[00:00:00] Speaker A: Every single person was just happy to see us, even if we weren't even stopping with them. We were just driving past them like kids playing basketball.
Like just stopped their game and just sat there like waving like it was really like you felt welcomed in each one of these islands for sure.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Welcome back. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my path Unwinding travel. And as you can tell from hearing my voice, I am your host today, Sam. I am hosting solo without Brian. He's not feeling well today and so he's having to miss this recording. But I am so excited because I get to share this recording with a repeat guest who is fabulous. Has been on the show to talk about sailing with her best friend.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Friend.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Has been on the show to sail, to talk about sailing with her husband for the first time. Has been on the show to talk about sailing with her dad in concierge for the first time.
She's just a lovely person, wonderful to have on the show. So welcome back to the show, Laura.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Oh, thank you, Sam. Thank you so much for that really kind introduction.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Oh, you're so welcome.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Blush.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Well, we always love having you on. You always have fun, fun stories, fun adventures. You've done some great itineraries and of course today's show is really no exception.
What I was talking to Laura about pre show is the fact that she did essentially a six week holiday as they call it over in the uk. We call it a vacation, they call it a holiday. But we're not going to talk about all six weeks of our holiday because that would take six shows probably to cover. But she did this massive, amazing trip and I definitely want to cover the cruise portion at least of the trip. But Laura, why don't before we jump into that and tell people what, what you did, what your itinerary was. Why don't you remind folks of what kinds of itineraries you've done and how many times you've sailed on Disney Cruise Line. I know you also have a ton of Disney Parks experience prior to this big trip we're going to be talking about.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So this was my 10th sailor sailing. So we finally, so yeah, finally hit the 10th. The 10th sailing. I feel like it's been such a long time coming.
I went on my first Disney Cruise back in 2012 on the fantasy on her inaugural season. And the funny thing is at the time I didn't know what an inaugural season was.
So we got all this cool merch in the, you know, all the inaugural stuff. And it actually only dawned on me probably a few, well, many years later, I was like, ah, that's quite cool.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's unique. Always. Yeah.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: So I've done Caribbean, Eastern, Western and South, Eastern and Western. I'm pretty sure I've done a couple times each South. I've done once, I've done Panama, I've done transatlantic, I've done some, a couple of European sailings and then this most latest one was the Trans Pacific from Sydney to Hawaii.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Amazing, Amazing. Well, let's, let's talk about how you decided to book this Trans Pacific crossing from Australia to Hawaii, from Sydney to Hawaii, because it was part of a kind of a grand scheme trip to hit a whole bunch of other places in the world. I'd love to hear what your, what was your total itinerary and why did you sort of choose the Disney cruise and I don't know, the middle, the end of it, actually. Yeah, for sure.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Well, actually it was the other way around, where this whole trip was based around this cruise.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: I saw this itinerary when it first came out and my husband and I have always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand. It's a very long flight from the uk, so. So we've always wanted to go. We both have friends that live over there and I'm a very visual person and like, it really hurt my soul that like I'd never literally seen where some of my best friends lived.
So I have a friend over there who came to the UK for study abroad at university and then went home and I've never been there. And another friend who has moved there. My husband has a friend who has moved from England to New Zealand. So we, we had all the reasons to be going there, but we just hadn't done it.
So I saw this itinerary and quite frankly it was about the very few ports for the length of cruise, only four stops, really kind of only three into that. They were islands that you would probably otherwise never really go to. But for being on a cruise, I'm sure people do, but for me, I wouldn't necessarily have a reason or.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And they were so far away. I mean, not in the middle of.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: The Pacific, in the middle of nowhere.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Which was awesome. And that was really appealing. So. And I also love longer cruises. I'm always on the lookout for a long itinerary.
For me, they tend to be better value.
And it makes me really mad that Disney counts the Castaway club cruise by cruise and not night by night. Because if it was Night by night. I'd be doing a lot better in that department.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, we talk about that a lot. I mean, I think because Disney started doing it that way, they really can't change it now midstream. Right.
Yeah. So many people would get mad because they, you know, racked up their castaway status by going on shorter cruises. And there's not a really good way to sort of retroactively undo it. Do it. Exactly, exactly. Other cruise lines do it in kind of a, I think a smarter way in that it's either based on per night and then if you stay suite class, you might get like, you know, sort of like a point system and you might. Yeah, you might get extra, you might get two points per night for staying in suite class instead of one point per night or whatever, however they do it. But they have sort of a formula that really does try to translate to how much you've spent. Right. And that's in, in Disney parlance, we, we don't, it's just the number, number of cruises. But to your point, there is quite a bit of value in those longer cruises. When you think about, even though the overall sticker price is quite high, when you look at it from a per night standpoint, you might pay less for like a two week cruise than, you know, on a per night basis than you would for, you know, a four night cruise, a seven night cruise, you know, that sort of a thing. And sometimes even the total cost is not that different from like a seven night cruise.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
So compared to the cruise that I spoke to you guys about with Lindsay for the room type, like, I won't go out on a limb and put an exact number on it, but it was cheaper than what we paid for that one week in the Caribbean for two of us to do this cruise. Obviously there's travel costs around that and there's a whole much bigger trip around it, which obviously costs a lot more money than just the cruise. But when we're just focusing on the cruise and disregard airfare and whatnot. Yes.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so you booked this cruise in part well because you wanted to do a longer cruise and in part because you're like, I've got to get to, to Australia, New Zealand to see these friends and to see where they live and to see these beautiful places. But I want to ask like, how did this expand from that to a six week trip around the world and tell folks what your total itinerary.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: So what is that?
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah, your itinerary ended up being London to Shanghai. I Hate layovers. So I will always do if I can and I have time. An extended layover of at least two nights. We did three nights in Shanghai. I think three nights just I, I get stressed and I, I like to see new places. So if I have the opportunity, I'm gonna go see somewhere.
So yeah, three nights in Shanghai on the way to Auckland, New Zealand.
We did the north island, we got a little Airbnb, we drove around, did some bits, came back to Auckland, stayed with a friend, hopped down to the south island, rented a van, drove from Christchurch down to Queenstown, hopped across to Melbourne, Australia and then drove from Melbourne to Sydney. And what was really fun was I got to say hi Wanda on that Monday in Melbourne and then we got to Sydney on the Friday and I said hi Wanda. So basically the same days that we were, almost the same days that we were driving, the wonder was doing the same trip.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: But it's, that's so fun.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: So I got to Sydney, had the weekend in Sydney before we got on the cruise. Got on the cruise, obviously we'll talk about that. Finished up in Hawaii, went to Aulani because of course you have to. Pretty sure half the ship got off and went to Alani.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. In fact, we heard about the arranged buses and there were like four buses of people from the cruise because I think we talked to somebody else who was on your sailing and that they also went to. Went to Aulani with everybody because that's you too.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: We can talk about the cost of those buses and why we did not do it.
So then, yes, I had four nights at Aulani on the end and then did a one night layover in LA on the way home. Again, same reason I get stressed about layovers.
So just a one night. And also I've never been to la, so.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Oh, nice. So you did not hit Disneyland on.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: The way back though it became a serious conversation.
So in the planning process, Shanghai came up purely as a where can we stop? That makes sense. With air miles that we have, how can we make this trip as affordable as possible?
Going via somewhere we use Virgin. They're the points that we have the credit card for that we collect. And they make sense for us because everywhere in the US that we travel to, to visit my mum's family, to visit my friends in Texas, to go to Walt Disney World, Virgin do all that. So it makes sense for us to concentrate there.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Virgin at the time were flying to Shanghai, I had some convenience vouchers and some upgrade vouchers. So it made total sense to do that.
And then we did the Air New Zealand Sky Couch to do the next.
I think it was, I want to say 12 hours. So it was two very long flights. It was, I believe, 13 hours over to Shanghai. It's a longer trip from London to Shanghai right now because you can't fly through Russian airspace. You have to go around all around.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Direct, kind of by going north. Yeah.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: We actually did not end up flying with Virgin. They transferred us over to BA because they stopped flying that route in October of last year. So, yeah, they transferred us over. Thankfully we'd all been booked in advance and they fixed it all for us, which was great.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: And of course, I mean, you're going to, you're going to be in Shanghai for a few days, so you have to hit, you know, Disneyland.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: And so this was the debate that was had pre trip was I was like, well, we're in LA and we're in Shanghai. And my husband went, you get one, you get one. Have a Disney cruise, you get one. And so I picked Shanghai because realistically, where am I going to be closer to in the future?
Right. LA is where, you know, realistically easier for me to get to in the future. So I picked that one. Although while we were at Aulani, my husband was, he was there and he goes, you know, we, we could go to Disneyland on Saturday. Wanted to. And I did look up the tickets, we could have gone, but it was just so expensive. We wouldn't have had the full day.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Right. You only would have had a partial day Saturday.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: So it was 180 bucks each.
We would have had to have left the park at probably 2 or 3pm, you know, just.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it just doesn't make. If you didn't, like, if you had had, you know, one full day right, then maybe it would make sense. But if you'd only have.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Maybe if, you know, when I looked, it was a Thursday and for that day it would have been a hundred bucks.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: I was like, right, maybe, maybe. Well, and you're right because on a Saturday you're going to have higher crowds and so it's going to be longer waits. And so how much, realistically, how much you're going to be able to do?
And then, you know, if you don't have a Disney hotel booked, then you don't even get in for early hour.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: You know, and we would have done 0la sightseeing. I would have been stressed about the traffic getting back. Like it was a lovely idea. And I was like, I'm grateful to you for wanting me to be Happy, sweetheart. But it just, we'll do it another time. It's okay.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: That's, that's a good hobby. Well, and it makes sense, I think, you know, if I lived in the uk, I would probably make the same decision because, you know, you'll be back in the, in the States. Right. Like, you know, you'll be back visiting friends and family. And so it is. If you're going, for example, to Texas, it might be that you add on a leg to California. Right. Like that would make more sense than, you know, the, the 12 hour flight to Shanghai from.
Right. Like a random trip to Shanghai probably less likely to happen. Whereas you're more likely to have you. I know you because of your family and friends that live here in the States. Like you're going to be back more attainable for us. Yes, yes, absolutely. All right. Well, this is a massive trip. As I mentioned, we're going to focus on the cruise because it would be impossible for us to cover all of this without spending six episodes on it. And as much as I would like to, I know we're a cruise focused podcast. So that's where we're going to, we're going to stick to, we're going to stick to our niche and focus on that. So let's, let's start with you are in, you're in Sydney and you're boarding the wonder. Where were you guys staying and how did you get transferred to the port?
[00:14:03] Speaker A: So, oh gosh, I forget the name of the hotel. It was right close to the cruise port. Realistically it was, it was walkable in about 30 minutes or so. It was a great location. It was maybe two blocks from the Sydney Tower for kind of reference and oh, it's going to annoy me. I'm forgetting the name of the hotel.
It was lovely.
I can send it to you guys and put it in the show notes if people are interested. I would highly recommend it. And it's annoying me that I can't remember the name of it now, but it was, it was gorgeous. We really liked it there and it was the, it was such a perfect location. We had three and a half ish days in Sydney. We walked everywhere. Well.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Oh, fantastic.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: So it was perfect location. If we hadn't have had the bags, we could have walked straight down to the dock.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: But you probably have large bags because you had been, you had such a long trip.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: We had what I call gap year backpacks, which I don't. It's probably a very British thing of taking a gap year after you finish School.
And so you typically go with like a big huge backpack. And James and I both have those. So we had those. And then like a little weekender bag that was our kind of on the go bag.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty good. That's actually not like to have a big backpacking backpack and one, you know, weekend backpack.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: And then we had backpacks that were just our sort of airplane carry on type thing. So we, we did laundry along the way. You know, knowing we had friends places, we did. Every time we stopped at a friend's house we did laundry.
So it was, yeah, it worked for us. So yeah, we just hopped in an Uber.
The hotel were great. The manager like could not have done more to be of assistance. You know, just we called an Uber and he was like, hey, tell it to come here. And he was like, they're flagging it down. I was like, I feel really special. I'm not used to this.
And it was the cheapest hotel I could find in the area. So it wasn't, you know, it's generally relatively expensive compared to other places we went for hotels in Sydney. So.
But yeah, it was great. Got the Uber. We had a 12 o' clock port arrival time, which I think the earliest one might have only been 11:15 or 11:30 that day.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: So yeah, it seems like in a lot of non US Ports it seems like the port arrival times tend to be later. Yeah, they tend to be. I mean, you know, the earliest in Port Canaveral is I think 1115 anyway. And but in general the one the foreign ports, it tends to be just a later. I don't know if it's the way that, you know, customs takes to clear the ship or whatever it is, but it just like in Europe it's always later than it is in Florida.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: We got really lucky because just we literally yanked the bags out of the Uber, gave them to the porters at the port, got inside and the heavens opened it. We could not have timed it and it was it. And I mean the heavens opened when we did board and it was very smooth boarding. They were ready. We did, didn't wait. There was no sitting around wait for your boarding group, anything. We were only, I want to say even, only that boarding group three or four.
And there was no sitting around, it was just on yet it was not completely covered to get onto the ship. So people were having to do this little like, like dash across from.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Across the gangway. Yeah, portion of the gangway. Right. So you're going from it, you're going from like an Inside terminal to an inside ship. But the portion of the gangway is.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Open just to get that little from the kind of, you know, it was like a movable kind of gangway, a bit like an airplane one, you know.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: And, yeah. Crazy little dash that you had to do to get across. And you still. We actually got pretty wet. Like, it was that wet.
And I was like, are they going to cancel sail away party? And blah, blah. Thankfully, it cleared up by the time we sailed away and we had a gorgeous sail away.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: So, yeah, but that was. It was very funny. It was. It was really nice to have the port in Sydney that's right there at downtown.
The downside to that port is you don't get to sail underneath the bridge, which.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Oh, that was sad.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: But right next to the Opera House. So we have some gorgeous photos of us stood on deck four, which the photographer obviously did their photos with the camera. And I was like, would you mind taking some on my phone? And she. I don't know what she did to my phone, but she took some great photos.
We have really nice photos of us with the Sydney Opera House in the background stood on the deck. So it was really nice. Yeah.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, let's talk about room selection. You're, you know, a seasoned Disney cruiser. What kind of room did you select for this sailing and were you happy with it?
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yes. So we were in an inside stateroom. I am a serial inside stateroom person, as you will know if you've listened to previous recordings with me.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: I mean, literally. I mean, I think that's what you've seen in every time except for your concierge sailing, because there are no inside concierge state rooms until the adventure comes on board.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The only other time. Time that I've done recent. I mean, we have done other others in the past, but the only recent time was in Europe. We did have a window once, but actually, do you know, on this cruise, it was the first time in a very long time where I was like, I wouldn't mind a window.
And I think that probably has something to do with the weather. And I don't know, there was just. So. I don't know why I've not. I've not had that feeling before.
So I was. I was sitting there a little bit like, kind of wish I had a window.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: It would be nice.
Was it rainy a lot of the cruise or was it just.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: It wasn't rainy. It was variable. Let's call it variable. We had some gorgeous days to Lay out in the sun. The first few days were great. It was the kind of swaying and motion of the ship while we got away from Australia.
Up till they said. Up till probably, I think they said when we get to Fiji, which was the second port, I think. Yes, Second port. They were like, it's going to be pretty rough. And then we actually did have another really bad day coming out of American Samoa because there was a storm and there was just, you know, normally they obviously tried to sail around storms.
It was over the island. There was nothing we could do.
So it was. Yeah, it was just one of those things. There were some people struggling.
I was okay. James, for the first time did get a little bit affected by it. But I knew kind of from listening to you guys show and doing other research, I knew that coming away from Australia was a rough place to be. So I was expecting it.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we try to warn people, like if you were doing a trans Pacific crossing, whether that's, you know, all the way across the Pacific from Sydney to Hawaii or the. Or the opposite, you know, or reverse. Right. Or even just from the west coast of North America to Hawaii, like, you are out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Ocean is no joke. Like, I know that I say that like, I'm not saying that the Atlantic Ocean is like, you know, all calm, but there's something about the Pacific. It is a rough. It tends to be rougher than the Atlantic does. Of course, there's exceptions to every rule. If you're sailing during, you know, a hurricane or something like that over in the Atlantic, it could be terrible.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: It was, they. There were days when they shut the pools. There were days where, you know, it was. It was quite nice, to be honest. But then some days you woke up and you were like, oh, it was pretty dreary yesterday. It's probably going to be dreary again today. And obviously we don't have a window, so we don't know.
And then we walk upstairs and it was like glorious. And I was like, huh, cool.
So we didn't really know until we woke up in the morning what we were going to be doing that day. And on the kind of like windier, drearier days, I mean, every day was windy. Let's be real here.
That was different. Even when it was sunny, it was windy.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
So hard to kind of sit out on the top deck when it's. When the winds are that heavy. And you might.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: On day one, it's obviously being the type of cruise that it is. There were Fewer children, more adults. Very, very common on longer itineraries, particularly those during school time and stuff. So the adults only pool was busy. You had to be on it if you wanted one of those lovely, comfortable sunbeds in the morning.
So we did the very. The first sea day. So kind of, I guess what Disney called day two, we were up on the top deck. They had very few sun lounges out because of the wind, and very rarely did they actually get them out up there on that deck. And yeah, it wasn't. I didn't enjoy it, honestly. I think we lasted a few hours and then I kind of was like, I might go to the gym. Like, I just. I'm not having fun just being whipped in the face by my own hair, like.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you have to be. In order to get out of the wind, you have to be down. Like, you can still be on. You have to be on, like, the pool deck. Right. Which is a little bit protected on the sides, even though it's open above you.
Or down on deck four. I mean, down on deck four, it could probably. The wind can be whipping as well, but you have a little bit of protection from like, the sides of the ship and the railing.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: We figured out later the kind of second week.
And you have a lot of sea days on this cruise, which again, is another reason I picked it, because I really like sea days. And so what we also figured out was if the adults pool kind of area was super busy and we couldn't get seats together or whatever, we were actually more comfortable going to where Funnel Vision is. There weren't that many people sat there, quite honestly.
It wasn't busy at all. Kid soup didn't exist. So what we were doing was because there were so many empty chairs.
They're the, like, half loungers. So we were laying on one and then pulling another one up and putting our feet up over that one and watching Funnel Vision.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Oh, brilliant. So smart.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: We kind of made ourselves comfortable.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah, you make yourself a full lounger. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's. Let's dive into talking about these ports because obviously there are some unique ones that you got to go to. You started in Sydney. What's your first port of call in the Pacific?
[00:24:37] Speaker A: New Caledonia in New Maya or New Maya, New Caledonia, I think it is. Yeah. The other way around. New Mayor, New California.
So this is an interesting one because actually about. I don't know, not too long before our cruise, they canceled this port.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: That's right. I remember hearing about this. This is. There was unrest there or something.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: And there has been for quite a long time.
And we were people on the group, the whole. On the Facebook group had been, they're going to cancel it. They're going to cancel it. They have been doing blah, blah. And it was pretty late in the day when they actually did. It was January maybe.
It was definitely in 2025. It was after Christmas. And we were like, okay. And they gave us $250 onboard credit for, you know, the inconvenience. I was like, great, cool.
Like.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: And your sailings, your sailings in February. Right? So that's only like a month before that they're giving you. It was, yeah.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: And then a few days before the cruise. Oh, it's back on now we're going there.
So in all honesty, I was a little bit disappointed. They, they, they didn't take the credit away or anything like that. But in canceling the port, they'd canceled the port adventure that we booked. And I was really looking forward to this because it was a cheese and wine tour. That sounds fun.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: I mean, that sounds really good to me.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So I was quite looking forward to that. And then they kind of went through the, okay, everyone's gonna have to rebook themselves. But they didn't offer all of the same port adventures. So we didn't end up booking anything. In the end, when they'd taken it off, they'd extended Fiji to 12 hours, so seven to seven rather than one to seven. But they undid that.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Oh, what a bummer. So if you, like, had thought, oh, I'll get a great long day at Fiji.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it didn't affect us. Cause booked a port adventure in Fiji. So I wasn't. They. They were dealing with it and it was fine. But I was like, oh, I would have quite enjoyed having the morning to explore. Because we didn't get to do any of our own exploring in Fiji because we got this now full half day that we had there.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: So that was.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: That was a bit disappointing. But I know that there were people that had organized to go to the other side of the island in Fiji because we were in the more industrial port that now had to undo all their plans. So that was a little bit disappointing. And we didn't have anything booked. They did run a free shuttle into. So they did two stops. One was just the kind of tourism visitor center, which was maybe five minutes from the port. And then maybe another five to 10 minutes further on was Lemon Bay. So we were like, well, they're doing a loop, so we'll get off at the first one, see if there's anything we want to do, get back on and then we'll go to Lemon Bay and see what's there too. And we just opted to explore.
We got on, yeah, got on the bus, got off. There really wasn't much there, but we were like, we'll go for a walk, like we'll give it a chance. And unfortunately there just really wasn't very much going on. I think we were a little bit early maybe, but we docked at like 7:30 in the morning. So we were often got moving but nothing was open really at that time. So that was a little bit of a miss. We went, got wet, just kind of did a loop, got back on a shuttle, went to Lemon Bay. That was nicer.
It was a bit. They had shark nets in what was the actual Lemon Bay, but where you got off, most people kind of went right, but Lemon Bay was left. And I don't think people realized this. And so it looked like people were down in the open bay where there were no shark nets and.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Oh, so they could have been approached by a shark maybe, yes.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: But apparently actually in Lemon Bay there was a hole in the shark net too. So I would just be a little bit cautious. We didn't go swimming. I don't know why we didn't take anything with us. We just. I think because we didn't know what to expect, we just sort of got off and wandered.
But we found a really cute little coffee shop, had some coffee, just kind of went walking and just wandered up and down. I think we ended up doing like 12000 steps or something in this morning.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Just like wandering up and down the bay.
I am a pretty avid geocacher, so I was determined to find a geocache to get New Caledonia on my little souvenirs page, so.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Oh, I love that.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: So. So yeah, I just wandered around, really didn't, didn't do an awful lot. The coffee was very good, I'll give them that.
But we opted to head back to the ship and get lunch at cabanas.
That's a pretty common thing for me and James if there's a port where we are just getting off and having a wander. It's what we did in all the southern Caribbean ports that we did. Oh gosh, that was a couple of years ago now. We didn't really book much. We had a few boat trips, but the other ones we just got off and wandered.
But if it's a morning, we'll often get off wander coffee, see what there is to see. And if there's nothing that kind of draws us in, we'll get back on board for lunch. Because why spend money when you've got cabanas.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you've got lunch you've already paid for, Right, Exactly.
And it's delicious. You know, if you decide not to eat at cabanas, you can eat pool deck food, so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: And yeah, and from there was. We did have a few people that had done the same itinerary the previous year on board and their comments had kind of been, yeah, we're not getting off in New Caledonia. Like, there wasn't really much there.
We don't mind missing it. And when Disney had cancelled it, they had been like, oh, no, it's not the end of the world. Really, you're not missing too much.
So cool to see. But for us, there just wasn't really very much there to do.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, your second port, you said was Fiji. So tell us about what you guys booked for Fiji.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Yes. So we booked a rainforest eco trek. I forget the name of the exact name of it, but effectively they take you to the local eco park, you have lunch and then they kind of take you on a quote unquote trek through the rainforest and you get to go swimming in some of the waterfall pools that are like fairly deep.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: Ish.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: In the rainforest.
Well, it was actually really nice. We got there and they offered three different lengths of hike. You had the same amount of time and they basically said you can spend more time hiking or more time swimming.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: And I will say that's so nice. And also helps with people who have maybe different abilities as well. Right. So different sort of, you know, it.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Was listed as a strenuous activity. It said you should be able to hike in a strenuous environment because even the short one coming back up was. It was all steps. Ish. Like it had been kind of carved out and there was a handrail. It wasn't kind of paved or anything, but it was completely sturdy and fine. But it was steep. You did have to be able to get yourself up these stairs and then I think the shortest one went to those stairs, went down, swam, when we were ready, come back up. We took the longest route because that's. Me and James always picked the longest, hardest route.
For us, it wasn't particularly hard. There were some people that were struggling. It was, you know, steep and uneven, so the description was pretty accurate. I was expecting a little bit more of a hike, but you never know with these sorts of things.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it's, they're trying to appeal to the, to a larger, you know, swath of people. Right. So for the people who are very, very fit and the people who are maybe not as fit but still, but still have the ability to do these kinds of things. So that's kind of probably, you know, it's hard for them to do both those things.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: And it was a really pretty walk.
It was interesting because, and we were warned very incessantly by Disney of these are not necessarily these guides full time jobs. So we had a guide, it was a tour company that we were on the bus and they took us there, but they handed us over to a local guide in the park kind of rainforest area. And we said to him like, how many times have you done this? And he was like, oh, it's my second time. So they are, it was local. And the amount that across this, that Disney stressed you may be with local guides on one of the other islands, it was, you will be in a school bus style bus with wooden seats. And the number of messages from guest services hammering this into us of it's got wooden seats, it's not a nice air conditioned bus. It became a little bit of a running joke around like guests of how many times they sent this.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Well, and I, I think it's very smart that they do this because I wonder if they maybe didn't communicate that well the prior season.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: I wonder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Because I wonder if they ended up with some complaints because I mean to, to sort of make this point home like these ships or these locations, while they do receive cruise traffic, they do not receive cruise traffic like the Caribbean or like the Bahamas does or even like American ports do. And a lot of these places are not the wealthiest countries or territories in the world. And so they are having to use school buses and you know, teachers and whoever is available as tour guides when they have a ship full of people arriving there that they don't normally have.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And one thing that I will say about every one of these islands that we visited is the friendliness of the people was just unreal. Fiji, I have to say, like, because we came in from the non tourist side, I think we saw the non tourist side of Fiji from the bus. You know, it was very, very beautiful. But you know, it was a lot of kind of, you know, tin roof tin, you know, almost want to say like shanty town type.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of poverty there. People don't realize like when you see, you know, videos of, you know, advertisements for, for these Luxury resorts in Fiji. That's like a very probably small part. I've never been to Fiji myself, but imagine it's a very small part.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Probably the main cruise port, which.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Not use. We came into a very industrialized.
It's Suva, so it's the more industrial side and you have to get bused kind of, you know, to do anything. And this, I think was why people were a little upset when the day got lengthened and shortened. Because to get to the big kind of all inclusive, this and that, it's an hour drive. It's the other side of the island. But we really enjoyed what we did. And honestly, like to be driving through somewhere and just like every single person is waving at this bus. Like every single person is waving at us. It wasn't just like the kids on the road.
Every single person was just happy to see us, even if we weren't even stopping with them. We were just driving past them like kids playing basketball.
Like, just stopped their game and just sat there like waving like it was really like you felt welcomed in each one of these islands for sure.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: That's so lovely. And I wonder, and I wonder if it's just because they don't get a lot of visitors or because they're like, oh, you're helping our economy when you're here, or both. Right? Like it's just really either way. Yeah, either way. It's really nice.
[00:36:15] Speaker C: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation. Great news. The first fabulous team over at MyPath Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. My Path Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, Adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOMYPATHunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks. My Path Unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Well, what was your third port of call?
[00:37:17] Speaker A: We then went on to American Samoa. So this was probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
And I was really happy, actually, someone enlightened me on the cruise.
We had a really, really wonderful Facebook group admin shout out to Lonnie, because she was honestly insane. So great. She set up just. I'm going to go off on the side right here real quick because she set up a go goofy challenge. And basically, like, she's running the Boston Marathon this year. So she's very into her running, her fitness. And she floated the idea last year, would people be interested in this?
And people were like, yes, absolutely. The amount of effort that she went to, we all got for doing our distances on the ship, on our challenges. It didn't have to just be on the ship, but it was intentional. 5k, 10k, half marathon, full marathon, ultramarathon, like, building up the distance across the full two weeks.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you did like a half marathon by just running around, you know, laps on the ship or running on.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: The islands or whatever, many days, and she laid it out as if you do two, two laps a day, it's this far. And. And it was so fun. And every day at 4:00, you could go and get. She'd done magnets for everybody's doors. And every day at 4:00, you could go and get your star to say, I worked out on this day. And if you get your 5k, 10k, you had little pins that went on your lanyard. Like, honestly, the effort that she went.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: To, did she pay for this all herself, too?
She did not charge people for, like, magnets and pins. Oh, my goodness.
Shout out to Lonnie, I hope I can meet you someday.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: She's amazing.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: So serious. Shout out. She was such a great admin too. Like, she really looked after everybody. And I'm pretty. As far as I'm aware, there was no other admin in this group. She did this all by herself. And I have admin to Facebook group before. And there were three of us. And it's hard.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: It's a lot of work.
I am adminning my. What I have called my very last time adminning a sailing group. We of course admin our Facebook group for the dcl, do a podcast, but I'm adminning a group for a cruise in April, cruise of 2025. We're recording this in March. And I'm like, I have like, four people helping me with various things. Like, I have one person who's doing all the fish extender stuff. Right. Because I'm like, you have to be so organized for that. But, like, it's a. It's a ton of work to do it if you're doing it solo, no question. Like, it's just.
And to do it solo and to do this, that's amazing.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: And it was honestly incredible. So she was great.
And I, Yeah, just. I can't fault her. She did so great. And she actually enlightened me that you could get the American national parks passport book and get your stamps and stuff. And American Samoa is the, quote, unquote, hardest one to get because it's so far away.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: And most people don't ever get it. So I actually, I was so determined to go to the visitor center to get this book and get this stamp because I was like, I don't know if I'll ever come back here. And I'm a completionist. I like stuff like that. So I was like, this is fun. So I have that now to do and we'll see if I, you know, I'm sure I. Yeah.
And I got. We. Yeah. So that was really, really fun.
So we actually did an excursion in the morning where we went to a local village and got to experience a traditional ava ceremony. So the avar root is a root, I guess, that grows and they turn it into a drink and it's drunk at special occasions.
It seemed like every island kind of had its own version of it because we were offered the chance to taste it in Fiji at of our excursion there too. But they called it something very slightly different and I forget what it was, but I think each island has their own version of either the same thing or a very slightly different thing. But it's drunk at ceremonial occasions or special occasions. So they did a demonstration of a traditional arva ceremony. They had one of the village leaders, like, kind of speaking in English and explained explaining what was going to happen and then. But everything else was being done and I guess Samoan.
So. Yeah. But it was really, really interesting. And, you know, they. He was. They were really conscious to make the Disney links and stuff as well because they had their. The princess of their village. And he was like, well, you may have seen this headdress in Moana and was kind of, you know, like, drawing the parallels and stuff of the kind of Pacific islands and stuff. So that was it was he. They really made an effort to say, like, we know you're from Disney and you know, they, they wouldn't. I doubt that they would necessarily say that to mother.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Well, they want to connect it, right? Like they want to draw a connection. So you remember this beautiful place you, you've been.
And when you make those sort of personal connections to people or to a connection to something they know from home, I feel like it stays with you. Right. Like you're more likely to remember it and be impacted by it. I love that. That was so smart.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: So it was so lush and so green and so gorgeous there.
That was where the storm was coming in that afternoon. So we had an all right day, kind of, I say the sort of morning time of getting to this, the village that we went to.
And then on the way back, it's. It did chuck it down on the way back. We got back to the ship, we were like, let's go grab some lunch and then we'll get back off. Because we still had some time.
This was the one port what we, we had like, what I felt was a good amount of time after an excursion.
So because we really didn't have any time in Fiji, we just barely got back.
So we got off, we went on the ship, had a quick bit of lunch, dropped some bags off because we just didn't want to be carrying them in the rain. And then we trekked up to the visitor center. It was, I say track, it was 15 minute walk, but in the wind it felt like a trek because this was, you know, the wind was strong enough. I will one of the, I'll make sure to include one of the photos. I have a, a photo of James and I buy a sign in America and my hair is just everywhere. Like the wind was crazy.
And so it would have been. We would have really loved to have actually gone into the park and done some hiking. And I'd looked into it, but the weather that day was just bad. And people, I know some people from the ship did go off and go up into the parks on the trails. All the staff at the visitor center were very, very helpful in that respect. And they said they recommended this, that and the other. But they said when they got back they were like, yeah, in this weather it probably wasn't the smartest thing that we did. So. Yeah. But no, it was really nice. It was really fun to kind of like again just go off. We just like to wander around and explore and see what we find.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's always a fun thing to do at any port. Now did you, you mentioned four ports. Is there a fourth port that you went to after American Samoa.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: So we did a stop in Hawaii before we got off.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Okay, so before you get to Honolulu, you have a stop in Hawaii. What was the stop in Hawaii?
[00:44:54] Speaker A: I. And I'm gonna butcher this. I'm so sorry. Is it Kauai or Kawaii?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: That's a lot.
Yeah, Kauai is like the. That's like the continental way of saying it, right? The American.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I heard so many people say it in so many different ways and I couldn't get it straight in my head, which was the right way to pronounce it. So I put apologize.
But yeah. So we also did not have anything booked in this port or did we? I'm trying to think now. Oh, yes, we did. I'm totally lying.
We did a excursion to the fern grotto. Completely lying to you because we went off and explored on our own afterwards.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: We had a fern grotto.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: So is this very famous, kind of basically like a big rock formation with ferns all growing all over it.
And it's, it's on the edge of a very sacred kind of place on the island where from what the tour guide was telling us, people don't go now because it's a very, very sacred. I believe. And if I'm not getting things mixed up, I believe it's where the first people were and where. It's where the old. The kings and queens of old are now buried. So it's a very sacred place and they don't go into it. And it's on my understanding, I think if I've taken this incorrectly, was that this is on the edge of. That this is about as far as you can go.
So we were bused over to get on a boat. We got on a little. It was kind of a. I want to call it a long boat. And we had a little boat ride, maybe 15, 20 minutes or so up. There was a short walk through.
It was a. It said it was like a state owned park area up to this fern grotto. And when we got there, the tour guides performed the Hawaiian wedding song.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: Oh, lovely.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: So it was quite sweet. They were like. It was. They. They were making a lot of jokes about how kind of this is the wedding song. And like at the end of it, you turn to the person next to you and you kiss them and then you're married. And so it's a good thing you.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Went with your husband and not with your best friend. Right.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: But then they did make the joke that, yeah, you know, like on the way back you can, you can also get divorced you just say you're divorced.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: So it's funny. It was very, very beautiful. There was some really gorgeous plants and like, it was just really, again, so peaceful. And they really encouraged us. On the boat ride up, the captain of the boat was talking to us and he was like, I really encourage you to like, put your phones down and just walk through this area because it's so peaceful and so gorgeous. And he was completely right.
I took a few photos on the way out, but I actually took no photos on the way in. And yeah, it was really, really beautiful. And then we actually had the singers that sang. I think they had two boats and they flipped them around as to. The singers that were at the grotto came back on the boat with us and I believe they'd gone up on the first boat. And so we got a performance from the singer and they had a woman dancing the hula as well. And it was funny because they got us all to stand up and she was teaching us the different moves that went with the particular song and each word had the action that you had to do for it. And so it was quite funny because half the people on the little boat were like, no getting into it. It was really fun.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. Well, it's really lovely.
If you go to someplace where they sort of teach you hula, they do it actually. There's. At the. Even the luau at Aulan, they do.
They show, they teach you the movements and they. It's kind of like sign language, right? Like it's a communication through body movement, hand movement and body movement. And it's really beautiful if you think about it as like a, you know, a different form of communicating. And so, yeah, I love that they did that. That's fantastic.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: No, it was really, really nice.
And then they, on the way back, they stopped at a couple of places, like just a couple of like scenic stops to take some photos. There was a big waterfall that we stopped at. And was it one other place or was that it? I can't remember, but yeah, so, and they drove us around and we got back, they dropped us off back at the port and then we just opted to walk. It was 10 minutes or so towards the kind of beachfront area and there were restaurants and shops and kind of your more typical, what, you know, a little bit Caribbean esque, I suppose.
So we went and had some lunch. We decided to have lunch off the ship that I think we'd missed. I think we'd missed cabanas at that point. So we said we'll get some lunch off the ship.
Right.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: When your only option is then pool deck food. Right. It's usually about 3 o' clock in the afternoon. They shut down cabanas. Sometimes it's 2 or 2:30. I forget. It just depends.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: I want to say it was 2:30 throughout this cruise.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's one of those things where you want to check the navigator app to find out when it opens, when it closes, because lunchtime it does have shorter hours, not short hours, but it does close at some point. And then it doesn't reopen for dinner anymore.
All right, well, let's jump back onto the ship and we're just going to hit a couple of highlights from the sailing days because obviously you got plenty of days at sea. I'm sure there was tons of relaxing, but what were some favorite activities or events that you guys got up to on this sailing?
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Okay, so there was the most active crafting group I've ever seen on a sailing. The number of people knitting and crocheting, myself included, because I am a very big crocheter. The number of people I've never seen. I've never seen another person sat on deck knitting or crocheting ever.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: I have seen a couple of times. I have seen people either knitting or crocheting, but only a couple of times. And it's not.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: There were so many.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: There was a WhatsApp community. And almost every day, some was like, hey, I'm starting. I'm sat in Cope Cafe. Like, and there would just be a group of people, you know, whether you were doing it, you know, it was different people every day. That was really, really lovely. You could just go and sit there and almost always there'd be somebody else.
So particularly on those slightly dreary days, that was.
That was what we did.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: That's fantastic. Now, I have to ask a question. When you're doing your crocheting, are you talking to other people or are you just sitting there crocheting and just kind of enjoying the atmosphere? Like, is it something that you have to concentrate on?
[00:51:56] Speaker A: A little bit of both.
I had a. I was making a little blanket. So mine was fairly repetitive.
Different people were doing different things. But most people, you. You sitting, have a conversation, getting to know people for the most part. And you know, yeah, I'd probably have been faster at my crochet if I hadn't have been gabbing away so much. But that was not. It was really nice.
And, you know, there was a couple of ladies that we exchanged phone numbers and have kept in touch since.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: So I love that.
[00:52:25] Speaker A: That's been really nice.
So, yeah, so that was, you know, often.
Not quite every day, but most days at some stage I'd go do an hour like I. I crochet for my mental health. Like I just need it. It calms me and it just. It's one of those things that I just have to do. So, yeah, it was nice to have that We. I have to, you know, I always will point out Cadillac.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Cadillac.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: I don't mind which one it is. But yeah, that's for me.
I've always said this. It's the big miss of the dream in the fantasy ships is they don't have what I call a proper piano bar.
The piano player has to sing. It's just so nice.
And you know, the bar staff in there are also incredible. We had a really, really great time with them. We'd go to it. Usually we'd go to at least one kind of piano set of an evening. We didn't do as much of the entertainment this cruise as maybe we normally do. We've seen the kind of Disney shows before. We did. We obviously went to Frozen because you have to go to Frozen.
But we were just kind of enjoying the slower pace and not kind of being like, oh, we have to be ready for a show at 6 or 6:15 every single day. And we opted to do a lot of the more they actually moved a lot of the adults. I say adults only entertainment. The how the variety acts come and do a typical. A main stage show and then a show for the adults on a different night at say 10, 10:30pm they move that into the Walt Disney Theater, which I've never seen before.
But I presume it's because there were so many adults on this cruise.
Every cruise I've ever been on, even if it's packed out, you are in the whichever nightclub Azure, as you're wherever you are and you packed in there and it's as full as it's. You know, it just is. I've never seen them move it before, but that's what they did.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: It was. It did make it a little bit disjointed, I have to admit. So like we did a lot less of the game showy stuff because you were like effectively running back and forth and so we just.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a little.
It's not as. You can't be as interactive. Right. Like the performer can't interact as much if they're on the main stage versus in one of the Clubs.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: I would say most. I would say at least three quarters of the nights we passed Azure to go back to our room because we were four decks up or whatever, so we always used that staircase. It was dead. Completely empty after that because. Because they'd taken everyone out of there and pushed them into the Walt Disney Theater for the adult exclusive performance.
There was then, no people didn't go back. So I think they probably shot themselves in the foot a little bit with drink sales there.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: That's a good point.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't know. It was. It was interesting. It was different. It definitely changed the vibe a little bit. A lot. I noticed the game shows seem quieter, and I expected them to be busier. On an adult only sailing.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Or an adult heavy sailing.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry, not adults only. But, yeah, it kind of felt that way.
There were kids, but there weren't that many.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And I imagine the kids skewed. Younger or older. Meaning, like, when I say younger, I mean, like preschool age and older. I mean, you know, teenagers.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: And we did see a few kids, bless them, sitting in the atrium doing their schoolwork. It was, you know, they've obviously brought it with them.
But that was sweet. And then I would say my other highlight was we did Valentine's Day brunch at Paolo.
So we. And that was completely accidentally booked by me. This was panic booking of, I just need to get a brunch. I don't care when. And I just booked what came up, and it was Valentine's Day, and so that was a nice surprise when we got on board. So, yes, I did have a slight panic because I haven't been since the changes of it no longer being a buffet.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. It's been that long since you've been to Paulo brunch?
[00:56:39] Speaker A: Yes, I haven't been to Paulo brunch since March 2020 on my infamous Panama.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: Right, right. The sailing that never ended.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: Yes.
So we. Yeah. So I haven't been to brunch since then. And it was obviously still a buffet at that time. And so she hands me the menu, and there were no sticky buns. And I knew that they. I know that they. I knew it was different sticky buns, but she hands me the menu, and I kind of looked to her and she kind of went away and then came back, and I was like, louise, I have a question. And she went, anything? And I went, do you still have sticky buns? Like, because they weren't on the menu. And she was like, oh, no, no, they're on the dessert menu. And I was like, oh, there's another menu.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: So she may have brought me a sticky bun to start, and I may have also had a sticky bun to finish.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: Yeah, listen, you know, there's no mistakes in ordering dessert before your meal. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing wrong with that.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: But what I will say is, and I don't know if this is a thing. This has never been a thing that I've seen Cabana breakfast every other day alternated between churro Mickey waffles and sticky buns.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: What? Wow.
That's kind of amazing.
[00:57:57] Speaker A: On day one, I didn't. We didn't go to cabana breakfast on day one. I don't remember why. I don't know what we were doing, but it kind of went off in the WhatsApp group of people. Like, they had cherry Mickey waffles this morning, blah, blah, blah. And I went, does that mean we've missed them?
And I was. In my heart, I was like, oh, my God, have I missed my cherry Mickey? Because I will always go and get them on the day whenever it is. But I didn't even think that on day one, had them every other day.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, that's very unusual. I don't know if that's something that they did because it was a longer sailing, but I've never heard that before on a longer sailing or a shorter sailing. So, I mean, so we like to warn people that on most Disney Cruise Line sailings, you will have Mickey churro waffles one day and one day only.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: This is a liveover experience.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: And oftentimes maybe twice. Yeah. And oftentimes it can be on, like, castaway day. Right. So it's like you're like, last day.
And so I just warn people, like, look out for them. I mean, when we. When it happens to us that it's on a C day and it happens to be our Paulo brunch day, I will go to cabanas and at least eat one or a half of a Mickey churro waffle, even though. Because I normally don't eat anything before Palo brunch, because I know I'm going to be so stuffed. Right? So I'm like, I have to go with a completely empty stomach, but I will find room for at least half a Miki churro waffle. Yeah. That's hilarious. Wow, that's amazing. Many, many, many Miki churro waffles. I love that.
[00:59:24] Speaker A: Several sticky buns. You know, I didn't have everything. They weren't quite the same.
[00:59:28] Speaker B: Not quite the same. Yeah. And the one in Paulo, not quite the same either.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: No. But do you know, I did like the Paolo ones. I did not have complaints. I did not.
[00:59:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: And actually next to the sticky buns and cabanas, they some days had this apple compote. That was good. That was a combination.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. Yeah. Well, the one in Paulo now has apple in it. So that's. Brian is not. He's. He was always the sticky fun person and he, he doesn't love the new version with the apple in it. He doesn't hate it or anything. He still eats it. Not every time, but. But he, you know those sticky buns from that buffet, I mean he would have, he would get them at the beginning and the end of the meal. I mean that would be kind of very, very normal.
But yeah, it's very, very interesting. You know, one question I forgot to ask you towards the beginning, Laura, is what was the nationality kind of breakdown on. On this sailing? Right. You're coming from Australia, but you're. You Hawaii.
Was it mostly Americans or was it more of a mix?
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Quite a few Australians there were, you know, I would. More than I was anticipating actually. And I didn't actually get like kind of sometimes they almost announce it and they may have. And we just weren't in the theater. But like I know on our not so northern Europe cruise we. They said it's 80% American. So they kind of said that.
I did not hear it said or anything, but there were, yes, many, many Americans, as you would expect. And I actually did not realize how short the flight. I say short, it's not short, but it's a nine hour flight from Hawaii to Sydney.
I actually was not aware how I'm going to call it short because for me it was, you know, to a 12 and a 13 hour flight.
But what I heard of some people doing was buying a single ticket from Hawaii to Sydney who were traveling from the US Obviously and then a round trip flight from their home to Hawaii. And that was the cheapest way to do the airfare from the US for some people. I heard of a few people doing this.
[01:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Rather than just booking a flight from the US To Sydney. That. That makes sense.
[01:01:46] Speaker A: And then Hawaii, home, wherever home may be. So.
[01:01:49] Speaker B: Right.
[01:01:50] Speaker A: Building in a round trip element of it sounded like it had saved some people some money.
[01:01:55] Speaker B: And it makes sense because if you think about it, I mean that's a. It is a very long flight from the US Directly to Sydney. I don't know. I don't know if you Can. I think you can do it. I know you can do it. A direct flight from like lax. I don't even know if I don't.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: I heard of people coming. I want to say Dallas.
It was Dallas. Or Houston. I forget. Somewhere in Texas.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:15] Speaker A: One of the airports.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, there's probably, but there's not, you know, a ton of US Airports that you can fly direct to Australia from. But it's. That would be a quite, quite a long flight. So breaking it up with a stop in. In Hawaii would certainly make sense. And, and like you said, building in that round trip makes sense. Well, you know, we. I'm going to wrap up talking about this cruise. It sounds like it was an amazing, amazing experience. I do want to close by asking you a couple of favorites questions over the course of this trip. It's not, I'm not going to call it rapid fire because it's a little different and we've done a rapid fire before, Laura. But I want to ask, like, what was maybe your favorite place on. I mean, obviously this is a whirlwind trip. You, you know, went to Shanghai, you went to Hawaii, you went to Australia, New Zealand. You know, what was maybe the favorite place you could. It could even be one of the islands you stopped at. Favorite place you went on this entire trip.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: Ah, so hard.
If I was gonna go back somewhere the soonest, I must say I really loved Melbourne and Sydney. So Australia.
Yeah, I liked it there a lot more than I anticipated, actually.
It was. Yeah, it was really great.
Although shout out to the hiking in New Zealand, because that was just spectacular.
[01:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, love that.
[01:03:40] Speaker A: If it was off the cruise, though, Daphne. American smeller.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: Nice. All right, favorite food from the trip.
[01:03:47] Speaker A: From the whole trip?
[01:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah, from the whole trip. No problem.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: In Wanaka in New Zealand on the south island, we had a monkfish burrito, which was potentially one of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life.
And my husband agrees.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. All right, favorite hike. Because I know you did a lot of hikes across this whole trip.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Favorite hike, we did Roy's Peak, same day as that burrito. That burrito with the fuel.
[01:04:17] Speaker B: So it was like the perfect day.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: Basically we were slightly broken afterwards.
It's quite high. I think it's.
I'm gonna get this wrong, but I want to say it's about 1300. Is it meters? Yeah, it's got to be meters. It's high. It's 8km up and 8km back down and it's all zigzaggy. All the way up.
[01:04:39] Speaker B: Oh, wow. That's a tremendous hike.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we were 5ish, 5 to 6 hours round trip.
[01:04:45] Speaker B: Wow. Amazing. All right, well, I gotta ask you. You went to Shanghai Disneyland. What was your favorite ride?
[01:04:53] Speaker A: Ooh, probably.
I think it's gotta be the new Zootopia ride.
It was really good.
[01:05:01] Speaker B: I love.
[01:05:02] Speaker A: And actually, do you know, from. From all my research, I was expecting to have to queue up to get into Zootopia Land. And that's all gone.
We just walked. Honestly, I was confused. I walked in and I was like, oh, we're in here.
[01:05:15] Speaker B: Yes, that was the line.
[01:05:17] Speaker A: Like, I was so lost.
So, yeah, I was expecting to have to stand in a line to get in. But my goodness. Can I just say, wear good walking shoes for Shanghai Disneyland. Because we had done almost 10,000 steps before we got even to the ticket barrier of the park. Because they. The way they obviously make you walk a pretty long way around. And this is. We came out of our hotel, walked to the main road, got in a taxi to Shanghai Disneyland. There was no other walking done on this day.
And before we'd even scanned our tickets, I was nearing 10,000 steps.
[01:05:55] Speaker B: Wow, that's a lot of walking.
[01:05:57] Speaker A: It is a fair old walk just to get through the lines to get into the park.
And we obviously did not have early entry or anything like that because we were not staying on site.
So, yeah, wear good walking shoes.
[01:06:10] Speaker B: All right, well, I gotta know what's the next Disney adventure? Whether that's parks or cruise. I mean, you always have something, you know, planned for your next trip. What have you got planned, Laura?
[01:06:22] Speaker A: Sad news.
[01:06:23] Speaker B: Oh, no, there are no plans right now, Laura. There are no plans. What's going on?
[01:06:29] Speaker A: It hurts my soul.
No, it actually makes me sad. We have placeholders booked. Like I say booked. We have placeholders. Never leave a cruise without a placeholder. You can always get your money back.
So, yeah, currently nothing. But it's kind of strange. So I booked this cruise on opening day back in 2023. And it has been, you know, eight over 18 months of planning. And, you know, I've never once in my life, like, counted down to the day that I could book a flight. Like, I've never been that on it and needing to make this work. So it was kind of all of this planning for this big trip and both me and my husband had to organize sabbaticals from work and we took unpaid leave. And so we've had to sit save and, you know, make sure that everything was covered while we were away. And you Know, had to have someone come and stay at our house for a little bit so that thing, you know, insurances didn't get invalidated and you know, all these things that you just never think about normally. And so I feel like all the planning has been going into this and now I'm like, oh, we have nothing, especially nothing Disney related, right?
[01:07:40] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. Well, Laura, you're, you're going to have to get on planning a trip to go on the Treasure or of course the Destiny, because I know and I've.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Not done the wish yet. The wish is still like, we just, we haven't figured that yet. So. Yeah, it's absolutely on the list.
We, yeah, it's. I would love to get, if even if I could swing a short trip like just to get a bull Disney fix. But we'll see. I'm. We, we are, you know, we have vacation clubs, so we used obviously points to stay at Alani. And you know, I was thinking, you know, I might have to bank points this year because also financially this trip was.
[01:08:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's a big, it's a big ding to the wallet. It's a big.
[01:08:24] Speaker A: And then we both, we've both had a month with no pay. So we will, we'll figure something out, I'm sure.
[01:08:30] Speaker B: But yeah, well, you're gonna save up your pence and I know you'll have another Disney trip planned soon. And when you do, of course you must. If it's a cruise, you must come back to see us, Laura. That will be a cruise.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: That will be a cruise. My dad's already saying, he was like, can we go on another cruise? I was like, oh, yeah, if you want.
[01:08:48] Speaker B: I love that.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, so there'll be something. But yeah, just not quite sure yet. What yet?
[01:08:55] Speaker B: All right, well, when you book that next cruise, you reach out to us so that we can book you for another show. Laura, it was my pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining me and I really just appreciate it. What a fantastic trip this was.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Sam.
[01:09:14] 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 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 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. We sell some fun fan inspired magnets link to our Patreon. If you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Dual PI podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflect the views of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at MyPath unwinding travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo. Good night.
[01:11:17] Speaker A: Sam.
