[00:00:00] Speaker A: How could you be on the Dream and not go see Beauty and the Beast? Anyone who does that, you, you are not allowed on this show. Just kidding. Ryan will hate me for saying that.
Welcome back to another episode of the DCL Duo Podcast brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. As you can tell from my voice, Brian is not with me today. I am SOL hosting. But I am super excited to have a new first time guest to the show. But before I introduce our lovely guest, I've got to tell you our listener review. This one is from October of 2023 and it's from Joanna143 and I love that she actually, in the body of her review, phonetically wrote out how to pronounce her name. I'm going to tell you Joanna. I actually have a cousin named Joanna who pronounces it exactly as you do. So super easy for me. So the review reads. Love the show. Thank you so much for making this show. I absolutely love it. I grew up going to Disneyland and have yet to go on a cruise. I listen to your show in Northern California and dream about going on a Disney cruise. I've always been concerned about getting seasick since I get car sick if I'm reading a book and got seasick on a ship from Long beach to Catalina Island. You gave me hope, Sam. My sister recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and told me I would not be okay. Does it depend on the size of the ship? Again, thank you for providing information about DCL and bringing me so much joy, Joanna. Okay, well, I'm going to answer your question, Joanna, before I jump in and introduce our guest.
Yes, it does depend on the size of the ship. So a smaller ship. Smaller ships tend to not have stabilizers like cruise ships have. And so cruise ships in general, I think are better in dealing with people who are or accommodating people who tend to get motion sick, car sick, seasick, whatnot. I tend to only get seasick if the seas are really rough on a cruise ship. On smaller boats, it doesn't have to be that rough for me to get for me to get sick or at least nauseous. And I'm the same way as you, Joanna. And reading in the car, I cannot read in the car at all. It doesn't matter if I'm in the front seat, the back seat. If I do more than like look at my phone for a minute or two, I am really, really nauseous. So I would say, though, for my best piece of advice to you, book a short cruise from the East Coast. I know you're on the west coast, but book a short cruise from the. From the east coast because the seas tend to be a little bit calmer in the Atlantic than the Pacific. And get the. Forget how to pronounce it. Scopamine, whatever it's called. But anyway, get your doctor to get you one to prescribe you the patch. And that way you can you. And try that out and definitely try it out before you head onto the high seas. But yeah, appreciate the review. Thank you so much for listening. And if you end up not cruising, at least you're living vicariously through our guests. So I appreciate that.
With that said, I'm going to introduce our guest today. Beth, welcome to the show.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Sam. I'm so happy to be here.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, we're so happy to have you. You know, we have a friend in common. Our show sponsor owner Karen Schell, the owner of My Path Unwinding Travel. Tell us first, how did you. How did you first meet Karen?
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Oh, Karen, who I consider a friend now, just not just my travel advisor. We've never actually met in person, but I have been booking with her for as long as I can remember. I actually stumbled upon her Disney Deluxe Facebook group when she first started it. I think it's probably about nine years ago now, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And basically I loved the way she ran the group. I'm a big, big Disney gal and I like to lean towards the luxury side of things. So when I found this group, it really spoke to me and it became a go to for me. And I had booked my first Disney cruise with a different travel advisor who, honestly, whose name I can't even remember. It was a long time ago now and the experience was fine. But when I realized that I could book with Karen, I said I have to give it a try because she does such a great job of moderating this group of getting information out there to people like me who really want it. And the rest is history.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's awesome. You know, we met Karen also through a Facebook group originally on our. The first time we sailed concierge. We were headed out of New Orleans and it was actually. Kaylee was actually the moderator of the Facebook group for that sailing, and Karen was in the Facebook group and they were doing a My Path Unwinding travel group cruise. And we. We were not part of their group. But, you know, I had been sort of messaging back and forth with. With Kaylee a bunch and Ended up meeting them all on board. And the rest, as they say, is history. So that's, it's always interesting how, you know, we can make these sort of lifelong friends and of course, business associates in some way right through, through these, through these Disney Facebook groups. I like to plug Disney Facebook groups as a general matter. I think they're not all great, but there's a lot of great groups out there. And I do think that there are a lot of great groups that are sort of no judgment zones. And the Disney Deluxe one that you mentioned, as well as the concierge one that my Path Unwinding Travel hosts and moderates. Both of those, I think are really nice sort of judgment free zones and open to people who are, of course, sailing both in the luxury end and in the budget end, but just no judgment. And when people ask about some of these luxury experiences versus some of the regular groups, you know, when some people exercise a little bit, a little bit of judgment on others who are sailing in concierge, for example. Well, let's talk about your cruising background. You know, what got you started cruising on Disney and where does your love of Disney come from?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: So my love of Disney started very early in life, mostly through TV and movies, but my parents did take us on several Disney vacations to Walt Disney World. So I live in Connecticut. I have all of my life, and it was relatively easy to get to Florida. So we went on several vacations. And even as a young child, I remember having the experience I do now as an adult, which is wanting to have another Disney trip on the books while I'm still on my Disney vacation.
That inclination started very, very early for me. And so I went on several Walt Disney World vacations with my family. Always loved it. I have very early memories of staying at the Contemporary resort when it was very new to the whole property and, you know, early Epcot memories. And so I ended up taking a bit of a hiatus from that. But when I was in college, several of my friends did the Disney College program. And so we, I took that opportunity with some other friends. One trip was with a friend, another trip was with some friends from home and my sister. And so several times as a young adult, I did Disney trips, which was such a fun experience to do that more independently. Oh, yeah, take a big. Yeah. Then take a big hop to.
When my son, who just turned 16 about a month ago when he was a baby, I was very antsy to continue our vacation lifestyle, even though I said on two or three occasions that this baby moon was the Last trip in a long time anywhere that I think the first time we traveled with my son Cal, he was six months old, Palm Coast, Florida. And shortly thereafter we decided to hop on to a Walt Disney World trip with my sister. And so my son was just shy of a year and we kind of never looked back. So.
Yeah. So we frequent Walt Disney World. And for a long time we had our eye on Disney Cruise Line. But basically we weren't sure that we wanted to bring a baby simply because it was kind of going to be a little difficult to navigate because we did want to make sure we had space for naps. And, you know, we booked our Disney vacations and our other vacations in a room configuration that allowed us to have a bedroom door that closed. And it just felt complicated. So we waited a little while on that. It was a great idea for us because the first Disney cruise that we went on as a family of three was about, I think it was in 2014. And so at that time, you know, he's about six and the whole cruise world was open to us on the Disney Dream, which was our first ship. So we have. Yeah, so. So we have. We just completed our eighth sailing on Disney Cruise Line last August.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Awesome. Now I know you've sailed once on another cruise line. What was your other sailing that you did and when was that sort of in relation to your Disney cruises?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: So we. So when I was a senior in college, there were 10 girls in our travel group. We sailed on Carnival. I have no idea what ship. I have zero recollection of what ship simply was. We were all 21ish years old, five ladies to a stateroom.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: I just. I know. And we laugh. Looking back, we have all these amazing pictures. I have no idea how we even navigated things because now I'm a huge planner and, and everything I do is planned ahead of time and I need to make sure that I understand all the options so that we can maximize the fun and all that. I don't know. We just showed up in Florida, got on Carnival Cruise Line, had a blast, and have an amazing photo album of pictures that I printed doubles of to make sure that everybody had their favorite pictures. And yeah, so that's when I started cruising.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. So you weren't like really wary about cruising probably when you started cruising with Disney, having had it least that one experience in college? And then of course, being such a Disney fan, you're like, okay, I'm going to dive all into Disney Cruise Line. You know, there's one Other thing I want to talk about before we dive into talking about the cruise that we're going to talk about today, which is your cruise to the seven night sailing in Norway, the Norwegian Fjords out of Southampton this summer. But I do want to talk about the planned Disney panel. And the reason I want to talk about that is because I know you have had experience applying a few times or several times, I should say. Tell us a little bit about that experience. I know you first said you had applied for the Walt Disney World, I'll call it Pathway, and then to the DCL Pathway. Tell us a little bit about that process. And I think a lot of our listeners are curious about the plandisney panel and what that process is like.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Sure, I'd be happy to. So I don't have a log of exactly how many times I've applied to plandisney. Part of that, I think is because and other people, I want to say maybe Karen Shelton has talked about this in some of the other shows with you, but it's emotional.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Karen applied before she became a ta and then Angie, we've had actually come on and talk about her experience as a Plan Disney panelist because Angie, one of the other agents with my path unwinding, she actually, before she became a ta, she was a planned Disney panelist. It's actually a really, I think, good background for if somebody, I mean, it's harder to become a Plan Disney panelist than it is to become a TA by far. But it's a great background, of course, for it. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've enjoyed Angie's shows with you too.
And Karen connected me with her at one point. So thank you, Angie, for giving me, for giving me some cheers from afar the time before last. But so Karen, I think captured it well when she said it's really a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster because I think that people who apply like me are so interested in, they're so interested in the idea of sharing their love for whatever the category of Disney is that you're applying for totally, that it becomes like a starry eyed moment to be able to press send on that application. And so the very first time I learned about it, it was called the Disney Moms panel then. And I gave it a try and I did not make it through the first round for the Walt Disney World specialty. And it was like very, very upsetting. I got over it. I got over it quickly, though, because you just sort of have to bounce back from these things. But so I've Tried intermittently.
What has my experience has been that what is now called plandisney, they've changed the timeframes of things. So I'm a teacher. I teach high school English. And when I first started applying, the first round applications would always drop like right as the school year was starting. When it's so busy, it's complete mayhem, especially with my own child to get set up and my own, you know, classroom and my school year. And I'm a teacher leader so I have other people who I help get settled. But I did it anyway. And so I tried several, several years for Walt Disney World as a specialty and never made it out of round one. There were years where it was just too busy. I took a year off. But I've kind of just done it for fun. Knowing that it's mysterious how many people actually apply. Right. You don't know. Disney does not. The Walt Disney Company does not tell you how many people apply. They just tell you a lot of people. Right.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I know thousands. To be perfectly honest, Beth, I really. And I know they, whether they select like 20 or something, it's something crazy.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And they, you know, there's a lot of people in the mix. And so basically I've been in and out of that and you know, just giving it my best try and trying not to overthink things with it and just not over stylizing my writing. Because I'm an English teacher, I have a tendency to probably for this purpose overthink things. Right. It serves me well otherwise.
But last year I had a moment where they, you know, I follow. I'm in a Facebook group that has I don't know how many thousands of people in it. It's a lovely, lovely community of people who are plandisney aspirants and reminds me a lot Karen's Facebook groups where everyone's just nice to each other all the time. And I saw that the application came up last year and I said, you know what, I'm going to try. I'm going to give it a try for the DCL specialty. So I did and I made it to the second round and it was very, very exciting.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: That is super exciting.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, you know, I did my best. That video for me is very, very difficult. I feel like, you know, I feel like I'm spending too much time figuring out what the reviewers want than just doing my thing. It's a 60 second video. You have to pack a lot of information in it. And I've been happy with my, with my applications, you know, for the second round. I have not, I have not made it through. But it was actually really fun this past time even though, because I have no problem, you know, just being satisfied and happy that I made it around two, two years in a row. Yeah, I'm thrilled with that. I'm thrilled with that. But the funniest thing happened because I was on the plane home from London when I found out I made it to round two for DCL this time around. So I was leaving my Norwegian Fjords itinerary and realized that the emails came out. Found out as I was on the tail end of this trip. And so that just kind of was exciting too to have that all happen at once and all in the midst of all the D23 big announcements coming out. So I sort of live. I was living my best DCL life basically post cruise normally, you know, you've got the post cruise sadness when it all comes to a close. Oh no. I was immersed in all of the very fun announcements and making it to the second round and all that business. So I'll try again.
I just think that it's a fun way to put myself out there in a different way than I normally do. I just talking with local friends and interacting in Facebook groups.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's awesome. Listen, if I didn't have a podcast about Disney cruise line, I'd probably apply and Brian would probably apply too actually think that we're. Well it's. I think it's a little unclear as to the eligibility criteria if Brian and I would actually be eligible to be Plan Disney panelists. But if either of us obviously because of the podcast, but we're not going to. We have obviously a lot on our plates between, between full time jobs, the podcast and parents to Nathan and all of the schlepping that we do every week to take him to all of his eggs activities and all the travel we do of course. But I think it's a great opportunity, I think for folks who are out there and interested and especially folks who are experienced in planning their own family vacations. I do think it's a really cool opportunity and of course as we mentioned, a very competitive process. So if people apply and gosh, even making it through round one is like a huge, huge, huge accomplishment. So congratulations on that Beth.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Twice. Thank you.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Two years in a row. Amazing. Amazing. Well, let's dive in and talk about this cruise that you took. Pretty recently you went on the seven night Norwegian Fjords cruise out of Southampton. What made you choose this itinerary specifically?
[00:18:26] Speaker B: So we booked this itinerary when our gold status opened for this round. And so we had this on the books for quite a while. And the vast majority of our Disney cruise vacations have been in the Caribbean. We did once go on the Disney Wonder on the Baja itinerary to sort of switch things up a little bit. So my son Cal is getting older, he's a junior in high school now. And at the time of the booking, I do a lot of reading about everything that goes on with Disney Cruise Line all the time. But I also keep a close eye on the itineraries and think a lot about our schedule. And this was just one of those times where the stars were aligned that I felt confident that we could put something on the books for, for so far in advance for a summer trip. And you know, we had toyed around with the idea of doing an itinerary in Europe. We had actually toyed around with the fjords itinerary several years ago and then priced it out. And that was a no go. This was several years ago. But essentially what I figured was, could we make this work with the pricing of, you know, like the initial pricing for our status?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: And we decided to just, you know, kind of go for it. And I will tell you that it wasn't necessarily the Norwegian Fjords that I was so set on. I wanted, I wanted us to have an adventure in a different place, essentially.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: And what I realized was in trying to sort of be responsible financially in this whole plan, knowing that it was going to be more expensive than our typical, typical Caribbean cruise, what I realized was, is that I could make the flights work to Southampton via heathrow with my JetBlue points because we always accrue a lot of JetBlue points and getting to Barcelona would have been an out of pocket expense for us.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow. That's a huge difference in cost. Yeah. I mean, just being able to. If you're flying, I imagine you were flying like from JFK or Newark since you live in Connecticut, you mentioned. But yeah, you can get great direct flights to Heathrow and if you can get them on JetBlue, that's. Yeah, that would make it a lot easier versus paying out of pocket for Barcelona. Wow.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was actually like kind of, you know, I always like to, you know, we're very JetBlue loyal and because I accrue a lot of points just, you know, through travel, but also through a credit card, which has been a great rewards program for us. I know that people have strong feelings about reward programs and There's a lot of people doing the math out there about it, but the JetBlue Rewards has really worked for us great. And this was kind of the deal maker that we could just, we could cut a lot of the expense out of it because I was able to pay entirely with my JetBlue points, like my miles to get us back and forth to Heathrow. And it was a comfortable way to do it. So while we're in Connecticut, we're very, very close to New York City. And so, yeah, we flew out of JFK and it was all relatively smooth sailing for us.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes total sense. I think that's super smart. I'll be honest. I don't do the deep dive into like, which credit cards give you the best benefits and things like that. Of course we have a Disney Visa. That's our primary credit card because we know we get. I don't know, I've heard it's not the best deal, but we get our, you know, we get lots of money that we spend on Disney. So it works for us. And then. But I do think air airline loyalty is actually super. That pays off in general, we. For us, it's Alaska Airlines because obviously they're based in Seattle. I think airline loyalty really does help you get the most out of your miles as much as you can, of course. And so I totally, totally understand that. Well, let's talk about planning process. You said you're a big researcher, you're a big planner. What are some of the tools or resources that you like to use and that you used for this trip in particular?
[00:22:39] Speaker B: So the first thing I always do is join the Facebook group for the sailing.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: And you know, so I've been in a lot of those now and there obviously there's some that are differently run than others. Our Facebook group was. Was really quite good for this, for this sailing. There will people were very active. There were several very knowledgeable moderators. But I felt like more than ever I really needed the help of my fellow travelers with this because we were leav leaving the country, going to a port I had never sailed from before and to places that were completely foreign to me. So another thing that I always do well ahead of time is use the DCL website to see what port adventures exist in those places, knowing that not all of them will play out when your booking window opens. But that was very helpful for me. And then I sort of went to, I guess I did a little bit of outside research, just about the places in Norway where we would be stopping. But for the most part. I was actually able to glean a tremendous amount of information from our sailing Facebook group.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And those can be, as you mentioned, they can sometimes be misses, but I would say more often than not, they're hits. When we sailed on our Norwegian Fjords cruise, there were actually two different Facebook groups run by two different people because one of them was just terrible, to be perfectly honest. Thank. Well, yeah, thankfully there were two that existed. And so we had joined both of them and quickly found out why there were two. Because one person, the person who ran the terrible one was just like nuts. I mean, literally would not let people like do posts that were not, if they weren't directly related to their sailing. Right. Like, so it wasn't like somebody would post and be like, hey, I'm a Walt Disney person. Who else is a Walt Disney? Like, who else is a Walt Disney World person? She literally would like not approve those posts because it was. Or take them down. Yeah. Because it was like, oh, this is not cruise related. What? That was crazy.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: That is a little intense.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: It was super intense for a Facebook group. Yeah, it was super intense. I, Brian quickly left that group. I stayed around as just kind of a lurker because there was some stuff that was kind of funny. But anyway, I digress. All right, well, let's, let's talk about then your, you, you take, Obviously you fly JetBlue over to Heathrow. Did you arrive a few days in advance? Did you want to, you know, take some sites in London or some someplace else in Europe before heading to Southampton?
[00:25:16] Speaker B: So we are play it safe travelers when it comes to cruises, which means we never cut it close to get to where we need to get to to board the ship on time. But because we needed to put a little bit of padding on both sides of things. And I'll tell you about the tail end in a second. That lengthened the trip much longer than we usually do for a seven night sailing. And so whereas I was off for the summer, my son was off for the summer, my husband didn't have unlimited time. So what we decided to do was fly New York to London two days prior to sailing. We both, my husband and Brian and I both really wanted to fly during the daytime, which I know again, people have strong feelings about how to deal with like the length of the flight and the time zone change like that. Yeah, yeah. And I totally get that. And we, we traveled, we traveled with two other families who we all came in at different times in different ways. And so we did a daytime flight which put us at Heathrow about 9ish pm at night. We stayed at a hotel that was not in our terminal but on site at Heathrow and then traveled by private car service to Southampton and stayed another night there so that we could be ready bright and early to sort of like get ourselves together. And we had an 11.30am port arrival time for the port of Southampton.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Oh, that's nice. That's a smart way to do it. I mean you got a good amount of time to adjust. You know, obviously the more days in advance you go, the more time you have to adjust. But coming from the east coast, you've got a five hour time adjustment to make. You're going to have a one hour adjustment on board the ship as well. So you're going to go forward another hour and so. Yeah, but I think that's a, that's a smart way of doing it. What made you decide to stay in Southampton for the night versus staying in London for the night?
[00:27:16] Speaker B: So what we realized was that if we stayed, if we stayed in London, because it was an hour and a half, two hour ride all the way out to the port of Southampton and one of the two families we traveled with, they were coming in on an overnight flight from Newark and then going straight to Southampton. We considered doing some things around town, but what we realized was, is that if you have all of your luggage at a Heathrow airport and you go do something in London, it's not frizzle, it's not that close. Yes, you can hop on the train, but it's a little bit of travel back and forth. And we were going to have to come all the way back to the Heathrow airport before we were going to head out. And we decided to just keep it simple. Take the car service when it was checkout time, which was around noon, that would get us to Southampton. We walked around a little bit. We had Sunday roast at a local pub there and just really kind of had a quiet day because we were all a little zonked out from the time change.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. So, all right, well, let's talk about you are you're in Southampton. Do you take like an Uber? A private car? How do you get to the port from your hotel?
[00:28:28] Speaker B: So once we were. So we did private car service to get us to the port of Southampton, which was very comfortable and really expensive. But I just didn't want to mess around with trains and waiting for trains and navigating all of that. So when we, when we got to the hotel, you could actually see the ship from our hotel. And we were right at the gates essentially of one end of the port. But when we asked at check in, hey, can we walk through those gates? What's the story? They said, no, no, no, it looks like you can do that, but you really need to get a car service. So they had a phone that was a direct line to a taxi service. We booked it for the next morning. And it was. I mean, I'm a block away, but once we saw. Once we saw how they took us through, it's just. We would have hit other gates, essentially. And so even though you could see the ship right from the hotel lobby, once you walked out the door, it was. Was totally worth it because honestly, dragging those bags and possibly hitting different gated and fenced off places was like, not really what anybody wanted to do. And they were telling people, you know, please don't try to walk it. That's not the way to get there. So it was not expensive. And the taxi driver showed up right on time. It was mayhem. In the hotel, though. The one thing I would do very differently in the hotel is that they had these teeny, tiny little elevators. I wish we had thought to bring our bags down and just put them in, like, the luggage room, because we ended up. There were so many people trying to use the elevators to get down to the lobby, because there were several cruise ships in port that day, not just Disney, that it was really. It was crazy. And my husband ended up having to, like, drag the bags down, I think. I think I was able to squeeze in one of the elevators, but our bags were quite heavy. And going downstairs five or six flights, whatever it was, was not easy. We got every. We all got to where we needed to go. But pro tip, if your hotel does not have a lot of elevators or small elevators, bring your bags down early in the morning when you can do so with sanity, store them, and then just grab and roll.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: So, yeah, very smart tip that is. And that's a thing in, I think, a lot of European hotels having those really tiny elevators. You know, we're talking about much older buildings than what exists here in the United States. And so so often the hotels have been retrofitted to even put in those elevators. And they're tiny, tiny elevators. So good tip. Okay, so you get your car service to or taxi to the port. Tell us, like, how does I keep saying us? Because I'm used to having Brian here with me.
Tell me, what was the boarding process, you know, the security and check in and all that? What was that like? Was it similar to what you have experienced at Port Canaveral and other ports in the US or were there any major differences?
[00:31:29] Speaker B: It was quite easy. So my particular fjord sailing was the second out of Southampton. The sailing right before me was the 12 night that went to Iceland and the Norwegian fjords. And so in terms of the Disney experience with the cast members who were managing that, everyone seemed very new to the process. But everyone was so nice. There were a lot of people working. Everybody was just waiting to help. And when we got dropped off, you know, we were. Went down a lane. They took our luggage, our tagged luggage. We moved inside. We had a lovely woman check us in. Who she said it was her first time ever doing this and she definitely didn't have any idea what she was doing, but she was so nice and she just navigated it and she asked for help from colleagues when she needed to and that got us through. So once we got into the waiting area, the waiting area was like just a giant space. It was relatively unremarkable. The con we did, we did not sail concierge on the sailing, but when you went up the stairs, they had the concierge area, which was literally just chairs in a particular area that was kind of closest to be able to hop into the line to then move through. Otherwise it was a big open space. Yeah, it was perfectly fine. It was efficient. It was unremarkable in all ways.
Which is good. Which is good. Right?
[00:32:55] Speaker A: That's what you want.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: You don't want it to be so memorable because it was kind of. Because it was all over the place. So it was very easy.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it should be the port. The port check in process and getting through security, all of that should be unremarkable. I agree. You don't really. If you remember it, there's probably not a good reason unless it was because you were like family of the day. Right. So. All right, well, let's, let's, let's talk about. Okay, so you, you obviously, you get on board, you get some lunch in you, you're exploring the ship. But I really want to talk about the ports for this cruise. Sure. Because I know, I wanted to talk about your plandisney backroom, but I know that set us back in time here, so I want to just dive right in. How many ports of call were you supposed to go to? Because I know there was a switch up with one of the ports.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: So we were supposed to have four ports throughout the Norwegian Fjord and we did end up going to three ports. It was our last port that should have been on day six that was canceled.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Ah, it was weather.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: It was weather related. Yeah.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a bummer. I mean, it happens. Everybody knows it can happen. I think it's actually good for people to hear about it happening only from the standpoint of knowing if it happens to you. It's not like Disney did it on purpose. It just sometimes happens. All right, well, let's dive in. What was your first port of call after Southampton?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: So after a day at sea, our first port in Norway was Stavanger.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: And, you know, I listened when I was prepping for my trip, I failed to mention that I did find your episode about your Norwegian experience. And I think we had gone to. I think you had several different ports than I did. But it just gave me a sense of what the whole experience was like. And when we were choosing our port adventures, we really. First of all, I don't like super adventurous things.
I don't want to. And it's funny because I'm sure some of your listeners will laugh that because in my world, kayaking is too adventurous for me.
I just like to play it low key. My Caribbean port adventures are usually very beach focused or boat focused. But this one of the big reasons that we ended up choosing Norway beyond the. What I told before, which is it just was working with the time, it was working with the flights and all that, is that we really wanted to see a different part of the world, see the landscape and experience a place that's very unlike where we are or that we typically vacation. And so it was a priority for us to be able to see that landscape. And with that being said, our focus really fell on sort of like sightseeing cruises and things like that, as opposed to high adventure. And when our bookings opened up, there was still quite a bit left for gold. But let me tell you, it was very hard for people in silver and new cruisers to get any sort of port adventures at all.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Yeah, well. And it's tight.
The big problem being that it's the Disney dream rather than the magic, you know, going. And so you have almost twice. Not twice as many, but almost twice as many cruisers on the ship. Right. And if you have even, even one of other ship in port, or even if Disney's the only ship in port, a lot of these ports, yes, they have a lot of cruise ships that come, but they're not. Well, Savanger is the one of the bigger ports, but not all of the ports are that big. So, yeah, there's not a ton of, you know, shore excursions that they can offer in all of these places. So that, yeah, that's. That's not super surprising. I hope that some of those folks were able to get, you know, port excursions outside of Disney. But yeah, unfortunately that's one of the things that happens the bigger the ship you're on, I think.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they were. And so one of the families we cruised with is platinum. The other was as a family, first time cruisers. But everybody was able to do things that they wanted to do.
It just. It varied greatly. But after gold after gold it was. There was a lot of action in our Facebook group that helped people navigate that too, which I thought was great because people were very good about sharing their experiences and finding other. Other companies that would accommodate people. And so that was a. That was like a very nice sharing opportunity in there. So what we chose for this port was the cruise through the Lys fjord. And it was great. We took a short bus ride to town, hopped on the sightseeing boat from there, and we just saw some beautiful scenery. You know, there were a lot of like really sort of steep mountain rock kind kind of places that we sailed through, beautiful waterfalls.
The tour guide actually told some interesting stories. The tour guide focused a lot on some of like the myths and the legends of the trolls and some of the different elements of this particular fjord. And so I really enjoyed that a lot. They took us to the end of the fjord where there was a small welcome center that was more sort of like a little hall, I guess. And they had these big communal tables and had prepared waffles. Waffles with sour cream and lingonberries. And they were so delicious. And it was like nice to step off and you know, there's a beautiful scenery down at the end of this fjord. And you could walk to the. It all was a very small little space, but you could walk onto the shore. We took pictures. We, you know, we enjoyed our time there. Coffee, tea, stuff like that. So. And then, you know, then you sailed back the same way. But it's just. It just is crisp, clean air, beautiful scenery. And it really. Having come from Connecticut where it was a really, really hot summer, I have to say I enjoyed the cool temperatures. And we didn't mind the rain at all. There was definitely rain on all of our days. Yeah, we grabbed our jackets and my family, we just prefer to sort of stay outside on the open deck. But these sightseeing cruises also had places where you could remain inside and see from the windows if you really didn't want to get wet or you just wanted a more comfort, comfortable place to sit, but we just stayed on the open deck the whole entire time. It was great.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: That's awesome. That sounds like a perfect day and a perfect way to sightsee the fjord. It's just. Yeah, these are beautiful sights that it's. I know people say it's the only similar place, like, sort of locally is Alaska to what you see in the Norwegian Fjord. It's just a really. A really, really beautiful place. Now, was this excursion. Was it the full sort of day, or did you. Or did you have some time on your own when you got back to town before returning to the ship?
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah, so this was several hours, but we did have time. So when we got back to town, we actually were able to walk around Old Town. First of all, there were a ton of shops and restaurants and stuff there. We were able to walk around this beautiful, quaint, charming street in Old Town that has sort of like 18th and 19th century houses, beautiful, colorful doors. The flowers were gorgeous. And, you know, it's a real people live there. So I'm sure it's challenging for them to come in and out when the cruise ships are in port. But it just was. It just was this beautiful cobblestone street set up this big hill, and we really enjoyed that. There's a lot of street art in town and, you know, we checked out the shops and it was very easy to hop on the shuttle bus that was not just, I don't know, five or ten minutes tops back to the port. It did. I will say one tip, though, for anyone who goes to a port like this, because people obviously are looking to maximize their time.
We didn't wait until sort of the very end of the window of time. And Disney was great. They had no problem getting everyone back, even though there was a big long line after us. But if you're like me and you kind of get nervous when you're cutting it a little close, just sort of make your way back on those buses. But do Disney did a great job of shuttling people back and forth.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Awesome. Love that.
[00:41:16] 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 MyPath 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. Mypath Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailors 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 mypathonwinding.com dc dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Well, what was your second port of call in the in Norway?
[00:42:19] Speaker B: So our second port of call was Alicend and we had actually originally in Alicend we had looked to book a different excursion. It wasn't available at all through the port adventures. And so we just decided because we were were going to this new place that we, we knew would be relatively easy to navigate simply because everyone speaks English, right?
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Yes, it is very, very easy to get around.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Very easy.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: But, but I just kind of felt like if we had the opportunity to do a Disney port adventure, let's just stick with it this time while we're getting used to a very different kind of sailing. And so what we booked, and I had also booked gold thinking if we change our minds, we could always change our minds right before the cutoff where you get charged for changing your mind. So we cruise to Hjordenfjorden for that stop. And we were on our Stavanger cruise with one of the families we traveled with. And my friend Mark joked at the end of it when he asked us what we were doing the next day because he said, you think it's going to be basically the same thing. And I was like, I don't know, but we're in it now, aren't we? And it was not cheap. It was $179 per person for this the next day. But I just said, even if it is, here we are in Norway enjoying the scenery will make it work. And I'm so, I'm so pleased to report that it was quite different. It was the same type of concept, right?
A scenic cruise. But the scenery was wildly different. It was a much, much, much wider, more sweeping kind of scenery area.
It was really stunning in a very different way. And I think it was because of the scale of it. What was also great, we enjoy. Our Lisefjord cruise guide was good and I kind of loved the troll stories and the little troll tunes that they played when we were in between things. I just thought that was really fun and added to the mood. But we had a very interesting guide the next day. And Aleshund, she was awesome. First of all, she was, I don't know how old she was, but kind of youngish German. And she told us the story about how she speaks six or seven languages. She decided one day, like last year, she wanted to have a new adventure and she figured if she came to Norway, she would get hired right away as a tour guide because she speaks so many languages and they hired her on the spot. She told hilarious stories about people who were, you know, just like strangely behaved on her on her tours all the time. And she gave us, she gave us a. She just had a lot of personality and she gave us a ton of information about what to do when we got back to the town. And she was just very enjoyable. I loved her. I thought she was great. Same kind of thing. Weather wasn't great, but we had our jackets and were dressed appropriately in terms of warmth and we stayed on that deck the whole entire time. Normally I do not want to be wet. I'm uncomfortable, I complain. I did not care in Norway. Bring it on. I'm all good. And so we took her advice and when we went. So what was different about this port is that the Disney dream pulled right up to the port essentially. So we took a few steps off, we hopped on this on the sightseeing cruise, but the town was right there and the town was great. We stopped and had fish and chips at the place that our tour guide had recommended and sat outside. We walked around the town, we checked out the shops and it just was beautiful. It was sort of those row houses that if you go on the DCL Ported Adventures homepage for this port, it's like exactly the way it looks there. It's just a canal with these beautiful colorful row houses and it's just very quiet there because my husband mentioned when we were sitting outside eating, he said it's all electric cars here. There's just no noise coming from the streets and the cars. And so it was. It was a great add on to be able to spend time in the town and to just literally walk right back onto the ship without having to deal with shuttle buses. Because another one of our port adventure booking, you know, parameters that we had that we had set set for our family was we just can't, we just can't be on, on some sort of bus that takes two hours to get to the place where we're going. We just wanted to like, keep it kind of simple. So. Yeah, so this was, it was great. We loved it.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I actually think that choosing this itinerary was actually very smart for that because a lot of the med stops do require, and certain other parts of Europe do require longer bus rides from the port to a major city. Whereas in Norway you are, you're going to some city. Stavanger is a real city. Alasund is, it's still a, it's a small city, I would say. But Stavanger is a big city. And so. And then there's other ports that you might go to that are sort of smaller, even towns. Right. And. But you really, really are close, you know, and you're not unless you choose a port excursion that is in a completely different town, which they have a couple. You don't have to be in a two hour bus ride each way. And I think that's, that's a really, yeah, great opportunity. And I'm, I'm the same way. I, unless it's something I really, really, really want to do. I really would prefer not to have an excursion where I'm sitting on a bus for, for hours on end. I don't want to. I would rather, you know, spend my time just kind of walking around town and popping into shops and cafes and things like that. Well, I love you. Went to two of the same ports that we went to on our Norway cruise. What was port number three and actually technically the last port. And then we'll talk about what happened with port number four.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: So our next day was in Olden. And I will say that when.
Oh, you know, something that was interesting in general about these excursions is that unlike some of our experiences in Caribbean itinerary, these kind of started like at a more leisurely time. And so, you know, these were starting like 10 or 11, not, you know, us getting up, rushing to breakfast. And so that was kind of nice that there was a leisurely pace about it. In Olden. I was up a little bit. I was up like relatively early that day and I went to just go check out the scenery from the ship. And it was a stunner pulling into old days. We just were at, you know, in this port, it just was this beautiful sort of colorful, sweeping view. And so that was a really nice way to start the day.
And some of my favorite pictures actually came from that Morning right from the Disney dream. Not even when we were on any sort of excursion along the way. So in Olden, we pulled directly into the port, step off and you're there kind of thing. Right when you got off, there was a very big gift gift shop, sort of welcome center. And then we actually did a fishing boat that day.
[00:49:31] Speaker A: And that's adventurous, Beth, come on. You're adventurous.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Well, it went a little wrong, though. It wasn't terrible, but it was not great. So my husband and my son, when we go to places, whether it's Florida or the New Jersey shore or other places they really like to. I wouldn't call them like avid fishermen, but they like. And some families that we have traveled with, you know, the dads and the kids will go on a fishing boat and they really, really have a nice time. It's something nice for them to do together. So when I. When we reviewed all of the stuff on the DCL site, I wasn't surprised when Brian said, oh, it's definitely a priority. I'd love to do the fishing trip. Now. I don't mind going along on a fishing trip as long as it's not deep sea fishing. Because I had a terrible experience in Hawaii on our honeymoon with that. I'm still scarred by it all these years later, but, oh, I just ruined the whole fishing trip with, yeah, anyway, but. So I'm like a little gun shy about fishing trips, but I knew that this was going to be very calm water in fjord, so I said, great, let's all do this. And it was relatively inexpensive at 79 per person. And so basically they brought our group right, you know, right there to the fishing boat. It was sort of like a. It was way smaller than I expected, which is kind of part of the problem. It was not a great weather day that day in terms of the rain forecast. We were prepared with the right gear. And there was a. There was like a, like, it was like a covered fishing boat, thank goodness, because otherwise it really would have gone wrong. But I could kind of tell from the first moment that we got on the, on the fishing boat that there were way too many of us booked on this fishing boat and that the captain and the first mate were like, not interested in this. So essentially what happened was they really like. The captain of the boat was. He wasn't unfriendly, but he wasn't friendly. It was somewhere between the two. He was like all business. And we all got on the fishing boat and he didn't really say anything. And then he took us Out. And then he just basically said, there's your rods. You can go ahead and fish. And.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: No.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And so basically, what kept happening on this fishing boat with two many guests on it that our lot, Everybody's line was crossing. And so the captain of the fishing boat was spending most of his time quietly untangling fishing lines.
[00:52:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: And, you know, we didn't really talk much about it on there. Like, there was one point where I just didn't even bother trying anymore because I needed to step away to, like, make a little room. Everybody seemed to have just a fine time. But a lot of this trip, people were untangling lines. And after we got off, one thing my husband mentioned is that, you know, there were like, 10. There are 10 guests. And then there was a Disney Cruise Line representative on with us. He was lovely, by the way. He was not fishing, but he was just there with us to accompany us. So he wasn't taking up. Taking up, like, a fishing line. But what my husband said was, it should have been like five or six people tops on this boat, and they had, like, 10 or 11. And that was disappointing just because. Because there wasn't a. You know, there wasn't, like, a lot to do in this port to begin with. And we were sort of happy to have this. I will tell you, the scenery was lovely, even though it was raining. It was totally. It was fine. It's just that, you know, it wasn't really. I don't think it was as advertised. And I'm surprised that. I'm surprised that whichever end this happened, I'm surprised that so many people were allowed to sort of, like, pack this boat full because it didn't take a lot of fishing experience to understand that people were too close to each other.
So I would, you know, I filled out a comment card just because I felt like it was important just to give Disney feedback on this.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they need to know, like, okay, this may and maybe they still want to do this excursion again, but they need to limit it to five people. Right. Like, or something. You know, and maybe that means it'll be more expensive, but that's okay. You know, people will choose what they want to do, but they should, you know, it should. Shouldn't be packed as sardines so that you. I mean, because then you can't get any sardines or whatever.
[00:53:49] Speaker B: Right, exactly.
And in Norway, they do not do catch and release. So when you catch a fish and plenty of people caught fish, but because they don't do catch and release, you have to keep it on the boat. And the captain and the first mate were, like, not very helpful with getting the fish off the line. And so if they were tied up, you know, working on someone's tangled lines, then you kind of had to take your own fish off. But what they were doing is they. You have to, like. Yeah, it just was a little chaotic at times because the captain would, like, try to, like, kill the fish by banging it against the bucket and there was, like, bloody water spraying pit places. It was bizarre. It was a bizarre experience. It was a bizarre experience.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: I would not enjoy that. I'll be honest. I'm not a big fisher. Fisher woman any. Anyway, I won't touch the fish. So, like, I'll put the line out and I'll reel it in, but then somebody else has to. I'm not touching the fish. I'm not touching the bait. But in general. Yeah, that whole, like, banging the. Killing the fish by banging it. That. I would not enjoy watching that. Yeah, that would be.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: And thank goodness. Thank goodness for laundry rooms on the Disney dream because we had to wash every. We had to wash our jackets because it got very dirty just because of the, you know, like, the water from the bucket kind of like splashing around.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: And all that business. Well, I know especially on. If you're in sort of tight quarters, you're all. Yeah, it's. Yeah, that sounds. That. That sounds horrible, Beth. I'm going to be perfectly honest. That sounds kind of horrible. We.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: I know it's a. Well, especially the last part of the anecdote. But I will say that it just. It wasn't as expected. It did not feel like a wash. It just got a little weird.
[00:55:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's what happened.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: It got a little weird.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: Now, did you have some time to walk around the town of old after your excursion?
[00:55:46] Speaker B: We did not. We did not venture out because it kind of had been like a long few hours on the fishing boat and you're all fine. And the weather was. The weather was not nice. It was very rainy. So we didn't venture out at all other than to look around the gift shop. And then we just sort of got back onto the ship and had a little downtime before dinner.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: Now, what was your fourth port supposed to be? I know we mentioned at the top of the show it got canceled for weather, but I'm curious as to what it had been planned to be and if you had had an excursion booked.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: So the fourth port should have been haughty, and we actually were going to be laying pretty low. In that port, we did end up booking through Disney sort of like a walking tour of hotspots, including a scenic overlook. But there may have been a bus involved, I'm not sure. But it wasn't anything super involved. It wasn't anything that was going to take a long time to get to. We basically, when I did research about this port, it seemed very walk and we were just going to kind of do our own thing. And then I said, you know what, though? I don't know that we'll. I think we'll get to see a few other things and get to walk around the town if we keep our Disney port adventure. So that's what we had on the books for that. And basically, after we got off the fishing boat back onto the ship, the captain came on the public address system and said, which I really appreciated that he told us about this super early, which was, you know, kind of late afternoon, I guess. On day five, he got on the public address system and just said, listen, I need to update everyone on this. We've got a lot of weather coming up. I just want to tell you right now that I have to make the decision to pull the plug on the port tomorrow. It's not going to be reasonable. He said, it's going to be teeming rain, the winds are very high. He said, it's a very narrow fjord to navigate. I do not feel comfortable that this is safe passage and therefore we're not going to see how it is in the morning. We're going to. I'm just going to make that call now. And because we didn't have anything super involved planned and because we had just come off a day where there was so much more rain on day five on the fishing boat than there was on the two previous days. You know, one of the reasons that we had booked the port adventure was because, oh, it takes us to such and such overlook, which I don't even remember what it's called right now, but I said, what are we going to do on a scenic overlook if it is pouring rain? This does not make any sense.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:58:22] Speaker B: And so we didn't have to sort of take the wait and see approach. He was very nice and very definitive about it. And basically what he said was, I know it's a small consolation, but I'm going to take us by a different fjord as a scenic route in the morning. There's a beautiful waterfall that is a great photo opportunity. He told us the time we would be there. It was like somewhere around 9am in the morning, and I think it's called Hardangerfjord. And he just said, I'd love for you to be able to see something else while we're here before we start sort of heading back out on the day seven, sea day. And so that was. I thought that was nice just to provide that other opportunity. And he got on the PA system in the morning. Hey, don't miss it for coming up on the waterfall. Please come check it out if you're able. And so that was a small consolation. And actually what had happened was the weather was terrible.
It was rough seas. Sam. I've been on a lot of cruises now, and it was quite rough. Right.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: So we're telling Joanna, don't go to the fjords then. Probably. Or at least not this time.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: I guess not. You know, it's funny that she was the intro, because I also get seasick, as I mentioned, on the deep sea fishing boat. And I. Cars. Forget it. I cannot read in Cars, just so you and I share that. But this is the first time I ever. This was the first time I ever had to take some sort of medication just to make sure that the day wasn't really ruined. And I was fine. But we actually. That day. So day six in the evening, we had dinner at Animator's Palette that night, which was not a great location for the kind of seas we were having. And I was fine. I was fine having dinner, but we got to dessert and I was like, I need a break from this place.
And I rarely, if ever have had to do that before. So we got through it just fine. And then the funny thing is, our last day at sea, it was warm, sunny, we were out on deck 11 watching Funnel Vision all day, and we all got sunburned.
So we experienced all the weather all the time.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: That's really funny. You know, I. I think it's a. The great tip, though is, you know, there. There is seasickness medication on the ship available both in the gift shop. You can buy Dramamine in the gift shop in the Mickey's Main sale, or you can get for free Bonine at the front desk or down at the. The health. Health Services center. So there are, you know, multiple places. I think a lot of people don't know this, but if you go to Guest Services, when. That's what I mean when I say the front desk, go to Guest Services. They have like Advil, you know, like Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, Bonine, even like. Like decongestant. Like, they have all kinds of medications for free. You don't have to buy them at Mickey's Main Sale.
[01:01:25] Speaker B: I had no idea.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: There you go.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: I've been on. I had no idea that was a thing.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Go to Guest. If you've got a headache and you, you're at Advil, go to Guest Services. They have it, they have all the, like, all they're in those little, you know, like paper packet things. So they'll give you, you know, a couple.
And I mean, of course if you want to buy like a whole bottle and spend $10 in Mickey's main Sale, you can do that. But you, if you only need a couple, just. Yeah, they'll give you a few packets of them even. So, yeah, it's a great, great tip. And like I said, you can also go down at the, at the health center they usually have Bow nine kind of sitting in a.
The door, particularly when it's Rob Seas. But let's, let's talk just. We're, we're sort of, we're at about an hour here, so I don't want to keep you too much longer, Beth, but I do want to ask a little bit about the onboard experience.
Your, your son is 16. Well, just turned 16. So he was 15 or thereabouts on this because he just turned 16, right?
[01:02:26] Speaker B: He did, yes. Right when we got back.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Right when you got back. All right, well, how, how did, does he enjoy the teen club? Does he still enjoy the, you know, onboard activities? Or is he like, eh, these are, I'm too old for this stuff. I'm always curious about that on Disney Cruise Line in particular.
[01:02:43] Speaker B: So it's been a long time since we've cruised to just the three of us. And one of the ways our cruise vacations have evolved have been joining in with friends and sometimes different equations of friends. And so what's nice for him, you know, because it's just the three of us, is when we travel with friends, he kind of runs around and he's a, he's a very flexible, amenable kind of guy. So he is happy to, you know, do whatever the group wants to do. Most of the time, I would say in this group we had several kids and they were basically 15, 16 down to fourth grade. And so we had all three clubs represented in there and he was in and out of the Vibe a little bit here and there, but the different groups of kids we go with, they just kind of go with the flow. So he's not opposed to going to Vibe, but it's not necessarily the top priority.
I know that depending on the ship we're on, when we were on the Wish, he and the kids we were with had a great time in the hero zone.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:55] Speaker B: And you know, and that was like a great spot for them, but they just kind of do things all around the ship. So I wouldn't say that there's one like perfect go to for my son. It's just he'll hang with us, he'll hang with the kids. Like we're kind of around and about.
[01:04:09] Speaker A: Awesome. What were some of the highlights that you all got to do, you and your Brian, that you all got to do on the Disney Dream? I know you mentioned you had been on the Dream before, so it wasn't a brand new ship to you, but what were the, what were your sort of favorite things to do on the Dream on this cruise when you did have time on, you know, on the ship?
[01:04:29] Speaker B: So we actually did some new things that we've never done on Disney cruises, which is really fun. And I would say one of the highlights of our new experiences was family karaoke.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: We had never, in the seven prior cruises, we had never been to family karaoke. And we were with just a really fun bunch.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:50] Speaker B: And you know, the rising fourth grader was a star of family karaoke. He brought down the house. My son even gave it a try. And we just had a lot of fun doing that. Typically, we are a die hard bingo family, but believe it or not, we didn't go to bingo once on this trip. And I think it's because our poor adventures skewed much later than they usually do. And it's kind of hard. It's kind of hard. So we are an early dining family. We love early dining. And I know again that a polarizing thing, the late dining families love it. We still, even though we have an older child now, we actually just really enjoy the early dining.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: And yeah, everybody likes has a preference as to, you know, eating early and then going to the show or going to the show and then eating. I think, yeah, I can, I can see both sides of the equation. Even though I fall on the opposite side as you, Beth.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we actually found it just, you know, we were very, we were very happily busy with our three days of port adventures. And so to have come off these port adventures and race to get, you know, to get ready for dinner, to go first to bingo and then go directly to dinner, it was just too much. And so we took a much more leisurely route on this, I would say. And a lot of the decisions that we made about the things that we did on board. And it was great. You know, it just was so nice. In general, we don't really run frantically on Disney cruises. That's one of the reasons why we love it. It's like all the Disney magic and not a lot of the running around and the standing in lines. Even though I, you know, love, love, love my Parks trips, it's a very different type of trip. Right. But, you know, so we did that. We actually, for the first time on Disney Cruise line, tried adult dining. We went with the other two couples to Paulo on our last night. And so that was a first for us.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: So that was really cool. Oh my God. I can't believe you hadn't done it before on seven prior cruises. Wow, that's awesome. And you. Yeah, it's such a great experience, I think. You know, obviously main dining is wonderful. And so I have no qualms with people who love main dining. It's just, it's just nice to get, you know, sort of a little bit of a date night while you're on the ship too.
[01:07:01] Speaker B: And you know that. So our friends who are the platinum cruisers, Mark and Laura, it's their cruise tradition to always have adult dining on the last night of their cruise. And they typically go on seven night cruises. And so they kind of, you know, brought us into their tradition, which was so nice. And that evening we were able to see the cliffs of Dover as we sailed by from our table at Palo, which was really nice. And it was just, you know, it's a lovely space in there. So we had a nice night.
[01:07:33] Speaker A: Oh, I love that tradition. I also, I just love cruise traditions. Right. In general, I think they're just like, you know, we have our traditions of like we have to watch ratatouille and we have to watch zootopia, like in our stateroom. Like these are what we did, what we do before bed. You know, we. There's just like certain things we all kind of like to do. And so I love, I love the idea of cruise traditions. So this, that sounds like a fun, a fun cruise tradition. All right, well, before I subject you to wrap, is there anything that we've really missed? Obviously we haven't done a deep dive into your onboard experience because we wanted to focus on the ports. And of course I wanted to get the background about your prior cruising and the plandisney application process. But is there anything big that we've missed from this cruise?
[01:08:18] Speaker B: So I think it was really just we, you know, our idea was to have a big adventure. Right.
But what I didn't realize until we got there was that it could be a very big adventure and very leisurely and relaxing at the same time. And so that was a big takeaway for me about this. And I think that having a little bit of time to spend in London on the tail end as well. We didn't have the luxury of too, too many days just because we needed to get back home. Right. But we did go and stay in London for one night overnight to the Tower of London area. And we had a great, great time touring the Tower. An amazing D at our hotel, which was right near there. And we even got to go to the ceremony of the Keys, which was a really cool add on for the evening to see the ceremony where they lock up the Tower of London. I just felt like going out of our beach vacation comfort zone and being able to tack on some other things like this. It really just. It felt like a memorable family experience. Even though I still have a special place in my heart for the beach vacations.
[01:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I totally agree. I think it's good to kind of venture out. I do think that going to Europe is a great way to sort of venture out of your normal Bahamas, Caribbean cruising. Right.
And then of course, going to places like Norway specifically, or Alaska, where you're sort of veering out of a warm weather vacation into more of a cooler weather vacation, but getting to see these amazing, beautiful sites. Well, thank you for sharing. And now I'm going to subject you to some arbitrary rules, some arbitrary questions, and a dash of judgment, or the round we like to call Rapid Fire. All right, Beth, I'm going to ask who your favorites from Disney and then some favorites from Disney Cruise Line. Tell me first, who is your favorite Disney character?
[01:10:20] Speaker B: I love Belle.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: She is my favorite. She's wonderful. Love it. All right, what is your favorite Disney?
[01:10:28] Speaker B: So my favorite Disney movie is Mary Poppins. But it's very hard to pick because I love some of the old classics. Do you know what I love from my childhood? Bedknob and Broomsticks. Oh, I love Bednstick and Pollyanna. But if I had to choose one, if I had to choose one, it's Mary Poppins.
[01:10:44] Speaker A: Oh, nice. I love all three of those great ones. All right, what's your favorite Disney song?
[01:10:50] Speaker B: My favorite Disney song is Go the Distance from Hercules.
[01:10:55] Speaker A: Oh, so good. So good. I can't wait to see that on Disney Destiny.
[01:11:00] Speaker B: I know.
[01:11:01] Speaker A: It's gonna be so good. Yeah. All right, what is your favorite Disney Cruise line stage show.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: So I would say probably Beauty and the Beast. We got to see that again recently. Yeah, I know you love it, Sam.
I'm not new to the DCL duo podcast. I know you have all the feelings about it.
It's just really, really well done. Although there was a technical glitch in the production on our sailing. They had to stop. Be our guest in the middle of it, and then they brought it back. But that was fine. That was fine.
[01:11:34] Speaker A: I had. I had it where they had to stop right when the Beast is changing into, you know, his. Not his handsome self. So I've had. Yeah, there's definitely. I've. Yeah, I've definitely had times where they've. It's had technical glitches. But, yeah, it's such a good. Such a good show. And I love that you. Of course you got to see it on the. I mean, how could you. How could you be on the Dream and not go see Beauty and the Beast? Anyone who does that.
[01:11:56] Speaker B: You.
[01:11:56] Speaker A: You are not allowed on this show.
Just kidding. Ryan will hate me for saying that. Okay. All right, well, you know, I have to give judgment. Okay. Favorite rotational dining. And this can be, again, like, favorite show on any of the ships.
[01:12:10] Speaker B: Really love animator's palette when they do the animation magic. That's just a favorite. And because we've been on the Disney Dream four times now, and we've been on the Fantasy before, that's, like, really a special one.
[01:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Love that. Favorite onboard activity.
[01:12:27] Speaker B: I think that up until now, I would have said bingo, but because we skipped bingo this time, I will go with watching Funnel Vision up on deck at different times of the day in the evening.
That's one of our very favorite things to do.
[01:12:40] Speaker A: Love that. All right, I gotta hear a favorite food item. Let's start with a sweet item, and then we'll go to Savory. What's a favorite sweet item on board at Disney Cruise?
[01:12:50] Speaker B: Oh, my favorite sweet item is Mickey waffles in the concierge lounge on the Wish.
[01:12:56] Speaker A: Ooh, yes. That's a good one. That's an absolute good one. I love. I love being able to order breakfast in that concierge lounge. It's fantastic.
[01:13:06] Speaker B: We love, love, loved it.
[01:13:07] Speaker A: All right, what's a favorite savory item?
[01:13:09] Speaker B: So I really like the black truffle per sets, which I know get a lot of mileage on the DCL Duo podcast. Yes.
So if I had to pick one, that would probably be it.
[01:13:21] Speaker A: Awesome. Love that. Okay. Eat your heart out, Josh Wilson. Okay, let's Talk. Let's talk water slides. You have not been on the Aqua Dunk because you have not sailed on the Magic. But tell me which one is better, the AquaDuck or the Aqua Mouse?
[01:13:36] Speaker B: I think I would say I've not been on the Aqua Mouse more than once. Full disclosure. But I think for just the memories of it, probably the Aqueduct.
[01:13:47] Speaker A: Awesome. Love it. All right, two more questions. Second to last question is obviously the most controversial question out there. Which one is your favorite ship? Beth?
[01:13:56] Speaker B: This one's hard because I think I've had different experiences on different ships. So pressed to answer. I'm actually going to choose the Disney Wish. And I do full dis. I do full disclosure. Have to tell you that that was our first and only to date concierge sailing.
[01:14:15] Speaker A: Ah, well, that's so way to do the wish. That's. Yeah, the concierge was.
[01:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a magical, magical experience. We absolutely loved the lounge. The food was amazing in the lounge. All of the. And so I actually thought it was. I loved the layout of the Wish and I loved being able to be on one of those sort of like round adult area outside bed loungers and watch Funnel Vision because of the setup of it. And so, yeah, this is a hard distinction for me to make, but if I had to, I would say the Wish is my current favorite.
[01:14:50] Speaker A: Wow. Awesome. All right, well, then you're going to like the Treasure and the Destiny. Love that. All right, what is your bucket list cruise? If you could go anywhere in the world on a Disney Cruise Line ship, it doesn't even have to be someplace Disney Cruise Line currently goes. Where are you going? I mean, you just completed a bucket list cruise, but what's a different one?
[01:15:06] Speaker B: So I don't know if this counts, but the show that you just posted recently about, and I don't know the reason, I don't know if this counts, is because it's an adventures by Disney Sailing.
[01:15:16] Speaker A: It's fine.
[01:15:17] Speaker B: Oh, the Adriatic itinerary.
[01:15:20] Speaker A: That Croatia. Wow. That just. Yeah, that Kelly did. That was a. Yeah. Fantastic itinerary. It's. It's. As Brian, I think mentioned in some posts on social media, it's now on our bucket list for some future. I mean, we haven't. Obviously we're not. We're not booking it in the next couple of years because we've got so much planned, but that's definitely on our list now. And I don't know that it was on our list before talking to Kelly. Yeah, that sounds. It's a fantastic, fantastic itinerary.
[01:15:48] Speaker B: Well, Croatia is calling to me because I've had two different friends on separate, you know, on separate travel itineraries do sort of like private sailings in Croatia. Then Karen Shelton went on that amazing yacht tour. And now you said it was Kelly who went on the Adriatic. Yes, she really sold me on the ABD version of it. And so that to me would be, you know, that would be a bucket list item there.
[01:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that sounds amazing. And then I know that Karen Shelton from my Path Unwinding is also putting together a private, private yacht I want to call it, but it's like a group, a private group sailing in Croatia as well. I think for like 30 people is how many this yacht will fit. I think it's an adult only experience, so not one that obviously we can do, but also sounds amazing. Well, Beth, thank you so much for playing Rapid Fire. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We really, really appreciate it. It's been so much fun speaking with with you and hearing about your amazing Norwegian fjord cruise. I hope that you will come back and join us once again. But I'll just say thank you for now.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Sam. This was great fun and it feels like talking to an old friend after listening to you for as long as I've been. So thanks again for having me.
[01:17:18] Speaker C: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple podcast. And if you leave us a rich written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com forward/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 has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Dual 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 reflective 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 My Path Unwinding Travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo. Good night.
