[00:00:00] Speaker A: And then at noon, he came over the PA system and announced that we will be returning to Castaway the following day. And you could hear the entire ship cheer at the time of that announcement.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the DCL Duo Podcast brought to you by My Path Unwinding Travel. We are also brought to you by WDW magazine since this is a bonus episode that I am recording today. As you can tell, Brian is not with me because I did the show intro. But I'm excited because I'm not solo today even though I'm, you know, I guess I'm DCL solo, but.
But I'm not solo because I've got a wonderful guest with me here today for this quick bonus episode that we're going to do. But welcome to the show, Sarah.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for joining me. Um, I'm excited to talk about this cruise of yours because you were on one of the sailings that was impacted by Hurricane Milton. Now excited, and maybe I shouldn't put excited, excited to talk to you because you had kind of an awesome thing happen. Not so excited for folks in, of course, the Southeast, having just dealt with Hurricane Helene and then getting hit with Hurricane Milton, of course. But you were on a four night sailing on the Disney Wish, which was supposed to be Monday through Friday as they normally are. We had heard that while you were on the sailing, the sailing that was supposed to leave on Friday, the three night sailing that was supposed to be after your sailing got canceled. And I think everyone on the, on the Internet was like, oh, that means the people who are on board are getting an extended sailing, meaning a four night sailing turned into a longer sailing. So we're going to talk about that today because you were one of those passengers who had that experience. But before we talk about that cruise, I want to get your Disney background. Disney cruising. Background. What? You know, what is your background with Disney or cruising in general?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Sure. So my love for Disney goes back to my childhood. I grew up in Southern California, about 30 minutes from Disneyland. So we'd go very frequently. When I was in high school, my friends and I would go up for dinner and fireworks. We had annual passes, which back in the day, I remember it was about $116 for an annual pass for a Southern California resident.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: How awesome would that be?
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So, yeah, so left for Disney. Definitely started then. I hadn't actually been to Disney world until about 2011 or so, and the idea for a Disney cruise came about in summer of 2022. My husband and I were talking about ways to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary the following summer. And we have two, we have two young children and fell upon Disney Cruise Line and it just seemed like such a perfect way to vacation and to be able to have some adult time and lots of good family time. It just seemed like the perfect solution. So we went on our first Disney Cruise Summer of 2023 with the 25th anniversary of Disney Cruise Line. So that was a neat way to start with the cruise line as well.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Now what ship did you go on for your first cruise?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: We. So beforehand I did my due diligence and I was listening to you to your podcast and finding out as much as I could. So I booked a double dip at Castaway on the Fantasy.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. There's like, I don't even know. Like you can't even compare with that because the Fantasy is an amazing ship to start on and have. Getting to go to Castaway twice is like. Yeah, incredible. So. Wow. That, that you went all in. I love that. So this was your second cruise then?
[00:03:44] Speaker A: This was actually my fourth Disney cruise, so.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. Yeah.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So that I. That fall I went on the Wish, a three night wish with my mom as an adult only cruise. And that was, that was very fun. Just doing adult only dcl. The last. This past summer as a family. We went on the Magic.
We got to go to Lookout Key.
And then. So this was my fourth.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. So that, I mean that, that's a lot. You guys packed in a lot in just two. I mean, less than two years.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Wow, that's awesome. So you're. So you're. You're addicted like we are. Let's just put that out there.
So you guys planned to do this, this cruise on the Wish, a four night cruise. Was there anything particular about this itinerary that you know, made you choose this cruise? Did you just want to get on the Wish? Like what was it that made you book this cruise?
[00:04:37] Speaker A: So this was a cruise. This was a cruise that I did with my sister and her brother and her husband. So my brother in law. So this was an adult, adult only. Which again made it interesting when we were kicked away from my kids for a longer period of time than what we were expecting.
So it worked out with their work schedule and they are big Halloween people, so they really wanted to do Halloween on the high seas.
And so scheduling wise we fell on this itinerary. This. And this was their first, their first cruise ever.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Okay. So they got to benefit from Your silver castaway status and the three of you traveled together. Did you, Were you staying in one room for the three of you?
[00:05:13] Speaker A: We did two state rooms.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Oh, you did too. So they didn't benefit from your.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Benefit from my knowledge of the cruising ahead of time and while we're on the ship.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Well, that, well that, I mean that's an interesting twist. Okay, so you guys, we're not going to do a full trip report, but I want to focus on the changes that happened.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Which, your four night cruise. For folks who don't know and didn't follow this over social media, your four night cruise turned into a six night cruise.
@ what point during the, you had decided to cruise during hurricane season. Everybody knows like you, you know, hurt, but most of the time people don't get impacted even if it is hurricane season because I feel like the ships do a really good job or the cruise lines, all of them, not just Disney, do a really good job of like switching up the itinerary, like going to a different port if they're worried about weather or going out to see if they're worried about weather in certain locations to sort of avoid the bad weather. At what point during your cruise were you made aware that your itinerary was going to be changed?
[00:06:20] Speaker A: So they actually alerted us before we left port from Port Canaveral. They came over the PA system and they said we're watching Hurricane Milton closely.
If you would not be able to extend your cruise beyond Friday, we recommend moving, talking to Guest services to discuss if it would be better for you and your party to debark at this time before we left. So at this point I'm thinking it would be, if we were delayed, it would be something like what happened with Hurricane Helene where they came back like four or five hours later. So I was like, yeah, it's not, that's not that big of a deal. Didn't even dawn on me that it would be several days of a delay. Then dawn on me that.
So I hadn't realized that part.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Wow. Okay, so that's, that's really interesting. So what was the, if you, if you had decided to debark, that would have. So on embarkation day, after you, presumably you've gotten your luggage and you're, you know, sort of hanging out on the ship, they just make this announcement over the loudspeakers.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: Is that. Yeah. So at that point it's, I mean we had traveled from out of state, we had, you know, we had obviously had flights and everything there and back. So we, for a potential delay that we weren't sure was going to happen. We weren't going to move, you know, she get off the ship at that point? Yeah.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: So did they, did you know if they were offering people like refunds or rebooking or what the. At that point? If you, if you had decided to debark rather than, you know, risk and extension or impact to your cruise, do you know what they were offering?
[00:07:41] Speaker A: I don't know what they were offering. I know they were, they did have guest services ready and available to assist. But since it's, since I didn't go that route though, I didn't find, I didn't find out. Fair.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: That totally makes sense. I'm going to, I'm going to venture a guess that they would, they would let people rebook. I'm not, I don't know if they would have let people just get a full refund, but I'm sure they would have let people rebook without any kind of penalty. Since they sort of made this announcement. Okay, so. So this is embarkation day. Is this like afternoon or. I guess you haven't left port yet when they make this announcement. So this is this before sail away party?
[00:08:16] Speaker A: It was, it was around, it was.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: At 3:00pm okay, so this is like all aboard time basically.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Sort of. Yeah.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: When, you know, when they've just, they're just finishing boarding and now they're telling people, okay, you might, you at least need to consider this. Interesting. Do you know if anybody took them up on that? Did you see, could you tell what.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I didn't see from. So our ship was fully booked and it certainly didn't seem like anyone had got off the ship.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So it was a very full ship, I bet. Not too many. Because I think if people haven't heard this before, if the ship comes back late, you don't pay extra money for your cruise. You paid. Whatever you paid for your cruise is the price of your cruise and if they have to extend your food and is on them, basically. I mean, you know, if you're gonna have alcohol and things like that or spa appointments, those things are of course you're gonna pay for those add ons that you would normally pay for. But like your bed, your room, your food, that's already included. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so at what point during. So this is a four night cruise, which means you're stopping, you've got one sea day, one stop at Nassau, one stop at Castaway. That's, I mean not in that order, but actually in that order. Probably it was so we had a.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Nassau day and then Castaway and then the plan was just a sea day and then return to Port Canaveral. The first two days on the ship, the weather was pretty crummy. It was, you know, it was misty and rainy. All the sail away party, the Halloween events, everything was indoors. So we had pretty crappy weather.
And then it was in the Walt Disney Theater on Wednesday night after, on Pirate night. After the show, the cruise director came on stage and made this long announcement that they then delivered to our room as well, stating, you know, we've been following the hurricane and Port Canaveral is currently closed. We anticipate that it will open. When it opens, there will be a line of ships waiting to come back in. Therefore, the earliest that we expect to return to Port Canaveral is Sunday morning and then there's a big gasp. You know, everyone in the Walt Disney Theater upon hearing this news, because that's.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Not just, as you mentioned, not a few hour delay. That's not even a 24 hour delay. That's a 48 hour delay. That's a bigger delay than probably a lot of people expected right now. So you have your, your day at NASA, your day at Castaway. You said the weather was, was kind of crummy. Were you still able to dock at both of those places and get off and do some stuff or was it really impacted like significantly by weather?
[00:10:49] Speaker A: It was not significantly impacted. Nassau. We actually had some sunshine as well. It was kind of the typical Caribbean storm or come in the pouring and then move back out again, but misty enough that they couldn't do any of the deck.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Gotcha. And what about Castaway? How was that Castaway?
[00:11:04] Speaker A: The weather was actually beautiful by that point.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So we had a good day at Castaway and unfortunately, again, I know the likelihood of parasailing at Castaway is not very likely and I hadn't signed up for it that first day. I tried the second day when we got to and then that was canceled the second day. So I still have yet to go parasailing there.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Well, spoiler alert. You spoiled it for us, Sarah. You got to go to Castaways a second time there.
Yeah, this is not supposed to be a double dip cruise, but. So tell us when they make the announcement in the Walt Disney Theater that you all are going to not going to dock until early a Sunday morning, which is when you did disembark on Sunday, what did they tell you as far as what you were going to be doing? Because that, you know, you had a sea day on Thursday that you were supposed to have and you were supposed to disembark on Friday. So what do they tell you is the plan for Friday and Saturday, if any at that point?
[00:12:02] Speaker A: So they said to keep refreshing your app, the DCL Navigator app, because they would be coming up with activities. They promised to keep us entertained and fed. The plan was for two sea days, two extra sea days.
And they encouraged cast, you know, they encouraged us to go to guest services where they could assist with changing our travel plans. So I went there from the Walt Disney Theater and they had probably 20 to 30 cast members there with tablets ready to assist guests with trying, helping to change their travel plan. So that was very useful.
They also gave a free Internet package as well to everyone on board so that we could check both check the news and also be able to change our travel plans.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Now as far as travel plan changes, did Disney offer any compensation if you needed to pay a fee to change your flight? I'm sure that some of the airlines were flexible in letting you just change flights because some of the airlines do when, you know, when it comes to weather type situations and they're already having to cancel flights themselves. Like I wouldn't be surprised if some folks flights were already canceled anyway out of Orlando just because of impacts of weather. But did the, did Disney offer any assistance in that way, compensation wise, I mean, or did they sort of just rely on the airlines or you to find out before they relied on the.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Airlines from, from everything that I heard, most of the airlines, I'd actually received an email already from my airline saying that they waived fees and charges for changing flights. So I think all the airlines did that and they assisted guests if they had like Disney World reservations for after the cruise and they assisted guests with, with modifying the reservations.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's nice. I wouldn't, didn't even think about that. Yeah, a lot of people pair, you know, they do the land and sea vacation there used to be a package, now it's not a package. But a lot of people still pair a parks visit, particularly when you're sailing out of Port Canaveral with a cruise. And so yeah, if you had, I wonder what would happen if you have, you know, DVC room booked or you've got a cash room booked at Disney or even park tickets because the park tickets are tied now to specific dates unless you have annual passes. And so you're not just talking about like changing a park reservation date, you're talking about changing your past dates. Do you from were you guys planning on, I take it you guys weren't planning on going to the parks after you were planning on heading home?
Yes. Now did you get any sense from the other passengers as to whether or not the cruise line was able to help people with making those adjustments? If they did have a park strip or you know, or hotel, all that kind of stuff, were they able to move things around or cancel and refund people as far as you could tell?
[00:14:44] Speaker A: As far as I could tell, they definitely did. There was obviously a feeling of nervousness and anxiety that night once that was announced until everyone was able to change it. But certainly by like midday on the, on the first sea day, everyone kind of relaxed and started hanging out and relaxing more, getting more drinks and just enjoying the extra time on the ship.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean your Thursday, you're already had your sea day and instead of having to pack on your sea day, you're like, oh, I've got two more days.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: We certainly slowed down. We stopped. We know instead of trying to, you know, it's four, even four nights is a short cruise. So instead of trying to rush around, you're able to really slow down and take it easy.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: I'm curious about laundry. So a lot of people for a four night cruise do only pack like a carry on bag or a smaller suitcase and only pack enough clothes for those, you know, for those nights. Did Disney Cruise Line offer, I mean Disney Cruise Line does have laundry facilities on board. So that's one great thing. Like some other cruise lines, if you want to do laundry, you have to send your laundry out. You can't do it yourself on Disney you can do it yourself. And so it's not nearly as expensive. But did they offer any sort of laundry service or free laundry or use free use of the laundry machines to anyone if they didn't have enough clothes?
[00:15:59] Speaker A: They did not offer any compensation or free laundry services. But that's one of the first things I did once we changed our flights is I raced to the laundry room and did some laundry. And I think a lot of people did that because the machines were very busy.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Oh yeah. I mean the good part is it's only, it's $3 for a wash, I believe, and $3 for a dry. And I think it's either two or three dollars for the detergent and same for like the fabric softener. So in order to do one load of laundry, it's still, it's going to be less than $10. So as long as you're doing it yourself, if you're sending it out for laundry service. You pay like, per item, you know, and that can be kind of expensive.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Well, and I think one of the other things that, you know, was potentially problematic was medications, if patients had prescription medications and hadn't brought enough. So it's a good, you know, good rule of thumb to always bring a couple extra days with you just in case something happens.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. That. I didn't even think about that because the. The ship will have probably some standard medications, but they will not have. If you have like a unique medication, they probably won't have that. And questionable as to. I mean, you'd have to make an appointment with the ship's doctor and all of that. If you needed a med, probably a medication anyway, in order for them to actually give you those. Those. Those drugs. So that's really interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that. That's a good reminder to us because we. I don't have any regular prescriptions, but Nathan has his regular prescriptions for his ADHD medications, and one of those is a controlled substance. So it's like, particularly difficult to get out of state or away from your primary care physician, that sort of a thing. So, yes, excellent reminder, especially if you are checking the weather and there's a hurricane coming.
I'm curious, I wonder if there was anybody, if there was any talk from folks ahead of time that thought that this might happen. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of people who were not sort of blissfully unaware of it, but I'm curious if you heard any rumblings of people who had thought, ooh, our cruise, our crews might get extended.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: I don't think anyone had really thought of it and none of the crew members had experienced anything like this as well. I know something similar did happen back in 2022 with Hurricane Ian. I believe it's kind of a similar situation, but I don't think it had dawned on many of the passengers that it could be. That could affect us.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, and it was. I believe it was the wish also back then, if I'm remembering correctly. It was like her maiden season or her inaugural season. And it was that fall. There was. I can't remember if they got extended two nights or three. They did get extended, though, and I was more than one night. I bet it was also two nights. I just can't remember precisely.
But it was interesting because we definitely saw. In fact, I think one of our other listeners was supposed to be on the cruise after yours on Friday and shout out to Katherine Coleman I remember seeing her post about how her cruise was canceled. And of course you know, you can rebook and I think you could, you could have. Because her cruise was fully canceled, I think she could have just got a refund or a rebook. And I think they were offering some kinds of incentives, right? Some not future cruise credit, percentage offer, something like that.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation. Great news. The fabulous team over at My Path Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. My Path Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwind Winding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email
[email protected] so they know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding, for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: I'm curious about that. I mean, obviously you guys got a bonus. It's not really like a negative, but for some people it might be a negative because maybe somebody wasn't planning on missing that much work. Or they were, or they're, you know, they had to cancel their Walt Disney World time that they had been planning on doing. Do you know if anybody was offered any kind of compensation? I imagine if they were, it was only in the way of a future.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Cruise credit, as far as I know. No, I think the. The two extra days on the. On the ship with the entertainment and the food was. Was the comp. Was the compensation. They didn't. Yeah. They didn't offer anything. Additional Internet.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that the free Internet is nice too because it's. Of course you can use it for the rebooking, but then of course your people are using it for other things. Right. To contact family and all of that. So at what point did you find out that you all were going to cast away again? Because obviously the Wish would have been going to Cast Away for her. You know, on that second cruise that got canceled. I wonder if that the day that you all went to Cast Away was the day that the Wish would have gone to Castaway.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: It was. Yeah, we did, we did their day there for them.
So during the, on the, on the, on Friday, on the first extra sea day, the second sea day, a couple of funny, quick, funny anecdotal stories at the. They do a. The cruise director and assistant cruise director do the new show in the morning talking about what's going on ship that day and the drink of the day. So I have, I took a video of it, a hilarious recording where they're saying, what's the drink of the day?
[00:21:45] Speaker B: What?
[00:21:45] Speaker A: I don't. Do you know what the drink of the day is? I don't know because we've never done this. But you know who will know? The beverage team. So ask them because we don't know.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Because for them it was, it was, it was day five and they're not used to. Or, or yeah, day. It would have been day five and they're not used to having a day five, so they don't know what it is.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: And the second just quick, funny anecdotal story is one of the things I realized once we had extra days is I, we hadn't previously, but I thought, oh, we should build Palo because we had it previously planned on doing Palo, but we're going to have extra nights there and had already experienced the three rotational dining experiences.
So we were able to do Paula one of the extra nights. And my brother in law had not. Obviously they have a dress code for dinner and we hadn't planned on going. So my brother in law hadn't brought a formal clothing. So he basically had to choose between either a Star wars short shirt or his pirate shirt, which was the long sleeve ruffled shirt that's kind of like the Seinfeld puffy shirt.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: I have his visual. I love this visual. That's the funniest thing.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: So we went to Paulo dinner and he wore his pirate shirt and he rocked it.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: I love that. Oh my God. Now, did he have a pair of pants with him? Because that is another part of Paulo dinner. You have to wear pants for brunch. You can wear shorts.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: He had jeans. So he wore jeans.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. So he was. Okay, yeah, yeah, you can wear jeans. They don't want you to wear like ripped jeans. But if you have jeans that are like in decent shape and they're. I'll Be honest, I don't think they're super like nitpicky about that stuff.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: I think he saw that while he's sitting there in the white puff in those white shirt, he has several other people come in wearing T shirts and he's like, I probably could have gotten away with my Star wars shirt, but dude, it's too late now.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah, they probably. That's actually a good point. Because it was an extended cruise. They probably would have been more, more liberal with the dress code, understanding that people were coming who hadn't planned on coming. Another, another option just for those folks listening out there is, you know, the shops have lots of nice like polo shirts and so if that, you know, or, or even button downs. I mean they tend to be on the more expensive end because they have quite a few like Tommy Bahama options. But they do have some like if you want a Disney Cruise Line polo shirt, either Nike or regular Disney Cruise Line polo shirt, there's plenty in the, in the shops if you don't want to wear your pirate puffy shirt. But I think that's awesome that your brother in law.
That, that's, that's just pretty hilarious. Well, so let's talk about they. When did they tell you? So it's Friday. They have the morning show. They're making jokes about the drink of the day. At what point do they tell you that you're going to cast away the. The next. It wasn't until.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: It wasn't until about midday and I don't think they knew either. So they were waiting to see how Castaway fared in the hurricane. They wanted to make sure that the island did okay. The, the captain did a great job steering us away from the storm and kind of kept us shielded by the island. So we actually had lovely weather. And then at noon he came over the PA system and announced that we will be returning to Castaway the following day. And you could hear the entire ship cheer that announcement.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Now at what point could you start booking like excursions? Because you mentioned you, you booked parasailing at your first castaway day. That didn't happen because of whether you booked it your second time. It also didn't happen because of the weather. But you were at some point able to book it at least.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So they opened up again. They told us to keep refreshing the app and they worked tirelessly to update, update things. And I think about two or three hours later the excursions opened up and cabanas were automatically gone. I think that was probably separate than either the concierge guests, et cetera. But then yeah, we were able to Burke and yeah, so we. We booked the pair of sailing. When that didn't work, we did the banana boats which we ended up doing the banana boats. And that was fun but terrifying and I will never do that again.
And note to other people, if you do banana boats, bring goggles. Otherwise you can't see anything.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Oh yeah, because yeah, even you can't apparently you can't see anything even with goggles on, but at least your eyes are not getting hotter the entire time. Yeah, I've heard. I've heard that about the banana boats. I bet you're right. As far as the cabanas, I bet they never put the cabanas onto the app. My guess is they probably already had a waitlist from the from cabanas for the first castaway day. And so they probably offered the cabanas to the folks in concierge who did not get a cabana on the first and on the first castaway day. And then probably if they had more than you know, they probably had offered the rest to just to at least checked I should say with concierge first before releasing them to the rest of the of the passengers. Which is fairly typical when you're on board. I know a lot of people always say they in the. In the Facebook groups about getting put on the wait list for cabana. I think your best chance if you're not saying concierge is just like random checking on the app before the cruise. But once you're on the cruise, if a cabana opens up, it's not going back on the app. It's going straight to the concierge inventory. And the concierge hosts are giving out those cabanas to people on their wait list and concierge. So but that is super interesting the way they. They did everything. I'm curious about what kinds of activities they added on because obviously you had two full days added on. Well, really, really three full days added on if you think about it. Right, because you would have disembarked on Friday. Well, I guess not three. Still two full days. Yeah, you would have disembarked on Friday. So you got a full sea day on Friday. And then of course you had the full day at castaway on Saturday. So they probably had more programming on the island than on the ship. And then of course debarkation on on Sunday morning. So what kinds of things did they add in? And because you had the two extra nights, what did they do as far as mainstage shows.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: So with the activities, they added on more of everything. They had trivia. They had to learn to draw classes, game shows. The bingo was insane because that just extended two extra days. So the jackpot. So we did. We didn't play bingo, but the lines were all the way across the ship because it just. That extended two extra days as well.
So, yeah, they filled up the. They filled up the days with all. With all the expected activities that you would typically see on the ship. For the stage shows, the first night, they created a show. So Aladdin was supposed to be the Thursday night. The last night of the crew should have been Aladdin. They pushed that to the last night because that always is a nice way to close out the cruise. So on the first extra night, they did the Disney Victrophonics, did a show show in the Walt Disney Theater. They put on a show for everyone with tap dancing as well.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Oh, very cool.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah, they created a playlist and did a full show. So that was very nice. That was a lot of fun. They're awesome. The second night, the cruise director announced over the PA that, you know, when we. When we had left Port Canaveral, we had crummy weather. We didn't really get to enjoy the Sail Away show. It was an abbreviated show without fairy godmother, the princesses. So they put on the Sail Away show at night on. Yeah, on Friday night. So at 6:15 and 8:30, they did the Sail Away show. The full. With the horns and the. And the characters, and they had a dance party afterwards. So it was awesome to be out on deck at night listening to the Sail Away song and having a full party.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: That's actually a really smart thing to do, especially to do it twice because then one, it's less crowded. Right. That Sail Away party is always like, really, really crowded. And of course, if you had crummy weather, then you. And you didn't get to see the whole thing. That's. That's a bummer. But it's even, even better for them to do it twice on deck. I love that. And you still had the full pirate night, right, Even with, like, the weather concerns? Did not. Did not impact your pirate night. It more impacted the first night stuff, right? Correct.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so extra trivias, extra drawing, extra bingo, extra family Star wars characters, which.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Is great because those get super crowded. So they had an extra Chewie and Rey that came out. So that was nice.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Did they bring out any special? I don't know. If they would. I mean, you had the Halloween on the high seas stuff. Right. So you had the Halloween costumes. Did they bring any the characters out again in their Halloween stuff? Because I know, like, the Sanderson sisters is always a big draw. Right?
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Right. They didn't redo any of the Halloween activities.
They. For the extra night in Arendelle. They did not redo the whole show. But Elsa still walked through the dining hall and took pictures and saw people, which was really nice.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So more character stuff, which is nice. Yeah. Even because they don't. That's the hard part for them is they don't have like a third show on or actually a second show on the. On the Wish because it's only three and four night cruises. They don't have like another show like in Reserves. Right. Because they don't.
But it's really nice for them to do, you know, meet and greets and things like that. Oh, I love that. This sounds awesome, actually. It sounds like they really took care of you guys.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: They did. Yeah. And they. Even on our second sea day, we had Mickey churro waffles too.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Does it really get any better than that?
[00:30:55] Speaker A: It does not. No.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: I love that. Well, any. Any highlights from this, this sailing, Sarah, that you would love people to know about? I mean, the fact that obviously they feed you for an extra two nights, I mean, that's pretty great. And the fact they add characters and other activities, but anything in particular that was really memorable about this sailing beyond the fact that you had added two nights? Yeah.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: So something that we didn't discuss yet that didn't. Didn't specifically pertain to the hurricane sailing, but it is an example of the extent of Disney Cruise Line guest service and how much they care about their guests. We had requested a private table. We had late dining. The first night was really bad service. And part of that was because there was so much movement that the ship was rocking so much. I think they were actually having trouble in the kitchen trying to prepare the food. It was so bad.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Our server.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Our server actually apparently ran into a wall with his tray and we heard like a big drop. But he had a big, like a rip in his shirt or rip in.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: His shirt because he had bumped into the wall.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: And we didn't get our food until about 9 or appetizers until about 9:25pm so from late dining. So it was really late. So I had said something to the head server afterwards asking if we could try to expedite things for the next night. And when we Got to the dining for the next night, we were informed that they had created a private table for us and they had gotten us a new server. And our table was actually, it was in Arendelle for that night. They had created a table that was literally halfway into the galley, into the kitchen. Like, that table was not supposed to be there. Oh, my. They had made us a new table and given us a new server. And props to our server were Jess and Kimone. And they did our food, got right out to us. We had excellent service for all the other nights. And I just. And I don't think any other cruise line would do that.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah, Disney just like, when they do it right, they do it really right. Right. Like, and I feel like this is an example where, I mean, obviously they couldn't bring you back to Port Canaveral on Friday, but they could have, like, rerouted you and taken you to some other port or something like that. It would have been very, very difficult because obviously the hurricane was. Was hitting the southeast pretty badly, in particular Florida. But, like, I love that they didn't try to be the first ship back into Port Canaveral. That's the other thing. Like, right, because I think the port actually reopened on Saturday, not on Sunday. But they let other ships go in first because once they have to cancel the next sailing, they might as well keep you all on board and give you extra time. Yeah.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: And another interesting thing that the. For the cruise, for the crew on board was that because we got back on Sunday morning, the next crews wasn't going to leave until Monday. So I asked. I asked my surfer. Yeah. So I asked my surfer and they said they were all going to do a deep cleaning of the ship and then they got to get off the ship for the day. She said she was going to Hollywood Studios and that they just needed to be back by midnight. So they all got the day off.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. Well, and I wonder if they. They must have bused them up to the parks and given them tickets probably because they, you know, why not? They've gotten a day off and, and you know, the parks were not going to be super crowded because there were a people obviously, who had to cancel trips to Walt Disney World and things like that. That's awesome. I love that, Sarah. That's just fantastic. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today for letting us know how Disney handled this hurricane cruise extension experience.
I think we always like to hear these stories about.
I don't want to say when things go wrong because things didn't really go wrong for you. All right. But obviously when things impact a sailing and impact what was planned versus what actually ends up happening. And so it's always helpful to hear how Disney handles these kinds of emergencies and these kinds of changes. I think most of the time they handle it very well. I'd be interesting to, it'd be interesting to hear what the sort of rebooking was for folks who did choose to disembark. But as you said, I'm doubtful that very many people took them up on that. My guess would be that only people who, like absolutely had to be home for something on Friday evening or Saturday morning would have taken them up on the offer to December.
But thank you so much for joining me. Super appreciate you coming on the show for this quick bonus episode. Really helpful. We'd love to have you come back on the show next time you sail. What have you got planned?
[00:35:20] Speaker A: We're making our way around the fleet, so we're going on the dream next summer.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Taking the kids with us this time. I got, they got sick of. They weren't, they were like, oh, Mommy's still on the ship. Okay. Yeah, it looks beautiful. All right. All right, bye.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I can, I can imagine the kids being a little bit frustrated when you say you're going to be gone for just a few days and then that turns into almost a week. And so they didn't get to go. And they know, and they know that you're on a Disney cruise. So I appreciate it. All right. Well, please join us again. Like I said, we'd love to have you back, but thanks for joining me today.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good night.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple 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. If you want to book your next Disney vacation, head over to mypathunwinding.com forward/dcldo duo or email them at dclduomypath unwinding.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 D.C. aCL 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. It.
