[00:00:00] Speaker A: Would I necessarily choose Cunard over Disney? Personally, no.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah. For, like, a pleasure sailing without Ruby. Right.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: For a sailing of pure enjoyment. I just think that I am not the right demographic that they are aiming at, and I did feel out of place, let me kind of put it that way.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode
[00:00:31] Speaker D: episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my path unwinding travel. And Sam, do your jingle time. Do your jingle.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Simply the best.
Better than all the rest. Gosh, it's been a while since I've sang that.
[00:00:46] Speaker D: Yeah, you can tell you're here. You're out of tune.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: I'm a little rusty.
[00:00:49] Speaker D: Yeah, a little rusty.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: I need to do my. I need to do my vocal exercises.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:55] Speaker D: With that jingle. It is time to read a listener review. And since our guest today is. Is from the uk, but we'll get into whether. You know, we'll get into some more detail there. But we thought we would read a listener review from the uk and so this one comes from Laura Benzi, who writes probably the most consistent DCL podcast out there. Hopefully it's consistently good. We know it is because she gave us five stars. She writes, I've been a longtime listener of the DCL duo, and I really appreciate their wide range of content on all things dcl. And whether you're an inside stateroom cruiser like me or a royal suite concierge cruiser, they have you covered. Brian and Sam are great hosts, and they work wonderfully together. And then there's like a kind of like almost like a blushing, happy face. I think it is. I. I don't know. I don't know the names for all these newfangled emojis that are out there, but thank you, Laura, for your review.
We really appreciate it. And for all of you out there listening, especially internationally, we love to hear from our international listeners. It still blows us away that we've got people listening to us outside the U.S.
uh, so thank you for leaving the review, Laura, and if you want to help support the show, remember, one of the easiest ways to do that, head over to Apple Podcast, hit those five stars, and if you leave us a written review, we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. Sam, over to you.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's funny. We have another Laura from the UK on the show today.
How funny. How weird.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: You know what's funny, Sam, is that Laura is me.
[00:02:26] Speaker D: There we go.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Kenzie is my maiden name, which is obviously still attached to my Apple account.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: There we Go.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Hilarious. Because I, when he, when he read the name, I was like. But that's, I was like, could it be this Laura? But no, it's a different, different last name.
[00:02:40] Speaker D: Well, it's spelled differently too in the review. It's L O R A. So it's a very old Apple account.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Clearly that's hilarious. So that's a funny coincidence. Okay, well, for those who don't recognize Laura's voice or if you're watching on YouTube or recognize her face, Laura has actually been on the show several times before.
Laura is an avid Disney cruiser. Big dis Disney fan, of course, but we're not actually going to be talking about a Disney cruise today, Laura.
[00:03:10] Speaker D: We're getting about as far away from Disney as one can get.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Well, I mean, in some ways it's not actually that far from Disney Cruising, because the Disney ships were actually for anyone who, like, sort of follows, you know, history of Disney Cruise Line. The Disney ships were modeled after ships built by Cunard, like the QE2.
And Laura traveled across the pond from the UK to the United States on Cunard recently for a Cross Atlantic move. So I gotta first of all say, welcome back to the show, Laura. You are now in the us.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: I am, I am. And yeah, no, I was actually thinking, is this, I think this is my fifth time on the podcast. So does that make me a gold podcast?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Welcome to gold. Yeah, after this, remember, after you finish your fifth episode, then you become gold.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: Mostly because we don't have the stateroom gifts ready, but yes.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't have the state room,
[00:04:13] Speaker A: but yeah, no, I have recorded with you guys from England every time up until now.
But no, I am now sitting at home in the United States.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: That's crazy. Okay, so you guys planned a cross Atlantic move. Now you, you are a dual citizen. So it's a little bit easier than for somebody who is just going, trying to, you know, immigrate and has to, you have to do, you know, visas and all that kind of stuff. But tell us, how did you guys decide to do a cross Atlantic move via ship? Like, what? Where did that idea come from? Like, why not fly and just ship your stuff? Like, how did this concept come to be.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yes. So the main reason that we did this was because of our dog.
So she is an old English bulldog. Her name is Ruby. She is my child.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: I mean, we have three children. We have Nathan and we have our two dogs, Amos and Isabel, who are. They're American cocker spaniels. And there are other children. Absolutely. I totally understand and because of her
[00:05:21] Speaker A: breed, there are some.
She's too big to fly in a cabin, which is an option not usually from London, but there are ways around it. I did a lot of research. There are. And most cargo shipments of dogs, they are not keen on her breed because her bulldog breed as a whole tend to have the squashed faces. The breathing issues.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: The breathing issues, yeah, yeah.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: So she is an old English bulldog. So she gets kind of lumped in with bulldogs as a whole, which have the squashed faces, the breathing problems, etc. Even though she actually doesn't. But airlines, the classifications, they just, they don't go down to that level of detail.
So it's not easy to get her onto a cargo flight. And from personal preference, that wasn't something that we were that keen on doing anyway.
So we were looking at other options. You, obviously, I'm sure people are aware of the pet floor flight companies that charter a small plane with multiple pet owners that's extremely expensive and was very much out of our budget.
And in comes the kennels of the Queen Mary too. So, you know, I'm here, I've been on the show a few times. You guys know how much I love cruising.
So the opportunity to take our dog on a cruise and like, make that a reality and use that as our way of travel in, as part of this big move that we were making just felt like a really cool thing to do.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it sounds like a fantastic way to move because, you know, you're going to have a lot of stuff to bring over when you're making any kind of, well, you're making any permanent move. Right. Like you're going to, you have lots of suitcases, right. And so you don't have, you know, you have a lot of like, limits on what you can bring on flights in general, right? Not, not, of course, not including even your dog, but also just like your stuff. Right. And you have, even if a cruise ship has a limit, it's going to always be higher than the limits that you're going to have on flight. And so it seems like a, Yeah, a smart idea. Plus, like, I'm curious about the quarantine rules about for the pets. Right. Because I know that some countries impose a certain amount of time. I'm wondering if being on the ship for the, you know, however many days you guys were on that crossing, like, would that comply with quarantine rules or. I, I, I'm, I'm not sure.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: It's surprisingly easy to bring a dog from the UK to the US Actually, to the point where I was convinced that I had missed something. And, you know, the day before the cruise, I'm sat there going, this can't be it, this can't be it. All we actually had to do was she needed full vaccination records, which she already had. According to the CDC website. A rabies vaccination was optional because we were a low risk country.
However, I have found that it is expected.
So we did do it anyway. I was, you know, it's optional, I'm just going to do it. It was not an expensive thing to get done and, you know, I'm not taking any chances with this.
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Well, and a lot of, at least here, like our county requires the shots in order. Our city requires the shots.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Exactly what we found since we've been here, they do require it. So despite the fact that they tell you it's optional, it's not really. I had to fill in a CDC form online and then she had to have a vet check within five days of leaving the UK and she walked straight off the ship with us and into our waiting vehicle to continue our journey. Yeah. No quarantine needed at all.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, Some countries have like, you can like fly your pet over and then they have to be like quarantined for like literally like two weeks and stuff.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: I think. Yeah. And I think Australia's like, from what I understand, Australia, New Zealand, they are very, very hot on, very strict.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Lengthy quarantines. But no, I honestly, I was surprised.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I have a friend who moved to New Zealand, a friend of mine from college who moved from New Zealand to, from Oregon and they had a dog and they actually had to like, their dog had to like stay with some friends. Then their dog had to be like, put on separate plane and you know, and then the dog was in a quarantine for like, I think two weeks. Like some kind of, you know, like, like I'll call it federal government, but like New Zealand's federal government quarantine for like two weeks.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: I was honestly really, really surprised that it, it was a lot simpler than I was expecting it to be. Almost too simple.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, well, I wanna, I wanna get into some of the nitty gritty of the, the cruise itself, but I gotta ask, like, where does the dog stay on the ship? Like, is the dog able to, is, is Ruby able to be in your, in your stateroom, in a kennel? Or is she like.
Yeah. Or is she like, she. Or does she have to be in like a kennel?
[00:10:30] Speaker A: So that's we married to has its own kennel area. You're on deck 12 at the aft of the ship.
So right at the top, right at the back, there's a kennel room with, I believe it's 20 kennels. I've read 24, but I think there's 20. I did take photos so I could go back and count. There are lower kennels and upper kennels and if you've ever seen kennels kind of at a vet's, that's what I would kind of equate it to.
There's enough space for the dogs to kind of like turn around and have their bed, but that's kind of it. The little dogs go at the top and the bigger dogs go at the bottom. And they do also take cats. Cats have slightly different requirements in that you have to book at least two kennels for the cat because they need a litter place and a sleeping place. But yeah, for dogs, I think of a certain. If you got much bigger than Ruby, I think you would be starting to look at booking two kennels.
But they have all of those requirements and they will tell you you have to like, measure your dog and send the measurements and they will tell you what they require you to purchase for the dog.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Now, do they take care of your. Do they take care of your dog on board or how, like.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Yes, but you are very much on the hook for continuing to care and like look after your dog.
So there's. There are two kennel masters. So a kennel master, an assistant kennel master. There is a very, very famous kennel master called Oliver, who sadly had just gotten off the ship when we got on, so we did not get to meet him.
But we had the assistant kennel master. Neko was acting then as kennel master and he had an assistant called Andy, and they were both absolutely lovely. They cared so, so much for the dogs. So basically they will clean up after your dog.
So anything that happens on the deck where you are walking the dogs, you either shout code yellow or 007 and they come and collect or clean and they also will feed the dogs.
And if for any reason you can't get up to the kennels during the visiting hours or like immediately in the morning or whatever, if you ask them, they will the dogs out, or in some cases if certain owners just didn't come, they would get the dog out to allow it to do its business.
But they're not going to keep that dog kind of out and about. So really, if you want your dog out of your kennel, which I'm sure most people do, you need to be up there during the visiting hours. And there are kind of 2. There's a smaller room and a slightly larger room where you can sit with the dogs during that time. And then there's a small deck area outdoors which is basically just a walkway around the aft of the ship. A little like U shaped area.
You can walk them up and down for one hour. In the evening you get a slightly larger place on deck 12, which my husband and I looked like crazy people running up and down with Ruby, taking turns because she's a, you know, she's a bigger dog. She needs a decent amount of. Excellent.
She'll easily run 4 or 5 kilometers with my husband. So being not being allowed to run around was a little rough for her. So we did our best to kind of keep her moving when we had that extra space.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so that means you, you can't take your dog like anywhere on the ship, like at your stateroom and other places. You, you're limited. Yeah, you're limited. So. But, well, it's, it's a really, I mean, it's a really cool thing because most cruise ships you can't take dogs at all unless it's a service dog. Right. Like on Disney Cruise Line for ex.
All right, well, we gotta talk about Cunard and the ways in which it's different from Disney Cruise Line. Of course.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: Hey Sam, can we start with. I just kinda like to start with the ship since we started there, like how big is this ship that we're talking about and like give us a sense of like the layout as compared to maybe like a Disney cruise ship.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: So The Queen Mary 2, my understanding is it's the world's only ocean liner, so it's technically not a cruise ship. I think the biggest thing that we learned about that made the difference there is that it has additional stabilizers and the layout is very different. So all of the kind of main amenities of the ship are down on deck two and three, there's a buffet and some restaurants on deck seven. But most of the time the things that you're doing. The main restaurant that we were in, kind of pubs and bars, those sorts of areas.
A lot of the shopping, all on deck two and three. So it's all placed very much lower down the theater as well. Down, I think. Yeah, that was across.
It was either across 2 and 3 or 3 and 4, if I remember correctly. I believe it has about 2,700 passengers, but I would say it felt kind of dream fantasy size to me. It was. It was a decent walk from one end of the ship to the other. So it's definitely bigger than the magic and the wonder. But yeah, I would have. I would have said in the region of the dream and the fantasy, but with fewer people. They just don't have as many people on board, so it feels a lot emptier.
You definitely don't have kids. Soup in the pools.
[00:15:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, that's. That's like close to half the. Actually, I think it is about half the passenger count at a full capacity kind of dream class sailing, or at least a wish class sailing. What's the. Does that mean you get more room in like a stateroom or like, where did you see that extra space going?
[00:16:16] Speaker A: So I think there was just a lot more. I think the state one rooms were. Excuse me. The staterooms were probably bigger. We were in an inside stateroom, though, and I would say that felt smaller. So we would usually cruise in an inside stateroom with a split bathroom on Disney.
I. Our room was definitely smaller than that category of stateroom on Disney. That being said, we picked the cheapest room. This, this trip served a purpose. We were not spending money. We knew we wouldn't be in kind of enjoying the room, so to speak. So we did pick the cheapest room that we could get. I did miss the split bathroom, though. That did make a difference.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah. For those listening, not every inside stateroom on Disney has the split bathroom. So you have to actually be real choosy. A lot of the, A lot of the inside staterooms don't. And I think on the wish class, I don't know that any of the inside staterooms have the split bathroom. I'm not positive on that, but the ones I've toured not. I toured a whole bunch of inside staterooms on the Disney Destiny, which is of course the same as the Treasure and the Wish in layout. And none of the ones that I. That I toured on the preview sailing had had a split bathroom. So I'm. Yeah. But anyway, just something to. To look out for. But yeah, I love. We love the split bathroom for sure. It just makes. Makes for getting ready a lot easier. I. I'd love to know, you mentioned amenities on the ship, but I'd love to know, like, do they have similar amenities? Like you mentioned theater, but what about like, spa and other, like, entertainment spaces? That sort of a thing?
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So spa, they had a planetarium listed, which I think also doubles as a cinema. We did not make it there. I am not entirely sure what that entailed, but I believe they also used it as a small theater as well.
During our sailing they had a small five person theater company on board that did a couple of small shows and they were not in the main stage theater. They were in this smaller area.
Yes, I believe. And they also put the. The cinema is also in there. Lots of shopping, lots of luxury shopping too.
There was a resale designer bag shop which is something I've personally not seen before on a ship anyway. And then all your kind of classic jewelry, watches, a good amount of space dedicated to that.
Multiple bars.
The Golden Lion Pub.
So you know that classic British pub situation that lots of cruise ships tend to have.
[00:19:01] Speaker D: I was going to say if anyone can do a pub it would have to be Cunard. So I'm assuming it was a fairly, fairly faithful recreation to a British publisher.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Yes. And then there was. So right up the front on deck seven, there was a martini bar, there was other kind of cocktail bars. We didn't actually go. I forget what it's called. There was a bar opposite. There was a bar called the Chart Room that we quite liked. There was a champagne bar and there was another bar area opposite that with a different theme and we didn't really venture into there. So I'm not entirely sure what it was. And I'm trying to go through the rest of the layout in my head that yes, I think I said they did have a spa that looked pretty big. We didn't go in. They had a very, very big gym for a cruise ship certainly in my experience it was very decently sized. A full side of it dedicated to cardio and a full side of it dedicated to weights. Even with a barbell and a rack set up, which is something I don't think I've seen on a ship before.
And kind of from a stability perspective did feel a little bit unstable.
So that was definitely an interesting one to try out.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah. What about onboard? Well, actually, let's talk eating first.
You mentioned a buffet and restaurants. Tell us like what was the. Like are these like sort of formal sit down? Is there any quick serve options beyond the buffet? But yeah, what, what was the food situation like?
[00:20:30] Speaker A: So they had. So actually the restaurant that you eat in every night, if you go to sit down dinner or sit down lunch even. And I think actually all of them, that restaurant is assigned based on your stateroom class, so to speak. So us being in the cheaper rooms, we were assigned to the Britannia restaurant. If you're in A suite which I believe they call grills suites. You would eat in either the Queen's Grill or the Princess Grill restaurants and they would be your assigned restaurants.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: This is, this is reminding me of the Titanic with the steerage. Oh, very much, yes.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: And I several times with my husband that we are in steerage.
But that being said, although it was for the lower classes of room, so to speak, it was very grand and very beautiful and still had waiters dressed to the nines. And you know, for dinner after, basically after 6pm if you wanted to be in any of the bars and restaurants, you did have to dress appropriately.
So.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah. What does that mean?
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so yeah, and we did have to. There was a sign and it said for men, basically like collared shirts, no jeans, closed toed shoes. For women, again, no jeans, no shorts, like kind of nicely dressed, so to speak.
Certainly not kind of. You wouldn't see the variety that you get on Disney, but there was still definitely a variety within that smartly dressed kind of place from. You know, my husband had a college shirt and cargo. Cargo trousers. No, that's like khaki pants.
So he just wore those.
He did have a tie for the more. They did have a couple of formal nights.
So he did get dressed up in his tux for those.
But then there were people in kind of suit, jacket, tie, everything every night too. And you know, there was definitely more of the. Like there was a range within being dressed up, but everybody was definitely dressed up. And you did feel out of place if you were not dressed up. If you did not wish to dress up, you could eat in the buffet and that was your option.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, but then you couldn't go to the bar spaces if you weren't dressed up. Really.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: No. I believe the pub was. It was acceptable to not be smartly dressed.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So like you could wear jeans to the buffet and then go to the pub.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you wanted to have it and you could go to the theater not dressed up as well. They did not require you to dress for the theater. But yeah, if you wanted to go into pretty much any of the cocktail bars, the champagne bar, the actual sit down restaurants, then yes, you would need to dress.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Interesting. Were there any children on board? I gotta ask. Like, I know, I know that they,
[00:23:31] Speaker A: it was very, very few. I think they did have kids clubs, but you know, the little groups of kids that you would see with the counselors running around, there were maybe like six or eight kids in that little kind of club. There were a few more. We certainly saw some Teenagers and we met some other people that were moving but continuing on with the ship further. So something that was a little interesting about this particular voyage was that they were, it was this first leg of a world cruise. So everybody who was doing the world cruise that began the world cruise with us in Southampton and is continuing all the way around will get back to Southampton at the end of April. So for context, we left the 11th of January so some people are staying on for a significant amount of time. It's going round to Australia, New Zealand and we met another family who were moving to Australia and they're just traveling by ship with the whole family.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: That's so cool. Yeah, I mean that's, I mean it's a cool idea obviously to do a world cruise. We've covered on our show, you know, Royals World cruise, that was a nine month cruise. But even this, even a three month cruise cruise that, I mean that travels pretty far for just three months. That's pretty amazing. So across from Southampton to New York and then I guess down around through the Panama Canal, I guess and then
[00:24:59] Speaker A: across Queen Mary 2 has gone through the Panama Canal. So that was another big like, big deal that was happening. It went round to San Francisco, Louisiana and I believe in San Francisco I could be wrong on this location but wherever the Queen Mary is, that's now a hotel. The ships were meeting again for the first time. So that was, I did see that on social media maybe last week or so.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: That's so cool. I think that's, I think it's, it's in or near la. I can't remember Brian, you know where.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: And they were doing an overnight in la.
[00:25:33] Speaker D: So yeah, yeah, it's Queen Mary too I think is permanently.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Well the Queen Mary, not the Queen
[00:25:37] Speaker D: Mary is permanently docked I think at Long Long Beach.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: So they did make. There was, you know, quite, quite some excitement about that and people organizing tours to go there was knowing that The Queen Mary 2 was coming in. The Queen Mary was offering tours and things to coincide with that.
And then yeah, I believe it carries on, goes round to, goes across to Hawaii, over to the Pacific.
I think some of the Pacific islands that Disney does on their Trans Pacific down to obviously Australia and New Zealand and then there's South Africa, Namibia I believe Indonesia. Like there's a whole, whole load of places that they are going all around there. So yeah, I'm not going to claim to know the whole itinerary.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, that is just like such, I mean it's just pretty amazing. I would Love to. I mean, we would love to do it. It doesn't work in our schedules or in our budget, but like someday Brian and I dream of doing a world cruise. And frankly, I feel like Cunard would be a great option to do it on because you are in a smaller number of passenger ship. Although obviously Royal picked one of their smaller ships to do it as well. But yeah, just. I just think it would be. It's just a fascinating.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: For me, it's.
It just sounds like such a cool experience.
One thing I did find really interesting though was we met people that had got on the ship in New York, come from New York to Southampton and just stayed on board to go back again. And so basically just did two back to back transatlantic crossings. And to me that's not super appealing. Like I was. You get one day to see like you can't, you can't really make it all that far from Southampton and get back in time to leave.
But yeah, we met some people that they were just enjoying the ship for two weeks.
[00:27:31] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that seems weird because you wouldn't even really have time if you're only in, in Southampton for a day. You don't really even have time to go into London. I mean, it's a couple hours away.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: They made it to Winchester to see the cathedral that was, that was as far as they went.
So, yeah, it was. There was all sorts of people doing all sorts of different itineraries and it was so awesome to speak to so many different people about, oh, how far are you going? Like, oh, where have you come from? I did meet one woman doing the world cruise and she had been on board.
She had done, I believe, Southampton to New York and then they did some Caribbean stuff over Christmas and then come back to Southampton. Then we're staying on for the whole world cruise. So she was doing like November through April or something like that.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: And I was like, wow, that's amazing. Now did you guys stop in like the Azores in Portugal or anything?
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Or did you just single stop on this trip? It was straight through eight days. It should have been seven days. We, so we booked on opening day. Knowing that kennel spaces can be difficult to get hold of, I say this, there were two families on the ship who booked the week before. So I have a suspension suspicion that people jump on it like we did. But when it comes to actually kind of finalizing things and I think with, with, with that sort of arrangement, like it gets booked up on day one with, from a kennel perspective, certainly. But then I think the waiting Lists can come through. Couldn't tell you how long those waiting lists are that get cycled through. But there were definitely people we left on the 11th and there were people that said they got confirmed on the 7th, so which was like the last possible day to confirm the dog. I suppose so yeah, there were no stops and it should have been. So we, like I said, sorry, we booked on day one. We were ready for it to be released, waiting like knowing what we needed and it was a seven night itinerary when we booked it. They couldn't actually get their I guess doc time or space, whatever they needed in Brooklyn on the day the 18th that we were supposed to arrive. So we got an extra day on board for that reason and because we'd booked beforehand, they did not charge us any extra. But I imagine that the price may have gone up for people who booked eight days rather than seven.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: We know that people trust Disney for their vacations and it can sometimes be a little nerve wracking to think about trying something new. Right Sam?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Whether you're considering branching out to a new cruise line, an all inclusive resort, or exploring Europe, the team at MyPath Unwinding Travel has the expertise and connections across the globe to plan almost any vacation. They can even help with the Universal parks. They've helped us plan our vacations beyond Disney, including Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruise Line and Virgin Voyages.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: Their team of travel professionals all understand the needs of a Disney traveler, can help you decide if another option is right for you, and then guide you through every step of your new vacation experience. Whether you are dreaming of a fun getaway to an all inclusive resort, a river cruise in Europe or an adventure in Costa Rica, the folks at mypathunwood Unwinding are ready to help. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your next vacation even more amazing.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: If you want to learn more and take advantage of the amazing team at MyPath Unwinding Travel, then head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOYpathunwinding.com to let them know we sent you their way. Thanks my Path Unwinding, for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
Wow. I mean it's just a crazy, I mean to, you know, to think that you, oh, you just add on another sea day when you're. Yeah. Because you don't have your dog space. It's like, it's kind of, kind of nutty. But you know, I gotta ask like what, what stuff did you guys end up doing on board? Obviously, I know you're gonna spend a lot of time taking care of Ruby because, you know, she, she was the sort of the reason for booking this. She's the priority. Yeah, yeah, she's the priority.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: We wanted to have, you know, a bit of downtime and a little bit of a holiday. It certainly wasn't the same type of cruise as we are used to having from a relaxation and enjoyment perspective. That being said, we, we found a bit of a routine. So the kennels have set visiting hours every day that you are allowed to be there. And there are set hours where they say, okay guys, we're at the end now, dogs need to go away. So those hours were from 8am to midday, from 3pm to 6pm and 7.30pm to 8.30pm and that 7:30 to 8:30 window was when we got the little bit of extra deck space to run around. So that one was super important to us. So what we would do is we would tend to wake up in the morning, go and grab breakfast in the buffet and go straight up to Ruby and get her out. As soon as she was allowed out at 8 o', clock, they would have already have been in and given the dogs breakfast at that point for most of them. There were some people that said they would prefer to feed their dogs, be present, whatever. We were like, she's not bothered by food, just give her her breakfast, it's fine. So by the time we got there, she was ready to come out, use the bathroom, say good morning to us, and we would just walk her kind of up and down that little U shape of deck that we had. And then kind of depending on the weather, if it was good weather, we might kind of spend a little bit of time outside with her, just getting some fresh air. Some of the days it was rainy and cold, disgusting. And she was like, get me back inside, parents.
So then they had two areas that you could sit in the kennels. So one was a slightly smaller room and then there was one slightly larger room. We would try to get a spot in the larger room. Just with Ruby's kind of personality, like she, it was difficult for her to be in the smaller room because it was a bit more of a through fair of people. That was how you got into the kennel room.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Oh, so there's constant people walking by and it's a little bit.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: She could not settle. Like it was just rough for her. She's a very sociable dog and she has so much love and so for her to have people coming through, she was like, friend, friend, friend, people, like. And it just, it was, I think, for her very like, mentally difficult to just relax.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Could she be off. Could she be off her leash if you had her in one of those rooms or not really the one with.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: In the bigger room that was just. It had one entrance and exit.
There was times in, at the beginning of the cruise when we, as other owners had kind of got to know each other and said, hey, do you want to let the dogs off? There's only a couple of them here. And we did, but the kennel masters were not super keen on that. I think they explained it as, like, we have had incidents in the past and, you know, and there's, I think when you. When dogs don't know each other or when obviously the kennel masters don't know us either, and there can be a very fine line between play fighting that could turn into something else. The dogs are all in a different environment. And they just said, we would feel more comfortable if you left the leads on the dogs. So we did. We respected that. If we'd been obviously told that from the very beginning, we never would have let them off lead. But that was a little agreement on that day and it was really nice. And it was a bit sad that they didn't want us to do it because there was one dog that Ruby was playing with in particular. They had so much fun and they were the two highest energy dogs and it was. It really helped them that day.
But you obviously have to be respectful of the roles. So. Yeah, so we would spend time with her that morning and then we actually embraced the, let's say, older demographic of the ship and we committed ourselves to bridge lessons. It's something that James and I have always wanted. Like, we love card games and obviously, yeah, bridge is like the card game, like, of strategy and skill. And we've never. We've never learned to play. We've tried to look online, but it's hard.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: It's really hard. I know the basics of bridge, but I don't know all. There's, like, signaling things that you do to signal to your partner. And I don't know any of that part. I just know, like, I just know the mechanics of how to play the game. I don't know the strategy of, like, the signaling stuff. But I have a.
A friend of mine who I used to work with who is. She's a little bit older, but not. Not the typical bridge age, and she goes to, like, bridge tournaments. Like, she's like hardcore knows all the things but like it's a really, like, it's a really good game of strategy. If you like card games, it's just. I think you're right. It's harder to learn. You've got to really.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you, yeah, you 100 and I, we still do not know all of it. Like we did five days of lessons and the bridge instructor was a guy called Keith. And he was, he was great. He really explained it. They were, you know, it was one hour lessons. I think that was about all your brain could take of the kind of what was being taught. We committed to it for the five days, but he was staying on until Sydney I believe. And he kind of said if you're here and you want to continue, I have developed a kind of end to end all the way through to Sydney to keep progressing and get you playing.
But that first week was just about learning like the basics. So we did commit to that. So we would go see Ruby for the hour in the morning, go down to our bridge lesson for an hour and then come back and sit with her till lunch. And it did take until day three or four for her to actually lay down next to us and settle in that room.
I think it was just really hard for her. And we figured out that if we got her little blanket out, put it out, she started to get the message that she could lay down and sleep. And the first day that she laid down and shut her eyes, she was 10 minutes to 12. And I was like, oh no, I'm gonna have to wake you up in 10 minutes. And I was so devastated because she'd finally just gone okay.
But she got better over the next few days, so that was okay. So yeah. So then we would have kind of 12 till 3, we'd get some lunch, we'd go to the gym, like have a little bit of down time for ourselves and then at 3 o' clock go straight back, pretty much stay there until about 5:30 when we ran like headless chickens to. And they would feed, they would give the dogs dinner around 5, 5:30.
So we would let Ruby have her dinner and then we would put her back in her kennel and then run like headless chickens to get dressed to go to dinner. We figured out very, very quickly after the first night pretty much that our assigned dining time was not working for us with the kennel schedule.
So like Disney Cunard have two assigned dining times. But the one thing that was super irritating was instead of having the main stage performances flipped, the way that Disney do. So you do one than the other. Whichever way around you do it.
Cunard, they just shift it later. So the second main stage performance was 10 o' clock at night, 10, 10, 15 at night.
I just, I was so tired, like I could not make it that far. I tried so hard because there were certain things I'd like to go to. But we also could not make the earlier time for the, the earlier time of show was difficult with our dinner and Ruby and all that stuff. So what they do offer, which I would highly recommend if you do a Cunard cruise, just because their timetabling isn't as organized in such, in the same kind of like helpful way as Disney is, they have open dining from six six till nine. So you, if you're on open dining you just show up. Or you can book your place in a virtual line if you don't want to wait in the line. But to be honest, if you show up at 6pm you were just going to walk straight in. And that is what we did. We worked out that that was just going to fit a lot better for us. That enabled us to sit down, eat and then get back to Ruby for 7:30 when we could get her out on the deck and run around with her. And basically we would then stay there until half past eight and then if we had the energy we would go and do something after that.
But some nights we just went to bed.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Well and that, I mean that's, that's fast like that you're, I mean you can't have a leisurely dinner because you're like you said you're gonna, if it's like 5:30 you're getting dressed for dinner real quick. So let's say you're, let's say you even make it to dinner by 6, you gotta be out of there by like 7:15 in order to get to Ruby at 7:30. Right. So like you're not, this is not like a leisurely paced.
Yeah, which I totally understand because the, you know, you can't.
If you hadn't gone to see Ruby during these times, like that means your dog is in a small kennel for the entire day. And so like just, just to put it out there for people listening. Like you, your animals can be in a kennel for a long period of the day. Like I mean our dogs were in their kennel when we're you know, out of the house at work. But we have somebody who comes and walks them in the middle of the day, right. And then home we're home, they're not in their kennels all day. Right. Like, that's so. Yeah, it's just you're poor and. And. And the dog is having to adjust to a completely different environment, too. So there's. There's all of that.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And doggy seasickness is a real thing.
It's, you know, I think, bless our little heart, Ruby was the only one that did not get sick. And to avoid grossing people out, doggy seasickness tends to present in the opposite direction to human seasickness.
So that, you know, and some dogs, bless their little hearts, they were having a rough time of it.
I think there were a few dogs on that cruise that were literally on a diet of boiled chicken and rice because they were just feeling so sorry for themselves and so unwell. Thankfully, I've got a resilient little one who just took it all in her stride and didn't seem that bothered, apart from just, I think, being very overtired and wishing she could run around.
[00:41:34] Speaker D: Well, maybe not the best segue in the world, but. Speaking of food, I'm curious, and I'm sorry if I missed this, when you were describing some of the spaces on the ship, but was there really only the main dining room that you were assigned to. To eat in, or did you try some of the other food on board? And I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious what you thought of the food overall.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Paid options. So kind of in the Remy Paolo type vein, there were some paid options which I believe ranged from in the sort of $35 a head to maybe 65 to $70 ahead.
Just because of our schedule of, like, one, you know, wanting to sit down and enjoy the food, we chose not to do that. But something that I did think was really interesting, they had kind of a rotational style of those restaurants where for the first three or four days, one of them was called Bamboo, and it was an Asian fusion type thing. It was actually in one of the spaces that was the buffet, part of the buffet during breakfast and lunch. And then in the evening, it was a paid restaurant. For the second half of the cruise, it was. I forget the name, but it turned into an Italian. And they did pasta and pizza. So they changed it up a little bit to kind of, I guess, give you something else to come back to and try something a little bit different.
There was also the Veranda Steakhouse, which some of the other owners that we made friends with, they went to and said was brilliant. And then there was also.
I can't remember if it was during the evening as well. But certainly during lunchtime you could get burgers and hot dogs, like specialty burgers and hot dogs, like freshly made in. It was called the chef's galley. So it was right next to the buffet. It was practically attached to it. But you could go up and order from a menu of I want the, you know, whatever different type of burger. Like they had all sorts of different kind of things with different toppings and they had like bratwurst sausages or like foot long hot dogs or with all toppings and kind of country themed and things like that with, you know, fries and things that were all then very freshly made. Right there. Ready for you?
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So was that included or was. Or was that included?
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that one was included. So that was nice. There was one couple of days that we went and got burgers because the buffet food just did not appeal. Like some days the buffet was amazing and other days it felt a little bit flat for us. But we did have, we did. We never made it to a sit down breakfast for timing reasons. It didn't open till 8. We're already with the dog and we.
So we did buffet breakfast every day, which was nice. Similar to Disney. You could get an omelette made.
You could.
One thing that was actually really nice there, they did poached eggs. I say fresh, but in that warmed up way of their kind of like part poached and they'll warm up but they were runny in the middle and that's what matters. So that was. That was actually kind of a really nice thing on the buffet that. Because, you know, the fried eggs on a buffet are never good. Let's be honest here.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Just kind of been sitting there.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: We found the ways to kind of make it as kind of as nice as we could make it for what we could fit in with our time.
[00:44:53] Speaker D: How did the food quality compare to Disney? Was it better?
[00:44:57] Speaker A: No.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: I don't think so. There were some days in the main dining room that were better and there were other days that I felt were a bit of a bust and there was a couple of nights in the main dining room where I left and went. I didn't really enjoy that. I will say on the gala night, which was one of the two formal nights that we had, they did beef Wellington and that I did really like. They did that very well considering they make. Well, we actually paid to do the behind the scenes tour, which was awesome. And I can talk more about that in a second. But they did tell us when we were in the kitchens because it was the day before this gala night. He said, yep, we start with 700 portions of beef Wellington and see how we go.
So to be making beef Wellington on that scale and to do it, you know, it was delicious. So, yeah, they certainly did a lot of things very well. But there were some nights in the main dining room where it was just a bit meh. And the thing I wished that they had available somewhere was some way to see the menu before you got in there, because it's not available anywhere. I'm sure if you walked in and asked for it at the start of dinner, they'd hand it to you. But it's kind of a bit late at that point because you're already dressed or you're not, right?
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Because you could decide, oh, I'm gonna go to the buffet.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: You know, look at this, that. And yet they don't have any of that.
So. Yeah. And I would estimate the kind of average age on this ship was probably 65 to 70. So the techno, the technology side of things is probably less of a priority for them.
And people probably are very happy to just come and sit down and have their three or four course meal. But I guess we are used to being able to kind of look in advance Disney, spoil us with that. And we kind of know.
We know, like, oh, it's this night. I know that I like this. Or I, you know, I can at least look ahead and see that there's things I want. Whereas I think there were certain nights where we left and said, I think I could have just had the buffet for dinner. Like, that wasn't worth sitting there for like an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and a half.
[00:47:04] Speaker D: How was the service on board generally as compared to Disney? My thing, my sense has been that Kinarda is supposed to offer a very high level of service. But what was your experience?
[00:47:13] Speaker A: I am sorry to say that was the thing that James and I both commented on that we really felt was lacking. And I'll tell you why I think it was lacking. They put gratuities on in the same way that Disney do a daily auto gratuity for the first time ever. I have never done this on Disney. I removed our gratuities, and I'll tell you why I did that. Because they are just distributed to the crew. They're not for your particular assigned service team. You only have an assigned service team if you have an assigned dining time. And even then, we did have an assigned dining time on the first night, which didn't work. And we swapped to Open dining. Unfortunately, our server didn't even introduce himself to us.
He didn't introduce himself.
It was kind of lackluster. Like I had to keep asking for more water.
It just, you know, there was one night where my husband ordered some wine and it showed up when dessert showed up. And it just, it was, it felt very kind of lackluster and like people didn't care all that much.
Our stateroom host was wonderful. Like, he was great. Geri was brilliant. Like, but not, it's not on the same level of Disney. Like you almost wanted to have a, you know, we tried to have a conversation a couple of times and kind of ask about him and it was kind of quick, short, one word answers, like, I'm getting back to my job. And it was certainly, if you're used to Disney service, you will notice the difference.
What we chose to do was remove the gratuities that just got kind of mass blanketed out to everybody.
And we chose to give cash to particular staff members instead. So the kennel masters, obviously, they did a lot of, they, you know, they took great care of Ruby, our stateroom host. You know, when we went to bars and restaurants, if we had a, you know, a paid tab that we could write some additional tip on, we did. They had the obvious, I think it was 15% additional. Disney had the 18.
So that's already on there. We, you know, did our extra kind of couple of dollars here and there. But yeah, it just wasn't, unfortunately it just wasn't the same. And, and this could be us coming from the level of service that Disney provide is so high and so personalized that we have those expectations.
And actually this is more normal for maybe for the cruise industry because I've actually, this is the first time I've cruised on Disney, so I don't have another benchmark.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, on the ships that we have sailed on, while I would say the service hasn't been as good as Disney, we've also, we have received some really good service. In particular on Virgin, we've, we've gotten some really good service, although it's spotty, you know, and it's certain places really, really good and other places a little bit lackluster. And then same with Royal, it's more, it's a little more spotty. But I think that the difference for us has been sort of, there's a level of friendliness on Disney that the, that the crew, like even you mentioned about your stateroom attendant, like your stateroom attendant was, was nice and Did a great job, but, like, wasn't overly friendly when you tried to Eng conversation. I think that's the difference. I think Disney, like, encourages their crew to be friendly. I think it's sort of like the Disney brand, right? Is a friendly, open brand. And so I think they just kind of, in their training, they must sort of encourage that level of friendliness and that level of getting to know you between the passengers.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: That's a demographic. And the graphic thing with Cunard as well, like, certainly we stuck out. Like, my husband and I are in our early 30s.
Like, we were certainly some of the youngest on the ship. And if we.
It almost like, I went. I. I kind of. I went to some of the. Like, I'm a big crafter. Like, I love to crochet and cross stitch. And they had a daily 3 o', clock. Like, just bring your own project, come and sit down kind of setup thing. So I was like, I'll go along. Like, James would go up and walk. Ruby and I would do that. And then we would switch and he would go off and, like, have a little bit of free time some days.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: And.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: And I remember sitting down on, like, the second day and this woman looked at me and went, oh, a young person.
Like, I was this. Like,
[00:51:38] Speaker B: you're like a unicorn.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think a lot of almost everybody else that we saw that is, quote unquote, a young person comparative to the rest of the demo. You know, typical demographic of the ship was a lot of them had dogs in the kennels. We were. There was definitely a. You know, you could pick each other out. And it was, oh, I was talking to this other young couple who have their dog when you got talking to people.
So I don't know if that's a demographic thing with the crew of, like, actually do. Does Cunard's typical demographic not want to have a conversation in their stateroom? They want you to come in and turn the bed down and clean up and be out of their way. I don't know, maybe, you know, but it was. Honestly, we had one server. When we sat down for dinner one night, he introduced. Introduced himself. We had a conversation with him, and I was like, oh, my God, this is so nice. Like. And we actually, when we stood up to leave, we walked over to him and said, thank you so much for serving us this evening. We really enjoyed having you as our server. And it made such a difference.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: It really does. I think it changes the experience.
And we've had, you know, some more, you know, friend, even on Disney, like, Friendly servers and less friendly servers and it makes a, it makes a very big difference. And honestly as a passenger, even if like, even if things are sort of not if the service isn't perfect, friendliness goes a long way to actually make me feel better about the service. Even if the service was slow or they forgot to refill the water glass or something like that. It is, it's interesting. You know one question we didn't ask you, you talked about demographic age wise for the passengers but I'm curious about nationality. Were, were they mostly Brits on board or was it more internationally British?
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Yeah, so they, we actually went to what was actually very nice was you know how Disney have like the gold and platinum receptions and you know sometimes those are a drinks reception and sometimes it's a come to the theater and have the backstage look at this, that and the other.
They did a first time cruisers reception and I believe they do that for their various levels of loyalty because we heard about other people going to, oh I went to my, I don't remember the name of the status but whatever reception tonight and when we, we got invited to the first time cruisers reception and what was really nice is the captain came and he stood up and he was a brilliant speaker. Really, really nice to hear from him. And it was actually his last cruise as captain of the ship because he is moving on to be a fleet captain.
So it was his, I think he said it was his 152nd time sailing into New York with that ship which I just thought was really cool that he, yes, he came and spoke and they did go through and say like oh we have this many people from this country and this many people. And I think of the 2700 roughly 50 were from England, the UK and then he even said and we have 13 dogs and two cats. Like so you know they were obviously very well aware of all of that. That which was nice.
[00:54:48] Speaker D: Laura, what have we missed about your sailing? And then I have one last question for you.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: The behind the scenes tour I haven't told you about. So we actually this was a pay to do tour.
I believe it was $125 each for about a three, three and a half hour tour of various areas of the ship including the bridge which was the big draw for me because you know that's just something I've, I love cruising and I find all the behind the scenes stuff so interesting. And Disney do they offer like kind of, you know you have the videos in the stateroom and they might do a presentation here and there on the longer cruises, but you don't ever actually get to see it for real. So it was really cool.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah, they've done some of that in the past.
They have done some of that in the past. And we also heard of people getting invited to the bridge for some special thing if it's like their hundredth cruise or something like that. But it's really. It's just not.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: You can't just sign up to do.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: No. And. And a lot of other cruise lines allow you to. Royal allows you. They have one that's a couple hours long where you can do. And Brian's done it. The. The, like tour of the ship where you get to see, like, you might see the engine room, you might see the bridge. I mean, you see the kitchens. Right. Like, it. All of that stuff is really cool.
[00:56:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: So that's basically what we got. So the theater, the first place they took us was we went into the backstage of the theater and they had a technical stage manager show us all the bits of the theater and their theater. I actually did really like the theater on this ship. It had a projection stage, which he kind of jokingly said he was like singers. Singers and comedians absolutely love it. The magicians hate it because they can't do the kind of proper sleight of hand that they can do with the kind of flat front stage. But the seats in this theater were so nice and so comfortable also. That was what I think contributed to when I tried to go to the 10:15.
I think it was a piano show that, like, there was a pianist, a concert pianist that was there and I was there. Just like, it was so warm and I was falling asleep because the seats are so comfortable. I was so tired.
No, stay away, Laura.
Yes.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: A good theater actually needs to. The seats need to not be so comfortable that you'll fall asleep. They need to be cut. Like, there's like a level of comfort and depth. Right. Like, they can't be. They have to be just comfortable enough that you can sit for three hours, but not comfortable enough that you're going to take a nap.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we went to the other side of the backstage and they had some of the performers show us costumes and kind of talk about quick changes and things like that.
They took us to the bridge, to the engine room, to the kitchens, to kind of the main crew walkway. We went to the medical center and met the doctor and he showed us all of their different kind of setups and stuff.
And it was really interesting. Like, they kind of have everything from a kind of regular patient room where, you know, it's very kind of low level care to like the super critical kind of looks almost trauma center, like, you know, and, you know, got to ask all sorts of questions. And that was, that was really interesting. And somebody actually did ask like, is there a vet? Like, you have dogs? And so. And he was like, no, there is no vet. And I kind of went, yeah, our dog's on board. You know, you, you kind of sign your life away in that respect of. But he did kind of explain that if, you know, a lot of the medications for animals are very similar to humans and if we needed to contact a veterinarian to get advice, we have a full pharmacy on board. Like, we couldn't, you know, perform surgery or do anything like that. But there's probably a lot of things that we could, minor things that we could assist with if we needed to.
[00:58:39] Speaker B: Right. Like if you're, if your dog got like a wound, like a, like a, they could, they could bandage him up, right?
[00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah. He would speak to a veterinarian on land, find out the appropriate thing that he needed to do. And he was like, we would do our best that we could do, of course. And he, he was actually telling us all about kind of the point in the cruise where, you know, we could get, we were this far away and we would need to get a helicopter or we're that far away that actually there's no options, so we would have to just put our foot down and go towards land as fast as possible. And, and it was really interesting to hear about all of the things that the doctors are considering on a given day of a cruise, of what they need to be aware of, of what changes when like transatlantic is. He was so different. If we're in the Caribbean, we're never really that far from anywhere. Like, it's not that much of an issue.
But he said the thought process is so different on a transatlantic. And he did tell us that his very first day on the job, he had to call the captain in the middle of the night on two separate occasions for two very sick passengers.
So, yeah, it was, yeah, he was like, I could not believe. It was my first day on the job and I had to wake the captain twice.
[00:59:48] Speaker D: So, Laura, I want to ask the ultimate question here, which is, would you sail Cunard again or are you headed back into the warm embrace of Mickey here?
[00:59:56] Speaker A: If, if we did move back to England and Ruby needed to move, I would not hesitate to move her with Cunard again. I certainly think for our family, choosing to choosing a ship over a flight. And we actually between the kind of other owners, there were some people that had flown their dogs in the past to either get to England or for other reasons. And we had a long debate over the eight hours of stress of a flight or the eight days of managing stress on a ship. And I think for Ruby, it was definitely the right choice, and it's definitely a choice that we would make again, if that was the route that we needed to go.
Would I necessarily choose Cunard over Disney? Personally, no.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah. For like a pleasure sailing without Ruby. Right.
[01:00:41] Speaker A: For a sailing of pure enjoyment. I just think that I am not the right demographic that they are aiming at.
And I did feel out of place, let me kind of put it that way. But having said that, you know, in future life, when I. If I was looking at, say, a world cruise or that, like, it's. It's not that I would not consider it ever again.
I just don't think that it would be the right kind of vacation for us if I were to put it that way. I love Disney. I'm definitely like, I would still love to try Virgin. I would love to try Carnival at other lines and kind of get a bit more of a sense of what else is out there. It's not put me off other lines entirely.
I think I definitely recognize that the level of service that Disney provides, we love, and that friendliness and that personability makes such a difference, and I think I have underestimated that.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Interesting. I love that. All right, well, I'm gonna jump in and ask the final question since we've done Rapid Fire with you. We're not gonna do Rapid Fire in today's show, but the final question is, what's next? You have something booked with Disney. I know you just moved to the States. Your husband is actually still in. Your husband flew back to the UK because he's finishing up a couple more months of work in the uk. But you're now in the States. Do you have any. Do you have a Disney cruise booked in the future? Now? You don't have to, you know, you don't have to even look at those sailings out of Europe. You can just focus on, you know, sailings on the. The Eastern Seaboard of the United States. So, yeah. Do you have something booked for when, after he's in the States?
[01:02:19] Speaker A: We do not have a booking, but there is a plan.
So actually, what my husband and I are intending to do is, is starting at some point in this summer, we are going to buy an RV and travel the Continental 48. So with remote. The idea is to have remote jobs, live on the road, explore the country, with a view to kind of figuring out where we want to live long term. You know, we've. We've done a lot of New England and obviously Florida.
I have also spent an extended period of time in Texas. But there's a whole lot of this country that we've never seen. We don't think we'd like to drive the Continental 48, but next year, we are planning to do Alaska. That is, it has been our bucket list cruise for the longest time.
We have been putting money aside for it for the longest time.
I am really, really hoping that we can figure out enough, scraping enough things together. It really depends on the jobs that we end up with and how things work out. But very, very much hoping to be able to do it what I call properly in concierge, because from listening to you guys for so long, do it, do it right.
So I really, really hope that that's something that we can do. It's definitely where we, like, want to do our next cruise. I would also love to hop back on another southern Caribbean. And we did that in November a couple of years ago, and it was just the greatest thing. I loved that itinerary at that time of year, so. But I think that's what's really nice is I feel like historically we've really had to plan because we needed, you know, for most of the cruises that we've done, we have to fly internationally and get here a few days before and all that sort of stuff. And it's a much kind of bigger operation than potentially kind of a domestic flight to, you know, Florida or wherever. So I'm hoping that we can be a little bit more spontaneous with cruising now.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. Well, listen, Alaska is incredible. Obviously, a bucket list. Whether you sail in concierge or in regular or in steerage, like in Cunard.
It is.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: Disney really has steerage?
[01:04:34] Speaker B: No, there's no steerage yet.
There's no steerage on Disney. I agree. But no, regardless of how you do it, Alaska is incredible. Highly recommend, of course. Laura, you're always welcome back on our show. Thank you. And of course, if you end up in the Seattle area, you got to give us a ring and we'll come and meet you.
[01:04:54] Speaker A: We definitely will be. Yeah, we. We are kind of route planning and figuring out where we want to be at different parts of the year to kind of chase the weather. Yeah, I have the. The last kind of couple of weeks. We're in New Hampshire at the moment, which is where all of my mum's family are. And this is some cold that I have never experienced.
Yeah, it, I, I don't mind it. It's not the kind of cold that I want to spend too much of my life in.
And Ruby, I think the novelty of the snow has already worn off, so I think we do need to find somewhere a little warmer to live and chase the weather in the RV for a bit.
[01:05:31] Speaker B: Well, awesome. Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming back on the show. This has been a fabulous experience. Just hearing about Cunard, hearing all about moving Ruby across the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds like it was honestly a really smart way of travel, even though maybe not the perfect vacation for you and your husband. But yeah, just thanks for coming on again.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: No worries. Thank you so much for having me.
[01:06:00] Speaker C: Well, thanks everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want 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, Mike My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com forward/dclduo or email them at dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast, links off to our vlog, a link to our Etch 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.
