[00:00:00] Speaker A: They called it menu, and it was full of bangers. Like, it was. It was like, I want to say there were probably five or six different pages of food and there's like four pages of entrees and stuff like that. Like, it was a huge menu compared to what they usually do. And everything was amazing. Like, it was impressive. Like, if you're on a Marvel Day at sea and. And you're like, oh, man, we're not going to have Pirate Night. You just got an upgrade. A serious upgrade.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by My Path Unwinding Travel. And Sam, it's jingle time.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Over to you.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Yeah. All right. Simply the best.
Better than all the rest.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: That's right. And we are rounding out our Canadian reviews before we head back to the good old US of A. This one's an. This one's an oldie, Sam. I'm not gonna lie, because this one's titled. Well, first, it comes from Juniper. Juniper Dog. Juniper Dog. Who wrote.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: I like that name. That's fun.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Five stars. 300th episode.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: We're well over 600.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, good Lord. Yeah, we're gonna be coming up on. I just realized today, season seven is at the end of next month. So it starts at the end of next month. So there we go. All right. 300th episode. I loved your 300th episode. What a great character. Good for. Good for you. You have helped a lot of people with their cruising concerns. And the character he speaks of is one of our favorite podcasters, Paul. Paul Thornton.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Sortin. I thought it was Josh. I thought they were talking about the episode where Josh interviewed us. That was.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: No, we had. We had Paul on for our 300th episode.
Haven't talked to him in forever. We should actually reach out to Paul and see what's going on with him and if he wants to come on and give an update on.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Yeah, he's got his podcast now. The Joy of Cruising.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: He's had a lot of big. He's had a lot of great folks on over there.
For listeners out there, if you don't know, Paul Thornton is the author of volume series of books called the Joy of Cruising. Cruising Interrupted. And I'm sure the one we were in was Cruising Returns or Cruise Cruising.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: The Joy of Cruising Again.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Again. The Joy of Cruising Again. Yeah.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: So we are featured in as cruise communicators in his third book, the Joyous Cruise.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: There's a shout out in the second book, too.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: There was. There was. We. We Caught Paul right as he was in the middle of writing his second book when the cruising world had shut down and he was eager to talk cruising. And so he was one of our earliest guests and a frequent guest, and we just haven't had him on in a while, so we should. But Juniper Dog, thank you so much for that review and I will give my little spiel. As always, remember, one of the easiest ways to help support the show. Head over to Apple Podcasts, hit those five stars, and if you leave us a written review along with your five star review, because Sam wants to point that out. We don't read the 1 stars while
[00:02:51] Speaker C: we read them, but we read them ourselves. We won't read them on the air.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: We read them, chuckle and move on with life.
Hit those five stars, leave us a five star written review, and we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. And I'm just gonna start letting folks out. You can hit the stars on Spotify anywhere you are. Hit those stars. The reviews help surface the show. So. All right. With that, Sam, we got a fun set of return guests. They like, they live. They live just up the road from us here. We should actually just do a, Like a. Like a. Like a show together.
[00:03:21] Speaker C: Live live show. Yeah, to do a live, live show at some point with them. But we're so excited to have you guys back on the show. From their very own podcast adventures and mouse capades. Please, please welcome back to the show. Nathan and Alicia. Welcome back, guys.
[00:03:37] Speaker D: Hello. Thank you so much.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, we're a little bit smaller. You know, we're up into the two hundreds at this point as we're recording. You know, our audience is, you know, our parents.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I think you got a leg up on me. My parents don't even listen.
[00:03:53] Speaker C: Brian's parents don't listen.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: I was talking to my dad one day and he was like, have you seen this Emma cruises person on YouTube? Like, dad, she was on our show. Like, yes, we know who she is.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: We know Emma.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: She has our mug as she holds it up on camera occasionally because she likes it. So, yeah, there you go.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Brian's parents definitely don't listen to our show.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: I think my dad has started listening occasionally. Your mom does listen.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: My mom listens occasionally. Not on every. Like, it's only if it's something that. That interests her.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: She follows our social media that I know well.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Hi, moms
[00:04:24] Speaker B: and dads. And dads and dads and dads. All right, well, we're going to be talking about an exciting trip that you took on the Magic out of Galveston. We've been talking to a lot of folks from taking cruises out of Galveston this year, which is, which nice because we don't know as much about that port.
[00:04:38] Speaker C: There were some really good deals to be had out of Galveston. I feel like this year on the Magic. So you know, I think a lot of folks tried to take advantage of the various deals that were offered. And I think for you guys, I know you just wanted to kind of try sailing out of Galveston. That was a new, a new embarkation port for you. But before we dive into that, we want folks to know, you know, your cruising background, your Disney background. Obviously we mentioned you have your own podcast and it is focused on Disney experiences, including cruising. But why don't you tell folks like your cruising background, like how many cruises you've been on and all that good stuff.
[00:05:14] Speaker D: Cruising background. Let's see, we started in, I think it was 2009 was our very first cruise with Disney and we weren't sure if we'd like cruising and we really weren't. So we just did. I think it was like a three night or something like that.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: It was a land and sea package. Back when they were doing this, back
[00:05:30] Speaker D: when they had them. Before we got off the ship we had already booked another seventh night. So. And let's see, this was cruise number 19 for me and 17 for Nathan.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Thanks hon.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Thanks.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: Poor Nathan. Nathan, you gotta maybe take a couple of cruises to catch up with Alicia.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: You know, I keep trying to figure out how to, how to work that in if I'm gonna solo. Brian, if you ever need to, you know, like phone a friend, let me know.
[00:05:57] Speaker C: Nathan, I'm behind Brian by one cruise. Okay. So I think you and I need to go on a cruise.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: That's a you problem.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: I concur.
Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
Too funny. Too funny. Okay, so you guys, and you guys have done a lot of different itineraries of course, and been cruising for a while. You're making your way up to Pearl. You're only, you're only a few cruises behind hitting that Pearl status, you guys.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: So if we, if they were doing it like everybody else does it and does it by night, then we'd absolutely already be there because a bunch of our cruises are two weeks or one week or other like really long cruises, the short ones we, we don't like. The cruise we're talking about today was a five night and that's kind of like our limit of eh, we'll do it if the schedule works and there's some other compelling reason. But yeah, we just like the longer cruises.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, for this cruise, you were sailing out of Galveston, Texas. You guys are coming from the Seattle area. So tell us, when did you head down and where did you fly through?
[00:07:05] Speaker D: We headed down the night before or the day before. Went into Houston, stayed overnight in Houston and got the Disney Magic Express or whatever it's called now.
Disney transportation to the port. Yeah. And it was fine. They had us at the Marriott at the airport in Houston.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Okay. So similar to like mco, if you do that, the package where you book your hotel through Disney Cruise Line and then book, sign up for the transportation and all that.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: And this is actually the first time that we actually booked a hotel with Disney. Often we'll be staying like on property at a DVC resort because we're using our points or, or something like that.
But this time it was just, we'll give it a shot. The Disney rate wasn't quite as good. I found out later as I could have done if I had just booked at the Marriott direct, but it was like 30 bucks. And it's just one night and I'm just like, you know what, it's easy. It's. We'll just go with it.
[00:08:06] Speaker D: So one thing we did find out is they only have doubles or king beds at the Marriott at Houston.
So. And we did not know that. So we got, we got into the room. It was a double, double. And both Nathan and I are a little larger in size and got in there like, oh, we, we can't all fit in this room.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Because you had you. Was it just the two of you and Sterling or was your daughter with you also?
[00:08:31] Speaker D: And we had Sterling with us.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Okay. But yeah, still it's. Yeah. Listen, Brian and I, I don't think can sleep in a double bed. We have been looking at hotels for Europe for our abd this summer and we're like seeing lots of options that are two double beds. And we're like, that's not gonna work. Because our son Nathan is a restless sleeper. So neither of us wants to sleep with him in the bed. And Brian and I, like, we're not small people and getting smaller by the day.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Sam, we're getting.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: But we do not want to sleep in a double bed. We sleep in a king size bed.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: I don't care how small.
We slept in a full bed together when we first got together. And that is as we have progressed up. I don't go back so yeah, well,
[00:09:18] Speaker C: like listen, we have a king at home. We'll sleep in a queen on at a hotel. That's not a problem. A queen is, I still don't like. The queen is too, still too close for my comfort. We much prefer a king.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: We all love our partners, but we need our space.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: We need our space. You get hot in bed, you don't want to like be breathing face to face when you're sleeping. Right. It's like so weird.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Ricky and Lucy understood the program. Little separate beds. They're like, these are beds where we sleep. Yeah. You know, so yeah.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Did you get, did you get like a cot or something in the room or what? What was this?
[00:09:47] Speaker D: They would, they would not allow a cot in the double double. But I asked nicely and, and talked with the lady down at the reception desk and she was able to get us a king room and we could put a cot in there. So that worked out great.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: And I will say the restaurant that's there at the Marriott, at the George Bush Intercontinental, whatever. IAH is actually really good. So we didn't have to go far both for breakfast and for dinner the night before.
So if folks are flying in and staying there, it's a really good recommendation. It's about a 90 minute ride to the port from there. So it's not as close as MCO is.
And the other difference I noticed is unlike at the, what is the hotel that you stay at? It's not a Marriott, it's a whatever. Hyatt. Yes. At mco where nowadays DCL has been checking you in there. So like they'll do all the passport documents and everything there and then you just get right through security and on the, or onto the ship or at least in the waiting room. They didn't do that here at the, at the Marriott. So it was just transportation check in for you and 150 of your closest friends. And then they had three buses going to the port.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and you know that's actually very similar to the Disney resort transportation because if you're taking the Disney resort transportation in Orlando, they're also not doing like the full cruise check in before you had get to the port. The only place I think that Disney does that currently that we know of is at the, at mco. At the, the Hyatt at mco people just sort of be aware you're going to do the check in at the port regardless of whether you're taking Disney transportation or some other transportation at most places. Yeah. All right, well so about a 90 minute bus ride. Did they come and pick up your luggage ahead of time or did you have to drag your luggage down to the bus? Like how did that work at the Marriott?
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the same. They came and get it. Just make sure it's tagged and near the door, not set outside the door, inside your room. And they'll have they coordinate with bell services to go get your stuff. I think we had to have it out by, it wasn't early because I know in some of the DVC resorts they're saying you need to have your bags out by seven. And I want to say it was like 8:30.
[00:12:07] Speaker D: I think it was 8:30.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good.
[00:12:09] Speaker D: And we were at breakfast and they picked it up while we were at breakfast.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: Awesome. Now what time did you get on the bus to head to the port?
[00:12:17] Speaker A: It's about 10, 1015, something like that. And so we got. Yeah, and then there was an accident of course on the way down to the port. So we didn't get to the port until I want to say like 11:25 or so. And then we were, you know, we were in concierge. So we went right through the process.
[00:12:35] Speaker D: It was one of the fastest check ins I think we've ever had.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Once we found the right way to get in, which was a little weird, the signage was a little lackluster there right as you got off the bus. But yeah, I mean we got right on. But everything like concierge had already gone and returners were already on the ship and stuff like that as we were pulling in because there was a family who was near us on the bus and there's like hey, wave to grandma and grandpa because they're on the veranda already waving to us as our bus pulls in. So. But yeah, we were on by, I want to say noon or something like that. It wasn't too bad.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: Yeah. So you weren't like they probably started loading the ship maybe 30 minutes before you got there?
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah, something like that.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: Yeah. It wasn't like there everyone had been.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah, if you really want to be one of the first folks on the ship and you've got, you know, your concierge or something else that snags you, a real or early boarding group. I would stay somewhere in Galveston. So you're local and you don't have to worry about a wreck on the, on the highway there.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All right, well you guys board the beautiful Disney magic.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Wait, hold on, let me ask one question. So now that you've been through the Port of Galveston. I know you've done San Diego, definitely done Port Canaveral, definitely been out of Fort Lauderdale ports I'm probably missing. Where does Galveston rank in terms of terms of an embarkation port for you?
[00:13:53] Speaker D: Down at the bottom.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:56] Speaker D: There's just not.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: I would actually put it below San Juan. I mean, those two are at the bottom. Galveston does at least have a modern and functioning and not rusted out gangway to get onto the ship. So you actually do get on like on the third floor.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: Versus in San Juan.
It's not uncommon in San Juan for you to have to get on at like deck one.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yes, well, because the cruise port that they go out of, that mobile gangway is literally just a rust bucket. Now, in theory it's supposed to be replaced this year, but when we sailed, we were on the Magic in November from San Juan to Galveston. And so we, you know, we boarded there in San Juan and there were signs all over saying, you know, coming in 2026, a completely revamped port. And I'm like, guys, you need to get on this because that's a lot of infrastructure to build and the clock's ticking, so I wouldn't be surprised if that bleeds into 2027. But they're working on it in San Juan.
[00:14:51] Speaker D: Yeah, as, as a port for Galveston. Let's see, Galveston just.
There's not a lot there at all.
So if you are in a day or two early, there's really not much to do. I'm sure you could do like walking tours and stuff. We stayed a couple nights afterwards on our last cruise and yeah, I think we've seen what we needed to see
[00:15:14] Speaker A: because we need to go changing our flight and going maybe a day early and doing something with Sterling, for those that don't know, is our 14 year old. And we were like, hey, we'll do see the sites in Galveston. We're like, there's, it's nothing really compelling. So yeah, we just flew in the day before.
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Well, and there are things to do in Houston, of course, and there are some things to do in Galveston, but there are more things to do, of course, in Houston. A lot of people like to do, you know, the Space center and things like that there. And so if you've got time on either the front or back end, those are probably, you know, there's a zoo, there's the Space Center. There's, you know, there's sort of the regular things that we've actually covered on a couple of other episodes with folks who have sailed out of Galveston as well. But let's talk about this cruise because this was a marvel day at sea. This. You were sailing in concierge. You also went to Progress or Cozumel and Progreso and I think you hadn't been to Progreso before.
So there were a couple of like new things to experience. I know you've sailed in concierge before, but I had. You sailed on. On the Magic in concierge before?
[00:16:20] Speaker D: No, the last time we had sailed on the Magic was I think, except for our November cruise was I think 2010. So it had been a long time.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah. The last time we were on the Magic, it was still Parrot Key. No, it was. Yeah. Parrot Key on the Magic.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker D: Parrot Key carryout. Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: The Ducktail didn't exist. There was no water slides and it was doing the eastern western seven night milk runs when we did it. So it had been a hot minute. But it was the ship that our son hadn't been on yet. And so that really factored into us selecting this itinerary. It was during our mid winter break.
Sterling has picked up his completionist streak from his parents and really wanted to make sure that he checked that box of being on the Magic. And so that's why we selected this cruise. And then it was a few months, just a few months ago that they said, hey, we're adding the Marvel day at Sea to this itinerary. So we're like, hey, great bonus. But that wasn't something that we knew of when we booked this one.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: Awesome. Yeah, well, that definitely is a bonus. Well, I want to talk about your stateroom because you guys were on one of the new, newer, updated staterooms on board. They had updated the concierge staterooms in the last dry dock and you ended up having one of those a one bedroom. What'd you guys think of the. That room? And. And had you stayed in a one bedroom on Wonder or Magic or Wonder previously?
[00:17:54] Speaker D: We have stayed on a. In a one bedroom on the Wonder previously. That was an upgrade in port for our first Panama Canal cruise.
[00:18:03] Speaker C: Oh, fantastic.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: That was back in 2013.
[00:18:05] Speaker D: Yeah. So yeah. And they didn't have a lounge or anything like that at the time, so. Yeah.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's changed a little bit.
[00:18:12] Speaker D: It has changed. Yeah, it's changed a little bit. We. I really liked the new facelift, I guess that they did for the room. The colors were kind of a muted and light blue and beige type colors and just looked really pretty. It's very nice.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: It's very elegant.
The old design of the concierge on the Magic and the Wonder was very wood, heavy in wood tones.
The Magic, or excuse me, the Wonder. When we were on her in a one bedroom, it was wood tones and dark wood tones back in the day. And so this was kind of a breath of fresh air. Now we were also in concierge in November on our crossing from San Juan, but just in a veranda, so not the one bedroom. So we were kind of at least knew what we were getting in terms of color palette and things like that. But the one bedrooms just are fantastic on these, the Magic class ships, they're amazing.
I think they're the best multi room suites in the fleet. I think the.
Yeah, I would rather do those than some of the newer ones.
[00:19:23] Speaker D: We haven't ever done a two bedroom or one of the royal seats.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Challenge accepted.
[00:19:28] Speaker C: Yes.
Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with you. I think the Magic class has just some really nice. Like if you're going to splurge on a suite, I think the Magic class has some really great suite options. So.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, and they do have the club or the lounge now and it's just, it's fantastic.
Not as spacious as the other ones, but for the room that they do have on the vessel, they make such great use of it and the staff there is just so amazing.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I think the Wonders Lounge is bigger, but actually the layout of the Magic, because it was more recently updated is better. Right? Sort of the bar set up is better on the Magic, although the Wonders overall I'd say is better just because it's like twice as big. But. Well, let's, let's dive in. You start your cruise, I'm sure with a sit down lunch given that you were sailing concierge and I know there were some bread reviews happening. Nathan, tell, tell us about the bread. I was following your socials, of course. And tell us about this thing with the bread reviews. You and Sterling. I feel like, like every, every time I clicked in your stories, I was seeing a new bread review.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't remember why that started, but it, it just did. And Sterling started doing this, this bread review where Alicia would record Sterling taking a sample of whatever the dinner roll was. And you know, he had a crunch score, he had a taste score. He was ensuring that he would try it with whatever the dip is, which I'm shocked at. He's got a very, that's not his style to go after the dips and then would do an overall rating. And yeah, so many people love that. And Then we were at.
I forget what meal it was. And Sterling was elsewhere. It was probably a lunch. And I was like, well, I remember
[00:21:20] Speaker C: you did one at Palo. You did?
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Yes, I did one at Palo. I did another one earlier as well.
And I was like, well, well, Sterling's not here, so, I mean, I guess I'm doing a bread review.
[00:21:30] Speaker C: I gotta fill in.
[00:21:32] Speaker D: It was just a spur of the moment thing and Sterling just ran with it.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. He actually liked most of them. There was a couple that he was just not so pleased with his choice of enjoying the dip with the bread. But, you know, we move forward.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: I love that he tried the dips because I will tell you, like, I don't even try most of the dips. And Nathan for sure, our Nathan for sure does not try any of the dips. I, I am a strictly butter or like olive oil and balsamic is good. Of course at Apollo, I, I do the, the oil and balsamic. But yeah, dinner. I'm. I'm strictly butter on my. That's it.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm right there with you. Yeah.
[00:22:18] Speaker E: 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. Their team of professional travel advisors are caring, knowledgeable and experienced. It's why we use them to book our own travel. My Path Unwinding Travel is an authorized Disney vacation planner, which means they are recognized by Disney for their expertise and service. They have sailed on all the Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, relaxed at Aulani, and and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com DCLDUO or email DCLDUOYpathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks My Path Unwinding, for sponsoring today's show.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: Now back to the episode.
[00:23:17] Speaker C: Well, I want to, you know, let's jump in and talk about the ports real quick since this was included Cozumel and Progresso. And Progresso was new for you guys. What'd you guys get up to in Cozumel or did you get up to anything?
[00:23:30] Speaker D: Did you get off the ship in Cozumel? I initially had a UTV tour and I did not read the fine print on there. They had a weight cap on there that I was just over, so couldn't do that one.
And I asked concierge, like, what else, what else can we do? So there was a last minute change. We did just Sterling and I. Mayan chocolate and I don't know how to say it, a Brejo painting.
So like the, the spirit animals from Coco, if you.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: Yeah, like a Dante.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Speaker D: So we got to paint little things like that. That was really fun. We enjoyed it.
To learn about Mayan chocolate in one of the locations and then going over to paint our little figurines in the other one. It was a lot of fun.
[00:24:20] Speaker C: Oh, awesome.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: I had a knee replacement just a little more than two months ago and so my mobility is a little challenged these days. And so once it turned into.
Well, I actually opted out of the UTV tour probably a couple weeks ago. And then, yeah, once it turned into like doing a little bit more walking and some other stuff, I was like, yeah, I'm just going to stay on the ship. So we did hop off earlier in the morning and just do a little quick stroll around the port and pick up a couple things. Got some tequila, as you know, you're in Mexico as you do.
But yeah, I mostly stayed on the ship and enjoyed the lounge. I think I had another massage that day.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Another massage.
[00:25:06] Speaker D: Entirely possible.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's entirely possible.
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Massages. I love that.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: And then.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: And it was fun. We were initially going to go to the show that night because I think that night was twice Charmed but Carnaval, it was Carnaval in Cozumel.
And we left about an hour late because some of those later excursions had some interesting logistics. Trying to make it back across the parade route to get to the ship.
[00:25:35] Speaker D: They had closed so many roads downtown right near the port. So it was a bit challenging for. For excursions to get back. So.
[00:25:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And they probably just didn't do a great job in planning that. I feel like that oftentimes not. It's not dcl, it's the excursion providers. But if they're not like accounting for what day it is, if that's when Carnival Celebration is going to be locally. Yeah, that's going to mean you're having. You're walking parades or truck parades. You're going to have streets shut down and getting across. For anyone who's ever been to New Orleans near Mardi Gras. Know getting across a parade route is no easy feat. In fact, like, it's just a. Find a. Find a restaurant to sit in and wait. And guess what? You're going to wait hours. Right? Like, it's. It's big.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: The ship wasn't too worried about it because we were just, you know, kind of hopping up from Cosimo, the Progresso overnight. So it's just around the corner, so to speak. So, you know, it wasn't a timing thing and, you know, leaving a little late wasn't really a big deal. So.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: So all aboard was 7pm oh, so
[00:26:38] Speaker C: it was a later all aboard to begin with.
Yeah. So then leaving around eight or I guess probably leaving more like nine by the time you left.
[00:26:48] Speaker D: All aboard was seven. And we got back to the ship around I think it was six was when the excursion got back.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: And we have late dinner, so show had already started. And.
Yeah, so it's okay. We saw it on in November.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. Well, what did you guys decide to get up to in Progreso in Progresso?
[00:27:08] Speaker D: We got a private van through Disney, and I knew that Nathan would be on crutches, likely. So I worked with copilot, basically, and said, here's the deal.
We have three people. One of them's on crutches. One of them is 14 years old. We'd love to see some Mayan ruins, and we'd like to swim in a cenote. Okay, what do we do? Here's our timing. And it basically plotted out a plan for us and it was great. We used that and went to. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to butcher this name. We did not go to the big, huge ruins. What is that called, Nathan, you know,
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Just popped right out of my head.
[00:27:50] Speaker D: Thanks. Han Chichen Itza.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: The seventh one at not do that
[00:27:55] Speaker D: one because we have heard it is extremely crazy busy and takes forever to get to, I think Zebil Tai Chan, something like that.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it begins with a D and it's pronounced CI, that one. It's really close. It's only about like a half hour or so from the port, which is probably one of the most convenient ones.
And the state runs that one. Not the national, like, tourism, historical society thing, whatever they call it there in Mexico. So it's run by the state and it's actually just been refurbished. We were actually talking with some of the folks in concierge and recommended. Hey, like, this actually should be like an official Disney excursion because it's absolutely fantastic. Has modern amenities in terms of restrooms and, you know, shops and parking and all the rest of that stuff. And even being on crutches, it was really easy for me to get around. Obviously I wasn't climbing the pyramid there, but our guide, when we did the private van, there was a driver and a guide. So two folks that are with you. And our guide took Sterling and they climbed all the way up to the top of one of the pyramids and he took him inside. You got to see a tomb and all sorts of stuff. It was fantastic. It was a great experience.
Yeah. I would absolutely recommend going to whatever Mayan ruin begins with a D and is a very long jumble of letters that is pronounceable to somebody in English. It was fantastic.
[00:29:35] Speaker C: Love it.
We went to the ruins by Costa Maya. The ones we went to are. I believe it's called Chacobin. And that one is a. That one's a good one. It's, it's. I mean it seems quite large to me, but it's not as big as the Chichen Itza one in. Outside of Progreso. But it's, you know, it's like maybe an hour from the port. But I think everything Costa Maya is that way. Anyway. I think pretty much all of the excursions are, you know, you have to drive quite a bit from the port to get to.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah, like Chichen Itza. It's an hour and a half to two hour drive from the port. This was maybe a half hour. So it really wasn't bad at all.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: Awesome. Awesome. All right, well, let's jump back onto the ship because of course that's the star of this cruise now.
Nathan, I didn't realize you were, you were on crutches for this. I knew. I remembered you had had the, your knee replacement. But how was that getting around the ship? And did you use anything different on the ship versus, you know, did you use a scooter or anything like that or did you consider that?
[00:30:43] Speaker A: No, I didn't consider it. Just there's no real good place to park one of those things, you know, you really have to kind of find one of the elevator lobbies. I forget which one it. I think it's the middle. The middle elevator bank has kind of a parking area for some of those. So it may not be the most convenient if you don't have an accessible room to get a scooter in. And I'm pretty good. I'm just slow and if I'm on my feet a ton, then it just wears me down. So, yeah, I decided to Use my crutches. Like here at home, I've been mostly just using a cane and trying to get away from stuff. But we had traveled the weekend before for Sterling had a competition down in, in Sacramento for his musical theory competition stuff. And I learned there. I was like, oh, I can't just do a cane if I'm going to be walking around a bunch. I, you know, I'm just, I kind of reverted to crutches so I could get around a lot easier. So, you know, lesson learned and adapt. It was, it was fine. I didn't really have any issues. A couple of the, especially the walkways in the main restaurants you have to be really careful of because, you know, know they're clean, but they have a little bit of a, you know, there's some, you know, restaurant grease or some things like that, so they can get a little slippery if you're really relying on your crutches a lot. And then in the, in the spa as well, kind of like in the, the, the nail, like the pedicure and manicure spot, that was, that was actually probably the most slippery spot on the ship. My shoes were fine, but my, the crutches does not like that at all. Right. So my pedicure and my manicure were a little dangerous, but we survived and it was fine.
[00:32:26] Speaker C: We survived.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Still got 10 toes. So you're right.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: And I didn't have to make a visit to the infirmary down on deck one. So I call that a win.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: That is a win. 10 digits or 20 digits left the ship on Nathan and you know, 20 digits came on, 20 digits left and no trip to the, to the ship. Medical.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Usually the only thing that suffers is a bank account for sure.
[00:32:53] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about Marvel Day at Sea aspect of things. Now. I know you guys are Marvel fans, although I know you're bigger Star wars fans than Marvel fans, but had you,
[00:33:04] Speaker B: had you done Marvel Day at Sea before?
[00:33:06] Speaker D: No, we haven't. This is the first day at sea, I think that we've done for anything, isn't it?
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Was it marveling?
[00:33:13] Speaker D: It was marvelous.
It was marvelous.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: It was a lot of fun. I was really impressed with the amount of detail they went into. And I'll let Alicia kind of run down a lot of the events, but I will share the one thing that was a little ironically triggering for us was so background. We were on the March 2020 Panama Canal crossing for the Wonder and there were a lot of off schedule do, do do, do, do, do do announcement tone things. And then it's like, hey, this just closed and this is messed up and the world's falling apart and all the rest of that stuff.
Who was on that cruise kind of has this institutional trigger warning when the announcements go off if they're not at the right time. And so you're expecting one maybe mid morning. There's absolutely one at noon, there's one late afternoon, and maybe something around evening. And so we were standing there in line for some character meet and greet that concierge, because we did no research. And so at the concierge lunch, Diogo came by, he goes, hey, did you schedule your stuff here in Marvel things or. And Alicia goes, we had to schedule things. And Diego goes, I got you. Like, okay, cool.
[00:34:27] Speaker D: Is character meet and greets.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, they had those, I think normally open 30 days. So it's, it's, it's like the royal gathering. So concierge, I think you can book it ahead of time by just emailing the con, like Shoreside concierge. And it's the same for the royal gathering on regular sailings. Right. But the every. It kind of. It's a free for all opens for everyone at 30 days, but prior to your sailing. And you. It's. They're free, but you have to go on and reserve in the app your different meet and greets and there's different characters for Marvel Day at Sea. And I think also for Pixar Day at Sea, you can reserve the different character meet and greets. Some of them are a free for all on board, but there are some that are sort of, we'll call them ticketed events, but again, not. They're not. You don't have to pay anything extra. They just. You just have to reserve a spot.
[00:35:14] Speaker D: Yeah, so we had that reserved. It was at 1:30, was when we were signed up to go.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: And the announcement chime goes off. And Alicia and I both looked at our watch to check the time and then looked at each other. We're like, oh, no.
What just went wrong? What just went south? And it was something like, you know. Paging Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: It was Peter Parker. It was a media guest. Peter Parker from the Daily Bugle, Please report to the check in at media desk. Yeah.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: And then a half hour later, it was. Paging Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange, your cloak of levitation refuses to leave a treatment room in the spa. We really need you to come and get it. We need the space.
[00:35:52] Speaker C: Oh, that's hilarious.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: They stopped doing the tones. Thankfully because my heart rate.
[00:35:59] Speaker C: Your anxiety was. Yeah, exactly.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: But they were doing these, like, shipwide, you know, not in the room, but these announcements that were Marvel tied in, like, throughout the day. It was great.
[00:36:10] Speaker D: So, like, there's Yelena did one, Star Lord did one, Black Panther did one. There was a couple others, too. And it was really cool to hear. I liked that.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: That's amazing.
[00:36:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: I got to tell you guys, like, in all the times we've talked to people about Marvel Day at Sea, no one EL has ever brought this up. You are the first. Really? We didn't. We had no. We've not been on a Marvel Day at Sea ourselves. We also haven't been on Pixar Day at Sea. We had gone on Star Wars Day at Sea back when they had that. We did that actually, I believe, twice.
But, yeah, I. I did not know about these announcements. That is, like, really clever.
I did see. I feel like you guys posted some great pictures of the atrium of the ship, like, completely decked out, like, banners and stuff. Tell us. Tell us about that. And was that it? Were there other places around the ship or was it really focused on the atrium?
[00:37:00] Speaker D: It was focused on the atrium. They had banners going from, like, deck five down all the way down to three in a couple of different spots. They had outside of some of the restaurants and, like, D Lounge, they did have some floor banners of the different characters.
Like, I know they had one of Hulk. There was one of Black Widow. I saw Iron man somewhere. Just all throughout the ship, different venues had that.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: I think that was one of the character locations was in animator's palette, and so they had a bunch of, like, draperies and backdrops and stuff in there. And then they also had a big character location in the D Lounge. So that was, like, full drapery all around the whole room.
And that was actually kind of the longest. It was a timed, like, entry to the line to walk through, and then you saw three different characters. That was probably the longest line that we had.
And I think it was just because Iron man needed to go, I don't know, change his power unit out or something like that, and that kind of back things up.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Maybe plug himself in.
[00:38:05] Speaker D: Yes. He recharge.
[00:38:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:08] Speaker D: Over an animator's palette. All of the. All the of. Of the screens had, like, Marvel Day at Sea on them in just black and white. That was really neat.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: And they were, like, illustrated. They were like different drawings. It was really well done.
[00:38:19] Speaker C: Oh, cool. Now, like, tell us. Tell us the characters you got to see for Marvel Day at Sea. Like, which, Which. Which parts of the Avengers or Marvel Universe are we seeing? Because I, I, I know the Marvel Universe has grown a lot.
[00:38:35] Speaker D: Well, at our first heroic encounter, we got to talk with Gamora and Groot.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: We.
[00:38:41] Speaker D: Nathan let Groot know about grilled cheese sandwiches.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Very important.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: I said, the chef on board makes excellent grilled cheese sandwiches here. And Groot started walking away, and Gamora stopped him. Like, where are you going? You don't even know what a chef is.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: I love that.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: I love how they lean on. Does he say, I am Groot?
Yes.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: All right.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Yes. And he has different inflections. Like, I'm sure it's the same thing as they're doing for, you know, stormtroopers or other things where they can trigger a statement. Iron man does the same thing, but, yeah, it was lots of different versions of I Am Group.
[00:39:17] Speaker D: Yeah. And then the second one had Spider Man, Black Panther, and Iron Man.
[00:39:24] Speaker C: Oh, cool.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Sam, something you'll also love. And Alicia, you went and took a look at this. They rebranded the Diaper Dash, right? They had a different floor covering for the Diaper Dash, and it was on that. The Marvel Day at Sea.
[00:39:37] Speaker C: Oh, cool.
[00:39:38] Speaker D: I think it was called the. The Hero Dash, I think is what it was.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: Yeah, something like that.
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Yeah. You. Okay, so you know what? Where they do the hero dash, also on the Destiny, it's not called the. It's not called Jack Jack Stipe, which I actually thought was kind of strange because, like, the Incredibles are heroes, so why wouldn't you just call it Jack Jack Diaper Dash? But on the Destiny, when we. When we saw it on the Maiden, I don't think they had. I don't think they did it on the preview cruise, because I don't know that there were any diaper babies. Right. Like, they're literally, like, there weren't any, you know, babies, like, young enough. But yeah, on the. On the. Made in. They did it, and it was the Hero dash. It wasn't called the Jack Jack. And so it had a different matte, but. Yeah, so they must be doing that as sort of the. With the Marvel theming, which makes sense. On the, on the desk, they probably
[00:40:23] Speaker B: had to order the mats in bulk. And so, like, oh, you got to put these someplace else.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: But one on the magic and one on the.
[00:40:29] Speaker D: Yeah, but it looked different. So it did say it was called the little Hero Dash, but the mat had. At the start line, it had little icons for. Let's see, there's Iron Man, Black Panther, Hulk, Black Widow, and Captain America.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: Yes. That I'm telling you, I believe. I bet it's the same. Matt, I have video. I have video from the one on the Destiny and that, like, rings true to me because the icons are like the kind of like heads, right? Like they're like kind of. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's probably the same. It's kind of like what they used to when they were teasing the Destiny. Right. They did those icons. And so I think it's. It's probably the same one, which makes, like I said, makes total sense.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: There was also the star spangled musical review, which was a lot of fun.
[00:41:12] Speaker C: Yes. I saw that video that you posted and I reposted it because it was so good. Nathan. Like, I. I love. You know, I love Captain America. You. You even messaged me to say your favorite hero because, you know, I love Captain America.
He's. I mean, Cap is my favorite. The original Cap is my favorite. I also love Sam Wilson as captain, but, you know, Steve Rogers is. He is always going to have, you know, the place in my heart that is most, you know, the first. The first Avenger.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Yeah, this was great. It was about a half hour long. They had a couple singers, a male and a female singer came out and did a bunch of covers of a bunch of really, you know, popular 40s tunes. They had three dancers that were going out and really getting the crowd involved and they do a slow kind of ballad and encourage lots of people to get up and dance and stuff like that and slow dance. And it was. It was a lot of fun. And then they closed it out with, you know, Cap coming out, like you see in the show to. I mean, he wasn't hawking, you know, war bonds or anything, but he was, you know, that kind of same tone. And yeah, there's a. There's a video that we posted of that. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. I thought they. They did really well with that.
[00:42:19] Speaker D: Just a lot of stuff available to do that day too.
[00:42:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, we gotta talk about like the. The creme de la creme of the Marvel activities, which I believe is the deck party. I know. Alicia, you impressed by that? Tell us. And we haven't done Heroes Unite Deck party ourselves. We keep hearing about how great it is. But tell. Give us a little bit of a description without like a spoiler free description because we don't want to know the
[00:42:46] Speaker B: storyline or we can do spoilers. We're just going to say, hey, folks, skip ahead by three minutes if you don't want all the spoilers from the show. You know, take it where you want.
[00:42:56] Speaker C: Yeah, all right. Fair.
[00:42:57] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, the description is basically Tony Stark has this new tech that he's made, made, and there's a couple of villains that come to, you know, take it away.
And there is. There's an on ship fight.
There's actually an on ship fight.
And there are drones that are coming in and the fireworks. Are the drones getting exploded.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:43:25] Speaker D: I love how they tie it in there. So, yeah, that's awesome.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: There's not actual drones.
Clear. They're not blowing up actual Dr.
Yeah. But yeah, it was an amazing. I think we both looked at each other after the show and the event on the deck party and we were like, okay, this displaces Pirate Night. It was absolutely fantastic from a deck party perspective of that kind of thing. And actually, we're not fans of the Pirate night menu.
We actively avoid Pirate Night and typically go to Palo, but we were. I forget which restaurant we were in. And there is a Marvel Day at Sea night, or whatever they called it menu, and it was full of bangers. Like, it was. It was like, I want to say there were probably five or six different pages of food and there's like four pages of entrees and stuff like that. Like, it was a huge menu compared to what they usually do. And everything was amazing. Like, it was impressive. Like, if you're on a Marvel Day at sea and. And you're like, oh man, we're not going to have Pirate Night. You just got an upgrade. Upgrade. A serious upgrade.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: Oh, I love that. That makes me so happy. Because I also not a big fan of the Pirate night menu. I like the deck party, but I, you know, we. Obviously it's a little bit different depending upon what class of ship you're on, but I would prefer.
I know I would prefer the Marvel Heroes Unite deck party over the Pirate deck party. Other than the music on the wish class, I actually really, you know, you got to love like the, the awesome, like hair band music.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Oh, heck yeah.
[00:45:04] Speaker D: The rock and parlay. Yeah, I do like that one.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: Yeah. But other than like that music part of the show, like, I. I feel like I would prefer the Marvel Heroes Unite deck party over that. And then, you know, I love fireworks at sea and I love a good
[00:45:22] Speaker A: menu and the fireworks are really well integrated into the plot of the story. It's not just like a bunch of action happens and then. And now fire fireworks.
It kind of like continues on kind of sporadically and they weave it into the plotline of what's Happening. That was really impressive.
[00:45:38] Speaker C: That's awesome. I love that.
[00:45:40] Speaker D: And just like on Pirate Night, they did have two different shows. So they had, like, Mickey and Minnie's. They had, like, Mickey and Minnie's Superhero Celebration.
No way.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: Is that. When Mickey's wearing his own Captain America T shirt and his A Avengers cap,
[00:45:57] Speaker D: all of them have something.
So Minnie is Ghost Spider. Daisy is Black Widow. Chip and Dale are Thor and Loki.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: Oh, my God, that's so cute.
[00:46:10] Speaker D: Goofy is Iron Man. I'm trying to think. Am I forgetting anyone? Pluto's. Pluto.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: I got. Well, he probably has a collar. That's right.
[00:46:18] Speaker D: Yeah. It's stars.
Blue and white stars. Yeah. So that was really cool. I went to see that because I knew it'd be more for the kids.
It was really fun.
[00:46:29] Speaker C: Fun. I like. I have to go to that. That's, like, the thing I. I like. You know, you get to. You can meet a lot of the other, like, Marvel heroes on the various other ships. Not all of them, but some of them. Of course, you have a few more options on the Destiny than on some of the other ships because you can meet Loki. And of course, Black Panther makes lots of appearances and whatnot. But, um, to me, I always love, like, the different outfits that the Fab 5 or like the Fab 7 8, you know, because you gotta add. You gotta add Daisy and you gotta add Chip and Dale and. Yeah, yeah, the crew. Exactly. So I. I love seeing their different outfits. And I feel like I've seen quite a few pictures of Mickey and his sort of Marvel Day at Sea outfit, but I don't think I've seen all those other guys. So now, Brian, that means we. We have to.
Now that I'm hearing all. I feel like we've gotten so much more detail.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: Sam, you're listening so long.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: I know.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: So, so long.
[00:47:34] Speaker D: Gotta get on it. Come on.
[00:47:36] Speaker C: I know, I know. And. And literally, we're as. We're recording this, we're about to record a show, a live show tomorrow on Pixar Day at Sea, that. That show will actually come out before this one. Well, so. And I know that after talking to our friends Tracy and Michael about Pixar Day at Sea, which I've. You know, we've talked to other folks about it as well. I know I'm gonna to again be like, oh, no, I really want to go on Pixar Day at Sea.
There's just too many cruises I want to go on. You guys. Why don't I have Unlimited budget and unlimited vacation time.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: But I think this, this is leaning into something that Disney Cruise Line is doing right. Especially as they have, you know, they're growing their fleet. We are more than in the middle of more than doubling the fleet. And, and they needed more things to draw people into stuff that's not a Halloween cruise or a Christmas cruise or a brand new ship. And so what are these kind of enduring kind of things that they can do that will entice people to come? And I think they're on the right path now. I did hear it was probably three or four different families where the little kids were going, like, I wish they had a Star Wars Day at sea. And I like, it was all I could do to go like, well, they used to. But yeah, I would love to see them come back. I think they can do more stuff like this. It would be really successful and will help them sell state rooms.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: I just wish they would do it. I mean, they do it at the times of year they do in order to do what you're describing, which is they needed to attract people to get on the ships for something special. I'm wondering if as they have more and more ships, because they do seem to be struggling with capacity, meaning the wrong direction here. Meaning they are, yeah, they, they've got too much capacity and concierge isn't always selling out. Like, I wonder if there's a solution for that where they expand this offering. Maybe bring back Star Wars Day, maybe do another kind of Muppets. Yes, Disney. I've said it now about 15 times.
License in perpetuity, freely given to do Muppets Day at sea, you know, but put those on at times of year when families are sailing too, to just really make sure the ships are sailing full. Because I think it's, I think I'm not convinced that they aren't expanding a little too quickly right now.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: So. Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:48] Speaker C: But I think to your point, Nathan, like, these are.
While you guys didn't book for this particular sailing based on the Marvel Day at Sea, it is an enhancement of the sailing for sure. And there are probably other people who did book, you know, who didn't book. You guys probably booked early, which is why it wasn't announced yet. And but there's probably people who booked much later on and who decided on this particular cruise because of that.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: And that's the other thing they could do is just like none of these cruises get labeled that at the time of booking. So it's like a, it's always a year later that something like guess what, you're on a Marvel Day at Sea cruise.
[00:50:25] Speaker C: Yeah. They just announced for the early, the 2027, the early 2027 cruises, they literally just announced that Marvel and Pixar are going to be back and which dates they're going to be and they had. Those have been on sale for what like six months already? Like why, you know, why did they not announce that six months ago?
[00:50:43] Speaker B: I think longer.
[00:50:43] Speaker C: They.
[00:50:44] Speaker D: No, because they want. Maybe they weren't selling.
It's just an incentive to get more people to book.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Yeah, but, but they seem to keep like these, these days at sea seem to fall about the same time every year on the similar ship, you know. So like I, I think they know in advance where these things are headed. I wonder if they're leaving room for well maybe we just need to not do that one anymore as they did with Star Wars.
[00:51:06] Speaker C: Right. Or, or retheme to something else. Right, right. They're probably sort of leaving it open so that they could do something different if they choose.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: The fact that they haven't brought Star Wars Dead Sea back on the Wish which has the hyperspace lounge is baffling. Especially now it has droids on board. Like they, there is a no brainer connection between that ship and Star wars
[00:51:25] Speaker D: that would get me back on the Wish.
[00:51:27] Speaker C: Yeah. And they could do it for like select four night sailings. Right. They don't even have to, they don't have to bring it on the three night sailings one because that would be quite difficult and those are always weekend sailings. But if they want to fill the ship in that Monday through Friday, you know, Fortnite time, particularly in the like off season when school is in session. Yeah, if they, I think that would be, that would be a winner I think at this point especially because they haven't done it in a, in a while I think since like what is it like 2019 before it was pre pandemic was the last time they did Star Wars Day. And see I just don't remember if it was like if they did any of them in early 2020 before the shutdown. But yeah, it would be really, really smart I think to bring that back now, especially now that there's no star cruiser.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: The only downside that I could see from our Marvel Day XC experience was the fact that we had to move our Palo brunch reservations because I was like well if this is happening and there's clearly we need to push that to the last sea day and not the first sea day.
[00:52:29] Speaker C: No that totally makes sense because there are all these different activities going on. There are all these character meet and greets.
You are going to be kind of running around a lot that one day. That's the other part.
It's probably less of a relaxing cruise for that because you have that one sea day that's really completely taken over by.
[00:52:47] Speaker D: That was a very busy sea day.
[00:52:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Running around, doing all the character meet and greets and. And all that kind of stuff.
And so that, yeah, it definitely changes the dynamic of that day.
And you're. But you're not going to want to have your Apollo brunch in the middle of that day because that's, you know, two hours. I mean, depending upon how fast or slow you like to eat and how many courses you like to eat. Right. I mean, it could be anywhere from like an hour and a half to three hours. I feel like it just depends. I don't know. I feel like we've spent at times, you know, three plus hours in Palo just kind of enjoying and. And chatting with friends.
Yeah. So that. Yeah, that makes sense. Now you guys did, of course, hit up Paulo for brunch. Did you do dinner or just brunch?
[00:53:29] Speaker D: We just did brunch on this one because we had Sterling with us and we didn't want to take away from time with him seeing the restaurants that he hadn't seen before.
[00:53:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, did he enjoy all the Marvel stuff too? Like, is he at all into. He's 14.
[00:53:46] Speaker D: Yeah. I don't know if we saw him at all that day.
[00:53:50] Speaker C: Where was he at? Was he over at. Over at Edge or Vibe?
[00:53:55] Speaker D: Vibe.
We very much just have him do his own thing. On the cruises, there are a couple of rules that we have. You have to have dinner with us and depending on it, he has to go see the shows with us. We were a little lenient with the shows this time around. I recommended to have Sterling go to the very first night. They have like a meet and greet type thing. I said, go do that so you can make friends.
Sterling made friends and we very rarely saw him.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: I feel like other than lunches, I typically saw Sterling at some random part of the ship, like an elevator. And I'd be in and he'd just come around the corner and step in and he'd have a soft serve in his hand.
[00:54:40] Speaker C: I'm like, always an iceberg.
[00:54:42] Speaker D: Always soft serves.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: Always iceberg.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: I love it. I love it. Well, and he's a really outgoing kid.
And so, you know that that may be like for some kids like, that's typical. They make friends, they disappear and it's like, bye mom, bye dad. I never want to see you again. I'll see you at dinner.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: But like, yeah, we know nothing about that.
[00:55:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny because our kid is not nearly. I mean he's. Our son is not nearly as outgoing as Sterling is.
But he's still also like does very similarly to what Sterling does.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: He likes the video games.
[00:55:16] Speaker C: Yeah, he's there. He's there. It's less about the socializing and more about the video games. But he, you know, he's done like the scavenger hunts and things like that that they do in Edge and really enjoys them as well. Yeah.
[00:55:28] Speaker D: Our daughter is very much like Nathan and myself where it's hang around and not go make friends, I guess. No.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: Well, we're introverts. We need to be adopted. We will absolute kind of go off the rails every once in a while, but it's usually because we've made a new best friend who adopts us and takes us out and gets us to go do stuff. And then it's fantastic.
[00:55:52] Speaker B: I have this image in my head from the movies of it's like you and then there's your friend and they're like, go ahead, it's okay.
You're looking over your shoulder like, are you sure?
[00:56:05] Speaker A: There's a little of that. There's a little of that.
[00:56:06] Speaker C: That's hilarious.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: I only see that image cause I'm
[00:56:09] Speaker C: that way and I'm the friend holding his hand, making him do something.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: No, she's the friend. I've shove out in front of me. Like, take her, take her.
She'll be tribute.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: It was a super busy cruise though. I mean, not just Marvel Day at Sea. Like there was a little over 2,500 people, 900 kids on that full ship. That's a full ship. Especially on the Magic or the wonder. 900 kids is very dense usually when we have done the magic and the wonderful.
Most recently it's been a Panama Canal crossing And there's like 90 kids or 75 kids. And this was just a very different vibe from what we're used to. But yeah, we had an absolutely fantastic time and DCL has always took absolutely great care of us. And concierge too. They had a last minute replacement and pulled somebody up from guest services to help out to augment the company crew to be like.
[00:57:14] Speaker C: To be one of the concierge hosts. Like they had.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: Yeah, they had some scheduling stuff come up and one of the folks needed to get Home early, a week early.
And so they pulled somebody up from Guest Services, and she did great. I mean, integrated right in with the team, and, you know, they don't leave anybody behind and, you know, didn't miss a beat at all. So it was an absolutely fantastic cruise.
[00:57:40] Speaker C: That's awesome. You know, we had a very similar experience in on the Wonder in Alaska. When we boarded, there were only two concierge hosts. There was the lead, and there was one host, Amanda, who was. So. It was Ashley and Amanda. Ashley's male Amanda's woman. And Amanda was, like, brand new to concierge. And since she was the second one, they were down a person.
And then Mid Cruise, I can't remember the name, but the third host ended up joining us. Mid cruise is when we ported somewhere in Alaska. There was some issue with the visa, getting into Canada or something like that, and so that she had to join us sort of later in the cruise. But I was so impressed with how they handled it. Like, they were. Like, the rest of the team was so good and. And they didn't, you know, they didn't send us somebody from Guest Services. But the. The head of. I think Guest Services, like, would come and check and help, you know, and help the. The hosts just sort of of backing them up and checking in on them. You could tell, like, because we knew the normal on the wish on the wish on the Magic class is three hosts, and so we knew they were down. I'm sure there were other probably families who hadn't sailed concierge before might not have known that, though. But like I said, I was super impressed with how they handled it. So that's.
[00:58:57] Speaker A: Yeah, we were talking with. We were talking with Diogo about, like, how they handle this because it doesn't happen a lot and they don't have a lot of concierge folks. You know, it just so happened that the prior lead needed to get home early, and she ended up going home a cruise early.
And so, you know, they. But the folks kind of knew something may happen, and so they had some time to prepare and bring somebody in or bring somebody up from Guest Services to help Augment. But Diego was still on board. He was absolutely fantastic. And Mariello was there, and Leslie is who they pulled up from Guest Services, and she. She did absolutely fantastic. Yeah, it was great.
[00:59:39] Speaker B: Is it repeatable? Would you do Marvel Deity at Sea again?
[00:59:43] Speaker D: I would. I don't know if Nathan would, but I would. I quite enjoyed it. There were a lot of characters that I still would have liked to go see. But all the. All the lines were so long.
This. This cruise was very full. Like, Loki's my favorite Marvel villain. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of with them. Didn't happen. They had, like, characters that I've never seen on a cruise. Like, Captain Marvel was there.
[01:00:07] Speaker C: Oh, cool.
[01:00:08] Speaker D: Yeah. Like, I would have loved to have gotten a picture with her.
And. Yeah, they just had so many characters throughout the day, and it was just a lot of fun. They had so many things. They had special drinks. They had special food out on. On. Out on deck where all the bars are. You know, they have that circular menu. Menu. They had a special Marvel Day at Sea circular menu with a couple drinks on there, too.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: So they had a kid version or a Marvel version of, like, the lightsaber training academy that we, you know, you've seen in the parks that they.
I think it was.
It was Cap, you know, Sam and Black Widow training people.
[01:00:52] Speaker D: Black Widow?
[01:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:53] Speaker D: It was not Hawk. Hawkeye. The lady.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: That's Black Widow.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: No, no, no. So Sam and Black Widow were teaching kids how to use.
[01:01:00] Speaker C: Oh, the female archer.
The new Hawkeye.
[01:01:04] Speaker B: The new Hawkeye.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: And Hawkeye and her were doing arrows. And then Black Widow and Sam were teaching kids how to use the shield.
[01:01:12] Speaker C: Oh, cool.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:14] Speaker C: That's awesome. That's really cool.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: What would you think about. So, like, one thing I've. Cause they've got all these lines on the Destiny now. Sounds like these days at sea have lots of long lines to them too. I guess we'll check in on Pixar. Talk to Tracy and Michael tomorrow night. But lots of lines coming to Disney Cruise Line. Like, one. How do you feel about that generally? But also, like, they have the technology. Right? I mean, we could do virtual cues on board. Please. I know there are so many people out there are going to send me hate mail about, oh, I like to leave my phone in the room. I'm on vacation. Okay, fine. But most of us don't.
So, like, we could do, like, virtual queues on board or something. So, like, you can do other things and then just show up and, like, maybe wait 10 minutes and get your photo. Like, but. But I don't know if that's a solution or if that makes it worse. What do you think about all these lines on board?
[01:02:02] Speaker D: I think a solution would be to have the characters available the entire length of the cruise rather than just a single day. You know, there's going to be a Marvel day at sea where they have, like, the.
The different events and stuff. But I think you can balance out the characters throughout the entirety of the cruise and maybe help with those lines a little bit.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah, and they're trying with the, the ticketed ones.
[01:02:26] Speaker C: Those ones are spread out across the cruise.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah, but I think there's just, there's just a cultural thing. We were sitting. I forget where we were sitting. We were sitting and having a drink or. Yeah, we were sitting in Soul Cat, and I think it was the last night and it was because Seoul duo was on board and we absolutely love them.
We were sitting there and chatting with them and listen. Listening. And then the line for dinner form, for, like the early dinner form, like 20 plus minutes before, before dinner time. And I'm like, what are we doing?
[01:03:02] Speaker D: It's just, don't need to rope talk.
[01:03:04] Speaker A: It's just dinner.
[01:03:05] Speaker B: Like, I have never, like, I just want to say, like, I have never seen a line for, on any other cruise line for dinner that I can remember. Right. Like, and I get that there's a show, but I'll give my normal PSA at this point too. Like, nothing happens with the show for the first 20 to 30 minutes of dinner. So, like, if you show up 15 minutes in. Yes. Your servers are going to come over and want to know what your dinner order is fairly rapidly. So they don't, you know, get into a weird thing with service, but they're also not going to be upset with you for being like 10, 15 minutes into dinner. Like, they're still seating people at that point. So, like, you don't have to wait in line. I have just never, I've never seen or encountered this level of lines on any other cruise line, so.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and you're probably making it a little worse on yourself anyway, because if you're participating in that rush, you're just slamming the kick kitchen and they're going to have a tough time getting everything out in a good pace anyway, so.
[01:03:57] Speaker B: Well, I, I, I think the kitchen probably just operates at whatever pace they're going to operate. So if you're there early, then you're just waiting longer for food to come out. Right? I mean, yeah, that's fair.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: That's fair.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Yeah. I hate those lines. I really wish Disney would do so. The ticketed events help, but then they're limited. Right. I mean, the virtual queue would be limited, too, if you did it. I get it.
I think part of the problem with having the characters out all the time is probably that it's all the same people doing all the same characters, and then people be like, oh, I didn't get my picture with Don because they had this Marvel Day. And then the lines of Marvel Day will probably still be long because people be, oh, I brought this special outfit for Marvel Day at Sea and wanted to get my character photo with that outfit on. So, yeah, I don't. I don't know how they do this, but if these start to turn into the theme parks, you know, at sea, which is the. The Destiny is close to, like, theme park level lines to get to see characters and have these experiences, like, do
[01:04:47] Speaker D: you think that'll change as.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: As it.
[01:04:50] Speaker D: As it goes on in time for the Destiny?
[01:04:53] Speaker B: I'd like for it to mellow out. I'm definitely going to pay it. We're on the Destiny again at the end of the year, and I really want to see what does this look like now? Do people have their favorites? I mean, because it could go a couple different ways. It could just stay the same because it's part of the entertainment offering on board. And so everyone's trying to do all this stuff.
It could abate kind of across the board. I've done it once. I don't need to do it again. There's just the one that I really like, I want to go back and do again. That's really sort of thing where I fear is it's going to equalize out somewhere in between where it's going to be. There's some really popular things that just never die down. And then there's some things that are less popular that do. So. Like the Cruella troublemaking with Cruella, that thing is. Was just always subscribed. And even today, like, with those piano bars on board, they're always full, like, they just didn't build them big enough, like, for their popularity.
[01:05:43] Speaker A: So even hyperspace started out with like, long queues and virtual queues, and you have Haunted Mansion.
[01:05:50] Speaker D: Haunted Mansion.
[01:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:51] Speaker A: And. And that did abate. So maybe it'll.
[01:05:54] Speaker B: But those abated. Those abated in a different way, I feel, because hyperspace people are kind of like, huh, kind of a letdown, you know, and then. And now they got the droids back, and it does look like it's getting fuller again. And then Haunted mansions. The Haunted Mansion's not a letdown in terms of a space, but the drinks aren't great, so they don't keep you there. Right. So. Yeah.
[01:06:16] Speaker A: Well, I think the other thing is just take longer cruises. You know, they do all these special things on. Well, no, seriously, if you even. Even the normal character lines on our cruise were long. Like, we didn't stand in any of the normal character lines. And usually we will hit some characters or some backdrops or things like that because it's fun and.
But we just didn't because it was a shorter cruise and if you kind of subtract the one Marvel day for, from it then you really have only nights to do all of the other stuff that you'd rather do. And so all that stuff is just over subscribed for the density. But if you do a week long cruise, it doesn't have one of these special events on it, you're going to have a better vacation anyway because you're on a cruise ship for seven nights and them taking care of you. And if you don't miss Donald or if you miss Daisy on like you know, night one, she's going to be back on night two, three, four, five, six and seven and you don't have that pressure to make sure you go do all that stuff. So my solution everybody is to just book a two week long cruise.
[01:07:16] Speaker C: You can do it because that's everybody.
[01:07:18] Speaker B: And the other thing was with your calculation on the five night cruise you've got the one night so you're down to four nights but then two nights you're in port which means the whole day the ship is, is just. There's not going to be characters out around the ship very often.
[01:07:30] Speaker C: At least not that many. Yeah, not that many.
[01:07:32] Speaker A: Well, here's.
[01:07:34] Speaker C: Can I ask a question of Magic?
[01:07:37] Speaker B: You know that's what I was going to ask that was going to ask.
[01:07:40] Speaker C: I know we've talked about this kind of off air a bit, the four of us and so I wanted to ask you on the air you. The Magic is the oldest ship in the fleet. Let's be honest, she's showing her age in certain ways. Would you guys go back on the magic? You've been on the magic now twice in the last six months and then you know, but you hadn't been on her in a really long time and I know you wanted to get Sterling on the magic so he could complete his grand slam or seven Dwarves, whatever we want to call it. Right. And so I'm, I'm curious.
Yeah, I'm curious. Would you, you choose to go back on the magic if you had the opportunity for another Marvel day at sea or some other theme you wanted to do or are you really looking at the newer ships now?
[01:08:25] Speaker D: I think I'd go on it if it was a longer itinerary for the same reason that we've talked about before. I really do prefer the longer cruises. There's just a totally different pace with those.
And I thought the Magic was fine for was a 23 year old ship more than one.
Oh, I was wrong.
[01:08:44] Speaker C: 20. What is she? She was 19.
[01:08:47] Speaker B: 98.
[01:08:48] Speaker A: 98. So it's 20. Yeah.
[01:08:49] Speaker C: Math.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: 28.
[01:08:50] Speaker C: Yeah. She's more than 25.
[01:08:51] Speaker D: Sorry. Yeah, yeah. I think still looking great. The upkeep honor is amazing. They're doing a wonderful job and she's about to go in for a dry dock again, I believe.
Yeah, I. And I love the smaller ships now. The Wonder is number two behind the Treasure. For me, I think the Wonder is still number one for Nathan and we, we really just enjoy the smaller, more intimate feeling of those ships. So I would definitely go on the Magic again.
[01:09:17] Speaker A: Brian. I heard say on a recent episode and I don't remember whether it was a live episode or me catching up on stuff, but you mentioned that there was a couple like carpet spots on the Magic that needed look to get, you know, needed to be replaced. I think near like Rapunzel's and stuff like that. And like. Yeah, I noticed a couple of those things this time around that I didn't really notice in November, but I was looking for it. But you know, she's going in for a two week Dr. Dry dock in a month from now. A little more than a month from now. Five weeks from now.
[01:09:47] Speaker C: So given her age, she has to go in for a dry dock I think every two years.
[01:09:51] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[01:09:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: The one thing that I will say she looked the most run down with was her exterior paint. But she's gonna go into a dry dock in a few weeks. I'm sure they're gonna repaint like especially the waterline and below is looking a little rough.
[01:10:07] Speaker C: Right.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: That red on the wall.
[01:10:09] Speaker C: Yeah. They do say do touch up the paint. Paint when they're in dock on the places above the waterline but below the waterline they can't get to. Right. Yeah.
[01:10:18] Speaker B: The consistent problem I've seen with her, I mean I, I'm usually not the nitpicking carpet spots kind of person, but like I noticed when they did the concierge overhaul that, you know, I was talking to somebody and they're like, you know, just. It didn't look like they quite put the attention to detail in the overhaul of those rooms and the way that they've done on some of the other ships. Like it was just. That was little things that, you know, didn't impact the cruise, didn't impact my enjoyment of the room or Anything like that, you know, it did. I was like, when I looked at it, I was like, oh, yeah, no, I kind of see what you're talking about. But I think the bigger issue is like, she's always had, or at least since we've been sailing Disney, she's always had like AC and heating challenges. Like, the ship is like either too hot, too cold, or very differential across the ship that, like the Wonder doesn't seem to have, the newer ships don't seem to have. And then we've just had like every time we've been on her, there's been some significant mechanical issue happening with staterooms, either for us or friends we're sailing with with and like plumbing mostly, where we're just like, you know, so it's like, yeah, I, I, you know, I just look, 30 years is a long time.
Most ships would have been sold down market by now maybe once or even twice. And so, you know, I think they're doing an admirable and an excellent job of upkeep on that ship. And it's not anything that would make me not sail on her. I'm a little gun shy with the magic, just because every time we've been on there's been some issue and we're like, what is happening? We just have the worst luck on this ship. Uh, but yeah, I think I. So, yeah, she's got to go in every two years now. I think that's primarily for mechanical and engine repair and all that sort of stuff. I mean, sooner or later it will become more expensive for them to repair these engines that are on board that are 30 years old than it will be to just, you know, you know, find a new ship and make the investment and keep going. I, I do suspect the new ships, the new smaller ships are planning to build that are what, four or five years off now? I think.
[01:12:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I think 2031 is the first
[01:12:11] Speaker B: I would expect to see. I hope what Disney does is they make an announcement about like a major farewell like season for these ships.
[01:12:20] Speaker A: I think we will see the three new class smaller ships come out. That's 29, 30, 31. And I think we will see 2032 will be the farewell to the magic. 2033 will be the farewell to the Wonder. Unfortunately, I think the Wonder is aging a lot better than the Magic did. I think they, you know, Fin Cantieri learned a bunch and Disney learned a bunch after the Magic that they made some changes for the Wonder. But yeah, logistically it just doesn't make sense. So I know we're close to time, but I have a question back for you, Brian and Alicia and I were debating this too. So what is the disposition of the Magic and Wonder? Is this a ship that can be sold down market or is it so Disney that it goes to the scrappy yard?
[01:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it has to go to the scrap yard.
Say, 100% certainty they will not sell this ship down market because it is just.
Yeah. They would have to rip everything out of it and. And even just body.
[01:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll be too expensive for Disney and too expensive for a buyer to turn this ship into a generic cruise ship. And like. Yeah, where Sam was just headed too, with like the. This, the lines of the, like, it screams Disney. Every time you see a Disney ship, you know, you're looking at a Disney
[01:13:35] Speaker C: ship other than the adventure.
[01:13:37] Speaker B: The adventures, yeah. What I would honestly like to see,
[01:13:39] Speaker C: I mean, they did Disney it pretty well, given what they had to work with.
[01:13:43] Speaker A: It's better than artist rendering.
[01:13:45] Speaker C: Yes, it's much better than artist rendering. I think that ship actually does look nice, but it's. And it does more look like a Disney ship than I thought it could. Right. But it does look diff. Very. I mean, you can tell when you see the adventure. You. The other ships or you see them from some distance. It's sometimes hard to tell which class even it is. But the adventure, there's no mistaking it. Yeah.
[01:14:07] Speaker B: Given the.
Given the challenges they seem to be facing as they expand with kind of, you know, occupancy. I guess I'll use that term, occupancy. I. I would kind of be interested to see if they did, like, one of two things with these ships. One is they announce a retirement early and they take some of the stuff off of these ships and incorporate it into the new ships that they're building. So you get that like, kind of. I'd almost. I would love for them to announce that the smaller ships, the first two that they make, are going to be the Magic two and the Wonder two. And. And then they kind of like bring some of the flavor of those ships into the ship itself, along with a lot of, you know, kind of new, you know, everything else new kind of thing. Like, can the chandelier come into a new ship? You know, just. Just something like that. Right. I would also love to see them. They've got a devoted fan base. They could easily rip things off of these ships and go auction them for charity, and people will buy them like gangbusters to put in their homes. Right. So, like, I think It'd be great if they did that, that kind of thing. But yeah, I.
[01:14:59] Speaker C: Can we put Andy's room in our house, Brian
[01:15:03] Speaker B: as an addition maybe.
Yeah, but y. Yeah. So anyway, I hope, I hope they. One, I hope they give a good farewell to these ships. Two, I hope they find ways to incorporate some of what they have into the new ships. And three, it's a no brainer for me to like, you know, get some stuff off of there and put it up online for, for charitable auction. People will buy it. Then you can recover some of your. You can cover some of your scrap costs if you have to. But. Yeah, but unfortunately I think there will be a video of someone somewhere at the beach in India watching this thing roll up.
[01:15:31] Speaker A: I for one am very much looking for forward to a piece of the Disney wonder to live on the shelf above my shoulder here.
[01:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that would be awesome.
[01:15:41] Speaker B: Just think about the stateroom plaques, the artwork from the staterooms, the artwork from throughout the ship. All of that stuff. Just take it out and auction it off. I would buy that if the fantasy were up for whatever. I'd buy that gigantic Remy a meal thing that goes, goes to Remy.
[01:16:01] Speaker C: I love it. Anyway, well, you guys, we gotta ask you, of course, what's next? Like what have you got booked? So you have some placeholders waiting for bookings, like what's on tap? We know you're booking the DVC cruise because. And we're booking it too. So we'll be on together for that sailing. Maybe you have to do a special live episode for that sailing.
[01:16:23] Speaker B: Why should do a live episode of the booking process?
Swearing and cursing and.
[01:16:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but, but yeah, tell us, what have you got? What have you got on tap in terms of not just cruises but Disney vacations? Because I know you guys have other Disney vacations probably on, on the calendar.
[01:16:40] Speaker D: Our next cruise is in June and it will be the seven night on the Destiny.
[01:16:45] Speaker C: Oh, fantastic, you guys, no short cruises. Yeah, you guys are gonna get all the menus on that cruise.
[01:16:52] Speaker A: And then we're hitting Disneyland in April for spring. Spring break.
Yeah. And then, yeah, the June cruise. We're also going to be in the parks.
Our daughter turns 21 here in a couple months and her request was drinking around the world. Yeah, all too happy to oblige.
[01:17:13] Speaker C: I love it.
[01:17:14] Speaker B: You know what?
There's a fun. I don't know if they still sell it. If they don't, I might be able to just give you mine because I haven't used it. There was somebody selling. They make race Medals. And what they did is a drink around the world medal where it's like a big passport book medal that you wear around your neck and has these empty slots on the sides.
[01:17:30] Speaker C: Do you have that, Brian?
[01:17:31] Speaker B: And you have these little magnets for each country. And as you drink at a country, you put the magnet on the metal to show that you've completed the country.
[01:17:37] Speaker C: So wait, do you actually have that, Brian?
[01:17:39] Speaker B: Yes, downstairs on my desk. Yeah, I've had it forever.
[01:17:40] Speaker C: I did not.
[01:17:42] Speaker B: I bought it right before the world shut down because I thought, oh, we're going to be going back to Epcot. Wouldn't this be fun? And then the world shut down and we decided to. Never done it.
[01:17:48] Speaker C: Okay, you got it. You have to. We're going to. We got it. Was it like Etsy or something? Somebody made it?
[01:17:53] Speaker B: No, it was like a. It was like a. It was like the. I'll look it up. But it was not Etsy. It was like a third party website. Yeah.
[01:17:59] Speaker C: Okay, well, we're gonna find it for you guys. Cause I feel like this needs to happen. Okay.
[01:18:04] Speaker D: I love it.
[01:18:05] Speaker C: And then do you have, do you have anything booked on the Destiny?
[01:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's June.
[01:18:09] Speaker C: Oh, June is the destiny. That's right, the seven night.
[01:18:12] Speaker D: And it gets back into port on July 4th.
And we have Poly Bungalow that night to watch the 250th fireworks.
[01:18:25] Speaker C: That's the biggest, I mean, other than the one in D.C. disney has the biggest fireworks for Fourth of July. Yeah, that's going to be fantastic.
[01:18:33] Speaker A: And we're spending two nights there in a bungalow.
Go, go. DVC points.
Yeah, we're very much looking forward to that.
[01:18:44] Speaker D: And then Aulani for the holidays.
[01:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:47] Speaker C: Oh, fantastic. Well, you guys, you have so many amazing things planned. Of course you have to come back on the show to tell what you think of the Destiny, especially after that seven night itinerary. Because we of course have not done the seven night itinerary. I'm sure they'll do some special things for that itinerary.
Yeah, I think it'll be, it'll be a really great cruise. And, and we'll of course want to hear about all the menus and any of the special things they did for that cruise. So why don't you tell folks though, where they can find you if they want to follow you on the socials or if they want to listen to your podcast, adventures and Magic mousecapades.
[01:19:21] Speaker D: Nathan, why don't you take this one?
[01:19:23] Speaker A: All right, well, we
[email protected] this is where you can find us links to socials. From there, we're pretty much our mouse capades on all of the Insta twit. Well not Twitter anymore, Insta Facebook threads, all this stuff we post over on YouTube. But I have a face for radio so that's just a static image in our audio feed. But yeah, we love having fun and covering all the Disney stuff and talking not just to folks that we know, but listeners and guests and cast members that we've had on.
And yeah, we just kind of dive into the whole Disney universe.
[01:20:03] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us guys. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. We always love hanging out with you, our neighbors and we will see you real soon.
[01:20:13] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:20:18] Speaker E: Well thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit the those five stars on Apple podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to mypathunwinding.com 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 Etsy store. We sell some fun fan inspired magnets Link to our Patreon. If you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also as a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here at least on a few blog articles that we've written, so DCLDuo.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also, of course, email
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-413-5590. That's 402-413-5590. The DCL 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 so those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflective views 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
[01:22:18] Speaker B: with the DCL Duo.
[01:22:26] Speaker C: Sam.
