[00:00:00] Speaker A: And we took a seaplane to a remote area in the. I think it's Tongass National Forest. And we went to go see bears catching salmon out of a waterfall and it was amazing. So there's.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Holy cow.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And Sam, we got another listen review this week. This week's review comes from CO Teddy Bear, Colorado. Teddy Bear perhaps. Right. Great podcast about Disney Cruise Line. Love the guests and the trip report and Sam's lightning round questions and most of her answers are correct, informational and fun. Listen, FYI, there is a troll who left a bad review and is rewriting it to get to the top. Ignore them, check out for yourself and decide so. Well, there you go.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yes, that's hilarious.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Reference to our old friend FY Law 32, I think that was.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that whoever that troll was actually deleted.
[00:01:06] Speaker C: The review has been removed.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, we don't know how. I mean we didn't get it. We. You can't get on Apple podcasts something removed but somebody can remove themselves.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: Well, you can, but it.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, only if it's like inappropriate I think though I don't think they do anything if it's just like, doesn't make any sense. But anyway, perhaps, perhaps.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Sam, introduce our guests and our topic for today's show. Yes, enough with reviews, enough with reviews. Yes, except to say this, if you haven't left us a five star review, please head over to Apple podcast, hit those five stars, leave us a written review and we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. So with that Sam guest in topic, let's do it.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yes, I am super excited to introduce our guest today. We actually met Aaron on a cruise about a year ago. It's actually just over a year ago as we're recording in December of 2024 on sailing on the Magic for Thanksgiving. It was a very maritime cruise. It was actually our last very maritime cruise and we had Paul brunch together. We had actually met through the Facebook group. Well actually we met through I think our Facebook group, the DCL Duo Podcast and blog Facebook group. But Aaron was also a member of the sailing Facebook group and I had arranged for a group of folks from the sailing to do a brunch. And so Erin and her husband Todd joined us. It was a really nice time with a bunch of really great cruisers. But anyway, I'm super excited to have Erin on the show for the first Time because she hasn't been a guest on our show previously. So welcome to the show, Erin.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah. It's so nice to have you and to get to chat with you once again face to face. Obviously, although most people are listening to just the audio version of our podcast, we can actually see you. We have video that we're using today. Erin, before we dive into talking about the most recent cruise that you went on, which was actually a Princess cruise to Alaska. So we're going to do a compare contrast today. But before we dive into the topic, why don't you tell folks what your Disney background is? Disney Cruising background and Cruising background in general. I know you are a very well traveled person. You travel all over the world a lot with and without your family. But why don't you tell folks where the Disney and Cruising stuff comes from?
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. So we've been Disney fans for a long time. We lived in Southern California for about 10 years and kind of got hooked on Disneyland when we lived there and then started visiting Disney World World when we moved to Utah where we live now. Now we visit both. We're DVC members. We've gone to every single DVC resort except for the new cabins.
So I would say more Disney and more resorts than cruise. But we did go on our first Disney cruise in 2018 and since then we've done five. We've done each of the ships. We've got Treasure booked for spring break and until the dis. Until the Princess Cruise, those are the only cruises that we've ever been on. So we only ever cr. Disney.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so then you decided to branch out to Princess for Alaska. Had you done Alaska on Disney or no? Was this your first time doing Alaska?
[00:04:17] Speaker A: We have been to Alaska by land, but not. Not Disney. Our Disney have been Caribbean, Mediterranean and then the Mexican Riviera that we were with you guys on.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Awesome. Now tell us what made you choose to book a Princess cruise sailing for your trip to Alaska as opposed to booking Disney Cruise Line or frankly some other cruise line?
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So that was a hard choice. We really did want to do Disney and my husband especially is very Disney die hard. And we, we didn't even know. We weren't sure. Are we cruise people? Are we Disney people and that the Disney cruise is a Disney experience? Not really a cruise experience, but we ended up booking Princess for a couple reasons. I mean, cost was a huge reason. We're six people, so we have to get two state rooms for Alaska. I really wanted a veranda. So that the cost difference was significant.
And then the other piece is, I think for Alaska, for me, it's more about the destinations. And so we wanted to kind of go for broke on port excursions. And so I just really wanted to save the budget for port excursions. And so, I mean, I think when we did the math, a. A mini suite, veranda room and all of our excursions, which were not cheap, we. We did kind of go for broke. Was about the same as two as the interior rooms alone, base price on dci. So it just was. It was tough, but it was just like, you know, we just. We just really cared about the excursions. And then the other thing, in terms of Princess, my understanding, talking to some people are kind of Princess and Holland are the two big Alaska. They go to Glacier Bay, which most cruise lines don't get to go to. And I wanted to go to Glacier Bay, and they kind of have a very, you know, they've got Alaska really dialed in. So that's why we went with Princess specifically, was really for Alaska.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Now, for stateroom, you said you got a mini suite. Did that fit all six of you?
[00:06:16] Speaker A: No. So we got a mini suite and then we got an interior room. So we put a couple of kids in the interior room, and then we had. So we had access to the veranda without paying for two, basically.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah. That's really nice. Now, how old. Old are your kids?
[00:06:29] Speaker A: They are 11, 13, 14, and 17.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Okay, so preteen through teen. Yeah, yeah. So these are not little kids. So you need the extra space.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: For sure.
Yeah.
And then my parents were on this with us as well, so.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Oh, nice.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: And they wouldn't have done Disney. Like, that would have been too expensive, too. So that was the other nice thing.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. Well, let's. Let's dive in and talk about the booking process for Princess. And, you know, if. If it differs from the booking process for Disney a little bit significantly, Obviously they have their own websites, but did you book directly through the website? Did you book through a Costco or a travel agent or something like that?
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we used a travel agent. I do think that the booking is. I felt a little bit overwhelmed. There's so many more itineraries. There's so many more ships. The ship, it's not a huge ship.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: It's.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: I think it's probably close to Fantasy Dream class size. But I just not knowing, like, anything about it, I went ahead and used a travel agent to kind of help curate for me what we wanted to do. So that was. But I also use a travel agent to book Disney Cruise, even though that I don't think is as hard to narrow things down. But anyway, so we used a travel agent, I'm sure. I know there have been people on the show that talk about differences in terms of you can start booking things as soon as you, you know, there's not like the same kind of check in process where you're waiting before you can book activities. So you can start booking activities and dining reservations for specialty dining much sooner. So that's different.
But otherwise I would say another difference in terms of booking is you can book activities sooner but you also have to pay when you book and then if you cancel you get the refund. But right in on dcl you don't usually pay until. I don't even until you go. So.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So there are, there's like you, you have your, the cancellation is still a couple of before you sail. But you're right, you don't get billed for your excursions until you actually sail on Disney, whereas on most the other cruise lines you get billed for everything. Anything that you like, reserve that has a cost, they bill you immediately. But you're right, if you cancel, you get the refund. It just takes a couple of days usually to process. That was our, we had the same experience with the Royal. It has a very, you know, similar really rolling booking process, meaning you can book things at any time. They just pop up. Right. And you kind of, it doesn't seem to be a good rhyme or reason as to when things are available and when things aren't available. So you just kind of have to keep watching, watching the app. Now for excursions, I want to talk about, you know, choosing your excursions. Right.
Disney does have, I'm going to say a somewhat limited, you know, list of excursions as compared to some of the other cruise lines.
Did you feel like there was a good variety of excursions? Was it overwhelming to pick from the available excursions? Excursions. And did you book your excursions primarily through the cruise line and if not, did you book any or did you book any outside the cruise line?
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually almost never booked through cruise line either Disney or otherwise. And the big reason is there are six of us and oftentimes it's about the same for us to book a private excursion as it is to pay for six spots.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: So that's super smart. I didn't even think of that because we're a family of three. So it's never like it will the cost Will never work out for us unless we pair up with another family to book private because it's always, you know, private tours are generally more expensive because you have the, you know, the, the tour guides yourself. But like that totally makes sense.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, when we did the med cruise that was just me and my daughter and I did for the first time book through DCL on one excursion and then group. It was, it was sad because the privates are really nice. But yeah, if you're a smaller group then you really can't just fight. So I did look at the excursions that were offered by Princess partly just to get a sense of what was available.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: That's a really good, really smart idea.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: And our art travel agent did send me a curated list of some of her favorites which was helpful because there are a lot, there are a lot of options.
So I. Did you look at the cruise ones? I did look at what she sent. But then ultimately for Alaska and we learned this when we went to Alaska by land a few years ago. They have some really, really good websites that are like beyond like travelalaska.org I don't remember exactly but where you can search and filter and they. It's a kind of again a curated. You want to look at the reviews but it's more specific than looking at like Viator or get your guide which I've used in other places where it's just Alaska. Obviously you can filter by port and date and that's what I ended up using. And I also found that booking direct with the providers was not more expensive than booking through this website. Oh wow, that's great. Anyway, so that's what I used was Those sort of Alaska ShoreTours.org or something like that.
Great curated. You can kind of filter by the type of activity and the date. So that's what I use to book most of our excursions.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Now how many days was this Alaska itinerary? Where were you sailing out of?
And then I want to hear what ports you your were planned.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So it was a seven night out of Seattle day at sea. Then see I wrote this down. Juneau, then Skagway, then Glacier Bay, then Ketchikan, then Victoria. But that was kind of a fake stop.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Like a half day. Yeah, it's like a couple hours. Yeah.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: 9:00Pm to midnight.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: So that they have an international stop.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And then.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: And then back to Seattle.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: And then back to Seattle. So it was a heavy. There was really. I mean there was one true sea day at the beginning. There was Glacier Bay, where you don't get off the ship. And then the Victoria was quite kind of a sea day, but it's pretty port. Heavy trip.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Which, sorry if you said this, but which, which princess ship were you on?
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the Discovery Princess.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: And what size of ship is that? And you know, how old is it relative to the rest of the fleet?
[00:12:42] Speaker A: It's pretty new. That's part of why I booked that one because I did want to still be on a nice ship. And we were, you know, again, we were sad about not booking Disney, so I wanted to do the best alternative. So it's 2022, so it's fairly new.
And then it looks like. I just looked this up. It looks like the capacity is about 3,600 passengers.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: So smaller than Dream fantasy. Bigger. So really right in between, you know, magic class and dream class in terms of Disney parlins. Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a good size because that tells you like the ship is going to have decent amenities.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Let's talk about the boarding process. Let's kind of see.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Well, actually before we get there, Sam, because I think feel like we get constant questions about. I'm going to come to Seattle.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Oh, sure.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm curious. Did you come into Seattle? Yeah, but we don't do the touristy stuff, you know.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: No, not generally. Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker C: Aaron, I'm curious. Did you come in before the cruise? Was it just like a day before, you know, where'd you stay? What'd you get up to?
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, just, just the day before. So I think our cruise departed on a Saturday, so we just came Friday. We stayed at either. It was either a Hyatt house or a Hyatt place right next. Right by the Space Needle.
And we. It was a beautiful day, just glorious weather, which I hear you get about a month, a year. So that was in maybe like two months.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Maybe like two months.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: Two to three.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Listen, we should like keep telling people we only get one month a year so they stop moving here.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it rains here constantly. It's raining right now. No, I'm kidding.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: The sun is actually out right now. It's cold, but the sun is out now.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so we just. But we didn't get in until the evening. So we just, we walked around near the States. There's like the, there's various. There's some big fountain. We ate some dinner there. And then we actually had some good friends who moved to Seattle that we used to know and we met them for dinner and left the kids at the hotel. So we didn't have a lot. Like, there were some things in Seattle we had wanted to do. Um, we really didn't. We really didn't have time, so.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: And which terminal did your cruise leave out of? Cause some of the ships dock right up against downtown, and some of them are at a terminal that's like down outside of downtown. It's a newer cruise terminal that they built. Were you. Were you docked right up in the downtown area or.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Okay, then you're. Yeah, you're at the. So yeah, there's. There's one that's right downtown and then there's one that's like a couple. Like maybe a mile and a half.
It's still in Seattle, but it's in sort of a different neighborhood called Interbay. And so, yeah, a lot of them leave out. They both, you know, both are sort of major ports, but you would have to take. You would have to take an Uber to get to the other one. Whereas you could. Although it's a little bit of a schlep from where you were saying you could actually walk to the terminal that's right in downtown Seattle. Well, let's.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Yeah, let's.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Let's talk about the boarding process.
You know, Princess. And a lot of cruise lines sail out of the port of Seattle. I imagine they've got things running for the Alaska. I mean, from what I hear. In fact, I know somebody who actually works the Alaska season out of that port terminal just as like a greeter and stuff. I imagine it's smooth sailing as far as, you know, check in and boarding process in Seattle.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say it's. It's relatively smooth. I do think it was pretty chaotic. When we got to the port, there was a Holland America ship in and. And Discovery Princess. And it wasn't clear what line you were supposed to get into. Like, once we got in the building, that was fast. Like, you get your medallion and you.
That's. That was quick. And as. As I know, you know, people talked about on the show, there's no port arrival time. Just show up when you want to. But it was. It was chaotic getting there because you didn't know what line you're supposed to be in. And it was that. That was kind of surprising.
And we had to wait. We waited in a long line for a long time, and I don't even think it was the right line to be in. And then somebody told us and whatever. It wasn't like a huge deal.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: It was fine.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: And. But once you're in, that was. That was very quick and very easy.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Let's, let's talk about the medallion. Actually, I think there's a great, great segue to that. On dcl, everybody's used to the Key to the World card or now the Disney Band or MagicBand that you can use to get in and out of your stateroom you can actually use now to get in and on and off the ship. Most places I believe you know, both the card or the magic and for any sort of point of sale purchase on the ship or on, of course, Disney's private island spaces.
Tell us what you can use the medallion for and you know, whether or not it's a good option for that sort of point of purchase. Getting in your room, those sorts of things.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So I actually love the medallion and that's definitely got, that's definitely one thing we liked better and don't know why Disney doesn't do more because they're using the same technology. So purchase. You can do the whole order anywhere where they deliver your stuff to you. We actually didn't do that. We didn't get any of the add on packages which I can go into. But anyway, theoretically you can do that.
Some of the nicest things were we could find our kids to extremely precise.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Perfect GPS location.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yes. So I could tell what hot tub my kid was in and what deck they were in. Because our kids are older. Right. They can go do their thing. Sure. But to be able to figure out exactly where they are, which there's no way that you can't do that on Disney. So that was like, like I loved that. That was great.
The other nice thing that is always hard for us with multiple staterooms is that we were able to set it up so that our medallions opened up either of our staterooms. Oh wow. You cannot do that. Disney.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: No, you can't do it on Disney.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Have not.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they'll give you an extra car. Yeah, they'll give if. So if you state rooms and like you know, you want to be able to access both of them, they'll give you like a key card so that you can access the second room. But it can't be the same card. And same with the MagicBand, they can't, they don't, can't code them for two rooms and so. Yeah. So you have to carry around the two cards.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And you don't want to write down the room number in case somebody finds it. So then it's like which card is which. So that's one thing that was super great. And the other Thing too. The way those work is as you walk up to the room, the room opens so you don't even. Not that it's hard, but you don't even have to tap it. So I would say that being able to totally pinpoint where my kids were and being able to use it to get in each of the rooms was. I really liked that.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah. This might sound like a stupid question, but how do you wear the medallion? Is it attached to a string? Is it attached to like as a lanyard? A necklace is attached to a bracelet. Like what is it attached to or what can it be attached to?
[00:19:41] Speaker A: We just had a lanyard that came with it. But I, I imagine you could. It's like a, just a little, like a little puck coin sized thing. Right. You could probably put it in something like a watch or magic band type thing. You could probably put it. There's probably lots of ways you could do it. But we just had a lanyard.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I've seen, I've seen like some folks can turn into a bracelet, they sell some accessories. Sam, I think that.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I just was, I didn't know how they like when they give it to you. So it sounds like they give it to you with like attached to a lanyard as the sort of the default and then you. Other options as to what you can do with it. Which is nice because I mean with dcl, we know you only get a lanyard if you are cast away club status. And now with MagicBand, only if you purchase a Disney Band or a MagicBand plus and then of course have it linked when you're getting on board. Well, so let's talk about packages, dining, drink packages, all that good stuff. Stuff.
Tell us like what did you consider any of the options? I know you, I know you don't drink alcohol, but did you consider any of like the soda packages? Did you consider adding on, you know, specialty dining, that sort of thing?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: We did. It was pretty expensive. Even just the soda package per person, per day, and particularly where, when and you had to get it for everybody. Right. It's kind of an all or nothing. If there'd been a way for just like only me and Todd to do it, we would have probably done that. My parents did it, so I did kind of see what their experience was. But we didn't do it because it was like all or nothing. And it was enough that also when we were going to be in port so many days, it didn't make sense for us to pay for that kind of package when we were not going to use it. So we ended up going to Target in Seattle and getting a bunch of 12 packs of soda.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Oh, that's really smart. There's a Target, it's a city Target. It's one of these smaller targets in downtown Seattle. I know the exact one you went to because there's only one. And that's a great idea. Yeah. I mean you could go to a convenience store too, but like Target would be the best option because you're going to get the best price.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: In downtown you don't have, we don't really have like large big box grocery stores where you could get, you know, for even cheaper. Yeah, that was super duper smart. Aaron, what, what drinks do they offer in like the dining room and the. And in the buffet and that are like included? I typically. I know it's like maybe iced tea and like lemonade and may. Maybe some juices. Is that what it was on Princess?
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yes. There was an iced tea and lemonade dispenser. There was a hot chocolate dispenser. And then sometimes at breakfast they would have like apple juice in cups and that was it for free drinks. I will say too, another thing that I was not at all sad that we brought cans of soda was cans is what they had. So if you were on the drink package, you were just going to get cans, which, I mean, I prefer fountain drinks.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Fountain drinks all the way.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: So I was totally glad that for us again, taking a few 12 packs of soda, like letting each of the kids pick was way better than paying for a can of soda on the ship.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: So I can't believe they don't have the Freestyle machines because I feel like that's like, you know, or I mean, they could have the dispensers like, like Disney has, but Disney allows you to get your own and it's free or I should say included sodas on the deck. But a lot of the other cruise lines have moved to the Freestyle machines because they can code like, like the cups. Right. So you can have one of those sort of refillable cups that can be used at those, you know, soda machines. So that's just. Yeah, that's. That seems so wasteful too because obviously then they're going through lots and lots and lots of cans. Interesting.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Well, and it also means you would have to like at the buffet, you'd have to get. Ask like an attendant to get you a soda.
So I just, it was just not very convenient. And I. My theory on the drink packages because my parents had one is, is because You've prepaid it. Basically, when we'd go to dinner, they would order a specialty drink, and then nobody ever came to ask if they wanted a new, like, another. They're not real proactive about making sure you have a drink, because why do they care? You already pay for it.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Right. Like, and it's like, you want to get. You would want to get, like, the most out of your drink pack. That's funny. I will say, I do think that Royal does that pretty well. I mean, it's. Again, it's expensive to do the drink packages, but they have, you know, sales, and they do on Princess, too. They drink packages go on sale at certain times and whatnot. But I mean, still, you have to buy it for the whole. The whole room. But I did feel like when we were there, I didn't have a problem with getting, like, refills. And, like, the people were, you know, constantly asking, do you want another drink? Regardless of whether or not you had a drink package. So. Yeah, that's really. That would be quite annoying. What about on the dining side of things?
Tell us, like, what. Actually, let's talk about dining and what's available on the ship in general. This is. We're going to talk specifically about your ship, of course, the Discovery that you went on and understanding that there's variety across the princess fleet.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. So there are three main dining rooms, but they're all. They serve the same thing every night. It's anytime dining, as I think you probably heard, where you can make a reservation or you can just show up. But we did because we knew their port times. We made a reservation reservation for most nights, which was helpful.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: To be able to show up and not wait. But it was also nice that we could make it for a different time each night. You'd have to pick one time for the whole cruise. Right. Because some ports were later than others, so. So we did that. We did. Maintaining most nights, there's a very large buffet on the top deck. There's also like a. I'm just talking included right now. Right. Main dining buffet. And then there was like, this international market that was kind of a 247 coffee shop and pastries and sandwiches.
And then, oh, there was also a pizzeria and, like, a hamburger hot dog. It's called Salty dog on the pool deck. So that was all what was included. And then there are specialty dining. There's like, an Italian and a sushi and a steak house and probably some others. We only did one night. We did a steakhouse one night and then I'm trying to think. I mean, that's. Yeah, I would say that's pretty much it. Similar. Right. There's maintaining. There's the buffet, and then there's a few specialty upcharge places.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, did you consider doing any of the. Because I know on all the cruise lines you have, there's like a. You could get a package that allows you to go to all the specialty restaurants any night that you're on. Right. Did you consider doing that or were you thinking, no, we want to try main dining and maybe just splurge on the one, you know, one night at specialty.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what we did. The latter. Right. And again, my parents had the package that gave them access to more specialty. They didn't even use it all because we were just not. I mean, we just weren't on the ship enough to make that make any sense. Yeah. And between the buffet and the main dining, and then the one night it was. We figured we could always do another specialty there if we got sick of the options, but we were fine.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a good point, though. You can. I mean, with specialty dining, especially if you are open to eating at multiple different places and you're not, like, super particular. I only want to eat at this one place. You can go, like, and not make a reservation, you know, ahead of time and wait till you're on board. And then if you don't like the food and main dining or you just want to change, as you mentioned, you just, like, get bored with the main dining. Because there is, you know, there can be some quite a bit of repetition. Then you can say, okay, I want to, you know, I want to branch out and I want to go get sushi or I want to go do hibachi or whatever on a particular night. Or like I said, if you're more open, then I feel like you can usually get something. But it makes sense, though, I think, for Alaska to maybe not do a ton of specialty dining. Because your point. Point is that you are spending a ton of time off the ship, and so you want to get the benefit. You know, you don't want to, like, commit to being back at a particular time and spending the money on the ship when you're going to spend a lot of your money and time off the ship. Yeah.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Well, speaking of spending time off the ship, let's talk about your ports and your excursions. I feel like, you know, this is not specific to Disney because as you mentioned, you booked your excursions privately, not through the cruise Line. But I'd love to know, you know, what you got guys got up to in each port. We start with Juno, right?
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yep, yep. Okay. So Juno, we did two excursions. And I will say that the timing of the port days was a little bit strange. And I, I think partly is you're coming from Seattle, so it actually takes you a while to get to Juno. But our Juno day was from 1pm to 8:30pm but we did a helicopter glacier landing and we did a whale watching. So we did two excursions that day and they were both incredible. They were really, really, really cool. The helicopter glacier landing was like a total bucket list.
And we were lucky with the weather because they canceled those about half the time. But we lucked out with weather. So we went to. Oh, I can't remember what glacier it was called anymore, but flew to a glacier, got out.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Is that the Menden. Mendenhall Glacier?
[00:29:20] Speaker A: No, no, we saw the Mendenhall Glacier from the helicopter and that's the one that's the easiest to get to. Like if you don't have an excursion, you can kind of drive to a visitor center. But this was a glacier up, up further that you could only access via helicopter. And that was incredible. So that was really cool. And then we, then the. We did a private whale watching tour. They actually picked us up from the helicopter place wherever where we landed and then they took us directly and we did a private whale watching tour with a local couple there. That was just really great too.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Oh my goodness, that sounds awesome.
Do you remember the names of either of these companies that you use? Because, like one, I mean, we've got an Alaska cruise coming up in less than a year and two, I'm sure others would be interested in hearing them.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah, let me. I definitely have it. So the helicopter we did was called Coastal Helicopters.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: And that was great. They picked us up in downtown Juneau, took us to the helipad, did the thing, came back. We felt very safe, like very professional, super organized, super friendly, really great.
And then the whale watching tour was from. They're called Alaska Sea to Shore. And they were. That, that was really cool because so we've done. We've done whale watching stuff in Alaska before. What was kind of fun about this one is that it was this local couple. They really care deeply. There's like Juno whales and they know they can identify them on. Based on their tail.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: I love that. I. Yeah, there are people who literally like know which pods and yes.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: So she was telling us like they had a book and they Would they Would really work good with the kids to help the kids look up. Okay, this was the tale. Let's go find that in this book of Juno whales. And they knew the whole stories of them. They knew, oh, that's the grandma, and that's the daughter, and that's, you know, like, just all their relationships. So that was. That was really cool. And then they took us to this little island, and we got off the boat just to kind of wander around this island. So that was a really, really good.
Just.
Yeah, I just love the people that. To me, that's part also of why some of the private excursions I really enjoy is because you can get these really interesting guides, and it's just you and them, and so you kind of just learn about what life is like in Juneau. And just really cool. Really cool couple that was running that. So highly recommend both of those.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, I'm writing them down, by the way. I'm writing them down in my Apple Notes app right now.
All right, well, let's talk about your next port, which I think was Skagway. Right?
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Skagway. We did. So the big thing to do in Skagway that a lot of people do is the rail. The White pass rail we ended up doing on the recommendation of a friend.
We did an excursion where you took the rail up, but then a private van met us up where it ends and took us further into the Yukon. Oh, that went all around there and then drove us down. And so I really recommend that because the railway's fun. That's cool.
But doing just that round trip, you actually don't. You actually literally don't enter the Yukon. Like, you don't go that far.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: You don't even go. You go, like, not even to the edge of it, because then you'd have to cross back into Canada. Yes.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a way. There's a couple different iterations. There is one way where you go into Canada and turn around, but, like, you're not going far. So that was a really fun way to do it because the train was fun. But then we. We were able to go in this van Watts further. We stopped at lots of cool lookout places. There's like a big suspension bridge and just some really amazing lookouts. And then had lunch. And then you make your way down kind of a different route also than the railway. So you kind of get a different view on the way back down.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: So you gotta tell us this one. You gotta tell us this company, because that was. I was. I want to do the Rail. That's the thing. I've been thinking. I want to do the rail because everybody says we're going to Skagway. Everybody says the rail is really fun. It's a great way to see a lot of stuff too. But I like the idea of being able to go into the Yukon. So this sounds like a great option.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: You gotta do both. So it was beyond Skagway and it was the Emerald Lake and railway tour.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: All right. Your third quote unquote port is Glacier Bay. Right. So you tell us about what Glacier Bay was like and being there. I know you obviously, like, don't get off the ship.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Right? Right. Glacier Bay, it's a national park. Right. It's open only to.
I don't know what it exactly it is, but we didn't see another cruise ship when we were there. I think there probably was one other, but it's like extremely limited. And part of why, if you want to do Glacier Bay, like, I think Holland and Princess, there may be another line that goes. But like, they've been there the longest, so they have all the preference to book it.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: It might be like one of the very small ones, like Silver Seas or something like that.
But I think the only big ones that go are Princess in Holland.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And there's no option. Like, I know there's some. I've heard this on dcl. There's some where it's the glacier viewing, but you can technically get on a smaller boat and go closer.
There's no. There's not a thing that's not an option for Glacier Bay. So you're just. You're on the boat. You're there from about 6:00 in the morning to like 1:00pm is we were there. And you go to two different. It's two different spots. It's three glaciers. Because one of the spots has two glaciers. And the ship just basically goes. And then it rotates it like camps out for a bit and rotates so that you can get a view. So it doesn't really matter what side you're on. If you have a veranda, you can run up and go to the other side when it's facing the other side, but. But you'll be able to get views of it. And that was really, really beautiful. And that was.
When we went to Alaska by land, we saw some glaciers from kind of a distance, but we didn't see like. I kind of wanted the like classic. As you get closer, there's chunks of ice floating in the water and you hear the white thunder. When it's calving and that. And that we did. Yeah, that's the experience that we had. It was really beautiful. So cool. You do don't get super close, so I would love to go someday and do one where you can get in a smaller boat and get closer. But, I mean, you still have a great view. And there's like 100 million otters everywhere. I didn't see it, but some people saw a bear on the shore. But anyway, so I really like Glacier Bay. I will say, I don't know.
Like, most of the cruise lines, including dcl, have a glacier viewing day.
I don't know if, like, Glacier Bay is truly so much better than a different glacier. But it's cool to. I mean, it's cool to go. It's a national park. If you're trying to cross national parks off your list, there's not that many ways to get to it. So it was definitely. It was cool. I just. I don't need to do it again, though. And I don't know if it's an absolute must do as long as there's some component of a glacier visit on your cruise, which to me is, like, a must do in Alaska. But absolutely. But, yeah, it was really cool. And they have, like, a naturalist on board who's narrating things. The park rangers actually come onto the ship. Because you're in a national park, you have to be escorted by park rangers. So park rangers come on and they have sort of programming throughout the day while you're in the park.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Oh, cool. Now, did they. Are they, like, making announcements over, like, the PA System, or are they in, like, the theater doing, like, talks and things like that?
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Both. So there's a channel, the Bridge Cam. So if you tune into the bridge Cam that day, that's where they are narrating things. So you can do that from your TV in your stateroom, or you can do it if you're up on deck. It'll be broadcast. But then they also had some programming in the main theater. Although you wouldn't want to be in the main theater when you were at a glacial show. Right.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: That's what I was thinking. I was like, we want to be looking. But, you know, but there's.
I'm sure that they had naturalists on board at other times doing programs like that to talk to you about what was going to be. And just. And I say, I'm sure, because I know that most of the cruise lines do that kind of programming in Alaska, because everybody's there to see the Natural beauty of both the wildlife and the glaciers. And so they tend to talk about, you know, what you might see on particular days and that sort of thing. Yeah. Yes.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: They had one naturalist who gave several presentations, and then they had a couple other who would come in and do things. Actually, a funny story about that. And we'll get to entertainment, but I will say Princess was definitely like cruise entertainment, more so than dcl. Right. Like shopping stuff, art auctions. And that's not our jam.
The first naturalist presentation is in the main theater. And we get there pretty early because I'm rope drop culture. Right. And it's packed. But it's the. And I'm like, oh, dang it. Like, it's packed because this is the big thing. This is like the big reason why you're in Alaska. Well, actually, it was packed because it was a shopping presentation that you could get a free price.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: I was gonna say, they're giving out something free. That's always what it is. Yeah.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: As soon as that ended, everybody left. It was like. And there was like, half.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: It was like half full for the.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Alaska naturalist, which I just. That was funny to me because that was. I was different there for different reasons.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: I was gonna say it was either the shopping thing with the free thing, or it was bingo. Like, that's. Those were my two guesses. Those are like. Those are the things that are, like, packed. And you're. You're right.
So we've been on Celebrity a couple of times, and that's like the. The culture on a lot of these ships. So it's just. Yeah, it's funny. I would be like you. That I would be rope dropping for the naturalist so that I got a good seat, made sure I got a seat, you know, wanted to, you know, be able to see whatever pictures they're going to be putting up, that sort of a thing. All right, well, let's jump then to Ketchikan. Right? That was your export.
Tell us what you guys got up to in Ketchikan.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: So Ketchikan, we were there again, kind of strange times. We were there from 7:15 or 7 to 1:15. And we took a seaplane to a remote area in the. I think it's Tongass National Forest. And we went to go see bears catching salmon out of a waterfall. And it was amazing. So there's like a. Holy cow.
So, yeah, you take a. You take a float plane, which itself was like, a cool experience because I.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: And also terrifying, by the way.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: There's lots of seaplanes in Seattle. We see them all the time. I have never taken one, but like.
[00:40:26] Speaker C: Like, it's not terrifying. I have been on a small plane in Alaska and those pilots are very.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: No, I'm sure they're amazing. I'm just, I'm like, I'm not saying I won't do it, but it just. I think I'd be terrified. I, I, I kind of want to do it.
[00:40:39] Speaker C: I mean, I'd be terrified. That does not mean that it should be generally terrible.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: I mean, I have been in a helicopter in Norway, so I, but, and I want to do a helicopter in Alaska, but we, we want to. So we want to do a helicopter that in from Juneau that goes to the glacier. And then you do the sled dog thing.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we had done sled dogs before on our first trip to Alaska.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: So when you did your land tour.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Sled dog thing, we just did the landing. But, but so, yeah, we took a float plane to this remote area and then you, they drive you to this little trailhead. You walk for 10 minutes. And then there's like this viewing platform that's kind of camouflaged. And then down below there's a, like, kind of an area of the river where the salmon run. And so there's bears, like. Oh, yeah.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: And they're eating, they're just like picking salmon up. Right.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: So we, which we saw, we just totally saw bears catching salmon. There was a mom and a cub, and we were close enough that you could hear the cub, like kind of barks. It like has this barking sound.
We saw, we saw nine different bears while we were there. Of course, there's everywhere.
[00:41:51] Speaker B: Nathan would be like, dying. It was incredible. Yeah. Oh, my.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm like obsessed with bears too now. So that was very, very cool.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: What was the name of that company?
[00:42:04] Speaker A: So that was called I'm writing.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Like I said, I'm literally writing down.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: It was called Sea Wind Aviation.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: Sea Wind Aviation. Okay.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: Really liked them. The nice thing too was we were the first people there. And we were there for about an hour, an hour and a half. As soon as we were probably the last 15 minutes we were there, a pretty large group came, which then is tricky because, like, the viewing platform has these slits that you look out of to see the bears. And then it's louder and just was not like. It was really great when we had it to ourselves. So it was nice to go with them as early as possible. And I really liked the, the guide was great again, knew a lot about the bears. Knew like oh this one has this pat like, like has this patch of fur bitten out of her because she got in a fight a couple days ago and like just knows a lot and anyway so yeah, super, super fun. That was a great. I don't again we kind of went for broken excursions. We got really fortunate with weather and wildlife because you can't control either those two things. But we had really stellar experiences on all of them.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: Yeah just, just for audience out there. If you haven't taken an Alaska cruise, one tip I will give you is the excursions can run you as much as the cruise fair. It's yeah like you're there to see Alaska and a lot of these excursions can get really pricey. I mean the, the third party use here is great. Aaron, thank you for sharing these, these other providers but I also just caution people like when you plan an Alaska cruise you're going to see Alaska and to do that some of these things can get pretty pricey helicopter tours, you know.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah like a thousand dollars a person. You're talking for a lot of these.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: Things but you're, but it's one of those, it's like the once, you know, potential, once in a lifetime, lifetime kind of thing. And so you do kind of have to just budget, budget that you're going to spend a lot more on excursions in Alaska than you would in the Caribbean. I think we found that even in, in Norway to be honest.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah, kind of just depending upon what you wanted to do. Like our, our helicopter excursion for example. That one was, you know, it was.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: A sled dog, you know, going out to see the sled dogs in Alaska or you know.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: Yeah, like that.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:15] Speaker C: We know that people trust Disney for their vacations and it can sometimes be a little nerve wracking to think about trying something new.
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All right, well, let's jump back onto the ship, and I want to talk about, well, entertainment. And I want to talk actually, let's talk first about amenities of the ship. What. When were you guys. Obviously, it's the summer season, but when in the season were you guys in Alaska?
[00:45:39] Speaker A: It was.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Was.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: I think our. We left on July 27, so we were very end of July, very beginning.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Of August, back in the middle. Yeah. Okay. And how was the weather?
Could you even use the pool? Like, was it warm enough to use the pool?
[00:45:55] Speaker A: What? Well, was it warm enough? No, but we did, so my kids will swim in anything. So I will say, yeah, you had top deck with some pools. I will say they're pretty nice pools. They were lots larger than the pools on any DCL ship that I've been on. They were pretty deep, too. And also because you're Alaska and it's cold, they were pretty empty. So on our sea day, on our last sea day, one of my kids was in the pool, like, all day, so. And. And we were watching. It was during the Olympics, so they were showing the Olympics on the tv. So we also just sat in a hot tub and watched the Olympics for a long time. So that was super fun. So nice pool day deck. They don't, you know, they don't have lifeguards, which I realized is actually most cruise lines do not have lifeguards.
But that was. I just had never thought about that. So that was definitely different. If you've got young kids, then you're gonna need to supervise them in a way that we've never done on Disney Cruise Line.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: That's so interesting. I. I did not. Like, that did not occur to me. And I, you know, maybe because it was so long ago that we sailed on Celebrity and. And on dcl, and I think on Royal. I think Royal has lifeguards also. But we.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: That.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: That's our. My limited experience in the last, you know, or since we had a child. Right. Like, has been.
[00:47:20] Speaker C: Yeah, but I remember Celebrity didn't have lifeguards, did they?
[00:47:22] Speaker B: I didn't Remember? I honestly didn't remember. But they, they tend to don't. Well, when we were on there were like no kids on board because we were on like 14 night and 15 night cruises. But what other, what other amenities were available on board?
Obviously we mentioned there was a.
But like I assume there was a gym.
Were there movie theaters? What other kinds of things?
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think there was a movie theater.
Interesting. Which surprised me.
I don't think there was a movie theater. And there's not like a bowling alley. There's not like rock climbing. There's no water slides, there's no ice skating. Like it's definitely more just about. The ship is nice and then destinations but not a ton of like activities. There's a sports deck and mini golf. Mini golf and the pools. But otherwise no like there's a gym. There's a.
There's some kind of. There is a spa kind of similar to rainforest. Not similar to rainforest, right?
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Like probably a thalassotherapy like a, like like where they have those beds where you like can lay in the. Yeah.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: And like a very big hot tub thing. We didn't, we walked through it like for a tour. But we again where we were spending so much time off the ship and you could only get a week long pass. You couldn't get a day pass. We didn't bother.
And plus I mean Alaska's the scenery to me and it was all indoors and so I'm just like I don't, I don't care to go sit in a spa inside. I'm going to be, you know, we spend a lot of time on our veranda or, or even just up on the pool deck when it was nicer. Just looking at the scenery. Like I'm all about the scenery and the external stuff. So I wasn't interested in the interior stuff. And then they had the main theater. They had a lot of lounges and bars and they did have quite a bit of. They had like a lot of musicians in those. I guess that's more entertainment than amenities but that's kind of. Yeah. Not a lot of, not a ton of activities or venues for activities. I was surprised that there wasn't a movie theater.
There were a lot of. There were a lot of movies available on our TV in our room, but that was it.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:40] Speaker C: Aaron, I'm curious as we talk about this, like how much. How long were the port days? Let me put it that way. And a lot. Because I also wonder. There's not a lot on the ship but Maybe is that a problem if you're really there to see Alaska?
If there had been more amenities, maybe the way to ask the question is would you have gotten a chance to really use them or is it really kind of these intensive days in a Alaska?
[00:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean we had essentially two sea days right on either end. And then you had Glacier Bay where you left the park about 1pm but then the, the times were a little weird because Juno you didn't get there till one so you would have had all morning and then Ketchikan, you left at one so you had all afternoon and evening. So I will say there was, there was time. Even though we were doing a lot in the ports because some of the port days were a little shorter just because getting from A to B they had to book it.
So I do think we would have, we would have had time for some things. But I didn't miss it. It didn't, I didn't get bored because also we were waking up early because we were going to stuff at 7am so it was fine with us to get back on the ship and take a nap or whatever. So I didn't miss it. But I do think theoretically, yeah, there would, there could have been time.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: Well, I look at it as if you'd been on this ship in the Caribbean. It probably would have been a long little bit, not enough to do.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Or, or you would have just spent all your time in the pool. Right. I mean that's the other.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Or at the ports in the Caribbean. Well, so speaking of that, let's, let's talk about activities and entertainment on board. You mentioned obviously the naturalists. We know that that's a huge part of, of the sort of entertainment in, you know, on any Alaska sailing, on any cruise line. I'm curious what other kinds of entertainments they had on board and things to do like trivia, bingo, you know, all, all kinds of stuff like that. What were, what were the offerings? And then also tell us how did you find out about the offerings? Do they have a user friendly app like Disney and other cruise lines have?
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah, they did have a user friendly app. I think their app is pretty good. And, and actually everything was available ahead of time. So you could go in to the app a week before and you could like heart favorite the things that you were interested in. So that was nice. They also had a physical, I think it's called like the Princess patter. So you could also get the physical schedule. On paper, I would say yes. They had trivia, they had bingo they had art auctions, they had drink tastings. They had.
They had like. I think they had like dance class. I like, I would say again, I mentioned it was very cruisy.
I will also say it was not.
There were not family activities like on dcl. Right. There was almost nothing other than the naturalist presentations that we would go to with our kids. For your kids. It was pretty much, it's in the kids club. If it's a kid thing, it's going on in the kids club. The rest of the ship did not at all cater towards kids or families. It was fine for us because we were doing excursions and my kids are fine to like, they did spend a little bit of time in the kids club, but not much. But they also could watch movies in the room. And that's dreamy to them. I love that. But that was definitely, like, there is not anything for us all to go to as a family other than the main stage shows and the natural stuff they also did have.
So overall, because we're not into, like, we don't really do a lot of the shopping. Bingo. Art. Actually, like, we don't care about that. We went to like one trivia thing because it was Disney trivia. Of course.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: Of course we went to a Disney.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Trivia and we went to a couple of the main stage shows, but not every night.
[00:53:40] Speaker B: Tell us about the main stage shows. Actually.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: So the first night was an illusionist and we went to that. And he was good.
Like, the tricks were good, but having just been. I mean, I actually did two cruises over the summer. It was a little ridiculous because I did a med cruise. I would say the caliber compared to DCL is not there. Like, he was good at the tricks, but he was not as funny or engaging with the audience.
It was a step below.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not as good of an energy, even though it's an illusionist. Interesting.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: But it was still entertaining. And then we went to. There's the main show. That's their sort of headliner show. That's kind of a. It's just like a montage is the wrong word. But it's just a bunch of songs. Like, there was a lot of songs from Greatest Showman, a lot of pop songs. And it was good.
It was quality. The costumes were cool, the performers were good.
So that show was fine. And then we went to. There was a pianist on board who was like a singer pianist who was actually really, really, really good. And he did like an Elton John tribute.
So we went to that. We did not go to any of the other things, they, they didn't seem particularly interesting. Like they were kind of more just.
Yeah, like, I don't know, again, like montage is the wrong word. I can't come up with the word. But just sort of variety acts, right, with different songs and dancing and so we didn't, I would say for sure. Dcl, like with their stage shows is way more compelling to us than the entertainment here. But, but the ones we went to, they were, they were well done.
They also had, again, they had, they had the pianist, they had a guitarist and they had like an Irish duo and a few others. But those were the three that I really liked that would perform in lounges. I will say there was almost always something going on in a lounge and I enjoyed the live music and so I would almost follow some of them around that I liked. And they were quite good. They were really high caliber. So I enjoyed that. And that's, I mean, so yeah, live music I liked. The shows that we went to were well done, but there were a lot that we didn't go to because they weren't appealing to us. And many of the other activities, I mean, yeah, take it or leave it. There was a comedian we went to for a few minutes, but.
Oh, that was okay. They were just okay. Yeah, yeah.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: It's interesting. I do think that the, the other cruise lines do tend to lean on this sort of musical review, which is what I think you mean by when you're talking about the montage, like a musical review of, you know, random songs that they just throw together with no plot and, and you may have really great singers and dancers and costumes and it, you know, sometimes that's nice to go to. It's just, you know, just to kind of sit and maybe drink a beverage and just enjoy the music. But it's not the same as going to see like a Broadway musical or some other kind of stage show.
[00:56:54] Speaker C: So yeah, I think some of that is, I think some of that is also a function of the typical demographic that they have on the ship because the, the lack of a better term, the older generation of Cruising. That's what they're used to from an entertainment standpoint out of lines like, you know, Carnival, Princess Royal, you know, Disney, newer on the scene with these Broadway style stage shows. So. And now, you know, people like Royal are starting to up their game and import some of that onto their cruise line. I think especially as like the focus shifts for kind of the younger families and the younger demographic trying to attract them to cruising. So yes, the musical review of the 70s show with ice dancing is very old school cruise line. For sure. For sure.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Although I would take a variety act that is just that it doesn't claim to be something else over a, like, really contrived storyline. That's dumb. Honestly. So it was fine.
[00:57:48] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, there are some actually great variety acts on Disney Cruise Line, for example, like buckets of boards we've heard great things about. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aaron, I'm curious about the food on board the ship, because that tends to be a big part of cruising and you're stuck on the ship and for seven nights you want to eat well, if you can.
How was the food in main dining? And it sounds like you did do at least one night of kind of a, you know, upcharge specialty dining, you know, how did that compare?
Yeah, let's just start with main dining, though. How was the main dining? Fair. Was it?
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: So the main dining, I would say the quality was pretty good.
The quality was pretty good.
They.
I think I heard somebody else on the show talking about Princess, and I think this is true where they're not trying to serve everyone at once because it is more staggered. I felt like we got our food warm, which sometimes, honestly on dcl, that's one of my complaints is it feels like where they're doing everything at once, you. You might get cold food. So the quality was good. The temperature was. Was good.
I will say the. It got old. Like the variety, you did have some theme nights. Like you had an Italian night. You had a couple of more Alaska specific things, which I would expect.
But like, you started to see the same dishes. And then especially for design desserts, they had kind of the same dessert menu every night with maybe a little bit of variety, which was surprising. So quality, good variety, maybe less good.
And then the. So that was main dining.
The. We just only did the steakhouse and that was good. And I felt like. I think it was like $40 a person. We just did that with my parents. We didn't take the kids. And I felt like that was a pretty good value. Like. Like it was a meal that would have cost you 90 or $100 a person somewhere else. Right. But was. Was 40. So that was a pretty good value and nice. Nice to mix it up.
And then the buffet, the food quality of the buffet was also quite good and the variety was quite good. I will say though, that it was chaotic. It was like difficult to find things. Things were mislabeled. Like, I would. I'm not an allergy we don't have allergies in my family. But I was kind of like, this is like this sign is literally in the wrong place. This is not what this. You know, so it was. I did think. I don't know if they were a little bit understaffed, but quality good, but organization poor in the buffet. Like very, very confusing but huge and a lot of variety. So that was nice otherwise. Yeah, that. I mean that's kind of. Oh, the pizza though on the pool deck was very good. And so was the like hamburger hot dog place was very good.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and that's important for like especially those days where you're not getting to port until like one. Right. So you're. Because you're probably eating lunch before you head off. And also those pool. Your kids in the pool. Pool.
You know, it's because I'll be honest, I'm not a big buffet fan in general. Like I don't. Not even cabanas. Like, you know, I just, I find buffets chaotic in general. And I also like don't like everybody touching everything. It. You know, so. But I'm perfectly happy to go get a hamburger and french fries off the pool deck.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:01:15] Speaker C: The buffet. The buffet on the. The Wish class ships doesn't bother me because they. The cruise serve buffet.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: So yes, I think that's better to me. Like I, I have less ick factor in.
[01:01:26] Speaker C: I don't get it. I mean the food's turning over so quickly at the DCL buffets that like, it's not like. Plus I just have a rule. Wash my hands like they asked me to before I get my food and then I wash my hands right after.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: So yeah, we wash our hands before we eat the food because everybody's touching all the hand. The hand. The servings.
[01:01:44] Speaker A: Utensils. Servings.
[01:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, utensils.
[01:01:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, any. Any highlights off the cruise we haven't talked about or anything that you wanted to be sure to share? Other than that. I have one more question for you but curious if there's anything that we missed that you want to be sure to share.
[01:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think so. I mean we didn't talk really about the kids clubs, but yeah. Which may be of interest to people. Obviously nothing like Disney.
They were fine spaces. There was a lot of programming.
But not. Wasn't the Millennium Falcon or anything like that really. And the way they divided the ages. I mean people have the same complaint on dcl. It's kind of where we've got four kids, but some of them could Go in. They maybe wanted to age up a little bit or age down. And it was a non starter. You couldn't do that. So our kids spend a little bit of time there. But because again, there was like nothing else. There was no other programming for them other than the naturalist stuff. So they spent a little bit of time there. But. And the staff seemed nice, but that was, you know, that you don't go to, you don't go on Princess Cruise line for the kids club, obviously. So. Although there were a fair number, I think there were a lot of multi generational families on this. I know Princess and Holland do skew older. Older. But I do think since it was the summer, there were like a lot of grandparents, parents, kids, groups. So there it wasn't like there it was, it was not an overwhelmingly old elderly population. It was definitely more families than I think you might see on other itineraries on that line.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: But yeah, and that makes sense. I think most of July is that way. On all of the Alaska cruises, like so end of June through like maybe mid August, you're gonna see a ton of families. And July is sort of that the, the height of the season. Right. Like the. Because everybody is off from school in July. And so yeah, you're gonna have a lot more. And. And to your point, you know, it does make sense for multi generational families. You yourselves were a multi generational family on board. How did you feel? Actually, I, I following up on that, did. Did your folks enjoy the cruise, you think as much as you all did?
[01:04:00] Speaker A: They did. And I was a little worried because they are not cruisers at all.
And I.
But again, it was really about the excursions and they did all of that with us. And then they did. But they did enjoy. I mean, it's just, it's nice to be able to go do your own thing for a while and then come back to dinner together.
And you know, they could hang out with the grandkids, but they also had their own space because they could go back to their room. So they, they really did end up enjoying it. So that was great. But they didn't. I don't think they did a lot of activities or anything like that that we didn't do. It was like ports, sitting in some lounges, listening to music, a couple of the main shows, the naturalist presentations.
That's pretty much the extent of the activities that we participated in.
[01:04:43] Speaker C: Well, I guess one last question. I had you mentioned at the very front of the show that, you know, you were a little sad not to be taking a Disney Cruise instead of Princess Cruise. So Sam's probably gonna ask you this in rapid fire.
[01:04:55] Speaker A: Was.
[01:04:56] Speaker C: But I'm gonna ask it now because she's constantly stealing this for me. So did you, after taking the Princess Cruise, did you. Did you regret not doing it with Disney or did you think the experience was, you know, sort of good enough? That the value was there for you and your family on Princess and, you know, the fact that it wasn't a Disney cruise really didn't, you know, you know, impact things that much. I'm just curious where you fall on that spectrum.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So we. I'm glad that we did that because again, the excursions that we did were not cheap and they were amazing. And having the veranda, the mini suite, not only veranda, we did a mini suite. So it was quite a bit more space.
Oh, we didn't talk about state rooms, actually. But like, it.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: It was.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: The mini suite was quite a bit of space. The interior room was a closet, but it was fine. Cause we just threw some. We threw our three boys in there and they had bunks in there. They just made it. It smelled bad, but whatever.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: That's what I was imagining. 3, 3 like teen preteen boys in a. In a room. Yeah, it's gonna smell.
[01:06:00] Speaker A: So I don't. I don't regret that we did that because it was a great trip. We had great excursions and I thought that the cruise experience was still nice. The ship was nice. It was pretty. The spaces were nice, the musicians on board were good. There was enough to do. Now, am I like converted that I'm not gonna do? Dc? No.
I would say for a very excursion heavy itinerary, I would be willing to branch out again, just. Again, depending on if there's an itinerary that I really like that DCL just doesn't offer because they're not in as many places. Like Princess does a thing where you circumnavigate Japan. That would be interesting to me.
So, yeah, I don't regret it because it allowed us to do what we wanted to do.
Did we miss certain things? For sure. Like when we were on the ship, did we talk about things that we missed about Disney?
[01:06:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:06:58] Speaker A: But for that trip, it was the right call to have. For us to have the experience that we wanted to have.
[01:07:05] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. All right. Well, I think that's always good to know. And actually having sailed Norway on Disney, I would kind of land in a very similar place. I'm not sure I need Disney cruise line for Europe, although it was Fun. It was nice. I mean, you get that Disney level of experience. I don't regret doing it with Disney Cruise Line, but I think there's. There's some shopping around that can be done on some of these. On some of these cruises that aren't kind of Caribbean cruises where it's, you know, ship heavy as opposed to port heavy. So.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, but I had gone. So I had done a med cruise in June with my daughter and had also considered going with a different line because it was definitely. This is about the ports for me. But since it was just me and her and she's a teenager and she still appreciates Disney, we did end up doing Disney first. That. But it just. I think it depends on what you're looking to get out of the trip. And some trips are more ship and some trips are a way to get to some different destinations.
[01:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:08:00] Speaker C: For sure. For sure. Well, Sam, I believe we have reached that point in the show where it's time for you to ask some arbitrary questions, apply some arbitrary rules and a dash of judgment, or the round we call Rapid Fire. You know, before Sam takes it away, I do want to highlight for everyone out there that we now have a definition of Rapid Fire T shirt that you can can head over to Teepublic and check that out. It was a fun little thing that we did. I don't know. Sometimes I get bored. I decide to design things. So I designed a definition of Rapid Fire T shirt. Shout out to our friends Derek and Doug over at Rope Drop Radio, who did one for Rope Drop that I absolutely love. So I did one for us for Rapid Fire. But Sam, take it away.
[01:08:40] Speaker B: All right, Aaron, I'm going to ask you. This is a versus Rapid Fire. So I'm going to ask you your. You're going to compare Disney versus Princess, and it's just which one's doing it better. So the answer will always be Disney Princess. Or you could give a tie if there's something where they really tied on. All right, let's start with the booking process.
[01:09:02] Speaker A: I would say Princess just because you don't have to wait until your window, which can be a little annoying, especially if you're not Pearl or whatever. For things that go fast best.
[01:09:13] Speaker B: All right, what about cabins?
[01:09:17] Speaker A: Disney?
[01:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they're even though bigger and just like the split bathroom. I feel like those little touches. Right?
[01:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Even though we haven't even had a veranda on Disney. So I'm comparing veranda mini suite to Disney. I would still say overall the split bathroom the quality of the finishes.
[01:09:36] Speaker B: You.
[01:09:36] Speaker A: Know, it's Disney there.
[01:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:39] Speaker A: Just nicer. Yeah.
[01:09:41] Speaker B: All right, let's do cleanliness Disney.
[01:09:45] Speaker A: But Princess wasn't, like, bad. It was.
[01:09:48] Speaker B: That's good.
[01:09:48] Speaker A: Disney's just, I think probably just way up there.
[01:09:52] Speaker B: All right.
Activities, Disney shows, Disney food.
[01:10:00] Speaker A: Food quality, Princess. But overall, dining experience I would give to Disney.
[01:10:06] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
[01:10:06] Speaker A: Because of the. The variety and the variety. The shows, all the dining rooms. That's just really unique to Disney.
[01:10:15] Speaker B: But that's really good that you gave quality to Princess. Wow. All right.
Kids clubs. I know where it's going.
[01:10:25] Speaker A: Service Disney.
[01:10:28] Speaker B: And then the. Overall. If you're going to take a cruise tomorrow, actually, let's say you're gonna take a cruise to Alaska again.
And. Yeah. What if you're. If you're gonna go to Alaska again, would you book it on Disney? I know you don't regret booking on Princess, so it's a slightly different question than what Brian asked you. But if you're going to Alaska again, do you think you would book it on Princess or Disney?
[01:10:55] Speaker A: If I was going again, I would do Disney because we did the. We did all the big things. And so I think I would actually be more flexible.
[01:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You could save some money on the excursions. Right. If you're going.
[01:11:09] Speaker A: Right. And like, not have certain things that I insisted on doing because some of the Disney ones are a little bit shorter. Right. They don't go to as many places. They may not go to all those ports. But for us, for a return, I would actually look at doing Disney.
[01:11:23] Speaker B: Interesting. All right, well, my last question of Rapid Fire is the same question I ask everybody. What is your bucket list Cruise? If you could go anywhere in the world on Disney Cruise Line. Line doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Cruise Line currently sails. Where are you going, Aaron?
[01:11:39] Speaker A: I would maybe do. You can. Like on Viking and some other lines, they have like 21 day Middle east and Mediterranean. Like, you just go like everywhere.
Maybe something like that. Or I can mention Princess has to see circumnavigation.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: Oh, the Japan one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would love that. That would be fantastic. Well, awesome. Thank you for playing no judgment. I think you had totally valid answers. I'm a little surprised about. Well, I have heard good things about Princess's food, but I'm a little surprised that it even edged out Disney as far as food, specifically food quality.
But other than that, I had no surprises. I think I would say two.
[01:12:23] Speaker A: So I would say, um, our Mediterranean DCL food experience was not great. Um, and so that's my most recent comparison. Yeah, I may feel differently after we do the Treasure again. Cause I do think the wish food was quite good.
[01:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Um, but the back to back with the med cruise. The Med cruise food, there were a lot of issues on that cruise, so.
[01:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, thanks so much, Erin, for joining us. I'm so glad that you decided to come onto our show. Um, that, you know, eating with us at Palo wasn't such a traumatic experience that you were like, oh, I never want to see them again. But we really appreciate it. It's been great having you on and we really hope that you'll.
[01:13:02] Speaker C: So many people who meet us are like, gosh, I don't ever want to.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: Go to those weirdos.
[01:13:07] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate you guys. Your show has helped us plan some really, really fun trips. And it's like the perfect.
I can't concentrate on an audiobook. I just need some entertainment to pretend I'm somewhere else. So we love the show.
[01:13:21] Speaker B: Well, where are you guys traveling to next? What do you. Do you have any DCL stuff booked or other Disney stuff booked?
[01:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So our immediate next trip is to Asia over Christmas where we will be hitting Tokyo, Disneyland and Disney Sea.
[01:13:37] Speaker B: Amazing.
[01:13:38] Speaker A: Along with Thailand and Cambodia.
So that's our next trip, but then our next DCL is we are going to do the Treasure for spring break.
[01:13:46] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, I hope that you'll come back on and share your experience on the Treasure with us. We'd love to have you on.
[01:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. I'm excited.
[01:13:57] Speaker C: Well, thank you to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern, over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want to help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course, you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dclduo or email them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast, links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL 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 reflective views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at My Path Unwinding Travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo.
