[00:00:00] Speaker A: It started raining right about the time that the tours were starting. And so, right, we're from California. We just, we're, we don't do great in the rain. So for us it was raining heavy. Probably for other people it was just a little bit of drizzle.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Sam and I would have just been like, where's the Gore Tex? Let's go.
Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And it is just me today, folks. Sam had an appointment come up last minute before the recording and so she is off doing that. But fear not, we have a fun topic, a fun guest, and so we will get you through your your dose of DCL Duo. But first, I've got to read a listener review. This one comes from Sammy Vo 8:20, who writes my Cruise. My Disney Cruise Go to actually is the title of the review and Sammy writes, After joining our cruises Facebook page, I read a recommendation to check out an episode of the DCL Duo featuring a New York Bermuda itinerary. I had been looking for Disney Cruise podcasts and was immediately hooked. I started listening to every episode that featured the dream or first timers. Whenever it was time to cook or clean, the DCL Duo podcast was on to make the time go faster. Soon I was learning about itineraries I'd never thought of or could only dream of experiencing. Listening to the DCL Duo podcast not only got me excited about my first cruise, but future cruises. The firsthand accounts of their guests are both informative and entertaining. I love that Brian and Sam are as passionate about Disney as I am, but also honest about shortcomings, even if they are a few. Even if they are few and far between. I appreciated that they took the time to answer my question both via email and on air. Thanks for the advice. We were in the third or fourth row of every stage show in the Walt Disney Theater. Much like the Burn Bomb book is the Disney bible for trips to the parks, the DCL Duo Podcast is my go to for all things Disney Cruise. Now that we're back from Bermuda, I can't wait to play my next sailing with the help of the DCL Duo. Well, Sammy, thank you for that, that, that copious review there. I really appreciate it and I'm glad that our tips helped out. We always wonder. Sometimes we give some tips on the air and if people follow them, never quite sure if they work out in their favor. So good to know. Good to get that feedback. I'm sure Sam will be Happy to hear that review as well. So thank you so much for leaving that and for all of you out there, if you want to help support the show, best way to do it, head over to Apple Podcasts, leave us one of those five star reviews, hit the five stars over there or leave us a written review and we will leave it read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. But with that, I want to shift gears and welcome back to the show. Sabrina. Welcome, Sabrina.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Thank you, Brian.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: I am excited to have you back. The last time we talked to you for anyone out there listening, was episode 361 about a fantasy cruise that you took. But tonight we're going to be talking to you about one of our favorite itineraries, the Southern Caribbean. Although a little different than the one that we've done, but still excited to talk about it nonetheless. Before we dive into talking about your Southern Caribbean cruise though, Sabrina, remind folks of your Disney Cruise line background.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Sure. Started cruising with Disney in 2007 and let's see, cruised in 2007, I think did the Wonder out of Port Canaveral and so that was the very first one when they did land and sea packages. So spent a few days at Walt Disney World in the scorching hot month of August and then got on, got on the Wonder and then just caught the cruising bug after that. So we, we, we tried another cruise line. We took two cruises on that other cruise line and now this cruise was number nine for us. Eight or nine, one of those. But for, for us with Disney, we've done some of the, is it Eastern Caribbean? We've done Western Caribbean, Bahamas obviously we did a Mediterranean, which we absolutely loved. And now we're here to talk about the Southern Caribbean, which we're really excited about. Just wasn't enough days. So definitely caught the bug.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Are there ever enough days on a Disney cruise? I mean I, I know some people are like, you know, I can't do it forever, but I, I think I'd love to do just like a world cruise length cruise on Disney Cruise Line. Although I, my pocketbook could ever afford it.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: So there, there is that, there is that. And, and we, we love this one and we were so excited about it because on the Fantasy last year we had a stop in Puerto Rico and so we thought, oh, we definitely want to come back here. This is a place. So when I saw this itinerary post and it's all these places that I've never been and my, my cruising pals have never been and so we thought, let's do this and it ports out of Puerto Rico. So even better, we can, we can spend a few days prior and hang out in Puerto Rico and just have a great time. And that's what we did. And I just say it was too short because we had a port stop every single day. And which is great, except I really only had one seating and I just wish we had one other sea day maybe thrown in there. Or I've heard of these 9 day Southern Caribbean or 11 day Southern Caribbean and I, I wish I could have been on one of those. But you know, I will take my seven day versus nothing.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: That's fine. Yeah, well, look, seven days on a Disney cruise is better than no days on a Disney cruise for sure. So I, I don't blame you. Let's talk about. So you were on the Magic for this sailing, is that right?
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Yes, on the Magic. And you know, our friends, which are our same cruising party from last year on the Fantasy, you know, the Fantasy was there first, you know, Disney Cruise Line experience. And so I thought, are they going to be okay on the Magic? It's smaller, it's older, it's, you know, I don't know. But then from the podcast I kept hearing, right, the Magic was coming out of dry dock. There was now this new soul cat lounge.
You know, it was, it was a shiny penny. So I was really excited at that point to get on it. And I thought, you know, even if it's not perfect and even if it's not the Fantasy, it's still a Disney cruise and we're still going to have a great time.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Was this your first time on one of the classic ships or had you been on like the Wonder before?
[00:06:23] Speaker A: I'd been on the Wonder and the Magic before, so this was actually the third time on the Magic, but I think my last time on the magic was maybe 2015.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Okay. So yeah, quite a while. And obviously the dry dock improvements. Sure. So what made you gravitate toward the Southern Caribbean as opposed to maybe another Magic sailing?
[00:06:42] Speaker A: We, my husband and I have done, you know, Eastern and Western before. And we were definitely looking for something unique. And so Southern Caribbean kind of scratched that itch. And these were all ports outside of Puerto Rico that we had never been to before. And I thought, oh, that would be great. Right? We've been to Cozumel, we've been to, you know, St. Thomas, we've been to those places and we love them, they're great. But having the opportunity to discover something that we hadn't before or maybe wouldn't easily get to that was really appealing. And then it just happened to be on the Magics and I thought, hey, okay, let's do it.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Nice, Nice. So this cruise went in and out of San Juan. Was it a round trip to San Juan or was it a one way out of San Juan?
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Round trip to San Juan. The cruise right before was the one way from maybe Fort, I think Fort Lauderdale to San Juan.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: We had some backers on the cruise, I thought.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. They seem to be present on every cruise now on Disney, the secret is out. What, what port stops did you have on this itinerary?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: So this one was jam packed with ports. It was a port every single day, 8am to 6pm which was great, just with one sea day. So we ported in St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Dominica, Barbados and Antigua and then back, you know, one day at sea, then back to Puerto Rico.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Say that one more time. Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Dominica Barbados. Yep.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Antigua.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Antigua. Okay, that's interesting. A seven night cruise with only one sea day. How was, I don't want to skip all the way into the cruise but like how was that? Because I actually, I'm a big fan of the sea day personally. But like overall was it nice not to have the sea day or did you miss it?
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I missed the sea day. So I was so excited about all the stops because I thought all of these places we've never been, they're tropical, they're beautiful. We're going during hurricane season, but fingers crossed everything will be okay. And thank goodness it was. And I was really excited about that and I thought something to do every day, something new. Great. But by about that third day I was tired and I just wanted a seed.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's always the thing that I, I, I appreciate the downtime that comes on cruising. There's, there's cruises you can pick out there that are intended not to be downtime, like Norway or Alaska or you know, going to Europe or port heavy, but in the Caribbean. I really, I really look forward to that. Like, you know, we're at a port but there's downtime. So I'll be interested to see how that plays out through your, you know, shore excursions, what she did off the ship and all that sort of stuff as we get into this more deeply. But so you, you mentioned you sailed during hurricane season. Did that help out with the price at all for Disney?
[00:09:38] Speaker A: I think it did. So we don't have children, so we are not Bound by school schedules or anything like that. So sailing off season, non summer, non spring break, non holidays, that works for us. And sometimes the pricing is a little bit lower. So that was another thing that was attractive, I thought Southern Caribbean, right? We had veranda rooms and the pricing was pretty comparable to what we paid for that Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral. So I thought, yeah, we, we have to do this. And sure it's during hurricane season, but you know, we'll just, we'll take the risk. We'll figure it out.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Hopefully by the time this show has come out, we will have more widely broadcast that. So we, we have started a new podcast, a second podcast called DCL Disney Cruise Line in a minute. It's meant to be sort of short snippet episodes to, you know, kind of 101, 401 curriculum for new cruisers. So very like one to three minutes each. But one of the things we were talking about recently as we were recording was timing and how timing can really influence then price. And so like sailing at shoulder seasons or during hurricane season, there's a gamble there. In hurricane season the weather might impact. Maybe I should ask this question. Did you have some trip insurance just in case?
[00:10:56] Speaker A: So my husband and I always talk about this and we roll the dice and we do not get trip insurance. Our friends are not as daring and they all got trip insurance just in case we did not. You know, another reason this. And we sailed during hurricane season. Before us we're like.
But another reason too that this was appealing to me. Now I'm remembering this when I was looking at the dates we flew out on election night. And so part of me was like, I need a little bit of escapism. I'm okay. Flying out on election night and landing in Puerto Rico the day after the election. And just, you know, a little bit of escapism is what I was looking for. So, so that kind of helped a little bit too. This cruise was a Friday to Friday, so as opposed to Saturday. So I think that kind of helped with some of our flights and pricing. We weren't flying on a Friday or Saturday, like over the weekend, coming back on a Saturday, so we flew out on a Tuesday. And yeah, things weren't crowded.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: And where were you flying from? Where, where, where about to.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: We live in California, so West Coast.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. That's a long, that's a long flight to get to San Juan for sure. I assume. Was it direct? I mean, I don't know if you can get.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: It was not. We, we did it was kind of a nightmare. Not a nightmare, but we, we did, let's see where, where we live in California. We had a quick layover, plane change in Phoenix and then Philadelphia.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Oh wow. So two, two stops.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, three hours in Philadelphia and then a direct from Philadelphia to San Juan. So we took the red eye out on Tuesday and then we ended up in San Juan about 2 2pm on Wednesday.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Okay. Still give you some, still gave you some time in San Juan though to enjoy pre cruise. Where did you, where'd you stay in San Juan?
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Yeah, there was a, there was a Courtyard Marriott that was maybe a mile, mile and a half from the port. So we stayed there. We're, we're a Marriott family, so we are happy to stay anywhere there's a Marriott. We already, we know what we're getting when we stay at a Marriott and it was super convenient. There were a lot of cruisers staying there. We found out on Friday morning as everyone was downstairs waiting for transportation. And it was just, it was really easy. It was walking distance. My husband actually got up one morning and went for a walk and he said, oh yeah, he sent us pictures of the magic when it was in port that was Friday morning and he said it's really close, we could probably walk there. And I thought I'm not dragging my suitcase downstairs and across the highway. So there were a lot of taxis available and the, the bell service just got us one of those taxi vans for five of us loaded all of our luggage. I think it was $40 to go the mile and a half. But we paid for convenience and that was fine.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the only port that I would still recommend the walking, actually there's two ports I recommend the walking strategy and because I've seen them, I'm sure that there might be others. One is in San Diego because you can stay at a hotel like right across and the other one is in Vancouver because you can actually stay in a hotel is basically sits on top of the cruise terminal. So you just walk right across the street again. I thought New Orleans would be one of these ports and we stayed really close to the port there in New Orleans. But then that turned out to be never walk to the New Orleans port if they ever go back there. It is not walkable or not easily accessible. So was the cruise leaving out? So we were just in San Juan on the fantasy over New Year's Eve and the, the pier that we were at was like right across from Old Town and there was like a little airport just kind of kitty corner to us. That the planes actually had to fly kind of around the cruise ships to land at. Is that where you just. Were you embarked too or were you in a different place? Okay, where were you?
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. We were closer to that T mobile entertainment district. So there's port on that side. So last year on the Fantasy when we visited Puerto Rico, we stopped at that port right across from Old Town, right where you're just right there. But embarking, it was the other port.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: When we were in port there, they had a ship and I'm trying to remember which cruise line it was. They might have been Viking, actually that was trying to do an embarkation out of that port. And it did strike me as like not a great port to try and embark out of because there was really no facility for everyone to like. It was just basically a long line out the street and down the sidewalk to get on. So. Yeah, that's good to hear. How was the. Well, actually before we get to the port, what did you get up to and did you have anything planned in San Juan pre cruise that you really wanted to do?
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so the only thing we really had planned aside of sightseeing and you know, checking out local cuisine, was we took a tour of Casa Bacardi, so the Bacardi Rum factory. And that was a lot of fun. We, we took a midday tour, I don't know, one or two o'clock. And we were there for, I don't know, maybe two hours. And it was a lot of fun. It was about, I took some notes, it was about $50 per person. And this included two drinks pre tram tour and then a little tram tour of their facilities. And then there was also a tasting of different types of rumors. We had some great guides. They were entertaining, they were informative and so it, they just made the whole experience fantastic. And it was $50 well spent for what we received.
And there was even something at the end that our friends opted to do. They bottled their own spirits. So that was a lot of fun. They made a custom label. So now they have these beautiful bottles, custom labels of, you know, the Bacardi of their choice and the wax seal. It was, it was a whole production.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Nice, nice.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So that was a lot of fun.
After that we wanted to see the T mobile entertainment center and because we had spent time in old San Juan before on our last year when we were there, so we thought, oh, let's go check that out. And we heard it was like an outdoor mall type of thing. Lots of shopping and restaurants and good people Watching and whatnot. A convention center. So we thought, let's go over there and took a quick Uber there. And then we. We walked up and it was closed for a private event, so that's okay. We found a. A local, like a restaurant not too far from there, just across the. The waterway, and we had dinner there. And it was just really good, people watching and just walking around and taking some pictures. So that was a lot of fun. My husband actually got a little bit more adventurous where he.
He, you know, found a local place to get a haircut. He went and checked out some local cafes and was just, you know, exploring San Juan on his own, walking around, and he loved it.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Nice. Nice Old Town especially. Well, Old Town is hilly, but ultimately San Juan's fairly walkable, so I think that's. That, like, exploring on your own is an option. Did you try. So Sam will kill me if I don't ask if he tried any mufungo while you were there or not. The, like, the. The known dish of Puerto Rico, I feel like, is this mufungo. Did you. Did you eat any place that you would recommend? Maybe is the question I should ask.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So the place that we ate for dinner was. Was just not memorable. It was okay. It's just a. It was a place. It was okay. Our last trip there, we definitely had the mufungo in Old Town and. And whatnot. And it. Funny, the. The courtyard where we stayed had a restaurant downstairs attached to its lobby. And the food there was really good. And I was. I was surprised. Right? It's hotel cuisine. What do you. You don't have my expectations, but it was really, really good. So we ate there once or twice, actually, for breakfast and lunch or breakfast and dinner, and we were satisfied.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Nice. I mean, yeah, there's good food can be found in many different ways. So. Yeah. What. What, what resources did you. Actually, I want to go back for a second, just say that Bacardi Tour, it's been 20 years now, easily, maybe even longer. But I. I did that tour with my dad because he was in the liquor business and we were in San Juan. And it is a really good tour. It sounds like it's, you know, evolved, not surprisingly. I'll also say one of the things I loved about is when you got to the end, they let you, like, sample some of the different, like, flavored Bacardi, you know, rums and different rums that they have. I don't know if they still do that, but it was. It was kind of nice to be able to, you know, just Try something new that you hadn't tried before at the, at the distillery. So it's a fun tour. It's a fun tour. What, what did you, I mean, did you have any resources you used to kind of figure out what you wanted to do in San Juan? Pre, Pre cruise, whatever?
[00:19:50] Speaker A: My cruise party, everyone kind of contributed. So, you know, folks were looking things up, you know, from simple things like TripAdvisor, things to do in San Juan. Right. And things to do pre cruise. Right. So we were just doing little searches like that and then throwing some ideas out there. What about this? What about this? And we didn't want to do anything too heavy, too jam packed. Not sure how everyone was going to feel, you know, post such a long flight because we all came from California and so we settled on this and, and we were fine with that. Like, oh, okay, this works. It, it, it checks the box of something fun to do. It's relaxing and it's not, it's not like, hey, let's go for a hike and let's go check out this fort. Which we knew we could do, but we just chose not to do on this trip.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: All right, well, we get to boarding day. It sounds like you made the smart decision not to walk to the port. Did you just grab Ubers to the port or like how did you, how did you get over there?
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Bell service arranged a taxi van for us and so our luggage and our party of five and it was $40, easy breezy, all cash, bring cash.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Now I know you mentioned in your, your pre show submission that like smoothest embarkation or one of the smoother embarkations you've had. So yeah, talk to us about like, what the port was like and like when, when did you, what was your port arrival time and you know, that sort of stuff.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, so port arrival time was 12:15 and it was easy and efficient and I did not know what to expect right at knowing. And like listening to the podcast, some of these ports where that Disney doesn't port out of all the time, sometimes they can be a little bit bumpy and maybe everything isn't running smoothly and everybody isn't trained on the exact same things. So I, I wasn't really sure what to expect and I thought, okay, well we're gonna get there and we're just gonna roll with it and it's gonna be fine because we're gonna be on a Disney cruise. And we, we got there and port arrival time was 12:15 and we got there right around 12:15 and by then they already had the signs out for 12:45 and like, oh, okay. So we walked right in. There was no line. We walked straight up to somebody to look at our passports and from there we were moving the entire time. And I was shocked, I was looking around and just surprised that we were just in constant motion and we could see the ship and it's right there and we're headed there. And I, I thought, oh, okay, well we're going to get to this next spot and they're going to stage us and we're going to have to just wait until our, our boarding group is called. And, and that's fine, that that's usually what happens. And so they, you know, coded all of our magic bands and we kept on walking and nobody stopped us. And I looked over to my, you know, to the left at one point and I just said, can we just walk on the ship? They said, yep, the ship's right there. Walk right on. So we did. And it wasn't raining, so that was great too because when we first arrived in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, it, it downpoured but we had good weather after that. So embarkation day was great. And we walked right onto the ship.
So just the, the efficiency and the ease was good. And one of our friends said to us, he, he looked over and he said a hundred times better than Port Canaveral.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: So I'm curious to know, do you know what the earliest port arrival time was for the ship?
[00:23:35] Speaker A: 11:00Am okay.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think we've given this tip on the show before, but if it's like, if you don't like waiting, one of the things you can do is take a later port arrival time, you know, on a shorter sailing. I don't recommend, I recommend getting on the ship as soon as you possibly can because you know, like a three, four night, like that day of embarcation counts as one of the days on the ship. You know, seven night, it counts. But you've also got like six days ahead of you. So it's not, it's not as important I think to get squeeze every hour out of the cruise. But you, if you get that later port arrival time. Our experience even at Port Canaveral for, for some cruises has been you show up and like the luggage drop off is ready to go, the porters are there, you walk in like it just, it just is a constant flow, especially once they've gotten through kind of the first few boarding groups. And then it's. The problem, I will say is boarding group two. I think it's Boarding group two. Boarding group one is concierge and family of the day. Basically, your family of the day is, you know, outside. Boarding group two, I think, is where they put every pearl and platinum cruiser. And so, like. Like, boarding group two is like this insanely large B boarding group now. And so once you get into boarding group, you know, 4, 5, 6, it really is like smaller groups, and then, you know, you can kind of quickly get on the ship. So if you're. If you're someone who doesn't want to wait in the terminal, just go a little later and it. I think it'll be highly efficient. So good to hear.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: That's good advice because now that I. I hear you say that, now that I think about it, on our fantasy cruise last year, that's what we did. We wanted to get the earliest port arrival time, and we had arranged transportation from the Orlando airport, Disney transportation, so. So the Orlando airport to the port. So we got there and there was a lot of just sitting around and waiting. Right. Waiting at the airport because I think we had to get to the. The area around 9 or 9:30. And then we're waiting, and then the first bus leaves around, I don't know, 10 or 10:30. And then we get to the port, and then we're waiting, but we're. You're so excited and you just want to get on. And we were boarding group three, and there was so much waiting. Now I think I'm taking this as a genius tip of 12 or 12 15. That is the sweet spot for boarding.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Your mileage may vary there. If the Coast Guard had, you know, sometimes the ships get held up for a Coast Guard drill or something like that, and then the whole boarding process gets backed up. But yet generally the sort of later you're willing to push it, the less of a weight you'll have. I'm curious, did the.
Did the sailing feel full?
Okay, that's another factor that might impact there as well. I will say. The other tip I want to give is the. If you're forced to wait in the terminal, it's a great opportunity to check and see if you can join the ship's wi fi, because if you can, you can sit there with the app and start to, like, favorite all the stuff you want to do while you're sitting there waiting, which I think is also a good use of time. But. So how full did the ship feel? Or did you get any idea of numbers?
[00:26:39] Speaker A: We were told 2,200 people, which feels pretty big for the magic.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That does sound pretty big for the magic. I'm trying to remember the. While we're talking, I might look up the capacity here on the magic, but it doesn't sound like a light sailing.
Well, you get on board, Sabrina. What? Before we dive into talking about some of the ports which are the star of the show, we always like to ask folks like, where do you head on day one, you know, after you've gotten on board?
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well, from listening to the podcast, I learned of this thing called sit down lunch. This, this opportunity to have lunch without chaos of cabanas. So we, we headed to Rapunzel's and had a sit down lunch which was needed and we just really enjoyed ourselves. And that, that was the start. But oh, what was funny is we, we board the magic. Super excited. We're in Puerto Rico. Really, really great. And there was a really, it felt like a very steep incline to get onto the ship. My gosh, this is, I feel like I'm hiking at this point. So we get on board and we enter on deck four. So we're just one level above the atrium, right.
And we're excitedly waiting that for them to ask our family name and announce us. And it was nothing. It was violence. It was some hand clapping and welcome, welcome. And we all just looked at each other. Little anticlimactic. Oh, okay. Well, I guess they're not announcing anyone.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: That's interesting. Yeah, we've boarded. Definitely not like in New Orleans. You had to board on a different deck. But they still had us like walk down the atrium stair. There was some way that we got to the atrium and they, they did our, you know, announcement. So yeah, that, that's kind of a unique Disney thing. I'm surprised they didn't find a way to do it for you.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah, so we just got onto the fourth floor. Then we just awkwardly stared at each other and kept on walking to let the, you know, the family behind us board. So then I just, I said, okay, well let's go down to the atrium. Let's do this right. Let's. We'll introduce each other. And yeah, did that. So, but yeah, so after, after a great lunch at Rapunzel's, we headed towards Soul Cat Lounge and I remembered, oh, let's see if we can get a Palo reservation now. Knowing there was only one day at sea, I was not expecting this to happen, but I figured I'd try it. And so stopped by the desk and, and they said, we can definitely get you in for dinner. But of course we wanted brunch like Everyone wants brunch because it's amazing. And the gentleman said to me, I have 55 people on the waiting list right now for Paolo, but I'll still take your name. And I said, okay, it's fine. You know, I'm sure it's a no, and that's okay, right? It just. We'll do it another time. And then we realized, hey, we're in Soul Cat. Well, let's check this place out. And we.
That's where we kind of posted up for, you know, I don't know, the next few hours before the, before the. What is it? The mustard drill. So we enjoyed welcome drinks at Soul Cat and made friends with a great, a great bartender there, Carlos, who was, who was fantastic. And we, we spent so much of our cruise in Soul Cat. Right. That was our pre dinner place, our post dinner place, our between trivia place. We just really, really enjoyed it. And it's such a versatile space, whether it be trivia is happening there or crafts are happening there. And so we just, we enjoyed it and, and so much. So I guess we, this was something I had never seen before. So we definitely got some Disney magic at the Soul Cat Lounge because the last night of the cruise, Carlos, our, our amazing bartender who we saw so frequently, he actually presented us with these looks like certificates.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Magical moments. Magical moments. Yeah.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Family name on it and it said, you know, residents of the Soul Cat Lounge. And it's been a pleasure. And, and so I just thought that is such a wonderful, wonderful touch. And, and he gave one to each of us and it was just fantastic. So something that we'll definitely cherish and remember from, from the magic.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: I think it's something like most of the crew on board have the ability to hand those out to people on a sailing like they get one to hand out. And so we've gotten them from our stateroom attendant a couple of times. What I find is it's the crew that you treat like, you really engage with and you get to know and you know, treat them really well. Like occasionally they'll, they'll leave something in your room or they'll give you it. Yeah. So they're great. I mean, just for everyone out there, please don't ask for one. That's not the way to get one of these. The way to get one of these is to be really engaging with the crew and, you know, really, you know, be a friend to them. And the other thing is there's no, I mean, it's just a certificate. There's no, there's no special thing conferred on you with it. It's just a nice little momento so. But we've enjoyed them when we've gotten them. I. I should step back and ask the question. It's. I also want to say it sounds like you enjoyed Soulcat. I think it's a great space on the Magic and I share your opinion. It's a great space to place to just hang out. I think we hung out there the last time we were on the Magic almost every night. So it's great. Great spot. I should back up. Before we dive into ports, I wanted to ask you about the. You mentioned pal, but I want to mention the, the booking experience, the pre cruise, you know, like booking activities because you just. This was nine. So you're in the what the silver booking, sorry, gold booking category right now. Given how port heavy this cruise was, how was the experience of booking the shore excursions and such was. Was stuff still available at Gold Booking and the stuff that you wanted to do were you able to get?
[00:32:35] Speaker A: It was surprisingly good. And my husband and I are gold, but our friends are Silver Castaway so we really only booked one thing in our booking window and then we said okay, we're going to hope that they can get it too. And then we'll. Once the booking window opens up for Silver Castaway members, we'll look at everything together. We did it that way and actually everything was fine. I think they even got a bourbon tasting or a whiskey tasting which I thought was going to be completely sold out, but we got that and, and we ended up getting the, the port adventures that we wanted and we booked everything through through Disney just to be safe. If it's a port that we're familiar with and we know we can get, you know, to and fro very easily, we'll do it on our own. But brand new ports, we just, we're not risk takers that way. We're only risk takers or travel insurance. But we are not risk takers with missing ships.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I sympathize and, and I tend to do the same. I mean We've been to St Thomas enough now that I'm getting to the point where it's like let's just get a cab and go to whatever beach we want to go to. But, but yeah, if it's a brand new port, I think best to stick with Disney just to make sure that if anything goes wrong, you've got your way back to the ship. Let's dive into the ports then. So you said your first stop was Saint Kitts it sounded like. And what, what did you get up to in St. Kitts?
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Well, something I'd recommend just for all of these ports, especially if it's something that somewhere you've never been before or like us, we were just exploring it for the first time is take advantage of that we are here from 8am until 6pm not that you need to get off the ship at 8am that.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Is, by the way I should highlight that is a long time in port for many of these cruises because like when we were just on the fantasy in like St. Thomas, I mean like all aboard was like 4, maybe 4:30 and sometimes they gotta leave a little earlier if they're like too far south. So like 8am to 6pm is nice. I'm. Was that for every port?
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Every single port was 8am to 6pm Nice.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: That is really, that is really a benefit. So sorry I interrupted. Keep going with your, with St. Kitts.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: No, it's fine. So I just. The beauty of that was that it gave us. Even though we didn't have an extra sea day, we still had that balance to be able to enjoy the ship. So you know, in the morning we could just take our time and have breakfast at cabanas and take our time getting off the ship and then enjoy the port. Most of the excursions that we scheduled didn't start until 10 or 11am and then maybe went until 4 or 5. So we still had just really nice balance there, which was fantastic. St. Kitts is an area that was our first port. Right. So we were excited. We didn't have anything scheduled.
And I will say that this is probably a port where an excursion is needed. It's. It's one of the. You walk off and it's not, it's not like a St. Thomas or like a St. Martin where everything is just right there and you can grab a beach chair. It's a little mix of some industrial and you know, some port shops and you, you probably need a vehicle if you're really going to venture off.
That day just happened to be a really, really hot day. Right. Again, you know, we knew we were traveling during hurricane season so we didn't get the pour down of rain or wind but we had a lot of humidity. So really warm, warm day. But even so we, we walked around the ports, we explored, explored the shops. One of my girlfriends found some Pandora jewelry she really likes. She's collecting the cruise ship Pandora charms for her bracelet. So that was great. We had lunch there by the port. We Just, we really took our time there that day at St. Kitts, and then. Then we just enjoyed the boat. We. We got off the ship maybe midday sometime, so we weren't rushed. We just, you know, hey, first time here, let's see what there is, and let's see if it's something that we want to come back to, and let's just enjoy it. And so that's what we did. And so not a super adventurous day in St. Kitts, but still. Right. And we're still in the southern Caribbean, so it was fantastic.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Nice. And so would you recommend the excursion you did?
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Well, we didn't do one.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: It was.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: We were.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: You were just on your own. Okay. Okay.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Just come around.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's our own walking around.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Nice. All right, so any highlights from the walk here, Any places you went to that you would. You would recommend others visit?
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Not really. And I think this is our fault. This is not Saint Kitt's fault. This is our fault. I was. I was chatting with my friends and my husband about this the other day to prep for the podcast, and we looked through our pictures and we said, we really only have one picture from there. It wasn't really memorable, but I think that's on us. That's not.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, fair.
Fair. Yeah. I mean, I. I will say one of the nice things about longer times in port is you can get an. So at least like Norway, we could get an excursion in, get back from the excursion and still have time to explore on our own, which is just really nice. And then we would, you know, typically go find a spot to have lunch locally. You know, pro tip, if you can find the spot that the crew are going to, you're almost guaranteed good food at a reasonable price and especially cheap drinks to the extent that they can. They can be out there having a beer or something. And then we did what you did. We wandered around. And one of my favorite souvenirs from our Norway trip came from, like, a thrift shop near the port in one of the, you know, a secondhand shop that was near the port where the. The. The store was selling some locally made, like, cheese slicers and things in. In Norway, I think it's. Silver is really the popular metal. And but half the stuff now is made in China and just stamped with, like, Norway stuff. And so, you know, we were actually getting something that been made by a local artist because the woman was like, oh, yeah, he lives up the road and we need more. You just, like, call him up and he, like, makes some more. And Brings them down. So anyway, those kinds of things are the things you can find if you just wander around the port on your own. So I, I highly encourage that strategy. All right, well, next day you were at Saint Lucia, which I've, we've never, we've been to Saint Kiss. We've never been to Saint Lucia. So what was Saint Lucia like and what did you get up to there?
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Now this we loved and we had never been there. Two of our friends who were with us on this cruise, they honeymoon there 10 plus years ago. So they were excited to go back and we were relying on them. We said, okay, well you tell us what we should do. And, and so they actually found an excursion through Disney and it turned out it was in a, it was an adult only excursion and this one had a bit of everything, which was fantastic because as I was looking through the different excursions available on the Disney website, the different port adventures, there were so many and I wanted to do three or four of them and I obviously couldn't. But they found this one that had just a bit of everything in it and it was fantastic. So this one, let's see, we, so we, we poured it in St. Lucia and we got off the boat and we boarded this, you know, one of those double decker boats. And I thought, oh, this is going to be full. And it wasn't, it was an almost empty double decker boat and we were on the top. So maybe it felt empty, maybe the bottom was full, but it, it just didn't feel like it was a packed excursion. And this was maybe an hour long sailing along the coast and it was a, the waters were calm, it was a slow sailing which was good because a lot of us tend to get motion sick. And so this worked for us and it was great because we saw some incredible sites and things that you could only see or things that you've only heard about in magazines or read about in books. And the sightseeing along the coast was phenomenal. And then after about that we sailed for about an hour down the coast and then we had some free time at a beach and we just, it was in a little bay so the waters were calm and some folks snorkeled and some folks just played in the water and other folks sunbathed. It was, there was something for everyone which was really, really fantastic. After that we reboarded our, our boat and we docked somewhere and from there we, we boated a mortar, boarded a motor coach which then took us to a coffee plantation.
And at that coffee plantation we, we had Lunch. And that was fantastic as well because it was local food and it was phenomenal. And that was probably some of the best food we had on our Southern Caribbean adventure.
I think this was also somewhere in here.
We also did the mud baths as well. And I remember thinking, I wish we did the mud first, then the beach.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: And we didn't. We did it in reverse. It was, yeah, beach, then the mud, and we did the mud baths and we weren't there for a long time. We were maybe there for 30, 40 minutes. And at first I thought, well, that doesn't seem like a big adventure. And a lot of time. It was more than enough time. The, the mud baths were packed with people. It was shoulder to shoulder in the baths with people standing, you really couldn't move. So we did it and then we got out and showered and check that off the list.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did the mud.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Baths and let's see, when we were at that coffee plantation, aside of an amazing meal, there were also tours that were being offered of the, of the coffee plantation. And it started raining right about the time that the tours were starting. And so, right, we're from California, we just, we're, we don't do great in the rain. So for us it was raining heavy, probably for other people it was just a little bit of drizzle. So some of some of our party went ahead and did the tour and then some of us, myself included, we stayed back near the shops under some cover and, and we were, we were back on board around 4:00 that day. So a great adventure. That one was probably maybe 11am to 4pm and again, still great. Took our time in the morning, got off the boat midday, great excursion, and still had time to explore St. Lucia and the port a little bit, which was fantastic.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: The weather point is funny. I, yeah, Sam and I would have just been like, where's the Gore Tex? Let's go. But I totally get you on was the weather overall for the cruise because you mentioned sailing during hurricane season. So I kind of want to return to that for a second. Like, was it, was it pretty rainy most days?
[00:43:53] Speaker A: So overall the weather was great. We had intermittent, Intermittent showers, right, intermittent rain, but nothing that that was going to ruin a port day for us. We weren't rained out on any days at all. So we had the intermittent showers, but like anything tropical, they're warm showers. And then it was, we'd have that and then sometimes it would just get really, really, really hot and humid. But again, nothing unbearable.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Well, after it rains and the sun comes out. Yeah, it's like a steam bath out there. So yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
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All right. Okay. So after St. Lucia, we head to Dominica. Yeah. How was that? We haven't been to Dominica ourselves either. So what did you get up to there?
[00:45:35] Speaker A: So we did a beach day at a black sand beach. And so this was about a three hour excursion. Dominica is definitely a port where you need an excursion. It is an industrial port and there is nowhere to walk on your own. So you, you, you definitely need to either take a taxi or get a, get an Uber or something or have an excursion scheduled so that you're able to leave the port. And so this was a, it was booked through Disney, it was a three hour beach day. And so it was a guided tour in a, in a small van, you know, all down the coast. And so we, we had a great tour guide who talked to us about Dominica. We got the history of Dominica, all of that kind of great stuff that we love learning about and just hearing about just, you know, different areas of the world, different cultures and it was just really fantastic. And then the tour guide stayed with us on the beach, right, kind of a chaperone if you will, and just kept an eye on us, made sure everybody was okay, had what they needed. The tour came with drinks and snacks at the beach as well, so it was really no frills and we just, we had beach chairs and umbrellas. We dropped our stuff off and got into the water and we spent the entire time in the water just enjoying ourselves. It was my first time on a black sand beach. And so they explained, right, why it's a black sand beach, right. All the, the volcanic activity, right. And that's, that's how it gets there. And, and so that was, that was great. And afterwards, you know, they, they took us back to the, to the port area, but we stopped in like, right before the, you know, entering the port. We stopped outside of it and there was, there was a big grocery store there, so if anybody needed, you know, sundries or anything. And there also happened to be a, a market going, like a street fair type of market going on that day. So a lot of different tents and it wasn't just, you know, trinkets, but it was also different foods and different spots, spirits and just different things like that bakery goods and whatnot. And so we, we, you know, shop through there a little bit too before getting back on board. So a lot of really good vendors and that was a lot of fun. It was, it was fun to explore. I will say that, like most places where there's a grocery store right across the port, everything was really, really expensive. So if you needed something, you had to really need it to pay those prices for, for a few. Nice.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: Nice. All right. Yeah, that makes, that makes a ton of sense. You said that the excursion overall, sorry, if you said this. The excursion of our was three hours. How much of that was transportation to and from the beach, do you think?
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Oh, I would say maybe a half hour each way.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Okay, so you have a couple hours at the beach then. That's not terrible. Did you feel, did you feel like. One of the criticisms I have of Disney beach excursions sometimes is it's like it's so eaten up by the transport there and back that you get like, you know, an hour, 90 minutes at the beach and it's like you're just getting settled, you're just starting to enjoy it. And then it's like, okay, you gotta pack up. And like, how did you feel? Did you feel like you got enough time at the beach?
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so a little bit of the same. I mean, we were, we were happy with what we had, but it would have been nice if it was an actual three hours at the beach and then, you know, the not counting the, the transportation time. Right. I did feel a little, a little bit cut short. I would have enjoyed more time at the beach.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Was there like a bar, restaurant, anything? I mean, was it. Was it a beach that had services and amenities to it or is it just the beach?
[00:49:20] Speaker A: It was. There was a little, like a little snack shack, if you will, that. That sold different snacks and also sold different drinks. So it was. It was no frills, right? It had clean bathrooms, showers, but nothing like bar service or, you know, cocktail servers or anything like that.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it sounds like overall a good day.
So let's move to Barbados.
What you get up to in Barbados?
[00:49:49] Speaker A: So Barbados was. This was about the time. So I think Barbados. It was Tuesday by now. We had our first, you know, day on board was Friday. This is when we started feeling a little tired and that we needed a C day. This would have been a perfect cake for a C day.
Barbados. In the morning when we, when we arrived, it was raining and I thought, oh, the day is going to get rained out. So. And it was raining what I would consider pretty hard. So we stayed on board, right? We stayed on board probably until about noon. So just, you know, took our time, which was good because we all just slept in.
All took our time. Did the late breakfast at cabanas, got there maybe around 10.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Not terrible. I know most Disney fans can't fathom sleeping in on a vacation, but I like that's what vacation is supposed to be and especially like it. It always kills me. Cruising was supposed to be like ultimate, like sleep in, enjoy yourself, you know, that sort of thing. So I don't know, that sounds like a fabulous start to the day to me. If it's raining outside, just sleep in. So I love it. I love it. Yeah.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Slept in and. And then probably right about noon, we decided, okay, let's go ahead and let's get off the ship, right? We're in Barbados. We need to get off the ship. We can't just sit on the ship all day, even if there's a little bit of rain. But again, to your point, it was a. Like a steam bath. It was so hot.
But we. We got off the ship around noon, 12:30. So Barbados is one that there's a really long walk from where you actually, you know, port to the actual, I guess, where you get off the ship and then to where the actual shops and the ports and everything are. And I started laughing as we were walking it, right, because it's hot. The sun's being down on us. It's very humid. And I said, oh, gosh, I wonder if this is like lookout key.
I'M hearing about lookout key or thought, well, if we can do this, we can do lookout key. This is not a big, you know, it's not a big deal. It is what it is. And, and so we did the walk and we looked at our watch like that was probably a good 20 minute walk. And we weren't slow, we were just walking to get there. But we were walking, it was hot. There was construction going on at the port so the walkways were really, really narrow. Funny was that we discovered that there was in fact a shuttle, but we didn't discover the shuttle until we were getting ready to go back and someone said, you know, there's buses right here that will take you right back to your cruise ship.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Always a good reason potentially to watch the, the morning show because they will give you that kind of detail in the morning show. But yeah, because a lot of those industrial ports, it can be kind of a hike from the ship to the actual port entrance. And so yeah, they frequently have some kind of shuttle running. So yeah, that's a plug for the morning show which admittedly we don't always watch but I, they do cover that kind of stuff.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: So we love the morning show.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: But you slept in, right? Was this, this is. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. Yeah, we slept in.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: So, so that was a really low key day for us. We, similar to St. Kitts, we just walked, we didn't leave the port. We, we walked around the different shops at the port. There were also two other ships in port at the same time and everyone had the same idea. So the port itself and all the port shops and restaurants were jam packed with folks. But we, we did some shopping there. We found some cute, unique Christmas ornaments for our trees. So we picked up some of those things, things that we hadn't seen before and we like to pick up little trinkets of the places we've traveled to for, for our tree. So, so that was nice. And then we, we just found a, a bar that one of the, I think one of the crew members had told us about. Like hey, we all go here. Drinks are cheap, the WI fi is free, it service is good and it's quick. You know, the food's fine, just if you want to check it out. So, so that's what we did. And apparently a lot of people did that too.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: I said it before in the show, like it ask the crew where they like to go because not only have they, not only did you know what's in and around the port to, you know, grab a quick bite or a cheap meal or whatever. They know the places to go to get this. Like to your point earlier, the stuff you need that's not going to like break the bank.
A lot of them too have also like, you know, if they get a real, some real time off like you know, some of the, the you know, more like officer folks or higher up folks who get maybe a little bit more time off import a time like they will go to a beach and. And spend a beach day. Right. Or part of a morning at the beach. They can tell you what the different beaches are like. So, you know, that sort of thing. So yeah, I never hesitate to ask the crew. We have a friend of the show who Alan, who's been on the show and has, you know, sailed Disney Cruise Line extensively and he goes on like you know, back to back to back to back to back to back cruises and we were with him on the Fantasy recently or sorry on the Treasure Maiden and he, I forget which port we were in, but he was like, you know, I'm. We're like, what are you going to get up to? And he said I'm going to go to my favorite Chinese restaurant in the port. And we're like middle of the Caribbean. You're going to Chinese? Like oh yeah. The crew recommended it to me a while back. It's actually pretty decent Chinese food. And so that's. Anyway crew are wealth of information about these ports because they are there week in, week out a lot of times on some of these sailings.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: So anyway, you know, you're reminding me now you said Chinese restaurant. I don't remember which port stop we were in, but we were recommended a restaurant and it was the best Indian curry that we have ever had. And I thought how are we getting such amazing Indian curry here in the middle like of the southern Caribbean? This is. But the food was fantastic.
[00:55:45] Speaker B: There you go, there you go. All right, I think we have one port left, right? Antigua.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Antigua.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: What was Antiga like?
[00:55:52] Speaker A: Now this was the gem of our trip. And one of my girlfriends said to me when I was asking for, hey, just give me the reminders to prep for the podcast. She said, I want to keep Antigua a secret.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Ah, well, hold on. We'll put on our special Patreon only portion of the. No, I'm kidding. To everyone out there listening, we will not hide this from you. But yeah, tell us about Antigua.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: Antigua was just stunning.
The water was stunning, the scenery was stunning. Just everything about it. The food was great. This, this was a place that we all said we want to come back here if there was another cruise that ported out of Antigua. Yes, sign us up for that and. Or another cruise stop. Or another cruise that. That has a port stop. Yes, absolutely. And we want to spend 8am until 6pm here. We'd love to spend overnight here. It was, it was our favorite. So we did have an excursion. And this was a port where when you pulled right into port, a lot of stuff was accessible. You could walk anywhere, you could take a taxi anywhere. It was just a very easy port to navigate. And so we had an excursion. This was a, it was just called snorkel and sale. And it was, we felt like it was so much more than what was actually described in, in the little, you know, port adventure description. So we left on a catamaran. Again, it wasn't crowded. Oftentimes you'll take those catamarans and you're, you're shoulder to shoulder with people and it's packed and this one was not. So everyone had space to spread out, which was great. We did another great sailing, like an hour long sailing where we're just looking at coastline and we're hearing the history and, and just admiring just the beauty of the nature that is there in Antigua. And from there we had some great snorkel spots. Now this is one of those places where when you look down at the water, you can just see down to the bottom.
And it was phenomenal. It was just gorgeous. So the snorkeling was fantastic. It was really great. And then after the, you know, the hour long sailing, the catamaran and, and the snorkeling, even then we had some beach time. So they, you know, dropped anchor by, you know, at a nearby beach. And this was. There were snacks, there were drinks, and they did sandwiches and whatnot, sandwiches and chips. So nothing too elaborate. And we really just had a great time at this beach. We had almost another 45 minutes at this beach, which was great. I mean, even after all an hour of snorkeling, we were a little tired, but it was just nice because we just felt pampered and that this was so wonderful. And once we, once we, you know, tied off there on the beach, right, Some folks got out, walked along the beach, did some different stuff. Some folks continued to snorkel, some just enjoyed the water. That's what we did. But what we noticed was right next to us was also not right next to us, but, you know, a little bit of ways aways, we could see it, there was another boat that looked just like our catamaran. And the different. We noticed it because we could smell the food coming from there. Well, this one was the snorkel and sail, snorkel and sale plus lobster lunch.
And they were barbecuing lobster on the back of the catamaran. And it smelled incredible.
And as I was prepping for the podcast, one of my girlfriends said to me, tell them to book the lobster boat because it was only $25 more than the excursion we booked. And it smelled well worth it.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: It nice.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: So it's the, it's the do that.
So, so it was just, it was a really, really great time that we had. I mean we saw, we saw sea turtles, we saw just incredible sea life and it, oh, it was beautiful and it was easy to see. I mean you could see the sea life without snorkeling. You didn't want to put your face in the water. You could see, still see stuff. So, so that was just quite amazing. And then we, you know, took our sail back to the ship and it's funny, it seems like, you know, we spent an hour coasting along the coast and sailing and having things pointed out. But getting back, that seemed a lot faster for some reason. And maybe that's just the way it always is. You speed up a little bit, I'm not sure. But, but it was great. And we got back to port and this was another one that was a couple of hours long. We, I think it started around 11am and probably another 11am to 4pm so plenty of time to sleep in, have breakfast, enjoy the ship, get off the ship and then still time to explore the port. And so that's what we did afterwards.
After our excursion ended about 4 o'clock, we walked around, we did some shopping, we found a bar right there at the port and it was just a great way to cap off the day. A lot of really fun people watching. And, and the ship, we could see it, it was right there. So we knew we were, you know, safe to get back to the ship on time. And Antigua was hands down our absolute favorite port. Secret is out and I'd love to go back.
[01:01:43] Speaker B: Nice. Well, it sounds like an amazing port. Yeah, I mean the southern Caribbean ports in general I think are some.
I don't know if the ports themselves are excellent ports or just because, you know, Disney doesn't cruise there that often so that they are sort of more lesser known ports for folks when they visit, but there's a lot of gorgeous ports there. I do miss the longer Disney sailings you mentioned up front because those 11 night cruise, they can really get to the ABC Islands is what they call them. And those are some really special kind of far away places that we really enjoyed. So I keep watching out for those longer cruises.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: I'm going to look out for for that. I would love to do a similar itinerary again, like despite the really long flight and whatnot. To your point, like the ABC Islands, how often do you get to go to those with Disney? So I'm going to keep my eye.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: Out, you know, before we head into rapid fire, which I'm everyone out there forewarning. It's going to be me doing rapid fire today. So who knows how that's going to. But before we get into rapid fire, I guess I wanted to ask, you know, you're taking a Disney cruise and there's one big port missing here or I guess two big ports missing here. Castaway Key and Lookout Key. Neither of them on your itinerary. So you took a Disney sailing in the Caribbean but did not stop at either of the sort of, you know, quote unquote private island destinations for Disney Cruise Line. How was that? Did you miss them at all?
[01:03:09] Speaker A: Only a little. I mean, I, I love Castaway and so, and at the time of the sailing, we had not yet gone to Lookout and so I didn't, you know, I didn't know what I was missing and so I definitely missed Castaway. And even our friends said that like, oh, we did like the private island thing. We like, we like Castaway. Last year on the Fantasy that was the only thing that was maybe missing. But we still had some incredible places, right. It. I would take this itinerary again or a similar one, even if it didn't include Castaway.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a good reminder. You can have a great Disney cruise without stopping at either of those islands. I think both afford kind of a bonus. Like they're a bonus stop. I would say for those taking their first Disney cruise, I typically encourage go out of Port Canaveral and get the stop at Castaway. We love a door Lookout Key. So Sam and I are big fans. We actually prefer it over Castaway. But I think that first cruise experience you want, like the original OG Disney cruise line, like go out of Port Canaveral, stop at Castaway, experience that island. And then, you know, next time you go, if you can get to Lookout, I would, I would highly recommend it.
[01:04:23] Speaker A: But yeah, you know, I agree. And my husband would agree with you too because anytime we've cruised, he said, well, what's the point of flying all the way to Florida. We're not going to go to Castaway.
[01:04:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great. I mean, they're both great port stops. Both great port stops in my book, so. Yeah. All right, well, Sabrina, I'm going to skip over kind of some of the onboard experiences, given the timing that we've got on this episode. But I'm glad you enjoyed Soul Cat Lounge, and I'm sure you enjoyed what was probably a little bit of minimal time on board the ship given these extended port days. But I'm gonna take us into the round where we ask some arbitrary questions, apply some arbitrary rules, and, you know, I don't really apply judgment, so we're gonna skip that part. But it's the round we know as Rapid Fire, so. All right, we're gonna do just some quick favorites here, and I'll start off. And then you were on the show before, but it's been a while, so we'll. We'll do kind of the standard stock and trade Rapid Fire. And I'll ask you to start with who is your favorite Disney character? And it could be anyone. And the Disney owned universe of companies which now include people like Bart Simpson. So who is your favorite Disney character?
[01:05:34] Speaker A: Dumbo.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: All right, that's great. See, now Sam's missing out because Sam loves Dumbo. She just ran the Dumbo double dare, and she was proclaiming how much she loved Dumbo. All right, favorite Disney movie.
[01:05:46] Speaker A: Oh, the original Lion King.
[01:05:50] Speaker B: Oh, good, good. Yeah, that's a great movie. Favorite Disney song.
[01:05:56] Speaker A: So I absolutely love Baby O mine from Dumbo, but it always makes me cry.
So then I will have to take something from Lion King, like that very first opening song, circle of Life. That's. That's my favorite.
[01:06:16] Speaker B: Great song. Great song. I'm gonna ask a different question. Then Sam would ask and ask you favorite Disney villain.
[01:06:21] Speaker A: Ooh, I have maleficent ears in my. In my closet hanging right now. And so. And that's usually my standard go to Halloween costume, so on a. On a Disney cruise. So I'll have to say Maleficent.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: All right, man. In California. I hope I. I hope I get the right answer to this question, but favorite Disney park.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Oh, West Coast. Best coast, hands down.
[01:06:49] Speaker B: All right. Disneyland or California Adventure?
[01:06:52] Speaker A: Oh, well, I'm always going to say Disneyland. My heart will always be with Disneyland. My. My dad was actually born on July 17, 1955. And so we. Disneyland is always a very special place for our family. And we also love California Adventure, so package deal.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: Fantastic. All right, let's shift our Disney Cruise Line for a second favorite Disney ship.
[01:07:18] Speaker A: Oh, well, I know you guys always say the. Your favorite is the one that you're on, and I get that for me. Gosh, let's see. I kind of want to say the Wonder and then the Fantasy is a.
[01:07:33] Speaker B: Close second, but both are great ships. The Wonder is near and dear to our heart, for sure. And we can't wait. We're sailing on her to Alaska later this year and can't wait to do that. Itinerary. Favorite rotational dining restaurant animators.
Okay, we already know Palo brunch versus Palo dinner, but so it sounds like Palo brunch is the winner there.
[01:07:55] Speaker A: I've never done Palo dinner, so by default. By default, brunch is the winner.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: All right, all right.
Give me one favorite savory item on Disney Cruise Line that you really like.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: Oh, that would probably be the lasagna at hello Brunch.
[01:08:14] Speaker B: Excellent choice. See, I'm just going to put a plug in here. Sam. I'm right. All right, so. And you can't. You're not here to defend yourself.
[01:08:23] Speaker A: Let me just say we. Okay, last. Gosh. Last Saturday, we just stepped off the Disney dream. So that was our first time doing Prima Note and the first time we ever tasted the gnocchi from Palo.
[01:08:40] Speaker B: Excellent. The Prima Note is such a sleeper hit experience for people who haven't done it. Like, go do it now. It's so worth it. So good. So good.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah. My husband said, let's do this every single time if we can. Right.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: And so they have. They have different pins across some of the different ships. So every time you do Prima Note, you can. You can start your pin collection. I don't know if it's by class of ship or by specific ship, but we got a different pin on the Treasure than we did on the Fantasy, than we did on the Wonder. I'm pretty sure so. Or the Magic. Yeah.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: This looks like it's gonna be a problem, Sabrina. But no.
[01:09:18] Speaker A: Yes, the lasagna. Absolutely. And then obviously the noki, because I just tried it, and it was phenomenal.
[01:09:25] Speaker B: Nice. Favorite sweet item.
[01:09:28] Speaker A: Oh, Mickey. Churro waffles. And I was pleasantly surprised on this southern Caribbean cruise, they served them twice.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. That is a rarity. Nice. I'm trying to think of a different question that I can ask than Sam might. Favorite Disney Cruise Line souvenir that you've ever gotten.
[01:09:47] Speaker A: Oh, that's a great question.
A couple of years ago, my husband bought these pirate goofy ears for Pirate Night. And they. No Longer sell them. At least we haven't seen them on the last few cruises. And he always gets compliments on them about his pirate goofy ears. So that's just been a fun souvenir, and we take it on every cruise.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: That's cool.
Favorite bar or lounge space on board Disney Cruise Line.
[01:10:20] Speaker A: Well, that's a tough one.
I would.
You know, I'm gonna have to say it is Soul Cat Lounge.
[01:10:31] Speaker B: Nice.
It's a great space. I. A lot of people, you know, were skeptical, and, you know, I think there's some people who are a bit critical, but I. I think it's. I think it was a nice addition. I think the old, you know, Promenade. Not. Was it Promenade Lounge. Yeah, Promenade Lounge. I think it was a nice upgrade to that.
[01:10:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's great. The drinks are great. We. We saw a lot of creative drinks being made. It was our espresso martini Go to spot. It was the old fashioned go to spot. Something for everyone.
[01:10:59] Speaker B: Nice. All right. Favorite Disney Cruise Line stage show.
[01:11:04] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
So I mentioned I was on the dream. Just. Just got off the Dream last week, and I was dying to see Beauty and the Beast and only saw 30 minutes of it because I got sick. So I would say. But the first 30 minutes were phenomenal.
[01:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Sam would say you have the right show there with. Well, actually, she would say tale of Moana now, but Beauty and the Beast was her favorite forever, so. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:11:31] Speaker A: I haven't been on the Treasure yet, so. Yeah. Can't judge Moana, but I'll give it to the 30 minutes I saw Beauty and the Beast still floored me compared to. I've seen Frozen a few times on a few different ships and when it was at California Adventure. Yeah. Beauty and the Beast is the winner, sailor.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: Nice.
All right. If you could wave your magic wand with a little bit of pixie dust and sail anywhere in the world, even if Disney Cruise Line doesn't go there. Where are you going?
[01:12:00] Speaker A: We touched on this a little at the top of the show. I want the around the world. I want the Disney cruise around the World tour. And we hit every single park, including a stop at Aulani.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: Nice. It's a dear Disney with 13 ships. Maybe one of them. Maybe one of them. You just do a little around the world sailing. I think that'd be great. All right, well, thank you for playing rapid fire. As I said, I apply no judgment in this round. I think all the answers are great, and I usually learn something in rapid fire, so that was great. What's next? Did you get a placeholder on board. You eyeing a particular sailing. What's next for you?
[01:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so we have an east down transatlantic plan for May.
[01:12:41] Speaker B: Well, you're just making up for all the C days you didn't get on the southern Caribbean.
[01:12:47] Speaker A: Exactly. So we're so excited for this. This is coming up here in just a few months. And we will port out of Port Canaveral, one stop at Castaway and then six glorious days at sea before we hit the Azores. And yeah, two stops in Portugal, two stops in Spain and we are so looking forward to 13 nights aboard the Fantasy.
[01:13:14] Speaker B: Nice. Well Sabrina, be sure to reach out if you'd like to come back and talk to our audience about that one. We always love talking about those unique sailings on Disney Cruise line. And the transatlantic is only offered twice a year and only once a year in each direction. So it's a great, great cruise for folks to hear about. I also find it to be like an, like you're, you're killing it with the incredible deals here because those transatlantic cruises on like a per night basis, like some of them, I think even total costs are less than a seven night sailing Disney cruise line on some of the ships.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: So you are not wrong, Brian. I, I shared that with some of our, our table mates last week. I said listen, the, the price for two weeks was the price for a seven night. So you just couldn't go wrong on this one. If you, if you have the time, do it.
[01:14:00] Speaker B: It's the time and the time of year that's, I mean we, we've got school age kids so it's like impossible for us to really do it unless we can find someone to watch which is also a near impossibility. So yeah, so yeah, it's it but that, that drives down the cost that cruise and it's a fabulous fab. We've heard nothing but good things about that cruise. So reach out, let us know when you get back and we'd love to have you back on but for now I'll just say thank you for coming on the show and sharing your fabulous experience of the Southern Caribbean cruise with our audience. We really, really appreciate it.
[01:14:28] Speaker A: Thanks so much.
[01:14:33] Speaker B: Well, thanks everyone, everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week Monday nights 5:30pm Pacific 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLduo so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want 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
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