[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Haunted Mansion Bar, the Skipper Society, the Periscope Pub. Not that I. And I loved all. I mean, you know, I. We tested them all out and they were all great.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: We tested them all out. I love the way you say that.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: We can talk about it if we.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Science, right? It's for science, right? Exactly. Yeah.
Hello and welcome back to another live, live bonus episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And because this is a live bonus episode, we are also brought to you by WDW magazine as well as the DCL magazine that is going to be a thing very, very soon. For those of you who haven't heard us mention, if you want to get on their wait list for an addition or to join their subscription for the DCL magazine, go to wdw-magazine.com and add yourself to their wait list. Additionally, if you want to buy anything at their store, use code word DCLDUO, all capitalized and you will get 10% off all the merchandise in their store. But welcome. I've got to say Happy New Year. Before I of course introduce my lovely guest who's joining me today since my co host is unavailable. But Happy New Year to everyone. It is 2025. This is our first show of the new year and Tracy's representing with a DCL Happy New Year necklace. Well, I got to welcome my fabulous guest Tracy to the show. Those of you out there, I mean, you all know her at this point, right? She's been. Actually, we, we figured out, I think she's been on. This is like her ninth time on the show maybe. Yeah, nine times on the show. And Tracy and her husband Michael are affectionately known as the DCL Duo Senior. If you haven't listened to previous episodes with them, make sure to do so. They are just a fun, lovable couple. We met them back in 2019 on the 11 night Southern Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy. And isn't it funny, Tracy, that we are going full circle?
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Back to the Disney fantasy. Yeah. And Brian is commenting on YouTube that Tracy took over our Instagram and did a fabulous job. For those of you who didn't follow our Instagram over the past week when we were on the fantasy, uh, Tracy was kind enough to volunteer to do a takeover of our Instagram. And despite the fact that I violated the agreement to not post some real five or six times, yeah, I definitely posted some reels during that time. But Tracy was the one who was posting all of our stories and many posts and most of the reels that Got posted over that that week.
So we're back, obviously, Tracy's back in Ohio. I am back in. In Washington.
Washington state, not Washington D.C. for those who care about the difference. But.
And we just got back from like a whirlwind trip.
Both myself and Brian and of course Nathan was with us. Tracy and her husband Michael, as well as another family. You've heard us refer to them before. They are the moral family. They have a handle on Instagram. They are cruising DCL family.
And so they were posting as well. But we all went on this whirlwind of a trip. It was a couple days at Parks, staying at Riviera down in Walt Disney World.
We went on the Treasure maiden voyage. You obviously all heard the show that Brian and I did, the live show we did from the Space Hotel. Tracy's wearing the Treasure ears. And then right after that, we pivoted. Michael coined this term. Instead of doing a back to back, we did a pivot because we had one day in between. We got off of the Treasure at Port Canaveral, went to the Space Hotel, went to the Kennedy Space center for the day. And then the very next day we boarded the Disney Fantasy out of Port Canaveral. So it was. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty amazing. Long trip. I see. Oops. Craig is saying, you did way better going dark than I. Oh, he corrected himself. Way better at going dark than I thought you would, Sam. Thank you, Craig. I appreciate that.
I know I tried my best, but I had a hard time doing that. We've got a lot of people saying, hi. We've got Linda saying, hey, hey. DCL fam. We've got Lindsay saying, happy New Year. We've got Bridget complimenting your ears.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Aren't they gorgeous, Tracy?
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And then we've got Lori saying, looking forward to the show. Hope you got to see our favorite soul duo. They were on the ship. I heard them. I did not sit and listen to them very long, Lori, because they weren't in the lounges that we were hanging out in as much. But I did see them on board and they were fantastic. A couple of times. I did catch a song or two. And of course we've got. Of course we've got CT wishing us a happy here as well.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: There's no comments CT about the fact that I had chocolate souffle twice on this.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Love it, love it. And we got Linda saying she's excited to. To hear about our trip. She loved the Fantasy in July and missed the cruise so much.
We've got Sarah's complimenting your thanks, Sarah.
And we've got Ashley saying happy New Year and not a bad way to celebrate the holidays. It sure flew by. I knew it's definitely, definitely very, very fast. And oh, and CT saying he may be a brunch sweet roll convert. Oh, my goodness. I don't know what sweet roll that you're talking about. If it's the sticky fun, I don't know. Anyway, well, let's, let's jump in. Tonight we're going to talk about the cruise on the Fantasy, but we're not just going to talk about the cruise on the Fantasy. We're going to talk about it in context with having just been on the Treasure. Because obviously these are two very different ships. They were built at very different times. They have different layouts, there's different activities. So we want to kind of do a little bit of compare. But before we do the compare and whatnot, we do want to talk about New Year's Eve and what it's like to sail on New Year's Eve on Disney Cruise Line. There is, I think, fair consistency across the fleet as to what kinds of things you can expect if you're celebrating New Year's. I want to put this out there because I know there's questions about this. New Year's Eve cruises are not maritime cruises.
So they don't have a maritime deck post party. They generally won't have. They won't have Santa on them. And that's because Christmas and New Year's are seven days apart. And none of the cruises that we have seen yet have been encompassing both Christmas and New Year's. So maritime cruises typically end as soon as Christmas ends. And so New Year's cruises are not maritime cruises. So unless CCL does some really long cruise over Christmas that happens to. That happens to go Christmas and New Year's, you won't have maritime. That doesn't mean we discovered that you won't have a Christmas tree or decorations.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Or the gingerbread house or the garland or even some of the holiday attire.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yes. And Castaway, Tracy, right? Oh, that's right.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Castaway had their decorations were still up as well when we got there. And that was the end of our cruise. So that was, you know, day that was the fourth.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So we had just to be to put this out there. You know, I mentioned on our last show on the Treasure maiden voyage, there was a lot of chatter about whether or not we're going to have Christmas decorations on the Treasure for Christmas because it wasn't a maritime cruise. If you didn't watch that show or listen to that show. Spoiler. There were decorations as we knew there would be, even though people were adamant that there wouldn't be. So there were decorations. And actually the decorations on the Treasure we saw through posts on Facebook and Instagram. They continued all the way through their New Year's cruise as well, which started and ended a day before ours. So both on the Treasure and on the Fantasy, I haven't seen if this is true on the other ships, Christmas decorations stayed up through their New Year's Eve cruises. And of course, Castaway Key. They also all the decorations were up at least until January 4th. But, but I can also report though, the Christmas decorations came down off the fantasy on January 5th because as we were debarking, we saw the tree was already down and the garlands were being removed.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: So the gingerbread house was gone.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Was gone. Yeah. They must have done that at night because we, we did not see it get taken down. But it wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't there. There are folks saying, you know, this is the first time they seen the decorations up past Christmas. I think that it is unusual. I. There are, there have been other times where Castaway decorations have been up past Christmas. They have been, but it's pretty rare, I think, for them to be on, on the ship past Christmas.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: I'd be curious to have Michael chime in because we've done two other New Year's cruises, one with our kids when they were littler and then one a couple years ago and I think the trees were still up on those as well.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Maybe Michael could chime in and he's just upstairs.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Well, and Linda was saying we got Christmas Castaway on a non Christmas cruise. Both of our Christmas. Both of our cruises. Right. Technically, both the Treasure Maiden and the Fantasy New Year's Eve, neither of them were, were married time. And she went on a maritime cruise on the Fantasy. Maybe it wasn't on the Fantasy. See, I mean, it was on the Magic. She went on one of the earlier maritime cruises and the decorations were not yet up at Castaway. Oh, and Michael is saying in the comments he can't remember Tracy so.
Well, let's, let's talk about New Year's on Disney Cruise Line.
If you are going on a Disney Cruise Line vacation during New Year's Eve as a part of your, as a part of your itinerary, typically speaking, you are going to have a New Year celebration on board. In fact, you might actually have two New Year's celebrations on board. And if Tracy happens to be traveling with you, then you'll also have a birthday celebration to celebrate on board. Because Tracy is one of those lucky or unlucky people whose birthday happens to be December 31st. And so you get to celebrate her birthday on New Year's Eve. Well, we had, we had two celebrations. Let's start with talking about the first one. Setting aside your birthday, I guess we had three celebrations setting aside your birthday. Tracy, let's talk about New Year's Eve. We had a different menu in our, in our dining room. Let's talk about that for a second. What, what did we have, Tracy?
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Oh, you're going to ask me about the menu. I don't remember.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: It was like, I definitely have comments.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: About the menus, but I, you know, I, I feel like it was, it.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Was similar to the Christmas menu.
It wasn't exactly the same as the Christmas menu because we did have, I believe we had a filet mignon on there that wasn't, that isn't on the Christmas menu. But there was, I think like a turkey dinner. Yeah. So sweet.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Mashed sweet potatoes.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So we, we had like the traditional. So we didn't have a pirate menu because we had a seven night cruise where we had the, you know, rotational dining, you know, twice at each restaurant and then an extra night at one of the restaurants. We had our extra night at Royal Court. But of course, the menu was the same across the, across all of the restaurants. So it was a special New Year's Eve menu. Like I said, not exactly the same as a Christmas menu, but similar. It was a porcini crusted filet, to be exact. Craig is reminding me. Thank you. I appreciate that.
So there, that was kind of a nice, a nice touch. There was a toast during dinner that.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Came on the loudspeaker. And then there were, there were officers in each one of the restaurants doing a toast.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And then there was also, there were two countdowns. Tracy, why don't you tell folks about the first of the two countdowns?
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Okay, so in the atrium, they had a countdown. They had all the characters came out. They had a little dance party thing going on. And then they did a countdown for those people who can't tell time.
You know, little younger people. Maybe somebody wanted to get their kids to bed a little early.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: So the countdown was, I believe it was 8. It was 8pm If I remember correctly. It was before our dinner. And so it was just, it was a nice little party. They did have drinks. They were, they had champagne and drinks that the waiters were Carrying around so you could grab one of those to, you know, do a toast or whatever. But it was. It was a lot of fun. The characters were all there. So it was a lot of families at this one. Not that there were. Not the deck party as well, but a lot of little people, you know, that were there. And the characters were just kind of mingling amongst people, dancing and having a great time. And so then they did the countdown. The captain came out on the balcony and on the fourth floor.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it was fourth or fifth floor, I can't remember. We were down in the atrium on the third floor. And then there were people watching from the fourth and the fifth. One character kept going on sort of the stairs and, like, doing like, kind of a solo dance. And then the rest of the characters were, as Tracy mentioned, mingling with the crowd. But then, yeah, the countdown was the cruise director, the captain. And then Mickey and Minnie went up there. And so they did the countdown. I think they counted down from about 20 seconds. I have a video of it on our Instagram. And. And then, of course, the confetti popped out. And so this was at 8pm so it went from about 7:30 to 8pm it was crazy in the atrium because it was also picture time. Right? So it was like the 7:15 picture time was happening. And so it. And of course there were free drinks and character dance parties. So of course it was chaos.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: And it was, you know, because it was New Year's Eve, I think a lot of families had this. The idea of, you know, we're going to get dressed up and we're going to go do pictures. Not really understanding that this party was, you know, going to be chaos.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: And I. I felt terrible.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: There was a family in front of us that had a little one who was just like, she looked so cute. She was just done. And mom was just like, I just want one nice picture of our family all dressed up. Yes, well, they worked so hard.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: They did. And they made the nice. One thing I thought that was really nice is they actually originally had put out a schedule of when formal night was going to be. And then they changed. And so formal night ended up being on New Year's Eve, which was perfect because everyone was going to dress up for New Year's Eve anyway. And so you saw a lot of, like, sequins, a lot of sparkles, both in, like, kids and adults. The men tended to be a little bit more dressed up on that on this night in particular as well. Well, of course, on Disney Cruise Line, for those who know or those not in the know. You don't ever have to dress up except if you're going to Apollo and Remy, the adult only or Enchante the adult only restaurants on board. Every place else. And even, even there it's fairly casual, but every place is every place else on Disney Cruise Line is casual wear at a minimum. But you can of course dress nicer. And so all of the formal and semi formal nights that they have are all optional. They are not required. But on New Year's Eve it seems like, seemed like, I don't know, almost everyone was at least dressed nicer, if not nobody. I did see a couple of like sequin gowns and some tuxedos. But general, generally speaking that those people were like on the overdressed end. I felt like a lot of people were doing like cocktail dresses, skirts, blouses, polo shirts, short sleeve button downs, that sort of a thing. Yeah. Okay. Well then we had, after dinner we had an, an evening deck party that started at about 11pm, was a whole hour long, we were all tired, but we all stayed up. I should say that Nathan actually stayed up for the deck party and then.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Promptly told me that my birthday was over.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: That's true. True story. I love that the deck party was very similar to the atrium party, only of course outside. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about the inside atrium party, but also the deck party is that they actually had little carts where they were selling like bubble wands and light up wands and stuff.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: So just like before, but never indoors.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Same, same. And maybe indoors they might not have been selling the bubble wands, but they were selling the light up stuff indoors. And this. Yeah, the spinny light up stuff and. Or the, the light up wands and whatnot. Same. Very similar or the same to what you see in the parks. But they were selling them and the bubble wands on the deck. At the New Year's Eve party. At the New Year's Eve party they did hand out those. The necklace that you just showed a little bit ago. It was a bead necklace with a Happy New Year.
They did come around with little petit fours, little bite appetizers. They actually had a lot of them. I felt like the waiters were going around and having a hard time actually giving them away. Probably because it was 11 o'clock at night and most of us really weren't that hungry.
And then of course they came out with these really nice, yeah, corksicle champagne flutes. So like the insulated like metal ones that said, you know, Disney cruise line, Happy New Year 2025, something like that. And so they handed those out. They had ones with what I believe was Cloudum or Martinelli's for the kids. And then of course, probably Prosecco, not actually champagne for the adults. And you knew which ones were non alcoholic by if they had a straw in them.
Yeah. And then it was more of a dance party. I mean, I don't. I feel like we had a hard time seeing because we were so far back. But from my memory, Tracy was just kind of music with the characters doing different dances until the countdown started.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yep. And then the, if I remember right, the captain's like, voice came on. Like, I don't.
Maybe they came out on the stage.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: You know, I know that the cruise director, Steven, I know he came out on the stage.
I think the captain came out on the stage, but he might have just been over the loudspeaker. It's hard to actually see them. But because they were on the stage or whoever, you know, including the characters, we could only see the tops of the heads of the characters.
Even the top of Steven said, and at the beginning they were up on the monitor so we could watch everything that was going on on stage from the monitor. But then when they switched to the countdown, which was at like a minute, I want to say, then all you could see was the countdown on the screen. And then they did, they showed the countdown. And then of course, when we hit like, I think it was again like 15. That's when everybody started actually counting aloud. And then Happy New Year. And then what was in the sky, Tracy?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Fireworks for my birthday.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Fireworks for Tracy's birthday. Well, no, it wasn't your birthday anymore.
Your birthday's over. So this is a kind of. This is really nice. I will say that if you're sailing certain locations New Year's Eve, you might not be able to have fireworks. But if you're sailing in the Caribbean or the Bahamas on New Year's Eve, you will typically have fire two fireworks shows. If it's more than like a three night cruise. If it's a three night cruise, you might still, you just have the New Year's one. You might not have a pirate one. But we have had a pirate fireworks on a different night. And we had the New Year's Eve fireworks.
And Linda's asking, were we close enough to see the dream and wish? No, because they were in the Bahamas and we were still in the eastern Caribbean. So they were not close enough.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Between.
Were we in Puerto Rico?
[00:20:42] Speaker B: We were.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Was that the day or we were in St. Martin. I can't.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: No, we were in port. No, no, Puerto Rico, San Juan.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Wrong cruise. I'm sorry. Two cruises. I know, I know.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So we went to. We went to San Juan and to. We went to St Martin first and then we went to San Juan, but I believe it was San Juan night. That was. Oh, no, San Juan was the second. No, it was a sea day. It was sea day. So anyway, we were headed down to the. We were headed to the Eastern Caribbean. So.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, she's saying, did I see that the dream and wish were close enough to one another to see each other's fireworks? I did not see that.
That makes more sense. Sorry, I did not understand the.
That's really cool because that makes sense. They would have both. Yeah, they would have both been probably close. Ish to Nassau in the Bahamas.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: I will say that when we were watching the fireworks and we were looking out like, as we were like looking out over the edge, you could see all the other ships out in the ocean that park and wait to watch our fireworks. So.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Super fun. It's. And they pretend like some of the other cruise lines pretend like, oh, look, we've got you. We made fireworks for you out in the distance. No, no, those are Disney firework.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Anyway, so that's. That's what New Year's Eve is like on. On the. On the Fantasy. It's similar on the other ships. They ha. They do these fireworks shows for. For New Year's Eve, if they can.
Was a really fun way to celebrate New Year's Eve. It was really nice to have a different menu. Also, instead of having. We were lucky we didn't get a pirate night menu on either of these cruises because we had a Christmas venue and a New Year's Eve menu. So yeah, Tracy's given two thumbs up for that. I'll. I'll echo that.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: You know how much I love the pirate.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Well, let's. Let's transition to talking about the fantasy in more general sense. I know Tracy a lot of opinions about things on see that need to maybe be updated. So let's start there because I want to first put it out there. We had a wonderful time on the Fantasy. She's got amazing spaces, but she is due for dry dock later this year. She's going in for dry dock in, I believe, end of September.
And so there some stuff that probably needs to be updated or, you know, there's some just places where she could use a little bit of paint. And you noticed some Things, Tracy, when you were on and why don't you tell. Why don't you start there?
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Okay, well, so first of all, comparing the Treasure, which is brand spanking new, to the Fantasy, which is the only ship left in the fleet that hasn't been in dry dock, that's, you know, of the older of the original four ships.
You know, we were kind of, you know, we had kind of discussed it even before we'd gotten on the Fantasy, like, well, you know, how are we going to feel about this? I will say, overall, I still love whatever ship I'm with, you know, with my whole chest. Like, you know, but there were things that I saw. I'll start with our stateroom. It just like, the bed was still perfectly comfortable.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: But there were things, you know, the carpet looks a little worn. The couch is a little worn. That oval table that doesn't fit under the couch like it does on the Treasure, which is super annoying because I'm constantly running into it. The top of it was kind of all scratched up, like, just little.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Just like a little. Yeah. Mostly soft goods. I feel like. Like it's, it's like what they do at the DVC resorts. Right. Like every few years they need like a. An updated soft goods. Refurbished. Right. And so Fantasy similarly needs that as well.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: She just. It wasn't anything that impacted our stay. It didn't impact us in our room or anywhere else on the ship, per se. It was just, you just know, like, especially because we just came off the Treasure, I just noticed it. I was like, oh, that table looks a little rough. It's seen better days. That'll be in cast connection before we know it.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yep. Well, and I think the pool deck was another area in particular, the lounge chairs. So the lounge chairs, we sat on them a lot on the adult pool deck. And the cushion for the last. It was again, not like, they looked fine, but.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: My butt would start hurting every time I'd be sitting on them because there's like no cushion in the cushion anymore. Like, the cushion, so broken, broke down. And so even though it looks fine, it was like you could tell, like, that's. I'm hoping that's, you know, something that they, they update. And then. Yeah, there's Lindsay's jumping in here too. There's carpet. Right. She noticed. She was on the cruise right before us. She noticed the carpet or two. Two right before us. She knows the carpet on the midship stairs was more worn than the aft of the forward stairs. Not really noticeable, but noticeable. If you went on all the stairs. These are the kinds of things, you know. And Vanessa's saying she was on the magic in 2013 before its major dry dock. They could tell that you know what was going to be updated, definitely. And especially when you look at like brand new carpet on the Treasure, to your point, Tracy, and all the amazing beautiful carpets. And there's an amazing, beautiful carpets on the Fantasy as well. But it's one of those things where they're older now. And so you can tell there's definitely going to be some updates there. You know, there's one. You know, there's a couple of things. Like we know Enchanted Garden on the Dream didn't have the chafing dishes, the buffet area that wasn't removed. And it's on the Fantasy too. And it's just a wasted space. Like it could be. I mean, they could put even a little stage there. They could do some kind of. They could do something with that space and they haven't done. So there's, there's some things like that that I feel like are, you know, the room for opportunity.
And then I feel like we should talk a little bit about menu. Tracy, those menus haven't changed in a really long time. And I'm wondering what you think about those.
I know what you think about them, but I feel like you should share.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Maybe some of your thoughts. Well, so in full disclosure, I'm incredibly picky eater. I'm very sheltered. I'm a very Midwest girl. I like my beef and mashed potato kind of thing. And one of the things that we had talked about at our dinner table each night as I looked at the menu and tried to find something that would fit into my belly was that we kind of feel like first of all, the menus are just repeated over and over again. It's like the same. I feel like there's so much opportunity for them to change things up and they just haven't done it. But the other thing is that it's like they're trying too hard. And I'm stealing that from my husband because he said that while we were on the ship, he's like, like, it's like Disney's trying too hard. Like, do a really good XYZ whatever. Like do a really good red snapper or do a really good filet. But you don't have to make it like a full, like something out of Victoria and Albert's, you know, with all the things and the sauces and all the things on it. Just like, like a really good steak.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you Know.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Or really. And so for me, what I would love to see is something a bit more casual. Like, I don't. It doesn't have to be like McDonald's. Like, know. It doesn't have to be pool deck food, but something that's. And yeah, I could get the lighter fare and just get the plain grill. I want, I want it somewhere between the lighter fare and what they're doing right now.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So some sauce, some accoutrement, but maybe not as fancy. See. And I don't think that it's. I don't know that it's too fancy for me. I think, I thought. I don't think it's too fancy, but I do think that we could use a refresh on some of the older menus. In particular, the night two menu in all three of the main restaurants on the Fantasy is, is the weaker of the two menus, in my opinion. They're not. None of them are really bad. But there's like, there's nothing special. There's. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of special on those, those night two menus. And so it'd be nice to see them maybe refresh them. I actually think they did such a wonderful job on the menus on the Treasure.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: In. Not just in, you know, 1923. Well, actually 1923, I don't like the second night menu as much, but I actually really like the second night Marvel menu. I thought they did a great job with that. And of course, both Coco menus, now those are very themed for Mexican.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: But it would be nice to kind of, I don't know, maybe just do a little refresh.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Well, they, and they. With the, with the cocoa menu, they could, you know, they, they could have gone way over the top with that as well, but they didn't. And that was what I liked about Coco was it kind of was almost like they scaled that back just, just a little. Not. It's not your. It's not Taco Bell. It's not Chipotle at Sea. It's a little bit more than that. But it's not like crazy, you know, all the things I mean, the chicken enchiladas and the empanadas and the pork carnitas. That was amazing. And there were choices. And the Disney's big miss on the Treasure. Say it with me, Sam. No queso.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: What?
[00:29:58] Speaker B: I know, I know. Well, we, we have, we have a couple good comments. I want to bring up Sarah saying she feels like the sauces aren't actually that fancy, but they sound fancy, but they really don't go all out. I agree with you, Sarah. I actually do. I don't think they're all that fancy. But I think Michael's comment is on point too, that menus are not designed for frequent repeat cruisers. Right. And so maybe we've cruised too much. Tracy. I don't want to actually say that. Did I just say that out loud?
[00:30:23] Speaker A: That's corre.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: No, they sell even more. But Taryn is hoping for a refresh. She does like the dishes that are different than what she would cook at home, though. And then we did have a comment about the pirate menu. We had a comment. Did anyone like the pirate menu?
[00:30:43] Speaker A: I haven't met anybody.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: The lost and I actually do know a couple people who like the. The.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Do you really?
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Anybody who likes the pirate.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: But Sarah's saying she loves the treasure, the sea pasta, but the rest of it she doesn't really like. And then this is a funny one. Wesley saying there's a popular culinary trick, make it sound fancy without actually being fancy. Sounds fancy.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: That I must be missing out because if I look at it and I don't know what they're saying, I'm not going to order it. So that's my. That's my issue. I gotta figure that out, I guess.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Well. And Matthew saying the pirate menu is good. And then CT is saying for the families that don't do Paulo Remy or Enchante, the elevated menus play better. That's absolutely true. It's like a. It's trying. Trying to be somewhere in between being, like, what you cook at home, what you would get at, like a local, I don't know, chain steak restaurant. Right. But trying and trying to elevate it a little bit. And Matthew's saying there's a lot of haters on the pirate menu, but he enjoys it. Yes.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: It's okay, Matthew, you can be wrong.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: No, I don't think. I think that the pirate menu. I actually think the pirate menu menu post pandemic because they did update it is a lot better than.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: A lot better. The old one. Yeah, even worse.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: And Bridget, listen, Bridget's saying she likes the pirate menu as the best dinner on her. There you go. See? I tell you. And Sarah likes one dish on there, so that counts too. So, Tracy, you know, we are. We are. There are others who. Who disagree on the pirate menu.
[00:32:20] 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 sailed on all the Disney ships, including in Concierge, visited the theme parks, Adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Al and 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 there. One way. Thanks my Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Well, let, let's talk about spaces because you know, they're obviously on the Treasure we've got all these new very intensely themed spaces. And on Fantasy we've got more of the classic ocean liner with some theming in some spaces. I guess let's start with actually dining first because dining is a great differentiator on the Fantasy. For those who haven't been, you've got three rotational dining restaurants just like on all the other ships. But you have specifically Royal Court which is your sort of princess themed restaurant with. That's very subtle in its theming. It's very, it feels very royal. It's the fanciest of the spaces. But it's Disney in your face, right? There's no, you don't, you don't have like IP all over the place. It's very understated. It's definitely. But it's definitely sort of royal and princess themed. And the, and the wait staff's new, particularly their new uniforms are really, really nice. I would say better than the old ones. Then you of course have animators palette which is your, we'll call it your show restaurant you're going to have.
Depending upon your itinerary, you might have the Crush show or you might have animation magic. The Crush show is where Crush talks to you. Like the, like seeing Crush in the parks animation magic is. I'll just say it's where your drawings come alive. Now I won't leave it at that. For those who haven't actually gotten a chance to do it.
And then the third restaurant is probably the. The least themed, called Enchanted Garden. It's just this pretty garden theme. And that's the one we were talking about earlier that still has chafing dishes from a buffet that they don't do anymore.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't use it at all anymore, which is so silly.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: And Sarah, I saw she was commenting earlier. Here it is. I wonder if they'll add a show to Enchanted Garden at some point. I hope so, but I don't know if that's coming.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: They didn't take the steam tables and stuff off the Dream. I kind of feel like I would be surprised if they took him off the Fantasy just because they generally do the same thing over and over again.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Or really similar. Well, and so Wesley's saying he loves a lightly but smartly themed themed restaurant. So Wesley, probably you probably really like. Then the restaurants, I would say on. On the Fantasy, because they are all lightly but smartly themed, except for Animators, which is more heavily themed.
So the difference between, of course, on the Treasure and on the Dream Class, but also on the Magic class is exactly that. You've got on the Treasure and on the Wish, you've got much more. You had heavy theming in two of three restaurants on the older ships. You've got Only, I'd say heavy theming in one of three restaurants on each of them because they all have a royal court. Royal Palace. Lumiere's Tritons are all similar. They do have theming, but it's more understated. And then you've got Enchanted Garden on the Dream Class and. Oh, I guess you do have more theming on the you because you have Tiana's and Rapunzel. So you've got. Because of their guide. So you've got. Yeah, actually, you've got two out of three on. On some of the ships, but Dream Dre Class being the least amount of theming. Tracy, do you prefer a more themed restaurant or do you prefer a more, you know, lightly themed restaurant?
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Well, here, if I have. If I'm choosing between the Wish and the Treasure, I will pick the Treasure because I felt like the shows.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: No, not between the Wish and Treasure. No, no, let's talk between.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Oh, I'm gonna. I'm leading you somewhere.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: So basically, the Wish is too loud for me. All the shows in the Wish are too loud. They're too in your face. I can't have a conversation with the person beside me or the person across from Me, when we were on the Treasure, like the Coco, we could still have a conversation and we were right next to the stage, so I appreciated that. Of the Treasure, the Fantasy, I appreciated more because other than the Crush show, which is intermittent, and the Animator show, which is intermittent, there's no show. So you're having dinner with your family and your friends and you can converse and you can, you know, talk about your day or whatever. So I kind of. I mean, I love the shows, don't get me wrong. I do love music. I do love a good musical. I just am not 100% sure that I need the hardcore show like they have on the Wish for my Dinner. I can go to the theater to get that, but I, you know, so that, that's. I mean, that might be a hot. That might be a hot take, but I. I kind of prefer just being able to sit and converse and talk about what we did and, you know, so enjoy the. The staff. Like on the Fantasy, we. We got to talk a lot to our. Our wait staff, who were fabulous. Shout out. Boris and Gwen.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's. That's actually a really good point. If you do want to get to know your weight staff. Both the Wish and the Treasure suffer from this, which is just having more shows. Right. Even if you're doing magic or Wonder, even though you do have animators and you have a Tiana's and Rapunzel's, you don't have them. The Rapunzel's and Tiana's, you typically only have a show one night, so it's not as much interference. Whereas, you know, Taryn is saying you got four dinner shows on the Treasure and they're all loud and louder and longer. Although I'd say that The Marvel. Marvel 1, the second night Marvel 1 is more.
Is less intrusive than the First Night Marvel 1.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Yes, I would agree.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah. But it definitely is a preference. There. There was a huge difference between dining on Wish and Treasure and dining on the rest of the fleet. I do think there is more.
If you like a dinner show aspect, then Wish and Treasure are going to be more your thing. Of course, depending upon. If you don't like it really loud, then. And that might change your opinion. But I do think the original four, and particularly Dream Class is. Dream Class would be great for the quieter dinner person.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: And I would say if you've got little kids who need to be distracted during dinner, maybe the shows are the way to go for you.
Our kids aren't little anymore, so it's just us traveling at this point. And so for us, us just being able to, you know, sit and have a conversation and, you know, enjoy the dinner and have a drink and whatever that for us is, I think, at least for me, I guess I can't, you know, speak for the guy upstairs, but.
But I. I appreciated that. And especially because we were sitting at a large table with, you know, we had a pretty big party to be able to talk to people on the other end of the table. It was just easier on the Fantasy than it was on the Treasure or the. Or it would be on the Wish, for sure.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: And Wesley saying, overall, he's with you. He says his kids would disagree. We've got Sarah commenting that the last time they were on the Wonder, Tiana's was very loud and with her dad, who's hard of hearing. It made dinner. Yeah. Made dinner hard. Yeah. That is absolutely true. And I will say that is. That is the same issue on the Wish in Arendelle Presents in Coco, on the Treasure, and same with Marvel. On the Treasure as in Wish, but maybe a slightly better.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Like I'm going to say, as far as between Wish and Treasure, Treasure is a little bit better on the sight lines and the volume and the way the show is a little bit more intermittent than continuous, particularly Arendelle versus Coco, but both are pretty intrusive. So magically, Vanessa is saying she doesn't need a show every night. She feel they rush service, so it's not to interfere with the show. This is true. This is one thing we noticed on, you know, we. We had to order everything at once on the Treasure, including our dessert all the time, because there was a show that was going to interrupt dinner. And so they needed to know everything from the start. Whereas on the Fantasy, the only night where we needed to do that was in animators, but only really animation magic. We didn't have to do that even for Crush Night, because Crush Night is, while it does have a show, it's a little bit less, again, a little less intrusive than animation magic. So.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: And on the Treasure they did have, which is different than the other ships that I can remember, is that the desserts were on the main menu.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Yes, you're right. That's a really good point.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: You would get a separate dessert menu on all the other ships. But when we got to the Treasure, when we opened up the menu the first time, we're like, the desserts are on here. Like, what. What is happening? So that was different for. For the Treasure as well.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure it was purposeful because like I said, we. We basically had. You had to order everything all at once at the beginning and figure that out. I mean, you could, of course, and your staff would get you something else. But it. It was certainly.
It was certainly a different, different situation. Well, let's talk about. I'll talk about shows a little bit because I know you didn't go to any of the shows on the Fantasy, but I know you went to the shows. Well, you went to the new shows. On the new show, I should say on. On the Treasure. I know, I know you enjoyed Moana, but you had the same comments as Brian. You weren't as big a fan of Maui as I was. Was.
I mean, I gotta say, I gotta tell people the shows on the Fantasy are still fabulous. So I. I didn't go to all three because I've seen all three before, but I made sure to go to Aladdin because it had been a while since I had seen Aladdin. I wanted to go to Frozen, but then I was talked out of it. I was instead talked into going to, I don't know, Meridian, I think one night instead of going to see Frozen by some, you know, some devil's on my shoulder.
But I will say the fantasy, you know, the Fantasy is still doing great with, you know, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of Believe. There are people who love Believe. That's the one with the man, the flower and the daughter.
But. But there. But right. There are people who love that show and God bless them. But that ship has a great production of Frozen. I think Frozen is one of the best in the Florida fleet and it has a really good production of Aladdin. Aladdin is fantastic. If you get a really good genie. We had a really good genie. And so it was really. Yeah, it was really fun to watch. So great shows across the fleet. But Treasure is number one for shows right now.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Moana was ridiculous.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: So, so good. Right? And the woman who plays Moana, and you got a picture with her, Tracy. Me.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: I got to meet both of them.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We got to meet the one who plays young. Yeah, but we. But the. But the one who plays older Moana, I mean, it's like an 8 year old. They're supposed to be 8 and 16. And that's what's funny about it. It's not older. And I mean older and younger, but they're both adults. But the one who plays the older version, she's the one who sings all the, you know, the songs and is she's the main character and she's. Yeah, just. She's a star. Are incredible.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Having met her, she is as sweet as she can be.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: Yeah, she.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: She was there with her fiance and they asked us to take a picture. We just were standing by the Christmas tree. Asked us to take a picture. And then I leaned over to her and I said, do you know Moana?
Yeah, I do. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, you were fantastic. She was so sweet and she let us take a selfie and yeah, so it was, it was really, really quite nice.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Super fun. Well, okay, so we've got, we got. We've been through dining, we've been through shows. We gotta talk bar spaces. I mean the bar spaces on the Fantasy were. Were my favorite probably until Treasure came out. So I still think they're top notch. What, what do you think, Tracy?
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Well, and. And again, because I am not traveling with kids, I kind of dig the vibe of having all the adult areas kind of in the same area.
And I like the D Lounge and the places where they do the bigger trivias. That's the name of the other the tube for trivia. Shout out to Brian and Michael and I for winning brain teasers.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: That's great. I like those spaces is I think almost better than Sarabi on the Treasure just because Sarabi is that two stories open on the edges kind of a thing where they can close the doors if they need to on the Fantasy. And I, I do like the, you know, you get into that area and then you can. I mean sounds bad but like bar hop. Like you know what's, you know what's in that area and when you're on the trip.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Yeah. For.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: For those you gotta go there and you gotta.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. For those who don't know the lay. The Fantasy is basically all of the adult only bar spaces except for one which is Meridian. Meridian is up where between Paulo and Remy, which is on deck 13 aft. All the rest of them are deck. What is it? Deck 4 aft and it's called Europa and it's a whole district and on the Dream it's called the district. On it's called Europa and it's all these themed. They're sort of themed different countries and whatnot. So the tube is like London themed, like London subway themed. You've got got skyline which is different city themed. And the skyscape on the screens changes as you're sitting there. Yeah. You've got La Piazza which is a Italian themed like carousel bar. You've got Ooh La La, which is a French themed champagne bar. You've got Ogils, which is an Irish pub. So you have a really nice, you have nice theming. They're all bars. Right? Right. But it's all in one place where as on the Treasure, just like on the Wish for those who have been on the Wish or have been on the Treasure, now they're, they're kind of spread out throughout the ship. So location is very, very different. But I will say the theming on the Treasure is more intense. Right. You've got. Because you have Haunted Mansion Parlor and you've got Scat Cat Lounge. You have Hipper Society and Periscope Pub. So all of these, these sp and Sarabi as you mentioned, which is more of like a theater space that's also a bar space.
But yeah, it's, it's. Those are very intensely themed. And, and I don't know about you, Tracy. I loved all the theming of on the new. On the Treasure.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean I. And I'm not even like a big Haunted mansion person, but it was so cool to go in there and just like kind of sit for a little bit and watch the show that happened. Happens all around you. It is immersive. Where you know, in Europa in the bars there again, it's almost like the dining spaces, it's less IP themed.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: It's more generic. They're still, they're still themed for the country or you know that they are like the furniture, you know, matches the vibe and that sort of thing. But it's, it's just, it's not as in your face Disney me as the Haunted Mansion Bar, the Skipper Society, the Periscope Pub. Not that I. And I loved all. I mean, you know, I. We tested them all out and they were all great.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: We tested them all out. I love the way you say that.
We can talk about it if we're science, right? It's for science. Right? Exactly. Yeah.
Vanessa saying she definitely prefers the adult spaces on the first four ships and that Sarabi has columns that block your view in quite a few places. You are right, Vanessa. But I will say the tube does also have. Have like sight line issues as well and so does in whatever the one in the dream. I can't remember the in the District is called. But it's the same as same layout as the tube that has some sight line issues. So some of that is, you know, structural stuff. Right. But you're right, Sarabi definitely has some columns that block your view as of course, Luna on the Wish is the same, I think. I agree. I think that space is the main. Maybe my least of the. Not. Not. I like the theming of Sarabi, but that sort of layout. And because it's supposed to hold things like trivias and bingos and some other shows, it's. Yeah, that one is maybe my least favorite of what they did on the Wish class, as compared to, you know, you got Azure and the tube and fathoms and whatever the one on the Dream is called. I think those are. Those are better. Um, yeah. So definitely different layout for the bar spaces, but more intense theming. I'd say that's sort of the overall thing. I feel like we've got to talk Aqua Duck versus Aqua Mouse now that we have very recently been on both. Tracy, you know that we've got pool decks. You know, there's lots of differences on the pool decks as far as how many number of pools and all that. Of course, Wish class has more. Has a greater number of pool. But let's talk about. We'll talk about. I think we should talk about the adult pool spaces a little bit, because obviously they're very different on. On Dream. Dream Class and which class. But let's start with. Yeah, let's start with Water Slide.
Which one, Tracy? What's better, the mouse or the duck? It's so hard.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: I will be honest. It was too cold on the Fantasy. We never quite made it to the Aqueduct.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: You didn't. I didn't realize that. You never did. You're a wimp when it comes.
[00:51:18] Speaker A: We were going to do it on Castaway days, and it was so cold to me, even though it's, like, freezing here now and there's 2 inches of snow on the ground. But, you know, so we didn't actually get on the Aqueduct, so. But I think I'm still a Mouse fan. I mean, I like the show, and I felt like on the Treasure, they, you know, we. I got to see multiple shows.
I did get to see the Golden Egg one, and the Sprayers were all working.
And I just. I don't know. I. I just. I think that. That I want themed heavily and that I like. I feel.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, Sarah's saying duck.
Vanessa saying duck.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Matthew saying mouse is good for people with mobility issues, and he understands why Disney did it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to go with Tracy on this one. I actually. I have to go with the Mouse now. I really like both, but now that I've had them, I've been Able to do that back to back to back. And so I've have, like, a closer comparison, which I've never had this close of a comparison before. Like a week, you know, a week's difference. Yeah. I gotta say, I like the mouse a little bit better. I think the tubes are more comfortable and easier to get in and out of.
I think the setup is nice, where you're getting in and getting out at the exact same place.
And, yeah, I do like the show aspect. Even though the. The water slide is a little bit longer on the aqua dock, It's a little bit shorter on the mouse, but not a huge significant amount. Yeah, I just like the ride better. Better.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: And if you plan perfectly and you stay on the ship on castaway day and then you get on there, you can sit on that aqua mouse.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Over and over again.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Get out if there's nobody.
[00:52:58] Speaker B: You can't do that. You can't do that on the dock. You have to get out and climb those stairs again.
Right.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: So I was like, yeah, I'm good with this. He. We'd get to the end, and he'd be like, you want to go again? I'd be like, sure. And there we go.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Wesley disagrees with us. He thinks the duck is more exciting. And Vanessa doesn't like being squirted or being in the dark. Dark. I totally understand. Listen.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't like. We don't like the aqua dunk either.
[00:53:23] Speaker B: That's his favorite, so Brian would say that's his favorite also. Neither. I don't like being dropped into that dark, scary tube. No. I never got my nose, so. Okay. But I. Now we gotta turn to the adult pool space. I don't want to talk too much about the family pool deck space, because I think that both are great for families.
I would say wish class is a little bit better because you've got more smaller pools. But let's talk about the adult pool space, because this is where there's a real big difference, Tracy.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So one thing I noticed on the fantasy was the dry dock was evident in the pool.
So when we were sitting there in that little waiting area, you know, there's paint peeling up off the bottom.
[00:54:05] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: So it's. It's evident that they need to, you know, do the. Do the work on that.
I think if I had. I mean, like, I love the infinity pool on the wish class sh. However, I also want to lay by the pool, and there's no place to lay on the wish and the treasure. They have the seating area. And on the Treasure, I felt like the seating area was bigger between the bar and the pool area. Like we had more space than we did in the Wish. Yes.
[00:54:35] Speaker B: I don't think so. I think it's the same.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: It's just the tables are different and the chairs are different.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but it felt.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: It felt bigger. It felt like I had more room to, like, maneuver if you went up to the bar to get a drink or like where we were sitting, you know, on the Treasure where we sat those days, you know, we just kind of sat there and talked or whatever. It felt bigger. Even if it wasn't. It might just be the furniture that they're using.
But again, for me, I'm probably going to say the Dream Class because I like to be able to be lounging in a lounge chair, maybe get some sun, maybe not get some sun, depending on where the ship is, where the sun is. You know, maybe I'm in the sun, maybe Michael's in the shade, made, you know, but we're. But yet we're still sitting next to each other. And then you get hot, you want to jump in the pool or you want to walk over and get a drink, and you want to keep your feet in the water. They've got the. I didn't see. I don't think I saw a single person sitting on those bar stools, like at the bar there. But, you know, I still think it's a cool idea.
[00:55:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I absolutely agree. Matthew's agreeing, too. He loves the adult areas on the Fantasy and he's ready for his fantasy cruise in four weeks. Like the pool area on the Dream and the Fantasy has absolutely better adult pool area. And then you've also got, you know, the sort of the satellite falls area. So you've got like a lot more space for adults to lounge to get in a pool, too. Because even though you have that pretty infinity pool on the Wish Class ships, you have much bigger pools for the adults on the Dream class, on both the Dream and the Fantasy. So, yeah, I think that while it's showing its wear and it's. It is going to be. I'm sure, you know, they'll do the little, little. Just a little paint things. It's not anything big. They'll do that stuff in its dry dock. But it is definitely a better adult pool area than on the Wish Class, no question. And Matthew, you're 100% right on this. But the Wish class has the best main deck area, meaning the family.
The family deck, pool deck areas. We've got A question about how do the cocktail menus compare on the Treasure versus the Fantas? I mean, on the pool decks, it's the same. You can get all the same cocktails. On the pool decks, I will say the differences are really in the themed bar spaces.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: I would say it's in the ip.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So in the themed bar spaces, you have special themed menus. That doesn't mean you can't get other stuff, but they really are pushing more those themed menus. Haunted Mansion parlor. I'm not sure you can get stuff outside of what the. The. Their. What's on their menu versus On. On the Dream and the Fantasy. You can get any drink really, in any bar, and they will, you know, make it for you. So that's. I. I would say that's the. The major difference.
And then, oh, here's one other thing that Sarah was mentioning. The location of the COVID Cafe. Location of COVID Cafe on the Dream class is right next to those. That adult pool deck. It's very centrally located, as is the adult pool deck deck. The only downside to that is you do often have kids walking through and sometimes having kids walking into Cove with their parents to get a coffee. I personally don't really mind this as long as they're not being loud and bothering the adults or taking up, you know, adult spaces for a long period of time. So if they're like. If they're hanging out there when they're not supposed to be hanging out there, that would bother me. But I have no problem with people, you know, walking through.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: Walking through doesn't bother me at all. All.
[00:58:13] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: I've got nothing.
[00:58:15] Speaker B: Exactly. And then we've got another question. A compare question. Cabanas or Marceline? I. I'm gonna say Marceline and I'm gonna put it out there and say the re. It's. They're not that different. I don't have a huge. Like, this is not a strong preference, but I say Marceline for a couple reasons. One, it's got that really big coffee bar right at the front, whereas in cabanas there is a coffee bar, but it's all the way at the back and it's really far away. And two, most of the food in Marceline market is crew served rather than guest served, meaning you don't have everybody's grubby hands touching all the tongs and the spoons.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: And so for germs, and particularly for norovirus outbreak breaks, I believe that Marceline is safer and better for everyone.
[00:59:04] Speaker A: And as an RN I would agree with, with that.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: So we've got. Well, we got agreement from Vanessa, we've got agreement from. Oops. Agreement from Taryn because she likes that they serve the food. She's agreeing with us. And then accessible adventures. Andrew saying Marceline, for the quiet space is hidden behind the hand washing. Yes, that's a good point. There are, yeah, there's a.
[00:59:26] Speaker A: There's a little like behind the wall that people don't actually see or back there, they walk past it and they're just looking, frantically looking for a table. But if you go behind that wall, there's like another room back there.
[00:59:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: You can luck out and find a spot. The other thing that I liked better on the Treasure than the Fantasy was the omelette station.
[00:59:46] Speaker B: Oh, yes.
[00:59:47] Speaker A: I felt like they had a bigger area, like they had two sides and then they're. I don't know if they're doing this on all the ships, but this was the first we had done where you order your omelette and they give you a buzzer.
[01:00:01] Speaker B: Buzzer, yes.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: And they. That's a.
[01:00:03] Speaker B: That's.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: The Treasure was the first that we. I had ever gotten the buzzer.
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
They did it on the Fantasy too, with the buzzer. But yeah, it may be new. Ish. I didn't used to get omelets, so I don't really remember. Now I do get. I get like to go get fresh eggs now as well. So. Yeah, I have to agree with you there. I think that that is that because.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: People would order their omelette and then they would just stand there, there waiting for their omelette and clog up the.
And so now you take that, you go order that first. You grab your buzzer and they, they told me, hold on to this, do not set it down because it's not going to make a noise. It's only going to buzz.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, Linda is giving us real time info. They were handing out numbers in July, which, remember they used to hand out the number and you put it on the table.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: On the Fantasy. So that, so that must be. That must be new to the Fantasy. Yeah.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: And I like it because then I could go down the rest of the buffet, I could grab my drink, I could try and look for a table. And I wasn't just standing there waiting for it. And then when it went off, I went back, I handed it to them. There's a number on the buzzer, they hand you your omelet and off you go. So I will, I will. I'll go with Marceline on that one too. For that alone.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Well, I want to round this out by saying because we're. We're at an hour. So I'm going to round this out by saying activities across the ships are all very similar with a couple of exceptions which have to do with spaces that exist on the treasure that don't exist on the fantasy. And then of course, we mentioned Sage and Coriander. We talked about them on a couple of our treasure shows. They do some special shows in the grand hall and in Sarabi that don't exist on the rest of the fleet that are really new. And so. So I'd say overall in activities, they're really similar across the fleet. You've got your trivias, you've got your towel folding and your napkin folding and your origami and your crafts and all that kind of stuff.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Karaoke.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, karaoke. So you've got, of course, Match youh maid is still across all the ships and the adult activities really, really similar with great staff and crew. So across the fleet, you have fantastic service, fantastic activity.
Tracy, I gotta round this out by asking you, which one now is your favorite ship? Now, you've been on all of the. You've been on all six ships.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: I know, right?
[01:02:29] Speaker B: We have a Big Hero six. We've got a Big Hero six for me and a Big Hero six for Tracy.
[01:02:34] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:02:34] Speaker B: Tracy, which one is your favorite ship? Right. Right. Now you're getting on tomorrow. It's going to be a seven night. I'm gonna. I'm. Seven night is the great equalizer. You're getting on a ship tomorrow. They're going to the Eastern Caribbean and it's a seven night cruise. But it's any of the Disney fleet. Which ship are you going on?
[01:02:52] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. I mean. And one space you didn't talk about was Rainforest Ruben Spa and the rain.
[01:03:00] Speaker B: If that's the tiebreaker, then.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: Well, I mean, if that's tiebreaker, then the fantasy wins because the rainforest room in the fantasy is greater than the rainforest room in the Treasure because of the outdoor space.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Well, because of the outdoor space. Space. You don't like the outdoor space? I'm confused.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: No, I do like the outdoor space.
[01:03:17] Speaker B: Well, then the fantasy can't wait. You mean the Treasures isn't. Oh, that out. I thought you were talking about the outdoor space that has the hot tubs in the middle. Or are you talking about the balcony space? Both have outdoor space.
[01:03:29] Speaker A: Like when you go, maybe I'm talking about the treasure gosh. Am I getting them all mixed up? Oh, my gosh. See, it doesn't matter which ship I'm on. Doesn't matter.
[01:03:37] Speaker B: The Treasure. So the Treasure has the Treasure and the Wish. Have the outdoor space that is. That has, like, the three hot tubs and swing.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: Okay, so it's the Treasure then.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
[01:03:47] Speaker A: Because I like on those big swings.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: Okay, so the Treasure, it takes it for Tracy is her new favorite ship and the tiebreaker, because she likes them. I have to pick one. Yeah. All right. Okay. Well, what about you? Oh, it's the Treasure. It's the Treasure. Now it's my new favorite ship. Absolutely. Well, the Wonder is. It's, you know, it just depends if I'm saying concierge. I want to be on the Wonder. Let's just put it there. How about that? So anyway, I love them both, but we had fantastic cruises on both the Treasure and the Fantasy. Some great park stays. Of course, the Kennedy Space center in between. Cannot recommend the Kennedy Space center highly enough. Although, of course, it was a weekend during a holiday, and so it was madness. And we didn't get to see nearly as much as I would have liked. But with that, I will just say thank you to Tracy for. For co hosting this show with me. I so much. I so appreciate it. I gotta mention that it's, you know, the new year. Happy 2025 again. To everyone who's been listening to us, whether you came to us last week or you came to us five years ago when we started this thing in 2021, Tracy is our number one fan. She won't. She won't. We will not forget that. Our next live episode, I gotta tell you all, all the crazy thing about this, our next live episode, which is going to be next week, same time, 8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific. Next Monday the 13th is episode number 500.
[01:05:19] Speaker A: I missed two episodes.
[01:05:22] Speaker B: So please join us next week. I don't remember what we're going to be talking about, but I'm sure we'll have a great show for you. So please join us next week for our 500th episode. And with that, I will just say smooth sailing for 2025, and may all your sailings be great ones. Take care, everyone, and have. Have a wonderful start to this new year.
[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 live, 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 Podcasts and if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog a link to our Etsy Store 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
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