[00:00:00] Speaker A: Man, there's some wildly divergent opinions in that crowd. Over Lookout. Were you concerned heading into Lookout key around what it would be like or were you like, ah, it'll be fine.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Listen, I was concerned about a lot of things when you pay attention to the influencer crowd.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by my Path, Unreal, Unwinding travel. And Sam, do your little jingle.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Yes, simply the best.
Better than all the rest.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: That's right. It is review time. And so this week's review comes from Lauren Ray, 21, who writes really is the best DCL podcast. This podcast is the most thorough DCL centered podcast. The variety of topics will have nearly anything a listener could be searching for. Sam and Brian are fantastic hosts. You tell how much work they put in to make this what it is. They are so engaging and easy to listen to. This is my favorite Disney Cruise line podcast. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for that very kind review. We greatly appreciate it.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Yes. Love that.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: And for all of you out there, you know, we don't do this show for that sweet, sweet mailchimp money. For anyone out there who gets the reference, we donate all the proceeds to charity. And so what really keeps us going here is just the community we've built and the positive listener interactions we have and. And those great reviews that you leave us. So please, please, please, the easiest way to support this show, head over to Apple Podcasts, hit those five stars. If you leave us a written review, we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes, as we did with Lauren's review. So head over there. It's so easy, so easy to do.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Yes. And don't forget to like and subscribe to us on YouTube because we are putting out tons of YouTube content now. All of our episodes. If you're listening to this on one of the podcast channels, if you want to see video, we're putting out all of our episodes over on YouTube as well, with video. So you can see us talking. You can see our guests talking on our live shows. Oftentimes we have lots of visuals, PowerPoints. You know, it's fun.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: The selling point is you can see us talking.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: You can see us talking.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: You can see it. You can see the.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, you can see my. You can see how I talk with my hands. If you want to see how I talk with my hands, you got to watch me on video. You can't hear it in my voice. So.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Well, Sam, we got a fun topic Today you want to intro our topic and our guest for the day.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I'm always excited to have a first time cruiser on our show. It's as I have said many times before, it's reliving our first cruise through somebody else's eyes. That's how I always feel when we have a first time cruiser on. So today is no exception. But I'm super excited to welcome to the show. Alex, welcome.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I am grateful to be here, having listened to many of those first time Cruise episodes. Really grateful for those. I eat those things up. So thank you for having me.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us. Thanks for reaching out to be on the show.
We tell people all the time without, you know, great guests that are willing to come on the show for the first time, for the fifth time, for the tenth time, we'd just be the two weirdos with mics that we are and you would just be listening to us drone on. So it's always really fun to have new folks come on.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: They're such nice weirdos with really nice.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Microphones, with really nice mics. True, true. Well, Alex, we're super excited to talk about your first time cruising on Disney, your first time cruising period. But let's back up and talk and hear about what your connection, where your connection to Disney comes from. Because we always find that people who cruise for the first time on Disney Cruise Line in particular, not just having cruise someplace else, generally have a background or connection to Disney. So I'd love to hear about yours.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: I guess, you know, you have the typical like growing up childhood. My family would go to Disney World a few times. We're from Philadelphia area and wasn't a major part of my childhood. But for some reason when my wife and I, we got married pretty young about 18 years ago, we were in our early 20s and we just said, you know, we can't imagine sitting on a beach anywhere. Like just, you know, everybody go to honeymoon, just sit on a Beach for five, 10 days. You know, we just were like, let's go do something fun. So we both, one of the things that we enjoyed was, was Disney was that was like a shared thing from, from the very beginning. So we decided to go on our honeymoon to Dis World and we stayed at Port Orleans, Riverside, spent, you know, 10 days at Disney, had a lot of fun. And that really kind of kick started this through line, through our relationship, you know, over the last 18 years with Disney. And we would go every couple years, you know, do a five year anniversary.
And then in 2021, we moved from the Philadelphia area down to North Florida.
[00:04:56] Speaker C: We live between, just to be closer to the mouse.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: You know, what's funny is that it was almost not like part of the consideration.
There was a lot of other things going on at the time, if people remember.
And there was other factors and weather and just life change and a lot going on.
But we were here maybe like two months and we start looking at each other going, wait a minute, Disney World is here. It was almost like an afterthought. And then we see can drive there. I know, yeah, it was, it was, that's what it was. I mean, we, we knew, but, but we didn't think that it really wasn't part of the consideration. So. But yeah, we, we got annual passes within three months of moving here. And you know, I guess it was as far as cruising like the, the, you know, we started paying attention to Disney influencers and travel agents and things like that and, and then went with all the, you know, like the Treasure promotions and news and everything. We kind of tracked that whole thing. And I actually, when, when that, when they released the bookings for that, I booked a trip on the Treasure that was supposed to be our, like our first cruise was supposed to be on the Treasure. And then we just started feeling like, well, we can't really afford the price tag. And we were also a little nervous for the seven nights being new cruisers.
And, and so we, we decided to find something a little different out of Fort Lauderdale. We, we, we got on the Dream, the five night going. And what was cool about that was the whole new, we get to go to both islands. So we remember talking to our travel agent about, hey, you know, what should we do? Go on the new ship or go to the new island? Right. So, yeah, I mean, dilemma.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: But the price tag for the new ship was higher than the price tag for the new island. By far.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. And, and we ended up like, after we booked, they released like a promo or something and our kids were half off. It just all kind of worked out perfectly for us for the first time.
So that's kind of how we landed on that sailing.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, and you picked a great itinerary for your first cruise. Five nights. You said on the Dream, going to both Lookout and Castaway. I know you also went to Nassau.
You know, people can debate whether that's a great stop, but I got to.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Ask real fast, Alex, since you, you mentioned that you were, you know, you were digging into the Disney community, the influencer crowd, the Content creator crowd after you booked and you were headed to Lookout Key. Man, there's some wildly divergent opinions in that crowd over Lookout. Were you concerned heading into Lookout Key, around what it would be like or were you like, it'll be fine.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Listen, I was concerned about a lot of things when you pay attention to the influencer crowd, you know, I mean.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: You start getting, that's a good point.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: You worrying about all these things that you don't know if they're actually realistic, you know, concerns you should have or not. You know, like, oh, I like new stuff. I, it was really hard for me to like turn up, like cancel, you know, reschedule to the old, older ship from this brand new one. I mean, I wanted to be, you know, I want the inaugural merch and all that stuff. Right. Like, so, so it was, it was hard because of a lot of that, A lot of that. Not, not let alone, oh, what, what's. Am I going to run into flies or long piers or all.
You know, thankfully I, there's some folks like yourself and others who I, I felt like kept a more of a, you know, realistic approach.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: So it's also why I like to have guests because like, like our opinions are our opinions, whatever. Right. And you know, sometimes we're the first to experience it. So our opinions carry a little bit more weight initially. But I'd rather have all the guests in the world come on and tell people, which we will get to with you, like, what's going on, what they liked, what they didn't like, what they thought was important. Because that's more important to me than that is frankly more important to your vacation planning is hearing from a lot of different people about the experience. So. Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: And this idea of like what to worry about and what to not worry about. Right. Like, I honestly, I want to tell people in general, like there's not a whole lot to worry about with the Disney cruise. Like you really, it's not like a Walt Disney World parks vacation where you need to like really type a, plan everything and understand everything ahead of time. I'm not saying your cruise won't be more smooth if you do a little bit of planning, but I just, there's just not a whole lot that you have to worry about and have to plan in advance with a cruise as compared to, you know, a theme park trip. And for someone who has theme park experience, a cruise should be a total breeze.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: The only thing I worry about is amex is going to send a hitman after me credit card bill.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, yeah, that onboard folio thing builds up real fast, you know.
No, I was going to say that the, you know, I teach a research class, I'm a high school teacher and I just love, I've always been a researcher myself, so I actually find more joy in the planning process than probably in actually doing it, you know.
So it was interesting. Like for a Parks guy who really does enjoy, I mean, when we went on our honeymoon, I was doing like, I don't know what you'd buy the books, the.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: There was no unofficial guides.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: I was probably one of the OG touring plans members, you know, back in the day, you know what I mean? So like I, I like that stuff. So that was an interesting, you know, thing was approaching this, like, how do I go about it? Do I, do I go about it? Like, so part of the research background is. Yes, I take a, I like to look at a lot of different opinions and try to find like the, you know, the middle, you know, consensus and rather than getting caught in the extremes and things like that. So.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: And the extremes, I say to anyone, if you have, if you're seeing extreme opinions about something on Instagram or X or wherever you get your information from, whatever content you're looking at, like, take it with a grain of salt because a lot of the time these, this content is being made in order to get clicks. And like we really try to stay away from that type of content and from that type of reporting on Disney because that, we don't think that that's usually realistic. It's not usually what most people are going to experience. Like most people's experience, as you said, is going to fall more in that middle. That doesn't mean there aren't sometimes extreme. Something goes really right or something goes really wrong. Like those things do happen. But most people, that's not, that's not the case. Well, let's dive in a little bit on the planning side of things you were going to, you know, you're going to the two private islands and Nassau, you're a first time cruiser. So your booking window is the last possible booking window for onboard activities, for excursions.
Were there things that you were planning or trying to book in advance and if so, how did that whole process go? Obviously you, you're such an intense researcher. I'm sure you had everything sort of ready of like, this is my first choice, this is my second choice and all of that.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I had a good travel agent so someone was able to help guide me through the key dates. And things like that. That's really valuable. And then, then just I started, you know, every time I'd listen to, you know, I probably watched 100 YouTube videos, listen to a hundred podcasts, whatever, and I would just. I kept the file with my phone of something that, you know, I heard, oh, someone said this, someone said that. Someone, you know, I had on my app called Tips. And it was like, you know, Sam or go to the this at this time or this. Like, I would just jot down, you know, random things I would hear and started to kind of make some sense of it as, you know, we got closer.
Obviously the big things were Paolo brunch, right? Trying to get Palo brunch. And I became, I'm honest, to be honest with you, I'm a little bit like.
Like my addiction was removed. I can't go to the app and like scroll and then search for something right now. So I'm feel little like, like, what am I going to do with myself right now? I'm not.
I'm not within a booking window of anything at the moment. So, you know, obviously being first time cruiser, you're not getting all the, you know, the first dibs at everything. So I was relying on. I think initially we got a Palo dinner, but we decided, well, we don't want to do. We want to kind of experience all the main dining and, you know, so let's really try. I don't know how I ended up getting Apollo brunch and I ended up with a Remy brunch as well.
I got both of those before I walked on that ship. So I would just say constantly checking the app a couple times a day.
It became a little habit that I had and ended up paying off.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: I mean, I actually hear stories. I mean, we always say it's impossible. It's not. I actually hear stories about people who just randomly on the app and see a cabana and get happens. If you're on there at the right time, it happens. I'm curious, Alex, did you join your Sailings Facebook group?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: I did.
And I have mixed feel. I mean, it was nothing I didn't like there would be somebody that would post something and say, hey, I'm going to drop something. But I would never see. I don't know what the algorithm is. And you know, it just seemed like every time I saw something, it was gone by the time I saw it. There was one time I ended up getting a Remy dessert and we went into the sailing with a Remy. I had Palo brunch, Remy brunch. And a Remy dessert booked when I walked on board that ship.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Wow, that's a lot for a five night cruise.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And for a first timer. So that was pretty impressive. Right. But we decided to. We had to pick between the brunch and the dessert for Remy. And so. But that came out of the Facebook group. I think somebody said, hey, I'm gonna drop this. And I did happen to see that a week or two before the sailing. A lot of the stuff on the Facebook group just made me want to say to hey, go watch this YouTube or go listen to this podcast or, you know, they would ask questions that to me at that point seemed kind of like, doesn't everybody know this?
[00:15:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that is true. There are people who have never sailed and don't know where to ask, and so they just ask in the Facebook group. I would say that's pretty common. You have a lot of, you know, folks asking what you might think are stupid questions.
I don't mind stupid questions as there are no stupid questions, except for the ones that you have to check the Disney website for. Right. I get a little bit crazy when people are asking like, do I need a passport sale or do I need a.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: It's not a dumb. It's not that. Hold on. It's not a dumb question. It's just a question one ought not outsource to the general public.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Exactly.
It's not that the question is a bad question. It's just you're asking in the wrong place. Right.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Like someone somewhere was gonna be like, well, I got on a ship without a passport.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: I'm sure it's happened. Right. But it's not recomm.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Well, and it's also, it really depends on, like, are you a US Citizen or are you a citizen of a different country? And like, where are you sailing from? And like, so certain questions, like, are best directed to Disney.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: What's your tolerance for risk?
[00:16:06] Speaker C: Right, right. True, true. But yeah, so things like that, I think when people are asking for, oh, like, what's. Does anyone have a recommendation for X, Y and Z? Is a great question. Or does anyone know like, of a good podcast or a good YouTube or whatever that I can watch to, you know, find out more about X, Y and Z? So I think those are great questions. But yeah, it's a little frustrating when you get questions asked in some of those groups that are like, please call Disney and ask them or look on the Disney website about the Prohibited items. I mean, those are the ones that are always get me.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: And look, I'm not affiliated with y' all sponsor or any. I don't have a. I'm not a travel agent. But I will say my travel agent provided me this file, and I asked her, can I share it on the Facebook group? And she said, no, that's just for my clients, rightfully so. Like, she went out of her way to build and create that thing, and, you know, but it was chock full of really good information that I felt like, hey, if there's this resource out there, folks, why not use a travel agent? You might. I'm not sure. Not all travel agents are created equal, but anyway, that. That. That was some. I felt on the Facebook group, lucky kind of go. Like, I appreciated that I had a lot of good, you know, resources ahead of time that I realized, well, a lot of people walk into these, and a lot of those questions came in in the last, like, three, four weeks leading. And you're going, wow, I feel, like, stressed out going on this cruise for the first time. And I have done a lot of research and looked into a lot of this. I can't imagine being somebody who's just thinking of these type of questions two weeks before they go on. You know what I mean? So one of the things, speaking of the Facebook group, we did get kind of caught up in the fish extender thing. And, you know, in hindsight, I will say that that probably was something that I would not do on a first cruise.
I mean, it just was one of those if, like, I wanted just to feel like I was part of the club and I didn't want to be on a ship and miss out on something, you know, and that. That I think added a little extra stress, or I would have just done the one that's, like, you know, pixie dust. You know, we ended up just doing, like, a exchange with one other cabin. Thankfully, I didn't get involved with something much more than that.
You know, in the future, I don't know if I would do that again, because I think my gifts were better than the ones I got. And then that makes me start thinking, you know, thoughts about, hey, what was the point of this? And I don't want. I don't want to be in that spot. You know what I mean? Like, I want it to be a fun thing that we do. And, you know, we give to some people, they give to us. And there was. The one thing I might do is the snack one. I thought that was kind of cool. I saw people giving snacks, like local, like snacks unique to your like hometown or something. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Because how can you go wrong with a snack? You know what I mean?
[00:18:44] Speaker C: No, but what are you going to do? Bring some cheesesteaks with you or something, Alex?
Well, I mean, you live in Florida now, but you know what I mean, right?
[00:18:51] Speaker B: No.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Tasty cake, you know, tasty cakes. Oh, I love tasty cakes. Oh, the coffee cake. Tasty cake.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: Love that. Yeah, well, I, you know, I, I totally agree with you. I. For those who don't know, Fish Extender exchanges are gift exchanges. They are not sponsored or sanctioned by Disney. They are purely guest created and organized activity that happens in the Facebook groups. And the fish extender exchanges are like formal exchanges where you're given a list of like who you're going to exchange with and it might be themed, it might not be themed. Pixie dust is just, just acts of random gifting. And so it is something that is a little bit more casual. I completely agree with you, Alex. I think pixie dusting for me is the way to go. And I would say in general for first time cruisers, I understand the fomo, but I recommend just doing pixie dusting if you feel like you need to be engaged in something and kind of leaving Fish Extender two later and deciding is it really something you want to participate in? I do think sometimes you end up getting things that you feel like you put more effort in than others do and you just don't want that kind of bummer on your cruise and it just adds that unnecessary stress. Well, let's talk about you guys. I assume we're driving down to Fort Lauderdale from home. Did you drive down? I mean, you live close enough, you don't have to go the night before. Did you go the night before? Did you drive down that morning?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: We actually did a two night stay at Disney's Vero Beach.
So it's kind of about halfway, you know, about two hours, two and a half hours. So that way, the morning of the cruise we just had to drive two hours. So that ended up working really great for us. I would totally recommend Vero Beach. It was beautiful, nice, relaxing. I probably should have done that on the back end of the cruise just because there was so much anticipation.
It was hard to chill there. But other than the fact that we got lit up by like no see em bugs and we're like scratching ourselves for the whole cruise, maybe this isn't the best time of year to go to Vero beach or. I don't know.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: But yeah, or you gotta like cover yourself in deet or something.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: They actually have like. Yeah, they have stuff they give in out for free. Like the hardcore, like. Yeah, you just catch it off guard, you know, you sit on the balcony for a few minutes in the morning before you put anything on and you're screwed, you know. So.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: Yeah. So you drive down from just a couple hours away that morning. What was your port arrival time and about what time did you arrive at the port?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: So I think our port arrival time was 11:40. No, it was 12:15, which I was, you know, I was pretty happy with.
We, we. That was another thing we were trying not like to temper, you know. Okay, we don't, don't. We're going to get on the ship, you know, we don't have to.
Although you do. You do start. I had a list of things I wanted to do and. But you know, we, we. And one of the things we didn't know, like from someone driving for a few hours.
This is something I put out there. There's a bathroom in the parking garage just so people know. I could not find that information anywhere. And we're like. Because we made an extra stop, you know, at a, you know, a grocery store like a couple blocks away. Just because we were like, I don't want to. You know, I was imagining we're driving a couple hours, we have to go to the bathroom and we're going to stand in a line at the pool.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: Right. And you're going to wait outside.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then it's just, it was just a, A thing. So, you know, I, by the way, I have two. It was myself, my wife, my two girls about 12 and nine with us. So, you know, we, we. We just were like, hey, we figure out how do we go to the bathroom? So anyway, there's a bathroom in the garage for anybody who.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: Yeah, on the bottom floor. It's on the bottom floor of the garage. It's. If you, if you. Even if you get dropped off by transportation, right. Or you'll take the Disney bus, if you are not. If it's not your time to go into the port yet, then you. The bathroom is, it's super close. It's just if you're facing the terminal, standing outside, it is just to your left and it is just down. It's like, I don't know, not 20 yards or something. It's real, it's real close. And so, yeah, and it's, it's pretty clean. I mean, it's just, it's a public bathroom. It's fine.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it worked. So that, that, that was. Anyway, so we, we did, we made a stop. We got there right at about, you know, our, our arrival time. Everything was super smooth, you know, dropping everything off. We came in though. I don't know if there's like two ways to enter that port, but one of the ways, it feels like you're going into some.
I mean, I'm like, is this where we're supposed to be? It looks like you're entering this like real industrial construction site or something. I mean, there's a sign that says Disney Dream. They have the different port numbers or whatever, but just wasn't very, very nice looking.
But you can make your way through that and you do get to drive right next to the ship, which is always a really fun. I don't know, we've not sailed out of Port Canaveral, so I don't know what that's like. But just being able to drive in and you just get to take in the ship this from ground level and it's just this moment of like, oh my gosh, we're gonna go on that ship, you know, so that was really fun. I mean, my kids were just like, whoa. You know, like, it's funny, I forgot.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: You were sailing out of Fort Lauderdale. I'm describing the bathroom and at Port Canaveral because there's this bathroom also in the garage on the bottom floor. But it's about the same. The setup is actually about the same. Yeah. So it's in my head though, I'm picturing Port Canaveral and. But yes, I've. Yeah, you sailed out of Fort. Yeah, the drive in at Port Canaveral is a little bit nicer. I mean you will see the ship and other ships in the distance when you, when you're coming up close, just because you have these like hills for the causeways that you're going over. So it's. Yeah. So you, you do get a better view driving to Port Canaveral than you do to Fort Lauderdale. But it's, but both are well oiled machines. Once you get to the terminal, you drop off your bags, you get, you check in, all of that. How long was it to get through the check in process and get on board? Like did you have any time where you had to wait or was it pretty smooth?
[00:25:02] Speaker B: I mean, there was a 10 minute line to get up to the counter, you know, where if we were, you know, first time cruisers had to go through this line and it looked like there was a lot of first time cruisers on this sailing, so. And then we, you know, once we got that, there was some question about can we bring our. We had like our water bottles filled with water and we weren't sure if we had to dump those out. You're cool to bring water in your water bottle through, by the way. That was another question that we did. We weren't sure about.
You know, we were thinking like airport protocol or something, but they let us through with that. And so then we just waited in the line to take pictures. So the security was a breeze. And then just, you know, got the pictures taken. And then up the stairs to the, you know, through the, through the Mickey thing and up the stairs to the, to the causeway or whatever they call it.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: Gangway. Yeah, the gangway onto the ship. Yeah.
Tell us about the moment you, your family name is announced. You walk into the beautiful atrium of the Disney dream.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: It was chaos.
It was, it was chaos. It was like, it was. I'm like, who's saying there was, you know, who's gonna say what? Who's telling her? You know, where are we going? It was a little bit of that and to the point where I'm, you know, and I'm holding a camera. I got like two cameras in my hands. I'm like, you know, it was a little bit like, you know, hey, did that just happen? And then next thing you know, there's, you know, you're walking and there's people clapping. And it was just like, whoa.
You know, it was a little, it was a little bit of, it was a little chaotic and, and then we're sitting there just taking it all in and then you feel kind of silly standing in the middle of this atrium because there's people all around and you don't quite know where to go. As many videos as I've watched, I didn't know which direction to go.
So we're sitting there, my wife's like, I'm hungry. Where's the food?
So that was the plan, was to figure out what are we going to do. We decided to do the sit down lunch, which was an animator's palette.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: Oh, that's a great way to start.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Not huge buff people to begin with.
It was actually one of my, like hesitations of, of cruising was, was like the reliance on the buffet.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: Well, it's perfect. Then you chose the right cruise line because Disney Cruise Line has the most limited buffet of all the cruise lines, I would say.
And that's. And also the cleanest buffet of all the cruise lines. And if I'm not much of a buffet person myself either. So that is for me, like Disney excels in that area because even though I don't, I don't love Disney's buffets, but they're still better than other cruise line buffets.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: So yeah, my hot take, I guess I don't know is just that if I didn't eat anything on that buffet that whole five days, that I was not disappointed. Like that didn't. We ended up picking at the buffet a couple times, but we can get into it but later. But I didn't need to eat anything on that buffet to have a great cruise.
But to your point, the buffet did look good. I was kind of wishing that some of the, this ship was the newer ship where they serve the buffet. Like that just makes me feel a little bit better about the sanitation and hygiene and everything. But with that said, even though they don't do that, I never felt like there was ever anything that like you could see them cleaning constantly and you know, it was very well maintained.
So I will say the only thing that kind of was like a bummer about the lunch, the sit down lunch was that it just took a little bit of time. I'd imagine if we wanted a buffet, we probably could have come cut, you know, some of the time off and, and you know, there was just so many other things we wanted to do, you know, getting on that ship that it, it did, but it did give us a chance to sit down and open up all four of us. I got the app on the kids phones, my wife's phone, and we just sort of sat down and got a game plan. Everybody started hearting things. You know, we thought we might have time in the, like, we thought we might have to wait, you know, for when we got to the, you know, the port, you know, know, initial space or whatever. But we didn't have to wait at all. We just sort of like by the time we made it up to the counter, they were calling our number for our boarding group. So we didn't. The lunch was a nice opportunity because when you go to a buffet, you know, nobody. It feels like half the time you're, you're up getting food, you know, you're not actually sitting down. So this was a nice chance to sit down and everybody was looking at, all right, what are you excited about? Go through, what are, what do you want to do? What do you, you know, and that was kind of the first time we had to kind of take a breath and look over.
And again, it was a little bit overwhelming because it's like, oh, my gosh, look at all this stuff that we can do.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: Yeah. What were. You know, you and I talked a little bit pre show and there were a lot of things that you had expectations about because you are such a planner and are such a researcher. And there are things, some things that were sort of meeting expectations, exceeding expectations, not meeting expectations. Right. You've got, like these sort of three categories of things that. I'm curious, I'd love to sort of delve into some of those things, like, where you had some kind of expectation because of either something you heard from us or saw on YouTube or. Or saw from other, you know, from influencers, like the number of activities you were going to get to do. Did you have, like, some idea about how many different activities or which activities you were going to do that was maybe different than what actually happened on board?
[00:30:19] Speaker B: For sure. I mean, I. We only did one trivia. I thought we were going to do a bunch of trivias. Not that we didn't like. We, like, love. We liked the trivia. It was just. I didn't think I would be into, like, adult, like the adult, like, game shows and different things. We did that multiple times. We. We really enjoyed that, but we also didn't expect. We didn't know if our kids were going to be willing to, you know, do their own thing, you know, so that was something that was just unknown to us or our kids. You know, we had one kid in Ocean, Oceaneers Club, whatever, and then the other was in Edge. So we were a little bit concerned, like, oh, if they were both in the same, same, you know, group, then that would have been no issue. They would have, you know, taken to each other and gone. But the fact that they were both or they were going different places was a little bit. We don't know what to expect, you know, so.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: How much time alone are we gonna have? How much time together? That was something that I, you know, we kind of had some ideas. All right, what do we do if everyone needs to be together? What. But, you know, my oldest daughter. Daughter. The. Speaking of the Facebook group they did, there was some ability to connect the kids ahead of time.
And that ended up being really cool because my oldest daughter got on the ship and she was like, I gotta go meet somebody. And I was like, for real? Okay, let's do it.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: Be a mom and dad.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: And so she, you know, within, I mean, minutes or hour or so being there, she's trying to Figure out how do I meet this person, right? And then my other daughter, she goes to Oceaneers Club.
Like I think it was before.
I think at some point during that first day, I don't know, it's all mixed up.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: Probably like the Oriental. Yeah. One of the open house or something like that.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Well, we did that. We did that. By the way.
I know, I'm all over the place. But you said the open house. I had no idea. All my research, I had no idea that you had to go like register your kid. Like, I don't, I don't know why I missed that. But like, just like we went to tour it, you know, like on the, on the, on the first day, thinking we were just going to walk through and check it out. And it was like, no, you have to actually, you know, get registered, make sure your magic band is hooked up, whatever. So I'm glad we did that. It just took some time. There was a bit of a line for that, you know, the first day.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: There's some of it that you can do ahead of time on the, in the app for like when you're doing your check in, you can do like, you can do part of the process, but the last part, which is like making sure that magic, like pairing the magic band and just verifying the information, you do have to do that little part in person.
And that really only exists for, for Oceaneer Club and Lab. Right. For the kids who are 10 and under. For the older kids, there's really nothing. They just register themselves. You don't need to be involved. But yeah, and there's really, like I said, there's really not much. They just are verifying that they're in the right age group is all that is.
But yeah, there is a, there is a step process there, but. So she made a friend, I assume the 9 year old made a friend, right?
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Well, she goes, the first time she went, she was, she kind of came back, was like, oh, that was boring. There's nothing to do, you know. And we were like, just keep, just keep going. You're, you know, she had met somebody ahead of time but they weren't there or something. So hey, long story short, the next time she went, she was, she was great. It was like awesome.
[00:33:41] Speaker C: Yeah, she was hooked.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: It was awesome. Yeah. So that was something that exceeded my expectations. Obviously. That's, you know, I've heard just as many stories of some kids not, you know, taken to it and wanting to be around their parents more. And that's, that's, you know, that's an option. That's great. But for us, it was a pleasant surprise that, you know, like on that first night, our kids left us stranded at dinner. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they were like, hey, see you. We're gonna, can we go? We're like, okay. And so that happened to be my wife and I's anniversary, like our 18 year anniversary on, on the, the embarkation day. So just to have like a few minutes there at the end of the day, you know, to sit together was, you know, after all the whirlwind of, of the whole day because it was a, by the way, it was a bad weather day, so they had to do like the sail away party inside and, and that kind of, you know, put a little bit of a, you know, like a damper on it. I mean, it was still fun, but it, it just wasn't the same, I'd imagine. And um, and just, I'd imagine also.
[00:34:42] Speaker C: In the atrium, it's.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Without the ability of people to disperse out on the top decks, you know, there was like a severe thunderstorm warning, so people weren't even up there. So that made the ship on that first day even more, you know, feel more chaotic. So.
[00:34:56] Speaker C: Well, embarcation day is definitely chaotic. I think to start with.
It is even chaotic for, for, you know, more seasoned cruisers. So don't feel like you're out of the norm if it's a chaotic day. It is a chaotic day regardless of how times you've sailed.
And then having more people indoors is going to make that feel more. So it's going to be crowded and more chaotic regardless of where you're at on the ship. Because as you mentioned, nobody's going to be out on that deck in a thunderstorm warning. So I will say this.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Like, first impressions of the ship though? Yeah, beautiful. Like.
[00:35:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: I don't know what. One of the things I wrote down that I wanted to mention was that for some reason I felt like getting on the dream. I was getting on like the, like the lowest ship of the fleet. Like, hear me out for a second. Like there was. There's all this love for the brand new stuff. Right?
And rightfully so, you know, and then there's this like kind of like nostalgic, you know, admiration of the older ships. Right. And then people tend to seem to go, well, they like the fantasy better than the dream. So I'm doing all that, I'm doing all that calculation going, man, I pick like the worst Disney ship to get on.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: You picked like the middle child that nobody Likes.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Exactly. And so no getting on there. I just felt like all that just left like any apprehension that I was getting on some, you know, second class ship or something in the Disney fleet just evaporated within like moments of walking on that ship, to be honest with you. And I don't know what it is but I, I don't know if anybody else gets this but like the Treasure and the Wish look better online.
Like I don't know if it's, I don't know if they designed those ships knowing that people were, you know, in a social media age and everything or it's just. But for some reason the Dream, the other ships, they don't, they look a little more, I don't know something about it.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: It's the atrium because the grand hall on the Wish and the Treasure is so much grander. It's open. You don't have, because you don't have that extra elevator bank in the middle. Like it just creates for a more picturesque picture. And I'll be honest, when you have things that have to happen in the atrium, like when you have a celebration like a sail away party that has to be moved into the atrium, I'll be honest, you do want to be on the Wish or the Treasure because it's a, it is more spread out. You have. It will still be crowded. It will still be crazy crowded. They have it the sort of farewell thing at the end of the cruise. It's crazy crowded. And you know, it's called Treasure found on the Treasure. But so there are times where it's crazy crowded in those spaces too. But because they're more grand and they're much, much bigger, like we're talking like three times the size of what you have in the atrium. On the older ships, all four ships, that's I think the difference.
I don't think they're any more beautiful. I think all the ships are beautiful and to be perfectly honest, there is no second class ship in the Disney fleet. All of the ships in the Disney fleet are first class and they are all above and beyond what you will see on other cruise lines. I don't care what you're comparing them to. They are more beautiful and better maintained as a general matter than cruise lines, the rest of the industry.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: I don't think you compare the Dream and the Fantasy to like Icon of the Seas or I mean when she's.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: Brand new maybe, but not.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: I just. Let's be care. I agree with you that all of Disney ships are well maintained. They all have their own unique experience and they're all worth sailing on. But I would just be careful that they're all better than everything else that's out there. I don't think that's true.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: Listen, I just mean they're all better taken care of and they're all beautiful and and clean and all have something amazing to offer, right? That doesn't mean that there aren't some great things out there that other cruise lines are doing. But I will tell you, you go onto those ships like a year or two after they've been sailing and they don't look the same as when they were brand new. And Disney keeps up their ship and all their ships in a way that no other cruise line does.
[00:39:00] Speaker D: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation?
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Great news.
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[00:39:58] Speaker C: I want to jump over to some of your favorites.
You mentioned you planned on doing a lot of trivia. You only did one trivia. You didn't think you'd be able to do a lot of the adult only activities. You ended up doing more of them than you thought. What were some favorite activities that you got up to on board whether with the kids or without the kids?
[00:40:21] Speaker B: My wife and I absolutely loved Majority Rules and Match youh Mate. Those were super. And then we had a magician comedian on there, Chipper Lau, I think his name was Was, who has a bit of a Disney like story which is pretty cool. And he, you know, he was like the, the Variety act, I guess on the fourth night.
Right.
Or like he was on the first night in the main like theater. Right.
But he did an adult only session, you know, in whatever the name of that. Forget the name of the place there, the. In the back, the tube.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: But the other one.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Evolution. Evolution.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Evolution. Yeah, he did, he did a thing in there and that was my favorite thing. That one of my favorite things we did on board. I mean it was just phenomenal. Like he was pretty good in the main theater but like have. Being able to be in a smaller setting with adults only, the crowd interaction, I mean it was like a magic show mixed with comedy. And he had long drawn out like, like kind of sketches or whatever that really, he was able to keep your attention and tie it back and it was just really, really well done. So that was a pleasant surprise.
We did another, another game show thing. I forget the name of it.
We. We did the, the Jack Jacks. Diaper Dash. My kids love that. That was a really fun family, you know, family type thing we did.
What else did we do on the ship? My kids really enjoy just going around every day and getting the little charms, you know, that they give out in the, in the jewelry store store. That was pretty cool.
My, my one daughter and I on the C day, my youngest one, we did the.
I found out that my two kids did the. The Midship Detective without us. Like they did that by themselves, which I, I was like on my list. I wanted to do that.
And, and I was like, oh, that's cool. I'm glad you guys got to doing that. You know, like you don't need dad to kind of tell you what to do or show you how to do everything, you know, I guess they figured it out on their own. They like, they.
We never. I don't remember ever telling them about it. Like it was just something I was going to like show them one day, but they found it on their own. And so, but my youngest, I saw.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: Other kids doing it at the screen, I guess.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: So yeah, you see the other kids.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: And they're like, where do I get one of these things? You probably asked another kid, where do I get that thing and how do I do this? And then they just go do it. Right. Did you end up doing it yourself then?
[00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, my youngest and I on the C day we were going to go to the pool, but we're just not pool deck people, you know, it's not our vibe and it was pretty crowded so we just decided let's find something else to do. She's like, oh, we can do the other case that I didn't solve. And so we kind of went around and did that. That was a lot of fun.
[00:43:03] Speaker C: Well, I want to ask you about your port stops because, as we mentioned, you went to both Castaway and you went to Lookout, and you went to Nassau as well. I know you had a plan for Nassau that didn't quite pan out as you had, I think, hoped. But I'd love to get some of your thoughts about Castaway and Lookout. You heard a lot about them ahead of time, Both good, probably, and bad. I wonder what your impressions of the two islands and what you liked about each one, what you maybe didn't like about each one.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Well, to put the conclusion out first, I guess my family all agreed that we liked Lookout, but better not. And listen, I said, because I was just going through the videos this morning that I took.
Castaway was first and then Lookout, right? So I said when I was leaving Castaway, can I stay here overnight? Like, can. Can. You know, like, this is a. This is a 1,000 out of 10. Like, I was like, that's how much I love Castaway when I was. And let me tell you something about Castaway for a second, because Castaway has too much.
See, a lot of people say there's not enough to do on Disney Islands. And I'm sure, like, I don't need a water park because I live in Florida. I can go to water parks. You know, I don't need stuff that other places have and maybe some people. That's really great. But, you know, for us, honestly, we. We. There was too much to do. There was too much to do.
And we. We got the, like, I don't know what's called, getaway package or something. It was supposed to do, like, the snorkeling, the bike riding, the. Yeah, we ended up never doing the snorkeling. Like, we just didn't. We just didn't have time to do the snorkeling.
Not that we didn't want to. It was just. That was the thing that got left out, Right. And, you know, I don't know, my wife's not a huge, like, biking person, so I don't know if we would rent the bikes again. You know, my kids kind of, you know, lost interest in that. They just wanted to stay in the water. Like, they love those little floaty things. They just wanted to play in the water. Water.
My wife just wanted to sit there, read her book. We got off fairly early, and we went past all the, like, picture Stuff. We were like, no, let's just go find a spot. We'll come back. I think we kind of overestimated how.
[00:45:20] Speaker C: How far.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: Far we were gonna.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: You know, and then I. I don't know. So we ended up going all the way. There's this like, cool spot between like a bar, like the last bar and like the cabanas section. At that point. I don't know, it was like 9, 30, 30 or so. Nobody was there. You know, we were some of the first people to get there. So it all filled in, you know, pretty quickly.
So I was glad that we kind of did that. And then we were like, let's get on the. Let's go get the bikes and we'll ride the bikes up to get our pictures taken. Well, they don't let you ride the bikes to get.
[00:45:48] Speaker C: Oh, they don't let you go past.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you have to have it, you know, the bikes within a certain. So there was just some things that we were like, kind of were figuring out, you know, like, and we did end up taking the tram back.
Thankfully we made it there just as they were closing. Like, the one guy was about to like, put his gear away way because we wanted to get some of those like, iconic, like, pictures, you know, of the, the ship and the castaway sign and stuff, you know, so we were able to get.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: And they do, they do close those relatively early.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it was like 11am I think they close them. Yeah.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: So that was not something we were expecting. We figured they'd be doing that majority of the day, which is. I'm glad we asked somebody, like, hey, when do those, like. I, I flag. I. I found. I just happened to see like a photopass person walking by and he pulled out like a little crumpled up piece of paper and had all the times on it. And so, you know, that was. Yeah, no castaway was amazing. My, My family ended up deciding after we kind of, you know, we had lunch, we, you know, we hung out. We did the pelican plunge thing. We did, we did. We did pretty much everything right. And they decided, well, we're kind of beat.
We're going to go back. I'm like, you guys don't want to do the snorkeling thing? They were like, nah, nah, we don't have enough juice to do the snorkeling, you know, at this point. So I'm. I'm a runner. And I'm like, all right, well, well, I was about to just give up on this 5K thing, you know, like, but since you all are leaving and it's only like 2:30, I could be here for another two hours, right? I'm gonna do the, I'm gonna do the 5K, right? So I did the, I did the 5K. I'm glad I went and asked because like the people that were giving the medals out, like, they gave me the medal before I did the 5k because they were like, we're probably not going to be here when you get, get done. But so I did the 5K. That was, you know, pretty nuts, but it was, it was fun. I got a kick out of that. I went and I toured around the Serenity Bay area as well. So I just. And then when I got done that run, it might have been around 3:30. Nobody was on that island.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
Especially if it's hot out, like if it's a kind of, you know, in the, you were at the beginning of June, but even by then it's pretty hot down in the, in the Bahamas. And so people tend to head back to the ship a little bit early in that, that time of year in.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Particular, I'm telling you.
I mean, I don't want anybody to like, take the secret, but I'm staying until the end.
I mean, after that run I went in that water, there was nobody there. I felt like I was on my own private island. It was amazing. It was my own little moment of Zen and you know, and what funny story is my wife, because they went back ahead of us, ahead of me, she ended up getting a phone call from guest Services, like, where's your husband? I'm like. Or something like that, right? Like.
And I guess what happens is, I don't know if this has happened to anybody, but like, they were, were. It was getting late and they just wanted to check what, am I still on the island? Like, or am I. Did I somehow get in and didn't get scanned or something? Like, yeah. So I'm getting a text from her going, hey, you know, you're. I've got a phone call. Are you okay? Are you. You're gonna make it back, right? I'm like, look, I'm, I'm, I'm here. Nobody's, you know, they're not leaving me. You know, I did some shopping. I took some pictures with my metal. I got my like 5k running shirt. You know, I did all that, you know, I did all that stuff. And, and I was proud of the fact that I was the third to last person to get back on the boat.
There was only two more people on the island after, because I asked the guy when I was walking on him, because I'm feeling a little bit like I might be the last one here. Is there anybody else? He's like, yeah, there's two other people. I was like, oh, darn.
But anyway, no, listen, Castaway was amazing.
And that's the expectation that Lookout had. Had to hope, like, go up against, you know what I mean? And then, you know, we get to look out the next day.
And I mean, the.
See, to me, Lookout was just. The natural beauty was just off the charts. I mean, it's just.
I. I don't know how to explain it. Like, the beach, I've never been. I've been. I've traveled. I've been in some beautiful beaches in the Caribbean and Central America. And I.
That, that's. That's. You know, I was in Barbados. I think that beats the beaches I was on there. I mean, it was those lines, those cliffs there that they have. And I mean, it was just. We ended up going all the way to the right side. I think there was like a kind of right before, like the. It ends almost, I guess, like where there's no more like umbrellas and stuff. And there was. I was shocked because we were so beat from Castaway that we were like, we are not rushing off the ship like to rope drop this thing today. Like, we're just not doing that, you know, so we. We kind of slept in a little bit. We went to sit down, breakfast. And so we didn't get on the island until 10:30.
And even then, by the time I get there, it's.
There was nobody over there. There's this bar there and a bunch of chairs, bunch of umbrellas, and nobody's there. And I'm going, this is crazy. Why isn't anybody here? But it was like our own private, like. And my kids just wanted to stay. I say, hey, you want to go check out thing or whatever they have there, the splash thing with the slides brush out. They. They had no interest. They just wanted to stay in that ocean. And I was happy to. To join them. My wife just enjoyed reading her books and look, you know, drinking. Having a drink by. With whatever bar was there, you know, some nice pina coladas or whatever we were drinking, you know, so it was just a nice day of just relaxing. We. We missed. I wanted to check out the. The.
What's the thing called?
[00:51:15] Speaker C: The Junkanoo. Yeah, Junkanoo.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: We never did that, you know, we just never found a time. We, you know, just didn't have the time. I don't know. We just wanted to stay. We couldn't get out of that water. You know, I will say the one negative. So, like, the lunch to me on Castaway and Lookout were, like, pretty much the same. And so the downside of going to back to back is it's like. I mean, there was some nice, like, rice dish that they had at Lookout that I. Basically, that's all I ate, because everything else, I was like, I just had this yesterday, and I don't really want to eat another burger.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: I'll tell you the secret that you have at Lookout. They always have the spicy chicken sandwich, which they only have a Castaway when you go on day two. So.
[00:51:57] Speaker C: Yeah. If you go twice to Castaway. Yeah.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:52:00] Speaker C: But the rice. But I think the rice is the way. French fries. Yeah, but I do think the rice, the rice is the way to go because those are, you know, they're different, and they're more, like, with some local flavor and all that.
I mean, sounds like. Listen, I can't. I couldn't, like, disagree with you. I feel like Lookout is incredible.
Castaway is incredible. Like, it's. It's. It's amazing that they're diff. So different from one another, but also both such, like, amazing private island experiences.
I want to jump back on the ship and ask about food. I want to ask about, you know, main dining food. You mentioned the buffet to you was sort of like, you could never eat at that buffet again, and you'd be perfectly happy. So I'm not going to dwell on that, like, but I'm curious what you thought about main dining food and the experiences in main dining as well. And then, of course, we'll have to ask you a little bit about Palo brunch and Remy brunch as well.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: So just to put a close on the buffet thing, I did have to try the churro Mickey waffles. Right.
And I'm just gonna say this is my hot take is they're overrated.
That's me. Like, okay. I mean, you know, I don't know what it is. I understand.
[00:53:10] Speaker C: Ryan, I think we have to end this recording right now.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Nope, nope.
[00:53:13] Speaker C: We just.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Hey, hey. We got a new. We got a new Disney plus a new villain.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Josh.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Your status is in question now as a Disney cruise line villain. There you go.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: Listen, listen.
I'll take that on. I'll handle that moniker if need be, but we go to Nomad Lounge in Animal Kingdom, and those churros there are better than the churro waffles. I'm just going to say that that's my.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: That's my. Hey, we're going to have to go to Nomad to do that.
[00:53:38] Speaker B: Go to Nomad Lounge.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: I have tried to get you to go to Nomad Lounge. Sam is one of my favorites.
[00:53:42] Speaker C: I know. I just love Satulli. That's the problem. I love Satu li canteen.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: So anyway, so that was. And listen, I even. I even went to, like, every station on the buffet that was. And I got a waffle from each one just to make sure I got the freshest.
[00:53:56] Speaker C: Science.
[00:53:57] Speaker B: Yes. I did a test, and then the one that I liked, I sampled them all, and then I got a plate of them. I got a plate of them and took them back to the room for my family. And, you know, we like them. I would eat them if they were there. But it was all the hype and everything. I was like, no, I would.
The thing. Anyway, that's. That as far as main dining goes, like I said, there was, you know, like, I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed the main dining. I will say so.
I think it was better than, like, banquet food, right? I. So I went in and I said, that's what I'm going to set my expectation. I'm like, I'm just going to. I used to work, you know, years ago at, you know, country clubs and things, you know, serving banquets. I'm like, I'm just going to assume it's at that at least, right? And for the most part, it was. It was better than that.
The. I don't know if we just got a rough serving team. Like, I did not experience any of the, like.
Like, our servers were good. They. But there was no, like, magic or special or anything like that. And I've heard stories and, you know, and it was okay. It wasn't like anything was. You know, I just. I didn't get to know them. They didn't really take. And here's. I think what it was, is our main server, that was her last cruise, and she told us she was. She was getting off, like, at the end of that cruise, she was leaving. And then the assistant server was, like, two weeks new, brand new. And so that combination, I think just.
It is. It's what. What it was. Now, the head server, Ibrahim, I think was his name, he was fantastic, right? And he. We got to sit with him and get to know him a little bit, talked about his family and, you know, he. He.
Whatever. So he was amazing.
But I just didn't get that kind of, like, service that I had heard some people would get from the, the, The. The dining team there, so. And there was never like a. Oh, my drinks.
I didn't get any of that. So that was a little bit of a letdown, you know.
[00:55:53] Speaker C: So I, you know, it's, it is very server dependent. I think in general, like, Disney does a good job with training and they do find some really great people, but that doesn't mean that everybody is great. Not everybody is a great server. And in your situation, you had. Yes, sort of the, the.
Just a clash of, like, experiences. Right. Like, the person who's about to get off is not really like, you're, You're. Your tip for her is not going to make or break her. Her season. And the new person is just like, getting their feet under them. And so they are not gonna like, be at the point where they can like, really spend time and joke with you and get to know you. So. Yeah, that, that makes sense. Let's turn, turn over just real quick.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: Some highlights. Some highlights from the food there. I did really enjoy the pasta presets.
[00:56:40] Speaker C: Yes.
Not.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: There we go for a second plate of those. So the, Those were, were. Were spot on.
That wasabi, like mashed potatoes and the. Oh, yeah, with the whole animators thing, that was good. And then what's the, the. The royal court.
[00:56:58] Speaker C: Oh, the Chateaubriand.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Yeah, the Chateaubriand. We all get to try the escargot. I've never had that before. My kids tried it. My wife, we. So we all enjoyed that. That was good.
So that there was some really, like, some really highlights. There was never a meal that I was like, I don't like. There was one.
You all talked about some kind of sea bass. At Enchanted Garden, there is no sea bass on the menu anymore.
[00:57:23] Speaker C: You know, they have been testing some other menus and rotating some other menus through. And so that may be what you had. You may have had an alternate menu instead of the standard rotation.
[00:57:34] Speaker B: Because I got what looked like it was similar to what the sea bass was. And that was my least favorite, favorite, like, thing I had from main dining. It wasn't. I was like. And it was just like, a little overcooked. It was like a different kind of fish. Anyway, it was.
That wasn't like, unedible. It was just. It was just not my favorite, you know, so my wife's like, what did she get?
Prime rib was better, you know, so. But a lot of really good things out of main dining, so I was really happy.
[00:58:00] Speaker C: I'd love to hear what you thought of Paulo brunch and Remy brunch. We, of course, love dining at Paulo and Remy on, you know, Enchante on the ships. Although we don't necessarily do it every single. We do Palo every time. We don't do Enchantee or Remy every time, but curious what you thought of the value and what you thought of the food quality and the experience.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: So food quality, off the chains. Like, I just thought everything we ate at Palo and Remy was fantastic.
The, you know, all the stuff at at Palo lived up pretty much. You know, the almond croissant was amazing. The eggs Benedict, the grape and gorgonzola pizza, the lasagna. My wife really loved the lasagna. The chicken parm. I'm a big chicken parm. I'm a northeast guy who, you know, would used to work at an Italian restaurant. And chicken parm was like my go to Friday night thing, you know, and that was probably the best chicken parm I've ever had.
[00:59:00] Speaker C: That's my praise. That's. That's my praise from someone from the Philly area. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:59:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was Paolo was. Now again, we had a brand new server at Palo. So I felt like the service, I literally watched, like, a table next to us get, like, what I would consider to be higher quality service than we did. So I don't think it was bad service. It was just. You could tell, okay, this guy is new, you know.
So we did enjoy. That was at Nassau. So we did enjoy, like, watching. Watching the ship across from us replace a window during brunch.
It was kind of like, well, this is an interesting view. We're just gonna stare at this other ship. Like, Remy, we were on the sea days, so Remy had this superior view. Right, right.
[00:59:49] Speaker C: So you're staring at the ocean. You can't have an ocean view when you're in the dock.
[00:59:53] Speaker B: Right, right. But with that said, there was this little operation going on across the way of a window replacement. So that kind of entertained us for a little bit there.
[01:00:04] Speaker C: What did you think of Remy? And I assume you guys are foodies if you decided to do Remy, because, you know, being someone who obviously research, researches everything, like, you know that if you're a really picky eater, you just probably shouldn't go to Remy or Enchantee. I hate saying that because, like, I think it's so good, but you really have to be willing to be adventurous. And so if you're really not advocating adventurous, I just say, don't, don't. It would be a waste of money. You'll and you'll probably end up disappointed, but. Yeah. I assume you and your wife are adventurous eaters and. Yeah. What did you think?
[01:00:38] Speaker B: My wife and I, we do. Yeah, we do. You know, I mean, we would never, like, that's not a, you know, having kids. We. We don't have family real close, so we don't often get out to do that kind of stuff. But, you know, in the past, you know, we. We would. And I thought Remy was the superior. You know, if I had to do it again, I probably would choose Remy over Palo. That's just because it's more my. It's. I, like. I mean, Palo is like just a really solid restaurant, you know, like, that you would want to go to, like, on a week, every weekend, you know, Remy is the place you would go. It was our anniversary. Like, let's do. Like, let's do the. You know, let's do that. And it's not something we would normally do. And I really love the fact that they, you know, you don't have to make any decisions.
You just, you know, do you want the champagne thing or not? Do you want, you know, do you have any allergies or, like, you know, like, they'll. They'll. They'll revise. If you're not a fish eater, they'll make. They'll change the menu a little bit. They did tell us that. But I like the idea of just going somewhere and, you know, they, here's what's. Here's what you're going to get. And it's an experience, and everything comes out. You get the story, the backstory. This salmon came from this part of the world, and it's only like, you know, one in. Blah, blah, blah, then, you know, and that service at Remy was top notch.
We did the champagne pairing, and I looked up, like, because, you know, I'm not a huge drinker, so it's. And I just don't love going out somewhere and thinking, well, I could get that bottle of wine for the price of one glass. You know what I mean? Like, but the Remy stuff was legitimately, like, a good value. You know, I thought, like, I'm not going to typically go out and buy a $75 bottle of wine, you know, or champagne. So that. That just the whole experience and the dessert there was fantastic. And there was a beef there dish, Wagyu beef or something. That was amazing.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: It was.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: It was. It was just. My wife, she doesn't like salmon. I try to cook salmon at home, and she doesn't, you know, she's not a huge fan, but they served this salmon dish, and she even said, like, that was the best, like, fish I've ever had. Like, and that's from somebody who doesn't like salmon, you know? So Remy was. Was top notch. I mean.
[01:02:48] Speaker A: Well, Sam and I are going to reverse roles here on this show because she asked you all about food, and I'm going to ask you all about shows. So did you make it to the shows on board?
[01:02:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:02:56] Speaker A: And what'd you think?
[01:03:00] Speaker B: Man? Shows were amazing.
We're Disney people.
We have a background in music and entertainment, and so they were top notch, all three of them. Honestly.
I know people make fun of Golden Mickey's. And what's the other one called? Believe. Believe.
[01:03:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had Believe on because you're on the Disney dreams. So they don't have the show. Disney Dreams. Believe.
[01:03:22] Speaker B: Believe. I mean, it was, you know, all of them were fant.
[01:03:26] Speaker C: And you had Beauty and the Beast, too.
[01:03:28] Speaker B: Beauty and the Beast, Yeah. Beauty and the Beast was top notch. The perfect cast for that. Everything went off without a hitch, thankfully. I've heard of different technical difficulties at times. We didn't experience any of that.
I thought the shows were fantastic.
My kids loved them.
I wish we could teach other people theater etiquette somehow, but I figured, you know what, you probably get people on a Disney cruise that wouldn't normally go to a Broadway show or something. And so that's the, you know, it's a great opportunity to experience that, but you also. You also have to sacrifice a little bit of, you know, we did rope drop, I guess, or whatever. The Beauty and the Beast show. We went there like 45 minutes to an hour early just because I was like, that was the last show of the. Of the week. So I'm like, I got to get good seats for that because I had kind of not the best experiences with the other two shows.
So that ended up being the best situation. So that was good.
[01:04:28] Speaker C: Yeah. If you're gonna rope drop a show on the Dream, Beauty and the Beast is the one to rope drop, no question. No question. Especially with the special effects and stuff.
I mean, now that you can't see from anywhere in the theater, you can. It's decent. But it's such a wonderful show. And it's worth, I think, worth the wait for sure. I wouldn't say that about every show, but that one worth the wait.
[01:04:50] Speaker A: Well, is there anything we missed here, Alex, that we haven't talked about that you want to be sure to highlight.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: From the cruise I'm just saying you can't do everything. I mean, we did so much.
I mean, there's so much I didn't talk about.
We did the Royal gathering. My kids love that. That was really cool. I mean, there was, there was, you know, but there was a lot of stuff. Like, we never went to the spa. I never even looked at the spa. I don't know what it looks like. I didn't. I wanted to tour it on the first day. I never saw, I never got there. You know, we never, we never played mini golf. We did, you know, half the trivias we wanted to do.
We did see Lilo and Stitch at. Look, listen to this. 8:25, 8:30 in the morning on the sea day. I mean, that's how crazy the schedule was. It was like the only time left we could fit in the movie because my daughter's favorite character is Stitch. And it was like, we got to see this movie. It just came out. We got to see it on this ship and it was. The only time that we could fit it in was 8:30 on the sea day in the morning. I'm like, what am I doing at 8:30 on the sea day watching a movie in the morning, 8:30 in the morning? You know, so, you know, you just, you know. Yeah, it was exactly. It was wild. I mean, there was, There was. We tried. I had a whole thing planned for Nassau. The weather wasn't the best, and, you know, we didn't. We'll just get there some other time. My kids were funny. They got off the ship and they were just like, take us back. We want to go back on this ship.
They, it was their first time in like, another country, you know, so that was a. Which is really important for us. But, you know, for them, it was like, it was just, they just weren't into the whole. We went to the straw market and, you know, like, they weren't, they didn't like, all the intimidating, like, you know, pressure that, that they, there is in that, you know, so they, they really wanted to go back. And with the weather being the way it was, we only spent an hour in Nassau that day. So there was just so much we, we couldn't do. And, you know, I, I, I, in hindsight, I would have, I, I planned this trip like I was never going to get on a cruise ship at, ever again.
And that was kind of a mistake, you know, because, you know, I should have just been like, let's just pick some things and trust that we're going to like this and Get. And we're going to, you know, and we're going to do more and maybe taking a slower pace, you know, because we're, we're morning people. And yet you feel like there's so much to do. So you stay up until midnight and then you're. I'm like, I want to watch the sunrise. I'm on the ocean. Like, let me get. So what am I. I got to. Slept like five hours a night most nights. You know what I mean? So we're probably going to move to like early dining next time. We had late dining this time. We're just, that's just more our thing. I don't know. Like, there's some things that we're trying to figure it out still. But you know, ultimately we was like, well, we want to. We, we planned this whole thing like we're never going to cruise again. And I think that was a mistake. I think we should have just been like, you know what we're going to. This is going to be one of many, you know.
[01:07:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's very hard though, I think, going in in because you just, you don't know what. And it's like, I can't tell you, Alex, what you're gonna like, right? Like, I can tell you what I like. I can tell you, like, have, you.
[01:07:52] Speaker A: Know, pick some priorities constantly what I like.
[01:07:54] Speaker C: Well, that's true. Yeah, but I know you. But I can order. I can order at a restaurant for you. Easy. Have a few friends like that where, you know, not just Brian, but a few people where I like. I could go to a restaurant and order for them and I know that they would be happy with what I ordered for them, but like, I can't, I can't. You know, there is not one way of cruising that works for everybody. And because I like something doesn't mean everybody else is going to like something, even though they should. But I. The best advice I can give people is just if you have some must do's, make those your priority and try and like, be okay with the fact that you're not going to be able to do everything. So if everything is on your must do list, you're going to, you're going to not maybe enjoy your vacation as much as you would if you pared down that list list to something a little bit more realistic. And that doesn't mean, you know, I mean, maybe you'll get on a different ship the next time, but there'll be plenty to do every time. And there's so many wonderful Activities to engage in. And. And the good part is you can pivot when you're on the cruise because very few things need reservations. So, like, for example, the trivia versus the adult game shows. Right. Like, very easy to realize. Oh, well, there's so many other things I want to do. I'm not going to be able to make it to trivia, but I do really. I found something else I really enj or enjoy even more. Right. So I think as long as you have that bit of flexibility in you, you can have a really amazing cruise. But the FOMO is real.
[01:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah. We got to the last day and it was Beauty and the Beast. And we went to the show with our bathing suits on. Cause I told my kids we hadn't yet rode the Aquamouse.
I was like, the time is running out, you know. So, you know, we ended up, you know, there was a little bit of an hour between the show and dinner.
[01:09:38] Speaker C: So we, as we ran the aqueduct.
[01:09:40] Speaker B: And then went to the. And we. The aqueduct? Yeah, the aqueduct. Ye. And we were. It was great. I mean, my kids, it was. We almost. If. If I was on a longer cruise, I would have said, forget the main dining room because there was nobody at the pool. We could. We went on the slide multiple times. There wasn't much of a line. And, you know, and. But it was like Royal palace, and we really liked that menu. And we were like, wanted to, you know, so it was just. That was like, I want a longer cruise so I don't have to, like, you know, like, feel the need. That's the only way to solve this problem is just do a lot. And I heard you all say that, you know.
[01:10:13] Speaker C: Yeah. The problem with the longer cruises. Guess what, Alex? There's just more to do.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: Well, Alex, it sounds like an amazing cruise. We could probably talk for another hour about it, But I think we've reached that point in the show where I need to hand you back over to Sam for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and a dash of judgment of the round we know as rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:10:36] Speaker C: All right. Thank you, Brian. All right, Alex, you knew this was coming. We are going to ask some Disney favorites or I'm going to ask some Disney favorites and then some Disney cruisers favorites. But we're going to start with your favorite ship is the Disney Dream. That question is taken care of because you can only choose a ship that you have been on. And it sounds like you had an amazing time on the Dream anyway. All right, well, let's start with who is Your favorite Disney character. And Disney means everything and anything that Disney owns, which is almost everything in the whole world. So you're basically choosing your favorite character from everything.
[01:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. This is rapid fire. I could go like Jack Sparrow or Genie or Captain Hook, you know, or how about Man? Mandalorian is my current.
[01:11:16] Speaker C: Oh, I like that.
[01:11:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Or Yoda. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm all over the place.
[01:11:21] Speaker C: You didn't answer Cashy and Andor, though. Cassian is like, you know, I mean. Anyway. Well, we'll table that. You have a lot of favorites. All right.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:30] Speaker C: Favorite Disney movie.
[01:11:33] Speaker B: Again, I go. I like. I have, like. I have, like, two eras. You know, do I go with, like. Like Aladdin or Peter Pan or Toy Story or more. More recent. Honestly, like, Frozen and Frozen 2 are, like, really, like. Because the Frozen came out right when my daughter was born, and then frozen 2 just hit @ a time that it was actually a really deep movie.
But I also really love Wall E and up and some of the. I like some of the deeper movies.
[01:12:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Love all of those.
[01:12:04] Speaker B: I know. I'm sorry. I'm hitting.
[01:12:05] Speaker C: That's all right. Give me a song or two. A favorite Disney song.
[01:12:09] Speaker B: Well, here. This one. I'll just give you one. My favorite song is Half Happily Ever After.
[01:12:13] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:12:15] Speaker B: That just. And I know other people have said that, but, I mean, it is a Parks fan, and now that's got, like, four years of history with my family, so.
[01:12:24] Speaker C: Oh, I love that. All right, we're gonna move onto the ship. What was your favorite show on the Walt Disney stage? You can't pick the magician, even. I know you said the magician comedian is really wonderful, but you have to pick from, like, one of the Disney stage shows. So you've got three choices. Which one is the best. There's really only one right answer. Please give it to me.
[01:12:43] Speaker B: Ale, listen, as much. As much as I like, believe, you know, I have two daughters, you know, and I've. I've burned out in my life. At one point. The whole message there was on point. It made me cry.
The Beauty and the Beast was definitely the best.
[01:12:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay. I mean, between. Between your hot take on.
[01:13:04] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait. One more thing, though. I do have a hot take on Beauty and the Beast. Okay.
[01:13:08] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:13:09] Speaker B: It's. And I don't know what the correct. Like, forgive me if I'm not, like, up on what came first, the live action or the musical or in Broadway. I don't like. I just. The song the song Evermore. You know what I'm talking about?
That needs to be in that. Like, the fact that that wasn't in there, that's like a my. I love that song. And I just. And that guy's voice was perfect. That the actor, you know, the. He would have nailed that song. And. And I'm like, it was just three minutes. Just give me the song. It's such an amazing.
[01:13:42] Speaker C: So they really cut those shows to really fit in that hour to hour and 15 minute time. And it's hard. There's some really lovely stuff that they end up cutting. But yeah, I love that. All right, great answer. Okay, favorite onboard activity.
[01:13:57] Speaker B: I think I would go with the adult game shows like the Match or Mate. What was the other thing I mentioned?
[01:14:03] Speaker C: The majority rules.
[01:14:04] Speaker B: Majority rules? Yeah, that was just.
[01:14:05] Speaker C: Did you go to Pop? Pop is another fun one.
[01:14:07] Speaker B: No, we didn't go to Pop. There was one other one. I forget the name of it, but yeah, those. Those were. Those. And that. That, that. That team that did that was really good. Oh, yeah, their entertainment team. Yeah.
[01:14:17] Speaker C: Awesome. All right, favorite rotational dining.
[01:14:20] Speaker B: Ooh, it's. It's definitely between animators and the.
[01:14:30] Speaker C: And royal.
[01:14:31] Speaker B: And royal.
[01:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:14:33] Speaker B: I think the. The presets might push me over the edge for animals animators.
[01:14:38] Speaker C: Nice. I love that.
[01:14:39] Speaker B: But we weren't really like the crush thing. Maybe my kids were just a little.
I don't know, Maybe where we were seeding wasn't.
[01:14:47] Speaker C: Yeah, you got hit.
[01:14:48] Speaker B: It didn't hit us. Like, it wasn't as. That was a little bit of a letdown. The crush thing. I don't know.
[01:14:53] Speaker C: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. All right, food. We gotta talk. A sweet item and a savory item. We're gonna start with a favorite sweet item because I saved the best for last, and the best is savory items. So tell me a favorite sweet item. Apparently not churro waffles, but on the cruise, it could be anywhere. It could be from an adult dining or main dining.
[01:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the. There was this hazelnut dessert at Remy that was just fantastic. I could have eaten like 10 of those things. And, you know, they only give you one that's like this big, but yeah, you know. Yeah, I could have. That was so good.
[01:15:30] Speaker C: Was that Apollo candy bar kind of a thing?
[01:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like, almost. Like, almost like a.
An eclair almost.
[01:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[01:15:39] Speaker B: And it's got this hazelnut cream in it. Oh, man. And the pastry was so perfect. And the. The cream. Oh, it was. And it. They served it with like a side of us orange blood orange sorbet.
[01:15:50] Speaker C: It was just yum.
[01:15:51] Speaker B: Now I'm kind of wanting to do that Remy dessert thing. So.
[01:15:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
Nice.
All right, a favorite savory item.
[01:16:01] Speaker B: I'm going to go with either the Palo chicken parm. I think would, would win on that one.
[01:16:07] Speaker C: That's a great one. Love that. All right, my last question is what is your bucket list cruise? If you could sail anywhere in the world on a Disney Cruise line ship and it doesn't even have to be someplace that Disney Current Disney Cruise Line currently sails, where would you sail? Alex?
[01:16:25] Speaker B: Well, I think my wife literally day two she goes we need to do this like longer. So was she was all on board for like a transatlantic or something like two days into the now My, my family is from Croatia. My dad is from Croatia and I really would like to do an Adriatic Sea. Like I actually saw one they're doing next year.
[01:16:47] Speaker C: I think this year Disney does.
[01:16:49] Speaker B: No, there's actually, well, there's actually a cruise that, there's actually a nine night cruise next year, next summer that hits Dubrovnik, Croatia. But I would love to do more of that area and like Montenegro and I've seen other cruise lines do that and I just, that would be, that would kind of be on my, on my list.
[01:17:11] Speaker C: Well that, that sounds incredible, Alex. Congratulations. You passed with flying colors.
[01:17:19] Speaker A: So Alex, what I always like to ask is what's next?
Did you get the all important onboard placeholder? Are you. It sounds like you might have already been visiting the website to at sailings for next summer. So anything you're eyeing.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well we did get the placeholder and that, that, that Europe sailing is a little bit beyond our reach right now.
I'm a school teacher and I'm trying to, you know, but we do have a, we do have a treasure sailing booked. It's just, it's just not until September of next like 2026. So it's to, to open the thing and it's 400 and some days or whatever that's. I don't know what to do with my.
So I keep looking at maybe you know, I don't know, maybe we'll jump on a, I don't know, maybe one of these, you know, benefit of living in Florida is you can kind of get on a four night, you know, last minute, you know, so maybe something between now and then you know, jumps at us and we can pull the trigger on it. I've been eyeing a couple, you know, like my daughter's a huge Rapunzel fan. I'd love to get on the Magic. You know, I'm also looking at other cruise lines. I don't know. Is that. Okay, guys? Am I allowed to do that?
[01:18:28] Speaker C: You're allowed to.
[01:18:29] Speaker A: Oh, come on, Sam. We're going on virgin voyages.
[01:18:32] Speaker C: I know, I know. We're going.
No, you're allowed to. But I will tell you that. But like the Magic, Rapunzel's Royal Table, and Tangled both being on the Magic, that. That could. If your daughter really loves Rapunzel, like, that's. That's a really good pick. I mean, and I think they have. I think I've said this before.
Besides the Treasure, I think the Magic has the best lineup of shows, you know, altogether. And so. Yeah, so I don't. I don't think you can really. You can't. You can't miss with any of the Disney ship.
[01:19:04] Speaker B: And.
[01:19:04] Speaker C: And frankly, there are other cruise lines that are doing some great stuff out there, too.
[01:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And, you know, just keep your eye out, because I. I have a feeling that we will see more discounted sailings on Disney Cruise Line as we go forward here, just because of all of the additional capacity they're adding into the fleet. And, you know, frankly, if you're willing to head down to Fort Lauderdale, as you did this time, that. That is a place where they've just never quite been able to dial in full ships all the time. So those Florida resident rates tend to pop up down there.
And we're even seeing the summer sale, 30% off sailing, a short sailing on the Wish, those kinds of things. So, yeah, I think you'll find some opportunities to save a little cash and still get on Disney Cruise Line. So I'd say keep your eyes closed.
[01:19:44] Speaker B: That's kind of my thinking. I mean, I keep looking at some Royal stuff, but I don't know, it's just. I watch videos on the Utopia. I could go on the Utopia for half the price of the Wish for four nights. And it's just like. I don't know. It doesn't feel right to me.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: It will be a totally different cruise experience. I will not pretend that it's not. I think. Think each of these cruise lines has their place. And I think it's. We.
[01:20:07] Speaker C: We.
[01:20:07] Speaker A: We're going on Royal in April, like a year from now for spring break because it was. It was less expensive than going on a Disney cruise. And we just, you know, we wanted to go back and give another shot.
[01:20:18] Speaker C: So I will tell you, Alex, we have a little bit of regret about that we're, like, kind of wishing we had treasure again.
[01:20:24] Speaker A: I have no regret about that. I. I will. I would love to find my way back on the treasure, but it's fun, remember?
[01:20:30] Speaker C: Yes. No, we have. We have a good time on. On Royal.
[01:20:33] Speaker A: It reminds us when. Why we like Disney, so, you know, it's not like a bad cruise. We're like, oh, I hate Royal, and I've got to get back.
[01:20:41] Speaker C: No, it's a good vacation. It's a different vacation.
[01:20:44] Speaker A: It's different. Very different. Anyway.
[01:20:45] Speaker B: Well, it's just. I look at, like, that, and I'm like, I love, like, deck four on the ship, and I don't see that on that Utopia, like, that type of vibe where you can just go sit on deck. I mean, it almost feels like they don't have enough viewing. Like, that you're on a. It doesn't feel like you're on a ship half the time. I don't know.
[01:21:04] Speaker C: That is true.
[01:21:05] Speaker B: Am I getting that?
[01:21:05] Speaker C: Other than on the top deck, it's.
[01:21:08] Speaker A: More like a floating Vegas hotel. That's really what.
[01:21:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Maybe that's why it doesn't jive with me. We've never really been Vegas type people, so. But. And then my math goes, hey, it's. If. It's. If I'm gonna spend $2,000 on this, why not put that toward the thing I actually want to do now? My wife goes, but because you're not gonna just spend $2,000. You're gonna spend 4,000, you know, so I don't know.
[01:21:33] Speaker A: All right, Alex, before we wrap up, did you want to share with folks how they can find and connect with you and your fun travel adventures?
[01:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we just working through some video edits for YouTube now. You can look up Just Kids Grown Up. Just Kids Grown up on YouTube, Instagram. Just kids Grown Up. So we're kind of taking that, you know, line from Disney that adults are just kids grown up, so.
[01:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I love Kids Grown Up. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna start following you right now. I'm excited to see your. Your videos and what you put out there.
[01:22:04] Speaker A: Alex, it's been a blast chatting with you. Been great catching up with you and hearing more about your cruise. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to spend with our audience and share your experience with them. We just. We really appreciate it.
[01:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate you having me. I look forward to connecting in the future and meeting people and hearing from y', all, and it's been fun.
[01:22:28] Speaker D: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows so be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email them at DCLDUO mypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon. If you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least on a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also of course email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL Duo podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company or the Disney family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflective. Use the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney vacation, please contact the great folks over at My Path Unwinding Travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL duo.
[01:24:36] Speaker C: Sam.
