[00:00:00] Speaker A: So I gotta ask the ultimate question, Chad. Now, before the show, you had, you know, hadn't even considered booking this. This cruise. Have. Have we convinced you to book along with us on this DVC member cruise?
[00:00:14] Speaker B: You guys are the tempting factor there, right? I mean, sailing with DCL Duo guys is like if you can get on a cruise ship with them. That is a phenomenal.
[00:00:32] Speaker C: Foreign.
Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel. And also our good friends over at. I love that we can say this now. The DCL Magazine Magazine. No more qualifying. It. It is the DCL Magazine. If you have not already, head over there and subscribe today. They got some great deals to get your subscription via Be a First Wave crew Member, I think they're calling it, of the DCL Magazine.
You can head over to dcl-magazine.com, that's dcl-magazine.com.
and if you use code DCL DUO, you can take an extra 10% off your subscription and anything else that they have over there in the WDW magazine store. Calendars, other magazine subscriptions. They've got digital, they've got hard copy. They got everything over there. Great stuff. Great crew of people. We love Stephanie, Danny, Tatiana.
Trying to remember who else we got to meet.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Tim.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Tim. Oh, God, yeah. Tim's the. Tim's the name. I don't remember because he's in my inbox, you know, saying, where's that article? Where's that article? But actually, I love you, Tim. Love the whole crew over there. They got a great product, great magazine. So head over there, show them some love. You support the show anytime you support one of our sponsors. So dcl-magazine.com code dc l duo, all caps for an extra 10% off before we bring in our guests.
We had to pivot. We had pivot. We were Ross on Friends tonight. Pivot. Pivot. So we had to pivot tonight.
Our planned guest was unavailable this evening. We will hope to have Blair on at some point in the future, but she was not available this evening. So we phoned a friend, one of our favorite friends, one of our best friends of the show. And we're bringing in Mr. Chad Pennycuff from the My DVC Points podcast. Chad, great to have you back on the show.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Oh, great to be here. So, hello, Sam. Hello, Brian. Welcome home, everybody. Because I'm a DVC guy, so that's kind of our signature phrase there.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: And yeah, yeah, you gotta give everybody a welcome home greeting. I gotta say, first of all, Chad, thank you for coming on the show last minute. We so appreciate you. I also gotta say thank you for sharing that video of that little droid in the Hyperspace Lounge on the Wish.
Yeah. For those who saw that video on our Instagram, Chad was the one who actually took that video and interviewed, I believe it was the cruise director.
And we were able to get that video to you immediately. It was breaking news. It was actually that the droid's first appearance on Disney Cruise Line. So it was on the Wish in Hyperspace Lounge. And then I believe later that cruise, or maybe it was the cruise after yours, Chad, that. Then that little droid started making appearances both in the cargo bay as well for kind of a little creature lesson where they learned about all the different creatures in the cargo bay. Really cute. I got a video from another, another listener of our show.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: The introduction of the droid into Hyperspace Lounge almost makes me want to retract all of the negative things I have said about Hyperspace Lounge. But it looks so amazing. Was it as cool in person as it looked on video chat? It was.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: He was very interactive and walked around and like interacted with guests and he was on a mission there to learn about drinks and what people are doing. So the droid was like collecting data for his AI. Right.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: I love it.
That's awesome. Well, that was your most recent cruise, Chad. But Chad, you are working your way up to gold status cruiser, aren't you?
[00:04:18] Speaker B: I have hit gold because I did one the weekend after that as well. So snuck down to Fort Lauderdale and jumped on the dream for a three nighter just to hit my goal before Alaska this summer.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: We gotta get you and Lincoln. We gotta get Ewan Lincoln on the Destiny.
I think he's a Marvel kid, right? He likes Marvel.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's booked for August, so.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: Oh, amazing.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: You guys are such a bad influence on me, man.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: Like I'm just telling you, we've joked a few times, we need a. Our show needs to come up with.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Bad influence on us with all those DVC points that we wrecked.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Oh gosh, so many. So many.
Yeah, yeah. We've joked that our show needs to come with a black box warning that it may impact your bank account. But yeah. Well, let's dive into some news cause we want to head over to talk about this DVC member sailing. That's our topic for this evening.
But let's start with the news. I have a couple quick hit items on the news and then I think Sam wants to take the headline for the week but a couple quick hits on the news. First is, you know, I wish I had a wah wah wah sound. But the wonderful yesterday departed Sydney, Australia for the last time. And so she is making it was.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Today because it was Monday, but it was actually yesterday.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: It was, it was Monday yesterday in Australia. So she was on day. So, so it's time travel, our time that she departed Sydney, Australia for the final time, ending the Wonder down under experiment that Disney went through there.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Only because we're sad about it.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Yeah, probably lots of reasons that that ultimately didn't, didn't, didn't pan out fully for, for Disney in the long term.
But she is making her. The Wonder is making her way back across the Pacific. She of course has her, I think it's an 11 night sailing between Sydney and Honolulu where she'll stop at some of the Southern Pacific islands and then she will make her way over to San Diego for some Pacific coast cruising here in the spring before she heads back up to Vancouver to join her sister ship.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Is Magic's headed up to Vancouver this summer, I think, right?
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Two ships sailing out of Vancouver for the Alaska season this year. I got to talk about a couple of these comments that I love. First, Lauren Porter is saying good evening all. And both of your podcasts are bad influences to my wallet.
So like I said, Adonitis Chad talks about it all the time on, on his podcast. And then of course, you know, booking, you know, when the, especially when those itinerary releases come out. I know that we are, we're hurting other people's wallets. So I'm sorry, Lauren, but you're right.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: Those might be coming next week or the week after actually for summer 2027.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: So yeah, yes. We're expecting in the next couple of weeks those that itinerary release. And don't worry, when there's an itinerary release, we will have a show. If we can't do it on the day that the itineraries come out, we will do it the very next day.
Obviously it's just a matter of what, what our schedules are on, whichever actually comes out.
Also, I had to pull up, I gotta say Nathan Novak's comment here. I love it. If you have a friend on the wonder, ask them for the lottery numbers before they cross the date line. I love that it's all about time travel. Absolutely.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And Linda, we'll get to this in a second.
Let me shift us over to the second piece of housekeeping news here, which is Disney Adventure has now cleared the Panama Canal. So she has made it from the east coast over here to the west coast, as she will be making. Making her way up to Los Angeles. And expect to see her in Los Angeles Long beach docking hopefully later this week to, we believe, simply reprovision the ship before she heads across to Asia.
And so, no, no, there's. We can say we have not been invited to come down and tour the ship. We've not heard of anyone being invited to come down and tour the ship. I think she may still be a bit of a work in progress. And so.
So she will dock in LA and then head over to Asia.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Yeah, there are. There are some family members just for those wondering. Like, there are some, like, there's, of course, cast members both from corporate and crew members for the ship on board and. And with some. Some of their family members as well. So we do know a couple folks on board, but not. They're not allowed to like, share anything, like pictures or information about really what's going on.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: I really wanted some pictures or video of her coming under the Bridge of the Americas because that was the sticking point was that she seemed a little too tall to make it under the Bridge of the Americas. And so I'm guessing they had to do it at low tide.
Yeah. So her. I know, I know that the funnels for a while were still under scaffolding, but I think they removed that in Port Canaveral, so.
Or at least before she got there. But yeah, so the adventure is making her way up north along the coast. If you're out there listening and you're not a crew member on board because you don't want to solicit you to get in trouble with Disney. But if you, for whatever reason were like, oh, I'm in Panama visiting the canal, and I'd love to take some photos of the ship going through. Like, we'd love to see them, share them with us, just to see what that looked like going through the canal.
Sam, you have the headline of the week. So, yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Okay. So. So right now, all I have here is my little. My monkey towel animal and my elephant towel animal. Because these have been on Disney Cruise Line now for a while. For more than a year. Want to say two years. I can't remember exactly when they came out, but these are towel animal plushies.
And for those of you who've been paying attention, there was a commercial about maybe a year ago now that had a dog towel animal plushie, and he was wearing a really cute Disney hat. It was Disney. Like, sort of the original looking ears, right? The black ear hat with the. With the ears that are like. Like everybody would get with their name embroidered on the back.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: It's a great.
It's a great commercial. You should head over to YouTube and find it. It was just heartwarming. Like, he's. He's sitting. He's sitting on the bed.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Bring Kleenex. Yeah, bring Kleenex.
[00:10:22] Speaker C: He's sitting on the bed wagging his tail. And the tagline is kind of like, we miss you. And like, the door to the stateroom opens and he thinks it's going to be a new family to welcome, and it turns out to be one of the house attendant or the stateroom attendants. And he gets a little sad, and then the stateroom attendant starts taking him around the ship so he can see everything on the ship. And of course, the commercial ends with him back in his stateroom and then a family comes in and he's all.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Coming in for their. For their stay. And he's all. She actually is a. Partly. It's a she because.
[00:10:53] Speaker C: Well, we said. Hold on, hold on. We said. We said at the time. Just roll that. We said at the time, oh, yeah, they were selling the plushies that Sam already has. And we said, if they don't sell this, they're crazy. And they didn't. And it took months and months and months. Like, I think it's been almost a year. And now finally, Evie, finally.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Hey, stop it, Brian. You're. You. You took the headline from me. You said, I got to do the headline finally.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: One for me. One for me.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Anyway, anyway, so Evie, I don't have her yet, but I have her. So let me explain. Friends of ours are good friends. The morals were just on the Wish this weekend, and I believe they were on one of the first sailings. Maybe not the first, but one of the first sailings that Evie became available.
And so they were able to grab me one. They said that Evie was being sold on board for $26.99, minus any discounts that you might have that apply. So DVC member discounts, castaway club discount, that sort of a thing. And.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: But by DCL standards, yeah, they were.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Limit two per stateroom, and they only had about 30 on board on the Wish.
We did hear that they had been on the Fantasy maybe a week prior to when they were on the Wish or a week prior to that sort of announcement, and that they are popping up on the other ships, but they are not necessarily great in stock right now. So we don't know what the stock looks like across the fleet. In fact, we heard from somebody on the Wish today that boarded today that there weren't any in the store this evening.
And so they might not. They obviously didn't get restocked since the last cruise.
Their shelves apparently got emptied. So we know that. I just want to tell people Evie is available, but stock is going to probably be a little bit bumpy for a while and hopefully eventually what will happen, like what happened with these guys is they eventually got. Got enough stock that they're able to keep them on the shelves, but for probably the next couple months, they're going to be hard to find.
Just wait. Don't get them on ebay. Don't. Don't let those resellers charge you three times the price.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: I want to applaud Disney Cruise Line for limiting two per stateroom in order to cut back on that, because I do think someone could have walked in and bought all 30 of them and then. Yeah, I think that. So I love that they implemented that.
Chad, I got to know next time you're on board, if you spot one of these, are you buying one?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: I'm buying one for me, for Sam, if she doesn't have hers.
I've already got a list of texts from people who knew I spent the last couple weekends on a DCL ship going, can you get me one of these? And I was like, yeah, look, they weren't there.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah, not yet. Not yet. Well, I will say, like I said, the morals have one for me. They're fostering Evie for me until I can. Until I can pick her up. And so I really appreciate that. I've had a couple of other friends and listeners reach out and say if they, you know, if I asked me if I needed one. But I really appreciate it because I was like, ready to book a cruise to get on tomorrow just to get one. I will be completely honest. I got to mention something from the chat. Another piece of news we haven't mentioned. There's been some recent dream and wish discounts.
And so folks have been getting discounts applied even after they booked. And so kudos to Disney for actually doing that. Even when after some folks, they did.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: That for me as well. It went on Florida resident rate and they just automatically, well, I had to call them for that one. But then when the placeholder discount kicked in for Alaska this summer, they just automatically didn't even anything. They just issued the credit for the one room that was paid off and dropped the price on the second One, kudos to DCL for doing that. That was really unexpected, but really, really nice. It. What it does is it says, hey, go ahead and book the cruise you want and if it goes on sale, you're good.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: Which is frankly how a lot of other cruise lines work. Right. On Royal, if you book a sailing and it goes on a sale later or a discount later, you can just, you know, you can kind of, you can play the game of, well, cancel and rebook and take the savings.
So I'm glad to see Disney kind of embracing that. I think we may see a lot more sales coming out of the cruise line moving forward as the fleet expands. You know, the supply's going way up and, you know, we are hearing things like, friends, we've had on board the last, what, this past weekend and then next weekend, I think, Sam, not this upcoming weekend, but a weekend later, you.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Know, like, oh, no, this upcoming weekend.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: Like 15, 16 unsold concierge rooms on board, which has got to not be, you know, great from a financial standpoint for Disney. So lots of port upgrades available still. So I think the fleet is expanding and I think Disney needs to generate some goodwill amongst the community and then also some more demand to start filling these ships.
All right, Sam, I think we should, we should. Actually, I wanted to say one more thing about Eevee, which is I think, I think we're going to start a trend here where we're going to take Eevee with us on like, the ABD and stuff and like, just take Eevee around the world with us. So watch out for that. I think Sam might need a second Eevee. So she's got like, just a nice, clean, perfect Eevee and then one we can, as our friend Willie would say, one to rock, one to stock. So there you go. All right, let's shift over. So our topic for tonight is this DVC member sailing. We talked about it, like a little bit briefly at the top of last week's show because it got announced last week. So this is a.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: No, that was two weeks ago or three weeks ago, Brian.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: Oh, really? It's been that long?
[00:16:21] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Time.
So this is the 2027 DVC member cruise that they have announced for April of 2027.
I just want to briefly give the itinerary here. So it is on the Disney Wonder.
It's April 7th departing from San Diego, California. It will then head to Catalina island, which I personally, one of my favorite port stops on dcl. I think it's just a fun, tight Little port stop that you can get off and see a lot of things, you know, really, you know, in a day that you feel like you actually got to experience the port, then it's.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Let's just say there's not a ton to see on Catalina. It's one of those, like, kind of one and done type places. But it's a really cute port.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: No, you can like rent a golf course.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: It's a cute port. Hopefully your luck is better than mine because I came in on a heavy fog day and so they don't come. There's no like port. They, they like dock in the middle of the ocean and tender on in.
And we parked and there was like foghorns going off continually.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: That's right. All night long. That's right, yeah.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Oh, it was.
Yeah.
[00:17:30] Speaker C: So it will, it will head to Catal first stops Catalina the day after it embarks. Then Friday, April 9, is a day at sea.
Saturday they are arriving in San Francisco, California. And we're going to come back to that in a second.
They are overnighting in San Francisco. Poor San Francisco. So two days in San Francisco, then a day at sea to take you down to Ensenada for the required international stop under the Passenger Service Vessel act. And then they will head back to San Diego and disembark the following day.
So seven night sailing on the Wonder in April, west coast cruise.
I'm pretty excited about this itinerary.
Chad, you were a little skeptical. We were talking off air ahead of the show and I mentioned it's a West coast sailing. You're kind of like, is there anything. I like that warm weather.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: I did that cream.
Yeah. Last spring about this time and it was just too cold. It was just way too cold.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: And I mean, see, I love sweats weather.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: But two weekends ago I went on the, the Wish and the Dream and once we got into the ocean and the ocean was a little cold, like at the private islands, but it was still in the 70s and 80s. So in January, like, sign me up. Okay.
[00:18:57] Speaker C: I, I do love that they're showing a little love to their West Coast DVC members.
Like, I think that is, I think that is nice.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: That is nice. That is nice. Because we have so many out of, you know, here in Florida, we're a little spoiled.
[00:19:10] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Oh, Ed saying, Chad, just go spend a few weeks in Michigan and then go to California.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: You'll. Thank you. Yeah. You'll be like, I actually did that.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: I had to go to Michigan to pick up Lincoln to bring him with me. So that's right.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: I will say the, the one, the one oddity that struck me about this sailing is, and I know it's entirely itinerary based and like where the ship's doing the three, four nights. And so to get a seven night out of it, they're straddling a Wednesday to Wednesday, which for us on the west coast there's a lot of spring breaks that will happen those two weeks. But they're straddling spring break. So in order for us to like take Nathan on this, we're gonna have to pull him out of school.
I don't know. We may, we may break our rule and fly down Wednesday morning to get on this cruise, but I am going to vehemently try to talk Sam out of that approach.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Going to, we're not going to fly down Wednesday morning. We're going to fly down Tuesday night. We're not, he's not going to miss Tuesday school, but we're going to take whatever, like the last flight is on Tuesday night down to San Diego so that he doesn't have to miss school. That's the way we're going to handle it.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: What I do love about this is that because it disembarks on a Wednesday, which will be during his spring break, we can then, you know, couple that with a little bit of time at Disneyland. So it's nice to see that opportunity. I think that's a great way to.
Yeah. So if you're from the east coast, you can come out, you can do the cruise, you can go to Disneyland. Disneyland's like a weekend park. So you don't really have to be there for.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Or if you're, or if your spring break, your family's spring break is that first week of the cruise. Right. You can do a couple days at Disneyland before. And I don't, I think, you know, we always, we tell people, oh, if you're gonna, you know, pair a Parks trip and a cruise, we usually recommend, of course, doing the Parks trip first. But I don't really think with Disneyland that, that recomm is nearly as strong as at World because I feel like Disneyland is just a little bit more chill than World. As far as, you know, all of the running and the walking. You don't have to walk nearly as many much distance to get around the park.
[00:21:08] Speaker C: Chad's been to both. I'd love his thoughts on this because like our recommendation is always do the World trip, then do the cruise to relax, then get off and go home.
I think that's probably less compelling for A Disneyland trip?
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I think in Disneyland you're safe either way. And I would prefer the parks ahead of time so that I can just go from San Diego cruise port around the corner to the airport, and then you fly home Wednesday when you get off, and then you're back in school Thursday, Friday, if that's your deal.
[00:21:36] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: So to me, then, you're only out three days for this as opposed to if you do it, you know, before or after, like, because you've definitely got to get down there before. I'm Team Sam on this one. Fly in at least the night before.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: Tracy, I see your comment that you sit on a throat of lies here, Sam. She walked 15 miles on Saturday. We were at the Run Disney event this past weekend. The 15 miles there for Tracy includes the 6.2 mile, 10K that she ran. So, yeah, let's back up and talk a little bit about what a member cruise. Well, what a member cruise is, because DVC has member cruises. So this year's member cruise over in Europe, and then they have these first wave sailings.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: On the first.
Well, I was just gonna say on the first wave sailings, they require you to use points to book at least one person in the stateroom. Member cruises are different, Sam.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Take it away. I'm sure Chad can fill some things in because he's talked to plenty of people who've been on these cruises, too.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I will say for a member cruise, the difference of the member cruise is you have to be a blue card member or a. Or a grandfathered in blue card member, meaning direct points, not resale points. Like I said, grandfathered in, meaning if you bought 150. Yeah, yeah. Resale points a while ago, you might have that blue card benefit.
And yes, you have to have at least 150 points you need to own in order to be a member that qualifies. To book one of these cruises, you've got to have that many points direct.
Now, a member cruise, you do not typically have to book anyone on points, but you can, you can book one person, two people, all the people, it doesn't matter. Disney will give us a points chart and a price chart. They have not released that yet. So we can't say exactly what it's going to be. But I would tell folks, if you want an idea, look at the member cruise pricing for this year's member cruise, which is in Europe on the Disney Fantasy this September.
And then the special, the. The biggest thing or the biggest difference about a member cruise versus just your Regular cruise is one, everybody who's on at least one person in their stateroom is in fact a member.
And two, they have special gifts every day and special presentations across the cruise. So that might mean you might get some an like extra special Broadway star. So Disney on Broadway typically will bring on, you know, maybe two, maybe four individuals who were in a Disney Broadway show and they will do some kind of performance in the main stage theater.
They might have folks like Ducky Williams, who of course is very well known for all of his drawings.
In fact he does all of the lithographs, the prints that you get on Disney Cruise Line for any kind of special cruise or if you stay concierge. Those lithograph prints that you get are almost always. Actually I think they've always been from Disney Cruise Line ones that Ducky Williams has done. He's also done them for all kinds of special events. But pretty much like a lot of that Disney art and he likes to call it something like throwaway art. So like literally the brochures for the parks and things like that he did, he's done the art for those.
He did them for many, many, many years and still does do them for Disney, for Disney World, for Disney Parks, for Disney Cruise Line. And so he will do a, a talk. He may sign prints, he might actually do some drawings on the fly. There's also some other, you know, folks from Imagineering. I think last year they did a special presentation that was about the documentary that was done about the Goofy movie. And so the folks who had actually put that movie together were on board and did a talk about it. I wouldn't be surprised if they invite maybe Leslie, I works or you know, somebody like that on board to do presentations about, you know, Disneyland handcrafted documentary. They might even do special presentations of different documentaries.
[00:25:51] Speaker C: What about a little, what about a little Josh Gad? I mean we're going to be right in near la. Like let's get.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, there's usually special guests on board.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean those things are, yeah, pretty normal. I've heard before the lady who does Ariel's voice was on and so she's done cruises, Imagineers, the special guests that they bring in.
And from what I'm told, it's the expenses of bringing in all of these special guests because you kind of have to pay them to be there and you have to pay all of their expenses and everything else. And that's not a revenue generating room at that point in time.
And then all of the swag that they Buy you and put into your room and like special DVC member only exclusive on that cruise, limited edition swag is in your room and so you're paying for all of that. So they're pricey. Like let's be completely honest, they're pricey.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: And as Ed points out in the chat, there's a reason you need to bring like an empty suitcase to haul home all this way. This is not like there's a lot that they give to you to sort of celebrate, you know, the member sailing. I also want to, I think one really unique thing that Disney announced, they have not given details about this yet, but they said in the announcement about the cruise.
As an added bonus, Disney Vacation Club is collaborating with Disney Cruise Line to create custom port adventures for our sailings two day stop in San Francisco with insider access to Disney connected places in and around the city by the bay. And so Chad, you point out before the show the Disney Family Museum is.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: There, which is really phenomenal.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: Yeah. And Skywalker Ranch is just north of San Francisco. So I will be curious to see what kind of experiences they trot out.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: ILM Industrial Light and Magic is right there as well in Marin County.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Well, where is Skywalker Ranch is also home to Lucas.
What's the name of his studio? Why am I blanking?
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Lucasfilms.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: Yeah, but he has a special name. It's like Dreamworks or something. Anyway, there's the a.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: There's a special Industrial Light and Magic.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: Or yeah, maybe ilm I'm trying to remember. Yeah, but yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Oh, and Pixar is in Emeryville. Ed is saying in the chat.
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I was wondering about Pixar.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's just a lot of Disney connected places in Northern California. They're not all in LA and Burbank. Right. Or Glendale. Right. They're not all in Southern California. There are some in Northern California and so especially with a two day stop, even ones that are a little bit further away, there's enough time, particularly on that first day in San Francisco, assuming you get an early.
Even if you're doing, you know, an hour, hour and a half bus ride somewhere, there's enough time. Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:40] Speaker C: One is, as Nathan points out, the Skywalker, I mean Skywalker Ranch is a vineyard and then it's also got some of the studio production for, for Lucas. So there's a lot.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: I love their wines. Yeah. I, I want to, I want to go do wine tasting. It's kind of delicious.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: But and folks are the presenter sometimes like sort of overlapped with things like Festival of the Arts. And the answer is yes. Like some of the folks that you will see that are sort of regulars at like things like, you know, people who come to candlelight processional, people who come to Festival of the Arts, people who come to, you know, sort of all the different. Or D23. Right. Like the Disney legend family. I'll put those people.
And like the famous Imagineers. Right. Those are the kinds of people and you will see them in multiple places, but they'll do unique presentations.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: NPH showed up. Neil Patrick Harris show up on board. I would die. Like I, that, that is like Legend Harry.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: I've seen him in Epcot.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: That's right. That's right.
[00:29:42] Speaker C: Let's just logistically, really fast, I mentioned up front, to book this cruise, you do have to be a blue card member with Disney Vacation Club. Now, unlike those first wave sailings I mentioned, you will be able to book your entire cruise on cash.
You will be able to book some of it on points if you want. We're going to talk to Chad in a minute about why that is a good or a bad idea.
But, but you don't have to, unlike the first wave sailings, you don't have to use your points. You just have to have a blue card in order to book the sailing. Not everyone has to be a blue card member in your, you know, your stateroom, so to speak. And usually they let DVC members, you know, book multiple rooms so you can bring others on who themselves are not vacation club members. In fact, I think Disney would like that because then one of the big things on board and Chad, I don't know if you know anything about like how big these discounts are. I, I've never been on one of these cruise. I don't know. But like they usually, you know, if the, the on board, they may or.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: May not get a special exception for that one. Yeah, there's that, that's, that's a sensitive topic in the DVC area because it used to be that you would get special incentives on the cruise ship and then people weren't buying on land because they're like, I'll just wait to book a cruise. And I plan on saving enough on the special cruise incentives that I'll pay, just pay for my cruise. That way I get a free cruise out of the deal wheel.
[00:31:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: And so it started negatively impacting land sales and they started to squish all of that. Or at least they say they have my, you know, data points have, have kind of shown some discrepancies there. But yeah. So yeah, your mileage may vary.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Right. Normally on these member cruises they actually gave not just like whatever discounts were on the ship, they were actually giving steeper discounts. They're like trying to push like points as like you know, a money maker on these cruises. So.
So yeah, it'll be interesting.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: I do know from my friends that have been on the DVC sales teams, the more members that are on a cruise, the more desirable it is for them because the easiest person to sell points to is an existing member.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Like the Adonitis is real and you know, they don't, you know, they're just there to sell points. Right. Well, they may have. I know, yeah. This cruise has a ton of members on it. I want to sign up to be the sales guy in that cruise because my odds are a lot better at selling more points.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: Well, they may have that. I don't know when that. I forget the name of the lakeside lodge that could be on sale by then. Right.
The new one they're building, it could be.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Or it could be pre sale by then for sure.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: So that's, that's building is still looking pretty rough today. And so last time I was by there, it was still like cemented and there was no shell on it.
Some of the windows were in, some of them weren't. But nothing had paint or.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah, TVC hasn't really announced it. Right. I mean they still kind of deny that it's even happening. I feel like at times.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. The Haunted river country, right?
[00:32:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. Yeah, yeah.
All right, so let's talk about Chad. Let me just give the booking date. So this will go on sale on February, is it? 28th? 28th, February 28th, Saturday.
It will go on sale at 10:00am Eastern, 7:00am Pacific. Yep, 10:00am eastern, 7:00am Pacific.
That they're going to be open from 10:00am to 2:00pm for booking.
That is a Saturday. So they're not normally open but they will be staffed to book.
There is no one thing we're talking about off air. And let's. We can go off on the rant here. I'll let Chad go first. But they, they do not do of priority booking either based on your castaway club status or the number of points you own with. With dvc it is literally a free for all booking. Everyone is on equal footing.
Personally don't love it. But Chad, how do you feel about that?
[00:33:38] Speaker B: I'm all for DVC class warfare here. Okay. That's what we call it on on my show where I think if you've bought a thousand members direct from Disney, you ought to have some perks. You ought to be able to book this a day or two ahead of time. You ought to be able to book Moonlight Magic a day or two ahead of time.
That's just my own personal take on it. And they should be throwing some bones to people who have bought more with some kind of tears and status. But unfortunately we have none of that.
It is just a free for all that day. And good luck navigating the phone tree system. Right.
[00:34:13] Speaker C: Or Membership Magic. People bought that Membership Magic. Why is it not a perk that they might get a first grab at?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah, the Membership Magic beyond, which is my pro tip. If you're going to do this cruise, there's typically like a $95 fee to transition your points from. They're waving vacation points. Oh, they are waving that.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: They're waving that on this cruise. They are waiving the $95 fee on this cruise for transferring points.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: But this is good info anyway for another cruise if you are going to be using your points to book a different cruise. Chad, tell them what they should do.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Yeah, just throw down the 99 bucks for this membership Magic beyond program through DVC. You will get front of the line access to the lounges here in Walt Disney World. You'll get a 30 day photo pass.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: So if you're not an annual pass holder, that buys the. The annual photo thing like I do. I mean that's a $200 value right there. Okay. Just the photo pass thing alone.
You get buy one, get one free use points. Your one time use points become BOGO and buy one, get one. And if you have multiple member numbers, the $199 fee will get you BOGO on both of your memberships.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's really nice. Okay. Yeah.
Now for this one we. You don't need to have the membership. The Membership Magic Beyond. But I agree with you, Chad. I think if you had that you should like Brian was suggesting, have, you know, sort of a leg up on. I would pay that 99 for the leg up on booking. I will just say that I'm, you know, I don't.
While I don't love the idea of pay to play, I understand it. It is fair and that's how Disney works generally.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: Sorry. On the Membership Magic chat. Is it per. This is something you just said is really interesting to me because I haven't thought about it. Do you buy once for all of your contracts? No. No. So you have to buy for once.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Well, you buy once per member.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: Okay, got it.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: So last year I bought it and Laura, my wife, went to go to the lounge and couldn't get front of the line access because the $99 was on me.
Now if she paid $99 she could have it as well. But she's not going to get the Bogo points because I already used them.
[00:36:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: So like it's, she'd probably still get the 30 day photo thing. But you really going to need two 30 day ones maybe if you're coming twice to Disney World. You also get some decent discounts on Disneyland tickets and Disney World tickets.
So they're, they're, they're decent and respectable. Right. So yeah, it's, check it out and see if it works for your family. I think it's phenomenal. I bought it the first year just to do podcast research and then when they offered it this year I was like, sign me up.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
We have not bought it ourselves. We have because we just haven't needed the Bogo points. I think that if we needed that, I think that we, we would be in on it.
Or if we were going to be at the parks a lot and we're going to use the lounges a lot. Right. That, that would be the other fit as well. We just, we really haven't hit the parks very much in the last couple of years since they introduced this and then we haven't needed the extra points.
[00:37:25] Speaker C: I thought I was going to need them for our Alani say this past time I'd end up just like using other points that we had available. But yeah, the Bogo point thing. Chad's done some excellent research. I'm sure there's a specific episode of your show about this.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: You're getting them for $10 a point. Like the dues are averaging like 10 bucks a point now.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: So you don't have to buy the point, you know, because there's, if you buy the points at today's prices, you're going to pay about 3 resale to $5 a point hard cost for the point itself.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: Plus you're going to pay the dues on that.
This way you just pay the 10 bucks and you're done.
And yeah, the only trick is you can only book at the seven month window with them.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that. Oh, that's helpful to know. So you don't get your 11 month priority on them. You only get the 7 month priority on them.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: That's why I didn't use them. This time because I thought I could buy them and use them at 11 months. And then I was like, oh, I can't.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Then you're like, oh, I can use. I'll use the points I already have at a different resort. That makes sense.
[00:38:29] Speaker D: Are you listening to our show because you want to make the most out of your next vacation? Great news. The fabulous team over at My Path Unwinding Travel can help guide you so you don't miss a thing.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Thing.
[00:38:37] Speaker D: Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. Mypath Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, my mypath Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOYpathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks, My Path Unwinding, for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Well, let's, let's, let's pivot over to the.
The booking.
Booking. Do I book on cash? Do I book on points? Chad, you know, you've done all the math. You have all the wisdom. Do you ever book a cruise on points, whether it be a member cruise or any other.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: No, not me. That's just.
No, no, that's, that's. No, no. That's just bad because I can get $20 a point on just going into a Facebook group or offering them to friends and family on a rental.
And I can do that all day long. Now, I have a reputation. People are very comfortable for me because, hey, here's my podcast. All that. So I don't have any issues in the world with that as well, because I'm not going to host somebody just based on who I am. Well, and my ethics of being a personal person. Right.
But the average person can go on Facebook and there's Facebook groups that are dedicated for this. I don't really talk about them on my show too much. Although we're going to create an episode on personal rentals just because It's a monster that's out there we have to talk about.
But you can go to like, our sponsor DVC rental store and they will give you 16 to $18 a point for it with minimal hassle.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: Right? It's, it's.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: And then you rent.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: How much hassle factor do you want?
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So if you're going to use points to pay for your cruise, your, your, your statement is you rent those points either direct to somebody else or through DVC rental store or somebody like them, and then you're getting the cash and use the cash to pay for the cruise directly with Disney cruise with your. Or through your travel. Your, your personal travel advisor.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Right. I mean, would you rather get $20 a point, $18 a point, $16 a point, or last I looked now, this was like 2025 data $8.47 per point on the swap, right?
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. That's pretty bad.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: And you can easily do that math when this point chart comes out, because you can say, hey, if I pay cash for this, it's this amount. If I use points for the person, it's this amount. Well, divide the two and then you're going to see really quick and easy what math they used for a price per point basis.
And then go. If you're comfortable with that, a lot of times it's less than the cost of your dues.
So I'm like, I'm giving you the points, I'm giving you some of my dues money and I'm still getting less.
[00:41:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pointing out you still have to pay tax, you have to pay taxes on the rental. But I don't think that's going to shift the metric enough for it to matter here to your point, it's like the difference between, yeah, if you use.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: A rental company, you're definitely getting a 1099.
So that's, if you do a friends and family, they should give you one. Whether they do, who knows? That's up to you to, you know, figure that out with the IRS and report it. Right?
[00:42:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: So, but if you do the swap, there is it, it's, it's, it's a, a swap and there is no tax implications. That's the beautiful part about that.
[00:42:31] Speaker C: Well, that is the beautiful part. I'm looking at the, the points chart for this year's member cruise. So you need, I'm just going off the lowest category. So you need 370 points for, per person for the first two guests on an inside cabin. That works out to about $9, $0.15, $0.16 a point is what they're offering now. So I've gone up a little, but not a lot. Yeah, and that's still, that's still well below what rental market would give you.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Ed makes a comment here. I just want to clarify. He says you can't do a swap for a DVC member cruise. Swap is a rental company term.
But it's also when you get into the IRS trade, there's bartering groups and that's kind of a swap thing that you're doing with Disney as well. You're trading your points for it. Right. It's an even exchange at that point in time or no money's being exchanged in that. So yeah, that's a tax free thing to do it directly through Disney. So I call them all swaps because you're just trading your points as opposed to converting something to cash and then using cash.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Right. Right now you are allowed to use points. Just to be clear, you are allowed, so that people don't get confused by Ed's comment, you allowed to use points to pay for a DVC member cruise. You are not required to use points to pay for a DVC member cruise. And Chad's argument is when you're looking at the dollars and cents of it all, it does not make sense to pay with points. It makes sense to pay with cash. And if you're not going to use your points, do something else with those points like rent them to rent them.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: And then determine what hassle factor you're. You're comfortable with with.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: Do you want minimal hassle factor? Then use a rental company to broker the deal for you. If you're willing to do a little bit more work and kiss a few more frogs to find a date that works for people and book a room and all that back and forth stuff, then you can find your own renters yourself.
But you get paid more.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: But I'll tell you this, having done it both ways, the brokers earn their money.
It's not as easy as it sounds as to, oh, I just find somebody and book the dates. There's a lot of back and forth without it.
[00:44:46] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Right. Right.
[00:44:47] Speaker C: I do, I do want to, I do want to highlight, just from a booking standpoint really fast. We, we, we skipped over this. But the, for the how to book, you're not calling Disney Cruise Line. Let's just be super clear this. If you wake up in the morning, you call Disney Cruise Line, they will have no idea what you're talking about. You need to call DVC member services and go through the phone tree to book the sailing.
They also just to highlight for folks and for completeness here. Here they give some tips on the website for simplifying your booking phone calls. So information to have available to make this as fast as possible for you. Have your member number ready, have the the first, second and third choices of stateroom because they're not actually booking it into the Disney Cruise Line system. So they don't know what state rooms are being taken offline as they book. They're literally, as we sort of know behind the scenes means filling out spreadsheets and it becomes a preference.
And so as they, they fill out the spreadsheet with your information, it's possible they, you know, your first choice is like an inside cabin. If they have too many of those, they're going to default you back to well, what was your second choice cabin and if that's gone, what was your third choice?
If you have special dietary needs, you want to have those ready. Special medical needs, they'll want to have those ready. If you're a castaway club member, have your castaway club member number, your legal name and middle initials that appears physical, home address, home telephone number, date of birth and citizenship and nationality. But yes. So those are the items that Disney or sorry that Disney Vacation Club has specifically asked for you to have available when you book.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: And you can request a specific room number. Even we did that for so the DVC first wave cruises, which are not official member cruises, but I'll call them member cruises light. Those are booked the same way. And I know that when we booked the one for the Wish, we actually had our exact stateroom number that we were booked on for the Wish maiden voyage. And we said we want this stateroom so that we could get the same state room so that we didn't have to move rooms. So we were able to book even though we booked through two different entities. Right. We looked one through Disney Cruise Line, the other through dvc. We were able to get the same stateroom.
[00:46:59] Speaker C: So just two comments in the chat.
[00:47:00] Speaker D: I want to cover.
[00:47:00] Speaker C: So Nathan says, oh boy, this sounds like a logistical nightmare.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: It.
[00:47:03] Speaker C: It is.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: It's more difficult than a regular booking through dcl. That's why we're doing a show about it.
[00:47:10] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead, Chad.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: When I had mine booked, I have a like college age kid and she wasn't going to come. And she was going to come and she wasn't going to come.
Do you know how much headache and hassle it was to try to get her booked when she said she wanted to come.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: And we had booked a room that would hold five people just in case.
Right. But just getting her added, they were like, well, we don't know if we can. There's limits. There's this. There's.
[00:47:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: No one could give me a straight answer for like, two, three months.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Well, yeah.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: And behind and behind the scenes here, what's happening is Disney Vacation Club has chartered this ship. They have paid money to the Disney Cruise Line to say we're taking over the ship for this week. And then they manage all the bookings, all the onboard gifts, all of that stuff.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Stuff.
[00:47:59] Speaker C: And so Disney Cruise Line sort of has nothing to do with this until DVC sends them these spreadsheets to load into the Disney Cruise Line system and sign out all the state rooms to the point in the chat. When do you get booking confirmation?
I think DVC gives you something at the end of the call that's like, you know your number. But you will not see this in your Disney Cruise Line app for probably several months.
So it will. Yeah, it takes a while for it to load into the app.
So, you know, just know that you're not going to see it immediately pop up in your cruise line app. The other good comment here is a good reminder, which is unlike a Disney cruise, you are not paying a deposit when you book. You pay the whole thing up front. So if you're paying on cash, you're. You're paying the state room right up front. It is not a deposit and then a pay in full. You pay in full immediately at the end of the phone call. So sometimes they do a thing where they.
I think for one of the cruises we did, they did a thing where they. They said, okay, someone's going to call you back within the next two days to take your credit card number. And they, like, call back later.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: That after that happened to me when I booked as well, they wouldn't even.
[00:49:04] Speaker C: Because.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: And I think they didn't do it because they didn't want to get into the whole recorded line deal for all of the privacy stuff with. With that. And that's extra handle time. When the call center is getting swamped, they want to get those callers in and out of there. Right.
And handle as many people as they possibly can that day. So they're like, yeah, we'll just call you back and. And do the credit card. That has happened before. Whether, you know, yeah, that's your. We don't know what's going to happen with this one till we actually do it.
[00:49:36] Speaker C: Yeah. And Beth, to your question in the chat. Can you bring family or. Yeah, a member has to book the sailing, so you know, they have to sail with you and book the sailing, but you don't have to have. Not everyone in your stateroom needs to be members. And I, as I recall, you can book multiple staterooms as a member, so you can bring the whole family.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: I think two, though I don't think you can book more than for. I think one member can book two staterooms. I don't think you can book more than that unless you have obviously more members. Yeah. And then, and then there's questions about room numbers. Yes, you choose your room number, you get that room unless there's some glitch that's happened and then they'll call you back and they'll give you a different room. But typically when you're on the phone at that time, you're actually booking a specific room.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: Actually here it's. Members may book a maximum of four state rooms per member ship. So that is.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:50:30] Speaker C: That is the rule.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: More than I thought.
[00:50:32] Speaker C: Know. Before you go, they also mentioned something.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: Just imagine a.
[00:50:37] Speaker C: Go ahead, Chad.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Yeah, Brian, I just imagine a call center where all. Everybody answering the phone is sharing the same Excel document in teams and marking room issues.
Yeah, right. Which. Yeah, that never had. Yeah.
[00:50:51] Speaker C: Yeah. I never encourage issues.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Well, and I will say that this is one where if you are particular about your room category, you need to be on and ready to call right away because they do book up. So even if you like a room category that has a ton of rooms on the ship, if your room category just happens to be a popular one.
Yeah, it can book up real fast. For example, I bet that the, the, the lowest level concierge rooms I bet will go in like the first 10 minutes.
[00:51:26] Speaker C: Maybe. Maybe. I mean, people have been noting that they've called in late and still been able to book rooms. They do have a wait list process. If you call in later and out and they do contact people off the wait, people cancel. And they do contact people off the wait list.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: Yes, they're. They're. If you don't get in immediately but you get on the wait list, there's. If you get on the wait list like that same day or the very next day, there's a real good chance you'll get, you'll get in.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: The other thing do not know about this sailing, to be perfectly transparent, is they have not published the points chart yet. So the points chart will, will outline sort of how Many points you need and how much cash you need. If you want to book the sailing, you can do a mix, you know, however you want to do it.
But that is when you read that points chart, it's per person, not per state room. So when you see 370 reservation points for a deck to standard inside stateroom room, if you're trying to book both people, you gotta, you gotta double that. It's 600, what is that, 6, 740 points to book that state room. Or it is today, it's $3389. Now the nice thing about this is unlike Disney Cruise Line where they publish rates and they kind of tick up over time as the ship fills and then maybe they come down or going whatever. The price is published by DVC does not change for the life of this sailing. So if you end up calling later, you, you can, and there's still room available. You're paying the same price as if you booked on day one. So the only reason to call on day one is if you've got like a specific category of room that you really want to book or if this cruise turns out to be very popular, it could sell quickly. So just, just know that going in.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: Brian, some of them they have discounted later on because they're like, the ship is nowhere near capacity, like fire sale. They have, they have done that on occasion as well. Well, for some of these DVC chartered cruises.
[00:53:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And I'm seeing some comments in, in the chat. Concierge and inside staterooms are booked up first. I absolutely think that's true.
Particularly the, the lower level concierge rooms book up first. Even though there's more of them than let's say royal suites. But just because that price is so high on those two royal suites, those are due. Well, they'll probably book, book that first day. They won't book first.
And I see Nathan is in the chat saying that my, I better have a good strategy if I want one of those royal suites. I'm not booking that royal suite, Nathan. But that would, would be lovely to.
[00:53:52] Speaker C: Give you a sense, if you want a sense of what this cruise could cost. And I'm not saying it's going to be a direct comparison. You could head over and see the 2026 Northern Europe.
Or is it Northern Europe? Anyway, it's a, it's European Disney Cruise Line sailing that they're doing in 2020.
You can get a sense of what they cost. And so to Sam's point, the Royal Suite is 23, $459 per person.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: I am not booking that. Don't worry.
[00:54:16] Speaker C: And I should say there's a separate place in the chart where they detail out. So first and second guest or what you're seeing on this chart and then there's a sub chart for each additional guest is like a fixed amount of points regardless. Points or cash regardless of kind of the, the stateroom category is just broken down by children 2 and under, children 3 to 12 and then ages 13 and up considered adult. So it's the same kind of setup as a regular cruise where the first two passengers pay kind of, you know, the highest amount and then the second, or sorry, the third, fourth, fifth pay a reduced fee. So.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I want to, I want to talk just a second about strategies for calling in because Chad is an expert.
[00:54:58] Speaker C: Don't give away our secrets.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: But what I want to tell you is you got to have that number like you got to have that number programmed into your phone and hit dial that number right when the time hits 10:00am Eastern, 7:00am Pacific, you want to be ready with all of that information.
You know, if you want to familiarize yourself with the DVC phone tree, it won't be exactly the same on the day of, but you can familiarize yourself with the DVC phone tree. A phone tree meaning what you press in order to get through the menu, that sort of a thing. So those are sort of the tricks of the trade for getting through quickly.
But it, it's, it's, it can be very frustrating. I just say like pack your patients pants because it, you can get disconnected. I'd also say my other tip is have more than one person trying to call at the same time. If you are a family that has, let's say two adults, you might want to both be on your cell phones trying to call because one of you might just have the magic touch and the other one might not have the magic touch touch. And you know, if you're sailing with friends, you can always kind of try and tag team it and book for each other. Frankly, if one of you gets through.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: Yeah, if memory serves me correctly last time when we did this, Sam, because call center technology is my day job, I knew how to fly through this thing like the back of my hand because I do test calls to these systems all day. So I was literally the first person answered, got mine booked and then I said, hey, is it okay if I, I, you know, bring in my friends Brian and Sam and I just did a three way call with you and and brought you straight in and you didn't have to do all of that stuff, so.
[00:56:41] Speaker A: Exactly. Now we were trying to call on our own also and. But we were in the waiting room. We did not get through it with lightning speed like Chad did, even though we had done some practicing of trying to get through the call tree faster. But we do not have the practice that Chad has. So, you know, yeah, if you have a, if you have a friend like Chad, then you're in. You're probably at the.
[00:57:03] Speaker C: That was, that was the pro tip I was going to reserve for the after, after booking show.
Chad, I have one question for you here, because I don't.
[00:57:10] Speaker B: Okay, so y' all need to join Brian and Sam's Patreon. We just gave you Patreon exclusive content.
[00:57:17] Speaker C: I have a question for you here because there's. I'm looking at the know before you go from DVC and now I'm questioning my strategy. But it says, effective March 21, 2011, 11 members who don't acquire their ownership interest directly from diversity Disney will not be able to use those vacation points to make reservations for the member crew. So can you only use your direct blue card points to book this sailing points?
[00:57:40] Speaker B: So there's like phases of restrictions. 2011 was the first phase and the first thing they said was you can't use your points for cruises or other things. Got it right. And then 2026, 2016, they stepped it up again. 2019, they really hit us hard with like the Riviera restrictions. And, and over time it's been like when I first bought in, if you had 25 points direct, you were a blue card member. That was it.
So everybody would just go buy their points on resale, do a 25 point add on and call it a day.
And Disney has since slowly incremented that till it's up to the 150 now.
So, yes, the only points you can use to book this are points that you bought from Disney or are pre2011 if you bought them resale.
[00:58:27] Speaker C: Which just underscores your advice of there's nothing preventing you from renting those points that are not direct and then taking the cash and applying it to the member crew. So you know that that strategy unlocks a whole additional world of points for you if you are blue card, but you have a ton of resale in addition to your blue card. So yeah, that's.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I have a friend who didn't talk to me and he's here at Disney now and I think he paid over 17 grand for a room at Saratoga Yoga, and he's here for like 10 nights.
But I did the math and I was like, dude, I could have rented you my points for half that.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Like, oh, my God, that's crazy, Chad.
[00:59:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's like the cash rate is. Is insane. So that's why the market works so well for running points is you can save people buku. Buku bucks for the exact same room that he's. He's in a two bedroom at Sarah Toga.
[00:59:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So I gotta ask the ultimate question, Chad. Now with. For before the show, you had, you know, hadn't even considered booking this. This cruise. Have. Have we convinced you to book along with us on this DVC member cruise? Because we are. We are booking. So if we, if we actually are able to get through this. This phone tree craziness and get our reservation on this cruise, we'll be canceling our Treasure Cruise that we have booked 2027. Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, we will repurpose. It is. It will no longer be our. Be our spring break Treasure Cruise. We will move it because it overlaps with this cruise. We can't do them both. Like, literally, they're overlapped by like three days. So it's not possible for us to be two places at once, despite the fact that I've been trying to acquire that superpower for years. But. Yeah. Have we convinced you to get on board with us?
[01:00:15] Speaker B: You guys are the tempting factor there. Right? I mean, sailing with dcl duo guys is like, if you can get on a cruise ship with. With them, that is a phenomenal fun time. I'm just, I'm just saying, you guys are the stars that I would be going to. To cruise with.
[01:00:30] Speaker C: Right.
[01:00:30] Speaker A: Not with Mickey.
[01:00:31] Speaker B: So.
So not with Mickey. Not anybody else. But knowing I could probably hit you up for that rebook Treasure Cruise.
[01:00:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: And. And do that one and just drive to port.
Like, yeah, that would be. That would be more ideal for me. But I've done this cruise. Like, we did this.
[01:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: We didn't go up to San Francisco, but we similar.
We did Catalina. We did Ensenada. Ensenada. I probably wouldn't get off the ship again.
And so Catalina was cool. I'd get off and walk around and hopefully not have the fogs and the horns, but, you know, be prepared for cold. Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold. Like, and I'm a Floridian now. I'm like, I'm, you know, it's cold down here now. I'm having to wear my, my sweatshirt inside the house because it's like 40 something out there and like this is just not. It's not the way things are supposed to be down.
[01:01:24] Speaker C: I did want to say I almost read this. I'm going to read it now. I love the way they describe Ensenada.
Arrive in Ensenada, Mexico, renowned for its scenic landscapes, historic sites and lively downtown area.
I'm with you, Chad. I'm going to stay on the ship and Ensenada probably. Maybe I'll get off and get some tacos. But yeah, we are definitely booking this sailing if we can kind of get through and get a room on board. To the point Linda raised earlier in the chat, we had been talking for quite a while about how we wanted to go back to Alaska in 2027. We were going to make it the unofficial podcast cruise. Unfortunately, doing this sailing I think will mean and. And some other things that are happening in 2027. For me personally, I think it will mean we don't go to Alaska in 27. We will push that out probably to 2028. Maybe we'll repurpose the. The treasure sailing for. For Alaska.
So I'm just gonna say, like, if you are a DVC member and you're looking to get on this cruise and you are a listener, we might make this the unofficial DCL Duo podcast.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:27] Speaker C: Guess what?
[01:02:27] Speaker A: There'll be lots of swag. It won't be from me, but there'll be lots of swag from dvc.
I mean, I'll have plenty. I'll have magnets. I'll make a special. Well, it's just a.
Brian will make a special magnet pregnant for this cruise.
[01:02:44] Speaker B: I'm putting my Karen hat on right now. Karen, your sponsor. And I'm calling flag on the play, like the official DCL cruise you got to book through my path unwinding travel with you guys. So no, this cannot be. Nope, nope, nope.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: Yes, this cannot be unofficial. This will be unofficial podcast.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: Unofficial.
[01:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah. The official one will probably make it Alaska 20, 20, 28. So, yeah, of course.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: But I might be willing to go back then because I'm going. I'm you Summer. We're hitting Alaska with my family. After years and years and years and years of trying to get my family on a cruise, Brian, it's looking like it's going to happen this time.
[01:03:24] Speaker A: I have faith.
[01:03:27] Speaker B: I have faith.
[01:03:28] Speaker C: Tracy's saying.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: Incredible.
[01:03:30] Speaker C: Keep talking, Brian. Someone else needs to give. I know exactly who that is. And because we provide that white glove personal touch on this podcast. Michael, book this. This cruise there, Tracy.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: I helped you out February 28th. Michael. 7:00am Eastern.
Yes, yes, sorry, 10:00am Eastern on 7:00am Pacific.
[01:03:51] Speaker C: Yeah, Michael's gonna be pretty upset if he wakes up at 7am and calls Chad, as we wind down here. If I just want to tell our Listen. You have in my mind the premier DVC podcast. I learned so much from you.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: We learned everything from you, Chad. Everything we know about DVC we learned from you.
[01:04:08] Speaker C: And I know, I know so well.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: Whenever we have PVC questions, he's the person that we call or text immediately. We do not try to figure out these questions because it's actually quite complicated.
[01:04:18] Speaker C: He's the reason we own it. Alani.
[01:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. He sent us that resale contract. He was like, I think you guys need this contract. And it was. Yeah, we have never looked back. So. But yeah, tell folks where they can find you and the MyDBC Points podcast.
[01:04:36] Speaker B: Sure. It's very simple. It's just my DVC Points points and it's available in any place you're going to find podcasts. There is some content on YouTube, although we started to shy away from that just because the numbers and the hassle weren't panning out for us.
So. But the podcast is going strong.
We do a variety of shows in any given month. You're going to hear like a financial market recap show for my financial analyst nerds. You're going to usually hear a membership journey story, which is where I interview somebody on how did you get into dvc? What home resorts did you buy? Where have you stayed made? What have you learned? What advice do you have for new people that are listening to this and researching it? You're going to hear some of those and then we try to sneak in two spicier contents. Like one of them we're working on now is where's the wrong side of the tracks in Orlando? Okay, Here, you know what, what resorts are on the wrong side of the tracks for you? And we'll all kind of say that and kind of go over it because everybody has their own opinions. Here is what it is.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Property, is that value resorts, moderate resorts, that sort of a thing. Right, Right.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Or is it if you ain't on the monorail, you on the wrong side of the next.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: There's, there's people that are you. It's really.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: But I mean, it's all about member experiences. You're going to hear from real members on the show and they're going to tell you what we like, what we don't like, we're going to be respectful, but we're going to be brutally honest with you as well because I think you can talk to the salespeople at Disney, you can talk to the resale guides. At the end of the day, they're there to sell you a point.
Our show is designed to help you make a great decision to whether is DVC right for you guys or not? And if it's a great product, it's a good fit, buy in. We'll help you make all the decisions along the way. If it's not a great one, stay away.
Like, you know, do what's best for your family. That's the whole thing in our show. Educate yourself and do what's best.
That's our mission statement for the show and that's what we pretty well do a great job of doing. I'm, I'm fairly convinced that we do have the best educational content that's out there. Yeah, I love necessarily the, yeah, we're not necessarily the entertainment people out there to, to make you laugh and all that. Right. There's, there's people that beat us there, but that's not our goal. Like, I'm true to who I am. I'm a teacher and I want everybody to make great decisions and have great family members memories.
[01:07:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that you're kind of like the, I always say there's no one right way to do dcl. I think you're kind of bringing the information knowledge to your audience, but there's like no one right way to do dvc. You just need to seriously educate yourself and make the decisions that make sense for you. Right.
So yeah, yeah.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: We have to point to some comments though because Ed is saying Chad is why we bought our first 100 point contract. Now we have seven 100 plus points and Rob is saying Chad is the reason I own dvc and Sam and Brian are the reason I'm obsessed with dcl. So I love all of those comments you guys are, you know, thanks for listening to us and thanks for listening to Chad. I mean, we, I, we've said this before on the show, but Chad is one of the most like, I think, influential people on our podcast.
He taught us a ton of what you know, what we now know and how we started our podcast was with a lot of advice and time that Chad was so gracious in offering us. And so we're so excited. Of course, whenever we get to have him back on our show, we're always excited when we can see him. When we're down In Florida. And we just gotta say thank you, Chad, for coming on tonight's show, especially on last minute notice. Yeah.
[01:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you guys have been a blessing in my life as well. Personally, professionally, working together. Everything is as well.
I will jump on any cruise ship that I can with you guys. Sam, I. My swing factor on this one. I'll just be brutally honest. I took a lot of heat for pulling Lincoln out of school on that last San Diego cruise.
[01:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you.
[01:08:39] Speaker B: And this is like almost two weeks. Like, I don't know that I can go through that again. And if I did this cruise without my wingman, like, it, it, it wasn't fun when they, when the kids realized I was on a cruise. Cruise ship. And they're like, dad, why do we see you in the middle of the ocean on Find my and you have some explaining to do.
And it was like, well, I'm not gonna lie to you where I'm at, but I didn't tell you that I was. I'm doing like, you know, cruise, cruise runs to get my number up for status. Like these cheap three nighters as Florida residents.
[01:09:14] Speaker C: Like, it ultimately benefits you that I'm here on this ship right now because my status will elevate your experience. Yeah, I told you.
[01:09:22] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely.
[01:09:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:24] Speaker B: Now I'm be gold and I can book the cool stuff when we go to Alaska. That was the whole master plan and they kind of bought that and they did see the value and the benefit for that.
And I had to promise to buy them placeholders and take them that too.
[01:09:38] Speaker C: Well, I want to echo Sam's thanks, Chad, for filling in last minute here. It's always fun to catch up with you for audience out there who've hung with us. We will be back next week.
Regular time, Monday, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern. And we will be welcoming our friends Hayley and Drew who are going to come on to talk about their first sailing aboard the Disney Destiny. Always a fun time to hear what people think about the newest ship. Well, I guess she's the second newest ship in the fleet.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: She's the newest. No, she's still the newest. The adventure has not sailed with passengers yet. So she's still the newest and it's going to be really fun because Drew is a hardcore Marvel fan and so it's going to be, I think, really fun to kind of hear their thoughts. They also have a really big inspiration into, you know, entertainment. And Haley loves all the shows and so I think it will be really interesting to see their take on all the the meet and play activities on board the Disney Destiny and what they were able to accomplish on I believe it was a five night sailing. So I would be interested to hear from them though they they don't have children but it'd be interesting to hear from them as to how much they were able to accomplish on their sailing because one of the things that we one of our only criticisms about the Destiny is there's just too much to do in four five nights. So we will be back next week our our regular time. So be on 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern and with that we will just say good night everyone. Thanks for listening and hope to see you real soon on the high seas.
[01:11:14] 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 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 our main episode. 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 connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things, full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast, links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store. We sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here, at least 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 of the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about the 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.
[01:13:28] Speaker A: Sam.
