[00:00:00] Speaker A: I mean, we're quite generally a reserved kind of British family day, like anyone like in the adhes. So when my parents walked through and they announced my parents, we were like cheering, just embarrass them and filming them. They were like, oh God, this is terrible.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: But once they got over that, they were fine.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Love it.
Welcome back everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by My Path Unwinding Travel and Sam, I'm going to jump right into a listener review from TMF Presley, who writes Love DCL Duo. I love all different perspectives that Brian and Sam provide through guests and their own experiences. Even as a seasoned cruiser, I find myself learning new things about dcl. I highly recommend anyone interested in going on a Disney cruise to listen to the duo. So there you go.
Thank you for that review. Thank you for that review, TMF Presley, and for all of you out there listening. If you'd like to head over, if you enjoy the show and you want to support the show, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us one of these five star written reviews and we will read it on the air at the top of our one of our regular shows. If you don't want to take the time to write a review, just hit 5 stars. It helps us out anyway. It helps the algorithm find us and help people find us too. So there you go. So, Sam.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Got a fun guest coming all the way from across the pond. It is early here on the west coast, folks. Sunday, December 1st at the duo is recording at 7am Thankfully. We flew back from the east coast yesterday from the Thanksgiving holiday and so we were up early anyway. But excited to have a guest all the way from across the pond. Sam, you want to introduce Gemma?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yes. I'm super excited to have Gemma back on our show. Gemma was with us about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago. We recorded an episode in December 2023 about a sailing that she went on to Bermuda and today she's back. She went on a sailing to the Eastern Caribbean. So we will welcome Gemma back to the show. Welcome back.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Thank you very much. Nice to be back.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, nice to have you back.
Let's start with reminding people of your Disney background and your cruising background. Why don't you tell folks where your love of Disney came from and when you started cruising with Disney?
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Last year was my first Disney cruise with my family. So last year, as I say, I spoke to you guys about our cruise from New York. I think one of the last cruises out of New York actually to Bermuda on the Dream.
Prior to that, I've always been just a big parks nut so too many times to mention at Disneyland Paris, including my hendoo or bachelorette party.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: I love that you did your hen do at Disneyland Paris and to Florida.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: To Hong Kong a couple of times and to California once.
But yeah, no other cruises. That was my first cruise and my second cruise is another Disney one, so.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: And you decided to venture all the way to Florida again for a cruise. How come?
Did you consider booking something out of Europe or did you consider booking on another cruise line out of Europe or was it. No, there's no chance I'm going to do another cruise line except Disney and it has to be out of the United States.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: I think for us it's more about Disney than it is the cruise itself really. So it was only ever really Disney on the list of choices. And I think for Europe, I guess for a lot of you Americans, I guess a lot of the appeal is the ports. Whereas for us we're like, well, if we wanted to see Spain or France or Italy, there would be a much, much cheaper way to do that than to go on a Disney cruise.
And I guess we really like tropical kind of climate and landscape and all of that. I'm slightly obsessed with palm trees, so any opportunity to go somewhere tropical is always my first choice. So yeah, it just made sense to head over to Florida and do it from there.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Awesome. Now what made you choose the Eastern Caribbean? Was it. Was it our show? Was it just the timing of the. Was it just the timing and you know, the longest cruise that could.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: I love how your first thought is it must be us.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Well, we always tell people influence on.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: On my choices for cruising. So it's probably.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: We love that we. I feel like we talk a lot about how much we love the Eastern Caribbean, Brian. So that's why I'm asking. I feel like we've like nailed it into people's heads. Like the Western is totally fine, but if you want a real treat, go on the Eastern if it fits in your schedule. Right.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: So yeah, so we, I guess we always figure a longer cruise is better. The Bermuda one was a six night. We didn't really want to do any shorter than that just with the length of the flight we were coming over for. And my parents came on this cruise as well. So it was our three kids, my husband and I and my. Both my parents. And again, I guess we just wanted to get on the ship, settle and not have to pack up and get off another three or four days later. So and I guess from your show we've heard, I guess kind of mixed views on ports like Nassau. So the port stops for the east coast, definitely taking in castaway as well was kind of really appealed to us.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Yeah. I will say Nassau has invested a lot in their port. Now we have still not done a shore excursion in Nassau, which is on my list. I really want to get off the ship, do a shore excursion. We just always stay on the ship because the immediate port area we've gotten off several times and wandered around it. While they've invested heavily in the port itself, the main area outside the port has not changed dramatically. So yeah, Nassau is kind of a hit or miss for some people.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: The other part is it's NASA is a stop on one on the shorter cruises. So I never want to get off because I want to spend the time on the ship. The other part, like to your point, Gemma, you said, you know, the reason you don't didn't sail in Europe is because it's all about the, it's about Disney and it's about the ship for you, right? Well, on any shorter cruise I feel like it's more about Disney and the ship than it is about the ports. And so if you're, you know, if you're, if you're only on a three or four night cruise and your two stops are cast away at Nassau, like, yeah, of course you're going to get off the castaway if you know, assuming you dock but you want that extra time on the ship. So to me, yeah, to me, if you're going for sort of a mix of the ports on the ship like the Eastern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, even Bermuda, those are kind of like I think the perfect, the perfect itineraries to do if you can obviously if you can swing a five night or longer or longer cruise. I'm curious about your folks that came, you know, your, the grandparents coming on the cruise. Did it take, had they ever cruised before? Did it take any convincing? Are they Disney people? I mean I will say there are some grandparents who are like all in on cruising. If they get to see the grandkids, it doesn't matter where they, you know, where they go. But, and I, but I find that grandparents who are not into cruising are, can sometimes be hesitant.
My own mother hesitant to do cruises. She's going to cruise with us in, in Alaska and she has cruised with us once in the Caribbean. But she's not big on cruising. She's just going because we want to do it and because she wants to see Alaska. But yeah, how did, what was the reaction or did it take a lot of convincing bring the grandparents on?
[00:07:28] Speaker A: So no, didn't take, didn't take very much convincing at all. They, I mean they've been to the parks a few times. They've done California and Hong Kong a couple of times and Paris.
They, my mom in particular really likes the whole, is quite into the Disney side of things as well and she, they, they actually they're retired but they have in the last couple of years done two cruises but both on Cunard. So they did a transatlantic to new from Southampton to new and then they have just got back from the Norwegian Fjords cruise as well with Cunard. So they'd done a couple of cruises themselves. I did kind of not warn them but I guess manage their expectations that a Disney cruise would probably be slightly different. Like my dad was checking whether he would be allowed to dinner if he didn't have a dinner jacket and I was like yeah, no, I think you'll be fine. I think you'll be fine in main.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Dining with it may not allow you to dinner if you don't have a Mickey T shirt on.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: But other than that I, I love, well I love that they sailed on Cunard because that's, I mean when it, when you think about like UK luxury, like that's what we think about and like we've always said like someday when we're retired we would love to sail on Cunard and we think we're too young for it at this point but I think that would be a wonderful luxury line to sail on.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: So, so it was quite different. But to be fair though, actually they, they were super impressed with Disney with the food and the ship and, and so no they, they didn't take much convincing. And just in general my parents are pretty pret, particularly since they retired. My mum said if you ever ask us if we want to do anything the answer is always going to be yes from now on. And I'm like okay, perfect.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Oh I love that. That's so awesome. I think Disney is also like such a great line for multi generational cruising. I think to your point, what you said about your folks being impressed with the food and the service, like it's not Cunard so it's not wearing a tuxedo or dinner jacket to dinner but it is a higher level of service and a higher level in sort of the luxury space. Different from some of the other American cruise lines in particular and some of the European Cruise lines in particular, so that's super fun. Well, let's talk about the planning aspect.
Did you book this all yourself? Did you work with a travel agent?
And do you have any sort of difficulty in the booking process doing it from over in the uk? I'm imagining it's this fairly similar to how we book it.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's. I think it's pretty much the same, so. No, all really straightforward because we had a few nights in Orlando beforehand. I actually booked the flight separate to the hotel and then separate again from the cruise. So the cruise was just an online booking and I'd kind of looked for availability for a room for our family and for my parents to make sure that there was. That we both wanted a balcony, just to check, because it was. We booked maybe like nine or 10 months out and there were not that many rooms showing us available. So we just wanted to make sure. And then we're kind of on the phone and pressing the button at the same time so that we didn't end up with them on the ship and us not having a room and they were. Disney cruise without the crank probably wouldn't have gone down well.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: So you booked directly in the uk. Is it like.
Is that hard? Is it. Is it easy? Like. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if the experience differs substantially from what we have here in the us.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: It was just on the Disney cruise, like the UK Disney cruise website. So it's super easy. It's just, okay, look at the rooms available in whatever category of room that you want, and it's. Yeah, it was really straightforward.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Do they list the prices in pounds or do they list the prices in dollars? That's what I'm looking.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: They list them in pounds.
Yeah. So if you. Weirdly, if you book a Disney cruise on the website, that's all done in pounds and the balance is paid in pounds. If you book a Disney holiday and like, say we're going in next year to Disney World, we've booked that through Disney because my husband gets a discount as a firefighter and that you have is all a US booking, and then you're effectively exposed to the exchange rate for the balance. You have to pay off in that scenario. But if you book online, it's all in pounds and you're giving guaranteed the price in pounds.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: That's nice. Yeah, that's super helpful. Well, you guys were silver. Silver castaway club status. Although your parents were obviously no castaway club status. Their first time sailing with Disney, was there any difficulty in, you know, Pre booking activities or you know, were there things you wanted to book that you had difficulty booking for either you all or for your parents? I'm imagining you probably took the lead since as you know, having one cruise under your belt, you're a pro, you know what you're doing, you know about the online booking window, that's one thing that is I think a little bit difficult for first time cruisers if they're not, you know, paying attention, joining Facebook groups, listening to our show or you know, checking out other resources. But yeah, what were you looking to book and were you able to pre book things like, I don't know, drink tastings, Apollo brunch, anything like that?
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah, so we booked the stuff got booked up really, really quickly. There wasn't that much available. I think the only thing I got when it first came out was the kids wanted to do the goofy sports simulator and I wanted to book my husband and my dad to do the golf simulator. So that I was able to get. And pretty much everything else was sold out or they hadn't released all of, maybe all of the timings. But between the bookings opening and before getting on board, I was able to get a mixology class for my mum and I, a beer tasting for my husband and my dad and then also a Paolo dinner.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, yeah. Well this is, see this is a perfect lesson in watch the website or the app, right, because oftentimes for the, you know, silver and gold and even. And no castaway club status, right.
A lot of things will be sold out. Maybe almost everything is, is booked up. But people tend to book a lot of those platinum cruisers and, and Pearl cruisers will book things. You know, we'll book a ton of stuff right when they can and then drop things later. And same with the concierge sailors, right. So it, things do become available later. And so if you watch you'll, you can, you can always get lucky. Well, let's talk about the travel. Travel plan. You said you came over to Orlando, you flew over a few days before. How many days did you have in Orlando before you're sailing?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: So we had four nights. We stayed at a resort called the Grove, which was just, just west of Orlando, which was fantastic actually. It was like a apartment hotel type place. So we had like a full kitchen, could sort ourselves breakfast and then it had a pretty huge water park there which is included in the hotel. So for us it was perfect because whilst the kids got over jet lag, they could nap if they needed to nap or just lie by the pool or Enjoy the water park. And then we'd use the transportation to get to Disney Springs or to some of the parks, just. Just to. Just to have a look around and go shopping and eat at Disney before heading back. So, yeah, it was a pretty chilled kind of four days before we headed over to Port Canaveral.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Awesome. And I know you did a little bit of hotel touring, which I wanted to bring that up because I mentioned to you before the show when we were talking, Jebba, that I did that when I was like 16 to go see all the different resorts. But, you know, the park tickets are super expensive and. But sometimes you want some of that Disney magic and sometimes going around to kind of look at the different hotels and their theming and check out their shops and maybe even their restaurants. I think that's always a nice way to kind of see some of the Disney property, even if you're not going to the parks. I. I would just want to ask what was your favorite of the. The hotels that you happen to. To go by?
[00:15:37] Speaker A: I think probably the Polynesian we really liked, and that was a really great one to walk around.
Had different kind of merch in the shops, and the kids got a free lay when we walked in, so they were super happ.
Also the Grand Floridian. Although as we came in, we saw like, the wedding chapel and the wedding car at the entrance. And then my husband, I said to my husband, oh, we should. We should renew our vows here. And then he looked a little pale and we had to leave. So.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: I don't. I don't blame him. The cost of a Disney wedding is incredible. Like, I would. I would love to, like, do like a vow renewal or, you know, at Disney, but oh, my God, it's like, cost prohibitive.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I think he felt the same way. So. So, yeah, but we. Because effectively, we could get a free shuttle bus from the Grove to. It only went to the parks and we only wanted to go to Disney Springs. So effectively then we used like, the monorail or the buses to go via a hotel to then get to Disney Springs just to save a bit of money and, you know, say to the kids, right, let's see how much of an adventure we can make this to get. Three hours later, when we turned up in Disney Springs, I was like, we've done it.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: We got there.
I love that. I love that. Well, what was your. What transportation did you take to get to Port Canaveral then? Did. Did the Grove Hotel have transportation or did you book private transportation?
[00:17:01] Speaker A: We just booked an Uber and went. And we was actually way cheaper than trying to get any of the shuttle buses because there is. Well, my parents actually flew in just the day before and then went straight to Port Canaveral and stayed near the port. So they didn't have the four days in Orlando beforehand. So there was five of us. And for the price of five seats on a shuttle bus, it was quite a lot cheaper to just get an Uber. So we just ubered it over and went straight to my parents hotel, hang out there for a couple of hours and then went to the over to the port when our port arrival time kind of kicked in.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Perfect. Super smart. Did they have a lot of jet lag? I mean there is, you know what, like a five, six hour time difference. And so coming over the day before.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: They'Re pretty seasoned travelers. They were pretty good, I think. Yeah. And they, they were not too bad.
Yeah, I think they were.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Okay, nice. All right, so you're, you're in Cocoa beach area, you get another Uber, I assume to the port.
How did the check in process go at the port? Any hiccups there or was it smooth sailing?
[00:18:05] Speaker A: No, all, all really smooth. We actually had a port arrival time that was either 15 or 30 minutes earlier than my parents had managed to get. So because we couldn't all fit in one Uber anyway, we headed to the port and got through all of the passport control and just wa in the waiting area at the top of the escalators for my parents to get through so that we could get on the ship together. But we had, because we had just slightly different port arrival times. But really smooth. No, no hassle. And as soon as the time, as soon as we got to the waiting hall, it was kind of 10, 15 minutes, my parents were there and we were through onto the ship.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Love that. Well, what did your parents think about the, the boarding? You, you know, you of course go across the gang. Well, you go through the big Mickey ears, you go across the gangway and you' the atrium of the beautiful Disney fantasy. To me that's one of my favorite.
Well, it might be my favorite atrium actually. Although the grand hall on the Wish is pretty grand but. And we'll see the treasure soon enough. But I love the Disney fantasy and I love the decor of the Disney Fantasy and the atrium. What did they think? I mean having had obviously been on some fancy Cunard chips.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think they were really impressed. They, they thought it was, I think the decor they really liked because I think they, when they did their transatlantic, that was on the Queen Mary, I think, which is the original kind of ocean line, I think the only remaining ocean liner. And they really like the decor of that. And then actually the one they did to the Norwegian fjords was the Queen Anne, which is Cunard's newest ship. And they thought they were less enamored with the decor of that, that it didn't feel as classic. And actually they were really impressed with the Fant. See that it did really feel classic and classy and really nicely done. So we ended up actually in two slightly different queues to actually get into for them to announce our group. So we went through, they announced us and then, I mean we're quite generally reserved, kind of British family, don't like anyone looking at us. So when my parents walked through and they announced my parents, we were like cheering, just embarrass them and filming them. They were like, oh God, this is terrible.
Love that once they got over that, they, they were fine.
[00:20:26] Speaker C: Love it, I love it.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: It is, it's such an, like an American thing to like, like we love the idea of being announced.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: Keen.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: We're less keen, I would say.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: But I, I, I kind of love that they still. Well, I love that they do it for everyone. I love that you get embarrassed.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: There was no opt out queue. They would have been in the opt out queue. They're like, what's your name? And my dad just gives them his name not knowing what they're going to.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: It just cracks me up. Well, what did you guys decide to do first? Did you want to sort of take them around the ship? Did you head to lunch right away? I mean obviously for. It's your second time on a Disney cruise.
You were all on the Dream previously, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah. So you know the ship layout, because the Dream and the fantasy are really, it's not quite identical, but almost identical really. The only difference in layout is in the adult only sort of bar space and they're still in the same area of the ship. There's just obviously sort of split up a little bit differently. But yeah. What did you decide to do first? Did you want to give them like a tour of the ship or were you all keen to go get some food?
[00:21:34] Speaker A: I think always food with us. So we tried to do a sit down lunch but they would actually close that for the day because they were full, they said. So we went up to cabanas and got food and just sat on the deck and had, and had lunch there.
And then after that we kind of registered the kids for the kids Club. Our bags took quite a while to get to our room actually. So we had done the deck party before any of that arrived and then they arrived just before dinner. So then we were able to get ready for dinner but it was pretty quiet, the kind of first afternoon. My daughter was is hugely into the door decorating and fish extenders. So. And she had made decorations for our door and my parents door so she wanted to get that all set up for everyone.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Oh, I love that.
That's amaz.
That's. But a good reminder though about the, about the luggage, that the luggage might not get to you and sometimes we've had it happen one time where our luggage didn't get to us until after dinner and so.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: And I have never been more stressed in my life.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I was worried for a while there, I have to say, because everyone else was coming and we even saw one of the porters and he was like, right, you've got everything. And I was like, no, we don't have anything actually. And he was like, oh. And I was like, oh man.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. When the ship thrusts away from the dock and your luggage in front of your seat room, you're like, oh, this is going to be a nail biter.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but, but we, we got our luggage, it just happened to come while we like, it came to our room while we were at dinner. Right. So like it can happen. I like to warn people though, if you really need, if you really plan on changing for dinner or you've got some, you know, themed stuff you want to wear or even your door decorations and you want to have that all set up before dinner. Best to pack that stuff in your carry on just in case things, things come late. Not saying just in case they don't come, but just in case things come come later. Remind us, how old are your, your children? I know you have three.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So my, my youngest turned seven on the second day of the cruise. So he, he keeps telling everyone that every year we go on a Disney cruise for my birthday.
No, no, no, no, no. Every year we go on a family holiday and it happens to be on.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Your birthday just because you have that when you, when your school break is. Right?
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Yes. And the other two, like, where's my Disney cruise? My birthday. I'm like, well, we need to get this straight. This is not Monty's cruise. So he turned seven on the cruise. And then my middle son is 11 and my daughter is 13.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's like the, just the, the perfect cruise ages. Right. Because they're, you've got one in the Oceaneers Club and two in. In Edge. One who could go. Well soon to go to Vibe, but yeah, perfect. Yeah, I think that's a. Those are great ages. And of course, as you mentioned, they are into the door decorating and the fish extenders. So which, which. How many fish extender exchanges did you all participate in? Did you just do the standard ones or kids ones? What kind of. What kind of. I know we like to talk about. Every once in a while we hear from folks who really love the, you know, exchanges on board and it's always fun to kind of find out what, how, how much, how full force did you all go in participating into this?
[00:24:51] Speaker A: We go pretty much all in, I would say.
My daughter, like, has spent the last two summers in, like, ahead of the last two cruises, preparing all the door decorations and making all of the gifts and personalizing gifts for everyone. And again, she did a. She wanted my parents to do a fish extender group too, so she decorated them a fish extender and then also made all the gifts for their exchange.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: So they did a magnet exchange and the kids. We put them in two groups for the kids ones and then we did they. My daughter also made loads of pixie dust kind of parcels, some which was British chocolate. Because there was a lot of chat on the Facebook group about how much was anyone coming from England with English chocolate.
And I actually worked for a chocolate company, so I was like, yeah, I can help with that.
And then. Yeah. Then other bits we did just mixed kind of kids kind of gifts and keyrings and magnets and things like that.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Love that.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: We are, I will say we are always enamored by the differences in the chocolates. Even some of the same brands. Right. That are in the US and the uk, like, they sell different things.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: It's. Cadbury is from the.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Cadbury is a big one. Yeah.
But Mars is very big over in the U.K. also, obviously we have Mars here, but we have. But they sell different things. There's different items that are popular in the US and then. Yeah, but it's like impossible. If you want a peanut butter cup, it's like impossible to find in the uk.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: So there's certainly a bit of a, like, as a novelty of being a US chocolate. It's quite a. It's quite a big thing now.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: But yeah, it's mainly Cadburys that people are after.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Specifically a chocolate called a Curly Whirly. I don't know if you've experienced that.
[00:26:39] Speaker C: No, know. Explain.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Tell us, what is it? Your curly whirly?
[00:26:43] Speaker A: It's like, it's like a toffee that's kind of. I don't know how they make it. They must like drizzle it on a mat. So it's got loads of holes in it. And then they dip it in chocolates. It's like really chewy toffee covered in Cadbury's chocolate.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: You had Brian at toffee.
Brian is very, very.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: I love English toffee.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. In fact, our. You guys, guys don't have Trader Joe's, but you probably have seen Trader Joe's and it's. Trader Joe's is kind of an American novelty. Right. But they have fantastic English toffee at Trader Joe's. And whenever we're there, Brian buys a tin of English toffee.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: In fact, if you would prefer to not leave us a five star review, you can just send me toffee. We'll eat it on the air at the top of each episode.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: There you go.
Exactly. I love that. Well, let's talk about the ports on this cruise. So seven night Eastern Caribbean. Did you, obviously you said castaway. Did you go, Was it Tortola and St. Thomas as your other ports? Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah. So sort of the standard Eastern itinerary, sometimes they do, you know, every once in a while they'll do Saint Martin and occasionally San Juan, depending upon the itinerary. But tell us, did you plan excursions at those ports?
If so, what did you do? If not, what did you do? Yeah, curious to know.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: So Tortola, we hadn't planned to do an excursion. We were kind of planning that to be a hopefully quieter day on the, on the ship. We did get off and have a quick walk around, but it was really, really hot that day, like oppressively humid. So we went for a walk. We went around some of the shops and had a walk around the port, but the kids were really like, I just want to go to the pool. So maybe an hour and a half. Like we had a coconut up when we were off the ship and then we headed back to the ship and went to the pool.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: How did you feel about the. The area around the port? It's actually interesting. In one of our cruise groups coming up there, people were asking about whether or not there are shops, you know, easily accessible. And my memory is there's not a ton right around the port at Tortola, but I. It's been a while, so I'm curious.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So this kind of like the gated port bit where it's all the tortoise tourist shops and, and some food places. And then we went out of the gates of the port and along took quite a main road where there was a lot of kind of market stalls selling clothes and souvenirs. But I mean not really a lot to. A lot to. And have a look around. So I'd say we were maybe an hour, hour and a half in total. And then, and then that was pretty much it. Unless you wanted to get a taxi to a, to a beach which we didn't really want to do on that day. And then on the, the instant Thomas, we had planned to go up the cable car again, walk over just because I'd seen you could walk over and do it yourself. But when we got there actually it wasn't, it wasn't that high. I was like. And some of the taxi drivers trying to sell us a taxi ride were saying, well it's like 60 foot taller than the top of the ship so you're not going to see anything that you can't see from the top of the ship. And they had a fair point. Like.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: I mean you can see the ship, right? You might be able to get a good picture of the ship. But that's.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but that was it. So, so in the end we ended up getting one of these open, like kind of pick up taxis and we went over to Megan's Bay. So we were really lucky. It was just the seven of us in the, in the taxi and the guy agreed to pick us up after like three hours, three and a half hours at the beach. And so it was perfect. Like we just went over there and we did that quite early, got off the boat early and then we're back on the boat for kind of a late lunch.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Oh, fantastic.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: How was Megan's Bay for you? Did you, did you enjoy it? We've been hearing some. I've been hearing some mixed reviews of late, although. So it's. It was my favorite beach for a long time.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: No, I thought it was really nice. It was really similar actually to Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda. We thought in terms of the setup of it, but no, I. It was a beautiful beach. There was. My husband actually saw like he swam out slightly further off the shore and saw a couple of turtles, which was, which he really loved. And we walked right away along to the end of Megan's Bay and there was a huge, I don't know what you call a group of pelicans, a flock. I don't know.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: I don't know. Probably A flock. Yeah, it seems like it should be their birds. Right. A group of.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: I don't know. Anyway, a lot of pelicans all swooping down like. So it was, it was really nice. It was a nice bit of wildlife and. Yeah, really beautiful. Yeah, no complaints.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: And, and the, I mean, the great thing about Megan's Bay I think also is that if you want to, if you go on your own, you can just, you know, bring your towels and lay out on the beach, but you can also rent chairs and umbrellas and stuff like that. And they, of course, have that, that bar and they have sort of a quick service food place there as well if you wanted to stay for the, you know, the full day instead of going back to the ship to eat. Yeah.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: And in the more, the more, you know, segments of the show, a group of pelicans is called a squadron, a pod, a brief or a pouch. So there you go.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: There you go. I'm still going to call it a flock because as people know, Brian's last name is Flock. And I love, and I love the idea of a.
I love the idea of, of a flock of pelicans.
Yeah, super fun. Anyway, all right, well, let's talk about Castaway then. Since obviously Castaway was your third and final port and usually the star, although it sounds like St. Thomas was a pretty great day as well. Tell us, what did you guys plan to do? I'm trying to remember. Did you go to Castaway on your Bermuda cruise?
[00:32:13] Speaker A: No, no, that was. Bermuda was the only stop on that cruise.
But we were in port for like, like three nights or two. Two nights in Bermuda. So. No, Castaway was the first time we've been at Castaway. It was quite kind of a late. I thought all aboard time. Is that. No, not all. That's the other way around. What do you call it? Docking debarkation time.
[00:32:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, Disembarkation.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Yeah, disembarkation.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: All ashore.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Is that what it's called?
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Yeah, all ashore.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: The terminology is mind blowing.
So that was. It was supposed to be 1045. 5. And actually we got off slightly earlier. It was about 10:15 when we got off, but we, we just had such a great day. So we had been hoping to do the 5K we had. The family of five of us had been training before we went away to try and do it, but again, it was so hot. Actually, my youngest son and my husband ran it all with a few water stops, so. And the rest of us walked it, the entire thing because it was just too. We were just not cut out for running into. I was like 29 degrees. Like we, we'd been training over here when it was, you know, 8 degrees.
So a whole different ball game. So, yeah, we, we got off. We straight away kind of went to the furthest family beach, left our stuff there and did the 5K, got our medals, which everyone was super excited about, and then got straight into the water at that second beach and did pelican plunge change.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Nice. I love that. Listen, for the, for the 5K, you're. You went in October and it can still be really, really, really hot in the Bahamas. People and the Caribbean in general, people don't realize, like, it's oppressively. It can be oppressively hot. And then with the humidity, then the heat index is like off the charts. Right. So if you're planning on doing the 5k and like you said, you had trained for it, like, yeah, running it might not be running the whole thing might not be the best idea and super important to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Because it's. Yeah, it's really rough.
[00:34:27] 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. 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 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 mypathunware unwinding.com dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:35:25] Speaker C: You know, speaking of October, I'm curious, Gemma, did. Did hurricane season enter your mind at all as you booked this sailing? I. This was. This year was particularly a difficult one.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: So. Yeah, yeah, so I guess we were aware of it. It.
But I kind of thought, well, you know, they're doing. They're cruising all the time. It must work or they wouldn't sell. They wouldn't sell the cruises generally. But then the, there was that big hurricane like 10 days before, maybe we were due to fly out when MCO shot.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: And yeah, there was Helene and then Milton.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Right, right, right before we were due to go. So I had a slightly kind of. I ended up following all these random meteorologists on Instagram with all these like hourly updates about when the port was open and the airport was open. And actually it was like you wouldn't have known anything. And it sounds dreadful. Of course our first concern is for everyone's well being that lived there. But of course it crosses your mind that you really hope everything is also going to be okay in time for the, for the break. So it was fine actually. And we had fantastic weather. The weather at Castaway was just perfect. Like not a cloud in the sky, not a drop of rain. Really, really fantastic.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Love that. Ste. Did you purchase travel insurance? That's actually, I think this is the thing that makes me think of travel insurance.
I think in general, travel insurance is a good idea. We don't tend to, we don't purchase it through Disney, we purchase it through a third party. But however you plan on doing it, I think it's always a good idea, especially in hurricane season, to have some kind of travel insurance just in case.
[00:37:02] Speaker C: And I want to put a call out, as we mentioned this, because I think every time we mention travel insurance on the show, without fail, I get at least two or three people reaching out going, you should do a show on travel insurance. And it's tricky for us to do that because unless you're an insurance broker, you really can't be seen as like advertising travel insurance or, you know, there's lines you don't want to cross. So, Right. If you, if you are out there and you sell travel insurance or you're an expert in travel insurance and you feel like you can, you can talk about this with some knowledge. We'd love to have you on to help educate our listeners over the ins and outs of travel insurance.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: The other thing we also like to tell people is that policy, travel insurance policies, even with the same company can vary from state to state within the United States. Right. So like we don't want to be like, be giving advice on travel insurance, you know, that we have in that our policy exists in Washington, but of course would be very different if you're in New York or wherever or if you're in the uk, Right. So like it's yeah, yeah, we don't like.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: So I mean, it's not really an option to not have insurance for.
To travel overseas to the US because if you needed any medical assistance, you'd obviously be bankrupted.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Oh God, I don't even think about that. But you're so right because you guys have nationalized health insurance. You don't have private health insurance like.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: We do, so you have to be insured to travel anyway. But also interestingly, when we were in, on our last cruise in Bermuda and we had cruise insurance for that, the itinerary changed by one day because they left a day early. And actually we got not an inconsiderable payout from. Although it made really no difference to us whatsoever, we still made the claim that the itinerary had been changed and because the payout was for five passengers. Passengers actually it was a fair chunk of our cruise price refunded. Yeah, the change in itinerary.
So. So no, we definitely, we definitely had insurance and we've had. I've had to make claims previously when actually in Florida a few years back, I had all of my luggage stolen out of my hire car. So I am.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Oh my goodness.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: The second I book it, I have travel insurance on it.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Oh my goodness, that's crazy.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: And because we get this question a ton, I'm just going to say we get an annual insurance policy through Allianz. That's, that's who we use as not an endorsement of Allianz, it's just who we use. They have the coverage that we, you know, tend to like and want. But that's, that's who we use and.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: We have, we do an annual policy.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: We have annual insurance. Annual travel trips.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Yeah. That way we cover more than one particular trip. Just like, like what? Just like what you would do, Gemma. It's just we, for us, it's just makes more sense to do it that way because since considering how much we travel. Well. So Castaway, you. What did the, what did the kids think? What did your folks think of, of Castaway? Did they enjoy it? Did everyone like Pelican Plunge?
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we, we absolutely loved it. Like we had such a great day. We had, we had lunch and then after that we went to do the snorkeling and we thought we would, you know, give it a go and do a couple of the boys and or buoys and to see the different statues. But I think we were probably two hours in the water. We pretty much every statue that was sunken there.
I mean my 7 year old after 2 hours in the water, was just so tired.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Kept on going. And my parents did the whole thing as well. So, yeah, we were, we spent absolutely ages doing that. The kids really loved doing that. And we saw a ray really close in actually there as well.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: As we came out of there there and then we hit up the gift shop. We have to get a magnet from everywhere we go. So we had to get a castaway cave magnet.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's really important. You got to get it on the island because they don't sell, they don't sell castaway merchandise in the shop on the ship. For people who haven't heard me say this before, this is a reminder. If you want something that says castaway key on it, you need to buy it on castaway key. You're going to pay Bahamian tax, but you can still pay through your shipboard accounts. Well, the shops, all, other than the, the Bahamian shops that are, you know, stalls that take cash or probably credit card as well. The, the Disney shops, they sell all the castaway key stuff and that, but they have to impose Bahamian tax because you're buying on Bahamian soil, not on the ship. So, but reminder, if you want like a magnet that says castaway key, you want a Christmas ornament that says castaway key, a T shirt, whatever, a sun shirt, all of those things, those things are sold only on castaway. You can't buy them on the, the ships. Well, let's, let's talk about some of your onboard stuff. Gemma. I'm curious with planning, did you guys decide to do early? We're not going to talk dining until a little later, but did you guys decide to do early dining or late dining with that time change? I'm curious.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: So we, in the end we went for early. We had to go on the standby list for, for that. But we did get that before we went, got on board. My daughter had said this time she wanted to do late because, because she hated that every time we were at the pool deck we were like, no, we have to get out and get ready for dinner when then. And she wanted that when it wasn't busy. But in the end, actually, I think it was way better that we had early because the kids were just so. We had such busy, busy days that the, the younger two would have just been absolutely wiped out. We're, they're kind of half past nine, ten o'clock bed and anything past that they are really struggling with. So. So yeah, I think it was definitely better that we were early.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And I imagine you're, you know, you're coming from further east. So with the time change it, like, it seems like, like late, like 1am or something. Exactly, exactly. Well, let's talk about some of your onboard, onboard experiences. What were some of the favorites that you all got to do as a family?
Things that your parents were. Were into, things that kids were into. Yeah. What were. What were some of the high highlights?
[00:43:09] Speaker A: So we did a couple of animation classes, which everyone really liked doing together. We did a few trivias. We did not win again, but again, same as on our first cruise, someone very kindly gave the kids their medals again.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. I remember. I remember you telling us about that and how lovely that was. Oh, and you had, you had kept coming in, like, second place on several ones and the people who kept beating you eventually gave your kids.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: So we had pretty much the same scenario this time. Plus, my elder two children are quite introverted. My youngest is all about, like, jazz hands and he is straight at the front of everything. So when it was his birthday, I mean, he told everyone he walked past it was his birthday. And so as soon as we came second in that, in that quiz, he was like, yeah, but it's my birthday. And these poor people probably thought they had to give the medals to a small child whose birthday they were going to ruin if he didn't get a medal.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: So did he wear a birthday pin or a birthday.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Oh, he had the T shirt, the pin. He had the love. There was no excuse.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: And I, I am your youngest child. Let me just put that out there. I, like, I want to wear, like, Ryan one year, got me the, like the birthday package and had this huge birthday tie. And we had. We were on a cruise. It was like a couple weeks before my birthday. And I literally, I walked around. I mean, they, Nathan and Brian wanted me to wear it and I was like, I'm game to wear it. And literally everywhere I went, people wished me happy birthday and I loved it.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Yeah, no, he absolutely loved it. I think we counted like six or seven times he got people to sing full Happy Birthday to. Sometimes just random cast members in corridors trying to do housekeeping and maintenance. And they would start singing to him. And then actually the. Well, we think it was the lady. It was a lady and her daughter who gave the kids their medals on that day. And then we saw them at numerous other things. And every time they'd say, oh, we've got a duck for you, or come by our room. We've left Something on our door for you. And then on the last or the second to last deck day, we got back to our room and in my daughter's fish extender was one of every character medal except for Chip and Dale. And I think it didn't have a note on it, but I think it must have been from them. And so now we have the whole set apart from Chip and Dale because I think they, they were fantastic at trivia. I think that her daughter had worked on Disney Cruising previously, knew all the answers and must have won every trivia she went to and then gave a full set bar one to my kids. So that was really lovely. Yeah.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: So nice. I love. This is the magic of Disney Cruising. Like other, I love that like other cruisers help make magic for kids, right? Like, I mean, cast does too. So I. This is no knock on the cast. In fact, the cast is, you know, incredible. But I also love that fellow cruisers like to do things like this and make somebody else's day. Oh yeah.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: And we'd actually met a lady on the Facebook group who said, oh, I signed up too late for fish extenders or I joined the cruise too late to join the fish extender groups, but it's my daughter's birthday. Anyone else got a kid with their birthday on the cruise? And actually it was the two days after my son's birthday and they were both turning 7, so we did a little gift exchange with them and every time we went to the pool, we'd see this family and my son and her daughter just played like in the pool for hours. Like, they just like loved it. So that was really sweet as well.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Oh, that's perfect. That's actually. But that's another good tip. If you join the Facebook group late and the fish extender exchanges are already closed, there is no reason why you cannot organize your own. I'll call it a direct exchange. Right? You just find somebody else through the Facebook group and say, hey, I'd love to do. You know, I missed fish extenders. I'd love to do a direct exchange with one or two other families. Is anybody interested? And generally speaking, your admins have no problem with doing that. I say generally speaking because I know when we admin groups, I have no problem with somebody doing that. And most other admins I think are fine with that as well. It's just I don't want to organize more after we've already closed the fish extenders because it's a lot, a lot of work. So those last minute exchanges are, are even, are even more work. Because people have been preparing gifts for, you know, often like your daughter for months, maybe even a year. Right. Because they, they sort of have pre planned that they're going to do this on their next cruise. Well, let's. Some, let's talk adult only experiences. You all did some mixology. You also did Apollo dinner. Tell us what you thought of those experiences. I can't remember if you had done any of them on your, on your prior cruise.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: No, we didn't do any last time, I guess because we weren't really sure how the kids would feel about kids club.
But this time we had grandparents on call as well. So we had multiple options. So yeah, my dad and my husband did the beer tasting. They really enjoyed that. They both came back from that slightly merry and like two naughty schoolboys who'd been let out on the school gates for the afternoon. That was funny in itself. And they came back to their room and tried to explain the beers they'd had. So they enjoyed that. My mum and I went and did the mixology. But that day was actually really rough at sea. Like the roughest we've seen on Archer cruises for sure. And so being up at the Meridian, it was when we first sat down, I thought, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to drink anything. Like I was feeling not the best.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: Well, you're at the very back of the ship, so you actually have like the most move. I mean you're higher up, not the bottom, but still you're. That's a lot of movement in the.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Back of the ship.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: And I'm not particularly sensitive to it. I was fine on the New York one, even though my son was quite poorly.
But that I thought, oh goodness, I'm not sure how this is going to go. But we kind of, after we'd had a couple, we kind of relaxed into it a bit. But that was fun. And then Paolo dinner. So that evening we kind of passed the kids off to the grandparents and they took them to early dining. And then I think our Palo dinner was maybe 8:00. So my husband and I were like, right, how much adult only stuff? Now we haven't got the kids, can we get her out? So we got changed, went for a swim in the adult lonely pool, went to the hot tubs where we didn't have the kids, went back to the room and got changed and ran to the Skyline Bar to get in a couple of martinis.
I love like a.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: It was like it's a marathon.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Yes. It was like A scavenger hunt around all the, all the places we couldn't go with the kids in the like two hour window that we had right.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: There while they're at dinner and occupied. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. Love that. What did you think of Paolo?
[00:49:54] Speaker A: Oh, we had a fantastic night. Like the service was just phenomenal. Like, so good. The food was fantastic. My husband is quite a big eater anyway, but by the end of Paolo, Dinner, dinner, he said, like, you, you've beaten me. And I said to the, to the waiter who was fantastic. I was like, you've done it. Like, I've never thought this day would come. Like someone's actually, actually full. Like, this is unbelievable.
So yeah, it was, it was really, really delicious. Fantastic service. Like such a beautiful environment as well to sit in.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: So, yeah, we really enjoyed it and it was nice to just get dressed up and have a date night as well.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. Now I'm imagining you probably didn't get to do any of the, the late night adult only shows in sort of the club space. But just curious whether or not you were.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: No, we didn't. We kind of after dinner. It really was like the shows, the main kind of stage shows that we went to and we did a couple of deck parties. We did trick or treating one evening and that was about it in the evening, generally.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Yeah, nice. Well, I want to ask just. I know we're going to head to Rapid Fire in just a minute, but I want to ask just a couple of questions about shows. You obviously you had been on the Dream, so you had seen Beauty and the Beast on the dream. Now you're on the fantasy. So you had Frozen and Aladdin are both on the fantasy. I'm curious, did you go, did you hit all the shows? You mentioned you did shows and deck parties were sort of the main nighttime activities. What did you think of all of those?
[00:51:26] Speaker A: So we really, really loved Frozen and Aladdin. We didn't go to see Believe again. We'd seen that on the Dream and thought it was okay, but much preferred Beauty and the Beast to that. So yeah, we just thought Aladdin and Frozen, I thought was, were both absolutely phenomenal. Like the kids really, really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I mean, just fantastic. We hadn't, we haven't seen Frozen on the West End mainly because that was one of my kind of negotiation tactics with my husband. I was like, think of all the money we can save if we go on a Disney cruise. We don't have to take the kids into London to go and see Frozen the musical.
We can see it for free.
[00:52:05] Speaker C: Well, Jim, I'm curious about the food on board now. You've been on Disney Cruise Line before. So how was the dining experience in particular, you know, since you had, you know, the grandparents kind of cruising with you this time around, like how was the main dining experience for them? Because we have, we have heard some feedback and had some feedback ourselves around. You know, the dining rooms are getting a little louder these days. I don't know if that's way on the fantasy. That's the way it is on the fantasy. But yeah, how did you and the kids enjoy the dining and the shows that accompanied the dining and then also how the grandparents enjoy it?
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think my parents were really impressed with the quality of the food.
We had quite a lot of sit down lunches actually. I guess we kind of figured it was much more relaxed with seven of us to have a sit down. The sit down restaurants at lunchtime were always really quiet actually, so no trouble ever getting a seat or, you know, doing that as opposed to cabanas.
The only dining room I would say that we found found kind of louder to try and have conversations over was really in Animator's palette. The others were fine.
We did have a strange experience during Animation Magic where when they played the show, so everyone did their drawings, they took them away. And when they went to play the second set of clips where it should be the characters dancing, the characters never changed. So there was one, one set of characters that came up and then they were the only ones that were in it for the whole rest of the show. And there was something very strange that night in the restaurant. So the, so the serving, the service that we'd had across everyone had been super cheerful, chatty, couldn't do enough for you. And that night everyone seemed really tense and stressed. And I don't know if it was because of the show or something had happened and that's why the show didn't work.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: But they effectively then had to redo the whole show again. But they couldn't just play the animation animation bit. They had to go in the beginning.
[00:54:02] Speaker B: Oh God.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: And so I think that maybe that was what made them stressed because then they had to get through it all again because then they had late dining coming in. So I don't know, it was very strange. So we had to sit through the whole thing again and I'd kind of beat it up so much to my parents of, oh, you're gonna think this is amazing. This is so much fun. And then they were like, oh, our character didn't come on. So we sat through the whole thing again. A lot of people had left by that point. Actually they didn't stay to watch it. So it was, it was slightly unusual that evening. But, but overall in the dining, we. Yeah, we. The food was fantastic. I think the food was actually probably slightly better than on the dream that we'd had.
And yeah, the service was fantastic.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And the theming of all the restaurants, of course is the same as on the dream. You know, they, they have, they, they have a slightly different name between Royal Court and Royal palace, but it's the same restaurant as menus are the same. You got one extra menu because obviously you were on a six night versus a seven night. So you, you probably had the pirate night menu for the first time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. Which, what did you think actually I should ask you, what did you think of the pirate night menu? Any. Anything specific stand out to you?
[00:55:15] Speaker A: I can't actually remember what was on there compared to the other nights actually.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: Yeah, no worries. It's. It's for most, it's not a particularly memorable menu, but there are some people.
[00:55:29] Speaker C: Out there saying who the pirate night menu is their favorite. Sure it's not our favorite, but sure it's not.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: I don't think. Yeah, well, there's nothing. To me, there's nothing bad about it. It just doesn't wow me.
[00:55:40] Speaker C: Well, we also haven't had it in a little while.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: It has been a little while.
[00:55:43] Speaker C: And they've changed it since we last had it, I believe.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: No, we had it since the change. We've had it since the change, but only like once or twice.
[00:55:50] Speaker C: I don't remember it since the change, but. Okay.
I think we need to give it another go. One of these cruises. But you know, with Palo, it's hard to, you know, not go to Palo.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:56:01] Speaker C: Yes. Well, Sam, anything else you want to ask about before we. We move over to rapid Fire?
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Oh, I'll just ask the catch all. Gemma, is there anything before we subject you to the rapid fire, is there anything we've missed? Anything unusual, good, bad, had or otherwise that we just haven't asked you about or a topic we haven't really hit on?
[00:56:24] Speaker A: I don't think so. I guess the only other thing that I wasn't aware of. So we booked the goofy sports simulator and the golf simulator.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: The way that we booked that on the app, it was showing like you had to book for each individual person like a half hour slot. So because the three kids wanted to go on the sports one and the. And my dad and husband on the golf. We end up booking like an hour and a half on the sports simulator. And then when we got there, actually most people were booking a half hour slot and everyone was just jumping in and having a go. Like, you definitely didn't need a slot per person and there was no restriction that you made a half hour booking and everyone could have had a go. So I think they could have made that a lot clearer on the app, actually, because we probably would have booked an hour and all three kids could have easily had enough of time on it within that hour rather than paying for an hour and a half.
[00:57:15] Speaker C: I. Yeah, I agree with that because I just booked it for the fantasy for Nathan. Wanted to give it a try. I forget which one he wants to do if you want to do the golf or something else. But anyway, he wanted to give it a try. And so I was trying to figure out, like, oh, is he, like, is going to just be him now? I actually think the slots that we booked for like 15 minutes.
I have to go back and check. But.
But yeah, it was. It was very confusing what to book. I ended up just booking for him and I figured they'll probably let me take a whack or two.
[00:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it was.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: It was.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Most people were booking one slot for the family, and then we ended up with like hour and a half in there, which is probably a little excessive.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: Fair, for sure. Well, good tip.
[00:57:55] Speaker C: Well, Gemma, I think we've reached that time in the show where I need to hand you back over to Sam for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and a dash of judgment are the round we know as rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: All right. Thanks, Brian. Well, Gemma, we did a rapid fire round, so I'm not gonna go through your Disney favorites. Cause I know we did that last time. But I am gonna do some cruise favorites. Cause now you have, you know, more to compare with, obviously, between the Dr. And the fantasy. So we're going to start with what is now your favorite show on Disney Cruise Line, meaning main stage show at the Walt Disney Theater.
[00:58:29] Speaker A: I think you're going to be disappointed in me. So look away when I say this. I'm going to say Frozen.
[00:58:35] Speaker B: You know, I'm not going to be disappointed in you, Gemma, because while I think Beauty and the Beast is the number one show currently on Disney Cruise Line, although I will say Moana might take it away, we'll have to see in just a, you know, a few weeks. But I think that Frozen is like Frozen and Tangled are so close to Beauty and the Beast because they're so, so, so, so, so good. So I'm actually not going to give you judgment now. If you were to say believe or dreams, that's where the judgment.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Okay, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go there. I just thought that. I just thought the trolls and the Sven puppet were just so good. Like, they were just so cute. I just.
[00:59:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what's what.
[00:59:14] Speaker B: And I'm going to say this. I've said this before. Frozen on the Fantasy is better than Frozen on the Wonder, even though it's the same show, but it's better because it's a bigger cast, so you have more trolls, and the more trolls, the better. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right. Favorite bar space now on Disney Cruise Line. So you can choose between the Dream, the Fantasy. There are some differences, obviously. There are some that are some spaces that are the same, but. Yeah. What's your favorite bar space?
[00:59:44] Speaker A: I think Skyliner. We really enjoyed that in our rush around, hour and a half kid free time. We thought that was really cool. Again, the bar staff were really fantastic. And yeah, there were really good drinks and a really interesting environment to sit in.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: Awesome. Favorite onboard activity. I don't remember what it was last time, but has it changed? And if so, what is it?
[01:00:09] Speaker A: I think probably we really enjoyed the dance party in the atrium. Like, my youngest really got into that. And yeah, that was. That was really fun. I think that's probably my favorite, awesome.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Favorite space to relax on the ship.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: I think anywhere on the deck, really. We really enjoyed that. We did. One evening. We got on the aqueduct seven times back to back. We were the only family on it.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's. That was pretty cool.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: All right, well now, favorite port and why is it castaway key?
[01:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely castaway key. I think I had high expectations of Castaway and it exceeded my expectations. Like, we just had the. We just had the best day and I just thought the sand and the water and the way that it was set up was just so easy and so, like, great with the kids. Everything that you needed right on hand. Like, yeah, definitely Cast Away.
[01:01:04] Speaker B: Awesome. I gotta ask you for a couple of favorite food items. Let's go with a sweet item first and then a savory item after that. What was a favorite sweet item from this cruise?
[01:01:15] Speaker A: I mean, kind of soft serve, probably. We definitely got our money spent on that. But also churro waffles. And we were in Royal Court the day I Think it was day six of Churro's waffles, and they actually went and got us some and brought it down to the.
To the dining room for us. So that was even better.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: That's the best for those who haven't had them. Pay attention to when churro waffles are offered and get them. But don't put syrup on them unless you're. If you have, like, the extreme. Extreme sweet tooth. Okay, go ahead and put syrup on him. But Brian has a really sweet tooth and he does not put. He tried him with syrup and was like, oh, my God, too much sugar.
[01:01:51] Speaker A: Teeth fell out.
[01:01:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm happy to say he still has all his teeth. Favorite savory item on Disney Cruise Line from this cruise.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: I don't know. I think the thing I enjoyed the most probably was just getting a plate of prawns from Cabana and some French fries and some salad. Like, that was my go to.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: Nice.
[01:02:13] Speaker A: Should. We went to Cabana and I don't think. It's pretty hard to beat, I think.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Love that. All right, favorite ship. Now you can choose from the Disney Dream or the Disney Fantasy. They are sister ships, but there are differences between them. So which one is your favorite?
[01:02:29] Speaker A: I mean, I was gonna say the Dream, because the bit I missed on the fantasy pool deck was not having the hot tubs on the main pool duck. But then I think I saw that in the dry dock, they took the hot tubs off the deck of the Dream. So then.
[01:02:43] Speaker C: Yes, they did.
[01:02:44] Speaker A: So now really no preference, but I would dream before dry.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: Before dry dock. All right, that's. That is a fair answer. Okay. Bucket list cruise. Gemma, if you could go anywhere on a Disney Cruise line ship doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Cruise line currently goes. Where are you going?
[01:03:05] Speaker A: I think I would like to do a.
I don't know. I mean, maybe one of the Australian ones we go to. My husband's Australian, so we go to Australia every couple of years. And that would. I think that would be. To get to sail out of Sydney Harbour would be pretty phenomenal, I think.
[01:03:22] Speaker B: Yes. And people love sailing under the bridge there too. And we keep hearing that that might be the reason why one of the other ships can't go there. Is because. Yeah. Because they need to be short enough to fit under the. Under the bridge. And not that they could go a different way, apparently, or dock in a different way, different place, but it's like an iconic.
And see the Opera House and all of that, so fantastic. Well, thank you for playing Gemma. You've been a fabulous contestant. I'm giving you, I'm giving you an A for Heavenfire.
[01:03:56] Speaker C: She doesn't get to go home with a new car.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: She gets to go home.
[01:04:00] Speaker C: That's the price. That's right. That's the price.
[01:04:01] Speaker B: She gets to go home with a full set of Disney Cruise Line medals. Except for Chip and Dale.
There you go.
[01:04:07] Speaker C: Well, Gemma, as always, we do appreciate you taking the time all the way from the UK to share your experience with our listeners. And it's always great to hear too about the multi generational cruising experience on Disney Cruise Line. So thank you for taking time out of your day to share your experience and we, we just really, really appreciate it.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Thank you very much. It was great to speak to you again.
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