[00:00:00] Speaker A: There is one thing that I desperately avoid in life, and that is getting called up on stage for anything.
And I will say, I guess I didn't technically get called up on stage.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: No, just audience participation.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: The stage came to me.
Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL Duo Podcast. Brought to you by my path unwinding travel, and also our good friends over at the WWDW magazine, the DCL magazine.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Welcome to Danny, who are so excited to have you. And in honor of your recent visit to Walt Disney World for news media event about the rock and roller coaster featuring the Muppets, I had to wear my Muppets shirt just for you, Danny.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Obviously, we're all very excited for some Muppet goodness, Danny.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: She needs very little excuse to wear Muppet shirts, just, you know, just so you know.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: That's true. I might have to go buy those Muppet plushies. By the way, Brian, I don't know if you know this, but there are a bunch of new Muppet plushies that were released just this past week.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Like keychain ones? Those ones?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: No, like the. Like, the ones that are the size of, like, Mickey and Minnie from the ships. The plushies.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: You know what? I was recently gifted at this Muppet event. I was gifted a new animal plushie.
And he's pretty. He's pretty awesome.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: I want the Swedish Chef and Gonzo. Those are the two that I'm like.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Is Fozzie Bear not an option? Do they not have a Fozzie Bear?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: No, they do have a Fozzie, but I have a really great Fozzie from, like, I want to say, the 90s that's actually sitting in Nathan's closet, as well as a really great Kermit that's from back then as well. And so I feel like I don't need a new Fozzie or a new Kermit, because I have, you know, just fantastic older ones. But I don't know that. Like, I feel like Swedish Chef and Gonzo weren't, like, that easily available back then.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: No, you always want to go with the more obscure characters because you never know if there's going to be merch made again. So, like, if you have the opportunity, seize it. Definitely.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Exactly. You'll find Kermit. I mean, you'll find Kermit over and over again. Maybe Miss Piggy over and over again. Fozzie. Probably over and over again. But, like, give me, like, a beaker. Give me Swedish Chef. Right? Like, give me something a little bit.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: I want Statler and Waldorf. I want. That's who I want.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: That would be a fun set.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Well, anyway, we don't have any news to chat about today, but we wanted to bring Danny in, of course, to be able to plug the DCL magazine which the first edition is out. It's in Danny's hot little hand.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: It's real.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: We made it real. We have to check our mail today because we had our mail stopped for a week. And so because were out of town and we got back yesterday, no mail on Sunday. We haven't checked our mail today, Danny, I'm sorry to say.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: That's okay. Tell you what, I'll be the news item for this week is that DCL magazines are shipping. They're in your mailboxes. Hopefully people already have them and are enjoying them.
That's the news that we can talk about this week.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. Now we wanted to bring Danny on as another Disney Cruise line expert like ourselves. We like to talk about entertainment on board, but a lot of the time when we focus on entertainment, we talk about the shows in the Walt Disney Theater that are like the Disney stage productions. And I know Danny and I both have a very strong affinity for all of the theater productions on Disney Cruise Line. One of the things we rarely talk about, and I know that Brian and I are going to want to talk about this in relation to our cruise that we just got off of on the Treasure. When we dive into our trip report.
There are other entertainers that Disney brings on board and we wanted to see if Danny had any thoughts about what kind of other performers, either actual or just sort of categories of performers that you feel like you see on Disney Cruise Lines and which ones you or what you enjoy seeing on Disney Cruise Line for sure.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: So I'm sure your audience probably knows this already. But you'll get these additional performances on the longer sailings. When you get into the 5, 6, 7 night sailing itineraries, Disney's got their marquee productions in the Walt Disney Theater. Things like Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, Moana, all of these big name shows. But then when get on the longer sailings, they don't run the shows multiple times. They bring in other acts, musical performers, magicians. If you're really lucky, they'll do a Broadway showcase that is definitely one of my all time favorite. If you happen to be on one of those sailings, they will bring in a mix of performers that you know like big name Disney Broadway performers and other lesser known musical talents and then they will do these like jukebox renditions of all of your favorite Disney Broadway hits. Those are really special performances if you get to catch them.
Really, really impressive. I also, I love a magician.
Whether it's, you know, a big magic show on stage or just some up close sleight of hand magic anywhere you go, if there is a magic show, I am fully, I am sat down, I am excited, I am just ready. I never lost that childhood sense of wonder. You know, seeing somebody do the fantastical, I just love it. Makes me so happy.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Well, we just saw.
I should also say for our audience out there, if you go into our back catalog, we had Taylor Mason on the show at one point and we had. I'm trying to remember the name of Siegfried.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: What's his last name? I can't remember his last name.
[00:05:57] Speaker C: Magician Siegfried of Siegfried and Roy.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: No, not that Siegfried. Not that Siegfried.
[00:06:04] Speaker C: That would have been pretty amazing.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: But yeah, we have, I had a wonderful magician who also is on dcl.
We haven't seen him actually in a couple of years, but we had had him on our show when he was, he had been on one of our recent sailings and then we, we just saw Jessica Jane, who is fantastic on board this last sailing. A magician as well. She like swallowed razor blades. It was crazy. I don't even know. Like I, I'm, I'm like dead serious. It was just like, just some of the scariest stuff. I mean that was in the adult only show but she did some really crazy stuff in the show as well. We, we saw both of her shows. I've been talking with her on Instagram for a while and so I think we're going to try and schedule her to have her on our show at some point. I'll probably be a recorded show just because she's such a busy travel schedule so making a Monday night work. But yeah, we, I love a magician like you, Danny. I'll, I'll go see. You know, we love seeing magicians on board.
I have seen a couple of good mentalists on board as well. But of course the best in the premiere, as you mentioned, is the Broadway Star Series 10th and Main Productions which is run by Susan Egan and what's his name, Jonathan. I'm forgetting his last name. But they have this production company and they basically contract with Disney Cruise Line to put Broadway performers and some of whom are Disney Broadway performers, some of whom are just Broadway performers and they come on as you mentioned and they'll sing in the family show. They'll typically sing sort of the Disney greats, right? Great ballads, some great villain songs. And then they'll do an adult only show where they'll typically do more mainstream,
[00:07:50] Speaker C: you know, Broadway stuff, a larger Broadway catalog. Honestly, those performances are really special. You get a chance to see some big name talents.
Even if you don't recognize the names, the voices are incredible. And you know, I like that format because, you know, maybe people aren't as steeped in the Broadway knowledge, but they know the hits from the big, you know, the big shows, the big showstopping numbers and it's really fun to, you know, get everybody excited and enthusiastic and tapping along. Yeah. If you can be on an itinerary with one of those shows, you're in for a treat.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I always, I always say too, don't, don't sleep on like go to the main stage version but then also don't sleep on the adult version of the shows because like for Jessica Jane, it was a family friendly kind of mainstay show, but then she got into some of the stuff that Disney wouldn't let her do in front of children, like swallowing razor blades because they don't want the kids to think, oh, I can do that. Yeah. So, yeah,
[00:08:52] Speaker B: right. We don't want kids going and trying to swallow razor blades back when they get home. So that's why they don't do those. But anyway, Dani, we so love our partnership with you all. Will you tell folks if they want to get the DCL magazine, the WW magazine, the DLR magazine, all the merch, where can they go for all of those things?
[00:09:16] Speaker C: Absolutely. So you can find us at wdw-magazine.com that's our home on the web. You can also go to dcl-magazine.com you'll find us under those names on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube. And if you want to pick up your very own copy of DCL magazine, we have a code for DCL duo listeners to save you a bit of money and bring some of that magic home.
If you like the show, I'm confident you'll like the magazine. We even have an article written by Brian in this inaugural issue that is a really special story about a journey you did to Pulpit Rock in Norway.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a great excursion. I also wanted to call out really fast. There's a couple of comments rolling in about some acts on board that people really love. So Junk apparently is one that folks,
[00:10:08] Speaker B: they're similar to like buckets and boards. They play, play percussion with all the different things.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, like, like Jamitors kind of thing.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah, like Stomp.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Oh, there's other performers you had mentioned singing acts, but once I've seen a couple of different, let's call them boy band, acapella style groups. I've seen a couple of those, usually some Orlando based ones. Seen them on, on DCL as well. Not in the last couple of cruises that we've been on, but have seen them on in the past. And so yeah, there's some really great, some great acts.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Danny, I also want to give you a chance, you guys. I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to skip over this. So you started a podcast, you know,
[00:10:49] Speaker C: but you guys, thank you.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Thank you. We're Disney Cruise Line focused. You are all things Disney. So. And we can't, we can't even begin to cover the entertainment and the parks and all that stuff on this show. We have day jobs.
So tell people about your new podcast.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: That's right. Thank you so much, Brian. So we've just started Parks and Pages. You will find us everywhere. You enjoy your podcast. We are focused mostly on the theme park experience, but like at WDW magazine, we generally talk about the whole Disney. You know, theme parks, entertainment, cruises, resorts, films and television. You name it. If it's about Disney, we're excited to talk about it. Parks and Pages. I believe we are. Episode 5 Tuesdays is our release day, so episode 5 is coming out tomorrow.
It's really fun. It's hosted with my friend and magazine photographer, CJ who is local to the theme parks in Florida. Great guy, tons of knowledge, really fun person to be around. And it's just a way for us to go even deeper than the stories we tell in the magazine or things that don't make the cut because we only have so many pages and so many words in each issue of the magazine. So there's an opportunity for us to tell even more stories, share things that don't suit the magazine but are about Disney theme parks and the experiences we have and the things we want to talk about. And of course, we are going to have to find time in our schedule to have you two on as our DCL experts.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: We will never shy away from another opportunity to talk about Disney Cruise Line for sure.
And Sam, we did miss one news item. Someone reminded me, because last week we were on the sailing and there was this errant host from Disney Parks Brazil.
They posted a lovely video about Disney Cruise Line and at the end they had a tagline in Portuguese that said something sailing your way soon now. They took that video down after we posted about it. They've since we've reposted it commentary, they've now put it back up but without the tagline if I recall correctly. So don't know what that means. I will say I am doubtful that they are headed to Brazil in the next year or two if they were going to. That said, they've built quite the audience down in Brazil. They've hosted a Run Disney event down there, a D23 mini event.
I don't know what you think, Danny, but I think sooner or later with this new idea of theme park at sea, with the adventure and being able to kind of bring those experiences, as Josh tomorrow said a couple of years ago, D23 to the underserved markets around the world that don't have access easily to a theme park. I absolutely think probably in my estimation it's probably one of the Meridian class ships or they'll rotate one of the the older Wish class ships down there for some part of a season, maybe a sailing or two or a season of sailings like they did in Australia.
I think that's in the horizon. I don't know what you think, Dave, but I think that's on the horizon.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: I agree with that assessment. I know that there is a huge contingent of Disney fans in Brazil.
We see their influence coming to the parks. I see their traffic on my website. We know that we get a lot of hits. We've had people ask for a translation of the magazine into Portuguese.
So I know the audience is there. I know it's very popular with Disney bringing so many new cruise ships online. I don't think that they're going to be retired, hiring the older ships. I think the strategy with the additional ships in the fleet is to unlock new routes and new ports of call. And so I agree with you. I'm not sure exactly what size of ship or if it's going to be newer or older, but I would expect to see ships rotating around to new itineraries, new ports. And like we saw with Australia, there will probably be a season of trial to see how things go.
I don't know that we're going to see a ship calling a port in Brazil their home base, at least not in the immediate future. But I would not at all be surprised to see new itineraries maybe in like the 2028 season just based on how long, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes infrastructure and planning these routes and securing your ports and you know, so that's not going to happen tomorrow, but I do think it's coming.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Well, the big, the big obstacle these days is whether the support the port supports the fuel that they need for the ship because lng.
Yeah, all that sort of stuff. So I'm sure the, that, I mean Brazil is a massive port so I'm, I'm sure that they will have that online if they don't already.
But it does open up some. We did a, we did a really fun celebrity cruise like 20 years ago where you know, left from Florida, went through the Panama Canal, but instead of coming up the west coast of the US it made a left and went down the west coast of South America. And so that's really, I mean, I think, I think be really attractive for Disney fans even here in the US to be able to sail out of some of these ports. So, so yeah, that'll be interesting for sure.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: And I know the Disney loving audience is there. They do D23 events in Brazil run Disney like you mentioned.
We know that the audience is there and there is a passion for Disney.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Well, we heard maybe a year or two ago that they were hiring more Portuguese speakers in their call centers even for Disney Cruise Line as well.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Very interesting.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Well, Danny, good as always to see you and like I said, always a treat. We're happy to come over and talk Disney Cruise Line with you anytime. And I, I tell Tim I've got my article in draft. It's coming his way soon. I think. I got the reminder email from him for the next edition of the DCL magazine, so.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. So issue one is in mailboxes now and we are hard at work on issue two.
Looking forward to having more contributions from you both.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: All right, thanks, Danny. We're going to head over to our show. Have a good night.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: All right, everybody. So we're going to be talking about the Disney Treasure tonight. It's just the two of us. We just got back last night from Orlando after disembarking the Treasure on Saturday.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got, I've got a bit of the cruise crud. So I just want to warn people, I know my voice sounds a little off and I'm quite stuffy and I might be a little lower energy than I normally am. Is I, I, I brought home a souvenir that nobody wants to bring home.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Bree. Andy's energy, energy, energy. There you go. Yes. For those of you don't know, Andy is one of the concierge hosts on board his tagline for sure. But so let's, let's start. The headline was we had a great time.
There are definitely some opportunities, I would say that we each sort of discovered. I, I kind of want to start with the online check in. So we, we sailed. So just to set the stage here.
Yeah, to set the stage here, we sailed the, the Disney Treasure Eastern Caribbean. So port stops in Tortola and St. Thomas Seven Night.
We did use a discount that we had to book ourselves into concierge.
It's rare for us these days with the pricing the way it is.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: It was our first time sailing concierge on the Treasure. Actually the only Wish class ship we had sailed in concierge on previously was the Wish we had not sailed Treasure or Destiny in concierge. We still haven't sailed Destiny in concierge and we don't have any plans to.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: And it's some exciting new stuff in concierge this time that we didn't get to experience on the, on the Wish.
We sailed in a one of the forward facing concierge rooms. It's on deck 11 so they have that row that sits right above the bridge and has these nice huge windows. We are not.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: It's an ocean view, not a veranda.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: We are not, I will just say for those who don't know, we are not huge veranda people.
Not because we don't like a veranda but because we just don't find we use it a ton. And so we tend to go for ocean view rooms even as a regular stateroom category.
So to go to the online check in process for a minute. So we have heard that Disney has now switched to a new backend system. I think it's called Wave, which is probably just a white labeled kind of version of some other system.
It has caused quite the challenge for Disney on the back end. They've had some hiccups along the way and we had heard, I think a couple weeks ago now it was the dream sailing out of Fort Lauderdale that there were huge lines at the port, lots of manual check in processes happening.
And so before the cruise we, I dutifully went on the day after because we're concierge, because we're Pearl, we don't have to select, you know, poor arrival time. So I'm less apt to be up in the evening to do the check in. But I went in and I did my online check in through the app as I always have. Everything seemed to work flawlessly.
We were packing and I realized Oh, I don't know that I've printed out my port arrival form. Turns out I had. Turns out I had. But I went on to check our online check in and it was still pending. And this was like the Thursday before.
We were leaving Friday to get on the ship on Saturday and man, was it a mess.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: So everyone in the Facebook group was still pending basically all through Thursday, all through Friday, we kept seeing posts from people on the Facebook, Facebook group freaking out. We know as long as you've got your port arrival form, if you got to check in, you can do it at the port, right? You can have all your documents and whatnot and they'll take care of you. It just may mean everything is slow for boarding. And it was very slow for boring. Not for us because we had, as Brian mentioned, because we're selling concierge, you can arrive for port arrival time from the earliest to the latest. So we always arrive at the earliest port arrival time. Because if they're going to have delays in check inside, that's going to hit people like later in the day worse. It's like five minutes, everybody else is delayed later an hour.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: If you get delayed five minutes from your first meeting in the morning, then you're 20 minutes behind by your last meeting of the day.
So like before we even left, I went on and first thing that happened was I couldn't even access the website. Like I kept getting forbidden, access denied. And yes, I use multiple browsers.
I used private and incognito modes. I could not even get to the Disney Cruise Line website.
When we finally did get in, Sam was able to get in on her phone.
All of that great check in information that we had provided months earlier was gone.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: So I had to redo a bunch of the information like where we were staying, what airplane we were coming in on, that sort of a thing.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: So I had to redo the online check in.
When we got to the port, I will say because we were early, we were, you know, in concierge, we were first in and the only hiccup we had at the port, well before the port, I was trying to update our, our onboard account with a, with our credit card and it would just not take it. It kept losing it.
We finally got that we thought squared away. We showed up to the port, went in. The only thing that happened at check in was that they needed to take a photo of Sam. So obviously her photo got messed up or lost in the process.
Got on the ship, everything was fine until I think it was, was it the night first night. Or maybe I think it was the first night.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Or this, it was the first night. But. But here's the other thing I wanted to say, though. We kept, I kept checking in the WhatsApp chat. WhatsApp chat and in the Facebook group, and people were delayed boarding like far beyond their normal port arrival time. So the, the first couple of boarding groups didn't really have delayed. But as Brian mentioned, the del.
So people who had like 1230, you know, port arrival times weren't really getting checked in until closer to like 1:30. So it was pretty annoying for a lot of folks who were waiting in the terminal.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: I had printed out my port arrival form when I did the check in. So we had that in hand. They took Sam's photo.
The first night of the cruise. The concierge, one of the concierge hosts walked over and said, hey, finance is telling us we don't have a credit card on file for you. And I was like, like, oh, okay. Well, I mean, I provided it, but that's fine.
So I went up to the desk, I didn't have the credit card on me. I'm in cruise mode. All I need is my stateroom key, you know, like that kind of thing. And so I just said, well, can I just tap to pay? They said, sure. So I tapped my phone, thought nothing else of it until the next day when they came over and said, finance has alerted us they still don't have a credit card on file for you. And I was like, what is going on? So I, I called my bank just to make sure there were no holds, went and got the physical card. That's what finally did it, finally went in the system and everything was smooth sailing from there. But I would just say right now they're clearly ironing out some difficulties with the online check in and the backend system.
So be prepared, you know, have your credit card on hand. Be prepared for some delays in boarding.
We did, I should say also, we did finally get cleared. They cleared our check in or, you know, our check in information, like the, the night of. The night before the cruise. So we did get the email saying, here, you're cleared for check in.
Come to think of it, Sam, did you ever do the health form? I don't think I did the health form.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you did it in the morning. I'm pretty sure you did it in the morning.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: I don't remember getting an email from,
[00:24:09] Speaker B: maybe I did it. You know, maybe I did it. One of us, one of us. I know one of us did it. I don't remember though. I don't, I don't.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I was trying to figure out if they just stopped. They didn't send the email.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Disney updated their. We heard this from several people including folks who work at corporate. They updated their check in system and the new system they're having lots of problems with. And as Karen mentioned in the chat, it doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why it's working for some people and not working for other people. But if you're getting pending, don't freak out. Just make sure you have all the stuff that you need with you at the port and happening to a lot of people.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Linda, I will just say in response to your comment, I tried to use my Apple wallet to get the card on file and that did not work. So like you want to have the physical card with you that you want to use for the cruise. So if you've got multiple cards and you don't carry them all, just make sure whatever one you want your charges on, take the physical card with you. That way you have it in case something does go wrong.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, Brian, I gotta give a shout out, but I gotta give a shout out to my magical adventures in the chat. I met your husband Jeff at Paulo. He came over and said hi and we didn't get to meet you because you were in the back of the restaurant and we were in the front of the restaurant and we didn't want to interrupt your brunch when we left, but hi, I don't know your name, but I know your husband's name is Jeff.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: So I will say after we got on board, smooth sailing for the most part.
We had, you know, weather wise, I would say for this cruise, first couple days, not great. Thankfully we had access to the fabulous concierge lounge and we just kind of sat in there and read books and did puzzles and we did a bunch of stuff on the ship. We, we did some training.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: They closed, they closed the upper, the upper decks. Like the pool deck was open and there were people on the pool deck because the winds weren't too bad on the pool deck. And so it was warm enough if, you know, when we were in the sun it was warm enough for people to go swimming and stuff on the main pool deck. But they closed the upper decks because the winds were quite bad. And even in the concierge lounge those first couple of sea days they had the furniture that's sort of around the edge. They have that all tied down because they were worried about it blowing off so the winds were pretty, pretty gusty, I should say. And we definitely had rougher seas than we've had on most of our spring break sailings. And we've heard that it's been that way pretty much for all of March and April, that the Bahamas and the Caribbean have been just pretty stormy and windy. So that's why a lot of people have missed ports or have had, you know, rainy weather and stormy weather.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: But by far not the worst weather we've experienced on a cruise. So worst just.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: I just say for spring break it
[00:26:48] Speaker A: was unusual and once we got down to the Caribbean.
So actually, let's not go too far here. So I did want to call out. We did a couple trivias on board. We did. We do, we do not do Disney trivia.
We really avoid Disney trivia sometimes.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Disney Cruise, Disney Cruise Line trivia.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: We've done sometimes we don't do Disney trivia. We definitely don't do Marvel or Star wars trivia. We would be awful at that. You know, despite that review that got left for us many years ago about us talking too much about Marvel.
Don't know.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: We don't do Parks trivia. We don't do. Because we're just not. We'll. We'll embarrass ourselves.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: We did brain teasers trivia and one handily with Brain Teaser General Knowledge and General Knowledge trivia and also killed it on general knowledge trivia. So we did come home with some Mickey medals and Sam now has her full set of. Of Mickey medals for the cruise line. So that was all the characters.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Finally.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: That was fun.
On the second day of the sailing, we got an announcement over the PA that we were being diverted for a serious medical emergency and they were actually calling on crew members to donate blood. So it was very, very serious.
They actually diverted, diverted us to of all places, Lookout Key because it's on the island of Alutra and they have medical services in an airport thing there.
It was a, it was a feat to watch this ship dock in what were some pretty rough seas. So if you've been to Lookout, you know, the pier comes out and the dock is there. They had the ambulance waiting and EMTs waiting, but the, the nose of the ship was essentially right up against the dock and they were just trying to thrust the rear of the ship into the dock to be able to unload this passenger.
Kudos to the crew and the captain and the pilot. Because I was like, I don't know, like we were, we were running right at the. I'm like I don't know how they're going to dock this ship because it looks like we're just going to run right into it. But they got us in offload the passenger. We were away five minutes later. It was a very short stop to get the passenger offloaded.
We don't know what happened. We hope everyone is okay. We do always tell people like, you know, this stuff happens on board and you know, yes, it's, it's an inconvenience to us but put yourselves in the shoe of that family that's trying to get their loved one to a hospital for what is something very, very serious. And I know that I would want them to do the same for me.
And so we always just tell people, just, you know, exercise just the slightest bit of empathy in these moments and know that that family is having a far rougher time than anything that you might experience. In terms of delays, we were ultimately, we had two CDs on the front end. We were delayed into Tortola by a couple of hours
[00:29:40] Speaker B: which was nothing. I mean it was like we're supposed to arrive at 7:30. We arrived at like 9, 9:15 instead.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, we were supposed to have a. We had booked a private boat charter out of Tortola that was going to go to some bar hopping beaches basically. So Jos Van Dyke and a couple other other spots. It was through Chill Out Charters which we've used before.
I also want to give them a shout out if you're thinking about doing something a little different in Tortola. You want to go to Jos Van Dyke.
The Disney excursion does not take you to the side of the beach that most people want to go to that has soggy dollar on it which is supposedly the home of the painkiller. Although we went to a bar in Tortola instead and, and they were claiming to be the home of the painkiller. So who knows Pussers.
But Chill Charters is fantastic. They communicated with us. We, we messaged them to let them know that it looked like we were going to be delayed.
We gave them the delay times the morning of. They they sort of were like we want to wait until the morning of to see how the weather is in Tortola because it was not, not forecast to be great.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: And Disney was canceling like any of the excursions that involved any kind of boat trip. So everything to the baths was getting canceled and everything to Joe Sven Dyke was getting canceled. They ended up I think putting back on some of the afternoon excursions that were going to those locations. But because of the expected sea conditions, all of those, lots of excursions were getting canceled for Tortola. So that's why we were trying to kind of monitor and figure out, chill out.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Charter said they were willing to, to, to keep the charter. We were sharing with some other families and one of them had a, you know, a much younger kid than Nathan is. And Sam and I have done this boat before. We know that there's times where the boat kind of docks and they want you to like kind of swim up to the beach or something like that. So given the conditions, they said they were still going, but given all the uncertainty around the weather, they were willing to let us cancel for, you know. Nope. They have a small fee for if the charter gets canceled by them or us just to I think handle the, the processing of the money back and forth. And so we took them up on the offer and decided to. Instead, Sam and I just got off the boat. Nathan didn't want to get off the boat. He wanted to be at edge the whole time. I think we saw Nathan for a sum total of maybe 10 hours on this cruise because he was in, he was up in the morning into edge. And then we, we all met up as a family at dinner. We'd invite him to come do stuff with us and he was like, nah, good nudge.
So we got off and went to Pussers and had a drink and just kind of walked around the port a little bit and then got back on on the ship. The weather was not fantastic in Tortola
[00:32:10] Speaker B: for the day for us. Well, I got. It got nicer by late afternoon. But I think for us the issue would be. So I don't get seasick normally on like the cruise ship.
I have gotten seasick on a cruise ship when it's been really, really rough. But even this level of roughness, I wasn't getting seasick, but I knew if I was on a small boat and we were in the kind of water that we were in, I was going to probably get seasick. So it wouldn't have been a very pleasant experience. So I'm really, I'm really thankful to chill out charters that they let us opt for the cancellation because I do think that was the right call given, you know, the weather situation that day.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah. But I also want to say it's, it's been a recent thing for us to use third party providers for some of our excursions and it's always scary to do. The first time you do it, you're freaked out. If I'm going to be late then, you know. And it happened to us in Mexico actually. We hit traffic on the way back to the port and we were a little concerned, concerned about whether we'd make it back in time. But I always say look for reputable providers, check their terms and conditions. A lot of them will provide kind of a return to ship guarantee or some of them will. I always look for that.
But also know that if they're op, if they're a long standing provider who's been operating in the port for a while, like they know they need to get you back on time and they're going to account for that in their planning. So.
So I don't, don't be so nervous to do it because sometimes you can find fantastic excursions that are very different from what Disney may offer because Disney is, I don't want to say this in the wrong way, but Disney is like super conservative in kind of what they'll offer because they want to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch. But there's some of these third party providers that are also fantastic and they offer unique experiences and you know, you can go to places that Disney can't get you to or won't, won't take you to. So Chill Charters was fantastic. Want to give them a quick shout out out.
Next day we were in St. Thomas. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna focus on some of the excursions we did and then we'll come back and talk about some of the entertainment on board which is also fantastic in the food.
In St. Thomas. We had booked to go to Megan's Bay beach through the cruise line the night before. We were sort of like, you know, do we, we've done that excursion a bunch. Do we really want to do it? Got a waiting list for some of the excursions on board. So they let us cancel our Megan's Bay beach and instead we got off and did something different this time. Sami, want to talk about what we did?
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Sure. We went up to. I forget what it's called, but it's like Paradise Point or something.
Is it okay? Anyway, it's a gondola tram type thing. It's a little bit rickety old style, but you can walk to it right from the port. It's right in town.
We walked, we paid I think about 30 bucks a person. I think it ended up being about $80 for the three of us because Brian and I were adult prices and Nathan still a kids price. So we took the gondola up. It's a Beautiful lookout spot. You get an amazing view of, you know, basically the entire port. So there were four different ships in port. So we got some great. A great view of all four ships that were in two different, you know, docking areas. Of course, Disney and Holland were right down below us. And then a little ways out was a Royal ship. And what was it? Nor not. Nor what was the celebrity. Yeah, it was the four ships. So we could see all the ships. They have a bar and restaurant up there. There. It's not anything special in terms of.
In terms of restaurants, but we got some nachos.
Brian ordered the world famous Bushwacker, which is a coconut rum drink thing of a j. I don't know.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Coconut. It's Bailey's is the primary thing. It's Bailey and Coconut, A coconut flavored chocolate adult milkshake. And it was both delicious and strong because when I got to go back down, I was like. Like, whoa. I feel like I've had three drinks and it's only been one.
So it. It was. We had a fabulous time just kind of sitting in the sun.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: You can. You can tell from my. I got a little bit of a sunburn. Most. This is mostly from castaway day, but we definitely got a little bit of sun. So a little bit of dehydration set in with. Between the. The. I didn't have the Bushwacker. I had a different drink, a different rum drink up there. But yeah, it was just. It was. It was nice to just kind of take it leisurely. We just kind of walked around a little bit and then headed back to the.
We really, you know, because we don't normally stay in concierge, we normally spend our time running around doing lots of stuff on the ship. I'd say this cruise we tried. We part. In part because of the weather and in part because we were staying in concierge. We did take a slower pace of things and spend a lot of time relaxing on the concierge sun deck or in the lounge, eating lots of delicious bites of food that they offer you all day, throughout the day.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: We'll get to the food in a second. I want to talk about that separately. Yeah, I did want to answer Tracy's question. So Tracy, the painkiller at.
At Pussers was good.
I asked Claude, you know what, I'd been to Pusser, but I was like, where should we go? And they said Pussers. And so we did, and they recommended. The audience recommendation was they make three different versions of the painkiller. Each version is different in the amount of dark rum it uses. So I got the number three.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Three.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: They have a number two and number three and number four. I got number three and it was. It was delicious. Was it as good as what we had on Joe's Van Dyke? Not at Soggy Dollar, but at the dark bar next door?
You know, probably comparable, but yeah. Good. It's a puzzlers is a fun place to stop. So, yeah, let's. Do you want to talk. What do you want to talk about next, Sam? You want to talk about entertainment or Castaway?
[00:37:53] Speaker B: Let's talk about Castaway because I think we've got this. We got a little bit of a hot take about Castaway. We see this is the first time we stayed in the new Mick Mini Cove cabanas. So there's the original family cabanas are now called the Sandcastle Cabanas. The new family cabanas that are really at Serenity Bay beach are now called the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas. And we were able to reserve one of the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas. We decided just to let it be the three of us. We decided not to invite anybody else to share and to just have a relaxing day at Castaway. And I want to say there's. There's a lot of good to be said about these cabanas, but there's a big bad to say about these cabanas. These cabanas are really far away from the ship and so it takes you a long time to get to them. For anyone who goes and spends their time at Serenity Bay beach, normally it's not going to be any different. It's the same amount of time. But because you get off the ship, you got to walk a short distance to the first tram station. You get on the tram. Tram, you take that two stops, right? You take it to the family beach, two.
And then you get off that tram and you have to change trams to the Serenity Bay tram to get to your cabanas. Now, we didn't get to because this is an Eastern Caribbean. The Eastern Caribbean doesn't get to castaway until about 9 in the morning. So passengers don't go ashore until about 10:00am as opposed to on the Western Caribbean itinerary. You've got an all ashore at about 8:30am so you get about an hour and a half more at Castaway if you're on a Western Caribbean itinerary than if you're on an Eastern Caribbean itinerary. So we're getting there about 10am we left the ship I don't know, maybe 10:15. It took us like 30 to 40 minutes to get from the ship to our cabana at Castaway. So we've just lost a whole bunch of time in that transport because we've got to wait for one tram, take it two stops, get off, wait for the next tram. And it's never timed perfectly.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: And they're on island time and we got in late. The Eastern Caribbean.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Yes, I already said we got, got in at 8:00am or at we.
All ashore is 10:00am instead of 8:30am if you like, you're on the Western. And the price is no different between the Eastern Caribbean or the Western Caribbean. They charge you the same amount for that cabana.
So we get there, it's a lovely cabana.
There's about like six inches of water. The tide is really, really low. I mean that's kind of the way it is even by the old cabanas at Castaway. There's like, it's not very deep water.
And then of course the tide goes out and you end up with even less water. At some point maybe you have a, maybe you have a foot at the beginning of the day, but by midday you've got just a couple inches if anything, or otherwise you're completely beached.
It's fine. Nathan had a great time looking at sea life. We found sea cucumbers, we found sand dollars, we, you know, looked at minnows. So we, we actually had a really nice time there. But, but are All Ashores at 4:45 and what do you know?
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Not all ashore.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Sorry, all aboard. Sorry. All aboard is at 4:45 and what do you know? Last call is for the bar service, 3pm when do they start cleaning up stuff like 2:30, 2:45. So they're kind of already like encouraging you to leave.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: But the, but the last call is one thing. They close the Cabanas now at 3:30.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: An hour and 15 minutes before.
I mean, look, look.
Dear Disney, apparently you are out there watching us occasionally. So I just want to say, friends tell each other the truth and it is not in my estimation, those Mickey and Minnie cabanas are not worth the price. Especially if you're on an Eastern sailing, getting in late and then it takes you 40 minutes to get there. They used to offer golf course cart service from the ship to the cabanas. They don't do that anymore unless you have a disability.
They used to offer golf cart service back from the cabanas to the ship.
Now the golf carts from the cabanas will only take you to the nearest tram stop, to the cabanas. So for us, we had to take two cabana or two trams back. P.S. the trams operate, as we all know, on island time. So, you know, it can take a while to get back back.
And so it's just.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Right. They just raised the prices of the cabanas last. So ours was the first day the price hike.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: As nice as cabanas can be.
Like, what I don't like is you're cutting into my time on both ends of this. You're making me feel like I'm being rushed out of something I paid a lot of money for. And then, you know, like, at the end of the day, drinks aren't even included in these things except for the sodas and water that's in the refrigerator. Soda. So it's like I'm spending more money. Right. I will say to answer the question in the chat, the food experience at the, the. The new location over there, it was. It was good. I mean, it was good food. They had steaks and they, you know, like they do at Serenity Bay. They had, you know, they had all the Sanders stuffed burgers and salads and French fries, which Sam was excited to get French fries, but it wasn't any
[00:43:01] Speaker B: better than what you get at Lighthouse. Right. Like it, like lookout. I can get that without the cabana.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: But what was interesting is they imported some of the food from Lighthouse now into that. So, like, they had the. The paella type seafood rice dish. They had the crispy chicken breast. Yeah. Which they don't always offer on Castaway. So I thought the food was good. It was nice to be near the bar. Like, drinks came fast. Although what I did notice is they didn't really check in on us a ton. Like, they were really leaning on the iPad on the wall for you to say you wanted something and then they would come in. Whereas I feel like before they. They would kind of bar service would come around and say, anybody want to drink? Right.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: And we gotta wait. Back this up. They finally got French fries. So. Yes. But it's, I believe, only at Hangar 98. So Hangar 98 is the food place over by Serenity Bay, by the Mickey and Mickey Mini Cove cabanas. You can only go there if you're either at Serenity Bay, so you're on one side, or if you're at the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas. They actually have different wristbands for the different color. They have like a green wristband for the Sandcastle Cabanas. And a blue wristband for the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas. And so you actually can only go to those food plate, that one food place. If you're using the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas or you happen to be at Serenity Bay on the other side, but honestly gives more fries for Sean.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: But honestly, I will just say, like much of concierge, I think it is overpriced for what it is for what you're getting. And I think the next time that we go to Cassoway, especially if you're on an Eastern, just going to get. Just going to go to the beach, like, think, yeah, I'm just gonna go to the beach.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Or, or I would opt for one of the older cabanas, to be perfectly honest, because I don't mind walking to Family beach too, which is basically, you're walking just past cookies too, to get to the older cabanas. I don't really think there's much of a difference between the older cabanas and the newer cabanas to justify that extra time to get over to Serenity Bay, you know, and you deal with, you deal with the tide issues in either location.
And so. But yeah, I agree with you, Brian. I don't know that it's an certainly not a necessary thing to have at Castaway. And maybe that's why we're seeing so much availability in the apps from folks who are not sailing concierge, who are not Pearl cruisers. We've been hearing from silver and gold cruisers and even sometimes first timers who are able to get a cabana. So maybe it's all this availability and the price tag is just, you know,
[00:45:28] Speaker A: I want to move us on for the cabanas because we got a lot more to talk about in a very short amount of time. I do just want to say when I, when I say that concierge for us just doesn't feel like it's worth the cost anymore. It has nothing to do with the amazing hosts and staff. They took such impeccable care of us. We had amazing concierge hosts, amazing bar service, all of that stuff. We had amazing stateroom attendance this time. Just absolutely amazing. They left us little gifts. It seems like every night on our bed.
They one night decorated our bed with the number 127 in chocolate. And apparently that was our 127th night on Disney Cruise Line.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: So which was the most rant. Which was the most random thing possible, by the way? No, I, I know. No, it was, it was lovely. I just thought it was Like, a random day to choose 127. I don't know.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Let's. Let's talk about.
And I also want to call out Lavro and.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: And Lorraine.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Lorraine, the best service team we have had in a long, long time.
I mean, we've had. We've had good servers.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: We had a great server on the Destiny. You got to give it up for her. I can't. I'm like blanking on her name right now. But we server on the Destiny. But this is the. This is the best where we've had in several years where we've had a great server and assistant server.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: We were done with dinner before most of the shows were even beginning to wrap up. Right. And so, like, we've had cruises in the past where, like, we're there well beyond the end of the show, waiting on an entree, not even getting to dessert. So these two were on top of it all the time and just fabulous people. So if you're on the Treasure, I think Lavro is leaving here in a
[00:47:12] Speaker B: couple weeks for vacation. But he'll be back.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: But he'll be back. Yeah. So fabulous server. So are you listening to our show
[00:47:20] Speaker D: because you want to make the most out of your next vacation?
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Great news.
[00:47:23] Speaker D: 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 Disney ships, including in concierge, visited the theme parks, adventured with Disney, Relaxed at Aulani, and so much more. Whether it's a Disney cruise, a theme park vacation, or adventures by Disney, or if you are looking to expand beyond the mouse, My Path Unwinding Travel will elevate your next vacation planning experience. Even if you have already booked, reach out for a complimentary consultation to make your vacation even more magical. Ready to talk to the experts? Head over to mypathunwinding.com dcldu or email dclduomypathunwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. Thanks, My Path Unwinding, for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Let's. Let's actually talk a bit about the. The food on board. So we did. We did the full rotational dining, except on pirate night. We did go to Palo for dinner.
We had a Palo brunch on the last sea Day. And second night, 1923 is not our favorite menu. And so we did our typical thing. We went to. To not.
Yeah, pub grub. I'm trying to remember Periscope Pub.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: Your favorite, your favorite theming, Brian. How do you forget that, by the way? We didn't step into the Haunted Mansion parlor, not for one minute on this sailing. I realized after we left. That is kind of funny. We went to all the other bar spaces on the ship, but for some reason, we did not step into the Haunted Mansion parlor on this sailing.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And so the nice thing about the pub grub too, at Periscope was that Nathan could sit with us. We went at 8 o' clock and the doesn't turn into a foliage adult space until 9. And so we all met up at 8. We had dinner together. It was a lovely dinner. And then he went back to Edge. So I would say the food experience overall is what we've come to expect from Disney.
I think I tried a couple of new dishes. One of them was like a watermelon something. Jicama salad.
Not my favorite.
[00:49:29] Speaker B: That was cocoa.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: Cocoa.
But, you know, look, look. The dining experience was good. I did not have a terrible meal by any means. Most of them were very good meals.
And the shows were fantastic. We had a lot of fun actually on Marvel Night 2 playing the trivia. And then we were trying to build. We were trying to help a friend build a playlist of all the Marvel tunes that they play. We got through 22 songs in Marvel and then we were like, okay, we gotta go. But apparently the music just keeps going because the serving staff loves it. So they just keep playing more music as they're cleaning up and up for.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so on Spotify, Brian made a. I think it's Spotify.
Oh, not Spotify.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: Apple Music.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Apple Music. Brian made a playlist that's a Marvel. Marvel Night 2 playlist. It's got some. It's got some bangers on there, as the kids say.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: But unfortunately, apple music doesn't allow me to share my playlist easily.
So it's really.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it was. That night was. That was actually our last night on board and that was probably our favorite night in main dining. It's my. I love the salmon dish on that menu. I'm actually not a big fish eater in general, but that is such a good salmon dish on Marvel Night 2. In on the Treasure, you can't get it on the Wish and you can only get it on the Destiny. If you're on like a Five night sailing and you go to marvel decades at time.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: You know, the only miss from a food standpoint, Sam, I think was the pork that you got in cocoa that one night that was just so.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: It was just too salty.
I got the pork carnitas. That's the night tube menu. I actually really like that dish and it was fine once I like put the salsa and the guacamole on it into my tacos. But you could not eat the pork by itself. It was like it was so over
[00:51:23] Speaker A: salted one bite and immediately needed a pitcher of water.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Well, that was because you ate it just the pork by itself.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: Let's talk about. So you know there was anything unique about these menus that we haven't seen before?
[00:51:36] Speaker B: No, they were just the standard rotational.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: The hot food in the concierge lounge is gone to 11 in terms of what they.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: We had not had most of this stuff because we had only like Brian said, we only been on the wish and concierge previously and it's only three nights so you just don't get to experience that much. But yeah, they have what they have like breakfast hot I items, lunch hot items and dinner hot items on the menu.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: So some of the standouts, I mean the, the, they had, yeah, they had breakfast, lunch and dinner with a menu. I mean and it was like, it was like a food pusher. I mean like they were coming by every. Like you could have just finished breakfast and they were switching over to lunch. They're like, would you like to see the lunch menu? We're like, oh my God. And then they still have all of the offerings in you know, the case that are available to you for like tea time kind of sandwich, small bites throughout the day. Some real standouts. They now offer the palo lasagna as a kid's meal in the concierge lounge for dinner on one night. And we ordered one and I was like, we got to see if this is really palo lasagna. It was full on palo lasagna.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: It was full. Yeah. They also have something called a spaghetti and meatball taco. I wanted to order Brian and up like convincing me not to because we were heading off to dinner or something. But they, they just had all these like awesome like sounding items. They had some cool like, like, like soba noodles with like peanut and chicken that I had one night. Like really just like super good stuff. Now I did get a question in the chat about the churro waffles. So I want to Be very clear about this. So. So Marceline has one day. That's churro waffle day, Right? It was our last sea day. I believe not. Not castaway day, but on a different day, the concierge lounge has Mickey churro waffles on their hot menu in the morning. Now it isn't available every day in the morning. Every day you could get Mickey waffles freshly made in the concierge lounge, but only one day. So I could have, if I wanted to, had Mickey churro waffles twice during the cru. Once in concierge, once in Marceline. We did not have them spoiler in Marceline because as Brian mentioned, we went to Paulo that day, so there was no way I was going to eat. I do not eat before going to Paulo. And they tell you that, too. If you're going to brunch at Palo, if you must have a, you know, a drink in the morning, have your coffee, your tea, whatever you drink in the morning, that's fine. But do not put anything in your stomach before going to Palo brunch, because then you'll just be disappointed that you can't stuff your face with more amazing Italian food. And I highly recommend stuffing your face with amazing Italian food in Palo. So.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: So I want to.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: I also, yeah. Sean is mentioning in the comments so many avocado toasts. I had avocado toast pretty much every morning except for the last day. You can't, because they don't have hot items on the last day. And on Palo brunch day, I didn't have my avocado toast. But, oh, my God, that avocado toast in the concierge lounge is like.
Is just fire. It's so good.
So good.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: Beth, can you get three meals in the concierge? Yes. You can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all of the snacks that they rotate through throughout the day. So they've got morning snacks, afternoon snacks, evening snacks, or, you know, appetizers. Like, you could have a full meal. And there were some people who went into the concierge lounge and had a full meal.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: So, yeah, now they don't have, like. They don't have like a. Their menu is just like, I'll. I'm going to. I'll post some of them on our. On our Instagram. But their menu will be like seven items, and they're all, I will say, appetizer size items. So it's not like you can order a soup, salad, and a main and then a dessert, but you basically can. You can concoct an entire meal between the items in the case that are typically, like, small bites and desserts and then the hot items. So between those two, you can definitely fill yourself up and never even go
[00:55:38] Speaker A: to main dining, much like anything else, they will give you as much of anything as you want.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: So, yeah, the only exception is, like, on embarkation day and disembarkation day, they don't necessarily have those full menus. Like. Like, when you board, they don't have any hot items available. And when you're debarking in the morning, you. They don't have any hot items available.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: All right, we got to move. So we're. We're going to. We're going to move to entertainment. I did want to call out one thing before we dive into entertainment, which was I did finally finish the Happy Haunts trail with your magic band all over the ship.
It's a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Now, some of the props weren't working, which can cause an issue with that game, because if the prop isn't working fully, you're stuck trying to capture that thing. But they seem to be going around. There were officers going around checking things throughout the day. And so, like, one of the props, it wasn't working. They were there with.
On the phone, trying to get the IT team, you know, on board to reset the thing so that people could, you know, do the game. So it was a lot of fun. It was. It was. It was like the Midship Detective Agency in a lot of ways. It's just that added layer of the RFID and all that sort of stuff sometimes causes problems that you don't experience with Midship Detective. We did not even attempt to play Uncharted Adventure. We did see some people playing it, and they were having a fun time, but that. That system is a little. A lot more prone to issues with the connections and stuff. And since we'd already played it and done the whole thing through on one of the other ships, I think the wish we did it. You know, we just opted not to play that game. But that said, yeah, we had some amazing entertainment on board.
I mean, we could. We could talk about Moana, and we didn't go to Beauty and the Beast. We ended up watching on the stateroom TV just because we were both exhausted by the time that show rolled around.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: That was the last night of the sailing.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: By the way, if you watch on the tv, you're actually sailing. You're actually seeing the first cast of that ship. You're not seeing the current cast because they're not broadcast broadcasting it live. It's a recorded version. So when we pulled up Beauty and the Beast and Brian had never seen it before, which I didn't realize. As soon as I saw the actor, I was like, oh, that's Treasure Cast 1. So if you want to watch on TV and see Treasure Cast 1, you know, as I've mentioned before, they're phenomenal.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: So I want to focus us away from. Moana was great. Like, the whole thing. I mean, all that stuff was great, but I want to.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: It's the lulled in the middle.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: It's wonderful.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Still haven't fixed the middle. There's like, that middle where they do that warrior face song and they do the bubbles, and it's that scene just, like, brings down the whole show because it's so great before then. And it's so.
It starts so strong and it ends so strong, but there's this lull in the middle that just bothers me. Anyway.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Okay, so I want to get us to the stuff that was unique, which was the Broadway visiting stars and also the magician on board, Jessica Jane. We'll talk about that.
For the Broadway visiting stars, I just want to say there's only one thing that I tried.
Fine.
There is one thing that I desperately avoid in life, and that is getting called up on stage for anything.
And I will say, I guess I didn't technically get called up on stage.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: No, just audience participation.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: The stage came to me.
Yeah, audience participation.
Audience participation is putting it lightly. So Sam wanted to sit front row center for every adult or all the adult performers performances in Sarabi. And so we got there early. We would always come from a trivia or something straight there and got front row center. And the first night was the Broadway stars series.
And I was sitting there and with
[00:59:25] Speaker B: Naysha Thomas and Lissa de Guzman. Sorry, I have to give them a shout out. They're amazing.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: And so I was sitting there, and one of the cast members came over and said, hey, there is an audience participation portion of this show.
One of the singers is going to come out and sit on your lap and sing to you. And we need you to just, when she puts the microphone in your face, say this one line.
And so I forget which one it was.
[00:59:50] Speaker B: Will you do it? Will you do it?
[00:59:51] Speaker A: Will I do it? Sam answered for me.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: I said, yes, he'll do it.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: So I got the little slip of paper with the line on it. People, it's funny, afterwards, they're like, wow, you really know your Broadway shows that she just used. Shout you belted out that line. I was like, no. They gave me a piece of paper and I memorized it. And then for the first half of the show, I was just running the line in my head over and over and over again. So I didn't forget it. Sure enough, she comes down from the show, sits on my lap, sings to me, throws the microphone in my face, and I have to say this one line. It was.
[01:00:18] Speaker B: You killed it.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And then. And, you know, but I was like. I was, like, mortified. So we have. We saved the piece of paper, and I'm going to put it up on the cork board right over the monitor. I'm. I'm looking at right now as a reminder that I've got at least a decade now before I get called up on stage again, because that's like, I avoid it like the plague. So, as a non Broadway fan, totally would agree with what Danny said at the top of the show, which was, I am not the deepest into Broadway. I do enjoy seeing shows here and there.
That said, these are phenomenal performers. And so just watching them sing, watching them play off of each other and have fun, it was really fun.
It was a great show. And we caught them both in Sarabi and then on the main stage at the Walt Disney Theater. It was fabulous both times. So big shout out to that series. It's not to be missed. So. Yes.
[01:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, we sat in the front row there. I don't sit in the front row in the Walt Disney Theater generally, although I did for the Broadway Stars series. Because you don't want to sit in the front row in the Walt Disney Theater for a Broadway production, a stage show, because you got to have a better view of the entire stage. When you're just seeing one or two singers sitting in the front row is great, because then you see the sweat dripping off their face. It's amazing. Anyway, so we said.
[01:01:36] Speaker A: Hold on, hold on. I want to say Sean's. The line was, oh, there's a video.
[01:01:40] Speaker B: There's also a video of it on
[01:01:41] Speaker A: Instagram, by the way. Video up on Instagram that you can go watch. But the line was, all things considered, I guess you don't have to buy it. So. Something like that. Yeah, something like that. So, yeah, yeah.
[01:01:51] Speaker B: But anyway, it. The Broadway. The Broadway stars, Lissa de Guzman, who.
She's. She was Jasmine on Broadway in Disney's Aladdin, and then Naysha Thomas, who was Anna of Cleaves in Six. They're both in other shows. Shows, too, but those are probably the two most Famous ones that each of them have. Have been in.
And it was fantastic. They. The song that Brian that was sung to Brian was from the show the last five years, which is a two person show that was with I believe Nick Jonas and Naysha was actually the understudy for the, the. The female character.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: But she got Jonas line when I did that line.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe so. I believe you're doing a Nick Jonas line. So anyway, it was it. They were both fabulous. Jessica Jane, we sat in the front row for. She was also fabulous. That was the show we sat in. The front row was the adult only show in the. We sat in the, in just regular seating in the Walt Disney Theater show.
Both of her shows were fabulous. We also went to see Coriander and Sage. Of course we had to see Indiana Jones show. We saw the earlier of the two. So There was a 7:30 and a 10:30 show.
We got there early. We sat front row center or there.
I will say I thought they did a fabulous job. The Coriander and Sage. This is Treasure cast four, by the way. They started I think like two weeks before we got on.
They took over from Treasure Cast 3.
And I didn't realize the timing exactly until when we were on board and talking to a few folks.
This Coriander and Sage were wonderful. I watched their Tales from the Lamp show in the, in the, the.
In the grand hall and I thought that was good. But I thought their Indiana show was a lot better. I wish the audience had been a little bit more into it. Like we were really into it. I think the later audience maybe because they're maybe a little more liquored up.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say is I was. My pro tip is for both the Marvel show on the Destiny with Great Power and the Indiana Jones Choose Wisely show on the Treasure.
Go to the later adult show because by then people have had a few drinks and I think they were getting into it. Our audience was fairly sedate and not a lot of laughter happening, which there were some pretty funny moments in it. So I, I would advocate stay up a little later, go to that later show and I think you'll get a little bit better vibe going on. But Sam, let's talk about. Let's talk about Jessica Jane. And yeah, I just want to. I want to start off by saying participation. Well, that's the adult version. I want to start off with the main stage show in the Walt Disney Theater that she did. She literally showed up to the ship that day in St. Thomas after, after Disembarking Oceana.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:42] Speaker A: After disembarking off of Oceana, I have never, ever.
So one of the tricks that she, she did, I was like, Disney is going to let her do this in the Walt Disney Theater.
She did the Harry Houdini straight Jack escape while suspended from the ceiling by her ankles in the Main stage theater. And the ship was kind of rocking back and forth and, And I was like, I, I've never seen anything like this done at sea, much less on the, the, the main stage theater on a Disney cruise ship. Unbelievable act. And there was a bunch of lead up to it. She had the perfect bat balance of, like, comedic timing, magic execution.
Like, it was really, really good. And for those of you who don't know, Jessica Jane was on Penn and Teller's Fool Me and fooled Penn and Teller and, and is one of their kind of, you know, favorite acts. And she performs. She's performed for Chevy Chase. She's performed for just a bunch of like, really, like, she's an up and coming. Well, she's pretty much made it, but she's an up and coming magician. Right. Short of a residency in Las Vegas.
[01:05:55] Speaker B: Residency in Vegas.
[01:05:57] Speaker A: Yet it was unreal. And the adult show was even more unreal. And I'll let Sam talk about the adult show because she did get called up on stage to do one of the tricks.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: Well, well, I mentioned she did do the swallowing razor blades, which I don't, I don't know how you do any of that, but. And then they came out of her mouth on a, on a string, which was crazy. She also did this trick where she had this, like, fish hook in her mouth and different people had to pull different strings that were only one of which was tied on, and the rest were apparently not tied on, but they don't know which one. And so she had like, five different volunteers. Volunteers come up, and then she needed a volunteer, another volunteer. And of course, I shot my hand up because I'm, I'm a, I'm. I'm a bit of a volunteer, as if you don't know.
I think you all know that about me if you listen to our show. But anyway, so I got to go up on stage for a card trick, and it was actually kind of funny because it was the same card trick that Dr. Facilier did in the parlor with me. So it was basically I, I had to intuit whether the card had Houdini on it or had Houdini's wife on it. And I got all but one. Right. So, yeah, she.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: Technically, you got them all right. She got one wrong because somehow or another she's forc. She's forcing the cards. And at the end, she did. She did. There was one last card, and Sam was going to put it in one pile. And she said, are you feeling strongly about that? You know, I don't think you're feeling. We're just going to set this one off to the side. So I think Sam was getting ready to make the wrong decision on that card, and she kind of pulled it away. But what was cool is she had. She had props. So she's apparently connect. She collects Harry Houdini. Houdini items. And so what. She had artifacts. So she had Sam holding this, like, piece of glass. It was supposedly from the, like, water torture trick that Houdini had. Yeah, the. The. The prop had blown out accidentally. And I forget who she said bought the actual metal portion of the.
[01:07:51] Speaker B: What is the name of that? The famous magician.
[01:07:54] Speaker A: Oh, David Blaine. The one before him. David Copperfield.
[01:07:57] Speaker B: David Copperfield.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: David Copperfield had bought the thing, but she had a friend who worked there who got the glass, all of the glass and gave it to her. And so she said she's. Now, you know, David Copperfield doesn't like her very much. But. But she had Sam holding this piece of glass and saying, you're going to get vibes off of this and all that sort of stuff.
[01:08:14] Speaker B: So that's how I got the intuition. It was a really show as. As Nathan Novak says in the chat, not only do I volunteer, but volunteer Brian for things as well. So we. I mean, we. Great entertainment. I did. There is a question about. Is Treasure cast for as Good as Treasure Cast one? Come on, guys. You know that's not gonna happen. The only. Well, with maybe like, one exception, the Moana that we had was. I mean, she was.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: She was really good.
[01:08:43] Speaker B: She might have been as good as the first Moana. She. If. If not, she was only a smidge lower than the first Moana. She was that good. She was incredible. No question. She could be Broadway star.
Overall, all of the entertainment cast was wonderful. But were they as good as Treasure Cast one? Of course they weren't as good as Treasure Cast one. On the whole, you know, standout performances
[01:09:07] Speaker A: aside, of course, that's the reason to do the maiden voyage or the first few sailings of a ship is they put the absolute best of the best on board.
And what we found with, like, the
[01:09:19] Speaker B: sage, some of those people come back, but not all of them come back. Yeah.
[01:09:22] Speaker A: What we found with The Sage and Coriander characters and others on board is that like, the first team that does it may not be back. And so it's. For me, it's a little hard because I'm like. I have this impression of what they should be like. And then they're doing the same kinds of things, but they're different. And so, yeah, so it's a little. It's a little jarring for me.
[01:09:41] Speaker B: But yeah, they do their own spin. And. And the shows are not exactly like. There are some things that are like the tales from. Of Tales from the Lamp, Aladdin retelling. Like the car. I posted a cute video that's got them on the magic carpet ride. And that part is they did it a little differently than the original Sage and Coriander that we had on. So, like, they. They can add their own twist and they can update the shows, like a little bit. They're not going to be completely different, but there are tweaks that happen over time. And so you're not necessarily seeing a cookie cutter version, which is good because you have different people playing these characters. You don't want them to play it the exact same way or it will feel unnatural, natural. It won't feel authentic. So.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: All right, Sam, we're 10 minutes over our allotted time.
[01:10:24] Speaker B: I know.
[01:10:24] Speaker A: I think we need to wrap this up and I don't. I think we've covered almost everything we did. We. So some things we did not do on board. So folks know we did not go to the adult pool. Not really spend much time on the pool deck. We did pop into the movie theater for about 20 minutes to watch some of Zootopia 2 day. There was. The weather wasn't great and so we were just kind of like looking for things to do.
Did not go to Haunted Mansion as Sam mentioned. Did not spend a ton of time in.
In the Skipper society either.
And then we did spend some time in Scat Cat Lounge this time around. Drinks were fabulous.
[01:10:57] Speaker B: We got. I gotta say something about that piano player, though. This is. By the way, this is not Matt Grinky. You all know how much we love Matt Grinky. But there was a piano player in Scat Cat who played piano beautifully.
But then he started singing and he. Somebody needed to tell him that he should not be singing. He's not a singer. He doesn't have a singer's voice. He doesn't have a terrible voice, but he doesn't have a singer's voice. And I don't know about you all, but I want to see. I Want to listen to professional piano player in the piano lounge. And unless there's a professional singer with them, I would rather just listen to the piano. So I don't know.
[01:11:38] Speaker A: I agree. I sort of heard him start singing and I was like, this feels like karaoke or something. It was not what we were used to experiencing, but.
[01:11:46] Speaker B: But yeah.
[01:11:46] Speaker A: So I did want to lastly comment on the merch situation since somebody asked about merch on board. No EVS. EV's been sold out for. They said months, but I was like, has she really been out for months? I think you might mean weeks, but
[01:11:59] Speaker B: eight months, two months, maybe a month and a half. Yeah.
[01:12:02] Speaker A: No evs on board. We did. The cast member that we asked about it did say, you know, you mentioned to them, like, I. I had told a friend of ours, like a long time ago, like, if they ever make that, when that first commercial came out, they need to make that and it will sell out. And. And he was a little bit like, I don't know if people are really going to want it. And the cast member in the shop this time was like, yeah, it seems like they just made just enough, but
[01:12:24] Speaker B: not enough have any of the towel animals either. Like they had. They had the little one that is the monkey that's like an ornament now, but they didn't have any of the other. The. The monkey or the elephant one that are the full size ones. The same size about as Evie. They didn't have any of those on board either. The funnels. The funnels.
[01:12:44] Speaker A: They had the blind boxes but they sold out night one limit to per person, which I put in the chat. I did want to say completely forgot one other experience that we did do on board. So I got my. My shave and Nathan got a haircut in Hooks Barbary and it was fabulous for both of us. I actually this time had them shape my beard as opposed to shaving it off.
Sam was a little. The words Tony Stark were used when he was like shaping my beard. And so Sam was a little hesitant.
You can kind of see a little bit of what they did here, although I've kind of shaved it down down since. But have fabulous time on board. Spa experience was great. Did not do the Rainforest Room because we had the concierge lounge. And know thyself, if the concierge lounge is available, I'll go there. Not the Rainforest Room.
So anyway, overall fabulous time again. My verdict on concierge at a high level is unless we had had the discount that we had, we would have just booked a regular stateroom on the Treasure and been perfect, perfectly happy.
So I, I continue to think that the price point in comparison to the amenities that are offered in concierge don't quite line up especially when you if you've done anything approaching concierge on a different cruise line. But overall fabulous time disembarkation. Easy peasy.
So we had a great time on the Treasure. We definitely are sad that we don't have anything planned for her and then you're future we're more than a little bit sad that our next sailing of Disney Cruise Line is not until December because of course we have our adventures by Disney this summer and then Sam and I have opted to take a land based vacation to Iceland for a long weekend over the summer and so no Disney cruises for us until the back to back on the Destiny at December.
But with that I think we need
[01:14:29] Speaker B: to two quick, very quick things.
It's Sean's birthday. Happy birthday Sean. And hi Ashley, now that I know your name, Jeff's wife. So I, I just wanted to make sure I said those things.
[01:14:41] Speaker A: All right with that.
[01:14:42] Speaker B: And also yeah, I'm allowed to have hot takes and dash of judgment even without rapid fire. For those of you in the chat asking about that.
[01:14:50] Speaker A: All right.
Okay. Sam's done. All right with that we're going to wrap it up here. I did want to say we will be back next week at our regular time, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern. Right back here we will have Karen and Kaylee joining us.
We think our topic is going to be Celebrity Cruise Line but there is a chance of a different show topic. But they both sailed on Celebrity here recently or we'll be getting off Celebrity
[01:15:17] Speaker B: just they just got off Celebrity yesterday I believe the Celebrity Ascent and they stayed in the retreat and so we're going to talk about that and compare Celebrity to Disney Cruise Line and see what they have to offer for unless there's a last minute change.
But that would be the only if that happens it will be to have a surprise guest alongside them. So we'll see if that we can make that happen either way. We have no guarantees either way.
[01:15:47] Speaker A: Don't miss it.
So we will see you next week 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern. And with that we will just say see you real soon.
[01:15:58] Speaker B: Foreign.
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[01:18:04] Speaker D: you next time for Disney Another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo.
