[00:00:00] Speaker A: The sailing sloths did not leave the ship at Grand Cayman or Jamaica.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Ah, Love it. All right. Okay, so we're moving right along to.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: The next segment of the show.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Yeah, let's move. Let's move along to Cozumel.
[00:00:24] 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, I am delinquent in my review yet. Once again, we have so many reviews to read, and I just have to figure out where we last left off.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Brian, I'm going to give you a review. You're great.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Oh, thanks. Thanks for all of you out there. Just so you know, like, it's not as simple as me, like, checking the last episode we put out because we're recording these episodes and then they don't go out for, like, two months. So I have to, like, dig through and figure out from the audio that we've recorded what the last review is you've read. So I'm going to do that this weekend, I promise. And then we will. We will be back to reading your lovely listener reviews at the top of the show. But, Sam, I'm excited. We have friends joining us. We have friends we haven't talked to in a while, and we love having on. Do you want to intro our guests and what we're going to be talking about?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yes. I'm super excited to talk to Gail and Kara again. For those who don't remember, they are on one of my favorite episodes that I like to call sweet versus savory.
Now, of course, they have been on multiple episodes, but that's just my favorite one that we recorded with them. But it's so nice to have you guys back. Welcome back to the show, Gail. Welcome back to the show.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Kara, thanks for having us.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Of course. We told you the last time we recorded. You're always welcome. Anytime you want to be on, you're always welcome. And I should tell everyone out there, we recorded a fabulous episode with Gail and Kara and through technical difficulties, lost the entire episode. So we're excited that they are trusting us. They're giving us one more chance to get this right.
And so really happy to have them back on.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: If you lose this episode, we'll just have to take another cruise and come back, I guess.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: So I. I guess that's just the consequence, right?
[00:02:08] Speaker D: We have planned for April, so we're good to go.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: There you go. Well, we have one planned for April. What's your April cruise?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: This for the end?
[00:02:17] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:18] Speaker D: That's our big surprise.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Okay, all right, fair enough. Fair enough. Well, we're excited to have you guys back. Gail, we know you are a travel agent with off to Neverland Travel. Why don't you give our listeners a little bit of a refresher on your cruising history background with Disney, that sort of a thing. And I know that you and Kara BFFs sail a whole bunch together, so you can probably cover Kara's in one fell swoop.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: We, we are the sailing besties. That is not our nickname. I have decided we're going to have a nickname, but that will come out.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: A little bit later.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: This is so selfish that you have to give yourself a nickname. We started cruising together.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: We gave ourselves a nickname, by the way. I mean the DCL duo. We gave our nickname. So you can absolutely do it. Absolutely. Sorry to interrupt. That is fair.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: We actually took one cruise together right after college, very foolishly on another line, had a terrible experience.
And it is because of my best friend Kara that we found our way to Disney Cruise line in 2006.
So it has been a long journey that we are excited to continue on. And we've been able to check our boxes off the Bahamas, the western and eastern, the Pacific, repositioning Europe, Mexico.
And Kara's been able to check the box in Alaska that I have not. And then of course we went to northern Europe, but nobody got to hear about that because all the audio got lost.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: True, true story.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: We can just say it was the best episode of the DCL podcast we have ever recorded. It was amazing. But now it's over here. Yeah, it's a secret vault.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: It's a secret. Exactly.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: It's in the Disney Vault. It's in the Disney Vault.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: But the Disney Vault gets reopened like every 20 years or something. Right.
[00:04:13] Speaker D: Still find the audio on my computer.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Someday we'll just take that cruise again.
[00:04:19] Speaker D: We would love to take that cruise again.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's jump right into talking about this seven night western Caribbean cruise that you guys took. But let's start with the fact that this was a celebration cruise.
Let's first say congratulations to Kara. This was a finishing of cancer treatment cruise.
Yay.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Ended with zero.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Oh, you turned 20?
[00:04:50] Speaker D: I turned 50 this year, so I'm very excited about it.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Amazing. Well, two things obviously. Two big things to celebrate. Let's talk about why you chose this cruise specifically. Was it like just these are the dates that were. Or was there like something about this cruise that had you saying, I want to be on the fantasy. I want to Be seven nights, Western Caribbean or, you know, what were the decision making points there? Kara?
[00:05:15] Speaker D: Gail picked this as a surprise. We had been talking through a number of possibilities and I had sort of said, I want five nights or more. And of course, and I haven't done very merry time. So if it was one of those. And then Gail made the decision as we were looking through sort of what was available on the travel agent options. This was not a travel agent option, unfortunately, but she was looking at all of those different options. And this was the. This was the decision. We also got to connect it to a couple of days on land at Disney World before we left.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Very nice. That's always nice when you can get a couple of, you know, park days or resort days and pair it with your trip. Well, you guys, of course, are both coming in from out of town, not in the Florida area. So you came in a couple days before then.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: So, Kara, I think it's really important to share because it gives other people ideas. How was this trip revealed to you?
[00:06:24] Speaker D: Oh, so on my actual birthday, Gail had set up series of puzzles for me to solve that.
Over the course of, I think four or five puzzles, I realized that we were going to be staying at the Swan Reserve and we would be for two nights and then we would be getting on the fantasy. And let's see, that was the crossword puzzle. I'm trying to think what the. There was a search and find.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: So there were scavenger.
[00:06:57] Speaker D: There was a scavenger hunt. There was a wordle. And then there was a. There was a horrible, horrible thing with. With letter tiles that I had to have a lot of help with.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Which is crazy because she's a Scrabble master.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: I do. Wow.
[00:07:13] Speaker D: I do love all word puzzles, but this one, this one did get me.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: All of the answers filled in a mad lib. So if you're looking for ideas about how to make somebody earn their surprise.
[00:07:26] Speaker D: She did a great job with it. It was a lot of fun.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: I love that. Brian, not.
I also like word puzzles. I also like Scrabble. I like being surprised.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: I think if anyone in this relationship was going to be surprised with a puzzle for a crossbody.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah. To be fair, Brian is. Yeah, he does lots of puzzles, like word puzzles and other kinds of puzzles all the time in the crossword picture.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: I was just filling out my crossword puzzle today, so there you go.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yes.
He does a crossword puzzle every week for sure. And multiple other kinds of puzzles every day, probably.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: So it's time to get on that. Sam let.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Maybe I have to enlist Gail's help. Maybe I'll literally just copy whatever. Gail, do you have a video with.
[00:08:11] Speaker D: Any of it is. Is available, so.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. Well, what a great. Yeah. What a great way of, you know, surprising somebody, too, and making. I mean, people do it a lot with their kids, right? For, like, surprising them on Christmas or taking them to the port when they don't even know where they're going, which I think is, like, incredibly scary, because I don't. I just. I think our kid would. I think Nathan would react well, but, like, there was a time where he wouldn't have reacted well to a surprise, and so I probably wouldn't have done it. But I love. I love surprises. Well, so let's jump into the logistics. You guys are both platinum, if I'm remembering correctly, Right. So, unfortunately. Yeah, still, I. Listen, it takes a little bit of time to get into the sweet, sweet pearl status and get those free photos, but did you have any, you know, difficulties booking what you. What you wanted? Were there things that you were looking to get? You know, really? I think other than cabana, it's not super hard to get what you want if you're in either pearl or platinum status. But was there anything in particular that you guys had any difficulty in booking?
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Well, I think there are a couple of things. We tend to be those people who will book on opening day. This clearly wasn't that.
In fact, this was the opposite of that. This sailing left November 30th, and I didn't book it until September 16th, which is in my last minute.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's super last minute in our world. Yeah.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: We did not do the reveal to Kara until her birthday on October 8th, so we were very much on it.
We were able to get Palo dinner, which is honestly the one thing we want. But, Kara, you booked the one port adventure. We actually went on a port adventure this time. So you were more into that than I was. How was that?
[00:10:03] Speaker D: It was good. I think the only things that were gone at that point were, like, one of the dolphin excursions was gone by that point. But even I was checking, I kept looking back and just to see if anything new had been added or if anything had changed. And you could still get mixology. Like, at the time of the cruise, you could get most of the tastings still. At the time of the cruise, most of the excursions were still available. I think all of the dolphin excursions in Cozumel were gone by the day of. But otherwise there was still wide Availability of a lot of stuff, which this was a really packed cruise. So I was a little surprised at that.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: There were also a lot of newer or first time cruisers on this sailing.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Okay, that makes sense. Well, and I feel like the more unique the itinerary, the more difficult excursions are right. To book if you are one of the either later castaway Sadd or if you're a new cruiser. Whereas your standard like Bahamian, Eastern Western Caribbean itineraries are not super difficult to get excursions with some exceptions. Right. Like dolphin swimming is always depending upon which port you're at and how many spots are available that tends to go to, you know, earlier cruisers. But of course we know that like Alaska and European excursions often book up really, really fast. And so it is harder if you're, you know, over or no status castaway club member. But that's helpful to know that even on a full sailing there were still, there's still plenty of stuff available. Well, let's dive in then to the logistics of, you know, getting there. You mentioned you spent some time at Walt Disney World ahead of time. You were obviously sailing out of Port Canaveral because you were on the Fantasy and the Fantasy was doing its normal Eastern Western Caribbean flip flopping that the Treasure has now taken over. But yeah, how did you, how, how far in advance did you get down to Orlando and where'd you stay?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Well, I will say part of the choice of this was wanting to get back on the 7 the fantasy, knowing that it was going to go away from its seven night sailings, at least domestically. And so we were slated to land the day on Thanksgiving. We were supposed to land on Thanksgiving and that was just going to be two nights in advance. And literally that Monday we changed our plans, which is again not us. And we looked and we went, oh, this, this is going to be really tight. And so jumped on, changed our flight. So we were flying out the day before Thanksgiving.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Ooh, that's like a really big travel day.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: So Kara, tell her how it went.
[00:12:55] Speaker D: So it, we, we were prepared and we are, neither of us are big crowd people. So we were like, oh, this could be a very.
We have a picture of us standing at the. We fly out of Indianapolis, standing at the Indianapolis airport in front of the Southwest ticket area. There's no one in line. It was so quiet. And even Orlando, I mean Orlando, when you come out off of your flight, no matter where you're coming from, it's always just, it was not bad that day either. So we were really surprised at how light the overall traffic was and how really easy that transportation travel day was.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: So we got in late that evening. We stayed near the airport just for that night, and then we went over to the Swan reserve for the next two nights.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Very nice. Yeah, a lot of people love Swan and Dolphin. If you're a Marriott member, right. Or Marriott Rewards whatever member, then you can, you know, use points there, but you're still on property. So I feel like those are, those are both pretty popular, especially for the, the Marriott loving folks out there.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Well, and Swan and Dolphin gets some the on property perks.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: They do. They get all of them. They get the early. You get early entry, you get the buses. You're right at the Epcot.
[00:14:12] Speaker C: I thought there was something they didn't get because it wasn't technically a Disney resort.
[00:14:16] Speaker D: The bus takes you to the TTC instead of right to the park.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Okay, so that's the only, the only negative. But that's, but if you're going to Epcot, then there's no negative.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: That's what we were doing. So it didn't really matter.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Because obviously you're celebrating. You gotta go to Mexico, right? Get your margaritas. No, no, at least walk around the world Showcase. All right, well, so you have a couple days, then you have Thursday and Friday. So Thanksgiving, what did you do for Thanksgiving dinner? Actually, I got, I feel like I gotta ask that question.
[00:14:52] Speaker D: We went to, we had, we sort, we had done a big preview of like all the different food that was available to us. So on Thanksgiving Day we actually went to Jack Lindsay's Hangar Bar and did the tapas that they have there, the appetizers, and they had, they have these little. Let's see. Was that the croquettes? I think that was the croquette.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: No, it was just delicious.
[00:15:16] Speaker D: Yeah, and it was, it was like a, it was like a turkey meatball with sweet potato and cranberry sauce on top. So it was like Thanksgiving in a bite. And then the next day while we were at Epcot, we went to Garden Grill.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: So we had the Candlelight Processional dining package.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:15:37] Speaker D: We had turkey twice. So that counts as Thanksgiving.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that counts as Thanksgiving dinner twice. Yeah. Well, Jock Lindsay's is a great Disney Springs restaurant. And then of course, yeah, getting to go to Candlelight Processional, I'm sure was lovely as well.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: I was going to say if you only make it out of Thanksgiving having turkey twice, you're kind of ahead of the game. Because I eat turkey like 15 times.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Brian prefers to eat turkey like 15 times. I'm done with it after two meals and I'm like, give me something else to eat. But anyway. Okay, so you're headed onto the ship on Saturday. Tell us what your transportation plan was to get down to Port Canaveral from Walt Disney World.
[00:16:17] Speaker D: So we took an Uber or a Lyft back to the airport from the Swan reserve and we boarded the buses from the airport out to the port.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: And I don't know if you guys have talked about this yet or not. It had been our first experience of them doing 100% cruise check in at the airport.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Oh, no, we have not. It's been a while since we.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: We have. We had somebody on who talked about using Magical Express and they basically got fully checked in at the airport. I do remember that, but we haven't experienced it. But I have.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: You did not mean Magical Express.
[00:16:55] Speaker C: Oh, well, the Disney Cruise Line transportation bus.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Cruise Line transportation. Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker C: With your Disney band pluses.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Well, if you're a Disney fan without telling me, you're a Disney fan.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Right. Well, so did you. Why did you go to the airport? Was it not available to go from the Swan directly to Port Canaveral versus going to the airport in between?
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Sam, we are Disney Cruise Line people.
So we could have gone to the Boardwalk.
We weren't going to wait around. We need to control our own fate. We wanted to get out there as fast as humanly possible. And I will tell you, we got to the airport at 8:25.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: And we were the very last two people on the first bus.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Wow. People are so early. This is rope drop culture at its finest.
[00:17:47] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. We have taken the bus from the airport previously because of like staying at the MCO Hyatt and people are up really early and down there to get into line. Now, did they do any sorting based on Castaway Club status? We've heard that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Okay. No. So it's just a first come, first serve as far as getting on that bus.
[00:18:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: So you just wish we hadn't talked about this now we're giving it all away.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Well, I do think there might be some. I think it might depend on who's down there because it sound like there's some. It sounds like some cast members are just doing it first. First come, first serve. But we heard from other folks who, when they were saying concierge, they were not first, but they got on the first bus and they were, you know.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: That'S going to come around when we get to the port.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Okay, so, all right, so you get on the bus. You're an hour or so in the bus. Tell us what happens when you get to the port.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: So when we got there and they held us, and I was sad that we weren't going to walk through our platinum line. And Kara's like, we're check. Checked in. There is no line.
When the representative got on the bus, as we were getting off with no explanation, they were handing everybody on our bus group one boarding cards.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Oh, very interesting.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Which the only thing that we took away from that was, wow, the ship must be really full. And they're just going to try to get people on as fast as possible, maybe.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Interesting. Wow. Yeah. So normally, I don't think that group one is limited to concierge, because concierge actually gets on. Nobody even sees concierge get on at Port Canaveral because they get on from sort of behind the Mickey funnel years.
They are in the sort of concierge waiting room, so they sort of bypass that area, which is a bummer because I love walking through the Mickey ears thing. So, I mean, it's been a. It's been a bit since we've sailed concierge, but I always am sad when I don't get to walk through there.
But then there are always people who are boarding group one, and I. I guess I never really thought about how they got boarding group one. And, you know, I know that Pearl now gets automatically boarding group two, which Platinum I think used to get. It wasn't ever like an advertised benefit, but I think Platinum used to get boarding group two, and now Platinum gets anywhere between boarding group three and whatever, you know, sort of based on your check in. But we have heard that in general, if you're taking the Disney bus transportation either from the airport or from one of the hotels, that typically you will get in earlier than you would have otherwise gotten in, unless you were sailing concierge or if you were maybe a Pearl cruiser. So in general, it can kind of speed up. And obviously, Gail, you were hip to that knowledge so that you wouldn't go to the. Particularly to the airport to get on. Well, how did boarding go then? You said it was, you know, full. Full house. Then you've got a full ship, 4,000 people or close to 4,000 people. Getting on. On the fantasy. Yeah. How did boarding go?
[00:21:11] Speaker D: It went really well. I don't really remember anything exciting or adventurous about it. We got in our group. They had not closed the.
The.
The queues, so people were not being sort of directed to go get their photo taken, which was fine with us. We're not big into getting our photo taken right as we get on the ship. But they got that fixed sort of just as we were doing. So I think that was our biggest delay was them trying to get that queue closed up or opened up and let people through there. But otherwise it was fairly non eventful and we went straight in and, and, and pretty quickly we. Because this was the, this was the first very maritime cruise, we knew that they had to do some decorating in between. So we didn't know if there would be any delay. But we were still right on time of when we sort of expect to get on the ship.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: The plan, when we walked on, Cara was going to go get a table up at Cabanas and I was headed downstairs for the first time in many, many years because of when I booked. We were on the 8:15 dining that we do not prefer.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: I was the third person in line.
We never got cleared for the 5:45 dining.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. Had you wait. Listed it when you booked then? Yes. Yeah. And then you just. And you never heard from them presumably because you don't hear from them.
[00:22:41] Speaker D: It was weird because we heard from them one night and they said, well, if you want to come to early dining this one night, but you'll be at a different table with different servers, you can do that. But otherwise we don't have anything else for you. So we thought that was just bizarre.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: That is bizarre.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Not take them up on.
[00:23:00] Speaker D: No, we're like.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: I think. Yeah, I think generally it's better unless you have a really bad dining team, it's better to just stay with your dining team.
And also it's kind of nice to have like a pattern, you know, from the beginning that sort of goes through the whole cruise. So with the exception of if you're doing some adult dining, you might vary your dinner time, but it's. You sort of get into a routine. Well, so tell us, why do you guys like early dining? I'm always curious to hear what people who like early dining.
[00:23:31] Speaker C: Can you detect that? Can you detect that in her voice? Why are you.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: No, no, there's no.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Why are you?
[00:23:36] Speaker B: No, I want, I want to.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: There's no.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: I'll save my judgment for later, but no judgment right now. I'm cur. I'm. I'm genuinely curious. Like when. I'm genuinely curious when people, you know, why people like one over the other. I know why we like late over early. And you, you tend to Hear people with young children liking early because it's just too long for their kids to wait for dinner if it's 8:15. Right. But. Or, you know, by the time you get your food, it's 8:45 or whatnot. But yeah. Cara, how come, how come early dining?
[00:24:11] Speaker D: So we did late dining for several years and then we tried early dining once. And I went, oh, this is good, because my bedtime is actually 8:00 most nights.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Okay, fair.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Not mine. Yeah.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Not Gail's.
[00:24:26] Speaker D: I am an early, early bird. I'm up with the sun. Or before.
So by about, you know, this right now is a little late for me. As we record this, my brain, my brain has just shut down and is no longer functional. So by 8pm I'm done. I've got nothing left in the mental tank. So we made it work. It was fine.
And we knew we were gonna skip the dining room one or two nights anyway, so it wasn't that big a deal. Plus, we had a palo that was at an earlier date, so it was not fun. And we had an absolutely wonderful dining team on this cruise. So, so that was lovely.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: I appreciate getting teed up for this part because I would like our official nicknames to be the Sailing sloths. Because there is always one day on the cruise that we will look at the schedule and be like, maybe not going to dinner, maybe not going to the show. This is going to be our day of sloth when we really don't do anything.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yep. I love that. Now, on your, on your sloth day, do you eat on the pool deck? Do you just not eat? Do you get, do you get food to your room? I mean, I don't know.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know. There are people who do all kinds of weird things, you guys.
[00:25:45] Speaker D: It's, it's pool deck food and room service and maybe cabanas. I mean, we might go. Or whatever the, whichever the buffet is on that particular cruise.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: And some, some deck four lounging and some reading and maybe a movie in the theater. Yeah, that's really sloth culture.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: I love sloth culture.
[00:26:05] Speaker D: I do, I do think one night I did have popcorn for dinner on the cruise. I think I did that well.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: And you know, the, I, I, I want to put this out there as a reminder for people who, or maybe it's not even a reminder, but some people don't know about this. There is food in, in the pub. Right. So you can now, it is extra cost, but you, if you want like, it's really late. Yeah, no, no, I don't mean the late night food. You can actually.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: I mean, the food I have to pay for.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Yes, I mean, the food you have to pay for. There is.
[00:26:35] Speaker D: Gail has never done that, but she has eaten a part of my soft pretzel that I have gotten in the pub.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: I mean, I, I love a soft pretzel. I love me some wings. Those tachos are good, too. Right. Like, so, you know, there's, there's options. But yes, you do have. They are options that you have to pay for. So I, I understand. I understand folks like you, Gail, who have the policy of no, there's, there's all kinds of included food. Why would I pay for extra food?
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Well, because I will pay for it at the sweet shop.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Oh, well, there you go. And see? And I don't pay for the stuff at the sweet shop because I think that's kind of a waste. They look pretty, but I don't think most of it tastes that good. All except. Except for the gelato. The gelato is really delicious.
All right, well, let's, let's. Okay, so you had your plan for the first day. Let's dive into talking about your port stops, because this was a western Caribbean. So you were going to Grand, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Falmouth, Jamaica, and Castaway Cay. Am I right?
[00:27:34] Speaker D: Good job.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. And you know, it's funny. We haven't actually, we still haven't done that exact itinerary ever ourselves. Yeah, we've never done a standard western. We have done post Covid westerns, which were like, Cozumel, Costa Maya. But I've still never been to Grand Cayman or Falmouth, Jamaica. I, I. Yeah. So let's. Let's talk about these port stops and what you guys got up to. I know you're not port adventures folks. Alth, it sounds like Kara booked one port adventure, but let's start. What was your first port of call? Was it Grand Cayman? Sure.
We do remember the order. All right, we'll just take them in that order, because I don't know what the order was. Yeah, well, here.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: The sailing sloths did not leave the ship at Grand Cayman or Jamaica.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Ah, I love it. All right. Okay, so we're.
[00:28:22] Speaker C: We're right along to the next segment of the show.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah, let's move. Let's move along to Cozumel. No, no, we're going to move along to Cozumel and then cast away. Let's. Let's talk. What did you do what did you have planned for. Did you have anything planned for Cozumel? And then what did you do at Cozumel?
[00:28:35] Speaker D: Yeah, so I had booked the chocolate making tour, Chocolate history and chocolate making tour. And it's actually a chocolate and wine tour because it was the adult only.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: It is the. Is the chocolate seaside workshop tasting and wine pairing code Czech.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Thank you for those technical details, Gail. I love it.
[00:28:59] Speaker D: So we went to. Which lounge were we in, Gail?
[00:29:04] Speaker A: D Lounge.
[00:29:05] Speaker D: We were in D Lounge. I couldn't remember the name. Sorry. Still after effect of chemo, I can't remember details as quickly as I used to be able to. So we were in D Lounge and we had Chip and Dale stickers. And so they're calling everybody. And I realized. And I think Gail realized at about the same time as I did. I thought, but there are just families left in this room. As you're kind of looking around at the groupings around the room, I'm like, there are no other. Just adults. And we were the very. When we were the very last ones called, they said, are you guys Chip and Dale? You must be. And we're like, are we the only ones? And they're like, yeah, you are. So it ended up being a solo excursion for us, too, which was private. Private, yes. Which was very interesting day.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: So you two were the only two. I'm shocked.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Only two signed up for that. Yeah.
[00:29:56] Speaker D: So are we. We.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:59] Speaker D: We had the exact same reaction and discussed. We've discussed that multiple times since that. We were shocked that they kept it so very exciting.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: And sometimes, even if they don't cancel it, you might end up getting paired up with folks from, like, another cruise line. Right. Like if there's another ship import or something like that. But this ended up being completely private. Well, tell us about your private Chocolate and win excursion then, Gail, you start, and I'll.
[00:30:25] Speaker D: I'll add in.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: I will say this was by far the windiest sailing we have ever had. And it was over multiple days.
So knowing that we disembarked, we crossed the street into the overly touristy, not very enjoyable for us Plaza. We did have a guide from the tour group walking us through, which helped because you had to pick up your taxi on the back side of that sort of outdoor shopping center.
And then we made our way, I don't know, maybe 10 minutes or so down the road where they dropped us off at a seaside building. And I'm gonna have Kara finish this because she's gonna do a much better job than I will.
[00:31:19] Speaker D: So we were at Stingray beach at building right beside that, which is a really pretty area. And we met our. Our guide, I think Wendy was her name, Wendy. And there were actually three staff to the two of us. So that was interesting. There was somebody shadowing Wendy who was sort of learning the ropes. So she was sitting there listening and then another staff person that was there. So Wendy gave us a great history of chocolate and how chocolate is made and all of. And how the cocoa bean is harvested and all of those things. We had done something similar in April when we were in Orlando at the Museum of Chocolate that's in Orlando, which is a. It's a. It's an okay experience there. This was much more in depth and much more kind of hands on. She would hand us different, like cocoa beans and. And things like that. So it was very interesting. She was lovely. And then they gave us. The two of us had a grinder and they put cocoa beans in it with some cinnamon sticks. And we ground it. I. I ground it. And Gail. And we made our own little chocolate bars out of that. And they. So you can do it is a wine tasting as well. Gail generally just does not drink. I'm still dealing with some final numbers from cancer that need to come back down before I can have another drink again. So we. We had them skip the wine pairing, which I think they were like, what.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: They were a little confused, but that's okay.
[00:32:51] Speaker D: That's not normal. I will say, though, it was still a really good value. Like, that was one of the things about Particular Excursion for the. For the price that we paid, it was an exceptionally good value. And if there had been wine with it, it would have been like. I would have thought they definitely would have lost money. And I would have said that even if we weren't the only ones on it, it was a really affordable option.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: What was. Do you remember the ballpark of what the price was per person?
[00:33:17] Speaker D: It's like $65 a person. So it was really, really affordable for something like that.
And. And we also did at the end of the. After we made the little chocolate bars and put our name in them, and they sort of took them and wrapped them for us all nicely and packed them. We also did a chocolate tasting. So that was the part that would have been with the wine. And we tasted 10 different chocolates. And the thing about these chocolates is they are actually made on the island. Now, the cacao beans come from the mainland, but they're made there on the island. And it was really, really good. We met some folks who they came into the little. They have just a real little storefront area right there too. And there were some folks who came in who were staying in the area and they had come in specifically to get some of the cocoa bean products that they make in there. So they have like a lotion. They have vanilla which we brought home a jar of the vanilla that had cocoa beanie. The honey. Sorry, honey that had vanilla beans in it. I knew I was saying that wrong.
So that was also quite good. And I'm enjoying that immensely in my tea in the, in the morning. So it was a great excursion. I or Port Adventure.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: We took pictures at the end. The building was 100% enclosed, air conditioned. They did have to turn the air conditioning off while we were making the. The chocolate view out onto the ocean. It was beautiful.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Now was it mostly milk chocolate, dark chocolate or a combination thereof?
[00:34:54] Speaker D: So what we made was a, a dark chocolate. We tasted the 10 chocolates we tasted. Gail probably has them written down. There was. There was one white chocolate which was actually quite tasty. Neither of us likes white chocolate, but this one was delicious.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: I know white chocolate is not chocolate. It's a crime against chocolate.
[00:35:13] Speaker D: We agree with you completely. Yeah, this actually was good. So I, I was shocked at that. And then we had, we had a. About six or seven of them that were flavored and they were all dark chocolate. I think of a dark chocolate variety. Two really dark, dark chocolate, just plain dark chocolates and then I think one milk chocolate. So it was mostly dark chocolate.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: The best by far was the dark chocolate with cinnamon.
Brought some of that home. But then they also luckily warned us, us there was piece with peppers.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Oh, like hot, like jalapeno, like hot peppers or something.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: One little corner and my palate was gone.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: Yeah, it was good though. I enjoyed it. I don't, I don't like a lot, a lot of spice, but it was, it was fun to, to eat.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: I enjoy, I enjoy chocolate with a little bit of chili pepper in it. There's a, a place in Portland, Oregon that does. They make a moonstruck chocolate. They make a, they call it a Mexi Mocha. And it's got chili powder in it. Yeah, it's nice, a hint of it, but what you're describing maybe just a bit too much.
[00:36:25] Speaker D: Yeah, this was so I like a chili mocha coffee. I'm. I keep the. Like when Starbucks did the chili mocha a few years ago, I found the sort of recipe so I can make that myself. I love that this was beyond that.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: So A little, A little too spicy. All right, well, sounds like a really nice day in Cozumel. Let's talk about cat Castaway Key. You guys are pros. You've been to Castaway a whole bunch of times.
Just another relaxing day on the beach at Castaway Cay.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Fun fact. I was also in a walking boot for this trip.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Gail. Oh, wow.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: And when it happened about three, two or three weeks before the trip, I was basically to the doctor, I'm like, you, you tell me whatever I've got to do where we're going.
So we, because Kara has a thing for Pluto, that's her character.
And I mean, don't we all have.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: A little bit of a thing for Pluto?
[00:37:26] Speaker A: We knew he was going to be out, so I, we actually walked to Mount Rushmore, got the pictures just before lunch, did a little bit of shopping, went to cookies, had lunch, and trammed our way back to the ship.
[00:37:49] Speaker D: I think we stepped, like, onto the sand at Mount Russmore, and Gail's like, yep, sand in the boot.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Sand in the boot is not. I cannot imagine that being a good experience.
Well, and funny enough, you know, we, we went to Castaway a couple of times on our, on our most recent trip on the Treasure. And then the fantasy back, sort of back to back, we would call it a pivot or a side to side because there was a day in between. But yeah, we actually didn't hardly spend much time on. I mean, I, I, I had to do runs on each, each visit to Castaway.
[00:38:23] Speaker C: So we, we did not get off at Castaway to, to, to do the beach, relax anywhere. We did not have lunch at Castaway. We just got off and did our.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Runs and did our runs and went back and. Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker D: And so I think we debated not even getting off for lunch, but then we just decided, ah, we're here, we might as well.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, there's, I, I personally like the ribs on Castaway a lot. And you enjoy.
[00:38:47] Speaker C: To be fair to our listeners out there, it was, it's, it's no shade on Castaway. It was the first cruiser on was the Treasure, and we really just wanted to stay on and experience the Treasure as much of the ship as we could while, while we were on it. And then the second cruise, we were just in, like, complete relaxation mode. Like, we didn't get off the ship well, but hardly at all.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: And you're also forgetting, Brian, that the weather in the wintertime and this is when you guys were there as well. Kara and Gail, you were there at the end of, at the end of November or early December, you might, based on your dates. And so, and we were there in, in late December and it's, the water is cold, so it's not, I'm not saying it's like a horrible beach day. It's still a lovely beach day. If you're, particularly if you're laying out in the sun, it's really nice, but the water, definitely colder. So it's not like when you go to Castaway in, I don't know, the spring or the summer where it's really hot and you want to be in the water the whole time. So it's just a different experience. It could be windy and whatnot there.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: And that's coming from two people from Seattle where the shorts come out at 60 degrees.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we're. Yeah. Listen, I was perfect weather for running. I mean it was like in the 60s. I was running on Castaway or maybe Even the low 70s, but thrilled to, to run in that kind of weather and not like 80°. I don't run on Castaway in July or August. Those people are crazy. Yeah.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation? Great news. The fabulous team over at My Path Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. My Path Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney 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 Alani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to MyPathUnwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOMYPATHunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks MyPath Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Anyway, well, let's, let's jump back onto the beautiful Disney fantasy. What all did you when you guys weren't being sloths, what all did you get up to on the ship? What kinds of activities were you really, you know, looking Forward to and taking advantage of on the ship.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: I think there are a couple of things and one of them is always going to be like 80s and 90s trivia kinds of things. And we got really lucky because one night we had a duo of doing dueling pianos.
You want to say more about that?
[00:41:45] Speaker B: We've never, we've never had that on board. I'm so jealous. I've heard of it, but I've. On board. But we've never had it on board.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: Board.
[00:41:52] Speaker D: So we went to the tube and stayed up well past my bedtime that.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Night, honestly was after midnight.
[00:42:02] Speaker D: Yes, it was. I went to bed.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. You went to bed the next day. You didn't go to bed.
[00:42:09] Speaker D: But we had the, the dueling pianos. They were fantastic. And they did two sets. What they do, what this particular group does is they take requests from the audience. Audience and they make their set list up as they go along. And so it's part, you know, surprise tour of what they're going to play, part sing along.
And they were, it was a husband and wife couple. They were extremely talented. It was a ton of fun. We enjoyed that immensely.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: But you could also tell there it was, it was a lot of newer or first time sailors. Because first of all, the tube was not, not full for any of those things, including 90s trivia. And even when they did it, the, the loud community, boisterous sing along aspect was severely lacking. And you could tell for those of us who had done this before, we're looking around like get into it people. What are you doing?
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Yeah, we're like. You're like, we're at jelly rolls. Everybody's supposed to be singing along, right? Like yeah, yeah. I mean there are dueling piano bars as all around the country. I mean in several, you know, major cities. But at Disney, Jelly rolls is famous. Right. Everybody goes and you know, pays money to have the dueling piano.
Piano players play their song. Right. You request a song, they play it and of course you sing along. That's. That's what dueling pianos is. It's a big giant sing along. Really?
[00:43:37] Speaker D: Yeah. And we have had jelly rolls on our list of things to do so many trips and have just not. I've been once for an event, but Gail and I have not made it usually because it's my bedtime.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and there's so many things to do. That's the other part is there's so many things to do. Right. And so. And it only is really convenient if you're staying somewhere like on the boardwalk. Right, like in one of those.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Typically we do.
[00:44:01] Speaker D: Yeah, that's our favorite area.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah, Boardwalk or, or dolphin or swan or beach and yacht club. Right, like that. If you're staying at any of those is like, then Jolly Rolls is convenient. If you're staying anyplace else. Not really convenient because then you, you would have to like take an Uber or something to get back because the buses are done for the night probably at that point. Well, that, that sounds, I mean, super fun. Did you guys, did you guys win at any of the trivias that you did?
[00:44:29] Speaker A: So let's talk a little bit about Marvel trivia, shall we?
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Oh, God.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Marvel trivia, the hardest one.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They go deep dive. Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: Moderate to highly moderate Marvel fan. I like to go because it's entertaining to watch the trivia because it does tend to be among the hardest of all the trivias. So I went one day and sort of whatever. And then they were doing Marvel Face off, which if you know anything about that, that is by far hands down the hardest one.
And Kara was, I don't know, probably napping. Let's be real. And so I went by myself again for entertainment value. And very quickly, I somehow found myself on stage with a 10 year old.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Oh, my God, I love this. That's amazing.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Gayle in my boot on a rocking ship with nothing to hold onto in front of people, trying to recognize faces of Marvel characters as fast as humanly possible.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: So because I am a relative, a realist, sorry, I'm not a realtor, I realize I know who I am, I know where I am, and I am about to get schooled by this 10 year old and boy, did I ever. So I was very happy with my second place keychain that I came back to the room and I show Kara and she's like, what happened?
But then later in the sailing, there's another Marvel trivia we decide, hey, we'll go. Not much else going on. Somehow, some way, we blazed through those questions and came home with our Chip and Dale winner medallion.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. That's amazing. I love that.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: I will say we have a love hate relationship with the trivia. We actually, actually stopped playing DCL trivia because it just got too stressful and I had gotten to the point where I was studying on the cruise and that doesn't make for a fun vacation.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with you. No studying on the cruises. If you know it, you know it. If you don't, you don't. And if it Gets too stressful, you don't go. I. I'm with you on that. Yeah. Too. Too much pressure. Too much pressure. The only one that we did, we don't ever do well on DCL trivia, but we did well on, like, the DC. They had, like, a DCL 25th anniversary trivia. And that one, we actually, we. We won that one time. But that was in part because of the folks that we were with. They were better than us.
[00:47:08] Speaker C: For yourself, Sam, I've won some trivia without you.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: No, no, I'm not talking.
[00:47:12] Speaker C: I'm just.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Brian, I wasn't talking about trivia, and I wasn't talking about trivia in general. I was talking about DCL trivia specifically. Brian. Like, I'm not talking about touch.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: I don't touch Disney trivia or DCL trivia. On board with a 10 poll because it's, like, so specific sometimes. And someone in there has.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Saying she had to study. She was trying to study, and so she stopped going. Yeah. So anyway. All right, well, okay, so big winners. Chip and Dale medals. We. I have to tell you, we don't have the Chippendale medal. We have, like, I think a Captain Minnie, and we have one of the ship ones, and then we have the old Mickey ones.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: We only have the old ones.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: The old Mickey ones. Yeah. Yeah. So now you have the Chip, Fancy Chip and Dale one. Love that. Now. Now it's so. Because you have to try and collect all the different characters plus the ship one. Right. So they have all the Fab Five characters, I think, plus Daisy, plus Chip and Dale. But the Chip and Dale one is one medal. So thankfully, you don't have to get a Chip and a Dale. And then they have one that has, like, a ship on it. So. Yeah, there's just too many to collect. Well, let's pivot to shows. You guys have been on the fantasy before. Did you go see the shows in the main theater? Did you go see any of the Variety acts? And, you know, if. So, were there any big surprises or changes from. Obviously, the shows haven't necessarily changed, but anything different about your theater experience on this cruise?
[00:48:40] Speaker D: Did we see any of the variety acts? I don't remember. I don't think we did in the theater.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: We went to part of Junk just because it was before something else we were going to. And we did sit in the back and bounce out early.
[00:48:52] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. I was like, we. I think we did one. And they're a drum group from.
Yeah, I think somewhere.
Yeah. With a nice accent. And they were entertaining.
I had enough, though. The amount we saw was just the right amount. It was perfect. So it worked out well. We have skipped Aladdin once because we. The previous time we'd had gotten a bad genie. And then we regretted it when we saw the show on the last night with the flower. Believe, believe, believe.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Sam says the man with the flower.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: The man with the flower, that's right.
[00:49:33] Speaker D: And I'm glad we did not skip it. The genie was great.
So kudos to. To the, to the cast, as always. But we saw that and believe.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: We skipped Frozen. We saw Aladdin as a matinee still. The matinee was about two thirds full. There was a. A slight technical pause in the show, but it was great.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Yeah, I saw Aladdin on the Fantasy, you know, just a few weeks after you all, and I thought it was actually really good. I hadn't seen it in a while. Also, I had skipped it probably the last time that we had been on the Fantasy, and it had been a couple years already anyway. And yeah, it was really. It was really good. So, yeah, it's very much hit or miss, depending upon, I think, your genie. But if you get a good genie, me, it's a very. It's a wonderful production. They. I mean, all the productions, they do a really good job. Even the ones that I like to make fun of, like Believe and Dreams, which I don't fully. It's not that I hate them. I really don't hate them. They just, like. I just kind of think they're a little. You know, there's parts of them that are kind of dopey because they're just trying to string together a plot of different songs. But they all have, like, heartwarming parts. They all have some great musical numbers. Like, they're all. And the cast is amazing in general. So it's one of those things where, if you haven't seen them, I would say actually don't miss them.
They're really all quite good. Now, you mentioned Apollo dinner you did on this cruise. Always gotta ask about adult dining because that's, I think, one of the things Disney does really, really well. How was your Palo dinner?
[00:51:14] Speaker A: We're both nodding at each other.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Sorry, I didn't correct Gail. Why don't you ask?
[00:51:19] Speaker A: We all always. We always do Palo dinner, period, full stop. We've had some less than ideal experiences in the last few years.
It's also been a little while since we've been on the Fantasy. Sad to say. Everything was back to five gold stars, food the service, our server was actually relatively new and was bouncing weeks between Palo and main dining room. He was spectacular. To the point we told the maitre d, you guys need to leave him up here.
So it was just wonderful, as always.
[00:52:00] Speaker D: It was. It was perfect.
[00:52:01] Speaker C: Nice. How was the food generally on the cruise outside of adult dining?
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Hit or miss?
[00:52:07] Speaker D: Yeah. We had a couple of less than ideal meals that we were. That were surprising. And, you know, when you've cruised multiple times, you have favorite restaurants, you have favorite menus, you have all of those things. We know when to skip something that we're just like, we just don't like this. And there were still a couple of things even on. On meals that we were like, oh, we really like this one. This should be fine. That we're like, we maybe should have gotten chicken strips tonight. This was less so.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: We.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: We skipped all of animators.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: I know. No truffle presets. I'm sorry.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:52:44] Speaker D: But the only thing on that menu I do like, though, is the truffle.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna give a hot take. When we were on the fantasy, my truffle presets were a little bit undercooked. Really very good.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:52:57] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: We had our second night in Enchanted Garden, which. Enchanted Garden usually has our favorite menu with the sea bass, but the next night, Cara ordered the New York strip, and it was so bad that she said, no, please bring me something else.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Was that bad of a cut? Yeah, sometimes.
I will say sometimes I have had actually a decent New York strip on in main dining, and then I have had a really bad one, like, really gristly and, you know, fatty and not just terrible. So there. There is some inconsistency there, for sure. That's a. That's a bummer. I.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: It's funny. The last. The last two cruises, we did both cruises one night, we were just, like, not excited about the menu, and we just went and got some chicken wings and tater tots in the pub. So, you know, I. It is an option. It is an option, especially if you've cruised a lot, so. Yeah.
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Well. And you can always order room service. I mean, we. We always forget about room service because we hate waiting for room service service. But it's definite. I mean, room service is included on a Disney cruise line cruise. You only tip your delivery person, and otherwise, it's all. I mean, there are some items that you can order for a charge, but most of the food on the room service menu is included. Yeah.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: We did dinner on the veranda one night. We agreed that while the Fantasy is hands down Kara's favorite and probably my top high, at this given point in time, you could tell the dining room service was hurting from the crew that they had lost over to the Treasure.
It was good, but it was not where it had been before. To the point our assistant server, it was his first night, he was great, but you could definitely tell that.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and we, interestingly enough, we had a assistant server on the Fantasy. It was her first cruise over New Year's Eve. She ended up being fantastic. And she actually came from, from a river cruising background. So she had been a server on a river cruise. So she had wasn't like her first time serving, but first time serving in a large cruise ship setting. They're very, very different a river cruise from a large ship cruise cruising. But she ended up being great.
Whereas on the Treasure we had a brand new assistant server and an experienced server and didn't have a great dining experience.
So, you know, there. I do think you're right, Gail, that as they, as the cruise line expands because they're spreading out their talent over more ships and they end up having to bring on new people and then they have to train those new people and some of them work out great and some of them don't work out so great. Right. Even, you know, you can have new person who you can tell is going to be amazing, but just needs time and you can have a new person who is just not good from the start. But I do think that's going to be a challenge and it's interesting. It's already a challenge with just the Treasure. Imagine a year from now as we're recording, it's j. Well, less than a year from now, it's January of 2025 when we're talking a, you know, in 11 months they're going to have two new ships out. And so we're talking one of them is. And one of them is a mega ship.
Yeah. So. So the amount of crew that they are going to not just hire, but then also spread out their experienced crew, some of whom won't even be that experienced, some of whom will only be, you know, on for maybe one or two contracts by then. I, I do think it's going to present challenges on the service side of things. I'm. I'm crossing my fingers because I do know that Disney does really great training and whatnot. But like, I do think there's going to challenges and bumps in the road and we're all gonna see those growing pains.
[00:56:51] Speaker C: Our assistant server on the Treasure, the first one was left at port one day.
That was after he'd gone through all of the training, he'd gone through the preview cruises and everything else, and still.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: He didn't make it. We don't know when he got off, but we had a different assistant server by night three who was also brand new.
[00:57:12] Speaker C: What I'm also seeing is this dynamic across the different ships now where there are preferred ships, non preferred ships. And it used to be when you have four ships, the one doing the seven nights, sure it's preferred, but the dream, the fantasy, they were all doing kind of similar stuff. The Europe ship was preferred if you could get on it for European season, but it was the same ship every year. Year after year, it was pretty much the same ship. Now you've got the Treasure that has all the new stuff on it and does seven night sailing. So if you're doing the wish, you kind of want to be on the Treasure so you're not in constant embark debark mode. And then the wish kind of turns into the training ship, you know, and the fantasies no longer doing seven nights, doing five nights. So maybe it's less preferable than the Treasure, but more preferable. It's just I can tell that there are crew who are angling to get to other ships in other spots. And I think that's going to become more of a problem the more ships that they have, that some of the ships may, may see an uptick like their highest service, but also most expensive, longest itineraries, you know, that sort of thing is a opposed to.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: And one, one rumor we heard and I don't know, I can't verify the truth of this at this point, but one rumor we heard from crew is that with the Adventure, there might have to do a different model for paying the servers because the tipping culture, there is no tipping culture in Asia. They don't tip. And like this is one challenge for when, when the ships go over to Europe and when the ships go to Australia, New Zealand, there's already a challenge that happens, but it's only for a season, it's only for a few months, entire year. Whereas a ship that's permanently in Asia, the adventure, they may have to pay the servers differently than they do on the other ships because it's not clear that they really can just do gratuities like they do in the, in the US So that, that'll be interesting.
[00:59:10] Speaker C: Well, let's get back to their cruise, though, Sam, instead of our. Our banter.
So before we get over to Rapid Fire, Gail, Cara, anything that we didn't talk about from this cruise that you wanted to be sure to share, maybe.
[00:59:25] Speaker A: The holiday deck party, especially because I heard it on a recent podcast and I will have to counter that review.
We did not find it to be enjoyable or high quality.
In fact, I will easily say it was the worst deck show I've ever seen on a Disney ship. And that is aside from the fact that it was so windy you could not walk straight up on deck 12. I had to take off my ears and put them around my neck because they were going to be in the drink if I didn't. And I'm sure for little kids, maybe it was fine, but the costuming, the. The music, it just didn't feel like a Disney deck show.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: Oh, wow. And I'm surprised they didn't move it inside, given the wind conditions. Yeah. Because they usually. I wonder if that impacted the dancing in the show, you know, in a more technical sense because of the level of wind. But normally when it has that issue, they move it inside or, you know, they abbreviate it. They don't actually do the whole thing.
[01:00:43] Speaker D: Yeah, it was. It was not good. The. We. We enjoyed, you know, the other duck show, but not that one at all.
[01:00:52] Speaker B: Wow. Interesting. All right, well, there you have it, people. That's a hot take that. You know, the. That and the truffle presets and. And you guys might become the new DCL duo villains or at least like the evil sloths.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: Instead of this podcast, I was like, oh, really? Leaning toward Josh Wilson Land. I've got to come up with something else so we don't get there. And here we are.
[01:01:21] Speaker B: There you are. Just.
Well, we're really going to get murdered.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: On Rapid Fire here.
[01:01:29] Speaker B: Oh, no. Oh, no. All right, well, we're going to do. Well, I'll let Brian intro it because.
[01:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say with. With that. I mean, Sam is turning up the volume on the judgment almost immediately, calling you villain. So I'm going to hand you back over to her while she's in her prime for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and a dash of judgment or the round we know as Rapid Fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:01:53] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to change up this Rapid Fire. Given a little bit of the tone, the tone of the show.
We're still going to do some favorites, but I'm also going to do, like, I also want to Hear some worsts. Okay, so I'm going to ask a couple of worse. On this show, we're gonna get so many complaints.
No, no, no. We're not gonna do favorite character in movie and song, because we've done that. And. And those. Those don't intend to change too much for people. People are, you know, if you're, like, a loyal Mickey or Pluto fan, you're probably staying there. Okay, but let's. Let's start with your favorite onboard Disney Cruise Line stage show. So main stage show, Walt Disney, the theater. I'm going to start with Cara because Gail is giving me a look like she's, like, about to melt down. So, Cara, what's your favorite?
[01:02:44] Speaker D: The one that I'm looking forward to seeing again the most is Little Mermaid.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great one. All right, Gayle, it's not Beauty and.
[01:02:52] Speaker A: The Beast.
[01:02:55] Speaker B: But which one is it?
[01:02:57] Speaker A: Gayle, I am a sucker for a good, mellow Melody Tear Jerker. And so Disney Dreams is my show.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: I knew you were gonna say Disney Dreams when you said Melody Tearjerker. Then you know it's Disney Dreams. All right. Okay. All right. What is your favorite bar space on Disney Cruise Line? So you guys have been on all the ships, I think, except the treasure. Is that right? Yes. Okay, you're nodding. Yeah. Okay. What? What? Yeah, what's your favorite bar space? Because it can't be the Haunted Mansion parlor yet.
[01:03:26] Speaker D: The sports bar. It's not Keg and compass. What is it?
[01:03:29] Speaker A: Oh, gills.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Oh, gills. Yeah, that's my favorite. You too, Gail.
[01:03:35] Speaker C: But.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: Oh, gills on the magic. Yes, because of the space.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: And it just feels bigger and. And oftentimes more lively.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it does feel bigger. I don't know if it is actually bigger, but I do like the layout better on the classic. Sick. Yeah. All right, favorite rotational dining.
Rapunzel's Rapunzel.
[01:04:00] Speaker D: Okay, Cara, I'm gonna go with the because it's ambiance over menu, but I'm still gonna go with any of the royals, the royal court, royal table, whatever it is. All of those are my favorites.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: All right, now, least favorite rotational dining. All right, let's start with you again. Again, Gail.
[01:04:19] Speaker A: Animators.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: It's not ambiance, it's menu.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: I love the ambiance of both of them, but it's the menu. And I'm not a fan of the Drawn with Magic. The show.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: Oh, oh, Animation magic.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: Maybe it's because we don't have kids. It's absolutely because I cannot draw, so.
[01:04:45] Speaker B: It'S to Avoid personal embarrassment. I understand. Karen, what about. About you?
[01:04:49] Speaker D: So I. I love the animation magic show and I love the ambiance of animators palette, but the menus across all the ships. Right now, the menus in animators palette are just our least favorite. And it's disappointing to me because I would force her to go if I liked the food. Like, I don't have any problem.
[01:05:06] Speaker B: I understand that there's. I like the. I like Night One animators menu because I like that pork chop and I like the pasta meal. The, like, it's like a Bolognese pasta. That's actually. Actually pretty good. You should. Next time you're on the ship, if you decide to go to Animators, try the bolognese pasta. I don't think you can. It's. It's real standard. It's not like anything fancy, but I don't think it'll really disappoint. All right, let's talk favorite port aside from Castaway, because I want. Because most people's favorite port is going to be Castaway. But. Yeah, what's a favorite port that you've gotten to go to? And you know, we. We lost your. Your European episode, so maybe it will be somewhere from there, but I don't know, maybe it' cozumel because of this chocolate. Cara, let's start with you.
[01:05:52] Speaker D: Stockholm.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: Stockholm. Nice. All right, Gail, I would say it's.
[01:05:56] Speaker A: A toss up between Stockholm and Monaco.
[01:05:58] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Yeah. See all of them from your European cruise. Sorry, folks, that we lost the audio.
All right. Okay. Aquadonk, Aqua Duck, Aqua Mouse. Which one is the best and which one is the worst? Worst.
[01:06:15] Speaker A: Aquaduck is the best. And the Dunk, which we will not go on.
[01:06:20] Speaker B: Sorry.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: Brian is the worst.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: Cara, what about you? Same.
[01:06:24] Speaker D: I do like Aqua Mouse, but I. I love water slides of all kinds. And I won't do AquaDunk, so.
[01:06:29] Speaker B: Okay, there you go. So Brian loses. AquaDunk is the worst. All right. Okay. Now, of course, the most important question. I think this is the most important question. What? Which one is your favorite favorite ship? And. And then you can give a little bit of a why too. Carol, we'll start with you.
[01:06:47] Speaker D: Well, the fantasy always has been my favorite ship. I have loved the crew. I will say this is the lowest rating because we. We do that survey with great expectation. This is probably the lowest rating we've ever given it. It was definitely not a five star all the way across. It was still an amazing ship. And, and I will say, you know, as. As Disney villainy as we got on here today. Any day on a Disney ship is better than any day on land. 100%. And we're so blessed every day that we're there. But the. I'm. I'm excited. I actually really enjoyed the wish too. I know that is a hot take in and of itself. So I am excited to experience the destiny. We have the destiny booked and then the treasure we're talking about. So I'm excited to experience them.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: All right, Gail, what's your review? Which one's the best?
[01:07:34] Speaker A: It's a toss up between the fantasy and the magic, and that can. I can ebb and flow between. Between those two on any given day.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel you there. They're both great. And sometimes it's about which one you're on or which one you were most recently on or great serving team. That kind of stuff. All those things can kind of factor it at any given moment. All right, now, of course, the last question of Rapid Fire is your bucket list cruise. So bucket list cruise that you haven't been on. You could go anywhere in the world on a Disney Cruise Line ship, and it doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Cruise Line currently goes. You're getting on that ship tomorrow. Kara, where are you going?
[01:08:12] Speaker D: Disney actually made my dream come true because we're gonna go on Tokyo in 29 when that. When a ship gets ported out of Japan. So we are. We are excited about that.
[01:08:24] Speaker B: I am.
[01:08:24] Speaker D: Gail's just gonna come along.
[01:08:27] Speaker C: I'm already penciling. Penciling you in for a show about the OLC ship.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: Exactly. 2029. All right, Gail, what about you?
[01:08:35] Speaker A: I'm not really excited about that flight to Tokyo, but I do. I look at the efficiency of a ship and the parks at the same time, and because that's where my best friend wants to go, then I want to go, too. Besides that, I would do Northern Europe again.
[01:08:54] Speaker B: Nice. Love it. Love it. Well, thank you both for playing.
Even though there were some hot takes you both get, I'm going to give you both. Both a B. How about that?
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Unacceptable.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: We must be better.
[01:09:11] Speaker C: Well, you teased us in the beginning of the show, and I don't think the cruise that your next cruise is the one in 2029.
So what's next, Carrie?
[01:09:24] Speaker A: You get all the glory on this.
[01:09:25] Speaker D: Yeah. Even though Gail should. So in the. And I'm going to. I'm going to try not to tear up during the. In some of the darkest parts of my cancer journey. Gayle came home one day and she said, hey, you Know that Tulip Time cruise you've been wanting to do? Adventures by Disney is going to do one next April, and I booked it today.
So we are heading to London for a few nights, and then we're going to take the train to Amsterdam, and we're going to do the Tulip Time river cruise with Adventures by Disney.
[01:09:55] Speaker A: Sorry, guys.
[01:09:56] Speaker B: Oh, you are going to. Oh, I love this. You're going to love. You're going to have a wonderful time with ABD on Ama Water Ways. It's going to be. Yeah. So this is the Netherlands.
[01:10:06] Speaker C: No, but wait, is this your first ABD for both of us?
[01:10:08] Speaker D: It's our first abd.
[01:10:10] Speaker C: Oh, have you got the box of goodies yet?
[01:10:12] Speaker D: Has that come in? Not yet.
[01:10:13] Speaker B: Not yet.
[01:10:14] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:10:15] Speaker A: The box arrived today.
[01:10:21] Speaker D: I can see because Gail and I. Part of what got lost in the northern Europe is Gail and I now share a house. We bought a house together in 23, right before we went on that college part two.
And I saw her go outside on the front door camera and get something, and I was like, what is she. There's nothing that should have come today.
[01:10:43] Speaker B: Oh, it's an Amazon package, right. That Gail ordered, like with toilet paper or something.
[01:10:48] Speaker D: So now I know what it was.
[01:10:50] Speaker C: So tag us in the unboxing video. I want to share this because I love it. I love it. Do that.
This. This April. Is it coming up in two months?
[01:11:01] Speaker D: Yes. Yes.
[01:11:02] Speaker C: All right, so I'm penciling you in for a show that we have to.
[01:11:05] Speaker B: Pencil you in for. Sure.
[01:11:06] Speaker C: I want to hear about this.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: And they're going on the Destiny later this year. Are you guys on. Are you on the maiden voyage or are you on a different voyage?
[01:11:13] Speaker A: We. We were on it between Christmas and New Year's, and honestly, we looked at the price tag and we were like, this is. No, we. So we bounced it to January. Okay, so we've got April. We've got January. I'm really hoping something happens to spontaneously pop up between those two dates, but.
[01:11:33] Speaker B: We'Ll wait and see. Maybe something on the treasure.
[01:11:35] Speaker C: I think I was gonna say you need the treasure.
[01:11:37] Speaker D: Yeah, we would take that. We would absolutely take.
[01:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you need a complete.
Well, you'd have to complete the Big Hero six before you complete the Seven Dwarfs, you know?
[01:11:50] Speaker A: Yes, ma'am.
[01:11:52] Speaker B: I love it. Well, you guys, this is so exciting. We can't wait to hear about your trip to the Netherlands. I'm sure that's going to be an amazing Adventures by Disney. You obviously have to come back to talk to us about that before we say goodbye. We're just expecting assuming you're coming. So yeah, thanks for confirming Kara, but I'm just assuming you're coming. But before we say goodbye, we got to let Gail tell folks where they can reach her if they want to book their travel with her.
[01:12:22] Speaker A: Yep, my name is Gail Hartle Road. I am with off to Neverland Travel and it's Gail with a Y.
[01:12:28] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much again. And yeah, echo everything Sam just said and I seriously am like where is the gap in the schedule where you can get this this show out for your abd? So please reach out. But for now, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences with with us and our listeners. We so appreciate it.
[01:12:46] Speaker B: And congrats Carol on being done with treatment. Yay.
[01:12:55] Speaker C: Well thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple 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 the a DCL duoypathunwinding.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. 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 or patreon.com DCLDUO also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here at least, and a few blog articles that we've written, so DCLDuo.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also, of course, email
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