[00:00:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's when we entered the North Sea.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Ooh, tell us about entering the North Sea. I'm imagining rough seas.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the rough sea. And we actually had Palo brunch that day.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: A little bit of a fail there. Not, Not. I mean, not on purpose. It's just.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah, not on purpose. But yeah, it was. It was. And I really. My husband doesn't do well. Motion. But he was a trooper. He did. He did well.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: He was like, are you sure you want to do this?
[00:00:39] Speaker D: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And Sam, it is review time. We've got a review this this week from KJ Ness. He writes. Love it, exclamation point. I discovered this podcast a week before our first Disney cruise in February 2022, and I've been hooked ever since. The content is so helpful and I've learned so much. Well, we're glad you found us, KJ Nest. And thank you for leaving a review. And for all of you out there listening right now, please head over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a 5 star review. You can either hit the 5 stars in the app or you can leave us a written review. If you leave us a written review, much like kjns, we will read your review at the top of one of our episodes. With that, Sam, do you want to introduce our guest and our topic for tonight?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yes. But first I just want to say thank you to KJ Ness. And I want to say I'm sorry that you didn't find us like six months before your cruise and only two weeks before your cruise. But I'm glad you found it.
[00:01:33] Speaker D: Well, hopefully they've been cruising since then, Sam, if they're still.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. But yeah. Anyway, I'm super excited to introduce back to our show a mother daughter duo who. Well, they're actually a trio. The other. Their other. The other daughter is not joining us today, but I'm so happy to welcome back to the show Cynthia and Alex. Alex, welcome back, you guys.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Yes, thank you for having us.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Too bad Sophie's not with us today, but, you know, we'll take two out of three. That's not bad, right?
[00:02:02] Speaker A: That's fine. And we will let her know you say hello.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Oh, awesome. Well, before we dive into talking about your Norway Iceland cruise, 12 nights, 12 glorious nights on the Disney dream in Europe, we've got to give people a refresher. It's been a while. I'M trying to remember what the episode topic was even that we recorded with you guys last week because it's been a while. It's been over a week.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: I think I actually have it up because I was getting a getting it for my friends.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Alex, what was the topic?
[00:02:34] Speaker C: It was January of 2022 and it was growing up with Disney Cruise Line episode.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: I think it said episode 176.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: There we go. Awesome. Good job you guys. You made my job in Brian's job way easier today. But we're so happy to have you guys back.
Super excited to talk about this itinerary in particular. Of course, it's one that Brian and I have mentioned multip times. We really want to do. We loved Norway. We'd love to do Iceland as well and do one of the Norway. I would love to go back to Norway and get to go to a couple of ports in Iceland as well. But let's give folks a little bit of background on your Disney background, your Disney Cruising background.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: My Disney background is I grew up in southern California about 30 minutes away from Disneyland. So it was a part of my my growing up and I was lucky enough to be a cast member for a couple of years during high school and college. And after that I moved away from Southern California. But we do go back to Disneyland at least once a year.
Then we discovered Disney Cruising in 2012 with the girls and I and later my husband started joining us on cruises. And to to date I've been on 14 cruises, Disney Cruises and it looks like Alex has been on 11.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: Oh yeah, this was my first platinum cruise.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Woohoo. Love it. Welcome.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: And we've done all the ships, you know. Well all the then current ships. We have not done the. We haven't booked anything for the Treasure.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: Not yet, no.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: But we've done all the other ships and we've done Mexico, the Caribbean. We did the first Norway cruise in 2015, but we've done Western, Southern, Eastern. And I think we first sailed with you. We didn't know it, but on the 11 day Southern Caribbean back in 2019.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: That's right. I remember talking about that, that we had both been on that cruise but we didn't know each other back then. And that was before the podcast of course, so we weren't the DCL duo back then.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Well and then we for this trip in July of this year, about a year or so, probably over a year ago, we started looking forward to Alex's college graduation which was in May of 2024. And we said, you know what Is it you'd like to do. Would you like to go on a cruise? If so, where? And her and her sister put their heads together and came up with.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Well, we had two options. It was. I think it was the treasure. Whatever it was, it was right after Lighthouse opened up. So it was going to be a double or double dip or whatever you call it for both castaway and Lighthouse, the duo dip.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: We like that.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: It was gonna be that or this itinerary. And a very easy decision for this itinerary.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: And so that's what they came to. Came to us with. And I said, well, the deal is, if that's the one we go on, you have a choice to make. We get a. We usually get the family deluxe ocean view stateroom, which has the Murphy bed, the wall bed, and we share a cabin. Or we get two adjoining inside deluxe staterooms based because of the cost of the cruise, we're not getting two veranda rooms. Veranda rooms. And I said, you guys choose. And they chose the inside staterooms so that they would have their own room.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: I was gonna ask, did you choose wisely, Alex, did you choose wisely?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I actually. So if so, if I were sailing with my parents as a young adult, I would probably choose the same as Alex and Sophie chose and said, we'll take an inside room, but we'll take our own room. Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: And Sam, you would appreciate this. And you would too, Brian. This was the first cruise for all four of us together where everybody was of drinking age.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Everybody got to. In the adult entertainment and, and visit the clubs. The clubs. And it sure is a different cruise account at the end.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Oh, I bet, I bet, I bet. Different from when they're going to, you know, the Oceaneers Club or. Or Edge or Vibe or even the 1820 Society. Both aged out of the 1820s Society even now. Although I'm sure at like 21, they probably could hang out and people would be, you know, they're closer to your age than, Than some of the other folks on the cruise.
[00:07:07] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's how this trip came about. And we planned for over a year on this trip.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, tell us, why did you. So, Alex, why Norway when you had done Norway before? You know, obviously this is Norway and Iceland, but like, you had, like I said, you had done Norway before. Why, why in particular choose this itinerary that has probably some overlap with the one you previously did?
[00:07:32] Speaker C: I think a love for me is because Norway was. It was like nine years ago the first One. And so a lot of it is like, I wanted to come back to some of these ports a little bit older, a little bit more, you know, aware and just kind of really experience them from a different perspective as well as Iceland, of course, was a main draw because I always thought that would have been a really cool place to go. And it was definitely awesome.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes sense to me because obviously, like I said, Brian and I went to Norway and this was just in 2002. And we are. Sorry, not 2002 to that. 2022. 2022 for my belated 40th birthday. And we are like, I want to go back, like to Norway tomorrow. Yeah. It was such a beautiful place to visit and there's so much to see.
[00:08:24] Speaker D: And this is the last year too, that the ships can go up the fjords, I think so.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Right?
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: And there were a couple new ports for Norway on this trip that we did not have in the 2015 trip. So there was a lot of new things to see also. And my husband had never been to Norway, so this was all new for him.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's talk some logistics. Obviously you flew over to, I assume London, Heathrow a couple days before.
We're not going to talk about like the, the stuff you did in London. I know you're, you know, I know Alex is huge into theater and so of course I know you. You did some theater stuff in London. But in London you, you can't miss that. But let's let. Like where did you guys stay? Did you stay in London? Did you stay in Southampton? And how. And how did you journey to Southampton?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Right.
So a couple things. One other kind of pre cruise item that came up before we left was our cruise departed from Southampton on the 24th of July. And about July 3rd, so three weeks or so before we departed, we received an email from Disney indicating that our second port in Iceland, Icy Fjord, was canceled.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Oh yes. This is about all the. About the whales and whatnot, right?
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the dredging the harbor and all that. So they. There was a change of itinerary three weeks before where they rearranged some sea days at the end and added Liverpool and took off IC Fjord. So that was the only pre cruise change to our itinerary. But in terms of traveling to London and getting down to Southampton, we did go in about a day and a half, two days early.
We flew directly from Las Vegas into London and we stayed at the Marriott Marble Arch, which isn't far from like Regent street and the Marble Arch. So it's a good central location.
We had hired a car service to pick us up at the airport and take us directly to the hotel, which worked out great. And I think one of the other things we're going to talk a little bit about is this is also a trip. We were dealing with Alex having a temporary mobility issue. She had had reconstructive knee surgery about two and a half months before the cruise. So we wanted to kind of plan as much of the transportation beforehand so that we weren't spending a lot of time looking for cabs, looking for buses, things like that. So we had a car service pre arranged. They were right there, took us right to the vehicle, to the car and straight into the hotel. That worked out really, really well. It's a company called London Minicab.
So that worked out great. And we spent a day and a half, two days just kind of doing a little roaming around London, but more just getting acclimated to the time change and resting before the, the adventure.
So we knew we needed to go down from London to Southampton and we wanted to be there the day, the night before so that we could just get up the morning of the cruise and get on the cruise. We had a port arrival time of about 11:45 noon.
So we didn't want to deal with getting down to Southampton the morning of.
[00:11:43] Speaker C: Because it, from, from where we were in London to Southampton was about an hour and a half, two hours by car.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: So again we actually through our Facebook page, we had a very active, very large Facebook group for this trip. I think by the time the cruise actually set sail, There was over 800 people in the Facebook group.
So there was lots of information going back and forth. And at one point somebody put on them that they were looking for a group of four to share transportation from London directly to Southampton on July 23. But what needed to be a group that would be interested in a stop at Stonehenge because the group that the company they booked through, they book the transportation that had an hour and a half stop for Stonehenge. So we hooked up with them and had a car service through British Express Cars that picked us up at the hotel on the 23rd. I think about 10 o'clock in the morning, we went down to Stonehenge, spent an hour and a half or so there wandering around and then went directly to our hotel at Southampton. We stayed at the Moxie in Southampton.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Which is like right across the street from the port.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Right. It's. You could see the hall, a lot of people who go out of Southampton. Know about the Holiday Inn Express? I think it's the Express. Well, right behind that you could see it from the Moxie. So great location. And we got down to the Moxie is one of the Marriott hotels. So we, we prefer to stay at the Marriott's. So that's how we booked it. And did.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Did you. Could you walk into the port or did you have to take transportation? A lot of the ports you just can't walk into. It's not that they're not close enough. It's just they don't let people like walk in on foot. Were you able to walk in or did you have to or. Well, frankly, with Alex's knee issue, you might not have wanted to walk.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: We weren't going to walk either way. Just also with luggage too.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: But there definitely didn't seem to be like any.
No pedestrian allowed sort of entrance. Like it. It definitely looked like there was. You could, if you wanted to walk directly from door to the port. But we, even with my knee, it was like, yeah, with all the luggage, we're not going to want to lug everything.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: And there was a pretty busy street between the hotel and the port and it didn't look like it was conducive the walking. Sophie and I got up in the morning, we could see the ship in port and we kind of meandered over there and we were saying to ourselves, yeah, I guess you could walk, but I'm not exactly sure how you would get from the street down to the ship.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, I think it's super smart what you did as far as hooking up with other folks in your cruise group to do that, to do the transfer and to hit stone edge on the way it is. It is out of the way, but not significantly out of the way, which is why it is a fairly common, I think, offering, you know, for folks who are heading to a cruise to do in between from, you know, London to, to Southampton or from. From Southampton to London after the fact. So I think that's a super smart thing to do. We did the Harry Potter, you know, Warner Brothers studio thing that was. We didn't sail out of Southampton though. We sailed out of Dover. But we did basically a transfer that did that after our cruise when we went to Norway a couple of years ago. So there are options, I think for folks who want something to do for the day either, you know, either before your cruise or after your cruise, it's definitely a smart way to, you know, combine it with your Transfer to or from the port.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Everything was seamless. We didn't have any issues. The moxie at the front desk arranged our taxi the next morning.
So we just. Yeah, there was no issues.
Everybody was very helpful. So that all worked out really, really nicely.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, tell us about the check in process for Southampton. I know obviously they've been sailing out of Southampton for a couple of years now. Just curious to know was it smooth sailing or were there bumps at sea?
[00:15:54] Speaker C: It was smooth in terms of check in and everything. The one thing that especially I had a lot of trouble with was unlike Port Canaveral where there's kind of a waiting area before you check in. There was the. Before you went through security, you were standing outside the port. There was nowhere to sit. It was all outside and all. And we were standing in line for a good hour, 45 minutes to an hour before even being let in to go through security and then up to check in. So it was, it was a little, it was a little difficult for me because I was like. Because I was still really, really. I, I was just far enough after surgery to be able to come on the trip, but I was still very.
Not great.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Around and standing around for an hour. Not. Probably the best.
[00:16:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:45] Speaker D: So they didn't have a. Didn't have any spot for you to sit even though you were.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: The only places you could sit is they had like luggage conveyor belts that, that they used for. That weren't in use but like if to bring luggage to and from the ship. But it was. But you really didn't want to be sitting on them because they were active piece of machinery.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: But this was at. Yeah, this was outside the, the entrance to the port where they were lining everybody up by their port arrival time.
And we got in line probably right at our, you know, within five, ten minutes of our port arrival time. And we couldn't just not. We just couldn't figure out what they were doing in terms of decision making to get people in the building. It just didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what was going on. So like I said, we were there a good half hour, 45 minutes, maybe even an hour outside. And then they would start letting in small groups. And once you got in the building it was very quick through security and they had a great big huge lounge area upstairs with chairs everywhere. And when we got upstairs, we immediately were getting on the ship. So there was no. They weren't utilizing the lounge area for whatever reason. And I, I couldn't figure it out.
[00:17:58] Speaker D: But I remember something very similar when we were in Dover, where it's like we. We've. There was a huge line outside the port. We were sailing concierge that trip. So we were able to get into the port and then we sat in a waiting area, but it was for like 10 minutes and then they boarded the ship. So, like, the waiting area wasn't really filling up and it was. It was small, as I recall. I don't know if you remember differently, Sam, but it was a very small waiting area here in Europe. We haven't seen Southampton, so I don't know how comparable it is or is it.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: It was probably about half the size of Port Canaveral. So it was in terms of the seating available.
But the fact that the way they were doing it, they just weren't utilizing it. When I'm thinking, you know, we could have been sitting up here for a half an hour and, you know, maybe attitudes would have been a little better because people weren't standing and trying to figure out, yeah, let people wait after.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Security, not before security.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: I mean, that's. Yeah, that seems.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: I could understand them not wanting to clog security because it was a relatively small security area, but I just don't like there. I didn't feel there was any reason that it needed to be held up for so long.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah. But like I said, once we got through, it was through security on the ship. Yeah.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. Well, do you guys have traditions that you like to do on embarkation day? I forget if you are. Are you cabanas or you sit down lunch or do you run to the pool deck? Do you have things. Well, obviously not run, Alex, but the pool deck. Do you have traditions that you like to do?
[00:19:23] Speaker C: We're cabanas people.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: We're cabana people for lunch. So we chicken. And usually Sophie will go immediately to the pool deck and get her chicken fingers and fries. She likes the chicken fingers and fries from the pool deck.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yes. And then life changing chicken fingers.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Except the chicken fingers on this trip, they kept fluctuating.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: They kept not the same.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. Provisioning.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Yep. That's what we hear. We hear that there's a few things when you're over in Europe that are just not the same. And it's. Yeah. And it can be sort of hit or miss because it know. Who knows which bag of frozen chicken fingers they're grabbing. Right. On any particular day. Let's be honest. That's what they are. They're. They're frozen chicken fingers. And who Knows.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: And there. There was. There was just about a mutiny one. At one point in the. In the cruise when they ran out of ice cream cones, People were filling up everything. They could get into the cones, but.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Not the ice cones. Okay.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the next day, I forget what port it was. There was a. You know, when they have the big pallets of food delivered that are wrapped in the plastic. Yeah, it was a huge pallet of boxes of ice cream cones. And like, don't fear people. Ice cream cones.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Don't fret. The ice cream cones are here. So.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So usually the first day we do cabanas, and then we try to get all that, you know, administrative things done, for lack of a better description. You know, whatever we have to do to go at Guest Services.
[00:20:43] Speaker C: You know, Sophie had to do our.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, for instance, this cruise we needed to do. The parental consent for Sophie to be able to go to the adult lounge and have a drink because she's 20. And the way it works with Disney is the drinking aid. Yeah. Drinking age is based on the departure port.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: So she was. But in. No, my understanding is in no circumstances at less than 20 years old.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, interesting. Okay, so you can't be eight. So they won't. Even if the drinking age is 18, they'll let you 20. So basically, they let you drink a year. A year earlier than you would in the United States.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Exactly. So you go to Guest Services. There's a form that you. A very simple form. It's basically a waiver, and I take responsibility.
And they tell you that you have to be with her or an adult in the room has to be with her if she orders a drink.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Gotcha. So you or Alex or your husband.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, or my husband. Any of us. And I kid you not, nobody ever asked her until the last night.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Oh, funny. Yeah, so that's funny.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: And it's not like she was running around to every bar, but she just. We never had an issue with it.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Interesting. It was fine.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: It was. It worked fine. So we did that and that kind of. That kind of stuff. And.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: And the rooms were ready super early, right?
[00:22:02] Speaker A: The rooms were ready really early. And we had a lot of luggage to unpack and get ready, you know, 12 days. So.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And you mentioned about getting the inside cabins, and that's not your usual cabin of choice, so I'm curious about how that worked out for you. All were the inside cabins. Okay. Would you not do them again?
[00:22:23] Speaker A: No.
Well, when we selected them, I said, going to do. We're going to do the inside, we're going to do the deluxe because I still want the split bathroom even though we're going to have two of them. I, I like the split bathroom and inside deluxe still has the split bathroom. So that was fine. My husband says he has never slept so well in his life because it was literally like a cave.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: That's what we've heard.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: And at one point I remember one morning I woke up and said God, we gotta get going. What time is it? And we looked, it was 10 o'clock in the morning and there was no movement from anybody next door from these two.
So it was, it was. And we were as far aft as you could go. We were in. If you look on the map deck, map of Deck 9, there are two inside cabins in the middle of the ship at the aft all by themselves.
Those are the two we were in.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Nice. So it sounds like it worked out well except maybe sleeping a little later than you would have.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: But in terms of 12 days inside we were fine. We. It, we were fine. We. I, it was a trade off that everybody was, knew we had to make.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: And, and really, really the only thing we couldn't account for in that was the fact that I was going to be a little less mobile. So it was a little hard. Yeah, the first couple days were a little hard going from to the back but.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah. Because if you're all the way, if you're all the way aft rather than being sort of midship, it's certain that when you're going forward or you're, yeah, you're, it's, it's kind of far.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: And when we knew that Alex had had the surgery and that we were going to have, you know, she was going to be able to go on the trip but maybe a little mobility issue. I did go online to see about moving the cabins and they were, everything was totally booked so there was no ability to move them.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: But I was fine.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Well, let's dive in and talking about the ports since as I mentioned to you guys, pre show the ports. The star. Right, the ports of the stars. When we're talking about Europe typically. And so let's start with. This is a 12 night cruise. So you have a good number of ports although we know you had the shift you mentioned from one of the Icelandic ports and got to Liverpool on the back end of the cruise. So let's start with what was your first port of call.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: So we left Southampton on day one. We had day at sea for day two and then day three was Stavanger Nice.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: What'd you guys get up to in Stavanger? I'm imagining you did not hike Pulpit Rock.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: We did.
[00:24:55] Speaker D: I was just gonna say definitely not Pulpit Rock.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: We didn't do Pulpit Rock. We divided and conquered that day. Sophie and I went out together and Joe and Alex went out together.
So we did not book anything in Stavanger in any port excursions.
Sophie and I walked the entire town all through the port area we had and the cruise we did in 2015 did Stavanger, but we did an excursion that day. So we didn't spend a lot of time in the port the first trip. So it was really nice. Sophie and I did a lot of went down to the, the where the ship was and walked all around the dock area and then all around the shopping area and up through the streets of the town and there was a, like a, an arts and crafts fair. We walked around that. So we spent probably three or four hours just walking.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's a, it's a decent sized city too. I mean it's not. This is not like some of the other ports are like tiny little towns. This is. Stavanger is like a pretty big city by Norway standards and so yeah, there's plenty, plenty to do. Alex, what. What did you get up to?
[00:26:14] Speaker C: So my dad and I, we walked from the ship to up to the main city center area and we actually ended up getting the hop on, hop off bus, just, you know, easy way to sit down, see the city without having to really go overdo myself.
So we got off at one stop and just kind of walked around in the town area there. We found a little chocolate shop and got some candy to bring home.
But pretty much the rest of the time we just sat on the bus, went all the way around the city, all the way to the bay. They had the three sword statues.
Got to see those from the bus. Kind of came all around, all around, all the way back. It was really. Got to see the whole place and a lot of spots that you couldn't really reach if you were just kind of walking around or were doing like an excursion. I know. So it was really, it was really cool to see just kind of an overview of the whole city.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: And on that day the weather was not good in the morning. It was really, really rainy so people were delaying getting off the ship. So when I, when we got off it was probably closer to almost noon and the weather had cleared by then, so we had.
[00:27:31] Speaker C: It ended up warming up a lot. It was really cool in the Morning, but it, it got pretty warm by the afternoon.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: So in terms of. So. So we had plenty of time, I think for all of us to see the town, do some shopping. Sophie was on a mission to find sometime during this trip a. She wanted either a Icelandic or Norwegian sweater. So we went to a lot of sweaters, you know, Nice. I love that, A lot of that kind of stuff. But. So Stavanger was just a day that we really just wanted to see the town and then ended up back on the ship. And I think we had a late lunch because we had late dining. So we were, you know that always when we came back needed to get something to eat because we knew we had till the 8:00 dining.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean we love late dining, especially I think in Europe. It's great. But you are going to be hungry if you come back to the ship a little earlier. So like grabs, you know, grab a burger from the pool deck or grab, you know, something from cabanas, if cabanas is still open, you know that get something in your stomach because you're not eating dinner until you know, 8:30 or. Well, that's when you'll. You might get your appetizers at 8:30.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. And so that's what we did. We would get something. We did our room service. We didn't do room service all that much this trip a few times, but we just go to the pool. My time just at the pool deck, sitting in the adult only area.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's one thing we never do, Brian. We never order room service. And I don't know why we don't do it on any cruise line though. It's not like just Disney. We just never.
[00:29:02] Speaker D: Because it'd be dangerous if people started bringing me food to the room.
Actually having to at least walk to get there.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Well, and then, you know, you probably would never leave the room, Brian, if we just. If you were gonna.
[00:29:13] Speaker D: Well, no, well, that's not true. Especially depending on the stateroom. Right. But yeah, if we're gonna do the room service thing, we should have done it on version voyages because it's ordered from an app and it just shows up. So anyway.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: I know. Yeah, Anyway, well, well, let's. Let's talk your second port of call. You.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: So that was day four.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Okay, Day four. Okay. So the very next day you're at.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: What port we were at. Oh, okay. So day four, the port was actually olden.
The thing about that is you need to get up early in the morning because that's the sail into the fjords.
So the, the sail in to Olden is just magnificent. So we were up, Sophie and I were up on 6:00am 5, 6:00 in the morning.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: And they had crew out there with hot chocolate and donuts and coffee and all sorts of pastries. There's a lot of people out. It was windy, but it was just magnificent. It was sunny and you know, we're close to the 24 hour sun that time of year. So it was. The sun had been up for quite a while. So it was a bright sun, not an early morning sun.
And it was just beautiful going into the fjords. People everywhere and they were doing some narration as we went through.
So. Yeah, so the sail in through the fjords into Olden was about three or four hours.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Oh wow. So you get into the port not late, but a little later.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't. And I heard differing things. I heard one that this was the first time that Disney had been in Olden. And then I heard, no, it's not the first time they've been in Olden, but it's the first time this season they were in Olden. So there was a lot of fanfare entering and leaving Olden. A lot of the locals and they had flag waving and music and dignitaries and all the characters came out on the balcony looking over into the little town. When you pull up and dock in Olden, you're. There's some shopping area right there at the dock and then the little teeny tiny town of Olden is like a 5 minute, 10 minute walk down the road. But it was, I mean, all of a sudden you're there.
It's not a big dock, not a big town at all. But it's. It's absolutely beautiful.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds lovely. Sounds like a lovely way to spend your morning too. And everybody, you know, watching this sort of sale, this beautiful sail in.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: It was fun watching. There was, Everybody was out there, crew included, see all the crew members out getting pictures of the fjords.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: And this day we actually, we had a shore excursion booked in Olden because again, there's. Other than an excursion, there's really not much to do.
So we booked an excursion. And again, unfortunately for Alex, it wasn't something she was going to be able to do.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: Yeah, we decided on the ship because we had to do more research or we asked Port Adventures about it. It was the troll car.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah, the troll car to the glacier. And we just weren't sure what, how much walking there was involved or whether there was a place there that she could sit and wait and do something while maybe we did a little more the strenuous part of the excursion. And based on what shore excursions told us, that didn't seem to be a viable option for Alex. So we canceled Alex and left her at the ship.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: And she did her thing and the three of us went. And these troll cars. There's two ways you can do the glacier. You can hike from the base, which in hindsight, once we got there, there's a great lodge and shopping area. Alex would have been perfectly comfortable, but you could hike from the base up to the glacier. And the guide was telling us that's about an hour and a half climb.
And they actually did have one of the shore excursions was the actual hike to the glacier. Or you could take what they called the troll cars and they take you up to the base of the glacier and then from that point it's about a 15, 20 minute walk to the glacier and the water.
And so we did that one because we weren't quite sure how strenuous the hike was going to be. And I'm glad we did. But basically what the troll cars are is they're little John Deere tractors that seat two, four, six people.
And then they kind of just go up. They're like ATV type cars and they wind their way up and you go under waterfalls and you get sprayed by waterfalls and you make your way up and then they have a loading area. They let you out and then you hike up the rest of the way. And then when you're done, you come back and you get one of the cars and go back down the hill.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: It was a.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: It was absolutely magnificent. It was beautiful. The weather was perfect.
I got to sit in the front of the troll car with the driver. So I had a. I was taking video. I had great, great view of the drive up there. So we did that and that was about a 45 minute drive, half hour, 45 minute drive from the troll dock to, to the glacier.
And then we came back and retrieved Alex from the ship. Her and I then did the hop on, hop off bus that they had.
We got on that and that took her into the little town of Olden so she could see that. And then it drove about, I'd say about half of the drive that we did to the glacier. And there are a couple stops that she could get out and see things. So she got to see, see a lot of what we saw. Just in an abbreviated manner.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I got to see the base of the glacier. They had a little lookout point to look up to. It was really cool.
[00:35:12] Speaker D: 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. My Path Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park, vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUO mypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
So, Alex, I'm curious. I want to pause for san. Just ask this question because there's a lot of challenges here with this cruise in terms of, you know, what you're able to do from a mobility standpoint and, you know, some of the things that you may have wanted to do given where you are, you know, hindsight being what it is, would. Do you think you would have chosen this cruise knowing that you would have these challenges? Like, did you still feel like you got the experience you were hoping for out of going to Norway?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Oh, I would, yeah. I would still choose this itinerary no matter what because like, I, there were definitely things like this excursion I couldn't go on. And then a few others were, like, in Reykjavik, when we'll talk about that, there's a couple places that would have required me to do a bit more walking that I just decided, you know, I'm just going to sit here and look from here. Like, overall, I still, I still got off the ship, I still saw things, I still did a lot and may have just been a little different than what I imagined or. But I still had a good time.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: And we just, we just made a point of, okay, well, Sophie and Joe can go off and do something at a little greater speed or Sophie and I would go off and do something and somebody would hang back with us. We never, you know, we never said, look, fend for yourself.
We. We all adapted and, you know, example was the. The olden trip. She couldn't do what we were with the shore excursion, but we said, we'll be back in what, two hours, three hours, and then we'll do the hop on, hop off.
So, you know, the biggest part of the whole thing really was the walking on the ship because it was so far from the cabin to what into anything, whether it be dining or any of the shows, because those are on the opposite end. But in terms of the excursions and things like that, she just did the best she could and she was a trooper. Yeah, her physical therapist was very proud of her.
[00:38:02] Speaker C: When she got home, my physical therapist said to me, she's going to send everybody on Disney cruises. Because the. Basically from when I left to when I got back, it was like night and day. What my mobility wise, range of motion. My range of motion. It was kind of funny.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: You're forced to, right? I mean.
[00:38:21] Speaker C: And then this is actually the port where Sophie got her sweater.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Olden. With a ship docked, literally, you walked across the street and they had these little shopping areas, maybe like five or six little storefronts. And some people, I think a lot of them were seasonal temporary things. And so when we got back, Sophie said, let's go see if they have any sweaters. And we went into one. It was like your typical tourist place.
And there were a bunch of sweaters, but, you know, they were mass produced. I don't even know if they were made in Norway. They. It just wasn't what she was looking for. And we. So we walked around a little bit more and I said, what's that? Back in the corner of the shop and back in the corner of the shop, they had this little tiny area of handmade artisan goods from the. From the residents. There was a couple, like, artwork pieces and miscellaneous thing. And then there was this rack that had three sweaters and a couple little kid sweaters. And they were all hand. And some mittens and some hats, and they were all handmade by a lady who lives in Olden from Norwegian wool. And it's exactly what she wanted. It was just beautiful. So we took the thing up and the lady working the shop, we said, are these really hand? She says, yes, they're really handmade for a lady. And she makes a few of them. And when we sell one, we call her, we say, we sold one and she'll make us another one and come bring it down to the. To the shop. So she got her sweater and it's beautiful.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: It is very nice.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. I love stories like that. I love that, you know, when you find that sort of that hidden gem, that little, you know, that jewel that. Yeah, that's awesome. That's so much fun. Well, what was your next port of call after Olden?
[00:40:03] Speaker A: So day five was Alisund nice in Norway?
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: And we had done Alice on the previous tour and I think we did a. I don't remember what we did that day, but we had a shore excursion on this trip and we did that through Disney.
And it was a bus trip that went to the Godoya lighthouse and the Giske Church, which is the church that's on the island.
And there was a pretty full bus.
[00:40:40] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: And it wasn't too far of a drive. And they kind of drove all around this. The. The. You had to go out on this island for the lighthouse and tiny roads. We got out to the lighthouse and they had a little store that was run by the locals. And it was cold and it was windy and. But it was great.
And Sophie and Joe went up the lighthouse and to see the observation from the lighthouse. And Alex and I kind of just walked around the base area. Again, it wasn't something that she was going to be able to do because of the narrow stairs. So we spent time at the lighthouse and our guide told us when we were on the bus, she said, there are specific windows you're assigned to arrive because it's such a small space and they can only get so many buses in at a time. And they don't want hordes of people lining up because it's a very narrow stairway up and down.
[00:41:33] Speaker C: And it's a really small lighthouse. It's not.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: And it's big at all. And it really is on the edge of the rocks. It is right there on the point. So she said, we've got our window, so we're gonna. We're timing the arrival and you need to get a move on into the lighthouse. Do your thing and come back down because the next group will be coming up. He said, bye. Well, we get there and there are people everywhere and we think God and buses every. And the bus driver's mad and he's yelling to people and he's yelling at the tour guide and they're doing a lot of talking back and forth on the phone and everybody's frustrated up in the front of the bus and they finally. Everybody gets off and they're complaining that there was no way to get up. They eventually got up there and when it turns out we get back down, we find out that there were two rogue buses that just showed up.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And that wasn't there assigned time or anything.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: And I guess it's like absolutely taboo in the. In the tourist industry between bus drivers. Do not respect.
And they were. All bus drivers were yelling.
So.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: And then Sophie said when she went up that she did. Couldn't really enjoy being up on the lighthouse because there were so many people and everyone was just trying to get. Move. Shove her around and get pictures. And to the point where she just like bailed. She just was like, yeah, I just didn't want to deal with all the people up there.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: So they did. So it was kind of a. It was a. Once you got down, we kind of walked around the areas. It was less crowded, but it was a spectacle. But.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: But the visitor center was really cool. They had a local operated like visitor center connected to the lighthouse. And they had some like a mini art gallery, photo gallery. Then they had like a little snack bar with candy and like other baked. Baked goods. I ended up getting like a sweet pancake that had like the Norwegian brown cheese and it was very delicious. And then they had like a couple cases and shelves with different lighthouse themed souvenirs and whatnot. And they were all pretty, like handmade. So I ended up picking up this little pouch, zipper pouch that had the lighthouse embroidered on it. And I thought, yeah, just so some. Some really cute stuff.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: It was inexpensive, but it was all handmade by locals. So that was really nice. And then we went to Giske Church, which is the oldest church. By then it's just downpour, absolutely downpour of rain.
So we, we ran into the church and spent some time there and everybody ran back to the bus.
We had a great tour guide on that bus. She was very informative. And there was a theater that's on this island that evidently is very famous in Norway as a performing arts center. But it's also a sound studio. So a lot of Norwegian artists use it as a recording facility. And it's kind of built into a hill, it's got a grass roof and you wouldn't even know it was there. But she pointed it out and telling us this story. And that's where they do concerts and shows. And I remember the group Aha. They recorded a lot of their music there. So the bus was playing. Aha.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta play tape.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: The one they played Is. I think they did an MTV unplugged version of it. Yeah, they did it there at that studio at that soundstage.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: And they were playing down the bus. Nice. Right? So an acoustic version. Yeah, yeah, that's. I remember when MTV used to do all those unplugs and they were. Yeah, the acoustic versions of. Of like popular music songs. So funny.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: Love that.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: But that was our last port for the sky in Norway for that. So day five, because then we had another sea day on day six. And that's when we did things. Oh, that's when we entered the North Sea.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Ooh, tell us about entering the North Sea. I'm imagining rough seas.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the rough sea. And we actually had Palo brunch that day.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit of a fail there. Not, not. I mean, not on purpose. It's just.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Yeah, not on purpose. But yeah, it was, it was. And I really. My husband doesn't do well. Motion, but he was a trooper. He did, he did well.
[00:45:46] Speaker C: He was like, are you sure you want to do this?
[00:45:50] Speaker B: We were.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: We were sitting there in Meridian waiting for our table, and it was okay. We were. We were. Everybody's hanging on and watching the horizon go up and down.
And there was this young couple that just wasn't. They weren't going to make it. She was not going to make it. And he was telling the maitre d, we need to reschedule this. And they did, and it was fine. Well, we ended up running into him that evening. We did. Sam. There was Trivia on a 12 day cruise. They're reaching deep into the bag for trivia.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: They had Broadway music trivia.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: There's a great story we have to tell you, of all people. You're going to love it. But they reached into the bag for every type of trivia known to man. We had sports trivia, we had music trivia, we had Disney movie trivia, Disney music. You name it, we had it. We ended up winning five medals on the trip.
[00:46:44] Speaker C: Something like that.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Five or six medals. Yeah, we did great. Yeah, we did.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: I. I'm imagining that Alex by herself probably won.
[00:46:51] Speaker C: Well, Well, I would have liked to, but there was still. So the ship was still so rife with the people of.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker C: Googling all the answers.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: So all the ones going on Googling the answers and they.
[00:47:03] Speaker C: None of them were any Disney trivias that we won.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: We.
[00:47:07] Speaker C: I. We had to win the ones that weren't the Disney ones, sports ones and stuff like that.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: But that evening we ran into the young man who we Saw at Meridian. We asked him how his girlfriend was doing. Well, he was the nicest guy from London and he ended up. And with his sister and his girlfriend, we ended up doing trivia with them almost every night. They were the nicest people. Alex, you keep talking about Paolo.
[00:47:36] Speaker C: Kind of long earth story is when we did the 11 day, we had this really great serving dining team and our assistant server, Vanessa was great and we just, we loved them. We had a great time and we, we really just. Yeah, great pair. Great dining pair for us. And we happened to run into her. We had no idea. We happened to just run into her all of a sudden during brunch and it was, it was just great to see her again.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: And I got up to go out to the lobby and I turned the corner and ran right into her and she stopped and she said, where are the girls?
[00:48:14] Speaker C: Where are the girls?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: And I. And so she ran and said hello to them. So it was really nice seeing her. And then we saw her again at dinner. But those are, you know, over what. When you've been cruising since 2012, you, you join, you know, you make some connections.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You have relationships with people and yeah, it's wonderful when you get to see a cast member that you made a connection with again because sometimes you're in the situation of you make a connection with somebody and you know, you're probably never going to see them in your whole life. Right. They live in a different country. Like, will they still even be working for the cruise lines the next time you sail? Will they be on a different ship? Right. Like, there's no way, you know, unless you have exchanged contact information. So. Yeah, I love that though. I love when you get to reconnect.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: And the, the, the other thing that happened on day six, which was really fun, is the, the violinist who was the entertainment. This Greta Salome was the same lady who we saw in 2015. She's a world famous violinist from Iceland. From Iceland. And she won that. What's the vision? What's that big.
[00:49:21] Speaker C: She was Euro. She was in Eurovision. She was a finalist and Eurovision, God, like 2012, I want to say.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: But she's fantastic. So she did the entertainment that day.
[00:49:32] Speaker C: And it was really fun to see her again because I really, when I remember seeing her in 20, 2015, I really, really liked her. I ended up buying her CD when she was there. So it was really cool to see her again. I thought it was awesome.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: So then we get to day seven and eight, which are Reykjavik. We had day seven with a night In Reykjavik. And then day eight and we departed at the end of day eight. So the way it worked is the gangway was open 24 hours.
So if you could get off, I mean there were people who were getting off a Reykjavik and spending the night in a hotel.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: Oh wow, whatever. Or going to a club maybe even.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So you could. They told you you could get off and if you wanted to come back at 10 at night, you'd come back at 10. If you want to come back at 4 in the morning, you could.
[00:50:17] Speaker C: And the thing about these gangways is they were so steep they were connected to deck three, but basically went all the way down to deck two. Deck one, deck two. And so going down it was like I was holding on to these rails and I'm like, I've got my little cane and my knee brace on and I'm like, I'm hobbling down these very, very steep.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: It was kind of slippery and rainy and it was not easy. But they helped her down so that, that worked out great. So for, for Reykjavik, day seven, we booked a tour through Viator.
The big tour that people like to do in Reykjavik is what they call the Golden Circle, which is you go to the national park to see the Teutonic plates, you go see the geyser and then you go to the waterfall. And that usually is all day, eight to nine hours because it's a big loop you make.
And they offered it through Disney Cruise, but it was almost twice the cost.
When looking at it I felt that because we were there overnight, I wasn't worried about are we going to make it back to the port in time for departure. So we went with this tour called Golden Circle through Iceland Horizon. And it was a 15 person tour, which is great.
And it worked out really well. We were gone all day long. So we got to first stop was the national park to see the Teutonic plates where they come together to the geyser.
We saw that. And then they made a stop at an where there's some Icelandic horses and you got to feed the horses and take pictures of the horses and then on to Gulfus, I think Gullfoss Waterfall, which is the main waterfall that you see all the pictures of. And then we made an unscheduled stop on the way back to the ship because the guide wanted to take us to this other waterfall that was way off the beaten path. And we were in a little tiny bus when we probably should have been in the off road vehicle. But we went to this other waterfall and ended up Getting back to the ship probably at 9:00, at 10:00 at night.
[00:52:35] Speaker C: No, earlier than that. But not by much.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: Not by much. Yeah. I remember when we got back. Yeah, it was about nine. Because when we got back, we went. It was during our dining time. So we ran and we were all hungry, so we ran to dinner and there was like nobody. We were in the.
[00:52:50] Speaker C: We are in Royal Palace.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: Royal palace that night. And there's a smattering of people. And so our server found us that, hey, I just sit wherever you want and we'll come find you. And he told us that night that they served or he told us the next day. He said, yeah, they served a total of 150 people on board.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Oh, wow. So almost. So most people were on like. Like you a full day.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:13] Speaker B: You know, thing. Or if they were on a shorter. They sort of stayed out and went out to dinner offshore.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: And they. The port. There was another ship in port also. It was a. It was a German cruise ship and docked right in the same area we were. And the port offers a free shuttle service and it takes you to the center town, which was the opera house. The music, I think it was the opera house. And that's sort of right there in the center town. You can go anywhere from there. So. And the shuttle ran the entire time we were there. So you could. The crew was taking it in. People were taking it in, coming back to the ship, going back out.
So. So they made it very convenient to just spend time in the town and get back to the ship. So we did dinner and by the time dinner was done, we were exhausted. Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:09] Speaker B: I mean, you had a really long day.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and we were supposed to. We had things planned the next day. Day eight. The. We also booked through Viator, a morning hour and a half excursion, see the Puffins up close and personal. And all the girls want to do was see the puffins. Well, it was canceled at 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave because the weather was really bad that day.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: And we were supposed to go on.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Like a little boat, like a Zodiac boat.
[00:54:39] Speaker C: And it was. By the time when we stepped off the ship and felt the wind whipping, it was like, yeah, no, we were not going to be on this boat.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you'd have been really seasick if you'd been on a small Zodiac boat.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: And they canceled it. And Viator was great about reimbursing the money, no questions asked. They said, you know, we can put you on a later one. Assuming the weather is Better. And I said that wasn't going to, at that point, the return was going to be too close to the departure time, that I wasn't comfortable doing that. And they, so they, they did a full refund with no problem. So we kind of said, okay, well, we're standing there in the, in the, the atrium trying to figure out what we wanted to do. And Joe and Alex wanted to go in, take the bus in to see the town because we had yet to really be in the center of Reykjavik because the, the previous day we got up and left early and came back late. So they said they, they took the shuttle and what did you guys do?
[00:55:33] Speaker C: So, yeah, we took the shuttle in and we ended up taking an Uber from the shuttle to get a little bit more central just to help me out.
Went shopping a little bit. And then there's just. The whole city center is just lined with all sorts of shops and streets and whatnot. So we just kept popping in and out of little shops, little gift shops and whatnot. And there was a, there's like a little Christmas shop is rows and rows and rows of ornaments and Christmas decorations. So all that and then we kind of passed the Rainbow street, which is a sub, like a little part of the city center that is painted with like a rainbow. It looks really pretty. And if you look up, there's like this big Art deco style church that's like, I think it was built in the 30s. And if you're standing at the right angle on the Rainbow street, you just kind of look up and there's Rainbow. And then the church is this really cool view.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: If you do any research on Reykjavik, you always see these pictures of the Rainbow street and the church at the top. It's a famous landmark and everybody wants, they want to go see the Rainbow street in the church.
[00:56:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So we ended up walking uphill up the Rainbow street past a couple more little shops. I got this cute little pin that was like the Rainbow street, like the church is. Yeah. Little artistic depiction of it and made it all the way up to the church. And it was windy, windy when I remember how windy it was up there. And by that time I was like, okay, I'm tired and my knee hurts a lot. Let's. Let's go. So we were trying to find a cab to take us back, just straight up, back to the ship. And there really wasn't a big cab presence at least up in this area. So what? And I tried walking downhill, but it was like, it was so steep that I was like, I feel Like I'm going to fall over if I do this. Uh, so we ended up popping into this little pub and asked them if they knew any cabs. And the guy at the pub was like, let me just call a cab for you. So five minutes later, got a cab right outside and we went back to the ship. But it was really cool. Like, Reykjavik was beautiful.
One thing is, if I ever go back to Iceland, there's a punk rock museum that if you like, basically in a subway stop, Icelandic punk rock museum. I was like, this would be. And I almost went, but I didn't feel like going all the way down into this like almost subway stop looking thing. But it looked really awesome. And there was a. There's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of people and all the shops and, and there's a lot of cats too. There are lots of little store cats. So every once in a while you pop into a store and there was just a little cat. I saw this little cat resting on some. A bed of scarves. It was very cute.
[00:58:21] Speaker A: And then Sophie and I went to shore excursion and desk to see if there's anything left to do that day. And she wanted to do one of the lagoons. So we went to Sky Lagoon, which was a local, more local lagoon. Not as far out as the Blue Lagoon. So Sophie did all the lagoon things and I, they had a little restaurant area that I just kind of waited and I could get Internet. So I was, I did emails for about two hours.
You guys know how that goes.
So I, I sat there doing emails for a couple hours and she did, she would text me pictures and then, you know, her with a glass of champagne with the lagoon in back of her. Her with a glass of champagne in the, in the, the hot, the, the hot tub. It's like she was having a great time when we're there for probably two hours, two, maybe two and a half hours. And then we went back to the ship and we took the shuttle into town and walked around kind of the same area Joe and Alex had walked around, went to a few shops, met a nice guy. We had like, I don't know, $5 worth of Icelandic money left in our pocket. And we said, let's go, let's go spend it. And we went inside this little like a tobacco shop because they had candy in the, in the front window. So let's go get some candy. And the guy said, gave her a candy bar, whatever. He said, keep your money. He said, that give you a reason to come back and visit us again? Another time.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: So we.
[00:59:53] Speaker B: Nice.
Yes.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: And so we said we'd be glad to do that. And then we went back to the ship and by that time it was dinner time.
And about the time the ship was supposed to be depart, but the weather was still bad and the captain said that they were delaying our departure. So we were delayed by about three hours from leaving the port.
But the captain said don't worry that he'd make it up, you'd go faster.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: You're like great. We weren't seasick enough yesterday.
[01:00:23] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it was actually not too bad. The next two days at sea it was pretty nice and smooth.
[01:00:28] Speaker A: So then the date. So then we had two sea days. Day nine and ten were sea days. So we had things like the pirate night on day nine. And we had Palo dinner one night. We did on day nine. We had talked with our, our serving team and told them we would like to have an Indian dinner. And so they pre ordered the Indian food for us and we had a couple different curries and naan and rice and so that. And we did it on pirate night because nobody likes to pirate night menu in our family.
So we did that. And they did pirate. They didn't do no fireworks in Norway or in the North Sea.
[01:01:08] Speaker C: And they ended up having to do it inside. And the weather was.
[01:01:10] Speaker A: Weather's bad. So they ended up doing all the festivities in the atrium.
[01:01:14] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah, so we did that.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: I mean, that's not bad. I actually like it. If it's cold and rainy out, I'd rather they do it in the atrium. Right, yeah.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: So date. And you know, we're filling the days again with so much trivia. So much trivia.
And they did the at night in usually the 7 o'clock at night trivia was the music trivia. The decades.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Yeah.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: And we had so many nights we could go right. We 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, 2010. We had every decade.
[01:01:46] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. Usually you just get like 80s, 90s and 2000s.
[01:01:50] Speaker C: Like this was the first year we ever saw 2010s.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: 2010S. One night.
[01:01:54] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's so cool.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: So we did that and then day 10 and another day at sea. We did Pallad dinner that night.
That was the night for the Beauty and the Beast show. And so we did that. Oh, and they had a. On board the ship for the entire time was. Go ahead and talk about that.
[01:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, they had Rob Morton, who was a retired management entertainment management with Disney, specifically Walt Disney World. And he Worked there, I want to say for 40 some odd years before retiring. And he did this whole lecture series the entire trip. And some, some of them were about like when he went to Hong Kong and was working with Hong Kong, Disney and all sorts of ones. But I ended up only being able to catch the last one or we all of us end up only being there for the last one. And he was just talking about a lot of these hidden details in Magic Kingdom. He called it. It was called A Walk through the Magic Kingdom. And he had all these pictures of like the windows of Main Street. It was mostly about Main street he talked about, but about all these little hidden details and Easter eggs and kind of the things that make Magic Kingdom Magic Kingdom. And it was a really, really interesting because you got to hear a lot about, you know, the people that built the people that built it and the people that like made the park what it is. So it was really cool to hear. And he had a lot of really interesting stories. So I was. Wish I could have. And. And they. I think they were also live streaming his lectures on the tv.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, I love when they do that. It's just so nice because then if folks are, you know, in their room just sort of winding down for the night and but want to still watch or they got young kids who they got to put to bed early, you know, they can still watch it from their, from their room. I think that's a great option. I, I also, I love on these longer cruises that when they, you know, they have these sort of special guests for either performances in the Walt Disney Theater, you know, singers or you know, some other kind of performance or these lecture guests, they're. They're really fantastic.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:58] Speaker C: This is the first time I'd seen them do a lecture guest.
[01:04:01] Speaker A: I.
[01:04:01] Speaker C: Because on the last longer one we went on the 11 day. They didn't have. They had the.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: It's a Broadway. Yeah, Broadway. Visiting performers. Yes, I remember that was.
[01:04:11] Speaker C: And I'm trying to remember who it was. And I could not remember Aladdin. It was from. He was Aladdin, but he was the second Aladdin.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: Kelly Leon.
[01:04:17] Speaker C: That's who it was.
[01:04:18] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. That's right. Yeah. I remember seeing him.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: I did a Google search on Rob Morton afterwards. I was kind of just curious about his background. It looks like he's parlayed his retirement and into a second career where he goes and does quite a few of these lectures all about Disney.
And they weren't all on. Didn't appear to all be on cruises but he was fascinating. He just had so much knowledge and so many stories.
I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to see him before but they just the timings, there's just too much stuff going on. Yeah, yeah, there was so much stuff on this trip.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: I mean that's, that's, you know, that's a European cruise. That's why a 12 night cruise. I mean even on the 12 night cruise there's still things you wish you would got, you know, would have gotten to do. Well, your last port of call was Liverpool, right?
[01:05:07] Speaker A: Liverpool, right. Tell us what that was an interesting day.
[01:05:11] Speaker C: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
[01:05:12] Speaker A: We get to Liverpool, weather's great, everything's good. We, and we didn't, they didn't add a lot of excursions in Liverpool I think just because it was so last minute. But there were some and a lot of people were doing private ones they had arranged through Viatora and stuff like that. We knew that they had a hop on, hop off bus. So we said you know what, let's, let's do that. We'll do it on our own. We'll kind of get an overview of Liverpool. We'll find a place to get off and have lunch in a pub or something like that, do some shopping and then see where the day takes us. And then so the ship's in the dock area and that's where the famous Beatles statue is of the Beatles and everybody takes pictures of the Beatles statue. So we got off there and we found the hop on, hop off.
[01:05:58] Speaker C: And the things we also noticed is there was a little bit of a news presence, like local news filming there. And I was like, oh maybe they're filming stuff off the ship.
[01:06:07] Speaker B: I don't know.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, Buzzy cruising for him. So off off we went and we did the hop on, hop off and we got off on several places, went to a church and we found ice cream at one place and you know, got off in the area where the Beatles, all the, the nightclubs were that the Beatles performed out and there's a bunch of pubs. We had a nice lunch and we did some shopping. Alex of all things bought a Beach Boy T shirt.
[01:06:30] Speaker C: Yes, I love my Beach Boys T shirt.
[01:06:31] Speaker A: So.
And Sophie bought some things and yeah, we just having a nice day and so we said okay, let's head back down to the port, we want to see the Beatles statue better. Because when we did in the morning we kind of said okay, there it is, we'll go back to it. And we said we'll just Take a cab down at that point. So we got a cab, no problem getting a cab. And we told the guy we wanted to go Beetle Statue and we get in the car. He says well there's a problem. He said there is a demonstration going on down at the port and where we were. I don't know if you. If people have ever been to Liverpool but it's a lot of. The town is elevated looking. You can look down into the port and we kind of look down and says oh look, there sure is. There's like smoke everywhere, find people everywhere and a haze like. And it turns out it was smoke bombs and tear gas and that type.
[01:07:26] Speaker B: Oh no. Oh my God.
[01:07:28] Speaker A: And he said well, he said I'm going to get you as close as I can get you. And then you want to just. He says don't go to the statue, go back on the ship. So we said okay.
So he kind of went around kind of in a little circle area and as we got closer to the port there were helicopters and everything and there's people everywhere.
And so he kind of made a little turn here, there and everywhere and.
[01:07:54] Speaker C: Got us basically to the terminal.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: To the terminal. And he said just go back on the ship.
So we got off and they're. They were, they were. They checked the key to the world cards as quickly as they could and everybody in and head back to the ship.
So it turns out what was going on is there had been a day or two and this was, it was on the news here in the United States because people were asking me about when we got back, there is some civil unrest in Great Britain around the immigration issue, just as there is in many countries.
A day or two before we got to Liverpool, there was a shooting at a.
At a children's daycare school, something like that. And they were having.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: I remember this was. It was a stabbing, not a shootout.
[01:08:45] Speaker A: Stabbing. Yes, stabbing. But it was during like they were doing a Taylor Swift type party.
[01:08:49] Speaker B: Dance party. Yes. And it was like, like little kids and stuff.
[01:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well that was not in Liverpool. It was right outside Liverpool and, and.
[01:08:58] Speaker C: There was what happens. Misinformation was spread that the, the guy who did the attack was an illegal immigrant of some capacity.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: And so that. Wow. And so that started. That was like the, the match.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And there was enough tension and again these people we met on the ship who were from London, this young couple and their family. He was, his girlfriend was actually from the Liverpool area. And so they were giving us a lot of the. Lot of the story from the Point of view of a local. And he said that it's been a lot of bent up, you know, built up tissues tensions and it just boiled over that day and the protest moved up the hill to the train station.
Eventually we got back off the ship. About three hours later they said it was. They actually stopped people from getting off the ship. They closed the the gangway and kept people on the weren't letting people off, they're letting them back on. So I don't know. We were on the ship for a couple hours and they said it was safe to get off and the port area was cleared. And you know, we finished the day and did the couple things in the port area that we wanted and then got back up on the. Got back on the ship and did our regular evening. Oh, that was the night of the crew talent show. Oh, fun in the main stage.
[01:10:19] Speaker B: The main stage theater. Yeah.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: It's amazing what the talent show, how talented these people are.
[01:10:25] Speaker B: I love that. That's one of the. Again, one of the nice benefits about 12 night cruise is they do additional things in the Walt Disney Theater. I mean, obviously we could spend three episodes probably talking about this cruise because there are so many things that they do. But it's fun when they, you know, add additional shows in the Walt Disney theater. Well, because we obviously because this is such a long cruise, we, we focused on the ports we're going to and we did get a couple of highlights from the onboard experiences. But I think we're going to jump to rapid fire at this point. Brian, is that what we want to do now?
[01:11:04] Speaker A: Do you want to hear the Broadway trivia story real quick?
[01:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, I would love that. Yeah, let's.
[01:11:09] Speaker A: Alex, hurry, hurry. Alex.
[01:11:11] Speaker C: So they only did two of them. They did one the evening before and then one the afternoon of the last.
So I did the first one. I did okay. But there is this guy that was at all the trivias, he was doing them by himself and he seemed to pride himself on knowing everything there was about everything, including Broadway. And he ended up winning the first one. But we went to the second one and it was packed. It was in the pub, so it was packed. And I ended up meeting this like high school age girl and her family and we ended up teaming up, just, you know, combine our strengths and we got like an 18 of 20. We did really well.
And about four other teams also got 18 of 20 though, including this Broadway connoisseur guy.
Well, they show that tiebreaker question and the question was in 2013 when Phantom of the Opera celebrated its. Its 25th anniversary. How many performances had it played at that time? And all of a sudden, like, the math problem is forming in my brain. So I'm like, okay, get out my calculator. Eight shows a week for 52 weeks a year for 25 years. I'm like, okay, 10,400. If. If. If. That's assuming they don't miss any performances, there's no reason 10,400 would be my best guess. So.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: And the girl says to her, are you sure?
[01:12:40] Speaker C: He's like, I just was just so, you know, we go through them. One team says 6,000. Another team says, like, 11,000. And then the Broadway guy says, 10,000 on the dot. And I was like, okay, we've got our 10,400. Well, the host, the entertainment member who's hosting it is like, okay, we have a winner. Apparently, Mr. Broadway, as we were calling him, kind of perks up and says, Well, I said 10,000. Well, the correct answer that they had was 10,400.
And I was like, I'm like, gobsmacked. I'm like, I just did math.
[01:13:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yay.
[01:13:23] Speaker C: So, yeah, ended up with my Daisy duck medallion. I was very proud of it.
[01:13:26] Speaker B: Oh, Daisy. Oh, that's awesome. I love that for you, Alex. That's awesome.
[01:13:32] Speaker A: It was a great.
[01:13:33] Speaker B: My favorite story from this cruise. I love it.
Perfect.
[01:13:37] Speaker A: It was a great. It was a great trip. We had so much fun.
[01:13:41] Speaker D: Well, it does sound like an amazing trip and an amazing adventure. And as Sam said, I think we could probably talk about it for many, many episodes and many, many hours. But with that, I think we have reached that point in the show, Sam, where I am going to turn our guests back over to you for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, a dash of judgment, or the round we know as a rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:14:00] Speaker B: It. All right, we're gonna jump right into your favorites, and I'm gonna do some favorite. We're not gonna do your regular Disney favorites because we've done that before. So we're gonna jump right into your Disney cruise line favorites, and I want to, of course, know if things have changed since we last spoke into. In 2022, but I also want to ask a couple of favorites from this particular cruise. So let's start with your favorite Disney cruise line stage show, and why is it Beauty and the Beast? Alex.
[01:14:33] Speaker C: I was actually going to say Tangled, because that's my favorite movie.
[01:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:38] Speaker C: Beauty and the Beast is a very, very, very close second.
[01:14:41] Speaker B: Okay, fair. Fair. That's okay.
[01:14:43] Speaker C: And I recently revisited Tangled. When they posted that prose shot during COVID I was like, yeah, this is very good. This is very good.
[01:14:51] Speaker B: Nice. Awesome. Well, Cynthia, what about you? What's your favorite Disney cruise line stage show?
[01:14:58] Speaker A: I like Tangled.
[01:15:00] Speaker B: Nice. All right, fair. That's fair enough. It is a fantastic show, even though Beauty and the Beast is better. All right, well, moving on. What. What is your. What is your favorite. Now, you know, Alex, now you've been to, you know, bars on lots of the ships. Now that you're, you know, a few years have been of age. Your sister is almost of age. I mean, she's kind of of age in Europe. Almost of age. What's your favorite bar on Disney cruise Line?
[01:15:29] Speaker C: I really liked, I gotta say, hyperspace lounge on the Wish.
[01:15:34] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[01:15:35] Speaker C: It's because I'm Star wars, and I really do think it was such a cool space with, like, the haptics for when you're going through hyperspace. I just think it's a really awesome little spot.
[01:15:44] Speaker B: Love it. Awesome.
[01:15:45] Speaker C: And especially a couple days later when it's not as crowded.
[01:15:48] Speaker B: Yes, yes. When it's. Yeah, it always is crowded, like embarkation day, and then it might be, like, empty the rest of the cruise. All right, Cynthia, what about you? What's your favorite bar on Disney Cruise Line?
[01:15:57] Speaker A: I like the pubs.
[01:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Nice.
[01:16:00] Speaker A: I just think they're comfortable and you can play a card game. Yep.
[01:16:04] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, let's talk favorite onboard activity. Cynthia, we're going to start with you this time.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: I like the trivia.
We like doing the trivia. And I like doing it with the girls.
[01:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, you're competitive family. I like that about you.
[01:16:20] Speaker A: Yes, ma'am.
[01:16:21] Speaker B: Alex, what about you favorite trivia, too? Trivia. I love it.
[01:16:25] Speaker C: It's classic.
[01:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and you guys won a bunch, so, I mean, that's. That's always fun. It's more fun. I'll be honest. It's more fun when you win. Oh, yeah.
[01:16:36] Speaker C: Nobody's obviously Googling under the table.
[01:16:38] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. That's annoying. Always. All right, let's talk favorite rotational dining. You guys have been on all the ships. I know. You know, of course, the treasure has yet to come, but what's your favorite? Yeah, what's your favorite rotational dining? Alex, let's start with you.
[01:16:55] Speaker C: Oh, I.
I think I just like animators. I always have classic. And also I think they also have just the best menu. There's so much good stuff on that menu.
[01:17:05] Speaker B: I agree. I think it's a great menu. Cynthia, what about you?
[01:17:10] Speaker A: You know, I Like the magic when we did Tiana's.
[01:17:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:17:17] Speaker A: I like.
[01:17:18] Speaker B: That's the wonder. But, yeah, Tiana's.
[01:17:20] Speaker A: Is it the wonder.
[01:17:20] Speaker B: Yes. Well, the magic has gone out of New Orleans, and the wonder has gone out of New Orleans. But if you were talking about T. Tianas, then that was the wonder.
[01:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to remember. It's wherever we. When we went out of New Orleans. Yeah.
[01:17:33] Speaker C: It was his tangled. The tangled restaurants. On the magic.
[01:17:36] Speaker A: On the magic. Right. Okay, I get them. I like Tiana's.
[01:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:43] Speaker A: And that rotation. And I like when they, you know, they redid.
[01:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, they do the Mardi Gras menu. Yeah, Mardi Gras show. It's really fun. Apple?
[01:17:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, I'd go with that one.
[01:17:54] Speaker B: That's. That's Brian's favorite. And mine switches back and forth between different ones because. But that's one of my. One of my favorites. I'll put it that way. All right, I gotta ask you, what was your favorite port of call on this amazing Norway, Iceland, Liverpool adventure? Cynthia, let's start with you.
[01:18:12] Speaker A: I loved Reykjavik.
[01:18:14] Speaker B: Nice. What about you, Alex?
[01:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, because it was new, and I just. I would definitely go. Joe and I talk about. We'd love to just go back just to Iceland.
[01:18:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. What about you, Alex?
[01:18:25] Speaker C: I really liked. All. I thought the bus tour we went on was cool. Got to see a couple different little landmarks that were really fascinating.
[01:18:32] Speaker B: Awesome. You know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna sub in a question here and ask Alex which port was the easiest mobility wise.
[01:18:43] Speaker C: Honestly, it was Olisand because, really, the buses. The bus to the different little spots we went. Went right to those spots. Whereas with. In, like, Reykjavik, for the Golden Circle, like the tectonic plates and the geyser was. They took you to the visitor center, but then you had to walk to the spots definitely all of a sudden for that, because I got to. I got to just see everything without having too much issue.
[01:19:07] Speaker B: All right, I gotta ask you now, you guys did both Palo brunch and Palo dinner on this, and I know you've done Cynthia. I know you've done Paulo many, many times. I know Alex, you've done. You've done Paulo quite a few times, actually, in the last few years now.
[01:19:21] Speaker C: Yeah, like. Well, a couple now.
[01:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I want to ask Palo brunch versus Palo dinner. Which one do you think is better?
[01:19:28] Speaker A: Brunch for me.
[01:19:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm also brunch.
[01:19:31] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. All right. All right. Yeah. Two for brunch. I mean, it's a great brunch. It's a great dinner. It's a great brunch. Can't go wrong.
[01:19:37] Speaker C: The dinner's menu is great, but the brunch, when you can kind of go crazy.
[01:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, true. You can order as much as you want. That is one of the benefits. All right, well, a very controversial question, of course, is which one is your favorite ship? And of course this can change, I think for me at times, minute by minute, day by day.
Love the one you're with, of course. Alex, what's your favorite ship?
[01:20:04] Speaker C: I still think I like the Magic the best. I really am partial to the smaller ships and I was texting my friend when they announced the like a thousand new ships that they're building. I was like, I really hope a couple of them are Matt Wonder class ships. I really want to see some smaller, some on the smaller side.
[01:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there. We love the smaller ships ourselves. Cynthia, what about you? What's your favorite ship?
[01:20:30] Speaker A: Same for me. I, I like the smaller ships. And of the two, the magic is. Is my favorite favorite.
[01:20:36] Speaker B: Nice. All right, well, I've got to ask you both your bucket list cruise. This was a bucket list cruise. So we'll check this one off the list. But what's a cruise you have not been on, you want to do on Disney Cruise Line? It could be. You could sail anywhere in the world and it doesn't have to be somewhere that Disney Cruise line currently sails because this is a bucket list. This is a dream item. Cynthia, where would you sail?
[01:20:58] Speaker A: I would do the South Pacific and New Zealand. Australia area. That.
And we're contemplating that for Sophie's college graduation in a couple years.
[01:21:11] Speaker C: Yeah, same. That's the one that they announced the 10 day out of New Zealand. That's the one I'm gunning for. Is. I really, really wanted. I've always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand, so I'm really, really petitioning for that one.
[01:21:25] Speaker B: Well, and it seems like they're making this habit of going to Australia, New Zealand every year and maybe they will continue to if this one is successful. This ten night that they're doing over the Christmas holiday. If this one's successful, I feel like they'll probably have it in their roster, you know, repeatedly. It. It definitely seems to be more of a draw for the American crowd than these, you know, shorter sailings that they're doing for the, for the Kiwis and the Aussies. So fantastic. You guys, thanks so much for joining Us. Thanks for playing no judgment. You guys did fantastic. You passed with flying colors. Even though Beauty and the Beast is better. Tangled is an awesome close second for me, though. Yeah, that's what I said.
[01:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:22:07] Speaker B: Even though I think Beauty and the Beast is better, I think, I love. I actually like Tangled the Move or Tangled the Movie better than Beauty and the Beast. The movie. But I just think the stage show, the staging of Beauty and the Beast I think is just so phenomenal that that's, that's where, why it takes the cake for me. But both are really fantastic and I have seen casts on the magic that are, you know, doing Tangled that are just incredible and could.
[01:22:29] Speaker C: Yeah. I happen to run into a couple members of the new upcoming magic cast when I was in Hollywood Studios a few weeks ago. Oh, nice. I just happened to run into them.
[01:22:40] Speaker B: And I was like, oh, awesome. Yeah.
Honestly, those cast members, many of them could be successful on Broadway or off Broadway. They are of that caliber. Well, thanks for playing, you guys. Thanks for joining us. We of course love having you on. Please come back and join us again.
I'll ask for Brian since he's been quiet. I'm going to ask, because he's just quiet during my rapid fire, but I'm going to ask what's next? What have you got booked?
[01:23:08] Speaker A: We don't have any Disney cruises booked right now. Well, you know that this last one was a. That's a big one. Yeah, that's a big one. But my husband and I are going in march on a 13 day Viking Ocean cruise from Venice through Croatia, Greece and ending up in Barcelona.
[01:23:30] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:23:31] Speaker A: Yep. So we're doing that and then we're gonna. Sophie will be going to school in London next year, so you're gonna then jump over to London and see her for a couple days before coming back.
[01:23:40] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, that sounds like an amazing trip. Well, let us know when you're heading back on Disney Cruise Line. And of course, we. You're always welcome to join us and tell us about some of these amazing cruises you guys have been on. But with that said, I'll just say thank you so much for joining us.
[01:23:54] Speaker A: And thank you for joining us.
[01:23:59] Speaker D: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific 8:30pm Eastern Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts and if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com forward/dclt duo or email them at DCLDuo mypathunwinding.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 the DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at MyPath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo. It.
