[00:00:00] Speaker A: Do the kids go to the shows? I mean, you got tween and teens. Like, do they do shows?
[00:00:06] Speaker B: They love them. We are Broadway Across America subscribers in our town. Love, love, love the shows. So we were excited to see Beauty and the Beast and it delivered. It was fantastic. You did not oversell it. I mean, it was so, so well done. We loved it.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: I love that I did not oversell it because I have really sold it hard. I feel like on.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: Welcome back everybody.
[00:00:44] Speaker D: To this week's episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And I'm going to dive right into our listener review for the week so that we can maximize our time with our guest. And we've got a great topic. So let me just dive right in with the review. This review this week comes from Len hello Kitty. L I n hello Kitty, who writes Perfect Company for a Commute. This podcast is perfect for a commute. It's lighthearted and fun, but still full of useful information about dcl. It's like getting to take a virtual cruise. Each week. Brian and Sam's friendly personalities come through and I genuinely get excited each time a new episode shows up in my library. Well, thank you for that review, Len. Hello Kitty, we appreciate it. And for all of you listening out there, if you would like to leave us a five star review that you can hear on the air, head over to Apple Podcast, hit those five stars and leave us a written review and we'll read it at the top, top of one of our shows. Or just hit those five stars so we know you're out there and you love the show. It really keeps us motivated. But Sam.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: And use names. And use names like Lynn, hello Kitty because I want to hear Brian say that kind of stuff over and over again because it just.
[00:01:44] Speaker D: Lynn, hello Kitty. Lynn, hello Kitty. There we go. All right, Sam, introduce our fabulous guest and our topic for tonight. Or excited about this?
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Yes, I am super excited. We've got a first time guest, not a first time cruiser, but first time guest on our show, a longtime listener I believe, and she's going to talk to us about a European cruise took this summer. So I want to welcome to the show for the first time, Jill. Welcome, Jill.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Thanks so much for having me.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for reaching out to us. We always, of course love getting new folks onto our show to hear about their cruise experience. So before we talk about your European cruise, which is a bucket list cruise of course, for most cruisers, we've got to get your Disney creds, your Disney cruise creds. Your Disney creds. What sort of got you started with Disney or Disney Cruise Line?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: So we've been to the parks a couple of times and we're really impressed with just the customer service and the attention to detail. And we had a good experience. And so when we decided to start to try a cruise, Disney was in the mix. And one of my kids has a pretty limited diet and they seem great with food. So that was kind of the tipping point for why we initially went with Disney. And now we're sold. We're hooked.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Oh, nice. Now, how many Disney cruises have you all been on?
[00:02:58] Speaker B: This was our third. We went to Alaska last summer and then just did a repositioning cruise from Vancouver to San Diego. It lined up with them spring break plans. And then we did this European one this most recent summer.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. So I would say you've done three, like bucket list cruises. I mean, I don't know that everybody would think of a repositioning cruise as a bucket list, but for me, like, that's on my list. I love, and especially west coast was repositioning. I love the idea of being that close to home and, you know, being able to either get to the start or get home really, really easily. So. And that would, that would work out. So those are awesome. Great. Well, let's dive in first. Let's start with who is in your sailing party.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So it was my immediate family. It was my husband and our four kids. They are. I have three boys that are 12, 14 and 16 and a 16 year old girl.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Four kids. Wow, that's a lot. And they're like all teenagers now.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Yes, yes. We had three vibe kids and then an edge kid.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Okay, well, we'll definitely want to talk about that later. Okay. So how did you decide on this? Well, tell us what the itinerary was that you sailed on and how you decided on that particular itinerary.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Sure. Well, I knew we wanted to do Europe and we were pretty open and these are the dates that worked for us. So. Sold. And it ended in Southampton, which was great because we wanted to go to London afterwards. So we did this. Barcelona to London or to Southampton with a few stops in Spain.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Awesome. What were the port stops when we booked?
[00:04:30] Speaker B: It was Lisbon and then there were three. Cartagena, Vigo, and La Carunha. I might be butchering that. Cartagena got dropped. At some point there was an issue with how fast the boat can go and whales. So it was this Lisbon and then the two smaller towns in Spain.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Awesome. That sounds like a great itinerary. And frankly it's kind of nice when they add a sea day. And I don't know my opinion.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it was not too upsetting. We really enjoyed it. This was the first cruise we've been on. We could use the pool deck. You know, we had to kind of work though, right?
[00:05:05] Speaker A: This is your first like really warm weather cruise because it's summer in Europe versus Alaska in the summer and then even west coast repositioning. Unless you're in the like the height of the summer between Vancouver and San Diego. You're talking pretty, I mean nice weather but like cooler weather for sure.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: We weren't laying by the pool, but it was fine. But so yeah, we got some more ship time and enjoyed it.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, tell us like about the planning for this cruise. Like what were the sort of logistics? Like did you decide to go spend some time in Europe before or after the cruise? Obviously you're going over for a week long cruise. Where are you guys coming from? Are you coming from the west coast or the east coast?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: San Antonio. So like right in the middle.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Right in the middle. Okay. So you've got a long trip to get to Europe. You're probably not just gonna go for the cruise. Am I right? Right.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: So our cruise left on a Wednesday. We flew in Sunday into Barcelona and then spent, I think we ended, landed Monday morning. So we had all day Monday, Tuesday in Barcelona and then the cruise and then we had six days in London on the back end and came home.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Oh, awesome. That's like, I mean that's a fantastic amount of time between, yeah, Barcelona and London to really like explore like two or three days in Barcelona, almost a week in London. Ah, I love it. I'm so jealous actually. We've got to do this, Brian. I know. It's like on our, it's on our, it's on our list, you know, for potentially for our podcast Cruise in 2026. That's what we're thinking. Yeah, we're, we're really leaning towards Europe for that but we haven't settled on what it's going to be. We are even thinking about river cruise. You know, we haven't, we haven't decided anything and there's no itineraries out so there's nothing to decide at this point. Point.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's talk about then the planning and booking excursions and that sort of a thing. What did you go with, you know, Disney excursions for your, you know, bookings did you, you know, do your own research of what you wanted to do at the different ports? And of course, what kind of resources did you use for planning your pre and post cruise trips as well? I think people always like to know more information about that planning side of things.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Oh, sure. Well, as a family of six, we stay in Airbnbs mostly, so I did a lot of Airbnb review reading to find places on either end to stay. And then as far as excursions, we did one Disney one and then two through. I found through Viator and those were. I mean, I felt very comfortable. The port days were pretty long, so having excursions kind of, you know, earlier in the day, I felt comfortable. Like we had plenty of time to get back to the ship. The only one we did that was like a little bit of a travel time we did with Disney just to make sure everything was fine.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a smart way to do it. I mean, I think people are a little bit wary to book excursions outside of the cruise, but I want to encourage people to look outside of the cruise line because there are other great excursions out there. And that's a good point you make about if you've got a longer port day, you should have sort of less to worry about overall as far as, you know, missing the ship, that sort of a thing.
[00:08:12] Speaker D: Well, we are gonna give a shot at booking some of our own shore excursions for the main voyage of the Treasure here in December.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: So, yes, we're actually for. Yeah, we've got like.
[00:08:21] Speaker D: So if you see video of us on YouTube waving to the ship as it goes by, you'll give your advice. To use excursions outside the cruise line was a bad one, but we're gonna.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Give it a shot ourselves. Yeah, yeah. In fact, our booking window opens in just like a couple days and we've already decided for the maiden other booking, I think parasailing on Castaway. We're not booking any excursions through Disney. Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about the pre booking window for other stuff. Right. Of course you got the one excursion that you decided to book, but were you looking to book other things on board? You did have a couple of sea days. Did you want to polo brunch?
Did your teenagers want to do the royal gathering? I'm imagining not, but you never know.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: They did not age.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Bibbidi Bobbidi.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we've aged. We did want Paulo brunch. We couldn't get it, but I was able to get it when we got on the ship. So it was no problem.
I had booked quite a few things. I booked the Prima Note, which we ended up not doing. I was really hesitant to miss a dinner with my kids.
That's part of the fun. And we didn't really want to bail on them the first night. I booked a hair appointment. What else? Oh, some sports, like the goofy sports thing. I think that's really all we booked ahead of time.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's. I mean, that's good. That's a good amount. I will say. I want to give a shout out for Prima Note. I think it's a fabulous experience. I don't feel like I. Now that we've done it once, I don't feel like I would need to do it or want to do it every time. But I do think it's a. I do think it's something I would want to do again. But one pro tip, we had late dinner, and we booked the. I think it was 6:45. The earlier Prima Note. They have an earlier and a later one. If you've got later dinner, um, you could book the earlier one and still make dinner and vice versa. If you book the. You know, so it's. It's definitely possible to do, but it will. You will be very full. So that's one thing. It is. It is not a full meal, though, the Prima Note. It's. It's. It's. It's. I would call it heavy appetizers, but not. Not quite a full meal. Okay, well, let's.
[00:10:30] Speaker D: Well, I think. I think the other pro tip was what Tracy and Michael did, which was instead of going to dinner, they sat at the bar in Palo, had drinks and. And a flatbread because they were still a little hungry. So. Yeah, I thought that sounds heavenly to me. So.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you, Brian. That's something we've got to. Maybe we'll do that the next time we. We book permanente. All right, well, let's dive in and talk about. Let's. Let's start with, you know, getting to the port. Because you're in Barcelona, you're staying at an Airbnb. Any difficulty getting to the port? And how did you get to the port?
[00:11:01] Speaker B: No, there was a taxi stand right down the street from our Airbnb. So we just went and grabbed a couple of taxis, and it was no problem. Got right there.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's a good, important thing to note. You're a family of six, so you probably have to often take two taxis. Instead of taking one, you just split up one Parent with half the kids. One parent with the other half the kids.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes, like, from the airport, we'll book a private car just so we don't have to mess with it. But it was. Taxis were so readily available, there was no need to do that.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: To get to the airport.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: So let's talk about the boarding process. Barcelona is one of those ports that Disney does go to a lot. I'm imagining, unless you are the first cruise of the season where it's always, I think, a mess. I'm imagining. It wasn't too bad of a boarding process. But tell us if it was. If it was.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: No, I mean, we never stopped. Yeah, we got there. I think our port arrival time was like, 11:30. I mean, we just never stopped walking. There was an issue with my daughter's passport that I thought, oh, no, this is what is going to happen. The last time she. We used the passport, it had the wrong birthday, so we changed it in between. You know, we got the updated passport, but I hadn't updated the information with Disney, so they sent me to another desk. But it only took, like, two minutes and.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Right. They just need to scan in or take a new picture of the passport and update the passenger manifest or whatnot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: So it was great. And, yeah, it was perfect. And they weren't boarding just yet, so we hung out. There was a room with some chairs, so we hung out there for a little bit. And then they started calling boarding groups, and it went very quickly. I mean, we were on the ship by 12:30, 12:15, maybe.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Oh, that's great. Well, and you guys are a silver castaway, so you're not getting, like, an early boarding time as if you were, you know, pearl or concierge, but that's early. Like, Only at, like 12:30 to me, is early. I would say.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I was thrilled with that. This is perfect.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: All right. Well, we were born in Group 9, but any. Go ahead.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Oh, no, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I was just going to say there didn't seem like everybody in the boarding groups ahead of us had gotten there because the ship just felt empty when we were for an hour or so.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. That's the best with the day one. When you're. When you're on the ship and there's like, nobody else on the ship. I love that. Do you guys have a tradition? This is your third cruise. You have a tradition for embarkation day of what you do. Are you like, okay, we're running to cabanas or. Oh, we're going to sit down lunch or, oh, we're going to the pool deck and grabbing just pizza and burgers from the pool deck. Like, what's, what's your embarkation day tradition?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: The past few times we had gone to sit down lunch right away, but this time my kids wanted to try the Aqua duck on the drink. So everybody had their bathing suits on or like under their clothes. So we went up to the pool deck and did that for a while. And then when it started getting a little busier, we changed clothes and went to sit down lunch. So we got the best of both worlds.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Nice. Oh, sit down lunch was still going. That's awesome. I think it usually is. It goes until like maybe three or so. So you got to get in there, like on embarkation day in time. But that's a great. That's a really smart way of doing it. I love that. All right, well, let's, let's dive in and talk about these ports because this is obviously when you're in Europe, like, the ports are the star. Not to say the ship isn't amazing, but the ports are really the star of Europe. Let's talk about. We're going to kind of skip over Barcelona and London because obviously, you know, those are awesome ports to be at, but those are your embarkation and debarkation ports. We want to talk about your ports stops while you're on the cruise. So let's start with Lisbon.
What excursion did you book for Lisbon? Was it one of the DCL ones? The Viator ones? And what was it?
[00:14:40] Speaker B: This one was through Viator. It was a tuk tuk tour and they see six, so that worked out perfectly. And one reason I went with booking through Viator rather than Disney, they had a million tuk tuks lined up. You could have booked through them, but through them you booked per person, and through Viator you just booked one price. So it was pretty significantly cheaper. And we met him in the exact same spot and I'm sure did probably the same things. This was by far our favorite day. Loved this day. It was so much fun. We had a great driver. He was good with the kids. My daughter had taken a camera and she really wanted to get pictures of different things. It was no problem to stop and let her do what she wanted to do. And, I mean, he gave us all sorts of interesting history about Portugal and the city of Lisbon and the places we were going. We loved it.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's awesome. You know, we had somebody else on. I want to say either earlier in the season, or maybe it was last year even. Who talked about these Tuk Tuk tours in, I believe in Lisbon and also raved about them. So it sounds like this is maybe the thing to do in Lisbon now. Now, did you guys have to get two Tuk Tuks or were you able to fit in one?
[00:15:53] Speaker B: There's a driver and then there's six passengers.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: So we were able to fit perfect.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it was ideal. And we met him right there. We got off the ship and he was waiting for us. We communicated through WhatsApp. So he was like, I'm standing by the police. Women. Like, great. It could not have been easier to find him. I mean, it was just. It was everybody's highlight. We loved this day so much.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's awesome. And he took you to like the major sites in the city, I presume?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Yes. I mean, there was. He told us about the revolution, which was very interesting. And when I'm talking about history, my kids were as engaged in this as I was. Like, they were asking questions. He made it vivid. And he was talking about recent history. They had a dictator at one point. I mean, it was interesting. So we saw several churches. We saw like the major statue there. I think it's called the Tower of Belem. He took us. They're known for their. It's this custard, like, pastry treat. I'm blanking on the name, but they're known for that. So we went to like the factory that makes them and got a little bit of behind the scenes tour. Our guide happened to also be a photographer, so he was taking great pictures. He was posing our kids. They would not have listened to me if I had said like, you know, put your arm around your sister.
But they were taking direction from him. So we got great pictures. What else did we do? Oh, we walked. Oh, at the end, he dropped us off at. It's called Timeout market. They have them. I don't know if you're familiar. It's basically like a huge food court. Then they had like a vendors. So we ate there and then got some gelato and like walked along the ocean back to the ship. It felt like we saw everything we could have possibly wanted to see.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Awesome. How was the food and how is. Is it the. The pastis. The pastry?
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like, I was looking it up online because I've heard that it's like an egg custard or a custard tart kind of a thing.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost like creme brulee. Crust on top. Yeah, it was good. You put cinnamon and or honey, I think were the two options to top it with.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yum.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: So, yeah, that was fun.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: And the other, the food court food, was that. Was that good too? I love, I love hearing about food.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah, there were a ton of options. We ended up with burgers and pizza. Yeah, but what are you going to do? But that's okay. It was good.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: That's a. Kids you mentioned. Well, and you mentioned in particular, one of your kids has some food limitations, so I get that too. And we have. We've got a 10 year old heal eat burgers, French fries, pizza, pasta, that sort of thing. So unfortunately not. Not the most carbs.
[00:18:23] Speaker D: Carbs and more cards.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Carbs, exactly.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: They did give us mayonnaise to dip our fries in. So, like, that was the taste of local culture.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: I guess Brian will. Brian would be okay with that. I would be like, I just won't dip my fries. I just. I can't. Yeah, I just can't. I mean, like, barbecue sauce is okay. Ketchup is okay. I actually am just fine with plain fries if the fries are good enough anyway. Hilarious. All right, well, let's talk about your next port of call. We'll go, of course, back. I know that you didn't have every port consecutively, but we'll talk ports first and then we'll go back and talk about some of the stuff you guys did on the ship. So you had two smaller ports you mentioned in Spain. What were the two? Or what was the first of the two?
[00:19:07] Speaker B: I think the first one was the Bigo. And what had. Oh, Viga was on a Sunday. And I had. And it's a smaller town. So we understood Church day. Yeah, Church day. As some things were going to be closed. So we booked an afternoon tour through Disney, a tour that afternoon that went to a town called Bayona, where there was an old fortress that the Spanish government had turned into this resort. So you can tour this like a replica of one of Christopher Columbus's ships. And then you walk over to this fortress and walk around and there's some snacks. So we did that in the afternoon and then in the morning we just got off the ship and walked around a little bit, got some good coffee, enjoyed the town, you know, just got a little flavor of the architecture. But when we went on the Disney excursion, I think the bus ride was about an hour and they had a tour guide kind of talking about what we're seeing, what we're going to see. That was about it. So we got there, like I said, toured the ship, the replica of the Pinta Maria, I believe. And that was interesting. It was so tiny. You think of a ship that's crossing the ocean that it's going to be big. I think it was 26ft long.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Wait, the Santa Maria, right? The Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Maria, right?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Santa Maria, yes.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: I may have said the wrong name of what we were on. It was one of them. It was small.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: One of them. Okay, well, it's one of the. Either the Nina, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria. Okay. Those are the famous ones. Right. So fun. Yes. Now, how. What would you say as far as this excursion? Like, was it worth it? Obviously there's, you know, some limitation being there on a Sunday. And this is just a thing in Europe in general, especially smaller towns. Right. On a Sunday, it's their church day. These are, like, generally Catholic countries where a lot of things do shut down on Sunday. Like, did you feel like this was a worthwhile excursion, knowing those limitations?
[00:21:09] Speaker B: I felt like it was as advertised, pretty much.
There wasn't a ton that we wanted to do from. And there wasn't a lot to book through Viator, but we didn't want to just wander around, especially given that it was a Sunday and that town is pretty much like, uphill. People talk about walking up the hill. There's something that you see at the top. I did not think we really wanted to walk up the hill, and we didn't want to stay on the ship. So this was kind of the best option. I mean, it was beautiful.
We enjoyed it. If there was something else, I probably would do the. I would investigate the something else, I think. Gotcha. But, I mean, I'm glad we did it.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I get the sense that you weren't wowed by this excursion, but it's also, like, it wasn't terrible. Right. And it was, like, a decent thing to do when there weren't a lot of other, you know, a lot of other options. And there weren't better options that appeared available. Okay.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Well, that makes sense. All right, well, so let's talk about your third port of call. Another small town in Spain. Tell me the name of it.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: La Corona.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: La Caronia. Okay. What did you guys do in La Caronia? This is another Viador. One then.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: This is another Viador. And it wasn't until two. So we. And I think we got in port at, like, 8.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: So we. Yeah. So we got up and got off the ship, and my Younger kids wanted a beach day. They said, why don't we just go to the beach? So there's like a, I want to say like a 10 mile long stretch of beach that you can just walk to. My husband tried to grab a cab and the guy said, you can just. It's just right down the road, like you should really just walk.
Which was nice of him. So we just walked to this promenade and there, I mean, there were a lot of people on the beach, but the beach was so huge.
There was plenty of room. So we did that until, I don't know, noon or one. And that was really nice.
It was like a sandy beach. Not pebbly, the water was clear.
We built a sandcastle replica of the fortress that we saw the day before, which was fun. We really enjoyed just that, like, relaxing hangout. So we did that and ended up grabbing like some quick pool deck food to make it to our Segway tour. That was, I think two or three that day.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Oh, nice. A Segway tour. Awesome.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: And that was fun. There's something called the, I want to say the Tower of Hercules.
And so we took a cab there and met our Segue tour guide and he gave us all some quick lessons. It was fine. I was concerned it was going to be like those hoverboards, I don't know, but it was fine. It was not a hoverboard situation.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: It was like the full stand up segue with the handles and all of that. People can't see me because we're just recording audio, but I'm motioning to Jill as if the world can see me.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: I mean, and I knew it was going to have the handles, but I just was a little dicey. I've seen my kids fall off those hoverboards. Like, I'm too old to do that.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: I'd be afraid of myself on those. I would have, like, no worries about Nathan. I feel like Nathan would pick it up in like two seconds. Brian probably pick it up like much quicker than I as well. But I'd be worried about my Brian.
[00:24:32] Speaker D: Brian would be on the side of the road, you know, I'm not sure which.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: I think you would be fine, Brian. You're like, I feel like you figure out that stuff quickly. I would be the one.
[00:24:44] Speaker D: I picture something more like a Mr. Bean movie. But yeah, keep going.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: It was easy. Nobody be scared. It was really easy and it was fun.
People were walking up the hill to this big tower and we were able to just go on our, scoot on.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Up, zooming by Them.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yes. And we went around. There was a big park area that you could walk around or segue around, I guess. So we saw a few things of interest that our guide would pull over. There was a, like a small. It wasn't like a replica of Stonehenge, but it was that style of rocks and they had positioned it to where there would be like you could take a picture like through the rock and see this tower behind you. And kind of different. Yeah. I mean, very Instagrammable. Yes. It was right up their alley. I didn't even know that that was a thing that was happening, but they really liked that.
And there was an old mosque, I believe there were just kind of some things to see around this little park area. And then we segued up to this tower of Hercules, which this town. There's a myth that it was founded by some Hercules from Greek mythology.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Right, By Hercules and the gods. Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Now was this a group tour? Like, were there other folks with you or was this a private tour for just your family?
[00:26:05] Speaker B: This was a private tour just for our family. And again, there was not a ton to book either through Disney. I think there was a cheese making tour that you could have booked. But my son couldn't eat the cheese and I kind of hated to take him to take it.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that would be a bummer. Like if you've got like a non lactose eater. Right. Or non cheese eater, you know, in general, like. Yeah, I would think that would be kind of sad to bring them along for a cheese making.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And there was a beer something. Some sort of like beer flight again.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Right. So. And there was a tour to Santiago de Compostela. I know that's not the right thing, but you know, the like people walk the Santiago Trail. It's like a spiritual experience. Do you know what I'm talking about?
[00:27:00] Speaker A: I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, you do.
[00:27:02] Speaker D: He had a friend who did that. We had a friend who did that. That's what Malka did. Yeah.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Oh yeah. I thought that's like a multi day thing though.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: No, no, I think it is. You're not doing the excursion.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: They're just like going to that trail. They're not like going and doing like a little.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: There's a church you end at and you go to this church. That's the excursion. But you're not like hiking this trail, I guess.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Okay. But I wasn't sure. I mean, people that did it really seemed to like that you could have done that from Vigo as well.
But I want to say it was like a six hour round trip thing and I just wasn't sure. I'm glad we didn't sign up for that. I think we really enjoyed the beach time and the Segway tour was super easy. It was just right off the ship. So that worked for us. But I think that was kind of the big option other people did on this day if they didn't go to the beach.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's nice. I mean, I like your option better myself. I probably would have opted if I was choosing between your plan or going on a six hour excursion to go like make a pilgrimage to a church and come back. I would probably choose the beach on the Segway.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: I know I would like to be the person that got a lot out of the church and the. But I just thought we're going to be on a bus and I just don't know. I don't want to drag my teenagers across this situation. So this worked out great for us and we really enjoyed this day too.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Well, and that's the hard thing about some of the ports in Europe with these longer bus rides. Right. Like, because if you are pulling into a smaller town, then a lot of the excursions are to, you know, the bigger town that might be two hours away or something like that. And that's. And that's, I mean, fine for some people, but not necessarily for, for everyone. All right, well, so that is. That's your three port stops. You mentioned that you were originally scheduled to go to Cartagena, but that got canceled because of the, the whale situation. They didn't want to hurt any whales, so no whales were hurt on this Disney cruise. At least that we think of. Yeah. So let's talk about on board stuff. You know, you've got four kids, you mentioned three of them. Or Vibe age. One of them. Edge age. Let's talk about the kid. I'm gonna call them kids clubs. I know they're like teen clubs, tween clubs, whatever, but I'm gonna call them kids clubs. Cause that's just the verbiage I always use. Do your, do your kids go to Edge and Vibe? Are they into that? Do they like the organized activities? Do they just go there for the first day, make friends and then never go back? Like what, what's their vibe of ship life?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a mix of all of that. My Edge aged son, he will look on the app and he always goes the first night to meet people and then he'll kind of pick and choose his activities that he wants to go to. But he does like the organized. I think they had an improv night where you could get up and tell jokes or whatever. There was a talent show and then, you know, the counselors are so good, or cast members, I guess, drawing the kids out and really helping them feel comfortable. So he went every day, I think, but he didn't stay for hours. And then my Vibe aged kid, my 14 year old, was kind of similar in how he used the Vibe. He would go when there was a specific thing he wanted to do. And then my daughter met people and ran off around the ship and.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: And you never saw her again.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that was it. That was it. She had met Fiona on Instagram before we left and she had a vacation with Fiona.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: I love it. I love that your daughter. Your daughter and her friend Fiona were just off gallivanting the ship.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Yes. And they had a great time. I mean, they watched Inside out too, and they did midship detective and, you know, just enjoy that independence that you can give them on the ship. We don't live in a walkable city and they're not driving yet, and so it's limited. So it was nice that they could just truly just do wherever, whatever they wanted.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't have to drive them to go see their friends. They could just meet their friends outside the door. Right?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And come up with their own fun. There was lots of meeting at the soft serve.
Yeah. And then my other son, he went to Vibe a ton and he mostly stayed in Vibe. He really likes the card games and the Mario Kart tournaments and all of that stuff. So we could sometimes see him. They have their own pool deck area, so we could sometimes see him playing cards with people on the pool deck when we would happen to be in the area.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah, you could be doing your walk around the deck, deck four or whatever, and see down and see that he's just playing cards. That's awesome. I love that.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was. Well, it was a good mix of doing stuff and hanging out with us a little bit too.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, then, I mean, you probably got some adult time considering, you know, kids are sort of coming and going at those ages. It's like they do want some independence. And like you said, they get some more independence than they get at home. What kinds of stuff did you and your husband, you know, find yourselves getting up to without the kids? Let's talk about first.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Well, like I said, this was the first time we had enjoyed the adult pool deck. And this was like a Revelation to me.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: So fun. Like I had really only been on the kids pool deck.
I mean, it's lovely, but it's not where I really wanted to be.
So the adult side, it was great. I read three full books on our days.
Love it. So that during the day that is kind of what we ended up doing.
And then sometimes in the evening we went to. I think is it pink? There's like a champagne bar.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Yeah, the champagne bar. There's pink and ooh la la. I never remember which. I think ooh la la is on the fantasy. I think pink is on the dream. So I think it's pink. Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: So we really enjoyed. I made some notes here. Like, what did we do?
We enjoyed listening to a guy that was playing Disney jazz. Oh, lovely.
Yeah. What else did we do? It was nice just to kind of explore the ship. We hadn't been on this ship before and there's so many spaces. Yeah, that was the main thing that we did adult wise. And then as a family, we went to some game shows.
We had to kind of order our kids to meet us places a couple of different times. Like, hey, before dinner, why don't you meet us here for 30 minutes? And.
And they ended up really. They liked it. Everybody liked it. We went to one of the family time game shows.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you guys compete in any of the family game shows? Like, so I know they do. There's like an inside out themed one. There's like a Mickey Mouseketeer themed one. There's a bunch of different ones that they do throughout the cruises.
Did you guys ever volunteer to be one of the families or teams?
[00:33:58] Speaker B: We enthusiastically volunteer, but we were not chosen.
But we had fun watching everybody.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Awesome. It happens, you know. What about trivias? Are you guys trivia people as well or more.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: I want to relax on the pool deck. Oh, trivia. Okay. Which trivias did you get into?
[00:34:17] Speaker B: My youngest son, the one that was not super into or the one that kind of popped in and out of Edge. He is a big trivia junkie too. So we made sure to go to. There were two Marvel trivias. We went to a Star wars trivia.
My favorite is the brain teaser. So we did that.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: That's the one that Brian and I love. That's the only one that we can win medals at, like fairly often. Yeah, we do not win medals at any of the other ones. And we don't. To be fair, we don't win medals every time we do brain teasers either. It's just like, that's the one that we, I think, have, like, a better chance of winning.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I felt like I have. I'm on fair footing with everyone else, but the Disney Focus trivia, I have no idea. And I thought my son, he is really into Marvel. I honestly thought he would do a little better on the Marvel trivia, but it's hard.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Really hard.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: He got 15 out of 20, which is pretty good. But as much as he watches Marvel, I would have thought. I thought he would have aced it.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: I feel like they ask such obscure questions, though. They ask about really minor characters and things like that. They just ask. Yeah. Or, like, locations or, you know, they just ask these, like, details that I'm like, yeah, I've watched all the Marvel movies, but there's no way I would have known that piece of information. Right.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Like, yeah, it was more than just the plot of the movies. Yes. And then there were two adult teams that tied, and the tiebreaker question was, like, related to. I mean, the answer was, like, a comic from 1964. It was very specific, and they knew it, so.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Oh, my God. So they. Yeah, so they're like. So there's, like, Marvel people who are, like, MCU Marvel people. Right. And then there's, like, Marvel people who are, like, have, like, all the comics. Have read all of the comics, like, are hardcore into all the lore and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. There's the same for Star Wars. There's those people, too. I'm just saying, with Marvel, like, there's so many different comic books that these things are based on. Right. Like, I would have never known, I guess, that, you know, it was recently announced about Robert Downey Jr. Is going to be Dr. Doom. And apparently in the comic books, like, Dr. Doom becomes.
Becomes Iron man at some point in, like, the comic books. Right. But it's like an altern. It's an alternate universe, or, you know, it's not the main Iron man or Tony Stark. Iron Man. So, anyway, well, I'm gonna give a.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: Warning to all of our listeners out there who actually read these comic books that Sam could be butchering this entire thing.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Oh, I probably am. I probably. But let me just. Let me. Let me be clear. Yeah, let me be clear. This is, like, what I'm, like, this is what I've gleaned from the interwebs. Like, I have not read any of these comic books myself. I'm just saying, like, there's things that are like, I would never know that. Right. Like, but apparently there's something like that I'm sure I'm in the realm of getting it, you know, half right. Anyway, well, okay, so let's dive in and talk about my favorite topic, which is shows. Now, this was your first time on the Dream. You had been on the Wonder before. Had you been on the Magic or just the wonder?
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Just the wonder.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Okay, so you. So on the Wonder, you. So you'd seen like three shows on the Wonder. You got three different shows. I believe on the dream did you go.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: It was Pity and the Beast. Believe. I don't remember what the third one was. I was trying to think of it this morning.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Beauty and the Beast Believe. Isn't Golden Mickey's on the Dream? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: We knew we were gonna skip Golden Mickey's. Yeah.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So I'm trying to think. Yeah. Cause Golden Mickey's is on. Is Golden Mickey's on the Wonder also? Yes, that might be.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Okay, so.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
So you had two new to you shows. Yeah. Yes, I'm trying to. It's hard to remember. Cause obviously a lot of. Several of the shows are on two ships. Some of the shows are only on one ship. Some of them soon to be on two or three ships, depending upon when, you know, destiny and, well, treasure and then destiny and whatnot. So anyway, okay, so two new shows for your family. Did the kids go to the shows? I mean, you got tween and teens, like, do they do shows?
[00:38:30] Speaker B: They love them. We are Broadway across America subscribers in our town. Love, love, love the shows. So we were excited to see Beauty and the Beast and it delivered. It was fantastic. You did not oversell it. I mean, it was so, so well done. We loved it.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: I love that I did not oversell it because I have really sold it hard, I feel like on this show.
So I think I'm like, thank God I've sold it hard because it's that good, right?
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it was really good. It's amazing that they can do that in the middle of the ocean.
So we gave the other one Believe. We gave it a try. But you know what? I think we're just going to go shopping. But we gave it a shot. Everybody's very talented.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: I love the way you say that. That's so judicious.
[00:39:24] Speaker D: Believe is dreams is the one that's the old man in the flower, right?
[00:39:27] Speaker A: No, Believe is the man in the flower. The believe is the one with the dad. The flower the daughter dreams is the one that is the middle school or the girl going to middle school, Brian with Peter Pan and. Yeah. So the one she's talking about is the man in the flower. Yeah. Which I want to put it out there. Like, I have teased about this show a lot. Like, as Jill has mentioned, the actors, the performers are wonderful and there are some wonderful musical scenes. Like there are some wonderful musical numbers that they do in the show. I just, I find the plot to be just so dopey and so I just, I can't really, you know. Yeah, it just doesn't do it for me.
[00:40:06] Speaker D: All hate mail should go to samcl.com.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: I will say, I think that if we're comparing between Believe and Dreams, I think that Dreams is the better of the two as far as like, I mean, they both have great musical numbers, but Dreams I think has a better plot line and it's relatable to more people. I mean, there is a sweetness about the father daughter relationship in Believe. But anyway, we can move on.
[00:40:33] 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 Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOMYPATHunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks. My Path Unwind winding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Okay, I know Brian wants to talk about food. So Brian.
[00:41:38] Speaker D: I love how you hand it over to me. You want to ask questions about food? Well, how was the food?
[00:41:41] Speaker A: I know.
[00:41:41] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I wish you know, we got Paulo to talk about. We got, we got deck food to talk. We got a bunch of things. I'll let you start.
[00:41:47] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I. Yeah, let's start with main dining. So Jill, how did your family enjoy kind of the rotational dining, the food quality the service, the shows. What did you think of rotational dining on Disney Cruise Line?
[00:41:58] Speaker B: That is a highlight. This was a very unexpected highlight. Before we went on our first cruise, I did not get why people are talking about the servers and mentioning them by name. Like, I don't understand. I'm not sure.
I was very confused by this whole culture.
Now I get it. This was a highlight. My kids were super excited. They love all the riddles that the servers will do. Like, with the crayons. Do you know what I'm talking about?
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They'll give you a certain number of crayons, and they'll, like, in a certain position, and they'll tell you, make this into the one where every dad in the world.
Yeah.
[00:42:35] Speaker D: The one where every dad in the world, including me, is like, don't worry. I got this. And then 20 minutes later is like, I don't got this.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: My boys are really, really sharp. We are at the point where they're surpassing me.
I'm a mathematician, and I'm always saying, like, I can do it. I can do it. And then one of them will move it around. Like, oh, I guess I did it.
So anyway, so we are super excited. Have really enjoyed that in the past. And we had early dining, and we went to early dining, and my kids had. One of them had, like, a brain teaser ready for the server. And it was such a fiasco. I mean, we never. This first night, we didn't meet our head server. I think our drinks came, like, after our food, which it was just. I don't know what was happening, but it was, like, a significant meltdown. And I was looking around, and it was not just our table. It was. I don't know what was going on. Yeah. But it was kind of a mess. And so we ended up. I talked to guest services, and I'll just include this just so if anybody else is kind of in the same boat, this is what I had to do. I talked to guest services, like, three or four different times to try to get moved to late dining. And I never. Like, nobody ever got back to me. They kept saying, we'll give you a call. We'll give you a call. I never got a call. So we ended up just going to the restaurant, like, a little bit before our dining the second night, and we were able to get moved to late dining, and it was great.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: Oh, good. Okay.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: So it worked out perfectly.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: That's a. So one of the things. This is actually a really good tip.
The Guest services doesn't deal with the dining arrangements in general. They're actually a different department. Right. So they're like part of like hotel and food and beverage is a part. Is a different department. And so you gotta talk to somebody in dining to change your dining. And on the first day, on embarkation day in the afternoon, like when you. You first board, there will usually be a place to go to. They'll tell you if you need to make any dining changes, you go to this location. Right. But they're only set up for a couple of hours and then they're gone. And they're not there after your first dining. It's only usually because most people are making changes before. Right. Like they want. They didn't get what they wanted ahead of time. And it's usually people who didn't get into early dining, they want to move into early dining from late dining. Right. Because they have young kids. Kids. And so it usually. Not all the time, but usually it's easier to move from early dining to late dining because that tends to be less subscribed. With some exceptions. Europe is probably a little bit skews, probably more. A little bit more evenly. And same with Alaska, because people, they know the port days are long days, and so they want to, you know, maximize their time off the ship or whatever. But yeah, I do think that's. That's super, super smart. Yeah. Go see a dining manager, find somebody from dining and get. And get changed if you get a really. If you get a really rough serving team. Wow.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Guest services kept telling me, we will talk to main dining and have them call you. And they just were not doing that.
So, yeah, we just showed up and that worked out perfectly.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Well. And then did you end up with a good dining team then after?
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Fantastic. Yes, Absolutely fantastic. We loved them.
Yeah, they were great. My daughter and I were walking off the ship in one of the ports, and this guy walked by me on the way up and grabbed my arm and said, you better make it back on time. And it caught me so off guard. It was our server.
I didn't recognize him in street clothes.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Right. He's like, don't miss dinner. I've got special something waiting for you. Nice. I love that. That's awesome.
[00:46:24] Speaker D: Better make it back. How ominous.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: I mean, they were so nice the last night. Our assistant server just kind of looked just not his usual self. And my son patted him on the arm and said, are you okay? And he said, well, my grandmother passed away. She was 102. Oh, I know. Which was you know, I'm.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: And he's got to like work the rest of. Yeah, I mean, it's like he's like grieving and he still has to work and. Oh, well, I'm. Listen, I really think it's awesome that your kid noticed and said something right. Like that shows a lot of empathy and, you know, caring for other people. And I like, you love meeting, you know, the servers because they become such an important part of your cruise. And like, I love getting to know them and ask them about their families and all that kind of stuff. I think that's such like. I don't know. One of my favorite things about Disney Cruise Line is that connection that you can form with cast members and especially your dining team. That's like, I mean, that's the people you probably spend the most time with unless you're a kid in one of the kids club, hang out with, you know, a couple of individual counselors. So. Yeah. Oh, well, I, I know.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: I just thought that.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: I'm so glad that he asked and you know, I feel of course, terrible for the. That cast member having to continue working through that.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: But yeah, I just thought it spoke to the connection that you do make with them or that's something he felt comfortable sharing and it was a nice moment of connection.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:03] Speaker D: How are the shows?
How are the shows on board? Yeah. With the dining.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: The dining room shows. Well, yeah, you've got two shows in Animators because you've got a week long cruise on the Dream. So this would be your first time having Crush. Right. And then you might have had animation magic before in Alaska, but you probably wouldn't have had it on the repositioning cruise if that was a shorter cruise on the one.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: You know what, we actually had the animation magic on both cruises. I don't think we'd seen Crush before, but we missed one of the animator nights on our Alaska trip. So I don't know if it was there or not.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: No, it's not on the Magic and the Wonder at all.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: I mean, I think Crush is so funny. I thought it was hilarious. I mean, I loved it. I was thoroughly entertained. My kids were kind of groaning, but I thought it was really cute.
[00:48:55] Speaker A: I love it too. I mean, but I also will go to the Crush show at Disneyland. Like in California Adventure on. Yeah, well, yeah. Disney World too, at Epcot. Oh, yeah, we go to Disneyland more. So they have it in Disneyland also. It's on like Hollywood street or whatever that street is called in California Adventure as well. But yeah, I Love that show. Like, I'm the one dragging, like, Nathan to it. He's like, whatever.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: I just think it's so clever.
So we enjoyed that. And then, yeah, we had done animation magic before, but that never gets old. To see your picture up there and figure out what you're gonna. What you're gonna do. We had been talking about it, like, knowing that was coming up. I think those are the only two shows, aren't they?
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: That should be Garden and Royal Palace. Yeah.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that should be the only two shows on the. I wanna ask, did you have a deck party? You wouldn't have had fireworks, obviously, in Europe. That's. That's pretty standard. But did they do any kind of deck party? Like the. Like the. What is that color? Spin one or frozen or.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: I think it was pirate. There was a pirate party, I believe.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: Oh, pirate. Okay, there you go.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: And I. Maybe I'm getting my cruises mixed up. I think we did have fireworks. I'm almost positive we did.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: You might have. It depends. It depends where you are in Europe as to whether or not you're, like, sort of far enough away from land that they will do fireworks. It really. It just depends. Like, certain parts of. Like, in certain parts of Europe, they don't do it at all. And other ones, they are able to do it. I just don't know which ones are which, to be perfectly honest.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Okay, well, now I'm questioning my memory. I felt like there was so much happening in this span. I feel like we did, but maybe we didn't. But we did go to the pirate deck party, and that was fun, and I think it ended with fireworks, but somebody can fact check me. But we enjoyed it regardless. It was cute.
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, did we. Did we miss anything? Were there any other, like, big things you guys did that you wanted to share with? Oh, we gotta talk about Paulo. I feel like.
[00:50:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I was just gonna say, did we talk about Palo? I didn't think we touched about Palo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: How was Palo?
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, fantastic. It was wonderful.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: We loved it.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: What did you eat? Of course. We gotta hear that.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: You know what? I took notes.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: I love that you took notes.
Had you done Paulo before on the Wonder?
[00:51:15] Speaker B: We did it on the repositioning cruise and loved it. And I'm not really a big foodie and neither is my husband, so I wasn't sure, like, if we would feel like that was worth spending the time. Oh, absolutely. It was a must do. I'm so glad we were able to get it. I can't what did we eat?
[00:51:30] Speaker A: I love that you. I also love that you were successful in getting it on board. Right. So, like, I feel like I evangelize this all the time, but I wanna like, repeat this, this if you don't get it ahead of time on the first day on embarkation day, wherever they tell you the, that the dining changes or dining requests are go there at the time that they, you know, open. And the worst you can do is get your name on a wait list and it doesn't come through. Right. Like there's no, no harm in at least trying. And a lot of the time it will come through it now on a shorter, like a three night cruise. No, that's a lot harder. Like it might not come through because there's literally only one brunch day and same with. Even a four night cruise is the same. It's just. There's usually just one, maybe two brunch days depending upon if they do it at Nassau. But. Yeah, I love that you did it.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: I felt like they had just a row of tables they had saved because the person that went right in front of me asking for Paulo brunch was seated right next to us when we showed up the next day. But like, they just filled up this table.
But it was great. Oh, we had the Mickey waffle for the first time.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: Huge and delicious ginormous Mickey.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah, not the Mickey waffle that is in the, in the, in cabanas, people. This is like a ginormous Mickey waffle.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: Yes. This was an elevated Mickey waffle with some delicious strawberry topping. We had the margarita flatbread. We had the tomato soup, which I had not heard people talking about. It was so good.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: So good. Yeah, I like the tomato soup.
Brian likes the celery soup even better. But both are like, really, really good.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll have to try the celery soup next time. I did not get that.
[00:53:16] Speaker D: I mean, the problem is there's too much. There's too much good food.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Right? That's the real thing. There's too much. Everything is like, yeah, that's why I always skip the brunch foods. It's not that the brunch foods aren't good. The brunch foods are great. I just skip them because I need to fill my, my, my pie hole with soup and pizza and chicken parm and bread. I always eat the bread. I generally skip the desserts just because I'd rather eat the savory stuff. Of course.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: So you gotta strategize.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. You have to. Because if you go there, like, on, like, you've eaten, like a full, you know, cabanas breakfast, like, then it's not worth it. Right. Because you can't stuff your face at least in my.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. And I really like. I mean, cabanas is great, but I just like sitting down. I mean, and having someone bring me the food that I don't have to, like, go scavenge around for. So even on a non palo day, I'll go to sit down breakfast, and if we're on the ship, sit down lunch just because I like it. I mean, I ordered a diet Coke and they brought it in a glass with a lemon wedge. Like, I feel so pampered and civilized.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: I feel like an adult. Yeah, I totally get that. I love that. The only reason I opted opt against doing every meal, sit down meal only, is because it eats up a lot of time. It's not that. I actually, I. I'm with you. I love the pampering of it. I probably. If it wasn't. If it didn't take as long as it normally takes, I would probably do, like, every meal sit down. But, you know, because I. I'm impatient and I want to do 8 million things every day. I go to cabanas or I get a burger on the pool deck or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:52] Speaker B: There's only so much time in the day. Totally. So we did that. Oh, my husband got a cappuccino at the end of his meal at Palo, and they brought it with four different kinds of sugar. I'm sure you guys have experienced this.
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:55:05] Speaker B: That was just. It's those little elevated touches that make it feel special.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. They bring you, like, the plain, like, white sugar. They bring you, like, the white rock sugar. They bring you the brown rock sugar. They bring me the brown crystal sugar. Like, it's. Yeah, it's just like. It's an experience. Like everything there is an experience. Now, you guys met, you mentioned you're not really a foodie. So you didn't go for Remy? You didn't decide to. Okay, well, if you want to be adventurous, Remy is a fantastic experience. But we have, as we've said on the show, it's not for everyone. You have to be, like, more willing to be more adventurous than the Paulo meal, but maybe you should think about trying on your next cruise. Paulo dinner.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: I know we actually at one point had a dinner reservation, and like I said, we just. I'm glad we ended up canceling it because we ended up having Longer pool deck days. And then we enjoyed that time as a family.
But maybe we need just a, like, trans Pacific crossing where we can fit in all of these things. You just have to decide what you want to. What you want to spend the time doing.
[00:56:14] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:15] Speaker D: It is. It is hard to. It is hard to prioritize everything that you can do on board. It's funny because, you know, a lot of times we'll have people on who've done these, like, who've done longer sailings, and people are like, oh, don't you get bored? And it's like, I just don't think you understand the amount of things that you can do in a day on a Disney cruise. And sometimes it's just nice to not have to do anything at all. But, Sam, I think we've reached that point in the show where it's time for you to apply some arbitrary questions, arbitrary rules, and dash of judgments, or the round we know is rapid fire. So take it away.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Thank you, Brian. All right, Jill, you knew this was coming. I am going to ask your Disney favorites, and then I'm gonna ask your Disney cruise line favorites. And you are not limited to the Disney dream. You can answer with anything that was on the Disney Wonder or the Disney Dream. Now that you've been on two ships. You know, you gotta start racking up these castaway club cruises, though, and get on some different ships. But let's start with who is your favorite Disney character? And Disney means anything and everything that Disney owns.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: I think I'm gonna go with Moana.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. Awesome. All right. Favorite Disney movie.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Tangled. I think Tangled is so funny.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. I, of course, thought you were gonna pick Moana, but I am with you on Tangled. All right, favorite Disney song. This might be harder now.
[00:57:32] Speaker B: I'm gonna say surface pressure. I love Lin Man Malaranza, and I think he does clever.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Yes. Which is, you know, that's also why Moana is so great. But, you know. Yeah, I'm with you on all of these. Love it. Okay, now we're gonna move on to the ships favorite Disney Cruise line stage show. And why is it Beauty and the Beast?
[00:57:51] Speaker B: I mean, it's obviously Beauty and the Beast because that is the superior stage show.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: It is, right? It is the superior stage show. I will say honorable mention between. Honorable mention to Frozen. Right on the Wonder. It's a fantastic show as well. Yeah. Okay. I love it. All right, thank you. Thank you for agreeing me. You've already won. Okay, let's start with what's Your favorite bar space on Disney Cruise Line. You did get to go, you know, and spend a little bit of time. Now that you've, you know, got teenagers and tweens or tween, you can spend a little time in those adult bars.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: What is the one on Wonder? That's like. It's Cadillac Lounge.
[00:58:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Is that what it is?
[00:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:31] Speaker B: We did a couple of drink tastings there and just had a great experience with a cast member there and just liked it.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and that matters too. It's like in dining, who you have really matters. Also who your bartender or server is at the different adult bar spaces. They can really, like, make those experiences. All right, well, let's talk favorite onboard activity. What's a favorite thing that you, Jill, not the rest of the family, that you like to do on board a Disney cruise? Again, it could be something you did on the Dream. It could be something you did on the Wonder. Doesn't matter.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
I am going to say I really just liked the adult pull back. Just laugh. It was so nice and I felt just pampered. Like, this is really lovely.
[00:59:18] Speaker A: I mean, who doesn't like to lay there and read three books in a cruise? I love that. Chill.
[00:59:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Staring at the European countryside going by. It was great.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. Awesome. All right, well, I can't wait for you to get back on actually magic class. So magic or wonder in some place where it's warm. Because that pool deck is fantastic. Also. I feel like the quiet cove pool there. All right, well, let's talk rotational dining. Now, you've been on two ships. They've got some differences, some similarities. Of course, you have animators on both, but they are different animators.
What's your favorite rotational dining?
[00:59:57] Speaker B: Restaurant animators palette. It's so cute.
[01:00:01] Speaker A: It is so cute.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: I like the theming.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: Hands down.
[01:00:06] Speaker A: All right, let's. Let's talk favorite food item. We gotta do a favorite sweet item. A favorite savory item again, can be from any of your three cruises. What's a favorite sweet item on DCL for you?
[01:00:22] Speaker B: I knew this was coming, so I had to really think about it. I am not much of a sweets fan. Yeah, same the panna cotta from Palo.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: So good. We had it on our repositioning cruise and I was so excited to go have it again. It's so good.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: All right, Okay. I this. You and I are going to part ways on that one only because I just don't like custardy puddingy Things like, I'm just. I. I can't get behind that kind of texture. But it's. But it's just a me thing. That's not a you thing, so. All right, a favorite favorite.
[01:00:56] Speaker D: That shows enormous growth, Sam, for you to say it's a me thing.
[01:01:00] Speaker A: That's a huge. It's a me thing. Yeah. I'm just not, like, I don't do creme brulees. I don't do custards. I don't do panna cottas. I don't do. I don't do flan. Like, I just. I don't do. I don't do, basically, desserts that, like, jiggle. I don't do. I don't mess with.
All right, favorite savory item, though. You did say you're a savory person, so.
[01:01:22] Speaker B: Yes. The beef empanadas on embarkation day.
[01:01:25] Speaker A: Oh, that's a good one.
[01:01:27] Speaker B: So good. With whatever little sauce.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:31] Speaker B: Yes, it was great.
[01:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, those are. I mean, those are excellent.
I had not thought to include those as a top savory item, but they're probably like. Yeah, they would rate up.
[01:01:43] Speaker D: We had them on their buffet on our podcast cruise. That's how much we did.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: We did. Yeah. They gave us a list of options for our podcast cruise. We had, like, a cocktail hour reception kind of a thing on the first night, and they gave us a list of, like, appetizers we could choose from. I think we got, like. It was, like, two. It was five total. I can't remember if it was, like, too hot and three cold or hot and too cold. But as soon as I saw the list and I saw beef empanadas on there, that was literally the first choice for both. Brian and I were like, absolutely. This is a must. Must have. Okay, now, this is, of course, a. You know, this is controversial, but which one of the two ships that we've been on is your favorite ship? Right. You've got the Wonder and the Dream, two different classes. Which one do you like better?
[01:02:31] Speaker B: Oh, it was. This was an easy one. This is the Wonder.
[01:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:35] Speaker B: The Dream is lovely, but the Wonder is just great.
[01:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah. There's just something about her. I don't know what it is, but there's something about her. All right, well, my last question in rapid fire, same question I ask everyone.
What is your bucket list cruise? If you could go anywhere in the world on Disney Cruise Line, where are you going? And it doesn't even have to. To be someplace that Disney Cruise Line currently goes.
[01:02:58] Speaker B: This is one I forgot Was coming.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: Good. Impromptu.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You know what I would really like an Australia to New Zealand kind of situation. You would have a couple of like several days at sea. See a part of the world I've never been.
Maybe the wonder would go. That would be perfect.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: She's doing it. I mean, it exists. Exactly. You just gotta book it. Jill.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: It sounds like gotta LinkedIn. I wanted to go to New Zealand too. Yeah, I went the whole thing.
[01:03:28] Speaker A: Yes, well, they do both, but they tend to do like. So they have a couple that go between. They're like the re. They're their version of revening ones. Right. So they do have some that go. They'll have like one or two in the season that go between New Zealand and Australia. I don't know which direction or dates or length or anything like that because I haven't paid that much attention to it because it's a long trip to go over there, of course, from the States. Long flight. And then of course you want to spend time in Australia and New Zealand in order to explore because we've never been there either. But yeah, I love that. Awesome. Well, as I said, you already won because you agreed with me on Beauty and the Beast and you told me I didn't oversell it, which I really appreciate. So. Yeah. So thanks for playing, Jill. You can come back anytime.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Well, wonderful. You know, I haven't had the air conditioner on this whole time, so I'm literally sweating.
So it worked out.
I was wonderful.
[01:04:25] Speaker D: Well, Jill, I always like to ask our guests before we wrap up, what's next? What do you have booked? Or maybe just even a placeholder that you're holding onto? Anything you're eyeing?
[01:04:33] Speaker B: Well, we have. We're going to Hawaii. We're not staying at Aulani, but we're gonna check it out while we're there. But cruise wise, I think we are gonna go on the Wonder again from San Diego over spring break. And then we have a 10 night cruise on the Magic booked for next summer. But the verdict is out of if we're gonna go back to Europe or if we're gonna take that. So we'll see.
[01:04:57] Speaker A: Oh, you gotta do a ten night, like Southern Caribbean probably too.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's right before my kids turn 18, so this would be kind of their last hurrah.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: We're gonna let them vote. They're currently voting Europe, but I'm not canceling yet. Yeah, I'm waiting to see if they change their minds. Fair. I would really vote safe.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Listen, both are great options so you can't really go wrong. Both are fantastic options. Awesome. All right, well you got to let us know what they end up choosing. Maybe if they choose the cruise, you got to come back and tell us all about it.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:05:34] Speaker D: Awesome. Well Jill, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to share your fabulous experience with Disney Cruise Line with all of our listeners out there. We really, really appreciate it.
[01:05:42] Speaker B: All right, well thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.
[01:05:48] 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 over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure sure hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts and if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypath unwinding.com DCLDUO 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 as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least in 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
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