[00:00:00] Speaker A: The. It sounds like, yeah, the show is catered more towards the 40 to 50 year olds, but the crowd is more 60 to 70. So yeah.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And Sam, it's listener review time and this is nice. A short, short, sweet to the point comes from Gina0199. Gina0199, who writes love the DCL duo. Great hosts, quality guests, unbiased cruise reviews. Well, there you go. That's.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: What we aim for. What we aim for.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yes, that should be our. That should be our tagline. Great host, great guests, unbiased cruise reviews. I love that. That's.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: We can replace. We could replace Cruising Elevated with that right there. There you go, there you go.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: But I love it.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Sam, do you want to intro our guest and our topic for this evening? Actually, I just want to say thank you to Gina for leaving the review. For all of you out there, please, please, please head over to Apple Podcast, leave us one of those five star reviews. We will read it on the show if you leave us a five star review. Love those reviews. They keep us going and they certainly help promote the show and the feed.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: So please, yeah, and don't forget to like and subscribe us on YouTube. Gotta put that plug in for our YouTube, Brian. Yeah.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Anyway, all right, well I'm excited to introduce our guest. He has not been on the show before but he is a Patreon supporter of the show. He watches our live streams most of the time. I think most of the time he makes to our live streams. He's active our Facebook group. We're so excited to welcome Chris to the show. Welcome Chris.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: It's so good to like finally meet you in this of course virtual space. But we decided to have you come on because you just got off an Alaska cruise on Celebrity Cruise Line. And as someone who is real close to gold castaway status on dcl, we have to do another one of our compare contrast episodes. So we're so excited to have you on. But before we start talking about your celebrity, tell us your cruising credentials, Disney background, all that good stuff.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: All right, I'll try to be concise. Disney background. My first experience with Disney, I was 13. I went with my grandmother and my five year old cousin to Disney World and it was like the worst thing that could ever happen to a 13 year old boy.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: So I had like no Disney desire to ever go back ever again. Fast forward. We have kids in 2012, my wife and I, my parents were like, oh, we really want to take you to Disney World. We really want to take you to Disney World. So finally in 2015, we're like, okay, we'll go. And we just love it. So we became crazy Parks people, of course. Yeah. So first trip was October of 2015. First DVC contract was purchased early 2016. We've added on two other contracts. And our first cruise with Disney was in 2022 on the Dream. So they still had part of the COVID restrictions. So that really gave us a false sense of how great cruising was because, you know, the ship was maybe like 50% capacity, but we were hooked. We got that placeholder. And then our second experience with Disney was on the Wish during its kind of maiden voyage inaugural season. So that was in January of. We then did a Royal Caribbean Cruise, spring break of 2020. Yeah, that's right. And then we, we followed up with another Wish cruise with my dad and mom this past April to do his test run. Because my, my parents came with us to Alaska. So we wanted my dad, who has some health issues, to do a test run before we stuck him on a ship for seven days and he.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: So like a three or four night cruise.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we did the three night. That'll probably be the only three night cruise I will ever do because it's just too short. It's just too short. But that worked well. And then we now did the seven night Alaska cruise on the celebrity solstice.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Awesome. Fantastic. Well, what made you decide to start cruising in general? Because you'd been for several years Parks people at that point, seven years. But with COVID obviously interrupting the end of that sort of time period. But what made you decide to try cruising was like, was it just because it was Disney? Because obviously then soon after you went on a Royal Caribbean cruise.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: So our first attempt to take a cruise as a family was going to be Royal Caribbean, October of 2020.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Okay. And then Covid.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Covid hit. We moved the date of that and then that one ended. Getting bought out for a private event. I guess they were doing some kind of themed sailing. So then the travel agent reached out, said, hey, they've moved you. Like this is what they've offered. Was a little hesitant about doing a cruise. And I was like, this is the sign. It's just not meant to be. So we just like, they were like, you know, they'll refund us our deposit. So that was kind of what we did. And then just as we would Go to Orlando to go to Disney World. We just kept hearing people talk about how great the cruise experience was. And then you know, the travel agent, I mean she wasn't pushy by any means, but she had said, hey, you know, have you, you really are into Disney. Have you thought about, have you thought about. Yeah. So then we, so then we finally said, let's just try it. Like let's, you know, the Royal didn't work out, but let's just try this because we keep hearing everybody around us talking about how great the cruise experience is and we just loved it. The servers on that initial dream sailing, like my wife and I were just over the moon because you know, our kids can be self sufficient but you know, they like to be dependent on us. So like we don't want to cut our food tonight. And like as soon as the server saw us about to cut their food, like swooped in and cut all the kids food every night, like we were just like, come, sit, eat, leave. There's no dishes, there's, there's like, it's, it's just so different.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Like yes, it's a real vacation. I mean, because even when you go on a vacation like to let's say the parks that like you're still having to go and get your kids food and cut their steak and things like that, the servers just don't do that stuff. So I totally, I totally get what you're talking about. I feel like it's a real, even more so a real vacation for the parents. All right, well, so how old are your kids now?
[00:06:32] Speaker C: We have a 12 year old, almost 13 year old and then a 7 year old daughter, almost 8 year old.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. So wow, that's like the, Well, I mean, perfect Cruising ages and when you started, obviously, you know, great sort of kids club age for both of them for Cruising. Well, what made you decide to book Celebrity for Alaska? Having cruised on Disney. You know, I think we said four times having cruise on Royal Caribbean one time. Why Celebrity? Why not Royal Caribbean? Why not Disney?
[00:07:04] Speaker C: So we had heard through your podcast and a few other podcasts some pretty good reviews around Celebrity. Our takeaway from Royal was the atmosphere was just not like our personality, like it was just more intense, more high energy. Just when you were out, like you didn't feel relaxed, you just felt like amped up.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: So that didn't really resonate that well with us. So we thought, you know, this might be an opportunity to look. So we waited for the Alaska itinerary to come out From Disney.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: That came out. Reached out to the travel agent, said, hey, we want to do Alaska 2025. Just saw Disney release, let us know. Two rooms on, I guess it's the wonder. And then, you know, we're also kind of interested in celebrity. So the travel agent responds back, says, here's the quotes. I just want to let you know right now through our agency, we have a really good promotion happening with celebrity.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Ah, yes. Sometimes these TA promotions, you know, are cash back discounts, kids free, you know, all kinds of different things that some of the other, the other cruise lines will do that Disney really doesn't do, or if they do, rarely does. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: So when that came back, our stateroom on the solstice was their prime concierge class. So our seven night sailing was less than $7,000.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: For Alaska.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: And it included basic wifi for all four of us, a basic beverage package for all four of us.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:35] Speaker C: Gratuities. And then they had other savings overlay that like brought the price down to below that 7,000.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Wow. And that's in their suite class. Wow. That's a really good deal. Holy cow.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: But that's been my experience, Sam, as we've looked at other cruise lines across the suite class. Like, man, it can sometimes be half as much as what Disney wants to charge for concierge. And in the case of Alaska, Chris, I'm guessing I was less than half as much. So. So that's.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, we got, we got both rooms. So my parents did aqua class because they needed a handicap accessible room for my dad, so they didn't have that in the concierge class, so they went to aqua class. So two state rooms through celebrity were less than what our one room would have been if we went on the Wonder.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: And I was okay with it because all the feedback I hear about Alaska is, you know, Alaska is the highlight. And I knew if we were on Disney, if we got back and I was tired, I wouldn't necessarily be like, oh, I'm okay going to bed. I'd be like, I'm going to show.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Right. You'd have fomo. You want to go. Yeah. You want to go see all the shows, you want to do the trivias or the activities or. Yeah, it's hard. You want to do a deck party if there's one of those. Right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: So it was, it was definitely an okay decision to be like, I'm okay to try it. Because one, the price difference was just so huge.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: And I wouldn't feel compelled to feel like I needed to do the things on the ship. Like I would be okay to get up and leave and not feel bad if I didn't go to the shows each night on the Celebrity ship, where on Disney I'm like, I'm not gonna miss anything. Right.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Totally understand that. Well, let's, let's talk about the booking process. And by booking, I want talk more broadly, not just booking the cruise, but booking like activities and excursions for the cruise. You know, tell us about that. And how did it differ from the Disney process? It's been a while since we, we have had other folks talk about celebrity in the past, but it's actually been quite a while since we have talked about celebrity. And I don't know that we've focused on it with or talked to anyone who's done it in Alaska in particular, because excursions obviously are big ticket items, big highlights. How did that booking process go?
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Celebrity is very similar to like that Royal Caribbean experience. Like pretty much as soon as you book and your deposit goes in, you've got kind of proliferation of experiences you can start to book. So we kind of looked at some things and kind of like started to say, this looks like we might want to do this. Or, you know, we'll wait a little bit closer. And like Royal does, you always get the barrage of emails from celebrities saying, oh, we've got this sale going on, this sale going on, this sale going.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: On sale on the drink, package sale, on the, on the additional specialty dining or all that stuff.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: Yeah. So we just picked a couple of little things to say. This looks good. Let's, let's kind of not overwhelm ourselves and then just kind of play it a little bit by ear once we get there to see what we want to do. So we booked through Celebrity. We did at Icy Strait. They had a Hoonah Village kind of like sightseeing tour, guided tour experience. So we had booked that. I was trying to figure out Icy Strait. Like it wasn't really clear about the gondola system there. So they have two different gondolas. They have the red gondola that you have to pay to get on, and then they have the green gondolas that take you from the port basically over to where the shops are and the touristy stuff.
So we ended up buying the tickets to do the red gondola to go up to the top of the mountain. And that was great, so fantastic to see. So we booked those through Celebrity. I also initially booked a whale watching tour for the day we were in Juneau, but after listening to one of the podcasts from the duo, someone had said when they're in Juneau, they had used Alaska Bucket List Adventures to do a fishing excursion.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that one sounded fantastic.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: Yeah. So my kids don't really have the patience to do fishing. So I just reached out and asked John if we could just do a whale watching tour. And he said, oh, yeah, I'd be glad to set up a whale watching tour. So we ended up just booking through Alaska Bucket List, doing a four hour whale watching tour.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Oh, awesome.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: So super happy that we did that.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: How did the. How did the price of that compare to what celebrity was offering? Was it less expensive?
[00:12:53] Speaker C: It was a little bit more expensive, but we went from being on like a double decker boat that probably would have held like 120 people probably to like our family of six, plus John and his first mate.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Right. So you got a private boat, a much smaller boat and a private experience, which is a much nicer experience generally than a crowded boat. Double decker boat, as you mentioned, full of. Full of all kind, tons of people. Yeah.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So it wasn't like it was that much more to book through him than what we would have paid to be on kind of the crowded boat where everybody would have been fighting to go side to side with wherever the whales were. So, yeah, definitely worth it.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Awesome. Did you book anything else through the cruise line as far as excursions or onboard experiences ahead of time?
[00:13:43] Speaker C: So I did a pre booking. So on the solstice, they have the hot glass class. So I did do a pre booking for that. And basically what it is, is you get credit and you get a twenty dollar, I mean, a 20% discount if you buy ahead of time. And then once you get on board, you schedule your time to go do the hot glass class. So we did that so each kid could make something.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Wait, is it like, like glass blowing on the ship?
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: What. How do they even have a. How do they have a kiln that's hot enough? Like, you have to. This is like very. Brian and I have done glassblowing because glass blowing is big in the Seattle area. Obviously. Like, some of the most famous glass blowing artists are from the Puget Sound area, including Dale Chihuly. But yeah, we've done it like in, you know, art studios and whatnot. Because like I said, the kilns they have to have are ridiculously high temperatures. Like, they really do this on the ship?
[00:14:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I think they have three celebrity ships that have the glassblowing studios on them.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:50] Speaker C: And then I can't even imagine because.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Like, these kilns are just insane. There are so many.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
I'm just. I'm shocked. I'm literally shocked. Chris. This is not.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: I've never heard about a ship rocking around like. Oh, my gosh. Like liquid glass. Oh, yeah. Wow, wow, wow.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: So then they have. So I'm guessing the crew or that teach those classes are like, that's their only duty. Yes. Okay.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: They are Hollywood Glass employees. So Hollywood Glass is based out of Florida.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: And so there. One of them was James. I'm going to forget the other guy's name. Both were incredible. It's just one on one.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: So they. They walk through the steps and I mean, they are very hands on through most of it, but.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's what you have to do with somebody who's never done it before. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah. But I mean, it was, it was, it was awesome. I mean, it was just awesome. So. Yeah.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: That's so cool. I'm like in shock. This is Chris. I've never heard that this was even a thing. So I'm. Wow. That's. So you did two sessions, one for each of your kids. That's amazing. Did you book any other excursions for the cruise or did you just like either plan outside the cruise line or just plan on frankly going out and walking around on your own, which I know you can do in several of these ports.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: So we had initially booked another one at Ketchikan, but then we found out about two weeks before our sailing that through the travel agent, like, through part of like the partnerships they have through, like their travel agent network, this was considered a distinctive voyage. So then we actually had an included excursion at Ketchikan.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: So I canceled the one we had booked, which was just to do like a little trolley around Ketchikan to do the one through the distinctive voyages. So that kind of got switched right there. Not. Not too long before going. But it was a little bit longer excursion than what we had looked at. And then basically it covered four people. So then I just had to pay for the two kids to come along for.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Oh, gotcha. So you covered your parents, you and the wife, and then they added the kids on. Nice. That's awesome. All right, well, cool. So sounds like the booking process is relatively simple and you were able to get a lot of things. And as you mentioned, you can get things sort of right away. Did you all have specialty dining included because you were staying in the suite class and if so, what did you guys end up doing on board?
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Can I ask before we get into dining, just really fast, can I ask how many people are on the ship?
[00:17:25] Speaker C: I never heard of a number. I would guess 2,500.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah. What was the name of the ship again?
[00:17:32] Speaker C: It was the Solstice.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Okay. Celebrity Solstice. I'm going to look it up.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Well, Sam's doing that. I'm also curious about the demographics on board the ship.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Oh yeah, Good.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Sam asked about that. Yeah. Like was this a family friendly cruise or did this skew older? What were the demographics?
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Like 2850. Okay. That's the question.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: 2850 is the number of passengers.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: All right. Okay. Yeah. Plus 20, plus 1246 crew. So. Yeah. So it's a similar size to the Magic and Wonder.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that seems right.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So how about the demographics? What were those?
[00:18:04] Speaker C: Like, demographic definitely skewed much older. There were families on board, but not anything like Disney or Royal, which made the pools nice because the pools were never really that crowded when the kids wanted to go swim. But it definitely was a much older crowd. And if you kind of look at all the celebrity promotional material, I was thinking more probably 40s age without kids, you know, looking to have that experience. But it was definitely a much older crowd.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I think their cruises do.
They are considered a luxury brand in the cruise line space. So in that sense they are similar to Disney. Whereas Royal is considered sort of that moderate but also families. Right. But they skew, I think a lot. 60 and older. Frankly, that doesn't. I mean, I think that can be a benefit though, as you mentioned, the pools being more available for your kids. Let's talk about actually before I did ask about dining, but I'm going to switch topics and ask about the amenities of the ship. What kinds of things did they have on board? Obviously pools. Do they have any water slides, for example, or any other activities on like the deck? Outdoor deck spaces.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: So the pool space was just two fairly small pools and then they had four hot tubs and that was kind of the outdoor all access pool space. They had the solarium, which was the indoor pool. It was probably the biggest. It was the biggest of the three pools. They did have family time that you could go in there from 5 to 7pm we had 6 o'clock dinner. So we never.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, check it out. So that's typically an adults only space with that, with it being open for that two hours for families. Is that right?
[00:19:49] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker C: And then they had like a few like cornhole on the pool deck, like, they had a space for that. They had a ping pong table in one.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: But no, like mini golf, bumper cars, ropes courses. I'm like, kind of comparing to royal.
[00:20:07] Speaker C: No, it didn't have any of that. It did have on deck 15. So this is the deck where they had the glass blowing. And this is also the deck. So think of it as forward and aft. Forward had. I'll probably mess it up in my head as we're talking about it. I think forward had the kids clubs. No, forward was where the glassblowing was. And what they called. I think they just called it like the lawn. And I mean, it was a grass lawn. And they had like some, you know, you could get bocce balls. They probably had horseshoes. But they also had little areas set up to where you could rent bungalows on the lawn that had kind of nice seating blankets. So probably should have booked that for the Hubbard Glacier day. Cause that probably would have just been a great way to enjoy that. Yeah, okay, sure. But we found a good spot when we get into that part of it. And then, yeah, the kids clubs were on the aft part of the ship up on Deck 15. So they did have, like a space up there that had, like, ping pong tables that were inside. And then they would do some activities on Deck 3 in kind of like the foyer area of that deck where they would have. I think they did archery, they do curling. Like, they had like different things. And it was just like a big, like inflatable thing. So I think kind of like a very slimmed down version of like the incredible. But it was just like one thing specific. And they would just have that set up for a part of the day where people would come and they would have it, like, as a competition.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: So, yeah, there wasn't a lot beyond that.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: What kinds of activities did they have on board other than obviously the ones we've talked about that sort of relate to the specific amenities. But, like, did they have trivias? Did they have family game shows? Did they have scavenger hunts and, you know, things like that on board to do, Particularly on a sea day. Obviously on a port day, you're going to be out in Alaska.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: Yeah. So on sea days, they had quite a few different activities. They would typically do some type of trivia at certain points through the day. You could probably take your kids to it. Most of them, the kids probably won't have any interest in, like, I think our last C day, they did have Disney trivia.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Oh, nice that was probably the most.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: Family friendly one that I saw. But a lot of it was just kind of like movies, pop culture music, finish that lyric. They had a few different activities you could go do. Like one was like a macrame. We went to go try to do that, but we don't know if she'd really ever done that like before. So it took her a long time to try to get the instructions. And like, there are some people over like next to us. They're like, we think we figured it out. Do you want to show you what we think? We're like, yes, please.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: So like they would have lots of like, they would do like an ark scavenger hunt every day because they had kind of like an art gallery on the ship, you know, an intent to also go buy the art too. But you know, they did have some scavenger hunts there. They did have for the captains. So in the kids club, there's three different ages. So captains are 10 to 12 year olds. So our son Logan was in that group. They did have the opportunity where they could go do some scavenger hunts around the ship.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: But spoiler, we never actually sent the kids to the kids club.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Oh, you never sent them to the kids club. Interesting. Well, well, let's talk about that. Did they not want to go?
Were the spaces not inviting? Were the activities not inviting? Or was there just too much to do as a family given that you were in Alaska?
[00:23:26] Speaker C: So part of it was just like a lot to just do being in Alaska. And then I think how the kids club was set up on the solstice is all of those kids 12 and under were in one kind of big space, but they had it sectioned off. So this third of the room was the five and unders. This part of the room was the six to nine.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: And this was like the 10 to 12 year old. And so like he kind of saw the space and he's like, well, I have like a whole bunch of Xboxes and a ping pong table. But that was like it. And then our daughter saw the space and she's like, well, I can't go do it. He's like, she's very much about like what he's doing. I want to be doing that.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: So she's like, well, I'm not going to want to do whatever this is. So she was very hesitant because she couldn't, you know, she was being excluded from what the older kids were doing. And she is competitive. So if she's not included, she's like, this isn't going to work. So they weren't really like, oh, this looks fantastic. Let us go. Right.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: It wasn't super inviting for them. Now, you mentioned there were other kids on board, even though it wasn't, you know, the demographic skewed older, but there were some other kids on board. Did the kids, you know, meet any other kids, make any friendships or anything like that? I mean, that's very typical on Disney and on Royal as well. Just curious. I know that. That often, of course, happens when the kids go to the kids club, but there are other opportunities to meet other kids and make friends. Did that happen during the sailing?
[00:24:58] Speaker C: No. Like, our son, we're comfortable enough, like, we've been pretty comfortable with him to do it on the Disney ship since we did the wish the first time with him. We give him one of our phones, and he just kind of goes off and explores. And he. He really likes to do that. One of his favorite places on the ship is. They have it. It's the Sky Lounge. So it's on deck 14 forward. And it's just a panoramic view of just big glass windows that just look out, you know, looking forward. So he liked to just. He'd go get ice cream at the buffet and then go up there and eat his ice cream and just looked out. And sometimes the naturalist would be up in the Skyview Lounge for kind of like, open question time. So I think sometimes he'd kind of just listen in to what the naturalist was talking about and answering questions for. So he liked to kind of go up there and just chill, Chill. Be on his own, not have to be around mom, dad, or little sister.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Nice. And your daughter, did she just hang with you guys then?
[00:25:51] Speaker C: She would just hang with us. So a lot of times, if we didn't have anything, like, planned that we were gonna go do, like, we'd go over the. We, you know, he. Both our kids swim all the time, so the pool is not always a novelty for them. But she's like, I wanna do the hot tub. So we. But she didn't wanna do it by herself. So I'd get my suit on, and then we'd. We'd stake out the pool. And then she'd be like, oh, there's too many people in that hot tub. I don't want to do it. And then as soon as something, she's like, dad, go get the hot tub.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Jump in there before it gets too crowded. I love it. I will tell you, Nathan loves a hot tub. That kid, he Was like hanging in hot tubs before he could swim. He was totally like, he loved it. He would be like, oh, the pool's too cold. And he was like afraid of, you know, swimming for a while and now he's a great swimmer. But yeah, he still, he still loves a hot tub. Absolutely. That's, that's really funny. Well, let's talk about entertainment. I would love to know, you know, what, if any, you know, we talked a little bit about activities, but I want to know specifically about like shows, musical entertainment, you know, any kinds of variety acts. What kinds of things? I mean, I know that they exist on Celebrity and most of the. None of the cruise lines have. Well, Royal has almost as many as Disney does as far as evening entertainment and in some ways more evening entertainment. But I'm curious as to what celebrity had available. It is an Alaska cruise. People are going to be up early for excursions most days. But I'm sure they have something. What? Yeah. What did they have on board?
[00:27:14] Speaker C: I would say it's probably very similar to kind of like part of like the Royal approach. So the first night we were on they had kind of like an illusionist magician. So he did kind of like a 30, 45 minute show. It was entertaining. You could kind of figure out some of the tells for what the tricks were. But you know, the kids really enjoyed it. So that was, that was good. They had a comedian. The second night, I don't think we ended up going that night.
I think jet lag was kind of catching up from the east coast to Alaska time transition. But he did do a late night show later in the week that I did go to with Logan because we were going to try to see if we could catch the northern lights. So we were staying up late anyway.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: So was it a kid, was it a kid friendly show then?
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay. That's nice. Yeah. Because I mean the ones, the late night ones, actually, I don't. I think pretty much all the ones on Royal were not kid friendly.
[00:28:08] Speaker C: The comedians, I mean, and in the Celebrity app and I think in the Daily Celebrity today, which was like their daily navigator, I think it said that late show was supposed to be 18 up. But during the performance before which I think was the jazz musician that night, like they said, oh, this is an all ages show. And then like they texted me, I said, well on this it said this. So my son went to go and he found the cruise director and he's like, oh yeah. Mitch said it's all ages, I can stay.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: So nice. That's probably somewhat up to the comedian then, I guess. And, you know, there are some comedians who. Their material is generally family friendly anyway, so they, you know, don't. That's probably. I'm guessing that's what happened because it was originally supposed to be adults only, but that comedian doesn't do dirty jokes then. Yeah.
[00:28:54] Speaker C: The Tuesday. I think it was the Tuesday night we had. It was a tribute to Whitney Houston, and that was really good. And the woman that did that show, she played the character Whitney Houston played in the Bodyguard. When they had the Bodyguard, the musical.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I saw the Bodyguard, the musical. Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So that was a really good show, and my parents really enjoyed it. I was a kid who grew up with Whitney Houston through my mom, so I enjoyed. I was like, I'm gonna go see this Whitney Houston show because I enjoyed music as a kid growing up.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: And they didn't try to make it like a storyline. Right. It was like a. More like a concert. Right. Somebody just.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: It was more like a concert. And she would kind of. She had a couple songs or she'd probably like. She pulled some people from the audience to like, sing one. One of the songs. She had, like, two girls that were probably around 10 come out and sing for that. So fun. Yeah. So, I mean, she didn't try to, like, imitate completely when they did move to the songs from the Body Card. And since she had done the Broadway performances of it, she did do that much more to be in that more mimicking style, to be more in tune. But the other, she kind of adapted to the audience. So that was. That was good. That was impressive. They had kind of like a stage show. We didn't go to it. It was supposed to kind of be like taking place in, like, Irish pub to celebrate somebody's birthday. There was a jazz musician. My parents went to that show and really enjoyed it. They said he did everything from classical to, like, rock and roll.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: And he had three or four different saxophones that he used through the performance. So they said that was. That was really good. And then the last night they had entertainment was a rock show. It was entertaining. Some of how they tried to change the key for a few of the songs didn't quite hit me quite right, but it was. It was good. So that was kind of like. The interesting aspect of kind of. Of the celebrity sailing is the demographics trended much older.
But, you know, the rock show, the Whitney Houston tribute, definitely trended much more like Gen X than most of the people.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: So some of those shows more Gen X, then Boomer. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: So some of those shows you would see, they'd kind of start and then there'd be kind of a wave of people that would just kind of leave.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:31:09] Speaker C: Like, oh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: That's funny. So they were like the. It sounds like, yeah, the show is catered more towards the 40 to 50 year olds, but the crowd was more 60 to 70.
So. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:22] Speaker C: And then the other big draw was on sea days and if we had a late port day, they had the naturalist that would do a talk. So he did four different talks during the cruise and we went to three. So my wife, daughter and I went to three of them and our son went to all four. The humor of the, the naturalist really meshed with him. So he was like, I can't miss it. He's gonna be doing this show. I've gotta go see what jokes he's got today.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's awesome.
[00:31:49] Speaker C: So he really enjoyed that. So the first talk was about kind of what to expect to see in terms of wildlife in Alaska. And then he did one on kind of fire and ice and kind of the formation of the islands and how Alaska came to be and, and the geological impact of all of that. So my parents enjoyed that. They're both geologists, so.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's perfect. It's the perfect cruise for them. Then, of course. Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: And then the third one he did was about constellations and the stars in the sky. And so that's when he kind of said, hey, it looks like there's a chance Friday night we might get to see the northern lights. So my son was like, okay, we gotta stay up late to get to go see if we can see the north lights. Unfortunately, they didn't happen.
And then the last show he did was talking about Mars and kind of the implications of, you know, would we actually go to Mars or would we do any of this in Mars? So.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:32:43] Speaker C: I have friends that do contract work for NASA that have worked on some of the probes they've sent to Mars. So I thought it was interesting just because I've got a connection to some of those Mars research missions that have been going out so.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Well, that's awesome. I mean, it sounds like they had decent entertainment though, between the, you know, between some of these musical acts and the naturalist, of course, obviously different than what we are used to on Disney Cruise line. But we got to talk about food. Brian made me segue away from it earlier and I understand why, because we like to usually, you know, talk about food later on in the show. But I want to know about, you know, what was available first and then we can talk about what you actually, what you actually, you know, where you actually ate. Obviously everybody's going to have a main dining room. So let's set aside the main dining room. What were the other available options for eating on board?
[00:33:36] Speaker C: So they have four specialty restaurants, I think Tuscan Grill, Sushi on five, Murano. I think it's Silk Road, Silk Harvest, but it doubles as the Lapit Chef some evenings, which is like they do a little animated show on the table.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Yes, I want to do that. That's one of the ones. I want to do that. And the Wonderland one that they do that, that Royal does. Those are like two dining experiences. I'm like, they're on my list of must do at some point.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: Well, we couldn't figure out where the Heat Chef was supposed to be until like near the end of the cruise. And then we saw something was like, oh, it's the La petite Heat Chef at Silk Harvest or Silk Road. And they were like, oh, okay, that makes sense why we never saw the sign for this. Yeah, so they also have. And we weren't in the suite, so we were concierge class, but we weren't in the retreat class which is a level above.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: So the retreat class, their exclusive dining is in Luminae.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: So I think that's their version of like Coastal Kitchen, which is on Royal where you. Yeah, you can eat if you want all your meals in like it's a main dining room, but it's a main dining room for the concierge guests. Basically.
[00:34:45] Speaker C: Yes. And then my parents, since they were aqua class, which is another tier in the mix there, they could go to a restaurant called Blue. And so they went there. So we had kind of a dining kerfuffle. When we got there, we had a table assigned. My parents room just said, oh, look at the card that comes to your room. And they're like, we've never got a card. So we were there early on the ship and so I went up to ask one of the dining people and said, hey, oh, you know, we've got these two rooms like in the app. It's not showing their table number. And they're like, oh, well they're in Blue. They don't get a table number. And so he's like, well, why don't you go ahead and do specialty dining tonight? So this is the first day we got on the show.
So he's like, we'll put you at Tuscan Grill, and we'll get this fixed for tomorrow. So we ended up doing Tuscan Grill twice, and very different experiences between the two nights.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
Is it Italian or is it Italian steakhouse?
[00:35:39] Speaker C: It's Italian steakhouse.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:41] Speaker C: The first night, it was very good. Like, service was great. We have not done Palo on any of the Disney ships yet. Kind of seemed to be, like, quality of food was there. The servers didn't seem to be quite as rapport building on celebrity as what I've heard from how that Paulo dining experience goes.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: Which was okay. But, you know, food was really good. And then we ended up going back another night because the main dining menu didn't really sound that good to me. And it sounded like maybe when we were leaving, we could get a pretty good view of still seeing the glacier. I should have done it at lunch instead of dinner. There was a different menu that day at lunch. But that night, I think. I think once we got seated, they came by briefly to kind of get our initial drink order, and then I think it was, like, 30 minutes before we got the waiter to come back to take our order.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it was just. And like, this was kind of, like, one of the themes I kind of saw is with celebrity tasks are kind of assigned, and if you ask somebody who is not assigned that task, they don't do it. Like, they try to get the person who is responsible to come back and do it. But until.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Rather than pitching it and just doing it themselves and helping out. Yeah, yeah.
[00:36:51] Speaker C: But it's just very. And you can see that, like, consistently, like.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:55] Speaker C: So we were kind of surprised in Tuscan Grill that it still had that rigidity.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Like, I would be surprised about in specialty. Cause on. I feel like on Disney, in specialty dining, I mean, you could ask anybody for anything, and they'll go get it for you, do it for you, whatever. Right. Like, you'll have, like, the maitre d would, like, fill up your water if it looked like people were backed up, or they would, like, come by and, like, if I got up from the table and Paulo to go walk to the bathroom, like, a waiter would come and grab my arm and escort me out the door to go to the bathroom. Right. Like, it's that kind of experience. The service is, like, beyond. I mean, really, really, really good. And like I said, everybody will sort of pitch in to do everything. So that's unfortunate, because you kind of expect that in main dining, that happens even in Disney and main dining. It's like, not that the main server won't help with the drinks, but it's really the assistant server. That's their job, is the drinks. Right. But, like, they do have a clear division. That's. Yeah, that's a bummer. Okay, so. So it sounds like it was a really slower service at Tuscan Grill this second night. How did you go to any other specialty dining?
[00:38:04] Speaker C: We did.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: I wanna know if you went to. Did you do Murano? Cause Murano was our funeral. The times we.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, man, that was so weird. We went on Celebrity. This is like, 15 years ago, and. Yeah, so, yeah, it's 15 years ago. And like, 12 years ago we went on. Or 13 years ago we went on celebrity. We went in 2008 and 2010. Oh, gosh. So 14 years ago and 16 years ago, and my math is bad. Anyway, we went with Brian's parents, who they didn't really like the main dining. This was before they had the sweet class dining rooms. They only had Murano. It was the only. It was the only specialty restaurant on board. We ate at Murano more than half.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Like, every night of the cruise.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Almost like every night. I mean, not every night. We did. We had, like, the Captain's table one night, and we did, I think room service a couple times, but they really didn't like main dining. And so we ate the Murano, which was fabulous. So we remember it, but. Okay. How was the sushi, though? How was the sushi restaurant? This is always like, sushi at sea. I mean, it should be fresh, right? You're in the.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: It was really good. Like, it, like, the rolls were really good. Like, service was probably, like, the best we had.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: Any of the restaurants, like, with our main dining, after we got kind of in a rhythm with our team that became really good.
But I think they have a hard time in main dining kind of getting that rhythm. Just because Royal does this too, is like, Celebrity is very like, oh, come, come, do our specialty run. Like, they really push the specialty restaurants. Like, you would go into main dining for breakfast or you'd go into the buffet, and, I mean, they'd have a person out there with the computer trying to recruit people to go to specialty dining. And so it kind of threw our servers off initially because the first night they told us to go do specialty dining, so they thought they were just getting two couples. And then the second night, we show up as a family of four because they didn't remember what was happening. The second night, my parents didn't want to come down for dinner, but yeah.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: So they had it. Did they settle up, though, the having you all at the same dining table? Okay, so that's good. At least they got that sort of figure. What did you guys think of the main dining? Like, food quality? You know, we hear generally good things about celebrity food, I would say, but, yeah, I'm curious what your experience was with main dining.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: So my wife's was all very good. She made better selections than me.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Ah. Sometimes it's all about the selections.
[00:40:40] Speaker C: So she was very happy with everything she got, and she thought everything she had was pretty close to quality of, like, what we get through main dining on Disney. I had a couple things that were just not good. Like, had no flavor, and I'm like, how? Because, like, one day the chef special was like, a teriyaki salmon.
I was like, how can you have, like, a salmon? Like, it has no. I'm like, there's no flavor. Like, I can taste some of the salmon.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: And you're in Alaska. And you're in Alaska.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I'm in Alaska, and I'm having this salmon, and I'm like, there's no flavor. And it was like, the first day for lunch, I ordered a Caesar salad, and somehow it had no flavor. And I was like, it's just like a flavorless salmon.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Well, I want to say, I bet you had an Atlantic salmon. I'm just kidding.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: Probably frozen. Yeah.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Probably doesn't do that.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: So I feel like the time we were on Celebrity, ages ago now, they had a very traditional sort of main dining experience with, like, one night was lobster night. They did the baked Alaska parade and, like, that kind of stuff to. Did they do any of that in main dining?
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Oh, in beef Wellington, right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:41] Speaker C: Beef Wellington, yes. So main dining and celebrity, they have the celebrity staples. So they have, like, a baked salmon, some kind of chicken dish, and a steak. They have that every night. Like, they have that as the select celebrity menu. And then each night there's a different theme, so kind of the food follows a different theme. So the last night of the cruise was the lobster night, and then that also had the baked Alaska. So. Yeah. And then they had beef. Was beef Wellington that night or a different night? But they do. They do have, like, those dishes as part of, like, main dining. Main dining at night has a kid's menu, so our daughter could get the kids menu.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: Main dining at lunch does not have a kids menu.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. That's odd. I guess they figure that you're going to the buffet Maybe if you've got kids, which isn't true, but you know, I mean, plenty of people don't want to go to the buffet, want to do, sit down, lunch, but I'm guessing that that's what they're sort of imagining.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: We know that people trust Disney for their vacations and it can sometimes be a little nerve wracking to think about trying something new. Right, Sam?
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Whether you're considering branching out to a new cruise line, an all inclusive resort, or exploring Europe, the team at My Path Unwinding Travel has the expertise and connections across the globe to plan almost any vacation. They can even help with the Universal parks. They've helped us plan our vacation beyond Disney, including Royal Caribbean Princess Cruise Line and Virgin Voyages.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Their team of travel professionals all understand the needs of a Disney traveler, can help you decide if another option is right for you, and then guide you through every step of your new vacation experience. Whether you are dreaming of a fun getaway to an all inclusive resort, a river cruise in Europe, or an adventure in Costa Rica, the folks at My Path Unwinding are ready to help. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your next vacation even more amazing.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: If you want to learn more and take advantage of the amazing team at My Path Unwinding Travel, then head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com to let them know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
What was. Yeah, what was the buffet like? And was that quality, you know, similar to Cabanas or of course Marceline Market. Better than, worse than. And how'd it compare?
[00:43:58] Speaker C: I'd say it was probably very similar to Marceline and Cabanas.
Nothing stood out as being terrible. Nothing really stood out as being fantastic. You know, the kids biggest observation was there were no chicken tenders.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Oh, no chicken tenders. Do they have pool deck food? Like are there burgers and stuff out on the pool deck? At least?
[00:44:17] Speaker C: So they have the Mast grill and that is hot dogs, burgers, fries. So my daughter decided that the Mast grill burger was the best burger they had on the show. So sometimes at lunch she would order the burger that they had, which I'm sure it was exactly the same way, but it would show up and she's like, this isn't taste good. This is not the right burger. She would not eat lunch. And then after lunch we'd go to Mass Grill and then get her her burger from Mass Grill. That was appropriate.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: That was the same burger, basically.
[00:44:46] Speaker C: I'm like 100% sure. Like, nothing was different between those two burgers.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: That's funny. Yeah, but.
[00:44:52] Speaker C: But yeah. So like, they did have just a cheeseburger on the regular lunch menu in main dining. So she would get that. And then our son, thanks to that first Disney cruise, our lead waiter, Leo, on that one, like the first night of that Disney cruise, he said, you know, Logan was 10ish. Said, Logan, I don't want you to eat on the kids menu. I want you to eat on the grown up menu. And if you don't like it, I will get you whatever you want from the kids menu.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:45:19] Speaker C: And that set him up to move because up until that point in his life, he was mostly a. A chicken nugget, chicken tender. If it's not a fried chicken piece, I'm not gonna eat anything.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:45:31] Speaker C: So that really helped expand.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: And so he's well, shout out to Leo from Disney Cruise Line. That's amazing. Honestly, like, what a great. I mean, these are the things that always bring us back to Disney, though, right? Like, you got this awesome waiter who makes this suggestion, but he does it with a safety net. Right? With the safety net of if you don't like it, I'll bring you the chicken tenders or the Mac and cheese or the burger or whatever from the kids menu. I love that. That's so fantastic. So now he's eating off the adult menu, I take it.
[00:46:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And so, like, when we did Royal, he kind of surprised our waiters on Royal when he was like, oh, I'm gonna order. And they're like, oh, you're ordering this? Okay.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Yeah. They were expecting him to order the chicken tenders. Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:12] Speaker C: So that's been like, that was good to see. And like, we've always had appreciation to Leo. And then at home sometimes he'll be.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Like, we're like, now remember, Leo, right? At home. They would. At home, they do often revert to their old st.
All right, well, okay, so we've talked about main dining. We've talked about specialty dining. Did you do any others besides the Tuscan Grill and the Sushi place? Did we miss any of the dining places that you went to? Did you do that? Le Petit Chef?
[00:46:42] Speaker C: We did not do Le Petit Chef. I kind of decided later, like, oh, we might like it. And then it wouldn't match up to, like, any of the times that seemed to make sense. So I was like, oh, there's like this thing we want to go do instead. So I did Celebrity did do more of their shows like Disney does. They had an early show and a late show. The thing we noticed when we did Royal is like Royal just had one show and it was like you miss dinner or you show up to the show.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Right, right. Well, because they have so much flexibility on the dining on Royal. Right. You can do the my time dining if you don't do the early or the late or you could do specialty dining. So yeah, they do. You're right. They don't have as much. They don't do the show as many times. Yeah, yeah.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: And from like a quick service food standpoint, like celebrity really probably like if we added up to hours the buffet was open, it probably like aligns, but you had fewer options. Like if you wanted like a quick service type food, you really had the buffet. The Mast Grill Deck 5 had a coffee bar that would have like pastries that you could go get. But that was about it. If you wanted something to eat that wasn't like a snack snack. Yeah, they did do like a late night buffet. We did check that out one night when we were trying to wait up for the northern lights. And it was very limited. Like there was like a salad bar, some pizza, a pasta station. And that was kind of the late night option. So I was like. And they had a few like desserts out.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: You mentioned different sections of the menu and main dining was anything. I mean the, obviously the specialty. I'm assuming the specialty dining carried an upcharge. Was there mate? Were there main dining items that carried an upcharge too?
[00:48:17] Speaker C: So yes, if you went to specialty dining, there was an upcharge to do that. I think Tuscan Grill was like 45, 44, like the first night they discounted it and then the kids, they had a lower price for the kids. So the kids were only like 17 bucks. So I did appreciate that, like you're not paying for the kids to eat a full adult meal. When my son, you know, hitting the tween stage could. But our daughter was like, I'll have a few guys at this main dining. So the only night that they had an upcharge for. Well, I guess they had a certain stake you could upgrade to. If you upgraded to that stake, you could pay an upgrade charge. And then for lobster night, if you were going to order more than one lobster tail per person, there was an upcharge. If you were going to order more than one lobster tail per person.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Right.
Each additional lobster tail you want. It was another charge. Yeah, that makes sense. That. I mean, it doesn't make sense, but it makes sense, you know. Right. Because they don't want. They probably don't have enough lobster for everybody to order three. Right. And so if you say, okay, one is included, but if you want additional ones, then most people are going to stick with the one or have like, you know, surf and turf, and then there'll be a few people who maybe order a second lobster tail.
[00:49:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I think the up charge was like $17.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: So it wasn't like, so not bad.
[00:49:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it wasn't bad. And I think if you wanted to upgrade to whatever the steak was, it was also like 12 or $17. It wasn't like, oh, here's this $50 upcharge. So but they had enough options that nobody ever felt like, oh, I need to order this.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Now you mentioned you had the. A basic beverage package was included. Did you guys upgrade to like the higher level drink package or did you stick with the basic one?
[00:50:04] Speaker C: So at Thanksgiving when they did their Black Friday sale, we could upgrade. And I think it ended up being like $20 a person. Oh, wow. For the week. So I was like, I'll spend 80 bucks to upgrade. So we did upgrade to that.
They do have a pretty extensive menu that they put online that you can download that says like, here's what's included in basic and here's what's like upgrade. So I mean, basically you just went from kind of low shelf to mid shelf.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Mid shelf?
[00:50:36] Speaker C: Yeah, Lower part of high shelf.
Like if you ordered like a cocktail under the premium, I think you're. Anything under $17 was included. So they had a few cocktails that were over 17, but most of them were underneath that 17 price range. And then the kids could get various soda water smoothies. They had lots of zero proof drinks. So they could get the zero proof stuff under. Under the no proof. Under the zero proof plan.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Nice, nice, nice. Well, Chris, is there anything that we haven't discussed from your cruise that you wanted to be sure to highlight? And then I have maybe one more question before we get into rapid fire.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Before we bring actually his son Logan to talk to us a little bit.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Yes, that's true. So yeah, Chris, anything you wanted to highlight? And then I have maybe one more question for you.
[00:51:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So one thing we did that I forgot to mention earlier is we did do the behind the ship tour on our Hubbard Glacier day, and that was really cool. So it's probably similar to what you guys did With Nathan on royal. But we got to go down to Deck 1, see the store rooms where they had all the dry goods. They had basically shift leads for all the departments that we went through. Talk about, like, how they bring everything on the ship, how they partition, how they plan out what they're going to have. And, you know, they basically order. You know, they're ordering out now for the sailings they're going to be doing in November to get those orders in, to make sure they have everything. Everything. So we kind of saw the dry goods area, the laundry facility, we saw the trash sorting area. It was. It was actually really good. Like, sometimes cruising gets kind of a bad rap for not being very eco friendly. But this was actually really helpful because they talked about to the extent of how much they do to recycle, how they go through all these processes. And when they get to ports where they take. Take, you know, the glass, the plastic, the paper, and then what celebrity does is with the money they get from the recycling that offloads from the ship, they do that into a ship account for the crew, and they use that for crew appreciation that they do during their sailings. So.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: So basically the bottle deposits go back to the crew.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but, like, she was talking about how they handle, like, you know, the wastewater and how they recycle this water and how they take, like, the food waste product, and then they add other nutrients, and then they get certain places where they discharge that, and it basically gets turned into fish food that they drop for the fish to come eat. I mean, it was. It was very interesting. And we got to the engine control room, and then we finished up on the bridge of the ship. And that was. That was pretty interesting because that was our hubbard glacier day. They were able to get within a half mile of the hubbard glacier, which they came on to say was the closest any ship has made it to the hubbard this season by about 3/10 of a mile.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:53:27] Speaker C: Yeah, the weather was good. The winds were good. And then while it looked mighty impressive to us, they said the actual calving from the iceberg into the water was, like, small. So they said since it was, like, small pieces coming off, they could get in closer. So when we. When we finally got into, like, position where we were, we could see the bridge, and we saw the captain doing, like, a dance like that. He had got the ship that close, and.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: Oh, that's so fun.
[00:53:56] Speaker C: To the bay. So that was. That was pretty cool.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Probably gets bragging rights for the season.
[00:54:01] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sure he does.
So I will say a little bit, kind of like, about the concierge experience via celebrity. Based off of what I've heard through the DCL experience, I would not equate the two to be anywhere close together.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: Okay, so, like, you now I'm curious in which direction.
[00:54:18] Speaker C: Yeah, Disney's is definitely better. Like, okay, yeah. So we. We had a concierge team for the concierge guest, but we really never really interacted with them. Like, if you needed something, you could go. I think they were on deck seven. Like, I had to go down with a couple questions, but typically I had to wait a pretty good length of time. And then one thing was easy, and they answered that one. The other one they kind of were helping with, but I never heard anything back there was about the dining thing. Cause they were like, oh, check back tomorrow about dining. And I had talked to dining at breakfast, and they were like, oh, no, we don't have this yet. We might not be able to do it. I was like, well, let me see if the concierge team can help figure any of this out. They're like, oh, well, we've got to talk to dining about it. So I was like, okay, off it goes. But they did do three different. They call it the helipad experience. So they've got the helipad at the forward of the ship. So sailing out of Vancouver, we had a sail away we could go to on the helipad there. They have crew out there. They have mimosas, champagne, orange juice for the kids. So that was really fun to be. Be on the front of the ship as we left Vancouver, got to go under the bridge.
So that was. That was fun. We enjoyed that. On the Hubbard Glacier day, they did have another experience where we could go out to Hubbard Glacier that morning as we were kind of getting into position. I think the retreat guests either went first. I think they went first because there was a group that went before us. Because you could watch on the tv. You could see the helipad on the TV in the stateroom, if you're watching the navigation channel. So we saw someone get proposed to on the helipad. And then. And then.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: That's so fun.
[00:55:54] Speaker C: Yeah, no, like, they had, you know, one of their photographers kind of like, came up after and took photos and stuff. So. So. So everybody's like, hmm, do they know they're on tv? Do they know everybody on the ship could be watching this happen? So that was another fun one. Um, it was much more crowded for that one than the sailing out experience. So we were kind of like, we didn't know what to expect because that one was pretty low attendance and this one was like impact. But then when we left that. So we ended up. So a lot of people were on deck 14s and 15 on the ship for Hubbard Glacier Day because they're up higher. It's got more open space up there. But we ended up going on Deck 5. So Deck 5 is kind of like.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: How, you know, like the promenade. Deck four.
[00:56:33] Speaker C: Yeah, kind of like the promenade. It doesn't go like they go to a crew only area, so it might loop all the way around, but it's off guest limits for part of it. But like there were. No, not. We were on the forward section of the ship, I think, and there were not that many people. And so we just kind of were out there for probably almost like two hours just watching the glacier.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:56:55] Speaker C: And it's just like you hear the cracking and it's just like thunder. And then you're just watching to see what's going to fall from where.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah.
[00:57:05] Speaker C: And a lot of times like it's already coming down as soon as you hear it. So we had really great weather because like sometimes the wind is coming off and you know, it feels like it's 30 or below. And I mean it probably felt like 45 or 50 for us. Like we were comfortable, just long sleeves, light jacket, nothing on our heads, just out there for two plus hours when it was probably all said and done. So that was really great. And then when we ended up going in for lunch, so I think the restaurants were after the ship. So we walked down Deck 5 and the other end was like packed. So we were like, we just got lucky. Cause I mean there was maybe like 10 people around us. So it was like, it felt like we had that glacier to ourselves.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: All to yourselves. Wow.
[00:57:45] Speaker C: So that was. That was great. And then the last day for Ketchikan, they did another helipad experience, but we did not get up to that one because we had the. The timing didn't kind of work with trying to get lunch and then meeting the distinctive voyages group to go out for that excursion.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. Well, sounds like. Sounds like a really great cruise. As you mentioned, Alaska is the destination. When you're doing Alaska and sometimes you can save some pretty pennies by booking on another cruise line, a non cruise. So I totally, totally understand that.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: And before we switch over, Sam, I said I had one more question, which is just, would you again, Chris?
[00:58:23] Speaker C: I would. We'll do a Few pro. Con.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: Well, no, no, I'm going to do. I'm going to. I'm going to make you go. Your rapid fire is going to be Disney versus celebrity. So let me just. So let's just save some of that for my rapid fire. How about that? Yeah.
[00:58:40] Speaker C: So, yeah. Okay. Let me think if there's anything else. Pre cruise. I'll talk a little bit. Pre cruise. Because we flew into Van Groover two days before first day, we just kind of dealt with jet lag. Second day, we ended up doing a private bus that take us that took us through Vancouver on the ferry over to Victoria. And we had a really good time in Victoria. The Empress Hotel is there, and that is just, like, beautiful. I mean, just amazing.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:06] Speaker C: And then we did Bujit Gardens, Also beautiful. The only weird thing that happened is how they set up our tour. They were picking guests up from another part of Vancouver. So for about 40 minutes, we sat on this road, like, dirt road, access road, while they waited to bring the other people from, like, the Richmond area of Vancouver to come get on our bus. So everybody was getting a little freaked out about that.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, you said you would go on a celebrity cruise. Again, I want to ask you. I want to do a little rapid fire with you. I want to do some verses, but I want to bring Logan in as a special guest to answer rapid fire with you. So I'll be asking you and Logan each the same questions and get each of your answers. And it's going to be, as I said, compare between celebrity and Disney who's doing it better. So I'll let you go and get him, and then we'll get started.
[01:00:00] Speaker C: Sounds good. I'll go grab him.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: Perfect timing. All right, well, we want to welcome Logan to the show. Welcome, Logan. Hi.
[01:00:07] Speaker C: Hi.
[01:00:08] Speaker A: We're gonna do a little rapid fire with you and dad. I'm gonna ask you a couple of your Disney favorites, and then I'm gonna ask you guys each to tell me who's doing it better, Disney or celebrity. I'm gonna just give categories of things. Okay. And if there's a reason for it, you can share the reason. But it's rapid fire, so it's quick.
So I'm gonna ask first, who is your favorite Disney character? And Logan, I'm gonna start with you.
[01:00:35] Speaker D: I really like Pluto.
[01:00:37] Speaker A: Oh, we love Pluto in our household too. That's one of Nathan's favorites. Love it. All right, Chris, who's your favorite Disney character?
[01:00:45] Speaker C: Robin Hood.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: Oh, nice. That's a more rare one. Love It. I love the old Robin Hood movie. All right, what is your favorite Disney movie? Chris, we'll start with you.
[01:00:57] Speaker C: I'll go with the easy answer and say Robin Hood, but it really depends on my mood.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: All right, fair, Fair. All right, Logan, what's your favorite Disney movie?
[01:01:06] Speaker D: I don't really think I have one. I kind of like them all.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. All right, I'm gonna ask you next your favorite Disney song. Logan, we'll start with you for this round.
[01:01:16] Speaker D: I like the COVID is not a book from Mary Poppins Returns. That one's.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's a great song. Love that. All right, Chris, your favorite Disney song.
[01:01:26] Speaker C: How Far I'll Go from Moana.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so good too. Oh, we can't wait to see that stage show on the Disney Treasure. Oh, my God. And just seeing this. We're recording this the day after we saw the puppet concept for Te K for Disney for the Disney Cruise line stage show Moana. So I'm super excited about that. All right, well, let's shift onto Disney versus celebrity. I'm going to ask this question will just be for Chris, because I'm sure that Logan didn't do any of the booking for the cruise. But what about ease of booking? When I say booking, I don't just mean the cruise, but booking cruise as well as booking, you know, activities, excursions, that sort of stuff ahead of time. Who's doing it better, Disney or celebrity?
[01:02:13] Speaker C: Chris, I would put them about equal.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:02:17] Speaker C: Like, the reason I say that is, like, celebrity. At times, I feel like there are too many choices. Like, it's just at times overwhelming. Cause, like, the excursion list, like, I was like, there's like 10 different choices, and four of them have the same sounding name.
[01:02:32] Speaker A: Like, yeah.
[01:02:33] Speaker C: And I feel like Disney is a little bit more concise. Like, and you've got more structure. Like, you know, like, oh, this is when it opens up, which is a little bit of the rope drop mentality. So it's like everybody rushes to grab whatever. You don't really have that with Celebrity. Cause it just opens as soon as you book. But I do feel like fewer choices sometimes is a little bit better. So I feel like each one has a little different.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Different strengths. Yeah.
[01:02:53] Speaker C: Different strategy.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. All right, let's talk kids clubs. Now, Logan, I know you didn't spend time in the kids club on Celebrity, but you did get to take a look at the kids club. And of course, you have been on Disney cruises, so you know what the kids club on Disney looks like now. You're actually an edge kid on Disney. No longer an Oceaneers club kid since they changed that. The age. They shifted that age on you right in the middle. But tell us, who do you think has better kids clubs?
[01:03:28] Speaker D: Oh, definitely Disney.
[01:03:29] Speaker A: Definitely. All right, well, the fact that you didn't spend any time in the kids club, I think answered that question for me already. I kind of had a feeling that's what you were going to say. All right, well, the next question is for both of you. Who has the better shows? All right, let's start with Logan. For this one, I would say Disney.
[01:03:48] Speaker D: Because it's definitely more geared towards the family and not just the adults. Like Celebrity was.
[01:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you like that comedy show, though? You did get to go see that with your dad, huh?
[01:03:59] Speaker D: The comedy show is really great. That is one thing I really liked. I think they probably did better than Disney. There was at the massive stage show shows, but just the smaller things were definitely better on Celebrity.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, all right, well, that's good to know. Yeah. Disney never has really comedy shows.
You know, they don't have them for the adults, they don't have them for the kids. They do some comedy within some of the other shows, but not really a comedy show. All right, Chris, who's doing it better for you on shows? Disney or celebrity?
[01:04:30] Speaker C: Disney.
[01:04:31] Speaker A: All right, what about onboard activities? When I say onboard activities, I mean things to do on the ship, whether. Whether that's pool decks, water slides, trivias, family game shows, scavenger hunts, what have you. All kinds of activities on board the ship, not the activities you do on land, because that's up to the vendors that they all book with. But, Chris, who's doing activities better, Disney or celebrity?
[01:04:57] Speaker C: Disney.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: Logan.
[01:04:58] Speaker D: I will have to go with Disney as well.
[01:05:00] Speaker A: All right, okay. What about service? And when I say service, I mean things like how the staff treats the guests and how accommodating they are. If you have an issue how you know how good they are in the dining room with getting your, you know, your food, your drinks, all that kind of stuff. So overall service, that's all of the cast and crew on the. On the ship. Let's start with Logan. Who's doing service better, Disney or celebrity?
[01:05:28] Speaker D: This is a tough one. I think they both do really good with the food and drink service and the dining. They both do a really excellent job. The servers are all really good on both. But I feel like for more guest relations and with helping getting the tables together, I would say Disney does better with that.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: All right, okay. Well, that's really super helpful detail to hear. Chris, who do you think? Do you agree with Logan? Is Disney doing it better on service?
[01:05:58] Speaker C: I think Disney is, I would say. The thing I noticed on Slip is they were courteous, but not necessarily friendly. Like, yeah, when you deal with cast members on the Disney ships, like, they all try to, like, find a way to connect to you.
[01:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:16] Speaker C: And on Celebrity, like, they would be very courteous, very nice. It was kind of like if I saw them the next day, unless they were like, our serving team, they probably wouldn't remember seeing me that previous where I feel like on Disney, Disney, someone I interacted with three days ago would be like, oh, Mr. Brown, how are you? Did you get, like, Right, right.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: They tried. They really make an effort there. Yeah, that makes total sense. You know, one thing I didn't ask you about was cabins, and that's one of my categories. I like to compare which cabins. We know that Celebrity doesn't have the split bathroom, so that's, you know, that's. That's already a ding against them. But sometimes, you know, you guys stayed in the. One of the suite class rooms.
Which do you think has nicer state rooms? Do you think? Celebrity or Disney? We'll start with you, Chris.
[01:07:02] Speaker C: Disney.
I'll let Logan answer and then I'll elaborate.
[01:07:06] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. Logan, what do you think?
[01:07:08] Speaker D: I also think Disney, because the split bathrooms, as you mentioned, those are really nice.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, those are key.
[01:07:15] Speaker D: I feel like because of the. Disney has the bunk beds, but Celebrity, in some of the rooms, their bed pulls out from underneath, underneath the couch, which blocks access to, like, the vanity they have, and then to the veranda.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: Gotcha. Yeah. So the layout's not maybe as good with when you have more than two people in the room.
[01:07:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So Logan kind of picked up on the biggest weakness that we had is, like, if we did go on Celebrity again, we would have to figure out a different room configuration, because that was the big drawback is just once the kids were asleep until our daughter was on the pullout trundle on the floor, like, until she was up, you really couldn't go past the edge of our bed.
[01:08:00] Speaker A: Like, oh, yeah.
[01:08:01] Speaker C: The balcony wasn't accessible. We didn't have a coffee maker in the room, which, when we had the Royal Caribbean Junior Suite, we had a coffee maker in the room. So that was helpful. But it was just for a longer sailing. We got everything packed away. One of our suitcases I just had under the vanity. But, like, we weren't quite sure how some people got Everything put away because the life jackets were under the bed like in a basket.
[01:08:26] Speaker A: So they take up where your suitcases.
[01:08:28] Speaker C: So you lost about a quarter of your under bed storage for where the life jackets were. And then I think they had some extra quilts and stuff underneath the bed too. So yeah, storage. Storage was not great for seven. We got it.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: But especially if you couldn't get the van, if you couldn't access the vanity with the bed out too, that makes it even if you have the storage and you can't access it with the bed out, that's a pain because you gotta get ready in the morning. Right. And the bed's still out, of course. Well, let's. The last category I wanna ask you is food. Who's doing food better? It sounds like you had, you know, pretty good food on celebrity, but I won't wonder if you compare Disney. Who's doing it better? Chris, let's start with you.
[01:09:12] Speaker C: For me it's Disney.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: What about you, Logan?
[01:09:14] Speaker D: For me it's definitely Disney because they have the festival of foods on the wish and all of the quick service stuff on the pool decks. Those are all. They only have one place that's open some of the time on Celebrity. That's a burger place.
[01:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah, we heard there's not chicken fingers. Fingers, is that right? Yeah, you know, just for the chicken. I mean they have to lose out just for the. Just for not having chicken fingers available at all times. I mean it's okay if they had them available at least in the buffet, but if they, you know, and not on the pool deck. But yeah, that's, that's, that's a big bummer. Okay, well I'm going to ask you the overall then. I think I can predict the answer of where we're going with this. But if you have to pick between a Disney cruise and a celebrity cruise, which one is better? Logan?
[01:10:00] Speaker D: I would say Disney. Although celebrity is really good. It's more of the adult. It's more for the adult crowd.
[01:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. Chris, what do you think?
[01:10:09] Speaker C: For me, since we discovered our full on Disney parks obsession in 2015, it's Disney. I mean every time we've done a sailing. We've only done three so far on Disney. I still leaving the ship like oh, there was still stuff I wanted to do because it just cater. They have things that cater to. To the Disney enthusiast. Which I've fully embraced.
[01:10:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for playing. Logan, you win. If I have to pick a winner, I'm gonna pick you.
[01:10:42] Speaker B: Way to create Problems inside the household. Sam, where did you go? Oh, my gosh.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Well, what's next, you guys? What do you have booked as far as. What's your next cruise that you have booked? Do you have another celebrity cruise booked or do you just have a Disney cruise cruise booked?
[01:10:58] Speaker B: We have just three. Wait, just a Disney cruise book is how you.
[01:11:01] Speaker A: I mean, just not meaning. Not other. Not other. No, no, no. You said they said they. Logan said they have three Disney cruises. But you also have a Royal. Didn't you say Chris earlier?
[01:11:12] Speaker C: Well, no, no, we, we don't. We. We did a Royal back in the Royal.
Yeah, we did that one in 2023.
[01:11:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:11:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so we've got three. We've got three Disney ones booked. You want to tell them the first one?
[01:11:23] Speaker D: We're going on a Christmas cruise, I believe, on the Fantasy four day Bohemian cruise.
[01:11:29] Speaker A: Awesome. Fantastic.
That's awesome.
[01:11:33] Speaker C: And then spring break 2025. So right at the end of March, beginning of April for us, we are going on the Treasure.
[01:11:40] Speaker A: Oh, yay.
[01:11:42] Speaker D: And then over summer of 2025, we're going on a Norwegian cruise on the Disney Wonder, I believe.
[01:11:49] Speaker C: I think it'll be on the Fantasy Fan.
[01:11:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, you're gonna do Norway. Oh my God, you're gonna love Norway. Yeah, Be prepared. It's like, it's. It gives me Alaska vibes. Right. Like we, we actually haven't done Alaska yet. We're doing Alaska that summer.
But we loved Norway. It's like was such an amazing itinerary. We were on the Disney Magic in Norway. But now obviously the, the Fantasy and the dream have taken over those European sailings. Well, you guys, thank you so much for coming. Brian, do you have any last minute questions? I of hijacked your what's next question.
[01:12:25] Speaker B: No, I think, I think just thanks to. Thanks, Chris, for reaching out, for joining us, for taking some time to share your experience. And Logan, thanks for joining us as well. And with that, we'll just say, you know, thank you for coming on and we appreciate it.
[01:12:38] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having us. We enjoyed it.
[01:12:45] 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 alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm 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 Podcast and if you leave us a rich 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 them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at MyPath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo. Good night.
