's talk about your other port stops. Grand Cayman was your next port stop. What did you book? Did you book it through Disney?
[00:35:00] Speaker C: And how did it turn out on Grand Cayman? I booked a tender ride, and that was enough of an excursion for my kids.
I felt like I would go swim with stingrays. I really wanted to do the starfish beach, but, like, nothing was. I did a lot of research on vitre, and I just couldn't find, like, the perfect, like, trip that was gonna, like, had the reviews that I wanted. That seemed like it would be a good fit for our family. And, you know, I feel like most of us, we in our group were paying to use the ship, so I figured we would just walk around Grand Cayman. We took the tinder out. Daughter was like, I'm done.
We turned around, and my husband and my mother in law, they stayed and walked around, and my mom took, and she walked around on her own. You know, the sort of the little area right there when you get off. I got the kids snow cones and we took basically a private tender back. And the tinder itself was pretty exciting for my kids. Our day in Grand Cayman, there were a ton of ships kind of all. There was a lot of activity. It was really bustling. And I heard from other passengers on our sailing that it was kind of like some of the excursions that they went on were especially that seven mile beach one were a little disappointing. So I think if we ever go back and do a western caribbean cruise again, I would want to book an excursion or go to the turtle farm or something like that. I know, I was thinking about that too. But my kids are just still like ever so slightly, I think, too young and too, in terms of grant, just not ready for something that adventurous and out there and big.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah, well, this is the thing. It's good to know, right? It's good to know. Engage your family. I think it's smart that you also didn't book sort of back to back port excursions too. Cause that can just be hard. Like they spent all the day, you know, the entire day out in the sun and in the water the day before. And so having a little bit more of a leisurely day and taking a tender ride for the first time.
[00:37:04] Speaker C: The tender ride was really fun.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: That's a great excursion.
[00:37:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Plus you've got like the ship to yourself when you go back, right. It's mostly empty.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: We had a quiet lunch, we used the pool. We did the aqua duck. Yeah. So I feel like we didn't really get, you know, me and the kids didn't really get a full taste of grand Cayman and kind of gives us a reason to go back.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Perfect.
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[00:38:28] Speaker A: All right, well, let's talk Jamaica then. What, if anything, did you book for Jamaica?
[00:38:33] Speaker C: I just booked a crying toddler in the port again. You know, we just. My mother in law, she actually booked through Disney cruise line and she did a hike. A Dun dun rivers fall hike.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Oh, Dun River Falls. Yeah. Everybody says that's a great haven't been, but everybody says that's a great one.
[00:38:53] Speaker C: She really enjoyed it. She went by herself and she, it was an all day. Like, I think they left at 07:00 in the morning, which is reason enough why we're not going to join her.
And she was gone all day and got back. My mom and my husband and the kids and I, we just wanted to walk around that sort of shopping area. My husband and I had booked a couple's massage that afternoon, so we didn't want to go too far out. And again, we just wanted to keep the ship quiet. My daughter, though, like, even walking around the port, it was super windy that day, and she just got set off. She was competing with my son for most difficult child award she won that day.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a good point you make, though, about your mom doing the excursion on her own. I mean, that you can. That's one of the good things about booking, especially with Disney, right. There is safety in group, right? Like you, if you were a solo cruiser or it's just one person in your cruising party wants to do an excursion in those circumstances, I would always recommend that they do it through a Disney excursion because then they'll be with a whole group of people.
[00:40:03] Speaker C: That does remind me. They, my mom, she did a solo excursion in Cozumel. She did the trolley ride through Cozumel, and she really liked that. And my mother in law did a of see through kayaking and Cozumel or something like that. So we all kind of split up that day, but we all sort of had our needs met just going back to Cozumel.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: But that's a good tip, maybe for multi generational cruising, that you don't have to do everything together. In fact, it might be better to.
[00:40:31] Speaker C: Not doing everything together.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a little bit too much togetherness after, you know, seven days.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Togetherness.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Well, especially with, like, your mom and your mother in law in the same.
[00:40:46] Speaker C: I know. And I booked my. I actually, part of my request was actually to book my mom and my mother in law on the trolley. You know, learn on this trip. My mother in law is much more adventurous than I initially knew about her. And so she wanted, like, kind of a couple weeks before the trip, she took herself out of the trolley and put herself in this see through kayak in Cozumel, and it was fine. Like, everybody got what they wanted. Everybody was happy. We all got back on the boat.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: And you all got back, and nobody was running for the ship. Well, so let's talk about castaway, then, because obviously, that was your final port of call. They always saved the best for last, because if they put. Cause if they put cast away first, you'd be disappointed by every other caribbean port.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: But it was so sad knowing that I had to go back and pack.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: I will say, yeah, cast away at the castaway at the end is, like, the worst. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Well, it should be at the end, but it should be a sea day always.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: That would be nice.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And there are some itineraries. We love an itinerary that has cast away as the second to last day with the last full day being a sea day, because then you do. You have the full day at castaway and you're not rushing to get back to pack. You, you know. You know, you have another whole day ahead of time.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: I think that our next cruise is that. I don't know, our next one goes to Castaway Nassau. Spoiler alert. And the life. The lighthouse one. But I think. I think castaway is earlier, and I was like, ooh, that sounds good.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, if you're going to look out, then you're in store for two fantastic ports.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: I'm so excited.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, well, so what did you. You got the cabana?
[00:42:22] Speaker C: We got the cabana.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: You got.
[00:42:24] Speaker C: I assuming you were crying at work.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah. You got the family. You got a family cabana for your entire party of six, I assume. Yeah, that would make sense.
[00:42:32] Speaker C: And it made sense because then my mom and my mother in law, we all kind of split it, and that worked out well.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Awesome. Did you book anything else, or did you do decide to do snorkeling? Of course you have the snorkeling equipment included with your cabana and the floaties and bicycle rental if you want to use it. But did or did you just kind of. I mean, I'm a fan of just hanging out at the cabanas. You've paid for it. It's lovely. All of that.
[00:42:56] Speaker C: We basically did that. I started off. I wanted to get off the boat really early, the ship really early so I could do the five k. My mom and I did the five k. She even started before me because she walked in, so I did the five k. I did not do five k, though, on the five k.
I did not realize I must not have to go around twice.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the loop.
[00:43:16] Speaker C: Yeah, the signage. I mean, if my one criticism critique signage is not super clear, so.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: No, I absolutely agree. It used to be when. When it was a more organized years and years ago, when it was a more organized activity and everybody was going, they would have, like, cone set up. You would have a water station. Like, you would know exactly where you were going, and that you would have to do that loop a second time in order to do the five k.
[00:43:44] Speaker C: But they don't care now.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: They don't care. Anyone can get a medal even if.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: They got up there. I was like, I don't think that was a five k. He's like, well, it's even now.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: And an on your honor, five k. Let's put it that way.
[00:44:01] Speaker C: I know every, like, sort of hobby runner only runs for the medals, and that's like me. So I got my medal.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: We only run for the metals.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: The rubber metals, the sweet, sweet rubber metals. Yes.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Yeah, those metals. And for me in run Disney, I run for the plastic cheese and tortilla chips at the end.
[00:44:25] Speaker C: They had that in the tinkerbell one that I did.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: They have those, like, little cups of, like, the. You know, like, the cheese that you like. The pretzel cheese. That's what they have with.
[00:44:33] Speaker C: Man. I need to sign up for another one.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: Yeah. There you go. There you go. Well, you know, we're. I'm doing the Disneyland half in next year, so you can sign up, and I will meet up and go run together.
[00:44:45] Speaker C: Cool.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: I am not fast, though. I am. Yeah.
All right, well, okay, so you have. I assume you spend, like, the whole day at Castaway.
You know, I mean, what else would you do? It's the best port ever.
[00:45:00] Speaker C: Yeah. The cabana was everything I dreamed of, and I know we were just so lucky. We were in cabana number three. Castaway was lovely that day. There was every. There was, like, a little bit of clouds, you know, it was nice being so close to the food. It was an easy trek over to the food, the bathrooms. I brought water, shoes, which was a very good idea because it was super rocky. My mom did not, and it was not pretty for her.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Those lower number cabanas, it's more rocky over by the higher number cabanas, it's less rocky, but you also get less water and you're further away from the food. So it's kind of just which you prefer, if you, if you have a preference. I mean, I, I say any cabana is a great cabana, but I. Yeah, if you got a lower number cabana and certain parts of castaway. Yeah. Are more rocky.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: So, you know, growing up in California, living in California, we don't go in the water here. The waves are dangerous. The water is filthy. I mean, you know, just super cold, super dirty, just dangerous. I don't go in the water when I go to the beach here. And so the whole point is like, and my kids don't really either.
My kids are, have been, you know, they know, sneaker waves just stay away from the water. And here it was so nice because they could go in the water and splash around, and it was not freezing. And it's just very different from Pacific Ocean water, which is also beautiful and wonderful. But caribbean water was really, really nice.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Much warmer, too, than the Pacific coast water. My goodness, Pacific Ocean is so cold. All right, well, let's, let's hop back on board to the beautiful Disney fantasy and talk about stuff that you all got up to on the ship. Let's start off with, like, family stuff. What kinds of family friendly activities did you guys do on the ship? You mentioned the pool deck and the aqua duck. Did you spend a lot of time there? Did you spend a lot of time doing family game shows? What kinds of stuff do you all enjoy?
[00:47:00] Speaker C: We spent a lot of time on the pool deck. My kids really enjoy just floating in the water. Those life vests that they have at the pool were great. My kids could just float and watch a movie, go get ice cream, come back.
There were definitely times it felt really busy, but it never felt, felt so busy that it was uncomfortable.
It worked really well for us. We did the AK, my son and I did the aqua duck a couple times, or he would switch out with his. And other than that, my son was mostly in the kids club, and so my daughter and I would be at the pool deck. We kind of, we didn't do too much. We did the. My son and my husband did the midship detective. My son liked that a lot. I didn't go near it because that seems like something that would frustrate me.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: It's actually really fun. I highly recommend, if you like the Muppets I highly recommend doing the Muppet storyline. I love it. I think it's really fun. I love to try it, and it's a good way to get your steps in on the ship and also to see parts of the ship that you might not otherwise go to because you just have to, like, zigzag around the ship to do it, to do any of the storylines. The other two storylines are shorter than the Muppets. One, if you want to do one that's a little bit shorter, it does take a couple of hours. I mean, if you do it all at once, it will take a couple, maybe an hour and a half, something like that. But if you. You can kind of spread it out and do it in pieces if you want. I just highly recommend it. It's fun to do with a kid.
[00:48:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I think maybe next time I'll try this time. I was like, there's just too much to do. I can't walk around.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: There is. There is a lot to do. Now, you mentioned champagne tasting, and I know you said Paulo brunch. We'll talk about that in a bit. But champagne tasting and spa appointments, right?
[00:48:47] Speaker C: Yeah. My mom, my husband and I did the champagne tasting on our.
And that was really fun.
You know, who doesn't love champagne? And lots of it.
And, you know, you learn so much that the host was really knowledgeable, and he talked a lot about the different bottles that we were having and the cost and what to pair it with and the history of champagne. So that was really fun. And we all enjoyed that. And afterwards, we did the. We got the kids from the kids club, and we did Simpsons trivia. My husband's a big Simpsons fan, and apparently so were a lot of others families, because we did not win, but we got close. But some of those were deep cut questions, but that was something fun. We all did, the whole family. And, you know, the kids got Shirley temples and they thought that was great. And then other than that, we, you know, besides the shows, and we would walk around, we would look at the shop, eating.
That's kind of. We didn't do too many organized activities. I felt like. I felt like we were more into sort of the, the pool deck offerings or just kind of doing our own thing, walking around the hot tub on the concierge deck. If the pool ever got super crowded, we could go up to the concierge deck, and that was really nice to kind of have, especially if there weren't, like, too many. I didn't want to make other families uncomfortable with our kids in there, but it seemed like it was okay that kids could be in there. So our kids were in there for a little bit, and that was nice. But other than that, my. Both of my kids did a bippity boppity boutique appointment. Oh, yeah.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Tell us about how that went.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. It was amazing. And my son did the pirate league one on pirate night, and my daughter did the bippity boppity on our first sea day. And we had the same fairy godmother in training both times, coincidentally. And she was Alexa from Peru. Like, I still remember her name. She was so amazing. And my daughter still talks about it, still wears a. The pink ponytail from time to time and how everyone calls you princess afterwards. She was on cloud nine. She loved it so much. And my son loved. I didn't know what to expect with the pirate makeover. I didn't know. How could this be stretched out? I got him a pirate costume. Someone was giving it away in our local buy nothing group, and so I had a pirate costume all ready to go for him. And it's, like, a whole show that they do with, like, giving you a pirate name, and it was really fun and, like, rolling dice, and they talk like pirates, and they count, like. And so it was really kind of, like, immersive. And, you know, he comes out looking all banged up, and he loved that, too. Like, you know, it's funny. My daughter was very delicate, sitting in the chair, getting her makeup done and her nails like a little princess. And my son is just squirming like, he's never had face paint so much before. But, you know, they were so good with him, patient with him, when he was just like, what is going on? And he ended up really enjoying it, so. And he still has all his pirate gear and walks around with his sword sometimes.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: I love that we've never done the bibbidi bobbidi with Nathan, so that's great to hear that. Even the. That the boy. I don't want to say boys activity, because boys can be princesses, too, but that the pirate part was cool for him.
[00:52:08] Speaker C: Yeah, they make it, like, because we did the bippity boppity boutique first, and I. We had gone. My daughter wanted to keep going back and getting pixie dust, but they don't even do pixie dust on pirate day. It's, like, shut down, and it's, like, pirate league, and everybody's in their pirate dress, and the whole studio is kind of made over, and so it was. It didn't feel very, like, princessy. Anymore. Once you were in there for the pirate night one, I was kind of surprised at sort of the transformation of the salon.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: So I'm curious what your experience was like with the shows on board and whether your kids enjoyed them. Like, how were the shows for you?
[00:52:45] Speaker C: Yeah, so we had the early dining, so we had the late shows, and we did take advantage of being sort of escorted down in the elevator with the concierge. So we got there early. So the waiting was a little bit more challenging for both of my kids because you're sitting there for, like, 45 minutes before the show starts. So I might take you up on your suggestion of maybe having someone walk, like, if it's just one or two seats. Cause it was a lot of waiting. But both my kids really enjoyed the shows, especially the popcorn.
My daughter was the one who had a really hard time with Aladdin in particular. It was a little too scary for her. So we were the family where the dad who had a screaming toddler being carried out because the snake at the end was a little too much, like, get me out. I want to leave, which must feel really good for the actors. Like, it's very authentic.
But she rallied, and we did the frozen show, and then we had a magician, and we really liked it. It was an illusionist kid. Ace, I think I actually got to go.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: Oh, he's great.
[00:54:00] Speaker C: I volunteered, and because I was in the front, I got to go up, so.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:54:05] Speaker C: I'm not really, like, a volunteer type, unless I'm volunteering to be on a Disney cruise podcast or to be on a magic show.
Oh, yeah, I got to do it. I will never volunteer again. But it was fun.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: Volunteering for a magic show is my worst nightmare, so.
[00:54:22] Speaker C: And, you know, I don't think I would have.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Comedy show. Comedy show might be a close second, actually.
[00:54:27] Speaker C: All those, you know, going to the concierge lounge before dinner and then before the show was not a good combination, but I made it. I don't think I embarrassed myself.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: What she means by that is she got some free drinks before and after.
[00:54:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I don't.
And, yeah, fortunately, I was up earlier in the show. The volunteers later in the show have much more involved parts. I wouldn't. I would. That didn't look as fun to me.
My part was pretty, like, small and short, and I was off the stage and back in the comfort of my chair, but, yeah, like, I don't know what came over me. Disney cruise.
[00:55:04] Speaker B: Did you make it? Did you make it to the pirate deck party? Did they have the pirate deck party.
[00:55:08] Speaker C: They did and we did. My husband did with the. My daughter, I think we did not end up going. I think I dropped my son off at the kids club, and then I went back to the lounge. I think my husband and my daughter went and they did the fireworks show. So they didn't do the deck party, I think. I think we would want to do that.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: Well, it's the deck party that leads into the fireworks show, so it's all kind of one. I mean, you can kind of come towards the end of the deck show and still see the fireworks or there are parts of the ship you can of avoid, really.
[00:55:44] Speaker C: We saw the fireworks from our room. That was really nice. We could just stand out on our balcony and see them. But my husband and my daughter stayed out for the show and they enjoyed it, I think it was. My husband said the show was really fun waiting for the fireworks. He kind of regretted not just coming back to our room because there would have been enough time to come back and get situated. You don't have to stand there and wait because it was kind of a long wait between the show and the fireworks, I think, from his perspective.
[00:56:11] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, it usually isn't, but there could have been delay. That's. Who knows? Who knows?
[00:56:18] Speaker C: Yeah. We're not big nighttime activity, people. We kind of shut it down at home. And so I think this whole idea of being out after dinner was new for my kids and my husband and myself. We don't go out. So I think that would be a goal for our next cruise. Like, let's try to do a nighttime activity instead of shutting it down. It was really nice. Like, after the show, we could go to the concierge lounge and have a drink or just sit and have, like, a little late night dessert bite or something. So we really took advantage of the lounge. I feel, like, a lot on this cruise because we were staying concierge, so we spent a lot of time there.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: Well, and that's actually a really great tip. If you're doing early dining, you do get, I think, more benefit of that lounge in the late evening hours because it closes at ten, and if you have late dining, you are not getting out of dinner until about that time. So it's very rare that we have time. I mean, there have been times where we've gotten out of dinner at, like, 939 45 and we can, like, go by and grab a last drink of the evening from the concierge lounge. But I will say that that is more rare. Dinner, as you mentioned, lunch sometimes, especially on embarkation day, is a longer lunch for sit down lunch. Lunch. Dinner also is kind of a longer meal. And the later dinner, um, because of the start time being so much later, it does kind of usually go right up until 945, 10:00 p.m. ish. So, yeah, I wish.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: I wish they would do, like an hour, an extra hour, just like a, you know, just in case you want to get a night cap before you go, you know, to bed or something like that. Like, it just. It, yeah, I wish it would just go to eleven or something like that. So, yeah.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: You just need more staff, though.
[00:58:05] Speaker C: Add a half hour on each end.
[00:58:07] Speaker A: I mean, the whole. Right. The hosts are so great. I want them to get sleep, so it's not like I want them to work longer hours. I just feel like they would. They would need more staff, obviously, for that. Or just have a bartender available there or whatnot.
[00:58:22] Speaker C: It was really busy consistently when, like, that 05:00 hour started and all the way through when kind of cleared out after that show. So they definitely have business going well.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: What did you think about the dining experience on board? I don't know if you did any adult dining.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: Yeah, she said brunch.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: Oh, brunch.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: Okay, brunch. Yeah, brunch.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: Yeah. What did you think of the rotational dining and then your pala brunch?
[00:58:51] Speaker C: Everything was amazing. I really did not have any complaints about any of our eating experiences. I will say cabanas. I tried that for breakfast once, and it was just a little too chaotic it, for me, I think. But mostly because of my kids and, like, navigating them and getting them their food and getting them settled and, oh, now they need to go to the bathroom. And that was.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: Yes, you never get to eat. I mean, the parents, it's so hard with younger kids who can't really serve themselves and carry their own plate. Like, it's a. Like a buffet is actually not very helpful. It's fine if it's like you're just getting something and bring it back to the room, but it's like. Does not work well for, like, getting everybody fed.
[00:59:35] Speaker C: Yeah, we did one sit down breakfast in the restaurant. That was nice. That was a good option. I would probably do that again. Otherwise we were getting stuff from the concierge lounge for breakfast, or we did room service one day, but. And then we did mostly pool deck food for lunch. But dinners were all amazing. We had a really great serving team, Anthony from Jamaica Nova and from the Philippines. And the head, I don't know, the head server's name, but he was. Because he only, you know, visit a couple tables or whatever, but he was really nice as well. Dinners were well paced for our family. They always. They knew our kids wanted salads with ranch dressing every night. They knew their juice order. Like, they brought the bread out. Rosie, my daughter, was all about the bread and butter. We would bring maybe, like, an iPad to have a fire tablet with us and, like, have some things for my son, or he would finish his food, and I would take him to the kids club, and then I'd come back and have my dessert. And it worked out pretty well. I had no complaints. All the food was delicious. My mom is a vegetarian, but she chose to eat some fish during the trip, and she loved everything as well.
[01:00:57] Speaker A: I love the fact that you can get up from dinner, take your kid to the club, and come back. Like, there's usually enough time between courses, like, to do that.
And I don't mind if my dessert in particular is sitting for a little bit, because who cares? Dessert can get. It's usually already cold, right?
[01:01:15] Speaker C: Yeah. One night, they actually. I think my family was kind of ready to go, and I don't want to hold them up from the next dinner service. And they actually plated up a double dessert for me. I didn't even ask for it with, like, a little container. And I ate it on deck four, and my kids were in the club, and I ate it on that deck four, walking deck in one of the chairs. And it was the best night of my life. It was perfect. I had a double dessert. It was good. It was actually my favorite dessert, too.
[01:01:44] Speaker A: So the last thing we have to ask is, Paulo brunch, you decided to do Apollo brunch, and of course you got it, because when you're sailing concierge, you're going to get. Those kinds of adult dining requests are going to be easy to get sailing concierge. What did you think? And did you take our recommendations for what to eat?
[01:02:03] Speaker C: I think I did, yeah. You know, I think we booked it on the second sea day. So it was like, day six, I guess, before castaway. And it act. It happened to be the day that there were churro Mickey waffles in the buffet.
[01:02:17] Speaker A: It's so hard.
The struggle is real.
[01:02:20] Speaker C: I only had, like, a couple bites of one because I knew brunch was coming. But I got some for my kids to have that. First of all, the churro waffles were really, really good, right?
[01:02:30] Speaker A: They're really good.
[01:02:31] Speaker C: But then, like, Paolo brunch, I don't know if it was because. So it was day six, and it was just after a lot, I couldn't. I felt like I disappointed our server. I just was not eating. Like, I couldn't do dessert. Didn't really finish. Like, she kept, like, do you want some mushroom ravioli? Like, I know. I don't. I'm sorry. I'm so full. Like, the bread was amazing that the almond croissant was really good. There was some other really good breads. The eggs Benedict with salmon was possibly one of my favorite things that I ate. I love eggs Benedict. And their salmon eggs Benedict was amazing. Like, far, so far and beyond what was in the, like, dining room for breakfast. When I had that, it was like, whoa, this is completely different. Eggs Benedict. And we had. My husband had the chicken parmesan and I had the lasagna.
[01:03:23] Speaker A: Perfect. Good job.
[01:03:24] Speaker C: It was amazing. We just couldn't finish everything. And I think my husband and I were both feeling like we don't want to waste too much food. We also got a pizza split between us because they talk about, like, it's the best pizza ever. This flower, it's special flower.
[01:03:38] Speaker A: So good.
[01:03:38] Speaker C: And it wasn't you.
[01:03:40] Speaker A: You ordered all the right things. You don't have to finish everything. That's.
[01:03:43] Speaker C: Oh, and, like, I. But when it came to dessert, like, you want dessert, right? I was like, I can't. I think my husband ended up getting the chocolate lava cake, and I might have had a little bite because, you know, you have to. But I feel like if I did palo brunch next time, I would want to do it like my husband, even. And he's kind of. He was a Disney cruise skeptic, and now I think I've converted him. But he's like, I think the day that we have Paolo brunch the night before, we shouldn't have dinner. I was like, that seems a little extreme. Like. Like, I don't want to, like, not eat dinner the night before brunch.
[01:04:17] Speaker B: I think the secret with Paolo brunch is just to schedule it for, like, midday the next day. Not early.
[01:04:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:04:23] Speaker B: Not ten. Like, you want to do it more like eleven. Yeah, you want to do 11, 11 30, make it a big lunch. And then. It's tough, too, though, with early dining.
[01:04:31] Speaker A: It's.
[01:04:31] Speaker B: It's like, then you don't want to eat dinner that night. So. Yeah, I've. Yeah, I've. I've. But I do think it's better to sort of have it as a lunch, almost a lunch brunch. Kind of thing.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: But we also don't eat breakfast on Paula, and you didn't. So you just. I mean, like, I I have done just like you did. Marie, if it's been a Mickey churro waffle day, I can't not, like, eat a couple of bites of a Mickey churro waffle. Like, I have to, you know, so good. Yeah. So I'll do that. But I'll probably, like, eat maybe, like, a half of a waffle and have, of course, my coffee, and then I don't anything else until Paulo brunch, because I don't want. I want to save all that stomach room for all that delicious italian food.
[01:05:09] Speaker C: Yeah, but they were so nice there. The head maitre d, I guess he was like, oh, your children are in the club. I'll keep my phone close to me and make sure, like, nope, nobody's called me yet. And, like, if they do call me, I'll make sure you're fine. Like, okay. And, you know, walking us to the elevator, I think it was just. It was. It was really nice.
[01:05:29] Speaker B: Well, Sam's been doing most of talking in this episode, but it's time for her to shift gears, I suppose, to some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and dash of judgment of the round we know as rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:05:45] Speaker A: Thank you, Brian. Now, Marie, you knew this was coming. I've got to ask you, your Disney.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: No one knows spanish inquisition is coming.
[01:05:52] Speaker A: No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition. No, everybody expects Robert Fire. All right, Marie, I'm going to ask you your Disney favorites, and then Disney cruise line favorites. You are limited. You can only answer with things that are on the Disney fantasy because we limit it to what ship you have been on. So let's start out with who is your favorite Disney character? And it can be anyone in the Disney universe. By the way, I was kind of thinking when you were talking about Simpsons trivia, I was like, oh, my God, they have Simpsons trivia. We have not seen Simpsons trivia on yet, even though, obviously, Simpsons is part of Disney owned property now. So that's, like, kind of blowing my mind. But I just wanted to say that because Disney character means anything. I mean, you could pick Bart Simpson, but who's your favorite Disney character? Marie. Is it Marie?
[01:06:35] Speaker C: Maybe. Oh, no, the cat. No, no, not Marie the cat. But that's a good one. Mine would be Winnie the pooh.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Oh, I love Winnie the Pooh. All right, what's your favorite Disney movie?
[01:06:48] Speaker C: I'm gonna go with Coco.
[01:06:52] Speaker A: Oh, nice. So you are gonna be very excited then for the Disney treasure, I hope.
[01:06:56] Speaker C: I am. Yes.
[01:06:58] Speaker A: All right. Okay. What's your favorite Disney song?
[01:07:02] Speaker C: Okay, I've been preparing for this. My carpool karaoke song is love is an open door from frozen.
[01:07:09] Speaker A: Yes.
I love it.
[01:07:11] Speaker C: I need a partner.
Yes.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: I was gonna say I think we need to be in a car together and do it. I'm totally cool with.
[01:07:21] Speaker C: Your.
[01:07:24] Speaker A: No, I want to be on. Isn't that funny? Yeah.
[01:07:27] Speaker C: All right, we'll have to find an aunt.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:07:30] Speaker C: And then my real sentimental song would be remember me from Coco.
[01:07:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Beer jerker.
[01:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: Okay, well, you've got good taste in music and movies, so I've got to ask you, what was your favorite Disney cruise line stage show that you saw? You had frozen. You had a laughter. I don't know if you saw believe the man in the flower. No, you didn't see that one. Okay, so you've got two to choose from.
[01:07:57] Speaker C: Frozen.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: Yes. That's the right answer. Thank you. Okay. We don't have to. We don't have to be unfriend. We don't have to unfriend you now. Okay. All right.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: That's not how this works, Sam. That's not how any of this works.
[01:08:10] Speaker A: I unfriend you. All right. What was your favorite activity on board the Disney fantasy to see?
[01:08:19] Speaker C: I think my favorite onboard activity was drinking a glass of wine, sitting in one of the chairs on deck four, watching the ocean go by.
[01:08:29] Speaker A: Love that. Love that.
[01:08:30] Speaker C: Any time of day, morning or night. Not that I was drinking wine in the morning, but like a sunshine.
[01:08:34] Speaker A: Sure, sure. But eating that chocolate cake or whatnot as well.
[01:08:39] Speaker C: The cheesecake.
[01:08:40] Speaker A: Oh, cheesecake. It was a cheesecake. Okay. Oh, I didn't ask you, but did you have embarkation day oreo cheesecake?
[01:08:47] Speaker C: Did. I did. It was great.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: Okay, good.
[01:08:51] Speaker C: I liked the pirate and I.
[01:08:52] Speaker A: Cheesecake, more interesting. Okay, I'm going to have to give that one a taste test again. It's been a while since I've had it. Favorite rotational dining.
[01:09:02] Speaker C: Speaking of food, animator's palette.
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. That's the right answer. On the Disney fantasy, what was a favorite space on the ship other than that beautiful promenade deck decoration for?
[01:09:15] Speaker C: So the concierge lounge. Does that count?
[01:09:17] Speaker A: That counts. Absolutely. I love it. I love it. Okay. A favorite sweet item and a favorite savory item that you ate. So let's start with the sweets.
[01:09:27] Speaker C: Okay. For the sweet. I would definitely do that. The macadamia caramel cheesecake on pirate night. It was really, really good.
And then favorite savory.
The lasagna at Palo brunch, I think was really good.
[01:09:45] Speaker A: Excellent choice.
[01:09:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I would go.
[01:09:47] Speaker A: All right. Okay. Well, your favorite ship is obviously the Disney fantasy, so I don't even need to ask you that question, but I got to ask you your bucket list cruise. If you could go anywhere in the world, you've been to the med on a cruise, but if you could go anywhere in the world on a Disney cruise line ship, and it doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Cruise line currently sales, where would you go?
[01:10:07] Speaker C: Well, we did the Mediterranean. I want to do the greek isles. I would love to do Greece on a Disney cruise.
[01:10:15] Speaker A: I love that.
[01:10:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:10:16] Speaker A: Now, you mentioned congratulations. You won rapid fire, especially with love is an open door. That's a great choice, especially for carpool karaoke.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: But now we need to know what's next. Yes. Did you get a placeholder on board?
[01:10:31] Speaker A: She mentioned another booking. We don't know what ship or anything.
[01:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:10:36] Speaker B: And is it in concierge? And is it in concierge?
[01:10:40] Speaker C: I didn't get a placeholder because I had booked a concierge cruise before we got on this concierge cruise, so.
But now I have the same time period to pay it off.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: There you go.
[01:10:55] Speaker C: I still have like 14 months. Well, like I did six months ago. So, you know, times are ticking. But, yeah, our next year is our 10th year anniversary and my husband's sort of a decade birthday for him. So I was like, this can be my mother's day anniversary, birthday, Hanukkah, Christmas, all the presents for, like, in perpetuity.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: I love it.
[01:11:20] Speaker C: We've got a five night on the dream going to Lighthouse Point and Castaway and Nassau.
[01:11:29] Speaker A: Oh, awesome.
[01:11:30] Speaker C: Next April. And then the following April, we have a seven night eastern Caribbean. That one's not concierge. That's because I'm not that crazy. Yeah.
[01:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Is that one going to be on the treasure, then?
[01:11:44] Speaker C: It is on the treasure. So I. Because I really want to grant. I heard so many nice things about the wish from you all. The Wish kids club. It seems like it would be right up his alley. And I really wanted him to experience it before he turns ten now. No, he's going to age out and so he'll be nine.
That cruise.
[01:12:04] Speaker A: He won't actually age out until after ten. So it's eleven that they actually age out. Yeah.
[01:12:11] Speaker C: He has like a 10th year.
[01:12:13] Speaker A: Correct. So he has through his entire 10th year until he ages out. But it is smart because Nathan will not be back on the treasure or not be on the wish or treasure before he will age out this November. So. But it is a great kids club. Uh, so, yeah, I definitely think that's a great choice. I think you're gonna, I mean, you're gonna love the dream because it's the sistership of the fantasy. You love the fantasy. You'll love the dream. Although you might have a preference between the two. And I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure we're gonna love the treasure. I'm sure you're gonna love the treasure. With that, I'll just say, thank you, Marie, for coming on to talk to us about your first time on a Disney cruise and traveling multi generational and traveling with a kid with autism and adhd and, uh, it's, and I mean, all the complications that go along with mother in law and mother on the same cruise as well. So we appreciate you coming on.
[01:13:05] Speaker C: We all made it.
[01:13:08] Speaker A: Everyone's alive. Everyone was alive.
[01:13:09] Speaker C: I think a Disney cruise was a good place to kind of have that because otherwise it might, it might be. We all had our own space and it was really lovely. So I'm glad I get to share the experience. I recommend it.
[01:13:21] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much.
[01:13:22] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you.
[01:13:28] Speaker B: 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. eastern over on YouTube.com dclduo. So be sure to head over and check that out. If you want to help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, my path unwinding travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation, head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email
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